Author's Note: I do not and never will own Harry Potter.
Written for the Occasion-a-Day Competition/Challenge. September 16 Prompt: Write about someone's unusual collection or hobby.
Some people collected bottle caps or knuts (or pennies, if they were Muggle). Others collected patterned socks or books or ships trapped in bottles (if you looked close enough, you could see the sea foam spray against the mast).
Lavender collected bones.
Not human bones, Merlin forbid, or at least, not many. There were only so many ways you could acquire human bones legally, and Lavender had no desire to traverse any of the illegal ways. She kept them all in a suitcase tucked deep in her school trunk, below robes and books and spare parchment and makeup cases and other fripperies. It wasn't like anybody would really go looking. Even her other dorm-mates thought she had the depth of a puddle. And maybe she did, but that didn't mean she couldn't have interests beyond fashion and makeup (although those were also important, something she wished Granger would bear in mind for more than once in seven years).
She kept all the bones organized by size and type, meticulously polishing them all every time she had the chance. Some were minuscule, mouse and bird bones, delicate yellowed splinters in her palm. Some were broader, larger. The centerpiece of her collection was the thigh bone from a unicorn. It still glowed when the moon was full, and on those nights, she sat in the centre of her bed with it resting in her lap, and silently wept until she could feel whole again.
She told no one. Somehow it felt right, having this one secret she kept from everybody else.