The fierce morning sun dazzled the windows as she glided away from her sister's corpse. Her parents would have to be informed soon. Soon, yes soon. She'd have to be the one to tell them – she couldn't let them find out from the Daily Prophet. No doubt the names of the dead would all be in the newspapers tomorrow, no doubt at all. A page full of names, words upon words. Words that would rend screams of agony like a Death Eater's Cruciatus Curse. Names that would fade soon fade into anonymity, tales of sacrifice that would never be heard, there were so many of them…
Tears would help. Yes, tears would help. But where were they? She was too empty for tears, hollow as the gourd of a tanpura. She would have liked to say she was numb – numb would have sounded so appropriate, so acceptable for the situation. But she wasn't, she knew what she had to do – write a letter to her parents, search for her friends, help clean up, cry. That was being mundane, not numb. She wished she could confess to a terrible sadness, a sadness too deep, too hard for tears, woven from the steely meshes of pain and heartbreak. But that wasn't it – she felt calm, her heart wasn't breaking, she was just so tired. And she wanted to laugh, laugh until the world ended and there was nothing left but her and her laughter, her laughter that wasn't really laughter but a scream of agony.
She'd just go out, take a breath of fresh air and then send her letter. Yes, that would help. Yes, that was the thing to do…and then maybe she might be able to try to cry.
"Parvati!"
A second later she was enveloped in a bear hug; strong arms wrapped tightly around her body, crushing her ribs, another body pressing tightly against her. She let him hold her and stroked his arm gently, murmuring soothing words. Everyone needed that now and she was the only one who could give it, though she didn't know why. She wished she was the one receiving comfort instead of giving it.
Atleast he let her go and she was forced to crane her neck to look up at him. She hadn't seen him in almost a year – he'd grown so tall, so very tall. She told him that.
He smiled weakly and took her limp hand. He seemed to sense that something was wrong. "Lavender?" he asked gently.
"Padma," she replied. Her voice flowed out, cool and emotionless. Her voice wasn't like that.
He squeezed her hand tightly, his lips forming the words of comfort that she didn't want, didn't need. She raised a hand to stop him and drew him away from threshold to the castle to the grounds.
"Do you need Madam Pomfrey?" he asked softly, still clinging to her. He was the little boy, crying because he was scared, and she was the mother who knew everything, bathed in a mother's aura of sanctity.
"Dead," she said flatly. He cringed and at once she knew that she'd said the wrong thing. She pressed his hand and sat down, leaning against a yew tree. Yew's bad luck. Padma had been into superstitions. Parvati had always laughed at her.
He sat down beside her, still clutching her hand like a lifeline. The lake glittered in the sunlight, a sheet of blue glass flecked with silver and gold, beautiful with the beauty of another life, a life as far removed from her own as…as the one where Padma had lived and laughed and loved and dreamt and cried and screamed and whined and...
"Parvati," he began and her hand drifted to his mouth, slim, dark fingers splayed against thin, dark lips.
"Hush. Let's enjoy it while we can." That wasn't her; Parvati Patil was fire not ice.
He fell silent. "Seamus?" she asked eventually.
He shook his head and then stopped. Her face had stiffened unconsciously, on reflex. "He's still alive," he said tightly, "He's just…lost his right leg. Sectumsempra, it won't grow back."
"Oh," she said softly. She rested her hand on his chest, torn dark hair tumbling over torn dark skin. A laugh sounded in the distance, pure as the call of a unicorn, innocent as a child's gurgle. She knew she'd never laugh like that again. That simple thought, no, that knowledge, saddened her. She hoped the tears would come, she wanted them to come. His arm was wrapped around her shoulders, tightly, securely. He wanted to help her but there was no way he could, she knew. She was beyond tears and numbness, even bitterness, in a world where nobody could reach her.
"Parvati," he said softly and she didn't stop him. There was no more beauty left in the world.
"I love you."
And the tears came as she sobbed into his chest. There was no more beauty left, but there was love left and where there was love there would, one day, be beauty.