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1
Lyra didn’t mean to kiss Holly Potter in a dusty corridor today, but then again, when has anything involving Potter ever gone Lyra’s way? Potter gets whatever she wants all the time; that’s the power she holds. Sometimes it’s the Gryffindor people’s-princess Girl-Who-Lived influence, sometimes it’s the pitiful lonely orphan look, and again sometimes she just flashes her unfairly pretty green eyes with that charming smile and everyone around her melts like butter. Not Lyra, though. Lyra Malfoy is a Slytherin through and through, and she hasn’t fallen for any of Potter’s charms. Thus, when Holly Potter pushes her against the wall of a dusty old hallway on the fourth floor, Lyra doesn’t take it lying down. No, Lyra is a Malfoy, and she gives twice as good as she gets.
Potter’s lips move against hers, firm and unyielding, because as always, they are unkind to each other. This isn’t love, this isn’t even like; Potter is fighting her, and Lyra cannot go down without a fight. Kissing back just as rough doesn’t prove useful, even when she’s got the advantage of not having to crane her neck back a bit like Potter, but she does what she can.
Lyra fists her hand in Potter’s tie and yanks her forward; Potter gasps into her mouth and Lyra swallows it down whole. She bites down on Potter’s lip — half of her wants to break skin — and hopes it bleeds so that she can drink whatever liquid courage is flowing through Potter’s veins to make her this reckless. Anyone could walk into this corridor right now, and Potter is still laving her tongue over the intersection of their lips; it tastes like iron. Anyone could– anyone could see them.
“What the hell are you doing, Potter?” Lyra snarls, pushing her away.
Holly takes a step back, wiping a hand over her mouth. Lyra prays that her eyes weren’t too obviously tracking the movement. “Do you want me to stop?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Potter grins, sharp and triumphant, and tugs her back in again. She tastes like sweat and sugar, and Lyra is suddenly reminded of exactly why they’re here. Potter tastes like sweat because she’s just won a Quidditch match, and Lyra’s back stings against the cold bricks behind her because Potter cast a bloody corporeal patronus at her and knocked her over. She was standing on Goyle’s shoulders, so she had a longer way to fall, and now she’s bound to be bruised. She should give Potter a bruise in retaliation.
Lyra had been leaving McGonagall’s office when she accidentally got on the same staircase as Potter, and it moved off course. Reluctantly, they’d had to proceed down the new route together. Potter sniped at her about being a shit dementor, and Lyra, who really just wanted to go lie down and try to write a sufficiently grovelling letter to her father, taunted her back about fainting on the train. It was rather weak, actually; the fainting spell was old news, and Potter’s triumphant grin told her that they both realised that. Pride smarting, Lyra had kept going, and Lyra doesn’t even remember what she said — it wasn’t revolutionary, certainly — but it had gotten Potter fired up. Soon, the other girl was stopping in her tracks to yell at her, and Lyra had relished the sting of the words, yelling right back.
As minutes passed, they floated closer to each other almost unconsciously, eyes flashing and lips peeled back in snarls. It was the same as any other one of their famed catfights, petty and mean in a way that they were only around each other, and then she’d made the mistake of looking down at Potter’s lips and the next thing Lyra knew, she was against the wall. That was four minutes ago, and they’re still pressed together. Potter probably has a celebration party to go to, and Lyra does not want to be in this dusty little hallway that’s this close to setting off her allergies, but the opportunity to reach a hand up to Potter’s jaw and tilt it around with a bruising grip is not one she could pass up.
Potter pulls away again. Her mouth is pink and wet, bottom lip slightly swollen from Lyra’s teeth. Lyra has no doubt she looks much the same, and for a second she wonders if Potter finds that pretty before swiftly banishing the thought from her mind.
“Don’t mess with my fucking games ever again, Malfoy,” she says, eyes crinkling like she’s happy. Lyra sniffs, nose scrunching with disgust.
“I’m not an imbecile, Potter,” she retorts, pushing away, “This is… don’t come near me again.”
Potter nods, still smiling. Her eyes twinkle. “Yeah. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Lyra, in a way that is not very graceful or mysterious at all, turns and hurries down the hallway. She doesn’t look back to see if Potter has moved. She tugs on her tie as she goes, loosening it slightly; she’ll have to hope the prefects don’t catch her uniform askew. It was just… so hot in there, that’s all. The abandoned classrooms don’t have the best cooling in the summer. That’s… yes, that’s it.
She rubs a hand across her face, rough and grounding.
“Act normal, Lyra,” she hisses, and it sounds enough like her mother in the empty, echoing hallway that she instinctively straightens her back and schools her features into a blank expression. Through the cold corridors she walks, down the stairs that don’t move away from her desired route, and to the Slytherin dormitories. She finds her bed, silently grateful for the way that Pansy looks at her for a second and then decides not to say anything, and grabs a quill and a fresh page of parchment. Dipping her quill into her inkwell, she places it against the parchment.
Nothing comes to mind except the faint taste of vanilla on Potter’s tongue. She scowls, blotting away the growing spot of ink and clearing her throat. Across the room, Pansy raises an eyebrow.
