I was in a building that contained three swimming pools. Swimming pool #2 was huge. I remembered it being in a dream I'd had a few months previously.
The fifth Harry Potter book was about to be released. It had silly title, which was something like "Harry Potter And The Cave Of Demons" (silly, bearing in mind there are no creatures with religious connections in the Harry Potter universe). I went to the upstairs of WH Smith in Carlisle, where the author Anne Fine was giving a talk about it. A lot of other people were there. When the talk was over, we paid fifteen pounds for a rough, unfinished copy of the book. The hardback was to be released a week later; we could collect that for free.
I looked at the book. It had a white paper cover. The final page numbers were in there thousands, but in the middle of the book, they were still in two digits. The numbering system must be warped, I thought.
At certain points in the book, there were hand-written letters from fans, asking why the characters bothered to earn money though magic, when they could give sexual favours instead. J. K. Rowling answered them all with, "Magic's more fun."
I walked onto the school drive, and encountered Charlie, Catherine and Leah (two of my corridor mates and their friend). "The new Harry Potter book's come out," I told them. "I can't wait until the next Magic Guitar book comes out," Catherine said. She started explaining what "Magic Guitar" was, until Leah told her to be quiet or she'd give the plot away. My parents' car came up the drive. My Dad and my half brother got out - there was something in the school building that they needed to collect.
My boyfriend Bryn was moving into a house the following academic year and searching for housemates. He had a list of the e-mail addresses of fifty seven people who were interested. I looked at it, and recognised a few of them. He was recording messages on cassettes, and sending them to the applicants, to help him to choose which ones.
I went to his house, which had a slightly different layout. You entered through the kitchen, then went through to the living room. I took my trousers off in the kitchen, then grew worried that one of his housemates would come in.
He and his housemates decided they needed to buy a ladder, so they all got in a car along with me, and drove through the streets of Ramsgate (which was where their house was, for some reason). Tasha drove, Nick (who was much slimmer than he is in real life) sat in the passenger seat, and Bryn, Simon and I sat in the back. I told them about the release of the Harry Potter book; we spoke about it for a few minutes. Tasha parked the car in a large car park, which was surrounded by bushes. Someone pointed towards them and said, "You can get to campus if you keep walking that way."
