Disclaimer: When I own Harry Potter, I will also rule the world. Don't really see that happening anytime soon.

"Hello, and welcome to the Ministry of Magic for America! ¡Hola, y bienvenidos al Ministerio de la Magia para América! Bonjour, et accueillir au Ministère de Magie pour Amérique! I am your automated Magical Guide for today! ¡Soy su Guía Mágica automatizada para hoy! Je suis…"

"Silencio."

A tall Asian girl with neon green hair that had odd mauve streaks scowled at the Guide thingy.

"Damn Aubrey for bringing these in, can't we just have a freaking person at the entrance? Maybe I'll petition, I bet all of the Department for Quidditch and Quodpot would support me…." She muttered darkly, continuing for some time until she noticed me.

"Hey, are you Katie Bell?"

I was still getting over the shock of her hair.

"Um, yeah, I guess so."

She looked at me rather quizzically.

"I'm Rachel, Rachel Chou. Nice to meet you. Sorry about the Guide thing, Aubrey Wishelfing brought them in, and he's completely crazy, even if he is head of the Auror Office. Do you have bits of food in your hair or did you streak it beige?"

I reached up to touch my hair. Damn. I thought I had gotten all of the potato out.

"The potato in my microwave exploded last night, and my shower had bad water pressure." I said.

I reached up again, attempting to brush out the potato.

"Okay well, I have to go, I was just supposed to meet you and turn you over to Tasha, Julsie and Mika."

Rachel motioned to a group of girls chatting over in the corner of the lobby. They were standing around a statue that looked like it was made by a giant sized kindergartener. It was a lump of what looked like rainbow clay. Hmm. Interesting people, these Americans.

"Anyway, they're not that dangerous, but don't get Julsie started on math. See you around I guess."

Rachel walked away, and I made my way over to the group of girls.

"…anyway Jules, you need to tell Ben to get a haircut. He has more hair than me, I bet. Just tie him up and attack him with scissors, it can't be that hard…"

And I was supposed to work with these people?

"Tasha, you are such a hypocrite. How you looked at your boyfriend's head recently?"

All three of them started laughing, and I started to get a tiny bit homesick. That could be me, Ange and Alicia, laughing over something Fred and George did.

God, I miss my friends. I need to write to them. I just told Alicia that I was going to the US, and I guess she told everyone, but still. And my family...

I have two brothers and one sister. My brother Aidan is four years older, my sister Aislinn is ten as of January 21, and my brother Edward is four. He was born in my sixth year and I didn't know he had been born until I came home for summer holidays, because the owl was screened by the Evil Toad a.k.a Dolores Umbridge and I never got it, though according to Mum there was absolutely nothing in it that could be considered offensive. But when I asked Aidan about it, he said he had scribbled something on the bottom without Mum's knowledge. I kind of prefer Aislinn to him sometimes, even if she's obsessed with dolls and stuffed animals. She is ten, after all.

The only girl who hadn't said something, the blondish one, turned around to face me and said, "Hey, are you Katie Bell?"

"Yeah. Are you three Tasha, Julsie and Mika?"

"I'm Mika," said the blondish one. I noticed she was wearing clogs, which made her an inch or so taller than what looked like her 5"5' height.

"I'm Tasha," said the reeeally tall girl who, I noticed, was wearing all black to match her hair. Even her flip-flops were black, although they had a small green stone on them. "Our lovely petite redheaded friend over there is Julsie, also known as Jules or, if you're willing to possibly get jinxed, Juli."

This girl's hair wasn't flaming red like all of the Weasley; there were streaks of gold in there too. She was pretty short, and she wasn't wearing high shoes like I would have if I was an inch over five feet.

"Anyway, we're to show you around," said Mika. "We have also been told by the head of the Auror office, a lovely man by the name of Aubrey Wishelfing, to take you out for lunch unless you with to forgo our company." At this she gave a dramatic sniff.

"Isn't he the person who put those Magical Guide's in the entrance?" I said

"Yeah, that was him." said Julsie. "I think Rachel's trying to get them out, but she's not an Auror or trying to be one like we are, she's part of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, just like the British Ministry has one. Our Department arrangement is pretty much the same, but instead of the Department of Magical Games and Sports we have Department for Quidditch and Quodpot, and then we have Department for Magical Games, and mostly what the people do there is organize nationwide Gobstones tournaments, or the national magical chess competition. I came in fourth last year, not that I'm trying to show off or anything-"here she broke off, her face a bright red.

"Okay," I said, trying to process this information. "That sounds fine, and I guess I'll go out to lunch with you if you want."

"Great," said Mika. "Okay, so we're supposed to take you to Aubrey Wishelfing, then Tasha'll take you on a tour if you want, and then it's lunch, then you are to report to room 417 on the fourth floor for training in Patronuses. If you can do one, that's great, but you'd be surprised on the amount of people who can't. I couldn't do one until last year; I just got loads of silver mist."

As she was talking we were walking along a hall then climbing up stairs until we stopped in front of a door bearing the words Aubrey Wishelfing, Head of the Office of Aurors.

Tasha looked at me. "He's kind of stuck up; but you'll be fine, so go on, " she said, prodding me in the back with her wand. I knocked on the door, it opened, and I went in.

Aubrey Wishelfing looked down at me as I entered. He was short, thin, and sticklike, with thinning gray hair and watery blue eyes. His nose was long and pointy, and his mouth was thin and wide. He did, however, have very bushy eyebrows.

