I decided to put the chapter out a day early! I don't have any review thank you's to do, since no one reviewed, but that's ok. I really hope you enjoy this chapter!


Chapter 4: Foreign Exchanges

The rest of September passed in the same fashion. Harry and his friends found themselves arguing with Sarah very often. Much to their astonishment, however, Sarah and Luna became close friends, and, meeting her through Luna, Ginny did as well.

Because of her relationship with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, the only reason Sarah knew about the meeting at the Hog's Head at the end of the month was because of Luna and Ginny. It had been called to unite the students who were sick of Umbridge's classes and wanted to learn real defense from Harry.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione cast uneasy looks at each other when Sarah arrived first with Luna. Their response was nothing compared with Fred's when he, George, and a whole group of others arrived.

"Why is the spitfire here?!" he exclaimed, and Hermione rubbed her temples. Sarah never got along with Fred and George.

"This is going to be a long meeting," she sighed heavily as Sarah glared at Fred.

"Yeah, why is Umbridge's favorite here?" asked Dean Thomas. "She'll go running to Umbridge!"

"No she won't," Sarah retorted, "because she actually is here for the same reason everyone else is." Her eyes pierced Fred's. "The prankster should mind his own business."

"I-"

"And that's enough for now," interrupted Hermione. "I don't think the rest of the bar wants to hear us bickering."

"We're the only ones here besides the bar tender," George pointed out.

"Congratulations on being observant, jokester," said Sarah sarcastically. Recently Fred and George had started referring to her as "the spitfire", and she in turn called Fred "the prankster", and George "the jokester".

"Enough!" shouted Harry. "Everybody just sit down and be quiet!...please," he added, looking at Cho Chang.

This was the beginning of the first meeting of what was to become Dumbledore's Army. Weeks passed, and regular meetings took place in the Room of Requirement. Each meeting Harry taught them how to defend themselves against dark wizards. Slowly they all started showing signs of improvement.

Sarah proved to be very unique in these meetings. She was able to get Makani and Demetrio to come as well, and learned quickly. She was used to adapting professors' instructions to fit her "circumstances" as she called it. While she did not have to say an incantation or wave a wand, she had to concentrate more on what she wanted to do than the others, especially when she was first learning something new. In addition, her fingers had to move in the same pattern a wand did for the spell to work.

On the other hand, she fought often before and after meetings officially started with Fred and George. Harry noticed she seemed to take a disliking to Cho too, which he neither understood nor liked, but thankfully she usually kept that to herself.

At the beginning of one of the first meetings, Harry told everyone that Sarah needed to address the group.

When she had everyone's full attention, she began.

"Hi everyone. I thought I should talk to you all before we started today. I know many of you don't like me, mainly because of my views on whether or not Harry is telling the truth. I am telling you now, and this is top secret, that I am working for Harry as a spy for the D.A. It is all an act for me out there. Well, mostly." She grinned. "I apologize for anything I might have said to offend anyone. I do it so 

Umbridge can trust me and think that I am behind her one hundred percent. I have already gotten some information to Harry that I can't disclose, but I just wanted you all to know. I figured we could use any advantage we can get against her. I know it's going to take a while before any of you can believe and trust me, but I just wanted you to know the truth."

"What about that first day in Umbridge's class?" demanded Dean.

Sarah grinned evilly and laughed. "I figured it would be fun, as well as an asset somehow if I was on her good side." Her gaze moved to the twins, and her face hardened. "I still don't like you two though. That's not an act."

Fred bowed mockingly. "Wouldn't have it any other way, madam."

At that point Marietta came in late, and Harry began the practice for the day.

It was also at these meetings, during breaks to rest, that the Hogwarts students got to know the exchange students better.

Makani told them about his family moving from Hawaii to California so he could go to a better magic school. He explained that every state has their own Schools of Magic- a junior and senior high. California's junior high was called Galaxy Middle School of Magic. In talking about this, Makani ended up telling them about the magic laws in America.

"It is the law that young witches and warlocks, we say 'warlock' instead of 'wizard', must grow up like Namsers, known as Muggles to you, until the age of ten. Parents are very careful about covering up their children's magical signs when they're young. The Government of Magic has ways of telling if a child is told of their powers before they're ten, and has ways of erasing those memories in emergencies. The reasoning behind it is the hope that this will do two things- one, it will help everyone blend in better with the Namsers, and two, help stop the feeling of superiority over the Namsers.

"At eleven, we tell our Namser friends that we're going to a private school. We go to an airport in California to get to both schools. One is in the south of the state, the other is in the north. In the airport bathroom we climb on top of the toilet and step through the wall to our magic airport. Upon arrival our first year, what we call sixth grade, we go to a special party and every new student goes onstage one by one in black robes. They each put their hand on a crystal ball, and it chooses their academy and changes the color of their robes. A big difference back in America is that we are allowed to do magic outside of school, as long as our parents are with us. The downside to that is, unlike most of the magic world, we come of age at eighteen, instead of seventeen."

