Thank you to all who reviewed. You rule. It really means allot. I know all of the writers say that, but it's true. *Casts imperius curse* Review! You're under the Impirius curse. You have no choice. And you can put constructive criticism, too. I like it.
Disclaimer: In my dreams. Literally.
Eventually, she turned off the faucet. She grabbed a towel, put it on, and made her way across the flat back to her bedroom. As she was near to her bedroom, she looked to her side, and saw her father standing there. He stared at her with eyes filled with worry and regret. He looked in her eyes directly with his, and said with the utmost seriousness, in tone alien to him, a jocular man:
"Lavender, I need to talk to you, no excuses."
Lavender's heart began to beat faster. She didn't want her dad to think she was weak; she wanted to be strong. She made an effort to hide the particularly gruesome scars on her arms, even though it didn't matter to her dad. He still loved her just the same. Her eyes grew wide and she began to choke on her own words.
"But- but- but, I'm not dressed," Lavender said, beckoning her hand to the towel she was wearing. It was a lame excuse, but it was entirely true.
"Okay, Lavender. Get dressed, and I'm waiting for you out here. Don't take your time. There's no way you're going to get out of this," He responded with utmost determination.
Lavender nodded and slipped into her room. Ignoring her father's last request, she moved slowly, with the same unenthusiastic motions she did earlier. She slipped on a fresh new pair of pajamas, because she surely wasn't going to leave this house anytime soon.
She walked back to the door, and opened it. She had a small hope that her father had left and they would postpone the conversation for later, but there he was, standing in the exact same position she had left him in.
Her father took her hand and led her to the kitchen table. He sat her down and began to make a cup of hot chocolate, just like he did when she was little. He handed a mug to her, took one for himself then took his place directly across from her.
"Blimey, Lavender. I don't know where to start. I've never been great at speeches; you know that. But Lav, I'm going to start by saying, I love you. You're my daughter and no amount of wolfish features you have, bloody steaks you eat or scars on your face could change that," he said.
Lavender took a deep breath and began:
"Daddy, I love you too. And I'm fine. I was just a little upset, that's all. I'm alright now."
"Lavender, do alright people lock themselves in their rooms for five days? Do alright people cry on and on and on? Do alright people break all the mirrors in their bedrooms? Do alright people not speak to anybody for a week? Do alright people refuse to eat for five days? Do alright people stand across from their fathers, shaking, when lie to their face? Do they?"
Lavender looked up. "I- that's not true! How do you know about anything that's happened?"
Her father sighed. "Lavender, how stupid do you think I am? Do you not think about how I'm worried about you? I've sat outside your room for days, trying to get hints at what you've been doing. I've heard the tears. I heard the breaking mirrors. I miss you. The you before all of this happened."
"Trust me, daddy. It would be best to try and get rid of the old Lavender, not miss her."
"Lavender! What's wrong? Why do you hate yourself so much? Do you miss your mother? Do you wish Greyback had never attacked you? The only way for us to fix it is if you tell me!" he said forcefully.
Tears quickly began to flow down her cheeks. One came and the rest followed. So much for being strong. She couldn't be strong if she were Harry Potter himself. It wasn't as if the tears were alien to her. The past few days, it was a miracle if her face didn't look like a river. She was just ashamed she shed them right in front of her father's face.
Her father suddenly had a look of regret on his face. He didn't want to make his daughter cry, no father did. He loved her with all his heart.
"Lav, come here," he said, in a calm tone, opening his arms, gesturing for her to come and lay in them.
She stood up and hugged her father. They hadn't sat like that since she was seven and had nightmares, mostly about bloody eyeballs, which turned out to be her boggart in third year. She realized how much she missed him. She wanted to see him so bad during seventh year, when every thing was dark and abusive. She wanted to curl up in his arms and cry. She wanted him to help her after she had gotten tortured, but he couldn't. So now, she wanted to tell him the truth, but she wanted to solve her problems herself. She decided on the easiest route, to tell him the truth, just not entirely.
When she had cried all her tears out, she whispered, "I just miss mum so much."
"Lavender, so do I. I miss her everyday, but I know that she's better off then where we are. She's in heaven, with Grandmum and all of your friends. There's no pain, no Death Eaters, she's happy."
Lavender didn't reply, so with an afterthought he added, "And we're here, in a sad world were there's war that takes away people we love. We're here with sickness and death and despair. We're in a world were my baby girl can be attacked by a werewolf and still believe she's not worth anything and refuse to leave the house."
Lavender looked up at those words. They gave her a temporary feeling of that things would get better, something she didn't feel for five days. The feeling eventually went away, for it would take much more than these words to repair the mess that she had become. She sat there in her father's arms, for a few more minutes, burying her face in his shirt, letting tears slip, sniffling occasionally.
"Lavender, I don't want you to think about killing yourself, using the Cruciatus curse or cutting yourself. I want you to deal with your pain with hope There's always hope under everything, you just have to keep digging long enough to find it."
"Don't worry dad. I would never kill myself; I wouldn't do that to you. For the cutting, I think I already have enough scars for a lifetime. I've had enough pain. I'll just stay numb for a while."
"You know, Lav, that week you were in St. Mungo's unconscious was just as hard as me as it was on you," Her dad said.
"Really?" she sniffled.
"Really. Lav, I love you, and watching you lay there, cold and dead looking, was probably the worst thing I'd ever had to see in my life. I didn't know if you were going to live or die. There were a billion questions I needed to be answered and nobody could answer them."
"Daddy?" Lavender asked.
"Yes?"
"Do you think you could tell me what happened in St. Mungo's? Or what happened after I was unconscious? I really want to know."
He thought about it for a moment and responded, "Maybe, one day, when you feel better and everything is okay again, I'll tell you."
"Thank you," she said slowly and softly.
He nodded briefly. He didn't want to press the subject. Telling her all the details of that horrible day would be quite hard for her, and she didn't need anything else to be difficult for quite a while. Lavender got up, wiped the remaining tears from her face, and turned to her father.
"Thanks, daddy. I really needed this. I love you," she said as she turned to go. She was halfway through the door when her dad called her.
"Lavender?"
She turned and faced him. "Yes?" She responded.
"Professor McGonagall asked me if we would like to go to Hogwarts and help rebuild. It was pretty broken last I saw it. One war can really bring a place down," he said, with a hint of his usual humor.
Lavender couldn't go back there. Not with the bad memories, the rubble lying there, the blood on the walls, not with the mysteries of the war lying there. Not with the death. Death, death, death. These words rang in Lavender's ears and she knew her answer. She looked in her father's eyes, and she saw hope. He looked optimistic that their talk had changed everything completely, something she couldn't live with changing. She hadn't seen that look for a long time, and she wasn't going to change it.
"I'm not sure yet, daddy. I'll think about it," she said halfheartedly as she turned away, back to the dangerous sanctuary of her bedroom.
My computer ran out of battery when I was almost finished with this, and I almost literally had a heart attack. Luckily, my computer recovered the file! Anyways, I hope this chapter was decent length. If there are any errors, please point them out and review! Remember, you're still Impiriused.
I also want to mention that I'm not going to make Seamus the only person that's going to help Lavender, because that's not real, he can't be the ONLY person that helps her. Her dad is just as important, even if it's a Seamus/Lavender fic.