Cora opens the door that leads to the outside and walks over to the wet grass. She slowly closes her eyes, feeling the cold water land on her face. The stored tears run down her cheek, unable to tell which ones were tears and which ones were rain.
She quickly opens her eyes at the sound of a twig snapping and wipes away her tears. She looks back, a confused expression plastered on her face at the sight of nobody around her.
Cora gasps at the sound of another twig breaking and hastily turns her head to the front. She spots a black cloak for a few seconds before it disappears behind a tree.
"Who's there?" She asks with a shaky voice before looking around to see if anyone is around her and returns her attention to the tree.
She takes a few steps forward before rapidly taking a step back once she sees the person in the cloak run away from her.
"Don't run away, you coward! Who are you?" She shouts and runs towards the tree the person was hiding against.
Once she gets to the tree, she stops running and looks at the ground. She feels her heart drop to her stomach the second she lays her eyes on the green, emerald ring. She quickly bends down and picks up the ring, observing it in every possible angle.
She stands back up and starts running towards the direction of the person in the cloak. With a cloudy vision, she notices the person stopped running so she slows down her pace.
"Dad?.." She spoke in a soft, tremulous voice, prepared for either despair or rapture as she slowly walked over to him.
"Follow me, Cora." Said the recognizable yet distinct voice as the person in the black cloak slowly began walking.
Cora feels her breath hitch at the sound of his voice. That same voice that used to repeatedly tell her how much he adored her. The same one that promised to never leave her side. The one that did the complete opposite of what it said.
"Where are you taking me?" She timidly asks him as she begins to increase her speed to catch up to him.
"Where have you been all these years? I've been looking for you. I searched everywhere for you, day and night, until I decided to finally let you go. After all, you were the one who told me to not chase after things or people that don't want to be found. That I should wait for them to come to me." She looks up to him, anxious to hear his voice again.
Cora springs forward and reaches for his hand. Once she holds his hand after years of not doing so, she feels her lips turn into a bittersweet smile.
"Mom's a mess because of you. She doesn't even acknowledge my existence anymore. Simply because I remind her too much of you. Not only did I lose my father that day. I also lost my mother." Tears stung her eyes and her lower lip trembled as she spoke.
"I am not at fault over how your mother decided to deal with things." He says firmly and snatches his hand away from hers.
"You are the person to blame for everything! Do you know how many times I had to witness my mother be in complete misery because of you? I was the one who made her food. The one who made sure she ate the food I made her. The one who took her to bed at a certain time so that she could wake up energized the next day." She said with a sob escaping her mouth, tears flowing down from her eyes once again.
"It should've been the other way around. She should've been the one taking care of me! You're the one who made her be like this!" She shouts at him and pushes him using all her strength.
He takes a few steps forward and turns around to face her. He watches as her face drops in complete shock once she sees his face. Face full of scars and unattended wounds scattered all over his face.
Her eyes explore every inch of his scarred face and slowly walks towards him. She stops once she's a few feet away from him and slowly raises her trembling hand. She frowns at the sight of him flinching and gently touches his face.
He involuntarily closes his eyes, almost like an instinct. It takes him a few seconds to notice what he's doing and rapidly backs away from her. He takes out his wand and points it at the frail girl standing before him.
"Crucio." He says, watching with an expressionless face as Cora immediately falls to the floor.
Cora curls up into a ball, feeling the pain in her body become more and more intense. Sobs, tears and screams leave her body all at once as Cora tightly holds onto the wet soil, making a fist.
"Please stop! It hurts too much." She says out of breath and bites down on her teeth. Hard.
She breathes out in relief once she stops feeling pain spread throughout every inch of her body. She stares blankly at the rock in front of her, not moving an inch. Feeling completely and utterly numb.
"This will be the last time I repeat this, Cora. I am not the one who made her like this. Did you ever think of the possibility that it was probably you? That you're the reason your mother is like that towards you?" He asks, towering over her and slowly bends his knees to get closer to her level.
He grabs her arm roughly and places it down onto the ground. He takes out a knife from his pocket and looks back at the now terrified girl. He sends her a calm smile as he places the point of the knife against her skin.
"What... What are you doing?" She asks, her voice trembling as she tries to get her arm away from his grip.
"I left because I couldn't stand the embarrassment of having you as a daughter and your mother as my wife, Cora." He takes one last look at her before carving the letter 'W' and 'O' on her arm.
She yells out in pain and as an instinct tries getting up, but fails miserably as he pins her back down. A sob leaves her mouth, quickly looking away from the person who had the same face and body as the person she once loved, but completely different heart.
"Every single day I would ask myself 'How did I get myself into this mess?' Do you know how humiliating it was to hear everyone call me a blood traitor?" He strengthens his grip on her arm as he carves out the letters 'R' and 'T' on her arm, cruelly smiling at the sound of her painful yells.
"But love made me do stupid things, and those stupid things led me to you." He carves out the letters 'H' and 'L' as he watches her intently, almost as if he were satisfied at the pain he was causing her.
"I really thought I was in love with your mother. She's gorgeous, but she's also a muggle-born. Sadly, I realized too late that Pure-bloods and Mud-bloods don't belong together." He deepens the knife into her arm, slowly carving out the letters 'E' and 'S'.
"I helped create you, a mud-blood. You may be considered a half-blood, but in my eyes you are a mud-blood because I don't consider you as my daughter. Not anymore. I'll never forgive myself for helping to create you. You are one of my biggest mistakes, Cora. I wish I never crossed paths with your mother. You both ruined me, so I plan on ruining both of you." He says harshly as he looks at her with fuming eyes. He returns his eyes to her bloody arm and carves out the last letter. 'S'.
Cora bites down on her teeth to not give him the satisfaction of hearing her pain. She looks profoundly into him, trying to see if she could see any sign of her dad. Her real dad not this stranger who has the same voice and appearance as him.
She feels a tear roll down her cheek as she finds nothing. Not one thing to give her a sign that her dad is in there somewhere.
He wipes off the blood on his knife with the handkerchief on the pocket of his suit. He puts the knife away and returns his attention back to Cora. He smiles at the sight of tears on her face, spots of blood everywhere throughout her clothes, including some parts of her face, and the carved word on her arm.
"If you tell a single soul about what happened, I'll hurt you again, Cora. This time I won't stop even if you beg. It'll be a never ending pain which will eventually kill you. It'd be a slow... painful death." He says calmly as his hand reaches her face.
She flinches and turns her head away from him. She lets out a gasp at the feeling of him aggressively pulling her jaw towards him so that she could face him. Her lower lip trembles and looks anywhere but his eyes.
"You're worthless, Cora. Worthless." He says, roughly letting go of her jaw and stands back up. He fixes his cloak, which is above his suit, and walks away from her.
She watches as he walks away and slowly drags her body to the tree a few feet away from her. She rests her back on the tree and begins to cry. Her sobs muffled as she leaned her head forward against her uninjured arm.
i know that there was no sign of draco in this chapter, but you'll have plenty of that next chapter! thank you for reading.
xoxo, drea ✨