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Parvati sighed as she hung up her coat. Witch Weekly had been, to say the least, exhausting the past few days. She couldn’t be more excited to spend a nice, long weekend at home, cuddled up with her girlfriend and ignoring all of her work troubles entirely.
Even after a year and a half after making it official, thinking of Lavender in relation to the word girlfriend still brought a smile to Parvati’s face. Parvati had finally worked up the courage to kiss her at the tail end of their sixth year, right after Dumbledore’s funeral. Lavender had been shocked, and Parvati had told her to take the summer months to figure out if she wanted their relationship to evolve. The events of their final year at Hogwarts prevented them from ever getting the chance to discuss it, and the subject remained untouched until a few months after the Battle of Hogwarts.
They’d moved in together in early June, as had always been their plan after graduation. It was two weeks of tip-toeing around each other, being unsure of how to act. When the silence had finally broken, over a broken teacup no less, there’d been lots of tearful confessions. Lavender admitting that the moment she’d departed from Parvati at Platform 9 and ¾ the summer before she’d decided that she wanted to be with her but was worried after so many months of silence that Parvati had changed her mind entirely. Parvati, on the other hand, had taken Lavender’s silence as a soft and kind no, and resigned herself to simply being friends with the other girl. But with the misunderstandings behind them they’d finally leaned in for their second kiss, and it had been smooth sailing since then.
Well, okay, not quite. The first year had been hard, trying to find work with nothing but their O.W.L.s. They’d both opted to not return to Hogwarts for classes, but simply sit their N.E.W.T.s with the seventh years and returning members of their class in May. After that it had been at least mostly smooth sailing.
Thinking so much about her wonderful girlfriend made Parvati wonder where she was. “Lav?” She called out into their apartment, hoping to hear a response. When none came, Parvati frowned and began walking towards their bedroom. Lavender usually got home from work before her, and while it wasn’t impossible that she was still out Parvati wanted to be absolutely sure.
As she neared her destination, Parvati heard the noise of muffled talking coming from their bathroom. She didn’t want to be nosy, but if she leaned against the door just so she could hear her girlfriend so…
“Stop being an idiot,” Lavender said, rather angrily. Parvati felt her own face fall upon realizing her girlfriend was in a bad mood and, even worse, taking it out on herself. “Stupid, not-even-a-real-werewolf, can’t fucking—ow!” Parvati hoped she hadn’t hurt herself too badly, hearing the loud thump that had cut off her girlfriend. “Okay Lavender,” she continued as Parvati leaned even closer to the door, “deep breaths. You’ve got this. Just tell her—”
Parvati yelped as she felt the door swing open, leading to her sitting on the floor look up at her extremely shocked girlfriend. “Hi, love,” Parvati said, smiling, “tell me what?”
Lavender quickly schooled her features into a tight smile. “Hi babes! I wasn’t expecting you back for,” she glanced at her watch and chuckled, “Merlin, just kidding. I lost track of time. How was your day?”
“Tell me what?” Parvati repeated. When Lavender’s silence continued, Parvati pouted at her in a rather puppy-like manner.
Lavender sighed. “You are a menace, you know that?”
Parvati nodded. “I’m well aware, love. Now, tell me what’s been bothering you.”
“Well, um, I sort of got fired.” Lavender looked down at her feet, sheepishly.
“Merlin,” Parvati said, “I’m sorry. What happened?”
“It would be much easier for me to continue this conversation if you stood up, so we were at eye level,” Lavender said.
Parvati thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. “No,” she said, “you should join me. Much comfier on the floor, anyhow.” Lavender rolls her eyes but smiles as Parvati pats the tiled space in front of her. Lavender lowers herself to the ground and crosses her legs. “So, what happened?”
“I was really sore,” Lavender starts, “and I was moving slowly, and I was really emotional because of how soon the full was and one of the customers was mad that it took a whole fifteen minutes for her to get her coffee and I kind of snapped? Just went off on her for being rude, and she’d been rude the entire time I swear, and my manager took me to the back and fired me right on the spot, told me I was rude and me missing once a month already put me on thin ice, called me a bunch of awful names for werewolves, made me hand in my apron so that the awful woman could see I’d been fired and I—”
“Wait,” Parvati says, cutting her off, “but the full was on Tuesday, so that must mean—” Lavender chokes out a sob as Parvati finally understands. “Oh, Lav.” That’s when Lavender starts to cry, properly cry, placing her head in her hands as her shoulders start to shake. Parvati reaches out to rub slow, soft circles on her back. “Darling,” she says quietly, with her lips right against Lavender’s forehead, “I’m so sorry you’ve felt the need to keep this in for so long.”
“Twas embarrassing,” Lavender whispers. “I didn’t even like the job at the café. It just sucks that I can’t seem to do anything.”
And self-deprecation is officially where Parvati draws the line. “Lavender, you are one of the smartest, most capable people I know, and you could do anything—”
Lavender gives a humorless chuckle. “You sure about that, Parvati? Because it seems to me like I get fired from everywhere I work within a few months, and I seem to be living pretty aimlessly.”
Parvati wanted to disagree but found herself having difficulty doing so. After they had graduated Hogwarts, Parvati had immediately and easily slipped into working in her favorite field, divination, at her not-so-dream job of Witch Weekly’s horoscope writer and, well—
Lavender had bounced. Her N.E.W.T.s were impeccable (Parvati had always maintained that Lavender was one of the most underappreciated geniuses Hogwarts had ever seen), and she could have easily had any job she wanted, had I not been for the idiotic, bigoted, anti-werewolf prejudices most of her possible employer had.
