Lavender Forever

The Flight

Lavender picked at her eggs, moving them around to form eyes on her plate. When she saw him again, Adrian Pucey told her that she would look a whole lot prettier if she smiled more. He sneered in demonstration, then ran off when Pansy approached. With a sigh, Lavender moved her bacon to use as the mouth.

Hermione Granger was still talking about flying tips from several seats down, which Lavender didn't particularly care about unless they told her how to keep her lips from getting chapped with the wind and all. Hermione had been lecturing them since she borrowed the book the night before and Lavender ran to the library to borrow a book herself. On silencing charms.

Beside Lavender, Parvati kept making fussy and frustrated noises as Hermione began reading aloud a new chapter in her book. The girl had no clue how much willpower Parvati had to use to refrain from throwing her pumpkin juice at her. Thankfully, the owls arrived. Or not.

Lavender saw her father's barn owl swoop in and land gracefully in front of her. She grabbed the letter from it and muttered to herself.

Sweetie,

I insisted on writing this letter myself. Your mother and I would greatly appreciate it if you wrote back more often. I know it's been several letters that we've sent to you since you've asked, but it's taken some time to discuss. We don't want you subscribing to the Daily Prophet because we know you only want it to read that rubbish in the Divination section. Enclosed is a pack of Chocolate Frogs, but don't include that in your letter home. Behave and your mother might get you a cat for Christmas.

Your mother wants you to stay away from red meat.

Love,

Dad

Her plate smiled merrily at her.

Lavender nearly gagged and stabbed the eyes with her fork. She snatched the Chocolate Frogs from the owl, and muttered to herself, tearing up the paper. After Lavender felt better after a weekend of good rest and watched Harry Potter publicly embarrass Gryffindor in Potions, Parvati decided that she should apologise to Seamus. As the boy got up from the table with Dean, Parvati jabbed her elbow into Lavender's side.

"I don't get why I have to apologise to him," Lavender said, drinking her pumpkin juice. "He laughed at me."

"You threatened him."

With a scowl, Lavender threw her head back to down the rest of her drink and placed her goblet on the table and strolled purposefully after them.

"Seamus!" she called when she was outside the Great Hall.

The pair stopped at looked at her curiously.

"I'd like to..." she began slowly. She would have a much easier time apologising to people if they didn't look at her as if she had been hit over the head with broom.

"Lavender, are you still sick?" Dean asked with gentle concern.

Lavender wanted to beat him over the head with her wand. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? If not, we can take you to the hospital wing? You look like you should be taken-."

"I'm fine! Look, Seamus, I want to-"

"My, Lavender. A new week, a new boy?" Pansy sneered on her way out of breakfast, surrounded by several other first-year Slytherins.

Lavender scowled. "It's almost freakish how everywhere I go, you're always there."

"Slytherins don't stalk people," Draco drawled, coming out of the Great Hall with Vincent and Gregory by his side. He peered up at Lavender. "Unlike certain Gryffindors."

He and the other laughing Slytherins turned into a ball of haze as Lavender struggled with a comeback. Seamus threw an arm around her and led her back towards the Gryffindor tower.

"Don't worry, Lavender. We'll just have to kick his ass off his broom," Dean was saying as they waited for the staircase to stop changing.

Lavender looked at them suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"We've got flying lessons together," Seamus piped up. "Didn't you see the notice in the common room?"

"No..." That must have been what the muttering was about that morning. Parvati had been arguing with Lavender the night before, who spent a good part of breakfast with her head buried underneath her pillow.

Flying lessons. That meant that she would have to spend yet another class with people that she didn't particularly like. Prior to school, some of the Slytherins in first year that she did know were bearable, and she even liked some of them. But now they annoyed the crap out of her. Of course, now without a teacher that would take points off her for existing, she could yell back at Draco Malfoy whenever he sniggered.

Parvati spent the day ignoring her classes to come up with the ultimate comeback to him for the Astronomy Tower incident. Thus, in the middle of Herbology, Lavender came up with the brilliant idea that they should look for the great, the dashing, the incredibly witty Adrian Pucey to help them with their problem.