“Dear father…” she mouths under her breath. “Um…”
She sees Potter the next day. The other girl has a faint blue-purple bruise on her jaw and an undimmable smile. Lyra wants to cross the room and hold Potter’s jaw in her grasp again, yank it left and right to observe every inch, lean down and kiss the dusky purple colour away so that she could press another one onto her pretty face twice as hard. She, of course, does not do this. Potter meets her eyes and beams, and her eyes are dark.
They don’t bring it up again, but Lyra thinks about it. Oh, she thinks about it.
2
A secret is like a piece of broken glass. It sits in her hand, pretty and twinkly, and it begs to be shown off; it cuts into her palm, staining her flesh until it’s dry and crusted with crimson, and all she wants to do is hand it to another person. Maybe she could drop it on the floor in front of everyone and it would shatter into a thousand sparkling pieces like uncut diamonds, and the whole school would get to pick up a piece and speculate about exactly what it once was. It hurt her almost physically to keep the secret to herself, but it’s a masterfully crafted secret; telling anyone would be mutually assured destruction. So Lyra keeps a hold on that secret no matter how it cuts into her flesh, because the jagged edge of that secret is something she can level at Potter’s throat if she needs it. She’ll probably need it someday, really. It’s blackmail on a powerful political figure; how Slytherin of her. Yes, she could use it for anything.
The Yule Ball is winding down when Lyra first gets a moment alone with Potter. She’s staring across the hall, eyes focusing on Potter’s form, as Theodore chatters away in her ear about something or other; the other girl is over by the refreshments table with a crystal goblet of punch held loosely in her fist, surveying the crowd on the dance floor. Her dress flows around her frame, a black thing that doesn’t quite hug her body but instead simply suggests that it exists. It’s very modest, basic; not as showy a robe as Lyra would have expected from the Girl-Who-Lived. She hasn’t noticed Lyra yet. Standing and apologising quickly to Theodore, Lyra strolls across the room as fast as she can without looking desperate.
As she arrives at the table next to Potter, the other girl finally notices her. Instantly, her pretty mouth goes all twisted.
“Evening, Potter,” Lyra greets, expression all innocent, “Your dress robes are… well, they really suit your style.”
Her tone makes it very clear that that is an insult. Potter glares at her, looking away, and Lyra can’t help the thrilled shiver down her spine.
Every time Potter scowls at her, eyes glinting with fury, Lyra feels the echo of that cold stone wall against her back. She puts her tie on in the morning and she’s reminded of tugging on Potter’s. She mocks the Gryffindors with her friends, pushing on as many buttons as she can just to figure out which ones provoke irritation and which provoke that nameless hunger. Sometimes, Lyra sees Potter eyeing her mouth. She knows that she does the same. It’s strangely powerful, knowing exactly how Potter’s lips taste.
“It’s so sad that you had to come here with Weasley,” Lyra drawls, letting a mocking smile slide onto her face. “What, neither of you could find a partner who wanted you?”
“Shut up, Malfoy,” scowls Potter blandly.
Lyra, unable to stop the words from coming out of her mouth, continues. “Really, Potter, I'd be a much better date than him. At least I can afford robes.”
“Can’t buy taste, though,” Potter scoffs, eyeing Lyra’s outfit. Lyra bristles, staring down at her robes. They’re a gorgeous deep violet colour that complements her hair and brings out the grey in her eyes, according to her mother; she wouldn’t have been allowed to wear anything less. They’re also in the latest wizarding style, though Lyra can’t expect mudblood-loving Potter to know anything about that.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands, a touch dramatically.
Potter grins at that like a shark tasting blood. “You look like someone drowned you in a vat of ribbons, Malfoy. I’ve never seen anything tackier.”
They continue trading barbs back and forth, and eventually they begin to draw a bit of a crowd. Weasley appears, flushing red at the sight of Potter tossing her curls in annoyance as she insults Lyra’s hair; Pansy stands off to the side and nods in agreement whenever Lyra points
The insults go past appearance and behaviour soon, and that’s when Flitwick sweeps in like some avenging angel.
“Both of you! If you can’t behave yourselves, you don’t deserve to be at this ball,” he squeaks, wagging his finger at the two of them. “Out! Out! And five points from both of your houses!”
Lyra sniffs, shooting Pansy a disbelieving look, then strolls away towards the entrance.
“And you, Miss Potter, I expected more from a champion,” Flitwick reprimands, and Potter flushes pink in embarrassment. She hurries past Lyra, who bites down a grin.
Out in the hall, Potter stomps away down the corridor and Lyra follows her, falling into step beside her. Potter turns her head away. It’s dark out here away from the glimmering lights of the Yule Ball, but the moonlight streaming through the windows still illuminates the angry set of Potter’s jaw. She must be humiliated; it makes Lyra sort of gleeful.
“What’s wrong, Potter?” she giggles, “It’s not as if they expect the champions to be at the ball.”
Potter stops dead in her tracks and turns around to glare at her with a look so burning with loathing that Lyra takes an instinctive step back.
“I hate you,” she snarls.
“Yeah, enough to kiss me,” Lyra points out, and then because she has forgotten herself she steps forward and crowds Potter against the wall.
“Get off me, Malfoy,” the other girl mutters irately, but it’s hampered by the way her gaze is fixed on her lips. Lyra smirks, and leans forward to place an open-mouthed kiss against Potter’s lips. The other girl stiffens, then softens into the kiss. The hallway around them is empty, but the noise of the Ball-goers floating down the corridor towards them is a threat hanging over their heads, so Lyra pulls back, licking her lips. Potter remains flush against the wall, stiffening against the weight of Lyra’s eyes; when Lyra raises an eyebrow, Potter scowls.
