April 12, 2009
She held the little boy in her arms. He was perfect. His brown eyes were closed just then but when they were open they darted around the room looking at everything, taking in all he saw with a sort of glee. Little Seamus was at the moment peaceful. It was a change from last night when he had been crying piteously at the pain from the Full Moon. It was the second one of his second year. Lavender sighed and laid her head gently on the top of his. She hadn't even been able to be the one holding him during his hellish last two days. She had been dealing with her own hellish time of pain and terrors.
Tommy came into the room, swaying slightly from overindulgence. "Sleepin' now, is he?"
She nodded slightly, not wanting to wake Seamus up.
"And you're over your time, are ya? Good," he said before letting her respond to the last question, "I'm goin' out with the boys."
She lifted her head and said, "You're already almost drunk."
"Am I? Good. Need to be to get it out of my head." With that he turned quickly, grabbing the doorway when the room spun before his eyes, and left the flat they rented.
She sighed, knowing how hard it was for him to see his son so miserable and not be able to do anything about it. It was easier for him to push the misery away with a trip to the pub. She stood up with her son in her arms and laid him in his crib. She brushed the dark curls from his forehead and felt her lips curl up in a small smile.
She remembered how devastated she had been finding out she had been pregnant. She had seriously thought about ending the pregnancy, even with Tommy being so happy about a child. She had kept considering it seriously up until she felt Seamus for the first time in her fourth month. It was just a little flutter. She wasn't even sure at first that she had felt anything real. It had taken another moment but he had moved again and she knew she couldn't think any more of an abortion.
She lost track of how long she just stared down at her sleeping son. She did that more than she cared to remember. All she could think about was how his little body was wracked with the pain of a full moon every month. She herself had never changed. The attack had come at the wrong time of the month for that, but the wolf wanted to come. It wanted to be able to burst out of her body and rampage through town, leaving devastation in its wake.
She snorted a humorless little laugh at her thoughts. It didn't even have to come out to devastate her over and over again. All it had to do was leave her insensate each month and leave her man to deal with the pain a tiny child went through fighting his own wolf. The wolf did more damage than she ever could have imagined just by making her fight it so hard she couldn't be there for her son or her lover. She wished she was like she was before the pregnancy, able to fight the wolf and tolerate the pain better. Hell, she wished she was like she was before the attack, then it wouldn't even be an issue.
She walked away from the crib and went to the window. She hoped to see Tommy enter the pub down the street, but he must have been moving faster than her thoughts had allowed her to. As she looked out on the now-waning moon she reached out to it, leaving her palm-prints on the glass window of the small flat. She stared at the yellowish orb just staring back at her. She remembered a line from a poem she had read once in her "poetry" phase at school. It summed up her obsession with the moon perfectly: "The child's wonder at the old moon comes back nightly.*"
The moon had no interest in her, but she was obsessed with its turns from new to waxing to full to waning and back again. Maybe if things had gone differently, the only significance that ball of rock and dust orbiting the Earth would have held for her was to be illumination on the romantic walks along the beach she still dreamed of having every now and then. As it was the moon had turned into an example of how everything could just go wrong.
She shook her head and turned away from the window. "Sleep," she said to herself. "I just need some more rest, that's all." She pulled her favorite nightgown out of her dresser and slipped out of her jeans and tee so she could put it on. She hadn't bothered with a bra earlier in the day so that was one less layer to shed.
Before she lay down she checked on Seamus one more time and smoothed his hair over his forehead. His fever was gone and the color in his cheeks was healthy again. His wolf had gone back to sleep, leaving him peaceful and calm. If only her thoughts could be so as well.
She looked at the table made from her school trunk. She wasn't even sure why she still kept it. The memories it held weren't happy. Well, some of them were. Those from before the attack. From before that last stand. Did she keep it out of penance? But then, she hadn't done anything wrong, so what was she punishing herself for? Did she keep it because she wanted to hold onto just that last little bit of what she had been? But that person was gone forever in a flash of claws and teeth. Was it just that she couldn't bear to give up that last part of her old self: the care-free, silly self who had thought she could take on the world and win? That must be it. Somewhere inside her was her old school self, so sure that she could beat the men and women who had immersed themselves in pure evil.
She sighed and sat on the faded couch, staring at their "table". I shouldn't, she thought. The past is dead and buried.
Her mind warred with itself. There was her old self sitting on one shoulder telling her, It's not over. You still fight the war every month and now, so does your son. Her old self flipped her long hair and crossed her arms over her chest. Her new self, the one that worked so hard in a muggle job to pay the bills and provide for her son and husband was sitting on the other shoulder. This is your past. This is done. It can only cause trouble.
Her old self shook her head at the other two. And what if there's something in there, in one of the old books, that would help ease his pain? Ease your pain? Her new self looked mulishly at her old self, but had no response. She took a deep breath. Her son had been going through this for eight months now. How could she, as his mother allow it to go on any longer?
