FIC: Sigh No More (1/3) (Seamus Finnigan/Pansy Parkinson)
Title: Sigh No More (1/3)
Author/Artist: kalisgirl
Characters: Pansy, Seamus, OCs
Prompt number: 229
Word Count: 10,100
Rating: PG-13 for language and adult talk
Warnings: None, except for the shameless abuse of Irish brogue
Summary: Pansy's had her heart bruised one too many times, so she decides to move on with her life. But it's hard to move forward with the past staring you in the face.
Disclaimer: Pansy, Seamus and the magical world of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling and others. I just play here to amuse myself and others.
Author’s Notes: When I saw this prompt, I couldn't resist, so big thanks to the prompter - I hope you enjoy the direction I took. Thanks also to those supportive folk who convinced me that I could wrap the story up in three chapters. And finally, thank you thank you to my beta for jumping in on a moment's notice and being so good to me.
Sigh No More - Part One
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
Much Ado About Nothing
- William Shakespeare
Pansy was vibrating with anger. She could practically feel her magic coiling and fizzing around her, ready to spark at the slightest provocation. It had been years, decades, since she'd performed accidental magic, but today her control was so thin that she was surprised that the windows of the shops she passed didn't burst from the force of her glare.
Her heels clicked violently against the cobbles of Diagon Alley as she stormed through the mid-afternoon crowd of window-shopping housewitches. A path cleared in front of her, although that was probably more because of the murderous look on her face than by any magical cause. All her focus was on reaching the safety of her flat, and that meant getting to the public floo access beside Flourish and Blotts. Until then, Pansy was determined that she would not break down, she would not scream, and she would not cry.
Rounding the final corner at a brisk clip, she fumbled in her robes for a sickle. It irritated her to have to pay for a floo, but there had been no way that she could have floo'd home from work - that would have let everyone know that she was running home to cry. Instead, she'd held her head high, announced that it was time for her to take lunch (ignoring the fact that she had eaten a salad at her desk, the same as she did every day, not half an hour before) and swept out of the office. No one had bothered to ask when she'd be back, but her pride refused to let her look like she was crawling away in misery.
Barking out her flat's address, Pansy stepped into the magical flames. Three swirls and she was stepping out onto hearth, robes dusty and hair askew. Public floos were always such a mess, she thought, as she stripped off her office robes and began her 'arriving at home' rituals as though it were any other day. It wasn't until she found herself standing in the kitchen trying to remember what she'd intended to make for dinner that the wrongness of the situation hit her.
It wasn't dinner time. It was two in the afternoon and she'd just had a screaming fight with her boss and had probably lost her job. She'd certainly lost her boyfriend, since Marcus wasn't likely to take well what she'd said in his office. Most men would be a little insulted by being called two-faced, manipulative scum. They generally got pretty offended when being accused of sexual blackmail - although what else would you would call the man who decided on promotions hinting that dating him would help with said promotions? And they definitely didn't like being told that all the promotions in the world weren't worth having to put up with a fetish for pigtails and Quidditch gear.
Pansy sat down at the kitchen table and buried her face in her hands. The worst part of the situation, in her opinion, wasn't even the fact that he was using her. She had been using him, too. She'd just thought that they had a mutual understanding and a certain respect for each other. Instead, he'd just been after some kinky sex and had promoted a fellow amateur Quidditch player to the job that Pansy wanted. The job she'd been qualified for, definitely more qualified than the bloke from Flint's pub-league team. And the man hadn't even had the decency to give her the head's up; no, he'd let her carry on thinking - hell, planning - that she'd get the job. Just so she'd put on the pads and hair ties and let him call her weird names.
Men were evil. That was all she could come up with at the moment. It wasn't like she didn't know any better, of course. She'd been betrayed, manipulated, conned, whatever you wanted to call it, by some of the best in the business. There was Penrice Parkinson, who had used Pansy like a bargaining chip from the day she was born. Then Draco Malfoy, her promised one, had thrown her over twice: first for the Dark Lord and then for Astoria Greengrass. Blaise, Michael, Zacharias, and now Marcus. They'd all been sweet, loving, and wonderful, but then it turned out they were using her for her name, her mind, her connections, her body or whatever it was that they particularly needed at the time.
