Today was a nice, bright spring day, and just like every other student, Lyana was outside making the most of the sunlight. She had brought out her work, hoping to work on some revision for her upcoming N.E.W.Ts or just to finish up homework. But today was to good of a day to just spend it on school, so she had put aside the books and was just lounging on her blanket that she had brought out with her.
With everything that had been happening, Lyana hoped that her fellow students would take the time to relax and enjoy the spring day. There weren’t as many smiles anymore, and Lyana missed it. As she was lying on the ground, a shadow passed over her face. She looked up to the figure near her and smiled. “Hello, there. Enjoying the fresh air?”
Which dorm mate do you think would be the best shag?
Wren? I don't know, I've never really thought about it. I think Wren, for all her toughness has a sweet side to her, so I think it might be nice. She could probably teach me a few things.
Being back in the castle felt odd to Lyana. Before recent events, Hogwarts had been the place that Lyana felt the safest. There were old protections on this school that Lyana had thought impenetrable. The teachers here were supposed to be the best. No one was supposed to be able to hurt them here. That had apparently been misguided and naive of Lyana to think so. Their teacher had been murdered and placed on their doorstep while they had all been tucked away inside. Lyana couldn’t imagine how easy it would have been to take it a step further. To come into the castle and attack them all while they were delusional enough to think they were safe.
So being back at Hogwarts was weird. Lyana tried her best to get back into the flow of things, but found that harder still. It was hard to find a flow when you were constantly looking around, trying to make sure that you wouldn’t be kept out of the loop again just because you can’t hear. Lyana didn’t want her diminished hearing to bring her downfall. It just meant she was jumpier than usual. Lyana also found herself preoccupied a lot. Thinking on other things than what was right in front of her. Which is how she found herself here, running across Hogwarts after a chicken that had sneaked out of Hagrid’s pen.
She had been too lost in her thoughts to realize she hadn’t secured the gate completely, and Ol’ Larry, the school’s resident escape artist, had decided to take that opportunity to run off across the school grounds. She turned a corner, hoping to find the chicken, but to no avail. She called out to a student that she saw walking through the courtyard.
“You haven’t by any chance seen a chicken around here have you?” Trying to look casual.
“Okay, even if you don’t agree with the message, you have to admit that the use of Howlers that set each other off was sort of genius. Plus it definitely got everyone’s attention.” Lyana shrugged her shoulders and offered the person she was talking to a smile. “Hell, even I heard pieces of it, which is saying a lot coming from someone who is Hard of Hearing.”
The truth is rarely pure, and never simple || Self-para
Lyana ate her breakfast in relative silence. Since the minister’s arrival, the students had adopted a weird air of excitement, awe, and trepidation. Lyana leaned more towards trepidation than anything else. Just earlier the Howlers had gone off, and there was an odd silence that lingered over the students who had stuck around for breakfast. In front of her, Lyana stared at a piece of parchment, the ink still drying on it. Lyana was allowed a note-taking quill for her classes, and had intended to use it for the minister’s speech. Just so that she would stay in the loop. She just lucked out to have it out and prepared when the howlers had started. The quill had flown across the page as the Howlers were screaming at a deafening sound, loud enough that Lyana could hear them fairly clearly with the residual hearing that she had left. Her eyes lingered on a few words transcribed onto her page. “No heros” and “equal rights” stuck out the most, but her eyes were drawn to a few words at the end of the page: “Beings not Beasts.”
The minister’s presence in the school made Lyana think of her own future. Recently she had been considering seeking a job within the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. she wanted to work to help keep people safe from magical creatures that might be causing havoc among the general population. She liked the idea of solving a mystery and investigating crime scenes like she had read about in Matilda Grimblehawk’s autobiography that she had read almost like a bible when she was younger. But as she got older she realized that the classification of certain magical creatures into Beast or Being (or Spirit) had it’s problems. She was also sure that this classification is where many of the tensions between werewolves and wizards originated. Telling people that they belonged to a category, and that because of that they were allowed less rights than they believed they should have is a surefire way to create tensions between anyone. .
