Author's Note: Written for Round 7 of the QLFC
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Beater 1
Beater 1 Prompt: Muggle Me This: Write about a Witch or Wizard trying to combine magic and Muggle technology into one device
Prompts Used: 1 (word) motor, 2 (object) microwave, 13 (word) batteries
Word Count (excluding Author's Note): 2267
Totality
He woke, face down on the workbench; a puddle of drool under his right cheek. Slowly, he raised his head, feeling aches and pains in his shoulders and neck from sleeping slumped over the table yet again. There was no rest for the weary...or the curious.
As he took in the measure of the place in the wan morning sunlight, it was all as it should be – at least to his mind. The space immediately in front of him was a sprawl of notes and drawings, mostly pushed to one side or the other from where he now sat. A collection of dead batteries collected dust off to the left of his workbench. On his right, a microwave lay in countless pieces – evidence of another work-in-progress. He loved those. It was a vivid, visceral reminder that he was right in the middle of something; it meant he had more work to do, and nothing pleased him more than having something to tinker with. He had sketches for diesel motor improvements and research on lasers, detailed drawings of greenhouses and piles of books on functional chemistry. For someone who was known for blowing things up in school, Seamus didn't really come into his own until he left Hogwarts and embraced his Muggle heritage. After that, life got a lot easier, and he found his heart in engineering and inventing.
Being born to one Muggle parent, Seamus was familiar with mundane technology and had used various products for most of his life. His dad was a football loving, factory worker with a down-to-earth nature. Magic was a bit more than the poor man could take, at least at first. With Seamus not having exhibited an overt number of magical skills until just shy of receiving his letter to attend Hogwarts, magic had been much of priority in the Finnegan household outside of the wonders of broomstick riding.
Seamus remembered the day his father found out that 'riding' wasn't on horses, and Hogwarts wasn't a posh private school. He grabbing his coat and heading down to the pub: Seamus and his mum didn't see him for three days. When Aiden Finnegan returned, though, he was calm and accepting. There was never any further friction over wizardry or magic; it was just a part of the Finnegan household from there on out.
In the end, Hogwarts was all the adventure that Seamus could have wanted, and more, being the classmate, of The Boy Who Lived. Surprisingly, he had a lot in common with Harry Potter. Being Muggle-raised, Seamus was a pragmatic boy without a lot of imagination when it came to the fanciful, and it showed. No one could ruin a simple spell in Charms class like Seamus. It was not surprising that he gravitated towards Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Astronomy- he excelled at tangible things. He was also particularly interested in Alchemy. These were subjects he could get both his hands around, and that was what made Seamus tick.
It was a surprise to few who really knew him that Seamus went on after graduation to become a rabid inventor of hybridized Muggle technology for the Wizarding kind. His first attempt had led to eyeglasses that hovered rather than sat on one's nose, improving or even eliminating, skin indentations. There were oven mitts that sensed when the cook was using the oven and made themselves readily available. Self-cleaning rugs. Seamus Finnegan was an answer from Merlin himself to working witches and wizards everywhere! His curiosity and his natural inclination to take things apart only to put them back together woke him up at night and kept him enthralled for days without sleep. He loved it. It was never work for Seamus.
There was only one thing that he loved even more, though. And it was to that that his mind wandered next.
Another night in the lab, he sighed. I'd better get started on that I'm sorry-again- no-this-time-I-mean-it breakfast. He rolled himself up into a long, languorous stretch, shook the cobwebs out of his head, and trudged upstairs to put the kettle on.
Dean awoke to the scent of warm butter, baking, and a proper fry up, along with what he thought might be a deliciously dark Earl Grey tea. He loved the sharp scent of Bergamot. Even before he cracked open an eye, he knew that Seamus' side of the bed was cold, and had been all night. He reached out anyway, gliding his fingers over the pristine sheets to confirm what he already knew. He sighed. He knew, that he was no less loved by his partner; they'd been together too long for him to feel uncertain at this point. No, it was more a sadness that sometimes seized him-the idea that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as important to Seamus as Seamus was to him.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
Nothing could be further from the truth, he told himself. In his heart-of-hearts, Dean knew that. Truly, he did. Nevertheless, the sadness hit him all the same, and he had to honor that, too.
He slid out of bed and groped around in the dark room for something comfortable to wear. He was going to, at the very least, enjoy a lovely pot of tea.
Seamus was putting the finishing touches on a grilled tomato when Dean finally trudged in wearing a tracksuit. He was clothed head-to-toe in the green and white of the Irish National Quidditch Team. Seamus couldn't conceal his smile. Even now, when he was sure that they were on the verge of a row about his work hours, Dean was still wearing Seamus' clothing.
Goodness knows he couldn't care less about the Irish team, Seamus thought to himself.
They frequently wore each other's things; for comfort, for closeness. If Dean was away visiting with his family, Seamus often found himself lounging around for days in Dean's old, faded flannel pajama top from their school days. It was too small and nearly threadbare, but when Seamus missed Dean acutely and he needed his smell,that old piece of material seemed to hold Dean's very essence in its fibers.
"You're burning the tomato." Dean broke into Seamus' daydream as he grabbed the spatula out of his hands and flipped the blackened slice off the griddle.
"Hmmm…not too bad," Dean mused, half aloud as he put it on his plate. It was his favorite part of a full English, and, if truth be told, he liked it better with a bit of burn on it.
