Let\u2019s go back to Lyra Malfoy character.<\/p>\n
I designed her with two basic guidelines. The first is that she ends up as Harry Potter\u2019s wife. The second is that I keep the narrative as faithful to the books as humanly possible.<\/p>\n
The way I imagined her, really, is the way Lucius Malfoy is depicted in the first movies. He\u2019s Mr. Darcy. He has arrived. He comes to Hogwarts, demands to talk to the headmaster, and holds him accountable for the events at school. He comes to the Ministry and everybody bows to him. His self confidence is next level; it\u2019s not something that looks trained, the way Americans train body language and think it means anything. He\u2019s the wealthiest, most important person in his world, and he knows it. It\u2019s a combination of dignity, arrogance and power.<\/p>\n
His daughter would breathe that air from birth. Since I worked under the assumption that she\u2019s Harry Potter\u2019s ideal counterpart, I made her a pure, innocent soul that just happened to be born in that family. However, all of this rubs off on her, and this is what she is when we encounter her in the first book. She assumes power, dignity and nobility, and it comes off horribly to Harry who is fiercely egalitarian and grew up with the Dursleys so he doesn\u2019t like pompous pricks. She rubs him off in exactly the wrong way, and they start at the wrong foot instantly. To him, she\u2019s just wrong. She looks like all the bullies and assholes in his life, and he instantly hates her, and politely tells her she\u2019s bad news and wants nothing to do with her.<\/p>\n
To Lyra, this is a shock. You see, her mother taught her all about \u201cwho\u2019s who\u201d. You don\u2019t date Lyra. You court Lyra. In order to have an implicit permission to even get to talk to her, your name needs to be on a list. In order to be considered her peer, you need to be on an even shorter list. Harry Potter is no1 name on that list. Nobody, ever just dismisses Lyra and tells her she\u2019s all wrong, or bad news, or unworthy of their company. She offered her company to Harry recognizing him for what he is, and he coldly turned her down. To her, this is a heavy blow. I mean, it\u2019s a heavy blow to Draco, but to Lyra, it strikes differently. If the no1 person on her list coldly dismisses her and tells her she\u2019s unworthy, it means she\u2019s unworthy as a person and unworthy as a girl. It makes her squirm with a combination of humiliation and fury. However, she can\u2019t say \u201cwho are you to talk to me like this\u201d, because her mom already told her who he is. He\u2019s the most important boy in the world, and it\u2019s her duty as heiress to the Malfoy family to make a good impression. She feels doubly humiliated, because she failed, and she doesn\u2019t even understand why.<\/p>\n
So, she sulks, and watches. She observes what Potter is doing. She sees that he\u2019s brave, protective of his friends, that he gets into trouble by disregarding the rules, but he is obviously leading his team, already on an important mission, and he is successful. She watches him flying and he\u2019s obviously doing it for the first time and yet he\u2019s unrealistically good. Within minutes, he\u2019s relaxed and actually good. After a few hours of practice, he\u2019s better than she is, and she\u2019s been doing this at home all summer. His bearing when he\u2019s pressured or injured shows great personal dignity, courage, ability to conduct himself gracefully under adversity, and he disregards stupid criticism with stubborn contempt. All in all, he\u2019s the most noble, dignified boy her age she ever saw, and she made her decision. He is the only one worthy of her. Nobody else exists for her. He\u2019s not just her peer; he\u2019s her superior, and it\u2019s the first time she ever looked up to a boy her age; before, it was just her parents. However, he rejected her, and now she has to prove herself to him, and she doesn\u2019t actually know how.<\/p>\n
So, she does what an intelligent young girl would normally do. She engages him in casual conversations in the hallways, works with him in classes, tries to interact and see what he\u2019s actually like. The problem is, whenever she actually talks about the things she\u2019s proud of, like her parents, her pure blood and wealth, he reacts as if she personally insulted him. She would be incredibly frustrated by it, especially since he would also insult her parents and their ideology and call them evil. This would upset her to the point of crying into her pillow and not knowing what to do or what\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s like they live in different worlds and talk different language, and to him black is white and vice versa.<\/p>\n
