Winky might be Lyra's favourite Hogwarts elf, and she wasn't just saying that because the ex-Crouch elf had been bringing her food every couple of hours for the past two days without telling Pomfrey. She'd also taken to bringing news from the outside world (because Pomfrey still wasn't allowing her to have visitors — apparently healing suspiciously quickly only reinforced her impression that there was something going on with Lyra's magic which might result in unexpected negative complications at any moment, but she was pretty certain the no visitors thing was punishment for transfiguring her arm back together out in the field), kicking her heels in the visitor's chair and happily chattering away at her in Elvish while Lyra ate.

It was thanks to Winky that she was aware that Maïa had continued to sit outside all of Sunday morning trying to get Pomfrey to let her in (she'd had the elf tell her worried girlfriend that she was fine, for what good that did — Winky said Maïa didn't believe her, because Lyra's definition of fine was far too broad and she'd probably say she was fine if she were on her bloody deathbed) and that the politicians had collectively managed to be diplomatic for once and held back from blowing up the riot in the stands into a cause for actual war. (It helped that no one important had actually gotten hurt.)

Emma was, as Lyra had predicted, fine. Both she and Sirius had sent letters regarding the incident, political developments within their alliance (Emma), and the fact that they needed to talk face to face (Sirius). Emma's had included well-wishes and a few sentences about Maïa and Dan.

She had, for some incomprehensible reason, told him all the things she'd been avoiding telling him about Magical Britain because she thought he wouldn't like them, and as it turned out, he hadn't. They'd had a row over her continuing to be their Speaker (among other things), which was sort of funny. Dan had met Emma, he had to know she wasn't going to resign the Seat, just give up that sort of power. And over what? a couple of people testing their defences? Honestly, no one had seriously tried to kill Emma yet. Sending a few poisoned or explosive letters was practically a crime of opportunity in terms of assassination. The senders couldn't possibly have expected them to get through (though she was sure they would've been pleasantly surprised if they had), so Lyra didn't really think that even counted.

Sirius's letter had omitted any hint that he was aware Lyra was injured, and/or that he'd been sent an owl to confirm that whole "family secret" thing, even though it had definitely had time to get there before he sent his. (It hadn't come until Monday afternoon.) Wanker.

The wanker had described the chaos in the stands as surprisingly chill, once the veela cleared out, and noted that Emma had handled it much better than Tienne and the Delacours, even before Chloé and Appoline went to check on the Beauxbatons section. She had in fact handled it so well Sirius suspected there was something off about her. Which, Lyra could have told him that.

Emma had originally reminded her of Dorea in that nice and superficially soft but has her priorities in order and isn't easily swayed way, but a little more ruthless — Dorea almost certainly wouldn't have jumped at the chance to ward her house knowing it might get Lyra in legal trouble, or decided that the potential advantages of allying with Lyra outweighed the fact that she was clearly insane and in another life she could have grown up to be a Dark Lady. After the past several months working together, Emma had started reminding her more of Zee than Dorea, the way she had so easily adopted the principles of the House. Obviously she wasn't nearly as unstable or dark-minded, and maybe calculating was a better word than ruthless. But she clearly wasn't a normal person.

She had described the riot as somewhat dangerous, I suppose, but Sirius and Narcissa had it under control. I was more upset that we were distracted from the task, honestly. Those last ten or fifteen minutes, I'm afraid I didn't really follow much of what was going on in the arena. I can't wait to get a copy of the omniocular recordings.

Lyra also couldn't wait to get a copy of the recordings, or even better, a fucking pensieve. Had Harry ever looked for one? She'd have to remind him...

