Chapter 18
Secrets

"What do you think of this one, Parvati?" Lavender asked, holding up a blue jumpsuit for her to scrutinise as the two of them browsed in the large department store down the road from Dean's apartment.

Parvati shrugged, giving the same answer that she had given to every piece of baby clothing that Lavender had suggested to her over the past hour. Lavender sighed in frustration.

"Come on Par!" she said, pulling on Parvati's arm to get her attention, which had slipped to the trees outside that were covered in a thin layer of snow. It was odd for it to be snowing in September but the weather had become more and more erratic lately without much explanation. From what Dean had told her, it was because of something that muggles called 'global warming' but she hadn't paid much attention to that; Dean tended to ramble for hours about the muggle problems that his parents had told him about.

"What?" Parvati asked, a slight note of anger creeping into her tone as she wrenched her arm out of Lavender's grip.

"Calm down," Lavender said, slightly taken aback, "Jeez, what is with you today?"

"I don't want to do this right now," Parvati said angrily, reiterating what she had repeated five times before Lavender had dragged her down here.

"Parvati, your baby is due in a few weeks, you have to have something for it to wear!" Lavender said, trying her best to be patient with her best friend.

"I know, but I don't want to do this right now!" Parvati protested.

"You haven't wanted to do this for three months!" Lavender said, "Hell, you haven't even picked out a name yet!"

"I don't want to!" Parvati all but yelled, "It's too much to take in!"

"Oh, so you can't even open up a book of names and pick one that you might like?" Lavender said, immediately firing up.

"No, I can't!" Parvati yelled, "I don't want to think about that right now."

Lavender let out an especially frustrated yell, "Well guess what, girlfriend, you're going to have to think about it right now because you can't keep that baby inside of you forever. At some point during the next week, you're going to pop and there's nothing you can do about it and I'm trying to help you here and all you're doing is making it hard for me, I'm pregnant too you know!."

Parvati snapped. "Well I'm sorry!" she screamed, tears welling in her eyes, "I'm fucking sorry that you're so damn happy with fucking Seamus and that the two of you are engaged and that you've got all your fucking baby stuff sorted because you're so excited for your baby to come. I'm sorry for making your life so fucking hard because you had to drag yourself out here when you're pregnant to 'help' me. I'm sorry that you have to put up with me!" her voice was coated with sarcasm.

"Don't you get all sassy with me, Parvati," Lavender spat angrily, "All you've done since you got attacked by Theodore Nott is sit on your arse and whine all day and I'm sick of it! I don't like being on the receiving end of your-"

Parvati cut across her, her voice dangerously quiet and every syllable was laced with venom, "You don't know what it's like, do you? To be trapped inside your own home, to have a man in the house that rapes and beats you daily and when you try to escape, you get locked in a cellar, beaten and raped and left for dead. Do you think that that would be fun, Lavender?" Parvati spat the other girl's name out as if she had just put a particularly sour grape in her mouth.

"I-" Lavender said, taken aback.

"You wouldn't, would you? And have you ever stopped to fucking think that I didn't want this?" she asked, pointing at the bulge that was her stomach right now.

"Parvati, stop."

"Did you ever think to use that daft brain of yours and see that the reason why I don't want to do this is because I am still coming to terms with the fact that I do not want this child, yet I can't give it up because despite the fact that it is his, it's also mine too?"

"You're just going to get us kicked out!" Lavender said as Parvati walked closer and closer to her, taking one step with every word and it was then that Parvati realised that there were people staring at them with shocked looks on their faces. Parvati didn't care, they were muggles, what did they know about any of this?

"I don't care," Parvati snarled, "What will it take to make you see that I can't help what's happened? You wanted that damn baby and I didn't, but I have to keep it because nobody had the good sense to tell me that I was pregnant, and when someone did, It was too late for an abortion. Now if you're still going to stand there and say to me that all I'm doing is being a whiny brat, then I think you and Seamus can toddle off home."

