Leigh!fic | Soulmate, Dry Your Eyes (1/1) | Seamus Finnigan/Pansy Parkinson
Title: Soulmate, Dry Your Eyes (1/1)
Author: Leigh, aka leigh_adams
Pairing: Seamus Finnigan/Pansy Parkinson
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,816
Warnings/Content: Character death, depression, suicide
Summary He doesn’t remember dying.
Author's notes: Written for the 2012 round of samhain_smut. This was an interesting piece to work on. It’s definitely angsty, so gird your loins with that knowledge ahead of time. Many thanks to elle_blessing for her notes and suggestions -- you’re awesome, darling! Thank you to ragdoll for running this fest. I hope you enjoy this!
Additionally, you can find the accompanying fanmix here: Soulmate, Dry Your Eyes.
He doesn’t remember dying.
A flash of green light, and that was it. Shouldn’t it have been painful? Shouldn’t there have been blood at the end? They were fighting a battle; his body should have born the marks of combat. He saw Lavender’s body - her face was nearly ravaged beyond recognition. In a bout of curiosity that had everything to do with having too much time on his hands, he wondered how long it took her to succumb to her wounds.
It’s orbid curiosity, something the old Seamus wasn’t prone to. But he hasn’t been himself since he ‘woke up’ to see his body lying amongst a row of other dead students in the Great Hall.
Dean was there with Parvati and Padma. It was strange to see his best mate cry - they were men; men didn’t cry - but he was, Parvati’s face equally as stricken. He tried to speak to them. “I’m right here,” he tried to say, waving a hand in front of their faces to snap them to attention. But his friends looked right through them as if he didn’t exist.
That was the first time he noticed something wasn’t quite right.
He was dead. That much was obvious. But if he was dead… there were only two known options for what happened next. He was either a ghost, or he ‘moved on.’ Nearly Headless Nick had told all the Gryffindors his story; he’d made the conscious decision to stay among the living after his execution. He was a ghost, a fragment of a human - unable to partake in the joy of life but still walking among the living.
“I was given a choice. Stay, or move on,” he’d said, gaze momentarily unfocused. “I chose to stay.”
Seamus hadn’t been given a choice.
It’s another entry in a long list of things he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand why Dean preferred Muggle football to Quidditch. He doesn’t understand the priority the girls at Hogwarts placed on beauty products. And he doesn’t understand why he hasn’t moved on to whatever the hell sort of afterlife most people moved on to.
He doesn’t remember dying. But he does remember floating around the Great Hall, looking for another face among the dead. She isn’t there, and for that, he is thankful. But she isn’t among the living either.
He doesn’t know where his girl is until she slips in behind a cadre of Hufflepuffs. Seamus is next to her without conscious thought, but she can't see him -- of course she can't. Dean and Parvati couldn’t, why would Pansy be different?
If he could, he would embrace her. He wants to wrap his arms around her, to tell her he's fine and that she's still his best lass, but he can't -- and the urge is never more overwhelming than when she sees his body. He has never seen his girl cry, but now her eyes pool with tears.
They do not release, though, until she sees another body at the end of the Hall.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She wishes she couldn’t remember that day.
May 2, 1998, is a date that will forever be burned in her memory. That was the day Pansy Parkinson lost everything - quite literally. She tries to forget the details, but they haunt her like the ghosts that roam the old castle. She’ll never forget the little details.
The perfume Millicent over applied - again. Some sickly sweet eau de toilette called “Love Spell.”
The late spring chill that whistled through the corridors as she hustled from NEWT Potions to Transfiguration.
The screams of another first year put to the Cruciatus by the Carrows.
Slipping away to the old Ancient Runes classroom during her free period to see him.
Since he’d ‘disappeared,’ they had worked out a system of ways to see one another; her secret beau, the one person she could tell everything and nothing to - a sentiment he shared. It had been absolute madness, but he was Irish - they weren’t the sanest of people to begin with.
Sneaking deep kisses with Seamus, letting him hold her close and touch her before they had to part.
Professor Snape’s flight.
The Dark Lord’s voice echoing through the Great Hall.
The looks of hate her classmates directed at her when she called out the great Harry Potter.
She doesn’t know what look Seamus wore at that moment, nor does she wish to know. Had his eyes been accusing like all the rest of his friends? Or had they known she had done what she did for them? She had been tired of living in the shadows. She had wanted it all to be over - one way or another.
And over it was. But she had never thought the cost would be so high.
