Chapter 2

After speaking with Dumbledore for over an hour, Rowan gained the knowledge of the following things:

First, Dumbledore really was as eccentric as he had been described in the books. If not more.

Second, Madam Pomfrey, the resident medi-witch, had performed a standard medical scan on her while she was sleeping, and Rowan had indeed turned out to be a real witch. To her utter surprise.

Third, Dumbledore wasn't kidding about her father being a well known charms master. Even Madam Pomfrey admitted knowing his work when asked about him. He had been the single heir of a rather well known pureblood family, which meant Rowan would have no trouble claiming his family vaults. Richard Miller had disappeared in the 40's, but according to Dumbledore the Goblins wouldn't have shut down his vaults in such a short time.

Oh, did she forget to mention it was the bloody 70's? More precisely, July 30th, 1976.

Yep. Not only was she stuck in a different dimension full of fictional characters, but back in time as well.

Last but not least, Rowan absolutely loathed wizarding transportation. That particular feeling of hatred only grew stronger as she stumbled out of a fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron and fell flat on her face.

"Stupid floo network," she muttered, gathering the remainings of her dignity and standing up again. "What an annoying way to travel."

Dumbledore had quizzed her on standard Hogwarts curriculum, and decided she could well join the seventh year students, even though she was a year older than the others. She would need to take more comphrehensive tests with Professor McGonigall later that week, but he seemed strangely confident she would be able to pass them. He had also declared it would best for her if she decided to study for the O.W.L.s that summer, and take the exams before the autumn semester was over. He promised owl her a list of all the study materials she would need.

"You might also want to hire a tutor," Dumbledore had said, with a twinkle in his eyes, before letting her use his private Floo to travel to the Leaky Cauldron. "The remaining Hogwarts proferrors will be able to hold you a few private meetings in which you will be given some guidance for the exams, but you must understand they are all terribly busy, and therefore cannot go over the whole O.W.L.s curriculum with you."

Rowan scoffed at the memory of the old wizard as she walked through the pub. There was no way she would be able to go through 5 years of Hogwarts studies in just a few short months, no matter what Dumbledore thought. She was an average student at best, and more often below that. She loved reading and learning new things, but absolutely despised studying and exams of any kind. Truly, she would need a miracle.

Rowan looked around and slowed to a stop. Despite the Leaky Cauldron being full of people, it didn't seem like anyone was about to go through the secret passage to the alley. She eyed the bartender, but decided against asking him to open it for her as it would draw too much attention. So she sat down and waited around until someone else decided to go through the passage.

She didn't have to wait long.

To say that seeing the Diagon Alley open up before her was disappointing would be a lie. But it certainly wasn't nearly as exciting as it had been to little Harry Potter. Maybe it was because she wasn't an eleven year old girl anymore. But it was a rather magical experience, nonetheless.

Lost in thought, Rowan almost missed that the passage starting to close and had to quickly slip through it to reach the other side. She glanced around, bit embarrased for being such an airhead, but luckily nobody seemed to be paying her any attention.

She strolled down the Alley for a while, before gathering her courage and heading towards a large white building in the distance. Gringotts.

As Rowan got closer to the doors, she had to stiffle few giggles, because she kept imagining Harry Potter riding on a dragon, bursting through the ceiling.

Goblins! Goblins were amazing! Actual living, breathing magical creatures.

They would have been even cooler, if they didn't insist on checking every fucking record to make sure Rowan was the only heir to the Miller family, and thus would be applicable to inherit all of Richard Miller's vaults.

Damn bureaucrats.

Her lengthy meeting with the goblins only confirmed what Dumbledore had told her earlier. She now owned two family estates (one in Wales and one in Northern England) in addition to her family vault, which was huge. It was filled with ancient looking objects, trunks, portraits hidden beneath curtains, and a huge pile of gallons. She chose not to stay there any longer than necessary, feeling overwhelmed by the whole experience.

After Gringotts, she was faced with a huge shopping spree. She would need a ton of school books and other items, not to mention clothes, since she only owned what she was carrying on her. That wasn't much; she had her wallet in her left pocket and her phone in the right one, and neither of them were going to be much help to her in the wizarding world.

