Disclaimer: If the Harry Potter world were mine, I would have made Voldemort a porn star and Lucius Malfoy his faithful sidekick. I would also have shipped Ginny and Draco and killed off Harry. So be glad I don't own any of this.

Author's Notes: Yes, I've got Internet access again! I had to write my fanfiction with pen and paper… my hand hurts. Thank you all for the reviews – they are greatly appreciated! I'd like it if you kept giving feedback. :) See you at the bottom!

Between Two Worlds – Chapter Three

The room I was in looked a lot like the kitchen at home. There was a small table with four chairs – two on each side – just enough space in front of the stove for Mum to be able to cook without hitting anything, and Kyle was sitting at the table, swinging his legs. I was about to sigh happily and sit next to him, when my eye caught the kitchen window.

Instead of the long, boring street I lived in, there was a large mass of water, and behind it a humungous castle, its towers proudly sticking up into the sky. Surprised, I walked over. It looked like that castle, Hogwarts, were I was the other day. What was it doing here? I turned to Kyle.

"Do you see the castle?"

He scowled. "It's always been there, Heather. Of course I've seen it."

That moment my mother came bustling in, a cheerful smile on her face. "Hello dears! Oh, Heather, darling, help me with these groceries? I bought so much for Kyle's birthday I'd be surprised if it would all be eaten!"

I held out my arms to relieve my mother from her many bags when Emma suddenly came bouncing into the room. "Let me do it, Ma'am, Eleanor is so frail and she's been sick a lot lately… Here we go." She heaved everything out of Mum's arms and dumped it on the table. Kyle kept looking ahead, seemingly not bothered by the pile of groceries blocking his sight. His heels thumped against the bottom of his chair.

Confused, I looked at Emma. "What are you doing here?"

She laughed. "Don't be silly, El, you invited me to come back home with you! Look, you live in Hogsmeade now!" She pointed out of the window, where the view had changed from Hogwarts and its lake to the sweet shop. Emma giggled and shoved me. "Move over, I wanna see too."

Then I heard stumbling in the hallway and a split second later Laura burst in, her wand in her hand and her expression wild.

"War, war!" she yelled, waving her wand frantically. All the pans shot from their shelves and clattered onto the ground. "You have to hide, Eleanor!" she screamed. "There's a war, you're in danger! You have to help me!" The rest of her speech was cut off by the sound of firearms rattling outside.

Next to me, Emma started crying. I wildly turned around. Kyle was still staring ahead, and my mother was smiling serenely. They looked hypnotised, with those blank, unseeing eyes. Panicked, I fell down and hit my elbow on the table.

"Eleanor! Heather! Whatever I have to call you!"

I shot up in my bed, drenched in sweat. My bedclothes were damp and a few strands of my dark hair were plastered onto my forehead. I quickly wiped a few sweat drops from my face and turned to Laura, who had woken me.

"Hi," I panted, trying to banish the dream from my head. I also felt slightly disappointed – the night before I had kind of hoped to wake up in my own bed again.

"Good morning," Laura said gently. "Bad dream?"

"Quite," I muttered. I tried to fall into the cushions again, but hit my head on something hard. I turned onto my stomach to see what it was. Ah. A book. I frowned at the title. "The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts? You want me to read that?"

"The story about the war is a bit too long to tell," Laura said, sitting next to me. I noticed she was already dressed. "Just read the book, and if you have questions, I'm here." She pulled out a large book from the book bag she had with her and started to study it. When she noticed my questionable look, she smiled and said: "It's Transfiguration – turning solid objects into something else."

I blinked, sighed and opened the thick book on my pillow, deciding to worry about the subjects I would have another time.

The next two hours were spent in silence, which was only broken sometimes by the rustling of pages. The more I read, the more astonished I was becoming. When I had finished it, I shut it with a thud and voiced my thoughts.

"So a one-year-old defeated the Darkest wizard of the century, who had murdered hundreds of people? A baby did that?"

"Yes."

"And then this so-called You-Know-Who came back about a year ago?"

"Yes."

"Why won't they say his name in the book? Because I don't know who."

"Well…" Laura sighed and absently turned a page of her own book. "You see, people think that if you say his name, he'll pop up. We're afraid that if anyone says his name, he'll be summoned. We are afraid of him, of course. He was incredibly powerful in the days."

"And Harry Potter is here at school with us?"

"Yes. Emma fancies him."

I paused and looked down at the picture of a handsome boy with messy black hair and glasses. The caption above it said Harry Potter, Present. Next to it was a picture of a baby, grinning toothily into the camera. The title was Harry Potter, 1981. Both pictures moved, however slightly. I tapped on the picture of the baby with my fingers.

