Hi guys! This is my first proper fanfiction. I hope you like it. It's got a few clichés in it but the plot has been going round in my head for a while. Any constructive critisism is welcome.

I own nothing you recognise

The girl sighed as she stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom. Downstairs she could hear the sounds of her cousin, Dudley, and Uncle Vernon laughing at the television and her Aunt Petunia chattering on the phone with one of her friends. There was nothing unusual about these things; they were quite a regular occurrence. The unusual thing was that they were happening at the same time. This meant that no one was yelling at her. The thought made her smile slightly.

She sat up and looked around her room. It wasn't exactly luxurious but, compared to what she had to live with for the first 9 years here, it was heaven. She had lived with her aunt, uncle and cousin for as long as she could remember. She had never understood why until she turned 11. On that day she learned everything. Well… everything they wanted her to know.

It had started a week or so before her birthday. A letter had arrived for her in the post. This had confused her a great deal. No one had ever sent her a letter in her time at Privet Drive so why had that changed now? The second strange thing was how the letter was addressed:

Miss W. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

It was correct, that wasn't the odd part. But how did anyone know about her cupboard and bother to put it on a letter? And finally there was the letter itself. The paper was yellowing and heavy and it had a red wax seal on the back.

She had been so preoccupied by these strange phenomena that she didn't even think to hide the letter from the Dursleys. Her cousin had, of course, noticed her holding the letter and it was snatched from her hand by her Uncle before she could break the seal.

After that day a steady stream of letters had come into the house. The Dursleys, out of fear that someone was watching them, had moved her into Dudley's second bedroom. Eventually, the number of letters arriving every day became so high that Uncle Vernon had ordered all of them to pack a bag and had driven all day to a hotel hundreds of miles away. This effort, like all his others, to stop the letters once again proved futile when over a hundred letters arrived for her at the hotel the next morning.

Vernon had eventually resorted to dragging the family to a tiny hut on an island with a storm brewing outside and no access to dry land except a tiny, rickety boat. He was fairly triumphant, believing he had finally outsmarted the letter writers.

Unfortunately for Vernon he was wrong. As Dudley's watch reached midnight and she turned 11 the door of the hut was smashed in by a giant man who immediately apologized and introduced himself as Hagrid. It was then that she finally got a copy of the letter which invited her to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He then said that, once they had collected her school supplies, the Headmaster wanted to see her at the school.

She sighed again and stood up. Looking around her room at all her possessions it would be clear to anyone that walked in that she was a witch. From a cauldron in her trunk in the corner, to her gorgeous snowy owl, Hedwig, in a cage on the desk. She remembered that first meeting with Dumbledore very clearly. It was then she learned that the wizarding world, like the muggle one, was full of prejudice, hypocrisy and people who would try their very best to stop her being herself.

Flashback:

Hagrid led her back to the Leaky Cauldron after purchasing her wand. Mr Ollivander had acted very strangely when she received her wand, muttering "Curious… very curious."

When she asked him about it he said that her wand was the twin to the wand which had given her brother his scar.

She was very confused. Brother? What brother? All her life her aunt and uncle had never mentioned her having a brother. All they told her was that her parents had died in a car crash when she was one and she had been sent to live with them. So what did Mr Ollivander mean?

This was still spinning around her head as she and Hagrid walked through the main bar of the Leaky Cauldron and into a backroom where there was a fireplace and a tall man standing by it, glaring at the pair of them as they walked in.

This man was dressed completely in black. He had shoulder length black hair which looked slightly greasy, a rather hooked nose, very pale skin and black eyes which narrowed as they analysed her. The man's face twisted into a sneer and he turned his head to glare at Hagrid.

"Why are you late, Hagrid?" he snarled. "I did not ask for this errand and the longer it takes, the more of my time is wasted. Did the brat decide she wanted to buy the whole quidditch store?"

"No, Professor Snape, sir. Mr Ollivander jus' took a bi' longer 'an usual findin' 'er wand, is all."

"Of course he did," the man's sneer grew even more pronounced, "Potters always have to be difficult don't they." He turned his gaze on her again. "You had better learn quickly, girl, that while your guardians may have catered to your every whim, not everyone here is going to worship the ground you walk on."

She was shocked, to say the least. What exactly did this Professor Snape have against her? She opened her mouth to inform him that she was not, in fact, expecting any special treatment from him, or anyone else for that matter, but Hagrid beat her to it.

"But, Professor, she can' 'elp what wand she gets!"

"Be that as it may, Hagrid, it has wasted even more time that I could have spent doing something productive. Now, if you don't mind, I would like to get this over with. There is no need for you to wait. The Headmaster has said he will arrange a portkey to take her home."

"Well, if yeh're sure sir," he turned to her. "Hope yeh get 'ome alright, kid, an' I'll see yeh a' Hogwarts."

She smiled nervously at him. "Thanks for everything Hagrid."

With a last glance from her to Professor Snape standing behind her, Hagrid turned and left the room. As soon as he was gone, Snape gripped her shoulder and pushed her towards the fireplace. Taking a small pouch from his pocket he took a handful of powder from it and threw it into the flames. They immediately turned emerald green. Snape turned to face her.

"Step into the flames and say 'Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts', even you should be able to do that, Potter. Say it clearly, if you mess this up I will not be coming to find you."

Slightly worried now, she stepped towards the fireplace and placed on foot into the flames. They didn't burn; they weren't even very hot, just pleasantly warm.

"Hurry up Potter! I don't have all day!"

With a slight start she placed her other foot into the fireplace and said what he had told her as clearly as she could, while trying not to get her mouth full of smoke, and, in a rush of flames, she felt herself speeding away from the Leaky cauldron. Where to… she didn't know.

Well, there you go. Chapter 1.

I had planned to get all the flashbacks in one chapter. But I have trouble working with deadlines so I think (hope) I will update more regularly if I have something up already and have people wanting more.