And Pansy, well, she fell for it every time. She stood up from the kitchen table and made her way into the bedroom. There, she stripped off her clothes and stared at herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door. She wasn't tall, but not short. She wasn't particularly fat, but she wasn't thin. Her tummy pooched out a little and maybe her hips were wider than she liked, but she curved in and out in all the right places. Her face, well, she was no judge, but she thought she'd grown into it since leaving school. It wasn't going to stop traffic, but it wasn't going to stop clocks either. Twelve years had added some lines around her eyes and mouth, but her eyes were still a clear blue and her hair hung in heavy dark curtains to frame her features. She had to admit that while the picture wasn't unpleasant, she could see why it didn't inspire passionate devotion.
Reaching past the mirror, she grabbed a tunic and leggings. If she wasn't going to be seeing Marcus anymore, there was no need to wear anything fancy at home for the odd time that he might drop in. She considered the possibility that she might leave the flat, but dismissed it immediately. Her social life usually consisted of time spent with her boyfriend and his mates. She occasionally went out for a hen night with girls from the office, but there was no way she was going to want to see them right now. And the only other option was to go home… not a chance. Even if her mum would be supportive, the thought of presenting her latest failure to her father was enough to make Pansy hide under the bed clothes for a month.
No, there was nothing for it but to floo the curry place round the corner, uncork a bottle of Odgen's and spend the evening with the one person she could rely on - herself.
~~~<>~~~
There was a giant with a hammer living under Pansy's bed. Actually, he might have moved into her pillow. It was hard to tell, because she couldn't open her eyes without being attacked by vicious creatures of light, some kind of evil cousin to the fairies that Mum used in the topiary at holidays. And there was a used sock being stored in her mouth. Pansy opened her mouth and waggled her tongue experimentally. No sock, which meant no evil fairies, no giants, and, most likely, no Firewhiskey left in the bottle from last night. Oops.
With her eyes still closed, Pansy patted the bed until she located her wand. Three quick spells closed the drapes, dulled the headache and filled the water glass by her bed. A few more minutes took her to the bathroom, where she dug out Marcus' vial of hang-over potion and dosed herself thoroughly. The biliously yellow liquid tasted strangely of ginger and mint with a hint of sour bitterness that made Pansy avoid reading the ingredients label; however, it worked a treat. Within ten minutes, she had showered and brushed her teeth and felt immeasurably more alert.
The problem was that she didn't know what to do next. It wasn't a work day, so she didn't have to go to the office. She didn't have to go watch her boyfriend's bloody useless Quidditch team embarrass themselves. She didn't have to present herself at Parkinson Hall for lunch. Any given morning those were her options, so now she didn't know what to do with herself. The more Pansy thought about the situation, the more she began to realize that aside from being unappealing, that list of her usual habits' was kind of pathetic. She had been following the same patterns for years, just changing out the boyfriend, the job, or the outfit she wore to visit her parents. And it clearly wasn't working for her.
Pansy knew she wasn't a stupid witch. She hadn't taken many NEWTs, just Charms, Arithmancy and History of Magic, but her OWL grades had been uniformly excellent or outstanding. Her naturally organized but non-linear mind that had caught the attention of Professor Flitwick. He had recommended that she take a clerical position with a charms company run by a favourite student of his. The work had evolved into running the clerical department, which then turned into a position managing the entire administrative side of the business. Soon Pansy had found herself being recruited by a larger firm in a mid-level position with the promise of promotion.
Of course, Marcus had broken that promise, but that didn't mean that Pansy didn't deserve that promotion. A quiet voice, suspiciously like Professor Snape's, slyly pointed out that if she couldn't get her promotion at Be Spell'd, then maybe she could get it somewhere else. Loyalty, like trust, is earned, the voice continued, and until then, you have to do what is best for you. Pansy smiled at the memory of Professor Snape's 'life lesson lectures,' where he tried to instill some morals into his wayward charges. It had clearly been a lost cause in some cases, but in retrospect Pansy was aware that her head of house was trying to save them from repeating his mistakes.