She honestly wasn’t sure what to think anymore, but she couldn’t help but be idealistic. She believed that everyone should be granted the same rights, and that things beyond their control shouldn’t alter that. At the same time though, she couldn’t figure out what to think of the murder at Hogwarts. She hadn’t considered that it was even connected to the werewolves until the Prophet suggested it. She couldn’t understand why people just trying to fight for equal rights would murder someone to be heard. It just seemed counter-intuitive to her. Sure the act gets a group noticed, but it’s all negative attention and it makes people less likely to listen to arguments. Especially the argument that werewolves aren’t a danger to people around them.
Lyana also couldn’t shake out the look on her father’s face when she mentioned that she might want to work for the ministry. He was quick to cover it up, but there was a look of shock and almost fear. Lyana couldn’t be sure since he had been so quick to cover it up. He had mentioned to her that she didn’t think that she would be right for a ministry job. It had been the first time in Lyana’s entire life that he had ever suggested that he hadn’t believed in her, and didn’t actively encourage her to follow her dreams. The whole time that Lyana had been at his place, he actively avoided an further conversations about it.
This drew so many red flags in Lyana’s mind that it was driving her crazy. Since her accident when he was younger, he had been careful to let Lyana know that he would be proud of her, regardless of what she did with her life. It made her so curious as to why he would suddenly change his mind and discourage her from this. Keeping this in mind, the fact that her father’s study would suddenly be locked gave her the feeling that her father was hiding something from her. It had been a while since she had lived with her father outright, but in all of her life she had never known her father to lock his study from her. And yet, when she had returned home, she found herself unable to enter.
Lyana chalked it up to her paranoia, but could shake the feeling that there was something else going on. That her father was hiding something from her. She hadn’t the slightest idea what it would even be, but it was enough to cause her to sneak into her father’s study. There was nothing to find when she entered, which ought to have been comforting if Lyana hadn’t known that she got her organization skills from her father. Both of them had a habit of organizing vertically, which is to say they left stacks and stacks of papers everywhere. Lyana’s own desk often looked like she was creating a small city of paper. When she entered her father’s study, it was spotless. There were no papers on the desk, everything was filed away nicely and neatly. It told Lyana that her father had cleaned up when she realized that they study was locked. It told her that he was hiding something. She hadn’t the slightest idea what, as he did a good job of covering up after himself. But she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread and slight betrayal at the thought that there was something that she didn’t know. Something that she wasn’t sure if she could get to the bottom of, or if she wanted to.
She wondered about her future as she sat there at breakfast. The Minister’s smile reassuring, but highly political. Lyana couldn’t imagine being able to appear unfazed when Howers had literally yelled in your face. But Minister Tegus appeared to be entirely unfazed, and normally that would have been comforting to Lyana. Except that it wasn’t and it left her wondering what else he could hide behind his charming smile. If her own father managed to hide things from her, and lie to her face, why wouldn’t the minister too? What assurance was out there if they couldn’t even protect a teacher from being murdered. Lyana felt as if they were all on a sinking ship, and that she had just realized that they were all going down.
Lyana couldn’t help but wonder if realizing the ship was sinking would be enough to save her. Or if she would have to sit back and watch as everything around her sunk while the others looked on with horror as the people they trusted to lead them abandoned them all for a life boat to take them to safety.
Lyana had awoken the next morning early, her dreams haunted by what had happened the night before. She wanted to stay wrapped up in her blankets, safe from the world, but also knew that she wouldn’t feel safe until she checked in with her friends hunkered down in London, as far away from Hogwarts as they could get. So she pulled herself out of bed, showered and flooed over to her father’s place in London. After assuring him that she was alright, and assured him that she’d be back that evening, wanting the comfort of a familiar space over the comfort of her friends. Lyana apparated into Diagon Alley and after getting directions from one of the shopkeepers, found herself in front of The Sleeping Dragon. Hogwarts students were milling about in the foyer and the attached kitchen. They were certainly more somber than she had ever seen Hogwarts students be. With good reason, of course. She sat down next to a familiar face and pulled a tupperware of cookies out of her bag.
“My mother made me chocolate chip cookies to share. Not really a homecooked meal, but chocolate chips cookies are comfort food for my family.” She smiled softly, unsure of what to say beyond that as she held out the box for a cookie to be grabbed.
