Something changed

A little later, the girls entered the large dining room of Hogwarts, and as always, Parvati's eyes went in search of two particular persons. Severus Snape was not yet in place, but her sister Padma was already sitting at the Ravenclaw table, in the midst of her girlfriends. She lifted her head, as Parvati walked past her, and winked at her sister for a moment before turning back into a conversation with the blonde Lisa beside her.

The long Gryffindor table was not very crowded. Parvati and Lavender found a place by the rest of their class. Ginny, the younger sister of Ron Weasley, was sitting next to Harry and glared angrily at Parvati. Probably she is still offended by noon today, thought Parvati, with an internal shrug. "Where exactly is the food?" she muttered to Lavender. Her stomach rumbled already like crazy.

"God, how can you think of food now?" asked Lavender and threw her friend a look, as if she lost her marbles.

As an answer to that, the table was covered right at the moment with a variety of bowls and plates from which it smelled seductively. "You still have to ask?" Parvati tapped on her forehead meaningfully and loaded her plate full of lamb chop, parsley potatoes and bush beans. "Ohh, delicious!" she moaned as she had the first bite in her mouth and rolled her eyes with pleasure.

Lavender took from each bowl a bite, of which perhaps a little bird would have had enough, and then let spiritlessly sink her fork into a potato. "My stomach is like a walnut" she complained, and Parvati knew exactly what her text was now. And she was tired of it, suddenly so sick and tired!

"Yeah, and afterwards you will go back to the kitchen and scrounge from the house elves, because you are on the verge of starvation!" she snapped off.

"What's the matter now?" Lavender asked with aggrieved voice. "You are still full of Severus' bollocking, aren't you? Why did you let your mood getting that spoiled?"

Parvati gave her friend an incredulous look; then she gritted her teeth. It was typical of Lavender to sort out things the way they would turn out best for her. Without me, you wouldn't even have survived the lesson! she thought angrily, but thought it best not to answer. The last thing should be that the "bosom friends" as they were ususally called, were arguing here in front of everyone.

So she did not answer, staring in another direction, quite by accident in that of the teachers' table. Snape still didn't show up, but it was not unusual that he renounced dinner among the dear teaching staff. She let her gaze wander to Padma, who was sitting with the back to her and unchanged chatting with Lisa.

Parvati suddenly felt a terrible longing for her. The many balmy evenings during the holidays that they had been sitting together on the small terrace of their parents' house, while the crickets chirped and above them the stars were shining, left their mark on her. Parvati had never held such conversations with someone like recently with her sister, not even with Lavender that she could actually confide everything. But Padma was somehow much more … mature. For years they had not been as close as during this summer. Almost as before.

But now school had started again, and they had to return to their different Houses. It was a bit like saying good-bye every year, but this time it really hurt; Once again with a faint feeling of bitterness, Parvati wondered what this stupid Sorting Hat had in mind when he tore apart twin siblings!

For both a world had collapsed five years ago when the hat on Parvati's head was blaring out "Gryffindor" loudly into the hall, after he couldn't decide for an eternity where she belonged. Although Padma was sitting already at Ravenclaw table, and both hadn't been able to imagine anything else but being together with the wise, proud Ravenclaws in the very next moment.

She would never forget the first dark weeks in which everything seemed all gray and pointless to her, the many meetings with Padma in the Great Hall or in the evening in some draughty corridors or toilets where they both shed despaired tears over this injustice. They even went to Professor Dumbledore and had begged him to let them live together in one house, no matter which, and also their parents set all wheels in motion for them. But nothing had been somewhat useful – the decision of that old, tattered piece of felt was supposed to be untouchable. They were simply too different to be allocated together to a house.

And so it happened what had to happen. Time passed, Padma quickly found friends in her house, and after Parvati had halfway overcome her grief, she stopped refusing Lavender's persistent advances and made friends with her. The meetings with Padma got rare, and over the years they grew away from each other. Their intimate relationship from earlier was gone forever, and that Parvati would never forgive this hat. Not even Lavender could understand what it was like to lose one's twin.

"Hello! Earth to Parvati!" her thoughts were interrupted by Ron.

Parvati winced. "What?" she asked absent-minded.

"If you have already started with the essay?" Ron said cocking his head.

What's that supposed to be now? she thought irritated and returned, "Why you don't ask Hermione?" Only now she noticed that Hermione and Lavender had already left. Without letting her know?

"She wants us to do it ourselves," Ron said, looking at her with puppy dog eyes what she never saw at him before.

