"What are you doing here?" the boy demanded.

"I don't know!" Laurie replied desperately. The day had been traumatic, and he was glad to see a face he recognized, even if it wasn't someone he knew.

"Are you a wizard?" the reddish-brown haired boy asked.

Laurie stared. "A what?"

"So you're a Muggle," the boy finished.

"What are you talking about?"

The boy paced the hall in front of the toilets, which was now empty of the black-robed people. "This is bad. This is all my fault," he murmured.

"Could you please tell me what's going on?" Laurie asked. "Some very strange stuff has been happening to me. Do you know why?"

The boy stopped pacing. He straightened, and turned to look Laurie in the eye.

"I do know. Come with me."

"Thank you," Laurie breathed a sigh of relief. The boy walked off, down the train compartment. Laurie hurried after him.

"What's your name?" Laurie asked.

"Ronan," the boy answered.

"What happened yesterday?" Laurie continued. "You and that girl were holding twigs, and you were shouting something?"

Ronan hesitated briefly before answering. "That's not important. You'll find out soon enough."

They leaped out an open train door and onto a stretch of grass. It was night, and the sky was speckled with stars. As Laurie continued to walk behind Ronan, he heard the train start to leave behind them.

"Where are we going?" he asked. The other boy remained silent.

"Are you going to answer any of my questions?"

"In a moment," Was all Ronan said.

After walking for some time, Laurie noticed lights glinting in the distance, above the ground. Like windows. He thought he could see the vast shadowy outline of something, but he couldn't tell what. Since he was paying attention to that, he didn't notice there was another person approaching. It was a very tall man with shining silver hair.

"Mr. Dawlidge!" the man exclaimed. Laurie realised he was referring to Ronan. "What are you doing out here? And who is this?"

"I'm sorry, Professor Solian," Ronan answered. "But a Muggle has found his way to Hogwarts."

Professor Solian's mouth fell open as he turned to stare at Laurie. "But- how- with all our enchantments- impossible-"

"What's going on?" Laurie asked, glancing from Ronan to Solian.

He saw the silver-haired man raise his arm, another twig in his hand.

And he was unconscious.

When Laurie felt himself wake up, he realised his eyes were closed. He tried to open them, but they wouldn't. He felt himself stuck in darkness. Frantically, he tried to move and feel around him, pry his eyes open, but his limbs wouldn't move either. He was paralysed. He felt himself lying on the ground, or some surface.

His heart began to beat faster and faster. He heard voices around him.

"-Will be returned, with no recollection of the events," someone said. "-Serious security breach-"

"-No idea how this happened-" muttered a voice he recognized as Solian's.

"I think he's woken up," said an authoritative voice near him. "Shall we?"

Laurie doubled his efforts to move, but he was still held fast by whatever was paralysing him. He couldn't feel ropes or chains. Could he have been poisoned with something?

A voice bellowed, "OBLIVIATE!" A flash of white seared the inside of his eyelids, and he felt himself slip into darkness again.

He blinked open his eyes, and bright light hurt his sight. Blinking a second time, he realised. He could see again! He heard the same voices from before around him, and he shut his eyes, not wanting to give himself away. He resisted the overwhelming urge to move his stiff limbs.

Opening his eyes a fraction, he spotted a group of five black-robed adults facing away from him in deep discussion.

"It will make the moving process easier," one of them was explaining.

"The Minister is on her way," added another.

Flicking his eyes around, Laurie took in his surroundings. He was in a room with walls and a ceiling made entirely of stone. Torches in sconces provided light. It looked like a room in a castle. He spotted a wooden door that was open slightly. Through it, he could see an eye watching him, along with a flash of red-brown hair.

Ronan!

Laurie twitched a finger at him, trying to alert him. Opening his eyes a little more, he blinked at him, trying to signal to him. Ronan's eyes widened. He pointed to himself through the crack.

Yes, Laurie pleaded silently, nodding to him. You.

Looking like he had never regretted what he was about to do more, Ronan drew out the twig. He pointed at Laurie, and in the blink of an eye, Laurie was standing next to the other boy instead of lying down in the room. He stumbled, catching himself on Ronan's shoulder. When he peeked through the crack in the door, he felt an existential feeling when he saw himself, lying on a wooden table inside the room.

Ronan strode down a castle-like hallway lit with more torches, and Laurie hurried after him.

"What did you do?"

"Falseffingo. It creates a false copy of you that can pass as an unconscious person. It should buy us enough time to get away."

"You did what?" Laurie shook his head, incredibly confused. "Why should I even follow you? You turned me over to them, and they were going to do something to me!" He hesitated. "Well… you did something to me too, in the alley. All the more reason I shouldn't trust you!"

Ronan stopped, turning around to face him. "I'm not saying you should trust me, because I don't trust you. I don't know anything about you. But if you don't come with me, much more powerful wizards will catch you. And they can do much worse things to you than anything I can do."

Ronan kept walking. "Also, I can give you some answers."

That was enough for Laurie.

