Hey guys :) Sorry for not having posted sooner, but college has got me very busy... On the other hand, I've started another story, this time about the Walking Dead, so feel free to go check it out :D

Chapter Four

I take a seat next to the window on my right. I must have been one of the firsts to board the train as every cabin had been empty when I got in. It was useless to continue my thriller since I expected that in a few minutes the train would be full of students making noise. Sighing, I look through the window on to the platform which is now packed. I see parents kissing their children goodbye and the children looking clearly embarrassed by it. I would have given everything to have my parents with me today… I fight the tears that threaten to flow, thinking about my mother's advice : There is no point in crying, tears won't change anything.

At that moment I hear the door sliding and as I turn to face it, a very handsome, olive skinned face smiles at me:

'Oh good,' the boy exclaims, 'You are a Slytherin.' He looks at me as though expecting an answer but I remain quiet. 'I'm Blaise Zabini, these here,' he says pointing at the two dumb looking boys behind himself, 'Are Crabbe and Goyle. Can we join you?' He asks at last.

'Sure,' I answer and in no time at all Zabini is sitting in front of me while Dumbface one and two remain close to the door, eating what seems to be chocolate frogs.

Zabini is a great conversationalist and minutes after they entered the cabin, I find myself in tears, laughing at his anecdotes about Hogwarts. I was relieved when he didn't ask a lot of questions about me; after I told him my name and my fake story, he merely teased me on my confidence about becoming a Slytherin since I was already sporting the house crest without having yet been sorted.

When my belly is seriously starting to hurt, the door slides open once again and I turn to see Draco, his arm around the waist of a pug faced girl.

'I didn't know we would have company, Blaise,' Draco says looking at me angrily.

'We do, indeed, and it's a most charming company,' Zabini answers, smiling at me, 'I present you the lovely -'

'Alexandra DeVilliers,' Draco simply states in a cold voice without facing me. The girl on his arm stares at me full of hatred.

'You've met?' Zabini asks puzzled.

'Briefly,' I reply not bothering to look at Malfoy.

Draco takes a seat next to Blaise, and Pugface sits on the blond boy's lap. Ignoring the girl, Draco turns to Blaise and starts in a tired voice:

'Daphne is so annoying, I swear,' Draco complains to his friend, 'Pity Agnessa graduated last year, she was a lot prettier and smarter than Greengrass. Now I'm stuck being a Prefect with that sorry excuse for a Slytherin.'

As Blaise is about to answer, Pugface kisses Draco and they start snogging. Blaise turns to me, an amused smile plastered on his face.

'They're always like that,' he whispers, 'Once I caught them red handed in our dormitories,' Zabini laughs and I imitate him even though the sight of Draco making out with that girl makes me nauseous.

I turn towards the window, looking at the beautiful landscape (I hadn't even noticed that the train had already departed!). After a few moments I fall asleep.

'Alexandra, wake up,' Blaise whispers in my ear, 'We are there.'

I nod, slowly opening my eyes. I bow down and take the miniature trunk from underneath my seat: I managed to shrink it so small that it now fits in my robe's pocket. As I make my way out of the cabin, I notice that Draco stays behind.

Blaise is waiting for me next to a carriage, the door held open. I thank him and I climb in, quickly registering that the carriages are pulled by thestrals and I wish that I wasn't able to see them.

'Here you are, ' Blaise announces as we reach Hogwarts' big doors. 'Wait here for Professor McGonagall, she'll explain the rest,' he says, 'Good look for the Sorting'. And with a playful wink, he leaves me amongst the first years. Well, he sure is a charmer, I smile to myself, amused.

By the time the said teacher finally appears to take us to the Sorting Ceremony, I am feeling bored and impatient. As she leads us through the doors Blaise disappeared into fifteen minutes ago, I hear the end of Headmaster Dumbledore's speech:

'Now, let us welcome the first years and one sixth year transfer student. May the Sorting begin!'

McGonagall has ordered us into a long line in alphabetical order and I find myself between two particularly loud first years. Suddenly, the old hat on the school starts to sing a crappy song and by the time the two first students are sorted, over ten minutes have already passed and my mood is growing nastier by the second.

