Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its properties.
This was written for the Baa Baa Black Sheep competition on the Harry Potter FanFiction Challenges forum.
The bottle was empty.
Seamus liked it better when the bottle was full, because that meant he could sit and drink for just a little bit longer without having to drag himself off of the couch and Apparate to Knockturn fucking Alley.
But it was empty, and he wasn't able to do a damn thing about it except to fork over more galleons and fill that bottle back up. Depended on how much fucking money he had, of course. Dean had given him some, but that was supposed to be for his rent… Ah, screw it. He'd just ask his mum to pay his rent again. She would get annoyed and angry, but she'd still do it.
He stumbled to his room and grabbed the galleons from his dresser, belching loudly and counting them clumsily. He hadn't eaten in a while, he noted, as his stomach rumbled. But Firewhiskey was more important, because if he didn't pour it down his throat, he'd remember…
No, he couldn't remember. He couldn't think about the castle. Or the Battle or the countless faces that had laid on the ground, dead…soulless eyes, empty chests, all of those people…were gone. He could have protected them. They could have been alive.
And it was his entire fucking fault. If he had believed in Harry during fifth year…who fucking knows what that could have changed…but he had been a prat, and now people were gone.
No, he couldn't fucking take responsibility for this! Damn it, he had to get rid of the memories, he couldn't…god it was all too much.
Toomuchtoomuchtoomuch.
Seamus couldn't take the memories, he had to throw the whiskey down his throat, he had to or they would stay in his brain, and those people were dead because of him and…fuck.
He couldn't do it. Not ever.
So Seamus got bottle after bottle of whiskey and he drowned himself in it.
He drank until he could barely pick up the bottle.
He drank until he couldn't stand up without falling.
He drank until he couldn't see shit.
He drank until the burn of whiskey was all he could taste.
He drank until nothing existed but the bottle…not the castle, not the ones who survived, not the ones who died…fucking no one but himself and the liquid being poured down his throat.
He drank and he drank and he drank.
And each time he raised that bottle to his mouth, he signed off a little bit more of his life, right up until there was nothing left to give.
Dean found him two days later, dead as a doorknob with a half empty bottle of Firewhiskey resting against his leg.