Author's Note: This is my first fanfic so be nice! I've roped in one of my HP-obsessed friends to co-write this, so enjoy! ~ Becky and Georgia

Here we go again, another new school, another new set of teachers and, worst of all, another new set of pupils – 'friends'. The only difference is that this time I've been dumped in some posh boarding school instead of some crappy state school, where the priority is stopping underage pregnancy. Even the foster parents have given up on me – not that I blame them, I mean who would want to look after a sixteen year old who is fluent in sarcasm and has a tendency to make things spontaneously combust? So instead of finding a 'home' for me, they shipped me off to an interview with some poncy boarding-school headmaster and next thing I know I'm on a private train to some castle that doubles as a school.

Everyone keeps giving me the weirdest looks and whispering something to do with 'muggle' as I walk past. Stupid posh brats with their own boarding-school language. I've only known them five minutes and I can already see the different groups: the irritating know-it-alls, the annoying do-gooders, and the mind-numbing attention-seekers, and then there's a group I find quite interesting, I don't know how to describe them, but they seem to be led by quite an attractive boy with white-blond hair, who appears to have a growth on his arm that resembles a girl – you can never be too sure with the posh school kids.

I'm stuck with a bunch of eleven-year-olds to do some initiation ritual involving rowing across a lake in the pouring rain. Whose idiotic idea was it to give all the new kids hypothermia before they've even started school? I can't wait to get this over with because I'm now soaked to the bone and freezing my ass off; and that glowing castle in the distance looks so inviting…

We finally reach the castle and are met by a severe-looking woman who informs us we will be 'sorted'. All of the eleven-year-olds look like they understand, so I don't say anything, I don't want to be shown up by a freaking eleven-year-old – I'm sixteen for God's sake! With a sudden crash, two massive doors swing open revealing a large hall with four long tables of pupils wearing slightly different variations of the same uniform (the same uniform no one bothered telling me we had to buy or wear, in fact the only equipment I have is a battered old suitcase full of tatty old clothes). I'm guessing we're going to be sorted onto each table.

As we are ushered into the hall by the woman who introduces herself as Professor McGonagall everyone turns and stares in silence. They are all staring at me! What, have they never had a new student who joins at the beginning of sixth form before? Judgemental pricks. To be honest, I don't really care, I'm used to the stares, I'm more interested in the ceiling – it's almost alive! It perfectly mimics the weather outside, yet somehow makes even cloudy, dark, rainy British sky seem beautiful; probably something to do with the glowing candles that are hovering above the heads of the people at the tables like magic.

An old man stands up and says something welcoming everyone back – it didn't really make that much sense, but I wasn't really paying attention. Then the sorting begins: McGonagall calls up each of the tiddlers and puts this old scraggy had on top of their heads and it yells out a name – the actual hat yells! It's stupid what these posh schools have enough money for. It's easy to tell which of the different houses we're sorted into are – Hufflepuff looks like the irritating goody-two shoes', Ravenclaw is the unbearable brainboxes, Gryffindor is the tedious show-offs, while Slytherin is all the people like me – us effortlessly cool sarcastic kids. Naturally I'm left to the end, and I'm sorted into Slytherin, not really a surprise, I wouldn't fit in anywhere else.

I sit down on the end of the table, and the boy who looked like the leader from earlier comes up and starts talking to me.

'Well, well, well, what have we here? Why are you joining with the first-years? You don't look eleven to me.' He says, managing to seem interested and bored at the same time.

'That old guy just pulled me out of school and told me I'd be coming here from now on, don't ask me why, I have no clue.' I reply warily. In my experience posh kids only talk to you to make you seem stupid or because you have something they want. I obviously don't have anything he wants, so he must be trying to make me seem like a complete idiot on my first day. Great.

'Old Dumbledore got you? Why'd he let a mudblood join so late?' He laughs. I don't know what a mudblood is, but it doesn't exactly seem like a complement. He sounds so condescending that instantly I'm irritated.

'Just because you're obviously richer than me doesn't give you the right to speak to me like that! You don't even know me, what gives you the right to judge me?' I yell, 'Some people don't have parents that can pay their way through everything!' He looks taken aback; evidently he's not used to someone fighting back.

'Oh, sorry, what happened to your parents?' He almost seems genuinely concerned. Almost.

'They're locked up in some prison no-one's ever heard of – Azkib… Azkiber? ' I reply. The rumours will start soon anyway; I may as well let them be true.

'Azkaban?' He looks shocked, maybe he has heard of it?

'Yeah, that's it. How do you know?' I'm instantly suspicious, but he looks friendlier now.

'Well then, that may change things. I didn't catch your name during the sorting?' He appears interested now, but I'm still suspicious.

'Lexi.' I reply shortly

'Lexi what? No surname?' He teases, but the friendly teasing. I'm not used to this, this weird thing, almost friendship.

'Funny kid. My name's Alexa Lestrange.'

Soooooo... how did you like chapter one? Please review! And hopefully the next chapter will be up in the next couple of days