Title: Synchronicity
Author: smolder
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Angel the Series belongs to Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt. Harry Potter belongs to J.K Rowling.
A/N: These drabbles won't always be in strict chronological order.
A/N 2: Some of these drabbles will be about people surrounding Winifred's life or who will come into her life at a later date.
Padma was the twin with tattoos.
This surprised people - the very very few friends who knew the only way her sister and her weren't identical on the outside that is. She was the responsible one. The calm one. The one who thought things through - and she had.
She had sixteen tattoos on her body.
All easily hidden beneath her clothes. All symmetrical. Even. Balanced. Balance was important to Padma. She got two at a time. Until she got to the end bit, then she got all four on each leg at a clip.
Her twin sat beside her the whole time, not completely understanding why she was doing this but there for her – because that's how they were.
On her shoulder blades were a mountain and a lotus – the entomology of the names Parvati and Padma, respectively, because her sister always had her back. On the flip side of her body (her chest not her breast, Seamus, her chest) she got a raven on the left and the stylized interlocking letters DA on the right. Where her loyalties lied. Her heart and her mind she often thought.
She had a sun done on her naval over her manipura chakra and a crescent moon curving around the corresponding bump of her spine on her back. Balance.
There was rosemary for remembrance on her right hip bone and chamomile for peace on her left.
Down the outside of her thighs she remembered the dead. It may seem morbid but she saw no reason they should be forgotten and her body was a perfectly willing living monument. A snitch with gold and black wings (the colors of the of which he was so proud to represent) for Cedric. Lemon drops for Dumbledore. A cauldron for Professor Snape (she had great respect for the man who had so many secrets). A black dog for Sirius Black (acquitted much to long after it would do any good). A stack of books and a bar of chocolate for Professor Lupin (it was how she always thought of him). A spiral of colors for Tonks (her hair had stayed dull with sadness when she had patrolled Hogwarts but that was not her true self). A camera for Colin. Red and gold fireworks for Fred.
There were many more people gone that she did not feel she knew well enough to symbolize, but truly, it surprised her some days how few of them were dead. Especially from her group. They weren't the Order of the Phoenix, they were DA. They never expected to live forever or come out of it all unscathed – they were an army. They went in knowing they could die.
She supposed that was why there were no new ghost in the castle. No one had any unfinished business when they died fighting for what they believed in with full knowledge of the consequences if they should loose.
So Padma awakened every morning, her long hair done in a braid then twirled into a bun at the base of her skull to keep it from falling into potions during her classes, and dressed carefully - her clothes covering her tattoos. The memories inked into her skin. Reminders of the past to keep her grounded. So that if she ever forgot in her head (one of her greatest fears, but they could take anything from you with magic) she could always look – read her own body like she has read so many books – and know who she was. Who she is.
Her students never suspected, would never guess especially that this Professor Patil was hiding such secrets under her robes (although they do think about what is under her robes. They are teenage boys and they are being taught by barely legal twins). Pravati is the flighty one, the outgoing one – the Gryffindor. And some days they catch each other's eye and just share a knowing smile, because they are so much more different then they are the same.
But really, they are more the same then they are different.