School began on September 1. Nadiera kept away from the start-of-school feast. She did not have her heart in it.
Hogwart's was like a different world now that all the students were back in class. The halls never seemed to be empty, even very late at night. It was filled with noise and controlled chaos. It reminded Nadiera of the White Tower. She was starting to feel out of place, and homesick. The only thing that was keeping her going was her mission. To this end, she tracked down Minerva, who, as expected, was much busier now than she had been.
"I have been practicing the Air Flows you've shown me," Minerva told Nadiera, "but that weave of Air and Spirit to form the sheild is tricky."
"Any night that you are not too busy this week, I can review it with you," Nadiera offered.
"As long as I have a night that I'm not too busy," Minerva sighed. "But, I can arrange a meeting for you and Miss Granger. I know you've been wanting to meet her."
"Make it on Saturday night, then. When neither of you are too busy. She can watch us practice, and perhaps I can get her started on embracing saidar if she is interested," Nadiera said. Then, she had another thought. "Or, maybe you can show her how to do it. Often, in the White tower, we would have more advanced students show the newer students some of the basic Flows."
"Goodness, it's been a long time since I was a student of anything! Teaching is much more up my alley than being a student nowadays," Minerva observed. "However, I believe Miss Granger will be very intrigued with this channeling."
Another person Nadiera wanted to catch up with was Harry Potter, though it would be more difficult for her to deal with him without thinking of Sirius. Still, the boy was obviously a Dreamer, and even if he was male, he would be well worth the study time. If she had been Brown Ajah, no doubt she would already have seen to it that Harry would not be out of her sight. There had not been a known Dreamer in the White Tower for at least four hundred years. However, Nadiera suspected that there were Aes Sedai, and others, who Dreamed, but did not tell anyone else. Even she could do it when she wanted to. She never made a big fuss about it because she did not want other Aes Sedai in the Tower to start making her a subject of intense study, like she was going to do with poor Harry.
With a great stroke of luck, on Thursday, Nadiera found Harry with his friend Ron Weasley, the brother of Ginny. Another girl she had not seen before, but could tell just from looking at her, was the much-talked-about Hermione Granger.
"Nadiera! How are you?" Harry asked her.
"As well as can be expected," Nadiera replied, and looked at the three of them guardedly. Did all three of them know Sirius? Could she take a chance? "How is...the dog doing?" she asked Harry.
In a low voice, Harry answered, "I'm worried about Sirius. I haven't heard from him lately."
"Do you have time to have dinner with me this evening? I'd like to talk to you about, the dog, and other things," Nadiera asked.
"How about it? Hermione, remember I told you about Nadiera, right?" he asked.
"Yeah, and how she tied up Snape with those strings of magic? I would have loved to see that!" Ron cut in.
"Snape! Well, if you stick around Ron, you may get your chance," Nadiera said.
Harry, Hermione and Ron sat with Nadiera in the Hogwart's kitchen for dinner that evening. "I remember when I first saw a house-elf," Nadiera was saying. "I nearly leaped out of my skin!"
"Why? They won't hurt anybody," Harry assured her.
"Well, it's because they are non-humans, yet they can also channel. I sometimes cannot believe the wonders of this world I've stumbled into."
"What kind of world did you come from?" Hermione asked.
Nadiera took a deep breath, thrying to think about the best place to begin. "I think that my world is really your world, only I think a great deal of time has passed. We used to hear stories of people that would fly to the moon in the belly of an eagle. But now, I realized that the 'belly of the eagle' is really what you would call a space shuttle. People in my world don't fly to the moon at all. They don't have cars and trains. They don't even have those wands that shoot metal pellets at people," Nadiera frowned.
"Oh, you mean guns," Hermione answered.
"What's a space shuttle?" Ron asked.
"I'll explain it to you later, Ron," Hermione promised. "What else don't you have?"