"Well, then you will probably have to do so," Parvati said. "I've even only three sentences myself." With that she stood up and likewise made her way upstairs. Lavender had to be really offended!


"Lavender, you don't want to tell me what's wrong with you?" Hermione asked helplessly, patting her friend's hair gently. Actually, she had dealt with sitting immediately in the common room to finish her essay but Lavender had thrown a spanner into her plans; as soon as the door had closed behind them, she had burst into tears and thrown herself face down on her bed.

She just couldn't hold it back any longer, all that had been building in her up over the day, and sobbed so hardly that she could barely speak. But what could she want to tell Hermione? She was anyway already suspicious.

Hermione pulled out another handkerchief and held it toward Lavender. "Is it because of Snape?" she asked perceptively, and Lavender winced violently. Clever girl! she thought. But unlike you think!

"Y-yes," she stammered, and blew her nose noisily. "He was never as nasty as today," she whispered, sitting up. "I don't know if I can stand this two more years."

"I ask myself anyway all the time, how you managed to stay in his course!" Hermione wondered. "He actually only takes students with a very good ZAG in Potions. It must be clear to you that he therefore particularly keeps an eye on you. He just waited for your first potion going down the drain."

Her tone was getting way too schoolmasterly for Lavender's taste and so she just curtly shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, something's just always wrong." But immediately afterwards, new tears swelled from her eyes, her mascara running in black rivulets down her cheeks.

"Then I don't understand, quite frankly, why you really want to continue Potions!" Hermione said, shaking her head.

Lavender raised her head. "Because you need it as an entry requirement for the Healer-education!" she replied quickly as a shot. "And for many other professions as well. You know that!"

For this question, of course, she had been already prepared, when she had asked her parents about talking to Dumbledore. As yet she still had no clue how they managed to convince him and then Snape to let her do the course despite of her moderate ZAG-mark. There were many students beside her who were likewise dependent on a degree in this important subject, but usually the rules were strictly observed.

"How did you actually convince Snape?" it already came from Hermione. "You know, anyone could say that … almost half of the class wants to become Auror!"

Lavender lowered her head and did not answer. Blimey, her entire chest was burning like fire, and she should justify herself to Hermione about things like career aspirations! At this moment, she actually couldn't care less about what she would do in the future. The real reason why she wanted to be in Snape's course was only business of Parvati, her best friend, who was kind of funny since the holidays …

"And what I also do not understand …" Hermione started again, but luckily at that moment, the door flew open, and Parvati rushed in. "Why didn't you wait!" she blurted out immediately.

Hermione quickly stood up, grabbed her books and squeezed herself past Parvati saying, "Patil, take over!"


The first moment, Parvati stayed put stiffly in the doorway. So that happened, when Lavender was neglected for one afternoon. Oh God, she simply didn't have the nerve now for something like that.

But then she sat down next to her friend and put an arm around her. "That bad?" she asked softly.

Lavender nodded, her face distorted by the crying. "Much worse! I think it was a mistake to want his course so badly!" it erupted out of her. "He will make it the hell for me the whole year! But … I just like him so much!"

"I know," Parvati nodded and stroked Lavender's back, relieved that she no longer resented her recent comment. "And that's why you simply need to show him now what you've got!"

Lavender turned to Parvati and joylessly pulled up the corners of her mouth. "Without having any tact?" she said sarcastically, and at the very next moment started a violent sobbing. Seeking for help, Parvati looked up at the ceiling. This remark her friend had probably taken most to heart what she could understand quite well. Who would like to be made out to be indelicate, moreover by her dreamboat?

"Lavender, he has absolutely no idea!" she tried to calm down her friend. "If one of us is imaginative and sensitive, then it's you. He doesn't even know these words! Don't let yourself get so distressed!"

Lavender raised her head and stared at Parvati from red-rimmed eyes. "Would you perhaps not getting hit if Severus would brand you a coward?" she asked quietly, in a faltering voice. "And if he'd use your sign, which means totally much to you?"

"He surely doesn't know about that," Parvati appeased her. "And how should he know your birthday anyway?"

"And if he does?" persisted Lavender. "Sometimes I wonder what this man actually doesn't know!"

Parvati nodded. That question she also asked herself many times, when the inscrutable eyes of Severus pierced her. He probably even enjoyed that she was happy for a short moment, she thought.

