As October became November, Lyra was painfully aware of Christmas closing in. She was pretty sure she had heard a gang of third year Hufflepuffs even singing holiday carols already. It was way too early in her opinion, but she wasn't in a mood to comment on it. 

This year, Christmas wasn't just Christmas. It was going to be a time of year out of Lyra's control that would only lead to her life going in a downward spiral. One orchestrated by both her sister and by her close friend, Rabastan. 

Bellatrix Lestrange had already been a Death Eater for years, ever since the day after her wedding. Rabastan Lestrange had prayed for this opportunity ever since his brother and his wife had been given these opportunities, ones he believed he deserved, too. Well, him and Lyra together. 

Rabastan had been given the opportunity to meet with the Death Eaters, or even the Dark Lord himself, during the Christmas holidays. The same was given to Lyra, but she was too scared, too cowardly to dare meet this destiny already. 

But he was preparing, scarily excited for this. It worried her how much effort he was putting into this, into the destruction he could cause in hope of pureblood supremacy. Something Lyra hadn't known if she supported or not since the day her sister fell in love with a muggleborn.

Rabastan sat with his blonde friend in the Slytherin common room. While she was studying for Defense Against the Dark Arts, he was studying the opposite. "What do you think about the Expulso curse?"

"It's a fine curse?" Lyra said, sounding more like a question. It was a very strange question to ask, but she was going to humor him. "Very irrelevant when it comes to what we're studying, though."

"Well, yes, maybe when it comes to schoolwork," Rabastan agreed, smiling slightly. "But you know that's not what I'm focusing on. O.W.L.s are over, N.E.W.T.s are far away. I'm preparing for Christmas."

The blonde grimaced and rolled her eyes at the reminder that it was closing in. "It's literally November, Rabastan. Christmas is far away, but our Defense essays are due tomorrow. I'd rather focus on that."

"I can't just start focusing and practicing the day before, either. I need to impress the Dark Lord. Do you think the Expulso curse will be enough if I can properly cast it?" he asked, looking at her with pleading eyes. 

Lyra wanted nothing to do with this, and she didn't want to answer the question either. But she would feel awful if she wasn't there for Rabastan, even if what he was about to do was stupid as hell. 

She imagined him standing in front of a selected group of Death Eaters and their leader, using dark magic to explode an object, perhaps even a person. She wouldn't put it past them. "Perhaps. But it's dangerous. Make sure it's done properly and doesn't harm you."

"Of course! Do you have no faith in me?" he asked teasingly and she smiled a bit in amusement before he turned serious once again. "So... what curse are you planning to show him when your time comes?"

Lyra lifted her eye line from her book, sending him a weird look as she tilted her head in confusion. "I wasn't planning on using any curse."

"You've got to have a curse prepared! Rod and Bellatrix asked us to prepare a show of dark magic. We have to be able to show we would be able to do what it takes for the pureblooded cause."

She turned her head away, not wanting him to see the frown that had forced itself on her lips. This was the last thing she wanted to talk about. If all Rabastan was going to say to her nowadays was going to be about the Death Eaters, she wasn't sure how much she could handle talking to him. 

Lyra sighed deeply. "I don't know, Rabastan. I have plenty of time, as do you. We've still got to do well in school. I know you're only taking four subjects this year, but you really ought to focus a bit."

"Come off it, Lyra. School doesn't matter if the world doesn't change. You know that as well as I do," said Rabastan, becoming more and more annoyed with her by the second. "You've got to have some idea of what he'd like to see."

Wanting him to shut up, Lyra quickly answered him. "Fine. He doesn't care about some petty curse like the Expulso curse. That's child's play, any dolt could do that with enough practice. If you really want to prove yourself, study the Unforgivables."

For a moment, he was taken aback by her stressed tone. But then he grinned, looking at her with a strange pride. "You're absolutely right, Lyra. Really. You're a bit of a genius, you know that?"

"I'm well aware, thank you." The Slytherin girl turned another page of her book, not even glancing up at him. She hurried to scribble out a mistake on her essay, replacing it with the right answer. 

