Stars

Stars

****

How could she explain?

She couldn't; no one would understand, not even Parvati. She didn't even want to speak the words out loud -it would only sound wrong, perverse even. So she kept her secret to herself, not telling anyone. She always looked at the floor when he came into the room, in fear of him seeing it in her eyes. She couldn't help but send him hidden glances though, and carefully she covered them by the mask of the dedicated student. Despite all the energy she put into the subject her marks were suffering, because her eyes would seek out him instead of the books in front of her.

She could write though, and draw. Parvati was the only one who had seen her drawings, and no matter how much she praised them no one else was allowed to look. Her works with the pencil and the charcoal were too private, and this... this was meant for no one else than Lavender, because they were truly works of love.

Love, she mused. The thing she'd been waiting for all her life; the miracle that had been her dream for as many years as she could remember -never had she imagined it like this. A fire in her soul as well as in her body; all consuming and overwhelming, it had deprived her of her sleep, her appetite and her peace of mind. It shouldn't have been like this. It should have been hand in hand, a careful kiss in the corridor outside the common room, smiles freely given across the heads of their classmates.

Not like this.

How had all this started? At first just giggling comments between herself and Parvati out of curiosity and excitement, but somewhere down the line things had changed. When did it happen? When he first mentioned her name with his deep, calm voice? The first time she felt like drowning in those big dark pools of wisdom that were his eyes? She remembered like it were yesterday; stuttering, she'd turned her face away from him, and her face went red as she felt his thoughtful gaze lingering by her.

All she wanted was to reach out her hand and touch him, feel him under her fingers -the movement of hard muscles under the thin fur, the texture of his mane against her skin. And sometimes... sometimes her thoughts would wander even further -Oh, God! She didn't want to think about it, but how could she not?

"It's just a horse," Hermione had said, and Lavender had been outraged with her. They hadn't spoken in a week because of that comment. And Hermione had been wrong; he wasn't a horse, he was much more than that. But still... In some respect he was a horse. Lavender liked horses, though she'd never had much to do with them, city girl as she was -but she'd seen pictures. Pictures that made her blush frantically when she thought of them, and she thought of them more often than she cared to admit.

But she could draw. Sometimes she sat down in a quiet corner of the common room or in the dorm with a quill and a piece of parchment, hidden away from the others -and especially Parvati. Her old friend knew something was up; with a nagging voice she could ask who the chosen one was. "Come on, Lavender! Tell me!" Lavender got a sneaking suspicion that Parvati felt a tad jealous from being left out, she could see it on her face. Parvati could sneak up behind her sometimes, but Lavender had her wand ready and wiped the parchment clean before she had the chance to look.

She loved drawing him. Especially the body; for some reason his face was difficult to get down on the paper, but the body... It was like the quill knew what to draw by itself -the line of his back, the curve of the horses' belly, the strong legs and the tail that swept the ground. The drawings came almost alive to her, and she could let her fingers follow the lines. She always wrote his name below the portrait of him, never her own. Firenze.

She took NEWT level Divination this year, and three times a week she showed up in his classroom. During the first classes she'd sat in the back with Parvati, but soon talked her friend into moving closer. To pay better attention, she said, and Parvati had agreed. But while her friend scribbled down notes and nodded to their teacher's words, Lavender sat quiet, hardly raising her head to look upon him. She felt like he had to know; certainly emotions such as these couldn't go unnoticed. Could they?

Shame. She'd once heard her mother say that people had no shame these days. Then Mum would be pleased to know that she'd given Lavender a good classical upbringing, because she felt it throbbing in her veins, beating with the same rhythm as her heart. Each time he laid his eyes upon her it burned, and she lowered her eyes to the floor.

***

Then one night, Parvati crept up on her in the common room. Lavender didn't hear her right away, but then got aware of a sound behind her and quickly erased the image on the scroll. "I saw an F!" Parvati declared silently in her ear, shivering with repressed triumph. "Who is it then? It's Seamus, isn't it? I didn't know you were interested in Seamus!"

Lavender opened her mouth to give a scratching retort, but closed it again. She gazed over the common room to see Seamus sitting beside Dean Thomas, where they were doing their Charms-essays. Seamus. The thought was ridiculous; this boy-man with spots all over his face couldn't conjure other feelings in her than friendship. But what could she say...should she tell Parvati? It would feel so good to share some of her thoughts, to have someone to tell her that it was all right, feeling this way.