“Is that actually what you want?”
“Yes,” retorts Potter, pushing Lyra away. “Touch me ever again and I’ll curse your eyes out, Malfoy.”
“Sure,” Lyra drawls, “And wash your face, Potter; you’ve got punch on your chin.”
3
The elephant in the room creeps closer every day. The day that Lyra is appointed to the Inquisitorial Squad, Potter finds her in the library and banishes little balls of paper at her until she rolls her eyes and tells Blaise she’s going to find a book.
When Lyra finally spots her, Potter is leaning against a shelf of ancient history scrolls, combing through her ponytail a battered old hairbrush and chewing a luridly purple gum. She’s midway through blowing a bubble when Lyra appears; it pops and Potter winds it back around her pink tongue.
“Merlin’s beard, Potter, what do you want?”
The other girl bunches Lyra’s robes in her hand — and pulls her further behind a bookshelf, jabbing her hairbrush into Lyra’s chest just a few inches below the shiny new badge on her lapel. They’re very close in a way that they never are when they fight in public; as always, Lyra scans her face and fixes her eyes on Potter’s lips. They’re bitten red, a dot of ink staining her bottom lip; she must have been hard at work studying. It gives her a little jolt of pleasure to imagine Potter struggling to do one of her assignments, one that Lyra could probably have done far more easily.
Potter follows her eyes and scoffs.
“You’ve joined Umbridge’s little snitch club, I see,” she says venomously.
“Such amazing observational skills, Potter,” Lyra responds, looking away to stare down at her nails. The other girl sniffs, rolling her eyes and blowing a bubble with her purple gum. It’s not even Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum like actual wizards chew; it’s some stupid rubber-looking muggle creation that she can smell the grape flavour of from here.
“Will Umbridge let you stick around if she knows that you’ve been snogging Holly Potter for years?” questions Potter, smiling like she’s won. Lyra rolls her eyes.
“Twice. Twice in two years.”
“Won’t make much of a difference, will it, Malfoy?”
“And what if your friends knew you’d been snogging Lyra Malfoy for years, Potter?” challenges Lyra. Potter’s jaw clenches in a way that makes it look a lot sharper, meaner; ugly in a way only Lyra can draw out of her. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“Fine!” Potter spits, rolling her eyes. She pops her gum one more time.
“Fine.”
Lyra reaches forward and adjusts Potter’s tie for a second — just long enough for Potter’s expression to change from irritated to confused — before she abandons that and pulls on it. Potter’s face falls towards hers, and Lyra tilts her own head up. She doesn’t kiss her, however.
“Get rid of the gum, or I go,” Lyra whispers.
“Jesus Christ, Malfoy, piss off! I don’t even want you to be here!” Potter retorts, but she still pulls her wand out of her pocket and vanishes the gum out of her mouth.
“Yeah, sure you do,” smirks Lyra, before leaning forward and kissing Potter solidly. She tastes like artificial grape flavour and hatred; Lyra loves it. She pulls away after a second, wiping her mouth, and Potter pushes her away.
“More blackmail material, Malfoy?” she taunts. Lyra sniffs, rolling her shoulders back.
“I could say the same about you.”
4
Lyra has seen people die before. She’s always pretended she couldn’t see the thestrals pulling the carriages, knowing it would be too suspicious what with her family’s reputation, but she can’t pretend to herself.
Her father brought the youngest muggle boy from the Quidditch World Cup to their manor. The Ministry had written him off as missing after a week and wiped the memory of him from his family’s minds; Lyra is probably the only person alive who remembers him well. He’s a record in a filing cabinet, a shadow in the back of a family photo — to her father, he’s probably just one of the latest in a long line of screaming, writhing faceless creatures in their dungeon — but Lyra remembers the boy. He was maybe seven or eight years old, and he shivered even in the dreadful warmth of the dungeons.
Seeing someone die is fast. No matter how much pain they’re in before, there’s usually a moment when you see them actually die. They blink, shudder, breath in shakily once or twice, maybe their lips move in a desperate plea or a prayer or a word of affection to a loved one who they’ll never see again, but then they’re gone. One second they’re a person, the next they’re a body, just a corpse lying there in stillness and silence. Lyra watched that boy die, and then she could see the thestrals.
Dying itself, it seems, is not fast. It is slow and it is blinding, and the seconds drag.
Lyra brings a hand to her mouth; it comes away wet. Like a melting popsicle, sweet and sticky, blood is running down her fingers and dripping onto the floor.
All she can feel is pain. Her chest burns in agony, an incomprehensible mix of fiery heat and icy needling. It feels wet too, and it smells like iron, filling her lungs entirely as she struggles to breathe in. She scrunches her eyes so hard she can see colours swirling, bleeding into each other on her eyelids like a rainbow of sensation. Maybe it’s a rainbow. Lyra doesn’t believe in muggle religions, but maybe this is what heaven is. She doesn’t think she’d go to heaven. She’s not good enough.
