Together they sat by the common room fire, there were two chairs set by the pit. The chairs were two times too big, black leather and very plush, allowing for a decent amount of room to sink down a little. In the seat furthest from the fire, sat a young boy in his fifth-year, he had black, ridiculously curly hair that refused to settle into one place. He had a bright smile that lightened up the dungeon that still managed to convey his sly manor with heart fluttering ease. Rufus had a massive textbook in his lap, he sat with his legs crossed and hunched over the book with his chin resting in his palm as he scanned the same line over and over. Across from him, closer to the fire sat Valerie Rosier. Valerie, another fifth-year student appeared with springy black hair and dark green eyes, most students around the castle would be surprised in learning that the two were not siblings, but were in fact, dating. Dating since the start of their third year when Rufus, Chaser for the Slytherin quidditch teem had saved her cat from a particularly moody hippogriff on the edge of the Dark Forest.
Valerie was rather short in stature, making the scene fairly humorous, she had a large book balanced on her lap and two on either side of her, open and standing up-right with the room left between her legs and the edge of the chair. Rufus had been buried in his homework for over an hour before even bothering to note how tired he was becoming, and since it was a weekend, Valerie was pleasure reading rather than doing homework, Valerie made it a fact that she did not do homework or school work on a weekend and made a point to never discuss anything stressful or irritating on her time off. She was very particular about how and when she liked things, Rufus admired that about her. Rather, he admired a great many things about her.
Valerie was just like any other Slytherin girl in their fifth-year, fairly vain and very proud of her pure-blood linage. But she was very loving under all her ruthless humour and otherwise indifferent nature. She had a way about things, she would accept nothing less than perfection when it came to her appearance and demanding nothing less than an Outstanding in every class, which she got every year with little struggle. It was just many reasons of the thousand things he loved about her. He caught himself staring at her over the hardback cover of his book but found he was too comfortable to move nor tear his eyes away. And Valerie, too immersed in her book of curses to notice or care, didn't look up. They remained like this in blissful silence for a while, save for the crackling of the fire a mere few inches from Valerie's knees where she had curled her bare feet under herself to preserve warmth. Her wand lay by her knee forgotten, as it was, she who had started the night there, her wand aimed at the flames. Making them take shape as she ran through her to do list for Maisy, her house elf whom she had taken to Hogwarts for the year. Rufus had joined her after hanging out with his gang of morons, as Valerie preferred to call them out of spite, seeing as though she had never liked a single one of them up until the day Rufus had saved her cat.
Rufus broke their relative peace as he closed his textbook over his lap, it clapped closed and startled Valerie out of her peaceful contemplation. The dark-haired witch glanced up from her book to the young wizard, now standing with the book left on the chair taking up space. He stretched and felt the joints in his shoulders pop, the common room was barren as students had either elected to take the flue network home or into town for the weekend or they'd long past headed to their respective rooms to sleep. Valerie sighed and set down her books in a pile, she mirrored him and stood, stretching till her joints popped.
"To bed then?" Valerie spoke with a softness to her that didn't convey in her day to day life, she was subtle but her attitude was always present no matter who she was addressing, even teachers.
Rufus advanced without a word, not that Valerie seemed to notice, too distracted with gathering up her books, five in total and way too heavy to carry on her own. Valerie picked up her wand and with a swish of her wand and a chant,
"Wingardium Leviosa." The books took flight, all one after the other, till they were a stacked pile of books floating by Valerie's side.
Rufus snaked an arm around Valerie's waist and at first, she saw it only right to shrug him off. It was late and she felt no need to stay up any longer than necessary just because Rufus Lestrange was feeling a little frisky. Again, his wondering hand returned, only to be met with a quick smack and a displeased huff as she went to raise her wand to get her books back into her dormitory, her wrist was snatched and yanked around. Her hand holding her wand was grabbed too and as a result her books plummeted to the ground one by one in a series of heavy smacks on the cobblestone flooring. Valerie cried out in pain, the grip he had on her wrists were too tight, not the gentle touch he had always used with her before. The witch attempted to pull back against his hold, only serving to send Rufus off balance and toppling forward and forcing her down backwards. The blow to her head sent a searing pain through the back of her skull and her mind went hazy and everything got slow. She felt her wrists bunched up and her skirt being tore up over her stomach, her legs being forced apart and the tug at her panties. She felt the weight of his body bearing down on her and the heat radiating from his pores on the insides of her thighs as he untangled her panties from around her legs. Her head spun as she attempted to move upright and her head thundered as she was forced back down by a hand pressed to the centre of her chest, forcing the air from her lungs in a single rush. Valerie inhaled sharply and kicked.
