~but mercy is above this sceptred sway { closed to alphaophiuchi }

[serpentfangs]

Lyra had been looking forward to coming home for the holidays for weeks. Oh, never mistake her - she loved Hogwarts. As much as nearly every generation of young wizards of the past loved the school. She would miss her new friends, the lively feasting hall meals, the many hours lost in the library, teas on weekends at the gamekeeper's hut, the misadventures in the many winding stone passages of the halls, the gatherings in the Slytherin common room, even the the lessons.

(Most of the professors too, she supposed - although some not as much. Her last mark from Professor Binns on a small exam he had posted just before holidays was burning a hole in her pocket, the only gloom threatening to dim her shine the whole way home. Shockingly mediocre - unacceptable for a Malfoy.)

But she had never been away, really away, from the Manor for the first eleven years of her life. And after the months away at Hogwarts, she did miss it so. It would be good to come again, if only for a short time. Before it was back to the castle, and her friends and their scrapes, and learning more new magic.

She hadn't bothered changing out of her Hogwarts uniform on the train ride back. She knew how proud it would make Mother and Father to see her in her Slytherin green. Her favorite barrettes, designed to look like black and silver striped serpents, were in her hair, and she had on an unbuttoned black cloak to help keep herself warm as she waited at the platform with her trunk and her horned owl hooting gently from its cage.

She passed the time waiting by already working on one of the letters she would be sending to her friends, as soon as she arrived at the Manor safe - some thought her a bit mad, but Lyra loved writing and getting letters, and she intended firmly to keep in touch with her new companions over the holidays. She must at least write them once, maybe twice or even three times.

Mother had written to let her know that Draco would be picking her up on his way by from Saint Mungo's, that he would be bringing her to the Manor by himself. This was perfectly fine by Lyra who was looking forward to showing her elder brother how grownup she had surely become in the time since her becoming a real, full-fledged student of Hogwarts.

Also there were a few things on her mind, that she wanted to talk to him about while they were alone. Though it was such a little thing really, it was still nagging at her, that bit about Portia's cousin...

Comments

happy christmas, have some lyra!

[serpentfangs]

Lyra pulled another face, squinting and nose scrunching as she clearly did not want to actually think about it. But then, how well would Draco have reacted at one time if someone had tried to make him see it from Potter's point of view?

"Emmery doesn't seem to miss her at all, I don't know how close they could really be," she announced. "If anything he's rather properly apologetic for what a right chore she is, he says she's always been like that. Honestly I imagine Emmery's the brightest in his whole family, in a way, never mind what marks Elmira can get - he told me he's the only one to ever be in Slytherin."

The Everglotts were an established wizarding family, but they were anything but pureblood. Oh, both Emmery's parents had been wizarding, but their line was mixed through and through. Technically by the strictest standards Emmery himself might count as half-blood, even: both grandparents on his mother's side were Muggleborns.

Not that Lyra thought much of or was even fully aware of any of this.

What she was aware of, however? They were quite nearly to their destination. Thank goodness: her throat was getting worn out by all her talking, she could do with a soothing cup of tea.

IT'S THE HAPPIEST CHRISTMAS <3

[alphaophiuchi]

He would have absolutely hated it had someone told him to see things from Potter's point of view. And he recognised that, in his older, wiser current state; that was precisely why he was suggesting it. At the look on her face, and the knowledge of exactly what she was thinking, Draco had to fight off yet another smirk.

"That's very interesting," he hummed thoughtfully, still trying not to smirk. "Maybe she's jealous that she has nothing and he's got everything. Particularly since twins are usually so equal to one another."

Or so he'd noticed in his very limited experience. Either way, it really didn't bother him much. It was sort of hilarious, though, and all he could think of was how exasperated Father was going to be when they got home and he got this whole spiel recited for him. The Tale of Elmira.

It was Potter 2.0, really. Lucius was destined to never have a child who got along with people properly.

Finally, Draco steered his little sister into the shop, ushering her towards a table near a window. "Order whatever you like. I won't tell Mother or Father."

lol and now IT'S THE NEW YEAR 8|

[serpentfangs]

Lyra only nodded along, listening as he talked of Emmery having so much more than his sister. Honestly she thought it was the most sensible thing Draco had said so far on the matter.

Lucius would be all but tearing his hair out by the time they got home and this conversation was repeated in any form of detail where he could hear it -- realizing he had another seven years of this rehashing to look forward to, realizing he would never know peace.

