Notice Me ☆George Weasley☆

THIRTY: "They enjoy the chaos too much"

The smell of cigarette smoke floating into Lyra's window woke her up. Her cheeks were puffy and her eyes felt heavy. The soft paper of the letter from George lingered on her fingertips. She shot up, checking that each and every letter and envelope were accounted for. She carefully put each of them back into their envelopes and into her bag.

"Thanks for meeting me," a hushed voice right outside her window brought Lyra's attention from her bag. The sun was barely coming up now, not even the older ladies who run the shops next door were awake and ready for work yet.

Lyra carefully tiptoed across the room and looked down: Ares stood with a cigarette to his lips talking into his other hand. It almost looked like he was using a muggle walkie-talkie, but she knew Ares better than that. He avoided anything to do with muggles. Well apparently besides cigarettes as one dangled from his lip.

She leaned further out the window, slowly trying not to pull his attention to her above him. The ally below looked completely empty besides the skinny, green haired boy standing below her window.

She leaned back inside, but she didn't close the window. She stood there silently trying to see if she could hear who he was speaking to, but nothing.

"She's truly pathetic," Ares said, taking a puff at the end of his words. "She apparently tried to fight the headmaster over not being able to come back here. To this pathetic ass place." Another hard inhale and outhale.

Lyra's stomach dropped and she tried to keep herself upright as it hit her. He was talking about Juno, and he had to have read her letter from George. A wave of rage and anxiety washed over her; she thought about her wand and how easily it would be for her to shoot a hex down at him, but she resisted the urge. She knew whatever hex she used on him, their mother could easily counter hex and she would end up being the one in trouble for using magic.

She crouched down, wrapping her arms around her legs and kept listening to the voice that floated into the window.

"Only reason I came back was to see my mother, and well..." he went quiet, his thoughts seemed to have clouded for a moment.

"But, anyway," another hit of his cigarette, "I'll see you back at school whenever."

School? Whoever it was had access to Hogwarts. She waited to move until the smell of smoke started to fade. She stood up barely before closing the window and falling into her bed, with a quiet thud. Ares was giving information about Juno to someone, someone who seemed to want to know all the bad and none of the good.

Maybe there was a spell to talk to Draco from school that Lyra didn't know about, but she didn't see why he would have told him that. Since Draco's at Hogwarts, he probably already knew.

She let her thoughts eat away at her until the sun beamed bright through her window, and she heard her mother's footsteps echoing through the house. This was Lyra's que to get ready for the day. She grabbed a pair of jeans and a nicer long sleeve shirt to hide the bruise that was still on her arm. It was their only full day at her parents, she knew somehow she'd be dragged out to go to town.

She threw her pyjamas on the floor as she peeled them off her body, before pulling on her clothes.

"Lyra!" Her father's voice called from across the house, and she quickly finished buttoning her jeans and walking out of her room and heading towards the dining room, where she knew her father was sitting enjoying his morning coffee.

She watched her feet as she ran down the stairs, not wanting to face Ares yet. Not wanting to have to face the truths that had been eating her away for so long already that morning; Ares knew something she didn't, didn't care about anyone but himself, and might be helping whoever is trying to hurt Juno.