Hey guys! I know I haven't updated in a loooooooooooong time, and I feel awful about that. I started working on other fanfictions and temporarily forgot about this one. Sorry...but here it is. I know that Parvati seemed kind of out of character in the last chapter, but I mean...she's only known about this for as long as Lavender has, so she's naturally going to be incredibly mad. Hopefully this chapter is better than the last. Also, sorry that this chapter is so long. Or maybe...not sorry. Maybe it'll make up for the long absence. Anyway, please read and review, even if you don't like it. (: I love you guys and your lovely reviews.

Lavender's dreams were filled with a harsh, cold, high-pitched voice telling her about how terrible of a friend she was. It sounded somewhat snakelike, kind of hissing at her, and she tossed and turned all night. Parvati appeared a few times, asking her in a pitiful voice why she couldn't have been more responsible and why she had done such a thing to her. The more she asked, the worse Lavender felt. And somewhere in the middle of all of this, there came a white light, so bright and enticing that it left a warm, fuzzy feeling in Lavender's body. It seemed to cancel out all of the bad thoughts in her head, and after that, she was able to sleep soundly. That is, until she started feeling sick to her stomach and had to wake up.

It was only about five in the morning. No one else was awake just yet, but Lavender thought she might have heard someone stirring upstairs. She threw her blanket off of her and tried to force the vomit working itself up her throat back down until she could make it to the bathroom, and then she realized that there was really no bathroom she could go to. There was no way she was going to go back to her dormitory with three very unfriendly girls sleeping in there. As she felt another lurch in her stomach, she jumped off of the couch and dashed out of the common room, down the hall where she knew there was a bathroom somewhere.

She was barely able to make it to the toilet before she started throwing up, and her strong emotions started to get to her. Tears were stinging in her eyes. She couldn't do this for eight more months. She couldn't handle it. Her throat was on fire, and her body was aching. Just when she thought she was going to collapse from tears, she felt someone's hand on her shoulder, and then he or she pulled her hair back out of her face. Lavender wanted to look and see who it was, but it seemed as if the sickness wouldn't stop.

"Seamus told me to come and check on you." The voice was familiar to Lavender. It was Dean Thomas, Seamus's best friend. "He's still getting ready. We're about to go out to the Quidditch field if you want to join us."

Did he not understand that she couldn't answer him right now? Tons of questions started running through Lavender's head as she heard him speak. What were they doing up so early? Why was Dean in the girls' bathroom? How did he even know she was in there?

When she thought that it was all over, she tore herself away from Dean and walked past him out of the stall, rushing to the sink to wash her mouth out. Dean followed after her, although Lavender wished more than anything that he would just leave her alone.

"So…you and Seamus…I never would have thought…" Dean said casually, obviously trying to make conversation. "It's so weird. What are you guys going to do?"

Lavender twisted the sink knob and started to rinse her mouth out, glaring at Dean as she did so. He was still staring at her as if expecting an answer, but she just planned on ignoring him. After she was sure that she was clean for the moment, she turned the water off and headed out of the bathroom, leaving Dean behind, she hoped. But he just continued to follow her.

"Okay, you know, I don't need a bodyguard or anything. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself," she snapped once they had reached the common room and she started gathering up her blankets. "What are you doing up, anyway? And how did you know I was in the bathroom?"

"Seamus and I always wake up early to go out to the Quidditch fields," Dean answered, ignoring her bad attitude. "We like to play it for fun, but neither of us could do it for real. We're not good enough." He paused for a second before he answered the second question. "And I was on my way downstairs when I saw you run out into the hallway. Thought it might be morning sickness or whatever."

Lavender stared at him for a moment, not quite sure of what she should say to him. After all, this was the first time that she had talked to him in quite some time. She decided to change the subject. "I don't want to go into my dormitory and get some clothes to change into. I've been wearing these clothes since yesterday, and I probably need to take a shower. But Parvati, Grace, and Haley won't like me being in there. I still haven't quite figured out what to do with that."

