Chapter 21: Seamus

~|Sixty Months After the War|~

The invitation was still as starched and pristine as it had been when it arrived in the mail weeks before. It was about the only thing in Seamus and Dean's flat that wasn't at least a little bit stained, a little bit crumpled. Seamus thought it was likely only because it had pinned to the fridge and forcibly forgotten

Seamus stared down at the cursive letters in Susan Bones' calligraphic hand. He saw her occasionally, more frequently than he did others from school, but she hadn't mentioned the invitation since it had arrived. She wouldn't force attendance, because Susan was a loud, jovial, and oftentimes opinionated person, but she wouldn't make demands from those who couldn't provide.

Even so, it almost was an obligation. To turn away from the suggestion, the reunion in memory of those lost, when barely five years still left that memory fresh in the minds of everyone who had survived… It was hard. Returning to Hogwarts was always hard, but it wouldn't be the first time. It wouldn't be the first 'remembrance reunion'. It was only that this one, five years exactly, felt somehow… special. Important. It hurt more.

Seamus sighed. He hadn't considered the invitation because he hadn't wanted to. He hadn't been ready to face it. But now…

Bloody hell, it's tonight. How did that happen so quickly?

Lowering his hand and the invitation pinched between his fingers, Seamus turned to the open-plan flat that was little more that an attic-like loft. It had become a homely abode since they'd first moved in, and that homeliness only had a little to do with the Semi-Permanent Heating and Cooling Charms they'd installed without the knowledge of the Muggle landlords. It wasn't because the bakery beneath the flat always breathed rich aromas through the gaps in the floorboards, either.

It was because their loft had become their place. His and Dean's. The wall that Dean had painted – the wall he still added to and that they were forced to hide beneath a charm when inspections clocked around – was theirs. The shoddy little kitchen that hummed with electronics and the dining table so scarred it looked like a pox-victim was purchased by them. The curtain-draped wall of windows, the mismatched couches of their settee, the hulk of a television that always crackled with static for its exposure to magic – it was all theirs, and Seamus loved it. He loved the life he – they – lived and shared, and it was a step beyond the horror of the past.

But sometimes, that past reared its head and demanded recognition. Susan's invitation, sent as much out of necessity, Seamus knew, as because she truly wanted to remember herself, was like a hand latching onto the back of Seamus' shirt that prevented him from taking a giant step away from the past, the war, and all who'd been lost.

All the people who weren't as lucky as me.

Swallowing down the familiar bitterness of guilt, Seamus strode across the loft. Saturday morning was drab, the thin attempt of sunlight peering through the window barely managing to illuminate the room. Where Dean sprawled on the lumpy bed they shared, he'd trained both of the bedside lamps towards him to illuminate himself like a player on a stage.

Not that he was doing all that much performing. Watching a bloke read a book would have to have been one of the most boring shows Seamus could imagine.

Clambering onto the mattress, Seamus flopped into the blankets at Dean's side. He studied him for a moment, regarding the furrow in his brow that he always got when he read, as though the act of reading itself was troubling. The downward turn of his lips, the tightness of his jaw that bellied the casual limpness of his extended legs and the arm tucked behind his head.

"You never look like you're enjoying yourself when you read," Seamus had told him countless times. "Why do you even bother, like?"

"I do like reading," Dean would always reply. "More now than I used to."

"Shame it's a little late in coming for school days, yeah?"

"I know, right? Shame, that."

That day was no different, but this time Seamus didn't comment. For a moment, bathed in the illumination of artificial lighting and the comfortable familiarity of his bed, he simply watched Dean. He folded his arms under his chin, peering at him sidelong, and waited. The invitation clutched in his hand was far from forgotten, but… he would wait. Besides, he may feel somewhat disinclined to discuss it just yet. Seamus had never claimed he wasn't an avoider.

Finally, it was Dean who broke the silence. He didn't glance away from his book as he did so. "What's up?"

Seamus hummed, kicking his legs idly so they bounced on the mattress. "What d'you mean?"

"You're being quiet."

"So I'm not allowed to be quiet, like?"

Dean's lips twitched slightly in a smile that formed despite his persisting reading-frown. He still studied his book. "Seam, you're many things, but quiet isn't usually one of them."

Seamus huffed indignantly, but couldn't really object to the claim. It was true, after all. He shifted in his recline, flipping the invitation up before him eyes once more and studying it without really seeing it. "Just thinking."

"About?"

"Stuff."

Dean snorted, flipping a page in his book. "Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"Because," Seamus kicked his feet again, "it's not important, like. And I don't want to be just an afterthought when you'd rather read your book."

He wasn't looking at Dean, but he felt his smile widen further. "Alright, you're pissy. What's really bothering you?"

"I'm not pissy."

"You are. Or you're worried. You always get demanding when you're worried."

