TRIGGER WARNINGS PLEASE READ
Self harm via scratching
Anxiety
Panic attack
I wanted to make Lyra as real as possible and I'm not going to lie I add a bit of my experiences into my writing. Lyra has anxiety, panic disorder and OCD like myself. She hates it when something happens that she didn't exactly plan for, she hates being emotional in public and she absolutely hates what she did to Scorpius.
She hates losing control of anything really including herself.
She feels like she needs to be in check all the time and never let anything slip about the way she feels.
And when she doesn't manage to do that she feels like a failure like everything will come crashing down and it's all her fault.
Please don't read on if you feel you will be triggered by any of this mental health is a serious issue and I am fully aware this kind of content can be difficult to read for some myself included because it can put us right back in that head space.
Thank you all and please take care of yourselves.
XXX
Lyra was seething with anger as she made her way up to the astronomy tower it was her favourite place to go whenever she needed to calm down.
It was peaceful there, people tended to avoid it.
Firstly because Dumbledore the last headmaster of Hogwarts was murdered up there and secondly because it was pretty far out of the way and no one could really be bothered to make the journey.
Lyra loved it, the peace it brought, how isolated it was and most importantly the lack of people.
She needed to come here she couldn't go back to the Slytherin common room, not after what had just happened.
Theo would take one look at her and know something was wrong, he'd want to know what had upset her, he'd want her to tell him what happened.
Lyra couldn't tell him about what happened with Scorpius. How she had let herself down completely. She couldn't seem to control herself around him, he made her feel so inferior so weak. She hated herself around him.
Scorpius Malfoy reminded her of everything she wasn't. Of how from the second she was conceived it was decided that she was never going to be good enough to be Draco Malfoys daughter.
She was just as much his daughter as Scorpius was his son and it hurt more than she could admit to herself that he didn't see it that way that he never would.
It was decided before she was born that she was not one of them and she never would be.
It didn't matter that Lyra was smart and driven. It didn't matter that she was an excellent quidditch player and could outfly all the boys on her team. It didn't matter that she was fantastic at potions naturally. It didn't matter how fascinating she actually found history of magic she really couldn't understand why nobody else in class hung onto Professor Binns every word. It didn't matter that she loved to read and write, listen to music or go adventuring in the woods behind her grandparents house. None of what made Lyra Lyra mattered at all because she was a half blood and in a pureblood world blood status was the only thing that truly mattered. Lyra failed spectacularly at that particular requirement.
She would never be acknowledged by Draco, Scorpius would never know who she was to him, she would never see them at Christmas or hug them, she would never tell them she loved them and hear it in return.
She would never be a Pureblood.
It burned, stung, enacted a rage inside her that she wasn't fully comfortable with. She wished that she would be able to accept it. She didn't want to wonder, to yearn for what would never be possible. It made her hate herself just a little and it made her hate them a hell of a lot.
No she didn't want to talk, she wanted no needed to be alone right now. She couldn't get into any of those feelings she harboured deep inside herself.
She paced back and forth in front of the large window Professor Dumbledore had taken a swan dive out of many years ago.
She was panicking.
Her breathing was too fast, too fast, too fast! she couldn't get it under control.
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe.
She needed to breathe.
She felt disconnected from her body. She tried to calm herself down, this was all just in her head she told herself. Her anxiety was willing these symptoms into existence if she calmed down they would stop.
It was all in her head, all in her head, all in her head.
Her thoughts were racing and she was struggling to make sense of them. She couldn't escape herself, she was trapped inside her own mind. She was so frustrated with herself.
Why had she been so stupid!?
They would be talking about her for weeks, Weasley, Potter and Scorpius were probably having a right laugh at her outburst. She didn't want them to laugh at her she wanted them to leave her alone to never speak to her again.
She had given them a free pass to talk about her viciously behind her back and even to her face if they were brave enough.
She wanted to lash out at herself, punish herself, hurt herself for her idiocy.
