AN: I'd like to give a special shout out to a couple of people that have been reviewing on both AO3 and FFN.

Silvershadowleaf on AO3, thank you for your thoughtful comments.

KrisB-71854 on FFN - Thank you for the well thought out reviews, and also being so enthusiastic in PM's once I responded to your reviews.

The purpose of this school is to teach the basics of magic to all magicals that wish to learn, and to also raise the next generation of mages. Warlocks we have a plenty, but mages that can take the fight to our enemies and rescue prisoners we have few.

Excerpt from the diary of Helga Hufflepuff, found in the Hogwarts Sanctuary.

Hermione watched with a slightly concerned expression as Harry woke up in the infirmary bed beside her. She could see the Deputy Headmistress talking to Madam Pomfrey at the ward desk. When Harry moved she smiled as her first action was to rub her chest as if it ached, her books said that a girl her age would be starting to develop around now, but Harry was always so on guard even when she relaxed that she'd never seen her unconscious reactions before.

"Good morning sleepyhead, how do you feel?"

Harry yawns before she responds, "Pretty good really."

"I'm glad, I told Professor McGonagall about what happened, and the other three are just checking their dorms as they didn't believe me when I said that our beds were gone."

"They are? Where did you sleep then?"

"I grabbed one of the beds here."

Professor McGonagall came over as they were talking and surprised both of them when she spoke up, "Good Morning Miss Potter, I hear that you've had an eventful night."

"We did, and I found out that the dream isn't the same length in every world."

"So I hear. I will need you to show myself and the head-elf Greysie how to get to your new Dormitories, as they are saying that your house has changed."

"I'm sure that Hermione has already told you about it, but essentially yes, that's true."

"I'm sorry to have to ask this of you, as it's something I canna do myself. But, would you be willing to use your transportation method to check that the level that you're supposed to be living in is safe to travel to please?"

"Do you mind if I have some breakfast first please?"

"You may, but I was thinking that if it's safe we should probably eat breakfast there and talk to the ghost you met. I trust you to be able to come back if it's dangerous where I don't think that any of the others except Hermione would be able to get away, and she tells me that you are faster than she is."

Harry's engrained instincts kick in and she finds herself agreeing before she remembers the lessons she's been having with her mind-healer. Kicking herself all the way down the hall she touched the crest and held her magic just in case. The sound of a voice behind her made her jump.

"Well done young warlock, your new rank is well suited to you. While I didn't expect you back until this morning, you did well last night for being caught off guard. If you would get the Deputy Headmistress and the house-elf that is waiting with her we can begin."

"Er, um, thank you?" Harry then returns to the school that she knows

"Are you well Harry?"

"What? Oh, yes, I'm ok, erm, Hogwarts just asked me to bring you and the elf that was waiting with you, I'm sorry I don't know your name, to that world." Harry startles for the second time in five minute as McGonagall speaks up behind him after she didn't move for a few seconds.

"Oh, and brace yourself, this will be a shock."

Hermione butts in with, "I'll take Greysie if you can do the Professor McGonagall."

"Thanks, I was wondering how I'd do that, should we wait for the others?"

"I don't know, Professor, would you be ok if we dropped you off there and then came back to meet the others and show them how to get to where we're going?"

"Why don't we see what it's like on the other end before I make that decision?"

With that Harry took McGonagall's hand and touched the crest. She noticed that it glowed with magic briefly before she was transported to the other castle. McGonagall held her hand to her chest as her magic expanded slightly and she felt slightly light headed at the feel of the magic rich environment.

A voice from behind said "Careful deputy, you're still acclimatising to the magic here."

She spun around swaying woozily and saw the ghost of a woman standing there with an amused smile on her face. A slight puff of air from behind her signalled the arrival of Hermione and Greysie.

"Young elf, would you be able to help the deputy to a sitting room while the young warlocks go and inform their compatriots of where we are." The ghost starts to walk off before turning back.

"Oh, and the dark haired one with the one from the house of snakes should be able to make her own way here if one of you shows her how. While she, the one from the house of the badger and the one from the house of the lion have not earned their own accomplishments they are well on the way, they need only do it through the dream themselves to do so. The ravens are also close, but they are young yet."

With a slightly bemused expression on her face, Harry returned to the school with Hermione and they made their way back to the infirmary. Sure enough Tracey arrived with the others and so they exchanged glances.

"Hi guys, erm we're having breakfast with the Deputy headmistress in the new part of the school we found, and erm, Tracey you were invited along too, but you need to make your own way there."

Tracey just stares at Harry with a sceptical expression on her face, "And how am I supposed to do that oh great oracle."

Hermione and Daphne stifled a giggle at the fish out of water expression that Harry had as she shifted into her boy form. Taking pity on him, she spoke up for him before his self confidence could be hurt anymore.