Lavender was speechless. Parvati could tell that she hadn't known much about how Parvati had gotten pregnant, only that it wasn't the result of love and she did feel slightly bad for treating Lavender the way that she had, but that guilt was washed away the moment she felt someone tap her on the shoulder. She whirled around quickly, a retort for the shop assistant already at her lips, but what she found when she turned was not a shop assistant. She saw a girl who looked barely older than fifteen standing with a huge, bulging belly like Parvati's on the arm of an older woman who looked like her mother. The girl had tears in her eyes.

"Hello," Parvati said, uncertainly.

"I just wanted to say," whispered the girl, "That I know how you feel."

Parvati felt her heart break as she looked at the girl, knowing exactly what the girl was saying; she didn't want the baby that she was carrying either and it wasn't until Parvati spoke again, did she realise that she was crying.

"I'm Parvati," Parvati said softly, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve and reaching the other hand out to the girl.

"Emily," the girl said, sniffing slightly as she too wiped her own eyes, "I'm sorry for disturbing you."

"No," Parvati said slowly, "it's okay." She looked at the girl's mother, who had a pleading look in her eyes. Parvati raised an eyebrow at her.

"Will you talk to Emily for me?" the woman whispered. Parvati had nodded before the woman could explain why. Parvati felt like she needed to talk to someone who had been through what she had been through, rather than just tell her that everything was going to work out in the end, "Thank you," she said quietly as the attendant showed up, breathless to the scene.

"What's going on here?" she asked through heavy breaths.

"Nothing," Emily's mother said coolly, "Just a little disagreement, we're leaving now."

The attendant pursed her lips as Parvati, Emily and Emily's mother started to walk towards the door of the shop, followed reluctantly by Lavender. Parvati didn't even want to look at Lavender at the moment, but it was a mark of what a good friend she was to Parvati, even when she was annoyed with her that she followed them out.

"Parvati, what are you-" Lavender started but Emily's mother cut across her.

"I think you and I need to have a chat," Emily's mother said disapprovingly, gripping Lavender by the upper arm and tugging her away from Emily and Parvati. Parvati watched them go and sincerely hoped that Emily's mother was giving Lavender an earful.

When she turned back around, it was to see Emily crying.

"What's up?" Parvati said, sitting down on the low brick wall and looking into Emily's eyes.

"Like you don't know," Emily said.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Parvati asked, "Because it's best to do that, keeping it in is toxic."

"Normally I don't," Emily said, "But I feel like I can with you."

"You can talk to me," Parvati said, "But I understand if you don't want to."

Emily was silent and Parvati couldn't help but ask the question that had been burning in her throat since she had seen Emily.

"How old are you, Emily?" Parvati asked.

"Fifteen," she said, confirming Parvati's suspicions, "You?"

"Twenty-three," Parvati said and feeling like she should elaborate slightly, "I was forced into marrying a man that I didn't love, he didn't love me either and as soon as we moved in together he made it clear that he was going to be the dominant one in the relationship. Things only escalated from there." She pulled back her sleeves to show just some of the scars that he had left her with. Emily breathed in sharply.

"I was walking home from school," she said shakily, "He grabbed me… things just escalated from there." Emily pushed back her hair that had been covering a side of her face and all of a sudden, it was Parvati's turn to take a sharp intake of breath as she saw the other half of Emily's face. Her skin was puckered and scarred, she had no eyelid and that half of her face was so deformed that Parvati wasn't sure whether she was wearing a mask or not.

"Oh God," Parvati said instinctively and immediately wished that she hadn't said it, "What happened?"

"Acid," Emily said shortly, "It was dark and he couldn't see what he was doing, so it only got onto this half of my face."

Parvati clapped her hands to her mouth. Whatever she had suffered, whatever pain that Theodore Nott had inflicted on her, it was nothing compared to what this girl had suffered through, nothing compared to the pain that she must've felt when the corrosive liquid had hit her face.