"Oh, 'cause know so well, like, would you?"

"I'd like to think I know better than most people, yeah. And," Dean paused, shifting in his comfortable slouch a little, "I know that the longer you deflect the more worried you actually are. Or pissy."

"I'm not pissy," Seamus muttered again, and that much, at least, was the truth. But worried? Maybe a little upset? Probably. And he really kind of wanted Dean to put down his book and distract him.

But Seamus wasn't a patient person. Dean would drag himself from his book eventually – he definitely would, and especially when he knew Seamus was being sincere in his unease rather than just petulant – but Seamus didn't want to wait. Fingers crumpling the Susan's invitation slightly, he reached out with his other hand and tugged Dean's book from his hands.

"Oi," Dean protested, though he didn't make a move to stop Seamus. "I was reading that."

"Obviously, like, 'cause you weren't listening to me." Seamus slapped the book down onto the nightstand with more force than necessary.

"You should be gentle with books."

"They're books, Dean."

"Books have feelings too, you know."

"Actually, they don't. I have feelings."

Dean snickered, then abruptly rolled over and flung an arm around Seamus. Seamus grunted, abruptly buried into the mattress, and made an attempt to heave himself free from blankets and boyfriend both. It wasn't much of a struggle; Dean curled around him, pressing a kiss against the side of his neck and hooking a leg around one of Seamus'.

It might have been an awkward position, except that it wasn't. Not for Seamus. Not on that morning when he was feeling… not pissy. Not pissy, but something else.

The weight of Dean right next to him helped. It chased away some of the upwelling grief, the regret, the tide of something that Seamus had studied and unravelled enough over the years to understand was guilt. The anniversary of the battle of Hogwarts – it recurred every year, and almost every year he and Dean attended. Whether it was Susan who planned it and sent out the invitations or someone else entirely, they came.

The one time they hadn't, Seamus had felt so horribly guilty the entire day that it would have been worth visiting Hogwarts in remembrance to avoid the dark cloud that hung over him. The guilt and sadness would have arisen anyway, but it usually withdrew after he'd made his customary, dutiful visit. That year had been a bad idea.

Even so, knowing that it was inevitable they would attend, Seamus wasn't looking forward to the evening. He'd put off thinking about it, and that had helped – until the very morning of the anniversary itself when reality came crashing down upon him. It was a little hard to ignore after that.

Dean approached his own discomfort, his own encroaching grief and sadness for a war that was passed but still felt somehow present, in a different way. He sought distraction. He lost himself in painting their walls, in sketching out plans for his next exhibition, or by diving into books. It worked for him, that escape, and Seamus was selfish for dragging him away from it, but…

The anniversary had arrived. The invitation demanded consideration, and Seamus needed Dean for that.

The weight of Dean pressed against him, sleep-warmed despite the mild spring weather, was comforting. The brush of his skin, the touch of his lips on Seamus' neck once more, the weight of his arm that was so casual yet so practiced that Dean got it placed precisely right each time. It was reassuring, and Seamus needed that. He needed it enough that he would force Dean out of his book for it.

"What's up?" Dean asked again, though it was more of a murmur in Seamus' ear this time.

Seamus twisted towards him. He pursed his lips but didn't directly reply. Instead, he raised the invitation with Susan's cursive script upon it before Dean's eyes.

Dean didn't glance towards. Not even for a second, though Seamus knew he recognised what it was. He met Seamus' gaze instead, his head dropping onto the pillow that Seamus already rested upon, so close Seamus could feel the touch of his breath. His smile faded, any trace of laughter along with it.

"What do you want to do?" he asked quietly.

Seamus shrugged a little awkwardly beneath the weight of Dean's arm. "Dunno. What do you want to do?"

"I asked you first."

"And I asked second, like. So tell me."

Dean's lips twitched, and though it was a telling beginning of a smile, he didn't appear happy. Not at all. Solemnity always arose with the prospect of an evening in the company of other war survivors, other veterans. Years of practice didn't make it any easier.

"You know I don't like going," Dean finally said.

Seamus hummed neutrally. "I know. You know I don't like going either."

"It's Susan who's organised it this year, right?"

"Yeah."

"You reckon everyone else will go?" Dean's face tightened. "Reckon we'll lose more people this year?"

Seamus didn't reply immediately. He turned his face into the pillow, all but smothering himself. It was true that attendees had been lessening each year. Whether it had become too hard for those who'd moved on with their lived to fall back into mourning the past, or because they simply didn't care anymore, Seamus didn't know. He didn't ask. The regulars still came, most of the key players in the war and the final battle, but the others…

Seamus couldn't quite blame them, but he couldn't really agree with them either. Not after he'd done the same once and knew how it felt. The feeling was akin to treachery; the guilt that arose because to miss the anniversary was almost as though he were pretending the whole reason for it hadn't happened. It was as though they were forgetting those who'd died, those who'd had their lives torn apart, and those who wouldn't ever recover because they were in St. Mungo's, or because they'd lost a loved one, or had descended into grief too deeply to claw their way back out of.

