All the Greengrasses were Slytherins for the past 3 generations. My mother would've had a pendent the colour of Slytherin's fearsome green, ready to be mine upon my sorting, if it weren't for the fact that I was almost prodigious at magic, so the call of Ravenclaw beckoned at all the life defining moments of my childhood.

"You wouldn't survive in Slytherin you know," Daphne, my almost perfect in every day possible, elder sister sneered to me as we sat swinging on the vine twisted swings of our backyard, atop the highest point and overlooking a several yard drop into some bramble patches below. "Exorbitant amounts of office politics. Backstabbing," she wrinkled her nose, "but Sacred 28 family's children are typically raised among Slytherins it's all the games we know how to play. You have the option to be in Ravenclaw. It's a respectable house that if you were to make it there, no one would think you any less aristocratic - just perhaps, not as twisted as the others. Very few Sacred 28 children get to take the easy way out. Live a quiet life as a Ravenclaw..."

"I said I'd think about it," my voice came out stronger than I imagined. Daphne, who was just 10 years of age compared to my 8, really ought to have no authority on who was suited to Slytherin or not. She had been Slytherin in every possible way for all that I'd known, but she still had not actually been accepted to Hogwarts yet, nor let into the house.

Such lies should not come forth from a tongue that has not quite earned the right to talk.

"Still. I just think it suits you, you know? My little sister, the bookish Ravenclaw. The charming emo," Daphne finished her drawl, and with that she reached out to pat my hair, childishly, like the way a child pats a dog. My hair is vividly dark brown and straight in contrast to Daphne and my mother's gorgeous blonde locks. If it weren't for my dad's brunette hair it would almost seem like I wasn't related to the family. Daphne and my mother held a magnetic charm over everybody, especially men which was already clear with Daphne, but everyone tried to assure me that I was the mysterious brunette, as if I were a shrinking violet, and that even shrinking violets had the chance to bloom.

"Stop it. Just because I am smart, smarter than you, doesn't mean...I am all that," I said. Daphne had always been very competitive with me, beating me in almost every game one could compete in, but my intuitive grasp of magic was always better than hers, and that had been something that'd vexed her for a very long time. She'd even asked at several points what my secret was, but I'd never give it up.

Now, her beautiful icy blue eyes narrowed at me, but not before her lips pulled into her characteristic smirk and she dropped her gaze with the tiniest of eye rolls to the side as if she had reaffirmed something to herself. "Keep dreaming sister," she said, before launching herself of the swing and doing a flip - if you didn't know her you'd think it was magic - but truth was she was more than just a pretty face and naturally athletic as well - before landing with a careless scatter of pebbles upon the ground and stalking away, leaving me ignored and alone, like she oft left me.

Ravenclaw was the house I was suited for on the surface, but Slytherin had always called out to me.

Maybe because a part of me didn't quite believe the world was so innocent nor nice, and that Slytherin's reality of turmoil and hardship, and of only having oneself to rely on against all else, was the only reality that seemed real to me.

"Your marks are marvelous. Your achievements are ahead. If there was any candidate for starting Hogwarts early it would be you," Governess Stacey Marion-Ann, or simply Governess Marion-Ann glowered at me over our books and papers upon one of our lessons. Whilst some other witches and wizards were mystified at how magic truly worked, it seemed to click together at light speed for me, and I'd zoomed through the work in no time. The only logical thing to do was let me to more work beyond my years, and my parents, whilst more concerned with Daphne and I marrying well to maintain the Sacred 28 lineage, were not beyond reason to deny that request, and it killed Daphne that I was doing the equivalent of a second year Hogwarts student, when she could just about grasp first year work.

She'd bought it up to my parents that I was becoming a freak, a weirdo, but they insisted that the logical thing to do was to do work at my level, and I'd watched with a deep inner sense of satisfaction at her fuming of the rejection of her request on that day. She wasn't, to get her way.

"I never want to overestimate myself," I said with a dip of my head. Daphne and I shared five governesses between us, with Governess Marion-Ann being the one who spent the most amount of hours with us. A talented halfblood that was stuck sucking up to pureblood families and their children for a living, she had been nothing but a frustrated ball of righteousness, frustrated that her Ravenclawishness didn't get her anywhere else besides underneath a Slytherin's thumb, she was one of my most hated Governesses. Always full of ridiculous nitpicks and critiques, always penalising Daphne and I to her whim, as if frustrated by the sheer knowledge that even if Daphne and I had a quarter of her knowledge, we would still get further in life with our connections and our reputation than her.

