Title: Sunshine
Summary: At the end of the day, you have loved and you have been loved and you have felt the sun from both sides and, honey, that's more than most people get in a lifetime / Parvati, Lavender and learning that only the lucky don't get burnt / For Paula
Notes: This is for my dear Paula (Exceeds Expectations) – my, beautiful, wondrous, talented wife, whom I adore to pieces. She writes like some sort of supernatural being, is completely lovely and has a very justified obsession over the marvellous Andrea Gibson. I don't even know why I wrote you LavenderParvati, it's just that inspiration struck and so, here you have it. I hope everyone (Paula especially!) enjoys.
"Love, love, love, love is like sunshine; sometimes you have to get burned to know you were there" – Andrea Gibson, Wasabi.
"Sunshine," she says and your world splits in two.
You are young, flawed and full of hope and you are lying with her in her kingdom of gold, her smooth arms wrapped around you and her restless heart beating against your spine. Her heart has always been restless and she is foolish and flighty, just as you are naïve and stubborn but you couldn't care less about her wandering eyes because, right now, it's you and her, lying in the golden light with the entire world at your fingertips.
"Sunshine?" you ask fondly, your lips stretching into a smile.
"Love," she murmurs, in between frantic kisses against your caramel cheekbone, "love, love," her honey arms pull you in closer and closer, and her frantic kisses migrate down your jaw, until they reach your lips, "love is like sunshine,"
She whispers it against your mouth and you can taste spearmint toothpaste and golden light and you know that you're not the first person that Lavender has whispered these words to, lying in her realm of buttery promises and sparkling eyes, you know that you're in fact not the first Patil sister to do so but, right now, you couldn't care less about her roaming, thrumming heartbeat because all that matters is her and the sunshine that seem to stretch on for eternity.
"You're so poetic, as always, Lav," you reply and you wonder how these two characters, two completely different people that you know, are the same person – how the vapid, girlish blonde and the poetic beauty who lies with you in the grass by the Black Lake, the two halves of your world, how they can possibly be one person – Lavender Brown.
And you're sure, as sure as you were that you could smell Padma's perfume on her skin, that you can't be the first caramel skinned, black haired girl who has wondered how this wondrous, multi-faceted girl can possibly be.
You wonder how this wondrous, multi-faceted girl can keep up this act of deception without having to choose who she wants to spend the rest of her sunlit days with.
(You wonder how this wondrous, multi-faceted girl has claimed your heart so easily)
You know that this will probably be your downfall – you'll probably put all your effort into the golden haired beauty with the captivating voice and she'll let you down and drop you from her honey arms but, right now, you swear that the golden beams of sunlight could catch you and you're willing to take a chance, so, you lie back into her honey coloured arms and you ask the question that you almost don't want to know the answer to.
"Tell me," you ask, "how is love like sunshine?"
She throws you another one of those smiles and then she leans down, arching her neck, her blonde hair spilling forwards.
She presses her pink lips to the shell of your ear, where she knows you won't miss a word. And, then, she whispers, in her ever calm and entrancing voice.
"Sometimes you have to get burnt to know you were there…"
The thing about life is that some days, you'll be walking in shadow and others in sunshine but, eventually, dusk is always going to set in and you're going to be plunged into darkness.
That is what it feels like when war truly creeps up on you.
When Amycus and Alecto step foot in your castle, they plunge you and Lavender and Padma and everyone in between into the everlasting night and they transform your kingdom of golden hope into an empire of mistrust, despair and black shadows that strangle the light from the world and threaten to drag you under.
One minute, you were young, foolish and sixteen, just about to be burnt by love for the first time and, the next, you were sat in blackness, feeling old beyond your years and wondering whether you'd ever see dawn again.
(Wondering whether you'd ever lie in your golden sanctuary with Lavender by your side again)
Of course, Lavender is there, with her restless heartbeat and freckled honey arms but so is Padma and so are the Carrows and so is the ever looming, threatening presence of Voldemort. It is not time to sit by and ponder on forgotten, sunny days. It is time to fight.
And, fight you do. Eventually.
At first, it is slow. It is the days before the Room of Requirement, the days before salvation and the days before rebelling. It is you and Lavender in your Gryffindor Dormitory and for the first time in what feels like forever, you are alone.
