A/N: Written for the Houses Competition. Practically all of this is down to the wonderful 2D and AJ. Thanks for the double-betas, loves.
House: Ravenclaw
Category: Short
Prompt: Brave
Words (excluding a/n): 1891
i.
Lavender has always been a wild one. Stormy, untamed, free. She tosses her head of golden curls, and laughs too loudly, shines too bright. But that is alright, because now she has Parvati, and they do everything together.
When they are sorted into Gryffindor, they dance and leap around the dorm - it is huge, it is theirs - until they can't take another breath. Lavender collapses onto her bed, Parvati falling right next to her, and Lavender smiles so much she thinks her face might get stuck that way.
They don't go to sleep that night. Instead, they stay up, huddled under the covers, braiding each other's hair and making the kind of promises you make when you have never seen anything broken.
"You're my best friend," says Parvati, and Lavender does not doubt her for a second. "Even more than Padma. I promise."
The next day, Lavender can't help but worry. Hermione Granger, another girl in Gryffindor, is everything that Lavender isn't. She is reserved, never saying the wrong thing, hand shooting straight into the air anytime a question is asked. Lavender finds it harder, her brain foggy, the words jumping and spinning across the page.
Anxiously, she glances at Parvati during Potions, worried she has changed her mind, worried that she doesn't want to be her friend anymore.
Parvati leans across the cauldron and whispers conspiratorially, "Doesn't she seem boring."
ii.
A hush sweeps across the halls of her school. It's a strange quiet, one that warns you, one that says look out! Lavender ignores it, brushes the fear, the whisperings of heirs and petrifications off with child-like conviction. The grown-ups will handle it.
Parvati is different. She is brave, too, but she does not have the same fire in her eyes that Lavender does. Lavender can feel the nervous tremors that run through her friend's body when they walk through the halls, arms linked. All Lavender can do is hold on just a little bit tighter.
Then, Hermione Granger starts asking questions. Professor McGonagall answers them, not in the same scathing tone she uses whenever Lavender doesn't understand, but in a voice that sounds terrified. She is confused about that, because don't the red and gold hangings in McGonagall's classroom mean that she isn't scared of anything?
Then people start disappearing. It's worse when it's not just the caretaker's mangy old cat, but friends, acquaintances, the boy that sits opposite you in Charms. Something roots itself in Lavender's stomach, making her panic whenever she looks at Parvati. What if, just like the clever girl that used to sleep across from them, Parvati gets petrified. Her parents are magical, but maybe that's not enough. For the first time in twelve years, Lavender knows what it's like to not feel brave.
iii.
Professor Trelawney looks at Lavender with pride in her eyes and it makes her heart swell with delight. It is something she is good, even brilliant, at. She can look into a teacup, and the swirling shapes are crystal clear. Hermione Granger is not good at it, and Lavender gets a vindictive pleasure from watching her struggle, from seeing the smudges of purple underneath her tired eyes.
See, Lavender wants to say, I'm smart, too. I am not dumb, I am not stupid, and I am just as worthy as you.
But she doesn't, because even when Hermione shoots Lavender a sneer as she struggles to do her Transfiguration and her blood starts boiling with rage, Parvati is there.
She always is. Always, with a comforting hand, a secret smile, a shared joke. It lifts Lavender up and she wonders how she ever managed to live without her.
During a Quidditch match, while they are sat together, of course, Parvati nudges her and points out at Harry Potter. "Isn't he gorgeous?"
Lavender just nods, a choked sort of feeling in her throat. She has never thought of anyone like that. Parvati giggles and presses on, not taking notice of Lavender's silence.
"I think Ron likes you." There is something in her voice that tells Lavender this should be a big deal. "He always stares at you during Div. And he's actually quite good-looking, if you think about it. "
Lavender feels slightly sick.
iv.
She can't quite put her finger on she realises it. It is sometime between October and December, when she stops letting her curls flow free and unrestrained, when she paints her face on carefully each morning, when she practices her laugh and her smile in front of the bathroom mirror.
She realises that she cannot rely on her smarts, not if she doesn't have any. Lavender will just have to be beautiful.
Parvati collects magazines, and together they pore over them, learning charms to make your cheeks pinker, spells to make you smell like flowers, potions to make you throw up after each meal.
"We have to do it," Parvati tells her, as they stand in the empty second-floor girl's bathroom and Lavender has a moment of doubt. "The Yule Ball is coming, and we need to be pretty if we want to get dates."
Lavender suggests they go together, but Parvati dismisses that as a stupid idea. So, she turns on a tap and downs the potion, ignores her aching stomach and the acrid taste that forever lingers in her throat.