"This is a really bad idea," Parvati muttered darkly, peering out from behind a suit of armour as they watched Adrian and Marcus Flint stroll down the hallway towards the Slytherin common room with their brooms by their side.

Lavender scuttled closer as the boys turned to another passage. "Shhh. We won't get lost. I've been here at least three times before." Her eyes were wide as Marcus muttered something and the wall opened. "Adrian!" she called, waving a hand from behind another wall.

Marcus frowned and glared at Adrian as he cringed, an expression of flattery and horror on his face. They muttered to each other for a moment before Marcus sneered and walked through the opening. Then, with an exasperated sigh, Adrian walked over to them and peered down, gripping his broom tightly in one hand. "What is it?"

"Adrian, there's this boy-" Lavender began babbling, blushing furiously.

"Well, fuck, yeah."

"And Parvati would like to insult him, and because you're so smart and witty and popular amongst your House, we'd like to enlist your help."

Probably thinking she meant a Gryffindor, Adrian wrung his hands in anticipation. "Oh, well, hell, alright, let me think." As if murmuring profanities helped his mind work, he began cursing.

Parvati shot Lavender an unimpressed look, not that she noticed. Lavender was too busy beaming.

"I've got it! You could tell him to shut up," he offered brightly, leaning on his broom.

Parvati blinked several times in shock as Lavender giggled blissfully. "I was thinking of something more...scalding, you know?" Parvati stated flatly. "More than two words."

He rolled his eyes. "If you fucking put something at the fucking end of it, it's three bleeding words. See?" He raised his hand and counted it out on his fingers as he said, "Shut up, wanker."

Parvati stared.

"Oh, and if you add 'the fuck', there's another bloody two words." He glanced over his shoulder and saw Pansy coming for him, which effectively ended the conversation and sent him running.

Her sister wasn't any more help. "Parvati," she interrupted, "can you just write to mum so that she'll stop writing to me to tell you to write to her?"

Scowling, Parvati tossed her braid over her shoulder as she trailed after the other Gryffindors towards the grounds. "Okay," she said, eyeing the Slytherins as she and Lavender walked down the stairs, "if we hate them, and they hate us, and there are other Houses that don't hate them as much as we hate them, then why do we have so many classes with them?"

"I think other Houses hate them as much as we hate them," Lavender replied with a shrug. "Well, as much as other people in our House hates them."

When the teacher arrived, Lavender's eyes widened. "Do you think they're real?" she whispered, trying to dust off her broom. Only Merlin knew where these things had been.

From the front, Madam Hooch called, "Stick out your right hand over your broom and say 'Up!'"

"Up! Ow!" Parvati shouted, making a face as she broom lifted to her hand. Lavender paused in her attempt to get her broom up and handed Parvati a splinter-filled handkerchief.

As Madam Hooch went around correcting people on their brooms, Lavender scanned the castle with a faint hope that Adrian would be looking out the window from his studies to see her fly by.

"Lavender, I wish I was as good as you at flying when I was your age," he would tell her.

"It's nothing at all," Lavender would reply coolly, throwing the broom from one hand to the other.

"Miss Brown? Do you need something to drink? You're getting red."

Lavender felt her face flush even more as Draco snickered. She nodded and smiled as Madam Hooch corrected her position, then sighed with relief as she moved on. At this rate, if Adrian looked out the bleeding window, Lavender would be passed out on the ground.

Lavender tried to shrug as nonchalantly as possible and changed the subject. "I want eyes like those."

"They're kinda creepy," Parvati said quietly.

"Well, of course not in yellow, but maybe purple or something."

"Like lavender?"

"Well, maybe. Do you think I should ask her if they're real?"

"I don't think so. And if you do, you're going alone."

"Why?"

"She scares me. I think it's the odd eye colour, you know, like our theory behind Professor Snape."

"Then name thing?"

"Yeah. I mean, if someone named their child Severus, is said child supposed to grow up picking daisies in fields?"