With that thought in mind, she dressed quickly and floo'd to the library in Diagon Alley. In the periodicals section, she began combing through the recent potions and charms journals from across Great Britain. Two hours later she had a stack of magazines opened to their Employment sections and was copying the details of over a dozen positions onto a long parchment. Once she had them down, she decided she was going to treat herself to a decadent lunch and then spend the afternoon owling out her resume. She was getting out of London, out of the predictable rut that her life had become. She was going to leave it all behind and find a way to be happy on her own terms.
~~~<>~~~
"All right, Seamus?" Jane's head popped around the doorframe.
"Sure, hen," he answered. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"It's the beginning of the end." Jane wandered into the lab and hopped up to sit on the work bench. Seamus had to move quickly to prevent a container of doxy eggs from spilling. "The new boss arrives today to make us efficient, economical and possibly unemployed."
"Don't be daft, Janey." Seamus waved off the dire predictions. "There's no danger of that. We're the best department in the whole place. Practically runs itself, everyone says. Nothing needs changing, so let's just keep calm…"
"…and carry on." Jane sing-songed the rest of the Explosives and Corrosives Department's unofficial motto. She glared down at him from under her blond fringe.
"So if this section is so easy to run, why didn't you apply for the job? You practically ran the place for Stebbins anyway."
Seamus grinned and stood. "Well, easy. I didn't want the headache of being officially responsible for an irredeemable bunch of lazy tossers like you lot." He poked Jane's leg with a stirring spoon and then took her hand to help her off the counter. "Now get off to work. Got to look like busy bees for the new boss's first day. See you in the canteen at lunch?"
"Of course. You have to give us all the Hogwarts-days' gossip on the new boss-lady, remember?"
Seamus groaned theatrically and waved Jane away. When the door closed behind her, he dropped into his chair with a sigh. After he'd accidentally let slip that he'd been in the same year at Hogwarts as the new department manager, his workmates had insisted he tell them all about her. They didn't understand his reluctance to look back at that time in his life.
Most of the people in the department were several years younger than Seamus, and they hadn't gone through the Umbridge period. The few who'd been around for the Carrows had been too young to see the worst of it and had been sent away before the carnage and horror of the Last Battle. Their time at Hogwarts had been the Harmony and Reconciliation period, when house rivalries had been toned down and unity between all magical peoples and beings had been taught at every turn.
Seamus had skipped all that. He'd come back to Ireland after the Last Battle and had never set foot on the grounds of Hogwarts again. Armed with recommendations from Professors Flitwick and Slughorn, he'd applied for an apprenticeship at the County Cork Charmerie and completed his NEWTs through a special equivalency program the Ministry had established for the survivors of the war. His affinity for explosive potions and charms had caught the attention of several companies and, after string of mid-level jobs, Seamus had landed a position as lead developer at the Sithean an Banrigh site of Ireland's biggest charms and potions firm, Draiocht Inc.
He shook his head to clear it of thoughts of the past and moved back to the potion he'd been working on. If all went well, it was going to be a liquid explosive that could be dispensed drop by drop and then be spell-triggered from a safe distance. Of course, in Seamus' experience, nothing went well the first fifty or so tries, so he started his daily ritual of donning protective spells and clothing. Jane's question about why he hadn't applied for the supervisor job floated through his head and Seamus smiled. Why would he choose to sit behind a desk all day, shuffling papers and playing politics, when he could be at a work bench blowing up crucibles and melting cauldrons?
If surviving the Last Battle, when so many of his friends hadn't, had taught Seamus anything it was that life was to be lived to the fullest and every moment should be enjoyed. There was no time to waste being unhappy or unkind or playing games with other people's heads and hearts. Seamus had talked with his father about this many times, and Da had given him books about Muggle philosophies called Zen and Daoism that had helped Seamus make sense of the awful things that he had lived through those last few years at Hogwarts.
He had reached a place of equilibrium and peace, and even the appearance of Pansy Parkinson wasn't going to shake Seamus' contentment. She might have been the Bitch Queen of Slytherin back in the day but now, twelve years since the last time he'd seen her, she was just another witch. He certainly wasn't going to tell the rest of the department that Pansy was the one who'd tried to turn Harry Potter over to Voldemort in the Great Hall, or that she'd been an informer for Umbridge and the Carrows in turn. The past was the past and neither Pansy nor Seamus could change what they had done then, so he was determined to greet her with an open mind and take it from there.