"And then warts, on top of all!" Lavender spluttered. "That's so – unaesthetic, so hideous, so –" She found no more words that did justice to her feelings and threw herself into Parvati's arms as a new crying fit overwhelmed her.

Parvati made another eye-contact with the ceiling, but it couldn't help either. When Lavender was in such a desperate mood, Parvati sometimes had a hard time finding the right words. Helplessly, she finally handed her friend a handkerchief. Lavender wiped mechanically her eyes – her makeup had now completely dissolved – and blew her nose.

"Maybe you should just try to check this lesson off as unpleasant experience," Parvati suggested. "It can't get any worse. And maybe it'll work better next time …"

"But I really can't do it!" Lavender murmured in a trembling voice. "Although I try so hard. Maybe I'm just another squib having too clumsy motions!"

"Oh, stop it now!" cried Parvati, almost mad. "You can do magic! And you can also create potions. Your problem is lack of concentration, you know that? It's hard for you to concentrate your thoughts!"

"And this thing about the qualities," sniffed Lavender, who had not been listening at all. "My God, that was so embarrassing! What is he thinking about me! That I first sneak in his course and then try to get away with such means? How stupid he thinks I am?"

"That he just said for the small Slytherin rats having a laugh!" contradicted Parvati. But secretly she believed that Snape thought exactly that. He had surely gone berserk when Dumbledore forced him to admit Lavender. Because voluntarily he would never have done something like that, and certainly not for a Gryffindor. She wished Lavender had talked to her about her crazy plan earlier, instead of first putting her parents on Dumbledore. She would probably have been the only one who managed to talk her out of it again.

"No, he really thinks I'm stupid," Lavender said dejectedly. "Brazen and stupid, that's what he said, right?"

"So what?" Parvati shook her friend's arm. "Helloo … ! For Snape we all are brazen and stupid, does this have to appear in the Daily Prophet for making you believe it? So just don't take anything he says literally! My God, now come back down to earth!"

Lavender backed off a little from Parvati and her eyes narrowed. "You never used to be that impatient," she said. "You of all people should be understanding me!"

"But I am" Parvati said soothingly. "I just realized that there are still other things in this world, except Severus Snape. I mean, what can he give us? What do we get out of his destructive outbursts?"

"How do you mean – what do we get, then?" Lavender asked blankly. "You never cared about that previously!"

"But now I do! I think we should spend more with people around us, Lavender!"

"With I-know-it-all-Hermione?" Lavender asked, pulling up mockingly a corner of her mouth.

"Why not? She's okay. Besides, we have sixteen guys in our class, of who at least two are quite cute …"

Lavender shot up straight. "Tell me!"

"Only in theory," Parvati fended off. "Harry and Seamus …?"

Lavender rolled her eyes. "Baby faces," she commented. "And the rest you can also forget, also those from the seventh class!"

"Because you're only fixated on Snape!"

"Now you just call him Snape? Come on, that's so ridiculous!" Lavender exclaimed.

"Well, if you prefer, then you're just fixated on Severus!" Parvati replied irritably.

"That's not such a milksop, but a man!" Lavender's eyes took again this rapturous expression, Parvati knew so well. Apparently her friend could never get enough.

"Snape is a pathetic wretch!" Parvati countered. "By man, I understand something else!"

"Is that a fact?" Lavender said sourly. "Well, this you can probably judge only in theory!"

With that she alluded on the values by which Parvati and Padma were educated. Their father came from India, their mother from Turkey, and they didn't directly prohibit premarital sex to the Sisters, but taught them to take their time with choosing a partner and not give away their most precious thing thoughtlessly. As yet, Parvati never had a problem with that. The feelings for Snape had never gone beyond abstract passion, and she never had been interested in anybody else in her field of vision. The more annoying it was for her that her friend now wanted to pick on this supposed weakness although she couldn't show any experience in the field neither.

"Exactly!" Parvati replied coolly. "And it can also stay like this for now. I namely wanted to focus a bit more on school!"

Lavender's jaw literally dropped open. Her tears were now completely dried up. "Are you sick?" she asked in disbelief and felt Parvati's forehead.

Parvati shook reluctantly her hand off. "This is no playground here, Lavender! Unfortunately not," she added, to get the sharpness off her words. "In two years we're done here, and they will go by quickly. It simply makes sense to think about a career already and get prepared, or not?"

"And what would Miss Patil like to do in the future?" Lavender said with a smug grin, but spoke straight on, "Did the Ravenclaws wash your brain, or what's going on?"

"Haha, very funny!"

