Work Text:
Tokens
It was just after Christmas break when she first came across him and a terrified first-year Hufflepuff in the Third Floor corridor, just outside the DADA classroom.
Lavender Brown looked around to make sure no teachers were in the vicinity, quietly drew her wand, and advanced on Blaise Zabini. He had his back to her. Honour would dictate not to attack from behind. Honour, however, alongside decency and integrity, had long gone out the window with the arrival of the Carrows.
The first year cried silently. Blaise spoke to the student in hushed tones, so quiet she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. The student nodded his head and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Lavender continued to creep forward until she was right behind Zabini. Just as he lifted his wand, she stuck her own into the back of his neck. “Don’t move, Zabini,” she snarled.
The Hufflepuff boy’s eyes bulged as he took notice of Lavender and her vicious tone.
“Brown, get off me,” Blaise huffed, not even trying to hide the irritation in his voice.
“I wouldn’t give orders if I were you. I’m not the airhead you all think I am,” Lavender replied with raised brows and a self-assured expression on her face.
“Then use your brain for a change and either help me or get lost.”
Lavender opened her mouth to retort but snapped it shut and frowned. She removed her wand from his neck but didn’t lower it.
“Help you with what? Torturing yet another little one for your pleasure?” she spat.
Blaise turned and rolled his eyes. “Keep your voice down. We’ll all be in trouble if we’re caught,” he replied through gritted teeth.
The first year sniffed again and Blaise reached into his pocket while giving Lavender a look . Lavender's gaze fluctuated between his eyes and his pocket, and she made sure to grip her wand tighter, not fully trusting Zabini in what he was doing.
He made a show of the sweet he removed from his pocket, and waved his wand to transfigure it into a handkerchief. He handed it to the smaller boy who used it to great effect.
Blaise waved his hand at the boy who tried to hand the handkerchief back, “No, keep it.”
Lavender cracked a grin at his disgusted face and finally lowered her wand. She watched with admiration as Blaise tended to the student carefully, with a few well-placed healing spells to relieve the bruises undoubtedly caused by hand of the Carrows.
As the weeks went on, the torture continued.
After that night outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, Lavender and Blaise had struck an unspoken agreement. She’d carried a pocket full of sweets around the clock since. They wouldn’t cause suspicion if she was searched, were small enough to carry, and easy enough to transfigure into handkerchiefs or even the odd bandage if necessary.
They’d found themselves outside the DADA classroom on several occasions, surreptitiously helping those who had been made examples of. More often than not, the unfortunate kids were small and young - easy prey.
Lavender had recruited Neville and the other students who defied the new regime. They now occupied the Room of Requirement more so than their own dorms. Still, though, they had to turn up for lessons and they often took extra punishments for trying to openly defend and help the younger students.
Regardless, day in and day out, they continued to help them. They felt it was their duty to defend the younger students against the menacing death eaters that plagued the castle. It didn’t feel enough to simply hand them a tissue to dry their tears; it didn’t alleviate their fears and injuries.
One afternoon, while she tended to a small Gryffindor girl, Lavender decided to add a little extra brightness to the poor girl’s situation. As she transfigured the sweet into a pristine linen handkerchief, she also charmed a short joke onto it. The girl managed a giggle through her tears. That’s how Blaise had found them.
He crouched down on one knee beside the girl and bent his head to read what caused the amusement: What do you call a bear without an ear? “B”
Blaise looked up at Lavender and grinned at her in approval, then helped heal the girl’s bruises.
That incident caused a competition between the two: who could make the kids smile faster, wider, happier? Who could come up with the cornier jokes? It became their own little haven - something to do that focused on fun in a bleak life, even if all they did was produce these little tokens.
A third-year boy tended to by Blaise, received: I couldn’t figure out why the Quaffle kept getting larger. Then it hit me.
Not an hour later, Lavender charmed another transfigured sweet to say: Why did the Arithmancy book look so sad? Because of all its problems.
Blaise rolled his eyes, letting out a small groan, when a few days later a small girl pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket that read: What do you call a dog that can do magic? A Labracadabrador.
