author's notes: written for hogwarts (challenges and assignments). prompt(s) will be at the bottom.
va au diable
The Patil twins had never been all that close. They both secretly blamed their parents.
Nearly from birth, they had been dressed the same, had their food weighed in order to not feed one twin more, and even timed while being held so Mrs. and Mr. Patil didn't feel like they were neglecting one or the other.
Despite their parents' finest efforts to keep them the same adorable babies they had been — doing everything together, was how Mrs. Patil described it — they grew up. They grew apart.
Hogwarts just accentuated the changes.
Sorted into Gryffindor, Parvati grew more socially outgoing and became louder. She started spending more time around loudmouth Lavender Brown, whom Padma couldn't stand. She swore more, got in more trouble, and wore skimpier clothes beneath her school robes every day. She was trying too hard to be someone she wasn't, her twin realised with a pang of sadness. This wasn't who Parvati was, and they both knew it.
Now a Ravenclaw, Padma had to build a reputation. She spent most of her free time in the library, cramming for simple tests that she really didn't even have to study for. (The tutor their parents had hired — and paid for each second spent with each twin — was finally paying off.) She didn't care to draw attention to herself; not like "Pav and Lav," as her sister and Lavender Brown had been nicknamed.
Padma told herself that the odd feeling bubbling in her chest wasn't jealousy.
She was happy for her sister. She really, really was.
•
First year passed without much drama — at least drama that either Patil was a part of. Something to do with Harry Potter and his other two-thirds. Padma didn't care. Pav and Lav didn't seem to care much, either; then again, they didn't seem to care much about anything these days.
The summer hols came far too soon for Padma's liking. They'd managed to escape going home for Christmas and being forced to sit still at many parties their parents threw. Parvati had been invited to Lavender's house for break, and she accepted immediately. Padma stayed at Hogwarts, usually secluded in the library.
For summer, however, neither twin could escape.
•
The gap between the girls only became larger over the summer. Parvati and Mrs. Patil spent many evenings in the family library bent over birthday plans for Mr. Patil, while Padma curled up in an armchair by the fire and read.
She tried not to feel hurt when neither noticed she was there.
•
For the most part, Padma and Parvati ran in their separate circles; each keeping to their House and not intruding much on one another at school. They didn't talk nearly as much as they had in first year — which was saying a lot because they'd barely spoken to one another in first year.
Second year was scary. Padma and Parvati exchanged looks over their tables in the Great Hall about the students being petrified, but nothing more passed between them on the subject.
Third year was even more eventful. Padma was beginning to notice the danger growing every year. She kept watch out for her twin, though she was sure Parvati wasn't doing the same.
It really wasn't until the Triwizard Tournament that things started to change for them.
•
Padma was getting sick of the Yule Ball. It wasn't for another two weeks, but it was all she heard about. "Yule Ball" this, "Yule Ball" that, and "So-and-So asked me to go with him." Squeals from both girls and boys regarding Yule Ball partners made her ears ring and her head hurt, so she spent even more time in the library in an attempt to flee the chaos.
Hermione Granger found her there the day before the big event. Padma had her hands over her ears, shutting herself away from the outside world.
"Quite a cacophony, isn't it?" she said as she slipped into a chair across the table from Padma. When Padma uncovered her ears and asked "what?", Hermione laughed and repeated herself.
"Very," replied Padma. "I sometimes wish I could turn into a boy to escape the madness."
Hermione shook her head and smiled wryly. "It wouldn't help. Harry and Ron are going nuts trying to find dates." She visibly brightened, sitting up straight in her chair. "Hey! Why don't you go to the ball with one of them? If your sister doesn't have a date yet, she could go with the other."
Padma scrunched her nose. "I don't know..." she said doubtfully. "I usually try to avoid big parties like this. And 'Vati probably has a date already, anyway."
"Ask her," implored Hermione. "Ron's driving me bonkers trying to figure out who asked me and whether I'm just making it up. He apparently just noticed I'm a girl."
