Summary: An unsuspecting Muggle girl gets warped into the body of a third year Hufflepuff. With only her supposed best friend to trust, she tries to get back. Set during HBP.

Disclaimer: I'm just messing around in J.K. Rowling's world. I wish I owned it all, but I do not.

Author's Notes: This little plot bunny was preventing me from continuing Wayward Son, so I wrote it down as best as I could. Maybe I'll write more of it, maybe not, that depends on how much people read it. This fanfic will (again) be first person.

Between Two Worlds – Chapter One

It was a blustery October day – the fifteenth, to be exact. Gales of wind tugged on the tree leaves and sheets of rain clattered against my bedroom window. A few daring people were still running down the street, some carrying large umbrellas. Those who weren't were covered in plastic from head to toe, hurrying to wherever they were going.

I yawned and closed my math book. Being home schooled was a bore sometimes; I had nobody to gossip or make homework with. I met my friends (who had all gone to the same comprehensive school) in the holidays, so that wasn't very often. Sadly, I had begun feeling a bit left out lately when they were chatting about what was happening at their school; I had no idea of what they got up to when not at home.

"Heather!" My mother's soft voice drifted up the stairs, through my bedroom door. "Dinner, dear, are you done with your homework?"

"Yes, Mum," I called back. "I'll be down in a moment, all right?" I heard the tapping of footsteps and the shutting sound of a door. I got up and carefully placed my book back between the other school texts before padding to below.

My little brother, Kyle, was already sitting at our small dining table. It was set so all four members of my family could sit down with just enough room to avoid legs from bumping. Kyle was taking advantage of being the only one seated – his legs were swinging wildly back and forth, occasionally thumping the bottom of his chair with his heels. I took the spot next to him.

"What's for dinner, Mum?" I asked, ruffling my brother's hair. He huffed and tried to bat my hand away.

"Oh, some soup and chicken," my mother replied, her back turned to me because she was still handling the stove. "Kyle, hold your legs. We'll want to use that chair for a few more years."

Just then, the sound of a key being shoved into a lock reached my ears and mere moments later, my father strode into the kitchen, grinning broadly despite being completely soaked – for some reason, he liked to cycle to his work. Kyle jumped up and ran over to hug him, completely ignoring the remaining raindrops on my father's damp coat. My father returned his hug enthusiastically, slightly raising Kyle from the ground. My mother clacked her tongue.

"Look what you're doing, Harold, now the floor is all wet and muddy! Kyle, honey, let your father go so he can take his shoes off properly." She took two pans from the stove and set them on the table. "Heather, if you'd like to give everybody –"

I nodded and filled the four dishes with soup, slowly so it wouldn't splatter. My brother took the seat next to me again, grabbing his spoon. I warned him not to eat the soup yet because it was still hot, and he replied by pulling a face.

"I know that, Heather. You always say it's hot but it actually never is." He took a spoonful and blew in it so drops of soup flew halfway across the table, then gulped it down.

I scoffed. "I can do that too. That wasn't even a whole spoon, everything just got out when you tried to cool it off."

He stuck his tongue out. "Let's see you do it, then."

"No. I have manners, I wait until Mum and Dad are sitting as well."

As soon as they joined, I started eating my dinner quietly, listening to my parents' friendly bickering and my younger sibling's stories about his football team. Afterwards, I slipped upstairs as the rest of my family crept behind the television. I myself had no need to hear about another gas explosion or murder – they seemed to be occurring a lot lately. Maybe I could get some more homework done instead.

That plan went rather hopeless. My eyelids were drooping, despite the fact it was only eight. The letters on the page were blending, making the text impossible to read. My bed started to look rather inviting. When a headache started coming up, I quickly shut the book. Enough, I could finish it tomorrow. I dressed into my nightgown and crept under the covers.

I drifted off quickly, and then the dreams started. I felt like I was flying through a tunnel, squeezing through a keyhole, shooting up though a chimney. I felt as if I was everywhere and nowhere. At some point, it was like I no longer inhabited my own body. Flashes of my childhood flickered in front of me, though they were fuzzy and therefore I couldn't see them very well.

After a while, memories I could not recall started spinning by. I couldn't remember having done the things that little child in my dream did, anyway. Swinging with a piece of wood; walking down a street packed with strangely dressed people; sitting in a huge hall at a long table. The flashbacks started to sharpen, brighter, I could almost recognise the face –

Then I woke up.

The first thing I noticed was that I was no longer in my own bed. It was too soft, too big, and most importantly; my own bed did not have drapes around it.

I blinked a few times to let my eyes accustom to the dark, then pushed the sheets off me. Another point – my bed did not have this much layers of sheets. I searched for the edge of the curtain and pulled it aside. My breath caught in my throat.

