title: tell me everything that happened
author: me!
summary: It does not hurt to be delicate. It is not a weakness. She reminds herself of this. Lavender Brown is a delicate girl.
rating: PG-13, just for sometimes graphic imagery? it's really not very bad.
She is a delicate person. She knows this. She does not deny this. Everyone says it about her. They say it in their disaffected manner and peer down at her as if there's no reason for her to be so delicate.
As if.
As if the Carrows don't rule the school with an iron fist. As if the Carrows don't use pain as punishment. As if they don't blatantly lie to the students about Muggles. As if the Ministry isn't screening all students before they go to Hogwarts. As if she doesn't know there are students whose parents are in Azkaban. As if she doesn't remember that Dean Thomas, Seamus' best friend, one of her best friends, a Gryffindor Muggleborn, is on the run because the Ministry - because the world - hates him. As if she doesn't have to worry about her parents going to Azkaban (or worse) because they can't figure out how to be quiet.
It does not hurt to be delicate. It is not a weakness. She reminds herself of this.
What hurts is seeing her parents throw away any chance at safety for the war's cause. What hurts is that first detention (of the school year, of her entire time at Hogwarts) where she comes back with blood on her hand, with all sorts of sayings engraved (that is too pretty of a word to describe what she endures, but it is the tone that Professor Carrow says it) on her skin. What hurts is looking at that skin the next day, staring in horror as she realizes it hasn't gone away (it won't go away), so she is forced to pull her sleeve down in shame (the first time; the fourth time it happens, she doesn't care about the stares and keeps her shoulders straight and her body tall and walks on).
What hurts is seeing Luna Lovegood (a girl who she is not exactly the closest of friends with, but share the common bond of Dumbledore's Army) publicly humiliated and beaten all for iThe Quibbler/i. What hurts is seeing Parvati take the blame for something a first year accidentally did, just so he didn't have to endure the same detention.
What hurts is throwing up the third time after Dark Arts because seeing animals and intestines don't mix very well with her delicate sensibilities. The Cruciatus used on the animals doesn't help either. She is forced to watch (because Professor Carrow knows when people turn their heads, avert their eyes) but as soon as the class is dismissed, it is all Lavender can do to notretch in the hallway. Instead, she runs as fast as she can to the nearest bathroom, tripping over herself more than five times on the way, and hurriedly running into people and apologizing. The first and second times were not too different: same class, different bathrooms.
Lavender supposes that perhaps, if she was not so delicate, if she were stronger?, if she was everything but, then she could withstand everything.
But no. No, that cannot be true. She has seen the strongest people she knows (the DA, her parents) break under pressure. She is not alone. That lessens the hurt. That builds up her strength. It is not easy to get up from the restroom floor because it is one of the only times no one can watch her and judge her, but she knows she must.
Because there are bigger things than what she is going through. Because there is a war and a evil man and friends and family who could die any second. Because she has to prove to everyone who believes otherwise that delicate is not a setback, but a small step.