#Quadrangle of friendship HP AU

[jhaernyl]

It pisses me off so much how in the books Parvati and Lavender are just pidgeon-holed as 'fashion obsessed hair heads' for most of the books?

I mean, they might not be, but that was the impression pre-teen!me got from reading the books?

And now I'm all ... okay, okay Hermione is awesome and we all know it.

But that doesn't mean Lavender and Parvati are stupid just because they are geared differently from Hermione.

Fashion is hella hard and it requires a lot of memorization and attention to detail? And honestly Lavender and Parvati seem to be pretty nice people, in the little glimpses we get of them?

And all I want is Harry, following the Weasley without getting noticed (because he is used to sneaking around without disturbing people or attracting their attention, owing to the Dursley for that) and getting through the barrier and on the train.

And Lavender's father helping him out with his baggage, jokingly asking him to keep an eye on his little girl? You seem like a good lad, my Lavender is the most beautiful girl, I need a strong gentleman to keep an eye out until she gets to Hogwarts and she starts to learn magic, so are you up to it?

Which is, of course, not true. Lavender has been going to self-defense lessons for years.

But the man noticed that this was a little kid with no parents around, looking all alone.

He thought 'hey, maybe I can stick him with my kid and they'll make friends'

(btw, as Lavender is not, as far as I know, confirmed as pureblood in canon, I am going with half-blood or muggleborn for her, I'm thinking muggleborn for this specific AU?)

And Lavender is all "Daddy!" and apologizing to Harry for her dorky dad the moment he is out of the door.

And very nicely avoiding to comment on his clothes because she knows how it feels to be conscious of how your clothes look on you and it's clear to her eyes that the way Harry is dressed he is probably from some orphanage or something because those are huge hand me downs.

(Because fuck you 90s, being fashion conscious doesn't mean you are an elitist bitch).

And her parents are looking at her from the Platform and instead of asking about Harry's life, not wanting to put him on the spot, Lavender waves to them and starts talking to Harry all "Those are my parents, they are so fascinated with the idea of magic and what I will learn at Hogwarts, I can't wait to write to them all about the castle. My dad works in an office as an accountant and my mother has a column in --" Insert popular teen magazine for 90s UK.

And Harry is a bit overwhelmed but Lavender isn't staring at him, she is not forcing him to talk and she looks nice.

So he kind of starts to tell her about the Dursely y'know, not like he did with Ron about how terrible they are, but about Vernon working for Grunnings (Lavender giggles and says 'Oh I am so sorry but it just sounds like a really silly name? Grunnings.' and she tries to stretch the word a bit and Harry laughs a little and says yes, because it does sound silly the way she’s saying it, he just had never thought about it. 'I think it's Swedish or something' he offers and Lavenders nods sagely because yes, that makes sense) and how Petunia lives at home and reads all sort of gossipy papers, but not teen ones so sorry, he has never seen Lavender’s mom’s column.

And then the door to their compartment open and Parvati and Padma's mother (I don't know if they are pureblood but I'm headcanoning them as pureblood for this one) politely asks if there's space for two more girls and when Lavender and Harry, after looking at each other, agree, Madam Patil levitates their trunks in (much to the amazement of Harry and Lavender) and settles them above and then guides her daughters in.

She introduces them, putting her hands on her shoulders, cautions her girls to not get wand-happy and wishes everyone a happy Hogwarts year and then leaves them there, going back to the Platform to join her husband and tell him how she left their daughters in the presence of Harry Potter.

"He looked dreadful. Hard up at the very least. I think you should look into his family situation. His clothes, at the very least, were terrible." She murmurs, softly. "I am sure our girls will adopt him before the ride is over, so you should look forward to hearing about him in their letters."

Her husband, who knows all about his beloved's wife tendency to take people under her wing and adopt dangerous animals and fell in love with her for it (as well as for other qualities she has) because he’s very much the same, smiles fondly at her for the last bit and nods seriously at the first one.

It doesn't matter who the boy is. Well it does, because Harry Potter of course, but it also doesn't matter because no child should be mistreated.

Also it's kind of strange that Harry Potter would look hard up, considering it's common knowledge his parents left him handsomely provided for, full tuition to Hogwarts already paid.

Lavender gushes about how beautiful the Patil twins are, which immediately conquers Parvati, who gushes right back at Lavender's sparkly accessories.

