We were all lounging around in a corner of the Slytherin common room. I had thrown my legs across Fergal’s lap, so I was relatively comfortable. Alex, Xavier and Scorpius had just come back from Quiddich practice, so the place smelt like something had died. Just one more reason for people not to come near us. You see, people avoided us like the plague. All because of our surnames. It didn’t matter what house you were in. Surnames were a big thing at Hogwarts. If you were a Potter or a Weasley, you were treated like royalty. But if you were a Flint, a Malfoy, a Zabini, a Nott or a Goyle, you automatically were considered ‘bad people’. Not that it bothered us much. Let haters hate and all that. At least that’s what I told myself. I reached over the back of the couch, and grabbed my schoolbag. I decided to do my Transfiguration homework first. I was not going to give Professor Tiberdeem an excuse to give me another detention. Obviously the prejudice against purebloods didn’t stop with students. Oh how the tides had turned. The lads begrudgingly followed my example. For a while, all you could hear in our little corner was the scratching of quills against parchment. Eventually, my mountain of homework was done. I yawned and glanced at my watch. 9 o’clock. I groaned, shoved everything back into my bag, said goodbye to the lads, and made my way up to Gryffindor Tower. Yep, that’s me. Jade Goyle, Gryffindor.

 

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“ Amortentia”

 

The Fat Lady nodded stiffly, and the portrait swung open to reveal the entrance to the tower. I hoisted my bag a little further up my shoulder, and clambered in. I tried to make my way inconspicuously across the common room, but biker boots aren’t exactly the best shoes for sneaking. It had been worse in the Syltherin common room though, the stone floor had caused an echo. People glanced up at me, but just as quickly looked away. Honestly, they were all scared to death of me. I played this up by dressing in dark colours, wearing insane amounts of black eyeliner, and putting multicoloured highlights in my hair. At that moment in time, I had been wearing an oversized t-shirt, that I had cinched in at the waist with a belt, torn tights and biker boots. I had streaks of electric blue and hot pink in my hair to complete the ‘don’t come near me I’m a bad person’ look. The lads adopted the same kind of look, leather jackets, army boots, and of course the multicoloured hair. We had earned ourselves the name of the school Goths. Oh yeah, I was a ‘badass’. I clumped up to my dormitory. Joy of joys, Rose Weasley was sitting on her bed, organising her sock drawer. Her sock drawer. You couldn’t make it up if you tried.

 

 

“You were out after curfew again!” She said in that annoyingly superior tone she used when she wanted to nag. I made out I didn’t hear her. I pulled off my boots and flung them at the bottom of my bed. I then grabbed my Wiz-Pod and shut the drapes. Before I plugged in my headphones, she spoke again.

 

 

“I know you don’t care about losing points for Gryffindor, but I do and I’m not going to let you ruin our chances of winning the House Cup!”

 

“Jesus Rose, just shut the hell up!”

 

She shot me an icy glare, but said nothing. She turned pompously back to her sock drawer, and shook her head at my ‘rudeness’.

 

If it was one thing I wished I had, it was Rose’s looks. She had gorgeous auburn red, with brown tones running through it. It curled in natural ringlets mid-way down her back. She had porcelain skin, almost as pale as mine, but she had escaped the Weasley freckles, so she had a clear complexion. She was small and slender, with a kind nature, but had ‘don’t mess with me’ written across her forehead. I, on the other hand, had unruly sandy blonde hair that only had one look, all over the place. It fell mid-way down my back, not in pretty ringlets, but in a jungle of knots and tangles. That was partly my own fault. When I brushed my hair, it was merely wavy, but when I didn’t, it turned into the jungle. I told myself the reason I didn’t brush my hair was because it took too much effort, but really it was because whenever I did, I bared a striking resemblance to my mother. My mother had run out on me and my dad when I was just three weeks old. Evidently I wasn’t worth taking with her when she decided to leave. She had taken off and I had been left living down Knockturn Alley, with a father that managed to land himself in prison every couple of years. Whenever he was carted off to Azkaban, I went to live at the Malfoys. When I was fourteen, I decided enough was enough, and I had moved in with the Malfoys permanently. Dad was currently in Azkaban, so I hadn’t seen much of him, but I wrote to him often. He was undoubtedly a bad person, but he was still my dad. I didn’t only have my mother’s hair, but her entire appearance. The pale as snow skin, the sky blue eyes, the half smiling mouth, and the slightly upturned nose. I wasn’t skinny, or fat, but just in the middle. The scattering of freckles also came from her, as well as her intelligence. If there was one thing I was glad I inherited, it was her brain. Let’s face it; my dad was as thick as a ditch. I had also inherited her vision. Of course she had to be short-sighted. I don’t think I got anything from my dad except his height. I was taller than all the girls in my year, and quite a few of the boys. At sixteen, that was rather embarrassing.

