Tara rolled out of bed after realizing that it was light outside. One cat was yeowling in the bathroom sink, and the other was methodically rubbing Tara's nose with her nose.

"Okay, I got the hint, Heidi!" she said, getting up with the sleek, black cat. Sure enough the food dish was empty, so Tara filled it, the sound of the food hitting the dish bringing Henry out of the bathroom sink to eat. Tara closed the food canister and yawned. Man what a night, she thought to herself, opening the fridge and grabbing a Diet Pepsi. Her friend, Susan had been over, and they had listened to classic rock and roll (Tara had quite a collection of CDs as well as vinyl) and then ended up watching romantic movies and polished off 2 and a half bottles of fine California wine. So Tara was feeling understandably blurry around the edges! Luckily Susan lived around the corner so she didn't have to drive home.

Tara opened the refrigerator again and grabbed a bottled water and downed the entire thing, then grabbed her pepsi and shuffled into her office. Her computers were whirring as usual, and she sat down and moved the mouse on her PC to see how much email she had gotten overnight.

Tara designed websites for a living. She was 35, single, and worked out of her house. This was the start of a typical day. What Tara didn't realize was that this day would be anything but typical.

Along with the 30 or so spam emails, she had an inquiry through her business website. Opening the email, she saw that this person was interested in a brand new website. She had it set up so if they filled out a form on her site, it would email them a sparkling response automatically, thanking them for contacting her, with a little bit of background, and that someone would get back to them soon. She took pride in immediately responding to her inquiries. This message had come in around 2 AM her time, so she knew it was coming from somewhere overseas, and from the looks of the email address, it was somewhere in the UK.

It never mattered where her customers were; she had customers "from sea to shining sea," as she put it. She rattled off a personalized note to the person inquiring and mentioned that she was in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA, but that wouldn't stop things, as the Internet had made the world a much smaller place. She had never had any outside of the United States, however. Unusual. It wasn't long before her email chimed and she already had a response back to the message she had just rattled off to the UK prospect.

"Someone is as depraved as I am about answering email quickly," she told Henry, who had walked in from his breakfast. The large cat rubbed against her legs. He had been sitting in the sink with the water on just a trickle, so his wet tail rubbed against Tara's bare ankles and she made a face.

"Nothing like a cold, wet cat in the morning," she murmured, opening the email.

The email was done in HTML and was very ornately designed, and even in a cursive font. That is not easy to do unless you are sure the person on the other end has the same font that you've specified in your code, so whoever it was was pretty cleaver, she summed up.

Tara read the note.

What the? Wizardry and Witchcraft? What the heck is that? Is that where magicians go to hone their craft or something? Spend a term there? Is Albus Dumbledore a real name or a cartoon character? Um, how could she manage that? And she'd have to fly overseas? Tara shivered. She was deathly afraid to fly, and this fear was long before September 11, 2001. She wrote back:

She clicked send, and the email was off, and she began her work day. She had a banner ad to design and some programming to do for one of her customers' e-commerce sites. A couple of hours later, she heard a strange racket and Henry the cat came tearing into her office and dove under the desk.

"What the--" she said, and heard a man's voice saying "hello??" and a knocking sound. Oh my GOD there's someone in the house! She gasped and grabbed her .44 which she kept in a drawer next to her in case this ever happened. Living alone, she never knew.

Slowly and silently, she crept out into the living room. The knocking was coming from the fireplace. She couldn't figure it out, then she saw a white bearded face with spectacles peering through the glass from inside the fireplace insert at her!

"Tara? I'm Albus Dumbledore!" he said.

Tara took a step backwards. This had to be a weird hangover dream. She swiped her shoulder-length dark hair out of her eyes and shook her head rapidly, and looked again. He was still peering out of the fireplace insert at her.

"Could you open the door to let me out? I won't hurt anything. I'm a little bit dusty is all," the man was saying. Tara had her gun in one hand and carefully unlatched the door. If this was a dream, it was a weird one...might as well play it out.

The man stepped out of the fireplace and stood up. He was in full robes and had a long white beard and waist length white hair, and what looked like a wizard's cap on his head, which he took off and shook the soot out of. He coughed, and extended his hand.

