FIC: Almost [Seamus, Hannah]
Title: Almost
Author/Artist:l3petitemort
Pairing(s): Seamus & Hannah (gen) -- though I suppose you might see a shadow of Seamus/Hannah if you wanted to
Prompt: #131 - gen/pairings of your choice; hot chocolate in the common rooms
Word Count/Art Medium: ~1800
Rating: PG13
Contains (Highlight to view): *some naughty language, mild & brief sexual references, not a whole lot of holiday cheer*
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Thank you to my gorgeously gorgeous beta, B., for her keen eye & reassurance, and Happy December all around!
"Hannah?"
She looks up from the book in her lap - he can't see what it is - and smiles. It's genuine, but it's smaller these days. Quieter. Everything about her has become more subdued in the year since her mother's death, her melancholy like a filmy cloak wrapped around her body. "Hi," she says, touching her page with the tip of her wand to mark it, then closing the book and setting it aside. "Happy Christmas."
"Well, Happy Almost," Seamus says, his gaze lifting towards the clock. It's eleven forty-six.
"Happy Almost, then. What are you doing here?" Hannah untucks her legs from under her bottom and adjusts in the pillowy cushion of the armchair. "Bit late to be roaming about now, isn't it?" She takes a sip from the mug beside her, breathing in its warmth before setting it back down.
He shrugs. "Rounds are rounds."
"On Christmas, even?"
"On Almost." Seamus smiles now. His has changed, too; the crookedness more pronounced and the dimples shallower. A curious blend of boyish charm and weariness.
"Sit." Hannah gestures to the black and yellow chair next to her own. As Seamus makes his way across the room and settles into it, she asks, "Much activity, then, on Almost?"
"Nah. Not with most everyone gone for the holiday." He gestures faintly around the empty room, then pauses. "Reckon that lots of them won't be back. And our esteemed faculty," he snorts, "seems to have taken a break from brain-bashing and Unforgivables to have a Christmas kip. Either that, or they're too pissed to aim straight and don't want to risk hexing each others' bollocks off."
Hannah rolls her eyes and huffs dryly through her nose. "Either way, at least it's quiet."
"That it is." Seamus tilts his head and looks at her.
A line appears between his eyes, and a quirk in his mouth signals that he is about to speak again; about to worry a thread that Hannah doesn't want pulled. He's been doing this lately - stewing on things, letting them simmer for days or weeks until they boil over in his head, then spilling them all over the place. It makes her uncomfortable. She hasn't really felt up to scrutiny. Hannah moves to interrupt the process, shoving her drink gently across the table between their seats. "Cocoa?" she asks, letting her eyes jump around the common room, skimming over everything that isn't him. "It's not terribly hot anymore, but I know you don't mind."
"Thanks," he says. His expression doesn't change as he brings her favorite mug up to his lips and takes a sip, but his words, at least, suggest a detour. "Good work. Cinnamon or something, yeah?"
"Yeah. And nutmeg. Tiny bit of anise, too. My m---" The word breaks, a hairline fracture down the center. Hannah recovers quickly. She's gotten good at that. "My mum's recipe."
"'S brilliant." He takes another sip, then passes the mug back. Their fingers brush. A full minute passes in comfortable silence, the second hand ticking its lullaby, before he adds, "Are you much like your mam?"
It isn't the question she was expecting, and it catches her off guard for a moment. Her eyes meet his, and she's shaking her head before she's really had time to think it through. "No, not much at all. No, she... she was brave. Loud. Wasn't afraid of a damn thing, you know?" The faint smile returns, but doesn't quite touch her eyes. "You're rather more like her than I am, really," she says, wry. "I do look a bit like her, though, I suppose."
"Pretty, then, was she?" asks Seamus, raising an eyebrow mischievously.
Hannah scoffs to cover her laugh. "Oh, shut it. Just because it's Christmas..."
"Almost."
"Almost, doesn't mean you get a free pass."