 

I turned off the music and crept over to my trunk to find my pyjamas. I had been expecting to find it in the disarray that I had left it in, but to my surprise, everything was folded, and stacked neatly into different piles. Each pile had a post-it pinned to the top. School, Quiddich Robes, Casual Clothes, etc.

 

“Rose” I muttered darkly to myself. That girl couldn’t stand a mess. Even if a trunk was closed, she would know if it was in a mess or not. I stared accusingly at her closed drapes. On top of being a clean-freak, she lived like a nun. Every night she was asleep by ten, and every morning she was awake at half six, seven on the weekends. And people call me a nutcase. I finally found the oversized ‘Weird Sisters’ t-shirt that served as my pyjamas in a pile labelled ‘Throw Out’. I found most of my clothes in that pile. Wearing oversized clothes had turned into my look. When I was younger, I had always had to wear other people’s clothes, and it was rare to have something that actually fit me. What can I say? Old habits die hard and all that.

 

I went for a long enough shower and hastily yanked a brush through my hair. It had to be done. There were so many knots in it that I was finding it difficult to even tie it up in a messy bun. I sauntered over to my bed and checked my clock. 11:00 pm. It had taken longer than expected to detangle my mane of hair. I grabbed a facecloth, returned to the bathroom and began removing the eyeliner. No matter how hard I tried, I could never remove the last layer that remained stubbornly on my lower lid and refused to move no matter how hard I scrubbed. I sighed when I saw myself in the mirror. Without all the eyeliner and the chaos of my hair, I looked weird. I had become so accustomed to the look that I felt something was missing whenever I saw myself without it. Nobody had seen me without my birds-nest hair, highlights and make-up since my third year and I wanted it to remain that way. I poked my head out of the bathroom and sneaked across to my bed. Everyone else had fallen asleep while I was in the shower, save Nina Osborne, but she was probably in some boy’s dormitory doing this that would make Rose Weasley faint if mentioned to her. I climbed gratefully into my bed and fell asleep.

 

*********************************************************************

 

 

 

“Get up! If you don’t get a move on, you’re going to be late!” Someone then proceeded to rip back my drapes and started to poke me in the ribs. Hard.

 

“Go away Rose!”

 

“Never!”

 

“FUCK OFF AND STOP BOTHERING ME!”

 

“That’s just made me even more determined to make sure you’re not late! As I said last night, I don’t want you losing any more points for Gryffindor! Last year alone you managed to lose over 300 points and that’s NOT happening again!”

 

For some reason, Rose was one of the few people who weren't afraid of me.

 

I succumbed and did as I was told. Half an hour later, I found myself fully dressed and in the Great Hall in time for breakfast for the first time in two years. Scorpius and the others stared at me, dumbstruck.

 

“Christ! Did someone die?”

 

I shot Xavier a warning look.

 

“No! Saint Rose has decided that I’m not going to lose any more points for Gryffindor and has made it her personal mission to make sure I don’t lose points”

 

Alex, Xavier, Scorpius and Fergal roared with laughter. We were sitting at the far end of the Slytherin table, in the corner of the Great Hall, but people still looked. The mood quickly darkened.

 

“Don’t you just hate the way everyone stares at us as if we’re about to set the place on fire?” Alex muttered darkly.

 

We all nodded in agreement. Even though we had been in Hogwarts six years, we still hadn’t gotten used to it. We were interrupted by Professor Mc Gonnagal.

