Chapter 2: The Strange Way to Run
It felt like something had latched onto Lyra behind her navel and was dragging her away. Albus Dumbledore and the shack were gone, replaced by streams of colors that didn't make any kind of sense. And Lyra was left clutching the parchment envelope in disbelief, unable to let go if she tried.
That wizard fool had done something to her! She'd known right away he was trouble, and now this! What was happening to her? It felt like she was moving, but where was she going? To London's Kings Cross Station? She'd never agreed to this! She wasn't going to Hogwarts, she wasn't!
Suddenly the world stopped whirring around her and she collapsed in a very small, very dark space. A candle lit up above her head at her arrival, as if the flame had been summoned by her very presence, a bad sign for sure. The floor she was pressed against was cold and smelled like citrus cleaning supplies and when she tried to get up, Lyra smacked her head on the underside of a porcelain white sink.
"Son of a—ow!"
She was in a bathroom of all places, and as soon as she realized it Lyra actually became quite glad that was the case. Her head had just barely stopped spinning from whatever Dumbledore had done to her, and her empty stomach churned. Lyra bent over the toilet and was quite sick.
"I absolutely hate that man," said Lyra and she wobbled to her feet.
She washed quickly, and then pushed open the bathroom door to investigate wherever she'd ended up. She had her suspicions though…
Sure enough, the corridor she found herself in outside the bathroom could be none other than the kind found on trains. It was narrow and windowed, and more crowded than a sports pub during the world cup (the Wenhams had been football fans).
A few people gave her strange looks as she squeezed by them, but nobody stopped her or demanded to know exactly what it was she thought she was doing there. Lyra just needed to find a door so she could get off this bloody train before it left the station.
She waited for a group of trunk-carrying teenagers to pass and then darted around the next group (four red-heads who appeared to be related) until she made it to the still-open door of the train. Then at the exact moment she tried to step out, the door flew shut in her face and the train whistled.
"Open!" yelled Lyra tossing her rucksack at the door, "Come on you stupid thing, open up, I need off!"
Of course it didn't budge. Some sort of magic, most likely, held it firmly closed. Lyra banged her fists against it, called the door any number of ugly names, and then resorted to kicking it until her toes were hurting.
"The doors won't open until we arrive in Hogsmeade," informed a voice from behind. Lyra turned to find the oldest of the red-headed family looking down at her through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a crisp set of black robes and wore a badge on his chest of the letter "P". "If you've forgotten something on the platform, your parents will just have to owl it to you once we've arrived at Hogwarts. Now I recommend you find a seat, I'm a prefect you see, and it is my job to help look after everyone on the train."
"You're a prefect?" repeated Lyra.
The boy stood even straighter than he had before and replied, "Yes I am, so if you need prefect services, than I'm the one you'll want to go to."
"Prefect services?"
"Yes, looking after students—which includes giving detentions and taking points at times—then there's patrols, and meetings with the headmaster bi-monthly, and of course we also have a special bathroom, but now you mention it, they allow Quidditch captains to use it as well and I hardly think—."
"Albus Dumbledore!" interjected Lyra.
"Pardon?"
"I need to find Albus Dumbledore," Lyra told him, "Do you know where he is?"
The prefect looked at her as though she were quite mad. "He's at the school of course, where else would the headmaster be?"
"Marvelous," said Lyra and pounded the floor as she left.
She'd been tricked. Or perhaps the right word was just out-maneuvered. She could hardly be blamed for it. The pestilent man was a fully grown wizard after all. He'd tracked her down and sent her off to this train and now there was nothing she, Lyra, could do about it. For some reason the man had decided that Lyra would attend this… no his school and despite what he said, he was not giving Lyra a choice in the matter.
Well Lyra would just have to see about that. She'd run away once already and as soon as this train got to wherever it was going, she'd run for it again.
