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

𝟑𝟖. Terminal

TRIGGER WARNING; Contains themes of torture, gore (descriptions of broke bones) and suicidal thoughts.

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Flashes of black scales and bright eyes flickered across the back of Valentine's lids as she woke with a sudden start. She found Snape standing over her with an equally stunning expression, one hand frozen in mid-air, reaching for her shoulder.

Valentine blinked rapidly through misplaced locks of hair as the finer details of her nightmare quickly faded. She frowned at Snape's hand and sent him a dirty look. 

"What the hell are you gawking at?"

Snape immediately dropped his hand with a sneer. 

"Afternoon classes commence in fifteen minutes." He replied dryly. 

"Arg..." Valentine groaned in response and curled herself further into the armchair, closing her eyes again and ignoring how a flash of white fangs flashed through her mind. 

"You're still a student if you've somehow forgotten." Snape rolled his eyes at her behaviour. 

"Yes, but a very scary student that won't be missed if she skips a class or two." 

"Do you wish to become stupid?"

"Do you wish to have your ass set on fire?" 

It had been a week and a half since the Carrow's replacement. Amycus had still not been found and the news Valentine had received from the Snatcher's said nothing but that Harry, Ron and Hermione had recently passed through a small village northeast of Wiltshire. 

In the meantime, Valentine had been ditching near every class excepting Muggle Studies and Dark Arts, meaning Draco had been as well. For the first time since the beginning of the year, McGonagall had scolded them for it but even she could do little to them. Valentine liked to think that every class she skipped was one that the students got to spend without her, which to them should have been accepted with a sigh of relief. When she wasn't with Draco and the others, laying about the common room or walking the halls unhindered, she was in the Head Masters office as she was now, simply existing in a space in which she didn't have to be anything but tired and grumpy. After all, if Snape was going to be the same, who was he to judge her for it? Lately, though, since she'd spent more time in the office in the last week than she usually would in two, he had been getting on his educational high horse. 

He insisted that she still attend classes lest her brain rot away in her skull. Which, as Valentine knew without a doubt, was him telling her to get lost. It was one of the more subtle ways he had done so. 

"You have Transfiguration's next, don't you?" Snape crossed his arms over his chest. "No longer able to keep up with McGonagall's pace, Lestrange?"

Valentine cracked open a single eye to glare at him. 

"Do you actually enjoy being this much of a jerk or do you just not know any other way to act?"

"That's none of your business." He turned from her briskly. "I'll be back in an hour. If you're still here when I return-"

"Whatever." Valentine cut him off with a huff. "What even are you? My fucking mother?"

"I'm afraid I'm a little too sane for that position."

"You're melodramatic enough though." 

"One hour, Lestrange!" The door slammed behind him and Valentine glared wearily at it. 

She sank down further in the armchair with a growl. She found that once he left her need to stay in the room did as well. Not that she would ever admit to such an abominously heinous crime aloud.