Harry Potter - "No song nor silence" - Harry/Seamus - R
Title: No song nor silence
Author: marseverlasting
Pairing: Harry/Seamus
Rating: R
Word Count: 7044 words
Summary: Going all to hell, boys will still be just alcohol and mixed signals. Harry and Seamus find things they need, and faiths shift with time. A study in wants and needs.
Author's Notes: Written for faire_weather for hpslashnotsmut. Big thanks to Christine for the fantastic and speedy beta. Title comes from Irish republican soldier Joseph Mary Plunkett's brilliant poem "No Song".
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One
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Seamus is on his knees. Yes, on the wooden floorboards of the dormitory, on his knees. There’s dirt on his pant legs, and probably a red network of rivets and pits from where grit and gravel have dug into his skin. Seamus’ mouth is quirking and twitching, lips moving; soft little pink things (could have been made-up in red, they were so plum and coloured) half-pout and half-wet from licks and heat.
Harry watches Seamus’ eyelids flutter and fly but never quite open, always painting eyes closed. That’s dangerously effeminate, Harry decides; Irish-boy, long dark lashes, long like only a boy could have (every girl knows to envy a boy’s eyelashes; dark and sly, even without make-up), but suitably immature and roguish so he doesn’t look a total poof. His hair is downy sand and soft, parted gently to one side, smooth and long. There’s a dusting of freckles on his pale skin. They’re not dark, not defined, so it’s more of a figment, a slight lisp of brownish speckles that Harry likes.
He’s pure British school boy (even if he’s Irish but that’s almost British so good enough, Harry thinks). He’s small and slender and kind of beautiful and he’s wearing a black vest and white shirt with tails that hang out and his Gryffindor pin is sideways and the bulge of one or two cigarettes stick out of his breast pocket and he looks just like a boy. Not manly, not muscular, but a boy relying more on agility and fire than arm and fight. He’s a boy because of looks, but most of all, most especially, because of his curious brand of naivety. Because Seamus isn’t naïve like, say, Neville is naïve. Seamus is naïve like a boy who has been in the middle of religious fighting, but is still a virgin. Seamus is naïve like a boy who has lost a brother to a firebomb, but has never been in love. Seamus is naïve in that he knows the way the world works but just can’t figure out how people do.
Of course, Harry doesn’t know that. Harry just knows Seamus is naïve because he’s iconic and idyllic and kind of sweet but really fucking scary when he’s angry,
He’s not angry now though, and that makes Harry really very calm. Strange, how the boy’s feelings can so easily influence Harry’s own - when Seamus is angry, Harry fight fire with fire; when Seamus is happy, Harry can’t help but feel a bit lighter. Harry nods his head almost imperceptibly at the thought, and continues to watch, watch the hard-clasped hands and the short down-bitten nails. He watches one little lock of hair slide from the pack and watches the bright red prickle-blush in Seamus’ cheeks, like he’s just been out in the cold (but that’s always there, even in the summer.)
Seamus is on his knees and Harry sighs and watches and doesn’t understand.
Seamus is praying, and Harry is watching from the doorway and doesn’t understand.
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Two
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It’s Dean’s birthday. (Happy birthday!) He’s turned sixteen. Seamus, with a kiss to each cheek, gives him a bottle of Firewhisky, Neville - Neville, of all people! - buys him a bottle of vodka. They drink that first.
For the average person, two shots and you’re tipsy. Six shots and you’re drunk. Ten and you’re Irish.
Seamus is at eleven.
Seamus is at eleven shots but he’s Irish so he’s holding up pretty good - figuratively; literally he can barely sit up straight. His cheeks are bright red, like he’s been slapped - which he has, by an equally drunk Dean. His eyes are watery and his gaze is shifting and unfocused and his eyelashes are wet from drink and laughter. His generally smooth and swept hair is disheveled and awkwardly beautiful, like a crooked halo around his smiling face.
Seamus suckles baby-like on the lip of the empty vodka bottle as Ron finishes the final drink with a coughing-spluttering flourish. He slams the shot glass on the beaten wooden table and gives a sigh of refreshment, though the liquor is still trailblazing its way to an already upset stomach.
There’s talk; drunk talk; babble talk. Neville babbles on about Hannah: Hannah, sweet Hannah, Hannah great boobs Hannah, don’t you think Harry? Ron? Dean? Seamus? Perfect Hannah sweet, wonderful - falling, tripping backwards head-banging on the foot of Ron’s bed - Ow! Bloody buggery fucking fuck - Neville, get up, you’ll wake the whole School, Ron, help me get him up!
Harry, even though he’s got a good half-dozen burning shots in him, is responsible to the end. Something is wired in him, something biological that won’t let him get drunk if people are falling or throwing up or need help. Just the way he is, Seamus thinks, he’s a hero through and through and that calms him a bit.
Seamus watches Harry’s work with the detached interest of the drunk. The boy’s shirt is totally unbuttoned and hanging open now - something Seamus notices absently. His nipples are round and pink, and there are little ripple-red scars all over his chest and stomach, memories of dragons and graveyards - Seamus notices that and gives a slight wince. Harry’s tie is knotted around his head, and his belt is done around his bicep, like a school-boy junkie searching for a usable vein, and he looks totally absurd. Seamus smiles at that.
Seamus thinks -- He’s a good man, that Harry Potter - and he watches him with blurry-eyes as the muscles in his tied-arm twitch and fight as he pulls Neville to sitting. Good man; the only words drifting through his liquor-mulled mind.
“Neville,” Ron drawls, “you’re a beautiful man.” He slaps Neville, hard, on the back. Neville doesn’t even whimper but he falls forward, his head smashing against the table.
“Ron - don’t -” Harry, mother-hen, pulls Neville back to position, “-hit him.”
“Harry,” Dean coughs out, fiddling at his own shirt buttons, “don’t be such a -” his sentence trails off, but Harry got his point and he frowns.
“Someone is a little too uptight,” Ron drawls, his words alternately loose and hard. He flings himself at Harry, and the both smash terrifically to the ground. Seamus is laughing and Neville has fallen forward against the table again. “Best birthday party,” Ron continues, “best birthday party ever.” It sounds like ‘birf-dee.’
This is good times, Seamus decides. These are the kind of moments parents tell us, fondly, we’ll remember in twenty years. They probably didn’t mean this specific situation, since they were furiously drunk and getting progressively more naked; but this feeling; this scary dragonfly feeling Seamus has got liquid in his mind and tummy, pure-joy, that’s what he’ll remember. This finger-prickling, lip-tingling sensation of too-drunk, this tipsy-turvy new-reality, where things like Ron licking Harry’s ears are normal and Seamus slipping the tie from his Oxford cotton and pulling off his shirt off feel strong and strangely masculine.
They’re really drunk and getting stupid. Ron has his wand and is giggling and pointing it at Seamus. Seamus smiles and laughs and then Harry asks, “Ron, what are you doing?” for which there is only one answer; a spell; something to do with dox, and then, in a purple-black line of magic, the spell strikes Seamus in the chest, hitting him with the force of a flung pillow.
Seamus’ hair; sandy-beautiful, blonde and soft; has been turned black as night and death and charcoal-soot. Seamus can just catch it out of the corner of his eye, where the slick tail of his messy-parted hair flips over his right eyebrow. It’s black, and Seamus can’t help but break into unbearable fits of laughter. His hair is black.
Neville breaks into hiccupping laughter. Dean is passed out. Ron is laughing so hard he can’t breathe. Harry stares at him, odd and sweet, like he’s watching him pray, or, rather, watching his prey. Silly love-hunger or something, maybe just shock, because Harry looks happy, he just doesn’t look normal.
Seamus is still laughing. It’s funny. It’s fucking hilarious. He’s laughing; laughter that shakes his whole body, makes his chest tremble and stomach tumble until he falls face forward into Dean, cresting and burying his snotty-nose into Dean’s half-buttoned shirt, and he laughs and cries with the joy of the night as Dean begins to gently snore.
It’s kind of breaking point, when Seamus’ hair is turned black. Something clicks and changes in Harry’s mind and something primal and warm takes over; he pulls Seamus off Dean’s gently-snoring body and deposits the Celt awkwardly on the ground. Hoisting Dean under the armpits, he manages to wrestle the limp body to his bed. Ron, still able to stand, crawls to his own bed. Taking fistfuls of his bedsheets, he tries to hoist himself up but it doesn’t work and the whole contraption is pulled overtop of him - sheets and pillows and blanket and mattress. A muffled yell emerges from the pile of linen and spring, and Harry saves him too, one hand under the crook of his knees, the other about his shoulders, and drops the now-snoring red-head onto Harry’s own bed, heaving a breath of exhaustion as he does. Neville is next to go, but he’s drifting shapelessly between consciousness and sleep and he’s not too difficult and the minute he hits the bed he’s snoring.
Seamus is lying face-up on the ground, watching the hard-black ceiling for stars, willing the roof to break away and the navy-blue sky to lick though the air. Harry looks down at him wearily, sways, and sighs.
“Come on, Seamus,” Harry says.
“Come sit,” Seamus says, taking a gulping breath as his chest constricts and relaxes in pattern, “with me.”
