"But what about everything in the dream world?" Gwen asked.

"You mean your friends?"

Gwen was a bit taken aback at how well her mother really knew her. Of course she was thinking about her friends Gabby, Chris and Graves. Especially Graves. She was so afraid that they weren't real.

Her mother gazed at her sadly. "I'm afraid that they aren't really your friends."

Gwen felt a giant sob rising in her chest and she concentrated so much on it that she scarcely heard her mother's next words. "However they do exist."

"They..." She could hardly get the words out.

"Yes. They live in this world. Corwin Graves is a seventh year student in Slytherin."

"A Slytherin?"

"Not all Slytherins are bad." Her mother said pointedly.

"What about Gabby and Chris?"

"Gabrielle is a fifth year Ravenclaw and Christopher is a sixth year Hufflepuff. I thought it was best if you were exposed to people from every house, and I picked the most well rounded students. I cast a rather complicated spell and made them a couple of dopplegangers for your dream world. The rest was all from my imagination and what knowledge I have of the world here outside of Hogwarts."

"What about the age difference? In the college dream I'm 23 years old."

"Yes. That was on purpose. I wanted you to believe so fully in that world, so I made it impossible for you to be a Hogwart's student. You were ten when I put you into the dream. But I adjusted your age so that you were sixteen. You were too old to be accepted, to old to even suspect that you could be enrolled. You'd always been mature for your age anyway."

"And Yggdrasil?" Gwen said, suddenly reminded of her trance.

"Yggdrasil was a clue for you. Three worlds on one tree, three worlds for you. None was more real than any other, however the dream world was only real for you. And of course it's related to the runes seeing how my parents named me after the rune for birth. I figured eventually the clue would lead you back to me, but I see Mr. Potter did that for you."

"Yes. He's really amazing."

"Indeed." Beorc said with a raised eyebrow. Gwen's relationship with Harry Potter worried her some. Having her daughter so entangled with him could prove dangerous for all three of them.

To be continued in Episode Twelve