"So what's going on?" Laurie asked. "Why is everything so strange and impossible, and what were they going to do to me, and why do you keep mentioning wizards, and what are those twigs, and those funny words?"

Ronan shook his word, as if Laurie's train of thought had thrown him off. "There's no way to put this lightly…"

He sighed. "There is a world, beyond your world of normal things. It's hidden from you people with no magic power and no knowledge of our world- we call them Muggles."

Laurie stumbled with this intake of information. "So I'm a muglel?"

"Yes. Us non-muggles are wizards. We use these wands to cast spells. You can't tell anyone about this. The wizarding world must remain a secret from the Muggles. You are the only exception."

Laurie pressed his fingers to his temples. "And where are we right now?"

"Hogwarts. This is a school for young wizards who are learning. The adults you saw were teachers."

"And they were going to…"

"They were going to wipe your memory," Ronan answered calmly.

"What?" Laurie breathed, feeling faint.

"Like I said," Ronan said. "Muggles can't know about our world. They were going to make you forget about everything you've seen of our world. You would have woken up in your house like you had this morning. Only, for some reason, it didn't work…"

"You have an idea why," Laurie guessed, noticing his guilty slump.

"I think I should tell you later," Ronan decided. "This is enough world-shattering information for now."

Laurie felt sick, thinking of how his world had been turned upside down. Magic was real! "You're probably right…"

"I'm guessing you want to get home?" Ronan prompted.

"Please," Laurie begged.

"Okay," the other boy let out a breath. "I'll help you get home. But if you tell anyone about us, you will be in painful and serious trouble."

Laurie bobbed his head up and down. "I promise. I'll never tell anyone."

"Alright," said Ronan. "Tomorrow, I'll get you back to your world."

They continued to walk through the massive castle- Hogwarts. Laurie jumped every time the hundreds of portraits on the walls moved. He never stopped watching around him, terrified some giant monster would burst out of the wall. It didn't seem impossible.

At one point, Ronan walked down a corridor and seemed to disappear behind a painting of a bowl of fruit. Laurie watched, terrified, until Ronan emerged again, his arms laden with food. Laurie's jaw dropped. The other boy was holding everything you could think of eating, from roast beef to desserts.

Relieved, after not having eaten the whole day, Laurie and Ronan ate the food while they walked and climbed countless flights of stairs. Eventually, they reached a wooden door with an eagle-head knocker.

"Is the egg a vessel for the creature, or is it a skin that is shed?" the knocker asked. Laurie jumped back and almost fell over the railing.

Ronan thought briefly before answering, "It is both, and it is neither."

"Suitable answer," said the knocker. The door creaked open.

Laurie followed Ronan into an airy, circular room. It was covered in blue carpet, and arched windows let him see the stars. He spotted a white statue on the other end of the room.

"Welcome to the Ravenclaw tower," said Ronan. "Do you see that closet over there?"

"Yes," Laurie answered, heading toward it.

"Hide there for a moment. I'm going to get something to help hide you."

Laurie squeezed into the closet and waited there, not daring to move until he heard Ronan come back and open the door.

"These are my old robes," he gestured to the black robes in his hand. "They should fit you. Put them on."

"Do I have to?" Laurie asked.

"It's obvious you're a Muggle with what you're wearing now," Ronan pointed out. "This will help you blend in if anyone catches you."

Begrudgingly, Laurie pulled on the robes in the closet while Ronan waited outside. They felt strange, but somehow he liked wearing them. They made him feel a little safer, as if he was hidden now from the memory-wipers.

"I have to sleep in my dormitory," Ronan said, "And there's too many other third-years for you to be there too. Sleep here, in the common room. I'll wake up early and get you out of here, but if anyone comes here before you, pretend you're a ghost and run."

Worried about the details of the plan, Laurie lay down on one of the armchairs and fell into an uneasy sleep.

"Wake up," Ronan hissed, shaking Laurie awake. Blinking sleep from his eyes, Laurie looked around him at the Ravenclaw common room. He hadn't realised how tired he had been.

"No one saw you," Ronan whispered. "I've got time before breakfast and classes; I'm going to scout out a way to get you home. Hide behind the statue if anyone comes."

Ronan walked out the door, muttering, "Apparating, Floo powder- won't work. Brooms…"

Laurie sat in the armchair, glancing over his shoulder at any sound, praying Ronan would get back. He didn't know how much more he could take of waiting, in the midst of people who would paralyse him again. Yet no one came down. Ronan must have woken him up really early.

What seemed like hours later, Ronan came back.

"Did you find a way out of here?" Laurie asked excitedly, standing up.

"I'm not sure you can leave," Ronan said, slumping down on a different armchair. "I was stopped by a man I've never seen before. He told me I shouldn't be out of the school at such an early hour, since they're looking for someone dangerous."

Laurie froze. "Do you think they mean me? But how could you have never seen him before? This is a big castl… school; couldn't he have been a teacher?"

"I don't know," Ronan shook his head. "I couldn't see his face.

"But he had a buttery voice."