DAY 3
It's the bruises that fascinate her.
She's mesmerised by the colours. The sickly, poisonous greens and the deep, inky blues. They wrap around her arms, swirl across her stomach, stretch upward onto her cheeks and run down her legs. They are terrible and beautiful all at once. But she doesn't want to look at the angry, weeping red lines that separate them, the bloody scratches and the deep gauges, so she loses herself in the greens and the blues of the bruises instead.
The world can wait, because there is beauty on her belly.
DAY 4
There's this one bruise, on her thigh, that's like midnight shot through with ocean teal, and it reminds her of-
A voice interrupts her perusal of her bruises.
"Lavender! You're ok! I was so worried, when the Healers said – I mean, what with Greyback, and – but you should be fine, you mustn't worry, it's just so – Lavender, are you alright?"
She feels like she should know this face, this smiling excitable face framed (except for the part that isn't) by tendrils of black hair. Flashes of a warm bed with red drapes, the sound of giggling, and then-
Nothing.
The smile drops a little. "Lavender, it's me, it's Parvati. Don't you recognise me?"
Her own voice, rusty with disuse. "I don't like lavender. I don't like purples. I like greens and blues."
It's a cacophony of noises then, shouting, crying, people rushing about. The flashes of spells. More and more, until she isn't in the white bed anymore, she's lying on cold flagstones, flashes and bangs and crashes all around her, and if it would just stop-
Silence, and she realises she must have shouted.
They retreat from her room then, all of them. They take their noises outside the door. She can hear snatches through the old wood.
"-not her skull, no, I checked but there's nothing-"
"-are you thinking? Do you think she's blocking the-"
"-should get someone from Mind Magics up here, they might-"
"-PTSD? Well, who knows, she's been through-"
Except she isn't alone. The girl with black hair is still beside her, eyes wide but with a kind smile.
"It's your name, not a colour. Lavender."
She nods in response, then goes back to studying the bruises that have mottled her skin for four days but aren't even beginning to heal.
DAY 8
They flow in and out, these people who are apparently her friends.
They sit next to her and talk, tell her things, share memories, while she stares at the green-blue of her bruises. They try, one by one, to help her remember. What exactly, she has no idea, but it's sweet that they're trying.
She doesn't recognise a single one of them.
Not the girl from a few days ago. Not the black boy with the tight curls, or the pale girl with the unruly frizz, or the freckled face with the flaming hair. Not even the dark-haired boy who has to fight his way through a crowd of people with cameras and quills to visit. He seems to be quite famous, something to do with a snake, and yet she doesn't even know him. He tells her someone called Harry is still trying to visit but has even more of a crowd to contend with. The name seems familiar but she can't say why.
The closest she comes to knowing anything about anything is when a boy with sandy hair visits. At first he's like the others, but there's this feeling, this tidal pull, that rouses her from her inspection of her own bruised skin when he speaks. She can't explain it, but his voice calms her, sets her at ease like nothing else. It's a feeling of safety. He's like an anchor.
And his eyes are blue-green.
DAY 15
The others still come and go, but the sandy-haired boy visits every day.
He sits beside her and talks to her. He tells her stories about schools and magic and dragons. She listens and traces the swirls of her bruises with a finger as he talks, imagining she can see the magic from the stories twisting in her skin.
Today, though, he pauses.
"What is your fascination with those bruises? You never leave them alone. You're always looking at them. Why?"
She responds, a rarity for her these days. "I like the colours. All the blues and greens."
He snorts. "Lavender in blue and green. You looked like that when I found you." He shudders, as if the thought is painful. He must have noticed her questioning look, because he frowns and asks, "How much do you remember about the battle?"
She shakes her head. She feels like it's important, this battle. It seems huge in her mind even though she doesn't know anything about it.
'Well, there was a battle", he continues, his eyes focused on the door. "And we were right in the thick of it, all of us. That's how you got those bruises. They're your battle scars. I found you, passed out in the Entrance Hall. I thought you were dead. I thought…" He lapses into silence for a moment before continuing. "I sat with you until the Healers arrived. You kept slipping in and out of consciousness, so I sang to you. Just an old nursery rhyme my dad used to sing. Nothing much, but it seemed to help. And it was strangely appropriate, what with your greens and blues there." He starts to hum under his breath.
She feels like her whole world has narrowed to the sound.
She shuts her eyes, and then he starts to sing.
"Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lavenders green…"
-flashes and bangs and crashes, lights everywhere, people running, and a heavy weight on top of her-
"When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen…"
-snarling above her, the smell of rotting meat in the air, pain as sharp nails drag across her body-
"Lavenders green, dilly dilly, lavenders blue…"
-arms around her, protecting her, and all around is sobbing and crying but she hears singing, and the tune is so familiar-
"If you love me, dilly dilly…"
-a familiar accent, an Irish lilt, and she knows she shouldn't feel so safe in the chaos of battle, but there's something about that soothing voice-
"…I will love you."
She opens her eyes.
Seamus.
You're welcome. Thank you for reading.