It had been unusually warm that morning, even for July. I remember sitting in the doorway of our small terraced house, looking over at the broken window of the flats opposite, and letting the sun catch the tops of my legs. The street was empty, calm and peaceful.

Until that moment, I had never been hit in the face by an owl. I don't think I had even seen one. But before I knew what was happening, I felt the soft impact of an owl's wing on my cheek, and its talon tugging at my hair. Surprisingly nonchalant in spite of the situation, I noticed the envelop tied to its leg, and gently untied it.

Lorraine Sullivan

The Doorway

238 Mount Street

Reading

Berkshire

I had barely finished reading the letter before my sister, Leah, appeared behind me.

"What's that?" she asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes.

I shrugged. "I think it's a joke," I replied weakly, flinching as she snatched the letter from me.

"What the hell is 'Hogwarts'? Sounds like an acne cream."

"It's not real," I said desperately, trying to retrieve the letter from her grasp.

She snorted and ignored me. I watched her expression as she began to read the letter; saw it change when she reached the end.

"Freak," she spat at me, and she scrunched the parchment up and threw it towards me, as she turned to run back up the stairs.

In the end it transpired that the letter was not a joke, and within a couple of months I was onboard a train called the Hogwarts Express, going to a magic school somewhere in the north. I think if the same thing happened to me again, as I am now, I would have been horrifically nervous about meeting hundreds of new people in a place I had never been to, but at the time I was too bewildered to feel anything but excitement to be getting away from home.

The first person I spoke to on the train was a strange girl with dark hair and a chubby face. Her way of greeting me was to shove half of her luggage into my hands and tell me to go and find a spare compartment - but she was so friendly and her smile was so warm, I didn't mind her ordering me about. This was Ruby Summers, who quickly became one of my best friends.

I shared a dormitory with five other girls: Maria Chen, Lucy McFadden, Mary McDonald, Ruby Summers and Lily Evans. I was often slightly jealous of Lily, although I tried my hardest not to be. She was very clever, very pretty, and to top it off, very nice (although she did have an alarming temper). To my surprise, she also became one of my best friends.

Having two best friends seemed odd after my experiences in a muggle primary school. There, strange things had always seemed to happen to me, and so I was labelled the school weirdo. Leah made it even worse. She would tell everyone about my secrets – the secrets only the people you live with know. Perhaps that was why I loved Hogwarts so much. I was no Lily Evans, but people liked me well enough. I liked the lessons, I liked the people, I liked the place.

And that was me.