I... it's been a while. I tried to get this one out before Christmas, but no such luck... anyway, third and probably (maybe, I dunno) final in my Lavender/Seamus fics. I absolutely adore the pairing though, so who knows? Enjoy!
She doesn't wear off-the-shoulder dresses anymore, or ones that come higher than her ankle. Or she wouldn't, if she had dresses that covered more skin. It's her first real date with Seamus—the funerals have finally ended, the memorials are done with. Finally, finally, it's a time to celebrate, and she can't find a single thing to wear.
Lavender hasn't been shopping in over a year. Parvati would say it's shameful, except she hadn't been either. The lockdown of Hogwarts hadn't left much time for fun, and Hogsmeade visits had been banned early on. The only release she'd had was snogging the life out of Seamus Finnegan, and she'd enjoyed that (she still does), but she is need of some clothes therapy. It's just a girl thing.
However, that doesn't help her now. She's standing in front of her mirror wearing her most modest dress and she can still see the scars. Not all of them have healed yet; her left shoulder is a ragged mess still, because werewolf bites don't heal well or quickly even when the werewolf isn't transformed. She still has to cover all the marks on her body with dark purple salve every morning and night, and they heal infuriatingly slowly. The scars she sees every day in the mirror are what remind her of how easily she can be broken, and how hard it is to be put back together again.
But they might never heal completely, and what will she do then? She used to love wearing short dresses that clung in all the right places, with daring necklines and no sleeves. But she's got claw (fingernail, really, but she likes to think of them as claws, because it's just less frightening that way) marks up her calf and running over her thigh and shin that only the solid tights cover. She's wearing black tights now, midnight black. She transfigured them from a pair of fishnets that she'd loved, and she does the same to a formally sheer long sleeved black shirt. She slips that on under her brightly colored dress and straps on some heals, then glares at her face.
She's got more scars on her face, long gashes on her cheeks and forehead and a myriad around her left eye. She'd been afraid during the fight that she'd lost the eye, because she didn't want to do anything with it and it was swollen shut and covered with dried blood. She didn't lose it, but it still won't focus properly sometimes and her eyebrow is half missing from the patchwork of white lines.
She applies foundation, not caring if it's bad for her skin and still-healing cuts. For tonight, just for tonight, she wants to be beautiful again. The last time she'd felt stunning was the morning after the war had ended, laying with Seamus in the grass of some place that neither of them knew. She'd felt like a goddess in his arms, but she hadn't seen a mirror yet.
The foundation doesn't help with all of them. It irritates the slash on her cheek and before she knows what's happened it's inflamed and red, and bleeding again slightly. "Damn it," she swears, poking at it with a tissue. That doesn't help, and blood stains the white a deep scarlet. She raises her wand to her face and hesitated only momentarily before muttering a healing charm. It gets rid of the blood, but she has to wipe off her whole cheek before she can apply foundation again, and she only has a few minutes left before he's supposed to show up.
When the doorbell rings, she yelps and almost jabs herself in the eye with mascara. She swears again, fully aware that Seamus's bad mouth might just be rubbing off on her and trying to care about it, and hurries to wipe off the smear. She appears at the door almost a minute later, flushed and breathing hard. "Hey," she says, pulling open the door to let him in.
"I brought you flowers," he says unnecessarily. There's a large bouquet of roses in his hands which he proffers to her. She takes them and sniffs at them, the first smile on her face in hours. As she puts them in a vase he says, "You look... different."
She stills. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you look great, but... are you going to go out dressed in black like that? Long sleeves? It's the middle of summer." He's clearly uncomfortable saying that, and while he gets points for recognizing something that guys aren't supposed to do to their girlfriends (questioning them on their clothing), she doesn't know what to say. "Don't get me wrong," he continues awkwardly, "you look fantastic. But you're going to overheat. Why don't you get rid of the shirt and tights, and just wear that dress?" The dress in question is a short, flowery, one-shouldered scrap of fabric. It's bright and cheerful, and the exact opposite of what she's feeling.
"I can't." She says, trying not to let her voice wobble.
"Why not?" He tries a roguish grin that normally makes her smile even if she's crying, but it doesn't work when she's got her back to him. "You love wearing little dresses like that—and I exactly don't mind seeing you in them."
"Can we just go?" She asks, still not looking at him. She stares hard at a photograph of her parents on the mantle thinking that if maybe she does the tears will go away. But that doesn't help, because even her parents, after the initial relief of having her back alive, are a little unnerved by her looks. It doesn't matter that she's not a full werewolf—the fact that she likes her meat still twitching and bleeding is disturbing enough. She doesn't exactly blame them, but at the same time she does, because they're her parents and they're supposed to love her no matter what.