Pansy remembers the exact path she had tread after sneaking away from Filch. She remembers the screams, the flashes of green light, the absolute chaos as Death Eaters and Order members dueled around screaming students. The knife to her throat, a low voice in her ear, the scream of pain seconds later when her would-be attacker had been taken down by a curse. She hadn’t turned to see her savior.
She wishes she had. It might have been him. And then things might have happened differently.
But most of all, she remembers slipping into the Great Hall once it was all over. She remembers seeing the dead, a long line spanning the length of the room. Someone had laid them out by House; the students, at least. The adults were scattered in amongst them, people grieving at their heads and feet.
She almost hadn’t seen him at first, so intent was she on scanning the crowd for her classmates. She hadn’t been the only Slytherin to sneak away, but Draco wasn’t there. Nor were Blaise and Daphne. She had sighed in relief… but then her eyes fell on a familiar face.
She remembers the taste of bile rising in her throat as the overwhelming urge to vomit and scream hit her simultaneously. He wasn’t supposed to be there among the dead. Her Seamus, her secret Irish boyfriend who’d never met an explosion he didn’t like - so full of life, but face so pale in death.
Sometimes she still feels that same lump in her throat when she swallows; the lump that not only makes it harder to breathe, but nestles in her chest and weighs down her shriveled black heart.
She would have screamed. Pansy knows she would have screamed, and she might not have stopped if it weren’t for another familiar face lying there.
Father.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In the months since his death (and it is still disconcerting to linger on that thought, true as it might be), Seamus has learned things about his state of being. He’s still not seen any white lights, heard heavenly voices beckoning him home, and no hooded figures with scythes loom on the horizon - yet. It is almost as if he has been forgotten in the space between life and death.
Unlike the Hogwarts ghosts, he does not choose to stay in one spot - far from it, really. The castle is almost suffocating, even though no one can see or hear him. Even Peeves floats past, oblivious to all but his latest plans of mayhem.
Sometimes he goes to London, watches Dean attend West Ham matches. But there’s a haunted look in his mate’s eyes. The only time it fades into the background is when Parvati visits. (Seamus never figured himself a Peeping Tom, but it isn’t as if he has anything else better to do - and he’d never noticed how nice Vati’s breasts were when he was alive).
He spends time at home. His Mam is still in the kitchen, fixing the same foods she’d fixed his entire life. The house is still as loud as ever. Siobhan moved out two years ago, and Niamh is still at Hogwarts, but Liam and Rauri are determined to keep mischief alive in the Finnigan household. His Da hits the bottle a bit earlier than usual, and sometimes his Mam locks herself in the loo to cry. At the dinner table, Seamus’s usual chair sits empty for six months (sometimes, he ‘sits’ in it and pretends they can see him).
One day, his chair is gone. Seamus doesn’t come back after that.
But mostly, Seamus spends his time watching his lass. His beautiful, proud lass - alone (or so she thinks) in her great big house.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The few times she ventures out of her home, Pansy hears the whispers. She’s not Pansy Parkinson, beloved daughter from one of the oldest families of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Not anymore. She’s only nineteen years old, but already she is the Ghost of Parkinson House. What friends she once had are gone - Draco to the continent, Blaise with him. Astoria has been sent to finish school at Beauxbatons, and Daphne is staying with their mother in Paris until the anti-Pureblood sentiment dies down.
Millicent, Tracey, and Theodore are dead.
There is no comfort for her with the end of the war. With the death of her father, she is the last Parkinson standing - not that there is any honor in the title. The Ministry comes, stripping priceless art and confiscating gold from her vaults at Gringotts; reparations for the war, she is told. The old Pansy would have railed against the injustice. She would have employed the finest barristers, fought the Ministry tooth and claw to keep what is hers by birthright.
This Pansy, this lonely, sad girl - she couldn’t care less.
Her house is full of shadows. She has dismissed all the elves save Maxwell - he stays despite the ragged sock given to him. It is a blessing in disguise. She doesn’t want to eat, but she has to - and Merlin knows, she is not skilled in the culinary arts. He provides a little each day, enough to fill her stomach, but that is all. One elf cannot maintain every room in Parkinson House, and Pansy never has visitors (aside from the occasional Ministry solicitor). Cobwebs appear, dust bunnies curling on velvet drapes. Candle wax pools on rich mahogany, lending the air of a haunted mansion to the once-immaculate home.
