Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with Harry Potter (unfortunately). The magical world of Harry Potter belongs completely to JKR. But I do own Cloe!

Uh, this is my first fanfic of Harry Potter, so bear with me please! I also don't really know where I'm going with this, although I am juggling a few ideas...

Chapter 1

The Keeper of Keys and Grounds At Hogwarts

An eleven year old girl with dark brown hair that was in a boyish cut was sitting, waiting, behind a pile of crates, watching a man behind a stall serving customers. This girl had brown eyes, a green t-shirt, faded blue jeans and scruffy trainers on. She had an indigo cap pulled low over her eyes and to finish it off, she had a rather old, battered violin case strapped to her back. Anybody who took one glance at her thought that she was a boy. This girl was called Cloe Maysbury. At the age of six, her mother had died, leaving the violin with her in the same battered, old case, and she was taken to an orphanage. At the age of ten, she had run away. Now, at the age of eleven, she was fending for herself in the streets, earning money by the only means possible: playing the violin in front of a crowd. Her father had left them on her third birthday and she had never seen him since. As she kept a close eye on the man behind the stall, she noticed when he turned his back for a moment. She darted forward expertly and took a banana and an apple. She went back to her hiding place and ate the banana, then started on her apple. She didn't mind being on the streets, apart from the fact that it was quite hard to find a place to sleep for the night without being 'moved along'. In the past year, she had become streetwise and knew danger from a mile off. After finishing her apple, she shifted the violin case on her back to a more comfortable position and set off towards the town's graveyard. It was on this very day that her mother had died. She stopped in front of her grave and looked down on it without reading the writing. She had visited this place more times than she could count, and had memorised the engravings on her grave. She took her violin out, rubbed the bow with resin and started playing a sad tune. A stream of colours and shapes rose from the violin and floated around; a mixture of black and white, purple and grey. After she was finished, Cloe gently laid her violin back into the case, closed it and turned to the grave.

"Hello Mum." she said softly.

She slowly sank to the ground on her knees.

"I've been practising Mum, but you have no idea how hard it is to live without you."

She felt tears form in her eyes but she refused to let them fall.

"Mum, I have no idea what to do. I'm different from everybody else. I see more colours and music and letters and numbers have colours and shapes, and I can do things that I can't explain."

She sat there in silence for a few more minutes before standing up and strapping her violin case to her back once again. She was just about to walk away when a booming voice reached her. It echoed around the empty (apart from her) and eerie graveyard.

"You there! With the violin!"

Cloe jerked her head around. There was a man standing at the gate, but Cloe could see that he couldn't be an ordinary man. He was practically twice as big as a grown man, and he had a mane of black, shaggy hair. He made his way towards her, and Cloe, who was taught to never speak to strangers, was rooted to the spot. At last, the great man reached her.

"Do yeh know anyone by the name of Cloe Maysbury?" he asked.

Cloe stared at him. He knows her name, but she swore in her whole life that she had never seen him before. His clothes held all different shades of brown. She was sure that she would've recognised this man if she had seen him before.

"I-I'm Cloe Maysbury," she paused. "sir." she added quickly.

The man looked down at her for a long moment.

"Merlin's beard! Cloe Maysbury! But... you look like a boy!" he exclaimed.

Cloe looked down sheepishly.

"My-my Mum died five years ago on this day." she shyly said.

"How come yeh ain't stayin' at the orphanage, eh?"

"I ran away. Last year."

"Ruddy owls couldn't find yeh!"

Cloe looked at him confusedly. Owls? Find her? What on earth was he talking about?

"Anyway, I was supposed ter give you this." he handed her an envelope.

She studied it. It had her name on it, but it didn't have an address! Weird! She turned the envelope over and studied the seal. It was red wax (one that showed her a deep red mixed with crimson) of some sort of badge that had a lion, a snake, a badger and an eagle entwined around alarge 'H'.

"Go on then! Open it!"

Cloe hastily broke the seal and took a piece of paper out. No, it wasn't paper. This had a different feel to it. She recognised it as the piece of 'paper' that she had once seen her mother write on, and remembered being told that it was called parchment. She unfolded it and read the slanted writing. Her eyes skimmed it over expertly (having read the newspaper from bins), then looked back to the man.

"What... Sir, what does it exacly mean?" she hesitantly asked.

"Why, it means yer a witch, o' course!"

