Notes: Written for the 12 Days of Christmas Style challenge.
Warning for suicidal ideation. Song lyrics from Sentenced: "Fragile"
Sometimes it feels it would be better for us all
If I ceased to exist or was never born at all
Sometimes it feels it would be easier to fall
Than to flutter in the air with these wings so weak and torn
Everyone thought Parvati was the social butterfly of her year. The gossip queen. The pretty, put-together princess with an overly brash tongue and all the traits that made Gryffindor House what it was. Even her twin, Padma, believed that she was perfectly all right, perfectly normal.
Everyone was wrong.
"Good night, Parvati," Lavender smiled as she closed her bed-curtains with a flamboyant twirl of her wand. Parvati smiled weakly at her friend, though she knew Lavender couldn't see her anymore.
"Good night, Lav," Parvati whispered. After waiting a few moments, she clambered noiselessly out of bed, flicking a Disillusionment charm over her. She knew it wasn't that great of one-certainly their other roommate, Miss Know It All Granger, would have discerned it-but then again, Miss Know It All Granger was busy in the common room or something, having her tonsils explored by Ron Weasley. Between that and some of the older years still trickling in, Parvati knew that she would have no trouble slipping out of the portrait hole.
It was an overly familiar haunt for students who felt like she did, but she headed to it anyway. The Astronomy Tower. Some nights she liked to perch on the railing and count the stars, wondering if this flickering breeze or that gust of wind would be enough to propel her from her unsteady seat. Other nights, she simply curled up in a corner, tracing the tip of her wand over the delicate web of veins in her arms and wondering what it would feel like to let the blood that pulsed there flow free.
This time, she stood at the edge, pressing into the polished stone of the railing. What if it gave way, right now? she wondered. What would it feel like? Would it hurt? Not that she cared if it did. She was so tired of everything. She didn't want to die, not exactly. She just wanted it all to stop. The overly high expectations pinned on her by professors and her parents alike. The constant pressure to be someone, to smile, to get good grades but not too good, come on, Parvati, you aren't like your sister, after all. Be brave, but not too brave, no one needs a martyr. Do your family proud, do your school proud, do everyone proud but yourself, because there's nothing anymore, not for you.
And in the meantime, it ate her alive, twisting her stomach until she felt hollow, and she didn't even realise that she was crying until she tasted salt on her lips.
"Not today," she whispered into the damp breeze that curled around her face, lifted her slightly sweaty hair from her forehead. "Not today."
Then Parvati turned and calmly retraced her steps to Gryffindor Tower.