Harry was focused. Sharp. All he had to do was go get Ron and Hermione, floo over to the Ministry, and then it was just him and Voldemort, and one way or another he was going to end it.

He felt good. Seeing Remus talking and laughing, at ease and content, was a really nice thing to see. Dom was strange, no doubt about it, but then Remus was normal enough for two people. He was stable, comforting. Tea and smiles and quiet words. Maybe he needed someone to shake things up a bit.

Harry grinned to himself, giving them a week.

He just had to hope that Hermione and Ron had patched things up at least enough to keep him company to the Ministry. He really didn't have many doubts they would have, but those two weren't always easy to predict.

He moved around the corner towards Gryffindor, where he'd left his two best mates, but stopped in his tracks when he saw Remus, somehow coming from the tower. "Where did you...?"

"I flooed from my room," Remus said fast. "I thought you would be there."

Harry froze, seeing the look on his face. "What's wrong?"

8888

The hospital wing always felt too large when school was out. Severus had been there more than once in summers, of course - just because school was out of session didn't mean he wasn't working, and sometimes his duties with the Dark Lord had required some medical attention after.

He lay there those times, on the rare occasion that Pomfrey could force him to stay bedridden, and hated how big the place was. Needlessly high ceilings, long corridors and rows of empty cots. It made a person feel small, which wasn't very conducive to healing.

This was probably the first time he had ever sat in the darkened wing and not noticed the hollow spaces.

Those hollow spaces meant that when the doors opened and people moved in, the echoes of their feet reached his ears with plenty of warning.

He drew himself straight up in his chair and emptied his face of expression as he looked away from the bed for the first time since arriving.

Remus looked drawn. He met Severus's gaze with a frown, but looked past him to the boy laying still. "How is he?"

Severus blew out a breath. "Pomfrey doesn't know enough about Muggle diseases. He was having trouble breathing. He..." He didn't bother to go on. Remus wouldn't understand that the boy just didn't feel right, that his little energetic twitches while sleeping were missing, and his heartbeat was off.

Remus reached down and lay a hand on Seamus's arm for a moment.

Severus looked past him. The other werewolf was there, but staying back near the door. Harry was there as well, and when Severus looked over Harry's eyes were locked on him.

Severus wasn't sure what normal people were expected to do in this situation. Was he supposed to offer some false smile and tell them all how strong Seamus was? He didn't have the energy for dishonesty.

Seamus shifted in the cot.

Severus felt the change more than he sensed the movement. He looked away from Potter instantly, leaning in over the cot.

The troublesome matter of how to behave settled itself then, when he suddenly couldn't even remember there were other people there. "Seamus."

Slivers of green appeared between eyelids tipped with golden lashes. Seamus murmured and his face tilted towards Severus.

He moved his chair as close as possible, taking the boy's cool hand in his. "She gave you a draught. You may be groggy, but it's normal."

Seamus's mouth tilted in a faded version of his familiar amused smile.

It didn't make Severus relax to see it. "You're alright. Just wake up slowly."

More green appeared. The whisper of a smile stayed in place. "Not alright," came the hushed answer, and the hand in Severus's squeezed weakly.

Severus's body seemed to stutter, his heart and lungs shutting down for one quick instant and then starting up again. "I suppose you would know better than Pomfrey and I," he retorted, trying to manage some kind of annoyed tone.

Seamus nodded, eyes shutting then opening again. The green of them was sharp and glassy. Wrong. "Severus."

He was shaking his head then, without really knowing why. "Don't."

Seamus gave a real smile then, eyes clearer with every passing moment. He held Severus's hand tightly. "Do you know," he said, voice steady and soft. "I think you would do well teaching here again."

Severus shook his head, his head bowing as some uncalled-for grief fought to take control of him.

Seamus went on, stubborn as ever. "Things are so different now from when you left. Remus is fond of you, and Professor McGonagall always liked you." He nodded to himself. "You would have friends here, if you'd just let yourself. You would be alright."

"Stop." Severus refused to look at him, or acknowledge what he was doing. He kept his voice calm and cross, as if he didn't realise. "I have no need of a job. I make enough through the journal work and I have always had my savings."

"Then do it because you want to, not because you need to."