"Oh, don't worry, love," he says, his features suddenly darkening around the lift of his voice. This has been happening lately, too - this sudden, unprovoked shift in demeanor. It isn't unique to Seamus, though. It's become almost universal. "Everything's got a price. I know."
Hannah studies him. He does know. He knows that every step and misstep, every act of calculated chaos, every insubordinate flick of his wand, is a bill that will come due with interest. He just doesn't know when. It's exhausting. "You don't," she says quietly.
"Sorry?"
"Have a price. You don't. My mum didn't. Some people..." she clears her throat and takes another sip of her cocoa. It's gone downright cold by now, so she taps her wand against the side to warm it. "Some people can't be bought. Some things, either."
"Oh, I think it's just about the currency," Seamus says, shaking his head when Hannah offers him her mug again. "Galleons don't mean shite. I've been poor my whole life. You offer me a million, and I won't know what the fuck to do with them. Like a million naked, willing witches, yeah? Don't know which to stick my prick in first, so I just stand there like a prat." Hannah scowls disapprovingly at the analogy, but Seamus just shrugs. "Sorry. But it's true. My pride on the other hand..."
"Oh, really?" Hannah says, deadpan. "You've some of that, have you?"
Seamus chuckles. "Well. That's why I'm here, innit?"
"For the naked witches?"
"Still waiting on that one," he says, grinning slightly. "Not looking too likely at this point. You know, winter and all. But no... I just..." His voice drops. "How can I go home with this shite still going on? It'd be like running away. Like admitting I couldn't fix it. Anything not to be a fuck-up. That's my price, see?"
"Funny, that," says Hannah, her own voice lowering beneath his.
"What is?"
"You think going home is running away, and you don't want to do it... and I'm here because that's all I want to do." She clutches her mug between her hands now and takes a long, scalding sip, like she can drink the words back in and hide them in her belly. It's too late, though. She's old enough to know that you can't unsay.
"What are you running away from?" Seamus asks. He sits up onto his knees, leaning closer. That inscrutable looking again. It's like he expends all of his kinetic energy on mayhem, and all that's left at the end of the day are his eyes.
"My dad," Hannah finally says, sighing the sort of sigh that doesn't make it past her lips. "He's alone, you know. Tomorrow." She looks up at the clock. "Today. Right now. Because I haven't got the nerve to... to deal with it. With being home in that house. And how selfish is that, do you think? How pathetic? I'm not here for any bloody noble reason. I'm here because I'm scared."
"More scared of your da than o' these loopy arseholes?"
"Not of him. Of..." Suddenly she isn't sure. The echoing emptiness between the walls? The thick, oppressive cloud of memory? Her mother's restless ghost walking over her chest in the middle of the night, waking her up? Her own breathless grief? Here, at least, there was a predictable enemy. A plan. Here, at least, she could do something; tire herself out so that she could collapse into bed spent and blank, knowing that she's tried. "Of nothing," she finally says. "I'm scared of the nothing."
"Ah," says Seamus, nodding his head slowly. "The Nothing. What is it, now? When you gaze long into the abyss..."
"The abyss also gazes into you," Hannah finishes.
Seamus smiles. "You know, I forget you're half-Muggle, then you go pull Nietzsche out on me."
"You started it." Hannah taps her wand against the side of her mug again, cooling it this time, and nudges it towards Seamus. "Finish that, yeah? I imagine this existential rubbish is making you thirsty."
He drinks, watching her over the rim. She shifts in her seat, leaning both elbows onto the arm and running her fingers through her hair. It's still damp from the bath and down now for bed, falling past her shoulders and into her face. She could use a cut. It's been awhile since she's had one - since she's even thought about it. Hannah blows a strand away from her eyes, but it doesn't do any good.
Impulsively, Seamus reaches over and tucks the errant piece behind her ear. "I think you're wrong," he says.
Hannah looks at him, her fingers tugging at the spot where his just were. "What about?"
