It's been a couple of days! Hopefully Discovering Death should be updated soon. For now, enjoy this new chapter!

October 23, 1991

It was a dark, damp day that found Hermione settling herself in the library, her thick books being used to hide the small corner table from the rest of the library. Yesterday, she had gone to Madam Pince and asked about old yearbooks, but Tracey and Daphne had persuaded her to try new hairstyles with them, and Hermione's hadn't gotten a chance to look through the dusty books.

She had heard a rumor that Professor Snape had been rivals with James Potter in school, which would explain why he hated Harry so much. Doing the math of James Potter's death date and age, she calculated that he would have graduated in 1978. Hermione grabbed the 1977-1978 yearbook and began flipping through the pages.

Professor Snape was a Slytherin, she soon realized. He wasn't found in most of the pictures, but he had been awarded the top Potions grade each year, and those were all listed near the back. He hadn't been Top Student, no, that award had gone to a pretty redhead whose emerald eyes just had to make her Harry's mother. Strangely enough, the two pictures Hermione had found of Professor Snape also had the redhead, Lily Evans, in them. If Professor Snape and Harry's mother were friends, then why would Professor Snape hate Harry Potter so much? Hermione flipped through the pages, hoping to find answers to her questions. When her search yielded nothing, she pulled another yearbook from the stack at random. Hermione carefully pried the 1973-1974 yearbook open, gasping when the very first picture she noticed was one of an older Draco Malfoy. Hermione looked closer at the caption. "Lucius Malfoy and Thoros Nott, Slytherin 7th Years," she muttered to herself, turning to the next page. Three girls adorned the page, smiling with the half-smirks that Slytherins were known for. Two had dark curly hair, and were seated on either side of the blonde. Andromeda (7th), Narcissa (5th), and Bellatrix Black (6th), Slytherins, the caption read. Flipping through the next couple of pages, Hermione spotted one of the brunettes, Andromeda, in a few other pictures, mostly with a mousy haired boy named Ted Tonks. Hermione flipped to the house pictures, her eyes picking out familiar faces. Thoros Nott had to be Theodore Nott's father, while Draco was nearly the spitting image of Lucius Malfoy. Hermione spotted Andromeda again, this time sitting on the edge of a group of girls. The students were dressed in their school robes, Slytherin ties and crest proudly displayed. Hermione's eyes raked over Lucius Malfoy's body again, frowning when she realized that the image was disoriented at the top, a bright spot blocking out part of the Slytherin's hair. It was almost as if Lucius had been wearing a crown of sorts...Hermione's mind flashed back to the night of the Sorting, to when she spotted Jade fingering the small tiara that she wore.

Hermione looked down slowly, before jumping up in surprise as she grasped for her bag, nearly turning her chair over in her excitement. She pulled out the book Jade had given her, flipping through the pages until she came to a list of names. Sure enough, Lucius Malfoy was listed from years 1970/1971 - 1973/1974. The next entry was dated a few years later, and Jade's name was printed directly under that of Stephen Selwyn.

What was the mystery of the Slytherin court, that every older Slytherin that Hermione had spoken to had referenced? Scanning her mind, Hermione remembered how reverently the girls in her dorm had talked about the elder Malfoys, calling them legends and looking up to them. Did it have something to do with their time in Slytherin? She had read in an old newspaper about Lucius Malfoy and his time as a Death Eater, which, whether it was true or not, would have seen any normal person ostracized from society. But if Lucius Malfoy was above society, was there anything he couldn't get away with?

Jade had spoken of her career aspirations as if she was sure of them, mentioning slyly how the master she wanted to apprentice under was a former Slytherin. It had been the Greengrass name that had gotten the Malfoys to attend her coming of age party, and she wondered whether it was due to Jade and Daphne's parents, who were apparently close friends with the Malfoys, or Jade's achievements, particularly the one that had her in the same position as Lucius Malfoy himself held years ago.

Hermione opened the yearbook again. Lucius Malfoy was listened under the top scorers for Potions, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, and Ancient Runes, and had been the Slytherin prefect for three years. She quickly grabbed another yearbook, this one dated in 1985/1986, the sole year that Stephen Selwyn had been listed for in the book. He had been the Top Student in his year, gaining top marks in nearly all of his classes. And Hermione knew that Jade was the top student in her year, already prefect and on her way to becoming Head Girl.

As a muggleborn, she knew that she was already going to be discriminated against. Lucius Malfoy was a pureblood, Stephen Selwyn was a pureblood, and Jade was also a pureblood. With the exception of some guy named Tom Riddle, every single person on the list was a pureblood and related to some prominent wizarding family. She had checked it out too, scanning almost half of the old yearbooks to match names to faces.

If she was to succeed in this new world, Hermione had to do something big. Something that would make people notice her...like actually paying attention to the party planning. She hadn't been convinced originally, but if this would make people in this new world like her, then she was going to have to start to put a real effort in. It was time to start thinking like a Slytherin.