"Is he also in Humble – Hopper – in Hufflepuff?"

Laura giggled. "No, he's in Gryffindor. That's the House for brave people."

Surprised, I put the book away. There were actual differences in these Houses? "What do you mean, for brave people? How do they determine who is brave and who isn't? Do you get to choose your House? Or –" I frowned deeply, trying to find another explanation, "do you automatically become brave after you've been put in Gryff – Gruff – thing?"

Again, Laura giggled, apparently amused by my inability to remember and pronounce the House names. "No. At the beginning of each year, the first years are Sorted into their House by the Sorting Hat. It's a hat that can think for itself. It has been said that it was once the hat of Godric Gryffindor –"

"Ah!" I said, triumphant that I had managed to remember something. "He was one of the school's Founders!"

"Yeah, yeah," Laura said, grinning. "Anyway, the first years put it on their heads and it looks into their brains, to see which traits they have that fits what House the best."

"What does Hufferpuff have?" I asked.

"It's Hufflepuff!" Laura exclaimed, laughing. "Oh, really… Well, Hufflepuff is for the loyal and hardworking students. We're also people… people. We are pretty sociable. I guess you already found that out."

I nodded, wondering briefly if that description fit me. However, Laura continued summing up the House traits and I turned my attention to her again.

"Gryffindor is for the bold and the brave, so I say Harry Potter fits in there pretty well, considering he is fighting with Dark all the time. Then Ravenclaw is for smart people – they are the ones with the highest marks. And we have Slytherin, where the cunning and ambitious people breed." She pulled a face. "Many evil people were in Slytherin, it's the worst House. I'd never want to be in there."

I shrugged. "Ambition is a good personality trait."

"But being evil isn't," Laura said determined, sticking her nose in the air as if daring me to contradict her. "You just wait until you encounter a few of them – they're the worst kind of people you'll ever meet. Eleanor was – is Muggleborn, so you'll be getting a lot of dirty comments your way. Trust me, they're horrible."

"All right, all right," I mumbled, slipping out of bed. "Can I get a shower?"

"Yes, of course," Laura said, jumping off the bed as well and walking over to the closet beside the bathroom door. She pulled out a fluffy yellow towel and handed it to me. "There you go. The water will be just the right temperature so don't worry about that. I'll wait for you here and then we will go down for lunch – you slept right through breakfast."

After I had cleaned myself – the water had indeed been exactly right – we walked upwards to the Great Hall. I shivered a little in the cold corridors, trying to press the robes closer to my body. "Where in Britain are we, anyway?" I whispered into Laura's ear as we passed a group of students with the same patch on their robes as we had.

"Scotland," Laura muttered back. Aha, I thought. That would explain the cold. It didn't quite explain how I had gotten from my little house in Londen to a large castle in Scotland, however.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened at breakfast, except for a silvery figure suddenly sitting exactly opposite of me, causing me to have a slight panic attack and spitting pumpkin juice right through it. The ghost – which appeared to be a friar – took it fairly well, jovially saying he tended to scare people out of their skins every once and a while. He set off chuckling, as opposed to the older girl who had also gotten my pumpkin juice on her robes. She shot me a filthy look as she took out her wand and just as suddenly made the drops of moisture disappear.

Laura took me outside after breakfast. She pointed out a giant squid in the lake, which, very originally, was called the Giant Squid. She showed me the supposed Whomping Willow, which beat anyone who came near it. She pointed at a Professor who was lumbering around the ground just like we were, a huge man named Hagrid. He returned Laura's cheerful hello before sauntering into the dark and thick forest at the edge of the school grounds, a great dog running after him.

"He teaches Care of Magical Creatures," Laura said to me as the darkness of the forest swallowed him. "He's really very nice, but his lessons are horrible. He likes monsters, he thinks they're something like puppies."

I shuddered. "What monsters might that be?"

"You don't want to know," Laura muttered. "You don't have the subject anyway… Eleanor chose Muggle Studies and Divination as new subjects this year."

"And what would that be?" I asked as we strolled back towards the castle.

"Muggle Studies is the study of non-magical people," Laura answered, throwing me a meaningful glance. "You shouldn't have any trouble with it, as you technically are one yourself."

"What do they study? I mean, what kind of questions are asked?"

"Oh, all kinds of stuff," Laura said, shrugging. "Why do Muggles use electricity, what is their substitute for a quill, blah, blah… I wondered why Eleanor chose it end last year; she's Muggleborn herself!"

