Hi everyone! Nothing new to report from me.
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The train ride returning to Hogwarts after the Christmas holiday seemed to fly by. Ginny, Parvati, and Lavender sat in the compartment, surrounded by piles of candy and snacks, chatting about what had happened over the break.

The two girls had just the right reaction to Lavender's news of finding out she was the daughter of Haley and Sirius. Ginny clapped a hand over her mouth and gasped. Parvati had screamed.

"Merlin!" Lavender laughed, swatting at her out of fright, "don't scare me like that! You're going to draw attention." She dropped her voice to almost a whisper. "Besides, this isn't something that is supposed to get out. Remus wanted things to stay on the down low as much as possible. With the second war ongoing and me…supposedly being dead…" She trailed of, shaking her head. "I just mean that he doesn't want a lot of people to know."

She trusted Parvati, and surprisingly now Ginny, more than anything in the world. She knew that it wasn't going to get out as long as just the three of them knew.

"How did you parents take it?" Ginny asked, lowering her hand and drawing her hair back into a ponytail at the base of her neck. "With you knowing and all."

Lavender shrugged her shoulders, taking a bite of out a cauldron cake. "Dad took it pretty well. Answered all my questions, sent me to Remus for things I didn't understand. Mum on the other hand." She rolled her eyes. "Let's just say the household has been tense."

It was true. Her mother, mostly of hurt and anger, had shut herself in her room for the majority of Lavender's winter break. "She'll come around," her dad said gently, bumping her in the shoulder with a smile, but Lavender wasn't quite so sure.

"Anyways," she went on with a shake of her head, "I spent most of my break with Remus and his wife Tonks. Saw Haley's parents- erm, I mean- my grandparents, a couple of times." She leaned into her travel sack to take out a coin purse that was full to bursting. "Evidently they're loaded!" The three girls laughed. "They wanted me to buy something nice for myself. Seventeen years' worth of something nice, I guess!"

Ginny placed her chin into the palm of her hand, sighing contently. "I just can't believe…when Sirius told me…" She stopped. "My mum and dad almost didn't let me come back this term. Too many killings, too many kidnappings. I had to convince them. Figured the safest place now is STILL Hogwarts, despite Dumbledore being gone. I mean, You-Know-Who isn't going to touch any purebloods."

Parvati rolled her eyes. "Unless your Neville," she placed a finger on her chin in thought, "you know, or Seamus, now that I think about he. He causes enough chaos, they'll catch on eventually."

Lavender's heart jumped at the sound of Seamus's name. He hadn't tried to contact her since last term was over and she returned the gesture. It was the longest they had gone without speaking to each other, including when she "dated" Ron Weasley.

Ginny, who had noticed the look on Lavender's face after the mention of the Irish boy, piped up. "You should talk to him. Tell him how you feel! He's in a compartment down the corridor with Neville and the Creevey brothers."

Lavender shrugged her shoulders, making a noncommittal noise at the back of her throat. She reached over to pick up a second cauldron cake, but Parvati slammed her hand onto the snacks, pulling the pile toward her, glaring at her best friend. "Go. Tell him how you feel. You look miserable."

"Maybe I look miserable, because my parents aren't my real parents and my real parents are dead," she shot back, slumping back into her seat, "and the love of my life hates me, because I thought getting involved with someone in the middle of a WAR was a bad idea." Parvati stood out of her seat and placed a hand under Lavender's arm, hoisting her to her feet. "OY! What do you think you're doing?"

The Indian girl pointed out of the compartment firmly, stamping her foot in frustration. "You might not have any control over the circumstances revolving your family," she started, throwing open the glass door to the compartment, "but dammit, you can control this." She placed a hand on Lavender's back and shoved her out into the corridor. "And don't come back until you've talked to him!"

Lavender stuck her tongue out at the two girls, who merely wriggled their fingers in her direction. She debated plopping down on the floor of the corridor, refusing to move until the train reached Hogsmeade, but she knew better than to tempt Ginny with a bat-bogey hex.

Deep down, she knew the two were right. She missed Seamus. She missed his companionship, his friendship, and his ability to make her laugh. She sucked in a deep breath and started down the corridor, peeking into each compartment as she went. She stopped halfway down the train, her stomach dropping to her feet as she spotted Seamus playing Exploding Snap with Neville, who had his tongue between his teeth in concentration.

She tapped on the glass before slowly opening the door, sticking her head into the compartment. "Erm-hi," she said softly, leaning into the threshold, "Seamus, can I speak with you for a moment?"

"Anythin' you need to say to me," he started, his Irish brogue biting, "you can say in fron' of everyone here."

Maybe it was the tone he had decided to take. Maybe it was the stress of the break, finding out all the information that she had. Maybe it was the pain of her mother barely being able to look her in the eye. Perhaps it was a combination of all three. Rage boiled up inside her, racing through her veins. Before she knew it, she had drawn her wand and was pointing it at the blonde boy in front of her.

"I said," she seethed, her teeth clenched tightly together as she struggled to maintain her composure, "that I wanted to speak with you for a moment. Now. Get. Out. Here."

Seamus, despite his lack of interest in friendship for the last few weeks, knew better than to ignore Lavender when she had her wand drawn at him. Just in time for the stack of cards to explode, singeing the hem of his shirt and scorching a hole into his jeans, he stood up and followed her noisily out of the compartment, slamming the door behind him.

"What is wrong with yeh?" he fired at her, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at her as if she had personally threatened to sick You-Know-Who on him. "You don say anythin' to me for WEEKS and now-?"

"Oh bugger off," Lavender cut in, pocketing her wand and crossing her arms over her chest. "I've TRIED to talk to you! I just don't understand why you're being such a-"

"SUCH A WHAT?" Seamus roared back, flinging his hands into the air.

"SUCH A TOE RAG!" she shot back, digging her pointer finger into his chest. She could feel her cheeks burning red with rage, tears threatening to fall from the corners of her eyes. She swiped at them before they had the chance to drip onto her cheeks. "I just said that I didn't think it was the right time, not that I didn't love you."

He breathed heavy for a moment, clearly trying to work through what she had just said. "Excuse me…what?"

Lavender collapsed against the wall, partly in exhaustion, partly to be dramatic. "I said that I just didn't think it was the right time, not that I didn't love you."

He looked at her for a moment, his breath calming. "You love me?"

"Of course I love you," she sneered, nastily furrowing her brows as if she didn't understand why he couldn't get it through his head, "I've loved you since third year, for Merlin's sake."

"But, I thought…you said…the war…an excuse," he managed to chop out, boggling his words into an incoherent sentence.

"Seamus, there's a lot going on right now that I don't want to talk about," she said softly, shifting from one foot to the other, "that's all I meant. Between the war and the DA and-" She stopped herself before spilling the beans about her family. She would tell him one day, but it was still too raw. "I love you, I mean, I really LOVE you. I just don't want to enter into something right now. Can you understand that?"

Seamus paused for a moment before lurching forward, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tightly to his chest. Lavender closed her eyes, allowing the tears to leak out of her eyes for the first time in weeks. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "So we wait," he said gently, still holding her a tightly as he could, "I happen to think you're worth waiting for."

Lavender smiled, tucking her head into his shoulder. It was the first time in so long that she felt at home with herself.