"You could probably use our showers. I don't know what to do about clothes, though." Dean shrugged. Lavender had a strong feeling that Dean wasn't doing this out of the kindness of his heart, but rather his teenage hormones inviting a girl to take a shower in his room.

"Thanks, but I think I'll go ask the fourth year girls if I could use theirs," Lavender said. "I doubt I can go back to sleep, so I guess I can go down to the Quidditch pitch with you guys. Should be fun."

By this time, the fourth year girls, along with a few others, were already up and stirring around. They were reluctant about letting Lavender use their bathroom, but one of them seemed to feel a little sorry for her and eventually made all of the others give in. Lavender showered and brushed her teeth with a spare toothbrush that one of the girls had brought with her, and then she headed up to her dormitory to get some clothes. This was going to be terrifying.

Lavender was not welcomed by anyone as she walked in, but she didn't care. She walked past all of them and to her bare bed, where she began digging in her trunk until she found a clean pair of robes for the day. Hermione Granger, who also shared a room with them, said good morning to her as she came in, and Lavender said it back, although she felt like perfect little Miss Granger was silently judging her. She trudged out of the room without one word to anyone else, and she finally came to a halt at the bottom of the staircase, where Dean and Seamus were waiting eagerly for her in the common room.

"I really thought you wouldn't be up for going to the pitch with us," Seamus said as they all walked out of the room and into the hallway. "I didn't know you were much into Quidditch."

"Oh, I'm not," Lavender said, her cheeks starting to blush a little. She didn't really know why she had agreed to hang out with the two of them anyway. She was still having a hard time believing that Seamus was being so nice to her after yesterday morning. "I just thought…you know…it might be fun."

"Do you know how to fly a broom?" Seamus asked, seemingly unfazed by the comment, as he was a huge Quidditch fan. "I can teach you. Maybe not now, since…well, you know…but later…" He suddenly looked embarrassed and looked down at the ground, clutching his broom just a little tighter than was necessary.

Lavender smiled a little to herself at his words. He was going to teach her to fly later. With those simple words, she knew that he would be sticking around for a long time. He was completely committed to this strange, awkward relationship that they had made for themselves. "I would like that," she said.

In a short time, they had made it to the Quidditch field. Lavender didn't really know what else to do, so she situated herself in the stands and watched as both Seamus and Dean mounted their brooms and started flying around the pitch a little clumsily, making it seem as if they hadn't been flying for a while. She was rather entertained by their effort, though, and she found herself wondering if Ron was going to do well on the Quidditch team this year. After all, she really liked him, and she was thinking about a way she could ask him out without it being awkward. Seriously, who would want to go out with a pregnant girl?

For about an hour or so, Lavender watched the two boys happily play around with each other like they had known each other their whole lives. It seemed as if they shared lots of inside jokes and spent a lot of time together, and they had a pretty inseparable friendship. Lavender used to have that with Parvati. They had met on the Hogwarts Express and were declaring themselves best friends after only a week of introduction. They spent some of their summers together and a few of their holidays. But it wouldn't be like that anymore. Being around Seamus and Dean made her sad, and she wondered a little bit if perhaps she didn't need to befriend them after all. Maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut about the whole thing, lied about who the father was, and never talked to Seamus to begin with.

"Hey, Lavender! We probably need to get back to the Great Hall for breakfast. You probably need some food so you can-" Seamus stopped in the middle of his sentence and stared at her like he had never seen her before. And then, without another word, he gathered up his broom and walked out of the Quidditch pitch, with Lavender and Dean following close behind him.

