"The marks humans leave are too often scars."
― John Green
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Warning: Dark themes in this chapter.
"You did WHAT?!"
I flinch at the surprise in my grandmother's tone. She was pacing. Back and Forth. Back and Forth. It was making me dizzy.
"He talked to you? Voldemort?" She demands and I nod slowly, silent as I watched the gears in her head work overtime. She sat down and looked ready to faint. Her face was pale, and she had started to fan herself.
"Grandma?" I question in concern. She brings a finger to her mouth, heavy in thought. She straightens up and then points at me with her index finger
"You can use necromancy?" She scoffs suddenly and starts muttering profanities under her breath.
"Nana? What's going on? Why are you so angry?"
Her eyes lock on mine, and she sees the extreme fear I was feeling. Her blue eyes soften. "You travelled through time, my sweet. You didn't see a vision."
My jaw drops, astounded. "Excuse me!?" I squeak, and she looks grim, nodding her head. "But I saw a vision! I know it! It was exactly like all the other times!" I argue, shaking my head, trying to find a practical reason in my head.
"It started out as a vision, yes, but it hurled you through time. That's why Voldemort was able to physically hurt you. You were there. You were standing right beside him."
Fear engulfs me in its choking grip. I shake my head desperately. "Grandma. Stop it!! That's not true. I did not meet the man who killed my parents." I gasp, staring up at her with wide eyes.
I touch my cheek. It still hadn't healed. It started to bleed again at night and continued till the early morning hours. "He talked to me. He told me I'd died." I stand up, running a hand through my hair, my wand behind my ear for safekeeping.
Grandma just stares at me in pity. "There has only been one other person who could do what you can, child." She tells me, and I look at her knowingly.
"It was you wasn't it?"
She nods and stares at me for a second before turning away and swearing under her breath.
"Necromancy." She breathes, making me look up at her.
"I can bring people back from the dead grandma. That's not normal." I sneer at myself. Helga Hufflepuff tsks under her breath and then looks at me.
"I can help you control the visions, but I'm clueless about bringing people back from the dead." I give her a deadpanned look.
"Isn't everyone!?"
She shrugs and decides to refill our teacups with sizzling tea. She waves her wand, and the cup floats towards me. I pluck it from the air and sigh. "Most people don't know anything about Necromancy. That's the worst magic one can use. You can't get darker magic than Necromancy." She mutters, taking a sip from her cup.
I copy her, and the warm tea soothes the inner torment of raging emotions in my head. My trembling hands steady, and I can breathe easily. She'd put something in my tea. The sneak. "Seriously, grandma!?" I demand, making a smirk pull up at the corner of her lips. She gives a hearty laugh in response.
It causes a smile to be drawn on my face.
"Only you can find out the full range of your powers, Val. Don't be expecting me to give you all the answers now. Where's the fun in that?" She gives me a wink, making me scowl.
"Oh, yes. Because finding out everything, I can about Necromancy is so high up on my damn to-do list. Let's just put that after -oh, I don't know- saving the damn world." I demand, and my grandma snorts.
"Don't act like a whiny brat. This task was given to you, and you agreed. You dug your own grave, Valentine. Stop acting like it's everyone else's fault when it's yours." She scolds me. I raise an eyebrow at her.
"Yeah, it was my fault you're right. It was my fault I grew up without a family. It was my fault I was abandoned as a baby. My fault for wanting my family back and being manipulated by Dumbledore. Thank you so much for being the comfort I needed in my dark world, grandmother." I scowl, making her eyes narrow.
Shit.
I barely dodge a shoe thrown at my head.
"You NEED to stop doing that!!!" I screech, and she throws her other shoe at me.
"OW!" I shriek, rubbing my head where the shoe had hit.
"Don't take that tone with me, young lady." She orders and scowls at me. "Where did you hide that goblet of mine? Somewhere Voldemort won't find it I'm hoping?" She demands and I nod my head, still pouting.
"It's hidden and safe."
It was stuck inside one of the trees in the Forbidden Forest, using my spell of moving through inanimate objects.
No one would ever find it unless they cut the damn tree down and opened it up, but by then, I would've saved the world or died. Either way, the goblet would be useless by then.
"Good. Now give me your hand, young one. I want you to do a reading."
I blink in surprise.
"Grandma no offence or anything....but you know you're dead, right?" I say tentatively, and she gives me a no really dumbarse look.
"You'll be trying to see the past, you stupid girl." She rolls her eyes fondly and then moves to sit beside me, her brown robes dangling behind her like nobility.
She grabs my hand and gives me a look. "Concentrate. Try not to travel in time. That wouldn't go well." She orders and I close my eyes, trying to focus on the Seer in me.
