a/n: This story was written for HP Slash Luv as part of the Gift-Giving Extravaganza. This was my first time writing Hermione/Lavender as a pairing as well as my first time writing Hermione as a main character. It was quite a challenge! I hope you all enjoy the fic :)

Thank you to my amazing beta luvsanime02, as always ;)

Hermione had not seen Lavender since the war. Now, all she could remember when she thought of her was so much blood, and so much fear. If she tried hard enough to close her eyes and banish that image of Lavender on the ground, passed out from the pain, she could vaguely make out another image of Lavender, all giggles and girly naivety. Hermione recalled pangs of jealousy over Lavender and Ron together. She had always assumed she had been jealous of Lavender, and the assumption had guided her feelings throughout the rest of her school years. Hermione was book-smart, but she had always had trouble with her social skills, and apparently her romantic pursuits as well.

A bell jingled and Hermione's head snapped up, but it was a man who entered. Hermione sighed and leaned back in the booth. She wasn't going to come. Hermione looked out the window. There weren't many people out and about at this time of day. Hermione let her mind drift away. Time passed.

"Hermione?" The voice was soft, hesitant, and Hermione turned around slowly.

"Lavender?" She never would have recognized her. Hermione remembered a young woman with long golden waves and chubby cheeks, part baby fat and part smiles. She had always been giggling, Hermione remembered. It used to drive her crazy. Now, all she wanted was for her to smile widely and laugh spontaneously.

Instead, Lavender smiled shyly and slipped into the booth across from her. "I'm sorry I'm late. I didn't know if I wanted to come."

Now, Lavender's hair was cut short, half-way past her neck, and her face had narrowed. She had lost a lot of weight. Her eyes were a dark, rich brown but they didn't light up like Hermione remembered. She looked older, much older than the twenty years she was.

"Thank you for coming anyway," Hermione said, and then didn't know what else to say. How have you been? That sounded so insensitive and ignorant; if Lavender had been turned by Greyback she could hardly expect the conventionally polite answer, could she?

"What do you want, Hermione?" Lavender's voice was soft, but there was a biting hardness under the words. She didn't sound rude, but Hermione suspected Lavender had a new habit of cutting straight to the point.

A waitress appeared. "Hi, there, girls!" She smiled brightly, easily. "What can I get for you?"

"Uhm." It took a moment for Hermione's brain to detach itself from Lavender's attack. "Tea, please. Early Grey with a dash of milk, no sugar."

"Coffee for me, please. Milk, not cream, and one sugar."

"You got it!" The waitress dashed off, leaving behind her a wave of tense silence.

"Well?"

"I don't know. I, I wanted to catch up, you know. See how you were doing…" Hermione's voice sounded weak and unconvincing even to her ears. Her stomach was clenching and unclenching painfully. She hadn't eaten since last night, and yet she felt so full she was almost nauseous.

"Catch up? What do you mean, catch up? Friends catch up, Hermione. We were never friends."

The words felt like a slap, and Hermione felt her cheeks smart. The truth hurt especially when you know the truth is your fault. "I know, but-"

"You've always hated me."

"No! I-"

Hermione clamped her mouth shut as the waitress reappeared in a flurry of bright cheerfulness. Hermione half wanted to snap at her and ruin her day. She didn't though. Only smiled as she placed their respective drinks in front of them.

"Enjoy!"

"Thanks," Hermione mumbled.

She didn't get a chance to justify herself to Lavender. "You always felt you were better than me, smarter, scoffing at me because I didn't know the answer or dared to put my faith into something you couldn't wrap your logical brain around."

"Laven-"

"And then when I started going out with Ron…" Lavender wasn't looking straight at Hermione. Her eyes were staring through the window, but Hermione knew she wasn't looking at the street, but inside of herself, reliving the past. Hermione suspected she did that a lot, these days. "You couldn't bear the thought of Ron choosing someone else other than you."

Hermione bit her tongue. She didn't tell Lavender she'd spurned Ron and that was why he had looked her way. She suspected Lavender knew that already, anyway.

