Celestine's fics (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} celescribbles) wrote,@ 2007-09-12 22:35:00 |
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| Current mood: |  tired |
Not Another Pretty Face
Genre: Romance, Angst, Post-DH
Rating: strong PG-13 for language and some sexual content
Story Summary: Lavender deals with the aftermath of the battle. Part One in a four-part series.
Notes: thanks to Anne for the beta and to Cambryn for giving me this idea in the first place.
She tries to open her eyes, tries to break through the surface, but there’s pain all around – it’s like her skin is encasing her face like a mask, too tight for her to move. And there’s pain, pain, pain. It doesn’t seem to have a end.
Lavender groans and feels that someone is holding her hand.
“Dear – my dear, I’m here.” A man’s voice. “I’m here. It’s all right.”
And then another voice, one she doesn’t recognise. “Yes, we had to put her to sleep – the healing process is painful. She would’ve surely fainted otherwise…”
A woman’s weeping: “Oh, my baby. My precious baby.”
“She’ll be fine, Mrs Brown. She’s safe from harm now; that’s what matters.”
Parvati.
Lavender opens her eyes just a bit. The first thing she sees is the glittering barrette in her friend’s hair, catching the light of the sun; then she recognises the faces. Her mother, red-eyed, her hair dishevelled, and Parvati, looking grave and relieved.
Her father is holding her hand and smiling. She wants him to kiss her cheek, to hug her, to ruffle her hair. But her father does none of those things.
That’s when Lavender realises that part of her face and her neck is wrapped in gauze. And then she remembers, and she starts to cry, the tears leaking slowly from between her bruised, battered eyelids.
*****************************
“How much do you remember?”
Lavender shifts on her bed. She can talk now – they unwrapped her chin the day before – but she doesn’t really know what the kindly woman in plain garb wants from her. Is it for the Ministry? Is she a Conscience Healer?
“I – I was fighting in the Great Hall and I was overcome by this – this -”
She doesn’t know how to describe him. Not a man. More like a beast, but even the most ferocious beasts don’t have that glint of lurid glee in their eyes.
“ – huge Death Eater and he…”
Lavender makes a feeble swipe with her hand, her fingers slightly hooked, to show her. Then she repeats it again, and again.
The woman comes back the next day, and the day after that. Slowly, Lavender begins to tell her what happened to her neck. Every time she takes a breath, it feels like his teeth are still in there.
One day, the woman tells her that Greyback is dead. She tells her that all his followers are in Azkaban. She tells her that she won’t become a werewolf, as Greyback wasn’t transformed when he bit her.
Another day, a tall, long-haired man she recognises as Ron’s brother Bill comes to visit. He sits down next to her bed and starts to tell her about his life, the quiet, normal life he leads with his wife. He tells her how the Healers and his loved ones’ support helped him get through the ordeal, when his face was little more than a bloody mass. He tells her that she’ll make it through, in time.
Bill is handsome and wears his battle scars well. Lavender thanks him, watches him leave.
But none of this makes her feel better. All the bandages are off now, and she’s starting to fear the day when she’ll leave the hospital bed, when she’ll come across a mirror, or even a window pane.
The curtains are drawn at night, but Lavender doesn’t need to see the moon to know it’s full. She imagines it glowing in the sky like a huge round mirror, feels a lurch inside of her, and throws up on the crisp, white bed sheets.
*****************************
“Lav, I talked to Madam Malkin today.”
Lavender looks up from what she's doing. Knitting a scarf. She’s not knitting it for anyone in particular, and she hates staying inside all the time in the small flat she’s renting with her friend, but she needs to keep her mind on something.
Parvati shrugs her coat off and smiles at her. She’s the only one who has never flinched looking at her – not even the first few weeks, when she left St Mungo’s. Back then, even her mother couldn’t help her eyes from getting misty every time she saw her.
Finally, a glimmer of hope.
“What did she say?”