Sometimes, she thinks she is going quite mad. She has caught herself carrying on conversations with empty rooms, as if she expected an answer. Sometimes she talks with her mother (“I would not be surprised one bit if Astoria went and married Draco. Daphne won’t do it, and Devon Greengrass is desperate for one of his girls to be the future Mrs. Malfoy.”), sometimes her father ( “Father, you really must speak with Mr. Montague about these Ministry cretins - they took Mother’s favorite Rembrandt last week.”).
But most of the time, she talks to Seamus.
“I lit a fire in Mother’s drawing room yesterday. It reminded me of you and your singed eyebrows. Do you remember the time you burnt the left one off after your little duel with Goyle? It was in November, I think. No, December. It was nearly Christmas, wasn’t it?”
Her gaze is unfocused. She doesn’t notice the chill in the air. She didn’t light the fire yesterday, she lit the fire two weeks ago, but time passes differently now. Days melt seamlessly into one another. Only the changing weather patterns show that time has passed. It is winter now. Seamus has been dead for nearly nine months.
“You laughed at me when I tried to heal them that night. You stupid man, you know I detest it when you laugh at me. But then you kissed me, and I couldn’t really remember why I was cross with you.”
She might be going mad. There are times when she swears, she can feel Seamus sitting next to her. If she talks to him more, maybe one day he will answer. Maybe the silence will be broken by that Irish brogue she misses so much.
And maybe the sun will rise in the west. Maybe tomorrow she will wake up and come downstairs to find her mother in her parlor, planning a garden party or some other social engagement. She will wake to find that the past year was a just a dream, that she still has her family, her friends, her Seamus.
It is the dream of a desperate person. But she grasps onto it, holding on tight as reality fades deeper and deeper into the background.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It is foolish of him to answer her. He knows she can’t hear or see him. And he is worried, desperately so, at this shell of a human. This isn’t his Pansy. The frail woman before him is not the same girl he loved (loves), Pansy who is petal-soft on the inside but hard as a diamond on the outside.
He doesn’t know why he bothers to talk back.
“I remember, lass. That plonker was picking on the Gryffindor firsties again - hitting them with Stinging Hexes over and over again. Someone had to set him straight, didn’t they?”
He laughed then and reached out to brush a lock of hair out of her face; an instinctive movement that proves - yet again - futile. His hand goes right through her. “And I only laughed because you looked so indignant, Pansy girl. Half furious at me for dueling in the corridors, half indignant that me eyebrows were ruined. Again.”
His lips try to brush her forehead. Does she shiver at that - can she feel him? Or is it the lack of warmth in the room that gives her chills? He is dead and can’t feel anything, but even he can recognize it is freezing in the sitting room.
“I remember kissing your adorable little pout away. You would get a line between your eyebrows, and that little hands of yours would smack me when I said you were going to get wrinkles. But you let me kiss you anyway, lass, and other things if I remember correctly?”
Seamus remembers correctly. His memories of life are still vivid. He took her on a desk that night, the both of them in such a hurry that he only pushed her knickers to the side before fucking her. They hadn’t had enough time - Merlin only knew, their stolen moments never lasted long enough - but it had been enough time to make her scream against his neck, to pull his own release from him seconds later.
He sighs, wishing he could summon a blanket or something to cover her with. He can see her thin shoulders tremble, and he knows she is cold. But it is not as disconcerting as the look in her eyes - the light is gone. Seamus knows she is slowly slipping away from him, from herself. He’s seen madness before. His Mam always said you weren’t a proper old family without one relative locked in the attic like some character from a girly book he never bothered to read - Brontë or something like that. Catherine?
It doesn’t matter. He saw his Great Uncle Alfie go mad when he was a lad. He’d not known what it was at the time, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. He’s seen this before.
And seeing his lass go through it scares him.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She lays in bed at night, naked as the day she came into the world. She doesn’t bother with nightgowns anymore. There’s no one to see that matters (and Maxwell doesn’t matter). She doesn’t even feel the slide of silk beneath her skin, a sensation she once fully enjoyed. In her bedroom, it is dark and still.
Still, but for her hands - and her mind.
“Seamus,” she whispers as her hand trail over her bare skin. She cups her own breasts and lets their slight weight fill her palms. He loved her breasts, always said so every time there was enough time to take their clothes off. If she thinks hard enough, she can imagine his lips on them again. A chill spreads over her chest, and her nipples harden in response.
Pansy lets one hand slide down her body towards her stomach. It is not the same; her hands are soft and dainty where Seamus’s were large and rough, but it will have to do. Thinking of his touch, his kiss, his tongue - arousal begins to pool low in her belly, radiating warmth out through her limbs.
