Hello and welcome! This is my first story that I have decided was good enough quality to upload on this platform, so I hope you enjoy, but if you catch any spelling/grammar mistakes or even just if you have any comments on the story then I would appreciate if you write a review!

Prologue: Chapters 1 - 2

Year 1: Chapters 3 - ?

Updates on this story should be fairly frequent and regular, the expected update date will always be specified at the bottom of the chapter.

This story will also be fairly cannon complient, however it may deviate at some point in the later years and it will go into detail on some topics that I feel were not explored enough in the official novel.

With all that done, Have fun!

As always, the majority of characters and settings are JK Rowling's property.

Tuesday, 19th September 1986

The car slowed to a halt some five hundred meters away from the zoo, and like always, Cora had to wait for their uncle to get her out of the boot. Recently, their cousin Dudley had grown so large there simply wasn't space for all three of them, and since for some reason they preferred Harry, she was forced to take the short straw.

"OUT!", he yelled at her as she adjusted to the bright sunlight, "now let me remind you of the rules. You will stay out of sight. You will follow behind us far enough away that people won't think you're with us, but not so far away that you lose us. If you do, you will not bother anyone and will return to the car. I will not tolerate any funny business. Got it?"

After giving a brief nod, he walked away, Harry and Dudley trailing behind him while aunt Petunia paid for the ticket. She followed slowly, being careful to stick close to walls in order to make herself as invisible as possible; she had perfected that particular skill over the years.

In the entrance hall, she noticed aunt Petunia arguing with the ticket officer. Personally she felt sorry for the man, but couldn't really do much about it. She stepped back from the desk looking smug as the officer gave a resigned look. He ushered them through and Cora only just managed to slip through before the turnstiles closed again.

They seemed to be in a main lobby now, she could see a signpost on the wall telling them where the different exhibits were. Harry pulled in uncle Vernon's sleeve and pleaded with them to go down the reptile isle, and of couse it was only a few moments before they all gave in. Still silent, she followed them and watched with a resounding sadness as the two boys walked over to the large glass case where a boa constrictor was held and started banging on the wall. The snake was strung out in a line and barely even reacted to the noise, so the boys continued to pummel it's enclosure.

She quickly hurried over to the case as Dudley moved to break her view, and jumped when it slowly and minutely shifted it's position to look straight at her. "You," she somehow heard it hiss, "you are a ssspeaker."

"I'm a what?" She asked softly, her eyes fixated on the snake's black and beady ones.

"A ssspeaker," it replied, "dessscended from the great one"

"Who?" She asked it, slowly convincing herself she was mad.

"Sssalazar Ssslytherin" came it's short reply before it slumped down unable to bear the strain any longer.

Confused, she backed off, not understanding what had just occurred and noticing that the boys had moved away.

Sunday, 25th December 1988

She was stood in the kitchen, preparing the Christmas goose for the Dursleys. She had been hard at work for nearly an hour at this point, and was just getting to the point of freezing the fat into cubes for later use in stock. She could hear the family laughing along with something aunt Marge had said, probably something demeaning about her. It was times like this that she felt the most alone. Not even her brother could look at her without so much as a sneer, and sometimes she felt as if there was something wrong with her.

She knew it wasn't meant to be like this, The only girl she had ever been friends with for longer than a week, someone named Victoria, had spoken about her family once. They were close knit, she had two brothers and they were both fiercely protective of her. Even to the point of physically stopping her from continuing to be friends with Cora after Harry and Dudley had made it clear that any friends of hers would be a target.

She was so caught up in her misery that she accidentally poured a drop of hot fat on her arm, making her cry out. She felt rather than heard uncle Vernon standing at the door, and ever so slowly she turned around.

"What is the number one rule of this house?" He asked.

"I should be seen but not heard" she replied softly.

"Clean up! We will talk this evening."

Aunt Marge's sickly sweet voice sounded from behind him, "No no, I think we should talk to her now."

Suddenly she felt a spark of rage, she had been mistreated her while life and it was time to stand up for herself.

"Just let me go, I only hurt myself so why does it matter to you!"

She instantly realised her mistake with striking clarity as uncle Vernon turned a striking purple that she had only seen a few times before, and through his swollen lips he managed to shout out a few short words. "Basement. Now."

Friday, 30th December 1988

It had been almost a week since she'd been put down here. The light had broken last year so she was stuck in pitch blackness. She was tied to a post in such a way that she could only move her head, and that was how she ate. Slowly. Painfully.

