287Katie Vreeland closed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, bookmarked at the end of chapter twenty-seven, got up out of her chair, and walked over to her bedroom window. A sixteen-year-old girl with long, brown hair, brown eyes, and a tear-stained face stared back at her from the darkened glass.
"How could Snape kill Dumbledore?" she whispered.
Just as the last word left her lips, one of the streetlamps down on the sidewalk went out with a faint pop. Katie stared at it, her thoughts still on Dumbledore. She sighed, and was about to go lay down on her bed when another streetlamp went out. She smiled to herself, thinking of Dumbledore's putter-outer, when another light went out.
"Must be a power outage." She thought to herself.
Pop! Out went another. Then another and another…till the only thing that Katie could see down on the street was a tall, dark figure standing at the corner. She squinted as it started walking.
A light breeze disrupted the quiet stillness of the deserted street. The clouds shifted their position, and the moon became visible, casting a silvery light on the street and on the walking figure. Katie frowned. It looked like…but no, it couldn't be.
She decided to continue reading Half-Blood Prince. She picked up the book an only read four words when- Ding Dong!, the doorbell rang. Katie waited a minute to see if someone else would answer the door. The house remained still and quiet, so Katie opened her bedroom door, walked down the stairs, turned the knob of the front door and pulled it open.
Katie's jaw dropped.
A tall man with waist-length silvery white hair and beard and sparkling blue eyes behind half moon spectacles was standing on her doorstep.
"Hello. Am I correct in saying that you are Katie Vreeland?"
Katie suddenly realized that her mouth was hanging open and quickly closed it.
"Erm…I…uh…yes…yea, I'm Katie Vreeland. Er, and who exactly are you?" she asked, already suspecting the answer, though not believing it.
"My name is Albus Dumbledore."
"You're Dumbledore? But no, that's impossible. You aren't real. You…you…"
Then Katie realized: "I'm dreaming".
"Er, would you like to come in?"
"Yes, thank you" Replied Dumbledore, smiling.
As Katie was leading him into the living room, her father appeared in the hallway. Dumbledore held out his hand. "Hello, I am Albus Dumbledore."
"Matthew Vreeland" said Katie's dad, looking a bit confused, but shaking Dumbledore's hand all the same. "Would you like to come in and sit down?"
The three of them went into the living room where Katie's mother and Dumbledore were introduced. Then, Dumbledore began to tell them why he was there.
It turned out that Katie wasn't dreaming after all, and Dumbledore had come to offer Katie a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For some reason, a letter hadn't been sent to Katie when it should have been when she was eleven years old, but they were perfectly willing to let her come and start now. Katie accepted (very excitedly, for she was a very big fan of the Harry Potter books in the muggle world), and her parents were willing to allow her to go.
"Of course, we will have to get you some kind of tutor that can teach you everything that you should have learned in years one through five, but otherwise it's fine for me to let you start your sixth year now. That is the year that you would be in now if it hadn't been for, well, you know, with the letter, which I apologize for, by the way." Dumbledore stood. "Well then, Katie, I suppose that I'll be seeing you on September first." He said, and departed.
In just five weeks, Katie would be on the Hogwarts Express, and starting her very first year at a magical school. It just so happened, that in just five weeks, Harry Potter would be starting his sixth year at Hogwarts.