The Dark Gryffindor

Please review! I apologize for the way I published the last chapter. It was a mess full of very obvious mistakes. For instance, I wrote initially Valerie telling Snape, “I understand you’re on the Dark Lord’s side…” It should have been written, “I understand you’re NOT on the Dark Lord’s side…” Sorry. I’ve fixed them up now.


Sjauthor: Yes. Part of Valerie's motivation was to say how she is so very different from Lily and also it's her jealously of how Snape liked her. However, this story is called "The Dark Gryffindor" for a reason. Valerie did mean what she said. She really does think that she wants to join Voldemort and that he might be right. However, she is not as true to herself as she will be later. Her life will change forever before this story ends. But she is the dark Gryffindor.


Sheherazade: Thanks for your review.


Chapter Thirty-eight: A Murdered Muggle


The very next evening turned out to be quite a sordid affair for Severus Snape. Only a few especially sullen looking Slytherins had bothered to saunter down to the Great Hall. And the only staff member at the table was Filch along with the Carrows. The rest of the staff and students had all gladly departed for better times away from it all. Snape felt very much alone, sitting in the center at the throne of honor. He sipped from his goblet lugubriously. For the first time ever he understood that the regime he ran was very much a prison for the students as for him. He found himself wishing once again that Dumbledore was present with his twinkling eyes. It would even have been nice if Minerva could have stayed or if Horace had. Slughorn certainly would have enjoyed the ever-flowing fine wine and delicious food and perhaps even Snape’s company. He realized with them gone how much their company had meant to him. They had been almost friends, or at least until Dumbledore had died. Now all he and Minerva ever did was argue as she saw him as almost a villain. And Slughorn was much more distant, putting on an act of aloofness, feeling as if he had never known the real Snape.

And then there was Valerie of course. He felt the greatest twinge of despair and a depressing weight fill his stomach when he thought of her. No matter how many chocolate bonbons or any other Easter treat he consumed he could not fill that gaping hole. He loved her, but everything had went so wrong with her. So wrong.

Snape realized if only she had been present at this moment, things would have been brighter for him here. Yet Valerie was nowhere to be found. His eyes scanned the benches for the tenth time that night. He could imagine her sitting alone whilst the few who remained at Hogwarts dined together at the staff table. But no lone figure was to be found on the benches. He supposed she did not possess the gall to face him after yesterday. ‘And serve her right’, thought Snape.

“Professor Snape?! I just asked you how it was at Walpurgis Night? Were you even listening? Amycus and I were greatly disappointed the Dark Lord did not invite us!”

And Snape felt if possible worse. The last thing he wanted to do was regale a group of such horrors they made him vomit after the ordeal.

“Tell me! Tell us what it was like!” demanded the witch again.

Snape spoke slowly. “Not as good as I thought. Hardly any decorations. The food although interesting was burnt and-” Of course this was a lie.

But Amycus broke in booming, “Well if all you can do is complain, Snape…Headmaster Snape. We don’t want to hear it then!”

And Snape fell quiet, which was exactly as he hoped for. He continued to sip mournfully from his wine as his thoughts returned to Valerie again. He needed her to cure his loneliness and relieve his stress. Where was she?

*

Somewhere far off in London was a nearly rundown little house looked to have been built before the second muggle war. Valerie swung up the steps and stopped on the stoop, her waist pressed against an old banister. Twice she knocked. But to no answer.

Valerie heard footsteps behind her. She turned around instinctively whipping out her wand. She stiffened to see two men garbed in blue uniforms.

“Who are you?”

“The police, girl. We’ve come to check up on residence five hundred, Jackson Avenue. Now why don’t you tell us who you are miss?”

“I live here…” she said defensively and she crossed her arms. She glared at the police officers. Not the least bit afraid, they glared right back at her.

She decided to switch tactics and be a bit more polite. She looked at the younger one and she couldn’t help but flutter her lashes up at him. “Please sir, could you tell me why you’ve come to my parents’ house?”

The younger, rather handsome one looked persuaded. He decided to impart the truth. “Yes. We received quite a few calls from the neighborhood…Your mother’s church chums say they haven’t been able to reach her.”

The older police officer broke in, “Yeah, and now we’re starting to wonder…if you live here little girlie, you should know something about her whereabouts?”

Valerie’s face whitened with fear. “I-I was at boarding school, sir,” she said innocently. She now felt a little nervous. “I honesty don’t know.”

One of the two blokes had a curly mustache and was rather thick in shape for a police officer. He poked his finger at her. “And what is that thing you’re carrying on ya?”

“My wan-…I dunno. Just a toy I guess.”

