\u201cCan I please join you?\u201d Harry addressed the beautiful platinum blonde in Slytherin uniform sitting alone at the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cPotter. It will be my honour\u201d, she bowed lightly and smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, I must apologise for my behaviour. Your\u2026 intervention yesterday reminded me that you\u2019re actually a girl\u201d, he started.<\/p>\n
She just looked at him with the look of trying to understand if that\u2019s some kind of a joke. \u201cI would expect my physical appearance to leave little room for ambiguity in that regard\u201d, she smiled.<\/p>\n
He blushed. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, that sounded incredibly dumb. Of course it\u2019s absolutely obvious that you\u2019re a girl. What I meant was that I thought of you as some kind of a hostile bully figure without emotions or a soul, intent on offending people just for entertainment; someone powerful who oppresses the weak and the defenceless\u201d, he fumbled.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you saw yourself as the noble knight, defender of the downtrodden, slayer of the impersonal soulless bullies of all kinds?\u201d, she grinned.<\/p>\n
He was obviously uncomfortable. \u201cUnfortunately, that does sound too close\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we might as well start with the obvious. I am very much a girl. I am a daughter of Narcissa Malfoy, n\u00e9e Black, and Lucius Malfoy. I am thirteen years old. I grew up in the Malfoy Manor, as the only child of my parents, who treated me with utmost love and care my whole life, and I love them with all my heart. I am a pureblood witch, from an unbroken line of pureblood witches and wizards reaching back for untold centuries. You are very much a boy. You are a son of Lily Evans, a very talented muggle-born witch, and James Potter, a pureblood wizard from the ancient pureblood line reaching back to Ignotus Peverell. On the wizard side, your blood line is as ancient and respectable as mine; in fact, it\u2019s all-but-worshipped and wrought into legend. You father was a talented Chaser, also in Gryffindor, and the apple obviously didn\u2019t fall far from the three. Your personal fortune is one of the greatest in the wizarding world, second only to that of Malfoy and Lestrange families. All in all, in the wizarding community you and I are both famous, esteemed and powerful. So, will you please explain how does one of the most powerful, noble, revered, influential and wealthy persons in our world get to consider himself an underdog in the noble fight against a girl of identical social status?\u201d, she smiled with the exquisite charm he never noticed before.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really did your homework on me. In fact, you seem to know more about me than I do\u201d, he scratched his ear. \u201cPeverell\u201d?<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were one of the first great families that went extinct in the male line. This means they only had female children and their family name died out. This fate, unfortunately, awaits my family due to the fact that I\u2019m a girl, and the only child of my parents\u201d She looked almost guilty. \u201cEventually, their line produced you as the final surviving heir\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you are saying that I am the last heir of the Peverell line, and you are the last heiress of the Malfoy line, and we are some kind of wizarding nobility?\u201d He all but expected her to say that she\u2019s joking.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuite so. We don\u2019t actually have nobility in the muggle sense, but you and I would be the equivalent of a duke and a duchess\u201d, she confirmed. \u201cWith the difference that there\u2019s no royalty above us\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cDamn\u201d. He rubbed his forehead. \u201cThere goes my claim on the noble underdog status\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcome to the rarified summit of the oppressor class\u201d, she joked. \u201cWe might go hunting foxes one day, to complete the impression\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo let me get this straight. You have approached me as an equal because we\u2019re both some kind of wizarding royalty. I treated you horribly because I saw you as some kind of a spoiled princess who treats lower people like second class citizens. You got annoyed because you found that horribly offensive. And you\u2019re really quite nice when I stop growling and sneering at you and talk to you like a normal person\u201d, he smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I\u2019m probably quite spoiled. I can\u2019t say you\u2019re wrong. I was isolated in a very narrow social circle and this school environment is quite new for me. I\u2019m still learning the implicit assumptions and expectations of people from different communities and social environments. I keep making blunders, but please don\u2019t ascribe this to malice. I have my background, and you have yours. I would assume you didn\u2019t have it easy either\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are right. I still keep pretending to know what I\u2019m doing, but almost every day there\u2019s something new, and completely unfamiliar, while everybody expects me to know everything\u201d, he shrugged.