A/N: I return to the scene of the chaos known as writing fanfiction with something more this summer, and that is helped by having rejoined the forum mentioned above. This starts off the collection I'll be keeping on here to organize the stories that will be coming out of the forum's assignments. It'll be mostly Deamus writing this time 'round I expect, at least with this little collection here.

Prompts:

Past Stone: Apatite - Write about someone dwelling or thinking deeply over an event from the past.

Written for: Lithomancy, Assignment #15, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Challenges and Assignments

Word Count: 1,406

Scratching one arm absentmindedly, Seamus did not move his head from where he had hung it however many minutes ago. There had been something he had needed to do…

There is too much to do these days…

With a careful hand, he picked up the pen that lay beside him. If there was going to be a storm of thoughts in his head, he might as well write them down. Writing was calming, much more calming than what Seamus was preparing to go though at the time.

Taking the book up in his hands, he opened the well-used pages. A trip to a store would be mandatory soon, the pages were running down. Literal years were piled in this journal of sorts, after all.

Seamus pushed the pages apart and came to one of the last few pages that was actually free.

And then, he began to write, in the silence of the living room.

I've not done much for a while about all the things floating around my head, but people say it's a therapy, this writing down one's feelings things. And I've said that many times myself. Which makes it mostly true, I guess.

Today marks the two year anniversary of the beginning of the torture that I got for a year. It was the first day I ever felt the fiery breath of the curse that was used so much then. It seems ridiculous that I can't stop feeling it even now, isn't it?

People who've never experienced it don't understand. Every time I've tried to explain that, yes, it does hurt to think about the first time I had to experience their idea of detention, someone always says "Oh, but doesn't it get old eventually?" They have no idea that it leaves more than just millions of physical scars.

I remember it vividly.

I walked into that room completely unprepared. I had not been warned, in fact, most of the school was unaware that they would resort to violence. We had no idea that anyone would do such a thing - well, mostly no idea. Maybe it was obvious from the glares that they sent constantly that they highly disliked children, but I don't think any of us had any idea that things were possibly going to get worse.

So I walked in, and they looked at me like I was stupid. God, I was so stupid. I couldn't do anything to save myself. I was subjected to more than the rest of the student body as a whole had ever been subjected to in less than 15 minutes.

And I just... took it.

I can't believe I just took it.

I definitely couldn't believe such a thing after it was over, when I realized what it had done to me. What they were still doing to me. What continued to happen as I put up more of a resistance shield.

People commented. People watched. People were always concerned as I pushed it farther and farther.

But that first day was such a shock, enough that I don't think I've gotten over it even now. Even now, two years later, I can still vividly remember the glare on his face as she took over the job with her wand. I can still remember trying to clamp down my teeth because I didn't want to seem weak and scream.

The pain my jaw was in afterwards...it was mental. I didn't know what I was doing, because my body was flopping all over the place. And when I finally allowed myself to scream with the pain racing everywhere, I didn't want to ever see them again.

I screamed more than I had ever screamed. I'm not sure if your neck muscles are supposed to feel like that. I certainly don't think they are. It felt like each one was being ripped apart by an evil beast that was determined to kill faster than any other beast.

When it stopped, it took a moment, and then it would start again. And people act like I shouldn't be upset over this occurrence as the years pass…

I tried to explain it to people last year. Why I was so upset that I couldn't get out of bed in the morning, why I wasn't going to go out with them on that day. Why it took me a week to get myself back together after that day, why I wasn't eating, sleeping, drinking; why I wasn't really all there.

And still they said I was being ridiculous. It's a miracle I got out of bed this morning, even if this is all only being written on the floor of my living room. It's a miracle that there's someone out there who does understand, even if all he can offer is comfort.

But people are not going to ever understand, are they? I can't say that it's smart to be this mournful about something that seems so small in comparison with some of the detentions I suffered that year.

This one simply looms more. It is the most vivid in my mind, it is the most dangerous and prickly of all memories. And I hate it.

Yet I've accepted that this is what the rest of my life will be like. There will be this one day, this one week, where things are not normal. I don't see why no one else can understand, they did go through that battle, it's not as if that was significantly less wounding. Perhaps it takes living in my shoes or having that specific experience to pull a person into a full-on stage of depression about it.

I guess it does.

He had to stop - lifting a hand to his face, Seamus felt the wetness of his cheek in surprise; and shame. He had been crying as he wrote. He hadn't even realized he was crying until there was a wet spot on his paper that hadn't been there before.

He instead found himself staring blankly at the paper, feeling that all thoughts were emptied, that there was no more flow in his hand to keep himself going. And he put the book down. With the pen now in the binding of the page he had been writing in, he weakly stood up. And he slowly, slowly, backed away from it, collapsing into the couch behind him.

There was a need for all of this, was there? Seamus was finally writing the nonsense he knew he was destined to. This was the not most pointless idea he'd ever had. Maybe it wasn't that people didn't care, it was just they didn't understand was all.

And what did it matter that he hadn't even eaten breakfast that morning? Some days one could skip all of that.

"Shay?" He jumped at hearing another's voice.

Seamus did not reply, he did not break his gaze at the notebook that now contained something more in it. He could only think about how awfully cruel the day was beginning to feel.

Footsteps - and then, someone was sitting beside him on the couch. There was no response from him still, despite the calming presence that sat there. This was the only person on the planet who understood the way he was feeling today, and Seamus couldn't even look at him.

"Shay…" Gentle arms wrapped around him, body being moved until he was practically sitting on top of the other man. He was finally forced to look Dean in the face, despite the fact that he didn't want to.

"I...I'm sorry…" He felt tears around his eyes again as they began to run down his face once more.

"Don't be sorry, don't be sorry. We can stay in today. We can stay in for as long as you need it," Dean was shaking his head, but Seamus hardly saw it.

"Thank you." He whispered.

They would proceed to sit there for as long as Seamus needed it. He hadn't even realized he needed it, but now that he was wrapped in Dean's arms, he knew he needed it. And although the tears didn't stop for a while, neither of them cared for it. Dean might've cried along with him at one point; he wasn't sure.

All that Seamus was sure of was despite his fears about the day ahead of him, love and acceptance would always beat out every inch of the negativity surrounding it.