Harry shrugs and crawls down next to him. Harry is drunk, Seamus realizes, it’s just that he’s the least drunk and the most balanced so he looks normal, but he’s still drunk because there’s something here, something now that would never be around if they were sober. He sees Harry twist and sway, his eyes dilate and dilute with accidental tears, stinging or joy, and there’s something weird and drunken behind them; love or something like it. So the boys are half on top of each other, Harry’s right arm over Seamus’ left, their hair touching and stupidly tangled, and Harry’s open shirt is splayed over his body and arms, like a loose second skin split open and wide - and Seamus wants to touch him, dig bitten fingernails into him and own him. He doesn’t quite get that.
Seamus shifts, rolls on his side, now-black hair falling over his eyes and face. He feels distantly ill and he knows the morning will come too soon so he tries to enjoy the moment.
“Your hair is black,” Harry remarks, stroking Seamus’ hair with child-like discovery. He feels the soft streaks between his fingers, swings the tails of black and hooks them behind his friend’s ear. “It looks weird.” Harry asks with the gravity of the slightly-drunk, a kind of rising and falling speech as new things are revealed slowly and meticulously.
Harry strokes his hair again and Seamus only mumbles a reply - he’s nearing sleep, can feel that warmth and darkness tunneling through his mind. “I like it,” Harry finishes, his hand drifting towards the boy’s check, cupping his chin, thumb gently punching Seamus’ red-refined lower lip. “It’s weird but I like it, the black hair.”
A moment passes, then another. Things are slowly, meticulously being revealed.
Seamus is brought to movement; quiet, gravity-pulled movement, almost like he’s in slow-motion; and he rolls over, sliding over and onto Harry’s chest. They stop there, shirtless boy on top of shirtless boy, locking glances as Seamus’ made-black hair drapes about his face, framing and swaying as the boy shifts. The moment acts a pause, like a ball in apex, a moment of silence before the dive to the ground, and so too do the boys. Soon the speed builds, the ball is falling and blood begins to flow, bursting through him and making him run all hot and fast. Now they tumble and roll, striking the ends of beds and the cold cast-iron of the long-dead firegrate. Their mouths and crashing and clutching, teeth and tongue involved, wet and slick with alcohol and stupidity. It’s not remotely pleasant, more like two forces in opposition than say, a kiss, a touch. It’s a battle for dominance and a battle for submission. It’s so confusing and Seamus’ mind is empty that it doesn’t feel like a kiss anymore just a greedy, wanted movement.
But still they roll and they clutch and Harry is more aggressive than Seamus would have thought, and Seamus is more passive than Harry would have thought. But all between there’s the red, swollen lips and a tangle of real and fake-black hair and fingers that are involved and bodies that are curled and stretched and bent.
It’s too easy to blame the alcohol. It’s too easy to blame the lack of inhibitions and the fake-fueled lust. It’s too easy to blame the intimacy and the fists and the want and the loneliness. It’s too easy to blame the coming war and maybe they’ll all die tomorrow (they won’t) and it’s too easy to blame just plain love.
What is to blame never really comes into play, because it doesn’t really matter and boys just won’t explore that kind of thing. They’ll blame it on the booze because boys like the easy way out.
They get up, not able to let go, and they fall into layers and layers of comforter and blanket as they crash into Seamus’ unmade bed (the only one left, Ron’s being left in a pile of cotton on the floor.) They’re buried under mountains of red-soft and velvet and linen and cotton and they crawl deeper into the warm mound. Harry’s shirt is forgotten at the end of the bed and the tie is taken from his forehead and the belt from his arm (quaint memories of their drunken games.) They, together, undo their trousers and kick them off with jerking legs. It’s a fumble, now, and no more rolling, just brushing and touching and alternating between hard things and soft things.
It kind of smells of oranges, not because it really does but because Harry remembers reading a book that describes boys of smelling of oranges, all sweet and sour, so he almost smells it now.
They don’t finish anything. So they sleep like this: Harry is tall and hard; his head is on Seamus’ pillow and his legs are long under the blankets. Seamus is more reliant and his head is resting on the side of Harry’s chest, his made-black hair sprawled like a loose mohawk over the pale stretch of Harry’s chest. One of Harry’s hands is on Seamus’ head, artist-fingers sliding into his hair, the last moment of petting before sleep. His other hand is resting over Seamus’ chest, just shy of the nipple, where it rises and falls with the boy’s every breath.
Let’s blame it on the alcohol. It’s just easier that way, easier to cope, and if there’s one thing true about boys, they’re just way too easy.
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Three
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Their excuse holds up for twelve hours.
So when Seamus storms into the dormitory, face red, hair all tangled and unnatural-black, it’s not unexpected and Harry is pretty much ready for what’s to come.
He is on his bed and he listens to Seamus. There’s yelling and roaring, red-face Ireland with balled fists, filled with misunderstandings and denials and questions about last night, and why they woke up together, because Harry can pass it off like he did this morning (“It was nothing, it was booze”) but Seamus can’t stand it, can’t stand thinking about the stupid fucking night and stupid fucking morning. A whorl, a twist of feelings and hates, breaking and crashing like high tide and he wants to fucking tear him to pieces. What happened? What did you do? Why did we -
Harry is on him and there isn’t even alcohol to blame anymore. Now there’s just want and need and misplaced anger on Seamus’ part, which melts just as furiously into a kind of fumbling kiss filled more with hands and words than tongue or lip. There’s a hand in his black fucking hair and there’s a hand on his waist and there’s taste and touch and sight eclipsed by fire and green. The rim of Harry’s glasses dig into his cheeks until they fall from Harry’s face and Seamus’ hands rise up to hold the back of Harry’s head, clutching and forcing them together. But that shifts too and then there’s no more words, no more thoughts, just heads hitting the pillow, teeth biting red-swollen lips and disbelief.
And then there’s more; rough and tumble, arching, whimpering, moaning - sleeping.
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Four
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The next day Harry is in the doorframe again and Seamus is on his knees, hands clasped, eyes-sheathed behind dark eyelids and the swoop of blackened lashes. It’s silent and calm and he wind whistles a little melody through the chimney and out the grate.
Harry asks, gently, “What are you doing?”
Seamus’ eyes open, almost like a click. He spreads his hand on the bedspread and pushes himself to standing, whirling about on the messy-haired boy. Seamus swallows sharply and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, a rough stone in his smooth neck.
“What are you doing?” Seamus returns, rather stupidly.
“Watching you,” Harry says in that calm way he has sometimes, a kind of mellowed disconnect. “What are you doing?” he adds, his lips touched with the ghost of a smirk.
“Well - I was -” Seamus pauses to collect himself, swallowing once again, using one hand to brush the smooth swell of black hair from his face. “I was praying.” It sounds stupider than he wants it to.
Harry looks at him blankly, that same kind of blank look he had since fifth year, the kind of blank look Seamus wants to understand but can’t. “You’re what?”
“Praying. You know - just - just praying.” Seamus feels monumentally, impossibly stupid. He hates Harry seeing him at such a private moment, but a little bit of him loves it too. He flushes red.
“Why are you praying?”
“I’m Irish, aren’t I?” Seamus says, and it sounds like reason enough.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, I was born Catholic,” Seamus says, growing progressively redder, not sure if he should be angry at himself or Harry. “You’ve got to pray if you’re Catholic.” He almost adds - “It’s the rules” - but he figures he’s said enough stupid things for one day.
A frown crosses Harry’s face, bends his lips and raises his eyebrow. “But you’re a wizard.”
“I know,” Seamus says, red and insolent. “What kind of difference does that make?” He doesn’t know why he’s acting this way, suddenly fueled and angry, but Harry has a way of doing that to him. Seamus rarely fights with anyone else, but for some reason Harry can always incite action and reaction, fire and fury. No one else, not even hot-headed Ron could pull this kind of heat, and it kind of frustrates him, but it makes him kind of happy, too.
“It doesn’t make sense. They hate us, don’t they? Witchcraft and evil, aren’t we?” Harry continues.
Maybe it’s the steady way that Harry talks that gets to him. The heavy kind of speech, like he rhymes fact and statistic, like everything he says is true and right and Seamus so obtuse.
“It’s not like that - it’s about -” Seamus trails off, because he can’t quite figure out what it’s about. It’s about being safe and it’s about being accepted and it’s about being loved and protected. But that’s only the half of it. It’s not about going to heaven and not about going to hell but about feeling like you’re going in the right direction, and there’s something to be, and there’s something right to say, and not everything you’re doing is so totally in vain. But none of that could be said, it had to be felt - you can’t put that kind of security into words. “It’s about everything,” Seamus finishes lamely.
“I don’t get it,” Harry says, a touch more softly, almost wistfully. “What do you pray for?”
Seamus thinks, and shrugs. “People.” Another word, You, drifts under the thought but stays there, unspoken, pulled away in the undertow.
Long silence, filled with whispers and whistles of outside wind, cresting with soft sighs of boys, pounding of feet on stairs down below, and the distant grind of staircases and doorways, the creaking and groaning of Hogwarts Castle.