"Get off of me!" Her struggle was fruitless, only serving to slide herself a few inches forward across the cool cobblestone floor.
By now her hands had practically lost circulation and were beginning to burn numb as her fingers wriggled about wildly seeking her escape as she tugged and squirmed. And the moment she heard a foreign buzzing sound, the back of her hand pressed against something smooth and loose, Valerie through her head back. The tears bubbling in the corners of her eyes clouded her vision a little, but left enough for her worn, rattled mind to piece together that what she was looking at was in fact, her wand and having gained this new sense of clarity, the buzzing sound suddenly made sense.
"Rufus stop!" She cried, tears streamed down her cheeks as she felt it pressed against the naked skin of her thigh and as her hand twisted frantically to gain purchase on the wand handle.
It slid along the insides of her thigh to the corner, where her leg met with her pelvis, through her tears she shifted and struggled. Her hand found the spiked hilt of the wand and curled around it, slowly inching it down till she was sure she had a stable enough hold to properly use. Immediately after her hand made contact with the wood, her mind had been fighting off the haze the bump had left her with and working through the archive of spells she had learned. Usually the only problem she faced when casting would be picking a spell. For the life of her she couldn't think of a single stunning spell or repellent charm to get him on the other side of the room, but the moment she felt his clammy hand cup her thigh and push them apart as far as they would go, she reacted violently.
Valerie tore her wand hand free and jammed the tip of her wand under his chin, the spell just fell from her lips like a curse.
"Crucio." The affect was instantaneous, like he'd been struck by lightning.
As he convulsed, the witch scrambled back and crawled away as fast as her hands and knees could carry her. The moment her attention was shifted from her spell to her escape, his convulsions stopped and it was like all humanity had returned to him. From his knees he gazed up at her, with his mouth agape, like he was surprised with himself. His eyes were wide, rimmed red with his hands palm up like he was terrified, like he was looking at literal blood on his hands.
"Val-""No!' Valerie thrust out her wand, the wizard froze and silence followed her threat. 'Stay the hell away from me Lestrange!" Her wand quivered in her hand as her voice wavered and shook, one foot back, then another till she fully turned away from the Lestrange boy and she was running down the corridor, as fast as she could go and she didn't look back, even as she descended further down stone stairs or when she slammed the communal fifth-year dorm door closed violently.
Valerie threw herself down on her bed and curled up, her bared feet tucked into her knee length skirt and her arms tucked into her chest with her face buried in her pillows while her hair, once in a high ponytail was now loose and sagging around her shoulders, keeping her neck warm. She kept her wand close, curled into her chest with her hand tight around the base. Her body shook as her breaths came in short and stunted, her eyes moistened again, dampening her covers.
It took a few moments, but she heard the dorm door click open gently and then a few hesitant steps that echoed through the high stone ceiling. A gentle hand on her shoulder startled Valerie, she was up, her head whipped back and she was scrambling back into the headboard with her wand outstretched. There at the edge of the bed sat a girl, no younger than Valerie herself. Walburga Black was another Slytherin girl in her year, they'd never really talked before, only acknowledge each other in passing.
"I came in at the last minute…' Valerie's expression shifted to an all new type of fear, she'd seen what she'd some, she'd seen her use that dammed curse and now she was going to tell the Headmaster, she was as good as expelled. 'He deserved it Valerie. He deserved more." Walburge reached out and pat her forearm somewhat awkwardly, she flinched slightly at the sudden temperature drop between her skin and the frightened Slytherin.
Valerie's expression dropped, her face consorted with narrowed brows and accusatory eyes, glaring down at the hand on her arm with a look of disgust. Her eyes dared back up to the dark-haired teen.
"You don't need to tell me that! I wanted to kill him!" Valerie snatched her arm back and straightened, wiping away the moisture on her cheeks, she ran her hands through her knotted hair and was annoyed to find her fingers tangled in a heap that was her hair.
"You can't report this to headmaster Dippet." She knew what the little witch was hinting at and why, and she took extra care in the glare she shot her way as she removed her hand from her hair with an exaggerated flourish.
"I'm sorry,' Valerie stood from her bed, careful to avoid touching the other witch and readjusted her robes, pulling down her skirt till it was back at an appropriate length and straightened out the collar of her shirt. 'I must have totally blanked on the part where I asked for your advice." Valerie glanced back over her shoulder at Walburge with a raised brow.