"You not being like your mam. You don't have to be loud to be brave, y'know. Sometimes just... I don't like being by meself. I go into the dorms at night when Nev's up in the Room, and nobody's there, and.. I can't just sit and gaze, yeah? Don't like it gazing back. The quiet makes me crawly. All those empty beds. But here you are, all alone and you don't look a bit ruffled. That's a different sort of brave from the running about, waving your wand like a madwoman sort."
Hannah considers him for a moment. "Well, I'm not alone just now, am I? Maybe I knew you would come."
Seamus sets the empty mug down on the table. "Did you, now? Trelawney's ace student?"
She laughs. "Mmmhmm. I saw your freckles in the bottom of my cocoa mug just an hour ago or so."
"Been hitting the sauce all night, then, have you? I'm going to have to intervene. Not healthy, drowning your sorrows like that." Seamus flicks his wand, and Hannah's mug floats away. She grabs for it, giggling, but it hovers just out of reach.
"You're a prat," she says, warmth radiating from her voice. "And I knew you were coming because rounds are rounds, and I didn't see you at ten."
"You didn't think I forgot?"
"No. Never. I did, think, though, that you might be trying to catch me by my lonesome, seeing as it's Christmas. Might be counting on my generosity." She arches an eyebrow.
Seamus looks askance at her, not quite sure where to go with that. His inattention makes the mug come crashing down, hitting the floor with a hard clink. "Shite, Hannah, I'm sorry. Fuck. Here, let me..."
He aims his wand at the chipped ceramic, but Hannah leans in and pushes it away, laughter still rising from her lips like a spell. "Don't," she says. "Leave it. Now it's got dimples like you."
"You've gone 'round the bend," he teases, shaking his head.
"Maybe. But at least I've got company."
"To hell and back if you want it, Miss Abbott." He's smiling, but truth rings through his words like a bell.
Something inside of Hannah's chest swells with the melody, and she finds herself suddenly blinking back tears she hadn't seen coming. "Tonight," she says, Accio-ing her mug back and righting it on the table, her eyes glittering in the light from the fire, "I think I do. Refill?"
l3petitemort
Author/Artist:l3petitemort
Pairing(s): Seamus & Hannah (gen) -- though I suppose you might see a shadow of Seamus/Hannah if you wanted to
Prompt: #131 - gen/pairings of your choice; hot chocolate in the common rooms
Word Count/Art Medium: ~1800
Rating: PG13
Contains (Highlight to view): *some naughty language, mild & brief sexual references, not a whole lot of holiday cheer*
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Thank you to my gorgeously gorgeous beta, B., for her keen eye & reassurance, and Happy December all around!
"Hannah?"
She looks up from the book in her lap - he can't see what it is - and smiles. It's genuine, but it's smaller these days. Quieter. Everything about her has become more subdued in the year since her mother's death, her melancholy like a filmy cloak wrapped around her body. "Hi," she says, touching her page with the tip of her wand to mark it, then closing the book and setting it aside. "Happy Christmas."
"Well, Happy Almost," Seamus says, his gaze lifting towards the clock. It's eleven forty-six.
"Happy Almost, then. What are you doing here?" Hannah untucks her legs from under her bottom and adjusts in the pillowy cushion of the armchair. "Bit late to be roaming about now, isn't it?" She takes a sip from the mug beside her, breathing in its warmth before setting it back down.
He shrugs. "Rounds are rounds."
"On Christmas, even?"
"On Almost." Seamus smiles now. His has changed, too; the crookedness more pronounced and the dimples shallower. A curious blend of boyish charm and weariness.
"Sit." Hannah gestures to the black and yellow chair next to her own. As Seamus makes his way across the room and settles into it, she asks, "Much activity, then, on Almost?"
"Nah. Not with most everyone gone for the holiday." He gestures faintly around the empty room, then pauses. "Reckon that lots of them won't be back. And our esteemed faculty," he snorts, "seems to have taken a break from brain-bashing and Unforgivables to have a Christmas kip. Either that, or they're too pissed to aim straight and don't want to risk hexing each others' bollocks off."