The corridors cleared as the train gained speed and after several laps up and down the length of it Lyra decided she might as well find a place to sit down since she was stuck there either way. She had spied an empty compartment near the back and so she slowly made her way there and sat down before anybody else had the same idea.
There were three trunks on the luggage racks in the compartment, Lyra noticed once she was seated inside. She couldn't imagine why anyone would leave their trunks unattended unless… she shuddered and scooted away from them. Most likely there was some sort of magic protecting them, just like the train doors. She was starting to really hate magic. And did these wizards really need to use it for absolutely everything? It was obscene, really. Lyra could hardly wait to get away.
The journey continued for a while without incident and Lyra watched the countryside change as they moved further and further from London. The grass was much greener out of the city, and the sky was much bluer, and the clouds much fluffier. Lyra watched these for a while, finding images in the clouds to entertain herself—like that one looked a bit like the Hornes' blubbery old cat. And up high she thought one looked rather like the back of Ms. Berning's head—or maybe it was a giant bogey. And there, that one looked like a flying car…
"And what do you think you're doing here?"
Lyra turned to find a pale, blonde haired boy and two massive boys behind him. The pale boy was regarding her with a sneer and the others wore a twin pair of threatening—though perhaps a bit dull—expressions.
"Sitting," said Lyra.
"Sitting?" repeated the boy.
"Yes, that's what it's called when you rest your bum on something."
"I'd watch that tone if I were you," he replied unpleasantly, "Or don't you know who I am?"
Lyra turned back toward the window and ignored him.
"I said, don't you know who I am!"
"No! I don't know who you are, now go away!"
"Well then, we'll just have to show you. Crabbe?"
One of the large boys crossed the compartment and moved to seize Lyra, but she was much too fast for him. She ducked out of his grasp and then struggled out of his way as he twisted around. Unfortunately, the other behemoth of a boy was ready for that and grabbed her easily in a headlock.
Lyra punched and squirmed trying to escape, jostling the boy hard enough to make the contents of his cloak pocket clank together. But it wasn't enough. The boy was big and strong and held on tight.
"Now throw him out in the corridor, Goyle," said the pale boy once Lyra stopped moving, "No wait! Wait…" he halted Goyle and smirked down at Lyra. "It's Draco Malfoy," he said with an air of great superiority, "And you'd do well to remember it."
And with that Lyra was tossed quite forcefully from the compartment. Malfoy threw her rucksack out after her and then Goyle closed the door. Before it was fully closed she heard Malfoy say, "Too bad Potter isn't around."
And Lyra cursed the lot of them.
For several minutes, Lyra just lay there fuming. She was growing quite tired of all these wizards tossing her about like last week's news clippings. As soon as this sodding train reached its station, Lyra told herself, still sprawled out on the corridor floor, she would go as far away from these infuriating people as her feet would carry her.
Her thoughts returned to the bearded lady and the smelly animal trainers at the circus. After a night to sleep on the idea of joining them she had decided that perhaps the circus shouldn't be her first choice. There were of course plenty of other options, Lyra felt confident. Surely something would occur to her once she was shot of all this magic.
For now she was trapped though and not entirely sure how she would pass the time. Her stomach growled once reminding Lyra that she was still hungry and not a minute later she heard a compartment door slide open at the very end of the train.
Loud footsteps approached and Lyra at last decided she ought to roll over and stop blocking the way. Her full pockets jingled as she wound herself around, but Lyra was too slow to clear the path before the voice of yet another uppity magician addressed her.
"Why is it, I wonder," said the voice—a girl's voice this time, Lyra noted, "That there is a muggleborn laying on the ground? And just outside Draco Malfoy's compartment no less."
Lyra looked up to see a girl around her own age appraising her with a pair of granite blue eyes. She was fair skinned and fair haired, and fairly tall as far as Lyra could tell from her spot on the floor. She was also not alone.
Altogether there were four of them, dressed in black robes just like the prefect Lyra had seen earlier, though without the "P". They were standing together somewhat awkwardly—enough to make Lyra think this group had only just met one another.
