Author's Note: Written for…
Assignment #10. Lesson: Herbology (task #3). Task: Write about a dead person coming back to life.
Appreciating the Females Challenge. Prompt: powerful
Writing Club. Prompt: Write about a wish.
Daily Prompt. Prompt: tombstone
Wishful Thinking
836 words
Lavender had always thought cemeteries to be quite creepy. She actively avoided the one close to her home, even if it meant making silly excuses in order to take a different path. She had even opted out of attending her grandmother's funeral because she didn't think she could handle it.
Though strangely, now that she had finally found her way into one, she found it more peaceful than creepy. She wanted nothing more than to curl up beneath one of the large willow trees and nap for a while. For some reason she was so tired, but at the same time felt like she had just woken up. She couldn't explain it.
She couldn't explain a lot of things, she realized. Such as why or how she had come to the cemetery in the middle of the night, or why she was wearing the ugliest dress she had ever seen. Her only clue was the inscription on a nearby tombstone which she caught sight of when searching for her wand:
'Lavender Moira Brown
April 23rd, 1980 - May 2nd, 1998
Beloved daughter and friend.'
Some memories started coming back to her then. Death Eaters at Hogwarts; fighting alongside her friends; a painful gash across her stomach.
"I'm dead," she said to herself, staring at the tombstone in awe.
Her first thought was to go home and check on her parents. Surely they would be elated to see her alive and well, even if she couldn't explain how it was possible. But instead of apparating to her parents' house, Lavender felt herself strangely drawn somewhere else, thought she could put her finger on where.
Without a destination in mind, she disapparated from the cemetery and found herself standing outside a small thatched cottage she had never seen before. Curious, she marched to the front door and knocked.
Seamus was the last person she had expected to answer the door, but Lavender was nevertheless pleased to see him. She had no idea who lived or died that night, nor who won the war.
"Lavender?"
He was staring at her as if she was a ghost, and she realized belatedly that she might just be one. But she didn't feel ghostly or hollow. And she had most definitely apparated. Ghosts couldn't apparate, could they?
She tried to push aside the racing thoughts and focus on the boy – no, man, in front of her. She hadn't thought much time had passed since her demise, but it was clear just by looking at Seamus that at least a year had gone by. He looked much older than he had the last time she'd seen him, though beyond the full beard he sported, she could explain why he looked different. She thought maybe it was his aura that had changed.
"Aren't you happy to see me?" she wondered when a full minute had passed of them staring at each other.
"This is a dream," he said, rubbing his head.
"Do you dream of me often, love?" Lavender winked at him as she pushed her way into the cottage but gagged at the overwhelming scent of whiskey pouring off of him. She made her way to the only seat not covered in discarded clothing or old pizza boxes and sat down. "How are you, Seamus?"
He waited a while before moving, and when he finally did it was to reach for the open bottle of whiskey on the coffee table.
"Please don't," Lavender said. "I need to talk to you and I'd rather you be sober."
"Too late," he said, and took a swig, never taking his eyes off her. "Why are you here?"
"I don't know. I died, I think. I don't remember anything after getting hit, but I was in the cemetery just a few minutes ago. I don't know how I got there or how much time as passed." She wrung her hands, looking around the sparse cottage for any clues as to what she had missed while she was … away.
"It's been three years," Seamus said. "Why now?"
"I've been dead for three years?"
He nodded to a calendar on the wall. Lavender rushed to it, pressing a finger to the date marked in red: May 2nd, 2001. Something clicked as she stared at the calendar and she spun around excitedly.
"The planets are aligned!"
"I'm sorry?"
"The planets only align once every five hundred years, and the next time that was meant to happen was spring of 2001. It's right now!" she said, as giddy as when Professor Sinistra had first explained the phenomenon to her. "It's a powerful event. Magic is most potent during an alignment. That must be why I'm back."
"I wished for it."
"You what?"
Seamus shuffled his feet. "I wished you hadn't died ... aloud. I always do on the anniversary."
Lavender smiled, moving closer to him. "So you did miss me?"
He reached out for her, taking her into his arms and holding her there, not that she minded the proximity. "More than anything."