The Houses Competition, Year 8, Round 9 - School: Slythering, Class: Herbology, Category: Standard, Mandatory prompts: (character) Seamus Finnigan, (word) promise; Additional prompt - (quote) "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." - Maya Angelou
Word count: 2973
"Seamus," came a soft, quiet voice from behind the Gryffindor. He was about to reach for the doorknob leading out to the seventh floor corridor, but instead, he spun around, coming face-to-face with Luna Lovegood. Her bright blue eyes were scanning his face, until her gaze settled on the mar running between his left eye and jawbone. "How is your scar?"
Seamus scratched the back of his neck. "It's alright. On the bright side, at least the curse didn't hit my eye, eh?" His lips curved up somewhat.
Luna looked on, unfazed. "But it must hurt."
"A bit," Seamus conceded. "But look," he said, his gaze meeting Luna's, "I'm fine. It could have been worse. You've seen what they sometimes do to Ginny. Now that… That's bloody brutal."
Luna stayed silent for a few seconds. "Come," she said after a while, turning her back on Seamus and heading off to the DA's impromptu 'Infirmary,' the click-clack of her steps echoing across the hall like the chimes of a clock tower.
Furrowing his eyebrows, Seamus followed behind her. "It's just a scar."
"I know this curse," Luna said as she reached a crooked, wooden cabinet. As she opened the top shelf with a creak and rummaged through the vials, she added, "It's more than just the scar."
Seamus tilted his head sideways. As little as he knew about Luna, her voice was… off. It was missing that hint of airiness that was always there whenever the blonde talked about bogus creatures. It had always felt as though Luna didn't much care about whether people listened to her or not, but the way her eyes scanned the vials was nothing of the sort. Concerned, Seamus decided. Luna looked concerned.
"Here," she said, holding a vial with a bright emerald liquid inside in one hand and a cotton ball in the other. She uncorked the vial and soaked some of it up with the cotton ball. Then, she took two steps forward, coming almost chest-to-chest with Seamus. With careful movements, she began tapping the cotton ball against where the scar ran down Seamus' cheek, occasionally soaking up some more of the potion.
"Any closer and the lot'd be wondering if we were snogging," Seamus muttered, his lips curving into a coy smile.
He studied the girl's face as she continued her patting. Her lips were a straight line, not quite the almost-smile she always wore. Her hair was more frizzled than usual, but that was to be expected after a DA session. Her eyes, though. Her eyes were a story. Bright, yes, but there was so much more; Seamus could almost see slivers of thoughts passing behind her irises, about something that was hurting her. For a few brief seconds, her eyes were almost like a Pensieve, a misty swirl hiding a story, and Seamus swore he could almost see the scene, but he never quite got there. He couldn't look away. He felt a tug of sorts, pulling at his stomach, and in the mist, he saw blurry figures, but before the scene cleared up, it disappeared.
He was back in the Room of Requirement, and Luna was looking straight into his eyes, still holding the vial and the cotton ball but seemingly having finished, her arms just sort of hanging by her sides. Seamus did not say a word, but he kept eye contact. It remained like that for the next few seconds.
"Does it still hurt?" Luna asked after an eternity. Seamus blinked, once, twice, and a third time as well, before it occurred to him that the throbbing pain was gone.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Thank you."
"I'm glad," Luna said with a small smile. "I hope it won't come back."
"Sure." Seamus nodded. Then, he blurted out, "Did you feel that too?"
Luna cocked her head to the side, her gaze still fixed on Seamus' own. "Feel what?"
"The… Well, it was like I could see through your eyes, and it was all foggy, but I saw some blurry fellas, but it went right off, and it was just you then. I swear it was something to do with you, though, and you were hurting," Seamus said. He then realised he was running out of air, so he took a breath, staring at Luna.
Luna's face didn't change much, though Seamus noted that it looked almost as though the mist had returned to her eyes. He placed a hand on Luna's shoulder and pulled on her, though the girl was still only a mere few inches away. "What happened?"
The mist swirled again in Luna's eyes. "Oh, it was a long time ago," she said. Her voice was light as ever, but Seamus felt it was still… different. Like she was trying to hide something. "I sometimes even forget it."
"It was Dad," she said after taking a breath. Seamus furrowed his eyebrows. "It's difficult to fund his research. The Quibbler doesn't get as many subscribers as the Daily Prophet, so he often has to find another way."
"And this other way… is you?" Seamus asked.
"There used to be an emergency service at St. Mungo's. For rare curses with no known cure, you would regularly get a few galleons until an antidote was found. It wasn't a lot, but enough for Dad while he was researching the mating practises of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. It was like that for about a year, but he had Mum take care of me," Luna explained.
"What does the curse do?" Seamus said.
