SELINA KYLE. SIXTH YEAR. HOUSE SLYTHERIN.

NAME: Selina Marie Kyle.
AGE: Sixteen.
BLOOD STATUS: Pureblooded.
WAND: Pliable 11 ¾ vinewood wand, dragon heartstring core.
PATRONUS: Cat.
BOGGART: Herself; under the influence of toxins, unable to be in control.
AMORTENTIA: Firewhiskey, distinctive cologne, leather, old books, musk.
FAMILIAR: Black cat named Isis.

Purebloods are too good at turning a blind eye to what they don’t want to see. The bruises and cuts that Brian Kyle didn’t bother to hide for Selina (before she was of age to do magic) were looked over. The pleas for help that echoed through the Kyles’ house from the three women under the roof were cast aside with silencing charms. Selina grew up in a household with an alcoholic father and a depressed mother. Her sister Magdalene was born four years after her, a petite blonde thing that her sister fought hard to protect; even if that meant taking the blows on herself. Maria Kyle was subjected to the same treatment, and it was in Selina’s eighth year that she learned her mother would be no help to either of her daughters. Being a pureblood was never what it chalked up to be in wizarding society. There was wealth in abundance, sure, but behind closed doors were untold stories of horror that would never surface. Selina grew up in a home where she learned never to show weakness, to always fend for herself in a dog-eat-dog world. She learned to think on her feet, to be cunning enough to always end up on top, and to care only for herself in a world where love didn’t exist.

It’s all too easy to say that Selina’s Slytherin to the core, but it’s only the truth. Her mother Maria had been a Ravenclaw, but Brian had been a Slytherin, and expected the same from his eldest child. He spared her a beating the night she came home for Christmas of her first year, bearing with a stiff pride her green and silver tie. It was also the night that Selina came back to a house with a father and a sister – but no mother. She found Maria in the bathtub, wrists slit and hours dead. She should have felt pain, depression, anything that would be remotely normal for a child to find her suicidal mother. Selina could only feel a cold kind of anger at the woman who had become so unloving to the two children she’d bore. It was only when she was back in the Slytherin dormitories that Selina allowed herself to shed a tear for Maria Kyle. She didn’t cry for her mother again. Nor did she cry for her father when she found him dead in the living room, seven empty bottles of firewhiskey at his feet.

Maggie Kyle was swept off to a foster home, not being of age to attend Hogwarts yet. And Selina made her home in the castle, her heart hardened even more. Of course, none of her inner turmoil showed on the outside. Insofar as everyone knew her, Selina was sharp and cunning, with a tongue like a blade. Her smiles came with barbs, her eyes shot ice. She was the epitome of what her house was known for. No one saw the girl with the haunted eyes behind the easy sarcasm. And no one ever would.

tag. / faceclaim: sofia black d'elia.