In an apartment loft above a sandwich shop on Waverly Place on the Lower West Side of Manhattan was the Waverly Station Sub Shop. Owned and run by Jerry Russo and his wife, Theresa, the place was something unique to the neighborhood. Pedestrians often saw lights flying by the place that defied explanation. Others saw people appearing and disappearing from outside as they looked in through the windows. The youngest at eight-years old, Max Russo, had to be psychic or something. He talked to invisible beings and got answers from empty air. His older sister, Alex, at thirteen had extraordinary good luck. When she wanted a diet soda, she always got it, even if she was several yards from the closest soda machine. Her older brother, Justin, was fourteen years old and a scientific prodigy as well as a cool athlete who could pull off magic on the basketball court, and then there was their cousin, Gabrielle Russo, who had some sort of magic thing herself. When Gigi Daniels from school taunted Gabrielle at the reptile house at the zoo, the glass vanished and Gigi fell into the display, freeing the Burmese Python inside just before the glass suddenly appeared.

Gabrielle was the daughter of Jerry's brother, Thomas Russo, and his wife Grace. To everyone concerned, Thomas and Grace had died in a car accident, but Jerry knew the truth. After the fatal fate which took their lives, he took in his niece as a tiny one-and-a-half-year-old infant and raised her as his own daughter, much to the distaste of Alex who already competed with her older brother for attention. Now she had a foster sister to compete with. Sharing her room with her after several years, Alex woke and pulled her twisted t-shirt loose then looked up to her foster sister in the other bed in her room. She looked over a bit annoyed, gestured a bit at her thirteen-year-old cousin and watched as Gabrielle stumbled out of the bed.

"What? Who?" The cute beauty sat up and looked out over the level of her bed. "I fell out of bed again."

"You've really got to be more careful." Alex acted as if she was not responsible. "I mean, you made so much noise, you woke me up."

"I'm sorry, Alex." Gabrielle was rather amiss by the whole thing. "I'll try to be more careful." She rose up on her feet and glided on her feet toward the bathroom at the end of the hall just as Justin came strolling out. It was the last week of August and he was getting ready to return to Wiz-Tech, this time as a Second Year student. Alex and Gabrielle were about to start as First Years. Wiz-Tech was the family magic school for teaching those sensitive to magic in the schooling of their powers and abilities. Justin was already adept at spells as Gabrielle and Alex were still struggling with probability and psychokinesis, simple poltergeist-level stuff. He lit up with a smile to his favorite sister and Gabrielle looked up to him a bit reserved and introverted.

"I saved it for you." Justin held the door open.

"Thanks, Justin…" Gabrielle wandered in past him with a grin rushing to her lips. She pulled her long locks of dark hair back and reached to start a shower for herself. Her hand turned the water on and checked the water, her brown eyes turning to her reflection in the mirror behind her over the sink and briefly noticing the faint scar hidden above her right eye by her long dark hair. Hidden by her long dark locks, it was not noticeable. It was supposedly an old injury from her youth.

"Gabrielle…" Alex called her from the hall.

"Alex…" Gabrielle applied toothpaste to her toothbrush and looked up. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"It's me in the bathroom next!!!" Alex pulled her out, rushed past her and slammed the door shut against her cousin. It all happened so fast! One minute, she was about to brush her teeth and take a shower and the next, she was listening to Alex laughing at her through the closed door. This happened almost every single morning and she kept falling for it.

"Alex, that's not funny!" She put her toothbrush in her mouth and pounded at the door. "I was in there next!" All she heard was Alex in the shower singing to the music of Taylor Swift. She looked up and saw her aunt coming out of the master bedroom. "Aunt Theresa, Alex kicked me out of the bathroom again!"

"Alex!!!" Theresa Russo pounded at the door for her niece. "You are not the only one in this house. You let Gabrielle in there!!!" She waited a few minutes, but the shower was going and all Alex had in her ears was shampoo.

"Honey, go use my bathroom."

"Thanks, Aunt Theresa…" Gabrielle kissed her aunt and hurried in her gown while brushing her teeth to clean and wash. If she was lucky, Harper would talk Alex into letting her go to the mall with them and then they could go to the library together without Alex. Harper was closer to Gabrielle than with Alex. Theresa meanwhile headed down to the loft where her husband the culinary maestro made breakfast for their family before opening his sandwich shop on the first floor of their home. She smelled omelets, bacon, fried potatoes and hollandaise sauce for morning breakfast.

"Something smells good…" She grinned to her true love.