Okay, so my bed wasn't mine, but this also was not my room. It was big and rectangular, with three other beds against the same wall as mine. To the opposite wall was a large kind of wardrobe, with next to it a door. The only windows were up against the ceiling, as if the room was some kind of cellar.

I quietly got out of bed, my heart beating wildly. Where was I? It was still a bit dark, so I looked around the room to find the light switch. However, after several paces around the low-ceilinged chamber, I couldn't find it. As a matter of fact, there were no lights either, only candles. When did people start using electricity again? Was I warped back in time? That's ridiculous, Heather, I scolded myself. Such things weren't possible, except in storybooks.

I was now standing in the middle of the room, and looked around. The four beds were split in two pairs by a door that was in the wall. I walked over and slowly opened it.

There was a small landing, then two steps down and then a long corridor going both ways, left and right. I was still wearing my nightdress from home, and I didn't quite feel like exploring in it, so I withdrew myself into the bedroom again. I decided to try the door on the opposite wall.

As soon as I opened that door, chandeliers inside the room on the other side flared up. I muffled a scream and slammed the door shut, my heart thumping in my throat somewhere. What was that? What lit the candles?

"Mmmph."

I whirled around, feeling like I could go into hysterics any moment. Somebody inside the other beds had grunted. Maybe I wasn't the only one in here – wait, maybe we were kidnapped! That was it; someone had taken me from my home and locked me up in here with three other people –

But that didn't make sense – I wasn't locked up, as I had just tried both doors and neither was bolted from the outside. I tried the door with the mysterious candles on the other side again, and for the second time the candles lit up. My legs were quivering, but I stepped in anyway and shut the door.

It was a bathroom. Not a luxurious one, definitely not – I probably had to share it with whoever was in this with me. The floor and walls were both made of something that resembled black marble, with chunks of a yellow mineral intersecting it. There were two showering cabins and two cubicles, both in yellow. Then, to the wall I was steadying myself with, was a basin with a mirror above it. I slowly walked over to face it. When I had, I wished I hadn't. All the blood drained from my face.

My normally so vibrant light brown hair had darkened immensely until the point of black, so vastly it stood out horribly against my pale skin. Somehow, my dark brown eyes had changed to a striking blue colour – they were now fearfully staring back at me. And to top that – it just wasn't my face anymore. My upturned nose was suddenly straight, my lips had thinned, and my eyebrows were thicker. What happened? I pulled a strand of hair to the front so I could see it with my own – blue – eyes. No, it wasn't a trick of the mirror – it was very dark now.

I stretched my arm out to my reflection, dropping the string of blackish brown. My fingers met the girl's on the smooth surface. That just wasn't me, no matter how I looked at it. It couldn't be me. My hand started to tremble, and before I knew it, I was down on the floor, crying my eyes out. I wanted to go home, to my own bed, my own room, and my own body.

I no longer had any idea of what was happening, or what had happened. It couldn't have been kidnapping; any captor could have taken me from my home, but they could not have put me in a different body. Nobody could have done that. My new dark hair flopped down to my shoulders, a few wisps of it tickling my face.

I sniffled a little, and with one last shudder, picked myself up from the floor. No point in sitting there. Maybe if I went back to bed, everything would turn out fine. I wobbled to the door, went through, and softly shut it. The candles went out immediately, leaving me in the darkness yet again.

I found my way back to bed and rolled into a ball under the blankets, shivering despite the warmth. Somebody had put a hot-water bottle between the sheets.

Tossing and turning, I managed to get a little sleep between a few more silent tears. But after what seemed a number of hours, an alarm clock went off, followed by several groans and a loud slam. Apparently somebody had smacked it good.

Instead of the gasps of horror I had been expecting from my fellow roommates, I heard shuffling and talking and the general bustle of morning activity. Had they been here longer, maybe? Was this perhaps some kind of orphanage? Maybe my house had caught fire and I had been the sole survivor and my parents and Kyle had died while trying to rescue me and –

Before I could come up with any other explanations, somebody threw my drapes aside. I winced against the early morning light streaming in through the high windows.

"El! Get out of bed already – it is Saturday, remember? We have a Hogsmeade weekend! Come on, this is going to be great!"

I rubbed my eyes, not entirely believing my ears. Hogsmeade? What on earth was Hogsmeade? It sounded like some revolting ritual with pigs involved. Not to mention this girl was behaving like she knew me. Which couldn't be, because I had only arrived here last night.

I sighed and heaved myself out of bed. Now that it was morning, I could see the colours of my bed matched the ones in the bathroom – yellow and black. The other beds had those colours as well. The floor was some light wood, and the walls had the same shade, only they were made of brick.

I nervously turned my attention to the girl who had woken me. She was grinning broadly at me, her bright brown eyes sparkling with joy. I attempted a feeble smile, feeling all the more confused. The girl cocked her head, her beam fading somewhat.

