Many Paths to Tread
The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors have their own battles to fight.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters found in this fic, nor can I think of any particularly clever way of saying so.
--------------
A Table Too Small
Everything should have its place.
She tells Padma this when she's six, frustrated with the dolls and the saris strewn across the floor. She shoves plump brown fists into her waist like she's seen Mataji do and stomps her foot. No saris on the floor. No stuffed animals under the bed. No things taking over her half of the tiny room. Everything should have its place.
Company comes, cousins for a few days, grandparents for a week, and no one understands why she doesn't talk almost at all. Dinner is awfulawfulawful, chairs from the living room and bedrooms dragged into the dining room to accommodate more silk-clad bodies. She hates it. Niaz should sit there, across the way, and Anjuli in her highchair beside him. She should be just here, table leg knocking against her knees, right in front of the butter dish, Padma beside her, Pitaji at the head, Mataji at the foot. Not this mass of family squashed around a table too small despite its added leaf. She is scrunched between Niaz and a cousin she doesn't recognize, and she feels as though she is about to be squeezed right out from between them. She pictures herself flying backwards across the room before she hits the wall with a thud. She slinks away early.
When she starts school, she packs her trunk perfectly, bangles and brushes in their boxes, quills and jumpers in their spot. She is not excited about the new books like Padma—there are people to meet, maybe people who can see. She sits across from her sister on the Train, beside a girl with long hair, glinting like corn silk. She sits next to her every year. And she almost cries when she opens her trunk and finds that robes have come unfolded and barrettes have tumbled out of their boxes.
She does not complain like she used to to Padma about the robes and parchments and magazines on the floor of the dorm, though she feels slightly uneasy—that's just Lavender and that's alright—and besides, the girl with the frizzy hair is neater than she is. She doesn't sigh aloud when Professor Flitwick returns her parchments with pumpkin juice rings on them. She doesn't tidy up the chairs and the Snap cards littering the Common Room. That's someone else's job, and she doesn't want everyone to look at her the way they do at her roommate—snorts, rolled eyes, sighs. But her fingernail polish bottles, bought by a Squib cousin on summer holiday, are all arranged by color. Clear, white, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green—no black. There's a comfort in their cool glass under her fingers.
She finally understands why fourth year, and wonders vaguely why it never occurred to her before. Things should have places; people should have places.
She doesn't have one.
All her life, she's just been another of the Patil children, another one of dozens of cousins, a little shy, pretty, but not beautiful; smart, but not brilliant; good at dozens of things, but brilliant at none. She can't ace tests like Padma or play cricket like Niaz or play the sitar like Anjuli.
At school, she's just the less smart Patil twin, Lavender Brown's best friend. She isn't the Gryffindor beauty or the Gryffindor brain. She can't even play Quidditch like Ginny Weasley. She might be in the house of the lion, but she isn't particularly brave either.
There isn't one special thing about Parvati Patil.
She thinks about this as she stands face to face with the Death Eater.
No, not face to face. The coward has hidden himself behind a mask, so that she cannot tell age or gender or race or anything else.
Perhaps she is special. She stands there, bold, eyes flashing, wand unwavering, a witch, a woman, seventeen, Indian, British, a fighter, a warrior for life. She is who she is. She is Parvati Patil.
She might not have been able to turn a cat into a tea cozy on her first try, but she can throw these spells with accuracy. She might not captivate every man who lays eyes on her with her exotic beauty, but she is not ashamed to look this thing in the eye. She might not have a glowing destiny, full of scarlet and glory, but she has a wand and a name.
She may not be the bravest witch who ever lived, but that doesn't matter.
She has a place now, and that's all she's ever wanted.
--------------------------
Poor Parvati. That was more depressing than I thought it would be.
Anyways, this bit grew out of the simple fact that I could not remember one distinguishing characteristic of Parvati. She hung out with Lavender, had a twin sister in Ravenclaw, went to the ball with Harry, is Indian…and that's it. So, instead of bemoaning what little I had to work with (as I usually do), I decided to turn it into an idea instead. Attack if you must.
Oh, and the names of the other Patil kids come from M.M. Kaye books. She's great; read The Shadow of the Moon.
Next up: Seamus