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Chapter Two

This Life

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Seamus Finnagan

Journal Entry Three

Seventh Year

Number 084509

OOOOOOOO

I wasn't planning to write in this, really, but you (Bare) say I can't move past level one if I don't do it. I still wasn't going to write in it but Dean says that I should. So…I guess I should. Dean's never steered me wrong before.

I like Dean. It probably seems like a silly thing to say, what with him being my best friend and all, but I really do. More than I should I guess, because people keep telling me that we're too close and spend too much time together. Or at least they used to tell me that.

People don't say much of anything to be anymore and I kind of like it that way.

Dean doesn't write in his journal, he draws. He and Malfoy have special permission from Dumbledore to draw and so they get…stuff to draw with and paper and paints and I'm not supposed to touch any of it (safety reasons) but Dean lets me play with the paints sometimes anyway.

No one cares if Dean draws in his journal because that's how he expresses himself. I've looked in there once and I wouldn't yell at him either. Everything he draws is so…perfect, down to even the smallest possible detail and I wonder how he can do all of that all of the time.

I wonder what's in his head sometimes. Mostly because I don't know what's in mine anymore. Sometimes it's like I'm not myself anymore or that I'm still me but there are a lot of…me all scattered throughout and I can't seem to pull myself together anymore. I'm starting to not know who I am and the only time I really feel like Seamus anymore is when I'm with Dean.

It's the 'trauma' I suppose. Everyone knows it already, but I had a very…unlucky run in with Death Eaters over the summer. I was one of those people rescued from Hell, as I so fondly call it, and I guess that's where I started to fracture. Things…happened that certain parts of me can't remember and that parts that do remember keep them locked away tight somewhere so the rest of me can never find out and it's like…

It's made me different people.

I wrote that already didn't I? I repeat myself a lot I guess.

I wish I could tell about what happened, so that I could get out of here, but I only remember some of the times and I can never remember what I remembered later, when I could tell someone and it'd be useful. That didn't make any sense.

I never do though. At least I don't make any sense to myself.

I think I make sense to Dean, because why else would he still be here, listening to everything I say even when I start to ramble nonsense and nothing I say seems to connect to anything else, and it's like I'm just floating out there with everything exposed but unable to hold onto it, no matter how absurd I'm sure it has to sound to him?

So.

I like Dean. He's really…steady. Like a wall or something. But sometimes I think he knows the things that I don't know but I can't get him to tell me. He just smiles and tells me that I shouldn't worry about things I've forgotten because I must have forgotten them for a reason.

But I think there are things I forget that I want to know about. Things about Dean and me, that seem to lurk around the edges of my mind and call to me with voices like sweetness and I can just start to see things, good things, when my mind shuts down on me again.

Sometimes I wonder why he's here, since I don't think he's crazy or anything. If I ask he just tells me that sometimes he's not as in control of things as he should be and I really just have no idea what in the hell that might mean.

But I trust him.

Ron's here now. Dean laughed when he found out and said it's just like old times. All we need is for Neville to lose it too and as much as the gang as possible will be all here. Cause Harry's dead. Dumbledore came and told everyone a few days ago, except for a few kids like Malfoy and the girl who never leaves her room.

Dean said its only right we welcome Ron to Atlantis proper like so I guess that's what we're doing once he wakes up. He has an eye patch from where Malfoy scratched him up. He must have been looking at the mark; Malfoy doesn't like it when people look at him.

I understand that, I guess. Sometimes, when I'm alone with people who aren't Dean or Malfoy I get really upset if they look at me or try to touch me or even get close to me. It just…it's like suddenly I don't fit in my skin and they can see how I don't fit and it makes me crazy to know that they can see me struggling against my ill-fitting shell and I don't want them to see it and I can…I can lose it sometimes.

Those are the only times I can believe I should be here.

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Ron groaned, blinking in annoyance against the light beating down on him and managing to get in even though his eyes were shut tight. He heard a whispered voice above him and, even though he knew full well he wasn't going to see anything he liked when he opened his eyes, he did.

Pale green eyes peered at him from very, very, close. He yelped and rose his arm to slap at the figure but found he couldn't. Something, a hand, grabbed his wrist in an iron grip and kept him from doing it. The owner of the green eyes drew back, looking bewildered. With the face further way he could now make out more than the eyes and sighed.

"Seamus?" The blond smiled widely. Ron sighed, already knowing who was holding him. "You can let me go now Dean."

