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Lavender’s hand ran the chilly, sticky pincel on her pillow-y lips, coloring them in a delicate pink.
With caramel curls and almond skin, Lavender was not a woman who needed much to highlight her appearance. Her evident curves—which had brought her to consider herself chubby during her teenager years—were peculiarly in harmony with the long figure that a growth spurt had gifted her at the age of sixteen. She did her best to always keep her back straight and chin up, and she liked to dress modestly.
Even if all of her charms were to be attributed to her own natural merit, Lavender never lost an occasion to take care of herself. People often mocked her, connecting her cured appearance and good looks to vanity and an empty mind, but they completely missed the point. There is no fault in pampering oneself up; self-love is as important as any other moral value. It proves a correct mindset and the will to bite into life as it deserves.
Lavender trailed a black pencil above the root of her long eyelashes, deepening her dark stare and the silvery stars that the lights of the room drew in her irises. She paused for a moment, and focused on the reflection that the mirror offered to her.
With the fingers of her mind, she brushed the stretches of paler skin that ran from her jaw to her forehead, cutting across one of her eyebrows. She didn’t feel the urge to conceal them anymore. She had learnt through love not to be ashamed of what made her unique, even if it had meant suffering in the past.
Her softly painted mouth bloomed in a pearly smile.
Tonight was going to be perfec-
She started when the door of the room slammed open, and precipetedly reached out for her wand, heart thrumming.
“Lav!” a bush of black hair shrilled, engulfing itself in the place. “Lav, Lav!” There were a couple of thuds as heavy books fell to the floor. “For Merlin, Lav! I’m a disaster! You gotta help me! I can’t go like thi- Where are my robes, I thought I’d left them here! And my notes- They must have slipped under the couch. How in Godric’s good grace-”
“Oh, Mione,” Lavender interrupted her girlfriend’s panicked rambling as she raised from her velvet stool. “What have you done?” She pinched her glistening lips before correcting, “What have you not done?”
Hermione, standing in her fluffy slippers in the middle of the room, smiled guiltily. Lavender’s eyes rapidly examined her girlfriend’s appearance as she raised a hand to her own hip: clearly, instead of taking a much needed nap on the couch like she should have done, Hermione had bent over her stacks of dusty papers for the last two hours.
“You’re decidedly hopeless,” Lavender said, gathering her thick locks in a ponytail and slowly moving toward the other witch.
“Could you help me to fix this?” Hermione pleaded, her sheepish grin widening a little as she pointed to her whole self in a single gesture—and another book fell from her grasp. “You’re an absolute genius at making me look presentable.”
Her toothy smile was alluring, and the shadows under her eyes were alarming. She couldn’t present herself like this to a dinner in her honor!
Lavender grabbed her by the shoulders, took advantage of their contrasting height to easily leave a peck on Hermione’s forehead, and sat her down in front of the makeup-covered table.
“First of all,” she said, grabbing a solid comb and securing a couple of pins between her teeth, “I am absolute genius at making you look astounding, because you are nothing short of gorgeous everyday.”
When Hermione attempted to grimace in disbelief, Lavender playfully tugged at one of her locks.
“And secondly, perhaps you’d manage to keep your hair in shape if you brushed it from time to time, instead of using it as an extra drawer,” she added, prying a short pencil from among the dark curls.
Hermione welcomed the discovery of the object with a half-surprised squeal.
Lavender loved to take care of herself, but she loved to take care of her girlfriend even more. Hermione’s hair was far from being silky, her nose wasn’t aristocratic, and her lips weren’t the fullest, but she radiated with an energy and spontaneity that served her better than potted colors and sparkles.
The extreme beauty she bore inside—regardless of her short temper or heated reactions—was like a crown that cast above her a soft light.
Lavender bent forward, and rested her chin in the crook of Hermione’s neck.
“You’re amazing, Ms. Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic.”
The skin on Hermione’s hand prickled at the thought of assuming a charge which she had long despised after her fifth year at Hogwarts. The name of it was forever stained with the memory of pain and injustice, with the testimony of what a wicked conscience could bring upon humanity.
But she reminded herself that those times were changing. Now, she would step in the same office that had belonged to someone she loathed, and she would bring some balance back. She would work for a better world.
Just like Lavender, Hermione had learnt through love to accept her scars.
In the smooth surface of the glass, chocolate eyes rooted in ebony ones.
“Not yet, Ms. Witch Weekly Ambassador. And maybe never, if we don’t make it to tonight’s ceremony on time.”
They both chuckled, and Lavender left another kiss on her girlfriend’s face, this time a long, tender one on her lips.