Also, we need to have in mind that the entire Harry Potter wizarding world is an anachronism. They are all living in the past. The muggleborns live in the late 20th<\/sup> century; Hermione and Harry have a common experience, they know the same fairy tales, same TV shows, same shopping malls. When one of them makes a reference, the other gets it immediately; Ron, on the other hand, looks at them like they grew a second head. He doesn\u2019t know who Monty Python is. He doesn\u2019t know what the cold war is. He doesn\u2019t know who Cinderella is. And mind you, Ron\u2019s dad is obsessed with the muggles and how they do things. He even enchanted a car to fly. However, their worlds have a very small intersection.<\/p>\n For instance, in the wizarding community there is no sex before marriage. Like, at all. Not heard of. There are no teen pregnancies. No abortions. No sexual infidelity. The couples stay together until death. It\u2019s a very old school world, and even in that context, the Malfoy family is an anachronism. They are such an anachronism, they could fit perfectly in a Jane Austen novel. Lucius Malfoy might as well be Mr. Darcy. In fact, Lyra is something of the sort, in her context. She just assumes Regency era social rules, and Harry just assumes late 20th<\/sup> century. They each look at each other as a classmate and assume they are in the same world, but that\u2019s an illusion. Their fundamental assumptions are so different, it\u2019s bound to create misunderstandings. For instance, Lyra assumes Harry has to know who he is to her, because she assumes he had to be informed about the \u201cwho is who\u201d of the wizarding community, the way she was. She had no idea. She can\u2019t even begin to comprehend how fundamentally ignorant he is, because she sees that he\u2019s as intelligent as she is. He\u2019s quick, bright, focused. She knows he\u2019s a high-born wizard of immense wealth and social clout. She can\u2019t understand that he perceives himself as a poor orphan and a bullied underdog. To her, the assumption would be as foreign as him thinking he\u2019s a horse or a book. So, she assumes all kinds of things, and they are all wrong.<\/p>\n She assumes he knows what it means when she politely approached him in the hallway, curtsied and started a conversation. It means she recognizes him as her equal or superior, and they are engaged in a subtle process of feeling each other out in the early stages of courtship. But he doesn\u2019t know she would never just approach anyone that way, that she has special social rules of conduct. Nobody just gets to talk to Lyra. Lyra, especially, doesn\u2019t just approach someone, bow, and talk to them. It\u2019s all significant behaviour, and it all flies over his head completely because he\u2019s in the wrong century. He perceives her actions as pompous and arrogant, because she addresses his friends as inferiors or even sub-humans. The fact that she addresses him differently isn\u2019t an honour, it\u2019s an insult to his egalitarian mindset. And she doesn\u2019t know what she did wrong. In her mind, she was doing everything right and he acts like she offended him. So, she cries herself to sleep and tries again tomorrow. He thinks she\u2019s being pompous, rude and offensive, and she\u2019s out of her mind with frustration, trying to figure things out. However, she\u2019s smart. Harry takes a while to figure out the wizarding community and their eccentricities, and she doesn\u2019t take much longer to figure him out to the same degree. She understands that he was brought up by the muggles who have their own rules of behaviour, and that he\u2019s from the same world as Hermione. She watches, she picks things up, she adjusts. OK, egalitarian stuff. She hates it, but she adjusts. They start getting along much better. They cooperate in school very easily, especially since they are quite similar in abilities. They beat each other to a pulp at Quidditch, and she likes that \u2013 the ability to vent her frustration with him in some real way is very pleasant. It\u2019s actually more sincere than trying to talk through a minefield of forbidden topics.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an implicit assumption she has, because to her it\u2019s like assuming the air is there for her to breathe, and the gravity points downwards. The assumption is that they are courting. He did certain things that encouraged her \u2013 picked up her books and returned them to her looking her straight into the eyes; holding her protectively when she was afraid in the forbidden forest. She even interpreted his acts of valour and courage as him showing his worth to her. To her, there were only a few boys who would ever be allowed to court her. She implicitly assumed he had the same list. She assumed she had to be no1 on his list. She also knew every single girl that would be on the list his parents would explicitly or implicitly give him, only his parents were dead and he was raised by the Dursleys. She didn\u2019t see him exchanging any special courtesies with the other young ladies on his list. They, however, acted like competitors and peers, which she interpreted as a love language \u2013 something weird and \u201cmodern\u201d, muggle-influenced, but he\u2019s weird that way, so she adapted. She would bump shoulders with him and smile, instead of bow. As far as she knew, they were courting each other, proving each other\u2019s worth, waiting for the war to end, for the sides to shift, for them to grow up so that he could ask for her hand in marriage. That was her world, and she was happy.