Pairing: Padma/Parvati.

Rating: PG-13.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Characters owned by J.K. Rowling.

Summary: Written for Rescribo, a remixed version of 'Only' by KatieBec.

Padma can remember being five years old and pulling out blue-and-white barrettes from Parvati's hair. Tangles of hair came with them as well, curling between the silver clip and the plastic. Parvati burst into tears and Padma was punished, though she didn't let go of the barrette, shoving it in her pocket like an absurd trophy. When she had to sit up in her room all evening as punishment, she took it out and pressed at the edges until it split into two. Unequal halves, ends glittering and imperfect, jaggedly breaking the clean line of smooth plastic.

Of course, the next day their parents buy her a new set, and she's preening all over again.

-

The bed is strewn with glossy knick-knacks: a bright magazine with a picture of an overly cute wizard splashed over the cover, a string of iridescent faux pearls that look like plastic, a long red velvety ribbon shot through with sequins, a wetly glittering tube strawberry lip-gel. Padma feels out of place and monochrome, and wishes for the hundredth (seventh) time that she didn't have to share a room with her twin sister. Wearing plain black as protest, she curls up on the overstuffed couch with a copy of Ars Alchemia.

Parvati wrinkles her nose at the musty odour trapped within its pages and tries to cast a Sweet Scent Spell on the book. Padma stops short of replying with a Jelly-Legs jinx. Instead, she hurls the book at her. It misses and does more damage to itself than its intended victim by crashing into the wall, but Parvati stalks out in a huff anyway.

-

When Padma returns the book that September, the librarian makes remarks on its slightly worn state. She doesn't deign to respond. Instead, she draws herself up ever so slightly and pretends to be a character from one of the plays she's been reading over the summer. Queens and kings, courtly love and poetry dripping from actor's lips. The classics: where stories are all farcical or tragic, or both, and characters spit fire, cry like rivers, scream like banshees, have gazes of ice, are trapped in cliché- but of course, that's less visible.

Lady Macbeth: berating her husband for his unmanliness. Tybalt: grinding his heel into Benvolio's face.

"as I hate hell, all Montagues and thee"

Shakespeare makes her feel intelligent. Iambic pentameter has a weight in her mouth as she declaims lines aloud. In bed, late at night when she knows everyone is asleep.

"full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing"

-

Padma's mouth is empty now, as she sleeps, and dry. Her tongue lies thick against her teeth, pushing against the white backs of them in a stifled moan. Her hands are twisting, brown and gold against white sheets, and when she wakes there's only fear in her eyes. She can't remember any Shakespeare until she reaches for the glass of water on the nightstand and swallows it all. Crawling back under the covers she whispers, "Signifying nothing," to herself, and hopes that it's true.

-

In the morning, Padma drinks her pumpkin juice down in one long, thirsty gulp. It's slightly warm because she didn't stop to cast a chilling charm-- and it leaves a trail down her chin. She places a finger to it and feels the stickiness on her flesh, and it sends a shiver deep into the pit of her stomach. One of her friends asks her if she's alright and Padma gives her a proper, curving, convincing smile and a shrug, while quoting Eliot in her head:

to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet

-

Entering the library after that is almost difficult, and Padma wishes she didn't have to but knows that isn't going to help. She runs her finger down the ancient spine of one book and turns to the back. She can almost feel the push-and-squeeze of blood in her chest, and then there it is, in black ink against yellowing paper. Almost more real than she is.

Twins, Identical

wizard 223-225, 242
witch 225-227

Neatly catalogued and presented, like the notes Professor Vector dictates in Arithmancy. Only this is very different.

Somewhere between page 179 and page 225, Padma loses her nerve. She rushes out of the library without even putting the book back on its shelf.

-

Padma sleeps that night with poetry on her tongue like a protective charm, an obeah chant that will guard her with black rooster feathers and the smell of crushed frangipani. But she dreams anyway.

The same one repeated.

Identical. (Ironical.)

First the steady, tree-leaf rustle of pages turning and whispering about them around them, and words drifting up in smoky, seductive curls, forming sentences that Padma doesn't want to see. Wizard twins and more...much more.

Oh yes, you know, that vindictive part of her brain that delights in words like slicing sarcasm suffering says. She knows with Ravenclaw certainty.

In the dream it's a sense of jagged plastic edges and then sliding together, breaks and grooves aligning until there's no line between them. Padma reaches down and her fingers are slick and covered with a stain that's as red as the plush velvet curtains that are too theatrical for real life, as red as the flash of throat that's visible as Parvati opens her mouth and moans.

the blood flood is the flood of love the absolute sacrifice

But she doesn't recite Plath out loud because speaking would break it. It's always that last whisperscream that tears the dream and pushes Padma, covered in red and apprehension, into her own bed, cold and yet too warm for her liking, with knowledge like a melt-in-the-mouth sugary confection percolating into her mind.

some part of us always out beyond ourselves knowing knowing knowing

She whispers Adrienne Rich to herself, writing out sections of her poetry instead of making notes in History of Magic class.

-

Parvati's flavoured lipstick and Parvati's doll-laugh and Parvati's obsession with Divination still annoy her, and that's what is most confusing about everything because underneath that is the swirling pull of the dream and images of brown limbs that might or might not be hers entangled in blood-red drapery.

There are people she could ask. Her parents must know, maybe that's why they were so pleased when Parvati was sorted into a different house than Padma.

And perhaps Parvati, who knows more about some things than Padma does. Maybe in her stellar charts and predictions she found an explanation-- but Padma could never ask her, just like she could never ask her parents or a teacher or those people who say half-mumbled things to their friends when they see her walking down a hallway, oppressive in their knowledge. She has to ask someone.

Maybe Fred and George, with bright red hair and brighter eyes that she's unconsciously avoided all this time. And why?

Because-

Because-

Like Voldemort, it cannot be spoken.

Speaking a name out loud gives it power, form, reality. Speaking a dream out loud might just make it real.

Are we all in training for something we don't name?

Adrienne Rich again. When other people's words are skittering on her tongue, Padma finds it easier to speak.

But not to Parvati, perched on the edge of her seat and flinging out one arm while she's telling Lavender something-- laughing as it collides with Seamus and they entangle. Padma squeezes a slice of orange underneath the table, watching the clear juice slide between her fingers as she thinks of Francis Ponge instead of herself.

Just as in a sponge, there is in the orange a yearning to recover its content after having been subjected to the ordeal of squeezing. But whereas the sponge always succeeds, the orange never does, for its cells have burst, its tissues have been torn.

The last drops of liquid land on the floor and Padma is left with the translucent skin in her hand, sticking emptily to her palm, less voiceless than she is.