One delicate finger dips between her legs, the tip gently touching the nub hidden amongst her folds. It is enough to make her hips jerk in response. She uses a firmer touch to rub tiny circles (circles he used to make with his tongue) around it, increasing in speed and pressure.
“Oh gods, Seamus, right there,” she gasps. “More!”
Her movements are almost frantic now. She kneads her breast while her fingers play between her legs, dipping in her wet sex and sliding back to her swollen nub. Remembering his head between her legs, his hand on her stomach when he pressed her back to the desk, makes her gasp and cry out once more.
So close, so close...
“Seamus!” she cries, her back arching off the bed as a wave of pleasure crashed over her. For a blissful moment, it is almost as if he is here with her, his body pressing her into the sheets. Her heart is pounding wildly in her chest, overruling her mind with hope.
But she opens her eyes, and she is still alone.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He is on his side beside her, drinking in her beauty. Her body has changed from the woman he knew in life - she has stopped caring about her looks, and he is sure she has dropped at least one stone in the past six months. But despite her frail frame, she is still his beautiful lass.
He reaches out to caress her breasts. The memory of their glory is still fresh in his mind, seeing them bounce as they fucked against the rough stone wall. He remembers how they felt in his hands, round and heavy and perfect.
“They’re still perfect, love,” he rasps. Seamus leans over and flicks his tongue across a pink nipple. It immediately stiffens, pulling his name from her lips in a whisper.
“I’m here.” Still no use; she is still imagining his presence. He’s tried everything he can think of to show himself to her, but nothing works. All he can do now is lie next to her and pretend she can feel his touch.
They never had the chance to use a bed when he’d been alive. He intends to make the most of it now.
He slides his hands over her body, drawing gooseflesh in their wake. It is times like this when he thinks she perhaps might sense him, if only on a unconscious level. He trails kisses down her smooth belly and imagines the warmth beneath his lips. Seamus’s gaze rolls up her body to her face; eyes shut, mind gone to her imaginings.
His tongue flicks out next to her fingers and follows their path. He used to kiss her like this, bring her to climax with his touch. Hurried couplings in darkened corridors, stolen kisses in the dead of night - it is something he regrets. No, not regret. He wishes he had savored the time they had together.
In death, he has had plenty of time to remember. But it is not the same.
She arches her back and cries his name, and it is a beautiful sight to behold. He always thought Pansy was at her most enchanting when she lost herself to pleasure, and that he can see has not changed. She is a vision of flushed cheeks and long limbs; beautiful in her breaking.
“Seamus,” she whispers once more, her eyes opening.
“I’m still here, love,” he replies.
A broken whimper answers him, and he closes his eyes. She is a broken doll, and he is afraid she is beyond repair.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It’s May 2, 1999. One year has passed, but for Pansy, it might as well have been ten. She has aged at least that much over the past twelve months, and it shows. She is gaunt, her hair is limp, and her clothes hang loosely on her frame. There have been no visitors, not since Daphne called on her in March. The Ministry is done picking the choice bits from the Parkinson family fortune, so she changes the wards - no one not of her bloodline is allowed in.
And since she is the last of that, it ensures she is left unbothered.
The roses are blooming again. It seems they do not need a tender hand to bloom, though they could do with a bit of trimming. Their limbs climb high and grow wide, taking over the once-orderly solarium. Pansy loves the roses, but even their bright blossoms and fragrance can’t pull her back now. It’s much too late for that.
She only talks to Seamus now. He is here, but he does not show himself. “You’re being a dolt, you know,” she snaps impatiently, glaring at an empty chair in the dining room. “If you would just show yourself, we can go back to the way it used to be.”
Pansy has only left Parkinson House once in the past month. A nightly sojourn to Knockturn Alley, which stays open for business after all respectable Diagon businesses are closed. There, in the shadows, she can find what she needs. She was never adept at brewing potions; that was Draco’s subject. But she knows the basics, and she knows what she needs.
Belladonna.
Essence of nightshade.
Dragonfly wing.
Angel’s trumpet.
And most importantly, someone to brew it for her.
It isn’t a potion found in Hogwarts textbooks. Pansy happened upon the recipe in one of her family books; a powerful sleeping draught used to calm nerves and restore balance. She has found a man in Knockturn to make it for her, and so she slips away in the night to retrieve her prize.
The embers flicker in the hearth as she pours the entire vial into her wineglass. She has taken to drink in the past year, but wine is not enough anymore. She needs something stronger.
She sits down on the sofa and drinks deeply. Perhaps she should slow down, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t stop until the entire glass is empty.