They hadn't gotten their scores yet, either — the judges had supposedly made their decisions, they were just waiting until the Champions were all capable of attending the scoring. Lyra was supposed to be the last of them to recover, but she was pretty sure since she'd stolen Bella's healing trick, it would actually be Ingrid holding them up. Or, well, maybe it was actually Fleur, since she was the one who'd set the other champion on fire, but Fleur herself was hardly injured at all in the arena. Harry and Krum weren't so badly off, either — they had both fallen off their brooms, but they'd hit enough trees on the way down they hadn't broken anything important. Winky hadn't been able to find out what state Cæciné was in, but Lyra was pretty sure she'd been more exhausted than anything — maybe suffering from over-channeling, but she'd healed that punctured lung in the field, and nothing Lyra had managed to land was really bad enough to keep her in hospital for more than a couple of hours (assuming the Beauxbatons healer was more reasonable than Pomfrey).

Rowle, on the other hand, had just regained consciousness this morning, more than forty-eight hours after getting his arse cursed to seven hells (tee hee). Katie was still in bed — something wrong with her shoulder, according to the elf — but at least she was conscious. Enyo was in pretty much the same state as Katie — she'd gotten taken out by veela fire. It had largely missed her, but caught her broom, so she'd ended up crashing pretty badly. (Cedric had also gotten his broom torched, but he'd managed to bail without being injured badly enough to be dragged up here, apparently.)

But none of that was nearly as important a contribution to Lyra's positive impression of the little elf as the fact that, yes, she had been able to convince her to steal Lyra's wand back from Pomfrey's office (stealing from theives wasn't really theft, especially when it was to return the property to the rightful owner), which meant that as soon as the last of the light contamination was gone (which it very nearly was, Snape should be here with the final dose of her potion in a few minutes), she was ready to get the fuck out of here, finally.

Yes, it was admittedly less terrible to spend forty-odd hours meditating with the express purpose of healing herself than it would be to spend them just staring at the fucking ceiling and annoying Eris daydreaming about Cæciné, but she couldn't wait to just get the fuck out of this bed. Not that Pomfrey's wards would actually stop her from leaving now that she was well enough to shadow-walk (which hadn't seemed like a great idea with enough elemental sunlight suffusing her body that she'd had a fever and chills, and every joint felt like it was on fire whenever she moved), but they would alert her to the fact that Lyra had left. And since Winky had mentioned that Rowle was still here as well, Lyra had decided that it would be convenient to gloat a bit on the way out, do the whole I did this to you and you have no recourse to get me back, if you try I'll crush you like a bug, this was your final warning thing while he was still suffering the physical effects of her revenge.

Since the wards would have alerted Pomfrey the second she left the bed, though — even by shadow-walking, since they registered her presence in the bed as well as physically preventing her from leaving without Pomfrey's permission — she'd sort of needed to disarm them if she didn't want the healer to come storming in to interrupt her gloating session. Which meant she'd needed her wand. (The fact that she'd also been able to use healing spells on herself, speeding her recovery significantly over the past eighteen hours, was just a nice side-benefit.)

The wards had actually been disarmed for a few hours now, since she was so ready to get out of here, it was all she could do to assure Snape that yes, her healing was going fine, and yes, the light magic contamination was gone (she probably hadn't actually needed the last dose of the potion, but just to be sure), and even if it weren't, she'd managed to stop attacking the light-infused bones and muscles and fucking blood cells (she was definitely going to have to ask Cæciné whether she'd known that stabbing Lyra with elemental sunlight could make her anaemic — not that it hadn't been a fair move, she just wanted to know if the older girl had known, because that was fucking neat) pretty immediately after she actually started meditating properly, so it was fine, much less sit through the charms to check her healing progress and vitals without snapping at him.

After he took the potion-vial back he raised an eyebrow all drawling and unimpressed. "Well, I presume you now think you're free to go."

She smirked at him. "I did say Tuesday morning, didn't I?"

He rolled his eyes, after a second or two, giving her an exasperated, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Well, are you going to attempt to slip into shadows, or skip out the main doors, or instigate whatever mad plan you've concocted to infuriate Poppy for her insistence that you remain in complete isolation whilst making your escape?" he suggested impatiently.