Meanwhile, that was all likely hours away. In the now here was Lyra, failing to notice her brother was silently laughing at her, even as she attuned keenly to his offer.

"They may not have to know, but they will notice if I haven't enough room for supper," she said sagely, but that didn't stop her from ordering some cakes and a plate of tea sandwiches along with a pot of redbush tea, sweeter and flavored with strawberry. Any child of eleven would be hungry after the long ride in on the train from Scotland - doubly so when spending the whole ride excited to spend time with one's friends and talking to make up for the absence that would soon happen over the holiday.

this is the thread that never eeeeends~

[alphaophiuchi]

Draco could be quite sensible. Only a tiny child who'd just started school wouldn't think so. That was the logic that he was sticking to, at least. Never mind the details. As long as she didn't notice that he was silently laughing at her, they'd be just fine.

"Never mind that. We'll deal with it when we get there," he drawled, fluttering one hand through the air. They'd probably immediately blame him anyway, for being some kind of bad influence. He was a fantastic influence, though. Everyone knew that. He ordered himself a rather similar selection to hers, though he didn't really acknowledge it at all; there was enough of a difference that she couldn't quite tease him over it anyway. He just liked sweets, and this was a good opportunity away from their mother's disapproving stare.

it just goes on and on, my friends

[serpentfangs]

Lyra nodded up at him, for once accepting his word - his authority - without question. He was still her older brother after all. Her respect and presumption of his worldliness was nowhere near as absolute as it was with their parents, and she belied it by often arguing with him the way that siblings were seemingly required to. But it did exist.

Particularly when he was putting it forward that he would be the one to take the blame, should they get in trouble.

Mother would ask why Lyra wasn't hungry, and the girl would pipe up, "Draco said it would be all right".

And who said eleven-year-olds couldn't be manipulative.

As they both tucked in for the moment there was relative quiet, Lyra enjoying the tea and sandwiches too much to try and carry on straight away.

WHEEEE

[alphaophiuchi]

And in those rare moments where it did indeed exist, he was always silently grateful. He had spent a good amount of time culturing himself and growing beyond the petulant fifteen year old most people thought he'd always be. Too much time, in fact, to be undermined by his baby sister.

But really, he'd thought about all of this. Certainly, he was offering to take the blame, but it was well and possible that he'd already suggested that he'd heard rumour the train might be slightly late, that perhaps they might be given something to nibble on said train to quell any rumbling tummies, that maybe dinner ought to be nudged a little later to accommodate for it. He had a few contacts at Hogwarts, and though he doubted his parents would believe it, it had certainly been a well-spun tale.

Over his first sips of tea, Draco couldn't help but smile slightly to himself. The first year at school was always the most exciting, when friends and enemies alike were made for life. That was just how it worked, and Malfoys tended to polarise things anyway. Nice to see that his sister was following in his footsteps that way. He already couldn't wait for the explosion of Emotion over this Elmira girl over dinner. It was going to be fantastic.

[serpentfangs]

There was a pattern perhaps. Lyra had spent the past months - which had seemed to go by so fast, from her perspective - getting used to the castle and all of her classes, learning how to do homework and what the professors were like, getting the acquaintance of her housemates and the other children in her age group. Social connections being forged, rivalries and dislikes being created, that sort of thing.

Her first year was like that of any other first year in all these regards. Which, considering what she was - a half-breed and a Malfoy and one born so unexpectedly after the second war - was therefore actually a bit remarkable and noteworthy.

Their parents sometimes made comments over it, reading over her letters together, pleased and maybe just a bit quietly thrilled, even relieved.

Lyra would have a childhood, a normal happy childhood. Her family - no this entire generation of wizard-kind - owed her that.

For her part Lyra took a break from her endless observations to nibble at sandwiches and cake for some minutes, drinking half a cup of tea as well.

Finally she looked up at her brother with a kind of concerned solemnity, a thought having come up that seemed to weigh on her mind.

"Draco, I am old enough now to be able to buy a Christmas present for somebody don't you think? To be able to go find it myself, and not have to rely on anyone's help for anything besides the pocket money, don't you think?"

[alphaophiuchi]

It was nice, in truth, that she'd had basically the same first year as himself and his classmates, and all those other first years afterwards, the ones that Draco so kindly tended to leave places as a 'character building exercise'. Draco was still tending to a thread of jealousy, of course, but it was a little better knowing that he had Scorpius and his own family to love him, when his parents were otherwise occupied with his sister.

