The next morning, Mr. Malfoy sent her an owl explaining how to board the train and what brick to tap to get to platform 9 3/4. Informed her she could wear what she liked this first day, but any day at school after this she would be expected to wear school robes. She dressed in a Sheer Mesh Panel Form-Fitted Teeshirt, Punk Rave Kera Visual Gothic Broken Mesh Pants, and Gothic Lace Up Platform Mid Calf Boots with Emerald green laces. Just before gathering all her things to take with her to Hogwarts, she placed the hooded cloak, Mr. Malfoy had given her, over her head hiding her hair. She figured if the reactions she got around London were anything to go by she'd get some answers but only if she hid her hair for long enough to surprise the person she assumed was responsible. With that done, she grabbed the pen and once again whispered 'London Bridges'.
Once again at the train station, but this time it was bustling with all sorts of people. Most of whom seemed to be muggles, but it was odd that they seemed to miss a bunch of oddly dressed witches and wizards just disappearing into a brick wall. After a group of dirty blondes disappeared into the wall, she kinda tagged along and followed through. This is when she found herself on platform 9 3/4, her heart started to pound in her chest at the realization; 'I really am a witch. This is no dream. I'm really going to Hogwarts!' When she finally calmed herself, she saw at least four red-heads surrounding a boy with glasses asking him if he was Harry Potter. 'What does it matter if he's Harry Potter?' She thought to herself as she found a place for her things and boarded the train. Jade placed the owl's cage on her right, so she could stare out the window and wait for the train to leave.
"Ugh, this is so boring." She said complaining to herself. "You're bored? Try sitting in a cage all day." She heard a voice on her right. She looked at the bird. 'No it couldn't happen with more than snakes... could it?' She thought to herself, and as she was about to face the window again it spoke again. "Got a starring problem human?" the bird asked glaring at her. "Wait you can talk to me too?" "You can understand me?" The bird asked happily flapping its wings, she just nodded. "Well, then I've got a lot to tell you." Jade turned her body so she was fully facing the bird. "First off, even though Malfoy did give me to you, he's my only master. I'm only here till he tells me otherwise." "Fair enough," Jade said with a smile. "I can appreciate your loyalty to your master and your upfront ness towards me." She finished after the bird looked surprised.
"Anyway, I... uh... I forgot what I was about to tell you, for now anyway. But just make sure you watch those you associate with within this school." The bird advised. "Why?" She asked curiously. "Because to most, blood status means everything, and people like them are looked on as less than even muggles." The bird said pointing her beak towards the window, where the red-heads she'd seen earlier were boarding the train. "If they're worse than muggles, why are they getting on the train?" "Because even though they're blood traitors, they're still wizards." said a witch, who just overheard her talking to the bird. "Who are you?" Jade asked looking at the witch. She had blonde hair with small waves, held halfway up in a ponytail. She wore a green dress and black shoes and had eyes as light as her own. "I'm Daphne Greengrass," The witch said with her hand outstretched in greeting.
Jade looked at her hand for a moment, then shook it. "Jade Evans," Jade said in a tone that was just polite. "What's a blood traitor?" "May I?" Daphne asked motioning towards an empty seat in front of her. Jade nodded. Daphne then sat and for the next couple of hours, she explains blood traitors, explains blood supremacy and tells Jade the reason she can speak to animals is because of an ability called Parseltongue which probably meant she was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin. Around noon there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the trolley, dears?" Jade, who hadn't had any breakfast, leaped to her feet nearly causing her hood to fall, but Daphne stayed seated and calmly asked for a Pumpkin juice.
Jade has never had so much money in her pocket before (about 50 Gallions and 100 sickles), so she was about to buy as many Snickers Bars as she had but noticed the woman didn't have any on her trolly and she sighed in disappointment. What she did have were Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Liquorice Wands, and several other strange things Jade had never seen in her life. Not wanting to be caught off guard about anything, especially something as simple as food or drinks, she bought one of everything she had and gave the woman two Gallions. When the woman went to give her, her change back, Jade waved her off and told her to keep it. "Woah! I thought with all your questions you were a muggle-born, but that couldn't be possible." Daphne said in awe.