(Look, I might be wrong because this was the UK and not Italy, and if I am please let me know, but I was a child in the 90s, I bought italian teen magazines, sparkly shit taped to the cover under a plastic sleeve was the shit with fashionable people.)

Of course the moment Harry introduces himself, the Parvati twins try really hard not to goggle, though they do look at his scar, and then Parvati starts asking a storm of questions about where he grew up, whether the Harry Potter adventure books right about all he did since he was a child, if not that what did he do since beating You-Know-Who.

Harry 'Do you mean Voldemort?' is greeted by soft gasps, right until Lavender asks 'Who?' and then Parvati starts telling her all about the horrible Voldemort and how Harry and his parents saved them all from that monster.

Padma's brain on the other hand is whirring and she is the one who reassures Harry that he will do just as fine as everybody else, when he says that.

Lavender and Parvati interrupt their convo because Lavender needs to assure to Harry that she's muggleborn too, so they will have to learn together and he will be just on par with her, while Parvati explains that magical kids do get a leg up because some of them are allowed to practice at home but that really, she will make sure Harry is up to date with everything that is 'stupefy' about the magical world.

At which point, Lavender asks what 'stupefy' means and Padma explains that it's the stunning spell, so don't say it while pointing your wand at anyone and Parvati adds that it means, well, the most stunning things around.

(What? Wizarding children should have their own slang).

So by the point Hermione and Neville come by, the group as already made the first basic ties and while Neville is greeted and introduced by Padma and Parvati to the rest of the group, Hermione goes on fine right until she hears Harry's name.

Padma and Parvati thinks it's ... whatever wizarding equivalent is there of gauche, that Hermione would throw that torrent of words at Harry and just ... presume to know about him.

Lavender is just hella protective of her new friend.

Tightly knit protective of Harry formation is achieved in 0.2 seconds.

Neville, who has been around other pureblood children but has been condescended upon by most of them (not Padma and Parvati, given that Parvati will stick up for him later on, but still, it was a general tendency towards a potential squib) has found in Hermione one person who has been nice to him to the point of going out of her way to help him look for his embarrassing toad, so he gets protective of Hermione right back.

So basically, Parvati tells Hermione that she should not barrage people with informations like that, Neville replies timidly that Hermione didn't mean anything bad, she just like quoting sources, Lavender tells Harry that he doesn't have to worry, they'll look up all that stuff when they get to Hogwarts, Hermione gets huffy because of course she didn't mean anything bad, she just thought Harry would know about that stuff, Padma asks why Hermione would think that when Harry has been raised in the muggle world, Neville goggles at the news that Harry was raised in the muggle world.

It's a mess.

And then Draco Malfoy arrives, because he's been making the rounds of the train to look for Harry Potter (saying hi to family allies on the way).

I am not sure who says what to whom for most of the ‘chat’ but what I am sure of is that by the end of it, Neville and Hermione are going to be best friends forever and an united front against snobby purebloods, Padma has icily informed 'Mister Malfoy' that she will be writing to her father about how low the raising standards of the Malfoy have fallen to produce Draco as a result, in response to a snipe Draco made about telling his father about the Patil twins and the rabble they are sticking with, Parvati has informed Crabbe and Goyle that she had not thought they were better than this but they definitely need to find themselves friends who don't just treat them like dumb muscle and Lavender has vowed to herself that it doesn't matter to her how cute Draco Malfoy is or how attractive his silver hair are she will spell his hair and robes to look like something an 80s hairband groupie would wear, just as soon as she learns the necessary spells.

To make it simple, battle lines have been drawn, metaphorical blood has been spilled on all sides and the Harry-Lavender-Parvati-Padma friendship has been set in stone.

Ron, if you are curious about him, found a compartment that had Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas in it and spent a really amazing first ride to Hogwarts.

They both made sure Dean knew how Gryffindor was the best house there ever is and then they explained Quidditch to him and became fascinated when Dean explained football (to americans: soccer) to them, especially once Dean started sketching out schemes and stuff.

There are too many players, but it looks like exactly the kind of team effort chasers have to put together only spread through eleven people and that's just wow.

[jhaernyl]

I was just reading your quadrangle of friendship au (I think it's called that) and I love it so much!!! I was just wondering if you're ever thinking about writing more? or even turning it into an actual fic??? I would literally die. But you don't have to of course! :)

If you haven’t read the second post, there’s a second post!

I do want to write more of it but I’m not yet sure what and I’ve been struggling with writer block recently, so we’ll have to see about it!