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, how about this. Let\u2019s compare notes, and I promise not to judge you. If you could show me the same courtesy, I would be grateful. We can teach each other. I was born and raised among witches and wizards. You were born and raised among the muggles. I suspect neither of us can fully comprehend what that even means. So, I recommend that we just talk, compare notes, tell the truth, not judge or attack each other, and enjoy each other\u2019s company over pumpkin juice and apple pie. I actually like you very much, or I wouldn\u2019t have been offended by the way you treated me. Trust me, if someone unimportant treated me that way, I wouldn\u2019t even notice. But since you\u2019re important to me, I was furious\u201d She looked at him with that clean, sincere look that was the trademark of her personality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like that very much. Your yesterday\u2019s stunt made quite an impression on me. The first part was that you are brave, smart, dignified and not to be messed with. The second part is that you are a gentle girl with feelings that can be hurt, and not some generic monster I imagined\u201d, he smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do have feelings\u201d, she smiled back. \u201cAnd they can definitely be hurt. Especially when people assume that the powerful part of me means that I don\u2019t feel the blows. I am well known for crying into my pillow when my feelings are hurt. I would greatly appreciate it if you didn\u2019t treat me in ways that would make this a common occurrence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we do something that would prevent this? Hurting a girl\u2019s feelings is not something I am proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can learn more about each other, and promise to protect each other\u2019s feelings from harm as if they were our own\u201d, she nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like that. What exactly do you have in mind?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, be aware that I never used knowledge about your family to try to score a point. It\u2019s off-limits, because I know it would hurt you, and I don\u2019t want to do that. I assume your parents are sacred to you, the way mine are sacred to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are a better person than me, I\u2019m afraid. I did attack your parents on multiple occasions, and if that had you crying into your pillow, I apologise. However, I have a problem here. Your parents are closely connected to Voldemort. If they are actively politically involved in this project, it might be impossible for me to grant them the kind of immunity that I would otherwise gladly give them in order to protect your feelings\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is fair\u201d, she conceded. \u201cPurely political attacks are valid, and if my parents happen to be involved in things you find hurtful or offensive, it is a legitimate target for you. I might still cry into my pillow because of it, but I promise not to take it against you\u201d, she smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am really regretting the fact that I missed out on this for two years\u201d, Harry sighed ruefully. \u201cYou are just very nice to be with\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad to hear it, and it\u2019s the same on my part\u201d, a brilliant, glowing smile illuminated her face.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour hand was cold and sweaty yesterday\u201d, Harry noted. \u201cI took it as proof that you were truly stressed because you honestly thought that I might choose to kill you\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are correct\u201d, she nodded. \u201cI never jest with those things. If I offer you an option to take my life, the option is real. I did, however, put my trust in your gentlemanly decency, hoping it would protect me, as it did in the end\u201d, she smiled. \u201cAs for you holding my hand, I in fact enjoyed the experience, because it was the first time you treated me with respect, and I like being treated with respect, rather than being sneered at\u201d, she gave him a lopsided smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise to keep treating you with respect. But about that, what can I call you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease, call me Lyra. You can call me Malfoy if you want to be formal for some reason, but between us, I feel more comfortable being on a first name basis\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cCall me Harry, then. Potter only if I mess things up, I guess\u201d, he smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will keep it in mind\u201d, she smiled back.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are such a nice girl. I\u2019m really sorry to have treated you poorly before\u201d, he confessed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you. Let\u2019s eat something, I\u2019m starving\u201d, she smiled.<\/p>\n