Jade didn't say anything, she didn't want to lie and say she was or wasn't when truth be told she didn't know for sure. "You said your name was Jade Evans, right?" she asked. Jade just nodded as she sipped her pumpkin juice. "I've never heard of them, so are you a half-blood?" Daphne asked. Jade let out a loud sigh. "Truth be told... I was adopted by muggles. So I've no idea if I'm muggle-born, half-blood, or pure-blood." She said and it suddenly felt like some invisible weight was lifted from her shoulders. "Well if you live with muggles, your not a pure-blood as no pure-blood would give away their children, let alone to muggles." She wanted to smile, but any topic dealing with who her parents are or her adopted parents just made her frustrated and sad. "What are these?" Jade asked changing the topic as she held up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. "They're not really frogs, are they?"
"No," said Daphne. "See what the card is, I'm missing Artemisia Lufkin." "What?" "Oh, yeah you don't know. Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect... Famous Witches and Wizards. I've got about five hundred, but I haven't got Artemisia Lufkin or Ptolemy." Jade opened the box and picked up the card. It showed a man's face. He wore half-moon glasses and had long flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore. "So this is Dumbledore?" Jade asked with a slight frown. "Heard of him, have you?" Daphne asked, but Jade couldn't tell if she liked the man or not as she hid her eyes from view. "Yeah, once in Gringotts. The goblins said it was because of him they couldn't tell me who my parents were." "WHAT!?" Daphne shrieked in surprise her head wiped back to face her.
She knew exactly who she was and now she had to go find Draco. "I'm sorry but I have to go, I'm going to freak out if I stay here any longer." She lied, she wouldn't freak out but she'd say something she'd been told by her mother not to if she stayed right now. "It was nice meeting you Jade and I hope we're in the same house so we can become good friends." With that Daphne left to find Draco. "Okay... that was... weird..." She said more to herself than to the bird that had used its wing to shrug. Jade then turned over the card and read:
Albus Dumbledore, currently Headmaster of Hogwarts. Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Professor Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.
"I don't understand why he'd try to hide who my parents are from me?"She asked out loud without realizing it. "Maybe it's a secret he's trying to hide for a reason." The bird said sounding like it knew the answer but truly didn't. "Hmm? Maybe, indeed." She agreed as she looked out the window and watched the clouds. After a little while, she picked up a bag of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, after eating a few of them she threw it as far away from herself as possible without making them spill all over the place. She most certainly will never be eating those again. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills outside her window. There was a knock on the door of her compartment and a round-faced boy came in. He looked tearful. "Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?" When she shook her head after asking the owl if it'd eaten it the owl just hooted and the boy cried, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"
"I'm sure he'll turn up," Jade said. "Well, if you see him ..." He left. She let out a scoff. "The closest I'm coming to touching a toad is feeding it to the owl or finding a hungry snake," Jade muttered under her breath with a small laugh. Finally getting bored enough, she left her compartment to see if there were more interesting people to talk to. As she reached the end of the hall she saw three boys talking with one of the redheads she'd seen outside her window back on platform 9 3/4 and the boy she thought she remembered from her trip to the zoo. She walked up to them as they seemed nice enough, but only talking to them would make sure of that. "Hello, I'm Jade Evans." She said introducing herself. "Ron Weasley." The redhead said, holding his hand out waiting for her to shake it in greeting. Jade just stared at his hand in disgust.
"Nothing against you, but I'm not going to shake your hand." She then heard the three boys to her left snickering and she gave them a glare but because of her hood, they hadn't seen it. "...Anyway, it's cause I don't know you and I don't know where that hand has been." Then she looked at the boy with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. "You... I feel like I saw you... at a zoo last year, what's your name?" She asked stunning all the boys into silence. "Yeah, you stopped my uncle and cousin from disturbing that snake. I'm Harry Potter." He told her and she could tell he wanted to shake her hand as well since his hand twitched. Harry then turned to face the blonde boy and his friends. "Well, while you figure out who these fools are, I'm going to find some more interesting people to talk to, see ya!" Jade said just before leaving.
