"What should we do with her?"

"What do you mean 'what should we do with her'? We can't just leave her out here!"

"What if she wants to stay out here?"

"Really Peter? You think someone wants to stay out in the frigid rain all night long?"
"When you two lovebirds over their stop arguing will you help me pick the poor girl up?"

It really was cold where I was laying. The ground underneath me was slowly pulling me into the muddy soil and the rain continued to beat me from above. My sweatshirt did me no good when it was sopping wet, and my jeans were clinging close to my skin as if they were the ones freezing their butts off.

My eyes flickered open for a moment, trying to figure out who was talking around me. Then I remembered the accident with the lightning. I must have been thrown out of the car.

My head began to pound in unison with the rain and all I saw were four dark shapes huddled around me before I passed out again.

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I didn't know how long I was out. I could only feel my legs finally unfreezing themselves – in fact, it felt like my whole body was thawing. It was the strangest feeling – as if parts of my body were simply melting away. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in a pure white room, lying on a squeaking, yet surprisingly comfortable mattress. There were white screens on either side of my bed and as I tilted my head upward, I noticed that there were similar beds along either side of the room.

I pushed myself upward with my left hand, only to fall back onto the bed, a shooting pain running from the tip of my finger to my elbow. I yelled out in pain and suddenly a woman in white robes appeared from the other side of the screen.

"Good, you're up!" she said as she turned her back to me. I wasn't really sure why it was good that I was having terrible pains in my wrist but apparently she thought differently. I was grasping my left wrist with my right hand when she came over with an old fashioned looking cup that was full of something steaming.

"Drink up – it will make you feel better," she said, leaving the cup by my bedside and then rushing off to take care of another person who was crying in pain. I glanced back over at the goblet, unsure of what was in it. I mean, it would have been a lot better if the liquid had looked like tea, or maybe coffee, but instead it had the consistency of a chunky smoothie and it was steaming.

This woman must be crazy. I grasped the cup with my good hand and looked down into the cup. Whatever was in it didn't smell too badly, so I raised the cup to my lips and took a swallow of its contents. The smell did nothing for the taste – I cannot begin to describe how nasty the liquid was once it was swallowed. The best image I can give is that a runner put his smelly socks into dirty dishwater and then someone decided it would be fun to make it thicker by putting in cream of tartar. That's how bad it tasted.

Unfortunately for me, however, with just that one swallow, I could already feel warmth growing into my wrist. It was a painful warmth, but it felt comforting at the same time – as if my broken bones were melding themselves back together. As if that could ever happen.

I drained the cup (not without significant gagging and grimacing) and set it aside, then reached for a pitcher of water that was sitting on the nightstand. I was desperate for something to get the taste out of my mouth. Then, just as I had a firm grasp on the handle of the pitcher, a voice came out of nowhere.

"Feeling better?"

Jumping at the sound of the voice, I accidentally knocked the entire pitcher onto the floor and with a resounding CRASH the pitcher and all of its contents found themselves lying scattered on the floor.

Oh, shit…

The woman in the white robes came running over from the other side of the room. Shaking her head, she bent over the broken glass and spilt water - with a wave of her hand the pitcher… found itself back on the counter, all contents replaced...

What was that?

Turning on her heel, she gave a steely eye to the person who had made me jump in the first place.

"Mr. Potter, if you insist on scaring the patients, I will not tolerate your presence in the Hospital Wing."

"Yes, Ma'am", the voice replied. As the woman in white robes sauntered off, I finally turned to the person who had scared me in the first place.

His black hair was the first thing that caught my attention. It looked as if he had just rolled out of bed, but I knew (from several encounters at my high school) that he probably spent many minutes perfecting the messiness. He couldn't have been more than eleven, or maybe twelve. His brown eyes peaked out from underneath thick glasses and a smile crossed his face – it was a cute smile, but unforgettable.

"Well?" the boy asked again. "Are you feeling better?"

His voice brought me out of the stare contest I was having with his smile and back to reality.