Her train of thought was interrupted by a groan. “Ugh, I’m sorry. I’m just being so stupid about this.” Lavender says. “I should have just apologized to the customer and my manager, maybe I can go back on Monday and grovel—”
“Absolutely not,” Parvati retorts. “You are absolutely not going back to an awful, toxic work environment that you don’t even like.”
“Babes,” Lavender starts, slowly, “it’s a sweet sentiment, but I kind of need to have a job.”
Parvati waves her hand. “Unnecessary. We’ll just transfigure that godawful green sweater of yours into a bunch of galleons.”
Thankfully, Parvati is rewarded with a laugh. “Pretty sure that’s called fraud, babes.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that our currency system makes absolutely no sense?” Parvati asks. “I mean it, like what’s the point of even having galleons if we can transfigure half the things we need anyways, like—” she shakes her head. “Never mind. I’m getting off track.”
“Little bit, yeah.”
Parvati scoffs as Lavender lets out another giggle. “Oi!” she responds. “No need to be rude! Now that I’ve at least somewhat cheered you up, are you ready for a super serious, absolutely high priority, life or death questions?”
Lavender smiles. “Oh, absolutely.”
“Close your eyes.” Lavender opens her mouth, to object she’s sure, but Parvati shushes her before she can. “I mean it! Eyes closed!” Lavender rolls them first, but eventually closes her eyes just as Parvati’s asked. “Okay, we could use my divination skills for this, but I think it’s better if I just ask. If you could do anything you want, and I mean anything, what is it you would be doing? Not even a job, just a thing, something you want to accomplish. Like, I want to finally finish that giant stack of books Dean gave me as a graduation gift.” Lavender snorts. “List them out loud,” Parvati continues solemnly, “all of them.”
“Um, okay,” Lavender starts, “I want to knit you a scarf. I, uh, I want to learn to make pizza. Oh! I—” Lavender cuts herself off, starting to blush.
“Oh! What was that one?” Parvati asks.
Lavender shakes her head. “Nothing. Just something stupid.”
Parvati smiles. “Uh-uh, you promised you’d tell me all of them. I promise you, I won’t be scandalized.”
“Nothing like that!” Lavender says. “I was just thinking, um, that maybe I’d want to help werewolves and other lycanthropy affected people like me have better lives?” Parvati opens her mouth in shock. Lavender blinks an eye open at the silence and immediately becomes worried at the sight. “Just an idea, babes, I don’t have to—”
“It’s perfect,” Parvati breathes.
Now it’s Lavender’s turn to look shocked. “Excuse me?”
“We start an organization,” Parvati barrels on, “one part education, one part direct aid, one part advocacy. We work to make sure people have a better understanding of werewolves and the partially affected like you, most people don’t even get how you exist, we can totally help with that—”
“Parvati—"
“We can set up funds for lycanthropic individuals who have fallen on hard times, their families, ooh we can even set up a fund to make sure lycanthropic children have the money for tuition to Hogwarts or whatever school they want to go to—”
“Parvati—”
“Oh, and we can start working on drafting legislation to propose to the ministry to ensure protections—you know, I’m sure Harry told me once that Professor Lupin and his godfather had started drafting things to propose after the war, oh he’s gonna absolutely love this by the way, but I’ll ask him if he has it hidden away somewhere—”
“Parvati!” Lavender shouts. Parvati finally stops talking and looks at the girl sitting across from her expectantly. “Shouldn’t we talk about this?” Parvati shrugs. “I mean it, this is a big decision—”
“Is it though?” Parvati asks. Lavender starts to respond but Parvati cuts her off. “I mean, think about it really. You want to do this right? This sounds like a good plan to you?” Lavender nods, slowly. “Great. You want to do this. I want to help you do this. Everything else is just details.” Parvati takes a moment to look at Lavender, who’s staring at her looking entirely stunned. “What, do I have something on my face?”
Lavender surges forward, her hands coming up to cup Parvati’s cheeks as she kisses her urgently. It’s ridiculously gentle, but Parvati can feel Lavender pouring all her emotion into it, and it definitely is getting added to her list of top five kisses they’ve ever shared. Goodbye and good riddance to “New Year’s, 1999”.
When Lavender finally pulls back, Parvati realizes she’s a little dizzy from the kiss. “Well,” she says, bring her own hand up to cradle her head, “what did I do to deserve that?”
“Be you,” Lavender says with a grin. “This is gonna be hard you know.”
“I know.”
“If we really do this, people are gonna be awful to us all the time.”
“Just about what I expected.”
“You might get fired from your job.”
“Not particularly fussed.”
“You’re absolutely mental, you know.”
Parvati smirks. “Yup.”
Lavender shakes her head. “Merlin, I love you.”
And at the end of the day, isn’t that all that matters?
Parvati smiles wider than she ever has before, her tongue poking out between her teeth. “Kiss me about it then.” Lavender throws her head back laughing, and it’s the prettiest noise Parvati’s ever heard. Then Lavender leans forward to connect their lips again, and it’s almost enough to distract Parvati from starting to plan in her head.
Almost being the key word here. She separates herself from Parvati after a few moments and asks, entirely seriously, “Do you think Harry has a muggle phone in his house?”
Lavender rolls her eyes and stands up. “You absolute nutter,” she says fondly, holding a hand out to Parvati. “Come on, get up. I’m starving, and the chippy around the corner has half-price tonight. My treat.”
Parvati looks at Lavender’s hand, grins, and takes it.