The Dark Gryffindor

Please review! Hogwarts is only going to get more violent the last days before the great battle! Sorry for the short update. I didn't finish the chapter.


Sjauthor: Yes, the poisoning obviously won't work. But how it doesn't happen is still interesting. Thanks.

Chapter Forty-three: The Carrows’ Secret


That very night after Voldemort's meeting Snape wasted no time to get to Valerie. She received Severus at the window of the dorm she’d taken up in Gryffindor tower. But there was nothing he could really do without blowing his cover. Therefore it was entirely contingent on Valerie alone to ensure her survival.

It was the next morning, a dull Monday in late April. Valerie glanced at Neville beside her on the bench. She wanted to warn him, but she knew that would call into question Valerie’s advanced knowledge of the event. And she very much doubted Neville could perform Occlumency. So she decided to say nothing. But surely the Carrows were going to target him? As he was without a doubt a leader of the D.A.

But suddenly Professor Slughorn was passing by. He looked very much unlike his usually high-spirited self.

Snape passed by with Slughorn speaking to him. Slughorn grumbled to the headmaster, “Do you know someone stormed through my private stores this morning? I don’t know what they took. The place is an absolute pigsty!”

“A student probably,” said Snape nastily. He gave the slightest furtive glance at Valerie seated below and then briskly followed Horace to the staff table. But Snape knew very well that it wasn’t a student. It had to have been the Carrows, fulfilling their orders to poison the leaders of the D.A.


*


Valerie stole through the halls for her first class of the day, Potions. Making her way down a lonely windy corridor she thought she saw something very strange befall her eyes.

A man decked in fancy golden robes was standing against a line of torches, his hands held behind his back. Valerie felt a surge of dread. Even from the great distance, it was clearly a Snatcher. There was no mistaking the insignia of two entwined silver snakes. Voldemort's S.S. What were they doing at Hogwarts? Patrolling the halls? Valerie quaked inside. Whatever it was, it couldn't be for any light business. Snatchers had been a force specifically designed by Voldemort to round up Muggle-borns, Muggles, and Undesirables. Since there weren't any of those at school, why were they here? These were the questions that reigned in on Valerie's mind.

Valerie came even closer as she was forced to go this way to Potions. There was no avoiding him. Her eyes adjusted so that she could clearly make him out. She felt a sudden whoosh of horrific dread. The steely, wild eyes of the man were on her and worse, Valerie instinctively picked up in a minute twitch of the face, that this man recognized her.

Then Valerie was suddenly remembering him. Her body shivered, remembering those wild and irate eyes. The night she saw him, she and Neville had been hiding under a clump of bushes in the forest. It had been the night Ginny escaped. Plus, he knew her as the girl he nearly got to take to the Death Camps, the evening she spoke the name of Voldemort.

Valerie felt like she could die right now from fear. There was something truly evil about this particular Death Eater. Worse than most of the others. It took all Valerie’s courage not to run, as she past right by him in the narrow corridor. She could feel his eyes on her. She got the distinctive impression he wanted her dead. Probably for being forced to respond to her mishap that day she spoke the Taboo. And yet, since Snape’s warning last night, she now knew there were plenty of people at Hogwarts who wanted her dead. The Carrows for one. Damion for another.

Valerie came to the heavy iron door. It was locked. She felt a rush of panic. She was alone with a man she suspected would like nothing better than to kill her.

She tried to control her breathing, as her hand twisted the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge. She was too scared to draw her wand.

But she wasn’t alone. Moments later, other students had caught up to her. They ran, and cast terrified looks towards the lone Snatcher.

“What are Snatchers doing at school?” a Hufflepuff girl quavered nervously.

“I just heard! A unit’s been permanently stationed here,” spoke Draco triumphantly.

“Shut-up, Malfoy,” said a vitriolic, deep voice from behind Valerie, coming from above. Valerie turned around to see the tall, thick and broad-shouldered frame of Neville Longbottom.

“Hi,” said Valerie to him.

“Oh, hi Val,” said Neville affably. Valerie was pleased to see he was still warm to her. Despite hardly speaking ever since Ginny escaped the regime.

But Draco went on, “Yeah- I bet Snatchers are allowed to punish those people who are still dumb enough to resist Snape’s school.…If I were them I wouldn’t dare put a toe out of line!”

Seamus Finnegan butted in. He was more combative than Neville could ever be. "Yeah, Draco...But we know you don't have the guts to put a toe out of line!"

Draco's face drained and he turned red with anger. He took a step closer to Seamus. But Neville, quickly pushed his friend behind him. "It's not worth fighting over, Seamus....Besides the Snatchers are here!"

Scabior was now watching with a little more interest. Keen to see if this would be the first skirmish he'd have to break up. Scabior had his wand out, and was pausing. Merely waiting for the fight to actually break out.

But before Draco and Seamus could square off at all, Neville had his wand out. He non-verbally casted the Alohomora charm and proceeded to open the door. He pushed Seamus inside.

“Come on everyone,” spoke Neville rhetorically, beckoning them to go through the door. “He’s just telling rubbish. Ignore him. He’s only trying to show off.” But Draco wasn’t lying. It had been all over the morning’s paper. Scabior and his unit were being permitted to harm, and even as a last resort, kill students that were caught in open resistance. Voldemort had certainly not liked what had gone on in the final Quidditch match and he was furious that the D.A. still flourished under his nose.

But surprisingly, the Seventh year N.E.W.T. Potions class obeyed Neville. Only Slytherins remained to queue up for Slughorn like they'd once done for Snape.

Draco and his cronies continued their conversation outside. The Head Boy's tone rang clearly, prattling onward to make his point, "You mark my words….Snatchers will be torturing them in the halls!”

The Slytherins were still laughing fearlessly, waiting outside whilst everybody else waited at the desks for the teacher. They sat silently in the classroom, listening in awful denial to the dark news. So stunned into silence, they weren't even whispering about it.

But clearly the Slytherins were not afraid to be in the midst of the wizard, Heinrick Scabior.

Valerie and Neville listened to Draco and the other Slytherins cracking jokes about Gryffindors, Mudbloods, etc. Anything that didn’t apply to them.

Outside, Scabior remained in stance like a solider doing his duty. He was stone cold, almost as if he didn’t hear the Slytherins’ conversation. He remained as the permanent fixture ordered in by Voldemort.

Scabior refused to go away until he saw the teacher approach. The Potions Master sighed, to see the Chief Snatcher. But he looked calm nevertheless. It hadn't been an easy morning. His private stores had been ransacked.

Professor Slughorn entered his classroom and Scabior strode away, his tall boots making ominous thudding echoes on the flagstones of the dungeons.


Note: Please review! I’m sorry for the short update.