Valkyrie

May 1979

When the doorknob begins to turn, she places the knife to her throat and waits.

One turn, two. Her body begins to tremble.

Third turn. Tension released in her shoulders, just a smidge. Her hand is the only thing that doesn’t waver. It will be easy; three cuts to the skin, deep enough to break. Three cuts, and this misery will be over, and she will not be taken.

The door creaks open. What can he see? The house is dark, abandoned long ago, old furniture abandoned where it stood. Maybe he’ll see the body, wrapped in a carpet, propped against the window in the kitchen. The house smells like blood, it seeps through everything, the house is infected, even the walls are oozing pus.

She stays in the middle of the room, the room she cleared out for this purpose. Gagging on the stench, shoving furniture away from the walls, arguing with Auntie Elysia when she sneered her disapproval. Auntie is gone for the moment, locked away behind a door she hasn’t yet broken down, and she is at least grateful Auntie’s voice won’t be the last she hears.

Has she been waiting for this? Every night, peering out the windows, knowing that someone is watching her, ready to strike. Isn’t that what Papa told her? Never trust anybody, never let your guard down, and never reveal your true name.

They are going to kill you, little Olivia growls in her ear, and her fingers claw at her knee. You waste of space, they will know if you lie, they will know you are useless, and they will make your life even more of a living hell.

“Olivia Gleaves?”

No, no no no no. Everything is screaming in her ears, and there’s dried blood under her nails, and everybody knows who she is, what she is. Auntie, choking her over the tub, telling her to be quiet, all while she stares blankly at the figure in the doorway, white and horrifying, who doesn’t move closer at all, has never moved closer even when she wails and begs for Auntie to chase it off.

Footsteps down the hall. Papa tells her to be quiet, not to make a sound. She knots her hand in the carpet, desperately, fervently, trying to feel the cold metal against her neck as proof of her reality.

Then, she sees him. Her breath quickens, broken and confused.

It’s the figure, always lingering in the periphery of her vision. He’s here, and the voices stop.

~*~

The way Papa tells it, there were three siblings.

Maybe they were cursed from the start. Little boy, tucked into the side of his sister and brother, little boy, being hurt endlessly.

Auntie hated this story. No, she’d sneer, we aren’t cursed. We are awful people, and this is our reward. She isn’t one of them, though. She, plopped down on the doorstep, doesn’t have poison running through her veins. She is pure, Papa wouldn’t take her in if not, but she doesn’t understand. Maybe that is why she is somehow worse than all of them.

When the walls talk, they howl in pain. It is an awful sound, like flesh sizzling off the bone. Auntie did that once, holding her arm over the fire in pure defiance before Papa could get to her. Much like a child, a child stuck for her entire short life in a house far away from people, a child with haunted eyes and a cruel laugh and a tendency to fly off into a rage or fall into a catatonic state with only a snap of the fingers. She, an infant, was only subject to Auntie’s whims.

There are always three of them. Three siblings, one meant to wear the crown, one meant to bear the noose, and one left empty-handed. Papa was one of three, and so was her father. Maybe out of compulsion, Papa took in Auntie. Curses, curses, curses. The rule of threes, the reason the world spins on its axis. She exists because of threes, she lives her life based on threes.

Three, three, three. Three siblings, three worlds, three identical scars across her back. Three of her, but no, many of her, all of them populating this house, all of them dead eyed and defensive, all of them hiding and ready to die if necessary.

~*~

“Olivia Gleaves.”

Her name bounces off the walls, a cacophony of sounds and squeaks and grunts together becoming something resembling her title. Olivia Gleaves, though not her real name, is it? Olivia is not her, never has been. It belongs to the little girl, always hiding behind her, the little girl who still cried when Auntie slammed books into her skull. She, however, is nameless.

Olīva, feminine noun in Latin. It means olive, or an olive tree. The second i was added in in English, maybe to make it more of a name for a little girl. When she is scared, she recites to herself the conjugation of olīva. Six for singular, six for plural; four sets of three. Olivia est sola: Olivia is alone.

