Ella Stone is a hardworking, kind but friendless muggle born. She is the kid that everyone avoids, because all the odd things seem to happen in her presence. When she finds someone who is equally lonely and rebuffed, they become friends.
Then on a chilly, clear night, 6 months after their friendship began, Ella gets a visit from a tall, thin, man with a beard so long that he could tuck it into his belt, and half moon spectacles that are perched on the tip of his extremely crooked nose; he offers Ella a place at his rather special boarding school.
She accepts, feeling that life may be easier, living with people that are more like her. When she picks up the phone to call her only friend and tell her that she will be living at a boarding school for the next seven years of her life- excluding the summer and winter holidays- it rings before she is able to dial the first digit. It's is her friend and she makes an announcement that will make Ella happier than she has been in her whole life.
But what obstacles may lie ahead? Sometimes the past comes back to haunt us.