Padma Patil

Roleplay blog for Padma Patil from StillRecruitingRP:

[speckledgingermug]

Canary Cacophony -- OPEN

Harry’s silhouette became less and less defined the farther he trudged. The sky above him was dark and overcast, and Hermione begged the clouds to keep the moon at bay; without the cloak, Harry might as well have had a bright red target painted on his back, and the thought made Hermione’s stomach clench when her friend finally disappeared from view. She blinked, shaking her head and letting out a wispy, hurried sigh. If she wanted Harry to have a prayer of retrieving his prize she had to hold up her end of the bargain, so she turned away from the night, tiptoeing down the familiar corridors as quickly and quietly as she could. 

She’d never liked sneaking around the castle under the Invisibility cloak; no matter how fool-proof it had proven to be, she could never shake the feeling that someone - something - always knew where she was. It wasn’t that unfounded of a concern, especially considering the number of magical sentient objects and beings that called Hogwarts home, but she pressed on nonetheless, nervously eyeing slumbering portraits and suits of armor as she passed. She had to remind herself to breathe; yet another effect of scuttling about beneath the cloak was an all too keen awareness of just how loud she was, and her breathing was no exception. Still, staying upright was important, so she sucked in air and expelled it shallowly as she rounded a corner, arriving in front of the Charms classroom. 

Continuity. This, she’d decided, was the name of the game, and with a flick of her wand at least fifty yellow canaries appeared in mid-air, prompting a smirk that she was glad no one could see. Once so quiet, the cavernous hallway filled with the sound of fluttering wings; Hermione moved quickly, setting off toward the teacher’s lounge conveniently located on the same floor (she imagined it had something to do with Professor Flitwick’s small legs - ease of access and all that). Brown eyes moved back and forth, the ball of nerves in her stomach growing tighter with every step. So far, everything was going as planned; if someone were to happen upon her, they’d see a flock of canaries leaving the Charms classroom, an unusual but not unfathomable accident. It was a distraction, Hermione hoped, that wouldn’t automatically raise suspicion against the D.A., but she had to admit as she moved through corridors quieter and somehow darker than she remembered that Harry’s suggestion of “just blowing something up” would’ve been more satisfying. Hermione released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding in when she arrived in front of the teacher’s lounge, casting a glance upward at her own handiwork. Swallowing hard, she raised her wand again beneath the cloak. 

“Oppugno.” 

The noise was deafening. Every magical canary she’d summoned let out an angry screech, pummeling the door and bouncing back to do it all again. Feathers and droppings rained down onto the flagstones, and Hermione dodged them as best she could, hurrying back the way she came. Portraits jerked to life, animals squawking and humans shouting within their frames; as she moved, Hermione flicked her wand again, wishing she could cover her ears as her birds’ voices intensified. She would have liked to remove herself from the area completely, but she ducked behind the bust of an ugly warlock, wand still clenched in her clammy hand. She had to make sure her distraction carried on; when - not if - the teachers and Death Eaters emerged, she would have to try to combat their magic with her own. She had to keep her canaries on the offensive, and she couldn’t very well do that from the Room of Requirement.     

[padmaunshadowed]

Padma was on her way back to Ravenclaw Tower, her patrol for the night over and her prefect duties once more fulfilled, when she heart the noise. For one long, deadly moment she froze in place, every hair on the back of her neck standing on end and the air in her lungs catching. She would have made a perfect target if this had been the prelude to an attack: one lone prefect standing stiff and helpless on the stairs between the third and fourth floor, her wand-hand clenched tight on the banister and her dark eyes wide with bewildered fear.

Air rushed back in all at once, making her wheeze as she struggled to remember how to breathe, and she yanked her hand away from the stone banister as though burned, fingers diving into her robes for the reassuring shaft of her wand -- but for one more long moment she stood unmoving, this time paralyzed by indecision rather than shock. What if she just went back to the tower? She wasn’t on duty any longer, whatever this was it wasn’t her problem...but it was someone’s. If she meant what she’d said to Lavender, if she really believed it and wasn’t just parroting Parvati, then didn’t she have a responsibility to find out what was going on? To see if she could help?

Padma wavered, torn between the alluring comfort of Ravenclaw Tower and her fear of what she might find, what she might be forced to do -- and the knowledge that someone would have to do something. Maybe it would be Mr. Filch; maybe it would be one of her fellow prefects; or maybe it would be one of the Carrows. With a sigh that was nearly a wail, Padma wrenched herself around and dashed back down the stairs toward the horrible clatter -- screeches and thumps and what sounded like a hundred angry baby banshees. Her wand was sweaty in her hand and her knees were trembling as she came around the corner; that was the excuse she would give later for how she managed to trip on a smooth flagstone floor and go sprawling, wand rolling away in front of her.

She pushed herself up to her elbows but got no further in her quest to reclaim her feet; instead she stared dumbfounded at the impossible sight of what looked like nearly a hundred small canaries -- of all things, canaries! -- flinging themselves suicidally at the door to the teacher’s lounge. The fact that they bounced back again and again without falling stunned and crushed to the floor meant that they must be conjured birds, or were magically shielded in some way -- but that, somehow, didn’t make the sight any easier to swallow.

Padma’s jaw dropped and “Kutte ke tatte!” -- a phrase her father would have swooned to hear her speak -- tumbled from her lips, the rough shout cutting through the shrill cries of the birds for a moment before the sounds of the feathery assault filled the hallway once more. Padma scrambled forward on hands and knees to grab her wand, staring around wildly from her spot on the floor for some sign of whoever -- whatever -- had unleashed this strange siege.

[lavender--brown]

Ironic: Padma | Lavender

[padmaunshadowed]

lavender--brown:

Lavender was dumbstruck by the sudden outburst that her mouth nearly hung open in shock. Padma rarely spoke her own opinion on something, but at least she could take some kind of criticism without being stepped on. Unfortunately that was probably the worst Padma’s had to deal with as far as insults; Slytherin House was more than happy to make sure that Lavender didn’t wander the castle without hearing how worthless she was under Voldemort’s rule.

Lavender didn’t want to explain how the Weasley twins were different. If they were a coin, they would both be heads; regardless of which one you got, the result would be the same. Meanwhile Parvati was heads and Padma was tails – if you were hoping for one, it would be a disappointment to get the other. Lavender didn’t think of it like that so often, since they were different but surely equal – though Lavender wasn’t entirely sure that Padma was telling her was true.

“I mean – you never really talked about anyone in Ravenclaw…” Lavender had to stop herself from asking what life it was exactly that Padma had in Ravenclaw Tower, and she overestimated her own listening skills. Had Padma mentioned anything about her own house, and Lavender just wasn’t paying attention? Lavender’s words cut, but Padma’s logic didn’t sound… right though. Just because she supposedly wouldn’t think for herself, it didn’t mean that she didn’t choose otherwise.

“Anyway. Parvati knows how to fight her own battles.” She didn’t want to immediately agree with Padma – doing so would mean admitting to something that Lavender didn’t want to even consider: perhaps she and Parvati weren’t friends anymore because of this?

“And Parvati knows how not to get herself killed. Maybe you do too. But if I can’t figure out how to avoid being used as a practice dummy during Muggle Studies, then I have no idea how to get out of it once they start using something worse than a Cruciatus.” Did Padma really believe that it wasn’t going to get worse? If she and Parvati were going to use their pureblood privilege to fight back, then fine. But did she really believe that everyone was suffering in the same ways? “Do you think they’d be punishing you the same amount if you were halfblood – or less?”

Or less was really in reference to Lavender herself – she was much closer to being a muggleborn and was only separated from the rest by a lucky sliver of the Brown family bloodlines.

Padma scowled and sniffed, every inch an affronted young with standing on her dignity -- as if they had no more important things to deal with right now than such petty nonsense! But petty or not, Lavender’s implication crawled under her skin and itched in the way that only a truth that one would rather ignore or deny can itch. “Why would I have?” she retorted defensively. “Did you or Parvati ever go around asking after anyone in Ravenclaw? Neither of you ever seemed interested in my housemates. The only reason you were interested in me was because I was Parvati’s sister; otherwise I expect you both would have ignored me just as readily as you ignored everyone else outside of Gryffindor House.” She turned her nose up, offended -- as if Ravenclaw’s students were in a rush to strike up friendships outside their tower! But that wasn’t the point, and Padma wasn’t feeling the urge to be particularly fair right now.

Instead she folded her arms in front of her chest and squirmed around in her chair, trying to get comfortable. It didn’t work; it wasn’t the chair that was poking and prodding her. Giving up, she settled for twitching her head to toss a few errant locks of hair back over her shoulder, and settled into the scowl like she was preparing a marathon frowning session. “I know Parvati can take care of herself,” Padma said tersely. “You don’t need to act like you know my sister better than I do, just because you see more of her.” But Lavender did know Parvati better these days, didn’t she? Padma resolutely squashed that thought down and plowed on past it: “That’s why I trust her judgement, why I follow her lead so much -- because I know she knows what she’s doing, and I respect her ideas. Not because I can’t think of any for myself.”

(Did it still count as lying when everything you said was true?)