Severus snorted.

"You're too gifted to give yourtalent to journals who won't even accept the work under your real name."

"So I should give it to belligerent children who treat it as nothing but a burden?"

Seamus's gaze was steady by then. The genial lightness of his voice was fading into something more serious. "Maybe if you're here, if your name gets out there, they would have no choice but to listen. The journals, I mean. You could force them to accept you."

"I can't force anyone to accept me. I hardly have the patience or the temperment to try."

"You'd have help this time. Harry and Remus and the others."

"Are you trying to tell me you wish to stay here?" The words were supposed to be light, but Severus heard his own voice shaking and knew he couldn't pretend not to understand anymore.

Seamus met his eyes, a burning sadness on his face. "Yes," he said, and the word scratched out as if it hurt to say. "Severus, of course I wish to stay here."

"Then don't-" Severus shut his mouth with a snap. But he couldn't stop the sentiment from forcing its way out a moment later. "Don't you bloody well tell me goodbye, then."

And it was out there. What this was. Too soon. No warning. Or too much warning. Severus glared because he had no idea how else to react. He had only just recently come to terms with the idea of love. How could he be expected to be able to just let it go?

Seamus drew in a sharp breath, and his hand gripped Severus's with feeble energy. "I'm sorry."

"Shut up."

"No."

Severus bowed his head again, his eyes shutting.

"Please. Severus, I'm sorry, but I have to tell you..." His words choked, and his breathing was wrong.

Severus looked up and could tell from the way Seamus held his jaw that he was in pain. "Relax. If you excite yourself..."

Seamus sobbed out a small breath. "Then listen to me."

Severus shook his head. Seamus was stubborn. If he had something to say, he would never let himself die before he said it. All Severus had to do was never listen to him.

But he didn't stop Seamus when he spoke again. "Promise me you'll stay here. Or you'll go out and...and do something else. Something you want just for yourself." Seamus squeezed his hand tightly enough to make him look up. "You deserve to be happy."

Severus frowned, his head shaking almost reflexively.

"You saved my life, you know. You made what should have been a few horrible last years the greatest I could have ever had. You've redeemed yourself for whatever you think you still need to suffer for. Please, Severus."

"No. You foolish child." Severus tried to find some heat somewhere, but any warmth inside him just came from more sadness. "I was being selfish."

Seamus laughed at that, barely loud enough to hear. "No."

"I just wanted you for mine. That's selfish."

Seamus reached out with the hand that wasn't tight in Severus's grip. The light whisp of fingertips on Severus's cheek was so familiar a feeling it almost made him choke on his next breath.

"No," the boy said again. "You took me in because you're a good man. You helped me recover from my old life, you cared for me though my burdens were the last things you needed. I came to love you so fast, and so hard. You remember."

"I remember." How fast the boy had said it, and how cynical he felt. Gratitude, he thought. Or insanity. Or just mistaking the feeling of being tended to for the feeling of being really cared for, and trying to respond accordingly. Or saying what he thought he had to to keep from being thrown out and back into that old life.

"You thought I wasn't sincere. You thought I would give up."

"But you didn't."

"I didn't," he said softly, toying with the hairs at the nape of Severus's neck. "And you gave in to me. You realized I wasn't going away."

Severus didn't recognize his voice anymore. "It was the best thing I ever did," he got out, his eyes burning in an odd, distantly familiar way.

"I loved you regardless. I would have stayed no matter how you treated me." He smiled suddenly, like a small burst of sunlight between thick clouds. "You didn't have to love me in return to hold on to me. It wasn't selfishness. It just was what it was." Spots of color appeared in his pale cheeks. An illusion of health, Severus knew, but his hopes let themselves be raised and he nodded to encourage the boy to continue.

Seamus just smiled. "You didn't say anything, but I knew. I felt it, the day it happened. You didn't laugh when I said the words. 'I love you.' You didn't pull away. You didn't even get tense. And I knew you were mine. From that day on, Severus...I was happy."

Severus drew in a breath through his mouth, lips pressing together to hold back whatever storm was brewing under his skin.

Seamus seemed aware. Of course he was aware. He always was, somehow.