Walburge was a fairly tall girl, but at the look Valerie sent her made her shrink back a little before she herself straightened and her eyes narrowed, then her arms crossed and she herself stood from the bed to face the snotty girl.
"I was just trying to help." Valerie scoffed strolled across the stone room to the row of vanities lined up against the wall.
"I don't remember asking." Walburge left in a furry and Valerie found her seat in the vanity closest to the door.
She stayed there, in that room into the night. And then well through the next day, she laid, curled up in her bed through Charms, Transfiguration, Potions and all of History of Magic. She received four memos throughout the day, each arriving just as the class ended. They lit up in a snap of fire on her vanity and pealed away the space to reveal an envelope with her name inscribed in the centre. The letters sat up in a pile on her desk, she didn't need to read them to know what they said, she knew she wasn't in trouble as she never, ever missed class and that they were only checking up on her. Nothing would move her, her two roommates, Walburge and Alice kept to themselves and as per usual, kept silent as they scurried about their shared room, gathering their towels and toiletries, doing their homework and getting ready for bed. It was only when she was sure that both of them were fast asleep, that she rose. She hoped off the end of the bed and hurried over to her vanity, she whipped out her quill and snatched out her spare parchment from her drawer.
Her scrawl was barely legible, very curly and over dramatic in a sense that reflected her personality rather well. She scribbled her mother's name and then their family address on what would be the front of her letter then set herself to writing.
'It was the curse. It's happening to Rufus. I need a cure. Now. Before he gets worse.'
Her correspondence with her mother were never long, it was rare that they exchanged letters save for the events and important family updates. Even in person they didn't speak much, not that Valerie minded, in her opinion, the 'world class designer' that was her mother, was nuts. But as much as she hated to admit it, her mother knew exactly what she was going through. And as a result, she'd gone into a frenzy, researching and experimenting with every known curse she could get her hands on, so if anyone knew how to break her damned curse, it'd be her.
She sealed her letter with a wax V seal and stood at the centre of their room, where their beds ended, their trunks sat and off to the side of vanities. She held her right hand up with the letter folded between her fingers and with her left, she snapped her fingers. A few seconds passed and the space around the centre of the room warped, then there stood a house elf. Maisy was abnormally tall for a house elf, coming to stand at waist height. She had long ears that stretched out to a point and impossibly large eyes that shone like little beacons of blue light.
Maisy bowed low and her rags crinkled.
"How may I serve Mistress?"
"Deliver this for me and you're dismissed for the night." Valerie bent at the waist and handed the house elf her letter with careful ease, ensuring that they didn't touch and Maisy didn't seem to mind, accepting the envelop with both hands greatfully.
"Of course, Mistress." The elf bowed again and vanished in a swirl of space.
Valerie sighed and sat herself back down at her vanity, the first fire message she'd received was from Professor Powell, her Charms professor. It was exactly as she'd expected with the addition of a request for her to visit Madam Wood in the infirmary to make sure she was ok. The next letter was from her Transfiguration Professor, Dumbledore, he simply wished her a speedy recovery, the rest detailed her homework before their next class. Her Potions teacher Professor Slughorn chided her for not attending class without submitting an examination report and allocated her an additional report on Amortentia, the dangers of love, on top of the scheduled homework for the week, extensive steps on how to brew the Amortentia potion. Valerie cursed the man, he basically ignored all the good students in favour of scolding the bad students and praising his beloved teacher's pet Tom. She didn't get a letter from Professor Binns, from the fact that he either; hadn't realised she wasn't there or simply couldn't write her a letter as he had long since passed away and became a ghost. Her final letter was from her Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Mr Bennett. Wishing her a speedy recovery and his insistence that his favourite student return to class on Wednesday. The witch sighed and set down the Professor's letter, he tended to favour the girls in his class over the guys and as his top female student, Valerie just happened to be his favourite. She liked to think it annoyed Tom, not being the favourite for the first time in his life.
Valerie leaned back in her chair and knocked her head back, she stared up through the enchanted ceiling and through the murky lake water above them. From this deep below the surface it was near impossible to figure time but judging by the quick movements darting around up there, Valerie figured it was early morning and pondered if it was too early or not to leave her room after everything that had happened the previous night. Her mind then wondered to her letter and if her mother had replied yet.