"It drains you. The pain wears off a bit, but I always felt very tired. I could barely wake up, and while I was awake, it hurt. It's good that I wasn't in Hogwarts yet. But then," she continued, "they found the antidote. It's still rare, though. You need moonflowers to brew it, and those only grow once a year. It was lucky we had some here, because they're in full bloom after harvest time. Do you want to come and get some with me?"
Seamus took a few seconds to process everything the girl had said.
"That's bloody terrible," he answered. Luna, however, was already making her way to the exit, so he scrambled to catch up with her. "Luna," he whispered as they strode down the corridor. "Are you okay? Where are you going?"
"To the moonflowers," she said. "I collect them every night while they're in bloom."
"But… are you okay?" Seamus probed further.
Luna, seemingly ignoring the question, said, "I'll show you something."
After a trek through the Hogwarts halls, the grounds, and then a good bit into the Forbidden Forest as well, Luna finally stopped in her tracks. "They're here," she said, pointing ahead to where Seamus could see a glimpse of something… bright? He couldn't ponder it much, as Luna grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the light. Soon enough, they reached a clearing.
The sight was nothing like Seamus had ever seen before. Hundreds of flowers were scattered around the clearing, lit by the moon that rose above the Forest, an ethereal grey glow surrounding the flowers. It was almost ominous, the way they swayed in the light autumn breeze, but it was mesmerising. For a moment, Seamus reckoned he had forgotten how to breathe.
"That's unreal," he said.
"I sometimes come to this clearing to think. I have these 'feelings' about the future, but…" Luna explained, "but it also helps when I'm feeling sad or lonely. It doesn't always have the moonflowers, but you can see most constellations from here. Look!" She pointed up. Seamus shifted his gaze up, and true to what Luna had said, stars littered the night sky. He was no good at Astronomy, but it was still a beautiful sight.
"And you haven't shown this to anybody else?" he asked, turning back to Luna.
"If I did, it wouldn't be special," she said. "It's the special things that matter, after all. You wouldn't remember the beauty of moonflowers if you saw them every day."
"This is pretty high up the list of special things," Seamus conceded. "Probably right below the Quidditch World Cup."
"I'm glad you think so," Luna noted. "Would you like to help me out with harvesting them?"
"Will you tell me about what happened after the curse if I do?" Seamus asked.
Luna gazed at the ground for a second before meeting gazes with him. "I can."
Seamus had not expected the outings with Luna to continue. Yet, under the reign of Snape and the Carrow siblings, and with the war that was raging on beyond the Hogwarts walls, they found solace in each other. Luna would take him to the Forbidden Forest after DA meetings, and even after the DA had decided to make the Room of Requirement their official headquarters. They would find the same clearing again. Sometimes, they would talk, and Seamus would tell Luna about the first time he had blown up his Dad's car, or about his best friend who used to live next door but moved to Dublin before he started Hogwarts. He told her about the banshee that killed his uncle and how that's why it was his Boggart, though he had admitted it couldn't compare to what had happened to Luna's mum.
Other times, they would sit in silence, content that just for a couple hours, nothing was happening. Content that they did not need to fear for their lives, at least not imminently. And every time, that 'special' feeling was there. Not because they were doing anything out of the ordinary, but perhaps exactly because it felt normal. Perhaps because in their increasingly hopeless world, 'normal' had become a rare treat.
During these outings, Luna would heal Seamus' bruises, though the treatments became more and more time-consuming as the Carrows' curses got more harrowing. In exchange, Seamus would help Luna with her Charms assignments. When they would walk back to the castle, he would always stay a step behind her. He would never tell Luna, but it was to protect her. He was aware that the girl knew more about the Forest, but somehow, he felt obliged to make sure she got back safe.
The last week before Christmas, as Luna was patching up a particularly nasty gash on Seamus' face, he asked, "Do you think it's gonna be the same when we come back from the holidays?" Quickly, he added, "The war, I mean. With the Carrows, and the DA, and everything."
"I don't know," Luna answered. "But I trust Harry. I know he's doing his best to end the war."
"We sure as hell could use some of his luck," Seamus said. "Are you going home for Christmas?"
Luna nodded. "I think Dad feels lonely. He's always reluctant about me going back to Hogwarts."
Seamus sighed, shaking his head a little. Luna tapped the top of his head with the hand that was not holding the vial of Dittany, gesturing for him to stop moving. "I don't really know about that, Luna," he said, trying to meet the girl's gaze without turning his head. "He cares about you, but with all the disappearances, it's only a matter of time until they connect the dots to you. I'm sure Snape will already have told all of You-Know-Who's goonies about who the second-in-commands are."
"Maybe," Luna said. "But I know I need to go home. It's for the best."
"Is this one of those 'feelings' you sometimes get?" Seamus asked.
Luna nodded. "I think something important is going to happen."
"Hey," Seamus said, turning his face fully towards the blonde and putting a hand on her cheek. "Promise me you'll come back in one piece after New Year's." Then, he winced, realising his gash was still very much aching and Luna had not finished with the Dittany yet.