"It was all to make you look at me, notice me." Lavender fixed her eyes on Hermione and Hermione felt like she suddenly couldn't breathe. She was being challenged, and for the first time in her life Hermione didn't know if she could rise up to it.

"But you knew that," Lavender went on. "Did you ever even receive my owl?"

"I did," Hermione admitted in a breathless whisper. A forced confession, a regretful admission.

"You never replied."

"There was a war, Lavender. Romantic escapades were hardly a priority. Harry was fighting for his life. My duty was to my best friend first."

Lavender sneered. Hermione couldn't recall having ever seen her sneer before. "It didn't stop you with Ron."

Hermione blushed furiously. "I thought… I still thought then that..." She closed her eyes and swallowed painfully. Shame engulfed her. "He was there," she whispered. "I was confused and he was there, at first. It felt easy."

"I don't recall you being the type of girl to take the easy way."

"I'm not always as strong and level-headed as people think I am."

They both fell silent. For a moment, they nursed their drinks. Lavender stirred her coffee, stared down at it, but didn't drink. Hermione took a sip of her tea, but it was still too hot and burned the tip of her tongue.

"I feel like I've spent my whole life waiting for you," Lavender said, a reluctant confession to her coffee mug. "I waited for you to like me and want to be my friend. I pretended I hated you. You were so obnoxious… I wanted so badly to hate you. But I just wanted your acceptance even more. Every time you made fun of me, ridiculed me, I swore the next time would be different."

"I'm sorry." What else could she say? That she had hated her? For the longest time she couldn't stand Lavender, until she figured out she'd had it all wrong, that she'd been jealous of the wrong person? The hate had been anger at not having what she didn't know she wanted and didn't have?

"And then I waited for you to answer my letter," Lavender went on, ignoring Hermione's apology. Had she even heard her? Maybe Hermione had said it under her breath, so low only she had heard herself. "And then, I waited for you to visit me in the hospital." Lavender finally looked up from her cup. Her eyes were brimmed with tears, her lips tilted downward. "Why didn't you visit me?"

Instinctively, Hermione reached out and grasped Lavender's hands. "I wanted to." She had no excuse; the end of the war had been a frantic, disgusting mess. Bodies everywhere on the Quidditch pitch, wounded being levitated left and right, taken away before anyone could really identify them. Hermione's vision blurred. "There were so many, so many I cared about who died," she said.

Lavender stared at Hermione's hands holding hers. She started a gesture (to pull away?) but then relaxed. A few tears escaped when Lavender blinked and she sniffed loudly. She nodded. "I know. I lost people too."

Hermione squeezed Lavender's hands: no need for apologies. Hermione had seen the list of the 'missing,' those whose bodies had never been found. They were most likely dead, but no body meant no certainty. Hermione had seen Parvati's name among the listed.

A few more tears escaped Lavender's eyes, no doubt provoked by the memory of her lost best friend. Hermione shared her pain. Not a day went by when she didn't still think of Fred, of Remus, of Tonks … of everyone who hadn't made it through.

Eventually, Lavender calmed down and she pulled her hands away from Hermione's. She wiped her cheeks and sipped her coffee. Hermione let her hands fall into her lap. She stabbed her thumb. She was so used to getting everything right. At school, in class, she had no inhibitions and then, during Harry's tribulations, she knew he had counted on her. Being wrong had not been something Hermione had ever allowed herself. Too often, lives had hung in the balance. Now… now it was just her and Lavender. The only life in jeopardy was Hermione's love life. Funny how something so insignificant in the past now had the power to break her apart.

Lavender glanced at her pocket pendulum watch. "I have to go. My lunch break is almost up."

Hermione felt her eyes widen and her mouth parted. "Oh. Well. Can… can I see you again? Maybe…"

Lavender looked away. She hadn't finished her coffee. She'd barely touched it. "You never answered my question."

"What question was that?"

"What do you want?" Lavender looked back at her. Courage maybe returning now that the words were out.

