I wake up to the sound of excited shrieks coming from the others girls. I groggily roll over and moan.

"What time is it and what's with all the noise?"

"Oh, sorry about that," a dark-skinned girl called Yvette says, laughing. "We didn't mean to wake you quite so soon. It's almost time to get up, but we were just playing truth or dare. You wanna play?"

I shrug and flop out of bed, glancing at my arm but finding that the sleeve Dumbledore gave me is invisible when it's on my arm. I sit down in the circle that the girls have formed and we start playing again.

"Rachel, your turn to ask someone," Yvette says once I'm comfortable.

"Alright then" Rachel says, eyes darting over everyone in the group. "Hannah; truth or dare?"

I ponder the choices for a moment before answering. "Dare."

"Ummm," Rachel murmurs, thinking of a decent dare for me. "Oh, I know! I dare you to hang upside down from the top of the bed for three turns."

I laugh, but stand up and go over to the bed, swinging myself up onto the top rail of the four poster bed and hooking my legs over the top and dropping down so I can look at the girls from my bat-like position. Hermione and Ginny walk in then, mouths slightly agape as they take in the sight of me hanging upside down from the railing on the bed with my arms folded over my chest like a bat.

"Morning," I say, nodding to the older girls.

"Hannah, get down from there," Hermione says in exasperation, but not anger.

Ginny just laughs. "You're so amusing sometimes, you know that?"

"Yep," I reply, grinning like an idiot.

I flip backwards off the rail and land softly on the balls of my feet to face the older girls that are both staring at me.

"Time to get dressed for breakfast and your first lessons, girls," Hermione says brightly. The girls groan at this, but dress themselves quickly, as do I. We run down the halls to breakfast, not getting lost at all since Hermione and Ginny are taking us all down as a group. We all slide onto the bench ad sit down and wait for the food to appear on the table. We wait for about five minutes, until the Great Hall is almost full, and then the food appears. There are about twenty huge silver plates of food, and it all looks good. I pile on a croissant, a big spoonful of scrambled eggs, a few chipolatas, and I also pour myself a glass of orange juice. I tuck in, finishing my plate fairly quickly, and then McGonagall comes over and hands us our timetables. I look at mine and see that I have Potions first up, then Defence Against the Dark Arts. I run back up to the dormitory with the other girls to grab our books and everything else we need, then we make our way down to the dungeons for Potions with Professor Snape. We wait outside the door until it flies open to reveal the dark, damp room, and we all rush in to find a desk before we have to sit with someone we don't want to. I sit with the other Gryffindors, and we listen intently to Professor Snape so we don't get on his bad side and lose any points for our house on the first day. He reads the roll and stops at my name, having known me for my whole life.

"Hannah Granger," he sneers. "The sister of the insufferable know-it-all herself. Are you anything like your sister? I certainly hope not."

We knew I would be in his class, so we came up with a plan to make sure that nobody suspected a thing. He would treat me just like he did Hermione, because everybody knows that Snape hates Hermione, so therefore he should hate me, too. I stay silent and listen to Snape until the end of the lesson, and then we all head off to Defence Against the Dark Arts, complaining about the homework we've already been set; to research the twelve uses of dragon's blood. The door to our Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom is already open, so we all walk in and sit down, pulling out our books and our wands and looking at our teacher.

"You do not need wands for this subject," she trills in her high-pitched voice. We look at one another and put our wands on top of our potions books, which are sitting on the floor besides our desks. "Thankyou. My name is Professor Umbridge, and I am your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Does anybody have any questions about these classes?"

One girl from Hufflepuff raises her hand tentatively. "Why don't we need wands for this subject?"

"Ah, I was hoping someone would ask that," Umbridge says in a falsely sweet voice. "It is the Ministry's belief that schoolchildren such as yourselves do not need wands for your schooling in Defence Against the Dark Arts. You will never need these skills in defending yourself from evil people, as there is nobody that wants to hurt children such as yourselves."

"Nobody my ass," I mutter.

"What was that, Miss Granger?"

"Nobody my ass," I say loudly, rising from my seat to challenge the dumpy witch in front of me.

"I'll allow you to apologise for that and we can just move on."

"Why should I?"

"Who would possibly want to hurt eleven-year-old children like yourselves?"

"The Dark Lord," I yell.

"He does not exist," she hisses. "He died fifteen years ago, and he has not returned, no matter what anybody says. He is dead and that is final." Her voice grows shrill at the last few words, but I ignore it and continue my rant at her.

"He's back," I yell. "He never died and he's going to kill us all!"

"Detention," she shrieks. After she's calmed down a bit she speaks again. "Detention, Miss Granger. Tonight, my office, seven o'clock."

I sit down silently, fuming at this excuse for a teacher. We read our textbooks for most of the lesson, focussing on the Wand-Lighting charm, Lumos. Of course, we never actually practise the spell, just read about how we apparently do it. When the lesson has ended, I'm one of the first out the door and up to the dormitory to put my stuff away before lunch.

