"My name is Susie, and I went to the open castings in London in January.

It was Wednesday evening. I was just sitting down, exhausted from a day at school, about to turn the computer on, when the phone rang. It was my friend, Micaela, and I started to think that she had finally cracked.

"Susie! Can you get to London on Saturday?"

"Have you got some stupid shopping trip planned? I'm not going all the way to London! Thats nuts..."

"Susie, Luna Lovegood open castings."

"OMG I'M GOING TO LONDON!!!"

So thats how I, my brother, and my mother found ourselves getting up at 5.30 am, getting on a train, and traveling all the way to London. We met up with plenty of other Luna wannabee's on the train, then plenty more on the tube. We got of the stop.

"Oh." said my mum. "We've found the queue."

It was incredibly long. We had to walk a vast distance from the tube station

in order to find the end, which was ever increasing away from us. However, we found it, and we stood there. It was quite a fast moving queue, though extremely long. It was slightly hard to work out what to do with yourself. My mum got a book out, but I couldn't read. We chatted with people next to us in the queue, and people who were in the queue next to us coming the other way due to it doubling up. I knitted a stripe on a scarf that I was making for my friend, but I couldn't find the scissors to change colours so I had to stop. We passed a small shop that had toilet facilities - it was heaving, and the charged 50p a go. Mum went, and said they were disgusting. There was a dirty car parked on the road. In the grime various people had written messages to the tune of "We wrote on your car before we were famous!"
After five and a half hours of queuing, and waving to various cameras, the wait was nearly over. At 4.00 PM I came round the final corner. My mum and my brother were herded of to the back of the building. I showed my birth certificate as proof of my age, and Britishness. Then it was into the building, a security check for my bag (Apparantly I might stab someone with my knitting needles, thank goodness they couldn't find the scissors either!) and we all filled in a form. There was another (much shorter) queue, then we were herded into the main room. We stood in 3 semicircles around the stage, where 2 ladies were stood. They introdused themselves, and told us to say our name and where we were from. The first group did so. There was about 20 of them. Two went through. Then the next group. One went through. Then it was mine. The last group.

"I'm Susie from Porthcawl."

A few more introductions. Then-

"I'm afraid none of you have got through."

"Oh."

However, despite the disapointment, it was still well worth it for an experience. Now, any queue feels like nothing, because I stood in a queue with 15,000 other insane teenage girls, and I have a story to bore my grandchildren rigid for years to prove it. I can say that I don't let a five and a half hour wait to stand between me and my dreams. And now, I feel I will focus my talents to something slightly different, that I wouldn't be able to do if I got the part. So when I see my name on the front cover of books, I go to the auditions of the film adaptions of them, and I look back at my 15 year old self, shivering in a queue in my neon pink legwarmers, I'll be able to say:

"Take that, Evanna."