Feedback is greatly appreciated. This is not beta'd so I apologize for any errors. I haven't written anything in awhile so I'm probably a bit rusty. Please be patient with me. Thank you.
Thoughts are in italic.
Valaria (Val-air-ee-uh)
The students of Hogwarts knew something was coming. They had felt the tension growing with each year as Harry Potter and his friends fought the danger which had barely touched the other students. This year, the golden trio were gone and many Hogwarts students wondered if they'd taken the war away with them. He Who Must Not Be Named wants Potter; he wouldn't bother Hogwarts now. This is a safe haven. This is a school filled with children, not warriors. Potter, Weasley, and Granger were the fighters. They'd proven that several times over.
Now, the child soldiers had left Hogwarts.
But war has a way of turning all children into warriors. Of stealing away into the safety of ones home. Of breaking and ripping until the child is gone and all that remains is a battered soldier.
Valeria Torres was no soldier. She was a gentle hufflepuff who excelled in herbology and transfiguration. No one could possibly expect the black haired foreigner to fight for a land that wasn't her own. Oh, but they were wrong. The memories of her homeland, Mexico, were muddled and blurry. England though, that was no haven for Valeria either. The Brits hadn't been very fond of her immigrant family. But this puff persevered and bit her tongue when the complaints threatened to spill out. She translated for her parents everywhere they went and felt eyes burning holes into her too dark skin.
At eleven years old, an owl appeared at her window. A man shortly arrived later on to explain the entire ridiculous situation. She translated and felt a sinking feeling in her gut. Valeria had been so careful to keep her oddness hidden. When her dolls began dancing, she'd thrown them away. If her crayons changed colors, she stopped drawing. But this small child hadn't been good enough, had she? She'd slipped up sometime and now the government was going to take her away forever.
Valeria had to be dragged to Kings Cross station. She cried on the train and thought about her little brother. Who would sing to him when he had nightmares? She sat alone the entire ride.
It wasn't until she had received her first letter from home that Valeria began to accept her new life. The puffs sitting next to her at breakfast asked about the letter written in Spanish. Right then and there, Valeria said, "My family is from Mexico. We moved to England when I was eight." A rock was stuck in her throat. She waited to feel the stares but none came. Looking up, she noticed that no one seemed to care where she came from. At least no one in her immediate vicinity. A conversation had begun about the possibility of charming a cupcake to make it taste like pudding. She was in the world of magic now. This was her world.
The muggle world, a land of prejudice and racism, was behind her.
But as the years went by, Valeria had seen muggle-borns petrified by a basilisk that wasn't supposed to exist. She'd heard the howls of a werewolf and hid under her covers trying not imagine the horrors befalling those outside the castle. Fourth year, she'd cheered for Cedric Diggory and then stared at his lifeless eyes and listened to his father wail. The year after, Valeria had seen Potter and his friends riding away from the castle on odd skeletal horses. The thought of following floated through her mind for a mere second before she went back to her dorm and climbed under the covers wondering if today was the day Harry Potter would die. She felt safe under her covers, in her dorm, surrounded by her fellow puffs. When The Boy Who Lived continued to live, she refused to feel guilty for not following him to the Ministry. I'm not a fighter, she thought. I wouldn't have been any help. I would have just gotten in the way.
The papers told a different story than the one she saw in his green eyes. They named him The Boy Who Lies. Valeria observed from the background as students cut Potter with their words and whispered behind his back. When other puffs asked her if she believed Potter, she skillfully changed the subject.
Valeria paid no mind to the tears that streamed down her face when she saw Potter crying over another dead body. Her feet moved of their own accord as she pushed her way through the crowd. Valeria wasn't used to pushing then, she was a wallflower and perfectly happy with observing from the background thank you very much. Yet here she was, shoving at her peers because she had always been short and needed visual confirmation that ... that the shattered body on the ground wasn't ... Whispers floated around her but she refused to listen. They spoke of a wizard falling from a tower. No, not falling. Being pushed. No, he wasn't pushed he had fallen. How had he fallen? Ah, but it wasn't the fall that killed him. What was it then? Snape. Snape. Snape. Snape.
The students around her faded away as she caught sight of Headmaster Dumbledore's face.
At the end of her fourth year, when the Triwizard Tournament had ended along with Cedric's life, Valeria had ignored her fellow puffs who wanted to mourn together. She had pulled on her favorite pair of fuzzy socks and thought I hope I never see another dead body again. But she had seen the broken body of Albus Dumbledore only two years later. Again, she hoped to never see death again. But she was just a child and had yet to learn that death is always hungry and will feast on whoever it can regardless of what a young girl wants.
In her seventh year, Valeria would witness more death than most see in a lifetime.