Who: Parvati & Padma When: evening, 1 December Where: Great Hall Rating: G What: sisterliness, bickering and not so much bickering
Shaking her head in disgust, Padma snapped her journal shut. She tired of the petulant ramblings of her fellow students and the equally ridiculous bickering of their bodily, if not mentally, mature lookers on. She helped herself to some cake and a fresh glass of pumpkin juice, wishing she had thought to bring more than her journal with her to a late dinner.
Mumbling something to Dean over an enchanted pair of knitting needles, Parvati let out a trill peal of laughter. If anyone knew the Gryffindor, they would know that the gesture was less than genuine. A worried look appeared in the girl's eyes that very few could recognize. Her needles continued their knitting as she finished her second helping of cream cakes.
The laugh rang clearly across the Great Hall, and Padma perked at the sound. It would be good to speak with Parvati, perhaps. Levity she could not ensure for herself was better found in the company of her sister, and in so thinking, she rose and moved to the Gryffindor table, pumpkin juice in hand.
Parvati saw the Ravenclaw making her way towards her table and her needles dropped. Her sugary smile firmly in place as not to upset her stoic sister. "Padma!" she called to her and shooed one of the Creavy's who was sitting across from her so that her sister could have a seat.
Settling across from her sister, Padma took a sip of her juice before taking her wand from her pocket and urging the needles to return to their work. The delicate sound they made as yarn was wrapped and weaved was somehow soothing, though a glance to Parvati's face confirmed that she did not feel the same. "You're giving me that smile, you know. The false one."
She looked up at her sister, surprised she knew how to knit and dropped the phoney smile. "I know...it's become habit." she paused for a moment to refill her and Padma's pumpkin juice.
"And a difficult one to abandon, I'd think." She motioned with her wand again when Parvati's knitting became tangled after her own intervention, and smiled weakly. "A single lesson from Hannah Abbott appears not to make one the professional, though I suspect the fault lies with me." She turned her filled glass in her hands. "Is there more to worry over that I am not already privy to?"
With a flick of her wrist, Parvati undid the last few stitches and started up the rhythmic and soft clicking of her needles again. "I worry for everyone Padma...it's my life's work, second only to divination."
Padma's glass stilled in her hands. "Someone must, I suppose, though I would suggest you are merely ill occupied. No mad flirtations to engage your attentions?"
"Even those end me up worrying...Poor Wood." She whispered so only her sister could hear.
Brow furrowed, as she had not followed the plight of the young man in more than a peripheral sense, Padma leaned nearer her sister. "Surely he is not so riled by idle insults?"
Parvati chuckled. "No, of course not. I don't think I had ever read the word 'bint' so many times. But think about it...Quidditch is his life."
Not a trace of pity was to be found in Padma's face, her mouth curled not in cruelty, but skepticism. "A sorry thing to have a life of but one pursuit. It would do him well, I think, to consider the many facets of his life, if he is as devoted as you believe him to be."
"But Padma...what if you were stricken blind, and unable to read? Would that not in some way shake your foundations?"
Padma considered thoughtfully. "I would yet be able to write, and to take tea in the garden and listen to the soft and slow sounds of the summer months, and choose my company, and to feel through the old dances." Her face was very still. "He shall recover despite, and like to be the stronger player for it."
She nodded, appreciative that her sister saw her point. "But though you realized those other things still existed, at first, you would be wary and discouraged, right?"
Padma cocked her head to one side, looking over the knitting at her sister. "What are you saying, Parvati? That this boy should fret, and you should fret, too, for such simple woes? The world is a terrible place, filled with far more daunting horrors than a Quidditch injury." She was sorry, immediately, for having spoken so harshly, but held her tongue in stubborn regret.
The knitting needles stopped and clattered to the table as Parvati just looked at her sister, attempting to mask the shock that would sure turn Padma to calling her 'melodramatic' again. "Godric, Padma...when did you become such a ball of sunshine?" She said flatly. "He's my friend. I am trying to support him through a bit of a rough patch is all. And yes, I'm worried about things that I'm not allowed to speak openly on...but if you'd prefer I can paste my smile back on and I can talk about snogging and pink frilly quills."
Sighing, Padma cast an arm across the table and guided her sister's hand to the wand abandoned on the tabletop, holding her fingers a moment. "You do a good thing, Parvati, and I am wrong to be so hasty. I would not upset you." She attempted a smile of her own, genuine, if reserved. "Nor would I want in any way to encourage you to speak of snogging or, forbid it, pink."
Damn her, she thought as an equally genuine smile pierced through her anger. "Well then I should return your Yule gifts, each and every last pygmy puff." She watched her sister with an amused smile spreading over her face and a playful glint in her eyes.
It was not possible for her to conceal her look of horror at the mention of the creatures. She'd be more like to smash one in a book out of forgetfulness than feed the wretched thing. "I may need a moment, Parvati, to consider a slander potent enough to ensure that you do."
Parvati giggled happily as things seemed to have righted themselves again. "Seriously, Padma, what is happening in your world?"
"Do we not share the same world?"
Parvati looked from her knitting, now folding itself up neatly, to Padma's precious journal. "I dare say our worlds are a little different."
A soft smile could not be kept from Padma's face, thinking of the reclusive hours she'd spent the day previous in Blaise's company. "O, marginally."
One eyebrow raised inquisitively at her sister's mysterious smile. "Is writing that much fun, Padma?"
Raising her glass, Padma finished the juice before pushing it aside and resting her hands against the tabletop. Her smile broadened, eyes impassive. "Is Divination so very thrilling, Parvati?"
A spark lit the Gryffindor's eyes.
"Oh....it is when you find the right subject." She responded with a hint of subtext a bit more subtle than the twin had been known for.
Shaking her head, Padma laughed. "Your admirers are many, I wonder you have the time for Divination at all." She avoided entirely Parvati's insinuation, unwilling to be subjected to the conquests of her sister or to be forced to share her own.
"Bah...I haven't snogged anyone since last year...it's scandalous! But...I guess that can't be said for us both." A challenge raised playfully in her tone, but she instead backed down and used the locomotor charm to flit the knitting into her bag.
"You are little interested in my activities, I assure you." Padma rose from the table, smiling benevolently at several of the younger years. "You'd do better to read one of your Lovewicke's, though I loathe them, than allow me to bore you."
Parvati stood up and quickly gathered her things as she moved towards her sister. "Oh come on..." she whispered quietly, an air of mystery to her tone. "You know you want to tell someone!"
They exited the Great Hall, pressed together in the crowd, each girl smiling and rendering it momentarily difficult to discern their individuality. "I shall take my trysts to the grave," Padma said seriously, though her lips curled yet in amusement. "And you would do well to learn a little discretion."
"Discretion? With what do I need to be discreet?" Parvati responded with confusion.
Padma laughed, low and indulgent, before kissing her sister on the cheek and taking her turn at the top of the stairs. "If you haven't yet learned, you never will."