Grandloves//Tomarry

12

She doesn't mind the almost unbearable gelid wind, or the long and unending walk to Blackburn. They both serve to numb her thoughts—and limbs—until she can't feel anything at all. Good. It's better this way. Why can't she exist like this always? It would be so much simpler, so much easier...

So much less embarrassing.

Lyra still can't bring herself to acknowledge what she's done, even when she finally reaches the town (that truck driver was right, she really did spend all day getting over here) and finds a petrol station with a payphone. The sun bends ever so slightly against the roof of the BP station, burning on the last of its embers upon a dark prussian sky—it'll be dark soon enough.

Hermione takes forever picking up, and once she bombards Lyra with questions she really doesn't want to answer.

In the end Hermione convinces her mother to drive down to Blackburn to pick her up, and she spends a horrible hour car ride in miserable silence. There's not even passing scenery to distract her—the world outside is obscured in an inky blackness, leaving nothing but her equally miserable , pallid face reflected onto the glass. She catches Hermione looking at her through it a couple times, but she doesn't look back.

She manages to keep her staunch silence all the way up until Hermione locks her in her bedroom, rounding on her and crossing her arms as she guards the door, as if assuming (quite rightly) that Lyra will attempt to bolt out of it.

Her staunchly disapproving expression melts when she finally catches sight of how horrid her best friend looks, bleeding into a deep concern.

"Lyra,"

She says, just as Lyra chokes out, "I've messed everything up."

Hermione motions towards her bed, leading the other girl towards it. They both sit, and for some time Lyra picks at the pale pink bedspread, looking upon the room, expressionless. She has matching pillows and an archaic looking teddy bear that sits on a chair not too far from it. There's a photo of her and her parents on her bedside table, a little blemish on the wooden surface, ancient evidence of nail polish gone awry. Books and books are piled atop every available surface, unsurprisingly, there are no haphazard piles of clothes to be seen anywhere. It looks lived in: it looks like home.

Lyra swallows.

Does she even have one to go to? Or has she effectively ruined everything?

"Lyra, what's wrong?" Hermione murmurs, brushing a long spilling of hair that obscures Lyra's face.

And, to Lyra's silence, "Is it..." She hesitates. "Is it about that boy?"

Lyra chokes on a laugh. That boy? The idea of whatever child Hermione has conjured in her own head in comparison to Lord Voldemort is particularly hilarious.

"Yes," Lyra replies; the amusement has left her, leaving her hollow once again. "Sort of—more about me, really. I was the one who messed it up. I –I shouldn't have..." She looks away.

"Lyra," she says again, and Lyra can hear so much in that tone—all the love and trust and friendship between them.

She takes a breath.

"I..." Lyra begins, unsteady. "I have a lot to tell you, Hermione."

.

.

Lyra was not surprised at all when Hermione's first remark was one of great mutiny and disapproval, "This whole time, you were talking about Tom—that Tom! Tom Riddle! V—err, you-know-who! He's the reason you're at the top of our class in every subject, isn't he?" She accuses, irascible. And then, with horror as the thought occurs: "Is he writing all your essays?"