firecracker ???

The Great Hall had never looked stranger. Hundreds of students were strewn across the floor in bright-coloured sleeping bags, forming crooked rows between the four long house tables. The enchanted ceiling still reflected the stormy sky above, clouds churning in shades of bruised grey and purple, as if mimicking the tension crackling beneath the enchanted rafters.

Lyra sat at the far end of the Slytherin cluster, her arms folded beneath her cloak as she watched the rest of the castle unravel. She hadn't unrolled her sleeping bag yet. The floor was cold, but not colder than her thoughts.

Sirius Black had broken into the castle.

That fact had swept through the school like an electric current. One moment, she had been finishing a chapter of her Arithmancy reading, the next, the prefects were herding them from common rooms like sheep from a field. Rumour spread faster than instruction—someone said the Fat Lady had been attacked, her portrait slashed to ribbons. Others whispered he had been seen—inside the castle. Inside Gryffindor Tower.

And the worst part?

They weren't wrong.

Lyra shifted her gaze across the room, spotting Harry Potter near the Gryffindors' makeshift row. He wasn't sleeping. His head rested against his rolled-up robes, eyes half-lidded, but alert. Restless. His friends flanked him—Granger reading with determined focus, Weasley animatedly recounting something to a group of wide-eyed third-years.

Her eyes narrowed.

"I'm telling you," Ron said, puffing his chest slightly, voice just loud enough to reach more ears than necessary, "he was standing right over me. A huge knife in his hand. I could feel him breathing."

"You were asleep," Hermione said without looking up. "You didn't see anything."

"I saw his outline," Ron insisted, waving an arm. "I woke up just in time. He was right there—ask Harry."

Lyra snorted quietly.

"He's going to milk this for weeks," she muttered.

Draco, who sat cross-legged beside her with his arms wrapped around his knees, didn't look up from where he was flicking lint from his sleeve. "Pathetic."

"I don't know. You'd enjoy the attention," she replied mildly.

He glanced at her, deadpan. "The difference is, I wouldn't make it up."

"Mm," she hummed, brushing imaginary dust from her sleeping bag. "I'm sure you wouldn't embellish at all."

Draco's eyes narrowed. 

"Remind me who claimed Buckbeak nearly severed their arm?"

"That was practically a flesh wound."

"You bled on a monogrammed handkerchief."

"Tragic," Lyra said, deadpan. "I hope it haunts the creature."

He rolled his eyes but didn't argue. Instead, he shifted slightly closer, positioning himself between her and the cluster of younger students on their right.

She noticed it.

She didn't comment.

Draco did this sort of thing often enough now that it no longer warranted acknowledgment—standing a little closer when crowds pressed too tight, reaching an arm in front of her when staircases moved without warning, ensuring her sleeping bag was placed where the candles wouldn't drip wax overhead. Protective, but never obvious.

She didn't tease him like she normally would've.

Still, her eyes drifted back to the Gryffindor section. To Potter.