Sorry for the long wait between chapters, real life has been incessant in its demands.

To respond to some reviews- and so thank you so much for reviewing by the way- the story won't be AU (aside from my timeline, which I realize is off), Bellatrix will be bad. I'm a total Bellatrix fangirl, but let's be honest, she's a raving lunatic even before Azkaban. However, she will be somewhat more sympathetic in her sister's eyes than in, say, Harry's.

Chapter 4- Changes in Vocabulary

Ted Tonks was looking smug as I took my seat in our first defense class after the holidays, and I could see a little smile playing around the corners of his mouth as I shot him annoyed sideways glances. Apparently getting tired of waiting for me to say something, he said politely, but with a teasing undertone "And how was your holiday, Andy?"

"You shouldn't have done that." I bit out from behind clenched teeth.

He smacked a hand to his forehead theatrically. "Yes, I sent you a Christmas card! It's all part of my evil plot….how do I live with myself? How do I sleep at night!"

"You could have gotten me in trouble! I'm just lucky my cousin Reggie got the owl before my Mother did!"

The more I had thought about it, and I had thought about it, the angrier I had been with him. It would have been just as easy for a house elf to hand that letter to Mother, and I could imagine that scene in excruciating detail. Father would call me into his study, ask me who Ted was, and then demand to know why a mudblood thought he could correspond with me, a pureblood girl, a Black girl. No matter how I imagined it, the scenario ended badly for me. I had imagined it so many times, in such vivid detail, that I felt almost like it had actually happened, and I was almost irrationally angry with him. I had spent the whole rest of the holiday worried that something about it would slip- that a house elf would mention to Mother that Miss Andromeda had a card by an unknown owl, or that Reggie would make some joke in front of Bella and Cissy about my "boyfriend." I had been lucky, but that didn't mean I would be again.

"You wouldn't actually get in trouble, would you?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes!" I hissed back. "We're not allowed to associate with mudbloods. Bella wasn't just talking when she said that, it really is my father's rule!"

He stared at me, momentarily shocked into silence.

"Wow," he muttered finally. "Your family really is a trip."

I ignored that and turned away from him resolutely, back to the "Slytherin" side of the class, pretending to be interested in Theo Nott and Rabastan comparing the fantastic racing brooms they had received for the holidays, but I could still feel his eyes on me.

"Andy, I didn't know you'd actually get in trouble," he finally said softly, sounding sincere. "I won't send you anything else."

"How did you get my address anyway?" I hissed, curiosity getting the better of me. He didn't answer for so long that I finally turned to look at him.

"Magic." He smiled, and then turned to the front of the class and folded his hands politely on his desk, the model of a perfect student.

"But-"

"Shh, Andy, class is starting," he said, looking highly pleased with himself. I was feeling unsettled, because when he had said he wouldn't send me anything else, there had been a note in his voice as though he felt almost sorry for me. Nobody should feel sorry for me, I was a member of one of the oldest, wealthiest, and more prominent pureblood families in Britain. I was one of the brightest and most popular girls at Hogwarts. My future was certain, I knew where I stood in our society, and no mudblood should pity me.

Contrary to what most people believed, not everyone in Slytherin was entirely pureblood. There were half-bloods occasionally, people who had cunning and ambition, who had the inclination to be ruthless to meet their desired ends, but whose origins were not what a real pureblood would consider acceptable. In Slytherin, if you did not have a name that was recognized as an old pureblood family, then you'd better be ready to explain. There were sometimes students whose parents were pureblood, and simply not English, but there were others who everyone knew were from poor, lower class, impure wizarding families. They either needed to prove in the first few days of school that they were too dangerous to mess with, or they tried to be invisible. The latter plan never succeeded. Along with homework and gossip, exploding snap and wizarding chess, hassling the students they considered "below" them was a popular pastime for some of the older boys in the Slytherin common room. House solidarity existed outside the common room, but inside it there was a hierarchy that you ignored at your peril.