“Anyway that’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about,” Padma continued heatedly. “Neither Parvati nor I asked to be treated nicer by the Carrows or by anyone else, but that doesn’t stop them from valuing us for our family lineage -- so that’s why we have a responsibility to do something! I know they’d be nastier to me if I were a half-blood, that’s why Parvati says it’s -- I mean,” she corrected herself quickly, “that’s why it is so important for us to stand-up to them.” She might have been distracted from her questioning of Parvati’s social calendar by Lavender’s response, but she was paying at least enough attention to know that she’d made a mistake by reverting to yet another Parvati says -- and to do her best to mitigate it, if she could, be taking ownership over her words, however belated it might be.

The marathon scowl wavered as the reality of what Lavender was saying really set in, and Padma’s frown shifted from irritated to uncertain. “What do you mean ‘practice dummy’?” she asked. In Muggle Studies -- what was Lavender talking about? Muggle Studies was a horrific, appalling class full of all sorts of vile and nasty lies about Muggles (Padma was sure it was lies, sure it had to be lies, but she felt too sick to the stomach whenever she thought about it to have been able to muster the nerve to look any of it up and check) but it wasn’t their Dark Arts lessons; it didn’t usually require the use of student examples...at least, not in her lessons. Was it different for the Gryffindors? Or was it only different for classes that included students who were as familiar with Muggle life as somebody like Lavender Brown?

[lavender--brown]

Ironic: Padma | Lavender

[padmaunshadowed]

lavender--brown:

Lavender blinked. Padma – well, technically, Parvati – was right. She was here because she thought she had something that could help, but what good was it if she didn’t bother telling anyone? The DA didn’t abandon her but they couldn’t expect her to put herself in danger on purpose. Of course she felt awful about how everyone was doing, but it was so difficult to feel sorry for everyone else when you had your own wounds to care for. Whatever strength Lavender had was mostly reserved for herself nowadays, but she was no coward; she still went to detention with her face steeled for as long as she could against whatever blows the Carrows had for her.

“I’m here to do something, right…” Lavender paused, releasing a breath. What was this… feeling exhausted all of a sudden in the middle of her conversations? It wasn’t even a fight with Padma and she felt defeated. “… but is doing something worth dying for?”

She probably spent more time trying to stay in the Carrows’ blind spots, the answer was yes – what good can anyone do when they’re dead? And Lavender didn’t expect anyone to sacrifice themselves for her; she had been fine on her own, but that meant little in the face of a detention for flinching at the sight of a flayed muggle. Why did Padma sound like she wanted to convince Lavender that what they were doing was right? It wasn’t that they were wrong, but it was that they were foolish to piss off the higher power that held Lavender’s life hostage. One wrong curse could mean a lifetime of suffering if the fates let someone live that long.

“Yeah… I have talked to Parvati about this…” Now that Padma had mentioned it, Lavender was getting feelings of déjà vu. Not only did she look like her twin, but she spouted the same thing. She and Parvati weren’t in agreement – Parvati’s punishments were going to be less severe than Lavender’s any day because of that pure blood, and to Lavender it just wasn’t worth the risk for some scribbles on the walls. That is why Lavender had been less present nowadays.

“I mean – do you even want to be here? And I asked you, Pads, and I wanted to hear from you –” Lavender sighed dramatically, crossing her arms. Padma was aware she had privilege – she had to know that. But was she aware of how much Lavender had to suffer to suddenly expect her face in the Room of Requirement more often? “—but for a Ravenclaw, you can’t seem to think for yourself sometimes!”

Lavender’s words sent a chill across Padma’s skin, making her shiver. She wrapped her arms around herself and held on tightly, as though the icy January winds had somehow come reaching in through the castle’s layers of stone and enchantments to find them here. Dying for? Of course this was dangerous, of course it was hard -- but die? Padma hadn’t thought about that, not really. Oh she had wept over Cedric of course, they all had, and Professor Dumbledore’s death had had her waking up in her sister’s bed with nightmares for a week after they’d gone home last year -- but die? Them? They were students. They might be punished, might be scolded, might even be tortured -- but none of them were going to die.

The idea was ridiculous -- so why couldn’t Padma shake this chill?

She cleared her throat. “Lav, they aren’t going to...” she started, but Lavender’s next words hit her like a slap across the face and she shrank back in her chair, feeling small and wounded. “I do think for myself!” Padma said hotly, feeling an answering flush grow in her cheeks. “I’m not just some -- some stupid helpless puppet trailing in Parvati’s wake like a niffler after some shine!” And so what if she felt safer, more comfortable, more sure of herself when she was? That didn’t mean she couldn’t break in her own direction when she wanted to, if she wanted to. Weren’t her last six and a half years in Ravenclaw Tower proof of that? “I’m here because I want to be. Because I think it’s important. Just because Parvati maybe figures things out faster, it doesn’t mean I have to just agree with whatever she says. If I couldn’t -- wouldn’t think for myself, don’t you think I’d have been plopped into Gryffindor with Parvati instead of in Ravenclaw on my own?” Part of Padma couldn’t help but wish she had been, even now -- but she hadn’t. That had to mean something.

She sat forward, scowling. “Do you think I just sit around up there waiting for Parvati to call me? I have a life outside the two of you, you know!” And a good thing that was, too, given how little her sister and her best friend had been able to spare time for her this year... “Nobody ever gave the Weasley twins this kind of grief,” Padma muttered, folding her arms and sagging sulkily in her seat. “And they were together every minute. It’s a double standard, is what it is...”

But perhaps, a distant part of Padma realized through the sulk, that wasn’t the whole story. Asking would mean admitting something that she didn’t want to admit even to herself, but... “Has Parvati been pulling away from you, too?” Padma said, her voice little more than a whisper. She had thought that her sister was just too busy with her Gryffindor friends, too busy running around being reckless and bold with the core part of Dumbledore’s Army, to be able to leave much time for her shier, slower sister. But maybe she wasn’t the only one feeling left out by Parvati’s revolutionary fervor -- or whatever it was that was keeping her sister so busy these days. But if whatever that was didn’t involve Lavender either, then... Padma swallowed. “I thought it was just me,” she said softly.

[lavender--brown]

Ironic: Padma | Lavender

[padmaunshadowed]

lavender--brown:

Maybe that was just a result of being the quieter one, but Padma had always been the mediator. Lavender was still breathing deep through her nose as she listened to Padma try to explain away why she was here. She was a little calmer but she wouldn’t say she wasn’t still anxious. None of what she said made any sense, or at least it felt like bullshit, sort of how people talked to Professor Trelawney just to get point for their crappy predictions.

Lavender was damn pissed, but she sure as hell wasn’t doing anything productive with how pissed she was. She didn’t know what she should be doing, but there was no real answer when she felt like she was being hunted for sport, dreading her next detention for looking out the window or something.

But of course she wanted to help! But being mouthy to the Carrows and getting in their way wasn’t the smartest way to go about getting anything done. With Harry and Hermione in the corner, she truly felt should have just minded her own business. Padma was supposed to be the smart one with the answers, but it seemed like all she was saying that the only people that can save them are purebloods – even when it was the purebloods that got them into this mess anyway! All she could do is save herself.

“So… you’re here because Parvati said some stuff? And who exactly is people like us?” Lavender had a feeling she wasn’t included in that phrase, and in a way the divide between her and Parvati had never felt deeper. And it wasn’t even Parvati she was talking to. All of it seemed like this vague goal and for someone who often spoke in vague generalizations, it made Lavender feel upset – sickly almost. “What good things are we talking about here? What sort of… higher purpose are you all destined to do?“

“I -- no!” Padma protested immediately, feeling her cheeks flush with heat and embarrassment. “No, I’m here because -- well, because Parvati’s right is why. Because we should do something. Isn’t that why you’re here?” It occurred only belatedly to Padma that she hadn’t really seen much of Lavender among the rest of the D.A. lately -- but she shook that thought off. Of course Lavender was still one of them! She wasn’t like Zacharias Smith, metaphorically running as fast as he could in the other direction to keep his nose clean and his name unsullied. About the only thing Zacharias had done right, as far as Padma was concerned, was in failing to run to Professor Snape to tell him everything he knew about Dumbledore’s Army and the people who were still active in it -- although she suspected that that was mostly due to his own sense of self-preservation.

But Lavender was nothing like Zacharias. If Padma hadn’t seen her around as much, that didn’t mean anything. They didn’t all gather together these days like they used to; it was too risky, and everyone was too tired and too wounded and too frightened. They came together when they needed to, whether that be to make a strike against Snape and the Carrows or just to seek comfort. Lavender probably didn’t bother to come around as often because between Parvati, Seamus, and all the other Gryffindors, she didn’t need to come here for comfort or for planning -- that was all. Padma felt guilty for even thinking that Lavender might be less than committed to their efforts.

