Author's Note: There's no real reason why, but this chapter doesn't really follow a linear timeline.


"And I think of how time passes so differently for different people."

—Nina LaCour, We Are Okay.

When Parvati wakes, she swears she hears a scream.

She doesn't remember her dream, and she's strangely glad. Her dreams have been nothing but torment, but she's too much of a coward to ask Padma to brew up a Dreamless Sleep draught, and she was too incompetent to do it herself according to Snape.

Her lip curls at the memory of him and she angrily tears the cover away.

Standing, she feels stupid. It was done out of anger at the memory of a dead man. A man she felt no pity for. It makes a shiver tingle up her spine. How could she be so cold, even to him? Then she feels resentment. How many times had she or Lavender cried because of him? How many sleepless nights tormented her because of his class?

She was glad he didn't make it — if he did, and Lavender didn't, she'd just —

And then she sprints to the toilet, feeling sick. Only bile comes up, and she cries. This wasn't who she had been, but this is who she was now.

oOo

Lavender sits in front of the mirror, making small braids of her hair. She's grinning as Parvati walks in, as if she's been waiting for the other girl.

They're sixteen, and when Parvati thinks of it, she feels so old now. Like she's aged three lifetimes and wishes to be that naive again. But in her mind, the memory of this almost stranger plays on like a muggle silent film Dean and Seamus once described.

Her heart spasms at the idea of how distant her friends are now. Dean, Seamus, her, and Lavender had been a happy foursome once, and now she doesn't even send so much as a screech owl their way.

In her mind, Lavender turns from the mirror and is still braiding. She's grinning ear-to-ear and that dimple she loves so much is in full view as her brown eyes twinkle.

"Ron asked me out!" she squeals in excitement and Parvati feels the floor drop out.

She blinks, knowing she has to play the role of an excited friend, of the breathless best friend who will talk about Ron and squeal when she learns of his kisses, his touches — everything, but for a split second, it's like a punch to the gut. And then she forces a smile, a squeal, and she sits on the bed and listens, but in reality, she's watching her best friend and her stomach is twisting when she realizes how jealous she is. Not because of Ron. Parvati almost hates him, especially for how he treated Padma at the ball. No. She wishes to be in his place. It's a scary thought.

She wants to ignore it.

She watches Lavender and breathes in, and then out.

She doesn't say anything, especially the obvious. Ron is most likely in love with Granger, for whatever reason.

They're best friends, but they bicker all the time and seem to enjoy it. It's like a game for them, but Parvati is silent.

It feels like a petty thing to point out, but it feels cruel to keep such an obvious fact to herself.

When she falls asleep that night, she casts a silencing charm and weeps into her pillow. She feels guilty for loving Lavender more, and for keeping the truth.

In the morning, when Ron walks up to Lavender, Parvati glares hatefully at him and walks away. What a prick! She thinks angrily, shoving Harry Potter and Hermione Granger out of her way as she enters the hall and eats with her sister, her heart sinking.

I love her. It's all she can think as she looks back at the table, brown eyes staring at her beside Dean and Parvati looks away, guilty.

oOo

Heat lightning went off in the distance as Parvati sat in the grass. The air smelt of humidity, spices, and rain. She closed her eyes to it as orange and yellow lit up beyond the mountain ridge.

She felt someone stand beside her, and she kept her eyes closed. She was too tired to talk, to try and fail at playing pretend.

Parvati wanted to feel every hair stand on end and wait for the rain; for clarity. Neither would probably come, but she had grown used to the waiting.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Nani asked.

Parvati knew it was rude, and her mother and father would be ashamed by her disrespect, but she ignored her grandmother.

She was tired of the older woman's proverbs and riddles. She was tired of everyone wanting her to be at peace.

Her grandmother sat beside her and rested her hand on one of Parvati's crossed knees, not looking at her granddaughter but over at the ridge.

"You've had many bad dreams," the older woman observed and Parvati's jaw clenched but her eyes remained shut. She said nothing, because if she opened her mouth she'd scream. Maybe words, but she knew it would just be anguished shrieks that would mark her as an animal.

She thought of Lupin, her heart sinking. He'd been a good man, and she had been wrong to shun him when learning of his status. He was dead, but she understood him now, in the end. It was almost a cruel joke and her heart clenched and she swallowed.

"It is hard, my sweet girl, to let go. Especially after all that."

Parvati bit her tongue and tasted blood.

Her grandmother caresses the knee and she opens her eyes, tears stinging.