~~~<>~~~
Pansy stood in the doorway of her new office, surveying her new domain. It was much nicer than her glorified cubicle at Be Spell'd, with a gorgeous old wooden desk, a couple of comfortable chairs around a side table, and a picture window looking out over the town. The job that went with it was much nicer too, running her own department at Ireland's largest charms and potions firm. She'd spent the morning in meetings with the higher-ups and now it was time to meet her team. Her team! Just the idea of it made her smile.
She'd sent an inter-office memo off to the lead developer, a Mr. Finnigan, asking if he could assemble the team in the largest lab at two and if he could meet her there at half past one to brief her on the group. When she'd seen Finnigan's name, she'd felt a twinge of recognition but couldn't place him in her memories. One of the directors had mentioned that he was also from Hogwarts and was about her age but couldn't tell her which house he'd been from. Pansy had winced internally at that, since her plans for a fresh start had included getting away from people who would remind her of her past. Unfortunately, the Wizarding world was small and apparently even a change of country didn't guarantee escape.
Anyway, it was time to meet this name from the past. She straightened her robes and brushed a hand over her hair, checking that each dark strand was tucked up neatly. Stashing a pre-inked quill and some memo-parchment in her pocket, she walked briskly towards the lab. Draiocht had chosen to keep its most volatile labs on the upper floors of a separate wing, after a particularly bad explosion in a basement lab had caused several floors to collapse. Now, the Explosives and Corrosives team could cause chaos without endangering the rest of the firm.
Turning the corner into the central testing lab, Pansy stopped dead in her tracks. Sitting at the workbench, staring out the window, was someone she could only assume was Finnigan. In fact, she was sure he was. Twelve years had changed him but the sandy hair was still a mess of cowlicks and while his face was definitely that of a grown man, the bright blue eyes were the same ones she remembered glaring defiantly at the Carrows. At least these days he wasn't bruised and dirty, scrawny from repeatedly being denied food, or bloodied from being made 'an example' for some transgression. Pansy felt her stomach clench. This man had good reason to hate her and he was going to be her second in command. For a cowardly moment, she thought that it might be better to go crawling back to Marcus than deal with this.
Just as that thought crossed her mind, Finnigan turned and spotted her. He stood up and crossed the lab, a smile lighting up his face. It looked like a genuine smile, the skin around his eyes crinkling, and he stretched out a hand. Pansy stepped into the room to meet his handshake, trying to keep her face smooth and pleasant. His hand, as it grasped hers, was warm and surprisingly slim. She glanced down for a moment at the long, calloused fingers wrapped around hers and couldn't help comparing them to Marcus' clumsy paws. Finnigan's hands dealt with delicate potions ingredients and while they were work-reddened, they were gentle. Pansy suddenly realized that she was staring at their joined hands and pulled back as politely as she could.
"Mr. Finnigan," she began, her voice sounding high to her ears.
"Seamus, please," he interrupted. "We're a first-names only kind of place, except for the old fogeys. And you and I are too young for that title."
"Seamus," Pansy acknowledged, trying but failing to imitate the Irish pronunciation. "Thank you for meeting me early. I know you've a big project on, but from what Mr. Stebbins told me, you're well ahead of schedule."
"Not a worry. I've moved about enough to know that first days can be rough, so I'm happy to help. What did you want to be starting with?"
Pansy was thrown by his easy agreement. She'd expected some sort of animosity, even if only because she was the new boss, but there was nothing. Either Seamus didn't remember her at all, which was unlikely given what she'd done at Hogwarts, or he was pretending that he didn't. Either way, it made her uneasy. But now was not the time to figure it out, she decided. There was work to do, and the new Pansy was a professional woman who was past playing men's games.
"Right, well, let's start with a run-down of the team. I need to know who is who, what their strengths are, and where they could use a little help. Any insight you can give me will be greatly appreciated."
"Good stuff," Seamus answered easily, leading her to the workbench at the end of the lab. "Let's set you up here so you can see everyone when they come in. Shall we go alphabetically?"
Pansy nodded, her head still whirling in confusion since she couldn't figure out what he was playing at. She'd have to keep an extra-close eye on Seamus Finnigan.