Rowan tried her best not to panic, and went through a list of items Dumbledore gave her without much throught. She bought all the necessary books and other school supplies, including journals, notebooks, parchel and quills, and other things such as a whole new wardrobe and some personal things to fill the time between studying. She was glad she had realised to head to the trunk shop first and buy a shrinkable trunk with enough space to fill a library, because there was no way she could have carried all of her shopping with her without it.

Her last stop was Ollivander's. As she neared the shop, she was hoping the whole experience was just a really weird, realistic nightmare. If that was the case, the old wandmaker would take one look at her and declare she wasn't a witch at all. Then he would continue by saying that Rowan was in huge trouble because she was late for her first uni lecture, effectively waking her up from the dream.

It didn't happen.

But at least the tiny man didn't immediately recognise her and declare her name. Rowan took it as a tiny victory.

Done with the shopping, she headed back to the Leaky Cauldron, rented a room, and wasted no time falling flat on her face on the soft bed.

Rowan waited a moment, before rolling on her back and staring at the ceiling. "I'm a witch," she stated, blankly.

Then she set the curtains on fire.

Rowan was incredibly glad that she could remember incantation for making water come out of her wand (aguamenti), because otherwise the fire might have spread to the whole building before it was too late.

Fortunately, that was the only bit of accidental magic she managed to spew forth, and she enjoyed the next few days in relative peace. Taking advantage of her free time, she dug into the school books. She managed to briefly go through most of the stuff up to third year level, but started coming across difficult topics after that. Of course she also read more about her father's history in the wizarding world. He was indeed a well known charm's master, and had even been dabbling briefly in potionmaking before his mysterious disappearance.

She would have read her father's journal too, but Dumbledore had asked to take a look at it for reasearch purposes.

Exactly one week later on Sunday, Rowan was eating breakfast downstairs. The place was bustling with people going through to the Alley. Most of the kids had received their letters by then, and the adults were accompanying their children to the Alley to buy supplies for the new school year.

Rowan had managed to secure the only empty table just minutes before the big rush, and was happily eating her lunch just as someone cleared their throat next to the table.

She looked up saw a skinny young man with sandy brown hair and amber eyes, holding a pint of butterbeer in his hands.

"Excuse me," he said and gestured to the empty seat at her table. "Is this seat taken? All the other tables are full."

Rowan glanced around and realised the stranger was indeed speaking the truth.

"Oh, sure," she said and waved a hand. "Sit down."

The boy nodded and smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

Rowan munched on some bread in silence, and the stranger sipped his butterbeer. Then he broke the silence, after staring at her for several minutes and trying to be discreet about it.

"Do you go to Hogwarts?" he inquired. "I haven't seen you around before."

Rowan swallowed the bite, and then gave him a small, rueful smile. "Homeschooled," she said. "Starting the 7th year at Hogwarts this autumn, though."

The boy blinked in surprise. "Oh," he said, his eyebrows rising. "We don't get transfer students that often."

Rowan nodded, and took another bite.

"Uh, I mean," the boy continued quickly, almost as if her expressionless nod had been a sharp question targeted at him. "I knew it was possible, and I'm sure there have been other transfer students, but it just didn't even cross my mind..." he said, and scratched his neck. "I just assumed that maybe you went to Beauxbatons."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Sorry to disappoint."

"I didn't mean anything by that!" he quickly commented, and if possible, looking more embarrased than before.

Rowan let out a laugh at that, and lowered the remainng piece of bread to the side plate. "No harm, no foul," she grinned. "It was just amusing to see you get all flustered. Sorry, I find it hard to express facial expressions when I'm eating."

The boy's expression relaxed, and he let out a relieved sigh. "You just looked so serious for a moment there," he clarified. "I thought maybe I said something wrong."

"Nope," Rowan said, and grinned, "It's just my face."

The boy grinned back. "Remus Lupin," he said.

"What about him?" Rowan said, taking a sip of her tea.

