NO MORE A PRETENDER~ {The Lestrange Daughter #3}

𝟏𝟔. Trauma

Valentine and Draco we're on their way to lunch. They'd skipped Herbology as per usual and expected to meet the others in the Great Hall. 

They walked in silence, shoulder to shoulder. Nothing to say and Draco lacking the energy to make a single comment. A younger Gryffindor student hurried past them with their head down and he didn't even bother to spare a sneer at them. 

They turned the corner on their right and stepped into a fairly crowded corridor, the lunchtime traffic heading in the same direction as them. 

There was a break in the crowd and Valentine spotted Leah, standing taller than the bulk of the students. She nudged Draco and gestured to Leah just as the other girl bumped right into Ginny Weasley. 

Leah opened her mouth to say something but when she saw who it was her face changed. She froze, startled, and taken off her guard. 

Ginny, however, was not. 

"Watch where you're going!"

"It-it was an accident!" Leah exclaimed.

"Whatever." Ginny scoffed. "Haven't you got innocent children to torture or something?"

Leah's face fell further, eyes wide as the words sunk in. 

Valentine was the first to move but it was Draco that shouted down the corridor to their friend.

"Leah!" 

The many students caught in the wrong place at the wrong time either hurried away or flattened themselves against the walls. 

"Val, Draco!" Leah suddenly found herself and scurried towards them.

"Oh, of course." Ginny scoffed loudly so everyone could hear. "Just runoff to the other psychos like the coward you are!"

Valentine's gaze zoned in on the redhead, eyes blazing as Leah clung to Draco's side, him throwing an arm around her shoulders. Valentine wanted to get out of this situation before things got out of hand but she had the inkling that Ginny might have been looking for a fight.

"Shut your fucking mouth, Weasley!" She scowled. "You should make a run for it yourself before I make you regret it."

Ginny crossed her arms over her chest, chin raised defiantly. From her perspective, she was doing what she thought was right. Fighting back. Resisting against a malevolent force that literally wanted her and many others dead. She wasn't entirely wrong, but Valentine saw the way Leah was blinking back tears and it made it hard to see Ginny as someone to cheer on at that moment. Leah didn't want this, even if she didn't have the strength to fight back herself, whether against this one headstrong girl or the war as a whole.

"I don't run," Ginny said jaw set firmly.

"You should." Said Draco, a true disdain returning to his voice that almost made him sound like his old self. 

"Oh, and why's that?" Ginny almost laughed. "Are you going to set your cousin on me, Malfoy? We almost beat her once and the only reason we didn't was that she turned tail and ran. That's just proof she's not the invincible monster everyone thinks she is!"

Both Draco and Leah looked to Valentine in surprise. They hadn't been there the night she and the other Death Eaters had crashed the party at The Burrow. They didn't know that she'd been cornered and Ginny didn't know that she'd only ran to spare her and the Weasley family injury. 

"Val? Leah?" Blaze suddenly appeared behind them, Liam at his side. "What's going on?"

Leah's lip immediately dropped and she flung herself at him.