The accusing tone in Lavender’s voice had flustered her, that was all; flustered her and made her feel defensive. “I mean pure-bloods, of course. Or people who think pure-bloods are better, and are passing themselves off for pure -- whatever.” Padma was no scholar of family trees the way some of her peers were, but she knew enough about the various lineages of the old magical families to know that several of the more vocal of You-Know-Who’s supporters didn’t show up on those family trees as often as they should have if they were as pure as they claimed to be. “And because it’s pure-bloods and blood-supremacists doing all these -- these horrible things, then pure-bloods like Parvati and me who don’t agree with You-Know-Who, we have to speak up against him. Otherwise it’s like -- like tacit agreement.” She shrugged. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s got nothing to do with destiny,” she continued in a disgusted voice, “I’m not saying that I’m Harry Potter or anything like that--” Padma shot a glare over her shoulder in Harry’s general direction, but fortunately he didn’t seem to be looking her way to see it “--that’s not it at all. It’s responsibility, not destiny. Like...like no, we didn’t make this mess, but it’s still our responsibility to help clean it up. Because...because we’re benefiting from it, whether we want to or not. You see?” She wiped her sweaty palms off on the sides of her robes, wishing her sister were here to help her. “Haven’t you talked to Parvati about this?” Padma asked, a bit desperately. “She can explain it so much better than I can...” It was Parvati who had explained it all to her, after all.

[lavender--brown]

👫 for both or either -- your choice!

“That note’s a little higher – maybe a little louder?”Lavender taught Padma how to sing backup for All I Want For Christmas Is You, which would have probably been alot easier if Padma could actually hear what that song sounded like on a muggleradio. That’s always been a problem when trying to introduce her friends to her world, while she feels like she’sbeen fully steeped in theirs. Lavender offered to invite them over during the holidays, but the Patils have yet to take her up on that offer.

“Squid? Well, you are what you eat I guess….”The first time Lavender heard the word squibwas from Padma after she explained that her mother can’t do magic, but hergrandparents are magic. Lavender’s half-Filipina, so she grew up eating squidso she got the term mixed up for a while and thought that it was a strangeassociation for wixen to have.

“Can you pleasetell Parvati that I’ll be seeing Ronald tonight?”Parvati knows everything first, even if Padma was the one more willing to lend an ear. One of the few times Lavender told Padma something that Parvati didn’t already know was when she asked Padma what Ronald was like – because there’s no better way to judge someone’s character after one night of being forced to spend time with them, obviously. But Padma hears everything whenthe two are fighting because there’s no such thing as the silent treatment when there was an owlthat could deliver their messages back and forth. Sure, Padma’s a good listener– but Lavender always had a feeling that she would always side with Parvati.They were twins, after all, andPadma just seemed like the type to put her own family first.

“Are you gonna be okay in Ravenclaw Tower?”Padma’s presence was just a given when Parvati was around and a few months into their friendship– though Lavender wouldn’t call them friendsquite yet since Parvati was their go-between at that point. They weren’tfriends enough that Lavender was actually concernedthat Padma wasn’t making friends at all in Ravenclaw, which is why she wasalways following the pair of Gryffindors. Lavender’s always trying to get Padmato expand her social life a little, and she considered herself Padma’s unofficialmatchmaker.

bonus because I didn’t think of it but I thought it was funny: “I’m literally going to kill Seamus!”Parvati and Lavender overuse the word “literally” so much that Padma starts making fun of them by misusing “figuratively” the same way. If Parvati says, “I’m literally going to kill Seamus,” Padma automatically answers, “I’m figuratively going to ask you what happened.” It’s cute and funny until it gets adopted into Padma’s regular speaking patterns. 

@padmaunshadowed

[speckledgingermug]

Helping Hands - Hermione&Padma

[padmaunshadowed]

withmuddyblood:

The beaded bag had become a part of her - a staple in her daily life for the past six-odd months. Digging around inside it was such a common occurrence that she hadn’t thought twice about doing it in front of Padma, but one curious glance at the Ravenclaw’s wide eyes set her cheeks ablaze. Having retrieved her own empty vial of Dittany, she closed the bag as quickly as she could, stuffing it back into her rucksack and hoping against hope that Padma didn’t believe her eyes. Still, Hermione’s poker face was mediocre at best; clearing her throat, she bobbed her head at Padma’s answer regarding Professor Babbling, busying herself with the bandage around her hand.

“Oh, thank goodness. I can’t imagine any Death Eaters being able to replace her,” she said, giving a wince as she peeled the bandage away from her skin. The cut was still quite raw - it was shiny and tender - but the Dittany she’d applied previously seemed to be doing its job, albeit slowly. Still, it burned when she flexed her fingers; so, squeezing the D.A.’s bottle between her thighs, she uncorked it, lifting it with her left hand and tipping two viscous purple drops onto the wound. She bit her tongue to keep from hissing, but the initial sting was temporary; the rest of Padma’s tale registered, and Hermione peered up at her, eyes alight with something akin to gratitude.

“Well,” she answered, averting her gaze downward as she worked to replace the bandage, “I’m sure she’s proud of you all for even thinking twice about your N.E.W.T.s right now…and even more proud that she has a class this year to begin with.” It was a dark observation and one that was a bit off-color for the current conversation, but Padma dragged them back, her question raising Hermione’s eyebrows.

“I’d love to,” she said before she could stop herself, balancing the various vials around her and reaching out for the book. “Just don’t make me hold a quill at the moment.”

If anything was guaranteed to raise Padma’s suspicions higher than they already were, it was such an obviously flustered attempt to hide the little bag from further scrutiny. Padma couldn’t help smirking to herself a little, pleased to be faced with a girl who seemed to be just as bad at spur of the moment subterfuge as she was herself -- but she left the subject alone, for the moment. It felt so nice to just sit and talk about Ancient Runes with somebody who cared and understood and she didn’t want to ruin the moment with curiosity over the spells on Hermione’s bag or the legality thereof. She could ask about that later, she decided.

For now, she eagerly handed over her textbook and rummaged in her bag -- her ordinary school bag which was spelled against ordinary things like spilled inks and strained seams, but whose interior space was finite -- for her ink bottle and quill. “I guess it never occurred to me to not think about N.E.W.T.s,” Padma confessed. “They’re going to happen regardless of what else is going on at the school, I presume--” since Professor Snape did not seem the type to cancel tests at the slightest flutter of Harry Potter’s big green eyes, as Professor Dumbledore had been so wont to do, but it didn’t feel prudent to say that sort of thing aloud to one of Harry Potter’s best friends “--but it would be nice if the Ministry and everyone would make some kind of statement about taking current conditions into account when they weigh our results...”

She winced, shot a guilty glance at Hermione, and added quickly, “I mean, once all of this is over. You know?”

The smile Padma gave her was weak but sincere, and she hurried to assemble her writing tools and spread a sheaf of parchment across the back of another textbook that could double as an impromptu table-surface. “Anyway,” she said, in a more normal -- or at least more cheerful; this was not a year where cheer could be said to be the norm -- tone of voice, “I promise to do any writing that comes up...especially if it helps me reach fourteen inches.”

[lavender--brown]

[ Padma Patil | A Relationship with Lavender ]

A reading for @padmaunshadowed. Card interpretations are from the Golden Thread Tarot app.

[ Padma | Seven of Swords, reversed ] Turn a New Leaf, Desire to Reform, Desire to Change. Though you may have found yourself in a position where you have needed to lie, betray, and steal to survive, there is a spark within you that is showing desire to leave that life behind. It has left you feeling smothered, and unable to be free.  

[ Dynamic | Six of Wands, reversed ] Self-Doubt, Lack of Recognition, Punishment. For some reason or another, you are either starting to doubt your own abilities, or instead of getting the public recognition you expected, you are now being punished. Your confidence has been suffering as a result of all this.  

[ Lavender | The Lovers, Reversed ] Loss of Balance, One-Sidedness, Disharmony. In a partnership, there may be a sense of feeling like one party is giving or taking too much. Are the feelings in your relationship mutual? Or conversely, there might be disagreements – between either two parts within yourself, or amongst your relationships.

Have Lavender read your cards here.

[padmaunshadowed]

Heroic Homecoming || Padma and Harry

[padmaunshadowed]

carriesdeath:

She seemed to shrink in on herself and it only made what little respect Harry still had for her shatter. If she couldn’t even face him when he was yelling at her, then she’d never be able to stand up to the Carrows. He glared at her, unwavering, not caring about her shaking words or her tears.

A bitter laugh at her question about responsibilities. If only she knew! She did know, really! Weren’t they all screaming about how he was here to start a revolution when he got back? Wasn’t his face up on those wanted posters for a reason? He was the wizard responsible for everyone. And if she truly meant that she was trying to protect people – well he couldn’t believe that meant cursing them. There was no way she’d ever convince him of that, no matter what excuse she gave.

If they hadn’t been fighting for so long, his anger built up and already exploding out of him, Harry might be able to see her point. It was the younger students getting hurt by the members of the D.A. or the Carrows. He knew which one would be worse. But, even so, if he were here, he knew what his choice would be. Never would he raise his wand on someone like that. Even when he’d nearly killed Draco – it hadn’t been intentional. Harry had only raised his wand because Draco had raised his first. And he regretted it now. Wouldn’t cast that spell any other time in his life, if he could help it. He still didn’t know who the Half Blood Prince was, but following the orders of the book had nearly killed a person and Harry hadn’t gone back for it. Padma was following orders from something worse than a potion’s book – and it was hurting children. Over and over again. Maybe they were supposed to be kids themselves, but Harry hadn’t felt like that in a long time. They were fighting a war. They shouldn’t be just letting it happen.

