“Gosh darn it, Iza!”

I laughed as my older brother yelled at me.

    “I should’ve known you were a snake. No, I did, just not literally!” He groaned, and glared at my silvery green robes. They clashed hideously with his own golden orange. As he glared at my robes, I glared in turn at his own robes. This happened every year.

    “Just because you are in Gryffindor does not make you always right, Jackson.”

    “Just because you are in Slytherin does not make you smart, Iza. And yes, being a Gryffindor automatically makes me right,” he shot at me. I rolled my eyes and looked at the Gryffindor commons fireplace.

    Because my older brother was a Gryffindor, he let me into the Gryffindor commons so we could hang out. His friends didn’t mind much, because I was his sister, although I knew Jaebum glared at me and thought I was a traitor behind my back. Jaebum was kind of scary. He seemed to get angry really easily. If he didn’t, thought, I would totally date him, which I told Jackson who promptly told Jaebum. Now he’s nicer to me, but I don’t think he likes me very much.

    It was getting darker in the room as the sun went down. Soon, the fireplace and a few candles were our only source of light.

    “I should probably go to bed. It’s my first night here and I don’t want to get caught by Filch,” I muttered, and Jackson nodded. Jackson, a fifth year, had been caught by Filch on numerous occasions and I didn’t want it to be a family trait.

    “Okay. Although, if you do, get caught doing something bad cause I want Gryffindor to win for house points, even if you’re my sister,” he laughed, and I laughed in an exasperated way.

    “That’s my brother,” I groaned feigning pride, and quickly shoved the painted lady out of the way to find the Slytherin dungeons.

    All of the girls and most of the guys were already in bed by the time I got there. I got a few odd stares from the few guys there who knew I didn’t come in with the rest of the first years but I just ignored them and walked straight to the first year girl’s dorms. Most of the girls were already in pajamas or in bed, only two were still in their robes and were giggling together. Gossip, I thought, and rolled my eyes. There was only one bed that hadn’t been taken yet, since everyone was already here. I smiled inwardly as I realized the bed was in a corner. I loved corners, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have been able to handle sleeping in the center of a group of people I didn’t know.

    And, everyone knew each other. Because they were all pure-bloods and had grown up together, except Jackson and I. Jackson and I had grown up in Japan. Well, Jackson and I don’t actually know if we are purebloods or not, our dad never told us. All we know is that our dad is a wizard and our step-mom is a muggle. Well, step-moms. Apparently he’s been married three times now, but he’s told us that both of our respective mothers are dead. For clarification, me and Jackson are half-siblings. Our dad even had the nerve to not tell us we had magical heritage until the mail for Jackson’s enrollment in Hogwarts came in by owl, let alone given us the opportunity to make witch and wizard friends.

    Do I sound salty? Well, I am. Thanks to my parents I am stuck in a school with no friends, my only comfort my brother and his friends taunting me and calling me evil because I am a Slytherin now. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jackson, but he can be seriously obnoxious sometimes.

    I remembered the words of Jackson during my first year at Hogwarts; “Why did you end up with all of the crummy people? You don’t belong in Slytherin, you should request a transfer,” he had said. I argued that the Gryffindor dorms were already overflowing, as it was the most commonly picked house. Ever since the Harry Potter uproar had occurred approximately fifteen years ago, people had been more inclined towards Gryffindor and against Slytherin, thus causing the houses to become lopsided with Gryffindor being the most heavily weighted. I had an odd feeling that it had played into the fact that I might not belong in Slytherin, and may have just been placed there to compensate for the large amounts of displaced people.

    I didn’t fit in well because of our races, too. Jackson is full Chinese while I am half Chinese. Being half Asian, I didn’t fit in well with the Asians or the non-Asians, creating a larger social gap between us and everyone else. Jackson was lucky, however, and found a group of other Asians to hang out with, including a Thai boy, a Chinese American and a whole lot of Koreans. An odd lot for a British school, but some were exchange students and the others grew up in England. Because I was only half Chinese, my Chinese dad didn’t feel like it was necessary to teach me Chinese or Mandarin. I only knew a few phrases from Jackson, but the only languages I could speak were English and Japanese. The Japanese was a courtesy of the fact that we lived in Japan for a few years before moving to England.

    I remember the surprise on our faces when our owls for hogwarts came. We had only moved to England a year prior. Then, our dad had to enroll us as exchange students because we weren’t citizens of the ministry of magic when we were living in Japan. Jackson got in a year earlier because he was a year older. So, he also had another year to make friends.

    I disliked the dungeon common rooms. As I lay in my silver and green satin bed, furnished with black lacquered wood, I contemplated how I could possibly survive this. I thought about making friends. A likely story, I thought to myself, but then I remembered that I had had to tell my father I hadn’t gotten into Gryffindor my first year. It had been like telling your parents that you failed a class, but it would be a lot more like failing high school to my father. That had been a large feat, but making friends somehow seemed harder. It was my fourth year and yet I still hadn’t made any.

    I listened to the soft hoots of some of the other girls’ owls as I looked at the ceiling. All of the lights had been turned off, revealing that the dungeon roofs mirrored the charm placed on the dining hall. I watched stars swirl around slowly as if orbiting my bed, wishing I was a star and that I didn’t have to deal with being a human.

    I fell asleep following the path of a small star with my finger.