"I can't make promises I don't know how to keep," Luna said. Her eyes had that hint of mist in them, though. Seamus had noticed it would only appear when Luna was troubled. He could not quite figure out why he could see the mist; Luna reckoned it was a side effect of the antidote, though he had wondered if anything else might have been at play.
"I make promises I can't keep all the time," he said.
"Then it wouldn't mean anything even if I promised," Luna replied.
Seamus let out a small laugh. "Alright. Then promise me that when the war's over and we're both through, we'll come back here, exactly like this, but you won't have to patch me up, and we won't have to worry about the Carrows, or Snape, or You-Know-Who. Just you and me." He gestured between the girl and himself. "This."
"I still don't know how to keep that promise," Luna said, plopping the Dittany back into her backpack. "But I can promise that I will try. I would be happy to come back here."
The months leading up to the Battle were difficult. At the very least, Seamus knew Luna was still in one piece in a safe house. On the other hand, there was now nobody to help with the scars that were beginning to accumulate on every inch of his body, and he was painfully aware that Luna was on her own. Not literally, but she had a lot of emotional baggage when it came to her dad. When Seamus asked, Neville had directed him to Ginny, who told him she didn't know everything, only that Luna had been held captive at Malfoy Manor and that her dad had sold Harry's lot out. He thought about the mist in Luna's eyes; he was sure it was there. He thought about how great it would be if he could contact her via anything that wasn't the publicly available DA coin, but alas. All in all, things looked grim.
Seamus himself would still occasionally visit the Forest, though less and less frequently as the Death Eaters' hold grew tighter on Hogwarts. It wasn't the same anyway. The 'special' wasn't there without Luna. Even without a care for NEWTs—which were everybody's last concern—there was enough to do. He didn't need to be a Seer to have that impending sense of doom that was hovered over Hogwarts.
"Stupefy!" Seamus cried.
The Death Eater across him crumpled. He didn't have time to be impressed with himself, however, as the now knocked-out Death Eater was replaced immediately by two of his fellow goonies. Seamus took two steps back, then ducked, a jet of bright green missing his shoulder by an inch. The wall behind him rumbled, and a bit of rubble fell on his head as he fired back two Flipendos. Then, another curse shot past him, and the wall rumbled again.
As he was preparing to dive away from the now dangerously wobbly wall, he caught something in the corner of his eyes. At the other end of the hall, he saw a flash of blonde. Taking a second look, it became clear. It was Luna. She was fighting Bellatrix Lestrange, the madwoman that had escaped from Azkaban, alongside Ginny and Molly Weasley.
He continued firing spells at the two Death Eaters as he sprinted across the room. He didn't have time to think about a better entrance, so as he reached the fighting Trio, he simply shouted, "Luna!"
She turned towards him, but at the same time, Lestrange fired a well-aimed curse at her. Without mulling his options over, Seamus unceremoniously tackled Luna, only to hear the curse whooshing past above them.
"Sorry about that," he said as he rolled off the girl. "Probably not one of my brightest moments."
"You saved me, so I think we're even," Luna replied, hopping to her feet and scanning the hall.
"I'm glad you're back in one piece," Seamus noted.
"I promised to try," Luna said. "I should go. Neville might need help."
"Fair," Seamus replied as he stood as well. "But hey," he said, grabbing Luna's wrist as she turned away. Her gaze met his. He didn't think. He didn't care to think, to be exact. He just pulled the blonde back and pressed his lips against hers. Just for a second, not any longer, because there was still a battle raging around them. But he had to do it.
"Let's kick Death Eater butt," he added before letting go of Luna's wrist and turning around to fire off another Stupefy.
The clearing was calmer than usual. No ominous sounds, no dark shadows looming over the Hogwarts grounds, and certainly no feeling that the world might end at any second. It was odd, but a good odd. Like the girl sitting next to Seamus.
"Have you thought about what would happen after the war?" he asked. "I mean, we all have, but it's different now that it's actually over."
"I still have a year at Hogwarts," Luna replied. "I should talk with Dad, too."
"You have a lot to sort out," Seamus said. Luna didn't reply; she merely gazed off into the distance, beyond the crooked trees. "Hey," Seamus continued, putting a hand on Luna's shoulder. The blonde turned to face him, that all-too-familiar mist swirling in her eyes. "Do you think I can fit into this 'still have a year at Hogwarts' picture somehow?"
As if on cue, Luna's eyes cleared up, back to their original bright blue.
"And," Seamus continued, "if that's a yes, may I have a second attempt at that kiss that happened during the Battle? It was probably not the best attempt then, but maybe I can make it more 'special' this time."
"I wouldn't know. That was my first kiss," Luna said, shrugging. "But yes, I'd like to try that 'more special.'"
"Can you promise you won't run away this time?"
"Yes, that is something I can promise."
