Many Paths to Tread
The rest of the seventh year Gryffindors have their own battles to fight.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters found in this fic.
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Hero
He knows his faults; he can list them. He's impatient, not always as kind as he could be to people who annoy him, not nearly as dedicated to his schoolwork as his Da would like, and Merlin knows he has a temper. But he has his good qualities, and he knows those, too—his temper doesn't get in the way of self-evaluation, especially on nights that are much longer than he ever remembered night being. He can tick them off on his fingers: he can be single-minded and dedicated to the pursuit of whatever cause he deems worthwhile; he can be intelligent when he actually concentrates on something; his trust and respect is hard to gain, but once won is almost never lost; he tends to be skeptical, not trusting his gut when his brain knows better; and he is loyal.
None of these strengths or vices are flashy—nights of cold contemplation tell him that—not extraordinary at all. He's really no more talented, no more intelligent, no more dedicated or loyal than anyone else. He can—and, he's determined, will—be a good wizard, a good man, but he doesn't need anyone to tell him that he'll never be great. He will never be the hero, and that is that.
And that, you see, is the trouble. He was raised on hero stories (he refuses to call them fairytales), his grandda reading to him for hours on winter nights, stories about men, real and myths, who slew dragons and led armies and found treasures and discovered new lands and dreamed fantastic dreams for their people. This was his first education, before he could read or write, and he suspects that this, gained first, will depart last. Perhaps when he is old and all else has left him, the stories will remain.
Grandda told him the stories for a reason, strong but quiet voice rising and falling like the wave of the sea. He believed that stories are a gift, a strength, that they teach you to see visions and dream dreams, they give you something to aspire to, give you a life worth pursuing. What he now sees that Grandda didn't know or refused to face is that the dreams the stories grow are too high and lofty for an altogether unextraordinary boy with no great talents or passions at all.
He really believed he could be the hero/knight/prince/king/warlord/leader until he came to Hogwarts. To be honest, it was more that he never questioned if he could. You grew up to be what you wanted to be, and he wanted to be the hero. And so he would be.
Hogwarts changed that.
Here was a boy with a scar on his forehead and eyes much too old for his body, insanely talented, heartbreakingly tragic, caught in the tension of the opposing blessings and curses of the powers that be. He took one look at Harry Potter and knew that he, Seamus Finnegan, would never be the hero of the story. He wouldn't even be the sidekick (he probably wouldn't have made a good one anyway), because that role goes to a freckled redhead in ragged robes, who, unlike Harry who can do everything, seems to have one overwhelming quality/passion/attribute/facet: loyalty so deep that Seamus cannot even begin to fathom it. And then there's the very unlikely heroine, with the hair too big for her head and ink-stained hands who is a know-it-all to the bone, with a brain that makes everyone else seem slightly idiotic.
After that first Halloween, when he sees the three together, settled into their roles, he knows his chance is gone. If those three had never shown up, never arrived at Hogwarts—or even if one hadn't, because he suspects that there had to be all three or there would have been nothing—he might have had his chance.
But maybe he wouldn't have made much of a hero, with his very ordinary self. And Dean would have been too busy drawing and emoting to be a sidekick (he loves him, but there are some things even best mates can't deny), and Lavender probably wouldn't make the best princess, even if she does look like one right out of his grandda's tales (she's more than people realize she is, though). That doesn't stop the regret.
So the empty compartment on the Express, the empty seats in the Hall, the empty beds in the dorms mean something different to him. When he's honest, he knows he's always resented them, has always been jealous, has hated himself just a little because he hates that he can't help but resent them.
Nature hates a vacuum. His Muggle cousin told him that one summer, and now when he lets himself, he prays that it's true. Maybe now is his chance.
And no one can jeer as he stands, wand in hand, in front of the doors to Hogwarts, Dean and Lavender on either side, Parvati and Neville and Luna and Ginny just beyond, all silently pledging that as long as they are alive, none shall pass.
There isn't much time for thinking, as spells and curses fly in a tangle of smoke and hate and leering faces behind masks and shouts filling the air. But before darkness closes in, he has time for a single thought.
Perhaps he's a hero after all.
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I'm sorry! I know it's sad! But I'm not stating for a fact that he dies, and if you want to believe otherwise, it won't bother me one bit.
Again, just trying to flesh out with what little we have.
Next up: Neville (I just love him!)