She promised herself and her mother that she wouldn't do it anymore but it was calling to her. She needed the release it gave her like she needed air to breathe.
She pulled up her sleeves until her bare forearms were exposed.
She didn't want to, it was the last thing she wanted but everything was spinning and out of control she just wanted to do something she could control.
She couldn't hold herself back any longer she started to scratch frantically at the exposed flesh. Her arms were burning but she didn't care. She couldn't really feel the pain, she knew it was there but it was dull like it was happening a million miles away instead of in her own body.
She, was a million miles away.
She felt a wet substance that she knew was her own blood seeping down her arms and onto her hands, she could hear it begin to drip onto the floor.
It served her right!
She knew better than this. She should have been able to control herself!
Now people were bound to be suspicious she had mentioned Draco Malfoy, not by name but still, she shouldn't have acknowledged his existence at all, anyone could have heard her.
All it would take was the right person to connect the dots, to look at the similarities between her and Scorpius.
Between her and...
Her and...
Him.
They couldn't find out, they couldn't find out, they couldn't find out.
She never wanted anyone to find about her real parentage ever!
She was already a bastard. She couldn't be Draco Malfoys bastard. The Malfoy bastard, that's all she would be known as, all they would ever see her as if they found out.
GOD!
She was so stupid, so stupid, so stupid!
She was trying, really trying to calm down and control her breaths. She was trying to remember some of the exercises her mother had taught her to implicate whenever she lost control like this. She didn't want to hurt herself she really didn't but it was the only way she could get out some of the frustration she had for herself.
She wanted to stop. She needed to stop herself.
She tried to remember her mother's words, her voice at the forefront of Lyras mind as she slipped into a memory.
"Try to think of something that makes you happy, think of your favourite character in the whole world. Think of Percy Jackson, you love Percy Jackson don't you Lyra?" Lyanna said to her nine year old little girl who was sobbing desperately in her arms.
Little Lyra nodded she loved Percy he was the most amazing boy in the world. He didn't have a father either, his father had left him too, had more important things to do just like hers had.
Lyra thought about Percy, about how he didn't need his father in his life to grow up to be brave and strong. He only had a mother just like Lyra and she could be strong too.
Her mother was already moving on and speaking quickly but her voice was calm, gentle and soothing.
"Let's sing our favourite song together would you like that my little Lyra?"
Lyras mother would always do this when she lost control, she would switch from topic to topic always talking and not letting any silence fill the air between them. It stopped Lyra from being able to focus on her thoughts distracting her from the panic.
Her mother hugged her closely but not too tightly as they began to sing their favourite song together.
" I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world."
" I see sky's of blue and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful world."
"The colours of the rainbow so pretty in the sky. Are also on the faces of people going by."
Little Lyra had calmed down considerably relaxing into her mother's arms and singing along softly.
" I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do. They're really saying I love you."
" I hear babies crying, I watch them grow. They'll learn much more than I'll ever know. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world."
Lyra exhaled coming out of the memory she could finally breathe again, finally think clearly again.
She was ashamed at her outburst, at her utter lack of control.
She reached into the pocket of her robes for the packet of cigarettes she kept there in case of emergencies. Her fingers were shaking as she clumsily lit the cancer stick with the tip off her wand.
She took a drag and inhaled the smoke deeply. This she thought to herself is relief. She moved towards the open balcony window and looked down over the edge and the blackness bellow. She tried to imagine all that had happened in the very spot she was standing in, Dumbledores death.
She turned around her back to the window and tried to imagine the death eaters, where they had stood, what they looked like, what they said and what they had sounded like.
Her father had been here. He had seen it all was supposed to be the one doing the killing but he couldn't do it.
Lyra thought she could of done it, would have done it. She wasn't a psychopath or anything she didn't dream of killing the innocent but Lyra knew that if she had to for her life or for her families lives she would have done what needed to be done in a heartbeat.