The weather warmed up just barely and the snow turned to cold slush in the streets. Between the waning moon and what had happened with Seamus, Lavender felt drained beyond belief. She was grateful that Brenda had closed the store, because she knew if she tried to make it in to work she would probably just collapse. She spent most of the next few days hiding in her flat, barely eating and trying not to lose herself to tears. Tears weren't going to fix anything.

On the third day after he walked out her door, she left the flat to go shopping. She ended up with mostly meat in her shopping bags, more sausages and steaks than she properly knew what to do with. Making herself eat was a chore, and especially with the moon waning she didn't feel the voracious hunger that the wolf forced upon her. She just felt so alone. Even when Seamus had been gone until late, he had still been around... most nights anyway. She couldn't be sorry for saying what she had said, and she wouldn't apologize.

Still, feeling like she was being abandoned was better than actually being abandoned, though Lavender supposed that at least she knew where she actually stood with him now. But since that was lower than his job on the scale of importance, she didn't feel particularly good about it.

She spent much of her time curled up in a blanket when she wasn't forcing herself outside. She tried not to cry too much – after all, this wasn't unexpected. It was strange to be single again, after Seamus had been there for her through the horrors of the past year, and after she had been there for him. They hadn't been inseparable but they had been close, especially towards the end of the year. After winter break, the Carrows had cracked down on troublemakers. Seamus, always the firebrand, had been hurt more often than she could keep track of.

One time, some poor little second year had spilled ink on the She-Carrow's robes. The girl had been shaking in fear while the She-Carrow shouted, promising a world of pain for the poor girl. Lavender, sick of the treatment of her classmates, had swept forward to put a hand on the second year's shoulder. Seamus had mouthed off to the Carrows at the beginning of the year and he'd gotten beat up for it. Neville had restarted the DA with Ginny's help, along with Luna Lovegood from Ravenclaw and Ernie MacMillian from Hufflepuff, and they'd quickly realized that the worst that could happen was a beating.

Since then they had grown bolder, and Lavender hadn't had any hesitation in moving up to support the little Ravenclaw girl. She had heard rustles behind her, like other people were planning on moving up, but her attention had been fixed solely on the She-Carrow. "It's just ink," she had said, trying to keep calm. Shouting didn't help calm these people down, she had found out that one quickly. Seamus shouted, Ginny shouted, Ernie would punch someone, and Lavender and Parvati just tried to keep things calm. "It can be removed with a simple charm."

Gently, she had ushered the terrified Ravenclaw girl behind her, hoping to shield the twelve year old from the wrath of a woman who had long lost any semblance of humanity.

"I shouldn't have to remove it! That little brat should watch where she's walking!" Alecto had screeched, and Lavender felt her temper fraying.

"Scourgify," Lavender had muttered, pointing her wand at the hem of Alecto's robes. In retrospect, that had been a bad idea. Despite how harmless the charm was, the use of magic had really set the older woman off, and with a bang, Lavender had felt herself thrown backwards through the air to land hard on her back, nearly flattening the Ravenclaw girl.

There had been a sudden roar and Seamus had bulled through the crowd with a sudden rush, wand drawn. Before Lavender could tell him to not attack Alecto, Neville had intercepted the irate Irishman and wrestled his arms behind his back and Parvati slipped forward to help pick Lavender up off the floor. Some Ravenclaws had helped up their housemate as well and the whole pack of students had dispersed.

Lavender's back and shoulder had been badly bruised, but it wasn't anything time and a little bruise salve couldn't handle. Parvati had applied the bruise salve gently and they had talked quietly about Seamus.

"He loves you, you have to see that," Parvati had said.

Lavender had shaken her head in response. "We just like messing around. He's not serious about me, and I'm not serious about him. We're just having fun."

"But how he reacted when the She-Carrow hexed you... Lavender, come on. You're smarter about feelings than this," Parvati had chided her.

"Okay, fine," Lavender acquiesced, nodding a little. "Say he's serious about me and I'm serious about him. What do we do after this year? The likelihood of us both surviving the big fight Neville has planned is so low, and I don't want to fall in love with someone who's just going to die, or have someone fall in love with me if I die."

"Stop being so practical," Parvati had scolded her, smearing the last of the bruise salve over Lavender's right shoulder and coming around to sit in front of her friend on the bed. "You never used to be. You used to think love would win over all."

