I'm not ready to give up just yet

I looked up into his eyes, just in time to see a single, delicate tear fall and land on my cheek. The contact made me blink, but the wounds lacerating my chest made opening my eyes again so much harder than I thought it would be. This was it. This was the end.

'Hermione? HERMIONE!' Seamus screamed, his voice breaking as a now constant stream of tears made a river down his flushed cheeks as he leaned over me on the muddy, blood stained ground. The fighting raged all around us but all I could see was Seamus. Not the man as he was now, with a scar running across his forehead and madness in his eyes, but as the boy I fell in love with.

I met Seamus on the train in our first year but I never had the courage to talk to him, I made the excuse that I was always too busy with some scheme or another with Ron and Harry. The once golden Trio, now in ashes. It wasn't until our fourth year that I had a proper conversation with him, I wish it had been earlier, that I had more time with him. It was the night of the Yule Ball, Ron and I had just fought and Viktor was nowhere to be found, I was a mess as I cried on the stone steps, no motivation to move as I assumed the student body would continue to ignore me as they did all year. However, my knight in shining armour came to my rescue. Seamus sat down next to me and in his dorky Irish accent asked if I was alright. The question was so ridiculous as I sat there practically drowning in my own tears that I couldn't help but laugh. It was the start of a friendship I came to rely on more than air itself. I believed in Seamus like a vicar believed in God, and whenever I needed it, he was there to comfort me. Before long, it was him that I thought about first when I woke up and last when I fell asleep, him I wanted to tell my good news to, him I dreamed of going to Hogsmeade with. It became the perfect teen romance that was forced, like all other things, to mature too early with the war. Just as we were forced to lose our childhood, we lost our innocence, our purity, our incorruptibility, our all-consuming belief in 'Good will out'. We were forced to kill, to hunt, to revert to animalistic natures, but through it all me and Seamus kept each other sane, our kisses soothing guilt, loss, vulnerability. My knight in shining armour chasing away the beasts in my mind.

Now, lying on the ground looking into his deep, sea green eyes, eyes that made the world turn, made the sun come up in the morning, made life liveable, I could do nothing but smile and whisper with what little energy I had left,

'I love you.'

'Hermione don't say that,' Seamus whispered back through a watery smile, 'We have all the time in the world to say that to each other. When I propose, on our wedding day, when we have our first child. Just think Hermione, I'll show you Ireland, you'll love it.'

'Seamus I-'

'I'm not ready to give up just yet Hermione,' Seamus grabbed my cold hand, kissing it as he stroked my hair, tucking the blood matted curls behind my ear. 'God, I'm not ready, I'm not-'

'Kiss me Seamus,' I said so quietly I thought he wouldn't hear, but the recognition in his eyes was enough for me to know that he knew, he knew I was about to die but didn't want to accept that this would be our last kiss, our last goodbye. Slowly, Seamus leaned down and pressed his lips to mine, giving me the same butterflies as the first time he had kissed me on the sand by the great lake when we were 16, the same fireworks bursting behind my eyes when he said he loved me for the first time. Seamus pressed his forehead lightly to mine as I felt the last whisps of life flow from my body. As my world faded to black and all I could see was him I whispered my last 'I love you.'