❝ i'm chaos walking . . . ❞
❝ then i'll walk with you.❞
「 Liliana Granger knew chaos like the back of her hand.
It confronted her, challenging her to find calm wherever she could.
But some days...
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❝ Well, a girl has to eat. ❞
⋅☾☼☽⋅
Nightmares. Dark and enigmatic scenarios that consume you until you wake up in a cold sweat and realize it was all pretend. That's what Liliana's morning was like, except she was already awake, and everything was so terribly real. She had pressed through the halls hand-in-hand with Hermione on the way to her first class, keeping her head down as people whispered about her.
"Do you think she can really read minds?"
"I bet she's a fake."
"How does it even work?"
Their words were like salt to a wound. She had spent all summer healing from the pain of her past, and not even a day into the start of term her peers had started picking at the scab. As their stares burned into her back, she fell back into her memories from primary school. Her stomach started to twist into knots as her old peers' taunts mixed with the current whispers bouncing off the walls.
At last, making it to Transfiguration, Liliana was relieved to see Professor McGonagall's familiar face. She and Hermione took seats in the very front, and a small stillness washed over her as she pulled out her textbook and read over the chalkboard. Homework and books were like her shield, protecting her from the world outside of historical facts and fantastical tales; add in her walkman and she was impenetrable.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall started to say, walking around to the front of her desk. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."
Liliana heard a few gulps from the students behind her, but her lip twitched in amusement. She had grown to appreciate the strict and clever nature of her Transfiguration professor. But still, she knew never to cross her.
"Very well then," the professor said.
With curious eyes, the first years watched as she took her wand out from her robes and trained it on her desk. With a delicate wave of it, the wooden structure had been transformed into a pig. When it oinked, the class burst into giggles. She then changed her desk back, everyone oohing and awing over her skills.
"Over your time here, you will learn to harness your abilities and use them for magic as intricate and precise as my demonstration," Professor McGonagall said, making the class still. "But until then, we will build and improve your skills with the basics. Please take out your parchment and quills."
As she started reviewing the foundations of Transfiguration, the classroom door burst open. Liliana turned around in her seat and rolled her eyes as Harry and Ron walked in, both a late and loud mess that had weakened her shield.
"So sorry Professor —" Ron started to say, struggling to catch his breath.
"We got lost," Harry finished for him, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
