firecracker ???

2-2

She didn't smirk. She didn't nod. She didn't even acknowledge him beyond that one long, glacial look. But it was enough. He felt seen. And not in the way Lockhart saw him—no, this was worse. Real.

Then she looked away.

Just like that.

And Draco spoke, his voice slicing the moment apart.

"Well, well, Potter," he drawled. "Signing copies of your little fan mail already?"

Harry opened his mouth, ready to snap back, but Ginny beat him to it.

"He didn't want all that!" she shouted, red-faced, stepping forward. "Leave him alone!"

Lucius Malfoy turned, ever so slightly.

And Draco, gleeful, fired back: "Oh look, got yourself a girlfriend, Potter?"

There was a pause.

Harry didn't know why he turned.

He just did.

Not to Ginny. Not to Draco.

To Elestara —maybe because she'd looked at him like he didn't matter, maybe because he wanted to prove her wrong, or maybe because it was her opinion that mattered most in that split second—he said, too loudly:

"She's not my girlfriend. I don't have a girlfriend."

She was standing near her father now, arms folded, her expression faltered for just a breath. Not because of Ginny, not because of the jab—but because Harry had turned to her, like she was the one who needed to hear it. She was confused why it made her freeze.

Draco noticed.

He turned to her, saw the flicker in her face, and his expression twisted. "You should've heard him say it," he said to her, mock-gasping. "'I don't have a girlfriend!'". Elestara held his wrist, clearly annoyed her dear brother assumed she was deaf.

"Shut up," Harry muttered. It was stupid. He realized it the second the words left his mouth. No one had even accused him of being with anyone. But he wasn't thinking clearly. Not with her watching.

Draco burst out laughing. "Merlin, Potter. Bit desperate, aren't you?"

"Now, now, Draco. Play nicely." Lucius appeared beside Draco, voice a silken threat. He looked down at Harry like he was something small and loud. "Harry Potter. Famous wherever he goes, I see."

And then Mr. Weasley was there, and the shop erupted—words thrown like hexes, fathers clashing, children bristling. Ginny dropped her cauldron. Books spilled everywhere.

Harry bent to help—but Lucius was faster.

He handed Ginny a book with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. As he dropped the last one into her cauldron, Lyra saw the slight shift of his fingers.

He slipped the diary in without a word.

Harry missed it entirely.

But Elestara didn't.

Outside, the sun was too bright. She said nothing on the way out. Lucius's cane tapped rhythmically against the floor. Draco rehashed the fight aloud with all the satisfaction of a boy who thought he'd won something. Lucius neither agreed nor corrected him.

Draco was crowing about Arthur Weasley. Lucius said nothing. Lyra walked behind them both, silent, but not unreadable now.

She was thinking.

About the book. About Potter's voice, the way it had cracked just slightly. About how he'd looked at her, not Ginny, not Draco. About how she'd felt something. Something unwelcome. Heat in her throat.

Draco glanced over his shoulder at her. "He looked at you, you know," he said sharply. "Not Weasley. You."

"I noticed," she said quietly.

"He's not your problem," Draco said, voice taut. 

And Lyra? She nodded at her brother. She walked with her hands folded behind her back, watching her shadow stretch along the street.

Harry had looked straight at her and called her Elestara like it meant something.

Said it with too much intensity, with too much need, like her opinion of him actually mattered.

It didn't, she thought to herself, but it was fascinating. 

Boys like Potter always ran toward flames thinking they could control the burn.

She'd wait and see if he blistered.