THC S8 R6
House: Slytherin
Position: Potions
Category: Standard
Prompt: [Theme] Trying (or succeeding) to understand what someone is going through; [emotion] devastation
WC: 1024
Beta: bea writes, Ash Juillet, charlotteredmond99, DaughteroftheOneTrueKing, Aya Diefair
Notes and triggers: Character death/dying, trope: Hanahaki disease, references to poor mental health
Her hands were so warm and that's what Hermione takes notice of as she sits on the hard floor. Her arms reached up to grasp her hands. The room is lit with the light of soft candles and the silence is broken when Lavender walks in with Hermione's hydro flask and a disposable cup of steaming black tea. Lavender says nothing but nudges the water bottle at Hermione before taking a seat at the foot of the bed.
They've been doing this all week and Hermione's eyes sting from the lack of sleep. Parvati wakes up from the couch pushed against the wall to the smell of black tea, and rubs her eyes.
"I thought I said it was okay to wake me up?" Parvati protests quietly before reaching to take a sip of Lavender's tea.
"You needed to sleep. Even your parents said so," Hermione says. Her voice is rough, but she can't bring herself to let go of Padma's hand. She's been there before, throwing up flowers due to unrequited love, and while it didn't kill her, she still remembers feeling five steps away from Death's door.
"Has she been coughing?" Parvati asks, putting her hand on her sister's head as if her touch would magically heal her. Parvati looks unsure, but Padma opens her eyes and gives Parvati a weak smile. Her eyes grow wide and Hermione only has a minute to sit her up and pull her hair back before Padma devolves into a set of hacking, bloody coughs leaving her choking and gasping for air. Parvati is rubbing soothing circles on her sister's back and whispering to her that everything will be fine.
Lavender gets a towel and Padma spits out blood, tissue, and calla lilies. There is a bucket next to Padma's bed filled with the most beautiful calla lilies mixed with blood. Hanahaki is a cruel disease and Hermione hates that love, unrequited love, is the source of its pain.
When Hermione had the disease her lungs were filled with lavender. Toxic and calming. The duality of which she thinks is funny, now that her lungs have cleared up and her love is returned. However, that doesn't seem to be the case with Padma. Padma is in love, and her love is killing her cruelly.
"Water," Padma gasps when her coughing has ceased. Hermione lets go of her hair to bring her a glass of water, her own flask forgotten on the floor.
"Who is it?" Parvati begs. "How do you know that they do not love you? It could be like Hermione? You might only need to ask."
Padma, weak as she is, gives her sister a piercing look. But Parvati refuses to budge. Hermione knows Parvati has exhausted every contact she has trying to find the person that doesn't seem to love Padma back. However, Hermione also knows the shame that comes with asking a person to love you just as fiercely as you love them. There is a thrill in the wondering, the waiting and the dying.
"You all need to go back to work," Padma says as the sun finally comes out. She has had a few coughing fits and spat out calla lilies the size of Hermione's fist. Parvati has already changed Padma's sheets, Lavender went out to get breakfast delivered and turned on the wireless before she left. If it is a good day, maybe Hermione will be able to convince Padma to go to the movies with her. Padma hates the fact that they flock around her, worried.
She keeps grumbling, "Between you three, the rest of the Ravenclaws and my parents, there are enough people watching me die."
As usual, they ignore Padma's suggestions (and talk of her death). Each of them played a part in saving the Wizarding World from itself; they can afford to take time off to take care of a friend (a sister) without worrying that their professional lives will fall apart. Besides, Padma's flat is way nicer than their own.
Hanahaki doesn't work like that and that is what terrifies Hermione. It doesn't give Padma the privilege of time. All they need is a name, because even Neville has no idea about what the calla lilies mean to the person Padma is violently pining after. They need to give love a chance and Padma doesn't realise that she is hurting them all when she doesn't.
Padma doesn't think this is about love and Hermione knows that. Hermione understands why Padma believes she is unlovable because they are taught, in polite Wizarding society, that Hanahaki is a disease that only affects those who have reached too far or loved beyond their means. Magical beings are nothing if practical about love and falling in love, and Hermione was too until she found herself coughing out lavender stalks the size of her forearm. Then Hermione realised, an almost devastating realisation, that she wanted to live, that she didn't want to die choking on flowers meant to symbolise her unrequited love.
Why won't Padma allow them to try and save her? They, a collective they, as the proverbial village that rallies behind her, can save her. All saving is resources at the right place provided by the right hands. She wants someone to save Padma, the way Lavender saved her. Luck be damned.
So Hermione keeps staying up through the night and gently rubbing Padma's back even though Padma's silence haunts her. She holds Padma's hand that now feels colder by the day and listens to Parvati beg, plead and then threaten her sister for answers. Lavender tries too in her own way to keep the peace through food runs and playing referee when tensions get too high. It is not enough.
When Padma dies, Seamus is the Healer that cuts her thorax open. He tells them years after the fact that the calla lilies that necrosed her lungs were the most beautiful flowers he has ever seen.
The answer Hermione has been waiting for does come in the form of a funeral bouquet of black calla lilies and a tiny card printed in neat letters: Gregory Goyle.