I had never had any such problem, as a Black and as Bella's sister I was socially acceptable before I ever darkened the door of Hogwarts, and perhaps because of that I had always thought of the wizarding world as having only two classes- us, pureblood, and them, mudbloods. I assumed that all pureblood families lived like we did, as that was certainly the case in my parents' rarefied social circle, and I had it my head that all mudbloods were only a step removed from begging in the streets. It was all so simple to me then.

It was the second week back after the holidays, and Annabelle and I were sitting on the couch laboring over a transfiguration assignment. Bella sat opposite us, sideways in one of the plush chairs with her legs thrown over the side, and read what appeared to be Hogwarts: A History. I knew she must have charmed the cover and I wondered what she was really reading.

Lucius Malfoy and Paul Yaxley were playing a game of their own devising, which had become popular among Slytherins when there were no professors about. It looked a bit like muggle tennis, except that rather than rackets they used their wands to send the ball back and forth, and the ball was on fire. Since this was common evening entertainment, nobody was paying much attention until Paul, it looked like on purpose, sent a shot wide and in the direction of a boy sitting alone at a table near the corner of the common room. Although it missed him, it landed on his homework, catching the corner of the parchment on fire. Although he quickly put it out with a spray of water from his wand, his homework was a half-charred, half-sodden mess. His mouth twitched slightly as he looked at it, and I couldn't help but feel a little bad. I'd been working all evening too and wouldn't have been too happy if it had been my work. With an impressive show of self-control, he didn't react. Perhaps he was hoping that if they didn't get the desired reaction, they would leave him alone.

"Oops," said Paul with a smirk and absolutely no sincerity. "You ought to be careful there mudblood, you got in the way of our game."

People were watching now. I had no idea of their victim's name, he was that good at remaining unnoticed, but I had a vague idea he was a third year. He had started to shove things into his bag, perhaps hoping to retreat to his dormitory, but as soon as Paul spoke the word "mudblood" he froze. A sort of fission went around the room, and then the boy said something that wasn't quite audible from where we sat. Whatever it was, his tormentors heard it, for Lucius rolled his eyes and Paul gave a shout of laughter.

"Not a mudblood? Please, I know who you are, your mummy is a filthy mudblood and as far as I'm concerned that makes you one too."

The boy mumbled something in which "ministry" could be heard.

"The Ministry won't break with the pureblood families, they'd be fools. There would be no Ministry left without the old families," Lucius said, his voice mild.

The boy jumped up and backed away from them toward the stairs to the dormitory, clutching his bag to his chest. It was in his favor that they were feeling lazy and would probably not pursue him if he bolted back to his room. Paul was looking bored with the game already.

"The split will come, you'll see," the boy said, his voice shaking. "And you'll be on the wrong side. See if you're so full of yourselves when you're in Azkaban!" He turned and ran up the stairs.

They watched him go, as if considering if it was worth following and cursing him, and then seemingly dismissed the idea with a shrug.

"What was that about?" Bella tossed over her shoulder as Lucius came back over to a table near where she was sitting. He looked at her for a moment, as though surprised, and then shrugged again with the typical nonchalance of a fifteen-year-old. It was Paul who answered her.

"His mother's a mudblood, always making trouble at the Ministry. Don't know how he ended up in Slytherin at all. There used to be standards." He smirked. "I suppose it's rather passive-aggressive of me, but he'll be up all night re-doing his homework."

I didn't find it quite as amusing as he did. Apparently neither did Bella, as she gave him a faintly disdainful look and re-directed her gaze to Malfoy.

"I meant, what did he mean about the Ministry, and about Azkaban?"

"There are certain people in the Ministry who are in favor of laws to help mudbloods and muggles over purebloods. They call it "protection", but it's selling out is what it is. Some people are talking about a split, between those who think that's acceptable, and the pureblood families, who want to take back power where it belongs, in the hands of the old families, those who belong, who are our kind."

