Author's Note: Thanks for the encouragement Martine! And to my reviewers! Thanks!

The feast had ended with her and Lucius glaring coldly at each other across the Slytherin table. She was so angry that he was here. Well, she knew he was here, obviously, but she hated to think of having to associate with him. He was always so foul and evil, even to his own parents. Just last month, before the start of school he had threatened to turn his mother into a parrot if she didn't let him have desert. She loathed him, and was entirely to thrilled that she was a girl and wouldn't have to sleep in the same dorm as him. She watched as the Great Hall emptied, one by one the tables cleaned themselves and the students quickly walked back to their dorms. She heard her prefect calling, and she jumped up from her chair to follow the sour looking blond girl. Hogwarts was amazing to Elise, never in her life had she seen such wonders! Distracted by a rather beautiful portrait, she fell behind her group and hurried to keep up, only to run smack into the boy with the large nose, Snape.

"Watch where you're going you idiot!" He spun around ready to curse his assailant, but pulled back his wand when he saw who it was. "You really ought to watch where you're going Worthington. No one takes kindly to being plowed over by a first year."

"What?" Elsie glared at him in anger. "I didn't plow you over, you were in my way."
"Well maybe if you hadn't been staring at portraits you wouldn't have been left behind…"

"Well maybe if you could see past you huge nose, you would have seen me coming!" She threw her head haughtily into the air and began to walk away from Snape, when suddenly he grabbed her arm.

"You best mind what you say Worthington. One more remark like that and you could end up in the Hospital spewing slugs. That is if you can find it."

"What makes you think I can't?" She asked aggressively. "And let go of my arm."

"No."
"Yes!" Her eyes widened in anger and with her free hand, she smacked Snape square across the jaw and a small bit of blood trickled from his lip down his chin. His grip on her arm loosened and finally he let her go.

"Come on." He mumbled. "I'll walk you back to the common room. Don't want you being eaten by the werewolves." Snape walked away quickly from Elise.

"Pardon?" Shocked by his statement, Elise ran to catch up with the boy. "What do you mean werewolves?"

Later that evening in the Slytherin Common Room, Elise sat on the floor by the fire place looking through her school books. She had found them all rather dull, all except for one at least, and that one was Potions. She loved the idea of being able to control life and death with one simple potion. Potions had bewitched her; she was able to grasp the ideas so easily it amazed her. Never in her life had she expected that she would actually enjoy this subject. She had expected maybe that Transfiguration would be her best subject, but for some reason, she knew now that Potions was where she would excel.

"Hey ferret face!" Lucius Malfoy's voice interrupted her thoughts.

"What scum bucket?" Bright red in the face, and with her teeth clenched Elise stood up to face her cousin.

"Do I sense hostility?" he crooned at her in a sickly sweet voice.

"You had better not start Lucius" she kept her voice calm, but inside she was boiling with anger. Underneath her robes, she had found her wand and was ready to draw it if he even so much as looked at her the wrong way.

"And why not Elise? What are you going to do? Kill me?"
"It would be my pleasure." She never thought it was possible to hate another human being as much as she hated Lucius Malfoy. He was always teasing her, blaming her for everything that went wrong, even using her for transfiguration experiments and she loathed him for it.

"Oo. I'm trembling; don't you see my knees knocking?"

"Lucius why can't you just leave me alone!" But he continued taunting her, pulling on her hair and robes. He spotted her Potions book on the floor and grabbed it, exalted, as if he had just won the Quidditch Cup.

"Look what I've got little Elise! What if I were to burn it?" he slowly pulled out his and raised it above his head.
"No! I need that! Lucius please! Give it back!"

"Never! You little half-blood! Your father was nothing but a muggle loving bastard! You shouldn't even be in Slytherin! Hell you shouldn't have been born!" And with that he dropped her book on the floor and yelled "Incendio!" It burned, into a pile of ashes and through her hot tears she could feel her anger swelling inside her once again.

She grabbed her wand from under robes and shouted as loud as she could: "Incendio!"

Suddenly Lucius fell to the floor writhing in flames and excruciating pain. Elise screamed in anguish. What have I done! She asked herself over and over, she was trying everything to make the spell stop, but nothing was working. She ran for her books, and wildly flipped through the pages looking for something, anything to stop her cousin's pain. Suddenly she heard footsteps. Panicking she hid behind a chair in the common room, dropping her books. In her panic she kept her eyes only long enough to see Snape emerging from his dorm room. Seeing Lucius burning up in pain, Snape ran to help his friend, yelling "Finite Incantatem!" Suddenly Lucius stopped moving, and Elise thought he was dead, and strangely enough, she felt guilty. But then he stood up and she felt the room grow cold, scared for her life.

"Where is she?" Lucius shouted his eyes scanning the common room for Elise.

"Lucius, you should go to the hospital wing, you look awful…" Snape tried to distract Lucius, but Lucius would not be deterred. He overturned every piece of furniture in the room, smashing everything in his way. Elise knew she wouldn't be able to hide from him, he was after all three years older than her, and he was the more experienced wizard. She knew what she had done to him was wrong, but it had felt so right, it felt good to punish him, finally after all those years of torment. Lucius's eyes blazed when he found her and he pointed his wand at her.

"You're going to die you foul little half-blood!" Elise had never felt so scared in her entire life, for once, it seemed like Lucius actually meant what he said. He was going to kill her. A million thoughts of horror and death circled in her head as she rose from the floor, wiping the tears from her eyes. There was no point in arguing with him. If he was going to kill her, than that's what he was going to do. There would be no stopping him. She heard a thump on the floor, and it was at that moment that something inside of her told her not to give in to defeat; she was determined to fight her cousin. Reaching for her wand, she was suddenly stopped by Severus Snape, who had grabbed her wand hand and twisted it behind her.

"Don't." his voice was soft, but commanding and she pulled her arm away, putting her wand back in her robes. She felt ridiculous now; her ability to defend herself was rendered helpless by a boy with a large nose. But as she looked around the room, she saw her cousin, Lucius Malfoy, lying on the floor, unconscious. "We have to get him to the hospital wing." Snape spoke again, this time a little louder. "You grab his right arm, I'll take his left. Come on!" His voice now conveyed a sense of urgency.

"Wait!" Elise nearly shouted.

"For what?" Snape replied.

"You won't tell anyone what I did, will you?"

"If the school nurse asks, yes, I will."
"They'll expel me!" Elise was frantic. If she was expelled… she didn't even want to think about the consequences.

"Don't be absurd. It's your first night at Hogwarts, Lucius grabbed your Potions book, was mercilessly taunting you and then he set your book on fire. You never intended to set him on fire; you just repeated what you heard him say."

"But-" Elise stuttered

"That's what I'll tell the school nurse."

"Thank you." Elise was never so grateful to a person in her whole life. She smiled slightly as she staggered under the weight of her cousin.

"Let's go." And they dragged Lucius Malfoy to the Hospital Wing in silence.