"Welcome to the Ministry," he said warmly. The impression I had gotten was that he was kind of cold towards people, but maybe he was just annoying, from the way Rachel, Tasha, Mika and Julsie had talked about him.

"I hope you'll have a pleasant time. Now according to this letter from Ms. Nymphadora Tonks, you have completed 1 and ½ years of Auror training, am I correct?"

I said that he was.

"Well, you are to continue training with us for another year and a half, then you are required to work with the Ministry here for a year, and when that time is up you may return to Britain. You have three weeks of the summer off, as well as a week off in the winter for Christmas, Hanukah, or whatever other holiday you celebrate then. You also have a week off in the spring for Easter, Passover or any other holiday which falls over that week. When you are sick the Magical Hospital or MH as I understand it is abbreviated by wizards and witches, is on the seventh to twelfth floors of the Ministry. If you have any questions you may ask me, and once again, I hope you will have a pleasant time with us. "

I walked out. Tasha was waiting for me outside the door.

"Was he a freak to you?" she demanded

"No," I said. "He just seemed a bit like the robots in the atrium, and he was very exact."

"Yeah, he can be like that. It's hard to get him to loosen up, you'd have to work her for like twenty years. Jules and Mika went off to training, but you and I have the morning free. Ready for your tour?"

"Affirmative, captain." I said.

As we walked around I noticed that the Americans were much more, well, loose about decorations and order. I mean, the British Ministry is kind of messy, but here there were notices about poetry reading in Litera Alley, which I suppose was like Diagon Alley, or plays at the Magick House, which seemed to be located in Litera Alley. There also were posters about concerts, movie posters, (I'm part muggle, so I do know quite a lot about muggle stuff, unlike a fair amount of the wizarding population) and just stuff tacked up all over. Suddenly I felt sick.

"Um, Tasha?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's the loo?"

She pointed to the left,

"There's one right there. Tap the wall with your wand twice."

"Thanks," I said weakly, and ran into a cubicle. I promptly rid myself of my breakfast, which had been toast, scrambled eggs and chocolate milk.

When I came out, Tasha was looking at me concernedly.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "If you're sick I can take you to the MH, and they can give you a potion for the nausea.

"A potion can't fix this," I said as I flushed the toilet.

"Why not?" asked Tasha. "Could some sort of spell?"

"No, not a spell either." I said. "I'm pregnant."

"How?" she asked. "Does Aubrey know?"

"I'll tell you at lunch," I said. I felt comfortable around her, enough so that I could tell her things like this, even though I barely knew Tasha. She reminded me in a way like Ginny Weasley, who I knew from Quidditch in my seventh year.

"But yeah, he knows. It was in the letter Tonks sent him."

…………………………………………………………………………………………...

Lunch

"Where do you want to go to lunch?" asked Tasha. "Julsie can't come, she has some meeting with the Department of Magical Studies, but Mika should be here-" Mika can walking up- "-now" finished Tasha.

"I don't know," I said. "But is there somewhere we can pizza?"

"On 20th street, there's that place, Giorgio's, I think?" Said Mika. "Me an Nora, my sister, went there last week for her birthday."

Tasha shrugged. "Fine with me," she said. "Katie?"

"Great, let's go!"

When we got to the pizza place, I noticed that there were bottles of hot sauce and also ketchup on a counter. Mika had gotten three slices of pizza, and I suddenly had a craving to put both the hot sauce and the ketchup on my pizza. As I did, I remembered my dreams and the Divination book and laughed. It had been oddly right.

Tasha grinned when she saw me with the hot sauce and ketchup.

"Pregnancy cravings?" she asked

"I guess. I had a craving for olive, pickle and mustard sandwiches yesterday too. And the weirdest thing is that they taste good to me."

Tasha raised an eyebrow. "I hate mustard."

I grinned back at her. "I usually do, but right now I'm eating pizza with ketchup and hot sauce, I hardly think that's considered normal by people on the street."

She looked at me. "This is New York. You'd be surprised."

Mika came over, her pizza covered in garlic salt. I find garlic salt disgusting, and so does almost everyone I know. I said this to her, and she responded that hot sauce is worse.

"Anyway," Tasha said. "You said you were going to tell me. I told Mika, if that's okay, because I didn't want her totally confused by your explanation."

I took a deep breath.

"Okay," I said. "A couple of months ago my friend Alicia and I got really, really drunk. I then woke up in someone else's bed. It wasn't a complete stranger, I actually knew him. We both apologized later; I went out to lunch with him once, not as a date. A week or so after, Tonks tells me about the transfer. I accept, two months later, when I hear that I'm pregnant. No, I didn't transfer because of that; I had been seriously considering transferring when I heard. And well, here I am, eating pizza with hot sauce and ketchup." I finished.

I expected them to ask me how I could be so stupid, or something like that. Neither of them did. We just sat there, in a kind of mute acceptance.

A/N: I'm using feet and inches for measurements, not meters and such because that confuses me. I have all of my chapters planned out, and chapters three and four pretty much written. To the reviewers:

engl3611: I have a tendency to switch tenses, I'm trying to correct that, sorry if that confused you. About the dialogue, you don't really have any dialogue with Katie and Alicia, BUT in book 3 when Oliver talks about Cedric Diggory they are giggling.

Lia06: Thanks. Tomatoes rule.