IMPORTANT NOTICE:  I recently received feedback from several close friends, describing this story as moving too quickly and missing something.  On a reread, I realized that I had succumbed to that awful disease that afflicts every fanfic writer at some point in their career: " Hot Off the Presses Syndrome."  In favour of receiving quick feedback, I sacrificed quality.  The first and second chapters have had a massive overhaul, resulting, I hope, in improved quality and detail.  The second chapter will become the third, as I have to divide this chapter into two parts to fit that detail in.  My apologies to any reader who read the first version!

Well, here it is.  It's an idea that came to me at, like, 2 am last night.  Sorry if you don't like it, but it's my idea.

Disclaimer:  Taineyah does not own the characters from J.K Rowling's books.

************************************************************************

                Madelyn Harris rolled over as the sunlight streamed in her window.  Eyes still closed, she reached down to pull her blanket over her head and ... it wasn't there.   Surprised, she opened her eyes.  Not only was her blanket not on her bed, her bed, indeed her entire house wasn't there either.

                She hadn't done any sleepwalking in years, but she figured that that was the only logical explanation.  She stood up and looked around.  She had woken up in a vacant lot, and she recognised her surroundings.  She rubbed her eyes and pinched herself.  She had woken up precisely where her house had been when she went to bed the night before.

                Unnerved by this discovery, she trotted across the street to her neighbour, Mrs. Dunlap.  The woman was rather elderly and often forgot names and such, but she always knew where everyone in the neighbourhood was, as everyone had taken it upon themselves to take care of her and always told her where they were going.

                She tried to calm her own fears, convinced that it was some sort of elaborate joke, or maybe a dream.  She knocked and the old woman opened her door. 

                "Hello dear.  What can I do for you this fine morning?"  Mrs. Dunlap smiled agreeably, although she did seem a little confused by her early-morning caller's disheveled and pajama-clad appearance.

                "Mrs. Dunlap, do you know where my parents are?"  Madelyn spoke in a slow, fairly loud voice, as her neighbour was rather deaf.

                "What are their names, dear?  I have ever so much trouble remembering people's names."

                Patiently, Madelyn told her.  "Bill and Sarah Harris."

                "I don't know them.  Where do they live?"

                Madelyn pointed across the street to the now-vacant lot, even more frightened that something was terribly wrong.

                "Why, there hasn't been a house there in over 30 years!!  That's when the last one burnt clean to the ground."  The woman looked absolutely shocked.

                "There must be some mistake.  There was a house there just yesterday," Madelyn insisted.

                "I don't appreciate pranks, young lady.  Your parents ought to be ashamed of you, trying to confuse a poor old lady like myself."  The old woman closed the door sharply.

                Madelyn didn't know what to do.  Mrs. Dunlap didn't even remember her house?  Tears started streaming down Madelyn's face, as she trekked down the street to her best friend's house.

                "Hello, do you need something?" Tara's mother asked.

                "Do you know where my mum and dad are?"

                "I don't know who they are, I'm afraid.  Are you lost?"

                Madelyn shook her head and started to leave, when Tara came out to the door, to see what was happening.

                "Tara, have you seen my mum and dad?" Madelyn asked.

                "Who are you?"  Tara wrinkled her nose a bit.  "How on earth would I know where your parents are?  I haven't a clue who they are.  For that matter, how do you know my name?"

                Madelyn turned away from this person, her best friend in the whole world, who didn't even know who she was.   She took off down the sidewalk, wandering up to other neighbours' houses as she went, but no one could remember her or her parents. 

                Having nowhere in the whole world to go, she found herself sitting in the empty lot, crying her heart out.  She had no clothes, aside from the Winnie the Pooh pajamas she was wearing, no money, and seemingly no past.  It was like a nightmare, but no matter how many times she pinched herself, she didn't wake up.

                She lifted her head to look around, hoping to see things return to normal, hoping to see her bedroom appear and hear her alarm go off, but instead she saw an old man, with long white hair and half-moon spectacles, appear out of nowhere.  She nearly toppled backwards with shock.

                "Madelyn Harris?"  His voice was soft, kind and soothing.

                "You know who I am?"  Her voice rose in shock and she dried her eyes of tears, to see if her eyes were deceiving her.

                "Yes.  I do know who you are.  I know of your family's fate."  He looked sad, as though he pitied this child who was sitting before him.

                "Are they okay?  What happened to them?  Is this a joke?  A dream?  What's going on?"  Madelyn began babbling quickly as she allowed panic to swallow her.

                "This isn't the place to tell you.  I'm going to take you back to the school I work at and then I'll explain it to you."

                "I'm not going anywhere!! What if my family comes back?  How will they know were to find me?"  At that, she fainted, the old man having pulled a stick out of his pocket and mumbled something under his breath.

                "I'm sorry to have to do that to you," he said, as he gathered her up in his arms in a remarkable display of strength for someone of his obvious age.  "I just don't think that you should have any further shock today than what I must tell you and getting you back to Hogwarts would certainly count as a shock."