"Lavender, I've been thinking a lot over the past day," Seamus said after they began the long, steep walk up the hill to the castle. He cast a look at Dean, which clearly meant that he should not be involved in this conversation. With a look of understanding, Dean stumbled up the hill quickly until he was out of earshot. When he was sure that Dean was not eavesdropping, Seamus continued. "I've decided that I was acting really rude to you yesterday. And I'm really sorry about that. This is just as much my problem as it is yours. I know we don't really know each other, but we can start now. And just so you know, I don't care about me reputation or anything like that. When you make mistakes, you make mistakes. And if people want to judge you for it, then so be it. I don't care about all of that. But I'll be by your side until the very end of this, okay?"

Lavender hadn't expected him to tell her all of this. She was completely startled by the words, and when he was finished, he stared at her as if he was waiting on her to say something. But honestly, she didn't know anything that she could say. "Well, that's…thank you," she managed to get out, and then mentally kicked herself for sounding so stupid.

Seamus smiled a little, and Lavender smiled in return. She had never really noticed how nice his smile was. No wonder Parvati was so in love with him. "So we can start by getting to know each other," Seamus said. They had reached the castle now, and they were walking into the Great Hall, where a few students were stumbling in and yawning from their dormitories. "I'll go first. What's your middle name?"

Lavender frowned as she sat across from him at the table. Dean was at the very end of the table with Neville, and they, along with many of the other Gryffindors, were looking in their direction. "Pass. I don't want to tell you. It's embarrassing. What's yours?" She grabbed a piece of toast in front of her and spread some marmalade on it. She felt like she hadn't eaten in days.

"Liam," Seamus answered as if it was no big deal. "I'm not too crazy about it, but it's not the worst. I'm named after me granddad. But if I told you mine, you have to tell me yours." He smiled mischievously and shoved a plate of bacon toward her. She took it happily.

"I was named after my grandmother, and that's all I'm saying," Lavender said, deciding that it was time for her to change subjects. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"No. You?"

"A little sister. Her name is Marissa. She'll be at Hogwarts in a couple of years."

Before they even knew it, they were sharing their life stories with each other, careful not to share too much information, though. Lavender was still incredibly scared that she was going to scare Seamus off. And besides, he hadn't gained her full trust just yet…

"Mr. Finnigan. Miss Brown." They both looked up. It was close to the end of breakfast, and almost everyone had abandoned their tables and started toward their classes. The only people that were in the room now were a few Hufflepuffs, Seamus, Lavender, and Professor McGonagall. She was towering over both of them with a straight, stern expression on her face. "Professor Dumbledore would like to see you in his office, please."

Lavender and Seamus exchanged glances of worry and concern. Lavender had felt so uncomfortable talking to their headmaster yesterday, and she didn't know if she could do it again today. She might be sick. But Seamus reached across the table and patted her on the shoulder, almost as awkwardly as he had touched her last night, like he wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do. "It'll be okay, Lav."

Lavender froze, and she felt hot tears starting to sting around the corners of her eyes. Without a word to him, she grabbed her books and got up from the table, following Professor McGonagall swiftly out of the room. Seamus trotted along behind them.

"Are you okay?" he asked her when he had caught up to her. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine," Lavender said, although her insides were saying otherwise. "It's just that…Parvati was the only person that ever called me Lav. And now, she doesn't want to talk to me." She frowned at him and bit her lip, and they didn't say another word to each other on the entire trek to Dumbledore's office.

Today, Dumbledore seemed to be in a particularly good mood, for when they entered his office, he was writing a letter and humming to himself. "Thank you, Minerva," he said after what seemed like a lifetime of humming. "I'll handle it from here. Unless you would like to stay for the meeting. Sherbet lemon?" He pushed a small bowl of yellowish candies toward Seamus and Lavender and peered at them over his half-moon spectacles. Both declined, and Dumbledore shrugged a little and took one of the little candies for himself. "Unusually quiet today. I know that neither of you are ever this quiet. Is there something you would like to talk about?"

"Obviously there's something you want to talk about, Professor, because you called us here," Seamus murmured, and Professor McGonagall gave him another stern look.

