#lyanaposts

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 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.