Chapter Text
Lavender Brown, as she had often found herself lately, was falling.
Someone had pushed her over the edge of something. She’s long concluded that a balcony fit that image best. Her back would collide violently on something solid (marble came to mind), and her attacker would follow after almost instantly, hands relentlessly and purposefully grasping at her face, neck, and anything else they could do damage, as a last ditch effort before both would surely meet their ends when they reached solid ground. Her wand wasn’t with her, not since before she started falling, before she was flipped backwards into the chasm she had relived too many times to count. And judging by the crudeness of her attacker, she was sure they didn’t have theirs either.
It would come suddenly, impossible to predict or react fast enough to brace herself. An explosion of pain would surge from her back, her neck whipping backwards into the hard surface, and all feeling in her arms and legs would leave towards a place she knew she could never get it back from. Her lungs would stop responding, with each breath hitching and burning in her chest, choking and gurgling with a warm liquid she knew was coming from her. Her eyes could maybe see some things blurring in and out in front of her, but her brain was done registering anything.
She was dead. Her body reached a point of no return, no matter if her heart still managed some feeble thumps trying to pretend otherwise. But as she had experienced many times now, her end would come from something else entirely, something completely outside the fall that destroyed her body beyond saving. Her body would jerk in pathetic jolts of movement, but her face would not move, as it was beyond the ability to react, while two pointy, sharp objects pierced her neck deep enough to force her brain to maybe register something tearing, ripping, gushing, and finally for the last time, pain.
Now, she was most definitely dea—
Lavender gasped for air with a piercing sound, drawing eyes from the now startled younger students she was sharing a compartment with. She felt her face heat up as she watched them mutter quietly to each other, their voices inaudible through the sound of her own panting. Her forehead was ticklish with sweat and sticking hairs, and she could feel something pulling slightly on the top of her head. Only when she straightened up did she realize she had been sleeping while leaning on the glass looking out at the speeding pines that signaled the Express nearing its destination, and that her wavy blonde hair had a dreadfully flat and messy patch on the spot she had been pressing on for who knows how long.
Without skipping a beat, she skillfully pulled out her wand, pointed it at her head, muttering a tiny spell she had learned from her mother a few years ago, and her hair was reverted to its usual, beautiful, wavy self.
She heaved a sigh of relief, her body slightly trembling from the shock of the nightmare that’s been haunting her sleep for weeks.
“That’s twice now that you’ve done that today, Lav.” Parvati said, looking both worried and slightly frightened, from her seat beside her. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’ve never slept on the train before…”
Lavender jumped at the voice of her best friend.
“I’m fine—” She said, but her voice came out with a crack and she saw the other compartment occupants looking her way again.
Nosy kids she thought as she glared at them, making them avert their eyes.
Parvati was now staring at her wide-eyed.
“I—It’s nothing! Seriously!” Lavender said. “I just didn’t get enough sleep last night, that’s all.” Her voice sounded normal again and she forced a smile which she knew looked out of place on her face at that moment. But her friend didn’t look convinced.
“It’s not just you sleeping, Lav.” Parvati sighed. “Sorry, but you’ve looked awful since before we boarded the train. You’re not even wearing your moon bracelet.”
Lavender instinctively looked down at her now naked wrist where she once used to wear a thin golden bracelet with the phases of the moon engraved, where whichever lined up with that night would light up in a faint blue glow. She had gotten two for Christmas and had gifted on of them to Parvati, which was currently sitting, glowing faintly on the waning gibbous moon engraved right after the full moon, on her friends wrist.
“Oh, I forgot it at home.” Lavender said with practiced coolness. “Mum was rushing me as I was getting ready, can you believe that?”
Lavender felt bad lying to Parvati of all people, but she didn’t see any alternative. She did leave it back at home, but it was deliberate, just like she had stuffed her new, unopened, divination textbook deep into her trunk as soon as she had gotten it. It hurt to do it, like betrayed the person she had been just a few weeks ago, but she simply couldn’t bear to think about stuff like the future anymore.
Parvati, once more, looked thoroughly unconvinced, but to Lavender’s relief, she didn’t push the subject. Instead, crushing said relief into oblivion, she switched topics to the second thing she most didn’t want to talk about.
“You never answered me by the way.” Parvati sounded slightly annoyed now.
