Life is pain

This is my response to Lexi's Story-Baking Challenge. The prompts were Cedric, Lavender and a quote. I don't own Harry Potter.

It was a beautiful winter night in Hogwarts. Most students were enjoying themselves, dancing, laughing. Some were kissing a girl or a boy for the first time in their lives. Older students were happy spending an evening of dining and dancing with their long term partners or simply with their friends. Others, who weren't as fortunate, were already in their beds, having left the Yule ball early after a disappointing evening.

In the garden that had been prepared in case people wanted to take a walk outside to talk privately or simply enjoy some fresh air, a blond girl sat on a park bench, sobbing silently. The bun in her hair had come lose, her make-up had started mixing with her tears and running down her face long ago and by now some of the tears mixed with make-up were staining her once gorgeous dress.

The girl didn't cry because the boy she had a crush on hadn't asked her to the ball. She also didn't cry because he had instead asked her best friends twin sister. The girl understood that both these things said nothing about the boy's feelings. No, the girl was crying because she had realised today that the boy's heart already belonged to another, even though he didn't know himself.

It was so unfair. Why did Hermione Granger have to be beautiful? Wouldn't her incredible smarts and her great, loyal character have been enough positive traits to compete with? Did she really have to suddenly show off in the one area Lavender though she had an advantage?

Lavender couldn't even be angry with her stupid dorm mate. It was nearly impossible to be angry with someone as good hearted and kind as Hermione. At least for Lavender it was. And it wasn't like Hermione had dressed up for Ron, or even that Lavender had told Hermione about her feelings for the boy. Then at least she could be angry with her dorm mate for taking him away from her. But now she couldn't even do that. It just wasn't fair.

"Lavender?"

Lavender pulled her head out of her hands and looked up in surprise. "Ceddy?" She asked. "What are you doing here? Where is Cho?" She looked around for the older Ravenclaw, hoping she wasn't around. Lavender didn't fancy people seeing her like this today.

"Cho went to the washroom and I told her I'd go outside looking for you. Can I sit?"

Lavender tried but failed to smile, so instead she just nodded. Cedric Diggory was her cousin, but their families were basically neighbours, so to her the Hufflepuff had always been more like an older brother. He sat down and was silent for a few moments, before he turned towards her.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Unable to suppress a sob, Lavender shook her head.

"Your date didn't treat you badly, did he?" Ceddy asked cautiously.

Lavender shook her head again, this time more vigorously. She had told Seamus to go and enjoy himself and that she would leave. If anything she had treated him badly, but she just hadn't been able to pretend to enjoy herself anymore and had thought it would be unfair to Seamus to ruin his evening as well.

She felt an arm curl around her shoulders and allowed Ceddy to pull her towards him. She buried her head in his shoulder, enjoying being comforted by her honorary older brother. They remained like this for several minutes with Lavender shedding new tears every now and then and Ceddy simply hugging her tightly and rubbing her back when her sobs became more frequent.

After ten minutes or so, Lavender had calmed down enough to stop her tears and sobbing, but she remained with her head on Ceddy's shoulder. Suddenly, he started speaking again. "Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Lavender looked up into her honorary brother's face with wide eyes, wondering where that had come from. Usually Ceddy was always upbeat and strong. And today was his first date with a girl he'd pined after since last school year. So why would he say something like that?

Ceddy met her eyes and grinned. "It's a quote from a Muggle fairy tale I read." Lavender frowned, still wondering why Ceddy had brought it up. "Do you think it's true?"

Her first instinct was to ask what he was on about, but Ceddy suddenly looked so serious. So Lavender thought about the question instead. Right now, her answer would be yes. But then again she had always been a very emotional person so she might not be in the best place to make that kind of judgement right now. On the other hand Lavender knew that her life was a relatively sheltered one, so she thought she lacked the experience to be in a position to say no. After a couple of minutes thinking back and forth about the matter, Lavender shook her head again. "I don't know."

"Me neither." Ceddy confessed.

"Why bring it up?" Lavender asked confusedly.

Ceddy smiled. "It's something that has been bothering me for a while, and I don't really have that many people to talk about it."

Lavender didn't respond, instead she laid her head back down on Ceddy's shoulder. She idly wondered what Cho was doing in the washroom for this long, but she didn't complain. It wasn't often these days that Lavender got to spend time with her honorary brother in this way.