The fair girl had obviously been decided the leader and she stood just a little bit ahead of the others. "I've asked you a question, you know," she said snootily, "The polite thing to do would be to answer."
Lyra pushed herself up and longingly imagined what the world would have been like if only she had been born deaf.
The others all watched her progress, "Well aren't you going to answer her?" asked a brown haired boy with a narrow, freckly face.
"Aren't you?" repeated the other boy in the group. This one was tall and thick, but not half as thick as the one who'd just thrown Lyra out to the corridor.
"I wasn't planning on it, no," said Lyra, "Quite frankly, I don't know who any of you think you are," she continued, motioning back to that Malfoy boy's compartment, "But I've got other things to do, so if you'll excuse me…"
The girl out front took out her wand and pointed it right at Lyra's face. Lyra thought she appeared far, far more threatening with it out and clutched in her left hand than Draco Malfoy's two bullying friends had ever seemed.
Lyra watched her warily.
"You're quite right of course," said the girl, "It was terribly rude of me not to introduce myself. Now let's see. That's Timothy Credo," she said, carelessly pointing her wand toward the freckly boy, "And his friend Andros Warrington. This is Felicity Thickenesse, and I am Veronica Sinclair."
"Charmed," said Lyra and she turned to leave.
"Now, now, I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Sinclair. Her three friends chuckled encouragingly.
Lyra thought again that she might just envy deaf people and walked on.
"Petrificus Totalus."
Lyra's feet snapped together with a soft thud and Lyra tumbled forward. The ground flew up toward her face, but thankfully, whatever the spell was (and Lyra could hear Sinclair's friends congratulating her on it), when her head hit the floor it didn't actually hurt. That didn't mean it wasn't uncomfortable though. In fact, every blasted little smidgen of her body was stuck together like a statue and try as she might, Lyra couldn't move any of it. She couldn't even speak! Yes, Phillip Nevin had known exactly what he was talking about. Lyra thought she might just hate magic as much as he had.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to turn your back on an armed opponent?" taunted Sinclair as she strode over to tap Lyra's leg with her toe. Lyra would have liked very much for the witch's ugly blonde head to explode into a thousand tiny pieces. "Hm, I suppose not. Looks like you've learned your first lesson and we're not even to Hogwarts yet."
There was more chuckling from Sinclair's hollow-headed followers.
"Now for your second lesson," she began, but she never had a chance to finish. For at that moment, Lyra felt the effects of that insufferable spell wear off. She wasted no time in flipping herself over and kicking Veronica stupid Sinclair right in the knee.
Lyra sprung to her feet as Sinclair went down and then she tore off down the corridor toward the next train car. Sinclair's three friends were all so shocked by the turn of events that Lyra had just about reached it by the time Timothy Credo got around to yelling, "Oi, you get back here! You can't just do that!"
The next car was not nearly so empty as the one at the back of the train. Lyra had to duck around some boisterous teenagers and then squeeze through a group of girls until she made it to the car after that. And then, racing around the few individuals in that car's corridor, Lyra made it to the opposite side just as a pair of red-haired twin boys were leaving a compartment.
Lyra knocked into both of them as she rushed between the pair to sit down.
"Where's the fire?" said the twin on the right.
"Just shut the door, would you!" hissed Lyra.
This unfortunately only seemed to slow them down, "Would you listen to that, Fred," said the twin on the left, "I don't think I've ever been treated with such disrespect. And from an ickle first year at that!"
Lyra could hear the pounding footsteps of Sinclair and the others as they drew closer.
"Never in my life, George," agreed his twin, "You know what I say, brother mine? We ought to teach this chap some manners, oughtn't we?"
"But where to begin?"
"Just shut the door!" whispered Lyra more urgently than before.
"No, I don't think I—."
"Shut it Fred!" snapped the voice of a girl Lyra had not even noticed sitting there in the compartment. She had bright red hair exactly the same shade as the twins and the sort of exasperated expression people reserved only for their siblings, "And go away, will you!"
