Lavender Brown - When the Wind Blows

Lavender Brown


Full Name	Lavender Marie Brown
Avatar	Melissa George
Sex	Female
Birthdate	November 15, 1979
Blood Status	Half-blood
Occupation	Seeker
Wand	TBD
Alumni	Gryffindor
Affiliation	York
Player	Deb
Journal	princessorbeast

Every girl wants to be a princess;
Someone has to become the beast.

Table of Contents

Home Life

Mother: Sophie (nee Nott) Brown [pureblood]

Father: Samuel Brown [muggleborn]

Siblings: Connor (b. 1971), Liam (b. 1966), Nigel (b. 1962), Edward (b. 1958)

Relationships with each: Lavender never quite knew what to do with the oldest of her siblings. Edward was already an adult and on his own way to marriage before she was born, leaving her with a chance for nieces and nephews not much younger than herself. But she was adored and spoiled by her brothers, especially by Connor and Liam who treated as something like a small doll when they were home from Hogwarts. After Hogwarts she became closest to Connor when she started working with him, but the Browns as a whole were a strong family-oriented family.

Lavender is currently upset and worried about her family and extended family as she has only found (well, been found by) Connor.

Home: York, currently with her brother Connor

Finances: minimal

Personal Life

Personality:

Marital status: Single

Strengths:
- werewolf, which makes her stronger, faster, agile, good senses (it permeates her life)
- born to Divination, and has a special affinity for her cards
- brilliant fashion sense

Weaknesses:
- because the wolf is so ascendant, her moods flicker in and out of control
- bright and shiny, fast and hard temper
- can't resist pretty shiny things, even if they are utterly impractical
- must transform into wolf form for the three days of the full moon
- cannot transform (at this point) at will (although I'd like her to someday)

Quirks/Habits:
- eats only raw or barely seared meat
- still loves vegetables, but can't eat them which bums her out
- eats chocolate despite it making her sick as a, er, dog
- bites her nails, twirls her hair around one fingertip
- reads the cards for comfort, but never about herself
- will always offer to read cards for others, and will often read them ANYWAY (snooping, so to speak)
- insatiably curious

Boggart: full moon

Patronus: gazelle

Mirror of Erised:

Amortentia Potion:

Fears/Philias:
- loves her family and friends, almost to an obsessive point
- afraid of (and furious with) the cycles of the moon
- adores children and animals (the animals can't stand her anymore, except for dogs)
- loathes spiders, kills them upon sight

Aesthetics

Appearance:
Lavender isn't as pale as you might expect. Her skin has a warm tone to it, tanning in the summer. Her eyes, once a pale blueish purple, are unexpectedly warm amber brown now. But after that, her appearance is as mutable as her moods. When she's fully herself, she almost looks like the girl who went into that last year at Hogwarts: hair curled, lips painted just so, carriage perfect, clothes arranged as if they came from the most expensive boutiques. When she starts working, however, the wolf slips into her and her eyes darken, hair darkens. Her stance shifts, loose-limbed and predatory, moving with animal grace. Nostrils flare, always taking in the scent of the world around her, ears pricked for strange sounds. Every sense is heightened and she moves in expectation of that onslaught.

Temper shifts her even further towards wolf, hair rich and dark and thick, eyes pure amber. Soft snarls, bared teeth, hands extended, waiting to change. Low stance, ready to pounce, more wolf than human despite the thin reign she holds on herself.

And she is also everything in between those stages, changing as fluidly as her moods shift, sometimes within the space of minutes.

Lavender has a thick scar sliding over her left cheek, down her neck, just missing the vein that would have caused her to bleed out too quickly to be saved. It rakes across her collarbone, two more thick scrapes joining it there before ending just over her heart. It is somewhat hidden by the fall of her hair, but when she tilts her head it becomes obvious, thick and silvery white against her skin. It is this scar which, in her opinion, changed her life the most after school. Not because it nearly killed her (the gut wounds did far more damage) but because it is visible. There is nothing she can do to hide it, and it changed her from Princess to Beast as much as becoming a werewolf did. She couldn't pursue the jobs she had hoped to (purchasing for a high end wizarding fashion boutique for one) because no one wanted to trust a scarred woman the way they would a beautiful woman in that particular position.

But the other scars are far worse. During the battle of Hogwarts, Lavender suffered multiple critical wounds. First was a slice across her right thigh, which is the one that sent her over the balcony when she tried to get away so it wouldn't kill her. The fall left her stunned, ribs broken and her hip damaged from the impact. Then Greyback pounced on her. He began with the gut, a quick claw to immobilize her from the pain and damage, then he drew the line down her face. He was in the process of gutting her when Hermione threw the curse that pushed him away and saved Lavender's life. No matter what work was done in St. Mungo's in the process of putting Lavender back together, they could not remove the cursed scars, leaving the one across her hip and a mass of silvery scars across her belly. Lavender is no longer proud of her body the way she used to be and is always careful to keep her belly and thighs covered.

She occasionally walks with a limp, and it is easy for her to reinjure that hip.

