Disclaimer: I don't own Parvati Patil (and other Harry Potter characters)
This is a story about Parvati Patil, school teacher, unmarried, heavy smoker, disillusioned.
2. The Healer is In
It was one of the younger breed of Aurors who kept me like a suspect, bound and kneeling beside my still warm friend.
After the rush of young Aurors of our generation became disillusioned with society, including the likes of Fay Dunbar and Ron Weasley, young and anxious folks who were used to participating in the Wizarding War all their life and thought that was what they were best at, the new generation of Aurors, having no Dark Lord to chase after, nor had the temperament to do so, expanded in the rank of wizards until they became a policing force of the magical community.
While some of these ranks were filled with bright Aurors like our heroes of the past, most of them were much more at home with the complacent day to day humdrum of life after You-Know-Who. Thanks to Hermione's efforts in the Ministry, a lot of elfs, centaurs and goblins also joined the Auror Force, creating new friction within the community. This one who kept me bound for interrogation was a wet behind the years youngster, but with all the snobbishness of an anti-non-human zealot as a Death Eater of old. To think that I, who once fought in Dumbledore's Army, was being interrogated for crimes against society by a Neo-Death Eater sent shivers down my spine.
Did we really win the Wizarding War?
And who are "We"? If "We" encompasses Hermione Granger and Parvati Patil, how homogeneous is that group?
Gratefully, someone higher than this Auror enters, in the form of Seamus Finnigan.
Seamus has grown fat, though a lot of the body mass can also be traced to his enormous arms. He was never quite tall, but he certainly did expand in girth, and his entrance was abrupt and swaggering as his youthful self. He immediately smacked the young Auror on the back of his head.
"Get her off those bounds, ye frickin lunatic." Seamus snarls.
Giselle, who had been sobbing in the corner uncontrollably, shakes up to complain, but the young Auror complies without a word.
"And take that broad down stairs," Seamus orders, pointing at Giselle, "I can't even hear meself think, for Dumbledore's beard!"
"Sir," the young Auror protests, "I have to make note that the suspect was found at the scene of the-"
The young man couldn't finish his sentence, yet all Seamus did was give him his full and unadulterated attention. The man gulped audibly.
"Scram," Seamus whispered hoarsely.
The two were out of the room as though they apparated. Seamus swung his large jaw back to my direction with a jowly smile.
"How've you been, Pav?" he helps me up into a chair, while he casually takes in the scene of the crime with darting small eyes, never actually looking at me.
"I've been fine," I manage to be compliant. I am shaking up inside. My mind is still blank, and I don't think it's fully gotten through me that my Lavender might be dead.
"Hear you're heading to Hogwarts," Seamus smiles, massaging my aching arm where the magical bonds had bit into the skin.
I sip the tea that Seamus offers me. "Looks so. I see you're still in the Force."
Seamus shrugs. "Me and Dean. I think we're all that's left of the old crew."
I offer a wan smile, as he touches upon what's been on my mind all day. "You know, I ran into Fay Dunbar just on my way here."
I shake my head in bemusement, not being able to believe that the boring chat with Fay and Lavender's death just happened within an hour of each other.
Seamus's hand suddenly grabs mine. I am startled, but I see that my hand has been rattling so bad that all the tea had spilled on the floor. He removes the tea from my hand.
"I'm sorry," Seamus offers; with the whole weight of sincerity he brings forth reality crashing about around me. I burst into an uncontrollable wail, as Seamus collects me in his arms, patting me gently like a small child.
"Oh, Merlin! Why." I don't think I am the one crying, but I hear myself as though detached.
"I'm sorry," Seamus continues, as my mind darkens into a frenetic chaos.
"She looks alright," the cold voice is so familiar, and splashes me to consciousness. "Just hand her a cigarette and she'll be fine."
I know that voice all too well, but I refuse to open my eyes. I suppose I'm in some sort of infirmary. I must have passed out after crying my head off into Seamus.
"Did you even examine her?" I hear Seamus snarl in an angry voice. He seems to be angry all the time. Rumor has it that he's having trouble at home. I had been to Susan and Seamus's wedding, and wasn't sure back then since Susan was always a bit on the pudgy side, but it turned out that they rushed the wedding because Seamus had gotten her pregnant. It was a crazy time back then, post Voldemort. While Susan became Judge Bones, Seamus remained Seamus, and some suspected that still he was closer to Dean than Susan. I don't think they live in the same house, now. Or at least, some say that Seamus returns home when Susan goes off to work. Anyway, he's always angry.