She takes a long, rattling breath, and something deep inside her chest makes a squelching sound. There’s blood everywhere; it must be in places it’s not supposed to go. Maybe she’ll drown in it and it will dribble out of her mouth like raspberry syrup. Maybe they’ll throw her body outside into the sun and the peacocks will chew away at the corpse’s flesh like that little boy’s. After a few days, her father went outside, nose crinkled in disgust, and levitated the body down into the dungeons. It stayed there for months, festering and rotting in the heat until the stale air held its stench, and then one day it had just been gone.
Lyra’s on the floor, and it’s cold. One of the sinks next to her body is dripping, droplet after droplet hitting the floor, and she focuses on that. Drip goes the sink. Drip goes her blood.
Potter is to her left, kneeling on the cold bathroom floor. Her hands are scrambling across Lyra’s chest, applying pressure in random areas. She’s sobbing, eyes glassy, babbling apologies. With a trembling hand, Potter grabs her wand from the spot on the floor where she’d dropped it after she cast that curse. Lyra’s never heard it before; she doesn’t know if she’ll live to hear it again.
“Episkey,” the other girl cries, waving her wand over Lyra’s numerous wounds, “Episkey.”
Lyra wants to laugh — what, Potter doesn’t know any more healing spells? That one wouldn’t heal more than a split lip — but all the bubbles out from her lips is another spurt of hot blood. It cools as it runs from her lips down onto the floor, staining her pale skin. Her head lolls to the side as she loses the strength to keep it upright.
There’s Potter above her, lips pressing against her forehead. Lyra hums, a low, gurgling sound in her throat. “Hey, hey, stay awake! E-episkey!”
Lyra closes her eyes.
5
Crabbe is dead, and Potter is asking for a thank you. Lyra saw the chair beneath his feet wobble and fall, and the terror on his face as he slipped, and she’d seen the fiendfyre gobble up his body into ash before he even hit the ground.
She’s seen people die before. She’s never seen a friend die before. Ten years Crabbe’s been her friend, since even before Hogwarts, when he was a brick wall of an eight year old and she was a little blonde waif that couldn’t keep a friend around for more than a month. He’d played keeper whenever she wanted to practice quidditch on her training broom, and Goyle played beater and Pansy chaser and they’d all been so small and happy. Lyra had been the one to get Crabbe into knitting so that he could learn to be gentle with those stupid catcher’s-mitt hands of his, and he’d smuggled books out of his family’s library for her. He’s dead. He’s seventeen years old and a stupid oaf who doesn’t know how to cast fiendfyre and he’s dead and Potter wants a thank you.
“Fuck you,” she spits, “I don’t owe you anything, Potter. Leave me alone.”
Potter’s mouth drops open. “Are you mental, Malfoy? I saved you from fiendfyre!”
“Yeah, well, what about you say thank you for not telling Bellatrix Lestrange who you were when you got dragged into my home by Snatchers?” Lyra retorts. She remembers the stupid lie that Granger had tried; how anyone could see Weasley, Granger, and an unidentified black-haired, green-eyed girl with a slightly puffy face and conclude that that girl wasn’t Potter was beyond her. There was a reason they said Auntie Bella was insane, after all.
Her lips had been the same, though. Even with her face all swollen and her hair messed up, Lyra took a single look at that pretty little mouth and knew that it was Potter.
“You’re such a bitch!” explodes Potter, eyes flashing. They’re an enchanting shade of green, Lyra observes with gritted teeth. What a shame that the prettiest girl she’s ever seen also happens to be the most irritating person in existence, “I saved your fucking life!”
She never gets rude like this to her friends. Lyra knows that, because she watches Potter constantly. Holly Potter is brave and reckless and has a short temper and can’t sit still, but she is never as blatantly mean to anyone else as she is to Lyra. It’s sort of thrilling, being an exception. She, Lyra Malfoy, is special to the Girl-Who-Lived. Special enough to get yelled at, get called names, have cruelty flung at her so casually. In much the same way, Lyra never lets herself go quite as much as she does when she fights Potter. She tries so hard to exercise restraint, to be subtle and cunning and Slytherin, but a single look from Potter can get her hot and bothered with both anger and hunger to degrees that she never experiences with others. They’re each other’s exceptions, really. That’s special.
She realises that she’s gone silent only when Potter huffs a sigh of disbelief and turns to leave.
Lyra catches her wrist and tugs her around into a kiss. It’s quick, only a few seconds, but Potter seems to melt under the gentle weight of Lyra’s hand that settles on the back of her neck. She tastes like ash and death and sorrow; maybe that’s just Lyra tasting herself on Potter’s tongue.
A spell hits the wall to her left, and Lyra’s heart lurches into her throat. It’s stupidly dangerous to be doing this here, to be seen together at all; her mother and father are somewhere out in this castle fighting their way towards her. What would they think if they saw their only daughter — their perfect little girl, their heiress, the thing they cut and shaped into being just so that it would take the form of a dutiful child — kissing the enemy? Not just the enemy, but the enemy, the Girl-Who-Lived herself? What would they do?
Lyra is ashamed to admit that she likes Potter enough that for a moment it doesn’t matter. It’s just the two of them alone in this crowded room, stuffed in an alcove, dead to the world except for the fact that they’re blessedly alive. It does matter, though; it all matters. Lyra likes Potter. She loves being a Malfoy.