The girl said she had kept it because it reminded her of the kindness that Lavender had shown. The girl’s words made Blaise feel some very unfamiliar things, and he excused himself quickly after making sure the girl was okay.
Lavender had a very similar reaction after being shown a distinctive handkerchief she knew could only have been transfigured by Blaise. His handkerchiefs always had a little something that made them stand out. They were always pristine, exactly square, and often edged with a green border. How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? Ten-Tickles
Who knew that the quiet, aloof Slytherin would have a sense of humour and the decency to help those less fortunate, despite their house designation.
On one chilly March evening, Lavender came across Blaise in the deserted corridor she used to access the Room of Requirement. She found him hunched over, in pain and unable to keep himself upright. She acted quickly, without hesitation and ran towards her new companion. As she got closer, she saw blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, his left eye was swollen shut and he was gingerly holding his arm against his stomach.
“Blaise!” she hissed. “What in Merlin’s name happened to you?”
“Carrow,” he wheezed. “Caught me helping a kid.”
Blaise winced before he continued tersely while Lavender started to heal his eye. “Made an example of me, made the kid watch. Crucioed the kid for good measure.”
Angry tears sprung to Lavender’s eyes as she finished healing his eye. If they survived this, and if Harry was successful in his quest to vanquish the Dark Lord, she would personally kill the Carrow twins. She blinked quickly to keep from crying and reached into her robes to pull out a couple of sweets. One, she handed to Blaise, knowing he loved the Fudge Flies, the other she transfigured with ease, having done it so many times before. He gave her a tight smile, now able to look out of both of his eyes.
As she handed him the charmed handkerchief, she hesitated, but then shoved it into his hand before she could change her mind.
When Blaise looked up from reading her words - I Lav the way you smile - she was gone.
It wasn’t the only time she had found him in that state. After the fourth time, she had asked him to join her and the others in the Room of Requirement, to join the DA. He refused, saying he preferred to work alone.
He thanked Lavender with a smile, but told her that he didn’t think the other members of the DA would be as forgiving as she. At least if he acted alone, the suspicion from his fellow house-mates that followed him wouldn’t be linked back to her. Many members of the Slytherin house acted as spies, spies who reported everything to their families - many of which were heavily involved in the Dark Lord’s ranks.
That time, the words she charmed onto the transfigured sweet read: Don’t follow that path. Blaise the trail.
She stood still, holding her breath while his eyes flicked over the cloth in his hand. When his gaze found hers, his dark eyes were burning with an intensity she hadn’t seen before. For a moment, she thought he would join them after all. That hope was quickly gone when she saw him grimace, with what she could only think of as a regret.
Barely a week after that, it was Blaise who found Lavender. Alone, lying on the floor, barely conscious, carelessly discarded and left to die. He picked her up and carried her into a secluded alcove to tend to her. While he healed her, he kept watch at the opening of the alcove, for fear of being discovered and punished, or worse, killed. The Carrows had become more violent in recent days, and that was a liability he wasn’t sure he wanted to face.
“Come on, Lavender, that’s it,” Blaise murmured as he brushed her face with a newly-made, cooled, linen cloth. She stirred in his arms, as he pulled her tighter into his lap. “Shh,” he soothed when she started to rouse.
“It was only natural and it didn’t mean anything”, he mumbled to himself late that night as he lay in bed. This was war, and strange things happened. Still, he had shocked himself when he had pressed his lips to her temple and wished he could take all her pain away.
Blaise turned over onto his front and groaned into his pillow as he remembered his interaction with Draco that evening. Blaise had underestimated Draco and his self-absorbed attitude, and was faced with a very awkward confrontation with his former friend when Draco noticed his interactions with Lavender. Draco had told him “be careful with that Brown girl”, among other things. That bastard even made sure to scold him with an aristocratic brow when he asked some very uncomfortable questions that Blaise tried, and surely failed, to deflect.
A few floors up, in the Room of Requirement, Lavender lay wide awake in a hammock, a scourgified linen cloth in her hands. Not only did it have his trademark transfiguration marks on it, but it also smelled like him. She held on to the cloth tightly as she vaguely remembered how it had felt to lie in his arms, how his tender ministrations felt as he wiped her face and the chills down her spine that occurred as he murmured in his deep baritone in her ear.
