"Because you're beautiful, Lavender," she says quietly. "You always have been."
She thinks of battling in tall towers and sending curses at men with no faces, only mask after mask after mask.
"No." The softest whisper, barest sound. She feels her scarred cheek stiffen, flesh tough like old meat, as her mouth quirks up at the corners. "I'm so much more."
And, for the first time, she believes it.
"I'm not sure I'm - "
Nonsense! chimes the voice right in Lavender's ear, so loud it's almost as if it's right inside her head. You'll do good things there. Might even find yourself. Yes, yes, it has to be GRYFFINDOR.
Red and gold and cheers, that's what she remembers. Red and gold and looking back at the shivering queue of her fellow First Years, wondering if the hat had ever been wrong.
She spends four days avoiding mirrors. She spends them sitting up in bed with a sickly-smelling salve slathered all over her wounds, wondering who she is without all her pretty to hide behind.
When she calls Parvati and tells her she wants to see, the surprise on her face is unmistakable. "Are you sure, Lav?" she asks. Her voice is low and sweet, a sound that feels as familiar to Lavender as keys turning in the front door, or footsteps on the stairwell. Like home.
She nods resolutely. "Show me."
Ron Weasley is the first boy to break her heart.
When she gives him all of her, wrapped in the prettiest box. She doesn't know what to say to him - all the other boys just wanted to touch her. To feel her, warm and pliant against them. They wanted to kiss her for hours on end, wanted to peel her robes away like peeling skin to bear the flesh of a strange fruit. They looked at her like she was exotic, *exciting.* Like they had never seen anything like her before. Like they couldn't look away.
Ron kisses her and kisses her and makes no move to divulge himself in the sweet fruit of her body. Instead, he stops. Talks. Asks her things. Asks about her and her family and her hometown and -
And she thinks she's falling in love with him. She thinks she's learning herself all over again through a stranger's eyes, not just the skin and the flesh but the taste, the grit and the pulp; it feels as if Ron is devouring her from the inside out. He is the first boy to ever really take a bite.
But his best friend is Hermione Granger, and Lavender is sure she tastes so much richer.
When the Carrow's reign grips them all by the throat, she is ready. She is sick to her stomach and angry and full of such a vile hatred, a feeling she doesn't like at all, but she is ready.
She will fight.
She will fight.
Parvati snuffles in her sleep. Lavender sits by the window, where Parvati's bed is positioned, and looks out at Hogwarts' moonlit grounds. The trees shake with the harsh autumn wind and the moon is only almost full.
Lavender is fourteen and her rabbit has just been killed and she is dreadfully cold. Her toes are growing numb. She rubs them with her stiff fingers and contemplates how weird it would be to crawl into bed with her best friend, just for a cuddle, just to make her feel better.
Parvati shifts suddenly, almost violently, kicking her leg out straighter and throwing an arm up next to her head.
No, Lavender thinks, finally shuffling back to her own bed, it'd be best not to. I'll only end up getting hurt.
It's an angry red and it runs from her forehead to just under her left breast. It crosses her neck, a half-noose. It cups her cheek like a lover would, curving like an arched bow when she smiles. There are smaller ones, of course, red and pink stripes littering her neck, her chest, her face… But that's the one people stare at.
It's an angry red. Furious. They told her it would fade to the silver-white of old scars eventually, would become less painful, less tender and sore, but she can't imagine it.
She can't imagine this being anything but new, and angry, and stared at.
"They are beasts," Carrow says, his voice slick and unsettling. His pale eyes dart from face to face, his expression one of delight at the fury he knows he is inciting. "Animals. They are not like us."
"Excuse me, Professor," Lavender says, raising her hand. She's proud of herself when it doesn't shake. "Why is that?"
"Why is what?" he spits, clearly not happy with having been interrupted.
"Why is it that they're so different from us? What makes them animals?"
Carrow's narrow lips twist into a grimace. "Do you know any Muggles, girl? Uncultured swine. Disgusting, foul, thoughtless creatures. Idiots, all of them." His tongue darts out to wet his cracked lips. "You think they're like us? They're too stupid to even open their eyes. We live among them and they write magic off as fairytale."
Lavender stares at his mouth, the way the words worm themselves out from between his yellowing teeth. "That doesn't mean anything, really, though. Does it?" Carrow splutters in indignation. "This is a class, Professor. In classes, we're normally taught facts, not badly informed opinions."
She can see the moment he decides to punish her; his eyes darken, jaw setting. His mouth relaxes itself into a barely-there smile.
"Detention, Brown," he murmurs softly. "I won't tolerate backchat."
"She just told you the truth," Parvati says angrily from behind. Lavender shoots her a look over her shoulder and Parvati gives back a quick smile. "None of this is remotely true. They're just bloody people. We're just bloody people. "
"Silence!" Carrow's cheeks have grown flushed with anger. "Stupid girls. You think you know so much more than you do." His hand reaches into the depth of his cloak and reemerges, wand clasped in pudgy fingers. "I truly regret this, but there may be only one way to really make you see."
Lavender is just about to speak when Carrow shouts "CRUCIO!" and her whole body feels as if it has been engulfed in flames.
"Does it hurt?"
Parvati is perched on the side of Lavender's bed. She dabs the ointment onto Lavender's healing wounds with a soft cloth. It's obvious she's being as careful as possible, terrified of hurting her.
"Not really," Lavender replies. "I'm sure I've felt worse."
Parvati nods but doesn't say anything. She continues to apply the ointment gently. Lavender watches her face as she does so, how her brow creases in concentration as she reaches the half-noose, careful to cover the whole wound but knowing that this part is by far the worst of all. Knowing that Greyback tried to rip Lavender's throat out with his own teeth, tried to consume the essence of her the way a lion would a gazelle.
Parvati bites at her lip as she dabs, holding Lavender's chin tilted up. Lavender stares, and thinks about things like exotic fruit and tasting new flesh, and Parvati's hands are steady and methodical and *gentle*.
"Parvati," Lavender says suddenly. Parvati tenses, hand freezing at Lavender's throat. Her brown eyes are full of concern.
"Did I hurt you?"
"No," Lavender whispers, and kisses her.
He smells like blood. He smells like blood and the weight of him presses her hard against the stone floor and she can feel him tearing flesh, feel his teeth sinking in above her collarbone, the curve of his dirty nails digging into her shoulders. She pushes at him feebly, growing weaker and weaker as the moments drag on.
He smells like blood and she is bleeding to death.
She has the fleeting thought that it is almost over. Her parent's faces flash in her mind. Her friends. Parvati's sweet, smiling face.
He smells like blood and she is dying beneath him.
"Why did you do it, Parvati?" Lavender asks. She has her fingers laced around a cup of tea and a lump in her throat. "Everyone was - I mean, we were all - It was the end of a bloody war, of *course* everything was -"
"What are you on about?"
"Why did you stay?" Lavender asks. "You had so much to deal with on your own and I was just - you could've left me with a Healer."
"What sort of question is that?" A giggle fills the air. Parvati looks at her fondly, shaking her head. "Do you honestly think I could just leave you like that?"
"Why didn't you? Why did you stay?"
"Because," Parvati says, and Lavender hears all the possible endings that hang between them in the silence that follows. Because you're my best friend. Because you're more than that. Because you needed me. Because you're a good person. Because I care about you.
Because I love you.
Parvati kisses her, softly, and smiles. And, just like that, Lavender understands. "Just because."
Authors Note: Many thanks to my fave Aussie, Nayla (The Original Horcrux) for publishing this for me while I am laptopless and on holidays. She's the best person ever xoxo love you Nay.