![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anythingbutgreyi'll be re-posting some fics from the at the close ficathon over the next couple of days so i can keep them organized. :)
we're not ones for busting through walls
lavender brown, post-war. for the at the close ficathon. title from kate bush's 'suspended in gaffa'
There are patterns, of course.
Lavender picks herself up after the war.
She's proud of that. Not everyone can say the same.
-
There's a coffee shop at the far end of Diagon Alley. Or, rather, there is now. Reconstruction, Cho called it once. A Muggle concept. Wizards just call it sweeping up. There is indeed a lot of sweeping; enchanted brooms work the streets at all hours. Lavender cannot help but at first think of them as ghosts tidying up after themselves. No rest for the wicked, Lavender remembers, and that goes for after you're lowered into the ground for the most unlucky.
Lately, Lavender prefers quiet. She doesn't often get it. There are patterns, of course. It's impossible to be quiet around Parvati and Lavender likes that, she likes the accustomed-to. But when Parvati isn't around, Lavender prefers quiet. It's a rest. Her mother tries to force-feed her Shepherd's Pie, Lavender's childhood favorite, and Lavender cuts it open and stares at the chopped-up insides.
This silent coffee shop is the first thing to stand on its own two feet after the war, and Lavender seems to move in here. No one else comes here often. Coffee is too ordinary; it's Muggles who live off the stuff. Wizards prefer candy: licorice snaps, boiled sweets and chocolate frogs. Lavender likes coffee, though. She, unlike most of the people at Hogwarts, lives in London proper, and spends more time in the summers around Muggles and their silly ways than any magical folk. When the coffee shop goes up, Lavender is happy to find it the total opposite of a Muggle alternative. The Starbucks near her flat doesn't have silence in its vocabulary, and that was fine back when Lavender preferred sounds. She'll end up back there again, but she's not there now.
The owner of this shop is a small, 30-something brunette named Naomi. She's quiet like the store, and Muggle-born. People have sent her death threats saying that the war was her fault for the blood in her body. Lavender knows this because of the time she caught Naomi crying over the cookies she had just pulled out of the oven. "I made this store to fit," Naomi said, laughing to herself a little the way people laugh when confessing to strangers, knowing they shouldn't. The store is going to close soon. It has to. Lavender is the only one who ever seems to be here, bar the occasional passerby. She buys extra cookies and leaves them on her kitchen counter where they sit untouched.
-
War does one of two things to people, Lavender has surmised: it tears people apart or makes them hold on tight. For Lavender, it has been the latter. For Ron and Harry and Hermione (and this is all gathered from Daily Prophet articles), it has been the former, at least for now, and Lavender is not sad about that. So Lavender is angry. Lavender has been angry for a long time. It doesn't sit well in her. She's not an angry person, you see.
But while she's obviously not glad of the war, it has also tied her closer to the people who feared and fought alongside her. She even, she will admit, waved at Hermione Granger just last week, and then felt a little nauseated about it. But the war and the year at Hogwarts in the dark makes her pull Padma and Parvati and Romilda and Seamus and Dean closer to her, like they could slip away if she's not careful. She sees one of them at least once a week, Padma and Parvati twice. It's summer, and no one is employed. Sometimes they laugh and more often they are quiet and Lavender draws lightning bolts on her hands and giggles at the way the quill tickles her skin.
"We'll be okay," Romilda says when Lavender is over for tea. Lavender likes Ramilda's house. It's wide and has too many windows and not enough people. Lavender doesn't know if this is a question.
"Yes," she says anyway. Parvati has been looking at tea leaves. Lavender must also tell her that they will be okay. The war is over. The nightmares aren't real.
-
She does have the nightmares though. It's Greyback that burns most.
But they are only nightmares. She remembers this in the sunlight. There many things to fear in the world, but nightmares are not real.
She remembers this in the sunlight.
-
Parvati is examining Padma's palms again. Lavender, who has always been weakest at palm reading, cannot imagine the lines on Padma's hands have changed much in recent weeks, but she surmises the twins like familiarity. Three months after the war, Lavender still can't decide if everything is the same or different. There are more stores along Diagon Alley now, ones she grew up with. Ollivander's has returned, even, and it is the one place at which Lavender allows herself to cry. It would be the same, if not for the absences. There aren't a lot but there are enough.
"You will live a rich and fulfilled life," Parvati says. They're in the garden, among the lilies, and Lavender keeps her eyes closed. "Your troubles have passed."
Lavender has heard this prediction many times in the last few weeks. Part of the art of divination (a term she forever hears in Professor Trelawney's voice, and can mimic quite perfectly and with great affection) is learning how to tell aspiration from fact. Parvati is an expert at this, and sees what she must see, not what she hopes to see. These repeated predictions are not wishful thinking, but, rather, a reminder. In the sunlight the nightmares are not real. It's a time to take advantage of. To say out loud over and over again, We are safe.
