It was the 11th August and like usual Jess looked out upon the wet street with utter boredom. She was still serving her punishment for eating Stuart Sloam's biscuits. It wasn't really her fault at all but around here she got blamed for everything. Even if she hadn't had a small nibble of his precious biscuits she would still have been grounded and banished to her cupboard of a room for slumping in a chair or talking when someone else was talking even if it was only to say thank you. This time was no different; Audrey Sloam sent Jess upstairs and shouted until she was blue in the face. That was the funny thing with the Sloams, the men go red and the women go blue when they're angry.

The odd thumping noise and then a clatter brought her out of her revere. Instinctively she looked to where the noise was coming from. She signed, typical just the post. Nothing ever happens around here she thought to herself. She picked up the she picked up the bird sticker book that was the only present that she had ever got and flicked through it. She didn't particularly like garden birds that much but did like the birds of prey quite a lot. But then, who doesn't? She had been given the book from the old care home that she went to when she was just a baby for a leaving present when she left at the age of four. Now, of course, having nothing else to occupy her time, it was pretty battered as she read it a lot. She had stuck the stickers in the first time she had got confined to her room and since then it had become a tradition that every time she got grounded sand sent to her small room she would read it until she knew every word of by heart.

Eventually the Sloams had sent her to a strict boarding school to get rid of her and at first she was happy, anything to get away from them, but then the teachers go stricter and stricter and started picking on her and treating her like an animal. She had learnt then not to cry because despite her young age, they still beat her. She was still ten of course and was looking forward to finishing at the awful boarding school and also her birthday, but was also dreading having to start at a whole new school which basically meant a whole new torture. She had given up hope of making friends after the care home because the children didn't like her. They thought she was strange and weird and they were right. She was weird. Things kept happening to her, she called them her special 'incidents'. Like this one time she was walking down the road and the cars wouldn't let her cross so the willed them to keep turning off down the other road and they did. And after about the five-hundredth car she saw turning she got a little freaked out and ran home. Another time was when it was raining and she was at her boarding school and they forced her to stand out in the rain for the whole of the cold winter night in only her underwear then somehow she was in her own secret room which nobody knew about.

She was sitting there on her bed turning over the pages of her bird book when the steady thump came up the stairs. She rightly guessed that it was Stuart. She braced herself for the torrent of words that will start to come bubbling out of his mouth as if he had too many bad things to say about her but not enough time to say it in. Jess turned round to face the door. As expected Stuarts ugly red and purple face came bursting in foaming at the mouth.

"Get down there you smelly little girl! Come on get a move on. Up, up, up!"

"What's the hurry?"

"What's the hurry? What's the hurry! I'll tell you what the hurry is."

Without another word he yanked hold of her oversized jumper and practically threw her out into the hallway.

"We're going out!" He shouted into her ear as she got up and brushed herself off.

She tried and failed to hide her enthusiasm at this idea because it would mean that she would get free use of the fridge and TV. Luckily however, he wasn't watching her but looking out at something in her bedroom porthole window. He grunted and mumbled something inaudible about what sounded like 'owls' but she couldn't make out what he said exactly.

She walked slowly downstairs and slipped quietly into the sitting room hoping that they would ignore her so she didn't have to go through the 'don't touch anything, and if you do then you will be sorry!'

With relief she heard the front door slam shut and the car drive away. The first thing she did however was check that they had definitely gone because if they come back and she was watching the TV then Audrey would probably slap her. She walked to the front door and peeked out of the curtains. She noticed that she was standing on the letters that she heard come in earlier. She bent down and picked them up looking through them as she walked slowly into the kitchen mumbling as she did so.

"Junk, junk, Mr. S Sloam, junk… Miss J Nidora… why is my name in brackets? Nidora? That isn't my name."

Jess gaped open-mouthed at the letter. She didn't know anyone to give her a letter so…who was it from?

She half ran back to the kitchen in a desperate frenzy to open it. She dumped the rest of the letters onto the table. Jess looked at the front of the letter. The address was a little strange, it read:

Miss J Nidora, (Miss J Sloan)

The Attic Room

36, Crimp Road

Barbary

Cambridgeshire

The font was in a beautiful handwriting and the colour was a vivid, bright green. When she turned her letter over the writing shimmered in the light. On the back was a badge with a lion, a snake, a badger and an eagle with a 'H' in the middle. The word that really stood out however was the word inscribed above it. Hogwarts.