Chapter 5

Last time…

As they entered the shabby looking tavern, a cry was heard.

"Remus?"

Sarah and Remus found themselves face to face with a pair of teenagers, who looked to be Sarah's age, the boy hugging a girl much shorter than him. They quickly pulled away from each other.

"Remus, what are you doing here?" The boy said, running his hand through his messy black hair. His clear green eyes looked down onto the ground.

"I've brought an exchange student for Hogwarts. She's in your grade, actually." Remus replied

"An exchange student?" The girl said. She had bushy brown hair, large white teeth and an intelligent look in her eyes. "We've never had an exchange student before!" She rushed over to Sarah and began to shake her hand.

"HI! I'm Hermione Granger, prefect. I'm in Gryffindor house. This is Harry; he's in my house too. What school do you come from? What's your name?"

"Uh… My name's Sarah, Sarah Williams. I'm from America. I've never…" Remus interrupted her.

"Sarah's been home schooled up til now." He said. "We should really be getting to our rooms, and then onto shopping. Have you been to Diagon Alley yet?"

"No, we're going this afternoon." Harry said. "Hermione, we should probably be getting back." He grabbed her wrist. "Bye Remus, nice meeting you Sarah." He began to tow Hermione away.

"It was a pleasure Sarah! If you ever have any trouble at all at Hogwarts, I'd be happy to…" Her voice faded away as she was dragged through the doorway and back down the stairs.

"They seemed… nice." Sarah said, looking a little overwhelmed. "I just have one question for you."

"Yes?" Remus said

"How am I going to catch up with everyone else at school? I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that if I've missed five years of schooling, then that would be a lot." Sarah crossed her arms and looked at Remus. He turned and continued down the hallway, talking as he went

"Well, Dumbledore has come up with a special method of training." He said, unlocking a door and motioning for her to enter.

"Have you ever heard of the way muggles listen to tapes in their sleep to learn languages?" Sarah entered her room.

"Yeah, I did it to brush up on my French vocabulary in grade 9."

The room was simply furnished, a four-poster bed, just a little bigger than the bed in her room at home, covered with plain white and brown sheets, two armchairs on a rug in front of a crackling fireplace stood next to a large chest of drawers.

"Well, it's slightly like that. I think I am right in assuming you have never heard of Dralking?" Sarah nodded; the word was completely alien to her. "It's a new concept, developed by Dumbledore with the help of the Fae."

Sarah stiffened at the word, but tried to pretend that nothing was wrong.

"This is a method where time is slowed, and people are able to enter your dreams as you sleep and give you messages and spend time with you. It's almost like being visited and having a conversation with them, except you don't lose sleep, and even though you're dreaming, you remember everything when you wake up."

Sarah's trunk lowered itself to the floor near the chest of drawers and her clothes began to unpack and fold themselves into the drawers.

"So, who'd be doing the teaching? And how long would it take?" Sarah asked, removing her shoes, and sitting cross-legged on one of the big brown armchairs.

"Well, it would take just over one week, and the teachers would vary, depending which subject you're learning." Remus said, lowering himself gently into the other chair. "At the end, we'll give you a test. But this is a very basic overview of the classes you have missed, so don't worry if there are some things you don't know. Not many of the students will actually remember 5 years worth of classes."

"But doesn't school start in a few days?" Sarah asked. "Shouldn't I know all of this before then?"

"Well, You should, but then again, it'll take a few days for each of the students to get back into sync. And you'll be taught the most relevant information first. Any other questions?" he asked

"Well…" Sarah considered it carefully. "What are the Fae?" She asked.

"Ah, they are these beings which, to muggles and wizards alike, are considered to be mythical. However, this is not true. They're a dying race of super beings, a mix of wizards and faeries, and they control the kingdoms in the Underground. In fact, you may have heard of their High King and Queen, Oberon and Titania. A long time ago they were mentioned in a muggle play. They have absolute rule over all of their subjects"

"Really? I never would have guessed that he…" Sarah stopped herself. "Umm, how many kingdoms are there?"

"Oh quite a few, but I'm not really an expert on the subject. The one who helped us with the Dralking project was Dariun, King of the Dreamlands. That's where dreams go once they have been lived. No two dreams are the same you know, each one is subtlety different."

"No, I didn't know that."
"There's also the Fairy kingdom, nasty little things, the land of the Fiery people, they're bright orange and furry, and have the ability to remove their limbs, dreadful creatures."

Sarah grimaced, remembering her time with them.

"And then, of course, there's the Realm of the Goblins. But these Goblins aren't nearly as sophisticated as the ones you'll see in Gringotts. The ones we'll meet this afternoon left the Realm of the Goblins when the bank was first founded, hundreds of years ago, and have evolved further past the human level of intelligence."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in" Remus called, standing from his seat in the chair opposite Sarah.

A large, motherly looking woman, with rosy cheeks and shoulder length red hair, opened the door.

"Hello Remus dear," she said, "You must be Sarah? Hermione was so excited when she came to tell us! Finally, a girl her own age! I know those Patil girls and whatnot are in Gryffindor too, but Hermione just never took a shining to them. Now she won't have to spend all her time with Ron and Harry."
"Really Mum, we like spending time with Hermione!" Came a voice from behind her. The speaker was tall, freckled and redheaded.

"Sarah, right? I'm Ron, Ron Weasley."

"I wanna see!" came another voice, a female this time. "Hello, I'm Ginny! I'm in the year below you!"

She looked like Ron, just shorter and slightly rounder, like her mum. She was also followed by a pair of identical twins, who still looked almost exactly like their younger brother, just much taller, and with shaggy long hair.

"I'm Fred." Said George.

"I'm George." Said Fred.

Hermione hit them both and then came further into the room, followed by Harry and Mr Weasley.

"Stop trying to confuse her! Sorry Sarah, it's the other way around. These guys are the biggest pair of tricksters you'll ever come across." Mr Weasley came forward this time, and after shaking Remus' hand, said

"Hello there, I'm Arthur Weasley." He shook her hand excitedly. "I work in the Department against Misuse of Muggle Artefacts. I'd be very interested to talk to you about a few things…"

"Alright Arthur, you can talk later. Now, I think we'd all better head off into Diagon Alley, wouldn't you agree?" Molly said.

"Let me just finish here and find my money" Sarah began to pull her shoes back on. "I need to stop off at Gringotts to." She said, hurriedly tying her laces.

"Yes dear, we all do." Sarah ran and pulled the velvet pouch from her trunk.

"All set!" She said.

"Excellent! Let's get going then!" Arthur said, and began herding everyone out of Sarah's room.

"Woo boy" Sarah said, letting out a breath of air. "Ok, you can do this Sarah. You navigated an entire Labyrinth in 10 hours; the wizarding world should be a synch."

For some reason, she didn't believe her self.