"It better…" Jerry looked up with his big brown eyes. "Better dig in before the kids come down."

The door to the balcony lightly wafted open and a breeze filled the loft. Theresa looked to Jerry a moment then started on her way to close up, but on her way she stopped in her path to a large barn owl flying into the loft with a large envelope in its beak. It landed with an elegant and majestic stop on the back of their sofa, dropped the letter and looked around the room with a noble air. A flutter of its wings and it hopped off, took wing and was sailing through the room and out of the loft once more.

"Well, that's something you don't see everyday." Theresa watched the owl sail away as she reclosed the door. Jerry reacted nervously. He looked out the windows of the loft to the sky toward Hudson Bay where the owl had vanished then checked out the letter. It was sealed in wax with a school crest and printed by hand in Gothic lettering. In clean bold lettering, it read:

"Miss Gabrielle Russo

"2278 Waverly Place

"Manhattan

"New York City, NY 67103

"United States Of America."

"I wasn't expecting this…" Jerry spoke. "This is from Thomas's school."

"I thought Thomas went to Wiz-Tech." Theresa misunderstood.

"He did…" Jerry revealed. "For one year… and then he transferred to Hogwarts. He must have made arrangements for them to accept her. The problem is… I can't afford to send her to one school as our kids go to another school. I can't believe Thomas would do this to me."

"What are we going to do?"

"Well…" Jerry thought a second. "I can pretend I never got the letter."

"Hey!!!" Max had suddenly appeared racing down the stairs full of eight-year-old energy. "Did I see an owl down here?"

"Owl?" Jerry hid the letter from Hogwarts behind his back. "Owl? Did you see an owl?" He and Theresa pretended to act ignorant. "I didn't see an owl." It was now Max's chance to act suspicious. His parents were acting guilty about something. When he wanted a dog, his mother said she was allergic, and when he wanted a pet python, it was Jerry's turn to say he was allergic. Together, they had shot down his chances to own dogs, cats, fish, hamsters, guinea pigs, a brontosaurus and even sea monkeys.

"I so wanted an owl." Max lamented as he turned toward the cabinet with the boxes of cereal. Coming down behind him on the staircase was Justin ahead of Alex and Gabrielle. He was looking forward to returning to his friends in magic school like Phil, Jackson and Oliver. They played Twelve Ball together and hung out in the nearby village of Mecklenburg trying to attract girls like Keely, Miley and Chelsea. Keely was primarily Phil's girl, but there were a lot of other attractive witches and sorceresses there.

"Gabrielle," Justin looked at his cousin as he got his morning omelet and spoke of returning to school. "You are going to love it there. Best teacher: Professor Danvers. He's head of Tanglewood House and a school counselor."

"What about me?" Alex swatted her brother for attention.

"Watch out for Jake Ryan." Justin mumbled. "He's got a lousy reputation." Alex's heart sank as if that was the best advice she could get. Gabrielle meanwhile lit up as the favored daughter.

"So…" She turned to her Uncle Jerry. "Did my letter for Wiz-Tech come?" Gabrielle asked effortlessly.

Jerry and Theresa looked at each other nervously.

"Why yes it did!" Theresa finally reacted and took it down off the shelf over the stove. "It arrived the other day with Alex's. You are so going to love Wiz-Tech! Why I bet Justin can get you into Tanglewood House."

"I'd be happy if I got Swiftwind or Brightmoon." Gabrielle shined as she looked upon the letter with her name on it. "Just as long as it isn't Darkwind. Justin says it's the worst house on campus."

"Are you kidding?" Justin came up behind her. "Alex isn't a member yet and they already got her name in their list in their favorite students."

"They remembered me?" Alex grinned and looked happy. "Oh, I just love those guys."

"Justin, I want you to look after Gabrielle up there." Theresa reminded her son as Jerry ripped up the letter from Hogwarts. "It's going to be her first time away from home and don't want my little girl getting hurt, turned to stone or eaten by a werewolf." She pulled Gabrielle close and hugged her with a kiss to the cheek.

"What about me?" Alex was offended by the lack of attention.

"Well…" Theresa looked at her middle child. "I know you can take care of yourself!"

Jerry dropped the shredded Hogwarts letter into the wastebasket and dropped the lid, expecting that to be the end of it, but a week before the kids were to leave for Wiz-Tech, the owl returned with the same letter. The second day: three owls with three letters, and Wednesday: seventeen owls with seventeen letters. Before he knew it, letters were pouring from the refrigerator, the oven, drawers, closets… He was chucking them into the furnace in the basement as fast as he could. The whole time he was shoveling the bales of letters, he was screaming the same thing: "I can't afford to send her! I don't have the money to send her!!!" Alex was sometimes there helping him shovel them.

