Author's Note: Thanks to my lovely Beta Astrid Skywalker, I really appreciate your help ;).
“Imagine that! The stupid Mudblood actually had the audacity to tell me, Bellatrix Black, that I was wrong! I made sure that she’ll never forget her place in society again.”
Laughter followed Bella’s words accompanied by voices urging her to share the rest of the tale with her audience.
It was just another normal evening in the Slytherin common room. Andromeda Black sighed and tried in vain to block her sister’s shrill voice.
She was sitting in a particularly dark corner far away from the other occupants of the room. Her books, parchment, ink, and quills were spread out over the table in front of her. But try as she might, she just couldn’t seem to concentrate on her homework.
No one took the slightest notice of her. She could have been invisible and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Andromeda was used to this kind of treatment and, in all honesty, she didn’t mind it that much.
Sure, she would have loved to have a tight-knit group of friends to hang out with, but she knew that she would never be able to find them in Slytherin. She was too different from her housemates to ever truly fit in. She didn’t share their values and beliefs. Although her blood was pure, probably more so than that of some of the others surrounding her, it didn’t matter to her. She could, for all she cared, have been a Muggle-born or a Squib. Sometimes she wished she had been one, just so she could escape her family.
Andromeda loathed her family and wanted nothing more than to break free of them. All her life they had taught her that being a Black meant that you belonged to some kind of wizarding royalty, that you were above most people and had to treat them accordingly. From a young age on she had been taught etiquette, manners, and how to be a proper lady. While other children her age would play outside, her parents imprisoned her inside her own house and forced her to learn how to be a worthy member of the Black family.
She had never known what it meant to have a carefree childhood and loving parents. When she had seen the teary exchanges between parents and children at the Hogwarts Express, she had longed to have the same. Instead she had received a stringent lecture about how she was expected to behave at school. After that, her parents had left without another word.
Andromeda had been all alone once more. She had boarded the train and found an empty compartment. Shortly after, a few rather excited first years had entered, asking if they could sit with her. Andromeda, seeing her chance to be just a regular girl for once, agreed. She had been on the best way to making some friends when Bella had barged into the compartment.
Bella was furious and she had dragged Andromeda down the whole train to her own compartment, all the while berating her for talking to Mudbloods, as she called them. Andromeda hadn't known what she had done wrong but she didn’t dare to speak up against her elder sister. She had felt utterly humiliated when the other students came out of their compartments to see who had caused Bellatrix Black’s feared wrath.
After this incident, Andromeda had set her mind on a new goal. She would not allow Bella to bully her anymore; she would make her own friends; and one day, she would break free from her family. She didn’t find out until much later how hard it was going to be to attain her goal.
She had been sorted into Slytherin, but she hadn’t really expected anything else seeing as no Black had ever been sorted into any of the other houses. What she hadn’t expected was that the rest of the kids in her year wouldn’t want anything to do with her because of it. Some feared her; some just avoided her and others downright loathed her, just because she was a Slytherin. Andromeda was heartbroken when not even her friends from the train would speak to her.
The Slytherins, Bella in particular, disapproved of her attempts to befriend members of the other houses. Bella had ensured that she met many of the Slytherins but try as she might, she just couldn't bring herself to emulate their haughty behaviour.
After several weeks of trying vainly to befriend her, they left her alone and it wasn’t long before she went completely unnoticed.
Andromeda had learned to accept her loneliness and she tried to make the best of it. She worked extremely hard for school and could be found in the library in every spare minute. She preferred it to the Slytherin common room, which seemed to radiate lifelessness with its continuous twilight, broken only sporadically by the open fire, a deficient number of candles, and dark furniture. Some people might think it had a mysterious charm but to Andromeda it seemed depressing and cold, whereas the library had a warm, compassionate air to it.
The library and its books were her safe haven, her refuge when she couldn’t stand the dreary dungeons anymore. It also reminded her of her goal, to become the best witch she could possibly be and finally be independent from her family once she left Hogwarts. This was what kept her going throughout her years at Hogwarts with no one but a diary to confide in.