I love my job. The kids are so nice, apart from a few who I won’t go into much detail about! If you didn’t already know, I’m the lady who sells sweets off the trolley on the Hogwarts Express. Now, I know you’re probably thinking that you don’t care and that this is going to be some boring story about my job because the kids don’t think much of me. I mean don’t get me wrong, they’re nice enough, they know their manners and thank me when they buy sweets off the trolley, but they definitely don’t think much of me. I’d be surprised if they even remembered what I look like! For example, not one of them said to me ‘good to see you’ or ‘how are you?’ But I’m used to it by now, I’ve been doing my job for years. Now, enough of me complaining! Let me tell you my story.

A long time ago, I went to Hogwarts myself. I was a pretty good student, straight A’s and generally good reports but I had this one teacher who hated my guts! Professor Dolicrumus. Stupid name, I know, sums up his stupid personality! I’ve heard some of the kids talking about Professor Snape and thought he sounds a lot like Dolicrumus. Although that’s just from what I’ve heard, he could be a perfectly nice man for all I know! But anyway, back to the point. Dolicrumus hated me and my best friend Lilly Potter. Her name wasn’t actually Potter, I just called her that because she had the hugest crush on James Potter and I knew he liked her too and I always knew that they were going to get married! Dolicrumus would always give us extra homework and random detentions for not knowing answers to really hard questions and would make us write lines which took hours, or at least felt like it! Lilly was a good student as well, we didn’t know why Dolicrumus hated us so much. Lilly said it was probably because she was in Griffindor, but I was in Hufflepuff but there was no excuse for me! He was the head of Slytherin, of course, with platinum blonde hair, and he kind of looked like a rude year 7 boy I served on the train a couple of days ago. Would be a coincidence if he gets Slytherin too!

Anyway, there was this girl, Estella who bullied me for not having enough money, for having hand-me-down robes and not living in a big mansion like hers. Although it bothered me, Lilly always stood up for me. She was very confident but I was very quiet and easy to pick on, so how we became friends, I don’t know! One day while Lilly was sick and was staying at the Griffindor dorms, Estella was horrible to me again. This had been going on for about a year now so I just FREAKED OUT, stood up and punched her. She was taken aback, especially since Lilly wasn’t there so there was no way she could back me up now. I was scared of what Estella was going to do to me. But she didn’t hit me back; she just fake-cried and screamed ‘in pain’. I didn’t know what to do. ‘Should I run?’ ‘Should I hide?’ Thoughts came rushing into my head but there was no chance: Professor Dolicrumus ran out of his office as if he had been waiting for this moment his whole life.

“I should have known it would be you.”

And with that, he grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and dragged me along the corridor, up the moving staircases and to the headmaster’s office. I remember crying because I felt so sorry for myself and because Dolicrumus was holding me so tight and it hurt!

And that was it. My Hogwarts journey over, and only in year 11… What were my parents going to think? Were they going to think I was a disappointment? What about Lilly? She wouldn’t know what had happened to me. I cried and cried. The saddest part was, I never got to see Lilly again.

I didn’t know what to do for a job since I couldn’t just get a normal job in the muggle world, since I’m a witch of course! So I begged the headmaster for a job at Hogwarts. I was willing to do anything! But he said no. So I finally found a job here. A train worker. Pathetic, right?!

I always wondered what happened to Lilly, and if Dolicrumus was still nasty, but that was an obvious! Then 11 years ago, I heard the news… Lilly was dead. It broke my heart. I cried for weeks and despite me having been her best friend up to year 11, I couldn’t go to her funeral since I had been expelled from the school. What if I could have helped? What if I could have been there? I really regret punching Estella. I wish I could have said goodbye to Lilly.

Then, on the train, I heard the kids whispering ‘Lilly and James’ kid’… ‘Yes, yes Harry Potter’. My eyes lit up but then again, I thought it must be a joke until I went into a carriage and saw him. Those eyes. That scar. Definitely Lilly & James’ kid. I asked him if he wanted anything off the trolley and he replied “We’ll take the lot”. I thought he was joking until he pulled out so much money! It was more than I’d ever seen in my life all at once! It was crazy! Exactly what Lilly would have done, I thought. I gave him the sweets and left. I didn’t want to embarrass him.

Besides, he probably doesn’t know who I am because after all, I am just a failure who was expelled from Hogwarts…