Parvati Triumphant!

It was a cold, crisp January night that found Parvati Patil nodding off in the almost-empty Gryffindor common room once again. It had become her habit to wait until at least twelve-thirty to retire to her dormitory. It was the only way she could be sure both of her roommates would be asleep when she went up. The tension between Hermione and Lavender was beginning to reach its boiling point, and Parvati was determined not to get any more involved than she already was.

It had all started when Hermione had approached her before breakfast one day. She had wanted to know if Parvati would mind going along with a little...experiment she had planned? She'd pulled out a color-coded script, with blue ink for her own lines and red for Parvati's.

"So basically, you want to make Ron jealous by shoving your date with Cormac McLaggen in his face?" Parvati had clarified after reading over the parchment.

"Make Ron jealous?" Hermione had mused. "Never! I'm simply testing how much he pays attention to what's going on around him when he's...er...with his girlfriend. I'm worried for their safety. What if Death Eaters broke in and they were too busy snogging to notice?" Hermione's bitter tone had not escaped Parvati.

The 'experiment', as Hermione had called it, was a success. At least for Hermione. Ron was dumbfounded of course, and Lavender became more and more irritated as her boyfriend continued to show what she considered an inordinate amount of interest in Hermione's date.

In Parvati's defense, she had been so surprised and impressed by Hermione's request that she'd had to go along with it. Who knew Hermione could be so devious and utterly girly? Simple as it was, Parvati had not foreseen Lavender's reaction. That night, Lavender had rounded on her, accusing of siding with 'the enemy', and it was a whole week before Lavender spoke to her again. That was the week that Parvati had started waiting until after midnight to go up to bed. Between Lavender's mutinous glares and Hermione's biting sarcasm, Parvati felt like she was being pulled from either side.

On the one hand, Lavender had been her best friend for five and a half years. A deep-seeded loyalty told Parvati that Lavender deserved to have her boyfriend's full attention, with no other girl to distract him.

On the other hand, it was obvious to everyone including Argus Filch and the giant squid that Ron and Hermione were madly in love with each other, even if they themselves had just barely realized it.

It was that second point that was keeping Parvati from getting to bed at a decent hour every night. It would be so easy to stand behind Lavender and hate Hermione if it weren't for that stupid second point.

She was jolted awake by the sound of someone tripping over a footstool on the other side of the room. She squinted in the dim light.

"Dean?" she asked, glancing at her watch. It was only ten-thirty. Lavender and Hermione would both still be awake. She wondered if they knew why she was never up there at night.

"Oh, hey Parvati--what are you still doing down here?" he asked. He looked agitated, as if he were anxious to get her out of the room. Then realization dawned on her.

"I was just leaving...good night," she faked a yawn. Sure enough, she met Ginny on the stairs, sneaking down as she was going up. The younger girl smiled sheepishly and Parvati managed a grimace in return. If she had to choose between Ginny and Dean devouring each others' faces and Hermione and Lavender shooting daggers at each other, she would have to choose the latter.

As she neared her dormitory, it became clear that the situation inside had now escalated to an audible level. Parvati paused outside the door. Very audible.

"You've been out to sabotage our relationship from the very beginning! I know it was you who accidentally threw out my fairy dust lip gloss! And you turned my best friend against me!"

"Excuse me? I don't need to sabotage your relationship! How many words have you and your 'boyfriend' exchanged the entire time you've been dating? 'I wuv you, Won-Won!' One, two, three, four, five! And I'm being generous, counting Won-Won as two words!"

"You're just jealous, you fuzzy hag!" After that, individual words were indistinguishable as the two girls began to hurl insults at each other simultaneously.

It was on this note that Parvati decided she must act, and quickly. She mustered her concentration, thinking frantically, Silencio, silencio. Drawing her wand from her sleeve, she flung the door wide open and pointed it first at Lavender, then Hermione, without saying a word. The shouting ceased.

Parvati stood in the doorway, surveying her work. Her roommates wore matching looks of mingled shock and fury while their mouths moved soundlessly.

"Hey, I did it! Won't Professor Snape be proud!" And with that, Parvati strode to her trunk and changed into her pajamas, hopped onto her bed, and closed the curtains around her.