"Fine, your majesty," remarked the twin by the door, "We'd hate to offend Our Lady, Princess Ginny."
"But don't come crying to us if he's rude to you," added the other.
"Kids nowadays," they muttered to themselves, shaking their heads, "No respect!"
With that the door fell finally, blessedly closed. Lyra saw Sinclair's group run by less than a second later. She exhaled in relief.
The compartment was silent after that except for the sounds of the other girl scribbling away in some sort of notebook—or diary, perhaps.
Truthfully Lyra had expected the girl to bombard her with all sorts of obnoxious questions once they were alone. Lyra had even fixed her eyes on a point outside the window fully prepared to ignore such inquiries. She was never going to see any of these people again after all—what reason did she have to be nice?
But the questions never came. For several minutes Lyra watched the sky outside and waited… waited… nothing! The girl just wrote and wrote. What was she even writing about anyway?
Lyra glanced over. She diverted her eyes when the girl flipped a page and then she looked again.
The girl was writing very quickly and very sloppily with hair falling into her face and lots of smeared ink on the sides of her hands. Lyra stared hard then, trying to make out words. She saw things like:
"The twins are such tossers."
Then, "Don't know where Ron is. Clearly he's going to ignore me after all."
And, "I just hope I'm sorted into Gryffindor."
Lyra was so absorbed in reading the upside down words she didn't notice when the girl paused her writing to look up at Lyra.
"Can I help you with something?" she said, scowling across at her.
Lyra shifted, "No, just—er—nice… quill?"
The thin feather quill was singularly unique as far as Lyra could tell. It was perhaps a bit distressed looking and stringy little tufts were missing here and there, but Lyra hardly imagined her comment could be taken as an insult.
By the narrowing of her compartment-mate's eyes, it became quite obvious that it had been though.
"Well have out with it then," snapped Lyra, "I suppose you'll want to have me tossed out into the corridor, then? Or maybe you'll want to attack me with that fancy wand of yours," she said, pointing at the spot right by the girl's leg where it was resting.
"If you think you're funny, I'm here to inform you that you're not."
"Well there go all my dreams of joining the circus, how ever am I to survive?"
"The what?"
"Nothing."
The girl glared for a good long minute. Lyra obligingly glared back.
"You're a right foul git, did you know that?"
"I did actually. And you're a nattering pea brain so I won't bother to ask if you knew it."
The train ride dragged on even more slowly after that. Eventually the sun began to descend over the horizon and the first stars peaked out into the clear night. Lyra thought they resembled a lot of monstrous little insects.
She wished they would just get there already! They couldn't be far now, the express had been chugging steadily north for hours—soon they were bound to run out of land. Outside the landscape had changed to mountains and forests which did make Lyra a bit nervous as to where exactly she'd run to once she could. But after all the awful wizards and witches she'd met that day, Lyra was more than willing to risk whatever terrain she came across.
At last a garbled voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please ensure you are wearing the approved uniform robes but leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."
Lyra glanced down at her worn out t-shirt and trousers. Thanks to Dumbledore there weren't any holes, nor excessive amounts of dirt on them, but she was sure to stand out. The man hadn't even the decency to give her a uniform.
Lyra grabbed around in her rucksack for the letter he'd used to transport Lyra to London. Maybe it contained some sort of instructions…
Lyra scanned the heavy parchment for important information. "First year students will require…" it began and then went along to list all manner of magical paraphernalia which made Lyra frown in disgust. "And please be advised, first years are not allowed their own broomsticks."
"What a load of cow dung," spat Lyra, chucking the parchment away from her. Her compartment-mate gave her a funny look, but Lyra ignored it.
Really it was extremely fortunate that Lyra was not actually going to Hogwarts. She didn't have any of those things! Had Dumbledore simply forgotten about it all? Didn't he even know the contents of the letter he'd brought her?
