Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lavender was softly sobbing in her bed, curtains pulled closed, when Parvati found her. Parvati wrapped her up in a warm hug, and they stayed like that for a while, entwined, while Lavender’s sobs eased.

“I was stupid, wasn’t I, to think that he could truly like me.” Lavender wiped her eyes, which she was sure were red and puffy. She had always been an ugly crier, and a part of her was mortified that Parvati had seen her like this.

“He’s the stupid one, he doesn’t see what he’s missing out on.” Parvati leaned in close, curling up against her side. “Though to be fair, no-one could really call Ron clever.”

“You’re right, he’s so stupid,” Lavender sighed, “so stupid that he managed to get himself poisoned. But Parvati, I was sick with worry and he didn’t even care about me! Why does nobody I love care about me, Parvati?” Lavender burst into fresh sobs.

“Lav, I care about you, I love you.”

“I just, I just wish I didn’t always end up with people who don’t want me.”

“I want you Lav, you’re my best friend. Ron and your parents have no idea what they’re missing out on. They’re the stupid ones.” Parvati said.

Lavender laughed quietly, through her tears. “It’s me who clearly isn’t smart enough, isn’t good enough, I’m not brainy like Hermione, who I’m sure he wants to date now.” She ignored the comment about her parents, not wanting to make herself cry even more.

“Lavender, you’re twenty times better than her, I doubt she even knows any decent hair care charms, and she’s stupid enough to brush her curly hair until it forms a giant frizzy mess!”

“I just wish I’d never dated him.” Lavender murmured into her friend’s shoulder.

“You just have to show him what he’s missing.” Parvati replied, “go out there and live your best life without him.”

“I don’t want anyone to hurt me like that again.”

They slept curled up together that night, Lavender gripping her friend tight.

The next day, she resolved not to let the breakup get to her. Parvati gave her a pep talk in the bathroom as she styled her hair, and even Fay Dunbar who usually kept to herself gave Lavender a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Hermione kept well out of her way.

Her resolve to live the new day as a new woman, without stupid Ron and his stupid freckles pretty much dissolved the moment she saw him down the breakfast table. She just couldn’t keep her eyes off him. Until Parvati slapped her hand lightly, giving her a pointed look. She half heartedly reached for an apple from the fruit bowl, sighing deeply.

“What happened to showing him what he's missing?” Parvati nudged her pointedly in the ribs. “Come on, game face on, he wasn’t worth a minute of your time. How about Seamus? Now that is a hunk of a man!” she teased lightly.

“Everyone knows he’s pining after Dean Thomas,” Lavender replied, flicking her hair. “Do keep up.” The familiar banter had lifted her mood just enough to allow her to keep her eyes away from Ron. “Anyway, what about you? You can’t just keep dating your sister's roommates.”

“Watch me.” Parvati smirked. “It makes poor perfect Padma so deliciously furious, I can’t quite help myself.”

“So you’ve snogged Sue Li, dated Lisa Turpin and Emma Vane, and asked poor Mandy Brocklehurst out three times. Who’s next on the long list of Ravenclaw conquests?”

“What do you mean who’s next?” Parvati giggled, “I think I’m wearing Mandy down.”

“I think you should cut your losses,” Lavender replied consideringly, “You still haven’t gotten with Margaret Runcorn.”

“I’m leaving her till last, she’s a proper snob and It will bring me no joy whatsoever to take her on a date.”

“Not that she’ll probably say yes anyway,” Lavender pointed out, “she’s your classic good obedient pureblood little angel. She probably begged her father to arrange a suitable match for her.”

“Ugh,” Parvati replied, “I might have to give her a miss just to save myself the lecture on how I should be working to find a good husband.”

Lavender was finally smiling again, and she felt, at least a little bit, like herself again. Who needed boys anyway?

Then the mail came.

Her parents had written. They rarely wrote anymore, which was, well, understandable, she was older now. They were more worried about their biological child anyway, and Asher was only a first year. And a boy, she thought bitterly.

She was still eager when she opened the letter. After all, she did remember when she’d been little, how much they’d loved her, and they probably still did love her at least a bit. They were just busy.

She opened the letter.