'Alistair, Mary,' Professor McGonagall calls out and a rather peculiar looking girl starts walking towards the stool. She is shaking and walking extremely slow, even a snail would be faster!

'Oh, please,' I growl loudly. Without a second thought, I start walking towards the stool and the girl stops, looking at me with fear.

As I reach the stool, I see that McGonagall is now sporting a very shocked face, her mouth in a O, the rest of the room is quiet and I can feel them all looking at me. Without a word, I take the hat from the teacher's hand and as I'm about to place it on my head, it exclaims very loudly : 'Slytherin!'

A smirk forms on my face and I turn to the Professor, 'See,' I say patting her shoulder, 'It was a lot quicker this way.'

I then start walking towards the Slytherin table who is clapping the loudest. However, when I pass the Hufflepuff's table, I recognise one of them. What I recognise is the mixture of a face that I almost forgot and of one that I wished to forget. 'Diggory,' I whisper, shock overcoming me. My steps become a lot less confident but I manage to get to my table without embarrassing myself.

Blaise has saved me a spot in front of him and next to Pugface. I smile at him gratefully, sitting down.

'I'm Pansy,' Pugface says stretching out her hand in front of me.

'And I'm not interested,' I reply without facing her. Blaise smiles and we start conversing.

As the feast ends, I can't help but notice that Draco is missing.

'You got to be kidding me,' I complain loudly as I enter my room, or rather the dormitory. Not only will I be sharing the room with four other girls but they happen to be Pansy and her gang. The room in itself isn't too bad, it's pretty big, decorated in shades of green, the windows allowing us to look into the lake.

'Believe me,' Pugface snorts, 'I'd rather have Daphne here than you.'

That night I don't even bother unpacking. I just take out some toiletries and my pyjamas from the trunk.

—-

The next morning I manage to find my way to the Great Hall all by myself and I can't help but feel proud about it. I plan on finding Severus and making him give me a private room for I sure as hell won't be sleeping next to a snoring Pansy for the rest of the school year!

I finally spot Severus talking to a fellow Slytherin student, looking annoyed. I approach them quickly and as I'm about to interrupt, Severus speaks:

'I already told you, Miss Greengrass, there is no place left in your old dormitory. You and Mr Malfoy will have to get past your animosity,' he says and Daphne starts crying rather loudly. Perfect!

'Professor,' I say calmly, appearing in front of Severus and I have to stifle a laugh at having to call him that, 'I heard that Prefects have a private bedroom. If that's the case, I am more than willing to switch with Miss Greengrass.'

Severus looks at me, furrowing his brows but complies, 'Alright, but if you, Miss DeVilliers, take the Prefect's room, you'll also have to take over the Prefect's duties.'

I nod, a victorious smile plastered on my face. Weirdly enough, Professor Snape hasn't mentioned last evening's incident. Oh well! It' probably for the best. Severus leaves us and goes to the Professors' table. Daphne has now finally stopped crying.

'Are you sure?' She asks, wiping away her tears, 'Becoming a Prefect is hard work, especially if you are new.'

'Yeah,' I say, patting her shoulder, 'Don't worry, I'll manage.' I'm not really sure that this bargain was worth it but at least I will have a room all to myself.

Daphne and I make our way towards the Slytherin table which is almost entirely empty as it is still very early. However, all kinds of breakfast foods are already displayed on the table and I decide to treat myself to some pumpkin juice and two slices of buttered toast.

'About the Prefect's duties,' Daphne starts after taking a sip of her tea, 'You'll have to patrol the castle once a week. Usually, the Prefect's of the same house decide to partner up to keep each other company, but I doubt he will be willing do it,' Daphne finishes, hatred thick in her voice.

'Why do you hate him so much?' I ask the girl in front of me.

