we're not that different at all
Character: Lavender Brown, Dudley Dursley
Summary: What a weird pair they made.
Prompts: Silver, "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."- e.e. cummings and Therapy, All Time Low
AN: I think Lavender's outer appearance was never really specified in the books – and she was re-casted in the films. So I wrote as I see her.
The young woman is in his business class and she fits not in.
Something is just off about her, in the way she moves – like she is always expecting some sort of attack – and in the way she sometimes speaks like her tongue has not yet learned how to pronounce certain things, things that were common – like she was tasting the words on her tongue for a moment, trying to figure out their weight. And she seems always lost in her own thoughts, like she has her own world where she is all alone. There are angry red scars on her face and an air of mysteries surrounds her, just like the rumours about some sort of freak accident she may or may not have been involved in.
He takes pity in her because once, he has been a bully but now, he has changed. He has been one of the most terrible people, those who are judging and who can never accept that not everyone is like them. Sometimes, he remembers the day when his firm belief that his way of living was the only right one has been overthrown, has been shattered into tiny pieces.
He has never truly wanted to believe in magic.
But when the world has grown dark and the voices have appeared in his head, when despair has been all he has felt has – until the flash of silver, until the silver deer, he has grown more accepting.
He has always had everything. He has had parents who have been loving in their own, a little screwed-up way – sometimes a little too loving, perhaps – and he has always gotten everything he has wanted, no matter whether it has been a pet or another toy. But he has been alone, too.
He has made mistakes and growing up, he has realised this. There are more than just a few moments he would like to change but he cannot because it is too late. (He sometimes wonders whether this is what it is like to be his mother but he never asks because why would he make her suffer more?) He would like to take back the insults because he now knows how much it hurts. He has never told his parents that after the demon, dementor, whatever things he has been jumpy and that he has been bullied. Learning sometimes hurt and he has had so much to repent for. He has never spoken about the nightmares, the nightmares where Harry – and it feels still so weird to think that name without any resentments, without any anger and hatred – has not been there to save him, where the dementor (that was the word, right?) has gotten his soul. The nightmares have not left him completely, not yet. They hurt him still. And the therapist he is seeing because of this cannot help him much because he can hardly tell him the full truth – about Harry being a wizard and all … because the man would never believe him and rather think that he has lost it completely.
Now, he is kinder, gentler perhaps. He is more careful with his words, tries to avoid hurting people, tries to avoid scaring them. Some of the people in his classes remember him from when he has been a bully, the bully who has made their lives a living hell and he knows that they still hate him and he knows that he deserves this. It still hurt him. Their glares tear him apart, sometimes, and their voices sound like a blizzard to him when they actually bother talking to him.
He needs the redemption, something to show how much he has really changed. But he gets no chance, not really. He tries to smile, to be a good student and a good son. But he feels miserable.
He has taken up smoking and then he has tossed the habit away, unhealthy and it has not helped him at all, has only ever made him cough his lungs out.
But he is a different person, now. A better one, perhaps.
And because words can only do so much, he approaches the girl.
The first thing he notices that beneath the scars, her face was very pretty, perhaps even beautiful. He also realises that up close, her scars look truly terrifying. The next thing he sees is the silver eyeliner – silver, just like his mother's very favourite cutlery, silver, just like the sky at dawn – that frames pretty greyish, greenish eyes. She is truly pretty and he wonders if she has known this, before the accident that has left the scars – and whether the eyeliner was a last, desperate scream, a rebellion against everything and nothing at all.
"Hi," he says, waiting for her to ignore him.
She turns her head, a tiny and insecure smile in place. "Hello," she greets back.
He bites his lip, unsure of what to say now. "I am Dudley," he says. "What's your name?"
She runs one hand through auburn hair, hesitating for a moment. "Mara," she says with a smile that is full of secrets and one of them is that she has not been born as Mara, that she has become Mara because Lavender Brown is not Lavender Brown anymore.
She is no longer the little girl that waits in a garden, dressed into the prettiest pink dress. She no longer believes that she is a princess. She is not going to wait anymore, will no longer believe in the hope she has once been told to keep. She is no longer waiting for a stranger to come and tell her a story, a story of how a patient princess will see the greatest adventures, that she will meet a man who will love her for who she really is.
