Blair, Chuck, Nate and Serena are all unhappy but unsurprised when they're all sorted into different houses – Blair and Chuck are in Slytherin, Nate is in Hufflepuff, and Serena is in Gryffindor. Still, they have to admit that they fit into their houses remarkably well. Blair easily gets herself a group of Slytherin girls as her minions; Chuck competes with Draco for control over Slytherin; Serena makes friends with Hermione Granger; and Nate is generally beloved by all. He even finds a mentor in Cedric Diggory, who Serena ends up having a crush on for a few weeks ("British boys are so much better," she sighs to Blair, who scoffs and gives it another 48 hours).
After being sorted into Slytherin, Blair slides down to sit in between Chuck and Draco Malfoy, who immediately makes a snide comment about being glad that he's been sorted into Slytherin because otherwise he probably would have transferred to Durmstrang, which is where his father considered sending him in the first place. "And that Dumbledore," he says snidely. "My father says that he's insane."
"Malfoy, how many times have you said 'my father' since you started talking?" Blair says, rather annoyed, causing Chuck to snort beside her. She's not really listening to him and he's not really talking to her – more to the first-years in general – but his incessant chatter is putting her off her dinner.
He turns slightly pink. "You're lucky I don't hit girls," he says.
"I'm so scared," Blair says and laughs derisively at him, eliciting a glare and another comment about how his father will hear about this.
Needless to say, Blair and Draco do not become friends anytime soon, but even she dislikes Draco less than Chuck does. The two of them constantly clash, as Chuck and Draco constantly battle to be the leader. The problem is that Draco has two built-in cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, while Chuck is a lone wolf, which puts Chuck at a slight disadvantage. Still, the two spar and fight their way through their time at Hogwarts. They even get detention their first week there, when they end up getting into a brawl over something nonsensical and asinine.
"They are so tacky," Blair mutters, watching them roll around the floor of the Slytherin common room and wrinkling her nose as Chuck attempts to punch Draco in the nose but only grazes the side of his face.
"Who, Chuck or Draco?" Pansy Parkinson asks.
"Both of them."
Chuck and Draco both end up in the hospital wing, Chuck with a bruised eye and Draco with a cut lip. Pansy makes a big fuss over Draco and asks if he's okay about every two seconds. Blair simply makes snide remarks about how she could have done a better job at fighting than both of them combined. Needless to say, this does not endear her to either of them, and so they spend a lot of the following week scowling at each other at every opportunity.
Blair Waldorf and Hermione Granger hate each other the minute they set eyes on each other in Potions class, when Blair gets thirty points to Slytherin for her Potion and smirks at Hermione when she gets none for Gryffindor. They have a strong academic rivalry throughout their years at Hogwarts, but they always end up tying for the top of their class.
On the other hand, Ron does not mind Blair at all. At first he thinks she's just as scary and mean as everyone says ("I heard she made Hannah Abbott cry by just looking at her," says Seamus in an awe-stricken voice once), but when she hexes Malfoy in the corridors in between classes one day and doesn't even get in trouble for it, he thinks that maybe she isn't so bad. Funnily enough, they get paired up together in Potions the day after the incident. "You're really good at this," Ron says as Blair adds some beetle eyes to their potion. "Maybe even better than Hermione."
"Thanks," she says. "Pass the rat spleens, please."
Of course, Blair and Ron have little to no interaction, but whenever Hermione starts ranting about that Blair Waldorf, Ron protests and says that she isn't so bad. Which, of course, only gets Hermione even angrier about it. Harry, on the other hand, stays wisely out of their arguments and also avoids Blair if possible. She seems like far more trouble than she's worth.
During their first flying lesson with Madam Hooch, Blair's broomstick refuses to come up when she says "up." Which is just as well, because she would much rather have both feet firmly planted on the ground. Nevertheless, she's determined to not make a fool of herself, because she's a Waldorf and that's just unacceptable. Once they finally do get around to actually flying, Blair flies slowly and cautiously but with relative grace. Serena doesn't even bother trying to fly properly, instead floating aimlessly around, to the exasperation of Madam Hooch. Nate isn't present, as the Hufflepuffs have their lessons with the Ravenclaws, but when he has his lesson, he's easily one of the best in the class, zooming around like a pro. On the other hand, Chuck immediately tries to go too fast and falls forward off his broom. Thankfully, he's only five feet above the ground, so he only gets a little winded, but this doesn't stop Draco Malfoy from sniggering at him openly. Draco, of course, is an undoubtedly good flier, even though he is a snotty little git. However, when Harry Potter gets onto the Gryffindor team, Chuck retaliates by taunting Draco about how he allowed Potter to best him again. Blair cannot bring herself to care. Quidditch is stupid, anyway.
