No one knew at first.
How could they, when even her closest friend could not? To be fair, it was quite difficult to spot when one neither knew nor wanted to know about it because Lavender Brown seemed normal. She was shallow, ordinary, and still happy in her ditzy, insensitive way even while the Wizarding World was being strangled by Voldemort.
In those times, you needed normalcy as much as you needed to breathe, and Lavender Brown seemed like such a bright, young flower in the midst of all that pandemonium that most people chose to ignore the madness that came from her.
It is no mystery why everyone turned a blind eye the first few times Lavender Brown blurred out of existence, not unlike the way a leaf is lost on the wind.
Everything was fragile.
Everything was war, and war, though deeply violent, was fragile. War was loss and death. It was when everything and anything could shatter at any moment, and if you took your eyes off them long enough, soon, they would become a memory.
They'd be dead.
Lavender was like that. At least, Parvati thought so. Everything was illusions at that point, like living in a room of shattered mirrors. Hope was an illusion. Safety was an illusion. Alecto Carrow could visit you, and at any time. You had to sleep with your eyes open.
(Parvati had learned a spell from Padma for that.)
People were illusions, too.
At first, Parvati hadn't realised that Lavender was one. She seemed solid, in that she seemed like the ubiquitous sort of person who'd be girlish and fun and annoying, and present till the end of time, especially because you didn't want her to be. But Parvati should have known that when you lived in a room of mirrors, nothing was ever as it seemed.
Nothing was real.
There was only ever you.
She and Lavender were alone in the Gryffindor Common Room the night of Lavender's first disappearance.
Lavender hummed. If Parvati remembered right, it was one of Celestina Warbeck's: a cauldron of hot, strong love.
"Do you think Orpheus has a cuter butt, or Lloyd ?" Lavender giggled. She was always giggling, which was nice because she did have a beautiful laugh. It was vivid and dizzying like the intoxicating smell of lavenders.
Beside her on the sofa, Lavender angled her magazine prettily so that Parvati could look. On each side of the magazine, a young man posed on the casual bend of the its pages. Lloyd was American, rugged, and sported a stereotypical delinquent appearance, while Orpheus was aristocratically handsome, with blond hair and eyes as blue as Lavender's.
"Orpheus - definitely," said Parvati, almost smiling.
"Ugh! You're leaning too much." Lavender laughed and wrinkled her nose. It was a coquettish action that she had learnt to get an edge in the dating game, but had forgotten to stop once she dated frequently enough that it became a habit. "Your hair is tickling my face again. For like, the hundredth time."
"Sorry," Parvati said unapologetically, but didn't pull her hair away. Her heart pounded. It gave her an euphoric rush, somehow, to have it so close Lavender's lips. "I forgot."
"So who do you prefer?" Parvati asked purposefully.
Lavender beamed, as if she had been waiting for that very question since the moment the conversation begun. "Lloyd, of course! I can't resist bad boys - it's their dangerous-ness, I reckon."
Parvati nodded, rubbing her eyes. They felt as heavy as lead.
The fire in the hearth flickered and cowered, casting odd shadows across their faces. One moment, Lavender's dolled-up face could be seen as pure and clear as the moon. But in just the blink of the eye, and the wane of the fire, the room would be plunged into darkness. Lavender would vanish from sight, and Parvati would be alone in a red room that shone with smatters of gold and looked faintly like the it had been streaked with blood.
The firelight dimmed, and Lavender blurred.
It was as if she had been erased all of a sudden. First, her features smeared, then her body blurred; it seemed like Lavender was being viewed through a translucent glass pane.
Lavender was still giggling, but it sounded pained.
Parvati slipped her wand from her pocket into her hand.
But Lavender Brown reappeared a moment later, solid, her dirty-blonde curls and the pink ribbon Parvati had gifted her on the day of the Yule ball bouncing with youthfulness.
The fire roared and crackled to life once more.
Parvati stared.
Lavender frowned, though it looked more of a coy pout that promised loads of fun if one simply stayed with her. "Is there something on my face?" She paled. "Is it a spider?"
"No," said Parvati at last, leaning back in her seat. She smiled, and lied. Her teeth gleamed in the feeble light. "It's nothing. Must have been a trick of the light..."