"No, seriously! Say, do you imagine, in the exquisite circle around your sister would still be room for you?"

"Why not?" Parvati shot back. She stood up and began busily rummaging in her bag, so Lavender could not see her face. "I'll just drop in the common room," she announced with laboriously controlled voice. "Doing something for SCHOOL!"

She slammed the door so loudly behind her that it shook on its hinges, and she had a good mind to hex it, so that Lavender could not get out, only to demonstrate her superiority.

"No, Ron, I have still not more than three sentences," she hissed at the redhead who just opened his mouth, as she entered the common room. Ron closed his mouth again and sank aghast back in his chair.

Parvati smacked her books on a table and sat down with her back to the others. She was hot with rage. If anyone would be wrong in Ravenclaw, it would be Lavender! she thought, as she sought the right page in the book. Why does she always have to pull me down, when she feels bad! And why is it such a drama for her, whenever I give thought to other things than Severus … Snape! she corrected herself. For me it's Snape now. This rubbish has to stop!

Determined, Parvati dipped her quill into the barrel, and after half an hour she had at least commited two more sentences to parchment.


Lavender stared thunderstruck at the door, through which Parvati rushed off. "I don't believe it," she whispered in disbelief. "Was that just Parvati?"

And again she collapsed crying on the bed. What happened to her? What do I do now? she thought frantically. And she really calls him Snape! Our Severus!

For a long time, Lavender hadn't felt as alone as she did now. Actually Parvati had always been there for her and that in any situation: Whether she had worries or wanted to laugh; if she was in the mood for discussing crazy topics or playing "Severus"; her friend had always understood and shared everything with her. Really everything, even the feelings for their teacher. And that should be over now?

Lavender still couldn't believe what her friend had been uttering previously. To do something for school! Spend more time with the people around them! And forget about Severus?! She must be completely mutated! And that is surely caused by her sister, she thought grudgingly.

The "circle" consisting of Padma Patil, Lisa Turpin and Mandy Brocklehurst had been a thorn in her side for a long time, and for Parvati it had hardly been different. Lavender guessed that the separation from her sister five years ago still gnawed at her and that she was jealous of everything moving around Padma.

Anyway, she should be glad that she didn't end up with these conceited Ravenclaws! Parvati had told her last year that the three girls had established something like a learning circle. They learned together, read a daily newspaper, and for once a week they had even set up kind of a seminar where they alternately gave a small lecture on a particular topic. Parvati had shot her mouth off it, and Lavender was glad that her friend didn't pester her with wacky topics such as politics, economy and career. All this would come soon enough.

And now? The summer vacation had probably been sufficient to trigger Parvati's ambition. Padma had surely, as every year, received an outstanding certificate, compared to that poor Parvati could only pack up hers and leave. And otherwise, this sister was perfect in all things: Popular among her classmates, pretty, diverse interests – she even had proper hobbies – and attracted house points like a magnet. Needless to say, that she was a prefect.

Parvati never talked about it, but Lavender could imagine that it put a lot of pressure on her to have such a talented twin. Still, she had always gone her own way. She was not a person who could be controlled easily – at least until now. Was it Padma's influence or did it come from herself, this abnormal desire to grow up and forget about Severus?

"Whatever," Lavender muttered to herself. "So, I have him all to myself!"

She rose with a sigh and headed towards the bathroom. A shower would do her good and take her mind off. The warm water often allowed her to best enjoy her dreams. Lavender closed her eyes, and while the water ran sparkling over her shoulders, she thought of Severus and how his exciting voice had shifted her innermost in turmoil today. If only he would be a bit nicer, she thought with a sigh, and again a hot shudder overran her at the thought of his mean comments and what a wonderful time he probably had at the sight their wart-sprinkled faces had offered him.

And what was this thing about the lion? Does he know how much that hurt me? Ah, Severus … why do you actually need this?

It was clear to Lavender that this man was deeply unhappy and just couldn't help but take his frustrations out on weaker. Therefore, she forgave him everything as soon as she had calmed down again after one of his verbal attacks or other nasty actions. And that she of all people was his favorite victim, could quite be positively interpreted ….

The detention with Severus came to her mind. Tomorrow night she would be alone with him, with his beautiful eyes, his smell and his voice that made her heart ring, no matter what kind of nastiness he said. A shiver ran through her from head to toe, and Lavender realized that the queasy feeling in her belly was clearly anticipation.

After all that he has performed today, she thought with a grin and shook her head at herself. I must really like him!

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