If it were Ron, Harry would… what would he do? Not let it happen. Turn the wand on himself. Turn the wand on the person giving the instructions. Harry didn’t know what he’d do, but he certainly wouldn’t curse his best friend. He had an inkling Ron would tell him do – beg for his own pain because it meant Harry wouldn’t get hurt himself. But that only showed him that both he and Ron were more prepared to fight back than Padma would ever be. The epithet was an insult and he only narrowed his eyes more, gripping the stolen wand tightly. She had no idea.

Harry opened his mouth to retort in that moment, but she kept going and the idea of magic having cursed her cuts and bruises stopped him short for a moment. How had he not thought about that? Having grown up with the Dursleys, hiding the bruises anytime Dudley and his friends decided to beat him up on the playground – it had ingrained something in Harry that he couldn’t get rid of. Hadn’t he seen just several months before how Dittany had sewed his friend’s arm back together? He felt stupid, tricked somehow. As though Padma had won this part of the battle. And his glare dropped for a moment to blink dumbly back at her. It didn’t last long, though, her implication of leaving causing all the rage to rush right back.

And – finally – it was his turn. He wouldn’t interrupted her long ago, but he was almost masochistly wanting her to throw everything she had at him. So he could defend himself. The rest of the D.A. would surely hear about his and Harry wasn’t afraid. If this was what they did when they claimed they were protecting the school, he’d have no problem telling them all off.

“You don’t know a thing.” It was stated as a fact, low and angry. Not shouting, though he could feel it ready to burst, the bubbling in the back of his throat. They’d gone from calm to yelling so fast and now his words, though soft-spoken, felt more dangerous than his yelling ones had. “Dumbledore did tell me what do – but not how to do it. We’ve spent the past year fighting this war for people like you and you think I don’t understand what it’s like to have to make difficult choices? If you think I’d ever leave to save myself, you don’t know me at all. If you think I left because I wanted to…” He trailed off, unable to find the words to make her see. “I don’t care what excuse you throw at me anymore. I’ve made my choice – you’ve made yours.”

Those words felt like something at the very deepest part of his soul. Wasn’t that really what life was all about? “I can’t stop fighting – no one else can finish this!” He started to raise his voice again, his words coming out rapidly, without him able to stop it at all. “You think I don’t know responsibility? It’s got to be him or him! I’m responsible for your life – and your sister’s life – and everyone else’s life at this school. If I can’t stop him, then we all die!” It was terrifying. He might fail. He couldn’t fail. He could see all the people who he hadn’t been able to save. Sirius fell through the veil.

He could feel himself panicking. “It’s got to be me, Padma! Don’t you get that? Not because I wanted it or asked for it, but it’s just the way it has to be!” The Chosen One. She’d been right about one thing. “Now leave me alone so I can’t figure out a way to take him down! Even if it means I go with him!” Neither can live while the other survives. “Don’t think I don’t know how this might end. I’ve known it for years.”

The sudden quiet in his voice was a shock against her own hot words, nearly shrieked as they had been; what he said, somehow, wasn’t. He was telling her things she hadn’t known, true, but they’d all suspected something like that. Hadn’t the Daily Prophet spent almost a year gushing about “the Chosen One” before the upheaval at the Ministry had forced them to change their tune? Having Harry confirm it so openly, so honestly, would have been startling under other circumstances, but amidst their barbs and bluster it seemed like so much drivel.

“Of course,” Padma spat at him, tears burning hotly in her eyes, “you’re just so special. Everything you do is so much more important than anything the rest of us ever could -- we know! You matter, we don’t. Fine. But we’re all still here, even if we’re just ordinary people.” The words came out as a snarl. “And just because we aren’t important doesn’t mean we’re irrelevant. So pardon us if we do what we can to try and survive while you’re busy being special.”

He didn’t answer her, not really. Wouldn’t face the choice she’d given him, wouldn’t accept the fact that sometimes you couldn’t save anyone; you could just make the bad thing less. Of course he wouldn’t. Harry had no idea what it was like to fight a battle already lost; had no idea what it was like to be powerless. He probably thought she just wasn’t trying hard enough -- that if he’d been in her place, he’d find a better way. Fight the Carrows directly and damn the consequences -- even if those consequences were other people’s lives. He was such a...a...Gryffindor.

Padma couldn’t bear any more of this; she was already crying, but if she tried to keep arguing with the great Harry Potter -- kept trying to make him understand that even things that didn’t “matter” still mattered -- she was going to break down in incoherent sobs in the middle of the Room of Requirement. She’d done too much crying in this room already this year, and the idea of doing more now at the hands of someone who was supposed to be on their side, someone who was supposed to be saving them, was more than she could face. He was more than she could face.

“You know, sometimes you don’t get to choose what choices to make!” she shouted and spun on her heel. The tears were coming in earnest now and she flung an arm over her face, letting them soak into the warm black sleeve of her robes as she had so many times before. “Sometimes keeping your hands clean just gets other people hurt more,” she sobbed, the fabric muffling her words. “If you’d been here instead of off on your special job you’d know what that’s like, but go ahead...tell me I’m a monster because I’m not special enough to save anyone. I’m not special enough to stop them. All I can do is help, but I guess that’s not good enough for the Chosen One.” The words tasted like poison. She fled from them, fled from him.

Fled from the feat that maybe, maybe, he wasn’t completely wrong...so what did that make her?

[lavender--brown]

Ironic: Padma | Lavender

[padmaunshadowed]

lavender--brown:

Lavender inhaled sharply through her nose, turning away from the pair in the other corner in disapproval. There was no point in causing a scene where no one else could see and from what Padma had tried to explain away in haste, the DA had already chosen them over the safety of everyone else. How Lavender didn’t see that coming, she wasn’t sure; she was too preoccupied with her own personal projects to really keep tabs on the DA – but what the hell was Seamus doing that he couldn’t say anything?

She was finally in the room but she still felt like she was just a guest rather than an occupant, an unwelcome addition to a cause that she herself was too cowardly to partake in full. She felt betrayed; if she had just minded her own business, then maybe her lack of association would keep her sage. It wasn’t cowardice but common sense!

“Oh – all right – as long as they don’t –” She had to stop herself from shouting ‘get us killed’ because Padma seemed to have gotten the gist. While Lavender’s original intention was to tell Parvati about her extracurricular divination, whatever she had in mind was clouded with the frustration of being reminded of why they were in this godawful situation in the first place.

“Tell me, Pads, why are you here?” She sounded exasperated, her patience lost – though Padma always seemed the type to never lose her patience. Her friend was a pureblood and it seemed strange to her – as narrow-minded as it sounded – that Padma wasn’t taking advantage of that; Lavender would certainly let herself be comfortable if she were in the same position. “You don’t need to be here, you don’t need to be risking your life like this!”

Padma was relieved when Lavender seemed to relax, to settle. She couldn’t blame the other witch for being upset; everything about life at Hogwarts this year was upsetting (and life outside Hogwarts too, probably, although Padma didn’t spend much time thinking about that; her parents were safer than she was and all of her friends were here, practically; what was there to think about?). It was still a relief when Lavender quieted, looked away from Harry and Hermione. Padma smiled encouragingly at her and resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to see who was watching them; to see if Harry or Hermione were watching them. She couldn’t forget the awful scene of the last time she had spoken to Harry Potter, and was in no hurry to relive any of that disaster.

Her relief -- and her smile -- were short-lived, though. Lavender’s question, her accusation, hit Padma like a slap across the face. She froze halfway back into her seat, her eyes going wide and her breath catching in her throat. The urge to turn and look, to see if anyone else was watching or listening to them, was almost overwhelming. Padma’s hands clenched tight around the arms of her chair and she lowered herself into it slowly, resisting the urge to flop backwards like a defeated training dummy.

“Be...because...” she stammered, lost her voice, swallowed hard, and tried again.

“Because it’s, you know, it’s awful -- the things that You-Know-Who and his supporters are doing to people. What the Carrows are doing to people. Just because they aren’t doing it to me doesn’t make it right.” The words sounded flimsy in her mouth, weak and performative, and she cast about wildly for something else to say, something better.

She landed on her sister’s words and repeated them instead: “Parvati says that being a pure-blood, it comes with a certain amount of -- of power, of prestige. And that means responsibility, too. A responsibility to be better than -- than what the Death Eaters and everyone is making it into. Having so much magical heritage,” she continued, groping for her own words now, trying to slot them into the gaps between her sister’s, “it means that we...we kind of have a duty to maintain that heritage in a good way, to make sure that the magical world stands for...for good things. Not...” She winced, glancing anxiously toward the door that led back out to the rest of the school. “Not what’s going on now. And if it’s...if it’s people, you know, people like us who are doing it...then it’s our responsibility to undo it.” Padma was starting to sweat, could feel it beading at her temples and slickening her palms. She wiped them on the robes across her thighs as discreetly as she could and gave Lavender a sickly smile, hoping desperately that she hadn’t just somehow made things worse. “Isn’t it?” she asked.

[lavender--brown]

[ Padma Patil | Past, Present, Future ]

A reading for @padmaunshadowed. Card interpretations are from the Golden Thread Tarot app.