Part Two
Author/Artist: kalisgirl
Characters: Pansy, Seamus, OCs
Prompt number: 229
Word Count: 10,100
Rating: PG-13 for language and adult talk
Warnings: None, except for the shameless abuse of Irish brogue
Summary: Pansy's had her heart bruised one too many times, so she decides to move on with her life. But it's hard to move forward with the past staring you in the face.
Disclaimer: Pansy, Seamus and the magical world of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling and others. I just play here to amuse myself and others.
Author’s Notes: When I saw this prompt, I couldn't resist, so big thanks to the prompter - I hope you enjoy the direction I took. Thanks also to those supportive folk who convinced me that I could wrap the story up in three chapters. And finally, thank you thank you to my beta for jumping in on a moment's notice and being so good to me.
Sigh No More - Part One
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
Much Ado About Nothing
- William Shakespeare
Pansy was vibrating with anger. She could practically feel her magic coiling and fizzing around her, ready to spark at the slightest provocation. It had been years, decades, since she'd performed accidental magic, but today her control was so thin that she was surprised that the windows of the shops she passed didn't burst from the force of her glare.
Her heels clicked violently against the cobbles of Diagon Alley as she stormed through the mid-afternoon crowd of window-shopping housewitches. A path cleared in front of her, although that was probably more because of the murderous look on her face than by any magical cause. All her focus was on reaching the safety of her flat, and that meant getting to the public floo access beside Flourish and Blotts. Until then, Pansy was determined that she would not break down, she would not scream, and she would not cry.
Rounding the final corner at a brisk clip, she fumbled in her robes for a sickle. It irritated her to have to pay for a floo, but there had been no way that she could have floo'd home from work - that would have let everyone know that she was running home to cry. Instead, she'd held her head high, announced that it was time for her to take lunch (ignoring the fact that she had eaten a salad at her desk, the same as she did every day, not half an hour before) and swept out of the office. No one had bothered to ask when she'd be back, but her pride refused to let her look like she was crawling away in misery.
Barking out her flat's address, Pansy stepped into the magical flames. Three swirls and she was stepping out onto hearth, robes dusty and hair askew. Public floos were always such a mess, she thought, as she stripped off her office robes and began her 'arriving at home' rituals as though it were any other day. It wasn't until she found herself standing in the kitchen trying to remember what she'd intended to make for dinner that the wrongness of the situation hit her.
It wasn't dinner time. It was two in the afternoon and she'd just had a screaming fight with her boss and had probably lost her job. She'd certainly lost her boyfriend, since Marcus wasn't likely to take well what she'd said in his office. Most men would be a little insulted by being called two-faced, manipulative scum. They generally got pretty offended when being accused of sexual blackmail - although what else would you would call the man who decided on promotions hinting that dating him would help with said promotions? And they definitely didn't like being told that all the promotions in the world weren't worth having to put up with a fetish for pigtails and Quidditch gear.
Pansy sat down at the kitchen table and buried her face in her hands. The worst part of the situation, in her opinion, wasn't even the fact that he was using her. She had been using him, too. She'd just thought that they had a mutual understanding and a certain respect for each other. Instead, he'd just been after some kinky sex and had promoted a fellow amateur Quidditch player to the job that Pansy wanted. The job she'd been qualified for, definitely more qualified than the bloke from Flint's pub-league team. And the man hadn't even had the decency to give her the head's up; no, he'd let her carry on thinking - hell, planning - that she'd get the job. Just so she'd put on the pads and hair ties and let him call her weird names.
Men were evil. That was all she could come up with at the moment. It wasn't like she didn't know any better, of course. She'd been betrayed, manipulated, conned, whatever you wanted to call it, by some of the best in the business. There was Penrice Parkinson, who had used Pansy like a bargaining chip from the day she was born. Then Draco Malfoy, her promised one, had thrown her over twice: first for the Dark Lord and then for Astoria Greengrass. Blaise, Michael, Zacharias, and now Marcus. They'd all been sweet, loving, and wonderful, but then it turned out they were using her for her name, her mind, her connections, her body or whatever it was that they particularly needed at the time.