There was so much she wanted to say, but couldn't.

She didn't just lose her best friend; life without Lavender, it was like losing the sun. It was like losing a lung, or a limb. She needed her.

Parvati inhaled sharply.

We were supposed to be together, she thinks, her eyes slamming shut and tears stream out. Her grandmother hugs her fiercely.

"Parvati, listen to me, ya? You are not weak for crying. For being afraid or hurt. You need to feel these things. Do not be afraid here," she urges softly, kissing her granddaughter's cheek. Parvati curls into her and sobs.

We were going to be together, she wants to say it, but she can't. She wants to admit everything, but she can't.

She needs to let go, but she clings to it all, the darkness consuming her.

oOo

In the morning when she returns to the little house the Patil twins have hidden in, Parvati instantly goes to the box with all her letters to Lavender. She hasn't the heart to reread them, and she considers burning them, even if just out of anger at… the world, maybe. Her new situation… but she can't bring herself to do anything more than push them deep into the bottom of her trunk.

The funeral was closed casket.

Zamira, Lavender's mother, is wailing by the closed box with its smooth and shiny lid. Roger, her husband, is holding her tight, his jaw locked and Parvati has never seen the man angry before.

She had spent time with Lavender's parents and she loved them as her own. Zamira was sweet and soft-spoken, a true Hufflepuff if there ever was one.

She has a lush garden in the back of the house and grows her own food. Parvati had been struck with how weird people found Zamira's unwillingness to give up her muggle life in such a way. She'd been muggle-born, the first in her family to have powers. Roger, however, was a pureblood and a Gryffindor through and through. He was kind, daring, and teasing, he always teased his wife with jokes and stupid pranks.

It made her love them.

She holds them close when they see her, letting Zamira soak the collar of her robes with her tears. She can't bear to part with them. They are bits and pieces of her best friend and she wants to mold them into her, to see the dimpled smile and long, flowing braids. She wants to hear Lavender's laugh again.

She wants to be called Ati again.

It would fill her to the brim to hear it, even one last time.

"She loved you so much," Zamira sobs and Parvati buries her face into the soft woman's neck and sobs openly. She couldn't be strong.

Not anymore.

oOo

When she returns to her room, Padma is lying awake and looks at her sister. Parvati gets ready for bed, either ignoring her sister or truly unaware of the look. It's hard to tell these days.

"Parvati," Padma whispers and her sister stiffens, but doesn't turn her head.

Padma takes it as an invitation to speak. "I'm sorry."

"For?" her sister says, her voice almost cold with disinterest. Padma fights the urge to flinch.

She still hasn't gotten used to her sister's coolness. Padma had always been the logical one. She could sometimes be cold and calculating, like the law enforcement worker she was meant to be. Padma's weapon was not her wand, but her words. She could twist logic like a lawyer, make those see her way. Parvati had always been too emotional for such a thing.

Parvati had been warm, emotional, and spacey. She was a dreamer, she looked to the stars and a greater what if. Now, Parvati was trapped in her sister's world of reason and it broke Padma's heart.

"Everything. This. How it doesn't seem to help," she whispers softly and wonders if Parvati's heard it, but believes she does. Parvati is tense, standing above her bed, unmoving. The sun has faded beyond the ridge, leaving the room bathed in twilight but neither girl will turn on a light despite sleep evading both of them.

She hears Parvati take a sharp breath. "I'm so sick of everyone's apologies," she hisses, and Padma can hear she's holding back an anger she's never known in her sister. She almost feels afraid of what she'll say or do, how this pain will make her mean and cruel as the situation she's been thrust into.

"Everyone's sorry, but it doesn't bring her back."

And with that, her sister leaves the room and by the time Padma's eyes droop shut, her sister is still gone.

oOo

The rain doesn't come.

She lays under a starless sky, and it is lit up by flashes of blue-white lightning. The sky is purple, but it cannot touch her.

She is in the grass, and she waits for thunder but everything is quiet. It doesn't even feel real.

Parvati's mind conjures images of exploding stones and shouting; the chaos of battle. She wishes to be free of it, even for a second. She's so tired of living it.

The battle is over, but not for her. Not for any of them…

Padma suffers, and she knows this. She whimpers in dreams, but she didn't lose anyone. Not really. She'd been lucky that way.

Or maybe not.

Death was death; grief was grief, it didn't discriminate.

oOo

"They're taking you away?" she whispers to Parvati as she packs her trunk. Her parents are in the Great Hall, demanding their departure.