[ Past | The Hierophant ] Tradition, Conformity, Morality and Ethics. Following the bounds of tradition. What is tried and true is valued, and it is not the time to stray from the path. This card can also represent the pursuit of knowledge, or a spiritual guide.  

[ Present | Two of Swords, reversed ] Lesser of Two Evils, No Right Choice, Confusion. The choices that you need to make right now are ones where there are consequences for both. Though you struggle to weight the options in your hands, anything you do could lead to suffering. The alternative is that you are wading through conflicting opinions from too many external sources, having to play middle man between two opposing forces.  

[ Future | Ten of Cups, reversed ] Shattered dreams. Broken family. Bad relationships. The joy that you should be getting when you reunite and connect with family and the community around you is not happening right now. For one reason or another, your desire to create peace and understanding amongst loved ones is failing. 

Have Lavender read your cards here.

[padmaunshadowed]

Duty of Discovery || Padma and Draco

[procidensdraco-archived-blog]

padmaunshadowed:

His words hurt, just a little, although her surprise over the hurt was actually more pointed than his barb; Padma hadn’t made the mistake of thinking that she and Draco were friends, but…but they had been, once upon a time when they were both too little to know any better, and she had thought that they were starting to be…well, something like friends at least, again. Not the sort of friends who confided in one another, who trusted one another – except when they had to, for mutual survival and sanity. No, maybe friends had never been the right word for what they had between them, her and Draco and Seamus…but allies? Surely they were allies, at least…

But no. She was being silly. Just because they shared a few detentions – just because they shared a secret – didn’t mean that she expect him to confide in her, any more than she was prepared to confide in him. But having it laid out like that, so plainly, did hurt – just a little.

Maybe that was why she was too distracted to realize that Draco had stopped until she had taken three steps past him, blinking furiously – and then freezing. “What’s…?” she started to say, then swallowed the words. If there really was someone there, the last thing she wanted to do was alert them to her and Draco’s presence – well, maybe not the last thing. The last thing she wanted to do was to help Draco discover whoever had broken into the castle (and it didn’t take a genius to put those pieces together, did it?). But how could she dissuade him from looking? That was what they were supposed to be doing, after all, and as Draco had just reminded her, just because they were allied in one particular ploy for the sake of saving their fellow students didn’t make him someone she could trust. Didn’t make him someone she could rely on. Didn’t make him someone who wouldn’t go running to Professor Snape the minute the scales tipped…

While Padma stood there frozen with indecision, Draco was already lifting his wand – to defend himself? To attack? Padma’s heart stuttered in her throat and her grip on her own wand felt loose and sweaty but she didn’t dare let go long enough to wipe her hand dry on her robes. Instead she raised it as well, bracing herself against whatever was coming. Draco was looking away from her, down the hallway, his back turned toward her. Why? Because he trusted her not to attack him? Because he didn’t think she was a threat? Because he didn’t want to be put in the position of having to turn Harry Potter over to the Carrows and their Dark Lord, and was hoping that Padma would do something to spare him that choice? Or just because they were partnered together and only a heel would turn on their fellow prefect while on duty?

Padma swallowed hard and formed her lips into the first syllable of a Stupefy–

A burst of glowing silvery light broke through the aged stones and ancient tapestry as though they were ethereal, but it was the being that emerged who had no physical form any longer: The Bloody Baron, ghost of Slytherin House, the silver bloodstains on his robes gleaming in bright contrast to the dark, empty hollows of his eyes. “Why do you disturb my solitude?” he boomed at them, and Padma yelped.

She seized Draco’s hand instinctively and tugged, hard, pulling the taller boy along with her. “We’re sorry!” she squeaked, terror closing her throat as the glowing sight of the angry Baron filled her eyes. “We’re going, we’re sorry, we’re sorry!” She ran down the hallway as quickly as she could, stumbling each time she glanced over her shoulder to make sure the Bloody Baron wasn’t chasing them, her hand still clenched tight around Draco’s, his smooth hawthorn wand cramped between their fingers. Ghosts did not, as a matter of course, frighten Padma Patil – but the Bloody Baron was a very different matter. She had been afraid of him ever since her first year at Hogwarts, when he had come bursting out of a closed classroom door right in front of a cluster of first year Ravenclaws and berated them for trespassing in his presence. Padma knew that he couldn’t carry out any of his threats – he was a ghost, not a poltergeist – but the sight of his long bloody sword stabbing into Morag MacDougal’s chest had haunted Padma’s nightmares for months. She had different nightmares now, but she had never shaken off her fear of the Baron.

When she finally let them draw to a stop, they were halfway back to the hallway where their search had started and her cheeks were blazing. “Er–” she said, quickly dropping her hand from Draco’s so she could press both her palms against her cheeks in mortification. “I, um…I mean, I just thought that, well…there’s no sense going any further that way if the Bloody Baron is there, right?” Her laugh sounded more hysterical than nervous. “He’d have seen if anyone had been there, so…” It was a weak excuse, a ridiculous excuse. She hadn’t left the hallway because she didn’t think it needed searched further but because she had been terrified, as her panicked flight down the stairs had proved – but it was all the excuse she had, so she clung to it regardless.

Draco had barely blinked before Padma’s hand was in his and she was yanking him down the corridor, away from the bloody Baron’s silvery form and—was she afraid of him? The Bloody Baron? He was a murderous thug in his day, but time had reduced him to little more than a nuisance. “Padma,” he started, but his voice was drowned by their running and the laughter bubbling in his chest which he quickly swallowed because, now that they had stopped, he could see that she was in fact afraid. Actually afraid. He cleared his throat, but the amusement would not go, and Draco wasn’t much inclined to fight it. It felt good. Like sunshine in winter.

He watched bemused, and a little disappointed, when she broke their hands apart and slapped her palms to her cheeks. “Did you…” She had been afraid and instead of turning tail and leaving him to face the perceived danger alone, she had taken him with her. Did you just rescue me from the Bloody Baron? he would have said, except she had already explained her logic. The Bloody Baron had that corridor covered; there was no use in them giving it another look. Questioning this would only embarrass her, and what was the point in that?

Draco shook his head, still a little dazed and confused. A smug feeling swelled in his chest, and it was a little like being his old self again. Thank you, Padma.

“That was deftly handled, Patil. Very nice.”

He could have stopped there, but that feeling in his chest was spreading. Unbidden laughter broke from his lips. “I mean, for a second there, I thought we were done for. It’s a wonder why you’re not in Gryffindor, with courage like that.” A twisted compliment; why would she want to be in Gryffindor like her sister when she was already marvellous exactly as she was?

It wasn’t like Draco was one to judge a person for running away from danger, in any case. It was simply common sense. Fear had its purpose. If Draco had listened to his fears, maybe he never would have taken the Mark; would have sought other options instead of clinging to that stupid mission. Maybe he’d be wining and dining in a protected chateau in France, mother and father safe, planting the seeds of influence in their new home.

No. He could barely conjure the image. It was too removed from reality; too impossible, too… unwelcome. This was home, and only a fool thought they could run from the Dark Lord and survive. If you were fated to die anyway, was it better to run or to stand your ground? Draco didn’t have the answer to that, but he supposed Potter did because he’d come here of all places.  How long before the Dark Lord stormed these corridors looking for him? They had to find him first, for all their sakes.

Now that her panic had subsided, and his was creeping back in, he felt strangely ruffled. He raked fingers through his hair and gave Padma’s arm a light nudge. “Come on. You did us a favour actually. There’s still grounds we haven’t covered. We missed this corridor.” He rolled on his feet, turning the corner, an almost-smile glancing his lips as he once again breached the darkness, wand aloft, casting an orb of light ahead of him. Draco had imagined he’d face the end alone, not even Crabbe or Goyle to mourn him, but between Padma and Seamus, maybe he wasn’t as alone as he thought.

[lavender--brown]

Ironic: Padma | Lavender

[padmaunshadowed]

lavender--brown:

“Oh – well – all right…”

Lavender was unsure she could even consider herself aspart of Dumbledore’s Army at this point; the Carrows have been too much to handle. Dumbledore’s Army felt like fun and games relative to what they were dealing with now. Whatever Umbridge had done was treading lightly relative to what she could have done. Nevertheless, she followed Padma inside, hoping to go unnoticed.

It was a little ironic, for someone like Lavender, who had lived her best life trying to be noticed, was doing her best to stay under the radar of not just the Carrows, but of her friends as well. Perhaps she was a little at fault for the fact that she hadn’t really spoken to Parvati; their exchange on the matter of Dumbledore’s Army hadn’t been an argument, but rather, a very icy conversation about doing what is right and what is easy.

What Lavender failed to ask though was if it were worth dying for what was right? Was that even a question that Padma pondered, or did she follow Parvati blindly into this operation?

The Room of Requirement looked fuller than when Lavender was last there at the beginning of the term prior; there were only a handful of them who met then, and now it looked like a more regularly frequented gathering place. At the other corner of the room though were two people that caused Lavender to clench her teeth. If they, collectively, weren’t dead before, then they certainly would be dying in whatever painful manner the Carrows could think of.