Hannah rolls her eyes and huffs dryly through her nose. "Either way, at least it's quiet."
"That it is." Seamus tilts his head and looks at her.
A line appears between his eyes, and a quirk in his mouth signals that he is about to speak again; about to worry a thread that Hannah doesn't want pulled. He's been doing this lately - stewing on things, letting them simmer for days or weeks until they boil over in his head, then spilling them all over the place. It makes her uncomfortable. She hasn't really felt up to scrutiny. Hannah moves to interrupt the process, shoving her drink gently across the table between their seats. "Cocoa?" she asks, letting her eyes jump around the common room, skimming over everything that isn't him. "It's not terribly hot anymore, but I know you don't mind."
"Thanks," he says. His expression doesn't change as he brings her favorite mug up to his lips and takes a sip, but his words, at least, suggest a detour. "Good work. Cinnamon or something, yeah?"
"Yeah. And nutmeg. Tiny bit of anise, too. My m---" The word breaks, a hairline fracture down the center. Hannah recovers quickly. She's gotten good at that. "My mum's recipe."
"'S brilliant." He takes another sip, then passes the mug back. Their fingers brush. A full minute passes in comfortable silence, the second hand ticking its lullaby, before he adds, "Are you much like your mam?"
It isn't the question she was expecting, and it catches her off guard for a moment. Her eyes meet his, and she's shaking her head before she's really had time to think it through. "No, not much at all. No, she... she was brave. Loud. Wasn't afraid of a damn thing, you know?" The faint smile returns, but doesn't quite touch her eyes. "You're rather more like her than I am, really," she says, wry. "I do look a bit like her, though, I suppose."
"Pretty, then, was she?" asks Seamus, raising an eyebrow mischievously.
Hannah scoffs to cover her laugh. "Oh, shut it. Just because it's Christmas..."
"Almost."
"Almost, doesn't mean you get a free pass."
"Oh, don't worry, love," he says, his features suddenly darkening around the lift of his voice. This has been happening lately, too - this sudden, unprovoked shift in demeanor. It isn't unique to Seamus, though. It's become almost universal. "Everything's got a price. I know."
Hannah studies him. He does know. He knows that every step and misstep, every act of calculated chaos, every insubordinate flick of his wand, is a bill that will come due with interest. He just doesn't know when. It's exhausting. "You don't," she says quietly.
"Sorry?"
"Have a price. You don't. My mum didn't. Some people..." she clears her throat and takes another sip of her cocoa. It's gone downright cold by now, so she taps her wand against the side to warm it. "Some people can't be bought. Some things, either."
"Oh, I think it's just about the currency," Seamus says, shaking his head when Hannah offers him her mug again. "Galleons don't mean shite. I've been poor my whole life. You offer me a million, and I won't know what the fuck to do with them. Like a million naked, willing witches, yeah? Don't know which to stick my prick in first, so I just stand there like a prat." Hannah scowls disapprovingly at the analogy, but Seamus just shrugs. "Sorry. But it's true. My pride on the other hand..."
"Oh, really?" Hannah says, deadpan. "You've some of that, have you?"
Seamus chuckles. "Well. That's why I'm here, innit?"
"For the naked witches?"
"Still waiting on that one," he says, grinning slightly. "Not looking too likely at this point. You know, winter and all. But no... I just..." His voice drops. "How can I go home with this shite still going on? It'd be like running away. Like admitting I couldn't fix it. Anything not to be a fuck-up. That's my price, see?"
"Funny, that," says Hannah, her own voice lowering beneath his.
"What is?"
"You think going home is running away, and you don't want to do it... and I'm here because that's all I want to do." She clutches her mug between her hands now and takes a long, scalding sip, like she can drink the words back in and hide them in her belly. It's too late, though. She's old enough to know that you can't unsay.
"What are you running away from?" Seamus asks. He sits up onto his knees, leaning closer. That inscrutable looking again. It's like he expends all of his kinetic energy on mayhem, and all that's left at the end of the day are his eyes.