"I'm so sorry," Parvati said, reaching out and taking the younger girl's hand, "I'm so, so sorry."

"There was nothing you could've done," she responded, flicking her fringe back across the scars on her cheek, hiding them completely from view. Emily shook her head a little bit and Parvati knew that she was trying to chase away the memories.

"You don't want to keep your baby either?" Parvati asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

"It's like you said," Emily shrugged, "It's half him but it's also half me. I couldn't bring myself to do that to something that was a part of me. Imagine killing your own kid if it was in this world already, that's essentially what abortion is."

"What did your mum think?" Parvati asked cautiously.

"She said that it was my choice and that she would support me either way. I decided to keep it, and she's supporting me."

Parvati smiled, Emily's mum reminded her of Dean.

"You've got a great mum," Parvati said. Emily smiled.

"I know."

Parvati didn't know what to say next, she was never much good with talking to people she didn't already know, nowadays especially.

"I'm not ready for this," Emily said suddenly, "I'm only fifteen, I'm not old enough or experienced enough."

"There's always adoption?" Parvati suggested, "Then you'll have the baby off your hands."

Emily shook her head, "It'll be a reminder that it actually happened."

Parvati felt the invisible string that already attached her and Emily through sharing a similar experience grow a little bit tighter.

"Me too," she said softly, "Me too."

Emily smiled a smile that Parvati could tell was the most genuine one she had displayed since they had met less than fifteen minutes ago. Emily looked out through the snow covered park, Parvati followed her gaze until she saw that Lavender and Emily's mother were coming back across the crisp snow.

"You should forgive her," Emily said suddenly, "Your friend, she was only trying to help you get ready."

"I know," Parvati said as she and Lavender made eye contact and Lavender started to run as fast as her six month pregnant tummy would allow and Parvati knew that Emily's mum had probably given her a stern talking to. Parvati walked up the stairs that were next to her as quickly as she could and embraced her friend.

"I'm sorry," Lavender whispered into her ear, "I had no idea of what happened really."

"I'm sorry for getting angry at you," Parvati said, "It was out of line."

"No, you were perfectly within your right to yell at me," Lavender said, "You're right, I don't know what it feels like."

"You're a great friend," Parvati said as Emily's mother embraced her daughter.

"So are you," Lavender said, breaking off the hug. Emily cleared her throat.

"Parvati, do you have a phone number?" she asked.

"Yeah," Parvati said, remembering the device in the corner of Dean's apartment that he used to talk to his parents and sisters every so-often, "I don't know the number though, I live with one of my friends."

"Oh," Emily said, reaching into her pocket, "Well, here's my number," she handed Parvati a slip of paper with some numbers on it, "Can you call me please?"

Parvati smiled as she pocketed the paper, "I will," she said. Emily's mother whispered a thank you to Parvati and a good luck to both her and Lavender, which they both wished Emily in return and just as soon as they had met, Emily and Parvati went their separate ways and Parvati couldn't help but feel like a bit of a weight had been lifted off her chest, maybe all she had needed was a person to share the experiences with her.

"That shit is fucked up," Seamus said as Dean finished reading him the notes on Theodore Nott senior that he had been forced to keep in the cupboard in between towels for almost three months, seeing as Padma hadn't come back to live with them and he couldn't have Parvati finding them and reading them.

"I know," Dean said grimly, "Sorry I had to subject you to that, but I've made all of this research into why Theodore Nott abused Parvati for no real good reason and I've found a really good reason and I need someone else's opinion on what I should do with this."

Seamus nodded for Dean to go on, "If I hand it in to the Wizenagamot, they'll send him to a mental institution, which he can escape from, If I keep it on me, I essentially have someone else's blood on my hands as he rots in Azkaban."

"Don't show it," Seamus said immediately, "Do you want that guy loose in the world?"