I open my eyes and give my grandma an annoyed look. "I don't see anything!"
"Focus!" She smacks the upside of my face.
"Why am I always being abused when I visit you!?" I mutter under my breath. "I won't stand for it. I respect myself too much."
"If you respected yourself, you wouldn't be crushing on a boy who'd rather poison his nails them be with you."
"WHAT!?" I shriek, eyes flipping open.
"I DO NOT-"
"Shut up, Valentine. Yes, you do. I'm a Seer. Don't lie to your grandmother."
"Your Seer abilities are getting rusty."
Grandma gasps in offence. "No, they are not!"
"Oh, yes, they are!"
"Just focus on seeing a vision!"
"Fine!"
"Finally. My lord, you talk too much."
"HEY!"
Grandma smacks my head again. "Valentine I swear I will-"
I'm sucked into a vision.
It was me.
I was standing outside of grandma Helga's portrait, and I was staring at it.
I remembered this. This was the first time I'd met her. A smile spreads on my face as I watch eleven-year-old Valentine share the details of her day with a fascinated Helga.
Helga knew precisely who I was the second she saw me. She'd kept me in the dark for a couple of months, letting me get adjusted to the school before she dropped the life-changing bomb.
She'd told Ettie and Harry she was also their grandmother the same day.
"Val sweetie. I need to tell you something." Helga had told me. I see little me's reaction. My eyes had widened, and I rushed to get closer.
"Yeah!?" I'd asked in glee.
"You're name is Valentine Evans."
I watch as younger me tilts her head in confusion. "Yeah, of course. You already knew that, though." Valentine tried to laugh it off.
"The Evans are my descendants."
The bomb was dropped, and I feel a grin spread on my face as I rewatch the look of confusion convert instantly to shock as I realized what she was saying.
"You're family?" Little Valentine croaks out, eyes welling up in tears. "I-I have more family?" She sobs. My smile turns soft, and my heart squeezes. I feel a searing heat in my chest, and I rub the spot unconsciously, trying to dull the ache I felt there.
"Yes. I'm your grandmother Valentine." Helga laughs. "Well... great-great-great something, grandmother."
Valentine was staring at Helga in shock.
The shock wears off slowly, and she's left staring at her grandmother with teary eyes and smiling lips. She looks up and moves up to touch the portrait of Helga Hufflepuff. Helga reaches out and touches the spot where my hand was.
"Hi, Grandmama."
I'm instantly thrown into another vision.
It was another vision of me.
I feel my lips tugging down in a frown.
My heart literally stops in place.
I was watching from my grandmother's perspective. She was staring in from a portrait in the top corner of my room.
The room I'd lived in during my time at the orphanage.
The room where my whole life had been a torment chamber.
She'd seen it all.
She'd seen my pain.
She'd heard my screams.
I didn't want to relive this.
"NO STOP! I DON'T WANT TO SEE THIS!!" I scream at myself. Begging some other force to pull me out of this vision. I knew exactly what was going to happen here.
I had the scars to prove it.
This was where the darkness started.
I stare in silent horror, eyes hardening as a six-year-old Valentine walks in her room. Her hair was lifeless. Her blue eyes were dull. They were the light blue of stones instead of the shade of bluejays.
She was in her usual orphanage uniform. Yellow tie, grey skirt and grey dress shirt. Her tights were itchy. I knew this. They itched to the point where'd she'd scratch them raw and red.
I watch as the little me sits on her small bed.
She stared outside in misery. Her hands were shaking in fear. They always did that....trembled.
A girl with blonde hair races in. "He's here hide!" She whispers, eyes wild and scared. Valentine moves with practiced speed. She climbs to the top of her closet and huddles in the corner, hidden by the shadows.
She watches the girl, Raine, her name was, as she dashes to hide under her bed.
I amble around the room to stare at the little kids that shook in absolute dread. Tears sting my eyes. I didn't want to watch what happened next. I knew it all already. I had nightmares about this day.
A slam is heard. So loud, the whole house seems to quake with the power of the hit.
The two girls in front of me flinch.
I don't.
I knew exactly who had slammed that door.
I would never flinch in this awful place again.
I knew who'd enter the door in the next minute.
The door to the room blasts off its hinges. The man had kicked it open.
Valentine shakes even harder. I watch the younger version of myself cover her mouth, stifling her silent tears. I remembered how that felt like. I 'd been holding my breath.
I was holding my breath right now.
Raine was sobbing quietly. She was covering her eyes. Shielding her eyes from the world, she didn't want to be in. No innocence shone in neither one of their eyes.
