Sina Qua Non

It was a secret. I wonder sometimes that no one ever noticed, ever wondered where we were, why we were together wherever we went, why none of the relationships ever stuck. Then again, they didn't stick for different reasons. With her, it was too easy to find another, to be tempted away. With me... well, people think I'm fickle, like her, but it isn't true. There was only one, and after that, no one else mattered. There was only her. And she knew it.

It started out as a game. She was with some Hufflepuff boy back then. Justin Fintch-Fletchey, maybe, though I can't be sure anymore. We were thirteen years old, and she was failing Transfiguration. I tutored her gladly, because at that time, I was still naïve enough to think of her as a best friend, a very special best friend who I felt deeply for, but just a friend nonetheless. I loved spending time with her, be it over textbooks or the newest copy of Witch Weekly. She felt the same, or she said she did, saying she had never had a friend as wonderful as me.

Back then, I still believed her.

As I recall, on the particular night my life changed, we had had a thunderstorm. The school was still abuzz with Sirius Black's recent break-in, and no one felt like studying except the steadfast Hermione Granger, who couldn't be ripped away from her books by a pack of wild horses, Lord Voldemort himself, or an earthquake, in succession.

I went to bed early that night, still sore over the death of Binky, and equally upset because she had had a loud fight with Justin, and had raged across the common room, relating every detail to me, until I felt murderous as well. It wasn't a surprise, really; she had a talent that made peopl want to comfort her, and I had always been particularly sensitive. Professor Trelawney called me an empath, and while I took her word as gospel because my best friend did, and in my eyes, she was perfection, I still tended to believe the Divination professor personally on this point. I did feel more deeply than anyone I had met. That was why I excused the intensity I felt for her as friendship at first. I didn't know any better.

That night, trying to sleep with the red curtains drawn around me and muffling the sound of the thunder, I thought of ways to hurt Justin. No one had a right to hurt my best friend. Some laughed at my protectiveness, how I looked critically over the boys she dated, intimidating them. She laughed and said I was being silly, and she could take care of herself. When the same boys I deemed unsatisfactory hurt her and she came crying back to me, I only held and comforted her. I never criticized her for any reason.

Just as I had thought of some particularly horrid Chinese tortures I had read about in a Muggle history book once, I heard the curtains around my bed draw back and felt another's weight on the mattress. "Are you asleep, Lavender?"

I turned over to see her looking down at me, dark hair a loose curtain around her face and wearing one of those ridiculously small nightgowns she was so fond of and Hermione sneered at. "No," I said, yawning nonetheless. "I'm trying, though."

"I'm sorry." There was a particularly loud peal of thunder, and she shuddered. Of all things, only thunderstorms scared Parvati. She was reckless in the Gryffindor spirit, except when lightning and thunder flashed and crashed outside.

My breath caught in my throat, because I suddenly realized how beautiful she was. She was looking down at me with slightly fearful, sparkling eyes, and her figure, even then, was all lush curves and delicate limbs. I found I couldn't say anything at all.

"Do you... mind if I sleep here... with you?"

I swallowed. We had slept in the same bed often since childhood, but somehow that look in her eyes made it different. I moved over. "Sure. Get in, it's warm."

"Thank you," she smiled, snuggling under the covers, pressed against my back in a very disconcerting way. Then again, the bed was small. "Are you all right?" she whispered against my ear. "You're tense."

Her breath was tickling my ear, and against all reason, my body was tensing, screaming, pleading with me. I didn't understand why, how, or when this had happened. I only knew that even the time Seamus Finnigan had pulled me behind a doorjamb and kissed me last year, I hadn't felt this. All she was doing was breathing in my ear, and it was making me...

Crazy. "Stop that," I said.

She giggled, blew softly in my ear, and I shuddered before I could contain myself. "Why?"

I squirmed lightly. "Just stop that. Please."

"You can't possibly react to me that much."