Height: 5' 7"

Weight: just right, thank you

Hair: blonde to brown, depending upon her mood

Eyes: pale brownish amber (used to be bluish purple)

Style of dress: Comfortable, as stylish as can be managed in this broken world. But suitable for the work she does now, practical. She loves to dress up when she can.

History

Lavender Marie Brown was born on November 15, 1979, the youngest child of Sophie and Samuel Brown. Sophie, a pureblood witch, had married Samuel young, and had quickly produced four strapping sons for him. But try as she might, she hadn't managed to bear the daughter she wanted. A trip to a seer had left her with a date, and Sophie insisted that since the seer had said if she were to conceive a daughter, they had to try then. But by this time, the four sons were already near grown, and Samuel wasn't sure he wanted to start all over again. When Sophie pleaded, he finally relented, and Lavender was born.

She grew up essentially an only child. Her youngest brother, Connor, was eight when she was born, Liam was thirteen, Nigel seventeen, and Edward already twenty-one. When Connor went off to Hogwarts, Lavender was home alone to be spoiled for the next eight years. She was her Daddy's darling Princess, a name her brother's quickly adopted as sometimes fond, sometimes derisive, but she was always very much <i>theirs</i>. By the time she went away to Hogwarts herself, Lavender was thoroughly girly, and immersed in her dream to grow up to become the Princess in actuality, not just name.

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But she wasn't as useless as she sometimes appeared, and she wasn't sorted into Gryffindor for nothing. Her brothers had been Hufflepuffs before her, but Lavender was not only full of the same loyalty, she also had heart. A big heart, generally used for saving animals and bringing them home to nurse them back to health as a small child, but also with her family and with her friends. One thing growing up in a household where rough and tumble fights were common when her brothers were actually around had taught her was to never show fear, and to face everything head on. Even if it meant you ended up face down in the sand on Brighton's beach, where her father maintained a small hotel with her mum.

When the war first started slowly trickling into the lives of the children of Hogwarts, Lavender was oblivious. All she knew was that the Yule Ball was one of the best things to ever happen (and she, at that time, thoroughly adored her date Seamus Finnigan). However, when she could no longer ignore it, she was very firm in her beliefs. She trusted Harry Potter. Her loyalties fell with him, which made for a falling out in the beginning of fifth year with her friend Seamus. When the DA was conceived she joined wholeheartedly. She wasn't going to go unprotected simply because someone with horrid fashion sense (really, WHO told that woman to wear so much PINK?) had decreed children shouldn't learn to protect themselves? When it was obvious, in every way, that they HAD to learn.

Of course, Lavender WAS still a girl as much as she was a nascent freedom fighter, and her affections turned to Ron Weasley for a time. He was the first boy she ever thought she really loved, and she did just about everything wrong in her attempts to tell him so. The problem was, she was a princess looking for a prince… and Ron never really was meant to be a prince. No matter how many times Lavender kissed the frog, he didn't change, something she found incredibly depressing when all was said and done.

But there was no time to be depressed, as seventh year was a shocking whirl of fear and activity, fighting back against an administration that threatened to destroy them. Lavender fought with the rest of the DA (and was pleased to point out that the Room of Requirements provided bathrooms once people who actually CARED (ie, the GIRLS) started hiding there). When given the option to leave or to stay and fight in the final battle, Lavender never thought twice and she stayed. And it was this decision that changed her life.

During the course of the battle, Lavender was cursed, fell off a balcony, and was mauled for Greyback and left for dead (see details above under personal appearance while describing her scarring). She awoke several days later in St. Mungo's, disoriented and uncertain what exactly had happened. The last thing she remembered was agreeing to stay and fight, but nothing of the fight remained. Her head ached, her entire body hurt, and she was in the midst of massive healing that left her weak and sleeping more often than not.

It took a week before anyone told her about Greyback, and that only after she woke screaming from a nightmare remembering that slow draw of a claw down her cheek. They were blunt, telling her that she was likely to transform. And that as injured as she had been, she might be lucky to survive the process. She was locked in the room when the first time came, a dose of Wolfsbane having been hastily swallowed, and she endured the pain stubbornly refusing to let this THING win.

This began a cycle of a strange time for Lavender. A time out of time, almost, with her steadfastly believing that she COULD be normal again. She studied so she could sit for her NEWTS in May of 1999 (receiving excellent marks in Divination and DADA, passing mark for Charms, and failing her Creatures exam due to her new nature interfering). She loved seeing visitors, as long as it wasn't anytime near her time of the month. Among those visitors was old friend Seamus, and a new friend, Bill Weasley, after she wrote to him.

She had realized when she awoke that she was without resources. The one werewolf she knew was Remus Lupin, and they had already told her he died in the final battle. In asking for help, for an expert of some kind, someone mentioned that Bill had been bitten by Greyback in the first battle of Hogwarts, and Lavender wrote to him. They struck up a conversation via owl first, and eventually met. Lavender recognized Greyback's scent in Bill and found something in his presence calming. He smelled like Pack and he was human. It gave her hope she could regain her humanity as well.

