15th July
I suppose I should introduce myself, seeing as this is a new journal. (No matter what Mum said when she gave it to me for my birthday this morning, this is not a diary. Only girls keep diaries.) My name is Hugo Weasley. I am eleven years old and have read more books in my short life than my father has in his entire existence. It makes me feel smarter than he is, but he’s way cooler. He can do super neat magic, and he’s an Auror, which means he defeats dark wizards every day. Also, he fought in the final battle against Mouldy Shorts. (That’s what he calls Voldemort in bedtime stories. Which I haven’t had in a long time. Well, okay, not since last week, because Albus and James and Lily are staying with us and it would be totally embarrassing if they found out I still get tucked in bed at night.)  

These are some things I like:
Beating my dad at chess
Beating my sister at chess
Beating my mum at chess
Beating anyone at chess that’s brave enough to face me
Watching Quidditch matches with my dad
Read (I think I’ve cleaned out Flourish and Blotts)

These are some things I don’t like:
Corned beef
Losing chess games
Playing Quidditch. I’m horrid at it. I can never get the broom to do what I want it to, and I fall off a lot. Rose is good though, which is annoying because boys are supposed to be better at sports than girls.
Dressing up for anything. Dress robes are stupid and girly, and Grandma insists on getting matching ones for all the grandkids for family pictures every year. Mine are always maroon. So are Dad’s. I guess she thinks we look good in maroon, but I think it’s ugly. 

I’m going to go eat my Chocolate Frogs now. James and Albus gave me a whole box today for my birthday, but I bet it’s because I have more cards than them and they’re hoping I’ll get ones I have already and trade with them. So bye!  

P.S. I’ll try and write every day. It’s actually rather fun, but don’t tell James that because he thinks journals are babyish.  

16th July
I overheard James and Lily in the garden just now. I think they’re plotting against Albus and me because we didn’t want to interrupt our chess game (which he won…but I wasn’t really trying) to go down to the Muggle village. So we have a nefarious plot to get back at them. Albus found some Dungbombs stashed in James’s trunk, so we’re going to use his own supplies against him. But we still haven’t figured out how yet. I wanted to put them in James’s pillow, but then Albus reminded me that we’re sleeping in the same room. Maybe I’ll borrow Dad’s owl and send the Dungbombs to James.  
I hope James doesn’t read this. Our plans would be ruined! Just in case, I found a super-secret hiding spot for this journal under the rug.  

Bye, I’ll write again soon!  

17th July
Today James convinced us to come down to the Muggle village. We went into the electronics shop. It was so cool! Granddad would’ve loved it, but he stands out SO much in Muggle stores. As it is, Albus, Lily and James had a hard time passing as Muggles. Rose and I were fine because we’ve gone to visit Nan and Gramps (Mum’s parents) before, and Nan lets us play with her mobile phone. The man at the shop was really surprised that a bunch of kids like my cousins hadn’t ever heard of mobile phones.

Anyway, I picked up a little brochure while we were there. It shows the features of one mobile phone versus others. I’ll have to get a book explaining what “unlimited texting� and “free minutes� are. I already have minutes—and hours--for free every day. I wonder why Muggles have to pay for them. I guess I’ll ask Granddad. He knows all about mobile phones.

Bye, Mum says I have to clean my room now. 

18th July
Today we all went over to the Burrow for a picnic lunch. Grandma hosts them every month for birthdays or anniversaries. July is my birthday, Uncle Harry’s, and Dominique’s. Uncle Harry’s in Spain with Aunt Ginny for their anniversary, though, and Dominique was sick with the dragon pox, so it was just a celebration for me. Grandma made a huge chocolate cake—my favourite—and frosted it to look like a wand, which I’ll be getting this year. I’m so excited! Mum said she’d take me to Ollivander’s the second I get my Hogwarts letter. 

Anyway, at the picnic, I showed Granddad what I got in the Muggle village. He took me to his office (which was a huge mess) where he showed me his whole filing cabinet on mobile phones. I took a couple instruction manuals home, and I’m reading them right now. This whole mobile phone business is like magic by itself. I can’t think of anything in the wizarding world that allows people to talk to each other from miles away, except Floo Powder, but the ash always makes me cough when I use it. 
Well, I’ve got to go—Mum says it’s time for bed.  

20th July
Today, Albus and James went to visit their friends from school. Mum and Dad were both at work, so it was just me and Lily in the house. We got really bored after awhile. Well, she got bored of losing at chess. I could have played a game or two more, but she didn’t want to. I guess it could get boring losing all the time. I’m not allowed to go outside when Mum and Dad aren’t home, so we couldn’t go play Quidditch. I was reading a book because I had nothing better to do (it was one I’ve read a million times already, so it was really dull). Lily came up to me with this evil grin on her face. She had her brothers’ wands with her. She said she wanted to “practice� magic for when we got to Hogwarts. I didn’t want to because I knew Mum would be really angry, but I went along with Lily to make sure she didn’t wreck the house. 