"Excuse the dusty entrance," he said, still extending his hand. Tara raised her gun at him, and didn't move a muscle. Here brown eyes were huge and focused on him, and the gun sight.

"Young lady, I wouldn't harm a hair on your head," he said.

"How-how'd you get in here? In there?" Tara asked, still pointing the barrel at her strange visitor.

"Well, if you'd permit me to explain about what we do at Hogwart's, it'll become clear. Now can you stop pointing that muggle weapon at me?"

"Huh? What kind of weapon?"

To her astonishment, the old man sighed, and suddenly the gun was so hot it was about to burn her hand. She dropped it, and stared at it, then at him. He looked at her again, and she could see kindness in his eyes, and that he was being patient for her benefit.

"Once again, I am Albus Dumbledore. I sent you a post--oh what do you muggles call it when you use those contraptions to communicate--e something..."

"E-mail?" she asked.

"Right, that's it. You muggles have quite an interesting thing with this net thing. That's what led me to you."

"What exactly is a muggle?" she asked, feeling a little calmer now.

"Oh, that. Well, I must tell you about myself and Hogwarts and then it'll make sense. Can I trouble you for some tea?"

"Uh, yeah. What kind?"

"You're an American and you actually have more than one kind of tea?" he mused. Tara made a face.

"Believe it or not, yes. I like tea."

He chose a raspberry tea and she fired up the teapot. He sat down at her kitchen table and she looked over at him and shook her head, trying to shake herserlf awake. There wasn't really this strange old bird with long white hair in her kitchen about to drink tea, was there?

Henry made his way into the kitchen, timidly. He didn't like strangers, but once he saw this stranger, for once in his life, he ran up to him and began meowing loudly.

"Is that right? Well I didn't mean to startle you, Henry," Dumbledore crooned, scratching Henry's large head between his ears. "Where did Heidi go off to?" Henry murmured some cat sounds, and Tara stopped.

"How do you know their names?" she demanded.

"Henry just told me."

"He told you?" she stammered.

Her strange guest nodded.

How do you--understand him?

"Well let's start now. Tara, I'm a wizard."

Tara sat down on the kitchen floor with a loud thunk. She would quit drinking. That was it. No more hangovers and weird dreams. But, she needed a smoke now. She went to retrieve her pack of clove cigarettes out of her purse, which was hanging near the door.

"Are you okay?" Dumbledore asked.

Tara opened up the back door and stood in the doorway and lit her cigarette. Although the scent of clove cigarettes was rather pleasant, she hated the smell that was left in the house. Tara smoked about a pack a week. No more than that, and always outside. She took a deep drag and exhaled outside the door, and held her cigarette outside of the door.

"Yes, I mean...no...is that how you got in the fireplace?" she asked. The old man nodded, and then began telling her of a world she never knew existed. A world of wizards and sorcery, where people flew on broomsticks and even played a sport on broomsticks. The quickest way of transportation was through fireplaces with something called Floo Powder, and that was how he had gotten there.

She finished smoking, came inside, and poured him more tea. He told her of his world until the clock on the mantle struck 2 PM. She sat, wide eyed, listening. Finally, he had finished and she knew it was not a dream.

"So, Tara, are you up to the task of making us a -- what is it called--?"

"A web site?"

"Yes, that's it. A web site. Makes me think of spider nests."

Tara smiled. "But what would wizards and magical people want with websites? Seems kind of primative for your type," Tara observed.

"Belive it or not, it's catching on. Some of our library material has begun to be archived by some of our students onto this net. It's much easier for our students to do research since we installed some of those machines in the library and in someo f the dorms. So, there is a need. I was dead set against us, but I have to look at our students and they are our future, so we need to be up with the times. So, can you do it?"

Tara sighed. "I guess I don't have to fly in an airplane then, or can us muggles use floo powder?"

"I can teach you, I think. I have heard great things about you in my world."

"How?"

"Word travels fast."

Tara finally smiled. "Wow, I get all of my business through referrals!"

Chapter 2