He heard the quiet chuckle of the other teen before his wrist was released. He sat up and sighed. "What're you two doing in here?"

"You're in our room actually." Dean said while sitting on the bottom of his bed carefully so as not to jar the redhead. He probably didn't need anymore shocks. Seamus had no such reservations and practically belly flopped onto the bed, giggling as he did. "Nice eye patch."

"Wha-" Ron trailed off as the memory of what had happened came back and smacked him in the face. He reached up and touched the place where his eye had been and came in contact with smooth fabric. Now that he was aware of that he was also aware that something itchy was rubbing against the skin of his cheek and forehead. He felt along the areas of the itching and figured it must have been gauze under the patch scratching him.

Great. Now he was even more bandaged up.

Seamus sat up, noting Ron's look of annoyance, and smiled widely. "I think it's sexy. Very…dangerous pirate like."

Ron tried not to smile but failed. "Thanks Seamus." He yawned and stretched some while letting his hand fall to the side. "What's going on?"

"Dean says we should give you a proper welcome since Malfoy tried to take out your eye and everything. We heard it was really bloody and-" Seamus was bouncing slightly. Dean reached over and ran a hand down his back, a sign for him to calm down. He turned, blinking at the taller boy, looking back at Ron. "Anyway. Since we're all rooming together again we thought it'd be nice to show you around and stuff like that. I think it'll be fun."

"Oh." Ron nodded slightly bewildered by Seamus's explanation. "Sure. I guess."

Dean's lips quirked into a soft smile. "Go find Bare and tell him we're showing Ron around." Seamus mock-saluted him before bouncing off of the bed and out of the room, carefully winding his way around Travis who was sleeping on the floor. Again. He did that a lot. Dean wasn't sure why. Didn't really care. "Don't mind him. He's like that a lot now."

"Huh. I know he was easily amused before but that was almost…almost…" Ron looked at Dean for help in finding a word to describe how Seamus had been acting. Dean frowned for a moment, considering what to say next.

Most people he didn't allow to talk about Seamus, because they rarely if ever had anything decent to say about his friend, but Ron was different. Ron knew.

"Childlike." He said finally. "He can be, sometimes. Since They got him."

"Is that why he's here?" Ron asked, frowning slightly.

Seamus had gone missing after a trip to Hogsmead in their sixth year. They'd looked for him all over, especially Dean, but they hadn't found him. It hadn't been until the end that they knew he'd been grabbed by Death Eaters. Not for any real reason, since he hadn't been involved in the war or known anything…he's just been an easy target.

His parents had tossed him aside before then, not liking how close he was to Dean, and people had eventually just written him off as running away. Except for Dean of course. He'd known Seamus wouldn't run away, not from him at least. He hadn't been able to convince anyone else of that unfortunately.

That was probably when he began to slip a little bit. He'd left home. His parents had been 'sorry' that his boyfriend had just up and vanished in the middle of a war, but hadn't really cared that much. Left Hogwarts before the end of the year; hadn't been able to take being in that place and knowing only a handful of people gave a damn.

And then they'd found Seamus, a broken and nearly empty…shell and he couldn't help but remember how few people had been able to look him in the eye when he came to St. Mungos, shortly after Ron had sent him an owl letting him know Seamus was found.

He remembered how Ron had been sitting outside of Seamus' room, head bowed and eyes nearly shut. He'd smiled thinly and said he was just making sure nothing else happened to anyone else he knew before getting up and leaving.

Ron liked to beat himself up for a lot of stuff and both teens knew that Seamus fell into the category of things he blamed himself about. Maybe if he'd looked harder instead of letting people tell him the blond had just left, maybe if he'd have believed Dean.

"Yeah. I took him to see a Muggle shrink; the stress of his ordeal has caused his personality to fracture into parts that can deal with it and parts that don't remember it. Only it's like…the parts that don't remember don't remember don't remember anything that was complex or difficult or…"

He stopped and shrugged, feeling a little helpless. To say it was difficult that Seamus only remembered how close they'd really been some of the time was…stressful. To say the least of it. The times he did remember he was so close to being the way he'd been before it almost hurt to even think about because he knew they'd only be ruined by the return of the parts that didn't soon.