“Er…” Lavender trailed off, hoping to remember something from while she was drifting off into sleep.
“About the prophet! You know—“ Parvati said excitedly as she pulled out a copy of the Daily Prophet from her bag and pushed it towards her, pointing at the headline on the front page. “I asked you if you believed the whole ‘Chosen One’ stuff! I mean could you imagine!” She was gushing now. “We got taught to fight by the chosen one! It just makes so much sense now, why Harry’s so good at Defence, he’s destined to fight You-Know-Who.”
Lavender’s stomach gave a lurch.
“I was never really mad at him for the Yule Ball, but maybe I should’ve been clearer to him that and maybe we could’ve...“ Parvati stopped and Lavender only realized then that she had pinched her eyes closed.
“Hey, Lav.” Parvati sounded concerned now. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call on a teacher? I heard there’s a new one on another compartment—“
Lavender shook her head. She took a breath to steady herself again.
“Let’s just—talk about something else.” Lavender said. “Please?”
“But it’s an actual prophecy! I thought you and I could’ve at least talk about it.” Parvati said sounding hurt.
Lavender felt a pang of guilt run through her. A month ago she had wanted nothing but discuss it with her best friend, but that had changed. Once again, she took a breath to clear her head.
“I’m just tired, Pav.” She said, trying to sound as sweet and normal as she could, but a headache was now seriously creeping up on her. “Seriously, I didn’t sleep well last night, and—“
“Are you having nightmares?”
That word had set her insides on fire. The headache was growing worse.
But, unrelenting, Parvati kept going.
“You were tossing around while you were sleeping you know. I wanted to wait until after the feast, but…” She trailed off, looking at a spot above her, clearly an idea forming.
“I know!” Parvati jumped then moved to rummage her bag once more, pulling out her copy of the same divination book in her trunk, though this one was already well broken into.
Her headache was throbbing, banging her head with complete abandon.
“Pav, seriously I—“
“Why don’t we check exactly what your nightmare means by—“
“No!” Lavender shouted, standing up in a fury. The smaller students shrieked and moved to exit the compartment, but she had beat them to the door aiming to leave before she let another outburst of anger come out. But the rage had died almost instantly, now only guilt and embarrassment filling her, as she turned around to see a ghostly looking Parvati. She muttered something that sounded like bathroom, quickly stepping out.
Clutching her still throbbing head, Lavender pushed past the surprisingly crowded corridor, considering they weren’t quite arriving yet, and swiftly shuffled herself into to the thankfully empty bathroom cabin, locking the door behind her.
Once inside, she plummeted to the ground, back leaning on the wooden locked door.
She was exhausted. She didn’t lie when she said she hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before, only that it would be true as well for the last 15 nights. It was by the third one that she realized that sleeping had become a deadly terrifying affair, wishing against everything that each previous night would’ve be the end of her little seeing herself die problem. But when that end had never come, and the vision was growing clearer both visually and physically, she opted for delaying it as much as she could, which would then mean waking up often on top of one her many new textbooks (except divination) or on a drool covered wand from the nights she would spend practicing the many spells and counter-curses Harry Potter had taught her and the rest of the DA.
Harry Potter she mouthed into a non-audible whisper.
She laughed mirthlessly to herself. She couldn’t help remembering the scene he had caused during their History of Magic examination, or during divination back in 4th year, and the tragedy that would follow almost right after. She also couldn’t help noticing the similarity of Harry’s outburst to her own, which would then mean the tragedy that was her throat being ripped out could be a mere few days from happening.
She pinched her eyes again, her head was screaming at her that it was just a bad case of migraines and stress; That the nightmare was nothing more than that, a nightmare. But she was also keenly aware that having the same dream for over a fortnight would’ve been proof enough of her biggest fear. Professor Trelawney’s teachings told her that the inner eye couldn’t be forced to see on command, and every seer in history had their visions come to them in different, almost signature ways. She then thought of all the predictions of Harry’s impending doom she had also made and at the fact that Harry was most definitely still with them.
Once, she would’ve been beyond thrilled to have awakened her seeing abilities. Now, she almost felt like sympathizing with Hermione’s rejection of the subject, in hopes that by declaring it as nothing but a farce, somehow, her nightmare wouldn’t come to be.
