"Miss Hebert," the man called out.

I stopped, my hand gripping the darkness powder in my pouch tightly. Running would have been a better option, but until I knew how they were tracking me it might be useless. The fact that he knew my real, original name which there was no way he should known was more than a little concerning.

No one should know me by that name; no one in this world. As far as I could tell, the girl whose body I was wearing was named Millie Scribner.

Had Cauldron sent someone for me?

That didn't seem likely. In the last minutes of the battle against Scion I had used up the Doormaker's powers, and Cauldron no longer had the ability to simply open doorways to other worlds. They didn't seem like the kind of people who would care much about me anyway; their leader had shot me twice in the back of the head.

This was a member of the Wizarding community, and he should not know my name.

All sixteen of the wasps and bees I had collected flew out from behind me and circled around. I needed to keep him talking for long enough to get them into position. They wouldn't do a lot of damage, unless I was luck and he had an allergy, but they'd distract him long enough for me to use the darkness powder and the tripping marbles.

It might be enough for me to get away. We were out in the open, but there were a dozen different escape routes I could use. I'd mapped them out in my head when I'd found this place. The last thing I'd wanted to do was to be trapped inside a culvert when the people who were trying to kill me came back.

"I'm not sure I know anybody by that name," I said cautiously. "Why do you want to see her?"

He stood at stared at me. There was something about the look in his eye that I didn't like.

"I am the professor of an exclusive school, one which she has been invited to," he said. "May I have your name?"

"My mother always told me not to talk to strangers," I said.

"And yet here you are," he said.

There was something about the way he spoke; it was very precise.

I'd read a little on the bus back; from what little I knew, wizards used their wands to create any number of powers. They were like mini-Eidolons, able to create and maintain any power at all. Unlike him, they weren't able to do just anything, only abilities that they had been trained to do.

The important thing that I'd gathered from it was that they needed their wands to do just about anything.

The man had a wand in his hand, and I had to treat it like it was a loaded weapon. There were two different options for me... stay as far away as possible so that it was harder for him to aim, or close in and try to get it from him.

I couldn't tell what kind of martial arts training he might have had; it was possible that he might not have had any. People tended to be lazy, and if they had a certain power they tended to rely on it overly much.

It was only people who had sub-par abilities like I'd once had who were forced to work harder. Bug control hadn't even ranked on the scale of super hero and villain abilities, but I'd made it terrifying.

My reputation alone had been enough to get me out of some scrapes. I no longer had that, and I was going to have to work with my wits.

We'd both been silent, staring at each other for a moment.

"You are an annoying child," he said.

"I've been told that," I admitted. "More than once. I'd be happy to give that letter to her."

I stepped forward, my eyes never leaving the wand he had in his hand. If he lifted it I'd dodge to the right and lunge forward, depending on my bugs to distract him long enough for me to get the wand.

"So you do know where she is," he said. He glanced back at the culvert. "It would seem that she has fallen on hard times."

By the time he glanced back I had already closed half the distance between us.

"Her parents had an unfortunate accident," I said. "Met with some dangerous people and didn't come out alive. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

He stared at me.

"It would seem unusual for a child to come out of a situation like that unharmed."

"Some people are lucky, I guess," I said. I was almost there.

I had the darkness powder in one hand, and I was easing the pocket knife open with my other. It wasn't easy; Swiss army knives were hard to open at the best of times, and one handed in the dark was even harder. However I finally felt it slide open just as I got within arms length of him.

A cut to his wrist and he'd drop the wand. I'd step inside his reach, and the knife would slice the femoral artery in his thigh. The shock and blood loss would most likely keep him from being a threat after that, but only if I could catch him by surprise. This new body was small and weak and didn't have the strength or reflexes my old body had.

"I am Severus Snape," he said. He stared me in the eye for a moment, and I felt the beginnings of a headache. "And I am here to offer you admittance to Hogwarts."

"What?" I asked. "So you aren't here to kill me?"

He glanced down, and he must have seen the glint of the knife.

Mister Snape stepped back and slowly put his wand away. "I am here to make an offer. There was some concern when it was found the some of the other prospective students had met with unfortunate accidents."