They like Latin, their family. It is a regal language. Papa speaks it when he doesn’t want Auntie to hear. It is their language alone, her and Papa. It helps her remember him.

Little Olivia starts reciting the declensions very quietly behind her. She doesn’t move, doesn’t respond when Papa keeps telling her to run. This is her destiny: to die here by her own hand before they can use her.

Albus Dumbledore, standing in the doorway, staring at her. He is awful and cruel and demonic, horned and bloody and infantile. Her mind is shut to interlopers, but he is trying to get in, slamming bricks against her inner walls. As hard as she tries, she cannot get into his mind either.

He knows who you are, Papa tells her, almost sadly. Two dangers, and he is one. He knew me at school, he will know you. Auntie had nightmares for weeks after learning somebody else would be coming after them, locking herself in her bedroom to tear everything apart, screaming like a wounded banshee.

Where is the third danger? The world operates on principles of threes. There is another, lurking in the shadows, or there must be. Her hand in her lap begins to shake violently.

“I was afraid I wouldn’t find you in time.” Everyone else goes silent when he speaks, and she knows it cannot be one of hers because she has never heard this voice before. Soft, a bit like butter. Papa got butter once – real butter – and she couldn’t believe the taste. Butter, outside world, dangerous. Little Olivia starts rocking and crying while the other one chants repeatedly: coward, useless, disgusting, imbecile, deficient. Where did she learn those words? The tinge of Auntie’s voice in her own is awful.

The walls are still wet with fresh blood. She tries to press the knife into her skin but finds it unmoving. Albus Dumbledore tilts his head at her, like she is a dead animal. Somewhere in the house, a lone terrified scream. He does not react.

“He’ll be here in about three hours. If you don’t want him to find you, you need to come with me.”

Do not leave this house, Papa and Auntie shout in unison. She looks around for them, but she is alone with this man: Olivia est sola cum hōc virō.

Albus Dumbledore’s eyes flick to the knife. 'If I had a dollar' floats into her head. He is letting her pry. Her entire body is trembling. Down the hall, Toby starts laughing. Do not go towards him, Toby. Do not approach the man.

Eyes back to her. “He will kill you if he finds you. That’s why your grandfather worked so hard to protect you, right? Even from me.” His face is warped and distorted in her vision. Little Olivia takes a knife from her pocket and stabs herself in the chest, a quick and easy gesture. It is hard to look him in the eyes when she is bleeding out right beside her. Her grip on her mind starts to slacken. How do you know who I am?

“I have been looking for you for a long time.” Dumbledore responds to the thought, and Auntie begins to berate her for letting go. Foolish, stupid, idiotic, better off dead. “Olivia Gaunt.”

~*~

Gaunt, pallid, haggard, cadaverous. Royalty, skeletal fingers pointing to the next target. Bloodthirsty, vicious, unrelenting.

Papa did not hide his memory of being tortured on the floor, unseeing eyes falling back in their sockets as he sobbed and whimpered. Madness came with the name, insanity and terrible cruelty. It doesn’t matter what you call yourself: you’re still one with the blood.

Marvolo, Honora, Ominis. Emil, Eliane, Elysia. Olivia, Olivia, Olivia. One person, duplicated many times over, becoming more and more damaged than the last.

He left as soon as he could, Papa did. Fled to the countryside, buying a house with wards. Who knows from whom Emil and Eliane came from, and Elysia given as a gift from the heavens. Alone, in four walls, searing pain, unbearable. Broken, broken, broken. They’re all dead, gone, perished.

He would come for them, Papa told her. He of their blood, and that could not happen. He said everyone in their family line was in constant competition to be the last standing, and this boy would be no exception. This boy had a different name, and so did they, but like calls to like.

She has been waiting her whole life for him to find them.

~*~

No, she tells him, pushing the words from her mind as though ripping teeth from her gums. To her left, little Olivia has died. One of the other Olivias tries to drag her away out of sight. No, that is not me.

“Your grandfather asked me to come get you.”

