Dum Spiro Spero

Chapter Ten - Good Misfortune

"I don't know anything!" Valeria screamed, tears streaming down her face. "I told you everything."

"I'm sure you have, sweetheart," Alecto Carrow said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. He pulled back his hand and struck her, making her head spin. Amycus cackled as she circled Valeria.

All interrogations were conducted in the Hogwarts dungeons, forever scarring Valeria's memories of the historic castle. It had been a few days since she was captured after the Battle; they locked her to a chair in a classroom to determine if she was still worth keeping around or just an enemy of the Dark Lord.

She was mainly tortured by the Carrow siblings, occasionally seeing the Dark Lord through the door window, overseeing the process. They seemed to do this with all of the pureblood students they deemed worthy of keeping alive.

"How can I have known what Potter was up to, I was at school this whole year! You've seen me, I never associated with the traitors anyway!" Valeria cried. Telling the truth was never going to work; she needed to convince them otherwise. "I was threatened into helping them, I swear!"

She made eye contact with Alecto and let him search her mind. While he thought he was good at legilimency, she was better at occlumency. He saw exactly what Valeria needed him to and left the room. Amycus took it upon herself to use crucio in his absence.

"That will be enough," a cold voice said, and Valeria's heart pounded. She sat up straight despite her body aching. In walked the Dark Lord himself, his scarlet eyes finding hers. She felt the tickle of legilimency again and hoped she didn't make a mistake.

She felt the rope binding her raw wrists behind her suddenly disappear and she brought her hands close to her chest, babying them.

"Your Dark Lord has decided to be most generous and spare your blood from being spilled," Voldemort said, twisting his wand in his gangly fingers. Valeria's eyes followed the Elder Wand emotionlessly. "Bow down."

She slipped out of the chair and got on her knees, her face almost touching the ground. "And thank your Lord."

"Thank you, my Lord," she said through gritted teeth. She waited until she saw his feet leave the room to sit up again. Alecto roughly made her stand up by grabbing her shoulder.

"Your possessions will be on the train, you're leaving today. And don't forget that you were spared, so don't fuck it up."

...

Valeria groaned and tried to lift her hand to rub her head, which throbbed. She quickly realized that she was still tied down and started panicking. Her eyes were flicking around, adjusting to her surroundings. She was alone in a tent with a single lantern hanging over her. She started trying to figure out a way to untie herself, until she heard faint voices outside.

The tent flap opened and she made eye contact with the infamous Hermione Granger. Tears instinctively came to Valeria's eyes. She had done it. She found them.

"I almost didn't believe it," Hermione said, shifting her focus to Valeria's head. Her ropes slacked enough for her to sit up. The moment she tried, black dots formed in her vision. "Hold on. I need to change your wound dressing and then I have some potions."

"I have some in my bag. You don't need to use your stockpile," Valeria croaked. Hermione left without a word and came back with the proper supplies. She gave her a vial with a foul smell and proceeded to change the dressing.