(The light can't deceive someone blind.)
"Hey, Parvati," Lavender whispered, giggling. " Do you know what my name means?"
"No, what does it mean?"
"It means purity, silence, devotion, and caution. And 'to wash,' but I prefer to forget that part."
By the time October came around, even Snape had witnessed Lavender's blurring. No one had said a word, however. Not even Snape.
Perhaps everyone needed a dose of sanity sometimes, and were willing to overlook a moment of peculiarity from Hogwart's most normal girl. Especially the ones who caused all the hysteria and terror themselves, because though they were harbingers of misery and suffering, they were like Dementors: unequivocally attracted by happiness as a moth was to a flame.
It was due to this reason - sanity - that Parvati left her Dark Arts homework undone and hopped onto Lavender's bed one cold November night.
"Pssst. Lavender, are you awake?" Parvati leaned down to whisper into Lavender's ear.
All of a sudden, Lavender's neck flashed a brilliant red and gold. The light shone through her clothes and threw the room into sharp relief. It was as if a tiny sun was residing somewhere in her neck, below her clothes. A glint of gold — Parvati winced and covered her eyes.
"Mmm," Lavender mumbled.
Parvati hoped Lavender wasn't having another wet dream about Won-Won.
Carefully, with eyes closed, she bent to touch Lavender's neck. Her heart pounded. She trailed down a finger and felt a cold, metallic chain that led to a tiny object and lifted it. It felt warm, like Lavender's soft, unscarred hands.
The glow intensified, and Parvati slowly opened her eyes. In her hands, was a glowing sundial marked by Egyptian hieroglyphs and runes. On its face, an exquisitely carved Eye of Ra stared dispassionately into her soul. Parvati shivered. She noticed that the shadow that told the time from the sun's position was gradually ticking down. The light was dimming as it did so.
Lavender blurred again. Parvati dropped the sundial in surprise, and Lavender reappeared, awake.
"I-I'm sorry." Parvati stumbled off Lavender's bed, her nightgown fluttering as she went. "I was just curious about that."
"What do you mean?" Lavender said absently and fluffed her pillow.
"The sundial - is it - is it related to your.…" Parvati lowered her voice. "Blurring?"
Lavender laughed. "Blurring? I don't know what you're saying — maybe you got cursed by the Slytherins."
"Lavender, you know you can tell me anything," Parvati persisted. "I've been your best friend for seven years - almost half your life!" She clasped Lavender's hands - 'so warm,' she thought - beseechingly.
Lavender hesitated.
"Does that mean nothing to you?" Parvati asked, instantly guilty. She regretted the words. It was underhanded and awfully Slytherin to take advantage of their friendship that way, even if it was for Lavender's own good.
She watched Lavender glance around the common room, before relenting.
"Well - I don't know where to begin," Lavender said uncertainly. "Before the start of the school year - it was in June or so - oh, maybe July? - when I bought this sundial necklace from - from Borgin and Burkes." Upon spitting those two words, her voice shook with anger.
"They said it would make me smart - oh, I never should have trusted them! When I put it on, some spooky guy told me that the sundial would tell me my soul mate at the cost of my life. And when I tried to take it off, the clasps wouldn't budge. The sundial tells me the time I ha-have left be-be-before I d-d-die." Lavender wailed. "The closer I am to my soulmate, the faster the time run-runs out."
She swallowed, and did not look Parvati in the eye. "I bet you're absolutely disgusted - I mean," - Lavender choked - "who wouldn't be?"
Parvati's heart skipped a beat. How hadn't she noticed Lavender's feelings for her? They were best friends, for Merlin's sake! But perhaps it was the same way Lavender had never noticed her love, which she buried six-feet-deep in her soul.
"It-it isn't right for girls to-to be together." She hiccupped and her tears slipped down her rosy cheeks, like dewdrops on flower petals.
Parvati leaned down and kissed a tear. There was a flash of light. She pulled back and squeezed Lavender's pale hands that had violet nail polish at their fingertips. Her hands were soft, like flower petals. "So?"
"What-what would the society say? Or our parents?"
"They don't have to know," Parvati said, and Lavender brightened considerably.
