As Lavender Brown's body lay amongst the ruins of what was once her home, she watched a family grieve the loss of one of their own, wondering why fate had so cruelly dealt them such cards. From a young age, all she wanted was to love and be loved in...
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»»» LAVENDER grabbed the paper from him, finger pressed against the date as if to check it were real. It remained the same. Heart pounded in her chest as she swallowed the rising sense of nausea. Even though she had heard the theory from Neville before, it was one thing talking about the possibility, another entirely for it to just occur.
"Come on," Fred muttered in a low voice. She tore her eyes away from the paper, recognising the signs to suggest he was on edge. His gaze kept shifting from the empty street to behind them, hand tightly balled into a fist. "We need to leave," he nodded towards the other end of the street, somewhere far more secluded and out of the open. For one thing, they were directly under a collection of lamp posts that were acting as a beacon, shouting their position for all to see. And whilst in most cases, neither of them had a particular problem with that, the timing of their arrival suggested they needed to be more covert.
Lavender stood up and brushed down her trousers. Silently she followed him, taking care not to create any more footsteps than necessary.
"So - time travel?" Fred said when they reached the entrance of a small alleyway. Lavender grazed her teeth over her bottom lip, running her tongue over it and shook her head.
"It can't be. It's impossible."
"Well, strictly speaking," Fred said clearing his throat. "It's possible. Hermione had a time turner in her third year. I think it was so that she could take extra lessons or something ridiculous like that," he explained when she arched an eyebrow.
"I always wondered how she did that," Lavender said pursing her lips. "But that's beside the point. She was moving back an hour probably, at the most, two. We're talking about a year here. Into the future. More than that. It's basically almost Christmas," she said, shaking her head again.
Fred folded his arms. "Do you have any other ideas then?"
"I- I- it's not possible," she replied hastily. Fred regarded her, before giving a sympathetic smile.
"Lav, we're echoes of our selves. Is time travel really the craziest thing to have happened today?" He said in a gentle tone. Lavender inhaled deeply and shut her eyes tightly. Tilting her face upwards, she reflected on everything they had gone through since bumping into one another. Adding in a time hop wasn't out of the realm of possibility, especially since Neville had mentioned he had met them previously. But she couldn't shake the unsettling feeling it gave her.
Tapping her fingers against the side of her leg, she opened her eyes and blew out a misty cloud.
"I guess not," she reluctantly agreed. A cold shiver ran down her spine as she returned the smile from a slightly more pink Fred. The spell for a shield of warmth came easily to her and she concentrated on the incantation, silently repeating it until she was confident that it had worked.
"What did you do differently?" Fred asked, a line of worry decorating his forehead.
"I was thinking about the time I came here with Pav," she said, cheeks warming under the look she received. "It wasn't anything like that - I was actually remembering how it was the first time I really noticed you-know," she tried to explain.
