We were sitting in our dorm, doing each other's nails when Professor McGonagall came in with the news. Her eyes were red and puffy, as if she'd been crying.
"Is something wrong, Professor?" I asked.
She didn't answer me, and that was the first indication I got that something was wrong. "Girls, I have some bad news. Your sister Padma," she nodded to Parvati, "passed away last night."
I felt my heart stop. Padma couldn't be dead. It wasn't possible. As I put my hand to my mouth, it knocked over the bottle of nail polish we were using onto the floor. The viscous liquid formed a puddle on the carpet, but no one seemed to notice.
I stole a look at Parvati and saw that she had paled and looked like she was going to fall over. I gave her a reassuring look and she smiled at me weakly.
"What did she die from?" asked Parvati, her mouth forming the words I wished to ask. Both of us knew she was too young to die from natural causes. She was a healthy person, and she would've let us know if she had any diseases.
"Drug overdose" said Professor McGonagall quietly. "We found a stash of some drug in her bottom drawer."
We couldn't say a word.
"I'm sorry," she said, as she gave us each a hug. Her hugs felt stiff and formal, like she hadn't hugged anyone in a long time. Still, I melted into it, feeling the tears beginning to come on.
She left the room, leaving Parvati and I to stare at each other in shock. My expression was mirrored on her face.
Padma? Take drugs? That couldn't be possible. She was everything Parvati and I weren't. She wasn't scared to be her true self, while the two of us hid under false identities. She was a goddess. Both Parvati and I idolized her, when the lights went out, we would talk quietly, as so not to wake up the other girls, we would talk about how much we wanted to be like Padma. How we wished we had her courage and her strength, how we wished we had her kindness.
She couldn't be dead.
I looked up at Parvati, and I could see the same thoughts racing through her head.
Then we hugged each other and cried, because there was nothing else we could do.
About a week after Professor McGonagall first came to us with the news, Dumbledore came to see us.
"I know it's a bit soon," he said sadly, all the unshed tears in the world seeming to be held in his clear blue eyes. "But could one of you write a little something about Padma, that we could perhaps say at her funeral? Not a complete eulogy, just something small, like a poem"
The word funeral set us off all over again and he exited quietly, leaving us to our tears.
A few days later, Professor Flitwick came to see us. I couldn't help but wonder how all these teachers knew the password to our common room. He held Padma's trunk in his hands.
"Here," he said quietly. "She wrote a note, it's taped to the inside. She wanted you two to have her things."
The moment he left, we flipped the lid open, and sure enough, a note was hanging from the inside.
To Whoever Finds This,
With the risks I've been taking, I know I won't be here much longer. One little mistake and I'll be dead. And if I do leave this world, I want you all to know something. Lavender, Parvati, I want you two to have this. Go through it as much as you want, read everything. You'll understand my reasons once you do. And I just want to say I'm sorry. I wish I couldn't found another way out of this, but I couldn't. I've seen the way you two look at me, but I'm not as brave as you think. Read the stuff. You'll understand. I love you both. Try not to forget about me.
Padma
A royal blue cloth covered everything in the trunk. We lifted that up, and the first thing we saw was a diary. It was blue, like practically everything else in the trunk, but it seemed to have a special glow.
"I never knew she kept a diary," Parvati whispered.
"Neither did I," I whispered back.
Somehow, it felt right to whisper. Like her trunk was something sacred, something better than the both of us. And in a way, it was. It was the only thing we had left of her.
We stayed up until dawn, just reading about her life. Her life, in her words. I couldn't believe some of the things that were in there. She'd gone through so much, and she had managed to keep it from us all this time.
"We didn't know her at all," Parvati whispered hoarsely when we were done. Her face was wet with tears. I pulled a tissue from the box on my dresser and handed it to her. It was an unconscious act.
"I know," I replied, trying not to cry myself. I was filled with hurt, an aching pain in my chest that wouldn't go away. How could she have kept all that to herself all this time? She was brave, as brave as we thought and more. I know I would've cracked if I were in her shoes.
"Why didn't she tell us?" asked Parvati, "It's like she didn't trust us."
And all of a sudden, it was like I understood. "She did trust us. We were her best friends. It was just her problems were so deep. She had dug a hole for herself that she couldn't climb out of. She didn't think we would be able to help, and she didn't want to burden us with her problems."