"The surface of the Earth has changed. Your continents have been fused together to form the world I lived in. The oceans are on one side of the world, and all the land is on the other. This must be due to the Breaking of the World that had occured three thousand years before my time. I had done some reading on the lost continent of Atlantis in your library here. I believe that the same thing happened to Atlantis that happened to the world during the Age of Legends, the age before my own. I have a theory."
"About Atlantis?" Hermione asked breathlessly. She was as hungry for knowledge as a starving man would be for food.
"I think that when Atlantis sunk into the sea, the First Age on the Wheel of Time came to an end. The Second Age is this one that you are in now. In a thousand or so years, the Age may come to an end. But this Age is surely the Age of Legends that I had learned about. It amazes me how little the books and the teachers really knew about this Age."
"So, each Age lasts a certain amount of years?" Hermione asked Nadiera.
Nadiera spooned some soup and pondered this for a moment. "I don't know. There are a lot of rumors flying around my world, that the Third Age was coming to an end. The Dark One is touching the world, my world, and his touch grows stronger with each day. If the Third Age ends in a couple of years, that will have made the Third Age last approximately three thousand years. A very short age. And the Third Age was one filled with wars and strife. Wars against minions of the Dark One, and wars of nations against each other." She shook her head sadly. "Maybe it is better that it ends. Peace would be a nice thing for all of us. We are so very weary, and the Dark One strikes out when we are at our weakest."
"Sounds like you ought to be glad you're out of there. None of us will be around in a thousand years, or four thousand years from now," Ron shrugged.
"Do you believe that you are reborn over and over again?" Nadiera asked him. "If you do, then you know how important it is to preserve the earth that you have, so that it will be a decent place in which to spend you next life, and the next life after that."
"Yeah, I hear you. You sound like Ginny, always talking about saving the trees and the dirty air that the Muggles keep making because of their cars," Ron complained.
"Well, Ginny's right!" Hermione told Ron.
"So, you believe in reincarnation?" Harry observed.
"Yes, all of the people of my world do. The Wheel of Time has seven spokes, each representing an Age. It will always turn, and each Age will always come, have it's time, and go. As this is true, so it is true that each person is tied to the Wheel, which spins its Pattern. Every person's soul, and each person's actions, and each person's destiny, is woven into the Pattern. I have to remind myself of that. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, we Aes Sedai like to say. I was brought to this place to do something. My knowledge of wielding the One Power has a use, and I need your help in order to make this happen."
"You might need Hermione's help, but not mine or Ron's," Harry frowned.
"That's not true, Harry. I happen to know you sent a letter to, the dog, telling him about a dream you had," Nadiera said to him.
"Oh, that dream. I didn't write everything about it, you know. Didn't know if it was something you wanted him to know about," Harry admitted. Hermione and Ron looked annoyed that their friend didn't tell them everything that had happened when Nadiera had first arrived, after all.
"He ripped me up one side and down the other anyway," Nadiera reported gruffly. "He was instigated enough, and why didn't he say anything about...his situation?"
"Well, you know about Sirius' time in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit! Who told you?" Harry asked.
"Actually, it was Snape," Nadiera answered.
"Oh, that's just great!" Harry frowned and rose from his seat. He paced around the room, muttering angrily. "No doubt Snape told you his version of the story, not the real truth. Sirius was set up; he never hurt anybody! You know, I shouldn't be the one to be telling you this. He should be coming here to explain this all to you."
"He hasn't come. No doubt, Snape, or even someone else, put it into his head to stay away from Hogwart's."
"Well, all I can say in his defense is that maybe he just wanted to have one person in his life who didn't know about his past. Maybe he felt he had a clean slate with you. But since you know the truth, I suppose I'd better send him an owl telling him that you know about his past. You won't go telling anybody, will you?" Harry pressed.
"No! I don't believe that he hurt anybody. But I don't want him to get captured by those Draghkars, I mean, Dementors because he was coming to check up on me! I just want to know that he is well..." Nadiera fretted.
"I think he's hiding at Lupin's for the time being. It's a good place for him to hide. The neighbors all think that he's Lupin's dog. He's probably okay, but you know, I worry that he'll start trying to look in on me, or now, you, and Snape might take advantage," Harry said.
