I looked up from my bed into the twinkling eyes of Professor Dumbledore. He seemed younger, more full of life than I had imagined when I read the books. He didn't look tired or worn, but he did seem to be held down by something. I know, a weird feeling, but I felt it all the same.

"How do you know my name?" I asked incredulously. I raised my right hand to my head and ran a hand through my hair. Someone had brushed it out – it was not as nasty and rain-matted as I had remembered from before the accident.

"I know that you are Brendi Douglass, formerly of Ipswich, Suffolk County. You are… well…" Dumbledore stopped and smiled at me after doing a once over of my body. "…were seventeen."

I must have looked at him strangely because he chuckled, then placed my wallet and driver's license on the bed next to me. "I am no anatomist, Miss Douglass, but I daresay you are not 17."

"Of course I am," I retorted. This guy was a nutter. "I had my seventeenth birthday a month and a half ago."

"That certainly may be true, Miss Douglass, but here you are not seventeen."

I meant to respond, telling him how crazy he was to say that I was not seventeen. I was most obviously not any other age. But the word "here" caught my attention – if I'm not seventeen …

I looked down at my sheet-covered body – someone had removed my sweatshirt and jeans and replaced them with a white nightgown. Something was off, though… I couldn't place it until…

Where are my curves? I looked desperately around me – I found what I was looking for on the nightstand. My fingers curved around a gilded mirror and brought the glass in front of my face. I didn't see the girl that I had looked at in the mirror I had adjusted before leaving Aaron's house. Instead, a smaller, rounder face with a look of utter horror plastered on it greeted me. What happened?

It took me a minute or so to have fully comprehended that my whole body had changed – I was younger again.

"Miss Douglas."

Dumbledore's voice brought me out of my little fantasy world again. His demeanor was slightly less cheerful this time.

"Once again, I must ask you how you found your way to Hogwarts."

"Honestly, sir?" I placed the mirror down on the nightstand once again and then proceeded to curl up underneath the sheets of my hospital bed until only my face was visible. "I don't know. Once second I was driving along –"

"Driving? In an automobile?" he interrupted me.

"Yes, sir. And then a flash of white light hit me, hit the car – I… think it was lightning – and then my car started tweaking out and then everything went dark…"

I almost started crying then. I was not comfortable being in a strange bed with injuries I didn't know how I had sustained and people around me that were only supposed to exist in books. I must have looked scared, and I suppose that Dumbledore must have felt sorry for me, because he put a long spindly hand on my sheet-covered foot and smiled.

"You are very brave, Miss Douglass, not to have hit me over the head with that pitcher of water as soon as I approached you and revealed that I knew who you were. I assume that although you know nothing of where you are or what is going on – "

I cocked my head to the side in question.

"I did overhear your conversation with Mister Potter," he explained before continuing. "Anyway, although you know nothing of where you are or what is going on, you have the courage to trust someone like me. And I do know that you have a habit of breaking pitchers, so I'm glad that I was not the cause of Poppy's wrath once again."

I laughed into my formerly broken wrist. I had no idea what he had just said to me, but the last bit was pretty funny. He chuckled as well and made a motion to stand up.

"I shall come and collect you when Poppy allows you to leave the Hospital Wing. There are some formalities we must sort out before you start your schooling."

"My schooling, sir?" I wasn't a witch! I can't do magic!

"Your schooling, Miss Douglass. While we figure out what to do with you, you should be occupying your time with something else, and seeing as you must have arrived here by magic, you must be taught to manipulate your gift. I shall see you soon. Oh, and Miss Douglass?"

"Yes sir?"

"Do not tell anyone else what you have told me. If what I believe has happened really has happened, you could be setting our whole world into jeopardy."

And with that, Professor Dumbledore turned around and walked behind the next curtain toward the exit. He greeted one of my fellow patients and then whispered something I don't think I was supposed to hear.

"Oh Poppy, I am afraid I have made a terrible mistake."

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Dumbledore did not come to call on my anytime in the next three days, which was slightly irritating. His lack of appearance was not reassuring to my case – I didn't know why they were keeping me in the hospital wing for such a long period of time even though I had already healed.

James came by the second day after Dumbledore and I had talked and handed me a book of puzzles.

"Here, Remus gave me this," he started. "He's too busy corralling Sirius to come by himself, but he said that he was glad you were feeling better." I started flipping through the pages of the book while he paused. The silence was awkward. Finally he started talking again, although he seemed a little awkward as he was talking. "I'll make sure you get to meet them, you know. They were really worried about you when we found you out on the grounds…" He began to laugh. "Especially Peter! You should have seen the look on his face when we pulled your hood back and saw that you were out cold. He thought that you were dead…" He paused again, suddenly embarrassed. "Of course… I'm not saying that… well, you being dead isn't funny and all but…"

"Thanks," I interjected into his stream-of-consciousness, mostly because I didn't want him to start asking strange questions about how I ended up on the grounds, soaking wet and unconscious. "You know, for the book." James didn't seem like the overtly pompous git that I had read about in the series and he was having a good time and joking around with me… Oh no.

My right hand flew straight to my head as I shut my eyes. How could I have been so stupid! I knew everything about these people's lives – what they were going to do, who they would love and hate, and how they would die… All because of my stupid little Harry Potter obsession!

"Are you alright?" James said hurriedly. He hesitated and then placed a hand on my shoulder and asked me if he should go get the nurse but I shook my head and looked away from him. How can I look at him honestly, knowing that he is going to be killed in a few years time? And… Peter… I opened my eyes again and looked up into his big brown ones. Peter was going to betray them all and he was right here, here in Hogwarts. They would never know it. They never could. This is what Dumbledore meant by jeopardy…

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. This stupid potion gives me random migraines," I said, pouring myself a drink of water from the pitcher. I made sure not to drop it this time. Taking a sip, I looked back up at him. They can never know…

"Alright," he said, still looking concerned. He had removed his hand from my shoulder and taken a seat near the rightward curtain. "Well, Charms starts in a few minutes, so I better be going. Any idea when you're going to get out of here?"

"No, but hopefully soon. Dumbledore says that I'll be in classes as soon as I am released."

"Great!" James' eyes lit up as he stood, his chair scooting backwards behind him. "Remus will be glad to hear that." He turned around to leave but I reached over and grabbed the sleeve of his robe before he could get away.

"James?" I said as he turned back around. "Thanks again." He smiled sweetly. "Tell the others that too, especially Remus… you know, for the puzzle book."

"I'll be sure to do that."

I smiled up at him and took another swallow of water as the door clicked silently behind him.