It works, Lavender thinks, because Seamus asks her to go with him. She accepts with a demure smile, only showing how excited she is when she and Parvati are back in the safety of their dorm. They squeal with excitement, and pick out dresses and float like feathers on the feeling of being wanted.
At the ball, Parvati only has eyes for Harry and Seamus, and instead of dancing with Lavender, Seamus just stares at a dark-skinned boy across the room. He is in Gryffindor too, and his name's Dean Thomas. Lavender can't help but wonder what makes him more special than her. She cries herself to sleep that night, and hates how weak she feels. She is meant to be stronger than this.
v.
Harry Potter starts talking, shouting from the rooftops about You-Know-Who, and Death Eaters, and the pretty boy who died at the end of last year. Lavender tunes him out, gets on with her life, because she is brave and strong and is not frightened by such things.
But she cannot help the way her heart races whenever she hears Harry talking in the Common Room. She wants to rush over to him, shake him, shout, "Don't you know what you're doing to me?"
He is a generally kind boy, though, and she doesn't think he realises that his words brand themselves onto her brain, leaving her plagued with nightmares of her best friend lying still, eyes glassy and unseeing, a mirror image of Cedric Diggory.
She doesn't tell Parvati this, because it is Lavender's job to be the one who is not afraid. Lavender has to be the one who drags them along to the secret meetings, who fights with a burning fire that a person only has when they need it to keep themselves alive. She throws herself head-first into war, because it is the only thing keeping her sane.
The secrets she keeps taste like betrayal and arsenic in her mouth. Of course, Lavender knows that she absolutely cannot tell her best friend that her nightmares all revolve around her death, just as much as she cannot tell Parvati that she is completely, hopelessly in love with her.
Lavender loves her the way a heart beats: steadily and always. Parvati will forever be the blood that runs red through her veins.
vi.
Lavender starts to worry that Parvati is catching on. Her looks linger too long, her cheeks are too flushed when Parvati slings an arm around her shoulder. So, she smiles at Ron the way she knows he longs to be smiled at, and it works.
It was just meant to distract Parvati, and Lavender too. Girlish worries, like looking too fat for your robes and what to do about it, pale in comparison to the death hanging over their heads, but she starts to feel powerful. It excites her, every touch, every kiss a reminder that she can be whoever she wants to be.
Hermione Granger's narrowed eyes and jealous stares only make her more desperate to prove herself, to prove that she is more than anyone thinks. Finally, she has something the other girl wants. It doesn't last long, though.
Ron breaks up with her in all but words, and even though she doesn't like him, not really, not with his broad shoulders and groping fingers, it stings. He is in love with Hermione Granger, who has proven how superior she is once again, and so Lavender ends it.
She doesn't cry, because she can't let Parvati see her like that. Parvati, who has finally caught on to the fact that their youth is slipping between their fingertips, that their world is sincerely fucked up. She crawls into Lavender's bed at night, tears dripping from her lashes, and they mourn their lost innocence together.
vii.
Lavender fights fiercely, and she fights hard, every waking moment consumed by the war. No one seems to be there anymore, the bustling hallways of her childhood now ghostly and echoing.
Parvati almost has to leave, letters from her mother arriving daily. They talk of things they both know to be true, of murder, and danger, and losing their lives. Then, it is too late and they are trapped, it is mandatory for them to stay. Lavender suspects that they are sleeping in their graves.
The Carrow twins are ruthless, torturing students with casual flicks of their wrists. The first time she sees it happening, Lavender cannot stand it, rushes forward, wand drawn. The victim is only a first year, and he is crying and screaming for his mother. Lavender shoots out a stunner, but it misses. Alecto turns towards her with gleeful insanity in her eyes.
"You're friends with that Patil girl, no?" Lavender's racing heart stops. "Maybe she should be punished, for this display of Gryffindor bravery?"
Parvati is crucioed until she is writhing on the floor, body twisting and jerking, eyes rolling back in her head.
Lavender breaks down at the sight, collapses, unable to do anything but look.
Later, inside the Room of Requirement, where they have set up a safe house, Parvati reassures her that everything is alright. The end is near, everyone can feel it coming. Soon, she says, it will all be over.
It is, sooner than they had ever imagined. Ginny shakes them awake, frantic and afraid. Before she can get the words out, Lavender knows what is happening. She can hear the sounds of crying children, feel death in the air.
She grasps her wand and Parvati does the same. Lavender can hear her trembling breath, see her shaking hands. For one second, she imagines Parvati crumpled on the floor of the Great Hall, black hair fanned out behind her, no breath escaping her full lips.
But she dismisses it, because she is Lavender Brown. She is Lavender Brown, she is stormy and untamed and free. She loves this girl, and together they are going to fight their way into a brave new world.
Even if it kills them.