At only fifteen years old, you would have sworn she had her whole life put together. Chava Roku was a bright girl with a whole future ahead of her. Top in all of her classes, a newly instated Hogwarts Prefect for the Slytherin house, and teacher's favorite. It was the students that found her a little… odd.

Chava would press on clean cut Slytherin robes worn perfectly fit, and tie her long hair up into a perfect ponytail, and slide into the Great Hall, potions book in one hand and her wand in the other. Any professor would be glad to see her studying, but the whispering down the table would start at too audible a volume for Chava not to hear all.

"I heard from James that Roku isn't even human… She's some kind of vampire… She never shows emotion… I heard, oh! I heard she killed her own parents! And pass her current ones off as real!"

Of course, none of these things were true. Chava was human, rather emotional, and if anyone in her family were to die, it would be her parents killing her.

She looked perfect. She had everywhere to go and could ignore every rumor as she should. She loved Hogwarts. It was home she hid from, where she was less perfect. Where she was compared to every sibling and was used to that familiar feeling of the Unforgivable Curses. She had never told a soul what happened at home, merely just trying to be better than that at school. The more she achieved, the farther she could leave that house. And that sounded the best prize at all.

Chava slammed her potions book shut with a short growl, not even having bothered touching her breakfast. Potions was a nightmare if only because she was a mere second best of all his students. Some stupid seventh year was beating her out for the title of Student Potions Master. She considered asking his help, but why bother? She stood in a hurry, shoving her book in her bag to head down to the library, before she collided head on into someone walking the opposite direction. Her bag and her books immediately crashed to the floor.

"Shit, sorry, I–" the voice of the boy stopped when both she and him looked up to meet each other's eyes. Ah, Chava's favorite kid. "Roku," he muttered with a kind of malice. He hesitated in helping her pick up her books, doing her one kind service. And that in itself was something of a miracle.

"Payne," she spewed his surname in response, tugging her belongings from his grasp. He had never been a kind Hufflepuff, so she wasn't eager to wait around. "No time to chat, I've… got a potions tutor waiting up for me." She quickly moved to keep walking, shouldering past him in her lie. But he just gripped her arm and pulled her back.

"Who could possibly be your potions tutor, Damien Thorne?" Fowler Payne scoffed with some sarcastic undertone, and Chava made a face at him.

"Why not? Thorne has always been kind enough to me, who says he's not tutoring me? O.W.L.s coming up, you know." Damien Thorne, of course, being the damn seventh year who was beating her out in potions. And she didn't even stand a fighting chance at beating him, the damn kid. Maybe she'd suck up to him… just a little bit…

"Damien is hardly that kind to anyone, get a grip, Roku."

"Let go of me, Payne, before I take ten points from Hufflepuff. I have shit to do."

Fowler Payne sighed, releasing her arm and holding his hands up defensively. She and him had never gotten along since they were assigned partners in their first year. He had always said when he became Prefect, he'd put her in detention with him everyday. Most of the taunting stopped when Chava became the Prefect, and he didn't.

Chava paused for a moment, a little shocked by his giving in. But she only allowed this moment to last a second before she shouldered past him again, this time to head up to her dormitory. Maybe she really would seek out Damien Thorne later to tutor her, just to prove a damn point to Payne. She always loved proving him wrong, and doing anything to show him she was right. There was some odd thrill in pissing him off.

A week later, and Chava was perhaps the busiest student in Hogwarts– or at least in Slytherin house. She was starting to think about the future, and had caught the attention of some of those at the Ministry of Magic, who were thinking of internships and programs. In the eyes of these adults, there was no harm Chava could ever do. She was perfect for their governmental needs, and perhaps this was just what Chava wanted. Enough power to put her family in Azkaban, where they belonged. It would be punishment enough for then after the stunt they pulled last summer regarding Azkaban.

She had managed to talk to Damien Thorne, but not much about potions. She never wanted to admit she needed help. The one person who did frequently try to steal her time, however, was dear Fowler Payne, the bully Hufflepuff. He seemed to have taken a strange interest in her.

Chava sat in the library tapping her foot anxiously, staring across the room at a couple. Damien Thorne, and one who must have been his girlfriend. No matter how badly she told herself she should go and ask him for proper help with this potion given to her in her textbook, she couldn't do it. There was a strange feeling about the seventh year that she couldn't quite place, something that almost intrigued her…

She was pulled out of her anxious, curious trance by Fowler Payne, suddenly sitting at her table with a loud thump as his Charms textbook hit the table. Chava jumped, shaking herself out of her reverie to narrow her eyes at him.

"Hey, beautiful," he mused casually, taking a quick glance over his shoulder. "Checking out cute boys? Look no further than me."

Great. What did he want? "No, I'm not going to give you answers to the Charms homework. Move along with your flattery and nauseating remarks." She returned pointedly to staring at her potions textbook, both of her hands creeping up to grip at the roots of her hair, ruining her picture perfect ponytail. That was when Payne took her palms from her hair, gripping them in his own. When she looked back up, he looked serious.

"No, look… Roku– uh… Chava," he corrected himself, and it was the first time she had heard him use her first name. Not that she would budge. "It's not about homework answers. I really do want to… apologize, for how I've acted towards you the last few years. I've been rude, and you don't deserve that."

Chava stared at him in disbelief, before her brown eyes simply rolled back into her head. "You're tired of me always pulling points from Hufflepuff, that's it."

Payne groaned, tugging her closer by her hands. She instinctively sucked in a breath, looking embarrassed. "No, Chava, you're… I was jealous. That's why I was rude. But look, I think you're… Absolutely beautiful." Chava would have spluttered more in utter shock, spouting cocky insults back at him, had Payne not chosen that exact moment to kiss her, full on the lips, without any form of hesitation or forewarning.

It took a full few seconds before Chava got over the shock, and then she took action, her hand pretending to pull him in closer by the back of the head. She gripped the back of his hair, before tugging hard, and then bringing her foot up right in between his legs as he sat spread. Payne gasped loudly, gripping the front of his pants, eyes watering.

"What do you take me for? Some kind of slut?! GET OUT!" Chava screamed, and Payne wasted no time, running out the doors of the library as if her life depended on it. "I'M NOT SOME ONE NIGHT STAND!"

As she stood with fists clenched in the middle of the library, it slowly dawned on Chava that everyone else in the vicinity had stopped their business to stare at her. Chava gave a sheepish grin and a bow of her head to Damien Thorne, before hurriedly packing away her things in her bag and running out herself. She had to hide the girlish smile and the taint of red on her cheeks that had started to appear.

Oh, and how utterly stupid her next decisions were.