Depths of Despair ✶ Theodore Nott

eighteen. the end is a new beginning

Never had Valerie been a fan of crowds, hence the reason her eyes trailed longingly toward the doors of the Hogwarts express: wishing to enter the train sooner rather than later considering students were lining up alongside her, pushing and shoving in hopes of moving forward with more efficiency.

     Difficult was maintaining her balance, however even more torturous was the unprotected thoughts of the teenagers around her. After merely two minutes upon arriving at the station, Valerie had developed a pounding headache — closing her own mind as well as she could, wincing every time waves of scattered images belonging not to her pushed past her protective walls: forcefully adding onto her already obvious distress.

     Kieran had noticed a long time that his best friend was not comfortable, and therefore grabbed a hold of the sleeve of her robes: pushing people out of the way to the extent that was possible, uttering, "I'm sorry," whenever he received a glare or some other display of disapproval.

     Valerie had tried protesting. "Kieran, I'm fine," had been the very first thing she spoke as reassurance when he began shoving their fellow students to the side, however he refused giving up — she suspected he felt just as uncomfortable in the crowd as she did, he'd never been a fan of small spaces.

     When finally able to enter the nearest carriage, Valerie made sure he let go of her robes by gently twisting herself out of his grip. After letting her gaze travel up and down the corridors of each direction, she motioned toward the left and said, "Let's go." The quest of finding an empty compartment was no challenge: after only walking ten steps Kieran let out a relieved sigh — reaching out a hand to push the door open.

     "Oh, thank god!"

     Valerie watched her best friend almost sink into the nearest seat: leaning his head back and closing his eyes for a moment or two. "You alright?" She asked, for the sake of being a good friend, and he immediately nodded.

     "I'm fine," he reassured. "I just hate crowds."

     Valerie, after focusing for a few seconds on reinstalling the protective shields around her mind to avoid unwanted use of her legilimency, sat down in the window seat across from Kieran — looking outside at the crown which seemed to have decreased in size. The majority of red-and-gold adorned students wore triumphant smiles, conversing with their friends or housemates with annoying lightheartedness.

     A sting of jealousy poked her mind: the teenage girl grimacing in bittersweet acceptance. Yet again had Gryffindor won the House Cup, even though it truly made no sense — as she recalled,  Slytherin or even Ravenclaw had gained more house points and lost far less than the Gryffindors, however if made no difference as of right now. They had lost, and maybe her perception of the matter was simply set askew.

     Rolling her eyes, she tore her eyes away from the few lingering Gryffindors outside of the carriage, and instead reached into her back for that day's copy of The Daily Prophet.

     Having no time at breakfast to read it, she'd simply folded it and saved it for later, however simply by glancing at the front page — spotting the headline — a shiver ran down her spine while she unknowingly bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.

     'Still no signs of Peter Pettigrew — the Ministry is putting the search of pause'. Long lines of text followed, included an interview with Cornelius Fudge followed, however Valerie was simply so annoyed at the mere mentioning of Pettigrew's name that she angrily flipped pages: instead ending up intrigued by an article concerning the luxurious Firebolt, describing its many upsides so well she was almost convinced to simply buy it for the fun of it.