Jade thought about the conversation they were having before she kinda just let herself speak her thoughts out loud. "Well, you said on the train your family had a long line of nothing but purebloods, right?" He nodded with a slight frown not knowing where she was going with it. "Well then it might take more than just words to make that point clear to them... they were obviously raised to take their roles in their family without question." "What are you-" "Look, all I'm saying is, is that if you don't make them think about it from your perspective... well I'm sure they won't ever see what you want any other way." She said finishing her pudding and whipping her mouth with a napkin. "What about your family, Jade?" Daphne began. "What do they think about your decision in coming here?" "Mr. Evans was... well he wasn't thrilled but he was ok with it in the end... but his wife... she looked like I'd never be coming back again..." Jade said truthfully.

Jade, who was starting to feel sleepy after finishing her desert, looked up at the High Table. Professor McGonagall was talking to Headmaster Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and pale skin. The hook-nosed teacher suddenly looked past Quirrell's turban straight to the Gryffindor table with a look of pure hatred as he seemingly looked into Harry Potter's eyes. "Oh, that's Professor Snape our head-of-house. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to, everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job." Pansey said as she noticed where Jade was looking. Jade watched Snape curiously for a bit longer, till the deserts too disappeared.

Headmaster Dumbledore got to his feet again. The Hall fell silent. "Ahem! Just a few more words now we are all fed. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. 'First-years should note that the forest in the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's eyes flashed in the direction of someone at the Gryffindor table. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

Jade wondered why practicing magic outside the classrooms wasn't allowed but didn't dwell on it long. "And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore. Jade noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed. Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick as if he was trying to get a fly off the end and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself snake-like into words.

~Timeskip just after the song~

"Ah, music, a magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you go!" Dumbledore said as he wiped an invisible tear from his eye, almost as though remembering fond memories of the song from his childhood as he sent them to find their dorms and sleep. The Slytherin first-years were told to follow Snape through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and down a spiraling staircase. Jade's legs felt like lead, but only because she was so tired and full of food. She was too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that Snape had led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels. They descended more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Jade was just wondering how much further they had to go when they came to a sudden stop. At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very old-looking man in a thick black robe.

"Password?" He said in a voice that was the exact opposite of inviting or friendly. "Pure blood," said Snape not at all bothered by the portrait's voice. The portrait swung forward to reveal a jagged hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it and found themselves in the Slytherin Common Room, a cozy, round room full of comfy armchairs. Snape silently directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. They were obviously in the dungeon or at least the basement of the school. Jade found that to be rather odd, but as soon as she saw her bed she couldn't bring herself to care more than to get some sleep. Five four-poster beds hung with black velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

Jade was working her way toward her first class. There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other and Jade was sure the coats of armor could walk. The ghosts didn't help, either. It always surprised her when one of them glided suddenly through a door she was trying to open. She and Daphne ended up getting lost and were running late for their class.

If that wasn't bad enough, Argus Filch was the one who found them. They were trying to force their way through a door which unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Snape, who was on his way to his classroom from Dumbledore's office. Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp-like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

And then, once you had managed to find the classes, there were the lessons themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Jade quickly learned, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi and found out what they were used for. Easily the most boring lesson was History of Magic, which was the only class taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff-room fire and got up the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him.

Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first lesson, he took the register, and when he reached Harry Potter's name, who Jade was surprised to see as she hadn't seen him when she came in, he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight. Jade soon realized he and Draco would be in most of her classes this year. Daphne was in her first two. Jade realized right away she was right about professor McGonagall, she was not to be crossed. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they had sat down in her first class. "Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said.

'And suddenly it's my favorite class.' Jade whispered to Draco while chuckling softly. 'Really? Why'd you choose something as hard as this?' Draco whisperingly asked as quietly as possible. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." She finished with a seemingly pointed look in Draco and Jade's direction, then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. Jade let out a frustrated sigh as she finally gave up trying, but smiled nonetheless and mouthed a reply back to Draco. 'This is why.' Draco just gave her a confused look. After making a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle.

By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger and Jade Evans had made any difference to their matches. Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione and Jade one of her rare smiles. The class most everyone had been looking forward to was Defence Against the Dark Arts, but Jade thought Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and Ron and Harry insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

Jade had been a bit relieved to find out that she wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like her, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron and Draco didn't have much of a head start. It was now Friday and Jade had no idea how she was going to spend it. She finally managed to find her way up to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once. "What have we got today?" She heard Harry ask Ron as he poured sugar on his porridge. Jade cringed slightly as she made her way toward the Slytherin table. 'I love sugar... but that's a bit much even for me.' She thought to herself till she noticed Daphne wasn't there yet. "Where's Daphne?" Draco asked her. That's when she noticed Pansy was also not there. "Don't know. I thought she'd have been here already... maybe she's with Pansy?" Jade said sounding like she was seriously thinking about it but really she wasn't.

Just then, the post arrived. Jade was now used to this, but it made her sad maybe even a little angry her parents... or rather the Evans, hadn't written to her not once since she came here she'd even bought them an owl and explained how to get the bird to deliver a message to her if they wanted to send her anything. A silent tear slipped her eyes as she watched the others receive letters and even gifts from their parents. Draco tried to cheer her up, but he was no good at it.

By the end of the first Potions lesson, Jade could tell Snape didn't simply dislike Harry Potter he hated him. She had no idea why that bothered her, she didn't know him very well but maybe she just felt sorry for him. Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was cooler here than up in any of the other levels in the castle and was creepy enough without all the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls. Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the register, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry's name. 'What the hell's so interesting about him to make every teacher pause at just his name?' Jade thought to herself. "Ah, yes," Snape said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new, celebrity." Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands. "How is he famous?" She asked the three boys. They explained how he defeated Voldemort as a baby, though when she asked who Voldemort was they seemed to not want to talk about him.

Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's, but they had none of Hagrid's warmth. "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word, like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses ... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death, if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." More silence followed this little speech.

'This could also be a fun class... sounds so similar to a muggle cooking class.' Jade thought with a slight smirk. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Snape asked fully aware Harry didn't know the answer was Draught of the Living Death. Jade, however, raised her hand slightly quicker than Hermione as she remembered reading it in a potions book once. "I don't know, sir," said Harry. Snape's lips curled into a sneer. "Tut, tut. Fame clearly isn't everything." He ignored Hermione's hand and then turned towards Jade who answered in a heartbeat without hesitating. "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Jade and Harry didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was.

Jade tried not to look at Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter at Harry's expense. "I don't know, sir." "Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" From the look on Harry's face, he literally thought non of these questions would help him in this class and weren't worth remembering. Jade sighed. 'Maybe I should go talk with him after class to explain... wait... why do I feel like making him any smarter?' Jade thought as she noticed Snape was still ignoring Hermione's quivering hand. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?" At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling. "I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?" A few people laughed. Snape, however, was not pleased. "Sit down," he snapped at Hermione.

"For your information, Potter, a bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite... Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?" There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter. As well as a point towards Slytherin for miss Evans correctly answering one of those questions." Jade noticed things didn't seem to improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mix up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Draco and Jade, whom he seemed to like.

He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Draco had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid-green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Jade looked up from her cauldron after creating a perfect potion. She noticed Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.