A/N: For the HPFC All Year Long competition.
I probably won't last too long, but that's okay.
word count: 1254
mandatory prompts: romantic pairing: Seamus/Lavender; Pirate AU; Genre: Romance; an old photograph; "There's a lit cigarette in the hand of my new angel."- Evans Blue, "Beg"
bonus prompts: too drunk to care; counting stars; an unusual phobia.
warnings: mentions of suicide but open to interpretation
rating: T
genre: romance/tragedy
Water crashes against the sides of the ship, roaring and foaming.
The crew quickly gathers their weapons for the oncoming fight.
In the distance, a ship with tattered black sails steadily makes its way towards the Hogwarts.
The crew unsheathe their knives, and swords, and ready their cannons.
He is fairly certain they won't make it, but fights anyways.
Lavender believes that they will make it, that they will fight and they will survive.
{But, oops, she lied.}
When their ship is boarded, there isn't really much they can do.
The battle is over in a flash.
The crew of the Nagini easily overpowers them.
There is a burst of red, and glimmering steel, and explosions going off in the background as they are taken off their ship.
They push and they shove and the bite and they claw and they scratch, and they are still taken prisoner.
A tear falls from Lavender's eye, so quick he almost doesn't catch it, but then it is gone, mingling with the salty spray coming off the wild sea.
He is glad he is not the only one who is weak.
They are brought down into the hold, and are made to wait there for hoursdaysweeks.
He's actually not entirely sure how long they'd been inside. He can only remember dark damp, hunger, the feel of his ribs through his tattered shirt, and the flash of Lav's bluish eyes.
It is a while until they are brought back to the main deck.
The shackles are heavy on their hands, and the chains on their feet restrict their movement, but they manage to stand in a line on the main deck.
Their leader, green eyes flashing with defiance is brought to his knees.
The captain of the ship, or Voldemort as he was called, was a tall bald man, pale as the moon, with a two slits where his nose should be (It is said he lost it to a shark. Voldemort lost his nose. The shark lost its life). His eyes were red like blood, and there was no spark in them. They were deadcold lizard eyes, and that was probably the most unnerving thing about him.
The captain took a deep, rasping breath.
"We have come today to silence one of our enemies. Foolish he may be, but he put up a good fight, so he should be proud that it is I who will kill him tonight."
The amassed crew, in dark cloaks, with skull-like masks on their faces burst into applause.
A few laugh – well, cackle more like – and it is harsh and rough and everything a laugh shouldn't be.
Even Voldemort allows himself a thin-lipped smile.
"Well, Harry Potter, any last words?"
Harry spits in Voldemort's face.
"Very well, then."
Lav closes her eyes tight, and her brown hair tickles his shoulders.
He looks over and squeezes her hand tight.
Voldemort draws his knife, and then there is blood on the deck, and Harry's body lying limp on the ground.
"Harry Potter is dead!"
Again the smattering of applause, and the laughter.
The crew of the Hogwarts stands, shackled, silent and broken.
They are allowed to remain in the hold, as prisoners, probably.
For what purpose, he doesn't know, and he thinks about it for days.
Thinking is pretty much all he is allowed to do.
It is a few days of being penned up here when the crew of the Hogwarts begins to make plans.
Ginny, their de facto leader, wants to revolt.
Lav does too.
She still (somehow) has hope that they will get out of this.
So they secretly stash food and weapons during the short time they are allowed outside. They plan escape routes and learn about the ship's entrances and exits and rooms.
Neville is the first caught, and the first to die.
But he is not the last.
Finally, the day comes when they revolt.
Suffice it to say they won, but the blood will be harder to clean.
It feels as if he will never be free from the thickstickyred blood on his hands.
While they are pale in the candlelight, they still look red, bloodred.
It is only them who are left.
Him and Lav.
The killing finally broke her.
While she stabbed and slashed and parried, she was slowly cutting off her own fluffy white angel wings.
She is no longer an angel, pure and untouched and forever happy and hopeful.
But she is still his angel.
But now, there is a cigarette in the hands of his angel, and the smoke wreathes around her like fog.
He smells it on her all the time now. Like lavender and burnt sage. Funny, huh?
{no, not really}
They used to sit in the crow's nest and count stars, every night, no matter how chilly.
Now she is afraid of coming outside, and she hides in the captain's cabin with her cigarettes and rum.
She is afraid of the light.
Her room is dark except for the faint light from the embers of her cigar, and sunlight coming from the crack under the door.
Smoke swirls through the crack and it always looks as if the room is on fire on the inside.
Once in a while, he sees the smoke and his heart jumps in his throat until he remembers.
When she does come outside, her eyes are more gray than blue and she shies from the lanterns like they're poison and she refuses to look at the stars.
When they are eating dinner, she still smells like smoke and cannot look him in the eye, instead staring at their reflections in the silverware.
She is drowning in smoke and mirrors.
(She always did believe in magic)
She drinks away her troubles in a glass too big to be called a shot, and tries to forget everything.
The deaths, the murder, the blood.
He almost can't take it.
He can't stand to see the beautiful, delicate, untouched angel of a girl (that he may or may not be in love with) turned into a dump of a woman, who is still beautiful, but whose wings are clouded with smoke and is wonderfully, horribly mortal.
And then it happened.
She finds the picture.
It is of them.
They are happy and dancing and it is faded and old, and it may not even be a memory just something from a dream. In the picture they are smiling. He is twirling her around the dance floor, and her feet can't seem to touch the ground. They are still untouched by war and death and blood.
In a fit of rage, {at herself, at him, who knows?}, she smashes her bottle into her case of belongings.
The music starts then.
It is beautiful and delicate and gentle.
Her eyes shine with tears.
He takes her hand.
And they dance in the memories of all those who have died, in smoke and broken glass, and beautiful tiptoeing music. The glass cuts her feet, and the drip-drops of red mingle with the dust and dirt.
She is too drunk to care.
And in that moment, they are just Seamus and Lavender, and they are both wonderfully, wonderfully immortal and their feet don't touch the ground.
A few days later, the wind near the crow's nest whistles around their thin bodies, and the cold breeze bites at their still healing scars. And all of a sudden they are wonderfully, wonderfully mortal and their feet don't touch the ground.
{Oops, they died}