a/n — for my wonderful audrey: happy birthday, babe! &hearts to you :) you're such an amazing writer and a wonderful friend — may you have a magical birthday and many more to come.
(prompts — (taken from your birthday post on hogwarts :)) parvati x lavender, fairytale!au (fair warning — i've twisted this one quite a bit))
thank you to victoria for betaing! :)
Parvati wasn't sure why, exactly, she'd kept her storybook for seven long years. It was a worn thing, the embossed design on the cover far too faded to decipher. But Parvati could easily recall what it had depicted — an image of a girl in a dress with a full skirt that swirled around her legs as she spun in a lively twirl.
She'd spent much of her childhood gazing at that picture, fingers tracing over it in a graceful imitation of the girl's carefree dance. Her parents had read it to her so long ago, a tale each night that Parvati would listen to, wide-eyed, blankets wound around her arms and pulled up to her chin.
She remembered vividly why she'd taken it with her on the Hogwarts Express all those years ago — so that she might have some semblance of home in the strange, faraway castle — but why she'd kept it?
Seven years later, and Parvati had no idea.
Perhaps, she thought as she slipped it away into her trunk, it had been for hope.
Hope was a hard thing to come by this year. These were dark times indeed, for Parvati awoke each day not sure how many of her friends had been whisked away to whatever torture their so-called Professors were conducting in the dungeons, or disappeared altogether.
It was like a shock of cold water, really — going from a buoyant, lighthearted sixth year whose only struggle was whether or not she'd pass her NEWTs and whether Roger Davies would finally notice her, to a warrior fighting what, as each day passed, seemed to be a losing battle.
Though a glimmer of that optimism still remained, as Parvati recalled the stories. In every single one of them, even after the most harrowing of wars, the hero would prevail. It was this mantra that Parvati often whispered to their dorm room at night, Lavender somberly nodding along as she too searched for something to hold onto.
Childish as it might have been, that worn storybook had been what had kept them both going for so long.
For the girls in the stories faced down the most menacing of giants, the most treacherous of witches, and always, always, wound up with their happily ever after, tied neatly at the end in a bow made of satin ribbon.
"See?" Parvati would say. "This will all be over soon." And Lavender would let her fingers hover over the smiles on the characters' faces, as though she could reach into the image and capture them for her own.
As impossible as that sounded, Parvati could certainly see the temptation.
She reminded herself time and time again that soon, it would all be over.
That someday, the turmoil would end and the sun would rise to her happily ever after.
The hardest of battles always marked the crossroads — a valiant clash against some horrific dragon, a harrowing fight that nearly cost the heroine her life — but it always turned around after that.
Parvati hoped this was her turning point.
She was standing beside Lavender amidst the fray, surrounded by the debris of the place she'd called home for seven years. Green light flashed before her eyes, each beam a stolen life.
With hands poised on their wands, the others intertwined, Parvati held onto Lavender like a lifeline as she fired back against the fearsome monsters with all her might. Shouting spell after spell, their lips were soon dry, throats hoarse, and yet they still remained surrounded on all sides.
Parvati swore the Dark Mark tattoos emblazoned so proudly on their enemies' arms were mocking her.
"Sectumsempra!" The spell was not emerald this time but ruby, a red streak that tore through her side, causing Parvati to gasp out in pain as agony ripped her skin apart. Lavender's scream was a distant ringing in her ears as she made to collapse, nearly slipping over the wreckage before forcing herself to her feet.
"This," Parvati said to Lavender as she carefully regained her footing, her voice quiet and wan, "is where it starts to get better."
Pressing a hand to her side, attempting to staunch the flow of blood, Parvati lifted her chin, biting back the pain.
Her happy ending was on the horizon.
This was the turning point.
How terribly wrong she was.
Her spells were cast with more vigor now, sure that things would soon look up. She had faced the worst of her trials, and this was the start of good things to come.
She knew Lavender felt it too, as her face was flushed with determination, her incantations loud and clear.
There was something akin to a smile playing at Parvati's lips now, as confidence lifted her spirits. They were winning. They could survive this. They would prevail.
She was about to tell Lavender this when she heard her scream, the sound ringing out for a split second before abruptly being cut short.
Parvati's heart all but stopped as she froze, whirling around to face her -
And was greeted by nothing but crumbled stones and bricks.
"Lavender!" All signs of confidence gone, her voice was shrill now. Desperate.
"Lavender!" Parvati spun in a full circle, eyes searching to no avail. All she saw around her was carnage, blood and spells and bodies she couldn't identify as friend or foe.
She made to run, somewhere, anywhere — she had to do something — but all too quickly, she was reminded of the horrible gash down her side.
"Lavender!" she called once more, before her foot slipped on the next chunk of stone, sending her crashing down.
Her last conscious thought was whimsical, a wonder if there might be anyone there to catch her as she fell.
She did not get an answer before the world plunged into darkness.
The first thing Parvati was fully aware of was how it burned.
Her wounds felt as though they were on fire, and the bright, bright sky did little to help as her eyes flew open.
Lavender.
Faces swam before her, brows knit in expressions of concern. Parvati ignored their questions as she sat bolt upright, wincing at the sharp pain that stung through her. "Where is she?" she asked, stumbling over the words. "Lavender. Where did she go?"
They all fell silent.
Averted their gazes.
"She's gone," one of them finally said.
Parvati wasn't sure who it was. She didn't care.
The singsong tone of the words she'd read a thousand times before, carrying them with her as a futile beacon of hope, was horrifically derisive as they rang through her skull — and they all lived happily ever after...
Lies.
Lies.
Parvati did not take the storybook when she went to collect her belongings from the ruined Gryffindor dorms.
She left it amidst the wreckage.
It fit better there, anyway.