Parvati was sniffling. "That's just like her too. Even when she has the biggest problem of all, she's still trying to help others. Maybe we could've helped. Maybe if she told us, we could have gotten her out of that mess and she'd still be alive today."
Somehow, we started sobbing again, and I had to put away her things so our tears wouldn't drench them. We fell asleep on my bed and didn't wake up until dinnertime. Nobody had come to wake us up. When I went down to eat, my back was sore from the awkward position in which I slept.
That night we ushered Hermione off to sleep in a different room. She went without protest. Then we soundproofed the place and turned up Parvati's stereo as loud as it would go. We spent the whole night shimmying to the music, dancing all our troubles away.
"Lav," said Parvati sleepily as the sun rose. "Tell me 'bout your past again. I just want to make sure I know you."
I agreed. "I was a bookish kid, a bit like Hermione. And that kind of caused problems once I started school...."
*~*~*
My first day of first grade, when I walked in the door, my hair braided into pigtails, a red backpack hanging from my shoulders, hugging my favourite book in my arms.
A girl with bright red corkscrew curls came up to me, two twin girls following her. "What's your name?" she asked, squinting at me.
"Lavender," I replied, hugging my book even closer.
"That's a silly name" she announced, sucking her thumb. "Lavender isn't a person's name, it's the name of a colour!" She glared at me accusingly. "You're lying, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not!" I insisted.
"This is Lisa," she said to the twin in the baby blue dress, "and this is Megan." She pointed to the other one, who was dressed in pastel. "My name's Elizabeth. Isn't it a pretty name?" She twirled on the teal rug, making her skirt flounce up. Her two friends nodded, their hair bouncing up and down. She
"Yeah."
She squinted at me again. "You're lying! Stop lying, your liar! You don't like my name at all!"
"No, I do, really!" I protested, backing away. "It's a very pretty name." In my hurry to get away from her, my book fell to the floor. My book of fairy tales, my absolute favourite book in the world.
"What's that?" asked Lisa, pointing.
"It's a book" I replied quietly, my lip trembling.
"What's a book?" asked Megan.
"It's a story" I answered.
"Like a bedtime story?" asked Lisa.
"Sort of" I said. "You just have to read it?"
"Read?" asked Lisa and Megan in unison. "What's that?"
Elizabeth wouldn't let me answer. "You don't need to know what reading is" she scolded them. They shrank back at her angry voice, and they both gave a slight nod, their lips trembling. She turned back to me. "Because it's stupid!" she said passionately.
"No, it's not!" I screamed. "It's the most wonderful thing in the whole world!"
"No, it's stupid. My mommy said so, and my mommy's never wrong. And you're a filthy liar, so nobody should ever listen to you!"
"Don't say that!" I cried, grabbing my book from her grubby hands and hugging it like a stuffed animal. "I'm not a liar! And you don't have a pretty name! Your name's the ugliest name in the entire world!"
She stopped, shocked for a moment. I don't think she had ever been insulted before. But she recovered quickly, and she came at me, her icy blue eyes flashing. She looked so much like the wicked witch in my stories that I took a step away, scared. She advance on me, like a predator on its prey, until she had me backed up against a wall.
"This is what I think of your stupid book" she spat at me. And she grabbed it out of my arms, and ripped out the pages one by one. She tore each one into tiny little pieces and threw them out the window. They scattered onto the playground, small pieces of confetti.
I screamed bloody murder.
The teachers came running. It must have been quite a scene, me standing there, my face red and blotchy, bawling my eyes out, and Elizabeth and her friends, standing there, looking guilty.
Unfortunately for me, she was the teacher's pet. And she knew how to tell a good lie.
"Lavender," the teacher said, reading off my nametag, "whatever happened?"
"She ripped my book up!" I cried between sobs.
"Elizabeth, is this true?"
"No, Ms. Wilson. I was just standing here with my bestest friends in the whole wide world, Lisa and Megan, when Lavender started crying and accusing me of ripping up her book. I didn't do it Ms. Wilson, I swear!" She flashed an angelic smile.