There would be so much left unsaid, but they were naive to believe they'd have time.

Neither knew war.

Neither knew what the reality of it would be.

"I won't be able to write you," Parvati whispers, her hands stall as she folds a set of robes. She doesn't face her best friend. She can't.

If she knew better, she'd have turned around and soaked her in.

Parvati knew her best friend by heart, but time had worn the edges of memories.

It'd been too long since she had been near Lavender, and the day she realized she lost the scent of her she'd wept openly. Things slipped through the time, and the harder she grasped the memories, the harder they slipped through her hands.

Lavender follows her down and watches her go at the gates, and when Parvati turns, she sees her best friend sobbing and waving.

Soon. It's all Parvati thinks as her dad whisks her away. We'll be together again soon.

.

.

.

Parvati pens a letter to Seamus and Dean. She knows they're together.

No one's told her this, but no one had to. Dean and Seamus are as a part of one another as she and Lavender.

She apologizes to them for not reaching out, even when the battle had been won, she couldn't bear to be with them. It was too much.

Dean had been on the run. Ron had told her that once when they closed. He'd overheard Dean with a small group, and then he'd been imprisoned in Malfoy manor, only to be rescued by a house-elf. It broke her to think of how much she didn't know, when once, she knew everything.

She was alone, but even now she was lonely.

She sends the letters with an owl and doesn't know how long it will take to get to her friends, and she doesn't even know if they'd write back.

She does. She knows they will, it's more that she feels undeserving.

oOo

She is ushered in by Nani when she sees her lying in the grass. She'd woken to make tea.

"You foolish girl!" she scolds, sitting her down at the table and pours her a cup, making it the way she loves: honey and a splash of cream. Parvati doesn't acknowledge the cup, she's too busy trying not to cry.

"Parvati," her grandmother says, taking her hand. "Baby, look at me."

She can't.

"Parvati," her grandmother says sternly.

Her eyes shift, and her Nani is blurry from tears she won't let fall.

"You can't be stupid. I will not lose you to your grief," she says softly.

"I'm already gone," she snaps. "What's the difference?"

Her grandmother sucks in a breath but doesn't recoil from the fierceness, from the anguish. Instead, she takes her hand firmly.

"You're not gone. You are grieving and you are in a tremendous amount of pain, but you are here. You are alive. You survived. Surviving is not easy. No one talks about surviving. The pain and the toll it takes."

Parvati looks away and tries to snatch her hand away from her grandmother's grasp, but she refuses to let go.

"There is no peace in war, and there is no peace I could offer you, but you must let yourself heal. You must forgive yourself. Nothing — nothing that happened is your fault."

She bit the tears back harder.

She thinks of Lavender's dress at the Yule Ball. It had been blue, a beautiful shade of blue that made her skin glow. She thinks of how she abandoned Harry to go beside her best friend, how they ditched the boys and danced the night away.

Parvati yearns for that night, under the fake snow and dusted Christmas trees. Like a snow globe, now it was like a child was shaking it and she'd lost the ground beneath her feet. She was falling and falling and falling away from the memories that made her smile, tainted by grief.

She wants her best friend so badly she could scream.

She wants to be called Ati and have someone lock arms with her, to gossip and make her laugh, she wants the jokes and the good times. She wants to hear music and dance.

She wants to scream.

If she did, she'd let out these demons. But she can't. She's trapped in the snow globe, alone, watching it all fade away.

oOo

"I'll love you forever," she tells a Lavender in a dream.

It's dark and cold, and Lavender is distorted.

Lavender fades away and all there is is darkness. When she wakes, she curls into a ball. The tears don't even come anymore. All there is is hollow, never-ending pain.

oOo

She writes a letter to the Browns. It's full of nothingness, and just empty pleasantries, but she feels guilty for not writing or visiting.

She vows to do that when she gets home.

She'll bring them some of the food they loved, and they might talk. It's what Lavender would've wanted.

It's what Parvati thinks she needs.

oOo

She and Nani watch one another at the table, their tea cold and forgotten, and Parvati finally shatters. She sobs and her grandmother holds her tightly.

She wonders if the house will shake and crumble apart with her under these sobs.

It feels like an eternity has passed them by when she stops and inhales air. She doesn't feel better. She doesn't feel whole or good, just numb. Numb is almost worse.