 

“Students! Your attention please! Just a few announcements. I hope your first week back at Hogwarts was an enjoyable one! The Quiddich try-outs for each individual house will be taking place within the next two weeks for any open spaces. Posters will be placed in each common room with more details. This year, it has been decided that each house will host an individual event. I expect the prefects to have submitted their suggestions to the Head Boy and Girl by this Wednesday. Thank you, that is all!”

 

I turned to the boys.

 

“Who’s Head Boy and Girl?” I enquired.

 

“Have you been living under a rock Jadie? James Potter and Dominique Weasley put posters in every common room announcing that they had been ‘appointed Head Boy and Head Girl’” Alex snorted at the end.

 

“Of course it was one of those lot!” I snorted.

 

“And what do you mean by that?”

 

We all turned around to find Albus Potter standing over us. Evidently he had been listening to our conversation. As he was the only Slytherin in his entire family, and believe me he had a BIG family, he had a slight chip on his shoulder

 

“Fuck off Potter! Just because no one will talk to you doesn’t mean you get to listen to other peoples conversations!”

 

Fergal could be so intimidating (cough cough)

 

“Oooooh! I’m so scared! What are you going to do? Spout poetry?”

 

Queue Scorpius, Alex and Xavier. They all stood up and cracked their knuckles menacingly. I decided to follow their lead. If anything, my father taught me how to intimidate others.

 

“I would suggest fucking off Potter” Alex spat.

 

“What’s going on here?” Professor Byram had noticed the mafia show-down from the head table.

 

“Nothing Professor, Albus here was just leaving” Scorpius answered her, in a relaxed and easy-going tone, but his expression told a different story.

 

Albus shuffled away, and Professor Byram shot us a suspicious look.

 

“Prick!” Xavier scoffed.

 

*********************************************************************

 

 

We could just about intimidate anyone. Alex was shorter than me, but burly. He had short brown hair that he spiked up to give himself a mini Mohawk. Xavier was the same height as me. He had a proper emo hair, short at the back, and long at the front. He dyed it jet black about two summers ago, but he was a natural blonde. When we were younger, Scorpius, Xavier and I used to pretend we were triplets, and that Alex was our cousin. Scorpius had naturally bleach blonde hair, almost white, which he wore slicked back with old fashioned hair-oil. He was taller than me, but only just, and not quite as burly as Xavier and Alex. Fergal was the tallest of the lot, and in no way as muscular as the others. He had dark brown, almost black hair, but not quite. To be honest, Fergal couldn’t hurt a fly. I told him this while we were all lounging around in our corner. The others, of course found this very funny, but as Fergal had grown up hearing this from his father, he just ignored me. As a Flint, Fergal was expected to be all tough and macho, but he was bookish and sensitive. I suppose, you can’t judge a book by its cover, and you can’t just a person by their surname.

 

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The following Thursday, the long awaited poster appeared in each common room. Of course, I avoided the Gryffindor common room as much as possible, so I didn’t see it myself, but Rose more than willingly filled me in on all the details before I left for the Slytherin common room. After the whole 'do you live under a rock' fiasco, I wanted to make sure I was up to date at all times.

 

“ Well, Slytherin are going to throw a ball, Hufflepuff are hosting a high tea in the Herbology garden, no one is really looking forward to either of those! Then Ravenclaw are holding a fashion show, I’m not sure what that is, but I think its some muggle thing, Janice Rieds came up with it, and James had to pick it because their other suggestions were crap! I mean who wants a table quiz? And then Gryffindor are holding a Quiddich tournament! Each event is happening in a different season! Gryffindor got autumn so the Quiddich thing will be coming up pretty soon! Of course we’ll just make up a team of our cousins! Are you-”

 

This is where I interrupted.

 

“Rose! Breathe! Relax! You don’t have to say everything in one breath!”

 

“Let me finish Jade! Are you going to take part?”

 

“And miss a chance to beat you and your cousins? Never!”

 

We both laughed at this.

 

“D’you know Rose? This is the first conversation we’ve had where you haven’t been nagging me to do something!”

 

“I know, I decided to mix it up at bit”

 

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