firecracker ???

Regulus had not tried to talk to her in person. Not yet. Lyra knew he wouldn't. He understood her too well. He wouldn't come until she allowed it.

But Lyra knew he would try if he saw her, and he was currently a Professor. She didn't want to run into him in the halls.

So she stayed in bed.

She hadn't spoken properly to anyone since the lake. She had returned, soaked and shivering, and gone straight to her room. Pansy had tried first, bringing tea and slippers and chatter about classes. Then Daphne, with a firm hand on her shoulder and an offer to braid her hair like they used to when things were simpler. Draco told them what happened, hiding details where it mattered.

Lyra had turned to the wall.

Even Theo hadn't gotten through, and Draco—who had come storming in the night before with his usual fire and fury—had stopped short when he saw her face. He had left again just as quickly, muttering something under his breath that no one quite caught.

And then, the whispers started.

"She hasn't been down to meals."

"She's sick."

"She's not."

"She's pretending."

"She's broken."

No one said it out loud, but everyone knew something had happened. The dynamic had shifted. The girl who once carried herself like a crown wasn't rising from her sheets. The girl who never wept now did so in silence, with the curtains drawn, the world locked out.

Draco had had enough. He wrote to their mother.

Narcissa skimmed through her son's letter with a raised eyebrow and sighed shortly after. It turns out both their children both had quite a flair for the dramatics.

Narcissa knew this would come, she knew Lucius didn't know the extent to which she and Regulus planned this before the twins left for school.

Lucius hadn't been himself.

He was careful, always had been. Reserved. Precise. But Narcissa knew the difference between stillness and unease. When he sat too long in the drawing room with the same untouched glass. But the shift in his voice whenever Regulus's name came up—the rare moments it did—was enough.

She knew immediately had happened. The truth had broken out.

"Severus," Narcissa said, sweeping into the Potions office in a blur of velvet and ice blonde hair, "I need a word."

Snape glanced up from the cauldron simmering on his desk, the faintest arch to his brow. "Narcissa. What a charming surprise."

"Don't waste my time."

His lips twitched. "About Lyra, then."

"You've noticed."

"She's missed three lessons. Pansy claims she's ill. Daphne says she's mourning. Draco, as usual, is useless."

"Which is why I'm here," Narcissa said smoothly.

"She won't speak to Regulus," he told her quietly. "And she hasn't left her bed."

Narcissa said nothing at first. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes were cold. Not angry. Not surprised. Just... steeled. She had always known it would come to this eventually.

"Let me in," she said.

Severus nodded once.

She moved through the hallway with practiced silence. Her heels didn't click. Her sleeves didn't brush the stone. She walked as though the castle belonged to her.