"Senile old fool," she muttered to herself. And he was supposed to be the headmaster!
No, Phillip Nevin had been right. Wizards, witches, magic, none of it was worth knowing about. Still, she thought to herself as the train began to slow, that was hardly any reason to send her away. It's not as though she, Lyra, was out to become any sort of witch. She'd have to be mad!
Lyra filed off the train with everybody else and immediately began searching for her escape. They were all standing on some sort of platform and most of the kids were making their way over to a small parade of horseless carriages.
The youngest ones however, who all appeared to be around Lyra's age, were huddled about the largest, hairiest man Lyra had ever seen. He held a torch high above everyone's head and called out, "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"
Lyra spotted Sinclair's group among the first years and quickly made to follow the older kids off the platform.
"But you there, hey!" called an authoritative voice to Lyra's left, "Why aren't you dressed in your uniform? Didn't you hear the announcement?"
It was the red haired prefect from earlier and he looked so important standing there amongst a sea of young witches and wizards, Lyra was sure he'd just burst.
"I—er—left it in my rucksack," she told him, and patted the bag as if to prove it.
"Well you ought to have put it on. Prefects can deduct house points, you know, for being out of uniform."
"I'll be sure to remember that. Thanks ever so much Mr. Prefect."
"Not at all, not at all," he replied pompously, "A prefect's work is never complete. Now, let's get you back with the other first years.
"No really, I'll be just f—."
"You'll be taking the boats over the Black Lake with Hagrid," continued the prefect, and he latched onto Lyra's arm to lead her, "No, no, don't drag your feet. This is the way you want to go, I assure you. Really, there's no finer view of the castle than from the middle of the lake. And what a treat it is that it's not even raining."
"Spectacular."
Lyra ended up walking with the rest of the eleven year olds (and the giant who was apparently named Hagrid) off the opposite side of the platform and toward the forest nearby. Lyra made sure to steer clear of Sinclair and ended up bumping into her red-haired compartment-mate.
"Watch it, will you," growled the girl. She was still, amazingly, scribbling away in her diary as she walked.
Lyra elbowed her in the side and then moved away from her before she could retaliate.
The crowd of first years all passed under a stone archway at the edge of the forest (Hagrid had to duck) and then continued onto a steep, narrow path. It was very dark on either side of them and the first years were all distracted with trying to remain on their feet. It proved far easier than Lyra would have expected to sneak off into the thick trees.
She drifted to the very back of the cue, to the point where she could hardly see Hagrid's light and then slipped off through an opening in the trees and into the forest.
She started off at a run, but the pitched dark surroundings and the heavy concentration of tree roots kept causing her to trip and fall. After the third time she scraped her knee, Lyra decided she'd better continue at a more sedate pace—particularly as she was travelling downhill.
By herself, the woods were perhaps a bit spookier than Lyra had anticipated. The dense canopy blocked any hope of light from the stars and Lyra had walked through more spider webs than she cared to count. Once or twice she wondered if she oughtn't just return to the path and run away some other time—maybe during a nice sunny afternoon.
Soon enough she realized that it was much too late for that though. She paused for breath by a tree that was wider than Lyra was tall and when she glanced behind her, curious to see the light from Hagrid and the other first years, all Lyra could see was trees. It was as though the whole world were nothing but trees.
Perhaps this hadn't been such a good idea.
It hardly mattered now of course. Lyra passed through the woods for several minutes and did her best not to think about what might be hiding there. But in the darkness her imagination proved more active than she had ever given it credit for. She imagined the soft scuttling sound on the forest floor was the prowling footsteps of a hungry wolf. A twig breaking was a ferocious bear as tall as a house. A weird murmuring sound was a lion that'd come to live in the forest after escaping the circus. Stupid circus.
At last the trees began to spread out, growing further and further apart. Moonlight slipped in through a few branches and Lyra hurried along until she reached the forest line. There she came to a halt and considered the wide body of water that stretched in front of her for over a kilometer.