Lyra frowned at him, trying to spot the trick. "Well, I would, but you're acting very suspiciously, and it's weird. Am I missing something?"

"Dark Powers — it's standard procedure to monitor a patient's initial attempts to stand and ask them to demonstrate basic physical fitness, checking for problematic atrophication or osteodegeneration before allowing them to check out after an extended period of bed-rest convalescence. Given that you've pushed yourself through at least a week's worth of healing in the past two days, and clearly haven't managed to consume enough food to support the strain you've put on your body — I presume you've failed to look in the mirror at any point in the past day or so—" Well, no, she hadn't. She hadn't gotten up at all. She hadn't needed to — there were healers' charms to take care of bodily functions whilst one was on strict bed-rest and she wasn't going to give Pomfrey the satisfaction of having to ask permission to visit the loo — so she'd just been lying around meditating, propped up on a couple of pillows so it was easier to eat. "—it seems reasonable to wait and ensure that you have not cannibalised the bones and muscles you have not been actively employing whilst lying in bed to the point that you are likely to fall down the stairs and require immediate rehospitalisation should I allow you to leave."

"Fine, fine, whatever. Just don't tell Pomfrey, please? I want to talk to Rowle before I leave," she explained, flicking back the covers. Now that he mentioned it, her wrists did look thinner and bonier than usual. Knees, too. She hadn't felt like she wasn't eating enough, but presumably her face had gone a bit gaunt. Oops.

That was about as far as she got before realising that every muscle from her shoulders down was painfully, impossibly stiff. She gasped involuntarily, more from surprise than the pain, though this was admittedly a type of pain she really wasn't accustomed to.

Snape gave her a very amused smirk as she forced her back and legs to obey her, trying not to visibly grimace as she bent her knees over the edge of the bed. "I take it Bellatrix didn't mention the importance of moving whilst employing such healing techniques."

"No, she decidedly did not." Eris, please ask Bella pointedly whether there's something she forgot to mention about the metabolism trick.

His smirk widened until it might actually be considered a genuinely amused smile, on a man prone to smiling. "I thought that might be the case." He tucked the vial back in his pocket and turned to go.

She says, no, she didn't forget. Now you're even for accidentally trapping her in the shadows instead of in her bedroom for the first week of term.

...Bitch.

"What happened to making sure I'm physically fit to climb stairs or whatever?" Lyra groused. Mostly rhetorically, she was pretty sure now he'd just been waiting to see the look on her face when she realised she was going to have to spend the next few hours stretching before she could go casually gloat over Rowle.

Also, it should have been obvious that, if you don't move for literally days while rebuilding significant areas of muscle, you're going to be impossibly stiff.

She's still a bitch. But Lyra couldn't really be that angry, even, because yes, it probably should have been obvious and she hadn't thought to ask whether there was anything else she should know about this spell, and she was almost positive it had been intended at least as much as an olive branch as a prank, because now she knew that little detail it was an incredibly useful trick. But fine, yes, we're even.

She still wasn't terribly keen on the idea of seeing Bella in person, though...unless... Do you think I could resist her stupid Go the Fuck to Sleep spell now, like with that stunning spell Cæciné hit me with?

Well, you'd have to try it for me to say for sure, but probably. Throwing raw chaotic energy at most spells will destabilise them, especially one as dominating and binding as that, so.

Well, in that case, maybe Lyra was over it. Next time they saw each other, she'd ask Bella to cast the spell on her so she'd know if she could resist it or not, and if she could there was really no reason to avoid her. Especially if she was over the bedroom trap thing enough to teach Lyra neat shite again, because Lyra had a suspicion she was going to want new tricks to throw at Cæciné after a few duels, and who else was she going to ask about completely over-the-top dark battlemagic? Yes, Bella could still kick her arse in about ten seconds flat, but if Lyra didn't challenge her to a duel she probably wouldn't bother, and Lyra was better at shadow magic than Bella. She could probably escape pretty much anything her alter-ego could throw at her by slipping through the shadows anyway. Actually, that would probably make that fucking Go the Fuck to Sleep spell pretty useless anyway, but she'd still like to be able to resist it just in case Bella managed to take her by surprise.