The shaking had come back, but perhaps it was the desperate banging on the door of a student who couldn’t hold it anymore. She didn’t care though. She thought of getting up, and heading back and apologizing to Parvati for before, but her headache was mostly gone by then, and her legs didn’t feel like carrying her weight anymore, so she simply laid there, her eyelids dropping and her neck craning slightly to the side.
Suddenly, the banging had come back, and Lavender, for the 4th time that day, woke up with a gasp.
“Harry! Is that you?!” She heard a female sounding voice as the banging kept hitting her on the back.
She looked at the small window on top of the sink, and noticed, with a surge of panic, that the sky was now pitch dark, and that the train was evidently not moving anymore.
The door banged one more time, and she was about to stand up to flip the lock when she heard the same female voice mutter an Alohomora and the door swung with her back still leaning on it, causing her to fall backwards into the floor, half of her body now outside on the corridor of the Express.
“Wha-“ A somewhat older looking girl with brown hair and tired eyes was now staring directly at her, angrily. “What are you doing locking yourself— Ugh, doesn’t matter, just get off before the train leaves okay?” She told her, pointing at the direction of the nearest exit, as she began to move further along the corridor. Lavender, for some reason, promptly stopped her.
“Wait!” Lavender pushed herself off the floor. “You were looking for Harry? Harry Potter?”
She didn’t know why she asked, she had no clue where he could be. Hearing his name was messing up with her head. But now, the older looking woman was approaching her again and she knew running away was a bad option.
“Yes! You’ve seen him then?” The woman looked at her expectantly.
“I—Well n-no, but—“
“Ugh.” The woman gave a groan even louder than the last one, rolling her eyes as she ran back the same way she was going originally.
Annoyance flared inside Lavender.
What the hell’s her problem? she thought, and it was only as her retreating figure was slowly moving down the length of the train that a thought had popped on her head. A random person that she had never met or seen before, that was neither a student or a teacher (as far as she knew at least), looking for Harry Potter inside the Hogwarts Express when everyone was supposed to be on their way to the castle by that point was as suspicious of a situation as she’s ever seen.
For a fleeting moment, she thought of just turning around and running as fast as she could in hopes of catching one of the last leaving carriages to the castle, but a pain on her back and a a set of fangs tearing her neck apart flashed on her mind and something had lit inside her.
She was still tired, still groggy from lack of sleep, but she was most of all angry. Angry at life, at the nightmare, at how powerless and weak she felt every night, and now, angry at the rude woman, who was potentially trouble.
So she ran forwards, set on finding Harry before her. She braced herself as she closed in on her unsuspecting victim, pushed her shoulder forwards and tackled the woman out of the way, sending her wand flying into the air.
“Hey!” She heard her shout. “Are you crazy?!”
But she just kept running, looking from compartment after compartment, peering through the tiny window on each of door.
She suddenly felt like an idiot. Why did she ever think she would be able to find Harry Potter on a massive train with identical cars filled with identical compartments. She didn’t even know if Harry was actually still inside. She turned around, the woman was fully up again trying to locate her wand. She knew she was running out of time, and that’s when she noticed, finally, a single compartment with its blinds drawn over that tiny window.
She opened the door, eyes still fixed on the approaching woman, who not only had already found her wand but was now running, much angrier than before, towards her. She went inside with her head still craned to the side only to trip and fall on something big. Something big that not only felt like a human body, but that was also fully invisible.
Thankfully, Lavender’s adrenaline had her mind working faster than ever, so after quickly deducing she was on top of a cloak of invisibility, she felt around and pulled on the first edge she could find.
And then there he was. Messy hair, round glasses and a scary amount of blood gushing out of his somehow broken nose. She also noticed that his body was unnaturally stiff, and a lesson Harry himself had once taught the DA about the Full-Body Binding Curse flashed briefly in her head.
“Finite.” She gasped, the exhaustion from the run catching up to her. Her wand shot a quick red light and Harry shot up.
“Lavender?! How did you—?” He began but a sound near the door told her that the woman had reached their compartment, rage contorting in her eyes as Lavender noticed her hair was magically changing into a bright red hue. Instinct took over her once more as she stood up, arms spread out, in front of Harry’s still sitting figure. With a bravery any gryffindor would have been proud of, she planted her feet on the ground ready to take whatever the witch in front of her had in store.