\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, how was she?\u201d, Ron was curious.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolite. Nice. Sincere. Very open about being hurt by my rudeness. Smart as Hermione, honestly. I had to focus to keep up with her, like I\u2019m in class and it\u2019s a professor speaking. She speaks like they do \u2013 complex, large sentences, all of it perfectly thought out. I feel dumb as a brick compared to her. I only had Hermione so far make me feel like I have to actually work to follow her, but Lyra is like that too\u201d, Harry reminisced.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlimey\u201d, Ron mumbled. \u201cI half expected she\u2019ll stab you or poison your pumpkin juice\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh no, it was nothing like that. It felt like talking to a professor who is being very nice, but you need to take remedial lessons because you messed up\u201d, Harry laughed. \u201cShe knows more about my family than I do. Also, she sees the world in a completely different way than me, and there seems to be much more to her pureblood pride thing than I suspected. I thought it\u2019s just a hate group like the Skinheads. But they are more like classic nobility with lineages, ancient books, stories and legends.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSkin what?\u201d, Ron was confused.<\/p>\n
\u201cSkinheads. A muggle thing with thugs shaving their heads and hating foreigners and all kinds of other people\u201d, Hermione sat with them. \u201cI surmise you survived lunch with the enemy?\u201d, she turned to Harry.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, she doesn\u2019t feel like an enemy. She feels as smart as the professors, or you\u201d, Harry greeted her, and she slightly squirmed at the compliment. \u201cI\u2019m not completely comfortable with her yet because we hardly know each other, me keeping the distance for two years and all that, but I feel like I missed out. Also, there\u2019s something about her that makes me feel inferior in every way, although it\u2019s not anything she\u2019s doing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s not dumbing herself down or making herself smaller for anyone\u201d, Hermione nodded wisely. \u201cYou\u2019re not inferior to her. From where I\u2019m standing, you two look very much alike. But while she\u2019s being her full self, you\u2019re being barely more than half, in a normal interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that even mean?\u201d, Ron wondered.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means that she\u2019s honest on a level I have never seen. You\u2019ve seen the stunt with challenging Harry to be done with it and just kill her if he hates her so much. That kind of honesty, courage and straightforwardness. None of us are that brave or honest. We\u2019re all protecting our feelings from hurt, we\u2019re not being direct, hiding behind humour and that stuff. She would openly say things we would be too weak or ashamed of to say out loud. It\u2019s the kind of emotional courage that makes us all feel small and inferior, not just Harry\u201d, she finished, nodding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait, are you actually impressed? I though she hurt your feelings with her insults?\u201d, Ron scratched his head in confusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am, and she did. However, I\u2019m objective enough to be able to distance myself from the situation and judge it properly. You saw her yesterday \u2013 speaking in complicated, adult language of nobility, with authority that made Professor McGonagall stand at attention and obey her, and raising the stakes so high that she offered her life. Who wouldn\u2019t be impressed?\u201d, Hermione looked at him directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I definitely was. In fact, more ashamed of myself than impressed, but definitely impressed\u201d, Harry added.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe definitely wants to be friends with you, Harry, and I think it\u2019s because she considers you her social equal. I know, you consider everybody to be your equal, but that\u2019s not how she was raised. She has a very aristocratic view of society and almost nobody is her equal in the hierarchy she was taught, but you seem to be, and she cares very much about your opinion. Don\u2019t think she\u2019d do the yesterday\u2019s stunt if it was someone else\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know so much about it and you never even talked to her properly?\u201d, Harry was stunned, because she was right on the money.<\/p>\n
\u201cI pay attention, Harry. I have eyes. I was there yesterday\u201d, she rolled her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all there yesterday, but you\u2019re just wickedly smart\u201d, Ron concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cCan I please join you?\u201d Harry addressed the beautiful platinum blonde in Slytherin uniform sitting alone at the table. \u201cPotter. It will be my honour\u201d, she bowed lightly and smiled. \u201cAgain, I must apologise for my behaviour. Your\u2026 intervention yesterday … Continue reading