I woke early the next morning, the bustle of the dormitory too loud to be ignored. My schedule was on my nightstand, apparently delivered by owl in the night. I took a look at it. First period: Charms.

I hustled to get new robes on, brush my hair, and get my books together. I shoved them in a black satchel, grabbed my wand, stuffed it in my sheath, and off I went. Charms was on the first floor, but even so, it was far from the Slytherin dungeons.

I got a seat in the middle, wanting to stay far away some of the other more sinister looking Slytherins. Professor Flitwick stood on a table, waving his arms for quiet. "Please, be quiet!" He squeaked. "Be quiet, I say!" I watched him as he muttered something and pressed his wand to his throat. He mustered himself. "BE QUIET!" His normally squeaky voice echoed about the large room. Everyone looked up. The Professor looked pleased. "Quietus," he said.

"Now you see the power of charms. One whose voice is normally quite…small can be loud as anyone!" He hopped off the table, stumbling a little. "Our first day, today, is going to be dedicated to seeing how much you already know about charms. I will pass out a test," here he muttered "Wingardium leviosa," and a stack of papers lifted into the air, dropping onto our desks with a flick of his wand, "and you will complete it to the best of your abilities." There were more than a few groans. "Don't complain, we'll get on to more interesting stuff soon."

I dipped my quill in my ink and readied myself for the test. First question: TRUE OR FALSE: A charm is a jinx. False, I wrote. If the rest of the test was as easy as this, I had it covered.

I turned the test in feeling confident. The test had gotten harder, but not too hard. I glanced at my schedule. My next class was Double Potions with the Gryffindors. Gods, I hope that the twins weren't in my class.

I rushed down to the dungeons. In my haste, I bumped into someone. "Titiana!" A male voice said. "I've wanted to talk to you!" It was…er; let's just say one of the twins.

"No, sorry, got to go! I have Potions next, and I can't be late!" I kept going.

"That's what I have next too! We can talk on the run!" I kept walking. "So, Fred and I were talking," (at least I knew which twin it was now) "about the Slytherin thing? And the Malfoys? And how you seemed nice? On the train?"

"I know," I said briskly. "You thought I was nice, even though I was a Malfoy, and you thought I would be in Gryffindor, and hooray! Happily ever after! Except not. We can't be friends! Father hates you!" I sprinted off, clutching my books to my chest, too afraid to look back. I had just spouted off like a true Malfoy to the only "friends" I had.

Potions was torture. Turns out that both of the twins were in my class, and I spotted them looking at me and whispering more than once.

"If there's something so interesting about Ms. Titania, why don't you share it with the class?" Snape asked in a silky voice halfway through the lesson.

The twins turned identical shades of red. "No. We're fine. We were just admiring your pretty flowers over there," George said. He pointed to a "bouquet" of asphodel.

"Five points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley, for talking back and not paying attention in class. Oh, and, if we're counting not paying attention in class? Let's have another five points from the other Mr. Weasley." Fred looked like he was about to explode.

I heard George whisper something to Fred that sounded like "Live and learn, live and learn." I did not want to be around to see what that meant.

By the end of the day, I had already heard the gossip that Professor Snape had found some asphodel with pretty pink flowers on the ends in one of his potions. Apparently that potion had had some sensitive ingredients in it which reacted with the asphodel in…explosive ways. I had more than a hunch as to who did it, and I was fairly sure that the reaction hadn't been a mistake.

My last class of the day was Transfiguration. I took a seat beside a pretty girl with short dark hair and coffee colored skin. During the class, Professor McGonagall asked us to find a partner and tell them what we knew about Transfiguration.

"Psst!" I whispered to the girl next to me. She looked a little lost. "Want to be partners?" She started.

"Uh, sure. What do you know about transfiguration?"

"Well, it's the magic of turning things into other things. That's basically all I know."

"Me too," the girl laughed. "I'm a Muggleborn, so I don't know much about anything. To tell the truth, I'm still a little confused about this whole "house" thing."

"Don't worry, you'll figure it out soon enough. I can explain some stuff to you if you have free time after classes and not too much homework."

"That would be great! I have a bunch of questions!"

"Okay. Meet me in the vestibule of the Slytherin common room and we'll talk. By the way, I'm Titiana."

"I'm Harvest. My parents used to live in Mexico and they worked in the fields." Now that she said it, I could hear a faint accent. "We immigrated here when I was five. We've lived here since. Then I got the letter, and it was unlikely we'd have enough money for me to go to any other school, so I accepted. It's been confusing since…since the owl came in through the kitchen window." She laughed.

"Well, hopefully after you get the chance to ask some questions, you'll be less confused."

"Yes. But maybe we should get back to discussing what we know about transfiguration.