HEAL ME | JAMES POTTER

TWENTY-NINE

- CHAPTER 29 -

❝Professor, i have something to tell you.❞

Hogwarts, Seventh year.

IT WAS TRUE THAT GRACE Valdez had waited a long time, just for a word from her older brother. But to be sent something so heartbreaking, would any sister want it at all?

The girl was sat near the Black lake with the Gryffindors when James had arrived with the letter in his hands.

But then after she had seen who it was from, the girl had felt excited, relieved, and even impatient. Theodore Nott had written to her, after all those restless weeks, he had finally written to her.

"Well, open it!"

Grace had been confused at first, not knowing what the content of the letter had meant. But then after a while, it clicked, and she had known.

"Erm, w-what's it say?" asked Peter Pettigrew.

"Nothing, just telling me to come home, or i'm in trouble," the girl replied hesitantly.

It wasn't a lie, but neither the truth. Grace Valdez did not know what to do; she was just a child after all. Her own brother, the person whom she had looked up to her whole entire life, was now her literal enemy.

"I-I gotta go."

"Grace, wait!"

James Potter was the only one who had noticed the distress on her face, one that had screamed disappointment and fear, all at once. He did not know what it had felt like, to lose your own brother even though he was alive, to see him change, all in front of you.

Theodore Nott had made the girl feel invaluable, unloved. And even though she had many people behind her, waiting to catch her whenever she would fall, Grace Valdez had felt alone, and empty, like she had no one at all.

"Come here G," said James while bringing her closer to his chest.

The girl had been thinking, about what to do. To save a million lives and sacrifice her own, or to save her life and sacrifice a million more?

However, Grace Valdez is not a Nott. Never was, and never will be.

"I-I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, i need to do this on my own."

Walking up to the headmaster's office, Grace could feel the nerves in her build up the more she would get closer to it. The only time she had talked to the Professor, it was during the first meeting of the Order of the Phoenix.

After that, many students had complained. Saying that it was most probably the girl who had been the traitor, and that she was born a Nott, there was no way she was any more different than them.

But Albus Dumbledore had known the truth, the reality. Grace Valdez was nothing like her family, she was a Hufflepuff after all.

"Miss Valdez, i have been expecting you. Come, let's go inside."

From the very beginning, Albus Dumbledore had known that the girl was destined for something big, something special. The moment he had seen the only daughter of the Nott family get sorted into Hufflepuff, he had known. She was to save the world, rather than to destroy it with her own little hands.

"Professor, i have something to tell you."

And so, the girl spilled whatever she had known. From the content of the letter that her own brother had sent to her, to the things she had seen while she was at the Manor. To prove her loyalty, Grace Valdez had done exactly what she had thought was right.

The war had changed people, making the most innocent of them, to an evil kind. And to the quietest of them, into the bravest.

"Miss Valdez, you have done an amazing deed. I am very proud of you for standing up to them, you are doing a great job."

"T-Thank you Professor."

Walking towards the Black Lake, the girl could feel herself think back to what her brother had written to her. They had spent their whole entire lives together, just the two of them. Theodore was the one who had raised her, the person who had shaped her into the girl that she is today.

And even then, he had proved something through the letter he had sent to her. Out of all of the people in her life, Theodore Nott had been a stranger to her the most.

Hogwarts, Christmas break. Show us where your loyalty lies.

T.N