silly: in defense of parvati patil (in memory of lavender brown)
The students of Dumbledore’s Army had many badges. A gold coin that called them first to lessons and then to war. Scar tissue that ran across the back of many of their hands. I must not tell lies.
Another: the sound of clacking footsteps on stone sent each and every one of them scattering, even years after. The only people bold enough to walk loudly were not safe.
Parvati went out on the anniversary of not the battle but the day she left Gryffindor Tower for the DA and the Room of Requirement. She bought a pair of heels, their red as loud as the sound they made on hard floors.
Dennis Creevey sent her Muggle sneakers for Christmas and she wore those when she needed to be stealthy (scuffed purple and white peeking out from beneath her robes) but she wore the heels on office days, interrogations, on nights out, because she wanted to be unafraid, because she wanted to be the scariest thing in the room.
Every member of the DA was offered a spot in the Aurors. They considered that last year of occupation to be a sufficient resume. After two weeks of living quietly at home, in peacetime, jumping at noises her parents didn’t even hear, Parvati Patil signed up for basic training with the Aurors.
They taught her charms and curses she had learned from the other end of crueler teachers’ wands. After a seminar on resisting torture, Parvati went up to teacher (a jovial, jowly little man) and handed him the seminar handout she’d been given. She’d scrawled it over with notes and corrections, with advice and torture techniques they hadn’t covered.
Parvati smiled at him, knowing his eyes were seizing over her fine cheekbones, her pretty eyes, her lovely cursive, and then she went and locked herself in a broomcloset and tried to decide if she wanted to laugh or cry. Either way, she wanted to do it so hard that she couldn’t breathe.