She couldn't hear anything besides that same ringing in her ears.

She opened her eyes.

Her surroundings had shifted. She was in a room with accents of crimson red and golden sunlight streaming in through the windows. But that wasn't what caught her attention. It was the three students who stared down at her with mouths agape, in awe of her presence.

Two of them, a boy with raven hair and circular glasses and another with violently red hair and a dusting of freckles on his pale skin, tried desperately to say something to her.

But Piper couldn't hear them and she was so frantic that she couldn't focus enough to read their lips. She must have looked terrified. She cowered on the floor, her hands over her ears, desperately trying to adjust her hearing aids so that she could hear them.

The third, a girl with extremely bushy hair and knowing brown eyes realized Piper's frantic motions. And Piper couldn't believe it when the girl began to use sign language to speak to her.

Are you deaf?

The girl signed by bringing her right finger up to her ear, then her chin, and then pointing at Piper. She nodded and the girl turned to the two boys, speaking to them and explaining to them that Piper couldn't hear them. Finally, Piper got her hearing aids adjusted, the ringing was gone, and the normal buzz of sound filled her ears.

The girl continued to sign to her.

Hearing aids?

She signed and Piper nodded.

"I can hear you now." She said. "My hearing aids got knocked out for a moment there but I fixed them. I can hear you now." "Hearing aids?" The redhead asked. "They're little devices that help you hear, right?" The boy with the round glasses asked and Piper nodded.

"Well, if you ask me I'm more concerned on how you came through the bloody wall and left that nasty mark." Piper turned and there behind her, on a wall laden with sand stone, was that same dastardly green crack.

"I came through that?"

She asked slowly and they all nodded.

"Where am I?"

"Hogwarts."

"Still?"

The three did not seem to understand her frustration.

"Wait," Piper continued, visibly confused but like the gears in her head were slowly turning. She was connecting the dots. "What year is it?" "1996" "Oh my god." Piper mumbled.

"Why?"

"I have done nothing but time travel in the past twenty four hours. Don't ask me how, I don't know." Piper said. "I am from the year 2022. Then I somehow went to 1893, Hogwarts castle, and now I'm still in Hogwarts over a hundred years later. I don't get it."

"That accent..." The girl said slowly. "You're from America." "Correct." "You are not a Hogwarts student in 2022, are you?"

"No."

"Are you even a witch?"

"No."

"So a muggle from America is somehow popping around time and only going to time periods in Hogwarts castle." She said and Piper shrugged. "I guess."

"We have got to take you to Dumbledore."

"Dumble what?"

"Dumbledore. The headmaster."

⋆｡°✩

Piper followed the students she had begun to know as Ronald Weasley, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger through the halls of an updated Hogwarts. She was led to an office unlike anything she had ever seen before.

When Piper thought of an office she thought of the kind you would sit at for a 9-5 desk job with a cheap store bought calendar pinned to the wall with pictures of photoshopped beaches and a plastic snow globe on the desk from a summer vacation. There would be an old window's computer, the boxy kind, with that infamous screen savor, Bliss, the photo is called. You know the one with the perfectly green grassy hills and serene blue sky.

Well, this office was certainly not that. There were portraits that moved and talked, ornaments of gold and silver, a rustic bronze oil lamp chandelier, and books that must have been ancient lined shelves in the office. As to complete the bizarre office, a man who could have passed as a skinny santa clause with half moon spectacles greeted the students. His grin didn't falter as he looked at Piper. But something about him sent a shiver up her spine.

"You do not belong here, do you?" He asked slowly.

"In fact, you do not belong anywhere. But you don't know that yet. Piper McAllen, am I right?" She nodded.

"I knew you'd come this day. It is written in a letter from former headmistress Matilda Weasley." Ron and Harry shared a look.

"That you said that you would visit this day. Your story has only just begun." He added.

"I don't understand." Piper said. "How did I even end up here in the first place?" "The time turner was what brought you to Hogwarts first, correct?"

"A time turner! Of course!" Hermione announced. "That's how you went back in time!"

"I wouldn't be so sure, miss Granger." Dumbledore replied. "In Headmistress Weasley's notes about the time turner she and her faculty deduced it to also be a portkey."

"A portkey to Hogwarts?" Harry asked and Dumbledore nodded.

"Professor," Hermione spoke up. "If a time turner is made into a portkey, could it not only send someone to another destination in space but also in time?" "Good thinking, miss Granger." Dumbledore said with a grin.

"That is what started this all, no?" He looked to Piper. "I don't even know what they hell a sortkey is." "A portkey, Miss McAllen." Dumbledore corrected her politely.

"But where did a muggle get ahold of a time turner, let alone a portkey?" Ron asked and Dumbledore looked to Piper, waiting for her to explain.

"It was my brother. He had it and gave to me. He told me to run." "Why?" "Because someone was after him. I didn't understand why but now I think I do, they wanted the portkey-time turner-erm whatever it is."

"who?"

"I don't know. I got chucked to the eighteen hundreds before I could find out."

⋆｡°✩

"After traveling through time not once, but twice, you must be famished." Dumbledore said. "You three will escort Piper McAllen to the great hall for dinner while I discuss this matter with Professor McGonagall." "A muggle at dinner." Ron said slowly, whispering to Harry. "Malfoy's gonna love this." He added and they were all dismissed to head to the great hall.

Piper followed them as they walked and took in more of the sights of Hogwarts Castle. It truly was a bewitching place, no pun intended. It was beautiful. Of all the places for her to be tossed around between time periods in, she was glad it was here and not somewhere like Gardner Island where people think Amelia Earhart was eaten alive by coconut crabs. She shivered. Yeah, she would take Hogwarts witch castle over viscous coconut crabs any day.

And as if the hallways weren't gorgeous enough, the great hall was truly spectacular with it's bewitched night sky ceiling and floating magic candles. The magic in here was almost palpable.

Piper sat next to Harry and across from Hermione and Ron at a table that was laden with foods so lavish and rich, a far cry from the TV dinners and boxed lasagna that her mother favored back home when she lived in Florida before going to Savannah for school.

She had only ever seen roasted chicken on TV usually on a Christmas special, never had she seen one with her own two eyes. And real mashed potatoes too! One's not from a box of dehydrated potato bits. And to go with that was every type of steamed vegetable imaginable. Her mouth watered, her stomach growled.

"Well?" Harry asked her as he added a spoonful of carrots to his place. "Are you waiting for an invitation?" "No." Piper said slowly. "Just taking it all in..." "Do more than that." Ron said helping himself to as many rolls as he could fit on his plate with a disapproving look from Hermione.

"Eat as much of it as you can." "Oh I intend to."