"Yes, it's Seamus," she replied flatly. "But don't tell anyone, do you hear! Not a living soul." She turned to Parvati with a frown on her face, her voice pleading.

"Why not?" Parvati replied, surprised. "I could drop him a hint, you know, make things a bit easier for you." She winked, and smiled her well-meaning, inane smile that could make Lavender grind her teeth sometimes.

"I said no!" Her voice was hard, and she saw the smile die on Parvati's lips.

"All right then," she replied and left Lavender alone. "If that's how you want it..."

"Yes, that's how I want it," Lavender muttered and sank back in her chair and pulled her feet up. Soon she was letting the quill trace the line of the horseback along the paper once more. That perfect line.

***

Parvati didn't speak to her the following morning, but sent her a look over her bowl of cereal that gave Lavender goosebumps. Lavender knew that look; it was a challenge, pure and simple. 'What are you planning now?' she thought as she pushed the plate of half-eaten toast away. She had suddenly lost her appetite.

And quite right -at dinner, Seamus Finnegan sat down beside her. Doing his best effort to seem casual, he picked an extra big slice of kidney pie and poured himself a class of pumpkin juice. "Maybe you'd like some as well?" he asked.

She had to swallow heavily to get rid of the lump in her throat. "All right," she muttered without looking at him. She sent Parvati a glare, but her old friend didn't even raise her head in her direction and kept chatting away with the oldest Creevey brother. Damn you, Parvati.

"So... how's life these days?" he continued, an encouraging smile on his face.

Go away, she wanted to shout at him. Leave me alone! Come back when you're old enough to call yourself a man. "Fine," she replied. "Just...fine." She emptied the glass of pumpkin juice, only to have him fill it for her again. It annoyed her immensely.

She suffered through the whole dinner, only to find him following her when she retreated to the common room. After a while it became unbearable. In the end she excused herself and went out again, only to wander the halls and corridors. In the end she opened the entrance door and walked out.

It was freezing cold outside, and on the way she met the Hufflepuff Quidditch team coming back from practise, trembling from the fierce wind. "You'd better get back in, Lavender, before you catch pneumonia," one of them said as they hurried past her -she didn't turn to see who it was.

"Yes, yes...later," she muttered to the wind as she walked down past Hagrid's hut and toward the Forbidden Forest. She stopped there for a while, just looking in between the trees, and when she turned she saw the first stars emerged in the sky.

Then a dry branch cracked behind her, and she turned to see a centaur standing there. At first the fear struck her, but when she discovered the familiar face she relaxed. For a minute they simply stood there, gazing into the star-spangled firmament above.

"What do they tell you, Lavender?" His voice was deep and warm, as it always was. So calm. How she loved that voice; it swept all doubt away, filled her with a sense of safety in this chaos that was her life.

"Tonight? They tell me nothing." She looked down again, not daring to face him. Not bearing to see the rejection on his face when he found out -because he was bound to find out. "I should get back inside," she added hastily, starting up the path to the castle.

"What do you feel when you look upon the stars?" He continued talking, as if he hadn't heard her last comment.

Uncertain of what to say, she turned back to see him still watching the sky. "I don't know," she muttered. "They're beautiful and magnificent...and cold. They seem so close sometimes, as if I could just stick out my hand and pick them down from the sky. Yet they are so far away -they don't need me. I shouldn't want to touch them." Regretting her words, she crossed her arms over her chest.

"You humans always feel separate from the stars, not realising that the same stars will always follow you." He turned to her and met her eyes. "They will always be there to comfort you. Even though they cannot be reached."

A little smile played at the corner of his mouth, and to her surprise she sent one back to him. It was sad, filled with melancholy, but a smile nonetheless. "Well, if they will follow me and shine upon me from time to time -I suppose that's all I can ask for," she replied quietly. "As long as I can rely on them to always be there."

"You can."

"Then I will be grateful," she whispered, and turned around to leave. "Good night, Firenze."

"Good night, Lavender."

***

He watched her go back to the castle, then turned back to the stars above him.