I'd dreamed about squashing her like an ant beneath my thumb one day, but mother had taught me manners and a mask, something all Sacred 28 pureblood kids donned so expertly in public, and so I'd kept up my usual politeness with her. I was the polite overlooked girl to most people.

"Can you sort books in a library? Know how to index them according to the Wizarding Decimal System?" Governess Marion-Ann peered at me through her cat-eye shaped glasses before dipping into her expandable handbag and pulling out several piles of magically lightened books, and a small piece of parchment with the wizarding way of sorting non-fiction books by category that was present in the Greengrass library. I looked books when I was younger and had already read through a great number of them in our library.

"I think so," I said as I set to work, my irritation rising. Governess Marion-Ann was supposed to be teaching me, but I was fairly adept at teaching myself and sometimes she'd even started asking me to mark work, or help her out with small tasks here and there in our lessons when she was supposed to be teaching me. I told myself if it kept happening I'd have a word with mother about it. The cheek of that women! To deny me as much recognition as she could but still benefit of my erudition!

"There is a role that needs filling. At my husband's business idea. We need a magical witch or wizard that's very good at sorting books and assisting other very magical witches and wizards in finding them. You're a bit too young for it, but with some words from me, you could do it almost right after Hogwarts and you'll be one of the main workers right until your retirement. A nice, cruisey but reputable sort of job for an upperclass lady that doesn't require much work and leaves you plenty of time to be a socialite all you want, that sounds nice doesn't it?" Governess Marion-Ann peered at me. I thought I could detect a tiny shroud of jealousy in her eye.

I had the feeling her husband's business idea must've been to start a library of some sort. The wizarding world hadn't one, only some wealthy families had them. The right person could turn big profits with that. By 'magical' Governess Marion-Ann definitely meant purebloods, and I knew a lot of people were probably too competent for it. Too taken to boasting or bragging about their role, or squandering their money, or trying to invite their equally incompetent friends into the role. The problem with the Sacred 28s were that we got by on mostly image and cunning alone, but once we secured the power, we could easily be lazy, boorish, brutes, like the young Crabbe and Goyle of our generation, so a truly competent Sacred 28 was hard to come by. I really ought to have been courted with much greater glory than I was for the role, but that was Governess Marion-Ann, always trying to use me and Daphne for the least amount of recognition.

Still, no one knew what sort of dark politics the future could bring, especially with Lord Voldemort and the mess that he had created. The Sacred 28s could not relax or stretch their feet just yet. This was a juicy offer that could see me through a storm in the future.

A nice, quiet, easy life...as a Ravenclaw...

"I'll think about it," I said.

Governess Marion-Ann glared at me and snorted, blowing her light orange hair up into the air, before turning around with a huff and getting out the real work for the day. I finished sorting the books she gave me and then did the work of the lesson in stony silence.

I would have to work with someone I disliked if I were to accept her offer, but it was still quite a good one, and the path of Ravenclaw called out to me but...

"Darling, how are you? Here's your breakfast, soft-boiled, as you like it," my mother curled herself around my father as she bought over the egg-cup to complete his english breakfast. They kissed and it struck me again just how far apart they seemed in appearance. My mother was a beautiful vixen of her era and my father the overlooked youngest Greengrass brother. They ought not to have gotten together but after the ring came on my mother's finger she made their relationship seem so natural, so smooth, and flowy, especially in the public eye, that it was not even a remembered fact anymore that my mother came from humble halfblood origins, and as I suspect, likely heaved heaven and hell to marry into a Sacred 28 family.

Of course, these were not observations I could say out loud, and so they remained as uneasy feelings twisting in my stomach whenever I became too aware of the things that went on in the Greengrass Manor.

"Splendid," my father droned as he cracked the top of the egg with his spoon.

Daphne rolled her eyes and mimed gagging. She probably thinks she can sleep her way up without half the mushiness my mother does. I can't tell if she thinks our parents love is real, or if she also felt the tuggings of truth deep within her, but I didn't want her to tell mother I thought their love was fake if I asked her her opinion about it. We were in competition for the will and our estate, and neither of us wanted to piss of our parents more than the other.