"Boys," sighed Padma. "Fine, I'll ask Parvati. But I can make no promises."
Hermione slipped from her chair with a beaming smile that oddly made Padma's heart skip a beat. "Wonderful! Thank you so much!"
Padma gave her own, small smile. "You're welcome," she murmured as she watched Hermione walk away, curls bouncing with each step.
•
She ended up attending the Yule Ball on the arm of Ron Weasley. Parvati went with Harry Potter. Everything was beautiful: there were soft bubble lights strung everywhere, the food was artfully arranged, and some of the dresses worn by other girls made Padma's eyes pop.
Going with Ron was almost like going on her own. Ron and Harry ignored their dates and, instead, spent nearly every second ogling the girls they wished they'd been able to come with: Hermione and Cho Chang. Padma ignored Ron right back, and instead got up and crossed the room to a table full of Beauxbatons girls. She fell into easy conversation with them and learned about Beauxbatons castle and their education system, as well as a few phrases in French. One such phrase was "putain de merde," which she suspected she would be using often, and another was "va te faire foutre."
One openly lesbian Beauxbatons girl named Adrienne asked Padma to dance. She stood, holding out her hands and smiling. Padma took the brunette's hands and allowed herself to be pulled up. Adrienne was several inches taller, even with Padma wearing heels, so Padma rested her head in the crook of Adrienne's neck as they swayed gently, still close to the table. They did their best to ignore the other girls' catcalls and audible smirks.
When the song ended, Adrienne placed a soft kiss on each of Padma's cheeks in turn. "It was nice to meet you," she said with a wink. "I 'ope zat you will write to me."
Padma blushed and promised to do so, before bidding goodnight to Adrienne and the other Beauxbatons girls and telling Ron she was leaving.
•
Oddly enough, the remainder of her years at Hogwarts were quiet and not enough to really make her remember them with much fondness or clarity. The war, of course, was a huge thing, but the Patil family was half-blood and not much taken with either side.
After the war, things changed. Parvati had seen so much death — Lavender, who had been killed by Greyback during the battle at Hogwarts, Colin Creevey, and so many others — that the space between the sisters was too much for her.
She came to Padma's room one night, a week after the battle, and sat down on Padma's bed. "We can't do this anymore," she said. "I know we have our differences — more than our similarities, I know — but we have to try to get along."
Padma looked up from her desk. The Yule Ball (Adrienne, in particular) had really changed her perspective on her love life and she'd thought long and hard about her sexuality afterward, finally deciding that she wasn't going to try naming it, because it was too complicated, and just accepted that she had been very attracted to Adrienne — and still was, she'd found out the summer before sixth year when the two had met up.
"Why this now?" Padma asked, setting her quill and parchment aside. She could tell this wasn't going to be an easy conversation. "I've been trying to 'get along,'" she made air quotes with her fingers, "with you for our entire seven years at Hogwarts, but you kept pushing me away and hanging out with your Gryffindor friends." She snorted. "I guess being in different Houses really did make a difference, huh? Out of sight, out of mind. Right?" Without waiting for an answer, she barrelled on: "Wrong! You saw me every single bloody day because we shared nearly every class, but you ignored me."
"Now wait a minute," interrupted Parvati. "I didn't ignore you."
"No," agreed Padma sarcastically, "you just turned the other way when I spoke to you and pretended I didn't exist. I even heard someone say that they didn't even know you had a sister, let alone a twin!" She crossed her arms. "How do you explain that?"
"Look, I'm sorry," Parvati began.
Padma shook her head, too tired to muster a glare. "Just leave," she said quietly. "Vaau diable." She didn't explain what she'd said, and Parvati didn't ask.
"Fine," she said, as she got up. "I guess you don't want to help me mend fences."