After a hard year fought in monthly increments, Lavender stopped watching the permanent spell damage ward in fear and for the first time, walked back out of St. Mungo's with a (mostly) clean bill of health. She was registered as a werewolf, and restricted from doing certain jobs (DMLE, teaching, anything which brought her into close physical contact with other people). She also found that no one wanted to hire a buyer or a fashion maven who was scarred, and no one trusted a fortune teller who couldn't predict her own attack. Finally free, Lavender had no idea what to do with herself, and no idea where to go.

She fell back on her family at this point. Edward, working with dragons, invited her to the preserve only to prove that dragons were as irritated by werewolves as most creatures, and that wouldn't be a career path for Lavender either (despite her natural love for creatures). Nigel and Liam both worked for the Ministry, with political aspirations, and Lavender found that environment cloying. The hotel was still a place a comfort for her, but enough rumors spread about how she came to have her visible scarring that she was unable to stay there lest her parents lose business.

In the end, it was her youngest brother Connor who rescued her with the suggestion that she join him working as a private investigator of magical issues. At first, Lavender was dubious. It seemed annoyingly physical — she might break a nail! And she was surprised to discover that she actually liked the business. The physical side appealed to her inner wolf, and one week out of the month she made a brilliant bad cop (the rest of the time she played the sweet and innocent one). Thanks to heightened senses, and her gifts with her Cards, Lavender turned out to be particular good at missings persons cases, tracking down lost loved ones, long lost family and friends, and runaways to reunite them. She termed her job a Seeker, and took pride in it.

And her life settled down. From the summer of 1999 into the summer of 2007, she found a pattern to her life. She did her job, and when she wasn't working (and wasn't a wolf), she enjoyed the life of the Princess (sort of) she had always wanted to be. She shopped, buying shoes and clothes, and she had a good time going out and dancing and having fun. She didn't settle down, mostly because she didn't think anyone would want to settle down with her. And she didn't indulge in the liasons offered, because she didn't want to trust anyone enough to see what Greyback had done to her. And she didn't want to explain what she was, what the risks were inherent in having sex with a werewolf. It was, perhaps, lonely at times, but she made do, because this was the life she had. And she still had friends and family and if three days out of the month she had to spend the night on four legs not eating people? She could do that.

Then came the summer of Rage. Lavender cried when she heard what had happened to Harry, Hermione and Ron. Not wanting to become involved in politics that threatened her life (because yeah, the Muggles were going to love a pretty blonde werewolf) she threw herself into her work.

She was near Brighton in August, when Hogwarts was destroyed, on an assignment. She had just found a runaway teenager and decided to skip stopping in to see her parents (something she now regrets bitterly) in order to deliver the girl back north as quickly as possible. The last thing she remembers was being on a train to the north and suddenly realizing something was… wrong. Very, very wrong.

Lavender woke tied to a bed, naked and shivering, a blanket thrown over her for decency as her brother Connor sat watching her worriedly. It was January of 2009 and she had lost more than a year of her life.

She learned that the Brown family had been separated by the spreading Wild Magic after Hogwarts was destroyed. Connor filled her in on what he understood, and that he had made himself a home base in York a year before. He had been looking for their family since. Edward was assumed to be still on the preserve with his wife, but it was unreachable. Nigel and Liam had been in London when it was destroyed, and no one Connor had found had found them yet. Their families were not home when he went there, with no evidence where they had gone. And he had been unable to reach Brighton to seek their parents.

But he had found Lavender, recognizing his sister's wolven form, and had fed her most of what little wolfsbane he had left from her old stock until she had returned to humanity, and even then it had taken days for her to come truly back to sanity.

Lavender was shocked by the recitation. Horrified by the missing time, by the fact that when the Wild Magic had rolled over her train it had somehow decided the wolf was her true nature and left her as such. Something she remembered almost nothing of now that she was human again.

Shakily, Lavender started to rebuild. She had nothing, save the deck of cards Connor had found while searching for her, and a few doses of wolfsbane. She quickly discovered that she had changed, that the wolf was more a part of her than ever. Her temper is a hair trigger now, and her moods and appearance shift fluidly, depending on how close the wolf is to the surface. She is struggling to understand herself all over again, and this time she has no anchors: no shopping, no silly princess life to distract her. The world isn't the one she left, and she doesn't quite yet know how she fits in.

She spent two months working this out on her own before she dared join Connor in York in April, at least mostly sure she had enough control when she changed that she wouldn't kill anyone. And still, she came in warily, uncertain how a werewolf would be accepted and yet, unable to hide her own nature.

Lavender seeks her Pack in life. She has two Packs as far as she is concerned. There is family and friends, people like Connor and Seamus, who are important to her but are purely human. Then there is Pack, the ethereal scent that identifies other werewolves to her, especially those of Greyback's lineage. She finds that scent something that draws her to a werewolf and at the same time, she shies away because she is NOT LIKE THEM and she won't let herself be. But it is that sense of Pack that ties her to Bill because he has the same descent as herself, even if he doesn't change.