Harry gets up from his own bed, and walks across the dormitory. He sits beside Seamus, at the foot of the boy’s bed, and regards his friend with a mulled kind of sincerity, somewhere between apology and curiosity. Seamus, picking at his nails and bits of dead skin about his fingers, looks up at the boy and his eyes waver in their focus as if trying to understand the shape before them. Gently, Harry puts his hand on the side of Seamus’ head, just above his ear, winding slim fingers in the soft-brush of strange-black hair and strokes it gently, running the tips of his fingers in little circles massaging into his scalp, which feels really kind of nice.
“That’s -- sweet, though, that you pray,” Harry adds a bit stiffly, though still imbued with a kind of warmth. It’s an awkward kind of bridge to be sure, a kind of apology about pushing the issue, but it makes Seamus smile all the same. And Harry can make this too. Not just anger, but loyalty and sweetness and energy and warm things. Can turn the switch, click, just like that! in Seamus’ body. Harry smiles, himself, and says: “And you shouldn’t take everything so personally.”
“Like you should talk,” Seamus retorts, his voice filled with laughter. He leans almost imperceptibly into Harry’s hand, like a dog nuzzling warmth, and he sighs.
A yawning silence, filled with stupid sweet things and honey-words suited to a moment like this, things neither Seamus nor Harry really feel at all like saying. Instead, movement; soft hands and warmth, shoulder to shoulder, and now head-on-shoulder. Seamus sighs and leans in, Harry shifts and accepts, melts and moulds so their lines are like water blurred.
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Five
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They’re hand in hand and running out of the Great Hall, to the honeyed-warm spring outside. It’s the kind of crazy thing Seamus would suggest, skipping History of Magic and going swimming in the lake, but it was the kind of idea that makes you a bit crazy too, so when Seamus brought it up Harry was all too eager to join him.
There’s a universal sound of illegal swimming, incontestable and almost beautiful in simplicity; the hollow pop of a trouser button. That pop signals school clothes being shed, almost-naked bodies, white and pale like fashioned pearl, sliding from their vestments to slip into the too-chilly water. It’s the kind of sound you hear every day but only really listen to when it counts. The sound marks the beginning of a season, the defining moment of the growing summer, and it’s the most beautiful sound you can hear.
So they strip, right down to their dark boxers, kicking off their shoes and socks (like boys, just leaving them in one big pile; when they dress again Seamus will be wearing Harry’s shirt and Harry Seamus’, but that really doesn’t matter). They’re at the far end of the lake, far out of sight from the castle, so they slip off their boxers too and stand strong and naked in the sun.
Seamus is freckled right down to his toes. The sandy staccato plays hard down his shoulders and flecks the blades of his back like soft dirt. It continues in alternating faint-strong trails down his arms and sides, like tiny trails of ants or splatters of mud. They disappears around his waist, leaving the sweet stretch of skin from waist to thigh milky and pure, but the freckles resurface down his legs, flecked as they were with the golden-turned-brown hairs of age.
They dive into the water, circling and swimming around each other, hands grappling occasionally, legs kicking apart and together. They’re laughing and splashing and running their hands through twin-black hair, sweeping water from their face and eyes.
Their burst of energy spent, they roll to their backs and float haphazardly, ears under the water, face smiling and open to the clear yellow sun.
After a time (a minute? An hour? Time doesn’t matter out here) they withdraw back to the small sandy shore and lie side by side in the cool shallows. They draw into the warm folds of childhood, kicking and crawling under cold sands and warm sun, feeling much, much younger than their sixteen years.
“There’s a place in Ireland,” Seamus says, suddenly, breaking their long silence, “near where I live, called Forty Foot.” He sighs, and even though Harry’s eyes are closed, he knows his boy is smiling. “Every spring, me and my brothers would go down to Forty Foot and swim. It’s this public bathing place, really old-fashioned-like, boys on one side and girls on the other. Anyway, every spring, Jim and Doyler, my two older brothers, would bring me there one the first day of spring. It was fucking cold, but we’d swim -” a laugh, rolling and sweet “-and that was always the sign of summer for me. It’d be windy and blustery and cold and green, raining or whatever, grey boiling clouds, but we’d swim and it would be summer for that one moment we were in the water. We’d be freezing when we came out and we only really had one towel between us, but it was the best time of me life.” A pregnant pause, maybe touched with a sigh or swallow. “It’s kind of like now,” he says, and quietly, “one of the best times of me life.”
This is the kind of logic that appeals to Harry, the kind of philosophy he can believe in. Sweetness and closeness, spontaneous intimacy and energy. He’s a boy driven by action, not thought - his beliefs circle around himself and others, their movements and interactions. He’s suddenly reminded of Seamus and watching him pray (as he watches every night, now, the boy praying by the side of his bed, lips moving in silent speech) and he wonders how Seamus can believe so heartily in an unknown, a can’t-know, when this belief, this religion of people, this religion of intimacy gives far more comfort.
Seamus laughs. “It’s an Irish thing,” he says, continuing his story and replying to Harry’s silence, “being an eejit and jumping in freezing water.”
Harry smiles and slides closer to him, nimble fingertips pushing him over the sand and through the water. Their hips bump, their hands touch - you know how the rest of the story goes.
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Six
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There’s a pile of shoes by the door. All kinds of shoes; mother’s shoes (high-heeled and red) and brother’s shoes (combat boots, ripped and matte black) and pairs and pairs of old runners and sandals and dress shoes and boots and wellies and then, closest to the door, Harry’s shoes and Seamus’ shoes - All-Stars and white-soled and red, a kind of teenage emblem.
They are sitting at the kitchen table on a Saturday evening, just a random Saturday evening in the middle of April. Seamus got an owl from his mother - Your brother is home, come see him - Love, Mum - and he asked if Harry wanted to come too, which he did after a touch of persuasion (he’s really only going for Seamus), so he sent an owl to his mum - Mum, I’ll be coming, and I’m bringing a friend. Love, S. - and that’s why Seamus and Harry are spending Saturday evening at the Finnigan house, barefoot on the hardwood floor, sitting and talking at the kitchen table.
Mrs. Finnigan is out when they step in, but Doyler is there so that’s okay. Doyler, a boy five years Seamus’ senior, is a sturdy, handsome man with an easy air and an open smile, very likable. Physically, he’s a taller, broader imprint of his little brother - replacing agility for strength, sweetness for roughness.
He pumps Harry’s hands vigorously when they meet, and says “Harry fuckin’ Potter, what’s the craic, eh?” before turning his attention on his little brother.
“Shay, how’s it going, eh?” Doyler gives Seamus a sloppy kiss on the cheek and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Black, huh? Think you look tough?”
“It was a spell,” Seamus explains a bit sheepishly, clearly intimidated by his brother, though almost glowing from his attention. “It went wrong and I can’t figure out how to change it.”
“It’s deadly, Seamus,” Doyler says, ruffling it again. “Makes you look older.”
Seamus grins, wide and proud.
Dinner is a small affair, lamb chops with mint sauce and green things boiled to mull (Harry suspects it’s cabbage; but it’s tasty all the same) and sweet wine, all served over a healthy portion of stern looks from Mrs. Finnigan.
Mrs. Finnigan is a large lady, plump and soft with flyaway red hair, streaked with grey and white. She’s very red, her arms the colour of a lobster’s, burnished only with freckles and soot. She wears a paisley green apron over her faded shirt and sweater and her shoes are patent leather worn raw and flimsy. There’s something genuine about her; real salt-of-the-earth, a woman of the soil; not born so much as grown straight from the Irish countryside. But she does not look like Seamus, nor Doyler. There’s something much sterner about her, an unmovable force, a monolithic woman with morals as fixed as the stars.
And she is not pleased to see Harry. Harry is still a troublemaker to her, even if Seamus has already sent her the Quibbler article, and even though she knows her son trusts him explicitly. The discourse is stiff, Mrs. Finnigan talking in one word statements, gruff and unfeeling, Harry only pushing through with the faintest interest of keeping pleasant - for Seamus’ sake - as he too remembers her words at the beginning of fifth year. Seamus is growing angrier and angrier as his mother dismisses Harry, his boy, his old boy, and he becomes silent and scowling. But Doyler, wide and bright, pushed on valiantly, supporting both ends of the conversation at once, dexterously leaping back and forth, quelling rising arguments between Seamus and his mother, pleasing Harry with stories and verse.
But there is only so much one person can do, and an eruption can only be stayed, not prevented.
“What is your hair black for, Seamus?” Mrs. Finnigan asks, her lips curled into a scowl.
“It was an accident, mam,” Seamus replies, surly, glancing once at Harry and back again to his mother. “Ron turned it black by accident.”
“We can fix that,” Mrs. Finnigan says brusquely, pulling her wand from her apron pocket.
“No! No - it’s okay, spells don’t work on it - besides, I kind of like it.”
“You like it?” she says, her accent rolling and curling the words with extra vowels, Oys and Ays and hidden anger. “You look absurd, Seamus, and I won’t have you about with that kind of look.”
Doyler interjects, as he’s want to do when anger arrives, and speaks to Harry: “Listen to this, eh, got it memorized; Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, enwrought with golden and silver light -”
“Is it him doing this to you?” Mrs. Finnigan asks, pointing one short-nailed finger at where Harry is sitting. “Is he telling you to keep it like this?”
