Being Grace Diggory
Chapter one:- Finding Cho's Diary
Hi again. We'll take a look back three years to where my stepbrother and I found discoveries while cleaning the attic. It was a chore w'd offered to do, whilst we had nohing to do.
THREE YEARS AGO
"Charlie, hurry up out the bathroom! I need to get in too!" I call through the locked door.
My half nitwit, half annoying stepbrother Charlie opens the door slightly and pokes his big, red haired head out of the crack.
"Gracie darling, can't I have an hour to myself?" he says gently, though I know he's mocking me.
"Not when your girlfriend's downstairs, and you've been in there for two hours!" I lie, but hey, I'd say anything when he really has been in there for two and the gorgeous Calum Malfoy, my lifelong friend is waiting downstairs WITHOUT his sister, Hayley, but charlie doesn't need to know that his girlfriend really isn't there until I'm safely in the bathroom.
Just as I thought, he immediately bolts out of the door and practically jumps the stairs four at a time.
I quickly get into the room and lock the door. I wash my face and slip into the shower and scream as the ice cold water, rivalling the North Atlantic Ocean, pounds down on my pale skin.
I hear footsteps bashing up the stairs as though there's a herd of wildebeest stampeding up them and there's a frantic bang on the wooden door.
"Grace, are you ok?"
It's Ronald.
"I'm fine! Just the water!" I call back. I hear the footsteps retreat down the stairs again, the water going a lot warmer now.
I emerge from the bathroom half an hour later, dried off and a towel wrapped securely around me, I go to my room and shut the door. I don't even notice a person standing behind me.
The person wraps his arms around me. I go into defencive mode automatically and lift my leg up backwards sharply. The person lets go of me and doubles over in pain and curled up on the floor groaning.
I turn to find Calum on the floor. Keeping my towel around me, I crouch down to him.
"I'm so sorry." I keep whispering.
"It's fine Gracie." He says once the pain has subsided and he hugs me.
Again, I hear footsteps bounding up the stairs, but I don't just hear one pair, I hear two, and my brother cursing fluently too.
Mum blames "dad" for his excessive language, even though he's two years older than me, and he's adopted, though he doesn't remember.
Ginny peeps her head through the door to my room just as Charlie slams the door to his own room.
"What's the banging about?" she asks, hardly noticing I'm only clad in a towel and on the floor with her son.
"He slipped." I say, pulling a lilac flowered t-shirt over my towel. I slide my towel to my waist and hold it there. I grab my neccessities and walk to the bathroom.
"Gracie, I've got to go now ..." I hear Calum call two minutes later. I finish getting dressed and hurry out of the door. I see Calum halfway down the stairs. I walk down to him and hug hm. It felt like two hours, it was actually five minutes, and he was pulled away by Ginny.
'Time goes painfully slow when you're in love...' I think. But do I actually know what love is? I am in love anyway, no matter what anyone says.
I hear Ron activate the Floo Network and Calum, Draco and Ginny say the location of their home and a whoosh, a sign they were gone.
"Mum!" I call from the stairs.
"Yes, Grace?" Mum walks to the end of the stairs, looking up at me.
"Can Charlie and I clean the attic? We'll be careful of the ghoul and the gnomes Charlie locked in there." I say.
"Ok then," she says, looking in dusgust at what I assume is the dirt stains on the pale yellow walls.
I walk up to Charlie's room and knock on the door. "I'll meet you in the attic." I tell him and move the long, heavy ladder on wheels with great effort. I suddenly feel it move more easy and look up to see Charlie there.
We both get it under the attic opening.
My brother climbs up and pushes the square, yellow, two inch thick board up and into the room and he sits on the edge. He helps me up into the attic when I'm high enough for him to reach.
"Careful of the ghoul in that cupboard." he warns as I switch the lamp on. I roll my eyes, knowing the warnings already and I start to look in boxes and tidy them up, Charlie sorting things out in two big trunks and a box on the other side of the room.
A little over twenty minutes, I find two, leatherbound books, one larger and thicker than the other.
The smaller and thinner book read: "Possesion of Cho Elizabeth Mulan Chang, Sixth year and Hogwarts School on Witchcraft and Wizardry."
The larger and thicker book read: "Hogwarts photos and family photos over the years."
I put the books aside and finish off my tidying.
An hour had passed and Charlie and I have finished. We climb down the ladder, he closes the opening in the ceiling and put the ladder back in its place. I go to my room with my findings.
"Lunch is ready you two!" I hear Ron shout
We both run downstairs to the kitchen.
I notice that my food is a much smaller portion than theirs. All I have is a small piece of chicken, a small bit of potoato and a spoonful of vegetables. They have a LOT more.
I think nothing of it. I don't eat much anyway. I usually end up wasting my food.
I eat what little food I have and walk back to my room, though as I gp up the stairs I hear mum talk horribly.
"Always in her room that one. Strange girl, I ought to lock her in there. Glad she's gone, I wish I'd never kept her."
Being only eight, I don't give a care. Deep down I know she loves me. She's my mum, she has no choice.
Back to the present
Well there you go, one chapter of my life gone. Hope to see you there for the second
Grace Emmeline Diggory
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