It was nearly mid-day when Emer finally pushed back the bed covers and forced herself to her feet. She had slept badly, despite her tiredness, and had woken on the hour, every hour. She felt groggy as she got ready; pulling on the clothes she had worn the night before. Ferociously rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she locked her bedroom door and trudged down into the main belly of the pub.

It was much livelier than it had been last night, the tables were full of little huddles of witches and wizards drinking butter beer and slurping soup, many discussing today's Daily Prophet which Tom was also flicking through at the bar.

"M-m-morning." Emer yawned, nodding to him as she came close.

"Sleep awright?" He asked, folding up the newspaper, "Can I getcha anythin'?"

"Don't worry," Emer said rubbing her eyes, "I've got to get going. There's a load I need from town, I'll grab something later."

"If you're sure," he said, smiling at her before taking an order from a stout man with a goatee.

Emer continued her way through the pub, weaving between tables and customers towards the back door –which had been propped open. People were passing through the door steadily, in and out of the little courtyard as if it were a train station. A tall wizard in a flat hat and tassels drooping from the sleeves of his robes was standing beside the back wall of the courtyard, leaning against a brick archway.

It was the entrance to Diagon Alley; the rabbit run of cobbled streets that made up the wizarding hub of London – completely hidden from the Muggle world. Normally Emer would have used her wand to open the hidden archway, but today it seemed Tom had employed the wizard in the hat to monitor the busy flow of customers that came and went as they pleased. The wizard, who upon closer inspection must only have been seventeen or eighteen at the most, winked as she passed him.

The streets were alive and busy with people moving from shop to shop, many pausing to chat to friends and disrupting the beeline movements of more impatient shoppers. Emer only visited Diagon Alley once a year, to buy her new school things, and still marvelled at it all. The brightly coloured shop fronts with stacks of squawking crates and barrels were a world away from Haven Quay and its distinct lack of street lights. A pair of brothers ran passed her, throwing dung-bombs at unsuspecting shoppers, giggling wickedly as their red-faced mother chased behind them.

Gringotts Bank was a huge marble white building that stood grand and tall at the very end of Diagon Alley. Emer didn't have a vault, or enough wizard gold to bother putting in one, but she had worked in a Muggle shop in Dublin all summer, and had been saving her earnings for this very trip. The goblins who ran the bank would reluctantly exchange her hard earned pounds and pennies for the galleons, sickles and knuts she needed in the wizarding world.

She took the steps up the great bronze doors two by two, flashing a grin at the uniformed goblins flanking them. They scowled back at her, a contemptuous look in their beady black eyes. She pushed open the doors, and passed into the vast marble hall that was Gringotts.

Long counters stretched along the length of it, with ironically small goblins sitting three feet above their customers on spindled gold high-chairs. Doors lined every wall, leading off into the dark tunnels that would lead those with vaults to their treasure. Emer marched briskly up the centre of the hall, she had never liked the atmosphere in the bank and imagined that every move she made was scrutinised and analysed by hundreds of pairs of invisible eyes. She didn't like to think that her imaginings were probably true.

She spotted a free goblin to her right, and picked her way across the diamond patterned marble floor towards him. However just as she reached the goblin, she was cut off by a tall, pale-faced man with long white-blonde hair that hung low down his back. He carried an ebony black cane with a serpentine silver pummel, and wore a black cloak that seemed to hold an impenetrable ego within its folds.

"So…sorry." The man drawled, with barely half a glance at Emer after sliding in front of her But he made no attempt to step back, and began conversing with the goblin as if she hadn't been worth holding in his mind for more than the second it took to dismiss her. She scowled and made to push past the drawling man, but then a boy materialised at his father's side and dislike pinned her to the spot.

With hair and face as pale as his father's, and scathing grey eyes that suggested permanent and universal loathing, Draco Malfoy drew himself up beside Lucius, puffing out his skinny chest. Hatred for the father burned suddenly and unexpectedly inside of her, and words her own dead mother had spoken to her flashed red in her mind for the first time in years.

"Father," Draco began. Emer had taken only a step away from them when he spotted her, "Oh…it's you." She didn't so much as look back, instead selecting a goblin at random from the opposite side of the hall and storming towards him.

"I want to exchange some Muggle money." She snapped, still seething.

"Oh you do, do you?" The goblin sneered down at her from his perch, "How much do you wish to exchange?"

Ten minutes later she was back out in the glorious sunshine, the fury she had felt from her encounter with Mr Malfoy ebbing gently away. The money she had managed to cobble together over the summer was gone and in its place thirty gold galleons as well as fourteen sickles and knuts a piece. Her stomach growled in protest and, with her purse in hand, she set off towards Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.

After finding a table and tucking into a Fizzing Whizzbee Sundae, Emer pulled out her school list and examined it closely. All the usual books and potions equipment were there, along with the new quill she knew she needed, but at the very bottom of the list was an addition she had not been expecting: Those in fourth year or above will require dress robes.