"So long as you don't poison yourself with light magic again whilst falling down the stairs, I don't imagine it will be any of my problem," Snape informed her, flicking the curtains aside and closing them behind him with a careless wave of a wandless hand, not so much as looking back. Dramatic twat. He hadn't given her the recipe for the potion either, she'd have to go bother him about that after she finished with Rowle, stabbed Sirius for refusing to cooperate with her "family secret" excuse (and also found out what was so damn important to talk about "at your earliest convenience"), caught up with Maïa and Harry, and convinced Cæciné that being duelling partners was the best idea in the history of ever, which shouldn't be difficult, because Cæciné had been having almost as much fun as Lyra out in the field, she could tell.

None of which could happen until she could move without wincing, because it was impossible to be properly intimidating when one was clearly in pain oneself. Unless one had just been subjected to the Cruciatus and was still standing or something. Being stiff from lying in bed for a subjective week while every muscle in her body recovered from being thrown around like a ragdoll for well over half an hour wasn't nearly as impressive. She'd mostly focussed on her broken bones and the tears in her diaphragm (which were, as a consequence, probably somewhere between two and three weeks along, compared to completely undirected, non-magical healing), but the rest of her body had continued to heal normally as well. Just four times faster, because stiffness aside, this was a great cheat.

Well, maybe slightly slower than that, since she'd been consciously directing resources to her worst injuries, but still much faster than basically muggle healing. With copious amounts of bruise balm and burn paste, the superficial injuries had already been largely healed by the time she'd gotten her wand back. She'd used a couple of charms to finish them off, just because she suspected Cæciné was more likely to agree to a rematch if she looked like she was (almost) fully recovered from their last fight and could actually hold up her end. It was one thing to need a couple more days to heal a nasty broken arm. It was another to show up with her face still bruised from breaking it on that fucking invisible wall. The torn muscles and ligaments in her wrist and hip would probably need a few more days as well (now that she could use actual healing charms on them), but she thought most of the strains and sprains should be good once she stretched them out, having had a nice (subjectively) long rest.

If I'd known about this earlier, I could've stretched while I was waiting for Snape, she complained at Eris, trying not to gasp too loudly as she twisted at the waist — he'd left the privacy charms deactivated, and noises of pain would attract Pomfrey's attention (or that of her assistants) just as obviously as the wards triggering.

It was nearly lunch before Lyra was ready to move. She could probably stand to spend a few more hours stretching, honestly, but she'd been hard-pressed to make it through Pomfrey's morning rounds without raising suspicions. She wasn't at all certain she had the patience to make it through midday rounds, too.

She had to conjure a robe for herself because her clothes had been confiscated along with her wand (and she hadn't thought to ask Winky to bring her something from her room). Out of curiosity, she made a mirror for herself while she was at it.

Wow, you look like shite, Eris informed her, like she couldn't see that for herself. A bit gaunt might've been an underestimation. Her sunken eyes looked huge compared to her hollowed cheeks, she was even paler than usual (which didn't seem like it should be possible — she was fairly certain humans were only this white if they were dead), and her hair, which someone had unplaited after the Task and she'd left untended for the past two days, might rival Harry's for messiness. (Overall — his was still worse by volume.) She ran her fingers through it a few times to get rid of any obvious flat spots, but left it unbound and wild, shadowing her face and consequently making her general resemblance to a skull more obvious. In her plain black robes, all she needed was a fucking scythe, and she'd look like the grim bloody reaper (albeit a bit short).

Yeah, but intimidating shite.