"Lavender, lying is a very bad thing," Ms. Wilson lectured. "Elizabeth didn't rip up your book, you probably dropped it and it fell. You shouldn't blame others for things you did. Now apologize to her."
"But she really did!" The words slipped out of my mouth and my hand sprang up to cover my mouth. I instantly regretted what I had just said.
"Lavender!" Ms. Wilson seemed to be getting really mad now. "Haven't I already told you that lying is bad? Will I have to send you to the principal's office?"
I shook my head, hot tears streaming down my face again, blinding me. I stuck my thumb in my mouth and sucked, knowing defeat. From the corner of my eye, I could see Elizabeth and her friends silently laughing.
"Now apologize!"
"I'm sorry" I whispered, not meaning it at all.
"It's okay," she said sweetly. I had to admit, she could really act like a little angel when she wanted to. Too bad the teachers didn't know how vicious she really was.
Ms. Wilson left us, and the smile was instantly wiped off her face. She smirked at me, and I was surprised to see that even people my age could have such a mean look on their face.
"Don't start things you can't win, you stupid liar. And with me, you'll never ever win!" She stuck out her tongue at me, coloured purple from grape lollipops. Then she and her friends sauntered off, mostly likely to torment someone else.
I went home in tears that day. All five and a half years of my life, I had been looking forward to going to school. Never had I thought that it could be this horrible.
"Lavender, what's wrong?" my mother asked, as soon as I walked in the door.
I refused to tell her. Even at my age, I knew it would just make it all worse.
I protested and sulked and whined, for hours and hours; I used every method I could think of, but she managed to get it out of me in the end. Through tears and a chocolate chip cookie, the whole miserable story came out.
She was outraged when I finished. "I'm going to have to see your teacher about this."
"No, Mummy don't! It'll just make them hate me even more!"
I screamed, I sobbed, I raged, I whined, I beat my fists on the ground and threw a tantrum, I even tried to threaten her. But she wouldn't listen to me, my angry words seemed to go in one ear and come out the other side.
She tried to reason with me. "Now Lavender, this is for your own good."
"No, it's not!" I wanted to protest. But my earlier efforts had worn me out and taken away my voice, so I was left to sit there, helpless and afraid.
The results of her talk were just what I had predicted them to be. The teacher hadn't listened to a word she said, while pretending to be very interested and worst of all, Ms. Wilson had informed the class that my mother had come in to speak with her.
They all ignored me for a week. Elizabeth was quite a powerful figure in the class, and many of the kids did as she asked. I couldn't tell what was worse, being ignored or being hated. At least, when you were hated, you still had a chance of talking to other people. The whole world couldn't be against you.
It's scary enough being a little first grader, wandering through the large empty halls of a school, staring up at all those people who're larger than you, and hearing your own scared little voice echo through an empty corridor.
But when you have no friends to be with, it's a thousand times worse.
Slowly, with much patience, I learned to ignore their spiteful words. In the halls and the classroom, I averted their eyes, so they wouldn't notice me.
They soon noticed that they just didn't bother me anymore. So they resorted to physical abuse, throwing wads of paper at me as I entered a room, harshly pulling the pigtails I wore, tripping me on the playground at playtime.
Each day I came home, plastered with new bruises and cuts. And when my mother asked me what happened, I told her I fell. After my first disastrous incident, I knew that this was something I had to face alone.
Their petty abuse didn't hurt me much. Except that it sank my self-esteem to new depths. It wouldn't have mattered much if I didn't like them. But the thing was, I did.
My fondest wish was to have them all like me, to have them forgive me for whatever I did wrong and let me join their select group of friends. Even though I had seen how mean they could become, I didn't care. I wanted to be one of them just the same.
Each day, I tried to convince myself that I didn't like them; that I hated them all for being so rude to me. But by nightfall, my wistful longing was always back, and I cried myself to sleep wondering what I did wrong.
When I woke up, my eyes were red and puffy from crying all night and I splashed them vigorously with icy cold water, trying to get the colour back to normal. And at school, they bombarded me with hard objects, the pointy tips leaving dents in my skin.
And then, the year was finally over. I spent a glorious summer at home, lying on a lawn chair in the backyard and burying myself in a book. We spent two weeks on the southern shores of England, practically living by the seashore. We went swimming every day and I lay on the warm sand, letting the gentle surf wash over me. Drops of seawater splashed in my mouth, and they tasted deliciously salty on my tongue.
