Audrey and her grandma returned from their trip to Diagon Alley. "That was great," Audrey said.
"I'm so glad you enjoyed yourself. Audrey besides getting you an owl I also got you a rulebook about what underage wizards can and cannot do. The biggest rule is than underage wizards and witches cannot do magic outside of school!"
"What!" Audrey said in disbelief. "In America, we could do magic whenever we wanted!"
"Don't look so shocked, Audrey," her grandma snapped. "Here we have much more strict rules than in lax America. You'll have to live with it."
Audrey sighed, "My mother warned me about this. I better start to pack my stuff up for when I go to Hogwarts. See ya tomorrow." Audrey dashed upstairs.
"Audrey," her grandma called up to her, "Don't forget we're leaving for Hogwarts on Monday!"
Audrey's head looked down from the top of the stairs. "I thought I was leaving a week before school starts!"
"I know, but I got an owl this morning saying they wanted more time to test your knowledge. That's probably because you're coming from the worst school in the world."
"Oh, I see," Audrey said. "They think I'm stupid. Well, I'll show them." She turned and ran to her room, grabbing all her old school books and starting to study.
Lucius Malfoy stormed into the Minister of Magic's office. Cornelius Fudge looked up from a paper he was signing and said, "What is it now, Lucius?"
Lucius shouted, "How could you approve to let an American student come to Hogwarts? For Pete's sake, she went to Bogars. She'll be a disgrace. She—"
"Lucius, don't you think I took that into consideration. She'll be taking tests to see how much she knows. Besides Dumbledore was willing to give her a chance. From what I've learned, her parents are going through financial difficulties. Margaret Hadley as you know went to Hogwarts so she thought the Ministry might agree to allow her daughter to go there as well. Her daughter has a good record and next week she is going to Hogwarts to take some tests."
Lucius snapped, "Still it is wrong. How do you know that she's not a follower of You-Know-Who?!"
"There is no reason why she should be. She's only sixteen years old! And you know how naive wizards are in the U.S. They've probably never even heard of You-Know-Who." Fudge started to look irritated. "Now I have a lot of work to do so please leave." Fudge turned back to signing papers.
"Lucius said, "You're making a mistake!" Then, he turned and stalked out of the room.
While Lucius was pleading his case to Fudge, Audrey was sitting on her bed studying. She had just gotten through Standard Book of Spells II. She groaned thinking about how many more books she still had to go through.
Monday came much too quickly for Audrey. She had just gotten her studying done in time.
At eleven her grandma called up and asked if she was ready to go. Audrey thought, 'As ready as I'll ever be.' She trudged downstairs dragging the stuff she would need for school. Her and her grandma loaded her trunks in the car and hopped in.
On the way, her grandma said, "I'm just going to drop you off and leave. You'll be sorted and then the testing starts. When the testing is completed you'll have the whole castle to explore. You won't be the only one there because the house-elves are going to be getting the castle ready, the caretaker, Mr. Filch, and also the teachers will be there."
"But, Grandma," Audrey said sounding distressed. "I thought you were going to stay with me."
"Sorry, but I can't...You see, I'm starting work tomorrow."
After that statement, the car fell silent for a couple hours. At three in the afternoon, Audrey sighed and asked, "Are we there yet?"
"See that gate up ahead?"
Audrey nodded.
"That's the boundary into Hogwarts." The gate opened as the car neared. Audrey peered pass through the gate and in the distance spotted a castle. On the right, she spotted a huge lake and a forest beyond. Near the edge of the forest, she spotted a small cabin. She figured it was the gamekeeper's cabin. She also spotted a knarled, old tree nearer to the castle. To her it looked like a real dreary place.
Before she knew it, the car stopped right outside the doors. "Ok. I'll see you next summer."
Audrey turned around to get her bags and found they weren't there! Her grandma saw where she was looking and said, "There already inside."
Audrey climbed out of the car feeling totally unappreciated. She walked up the stone steps to the large oak doors. Cautiously, she opened the door and walked inside.
The first thing she saw was a house elf. The elf looked at her and dashed to another elf and whispered something and then that elf went to another and so on. Audrey then looked at the hall a little more closely. She guessed that it looked so plain because they were cleaning before school started.
She came to the end of the hall and turned right. As she came around the corner she ran into something solid. Audrey staggered back and looked up into the face of Severus Snape.
(A/N: The encounter with Snape is next! I hope you've enjoyed it so far!)