She pulls away. “There’s your bloody thank you, Potter.”
“God, you’re infuriating–”
“–Don’t die, Holly,” Lyra says quietly.
Something changes in Potter’s face, a minute shift; an ugly, aching tenderness crawls onto her face, twists her mouth down, pushes at her eyes until they’re crinkled with emotion.
She swallows convulsively, and Lyra doesn’t bother pretending that her eyes don’t linger on the column of her pale throat as it happens. The other girl makes a low noise, strangled, then swallows again. “I’ll try my best, Lyra.”
+ 1
When Lyra sees the news that they’re inviting last year’s seventh years back to Hogwarts for a never-before-offered eighth year, she nearly throws the Prophet out the window. It’s stupid, really; it’ll mess up Hogwarts’ schedules and budgets and they won’t have enough dorms and it’s just so nice of a gesture that it kind of makes her sick. The Wizarding World is on its tiptoes right now trying to skate around anything that could potentially offend their already demoralised public, so every few days there’s another “Free Public Gala!” or “St. Mungo's Beginner’s Healing Course” and it’s exhausting. They all come with the implicit caveat that no Slytherins are allowed, which Lyra half-agrees with. The war has taken so much out of everyone, and it’s her onus to make sure she doesn’t do anything else to them right now. For the first time, her priority is not an undefined, perfect ‘Future’ but instead taking the unfortunate ‘Present’ day by day. She’s not going to jeopardise what little stability she has right now for something as silly as going to Hogwarts.
Of course, her mother doesn’t agree. She summons Lyra to her by owl — because her house arrest lasts another four years, nine months, and eleven days — and they chat in the kitchen. Narcissa Malfoy didn’t step foot in a kitchen the whole time they lived in the Manor, but the little cottage her mother lives in now after the Manor was seized is small enough that the kitchen is also the dining room and the parlour and the office, so they sit in the kitchen.
“I think it’s a good idea for you to return to Hogwarts for an eighth year,” her mother says neutrally, sipping her tea. Lyra smiles, lips pressed together.
“Do you?”
Narcissa hums. She does not smile back. “I do.”
And Lyra has never been able to say no to her mother. That’s how she comes to be sitting on a long table in the Hogwarts Great Hall between Padma Patil and Ernie fucking Macmillian. She doesn’t get to sit at her house table, because in the name of togetherness the eighth years have been given plain black ties and their own table and a nice speech from McGonagall about all the new "privileges" they’re entitled to this year. Lyra doesn’t feel very privileged. Especially when they’re directed not to the dorms after their feast, but instead to some unused tower that has been hastily flipped into new dormitories specifically for them.
Lyra’s eyes scan down the roommate assignment list until she finds her name. They flick over to the other name next to it, and who else could it possibly be but Holly fucking Potter.
She locks eyes with Potter across the room, and the other girl has the audacity to smile at her. Lyra grimaces back.
When she gathers the courage to find their room, Holly has already dragged her trunk over to the bed closer to the window and made herself at home at the windowsill. Lyra rolls her eyes and sits down on her own bed.
“What if I wanted that bed?” Lyra asks, deliberately antagonistic, because Lyra is a terrible person all the time.
“Don’t be a whiny bitch,” Holly replies breezily, because Holly is only a terrible person when she’s with Lyra.
In the morning, Lyra finds a seat at the far end of the eighth-year table and rips a chocolate croissant into little pieces. Buttery flakes of pastry stick to her hands.
“Are you alright?” asks Weasley, voice carrying down the hall. “Malfoy didn’t curse you in your sleep, did she?”
Lyra keeps her face blank. She doesn’t hear Holly’s answer, but she does hear the resulting laughter.
Hogwarts is strange now. The first years are the only ones who act like actual children, and even they quail under the constant reminders of the war. The eighth years too are out of step; they obey strange schedules, and float around the school like black-tied ghosts. Instead of paying school fees, they’ve been drafted into helping out with the younger years in their classes, doing marking and helping out tutoring; the hours are mercifully counted towards the volunteer time they would need to do to qualify for a post-Hogwarts apprenticeship, thus making their transition into normal employment smoother. How magnanimous of the Ministry to allow them such a benefit. Lyra volunteers for potions, of course; she comes back to her room every day tired and smelling of strange ingredients, hands cramping from holding a knife or a quill for too long and hair limp from the amount of steam. Potter seems to be less tired; she’s always bouncing around their room practicing her spells aloud and doing wand motions in her sleep and chattering about the amazing new Professor Brindlemore of Defence Against the Dark Arts who so wants her to do a teaching apprenticeship after school.
“She says I’ll be a shoo-in for a teaching apprenticeship if I play my cards right,” Potter exclaims, like Lyra would care about that– like they’re friends! She scoffs internally at the thought of that.
“Yeah, the Woman-Who-Won would be,” says Lyra. It comes out sounding very bitter.
“You think it’s not merit-based?” Potter questions, eyes narrowed. “You think I don’t have what it takes?”
“You could have absolutely nothing and you’d get in off name recognition alone,” shrugs Lyra. “Unlike me?”
“Unlike you, really?” the other girl scoffs.
“Yes, really,” she bites out, “You think anyone wants to hire a bloody Death Eater? I’m working tooth and nail to even graduate, let alone get some fancy apprenticeship.”
