INSTEAD, james potter [1]

Chapter Thirty-One

Every night for the past few days, Lyra had a reoccurring nightmare. She would be sitting outside, all alone, minding her own business as she basked in the light of the full moon, counting the stars in the sky. 

It was perfect. All was peaceful and she didn't have to worry about anything. No family pressuring her, no friends trying make her choices for her, no self-hatred or self-doubt. Lyra was at peace. 

Then she would hear a growl from behind her. She was always too afraid to turn around, to fight. Because she knew exactly what, or who, it was. It was always going to be Remus Lupin, only as a werewolf. 

The dream ended the same way every time. She refused to turn around, so she wouldn't be able to defend herself. This time, nobody came to save her. So Remus would bite her head straight off her body. 

Waking up in cold sweat, Lyra would sob until she found herself so tired that she would fall asleep once again. Sometimes she would dream the same dream again, and other times she would happily fall into a dreamless sleep.

None of her roommates seemed to have noticed. Or, if they did then they didn't say anything about it. The second option was more likely. In the house of Salazar Slytherin, uncomfortable discussions were avoided more often than not. It was easier to pretend everything was alright. 

In some ways, she appreciated this. Because she couldn't tell anyone. Professor Dumbledore himself had said she had to keep Remus's condition secret. If he didn't say so, she wasn't sure if she would have said anything. 

Because she had no idea how she felt about him anymore. Not only had he kept a huge secret from her throughout their whole friendship, he was also a dark creature, one that could have killed her and their classmates several times throughout the year. 

Lyra had some idea of what she felt when she looked at him. She was scared. No, she was terrified. There was this hidden darkness within him, the kind that wouldn't hesitate to kill her if she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And it wasn't only Remus who she was confused about. All four of those Gryffindor boys, Remus, James, Sirius and Peter had snuck up on her, and made her feel comfortable and safe with them. Now she hadn't spoken to any of them for days, out of either anger or sadness.

Lyra knew she was angry at Sirius. He was rash and reckless without a care in the world, thinking consequences couldn't touch him. He had always been like this, but she hadn't ever thought it would almost end with her and Snape almost getting killed. 

While she was grateful for James saving her life, she couldn't believe the lies that had come from his and Peter's mouth at different occasions. Whenever she asked a question that could lead to her finding out about Remus being a werewolf, they would come up with a lie to make sure she would never close in on the truth. 

She loathed them all for that. For the lying. For the unnecessary heartache. She could have closed her heart off from them a long time ago if they had just been honest, if they could have told her the truth. 

Lyra didn't have much of an appetite as she sat at Saturday breakfast, ignoring Lucinda's babbling to Avery about how they could finally be together now that he had broken up with his older girlfriend, Lyra's old friend, Emma Vanity. 

She glanced at her Potions book on the table, as her and Rabastan had been going through the latest chapter they had been working on. Slughorn had let it slip that they would be having a test soon and Rabastan needed all the help he could get. 

He was reading a passage, trying to memorize it word for word so she could test him in a few minutes. Those minutes meant silence for Lyra. Silence meant time to think, which was the last thing she had wanted.