Depths of Despair ✶ Theodore Nott

fifty one. walk the tightrope and survive

this is not proof-read, feel free to point out typos and such :)

Valerie Leclere had expected anger. Yelling. Reprimands. She had expected disappointment, for James Potter to call her a traitor and turn his back on her. It was what her mother had threatened to do when told that Valerie wished not to join Voldemort. She had screamed and cursed and hit, and Valerie had flinched before crumbling.

The tears immediately rolling down her face were embarrassing. You are not meant to cry, Valeire. Olenna's voice echoed at the back of her mind: haunting her. Taunting her. Emotions are a weakness, you'd do best to hide them.

But the sight of her father was too much, and suddenly Valerie felt as if she was suffocating again. The mark upon her arm burned, and the guilt building up within her chest stung, but then she was suddenly embraced by strong arms: the warmth of a body shielding her from the cold. A breath got caught halfway down Valerie's throat, surprise putting a halt to the sadness.

What was going on?

And James Potter must have taken notice to his daughter's hitching breath, for he began running a hand up and down her back: believing it to be caused by the tears. "Hey, hey, it's okay."

Wait, what?

Suddenly, confusion overruled the sobs threatening to exit past her lips, and almost outraged Valerie detangled herself from her father's embrace: looking at him as if he had entirely lost the last fragment of his sanity. "Wha—," she spluttered, only to realize that perhaps she had been wrong. Perhaps he didn't know, perhaps Dumbledore hadn't told him. It was wrong of her, and she promised herself to apologize for it afterwards, however with little hesitation did she dive inside his mind: his barriers, as always, dangerously weak and easy to surpass.

Rummaging through memory after memory, not paying any attention to any of them (wishing not to invade on his privacy) did she search for one which would tell her whether she should expect disowning or not, however his mind was chaos and she found it difficult to orientate herself.

James studied her closely, and it took little effort to know what she was doing. He was not angry: no, instead he decided to help her along the way, surfacing a memory in particular which he could only assume to be the one she was searching for - watching her expression immediately go from surprised to terrified.

No. Valerie swallowed down a whimper, as she took in what he had just showed her. A letter dropped before him when sat at the dinner table with Lily. Dumbledore's handwriting. Him excusing himself, leaving the room before opening. Dread. Sadness.... Concern?

He knew, and Valerie instantly felt fear weight down her shoulder, felt every breath of hers become heavy and strained as she struggled to inhale and then exhale properly. He knew. He knew everything. She wanted to scream, curse and punch something all at once: she wanted to condemn the universe for making yet another person likely to turn their back on her, she wanted to cast the foulest of hexes upon the Hogwarts headmaster for not keeping his mouth shut...

But then the realized that she sounded too much like her mother in her reasoning. Screaming, cursing and hitting was something that Olenna did. Not Valerie. Condemning the universe for things that were entirely her own fault and using magic as an outlet for her anger was something that her mother did when unwilling to take responsibility for her own wrongdoings, and so Valerie immediately silenced that part of her brain - disgusted with herself for even thinking of resorting to similar tendencies.