'What a load of crap.' She thought sarcastically to herself as he spoke.
"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are, Nitwits! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"
Jade looked at Daphne and Draco and asked: "Is he insane?"
Daphne didn't say anything but Draco in his usual fashion said; "I don't know but my father would agree with you."
All of a sudden, Jade noticed the table was now loaded with piles of food. Roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, mint humbugs. She put a small amount of everything on her plate except lamb chops and humbug. It was delicious. When she was done eating, she looked at the Gryffindor table to see a ghost talking to Harry Potter and his friends. The ghost then pulled his head almost off his neck. She was creeped out by that so she turned to Draco and asked him about the ghost.
"He was beheaded for trying to be kind to a muggle and attempted to straighten her teeth, but when it backfired... well I think you get the idea," Daphne answered.
Once everyone had eaten as much as they could, the food residue disappeared from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean. A moment later, dessert appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs, and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, jelly, rice pudding. As Jade helped herself to some chocolate pudding, the talk turned to their families.
"-mother says I could be the heir to both the Black and Malfoy fortunes." Draco said just before eating his apple pie.
"Are you sure you want to?" asked Daphne.
Draco shrugged.
"Don't know. I've been trying to tell them for a while now that I want to make my own fortune, but they don't seem to understand." He sighed.
Jade thought about the conversation they were having before speaking out loud. "Well, you said on the train that your family was part of a long line of purebloods, right?"
He nodded with a slight frown not knowing where she was heading 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 that if you don't make them consider 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 asked."What do they think about your decision to come here?"
"Mr. Green was... well he wasn't thrilled but he was ok with it in the end... but his wife, she looked like I'd never return again," Jade answered truthfully.
Jade, who was sleepy after finishing a slice of cake, looked up at the High Table. Professor McGonagall talked to Headmaster Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, talked to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and pale skin. The hook-nosed teacher suddenly gazed past Quirrell's turban straight at the Gryffindor table with a look of pure hatred in his 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 desert too disappeared. Headmaster Dumbledore got up 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 on 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 for everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
Jade wondered why practicing magic outside 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 fixed. Dumbledore gave his wand a small flick as if he was trying to get a fly off the end. A long golden ribbon flew out of it, rising high above the tables, and twisting itself snake-like into words.
~Time skip just after the song~
"Ah, music, magic beyond all we do here! And now it's 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 spiral staircase. Jade's legs felt like lead, but only because she was tired and full of food. She was too tired to notice that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed. She also couldn't be bothered that Snape led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels. They descended more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet. Jade wondered how far they had gone when they stopped suddenly. At one end of the corridor hung a portrait of an old-looking man in a thick black robe. The old-looking man in a thick black robe seemed to examine them from head to toe, scrutinizing their every movement and expression with a calculating eye.
"Password?" He said in a voice that was the exact opposite of inviting or friendly.
"Pure blood," said Snape unbothered 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 care less about anything besides sleeping. Five four-poster beds hung with black velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to speak, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into their beds.
Jade worked her way to 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 onto. There were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in the right place. In addition, there were doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very difficult to remember where anything was because it all moved around a lot. Jade understood that the armored figures could walk and that the people in the portraits kept visiting each other. The ghosts didn't help either. It always surprised her when one of them suddenly slipped through a door she was trying to open.
She and Daphne ended up getting lost and were running late to their class. With no one to ask for directions, the two friends had to rely on their own instincts to find their way around the castle - a daunting task in a place that constantly changed. And if that wasn't terrible enough, Argus Filch found them. They were trying to force their way through a door which turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost. He was sure they were trying to break into it intentionally and threatened to lock them in the dungeon. However, 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 cat 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 appear as suddenly as a ghost. The students all hated him and wanted to kick Mrs. Norris. And then, once you found the classes, there were the lessons themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Jade quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight. They had to learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they ventured out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study herbology. They met a dumpy-looking witch called Professor Sprout. There, they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi and found out what they were used for. A number of students found that the most boring lesson was the History of Magic, which was the only class taught by a ghost.
Professor Binns was very old when he fell asleep in front of the fireplace in the staff room. He 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 wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to look over his desk. At the start of their first lesson, he took the register. When he reached Harry Potter's name, Jade was surprised since she hadn't seen him when she came in. He gave an excited squeak and fell out of sight. Jade soon realized he and Draco Malfoy would be in most of her classes this year. Daphne was in her first two. Jade realized she was right about Professor McGonagall. She was not to be crossed. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they 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 this is my favorite class.' Jade whispered to Draco while chuckling softly.
'Really? Why would you choose something as hard as this class?' Draco asked in a whisper as quietly as possible.
"Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not return. You have been warned." She finished with a seemingly pointed look in Draco and Jade's direction, then changed her desk into a pig and back again.
They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to start. However, they soon realized they wouldn't change furniture into animals for a long time. Jade sighed frustratedly as she finally gave up trying.
However, despite this, she smiled and mouthed back to Draco. 'This is why.'
Draco looked confused. After making many complicated notes, they were each provided with a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made a difference to her match. Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had become all silver and pointy and gave Hermione one of her rare smiles. Despite everyone's hopes for Defence Against the Dark Arts, Quirrell's lessons seemed like a joke. It smelled strongly of garlic in his classroom. He claimed this was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would return to get him one of these days. He told them his turbine had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but Jade wasn't sure if she believed his bizarre story.
For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, she noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and she overheard Ron and Harry say that they thought it was stuffed full of garlic as well so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went. Jade was relieved to learn that she wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people came from Muggle families and, like her, had no idea they were witches or wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron and Draco, who lived their whole lives surrounded by magic, didn't have much of a head start. It was Friday, and Jade had no idea how she planned to spend it. She finally found 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 as she approached the Slytherin table.
'I love sugar... but that's too much... even for me.' She thought to herself until 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 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 frustrated and angry. Her parents... or rather the Greens, hadn't written to her since she came here. She even bought them an owl and explained in a letter how to get the bird to deliver one back to her. A silent tear slipped from her eyes as she watched the others receive letters and gifts from their parents. Draco tried to cheer her up, but he was terrible 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 in the dungeons. It was cooler here than on any of the other levels in the castle. It 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 is so interesting about him that makes every teacher pause at just his name?' Jade thought.
"Ah, yes," Snape said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new celebrity."
Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle snigger behind their hands.
"How is he famous?" she asked the three boys.
They explained how he defeated Voldemort as a baby. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began, speaking barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word.
Like Professor McGonagall, Snape kept the 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 to really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes. This is the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, and 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 brief speech.
'This could also be a fun class... sounds similar to a muggle cooking class.' Jade thought with a smirk.
"What would I get if I added powdered asphodel root to an infusion of wormwood?" Snape asked Harry fully aware he didn't know the answer was Draught of the Living Death.
Jade, however, raised her hand slightly faster than Hermione as she remembered reading it in a book she found in the library.
"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 leaving her seat, but Jade and Harry didn't know what a bezoar was.
Jade tried not to look at Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle, who laughed 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 none of these questions would help him in this class and weren't worth remembering. Jade sighed.
'Maybe I should talk with him after class to explain... wait why do I feel like making him smarter?' Jade thought as she noticed Snape ignoring Hermione's hand.