But the attack never came. Instead, Harry jumped to stand in between them looking at each of their faces, his own still churning out blood, completely bewildered by the situation.
“Woah— Wait— Just wait a moment!” He sputtered, arms reaching out in both directions. “What’s going on?!”
Lavender was shaking for a completely different reason now.
The older woman, who she now knew was called Tonks, was silently guiding them up the road towards Hogwarts from Hogsmeade Station. Harry explained to her that she was not only a friend of his, but that she was also an Auror.
She felt like a complete idiot. Her mind conjured a stupid scenario and it lead to her assaulting an Auror. She imagined life in Azkaban for a second, accosted by dementors for the rest of her life, and gave another shudder. It didn’t help that the woman hadn’t stopped scowling, even after Harry had cleared the misunderstanding.
It also didn’t help that Harry, who was smiling ear to ear, kept stealing glances at her while chuckling to himself.
“Will you stop that?” She hissed. “You’re creeping me out!”
“Sorry—“ He started laughing again. “Sorry, it’s just—I can’t—“
Her eyes began stinging. She briefly wondered if laughing at her was Harry’s payback for not believing him about You-Know-Who from the beginning. At least until Harry abruptly stopped laughing. He was now looking at her frightened.
“It’s not you I’m laughing at!” He raised his arms placatingly. “Seriously! I just—“
He was panicking now, Lavender noticed, and had she not been deeply annoyed with him, she’d admit it was kinda cute. Though determined to make him suffer for a bit more, made to wipe at her eyes dramatically, huffing while slightly shifting her face away from him but not enough that he couldn’t see her anymore.
She thought she heard a scoff coming from Tonks ahead of them, but she ignored it.
“I just thought what you did was brilliant!” Harry said with so much much sincerity that her annoyance vanished instantly. “Pushing Tonks out of the way, then I don’t know how you found me but I really owe you for that one, and then flipping my cloak off and then you knew exactly how to unfreeze me, and—“
Harry was waving his hands excitedly, seemingly racking his brain for his next words. Lavender for her part thought that she had never seen Harry this happy before, mostly since she remembers his constant scowling and shouting he was doing the previous two terms. Even while he was teaching them, she couldn’t remember him enjoying himself this much.
“Well, you were simply…brilliant! Seriously, Lavender.” Harry said, gratitude etched in his voice.
Her name from his mouth brought out more memories from the DA.
Keep going at it, Lavender. You’re doing great, don’t give up. Just focus, you almost have it.
And then That was brilliant, Lavender! when she managed to both stun and counter Pav’s own stunning spell. For the first time in her life she had managed to do something right in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and she remembers feeling giddy all night thinking about it. Warmth surged in her as a question left her lips without her realizing it.
“Are we having more DA meetings this year?”
“Er—I don’t think there’s a point in having them with Umbridge gone.” Harry sounded slightly taken aback. “I didn’t know you liked having them, you were always kinda…”
“Terrible at it?” Lavender finished for him, frowning. But Harry, to her surprise, firmly denied it.
“No. Just a bit…distracted I think.”
She remembered sometimes chatting away with Parvati while Harry would demonstrate or explain what he wanted them to practice that day and felt a twinge of guilt in her conscience.
It was no wonder she had struggled with every single spell he had taught her.
“But you picked up everything by the end, even if it took a little bit longer than the rest.”
“Not everything…” She said in a tiny voice, not sure if she wanted him to hear it or not. Not once during her sleepless nights did she produce even the silvery mist she managed during their last ever meeting.
“The patronus doesn’t count.” Harry said, having clearly heard her. “We barely got half a session to even practice it. It’s very advanced either way, I wouldn’t worry about it. Neville didn’t get it either.”
Lavender felt slightly patronized at the fact that he failed to mention that half of the DA had actually cast a corporeal one, but decided to drop it.
She looked at him as they walked side by side. He had gotten so bloody tall, that she had to tilt her neck to get a proper look at his face. But to her relief, he still looked like Harry. She was glad to see that at the very least, that part of him was still the same as she’s ever known it.
Same pretty green eyes she saw climb the stool to get sorted a few spots after she had been placed in Gryffindor. The same messy hair who she now whole heartedly believed had fought a basilisk and had fought off multiple dementors. The same round glasses that had been clutching Cedric Diggory’s dead body. Then her eyes fell on the scar, and her mind drifted back into the prophecy.