"You're going to keep this secret from your sister?" Lavender questioned, glancing flirtatiously from the corner of her eyes.
It didn't feel right to have to choose between two parts of her soul: Lavender, her soulmate, or Padma, her other half. But it wasn't as if a secret was going to hurt anyone.
"Well - I suppose," said Parvati, twining a lock of her black hair.
Lavender smiled, pleased as a cat that had caught a canary.
"But we've gotta tell them someday, right?" Parvati continued.
"Of course," said Lavender in a room of darkness and sleeping lions.
"Of course," Parvati echoed, though she knew it wasn't the truth. They would never tell anyone. Lavender wouldn't allow it, until she was dead and free from the ostracisation such a proclamation would cause. People would know, eventually. But it would just be Parvati telling them because by that time, Lavender Brown would be dead.
"Do you want to dance?" Parvati's eyes sparkled.
"I'd be honoured, good sir," Lavender curtseyed and laughed, abandoning her Yule Ball date - Seamus Finnigan - to spin around and around with Parvati.
Lavender had never looked more beautiful.
"DEAN! TO YOUR LEFT!" Parvati shouted as she danced between the spell's light.
Green, dodge, green, step to the right, green, spin, red, to the left. It was a dance in three time, to the music of death: thuds, shrieks, and the screams of a slaughter.
It was war, and it was a fragile dance.
Along with Dean, she casted spellfire after spellfire against three Death Eaters.
Lavender stood on the balcony contemplating her death and that unforgivable theft. She had a choice to walk the road of life or death; to do what was easy or what was right.
She swallowed and leapt off.
It was time to return what she had stolen.
When the war was over and the dance had ended, Parvati went to find Lavender.
"Lavender?" she asked Madam Pomfrey. "Have you seen Lavender Brown?"
"The dolled-up girl with blue eyes?"
"Yes!"
Madam Pomfrey gave her a sympathetic squeeze on the arm.
Parvati's heart dropped.
"She's over there, dearie," said Madam Pomfrey, pointing to a bed some distance away.
"Thank you!"
When she arrived where Lavender lay, silently, she gasped. Scars laced across the entirety of Lavender's face.
"Lavender?" Parvati said hesitantly.
"Hey Parvati," said Lavender weakly. "Do-do you want to know something?"
Parvati shook her head, but Lavender stubbornly continued.
"My name," she whispered, "was Sirius Black, I think. And I stole the body of Lavender Brown. The veil was just so dark and horrid. I d-didn't want to, but I couldn't help it."
"I'm not even supposed to exist here. The blurring wa-was a side-effect of my existence tangling with the sundial's curse. I don't remember much of what happened before I fell through the veil, but I do know that my previous name had a colour too. And-and that I did like beautiful, beautiful girls before…."
"Beautiful, beautiful girls…."
Lavender fell silent.
The existence of Lavender Brown was an illusion, and Lavender Brown had died.
Parvati held her hands, which had turned as cold as ice.
Everything was fragile. Anyone could become a memory.
A stranger awoke on a bed. The lights were strange. The hands holding hers were cold. Her face felt hot and wet. She blinked. She was no longer in that terrible darkness.
"Lavender?" A woman with dark skin and black hair cried jubilantly. Tears glittered on her face. She was holding a miniature sundial in her fist. It did not shine.
"Who are you?" queried the stranger.
The woman's smile crumbled. "I'm sorry. You just look like somebody that I used to know."
Parvati walked into the forbidden forest and found a star land in her hands that night. Not a violet, a time turner, nor the sundial. It flew wildly, out of the blue, as if summoned by accidental magic. Parvati nearly cried in frustration. What use was a star when Lavender was dead?
Parvati sighed and flipped it in her hand idly. On the third time, starlight shot from the star.
She gaped.
"Lavender?"
Her anachronistic, suicidal, Lavender Brown smiled and cleansed her soul.
A/N: Written for Round 0 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Team Falmouth Falcons, Position: Chaser.
Main prompt: Write about a character with little or no screentime, paired with a character whom you hate; the characters are Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown respectively.
Additional prompts (are underlined):
Sundial
Violet
Somebody that I used to know