Her eyelids flicker. Her grip loosens.
The glass shatters on the floor, and the world is silent.
Author: Leigh, aka leigh_adams
Pairing: Seamus Finnigan/Pansy Parkinson
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,816
Warnings/Content: Character death, depression, suicide
Summary He doesn’t remember dying.
Author's notes: Written for the 2012 round of samhain_smut. This was an interesting piece to work on. It’s definitely angsty, so gird your loins with that knowledge ahead of time. Many thanks to elle_blessing for her notes and suggestions -- you’re awesome, darling! Thank you to ragdoll for running this fest. I hope you enjoy this!
Additionally, you can find the accompanying fanmix here: Soulmate, Dry Your Eyes.
He doesn’t remember dying.
A flash of green light, and that was it. Shouldn’t it have been painful? Shouldn’t there have been blood at the end? They were fighting a battle; his body should have born the marks of combat. He saw Lavender’s body - her face was nearly ravaged beyond recognition. In a bout of curiosity that had everything to do with having too much time on his hands, he wondered how long it took her to succumb to her wounds.
It’s orbid curiosity, something the old Seamus wasn’t prone to. But he hasn’t been himself since he ‘woke up’ to see his body lying amongst a row of other dead students in the Great Hall.
Dean was there with Parvati and Padma. It was strange to see his best mate cry - they were men; men didn’t cry - but he was, Parvati’s face equally as stricken. He tried to speak to them. “I’m right here,” he tried to say, waving a hand in front of their faces to snap them to attention. But his friends looked right through them as if he didn’t exist.
That was the first time he noticed something wasn’t quite right.
He was dead. That much was obvious. But if he was dead… there were only two known options for what happened next. He was either a ghost, or he ‘moved on.’ Nearly Headless Nick had told all the Gryffindors his story; he’d made the conscious decision to stay among the living after his execution. He was a ghost, a fragment of a human - unable to partake in the joy of life but still walking among the living.
“I was given a choice. Stay, or move on,” he’d said, gaze momentarily unfocused. “I chose to stay.”
Seamus hadn’t been given a choice.
It’s another entry in a long list of things he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand why Dean preferred Muggle football to Quidditch. He doesn’t understand the priority the girls at Hogwarts placed on beauty products. And he doesn’t understand why he hasn’t moved on to whatever the hell sort of afterlife most people moved on to.
He doesn’t remember dying. But he does remember floating around the Great Hall, looking for another face among the dead. She isn’t there, and for that, he is thankful. But she isn’t among the living either.
He doesn’t know where his girl is until she slips in behind a cadre of Hufflepuffs. Seamus is next to her without conscious thought, but she can't see him -- of course she can't. Dean and Parvati couldn’t, why would Pansy be different?
If he could, he would embrace her. He wants to wrap his arms around her, to tell her he's fine and that she's still his best lass, but he can't -- and the urge is never more overwhelming than when she sees his body. He has never seen his girl cry, but now her eyes pool with tears.
They do not release, though, until she sees another body at the end of the Hall.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She wishes she couldn’t remember that day.
May 2, 1998, is a date that will forever be burned in her memory. That was the day Pansy Parkinson lost everything - quite literally. She tries to forget the details, but they haunt her like the ghosts that roam the old castle. She’ll never forget the little details.
The perfume Millicent over applied - again. Some sickly sweet eau de toilette called “Love Spell.”
The late spring chill that whistled through the corridors as she hustled from NEWT Potions to Transfiguration.
The screams of another first year put to the Cruciatus by the Carrows.
Slipping away to the old Ancient Runes classroom during her free period to see him.
Since he’d ‘disappeared,’ they had worked out a system of ways to see one another; her secret beau, the one person she could tell everything and nothing to - a sentiment he shared. It had been absolute madness, but he was Irish - they weren’t the sanest of people to begin with.
Sneaking deep kisses with Seamus, letting him hold her close and touch her before they had to part.
Professor Snape’s flight.
The Dark Lord’s voice echoing through the Great Hall.
The looks of hate her classmates directed at her when she called out the great Harry Potter.
She doesn’t know what look Seamus wore at that moment, nor does she wish to know. Had his eyes been accusing like all the rest of his friends? Or had they known she had done what she did for them? She had been tired of living in the shadows. She had wanted it all to be over - one way or another.
And over it was. But she had never thought the cost would be so high.
Pansy remembers the exact path she had tread after sneaking away from Filch. She remembers the screams, the flashes of green light, the absolute chaos as Death Eaters and Order members dueled around screaming students. The knife to her throat, a low voice in her ear, the scream of pain seconds later when her would-be attacker had been taken down by a curse. She hadn’t turned to see her savior.
