Things Will Never Be the Same Again

The next morning I was woken by Cho “Come on Jess, time to wake up, you’re going to miss breakfast” I could hear her saying. Eventually she managed to force my eyes open, it looked like she was the only one left in our room.

“Where is everyone?” I mumbled, sitting up and stretching out my arms.
“Down stairs, probably nearly done with breakfast, come on, we’re late!” She squeaked. I glanced at my watch and saw that it read 7:55.
“Cho, what are you worrying about? It’s not even eight yet!” I exclaimed, rolling back into my bed.
“It will be in five minutes! You’re not even up yet! It takes us at least fifteen minutes to get to the great hall and breakfast finishes in less than an hour!”
“Ok Cho, look, I’m getting up, I just need a shower and I’ll be ready, ok?” I said in a calm voice, slowly getting out of bed and trying not to make any sudden movements.
“Okay, I’ll wait for you,” She replied, brushing her hair anxiously and turning to look out one of the great arched windows by her bed. I quickly grabbed my robes and showered as fast as I could, ten minutes later I was out and ready to go.
Cho hustled me all the way down to the great hall, forcing me to descend down the stairs so fast I didn’t have enough time to even put my tie on.

“Miss Chang, Miss Taylor” A disapproving voice called from the doors of the great hall just as Cho and I landed on the ground floor.
“Good morning Professor McGonagall,” Cho chorused. I don’t know how she managed it; I couldn’t even speak as I tried to catch my breath. Professor McGonagall was the lady with the stern voice who had ushered me around the night before with the first year students.
I was impressed that she had already committed my name to memory when I had not even bothered to learn hers.

“What on earth are you two doing rushing around like mad men, Miss Taylor please fix your robes, you look a mess” I felt my face burning with embarrassment as I tried to straighten them out.
“Sorry Professor it won’t happen again, we were just running late for breakfast,” Cho explained in a much calmer voice than she’d used with me. I managed to sort myself out just as a man walked over to us, a menacing look on his face.
He had longish black hair that curtained his face and a hooked nose. But what struck me the most were his eyes, they looked pitch black against his pale skin.

“Uh can someone help me with my tie?” I asked awkwardly, looking at the three of them. Cho’s eyes looked huge as she stared at me in shock. “What?” I asked her, it wasn’t my fault that I’d never worn a tie before, well maybe it was, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.
“Miss Chang, will you please teach her how to use a tie before classes begin- oh hello Severus” She greeted the man with the black eyes. His gaze lingered on me for a second before he turned his full attention to Professor McGonagall. Something made me feel the need to stand there and listen but Cho grabbed my arm and dragged me into the great hall.

“Ten minutes left, see aren’t you glad we raced here?” Cho asked smiling as we took the nearest seats we could find.
“Uh no, not really since it was the racing that nearly got us in trouble!”
“Yes, nearly” She smiled, spreading jam across a piece of toast.
“Cho, who was that man talking to Professor McGonagall?”
“That was Professor Snape, the potions teacher, we have a double with him tomorrow” She gulped.
“Not you too” I sighed rolling my eyes.
“Sorry?”
“Well everyone I speak to is kind of afraid of him, especially Neville, he’s plain terrified”
“Yes, he is a bit of a tough critic, Neville he picks on a lot because he knows he can get to him, just try not to make any mistakes or speak out of turn and you should do ok” She grinned starting on her second piece of toast, I’d hardly taken a bite of my first piece.
“But mistakes are accidental, how do I avoid an accident?” I asked bewildered.
“Very carefully” She mumbled through a mouthful of toast.

Our first lesson was Care of Magical Creatures with an enormous man named Hagrid. He seemed like a lovely guy, definitely liked his magical creatures. Ravenclaw and Slytherin were joined for this class, apparently this was normal, so as we sat outside in the bright sunlight watching Hagrid give a demonstration on taking care of flobber worms Cho and I sat at the back taking rough notes and listening to a few of the Slytherin boys talking.