“She said she could use another seamstress,” Parvati says. “You’re not an expert at sewing, but cutting out the pieces -”
Lavender grimaces. She can’t purse her lips the same way as before, only twist her mouth. “If you think I want to work in the back shop of a store where I won’t see the light of day…”
“Lav, you’re being unfair. This is a good job for someone who always wanted to work in wizarding fashion .”
“But like you, Parv, like you!” Lavender exclaims loudly, which causes a twinge of pain to pass through her neck. Then, more softly: “Working on draping, measuring, choosing colours with the customers…”
“You didn’t apply anywhere besides Malkin’s,” Parvati says, but her tone is compassionate rather than reproachful, because both of them know full well why she didn’t. “She doesn’t own the only wizarding robe shop in England, you know.”
Lavender nods, but already she’s gone back to her knitting. The thick wool thread softly scratches her fingers, and she dreams it’s silk instead.
*****************************
“Come on. Come on, seriously.”
Lavender takes a deep breath, hesitant. She looks in the mirror. Her hair is perfectly arranged, her eyelids lined and glimmering with a elaborate palette of hues that highlight her blue eyes. She let Parvati convince to go to this party at first, but now the contrast between her makeup and the lower half of her face is too glaring, and she thinks there’s no way she’s ever going to summon the courage to step out the door.
“Lav, you look -”
“Don’t say it, Parv; you know it’s a damned lie.”
Parvati glares at her pointedly and crosses her arms. “Is it that time of the month again?”
Despite herself, Lavender giggles. It’s become like a joke between them. Only Parvati can make her laugh about that.
“I’m serious as hell; you look good. That shirt is perfect for you.”
Lavender frowns, turns sideways. Yes, the shirt is cut just right, the neckline is flattering, the trousers are gorgeous. If she only looks at her body, that young, effortlessly beautiful body, she can almost pretend that she’s like before.
“You’re coming with me, and that’s final. I know what you’re afraid of – that they’re all going to pull fake smiles and be overly nice and pretend that nothing happened but you’ll see in their eyes that they’re lying… but honestly, Lav, don’t you think all of them have already seen horrors far worse than your scars during this war?”
Parvati is fun, witty and smart, but it’s her rough, generous sincerity that Lavender always appreciated most.
*****************************
She sips nervously on her drink, puts it back, takes it again to occupy her hand. She’s feeling a bit dizzy from the alcohol, but she didn’t dare eat anything from the buffet. She still has trouble opening her mouth as much as she needs when she’s eating. She doesn’t want to make a mess.
Parvati is dancing. She looks radiant. Hermione, ever the perfect hostess, is passing a plate of appetisers around. Ron stops her briefly to give her a kiss, they smile at each other, she moves along and he turns back to his conversation with Dean.
Lavender watches them from the sofa. She once cried over Ron. She once hated Hermione with what she thought was all her might. Now, she only envies them, so strongly, so fiercely, that her chest aches with every breath she takes.
Parvati motions for her to join her on the dance floor. She shrugs and sets her glass down, light-headed and miserable, walks to her. Face down. Her hand is itching jolt up and hide her chin.
That’s when she hears a cry of greeting, and sees him arrive through the front door. She feels a squirm in her stomach, a mix of Firewhiskey and the reminiscence of an ancient school fancy. Of course, they all fancied Oliver Wood back then, giggled when they passed him in the corridors, and Parvati had dared her to ask him for a quill, and she, being so reckless and so artful in her schoolgirl charm, had overcome her titters and sauntered up to him in the Library where he sat confused and awkward.
This time, the hand shoots up to her face. He grins, starts his away across the room to greet everyone. Handsome, athletic Oliver Wood, like a cut-out figure from a magazine.
In another life, she would’ve smiled, slipped him a simmering gaze, seized the chance to make him hers.
Oliver moves forward, spots Parvati, and Lavender realises it’s almost her turn.
*****************************
“So, what are you up to now that you’re out of Hogwarts?”
Oliver is casual, gallant, at ease with a glass in his hand. Lavender can’t believe the question.