****

                When Madelyn woke up again, she was in what appeared to be an office.  It had a desk, an entire wall of books and the other things you'd expect in an office, but it also had feathers, rolls of paper, bowls with strange writing on them, strange herbs hanging from a section of the bookcase and a bird so beautiful that she wondered if it could possibly be real.

                "Ah.  You're awake," the man said, coming around a corner in the back of the office.

                "How dare you kidnap me?!?  Just wait until my father finds out what you've done!  He'll charge you and then sue you and then sue you again!"  Madelyn looked around the room quickly, searching for an escape route.

                "I fear that he will be unable to find me," the man replied, adjusting his glasses.

                "Who do you think you are?  Of course he'll find you."  Madelyn remembered the vacant lot and was already trying to figure out precisely what was going on.

"I am Professor Albus Dumbledore.  I am Headmaster of Hogwarts School, the place that you are in."

                "You said you'd tell me what happened to my family.  Tell me now and then take me home, or I'll start screaming, and you won't be able to shut me up."

                "I did say I'd tell you what happened.  I'm a firm believer in the truth…"

                "Says the man who kidnapped me!"  Madelyn's brown eyes glared ferociously from under her eyebrows.

Dumbledore ignored her and continued.  "So before I start, I'm going to tell you to ask me further questions about anything you feel confused about.  It's a complicated subject, and I don't want you to discover a few years from now that what you understood and what actually happened were two entirely different things."  Dumbledore looked at her in such a way that she felt as though he could see right into her soul.

                "Okay.  Now tell me."

                "First, you have to be told this:  There are two entirely different and completely separate worlds in England, and indeed, the entire world."

                *Great, I've been kidnapped by a madman!*  Aloud, she said, "They would be?"

                "The wizarding world and the muggle world."

                "Muggle?"  Madelyn wondered just how delusional this man was, making up his own words.

                "Non-wizarding folk.  People who cannot do magic."

                "Magic?"  She was skeptical.  "Next you're going to tell me that the bogey-man is real."

                "He is, but that's not part of this story."

                Madelyn shook her head sadly, almost pitying this crazy old git.

                "Most people in the wizarding world don't want to hurt anyone, not even muggles.  Unfortunately, there is the odd person who enjoys it above all else, and there is one such man, Voldemort, who is power hungry and wishes nothing more than to take over the wizarding world.  He's extremely powerful and..."

                "Did he do this to me?  Did he destroy everything I've ever known?"  Madelyn found herself believing the story, all of a sudden.  It was too preposterous to not be true!

                "Yes."

                "How?"  Her voice was flat, and she was clearly trying to decide how she would get her revenge on this Voldemort. 

                "There is one spell which can take the magic right out of a wizard or witch.  It is only used by the truly evil, and it is forbidden even to name it.  When it is used, a muggle family ceases to exist."

                "They die?"

                "No.  They cease to exist.  It's as though they were never born and their belongings had never been made."  Dumbledore examined the face of the young girl sitting in front of him.  He could see anger and loneliness written all over her face.

                "Then why am I still here?"  Her voice was cold, bitter.  "I've never used magic."

                "It seems that you aren't a muggle at all.  The spell can't erase a witch or a wizard from existance, and you are a witch."

                "What!?!"  She was more shocked than she'd ever been in her life.  She'd lost her family, her friends and her home all in one day.  Now this man was trying to shake the very foundations of her reality.

                "Normally you would have started school here when you were eleven, but you were somehow missed by the Detection of Magic bureau."  Dumbledore knew that Madelyn's powers were either weak, or very well hidden, or she would never have been missed.

                "There's a Detection of Magic bureau?"

                "There's an entire Ministry of Magic."

                "I'm 15, not eleven.  What are you going to do with me?  It doesn't seem like I have anything or anywhere to go."

                "If you think you can handle an advanced program, I'll have you put into the fifth year classes and assign you a tutor in each subject."

                "So I'll be five years behind?"  Madelyn snorted.  She'd never been good at school.  That had always been Mindy, her twin sister's, department.

                "You'll only be four years behind.  The school year only started last week."

                "So I'll graduate in..."  She was stil unsure that she could do it, but she wanted to figure out the facts before she made any decisions.

                "Three years."

                "In three years and I'll be a fully qualified witch?"  She cocked her head to one side.

                "Yes."  Dumbledore could tell that the girl intended to go after Voldemort the moment she graduated.  He decided not to caution her against it, as the fact that she would have to work extrememly hard to be able to battle the Dark Lord would spur her to greater lengths in her studies.  He could deal with her wish for revenge in a few years, when he had to.

                "Can I go to an earlier year and start work with the younger students if I find the fifth year to difficult?"  Madelyn knew that she needed a back door in this, her first working with the magical world.

                "Of course."

                "When do I start classes?"

                "On Monday."  He smiled slightly.

**********************************************************************************

                So, should I continue that or give it up as a lost cause?  While I have written many other fanfics (most of them were deleted when the music groups got taken off), this is my first HP fic.  Please review.