“You’re not working tooth and nail,” laughs Potter, “You’re dicing newt tails and doing marking. I’m the one having to duel the seventh years to see if they’ll pass the practical Auror exams!”
“When’s the last time you consoled a crying child?” asks Lyra.
“What, like you’re doing that?”
“I am, actually!” Lyra retorts, “Because I’m good with kids and potions is a dangerous subject!”
“Huh,” Potter says, blinking. She's probably never considered that Malfoy could be kind to anyone; for the first time, Lyra realises that stings a little.
“Piss off, Potter,” she says, “I’m going to get that teaching apprenticeship, and you can fuck off to the Auror corps or something.”
Potter tosses her hair. “No, I will.”
And that’s how their famed rivalry is reignited. It’s kind of thrilling, actually, being able to be a bit petty to Potter in public again without people’s hands going to their wands. Potter and Malfoy have been catfighting since they were eleven, people say to each other, and it’s not like they’ll stop now. Don’t you know they both want to be professors? Merlin help the students that get Malfoy.
Lyra gets to the potions classroom early and stays up late, and she grades essays until the bones in her hand grind against each other, and she’s pretty sure she’s winning. Headmistress McGonagall, who could barely look her in the eye when the year began, compliments her “dedication” one evening and Potter pouts for a week or two. Look at the two of them, people say to each other, look at the way Malfoy looks at Holly; that’s the rivalry you see. They’re bitter to the end, they say.
She’s awoken one night by a strangled cry from the other bed. She’s sitting up in an instant; flashes of terrible images crowd her mind, victim after victim, body after body, people falling down around her as spellfire knocks them back, the boy shivering in the dungeons, Crabbe’s face turning to ash. Another strangled cry from her roommate, and she’s scrambling for her wand beneath her pillow.
“Lumos,” she says hurriedly, and a brilliant light shines from her wand.
As her eyes adjust to the light, Lyra sees Potter in her bed. She’s tossing back and forth, limbs trapped in her sheets, and she’s making these terrible little whimpering noises like a wounded dog. She wakes up, however, when Lyra sends a light stinging hex towards her legs and aims the light over at her.
“Wha– Malfoy?” Potter croaks, sitting up and rubbing her leg, “O-ow! What the fuck.”
Lyra’s exhausted from marking badly-written essays and trying to cram for a potions practical tomorrow and she’s lost all subtlety, so she just rolls her eyes and lies back down.
“Merlin, Potter,” Lyra scoffs, putting her wand down, “Stop hyperventilating and come over here.”
Potter, contrary to her expectations, doesn’t snipe back; she clambers to her feet and shuffles over to Lyra’s bed, rubbing at her face with the sleeves of her nightgown. She looks younger like this, weak and fragile in a way she’s never seen before. Lyra pulls her blankets to the side, and Potter wordlessly slides into the bed next to her.
“Go to sleep, you dramatic git,” Lyra sneers. Potter nods, burrowing deep into the covers. She’s shivering, which makes Lyra roll her eyes. She reaches across and pulls Potter into her side. The other girl is cold and clammy with sweat; Lyra makes a face, but still keeps her there. “Relax, Potter, I’m not going to murder you in your sleep. Go back to sleep.”
“Okay,” Holly says. Tentatively, her hand reaches across and grasps Lyra’s; she just rolls her eyes and lets it be.
Holly is gone when she wakes up, but there is a fresh cup of pumpkin juice and a chocolate croissant on a tray next to her bed. Lyra, whose Slytherinness only turns on after eight in the morning, doesn’t try to think too hard about when Holly learned her usual breakfast order and just eats it. It’s not poisoned; she doesn’t know if that’s better or worse. She decides on worse.
They do it again the next night, and Holly sleeps without nightmares, so they do it again, and again. Months pass. Some nights, Holly crawls into her bed unbidden, and some nights she sits up and stares out the window until Lyra peels back the blankets and invites her in. They fall asleep against each other more nights than not, and eventually Lyra gets used to the contours of Holly’s body against hers. It doesn’t get past that most of the time, but sometimes they stay up a little late, hands wandering and mouths slick with spit. It’s very tender, surprisingly, gentle and cautious. They don’t talk about it in the morning, but Holly sometimes smiles at her down the table and Lyra doesn’t have the heart to glare back.
Somehow, without Lyra noticing, Potter has become Holly.
It scares her a bit, the way they act when they’re alone, because Lyra doesn’t act like an enemy should. Holly does not need an enemy any longer, and Lyra has fashioned herself into something else so that she won’t have to let those lips out of her life. So they act like rehabilitated rivals in public and lovers in private, and it is somehow fine. Holly plays up her Gryffindor princess persona and Lyra acts the repentant bitch, and somehow they reach an understanding that makes sense. Potter is a war hero all day every day, even to her friends, and it is only in Lyra’s company that she seems able to act like a normal teenage girl; petty, horny, sarcastic, and most importantly young. It’s a side of her no one else ever sees, and Lyra doesn’t even care how petty they are to each other because whatever this cruel terrible thing is, it’s theirs. Lyra is the only one who can get Holly to snap, and that’s thrilling.
