Title: Hindsight
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Hermione and Ron
Prompt:17-Brown
Word Count:1022
Rating: K+
Summary:Missing Moment R/Hr. Each reflect of the role Lavender played as she lays in the hospital wing injured with werewolf bites after the Hogwarts battle
Author's Notes: I got a review saying I was too cliché in my portrait of Lavender and while at first I was annoyed because lets admit it, most R/Hr fans enjoy vilifying the girl. She's a flat character in the book so we keep her that way in fan fic. But in reality She didn't do anything but be a typical teenage girl and had no right to be treated so poorly by either of them. So tada, me trying to think of Lavender in a different light.
It's said that hindsight is 20/20, and from where I stand it seems pretty true. I had never been overly fond of my dorm mates. It's wasn't really their fault either. They tried, Merlin's beard I can't count the amount of times they tried, 'Hermione can we give you a make over' 'You don't have to spend all your time reading, why don't you talk to us', 'Tell us what it's like dating Victor Krum' I can see now it was just their way of reaching out, but at the time it just seemed like they were putting me down for not being like them.
I've always been pretty insecure about my looks. For me it was so much easier to be the ugly girl that didn't try then the ugly girl who try as she might is still ugly. I resented their attempts to charm my frizzy hair or shape my eyebrows with a spell recommended in the latest 'Witch Weekly'. It just felt like they were trying to say I'd be better if I were like them. That leads into my other point. I saw myself as better than Lavender and Pavarti. Complete snob in fact. I was smarter then them and all the things they did were so 'juvenile'. Well I forgot to take into account that being juvenile once in a while is part of growing up. I was so insecure about all things girly that I looked down on them for being interested in it.
It's not that I hated them or anything, I just chose to not hang out or talk with them, ever. Then of course 6th year happened. The end all and be all of worst years ever in the girls Gryffindor dormitory. Lavender made the horrid mistake of realizing that Ron Weasley was a catch. She didn't know I had been in love with him since before I understood what that meant. She didn't know that I had asked him to Slughorn's Christmas party and had special ordered a new dress just for the occasion. She didn't know any of this because I never told the girls I had lived the past 5 years about it.
Looking back now I can see I had no right to hate her for doing what I couldn't. Like a guy and go after him boldly. She wasn't a slut or a tramp or any of the other less polite words I routinely vilified her in my mind for that entire year, and much of the next. She was just a girl who liked a boy. She just didn't know she like my boy.
I can't help but wonder how differently it would have all worked out if I'd been the girl I was so forcibly repressing. If I'd giggled about my date, let them help me decide how to wear my hair and which dress to order I doubt she would have gone after him. But such actions were beneath me of course so I didn't do anything of the sort.
Sighing I stand up from my careful ministrations over the wounded girl I once hated. She was under several medications to help her recover from the werewolf bites she'd sustained sometime during the previous night. My hand moved the silky blond hair from her battered forehead and realized I'd given up a great opportunity to make a friend. I had decided as an 11 year old girl I was too good for her and because of that decision missed out on what could have been, well I don't know what it could have been because I was never willing to look past the beautiful exterior and see the person underneath.
The Lavender I'd pigeon holed all those years ago would have never stayed to fight for what she believed in. She wouldn't have faced a werewolf or protected anything besides herself. How can you live with someone for 6 years and not know them at all?
Looking back I can see she and I had done the same thing, stuck to what we were good at because it gave us an identity and looked down on anything else. I was blind and I hope one day I have the courage to tell her just that.
***
I stand in the doorway of the crowded infirmary. Many have been transferred to St. Mungos already but it takes time to get every one there so the hospital wing is still crowded with the injured. I watch as the woman I love cares for the sick and in some cases the dying and I'm in awe. She moves over to a scarred patient and after a long time of dressing the wounds she stops and wipes the hair out of her face and begins to speak softly to the unresponsive girl.
I over hear her say 'Lavender' and I realize who she's taking care of. I step further in to get a closer look and am taken back by the sight that greets me. She has been torn to shreds. It looks the same as Bill did last year so I'm guessing Fenrir again. I move to her side and take her hand in my own, careful not to aggravate her injuries.
How poorly I treated the sweet battered girl before me. I took advantage of her because I was hurt and in pain. All she ever did was fancy me and in return I used her. I treated her poorly because of the guilt being with her made me feel. All she ever did was try and get my to pay attention to her and I wouldn't because being with her felt like cheating.
She deserved much better than months on end of me avoiding her without any explanations as to why. Looking back I should have just sucked it up and explained I didn't feel the same way, instead I toyed with her emotions for months because I was too cowardly to do anything else. It was wrong of me to use her and I hope someday I have the courage to tell her just that.