With Eris's amusement bubbling at the back of her mind, she poked her head out of the curtains quick to check whether the coast was clear (it was, Pomfrey and her assistants would be eating their own lunch — in her office, they were within calling distance if anyone actually needed help, but they weren't actually wandering around the ward at the moment), before sauntering three bays down and flicking the curtain open like Mister Dramatic Twat himself. Rowle was asleep. Bastard. How dare he not be conscious when she was here to gloat?

She hit him with the same nightmare hex she'd used on Draco, all the way back in their first (and only) hilarious duel, barely managing to engage the privacy charms before he woke screaming.

"Thane. Good morning. How kind of you to join me."

"B– Black? What the actual—"

"Ah, well, I heard you were conscious, finally, so I thought I'd come and see the results of your...misfortune for myself." She perused the chart at the end of his bed for a moment. "Not quite so badly off as I was after you and your friends had your way with me at the end of last year. Not that I really expected the other schools to start throwing around Unforgivables — even inept ones — but I had hoped one of them might be inspired to throw an Acid Spray at you." She traced a finger down the right side of her nose and mouth, up the lower side of her jaw and around to the back of her neck. "Aqua fortis? Naughty boy. That shite hurts, you know. Full marks for creativity, though — that is the first time anyone's tried to melt my face off. Well, chemically, at least. And it wouldn't have left traces of your magical signature, would it?"

"Wh– What're you– What are you talking about, Black?" he stuttered, very unconvincingly.

"But your friends weren't so clever. How many fewer months with the dementors do you think it would take them to rat you out?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Well, to be fair, I was obliviated, I could be wrong. Wouldn't that be embarrassing. But Lavender wasn't obliviated, was she?"

His eyes widened in fear. Lyra grinned, advancing on the head of the bed.

He cringed away. "Brown told you I was– that I had something to do with— But she wasn't—"

"No, she left too early to see that, didn't she? But Draco... I think Draco would sell you out to avoid even an illusion of a dementor. What do you think?"

"I didn't do it, I swear!"

"Your father's Thorfinn's older brother, right?" She knew he was, she'd looked into the people who had been involved in her kidnapping over the summer. Finny (a convicted Death Eater in this universe) was the only Rowle she knew personally. He had been a sixth-year when Lyra had started Hogwarts. She wasn't sure what had happened to their parents, but Tyr (Thane's father) and Hulda (their sister) had practically raised Finny. "I would have expected him to teach you to lie better..." She grinned again, leaning down to whisper in his ear, "Do you still think I'm a line thief?"

He flinched away as though she'd hit him with a Static Shock. "What? I never— I don't—"

"Thane. Do you...or do you not...think that I'm Bella's clone?" she asked. Slowly. Deliberately. Letting magic flash in her eyes, flooding the air around them, just because.

He broke. "Yes! No! I mean, yes, I'm sorry, pleasedon'thurtme!"

She giggled. "Now, there, was that so hard?" No, it wasn't. It was almost disappointingly easy, really.

Well, you did hit him with a fear spell first, Eris reminded her.

That's really that effective? She might have been underestimating this fear thing...

Eris formed an avatar just to raise an eyebrow at her like obviously. It is when you look like Death and follow up by drowning them in your magic and reminding them that you're Bellatrix fucking Black.

...Oh.

Eris laughed at her. Didn't you just claim to be intimidating shite?

Well, yes, but I didn't realise I was that intimidating...

You're adorable, ducky.

"Please..." Rowle snivelled. "We didn't— I didn't—"

"Didn't mean anything by it? No that doesn't make sense, and Morgan definitely did. Didn't think I'd remember? More plausible, I suppose. Obliviating most people would work, even if your obliviator isn't even a legilimens... Though if he were, he'd've known not to try." She gave him another sharp grin. "He probably should've known anyway. I mean, Morgan's not very good at the Cruciatus, but most people still wouldn't be in a better mood after getting hit with it. And you all should have known better when I warned you that I wouldn't let that little incident pass unchallenged, but."