“My father says this oaf couldn’t even make it through his years at Hogwarts, no idea how he can be allowed to teach us!” A low hissing voice spat.
“Must be sucking up to Dumbledore,” Another voice said.
“Yeah, or Dumbledore’s lost his mind!” The first voice laughed.
“Not that he ever had much of one,” Another boy muttered, they all roared with laughter.
“Oye! You there, Mr Malfoy, what you laughin’ at?” Hagrid stopped in the middle of his demonstration to call the boy out, I turned my head slightly. He was a blonde haired boy with brilliant blue eyes.
“Nothing Hagrid, sir” He smirked and Hagrid carried on explaining the types of lettuce flobber worms enjoy. “Nothing you would understand,” he snarled in a lower voice, snorts of laughter erupted again from the boys behind us.
“Why don’t you say it to his face if that’s what you really think?” I snapped turning around to face the boy.
“What? How dare you talk to me like that, you filthy Muggle!” He snapped back.
“If I’m such a Muggle then why am I learning magic smart guy?” I was pretty sure a Muggle was a non-magical person… At least that’s what I thought I’d heard from Mrs Weasley.
“Oh please, you actually think you’re a real witch? What a joke, you got powers through someone else. That hardly counts,” He hissed. I wondered how he even knew that.
“That doesn’t even make sense! What does it matter how you get them if you have them? Last time I checked Muggles didn’t have powers!”
“Miss Taylor an Mr Malfoy, what are yeh playin’ at talkin’ the whole way through me lesson?” Hagrid asked striding over to us.
“Sorry sir, we just had a bit of a disagreement,” I replied apologetically. “I didn’t mean to disrupt your lesson”
“Well, I guess that’s alrigh’ then” He smiled and strode back to the front of the class carrying on once again.
“Nice going Muggle,” Malfoy snarled.
“Thank you!” I turned around grinning as wide as I could and trying to look sincere. He looked completely confused. I heard Cho next to me coughing to cover her laugh.

The next lesson we had was Charms with the Slytherin’s once again.
“Oh are we ever going to get rid of them?” I groaned as Padma, Cho and I each took a seat at the front of the room.
“I really hope so,” sighed Padma “I can’t keep listening to Draco Malfoy,” she spat his name “and his insane theories about how he is better than everyone else, it drives me crazy!”
“You should have heard the way Jess stood up to him, it was really great,” Cho complimented me as we turned around to stare at him and his huge best friends sitting at the back laughing their heads off.
“Did you really?” Padma asked.
“Yeah kind of, it wasn’t that great, I just couldn’t stand the way he was talking about Hagrid”

Just then a man walked in and jumped up on a chair at the front of the class so he could see everyone, he was a little short. He introduced himself as Professor Flitwick; he was the head of Ravenclaw. He was a really interesting man with a gentle voice.
I was glad to have him as my head of house. His charms lesson was quite a bit more difficult than Hagrids had been. He was trying to teach us how to freeze objects with a simple charm called Glacius. We all took a stance around the room and chose our objects I was practicing on a chair when Draco decided to wander over for a chat.

“I wonder, can you even perform spells Muggle?” He asked walking around me and watching as nothing happened to the chair I was meant to be freezing.
“Of course I can,” I muttered back “Can you?”
“I’m not the Muggle here”
“Then I wonder who it is because it’s not me!” I looked at him, his face was expressionless. He looked bored. “Why are you so mean?” I whispered.
“Mean?” He snorted “I’m just honest”
“Hardly, how can you call yourself an honest person when nearly everything you say about someone is behind their back? That’s cowardice!” I think I stuck a nerve with that last line as he narrowed his eyes at me and spun around, walking away. I don’t know why but I felt a little terrible at what I’d just said.
“Glacius!” I shouted a little louder than I would have usually, I was angry at feeling confused for feeling guilty; it was a strange mix of emotions. “Glacius!” I shouted even louder, and to my astonishment a gust of blue air flew out the end of my wand and engulfed the chair I was aiming at. It froze immediately.