How her magic tingled when his lips were on her skin.
She glanced at the charmed words again, as if she hadn’t read them a thousand times and committed them to memory hours ago: He asked if I Lavender. I said I didn’t know you yet.
Who had asked, and why did these words explode inside her like a kaleidoscope of butterflies?
In the weeks following, both Blaise and Lavender found excuses and reasons to be in the same place at the same time. It was hardly missed by their friends, though nobody openly opposed their fraternising with the debatable enemy , as Neville had put it.
When the Easter Holidays approached, only a few students were given leave, notably, only the Slytherins were allowed to go home. When classes picked back up after the holidays, the already strained and fearful atmosphere in the castle climbed to new heights.
Rumours were ripe: Harry had been caught by Snatchers, and then he had escaped from Malfoy Manor. Draco Malfoy looked extra pale and spoke to no one unless strictly necessary, fuelling the rumour mill further. Though nobody would raise these speculations with the blond wizard for fear of being cursed, no one would dare cross a Death Eater.
On the first day of May, Harry turned up at Hogwarts and the war ensued. Lavender found Blaise amid pandemonium and pressed a quickly transfigured Fudge Fly into his hands.
Stay and fight with us. If we go down, let’s go down in a Blaise of Glory. X
He was haunted for days by the hurt expression in her eyes as the other Slytherins forcefully pulled him out of Hogwarts like a brainless sheep. Yet, for all his good deeds of secretly helping younger students, he couldn’t bring himself to join in the battle. His cowardice won that day.
At the end of May, on a beautifully sunny day, Blaise stood slightly apart from a crowd of mourners. He had warred with himself, debated whether he’d be welcome or hexed during the service. It had taken an iron will to force himself to attend.
He didn’t deserve to be here, didn’t deserve to mourn Lavender’s passing, to grieve when he had been safely hidden from the brutal battle that was the Second Wizarding War in his London townhouse, while the woman he had come to know put her life on the line and paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Regret, he mused, was a funny thing. He never thought he regretted anything in his life - until now. It was only as he stood there, amongst her family and friends, that he realised that the old saying was right: Fear is temporary. Regret is forever.
Far too late had he realised that though she had crawled under his skin, he’d fallen in love with the insipid girl, and that the respect he thought he’d felt for her extended farther than he’d ever expected. Now, she was lost to him and he was left behind, unable to ever tell her how he truly felt.
Poetic justice was what it was, he mused. He deserved the heartache, deserved the overwhelming feelings of failure and cowardice. He almost wished the other people around him, silently crying at Lavender’s grave, would put him out of his misery so he wouldn’t be tortured by his own thoughts anymore.
He drank a week straight after he’d heard she had been severely injured. He wished he’d drunk himself to death when he heard she had died two weeks after the battle. Sobriety was not his friend, and intoxication seemed to dull the pain, even if only a little.
Today though, he’d taken a sober-up potion, put on his best clothes, and grabbed a handful of sweets. Today, if nothing else, he was going to be there for her, and show her the respect she deserved and make himself face his beautiful demon.
One by one, the mourners passed the open coffin, some laying fresh cuts of lavender flowers by her side. Blaise was the last to pass her. He waved his wand with a low murmur, transfigured a sweet into a lilac handkerchief and charmed it with a few final words for her to take to her grave forever. He couldn’t bring himself to make it those three words he wished he’d been brave enough to say to her in person. Instead, he let his regret speak for him.
He gently placed the handkerchief under her hand, tears welling in his eyes as he looked over her pale and peaceful form. He let out a deep breath before quickly striding away, unwilling to meet anyone’s curious gaze as people began to realise who he was.
As he sat in his townhouse, an almost empty bottle of firewhisky in front of him, he wished he could obliviate himself so he could finally rid his tortured mind of the image of his beautiful Lavender, peaceful in her coffin. He screwed his eyes closed tightly as the words he charmed onto the cloth swam before him again, playing over in his mind as they had for the last two hours on a torturous loop.
Missing you comes in waves. Today, I’m drowning.