Darling Lavender,
I hope your school year has gotten off to a good start, we are sending you all the best. Do try to put some work in this year, it would be lovely to show Asher a good example as to how hard he’ll need to work for his NEWTS, and your OWLS weren’t exactly straight Outstandings were they!
Anyway, your father sends his love and is sorry he doesn’t have time to add a note to this letter, he’s rushed off his feet with work, as I’m sure you are with schoolwork - I really must advise you against seeing that Weasley boy.
Everything is good here, and we’re very proud of Asher for making it into Ravenclaw, he’s such a studious little thing! Do check in on your little brother though darling, you know he can be a sensitive soul and starting Hogwarts isn’t easy.
I know you’re not biologically ours, but you are genetically a pureblood, and as far as anyone knows you’re a Brown. We’re an old family, so you have good prospects, now really is the time to start looking at the boys in your year and the year above seriously. A good marriage is very important Lavender, we cannot support you forever and it’s not as if you’re really cut out to be the breadwinner of a family, not that that’s really appropriate anyway.
Anyway, enough of that! I’m sure you’re already thinking along those lines. Zacharias Smith is your year, and comes from a good family - I take tea with his mother. Or perhaps that Longbottom boy? I’ve heard he’s rather unfortunate but he will inherit the full fortune as soon as he leaves Hogwarts after what happened to his parents.
Oh dear, I seem to have rambled on. It's because I haven’t had the chance to write to you in so long darling, please do forgive me! The reason I haven't been able to write much this year is that I’m pregnant again! It’s dreadfully exciting, and just goes to show that healers have no idea what they’re talking about. I had Asher years after they said I’d never bear a child, and now I am six months pregnant, with a little girl. I’m sure you’re very excited to meet your new sibling, though how you hated Asher at first, do you remember? We are all ecstatic, and we’ve written to Asher as well, but between him and the new baby, we were thinking it might be best for you to stay with a friend over the summer, or even Hogwarts? Do they do that? Obviously not the Patil girl, one of your nice English pureblood friends, perhaps Fay Dunbar or Susan Bones? I’ve heard good things about Margaret Runcorn as well, it’s a good idea to make friends with the right sort.
Sending you much love darling,
Your mother. xxx

Lavender held back tears, again. It felt like all she’d been doing lately was crying and she didn’t want to cry in front of everyone. They’d only assume it was over Ron. She left the Great Hall hurriedly, crumpling the letter and shoving it deep into her robe pocket. She should have known. She had been her adoptive parents whole world until Asher was born. She didn’t blame them, a son was a son, and after they’d been told they couldn’t have children, well.

She had always known that they’d wanted their own children more than they’d ever wanted her, but she’d hoped she’d be enough. Now though, they’d have their perfect family without her, an heir and a little girl to dote on. No wonder they wanted her married off as soon as possible.

She missed the first class of the day, sitting in the toilets. She wasn’t even crying, she was just, not feeling. Turning off the hurt and the anger and the betrayal. Then she felt well enough to go to divination.

Divination had always been one of Lavender’s favourite classes, she liked the mysterious air of the whole subject, and she liked Professor Trelawney. Professor Trelawney never told her she wasn’t good enough, or scolded her for not putting in enough work - probably because Lavender really did work hard in divination. It was just all so fascinating.

They were working on crystal balls again, and she settled in next to Parvati, who sent her a worried look but didn’t comment, simply pushing a vision interpretation book towards her.

“Come on, do you want to go first?” Parvati asked, almost gently, pushing the crystal ball towards Lavender.

“Alright, give me a moment.” Lavender replied, hoping she didn’t look too miserable, as she took a couple of deep breaths. She tried to go to that higher state Professor Trelawney always spoke of, that deeper place where you weren’t really in your own body anymore, but drifting, unattached.

For the first time she felt like she was maybe almost there. The world seemed to narrow down to the crystal ball in front of her, her classmates filtering into non-existence, the wind whipping around the tower quieting, and the light dimming, until she was staring into a dark abyss.

‘Show me where to go from here.’ she thought, ‘show me who I’m meant to be.’

The darkness deepened. Then she saw, she actually saw!

She saw her broken body, torn apart, in what looked like a Hogwarts that was as ripped apart as her delicate flesh. She looked young, blood pooling around her body, and Lavender felt despair wash over her. How could this be where she was destined to end up? Nowhere? Dying before she even left Hogwarts?

But then the image shifted, her blood-soaked body seeming to rupture, as a new Lavender emerged from her torn up body. A Lavender who was tall, beautiful, a woman. She turned and smiled, her beautiful robes trailing behind her, wand hanging loosely in her hand. Lavender felt a deep understanding of this person, of her, just for a second. She felt the power, the enthralling darkness, she knew what she could be.

She snapped back to reality, to see Parvati looking at her strangely.

“Did you see anything?” Parvati asked, eyes assessing. “Because you went strange for a good minute then, you didn’t even reply when I spoke.

“I, Maybe?” Lavender hesitated, “I saw, me, I guess, two different versions of me? I was asking who I was meant to be.”

“Maybe it was showing you who you could be if you take different paths? Like, if you get good NEWTS versus if you don’t?” Parvati offered. “I wish I could see something, you’re way better at Divination than me, it makes sense you’d have a proper vision first.”

Parvati huffed, pulling the crystal ball towards her and staring into it with a look of deep determination. Lavender watched absentmindedly as she thought of the helpless dead girl she had seen. That was her now. She didn’t have the power, the beauty, the presence of the second Lavender she had seen. She couldn’t believe that that was what she could become.