Nate, it turns out, is actually quite good at Quidditch, though. He even ends up being the reserve Seeker for the Hufflepuff team during his first-year (and takes over for Cedric after the Triwizard Tournament). However, the one game he gets to play ends up being the game in which Harry catches the Snitch in about five seconds. "It's okay, Nate," Serena soothes.
"That Harry Potter probably plays dirty anyway," Blair adds, shooting Harry a glare through the rain, who just looks away with a bemused expression on his face.
When the Halloween feast is interrupted by Quirrell's announcement that there is a troll in the dungeon, Blair freaks out, to say the least. She freaks out so badly, in fact, that she ends up clutching Blaise Zabini's arm so hard that he actually has little marks on it afterward. "Sorry," she says when he points them out back in the Slytherin common room.
"It's alright. Did you get a load of Malfoy's face though?" he says with a sneer, and they spend the rest of the time happily making fun of others' reactions to the troll. From then on, she and Blaise Zabini are pretty good friends. Such good friends, in fact, that by the third or fourth year or so, she ends up spending more time with him than with Nate or Chuck or Serena.
For the holidays, they all have different things that they do. Nate spends Christmas skiing with his family in Aspen; Chuck spends it in Monaco with his father, except that his father spends most of the time writing letters to important Ministry officials; Blair spends it in the Waldorf castle in Scotland with her family and Dorota; and Serena spends it in the south of France. They all have quite a bit of fun over their holidays, but they're also eager to get back, because even the best places get boring when you don't have any friends to share them with.
There's this one night in the Slytherin common room when Draco tries to tell everyone about this cock-and-bull story about Harry Potter, the gamekeeper, Ron Weasley's brother, and a dragon. Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle all listen with rapt attention, but Blair and Blaise are both coolly skeptical. "How would he even get a dragon egg?" Blair says. "They're incredibly rare and there are all sorts of trade barriers on them. Besides, the egg you described sounds awfully like a Norwegian Ridgeback egg; I remember reading about it in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. There is no way he could have imported that into England."
"I'm telling you, I saw it!"
"Yes," Blaise says, "because you have been known to be truthful at all times."
"I'm telling the truth! I'll prove it," Draco says defiantly. "Potter's going to the Astronomy Tower tonight with the egg, I'll meet him there and you'll see! Then we'll see who has the last laugh!"
Blair has the last laugh, of course, because Draco ends up getting caught and getting detention in the Forbidden Forest, causing him to rant for ages about how his father would never stand for this. She sincerely feels sorry for his parents, because at this rate they must receive at least ten owls a day, but not nearly as sorry as she feels for herself for having to listen to him rant.
Exams are a rather stressful time for Blair, but not so much so for Nate, Chuck and Serena, as none of them particularly care about the grades they get. As a result, she spends most of her time leading up to exams studying with Blaise, Theodore Nott and Daphne Greengrass, who are all Slytherins in their year.
"What is the definition of a Switching Spell?" asks Blaise.
"A subdivision of transforming spells used to switch one object for another," Blair answers promptly. "What is the incantation we used to turn those matches into needles?"
As a result, all three of them do very well in their exams, though Blair's scores surpass Blaise's and Daphne's, partly as she's worked harder. In fact, she's only beaten by Hermione Granger, who tops her score by around two points. From then on, Blair strengthens her resolve and vows never to let that Granger girl beat her in an exam again.
Blair doesn't really care about all this house rivalry nonsense. Well, she does, in a way, because she wants her house to be the best because it is the best or she wouldn't be in it. But she doesn't care about it like some other people do. But still, when Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Neville Longbottom, of all people, get all those points for Gryffindor and beat Slytherin by ten points, she is not happy.
"Surely this is not fair play!" Blair says. "This is blatant favoritism."
Draco nods fervently from a few seats down. "My father is on the board of governors at Hogwarts and he will not be happy about this," he says. "I'm sure he will work very hard to make sure that Dumbledore is sacked next year. After all, can you believe the people they let into this school?"
"Like that Granger," Blair says with an affected little shudder.
"And Potter."
"He looks like he's been raised by wolves or worse."
"Well, what do you expect, growing up with that Muggle family?"
This is the most civil conversation they have had all year, but this does not stop Blair from hexing Draco on the train, just because she won't be able to for the next two months, and it doesn't stop Draco from scowling at her just before he reaches his mother at King's Cross.
After devouring Gilderoy Lockhart's novels, Blair thinks he's just brilliant. When she sees him in person at Flourish and Blott's, she thinks that not only is he brilliant but also very, very good-looking. So she's very excited to have him as a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. "It'll be a nice change after that Quirrell," Blair tells Serena in Flourish and Blotts.
"Do you really think that prat is going to be good?" Draco says incredulously, popping up seemingly from nowhere.
"Eavesdrop much, Malfoy?" Blair snaps.
