Corby Winchcombe was quite an average fourteen year old girl. Five-foot-two, long, shiny, brunette hair, and big gray eyes. She took dance classes every other afternoon and loved to write in her journal. She had a baby brother she adored and an older brother she couldn't stand. And she had an obsessive love of trying to prove that a complete secret magical world lay right under her friends and family's noses.
Even though that part of Corby wasn't what you would call normal, it was complete true. Corby seemed to spend all day, everyday, thinking about how she could expose magic and witches and wizards to her friends and neighbors. In fact, she sometimes tried to expose her friends and neighbors as witches and wizards. Of course, this earned her quite a few bruised noises (from when her neighbors would slam there doors in her face) and many insults (from when her best mate Faylinn would use the dozens of swear words she had acquired from her four older brothers). But none of this seemed to slow Corby down.
Of course, it wasn't like Corby had no reason to be suspicious of the existence of magic. If she didn't have a reason, she would have been considered clinically insane. When she was a bit younger, perhaps eight or nine, she had been using her binoculars to spy on the next door neighbors when she had seen a rather unusual sight. A young, pudgy neighbor boy was being dangled from an upper story window of his house! Just when young Corby had opened her mouth to yell to her mother to call the police, the boy had been dropped two stories, but, amazingly, bounced off the ground and into the street unharmed. And he had seemed downright giddy about it! If that wasn't reason enough to spend the next six years of her life devoted to exposing the magical secrets, then Corby didn't know what was.
So when fourteen year old Corby had been strolling along in King's Cross Station with her mother and father, headed for Platform Ten to board the train that would take her to St. Kathleen's Preparatory School for Young Ladies for the start of term on September first, her mind was, of course, preoccupied with thoughts of magic. As she neared Platform Nine, Corby was passed by a strange group of people. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head as she heard a plump red-headed woman at the front of the group say, "Have you all got your wands?" And then : "Fred, stop hitting George with your spell book!"
Spell book? Wands? Corby came to a complete halt. She looked around at the passing train passengers, but none of them seemed to have noticed what the woman had said. They didn't even seem to notice the group of strange looking people at all! Corby's eyes bulged farther still as she watched, incredulously, as a red headed boy who looked to be a few years older than her said, "He's not Fred, I am! Honestly woman, and you call yourself our mother!"* and then ran straight through a brick wall between Platforms Nine and Ten. Corby nearly fainted from excitement.
"Corby, come on!" her father yelled from Platform Ten. His voice shook Corby from her magic-red-haired-family induced semi-coma. She glared at him angrily. As much as she wanted to stay and watch these magic people go through the wall, she knew she would have to obey her father. There was no way he would let her miss the train to school if she gave the excuse, "But Dad! I want to watch the cute red head magic boys run through the brick wall!" She glanced at the group of magic people. There were quite a few. If she could ditch her parents and hurry back here quickly, they might still be there for her to watch. A smile slid across her face as she hurried to catch up with her father.
Her mother and father hurried Corby onto the boarding platform. Corby eyed the red haired family anxiously as she and her parents exchanged goodbyes. Her mother, emotional as always, burst into a fit of tears, and pulled Corby into a rib-cracking hug. Corby watched over her mothers shoulder as the youngest of the red haired children maneuvered her way through the wall. To speed her mother up Corby said, "Mum! I just remembered Ben's headmaster called yesterday and said that Ben threw a party in his dorm on the first day of term!"
"Oh, I left my cell in the car!" Corby's mother held her at an arms length, smiled at her through her tears, adding, "Be good at school!," and then hastily ran off towards the car to make a phone call that didn't need to be made. Well, considering that Corby was talking about her brother Ben, it probably did need to be made anyways. Ben was always getting into trouble.
Corby watched as her parents disappeared from view. Then, shoving her luggage cart through a group of angry parents and teenage girls, made her way back towards her new obsession. Some of the family members were still there, much to Corby's delight. The little girl and the two sons who had appeared to be twins were gone, but the plump lady and a man were still there, smiling at a dark haired, bespectacled boy and a red haired freckled boy. Corby watched as the two boys and the two adults disappeared into the wall.
An idea that had been growing in the back of Corby's mind suddenly popped into the front. What if she, Corby Winchcombe, were to, just for a moment, go through that magical wall, and see what was on the other side? The wonderfulness of the idea must have overpowered Corby's rational thinking because in the next instant, she had taken her luggage cart, positioned it directly in front of the wall, and ran.
Corby felt a strange sensation, like she was melting, when she passed through the wall. Every person who watched her come through the wall did nothing, like seeing a fourteen year old girl melt through a wall all by herself was perfectly normal. Corby looked up from her luggage cart, and air caught in her throat. There, standing in front of her, was a brilliant, gleaming, crimson train. In fancy gold lettering, the words Hogwarts Express were scrawled across the side.
Corby watched men and women pass by with children. The adults seemed to be able to do magic here in the train station, for many of them flicked there wands, fixing annoying squeaky tires on carts, and capturing runaway rats, cats, and toads their children let go of, among other sorts of spells. Corby inched closer to the train as she saw the children board it. How badly she wanted to climb on too, to see where all the magical children were headed.
But she knew she couldn't. Her parents would find out. She could just hear her mother's voice in her ear. "I can't believe you skipped school, young lady! How dare you!" Corby sighed as a clock struck eleven and the train whistled. She turned to the wall once again, only this time she was sad to pass through it. Corby backed up a few feet, got a running start and - her cart bounced off of it. It wouldn't allow her to pass through!
Corby knew that her train to St. Kathleen's left at exactly eleven. She'd missed it! And now she was stuck here in magic land, with no way to get home! Corby was surprised that she, of all people, would consider that a bad thing. "Well," Corby said under her breath, picking up the few loose articles that had fallen off her cart upon impact. "If you can't beat them, join them." She turned her cart around, walked briskly to the train, which was being bombarded with students who were trying to board before it left, and shoved her cart through a door.
The doors all closed by themselves. The people outside became a blur as the train gained momentum and speed. Corby, after six years of waiting and wanting, would finally have her proof that magic existed. She hurried down the corridor with her cart and watched the other students entering compartments. Following suit, she ducked into one, too, a huge grin etched across her freckled face.
Corby Winchcombe: All Around Greatest Muggle by GobbledegookMuggle
Chapter Endnotes: * A line used from Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, Chapter Six