Maybe if she worked hard, worked every day, she could reach the second Lavender, feel that power for herself, avoid the fate of dying, broken at the foot of a balcony, bloodied and torn apart. Then maybe she could show the world how they shouldn’t have overlooked her for so long, show her adoptive parents why she was worth more than they’d ever given her.

Chapter Text

Lavender always approached talking to her adoptive brother with great caution. He was a sweet kid, and he was her brother, so of course she loved him, but he was also a massive pain. He was a classic heir to a pureblooded house - spoiled rotten. Asher was even worse because of how miraculous his conception was, their parents spoiling their little miracle at every opportunity.

This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just meant that Lavender spent a lot of time biting her tongue whenever she spoke to him. He was used to getting his way and whenever they argued it always came out worse for her - their parents backing him up no matter what.

“Mother asked how you were doing Ash,” she said, perching on the end of the Ravenclaw table at breakfast the next day.

“She writes to me every other day!” Asher sighed in exasperation. “I’ve just stopped replying at this point, she’s obsessive.”

Lavender swallowed her jealousy.

“Well how are you doing? Seems like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“It’s practically exam season Lavender! I’ve been busy revising, not that you probably know what that means.” He turned back to his eggs. “What do you think mum’s going to name my baby sister?”

“I’m not sure, maybe another flower name?” Lavender suggested.

“Dad mentioned maybe using one of the older family names. My bet is they name her after Grandma Mabel, or maybe Great Aunt Iris. Anyway, go back to the Gryffindor table would you, I’m missing out on the breakfast potions quiz.”

Indeed, all the Ravenclaw first years seemed to have flashcards and notes out, with some complex, highly competitive, points-based quiz being undertaken.

Lavender laughed softly and stood, “See you about Asher.”

“See you Lavender,” Asher replied. “Oh, and before I forget, who are you staying the summer with? Mum mentioned you wanted to spend it with friends this year?”

Lavender nearly choked on air, but she pulled herself together. Of course, mother would make it seem like staying away was her idea, and not something she’d been ordered to do.

“I’m not sure yet, probably a couple of different friends.”

“Nice, bye Lavender.” With that she was dismissed from her brother’s presence, and she headed back to Gryffindor table.

Parvati eyed her sympathetically, but didn’t say anything, clearly sensing how tense the whole encounter had been. She half-heartedly spread butter on some toast, feeling rather sorry for herself. Her parents had used to care for her, at least a bit. Now, however, they had their heir and soon they’d have a new little girl, and there was no space for Lavender anymore. Just like there had clearly been no space for her with her birth parents. What sort of purebloods gave up a child? Everyone knew purebloods were obsessed with their kids, Family, with a capital F, was important. Maybe they had died - it had been just after the war that the Brown’s had adopted her. Maybe they were Death Eaters, imprisoned and she would never see them even if they were alive. Maybe they just hadn’t wanted a girl, maybe they’d wanted the perfect heir, like how the Browns had always wanted Asher more.

The sea of faces in the Great Hall seemed to mock her. Hundreds of children who knew where they came from, whose parents wanted them.

Maybe, though, just maybe, her birth parents had wanted her.

The thought had used to creep in ever since she’d been told she was adopted. At six, her mother had sat her down at the dining room table and told her how she wasn’t really a Brown. How this meant she had to work harder to be worthy of the name. How her adoption hadn’t exactly gone through the proper channels, and she was never to tell anyone. Despite the fact that the woman who had given them Lavender had assured the Browns she was a pureblood, they couldn’t know her pedigree, so she would always have to make up for it. Then she had been given the bracelet she had worn since, charmed to hold tight to her skin. It changed her subtly, made her look more like a Brown. It was also indisputably dark magic and something else she could never tell anyone about. It hadn’t changed much, just lightened her dark curls into the dusty blonde of her mother, and her grey eyes to match her father’s blue. It had changed her face shape as well, but Lavender couldn’t remember what she had looked like before. All she remembered was the joy of looking more like her parents, and of being allowed to meet other children her age, now that she looked right.

Despite that joy of belonging, Lavender never quite gave up on the hope that her real parents loved her. The Browns always said that they didn’t, that they couldn’t, that Lavender was a very difficult child to love and no wonder she’d been given away. She didn’t quite believe them.

She remembered lying on her bed when she was younger, staring at the ceiling and imagining a woman with her curls, and a father with her eyes - her real eyes. Her mother would be beautiful, and she’d love Lavender’s father nearly as much as she loved Lavender. Maybe she would have Uncles and Aunts and Grandparents - an aunt with the same pale skin, and an uncle with the same dark hair. Importantly though, they’d all love her, and be very sorry for giving her away.

Ten-year-old Lavender liked to imagine that she’d been stolen away, that they had thought she was dead. That to find her alive would be such a wonderful gift that they wouldn’t mind that she wasn’t really that good at anything. Seventeen-year-old Lavender thought that her adoptive mother was a complete bitch to make her ten-year-old daughter think that she was fundamentally flawed.