“Look, Pads –” Lavender’s patience was suddenly thin at the sight of Undesirable One and Two. “I just – I just really need Parvati, and uh – you’re not Parvati –” Certainly Padma understood that? Lavender was too distracted at the two to realize that she was sounding really insensitive. Her voice climbed an octave and her once gossipy pitch now turned to panic. “What are they doing here, exactly? They’re going to get us killed!”

Padma wasn’t hurt, wasn’t upset; she wasn’t her sister, she knew she wasn’t her sister. They were less identical than they looked, and anyone with two braincells to rub together had to know that Parvati was a hundred times more useful, more courageous, than Padma -- but she was Lavender’s friend too, even if their friendship had only formed because of Parvati (and in spite of Padma’s jealousy over that fact). She was opening her mouth to try and explain what she had meant, say something about not minding being a pale imitation of her sister and only halfway meaning it as a joke, when Lavender broke off from what she was saying to shriek about Harry and Hermione.

“No, it’s -- it’s okay!” Padma said hurriedly, jumping back to her feet to grab Lavender by the shoulder. “Come on, sit down, Lav, you’re -- you’re causing a scene!” There weren’t a lot of eyes fixed on them yet. Small exclamations and shouts of distress were sadly normal background noise in the Room of Requirement these days, but if Lavender started properly yelling they would soon the center of everyone’s attention, and Padma didn’t think either of them wanted that. “Professor Snape and the Carrows already know that Harry’s here but they’re pretending not to, I guess because they don’t want You-Know-Who sending anyone else to investigate how he got in and why they haven’t caught him yet. I mean, they didn’t tell us that outright,” she admitted, her mind flashing back to the stiff and awkward meeting with the prefects after their fruitless search of the castle following the incident with the car and the greenhouse. “But that’s basically what they were saying, what they’re doing. They’re covering their own rears, but they’re keeping us safe in the process. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t much comfort, Padma knew, but it was better than nothing and it was all they had.

“And no one outside the D.A. knows Hermione’s here at all,” she continued, trying to tug Lavender down into a chair. “Come on, forget about them, tell me what’s bothering you, won’t you? I’m your friend too, you know. You can talk to me.” She mustered a weak smile. “I’m quieter than Parvati, too,” she added, her tone tight with forced lightness. “I bet that makes me an even better listener, in some ways, even if I’m not as much fun as she is. Come on, Lav. Please?”

[padmaunshadowed]

Duty of Discovery || Padma and Draco

[padmaunshadowed]

procidensdraco:

Draco didn’t answer straight away. He watched the portraits, half of which pretended to be sleeping, though there were no snores sounding out from their frames, nor the heavy, steady in and out of slumber–just silence like they were holding their breaths. You couldn’t go anywhere in this castle without someone listening in. Or so it felt to Draco. His paranoia hadn’t stopped atop the Astronomy tower. If anything, it’d only gained legitimacy. All his fears had proven true.

He raised his wand, and the light at the tip brightened, startling one of the portraits’ occupants. Their eyes formed a slit as they peeked at Draco and Padma.  

“And what if I did have an idea?“ he said over the portrait’s grumbles. The rumours would reach Padma eventually. Wasn’t it better they came from him? Draco liked being in control of matters that concerned him, and since he was in control of so little these days…  But there were too many reasons not to confide in her. Potter being back threatened to change everything, and not necessarily for the better. What was to say Potter wouldn’t try to finish what he’d started? He must regret not letting Draco bleed out on the tiles of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. If he had, everything could have been different. Draco never could have fixed that fucking cupboard. Dumbledore would be alive.

“You think just because we take a few detentions together, I’d confide in you?” His tone was sharp, sharp enough to stitch back his composure and keep it from slipping. Was Draco afraid of Harry Potter? No. Maybe. It was hard to tell. His fear of the Dark Lord–of seeing his family in a shallow grave in the Forbidden Forest to be ravaged by werewolves–cancelled out any fear he had of going head to head against Harry Potter.

It wasn’t how they worked though, he and Padma. Draco had to give her something. He wasn’t used to this, giving up more than he got. Sure, he could be generous from time to time. The Malfoy name wouldn’t be half what it was if they didn’t share their wealth on occasion. Now, it appeared that wealth was knowledge.

“Doesn’t your house specialise in riddles?” If Potter’s return changed Padma’s mind about Draco and what they were working towards, better he find out now. “I’ll give you three clues.” He lifted his wand, eyes scanning the ceiling. The last thing he needed was Peeves lurking above their heads, ready to carry whatever they said to the rest of the castle at the top of his lungs. All clear.

“They’re an enemy to Hogwarts. Hogwarts as it is now. They’re as dense as the Carrows if they think crashing that thing into the greenhouses would do them any favours. Anyone with brains would try and sneak in unseen.” That alone screamed Potter. He searched his mind for a third. “And since we’re already on the topic of Weasleys…”  

Draco stopped, expression frozen in an almost smile. The rest of his sentence dissolved on his tongue. Had he heard something?

His words hurt, just a little, although her surprise over the hurt was actually more pointed than his barb; Padma hadn’t made the mistake of thinking that she and Draco were friends, but...but they had been, once upon a time when they were both too little to know any better, and she had thought that they were starting to be...well, something like friends at least, again. Not the sort of friends who confided in one another, who trusted one another -- except when they had to, for mutual survival and sanity. No, maybe friends had never been the right word for what they had between them, her and Draco and Seamus...but allies? Surely they were allies, at least...

But no. She was being silly. Just because they shared a few detentions -- just because they shared a secret -- didn’t mean that she expect him to confide in her, any more than she was prepared to confide in him. But having it laid out like that, so plainly, did hurt -- just a little.

Maybe that was why she was too distracted to realize that Draco had stopped until she had taken three steps past him, blinking furiously -- and then freezing. “What’s...?” she started to say, then swallowed the words. If there really was someone there, the last thing she wanted to do was alert them to her and Draco’s presence -- well, maybe not the last thing. The last thing she wanted to do was to help Draco discover whoever had broken into the castle (and it didn’t take a genius to put those pieces together, did it?). But how could she dissuade him from looking? That was what they were supposed to be doing, after all, and as Draco had just reminded her, just because they were allied in one particular ploy for the sake of saving their fellow students didn’t make him someone she could trust. Didn’t make him someone she could rely on. Didn’t make him someone who wouldn’t go running to Professor Snape the minute the scales tipped...

While Padma stood there frozen with indecision, Draco was already lifting his wand -- to defend himself? To attack? Padma’s heart stuttered in her throat and her grip on her own wand felt loose and sweaty but she didn’t dare let go long enough to wipe her hand dry on her robes. Instead she raised it as well, bracing herself against whatever was coming. Draco was looking away from her, down the hallway, his back turned toward her. Why? Because he trusted her not to attack him? Because he didn’t think she was a threat? Because he didn’t want to be put in the position of having to turn Harry Potter over to the Carrows and their Dark Lord, and was hoping that Padma would do something to spare him that choice? Or just because they were partnered together and only a heel would turn on their fellow prefect while on duty?

Padma swallowed hard and formed her lips into the first syllable of a Stupefy--

A burst of glowing silvery light broke through the aged stones and ancient tapestry as though they were ethereal, but it was the being that emerged who had no physical form any longer: The Bloody Baron, ghost of Slytherin House, the silver bloodstains on his robes gleaming in bright contrast to the dark, empty hollows of his eyes. “Why do you disturb my solitude?” he boomed at them, and Padma yelped.

She seized Draco’s hand instinctively and tugged, hard, pulling the taller boy along with her. “We’re sorry!” she squeaked, terror closing her throat as the glowing sight of the angry Baron filled her eyes. “We’re going, we’re sorry, we’re sorry!” She ran down the hallway as quickly as she could, stumbling each time she glanced over her shoulder to make sure the Bloody Baron wasn’t chasing them, her hand still clenched tight around Draco’s, his smooth hawthorn wand cramped between their fingers. Ghosts did not, as a matter of course, frighten Padma Patil -- but the Bloody Baron was a very different matter. She had been afraid of him ever since her first year at Hogwarts, when he had come bursting out of a closed classroom door right in front of a cluster of first year Ravenclaws and berated them for trespassing in his presence. Padma knew that he couldn’t carry out any of his threats -- he was a ghost, not a poltergeist -- but the sight of his long bloody sword stabbing into Morag MacDougal’s chest had haunted Padma’s nightmares for months. She had different nightmares now, but she had never shaken off her fear of the Baron.

When she finally let them draw to a stop, they were halfway back to the hallway where their search had started and her cheeks were blazing. “Er--” she said, quickly dropping her hand from Draco’s so she could press both her palms against her cheeks in mortification. “I, um...I mean, I just thought that, well...there’s no sense going any further that way if the Bloody Baron is there, right?” Her laugh sounded more hysterical than nervous. “He’d have seen if anyone had been there, so...” It was a weak excuse, a ridiculous excuse. She hadn’t left the hallway because she didn’t think it needed searched further but because she had been terrified, as her panicked flight down the stairs had proved -- but it was all the excuse she had, so she clung to it regardless.