Draco ignores this. "Do you fancy him, Waldorf? Are you really that stupid?"
"Are you jealous, Malfoy?" Serena pipes up, making Draco's cheeks stain pink.
"Jealous? Of that git? I'd sooner be jealous of the giant squid!" he splutters a little too fervently. "God, you're both mental. I don't even want to talk to you anymore, it might be catching."
Blair soon finds that Draco is right. Lockhart is a stupid git. But she doesn't mind quite as much as she probably should because he is good-looking and he did compliment her on the first day of classes.
"I think he's really nice," says Serena brightly. "He said my hair was fabulous and asked me what products I use."
However, Blair's patience grows thin as the year wears on. Still, she never admits that she hates Lockhart, lest Draco Malfoy get wind of the fact that she thinks he's right.
Blair attends the first Quidditch match of the year, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, even though she thinks Quidditch is kind of stupid. She figures that, whoever loses, she'll win. If Slytherin wins, then her house will win, and if Gryffindor does, then she will have the pleasure of taunting Draco about it. Of course, Gryffindor does end up winning, and so she does end up taunting Draco mercilessly, even though she privately thinks he's actually a pretty good flier and that Harry Potter probably plays dirty anyway. Still, the expression on his face when she tells him that maybe the team shouldn't let talentless oafs buy themselves in from now on is priceless.
This Halloween is pretty good for Blair until the whole mess with Filch's cat, which is mildly annoying. "Cheers, Waldorf!" says Blaise. "This is the day we became friends!"
Blair clinks her goblet of pumpkin juice against his. "Cheers, Zabini. Now I have at least one person whose company I actually can stand," she says.
It's a rather nice night, in fact, until the whole mess where Filch's cat has been Petrified. Later, Draco shouts something about how all the Mudbloods will be next when he sees Filch's cat. Blair rolls her eyes so hard that it almost hurts. "So tacky," she mutters. "So tacky."
Blair and Serena pair up for the Dueling Club, as do Nate and Chuck. Serena gets disarmed over and over again by Blair, while Chuck accidentally sets the sleeve of Nate's robes on fire, which he has to put out with his hat. When Draco and Harry are called on for a demonstration, Blair yawns loudly. "Hopefully they finish each other off," she says.
"That's mean, Blair," Serena chastises her gently.
"Whatever," Blair says. "Potter's a little freak and Malfoy's a little git." She falls, silent, though, after this because the duel starts then. When Harry shows that he's a Parselmouth, Blair pretends to be unfazed, even though she's unbelievably shocked. She also dismisses the idea that he is Slytherin's heir.
"Please!" she says to Blaise. "Potter's a blood traitor and a Gryffindor. There is no way he is Slytherin's heir."
Blaise agrees. "Some people are idiots."
When Harry and Ron impersonate Crabbe and Goyle so they can interrogate Malfoy, the first thing they hear in the common room is the sound of Blair Waldorf's voice. "Where've you been, Malfoy? Finally figured out how to catch the Snitch?"
"Go away, Waldorf!" Malfoy snaps and then turns back to Harry and Ron. "That girl is a hurricane."
"Yeah," Ron says, with a silly grin on Crabbe's face.
"Hurricanes are bad, Crabbe."
"Oh," Ron says. "Oh, right."
When Cornelius Fudge comes to the grounds to sack Hagrid, he happens to pass by the Slytherins as Professor Snape is escorting them back to their common room after dinner. He greets Draco warmly, which causes him to smirk triumphantly at the rest of the Slytherins.
"That little suck-up," Blair whispers furiously to Blaise. "He is such a little toerag."
"Toerag or not, he does know the Minister," points out Blaise a little reluctantly. "That's impressive."
"Well, my father is the ambassador for our Ministry in France! You'd think that would make my family more important than Draco's, even if his father donated ten thousand Galleons to St Mungo's."
"Jealous, Waldorf?" Draco says with his most infuriating smirk, coming over to them after Fudge moves along. "Maybe if you played a little more nicely…"
"Shut up, Malfoy, or I'll hex you," Blair snaps. "I just learned a rather good one that I've been wanting to try out." At this, Draco shuts up, but gives her one last triumphant smirk before returning to his place in line.
Once again, Blair is rather displeased when Gryffindor wins the House Cup. "This is such favoritism," she mutters to Blaise. "Dumbledore obviously favors Potter."
"Tell me about it," Blaise says. "At least that Lockhart is gone."
"I didn't mind him," Blair says. "I hope he gets his memory back."
"You fancy him."
"I do not."
"You're a liar."
"Shut up."
However, there is one good thing that comes of this turn of events, as Daphne Greengrass, who was convinced that Potter was Slytherin's heir, now owes her ten Galleons because of a bet they had. Blair doesn't need the money, but there's something satisfying about winning anyway.