Lavender hums along to Parvati's refrain. Your troubles have passed. Your troubles have passed. We are safe.
we're not ones for busting through walls
lavender brown, post-war. for the at the close ficathon. title from kate bush's 'suspended in gaffa'
There are patterns, of course.
Lavender picks herself up after the war.
She's proud of that. Not everyone can say the same.
-
There's a coffee shop at the far end of Diagon Alley. Or, rather, there is now. Reconstruction, Cho called it once. A Muggle concept. Wizards just call it sweeping up. There is indeed a lot of sweeping; enchanted brooms work the streets at all hours. Lavender cannot help but at first think of them as ghosts tidying up after themselves. No rest for the wicked, Lavender remembers, and that goes for after you're lowered into the ground for the most unlucky.
Lately, Lavender prefers quiet. She doesn't often get it. There are patterns, of course. It's impossible to be quiet around Parvati and Lavender likes that, she likes the accustomed-to. But when Parvati isn't around, Lavender prefers quiet. It's a rest. Her mother tries to force-feed her Shepherd's Pie, Lavender's childhood favorite, and Lavender cuts it open and stares at the chopped-up insides.
This silent coffee shop is the first thing to stand on its own two feet after the war, and Lavender seems to move in here. No one else comes here often. Coffee is too ordinary; it's Muggles who live off the stuff. Wizards prefer candy: licorice snaps, boiled sweets and chocolate frogs. Lavender likes coffee, though. She, unlike most of the people at Hogwarts, lives in London proper, and spends more time in the summers around Muggles and their silly ways than any magical folk. When the coffee shop goes up, Lavender is happy to find it the total opposite of a Muggle alternative. The Starbucks near her flat doesn't have silence in its vocabulary, and that was fine back when Lavender preferred sounds. She'll end up back there again, but she's not there now.
The owner of this shop is a small, 30-something brunette named Naomi. She's quiet like the store, and Muggle-born. People have sent her death threats saying that the war was her fault for the blood in her body. Lavender knows this because of the time she caught Naomi crying over the cookies she had just pulled out of the oven. "I made this store to fit," Naomi said, laughing to herself a little the way people laugh when confessing to strangers, knowing they shouldn't. The store is going to close soon. It has to. Lavender is the only one who ever seems to be here, bar the occasional passerby. She buys extra cookies and leaves them on her kitchen counter where they sit untouched.
-
War does one of two things to people, Lavender has surmised: it tears people apart or makes them hold on tight. For Lavender, it has been the latter. For Ron and Harry and Hermione (and this is all gathered from Daily Prophet articles), it has been the former, at least for now, and Lavender is not sad about that. So Lavender is angry. Lavender has been angry for a long time. It doesn't sit well in her. She's not an angry person, you see.
But while she's obviously not glad of the war, it has also tied her closer to the people who feared and fought alongside her. She even, she will admit, waved at Hermione Granger just last week, and then felt a little nauseated about it. But the war and the year at Hogwarts in the dark makes her pull Padma and Parvati and Romilda and Seamus and Dean closer to her, like they could slip away if she's not careful. She sees one of them at least once a week, Padma and Parvati twice. It's summer, and no one is employed. Sometimes they laugh and more often they are quiet and Lavender draws lightning bolts on her hands and giggles at the way the quill tickles her skin.
"We'll be okay," Romilda says when Lavender is over for tea. Lavender likes Ramilda's house. It's wide and has too many windows and not enough people. Lavender doesn't know if this is a question.
"Yes," she says anyway. Parvati has been looking at tea leaves. Lavender must also tell her that they will be okay. The war is over. The nightmares aren't real.
-
She does have the nightmares though. It's Greyback that burns most.
But they are only nightmares. She remembers this in the sunlight. There many things to fear in the world, but nightmares are not real.
She remembers this in the sunlight.
-
Parvati is examining Padma's palms again. Lavender, who has always been weakest at palm reading, cannot imagine the lines on Padma's hands have changed much in recent weeks, but she surmises the twins like familiarity. Three months after the war, Lavender still can't decide if everything is the same or different. There are more stores along Diagon Alley now, ones she grew up with. Ollivander's has returned, even, and it is the one place at which Lavender allows herself to cry. It would be the same, if not for the absences. There aren't a lot but there are enough.
"You will live a rich and fulfilled life," Parvati says. They're in the garden, among the lilies, and Lavender keeps her eyes closed. "Your troubles have passed."
Lavender has heard this prediction many times in the last few weeks. Part of the art of divination (a term she forever hears in Professor Trelawney's voice, and can mimic quite perfectly and with great affection) is learning how to tell aspiration from fact. Parvati is an expert at this, and sees what she must see, not what she hopes to see. These repeated predictions are not wishful thinking, but, rather, a reminder. In the sunlight the nightmares are not real. It's a time to take advantage of. To say out loud over and over again, We are safe.
Lavender hums along to Parvati's refrain. Your troubles have passed. Your troubles have passed. We are safe.