There hadn't been any food for a day, she wondered if they had forgotten about her. They mustn't have, she thought, after all, her wounds were still raw from the day before. They made sure to only target her back and legs, things she could hide at school. Even if she told anyone she doubted they would do anything, her uncle would just pay them off.

She was alone.

Monday 31st July 1989

It was her birthday, she only knew that because the rest of the household were celebrating Harry's and she was her twin. Cora was waiting at the top of the stairs. She could hear Harry and the others playing party games and belting out music. She had stopped considering them her family now. After a few minutes she just turned around and went back to sweeping Harry and Dudley's rooms, clearing away all their soda cans and sweet wrappers. After peeling away the last half melted refresher from on top of the radiator, she stuffed it in the bin bag that was now full, and trudged away downstairs.

She made sure to make as little noise as possible, but she still caught Harry's eye as he grinned at her evilly. After making her way into the kitchen, she dumped it by the main bin and began freeing the old bin bag from the frame, before throwing both over the shoulder and walking outside to drop them in a pile for the next morning.

On her way back inside she looked at the party and felt something deep inside her snap. They were supposed to be family. There was no reason for them to be treating her like this.

Saturday, 15th June 1991

It was only on weekends that she was allowed outside unsupervised, so that's why she was at the park, just sitting on the swings and letting the air flow through her long black hair. She looked similar to her blood brother, but instead of his messy and spiky hair, hers was much more like what she'd heard that her mother's had looked like, although black instead of ginger. She kept it long to hide the ugly white scar that stretched along her forehead in the shape of a circle with a cross through it; her eyes were green but much more vivid than Harry's, and far more intense, with a sunken nature about them that made it clear to anyone who looked at her that she was malnourished.

It had been just under two years since that fateful birthday when she stopped viewing them as human, and stated thinking of them only as torturers. Almost every day they had hurt her in some way, either physically or mentally. Some of the only days she got a rest was when they locked her down in the basement. Although Vernon still hadn't fixed the bulb, she had found one of Dudley's old reading lights along with some batteries for it and had started hiding a stash of books where the old chimney had been. She had discovered that if you push at a certain spot in the fireplace, a brick would fall through revealing a space half a metre cubed.

She heard a loud bang and looked round. At the park entrance, her blood brother and his gang were playing with these new toys he had gotten for his last birthday, capsules filled with compressed air that sounded a lot like a bomb when thrown. They were terrorizing a girl of around eight by throwing them at her head, but she knew that as soon as they realized she was there they would instantly target her. As if she had beckoned them over by her thoughts, one of them hollered at her and they left the girl alone only to shuffle over.

"Ooh, it's ickle Coraline all alone. How lovely to see you" Harry said, sneering.

"Piss off, just leave me alone you gits" she replied with a confident face, although inside she knew that they could, and probably would, beat her bloody.

"Seems she's got a smart mouth today!" replied Dudley with an equally cruel sneer, "don't you think your parents would like us to fix that for you? Oh wait, you haven't got any"

At that Harry looked over at him and glowered for a second before resuming his sneer and looking back at her. "How are things at school? I heard you tried to talk to Victoria again on friday but she spat gum in your hair. I made sure to have long hot shower after that to make the hot water run out, " He took a step towards her menacingly, smiling coldly.

"You bastard!" she yelled, starting to feel intimidated by the vicious look on Harry's face.

He took another step towards her, now only a metre away from her, and she took a shaky step back, right into the arms of one of his cronies. "My friends decided they wanted to have a little fun with you, get to know you a bit better."

At this point her heart was throbbing almost and she felt light headed, the terror almost overwhelming her. She felt herself lose control, and was acutely aware of a strange feeling in her chest, one that welcomed her and felt no ill will towards her. She gave in to it and felt a ripple of heat erupting from her, she could tell it was hot enough to burn skin but she felt no pain. The last thing she heard was a scream before she became overwhelmed with fatigue and slipped into the inky blackness of sleep.

Monday, 17th June 1991

She woke, bleary eyed, to the cleanliness of a hospital room. She could only move her head but she could see a nurse bustling around her out of the corner of her eye. As she gradually regained some of her movement, she tried to move her hands into a more comfortable position but found that they were strapped to the side of the bed.