My heart had lifted at the mention of electricity. Dad liked to tinker with computers at home and often let me look over his shoulder – that subject would be easy. But as we stepped over the threshold and walked through a long corridor, I wondered one little thing, eyeing the candles on the walls.

"Why don't they use electricity here?"

"It doesn't work," Laura replied simply. "There's too much magic in the atmosphere. Electronic devices go absolutely nuts. My mother's a Muggle, and she didn't understand why I couldn't bring my brand new CD player." She sniggered. "She wondered how I was going to develop my taste in music."

"How do you listen to music, then?"

"Nina has a little radio that plays any song you like, you just have to tell it. And we can listen to the Wizarding Wireless on it, too."

We had reached the common room entrance, and as soon as Laura uttered the password we climbed in and went to sit by the fireplace. I curled into a little ball in the big and lumpy chair I was sitting in, enjoying the warmth of the fire.

Later that afternoon Emma and Nina joined us. The latter challenged me to a game of chess. I was a terrible chess player, but I accepted anyway. Nina led me over to the other side of the common room, where a chessboard was located.

"You can play with the white pieces," Nina said, sinking into the chair behind the black chess pieces. For some reason, I had expected the little figures on the board to be yellow and black just like everything around here, and the thought made the corners of my mouth quirk a bit.

"What are you laughing about?" Nina asked. "Never mind – make your move."

I stretched out my hand and moved one of the pawns forward. I heard Nina chuckle and I quickly searched the board. I had just made the first move – had I already done something wrong?

"Pawn to E5."

My eyes widened as one of Nina's pawns – the one she ordered – moved towards my own pawn, hit it on the head, and dragged it off the board before resuming its place. I slowly raised my head to lock gazes with Nina. She smiled.

"Are your Muggle instincts coming up again, Eleanor? You can order the pieces, remember?"

"I –" Goodness, it seemed like everything was magic in here. "I forgot."

Nina was still smiling. "It's your move."

I lost spectacularly, not being able to get used to talking to the chess pieces. I sometimes accidentally addressed the wrong piece, or ordered one to do a move it couldn't, like telling one of my knights to move diagonally. That would cause it to turn around and yell at me, confusing me even more. In about twenty minutes, I had been checkmated.

"Oh, stop laughing," I said to Nina, who was laughing so hard she had slipped half out of her chair. "People are staring."

Indeed, several people in the room had turned their heads to see where all the laughter was coming from. A tall boy behind me good-naturally patted my shoulder as the chess pieces re-aligned themselves.

"No worries, you'll beat her next time. That's what I always tell myself."

"Yeah, and you still haven't won in six years," one of his friends snickered.

I held my tongue – those older boys were rather intimidating to a thirteen-year-old. Or maybe it was just me. I stood up and took after Nina, Emma and Laura, who had gone to the dormitory. I was hopeful to get some sleep this time and not to have strange dreams about my two worlds clashing.

The next morning I was having much trouble getting my robes on, even though it would be the third day I would be wearing them. They weren't that comfortable either, and I still felt like I was getting dressed up for a school play. Laura helped me put them right before we strolled up to breakfast.

When in the Great Hall I could barely eat, my mind only on the lessons. Why hadn't I asked Laura about this earlier so I could have prepared? My hand awkwardly grabbed my wand as we headed for our first lesson, Charms. The wood was smooth under my fingers, but the thought of having a magic object in my pocket was so foreign I couldn't really feel it.

As we entered the classroom and took our seats – Laura motioned for me to sit next to her – I thought at first there was no teacher yet. However, everyone obediently turned their attention to the front of the classroom, where to my surprise a very small man was climbing onto a stack of books.

"That's Professor Flitwick over there," Laura whispered into my ear. Yet, despite her quietness, the blond boy in front of us heard and turned around.

"Honestly Laura, he's been teaching us for more than two years now, we know who he is."

"Oh, shut up, Kevin," Laura snapped, swatting at him.

A squeaky little voice made way to my ears. "If Mr Whitby would like to tear his attention away from Miss Madley –" a few students laughed "– we will start today's lesson." Professor Flitwick coughed and then continued in that squeaky voice of his. "It will be a practical lesson, so please take your wands out. Turn your book to page sixty-six and after reading the tips about colouring inanimate objects, you may begin practicing." He swung around with his own wand and suddenly a little wooden block appeared on each desk.

After rummaging through my book bag and finally finding the appropriate text, I tried to decipher what exactly they meant by 'focusing your mind on change, much like when managing Cooking Charms". Having never had Cooking Charms, I had no idea what to do.

