She puts away her book and goes to dinner.

Familiar people are having dinner!

She'll sit by Mandy if she can find a seat. They got interrupted when Transfiguration started and Mandy might want to ask her about what she said.

Mandy seems to have all but forgotten about it and is chattering to Padma about celebrity gossip.

She'll listen with half an ear. She's not usually interested in that but if it's important to her roommates it would be good to know at least a little.

At one point Dayo goes to the Gryffindor table to talk to Ron.

Sarah smiles when she notices. It's good that she's not the only person ignoring the boundaries of house.

And after a few minutes she flops down next to Sarah. "Hi."

"Hi. Should I introduce you?"

"Yeah!"

She waits for a pause in Padma and Mandy's conversation and then, "Padma, Mandy, this is Dayo. Dayo, Padma and Mandy."

"Hi."

    "Are you the Slytherin?" asks Mandy, peering at her suspiciously. "You don't look very evil."

"That's what they all say, but then, boom, I was evil all along."

"I think we're all a bit too young to be evil."

"The Hat puts young people in Slytherin," Mandy points out.

"I really don't think the founders of the school decided to make a house for evil people."

"Cunning and ambition," Dayo singsongs. "Not evil."

"Exactly. There's nothing wrong with wanting to accomplish big things and cunning is a useful tool in a wide variety of situations."

"So how come evil wizards are always Slytherin?" asks Mandy.

"Being evil is an ambition," Padma points out.

"Part of it is probably because everyone expects them to be evil. Expectations are powerful things."

"They become evil because people think they're evil?" Mandy asks, sceptically.

"I guess it depends on what you mean by evil. I think if everyone expects you to join with whatever dark lord comes along it's more likely that you will. Less dramatically, the same is true of people expecting you to be a blood purist, or more benignly read a lot if you've been sorted into Ravenclaw."

    "Maybe."

    "I think it makes sense," agrees Padma. "But now everyone who's in Slytherin is evil. Maybe not you," she tells Dayo.

"Gee, thanks."

"I'm not sure that's anymore true than the idea that everyone in Ravenclaw spends most of their studying."

"The culture in there isn't the healthiest," she admits.

"I'm sure you can handle it. I wish you didn't have to though."