Bright light... Sunshine.

Enough to wake Valerie up from her peaceful slumber.

When she opened her eyes, she saw the room she was in and the redhead remembered everything that had happened yesterday. She'd ran away from her 'friends', hid in a tree, was found by Walden and was brought here. Here, a house of an unknown friend of Walden, whom she wouldn't get to see or even thank.

Valerie sighed, and sat up, honestly not wanting to get out of bed. The girl yawned loudly and stretched, before she finally did get up and walked over to one of the windows.

A big, unkempt garden, with all kinds of unknown plants growing in all kinds of places. Strangely though, Valerie didn't see any specifically magical plants, only those which were common in the Muggle world. Intriguing.

Valerie spent some more time looking at the obvious battle the plants were fighting, the bigger ones casting shadows over the smaller plants, killing them in the process. She tried to figure out where certain parts of plants began or ended and tried to see small animals crawling through the foliage.

"Valerie? Are you awake yet?," a voice asked from the other side of the door.

Valerie ran up to the door and opened it, standing face-to-face with Walden Macnair, a bit of surprise on his face. He quickly reverted to a more neutral expression, and Valerie could see bags under his quite red eyes.

Concerned, Valerie looked up at him. "Did you get any sleep at all last night?"

As surprise made a return on his face, Walden walked back into the room which was still very dark, to sit on one of the previously conjured chairs. Valerie left the door to the bedroom open, so there'd be light, and went to sit down opposite Walden, keeping the concerned expression on her face.

Eventually, Walden gave in. "I didn't get much sleep last night, no. I had to take care of... something. But you look fine, so I'm guessing you slept fine?"

Valerie smiled brightly. "Yes, I did. The bed was the most comfortable thing I've ever laid on. This night's sleep has probably been the best I've had in a while."

Walden smiled tiredly. "That's good. Oh, also, the house-elves washed your clothes yesterday, and they accidentally took your bag as well," he said, as he held out the bag the redhead had been carrying the day before. "The elves who were responsible for you have been properly punished, and nothing in your bag has been touched at all."

Valerie took the bag and looked through the contents anyway, just to make sure nothing was taken. It seemed like everything, most importantly, Tom's diary was still in there, so Valerie looked back up to Walden, when he started talking again: "There was something you'd like to discuss?"

Valerie looked down at her feet. "Yeah... Ummm... where to start though..."

"Preferably at the beginning." Walden said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Right," Valerie said, thinking hard. "So, one of my friends told me that her parents were Death Eaters..." When only silence followed that statement, Valerie continued. "Another one thought it was a good idea to suggest to me that I should also just kneel before You-Know-Who and become a slave, because she thought that the Death Eater friend was doing the right thing and I wasn't."

"But she didn't word it in that way, did she? It's just what you make of it, right?," Walden asked, and Valerie nodded. "Go on then."

"Well, that's basically most of it. I can kind of handle a friend of mine believing something else than I do, but them pushing me down a path I can't go is much more difficult."

Walden looked at Valerie as if she was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. "So, let me get this straight. You pretty much hate most of your family and love your friend, but you'd rather fight against your friend than against your family?"

"Well, it's still family, i guess..? I especially don't want to hurt Percy, besides, it's not just about that. Fighting for the dark side would mean that I would have to kill and torture Wizards, Witches and mostly Muggles. The fourth friend in our group is a muggleborn witch. She wouldn't be accepted, only killed. I myself am seen as a blood traitor. We would never be able to be accepted."

Walden lifted an eyebrow. "If you were to truly switch sides, I think the side you'd switch to would happily accept any help they could get. You're good at Transfigurations, right?"

Valerie nodded, but then shook her head. "But You-Know-Who tortures those who joined his side! He scares them into obedience! You couldn't work for someone like that!"

Walden chuckled. "Valerie, I think Dumbledore exaggerates those things a little bit. What has he told you exactly?"

Valerie tilted her head in confusion. "I've never had a face-to-face conversation with Dumbledore. I've heard everything from my parents, why?"

"From what I have heard, your information isn't completely right."

Valerie frowned at Walden. "What, do you have first-hand experience?"

Then, the loud cracking sound of apparition was heard, and looking behind her, Valerie saw a pale man with straw-colored hair and freckles.

He looked at Valerie with a surprised expression, which soon turned to a smirk, and then directed his attention to the man opposite her. "Walden, we should go."

Walden nodded and got up. "I'll take you back to school later this afternoon, alright?," he said, as he smiled at Valerie. After she nodded, both men disapparated, leaving Valerie alone again.