Despite knowing it was stupid, that hope had never left her. Maybe it was time to find out for certain. There had to be a spell or a potion somewhere that showed you who your parents were. She’d never heard of one, but there had to be.

She resolved to look. It couldn’t do any harm. At worst, she’d know that her parents truly hadn’t wanted her, and she’d be able to move on.

A month later she was almost ready to admit defeat. She had spent so much time on her project even her grade in Divination had suffered. There just wasn’t anything. Or at least, there wasn’t anything that wasn’t in the restricted section.

That was a thought though… the restricted section might have something. Only, well, most of the stuff in the restricted section was quite dark.

She’d think about it if she really ran out of ideas.

The term continued to fly by. Time at Hogwarts always seemed to go far too fast. It was her home and she hated when the holidays came, but they were slowly but surely drawing ever closer. She was once more lying in her bed surrounded by books and parchment as she tried to work out how she could find her parents. If there was a way, it had been deeply buried - probably by purebloods who didn’t like the idea of people fishing about in their family history. If the reason she’d been finding it so hard to find a way was because there wasn’t a way - well then, she’d just have to invent something. How hard could it be?

It would certainly be easier if everyone just stopped bothering her. Hermione Granger, the bitch, was always watching her. She seemed to think that Lavender was after Ron and plotting some way to get him back. The girl was ridiculously territorial over a boy she wasn’t even dating. Besides, Lavender never wanted to see that awful boy again. She’d be quite happy if he just up and died.

Parvati was alright though. She let Lavender sit at her feet, head resting on Parvati’s legs while she read in the common room, and she didn’t mind that Lavender was often busy with her new project.

“Lav, won’t you brew me a batch of that moisturiser you use?” Parvati entreated, as they chilled in the dorm after a day of classes.

“Lavender doesn’t brew, do you?” Hermione cut in, incredulously. “If you are that’s really rather foolish you know! You don’t take Potions anymore, it’s probably not safe.”

“Oh, shut it Granger, I’m tired!” Moaned Morag who was trying to sleep (her bed was next to Hermione, and she’d been kept up all night by Hermione’s reading light.)

“I’m just trying to help,” Hermione continued, “cosmetics can be quite difficult to brew, it’s why cosmetics branches are always looking for talented potions masters, I actually did a bit of reading on it when-”

“I brew all my potions perfectly competently thanks Granger.” Lavender scowled. “It’s not that hard, I had to adjust a lot of them and everything, some of the recipes were just rubbish.”

“You’re dabbling in potions creation Lavender? That’s awesome!” Fay Dunbar asked, looking up from her homework.

“I guess?” Lavender replied. “I’ve been doing it for years. The original moisturiser was too greasy for my pores, so I had to do something seeing as my parents are super stingy with my allowance. Plus, my mother hates muggle makeup so I can’t even try that.”

“Are you sure you’re doing it right? That’s too advanced for you really Lavender, you barely scraped a Potions OWL!” Hermione butted in again.

“Oh get out Granger! Merlin knows why you’re bothering us when you’d rather be hanging off the Weasley idiot!” Parvati responded angrily, and Hermione stormed off in a huff.

“That is pretty advanced though Lavender,” Fay broke the silence when Hermione had left. “Do you reckon you could brew me something? There are never any cosmetic potions that actually look good with my skin tone.”

“Lav already brews mine!” Parvati replied proudly. “They all give you this horrible unnatural look, right? Unless I order mine from India which is wicked expensive.”

“Do you think you could?” Fay pleaded.

“Sure,” Lavender shrugged. “I’ll need a picture of your face probably to make sure I get the colour matches just right - I reckon everyone should personalise their cosmetics - have you seen how horrific Leanne’s make her acne look?”

“Oh Merlin, I thought I was the only one who’d noticed!” Parvati replied. “Goodness knows what she’s using!”

“That’s just it, I’d bet she’s using good stuff, it’s just not right for her face and is hiding and highlighting the wrong areas, as well as emphasising red tones for some weird reason. It’s one thing the muggles have got right - they use loads of different products, so the end result is more personalised. It’s called make-up, Sally-Anne showed me some.”

“Either way,” Parvati said solemnly, “I’m glad you take care of all my potions needs. Else, Lockhart forgive, I might end up looking worse than Leanne.”

The whole thing with the cosmetics potions did get Lavender thinking though - apparently she was quite good at potions. She’d never bothered in Snape’s class before, he never paid the girls any attention, let alone the Gryffindor girls, so she’d never really put in any effort. Practising in disused classrooms now though, she found that she was in fact really rather good, and not just at cosmetic potions.

It was fun too. She’d made a flawless hair removal potion that she’d carefully adjusted (after much trial and error) not to give off its distinctive smell. Then she’d used a switching spell to put it in Ron’s hot chocolate one evening. No-one had suspected her of course, and Ron had spent half an hour yelling at the twins, while half the common room fought hysteria at how ridiculous the hairless Weasley looked.

