Whispers of the cosmos - Draco Malfoy

The letter

The day was finally over; today was really long. It felt like the classes never really stopped, especially because during the lunch break, after eating quickly, Hermione and Lyra decided to study in the library. She didn't regret it; with that, she had some advance, and studying with Hermione was always good; her friend's mind was captivating. The free period before dinner was really nice—two books, one for her and one for Hermione, and they were just reading in one of the corridors. Normally, they would do it separately in their own rooms, but this time they had decided to read the same book, so obviously, they wanted to be able to comment on every section of the book right away.

"Please tell me you hate her brother too," Lyra asked. After 200 pages of this book, she was sure of one thing: she hated this character.

"Oh, thanks. I was scared to voice it. He is so selfish and wants to control her."

"The way he thinks he can tell her who she can date or not, come on, the audacity the boy has."

"I was scared you might find that cute, or well, I don't know. People tend to think protective brothers are cute."

"They are, of course, if you risk being set on fire, or if you are about to get run over by a car. Why should a brother care about who his sister is hooking up with?"

"Exactly what I think, and why do they think to care so much about their purity?"

"Right? Like, he should care how many boys touch her lips or not? That is kinda creepy, to be honest."

Hermione was going to add more arguments to this discussion, but they quickly got cut off by Harry and Ron arriving.

"Are you two really still studying?"

That Lyra thought was why she loved being friends with Hermione so much; she always knew about the cool stuff. They had both spent hours practicing their transfiguration skills to make the covers of their romance books look like study books. That way, no teacher could say anything, and boys like Ron or Harry couldn't make fun of them for their hobbies. Plus, everyone would think they were so smart, always studying, not reading Muggle fiction, never.

Hermione and Lyra looked at each other before laughing a bit. Yes, the love story they were reading was definitely not any kind of study.

"Well, Ron, you should take some example from us and start to study a bit more."

"Yeah, sure, maybe another time."

"Yes, for now, my stomach is crying for food, so please grab your book and let's go eat as much as we can." As Harry made that statement, his stomach started making noises, which resulted in all of them laughing.

"Yes, let's go before you decide to eat one of us, or worse, one of our books," Hermione added while she stood up, quietly followed by Lyra.

When they arrived at the Great Hall, Lyra hesitated as always. She spent most of her time at the Gryffindor table, and no one ever said a thing to her in the red gathering. Maybe it's because they respected the Weasleys so much, and the twins' brothers made it clear that they had her back. Because she knew that they did mind a bit; she could see the looks anyone was giving her. After a second more of hesitation, she didn't let go of Hermione's hand and followed her friends to the table next to the one of her house. She'll go to this one tomorrow, she promised herself. Baby steps were good for now.

It was late when she went to the owlery after dinner. She wanted to check in case a letter arrived for her, so she decided to wait for her cousin's owl to be back. She sat on the floor, opened her potion book, thinking that taking some school advance shouldn't hurt. Her parents didn't answer any of her five letters, so she was surprised when, after having waited for an hour for Hedwig to be back, he was carrying a letter with her name on it. She got so excited; they answered finally. Maybe they got used to the owl after all; Hedwig was the sweetest owl ever. Well, she didn't have much experience with owls, but witnessing how the Weasleys' owl delivered their letters made her appreciate Harry's luck with his snowy owl. She rushed to open her letter, not even trying to open it correctly.