There is no story about Lavender Brown anymore.
Because Lavender Brown has been as a fairy princess who wove the strings of fate, born with magic and a head with far too many dreams. She has a princess and she has wanted to meet her prince and live her fairytale life. But life has not been a fairytale and chaos has seeped into her world, turning the fairy princess into a fighter because she has had no other choice. Fighting or dying. Dying means no "and they lived happily ever after" and this is what she has always wanted. So the choice has never been truly a choice, at least not for her.
Lavender is a fairy princess without a fairytale. Her story runs deeper than a goodnight story for children. Her story is sharper, less kind. More like the scars on her face and on her neck and on her chest.
But now, she is no longer Lavender Brown.
"That's a nice name," he replies. "Never met one named like this before. Anyway, you are in my class … and we are supposed to do a partner work. I never saw you talking to anyone so…"
"It would be nice," she nods and smiles, a little less insecure now. She cannot forget her scars not when they burn like someone drew lines of fire onto her skin but she does remember what it has been like to be without them. She is a witch and she is not, having abandoned this life. She is no longer one of them but she is no muggle either. She waits tables in a little bistro to get money for her schooling and her living expenses, refusing to trade her last galleons for muggle money.
"Uh, great, then," he says, grabbing a scrap of paper from his bag and scrabbling down his phone number. "You can, uh, call me. I will be out of town for the weekend, staying at my parents' but until Thursday evening, you can call me. Or if you see me before a class, just stop by. You are busy, probably, so, uh, yes."
She chuckles for the first time in a while at his way to stumble over words. "I will check my schedule at work and tell you when I have time," she says, a true smile blossoming on her face.
He sees her that day, in the evening, when Harry is in town for some reason, dragging his pretty red-haired girlfriend – one of his best friend's people, no doubt – behind. Unsure of what to do, Dudley invites them for dinner because it is the only thing he can think of at the moment and in passing, he sees her auburn mane. But she vanishes in the crowd in the fracture of a second and he wonders whether she has been there in the first place or whether he is truly going crazy by now. He also remembers that he has not asked where she has come from even though her accent has been peculiar, something he has never heard before.
It is nearly like she is from some place he cannot see, like she is from a place out of time – like some sort of oracle. (He blames his love for Greek Mythology for that thought.) It does not matter, however, who she has been before. It only counts who she is now and that is a pretty girl with unfortunate scars.
"You okay?" Harry asks.
"I was thinking I saw someone," he shrugs. "Anyway, what leads you to this town?"
"We have been looking for a friend," the young woman says, shrugging and flipping her red hair over her shoulder. "But … she doesn't seem to be here, right?"
Harry nods, sagely and silent, like an Atlas with the world on his shoulders. "You aren't the same anymore, Dudley," he says after a long moment of silence.
"I know."
"What has changed you?"
He cannot tell the entire story, about the painful realisation that being a bully would never get him anywhere and just smiles. "They say that it takes some courage to grow up," he says and does not quote the entire thing, leaves out the aspect of 'and becoming who you really are' because he may be twenty-four but he still does not know who is meant to be (and sometimes think that it might be better if he never ever figures it out).
"I saw you in town."
She flinches, exhaling and pushing her books into her bag. "Really?" she asks although she has seen him as well. "Sorry, I was probably tired from work and haven't seen you."
"No problem," he says with a wave of his hand and she wants to laugh – bitterly because hell, she is so damn bitter lately – because the wave of his hand indicates the perfect wand movement for a Levitation Spell and she remembers year one when all has been easy and good and she has been just another student of the perhaps most prestigious school for witchcraft on the earth and not a struggling student for business – business because no one would look for her there and because she cannot be an airhead anymore, she has to be more serious. She remembers a time of scarlet bows because Gryffindor Pride, pleated skirts and over knee socks and bubblegum pink lipgloss instead of high heels, pencil skirts and red lipstick and silver eyeliner.
(She is not sure what she prefers, actually. Both has its charm.)
