❝ 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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❝ So, you're telling me I have a chance. ❞
⋅☾☼☽⋅
The ceiling in the Great Hall was a dull, cloudy gray the next morning. Liliana sat beneath it, writing in her notebook as small cracks of thunder rang out. Being back at school gave her a lot to think about. For starters, she wanted to resume her lessons with Professor McGonagall. It had been on her mind all summer, but she was too nervous to ask. She wasn't sure she could handle another redirect from the professor.
With a sigh, Liliana shut her notebook and grabbed a slice of toast. She started to butter it when Ron and Harry arrived. They took seats across from her and Hermione, who was still nose deep in Voyages with Vampires.
"A lot on your mind?" Harry asked Liliana, nodding at her notebook.
Liliana spread marmalade atop the butter. "No more than usual."
"Mail's due any minute — I think Gran is sending a few things I forgot," Neville said down the table.
It was like his words had commanded the owls into the Great Hall, because about a hundred or so had started to stream in, circling overhead as they dropped letters and packages into the chattering crowd.
Hermione and Liliana had received a shared letter and one addressed only to the latter. Liliana started to open hers when, a second later, something large and gray fell into Hermione's cereal bowl, spraying them all with corn flakes, milk, and feathers.
"Errol!" Ron said, pulling the bedraggled owl out by the feet. Errol slumped, unconscious, onto the table, his legs in the air and a damp red envelope in his beak. Ron gasped. "Oh, no —"
"It's all right," Hermione said, her book now cast aside as she prodded Errol gently with the tip of her finger, "he's still alive."
"It's not that — it's that."
Ron pointed at the red envelope, but the others stared at it with knitted brows. Two seats over, Neville looked at it as though he expected it to explode.
"What's the matter?" Harry asked.
Ron swallowed hard. "She's — she's sent me a Howler."
"You'd better open it, Ron," Neville whispered timidly. "It'll be worse if you don't. My Gran sent one once, and I ignored it and —" he gulped "— it was horrible."
Liliana looked from their petrified faces to the envelope. "What's a Howler?"
But Ron's whole attention was fixed on the letter, which had begun to smoke at the corners.
"Open it," Neville urged. "It'll all be over in a few minutes —"
Ron stretched out a shaking hand, eased the envelope from Errol's beak, and slit it open. Neville stuffed his fingers in his ears. A split second later, Liliana knew why. For a moment, she thought it had exploded; a roar of sound filled the huge hall, shaking dust from the ceiling.