I could see then what Mrs. Avery meant about Lucius being well-suited for politics. He made the speech well, and looked like such a fine, upstanding young man while he made it. Although impressed with his delivery, I didn't really understand what he meant about taking back power. Our family didn't lack anything, certainly not power- Father was one of the most powerful men in the wizarding world, in and out of the Ministry. How could mudbloods (and the one who came to mind immediately was Ted, the only mudblood I'd spent any time talking to) be any kind of threat to him?

"Will it happen, a break?" Bella was asking.

"I doubt it," Lucius reached down and took the book from her, glanced at the cover, back at her, and chuckled. "Someone has to pay the Ministry's bills, they'd cease to exist without the charity of the old families. Don't worry Black, your family will come out down the right side if it does."

The first month of the term passed uneventfully, unless you counted Sirius and James Potter getting into a spectacular fight one day at breakfast, which caused no small amount of destruction and earned the both of them detentions every Saturday for a month. In the typically strange way of males, they emerged from it the absolute best of friends. Potter was a pureblood, the only son of well-off parents who were quite prominent in the wizarding world. He might have been considered a perfectly suitable best mate for Sirius, except in the charged political climate the prevailed at the time, his parents were what my father called "ultra-liberal muggle lovers", by which he meant they supported equal rights for mudbloods and stronger protection for unsuspecting muggles. But as Bella admitted, in Gryffindor he could have become friends with some mudblood, so Potter seemed the lesser of possible evils, and nothing was said.

"Hey Andy, you're good at Charms, right?" he asked one day, finding Bella and I sitting in the library one afternoon. Bella had been doing a great deal of reading, for her, but it was never her textbooks. Still, she'd always had strange interests and I didn't think too much of it.

She glanced at me with bemusement. "She's good at everything, Gryffindor."

"I'm having trouble with banishing charms, can you help me? I know you're doing them too."

I shrugged and moved over so he could sit down. "Sure, just let me finish this paragraph for astronomy."

He waited, looking around the library idly as I finished, and spotted a Gryffindor sixth-year who was a very promising Quidditch player. There was some talk among the boys that he might play professionally after he finished school.

"Wish I could play Quidditch," he said wistfully. Bella followed the direction of his gaze and rolled her eyes.

"Boys and Qudditch! Honestly Sirius, he's a mudblood anyway."

"You shouldn't say that, you know."

"Say what?" She was clearly barely even listening to him.

"Mudblood. It's a nasty word."

There was a long silence as she slowly raised her eyes from her book to meet his. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide from the impending explosion, but he stared back defiantly. Bella looked as though she could not have been more surprised if he had slapped her.

"What?" she sounded incredulous, as if she might be misunderstanding him, and hoped she was.

"It's swearing. You should say muggle-born," he said boldly. "James told me he said it once, and his Dad sent him to his room with no supper and took away his broom for a month."

"Sirius…we say mudblood because that's what they are," she said with exaggerated patience. "They're not purebloods, they have muggle blood."

I watched Sirius struggle with this, as a new idea from his friend grappled with the old ideas instilled by his family, one that Bella, who he secretly adored, still embraced.

"It's just mean to say, it's a bad word," he insisted.

"Auntie and Uncle say it," she pointed out. It was a mark of how highly she thought of him that she was trying to convince him. I had expected hexes to be flying. "So do Mother and Father. They'd punish us if we said swear words. Especially Mother, because it wouldn't be 'ladylike'. It's not a bad word Sirius. It's just what they are."

We were learning disarming spells in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Progress was varied, but we had spent the first half of the lesson practicing in pairs (I had again been set to work with Ted), and the second half taking complicated notes on the theory behind the spell. I was feeling smug because Ted had been so surprised when I disarmed him that he had not watched where his wand flew to, and he had been surprised when it came right back, boomerang-style, and grazed his cheek. Now he was going to have to explain the scratch on his face, and I was amused by the idea. But something else was nagging at my mind as well. As the class was drawing to a close, the general concentration level began to wane, and conversation rose. Finally when there was enough sound that I knew no one else would hear us, I turned and looked at him.

"You're a mudblood."

He didn't raise his eyes from his book, and didn't look at me, but I saw his mouth twitch slightly, with amusement or annoyance I couldn't tell.

