Emberheart at Brackenmere

Elara Malfoy: Pain. Pain was all the girl could feel through every inch of herself as torture pushed her past anything she had thought possible. Bright red blood soaked through her clothes, leaking from the deep cuts across her stomach, arms, and legs. She remained on her hands and knees, shaking with dizziness and nausea before spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "You are no child of mine. How dare you keep company with blood-traitors, with mudbloods?" Cassian Malfoy looked down at her with cold grey eyes. A smirk sat on his face while the girl failed to hide her pain, the wounds over her skin pounding. His sleeves were shoved back, leaving the Dark Mark on display. When he snapped his wand through the air, a fresh slash opened as if an unseen blade had carved across her abdomen. A harsh scream tore from her throat. "Aren't you, you filthy Blood Traitor? Speak now, or I swear you'll never leave this Manor alive!" Elara Seraphine Malfoy pressed a blood-slick hand over the gash, trying to slow the bleeding, and flinched as pain travelled through her whole body. She was the twin sister of Dorian Malfoy, the daughter of Cassian and Seraphine Malfoy, and a fifteen-year-old witch studying at Brackenmere Academy of Spellcraft. Unlike the rest of her family and the line that came before them, Elara had not been sorted into Vipermere House in her first year. Instead, the Oracle Cap declared before the entire school that the eleven-year-old belonged in Lionhall, praising the courage and chivalry that would let her defy the life she had been raised in. At the time, Elara had no idea what the Oracle Cap was trying to tell her. She could think only of her father's reaction when he learned that Elara belonged to Lionhall. Yet that fear, almost overnight, turned into a stubborn sort of strength and determination. Elara quickly learned that Lionhall offered friendship and happiness, things she had never truly believed she would find in Vipermere. Cassian Malfoy had always seen his daughter as both mistake and traitor. Even when she was very young, people could tell she was different. She never accepted the idea that Mudbloods and Muggles mattered less than Pure-Bloods. For as long as she remembered, she had been the one her father tortured. To protect herself, Elara somehow persuaded him that she would spy for the dark side and keep a false, watchful eye on Adrian Hart. Though that had been her purpose on her first day at Brackenmere, she soon realised her heart lay elsewhere and finally understood what the Oracle Cap had meant. Soon after, friendship bloomed between her and Adrian Hart, Mira Wren, and the Weasley's, especially Fred and Julian, once she learned they were nothing like the arrogant, idiotic people she had expected. Her friends were real, clever, and, in the twins' case, endlessly funny. Even though they were two years older, Fred and Julian became the friends she felt closest to almost at once. They took to her quickly, amused by the mischievous streak they noticed in her. Over the years, her father somehow believed every lie his daughter fed him, hearing exactly what he wanted. She was intelligent enough to sneer at Lionhall House and at Corwin Thorne whenever she sat with him at the dinner table. At the end of last June, however, Morcant, a Dark Wizard feared fifteen years earlier, rose again at full power. Cassian belonged to that inner circle as a Death Eater and loyal follower. Like him, he wanted both his children to embrace the dark side. But after the first week of summer, her father discovered at last that Elara had no intention of turning on her friends when she flatly refused to take the Dark Mark earlier that holiday. Bruises and scars marked Elara from head to toe, left wherever her father had beaten, punished, and tortured her. The House-Elves at Valecroft Hall helped her through those three months in secret, using their own potions and magic so her injuries would not become fatal. Without them, she was sure she would already be dead. "Be grateful I have no more time tonight and better work to tend to. Get out of my sight at once." Elara pushed herself off the floor and rushed for the door, one hand clamped to her side. She was not quick enough to avoid her father's final chance to hurt her. "Crucio!"