"Or saving puppies and kittens from burning houses?"

"Exactly."

"I mean, if he was named Plesaunt Snape, I would be-"

"Thoroughly creeped out?"

"Exactly."

Lavender griped onto her broomstick as the flying instructor began counting down. She nearly fell off when Neville, who was beside her, flew straight up. She stared and heard a distant voice yell, "Come back, boy!" Lavender continued looking up, numb as Neville started sliding off his broom.

There was a flash of black and Lavender was pulled back as Neville came crashing down, missing her by a foot. He almost died, she thought, still on the grass as Madam Hooch examined him. Doing what she did best, Lavender gaped as Madam Hooch led Neville away, calling something to them. Lavender understood the words, but they didn't quite make sense in that order.

"Are you alright, Lavender?" Parvati asked, shaking her by the shoulder.

She nodded numbly, idly wondering why. Dear, Merlin, she hoped wasn't because of Adrian Pucey. She heard Draco say something, though she couldn't tell what.

"Shut up, Malfoy," Parvati snapped, looking up.

Shut up, Malfoy? That's it? All this time, all those insults and-oh, she actually used that? Alright, Parvati was right. Maybe she should stop trying her best to hang around that handsome, dark-haired dreamboat of a Slytherin.

Trying? Dreamboat?

Well, she couldn't help it if he was blessed with good genes.

Blessed? Well, it's not every day you see a-

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" her good friend and generally everyone's favourite girl, Pansy Parkinson, asked in a sneering tone. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati."

"You're just jealous because-" Parvati began, pulling Lavender up.

"Give it here, Malfoy." Lavender's heart did a flip-flop that only Adrian Pucey could produce when she heard Harry Potter speak in a low voice.

Oh, bugger, not again.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

The class was silent.

Does everyone have a bloody crush on Harry Potter?

Her head seemed to block out the noise again as she watched Draco take the Remembrall and sail towards an Oak Tree. She idly wondered if Harry saw her on her broom before she got pulled off.

Someone saved your life, you silly little bint.

Damn brain. And it wondered why she turned to Adrian Pucey. Stupid thing.

Ah, so you admit it! You like him because he's stupid! You just admitted he was stupid.

It wouldn't take a modern day Morgana to figure that out.

"Bloody hell," someone muttered darkly beside her.

Lavender turned around and saw Draco Malfoy, leaning against his broom as he watched Harry Potter dive to screams.

"You're an idiot, Malfoy," she retorted. Oh, yes, let's build that vocabulary. You go, girl! Her damn brain was working against her.

He scowled. "How am I an idiot?"

"You want me cheering and stealing one of your possessions if you broke your wrist?"

"Lavender, you're a Gryffindor. Gryffindors aren't into theft."

"That won't stop me from breaking your-" Parvati began.

"HARRY POTTER!"

Draco was positively beaming, pushing Parvati along with him to where Professor McGonagall was stuttering as badly as Professor Quirrell. "...broken your neck-"

Parvati snatched her arm from Draco and strode forward. "It wasn't his fault, Professor-"

"Be quiet, Miss Patil."

Draco, Vincent, Gregory and a few other Slytherins poked Parvati with the ends of their broomsticks.

Ron stepped forward as well, knuckles turning white as he griped his broom for support. "But Malfoy-"

"That's enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now."

Parvati watched them disappear from sight. She turned around, looking at the beaming trio. Flexing her thin fingers, she said, "There's going to be a new Unforgivable named after what I'm going to do to-"

She was interrupted by a roar and Ron flinging himself towards them, only to be stopped by Dean and Seamus.

"Ron, we'll get him later," Seamus shouted as Ron started turning as red as his hair from struggling.

"Go get him, Draco!" someone yelled from the school window. Adrian Pucey leaned out with a giant encouraging grin gracing his features, waving at the amused-looking boy. "Oi, squirt!" he added to Lavender.

Lavender wanted to simultaneously bang her head against the broomstick and melt into a happy puddle. "Let's...just go back," she muttered, letting the broom drop to the grass.