"I've always thought you're an observant girl, Andy," he answered mildly.

"Well, do you mind when people say that? When they say "mudblood" I mean?"

He shrugged. "I can't say as I'm particularly fond of it, but you know…sticks and stones..."

"But you never get mad when I say it." I knew I had called him a mudblood, and often, because I had never thought of him in any other terms, and he had never said a word to me about it.

"I figure you're not trying to be mean, you just don't know any better," he glanced up then and smiled. "From you it's just a friendly nickname."

I said nothing, but just gave him a look that said clearly I thought he was insane. He just smiled back as though he knew something I didn't.

As the semester wore on my sister's strange new preoccupation with books seemed to fall away and she became herself again. Since the holidays, she had been quieter than usual, more subdued, and had limited her company to those in Slytherin, and I became the only person who she could always be found with. I had never minded her constant presence at home and I certainly did not now, it felt as though it was the way things should be. But slowly she came out of whatever fog had been enveloping her and became social again, surrounded by a circle of friends and admirers. I wondered about her moods, even went so far as to mention it to Sirius, who simply pronounced it further evidence that girls were awfully strange and hard to explain. I took that to mean some girl had caught his eye, and his passionate, blushing denials only confirmed it.

I didn't mind, I was used to her mercurial turns, and I was not without company even when her time was taken with boys jockeying for her attention. I had my own friends. Annabelle and I were friends in the fashion of children thrown together by our parents and circumstances. While we had little in the way of common interests, we shared a dormitory and saw no reason not to be friends. The other girls in my dormitory all brought their own unique qualities to it. Adrienne LeBlanc was the daughter of a wealthy French father, a pureblood wizard whose family fortune came from cosmetics and beauty potions both legal and not. She had spent her childhood between Paris and the country house of her English mother, and in choosing a school for her it appeared Hogwarts had won out over Beauxbatons. For the first few weeks she had annoyed all of us with telling us repeatedly how things were done differently (and inevitably better) in Paris, but she had eventually accepted her fate was Hogwarts and after became much more tolerable, although she maintained a heavy, and probably fake accent through our entire seven years at school. Shannon Mallory was the youngest of a pureblood Irish family, and rather at odds with her innocent appearance, was something of a potions prodigy with a particular interest in poisons. While I found her fixation rather disturbing, there was no question my potions grades would have suffered without her help. Alison Goyle rounded out our dormitory, and while her efforts in school were half-hearted at best and she never showed much talent at anything else, she was generally amiable to live with and tended to go along with whatever the rest of us suggested.

"D'you reckon our exams will be hard?" Shannon asked one morning as we looked around and found the Great Hall a little quieter than usual, and realized that final exams were drawing near and students were withdrawing into their books. While our own exams were worrying, it was nothing compared to the stress of the fifth and seventh years students, who had become positively dangerous to anyone who spoke above a whisper in the common room.

Alison went a shade greener, knowing she would barely pass most of her exams, and I merely shrugged though that had been very much on my mind. My marks all through the term had been excellent, but Ted Tonks was easily keeping pace with me and I was not sure I could bear the humiliation of being beat, or the teasing that would accompany it. Adrienne did not find the topic particularly riveting and tried to change it.

"Ze exams, zey do not matter until our fifth year," she decided with a careless toss of her hair. "But look, we must not be late for ze transfiguration."

"I'll catch up then," I told them as they left. Bella had taken my transfiguration book the night before to look something up and I still needed to get it back. I had no idea where she was but since she was not at breakfast I opted to check the Slytherin common room. She was not a morning person as a rule and often overslept too long to get to breakfast.

I did find her in the common room, yawning and still looking sleepy, and it took me a minute to actually get her to understand what I wanted. She produced it and I raced out of the common room to avoid being late, only to run full tilt into a good-looking, dark-haired second year boy named Will Avery. I had never paid him much attention before, but as he helped me up and returned the dropped book, he smiled at me, and my heart skipped.

And so began my first love.