And Pansy, well, she fell for it every time. She stood up from the kitchen table and made her way into the bedroom. There, she stripped off her clothes and stared at herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door. She wasn't tall, but not short. She wasn't particularly fat, but she wasn't thin. Her tummy pooched out a little and maybe her hips were wider than she liked, but she curved in and out in all the right places. Her face, well, she was no judge, but she thought she'd grown into it since leaving school. It wasn't going to stop traffic, but it wasn't going to stop clocks either. Twelve years had added some lines around her eyes and mouth, but her eyes were still a clear blue and her hair hung in heavy dark curtains to frame her features. She had to admit that while the picture wasn't unpleasant, she could see why it didn't inspire passionate devotion.
Reaching past the mirror, she grabbed a tunic and leggings. If she wasn't going to be seeing Marcus anymore, there was no need to wear anything fancy at home for the odd time that he might drop in. She considered the possibility that she might leave the flat, but dismissed it immediately. Her social life usually consisted of time spent with her boyfriend and his mates. She occasionally went out for a hen night with girls from the office, but there was no way she was going to want to see them right now. And the only other option was to go home… not a chance. Even if her mum would be supportive, the thought of presenting her latest failure to her father was enough to make Pansy hide under the bed clothes for a month.
No, there was nothing for it but to floo the curry place round the corner, uncork a bottle of Odgen's and spend the evening with the one person she could rely on - herself.
~~~<>~~~
There was a giant with a hammer living under Pansy's bed. Actually, he might have moved into her pillow. It was hard to tell, because she couldn't open her eyes without being attacked by vicious creatures of light, some kind of evil cousin to the fairies that Mum used in the topiary at holidays. And there was a used sock being stored in her mouth. Pansy opened her mouth and waggled her tongue experimentally. No sock, which meant no evil fairies, no giants, and, most likely, no Firewhiskey left in the bottle from last night. Oops.
With her eyes still closed, Pansy patted the bed until she located her wand. Three quick spells closed the drapes, dulled the headache and filled the water glass by her bed. A few more minutes took her to the bathroom, where she dug out Marcus' vial of hang-over potion and dosed herself thoroughly. The biliously yellow liquid tasted strangely of ginger and mint with a hint of sour bitterness that made Pansy avoid reading the ingredients label; however, it worked a treat. Within ten minutes, she had showered and brushed her teeth and felt immeasurably more alert.
The problem was that she didn't know what to do next. It wasn't a work day, so she didn't have to go to the office. She didn't have to go watch her boyfriend's bloody useless Quidditch team embarrass themselves. She didn't have to present herself at Parkinson Hall for lunch. Any given morning those were her options, so now she didn't know what to do with herself. The more Pansy thought about the situation, the more she began to realize that aside from being unappealing, that list of her usual habits' was kind of pathetic. She had been following the same patterns for years, just changing out the boyfriend, the job, or the outfit she wore to visit her parents. And it clearly wasn't working for her.
Pansy knew she wasn't a stupid witch. She hadn't taken many NEWTs, just Charms, Arithmancy and History of Magic, but her OWL grades had been uniformly excellent or outstanding. Her naturally organized but non-linear mind that had caught the attention of Professor Flitwick. He had recommended that she take a clerical position with a charms company run by a favourite student of his. The work had evolved into running the clerical department, which then turned into a position managing the entire administrative side of the business. Soon Pansy had found herself being recruited by a larger firm in a mid-level position with the promise of promotion.
Of course, Marcus had broken that promise, but that didn't mean that Pansy didn't deserve that promotion. A quiet voice, suspiciously like Professor Snape's, slyly pointed out that if she couldn't get her promotion at Be Spell'd, then maybe she could get it somewhere else. Loyalty, like trust, is earned, the voice continued, and until then, you have to do what is best for you. Pansy smiled at the memory of Professor Snape's 'life lesson lectures,' where he tried to instill some morals into his wayward charges. It had clearly been a lost cause in some cases, but in retrospect Pansy was aware that her head of house was trying to save them from repeating his mistakes.
