Brave

Lavender knows what people say about her behind her back. Hogwarts is a small community, and if someone doesn't repeat the gossip back to you (and she's not quite surprised that Parvati always knows what people have been saying), then Hogwarts finds a way to echo it back to you from around a corner or down a staircase.

Hermione calls her "silly," which doesn't bother Lavender much, since Hermione is so smart and serious. She knows that Hermione hates Divination, because it was the one thing she couldn't succeed in. Lavender doesn't blame Hermione for this, because she knows you can never be perfect in everything you do. But Lavender is good at Divination and Charms, all right at Transfiguration and History of Magic, and struggles in Potions (though not as badly as Neville). So what if Divination is her favorite class? Lavender studies just as hard as everyone else; it's just that she likes to have some fun when she's not in class.

Parvati calls her "capricious," which Lavender had to look up in the dictionary when she first heard it. She thought it was rather hypocritical (which she didn't have to look up) of Parvati, who, even at eleven, talked about clothes, make-up charms, and which boy her parents might arrange a marriage with. At least it took Lavender a year or two to be interested in the boys at Hogwarts, even if they were still casting Bat-Bogey curses on each other. Secretly, Lavender thought Parvati was the capricious one, that all of the seriousness had been transferred to Padma in the womb. Lavender likes Parvati though, so she overlooks Parvati's gossiping; after all, a best friend isn't something to throw away carelessly.

Professor Snape calls her "flighty" in his depreciatory manner, sneering across the Potions dungeon. It makes Lavender flush, even though it really doesn't bother her, deep down. It's just that she hates to be singled out like that, especially in front of the Slytherins, who snicker in a low, hissing manner. Lavender doesn't want to be invisible in school, and goes to a lot of effort to make people notice her. But that's attention in a good way; in the surreptitious glances the boys give her (even from other houses) and the pleased expressions of the professors when she answers a question correctly. What she hates is when she ruins her potion, and Snape berates her for being too flighty to follow directions correctly. 5 points from Gryffindor.

The Sorting Hat, though, called her "brave" and told her that she belonged in Gryffindor, even when she was convinced that no house in Hogwarts wanted her. When Harry formed his army (even though he named it after Dumbledore, Lavender knew who she was really following), she signed up, right away. After all, she was a Gryffindor, and she was brave enough to know that You-Know-Who was coming and that she would, someday, have to stand up and fight. And whom would she rather fight with than her fellow Gryffindors, brave, noble, and true? Even when they called her "silly", or "flighty" and "capricious", she recognized, deep in her heart, that she was brave.