Far too soon, September rolled around, and I was once again set to endure the tortures of school.
I watched their gloomy faces as they filed into the classroom, looking longingly at the beautiful day outside, and I knew they would take their troubles out on me.
Surprisingly, they were all pretty nice to me. I felt my heart skip a beat. Maybe I would finally make some friends.
I had gotten my hopes up too soon. Elizabeth walked into the classroom then, her face as scrunched up and mean as ever. "Oh look, it's the liar"
I felt my face turn bright red as the ridiculing laughs of the class began to start.
Later, as I thought it over, it was really Elizabeth's fault. The rest of them only followed her. If only I could find a way to get back at her. To embarrass her. To make her feel as miserable as she had made me feel.
But I couldn't find her weakness.
There wasn't much a little grade two girl like me could do to get back at someone. Nasty thoughts swirled around in my head, but I couldn't find a way to put any of them into action.
My hatred for her grew. Soon, I wasn't satisfied with making her miserable. I wanted to make her beyond miserable. I wanted her to hate herself for what she had done to me. Perhaps...I even wanted to hurt her like she had hurt me. Hurt her beyond recovery.
When a little girl like me thinks those sort of thoughts, you know something's wrong.
Every day I watched her, hating her, while also longing to take her place, to steal her friends away. Even my books couldn't offer me comfort. I read about children with friends, and read as they all went off happily to have adventures. By the time I closed the book, I would find my face wet with tears, my heart longing for something I couldn't have.
Each day was the same. I hated it.
By fourth grade, I just couldn't take it anymore. So I created a new personality for myself.
*~*~*
"And to make a long story short, I became someone they all liked, and I got friends," I finished.
"Then?" she asked drowsily.
"Then you and Padma came along."
"I can't believe you didn't tell me that. I guess I should be mad at you, but I just can't find it in me anymore," she said, then promptly fell asleep.
As she slept, I thought about how much I had regretted my decision once I met her and Padma. They were so happy to be themselves. They didn't let anyone order them around.
The next morning we went to see Dumbledore. Professor McGonagall was kind enough to tell us what the password to his office was.
"What brings you girls here?" he asked as soon as we had seated ourselves across from him. "I sense that this isn't a social visit."
"We can't do it," I said bluntly. "We can't write the thing about Padma."
"We don't know her at all!" Parvati added.
"And what makes you think that?" he asked.
"We were going through her things yesterday," I explained. "And we realized that we didn't know her at all. We only know what she wanted us to know. She had kept so many secrets from us. And now, it's like she's a complete stranger. We can't do this."
"But girls," he said gently. "Everyone else knew her even less. That's why I asked you to do this. So you can give them all something they can remember her by. If it makes you uncomfortable, then don't do it. But if your reason is that you don't think you know her, think of it this way. She opened herself up mostly to you."
We left his office feeling more inspired than ever. "Do you want to do it, or should I?" I asked, her, walking to back to the common room.
"You do it, Lav," she said, her voice sounding almost sad. "I have a feeling she let you know more than she let me know."
And in a way she was right. I remember talking to Padma just a few months in the summer when school was out. We were at the beach. Parvati was lying on the sand, working on her tan, and Padma and I sat by the ocean's edge, letting the surf wash over our toes.
"Let's go in," I suggested, reaching my hand out to pull her up.
She didn't take it. "I'm scared," she said weakly, sounding like a little kid again.
I laughed. "You're not scared of anything. C'mon, it'll be fun."
When she didn't accept my hand the second time, I just grabbed her, and pulled her in. I remember seeing her eyes, scared and small. They seemed to be holding something just not meant for the rest of us mortals.
I could feel her confusion, her fear that was slowly fading away. I remember seeing the scars that were all over her arms. She was so mixed up now, something had happened to her while we were at school that neither Parvati nor I knew about. Something she didn't want to tell us about. But I could sense her fear. She wasn't scared of the ocean, she just thought she was. What she was scared of was everything else, she was scared of the world, and everything in the world that could hurt her fragile self.
I was scared too. I was scared of hurting her somehow, because she didn't deserve to be hurt. She had gone through a lot, and she was bottling it all up inside. She didn't need something to be added to that.