Papa, missing, haunting this house, speaking to her now, do not listen to him, he is lying, there is still time to run, spend the rest of your life running if you have to, but do not be taken. The body in the kitchen smells like rot and iron and his clothes. Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

No, he wouldn’t. No, he wouldn’t sell me out like this. No, he was the kind one, and he always healed my bruises when Auntie hurt me. Was it her who sold me out? Would she abandon Toby and I to you and him? He is only three, and I have never cared for him. When he laughs down the hall, is he happy or scared? Could you ever teach him magic, could he ever understand?

“He sent me an owl. He knows you are in danger. He’s coming, Olivia Gaunt. You must come with me, now.”

What did she say to Auntie’s face when she got too close, when her hand grazed her thigh? No. no has never been an answer anybody listens to.

The walls are bleeding. I can’t leave them. Do you know how much blood I have left in this place?

Her mother died in this house. Look, there she is, giving birth on the floor in the kitchen, white skin and bloodless. There, watch the infant come out, silent at first, uncomprehending why her mother didn’t immediately lift her to her breast. Did anyone notice her on the floor, wanting some form of love and never receiving it?

Her mother broke the cardinal rule: do not leave the house. What father could ever know she existed? The walls make people do awful things. Why else then would Uncle and Auntie have a baby together, a sickly little thing who never should have lived at all? Why then does Auntie have fits of rage, and Uncle can only speak through hisses, and Toby laughs without understanding why, and she sees the world in such vivid, blinding colour?

“Olivia.” Close, too close. She scrabbles away, knife forgotten in her hand, consumed only with the terror of his face getting closer, the whisper of breath on her face. Auntie, telling her to shush so Papa wouldn’t hear from the other room. It’s okay, Olivia. Don’t tell anyone.

Maybe never being held as a newborn broke her, made her incapable of human affection. What is affection? Is it Auntie hitting her? A hurtful touch feels the same as a loving one, and both are disgusting.

“You are supposed to be dead. There are no remaining Gaunts besides him. Do you understand? He will torture and kill you.”

I’m already dead. She cannot speak, will never speak again. Has she seen the sun proper in years? The world outside is awful and unreal and non-existent. What is real is the body in the kitchen, the blood on the walls, Toby’s laughter.

“There is no body, Olivia. The walls are not bleeding. Your cousin is nowhere to be found.”

No, but that’s not true, is it? She can see the blood, can reach over and feel it on her fingers, sticky and warm and familiar. An Olivia bundles dead Little Olivia in a carpet and brings her to the kitchen to add to the pile of bodies to be burned next when the cold strikes again. Look, can’t you see it?

Auntie starts to scream, and it is wordless and blood-curdling. Dumbledore is standing over her, and she is about to die, heart racing in her chest, and he leans down to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze—

Hand on her shoulder, and she yanks away violently, crashing into the wall beside her. It is going too quickly and there is too much noise and she starts to yell inside her head, trying to quiet everyone down but it’s not enough, and there’s blood on her clothes and Toby starts to wail and it is so, so, so awful.

“Sleep.” Papa murmurs from within her, and so she obeys.

~*~

The Noble House of Gaunt: how far you have fallen.

~*~

“Do you know how foolish it was to hide from me?”

This isn’t English. It’s a hiss, low and vicious, like how Uncle used to speak. Never words, but always decipherable.

Slowly, she turns her head, skull pounding with her heartbeat. Everything hurts, and she can smell blood on her upper lip, but she doesn’t gag, doesn’t react.

He is standing over her. Gaunt, haunted. How else to describe him? Waxy skin, red eyes like a snake, dark hair. He doesn’t look like any of them, but why would he? He is separate, distinct. He did not live in that house, did not entwine like an awful plant, too close for comfort. There is no kinship, no feeling of blood recognizing blood. A stranger, through and through.

“Speak when I’m speaking to you.”

I can’t, she spits in her mind, feeling the pain in her thoughts. She’s alone here, no Auntie or Papa or little Olivia. It is just her and him.

