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"Hello, mum," Lyssa smiled tentatively. Her mother unconsciously straightened in the chair across from her. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and she was wearing a faded gray t-shirt.
"Hi, Lyssa," she smiled back, though it didn't quite reach her eyes, "Come on then your brothers are at home with the sitter." Her mother grabbed her paper coffee cup and led Lyssa to where the car was parked. Together they loaded the luggage into the trunk and then climbed into the front of the car.
"How was school this year?" Her mum asked, trying to sound casual, "Anything fun happen?" Lyssa could tell her mother was wary of this subject but also sensed that she was trying her best to hide it.
"Yeah lots of fun stuff," Lyssa offered, the tension palpable as they followed the streets out of London and down towards their home.
"That's good." Her mum seemed visibly relieved that she would have to hear too in-depth about the events of the school year. Lyssa at once thought of the letter her parents had received the previous year about the whole philosopher's stone ordeal.
"But, something else did happen," Lyssa started, her mum shot her a cautious look, "The kind of thing you and Dad might get a letter about."
"Lyssa Faye Wiley, what on earth did you do?" her mum shouted.
"I didn't do anything this time I promise," Lyssa pleaded, "It was more something that was done to me," she continued. Her mother gripped the steering wheel so tight her knuckles began to turn white.
"Go on," she said through gritted teeth.
"Essentially, I was petrified by a really big snake," Lyssa explained, "And I know that really doesn't make sense, but, there's a lot of important wizarding politics and history you would need to understand to really grasp what was going on, but, all in all, someone was trying to kill the muggle-born students," she rambled, "No one actually died, though," she added upon seeing the horrified look on her mother's face. No one spoke for a couple of minutes.
"Someone was trying to kill you?" she whispered.
"Yeah," Lyssa conceded, "But they were only able to attack me because I did something dumb. They were actually going to close the school before Harry Potter killed the big snake and stopped the guy trying to kill people."
"Harry Potter?" Her mum questioned, "That's the boy from last year, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Lyssa replied, "He and his friends always go looking for trouble, I just stumble into it," she grumbled.
"I see," her mum nodded, "That's quite enough for now I think." She reached to turn up the music on the radio after she said this.
With the exception of the pop music playing from the speakers the rest of the car ride was silent. Lyssa knew better than to try and win over her mum with stories of all the good things that had happened that year. So instead she tilted her head against the window and closed her eyes.
𝀈𝀈𝀈
This less-than-ideal start to the break only carried on as the summer progressed. Lyssa's parents were in the middle of a heated divorce, as it turned out this had become more permanent than the separation she had been informed of at Christmas. The more time she spent around either of her parents the more clear it became to Lyssa that the only thing that they could agree on was that Hogwarts was out of the question for the following school year.
This decision also meant that Lyssa was forced to move in with her dad in his flat outside of London and while Lyssa may have been relieved to not have to deal with the near-constant argument she and her mother seemed to be having she was disappointed that she didn't get to see her brothers as often. Though, they were the reason she had to move, weren't they. Her parents were worried that if they kept her out of Hogwarts she would hurt them, not on purpose of course but accidentally.
They didn't believe Lyssa when she said that she was in control of her magic despite her minimal training. They were too wary of the warning they had received from the ministry witch two summers ago. Lyssa was furious, how dare they think they understand magic better than she did? How dare they think she might hurt her brothers?
It was late on a Thursday night when Lyssa's dad came into her new bedroom. She was sitting on the floor in the corner reading a book. It wasn't the book she wanted to be reading, all of her school books and other magical things had been locked in the garage in Little Whinging. Her dad nearly tripped on a box near the door. Other than a few small things Lyssa's stuff remained in boxes, she had refused to unpack until her parents saw reason.
"Go away," she huffed as he sat down on the floor beside her. He was still wearing his suit from work and he struggled to find a comfortable way to sit next to her. He didn't say anything at first, he just placed a small chocolate cupcake with purple icing on the ground in front of her.
"I get one every year," he explained, "Your mother doesn't know, she got really upset when she saw it the first time." Lyssa's eyes filled with tears but she didn't cry.
"I always make her card," she told him. She reached to open the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out the blue construction paper project she had put together the day before. She handed it to her father and his eyes skimmed over it. She snatched it from his hands before he could open it, however. "The inside is just for her," she explained when he looked at her.
The first time after her death that Lyssa made her sister a birthday card she filled the inside with all the things she wished Maia had seen in the year she had been gone. The second time she also added in all the things Lyssa wished she could say to her big sister. From there the birthday cards had morphed into a sort of annual diary entry. A conglomeration of all her thoughts and feelings that she had had that year. Every year Lyssa wished that she still had a big sister to ask for advice, whether it was something small like how to braid her hair or bigger like friends and boys and all the life-or-death situations she had found herself in recently. She knew that Maia would never actually read the cards but a part of her hoped that she was watching over her from somewhere.
"I see," her father said, "So is the cupcake," he nodded to the dessert on the floor in front of them. "I never even eat them."
"Ah," Lyssa concurred.
"There was something else I came in here to say," he continued, turning his gaze from the cupcake to Lyssa. "The other day your mother and I were talking and she mentioned something you said on the car ride home from the station.
"She did?" Lyssa asked.
"Yes, she did," he answered, "I'm not sure if she had skipped over it before or what but it stuck out to me this time. You told her to understand the incident at school she would have to know years of wizarding history and politics."
"Yeah," Lyssa confirmed though she was unsure just where he was going with this.
"It occurred to me that that is probably true for many things outside of that incident. Your Mother and I have only seen the wizarding world through the crack in the door so to speak. We have done a few things with you but beyond that, we only know what you've told us. And most of the time you tell us the bad stuff first because it's important but once we hear it we don't let you tell us anything else. So we've been trying to do what's best for you and your brothers based only on very isolated facts and our own assumptions."
"Okay," Lyssa said hopefully, she was getting the feeling that maybe he had changed his mind.
"So after that conversation, I went to the garage and brought home one of your books, the recent history one, and I read it. A lot of it didn't really make sense but I thought maybe you could shed some light on it." He turned to face her completely and upon seeing the excited look on her face he added. "This doesn't mean we'll change our minds."
"But it opens up the possibility," Lyssa contered.
"I suppose that's one way to look at it," he sighed.
"So ask me anything," Lyssa urged.
And he did. Lyssa explained the complexities of blood status and why so many people found it important. This helped him understand the Wizarding War better, which in turn set Lyssa up perfectly to explain the current sociopolitical climate and what her life was like in the magical world. After about an hour her dad had finally run out of questions.
"Honestly, Lys, all this just sounds like a lot of reasons we're making the right choice." Lyssa's heart dropped, she had been so excited to teach him about her world she had forgotten she was trying to make him think it was safe. "If so many people in this world want you gone, maybe, we should keep you in ours."
"But Dad that's just it, it's your world, not mine," Lyssa pleaded, "You can keep me away from Hogwarts all you want but I will always be a witch. It's not a matter of whether here is safe and there is not. The fact is I am not safe and so long as there are wizards who believe those things I will never be. So let me go back and learn how to protect myself. Let me go back and keep the fight away from you and Mum and Damion and Griffin. And maybe at the end of it, I can help make the world safer for everyone."
"Okay," he said simply.
"Okay? That simple?" Lyssa asked.
"That simple." He reassured.