I wrote this for October's Monthly One Shot Exchange over on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum.
It's written for deant33. I know it's actually November now and therefore, this fic is late, but I hope you like it anyway!
Prompts: Seamus/Lavender, Friendship, "That was bloody brilliant", pineapple, oblivion.
Sometimes, life just doesn't work out the way you plan it.
You imagine things as a little child with naïveté clouding your vision; with no true concept of what the world around you was like.
Looking at things with rose coloured glasses, thinking that everything was all sunshine and rainbows...
Until you grew up and learned better.
That the world didn't really work that way.
This current school year especially had helped her to see that.
Dumbledore dead, You-Know-Who taking over Wizarding Britain; even more disappearances and deaths every day...
Even Hogwarts was no longer safe from the taint of evil.
A Death Eater was headmaster, two were 'teachers'...
She sat in the Gryffindor Common Room, eating a box of crystallised pineapple, which, though she normally enjoyed it, seemed to taste like rubber to her now, as she merely went through the mechanics of eating it.
"Lavender?" a light touch on her shoulder nearly made her jump out of her skin and choke on a piece of the confection she was eating.
"Seamus!" she exclaimed once she turned around to see him, irritated and ready to tell him off for scaring her.
That irritation faded away when his injuries; looking fresh and raw, registered in her brain.
"What the hell happened to you?!" She looked ready to cry but shook it off. "Hold on. Don't answer that just yet..." she fished her wand out of her pocket and began casting various spells at him.
Seamus felt most of his wounds began to close up and aches begin to fade away.
"That was bloody brilliant! Lavender, how did you-" Seamus started to ask, but Lavender shushed him as she continued to cast more spells.
"Given the... current troubles, my parents decided it would be wise to teach me whatever they could about counteracting Dark Magic and Healing Magic in general. Sorry to say, but it's not the first time I've had to do this. And I'm not even that good at it anyway..." Lavender tucked her wand away and sat next to him.
"So..." Seamus smiled lightly at her. "Were you waiting up for me? I see that everyone else has gone to bed except you..."
"I couldn't sleep, so I decided to come down here and sit instead. Don't flatter yourself." Lavender rolled her eyes.
Seamus chuckled. "Hard to believe that this is the same girl I went to the Yule Ball with, insulting me so..."
"Only because you deserve the insults. If it wasn't for those nasty Carrows already doing the job I'd hex you into oblivion..." Lavender pouted and her expression only served to make Seamus laugh even more.
"It's moments like this that I enjoy. Ever since You-Know-Who took over, laughter and happiness seems so hard to come by these days..." Seamus took her hand and held it lightly.
"I know. I've been learning to enjoy these little bright spots lately. I used to take happiness and freedom for granted and now..." Lavender looked down.
"Now it's all gone..." Seamus squeezed her hand gently. "...but like you said, I've learned to enjoy these little bright spots, regardless of the darkness we're in now..."
Lavender yawned. "I guess now that I've seen that you're back and alive, my body's telling me that I can go to sleep now..."
Seamus helped her up. "Then let's go to dreamland now. We'll need our rest to deal with what lies ahead of us..."
Lavender could only nod.
In the times of darkness engulfing them, there were few bright spots of happiness that she could see, but these brief moments with those that she cared for were what she lived for now.