'Oh,' she exclaims clearly embarrassed, 'Can I trust you to keep it to yourself?' I give her a serious nod, and she continues, 'Well, I have a sister, Astoria. She's in her fourth year and yesterday as I came back to the Prefect's common room after taking the first years to their dormitories, I found the both of them on the couch in a very compromising position. Naked.' Daphne is now blushing so strongly, I can feel heat radiate from her cheeks.

I nearly spill out the juice that I have in mouth but manage to contain myself at the last moment. When I've composed myself, I can't keep myself from asking whether he isn't dating Pugface.

'Pansy, you mean?' Daphne wonders, 'Well they have been dating since their fourth year but that doesn't mean Draco is faithful,' Daphne confesses with disgust, 'But that's not the point. The point is that Astoria will have to marry into a good family and she won't be able to do that if her purity is questioned.'

As I listen to Daphne, I suddenly feel very glad that I wasn't brought up like a Pureblood. Both my parents were in Slytherin and came from noble Pureblood families but since they died when I was merely one year old, I wasn't brought up by them.

The table is now getting fuller and I see Blaise making his way towards me with a big smile.

'Hello beautiful,' he singsongs as he takes place next to me and helps himself to some food.

Some minutes later, Severus comes to our table and distributes our schedules. I am glad to see that Blaise and I are in the same classes except for when he has free periods and I have Herbology.

'We'll be in the same classes as Draco,' Blaise states displeased. Why isn't he happy about it? They are best friends aren't they?

As I'm about to ask Blaise about his displeasure, I notice that Draco is once missing from our table. Blaise must notice this too, because he responds to my silent question.

'He's always late for breakfast, probably still in bed with some girl, and anyways, he only ever eats an apple for breakfast.'

As I'm about to comment, Blaise interrupts me and says that we better get going in order to get the best seats. I agree, still curious about why Blaise isn't keen on talking about Draco.

When we reach the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom, some of the seats are already taken by Ravenclaws. Blaise manages to find us seats next to each other in the back row.

Severus enters the room and closes the door behind himself as the bell rings, and walks towards the front of the classroom, preparing for class.

It's only then that Draco opens the door, a half bitten apple in his hand, and takes the last seat which is on the second row, next to the window. I notice that Severus doesn't say anything so I guess that his tardiness is an habit.

All through the class, Blaise tries to get my attention, sometimes by touching my hand, but I ignore him as I'm actually enjoying Severus' teaching.

The rest of the morning goes by this way, Blaise always managing to get us to seat next to each other. Even at lunch, he stays with me instead of sitting with his friends. I find this odd but I don't say anything as I'm happy not to sit alone.

After lunch we have two hours of potions. I notice, looking at my schedule, that we have two hours of potions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I really hope Slughorn's classes are interesting otherwise these six hours a week are going to be torture!

I am pleased to see that the Potion's classroom is in the Dungeons which means that we won't have to walk all through the castle to get to the Slytherin's quarters. As we reach the classroom, however, many students, both Gryffindors and Slytherins are gathered around the probably closed door. When the bell rings, an old and bold man opens the door and announces, 'You may now enter but don't sit down just yet!'

We do as we are told and stand awkwardly all around the classroom waiting for the teacher's instructions.

'I will now call out your names and partner you up in groups of two. You will be doing potions with your partner for the rest of the school year!' Slughorn says excitedly and takes out a roll of parchment.

After three minutes, only six of us are still standing and I am one of them. Blaise was, much to his dislike, partnered up with Pansy. Well, perhaps this is the opportunity to make a new friend, I relativise.

'Miss DeVilliers and Mister Malfoy.'

Well, this surely isn't what I was looking out for. Sighing, I follow Malfoy to the bench he selected.

Just as the teacher is done partnering us up, Scarface and Gingerface bust inside the room, over fifteen minutes late.

I ignore Malfoy throughout the lessons and he does the same. We don't really do anything, Slughorn just tells us what we will be doing during the school year and presents us some potions.

When the bell finally rings, Slughorn yells above the noise filling the room.

'This Wednesday and Friday, we'll look at Amortentia. And next Monday, you'll be brewing it with your partners!'

'Great!' I exclaim sarcastically.

Please let me know what you think of this chapter by leaving a review!