She tried a few little spells like Wingardium Leviosa and Lumos. She actually got them to work a little bit. She got so good at levitation that she started hitting me with pillows from across the room. I took it as a challenge. I picked up Al’s wand and tried the same thing, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. I mean, my pillow didn’t even flip over or anything. I’m sure it’s because she’s had practice before because Lily is just the sort of person who would take her brother’s wand and mess with it.  
I’m scared, though… What if I’m not magical enough for Hogwarts?  

21st July
I’m bored. I have nothing to do, not even homework. Even Mum lets me have a break from schoolwork for a few weeks in the summer. She gives us plenty during the other months, though. Except, I have a secret. I love homework. Especially maths. Mum is an amazing maths teacher. Rosie doesn’t think so, though. I bet it’s because I’m two textbooks ahead of her, and she hates me for it. Of course, it’s partly because I had a whole year to fill while she was at Hogwarts.  

I can’t wait until I’m at Hogwarts. Rose always raved about her classes in her letters home last year. She never shut up about her Potions class. She loves the Potions Master, Professor Maroney. They get to make amazing potions, and they go on lots of field trips to hunt for ingredients. It sounds like so much fun.  

Dad hated Potions when he was in school. He tells me horror stories about Professor Snape, but he always finishes it with, “but he saved your uncle’s life, so I guess he’s pretty good. Only he was still really ugly.�   

I have another secret, though. I don’t think I’ll be good at magic at all. I know it seems silly, because Mum is a whiz at magic, and I’m her son, so her talent should rub off on me. It did on Rosie, anyway. But Rosie showed her natural talent from the time she was born. Grandma always tells stories about how things would go awry when Baby Rose didn’t get her way. Little things would happen like the milk mysteriously tipping over in Dad’s lap, or James’s teddy bear getting so small he couldn’t play with it anymore. But she never tells those stories about me. I don’t think I’ve done anything special like that. I even asked Mum about it, but she was busy with a book and didn’t give me a real answer. It’s dumb to think like this, I know, but I’m still afraid I’ll be lousy at magic. 

I’ve got to go now. Rosie says it’s my turn to set the table. I don’t see why I have to because Mum or Dad could just do it by magic, but Mum says I need to learn “responsibility.� Bye. 

24th July
Our letters from Hogwarts should be here in about a week. I can’t wait to see what textbooks they’ve set us. They’re sure to be very interesting. I read Mum’s old Standard Book of Spells, Grade One (and Grades Two, Three, and Four, for that matter, but she wouldn’t let me read Five or Six because it would “give me ideas�). They’re fascinating, but they were published ages ago. I’ve heard Uncle Harry and my dad use new spells that weren’t mentioned once in any of the books. (Muffliato and Levicorpus, for example. I can just picture James using Levicorpus on me.) I bet they’re in the 5th and 6th books because I can tell Mum doesn’t like those spells. I guess that’s why she won’t let me read the books. Not that I could do the spells anyway, without a wand.  

Oh, I smell cinnamon from downstairs. I think Mum made apple pie! Bye then! 

27th July
I am so mad. I’m using my journal (not my diary) to vent because I’ll get severely punished if I do anything else. My parents would probably bury me alive and dance on my grave. I’m not exaggerating. Well, maybe I am, but that’s not the point. The point is, I want to hit someone, namely my stupid older sister.  

Rose decided that it would be funny to take all the underpants out of my drawer and use her new broom that Dad got her yesterday to string them one by one on all the trees in the garden. I don’t care that she “needs� it to get accepted on next year’s Quidditch team. That doesn’t give her the right to use her broom for nefarious purposes! Then, if that’s not bad enough, she cleaned my room, which had been a disaster. So I can’t get revenge, because Mum says that since Rose did something nice for me it’s okay now.  

Rose even took all the underpants down, but not before the whole of England saw them. Even Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister for Magic, saw them. He came over to wish my Uncle Harry a happy birthday. Somehow he heard a rumour that Uncle Harry was staying with us (he’s not, he’s still in Spain with Aunt Ginny), and he’s going to America to discuss something with the American President of Sorcery.  

I think it’s probably about the Triwizard Tournament. Uncle Harry let it leak that it was going to be held in a year or so, but he wasn’t exactly trying to be secretive about it. He was actually shouting about how dangerous it could be, and how he almost got killed when he competed. Mum managed to quiet him down, though. 