"I don't have to examine her to know that she's alive and sleeping off a vasovagal syncope brought on by emotional stress," Oh how I hate him. He prods me, "Wake up."
He pinches the sole of my bare feet. My eyes flash open in a glare.
"I'm awake, dammit," I snap at him.
Blaise Zabini looks at me coolly, his arms crossed over his white lab coat. He's grown a goatee since we broke up, whence at the time he had threatened with a stubble. He had gone on and one with a limping emotional neediness when I began breaking up with him, and to see it crystallize into a pretentious stubble was too much.
"See?" Blaise looks at me with a disdainful scowl.
Seamus grunts in exasperation and turns to me to squeeze my arm.
"Take care of yourself, okay?" Seamus grins and plants a kiss on my forehead, "I promise I'll bring you up to speed with anything that turns up on Lavender's case."
"Yes, yes," Blaise ignores him in a sing-song voice, "Go Gryffindor!"
Seamus ignores him and briskly turns to leave. I want Seamus to stay, or at least take me with him. But I can barely reach out before my head spins again. Seeing my weakness, Blaise promptly stick one of my cigarettes in my mouth and lights it up for me.
I inhale deeply. I needed that. I want to deny for all the Galleons in the world, but I needed that, and Blaise knew it.
"What sort of fucking Healer are you?" I snap, though not ungrateful for the cigarette.
Blaise ignores me again, instead lights one up for himself. I look around me and I see we're in his private practice office on Diagon Alley. While he does put in some time at St. Mungo's Blaise takes a couple of days off to see private cases here. But I know that it's mostly where he keeps his stash of pain-killers from plain view.
"Sorry about Lav." Blaise says, his glassy grey eyes show no sign of emotion. It's less insulting that he doesn't fake the emotion he lacks.
I push Lav's memory away for a moment, and I'm ashamed to say that it goes away easily. Perhaps it was because of our falling out in recent years, but Lavender's death flutters away from my mind with the wisp of smoke I exhale.
"I hear you're going to Hogwarts," Blaise offers small talk. I ignore him, this time, inhaling deeply. "Class of '98 gathering again. Interesting."
"Gathering?" I snort, "Seamus and you on Lav's death is barely a gathering."
Blaise snorts disdainfully. "Neville Longbottom has resigned as Chief Judicator of the Aurors and enters as the successor to Professor Sprout's chair."
I glare at him silently, but am inwardly intrigued. Such is the reason that I had fallen for such an anti-social misanthropic jerk like Blaise and spent the past couple of years with him until Lavender shook some sense into me.
"Do you know that those Neo-Death Eaters are on the rise?" Blaise examined his fingernails. "They flock like flies to a shit pile. And though we cannot see the shit pile, they are certainly flocking from somewhere."
"Neville?" I scrunch my nose.
"Don't be daft," Blaise snaps, irritated that I'm not following. "Neville was a senior Auror. Suddenly he resigns and comes to Hogwarts. There are anti-non-human leagues springing up around the country. Hermione Granger weaves about the Ministry, taking appointments that suit her needs as though she were swatting away some unseen terror. There is a dark storm brewing, Parvati."
I feel the blood draining from my fingers. My fists bunch up. "What.."
"Why did Neville return to Hogwarts?" Blaise crossed his arms.
Suddenly the prospect of returning to my old stomping grounds seemed less glamorous. Perhaps there was a reason Flitwick couldn't find a replacement Charms teacher.
"Fuck," I spat, stubbing my cigarette in one of his pus pans. "Why do you care, Blaise? You're Slytherin."
Blaise scowls a moment, but decides to go on full angry on me.
"Don't you dare assume I'm one of those moronic Neo-Death Eaters," he flares up. "I never fell in line with the likes of Draco Malfoy, and I still don't approve of such nonsense. You should know better."
To tell you the truth, I'm not much of a proud Gryffindor. Blaise is right. At school he was a Slytherin all apart to himself. having lived with him the past few years, I should have at least granted him the courtesy of acknowledging as much.
"Sorry," I muffle.
"Shit, Parvati," Blaise scowls. "You were always a bit daft. You never change. See your way out."
He turns away and stalks off into his drug cabinet. He had been off the pain killers for some time. I guess I feel guilt. I helped him out of his drug habit back then, and seeing him just fall back on those potions so easily is heartbreaking.