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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»»» THEIR steps echoed in the dark tunnel and coupled with the sound of her own heart beating in her ears, it made somewhat of a morbid symphony.Lavender had learnt not to ask questions when Fred did something strange, but there was something about the way he paused to regard her when he lifted the rug to reveal the trap door that was simply begging for her to. It was almost as if he was studying her reaction, his usual confident persona wavering for the tiniest of moments.
She couldn't help but smile to herself when she recalled the way his eyes lit up after she marveled at the sheer impossible nature of his antics. It led to multiple confessions that were snowballing one after the other, and suddenly it started to make sense. Both Fred and George always seemed to have some sort of superhuman power when it came to finding food and there were many times she had theorised with Pavarti about how they had managed it, ranging from a personal chef to somehow finding a loophole in Gamp's Law. So it wasn't hard for her to grin and gasp after each retelling, all the while the memory of the moment she had asked how in Merlin's name he discovered it replayed like a broken record.
"Oh and watch your head here," said Fred, interrupting his story about the time they brought butterbeer to nurse a particularly bad night. Lavender took his outreached hand and ducked under the sloping ledge. The dusty ground was starting to become far more uniformed, looking a lot like the cobbled floor in Hogwarts.
"Did it work then? Did you guys save your night?"
Fred shrugged, his grip tightening for a brief moment as she wobbled on the ledge. "We did the best we could, but Georgie still ended up going down to the common room at like midnight waiting for Lily to come back. I think he wanted to talk to her, but anyways I didn't think it was the best of ideas so convinced him to come back. And that was that."
"Well if it helps," Lavender started, her eyes glazing over as she recalled her own Yule Ball experience. "I had a crappy night too. Justin ditched me pretty early on for Hannah. I guess they had a thing going on. And Pav was having a horrible time with Harry -"
"Yeah I remember that train wreck. He and R- my brother were the worst dates," Fred snorted. "I would have thought you and Patil would spend the evening together?" He asked in a curious tone, and Lavender thanked her lucky stars that it was dark enough so that he wouldn't notice the deep blush on her cheeks.
"I mean we did, but then some beefcake from Durmstrang came and asked her to dance. And someone had spiked the drinks -"
"Ah," Fred said sheepishly, one hand brushing the back of his neck. "I may have had something to do with that."
"Considering how little attention you spent on your actual date, I'm not surprised she ditched you," Lavender tutted, wishing she could smugly tell her best friend that she had been correct about who the culprits were.
"That's literally all I did. It was such a good opportunity, plus we wanted to see McGonagall let loose," he defended hotly. Though his back faced her, she could picture the way his lips would purse into a tight line.