"P– Please—"

"Oh, stop snivelling, I'm not going to hurt you. I think our friends from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang have done a fair job of that for me, don't you? And Lady Luck, of course. It would be rude not to acknowledge her part, especially when she delivered so spectacularly. Certainly in excess of three times the damage you personally caused to me, if not quite so bad as the six of you managed together. Well, four. Don't worry, your friends will get theirs, too. My darling baby cousin and his pathetic little girlfriend didn't really do anything beyond ambushing me in the first place. In light of certain...mitigating circumstances, I might be convinced to let them off the hook for that."

"Wha— Are you— You...did this, somehow? You— How?"

"That would be telling, Thane, darling. But I think you'll find I didn't do anything. I was fully occupied dancing with Miss Cæciné while you were being cursed to seven hells. And I think if anyone were to question why such a disproportionate number of our foreign friends' curses fell on you rather than Katie, they might come to the conclusion that someone made the decision to sacrifice himself for the good of the Team..."

His eyes widened along with her grin, as he realised exactly what she'd done. "You—!"

"Ah, ah, don't say anything you might regret, now, Thane," she warned him, pushing just a bit more power into the space between them, until the air itself started to feel a bit electric. His expression shifted back a few notches, from outraged to fearful. "After all, if you accuse me of using black arts to fuck you over in the Task, people might start wondering why, exactly, I would have any motive to do that. And then I might have to admit that I have my suspicions about who was involved in my abduction at the end of last term, and there will be comparisons of magical signatures, and even if yours isn't among the impressions Snape and Pomfrey saved for the Aurors, well, there's always the threats of non-illusory dementors to consider. Who do you think would sing first?"

He blanched, but she continued, just to make sure he thoroughly understood the point she was making, here. "Not Morgan, she'd be too busy trying to catch a portkey to anywhere they don't extradite to Britain. I still think it would be Draco, though le Parc also strikes me as particularly cowardly, and there would be more pressure on him and Bletchley, since they actually used destructive spells against me. Stunning me and hitting me with a nerve-tweaker aren't exactly likely to land Baby Cousin in Azkaban, though Mummy certainly won't be happy with him dragging the family name through the mud when she's just started getting the stench of Death Eater out."

That was the bad choice. Now for the good choice:

"On the other hand, if you just let people draw their own assumptions, the worst they'll think of you is that you're a noble idiot or ruthless enough to make the sacrifice-play if that's what it takes to win against superior forces and overwhelming odds. We did win, by the way. And you can still go on to have a nice long career in the Hit Wizards or become a professional duelist or whatever you want to do with your life, which I presume is not sitting around a boring little cage for the next few years. Your friends, too.

"Unless, of course, you'd rather take this whole affair before the Wizengamot and let them sort it out. What's the precedent for abducting, torturing, and attempting to obliviate the Heir of a Noble and Most Ancient House, again? I might go down for black magic, maybe, if anyone thinks me skipping in here and trying to take credit for your bad luck constitutes any sort of proof of anything, but you'll go down harder, and of the two of us, we both know who will fare better in Azkaban." She threw him a wink, then leaned in again to whisper, "Think about it," and stepped backward out of the mundane plane, confident that he'd choose correctly.

Angel was waiting for her in the shadows, her magic cold and welcoming. "Nicely done, Baby Sister," she giggled.

"Mmm, hi," Lyra mumbled, very articulately, leaning into her. "Glad you enjoyed the show."

"Mmm, almost as good as your performance down in the arena. Right up until the end, anyway," she added, with a disapproving pout so clear Lyra could hear it. "You could have cursed the shite out of Cæciné instead of saving your little mortal girlfriend, you know. She was distracted trying to make Miss Maïa duck in time, she wouldn't have been able to shield."