"You're ready for the intermediate meditation group already, and are just waiting for permission. So it's the same as you're doing in meditation, except once you're ready to travel you need to open up your magic to a certain level. It will feel very odd when you do it, and you might have trouble reigning it in, but as it's daytime there's no risk of overshooting. Daphne might be a bit better to try to explain it as she had to do it for the first-time last night."

"Since when are you on first name terms with Daphne?"

"Almost all the way through meditation last week wasn't it? I seem to remember you being a bit snappy at the fact we were all using our first names for each other and your house name."

"It was, sorry about that, it was harder than I'd care to admit to, to keep talking rather than just concentrate on staying where I was."

"It's ok, you've done really well, and you don't need to prove anything to me. Anyway, shall we get going?"

They all trooped back to a junction, and Harry showed them the embossed heraldry on the wall. When he touched it he was gone within a couple of breaths. Hermione indicated that Lavender and Parvati should go next, and they both took a good 30 seconds to make the transition.

"Davis would you prefer to go before or after Daphne?"

Tracey gave Hermione a calculating look before she responded, "I'll go next."

She confidently stepped up to the crest and placed her hand on it. Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and quieted her magic as she'd been taught. She then opened it slightly, and suddenly it felt like it had been yanked open and she stumbled away from the wall as she came over light-headed. A pair of arms steadied her, and she snapped at the person holding her.

Caught off guard she snapped, "Is this your idea of a joke Granger?"

She heard Lavender laugh behind her, "I'm not Granger, and it isn't a joke."

Spinning around she almost falls over when she takes in her surroundings, the slightly green light reflecting off of the rainforest canopy warring with her brains disbelief at the fact that anything has changed. She rushed over to the window and stared out. Wait there wasn't a window here before? She spun round in time to see Daphne appear.

"Daph, there's a bloody great forest outside the window that wasn't there before."

"Trace, you can go looking for new magical animals later, at the moment we need to go and have breakfast with the Deputy Headmistress."

"Do you mean Professor McGonagall?"

"I do, but she's been invited here as Deputy."

"Oh. Oh! Right shutting up now."

Breakfast was a strange affair for all involved as it seemed that each bit of food was served by a different elf. Harry remembered the late-night conversation they'd had with Ceeley about having to hold her magic down all the time just to survive. He couldn't imagine what it must be like being able to come to this realm, but he imagined that going back must feel suffocating.

Once they'd finished eating the ghost reappeared.

"I trust that you've all acclimated now? None of you are feeling light-headed anymore?"

McGonagall spoke up, "I think I speak for all of us when I say we feel fine now, thank you."

"I'm told that it gets easier the more you do it, and if you've been much deeper than this already you probably won't even notice the difference. Before we get to why I asked you to be here, I need to tell the elves something before they all disappear after cleaning up."

One of the elves stops for a moment, "How's can we's be helping the great HoggyWarts?"

"It's actually how I can help you. Between late evening and early morning I can transport elves that touch the Hogwarts seal in the elf quarters to the sanctuary and back. While there may be visitors to the sanctuary, the place was set up for your ancestors and you to live as comfortable a life as is possible away from your home world. It's in quite a bit of disarray due to the fact that no elves have been there for nearly 500 years, but it is yours."

"Thank you HoggyWarts, Loosy will spread the word."

McGonagall opened her mouth to ask a question but the ghost pre-empted her, "I will be covering that and more shortly, I also need to show you to your office here where I need to have a private chat with you. If it get's too late you'll need to sleep here, as you are not ready to move around unaided at night."

"My name is Hogwarts, well that was my title as it translates to modern English, it sounded much more impressive when the land was granted to me shortly after the Romans withdrew from the Scottish border. I remember when Artemis displaced Selene as the goddess of the moon. It was around that time that I ascended to the ranks that would later be called an Archmagis and became immortal in most senses of the word. Those two have already made the journey accidentally, and it has left it's mark as it does on all of us, you only need to do it deliberately in order to earn that title. When the rest of you are able to reach the Sanctuary unaided you will have earned the rank of Apprentice Mage.

However, I digress. When I chose to travel the dream the sleepers were still awake and sought to gather enough followers to be able to visit this realm without issue. The younger gods helped to fight them off after most of the titans had sacrificed their mortal bodies to bind the sleepers to the sea of magic. Even with their influence hobbled, they still hold immense power on earth as they are so magical that iron has no affect on them. This is even without the fact that the only iron we had was from star falls. The fae raided with impunity, and it was only due to people like me that the cities of the era were safe to live in. Some day I'll tell you about when I met Gilgamesh. As we developed more reliable ways to train magi and warlocks I move further away from the established civilisations to places where my skill were needed to tip the balance.

