For Expecting Rain, again, who is the sweetest and greatest and a plethora of other words ending in '-est.' Thanks so much for your reviews, and I hope your exams went well! Happy 2010!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize.
It doesn't make sense.
Doesn't make sense that she would be lying here in her nice, comfortable bed in her nice, clean house, safe and secure and a hero—doesn't make sense that when she has everything she fought for, she would wish for days of horror and nights she couldn't sleep for fear of being discovered, lying on the floor in a sleeping bag, or in a hammock or somewhere equally uncomfortable. It doesn't make sense that she would wish for those days when the days she fought for are upon her.
It feels like scorning their sacrifice, like spitting in their faces—so many people died for this, died so that people like her could keep on keeping on. It feels like it makes their sacrifice worthless and pointless, to wish for things they died to prevent.
To be fair, it's not the pain and horror and fear she misses, not really, though sometimes she thinks maybe the pain and horror and fear would be better substitutes for the guilt and the boredom and the blasted monotony.
It's Seamus and Parvati and Padma and Ginny and Neville and Hannah and—oh, everyone, even the obnoxious ones she just couldn't stand. She misses the people and feeling needed and the camaraderie, because even when things got bad and then worse, even when she was cold and hungry and unclean, even when it felt like the fear would just eat her up, they were still there, and they understood, and their strength was in numbers, there was companionship and love and Lavender misses that.
Now, she is here in this big old house with her parents and they don't know how to be around her, and they tiptoe around the circle they've drawn, like they're walking on eggshells and all Lavender wants is for someone to come smashing through the circle and hold her so tight she feels like she might break. She wants someone to break this loneliness that crawls on her skin.
The healers told her she was one of the lucky ones and 'lucky', in this case, translates into feathery scars that kiss her chin and run down her neck until they reach her shoulder—and then they are angry red vines that run all the way down her back. But the lucky part is more for the fact that she is alive—she will always carry Greyback's scars, but she survived and the scars are easy enough to hide. She wears her hair combed over her left shoulder, is careful to avoid lace and tank tops because dressing up the ugliness would just feel like mocking it, so she covers it up and hides it away.
And she doesn't feel like Lavender. Lavender is girly pink and ribbons and lace and flirty smiles and hearts-on-sleeves and innocence, not this girl she is today. She went from ribbons and lace to blood and sweat and tears and she didn't realize she'd changed until she looked in the mirror—some part of her just expected to be the polka dot and pigtails Lavender from before this horror started, but she's not, and it hurts, to be different and to realize it.
But these are not the greatest tragedies—Lavender would gladly wear her scars on her face and sacrifice all of her pigtails and polka dots innocence to spare her this slow death by loneliness.
That is the greatest tragedy, that after all everyone gave, they would still be so, so alone, and Lavender drowns in her loneliness in the big, big house, in her big, big bed, with the scars.
In September, some of them go back to repeat the seventh year and sit the NEWTs—Lavender does not go back—she sits her NEWTs at the Ministry in late November, walks there amidst the last of the leaves that spin around her ankles and dust the sidewalk and tangle in her hair. It's windy, for November, and she fiddles nervously with her hair, lest it blow over her shoulder and show scars—not that she is ashamed, but they're easier to hide than they are to explain.
She Apparates in an alleyway out of sight from Muggles and lands unsteadily—she is out of practice and she's never quite gotten used to the feeling of being squeezed through a very small tube. Someone's hands—rough and callused and strong—grab her waist and she gasps and they chuckle and then she is staring into the eyes of Seamus Finnegan.
"Seamus!" she gasps and he grins and then suddenly, she's crying—well, sobbing would be more accurate, as crying tends to describe Victorian-esque girls, with lacy handkerchiefs, and delicate tears, and Lavender is doing nothing so neat and tidy and clean as crying—she is sobbing, with snot bubbles and messy tears and her face is going to be blotchy and her eyes are going to be red and puffy when she calms down.
Seamus reacts well, all things considered, and wraps her up tight in his arms and squeezes, pressing his lips to the top of her head and Lavender just feels so relieved that someone is finally, finally chasing her loneliness away.
They don't sit their NEWTs that day; Seamus takes Lavender out and buys her a coffee, which she promptly hands back and orders some tea, instead. Lavender, in a very Lavender-like way, explains that coffee stains your teeth.
It feels good to sit and talk with Seamus, it's healing, and Lavender can feels vestiges of pigtails and polka dots gleaming through the blood and the sweat and tears and pain and loneliness.
She is going to be okay, and for the first time since before the battle, she feels safe and wanted and loved—she does not miss those days, and she has everything she fought for, right here at her fingertips.
Things finally make sense again.
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