Seamus and Dean had already started hauling Ron towards the building.

"See you in Potions!" Draco called after the Gryffindors wordlessly marching up the school steps.

Parvati scrunched up her face. "'See you in Potions,'" she mimicked, scowling as they reached the dorms. She flopped onto her bed, and reached over to turn on the radio to the Weird Sisters.

Lavender sat on the bed next to her. "Parvati, I've decided."

"Yeah?"

"You and that bleached garden gnome are right. He's daft and he looks like a bloody boulder."

Parvati beamed, looking through one of the many Witch Weeklys and bobbing her head in tune to the music.

"Pansy can have him," Lavender continued, getting up and looking in her cabinet for a textbook.

"Can you two turn down the music?" Hermione asked from across the room, her head buried in a book.

"If you bang on Parvati's radio enough, you can actually get Muggle transmission," Lavender said brightly, determined to listen to something other than pages turning as one of their roommates studied. Words didn't make sense whenever there wasn't music in the room, or her glasses that she found to make her concentrate better.

Parvati twitched as Lavender started slamming her radio against the cabinet, listening for a Muggle station.

"...another song from the Weird S-"

"Nope," Lavender said, thumping the radio against a nearby trunk. "Parvati, is there something wrong with your eye?"

"No, I'm going to take a nice, long shower." In a strained voice, she said, "Good luck." Parvati grabbed a bag and hurried out of the room.

**

When Parvati got back, Lavender managed to find a Muggle station that played "Oldies" and was listening to it merrily as she did her homework, nudging Hermione whenever she needed help. Parvati sorted through her trunk, looking for something. She grabbed her Charms textbook and strolled towards Hermione's bed, sitting down on the other side of Hermione.

Who finally looked up and saw Lavender, pushing up her glasses that were sliding to the end of her nose.

"You wear glasses?"

"No," Lavender said, playing with her pink quill, "they help me concentrate."

Hermione looked at them, then frowned. "They're not enchanted or any-"

Lavender sighed patiently. She got this a lot, along with the 'you poor girl, you must have been dropped as a baby' look. "No, but they help me concentrate."

Within an hour, they went down for dinner.

"She's totally got a crush on one of them," Lavender whispered to Parvati as they watched Hermione put down her Transfiguration book and amble over to Harry and Ron after Draco left them.

Parvati glanced around at the faces staring at the Gryffindor table, or rather a certain person at the table. "Well, I don't think she's the only one."

Lavender scoffed, buttering up a roll. "Someone should just go up to him and snog the hell out of him already. It's rather sickening," she continued mournfully as Parvati nodded.

For several times during the meal, Lavender opened her mouth, as if wanting to ask something before shutting it again.

"Got a crush on him too, huh?" Parvati asked later, pouring herself more pumpkin juice as Hermione returned.

"Yeah," Lavender mumbled into her steak.

"What was that about?" Parvati asked brightly, leaping up and filling up Hermione's goblet with pumpkin juice.

Hermione muttered something darkly as she sat back down and Lavender could only pick up, "...stupid...Malfoy...stupid...lose...points..."

Lavender bobbed her head, sitting back down. "I hear you," she said sympathetically. She reached over and spooned some more potatoes onto her plate.

"I've got to stop them!" Hermione declared, snapping her book shut. She stood up abruptly and walked off in a hurry.

"Alright," Parvati called after her.

"Good luck!" Lavender shouted.

There was a pause. "What was that about?" Parvati asked, sticking her fork in a lettuce leaf.

Lavender shrugged.

"Want to follow her?"

"No." In an afterthought, Lavender added, "But I am getting rather full."

Parvati drank the rest of her pumpkin juice and got up, moving towards the doors, pausing just at the threshold. "Be strong!" she hissed to Lavender, hauling her towards the Gryffindor tower.

"Huh?" Lavender glanced around, confused. Then she saw the familiar flash of dark hair, the twinkle of blue eyes, and Pansy Parkinson trailing after him. "Bloody little-"