No one has asked her that question tonight, and it’s just as well, because all she wants to reply is what the fuck do they think she’s doing now that half her face is ripped to shreds; isn’t that convenient for someone who wanted to work in fashion, and who was never smart or studious, and who could only always count on her charm and good looks to get anywhere, and now she doesn’t even have that anymore, so she’s less than Parvati, she’s less than Hermione, she’s less than Eloise Midgen, she’s less than the most cowardly godforsaken Squib. Without her face she’s nothing.
But this is Oliver Wood, and he’s smiling at her. She bites back her anger.
“I design.”
Oliver looks confused for a moment, and Lavender clarifies, “Fashion. You know, robes and such.”
The lie came so naturally she feels strangely confident, and she sees Parvati glancing back at her with her eyebrows raised in surprise.
*****************************
“I don’t think the wizarding world only needs people working at the Ministry and Aurors and such – I think it’s just as well that we all got a bit of entertainment, really. And that includes fashion, although I’m not an expert myself… bulky sportswear, you know, that’s my daily lot.”
Lavender nods and smiles and hopes her eyes are making a better job than her mouth of telling Oliver what she thinks, because he’s sitting so close to her on the sofa that she can’t get a single word out.
And besides that, her eyes aren’t scarred. They’re just like they were before, blue and clear and pure.
Oliver seems to notice this. It’s very late and he’s had much too much to drink, obviously.
*****************************
“I can’t believe you bailed out, Lav.”
“He was drunk.”
“He was interested. I mean, come on, when you disappeared in the loo, he kept looking around for you.”
“There’s no way in hell – Parv, come on, this is Oliver Wood we’re talking about. Remember how we used to chase him around when we were in third year?”
“Well, you’ve changed quite a bit since then.”
“Yeah, and that’s precisely why I’m telling you that his so-called interest was purely whisky-fuelled and…"
"Look at Bill Weasley, and then look at his wife-"
"I am not Bill Weasley, damn it!" She glares at her friend, slaps her palm on the table, frustrated. "It's not like anybody was in love with me before this, it's not as if - Merlin, Parvati, look at my face! Look at my bloody face and tell me that someone like Oliver Wood would want to kiss it! I’m not – I’m not even sure I can kiss anymore, with my mouth like that -”
“Oliver Wood asked Dean for your Floo number, so I’m guessing that he, at least, would very much like to test that theory. But frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if you have it in you to let him.”
*****************************
Inside, she’s still struggling not to think that this is all some horrible, cruel joke. She waits in front of the restaurant, huddled in her cloak, clutching her bag.
She even brought some drawings with her – fashion drawings she made just to show him her so-called work, beautiful clothes for people with perfect faces.
He’s five minutes late. Ten minutes late. He won’t come. Lavender wants to throw her drawings in the mucky snow on the sidewalk, step on them, ruin the wonderful colours and complex arrays of material.
“Hey! Sorry I’m late!”
He’s breathless, red in the face. Not handsome, divine. Lavender grins, and for the first time in a long time she doesn’t notice the pain.
“Quidditch practice, you know – we always lose track of the time. I left before they were done, actually.”
“I suppose I should take that as a huge compliment, coming from you.”
She pushes her hair back behind her ear, glances at him from under her long eyelashes.
*****************************
“Please – please, don’t you want to…”
She squeezes her eyes shut, she grips his hair, arches against his body. She tries to let the lust engulf her, wipe away everything else, but it’s no use.
The curtains aren’t drawn – it wouldn’t make any difference anyway, and the wine isn’t helping, and her head is pounding, and the fluttering in her stomach caused by Oliver’s hands pushing her shirt up turns to a dull, sapping ache.
“I’m sorry, I -”
Lavender makes it to the bathroom just in time. And when it’s over, when there’s nothing left inside her stomach, she pounds on the tiled floor with her fist and cries, and feels like howling.