Then the Romans refined the wand, I won't say invented as pointy sticks have been used as focuses for a lot longer than the wand as you know it has existed. What they did is they discovered how to add the core of a magical animal to the focuses that people were using. This meant that they didn't need to spend 2 or 3 years teaching witches or wizards how to control their own magic before teaching them how to cast spells. Of course they weren't the only ones to find faster ways to teach magic, the Norse had their runes, and the Celts had their ogham and nature magics. But the wand was by far the simplest and quickest to teach.

That's why Salazar chose to teach the usage of that first in The Nest, and branch out into the other structured magics from Europe once they had the foundations down. When I met them in the year 800 according to the christian calendar, they were all accomplished mages, and had ventured through the middle layers of the dream to see magic coursing across the sky. Though they still couldn't overcome that last barrier to become Archmagi. They were looking for a place to build a school, and I was considering exploring the sea of magic. If they'd been a century later I'd have probably left already.

As it stands they met me and I allowed them to use this valley for their school. Over the next 100 years we tried to make something that existed across realms and would allow us to give the students the experience they needed to become warlocks and magi without the ever-present risk of attack. We came up with a solution that required a willing sacrifice, and would then last for as long as their magic would allow. We spent the next 150 years building the schools from the heart stone out towards earth. Godric defended us, Helga healed us, and Rowana and Salazar helped me lay the runes and purify the iron that fills the walls. Even though it cost him his wife, Salazar stayed until the end, and his son never forgave him for it. At the end I bequeathed the land to Godric and Salazar and during one dream the four of them held the wards open and linked across all four worlds while underwent the ritual sacrifice. I confess that I rightly expected to die, instead after I shed my physical form and poured all of my magic into the heart stone I became Hogwarts.

"So here I am Hogwarts at your service, and thus my introduction is over. Would you do me the pleasure of introducing yourselves?"

All of the people present were absolutely engrossed in her story and so it took them a moment to recover.

McGonagall was the first, and so the first to speak, "I am Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and transfiguration teacher. I don't have nearly such an illustrious introduction as your so I beg your forgiveness. Everyone here may call me Minerva while we're not in The Nest, wasn't it?"

"It was, the school has 4 parts to it, The Nest is where the young were taught and nurtured. The library is the realm that we're in now, and those that were seeking to become accomplished witches and wizards would come here much like your companion did."

"My name is Tracey Davis, and I guess everyone here can call me Tracey."

"Much like Tracey did. Between the two is the Armoury, which although closer to Earth is harder to get to for those that aren't yet Warlocks like the rest of you, as it needs the control over your magic that you only learn through the hardship of moving through the dream. Finally we have the Sanctuary, the place for Apprentice Mages to study and learn to hone their craft, and also a place for house-elves to live in peace."

Once it became clear that she'd finished again, Harry spoke up, "I'm Harry Potter, though I was born a boy."

"You are a boy my dear."

Harry looked down at himself in surprise, "Huh, I normally switch to a girl when I'm as distracted as I was at your introduction. Anyway, this is the form I'm most comfortable in.". She shifted to her girl form as she was speaking.

"Unsurprising given your heritage, the Sidhe tend to represent both male and female equally and only settle on a gender as they reach maturity. Though your healer is encouraging you to seek balance which will serve you well in the future, as you'll find that some things come easier as a man compared to as a woman, and the reverse will be true too. Your human companions are less constrained, but that's because humans are naturally more balanced anyway."

Lavender spoke up next, "I'm Lavender Brown, at your service."

"I'm pleased to meet you young warlock."

Daphne went next, "I am Daphne Greengrass, may I ask how we should address you formally?"

"You may, though there really is no formal way of addressing the likes of I, or other Magi, we are our own titles, and on earth our power speaks for itself. But if you must use a Title you could use Lady or Archmagis."

"Thank you Lady Hogwarts. Everyone here has leave to call me Daphne."

Harry speaks up, "Oh sugar, I forgot about that. I was raised with muggle customs, so we assume that people will call us by our first names. But everyone here can call me Harry."

"My name is Hermione Granger, everyone can call me Hermione. As this level is called the Library, does that mean that there's one here?"

Hogwarts laughs, "Yes young warlock, there is one here, and also one in the sanctuary. The only level that you won't find books, or much of anything else for that matter, is the Armoury as learning to use your magic directly can be a little… destructive."

"Thank you."

"I guess last but not least, I am Parvati Patil. I am absolutely awed to meet you, and you can call me anything you want to."

"Thank you, but that will not be necessary. You must all be parched, after listening to me talk, so why don't we break for something to eat and drink and you can have a look around."

───────── ೋღ :hpsd: ღೋ─────────

Meanwhile in The Nest, all of them had lost 30 points because Snape had been unable to find them, he was also fuming because he couldn't find McGonagall for the headmaster.

The twins were pouring over a map trying to find the missing students.

Luna had assured everyone in the meditation group that they were safe and were still in Hogwarts, they'd just been kind of resorted. And yes Nicole, if we work hard at our meditation we can be resorted by the end of the year too, and there's a great library where the new rooms are.