<\/p>\n As I said, Lyra doesn\u2019t date. You don\u2019t get to ask her out, unless she already considers you for marriage. You don\u2019t get to grab her and pull her off her broom and crash her into the ground unless she already wants to marry you. She has context, assumptions and a special world she lives in, except it\u2019s a Jane Austen novel and not the mid to late 1990s. Harry knows absolutely nothing of this. He\u2019s clueless as a doorknob. He\u2019s in fact terrified of her because she\u2019s a scary Death Eater child who praises the Dark Lord who killed his parents. Her power, skill, dignity and brains are intimidating, because she\u2019s the enemy and will eventually try to kill him. If he could abstract the scary part, he\u2019d think she\u2019s the most beautiful girl he ever saw, and she\u2019s basically his twin in abilities and character, only he never thinks this consciously. He likes her company on an instinctual, physical level, but she\u2019s scary. She\u2019s as scary as a Dark Lady of the Sith would be to a Jedi. It\u2019s someone who\u2019s incredibly skilled, dark and wants to kill you. The fact that her body is beautiful and exactly your type just adds to the scary part rather than detract from it. She perceives herself as a gentle, romantic soul who is playing a very subtle game with her chosen husband. He\u2019s trying to be friendly with the scary girl so that she doesn\u2019t ambush him in some dark place and bury his body in the woods.<\/p>\n The thing is, she\u2019s not like a modern girl who would be frustrated because he doesn\u2019t get her hints. She just assumes he does, because he\u2019s as smart as she is, but she also assumes that he can\u2019t show it openly because they are in opposing camps and the war is about to break out. It\u2019s just how it is now. They flirt by playing Quidditch against each other. They need to keep the other stuff quiet.<\/p>\n And then two things happen. Voldemort returns, and Harry starts dating other girls.<\/p>\n Lyra had only vague ideas about the Dark Lord. She heard her parents whisper about him in a worshipful tone at home, and they described him as powerful and dark. Her parents were powerful and dark, so she imagined him to be like them, only more, because they bow to no one. She thought he had to be the most admirable, noble and pure person in the world, and dark, to her, was a goth aesthetics; not a state of spirit. Dark meant using spells and potions that did powerful, forbidden things. It meant being able to hurt and kill your enemies. She liked how decisive that felt. Being able to finish the job when you hate someone sounded only reasonable. Why would anyone even be against that?<\/p>\n And then she saw Voldemort meeting with her parents in their home. They bowed to him like servants, and he treated them dismissively, and with cold, dark indifference which she found chilling. Something cold grabbed her heart, and she felt an ominous premonition. She tried to shake it off, say it\u2019s just an impression, but then she saw some of the people coming to their home. She finally understood what the word \u201cdark\u201d actually meant. It wasn\u2019t dark because they were into goth fashion. It was dark because it\u2019s cold, ruthless evil, without sophistication, manners, love, empathy or kindness. It was devoid of spiritual light that was her entire life. For the first time in her entire life, she was truly afraid.<\/p>\n She rolled back her memories of the talks she had with Harry \u2013 things she said that offended him, things he said that offended her. The Dark Lord killed his parents and it was reasonable that he hated him and thought he had to be evil, but she thought it was a misunderstanding of things that happen in a war. His parents were on the wrong side and were killed. He assumed their killer had to be evil, but that didn\u2019t mean it was actually so. However, she now remembered Voldemort. He actually felt evil, in the most fundamental, undeniable way he could possibly comprehend. He was cold, cruel, dismissive, and lives meant nothing to him, even the lives of good people. He cared only about service, about what\u2019s of use to him for his purposes. But if Harry is right and Voldemort is evil, what does that mean? Does it mean that her parents are wrong? That they are evil? She shivered from the thought. They loved her and cared greatly for her. They were always kind, generous and understanding. She loved them with all her heart. They can\u2019t be evil. But even good people can be mistaken, they can do wrong and foolish things if they are misguided. So, she allowed for this possibility, because it both matched reality and was emotionally palatable. She will need to talk to Harry about this, but carefully, because it would be treasonous to her parents to say too much of what\u2019s happening at home. It would also expose her parents to Dark Lord\u2019s retaliation, and that had to be avoided at all cost.<\/p>\n And then the school started, and she saw Harry looking at other girls, and she froze. It was a terrible betrayal to her. How could he do it? It took her a long time before she understood that it was a misunderstanding. He didn\u2019t know how she felt about him. She never told him. He didn\u2019t have the cultural context to understand her love language, because it was too subtle. He didn\u2019t understand that she considered herself his alone, that she just waited for the war and school to end, and he would ask for her hand in marriage and she would say yes. So, he acted as if there was nothing between them, and lived in the 20th<\/sup> century and asked other girls out for a date. He never asked her.