Arriving

[Serena Selwyn]

Serena felt the nauseating pull as she was swooshed into Scotland from Salem.  She came to a sudden stop, and before the dizziness cleared, she opened her eyes to find herself standing in a dingy old pub.  An even more ancient looking barman stood behind the bar, and it smelled of goats.

Serena was nearly sixteen, by her way of calculating . . . sure, she wouldn't be sixteen until November, but it was going to happen this year.   She may be a freshman, but she was more than ready for this battle.  Besides, she had missed the battle of Beltane, thanks to her parents' paranoia, and she wasn't missing this one.

"Good, new recruits.  We need you."  She heard a gruff voice say.  "Behind this painting will get you to the castle, but we'd best wait for a group of you."

She glanced over at an old-fashioned painting of a girl about her age.  She wondered if she wanted to go that way.  She'd rather have more of a look around. "Can't I just walk?  I mean, the school is close, right?"

"Are you daft, girl?  You'd be dodging Death Eaters the whole time and would probably never make the castle. I thought they were sending us clever recruits,"  the same gruff voice replied, which seemed to be coming from the bearded barman.

Serena stuck out her lower lip an instant at practically being called stupid. "I wanted to get a feel for the grounds and how it is all laid out.  Walking would let me see that."  If there was just another way in . . . 




(SS, 15.5 years old)

[Washington Kennedy Rockefeller]

Wash still didn't like long-distance instantaneous travel thing. Not much of a choice, though, since the battle wasn't going to last long enough for them to fly trans-Atlantic. Not if he had anything to say about it. He clenched his eyes, then blinked a few times, trying to clear his head of the fogginess. Then it was gone, and it was game time.

"Don't argue with the man, Serena. I'm sure he knows what he's talking about." He turned to the man who had greeted them. "Right through there?" A grunt from their host confirmed this was true, and he turned back to the younger girl. "Let's go, then."

[Eloise Thomas]

For a few seconds, everything was  black. The world around her materialized suddenly, but there remained a black spot persistently floating in front of her eyes, blocking her vision. It seemed to go perfectly with the pounding in her head. And heart for that matter. Her whole body was telling her to run. To hide and avoid all danger. It all just felt slightly too familiar and she couldn't help but wonder how many people would die today. Not that Eloise had ever been a coward. But if she did turn her back on Hogwarts when they called for help, that's exactly what she would be. Though her grandfather had passed away, she could still imagine the disappointed look on his face if he'd find out she'd been hiding under her bed during the whole ordeal.

Since being beamed to the lighthouse those years ago, she had avoided all sorts of instant transportation and the unfamiliarity of it made her nauseous. Still, her grip on her wand was firm when she once again found ground beneath her feet. Rather than standing still and waiting for more people to arrive, and for her to start hesitating, Eloise scurried past the other students toward the portrait that the barman had pointed out. She watched it swing open and in a few seconds she was inside the tunnel.