November 12th 1997

Hello. My name is Jade.

Shit - that's a ruddy awful way to start this. If you haven't guessed, I've never written anything like this before. If you need me to write three feet about the antidotal properties of a bezoar, I'm there in a heartbeat, but trying to write a story? About me? It's not easy, I'll tell you that much for free.

I suppose the only honest way to start this is to establish that I'm not the hero of this story. I'm not the hero of any story. In the great epics of my time, I'm never going to get the starring role; I'd be lucky just to get a single line of dialogue. In all likelihood, I'd probably get relegated to playing a tree.

In essence: I'm nobody.

So why am I writing this, I hear you ask? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure myself. I'm not even sure there's that much to write about, quite frankly. Short of this being a play-by-play of six years of transfiguration homework from Professor McGonagall – a Shakespearean tragedy if there ever was one – I'm not really sure what I even have to talk about. Stories should have excitement, and triumph and romance! I guess my life has some of those things, but no more than any other person. So why am I writing this?

I guess it's because I'm scared.

Savannah's gone, I don't know where. She went into hiding as soon as we heard that the Ministry had been taken over. She knew that there was no real chance at safety once the Death Eaters had seized control, so she obliviated her parent's memories to keep them safe, then started travelling cross country. I begged her to let me come with her, but she wouldn't hear a bar of it. Said that she couldn't put me in danger like that. After all, there's only way that a member of the sodding sacred twenty-eight would get into trouble with the death eaters, and that's if they went into hiding with a muggleborn. When we parted, she looked me square in the eyes and promised that we'd see each other again.

I could tell she wasn't certain she'd be able to keep that promise.

Nath's at school with me – but I can tell he's thinking about not coming back after the Christmas break. He's a halfblood, but the wizarding line in his family isn't strong: his father, while magical, was muggleborn. He works at the Ministry of Magic and according to Nate, has tampered with the Ministry's records to guarantee their family's safety, but I know that Nate is terrified it isn't enough. Whenever ministry owls fly into the Great Hall during the morning post he desperately scans the flock; hoping no letter will be addressed to him.

I'm scared for Savannah; I'm scared for Nath; I'm scared for myself.

Specifically, I'm scared of being forgotten. I have no idea what my future holds, but nothing frightens me more than the prospect that ten years down the line, nobody will know who I was, and what my life was like. That my existence will become a tragic footnote during one of the darkest times for Magical Britain. That nobody will remember me for who I was.

My story will not involve the vanquishing of a dark lord. I won't slay a basilisk, save the philosophers stone or fight a Hungarian Horntail. But I still think I deserve the chance to tell it.

Which sort of brings us to the crux of this exercise. My name is Jade Fawley, and this is my story.

In retrospect, that would've been a much stronger way to start. Screw it: for all intents and purposes, lets act as if this story starts… now.

Author's Note: Hello! Welcome to my story! I hope you stick around – I promise that future chapters will be much longer (and significantly less dark) than this one. This story is essentially based upon one central premise: what if you took three original characters – essentially nothing characters, the sorts of characters you might imagine being given a single line of dialogue in a book or movie (and then being billed as 'unnamed Ravenclaw student' in the credits) and build out a story and character arcs for each of them.

I should be upfront with my intentions: while other characters in the HP universe will undoubtedly feature and appear, this story isn't about them. If you're looking for pages of interaction between the Golden Trio, then I'm sorry – this story probably isn't for you. If, however, you look forward to the prospect of seeing the HP Universe from an entirely unique set of eyes, then I hope you keep reading and enjoy the story.

Will update soon, in the meantime – feel free to leave a review.