But Rabastan wasn't stopping their conversation anytime soon. "Well, if I'm going to perform an Unforgivable, then I'll have to start practicing soon. They're a lot more difficult than a normal curse. I've heard the Imperius curse is the easiest of the three."

She ignored the way he was looking at her and focused on her work once again. "As long as you don't try practicing any of them on me then you can do whatever the hell you want, honestly. I don't care, because I've got an essay to finish."

"You've got to care, Lyra." He sent her a pointed look. "This has got to do with you, too. If I'm permitted into the Death Eaters then I can put in another good word for you. Not that you need it, of course."

Lyra tried to stop the conversation without being rude, keeping her answers brief. "Right."

"You know, with all the time you've got to prepare yourself, and you're brilliant, of course..." Rabastan tried to gain back her attention with compliments, which made her lips tug up into a smile. "You should attempt the Cruciatus curse."

The blonde quickly tensed up, images of her sister and her cousin screaming, writhing in pain as they were hit with the curse. Images that had haunted her nightmares since she was twelve. "Rabastan, that's awful."

He sighed. "We can't think about what's awful anymore. It's just a means to an end. If you want to be a part of the Dark Lord's ranks, especially in his inner circle, you'll have to be prepared to do whatever it takes."

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, Lyra considered his word. She couldn't help but wonder if she trusted him enough to try to be honest with him. "And what if I'm not? What will happen then?" 

Rabastan was stumped. He had never expected her to not feel the same desperation for this that he did, it had seemed painfully obvious that there was only one path to take. "You have to. There's... there's no other way."

Lyra slammed her book closed, pursing her lips tightly as she tried to avoid showing him any of what she was feeling. "In that case, I'm going to write my defense essay. You're welcome to join me if you can."

"Lyra, where are you going?" Rabastan asked as she got up from the couch, not seeming very happy with him. He wasn't even completely sure why she was so angry with him. He put it down to her being dramatic. 

"Somewhere else. Anywhere else." She stalked out of the common room, not even sure where she was going. She just felt very suffocated in the Slytherin common room when she had nowhere else to go for sanctuary.

Because Lyra wanted nothing more than to make her family proud. It was a strange need she had always had, needing to be accepted and praised. This was especially true as she was the youngest of four, where her older sisters all had their talents and things that made their parents proud. At least, used to make their parents proud.

So she had tried, and she had tried for as long as she could remember. That didn't mean she couldn't hope that things could become different. That one day she could follow her own path and it would be enough. 

Lyra had fought and attempted to become a great witch, and she knew she was well on her way. And her ambition was what had made her a true Slytherin, which her Head of House had commented on several times before. 

And her ambition did not lay in being a Death Eater and putting muggles down and killing their children. That wasn't what she wanted, it wasn't who she was. Yet it was who everybody wanted her to be. 

Well, not everybody. But everybody she still allowed to be around her, who she wasn't angry with, or scared of. And it was difficult knowing that Rabastan, who was arguably her closest friend at this point, wanted to push her in a direction she was terrified of going in. 

So she wondered. If her and Rabastan hadn't become friends almost a year prior, would Bellatrix have fought with such vigor to put her on this path? She hadn't ever done so with Narcissa, who was equally disinterested. 

These weren't things she could dwell upon, because if she didn't want to be a dark witch, then she would have to make sure she wouldn't become one. 

▹▹▹

It wasn't past curfew yet, so Lyra didn't have to worry about whatever prefects were on patrol that night giving her detention or deducting points from her. Especially as this used to be her night with Remus, meaning he would be out with Lily Evans that night. 

But she had still found herself an empty classroom, which she thought was used for Muggle Studies. At least, she supposed so as she hadn't ever been in it and Muggle Studies was one of the few subjects she didn't bother taking. 

And she had been there for around thirty minutes already, finding that things weren't going her way. All of Rabastan's talk had made her desperate to prove to herself that she wasn't a dark witch, especially paired with how she had seen Sirius look at her. Like he was concerned she would go to the dark side. 

"Expecto Patronum!" Lyra tried once more, her at least hundredth attempt at casting the charm. Nothing. Not even a feeling of warmth or fuzziness that she always suspected would come with casting the charm. 

