valerie munro → draco malfoy (andarocketship) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2011-08-28 10:46:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | valerie munro |
Who: Valerie Munro
What: Making her choice.
Where: The Munro home in Sydney, Australia
When: Early Sunday morning, August 28, 2011
Warnings: Angst and fake deaths.
Emerging from the smoking shell of her mother's house, Valerie felt cold. No. That wasn't right. She felt numb. Her arm was bleeding through her shirt, a nasty bruise was forming on her shoulder blade, and a gash on her scalp was matting her dull, soot-blackened hair to her forehead, but she couldn't feel any of it. All she felt was doubt and absence. Her childhood home was gone. Her mother was gone – safe, yes, but gone all the same. Tabitha as well. Maybe she would forgive her one day, but Val wasn't optimistic. Because Valerie was gone, too.
She had to go, just like this house. Valerie was a coward, a frightened little girl who jumped at shadows and and put on airs of superiority to keep people from getting to close. She was seven when her mother taught her to do that – to act rather than be herself, and like a good daughter, Valerie had obliged. That Valerie had taken her time in disappearing, starting with Draco and pushed further and further out by Tabitha, culminating in now, this moment that would either save lives or end her own, depending on so many things she could hardly predict. As she stood in the yard, staring at the shattered door frame that now longer held her front door, she forgot who she was. Who she used to be, who she wanted to be, who she was supposed to be – she forgot all of it. She felt as empty as the hollow home in front of her.
Then she heard a voice.
"Valerie, are you... are you okay, dear?" She didn't have to turn to see who the voice belonged to, but she did anyway. Mrs. Carter, her mother's favorite neighbor and Val's old babysitter. Her face was etched with worry, her wrinkled old hands wringing incessantly. "I've called the authorities, they'll be here soon.... Darling, your mother, was she inside? Is she alright? Val?"
Hearing her name, that's what did it. That's what sparked her decision, reminded her that who she wanted to be didn't matter – who she had to be did. And then, Valerie Munro was a coward no longer. She was a villain, and she was a liar, but at least she was brave, protecting the ones she loved even if they didn't love her back anymore. That had to count for something.
"Morsmordre!" she shouted, so loudly that Mrs. Carter took an involuntary step back, as a flash of green erupted from her wand and poured into the gray dawn light. Valerie gazed calmly into the sky, lowering her wand only when the Dark Mark was complete. Amid the sirens in the distance, she heard her own voice, speaking clearly and with much more malice she thought possible of herself. "You'll be next, Mudbloods." Her meaning was unmistakable, and Mrs. Carter stared at her with pure, wide-eyed horror. The old Valerie would have cringed to be at the receiving end of such a look. The new Valerie hated it too, but the false Valerie, the one she had to be, only smirked. "You'll be next."
The stage was set. Playing her part, Valerie Disapparated, and waited for whatever happened now.