"Yeah, I guess," I replied, still confused. I looked down at my wrist and then tried putting a little weight on it. The muscles were still tender, but it seemed that the majority of the pain had disappeared. "Where exactly am I?"

"You're in the hospital wing, silly. What do you think this is?" he grinned, looking over at the nurse to see if she was coming back. "We brought you here last night from out on the grounds." Grounds… hospital wing…. It was all very confusing – what was this boy talking about? Then, suddenly I remembered the lightning again.

"Oh my gosh! Is my car alright!? Please tell me my car is okay!" I gasped, reaching across the bed toward him. My parents were going to kill me if I totaled that car.

"What car?"

"What do you mean, what car? Wasn't it right next to me?" I stammered. "I was thrown out of it during the accident, I must have been!"

The boy looked at me strangely. "There was no car. Anyway, Muggle things would have stopped working on campus anyway."

"Muggle…" I repeated warily. "Did you just say… 'Muggle'?"

"Yeah," he said again, eyeing me oddly, as if I was some alien from outer space. "You know, people who can't do magic…?"

Muggle… Hospital Wing… Grounds… Potter?

The boy stood up, walked around the bed, and reached for the water pitcher that I had broken earlier and poured a glass. I stared at him the entire time, and I guess he must have gotten a little creeped out.

"What?" he asked me strangely.

"Did the nurse just call you Potter?" I asked him incredulously. Please say no, please say no. I only heard her say that because my brain got a little rattled during the accident.

"Yeah," he said – my heart sank. "I'm James Potter. My friends and I brought you back here when we found you passed out near the Forbidden Forest."

"By friends, you mean…" It's just a coincidence. He must get a lot of jokes about that, the whole Harry Potter/Marauder reference thing… It's just a coincidence…

"Sirius, Remus, and Peter," he said, confirming my fears. I must have looked sick after he finished talking, because I thought I heard him ask me if I was alright, but my brain was moving too quickly to register it.

My car got hit by lightning, and somehow I ended up on the grounds by the Forbidden Forest. Four boys had carried me up to the hospital wing, one of which was standing by my bedside, calling himself James Potter.

I was brought back to reality as a hand touched the bare skin of my right forearm. "Are you sure you're okay?" James repeated.

"Yeah," I replied, still in shock. There was no way this could have happened, but it did. "Is there any way I can see… talk to… erm… Dumbledore?" I squeaked the last word out, praying that Dumbledore didn't exist. He's a FICTIONAL CHARACTER. Not real. Not real. Really. I looked up at James again and he nodded. No.

"I'm sure Poppy… Madam Pomfrey… won't let you leave, but she will probably let me go get him for you." James seemed genuinely concerned with my welfare, but that might only have been because he thought that I was crazy for the whole "car" scenario.

"There will be no need for that, Mr. Potter," another voice spoke up from behind the curtain to my left. As I turned, I saw a man in light blue robes come around the corner of the curtain. He had hair as white as cotton and a long beard to match. His hands were crossed in front of him, long fingers barely curled around each other. He was tall, but not abnormally so, but his most distinguishing feature was his eyes – they twinkled from behind half moon glasses.

Oh no. oh no oh no oh no….

"If you would leave us please, Mr. Potter," Professor Dumbledore asked. "I'm sure Misters Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew would be happy to know that their rescuee is safe and awake."

"Yes, sir!" James responded and with a nod of his head, he disappeared behind the right curtain, the quiet clicking of the hospital wing door following him on his way out. As he left, Professor Dumbledore looked across the top of his glasses and down his nose at my startled face.

"Now, Miss Douglass, tell me exactly how you happened upon Hogwarts."

A/N: Hi guys! I know I switched from third person to first person view in chapter 2, but I thought that it would be easier to display thoughts and actions from a first person standpoint. I went back to change the first chapter, but it sounded weird to me, so there it is. The person talking is Brendi Douglass, if you were confused. And, no, she doesn't have amnesia (my editor actually asked me that… X_X). She is not from the Harry Potter universe. More details about her and her extra-dimensional travel to come.