Hiya Sandra,

Boy, have I got loads to tell you! My first year at Hogwarts has been sooo exciting! Let me start by telling you a bit about how I ended up going to Hogwarts, the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry! You as my best friend of course know everything about me but some things have changed and I'll tell you all about everything in this letter.

But before I'll tell you everything, take a look at the picture I sent. I know, it moves, isn't that just brilliant? Oh, all the wonderful things one can do with magic. I love my new hair, it's so shiny (I know you said I shouldn't dye blond again and I didn't! Now I'm brunette and I have to tell you, my boyfriend loves it - I'll tell you ALL about him later, you'll get to hear our magical love story!) and long. I've stayed slim during my year here, as you can see. My eyes are still ocean blue (though you can't see this from the picture as it's sepia!) and that's my Hogwarts uniform you see right there. Isn't it SOOO much better than the one we had at our school?

Okay, so one day I get this owl fly into my room. First I'm just sitting there, thinking "Wow that's a pretty owl!", but the owl has a letter so I take the letter and read it (first of all, of course I thought: Who writes letters anymore, because, duhh, we've got emails and cell phones for all kinds of messaging needs!). And it said I'm a witch and going to be going to Hogwarts!

So I run downstairs and tell my parents and they're very cool about it. My mom tells she's a witch and my dad's a Muggle-born which means both his parents are unmagical folk but he's still a wizard himself. I'm so surprised, I always thought my dad was just a lawyer! Hehe! Mom tells me she's always wanted to tell me but she'd been afraid I was a Squib (that is like a magical person who can't do magic!). So I'm standing there and my head is buzzing from all these weird new words, but anyway, I'm still alright and excited.

Well I'm of course 16 already and you're supposed to go at Hogwarts at eleven, so why wasn't I invited until now? Well, simply because mom wanted to homeschool me. But she forgot! So I've just been going to a regular Muggle school (Muggle means non-magic folk, you're one too Sandra but don't worry, darling, it's not an offencive name!) and learned reading and writing and that sorta stuff. Isn't that weird?

Anyway, so now I'm supposed to learn everything all the people at Hogwarts have learned during the last 5 years! Isn't that just whack? But Hogwarts is sending a special teacher (but they call them Professors at Hogwarts, my mom tells me, she went there as did dad and my mom's parents, who I've never met!) to tutor me - so I get like a quick crash course into magick! Isn't that cool?

Well, I thought so until I met the teacher. His name was Severus Snape. (The magic folk have soooo weird names! My name, Felicia Pandora Edwards, seems quite normal compared to some of the names my mom mentioned to be the names of her best friends from school.)

Anyway, the teacher wasn't so bad once I got to know him. He was really just quite strict. He teaches Potions at Hogwarts, it's kind of like Chemistry, I guess (I know you hate Chem, so I won't talk about Potions, though it became my absolute favourite subject at Hogwarts!).

Okay so I studied intensely for a month and Professor Snape called me a "spectacularly gifted student" and I was very pleased with myself. A couple of wizards came to our house to test me on all the subjects I had studied (I had to leave some subjects that the other students have done out because of my lack of time- Divinations, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Herbology, because our garden lacks of magical plants). The tests were called OWLs. The problem was that even after my exhausting, intense studying, I had only practised a few things in practise. So I might've failed my Defence Against The Dark Arts (Dark Arts are sorta like black magic, evil stuff) exam because I didn't know all the spells, but my tester, an old wizard, assured me that the exam went well and that I'm strangely talented for a witch who only just began studying magic.

So, then I was off to Hogwarts! Before that I went to do some serious school shopping. I bought my books from this wizard book store and then mom brought me to this store with all kinds of cool magical pets. I got a little pink lizard that breathes out star sparkles and eats mint leaves and gold fishes. It's so cute! I named it Pinkie, like the finger, but with different spelling. Pinkie is a Hugecko, that will grow to be as big as an average sized cat, so I knew I would be allowed to keep it at Hogwarts.

I also bought quills because that's what we write with at Hogwarts - how old-fashioned and charming! I bought all this stuff from a place called Diagon Alley - it's a lovely lovely place where most wizards who live near London go to do their special magic shopping. There I also met some new friends!

I was walking down the street, enjoying the atmosphere, carrying all the things I'd bought, Pinkie resting on my right shoulder when I suddenly tripped over a large stone on the stone-pavement and I fell, dropping all my things. I sat up and checked my hands for bruises or scratches, but found them to be in good condition. After this I began gathering my things and was soon helped by a nice, elderly wizard with a large grey beard who placed Pinkie on my shoulder and made sure I was okay. Another person came to my help as well, a cute, rather tall boy with darkish hair, around my age, clutching a book about Herbology, I noticed.

He gathered some of my bags and even managed to save some of the wizard candy I had recently purchased. Once we both got up on our feet, he smiled at me and put his hand out to say hello.

"My name is Neville Longbottom, nice to meet you."

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A/N: I'll post the next chapters later. Please be kind to me this is my first HP fic and surely none of you want it to be my last one? ;)