Her project though, that was the important thing. She’d found nothing, and her attempts at creating something were slow going. She was sure she would manage it, it's just that she needed those results now, and this potion would probably take years to get right - it was fighting her every step of the way.

So, she caved. Dark magic or not, she needed answers. Professor Trelawney was only too happy to write her favourite student a pass to the restricted section.

Chapter Text

Lavender skipped dinner for her first visit to the restricted section. It meant the library was completely empty, with not even Hermione Granger haunting the shelves, so no-one was there to pay any attention to what she was reading. This was certainly a good thing because what she was reading was managing to creep her out big time.

She hadn’t realised quite how much evil there was, how many horrific things that witches and wizards could do to each other. In class they’d never discussed curses that could peel back your skin strip by strip, or potions that could mangle your blood vessels, cutting off circulation to your legs, or to your brain. They didn’t delve into the potions that could curdle your blood, or mimic a perfectly natural heart attack (though she had no doubt Snape would have preferred to teach potions like that). And it was in potions, she was certain, that she would find the answer to her problem. From her experiments she was sure it was possible, it was just that she hadn’t had the patience, or the access to restricted ingredients, to experiment until she got it right.

Someone, at some point in time must have made this potion.

Now she just had to hope that they’d written it down.

The dinner hour came and went and Lavender hardly noticed the library coming to life with students once more. She curled up in the back of the restricted section, following trails of hints of similar potions and scouring the bibliographies of old books, to find the ancient books they were referencing.

She learnt far more than she wanted to know, even if much of it was fascinating. The illustrations in some of the tomes didn’t help either, especially the enchanted ones, the endless loops of a man writhing in agony distracting her from her reading.

Parvati dragged her out of the library at 11pm.

“I’ve been looking for you for hours, Lav!” She exclaimed as Lavender yawned. “Why were you in the restricted section, it was literally the last place I thought to look, what were you doing there?”

“I’m looking for something.”

“Yes, but what? What on earth could you need from the restricted section?” Parvati asked.

“It’s to do with divination and the vision I got,” Lavender mumbled.

“So you think the answer to the ‘good’ path you saw is immersing yourself in some of the darkest books Hogwarts has to offer?”

“Yes?” Lavender replied.

“Well, I certainly am glad I didn’t get a vision then. Sometimes I think seeing the future would be more of a curse than a blessing - that’s what Professor Trelawney says anyway. It’s a great burden upon her soul.”

“Perhaps this will be a great burden upon mine then,” Lavender replied, grinning lightly.

“Maybe, maybe you should just forget about it?” Parvati suggested timidly. “I feel like you’ve been really distracted, and well, miserable lately.”

“I have to know Parvati.”

“Know what?”

“I just have to do this okay! And then things can go back to normal.”

“Okay,” Parvati whispered as they made their way into their dorm.

“Okay.” Lavender replied.

Lavender returned to the library the next night, and the next night.

Then she spent the weekend buried in books until Madam Pince took her by the arm and pushed her out of the doors with a worried look late Sunday evening.

She came back Monday lunchtime. She was close, she knew it, it was just waiting for her, in the next book, on the next page.

It was three weeks before she found it.

She was nearly ready to give up on this angle, to beg one of the darker purebloods in their year for a favour to look in their family library or to try to make her own again. She could do it, she knew she could - she just couldn’t wait. She needed this and she needed it now.

She nearly missed it, standing on her toes to return a book she had been so sure would contain the answers she needed to its shelf. Nearly missed the sliver of parchment that drifted out, a handwritten note tucked inside the back cover. It spiralled to the floor.

Lavender nearly didn’t read it.

But she did.

It didn’t read like a traditional potions recipe, but more like a poem, or a story.

“For when you’re not certain if the child is yours” Spidery handwriting proclaimed.

It called for pickled slugs and half a squill bulb ground to a pulp. It required spider’s spinnerets, stargrass and streeler shells powdered with silk. However, it was the human liver, the fairy wings and the seven drops of unicorn blood that made her shudder and look over her shoulder as if someone else might see what she was reading, what she was contemplating doing.

She kept the parchment folded in the inside pocket of her robes all of the next week.

Nothing should be holding her back, she finally had her answers, within reach, so close she could reach out and touch the crumbling page whenever she needed reassurance.

A human liver was gross, but not necessarily morally wrong? Right? She was sure she could get one ethically sourced or something? Or the liver of a bad person.

Fairy wings - now they were ethically dubious. Not if you were the ministry though. They counted fairies as a magical creature, which made them okay to use.

Unicorn blood though.

She’d delved deep into darker witching lore these past weeks, and unicorn blood always came with copious warnings of a cursed life, of a half life.
She slipped into the potions classroom after a first year lesson had just finished, determined to check, to be sure.
“Professor Slughorn?” she asked, looking down, demure and innocent.

“Yes my dear? You’re not one of my students are you? Did you have a question about potions?”

