Disclaimer: The characters belong to the almighty J.K. Rowling, yadda yadda yadda (hey - I managed to not make up any characters this time! That's a first). Oh, and what's my age again belongs to Blink 182...yeah.
Gold leaves. I had never noticed them before. There were millions of them, all intricately designed, patterned across the carpeted floor of the Gryffindor common room. I traced one of the delicate leaves with my fingers, listening to the chatter around me, feeling rather uninvolved in the conversation. No - uninvolved wasn't the word. It was more.....uninterested. I settled back against Lavender Brown's legs, which were dangling over the edge of the red velvet couch. Next to her was Dean Thomas, and beside him was Seamus Finnigan. There just wasn't enough room for me - though it wouldn't have mattered if there had been. At least not today.
It had started at breakfast. Whitey, my owl, had flown into the Great Hall with all the other mail-carrying owls. I was a bit surprised, as I usually don't get much mail from home. Don't get me wrong - I love my parents. But I never get homesick, so there's really no need. Lavender took the liberty of feeding Whitey a bit of toast while I tried fruitlessly to wipe maple syrup off the envelope. I sighed, gave up, and slit it open.
"What's it say?" asked Lavender, looking up from her pancakes.
"Dunno," I replied, extracting a folded piece of stationary from the greasy envelope. I unfolded the letter with trembling fingers. Actually, I did have an idea of what the letter might say, but I didn't dare to hope....I skimmed the letter with widening eyes. Yes, I was right.
"Parvati?" asked Lavender. She sounded worried. "Are you alright?" I nodded and handed her the letter. She glanced at it and her eyes rounded in surprise. She read it through and handed it back to me grinning. "Parvati! A baby sister! How wonderful!"
"Yeah...." I carefully refolded the letter and slid it back into it's envelope.
"Oh, it'll be great! You can feed her and dress her and...." She rambled on around a mouthful of scrambled eggs and I nodded mutely, throwing in an occasional 'yeah' or 'uh-huh.' Sure, it would be fun to have a baby around, but it gave me an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. I suddenly wanted to be home, to see the baby and mom and dad.....oh no. I was homesick. This was a first.
I remembered my food, but my appetite had disappeared along with my happiness. I sighed and pushed my plate away, mumbling something to Lavender about having forgotten one of my Transfiguration books and hurried up to my dormitory. Only one thought echoed through my head all the way up the stairs: I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home.....
Lavender's legs shifted behind me as she reached for her soda on the table next to her, and I was jerked back to reality. I swallowed hard, feeling the large lump in my throat. Oh God, I was going to cry. I had to get out of there, fast. I jumped up. Lavender, Dean and Seamus stared. "I - uhhh.....I'm going to go do my potions essay in my room. It's too....loud in here. I can't concentrate." Without waiting for their reaction, I turned and sprinted up the stairs to my dormitory, wiping my eyes as I went.
The door to the dormitory creaked as I pushed it open. Funny how there's about a million and one things you can do with magic, and yet the doors still creak. The dormitory was deserted. I flopped onto my bed and buried my face in the pillow, soaking it with my tears. It wasn't just the baby. There was....more. I sat up and reached out toward my bedside table, taking my portable CD player from the top and a photo album from the drawer. Although I'd never trade my magic for anything, there's some things that the muggle world has that the magic world just doesn't. Like Blink 182. I pulled on the headphones and sang along. "What's my age again? What's my age again?"
I turned to the photo album then, pulling it onto my lap and examining the pictures. I ran my trembling index finger over the faces of my mom and dad. They grinned happily at the camera, smiling at me from inside the book. It was now that I wished that they were a witch and a wizard - the photos in my album had been taken with a muggle camera, and so the figures in the pictures stood as still and lifeless as statues. I flipped through the pages, stopping at one photo in particular. I grinned as I looked at it - it was one of my favorites. It had been taken when I was five years old. This younger, pudgier version of me was atop my father's broad shoulders. I laughed at how young he looked - his hair was a youthful brown and the bald spot at the very top of his head that I had grown so used to was missing. Mom was in the background, sitting on a picnic blanket. Her smile was bright enough to light up the picture, and her chestnut hair flowed back behind her head in the wind. Everyone was laughing. Life was so simple then...