"I really couldn't have. Maïa wouldn't have been able to shield either, and not letting my vassals get blown up and die is more important than winning a duel with no actual stakes." She grinned, though she wasn't entirely certain whether Angel could feel it here. "Besides, now I have an excuse to demand a rematch."

Angel sighed. "I know, you didn't do it in any of the potentialities. It was a very consistent disappointment. Still a disappointment. Though it is some consolation that little Arte was nearly as disappointed. Winning like that was just so...anticlimactic. And I mean that in the most sexual way possible."

Lyra snorted. "Well, good to know I wasn't the only one having fun."

"Oh, the two of you are going to be a lot of fun. Though that's not actually why I'm here."

Alright, Lyra would bite. "Why are you here, then?"

"I was just passing through and caught you being all adorably naïve about how intimidating you are, and you know how I feel about naïvité."

She didn't, actually, but she suspected it was something along the lines of, "It's an affront to your very nature, and you won't stand for it?"

"Mmm, yep," she said, popping the 'p' like Lyra used to do much more often, but had sort of fallen out of the habit of sometime in the past year or so. "So, for your edification:"

The scene played out before them as though they were watching from a point above and to the left of Rowle's bed. An illusion, Lyra was pretty sure, though given the nature of the Shadow Plane, it felt more like it was projected directly into her mind than as though she was actually seeing it. (Which was bloody weird, but also bloody neat.)

It started with Lyra throwing open the curtain and frowning at that sleeping bastard, throwing a curse at him and slamming up the privacy wards in the moment before he screamed at the sight of the fae creature glaring down at him, wreathed in an invisible aura of darkness, her hair undulating softly around her in a dark halo, defying gravity as though she were underwater. When she advanced on him, she seemed to flit forward, the motion inhumanly quick and impossibly smooth (more like a vampire than a human, which was weird — from her perspective, it hadn't seemed that fast) and when she grinned, her teeth almost seemed sharp.

("Do I actually move that quickly?")

("Only when you're animating your body to move yourself.")

(...Weird. I wonder if that's a new thing...)

And that was before she let her eyes flash with magic, her death-pale face almost glowing as the aura of darkness surrounding her expanded to fill the bay, not quite visible itself, but making the light in the space seem somehow less.

Well. Okay, then. Apparently she was a hell of a lot more impressive-looking than she'd thought when she was actually trying. When she leaned down to whisper in his ear, from this perspective, it was clear he was struggling to get away from her, but (she was pretty sure) her magic wouldn't let him, his fingers just scrabbling across the sheets to no avail.

She sniggered. She hadn't even tried to do that, it had just...happened. Which should probably be a concern, things happening simply because she wanted to make an impression, but it was just too funny, that expression of terror...

Angel thought it was funny too, her amusement echoing through the darkness surrounding them, almost the same as Eris's emotions shivering through her mind. "Yes, you are coming along nicely. My little dark nymph is growing up," she teased, ruffling Lyra's hair.

She grinned, leaning into the embrace of the Dark's magic. "Nymph?"

"Your little mortal girlfriend has recently noticed you're not human," Angel informed her. "She's under the impression that you're some sort of immature eldritch abomination, or something."

...Well, that didn't seem like an inaccurate description. Though how it could be a recent observation, Lyra wasn't really sure, especially if she always looked like that when she let her magic go. "Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to her about that. The whole avatar thing. Why were you spying on Maïa?" she asked, because she'd been under the impression Angel didn't really care about Maïa, outside of finding it hilarious that she and Lyra were dating (like practically everyone else).

"I was spying on Emma. She's not one of ours, but we knew her back when she was Emma-Mae."

Well that wasn't mysterious and fascinating at all... "Really? How?"

"Oh, that would be telling. But you know small towns, they all have their dark secrets."

...Okay, then...

"And Lyra, darling?"

"Yes?"

"Do at least try to blend in for a few more years. You're coming along nicely, but you're still a baby, and all too easy to kill when you let the wrong humans figure out what you are."