"I loved her," she confesses, though her grandmother doesn't understand the weight of it all. She doesn't realize it wasn't sisterly affection or companionship, it was love. Romantic, weighted love. She loved Lavender so much she could drown in it. She was drowning now.

oOo

Lavender touches her hand and Parvati drops the robe, turning to her best friend like a summoning charm has been placed upon her.

The kiss isn't romantic like it would be in a book or a film — this was real life. There was no snazzy, snarky line or a magnificent speech about the greater good or love; their kiss is filled with tears and fear. They cling on tightly, unable to find words. There are no words to be said, there isn't enough time to sort out everything they'd avoided all year.

"When this is over," Lavender says, her hands in Parvati's thick, long black hair, "we'll sort this out."

Parvati nods and they kiss again and hold one another until they can't anymore.

It's now all a big what-if, and her mind tortures her with each possible version.

The worst ones are the ones where they're happy.

The worst is when it's bliss, and perfect.

She cries again, quietly this time. She doesn't even remember the taste of Lavender's lips, or what else they said; she's haunted by it, but it evades her so much.

When she crawls into her grandmother's bed, she's too exhausted to sleep or dream, all she does is hear Lavender say those words over and over.

She thinks of turning back, seeing her best friend crying, and how she believed they'd be together again.

oOo

When Dean and Seamus write her back, they're earnest and loving, like the brothers they'd always been.

They ask her how she's been, that Ron told them she was in India, and they wish to see her.

She writes back. She'll see them soon, and she cries at the word.

Seamus's letter has tear stains and shaky scrawl, Dean's she's better and tells him she's glad he's safe.

When the owl flies off, she looks at the mountain ridge. The sky is blue, and soon it will fade to pinks and lavenders and she looks back to where the owl had left from her sight.

If only soon was real.

It was.

Just not for them.

oOo

Padma sits beside her. Neither talk nor smile as her twin curls her knees to her chest and rests her chin. Their positions mirror one another, completely identical but so easy to tell apart, even from a distance.

Parvati has the weight on her shoulders, and Padma is uncertain.

Her sister reaches her hand into the No-Man's land between them. It's such a small gap, maybe an inch or two, but it feels as far away as India is from London. Parvati takes it.

I'm sorry, her gesture says.

You don't need to be, says the squeeze Padma gives it in return.

The sky is on fire as the sun sets over the ridge. There is no Lavender. It goes from orange and deep pink, almost red, tonight.

They sit and stare, not saying a word.

Then they go inside.

oOo

That vow is the only thing getting me through this.

That was what she once wrote in her unsent letter. She's written variations of that confession.

She felt stupid saying it, too. The war had seemed particularly easy at that point, especially compared to others.

Parvati felt shame and embarrassment when Ron told him of his year, out in the woods, hunting, fighting.

She always felt shame.

She'd been safe, the only thing snatched had been her friends, Hogwarts, her parents.

These all felt so minor in comparison.

George and Ron had lost a brother. Lupin's own son was an orphan, with no mother or father to comfort him.

Now the vow felt like a curse, a retribution for having it so easy. She never would know something that easy again, the universe would see to that.

"If you keep picking at this," her Nani had said before bed, before dumping the untouched tea and holding her close, "there will be nothing left of you, and there is so much of you left to give in this life." There's a pause, "It's what she would have wanted, Parvati."

She'd cried at that. It was true, she couldn't argue that.

Lavender would have wanted her to live just as hard as Parvati wanted her back.

They were going to work in a muggle witch shop once, when they were thirteen, as a joke. They planned it all out.

Of course, it was not ever going to be real, they had millions of plans. They'd live together, raise their kids, marry the same day, and live side-by-side when married; nothing could tear them apart.

Her heart breaks at the very flimsy thought that they never accounted for their deaths. Death couldn't touch them.

A tear hits her palm and she bats it away angrily.

"I don't know how to be without her," she confesses out loud and her Nani gives her a sad, pitying look.

"Then let us help you learn," she said softly, the request came with a soft hand to her cheek and Parvati leans in, but doesn't know how to agree.

Happiness felt like a betrayal.

Life felt like a stab to the back.

"We'll always be together, Ati," she hears her best friend, and can see her laying in the snow beside her. She's twelve there, but it was far from the only time they said this to one another.

Parvati goes to bed but doesn't sleep.

She's just haunted by memories and things left unsaid and visions that aren't real. When the sun breaks through, she feels torn apart and sick.

Her grandmother puts a cool cloth on her face and she falls into a dreamless sleep.