He looked bemused. "My name," he clarified. "Is Remus Lupin."

Rowan choked and spit out the tea in a fine spray of mist. Somewhere, fate was laughing its ass off.

"Are you okay?" Remus Lupin asked, concerned, almost rising from his seat to check on the choking girl.

"Nope," Rowan said. "I'm not remotely okay at all."

"Is there something wrong with my name?" Remus asked, frowning.

Rowan shook her head. "It's a perfectly good name," she said, wracking her brain and thinking of an explanation the spot. "It's just a thing, okay. It kinda has to do with divination. I've sorta, heard your name before, but I didn't know what you look like."

Remus didn't look very convinced. "Right," he said, and took a sip of his butterbeer.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you the whole story," Rowan said and crossed her arms. "But let's just say I'm kind of like a Seer, okay? I know stuff."

"Well, what do you know about me?" Remus asked.

Rowan almost mentioned his Furry Little Secret, but stopped herself just in time. She hardly thought that Remus would appreciate a complete stranger knowing about his illness. So she pretended to struggle, and rubbed her chin in thought. "I can tell that you have two... no, three close friends."

"You could have guessed that," Remus said, rolling his eyes. "Come on, impress me."

Rowan narrowed her eyes at him. Cheeky! "Gryffindor," she stated. "You, and your friends."

Remus raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Huh, that's pretty good, actually." Rowan just shrugged nonchalantly. "You know, you didn't tell me your name," Remus said out the blue.

"I didn't?" Rowan asked, surprised. "It's Rowan. Rowan Miller." From the expression on his face, she could tell Remus Lupin had definitely heard of her father.

"Any relation to Richard Miller?" he asked, leaning forward. "The Charms Master?"

Rowan nodded, suspecting this was going to be a regular occurence every time she revealed her surname. "Yup. He was my dad."

"Wicked," Remus breathed. "I bet he must have taught you a lot of stuff."

Rowan's thoughts flickered back to all the summer days she spent with her father even before the Potter books had been published, playing Wizards and Witches, and she nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Where is he now?" Remus asked. "He disappeared in the 40's."

The smile fell off her face. "Actually, he died a few years back."

"Oh," Remus breathed out, his face falling. "Sorry."

"It's okay," she said and gave him a small smile. "I suppose now that I'm going to Hogwarts, I'm going to have to get used to all the questions."

Remus sensed a safer topic, and grasped it. "Since you're joining 7th year, does that mean you've taken your O.W.L.s?"

Rowan groaned, and slumped back on her seat. "Don't even remind me," she moaned and covered her face with her hand, "Dumbledore and McGonigall said I could take them before the Autumn term ends, but I have buttloads of books I need to go through. There is no way I'm going to be able to pass those exams."

Remus smiled faintly. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll do fine," he said. "They weren't that difficult."

Rowan stilled. And then peeked at Remus from behind her hand. "You know, Dumbledore told me to hire a tutor. Since the exams were so easy for you..."

The smile fell of Remus' face, and he looked around awkwardly, "I don't know... You don't even know me. And I might not be the best teacher... I get sick a lot."

"C'mon!" Rowan pleaded, "I don't know anyone else at Hogwarts! I'll pay you!"

Remus still looked conflicted. "I don't know if I should..."

"Pleaaaase," she said, and slapped her hands in a prayer, "I really need help to pass!"

Remus sighed, and smiled. "Oh, alright," he said, then narrowed his eyes. "But I'm not doing the work for you!"

"Of course not!" Rowan scoffed, "What kind of jerk would ask you to do that?"

"Let's just say I know a few who are happy to leech off their friend," Remus muttered under his breath. "Okay, when would you like to start?"

Rowan raised an eyebrow at Remus' quip about his friends, but didn't comment on it. "I have five years of Hogwarts education to go through," Rowan said and let out a sigh. "So we better start ASAP."

"A.. sap?" Remus repeated.

"As soon as possible," Rowan clarified and grinned at the intrigued expression on Remus' face. "Muggle expression. Better get used to those."