"What's up, El? You look a bit peaky – bad dream?"

"You can't be sick, Eleanor!" A girl with jet-black hair yelled across the room. "This is our first Hogsmeade weekend ever! Who knows when the next one is?"

My mind spun. Eleanor? What in the world – was I maybe dreaming? And again that stupid Hogsmeade – what was that? Who were these girls, babbling about and including me like they had known me for years?

Something clicked in my mind – I was in someone else's body, so they probably thought I was that someone. Eleanor was her name, from what I had heard so far. Did that mean she was in my body right now? Oh, please God, no – what if she liked it better in my body and didn't want to go back?

A hand waved in front of my face and I was abruptly snapped back into reality again. The owner of the hand, the brown-eyed girl, sent me an inquiring look.

"Eleanor? Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes," I muttered, standing up. How was I going to explain to them that I wasn't who they thought I was? Where was I anyway? I still didn't know.

The girl that had woken me was still staring at me. I did a great effort to smile a bit wider at her, while I was inwardly wishing she would let me be. She seemed to get it, and walked over to the trunk standing at the end of her bed, which was next to mine. She took out some black cloth – though… Good Lord, those were robes. How old was she – seven? That was the age I stopped dressing up, and that was six years ago. I warily scuffled towards the trunk at the end of my own bed. Eleanor Branstone, it said in black letters on top. I gulped and swung it open, feeling like I was invading the poor girl's privacy.

The content of the trunk was very orderly; a stack of textbooks was neatly put in a corner, some yellow paper next to it. I picked it up. The handwriting on it looked oddly like mine. I flattened the paper a bit, so I could read what the girl had written.

The dragon is the most famous mythical animal. The female is larger than the male, but both may only be approached by special trained wizards. Their heart, blood, hair, etc. is used a lot in strong potions. There are ten different species…

I dropped the golden coloured paper into the trunk again, stunned. Dragons? What was this girl, insane? They didn't exist, of course, only in fairytales. Right?

My hands quivering, I moved them towards the black heaps in the other corner of the trunk. Robes. The same ones as the girl next to me, they were. To their side were a few uniforms that I supposed were to be worn under them. I glanced at my roommates. They were already dressed in black, chattering away as they ran across the room. One of them wrapped a strand of hair around a piece of wood. I smirked inwardly, despite everything. That girl would never get curls – her hair was too long and too straight. Well, I didn't have room to talk – I felt my own straight hair tickling in my neck.

But to my astonishment, when the girl removed the wood, her dirty blond hair was suddenly falling down in loose tresses. How did she do that? Just as I opened my mouth to ask, she turned to me, grinning.

"Are you – oh, El, get dressed already! Are you sure you're okay? You are looking a bit pale, you know."

"Yes, I'm fine" I said, hastily taking a uniform and some robes and ducking to the other side of my bed, out of their sight. All right – how did one wear these things?

After fifteen minutes of wrestling with the robes, I finally had them on. I looked down to see a yellow-and-black (what was with those colours?) patch on my chest, with a badger on it. Right. I hoped the others had one too. I anxiously looked at the nightstand next to my bed. There was a brush, some other piece of yellow paper, and – a branch of wood, like that other girl had. I picked it up, and unexpectedly a few golden sparks flew out. I yelped and dropped it.

There was a commotion in the room and in three seconds, the three other girls were standing at my bedside.

"What happened?"

"Oh, are you really fine, El?"

"Why is your wand on the ground?"

Wand. Wand? That wooden stick was a freaking wand? Where was I? Some institute for mental people and stupid idiots? Or was this just some prank to see how I would react? That thing was probably just a sparkler. Please, let it be just a sparkler.

The girl with the brown eyes shushed the other two away and bent down to put an arm around me. I had been completely unaware of the fact I had sunk to the ground until then. My bottom lip started trembling and I was sobbing yet again, but this time there was someone that was making soothing sounds and rubbing my back, even though I didn't know who she was. I heard a door open and shut and knew the two other girls had gone.

After I had calmed down, the girl holding me fixed her eyes on me for a good long time, then sighed.

"What is it with you, El? You normally aren't like this – usually you rise early, you are the first to be dressed, you are never sick, and you were the one most excited about Hogsmeade, until this morning. Are you nervous?"

I sniffed and dropped my gaze. I couldn't explain – or could I? I had to trust somebody – I needed to trust somebody – or I'd go insane with madness. If this were some kind of booby hatch, I'd fit right in if this went on with all those unpleasant surprises. I thought of the suddenly lit candles, the girl with the curly hair and the sparkles coming from that supposed wand. I took a deep breath and looked up at the girl again.

"I am not Eleanor Branstone. My name is Heather Winter. I would like to know how I got here, what I am doing here, what this place is and who you are."