<\/p>\n So, on one hand she had Voldemort and the ominous, evil and vulgar creatures visiting her ancestral home, and she had her chosen husband break her heart. Her life stopped being a fairy tale, and started being a Lovecraftian horror story. The safety of the assumption that she was on the right side that her parents knew best, that all she had to do is convince Harry to switch to the right side of the war, it was all gone. She didn\u2019t yet understand what it all meant, what all the implications were. She would need to talk to somebody, and there was nobody to talk to. Anyone on the Death Eater side would consider her thoughts treasonous and she would be punished along with her parents. Even if they saw her talking to someone from the other side would be perceived as treasonous. There was only Harry, because everybody knew they were rivals and constantly fighting about something. She would so like to talk to him, to confide with him, because nobody would assume what they were talking about. And then he saw him with Cho, and her heart withered.<\/p>\n She was in a daze. Her heart ached so much, that the entire world went dark. Everything she felt added to her depression; hearing the birds chirping annoyed her. When she stubbed her toe at the doorframe and it hurt, it blended together with her heartache and she intentionally made herself feel worse because she wallowed in her misery. When she had menstrual cramps, it all blended into her nightmarish darkness. Her head wasn\u2019t a fun place. So, when she saw Harry passing out from the pain of his scar, she sneered malevolently; he deserves it. Let him have some of the pain she\u2019s having. Let him see how it feels. However bad he\u2019s having it, it\u2019s nothing compared to her waking nightmare.<\/p>\n He saw her sneering, and his eyes went hard with hatred, which made her feel worse, and return the look with such hatred he never, ever saw in her eyes before. It looked like she wanted to kill him on the spot, and he felt genuinely afraid for his life. After all, her Dark Lord returned, and she must be encouraged and empowered now, in her choice of sides. No more friendly talks in the hallways. Just war and murder.<\/p>\n There are two main differences between Draco and Lyra. First, Draco is not in love. Second, Draco never had to fear being raped in his own home. Unfortunately, Lyra started understanding what the latter felt like when Death Eaters and worse scum started roaming the hallways of her home, and her mother started teaching her wards and protective charms to use. When entering the bathroom, always cast the revelio charm, to show if there\u2019s someone hiding in there. Enter. Close the door. Apply barrier charm. Apply sensory shield to prevent spying. Only then you\u2019re safe. Only then you don\u2019t have to fear being ambushed, raped or murdered in the bathroom. When entering your bedroom, same process. Flush anyone who\u2019s possibly already there. Lock the door. Make it a fortress. Block spying. Shield against anyone teleporting in while you sleep.<\/p>\n She thought about preparing an escape route; a portkey; a broom; a protective charm. But then she understood the problem: her parents were hostages against her bad behaviour. If she ran away, they would be punished or killed. She could be blackmailed to return lest they be killed.<\/p>\n She heard the creeps talking about her in the hallways. Discussing which one will get her as a prize from the Dark Lord for their service. She was to be a trophy. And if she killed herself, her parents will be executed. She shivered with terror.<\/p>\n Fenrir Greyback passed her by in the hallway once. She happened to be on her period. He sniffed lustfully and said \u201cI smell your blood. Yummy. I wonder what you would taste like.\u201d Alecto laughed: \u201cI have a spell that will make her last longer, so you can have fun with her innards\u201d. She ran away, bunkered herself in her bedroom, and wept with humiliation, fury and terror. She swore eternal vengeance: she will hunt them down and kill them, all of them, and if someone kills them first she will owe them a favour and repay it manifold. She will hunt them down like the rabid dogs that they are and put them all down. But she was weak and helpless now, and she hated it so much that her tears burst once more, and she hugged herself in her terror. Harry knew this. He warned her. He told her what they are, and she didn\u2019t believe him. She was on his side now, and he thought her an enemy who got what she bargained for. He hated her, and would kill her if he could. This fact felt like such additional humiliation, that her vision narrowed and she went unconscious on her bed. She didn\u2019t even hear the tortured prisoners screaming that night.<\/p>\n All the while, Harry though he\u2019s having it so bad, nobody could possibly understand his pain, while lying in his bed at No. 12 Grimmauld Place, surrounded by friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let\u2019s go back to Lyra Malfoy character. I designed her with two basic guidelines. The first is that she ends up as Harry Potter\u2019s wife. The second is that I keep the narrative as faithful to the books as humanly … Continue reading