Written for Quidditch League, Round 3
Team: Wigtown Wanderers
Position: Chaser 2
Prompt: Write about someone having a change of heart, for better or worse.
Additional prompts: (word) whisper, (object) locket, (setting) nighttime
Word count: 1,093
Warning: mentions of character death, alcoholism
champagne problems
"Stay strong."
That had been Lavender's final whisper, the words that she rasped as she lay dying in the rubble. The wound inflicted by Greyback oozed blood onto her robes, and though Parvati was quick to run for help as soon as it was safe, no amount of help could save the other girl. Her best friend, her confidante through thick and thin, was gone.
Among all the dark and twisted moments in the war, Lavender's death was the catalyst for Parvati's downward spiral in the months following the final battle. By day, she tried to make it look as though she was holding it all together, but by night, her demons tore down her carefully crafted facade. At night, she needed an escape, a way to hide from the rawest parts of her grief.
Now, as she lingered outside of a Muggle off-licence, Parvati squeezed her eyes shut.
"Stay strong," she whispered to herself. She ached to reach out, to pull open the door and lose herself in aisles crammed with bottles of alcohol. After picking out her poison, she could head home and down a glass of it.
Just one glass.
It would be so easy. No one in there knew her. No one in there would suspect that just one glass would become just one bottle, which would become however much alcohol she could handle before passing out. She was no longer trying to hide from her demons—she was trying to drown them.
Parvati knew that her family was worried about her. Every morning, her parents called to check in, and sometimes they even dropped by to see her in person. The first time they had done so, she had been hungover and hadn't showered for three days. She could still remember rushing around her flat, her heart beating in time with the throbbing in her head as she tried to hide the empty liquor bottles.
Her sister played a role in keeping tabs on her, too—Padma would swing by for "impromptu" lunches that Parvati knew were anything but spontaneous. Padma's offers to tidy up went unheeded, too—Parvati couldn't risk her finding the bottles tucked away in her shoes and jacket pockets, and hidden behind the books on her shelves.
Her family didn't understand how she felt, and that was even worse than their obvious attempts to look out for her. They thought that losing Lavender was a wrinkle that would smooth itself out in time, but months had passed and Parvati's memories were still full of creases.
A young man who couldn't have been much older than her exited the store, stopping short when he saw her. Parvati's breath caught in her throat. It was dark outside, but she felt certain that he must see her dark desires written plainly on her face.
After a moment, he cleared his throat. "Did you want to go in?" He was still holding the door open—he was expecting her to go inside.
Parvati's fingers inched up to the locket around her neck. Shaped like a heart, it had been a gift from Lavender that last Christmas. Parvati recalled lifting the lid of the white jewelry box and gaping at the delicate piece of jewelry.
"You can put a picture of me inside so I'll always be close to your heart," Lavender giggled. Parvati laughed, too, and allowed her friend to clasp the necklace shut for her.
She still was close to Parvati's heart, even if she was no longer living. Maybe that was the hardest part about the nights Parvati spent getting drunk. No matter how hard she tried to erase her memories, she couldn't. Every time she peeled her eyes open the morning after a drunken binge, reality came crashing back down, a relentless tsunami of pain and torment.
Stay strong.
The voice that popped into Parvati's head sounded familiar. With a pang, she realized that it was her late friend's voice, not raspy as it had been as she bled out, but the way that it had been before Greyback bit her—the voice that always seemed just short of laughter, that could spread gossip faster than Fiendfyre.
"Hey." The young man waved a hand in her face. "Are you okay?"
He was very cute, Parvati suddenly realized, with cropped blond hair and a tall, muscular physique. Lavender would have been totally crazy about him, and the thought brought tears to her eyes.
"Yeah," she managed, blinking rapidly. She was not about to cry in front of a stranger—she hadn't fallen quite that far, even if the rest of her life was in shambles. "Yeah, I'm...fine."
She knew that she didn't look fine, but the man didn't press the issue, much to her relief. Instead, he shrugged and let the door swing shut. "Night, then."
"Goodnight," Parvati whispered as he walked away.
She looked back at the off-licence door. The bright neon signs seemed to burn into her retinas, beckoning to her like a siren's call, and she was prepared to wreck herself for just a taste of what lay inside.
Stay strong.
"I don't want to stay strong." She looked around to make sure that no one had heard her, but the street was empty. Her hands clenched into fists at her side as white-hot fury surged within her. "You're not even here, Lavender. You don't get to tell me what to do."
Stay—
"Shut up!" Parvati shrieked. "Do you think I want to live like this? Do you think drowning myself in booze makes me feel good? Well, it doesn't."
She ripped the locket from her throat and threw it on the ground.
"It doesn't," she repeated, quieter. "But it keeps me from having to...having to relive your death every single night."
She caught a glimpse of herself in the lit-up shop window and let out a noise that was half-whimper, half-giggle. She looked pathetic with her tangled mess of hair, watery eyes, and rumpled clothes.
With shaking hands, she bent down to retrieve the necklace that had been cast aside in anger. Guilt flooded through her, though she knew the snapped chain would be an easy fix. It wasn't Lavender's fault that her life was such a mess, after all.
Parvati glanced at the off-licence door one final time, then made her way to the alley behind the shop, where she Disapparated back to her flat. It would be a long night without alcohol to numb her emotions, but she was going to try and heed the mantra in her head and stay strong.
For Lavender.