A/N: I know, I know. It's been ages. We have beards now. And I feel bad because all this waiting is not being compensated by the length of this chapter. Meh. I really am sorry…but I have a feeling that these chapters are all going to be this short…I just think that's the only way this "Autobiography" is going to flow. So…all I can say is, take it or leave it. I do hope you take it, because I have good fun writing these bits and I want you all to enjoy them just as much. : )


Hogwarts


It seems like only yesterday I was sitting, perched upon the rickety stool at the front of the Great Hall with the tatty old sorting hat on my head, awaiting my fate. I remember the sorting hat taking a particularly long time in deciding what house to place me in. Together we went through the choices—the sorting hat thought I would have made a superb Slytherin, considering my cunningness and ambition, or even a Ravenclaw because of the great amount of wit and wisdom I possessed for a girl my age. We immediately dismissed the possibility of being a Hufflepuff—I would never be able to live down such a disgrace. Gryffindor seemed to be the House with most merit, with its members being known for their fierceness and bravery. While I do feel that I possess all the qualities desirable in any of the four houses, I think my courage significantly outweighs my other strengths. Additionally, it only seems natural that providence would lead me into the house that served some of the greatest minds the wizarding world has seen. Harry Potter, for one has made Gryffindor the ideal house for young aspiring witches across Britain. Then of course there was Albus Dumbledore, who not only attended Hogwarts as a Gryffindor, but also served as the head of the house for many years. Lastly, in all my years at Hogwarts, it has indeed proved to be convenient to reside in the house of Gryffindor as a number of my lovers were also members or former members of this house. Of course, I had a number of Slytherin lovers, and a few Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff flings, but the majority of my admirers have been Gryffindors.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that adjusting to any new community can be extremely difficult and painful for children. Not surprisingly though, I transitioned into my new world with a great amount of ease. It was a new phase of my life—the best phase of my life—where I had left my old, reclusive life behind with my family, and had entered an exciting new world full of endless opportunities. One area of this new life that admittedly was a bit difficult to adjust to—and still is, I might add—is the amount of attention I received from the people around me. Even now, six years after my arrival at Hogwarts, I find it impossible to walk through corridors without receiving stares or whistles from members of the opposite sex. I realize that this sounds like an exaggeration of my beauty, but being the earnest woman that I am, I have never sought to embellish any of my qualities, especially my outward appearances. A mere glance at the cover of this book should be justification enough of all the attention I receive. However blatantly obvious the reasons are, however, I try my utmost to downplay my beauty and act as oblivious of it as I can. Regardless though, I continue to receive the unsolicited attention of students and professors alike; thus I have resolved to simply accept the attentions from those whom I consider worth my time, and disregard from those whom I would normally not even bother giving the time of day to.

My first year at Hogwarts went by with little consequence. My parents sent me a beautiful phoenix as a start-of-school present. Cold-hearted as they are, my parents are extremely wealthy and enjoy conspicuous consumption as much as the next rich person, and thus believed that phoenixes were the only way to send messages. He is a beautiful phoenix though, and so I named him Itzhak. I immediately became friends with my suitemates, Hermione Granger, Parvati Patel, and Lavender Brown, though more with the latter two than with the former. Hermione, though blessed with intelligence and sharpness, seemed to resent me for my ability to balance both beauty and brains (while clearly, as many know, she possesses only the latter—as Rita Skeeter in the Daily Prophet once accurately called her a "plain but ambitious girl"), and so we grew apart within a few months. Additionally, she soon had become attached to our classmates, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, and had developed a small crush on the latter. Lavender and Parvati, while better friends to me than Hermione could ever have been, the two were practically inseparable, and tended to leave me out of their fun much of the time and often came to me when they were in some type of romantic or academic rut and needed help or advice. I always observed that my three suitemates were quite the dichotomy—Hermione as the woman who possessed only brains, Parvati and Lavender as the women who only possessed looks—and I, the American student, as a balance between the two polarities. A seemingly clichéd trait for my kind to possess—this whole balance between looks and intelligence—but I feel that this quality does not exist simply to add to my many perfections as some of my critics would insinuate…it exists, to reiterate, neutralize the polarities of the other women with whom I share a dormitory. I firmly believe that my being able to obtain the "best of both worlds" smoothes the path of friendship amongst us, and sets the harmony in our dormitory atmosphere.

Additionally during my first year, Harry Potter, Hogwarts's new celebrity, had arrived. During the first week alone, my peer had managed to cause quite the havoc around the school with his legendary flying abilities and his making the Gryffindor team almost immediately. While I do not at all hold any resentment to Harry for his "outdoing" me in quidditch, I do feel that some clarifications are necessary in regards to his supposed superiority in the sport. Beginning Flying, the elementary course taught by Madam Hooch, has always been divided into two sections—the Gryffindor and Slytherin class, and the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff class. Being in Gryffindor, I should have gone to the former class on the first day. However, as I had been a tad bit ill that morning, I skipped class to stay in the hospital wing, thus missing the entire escapade between Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter that had made sealed the latter's fame on the quidditch pitch. Later during the day, however, I had felt better and decided to go to Madam Hooch's Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff section so I wouldn't be behind. It turned out that I was just as much of a natural at flying as Harry. Upon mounting my broom for the first time, I was immediately able to kick off, and fly right over to the Quidditch pitch and through the goal hoops with great ease. Madam Hooch, who had previously warned us not to try anything fancy, was completely struck by my talent—too struck to even punish me for my disobeying the rules. I simply attribute the news of Harry's flying talents coming out before mine to fate. It was fate that allowed him to gain fame in the sport over me, and to be the youngest seeker in over a century. And let me take a moment now to comment on this as a true testament to my humaneness. Opponents like to peg me as a perfect character, as one who has limitless talents and who gets all that she desires…but lo, here I am, a talented flyer with no outlet…living proof that fate does not always work in favour of Mary Sue.

With my second year came Gilderoy Lockhart as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. I look back at this particular year with some amount of resentment, as the year ended with Harry Potter saving Ginny Weasley from the Chamber of Secrets, and with the help of Ron Weasley, exposing Lockhart as a fraud. The reasons for my ill feelings are simply that I had had a hunch all year long about Lockhart's fictitious reputation, but had never taken the trouble to confirm it. From the moment I walked into his classroom on the first day of school, I had suspicions about the authenticity of the claims he made in all his books. If I had taken the initiative to investigate and inform Professor Dumbledore, the man could have been fired, and an actual, qualified professor could have taken over, thus preventing Harry Potter and his friend from endangering themselves in the Chamber of Secrets. Needless to say, I was one of the few, if not only female students not swooning over that male bimbo of a professor.

While my third year came and flew by as quickly as my first two years, I consider this one to be amongst the most memorable. It was the year that I had some of my more extraordinary magical abilities became apparent, such as my capabilities as a Seer. I had always known that I had possessed the Inner Eye, having seen flashes of some of the more terrible aspects of my fate years before any of the dreaded events had taken place. But it was during this year that my ability to see beyond began to fully take flight, much to the resentment of our Divination professor, Trelawney.

But most importantly, my third year was the year I began to make my move towards womanhood. It was the year I had finally begun to appreciate the abundant attentions I had been receiving from the opposite sex. It was a whole new world. An exciting world, a frightening world, and a sensual world all in one…