Some nights, Lavender crawls into your bed and others, you fall into hers and you whisper about long gone days of daisy chains and frantic kisses and you lie in her honey arms and the early morning light refracts through the ancient tower windows, turning everything around you to molten gold and it almost feels like you're back to before, when you and her would lie outside in the sunshine together. Sometimes you manage to convince yourself that you really are back there. But, you never are and possibly never will be. You are stuck in the days of constant fear and nights that have never been blacker and there is no space or time for your little ray of golden eternity.
Not yet, anyway.
Some nights, as you lie in each other's arms, in between jagged breaths, Lavender chokes out 'Parvati' and some nights, 'Padma' and you think of your sister, lying in her cerulean tower and you wonder whether her arms roam between the sheets, trying to grasp on to a little bit of Lavender and the long gone golden days. That thought is enough to send a shudder down your spine and, for the first time, you realise that this is what being burnt feels like and, you realise that maybe Lavender was right.
You don't tell her this, instead you hold her in your arms and rock her gently and tell her that she is going to be okay, you are going to be okay and Padma is going to be okay. You promise it and you wonder if this is how the war is going to play out – you and Lavender, holding each other and pretending you're both sixteen again.
It isn't.
It gets worse and you reach the point where you know that now, you're going to have to fight – you're going to have to throw caution to the wind and dive headlong into the shadows.
So, you do and you end up with Neville and Seamus and all the other misfits with scarred faces and scarred hearts, desperately trying to find their way out. You suppose that you are one of them, one of the misfits who the enemy thinks is too outspoken and needs to be stopped. You suppose that you are one of the scarred – the Gryffindors who are hiding instead of fighting, the people who have fallen from grace, the children who will be dead before their eighteenth birthday if they're not careful.
You whisper these fears to Lavender, as night falls in the Room of Requirement and your silken hammocks brush against one another.
In the days gone by, the days of golden Lavender and the reckless, poetic flighty enchantress, Lavender would've thrown you another mysterious smile and whispered something like "I'd rather die young and leave a beautiful corpse than live unhappily forever," and you wouldn't be able to work out whether she was actually being serious or if it was just another one of her impressive poetic lines.
But they are the days of the past – the days of sunshine and Lavender's lips on your skin – and, now, Lavender is just as scared as you are.
She whispers back that they might be dead before then, if it carries on this way. You wonder whether you will ever get out of this endless night, whether you will ever sit in the rays of a setting sun with reckless, beautiful Lavender by your side.
You fear that maybe you won't.
You think that maybe there's only one way to find out.
That is the moment you decide that you are going to fight - you might fall, you might succeed, you might be ruined but, it is your only hope at the moment.
You are going to march into the night and you are going to walk, run, fight until you eventually reach the place where dawn comes eventually.
Eventually, it reaches the point when you think that you can taste a hint of promise in the air – when you think that you can maybe see dawn approaching for the first time in what has felt like a lifetime.
It is time for battle and you march in, fearlessly, your true motivation the promise of feeling Lavender's lips against your skin again.
So, you draw your wand and you fight and you fall and you get back up again and you watch your beloved golden kingdom be destroyed by jets of stark lighting and hatred. You watch your friends drop and you watch your enemies descend and you carry on and you can't think of anything that will stop you – you think you've seen it all and you think you're ready to face anything that comes your way.
You are not prepared to watch Lavender be broken in front of you.
But, you do. You watch as Fenrir Greyback pounces on her, how his sharp silver claws and yellowing teeth graze her neck, her shoulders, her face. You watch as your best friend, your lover, your golden palace is torn apart by the shadows that have been looming over head for years.
You watch as your world (and your heart) split in two again.
You watch as Fenrir is thrown back from her and how medics rush over to her and shield her from view and carry her away to a little chamber where they're treating the injured. You scream and you run after her, you try to catch Lavender; you need to hold her hand and pretend you're lying together in the golden light once more. You need to tell her she is everything to you.
You need to tell her that the blackness might draw to a close.
And, you almost make it, you almost reach her but then, you see it. You see her. You see Padma lying on the ground, in a little room that they have set aside for the fallen. Padma is lying on the ground and, if it wasn't for the red gash that caresses her forehead, you would think that she was sleeping, she looks so young, so innocent, so whole, so peaceful.
She looks exactly like a young girl who sat in the sunshine and thought about being burnt, whilst a blonde haired beauty whispered poetry in her ear.
Your world splits in two one more time and reality and unconsciousness collide and everything turns to blackness and, the last thing that you are aware of is the thought that you don't think you'll ever see the sun rise again.
The next thing that you are aware of is lying in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar hospital room, with a Healer standing over you and telling you that Harry has defeated Voldemort, that the war has been won and that you collapsed, but you're going to be okay.