“Oh, no, I'm a NEWT student, my name’s Lavender Brown but I don’t take potions. It’s just, well I have a question? I was doing some reading in the restricted section the other day, for divination you understand? And I saw some references to the use of unicorn blood. I was just wondering if you could clarify for me?”

“I’m not sure what you were reading Lavender, but that’s very dark stuff, very dark stuff, you’d be best to leave well alone!”

“It’s just I found a potion that didn’t mention any negative effects, despite using unicorn blood? It struck me as strange?” she asked, carefully hesitant.

“Well, I guess that is interesting, was the potion not one you ingested? It’s not something people have experimented with, for obvious reasons, but there was some talk of topical application having a different effect…” he tailed off.

“No, you didn’t have to drink it.” Lavender confirmed, “Does that mean you wouldn’t be cursed?”

“I’m not sure, it’s a dangerous substance unicorn blood, even a single drop can curse you to live a half life.”

“What about, seven drops?” Lavender asked, looking up at him imploringly.

“What did you say?” Slughorn froze.

“Seven drops? Seven being the most powerful magical number?”

“I’m sorry Miss Brown, but this theory is best left well alone.” Slughorn was alarmingly pale.

“Are you quite alright sir?” she asked, slightly worried. She didn’t want what she’d been asking about getting out.

“Yes my dear, just a lot of old memories, though I suppose I am an old man. For a second then you reminded me of a boy I knew long ago. But you are not so much alike. Perhaps it was your turn of phrase, or perhaps, as I say, I am just getting old.”

He ushered her out of the classroom, and Lavender had no doubt he was off to pour himself a stiff drink. Something she said had spooked him - she’d have to be more careful in future.

She OWL ordered some of the potions ingredients she needed. Others she stole from Hermione Granger’s potions kit and the final few she got off of Theodore Nott in exchange for the promise of a favour owed. She didn’t like having to be in the mean, spindly boy’s debt, but needs must, and her need was great.

She snuck away in the middle of the night to tend her potion - it took only a week to brew, but was highly complex. The most difficult potion she’d brewed so far.
It was also highly unstable, and she made sure to keep an air of quiet confidence whenever she entered the abandoned classroom she was brewing in. Some potions could sense your nerves and would react accordingly.

She had had to do so much warding research to keep her little classroom undisturbed from nosy first years. It was actually a really interesting subject and she’d spent the night curled under her covers reading about some more obscure warding techniques.

“Lav, I think you should see Madame Pomphrey, you’re not well.” Parvati snapped her out of her contemplation.

“I’m fine! Just drop it would you.” she mumbled, before realising she’d been halfway through pouring pumpkin juice onto her cereal and turning to grab an orange instead.

“You’re not fine, you’re quite literally wearing your pyjamas under your robe!”

“Huh, I forgot about that,” Lavender mused, yawning. She rubbed her eyes and gave her head a little shake as if trying to get rid of the cobwebs. “It’s nearly over Parvati, and then we can hang out more.”

“I love you Lav, but this isn’t almost over, and It’s not about wanting to hang out more! You’re obsessed, and everyone can see the dark magic sheen in your eyes, it’s a wonder none of the teachers have noticed.” she hissed under her breath.

“It’s a potion I’m brewing, once it’s done I’ll be fine, I’ll detox, whatever.” Lavender replied.

“What potion could give you eyes that glazed over Lavender? That’s something seriously dark! You’re lucky Professor McGonagal rarely pays attention to us or you’d have been caught long ago.”

“Can’t you just let me do this Parvati? Just this one thing for me?”

“Tell me what’s going on Lavender, and I promise I’ll help, I swear!”

“I can’t,” Lavender ran a hand through her hair. It got stuck halfway in the tangles she hadn’t bothered to brush out. She discarded her half eaten orange and turned to leave the Great Hall. Parvati was hot on her heels.

“No more excuses Lavender!” Parvati backed her into the doorway of an empty classroom. “Tell me what in Godric’s name is going on!”

“I… I’m just, Parvati I really shouldn’t say, I, it’s a family thing, well not really a family thing per say,” she broke off into giggles.

“Lavender…”

Lavender opened her mouth, and perhaps it would have all come spilling out, about how she wasn’t biologically a Brown, and she didn’t know who her parents were, and she just wanted to belong. About how she was so so scared of what that vision had shown - she couldn’t die like that, death was terrifying and suddenly so close, too close. About how she wanted the power that second Lavender had possessed. About how she had no idea how she really looked and she was too scared to take the bracelet off her wrist - the bracelet she’d worn since she was a tiny child that made her look like a Brown. How she didn’t even know what her real face looked like.

Instead Granger rounded the corner, shortly followed, as always by Harry Potter and his obnoxious Weasley.

