This is written for Fire the Canon's Padma Patil Competition. My pairing was Padma/Seamus, and my prompt was medicine, so I decided to set it during the final battle. I don't own anything - it all belongs to Rowling.
Very slowly, Padma started to wake up.
She could see nothing but darkness, the insides of her eyelids, swimming before her eyes; her ears were ringing and all noise sounded tinny and far away. She tried to open her eyes, but found they were as heavy as sandbags.
"Oh, good, you're awake," came a brisk voice, and a face came slowly into focus above hers. Padma blinked, and her eyes opened in earnest as she looked up at the Hogwarts matron.
"Miss Patil," said Madame Pomfrey's concerned voice, "how do you feel?"
She opened her mouth to try to answer, coughed weakly, and managed to rasp, "What happened?"
"Curse," said the matron tersely, barely managing to hold her voice steady. "You should drink this potion and try to rest" –
"Parvati!" Padma's whole body jerked involuntarily. "No – I have to find her – what if she's" –
She could not say it, could not say her worst fear. She couldn't even think it.
"Your sister is fine," soothed Madame Pomfrey, "she's helping with the other patients right now."
"But – but" – Padma struggled to sit up, but even trying to move her head made her so dizzy that she had to relax – "but what if she gets hurt or – or" –
"No one is fighting at the moment, Miss Patil." Madame Pomfrey looked as though she wanted to say more, but someone let out a shrill cry of pain a few feet away, and the matron stiffened. "I need to help – here, Finnigan, you take charge of her" –
And then Madame Pomfrey's face vanished and was replaced immediately by that of Seamus Finnigan, obnoxious Gryffindor extraordinaire. Padma would have groaned if she could find any voice left.
"Hey, Patil," he said, "fancy meeting you here." Somehow, despite the fact that they were involved in an all-out battle between good and evil, he still managed to keep a smirk firmly plastered on his face.
She would have rolled her eyes if she hadn't been so worried. As it was, she managed only a weak, "Shut up, Finnigan," before her desire for information overpowered any other feeling. "What's happening?" she begged.
His voice – for possibly the first time ever – turned serious as he explained about the conditions for handing over Harry and the pause in the battle. Her heart caught in her throat when he told her about Fred Weasley – it seemed so impossible to believe – and a tear slipped down her face as she thought of George, because she could imagine exactly how he was feeling –
And a wave swamped her, a wave of powerful fear for all the people she loved. All the people who might not survive this night.
"Here," said Seamus, holding out the bottle of potion that Madame Pomfrey had been about to give her. "You really should drink this."
"What is it?" she asked, irked by his confident tone – as though he knew exactly what she needed and she should worship him for saving her life. The Ravenclaw instinct in her wanted to test him, to see if he really knew what he was talking about, though she could almost be sure that he didn't.
He checked the label on the bottle. "Dreamless sleep," he said, grinning, shameless despite his obvious ineptitude. She rolled her eyes for real this time, but she knew that Madame Pomfrey had prescribed this potion and Padma trusted her judgment, at least.
Her hand wouldn't move though, when she tried to reach up to take the potion from him; all her muscles felt weighted down with lead. But suddenly she felt his hands on her back – and why was her skin erupting into goose bumps? – easing her into a sitting position. With more care than she'd thought he was capable of, he tipped the potion bottle to her lips.
After one swallow, she made a face at the bitter taste, muttering petulantly, "That's absolutely revolting."
"Well you have to drink it, Miss Patil," he teased gently, "so deal with it," and he poured the rest of the potion into her mouth.
She grimaced, but swallowed dutifully, and he laid her gently back down on the cot. And as she felt herself starting to slip away, he leaned down and whispered in her ear. "Padma" – possibly the first time he'd ever used her first name – "I know you don't like me, but there's a real chance that one of us could get killed in the next hour, and if that's the case – I have to do this. Just once."
And before she could even start to puzzle through his words, before she could realize what he was saying and react at all, he had leaned down, the teasing smirk gone from his face, and kissed her firmly, right on the mouth.
"Wha - ?" she started in surprise, but he was already walking away, and – for some reason – something in her heart twinged at the sight of his back. Her lips were tingling.
Before he'd made it more than a few steps from her, though, he turned back around. She was fading fast, but he called back to her, "You were right." He made a face, wiping his mouth with his hand. "That potion tastes disgusting."
Her cheeks grew warm; she could feel herself blushing, but she didn't give in to it – she needed to say something, something important, and it was a struggle enough to move her lips.
"Finnigan," she managed to say.
He turned to her immediately and gave a mocking salute, lips still quirked up in that smirk that – somehow – wasn't quite so obnoxious anymore. "You're a moron," she murmured, her eyes starting to fall closed.
"Thanks," he said, sarcastically, almost bitterly. "That's what I'm here for."
"Wait!" Her voice had fallen to the volume of a whisper. Looking concerned – honestly concerned for her well-being – he turned back around, leaned over her so he could hear her, his ear practically touching her mouth. She could feel his breath on her neck, and it made her shiver pleasantly.
"You're a moron," she repeated, "but come back safely, okay?"
He grinned – a real, wide, open grin. "It would be my pleasure, Miss Patil." And he leaned toward her again.
His lips on hers were the last thing she felt before she sank back into oblivion.