"Snape will say nothing as long as Sirius is considered Dumbledore's ally. As much as I dislike the man, I must say that I can trust his loyalty to the headmaster."
"Really? Well, Snape is someone that I don't believe I can ever fully trust," Harry said, "Even if Dumbledore does trust him, and even if Lupin has started unintentionally worshipping the ground Snape walks on because of that potion he makes him! To me, he'll always be a slimy git!"
"I'm with you on this," Ron declared. "I think if Snape could find a way to bust Sirius Black without it looking like he had caused it to happen, he'd leap at the chance.""He so much as admitted that to me last week," Nadiera told them. "The real answer is to clear his name."
Harry shook his head sadly. "I don't dare hope that it could happen. I've given up," he told them.
Nadiera tucked the thought of clearing Sirius of murder into the back of her mind. Her list of missions was growing by leaps and bounds every day. More and more she was beginning to act like Blue Ajah, with their quests for justice. "All this doesn't change the fact that you can help me, Harry. Hermione, Minerva McGonagall and I have been starting a group of women and girls that might want to learn how they can channel, as I do. Minerva's catching on faster than I would have ever dreamed, and from what I've heard, I think you might want to try it as well. Would you meet us on Saturday night?"
"I'll be here," Hermione nodded eagerly.
"But you can't teach me how to do this channeling stuff, can you?" Harry argued.
"No, not the way Hermione and Minerva will be able to channel. But that doesn't mean that you and Ron both couldn't help in a different way. Tonight might be a good night to begin."
"Help? How? What are we helping with?" Ron asked. "Does Dumbledore know anything about all this?"
"Absolutely. In fact, he'll be meeting with us tonight as well. He was very excited to find out the use we could put you and Harry to for aiding our cause."
"When do we meet with him?"
"Later," Nadiera answered.
"Where? Here?" Harry asked.
"No, not precisely. We will come and get you. But the place where we will be meeting you is a place you can only get to if you are asleep," Nadiera explained.
"Huh?" the two boys gasped.
"It is called Tel'aran'rhiod, The World of Dreams," Nadiera explained. "It appears that Harry needs no aid to reach it. You, on the other hand, may require this. Let me get it out of my bag for you..." Nadiera said as she reached into her knapsack. She produced a black marble and handed it to Ron. "This is an object that uses the One Power, apparently, to help a person get into Tel'aran'rhiod. I tried it the other night for a few moments and it works as well as any ter'angreal in the White Tower. Professor Dumbledore had it in his collection of artifacts in his office. He told me that it dates back more than four thousand years, and that it was most likely used by Egyptians to enter what he called a 'lucid dream state.' He hadn't thought that there would be much used for it before I told him about what Aes Sedai have been able to do in Tel'aran'rhiod. Needless to say, now he knows the potential, and he has approved of me giving this to you..." Nadiera looked at Hermione, who looked like she was being left out of the adventure of a lifetime. "I could request another one be brought to the girls' dormitory this evening if you think you'd like to join us too, Hermione."
"You mean there's more than one?" Hermione asked excitedly.
"He has a whole bag of them. He said that they'd been sold to him as a bag of playing marbles that Egyptian Pharoahs used... Unbelievable, right?" Nadiera laughed.
"This sound like it could be cool. How come Harry doesn't need one?" Ron asked.
"From what I have seen, he was born with the Talent of Dreaming. He is focused only on Voldemort, from what I understand, but with guidance, he can be taught, as well as you two can, to go wherever you wish in Tel'aran'rhiod."
"My, my, look at the time," Harry declared, looking at his watch. "I still have Potions homework before going to bed."
"That'll be funny if Dumbledore finds you dreaming about dunking Professor Snape into some shrinking potion," Ron smirked. Hermione rolled her brown eyes and shook her head.
"Ah, what a sweet dream that would be..." Harry sighed.
"We will meet at midnight," Nadiera declared. "Until then, good night."