“Don’t you lay into him!” Seamus explodes, his face flushing fiery red. “He hasn’t done nought and you just blame him because you think he’s -”
“Because he’s stirring the pot and he’s getting everyone -”
“What? You think he’s lying? How could you -”
Harry walks outside. He’s not angry, he’s far too used to this kind of talk to be angry, he just can’t stand seeing them fight like this, can’t stand shouting. He’s tired, really tired and nothing is making him feel better.
The night is cold and Harry is only in a T-shirt, but he doesn’t really mind. Stars are twinkling and crickets are chirping in some bizarre Hollywood-inspired night-style filled with rolling winds and rustling leaves and iron-wrought lamplights and streaming shadows. The sweet smells of new-flowering bushes and wet wheat and grass drifts on the air, and the sounds of distant cars and trucks crest over the hills like waves, crashing on the house with their indistinct noise and faint distant glow.
Doyler, arms crossed over his chest, follows him out. “They’ll row and have done with it,” he says matter-of-factly. “They fight a lot, them two, but they always get over it.”
“I know,” Harry says, remembering Seamus’ outburst at the beginning of the year. “She wants him to leave Hogwarts.”
“Do you blame her?” Doyler asks. “It’s not very safe out there.”
“Safer than anywhere else,” Harry shoots back, feeling his temper slip.
“Hey now, I’m just looking out for him.”
“I am too,” Harry replies calmly.
They’re silent for a moment, and Doyler sweeps his short hair back, stretching and yawning as he does.
“You know,” he says, “Seamus only wants to stay because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“He really likes you. Just really - he just - I don’t know. I guess he just believes in you.”
“Why would he believe in me?” Harry asks, feeling his cheeks pink, half from cold and half from Doyler’s words.
“No offense, Potter, but fucked if I know.”
--------------------
Seven
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They’re lying in bed, in Seamus’ old, childhood bed - the bed he used before Hogwarts; a small lumpy affair, filled with pillows and comforters and smells of life - cold air, shampoo and soap. It’s hot inside and cramped, and the boys are naked under a down comforter, making them itchy and sweaty, but neither is bothered to move. Seamus has his arms about Harry’s shoulders, and their legs are a tangled pile, thighs pressed together and Harry’s fingers finding the hollows of Seamus hips, pulling him in tight.
They shift, and Seamus exhales in a sleepy huff, and he wriggles in bed, crawling closer into Harry’s awkward-angled hug, now pressed firmly back-to-font. Harry bends his head down and presses the straight-line of his lips into Seamus’ shoulder, smelling to salty-sweat of his skin, tasting it on his lips.
“You shouldn’t go to bed angry,” Harry whispers, his voice odd, like a dying candle, the flame flickering and fading as Harry falls into sleep.
“I’m not angry,” Seamus replies dimly.
“With your mum?”
“Well.”
Harry sighs and nuzzles into the crook of Seamus’ shoulder again. “You’re angry at your mum.”
“We’re always angry. We’re Irish.” He laughs lightly. “Nothing you should worry about.”
“You shouldn’t fight about me,” Harry adds. “I’m not worth it.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Seamus says, laughter hiding in his words, “you just started the argument, you were hardly the focus.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
They’re silent for a moment, and Seamus thinks Harry has gone to sleep, until:
“But you - you still fought. About me.”
“Well, yes, you heard us,” Seamus replies, blankly.
“But - why?”
Seamus stirs. “Why - why not? You’re - um - you’re special? I like you? I don’t know - I just fight for friends. Just what I do.” Harry replies with silence. “It’s - um - just me. Just me, I guess - ” silence, again. “Harry, you awake?”
Harry draws a breath. “Is this okay?”
Seamus shifts, but does not turn to face the boy. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t make me say it,” Harry says, trailing off. His voice sounds strangely dead, or dull; like someone is speaking through him.
“I’ll have to because I don’t know what you’re on about.”
“I mean this whole thing.”
“You’re not making sense, Harry,” Seamus presses, feeling a growing sense of frustration.
“This isn’t supposed to be happening, is it?” Harry continues to say, the start of panic. “We’re not supposed to be happening, are we?”
“Who’s gotta think about it?” Seamus replies thickly. “Nothing to think about. It just - we just are, you know? Don’t need any reasons. Let’s just go to sleep, eh?”
Harry explodes, lets go of Seamus and pushes himself against the wall to his back, which does not get him far, his legs still tangled with Seamus’ and the bed so small as it is. “I’ve got to think of it!” he shouts, “I’ve got to think about this! What the fuck are we playing at, here? What the fuck is this?”
“We’re not playing at anything,” Seamus replies, softly. “Or, at least, I’m not. Are you?”
“I - I don’t - I don’t know, Seamus. I honestly don’t know what any of this is.” Harry sighs and digs further under layers of cotton and things. “I’ve kind of just ignored it, all of it.”
“Ignored it?” The wounds sting right through his words.
“I don’t mean it like that. I mean, I just haven’t thought why I’m doing it.” He almost smiles, almost. “You know me, diving headfirst into everything, not thinking. Not that there’s been much time to think.” He’s met with silence. “Can - can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah.” Seamus has gone surly and withdrawn, crawling into a ball, arms pressed tightly around his legs.
“Why do you - why do you believe in me?” Harry asks, Doylers words coming back, the same thoughts and emotions come rushing to mind - Seamus, red-faced, screaming at his own mother for Harry’s sake; Seamus, strong-willed, standing up for Harry, praying for Harry, changing for Harry. “You’ve got God, you’ve got your family, why me?” His voice drops into the rusty lower levels, where he chokes and stumbles on his words: “Why me?”
Seamus is quiet, but he unfurls and rolls to face Harry. He manages to run one shaking hand through floppy black hair, and he speaks: “I - I don’t know. I just do.”
“You just do?” Harry asks, incredulous.
“I just do. I believe in - I believe in God. I know you don’t, but, it’s just how I am. And I believe in you. I just believe in things I can trust, that’s it. I believe in things I can trust. And I’m Irish and I’ve got a religious father and I believe there’s a God who is protecting us, even us wizards. And I’ve got you, and you’ve been there for me, and you’ve fought me for things you believe in, and I trust you. That’s just how I work, I don’t know how else to explain it. That’s it. That’s me.”
Silence; heavy breathing and thinking, about what this is, and things are. And they are, like gravity, drawn again together, naked and tired, hands finding comfortable places on chests and legs, around the smalls of backs and necks.
“I want to kiss you so much right now, you have no idea,” Harry says, finally. He sounds almost sad.
“That seems okay with me.”
But Harry hesitates. He says: “There’s going to be fighting, you know. A lot of it. Really soon. I want you to know that.”
“I know. I do know that.”
“I might die,” Harry says, pulling his boy close, fumbling his lips against the Irish boy’s collar bone.
“I might die too, you know,” Seamus replies, bluntly. “But I’m going to fight. Just how I work. Us Irish don’t give up without a fight.” Seamus pauses on his words, runs a tongue over his lower lip and thinks. “You know, this doesn’t feel as heroic as I thought it would be. Accepting death and saying I’ll fight and thinking about war and sacrifice - I thought I’d feel really brave and manly and stuff, but I just feel… young. Stupid. Young and naïve and very, very stupid. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to die and I don’t want you to die. Lord, I feel like a child.”
“You are. We are.” Harry sighs. “Young and stupid and naïve and children all of us. Just what Hogwarts does to us, I guess. Makes you young and stupid and so foolhardy you’ll fight an all-powerful Dark Lord. Dumbledore has got to do a serious number on our curriculum.”
“You still haven’t kissed me, you know.”
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“You don’t have to ask,” Seamus replies, drawing his head from Harry’s shoulder. “You never have to ask.”
They kiss and it’s kind of boring, but that’s nice. Their lips move in a predictable fashion, red and sweet and full, turning and moving against each other almost like clockwork. It’s not like their drink-fueled kiss, full of teeth and pulling, nor like their dormitory kiss, which was all want and need. This is sweet and smooth, heads tilting and pressing; like every movie, like every play. They finish softly, and Seamus puts his head to Harry’s chest and huffs a gentle breath over his skin. His black hair rests over the boy’s chest like sleep, and their eyes drop a little. Their hands fidget with each other and they’re tangled amongst sheets and comforters. It’s kind of like a nest, with everything - limbs, clothes, intentions - crossed and crumpled into a knotted den, with them, flightless and weak little things, curled together in the middle.
“So what are we going to do?” Harry asks, kissing the top of Seamus’ head. “We’re not really together, are we?”
“Naw,” Seamus replies easily. “Not really. I’m not too sure what this is, to be honest.”
“We’ll just go on, then?”
“We’ll just go on. Mates, together, whatever. We don’t need to put a name to it.” Seamus sighs and curls closer against Harry. “I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine.
“Yeah.” Harry replies, finding himself slipping easily into sleep.
“And God has me,” Seamus continues, falling in to sleep, “and I have you.”
Harry chuckles. “I guess we’ve covered all the bases, haven’t we?”
“I suppose we have, mate. I suppose we have.”