"C'mon," I coaxed again, and this time, I didn't have to pull as hard. She went with me willingly and soon we were splashing in the waves, acting like little kids again. We dove and caught the surf, letting it carry us closer land, then went back out to do it all over again. I caught a glimpse of her once as we swam, and her eyes were sparkling because of the joy that she had just discovered. As I watched her, I realized this was the happiest I had seen her in almost a year.
Later, as we walked along the shore, licking coffee flavoured ice cream cones, she caught my eye and mouthed the word, thanks. In that afternoon, I felt like all the worries had gone out of her and she only wanted to have fun.
"Lav?" asked Parvati, snapping me back to the present.
"I'll do it," I replied, and we continued walking.
Later, as I sat down by my desk, or rather, Hermione's desk, a quill and parchment in front of me, all the words went out of my head. I thought of Padma and everything she was, all the lives she had touched in some way, and I felt I couldn't put that into words. I couldn't write the beauty of her existence down on paper.
"I can't do this!" I wailed, making everyone in the room look up at me. "How can I put her into words?"
I threw a raging fit and from the corner of my eye, I saw Parvati and Hermione exit the room. Great. Now they were leaving me too.
Moments later, Seamus entered. "What's wrong, Lav?" he asked.
"I can't do this!" I wailed again, collapsing in his arms. He held me comfortingly.
"Of course you can."
"No, I can't! I'm not a writer! There's so many people out there who write so much better than me, why couldn't Dumbledore have asked one of them? I'm not made to be a writer either! Everything I've written in the past is just so bloody horrible! I feel like such a failure! And especially now, after I've read all that other stuff..."
He planted a kiss on my forehead. "Slow down. What other stuff?"
I sniffled. "I was researching, trying to come up with some ideas of what to write. I went to the library and found some eulogies for other people's funerals, and when I got to reading them, they were just all so good. I could never write anything like that."
He laughed gently. "And that's where you went wrong."
I looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"
He clasped my hands in his, looking more serious that I had ever seen him, but also, excitement creeping into his eyes. "This isn't some stuffy old wizard we're talking about," he explained, a bit of his Irish lilt coming into his voice. "This is Padma! She's unique, she's special. Your inspiration for this has to come from you, not someone else's eulogy. I'm sure even Hermione Granger would tell you the same thing."
"I guess you're right," I said, still a little unsure.
"Come, we're going to clear your mind so you can really think for yourself. How do you feel right now?"
"Very frustrated," I admitted.
"Let all that out."
So I threw a tantrum.
"I hate this, I hate this, I hate this!" I shrieked as I flung bottle after bottle of makeup against the wall. Seamus watched me quietly, a grin creeping onto his face.
"Actually, this is kind of fun," I said, having calm down quite a bit. I threw a bottle of nail polish against the wall, and heard the satisfying sound of glass shattering.
"Okay," he said. "Now, think of Padma, and write."
And my quill moved across the paper, as if powered by a hidden force.
She enters a room
People turn to see her
They wonder,
Who is this girl?
Her chestnut curls bounce
As she walks
Her navy eyes
Sparkling as they settle
On each person in the room
The quiet scent of water lilies
Follow her as she goes
Marking the path she took
Then as quickly as she appeared
She is gone
And they stare after her, wondering
Where she went
And when she will be back
She is
A little child
Huddling in the corner
Pulling the wings off angels
Because she has lost all hope
For herself
In a world which
She doesn't belong
In a world which
No one appreciates beauty
And she hides in the dark
Because her world is burning down
All around her
And all the wingless angels surround her
Listening to her cry
She bottles all her worries up
Inside
And they try
To offer a comfort
No one can give
Her problems threaten
To destroy her very being
Yet she doesn't care
She pays it
No attention
Instead
She helps
All the others
Even when she is on
The verge of
Death
She is still trying
To help
She has touched the lives
Of many
In her kindness
She has been
Sent down to live
With the rest of us
Mortals
She is
A goddess in disguise
Disclaimer: Anything Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.
AN: Ugh, this is crap. I'm not fishing for compliments here, I seriously think it's crap. As is all other stuff I write… Oh well. Say what you think of it. Review? =)