It felt like an hour had passed until I finally found my way up the Gryffindor tower and spotted the Fat Lady's portrait. All the paintings around snored as they were sleeping in their frames, including the Fat Lady. So I cleared my throat a few times until I got her to wake up at last.

"I swear to Merlin, some of you have no regards! Waking me up at this hour of the night – oh, and who are you?" She said quickly after finally opening her eyes and spotting me.

"I'm Lexi Hooper," I answered, my heart pounding in my chest out of excitement.

"Oh, yes. The new student. I've heard of you," she said casually. "Welcome to Gryffindor."

"News travels fast," I said mostly to myself, in meantime trying to remember what the password was.

"Password?" she questioned.

"Pig Snout?" I tried but shook my head quickly. "No that was for the first book. Balderdash!"

The Fat Lady looked extremely confused at my choice of words, but nevertheless the portrait swung open, revealing a hole which I climbed into and in a matter of seconds, I found myself in the Gryffindor's common room.

I was overwhelmed with emotions as I looked around. Everything was gold and scarlet, from the armchairs to the curtains, and a crackling fire which warmed the big circle room. I smiled to myself, wishing that I could stay here forever.

I walked towards the girls' dormitory and found the room which had a sign saying 'fourth years' and opened it, seeing five four-poster beds inside.

I quickly spotted Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, chattering away as they were getting ready to sleep. I saw another girl with blonde hair who was sleeping already, yet I didn't recognize. On another bed Hermione was laying down, studying God knows what.

But when she glanced at me, she smiled and put the book down for a second to say, "That would be your bed." She pointed. "Dumbledore must've added it recently. In the last three years it was only us four in this dormitory."

I gave Hermione an appreciating smile before taking my black cloak off and putting it on the stand next to my bed. Although I remained in my other clothes, seeing as I had no pajamas with me.

Hermione seemed to have noticed this, but said nothing on the matter as I used the toilet and went straight to bed after only taking my shoes off.

I tossed and turned in my bed again and again, but couldn't get myself to sleep, no matter how tired and exhausted I felt.

So after an hour or two, when the whole dormitory had fallen asleep, I wore my shoes again and snuck out of bed, getting back to the common room.

I sat on the couch before the fireplace, staring into the dancing flames. I could imagine the Marauders sitting right here, working on their map, or Lily Evans whom I imagined sat here studying all the time like Hermione.

I can't believe they were all real, I thought to myself. Although the trouble was that the further away I got from my denial, the more real and scary this all became; the war, the deaths, the fear of never being able to go back home...

"Why are you up?" I nearly jumped with a yelp when I heard someone's voice behind me.

With my hand on my fast-beating heart, I looked back, seeing one of the Weasley twins.

"You scared the hell out of me!" I said sharply, even though my lips had twitched up into a smile at his sight.

"Yes, well," he shrugged with a grin, "that was kinda the point."

"Fred, is it?" I guessed, sitting back down as the red-headed boy joined me as well.

"No, I'm George, actually," he said, suppressing a smirk.

I narrowed my eyes at him, knowing the trick all too well. "No, you're not."

"Yeah, no I'm not. You got me." Fred chuckled. "You were staring into the fire so hard that I thought a head might pop out of it any second." I giggled at the thought. "So why are you up?"

"Why are you up?" I asked suspiciously.

"I asked first!"

"And I asked second, so?" I grinned as he gave me a look.

"I couldn't fall asleep," Fred answered. "You?"

"Me neither," I said earnestly.

"Why not?"

"It's complicated." I sighed miserably, gazing into the fire's blazing flames.

"Good." He grinned, nudging me. "I never liked simple things."

I chuckled at those words. At last, when it faded into a little smile, I said, "I just feel like I can't tell the difference between what's real or not."

"Well, don't worry. I guarantee you, this is all real, and so am I. Or at least I think I am." He said mysteriously, poking himself to make sure he was real, making me laugh.

I then said quietly, mostly to myself, "How can you guarantee that?"

"Because, my dear Miss Hooper," he started with a grin, arrogance slipping off his tongue. "No one can make up this amount of handsomeness in their imagination." He said, pointing at himself.

I laughed. "Cocky much?"

"Very much," was his quick response. "So were you planning on sitting here all night?"

"Yeah. Trying to take in as much as I can before everything's over."

"It'll be years until it's over for you." said Fred. "I mean, even though I've only got one year left after this, I'm still less worried than you. You've still got three more years to go! Besides, the real fun starts after this!"

"Don't get me started on fun." I said grimly, thinking about high-school and then college, with physics and mathematics, and at last a boring dead-end job in a company. "Why don't you go back to sleep, Fred? You've got classes early tomorrow."

"So have you." He shrugged. "Besides, I'm up anyway and I can't go back to sleep. Might as well stay and chat a bit longer. Talking about serious matters makes me sleepy, so it might help." He said and I giggled in return. "So why did your parents move to America, anyway?" 

     I had forgotten completely about my lie of studying in Ilvermorny. Although, it wasn't a complete lie. We did move to America for two years a long time ago due to my dad's insisting, when weird stuff which no one could explain had started to happen in Britain.

     I had never seen him so worried and so pale. A few disappearances in and the next thing I knew, we had packed everything and were on our way to New York.

     "You know," I started. "Muggle stuff."

     "Oh, so you're a Muggleborn."

     "Yes." That wasn't a lie either, I was, after all, born into a Muggle family, but he didn't really have to know that I was a Muggle myself.

     We sat there for another hour, talking and joking through the night, until Fred yawned and said, "I better go to bed. You should too."

     "Alright." I nodded, even though I was going to stay there as long as I could. We said our goodnights and I watched as Fred went upstairs towards the boy's dormitory, and I went back to staring into the fire.

     I was happy to experience this reality-like dream, yet sad that I was probably going to wake up soon without seeing Hogsmeade, the Whomping Willow, the Burrow, and Diagon Alley.

     So I laid down on the couch, imagining all those places like I always did, feeling my eyelids grow heavier and heavier, until I finally drifted to a deep sleep.

***

Four hours had barely passed since I had fallen asleep, yet it felt like minutes when someone kept pushing me and calling my name.

     "Wake up, Lexi! You're gonna miss breakfast!"

     I groaned, knowing well that I had to get ready to go to school. Although I couldn't wait to tell Kiara about my crazy realistic dream last night.

     "Five more minutes, Mum." I groaned, trying to keep sleeping.

     "Look here, Freddy! She thinks I'm her mommy!" I heard a voice say and a chuckle followed afterwards.

     "Ooh, and who's the lucky dad, Georgey?" Said a second voice.

     "Dunno, but he's a hell of a lucky man." Said the first one who seemed to be standing closer to me than the other one.

     "Oh, bless her," I heard the second person getting closer to where I laid. "If she's not gonna wake up, then she leaves us with no choice other than using the old-fashioned-waking-technique."

     What the heck is going on, I thought. I opened my eyes halfway, spotting a crackling fire before me.

     That's odd... I don't have a fireplace in my room. But before I could have the chance to open my eyes completely, I felt someone pour a whole glass of cold water on my head.

     Screaming, I jumped up, eyes widened in horror as I stared around the Gryffindor common room, with Lee, George, and Fred, who had a now-empty glass of water in his hand, all laughing down at me.

"WHAT THE–"