The wind whipped Parvati's hair across her face as she walked through the cemetery, and she cursed herself for not pulling it up before she'd left home. It had been too difficult to get herself to the cemetery for her to bother with her hair or makeup. They weren't important for the task at hand. Even in life, she'd never needed to make herself 'pretty' when she was with Lavender. Lavender had always been the one person whom Parvati never had to worry about looking like a mess in front of. She'd always known she wouldn't be judged.

She'd desperately missed that since Lavender had been killed; she'd desperately missed a lot of things in the aftermath of the war. Nothing would ever be the same without her best friend and the girl she was sure had been the love of her life.

Tears were already streaming down her face by the time she reached Lavender's tombstone. The wind gave the air a bite that Parvati relished. A recent rain had left the soil damp, but Parvati paid no mind to her light tan trousers as she knelt before the grave and placed a handful of Lavender's favourite white carnations into the vase attached to the tombstone.

She ran her hand along the cool granite, tracing Lavender's name with her finger. Though Parvati had helped Lavender's parents pick out the tombstone, it was cold and impersonal. No slab of stone could capture Lavender as she'd been while alive. That would have been foolish to hope for.

Parvati swiped angrily at the tears on her cheeks. Months had passed; she was supposed to have stopped crying each time she thought of Lavender. Surely, the pain couldn't stay with her forever. All things faded with time.

"Why did it have to be you?" she asked quietly, not caring that her voice cracked or that the wind carried the words away. "It could have been anyone. Why was it you? You were the one person whose death I wouldn't be able to get over. No one can replace you."

Her heart tightened with the truth of the words.

There was never going to be anyone else like Lavender in her life. That was the simple truth. She could find love again perhaps, but it wouldn't be the same as what she'd had with Lavender. Something had been lost to Parvati forever that night at Hogwarts.

It was Padma who found her an hour later, still staring hopelessly at the tombstone as if something about it would change.

It was always Padma who came after her. Her parents could hardly look at her anymore. They'd tried and tried to help her through her grief, but when nothing worked, they became too exhausted to try again.

Padma knelt beside her, and Parvati leaned into her sister's side, shivering as she realized for the first time how cold the wind had made her. Without speaking, Padma wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and cast a heat charm that made Parvati sigh with relief.

Parvati had been doing that a lot recently, forgetting to cast charms for the simplest of things. It wasn't just magic either. She was forgetting to do a lot of things. Her parents often snapped at her for it, but Padma was silent as they sat together in front of Lavender's grave.

None of Padma's closest friends had died, though many of them had stayed behind to fight. That had made Parvati angry in the immediate aftermath of the battle, but months later, she found that the knowledge only made her numb. She couldn't find anger inside herself any longer.

"We should go," Padma said softly after she and Parvati had been staring at the tombstone together for fifteen minutes. "Neither of us needs to catch pneumonia."

Parvati didn't make a move to leave, so Padma nudged her in the shoulder.

"Come on. You know as well as I do that Lavender would never have wanted to see you sick."

It was a cliche way to get Parvati to leave the cemetery, but it worked each time Padma used it. Lavender wasn't there, but the last thing Parvati wanted was to upset her if she was somewhere where she could see what was happening with those she'd left behind.

Parvati kind of hoped she could see them, but she also kind of hoped she couldn't. She'd never felt so confused about her beliefs on life after death as she had since attending the multitude of funerals and memorials that had been held in the months after the war.

She grasped Padma's hand tightly, letting her sister Apparate out of the cemetery with her in tow.

Prompts:

Hogwarts Challenges and Assignments

Seasonal Challenge - Autumn Prompts: (weather) windy

Seasonal Challenge - Autumn Colours: tan

Seasonal Challenge - Autumn Birthstones: Lapis Lazuli - (dialogue) "No one can replace you."

Button Bonanza: red - Padma Patil

Word count: 782