She wishes she had. It might have been him. And then things might have happened differently.
But most of all, she remembers slipping into the Great Hall once it was all over. She remembers seeing the dead, a long line spanning the length of the room. Someone had laid them out by House; the students, at least. The adults were scattered in amongst them, people grieving at their heads and feet.
She almost hadn’t seen him at first, so intent was she on scanning the crowd for her classmates. She hadn’t been the only Slytherin to sneak away, but Draco wasn’t there. Nor were Blaise and Daphne. She had sighed in relief… but then her eyes fell on a familiar face.
She remembers the taste of bile rising in her throat as the overwhelming urge to vomit and scream hit her simultaneously. He wasn’t supposed to be there among the dead. Her Seamus, her secret Irish boyfriend who’d never met an explosion he didn’t like - so full of life, but face so pale in death.
Sometimes she still feels that same lump in her throat when she swallows; the lump that not only makes it harder to breathe, but nestles in her chest and weighs down her shriveled black heart.
She would have screamed. Pansy knows she would have screamed, and she might not have stopped if it weren’t for another familiar face lying there.
Father.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In the months since his death (and it is still disconcerting to linger on that thought, true as it might be), Seamus has learned things about his state of being. He’s still not seen any white lights, heard heavenly voices beckoning him home, and no hooded figures with scythes loom on the horizon - yet. It is almost as if he has been forgotten in the space between life and death.
Unlike the Hogwarts ghosts, he does not choose to stay in one spot - far from it, really. The castle is almost suffocating, even though no one can see or hear him. Even Peeves floats past, oblivious to all but his latest plans of mayhem.
Sometimes he goes to London, watches Dean attend West Ham matches. But there’s a haunted look in his mate’s eyes. The only time it fades into the background is when Parvati visits. (Seamus never figured himself a Peeping Tom, but it isn’t as if he has anything else better to do - and he’d never noticed how nice Vati’s breasts were when he was alive).
He spends time at home. His Mam is still in the kitchen, fixing the same foods she’d fixed his entire life. The house is still as loud as ever. Siobhan moved out two years ago, and Niamh is still at Hogwarts, but Liam and Rauri are determined to keep mischief alive in the Finnigan household. His Da hits the bottle a bit earlier than usual, and sometimes his Mam locks herself in the loo to cry. At the dinner table, Seamus’s usual chair sits empty for six months (sometimes, he ‘sits’ in it and pretends they can see him).
One day, his chair is gone. Seamus doesn’t come back after that.
But mostly, Seamus spends his time watching his lass. His beautiful, proud lass - alone (or so she thinks) in her great big house.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The few times she ventures out of her home, Pansy hears the whispers. She’s not Pansy Parkinson, beloved daughter from one of the oldest families of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Not anymore. She’s only nineteen years old, but already she is the Ghost of Parkinson House. What friends she once had are gone - Draco to the continent, Blaise with him. Astoria has been sent to finish school at Beauxbatons, and Daphne is staying with their mother in Paris until the anti-Pureblood sentiment dies down.
Millicent, Tracey, and Theodore are dead.
There is no comfort for her with the end of the war. With the death of her father, she is the last Parkinson standing - not that there is any honor in the title. The Ministry comes, stripping priceless art and confiscating gold from her vaults at Gringotts; reparations for the war, she is told. The old Pansy would have railed against the injustice. She would have employed the finest barristers, fought the Ministry tooth and claw to keep what is hers by birthright.
This Pansy, this lonely, sad girl - she couldn’t care less.
Her house is full of shadows. She has dismissed all the elves save Maxwell - he stays despite the ragged sock given to him. It is a blessing in disguise. She doesn’t want to eat, but she has to - and Merlin knows, she is not skilled in the culinary arts. He provides a little each day, enough to fill her stomach, but that is all. One elf cannot maintain every room in Parkinson House, and Pansy never has visitors (aside from the occasional Ministry solicitor). Cobwebs appear, dust bunnies curling on velvet drapes. Candle wax pools on rich mahogany, lending the air of a haunted mansion to the once-immaculate home.
Sometimes, she thinks she is going quite mad. She has caught herself carrying on conversations with empty rooms, as if she expected an answer. Sometimes she talks with her mother (“I would not be surprised one bit if Astoria went and married Draco. Daphne won’t do it, and Devon Greengrass is desperate for one of his girls to be the future Mrs. Malfoy.”), sometimes her father ( “Father, you really must speak with Mr. Montague about these Ministry cretins - they took Mother’s favorite Rembrandt last week.”).