[padmaunshadowed]

Greenhouse Whispers || Padma and Ernie

[padmaunshadowed]

mosternestmacmillan:

Ernie had lost a bit of his touch when it came to arguing–it was probably because he had been so tired lately, and took comfort in the sweet moments when the world around him was silent. It was becoming increasingly taxing for Ernie to be around anyone (except for Hannah), and all the high tensions around the DA and Hogwarts, just made Ernie want to hole up and seclude himself.

“Forgive me for misinterpreting your intentions,” Ernie replied monotonously, the automatic response came after years of etiquette training had been drilled into his head. At the moment, Ernie wanted to apparate away into his dormitory, and silently cursed the Hogwarts grounds for not allowing any apparation. He had no idea what her intentions were, as she seemed to be flustered, but also annoyed by him; and Ernie didn’t have the emotional energy to try and decode what was going on and attributed her strange behaviour to a the tentacula.

“They’ve probably got their own thing going on,” He again replied with the same monotonous plan “If they ask me for some kind of idea, I’ll tell them the rumour one, although I doubt they’d ask me,” Ernie began to clean up his station “Just the one, but you’ve got to get most of the leaves,” It was a relatively easy task for Ernie, but could understand why it’d be difficult for some others to do “Just try not to get bitten straight on by them, it can be fatal,” He cautioned, happy to be talking about plants and not anything else.

This time Padma managed to restrain the urge to roll her eyes; a good thing no doubt, because if she’d allowed herself to react the way she wanted to Ernie’s overly-stiff, overly-stilted apology, she’d probably have sprained something. Between him and Malfoy, it was really no wonder why so many people assumed that anyone who considered themselves a pure-blood was also a pompous windbag. “Okay, fine,” Padma said, “apology accepted, and do what you want. I’m staying out of it.” She didn’t know what had Ernie’s robes in a bunch, and she told herself she didn’t care either. If he wanted to carry-on like a petulant second year too preoccupied with whatever had wounded his dignity to just talk to their friends like a person, that was up to him; she had more than enough on her plate already without trying to baby her distant cousin.

“Thanks for the advice,” she said drily and picked up her shears again. She resisted the urge to pull her watch from her pocket and see how long it was until the bell; as far as Padma was concerned, today’s Herbology lesson couldn’t possibly end fast enough.

[padmaunshadowed]

Heroic Homecoming || Padma and Harry

[padmaunshadowed]

carriesdeath:

He could recognize the way she looked at him. People had given him that very look throughout his entire fifth year here at school. She couldn’t believe he was saying this to her – was frightened of him. But Harry had decided long ago that he wouldn’t back down from the truth. That he’d do whatever it took to try and save as many people as he could. That meant fighting. He knew that his task was a quiet sort of battle they wouldn’t understand. But he’d never be able to get behind their claim of doing something good while also raising their wands to provide a detention they should’ve been revolting back against in the first place. If Harry were at this school, he would’ve refused. Over and over again. He would’ve died first.

His grip around the wand tightened even more when she mentioned the Unforgiveables and he had to force himself to keep it by his side. He wouldn’t hex her. It wouldn’t change anything – or help anything. “Then get Imperiused! At least it’s not you doing it with your own free will then!”

She was yelling back now, on her feet, tears in her eyes, and Harry felt little sympathy for her. Yes, he knew what it felt like experiencing all of them. In fact, he’s the only person alive to have ever felt all three of those curses. He knew it very well. And Padma’s words only sounded like empty excuses in his ears. He didn’t care what she had to say because, to me, there would be no justification great enough. “Yeah, I have Padma! All of them – I know what it’s like!” He glared at her, hard and furious. There was nothing akin to kindness or sorrow in his voice. “I tried to cast it – the cruciatus. On Bellatrix Lestrange last year. After Dumbledore. And I couldn’t then. I couldn’t mean it. And I wouldn’t be able to mean it on second years, either.”  

More excuses. Like Dumbledore. Like too many other people that Harry knew. “Of course they were afraid of you, Padma! You’d just put them through unbearable pain! Oh, don’t give me that bullshit!” Harry rarely cursed at others. Always to himself when something went wrong or when he’d accidentally hurt himself. But he couldn’t control his words anymore. The rage having taken him to a place where he was hardly aware of what he said until it actually came out of his mouth. “Crucio hurts no matter who the castor is. If it worked on them, it meant that some part of you was willing to put your own neck before theirs!”

His heart sunk when she brought his friends into this. When she brought Ginny up. He didn’t know if he could believe that, but his brain was working too fast to stop and think about it. Because it didn’t really matter. All he knew is that the entire school was letting this happen. The people in this room – who had decided to start up his old group for revenge – were letting it happen. For the Greater Good, For the Greater Good, For the Greater Good… it never stopped. “Funny, considering they’ve all got bruises on their faces. Yours looks pretty clean to me.”

“There is always a choice, Padma. You can fight against them or with them, that’s the choice. And right now you’re just pretending like you’re doing the right thing when you just told me that you’ve use unforgiveables on second years, all because someone told you too!” Didn’t she see the hypocrisy.  In this end, he too, could choose to back down from his destiny. If he did that, everyone he loved would die and Voldemort would win. His choice would never be any other than facing down Voldemort, than trying to beat him. Even if it killed Harry in the end. So he couldn’t believe her. His choice – it was barely a choice. Hers… well, she’d made it very clear what she decided to do.

He laughed, a bitter thing with no trace of humor. “You really think I’m going to thank you for something like that now? I would’ve, had you been what I thought you were.” Everyone – everyone would surprise him. No one was really who they said they were. Her brimming tears leaked over her face. In the past, Harry would panic when he saw a girl crying. Everything had changed. He stood firm, glaring, chin raised. “I’m on orders from Dumbledore – I’m doing something to take You-Know-Who down for good. I can’t tell you what I’ve been doing or what I’m here for. And, even if I could, I wouldn’t. I can’t trust you.”

What do we do? The never-ending question. One he didn’t have the answer to. “Does it matter?” He wasn’t yelling anymore and didn’t really know what it meant. His anger was solid and real and overtaking, but he was running out of steam arguing over this. Padma wasn’t going to change, she’d made that very clear. “It doesn’t matter what you’d do then because you’re not doing it now. You just… you just keep fighting. It’s the only way to show them – “ He pointed to the door, indicating the Carrows or Snape or maybe even Voldemort himself. “ – that they haven’t won. Isn’t that what this whole thing has been about?”

Somewhere halfway through Harry’s rant Padma had started shaking her head back in forth in mute, damp-eyed denial of what he was saying. She wasn’t sure exactly when; she only noticed the motion when her hands curled in around her ribs as though skinny brown arms in floppy black robes could somehow shield her from the pain and accusations that Harry was flinging at her. Tears leaked down her cheeks and her lip trembled until she had to bite it to hold it still.

When he finished, she said simply, “No.” Her voice was flat and her expression was hollow but she said it again, loudly: “No, Harry. No, it’s not about that. It’s not about showing anybody anything. It’s about saving lives. It’s about protecting people. We have -- we have people counting on us, here. Children counting on us. We have responsibilities.” Her eyes blazed suddenly, bright and hot through the tears. “Do you have any idea what that’s like? Having people rely on you? Having people who need you, whom you can’t just run out on? Can’t just leave to their own devices while you go off on some lone heroic adventure? Maybe what you’re doing is important,” she said, the words short and clipped, “but it’s not doing anything to keep the kids here safe, is it? It’s just you, as usual, you and your special buddies, running around all by yourselves while the rest of us try and pick up the pieces.”

She had to take a deep breath before she could continue, forcibly smothering the urge to sob. “So I guess I don’t really care what you’re doing, or who you think is a good enough person to be worthy of trusting or not.” That was a lie, but for once it wasn’t hard to dodge the truth. “I’ve got people I have to take care of, while you’re off doing whatever special little job Dumbledore left you to do. He didn’t leave any instructions for us, we’re just doing the best we can -- and the best we can doesn’t involve keeping our hands clean and holding the moral high ground. We don’t have that luxury in here.” Padma’s hands slipped from her elbows and curled into fists at her side; she didn’t notice, didn’t feel the nails bite into her palms as she kept talking; couldn’t see the expression on Harry’s face as she glared at him through her tears. “We get to make choices like, ‘if the Carrows are going to torture all the first years in this room anyway, is it better or worse if I volunteer to do it instead? It’ll be terrible for me and they’ll still get hurt, but it won’t hurt them as much as it would if the Carrows did it themselves.’ Those are the choices we get to make.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust -- such a petty expression when weighed against the topic under discussion, but she couldn’t help it; the revulsion was automatic, instinctual. “We get to decide whether we can muster up enough anger at what we’re being forced to do that we can hurt the people we’re trying to protect, or if we can’t and instead we’re going to step aside and let them get hurt worse so we don’t have to do anything unpleasant.”

Another deep breath, this one less wet and wobbly and more trembling with anger. Her tears were drying on her stiff, salt-crusted cheeks. “Say somebody was going to torture Ron, and there was no way you could stop that happening. All you could do was choose who would hold the wand -- you, or somebody who really hated him. What would you do? If you had to choose who was going to torture you, wouldn’t you rather have it be a friend than an enemy? Someone who wouldn’t mean it, who wouldn’t make it hurt as bad? Who wouldn’t dream of going too far by mistake -- or for their own amusement? Those are the choices we get to make here, without you. You want to judge me for them? Try spending a day in my shoes first, Chosen One.” She spat the epithet at him like a curse.