“Hey Professor, Professor! Jess did it, she froze her chair!” Padma was calling to Professor Flitwick who had been showing Luna how to properly hold her wand for the charm to work. I took a quick look around the room and was quite surprised to see that no one else had managed to do the spell yet.
“By George, she did too!” He exclaimed “Ten points to Ravenclaw, well done Miss Jessica!” He smiled shaking my hand.
“Thanks Sir” I grinned back, half of my mind happy to have proven Draco wrong and the other half remembering George Weasley. Why did it have to be his name in that saying? I wasn’t able to focus my mind for the rest of the lesson so all I had to show for my hour in charms was a dripping chair that I’d had to leave to melt in the sunlight since I hadn’t been able to master the counter charm for it.

Thankfully we had lunch next, I couldn’t have been happier to get away from the Slytherin group. After I’d won points for Ravenclaw it wasn’t just Draco who kept calling me a Muggle. The entire class of Slytherin’s who’d had charms with us were now quite fond of the word also. It got to the point where I had to ask Cho to use a spell that would impair my hearing as we walked along the corridors to the Great Hall.
“Don’t worry about them; they’re all just sore losers.” Padma smiled at me over her turkey sandwich, Cho had just lifted her spell.
“I guess, at least we don’t have to see them for the rest of the day right?” My smile faded as she looked away.
“Actually we have one more class with them,” Cho said, picking apart a piece of bread. I groaned placing my chicken sandwich down and looked over at the Slytherin table. A few laughed at me as they caught my eye. I jumped up and left my seat in a rush.

I wanted to get out of there and away from the Slytherins for as long as possible. I had an hour left before my next class which was transfiguration, I thought about heading up to my dormitory but decided against it when I thought about the riddle I’d have to solve before I was allowed in.
Instead I walked around a bit went down a few flight of stairs, found an empty corridor and sat down. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes starting to feel my anger wash away. It was nice and cool being further down in the castle and it was definitely helping me feel better.

“Look who it is.” A drawling voice came from my right. I tried to ignore it, I wanted to so badly.
“What are you doing all the way down here Muggle?” Draco asked leaning over me.
“Quit it, ok, just stop!” I snapped, jumping up from my position so I was face to face with him. “I don’t know why you’re like this and I’m really not in the mood to care, so please just leave me alone,” I sighed, my anger had left almost as fast as it had come, I leant against the wall again and let myself slide down it.
We were both silent for a while, I don’t think he was expecting me to show so much emotion.
“What are you doing anyway?” I asked him, curiosity ebbing away at me.
“I should be the one to ask you that, you are in Slytherin territory,” He said crossing his arms.
“I am?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know our common room is down here, Professor Snape will be more than interested to hear about this.” He smirked, ready to turn around.
“Wait, don’t be such a grass!”
“Why not? Seems fine to me” He shrugged.
“Look I’m not doing anything wrong! Maybe Professor Snape would be more interested to know how you talk about other people!” I stared up at him, expecting him to look afraid or at the least a little wary. Instead though he looked quite smug.
“Like you? I doubt it, besides I’m only calling you by your true name. Muggle, not even good enough to be called a Mud Blood, do you understand how low that makes you?”
“A what?” I asked, confused. I knew what he was saying couldn’t be anything good, but Mud Blood was a new term to me. Draco laughed.

“Tell me you’re joking” He managed to get out between laughs
“I thought it was obvious that I am not. I mean, I know Ravenclaw is the house of intellect but I didn’t expect other students to be this slow on the uptake,” I snapped, standing up again.
“I don’t know who you think you are, but I think I need to teach you a lesson, and it’s not going to be about Mud Bloods,” He hissed in a low voice, drawing out his wand and pointing it at me. I fumbled around for my own but I couldn’t find it, not that it would be much help anyway. After all what would I do, shoot flowers at him? I was suddenly quite afraid, if I couldn’t even defend myself I didn’t know what might happen. ..