"What are you doing today? Handsome, inventive man. You'd have to show me your inventions sometime. They are a complete mystery to me," my mother crooned as she massaged my father's hairy chest.

The Greengrasses were famous for discovering Greengrass wheat, a wheat with magical properties that could only be grown by witches and wizards, and maintaining the farms over the generations. Except the wheat wasn't really profitable, and we did it mostly because it was an easy way of having a profession if we ever wanted to work, and no one except us knew just how unprofitable it really was. My father managed two farms, one of whom was connected to the backyard of the Greengrass Manor, sprawling and vividly green in all it's beauty despite the lack of profit associated with Greengrass wheat, and often spent his free time tinkering with magic.

Perhaps to somehow make the farms more profitable, perhaps out of morbid curiosity about what magic could do, but they never really got anywhere and there was never really anything good to tell about it that any one of us heard.

"Boring things. You wouldn't want to look at those," my father grunted. The Greengrass farms typically needed a male to manage them, even with magic, as they could require quite a bit of work (for very little profit), so the Greengrasses were one of the Sacred 28 families who had large numbers of children, typically in hope for a son. There was no magic to choose the gender of a child and those that tried faced severe consequences. My father's brothers had more than enough children for their farms to continue, but since Daphne and I had no brother, we were the weakest Greengrass family of my father's generation. Upon my father's death the farms could go towards his nephews, or he could simply sell them, and split the money between our mother, Daphne and I, there would be some nephew willing to inherit or buy an extra farm, but until then, it was entirely on his whim his decision.

Mother had not quite married into wealth yet, and depended on staying in his good looks to secure a pretty sum for herself - if he were to die before her. So she typically still coiled and wrapped herself around his finger in my opinion. She had little choice but to, he was the powerful one in the family.

"Very well sweetheart. I shall just imagine them with great joy..." she cooed in a voice sounding rather devoid of joy to me.

Possibly because of my mother, I'd never quite trusted anything in the world, never saw the world so innocently, and always felt like Slytherin, with all it's teachings...mirrored my reality the most. It coloured my world in the shade of colour that screamed out most vividly to me...

"Oh? What's this? A letter," my mother showed more interest in the letter to me, than anything else at the breakfast table all day.

Daphne continued eating with another small roll of her eyes that our parents couldn't see but I could. She doesn't want to anger them, but can't stop herself from expressing how much she hates everyone or everything sometimes so I'm usually the recipient to her grievances, even though she probably complains about me to Pansy, her closest friend, and other friends as well.

Sadly, Daphne was not one of those people who had to watch her weight. She could eat what she wanted and not get fat. I suppose I could as well but since she was tall for her age, whilst I was merely a bit above average, slenderness looked even better on her, and for a brief while there were no sounds but the clanking of our cutlery.

"It's addressed to you. No wait, I'll open it. You're too young for letters," said my mother. Daphne was now 11 and I was 9.

I held out my hand to receive it once she was done because I wanted to look at it.

Mother's eyes popped open. Give it to me now. I thought. I badly wanted to see the letter.

"Oh my goodness. It's a Hogwarts letter. There must be some mistake...no...it looks real?" My mother turned the letter over several times. "Astoria, you've been chosen to go to Hogwarts early. You will be starting the same year as Daphne."

Daphne's eyes widened, but her words were silent. Then her eyes slowly returned to normal and I felt like she had successfully hid whatever emotions she was expressing, now slipping on a mask.

"Excellent, get both girls out of the house early. Astoria can marry earlier and it's easier on us," said my father. We weren't poor even though we made no profit, but he was just greedy with his money anyway.

"Yes, there are certain benefits. The legal age of marriage is 16. Astoria can marry right after she leaves Hogwarts. And this is the year of Draco Malfoy. With two girls in his grade, our chances of marriage into the Malfoys will increase..." a greedy, hungry look sprang up in my mother's eye.

"There's little chance of that. Astoria's a Ravenclaw through and through. Draco and I are Slytherins from all that I know of him mother. I suspect we shall each go our separate ways..." Daphne said quickly.

Draco was probably the most eligible bachelor in the Sacred 28 circles because the Malfoys were the only billionaires, whereas everyone else were multi-millionaires towards the lower end at best. The wealth inequality was through the roof in the wizarding world. Everyone was jealous of the Malfoys and hated them...but yet everyone also wanted to be them.