She never should’ve agreed to go to Oliver’s place tonight, but she wanted to see him so badly, she thought it would be stronger than the moon. She thought she would be stronger.
“Are you okay?”
Lavender wipes her eyes. “Yeah – I’ll just – just clean up and go home. I’m… It happens when…”
He nods. He understands. And then, amazingly, gently, he starts to laugh.
“Well, at least you don’t turn all hairy and wild – although, I was kind of hoping for the wild part.”
Lavender finds that she can laugh about it with him as well as she can with Parvati, and it’s such a relief that she manages to believe him when he says he doesn’t mind if she stays.
And she manages to believe him when he tells her she’s beautiful, that she’s brave, that when he looks at her face he can read a thousand things and know they’re all true, and that he knew that first night at Hermione’s place.
That she’s not just another pretty face.
*****************************
Parvati is sipping her tea, a mysterious smile on her face. When she smiles like that, she reminds Lavender of one of those elegant, ancient statues in temples.
“Lav, you know what? We’re going to open our own shop,” she says as if it’s a particularly juicy piece of gossip.
Lavender looks up from her drawing, dumbfounded. “But – with what money?”
“Savings. Loans. Whatever – it’ll be a hit. With your designs and my business savvy… Don’t you dare tell me it never crossed your mind.”
Lavender giggles. “Not seriously – I mean, I wasn’t doing this thinking that…”
But she doesn’t finish her sentence. Of course she was thinking that. For who are these designs, if not for the witches who’ll want to wear them, to look good, to feel good?
“Well – it’s worth trying anyway, right?”
*****************************
Oliver is sleeping, breathing softly in the darkness. Lavender curls up next to him, her loins still aching deliciously from the way they made love, but also stinging a bit. It was the first time, after all – with him or anyone else.
But she’s glad it was with him.
She lets her finger run lightly on his chest. That chest, that perfect chest all the silly girls imagined when he was at Hogwarts, the object of whispered jokes about the changing room showers, about sweating from Quidditch, and they would all strain their eyes after each game to see through his jersey.
A thick, bumpy scar, reddish in colour, runs from his collarbone to the side of his waist.
A hex from the battle, the frantic work of a Death Eater making one last stand, something that no amount of magic or salve will ever heal.
Oliver stirs slightly and feels around for her, touches her hair, still in his dreams. And Lavender closes her eyes, and lays her cheek on his skin, to feel his heart beat underneath.
Lavender groans and feels that someone is holding her hand.
“Dear – my dear, I’m here.” A man’s voice. “I’m here. It’s all right.”
And then another voice, one she doesn’t recognise. “Yes, we had to put her to sleep – the healing process is painful. She would’ve surely fainted otherwise…”
A woman’s weeping: “Oh, my baby. My precious baby.”
“She’ll be fine, Mrs Brown. She’s safe from harm now; that’s what matters.”
Parvati.
Lavender opens her eyes just a bit. The first thing she sees is the glittering barrette in her friend’s hair, catching the light of the sun; then she recognises the faces. Her mother, red-eyed, her hair dishevelled, and Parvati, looking grave and relieved.
Her father is holding her hand and smiling. She wants him to kiss her cheek, to hug her, to ruffle her hair. But her father does none of those things.
That’s when Lavender realises that part of her face and her neck is wrapped in gauze. And then she remembers, and she starts to cry, the tears leaking slowly from between her bruised, battered eyelids.
“How much do you remember?”
Lavender shifts on her bed. She can talk now – they unwrapped her chin the day before – but she doesn’t really know what the kindly woman in plain garb wants from her. Is it for the Ministry? Is she a Conscience Healer?
“I – I was fighting in the Great Hall and I was overcome by this – this -”
She doesn’t know how to describe him. Not a man. More like a beast, but even the most ferocious beasts don’t have that glint of lurid glee in their eyes.
“ – huge Death Eater and he…”
Lavender makes a feeble swipe with her hand, her fingers slightly hooked, to show her. Then she repeats it again, and again.