That was why Seamus had to go. To make up for those who couldn't anymore – or worse, those who wouldn't – he had to. Even if he hated it as much as the next person because it hurt.

"I don't want to think about it, like," Seamus said into his pillow.

"What?"

"They're not doing anything wrong by not coming, exactly, but I still kind of hate them for it."

"Seam, I can't hear what you're –"

"Like with Harry last year. Like, I know he was away, and he has more than enough reason to avoid the place where he bloody-well died and all, but –"

Seamus was abruptly cut off as Dean tugged the pillow out from under his face. He turned, glancing up to where Dean propped himself on his elbow. The other arm, stolen pillow in hand, flopped back down over Seamus' back. "No one would blame you if you didn't want to go."

Yes, they would, Seamus thought, because he blamed those that didn't just a little bit himself. He knew Dean knew that, too. "Whatever. But what about you, then?"

Dean shrugged with a quirk of his eyebrows rather than a lift of his shoulders. "I don't really care either way."

"Bollocks."

"I don't. Honestly, I don't think it hits me as hard as it does you. I've kind of… learnt how to detach myself from it a bit, I think."

That much was certainly true. Dean was very good at 'detachment' these days. Certainly better than Seamus. Sometimes Seamus didn't like how much he slipped away from the moment; it scared him because he was, just sometimes, a little hard to pull back to the present.

"We've got to go, like," Seamus said with a sigh. "'Specially after Susan went to all that effort."

Dean nodded slowly. Then he flopped down onto the mattress again so that their faces were barely a breath apart once more. "Just for this afternoon," he said, and it sounded like a promise. "It'll just be remembering for the afternoon."

"Yeah. Just for a bit."

"And when we're done, let's go and do something stupid."

Seamus smiled, even if it was a little sadly. "What'd you have in mind, like?"

"Whatever. Anything." Dropping the pillow over the edge of the bed, Dean raised his arm from Seamus' shoulders long enough to pluck the invitation from where Seamus still held it. "Maybe we could invite a couple people out with us. Like Susan. I bet she's pretty knackered after all the organising."

"And where Susan goes, Parvati most likely will too," Seamus said, nodding himself.

"I still can't get over the fact that they actually hooked up in seventh year."

"Really? You can't? Even after five whole bloody years?"

"Shut up," Dean said fondly. "Maybe we could invite Neville, too?"

"Yeah. And maybe Hannah, like, yeah?"

"Ginny and Luna, if they turn up?"

"And Harry, Ron, and Hermione if they make it this year."

It was calming, planning something for afterwards. Something more and beyond the regretful, guilt-flooded afternoon that lay before them. Seamus knew that his guilt, the same guilt that many of the other war survivors felt, was irrational, but he couldn't do anything about it. It helped, though, to be surrounded by those people. Camaraderie in like-mindedness and all of that.

"I have a Phoenix Fyre that I stole from work," Seamus said absently, and the thought of fireworks, of the impressive, awe-inspiring blast of colour and the captivating distraction of it, was comforting in itself. "Maybe we could set if off tonight, like, do you think?"

"Why anyone thought it was a safe idea to let you be a pyrotechnician, I'll never know," Dean said, though he smiled slightly as he did. He didn't protest, either, because it was a distraction, and Dean was good at recognising those.

Seamus closed his eyes, if just for a moment. Peace. Calm. A few seconds of containment and fortification before he convinced himself he was capable of going to Hogwarts that afternoon. Then he opened his eyes, nodded, and he saw from the slight twist in Dean's smile that he'd already known the outcome of Seamus' reluctant disinclination.

"Happy days," Seamus muttered, his own mouth twisting at the irony of it. "We'll makes sure this is a good one, yeah?"

"Happy days," Dean echoed, and it didn't sound any more convincing when Seamus had said it. But that was okay. It was alright. It was just for a day, after all. Some people… some hadn't even survived to have that.

Seamus reminded himself of that fact every single anniversary. It made every other day just a little more special.

A/N: Hi, everyone! Thanks for reading this chapter!
Just as an aside – okay, I hate self-promotions and all that (really, they're so cringeful, and no one really wants to hear them), but if you do happen to like the little insights into Seamus and Dean's future, please feel free to check out 'To Be A Magical Boy', which is basically a full retelling of the series from their POV. These little shorts – they're kind of an epilogue of their tale and written with this story in mind.
I'm not sure if that would interest anyone, and it's not necessary for understanding, but complementary. Just thought I'd put it out there.

Thanks again for reading!

House: Ravenclaw

Category: Short

Prompt: "Books have feelings too, you know" AND Guilt

WC: 2921