She knew her mother would have read it by now. Her mother was always staying up for days on end without particular reason, ordering about the house elves to sweep the grounds, polish the ceiling and soak the antiques, she was always ordering them to do the craziest stuff without someone there to keep her straight. She might have forgotten to reply or maybe she just didn't know? She cursed low to herself, this was horrible, she didn't know what she'd do if her mother didn't know how to stop it.
Valerie rose, filled with a fluttering energy insider her chest, she began her day getting ready. She snuck down to the bathrooms and bathed, cleansed her face, exfoliated and did her daily make-up routine at her vanity. Around this time, Walburga and Alice began rising and as per usual, they ignored each other perfectly fine. Each going through their own morning routine. Once Valerie was dressed and her hair enchanted up in her usual curls, she gathered her books for class and set off with her bag slung over her shoulder and her heels clicking on the stone floors. First years, the only ones up this early, parted as Valerie neared, more out of respect than out of fear. She sat nearest the exit at the Slytherin table, only the seventh years sat here usually but since it was so early there wasn't really anyone there to stop her. And she sat there, her book bag on the seat beside her and her chin resting in her palm as she anxiously poked at her bowl of berries. She knew she had no appetite and that she was honestly only there to await the post, she needed her answers, she needed to fix her mistake and make things right with Rufus, to apologise.
"Ah, you're in my seat." Valerie sat up straight and found her gaze met by Paola Flint, a particularly nasty seventh grader who had a habit of cursing students from first years all the way through to fifth years, only in duels of course.
She was pathetic. Terrified of being caught by teachers so she'd challenge whoever gave her trouble to a duel, so when she cheated and used cures and hexes when the supervisor wasn't looking.
"Excuse me," Valerie barely managed to hide her distain for the witch with a passive sigh and once she'd shouldered her bag, she began to rise.
However, before she could, a chorus of screeches caught her notice. Valerie immediately spotted her mother's Long-eared owl, Demi amongst the storm of owls flooding the great hall. Clutched in her talons was a small envelope sealed in royal purple wax encrusted with the Rosier family emblem. Demi has been her mother's owl when she'd attended the French school of magic, Beauxbatons. Demi was an old owl, twenty-three years old, and, well, she wasn't exactly the flyer she used to be. Demi faltered, as if one of her wings had cramped or if she'd been hit with a stunning spell, suddenly she was falling from the cloud of owls, then she was sliding across the smooth surface of the Slytherin table and taking out the breakfast selection as she went. Valerie raised her wand and jerked it up once, twice and then in a sweeping motion, successfully casting a silent freezing charm without much of a thought. Demi froze, as did all the plates and food flying out in all directions. Valerie took the letter from Demi's beak and waved her wand, unfrezzing the unfortunate mess and everything fell with the exception of Demi, who Valerie saw fit to quickly snatch up into the confines of her robes. And with that, the witch, turned, and left the great hall with the flustered owl squirming in her pocket.
Her pace was brisk and her heels clipped with every step she took, in her very decided opinion heels were a must if a witch wished to present herself as regal as possible. No one took a woman seriously if she wore flats and no one would give her a second look. Valerie was decided about most things, her velvety brown hair, her particularly sharp stare, her makeup, her routine and her grades. But the one thing she wasn't sure on, was seeing her boyfriend, well her ex boyfriend now, staring at her like a deer caught in the headlights from the staircase that led down to the Slytherin dungeons. In the moment she supposed that he wasn't expecting to see her up this early, she was nutoriously cranky in the mornings and would never rise before late into breakfast. Rufus Lestrange above all knew this, though his memory wasn't the best, they'd been dating for years and had known each other even longer. He wasn't expecting to see her up so early, and he most certainly wasn't expecting her to flee to quickly. It was like she was there one moment and as if she'd vanished the next. Maybe he was expecting her to scream at him, maybe just plain ignore his existence.
Either way, Valerie couldn't allow herself to care at the moment. She ran up several flights of stairs, leaving her extremely winded and panting way more than a lady should be expected to. She reached the owlery in a little under ten minutes and by the time she'd reached the top of the tower, Demi was sufficiently calmed and sitting, perched on Valerie's shoulder like she belonged there. The moment Valerie set foot in the owlery she shrugged off the feathery beast and found an unoccupied nook in the wall to took up residency there, curled up with her legs bent under her while she ripped into her mother's letter with renewed hope.
She ripped off the seal and wrenched open the letter. The muscles in her cheeks went slack and the light in her eyes faded to nothing, her letter was so short, a total of four words, thirteen letters, printed in her mother's messy chicken scratch.
