* * *

"SWISH AND FLICK!"

Valerie Grindelwald could feel her eyes drooping as she listened to Professor Flitwick's piping voice.

The first two months of classes had went by in a blur. Transfiguration was derivative, Potions was unbearable, Herbology was chaotic, Astronomy made her eyes sore, and she didn't even want to get started on Flying Class. History of Magic was a certified time for a nap.

Valerie didn't know really, she had to drag herself across the halls for the past several weeks, all drowsy and sluggish. Harry was still ignoring her, and the obnoxious comments followed her around like a moth to a flame, so no development there.

She would have never imagined her first two months at Hogwarts to be like this, or at least she thought she would be a tad more energetic. Yet, there she was, her head resting on the palm of her hand as she stared vacantly at the feather in front of her.

"You don't have to be embarrassed to try, you know. I won't care if you fail." Theodore spoke smugly from beside her, his wand in hand.

The sandy-haired boy had stopped bugging her as well, save for a few churlish remarks here and there.

"I could care less what you think of me, Nott." Valerie deadpanned, not bothering to look at him.

From a peripheral view, she watched as Theodore waved his wand around in circles whilst chanting the words at an odiously loud volume. These days any type of noise felt like nails drilling into her head.

"You're in Charms class, not the Wild West." she grimaced. "Stop with the lasso."

A sour look made its way to Theodore's face, "That's rich coming from someone who hasn't even picked up their wand."

Valerie rolled her eyes, slowly raising the Silver Lime wand. "Wingardium Levi—" she was unable to finish the charm as she felt her mind go hazy.

"Could you wake me up after class?"

Theodore was utterly confused as Valerie crossed her arms over the desk and ducked her head. What he didn't know, was that the poor girl was unequivocally exhausted.

She had been having the same dream night after night, and was hardly getting any sleep at all, not that anyone knew. Each time felt more real than the last, and she started to question what they were becoming.

"Valerie... Valerie!"

"What?" the young Grindelwald grumbled, coming face to face with an alarmed Theodore. He tilted his head in the opposite direction, motioning to the Professor who was looking at her expectantly.

Valerie could feel the heat rise to her cheeks as her classmates stared at her.

"Class dismissed." Flitwick announced, giving her a curt nod. "Miss Grindelwald, stay."

Across the room, Valerie could feel someone's gaze on her. There was unreadable emotion in Harry's eyes, but she could easily put it off as disappointment.

"Look who gets into trouble again, why am I not surprised?" Draco joked, earning laughs from the rest of the students as they exited the classroom.

Theodore sent her an oddly genuine look of apology, before leaving her with the Professor.

Valerie tried, "Sir, I promise it won't—"

"Happen again?" Flitwick seemed to have guessed. "I'm not the first teacher to notice your lack of motivation. This is the third time you've dozed off in my class."

"I'm really sorry." she spoke. "I've been having a hard time adjusting."

It wasn't entirely a lie, she was having some difficulty adapting to all the new changes. But, she wasn't about to tell her Charms professor about her night terrors.

Flitwick looked rather deep in thought, "Miss Grindelwald, do you think that perhaps, you've been having a hard time adjusting because you're different?"

She admired the man's honesty, "I suppose."

"Would you please perform the Leviticus Charm for me?" Flitwick asked.

Valerie nodded, unable to notice that the professor had nicked her wand from her desk.

She focused on the feather, raised her left hand, and with a quick swish and flick, it floated up into the air.

"Interesting." Flitwick then motioned to the cabinet by the corner of the classroom. "In the book cupboard, there's something that might interest you."

Before she could move, the professor called her attention once again. "Oh, and Grindelwald, I believe this is yours."

Shock crossed her face as he handed over her wand, realising that she had just performed wandless magic in front of him.

"Right." she mumbled, taking the wand.

Valerie walked over to the cupboard, thinking it contained some sort of curse or hex to put her in her place. Pulling the wooden doors open, she furrowed her eyebrows at what she found instead. It was a book.

Blowing the dust off its cover, the text was finally made visible, 'The Standard Book of Spells Grade Two, Miranda Goshawk.'

She looked over her shoulder, and Professor Flitwick had already left. With a quiet laugh, she gladly picked the book up, knowing exactly where she was going.

*  *  *

Valerie Grindelwald had been in the Hogwarts Library for approximately three hours and forty-seven minutes.

