Eleven.

I like the way the word sounds on my tongue: eleven.

Eleven!

"Happy birthday, Lyana!" my mum cries, "Happy eleventh birthday!"

I can hardly believe it. Me! Eleven! Mum says I should expect the letter from Hogwarts any day now!

I can't wait! I've wanted to practice magic ever since I understood the fact that mum was a witch. Mum is radiant with pride. She's stroking my hair right now.

"Like that diary, do you?" she has just said fondly. "I won't bother you then; let you get on with your writing. I remember me at eleven. I loved to read, I did. I still do." My mother's eyes gleamed. "I remember when..." she stopped and sighed. "Never mind. I'll go off to check on your cake."

Cake! Mum makes the most wonderful cakes. They come in all shapes and sizes and they do the most magical things. A few years ago, on my eighth birthday, my mum baked a cake shaped like the sun. Heavens, it even looked like the sun! At first it burned a brilliant blood red, then a glowing gold, then a vivid orange, then a proud purple, and many more vibrant colours that I cannot remember. And when I ate it, the glorious buttery taste melted in my mouth. It was like paradise in my mouth. I wonder what charms my mother puts on these cakes. I sure hope I learn them at Hogwarts too.

"Hey mum! Will you tell me what sort of flavour the cake will be?" I call.

My mother laughs. "What if I say milk?"

I wrinkle my nose. "Milk?"

"What if I say milk...and stars?"

Milk and stars?

"What?"

My mother laughs again. "Guess, Lyana. Use your brain."

Galaxy? No, no. What's that got to do with milk? Oh, I know! The milky way! What wonders will she make now, I wonder?

Anyway, enough about my mother's wondrous cakes. More about me.

My name is Lyana Granger and as from today I am eleven (!!!). My mother, Hermione Granger, is the cleverest witch around. She's discovered new things about magic. These new things are so complex I won't bother writing them down. What I do know about it, however, is that she's found shorter ways of casting spells, and that she's mixed spells to create a new kind of magic for Aurors. People are writing books about it, and her strange spells are taught to would-be Aurors if they get the sufficient amount of NEWTs. I, being the young and irresponsible child that all kids are generalised as, don't even know what the names of these spells are. Of course, some of the older witches and wizards out there value the old way to do the spells, but there are few, since my mum is an admirer of the old way too.

And my father? Nothing to say. I'm sure I have one somewhere, but he ran out on me when he found out my mum was pregnant. Scared, he was. That's all my mum tells me, and she looks so evasive whenever she tells me the story. The problem is that she will never tell me my father's name. I can tell she hates him for what he did, but I know she misses him. I can see it in the wistful way she stares at the young couples passing in Diagon Alley. I sometimes dream about him coming back to us, flowers so romantically held in his hand with a jaunty but sorry smile on his face. But I abandoned that dream long ago. Having no dad isn't that bad, I suppose. Mum is all I really need. I hardly think about my dad anymore.

Merlin! An owl just flitted past my bedroom window! More later.