In fact, quite a lot of his more negative feelings were lessened by the fact that he had Tori and Scorpius around to keep him sane. If only her life was normal, while his maintained notoriety, it was obvious that Draco would have been significantly less okay with it all.

He was thinking of very little at all right that moment - perhaps wilfully so - as he sipped his own tea, nibbling on a sandwich carefully. No one around them got so much as the bat of an eye in consideration. Only Lyra, and only when she spoke up again.

"Well, probably. Who're you buying a gift for?"

[serpentfangs]

Lyra, coming from a family of Slytherins, had been slipped a few subtle warnings, some hints as to what the older students might try to pull. So she hadn't had as rough a time of it as some of the other first years. The favorite prank for this generation of Slytherins seemed to be convincing the younger students that at some point they might look out the dungeon windows and see the squid staring at them from within the lake.

Lyra already knew the giant squid never came that close to the castle.

"My new friend Heloise." Lyra's answer was prompt and wholehearted. "She's a Slytherin too and we met on the train before we'd even arrived at Hogwarts...we're in the same dorm, with Violette and Portia Parkinson, and she's my partner in nearly all my classes. We're the best of friends," Lyra announced, sitting up straighter as she lifted up her little shoulders, slight beneath her school robes, and put her hands in her lap. "We'll be the bestest of friends forever, for the rest of our lives, I mean. I just know it. And anyway, I want to get her a present for Christmas. I think that I should, don't you?"

[alphaophiuchi]

Draco might have started that rumour, back in his own era. He did like terrifying the first years, after all.

"Hm," he hummed thoughtfully. He hadn't heard the name before, and that really did beg the question what family she was from. Obviously a halfway decent one, if she was in Slytherin. Unless, of course, things had changed entirely in the years that had passed since he was last there. It was possible.

But he did have to lift his eyebrows at the excitement his little sister was babbling on with, mostly because it was still hilarious. He wondered how old she'd have to get before she lost that, or if she never would. (He did realise that he got that excited at times, though mostly about Tori and Scorpius. So there was a very good chance she never would.) "That's an awfully long time, you know. How about you just start with the Christmas present, and see how the rest of the year goes, hm?"

[serpentfangs]

Lyra pulled another one of those faces of hers, a sort of silent "Oh all right" even as she still strongly dismissed the advice out of turn. Children her age tended to know just enough about the world to think that they knew everything. Everything important, anyway. And it was so hard to convince an eager young heart it should maybe slow down and reconsider on matters of love or friendship.

She had noticed Draco's thoughtfulness, though. Regarded him with some curiosity, even as she couldn't at all deduce the reason.

"I'm just not sure what to get her. I've never gone and picked out a present for someone all by myself before, you know. In a way it's rather frightfully exciting."

[alphaophiuchi]

At the very least, he knew that his advice fell on deaf ears. That he'd offered it at all was more his point, and what he would focus on. Look at how good and right he was, offering his little sister advice. Never mind if she never listened to him; at least, this way, he could also remark later with a very haughty I told you so if it came to that.

Of course, when he'd been her age, he hadn't exactly suffered from such eager friendship. He didn't really know what it was like at all. The first time he'd truly fallen for anyone had been Tori.

He snorted his amusement at that, but grinned all the same. "Well. What does she like?"

[serpentfangs]

"Oh well, all sort the usual things, really. I mean we play games all the time, even though she's rather bad at chess I'm afraid. Likes gobstones much better."

Lyra sucked on her fangs thoughtfully, before reaching for another treat from the table between them as she spoke.

Actually she had to really stop and think what Heloise liked, if only because when they two were together the other girl deferred to - was bowled over, really - by Lyra and her eager ideas.

"And she likes sweets, of course. Though she isn't used to some of the common ones. Her mother works at some sort of hospital so that means she must be a healer, after a fashion, and I think they only gave her and her siblings mostly healthy treats growing up. Like fruit."

Lyra took another pause.

"Her favorite color is lavender."

[alphaophiuchi]

"'All the usual things'," he drawled with a light snigger tacked onto the tail end. In truth, Draco could recall too well how he'd assumed all his friends liked all the same thing as himself; he didn't bother reminding himself of when he'd realised he was wrong, mostly because there was no point dwelling on it now.

Instead, he merely waited, regarding his sister with careful, quiet amusement that encouraged her to think it over. Somewhere in there, they'd be able to find something that the girl would want for Christmas. And Draco wouldn't even demand credit for it. Publically, at least; he might needle Lyra about it a bit.