Lavender shrunk back. She hadn’t realised she’d been leaning into the warmth of her friend’s body.
“It’s none of your business Parvati.”
She shouldered her way past the lot of them, stalking off towards the dorms, barely catching Weasley’s comment of “Blimey, wonder what’s gotten into her?” She made her way back to the dorms, only to find Fay Dunbar crying in her bed.

She left again. She didn’t have time to deal with her dormmates emotions, or any of their stupid emotions. There were children. Lavender was going to be a powerful witch of unrivalled power. Lavender was going to live, and they just weren’t important in the grand scheme of things. Not even Parvati.

Chapter Text

Lavender was starting to get used to forcing her body and brain through a school day with only a few hours sleep to keep her going. In fact, despite the sleep deprivation her grades had never looked better. All the research about wards to keep her little potions room safe had turned out to be applicable to Defence and Professor Snape had almost complimented her over her knowledge. She had even passed a Transfiguration test for the first time this year.
By the time May rolled around she was confident in her ability to actually pass all of the end of year exams. Who knew, she might actually do well in her final NEWTS next year!

More importantly, the potion was complete.

It had been simmering on a low heat for the last four days, because it lost its potency the second it cooled down. She just hadn’t worked up the courage to actually, well, use the potion.

She’d bought unicorn blood off of Theodore Nott for this. She had to use it. She wanted to.
She decided it was best left until the middle of the night. That felt like the proper time for secrets, and so she steeled her courage and crept to her brewing station after dark.

It was time.

She’d researched the potion endlessly, compared her notes to the recipe and researched ingredient interactions until she could recite obscure facts in her sleep. She knew exactly how the potion worked, exactly how it would syphon off a sliver, too small to be noticed, but a sliver nonetheless, of her magic. She would have to sacrifice the tiniest bit of her magic and let the potion consume it. Then, she would know for sure who her real parents were.
The corridors were as silent as a winter’s night deep in the forest. She crept along cautiously - it wouldn't do to get caught when she was so close to her goal. When she reached her hidden room, the potion was still bubbling quietly over her enchanted flame, small wisps of purple smoke rising off the cauldron every time a bubble popped. She gulped and steeled herself, muttering the extinguishing charm at her enchanted flames. The potion slowly started to cool. It was now or never.

Closing her eyes, she murmured the ancient Greek chant, over and over, while focusing on her magic. It was just like meditation really, and her and Parvati had been super into that for a while last year after Alicia Spinnet swore that meditating regularly had helped her to open her inner eye.

She felt herself slipping, as she gripped the silver knife she’d picked for this purpose. Her eyes screwed shut, she envisioned her magic, letting it form in her mind, a swirling mass of boundless colours. She sliced the air with the knife.

Dear Merlin, it hurt. Worse than anything she’d ever felt before. So much so that she couldn’t even scream, couldn’t even breathe or move. It throbbed through her entire body, a giant stab of pain. Then it was gone.

She crumpled to the floor, arms clutching her middle as she gasped for breath. Godric, that had been awful. The recipe hadn’t warned her that it would hurt like that. She had never felt hurt like that before. She opened her eyes, only just realising she’d had them screwed shut and staggered to her feet.
The potion had stopped simmering despite the fire heating it, and no more smoke rose from the cauldron. It was eerily still, mostly pale blue with swirls of what looked almost like black ink. Lavender extinguished the flames and then reached into the potion, stirring the freezing contents with her finger. Then she waited.
The contents swirled and swirled even after she’d withdrawn her finger, until spidery lines started to form. Intricate spider webs of connected black lines, and then letters, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Lavender watched in amazement. It was working, like actually working. Somehow she’d never quite imagined it would come to this, that it would actually work. A few more moments and she would know.

The potion settled. Lavender took a deep breath and leant over the edge of her cauldron. A family tree sat there, still on the surface of the potion. At the bottom was her name, Lavender Bellamira Brown, and above it she read the names of her parents. Lavender staggered back from the cauldron, knocking over the desk behind her as she lost her balance.

Her hands were shaking, she noticed abstractly. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. No, no, this was fine. She’d probably read it wrong, probably just the lack of sleep making her a bit delusional. She crept back to the cauldron, and Godric, she wasn’t wrong, she had read it right the first time.
She was overcome with the certainty that she was going to be sick.

Lavender ran from her potions room, shattering the wards quite by accident as she did so. She barely made it to the girls bathroom before she was rather violently sick.

Lavender wasn’t the only one out late at night. When she knocked over the desk, someone else who had been sneaking around the castle after hours heard, and decided to investigate.

It wasn’t, as might be expected, a teacher, Snape perhaps, out patrolling. Nor was it the renowned troublemaker Potter under his invisibility cloak. No, it was someone else.

Draco Malfoy had woken at midnight, with a start. Woken up with an awful feeling of having forgotten something important. This wasn’t anything unusual, since the Dark Lord had moved into the manor Draco had been wracked by nightmares and restlessness. He did what he always did. Dress, and head to the Room of Requirement. Any time not spent working on the cabinet was time wasted, and it wasn’t like he’d be able to get back to sleep.
So when Lavender knocked over the desk, Draco Malfoy went looking. He went looking and he found an unwarded room filled with the dusky taste of recent potions brewing and an unattended cauldron.

