Chapter 1: Hard Hitter

"You have go to be kidding." The 18 year old witch whispered as she dropped her bag on the floor of the Heads shared common room. She had a lot on her mind on the long train ride back to Hogwarts, not one of them worrying about who she would be working with as Head Boy this year. She figured it would be a intelligent, upstanding Ravenclaw that she could easily coexist with. As she stared at the man sprawled across the couch in front of the fire, she knew she had been wrong.

"Well, well, well." he smirked, looking up from his book to meet her angry gaze. "Long time, no see, Mudblood."

The insult slid right off her back. She was use to it by now and after the war and what happened in the Malfoy Manor, she didn't care enough about standing up for herself to care. So he thought her blood was filthy; she wouldn't lose sleep over his opinion of her.

"I recall seeing you rather recently. At your home with your entire family and some of your friends if I remember correctly." Her eyes cold as she watched him set his book down and stand up from the couch.

He grabbed his wand from the table and walked over to her calmly, only stopping when his toes met hers, their faces inches apart.

"I haven't the slightest idea what you mean." he denied. He was warning her. The war was over. They played their parts and it was done now. He refused to live one more moment in the past after all he had been through. After all the torture and curses he had been hurt by. He wouldn't show weakness but he also wouldn't grant her the favor of letting her see him as anything but what he had always been. A Malfoy. Ruthless and heartless. He had no remorse. That was an emotion that was unacceptable ever since he was a child. The one trait his father made sure he instilled upon him up until his dying day. Power is everything and remorse has no place in the soul of a man full of power. Not even for the girl standing before him this very moment that had been broken,beaten, and cursed in his own home would let him feel anything but hate towards her and her filthy blood. After all, that was what he chose to fight for in the end. Extermination of her kind. That what the Malfoys have stood for for generations. That's why he has mocked her and torn her down from day one, their first year at school. Because he was told every day of his life by his father that they were not people like they were. And they certainly weren't wizards. They were scum. And that's why he refused to let this vermin make him feel guilty about anything that happened over the course of this year. It was too late for him now. He's a shell of a person and he will hurt her. Over and over again. Because she was filthy and he was pure.

But for some unknown reason, this witch managed to put so many words and emotions into just a look.

Her angry stare faltered and turned into a defeated, broken sadness that he had never seen before, even after all the painful faces of the war. He couldn't look away from her dark brown eyes until she finally spoke, and his gaze snapped behind her shoulder.

"You're more lucky then you realize, Malfoy." her voice so soft that he barely made it out. "You see, I would give anything to be able to act like you. To be able to tell myself that what happened in that house never happened. To forget it all and move past it. Move on with my life, with my friends, with my future. Anything to make that night disappear from my every nightmare. But I can't. " she said, shrugging her shoulders and he saw her eyes brim with water.

"And I had every intention to get through this final year without drawing any attention to myself or the past year I have had. But now that you and I will be sharing a living space, you must be quite thrilled. I get to wake every morning with you in the next room. I get to walk in after classes and see you here. And then you..." She trailed off, casting her eyes to the ground, her confidence slipping from her entire body.

"I what?" he snapped at her, finally able to meet her eyes with his as a single tear fell from them and hit the floor silently.

"You get the satisfaction of seeing the Mudblood every day, finally being effected by you after all my years of standing up to you. You finally win."

"That's because you let your emotions weaken you. I wont make that mistake. I never have." he sneered, smirking with his victory.

She simply shrugged at him and turned away, walking towards her room. She looked back over her shoulder, "If you have no soul, then what do you live for?" she whispered, disappearing into her room for the night without waiting for his response.

"For power." he said to the empty room.