Riley has always lived in the little flat on Highfield Avenue in Cambridge with her mother, father, and older brother Oliver. Everything is Cambridge is familiar to her: the shops, the streetlights, the parks and the schools. After eleven years of riding her bike along the same streets, getting sweets at the same shop, and causing increasing amounts of trouble, she and her parents were both relieved when her letter arrived. Although it was almost guaranteed that she was going to Hogwarts (magic had a starring role to play in most of the trouble Riley got into), she'd always secretly been afraid that she would end up being ordinary. Her father was a Muggle, and he worked as a public defender, but he hadn't grown up knowing there was another world out there. Riley knew it was there, had heard three years worth of magical stories from her brother, and longed to be a part of it. And now she finally was.

Riley is short for her age, but she makes up for it in spunk and confidence. She loves to be active, often making up ball games in the park with her friends or holding official bike races around the block. She feels a strong sense of justice and often will get upset if she sees or experiences something that isn't fair (her mother also working in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry, their family tends to avoid talking about their cases that don't end well). Riley tends to get anxious or agitated when she's in an environment where she can't control anything or when she sees something unjust and can't do anything about it. While she definitely falls under the label "wild-child", she is very gentle and caring around smaller children. Her older brother, Oliver, is starting his fourth year at Hogwarts and while he's happy for Riley, he isn't too thrilled that his younger sister is gonna be learning all the cool tricks he used to be able to keep to himself.