Both of the policemen laughed skeptically. The younger one without the moustache commented sardonically, “Too right you are. Before you acted like it was an actual firearm. Silly thing like that. Hardly what I’d call a weapon, unless you use it to poke eyes out!”

Valerie simply raised her eyebrows at their ignorance. “Well, let’s get inside and see what we find!” she told them bossily.

The mustached one's eyes slanted suspiciously. “If you really do live here, then you should have a key.”

“Right here in my pocket see?”

Valerie watched as they nudged forward impatiently to get a look. At the same time, with her other hand she poked her wand at the door. Nonverbally she casted the Alohomora spell. There was a glint of green light and she heard the lock’s clink inside.

The next instant she turned back to the two policemen and concentrating, she whispered, “Confundus…Confundus” aiming at each of them in turn.

Suddenly dazed expressions appeared on their usually astute veneers.

“Doors open…Come on in…,” she said to them. They followed Valerie inside the house, still confused as to what had just happened.

But all too soon, Valerie completely forgot about the police officers accompanying her.

She had not paused to ponder what it could have meant when the officers reported they could not contact her mother. She had instinctively forced the worst scenarios out of her mind.

“Mother I’m home! For Easter break…I changed my mind!” she called joyfully. She ran up the steps two at a time.

She came to a small sitting room with an old-fashioned television set. Propped up next to it was an ironing board and a pile of clothes. Yet the clothes looked to have been thrown on the floor in haste.

“Mother!” With sudden, enormous trepidation Valerie leapt across the room.

And suddenly she was howling and wailing in grief. It was irrational and powerfully emotional. Valerie couldn’t control the urge. Without thinking she fell in a heap on the floor.

Her mother wasn’t moving and she was on her back, completely sentient. It wasn’t possible. Her mother’s gray eyes were still open. In denial, Valerie wrenched back, “NO. No.”

But then she realized it had to be true. She let out a broken sob. She felt ruined. “Mummy! Mummy!” It was like she was a little girl again. She sobbed and drool came out of her mouth. She sniffled and coughed another dry sob. She felt like a little girl lost and lonely once again.

She raised her head up at the low ceiling quite blindly. Her scream was drawn-out and torturous. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she kept her head up towards the ceiling.

And then she turned below again. Valerie’s hands grappled on the floor until she clung to her mother’s bosom. The body reeked. It had been there for at least a few days, possibly an entire week. Valerie didn’t care.

After what felt like forever but had only been moments she glanced around the sitting room, as if remembering where she was again. She gasped. She remembered the usual portraits adorning the walls. Pictures of Xavier Powers, Valerie’s father. The bright blue irises of his eyes seemed to stare right through her and mirror her own current madness. Xavier looked mad in the pictures, adorned in eccentric robes with strange penetrating eyes. The memory of her deceased father was haunting. She had resented how her mother, even though divorced from Xavier had still worshipped the man and her mother had been aware of what he had done to Valerie! After Xavier’s untimely death when she was just eleven, Valerie’s mother held onto the photos, thus allowing his memory to permeate the house, and making Valerie feel like the suffering he had brought never left.

And there Louisa Powers – Valerie’s mother lay dead on the floor. Dead in her very own home, not a mark to her body, no fatal illness afflicted her. It was not until Valerie collected her thoughts a little while later that she realized it must have been the Killing Curse.

*

Severus Snape finished his Easter Sunday feast, setting down his napkin. Forlornly, his dark eyes gazed at the artificial sky.

*

She sat on the stoop of the old house, feeling calmer as she mulled over the facts. Before the police had been kind enough to let Valerie hang onto her mother and be alone in her despair for a few minutes, yet it was probably more from the effects of being confunded that made the police less demanding. Then they coaxed her off; quite furiously explaining she may have destroyed the evidence for how it happened.

The confundus charms had weared off of them by now. Valerie thought of their summations. They had examined the body and searched the house, finally writing up the report that the cause of death was indeterminate.

But Valerie knew it had been the Avada Kedavra Curse. She wished she knew who had cast the awful spell. She wondered if it had been a Death Eater. But she thought that unlikely as so many regular wizards and witches were now engaging in what had become the popular event of muggle sporting, in which muggles would often be attacked and killed in their homes for mere trifle amusement.

She remained perched on the top step of the stoop, hands grasping her ankles as she looked towards the sky above. A thunderstorm was rolling into the ever-darkening twilight. She felt more subdued than ever before. Her spirit was defeated, and she felt like she was sitting within the ruins of her past. It was clearly her darkest hour. Her spirit was dying. She had never felt such a hole in her heart.


NOTE: Please review. This story just keeps getting sadder and sadder doesn’t it? Expect that to continue, but there are some light really beautiful scenes coming up soon.