The following year

the crack in the game

All around her is darkness, she can't see anything except the slight shimmer of a candle at the other end of the room. Her body sitz astonished in the corner, trembling from fear. Her hands entangled above her head a tear drips down her eye, absorbed by her soiled shirt. She doesn't let a sound aout of her mouth ans is caged inside the silence of her head.

Due to a slight sound she crouches together even more, tries paniced to see anithing in the surrounding darknes. And there he is. 'He's coming!' screams the voice inside of her skull, her eyes wide open she sees his hand. Bloodstained it shoots out of the darkness and graps her by her hair, pulles her up until she can't feel the ground underneath her feel anymore. She tries to escape the grip along with screaming and crying but without success. He carrys her to the middle of the room, the face which shows in the faint candle light, grins at her. The eyes tarnished in red, the madness inside is reflected on his face. This view would be embedded inside her Brain for eternity, always underneath  the surface of her clear head.

She can hear bludcurdling screams, to surpress the pain her sight darkens... and she falls. She is falling depper and deeper inside the groundless nothing.

Vall shoots up from her sleep and sits straight on top of her bed now, still shaking. It is late at night, if she would't have got the single room for herself she would have awoken the whole room. Chi already knows of this side of her and wants to help but Vall stays silent. He had learned in the past that in these moments it would be better to let her be, like he does now.  She didn't have this particular dream for a long time. Vall takes a deep breath and gets out of bed. She goes to her trunk, gets dressed and leaves the room without making any further noices the common room. Ariiving outside she heads to the dungeons to her right. After multiple bends, some to the left, others to the right, she stands in front of a closed door. She pulls out the key from her pocket and opens the heavy wooden door. Behind it comes a big trainingshall to view with multiple training dummies on the far end. To her left lays a whole lot of them scattered on the ground, broken. She draws out her wand and lights the ceiling with a flick of her hand so that every corner of the bis room gets filled with light. The one who had shown her this room was professor Hecat, on the evening of their first dinner together. It was her too who helped Vall with the needed paperwork for her change of the schoole. Dinah Hecat knows her story and had helped her back in the day to get back on her feet, live a normal life. This is the purpose of the room inside the maze of the dungeons. Vall throws her jacket into a corner and places herself in the middle of the room, again takes a deep breath. The shudder vanishes. As she opens her eyes again her gaze is highly concentraited, she lets the dummies surround her and lets her feelings completely free. Rumble and crashing can be heard anf feld through the doors down the corridor.

As the sun is rising Vall sneaks back into her room, Chi already awats her. >Better now?< He slides off his cussion on the sidetable to her feet and climbs up her legs. >That is what I needed.< Whith a lost glance she takes a look inside the mirror. Her black hair framing her pale face, her dark eyes stare back at her, as if she was searching somthing behind her. She had lasted fos such a long time without an incident, distracted by the presence of her new friends, their stories about advantures of the last schoolyear. It had helped her to push it away for a while.

Chi brushes around her neck and cuddles up to her, trying to give her strength. Without further words Vall leaves together with the other Slytherin-stundends for breakfast. Garreth takes up a little stunt on the neighboring desk, this time for some cute Hufflepuffs.

Until their sheduled visit to Hogemeade everything went smoothly, the first big tests were held. Sebastian regreted that he couldn't master professor Sharps required posion which he completle bombed. Kiri took every test without major problems and took the chance inteasing her friends to the fullest. The bright mood spreads like an epidemic through the whole group, Chi and Ominis didn't get spared also. Ominis got so used to the little snake that he sometimes even carried it with him though the day inside of his bag.