"Accidents, right," I said. I chuckled sarcastically. "Whatever makes you people feel better."

We were alone; I was sending some of my insects out to the limits of my range, and they weren't detecting anyone else. He might have been arrogant enough to think that he'd be able to take a muggle child by himself, but I'd already survived one attack.

His eyes narrowed. "What do you know about what has been happening?"

"I overheard them planning to kill three more kids and their families," I said. "Before they got their letters."

"And you chose not to go to the police?"

He knew enough to call them police instead of whatever the hell word the others kept using. Despite that, he still chose to walk around in robes.

"They said they had people in the department."

He straightened up. "If this is true, then Hogwarts is the safest place in Great Britain that you can be."

Hogwarts.

"That's the school," I said.

"Yes. You are a witch, and Hogwarts will teach you how to reach your potential."

"Me. You are saying that I'm one of you people?"

He stared at me.

I wasn't sure why I hadn't made the connection before. All of the other dead had been members of this race... wizards or whatever they called themselves. It stood to reason this was why Millie Scrivener had been targeted.

It explained the feeling I'd gotten when I'd handled the wands. I'd been quick to explain that away as sales tactics, or as something inherent to the wand itself, especially since Ollivander had been so insistent that it was the wand that chose the wielder.

"You know who my people are," he said. "And what they can do."

"I've seen some of the things they can do," I said grimly. "So why would your people be trying to kill me if I'm one of you?"

"Some people believe that this sort of power should be reserved for those who have enjoyed it for several generations. They fear that newcomers will prove to be corrupting influences on their way of life."

"So they are racists," I said. "How does that help me?"

"Hogwarts is the one place they will not dare to attack you," he said. "Also, it is better than a hole in the ground."

I stared at him. Did I believe him? I couldn't be sure.

My impression of the wizards was that they were arrogant enough to believe that a normal human child wouldn't be worth trying to fool. Normally, they'd be right too.

In my world, people gained powers when they triggered; it happened when they'd had the worst day of their lives. It wasn't unknown for it to happen to children, and so people were a little more guarded around children.

Here, apparently people my age were considered powerless, even by the Wizarding community.

"How did you find out my name?" I asked, challenging him.

"There is a magical quill," he said. "Whenever a child's magic first manifests itself, the book writes their name in a book. For most children, that happens early, and letters are sent out to them on standardized dates, giving them plentiful time to prepare for their journey."

He hesitated. "Some people are late bloomers. Their magic doesn't manifest until that last month. If it does not happen until September then they have to wait another year."

"I don't have any magic," I said.

"The quill does not make mistakes," he said. "Have you not had unexplained things happen around you? Been able to push your will onto the world?"

My bugs.

I felt a sudden shock go through me. I'd been assuming that I'd been getting my powers back, slowly but surely. But it didn't make sense that the connection in the brain to the alien intelligences that gave us our powers would exist in an entirely new body, not in a world where the shards hadn't been giving people powers.

I wasn't getting my powers back. I was mimicking them with this "magical" power, whatever it was.

According to the book on magical history that I'd skimmed, records of wizards went back five thousand years, long before Scion had ever gotten close to this planet.

"Maybe," I admitted reluctantly. "But I overheard some men saying that all of the children had birthdays in August."

"Children with birthdays in September are not accepted until the next year even if they do have their magic," Snape said. He paused. "You don't seem surprised at the existence of magic. Most muggles have more questions. Have you been exposed to the magical world before?"

It meant that someone had either seem the book or whatever list they'd copied from the book to keep the students organized. While I would have expected the students to have been kept in alphabetical order, it was possible that they'd been kept by birth month. I'd seen stranger organization schemes during my trip to Diagon Alley.

"I followed some strange looking people and found Diagon alley," I said. I pulled out a wand. "Bought a few things."

For once he seemed flabbergasted.

"You've been rather resourceful," he said finally. "But we should get you to safety."

My bugs were hearing distinctive cracking sounds in the distance. Had I been followed back here, or had he? There was a good chance that whoever assigned him to come get me had my name on a list somewhere.

That meant that my best bet to finding the people who'd done this was in Hogwarts itself.

