Other Ways

by MissSlytherpuff

Sometimes they made different decisions, sometimes they stayed the same. They married other people, they had different children, they lived different lives. They went other ways. But how it came out all together, that was incredible to those who knew it differently. Half AU, canon and non-canon, two different realities from the moment the Battle of Hogwarts ended.

2. 2 Somewhere Else

A/N [21/10/16]: Heyo! I'm back, fresh new, new year, new obsessions, new distractions, new crushes - whatnot. The important thing is that I'm here and I'm a-continuing on. So enjoy, mah readers, please.

IN THE SOUND OF SILENCE.

Cheers,

MissSlytherpuff (YES I CHANGED IT SAY HELLOO!)

Other Ways

Chapter Two

Somewhere Else

Mid-Autumn, 2003

It was six years after the Battle of Hogwarts, so dubbed by the whole of Wizarding Britain, that Harry saw Lavender Brown again.

He hadn't recognised her at first when she stepped into the office with an application in hand, asking to join the Auror training program. His shock had been prominent, but the young woman's words claiming her identity were confirmed not only by the name printed on her application form, but also by the thick, stark white scars that formed the oval shape of a man's jaw on the side of her neck.

Instantly, he felt guilty, realising he had never known if she survived the bite or not.
Memories he tried to supress every night before he went to sleep flooded the forefront of his mind. The smell of blood filled his nose and the taste of fear covered his tongue so thick he almost choked on his own saliva. The moment passed, just as it always did, and he offered her his most sincere smile, as if that could make up for everything. He gestured for her to sit down.

Lavender had changed over the years. Her soft blond hair and light blue eyes had stayed the same as ever, but the way she curled the language she spoke inside her mouth, as if kissing the air around her just by whispering, the way she held her head, steady, fierce, resolute, yet quiet and held back... the war had changed her just as it had changed him.

She expressed to him her reasons for becoming an Auror, and he stared at the classamate he had once had, surprised by what had come of the airy, clingy, desperate teenager he had once known her to be. So when her interview had ended, and she was standing up to leave, he heard himself ask a question he had not planned on asking.

"Would you like to go for lunch some time?"

He could have sworn a tiny piece of the Lavender he used to know (however scarcely) lit up in her eyes.

"I'm free at the moment." She replied, and before he could think better of it, he was informing Auror Ranwell that he was taking the rest of the day off and opening the door to a not particularly fancy chinese diner. They were only going as old aquaintances, after all.

It showed during their time spent together, as they both ate and talked and laughed – Lavender was no longer the boy-obsessed, high-pitch blond girl she used to be. At least not by far as much.

They had taken to strolling the park nearby when the matter of family was brought up. Harry confessed that it was now two months since his break-up with Ginny, only to realise that, just as the rest of the Wizarding World, Lavender already knew. She in turn told him what he hadn't heard of – she spoke of the man she had dated last, and how that affair had ended because of the man being insufferably clingy. Harry laughed quietly, it seemed so absurd.

"Clingy?" he asked, his voice teasing. He had half a mind to say the words 'Won-Won' out loud, but it proved to be needless, as Lavender blushed in the cheeks all the same.
"I was sixteen, Harry. I had different priorities than I do now. There are things in life that... change you." She gave him a grave look. "I guess you'd know best."

It was seven years after the battle of Hogwarts, so dubbed by the whole of Wizarding Britain, and Harry still had trouble sleeping at night.
Sometimes in the night he would reach out, calling one name or another to the empty side of his bed. Sometimes he would see the red hair, the silky curtain that would lay upon the pillow. Sometimes he would call her name. That was perhaps the reason why he was now faced with a situation he couldn't fathom.
Granted, it was already a few months since the initial shock had kicked in, and it had taken him well half of the time to get used to the idea, but it was still so strangely surreal when he thought about it.
The day he had taken Lavander out to that chinese restaurant had changed it all. Perhaps if he hadn't offered to make her a cup of tea, he would never have had to wake up to see blonde hair all over the place that had once been covered with fire.
The fire red hair of Ginny Weasley.
It was two weeks later, when Harry had finally found the guts to knock on the Burrow's front door and join the Weasleys for lunch, with Ginny away in London where she now lived alone, that he had come home and glanced at the bag of clothes Lavender had taken with her for the weekend.
When she walked out of the bathroom, he knew something was wrong. Her blond hair was let down past her shoulders, her light blue eyes were misty, as if she were not quite present.
His hand fell to the stick in her hand.
She was pregnant.