When I arrive in the Great Hall, Hermione isn't there, and I let out a sigh of relief. I pile a plate with food and sit down, only for Hermione to slide in next to me a few minutes later.

"How were your lessons?" she asks expectantly.

"I got a detention," I say quietly, prodding at my food with my fork, not looking at her. I know how seriously she takes schoolwork, and how disappointed she'll be with me.

"Oh, Hannah," she says, looking away for a few seconds before looking back at me sadly. "With who? Why?"

"Umbridge."

"Why?" she presses.

"Because I disagreed with her views," I say, looking up at her.

She sighs. "You really don't think things through, do you?"

"Not really, no," I reply, turning back to my plate.

"You're going to get hurt if you don't start thinking about what you're doing, Hannah," she mutters as she turns back to her plate.

"Sometimes I just can't help it," I reply coldly. "Not when I know they're wrong."

"I see," Hermione says, not looking at me.

Ginny arrives then, sliding onto the bench on the other side of me.

"What did you have this morning?" she asks me as she fills her plate.

"Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts," I reply.

"How was it? What's Umbridge like?" she says, glancing up as Hermione leaves, but looking back at me after a second.

"She's pretty strict, and get this, she believes that we don't need wands for the subject, because there's nobody out there that wants to hurt us, apparently."

"That's ridiculous," she says, shaking her head. "Harry saw him come back. Just because the Ministry wants to keep everyone in the dark…" She trails off, shaking her head. I finish my lunch and leave, heading to the library to start my potions homework.

I finish it pretty easily, and still have a couple of hours left before dinner. I want to practice the Wand-Lighting charm, but don't really know where to start. Although I grew up with magic all around me, and not as a Mudblood like I have to make the others believe, I never learnt any real magic. I displayed signs of magical ability as a young child, and I sort of learned how to do some basic stuff like making things levitate and, my mother's favourite, how to make people hurt, but I never actually learnt any spells. So instead of doing something productive, I sit in the Common Room, staring intently at the flames blazing away in the fireplace from my position in one of the armchairs. I always used to find fire incredibly beautiful, but my view changed after my ninth birthday.

I still found it beautiful, but I saw another side of it. The side of it that was as deadly as it was beautiful. I learned that the hard way, by my subjection to the Cruciatus Curse. It felt as though my entire body had been burned, dipped in oil and set on fire, white-hot blades being pressed against my skin. The idea was that I'd adapt to it, become immune, if you will. I often have nightmares about it, and I still feel the pain inflicted on me. Not just from that curse, but from the dagger, the dagger that still haunts my unconscious hours; the dagger that inflicted the one hundred and ninety-three scars that adorn my ivory skin. What made it worse was the fact that my own mother inflicted those injuries upon me, with no second thought for the effects it might have on me. My mother is probably the most sadistic witch this world has ever known, with innumerable ideas and methods of torture lingering in her mind. But when the Aurors came for the Manor, they all Disapparated, leaving me on my own, with no means of concealment against the witches and wizards that came to find me.

I hid in a small cupboard, hoping they wouldn't look there, but they did. They arrested me on the spot and took me back to the Ministry for trial. Dumbledore heard about it and came to find me, and defended me in the trial. When I was found innocent of Death Eater activity, he took me to the Grangers'. He said I would be safe there, and that they had a daughter that was Muggle-Born who could protect me. He told me that she was still at Hogwarts, but would be returning soon, and that she would be notified of my presence. And that I would be starting at Hogwarts the next year. However, she would not be told about my real past, instead she was told that I was a Muggle-Born from another family that was scared of me, and tried to kill me out of fear. She wanted to know what really happened, but we had been told to make a backstory, one that led people to believe that I was her real sister, to keep from people asking too many questions. I didn't see her much over the holidays, so that ruled out any chances of working on the story behind my childhood, but she did take me to Diagon Alley to buy a wand and robes. All the books and other equipment I needed, she already had from her first year. Even though I'm meant to be a Muggle-Born, I still can't stand Mubloods and Blood-Traitors, something I picked up from my parents and the company they kept.

I start as I hear the portrait swing open, but relax slightly when I see it's just Ginny. Sure, she may be a Blood-Traitor, but at least she's more relaxed than Hermione. And she's a pureblood, even if she, and her entire family, doesn't act like it.

"Been wondering where you were," she muses as she sits in the armchair opposite me.

"Why were you looking for me?" I ask, leaning back in my armchair.

"We just didn't know where you were," she replies. "Are you coming down for dinner?"

"Suppose I'd better," I say, standing up slowly.

I follow her down to the hall and eat quickly, leaving without anyone else to find Umbridge's office for detention. There's something about that woman that isn't quite right. She's not evil, she doesn't have the capacity for that, but she's odd, but it doesn't scare me. My mother scares me beyond belief, but Umbridge just puts me on edge, and I don't know why.