"I'm cunning enough for Slytherin," I said.

Daphne burst into explosive laughter at that.

"Yes yes, you shall make both a good Slytherin and Ravenclaw...oh I wonder if we shall have one girl in Slytherin, one girl in Ravenclaw? Perhaps if Draco turns out to like a more...different sort of girl, it could increase our chances, knowing the not-Slytherin option of a girl is taken up by one of us...Draco could probably marry a halfblood and do what he wishes. It's really the muggle-borns everyone hates. But if we have a Sacred 28 non-Slytherin in the running..." my mother murmured to herself.

"I will be in the house my heart desires," I said.

"You will be a meek little nerd, oft forgotten, no matter what house you're in," Daphne spat at me.

And so...I was going to Hogwarts early. It was not unheard of, once in a generation people had gone to Hogwarts before they were 11, and for anyone firmly entrenched in the wizarding world like us, it was usually a positive, so I daren't question it, but there was a tiny tugging of doubt there.

A secret only I knew and others didn't.

See I'm good at magic because I'm knowledgeable and smart. But that's different to actually being well - more magical. And whereas I used to feel the inner coil of magic, almost like a sea I knew how to command, spiraling at my fingertips, when I was younger...there were some alarming features I'd realised as I'd gotten older that I hadn't told anyone.

Namely, sometimes, when I tried to cast magic, nothing would happen. Even things I could once do. They only happened a few times a year now, but still...there was just a little bit of abnormality there that I didn't quite like and didn't quite trust anybody to tell. In fact, it happened so rarely I'd been living on the delusion that I'd just been imagining it everytime I tried to do bits of accidental magic I could already do.

Mother was right. If I graduated Hogwarts at 16, it would allow me to get out of a place where I would have to do magic probably the most in my life, faster and earlier. And then I could figure out this problem and overcome it quickly.

I would figure out this secret all by myself.

It's not like I had the option of anybody else that I really trusted enough with it.

At the eve of my Hogwarts Sorting I was quite scared. This was the same year as Harry Potter. And Draco Malfoy. And a lot of the Sacred 28 families of our generation. A big year. Big names. And I was a tiny bit scared of being in the same year as Harry Potter if I had to be honest, with Lord Voldemort and all of that...

I told myself I'll keep secrets to myself. Weather the storm of these 7 years well. Play house office politics well. Advance in the Sacred 28 pureblood social circles to my favour. I would always keep a guard up, never let my shield slip...I knew this going in, and I would be even better coming out.

Oh dear. A very troubled mind I see. Hmm... The voice of the sorting hat engulfed my senses as it slipped over me. My mother said it was fake, just a spell to reflect our own thoughts back at us, it knew nothing we didn't, but yet I felt a sense of foreboding to have my inner feelings of unease be reflected in the sorting hat's voice.

A pureblood Sacred 28 Slytherin. It weighs very heavily on your mind doesn't it? Well, with a lineage like that and the wizarding world in it's current state, why would it not? In every other generation it ought to have been you that...defines this current wizarding generation. The trends and all. But yet ever since the downfall of Lord Voldemort it's all about Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter...

What was once yours has slipped out of your grasp. But never despair. The world can be yours again you know...plenty of potential there, in that brain and your life...

Hmm...great gains can be achieved by both Ravenclaw and Slytherin...

Not Ravenclaw. A tiny, scared, voice inside of me called out. Slytherin has always spoken more to me. It's my true colours deep inside. I'm a Slytherin deep deep down...

"SLYTHERIN-" screamed the hat.

The familiar burst of applause greeted me as I'd left for the Slytherin table, I could feel Daphne's slight jealousy in her eye. Since my name came before hers in the alphabet I was actually permitted entrance to the house she'd practically worshipped first.

I felt an empty sort of gnawing feeling though as I sat down at the Slytherin table.

I could've had Ravenclaw. If I really wanted it. Did I make the right choice?

I guess only time would tell.

Author's Note: The politics around purebloods and within Slytherin always interested me in the books, but they never quite scratched that itch. So this story would heavily centre on it, and other things in the wizarding world I wanted to see fleshed out. Magic being another one, so look forward to a deeper exploration of magic as well in this story. And I love troubled, angsty characters so I would be writing more of those. Anyways, please review, I love reading them :)