"Well, that's a little better." A pause, and he frowned slightly. "She's not used to the common sweets? That's odd. Even if she didn't eat them as a child."

Never mind that. Some habits were hard to break, and he tried not to arch a brow too much at the notion that Lyra's friend might be a half-blood or Muggleborn.

He cleared his throat. "All right. So now we have a few...starting points. Sort of. Perhaps a mixed box of sweets. Or some sort of...scarf?" Buying presents for girls was hard.

and here it goes

[serpentfangs]

"Well I don't think she'd ever even seen most of them, I mean, before she got her letter to Hogwarts. She's not from a wizarding family, actually."

Lyra gave this response to Draco's musing, matter of factly. She hadn't been trying to talk around the notion of her best friend's pedigree - honestly, it simply hadn't occurred to her to make much of a fuss about it. Yes, there were people who had been surprised to see a Muggleborn sorted into Slytherin...the first one there had been for awhile, at least openly. Lyra had grown up surrounded by wizarding children but no one really dared try to talk about the issue of blood purity with her. However to bring it up, to a half-blood from such an old name as herself?

And Lyra didn't even pause for thought as she said this...and then continued on, already gravitating to Draco's next words.

"I want to give her something that'll last, of course! Although maybe a scarf. That might be good." She considered it thoughtfully.

oh noes

[alphaophiuchi]

Draco couldn't help himself: he did flinch. Just a little bit. He tried not to, but it happened anyway.

"Oh?" He asked, voice slightly pitchy with awkward surprise. It apparently hadn't helped any that he'd already run through the possibility in his head; that Lyra was so openly stating it was enough to render him down to sputtering bemusement. "Well, that's- I-"

He cleared his throat again.

Good thing she'd already moved on.

"Scarves are always popular. Tori has a few that I've given her. Though sometimes I wonder if she only wears them because I gave them to her and she doesn't want to offend me," he hummed, considering that thoughtfully as well. At least it provided a nice foil to the previous admission.

OHH YEAH

[serpentfangs]

Fortunately - for them both, perhaps - the nuance of Draco's reaction went right over Lyra's very young and easily distracted head. She was admittedly self-absorbed in that naive way belonging to children. Especially ones whose names were 'Malfoy'.

There was only so much awareness that could be expected from a girl for whom so much in life had already been all about her, anyway.

Brightly, unthinking, Lyra went on, "Well I don't know about that, it does seem a bit like the kind of thing that she might do to humor you. But a scarf is a nice place to start. Do you think it should be something really, really nice, or maybe more practical?"

FLEEEEEEE

[alphaophiuchi]

Ah, Lyra. It was both a blessing and a curse, though Draco could, at least, now see exactly why he'd been so exasperating as a child. And probably now, for that matter. He wouldn't deny that he was definitely still exasperating at times. He just hoped he wasn't quite so exasperating.

(Exasperating. What a good word.)

"Oh, thank you," he drawled, rolling his eyes a little. It was a good thing he was no longer quite so quick to offend either, though. "Go with practical. You hardly want to open with something really, really nice, and have her flit away. Besides, you'd be setting unrealistic expectations, probably."

FLY, YOU FOOLS

[serpentfangs]

"You really think that?" It wasn't a question, more like an incredulous accusing demand. "You really think she'll 'flit away'? For one thing as I said, she's in the same room as me. Bed right next to, a matter of fact. So it's not like she could get very far," she concluded, huffily.

And then picking up another little cake from the tray between them, in lieu of biting in right away she turned her nose up at him, and gave a little toss of her head that sent those platinum blonde locks shaking beautifully.

"Even if she wanted to try. Which she wouldn't." She bit her sweet for emphasis, sinking her fangs in first. "Honestly, Draco. You act as if you've never had a real friend before."

Spoken in that worldly know it all tone of a child addressing someone much older than them as if they are, nonetheless, an idiot.

[alphaophiuchi]

"You really never know," he pointed out mildly, regarding his little sister thoughtfully and not without some amusement. She was so optimistic, so upbeat, so unable to believe anything negative. He was fine with it, as long as no one broke her heart for it.

She was just as pretentious as he'd been at her age, and it was definitely entertaining.

"Well, then. Perhaps I haven't," Draco hummed mildly, shrugging one shoulder as he sank his teeth into a cake of his own. "What would you say to that, o worldly sister of mine?"