"Anyway," she starts, "I checked my schedule. Perhaps Sunday evening? If you are back from your parents, that's it…"
He frowns for a second, then his face lights up. "Sure thing," he says. "We could meet in a café? Eat something and go over this project? A friend runs a little one by the church, it's called Emerald Tea Cup and you get no better Earl Grey in town."
She smiles slightly at his enthusiasm and scribbles both name and general location of the café into her agenda – even though using a fountain pen felt weird – before throwing both into her back. "Thanks," she says, a little more cheerful than usual, before she looks at her wristwatch. "Uh, I got to hurry or my English Literature class will start without me," she mutters.
"I can walk you," he offers. "I got a free period now, anyway."
She does not protest, knowing it would be useless anyway and because she is running from something big so she really cannot run from the small things, too.
Sunday evening comes around quickly, after a lazy Saturday and a Sunday morning spend reading all kinds of stories – no love stories because she is so over this entire concept – she makes her way to the café. She carries her notes with her and her wand serves as some kind of fancy stick to keep her hair in a bun. She prefers having quick assess to it, a reminder of how much the war has influenced her, surely.
Waiting for him, she considers writing home but she has not ditched all of this – and what a spectacular move that has been – to crawl back now. She has never had as much of a spine as her fellow Gryffindor's but she can learn. Also, she think she likes Dudley. He seems to be perfectly normal and maybe she wants a little more normality and a good deal less drama in her life.
He arrives half an hour later, out of breath and mumbling apologises. "Sorry for making you wait," he sighs. "The traffic was terrible."
"I didn't wait long," she says with a casual wave of her hand. "So, how was meeting your parents?"
"Same old, same old, mum telling me to get married, dad telling me to hurry up and start working."
"Sounds … exhausting."
"Ah well," he sighs. "How about you? Any family in town?"
She bites her lip, then decides to speak the truth. "I may have kinda gotten cold feet on the altar two years back," she says, her face straight. "It was the sudden realisation that I didn't want this, not then, perhaps not even with him. So I ran for it, jumped into a bus and off I went. I came to this town, liked it and decided to stay."
"Well, Runaway Bride is an amazing movie," he replies with a shrug. "You should watch it."
"Excuse me," the owner of the café says as she arrives to take the orders and Lavender's stomach drops. The last time she has seen Hestia Jones (now probably Hestia Diggle but who is she to assume such things?) has been when she has run down the aisle, using her wand to change her creamy white dress into something more practical. (Professor Flitwick would have been proud.)
"Ah, Hestia," Dudley says as if they were old friends. "This is my friend Mara. We have a project to prepare. It would be kind if you could bring me a pot of Earl Grey. Oh, and could we have some scones as well? That would be amazing."
"Of course," the black-haired witch replies with a smirk. "How about you, gal?"
"Some Earl Grey as well, please," Lavender says, forcing herself to stay calm and relaxed.
"How do you know Dudley, dear?" the older witch then inquires.
"We have the same business class. How about you?"
Dudley is confused as he watches the exchange between the both women because this makes no sense at all to him. Hestia is a friend of the family (at least in his eyes) and Mara is the mysterious and scarred girl of his business class. Why do they seem to have met before?
"Met him when we brought him and his parents to the safe house," Hestia replies with a smirk.
"Wait – aren't you supposed to stay silent about this?" he asks, more than confused.
"No. Mara here is a witch, too. One of the heroes of the last battle, even."
"Is that true?"
Lavender sighs deeply before she throws up her arms. "Yes, it is," she admits. "Thanks for blowing my cover, Jones, Diggles, whatever, really. I worked on this life, I did. I was trying to prove something here … and you have messed it all up for me."
"They are looking for you."
"If you are seriously telling me that Hermione Granger is unable to use a tracking charm, you should consider a long term stay in St. Mungo's, really." She turns to look at Dudley from her silver-framed eyes. "Is there a problem for you with me being a witch?" she asks.
"If I had an issue with witches, Hestia wouldn't be my friend. Actually, I used to have a problem with magic. Not anymore. We are all the same, aren't we?"
So perhaps, there are knights in shining armour left in this world.