That (the Triwizard Tournament, I mean) was a very interesting story. Dad told me about it at bedtime one night. I think Uncle Harry was being dumb to go all nutters about it. He only almost died because Mouldy Shorts was there, and Mouldy Shorts is gone now, so it doesn’t even matter. I guess he had bad memories or something. I guess I would, too, after fighting a dragon and diving into an icy lake with gillyweed. But I wouldn’t be scared about going into a maze. Maybe it’s what happened after the maze that scared Uncle Harry. Dad wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened, but he mentioned something about a graveyard and Cedric Diggory. (I read about him in the book about famous wizards of the Mouldy Shorts war.)   

Well, this has helped me vent. I can now stop myself from hitting Rose. I still won’t thank her for cleaning my room, though. 

I’ll write again tomorrow. 

28th July
James is a stupid old prat. I hate him. He teases everyone all the time, especially me. I don’t see what he has against me. Today, he took my journal from where I had left it on the bed (stupid me, not hiding it under the rug again), and he held it over his head-- which is a long way up. He kept teasing me about how I was so short and couldn’t get it. I tried jumping, but I could only reach barely above his head. 

Then Lily came to help me. I was glad for that because James was being just plain rude. She’s even shorter than I am, but she jumped easily and grabbed the journal from James’s hand. I don’t get it. I was jumping as high as I could and I wasn’t even close to reaching it. Lily had to have been flying or something.  

I’ve got to go now. Albus wants me to beat him in chess (again). Well, he doesn’t really want me to beat him, but he’s asking for it, and I can’t turn down a chess game even when I’m in a bad mood. Bye.  

31st July
Today is Uncle Harry’s birthday, and a lot of reporters came to our house to wish him well and get a story on him. He only saved the wizarding world two whole decades ago. It’s not like he’s old news or anything.

The above was sarcastic. 

I guess Mr. Shacklebolt never shot down the rumour about him staying with us. They (the reporters, I mean) trampled our front garden, and now I have to go out with Rose and Albus and Lily to fix it. James doesn’t have to come because he’s not feeling well. I don’t think that has anything to do with the fact that I’m missing nine of my Chocolate Frogs. (I know, I counted last night.) 

1st August
The letters are coming today! At least, Lily said so, and I think she’s right. I’m going to go down and wait for the Hogwarts owls now. I’ll write as soon as I get my letter. 

Later:
I didn’t get one. It didn’t come. I am not going to Hogwarts. I am devoid of all magical powers. I am a failure in life. My lifelong dream has gone down the toilet. I’m an outcast from wizarding society.  
However you want to say it, it’s true. I, Hugo Weasley, am a Squib. 

Mum says it’s okay, that there’s nothing I can do about it. She says to make the best of it, but it’s too hard. I don’t thing there is a ‘best.’ A fat lot she knows about what I’m going through. She doesn’t have to deal with not being a wizard and not fitting in with any of her cousins or her big sister. She doesn’t have to deal with never getting to do a single spell or jinx or curse in her life. It’s me who will never need a wand. It’s me who will never go to Hogwarts. She was the greatest witch of her time. I can’t see why it had to be me, her son, who’s a blooming Squib.  

It doesn’t help at all that I think my dad is furious with me. I don’t really blame him. His only son is a Squib. I’ll never live up to his dreams for me. He thought I could be a great wizard and become an Auror like he is. 

Everyone else got a letter, but I didn’t. Dad and I waited for an hour. The Hogwarts owl never came. Finally, an owl addressed to my parents flew in. Dad read it and it made his face turn all white like he was going to be sick, then his ears turned scarlet like they always do when he’s angry. Mine do the same thing. Mum read the letter, but her eyes only got wider, and then she tucked the letter away like it was nothing to worry about. I was almost fooled except when she said I wouldn’t be going to Hogwarts. I can still hear the words in my head.

Won’t be going to Hogwarts.

Won’t go to Hogwarts.

Won’t be going to Hogwarts.

I didn’t believe her at first. I didn’t want to believe her. I couldn’t. I thought she meant I was going to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons like Dominique and Molly. That had to be it. There was no way I was a Squib. I couldn’t tell what Dad was thinking when he said, “You’re a Squib,� but I didn’t like the look on his face. He wouldn’t look at me. He sort of put his face in his hands, but he didn’t cry, he just sat there and looked angry.

I felt like I was going to cry, because somehow I believed him deep down. In fact, I kind of knew I was a Squib anyway.  I don’t know what made me turn and run to my room and dig through James’s trunk to find his wand. I guess I thought I could force magic out of myself by using it. It was worth a shot. 

I started with a simple spell. Dad and Mum used it a thousand times to comfort me at night. 

It was just a light spell, but it didn’t work no matter how many times I tried. I tried so hard I got a headache from chanting “lumosLC� over and over. Finally, I had to accept that it wasn’t going to work. I really am a Squib.  
I’ve accepted that fact now, but it doesn’t change that it’s killing me inside. My dreams are crushed.