Author: marseverlasting
Pairing: Harry/Seamus
Rating: R
Word Count: 7044 words
Summary: Going all to hell, boys will still be just alcohol and mixed signals. Harry and Seamus find things they need, and faiths shift with time. A study in wants and needs.
Author's Notes: Written for faire_weather for hpslashnotsmut. Big thanks to Christine for the fantastic and speedy beta. Title comes from Irish republican soldier Joseph Mary Plunkett's brilliant poem "No Song".
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One
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Seamus is on his knees. Yes, on the wooden floorboards of the dormitory, on his knees. There’s dirt on his pant legs, and probably a red network of rivets and pits from where grit and gravel have dug into his skin. Seamus’ mouth is quirking and twitching, lips moving; soft little pink things (could have been made-up in red, they were so plum and coloured) half-pout and half-wet from licks and heat.
Harry watches Seamus’ eyelids flutter and fly but never quite open, always painting eyes closed. That’s dangerously effeminate, Harry decides; Irish-boy, long dark lashes, long like only a boy could have (every girl knows to envy a boy’s eyelashes; dark and sly, even without make-up), but suitably immature and roguish so he doesn’t look a total poof. His hair is downy sand and soft, parted gently to one side, smooth and long. There’s a dusting of freckles on his pale skin. They’re not dark, not defined, so it’s more of a figment, a slight lisp of brownish speckles that Harry likes.
He’s pure British school boy (even if he’s Irish but that’s almost British so good enough, Harry thinks). He’s small and slender and kind of beautiful and he’s wearing a black vest and white shirt with tails that hang out and his Gryffindor pin is sideways and the bulge of one or two cigarettes stick out of his breast pocket and he looks just like a boy. Not manly, not muscular, but a boy relying more on agility and fire than arm and fight. He’s a boy because of looks, but most of all, most especially, because of his curious brand of naivety. Because Seamus isn’t naïve like, say, Neville is naïve. Seamus is naïve like a boy who has been in the middle of religious fighting, but is still a virgin. Seamus is naïve like a boy who has lost a brother to a firebomb, but has never been in love. Seamus is naïve in that he knows the way the world works but just can’t figure out how people do.
Of course, Harry doesn’t know that. Harry just knows Seamus is naïve because he’s iconic and idyllic and kind of sweet but really fucking scary when he’s angry,
He’s not angry now though, and that makes Harry really very calm. Strange, how the boy’s feelings can so easily influence Harry’s own - when Seamus is angry, Harry fight fire with fire; when Seamus is happy, Harry can’t help but feel a bit lighter. Harry nods his head almost imperceptibly at the thought, and continues to watch, watch the hard-clasped hands and the short down-bitten nails. He watches one little lock of hair slide from the pack and watches the bright red prickle-blush in Seamus’ cheeks, like he’s just been out in the cold (but that’s always there, even in the summer.)
Seamus is on his knees and Harry sighs and watches and doesn’t understand.
Seamus is praying, and Harry is watching from the doorway and doesn’t understand.
--------------------
Two
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It’s Dean’s birthday. (Happy birthday!) He’s turned sixteen. Seamus, with a kiss to each cheek, gives him a bottle of Firewhisky, Neville - Neville, of all people! - buys him a bottle of vodka. They drink that first.
For the average person, two shots and you’re tipsy. Six shots and you’re drunk. Ten and you’re Irish.
Seamus is at eleven.
Seamus is at eleven shots but he’s Irish so he’s holding up pretty good - figuratively; literally he can barely sit up straight. His cheeks are bright red, like he’s been slapped - which he has, by an equally drunk Dean. His eyes are watery and his gaze is shifting and unfocused and his eyelashes are wet from drink and laughter. His generally smooth and swept hair is disheveled and awkwardly beautiful, like a crooked halo around his smiling face.
Seamus suckles baby-like on the lip of the empty vodka bottle as Ron finishes the final drink with a coughing-spluttering flourish. He slams the shot glass on the beaten wooden table and gives a sigh of refreshment, though the liquor is still trailblazing its way to an already upset stomach.
There’s talk; drunk talk; babble talk. Neville babbles on about Hannah: Hannah, sweet Hannah, Hannah great boobs Hannah, don’t you think Harry? Ron? Dean? Seamus? Perfect Hannah sweet, wonderful - falling, tripping backwards head-banging on the foot of Ron’s bed - Ow! Bloody buggery fucking fuck - Neville, get up, you’ll wake the whole School, Ron, help me get him up!
Harry, even though he’s got a good half-dozen burning shots in him, is responsible to the end. Something is wired in him, something biological that won’t let him get drunk if people are falling or throwing up or need help. Just the way he is, Seamus thinks, he’s a hero through and through and that calms him a bit.
Seamus watches Harry’s work with the detached interest of the drunk. The boy’s shirt is totally unbuttoned and hanging open now - something Seamus notices absently. His nipples are round and pink, and there are little ripple-red scars all over his chest and stomach, memories of dragons and graveyards - Seamus notices that and gives a slight wince. Harry’s tie is knotted around his head, and his belt is done around his bicep, like a school-boy junkie searching for a usable vein, and he looks totally absurd. Seamus smiles at that.
Seamus thinks -- He’s a good man, that Harry Potter - and he watches him with blurry-eyes as the muscles in his tied-arm twitch and fight as he pulls Neville to sitting. Good man; the only words drifting through his liquor-mulled mind.
“Neville,” Ron drawls, “you’re a beautiful man.” He slaps Neville, hard, on the back. Neville doesn’t even whimper but he falls forward, his head smashing against the table.
“Ron - don’t -” Harry, mother-hen, pulls Neville back to position, “-hit him.”
“Harry,” Dean coughs out, fiddling at his own shirt buttons, “don’t be such a -” his sentence trails off, but Harry got his point and he frowns.
“Someone is a little too uptight,” Ron drawls, his words alternately loose and hard. He flings himself at Harry, and the both smash terrifically to the ground. Seamus is laughing and Neville has fallen forward against the table again. “Best birthday party,” Ron continues, “best birthday party ever.” It sounds like ‘birf-dee.’
This is good times, Seamus decides. These are the kind of moments parents tell us, fondly, we’ll remember in twenty years. They probably didn’t mean this specific situation, since they were furiously drunk and getting progressively more naked; but this feeling; this scary dragonfly feeling Seamus has got liquid in his mind and tummy, pure-joy, that’s what he’ll remember. This finger-prickling, lip-tingling sensation of too-drunk, this tipsy-turvy new-reality, where things like Ron licking Harry’s ears are normal and Seamus slipping the tie from his Oxford cotton and pulling off his shirt off feel strong and strangely masculine.
They’re really drunk and getting stupid. Ron has his wand and is giggling and pointing it at Seamus. Seamus smiles and laughs and then Harry asks, “Ron, what are you doing?” for which there is only one answer; a spell; something to do with dox, and then, in a purple-black line of magic, the spell strikes Seamus in the chest, hitting him with the force of a flung pillow.
Seamus’ hair; sandy-beautiful, blonde and soft; has been turned black as night and death and charcoal-soot. Seamus can just catch it out of the corner of his eye, where the slick tail of his messy-parted hair flips over his right eyebrow. It’s black, and Seamus can’t help but break into unbearable fits of laughter. His hair is black.
Neville breaks into hiccupping laughter. Dean is passed out. Ron is laughing so hard he can’t breathe. Harry stares at him, odd and sweet, like he’s watching him pray, or, rather, watching his prey. Silly love-hunger or something, maybe just shock, because Harry looks happy, he just doesn’t look normal.
Seamus is still laughing. It’s funny. It’s fucking hilarious. He’s laughing; laughter that shakes his whole body, makes his chest tremble and stomach tumble until he falls face forward into Dean, cresting and burying his snotty-nose into Dean’s half-buttoned shirt, and he laughs and cries with the joy of the night as Dean begins to gently snore.
It’s kind of breaking point, when Seamus’ hair is turned black. Something clicks and changes in Harry’s mind and something primal and warm takes over; he pulls Seamus off Dean’s gently-snoring body and deposits the Celt awkwardly on the ground. Hoisting Dean under the armpits, he manages to wrestle the limp body to his bed. Ron, still able to stand, crawls to his own bed. Taking fistfuls of his bedsheets, he tries to hoist himself up but it doesn’t work and the whole contraption is pulled overtop of him - sheets and pillows and blanket and mattress. A muffled yell emerges from the pile of linen and spring, and Harry saves him too, one hand under the crook of his knees, the other about his shoulders, and drops the now-snoring red-head onto Harry’s own bed, heaving a breath of exhaustion as he does. Neville is next to go, but he’s drifting shapelessly between consciousness and sleep and he’s not too difficult and the minute he hits the bed he’s snoring.
Seamus is lying face-up on the ground, watching the hard-black ceiling for stars, willing the roof to break away and the navy-blue sky to lick though the air. Harry looks down at him wearily, sways, and sighs.
“Come on, Seamus,” Harry says.
“Come sit,” Seamus says, taking a gulping breath as his chest constricts and relaxes in pattern, “with me.”