But most of the time, she talks to Seamus.
“I lit a fire in Mother’s drawing room yesterday. It reminded me of you and your singed eyebrows. Do you remember the time you burnt the left one off after your little duel with Goyle? It was in November, I think. No, December. It was nearly Christmas, wasn’t it?”
Her gaze is unfocused. She doesn’t notice the chill in the air. She didn’t light the fire yesterday, she lit the fire two weeks ago, but time passes differently now. Days melt seamlessly into one another. Only the changing weather patterns show that time has passed. It is winter now. Seamus has been dead for nearly nine months.
“You laughed at me when I tried to heal them that night. You stupid man, you know I detest it when you laugh at me. But then you kissed me, and I couldn’t really remember why I was cross with you.”
She might be going mad. There are times when she swears, she can feel Seamus sitting next to her. If she talks to him more, maybe one day he will answer. Maybe the silence will be broken by that Irish brogue she misses so much.
And maybe the sun will rise in the west. Maybe tomorrow she will wake up and come downstairs to find her mother in her parlor, planning a garden party or some other social engagement. She will wake to find that the past year was a just a dream, that she still has her family, her friends, her Seamus.
It is the dream of a desperate person. But she grasps onto it, holding on tight as reality fades deeper and deeper into the background.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It is foolish of him to answer her. He knows she can’t hear or see him. And he is worried, desperately so, at this shell of a human. This isn’t his Pansy. The frail woman before him is not the same girl he loved (loves), Pansy who is petal-soft on the inside but hard as a diamond on the outside.
He doesn’t know why he bothers to talk back.
“I remember, lass. That plonker was picking on the Gryffindor firsties again - hitting them with Stinging Hexes over and over again. Someone had to set him straight, didn’t they?”
He laughed then and reached out to brush a lock of hair out of her face; an instinctive movement that proves - yet again - futile. His hand goes right through her. “And I only laughed because you looked so indignant, Pansy girl. Half furious at me for dueling in the corridors, half indignant that me eyebrows were ruined. Again.”
His lips try to brush her forehead. Does she shiver at that - can she feel him? Or is it the lack of warmth in the room that gives her chills? He is dead and can’t feel anything, but even he can recognize it is freezing in the sitting room.
“I remember kissing your adorable little pout away. You would get a line between your eyebrows, and that little hands of yours would smack me when I said you were going to get wrinkles. But you let me kiss you anyway, lass, and other things if I remember correctly?”
Seamus remembers correctly. His memories of life are still vivid. He took her on a desk that night, the both of them in such a hurry that he only pushed her knickers to the side before fucking her. They hadn’t had enough time - Merlin only knew, their stolen moments never lasted long enough - but it had been enough time to make her scream against his neck, to pull his own release from him seconds later.
He sighs, wishing he could summon a blanket or something to cover her with. He can see her thin shoulders tremble, and he knows she is cold. But it is not as disconcerting as the look in her eyes - the light is gone. Seamus knows she is slowly slipping away from him, from herself. He’s seen madness before. His Mam always said you weren’t a proper old family without one relative locked in the attic like some character from a girly book he never bothered to read - Brontë or something like that. Catherine?
It doesn’t matter. He saw his Great Uncle Alfie go mad when he was a lad. He’d not known what it was at the time, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. He’s seen this before.
And seeing his lass go through it scares him.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She lays in bed at night, naked as the day she came into the world. She doesn’t bother with nightgowns anymore. There’s no one to see that matters (and Maxwell doesn’t matter). She doesn’t even feel the slide of silk beneath her skin, a sensation she once fully enjoyed. In her bedroom, it is dark and still.
Still, but for her hands - and her mind.
“Seamus,” she whispers as her hand trail over her bare skin. She cups her own breasts and lets their slight weight fill her palms. He loved her breasts, always said so every time there was enough time to take their clothes off. If she thinks hard enough, she can imagine his lips on them again. A chill spreads over her chest, and her nipples harden in response.
Pansy lets one hand slide down her body towards her stomach. It is not the same; her hands are soft and dainty where Seamus’s were large and rough, but it will have to do. Thinking of his touch, his kiss, his tongue - arousal begins to pool low in her belly, radiating warmth out through her limbs.
One delicate finger dips between her legs, the tip gently touching the nub hidden amongst her folds. It is enough to make her hips jerk in response. She uses a firmer touch to rub tiny circles (circles he used to make with his tongue) around it, increasing in speed and pressure.