Dress robes? It seemed an odd request; there were never normally parties or important dinners at Hogwarts that required formal clothes. She glanced across the street towards Madam Malkin's, the dressmakers, and wondered how much of her money she would have to spend on a dress. She didn't own many clothes, and certainly none that would fit the criteria of 'Dress Robes' – she somehow doubted Professor McGonagall would accept leggings and an oversized t-shirt as formal.

She paid her bill at the ice-cream parlour and drifted towards the dressmakers, a little apprehensive, but nonetheless determined. Rich fabrics were draped around tailored mannequins standing confidently in the window, through which Emer could see the interior of the shop. A squat woman sat behind the counter, ferociously sewing a dragon's skin suit, with her glasses balancing on the end of a stubby little rose. The tinkle of a shop bell sounded somewhere out of sight as Emer pushed open the door and the woman looked up at her, smiling.

"Hogwarts?" She said in a sing-song voice.

Emer nodded, "I need…dress robes."

Hours later, Emer sat with her back against the headboard of her bed in the Leaky Cauldron's dingy little room. Paper parcels tied neatly with string were strewn across the floor and 'The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Four' had been abandoned on the little spindled table. It was the only one of her school books Emer had attempted to read, and had become disinterested before she'd even started chapter one.

Her mind kept straying to the largest package, the only one to have earned a place in her trunk, which contained twenty galleons worth of shimmering golden fabric. Beautiful though it was, she couldn't picture a situation where she would actually wear it and she wondered again why it was suddenly on their school list. Were they throwing a party for the older students? It seemed unlikely, she couldn't exactly imagine her teachers throwing caution to the wind and letting their hair down.

Lucius Malfoy's scathing tone drifted back to her and she scowled into the darkened, empty room. Emer had never before been able to put the name to the face, but now having done she just felt immeasurable anger towards the man. Every part of him, from his glossy hair to his immaculate leather shoes made her skin curl. Here was a man with nothing to lose, but had taken everything from the scum he considered beneath him. She was absent-mindedly twisting a tiny shamrock that hung from a long gold chain around her neck.

She kicked off her shoes and socks and slid under the sheets fully clothed. Anticipation and excitement was mounting inside her as she pictured the puffing steam engine she would board the following morning. Her wand was still in the rucksack abandoned near her trunk. She hadn't used it in nearly two months and was itching to hex the next Slytherin she met, purely because she could.

Emer didn't remember falling asleep; her mind's aimless ramblings could easily have pulled her under without her realising, but the next thing she knew there was a brisk hammering coming from the door.

"Miss McKinley!" It was Tom, calling from the corridor outside.

"Wassthematter?" Her words were groggy and slurred with sleep.

"It's gone ten, I was just thinkin', well…don't you need to leave soon?"

"Shit!" Emer yelped sitting bolt upright. The train left in an hour, whether she was on board or not, "Thanks Tom!" She called, already rolling out of bed and pulling clean clothes from her trunk. The dull thud thud thud of his retreat back down the passage was only just audible above the choosy swearwords streaming from Emer's mouth as she hunted for underwear.

Fifteen minutes later she stood in front of the mirror, towel drying her hair and cursing the fact she couldn't yet use magic to speed up the process. She was dressed in Muggle clothes, she would change on the train, and her jeans were sticking uncomfortably to her still wet legs.

Abandoning hope, she threw the towel in the open trunk where it landed haphazard atop the paper parcels she had squashed in minutes before. It was as Emer clicked the locks of the trunk shut that she realised she didn't know how she was going to get to Kings Cross in time. She had taken a taxi to the station last year, but a single glance out of the window onto Charing Cross below told her that the traffic in London that morning meant she would never make it.

She swore rapidly as she hauled the trunk onto the floor by hand, where it landed with a ringing thud. She checked she'd left nothing behind and then lugged the trunk down the corridor to the staircase, where she nearly crashed into Tom standing on the top step.

"Oh, sorry!" She said, promptly dropping the trunk on her own foot and swearing once more. Tom let out a wheezy laugh, grasping the stair rail for support.

"There's a portkey…tha' tea towel on t'side…tha'll get you there on time." He coughed a little after each phrase, composing himself. Emer grinned in appreciation and together they supported the trunk down the stairs, then balancing it precariously on the bar. The aged barman tied the dirty tea towel around the handle and Emer gripped on as she had done before.

"Thanks Tom," She said, turning to face him, "Thanks for everything; you've been a right gem so you have."

"Tha's alrigh'" he said smiling broadly, "You 'ave a good year, an' don't get into no mischief eh?" She laughed, opened her mouth the reply, but then felt the familiar tug in her stomach and the scene bent and deformed as she and her trunk were taken across the city to Kings Cross Station.