"Ah, yes," Dumbledore said, rising from his seat and moving over to the window. "I see you two have come to an agreement over this whole ordeal. Do you have any plans about what to do with it yet?"

Seamus and Lavender both glanced at each other for a split second, and then Lavender looked back down at the floor, her cheeks turning a bright shade of red. The more she talked about her pregnancy, the more embarrassed she became. She still felt completely ashamed of herself, and she couldn't bear talking to such an admirable authority figure such as Dumbledore about it. But, just like yesterday, when she didn't answer, Dumbledore turned to face her in order to get an answer.

"I said something about adoption, but we haven't really talked about it," she said, careful not to meet anyone's eyes. "It's kind of confusing, Professor. You see, Seamus and I weren't even…" She trailed off, her cheeks turning brighter and brighter red by the second. Every time she explained her situation to anyone, she thought she made herself sound like a slut. But it wasn't like that, really. "We're not really…" She tried again, but the words still got lost on her tongue.

"You are housemates and nothing more," Dumbledore said in a completely understanding tone. Lavender heaved a sigh of relief, thankful that she didn't have to say it. "Barely came into contact with each other over the six years you have been attending school together. And yet, you are having a baby together."

Lavender gulped down the sickness that was rising in her throat and nodded slowly, wishing more than anything that she could just fall through the floor and disappear. "Yes, sir. It was an accident. We didn't know-"

"Alas!" Dumbledore exclaimed, interrupting Lavender and causing her to jump. "It's always an accident, isn't it, Miss Brown? No one means for this to happen." He moved swiftly to his seat again, much too swiftly for his age, and sat down. "Not to worry, not to worry. I'm sure you two will become fast friends. You're lucky that Mr. Finnigan decided to stay by your side. I've seen many boys abandon a girl in her greatest time of need because he was afraid of his well-being being damaged."

Lavender didn't know what else to do but nod here. When she thought about it, she was kind of lucky. Plenty of other women had gotten pregnant at a young age, but they were in completely different situations.

"Have you written to your parents yet?" Dumbledore asked.

Lavender heard Seamus breathe in deeply from beside her, and she knew that he had completely forgotten about telling his parents. She had as well. She had meant to write to them last night, but she had so many other things on her mind. "No, sir. Don't you think it's a little soon to be telling them?"

"Not at all. After all, you've been pregnant for a month."

"But I only just found out a couple of days ago."

"Why don't I make it easier on you? I'll invite them all to my office this weekend, and we'll tell them together. I'll assure them that I will do the best I can to help you through this long and difficult journey, and I will let you make your own decisions about the child." He paused as he heard Lavender let out a breath, and he peered down at her over his long, crooked nose. "Why, you must tell them sometime. You don't expect to get through this and not let them know."

After a moment's pause, Lavender and Seamus both muttered a "No, sir."

"Excellent. So this weekend, then?" Dumbledore's eyes were sparkling, as if he had something that he wanted to say to them, but he didn't say it. "And perhaps a doctor's appointment within the next couple of weeks? We'll have to get a Mediwitch from St. Mungo's to come and check you out, as Madame Pomfrey is not trained in that specific area." He waited for a response from either of the teenagers in front of him or from Professor McGonagall, but none of them spoke. "Okay then. So, Minerva, could you kindly escort them back to class? I understand they are both in your higher level Transfiguration class in about five minutes. You might want to hurry." He bowed to her and smiled, and Professor McGonagall motioned for Lavender and Seamus to follow her out of the room.

Lavender was, to say the least, scared of what was going to happen. Her mother and father were not going to be pleased with her at all, and she couldn't even imagine how they were going to react when they heard the news. Especially since they had never even heard of a boy named Seamus, and they would know that Lavender didn't much know him either. She was terrible at lying.