The nurse looked at her with a grim look on her face, "You're awake," she said in a very businesslike tone. I only have a few tests left to do before your guardians will transport you to a room with an inspector. We want to know exactly what happened that day in the park. There seemed to be an explosion but you were lying in the middle, completely unharmed. It's unnatural, that's what it is."

Cora tried to speak but her throat was too dry. An explosion? She thought. They wouldn't have tried to kill her, right? And what was with that feeling that seemed to call out to her, in hindsight it felt slightly creepy, like an invasion of her mind.

She felt a sharp needle pierce the skin on her left shoulder and saw the nurse holding a syringe with a dark red liquid in it. She walked over to a machine in the corner of the room and dropped the blood into a test tube, before stoppering it and putting it in a machine. After a minute of vibrating, there was a beep and the nurse pushed her lips together shrewdly, "Everything looks fine. Your guardians should be waiting outside."

With that the nurse unlatched the strap and she got up, staggering slightly as she let her vision clear. Cora pushed open the door and was immediately greeted with her worst nightmare, Vernon's face was the same red it used to be whenever she would be given her worst punishments, and Petunia was stone-faced, her expression brutal. They grabbed her and walked her down the corridor, only to abruptly turn and push her into an unmarked room, where the walls were unmarked concrete and the only furniture was a metal table and four chairs, one occupied by a man that looked remarkably like Vernon just wearing uniform. She was pushed into the middle seat between her aunt and uncle, and the inspector took one look at her before his expression hardened.

He sighed before starting, "let's start with this. We know what you did, and to be frank, I don't understand it. After a bit of bullying you decided to become a martyr and blow yourself up along with other students at your school. Miraculously, the blast only injured 3 people and killed none. According to the nurse, you weren't injured at all which is why you're here."

She tried to intervene at this point, opening her mouth to tell them that she was innocent, that she did nothing and only tried to escape from people who had threatened her, but before she could utter a sound she felt a sharp sensation in her side and noticed Petunia jabbing her to get her to stay quiet.

Apparently not noticing this, the inspector continued "As I was saying, you never killed anyone. This means that the worst you could be charged with would be attempted murder, though on account of your age we have decided to give you an option. There are several reeducation camps in Alaska for troubled children, and they would fix you. Alternatively, you could stay, and be tried as an adult, before being carted off to prison to serve a minimum of a decade."

She tried to complain again but the inspector stopped her again by continuing," I have talked with your guardians about this issue, and upon hearing about the camps, they have decided that it would be best for you to go there. You will be leaving on the first Monday of September."

Cora sat there dumbfounded, she had been treated like an item, a belonging. She'd been given an illusion of choice, but everything had been decided long before she even stepped foot in that room. She jumped as she heard the door slam, and she was dragged out of the chair by Vernon, who was smiling maniacally and lookin into the distance with glazed eyes. "A month and a half," he whispered gleefully, "I am only forced to deal with that bitch for another month and a half."

Monday, 1st July 1991

She had been stuck in the basement ever since the news. It had been relatively peaceful over the last two weeks as it turned out that Harry and Dudley were two of the three that had been injured, and they had yet to be discharged from hospital. That meant that her aunt and uncle were largely out of the house visiting them, and the only times she was disrupted was when a new tray of leftovers or cold porridge was pushed down the stairs. Occasionally she heard Vernon swear loudly and violently, which was always followed by a few minutes of a sizzling sound from the fireplace above.

It had been designed in such a way that the ground floor and basement fireplaces were linked, with only a grate keeping the logs from falling down to the floor below. Of course she was never allowed a fire down there, but the warmth permeated the chimney and helped stave off the worst of the underground chill in the dank basement room.

It had been two days ago when the first slip of paper had fallen down, a corner of a page with green handwriting on it, but she couldn't make out any words due to its burnt and Blackened edges.

Yesterday, she had managed to piece together enough of the page to make out her name on the front, but it took until today to make out the full note.

Dear Coraline Potter,

You have been invited to the Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. By Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, (Supreme Mugwump and Order of Merlin, first class). A book list has been supplied and we expect an owl by the 31st of july, as term begins on the 1st.

She had no idea what it meant, the inspector had said that the camp started on the second, and she had doubts that Vernon would be burning any invitations to that. Then there was also the confusion of the ash. There was so much of it that there must have been at least a hundred letters, all saying the same thing. But there was one thing she was sure of. If the letters were addressed to her, and Vernon was trying to get rid of them, then she had some hope.

At least someone was on her side.

Next update, Sunday 19th October 2023