Harry shrugs and crawls down next to him. Harry is drunk, Seamus realizes, it’s just that he’s the least drunk and the most balanced so he looks normal, but he’s still drunk because there’s something here, something now that would never be around if they were sober. He sees Harry twist and sway, his eyes dilate and dilute with accidental tears, stinging or joy, and there’s something weird and drunken behind them; love or something like it. So the boys are half on top of each other, Harry’s right arm over Seamus’ left, their hair touching and stupidly tangled, and Harry’s open shirt is splayed over his body and arms, like a loose second skin split open and wide - and Seamus wants to touch him, dig bitten fingernails into him and own him. He doesn’t quite get that.
Seamus shifts, rolls on his side, now-black hair falling over his eyes and face. He feels distantly ill and he knows the morning will come too soon so he tries to enjoy the moment.
“Your hair is black,” Harry remarks, stroking Seamus’ hair with child-like discovery. He feels the soft streaks between his fingers, swings the tails of black and hooks them behind his friend’s ear. “It looks weird.” Harry asks with the gravity of the slightly-drunk, a kind of rising and falling speech as new things are revealed slowly and meticulously.
Harry strokes his hair again and Seamus only mumbles a reply - he’s nearing sleep, can feel that warmth and darkness tunneling through his mind. “I like it,” Harry finishes, his hand drifting towards the boy’s check, cupping his chin, thumb gently punching Seamus’ red-refined lower lip. “It’s weird but I like it, the black hair.”
A moment passes, then another. Things are slowly, meticulously being revealed.
Seamus is brought to movement; quiet, gravity-pulled movement, almost like he’s in slow-motion; and he rolls over, sliding over and onto Harry’s chest. They stop there, shirtless boy on top of shirtless boy, locking glances as Seamus’ made-black hair drapes about his face, framing and swaying as the boy shifts. The moment acts a pause, like a ball in apex, a moment of silence before the dive to the ground, and so too do the boys. Soon the speed builds, the ball is falling and blood begins to flow, bursting through him and making him run all hot and fast. Now they tumble and roll, striking the ends of beds and the cold cast-iron of the long-dead firegrate. Their mouths and crashing and clutching, teeth and tongue involved, wet and slick with alcohol and stupidity. It’s not remotely pleasant, more like two forces in opposition than say, a kiss, a touch. It’s a battle for dominance and a battle for submission. It’s so confusing and Seamus’ mind is empty that it doesn’t feel like a kiss anymore just a greedy, wanted movement.
But still they roll and they clutch and Harry is more aggressive than Seamus would have thought, and Seamus is more passive than Harry would have thought. But all between there’s the red, swollen lips and a tangle of real and fake-black hair and fingers that are involved and bodies that are curled and stretched and bent.
It’s too easy to blame the alcohol. It’s too easy to blame the lack of inhibitions and the fake-fueled lust. It’s too easy to blame the intimacy and the fists and the want and the loneliness. It’s too easy to blame the coming war and maybe they’ll all die tomorrow (they won’t) and it’s too easy to blame just plain love.
What is to blame never really comes into play, because it doesn’t really matter and boys just won’t explore that kind of thing. They’ll blame it on the booze because boys like the easy way out.
They get up, not able to let go, and they fall into layers and layers of comforter and blanket as they crash into Seamus’ unmade bed (the only one left, Ron’s being left in a pile of cotton on the floor.) They’re buried under mountains of red-soft and velvet and linen and cotton and they crawl deeper into the warm mound. Harry’s shirt is forgotten at the end of the bed and the tie is taken from his forehead and the belt from his arm (quaint memories of their drunken games.) They, together, undo their trousers and kick them off with jerking legs. It’s a fumble, now, and no more rolling, just brushing and touching and alternating between hard things and soft things.
It kind of smells of oranges, not because it really does but because Harry remembers reading a book that describes boys of smelling of oranges, all sweet and sour, so he almost smells it now.
They don’t finish anything. So they sleep like this: Harry is tall and hard; his head is on Seamus’ pillow and his legs are long under the blankets. Seamus is more reliant and his head is resting on the side of Harry’s chest, his made-black hair sprawled like a loose mohawk over the pale stretch of Harry’s chest. One of Harry’s hands is on Seamus’ head, artist-fingers sliding into his hair, the last moment of petting before sleep. His other hand is resting over Seamus’ chest, just shy of the nipple, where it rises and falls with the boy’s every breath.
Let’s blame it on the alcohol. It’s just easier that way, easier to cope, and if there’s one thing true about boys, they’re just way too easy.
--------------------
Three
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Their excuse holds up for twelve hours.
So when Seamus storms into the dormitory, face red, hair all tangled and unnatural-black, it’s not unexpected and Harry is pretty much ready for what’s to come.
He is on his bed and he listens to Seamus. There’s yelling and roaring, red-face Ireland with balled fists, filled with misunderstandings and denials and questions about last night, and why they woke up together, because Harry can pass it off like he did this morning (“It was nothing, it was booze”) but Seamus can’t stand it, can’t stand thinking about the stupid fucking night and stupid fucking morning. A whorl, a twist of feelings and hates, breaking and crashing like high tide and he wants to fucking tear him to pieces. What happened? What did you do? Why did we -
Harry is on him and there isn’t even alcohol to blame anymore. Now there’s just want and need and misplaced anger on Seamus’ part, which melts just as furiously into a kind of fumbling kiss filled more with hands and words than tongue or lip. There’s a hand in his black fucking hair and there’s a hand on his waist and there’s taste and touch and sight eclipsed by fire and green. The rim of Harry’s glasses dig into his cheeks until they fall from Harry’s face and Seamus’ hands rise up to hold the back of Harry’s head, clutching and forcing them together. But that shifts too and then there’s no more words, no more thoughts, just heads hitting the pillow, teeth biting red-swollen lips and disbelief.
And then there’s more; rough and tumble, arching, whimpering, moaning - sleeping.
--------------------
Four
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The next day Harry is in the doorframe again and Seamus is on his knees, hands clasped, eyes-sheathed behind dark eyelids and the swoop of blackened lashes. It’s silent and calm and he wind whistles a little melody through the chimney and out the grate.
Harry asks, gently, “What are you doing?”
Seamus’ eyes open, almost like a click. He spreads his hand on the bedspread and pushes himself to standing, whirling about on the messy-haired boy. Seamus swallows sharply and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, a rough stone in his smooth neck.
“What are you doing?” Seamus returns, rather stupidly.
“Watching you,” Harry says in that calm way he has sometimes, a kind of mellowed disconnect. “What are you doing?” he adds, his lips touched with the ghost of a smirk.
“Well - I was -” Seamus pauses to collect himself, swallowing once again, using one hand to brush the smooth swell of black hair from his face. “I was praying.” It sounds stupider than he wants it to.
Harry looks at him blankly, that same kind of blank look he had since fifth year, the kind of blank look Seamus wants to understand but can’t. “You’re what?”
“Praying. You know - just - just praying.” Seamus feels monumentally, impossibly stupid. He hates Harry seeing him at such a private moment, but a little bit of him loves it too. He flushes red.
“Why are you praying?”
“I’m Irish, aren’t I?” Seamus says, and it sounds like reason enough.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, I was born Catholic,” Seamus says, growing progressively redder, not sure if he should be angry at himself or Harry. “You’ve got to pray if you’re Catholic.” He almost adds - “It’s the rules” - but he figures he’s said enough stupid things for one day.
A frown crosses Harry’s face, bends his lips and raises his eyebrow. “But you’re a wizard.”
“I know,” Seamus says, red and insolent. “What kind of difference does that make?” He doesn’t know why he’s acting this way, suddenly fueled and angry, but Harry has a way of doing that to him. Seamus rarely fights with anyone else, but for some reason Harry can always incite action and reaction, fire and fury. No one else, not even hot-headed Ron could pull this kind of heat, and it kind of frustrates him, but it makes him kind of happy, too.
“It doesn’t make sense. They hate us, don’t they? Witchcraft and evil, aren’t we?” Harry continues.
Maybe it’s the steady way that Harry talks that gets to him. The heavy kind of speech, like he rhymes fact and statistic, like everything he says is true and right and Seamus so obtuse.
“It’s not like that - it’s about -” Seamus trails off, because he can’t quite figure out what it’s about. It’s about being safe and it’s about being accepted and it’s about being loved and protected. But that’s only the half of it. It’s not about going to heaven and not about going to hell but about feeling like you’re going in the right direction, and there’s something to be, and there’s something right to say, and not everything you’re doing is so totally in vain. But none of that could be said, it had to be felt - you can’t put that kind of security into words. “It’s about everything,” Seamus finishes lamely.
“I don’t get it,” Harry says, a touch more softly, almost wistfully. “What do you pray for?”
Seamus thinks, and shrugs. “People.” Another word, You, drifts under the thought but stays there, unspoken, pulled away in the undertow.
Long silence, filled with whispers and whistles of outside wind, cresting with soft sighs of boys, pounding of feet on stairs down below, and the distant grind of staircases and doorways, the creaking and groaning of Hogwarts Castle.