Seamus quietly slid some rashers and a perfect soft-boiled egg onto the plate next to Dean's tomato without comment. He then turned his attention to the almost half-loaf of toast he'd made, buttering and cutting slices, then laying them out on the table next to the marmalade. He quickly grabbed a plate for himself and settled into his usual chair at their small breakfast nook table.
"Late night?" Dean asked casually as he cut into his tomato. He loved to slather his bread in the yolk and jelly from the grilled tomato together. Seamus found it all a bit repulsive, but loved the predictability of his partner. Seamus would have replicated the procedure himself on his own plate if it would get Dean to look at him this morning.
It had not gone unnoticed that Dean had been avoiding making eye contact.
I'm just so careless, Seamus lamented, pushing his food around his plate. I don't mean to be. I'm just such a bleeding sod.
"Not hungry?" Dean interrupted Seamus' internal self-flagellation. For the first time that morning, Dean looked his partner directly in the eyes.
"Maybe not as much as I thought," Seamus answered.
Dean carefully grabbed another slice of toast and dredged it through his egg and tomato mixture, grabbing a bit of bacon before raising it to his mouth. He chewed slowly and drank a healthy mouthful of tea before responding.
"I'm not angry, you know," he said, his eyes remaining on his plate this time, working on his next mouthful.
"But you are sad," Seamus provided.
"Sometimes," Dean confirmed, and continued eating.
"Right now you are," Seamus said, looking over at Dean.
"I was," he said, "but…" Dean broke off and looked at the forlorn man sitting next to him. "But then I remembered who I married. The nutty inventor. The lover of puzzles. The man who forgets to eat and sleep or to even comb his hair," he said, as he brushed his fingers through Seamus' tangled mop.
A warm, loving smile crept across Dean's face as he let his finger trace the outline of Seamus' face – his small, delicate earlobes, his lovely freckles, and his straight jaw;scruffy with stubble.
Seamus grabbed at the hand and pressed it to his lips. He let out a sigh of contentment and the sparkle seemed to come back into his eyes.
"I can't wait to show you what I was working on!" he started, excitedly. "It's for you, and I'm just so happy with how it turned out…"
Seamus started to gather himself up to head right back down to his lab, but Dean grabbed his hand and held him there.
"Maybe you should eat something first, hmmm?" he suggested, motioning over to Seamus' untouched plate. "Would be a shame if all this lovely breakfast went to waste."
Seamus sat back down happily, and they ate in the rosy light of the early morning sun.
It was the greatest invention Seamus had created, as far as he was concerned. He and Dean shared a love of amateur astronomy. They had even planned vacations around witnessing special celestial events or ventured further off the beaten path just to find fully dark skies to lie beneath. Seamus considered these some of his most fond memories.
Totality, however, was incredibly rare. To have it happen across the British Isles was rarer still; Seamus was more than aware that Dean was particularly keen on the event.
"A total eclipse of the sun in our lifetimes and near to where we live! We're just so incredibly fortunate," Dean had gushed not two weeks ago as they were driving up to Scotland to take in the Perseids.
"Well, those glasses you ordered seem sort of flimsy to me," Seamus replied, thinking about the recent arrival of two pairs of cardboard framed eyewear that were supposed to protect their eyes from the harmful effects of staring directly into the sun.
"You would say that," Dean quipped, still completely a-titter about the impending event, but Seamus was already wondering if he couldn't do better than the cheap specs they already had at home. He started by re-evaluating glasses and went through all sorts of filters and films, much like the automatic darkening shades that many Muggles wore on their prescription readers.
However, after a time, he decided to go back to a viewing unit much like he remembered making in Scouts as a child. For starters, the box unit protected the peripheral vision as well as what was directly in front of one's eye, an issue that Seamus took with the sunglasses from the start.
From there, it was…well…magic.
"I've given it the capacity to show you all the various spectrums of light coming from the sun and its corona with the tap of a wand," he explained excitedly to Dean as he presented it to him.
Dean peered inside and pointed the opening of the gadget toward the sun in their back garden. Seamus tapped and tapped and tapped again, revealing a new band of energy with each whispered spell. Ultraviolet, infrared and even radio waves fill the appliance with colours along the visible spectrum to human eyes, and all without an iota of risky radiation.
Dean was enthralled, but the best was yet to come.
"And," Seamus added as he gave the unit one last command, "I've taken the principles of the Muggle DVR to integrate recording. For you."
Dean pulled his face away and looked, dumbstruck, at his love.
"I'll be able to play this back?" he asked, incredulous.
Seamus' smile grew even broader. "You'll be able to pull those recordings out and replay them, even take stills out of the recording! It's like a Pensieve, but for objects!"
It was all Dean could do to place the beautiful machine down, gently, on the grass before he jumped into Seamus' arms and kissed him.
The Eclipse was breathtaking; made even more so by Seamus' SunViewer as he had taken to calling it. Dean was certain that he would not be the only one interested in such a unique invention. As might be expected, he was already working out the details of marketing it. It would be just the sort of thing Dean's mind would turn to.
Totality, Seamus thought as he found himself watching Dean's expression rather than the event in those moments. Sure, he was keen to see the eclipse itself; but, in the moment, he realized that something much more significant was happening in his own personal universe. He could not pull his eyes away as he watched the shifting spectrum of emotions dance across Dean's face, each more intense and jubilant than the next. Seamus knew, as he watched, that no eclipse could match the fullness of his heart in these moments; joy to the point of bursting.
Then, as shadow passed over them in full, Dean turned to look into the eyes of his lover, and smiled. Totality, for the two of them, was more than a mere celestial event.
It was everything.