"Just focus," Laura muttered, frowning deeply while staring at her own wooden block. "You want it to change colour – pink, let's take pink. Focus on pink – you need to see your block turning pink. Got it? All right – Fuco."

I had been concentrating so hard I had squeezed my eyes shut, but when I had mumbled the spell like Laura had told me to I expectantly opened them.

Sadly, my block was the same colour it had been before – light brown. It only made me feel slightly better to see Laura didn't manage anything either. I didn't want to admit it, but I had sort of hoped I had become a very powerful witch when entering this body.

After about fifteen minutes, I heard a loud shout of joy in front of us. Swiftly looking over, I noticed that the block of the boy named Kevin had changed to black. The little Professor hurriedly came scuttling over.

"Very good, Mr Whitby! Was black the colour you were aiming for?"

"Well," the boy said indulgently, "I was actually going for dark blue, but I'm glad it changed colour anyway."

The Professor smiled widely and advised Kevin to jab more than flick with his wand. I nervously tried jabbing at my own little block when Flitwick came over, but the stupid thing just wouldn't budge. I became even more frustrated when I saw Laura's was a very pale pink.

"Very good, Miss Madley, very good," he told Laura, who flushed with pride. "A little more concentration and you will be fine."

When he looked at my own attempts, I panicked even more and jabbed the block so sharply it fell off the table. My face burning, I retrieved it. There was a small dent on the spot where my wand had poked it. On my second try, my wand only emitted sparks, like the first time I had grabbed it from Eleanor's nightstand.

Professor Flitwick reached up to pat my shoulder like one of the older Hufflepuffs had done the previous evening. "Go on, Miss Branstone, go on. Don't try to force it – the magic will flow out if you let it." With a wide grin, he moved onward to the next student.

I'm not Miss Branstone! I wanted to scream, but kept silent through the whole period, feeling the tears burn behind my eyes. I would not cry in front of the whole class. I would not show I was upset, even though I was.

As soon as I heard the bell I chucked my book into my bag, hiding my face and tears behind a sheet of dark hair. I had to wipe my sleeve across my eyes before following my classmates out, but kept looking at the ground. I felt dumb. I couldn't do magic. I could let my wand spew sparkles, wow. How utterly amazing. Maybe Eleanor was normally very good in Charms and I had everyone wondering what was wrong. Poor Eleanor, I was letting her school results go to the dogs.

With my shoulders slumped I walked behind my classmates to Defence against the Dark Arts. I was apparently sitting next to Emma in that class as she practically pulled me into the chair next to her.

"What's wrong?" she asked anxiously when she saw my face. "El, what happened?"

"Nothing," I mumbled, taking out the next book and placing it on my desk. "I just – I didn't – my spell went a bit wrong."

Emma bit her lip and rubbed my back a bit, but before I could relax entirely she pulled her hand away as fast as lightning and turn to face the front of the class. Finding myself bewildered yet again, I looked up to see an adult standing in front of the students. He had greasy black hair and a big hooked nose and he was sneering disdainfully at us. I felt myself shrinking back into my chair under his gaze.

He lazily swished his wand through the air and suddenly the air was full of parchment. Several pieces whipped across my right ear. It all fell neatly onto his desk. He put his wand back in his pocket and fixed each of the students with an unpleasant stare before talking. During the whole process, not one of the students had said a word. I uneasily shifted in my chair when he looked me in the eye.

"Books out on page one hundred eighty-four," he said softly. I felt a horrid shiver go up my spine as he spoke. God, this man was creepy. I tried to be completely silent while I leafed through the pages of my book, looking for the correct one. Even Emma was sitting perfectly still next to me, almost like a statue. I didn't know Emma terribly well as I had only known her for the weekend, but I did know she was not quiet. My hands trembled slightly as the man opened his mouth to speak again.

"Our subject of this week will be… ah, miss Madley, why don't you read the page out loud for us?" His upper lip curled as Laura began to read, her voice quivering.

I could feel my heart beating in all sorts of unnatural places. This man was scary – he wasn't supposed to teach. How were we supposed to learn anything if he liked frightening us to death all the time? From what I could see as I looked around, Laura's voice wavering through the classroom in perhaps a higher tone than normal, I could only see terrified faces, staring at their books as if they didn't dare miss a word.

"Miss Branstone apparently thinks she is above such trivial things as paying attention."

My head whirled around to become face-to-face with the teacher, who had walked towards my desk when I had been turned around, observing my classmates. He slammed his hand on my book, making me jump a little in my seat.

