Fic: First and Last (Ron/Lavender; PG-13)

[bookishwench]

First and Last

Lavender was dead.

The words floated around Ron’s head, echoing strangely in the numbness he felt after the battle was over. They had won. Harry had defeated Voldemort, the Death Eaters were beaten, and they could come home at last, those of them who were still left alive. Hermione and Harry had disappeared shortly afterwards, probably feeling ill at ease with the Weasleys in their grief over Fred, allowing them to have their time as a family together. The pain of his brother’s death was overwhelming, too big to fathom yet, but there were such a lot of them that in the strange mixture of sorrow and joy that was today, Ron too could slip away, leaving his mother and father with Ginny and George while Percy, awkwardly accepted back into the fold, talked with Charlie, and Bill and Fleur discreetly kissed in a side corridor, thrilled to still be alive.

Ron walked. He couldn’t keep still. Maybe it was the vagabond life of nearly a year or just too many thoughts, but his feet kept moving, back and forth, through ruined classrooms, up and down staircases, but he finally stopped at the temporary morgue in the Great Hall. Bodies rested under blankets, faces covered from view. Ron was reminded strongly of children hiding beneath the covers of their beds, playing at hide and seek, and many of the dead were barely more than children.

Fred’s body had already been sent to the Burrow, collected by his father who now sat upstairs, suddenly old. Those left here did not have family to claim them yet: Tonks and Lupin, Colin, a few Death Eaters, some students and Order members he didn’t know well. And Lavender.

Lavender was dead.

It still didn’t feel real to him. He remembered seeing Hermione of all people blast Greyback off her. Part of him wished he had been the one to do it, not her. Hermione and Lavender loathed each other, or they had. In battle, when the worst was happening, all the stupidity had been laid aside, and Hermione had done her best to protect her. Ron had no doubt Lavender would have done the same for her. But it simply wasn’t enough. In war, people die. Good people. People who should have lived long, happy, full lives.

He stood at the edge of the blanket where she lay. He knew she was beneath it, knew her form was the nondescript bulge beneath the wool, though she wasn’t visible. An identification tag lay at her feet. It was the only way he had found her. He didn’t want to see what lay beneath her temporary shroud.

It hadn’t been love, not even close, but he had liked her once. She had been simple, easy. She adored him, treated him like a conquering hero, and he’d felt happy because she filled his ego. If he’d been asked what he’d been looking for in a girl then, the list would have sounded a lot like Lavender: pretty, enthusiastic, uncomplicated, and very interested in him. When she had kissed him before one and all in the common room, not only not embarrassed to be seen with him but actually proud to be, he’d been thrilled.

The few months they were together hadn’t all been bad despite the ending. There had been good bits, bits he’d always remember fondly. She’d been his first kiss, his first real girlfriend, the first person who wanted to be with him. They hadn’t spoken much, and he’d preferred that, really, liked kissing her more. She’d let him touch her more than a bit as well. Actually, she’d very nearly insisted, and his fumbling attentions had been met with more kindness than anything else.

“No, you’ve just stood on my foot is all. There, we’ll be more comfortable sitting on the steps anyway.”

“It’s okay, it’s only a little mark on my neck. The other girls will be jealous.”

“That’s alright, Ron, the clasp is tricky. Here, let me get it.”

“No, you haven’t done anything wrong at all! Don’t apologize. I’ll be okay. It’s normal. There’s almost bound to be a bit of blood the first time. Just let me have a moment before we go on, yeah?”

Her real problem was enthusiasm. It’s what had drawn him to her in the first place, and it was eventually what repelled him as well. He’d always preferred Hermione, and when he had “accidentally” let slip the wrong name in the Hospital Wing after he’d nearly died of poisoned mead, it had of course been entirely intentional. He was tired of Lavender. Like her namesake, she was too sweet. Too clinging. Too worshipful. Too (entirely correctly) jealous of his feelings for Hermione.

Granted, Lavender had been standing at the bedside of her boyfriend and first love who had literally been the victim of a murder attempt, and all and sundry had quietly laughed up their sleeves at her for being upset. If there had ever been a moment when her sickeningly saccharine concern had actually been understandable, that was it. And as she ran from the room sobbing, his only thought was how happy he was to be shot of her.

Now here they were, positions reversed. He stood over her, knowing the only difference was he’d been saved and she hadn’t been so lucky. She’d died a true Gryffindor, fighting bravely to defend her world. He had never wished her any ill will, not really. He simply didn’t love her. He never had. That was all. Still…

Lavender was dead.

A quiet footstep in back of him made Ron turn, and he saw Parvati there, her eyes red, cheeks swollen, a dried streak of blood across her face.

“Professor Trelawney and I were with her at the end,” she said finally, her voice cracking.

“I’m glad she wasn’t alone,” he said, and he meant it. A question nagged at him, one he knew he shouldn’t ask, but like most of his thoughts it came spilling out of his mouth anyway. “Did she have anyone else?”

“Her parents will be her soon,” Parvati said. “They’ll know by now.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” he said.

Parvati slowly turned her gaze from the shrouded figure to him before answering, “It’s been a horrible year, Ron. Romance wasn’t on the top of anyone’s list, just staying alive. No. You were her first and her last.”

She walked away down the row of the dead, and he was fairly sure she was crying again. Ron looked at the motionless form one last time, and a pain tugged around his heart, one he hadn’t really expected to feel. He remember cold winter nights tucked into odd warm corners of the castle, curly blonde hair glistening in torchlight, the sound of her laugh, the smell of her perfume, and the taste of her lip gloss. Most of all, he remembered her smile when she would see him, one of simple, pure joy.

“Bye, Lav,” he said. “I’m sorry. Honestly.”

He took out his wand and murmured a spell. A small bouquet of pink daisies appeared at the foot of the blanket. Pink had always been her favorite.

Ron went back to the others, back to mourn his brother and try to figure out what this new world meant with so many new scars in it. He would move on, love Hermione, build a life, but he never forgot his first.