Professor McGonagall seemed like she was frustrated all throughout their Transfiguration lesson. A few Ravenclaw girls started giggling about something in the middle of class and McGonagall issued them all a report to be due by the next Transfiguration class on Thursday, something that was very unlike her to do. Lavender made sure that she sat far away from Seamus in the room so that Parvati would not cause any trouble. She had seen them talking at breakfast and for some reason felt like the way to solve her anger was to start calling Lavender names behind her back. Lavender didn't really care that Parvati was calling her names, or, at least that's what she said. On the inside, she still kept wishing that maybe she would wake up tomorrow and all of this would be a terrible nightmare, and maybe she would have her best friend back. But she knew it wouldn't happen.

The rest of the morning seemed to drag on forever. Lavender had all of her classes with Parvati because that's how they had gotten their schedules made at the beginning of the year. Both of them had planned on being Healers together, but now Lavender wasn't so sure what she wanted to do. She had a secret passion for writing and would have loved to write books, but she had also made sure that her higher level classes would help her in her dream to work at a wizarding hospital. But that was not something she needed to be worrying about now. She had a baby on the way and had no idea what to do with it. That could affect the rest of her future.

At lunch, Lavender sat with Seamus, Dean, and Neville because she had nowhere else to sit, but every once in a while, she would look down the table to catch a glimpse of Ron. A few times he caught her looking in his direction, and he would stare at her in confusion, like he didn't know what she was doing. She would look away quickly and hope that perhaps he might come and talk to her, but it never happened. As soon as he had finished eating, he left the room with Harry and Hermione, arguing with Hermione the whole way out. Perhaps he didn't like her after all…

"Did you like Parvati?" she asked suddenly, looking at Seamus. Dean and Neville had made their way down to the end of the table to talk to Cormac McLaggen, who was still angry about not getting put on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Judging by the look on Seamus's face, she knew that she probably needed to explain herself. "I mean, she liked you, you know. You guys hung out all the time, and she said that she was waiting on you to ask her to Hogsmeade, but you never did. Did you like her?"

Seamus was hesitant. He didn't really know what he was supposed to say to her. "Well…" he looked down the table at Parvati, who seemed to be a whole lot less angry than she had been in the past couple of days. "Yeah, I guess. We were pretty good friends. I was actually planning on asking her to Hogsmeade this term…but I guess I won't now."

"Why not?" Lavender asked, almost jumping out of her skin as she leaned across the table to him. "I mean, she likes you, and you like her. Tell her we're putting the baby up for adoption, and we're going to pretend like none of this ever happened. Maybe she won't be mad at me anymore." She would do anything to have her best friend back. Anything. Even though she hated Parvati with a strong passion right now, she missed her. A lot. She couldn't possibly get through this pregnancy without her. She had always been the one to tell Lavender that everything was going to be okay.

"Don't you think that would be a little…I don't know…awkward?" Seamus asked. "I mean, she's your best friend-"

"Was my best friend," Lavender corrected him. "She was my best friend. I don't even exist to her anymore." She paused, and then she rushed into her next thought. "Well, I guess I do exist since she likes to point out how terrible I am every time she sees me. I feel so awful." She pushed her plate away from her and laid her head down on the table.

"You need to eat," Seamus told her, pushing her plate toward her again. She ignored him. "Fine. Is that what you want? You want me to ask her out?"

Lavender nodded into her arms, though she did not look up at him.

"Well, I'm not going to do it. I don't have time for all of that right now. Maybe later, when we're done with all of this. But not now."

Lavender groaned frustratedly and looked up at him. He was completely serious. And then she realized that she was acting like a total idiot. There was nothing she could do to save her friendship with Parvati. It was destroyed forever. She might as well whisper a goodbye into the wind and move on with her life.

As she looked down the table again at Parvati, she saw that Parvati was already looking in her direction. But now, she didn't have a look of anger or disgust written on her face. It was a look of…concern? Sympathy? She wasn't sure, but it most definitely wasn't anger. Maybe Parvati wasn't mad at her anymore. Maybe everything was going to be okay.

But that was a large hope for Lavender. She was a horrible person.