“Oh gods, Seamus, right there,” she gasps. “More!”
Her movements are almost frantic now. She kneads her breast while her fingers play between her legs, dipping in her wet sex and sliding back to her swollen nub. Remembering his head between her legs, his hand on her stomach when he pressed her back to the desk, makes her gasp and cry out once more.
So close, so close...
“Seamus!” she cries, her back arching off the bed as a wave of pleasure crashed over her. For a blissful moment, it is almost as if he is here with her, his body pressing her into the sheets. Her heart is pounding wildly in her chest, overruling her mind with hope.
But she opens her eyes, and she is still alone.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He is on his side beside her, drinking in her beauty. Her body has changed from the woman he knew in life - she has stopped caring about her looks, and he is sure she has dropped at least one stone in the past six months. But despite her frail frame, she is still his beautiful lass.
He reaches out to caress her breasts. The memory of their glory is still fresh in his mind, seeing them bounce as they fucked against the rough stone wall. He remembers how they felt in his hands, round and heavy and perfect.
“They’re still perfect, love,” he rasps. Seamus leans over and flicks his tongue across a pink nipple. It immediately stiffens, pulling his name from her lips in a whisper.
“I’m here.” Still no use; she is still imagining his presence. He’s tried everything he can think of to show himself to her, but nothing works. All he can do now is lie next to her and pretend she can feel his touch.
They never had the chance to use a bed when he’d been alive. He intends to make the most of it now.
He slides his hands over her body, drawing gooseflesh in their wake. It is times like this when he thinks she perhaps might sense him, if only on a unconscious level. He trails kisses down her smooth belly and imagines the warmth beneath his lips. Seamus’s gaze rolls up her body to her face; eyes shut, mind gone to her imaginings.
His tongue flicks out next to her fingers and follows their path. He used to kiss her like this, bring her to climax with his touch. Hurried couplings in darkened corridors, stolen kisses in the dead of night - it is something he regrets. No, not regret. He wishes he had savored the time they had together.
In death, he has had plenty of time to remember. But it is not the same.
She arches her back and cries his name, and it is a beautiful sight to behold. He always thought Pansy was at her most enchanting when she lost herself to pleasure, and that he can see has not changed. She is a vision of flushed cheeks and long limbs; beautiful in her breaking.
“Seamus,” she whispers once more, her eyes opening.
“I’m still here, love,” he replies.
A broken whimper answers him, and he closes his eyes. She is a broken doll, and he is afraid she is beyond repair.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It’s May 2, 1999. One year has passed, but for Pansy, it might as well have been ten. She has aged at least that much over the past twelve months, and it shows. She is gaunt, her hair is limp, and her clothes hang loosely on her frame. There have been no visitors, not since Daphne called on her in March. The Ministry is done picking the choice bits from the Parkinson family fortune, so she changes the wards - no one not of her bloodline is allowed in.
And since she is the last of that, it ensures she is left unbothered.
The roses are blooming again. It seems they do not need a tender hand to bloom, though they could do with a bit of trimming. Their limbs climb high and grow wide, taking over the once-orderly solarium. Pansy loves the roses, but even their bright blossoms and fragrance can’t pull her back now. It’s much too late for that.
She only talks to Seamus now. He is here, but he does not show himself. “You’re being a dolt, you know,” she snaps impatiently, glaring at an empty chair in the dining room. “If you would just show yourself, we can go back to the way it used to be.”
Pansy has only left Parkinson House once in the past month. A nightly sojourn to Knockturn Alley, which stays open for business after all respectable Diagon businesses are closed. There, in the shadows, she can find what she needs. She was never adept at brewing potions; that was Draco’s subject. But she knows the basics, and she knows what she needs.
Belladonna.
Essence of nightshade.
Dragonfly wing.
Angel’s trumpet.
And most importantly, someone to brew it for her.
It isn’t a potion found in Hogwarts textbooks. Pansy happened upon the recipe in one of her family books; a powerful sleeping draught used to calm nerves and restore balance. She has found a man in Knockturn to make it for her, and so she slips away in the night to retrieve her prize.
The embers flicker in the hearth as she pours the entire vial into her wineglass. She has taken to drink in the past year, but wine is not enough anymore. She needs something stronger.
She sits down on the sofa and drinks deeply. Perhaps she should slow down, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t stop until the entire glass is empty.
Her eyelids flicker. Her grip loosens.
The glass shatters on the floor, and the world is silent.