The notion of dinner failed to cross her mind as she flipped through the pages of the second-year textbook. The library was empty after the Granger girl had cleared out of it a while back, looking particularly unhappy.

Valerie tried everything from Knockback Jinxes to Tickling Charms, her interest for the subject growing with each successful execution. She had always taken a liking to that specific field of magic, a trait she unknowingly inherited from her grandfather.

After a triumphant attempt at a Severing Charm, she moved on to the next chapter, a Transfiguration spell. Those were far more difficult to pull off as they required total focus, Valerie had to stop herself from blinking.

Grasping her wand, she pointed it at the quill sitting atop the table, too engrossed to see the librarian who had sauntered over to her with her hands on her hips.

"We're closing—"

"Avifors!" the sudden interruption caused her to point her wand at a completely different direction, the spell hitting the librarian square in the face.

"No, no, no." Valerie stammered as the woman began to grow a beak, followed by hair bursting into feathers, until ultimately she had been transformed into a bird, and an angry one at that.

""I just turned the librarian into a bird." the first-year breathed out. "Wicked."

The bird, well, woman who had fallen victim to the spell wasn't too happy about it, and she showed her vexation by attacking the girl.

"Stop, stop! Merlin, I'm gonna turn you back." Valerie put her arms out in front of her to protect herself. She then stood up from her chair and made for the bookshelves.There was nothing Miranda Goshawk had written about reversal.

"Enchanted Encounters, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them..." her fingers brushed along the spines of the sundry books before finding just what she needed. "General Untransfiguration."

Skimming over the table of contents, she eventually came across the right reversal spell. Swivelling toward the bird, she held her wand out, "Reditus Avem."

The librarian was livid as she was returned to her original state, berating the girl loudly.

You'd think she wasn't in a library. Valerie thought to herself. She backed away from the raving woman, but her back collided with the shelf behind her, knocking several books to the ground.

"Listen, I'm really sorry, I'll fix this mess. I'll even close the library myself! You have my word." she bargained. After a few moments of convincing, the librarian agreed, gathering her things before leaving Valerie alone with one last look of bitterness.

The young witch scoffed as she picked up the books, muttering about how it was only an accident. She froze as her ice blue eyes landed on one entitled 'The Global Wizarding War.'

Valerie finished setting the others in order before aversely opening the book that her mind was compelling her to read.

The Global Wizarding War (1920-1945) has to this day remained as the largest-scaling conflict to go down in history, with disputes stretching all the way from Europe to the United States of America. Instituted by the ill-famed Gellert Grindelwald and his Acolytes, the dark wizard revolted on grounds of demolishing the International Statue of Secrecy.

She could barely bring herself to turn to the next page, silently afraid of what she would learn. But, Valerie knew that there was no escaping the past, and the best thing she could do was to learn from it.

The extent of Grindelwald's crimes go far beyond attacks and riots, which had quickly developed into massacres, gravely risking exposure of magic to the world. By the time the International Wizarding Hunt succeeded in imprisoning him inside the walls of his very own fortress, Nurmengard Castle, it is estimated that he was responsible for the most deaths to ever be recorded, including the murders of his son and daughter-in-law, Nicholai and Valentina Grindelwald (see photograph below).  Read more on Gellert Grindelwald, 'Reign of Terror.' (Restricted Section, Class R.)

Valerie's hands were visibly shaking, struggling to keep them fixed on the book. She closed her eyes tightly before letting them fall to the photograph. The black and white image displayed her grandfather and parents, their arms around each other's shoulders as they smiled for the camera. At the flash, they burst into laughter, before the scene repeated itself once again.

She had only ever seen one photograph of her father, the one her grandfather kept in his prison room when he was only a child.

Her mother, she had never even seen beforehand. The only piece of information Valerie knew of her was her name and a few vague words of description. Valentina Grindelwald, a beautiful and gifted witch whose life ended too soon.

Valerie could hardly begin to comprehend how wrong those words were.

Those words failed to mention how she stood with undeniable confidence, one that proved that she held no care for the thoughts of others. Those words failed to mention her eyes, which although colourless, conveyed so much emotion, as she stared lovingly at her husband. Those words failed to mention her heavenly smile, a smile reason enough to be overjoyed, a smile Valerie would never see anywhere else unless printed on the surface of a stupid piece of paper.

A single tear ran down her cheek, staining the page damp before she quickly wiped it away, slamming the book shut.