"Perhaps you would prefer learning this information by writing a fifty inch essay on it? Or maybe you would rather have me teach it to you in detention, this evening at five?" His dark eyes glittered maliciously as he said that, his greasy hair falling limply down his face.

"No sir," I whispered, clenching my hands in my lap. You're ugly, I thought when he stood up, glaring at me down his big hooked nose. You're ugly and you're horrible to your students.

"Be careful, Miss Branstone," he spoke up again. "Your thoughts aren't as private as you might think they are." I cringed, not daring to look up and see those eyes again. They reminded me of dark and long tunnels with no end. What did he mean with 'your thoughts aren't as private as you think they are'? Could he read my mind? The thought was unsettling.

I suddenly saw a pale hand with long fingers reach out for my book and turn it to the right page with a swish.

"Read. Line nineteen." When I didn't reply, out of fear that I would burst into tears, he added: "It appears that Miss Branstone is so disabled she has entirely lost her ability to read."

I bit down hard onto my lip. I wouldn't let him get to me. But the first tear was already making its way down my cheek and soon more followed. I quickly brought my hand up to wipe them away, but the teacher had already seen them.

"Mr Whitby, then," he said in a bored voice. "I expect you are capable of comprehending the text that has been written?"

At the end of the class I put my book back into my bag and stormed out, hiding my face from the teacher by letting a curtain of my hair shield it off. I wanted to get away, away from all this madness and all this magic. I ran downstairs, very nearly tripping over my own feet, all the way to the common room, barely remembering the password. I descended the ladder and made my way to the dormitory, hot tears still spilling down my cheeks.

Before I could reach the dormitory, however, I slammed right into someone else who was in a hurry. I cried out as I landed on top of my book bag and the sharp edge of a book was pushed against my thigh.

"Oh, I'm so sorry – did I hurt you?"

I sniffled and picked up my bag, keeping my gaze down. "No, I'm all right, I'm really, really all right, everything's fine."

The girl I had bumped into grabbed my shoulder while I kept babbling on. "No, you aren't. You're in third year, aren't you? I'm Susan, Susan Bones. I'm a prefect in this House. If anything is wrong with you, I can help you."

"My stomach hurts," I lied quickly, as I usually said when I was upset. "I was in class and it just kept getting worse and –" The image of the greasy-haired man sprung in my mind's eye again and I had to wipe some tears from my face. Susan patted me on my shoulder.

"I'll take you to the hospital wing, all right?"

I nodded and let her take me by the hand. I was led upstairs again, we were walking though some doors, stumbling up another flight of stairs, and finally we entered a room with a lot of beds and curtains. A woman with greying hair came bustling towards me and asked Susan what was wrong, as I was still sniffling a little. I heard Susan answering in a low whisper and the nurse reply with an "Ah".

"Goodbye," Susan said, kindly putting her hand on my shoulder again. "I'll see you around."

With much effort, I managed to lift my head and offered her a smile. I was suddenly incredibly tired. Those beds looked rather inviting. Susan smiled back and walked out.

"Lie down, lie down," the nurse said, leading me over to an unoccupied bed. "Girls your age get stomach aches all the time, it's perfectly normal. Do you feel tired too?" When I nodded again, she bobbed her head up and down as well, briskly taking a vial out of her pocket. "Drink this and have a rest. When you wake up, you can join your friends just in time for dinner."

Laura, I thought. She didn't know where I was. Maybe she was just glad I was off her hands for a while. She was probably having fun with the rest of them, without having to worry over me doing something stupid.

Don't think like that, I told myself. She's probably worried sick. "Madam?" I called out softly, not knowing what her name was. The nurse, who had been fiddling with some bottles on a shelf, hurried towards me again.

"Go on, drink up. It'll help you."

"Yes, but Madam, would you like to tell my classmates I'm here? They don't know."

"Hm," she said, looking on the clock above the door that said eleven. "I'll make sure they know, Miss Branstone. Now drink that potion and get some sleep."

I obeyed, drinking it all in one gulp. Slumping back into the cushions after putting the vial on my bedside table, I was finally able to relax. I heaved a deep sigh and turned over. Sleep settled on me like a warm blanket, washing all my worries away – if only for a moment.

---

Author's Notes: Yes, I know Hannah Abbott was Hufflepuff prefect, but as her mother got killed and she left Hogwarts, I think they had to appoint a new female prefect, and that's Susan. Also… Snape's character… so hard… to nail… Please tell me I haven't totally raped his character. And before you go on again – please review. Thanks.