"Until this year, that was true," Lavender had agreed. "But then I think – and I think this scares me more than if we die – what if we survive? What if we survive and live together and we don't actually work? What if we just have amazing sex and there's no connection once we're safe? Or what if we're not safe after this year? There's too much riding on this year to risk it all on hope."

Parvati had shaken her head and cleaned up the bruise salve quietly, taking the bowl back to the cabinet where they stored it. "He still loves you," she had said quietly. "You can deny it if you want, but it's true."

Lavender wrapped her arms around her knees as she sat on the couch and thought of that memory. Maybe he had loved her, even back then. She hadn't loved him because she hadn't let herself even think about love that year. She had told him on the morning after the Battle of Hogwarts that she loved him, and the way he had made her feel then, his instant response of those same words, had made her feel like the most cherished thing in the whole world.

That had been before she had seen the scars tearing up her body. She had been riding so high on adrenaline it had taken him to get her to calm down long enough to tend to her hurts, and he had been even more delicate than Parvati had as he cleaned her wounds and bandaged and salved them. She shouldn't have been alive, the Healers had told her, much less standing and walking around. But she was, and he was, and he had taken them to a place that had been untouched by war and they had made love in the sunrise before returning to the real world.

It was perhaps the best memory of her life, shadowed closely by the first time he had kissed her. That had been after the Yule Ball in fourth year – thank Merlin Harry had been in her year, because she got to go – and she had floated all the way back up the stairs and hadn't shut up about it for two weeks, much to Parvati's annoyance. Nothing had really come of it but that had been perfectly fine, as it was the best first kiss any girl could ever have. She hadn't ever told him it was her first kiss.

Too many thoughts of Seamus now whirling around in her head, Lavender stood up suddenly and decided to go out. She needed noise and distraction and company, even if no one talked to her and only looked at her scars in horror. At least it would be the usual hurt rather than this new, unbearably painful one. She slipped into a pair of jeans that she might have worn to work the day before and threw on a ragged old shirt, not much caring how she looked.

The walk to the Leaky Cauldron was quick. She had chosen this flat because it was close to Diagon Alley and the robe shop she worked at. The Leaky was a din that she could hear three streets away, and when she turned the corner she could see people and light spilling out of it. Perfect.

It didn't take her long to get more than a little roasted. Hannah was there but kept so busy running by the other patrons she wasn't around to notice that Lavender was already on her fourth shot of firewhiskey. By the time Hannah did recognize her drunken friend, Lavender felt like the world wasn't moving quite like it usually did, and she was confused as to why balancing on the barstool was as complicated as riding a broom, all of a sudden.

"Oh Merlin, Lavender," Hannah sighed, coming around to the other side of the bar and resting a steadying hand on her friend's shoulder.

"He left me," Lavender hiccuped.

Hannah stilled. "Beg pardon?"

"He just... he just walked out. Like he didn't care. Like he never cared. I told Parvati it would happen after last year, but she said he loved me too much for that. Wrong. She was wrong," Lavender hiccuped twice, then continued, trying to focus on Hannah. "She was wrong. Parvati wasn't s'posed to be wrong. She was so good at Divinimation, so much better than me..."

"Okay," Hannah sighed as Lavender trailed off. "Bedtime for you, miss. Up you get."

Lavender was practically carried by Hannah up the stairs to a spare room that Hannah unlocked with a key from a ring on her belt. "We can talk about Seamus in the morning, you just get some sleep."

"Can't sleep." At Hannah's look, Lavender explained further. "When I sleep, I dream. About Seamus, about Parvati, about war. About wolves. Sleep reminds me."

"That's okay," Hannah said. "Just sleep here tonight. We'll talk in the morning." She left briefly, returning with a glass of water and a hangover remedy. "Drink this when you wake up, or you'll regret it. You'll be safe here tonight."

It was the reassurance of safe, of knowing that Hannah was downstairs, and the substantial amount of alcohol in her system that let Lavender doze off, passing out against the pillows as Hannah tucked the covers up to her chin. "Sleep, Lavender. It's all okay." It wasn't okay, but Hannah was sweet to say so, Lavender thought as she drifted off. Nothing was okay.