Elyssa Greer came from a Pureblood family, a Pureblood descent of Serbians. She was the outcast of her family; the only Gryffindor after centuries of the Greer and Banović family being sorted into Slytherin. Ellie felt like an outcast before she was...
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Ellie vowed to herself that she would not spend another lesson with Malfoy. Not only had she received curious stares as to why she, a Gryffindor, was spending most of her time with Slytherins, but now she had to deal with Lavender and Parvati in their next class, Divination, which she was running rather late for owing to the fact that she had to go to the bathroom.
She took her time to her next class and soothingly rubbed her sore wrist, which she was sure had a red mark around it.
After their double Potions class, Nikolai had grabbed her so quickly so that she could not get out of that classroom and faster than she would have liked. After pulling her to the end of the corridor, he expressed his anger through very harsh words, but did not let go of her wrist.
"Doing that, Elyssa, embarrasses me, all right? Not just in front of Malfoy but in front of all the other Slytherins! Many of whom are aware that you and I are to be married," he seethed in her face, eyes so angry she faltered and a response was tucked away underneath her tongue.
"Nikolai," she said quietly, jerking her wrist away from him but failing. "You're hurting me."
"You're hurting me. Continue behaving this way and you damage my reputation."
"Your reputation?" Ellie exclaimed in disbelief, squinting up at him after finally discovering the courage to speak. "Is that all you care about, is your reputation? I don't want Malfoy to help me, I can help myself. Or better yet, I can get my own friends to help me. I don't want my learning to go your way."
Ellie cried out when Nikolai jerked her closer to him by the wrist, tightening, surely cutting off her blood circulation. It burnt a pain so bad she could barely pay any attention to what he was saying.
"I don't want you speaking to me that way. I don't want a stupid, uneducated betrothed. I saw what happened in there and it was all your fault. Malfoy was trying to help and then you lashed out at him. We wouldn't even be having this conversation if you had just behaved, and listened. And if you speak of this to anyone, especially your parents or Dumbledore, it'll only get worse from me, do you understand?"
And so there Ellie was, hiding in the bathroom for five minutes past the bell, wiping away her tears. She remembered what she had said to Silas; that Nikolai was just a boy, fifteen, and that he was surely grow out of his weird behaviour and odd mood swings, that surely it had to be a part of growing up. But she wasn't so sure she was correct . . .
She would find a way to let her dad know about Nikolai, not by letter but during the Christmas break. Telling her mum would be a terrible idea and she would make up excuses and pull out the puberty card or claim that Ellie was over-exaggerating. A part of Ellie hoped Nikolai would get worse so that she would have more proof to show to them, to show that Nikolai wasn't fit enough to spend the rest of his life with her. Marriages got called off all the time, why was this any different?
