Heavy Losses | Padma Patil

two | change

different, alteration

"SO MUCH IS CHANGING, ISN'T IT?"

       The train was buzzing after what had happened at the platform, but it was as far from good as you could get. On her way to the Prefect's Carriage, Padma passed several carriages filled with silent kids with blanched faces, trying hard not to meet each other's eyes, but she passed even more that were loud with terrified murmurs and sobbing first years. It was in Padma's nature to want to help, but she knew there was nothing she could do. She forced herself to continue on.

       "Padma!"

       The familiar voice relaxed her a little, breaking her out of the anxious trance she knew she was going into. She stopped and happily let Ernie Macmillan, a Hufflepuff prefect, catch up with her. When he reached her, they both examined each other's badges, and seeing neither 'Head Boy' nor 'Head Girl' engraved on the golden badges, looked up at each other with disheartened faces.

       Ernie sighed. "I was hoping. . ."

       "Me too," she contended. "Who do you think it is?"

       "I don't know. I'd always thought it'd be Hermione." They both looked down as he said this, as if grieving the girl. For all they know, they could be. "But Hannah already told me she didn't get it," he continued, "so that means it's probably - "

       "Parkinson," Padma finished bitterly. Pansy Parkinson had been a friend to her and her sister growing up. They'd always figured she'd be in Slytherin, but when she came to Hogwarts, she took being a Slytherin to a new level. Never before had she been so blatantly prejudiced, and it only got worse when she started hanging around Malfoy and his group. The Patil twins' friendship with Pansy Parkinson, beginning when they were only seven, lasted no more than a month into their first year. "Who do you think's Head Boy?"

       "I'm assuming you haven't seen Goldstein yet then?" Ernie asked, his tone hopeful. Padma shook her head, and Ernie sighed again. "I'm praying it's either him or Weasley. We're done for if it's Malfoy."

       Padma grimaced, thinking back to what Ginny had told her. "I'll bet you it is," she said gravely. "If they're making Death Eaters professors, what's stopping them from making them Head Boy?"

       Ernie's eyes widened at her words, his face paling. "What?" he gasped. "They're - they're making - ? No! They can't be! McGonagall would never let them!"

       "I think fifth year showed us that the Ministry can do whatever they want," Padma bitterly pointed out. "If You-Know-Who has the Ministry, he's got Hogwarts too."

       "Come on, Padma," came a voice from behind her, startling her. "Have a little faith."

       It was Anthony Goldstein, her fellow Ravenclaw prefect, but his words fell flat as Padma looked at his badge and found that he hadn't been made Head Boy either. She exchanged a solemn look with Ernie.

       With little more said between the three of them, the seventh years finished their trek to the front of the train, to the looming Prefects' Carriage. After filling Anthony in on their somber predictions, none of them were looking forward to what awaited them there, but it didn't break their stride for a moment. Padma's interaction with that Death Eater professor was still very fresh in her mind, and like she had done with Neela, she put on a brave face. They all had a responsibility as prefects, and most importantly as of now, it was to stand between the Death Eaters and the students. It was a small fight, but it was a fight nonetheless.

       "Patil!"

       Padma paused in the doorway of the Prefects' Carriage, her nostrils flaring at the sound of Pansy Parkinson's ever shrill voice. Ernie and Anthony gave her sympathetic looks as they slipped past her into the carriage.

       Parkinson stood in the center of the full, buzzing compartment, her weight on one leg, her arms crossed triumphantly over her chest, and with a Malfoy-worthy smirk across her lips as she stared down her former friend. Though she was a rather short girl for her age, Parkinson stood like she was seven feet tall, looking down on the Ravenclaw. "You're late."

       Padma felt her cheeks warming with fury. Figures, she thought, she gets slight power over me and immediately uses it to try and pull me further beneath her.

       Refusing to let Parkinson get to her, Padma ignored the Head Girl completely, sitting in the first open space furthest away from her. As she turned to the person she blindly sat next to, she was shocked, to say the least. "Seamus?"

       "Morning, Padma," the Gryffindor greeted, his expression somewhere between a grimace and a smile. "Bet you're as surprised to see me as I am to be here."

       "You could say that," she responded, her voice still high with shock. Her mind was racing. "I don't understand - where's Ron?"

       "Dunno," he shrugged, though his voice was far from casual. "Got the badge with my letter this summer. I'm hoping he just got demoted, but I haven't seen him or Ginny yet."

       "Ginny's here," she told him quickly. "She got stunned by a Death Eater as the train was leaving the platform, but she's here and she's okay - for the most part."

       "And Ron?" Seamus asked, his eyes wide with concern.

       "I - " she started, thinking back. She'd seen the Weasleys on the platform when all hell had broken loose, but in the blur of red hair, had Ron been there? "I don't know," she told him, and he deflated. "He wasn't with Ginny, at least."

       "Shit," Seamus groaned, sitting back in his seat. "So much is changing, isn't it?"

       An empty, heavy feeling in her chest, Padma fell back against the seat with him, looking around the compartment. Seamus Finnegan sat where Ron Weasley should have been, and across the way, Emma Vane sat solemnly in Hermione Granger's place. How many more were gone? How many would she never see again?

       "Shall we get started then?" came Parkinson's voice, drawing the attention back to her. Still she stood alone in the center of the compartment.

       Padma caught Ernie's eye from across the way, and they shared a confused look. If it wasn't him, or Anthony, or Ron, or Seamus, who was - ?

       "Where's the Head Boy?" a fifth year called out, earning one of Parkinson's famous glares.

       She opened her mouth to answer, but with the creaking of the carriage door as they opened, even she was rendered speechless for a moment. In the doorway stood a tall, looming figure in Slytherin robes, but it was not Draco Malfoy.

       "Theo," Parkinson said as the shock faded slightly. "What are you doing here? Where's - "

       But she was shut up once again as Theodore Nott pulled a shiny silver 'Head Boy' badge from his pocket and pinned it to the breast of his robes.