Path of Thorns
Author: Dimitri Aidan
Rating: Uh…Pg/T at the mo'. Maybe higher later on.
Pairings: Dean/Seamus and Harry/Ron. Sorely under appreciated pairings I tell you. Light Seamus/Ron, which makes me smile. Other stuff on the side.
Warnings: Slash, Violence, Language, Angst, Post-war, and things along those lines.
Summery: Falling for your best friend may not be wise, but sometimes it's inevitable, like growing up and growing apart. When Seamus Finnigan enters Hogwarts for the ten-year reunion he learns that all too well.
Notes: Umm…yeah. Just work with me. I wanted to try something mild and relationship-py, instead of dramatic and war-related.
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Prelude
I will Not Forget You
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After the war was over and Hogwarts re-opened after being closed for a year, and the class of '97, now 98, graduated they found that being one of the most infamous classes ever, because of the people in it and the things that had followed them year after year, didn't mean a whole lot.
People tended to avoid them actually, as if they were branded. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw alike, they were all branded. They had fought when adults wouldn't, put their childhoods and lives on hold to uphold the ideal of Albus Dumbledore. They were jaded and scarred and some would never be the same.
People older than them and those younger couldn't really understand it, fighting the final battle under the leadership of Harry Potter, watching someone they had grown alongside and come to know as more than just a name in a book or paper walk to what could be his death. Seeing friends die and knowing that you would never see them again. Knowing that nothing would be the same.
When it was over and Good triumphed over Evil, Light beat the Darkness, and all that other poetically pointless shit, and they came back to the halls of Hogwarts they could only sit in the Great Hall, deserted since the death of it's Headmaster, and wait. Wait for the world to start turning and everyone to come pouring in, the ceiling to spring to life and things to be as they once were. Eventually they were, in a way at least, though not truly the same.
Seats stayed empty where friends had once been. Excited chatter was now long pauses and even longer looks.
Then the world seemed to turn upon them. Using the Unforgivables warranted punishment, even when saving hundreds of lives and the New Minister, desperate to deflect from his own misdeeds in the war, hurried to prosecute. None were found more accountable than Harry Potter, the one who had killed the Dark Lord.
No sentences were actually laid down, due to the protest of the non-politically motivated public, but they still were wary. Suddenly the outside world was just that; Outside. Not meant for them, not really. How could they trust those who hadn't been there? It became obvious that everyone would be outsiders to them unless they forced themselves to move on.
Life went on.
They graduated and lived and explored. Some went to Magical Universities, others into the Ministry, or started trades, or…whatever. They grew used to not waking up and seeing half a dozen other people, paying bills and supporting themselves, though some thought there was no way children who fought a War could ever adjust. They moved on.
Moved apart and soon the world quieted, moving again, and allowed them to live.
Now, en years later, the infamous Hogwarts class of 98' is throwing a reunion party. The world, once again watching them unblinkingly, waits with baited breath. What will happen, who will come, and how have they changed.
Or something like that.
Seamus Finnigan eyed the page he'd typed up with something between disgust and amusement. The Daily Prophet, the newspaper he worked for, had wanted an in depth article about the reunion and who better than him, who'd actually been there. This was shaping up to be his biggest story ever, scheduled to be on the front page and go as long as he needed to tell his story.
It could really make his career, or at least get him onto a respectable paper and away from the Wizarding Tabloid circuit. All he had to do was confess everything that went on and sell out the people who'd fought beside him, tell the hungry public all of their stories and harp on how dysfunctional fighting had made them become.
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose then, carefully highlighting the section with his mouse, deleted it. He sat back and sighed. Somehow this wasn't where he'd seen himself at graduation, twenty-nine living in a one room flat with barely any money, a leech for a landlord, and a damn annoying cat.
He'd like a change.
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