"Oh no?" I was near crying, and said that before I could stop myself.

Her small but strong hands immediately flipped me from where I was lying with my back to her. I met her amused, frank gaze, and tried not to look away. "What do you mean?" she asked.

I felt miserable, and sniffled one time before I could contain myself. "I don't know."

She nodded as though she understood. "You know, Lavender," she said, smoothing her hand over my hair, which was wavy because I hadn't bothered to charm it straight for sleep, "you're incredibly pretty."

I swallowed again, my eyes set on hers. I couldn't look at anything else. I wanted to thank her, but no words came.

"Hermione will be downstairs a while yet," she commented.

Again, I said nothing, though my heart was beating like a trapped rabbit's

"May I kiss you?"

And against all that I had ever believed or been taught, I nodded my consent.

In my entire life, I have never felt anything at all like Parvati's kisses. It wasn't even the fact that her obvious experience made her so good at it, either. I had shuddered after Seamus had kissed me, because it had been somewhat uncomfortable, and warm, tasting slightly of stale butterbeer. She tasted cool, like rain, and was gentle, teasing, making me want to ask for more, though I didn't know what words to use. I lost myself in the feel of her leaning over me, her hair brushing my cheeks, her lips taunting me to submit, her hands running slowly down my arms and back again. Anything else I experienced later in life paled with comparison to that first touch, that simple, innocent surrender. And in that moment, I suddenly realized I loved her.

And after that, nothing was the same.

She slept in my bed that night, and her arms were wrapped around my waist. I tried to sleep, but instead lay awake, wondering how things would change, whether I should tell her, how everyone would react. I was firmly of the opinion that she would forget that no-good Justin and come to me, because I would treat her right, and she and I would be happy, no matter what anyone said. Not for a second did I think we would go back to the way things were before.

But we did.

"I'm really sorry," she said in the morning. "I was lonely, and scared of the thunder, and... well I hope you're not mad at me, but Justin, you know..."

"I know," I reassured her. "Of course I know." And she ran back to Justin, and I was left with a broken heart. But that was just the way Parvati was, and because of what I was, I didn't forget her, didn't resent her. I watched her run through the storm of boys who always dominated her life, and I didn't resent her. I only loved her.

The year passed. Parvati was as cheerful and flighty as ever, and she didn't notice that I was slowly slipping into an abyss created partly by stress of keeping a secret, and partly by great-scale unrequited love.

My parents couldn't understand what was wrong with me. In my family, I had always been the perfect one, the thing they brought out at parties to show off to their guests before sending me back upstairs with an almost-affectionate pat on the head. I was the model of the ideal daughter, and they were proud of me, I suppose, though they never told me so. I was a good student, an accomplished musician, and embroidered beautifully. I was an elegant dancer, well-versed in fashion, and knew what to say and what not to say to whom, and which fork at the dinner table to use for which course, and how to pretend I didn't know when we had Death Eaters over for dinner, and how to show no anger or betrayal when my parents dabbled in the Dark Arts. It was a matter of masks I wore for different people. At home I was the model daughter, and my parents, when they noticed me at all, took a detached sort of pride in my accomplishments, for they had made me what I was.

But that year, my grades slipped. When I came home on holiday, my eyes were dark and hollow, and I cried myself to sleep most nights. I stopped speaking to anyone, and was no longer lively to the point where they wouldn't allow me to their dinner parties any longer, afraid that I might upset the guests. My mother lectured me sternly on my unsociable behavior, and my father on my academic failures. When they bothered to ask what was wrong, I made excuses. I was overwrought, my nerves were delicate, I didn't feel safe at school, being in Gryffindor was so difficult. Any and every excuse my mind scrambled frantically to procure was used at Christmas that year.

