They aren't what she would call smart. Not by a long shot. All Ginny ever wants to do is go around the school painting the walls with their bloody names. All Neville ever wants to do is meet in the Room of Requirement and learn how to fight. All Luna can do is reign them in.

We're back, Seamus had said, his voice sour in the way it always was now. So we might as well plaster that on a fucking wall. Go wild.

They aren't being smart, and it frustrates Lavender to no end. Not just Ginny, not just Neville, not even just the DA. It's everyone, everyone with any idea that the best way to fight the Carrows is to push them until they snap.

They do snap is the problem. They snap, and then they hurt someone, and then they snap easier. Lavender doesn't see why nobody else can tell.

Seamus is the worst of it. They have been friends, sort of, for years, and she supposes it ought to stop being a surprise when Seamus is the worst. But maybe she's a little stupid too.

Sometimes I would wonder if it was a boy thing, she would tell Hannah Abbott, when she and Hannah and Parvati had all retreated to the safety of the Room in late April. But then I remember Ginny was just as bad.

If not worse, Hannah would mutter.

Lavender is, in so many ways, selfish. She has always known that- she'd have to be a fool not to- but it is most pressing when she is in seventh year. She catches herself on the verge of rolling her eyes, sometimes, when Seamus is at his moodiest, or when Parvati complains about Ginny, or when Neville or Ginny remind them all of the risks.

She wants to scream, wants to snap at Seamus that he's being an arse and that they all get it by now, Dean is gone and there's nothing they can do. She wants to tell Parvati to can it and deal with Ginny's self-righteousness. Wants to get up during the DA meetings and say that they all already know the risks, they're the ones getting tortured, aren't they, so could you shut it?

But she knows it's spiteful to think so. Seamus and Parvati and Neville and Ginny are all undoubtedly having shittier years than her and it's pathetic of her to hate how they cope with it.

Even if Seamus really is a total arse.

It's horrid, Parvati says, in the Common Room. Neville, Ginny, and Luna haven't been heard from since they got caught stealing the sword. Not knowing, I mean.

Oh, Seamus replies, slouched deep in his chair. You're only now noticing?

Lavender can never tell if he means to be so mean about it.

Lavender wishes she were in on the DA decisions, sometimes. Simply because she thinks a lot of the choices Neville and Ginny make are idiotic, and not even Luna can keep that under control.

She would never have gone after that rubbish sword, for instance.

More than that, though, she is secretly glad not to have any input. It is far easier to complain about the people making decisions than it is to make decisions. If she's honest, she pities the DA leaders quite a lot. The poor fools have all bitten off too much to chew, she thinks. It's in bed in the dark, when she lets herself doubt whether they'll manage through the year. They're all too young for this.

But the DA weathers the storm, somehow, and she feels bad for having doubted.

Maybe Harry is coming here, Lavender would say, on May first when they were all waiting for Terry Boot to come back.

Maybe chickens have teeth, Parvati would respond.

Lavender would stay quiet for a moment, and then say, I just have a feeling, is all.

Perhaps the worst thing about this year is that Lavender has no control over anything. Nobody in the DA takes her seriously enough to take her advice. She can barely keep Parvati from getting snooty at the Carrows, let alone Seamus. She wants to watch over the younger Gryffindors and keep them out of trouble, but they're all unmanageable.

Everything is spiralling out of anyone's control, let alone Lavender Brown's.

So she snaps at Seamus that he's not helping anyone and she snaps again when he snaps back at her. And she pretends that he won't just ignore her and get himself Cruciated again anyway.

And she snaps at everyone who talks to her during the DA meeting the next day, because it's a little thrilling sometimes to be a total bitch. And she feels awful that night, but it's not like that's anything new.

Why did you do it? You're supposed to be smarter than that, she would ask Michael Corner, after the final battle, when they are stuck in the same recovery ward in St. Mungo's. She doesn't say what she means, but he knows anyway.

This is going to sound dumb, he would say, but sometimes the best thing to do is also the stupidest.

We've all had a weird year, she would suppose, and he would laugh.

When Luna had disappeared from the train at Christmas, Lavender had worried for the DA. After all, Luna was essentially the brains of the operation, and without her, Lavender wasn't positive that they were all going to get killed.

But more people had filled the void in leadership and the DA, for now, seemed as safe as ever.

Which wasn't very safe at all, but nobody was getting too fussy about details.

She and Parvati spend hours in the Common Room. It's weird and empty in their room, and often weird and empty in the Common Room, too, but somehow it's more tolerable with a fireplace and a sofa and the idea, if not the reality, that there would be a busy crowd there. They wait up for Neville, who stays in the Room after curfew sometimes. Or, more often, they wait for Seamus to come back from detention.

Lavender gets Cruciated too, of course. So does Parvati. They're both Gryffindors, for God's sake, and both seventh years. At this point, it's inevitable.

But that doesn't mean they go looking for it.

It's not that the DA isn't doing things. They are. We are, I mean. Lavender couldn't figure out what it is that's so hard to articulate about the whole thing.

They aren't doing anything concrete, Parvati agrees. They'd be in the Common Room, waiting up. It was when they were alone waiting up that their talk got bitterest.

Yeah, Lavender replies.

After all, the writing on the wall and witty retorts and secret training hasn't done anything but worsen the situation so far.

By February, the year is moving uncomfortably fast. The students and Carrows are on the same uphill climb they've been on since October, trying to aggravate each other more and more and more.

Lavender wonders how it will end. The way she sees it, the only way it ends is with students dead or in prison. Starting with her friends.

Ginny doesn't come back from spring break. Lavender and Parvati get Cruciated publicly. It's the worst either of them have been cursed yet. Parvati says, in their dark room that night, I'm really kind of proud of us.

Let's not do that again, she adds.

They never would.

Are you doing okay? Parvati would ask, every time she visited in the hospital.

Yeah, Lavender would reply, every time. Even if she was feeling bitter or forgotten or selfish or unlucky.

Parvati would sit by Lavender's side and wait. Lavender would never manage to explain herself, even though she tried a few times.

The Battle is the worst of all. The Battle kills kids, and Lavender is, as per the norm, powerless to help. She's only one wand and she's never been a great duelist and she's slow to react, and she's injured an hour before the cease-fire and dragged to a niche.

She would never be able to remember who had done the dragging, but they saved her life. She sometimes imagines meeting them, shaking their hand and saying thank you.

Chances are they're dead. But she hopes not.

Lavender can't really speak on the Battle, since she'd gotten knocked out of it. By a werewolf, no less. But from what she can remember, from what recurs in her dreams, it was hell.

She wonders if any of her friends have the same terrors as she does. Terry Boot had been attacked in the same way she had- she wants to ask if he dreams it bowls him over, rips his chest open, and then you fall completely numb and you know it's over.

She had spent the last part of the Battle lying in her own blood with a couple dozen other students. Not an auspicious way to end a Battle, but she supposes they can't all be Neville.

What do you think it means? she had asked, months ago when she learned that Scrimgeour was dead.

I'll tell you what it means, her mother had said, tight-lipped with worry. It means the Ministry's gone to hell and the rest of us are going to follow.

They weren't what she would have called smart. Not by a long shot. But even as foolhardy as they were most of the time, Lavender is proud to have been one of them. Lavender is proud to have had her chest clawed out, proud to have been Cruciated publicly with her best friend, proud of all the secrets and all the snapping and all the nights waiting up.

It might have all been stupid and brave and pointless, but maybe she's a little stupid too. And maybe, maybe maybe maybe, the best thing is also the stupidest.