Draco crept towards the potion, unable to resist his curiosity. Who had been brewing in the middle of the night? And why had they left their potion here?
He peered into the cauldron cautiously, careful not to breath while he did so, in case of toxic fumes or any of the other potions horror stories Professor Snape enjoyed regaling his students with.

Inside was a family tree, ink glistening on liquid instead of parchment. Draco blinked in shock. Only one potion was said to give you your family tree, and it was lost to time. This was a lost potion. He peered closer, eager to see who might have brewed this piece of history.

The name at the bottom of the tree was Lavender Bellamira Brown. Draco nearly turned and left. Clearly this was some elaborate prank, Lavender Brown of all people wasn’t capable of brewing a potion rumoured to be more difficult than those required for a Potions Mastery. But he took another look, just in case. Perhaps someone else had brewed it for the vapid little girl?

That’s when he saw it.

Above Lavender’s name were not the names of her parents, and Draco knew the names of every member of the Brown family from the last four generations. Instead of Cedar William Brown and Claudette Ophelia Kasia Brown, there was the name Bellatrix Druella Lestrange in glittering black lettering. Her father was apparently a Tom Marvolo Riddle, but Draco didn’t recognise it so he clearly wasn’t anyone important - he’d been drilled in important people’s names and their families since he was five.

He checked again, and yes, above Aunt Bella were the names of her parents and then their parents and so on and so on getting smaller and smaller until he couldn’t read it. He didn’t pay any attention to the other side of the family tree. If he had, he would have noticed the Gaunt name emerge with one Marvolo Gaunt, Lavender’s great grandfather.

Instead, at the sound of footsteps returning, Draco was squeezing himself inside the empty storage cupboard at the back of the darkened room, peering through the almost closed door.

Lavender stumbled into the room. She had a frenzied brightness to her eyes, and for a moment Draco could see his Aunt Bella. But they looked nothing alike. Bellatrix would have mentioned if she’d had a baby, even if it had been a product of an affair. What was the truth here?

Draco watched as she vanished the potion, sinking down on the floor with her head in her hands. The moonlight lit her up eerily, but she looked less ethereal when you noticed the chunk of vomit tangled in her hair. Draco wrinkled his nose in distaste.

She seemed to be in a state of shock, unmoving on the floor, fiddling with a bracelet that sat tight around her wrist. She always wore it, and Draco assumed it was some sort of family heirloom.

There was silence for ages. It could have been hours honestly. Draco felt himself dozing off a number of times, but stopped himself just in time.
Then Lavender was clambering to her feet, wincing on sore legs with cramped muscles, and Draco breathed a sigh of relief. He could get out of here and forget this weirdness ever happened.

But Lavender wasn’t leaving. Instead she was transfiguring the blackboard into a large floor length mirror, and Draco was gaping in amazement because it was a flawless bit of transfiguration and as far as he knew Lavender was failing transfiguration.

Lavender looked at herself in the mirror. Fussing with her hair, fiddling with her robes, manipulating her face into portraying different emotions, happiness, excitement, gut-wrenching fear, mirth, annoyance, betrayal. She prodded the skin around her eyes, ran a finger along her teeth and spent a solid minute examining her fingernails.

Draco watched on in bemusement.

Then she reached for her wrist again, tugging at the silver bracelet that rested there. It was clearly meant to stay on, one of those bracelets that moulded to the shape of your wrist, with only a little give. But she tugged and pulled and squeezed her hand into an unnatural shape and it was popping off over her knuckles. Lavender rested it on a desk. Then she stared at herself in the mirror again.

For a second it looked as though nothing had changed. Then Lavender's face was shifting, her hair darkening to a deep rich brown so dark it was almost black. Her ringlets stayed, but became even more untamed, wilder, curlier. Her eyes went from that startling psycho blue, to grey. The same grey as Draco’s eyes. She has Bella’s eyes, Draco thought hysterically.

Lavender was staring at herself in shock, at the changes in her body (she was taller, and her shoulders were definitely pointier) and the much more stark changes in her face. She stared at her hands, as though even her fingers were different. Draco couldn’t see from where he was, but maybe they were different. Maybe she had the long spindly fingers of Aunt Bella, with long strong nails built for ripping into flesh.

Lavender took one last look at her face in the mirror, the damning evidence that she was indeed Bellatrix Lestrange’s daughter. The daughter of a death eater; a murderer; a torturer. A woman who was by all accounts, completely insane. Then she was grabbing the bracelet, forcing it back onto her wrist, grabbing her now empty cauldron and running from the room for the second time that night.

It was five am by the time she curled up in her bed in Gryffindor tower, still shaking with the taste of sick on her tongue. She didn’t get any sleep that night.