AN: Title sort of shamelessly stolen from the book "Same Kind of Different As Me" by… and the author escapes me. But it's a good book, and a true story, and though it's not about twins… Well, I felt it fit.
They are twins—mirror images of each other, long dark hair and big dark eyes and chocolate toffee skin, identical in looks, mirror images and people are surprised that they end up in different houses, that Parvati goes to Gryffindor and Padma to Ravenclaw, that they are different enough on the inside to be separated completely, but to Padma, it is nothing but common sense that she and her sister go to different ways. People just assume that because you look like someone on the outside, your insides should match, too, but that's not the way it is, not with them. Though originating from the same egg, the Patil twins are simply different people. They are close, incredibly close—Padma knows how her sister feels, not because she herself feels the same way, but because sharing a womb and a birthday and a life with someone forges a bond deeper than friendship or even sisterhood, really.
Padma doesn't think she and Parvati are alike at all; Parvati is bright, brash color on canvas—she is red and greens and yellows, screaming "look at me" and gaudy courage. She belongs in Gryffindor, a lion, ruled by her emotions and passionate, bright, brilliant, alive.
Padma is different. Where Parvati is bright primary colors—shocking reds and brilliant blues and gleaming yellows—Padma is neutral, soft colors—deep reds and cool blues and smooth yellows. Where Parvati screams, Padma merely smiles, and where Parvati is gaudy courage, Padma is calm collected common sense. Padma is a Ravenclaw, an eagle, detached, quiet, royal, stoic and clinical.
"Courage takes many forms," Neville Longbottom says, addressing the D.A., but Padma frowns. She is not courageous, not even close—she is not a Gryffindor for a reason and secretly, she disagrees with Neville when he commends everyone on their 'courage.'
Padma trades courage for common sense and she fights because she believes in the cause, not because she has any notions about right and wrong, courage, bravery—these are things Padma does not necessarily care about, but a person's belief—
Once you took all that courage, bravery, and pride away, stripped them down to nothing more than the barest bones of who they are, belief was all that remained and Padma fights to keep her belief alive. She'll leave courage and bravery to the Gryffindors, to bright colors like Parvati, to people who were born to fight and be brave and take courage and she'll move softly in the shadows, protecting her belief.
And simply because Padma is not courageous does not mean she is a coward—simply because she does not throw herself quite as fully into this rebellion as Neville and Parvati and Harry doesn't mean she is anything less than they are. Simply because she does not fall so hard in love with the sweet adrenaline that comes from rushing headlong into battle does not mean she is any less a hero. It just means that all the Ravenclaw logic in the world is no greater a shield than bright Gryffindor bravery and Padma dies a hero—not a coward, but a careful, cautious hero.
She dies for her belief, but far, far too young—too young and that she died a 'hero' is small consolation to the broken sister she leaves behind, small consolation to the parents who have but one daughter where there should be two, where there have been two for eighteen years, two halves of a whole, mirror images and completely different on the inside, completely and wholly lovable in all their differences.
But Voldemort cares nothing for "should have beens" and "would bes" and Padma dies for her belief—dies—not a coward—but calm, collected not-courage—Padma is not a Gryffindor, she is a Ravenclaw, and she is not courageous—she is sensible, and she falls in the beauty of her common sense.
I wanted to write something about the difference between the Patil twins. After all, they are described as "identical" and the other set of identical twins in the book—Fred and George—were both portrayed as very much alike. Delving deeper into a character to see what makes them different is something I enjoy. Here's hoping you enjoyed it, too. :)