Who was that guy? Was that the owner of the house? "Should've thanked him while I had the chance..."

After staying in the dark room for a little longer, Valerie got up and walked into the bathroom to do her 'business'.

Coming out of the bathroom, she entered the bedroom again, where she found the clothes of the day before, obviously washed. She slowly put them on, used a detangling charm on her hair and sat down on the bed... What to do now?

… Ah, right!

Valerie reached for her bag, took out Tom's diary, a quill and a bottle of ink. After dipping the tip of the quill into the ink, she put it on a random page in the little book.

'Tom?'

After a few seconds, a reply appeared: 'Yes?'

'What do you think of this whole business?'

'Why do I have to weigh in on this?'

Valerie sighed. 'Because I'm interested in what you'd say.'

'Just give the whole thing some time and think everything over. Besides, the guy made pretty good points. Think about those. Besides, you still have to do something for me.'

Valerie facepalmed. "Oh right, I forgot... With all that happened yesterday, I didn't get to talk about this... Well, I'll just do it now," she said as she took a sheet of parchment out of her bag. Looking it over, she picked her quill back up. 'Do you think I'd be allowed to make this here?'

Again, it took a few seconds. 'I don't think the owner would mind. Besides, you can just open the windows to let out the smoke.'

"Right." At that, she got up to open up the windows, although only one opened, and it opened just a little bit. She sighed as she looked at it. "Oh well, it'll have to do..."

Then, the redhead took out a reduced cauldron and used an Engorgement Charm to get it back to its normal size. She took out her knife, a mortar and pestle and her scales, as well as her ingrediënts: A jar of cockroaches, Graphorn Hide, Hellebore, a jar of leeches, Fluxweed, a Runespoor egg, a jar of valerian and a jar of peppermint.

Valerie then got everything set up on the ground, putting the recipe next to the open diary, in case Tom had something to point out. She then took her knife and started cutting Fluxweed in the smallest pieces she could manage to do.

'Be careful with this. It's a high-level Potion.'

"I will, don't worry."

As she continued very carefully, she wondered out loud. "Should I get the ingredients ready right now, or do they have to be added immediately after readying them?"

It took Tom a little while to answer, during which the Fluxweed was being taken care of. 'You could, but only the valerian and the peppermint. The rest has to be done right before adding them.'

"Alright..," the redhead said, as she put the fluxweed aside and moved on to cutting both the valerian and the peppermint as small as she could.

After she spent a few minutes on each of the ingredients, she grabbed the cauldron, walked to the bathroom and filled it a little with water. She then walked back, put it in its place and let it warm up the water inside. While it was warming up, Valerie retrieved a glass ladle from her bag.

'I'll warn you once more. Be incredibly careful.'

"Okay Tom, I got it."

She then lowered the cut Fluxweed into the cauldron with her ladle and stirred clockwise three times. She then had to wait 30 seconds before the next step. She grabbed the jar of live cockroaches, opened it and took out two, which she dropped into her potion the moment the 30 seconds had passed. She already laid out the Graphorn Hide, so she could start cutting that the moment she'd added the valerian, which was now. She scattered the herb over the whole surface of the potion, then stirred counter-clockwise five times.

She then took the Graphorn Hide and sliced it in very thin, very long pieces. She then put the five thinnest pieces in front of the cauldron and, since she still had two minutes left, she put away the rest of the hide and already put her Hellebore in her Mortar, and put the pestle next to it.

Right as she reached the two-minute-mark, she added the strings of hide into the Cauldron one by one, and then stirred clockwise four times, which now stained the potion blood-red. Right after that, she started pulverizing the Hellebore. Adding and stirring it turned the potion colorless again, although none of the ingredients could be seen at all now.

She now grabbed the Runespoor egg, breaking it and leaking a bit of its white into a small, weightless cup, and as she put it on her scales, she tried finding the exact weight of 5.1 grams, and, after she found it, she poured the liquid into the cauldron, putting the rest of the egg against something so it wouldn't fall over.

Valerie now had to just let it cook for half an hour, so she started cleaning up the supplies she wouldn't need anymore. After ten minutes she was already done however, and she sat down to write in the diary. 'So, how am I doing?'

'As far as I can see, you're doing fairly well. Everything is going like it's supposed to go, but the leech is the most important part. Don't mess that one up.'

Valerie started wondering about something, and decided to write it out.

'What does this potion do exáctly?'