My name is Hermione Jean Granger, I am eleven years old and come from a town just outside London. I live with my parents who are both dentists. For a while now I have noticed very strange things happening to me. Nothing intentional, such as books flying off of the shelf, possibly an accident. Then everything I touched started to have black fingerprints on it. I thought maybe I had better wash my hands every time.

At the end of the school term I said goodbye to my friends, well, friend, I wish they did like me but people don’t like me very much at school. As usual I had come top of my class and nobody really wanted to talk to me. I wished them all a great summer and that I would see them in September. I’m not sure anyone really took any noticed of me as my parents drove me away.

It was only the first week of our summer holiday, by this time I was nervous to touch anything, when a kindly gentleman in robes that looked a little too warm for the time of year came and took a seat in our living room. He wanted to talk to us about a “special school for gifted children”. I was very surprised and honoured that I was being chosen for something like that. It was only afterwards that he explained that it was a “School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”.

My parents thought him mad, absurd and perhaps should even be in a care home but he asked us about strange things happening and of course there were many to add to the list. It took quite a long time for my parents to become accepting of the idea but they agreed to it and gave a list of school supplies and a ticket for the train at Kings Cross Station. “Walk through the wall between platforms nine and ten” he said sternly.

There was a lot of information to take in, MAGIC, A NEW SCHOOL, A NEW WORLD, A NEW ADVENTURE! It all sounded so exciting. We went to the special street to purchase the books and supplies on the list. History books, potions, cauldrons, gloves, quills and robes. I had to start practicing to write with the quill it certainly isn’t like writing with a biro or pencil. To start with I kept getting ink all over the place but it got better. I thought that all the other children from magical families would know so much more than me so I needed to start learning. I read as much as I could so as to fit in with everyone there and it was only when it came to a week before leaving that I wouldn’t see my parents every day. It made me sad and I thought I was going to melt when I wouldn’t see them for months. Not until Christmas.