Ron watched Dean for a moment, having a feeling he knew what Dean was trying to get at. He cringed at the thought of Seamus just…forgetting everything that had gone on. Even watching from the outside he'd seen that Seamus had been hurt by his parents when they kicked him out and how much Dean cared about his boyfriend.

When Seamus had gone missing Dean had been…crushed seemed to be putting it too mildly, not doing how completely broken the other teen had been justice. He hadn't really thought anyone their age could feel like that for someone but sometimes it was as if Seamus was the only thing that mattered in Dean's life.

"I tried to slit my wrists." He said, wincing at how dead and hollow the words sounded. He wasn't even sure why he said it, except that it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Dean smiled slightly then titled his head to the side. "Up or across?"

"Up."

"Get dressed. We'll be outside the door." He nodded then slid off of the bed. "Oh. If you're curious…I killed people."

Ron blinked. Dean smiled crookedly then walked out, walking around Travis on force of habit. Ron was left to think over the possibilities of Dean killing someone. He'd known Dean since he was a kid and…he'd always been quiet and peaceful, the occasional blatant foul in Quidditch aside.

He wasn't violent.

Then again a lot of people were a lot of things they weren't supposed to be.

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Dean Thomas

Journal Entry Seven

Year Seven

Number 201064

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I don't like words much. They're stupid. They can be twisted, changed to mean things that no one really meant to say in the first place. They're flawed, imperfect…and so I don't like them. It's entirely too easy to lie with words.

I didn't talk much as a child and I remember how it drove my mother crazy. She'd try to coax me to speak or to play with the other children who lived around us but I wouldn't do anything except sit and watch or draw. I wasn't big on the more social things, though I was an avid soccer fan and my parents milked that for all it was worth, going so far as to make me join a local team.

It didn't last long. I was a bit of a control freak and no ten year old kid likes to be ordered around by another ten year old.

When I came to Hogwarts and met Seamus, who seems like he's the exact opposite of me in a lot of ways, things…changed for me. Slipped a little out of my control because Seamus refused to be anything except for Seamus. My suggestions that he do his work, take notes in class, or at least not talk back to the teachers all went unheeded and while anyone else would have made me strangle them Seamus just…made me fall for him.

The one thing I could never control is the only thing worth holding onto. I heard a lot from people about our being together; everything from it just being wrong to us not being old or mature enough to understand what we were getting in to.

But even if I had been inclined to listen it wouldn't have mattered. Seamus was like…a force of nature. No, that's a stupid cliché. He was more than that, so much more. I can't even begin to put it into words, which is another reason I don't like them. They're so limited.

I know I don't have to write in here, but I wanted to better make you understand why I did what I did. Why I'm hear. What would drive quiet, calm, and unshakeable Dean to murder.

I'm not crazy. At least I don't think I'm crazy and, from what I understand, crazy people never think they're crazy so maybe I am. It's a Catch 22 in a way; If a crazy man doesn't know he's crazy and only a sane man can begin to acknowledge that maybe he isn't sane, but thinking you might not be sane probably means that there's something wrong with you to begin with…

It's complex.

Still, I don't think I'm crazy. I'm just…angry.

Seamus has always been this thing I can't understand or grasp or control or force; he was always just the thing that both frustrated me and excited me. And now he isn't anymore. He's not even half the person he was before and where I wanted to touch and feel and be with him before now all I can do is hope to protect him. I would have never thought of protecting him before, he wouldn't have needed it.

But now...sometimes he's so confused and lost and helpless and it's terrible and sickening and I want to tear apart the people who made him this way and all there is…is just this rage, inside of me, burning and bubbling away at where my heart used to be.

I killed Peter Pettigrew, and the elder Goyle and Crabbe on the Hogwarts Express when the Death Eaters who'd managed to escape attacked. I killed them because Seamus took one look at them and all but collapsed into a sobbing shivering mass and I wanted to make them pay for it.

And so I'm crazy.

Supposedly.

I still say it's debatable.

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Pirate: Well, Ron angst is one of my favorite things to write, HP-wise, so we'll have plenty of it. It's just so much fun to write…

Mechante: Glamour Lust wasn't too bruised, no, so there should be a new part soon. I was focused on something else and was only putting up things I had pre-written but now I'm cool again so I should he starting a new chapter today. And yes, even evil-ish people love their families. Unfortunately for Draco not everyone can understand that.

Meep: Too few chapters? I can fix that, I believe.

Skep: I'm glad you liked it the first time, I think this version should be better.