Harry gets up from his own bed, and walks across the dormitory. He sits beside Seamus, at the foot of the boy’s bed, and regards his friend with a mulled kind of sincerity, somewhere between apology and curiosity. Seamus, picking at his nails and bits of dead skin about his fingers, looks up at the boy and his eyes waver in their focus as if trying to understand the shape before them. Gently, Harry puts his hand on the side of Seamus’ head, just above his ear, winding slim fingers in the soft-brush of strange-black hair and strokes it gently, running the tips of his fingers in little circles massaging into his scalp, which feels really kind of nice.
“That’s -- sweet, though, that you pray,” Harry adds a bit stiffly, though still imbued with a kind of warmth. It’s an awkward kind of bridge to be sure, a kind of apology about pushing the issue, but it makes Seamus smile all the same. And Harry can make this too. Not just anger, but loyalty and sweetness and energy and warm things. Can turn the switch, click, just like that! in Seamus’ body. Harry smiles, himself, and says: “And you shouldn’t take everything so personally.”
“Like you should talk,” Seamus retorts, his voice filled with laughter. He leans almost imperceptibly into Harry’s hand, like a dog nuzzling warmth, and he sighs.
A yawning silence, filled with stupid sweet things and honey-words suited to a moment like this, things neither Seamus nor Harry really feel at all like saying. Instead, movement; soft hands and warmth, shoulder to shoulder, and now head-on-shoulder. Seamus sighs and leans in, Harry shifts and accepts, melts and moulds so their lines are like water blurred.
--------------------
Five
--------------------
They’re hand in hand and running out of the Great Hall, to the honeyed-warm spring outside. It’s the kind of crazy thing Seamus would suggest, skipping History of Magic and going swimming in the lake, but it was the kind of idea that makes you a bit crazy too, so when Seamus brought it up Harry was all too eager to join him.
There’s a universal sound of illegal swimming, incontestable and almost beautiful in simplicity; the hollow pop of a trouser button. That pop signals school clothes being shed, almost-naked bodies, white and pale like fashioned pearl, sliding from their vestments to slip into the too-chilly water. It’s the kind of sound you hear every day but only really listen to when it counts. The sound marks the beginning of a season, the defining moment of the growing summer, and it’s the most beautiful sound you can hear.
So they strip, right down to their dark boxers, kicking off their shoes and socks (like boys, just leaving them in one big pile; when they dress again Seamus will be wearing Harry’s shirt and Harry Seamus’, but that really doesn’t matter). They’re at the far end of the lake, far out of sight from the castle, so they slip off their boxers too and stand strong and naked in the sun.
Seamus is freckled right down to his toes. The sandy staccato plays hard down his shoulders and flecks the blades of his back like soft dirt. It continues in alternating faint-strong trails down his arms and sides, like tiny trails of ants or splatters of mud. They disappears around his waist, leaving the sweet stretch of skin from waist to thigh milky and pure, but the freckles resurface down his legs, flecked as they were with the golden-turned-brown hairs of age.
They dive into the water, circling and swimming around each other, hands grappling occasionally, legs kicking apart and together. They’re laughing and splashing and running their hands through twin-black hair, sweeping water from their face and eyes.
Their burst of energy spent, they roll to their backs and float haphazardly, ears under the water, face smiling and open to the clear yellow sun.
After a time (a minute? An hour? Time doesn’t matter out here) they withdraw back to the small sandy shore and lie side by side in the cool shallows. They draw into the warm folds of childhood, kicking and crawling under cold sands and warm sun, feeling much, much younger than their sixteen years.
“There’s a place in Ireland,” Seamus says, suddenly, breaking their long silence, “near where I live, called Forty Foot.” He sighs, and even though Harry’s eyes are closed, he knows his boy is smiling. “Every spring, me and my brothers would go down to Forty Foot and swim. It’s this public bathing place, really old-fashioned-like, boys on one side and girls on the other. Anyway, every spring, Jim and Doyler, my two older brothers, would bring me there one the first day of spring. It was fucking cold, but we’d swim -” a laugh, rolling and sweet “-and that was always the sign of summer for me. It’d be windy and blustery and cold and green, raining or whatever, grey boiling clouds, but we’d swim and it would be summer for that one moment we were in the water. We’d be freezing when we came out and we only really had one towel between us, but it was the best time of me life.” A pregnant pause, maybe touched with a sigh or swallow. “It’s kind of like now,” he says, and quietly, “one of the best times of me life.”
This is the kind of logic that appeals to Harry, the kind of philosophy he can believe in. Sweetness and closeness, spontaneous intimacy and energy. He’s a boy driven by action, not thought - his beliefs circle around himself and others, their movements and interactions. He’s suddenly reminded of Seamus and watching him pray (as he watches every night, now, the boy praying by the side of his bed, lips moving in silent speech) and he wonders how Seamus can believe so heartily in an unknown, a can’t-know, when this belief, this religion of people, this religion of intimacy gives far more comfort.
Seamus laughs. “It’s an Irish thing,” he says, continuing his story and replying to Harry’s silence, “being an eejit and jumping in freezing water.”
Harry smiles and slides closer to him, nimble fingertips pushing him over the sand and through the water. Their hips bump, their hands touch - you know how the rest of the story goes.
--------------------
Six
--------------------
There’s a pile of shoes by the door. All kinds of shoes; mother’s shoes (high-heeled and red) and brother’s shoes (combat boots, ripped and matte black) and pairs and pairs of old runners and sandals and dress shoes and boots and wellies and then, closest to the door, Harry’s shoes and Seamus’ shoes - All-Stars and white-soled and red, a kind of teenage emblem.
They are sitting at the kitchen table on a Saturday evening, just a random Saturday evening in the middle of April. Seamus got an owl from his mother - Your brother is home, come see him - Love, Mum - and he asked if Harry wanted to come too, which he did after a touch of persuasion (he’s really only going for Seamus), so he sent an owl to his mum - Mum, I’ll be coming, and I’m bringing a friend. Love, S. - and that’s why Seamus and Harry are spending Saturday evening at the Finnigan house, barefoot on the hardwood floor, sitting and talking at the kitchen table.
Mrs. Finnigan is out when they step in, but Doyler is there so that’s okay. Doyler, a boy five years Seamus’ senior, is a sturdy, handsome man with an easy air and an open smile, very likable. Physically, he’s a taller, broader imprint of his little brother - replacing agility for strength, sweetness for roughness.
He pumps Harry’s hands vigorously when they meet, and says “Harry fuckin’ Potter, what’s the craic, eh?” before turning his attention on his little brother.
“Shay, how’s it going, eh?” Doyler gives Seamus a sloppy kiss on the cheek and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Black, huh? Think you look tough?”
“It was a spell,” Seamus explains a bit sheepishly, clearly intimidated by his brother, though almost glowing from his attention. “It went wrong and I can’t figure out how to change it.”
“It’s deadly, Seamus,” Doyler says, ruffling it again. “Makes you look older.”
Seamus grins, wide and proud.
Dinner is a small affair, lamb chops with mint sauce and green things boiled to mull (Harry suspects it’s cabbage; but it’s tasty all the same) and sweet wine, all served over a healthy portion of stern looks from Mrs. Finnigan.
Mrs. Finnigan is a large lady, plump and soft with flyaway red hair, streaked with grey and white. She’s very red, her arms the colour of a lobster’s, burnished only with freckles and soot. She wears a paisley green apron over her faded shirt and sweater and her shoes are patent leather worn raw and flimsy. There’s something genuine about her; real salt-of-the-earth, a woman of the soil; not born so much as grown straight from the Irish countryside. But she does not look like Seamus, nor Doyler. There’s something much sterner about her, an unmovable force, a monolithic woman with morals as fixed as the stars.
And she is not pleased to see Harry. Harry is still a troublemaker to her, even if Seamus has already sent her the Quibbler article, and even though she knows her son trusts him explicitly. The discourse is stiff, Mrs. Finnigan talking in one word statements, gruff and unfeeling, Harry only pushing through with the faintest interest of keeping pleasant - for Seamus’ sake - as he too remembers her words at the beginning of fifth year. Seamus is growing angrier and angrier as his mother dismisses Harry, his boy, his old boy, and he becomes silent and scowling. But Doyler, wide and bright, pushed on valiantly, supporting both ends of the conversation at once, dexterously leaping back and forth, quelling rising arguments between Seamus and his mother, pleasing Harry with stories and verse.
But there is only so much one person can do, and an eruption can only be stayed, not prevented.
“What is your hair black for, Seamus?” Mrs. Finnigan asks, her lips curled into a scowl.
“It was an accident, mam,” Seamus replies, surly, glancing once at Harry and back again to his mother. “Ron turned it black by accident.”
“We can fix that,” Mrs. Finnigan says brusquely, pulling her wand from her apron pocket.
“No! No - it’s okay, spells don’t work on it - besides, I kind of like it.”
“You like it?” she says, her accent rolling and curling the words with extra vowels, Oys and Ays and hidden anger. “You look absurd, Seamus, and I won’t have you about with that kind of look.”
Doyler interjects, as he’s want to do when anger arrives, and speaks to Harry: “Listen to this, eh, got it memorized; Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, enwrought with golden and silver light -”
“Is it him doing this to you?” Mrs. Finnigan asks, pointing one short-nailed finger at where Harry is sitting. “Is he telling you to keep it like this?”
