One Ficlet, No Challenge
Title: Lost in Between
Summary: Lavender feels hideous and broken post-war. Written as a gift to caitieness, I really hope you like it. <3
Characters/Pairings: Lavender, Dean (maybe implied Dean/Lavender, could be read as friendship or pre-romance)
Genre: Angst
Beta: None
Rating/Warnings: PG for angst
Medium: Ficlet
Word Count: 710
Can the Order post to Tumblr?: No, thanks
If yes, your Tumblr username: N/A
She was hideous.
Hiding from the world, lost in a constant fog of self-hatred, Lavender closed her heart off. She had the mirrors removed from her flat and sat in corners doing nothing, laying her head against the wall and crying.
She could feel it even if she couldn't see it, could feel the scars running deep into her skin, into her soul. She was hideous, and she was broken.
She had fought for victory and freedom and they had won it, and yet she had sacrificed those values once she'd realized what had been done to her. She'd woken up in the Hospital and she'd been lucky to survive, to come through the attack without being turned into a monster. Or so they told her.
Lavender wondered sometimes whether it would be better to be a werewolf, to have the ferocity and courage not to care about her scars or about what the world saw when it looked at her. If she were a monster then she'd have reason to be ugly. As it was she was nothingness, lost in between. Gryffindor had been her house, the house of daring, and yet she had never felt truly brave.
Parvati, her dear friend, had tried to comfort her, to convince her that she was still beautiful, still the same old Lavender despite what they had gone through. But girlfriends were meant to be kind to one another; it didn't mean they told the truth.
Her parents, concerned for her well-being, sent her away to a post-war program for troubled veterans, where Lavender found herself facing many of those whom she'd lived with in school. She covered herself from head to toe and refused to speak, refused to acknowledge that she felt anything, terrified of what she had become and desperate to avoid the stares and disgust of those around her.
How could she be happy and find love amongst the people when she had been so thoroughly marked as a victim? How could anyone look upon her and see anything other than misery and ugliness? Lavender had used to laugh so freely; now she barely made a sound in the gloom.
There were others who were silent. Dean Thomas, once a kind and gentle soul, now sat sullenly in the background, crossed his arms over his chest and looked away from everyone else, looked out the windows at the sky. He'd lost dear friends to the war, and Lavender felt even more hatred for herself to see that, to see how lucky she had been and how much she failed at appreciating that.
In Art Group they were told to draw their feelings, to express themselves silently, as a way of coping with atrocities that could not be spoken, as a way of setting their hearts free without words. Lavender hated it. What could she draw but herself, marred and broken, and terrible to behold? She could not bear it.
Dean drew her. He came up to her after the session and handed her a sheet of paper, looking her in the eyes, the only part of her which went uncovered. "Here," he said, with the merest hint of a smile, with an awkward shrug of his shoulders. "I thought you could use this."
Lavender took the drawing and gasped. It was her, it was her likeness as she stood before him, with the red scars running down her cheeks. And yet she was beautiful. The old image of herself, the vitality and laughter, shone out through the scars, transformed her into something that was not exactly who she had been, but was not a monster, either. She was beautiful.
"Do I look like this?" Lavender asked him, breathless, not daring to hope, not daring to believe that anyone could see her as anything other than hideous.
"Of course," Dean replied. "That's what we've been trying to tell you." He smiled genuinely then, in a way that he hadn't since he had been there, since before the war. "You should take those veils off sometime." He walked away.
Lavender put her hand on her chest and felt her heart beat. She felt herself to be hideous still, but perhaps not quite a monster. Perhaps she could feel beautiful again someday.
24 Points for Hufflepuff!
Summary: Lavender feels hideous and broken post-war. Written as a gift to caitieness, I really hope you like it. <3
Characters/Pairings: Lavender, Dean (maybe implied Dean/Lavender, could be read as friendship or pre-romance)
Genre: Angst
Beta: None
Rating/Warnings: PG for angst
Medium: Ficlet
Word Count: 710
Can the Order post to Tumblr?: No, thanks
If yes, your Tumblr username: N/A
She was hideous.
Hiding from the world, lost in a constant fog of self-hatred, Lavender closed her heart off. She had the mirrors removed from her flat and sat in corners doing nothing, laying her head against the wall and crying.
She could feel it even if she couldn't see it, could feel the scars running deep into her skin, into her soul. She was hideous, and she was broken.
She had fought for victory and freedom and they had won it, and yet she had sacrificed those values once she'd realized what had been done to her. She'd woken up in the Hospital and she'd been lucky to survive, to come through the attack without being turned into a monster. Or so they told her.
Lavender wondered sometimes whether it would be better to be a werewolf, to have the ferocity and courage not to care about her scars or about what the world saw when it looked at her. If she were a monster then she'd have reason to be ugly. As it was she was nothingness, lost in between. Gryffindor had been her house, the house of daring, and yet she had never felt truly brave.
Parvati, her dear friend, had tried to comfort her, to convince her that she was still beautiful, still the same old Lavender despite what they had gone through. But girlfriends were meant to be kind to one another; it didn't mean they told the truth.
Her parents, concerned for her well-being, sent her away to a post-war program for troubled veterans, where Lavender found herself facing many of those whom she'd lived with in school. She covered herself from head to toe and refused to speak, refused to acknowledge that she felt anything, terrified of what she had become and desperate to avoid the stares and disgust of those around her.
How could she be happy and find love amongst the people when she had been so thoroughly marked as a victim? How could anyone look upon her and see anything other than misery and ugliness? Lavender had used to laugh so freely; now she barely made a sound in the gloom.
There were others who were silent. Dean Thomas, once a kind and gentle soul, now sat sullenly in the background, crossed his arms over his chest and looked away from everyone else, looked out the windows at the sky. He'd lost dear friends to the war, and Lavender felt even more hatred for herself to see that, to see how lucky she had been and how much she failed at appreciating that.
In Art Group they were told to draw their feelings, to express themselves silently, as a way of coping with atrocities that could not be spoken, as a way of setting their hearts free without words. Lavender hated it. What could she draw but herself, marred and broken, and terrible to behold? She could not bear it.
Dean drew her. He came up to her after the session and handed her a sheet of paper, looking her in the eyes, the only part of her which went uncovered. "Here," he said, with the merest hint of a smile, with an awkward shrug of his shoulders. "I thought you could use this."
Lavender took the drawing and gasped. It was her, it was her likeness as she stood before him, with the red scars running down her cheeks. And yet she was beautiful. The old image of herself, the vitality and laughter, shone out through the scars, transformed her into something that was not exactly who she had been, but was not a monster, either. She was beautiful.
"Do I look like this?" Lavender asked him, breathless, not daring to hope, not daring to believe that anyone could see her as anything other than hideous.
"Of course," Dean replied. "That's what we've been trying to tell you." He smiled genuinely then, in a way that he hadn't since he had been there, since before the war. "You should take those veils off sometime." He walked away.
Lavender put her hand on her chest and felt her heart beat. She felt herself to be hideous still, but perhaps not quite a monster. Perhaps she could feel beautiful again someday.
24 Points for Hufflepuff!