Hey everyone, me again! Since I forgot last chapter, the only thing that belongs to me is the plot, and Eliana. Everything else you recognize belongs to J.K. Rowling, most likely. I hope you enjoy.

Eliana blinked, and found herself somewhere she never thought she'd be. In front of her eyes was a beautiful castle, surrounded by green fields and a calm azure lake. It took her breath away, and she felt faint for a second, her vision swimming as she saw a man making his way closer to her.

"Miss, Miss, are you alright?" The man went in and out, the last thing she saw was a man covered in hair and strong arms picking her up before her world went dark.

"...been through somethin' alright. She was just starin' 'eadmaster. Poor thing looked completely confused." The voice came through fuzzily, and Eliana noticed that the timbre of his voice was dark, and his accent very strong.

"Hagrid, I'm sure she will be fine. I haven't seen her before. We need to wait for her to wake up before making any assumptions. Now, go and patrol the grounds. See if any of our friends of the forbidden forest know where she came from." This voice was raspy but kind, and with the mention of Hagrid, Eliana was amazed. She was really in Harry Potter.

Eliana heard a brief "Of Course, Headmaster" and footsteps followed by a careful closing of a door.

"Alright, my dear, you can open your eyes now." This voice prompted, and Eliana attempted to blink, but her eyelids were heavy and the sheer effort was exhausting. It took several tries, but her eyes fluttered open, and she was greeted with the sight of a gray beard, and a man with twinkling blue eyes.

"How are you doing, little one? What are you doing here, so far from home?" He, Professor Dumbledore, asked.

"Um..." Eliana tried to speak and all that came out was a cough and a groan, before she tried again. "I don't know, I just ended up here I guess."

"Well, can you at least tell me your name?" The professor sat at her bedside, looking into her eyes with compassion and thinly veiled curiosity.

"My name is Eliana Caron. I'm from America and I have no clue what I'm doing here." Only part of that is a lie. She looked back into his eyes and saw understanding.

"Do any of us ever? Well, Miss Caron, I saw your name on our lists as a new ward of the school. You will live here in the castle and study with the rest of your peers come school time. Welcome, my dear." He patted her hand twice, waved to a cat in a chair near the window and swept out of the room, his cloak billowing.

"Yeah, thanks for explaining, Professor, you didn't even tell me your name. Well, I guess I'll find out." Eliana attempted to get up, testing her limbs as she slowly sat up, then moved to the edge of the bed, gasping when she realized just how much smaller that she was than normal. It certainly gave perspective to her height when she was normally teased for being short. She suspected that she was rather tall for an eleven year old girl, but in reality was only about four inches shorter than normal. The main difference came when she looked and saw that her arms were a lot shorter than normal, she suspected the same held true for her legs.

She got up and crossed the room to the mirror on the wall, taking in her unkempt hair that billowed across her face, kept in an untidy ponytail. Her glasses were missing, but she found she no longer needed them, allowing her hazel eyes to shine. Some of the worry and laugh lines that she had acquired, along with the bags normally prevalent under her eyes were missing as well. It was like the Eliana she was had disappeared. She gasped again when she realized that with better hair care, she could actually look nice. That was different.

"Are you alright?" A voice appeared behind her, and Eliana whirled around to see an older woman, with black hair streaked with gray, kind brown eyes staring at her. Mysteriously, the cat was missing.

"Yeah, just surprised by how messy my hair looks" She looked at the woman, noting the good condition of her robes, and trying to determine who she was. She most likely wasn't Madame Pomfrey, but she wasn't completely sure.

"It does look rather messed up. That was probably Hagrid. That man has his heart in the right place, but it doesn't always work out well. My name is Professor Minerva McGonagall. I teach Transfiguration here at Hogwarts, and the man who just left was Professor Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster." Well, that answered a few things. Professor McGonagall reached out a hand, and Eliana shook it, hardly believing that all of this was happening to her.

"Now," Professor McGonagall started "I'm going to show you around the castle, and then we'll go shopping for some of the things you will need. We'll have dinner with everyone later tonight, and you will meet the rest of your teachers." With that, she lead Eliana out of the hospital wing, grabbing her arm and Eliana thanked the gods above that she had this opportunity to start over, and vowed to fix what she could.

Thank you for reading! And thank you, abishop47 for putting an alert on this story, it means a lot. Please read and review! Thanks guys, I will most likely update sometime this week before I go out of state for Thanksgiving. We'll see.