His smile tilted, then faded. His voice rasped with the grating simplicity of pure honesty. "Happy isn't the right word, because there's not a word for what I felt. Like I belonged somewhere again, like someone wanted me. Like these amazing, painful and wonderful feelings I had for you might be shared."

They are, Severus wanted to say. Instead he bent in his chair, burying his face against Seamus's chest and just trying to breathe.

A hand appeared in his hair, cool and weak.

"You did that for me, Severus. You saved me. You took a sad, sick thing like me and gave me the best years of my life. No evil man could do that."

Severus's breath choked against Seamus. His eyes screwed tighter shut, but the burning behind his lids wouldn't go away.

"I gave myself to you, and you didn't hurt me. You didn't use me. You gave yourself in return. Didn't you?"

Severus couldn't answer. The wrench in his chest was somehow worse than even the Dark Lord had ever managed to make him feel.

Seamus tugged at his hair gently until Severus lifted his head. "Didn't you?"

The warm strange feeling of wetness on his cheeks barely registered. Severus met his eyes and nodded.

Seamus leaned up with a gasp of effort and his lips managed to brush Severus's temple. "I'm giving you back now."

"No."

"You'll be alright."

"No."

"You won't lock yourself away somewhere alone the way you had before. Promise me, Severus. Please." The colour in his face had long since disappeared, and his voice was fading.

Severus shook his head, hand fisting the sheet over Seamus's chest. He dropped his forehead to rest on the boy's shoulder. "I promise," he said. "I don't know how to be alone anymore," he said, and his shoulders shook with a tremor that went all the way through him. And then another, and another.

"You'll be alright. Promise me. You have to be alright." There was the sound of tears in Seamus's voice. "I don't want to go. I don't want..." His arms grasped at Severus, folding around him with a fraction of his usual energy. "Please be alright. It's not fair. I'm so sorry. I had you all the rest of my life but what did you get? Severus, please."

Something about the last word made Severus draw in a breath, seizing control over his shivering body. He looked up, and Seamus's eyes were closed. A split second of panic, but they opened again, wet and green.

Severus spoke, though he knew it was goodbye. "I'll be alright."

Seamus sobbed and his eyes shut. He grasped at Severus. "Thank you."

It didn't matter if it was a lie or not, which was good because Severus had no idea himself what the words were. He had said them for only one reason. He said them to mean only one thing. Just to express something to the boy in front of him, even if what he wanted to express went beyond words.

He watched Seamus's face closely, memorizing features he already knew inside and out. He memorized the feeling of arms around him, of a caring touch. Of someone being there. Of Seamus, all bright eyes and quick smiles, warm body and gentle hands and unconditional understanding and affection.

Love. Bloody hell.

He felt the arms around him loosen, and knew the boy was unconscious. He knew there wouldn't be another reviving. Goodbye, after all, was goodbye.

He shut his eyes and bowed his head. "I love you," he said, quietly. It was the first time those words had ever passed his lips. Too late, but not too late, because Seamus had always known somehow without him saying it.

The charm around his neck pulsed with some new sensation he hadn't felt before. And then it hung useless around his neck, a round scrap of metal.

The charm was broken.

8888

Hermione and Ron arrived in time to see him go. She turned away when Snape broke down. Ron held on to her as she cried.

Harry stood beside them, arms folded over his chest as if he was chilled. And he was, he realised absently.

He turned away from Snape; the mandeserved some kind of privacy. He looked to Remus, uncertain.

Remus stood as if debating, obviously wanting to be there for a man he considered a friend now, but knowing he very well probably wasn't welcome. He must have felt Harry's gaze, because he looked over after a moment.

Harry spoke before he realised he was going to. "This wasn't supposed to happen. I'm supposed to make things alright today."

Remus went to him instantly and Harry found himself being pulled into a hug. He frowned against Remus's chest.

He was too late. Too late for Seamus, at least. He should have had this done before Malfoy ever had a chance to come back into the picture.

Remus pulled back and held Harry's shoulders, looking at him steadily. "Do you want to wait?"

Harry shook his head. And give someone else time to strike?

"Then come on. You have a job to do, and..." Remus looked away, back towards the bed, then back at Harry. "Come on."

Harry gratefully let him lead the way out.