Holly’s friends don’t trust Lyra. That’s fine; Lyra doesn’t trust Lyra either. She keeps her head down anyway. She goes to the Three Broomsticks with her old friends and they reminisce about things Lyra is trying so hard to move past; they mock Potter, and Lyra laughs along even though it feels a little less funny when it’s someone else doing it. She spends days reading over obscure potions textbooks to be able to explain concepts better to the fifth years who need endless reasoning for their O.W.L. papers; she carries plasters and sweets in her pockets for the first years when they cut their thumbs or scald their sides bumping into the hot cauldrons. Lyra’s good with kids, and she knows that. Her mother always wanted grandkids; she’s been learning since she was a child about how to take care of children. Potter slips into her bed late at night, bruised from teaching reckless kids how to defend themselves against each other, and Lyra kisses her like the ‘rivalry’ means nothing. In this bed, it doesn’t.
The eighth years take their N.E.W.T.s at the end of the year with the seventh years. Lyra applies to a teaching apprenticeship as soon as she’s done, and so does Holly; they won’t have their results until the term ends. Until then, they hang around in a sort of stasis; too adult to be running around outside with the little kids, still students that have to stick around until the term formally ends. Lyra goes to Hogsmeade with her friends day after day; other days are spent inside her room reading while Holly draws next to her. Holly’s really got her side-profile down quite well now. Lyra wonders how many times she’s drawn it, when she started, when she’ll stop.
On the last day of term, Holly wakes Lyra up with a kiss. Lyra blinks awake, confused about the warm body beside her that so rarely remains there when she wakes, and Holly smiles like it’s adorable. Lyra takes offence to this, of course, and so they bicker all through getting dressed, brushing their teeth and their hair, pulling on their shoes, grabbing their wands. Halfway through an insult, Holly reaches forward and tucks a strand of Lyra’s hair back behind her ear. It’s very tender.
“You need to wash more,” she says sweetly, “You’re greasy.”
Lyra’s mouth falls open in exasperation. Fuck tender; Potter is such a bitch.
They walk downstairs to the hall together, bickering all the way, but as they walk it devolves into something softer. Holly lowers her voice, and Lyra’s scowl disappears. They’re not putting on a show any more, not acting as rivals should; they look like friends, almost. They look like what they are in private.
They’re so caught up in themselves that they don’t even realise the volume level in the hall cuts in half as they enter. Lyra looks up; a few hundred heads look back at her. As she watches, a few of her fellow eighth years turn to look at her and visibly double take at Holly beside her.
“I told you we should’ve staggered the entrances,” Lyra swears. “I’ll pretend I forgot something and leave, you go sit down.”
“No, that’s so bloody suspicious,” the other girl laughs.
Lyra frowns. “People will talk–”
“–people talk no matter what,” Holly says seriously, before leaning in to whisper into her ear. Lyra sees the ghost of a smirk on her face. “Wanna give them something to talk about?”
Lyra raises an eyebrow. Typical Gryffindor, not thinking before they leap. Does she know what she’s suggested? Does she know at all what she’s implying?
Lyra has been thinking about that implication since the Dark Lord’s body fell over in the courtyard, since her father was dragged away in handcuffs, since she got the missive of her mother’s trial. This jagged piece of glass of a secret has dulled over time, but she could still use it. She could do something truly Slytherin, blackmail Potter with a kiss, force her to play along or go to the press with the whole lurid story. It’s a good political manoeuvre, one her father would be proud of–
She blinks. The thought of impressing her father has not crossed her mind in months. He’s locked away in a grimy little prison cell away from his cane and his quill and without any way to get his sharp little knives of words under her skin. She craves it anyway, of course — he’s her father, despite everything — but the idea of being like him sits a little different on her shoulders now. She could change course.
It’s a horrible thought, really. Lyra can’t change, not really. She’s still a cruel, selfish, manipulative little Slytherin at heart. Some people don’t have the luxury of a backstory that they can blame every flaw on, no daddy who hit them or a mummy who didn’t look at them. Sometimes people are just Slytherins, traitors to wizardkind. Sometimes, they’re just people, and people are awful. Lyra is the same rotten thing inside that she was at thirteen years old, kissing the Girl-Who-Lived in a dark corner just to be able to look at her after and remember that she did it.
But, in a way, isn’t Holly just the same? She’s equally rude, reckless, a teasing thing that wears her war hero persona like a particularly beautiful mask. Holly is just like her. Holly acts like a whole different person, and yet the blood in her mouth tastes the same as Lyra’s.
Maybe… maybe Holly can be trusted with this. She’s already trusted her with her lips; maybe Lyra could trust her with a taster of everything else. Just a moment, a glimpse of what it might be like to be Lyra Malfoy’s in public, and then the piece of glass will shatter into nothingness and they will have nothing on each other. They will just have the consequences of their years in secret, and a choice to make. Maybe, just maybe, that could be enough.
It kills Lyra to give up a good piece of blackmail like this, not when she could have extorted Holly for years to come, but she’ll get over it. Nothing’s killed her yet, after all.
She reaches up and throws her arms around Holly’s neck, smirking, and leans in. Holly’s hands fly down to cup her waist and pull her closer. Their heads tilt on instinct alone; no matter how much they hated each other, they have practiced this moment for years. They are cruel to themselves and each other, but they are perfect. Perhaps that’s how you know you’re meant to be together; no matter how they hurt each other, Holly and Lyra are meant to be together.
