Lavender woke up with a start, heart thumping at a fast-as-a-marathon speed. Her mouth was shaped in an ‘o’ formation, and she was under the impression that she had been about to scream.
It was the same dream she had been having the past several days.
Scratch that. She’d been dreaming this dream ever since it all happened, when they were all still back at Hogwarts.
Lavender didn’t think it was important to remember. In fact, she didn’t want to remember. She forced the thoughts out of her mind, to never think of it again, but the problem was, it never really left her mind. It stayed there, piled up underneath other things to keep her busy. Lavender dreamed of Greyback, of waking up in the Hospital Wing, petrified that she wouldn’t be okay. She dreamed of Seamus, dying on the floor instead of being perfectly fine, except for a few scrapes and bruises.
This particular night, it was a Seamus dream. And she was absolutely sure that a little frightened noise had escaped her lips this time when she woke up.
Lavender felt the tears quickly escape her eyelids before she could even stop them, and they wouldn’t cease as she constantly bid them away.
After a few minutes, she heard the heavy snores from the next room start up again, knowing that he probably heard her, that he knew what was happening. It wasn’t like it was unusual for her to have dreams like this, or even react to them like this.
But Lavender didn’t want to be alone anymore. In just her tank top and shorts, she padded over to Seamus’s room across the hallway, sniffling and wiping away the saltwater that covered her cheeks, but it just wouldn’t stop.
Pushing open the door to his room, she noticed the snores were louder than ever. She didn’t want to wake him, but at the same time, she needed him. So she lifted up the covers from his bed and slipped in next to him, resting her head in the crook of his neck.
Lavender heard the snores stop, a confused, almost annoyed little noise coming from somewhere over her head, and then arms encircling her. That alone sent a fresh stream of tears through Lavender, and she realized how grateful she was just to have him there because she wouldn’t know what to do without him.
She felt his tired, soft lips against her ear as he shushed her sobs and hugged her tighter. Lavender felt safe this close to him, and as she sniffled into his collarbone, she pressed her lips to it, whispering quiet as she could, “I love you.” They were the truest words she had told him since she had first started living with him.
The next morning, she woke up with her head buried in his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around her. She didn’t mind it until he started to stir, at which she hurried out of the room and into the kitchen to fix her belongings and Apparate to work. Lavender never did like mornings after.