"But it's not his fault," Dean said reasonably, "He can't help it if all he's ever known is abuse."

"Fair enough," Seamus said, "But he could do that to other people, it's better that he rot from his crimes."

"And what are his crimes, exactly?" Dean asked, "Doing what he thought was normal in a marriage?"

"No," Seamus said, "I believe they were; rape, sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse and the use of the unforgivable curses."

"Okay, fair enough," Dean said, seeing it from that point of view, "but I still think the right thing to do is turn this information in, he needs a doctor, not a prison sentence."

"Look, Dean, do you want the guy loose in the world or not? He almost killed Parvati, do you want someone like that on the loose? For god 's sake man, use your head." Seamus said.

"No," Dean said, "I most certainly do not want him loose in the world."

"Then there's your answer," Seamus said, raising his arms in conclusion, "You burn the evidence."

"I should probably return it to the ministry," Dean said.

"Where people can find it?" Seamus said incredulously, "You are so bad at hiding evidence remind me never to murder someone with you."

"Well, I'm normally the one trying to solve the crime, in case you didn't notice," Dean said, "and since when do you murder people?"

"It's called a joke, idiot," Seamus said.

"It's called sarcasm, idiot," Dean retorted. Seamus rolled his eyes and aimed a kick in Dean's general direction, being too lazy to get up and kick him properly.

"I want to keep it a bit longer, but I want it out of the house, I don't like keeping secrets from Parvati, she keeps enough from me and I don't want her to constantly try to read me like I have to constantly try to read her."

"Are you two together yet?" Seamus asked tactlessly, jumping from one completely different subject to another.

"What?" Dean yelped, taken aback by the sudden question, "I mean, no," he said, flustered, "she said that she wasn't ready for a relationship, but she does love me."

"Man you were right, she is giving you the biggest mixed signals ever," Seamus said, "I seriously don't understand girls sometimes. Lavender is always changing her moods on me; one moment she's mad at me, the next she wants to cuddle, it's weird mate, I tell you."

"That would be because she's pregnant, Seamus," Dean said, "They're called hormones and they make women crazy."

"I'm trying to make a point about girls being weird!" Seamus said.

There was a creak on the stairs, followed by the sound of two female voices, both clearly belonging to Lavender and Parvati.

"Shit," Dean said, looking at all of the files he had taken from the ministry that were spread out over the table; he definitely wasn't expecting them back this soon. He waved his wand at the pile and it stacked itself neatly in order and zoomed back into the cupboard, between the two towels that were never used for some reason. He had just waved his wand and summoned a packet of biscuits when Parvati and Lavender walked in. As Dean had expected, they were empty handed. He knew that Parvati had no intention of accepting that she needed to buy stuff for the baby until it was actually here. He knew that she was still in denial, even if she told him she wasn't.

"What are you boys up to?" Lavender asked suspiciously at both Seamus and Dean who both had a biscuit half way to their lips.

"Nothing," Dean and Seamus said simultaneously.

"What did you girls do?" Dean asked.

"We talked to some people," Lavender said, "I think Parvati benefited more than me," she said, looking sideways at her friend, "Although I learned that I should learn the true story before I judge someone."

Dean and Seamus looked at each other, their eyes saying the same thing. Girls are most definitely weird.

AN: Holy crap that is the quickest I've ever written one of these chapters. Wow that's ridiculous, 3k words plus in an hour. I've completely worn myself out. Yay me!

I just had the best day today. I found out that the Yeti is going to have another little yeti! (a sentence that will only make sense to Nerdfighters) and that Barak Obama is a nerdfighter (or Malia and Sasha are at least) because he told John Green to tell his child not to forget to be awesome! And I got two new Agatha Christie books and I did a lot of exercise and exercise makes me happy apparently….

I'd love it if you could spare me the time to review :)

DFTBA,
Best Wishes

~The Original Horcrux~