Team: Pride of Portree
Round: Allow Me To Introduce...
Position: Keeper
Keeper's Prompt: How I Met Your Mother: Hey Beautiful — The Solids
Word count: 2269
Beta love to: Story Please, Ebenbild and Crochetaway
Post-war AU. Lavender lives, Parvati dies. Potter is an Auror. Prompt inspiration explanation is detailed after the story. That Potter is only referred to by his last name is a stylistic choice to distinguish him as serving as a narrator whose purpose is merely to help tell Lavender's story.
They Buried My Beauty
Fenrir Greyback raced through the dark and filthy streets, eyes darting back and forth, looking for a place to hide. Finally, he spotted a dumpster and slipped behind it, then peered out carefully. The night seemed quiet and calm around him. No one, not even a mouse moved out there. He exhaled and tried to calm his racing heart.
Soft, cold night air brushed his neck and he turned around sharply. The silver blade flashed in the air. Droplets of scarlet covered the pavement. Fenrir blinked a few times as if his mind had not caught up with reality. Then his head fell on the ground with a dull thud.
The prisoner was standing in the middle of the cell, heavy chains pulling her arms apart and towards the ceiling, just a little too high, forcing her to stand on the very tips of her toes, to avoid the manacles cutting the skin of her chained wrists. Her body was slumped very slightly forward and head bowed, with long messy curls obscuring her face from view. She was thin and her skin looked almost unnaturally pale but her scarlet robes were expensive and very well-kempt. It was as though she had merely been preparing to go out to a party when the Aurors had grabbed her.
Auror Potter tore his eyes from the file and glanced at his colleague, Auror Kline. "Why is she tied up like that?" he asked finally.
The man shook his head. "That bitch took down five of our men when we came for her. Even when we got her wand, she kept kicking. Hit Wallace right in the—" The Auror blushed then moved on. "She has a lot of fight in her. Besides, you know what they say about…well, you know."
When Potter gave him a glance of annoyance and confusion, the man shrugged. "Well, she was attacked during the war, wasn't she? Her and her friend. I reckon that's what messed her up. But who knows if she didn't…gain something else when she lost her sanity?" A look of realization passed Potter's face, quickly followed by anger. Kline bit his tongue, remembering the young man's past.
Potter flipped open the file. "What is it they think she did?"
Kline said nothing, just motioned to the file in Potter's hand. He looked down and flinched at the photographs.
"And it says here you caught her trying to steal a…perfume?" he asked after a second, his frown deepening.
"Yes, sir." Kline didn't address how ridiculous it sounds. Probably because he didn't know what to make of it. They'd been tracking the woman for over a year now, during which she had forgone all luxuries. Judging by the visibility of her ribs that included decent food. Yet according to the papers, she had waltzed into a Muggle department store to steal a bottle of "Bewitched" and was caught almost by accident.
"Right; thank you, Kline, I will take the interrogation myself!" Potter closed the file and pushed open the door to the cell.
As his footsteps echoed in the circular room, the woman raised her head slowly and Potter found himself looking directly into a pair of blue eyes. For a moment he was stunned. He almost called out for Kline, to ask why they didn't strip the prisoner of her glamour, before recalling that the cell itself blocked out all magic. She didn't look much different. That was the issue. As Potter stepped closer, he realized she was the same while also different. Her blonde hair had been slightly messed up in the fight, but it was very neatly curled and trimmed. Her make-up fit the red robes right down to the eye shadow and lipstick. Even the scars across her face had been expertly covered up. In fact, the only imperfect thing about her was the split lip and small trickle of blood down her chin.
Potter gathered himself and took a breath before addressing her: "Hello, Lavender. It's been a while."
"Better than before and yet still not as good as I should be." Her voice was grating and sharp.
Potter hesitated, unsure of what to say. Finally, he tapped the file in his hand. "Tell me about this."
Lavender licked her lips and smiled. If Potter squinted, he could almost imagine they were back at Hogwarts. For a moment he thought she would not answer. When she did, her voice was bitter: "I used to be beautiful!"
Lavender was born to be beautiful. That's what her mother always told her and she believed it wholeheartedly. She knew that everyone had a place in this world. Girls, who were smart like Hermione, had a place. And girls who were fierce like Ginevra. And girls who were kind like Parvati. And girls who were beautiful like she was. For the longest time, that was enough for her. She didn't need to be anything else as long as she was pretty. But if she was going to be pretty, then she was going to be the very prettiest girl out there.
For a while, she almost succeeded. She knew everything about makeup and clothes and what made her look the best. Lavender spent a good chunk of her years at Hogwarts on diets and grueling workout regimes but they paid off. She looked absolutely stunning in the end. And she loved every bit of it. She loved the attention from others in the hallways; the way they stared after her, the way they called her beautiful when she walked past.
When Madame Pomfrey took off the bandages three days after the attack, Lavender didn't cry or scream. She didn't say a single word when she traced the long claw marks on her face and felt them under her fingers. Another three days later, in the afternoon of May the 9th, as she got back from Parvati's funeral, she finally saw herself in the mirror. She cried for a month straight.
"And after that?" Potter asked.
"After?" she replied, a strange smile curving her lips. "I couldn't sleep. I lay awake for hours and hours and stared at the ceiling. I covered up all the mirrors in my parents' house but I saw it everywhere. On silverware, in the water in my glass. No matter how hard I tried, it never left me. I lay on the bed and heard it whispered in my ear."
"Whispered what?"
