Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

Turns out I was wrong. The others in my dormitory may have said that they wouldn't hurt me, but they weren't going to help me either... The next morning I was unceremoniously dumped onto the floor by an irritated Prefect saying that I'd missed breakfast, he'd got my timetable and for God's sake could I just get up!

So not the best start to my anticipated first day at the esteemed Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry all in all... Nevertheless, it got better, as even my dorm mates had to collect their books at some point, and by then I had collected myself enough to have dressed, primped and had my books for the day (a pure bloods gotta look good! – first rule in the hand book, and yes, there is one...). I used my immense powers of stealth to track them to the first lesson. I'd just got to the third corner successfully navigated, when I saw my cousins looking at me strangely so I went over to confront them. Bellatrix cut straight to the chase, 'Why are you looking so suspicious? Have you pulled something already?'

I, of course, vehemently denied this, and asked the way to Greenhouse 1 for Herbology. This, apparently, was in the opposite direction to where I was going so much for helpful house mates... Humph... I'd never be following them, they clearly have no idea where they are, I mean, what kind of idiot would go into the castle for a lesson in the Greenhouses? Obviously not me... no, no-one round here...

So, after my little excursion into the castle, I made my way to Herbology, armed with a rough map that Cissa had charmed for me – they understood that they were the only ones in this goddamn castle who would talk to me, until Mother had written to Professor Dumbledore and fixed this mess. Until then. Speaking of Mother and all her writing goodness, why haven't I received a summons to Professor Dumbledore's office about my re-sorting? That should be soon, right? Oh dear, I've got to the stage where I'm asking myself questions... that's not a good sign, I'm sure of it... Anyway, back to the fun subject of Herbology. Heh, the teachers here are very odd, take Professor Sprout here for example, she's wearing a pea-green robe and a dark green bonnet, that's taking the whole I-love-plants thing a bit too far, no? As we went into the Greenhouse, I glanced around quickly to see who else was in this class, as we would no doubt be working in groups, and I couldn't work with the wrong people – that would be a disaster!

So, there was Hufflepuffs in here... never mind, there might be a few respectable pure-bloods somewhere in here. Ah! There's a Smith right there, with a Macmillan... and, is that a Zabini? Yes, they'll do, I expect that the Zabini will be alright to me, almost the same thing happened to her, except that the Zabinis' can't trace their family lines back as far as us Blacks. We can trace our family back to before Hogwarts was even thought of in the hallowed minds of Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, nearly 1000 years ago.

Thank God that Murcia Zabini agreed to work with me, she can actually do Herbology, not just the almost-done-by-the-end-of-the-lesson way that I usually end up with, but the I-finished-this-before-the-teacher-finished-telling-us-what-to-do way. Yeah. Also, she loves helping other people with Herbology... or at least she loves helping me, I was too busy wrestling with a Mimbulus Mimbletonia to notice what anyone else was doing. The damn thing nearly exploded on me a few times, but I was able to grab a human shield... which may or may not have been one of my dorm mates, I think it was that Lupin boy, I couldn't really tell as he was covered in pus. Warning: slight disfigurement may occur, e.g. loss of a face. He's fine now; the school nurse was able to reconstruct it using DNA from a few of his other skin cells that remained...

I'm not sure of the details, but I'm sure he'll be fine one day, and will thank me for bestowing him with a new face; it can't have hurt as much as he was making it out to anyway, and it's hardly worth crying over.

So, after Herbology, I headed off to Potions, a class I was sure to succeed in, I'd been making them since I was six after all. Unfortunately, I'd not factored in the Gryffindors. A mistake I was sure to regret.

I was quite happily collecting my ingredients for the boil curing potion we would be making, when it started. A few of the girls in my year were whispering in a corner about something, and I ignored tem, thinking that they were just talking about what to wear tomorrow, or something equally immature. That was my second mistake. Then, while I was counting the porcupine quills to be put in my recently cooled cauldron, I missed the boy who tripped past my desk relight the fire under my cauldron. That was the third mistake. Then after I unwittingly put the porcupine quills into an otherwise perfect potion, it melted my cauldron creating a disgusting smell in the classroom, and coating me in the mess. That was my fourth and final mistake. The boils created, were not the most painful thing I have suffered though, but they were up on my list, just under having finger nails ripped out and then having to play the piano loudly for an hour. Of course I didn't scream, or even make a sound, I was to masculine for that kind of activity, but I was relieved when Professor Slughorn allowed me to go to the Hospital Wing, and even pleased when he rounded on the boy who had been sitting next to me, a filthy mudblood called Corin Myriadd, asking why he didn't stop me putting in the quills, why he didn't stop the Black heir getting harmed? Oh it is good to have suck-ups as teachers...

Up at the Hospital Wing, a seemingly kind healer attended to me, guiding me to a bed, and treating me quickly and as painlessly as possible. I had to stay in the Wing for the rest of the school day, which really wasn't a problem for me, if the beginning of the day was anything to go by at any rate. That was, until I looked over to the bed next to me, and saw the boy from my Herbology class. The one I'd used as a human shield from the evil pus. Shit. Ahh well, I'd cross those bridges when I got to them, not before, and maybe his little friends had forgotten about me. Maybe.