Episode Four

Part One

            Several days passed living at Hogwarts. Gwen was receiving high marks in all of her classes, the teachers were lauding her recent successes and even Hermione seemed impressed by her sudden turn around. Gwen of course understood that in the past she hadn't been the best of students.

            She was often daydreaming, off in some cloudy world of her own. It was funny to her because she was the same way in the real world. Always thinking about someplace else. Even now, in this great dream world where she could make magic happen she was wishing about home.

            All she really wanted was to chat with Chris about one thing or another. Maybe hang out with her pal Gabby. She didn't really have friends like that at Hogwarts. It wasn't that she didn't get along with anyone. It was more that they didn't share any of the same interests.

            Most of the other sixth year girls were too concerned with who said what and why they did what they did. Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson were so absorbed in Quidditch that there was no use trying to pull them into a discussion of something else. Gwen was looking for something deeper, someone who was more concerned with what was happening in the world around them.

            She could talk to Harry, sure. But he had so much on his mind, what with Voldemort rising again and all of the mysteries surrounding his past. Gwen didn't think it would be fair to boggle him with her own problems. And she still wasn't sure what was really going on.

            Hogwarts was so real when she was there. And yet the real world was so real too. She needed to find out what was happening and she wasn't sure whom to approach with the matter. Dumbledore might have an answer, but Gwen was too intimidated to approach him directly. More and more she just wanted the dream to end so she could get back to her life at college.

Part Two

            That night she had a dream. It was terrifying in it's clarity, and what startled her more is that it felt truer and realer than any other dream she'd had thus far. There she was, in her dream, sitting at her desk in Hogwarts when she walked into the room. She was dressed in her usual denim and some Tori Amos t-shirt with a matching bandanna covering her long hair. She stood in front of herself, staring.

            "What do you want?" Asked Hogwart's Gwen.

            "What do you want?" Asked College Gwen provocatively.

            "What do you mean?"

            "I mean, what do you want? It's a simple question."

            "No it's not. It's the hardest question ever asked."

            "For you maybe. But not for me."

            "But you are me." Hogwart's Gwen shouted, frustrated and just a little bit freaked out.

            "Exactly. And so if it's easy for me then it's easy for you. If you want it bad enough, you'll find that it's real." College Gwen turned on her heel and left the Hogwart's Gwen to think alone.

            The real Gwen woke with a start, still in the sixth year girls' dorm of Gryffindor, still confused as all get out. She put a hand on her feverish forehead and thought for the first time in this whole conundrum that perhaps she was going crazy.