As Lavender Brown's body lay amongst the ruins of what was once her home, she watched a family grieve the loss of one of their own, wondering why fate had so cruelly dealt them such cards. From a young age, all she wanted was to love and be loved in...
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»»» LAVENDER Brown was having a horrible day, at least until she physically bumped into one half of the Weasley duo. It marked the first time she was able to touch someone, actually hear them and know that they too recognised her presence. Heart racing, the nausea trebled as she froze in her spot. She had been far too wound up by the argument she had just witnessed between her parents, every fibre of her being was focused on escaping as far as she could.
For so long she had envisioned her mother calling out for her, or Pavarti sensing that she was being stalked, yet she had no such luck. At one point she felt she had almost gotten through to someone, a stranger of all people, but the feeling was short lived.
No one could hear her.
Why would they even want to?
She was a forgotten name, lost in the number of those who died fighting against You-Know-Who. No one would mourn her, that much she knew for certain. Unlike most, Lavender was aware of what it felt like to walk around with the Death as her only companion.
Be careful what you wish for, her mother would eventually snap at her, exhaustion seeping through her tone, not knowing the piercing affect her words would have. But how would she have known something was going wrong?
Having bumped into her past self, she had quickly calculated that she had somehow been transported back a couple of years. That version of Lavender was carefree, heart intact, with a seemingly perfect family to top it all off. She would go on to date the new Quidditch star and it would be a whirlwind of brilliance. And snogging. There would be a lot of snogging involved. Multiple practice sessions with her best friend in the whispers of the moonlit night meant she was well prepared for the event.
That was the last time she could remember being truly happy.
Reflecting on it all now, she could only scoff at her own selfish ignorance. Perhaps she would have noticed the crumbling marriage if she had paid attention to something aside from herself. Or maybe, she would have realised just how much she was emotionally investing in a boy, searching for some form of love that she could recognise and accept. A little more care spent on her friendships would have definitely helped ensure that she wouldn't feel so lonely after everything became so hopeless.
But even with the benefit of hindsight, Lavender knew that none of that would have truly helped. She was witnessing a girl deal with difficult emotions that often found themselves manifesting in unhealthy ways. By the end of the year she'd be left with no boyfriend, best friend, parents; who else was there to confine in?
Watching it all back was just another form of torture that she didn't know she could stomach. Simply knowing the fact that all the happiness she felt was all temporary and soon, the nagging voice in her mind would take control over every action she took. But whilst certain moments were interesting to relive with retrospect, Lavender quickly got bored of it, finding the giggly girl to be far too unrecognisable for any form of peace to occur. Assuming that is, peace was the reason she was trapped in the past.