No innocence shone in their eyes because there was none to be found.
It'd been stolen.
It'd been robbed.
It'd been taken by force.
The eyes I meet when my head lifts up finally were eyes I had memorized. They had been a source of terror for me. They still were.
Green eyes. Green eyes like a panther's glared all around, searching.
I swallow hard, watching as the blonde man grabbed Raine's ankle from the bottom of the bed. He rips her out from under it and throws her into the wall.
"You hide?! YOU HIDE!?" He roars, making my jaw clench. I wipe away the stray tears that had fallen without my consent.
Raine was screaming.
She was crying.
He slaps her so hard, she falls to the floor in a heap.
"SHUT UP!" He roars. My hands clench in anger.
"I can't do this," I whisper. "I can't do this." Tears were blurring my vision as I watched my friend continue to be beaten to the floor again and again.
I look up at the top of the closet and shake my head.
"Stay hidden. Please. Don't be brave." I whisper in horror and watch as past me wears a look of determination.
I knew exactly what she was thinking.
The words were engraved in my brain.
'If I die here, at least I won't die a coward. I'm halfway to death anyway. What's the point?'
I fall to my knees in tears, witnessing the moment Valentine Evans broke.
She jumps on the man's back.
She flew.
She flew like a bird.
Only the bird had a broken wing.
She grabs the man's neck, distracting him from the bleeding girl in the corner. She's thrown into the wall the same way that Raine had seconds before her. It was like watching a child throw around a doll... only the doll was a real person.
"Valentineeeeee." The man coos and I start to cry; both present me and past me.
We cry together.
We both cry for the pain we know we are going to be in.
I watch my undoing.
I watch it in silence.
My eyes never leave my form.
I watch every hit.
I watch every kick.
I hear every scream.
Every bruise she gets, I'm crying for. Every whipping lash she endures, I feel it myself. The scars on my back pulse in fiery heat. They pulsed with the reminder that they were still there.
I couldn't breathe. I was leaning on the bed, slumped on the floor.
"Stop. Please. Make it stop!!" I scream, covering my ears. I heard my screams ringing in my ears. Green eyes glared at me behind my closed eyelids.
"I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY MORE!!!"
My voice is coarse. My hand goes up to my throat. I was shaking, trying to scramble away from the blood on the floor. My blood.
I watch what happens next. Only I don't watch Raine. I watch Valentine. I watch a little six-year-old me. I see the light leave her eyes, and the dead emotionlessness enters her conscious state of mind.
Her clenched fists instantly weaken, and she stares on. No emotion. None. Nothing showed on her face. I see the last tear she ever shed during her time at the orphanage fall down from her eye, splattering to the hardwood floor.
And I watch her witness the death of her best friend.
The snap was as loud as I remember.
We both scream at the same time.
I don't look at Raine. I can't
I know she's dead.
Her neck mangled in places unfixable to any doctor.
I know I'll see two lifeless brown eyes staring back at me. So I don't look.
I just keep sobbing and screaming. I couldn't breathe. Why wasn't oxygen entering my lungs?! Why couldn't I move?
I was frozen in shock, staring at my own destroyed body, knowing my best friend's body lay dead behind me.
"LET ME OUT OF HERE!" I cry. "I SAW IT! ARE YOU HAPPY!?"
"Turn around, Valentine."
My body stiffens in fear.
"You're dead," I reply, voice hoarse. I'd heard the snap of her neck, and I had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.
"Look at me."
I shake my head, eyes whelming in tears.
"Leny. Look at me!!" Raine screams in my head, using her nickname for me.
"NO!" I scream back.
Someone appears in front of me, and I look up to see a beautiful blonde girl staring at me in concern. She was transparent, but I could see her features very clearly. Her haunted, cold brown eyes stare back into my own icy cold Antarctic ones.
"You grew up gorgeous." She whispers, looking at me in pride. I shake my head, pursing my lips in agony.
"Raine?" I whisper, and Raine smiles.
"My soul erupted from my body the moment I died. You're considered a spirit here too, even though you aren't dead. Do me a favour and kill the man when you see him next. I have a few colourful words for the fucker." She snarls.
I'm silent, but her words have me nodding. He'd die the next time I saw him. If I ever did.
"Leny," Raine whispers, eyes softening and becoming that warm autumn brown that felt like home. She smiles at me and gives my head a fond tap like she always did. "Leny, it does no good dwelling on the past. Let it go. Let it go and be free."
I stare at her in bewilderment but she just smiles. "You never know how strong you are...until being strong is the only choice you have."
"There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds."
― Laurell K