Flora and Seamus

(Moira, Patricia, Colin)

Seamus met Flora Carrow for the first time after the battle, when he'd just finished visiting Lavender in the hospital wing.

He normally wouldn't have noticed her. Flo was a sixth year, at the time; she sat cross-legged on one of the grey benches destined for visitors whose entry wasn't allowed, a thick book in her hands. Her nondescript mousy brown hair was pulled up in a short ponytail, sitting over her shoulder as she read, with her eyes narrowed.

And there it was; a big, fat, traitorous Slytherin badge pinned proudly on her chest.

But there was something about her; something that fascinated him besides her air of snotty confidence attributed to the typical Slytherin. That something prompted him to speak to her; the reasonable part of him was irked at that. It seemed, however, that the (most) of Seamus's rational side had gone with his horrendous seventh year and the gory battle that had marked the end of it.

He approached her and waved his hand in her face. She looked up for a moment with (not-nondescript) brown eyes; they were the color of cinnamon, Seamus thought, or, perhaps, caramel. Then, he wondered why he was looking at a Slytherin girl's (pretty) eyes and channelling ice cream flavours.

Oh, this whole business didn't make much sense, anyway.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted out, because he was a Gryffindor; an expert in the domain of blurting-out-incoherencies.

She looked at him again, eyes narrowed as always, seemingly appraising him. She titled her head and raised her chin, trying to look dignified, Seamus decided. "What do you think I'm doing?" she asked. Typical, bloody Slytherin, never giving out a straight answer and somehow making her flaw a blow to his pride.

He decided to play smug. "You were reading a second ago," he smirked, "but I interrupted you."

"That was," she agreed, "quite rude. Besides that, I may be a Slytherin, but I'm allowed to visit my friends in the hospital wing. The world doesn't belong to you damn Gryffindors, you know."

Seamus frowned. "I never said it did," he said slowly, "but what friends do you have to visit? You're all Death Eaters."

He realised his mistake a second too late – quick as light, Flora pulled out her wand and pointed it at his throat. "What are you saying?" she hissed. "Are you implying that we're all in the same boat, us Slytherins, just because we have the Dark Lord and most of the Death Eaters in our House?"

"Yes," Seamus said recklessly, "Yes."

Instead of hexing him, like he had expected, she tucked her wand in her pocket as swiftly as she had taken it out and glared before scooping up her book and stalking away. When she got to the corner, she faced him, hands on hips, jaw set. "Well," she said coolly, "Think about this. You remember Pettigrew? Ask your mate, Potter, about him. I'll let you know that Pettigrew was a Gryffindor, and yet he was the reason that the Dark Lord rose again. So there." Smirking at his look of contempt, she continued, "And Merlin? The most famous wizard in history? He was ours."

Later that evening, Seamus decided to find out if she'd been bluffing about Merlin, so he went to find Hermione in the Gryffindor common room.

"Hermione," he asked, biting his lip, "was Merlin a Slytherin?"

She pondered this, frowning. At last, she gave a small nod. "He was," she said hesitantly, and at that point, she smiled grimly, "but us Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws – we don't like to talk about it. You know," Hermione said thoughtfully, looking at him in the eye, "sometimes, it's easier to think badly of Slytherin than to accept that they had sprouted at least some good people."

Seamus grinned at her, his hands in his pockets. "You're sounding like Luna."

"That was from Luna," Hermione smiled at him, "why do you want to know about Merlin, eh?"

He shrugged. "Oh, nothing."

"See?" She turned to Harry and Ron, arms crossed. "Here's one bloke who's interested in other things than Quidditch!"

"Those blokes in question are very rare," Ron muttered, mimicking gagging.

Seamus chuckled, not bothering to correct either of them, as he left the three of them there, rowing in the common room. Some things never changed, he thought.

However, something big changed in his life. From that moment on, Seamus realised that he was intrigued about the girl, who wasn't the typical Slytherin, contrarily to what he had initially thought; she didn't hex him, nor did she summon a great group of lackeys to attack him.

More important: he realised that he wanted to see her again.

So the next day, Seamus Finnigan sought out Flora Carrow, and the next day after that, and so on. She would be the girl he would marry, have children with; she would be the girl with whom he bought an inn in the Irish countryside, danced with at parties, told his secrets to.

She was his (well-deserved) happily ever after, in sorts.

Flora is not an OC, exactly - she's a movie character with the full name of Flora Carrow in the Slug Club - I think she's only in the sixth movie.