The hall goes very quiet. Seconds pass; Lyra keeps her eyes closed so that she won’t have to look around. Lyra tastes the mix of vanilla-treacle-spearmint-toothpaste on Holly’s tongue, and she tastes her heartbeat. Someone drops a fork onto their plate with a crash. Lyra tilts her head even more so that she can nip freely at Holly’s bottom lip.
There’s the sound of a throat clearing in the doorway.
“Five points away from both of your houses for public indecency,” Professor Sprout says briskly, pushing past them, and that makes Holly pull away to laugh out loud, throwing her head back. Lyra muffles her grin in Holly’s neck.
Waves of whispers begin to roll across the hall. After a minute, Lyra removes her head from Holly’s shoulder and they begin to walk across the hallway, hand in hand. Both of their hands are a little clammy from nerves; despite this, they do not let go.
Holly drags Lyra past her usual spot at the eighth-year table and pushes her towards a bench where Weasley and Granger are sitting. Both of them have wide eyes.
“Ron, Hermione,” Holly says quite matter-of-factly, only the death grip she has on Lyra’s hand showing her anxiety. “You know Lyra.”
Weasley blinks. “This is not what I meant when I said you should put yourself out there, Holly.”
Granger beside him offers Lyra a tight-lipped smile, distaste clear on her face. “Yes, Holly, we know Lyra.”
“Hello,” Lyra says uncomfortably, pulling on all of her mother’s training about how she’s supposed to act when she meets her future husband’s parents. This is not quite the same, but Potter doesn’t exactly have parents, so this really is her family. She, as much as she is loath to admit it, is half-desperate to make a good impression. “Holly and I have been in a romantically antagonistic relationship since third year.”
The way that Holly gapes and turns to glare at her makes her think the impression is not good. What did she do wrong? She established a clear time-frame, clarified the nature of their acquaintance–
“Oh, we are so talking about this later,” cackles Weasley, shaking his head like that doesn’t faze him at all, “Oh, Merlin, Holly, you don’t do anything in halves.”
In comparison, Granger sighs and buries her head in her hands. “What the fuck. What. The. Fuck.”
“Um…” Holly says, before Granger lifts her head and looks at her. Lyra doesn’t see exactly what lengthy message is contained in that stare, but Holly raises an eyebrow, blushes, shakes her head, frowns, and then closes her mouth.
+ an epilogue
Professor Potter of Defence and Professor Malfoy of Potions have the most toxic marriage that Laura has ever seen. They make passive-aggressive comments about each other’s classes, seem determined to never let the other finish their marking, and make a competition each year of getting their respective top students into the best possible apprenticeships. Last year Laura’s cousin got a full ride to apprentice under Wilda Webberston, one of the greatest potion masters in history, and Professor Malfoy had taunted Professor Potter for the rest of the term. Laura doesn’t understand it at all. Professor Potter is a war hero and incredibly kind, and Professor Malfoy is one of the smartest people Laura’s ever met, and they’re both gorgeous on top of that; they could each probably have anyone they wanted, and instead they married each other. It would be sweet — power couple stuff — if they weren’t so exceedingly petty towards each other. Who does that? If Laura’s boyfriend acted half as mean towards her as the professors are to each other, she’d break up with him immediately. It’s crazy that Professor Potter and Professor Malfoy are still together!
It’s also– it’s also–
Laura flattens herself against the wall, hands over her mouth to stop herself from making a noise. She’s blushing, cheeks hot under her fingertips, but who wouldn’t be? She’d just wanted to ask Professor Potter a follow-up question about today’s grindylow lesson, and now she’s about to have a heart attack.
“–if you stop now, we’ll have more time together tonight!” floats Professor Potter’s voice from the office, low and teasing. Laura nearly chokes.
Professor Malfoy sounds a lot more annoyed than her wife does. “I have marking to do, Holly. Go away.”
“It’s not like you’ll be done before me anyway,” laughs Potter, apparently not fearing for her life at the pure irritation in Professor Malfoy’s tone.
“Fuck you.”
“Ask a bit nicer and I’ll think about it.”
Laura might actually be having a heart attack. She wonders if she could run away now, or if her footsteps will be too loud to get away unnoticed. She’s never heard either of the Professors like this, with the normal antagonism underscored by such obvious affection.
“Merlin, you’re annoying,” sighs Professor Malfoy.
“And you go such a pretty colour when you’re pissed off, dear,” Potter murmurs, a grin audible in her voice. “Come on, Malfoy. Fuck me and I’ll help you with your lesson plans, since mine are already done and all.”
“I hate you–” Malfoy’s voice is cut off by what sounds like a kiss. “Fine! Alright!”
She doesn’t sound entirely pissed off anymore, more exasperated than anything. Potter laughs, and then the door next to Laura slams closed. Another second later and the already muffled noise from the office drops off, likely from a silencing charm; the implication makes Laura’s cheeks burn even pinker. As the seconds tick by and she appears to have gone unnoticed, Laura slowly drops her hands down from her mouth and observes them trembling.
Suddenly, everything clicks into a crystal clear focus. It’s foreplay. The fighting, the competition, the insults, the whole passive-aggressive antagonising rivalry thing…
Oh, Merlin’s beard, it’s all foreplay.
Laura grins. She’s so telling Sophie about this.