I knew that Lavender was getting better, I knew that she felt better about herself these days than she used to. I knew that she didn't mind the scars as much anymore. And I also knew that there were days when she would look at herself in the mirror and hate the person that she saw there.
Hadn't we all been unsatisfied with what we looked like at some point in our lives? Could I really tell her to stop hating who she was when at some point in my life, I had felt the same way? I knew that I couldn't, you couldn't tell someone to stop hating themselves, but you could help them realise that they meant the world to the people that knew them.
The days in which she looked like she was carrying the world on her shoulders had lessened and I left for work without worrying about her constantly.
I had left for work this morning with a bad feeling. There was no reason for me to feel this way but I just did, something kept nagging at me in the back of my head. I'd ignored it for the majority of the day however. Lavender was going to be fine. She was going to be fine.
My instinct disagreed.
Whenever I wasn't focused on work, I was thinking about Lavender and how she was feeling. She didn't have many prospects in terms of a job because there were very few people out there who wanted to work with someone that had trouble talking.
I had foolishly thought that maybe if I'd gotten her a present for Valentine's Day that it would cheer her up. I'd been all excited when the shopkeeper had handed me my paper bag with Lavender's present all wrapped up inside of it. I hurried home with a smile on my face expecting to greet a Lavender that had had a good day.
Lavender hadn't had a good day.
There were tears in her eyes and I knew just from looking at her that it had been one of those days where she hated everything about herself. She tried to smile and make it all seem okay but I knew her too well. And then had come the talk of how I deserved so much better than her and I should be happy with someone else.
For a moment, my heart stopped beating. I thought that this was it; she was going to end it. We were going to be over and I would be forced to leave the woman that I loved.
How could she ever think that she wasn't good enough for me? How could she ever think that I was too good for her, that I was out of her league? I loved every single bit of Lavender, from the scars on her face to her idea that someday chocolate would be the solution to everyone's problems.
And I had told her, told her exactly how much I loved her. Told Lavender exactly how much she meant to me. I watched as her face lit up and how happy she became. I watched as doubt disappeared from her mind completely. It would always be this way with the two of us.
Lavender would have her days when she would feel down and I would always be there to cheer her up.
We'd moved on from the conversation, I told her how my day went; we exchanged gifts for Valentine's Day and then sat in our favourite couch to watch movies. Lavender loved to watch movies. There was just something about the people in it that fascinated her. For the longest time she had thought that there were actual people in our television set and had tried to break them out by splitting the TV open. I had had to explain to her that there weren't actually people trapped in the telly.
That had been almost three years ago but Lavender was still as fascinated now as she had been then. It was one of those things that took her mind off of her scars.
Once the movie finished around three hours later, I looked down at Lavender and tried to decide whether or not I should ask her about going out to dinner. What if she didn't want to? What if she didn't want to put up with people staring at her as she walked by? What if she didn't want waiters constantly looking at her while they took our orders?
On the other hand, what if she did want to go out? What if she didn't care what everyone thought of her and just wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day?
"Lavender, would you like to go out to dinner to celebrate Valentine's Day?" The question burst out of me before I could really make a decision.
She slowly turned to look at me. I watched her face as she thought about the idea in her head. I could see that she was fighting with herself to come to a decision. She bit her lip and then frowned. I sat there and held my breath, waiting for her to come to a decision.
"We should," she finally answered. I had to keep my jaw from dropping open.
"Are you sure? If you don't want to go out then we don't have to go out. I mean, if you wouldn't feel comfortable then I can attempt to make something nonlethal in the kitchen," I hurried on to say. The last thing that I wanted to do was force Lavender into an uncomfortable situation.
"Juno, it's fine," Lavender said, grabbing my hand. "I am very aware of the fact that people are going to stare but if I'm going to live my life on the fact that someone is going to look at me whenever I'm outside, I'm never going to be able to leave the house. Let's get ready before it gets too late."