I snapped the photo album shut, yanked off my headphones and walked to the mirror to try and fix up my tearstained face before dinner. My pale reflection stared back at me, looking extremely forlorn. "God, I look awful," I muttered, taking in my ruffled hair and bloodshot eyes. I sighed as I reached into my makeup bag. It's a good thing no one's ever said teenage life was easy, because they'dve been incredibly mistaken. I blotted some foundation under my eyes, trying to bring down the puffiness. Yes, amazingly mistaken. I began to smear the foundation around, my thoughts shifting from the new baby to something else.....namely Seamus. Seamus - I couldn't help smiling as I thought of him. The way his sandy bangs fell over his face, the way his blue eyes twinkled when he laughed, the way he always left the crusts of his toast on his plate at breakfast. The list of little things I adored about him was endless. His smile, the dimple in his left cheek.....
It wasn't until recently that I admired Seamus so - before he came along, it had been Ron Weasley. He was cute, and fun....but my infatuation with him had ended as rapidly as it had begun. I'd seen the way he looked at Hermione Granger, the way he acted around her.....and that's when Seamus came in. The dormitory door opened and I whipped around. Lavender strode in, looking very concerned. "Hey Parvati. You okay?"
"Yeah," I answered, running my brush through my hair. She joined me at the mirror.
"What happened to your Potions essay?"
"Wha - oh, that. I finished it," I lied, hoping she wouldn't realize I'd been crying. She picked up a small container of strawberry lip gloss and unscrewed the top.
"Dinner's starting soon, and I wanted to make sure you were okay. You haven't been yourself today, and we were worried about you."
"We?"
"Me and Dean. Seamus was too - he's the one that asked me to come check on you. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Good, now let's go. I'm starved." She grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the dormitory. My heart was beating wildly.
"Seamus asked about me?"
"Yeah. I told him we might be late for dinner, just in case something was wrong, and he said he'd save us seats."
"Thank goodness. Remember the last time we came to dinner late?"
"Yeah. Thanks to Neville, there's still ketchup all over that shirt mum bought me. I really hope she forgets she gave it to me....she'll kill me." I grinned, not only about the shirt, but about Seamus. He was thinking about me! And, what's more, he'd wanted to make sure I was okay.....wow.
We entered the Great Hall and started toward the Gryffindor table. Seamus waved us over, gesturing at two empty seats beside him. Lavender and I both raced for the seat next to him - me because I wanted to sit with Seamus, Lavender because the other seat was next to Neville. I darted ahead of her at the last second and dove into the seat, grinning triumphantly. She sighed and sank into the second seat with a sideways glance at me that could only mean one thing - you owe me one. I gave her a sympathetic look before turning to Seamus. He smiled. "Hey."
"Hey," I replied, reaching for a warm roll in the basket beside me, even though I wasn't in the slightest bit hungry. I needed something to do with my hands. Seamus took one, too.
"Um, are you okay? You looked kind of sick in Transfiguration and I wanted to make sure you were alright," he said, looking concerned. God, he was cute when he was concerned.....
"Oh, uh - yeah. I just - felt kind of sick. Besides, it doesn't help that I'm terrible at Transfiguration." He laughed.
"You are not. It's a really hard subject." I rolled my eyes.
"Liar. You're one of the top students in the class!"
"I could help you sometime," he offered. My stomach churned. He didn't - he wasn't - "I mean, if you want to," he added hurriedly, his ears turning red.
"Oh - yeah. That'd be great," I stammered, trying not to look too overjoyed.
"Great!" He said, looking excited. "How about tomorrow? We've got that test next week and I need the practice..."
"Sure!" Next to me, Lavender jumped back in her chair and let out a small shriek.
"Neville!"
"....and then, he said, 'how about tomorrow? We've got that test next week and I need the practice.' How cute is that?"
"Very," responded Lavender absentmindedly. We were back in our dormitory. Lavender was standing at the small sink trying to get the tomato sauce stains out of her shirt, and I had pulled up a chair next to her and was repeating the entire conversation I'd had with Seamus word for word. "Ugh, I'm gonna kill Neville for this...."
