VALERA: PART ONE

Hello, everyone! Another chappie, even though I only got one review! (Thanks, by the way...) And so I shall have to plead on my knees: Please! Please review! I need it like Ryuk needs apples! ( If you don't get the reference, check out the anime "Death Note"- it's awesome!) And in case you feel the need to comment upon it- Yes, I am aware that in some circles the name Valera is considered a boy's name. But not in this story. So there!

Valera shivered. After ringing the doorbell one last time, her mother wrapped the cloak more closely around them and smiled sadly down at her three year old baby.

In all of Valera's short life, she had not seen her mother smile once without the mysterious sadness tainting it. Now, as her mother stood carrying her in front of a great mahogany door, the sadness seemed to have intensified to include even the grey, drizzling sky.

Even the man who finally opened the door seemed to fit in with the mood. Dressed in uniform black, he looked starch and stern to her toddler mind. The impression was confirmed by the wide-eyed look he gave her mother.

Regally dressed as always with robes in velvet the exact colour of her blue eyes, Valera's mother was a sight not easily forgotten. Valera in one hand and her wand in another, she wasn't exactly following the statute of secrecy.

The man's look, however, saw to the core, to her mother's harried eyes and the tired slump in her shoulders.

"What are you doing here?" He hissed, and countermanded himself by pulling them inside the houses grand interior.

"Not a word from you since schooldays, and now you show up with- with a baby!" The surprise and hurt on the man's face was quickly replaced by anger.

"Zaphira, whatever have you been up to? The aurors at my office say you're a death eater! Twenty aurors disappeared after entering your mansion, and some say You-know-who himself was there!"

Valera's mother collapsed into a chair with Valera on her lap.

"This is Valera, William, my daughter," she said without further aplomb.

"I've been hiding out here and there since the fall of The Dark Lord, but the aurors suddenly caught on my trail, and I didn't have anywhere else to go. Please, cousin…Please don't send us away?"

Valera watched William with fascination. He certainly seemed to be much more than her first impression had suggested, although she was slightly put out that he hadn't reacted to the introduction the same way everyone else did, namely, by melting at the very sight of her.

As she observed him, the conversation continued.

"You have changed a great deal since Hogwarts, Zaphira, and so have I. Back then I would, without a doubt, have taken you in. Now I am an auror, and you…?

I don't know what you are anymore. You come here with your baby, which I haven't heard a word about before know, with aurors hot at your heels and ask for asylum, by the way calling You-know-who The Dark Lord-only death eaters do that!"

He paused for breath, but did not continue, apparently unable to describe his conundrum any further. In the meantime, Valera's mother had risen from her chair, leaving Valera behind.

"I am no death eater, William." Her voice was heated.

"I am no mugglekiller, and neither was my father, although I admit he sympathized with the wrong side."

"What of the aurors? What happened to the ministry-trained wizards who disappeared at your place? There are too many inconsistencies, Zaphira. I am sorry, but you must leave."

Valera was three years old. She had not understood every detail of the last twenty-four hours,but she understood enough that when tears started down her mothers face, she knew things were bad.

Her approach to something bad was to cry, which in this case meant bawling at the top of her small lungs.

If nothing else, at least she came into the centre of attention again.

Mother hushed her and carried her around the room, William frowned and asked who her father was, and out of the blue someone rang the doorbell.

In a flash William grabbed them and ushered the suddenly quiet pair into the next room. They listened in silent dread as the visitors identified themselves to Cousin William, or Mr Rutherford as they called him, as aurors looking for Zaphira Gerane.

The next Valera new, they were tip-toeing out of the backdoor, which always seems to be there when the hero or heroine is in need.

Valera sighed, content at being out of the house of that horrid man. Mother sighed, and was not so happy. In fact she looked more worried than ever, and was constantly checking the dank and gloomy backyard with her ever-swivelling head.

Eventually, all she got was a split-second warning. Out of the blue, a red bolt hurtled toward them. Valera was hurled behind a garbage-bin while her mother exchanged spells with the aurors who had waited at the back.

Zaphira's ebony-black wand was blurred with the rapidness of which she put it to use. As the aurors fell back, it almost seemed as if Valera and her mother would manage to escape again.

But the sounds of combat had attracted the wizards inside William's house and they came running, just as Zaphira was about to disapparate to safety.

A jinx from behind hit mother in the shoulder, and she collapsed.

Valera could not believe her eyes. How could mother fall? Mother was invincible!

Now running toward them from all sides, the aurors confiscated mother's wand and conjured a stretcher which they levitated her onto. When mother disappeared behind a gaggle of wizards, Valera became desperate. Mother was gone! Valera had never been away from mother before, it had been too dangerous, and now she was gone!

Her heart-wrenching wail cut through the air like a siren, and alerted the entire neighbourhood of her presence. A couple of witches started toward her, but the bad man, William, reached her first.

"It's her daughter," he explained quickly to the assembly.

"I'll take care of her, she has no other family."

Carrying her into the house he rocked and hushed her.

"Hush, you are safe now, the aurors won't do you anything."

The repeated stroking over the head and his soothing voice combined to calm Valera slightly. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all. But where was mother?

"Where is ma-ma?" She asked in a trembling voice.

"Ma-ma has… Gone on a little trip, Valera," he reassured her.

"She will be all right."

Checking that the coast was clear, he navigated them up a flight of stairs and into an old, dusty nursery that clearly hadn't been used for years. Opening the window he aired out the room and placed Valera in the crib.

After he had gone, Valera was left eyeing her new domain.

Lots of toys lay scattered in the corners, colourful pictures hung on the walls and children's-books stood in droves on the multiple bookshelves. All in all, it was the perfect children's nursery.

One picture especially caught Valera's attention.

At the very top of a bookshelf, its dusty frame contained a black-and white photography of a boy who had to be William, and at his side a laughing girl with white-blonde hair and blue eyes. Valera's mother!

Smiling and waving down at her, the much younger Zaphira did not show the least sign of the sadness which had emanated from her in the last years.

The sight of her lost mother caused Valera's eyes to fill with tears again, and as if sensing the threatening situation, Mr William Rutherford himself came bounding into the room with a children's bottle full to bursting with milk.

Immediately he spotted the offending picture and flattened it so it lay face-down on the shelf. Turning toward her he smiled.

"You will have to be brave a bit longer Valera; for I'm afraid you'll be staying here with me for some time, as I am your nearest relative…

But don't worry! Although I quarrelled a bit with your mother, we were friends, and I am sure we two can become friends too."

Trough her tears, Valera smiled. Staying with William 'till her mother returned didn't seem all that bad.

And as she smiled, the sun broke through the clouds.