The woman comes back the next day, and the day after that. Slowly, Lavender begins to tell her what happened to her neck. Every time she takes a breath, it feels like his teeth are still in there.
One day, the woman tells her that Greyback is dead. She tells her that all his followers are in Azkaban. She tells her that she won’t become a werewolf, as Greyback wasn’t transformed when he bit her.
Another day, a tall, long-haired man she recognises as Ron’s brother Bill comes to visit. He sits down next to her bed and starts to tell her about his life, the quiet, normal life he leads with his wife. He tells her how the Healers and his loved ones’ support helped him get through the ordeal, when his face was little more than a bloody mass. He tells her that she’ll make it through, in time.
Bill is handsome and wears his battle scars well. Lavender thanks him, watches him leave.
But none of this makes her feel better. All the bandages are off now, and she’s starting to fear the day when she’ll leave the hospital bed, when she’ll come across a mirror, or even a window pane.
The curtains are drawn at night, but Lavender doesn’t need to see the moon to know it’s full. She imagines it glowing in the sky like a huge round mirror, feels a lurch inside of her, and throws up on the crisp, white bed sheets.
“Lav, I talked to Madam Malkin today.”
Lavender looks up from what she's doing. Knitting a scarf. She’s not knitting it for anyone in particular, and she hates staying inside all the time in the small flat she’s renting with her friend, but she needs to keep her mind on something.
Parvati shrugs her coat off and smiles at her. She’s the only one who has never flinched looking at her – not even the first few weeks, when she left St Mungo’s. Back then, even her mother couldn’t help her eyes from getting misty every time she saw her.
Finally, a glimmer of hope.
“What did she say?”
“She said she could use another seamstress,” Parvati says. “You’re not an expert at sewing, but cutting out the pieces -”
Lavender grimaces. She can’t purse her lips the same way as before, only twist her mouth. “If you think I want to work in the back shop of a store where I won’t see the light of day…”
“Lav, you’re being unfair. This is a good job for someone who always wanted to work in wizarding fashion .”
“But like you, Parv, like you!” Lavender exclaims loudly, which causes a twinge of pain to pass through her neck. Then, more softly: “Working on draping, measuring, choosing colours with the customers…”
“You didn’t apply anywhere besides Malkin’s,” Parvati says, but her tone is compassionate rather than reproachful, because both of them know full well why she didn’t. “She doesn’t own the only wizarding robe shop in England, you know.”
Lavender nods, but already she’s gone back to her knitting. The thick wool thread softly scratches her fingers, and she dreams it’s silk instead.
“Come on. Come on, seriously.”
Lavender takes a deep breath, hesitant. She looks in the mirror. Her hair is perfectly arranged, her eyelids lined and glimmering with a elaborate palette of hues that highlight her blue eyes. She let Parvati convince to go to this party at first, but now the contrast between her makeup and the lower half of her face is too glaring, and she thinks there’s no way she’s ever going to summon the courage to step out the door.
“Lav, you look -”
“Don’t say it, Parv; you know it’s a damned lie.”
Parvati glares at her pointedly and crosses her arms. “Is it that time of the month again?”
Despite herself, Lavender giggles. It’s become like a joke between them. Only Parvati can make her laugh about that.
“I’m serious as hell; you look good. That shirt is perfect for you.”
Lavender frowns, turns sideways. Yes, the shirt is cut just right, the neckline is flattering, the trousers are gorgeous. If she only looks at her body, that young, effortlessly beautiful body, she can almost pretend that she’s like before.
“You’re coming with me, and that’s final. I know what you’re afraid of – that they’re all going to pull fake smiles and be overly nice and pretend that nothing happened but you’ll see in their eyes that they’re lying… but honestly, Lav, don’t you think all of them have already seen horrors far worse than your scars during this war?”
Parvati is fun, witty and smart, but it’s her rough, generous sincerity that Lavender always appreciated most.