"And then I said, 'sure!'. We're meeting in the library tomorrow after lunch."
"I still can't believe you didn't tell me you liked him," she said, annoyed, turning on the faucet.
"I'm sorry. I didn't really know myself until yesterday."
"Yeah, sure." Lavender looked at me skeptically. Just then, the door creaked open and Hermione Granger burst into the room.
"Hey guys!" She said, tossing her books on to her bed and joining us at the sink, "what's up?"
"Nothing much," I said casually. I didn't want to spread the news yet. But Lavender obviously felt otherwise.
"What do you mean 'nothing's up'?" she exclaimed. I felt my face grow hot.
"What?" Hermione asked anxiously, looking from me to Lavender.
"Parvati's got a date with Seamus tomorrow!" Hermione gasped.
"Really?" I shook my head.
"It's not a date," I said, my face burning, "he's just helping me study for the Transfiguration test next week...." But Hermione was grinning.
"Sounds like a date to me!" She said with a giggle. "So - tell me everything. When did he ask you?"
"At dinner."
"Really? Oh - that's so cute!" she squealed, flopping back on to the foot of her bed with a sigh. I yawned.
"Well, I'm ready for bed. I think I'll go change."
"Yeah. You need your beauty rest before your DATE with Seamus tomorrow!" Lavender teased. She and Hermione laughed.
"Can't hear you," I said, rising from the chair and walking toward my bureau with my fingers in my ears. Hermione grabbed hold of one of the bedposts and hauled herself up.
"I'd better get ready too." She walked past Lavender, who was holding her dripping shirt out at arm's length.
"Ugh - so close," she muttered. Hermione stared.
"What happened?"
"Neville," answered Lavender.
"Oh," Hermione nodded knowingly. "Sorry." Lavender sighed.
"Parvati, you owe me one!"
"I know," I replied, grinning as I pulled my nightgown out of a drawer. I changed and crawled into bed, my heart still fluttering at the vision of Seamus's smile.
"Parvati," Lavender whined the next day at lunch, "You have to eat something!"
"I can't," I answered with a groan, dragging my fork across my plate. I stole a glance at Seamus, who was deeply engrossed in a conversation with Harry Potter. Something about Quidditch, no doubt.
I must've checked my watch at least twenty times, watching the minutes crawl by. At last, though, the time came. I took a deep breath, and Lavender smiled at me. "Go get 'em," she whispered. I stood and walked cautiously to the library. Seamus was not yet there. I made my way to an empty table, pulled a random book off the one of the shelves and studied it, trying to look natural. It wasn't until Seamus showed up and asked what I was reading that I realized it was a book about the life cycle of flobberworms. Oh well.
The "date' went pretty well. I managed to break the ice first thing by accidentally turning my eraser into a cockroach. We laughed, and I felt completely relaxed. Actually, come to think about it, I had no idea what the eraser was supposed to be turning into. I didn't really matter. It made us laugh, and that's what counts. The bell signaling the end of lunch came way too soon for my liking. As we headed out of the library, off to our classes, he grabbed my arm. My stomach fluttered and I turned.
"I just wanted you to know that this was really fun. Would you like to meet again tomorrow?" I swallowed.
"Sure." He grinned. "Okay...," I began, "well, I guess I'll see you later."
"Yeah, see ya." We smiled at each other. As I turned to leave, he leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. I could feel myself blushing, but my heart soared. He smiled at me. "Bye," he said, and left.
"Bye," I whispered after him, my hand reaching up to touch my cheek. I heard someone come up behind me.
"Oooohhhhh," came Lavender's teasing voice, "I saw that. How sweet!" I grinned.
"Yeah. It was." As Lavender dragged me off to class, I remembered how upset I'd been the day before and laughed a bit. For if I'd been gone, I would have missed falling head over heels for Seamus.
Author's Note #2: Wow, that ending was corny. Geez. Okay....well.....hope you liked it. I do realize that this has achieved an amazingly high level of stupidity, but.....oh well. I honestly have no idea why I put Seamus and Parvati together. Please review if you liked it (or if you didn't like it. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Please pay extra attention to the word constructive:-D) Btw, thanks so much to all the people who reviewed From A Ravenclaw. Your comments were greatly appreciated!