She had expected more from herself. During her last patrol session with Remus, they had once again tried for her to cast the Patronus charm. He said he had seen a silver glimmer and had been so proud of her.

Lyra quickly shook the image of Remus, happy and sweet, from her head as she remembered seeing him, as a werewolf, rushing towards her so he could rip her head straight off her body. She shivered at the memory. 

The Black girl knew that thinking about that wouldn't help her cast her Patronus at all. She needed to think of a happy memory, not one that felt more like a nightmare than reality. Even if the memory she thought about when she was closest to succeeding was with Remus. 

Instead, she tried to remember the Christmas where she had first connected with Rabastan, even if it brought her mind to what would happen next Christmas. She thought about being young as all her sisters braided each other's hair. But it also reminded her of watching Andromeda walk away from her family in the middle of night. 

It would have to do. She had no other happy memories that came to her. All happy memories only made her think of unhappy ones. She couldn't help but think that was no way to live. 

"Expecto Patronum!" she tried once again, with no success. "Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum!"

Every time she tried, her voice got a little louder, a little more broken, and her eyes were a little more filled with tears. She put her wand down, before screaming in frustration. Nothing ever happened. Maybe she was a dark witch after all. 

Suddenly the door to the classroom opened and a head poked through, frowning worriedly. It was Peter Pettigrew of all people, someone Lyra had barely ever spoken to alone. "Lyra, are you okay? I heard you scream."

"Oh, hi, Peter..." the blonde trailed off, hurrying to wipe her eyes so no tears would fall. The last thing she needed was for him to go to James, Remus or Sirius and tell him she had been crying and screaming. "I'm fine."

"I, uh, I heard you." Peter looked away awkwardly when she furrowed her brows at him. He had never really known what to say to her before, and that hadn't changed. "Trying the Patronus charm. You could ask Remus for help. He's managed one now."

"I know." Lyra swallowed a lump in her throat, not wanting to talk about her former friend, the one who turned out to be a secret werewolf. Her gaze suddenly hardened. "You can't honestly think I'd ever ask for his help, can you?"

The Gryffindor boy didn't answer for a few seconds, which made her realize he had thought he could fix things between his friend and her. "You know, Remus does miss you. A lot, he's really bummed out about this."

"He looks like he's doing just fine." Lyra was surprised by the bitterness in her own voice. She didn't even know she was bitter. "I mean, he's got you and James. Lily Evans even. I'm sure he'll forgive Sirius soon enough and he'll have him too."

"Not only does he miss you terribly, but he hates himself more than he ever has. And he's hated himself a lot," said Peter, trying to get her to feel bad for Remus, which she sort of did but she remembered her fear and it was quickly forgotten. "He feels like a monster."

"Good. Because he is one," she responded shortly, stubbornly. "I don't want him in the same school as me, Peter. Definitely not close to me as a friend. I'm going to ask for his help for anything."

For a few moments, he looked at her thoughtfully. "I always thought you were so nice. Much nicer than I ever thought a Slytherin could be. But I see now, that's not true. You're so quick to turn on your friends when they're not exactly what you want."

The Slytherin girl couldn't deny that it hurt to hear this, but she didn't want anybody to think about her like that, she needed to defend herself. "You don't get it. You're a half-blood! You've seen muggles and the monsters they possess first hand. How can anything scare you now?"

"You know, your sister, the other blonde one-" She realized he was talking about Narcissa. "She once said something similar to me. I think it was during first year. The older Slytherins were bullying me for being half-blood."

"You won't ever be able to cast a Patronus if you end up like them." His gaze hardened in a strange way, that made her realize that Peter wasn't as sweet as she had always thought. He was capable of anger. 

And Lyra realized that she was still capable of being hurt by them and their words, even if she thought she had been able to shut them out during the past few weeks. 

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to stop thinking about her conversation with Peter, and the similar one she had with Sirius recently. Mostly she wanted to forget about Remus, but he always came to mind at the worst times. 

"Expecto Patronum!"

Nothing happened.