She disappeared before Lyra could ask what the hell that was supposed to mean.

I think that was pretty self-explanatory... Eris drawled, her presence...less certain than usual. Doubtful, maybe.

Well, yeah, but she said when not if, so who the hell does she think is going to kill me? And why? She knows something...

She's probably just having fun making us paranoid. But maybe try to keep a low profile anyway...

Yeah, like that'll be easy. If I have to start using glamour charms to look even remotely human, I'm going to be very annoyed. But in the meanwhile, I have a bone to pick with Sirius about leaving me in hospital, she noted, orienting herself toward her bastard of a cousin and skipping off into the shadows. That sounded like much more fun than sitting around worrying about whether she was passing for 'normal' or not, and who might care if she wasn't.

So, Lyra finally got revenge on one of the idiots who kidnapped her. Also, she's made things up with Bellatrix, is a cheating cheater who cheats, and might be in love. It's been a surprisingly eventful few days, seeing as she's been confined to a bed the entire time. (But being in hospital is still terrible.)

[I might go down for black magic [...], but you'll go down harder]

This seems like an obnoxious degree of overconfidence on the surface, because it's been stated before that if people find out Lyra's a black mage, she'll be in Azkaban (or on the run) for life, but Rowle only has enough proof here to accuse her of performing a single black magic ritual, not of actually being a black mage. Doing black magic period is an Azkaban-worthy offense, but it wouldn't be a life-sentence like becoming a black mage. With the Blacks' political influence, it might only be a few months. Lyra is wagering (correctly) that he will want to avoid going to prison himself more than he wants to get her in trouble, especially since she's already gotten her revenge on him. As far as he's concerned, the worst of it is over now.

Re: Emma and Angel — When Emma was about Lyra's age, she had a friend/acquaintance named Marcy, who was her preacher's daughter, and (Emma suspected) schizophrenic. Though she didn't have a rational explanation for Marcy's apparent telekinetic and pyrokinetic abilities when they were kids, she just assumed that there had to be one and they'd figure it out eventually.

Emma was one of Marcy's best friends — quite possibly her only friend. Marcy therefore told her about Annie, the demon that talked to her in her head, trying to convince her to do all sorts of terrible things and that she was terrified that she might be an evil witch when they were about twelve. She attempted to commit suicide twice (that Emma knew about) before she finally lost it and murdered a local elementary-aged kid for "Annie" when she and Emma were sixteen. Marcy was found not guilty by reason of insanity and permanently institutionalised. Emma was like, did no one else see that coming? but doesn't really consider herself to be at all responsible because there wasn't anything she could do to help Marcy when her parents didn't believe in treatment for mental illness (beyond trying to beat the devil out of the kid, which would obviously be counterproductive).

Marcy would be the reason that Emma wasn't nearly as surprised to discover that magic is real as most muggle parents are, and in light of the revelation of magic being real, she considers that the rational explanation for the telekinesis/pyrokinesis. She's fairly certain that Marcy was a muggleborn witch who fell through the cracks somehow, who also happened to be schizophrenic (she hasn't given Marcy much thought since she found out about gods being real and occasionally speaking directly into people's minds), and who was driven to the point of a psychotic break by her parents' religious insistence that anything magical or unnatural was evil and of the devil.

Emma's pretty quick though, so if Angel (or Lyra) tells her that Angel used to know her as Emma Mae, she will almost certainly put it together and be inclined not to like Angel (though of course she would still feign warm politeness — that's simply what one does, even when speaking to persons one hates). Angel, for her part, had entirely forgotten about Marcy and Emma until she overheard Lyra telling Emma about her, so now she's just curious about how weird little Emma Mae — who she recalls as having the force of personality to be a good ritualist and oddly tolerant/accepting/even supportive of other people being "insane", but being almost aggressively un-magical in her personal certainty that there had to be a mundane explanation for everything that happened in the world around her — turned out.