She could hear the boys complaining about her calling them fools and chuckled to herself. Jade walked along the hall, meeting several more witches and wizards, Luna Lovegood, Nevil Longbottom, Cho Chang, and several others but none of them were exactly worth hanging out with right now at least not in her opinion. So she went back to her compartment and searched through one of her bags for the one muggle item she'd brought with her, her mp3 player and earbuds, and began to listen. It was on a random playlist with all sorts of music, she started off listening to Linkin Park, Nickelback, and seether. But after a while, she'd let herself forget she wasn't at home in her room where no one would hear her if she were to sing and began to sing the very next song while facing the window.
You Don't Know Me by Elizabeth Gillies.
"You think you know me,
But you don't... know me,
You think you own me,
But you can't... control me,
You look at me and there's just one thing that you see,
So listen to me,
Listen to me!"
It was at this point some of the other students opened the door to her compartment *She didn't hear them* and watched her, the first of whom were the three boys she had called fools earlier. They were drawn in by the tone of sadness in her sweet-sounding voice.
"You push me back,
I'll push you back, Harder, Harder!
You scream at me,
I'll scream at you, Louder, La-La-La-La Louder!"
She sang, as she pushed herself away from the window and spun once with her eyes closed.
"I'm dangerous,
I'm warning you!
But your not afraid of me and I can't convince you!
You don't know me..."
She sang that last bit in an almost unimpressed-sounding tone.
"You think you got me,
But you don't get me,
You think you want me,
But you don't know what you're getting into!
There's so much more to me than what you think you see,
So listen to me, just listen to me!"
It was now that she opened her eyes and saw that people were watching her, but she didn't care much and to their astonishment, she continued.
"You push me back,
I'll push you back, Harder, Harder!
You scream at me,
I'll scream at you, Louder, La-La-La-La Louder!
I'm dangerous,
I'm warning you!
But your not afraid of me and I can't convince you!
You don't know me..."
She sang that last bit with a sad smile on her face for dramatic effect toward her next words.
"And the longer that you stay,
The ice is melting!
And the pain, it feels Okay!
It feels okay, Hey..."
Her face then took on a blank stare as her next words took on a numb feeling tone.
"You push me back,
I'll push you back,
You scream at me,
I'll scream at you,
Louder, Louder, Louder, Louder, Louder, Louder, Louder, Louder, Louder!"
She sang each time she said 'louder' essentially becoming louder as she said it.
"You push me back,
I'll push you back, Harder, Harder!
You scream at me,
I'll scream at you, Louder, La-La-La-La Louder!
I'm dangerous,
I'm warning you!
But your not afraid of me and I can't convince you!
And I don't have to,
I think you know me..."
With that, she pulled her earbuds out and all she heard was cheering from everyone watching and listening to her singing. She blushed, but thanks to her hood no one saw. After the crowd scattered, the blonde and his two friends stepped into her compartment. "May I help you?" She asked, her tone laced with sarcasm. She was trying to be nice but all she really wanted was to throw them all out for being mean to Harry, who Luna had told her, he'd insulted for hanging out with and sticking up for the Weasley boy. She didn't particularly care for the Weasley either but that wouldn't stop her from being nice so long as he doesn't touch her. "I wanted to know where you learned to sing like that? I'm Draco Malfoy by the way." The blonde asked while introducing himself. 'Is he somehow related to Mr. Malfoy?' Jade thought to herself.
"Jade Evans." She said with a sigh. "And I'm self-taught, I wasn't allowed to go to a school to learn so I guess that's the only option left for me." She said angrily at the memory of asking to go to a normal school for the first time back when she was seven and getting yelled at by Mrs. Evans. Jade ended up talking to them for the rest of the ride till they neared the school, it wasn't even quite as bad as she'd thought it might be. Draco's friends Crabbe and Goyle also introduced themselves before they ended up leaving to see if they could find Lavender Brown or Pansy Parkinson. Draco told her they'd had crushes on the girls for a while now. "Well I'd better go put on my school robes, you should do the same. See you later, Evans." And with that, he also left her. Jade then took off her cloak and because she was a bit self-conscious she put it over the birdcage so it couldn't see her change, then put it back over her head.
A voice echoed through the train:
"We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."
'Well, at least I won't have to worry about carrying everything with me.' Jade thought with a sigh of relief. She grabbed a handful of the chocolate she had left and joined the crowd in the hallway after ensuring no one could see her hair. The train slowed down and finally stopped.