"Hey, dad…" The Sunday night before the day the kids headed off to Wiz-Tech, Alex was sitting in the basement as her father shoveled the letters. "You know, I actually read one of Gabrielle's letters, and well… I could say I was Gabrielle and…"

Jerry snatched Gabrielle's letter from her.

"I can't afford for you to go there either." He grunted as he tossed into the furnace the last few letters into the burning fireplace. That seemed to be the last of them. As he headed up to the loft with his arm over his daughter's shoulders, he realized how late it was. Theresa had headed off to bed and turned out the lights, but out on the balcony were somewhere between fifty to sixty owls encroaching and staring into their home. They were on the ledge, the bench, perched on the railing for the canopy and up against the glass; their dozens of eyes peering inside as Jerry and Alex walked past them. Their faces turned as Jerry walked past. All those eyes were spooking Alex out and giving her the creeps.

"Don't worry they'll be gone in a few days." Jerry told his daughter. He tried scaring them off, but they did not act like real owls. They just kept watching… and watching. He motioned for the stairs to the third floor and started up, but as he started up, the owls got agitated and started flying around trying to get in, but the door had been jammed shut by a chair. It started sliding out of the way by itself as Jerry rushed to stop it from moving. When he sat in it, there was a loud explosion from downstairs and he feared the owls had broken into the shop. The sound woke or roused everyone from their beds. Justin came running in his t-shirt and pajama pants. Gabrielle in her shorts and exercise top ahead of Max and her Aunt Theresa. It sounded as if something was tearing the place apart. Something was pounding at the door to the loft trying to get in just before it crashed to the floor. A massive figure appeared in the opening to the hall. It was so large that only a thin crack of light came around the profile of it.

"Sorry 'bout the door…" The giant lifted it up into place then ambled over and across the floor toward Jerry trying to keep from fainting. Lifting the door up into place, he had a huge mane of black hair and a long even thicker dark beard. Only a small portion of face of eyes, nose and eyebrows appeared of his face as he entered. "Allow me to introduce myself, Rubeus Hagrid… keeper of the keys and grounds at Hogwarts." He stood a foot and a half over Jerry. "I be looking for one Gabrielle Russo."

"That's me!!!" Alex chirped to attention before Gabrielle could respond. Her foster sister looked to her upset.

"You've changed a lot since I saw you last." Hagrid looked to her with a big smile under that large beard. "You know… I knew you when you was a mere baby. Are you ready to go?"

"Yes, I am…" Alex looked to her stunned parents. "See you, daddy…"

"Wait a minute!!!" Everyone suddenly broke from their stunned surprise and started screaming to stop Alex from leaving or Hagrid from taking her. Theresa pulled Alex back and held on to her, but amidst Justin and Jerry trying to tell the truth, it was Gabrielle jumping up higher in her nightgown and screaming louder than the rest.

"I'm Gabrielle!" She insisted. "I'm Gabrielle!" Next to her, Alex slapped her hand to her head for not being fast enough.

"Well, of course you are." Hagrid looked to ward her with that big grin again. "This is a very lucky day for you. Hogwarts is the best magic school of the twelve known magic schools for a young lady like yourself. No better place to learn wizardry and from the best wizard of them all, Albus Dumbledore."

"Hogwarts?" Gabrielle was confused. "I'm not going to Wiz-Tech with Justin and Alex?"

"I'm sorry, but…" Jerry stood up to the gentle giant. "She can't go… I just… can't afford it."

"You never read a single one of those letters you burned…" Hagrid was astounded.

"Uncle Jerry!!!" Gabrielle was offended

"If you had read but one of those letters," Hagrid continued. "You might have read that your brother left enough money at Gringotts to pay for Gabrielle's tuition many times over. Jerry Russo, you really are a piece of work!"

"What?" Jerry stood ashamed as his wife swatted him, but then he realized something else and turned to Alex. "You read one of those letters! You couldn't have told me your Uncle Thomas had ready paid for her tuition!"

"You should have been able to figure it out by the way I was trying to take her place!!!" Alex tried weakly to cover up her dishonesty. Jerry and Theresa groaned along with Justin and Max at this turn of events.

"You know…" Jerry tried to cover up his own stupidity. "I've got two other teenage wizards; is there enough room in that account for…"

"You really are a piece of work, aren't you, Russo?" Hagrid looked back at the father with one eyebrow raised.