On Christmas Eve, my parents went to what they evasively called a "gathering", leaving me behind alone. I sat and watched the snow fall through the tall windows. At last, I stood, wrapped myself tightly in a thick cloak, and walked the few miles into the town proper. There was singing coming from the doors of the church, and light was spilling out onto the snow. I stood and looked in for a long time, but didn't enter. I didn't feel my hands and feet going numb, only my heart. As the people inside shared joy and comfort and family, I stood alone in the snow and wondered when I would have any of those things again, things I had only had with Parvati, things I hadn't known to need before I met her.

I walked home and spent the night in the silence and solitude that permeated my house, sleeping on the floor in front of the fireplace in my room. In the morning, I woke to find the fire had died in the night and I was cold and alone. But of course no one had cared enough to come and check on me. I was strong, I reminded myself. I was a Gryffindor for a reason. I was supposed to be strong. I wasn't to cry.

I did anyway.

I went back to school pale, thin, and quiet. No one noticed except Parvati, and she worried as she did everything-in a flighty, energetic manner. She brought me food and made me eat it sporadically, and she soothed me from the nightmares that began to rule my sleep. She was still my friend, my best friend, the only thing I had to hold on to. The fact that I was sad seeing her so happy didn't stop me from seeking out her company at every opportunity. It didn't stop me from reading the love letters Justin sent to her which she crowed over and showed off to anyone who cared and several who didn't with great ceremony.

There were nights, still, when I couldn't sleep for wanting her there next to me. Sometimes, it seemed she knew, and she came, lying down and curling up on the other side of my bed, letting me to sleep and brushing the hair from my forehead with her cool, gentle fingers. There were nights, too, when she offered to kiss me again, to hold me. But I knew exactly what she was offering: a momentary solution to a very permanent problem. And, despite the fact that I hated him for loving her, I respected Justin, and I couldn't, wouldn't, do that to him. It made her upset, now that I look back on it. I was a fall-back, a sure thing. I was the only one who didn't see it, but so few people cared to see anything in regards to me that no one shook me and told me the things I needed to hear. Not that I would have listened. I loved her.

By the time the summer came, I had closed myself off entirely. I locked myself in my room and stayed there, unwilling to do anything other than what was required of me to exist. I ate whenever someone reminded me. It was only half a joke when I commented that at least I still remembered to breathe. No one knew that there were nights I woke with my head spinning and no air in my lungs and realized I had forgotten.

The owl came two weeks after school had ended. It was short and colorful, in the manner of all of Parvati's missives. I opened it enthusiastically, the only enthusiasm I could summon anymore. I remember her words even now, perhaps as clearly as I remember anything anymore. There are only bits that are clear: her taste, the smell of the rain when we were caught in it together, the thunder, my fingers getting tangled in her hair. But the letter I remember exactly.

Lavender,

I really need to talk to you. I broke up with Justin.

Owl me as soon as you can, all right?

-Parvati

I dropped the letter on the floor, and my hands shook, and my face when I met my eyes in the mirror was paper-white. The second I could move, I took off down the stairs like a wild thing, reached for the floo powder above the drawing room fireplace, and was at her house before I could think, before I could formulate what I was going to say. She stood there, as though waiting for me, and she didn't look sad at all. "He wanted to marry me, can you imagine?" she said with half a laugh. "I'm too young to get tied down like that! I told him so, and now..."

"I'm sorry," I said softly.

She smiled and crossed to me with a smile. "I'm not."

I looked into her dark eyes, trying to understand, trying to summon up the courage to say something, do something, anything. "I won't let anyone else have you," I finally whispered. "Not anymore. Not this time."

And she smiled and wrapped her arms around me and kissed me in her parents' house without a care in the world. "All right," she said. "Okay."

The next month and a half were magic, magic in a way that could never be taught at school, could not be given form with incantations and wands. There was something about waking up in the morning with her next to me, and wanting to kiss her, and knowing that I could if I wished. It was a heady feeling, a lighthearted one, a feeling that my heart was given wings.