The Night of Fear || Valentine’s Day Party Reaction Para
Lyana had been talking to Ainsley when an ear piercing scream echoed through the halls. Lyana hadn’t heard the sound, but she did hear the sudden silence that echoed through the room. She looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. She could see the faces of the other students, confused and looking towards the door. She stood turning herself to the door and tried to look through the crowd of people to see what was happening. Suddenly the front door opened and a group of students came in, the panic apparent on their faces. Their voices created a stir among the other students and suddenly most of the students streamed out of the common room. What was left behind were people talking quickly, their words overlapping and panicked. That was the theme for tonight apparently. Panic.
Lyana didn’t dare follow the students out of the common room, as she still hadn’t the slightest idea of what was happening. There was a feeling of confusion and loneliness that was starting to take over Lyana’s mind. She couldn’t help but resent the fact that she couldn’t hear during stressful situations like this. Everyone was too busy and stressed to take the time to explain to Lyana what was happening. She didn’t want to need any special treatment, but it would be nice to understand something. She wasn’t sure if the other students knew much, but it would be nice to just hear what they were hearing.
Lyana was pulled out of her inner monologue when she saw one of the students who had originally rushed into the common room slumped into a chair. She moved over to the student, summoning a water from across the room and then handing it over to the student. She crouched on the floor in front of the student, asking if there were any injuries on the student. The shell-shocked student let out a soft sob, and Lyana could make out the word “dead” before the student collapsed into a crying bundle of tears. She wrapped her arms around the student, holding this crying student that she didn’t even know while everyone around her merely stared at the door waiting for something to happen.
The student’s sobs had quieted when the rest of the school came back into the common room, bringing with them news that Lyana couldn’t quite catch. Everything happened in a blur, and the students were ushered into the Great Hall. Lyana still wasn’t sure what had happened besides the fact that she was pretty sure that someone was dead. The student that had been crying on her earlier didn’t leave her side until they were in the Great Hall and she managed to get the student to tell her that they were a Ravenclaw. She managed to hand off the third year to a group of older student who recognized the student.
The rest of the night passed in a blur. Apparently Professor Vector had been murdered. Brutally. Lyana didn’t have any of her classes, but the death shook through them all. All of the students were escorted back to their classrooms. She could see the teachers attempting to control their emotions, but with the death of their co-worker and friend, Lyana could tell that the death was hitting them all. Lyana quickly packed all of her things into her trunk, mostly just shoving everything in there and thankful that her parents had managed to get her a trunk with multiple magic compartments so she could just shove anything in there. Lyana helped some of the younger years pack as well and then they all were ushered outside and out to Hogsmede.
There Lyana said goodbye to her friends with the promise that they would write to her when they were settled. Then by the leave of Professor Raleigh (after he verified that she did indeed have her Apparition licence) apparated herself to her mother’s house in Inverness. Her mother wasn’t far enough away from Hogwarts for Lyana to feel entirely comfortable but the safety of home was more alluring. She hoped to rely on the collective protection of the wizarding community that her mother lived in for protection, so she could overlook the fact that she wasn’t that far from the dangers that had engulfed Hogwarts.
It was only when Lyana was wrapped in the arms of her family, sandwiched between her mother and step-mother, her little sister wrapped around her legs, that Lyana allowed herself to let out her soft sobs of fear. Hogwarts was her safe place, her home for 7 years. She had never thought that they could be touched there. She thought that they would be okay and that the troubles that they all read about in the paper would stay there.
Lyana ended up falling asleep against her step-mother after penning a quick letter to her father promising to visit him the next day, especially since she wanted to check on her friends who would be staying in London where her father lived. Even with the security and comfort provided by her family, her dreams were troubled. Her dreams were filled with black, shapeless shadows that moved quickly and silently. Their eyes circled Lyana, separating her from her family and friends. They moved around her without making noise and her eyes were too slow to keep up with their movements. She was cut off and separated, with no way of being able to help her family if she couldn’t even help herself. Her fears about her own handicaps invaded her dreams, keeping her trapped and captive until she woke early in the morning, exhausted and fearful for what the future was going to bring them.
