Episode Two

            Gwen woke rather irritably. She wiped the crust from her eyes, yawned loudly and stretched, only to bang her hand on the canopy over her bed. She blinked. She didn't have a canopy on her dorm room bed. Was she really awake?

            The light entering the room was pale, streaming in between slits of the thick maroon curtains hung by the tall windows. She knew this place, but she only knew it from her dream. She was laying in the girl's dormitory for sixth year Gryffindor students.

            There was a tight constricting panic forming in her chest. While the dream was nice and fun, she really did have a life in the outside world she needed to get back to. What if she never woke up from this dream? What if she was lying in a coma in her room and no one thought to check in on her? She didn't know the full scheme of what was happening to her, the mechanics of this other dimension.

            She knew that she could survive here if need be, but she wasn't sure that's what she wanted. This world was almost scarier than the real one in which she'd lived for 23 years. That was the other thing. Being at Hogwarts had turned back the clock. She was now 16 years old, with 7 years of her life to do over. Maybe this wasn't such a bad thing.

            She had powers; she had a wand. She had an entire history in this world that didn't exist in the other which was just as interesting, if not more so and oddly enough paralleled her real world existence. And then an impossible idea struck her.

            What if this was the real world? What if everything before was the dream? She'd always felt a certain un-reality to the world, a sort of farcical feeling she couldn't shake. It was as if the world was a parody for something far deeper lying underneath. There was a truth beneath that artificial surface, fierce and glaring, waiting for someone to trip over it. Maybe she finally did.

            She roused herself, knowing it was far too early to be awake and busied about getting ready for the day. She ventured into the common room to find that Hermione had once again fallen asleep in her books at the great desk in the corner. She tiptoed around so as not to wake her and found her way to a giant chair before the fire to ponder her new predicament.

            Lucille leaped lovingly to her lap, purring quietly that she was glad Gwen was up. Sometimes the common room became a haven for all of their strange pets. Most of the owls stayed in the Owlery, but the cats and rats and other such creatures slinked around waiting for one of the Weasley twins to feed them scraps they'd stolen from the house elves or trying to find someone to stroke them or scratch behind their ears.

            Gwen smiled at the thought of Harry rubbing Lucille's belly the day before. He was so gentle with her, as if he knew exactly what she wanted. Lucille was one of those carefree cats that didn't really care who touched her, but she had an obvious preference for her mistress and lately Harry.

            Gwen thought that strange. Why all of a sudden would her cat by so smitten with Mr. Potter? It seemed like the more questions she answered in her head, the more her head asked in return. She rubbed her eyes, it really was too early to be awake and she didn't feel like stealing away to the kitchens and getting caught by Filch.

            Instead, she lay her head on the arm of the comfy chair and fell back into an easy slumber.