We tried to get ready as quickly as we could, we probably wouldn't go anywhere all that special since every nice and expensive restaurant out there probably had reservations. I had just managed to get on my shoes when Lavender came out of the loo and twirled before me.
"How do I look?" she asked, and then struck a pose.
"Absolutely fantastic," I replied, with a huge grin and held out my hand for her. We made sure that the door was locked and then disapparated to Diagon Alley. The place didn't exactly scream romantic which probably made it the best place to look for restaurants that weren't full of reservations.
Lavender and I walked down the streets, joined hands swinging between the two of us and enjoyed the warm air and silence.
Lavender was quietly humming under her breath and had a smile on her face. I had never seen anything or anyone look as peaceful or as happy as she did in that moment.
After walking around for about 10 minutes, we finally came across a restaurant that was new. There was a large banner hanging over the name of the place that read 'Grand Opening.' Lavender and I headed over to the place and pushed through the heavy wooden doors. There was a hostess waiting for us as soon as we walked in, and sure enough, the first thing that she looked at was Lavenders face.
I could feel my shoulders tensing. My grip on Lavenders hand immediately tightened. I was fully prepared to tell off this hostess if she made some kind of comment. Nothing and no one was going to ruin this night if I had anything to say about it. I needn't have worried though because the hostess simply smiled at Lavender and I and led us to a table.
The place had an earthy feel to it. The colours of the walls went from brown to green and then back again. The chairs were a dark brown while the tables were all cream colours. There was soft lighting throughout the room that made everything just feel really peaceful. Lavender seemed to agree judging by the way that she was looking around the place in content.
There were quite a few people that kept glancing over at Lavender but she didn't seem to mind. Whenever we went out Lavender almost always ended up looking really uncomfortable by the end of the night. This seemed to be one of those places where that didn't happen.
The more she relaxed, the more I relaxed. It was almost instinct to be on high alert when I was out with Lavender just in case someone decided to be rude and said something that would really upset her.
It was five minutes before a waiter finally stopped by at our table. He looked between Lavender and I with a large smile. When Lavender's face had really registered with the man, he looked at her with wide eyes and an expression of pure awe. It was amazing that his jaw wasn't sitting somewhere on the ground what with how shocked he seemed.
Lavender was becoming more and more uncomfortable the longer that the man stared at her. I opened my mouth to say something but the waiter beat me to the punch.
"Where did you get that?" he asked in amazement.
I was about to bring out the claws but decided to shut up when Lavender shot me a look. She clearly didn't want me to say anything so what was I supposed to do? I spent so much time defending Lavender and making sure that no one hurt her that I didn't know how to just sit back and just let her handle the situation.
Lavender was silent for a long time. I had started to think that she wasn't going to say anything at all. She seemed to be fighting between actually saying something and changing the subject or not speaking at all. A determined look came on her face and she stared the waiter in the eye.
"I was attacked by a werewolf by the name of Fenrir Greyback when I was fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts," she said, with a little bit of difficulty but nonetheless proudly. There was an unspoken message of, "you got a problem with that?"
The waiter was shocked into silence for a about a minute or two before he finally snapped back to reality. "I know that it was definitely terrifying and painful to receive those marks and to experience what you did but, and I don't know if anyone else has told you this, but you wear those scars with pride," he said with a giant grin.
Lavender burst into loud laughter right there and then. She was laughing so hard that she had gone slightly red in the face. "You know," she said, "you're one of the few people to ever tell me that."
Once the waiter had taken our orders, he left Lavender and I alone again. She looked so unbelievably happy in that moment. I almost thought that she was bouncing in her seat. It seemed like her day had just been made. I looked her up and down, making sure to store everything about her in my memory. From her brown hair to her scarred face to her yellow robes, I made sure that I would always remember Lavender like this.
Eventually, she would learn to be proud of her scars and stop caring about what everyone thought when they looked at her.
A/N: This is the first collaboration that I've ever done and I don't think that the other half of this is posted on here so there's no point in searching for it, but I hope you enjoyed this just the same.