Something shifted in Lavender's smile. Something that made it mocking, cruel. She leaned as much forward as the chains would allow and her voice lowered to a hoarse whisper: "You're ugly. You're ugly!"
Old habits died hard. Lavender still woke up early to do as her mother had once taught her. She styled her hair and painted her face, taking pride in how precise and carefully chosen each color and each stroke was. She took hours sometimes to choose her robes and felt a jolt of pleasure when she got their colors to compliment her complexion or her favorite shade of lipstick exactly. Once a week she found the time, no matter what she was doing, to run a hot bath with essential oils, put on a facemask and later, paint her nails in the most intricate patterns she could think of.
And then she went out to hunt. At first, she wasn't very good at it. She had never had to track prey. It took her a long time to learn, but she was determined. Almost as determined as she was to locate a new bottle of the perfume Parvati had gifted her. Lavender didn't find the bottle but she learned from her mistakes. She took care of her cuts and bruises and got up again every time she fell until she was the best. And it was only after her first kill that she could finally sleep again.
"But you didn't go after Greyback right away," Potter recalled the file. There had been at least a dozen killings before that. Maybe more that they simply couldn't pin on her.
"Nobody starts by challenging the master," she replied softly.
"So the others?"
"They were just practice."
A chill ran down Potter's spine as he thought back to what she called practice. Men and women killed with precision, in their own homes or on public streets. It made no difference to their murderess. All Death Eaters—
—No. All Death Eaters, except one. "What about Alicia Crane?"
He thought he saw a flash of sadness on her face. Or perhaps he just imagined it. She licked her cherry red lips and lowered her head, eyes focusing on the tip of her boot. "She wouldn't give me the eyeshadow," Lavender whispered, almost inaudibly.
She saw it first on the window of a shop. It caught her eye. She'd been hunting for Rabastan Lestrange for a good few months. The gold shimmered in the sunlight and she stopped right there, in the middle of the street. Without thinking another second about her prey, she rushed inside, hands already reaching for her coin purse.
She was too late. The woman in front of her with rosy red cheeks and dark brown hair had bought the last one before Lavender could. She offered the woman more money in the shop but was refused. She rushed out after her. She pleaded and offered all of her savings but the woman gently turned it down.
Lavender didn't mean to hurt her, not really. She just saw the gold shimmering and couldn't think straight. She saw eyes painted with the gold. She saw how beautiful they were. She drew the long dagger she had taken to carrying in case she lost her wand in a fight.
The blow wasn't enough to kill the woman. She received a gash on her side but no permanent injuries. Lavender got the palette of gold eyeshadow. Yet when she sat in her room in the sleazy hotel, painted her face, and stared into the mirror, she didn't feel guilt. She felt, if only just for a fleeting second, beautiful.
"You're telling me honestly that you trained yourself with the wand and dagger, hunted men and women down like animals and killed them just because you couldn't feel beautiful?" Potter knew she'd been vain during her school years, even to the point of being vapid in every other way. Still, he couldn't quite wrap his mind around it. He'd lost people in the war. Others had lost people in the war. Some of them had gone mad with grief and sadness. And while he couldn't deny that Lavender had been through hell when Fenrir Greyback savaged her, he couldn't help the anger rising in his throat that she would justify her madness with the three scars across her face.
"Why not just go to a healer?" he asked, his voice barely still even though the anger made him want to shout.
Lavender laughed and it echoed in the small room, too loud and too empty. "What I have can't be cured by a healer. The only balm for my scars was Fenrir Greyback's blood!"
She decided she was ready when even painting her eyes gold could not scare off the nightmares or disappear the monster from the mirror every time she looked at it. She had trained for this and she had to be willing to finally try to follow through. The Aurors had already taken an interest in her activities and she couldn't allow herself to be captured before she'd achieved her final goal.
Hunting was ninety percent a waiting game and Lavender had the patience. She hung around and made notes, drawing up a schedule of his movements. She hid on rooftops and surveyed possible places to ambush the man. She sharpened her dagger. Silver, just in case that had an advantage with werewolves.
When she finally pounced on Greyback, he never saw it coming. When Lavender showed herself, he ran right in the direction that she had planned. She'd chosen a night as far as the full moon as possible and when he was in the city. Cornering him in the alley was almost too easy but she still savored it when droplets of his blood landed on her face
And then on her way back, to slip into the night and never be seen by any of her pursuers, she saw the bottle of perfume on the display window of a department store. The one she'd been searching for. She could have come back the next day during opening hours. Except she could not. She could not be certain it would still be there.
On her way in, she tripped an alarm and it was just her luck a nosy off-duty Auror was nearby. She could not get away before reinforcements arrived, and no matter how hard she fought, they took her.
"And are you beautiful now?" Potter demanded, slapping the file on the table.
Lavender looked up again, then slowly shook her head. "Beautiful? My beauty was forever buried on the 9th of May. This was just me…making peace!" She exhaled and her voice turned suddenly tired: "Now get out. You have all the evidence you need!"
He stared at her for a second or two longer, then Potter turned to leave. At the door, he still paused, her words echoing in his head. Slowly he glanced over his shoulder and when their eyes met, he saw it again. Different than at Hogwarts. Except just the same.
Parvati Patil had been the one whose eyeshadow was golden and lips a bright cherry red.
Regarding the prompt, it is a song about a man longing for a beautiful girl and as such, it inspired the plot of how Lavender seemingly obsesses over and longs for her own lost physical beauty and then how it turns out to be her grieving over losing another beautiful girl in her life - Parvati. I was also inspired by the line "If I go, I go alone" in the way Lavender embarks on her solitary quest for revenge.