On the other side stood a huge black castle atop a hill with lots of towers and turrets reaching up into the velvety night sky.
Lyra supposed it was sort of beautiful—if you were into that sort of thing of course, which Lyra most certainly was not.
But that was Hogwarts alright, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Albus Dumbledore presided as headmaster and Phillip Nevin had never attended. Of course neither had any of the Wenhams, nor the Hornes. And the Ashkelons would likely have each suffered a heart-attack even hearing the bloody name. As for the Derwents, well Lyra hadn't a clue about them.
What she did know was she, Lyra would not be taking one step closer to the place.
She could see out in the center of the lake, a little flotilla of row boats, likely filled with all the Hogwarts first years. She wasn't with them now and she never would be. Lyra would be on her own now, far from Devon or Exeter, and hopefully far from Hogwarts. Lyra took several steps back.
Unfortunately, in all of her distraction with the castle, Lyra was not watching where she was going. Her foot snagged on a root and down she went.
It was hardly the first root Lyra had tripped on that evening so when Lyra fell, she quickly braced herself and prepared to hit the ground. It didn't come—at least not when Lyra was expecting it. Instead, when Lyra fell, her arms flailed about and she dropped and dropped down into an earthen pit.
After a moment of deep breathing, she opened her eyes. The stars flickered above her tauntingly, but they were further away than Lyra would have liked. Around her was a nothing but a round dirt wall doubly high as Lyra was tall. "Oh, bloody, awful, sodding, horrible luck," she cursed and then she groaned because her ankle was hurt all over again.
She tried and tried to climb back up out of the pit but it was impossible. There were no edges and nothing to grab onto wherever Lyra tried. The loose dirt slipped beneath her hands and when she gritted her teeth enough to try, she found there was nowhere for her feet to grab hold either. She was trapped.
Lyra collapsed back into the center of the pit and glared at the stars. The corner of her eye was stinging, likely from the loose dirt, and she was left marveling over all the piss-poor decisions she'd been making recently.
Maybe she shouldn't have terrorized the Hornes and poisoned their cat. And maybe she should have just stayed with Ms. Berning no matter how awful she was. Better yet, she shouldn't have taken the blasted letter from Dumbledore.
No, she realized, and she sat up. Taking the letter had not been her fault. The abominable old wizard had tricked her into coming here.
"Dumbledore, this is all your fault!" she yelled and heard her voice echo satisfyingly off the nearby water.
"I hate you and I hope I never, ever see you again!"
She ranted for several minutes, and surprisingly, this made her feel a little bit better. "And you're the worst wizard ever born, and I hope your school gets closed down, and I hope you poke yourself in the eye with your stupid wand, and… and…"
Lyra trailed off and moved to the side of the pit that was closest to the lake. She'd heard something—a noise coming from the forest. She stood one-footed on top of her rucksack to see better, but it didn't really help. She could just barely make out the trunks of the trees at the forests' edge, but it was still too dark to see anything else.
"Hello?" she called, and was glad to hear that her voice didn't waver.
There was no answer, but the rustling sound in the forest grew louder—closer.
"Is… is somebody there?" There was more wavering that time, but Lyra thought she could have managed far worse.
"Dumbledore," she tried hopefully, "I—is that you?"
The rustling sound had dissolved into footsteps and Lyra felt her chest constrict. Surely Dumbledore didn't walk like that, did he?
Lyra held her breath and waited, waited for whatever it was that likely wanted to eat her for supper. The stars still twinkled above her maddeningly, and Lyra thought to herself that she really did not want to die. And resigned to that, she just hoped it wasn't painful.
At last a voice, male and commanding rent the quiet night.
"You should not be here," said the voice.
The broken pocket watch which Lyra had not even realized she was holding slipped out of her hand and hit the ground with a soft thud.
With trembling knees, Lyra bent to pick it back up.
"I r-really don't want to be."