Hello all! This is my first Harry Potter fic and I'm not sure if it will turn out okay, so please send me feedback and correct me on any mistakes I make - I'm sure there'll be plenty :)

I do not own Harry Potter; this is JK Rowling's magnificence. I'm just adding my own flare to it ;D I do own Aurwen Flannery and anyother fill-in characters.

Enjoy!

My breath is shaky and uneven, and I'm pretty sure I'm not spinning in circles. So why, do you ask, is the sky spinning? I can answer that. Yay for fevers. For as long as I can remember, exactly a week before my birthday I become sick. At first it start out with mild chills and a slight fever, but by the end of the week it's progressed to coughing fits and a fever so high you can fry and egg on my face! But don't do that, please. Anyway, I get so sickly that I'm practically on my deathbed. According to my now-ex-foster parents, around midnight I stop breathing and become almost like a corpse. Only to jerk 'alive' with a startled breath, like someone coming out of a bad dream. And that is what is happening now, not the whole coming-back-to-life thing, the whole fry-an-egg-on-my-face thing.

So, I find myself wandering through a godforsaken forest in the middle of bloody nowhere. Why? Because my ex-foster parents got scared shitless the first time this happened and the orphanage didn't want to deal with me anymore. Hooray. Back to the forest, I think something is following me, but I'm not sure. It's too dark to bloody see anything. Whatever it is, I hope they like their food cooked medium-well. Because that's what I feel like right now. Oh bollocks! What was that?

A young girl, almost 11, is walking through a dense forest alone and not in the best of health. To her left she hears a twig snap, heavy breathing, and howling in the distance. 'Great. There are here wolves, too.' Just as she's about to sprint away from the howls a figure comes out of the brush. It's tall and muscular, probably male, and difficult to make out in the dark. The girl steps back warily, not sure if he is here to help or hurt her. The figure comes towards her, his feet clopping like hooves. It turns to the side to move away from a tree, and the outline of a horse's body becomes visible. 'Wait. What? A man's torso and a horse's body…centaurs aren't real, are they?' She backs up further, into a tree, and stares at the "centaur" in confusion as he becomes completely visible.

"What is someone so young doing in a place so dangerous?" He asks, looking down at the girl with a raised eyebrow. "You shouldn't be in the Forbidden Forest, especially not at night."

"I-I got lost." She answers, trying to calm herself. "I was kicked out of th-the orphanage I was at…again." Adding the last part quickly, not sure why it would be of any significance. Feeling a rush of dizziness hit her, she holds her head braces herself against the tree.

"Are you alright? Come, climb on. I'll take you to the castle." He helps her onto his back and moves quickly through the forest. "What is your name, child?"

"Aurwen. Aurwen Flannery." Aurwen says after a while, catching her breath. "Thank you for your help."

"It is no trouble. Just be careful when entering the forest again," he replies, and then adds, "if at all."

They reach the tree line and meet an elderly man waiting patiently, as if he knew they were coming. "Dumbledore, I found this girl in the forest. She claims to have been kicked out of an orphanage. I am not familiar with this term."

The elder man, Dumbledore, chuckles. "An orphanage is a place for parentless children to stay. Thank you, Firenze, for bringing her here."

Firenze nods and helps bring Aurwen off his back. "She is also very ill. Her temperature is abnormally high. I will leave the rest in your hands, Dumbledore. Goodnight." With a parting nod at Dumbledore, Firenze returns to the forest.

Helping the sickly girl to stand, Dumbledore slowly brings her into the castle. "Hello my dear, can you tell me your name?" He asks his voice gentle and soothing.

"Aurwen Flannery, sir." She leans into Dumbledore for support, unable to carry herself much further. "I'm sorry to have caused any trouble. And I must be hallucinating pretty badly for that episode."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"That centaur. He can't be real, can he? They only exist in stories."

"Where do you think the authors got their ideas from?" There was a twinkle in his eyes as he said this. "Now Flannery sounds familiar to me from somewhere, but I can't quite place it. Ah yes! You are a Muggle born that should be joining our class next coming school year."

They arrive at, what appears to be, the hospital wing. Dumbledore calls for Madame Pomfrey, and a kindly woman rushes out of a room. "Yes, Headmaster? What is – Oh!" She notices Aurwen and hurriedly, but carefully, sets her down in a bed. "What happened, Dumbledore? She's running a very high fever!"

"Firenze found her out in the forest, Poppy. The girl wandered there after she was kicked out of an orphanage."

"Oh the poor girl! How are you doing, dear?" She asks, setting a wet cloth on Aurwen's forehead and quickly produces a glass of something. "Here, drink this."

"I've been better. But what's a Muggle? And what school are you talking about?" She sniffs the drink and grimaces, pinching the bridge of her nose and gulping the potion down quickly. "Ugh! That's some nasty stuff."

Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey laugh. "Medicine isn't supposed to taste good, my dear, just make you better." The Healer says while taking the glass from Aurwen. "Now get some rest. Everything will be explained in the morning."

And with that final statement the two adults leave, and Aurwen falls into a fitful slumber.