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Valerie Grindelwald had been staring at her acceptance letter for nearly half an hour.
"This has to be some cruel joke," she murmured. There was no chance they were willing to take in the granddaughter of history's most notorious dark wizards. After all, blood was thicker than water.
Her ice blue eyes blinked back to life, realising the letter was going up in flames. She frantically patted the fire out with her hands, shoulders slumping when the lower half of her requirements list had already been burned off.
'Watch me set the bloody school on fire on my first day there.' Valerie let out a defeated sigh as she fell back onto her bed. Flopping over to the side, she peered at the golden key sitting on the bedside table, glistening like an ominous warning.
One of the guards had given it to her earlier that morning, claiming it was from her grandfather. Everything was ominous when it came to him. There was no explanation of its usage whatsoever– just that she was to bring it with her to London.
Part of her wanted to disobey out of spite.
"T'was quite the long journey ter get here!" Valerie heard a foreign voice bellow from outside. It was the gamekeeper, the man so unluckily tasked to escort her on her first trip out of Austria.
She hesitated for a moment, though already at the door. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed the key anyway, before trudging out the castle.
The man was nothing like she had expected. He was easily twice her size, passing as some sort of little giant. The jolly grin on his face only widened when he noticed her arrival.
"Ye must be Valerie," he spoke as he approached her, accent thicker than his fur coat. "The name's Rubeus Hagrid."
Valerie looked from him to his outstretched hand, but made no move to shake it.
Hagrid played it off with a hearty chuckle. "S'alright, I get it. Formalities are overvalued. Now c'mon, we've got lots ter do and little time ter do so."
Amused, Valerie followed the strange man out of the castle. The opened gates were a rare sight, though thrilling as always. Beyond it, a curious vehicle was parked on the cliff's edge. It looked like a larger bicycle, with a seat conjoined to its side. Even on one of her trips to the nearby village, she had never seen anything quite like it.
Hagrid was panting by the time they reached the vehicle. "A real gem, this ol'- uh oh."
A squashed box lay on his bike seat. Gingerly picking it up, he muttered profanities under his breath. "Would yer mind holding this fer me, Miss Valerie? Slipped my mind and sat on the poor thing."
The girl kept the box on her lap, but remained silent as they got ready for take-off.
"Fasten yer seatbelts!" Hagrid twisted the handle, and the engine roaring to life. They began speeding toward the edge of the cliff, and Valerie clutched the box tighter, knowing it was a hundred-foot drop that lie ahead. To her utmost relief, the motorbike had managed a shaky starting flight.