"My dad," Hannah finally says, sighing the sort of sigh that doesn't make it past her lips. "He's alone, you know. Tomorrow." She looks up at the clock. "Today. Right now. Because I haven't got the nerve to... to deal with it. With being home in that house. And how selfish is that, do you think? How pathetic? I'm not here for any bloody noble reason. I'm here because I'm scared."
"More scared of your da than o' these loopy arseholes?"
"Not of him. Of..." Suddenly she isn't sure. The echoing emptiness between the walls? The thick, oppressive cloud of memory? Her mother's restless ghost walking over her chest in the middle of the night, waking her up? Her own breathless grief? Here, at least, there was a predictable enemy. A plan. Here, at least, she could do something; tire herself out so that she could collapse into bed spent and blank, knowing that she's tried. "Of nothing," she finally says. "I'm scared of the nothing."
"Ah," says Seamus, nodding his head slowly. "The Nothing. What is it, now? When you gaze long into the abyss..."
"The abyss also gazes into you," Hannah finishes.
Seamus smiles. "You know, I forget you're half-Muggle, then you go pull Nietzsche out on me."
"You started it." Hannah taps her wand against the side of her mug again, cooling it this time, and nudges it towards Seamus. "Finish that, yeah? I imagine this existential rubbish is making you thirsty."
He drinks, watching her over the rim. She shifts in her seat, leaning both elbows onto the arm and running her fingers through her hair. It's still damp from the bath and down now for bed, falling past her shoulders and into her face. She could use a cut. It's been awhile since she's had one - since she's even thought about it. Hannah blows a strand away from her eyes, but it doesn't do any good.
Impulsively, Seamus reaches over and tucks the errant piece behind her ear. "I think you're wrong," he says.
Hannah looks at him, her fingers tugging at the spot where his just were. "What about?"
"You not being like your mam. You don't have to be loud to be brave, y'know. Sometimes just... I don't like being by meself. I go into the dorms at night when Nev's up in the Room, and nobody's there, and.. I can't just sit and gaze, yeah? Don't like it gazing back. The quiet makes me crawly. All those empty beds. But here you are, all alone and you don't look a bit ruffled. That's a different sort of brave from the running about, waving your wand like a madwoman sort."
Hannah considers him for a moment. "Well, I'm not alone just now, am I? Maybe I knew you would come."
Seamus sets the empty mug down on the table. "Did you, now? Trelawney's ace student?"
She laughs. "Mmmhmm. I saw your freckles in the bottom of my cocoa mug just an hour ago or so."
"Been hitting the sauce all night, then, have you? I'm going to have to intervene. Not healthy, drowning your sorrows like that." Seamus flicks his wand, and Hannah's mug floats away. She grabs for it, giggling, but it hovers just out of reach.
"You're a prat," she says, warmth radiating from her voice. "And I knew you were coming because rounds are rounds, and I didn't see you at ten."
"You didn't think I forgot?"
"No. Never. I did, think, though, that you might be trying to catch me by my lonesome, seeing as it's Christmas. Might be counting on my generosity." She arches an eyebrow.
Seamus looks askance at her, not quite sure where to go with that. His inattention makes the mug come crashing down, hitting the floor with a hard clink. "Shite, Hannah, I'm sorry. Fuck. Here, let me..."
He aims his wand at the chipped ceramic, but Hannah leans in and pushes it away, laughter still rising from her lips like a spell. "Don't," she says. "Leave it. Now it's got dimples like you."
"You've gone 'round the bend," he teases, shaking his head.
"Maybe. But at least I've got company."
"To hell and back if you want it, Miss Abbott." He's smiling, but truth rings through his words like a bell.
Something inside of Hannah's chest swells with the melody, and she finds herself suddenly blinking back tears she hadn't seen coming. "Tonight," she says, Accio-ing her mug back and righting it on the table, her eyes glittering in the light from the fire, "I think I do. Refill?"
l3petitemort