Lavender is asleep, so Parvati pulls up a chair between two beds and pulls out a book to wait. Even a few weeks after the battle, the hospital still smells a little like smoke. At the far end of the room Ritchie Coote has brought Romilda Vane a sundae and they are awkwardly trying to share it. It's so painfully teenaged that Parvati has to look away.
She had spent the last year watching as Lavender slowly stopped dancing around Seamus's feelings and Seamus's temper, as Lavender had started to call him out when he was unfair, or reckless, or stupid. And now, as Lavender is sinking deeper into some kind of depressive fog, she knows it's her turn.
But so far she's done nothing. She doesn't want to lose Lavender, maybe.
"Hey," says Lavender, faintly. "You're early."
"They closed up for the day," says Parvati. "They wanted to bring in proper experts to put the towers back in order." Perhaps wisely, McGonagall didn't trust teenagers with the repair of badly damaged structures seven or eight stories up.
"Ravenclaw?" says Michael Corner.
"And Astronomy," says Parvati. "Parts of Gryffindor."
"Hm," says Michael.
"I wish I could help out," says Lavender.
Lavender had learned healing spells, and shut up Seamus when he was mean, and sat in silent sympathy in the common room waiting for people to come back from detention, and argued Crabbe into forgetting to give out detentions. Lavender had helped a lot.
There were times that being a bit mean was a good thing, and Lavender was a bit mean. There's no point in denying it. But Lavender wouldn't take kindly to her saying so, so Parvati doesn't.
"If they're fixing up the Gryffindor tower," says Geoff Hooper, "You should tell McGonagall to replace all the drapes. The ones in our dorm had holes."
"They're replacing a lot of things," says Parvati.
"Well they should get the drapes too," says Geoff.
"They should replace my face too," mumbles Lavender, which shuts everyone up.
It's just another day on the Spell Damage ward with the Spell Damaged teenagers, just like the last few weeks. As it starts to empty- first Romilda Vane goes home, and then Geoff and Lavender, then Michael, until the day Parvati comes by and is greeted with an almost empty ward, the only bed occupied by someone who'd been hexed by his neighbor instead of stuck in a war.
Getting out of the hospital had done wonders for Lavender's attitude, and they go round Hogsmeade and Godric's Hollow, window shopping and eating out and usually just bored to death.
"We're not doing anything with our lives," says Lavender. "There's the few of us in the Aurors, and then there's the rest of us killing time."
"We'll get there," says Parvati uncomfortably.
"Whatever," says Lavender. She sounds like Seamus when she gets like this.
"Are you going back to the school?" says Parvati.
"I don't know," says Lavender. "I don't know anyone who does know."
"Anthony and Susan are," says Parvati. "Maybe Ernie too."
"Lucky them," says Lavender. "They know what they want in life."
"We do too," says Parvati.
She doesn't elaborate and Lavender must have her own ideas, since she doesn't ask. "I guess we do," she says instead.
It's nothing big, maybe. Just two girls outside the stationery store, just a little bit of thought put towards the future. Parvati squints up at the sun, then glances to the side at Lavender, her vision still a bit too bright.
"We should go back to school," says Lavender. "Widen our options."
"Yeah, we should," says Parvati.
"I wonder if they changed the drapes," says Lavender.
"They did," says Parvati.