'There is no cure.'
To Valerie it felt like her whole world had just collapsed on top of her, like there was a weight on her chest and it was just applying more and more pressure until she felt her ribs ache and the back of her throat burn. She could feel hot tears pooling at the corners of her eyes and she could feel her hand contracting around the letter, curling around the paper, crinkling and crushing it into a ball. Valerie curled into the wall, inclining her face into her shoulder and the wall, tucking her arms into her chest as sobs racked her body, she shook subtly. She stayed up in the owlery for the rest of the morning, she missed three morning classes, Herbology- not that she minded, too much dirt for her tastes, Study of Ancient Runes and the only classes she did a double take at missing, Care of Magical Creatures. Not that it was any better than Herbology but Valerie had a special place in her heart for all manner of creatures, even if some of them were disgusting and very dirty. Soon enough the pressure of knowing that her school work was piling up every minute she avoided class and by extension, avoided even looking in Rufus's direction.
So, during lunch, Valerie left the tower and went to each teacher for each class she'd missed for yesterday and for this morning, then the rest of the afternoon. She explained to Professor Powell and Professor Dumbledore that she was feeling better from yesterday, but unfortunately she wasn't well enough to sit through two more classes, but that she'd definitely be back on Thursday and she'd be returning to classes tomorrow. She collected her class work from both the day before and the day, then left and rid herself away in her dorm after a quick visit to the library to get a couple books on the topics she'd missed in class. She pored herself into her work, littering her bed with worksheets, textbooks, note parchment and notebooks.
She spent hours secluded in her room, slowly she worked through two days of Charms work and Transfiguration work, her Potions homework, she slipped over History of Magic. Valerie could never manage to pay attention whenever Professor Binns spoke, so she always made sure to read extensively on whatever subject he was teaching before he taught it. It made things easier, and the fact that it allowed her to maintain her perfect grade while nearly ninety percent of the class were failing. And while Professor Bennett never assigned her anything, Valerie pored over their latest topic of study, the Patonus charm. She herself was a very capable witch, and it had taken her a year and several months to successfully cast a corporeal patronus. To say it was difficult would be a massive understatement. There wasn't much she could do for her Herbology class, it was all mainly interactive work. The only reason she was almost failing Herbology, and by failing she meant her Outstanding dropping to an Exceeds Expectations. They were repotting some self-fertilising shrubs into Professor Ramos's garden, it was an agonisingly slow process that takes several days per shrub. So each student got one and that meant she was missing lunch in order to make up for today and catch up. For Study of Ancient Runes she translated a short verse with relative ease and swiftness that made her annoyed at all those in her class complaining about how difficult the work was. As for Care of Magical Creatures, she didn't even bother opening up her Monster Book, she'd studied it cover to cover over the holidays before school had started.
Her potions essay on Amortentia, the dangers of love was due on Thursday. And by the time she'd managed to stop herself procrastinating with her school work, her stomach was nearly convulsing as she hadn't been eating all day, too busy with finding out that she could never be with Rufus again unless she was ok with watching him self-destruct.
Valerie began meticulously packing away her books and papers. She sorted them in order of classes she had the next day, carefully arranging each pages till she was perfectly happy with how they were sitting in her notebook in her bag. And the moment she sat down on her bed, she was up again, pacing the room. Her train of thought had run its circuit and it was suddenly back, flooding her mind with the fact that her and Rufus-no, her and any man were over. She had no future after Hogwarts. Her family line was doomed to die with her and although the thought was terrible, maybe that was a good thing. The Rosier family tree was littered with mental illnesses, why not let it end with her? Valerie threw her Monster Book across the room, it screeched and struggled beneath it's bindings. She sat back down on her bed and swept her wand. Her curtains snapped shut and then she flicked her wand twice, a silencing charm. Valerie fell asleep beneath several layers of blankets with her face nestled into her chest and her knees tucked up. She slept with her wand under her pillow and her hand reaching up, under the pillow, ready to make a grab at a moments notice.
And about half an hour later when dinner had finished, the door opened and she was nudged awake by Felix. Felix was a Norwegian forest cat with a thick coat of black fluff and intelligent yellow eyes. He nudged her again with his forehead and Valerie straightened out a little, Felix paced in a circle for a moment, before settling down with his spine pressed into her stomach. Together they fell asleep once more with Valerie scratching the cats chin till he was purring like a motor.