Both sets of parents approved of the friendship, and the fact that one or the other of us was always spending the night at the other's house was considered routine. No one even dared to think, to imagine, that we were more than that, that the nights were nearly never spent sleeping, that the smiles and laughter and everything else weren't simply for the joy of the company of a comrade.

It's funny, but looking back on it, this is the time I remember least of all. I remember her telling me she loved me. It was an easy admission from her, and she didn't think twice to say it. The first time was after she had convinced me to get her into my parents' liquor cabinet and had drunk half a bottle of Dad's firewhiskey. I laughed and told her I wished she'd say things like that when she was sober. The next morning, I woke in her bed, and she smiled down at me, and kissed me, and said, "I love you."

That's really all I remember. My body remembers more than my mind. Her touch made me forget the world, and it was the only thing I needed, the one thing I craved. I was happy, so very happy, and she seemed to be too. She laughed and smiled and I thought that she was happy too, and her being happy made me even happier. Even now when I see her, when she passes by me silently, my body remembers and clenches up and I want her with an intensity that frightens me, because it compels me to reach for her in a crowded room, a public street, anywhere at all.

When did things go wrong? I'm not sure, though I think it was shortly after we went back to school. She avoided contact with me after a while, and I would ask her sometimes if I could kiss her, if I was allowed. She would let me, but somehow I felt it was all wrong.

Dean Thomas looked at her as though she were a sugar quill that year. "I think Dean has a crush on you," I told her, looking serious and very displeased.

"Yes, I think I'm crushing back," she laughed, completely ignorant that those short words were like needles into my heart.

A few days later, we had our first real fight. I'm not sure how it started, only that something someone had said had given her the idea that I disapproved of her flirting. What could I say? I hated when she flirted, because she was mine. No one else had the right to touch her, to look at her the way I did. No one. But I would never have said that to Parvati, so I tried to pacify her by telling her I loved who she was, just how she was, and I didn't want her to change.

She only glared. "You're pathetic, Lavender," she said. "You cling to me as though I'm the only important thing in your life. It's stupid."

"You are the one important thing," I whispered as the tears began. "The one, the only, everything... you're everything..."

She looked at me in anger for a moment. "You're smothering me."

It was then I did the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. "I... I... if I make you unhappy, Parvati, tell me. I would walk through hell and back with bare feet to make you happy."

She shrugged, eyes blazing. "You want to make me happy? Fine. This is over. Find someone else to hero-worship, Brown. It was all just for fun anyway. It's not like I was serious." She turned and walked out of the room, and the world spun around me. There was a feeling as though stars were falling from the sky, and my soul died.

Then was Dean. After Dean was Harry Potter. After Harry came Terry Boot. I tried to keep up for a while, but eventually gave up. There was an unlimited supply of boys at Hogwarts, and Parvati was beautiful, charming, and everything any of them could want.

We tried being friends. But she got angry with me every time I became sad around her, and I couldn't help it, couldn't tell her that I had tried to end my life, couldn't tell her that I had stood on top of the roof of Hogwarts castle and considered just taking one more step and closing my eyes. I tried to be happy, but she only got more frustrated. After that we were yelling at each other all the time, often around other people. Even Professor McGonagall noticed and tried to pull me aside and talk to me, but I wouldn't tell her anything, repeating like a litany "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine."

It wasn't very much longer before we stopped speaking entirely. She hates me, I think. I wish I could hate her, but the only emotion I feel, even now, is grief. I don't love her anymore, it isn't that simple. I've forgotten how to love, how to hate, how to feel. I'm an empty shell of what I was before I met her. Everything I do, I do because I must. My grades are up again. My parents are of the opinion that I'm all right again. Father talked to me about taking the Dark Mark when I left school and I listlessly agreed. Why not? It's just another form of suicide.

I know what they say, I know what they all tell me, I know even as I make myself tell this story what everyone will parrot back to me, as though hearing the same words over and over is going to help.

"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

But it isn't.