Tom Riddle leans in closer, and there is something in his eyes, a controlled sort of hatred, that is so opposite to Auntie. It is horrifying. She strains a little against her bindings.

“You’re unstable, insane. Why would he be hiding you?” his breath suddenly smells like rot, and she retches in his face, taking a strange satisfaction in watching him flinch the tiniest amount. She tries to pry into his mind, but he smiles cruelly and shakes his head. “Oh no, don’t think that’s going to happen.” His gaze is calculated, disassembling her parts and dissecting her insides. “What do you know?”

~*~

What is real and what is not?

Papa used to play that game with her, sitting her down by the meagre fire as though they didn’t already spend all their time in that room. Was this before Toby? Before Uncle’s body was burned in this very fireplace? Papa tilted her chin up and asked her what she was seeing. She could speak, then.

She’d scan the room, fixate on a gaping wound in the wall, spitting blood. She could see the bone poking through. Papa held her shoulder steady, told her to really look at it. Could she reach out and touch it? Could she smell the blood? Did it have those strange shimmery edges like those other visions did?

She could not tell him the truth: yes, it’s real. Can you not see it? I think we will die in this house, and this is the house’s warning.

It was easiest to lie, staring at the gleaming white bone, and say “No, I can’t touch the blood. Yes, it is shimmering at the edges. It must not be real.”

All of it is real. All of it is real and raw and tangible, and she can reach out and coat her fingertips with the blood and press it to her skin and nobody would believe her. Nobody would ever believe her.

~*~

Toby, body warm against her chest, coos.

Auntie has smashed her head through the mirror, and Papa has gone to heal her. She is alone, holding the baby, and he is covered in blood. His blood or her blood? They have the same corrosive venom flowing through their veins anyway.

Does he know they are being hunted, that the only reason he is alive and breathing now is because their family is cursed and locked in a house and counting down the days until they are discovered and slaughtered like zoo animals? How old will he be when his throat is slit? It will not be magic: there is too much fun to be had in killing them the Muggle way.

Let him go, Auntie whispers in her ear. Drop him on the ground, dash that little head against the tile, and save him the trouble.

She reaches up to touch the weeping gash on his forehead, and her fingers come away bright crimson. Pure blood, she knows. He will live a miserable life, he will be deficient because of his upbringing, his heritage, and he will be a fool. Is that not perhaps merciful for him not to be aware of the hellscape in which he was raised?

She goes to set him down on the kitchen table and begins her ritual of threes, trying to rid herself of it all while the baby continues to coo.

~*~

Did she hex him? He, curled on his back, eyes wide and blank, no blood yet but she can feel the rot creeping in.

Something like a choked sob rises in her throat, swallowed down along with everything she will never say again. It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real

He was trying to kill her. She saw him coming. She defended herself. Little Olivia folds into her body and wails, maybe because he was kind to her. Was he? She was scared when he used to hiss at her, sometimes unintelligible sounds, and she dreamed he was a real snake strangling her in her sleep.

Auntie will find out. Papa starts cleaning up the body. The body, not Uncle. She curls her fists inward, tries to slow the stutter of her breath, but it continues to speed up. Useless rotten insane crazy unpredictable ungrateful intolerant little bitch. All of this is true. All of this is true, like the screaming of the walls.

She has killed one of the last purebloods of their house. No matter how Papa refuses to say the word, it permeates. They have to be pure, is that not part of why they are hiding, why they are so selective? When she was born, half-Asian and screaming, was it not clear that she was from outside the walls, not truly pure? Did Auntie not take a knife to her chubby baby thigh to see how red her blood was?

She has committed the cardinal sin, and for that, her punishment is to never speak again.

~*~

“Pathetic.”

Something slams into her cheek, knocking her face to the side. Eyes watering, seeing the blurry image of him standing over her.

“Have you always been this useless?” His voice is low, this time in English. He sounds like Papa, the same commanding tone he used to take when Auntie misbehaved. “You know nothing. Or perhaps, you think you know nothing.”

Kill me, she tells him, even though every letter she forms sends a shockwave of excruciating pain through her temple.

