Lavender Brown

I have one more final, you guys. One. More. Tomorrow morning at 10:30. Unfortunately, because it's a group project where we're putting on a skit, I can't study for it. So in order to distract myself, I'm here.

Warning: Harry Potter character death spoilers.

Lavender Brown.

We don't know much about her early on, just that she's in the same year as harry, Ron and Hermione and sorted into Gryffindor. But by the third book, we begin to get a sense of her. She seems frivolous and shallow.  She hangs on everything that Professor Trelawney says even when its obvious that it's a bunch of nonsense. We get the idea that she's maybe an average student. Good enough to remain unnoticed in the middle; not poor or good enough to attract the attention of the teachers.

And then.

We get to sixth year. And this is where everyone loses it. For multiple reasons, but as far as relates to this post, Ron starts dating Lavender. This is the point in the story where every girl wanted Lavender to go jump in the lake, and wanted to slap Ron silly for how he was acting. The relationship was the never-stop-kissing-cheesey-nicknames-always-need-to-be-with-each-other type relationship. Finally, Ron manages to break it off. Takes some difficult circumstances, but still. No one likes Lavender at this point though. She's the kind of annoying person that we couldn't care less if she just disappeared forever.

And then the seventh book. At the end, the great Battle at Hogwarts. McGonagall tells all the first years and everyone who does not want to fight to leave. And we were all thinking, "Okay, yes, good, send the sweet little first year babies home." But then later there's s moment, just a small one, where we see Lavender dead. Killed by Fenrir Greyback, a werewolf.

And here's where I want to camp for a moment. There're a whole lot of places I could go with this, like the casualties of war and all that, but I won't. Lavender Brown, whom we all thought was silly and emotional, flighty, and out of tune to anything that really matters, stayed to fight in the battle of Hogwarts. She knew what the risks were. She knew the odds against them, she knew she didn't have to stay.

She chose to stay and fight, and was killed for it.

Looking back, we notice something not-so-noticed the first time round. Lavender joined the D.A in fifth year, despite Umbridge's reign of terror at Hogwarts. And then, during her seventh year, she joined the second Dumbledore's Army to oppose the Death Eaters at Hogwarts. She hid with the others in the Room of requirement, and she fought in the battle when that time came.

Lavender Brown, who's always dismissed for her somewhat shallow personality, showed that she was more than everyone thought she was. Just because she's not like Hermione-smart, brave, and true, or Luna-individual, unaffected by others, and intelligent, doesn't make her a Pansy Parkinson.

The ordinary people that are so easily dismissed often end up being just as brave and loyal as those of whom we expect great things. No one expected anything above average of Lavender-but she gave the ultimate sacrifice for the cause she believed in.

Lavender Brown; silly, emotional, and maybe a little boy crazy.

Lavender Brown; brave, loyal, and hero of the Battle at Hogwarts.