After a couple of more minutes, Ceddy spoke up again. "If Harry Potter hadn't told me about the dragon, I could've died, I think." Once more Lavender lifted her head and looked at the older boy in confusion about where he was going with this conversation. Ceddy shrugged. "It just gets you thinking, is all. I never thought about things like this before."

"You can't leave me." Lavender said, noticing that she sounded rather petulant.

Ceddy laughed. "I'm not planning to."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"I just think that maybe everyone can decide for themselves whether the quote is true or not."

"I don't understand."

"Some things are bad and they cannot be changed. If a person focuses on those their whole life, then clearly they would think the quote to be true. But if we instead focus on the good things or the things we can change…" Ceddy trailed off. "That's actually where I got the resolve to ask out Cho. I thought, I can't change how she feels, but I can do something about the uncertainty I was feeling."

Lavender looked at him for a while, before simply moving a little closer to fend off the cold and resting her head on his chest. She'd never been a philosopher of any kind, so she wasn't sure what to say. Could it really be that easy? Well, in her case there was no uncertainty, so there was that. But should she maybe just try and forget about the way Ron was feeling and do her own thing?

She followed that kind of thoughts for several more minutes before Ceddy once more broke the silence. "What I'm trying to say is this. I want you to be able to say that the quote is not true for you. Can you do that for me? Promise me you will try?"

Lavender raised her head and looked into her honorary brothers eyes. It was easy to see that these he was taking this very seriously. Could she promise it? She didn't know. She wasn't strong like Ceddy. She was weak, and she knew it. But what her brother suggested sounded much better than sitting on a park bench in a cold winter night and crying her eyes out.

After what seemed like an eternity to her she finally managed to open her mouth. "I promise I'll try." She said silently.

There was a look of relief on her brother's face seemed out of place but that Lavender would never forget.

Not long after that Ceddy had escorted her to the Gryffindor common room, before going back down to spend the rest of the night with Cho. At the time she hadn't known, but it would be the last meaningful conversation she would ever have with her honorary brother. Later, when she thought back to this moment, she would often ask herself whether Ceddy had known or at least somehow felt that he would die and whether that was the reason he'd had this conversation with her and the reason for the relief on his face.

Trying to honour her promise as best as she could, Lavender started working hard on herself after Ceddy's death. She became a member of the DA in her fifth year and took what Harry Potter taught them very seriously. By the time of OWLs she had improved her grades enough to attend a respectable number of NEWT classes. She took every class she could, mostly because she didn't know what she wanted to do after school.

In her sixth year she briefly fell back into old habits, when Ron Weasley came together with Hermione Granger, but she caught herself soon after and worked even harder. When Fenrir Greyback jumped at her during the battle of Hogwarts, her improved skill with magic saw him banished through a window before the beast could ever reach her. In the end, she belonged to the survivors of the battle and not because she had hidden away.

A month and twenty-two days later, June the 24th 1998, she was sitting at the bar in The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade, a glass of fire whiskey in her hand. She'd come here with friends, but had told them she needed to be alone for fifteen minutes or so. Lavender had still not decided what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Parvati wanted to follow their old dream of studying fashion design in a Muggle university, but these days Lavender wasn't so sure that was what she wanted.

Harry Potter, after seeing her fight in the Battle of Hogwarts, had offered to talk to the Minister of Magic about getting her into Auror Training, despite a missing outstanding NEWT in Transfiguration and DADA (seventh year with the Carrows hadn't been particularly conductive to academic exellency). Lavender was surprised that Harry's offer actually sounded quite tempting to her. However, she hadn't made a decision yet. She still had a month before she needed an answer and being an Auror was a demanding job and not an obligation entered into lightly.

While she didn't know yet what her future would hold, she did know whom to thank for the many opportunities that presented themselves to her. Lavender still missed her older brother, especially today, on the anniversary of his death. It had been three long and at times hard years, but Lavender knew that if he was here right now, he would be proud of her. She had kept her promise and would continue to.

She raised her glass a little and smiled. "It isn't true, Ceddy." She whispered, before downing the contents of her glass in one go. Then she stood up, left the glass and went back to her friends. The night was still young.

If you came this far, I hope you enjoyed.