He'd heard the sounds, and while he was trying to look cool and calm, I could see his fingers tightening on his wand, and a sudden stiffness to his posture. Whoever was coming he didn't want to meet, at least not with me in tow.

"All right," I said.

He held out his hand, and a moment later I felt the world contract around me as though I was being squeezed by a tube.

Strider's teleportation ability was a lot more pleasant.

We were suddenly standing on a huge lawn that sloped upward. To my right was a dark forest, and I could feel that it was full of insects, even if I could still only control a few of them.

Up the slope there was a castle.

"There are anti-apparition spells that protect Hogwarts," Snape said. "To prevent wizards from simply apparating inside."

"No moat?" I asked.

Not being able to teleport inside was nice, but if I could walk up to the door and blow it off its hinges, it wasn't that good of a protection. Hopefully there were other things protecting the castle, or I'd have to rethink my decision in coming here.

I knew better than anyone that a school was not necessarily a safe place.

He glanced at me, but didn't deign to reply. We started walking up the slope.

"You know that you have a mole in the castle, right?" I asked. "I overheard the two men who killed my parents saying that they'd gotten the names off a list in Hogwarts."

He stiffened, but didn't say anything.

"How'd they know I was staying in a culvert?" I asked. "No one followed me. Was there a master list that had all the names and the addresses on it?"

From his body language I could tell that there was.

He handed me my letter, and I scanned it. It was addressed to Taylor Hebert, North East Culvert... hmmm... I hadn't known the name of the park. That was really specific.

Apparently I was going to have to buy a whole lot of the crap that I'd turned my nose up at... cauldrons, robes and the whole bit. Luckily I'd already bought the wands and the books.

"I gather you're accepting the invitation even if you believe that the Dark Lord has agents inside the school?" he asked.

I was getting winded on my way up the slope. It had been a long day, and this body was dreadfully out of shape. I was going to have to restart my running and build up my endurance again.

"It would seem prudent, now that I know you can track me wherever I go and someone here is looking at the book that has my location," I said. "I didn't get all of this...just the wands and the books."

"Wands?"

"For breakage," I said. At his look I shrugged. "I'm a child."

"Most children who break things do not plan ahead," he said. "Unless it is deliberately done, and often even then. They also tend to prefer to pretend that they are older than they really are, unless they see some sort of gain."

"I don't trust people," I said. "And if the wands are this important, isn't a spare a good idea?"

Buying a second wand had actually been an impulsive decision. I'd been in denial about the feelings I'd had when I'd finally found the right one, but there had been a kind of strange euphoria when I'd felt that power in my hand.

I was going to have to watch myself; in my old body I'd just barely been an adult. Now that I was in a preteen body, I also had a preteen brain. I'd still have an advantage over other children my age because I'd been through these experiences before.

Having to go through puberty a second time wasn't something I was looking forward to. The only thing that would be worse would be not going through it, because one of these genocidal wizards got to me.

I was going to have to watch my step at this school. In my old school, half the kids had been in gangs, but only a quarter of them had actually been carrying weapons at any particular time. If this really was a school for magic, then every child would have a weapon in his pocket, and all of them could try to kill me.

"I suspect that you will be a headache to whatever head of household who has to deal with you."

"That's not my concern," I said. "I've got people trying to murder me, and so I really don't care what anyone says."

"You won't be allowed the knife in school," he said.

I held up my wand. "No weapons allowed?"

"The Wizarding world frowns on its students being stabbed," he said. "No matter how satisfying that might be. For that matter it's illegal to carry in Muggle Great Britain as well."

"Well, things are a little more lenient where I come from. You defend yourself or you die."

"I wasn't aware that the United States were so violent," he said.

His United states probably wasn't. Mine was a post-apocalyptic hellhole... and that was before the apocalypse had actually started.

We reached the top of the rise, and I finally got my first good look at the castle. My breath caught in my throat. I'd seen other worlds and things no person should have to see but I'd also been raised on Disney just like every other little girl in America.

Because of that, castles had a special place in my heart, and this one did not disappoint. I couldn't help but stare at it.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Snape said.