With that thought in mind, she dressed quickly and floo'd to the library in Diagon Alley. In the periodicals section, she began combing through the recent potions and charms journals from across Great Britain. Two hours later she had a stack of magazines opened to their Employment sections and was copying the details of over a dozen positions onto a long parchment. Once she had them down, she decided she was going to treat herself to a decadent lunch and then spend the afternoon owling out her resume. She was getting out of London, out of the predictable rut that her life had become. She was going to leave it all behind and find a way to be happy on her own terms.
~~~<>~~~
"All right, Seamus?" Jane's head popped around the doorframe.
"Sure, hen," he answered. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"It's the beginning of the end." Jane wandered into the lab and hopped up to sit on the work bench. Seamus had to move quickly to prevent a container of doxy eggs from spilling. "The new boss arrives today to make us efficient, economical and possibly unemployed."
"Don't be daft, Janey." Seamus waved off the dire predictions. "There's no danger of that. We're the best department in the whole place. Practically runs itself, everyone says. Nothing needs changing, so let's just keep calm…"
"…and carry on." Jane sing-songed the rest of the Explosives and Corrosives Department's unofficial motto. She glared down at him from under her blond fringe.
"So if this section is so easy to run, why didn't you apply for the job? You practically ran the place for Stebbins anyway."
Seamus grinned and stood. "Well, easy. I didn't want the headache of being officially responsible for an irredeemable bunch of lazy tossers like you lot." He poked Jane's leg with a stirring spoon and then took her hand to help her off the counter. "Now get off to work. Got to look like busy bees for the new boss's first day. See you in the canteen at lunch?"
"Of course. You have to give us all the Hogwarts-days' gossip on the new boss-lady, remember?"
Seamus groaned theatrically and waved Jane away. When the door closed behind her, he dropped into his chair with a sigh. After he'd accidentally let slip that he'd been in the same year at Hogwarts as the new department manager, his workmates had insisted he tell them all about her. They didn't understand his reluctance to look back at that time in his life.
Most of the people in the department were several years younger than Seamus, and they hadn't gone through the Umbridge period. The few who'd been around for the Carrows had been too young to see the worst of it and had been sent away before the carnage and horror of the Last Battle. Their time at Hogwarts had been the Harmony and Reconciliation period, when house rivalries had been toned down and unity between all magical peoples and beings had been taught at every turn.
Seamus had skipped all that. He'd come back to Ireland after the Last Battle and had never set foot on the grounds of Hogwarts again. Armed with recommendations from Professors Flitwick and Slughorn, he'd applied for an apprenticeship at the County Cork Charmerie and completed his NEWTs through a special equivalency program the Ministry had established for the survivors of the war. His affinity for explosive potions and charms had caught the attention of several companies and, after string of mid-level jobs, Seamus had landed a position as lead developer at the Sithean an Banrigh site of Ireland's biggest charms and potions firm, Draiocht Inc.
He shook his head to clear it of thoughts of the past and moved back to the potion he'd been working on. If all went well, it was going to be a liquid explosive that could be dispensed drop by drop and then be spell-triggered from a safe distance. Of course, in Seamus' experience, nothing went well the first fifty or so tries, so he started his daily ritual of donning protective spells and clothing. Jane's question about why he hadn't applied for the supervisor job floated through his head and Seamus smiled. Why would he choose to sit behind a desk all day, shuffling papers and playing politics, when he could be at a work bench blowing up crucibles and melting cauldrons?
If surviving the Last Battle, when so many of his friends hadn't, had taught Seamus anything it was that life was to be lived to the fullest and every moment should be enjoyed. There was no time to waste being unhappy or unkind or playing games with other people's heads and hearts. Seamus had talked with his father about this many times, and Da had given him books about Muggle philosophies called Zen and Daoism that had helped Seamus make sense of the awful things that he had lived through those last few years at Hogwarts.
He had reached a place of equilibrium and peace, and even the appearance of Pansy Parkinson wasn't going to shake Seamus' contentment. She might have been the Bitch Queen of Slytherin back in the day but now, twelve years since the last time he'd seen her, she was just another witch. He certainly wasn't going to tell the rest of the department that Pansy was the one who'd tried to turn Harry Potter over to Voldemort in the Great Hall, or that she'd been an informer for Umbridge and the Carrows in turn. The past was the past and neither Pansy nor Seamus could change what they had done then, so he was determined to greet her with an open mind and take it from there.