“And you want to judge me because I don’t look bruised?” Bitter, broken laughed escaped Padma’s lips, startling her -- but she kept talking, pushing the words out through the humorless cackle. “It’s called magic, Harry Potter! Ever heard of it? Bruise balm and Dittany and Episkey spells -- we’ve all gotten pretty good at using those this past year. Some of us have even moved on to mending broken bones! After all, we can’t always go see Madam Pomfrey when we get hurt -- sometimes, the Carrows won’t let us! So we have to take care of ourselves and of each other. That’s what we’re trying to do, all of us here -- whether we’re acting as prefects, amateur healers, reluctant torturers, or battered distractions. We’re trying to take care of people. Protect them from horrible, horrible things that we can’t do anything to stop -- but we do our best to make things better, because what else would you have us do? Leave?” The unspoken addition to her words -- like you did -- hung heavy in the air when she finished, like an echo in a tomb.

[lavender--brown]

Ironic: Padma | Lavender

[padmaunshadowed]

lavender--brown:

“She – er –” How Padma memorized Parvati’s schedule, Lavender wasn’t sure. Hell, she couldn’t even remember her own schedule coming into this term; she mostly followed everyone else around to figure out where she was going next. “—we were doing an exercise in that class – a more meditative one… didn’t really get a chance to – you know – chat with her… it was mostly individual work today…”

That was mostly true. The more advanced Divination courses were really for those who had the patience to really get in touch with the Inner Eye. There was much more deep thinking involved – moreso than Lavender had expected.

That wasn’t the problem though; she and Parvati hadn’t been on speaking terms since the school year started again. Surely Padma knew that? Not that Parvati had to tell her – surely she had eyes. And even if she didn’t, she certainly should have noticed the silence without Lavender by Parvati’s side. Lavender didn’t want to determine whether or not Padma was on one side or another. Even though there shouldn’t be sides; Lavender operated on what she thought was common sense, and that was keeping her head down and praying for the next round of Cruciatus to go by quickly.

“Of course something’s the matter!” Lavender tried to play it off as a joke, but Padma didn’t seem the type to understand dark humor. “I mean – just have – a lot on my mind – that’s all –”

From losing her mind to losing her friends, there wasn’t much left in between. She stepped forward; she wasn’t sure if Padma was inviting her in, nor was she sure if she should be in. Lavender was probably the only person who could be considered a former member of the DA, and as eager as she was to help somehow – she certainly didn’t want to overstay her welcome, at until someone knew about her new hobbies. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Padma so much as she didn’t think Padma would have any real plan for what Lavender had in store.

Padma nodded along in easy acceptance of Lavender’s disjointed explanation of today’s Divination lesson; there was a reason she had dropped that subject so quickly, and it had less to do with her finding out that the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were not sharing that elective as she had hoped than it did with the fact that Divination, and Professor Trelawney, were both utterly barmy. That wasn’t an opinion she was keen to express to Lavender, however; not only would she likely take offense, but she would almost certainly take the information back to Parvati, and Padma didn’t want to admit to her sister that she thought her favorite subject was a bunch of useless twaddle.

Instead she just said, “Oh, right then. Well, no, I don’t know where she is...but I’m sure she’ll be along soon...” The words were out of Padma’s mouth -- tumbling easy and automatic -- before she could think about it, but once she spoke them it occurred to her that she wasn’t sure about that. She’d seen less of Parvati than usual this year, which she had been putting down to a combination of N.E.W.T.s and the struggle of life under the Carrows and Professor Snape, but now that she really thought about it those times when her path had crossed with Parvati or Lavender, it had mostly been solitary crossings -- a duo rather than a trio. And that was odd. It was one thing for Parvati to be too busy to spend a lot of time with her Ravenclaw sister who was a prefect to boot; there was no reason why she and Lavender shouldn’t be spending every other second of their time together -- was there?

Padma eyed the other witch curiously as she led the way across the room to a cluster of plush armchairs -- a cluster on the opposite side of the room to Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, whom Padma was keen not to disturb from whatever resting or plotting were occupying their time at the moment. The Room of Requirement wasn’t really a place for private conversations, and Padma didn’t see any reason why she should try and find some secret place to talk to her friend, but it felt impolite to impose directly on Harry and Hermione’s space in ways that it didn’t feel with other members of the D.A. -- possibly because the two of them were the only ones living in the Room, or possibly because they hadn’t been there with the rest of them this year. They felt like outsiders, somehow, even though they had started Dumbledore’s Army...but the tension crawling across Padma’s shoulders couldn’t be attributed strictly to them.

She flopped down into a chair and stared at Lavender, her brow furrowing with concern as her eyes traced their way across the other girl’s face, looking for answers. “No,” Padma said softly, “I know that, I just meant -- something more than the usual? Something specific?” She leaned forward, clasping her hands together across her knees. “I know I’m not Parvati, Lav, but I am your friend too. You can talk to me about it, whatever it is. Honest.” She managed a tiny smile. “We may not be exactly the same, but I can play substitute for now, I bet.”

[speckledgingermug]

Helping Hands - Hermione&Padma

[padmaunshadowed]

withmuddyblood:

Bottle in hand, Hermione began to pick her way back to her rucksack, the fingers of her right hand curled stiffly towards her palm. The Ravenclaw’s silence and small nod came as a relief; she didn’t much want to explain why she’d become so adept at using Dittany, and thanks to Padma’s air of quiet understanding, she wouldn’t have to. Her rucksack lay on a squashy maroon sofa not far from where she’d entered the Room of Requirement, and, almost out of habit, her gaze flickered up to the portrait that now adorned the otherwise blank stone wall. It was empty, just as empty as it had remained since her own arrival, and she suppressed the anguish that rose unbidden in her chest by looping an arm through the handle of her bag, heaving it across the room to Padma’s armchair.

Hermione settled into an adjacent one, dropping her rucksack beside it and leaning over to fish out the beaded purple bag. Padma’s answer to her previous question made her pause, however, dark eyes suddenly afire with a mix of excitement and curiosity. “Oh, I can only imagine what sorts of things they teach in N.E.W.T Ancient Runes. Must be fascinating…” There was an air of nostalgia and ever so slight jealousy in the way she spoke, but she reined it in as best she could. She knew what she was doing when she decided to forego Hogwarts this year (not that she could have attended anyway), and she tried not to whinge about the outcome of a decision that was, in reality, largely hers. Still, her thirst for knowledge remained, and as she plunged her arm into the beaded bag on her lap she eyed the book balanced on Padma’s chair. The Tales of Beedle the Bard flickered to life in her mind’s eye, but whatever urge she had to pull out her mostly translated copy and share it with the Ravenclaw was abruptly snuffed out.

“Is Professor Babbling still teaching?” she asked, keen to divert her own attention as she drew her empty bottle of Dittany out of the beaded bag.

Padma trailed Hermione back across the room, winding her way to the chair and the book she had abandoned but she didn’t sit down yet, more interested in watching as Hermione fished around in a bag that was far too small to be able to hold more than a few small things, and certainly not large enough for her to fit half her arm inside. Could there be an Undetectable Extension Charm on the bag? Padma couldn’t think of what else would cause a result like that, but that was a spell under careful Ministerial control and Hermione’s little bag didn’t look like any of the approved luggage that carried the charm, which meant...had she done it herself? Padma’s eye widened and she stared at the bag more closely.

“Er -- yes,” she said distractedly, “yes it’s pretty, um, pretty interesting.” She shook her head and tried to wrench her attention away from Hermione’s bag, hoping that the other witch hadn’t caught her staring. “And Professor Babbling, yes, she’s still here.” Under ordinary circumstances, Padma might have added an “of course” to that statement -- but there was no such thing as “of course” this year, was there? Professor Burbage had vanished, Professor Hagrid was on the run, Professors Flitwick and Firenze were barely being tolerated, and there was a running pool on when Professor McGonagall would finally snap and leave the school in a blaze of glory following an attempted assassination of Professor Snape, the Professors Carrow, or all three.

“I think she misses having you in the class,” Padma added. It was an attempt to cheer Hermione, but it was true too. “Every time she asks a question that no one knows the answer to immediately, she looks toward the front row like she’s expecting to see your hand in the air, saving her from having to wait on the rest of us to puzzle it out.” The laugh she gave was a little forced but not bitter; Padma had never minded Hermione’s advanced intellect as much as many of her other housemates. She just wasn’t sure that “our teacher is sad her best student had to go on the run because a bunch of bigots have taken over the school and won’t let her come back” was all that amusing, really.

She cleared her throat and said, in a more natural tone of voice, “Want to take a look?” Padma dropped back into the armchair she had vacated a few moments ago and leaned down to scoop her textbook off the floor. She held it out to Hermione across the gap between their seats like an offering and added wryly, “I’m not asking you to do my homework for me, of course. But know how much you like giving answers, and if those answers happen to touch on those fourteen inches I’m supposed to be writing, I certainly won’t object to the help.” This time, her smile didn’t feel forced.