She shut the door softly behind her, and Padma collapsed on her bed, tears falling from her eyes like the raindrops that had begun to tap at her window during their conversation — if it could even be called that. The salty water dampened the pillow wedged beneath her cheek, but she didn't move.
•
Adrienne was Padma's saving grace those next few months. Padma visited her in France — the land of romance — at her small, cozy apartment, and the pair were inseparable. They visited museums that Adrienne admitted she'd never been to before despite living near them her entire life, went out to fancy brunches at little bistros and bakeries all over town, and spent many hours on park benches snogging the daylights out of one another. (Adrienne made Padma say 'kissing' instead of 'snogging,' because she said the latter made it sound wet and swampy.)
Padma hung out with Adrienne's friends, both non-magical and otherwise. Magic in France was addressed differently than it was in Britain; instead of it being kept a secret, magic was freely shown in the streets and there were magical exhibits and shows open to everyone.
•
They had just a month left of summer — one delightful month over and gone, but which Padma was sure she would never forget for the rest of her life — when they received a visitor.
"Parvati?" Padma asked blankly, staring at the young woman standing on the doorstep of Adrienne's apartment. "How'd you get here? More importantly, why are you here?" Taking in Parvati's tear-streaked face and hunched form, she wrapped an arm around her sister's shoulders and led her inside.
•
"I told my Muggle boyfriend that I was a witch," Parvati said once she was settled on the sofa. Padma leaned against the wall.
"What happened?" Adrienne, setting next to the distraught girl, asked.
Parvati started crying. "He called me a freak and told me to get out of his house before he called the bobbies on me." She hiccuped. "I really thought he would take it better than he did! We've been dating for years, and he was very easy-going about my letters being delivered by an owl."
Adrienne handed Parvati a handkerchief, then put an arm around Parvati and squeezed gently. "If he did not take it well, perhaps it was not meant to be?"
Parvati hiccuped and mopped her face with the handkerchief. "Everything had been going so smoothly up until then! Oh," her face crumpled, "I shouldn't have told him."
"Hey." Padma sat down on the other side of her sister. "Hey, it's okay. You did the right thing."
"I did?" Parvati looked so hopeful and completely unlike herself. This girl was unsure of herself, unsure of her actions, and unsure of love. Padma didn't think she'd ever seen Parvati like this.
"Of course you did," soothed Padma. "You're a witch; you can't live without magic. Tell me, if he had taken you telling him well but was scared of you practicing magic and forbidding you to practice magic, what would you have done?"
Parvati sniffled and blew her nose. "Probably left," she admitted.
"Exactly. And since he didn't take you telling him well, he left."
"It seems to me," Adrienne broke in, "zat it ended up the way it would have either way."
"But what if he had accepted it and he hadn't forbidden me to use magic?" Parvati asked.
"Dont zink about zat," advised Adrienne. "Do not dwell on ze 'what-if's. It did not happen, zerefore it was not meant to be." She stood. "You are welcome to stay here, if you wish."
"Oh! I couldn't impose on you like that." She glanced at Padma guiltily. "I'm sorry for bursting in on your vacation like this."
Padma knew she had a choice: she could let her clearly upset sister go off to who-knew-where, or she could let her stay with them. The choice was obvious. "Nonsense," she said. "We have plenty of room. You're no imposition at all."
Parvati's eyes welled up again and she flew across the room to hug Padma. "Thank you," she whispered in her sister's ear. "I'm sorry."
"Me too," murmured Padma as she was engulfed in the familiar scent — mandarins and vanilla — of her twin. "Me too, 'Vati."
word count: 2,287
prompts
assignment 9: transfiguration — conjuration task four — write about something that is temporary
autumn seasonal challenges: star chart — geminids meteor shower — (relationship) twins
marauder map madness: 199 — muggle-worthy excuse committee office — (scenario) explaining magic to a muggle
vocabulary:
"putain de merde" = fucking shit / fuck off
"va te faire foutre" = kiss my ass
"va au diable" = go to hell