~~~<>~~~
Pansy stood in the doorway of her new office, surveying her new domain. It was much nicer than her glorified cubicle at Be Spell'd, with a gorgeous old wooden desk, a couple of comfortable chairs around a side table, and a picture window looking out over the town. The job that went with it was much nicer too, running her own department at Ireland's largest charms and potions firm. She'd spent the morning in meetings with the higher-ups and now it was time to meet her team. Her team! Just the idea of it made her smile.
She'd sent an inter-office memo off to the lead developer, a Mr. Finnigan, asking if he could assemble the team in the largest lab at two and if he could meet her there at half past one to brief her on the group. When she'd seen Finnigan's name, she'd felt a twinge of recognition but couldn't place him in her memories. One of the directors had mentioned that he was also from Hogwarts and was about her age but couldn't tell her which house he'd been from. Pansy had winced internally at that, since her plans for a fresh start had included getting away from people who would remind her of her past. Unfortunately, the Wizarding world was small and apparently even a change of country didn't guarantee escape.
Anyway, it was time to meet this name from the past. She straightened her robes and brushed a hand over her hair, checking that each dark strand was tucked up neatly. Stashing a pre-inked quill and some memo-parchment in her pocket, she walked briskly towards the lab. Draiocht had chosen to keep its most volatile labs on the upper floors of a separate wing, after a particularly bad explosion in a basement lab had caused several floors to collapse. Now, the Explosives and Corrosives team could cause chaos without endangering the rest of the firm.
Turning the corner into the central testing lab, Pansy stopped dead in her tracks. Sitting at the workbench, staring out the window, was someone she could only assume was Finnigan. In fact, she was sure he was. Twelve years had changed him but the sandy hair was still a mess of cowlicks and while his face was definitely that of a grown man, the bright blue eyes were the same ones she remembered glaring defiantly at the Carrows. At least these days he wasn't bruised and dirty, scrawny from repeatedly being denied food, or bloodied from being made 'an example' for some transgression. Pansy felt her stomach clench. This man had good reason to hate her and he was going to be her second in command. For a cowardly moment, she thought that it might be better to go crawling back to Marcus than deal with this.
Just as that thought crossed her mind, Finnigan turned and spotted her. He stood up and crossed the lab, a smile lighting up his face. It looked like a genuine smile, the skin around his eyes crinkling, and he stretched out a hand. Pansy stepped into the room to meet his handshake, trying to keep her face smooth and pleasant. His hand, as it grasped hers, was warm and surprisingly slim. She glanced down for a moment at the long, calloused fingers wrapped around hers and couldn't help comparing them to Marcus' clumsy paws. Finnigan's hands dealt with delicate potions ingredients and while they were work-reddened, they were gentle. Pansy suddenly realized that she was staring at their joined hands and pulled back as politely as she could.
"Mr. Finnigan," she began, her voice sounding high to her ears.
"Seamus, please," he interrupted. "We're a first-names only kind of place, except for the old fogeys. And you and I are too young for that title."
"Seamus," Pansy acknowledged, trying but failing to imitate the Irish pronunciation. "Thank you for meeting me early. I know you've a big project on, but from what Mr. Stebbins told me, you're well ahead of schedule."
"Not a worry. I've moved about enough to know that first days can be rough, so I'm happy to help. What did you want to be starting with?"
Pansy was thrown by his easy agreement. She'd expected some sort of animosity, even if only because she was the new boss, but there was nothing. Either Seamus didn't remember her at all, which was unlikely given what she'd done at Hogwarts, or he was pretending that he didn't. Either way, it made her uneasy. But now was not the time to figure it out, she decided. There was work to do, and the new Pansy was a professional woman who was past playing men's games.
"Right, well, let's start with a run-down of the team. I need to know who is who, what their strengths are, and where they could use a little help. Any insight you can give me will be greatly appreciated."
"Good stuff," Seamus answered easily, leading her to the workbench at the end of the lab. "Let's set you up here so you can see everyone when they come in. Shall we go alphabetically?"
Pansy nodded, her head still whirling in confusion since she couldn't figure out what he was playing at. She'd have to keep an extra-close eye on Seamus Finnigan.
Part Two