"Lav, what's wrong?" He moves up behind her and touches her on the shoulder; the left one, the one that she's trying to hide. She flinches away and when she turns around he seems hurt. "Lavender?"
"I don't... I can't..." She feels her tears start to fall and swears at herself, because all she wanted to do was get out of her apartment and have a good time on their first real date. She still refuses to look at him, even though she's looking in his direction. When she feels his arms around her, she loses her composure completely, soaking his shirt with dark-stained tears from her makeup.
She doesn't know how long they stand there. Long enough for the sky to darken outside, and she feels even more guilty. It might be a shallow thing, that she's ashamed of her scars, because so many people were more badly hurt but at the same time they mean everything. They mean that she can't walk outside in shorts anymore without uneasy looks—she tried that one the other day, and barely made it past the entrance of Diagon Alley before she had to turn around because so many people stared at the claw marks on her legs, and she just couldn't take it.
Even around Seamus, she realizes that she's been changing what she wears. At school, she pulled her skirt high on her waist and left her shirts as open as they could go without being sent to McGonagall's office for indecency. She'd loved the compliments and the looks of appreciation, and it had let her know that she was beautiful. But she can't do that now. After her failed outing, she had Apparated directly home from Diagon Alley, where she had cried herself to sleep on her pillow.
She knows that people have lost more than she has. The Weasleys lost a son. Seamus lost his best friend. Comparatively, she feels horrid for placing so much weight on her looks. But at the same time, her appearance was something she had counted on having for the next ten years at the least. She wasn't the best fighter and she wasn't anywhere near as smart as Hermione, so she had always taken pride in her face and body. But she can't, not any more.
Seamus is still holding her. She feels her tears subside and says, thickly (because no one, not even her, is beautiful when they cry), "I'm so sorry."
"Lav, just tell me what's going on." He sounds so confused, and she doesn't know whether to kiss him for not caring about her scars or hit him for being an insensitive, oblivious boy.
She steps back from him and reaches a hand up to her dress strap. Tugging it off slowly, she slips out of the short, brightly colored fabric and lets it pool on the floor. She's not ashamed of taking off her clothes in front of Seamus because he's already seen her naked, and her body isn't anything to be ashamed of, just her skin. She reaches down and pulls her shirt up and off, letting it fall to the ground as well. She's covering her shoulder with her hand, hiding about one fifth of the marks, but then she bends down and takes off her tights and shoes, standing in front of him in her strapless bra and underwear.
She reaches to the floor and picks up her dress, drawing it back on gently. It shows all of her scars, because it only has a strap on her right shoulder, and it falls to mid-thigh. The claw marks on her left leg start at her upper thigh and they trace ragged gashes all the way down her leg. Lavender looks at him and swallows. "This," she says quietly.
He runs his eyes up and down her body and there's nothing showing on his face. She closes her eyes and looks down, , gripping the tips of her right fingers in her left hand to prevent herself from fidgeting or trying to cover her scars. When he brushes her chin oh so lightly with his knuckles, she barely restrains another flinch. She knows he's hurt by her skittishness around him and it just piles on more guilt.
She feels his lips on her shoulder suddenly, kissing the bites. Seamus presses his lips gently to each one while she stands there, emotionally cowering. She's shivering slightly, shaking in her small dress as he ministers her wounds. He traces his fingers along the punctured scars after his takes his lips away. When he moves to her neck and face, she moves her head slowly, unwillingly, to the side, relaxing into his touches. As he kneels, running a hand lightly along her body from the curve of her breast into the smooth roundness of her hip, then down her leg, he leaves kisses along the three ragged marks on her skin that mar the paleness of it. She feels like a statue being created by a sculptor, being formed and marked with the art of a craft so gentle and subtle, where each fingernail can create a delicate line.
When he's left goosebumps from her head to her ankles, he stands slowly. She can feel his eyes on her, and he leaves two kisses on her eyelids, causing her to open them. His eyes are a mix of light blue and grey, and there's a hint of a smile on his face. "Lavender," he says huskily. "You are so beautiful. These scars only prove that you were willing to fight."
"What they prove is that I wasn't quick enough."
"No." He pulls her tightly to him again. "That's not true."
"Seamus, I can't go out like this. People look at me, they stare... and it's not the nice kind either, it's the kind of staring that makes me feel like an animal."
"Sod 'em."