For a moment, a warm feeling that might be happiness spreads down your spine but then you remember Padma's lifeless body and Lavender's broken frame and you feel your broken heart stuttering out a jagged beat.
"Padma?" you ask, your voice cracked and unrecognisable, "Lavender?"
The Healer looks at you and she answers, truthfully, "Padma Patil was hit by a collapsing wall, after a curse rebounded. She died on the spot. I'm so sorry, Parvati, but there was nothing anyone could do to help her. She died fighting – she died like a hero. Lavender Brown, however, lives but she is in a critical condition. Fenrir Greyback attacked her and she's fighting for her life – she's comatose right now."
You nod at the Healer in gratitude and she leaves wordlessly, allowing you to mourn your sister and pray for Lavender by yourself.
A few hours later, she returns and tells you that you're completely cured and that you're free to go. You thank her and you leave your room in St. Mungo's and you run straight to Lavender's.
Lavender's room is filled with shadows and there isn't even a window there, nothing to let golden light float in and heal this broken girl.
The broken girl is lying on a white bed and she looks so washed out, so different from the girl who whispered poetry about sunshine in your ear. She looks close to death.
You think of Lavender and you think of the girl she used to be – a girl who lived for the sunshine and you wonder whether this is how she got there. You wonder if Lavender is just another girl who stood too close to the sun.
You wonder if what she said all those years ago came true.
You wonder if she got burnt beyond repair and that this is how she ended up here, lying in this white hospital ward with her future dangling by a fine, fine thread.
You wonder if those burns will ever be healed – you don't know, of course, but you're going to try at all costs.
So, you wait by her bedside, you sit curled up, in the semi-darkness, your eyes permanently fixed on Lavender, although she doesn't move at all. You drift between nightmares and consciousness, but both versions of living contain images of the shattered golden girl who claimed your heart and the peaceful, motionless body of your lost sister.
You know that the rest of the world outside is celebrating. They're hosting feasts and looking to the future and moving on and you wonder how they can do it, how they can bear to rejoice when there are still bodies to bury and broken bodies lining hospital corridors. You can't bear to leave this hospital room and step outside into the sunlight that seems also to be celebrating the end of the war without her by your side. You can't bear to be surrounded by people who are moving on and looking to the future, when you're still stuck in the long gone days of everlasting hope with a girl who might not ever make it out.
So, you stay in Lavender's hospital room and you mourn the sister you lost and the friend you might lose and you don't move. Instead you listen to the Healer's constant conversation about the girl who might be slipping away.
That's Lavender Brown, you know. She got attacked by Greyback in the Battle of Hogwarts. She's only seventeen, poor young thing. She had her whole life ahead of her. She's in a critical condition – she might never wake up again. And, if she does, she won't be the same. There's a very high chance she'll never be able to speak again, you see, Greyback went for the throat. And, she'll be scarred for evermore. Poor girl. Poor, brave, little girl.
You know that there is only a little bit of hope that she'll make it but, you stay by her side and you swear you will never leave. Some days, golden tears spill down your caramel cheeks and you feel like giving up but you never do. You are going to stay strong. You have to stay strong. You must. For her. For the long gone days of whispered poetry between frantic kisses. For Lavender.
Everything is for Lavender now.
Days, weeks, months blur into one – you have no idea how long you've been sat by her side – it's all just a jumble of still fingers and Padma running through your dreams and Lavender's broken body falling again and again and again. The only thing that marks the passing of time is her restless heartbeat that is apparently getting stronger and more solid every day.
One day, and you don't know how many days it's been since it happened, a Healer interrupts your solitary musings and tells you that they think Lavender is improving and that her heartbeat is as strong as it should be and that they're going to see if they can wake her up yet.
The room is filled with anticipation and hope and there's a kind of static current running through the air that might mean excitement. You and two other Healers are crowded around her bed and one of them mutters some sort of spell and you all look down at Lavender's frame, waiting, wondering, hoping.
After a terrifyingly long minute, her eyelids begin to flutter and the Healer next to you breathes a sigh of relief.
Slowly, her eyes begin to open and they dart around, taking in her surroundings.
Eventually, they find you. Her face visibly brightens and she carefully stretches her mouth into a smile and suddenly, you feel sixteen again and you're about to be burnt for the first time. Slowly, she opens her pink lips and still staring at you, she begins to speak.
"Sunshine," she says and your world splits in two.