She sips nervously on her drink, puts it back, takes it again to occupy her hand. She’s feeling a bit dizzy from the alcohol, but she didn’t dare eat anything from the buffet. She still has trouble opening her mouth as much as she needs when she’s eating. She doesn’t want to make a mess.
Parvati is dancing. She looks radiant. Hermione, ever the perfect hostess, is passing a plate of appetisers around. Ron stops her briefly to give her a kiss, they smile at each other, she moves along and he turns back to his conversation with Dean.
Lavender watches them from the sofa. She once cried over Ron. She once hated Hermione with what she thought was all her might. Now, she only envies them, so strongly, so fiercely, that her chest aches with every breath she takes.
Parvati motions for her to join her on the dance floor. She shrugs and sets her glass down, light-headed and miserable, walks to her. Face down. Her hand is itching jolt up and hide her chin.
That’s when she hears a cry of greeting, and sees him arrive through the front door. She feels a squirm in her stomach, a mix of Firewhiskey and the reminiscence of an ancient school fancy. Of course, they all fancied Oliver Wood back then, giggled when they passed him in the corridors, and Parvati had dared her to ask him for a quill, and she, being so reckless and so artful in her schoolgirl charm, had overcome her titters and sauntered up to him in the Library where he sat confused and awkward.
This time, the hand shoots up to her face. He grins, starts his away across the room to greet everyone. Handsome, athletic Oliver Wood, like a cut-out figure from a magazine.
In another life, she would’ve smiled, slipped him a simmering gaze, seized the chance to make him hers.
Oliver moves forward, spots Parvati, and Lavender realises it’s almost her turn.
“So, what are you up to now that you’re out of Hogwarts?”
Oliver is casual, gallant, at ease with a glass in his hand. Lavender can’t believe the question.
No one has asked her that question tonight, and it’s just as well, because all she wants to reply is what the fuck do they think she’s doing now that half her face is ripped to shreds; isn’t that convenient for someone who wanted to work in fashion, and who was never smart or studious, and who could only always count on her charm and good looks to get anywhere, and now she doesn’t even have that anymore, so she’s less than Parvati, she’s less than Hermione, she’s less than Eloise Midgen, she’s less than the most cowardly godforsaken Squib. Without her face she’s nothing.
But this is Oliver Wood, and he’s smiling at her. She bites back her anger.
“I design.”
Oliver looks confused for a moment, and Lavender clarifies, “Fashion. You know, robes and such.”
The lie came so naturally she feels strangely confident, and she sees Parvati glancing back at her with her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I don’t think the wizarding world only needs people working at the Ministry and Aurors and such – I think it’s just as well that we all got a bit of entertainment, really. And that includes fashion, although I’m not an expert myself… bulky sportswear, you know, that’s my daily lot.”
Lavender nods and smiles and hopes her eyes are making a better job than her mouth of telling Oliver what she thinks, because he’s sitting so close to her on the sofa that she can’t get a single word out.
And besides that, her eyes aren’t scarred. They’re just like they were before, blue and clear and pure.
Oliver seems to notice this. It’s very late and he’s had much too much to drink, obviously.
“I can’t believe you bailed out, Lav.”
“He was drunk.”
“He was interested. I mean, come on, when you disappeared in the loo, he kept looking around for you.”
“There’s no way in hell – Parv, come on, this is Oliver Wood we’re talking about. Remember how we used to chase him around when we were in third year?”
“Well, you’ve changed quite a bit since then.”
“Yeah, and that’s precisely why I’m telling you that his so-called interest was purely whisky-fuelled and…"
"Look at Bill Weasley, and then look at his wife-"
"I am not Bill Weasley, damn it!" She glares at her friend, slaps her palm on the table, frustrated. "It's not like anybody was in love with me before this, it's not as if - Merlin, Parvati, look at my face! Look at my bloody face and tell me that someone like Oliver Wood would want to kiss it! I’m not – I’m not even sure I can kiss anymore, with my mouth like that -”
“Oliver Wood asked Dean for your Floo number, so I’m guessing that he, at least, would very much like to test that theory. But frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if you have it in you to let him.”