She lets a laugh slip past her lips unwillingly. She loves this boy, language and all. "I can't. That's something you can do, Shay. I can't just dismiss what people think of me like you do."
"Will you try?"
"I have tried. I just don't..."
"Don't what?"
She holds a breath like she's drowning, then releases it in a rush. "I just don't want you to be a-ashamed, to be seen with me. All I've had all my life are my looks, and I had counted on them always being there, and now they're not and I just can't, I'm so... broken."
"You're not broken. You are beautiful and strong and brave and the sexiest woman I have ever laid eyes on. I could never be ashamed of you." He traces her face with his fingers again, then takes her hand in his. "If you believe nothing else, believe that."
Lavender knew she should listen to him, she knew she should heed his words, but she just couldn't. He is scarred and battered too, but it is different for guys. For them, for him, scars are signs of hard-won battles, or going down with a fight. For her, they are signs of shame, marring and mocking her beauty that she knows she can't ever get back. She loses herself to tears again, burying her face in her hands. "I'm so sorry, Seamus. I'm so sorry."
He seems to be about to talk, but instead pulls her hands away from her face. He kisses her palms, looking her in the eyes. His face is blurry from her tears, but she listens reluctantly as he speaks. "Lav, you have nothing to be sorry for. What happened isn't your fault."
She tries to care, but it just doesn't matter. He can say as much as he likes, but she'll still be broken and scarred. She'll still be scared to go out in the moonlight, because it makes her feel... strange. She still hates having her meat bloody, but it just tastes better that way, and above all, she hates the stares. And no matter what Seamus says, he can't fix that. She knows he wants her to be proud of her scars, proud of fighting, but she wakes up screaming from the nightmares. She wakes up the the middle of the night, tears streaming down her face because she just watched another friend die, another fourteen year old fall, another sixth year not dodge quickly enough. She wakes up because she's screaming the killing curse out of fear and somehow it works, and she kills a Death Eater, but she never really wanted to kill anyone.
She hates the fact that she knows that fear can substitute bravery, and Seamus doesn't understand that. She's only seen him scared once, and that was when Neville had to go into hiding, and he picked himself up quickly for the sake of everyone, because he was a leader and he couldn't show too much fear. Of course, Seamus followed him into the Room of Requirement a few days later because he was unable to keep his big mouth shut and got into a duel with one of the Carrows. Lavender helped provide a distraction while he ran for it, but even then, he was laughing and swearing at the Death Eater. But she's never seen him frightened, actually scared for his life, and she doesn't think that he knows how to be terrified like she was.
In a way, she envies him that. But she knows that fear gives her a strength beyond what she has imagined, and in a way she relishes it. There is nothing like the feeling of fighting with her heart in her throat and flying on the wings of terror and elation, feeling magic rush out of her and into her wand, channeled into spells that enabled them to win.
He doesn't leave her that night, and it's the first time since the day after the battle that he's held her as she dozes. She doesn't really sleep, and there are more tears than she's willing to admit. He drifts off to sleep as well sometimes, but the nightmares wake him up. Lavender can tell when he's awake and when he's not—it's one of the few things from Divination that she still finds useful, the heightened sense of awareness that she and Parvati learned. It helped in the battle, but that night had destroyed all of her confidence in Divination, because she should have known, somehow, that it was going to happen.
And it was hard to have faith in such a... wafty, uncertain subject when her friends were dying, crashing her down to hard reality every time she heard one of them scream.
She sits up at around three in the morning, moving as smoothly and softly as she can to avoid waking Seamus. Slipping on a light, daringly short silk bathrobe (her nightclothes were the only things that she still liked wearing, and it was too hot for anything more) that was the color of her namesake, she steps out the door of her apartment and shuts it without a sound behind herself. She holds her wand lightly in her hand as she turns on her doorstep and Disapparated, reappearing in the nameless meadow where she last felt beautiful, the place where he had Apparated them to the morning after the battle.
Lavender sits down in the lush grass, staring at nothing across the green, rolling hills. She has no idea where she is, but it is a place of more peace than she'd seen in the past year, and since it was the last place she had felt as sexy as she used to, she likes it. It is so sweet to pretend like she is still ignorant of her scars, her wounds and how she looks. Even now, she doesn't know if Seamus truly doesn't see her scars or simply ignores them, keeping looks of disgust off his face to spare her feelings.
