Lyra Lotstein stood in the Lotstein's backyard, her skirt blowing with the wind. She held the guitar up to her chest, trying to strum it quietly, so no one else would hear. "Lyra? Lyra? Connor's got something he wants to show you!" Connor Lotstein. Her brother. Star of the family. Going to the military that year. "I'm in the backyard!" She yelled back, her quiet voice straining to be heard.

"Look at this new fangled gadget!" Connor's eyes were sparkling, feasting upon the tiny piece of metal that he held in his hands. He was never one for smarts anyways. "The newest version of the gun! I ought to practice sometime when I get to boot camp." Lyra looked at it and shivered back.

"It's not a toy." She looked away and tried to forget the fact that her brother possessed a deadly weapon that could easily kill anyone.

"I know it's not. I'm not a baby," Connor snapped back. He pointed it at her. "But one hit, and bam! You would be gone!" He smiled, pretending to fire it. Lyra sighed and turned back. At least the safety was on. And guns didn't come loaded with bullets, did they? "Mom! Look what I can do!" Bang. The one-hit changed Lyra's life forever.



Lyra gripped the armrests tightly, trying to forget the pain. The seizures. The doctors. Her legs were paralyzed. For life. "There's nothing we can do. The bullet hit the important parts of the leg. There's no way we know that can fix this. I'm sorry to say...but we can do nothing. She's going to have to live like this her entire life." But the doctor didn't care and Lyra knew it. The procedure had been careless. The nurse was better and knew more than the doctor. And she hated the looks the other patients gave her as she was wheeled out, pitying her and looking away.

There had to be a way to solve this, there always was. She came back to find the house she once lived in ransacked by a teenage boy, with dreams of being an army man. Her clothes were tossed aside. Her guitar and piano and music were thrown into a closet. Her room became a shrine to the army. All for one boy's dream of becoming an army man. There was nowhere for her stay, except for the shrine room.

She could feel the trophies she was rolling on with the wheels. She could feel her bed, now covered with itchy and unkempt blankets. She could feel everything, even the tears dripping out of her eyes to the shaking in her body. Her parents didn't care. It was like she didn't exist then- poof! - she appeared into their lives and they were supposed to take care of her. And Connor barely remembered.

Lyra tried to find the gun. The gun that did it. No one knew where it was. "We threw it away, I'm pretty sure," Her parents said, trying to ignore her and act as if she was normal. But they were bad actors. "I'm not sure what you're talking about, mum said you got the bad legs from birth." Connor didn't remember anything. Nothing. She had disappeared from her families' lives, a shell of herself.

She took out her guitar, trying to practice and get used to sitting on the bed, listening to her voice. Connor used to sing with her. He had a nice voice. Now he yelled to turn the music down. Turn it off. I'm trying to prepare for the army. I'm trying to do what I want. I'm trying to forget you. Lyra heard the words loud and clear, ignoring each one with carelessness. She kept strumming the high Ds and hitting the high Cs, her legs cramping up every once in a while.

Lyra took out her summer homework packet, already two weeks behind on her schedule. Her brother was busy twirling his finger around his new gun, awaiting his shotgun in a couple of days. She heard the doorbell ding, breaking the silence. Connor got up, not even looking at Lyra. She was gone anyways. He hadn't talked to her except to complain about her racket. Connor slapped the papers on the table.

"News, bills, taxes..." He mumbled to himself, while he sifted through everything, spreading it out. "Connor Lotstein." He smiled and pulled the envelope out. "I'll save that for later. Lyra Lotstein?" He held it up, inspecting it. Did he not know? She snatched it from him, her fingers trembling. It was a real letter. Not from her pen pal. She bet her pen pal had also forgotten about her by now.

She started to read it carefully. "Dear Miss Lotstein, you have been chosen for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..." She turned it over, hoping it wasn't a joke. Her fingers were shaking with fear now, for what this school was or what it meant. She gripped her wheelchair, sweeping her black hair back. She read it through and thought for a second. A knock came to the door, Lyra jumping at it.

"Hello, Miss Lotstein. I am Professor McGonagall, from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. May I come in?" The old, shriveled woman stood by the door, her face sagging and sad. Lyra looked at her, her eyes growing wide. She couldn't stop looking. Wondering. Feeling. She started to stare and shake. Another seizure. "Mom! It's happening again!"

"Coming," Her mother said blandly, barely even rushing over. Connor still sat, reading his letter and shaking almost just as much as Lyra. "Mmkay, what's wrong? I don't see anything wrong." She still wore her gloves, washing dishes. "Mmkay, leave the news on the doorstep..." She looked up for one second, staring at the woman. "Who are you, my dead mother?"

"May I come in?" Professor McGonagall, if that was who she was, looked over her glasses, and started to walk in. She slammed the door behind herself, waving a wooden stick around Lyra. "I must say, the amount of care that you give your daughter is astoundingly low. She's had a seizure and you are ignoring her. I've got to say, this is one of the worst cases of parenting I've ever seen!" Lyra stopped shaking, feeling the wave come over her body, calming her.

Professor McGonagall entered promptly, behind her a kid that looked older than Lyra, with dark brown hair and piercing black eyes. Lyra's inner alarms started going off like crazy. Or maybe it was her seizures again. "Your daughter has been chosen for a very special school, with a full scholarship. Now, I simply need your consent to take her there and-"

"I'll be honest, you are an old lady who has just come into my house, and now you are ready to take my daughter away. I'll need to think on this for a while... alright, where's the paperwork, I'm ready." She grabbed a pen and clicked it once. "I'm done with taking care of her anyways."

"You know she will return for summer-"

"Yeah, yeah. Listen to me, mmkay? I'm fresh out of college and I need a break. Feel free to have fun with her, she's a funny little girl. Got in the way of the bullet, she did. I barely remember her before the accident, but it doesn't matter." Lyra looked at her mother, feeling the tears building up. It was lies, all lies. She wasn't out of college, she had finished ten years ago. She didn't get in the way of the bullet, her brother fired it.

"Sh-shu-shut up!" Lyra yelled, burying her face in hands. "You liked me before! You were nice to me before! It's the wheelchair isn't it? I've had it with you- you and your stupid military dreams!" She wheeled herself across the room. "You couldn't have the girl you wanted so you settled with you decided to forget her," She whispered to herself, trying to block out the noise. She wheeled over to her piano and played it as loud as she could.

She started to pack. Her guitar. Her music. She had to leave her piano cause she couldn't pack it up with her. She packed some clothes, tears rolling down her face. What was her purpose in life? What was she supposed to do? She knew, that in a couple of minutes, she would be gone from the family she had been with her entire life. She gripped the wheels and swung the backpack over her shoulder, trying to wheel forward, not letting her tears show.

The door swung open, McGonagall thanking her mother for the papers. The boy behind McGonagall was gone. It was like he didn't exist. The door closed quietly, the old woman started to take out an old, rugged boot. She held it and dropped it by the back of the house. "Professor- did you see that boy- the boy who stood behind you?" McGonagall froze, her eyes turning stone-cold before she replied: "No, Lyra. That must've been your imagination." She smiled weakly and held her stick to the boot. With a flash of light, Lyra's old life was left behind, her new one started.

---

Hi all! Me and a couple others are trying to get a discord up and running for HiH, so we would be really happy if you guys would join! Discord is a text and speech platform that has an instant messaging feature, which will make RP and chat much, much easier. Hope to see you there!

https://discord.gg/msgPDJc (tell me if the link doesn't work, I'll grab another for you)