She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t feel the same fear she had during the train. Instead, she was feeling inadequate. Almost totally embarrassed by herself. She wanted to know badly now what Harry saw or heard in the Ministry all those months ago. If the prophecy was true, if only just to believe she wasn’t truly alone. And then the embarrassment engulfed her as she thought of Harry facing actual real danger and yet could still smile and laugh like normal, while she was losing sleep, snapping at friends, locking herself in bathrooms and tackling Aurors just because of a stupid dream.
She still couldn’t believe she was even considering dropping Divination that year despite getting an O on her O.W.L.
Maybe he could help me.
But as soon as she had thought it, they had reached the gates flanked on the sides by two pillars holding winged boars on top. She didn’t notice them being locked by a padlock until Harry had pulled out his wand, muttering a spell that didn’t seem to have worked.
It was only after Snape had appeared out of the gloomy darkness of the other side that the gates were finally opened.
“Well, well, well,” she heard Snape sneer while he became slowly illuminated by the nearby lamp. “Potter and…”
She suddenly felt like a polar bear who had wandered into tropical island.
“…Brown.”
Snape looked somewhat bemused by her presence there, but his face soon morphed into a malicious grin.
“Both late, and both too bothered to adhere to the required dress code. Perfect.” Snape said.
Harry tried to justify it but was quickly cut off. Words were then exchanged between them two and Tonks, but Lavender simply stood there, noticing the strange familiarity which those three seemed to have in spite of the clear animosity she sensed in the air.
Soon after, as they were climbing towards the school, Snape began raining down on them. She realized this was the first time she had been on this side of his usual taunts against Harry, and was beginning to understand his loathing for their potions teacher.
“That’ll be 100 points each I believe.” Said Snape. “For improper behavior inside the train yes, and for lateness. And then 20 each for your Muggle attires.”
Improper rolled around inside her head for a split second before she realized what it meant.
Her stomach did a flip.
“Wha- We didn’t—“ She sputtered panicking, but real words stopped forming in her head as she briefly imagined her and Harry snogging secretly in a hidden compartment of the train, and then a second wave of annoyance washed over her as she thought of the many kissing couples she has bumped into on that train that had obviously not lost their house 100 points because of it. She looked at Harry almost begging for him to say something to back her up, but her protests died when she saw the look on his eyes.
Rage and hatred were so deeply ingrained in them, that her voice seemed to have left her. She settled for lowering her head, feeling her ears burn a bright red.
She could hear Snape’s continued taunting as they climbed the steps into the Entrance Hall, but didn’t pay him any mind, as she realized something else. They walked towards the doors leading to the Great Hall, as Lavender’s mind was rushed in panic.
She realized what it would mean to arrive this late next to Harry Potter, and all the questions that she would inevitably have to answer. She felt exhausted again.
Eyes were drilling into her skull as they marched inside. She snuck another glance at Harry, and was a bit thankful that he looked just as awkward as she felt. As they reached the Gryffindor table, she noticed the eyes of Harry’s two best friends on her, with Hermione looking genuinely flabbergasted, as well as Parvati’s own worried look, flashing hidden questions she felt too hungry and too exhausted to think believable answers for.
So before Parvati could even began asking, Lavender mouthed her an I’ll tell you later which her friend didn’t seem entirely too happy with.
”I brought out your trunk by the way.” Parvati then said. “It was heavy, you know.”
Lavender smiled at her apologetically, slightly dreading what she’d do to get back at her.
Throughout the rest of the now very short feast, she noticed occasional glances coming from Hermione and Ron that she opted to ignore. She also thought she saw Ginny Weasley shooting glares at her, and figured out quickly enough the reason for it as she had not been the only one doing it. Girls from all four tables had been muttering and shamelessly looking directly at her. She knew how things worked around Hogwarts so she wasn’t very bothered by it.
In fact, none of that bothered Lavender at all. Her mind had gone somewhere else entirely now that she had food on her stomach. She thought of Harry Potter and what she was thinking of him back at the gates.
She thought of the prophecy, and then of her nightmare.
If there was one person that could teach her how to not die a sad and painful death, it would be the one person that has defied it every year for the past six years.
That night, she dreamt of a stag in an emerald forest, before once again plummeting to her death.