I heard the next name called faintly: "South, Vin."

"SLYTHERIN!" The hat yelled. No surprise there… Vin, a guy with long auburn hair, was leaving the stool. He looked up and met my eyes. His were hazel, like a latte except with a hint of amber.

I raised my eyebrows at him and he rolled his eyes.

"I'm Sage. This compartment free?" I asked, looking around. It was empty except for him.

"Nope." He said insolently. "Go back to your own kind."

"I'm not a Muggleborn, I'm incognito. Try it sometime. You were walking around a Muggle train station wearing your robes. Can you imagine the questions they're asking?"

He stood up threateningly. "Are you telling me what to do?"

"Nope, that was a suggestion rather than a command. Are you trying to pick a fight? Because I am so not a girl you want to annoy."

"Oh yeah?"

I got up in his face. "Yeah." I replied, matching his challenging tone.

Meanwhile, all I could think was "wow, his eyes are endless" and "mm, cinnamon toothpaste."

"Windsor, Ariella."

"Well, well, well. In a fight already?"

I turned to see a tall, willowy girl with boy-short white-blonde hair that was ruffled like she'd stuck her head out the train window. Her eyes and skin were pale like her eyes and her voice was airy, for lack of a better word. She wasn't being a beotch about it, just calmly amused at us.

"Who are you?" We both asked, then glared at each other for stealing what we were going to say.

"I'm Ariella but most people call me Ari. How about this: I'll sit between you two and you can ignore each other."

"Fine."

I sat down as far from him as possible, on the opposite seat and at the far end. Ari laughed and sat across from me, on the same seat as Vin but as far away as possible on said seat.

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Wintell, Brun."

"Can I sit in here?" Another boy asked. "I'm Brun, by the way." He had brown skin and wavy black hair, and smiled at us politely.

"Sure." I said, giving Vin a smug look. "We've got plenty of room."

"Winter, Sage."

I closed my eyes as the hat slipped down my face and covered my ears, giving me a mouthful of lint. "Pff-thuth—yuck."

"Hmm. Let me think." The hat said quietly. "Not a Slytherin, oh no…"

Haha, dad is going to kill me when he finds that out… I thought.

"You're passionate but free-spirited. Interesting. Well, then, I suppose it ought to be… GRYFFINDOR!"

I grinned and stood up, setting the hat on the stool.

"Welcome to Gryffindor." Two people, a guy and a girl, said. They were sixth years, prefects.

I nodded to them and kept walking until I found the crowd of first years.

"I'm Kate." One of them said. "This is Amy. That's Jack and Lee."

Kate was slightly chubby with brown hair and pale, pinkish skin. Amy was Asian with hot pink, short hair that curled inwards to her neck at her chin. Jack had sandy hair and blue eyes with a smattering of freckles on his face. Lee had very short, curly black hair and chocolate brown skin.

A flicker of movement caught my eye. Ariella was waving.

"Wow, this is awkward." Ariella said after a long silence. "So, Brun, when did you find out you were a wizard?"

"When I got my acceptance letter. I was so excited, and grateful because I thought I'd been hallucinating the magic."

"Do you know much about the Houses?" She asked.

He shrugged. "I think I read something about them when I opened my textbooks."

She launched into a lengthy explanation of Hogwarts's history and I zoned out, wondering if Vin was wishing we'd gotten off to a better start like I was.

"Sage? Earth to Sage." Lee said.

"Oh. Sorry. What?"

"Food."

I looked down. My God, there was tons of food. I snagged a sirloin and a bottle of catsup, followed by rice, mashed potatoes, corn, peas, carrots, italian bread, and pumpkin juice. Yep, all the food groups—Wait! I pulled a Chocolate Frog out of my pocket and set it on the plate. Now that was better.

"Did you just mix butter, rice, and mashed potatoes?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, the rice adds texture and the butter adds flavor." I replied as soon as I swallowed the steak. "Ooh, pass me one of those rye rolls?"

Amy stared at me. "You eat, like, a lot."

"Always have. My brother says it's a wonder I'm so skinny."

Wow, Sage, way to put your foot in your mouth. Amy had been loading her plate with vegetables and fruits and crackers. Now she was looking uncomfortable. To my surprise, Kate was putting real food on her plate—healthy, like fish and vegetables—but real food nonetheless and grinning. "Your stomach must have an undetectable expansion charm on it."

"Hey, Sage, bet you won't eat this." Lee said.

Jack snickered as Lee held the jellybean up. I laughed. "Here, Lee, give me the whole bag." Lee handed the bag over and I took a random handful and ate all of them at once.

"Pepper… Grass… Lemon… Toast… Vomit… Ooh, strawberry!"

A few second years cheered me on. "Eat them, eat them, eat them!"

"Earwax, toffee, peanut butter, earthworms."

"Okay, okay, we get it! You'll eat anything. Just give me back my Bertie Botts!" Lee said through his laughing.

"I won't eat anything. I can't stand cranberry sauce. Or syrup."

And with that, I continued plowing through my food.

Dessert was a spectacular affair during which the fudge plate vanished mysteriously and reappeared in front of me, empty.

"Now that we're all well fed," Headmistress McGonagall said, "Let's get you off to bed. First years, follow your prefects."

Jack whispered in my ear as the scraping of chairs became nearly deafening. "We're sneaking off to explore the castle; you coming?"

I really didn't want to. "Okay! Wait, don't we need a sentry?" I asked, feigning excitement and concern.

"A sen-what?"

"A lookout, someone to cover for you."

"Oh." He looked disappointed.

"I'll do it." I said. "I'm good at this sort of thing. Have fun and promise to tell me everything you see!"

"I promise!"

The four other first years slipped away through the crowds. I nearly ran into the rest of the Gryffindor first years, two guys and three girls.

"Ian." One of the guys said casually. He simply screamed jock, bleach blonde hair with tanned skin and blue eyes.

"I'm Sage Winter."

Ian laughed, sharing a glance with the other guy, an equally tanned and jock-ish guy with dark hair and eyes. "Sage?"

"Yes, that's what I said. Do you think my name is funny?"

"Yeah, actually, I do."

I went for my wand. Ian laughed at the action, ignoring the threatening wand half-raised at my side.

"Wow, look at this stubby little twig." Ian's little friend said.

My wand was actually longer than your average wand, at sixteen inches. "I bet it's longer than your twig." I said meaningfully.

One of the three girls giggled, earning outraged looks from the other two. She had extremely curly bright red hair and freckles with glasses.

I smiled at her. "What's your name?"

"I'm Megan." She said shyly.

"Pleasure, Megan. And… you three." I said, looking up at the others. "Names?"

"I'm Britney, this is Jessica, and that's Mike."

Britney was a stunning Hispanic girl with long black hair, and Jessica was bleach blonde and tanned just like the boys. Judging by the way Britney was hanging on Ian's arm, they were "dating". They were a bit young for that, but with girls and guys like that it's normal. Jessica and Mike seemed equally engaged. Megan was quite obviously infatuated with Mike.

"You know those kids you were hanging out with?" Jessica whispered as we followed the prefects, "They're freaks. You can do so much better by hanging out with us. Brit and I could, like, give you a makeover. We're nice like that."

"Did you give Megan a makeover?" I asked.

She tittered. "Are you kidding? She's a Muggleborn. Anyway… Your dad's Jason Winter, right? The Undersecretary to Percy Weasly?"

"Oh, I see. Allow me to set the record straight: Yes, I've met Mr. Harry Potter, he's very nice. But I'm a lot more than Jason Winter's daughter and you had better get used to it."

"You'll be regretting that." Britney said.

I couldn't resist. "Make me."