“No. You may be useful yet.” He turns on his heel, starts to leave, but pauses by the door. She watches him, his gait. Everything about him screams Noble House of Gaunt, its righteous heir. Except, he is impure, and so is she. There is no purity left to them. If they slit their throats together, their blood would pool and mix on the floor beneath them, and it would be the same tainted mahogany. neither of them belong.

I don’t know what you want, or even who you are.

Something like a smirk crosses his face when he turns back to look at her. “I don’t need you to, to get what I want.”

~*~

Did Dumbledore ever come to the house? Did he find her on the floor, about to slit her throat, and save her? The blood on the walls is more real than any of this. Where is Auntie, Toby? Did Papa really abandon her in that house? What is real anymore? In her memory, it all becomes shiny and blurred.

None of this makes sense. None of this makes sense.

Ominis Gaunt became Orin Gleaves. Her initials are the same as his. A curse on her head, generational and damning. Did he actually love her, or was that wishful thinking?

Olivia Gleaves is a broken, useless piece of machinery, and this is her fate: to be used and discarded at the hands of someone who knows exactly how worthless she really is.

~*~

Time spent awake is fitful. It is hot, and sweaty, and there are hands pressing against her face, lifting her up, eyelids forced open. She can feel him going through her mind, combing through her memories, searching for… something.

Blood has dried on her face, and when she reaches up to lick a part of her lip, it comes away crusted and metallic. It tastes unpure. Auntie, wherever she is, would force her to keep drinking that blood, just so she knows how disgusting it is to be so unpure. Except, nobody else is here. There is no sound: she has been abandoned.

What is time, here? She doesn’t speak and cannot think. All that exists is the bland food shoved into her mouth, mechanical chewing, and the memory probing.

Is it strange that he reminds her so much of Auntie, even though that’s the one he’s not actually related to? Auntie, Elysia Gaunt, somehow more noble than the rest of them. Where is she now? She would rather Auntie shove her head into a wall again back home, because at least she knew deep down, hidden among the briars and thorns, there was an element of love. None of them knew how to show it, certainly, but she knew it was there. There is no love here.

Why hasn’t she died yet? Perhaps there is something worth salvaging from the smoldering ruins of her body, her mind, her soul.

~*~

Olīva, latin, means olive or olive tree

Olīva Olīvae

Olīvae Olīvārum

Olīvae Olīvīs

Olīvam Olīvās

Olīvā Olīvīs

Olīva Olīvae

Three, three, three, three.

Keep remembering, keep remembering, keep remembering.

~*~

Cool hands press against her forehead.

“Lift up.”

She has long since stopped resisting the feeling of skin against her skin, but it crawls nonetheless. It has been so long since one of hers spoke to her. Papa, Auntie, little Olivia? Will you come back and keep me company for just a while longer? I’m sorry I hated you so much when you were here. Now, I think I need you. I am very lonely here, and despite it all, I love you.

“Are you okay?” This is soft, and distinctly human. From the eye that isn’t swollen shut, she looks.

Blonde hair, light against the darkness of the room. Out of place, out of time, something murmurs in the back of her head, a voice she hasn’t heard before. Light hair, light skin, light touch. This girl seems built of threes, like destiny itself.

“I have water for you. Quickly.” A glass pressed to her lips, and she is much too exhausted and broken to protest, drinking fast even as the blood in her mouth makes it all taste awful.

“They’re coming for you. He’s sending people to rescue you, soon. Just do what you’ve been doing, okay? Don’t let on that you know, or he’ll know.” Hair brushed from her damp, clammy forehead. It feels real, solid, in such contrast to the floaty world she has existed in for however long now. “Okay? You’re going to survive this, I know it.” She starts to leave, and she is like the breeze Olivia saw once when Papa opened a window for the first time, feeling it against her skin and feeling alive. That was real, and the blood wasn’t, for just a brief time.

Wait, she thinks desperately. Why are you doing this?

The girl turns. Her eyes, big and blue and shining, are as real as the blood on the walls.

“Because I know better than to be on the wrong side of the future.”