She stared at him. A witch? There were no such thing as magic... Was there?

"I... I'm a witch?"

"Well, it has yer name on it, doesn't it?"

"I... Well, yes, it does. But a witch?"

Cloe was sure that this must be a prank of some sort. However, the man didn't seem to think so.

"What is your name anyway?" she frowned up at him.

"Hagrid. Rubeus Hagrid, the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Hagrid..." it rolled off her tongue nicely.

The letters in his name gave her a rough view of his personality. He was kind (courtesy of the letters 'a' and 'i'), and he also had an unpredictable side of him (the letter 'r'), but overall, he was kind. Cloe decided to trust him.

"So... the strange things I can do is magic?"

"Yeah, tha's righ'."

Cloe felt happy, a feeling she has not had in a long time.

"So, I get to go to this Hogwarts?"

"Yeah." he grunted.

"When?"

"Well, I've ter take you to get yer things first."

Cloe looked down the list of school things she needed. She has been to school before, but ever since her runaway, she has not been, but she remembered the pencils and textbooks and such that she had to take. But it seemed that being a witch and attending Hogwarts, you had to have very different things for this school. She had to get a cauldron, a pet if she wanted one (An owl, toad, cat or rat), and quills, parchment and very strange textbooks, and, by the god! a wand! A real wand!

"Can I really get all these things here? In London?"

"Yeah, in a place called Diagon Alley."

"Diagon Alley..." she repeated slowly.

Cloe did not know what to make of the personalities the letters gave her.

"We can go now. The term starts next week."

Startled out of her musing of the personalities, Cloe looked at Hagrid.

"Go... now?"

She eyed him warily. She was taught to never go off with strangers, but this Hagrid person knew her name first.

"Sir... Hagrid..."

"Just call me Hagrid."

"Hagrid... Are you a teacher-" Cloe looked down at the piece of parchment that had a signature on it. "I mean, a professor, at Hogwarts?"

"Yes, yes I am." he said proudly. "I am teaching Care of Magical Creatures this year."

"Care of Magical Creatures..." she said faintly.

She didn't know what made her next choice, but she knew that she could trust Hagrid.

"Ok, lets go now."

Hagrid smiled down at her and led her out of the graveyard. With one last fleeting look at her mother's grave, Cloe walked out.

"Look... Down this street, there's a pub called the Leaky Cauldron. It's fer witches and wizards like yerself."

Hagrid pointed. Cloe looked at the old, shabby pub he was pointing at. Funnily enough, Cloe had a feeling that nobody else but them two could see it. Hagrid led her inside and she saw that it was packed with men and women wearing long cloaks of different colours and pointed hats to match their cloaks. The barman hurried out from behind the bar and stood in front of them.

"The usual, Hagrid?"

"No thanks Tom. On Hogwarts business."

The barman, Tom, looked down at Cloe. He smiled at her and she nervously smiled back. She didn't know what to make of the letter 't' in his name, but combined with the letter 'm', it usually meant that the person was bad. He seemed nice enough though, but she couldn't help pressing her body next to Hagrid's tp try and hide from him. He made her feel uneasy.

"Anyway, got ter go now."

Hagrid thankfully steered her away to the back of the pub and walked through a door. There was a blank bit of wall and Cloe couldn't understand why they were standing behind a wall, staring a blank piece of wall. She then heard Hagrid muttering under his breath.

"... three across, two down... Ok Cloe, stand back now."

Cloe stepped back and watched as he pulled out a flowery umbrella in different shades (to her) of pink. He tapped some bricks on the wall and put it away. Cloe's eyes were drawn to the wall. The bricks had started moving until it created an archway that revealed a street beyond it, teeming with people that were wearing cloaks and hats of the same sort in the pub.

"Cloe, welcome to Diagon Alley."

Her jaw dropped.

So... how was that? Did you's like it? I know it's not much right now, but it's all I was able to come up with for the very first chapter... And why Cloe sees these colours and shapes and stuff will be explained later on (by none other than Hermione), but for all of those who may already know: well done! To be honest, I think it's pretty cool how some people sees life in colour and shapes. I didn't know about this until I read a book, Ultraviolet by RJ Anderson :) That's where I got the inspiration for Cloe to see these things :) Anyway, drop a review so I can see if I should continue with this story or not! But most likely than not, I probably will continue it even though people disagrees...