“Don’t you lay into him!” Seamus explodes, his face flushing fiery red. “He hasn’t done nought and you just blame him because you think he’s -”
“Because he’s stirring the pot and he’s getting everyone -”
“What? You think he’s lying? How could you -”
Harry walks outside. He’s not angry, he’s far too used to this kind of talk to be angry, he just can’t stand seeing them fight like this, can’t stand shouting. He’s tired, really tired and nothing is making him feel better.
The night is cold and Harry is only in a T-shirt, but he doesn’t really mind. Stars are twinkling and crickets are chirping in some bizarre Hollywood-inspired night-style filled with rolling winds and rustling leaves and iron-wrought lamplights and streaming shadows. The sweet smells of new-flowering bushes and wet wheat and grass drifts on the air, and the sounds of distant cars and trucks crest over the hills like waves, crashing on the house with their indistinct noise and faint distant glow.
Doyler, arms crossed over his chest, follows him out. “They’ll row and have done with it,” he says matter-of-factly. “They fight a lot, them two, but they always get over it.”
“I know,” Harry says, remembering Seamus’ outburst at the beginning of the year. “She wants him to leave Hogwarts.”
“Do you blame her?” Doyler asks. “It’s not very safe out there.”
“Safer than anywhere else,” Harry shoots back, feeling his temper slip.
“Hey now, I’m just looking out for him.”
“I am too,” Harry replies calmly.
They’re silent for a moment, and Doyler sweeps his short hair back, stretching and yawning as he does.
“You know,” he says, “Seamus only wants to stay because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“He really likes you. Just really - he just - I don’t know. I guess he just believes in you.”
“Why would he believe in me?” Harry asks, feeling his cheeks pink, half from cold and half from Doyler’s words.
“No offense, Potter, but fucked if I know.”
--------------------
Seven
--------------------
They’re lying in bed, in Seamus’ old, childhood bed - the bed he used before Hogwarts; a small lumpy affair, filled with pillows and comforters and smells of life - cold air, shampoo and soap. It’s hot inside and cramped, and the boys are naked under a down comforter, making them itchy and sweaty, but neither is bothered to move. Seamus has his arms about Harry’s shoulders, and their legs are a tangled pile, thighs pressed together and Harry’s fingers finding the hollows of Seamus hips, pulling him in tight.
They shift, and Seamus exhales in a sleepy huff, and he wriggles in bed, crawling closer into Harry’s awkward-angled hug, now pressed firmly back-to-font. Harry bends his head down and presses the straight-line of his lips into Seamus’ shoulder, smelling to salty-sweat of his skin, tasting it on his lips.
“You shouldn’t go to bed angry,” Harry whispers, his voice odd, like a dying candle, the flame flickering and fading as Harry falls into sleep.
“I’m not angry,” Seamus replies dimly.
“With your mum?”
“Well.”
Harry sighs and nuzzles into the crook of Seamus’ shoulder again. “You’re angry at your mum.”
“We’re always angry. We’re Irish.” He laughs lightly. “Nothing you should worry about.”
“You shouldn’t fight about me,” Harry adds. “I’m not worth it.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Seamus says, laughter hiding in his words, “you just started the argument, you were hardly the focus.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
They’re silent for a moment, and Seamus thinks Harry has gone to sleep, until:
“But you - you still fought. About me.”
“Well, yes, you heard us,” Seamus replies, blankly.
“But - why?”
Seamus stirs. “Why - why not? You’re - um - you’re special? I like you? I don’t know - I just fight for friends. Just what I do.” Harry replies with silence. “It’s - um - just me. Just me, I guess - ” silence, again. “Harry, you awake?”
Harry draws a breath. “Is this okay?”
Seamus shifts, but does not turn to face the boy. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t make me say it,” Harry says, trailing off. His voice sounds strangely dead, or dull; like someone is speaking through him.
“I’ll have to because I don’t know what you’re on about.”
“I mean this whole thing.”
“You’re not making sense, Harry,” Seamus presses, feeling a growing sense of frustration.
“This isn’t supposed to be happening, is it?” Harry continues to say, the start of panic. “We’re not supposed to be happening, are we?”
“Who’s gotta think about it?” Seamus replies thickly. “Nothing to think about. It just - we just are, you know? Don’t need any reasons. Let’s just go to sleep, eh?”
Harry explodes, lets go of Seamus and pushes himself against the wall to his back, which does not get him far, his legs still tangled with Seamus’ and the bed so small as it is. “I’ve got to think of it!” he shouts, “I’ve got to think about this! What the fuck are we playing at, here? What the fuck is this?”
“We’re not playing at anything,” Seamus replies, softly. “Or, at least, I’m not. Are you?”
“I - I don’t - I don’t know, Seamus. I honestly don’t know what any of this is.” Harry sighs and digs further under layers of cotton and things. “I’ve kind of just ignored it, all of it.”
“Ignored it?” The wounds sting right through his words.
“I don’t mean it like that. I mean, I just haven’t thought why I’m doing it.” He almost smiles, almost. “You know me, diving headfirst into everything, not thinking. Not that there’s been much time to think.” He’s met with silence. “Can - can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah.” Seamus has gone surly and withdrawn, crawling into a ball, arms pressed tightly around his legs.
“Why do you - why do you believe in me?” Harry asks, Doylers words coming back, the same thoughts and emotions come rushing to mind - Seamus, red-faced, screaming at his own mother for Harry’s sake; Seamus, strong-willed, standing up for Harry, praying for Harry, changing for Harry. “You’ve got God, you’ve got your family, why me?” His voice drops into the rusty lower levels, where he chokes and stumbles on his words: “Why me?”
Seamus is quiet, but he unfurls and rolls to face Harry. He manages to run one shaking hand through floppy black hair, and he speaks: “I - I don’t know. I just do.”
“You just do?” Harry asks, incredulous.
“I just do. I believe in - I believe in God. I know you don’t, but, it’s just how I am. And I believe in you. I just believe in things I can trust, that’s it. I believe in things I can trust. And I’m Irish and I’ve got a religious father and I believe there’s a God who is protecting us, even us wizards. And I’ve got you, and you’ve been there for me, and you’ve fought me for things you believe in, and I trust you. That’s just how I work, I don’t know how else to explain it. That’s it. That’s me.”
Silence; heavy breathing and thinking, about what this is, and things are. And they are, like gravity, drawn again together, naked and tired, hands finding comfortable places on chests and legs, around the smalls of backs and necks.
“I want to kiss you so much right now, you have no idea,” Harry says, finally. He sounds almost sad.
“That seems okay with me.”
But Harry hesitates. He says: “There’s going to be fighting, you know. A lot of it. Really soon. I want you to know that.”
“I know. I do know that.”
“I might die,” Harry says, pulling his boy close, fumbling his lips against the Irish boy’s collar bone.
“I might die too, you know,” Seamus replies, bluntly. “But I’m going to fight. Just how I work. Us Irish don’t give up without a fight.” Seamus pauses on his words, runs a tongue over his lower lip and thinks. “You know, this doesn’t feel as heroic as I thought it would be. Accepting death and saying I’ll fight and thinking about war and sacrifice - I thought I’d feel really brave and manly and stuff, but I just feel… young. Stupid. Young and naïve and very, very stupid. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to die and I don’t want you to die. Lord, I feel like a child.”
“You are. We are.” Harry sighs. “Young and stupid and naïve and children all of us. Just what Hogwarts does to us, I guess. Makes you young and stupid and so foolhardy you’ll fight an all-powerful Dark Lord. Dumbledore has got to do a serious number on our curriculum.”
“You still haven’t kissed me, you know.”
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“You don’t have to ask,” Seamus replies, drawing his head from Harry’s shoulder. “You never have to ask.”
They kiss and it’s kind of boring, but that’s nice. Their lips move in a predictable fashion, red and sweet and full, turning and moving against each other almost like clockwork. It’s not like their drink-fueled kiss, full of teeth and pulling, nor like their dormitory kiss, which was all want and need. This is sweet and smooth, heads tilting and pressing; like every movie, like every play. They finish softly, and Seamus puts his head to Harry’s chest and huffs a gentle breath over his skin. His black hair rests over the boy’s chest like sleep, and their eyes drop a little. Their hands fidget with each other and they’re tangled amongst sheets and comforters. It’s kind of like a nest, with everything - limbs, clothes, intentions - crossed and crumpled into a knotted den, with them, flightless and weak little things, curled together in the middle.
“So what are we going to do?” Harry asks, kissing the top of Seamus’ head. “We’re not really together, are we?”
“Naw,” Seamus replies easily. “Not really. I’m not too sure what this is, to be honest.”
“We’ll just go on, then?”
“We’ll just go on. Mates, together, whatever. We don’t need to put a name to it.” Seamus sighs and curls closer against Harry. “I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine.
“Yeah.” Harry replies, finding himself slipping easily into sleep.
“And God has me,” Seamus continues, falling in to sleep, “and I have you.”
Harry chuckles. “I guess we’ve covered all the bases, haven’t we?”
“I suppose we have, mate. I suppose we have.”