Hermione swallowed. Her mouth felt dry. She swallowed some of her tea, now lukewarm. What did she want? Not a second chance, how could she when she'd never really had a first? Forgiveness? No, she wasn't that big of a hypocrite. "You. I want you."

Lavender looked surprised, and then she smiled. It was a soft smile, and for a second, Hermione saw a flash of the old Lavender who knew (without knowing) how to get under her skin. Her cheeks lifted and her eyes softened. "Don't you think it's a bit late? Do you think I'm still waiting around for you?" The words could have come out harsh and bitter, but they didn't. They sounded like a real question, as though Lavender was asking herself the question as much as Hermione.

"No, I wouldn't expect that. But I'm willing to wait around for you, now. Please."

"I'm not the same person I was. Nor are you, I suppose."

"I don't care. Let's get to know each other properly, this time. Saturday?" Hermione hoped she didn't sound as bossy as she really was.

"Saturday is the full moon."

Hermione winced. She'd forgotten. How could she be so insensitive? "Oh…" And, finally, the subject they'd been dancing around. "Are… do you … are you safe?" Hermione suddenly had a ludicrous flash of her holding Lavender's hand as the moon rose and Lavender transforming. When had she become so melodramatic?

"Relax, I'm not… I don't turn. I just have a scar which will never disappear. I get strange cravings – raw steak, warm blood. Sometimes I get an overpowering urge to howl. Am I scaring you off yet?"

"Hardly. I spent a good part of my Hogwarts summers with the Weasley boys. That's scary."

Lavender giggled – she giggled and the sound warmed Hermione's heart, lifted her spirit. Hermione felt herself grin, and her confidence returned with a vengeance. "Tuesday, then. Dinner."

Lavender shook her head. "Next Saturday. Coffee. And it's not a date, just to talk."

Hermione nodded. Whatever, she would take anything. "Of course, not a date. Not in the slightest."

Lavender smiled. "You're nothing like I remember. When did you get so humble?"

Hermione shrugged. "Must be sometime around when I fell in love." The words came out without thinking about them. She blushed furiously when she said them, but she didn't take them back. She wouldn't.

Lavender was blushing as well, but she didn't seem put off by the impromptu confession. Quite the contrary. She licked her lips and cleared her throat. "I really should get back."

"Okay. See you in two weeks then."

Lavender placed a few sickles on the table before Hermione could object. It wasn't a date, after all. "Let's say two o'clock, by Honeydukes?"

"Sounds good."

Hermione watched Lavender walk out and then sunk back into her booth, letting out a long sigh. She felt as though she'd been holding her breath for a whole hour and was only finally allowed to breathe. She grinned to herself as she drank her cooling tea. The meeting had gone much, much better than she'd ever expected and yet, if she were to be honest with herself, she was a tad saddened that Lavender had not seemed overjoyed by Hermione's confession. It was to be expected, of course, but a selfish part of Hermione cried.

It took Lavender three months of weekly coffee talks before she agreed to a date with Hermione. It wasn't long before they realized they had not changed so much after all, despite their experiences. Lavender giggled easily, and still loved fashion and gossip to the point of driving Hermione bonkers. Hermione, on the other hand, drove Lavender into a rage with her constant know-it-all corrections and random historical tidbits that she felt were unacceptable Lavender knew nothing about.

Sometimes, through the bickering and the laughing, Hermione paused and reflected on her situation. Lavender drove her up the wall, and yet she made her laugh harder than anyone had ever made her laugh before. She was kind and generous and she had not let the trauma of war and her attack trample her spirit.

Sometimes, Hermione felt the world had turned out too well, all things considered, to be true. She half-expected Voldemort to rise from the dead and snatch Lavender away from her. In those moments of panic, Hermione hugged Lavender close and was scared to let go.

But, some twenty years later, when Hermione and Lavender met their friends on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters to wish their children a good school year, no such evil had reappeared, and Hermione finally let herself breathe freely. Maybe it was in the fates for them to be happy, after all.