She isn't aware she has fallen asleep until she wakes up in the grass, using the crook of her arm as a pillow. Lavender stands slowly and runs a hand through her hair, blinking her eyes against the rise of the sun. She lets herself luxuriate in a long stretch before pulling her bathrobe tight around her, conscious now of how short and... small it was. Twisting on the spot, she practically falls into her apartment, hoping that no one had seen the long, creamy legs that are marred by rips and tears.
Before she can catch herself, she is swept into a pair of hard arms. "Lavender," a voice—his voice, she knows it in an instant—breathes desperately into her hair. "Oh, Merlin, you're all right."
"Why wouldn't I be?" She asks, confused.
He pulls her tighter and she can feel his words rumble in his chest. "I woke up and you weren't there."
It shouldn't be, but suddenly all is made clear. It's a mark of the war on both of them that she understands so quickly. She hugs him back, closing her eyes and trying to push away the feelings of guilt that suddenly sweep up. "When did you wake up?" She asks in a murmur.
"About three minutes ago. You can't... you can't do that to me, Lav. You can't."
"I know, I'm sorry." She steps back a little and looks at him, hating herself for putting the fear in his eyes. "Shay, I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
"Where did you go?"
"The place where you took me after the battle. I wanted..."
"Lavender?"
"I wanted to feel beautiful."
"Don't make me start telling you how gorgeous you are again. I will if I need to, but you just can't see what I can see, and what everyone who sees you and knows you does."
"But the people who..."
"I told you already," he says firmly. "Sod 'em. And if you can't do that, just ignore them, because what do they know anyway? Now come on, put some clothes on—not that I object to the bathrobe—and let me take you out to breakfast. You owe me for scaring me like that."
"Do I now?" She asks as she lets him lead her into her room. She sits on her bed, the covers still rumpled, and watches him go through her closet warily.
"Yes, you most certainly do. Here." He tosses her a short skirt that falls to just above her knee and a lightweight cream-colored sleeveless sweater.
"I'm not wearing this out in public, Seamus."
He stands in front of her closet, a smirk on his face. "It's either that or the bathrobe, and I'm dragging you out the door in five minutes. Make a choice."
She gets the feeling that 'make a choice' isn't just referring to the clothes, and, although she's scared and hesitant, she picks up the sweater. Luckily, it covers the bite marks on her shoulder, but her arms and legs are still bare, and the scars on them, the rends and lacerations show. Seamus offers her a hand after she brushes her hair, and she is surprised to see that he's holding a purple ribbon. "Will you put your hair up?" He asks, and she ties it back slowly. "Perfect."
She can't bear to look in the mirror as they leave.
When they reach the Leaky Cauldron, Lavender grips Seamus's arm more tightly. As they walk in, a few people look around, and she can feel the burn of their gazes on her legs, the triple slash tracing its way down her calf and disappearing into her ankle boots. She refuses to meet anyone's eyes, but again, she can feel them looking at her face, and not looking for the prettiness in it. Seamus leads the way firmly but slowly through the room and out the back door.
"I can't do this," she says in a rush as he moves to draw his wand. He pauses only momentarily, then gives her a roguish grin, the marks on his face from stray spells pulling at his mouth strangely.
"Lavender," he says, tapping the correct brick, "you can do anything." She tries to take comfort in that as he leads her to a side-street off of Diagon Alley, but she doesn't believe it. She's had so many illusions broken over the past year that she can't really believe that.
She does her best to ignore the stares as they sit at a table and order breakfast. The waitress's eyes linger on both of her customer's faces as she hurries off, and Lavender has to restrain tears again. "I'm never going to be normal," she mutters quietly, sipping at her water.
"I don't want you to be normal," Seamus replies, looking her in the eye. "We've both been through hell and come back, and if you were still normal at the end of that, I'd be concerned."
Somehow that helps. She can't explain why, but it does and she manages to eat breakfast with Seamus and even laugh a few times before they head home. She is thinking of all the horrid things she'll do to him if he says 'now, that wasn't so hard, was it?' when he surprises her. "We don't have to do that again, if you really don't want to." Lavender doesn't even realize that she has an unreadable look on her face until he says that, and she looks at him.
"Do you want to?" She asks him. "Spare my own feelings for a moment and just indulge me here – do you want to go on another date?"
"Lav, I want to worship at your feet like the goddess you are." He always seems to make these ridiculous, over-the-top statements that somehow manage to cheer her up. "Yes, of course I want to go on another date."
"Okay."
He looks shocked for a split second before pulling her towards him for a kiss. "Fantastic."
That one day doesn't make her better. Five, ten, twenty of those days won't make it better, not really. But perhaps... perhaps they can be made bearable, and maybe she will learn to ignore the looks and the whispers.