Demetrio, who had told stories of his parents escaping Russia, told them about the school buildings back home.

"Well, at Galaxy, all the buildings are separate," he said. "You have the main building in the front of the campus, and then each academy is a separate building. All five buildings form a pentagon shape, and in the middle of them is the athletic complex. We're still allowed to play Namser games, like baseball and volleyball, if that means anything to any of you. Each floor is dedicated to a different sport, with the Quidditch pitch on the roof.

"Oh! Our academies at Galaxy were cool, because each one is only accessible to students from that academy. We ate our meals and had dances in the main building, and our classes and dorms were in the academy buildings. My academy, Earth, is surrounded by a giant rock wall. Only current Earths know where the door is and can open it. I guess you could say we're like Gryffindors. We're known for our strength and courage. Airs are known for their patience, and are the only ones able to find their way through the fog to their building. Waters are known for their intelligence, like Ravenclaws. They know where to walk to get across the giant moat. Fires, um…" He laughed. "Well, they're known for being stuck up and full of themselves, to be honest, at least among the other students. The school says they're known for their resourcefulness or something like that. Anyway, that's why none of us asked Candace to come here.

"The campus for Universe is only two buildings- the athletic complex and the main building. That's more like here at Hogwarts. Once you reach ninth grade, fourth year to you all, you move up and have classes with people outside your academy. The academy dorms are wings off each side of the main building, and, like here, only those students know how to enter them."

Sarah was the most reluctant to talk about herself. Outside of the D.A. she appeared to only be friends with Luna and Ginny. During meetings however, after a while nearly everyone had come to like her as much as her fellow exchange students. She never talked to Marietta or Cho, but both she and the Weasley twins tried to keep their constant arguing out of meetings now. Harry, Hermione, and Ron took a while to completely trust her, especially Hermione, but in the end it was Hermione that became closest to Sarah out of the three.

Eventually, Sarah was finally persuaded to tell her story.

"I was born in Greece," she said, identifying the other accent in her voice other than American. "I was born on the island of Santorini, in its capital, Fira. My mother's hotel chain started there, since it's a big tourist place. It's the most beautiful place in the world." She smiled one of her very rare smiles as she remembered. "My mother has a huge Greek family, but is the only witch other than my Pappous, her father. None of her six siblings or my fifteen younger cousins knows she's a witch. Only Gigia, that's Greek for 'grandmother', knows about Pappous, Mana, Greek for mother, and me. Da's family is all very Irish, and an old wizarding family too. His only sister's daughter is my best friend, Liz. Mana and Da met at her hotel when he came for a conference in Greece. Da moved to Greece after they were married, and had me. Then the accident happened in Da's old lab." Sarah sighed heavily. "I don't like to talk about it, so I'll only say it once.

"I was two; Mana had to go on a business trip, so Da brought me to work with him. He had to give this big tour of his lab to these famous wizards, so he left me in the care of his assistant, Aleta, who babysat me often. Some intern left some potions in her office, where they shouldn't have been, and when Aleta and I came back to her office, she put me in my playpen. She went to the other side of the office to finish some work, and when she lit the fire under the cauldron," Sarah voice became hollow, "there was an explosion. Aleta died, and somehow I ended up a Srib because of the potions and the reaction or something. No one has ever been able to figure that one out. The intern was fired, but it didn't really help anything…" She trailed off and stared into space. After a moment she shook her head and laughed. "It always sounds like something from a really bad movie. But anyway, Mana and Da were having a house built in Malibu at the time, because Mana always wanted to live in America, and her biggest hotel yet was being built there. It was finished when I was 6, and so we moved."

Ginny had many questions still, but only asked, "How were you allowed in the lab if it was magic and you were two?"

"The laws are different in Greece," Sarah replied, "but I was always told Da was a scientist, and to the non-magical world he is. My parents knew that we would move to America one day, and of the laws there, so they covered everything from me."

"What about your magic?" Marietta asked. "Is it true you lose control?"

Sarah's eyes flashed and glared threateningly at Marietta.

"That," she said coldly and dangerously, "is something everyone should pray they never see."


The background information on the students that you just read has changed so drastically over and over. At some point I will give you the full story of the transformations, but not right now. I hope you all enjoyed it, and please, please review. I truly don't know how I'm doing or if anyone is fully reading the story if no one reviews. If you see any typos, let me know too please, I caught a few just a minute ago when I was rereading and tweaking the chapter one last time.

The next chapter will be out the 16th, on schedule.

Haras