Chapter 1
I had always been such a cute child, wispy, blonde hair. The biggest, bluest eyes you would ever see. And such round chubby cheeks. A cherub, my nana used to say. Blue eyes, and plump cheeks that could melt even the coldest of hearts.
I knew, at the ripe old age of two that I could get away with pretty much anything. First time I realised was when my nana had set her needles up, and the ball of wool on the floor. I sat by her feet, scissors shining in the sun that shone through the window.
"Oh no!" Nana yelled, chuckling slightly at the mischievous grin on my face.
"Debs!" she shouted. My mother came bounding in.
"Oh my goodness! Corissa!" she chuckled picking up the short strands of wool surrounding me. I just sat there looking as if butter wouldn't melt.
"I'll buy you a new one. Sorry mum" my mother said, turning to nana who had a happy face, her glasses reflecting the light, as she looked at me and told me how what I'd done was very naughty, how ever funny it was. I merely sat there giggling.
The next time I realised I could get away with more, I was about three and a half. I'd walked up the stairs, after watching my mother do this. I figured I would help her out.
"Corissa?" mother yelled up the stairs wondering where I'd gotten.
"Corissa?" she yelled again. "Have you seen her?" she asked my father and nana.
"Last I saw she was walking up the stairs" nana replied. Seconds later my mother was stomping up the stairs, the way she always does, and flung the bathroom door open.
"Corissa! Oh my goodness" she'd say that every time.
"Who's toothbrush is this?" she asked me, snatching the toothbrush out of my hands.
"Richard! Put a new toothbrush, shaving foam and toothpaste on the shopping list, will you?" she shouted downstairs.
"Oh Corissa, what am I going to do with you?" she asked, tutting at me before taking the correct cleaning products out from under the sink.
"I wah jus' 'elpin' ta clean tha baffroom. Like you do, mummy." I replied in my young, cockney accent that I'd picked up from both my parents and neighbours.
"Do you wanna help me clean it properly then?" mother asked me
"No." I said with a cheeky grin as I ran downstairs to tell my father that mother had just shouted at me, for trying to help with something she always does and complains about.
"Don't worry, Cori! She's just upset that you used all the stuff we're gonna need." He replied, reassuring me.
"Awwriite" I replied.
Five years later, two days after my eighth birthday. We moved. Away from London. I was heartbroken. Even though I was only eight years old, I'd still made a bunch of friends, and was panicking about whether or not I would make friends when we moved to this new place called Cauldhame, in Scotland. I've never been. I only knew that they had funny accents, and I hoped I would never get one.
I had to stay with my other Grandma for two weeks when we moved. Otherwise I would have been in the way, that's what mother said. My sister and I went and stayed with her, along with nana. Nana and Grandma never got on. My sister and I thought she never liked us. Our theory was confirmed when at dinner one night, we were having dinner in silence, as usual for Grandma's house, when my sister, Serena, started laughing. We both suddenly burst into fits of laughter. Grandma wasn't happy and sent me to the kitchen, where there was a window through to the dining area. So we just continued to laugh at absolutely nothing. Nana soon joined in, and Grandma got seriously mad. Later that evening, we were discussing schools, when Serena started feeling ill. She ran out of the room to the bathroom, but didn't make it, only to throw up on the stairs. The stairs were those kind that had gaps between steps, so it went everywhere underneath, all over the coats and shoes, none of which belonged to us. It brought great joy to me and my nana, until Grandma decided she wasn't going to be the one to clean it up, so nana had to do it.
Before we knew it, we were moving into the new house with my parents, and nana. The new house was huge, right in the middle of a bunch of fields, and a castle in the distance, it looked old, abandoned. Every time I walked by there with the dogs, and nana there was a sign that said, "DO NOT ENTER"
Our new school wasn't great. But there was nothing I could do about it. A year after we'd moved in, my sister changed schools and went to a school called Hogwarts. She'd received her letter two weeks before her 11th birthday, in April. She sent back her acceptance letter the next day. I was disappointed that I hadn't received a letter. But mother and father reassured me that I would be getting mine around my 11th birthday and would attend then.
A few weeks before the 1st September, my parents and my sister went shopping to "Diagon Alley" I don't really remember much of this day as I stayed at home with nana, eating chocolate and playing snap.