Inside, she’s still struggling not to think that this is all some horrible, cruel joke. She waits in front of the restaurant, huddled in her cloak, clutching her bag.
She even brought some drawings with her – fashion drawings she made just to show him her so-called work, beautiful clothes for people with perfect faces.
He’s five minutes late. Ten minutes late. He won’t come. Lavender wants to throw her drawings in the mucky snow on the sidewalk, step on them, ruin the wonderful colours and complex arrays of material.
“Hey! Sorry I’m late!”
He’s breathless, red in the face. Not handsome, divine. Lavender grins, and for the first time in a long time she doesn’t notice the pain.
“Quidditch practice, you know – we always lose track of the time. I left before they were done, actually.”
“I suppose I should take that as a huge compliment, coming from you.”
She pushes her hair back behind her ear, glances at him from under her long eyelashes.
“Please – please, don’t you want to…”
She squeezes her eyes shut, she grips his hair, arches against his body. She tries to let the lust engulf her, wipe away everything else, but it’s no use.
The curtains aren’t drawn – it wouldn’t make any difference anyway, and the wine isn’t helping, and her head is pounding, and the fluttering in her stomach caused by Oliver’s hands pushing her shirt up turns to a dull, sapping ache.
“I’m sorry, I -”
Lavender makes it to the bathroom just in time. And when it’s over, when there’s nothing left inside her stomach, she pounds on the tiled floor with her fist and cries, and feels like howling.
She never should’ve agreed to go to Oliver’s place tonight, but she wanted to see him so badly, she thought it would be stronger than the moon. She thought she would be stronger.
“Are you okay?”
Lavender wipes her eyes. “Yeah – I’ll just – just clean up and go home. I’m… It happens when…”
He nods. He understands. And then, amazingly, gently, he starts to laugh.
“Well, at least you don’t turn all hairy and wild – although, I was kind of hoping for the wild part.”
Lavender finds that she can laugh about it with him as well as she can with Parvati, and it’s such a relief that she manages to believe him when he says he doesn’t mind if she stays.
And she manages to believe him when he tells her she’s beautiful, that she’s brave, that when he looks at her face he can read a thousand things and know they’re all true, and that he knew that first night at Hermione’s place.
That she’s not just another pretty face.
Parvati is sipping her tea, a mysterious smile on her face. When she smiles like that, she reminds Lavender of one of those elegant, ancient statues in temples.
“Lav, you know what? We’re going to open our own shop,” she says as if it’s a particularly juicy piece of gossip.
Lavender looks up from her drawing, dumbfounded. “But – with what money?”
“Savings. Loans. Whatever – it’ll be a hit. With your designs and my business savvy… Don’t you dare tell me it never crossed your mind.”
Lavender giggles. “Not seriously – I mean, I wasn’t doing this thinking that…”
But she doesn’t finish her sentence. Of course she was thinking that. For who are these designs, if not for the witches who’ll want to wear them, to look good, to feel good?
“Well – it’s worth trying anyway, right?”
Oliver is sleeping, breathing softly in the darkness. Lavender curls up next to him, her loins still aching deliciously from the way they made love, but also stinging a bit. It was the first time, after all – with him or anyone else.
But she’s glad it was with him.
She lets her finger run lightly on his chest. That chest, that perfect chest all the silly girls imagined when he was at Hogwarts, the object of whispered jokes about the changing room showers, about sweating from Quidditch, and they would all strain their eyes after each game to see through his jersey.
A thick, bumpy scar, reddish in colour, runs from his collarbone to the side of his waist.
A hex from the battle, the frantic work of a Death Eater making one last stand, something that no amount of magic or salve will ever heal.
Oliver stirs slightly and feels around for her, touches her hair, still in his dreams. And Lavender closes her eyes, and lays her cheek on his skin, to feel his heart beat underneath.
