Effervescence | h.p.

i | vi. strangers

Lyra barely left her room the next day, only leaving to get food and water. Having her own bathroom connected to her room had been useful on a day like today, where her main goal was to avoid her fathers and their questions on the previous night's happenings.

Lyra knew that they wanted to know what happened between her and Harry that had gotten her beyond the point of anger. So far past, in fact, that she yelled at her best friend at her birthday party. She wanted to talk to someone about it, but she didn't want her fathers to get involved in a problem that didn't currently involve them.

Harry was in the same mood the day following his and Lyra's 'fight.' He didn't tell James or Lily what happened, but did fall back on them the whole day whenever he felt his overwhelming sadness coming to the surface to drag him down. So he was with his parents most of the day, clinging silently to their sides. He didn't want to cry, he didn't feel he deserved it.

He caused this. He made her feel like he didn't want her around him.

What Harry got on his birthday, the thirty-first of July, made him feel even worse about his current predicament. He, like Lyra, received an acceptance letter, meaning if Lyra owled the school back to say she would be an attendant the following year, Harry would still be with her everyday. But now, he didn't know what her answer would be to the invitation.

Would she decline to stay with him, unknowing of his letter?

Would she be angry enough towards him to accept and assume she would not, in any way, see him there, too?

Maybe she would accept his previous apology and they would work their plan out together, but she didn't know he had apologized.

What was going to come of the situation, neither child knew, but their parents had to get to the bottom of their conflict before either of the kids made any rash, stupid decisions. Both pairs of parents had been in contact via owl, concerned about how their godchildren and their own children had been acting. Harry was being extremely clingy and almost never wanted to be alone with his rampant thoughts while Lyra had been the complete opposite: distant and closed-off from everything except her mind.

Remus, Sirius, Lily, and James decided that they would have to get the information out of the eleven year-old kids and they would sort out the miscommunication, assuming that was the problem. Otherwise, the two friends would have to sort themselves out in the middle of the crowded street known as Diagon Alley while they bought their school supplies. Hopefully, there wouldn't be a fight between the two in the middle of the adventure, but there was no telling what would come of their first interaction since Lyra's birthday party.

There was a knock at Lyra's door, followed by the voice of Remus calling out to his pup. "Pup, if you want to go to Hogwarts, you're going to need to come with me and your Papa to Diagon Alley to get what you need. We can't get your fitted robes without getting you . . . well, fitted for them" Remus joked.

All he was met with for a response from the other side of the door was an annoyed grunt and the faint sound of mumbling, which he couldn't translate.

Suddenly, a voice responded, quite loudly, "I'm not going."

This being the first time she had spoken in days, her voice was hoarse and nearly unrecognizable. Remus' ears perked a little at the voice that he had missed so dearly. But a sad, worried look took over his features upon registering the answer.

"What do you mean? Where don't you want to go?" Remus tried, thinking he already knew her answer.

He wanted to have her clearly state that she was going to Hogwarts before sending an owl to Minnie, informing her to add Lyra to the class list, but his fears were being confirmed right in front of him.

She didn't want to go to the school of magic.

But, he had needed to respond to the owl before the thirty-first, meaning he was forced to say she would go without confirming with her. Whether or not Remus and Sirius would've made her go anyways was almost out of the question — she needed to know the extent of her abilities and would need at least one year at the school to decide if she wanted to continue there or not.

"I'm not going to Hogwarts, and by extension, I have no need to go to Diagon Alley today," Lyra's voice could be heard saying through the door.

Wincing slightly because he had to be the one to break the news to her about him already informing the school she would be going this year, Remus tried to give her the information now and get it over with.

"Well . . . it's funny you should say that because —well — your Papa Pads and I. Well, we had to tell the school that you would be attending by yesterday. And — er — we said — we said you would," Remus stated quickly, all the while, scratching the back of his neck where his sandy-blond hair and neck met.

"YOU WHAT?!" Lyra yelled, now opening the door, as if to see if her dad would stop joking around when her saw her.

But, he wasn't joking and, if anything, seeing her made Remus' already nervous demeanor even more concerned and worried about her.

"Oh, baby. What happened?"

He ignored her rhetorical question upon setting his eyes on his little girl. She had dark circles underlining both eyes, from a lack of proper sleep or the complete opposite, too much sleep. She had streaks going down her face starting from her dark under eyes to her jawline, clearly caused by tears drying directly to her skin. Her hair was messy from not being attended to properly in at least twenty-four hours. That's when he noticed a fresh tear that she had yet to wipe away running the track that had been run many times before by other competitors.

Noticing the feeling of his prying eyes taking in all her appearance changes from her time in isolation, she tried to look down to the ground before he saw the new tear that she had shed, but she didn't make it in time. Feeling his hand under her chin to lift it and look into her eyes to see what emotion she was letting through, she tried to turn her head away. But he just brought it back to face him so he could wipe away the liquid.

She couldn't take it anymore. She needed him and she wouldn't be able to see him for much longer, leaving for Hogwarts on the first of September. She couldn't waste her remaining time sulking in her room. She threw herself into him, letting his arms wrap around her to hold her limp body up.

"I'm sorry. I'm s-so, so sorry, Dad. It's my fault. E-everything, i-it's all my fault," she cried, her voice so broken and so small, pleading for forgiveness.

"Come here," he said comfortingly while leading her into her room and to her bed, where he just sat and held her close while waiting for her to calm down enough to tell him what was happening in her head.