She knelt on the floor and pulled the items off the trunk and then the small tablecloth that covered it. "Maybe there is something in here that can stop the pain for him." She hesitated before reaching for the lock, realizing she wasn't sure where the key was now, it had been that long since she'd opened it. She looked at the keychain on the table by the door. "Did I put it there?"
When she got the keychain she realized it was Tommy's, not hers. She bit her lip. She couldn't leave Seamus to go down to the pub for her keys. She couldn't wake him and take him with her just to exchange keys. He would be suspicious. She searched around the flat, just in case she had put the key somewhere else instead.
After an hour of looking, she acknowledged that the key must either be on her keychain down at the pub or she had lost it at some point. She sat on the couch again, glaring at the useless trunk. She couldn't even open it with her wand since the damned thing was in the trunk along with everything else. Frustrated, she groaned and waved her hand at the trunk, saying Dissendium as she dropped her head back on the couch. The click barely registered as she thought, Now I have to wait until he comes home and he's not going to be happy with me looking in this damned thing.
She gave the trunk a few half-hearted kicks. As she did, the rattling finally registered. She pulled up her head to look at the lock. It was open. "What the hell?" She hadn't been very good at non-verbal magic in school and now she had done something wandless? How was that possible?
Who cares?, said her old self. Just open the damned trunk and get your wand, you idiot.
She reached out for the lid and had to take a deep breath as she put her hand on it. Had to brace herself as she lifted it. Once the trunk was open, she just sat there for a moment, memories rushing back. She reached for her wand, nearly seven years after having put it away. It fairly leaped into her hand. She could almost feel its relief when she closed her fingers around it. Old friend, she thought.
You left me in there. In the cold and dark for seven years.
I know. I'm sorry. I thought it was best.
Well, you were wrong. I missed you.
I missed you, too.
She hugged the wand to her breast. She knew it couldn't be talking to her. She knew it was all in her head, but it felt right, so right, to have it in her hand again, the natural extension of her arm. She kept hold of the wand even as she reached into the trunk to run her fingers over the books in there. Next to the books was a box. She pulled the box out and placed it on top of the books before she opened it. It had been a gift from her favorite teacher. Professor Trelawny had visited her in St. Mungo's and had brought this to her the day before Lavender had been discharged.
It was bespelled to be slightly bigger on the inside than the outside. When she opened it, she lovingly caressed the crystal ball that was nestled into its protective slot in the middle. The special cups for tasseomancy sat to its left and the water bowl for scrying had an insert that held the cards she had once used so frequently. She smiled, thinking of her times in class. Her smile died when she remembered what had happened to some of those classmates. She shook her head and closed the lid on the box. "Not helpful," she muttered. "The books will be much more helpful."
She put the box back in its place in the trunk and pulled out the pile of books, looking at the spine of each as she did so. She was looking for three in particular: Goshawk's Standard Book of Spells and Jigger's and Borage's potions texts. She had found two of the three when she came across a thin book with no name on the spine. She knew what it was and as tempting as it was to look at the pictures in the photo album, she knew she didn't have much more time before her lover came home. If he found her with the trunk open… She didn't want to think of how Tommy would react after having a good drunk going on. She quickly found the other book and put them aside. She returned all the other books to the trunk and the divination box, leaving the photo album out at the last minute.
She closed the trunk, put everything back the way it had been and sat back on the couch, the four books next to her and the wand still clutched in her hand. "Now what?" she asked herself. "Where can I hide these so he won't find them while I look through them?"
She picked up the books and walked over to Seamus' crib. He was still sleeping soundly, even after two hours of his mother's rummaging around. She got a small grin on her face, reminiscent of her old self. She put down the two potions books and took a quick look in the spellbook to refresh her memory of the spell she was about to use. She smiled after reading it through a few times, closed the book and waved her wand in a downward spiral, whispering Epoximinim to practice. When she was sure she remembered it well enough, she picked up each book and held it on the underside of the crib and stuck the books there. It wasn't a permanent sticking charm, but it would hold them there safely when she didn't need them.
"Now the wand." She looked around the flat but didn't really want to let go of it. It felt good in her hand. It had felt amazing to use a spell again. It hadn't been easy. She was glad she had only used a simple charm. Her magic had jumped around in her as she had channeled it through the wand. It must have been so eager to be used, so sick of being pent up that it had enabled her to use it without her wand to open the trunk. She was probably lucky it had just opened the trunk. It could very well have blown it to itty-bitty pieces.
She moved around the small flat, looking for a place he wouldn't find it when he hunted for money for alcohol. She had just about given up when she looked up. The very top of the cabinets looked promising. She pulled a chair over and smiled when she saw the tiny space available. He would never look here. She had never used it to hide money or anything else. Perfect. Now she could try to find a way to make Seamus' battle easier. And maybe her own. Maybe if she could ease Seamus' pain, her husband would stop needing the drink to get through it. Maybe they'd be waltzing around the flat again.
*Child Moon, Carl Sandburg
AN: Fair warning, Lavender's not having the cushiest life. I may not update this one with any regularity. If a bit of her back story comes to me, then I'll write it down and update it. I'll stick with my habit of dating the beginning of the story so there isn't any confusion if things get written out of order.