A/N: The credit of the Harry Potter plot and characters belongs solely to J.K. Rowling. I own nothing of it but my own words.
I've been trying to find the right words for this story for quite a while now, and I can only hope it lives up to what Lavender deserves.
Silly: In Defense of Lavender Brown
It's the textbook love story: Boy meets Girl. Boy and Girl barely acknowledge each other for five years. Girl falls in like with Boy. Boy and Girl enter relationship. Boy spends suspiciously long time with Other Girl. Boy gets poisoned and fakes a coma whenever Girl comes by to visit. Girl sees Boy with Other Girl and assumes Boy is cheating on her. Girl breaks up with Boy.
Lavender Brown is a superficial, immature teenage girl who serves as nothing more than a bland plot device and comedic relief (or so we assume). She is jealous, clingy, and selfish. She is Ron's mistake and Hermione's (unworthy, laughable) foil. She is gullible (enough to blindly believe Trelawney), and she is vain (unlike the practical Hermione, Ron's real love interest), and she is possessive ("My Sweetheart", anyone?).
She is everything Hermione isn't, isn't she? A nice contrast to the real heroine? As Cho is to Ginny . . . ? She is the teenage adolescence personified, and in that, she is the worst bits of us. Ah, that's the crux of it, isn't it? Because if being young and foolish is a crime, then you can go right ahead and condemn me too, me and 11.2% of the world.
I mean, honestly, what a loon. She put stock in Divination, which is absolutely ridiculous (do horoscopes come to mind?). She spent hours in that Hogwarts bathroom, and later in the Room of Requirement's, staring at the mirror and critiquing her every flaw (sound familiar?). She took her first boyfriend and held him so tight he nearly suffocated (but we can't possibly relate, can we?). She embarrassed herself a hundred times over (and we've never done the same? I have.). She cared for nothing but herself (and how self-sacrificing were you at age sixteen?).
But Lavender Brown is nothing more than a ditz.
She loved Professor Trelawney like Harry loved Hagrid (though almost nobody respected either). She brought that old fraud fresh flowers on the hard days and unbridled hope and youth on the best (later, that old fraud would bring crystal balls and uncharacteristic ferocity). She defended Trelawney when that phony professor received nothing but doubt and cynicism. She loved that woolly subject like Harry loved Defense, and she got an O.W.L. in it too.
But Lavender Brown is capable solely of triviality.
I don't want to hear another story about a lovesick adolescent or a pathetic coward. Give me a story about two best mates, who stuck by each other through good times and bad. Give me a story about two run-of-the-mill, relatable girls who braved trial after trial (Harry Potter was not the only one who attended Hogwarts from 1991 to 1998, you know). Give me a story about Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who braided the hair of every willing refuge in the Room of Requirement seventh year, who took turns taking curses aimed at the younger students. I wanna hear that story.
Give me a story about a girl who painted her face pretty every day from the moment she turned fifteen. A girl who refused to let bruises and cuts and curses keep her from looking beautiful, because she'd be damned if she gave up for them, for practicality, because nothing at age seventeen should be practical. A girl who wore her bruises like the newest eyeshadow and curled her hair as it slowly fell out from stress. A girl who taught younger girls to wear makeup too, because she knew that sometimes you have to paint on your warrior face. Bravery is not always an instinct, you know.
Give me a story about a girl who thought she needed a boy to keep her strong, because the world was getting scary and she needed something to hold onto. Give me a story about a girl who learned just how wrong she was. Give me a story about a girl who spent her final year being not only her own hero but someone else's too. Give me a story about a girl who charged into battle on May 2, not because she wanted to but because she knew she could. She'd been in battle all year.
Don't give me a romance; the world has got quite enough of those. Give me a story of empowerment, of 'no, I can't's and 'yes, I will's and 'don't tell me what the hell I can and can't and should do's. Give me a story of Lavender Brown, who doesn't need a boy or a fortune or anything else to define her; she can manage that quite well on her own. I don't want to hear about Rosaline, and I don't want to hear about Romeo and Juliet either. I want to hear about a girl who picked herself up because she knew she'd be doing it quite a bloody lot in times to come, and she might as well start now.
Don't tell me about a damsel-in-distress; that's rather overrated, don't you think? Tell me about a girl who went to the Hog's Head one fateful day in fifth year to learn how to defend herself, and who used that knowledge two years later. Tell me about a girl who could quite take care of herself, thank you very much, but who still sometimes doubted her own ability because she was young and self-deprecating and just like anyone else.
Give me a story without a happy ending, because "these violent delights have violent ends," and Lavender was violent to a fault, in the way that "violent" means "passionate" and "impulsive." Spin me a tale of Lavender Brown, impulsive until the day she died, falling off a balcony, and Fenrir Greyback, all-around monster, stealing the life from her young, silly, vivacious body because this is a war, and not everyone walks away. Remind me how Hermione stopped him before he could degrade Lavender any further, but the damage was done and the price paid. Give me the story of a lively young girl who died a horrible, horrible death in a war too big for her. Give me that story, because it happens all the time.
Tell me about how Hermione came back for her, and so did Trelawney, and so did Parvati. Tell me about a group of teenagers who won the war, but they didn't, really. Tell me about how Hermione was the one to tell her parents, but Parvati gave the eulogy. Tell me about how they'd buried her with bags of tea leaves, and how Trelawney never taught that lesson again (Firenze would take over soon). Tell me about how, at her funeral, like so many others, she was posthumously awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class. She more than deserved it, don't you think?
So as silly and naive and childish as she was, Lavender Brown was a hero in her own right, and I'd be proud to find a bit of myself in her.