Lavender was pacing the floor of her dorm as Parvati watched her. She wasn't particularly happy that she was being watched but she was far too frustrated to actually say anything so she just continued to pace up and down before she finally stopped in her tracks and turned to face her best friend.
"Where does he get off making me feel like this?" She practically demanded the answer from Parvati, though she knew that this had nothing to do with the girl. "Why now?"
Parvati opened her mouth to answer but Lavender began pacing again before she could actually answer. She half expected a 'told you so' to be thrown at her by the girl anyway. But this wasn't the time.
There had been a moment. A real moment when they were down by the lake. A moment that she couldn't get out of her head now. She'd felt it and she was sure that he had too.
But it hadn't made her feel any better about the whole situation. Not one bit. In fact it had made her feel like she was becoming a homewrecker. And that made her feel sick. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Dean. He'd been her friend just as long as Seamus had.
"Talk me through what happened again?" Parvati asked slowly but Lavender shook her head. She knew that there wasn't any point talking it over. She had spent the better part of the last month pushing her feelings to the side, not even thinking about it, let alone talking about it. She had no idea how she was meant to stop doing that now.
She stopped her pacing again and turned to face the other girl. She didn't even know how to put it into words that even though she felt this crushing sense of guilt that there was the remote chance that Seamus did in fact like her back, she wasn't sorry. She wasn't sorry for someone actually liking her back.
"Maybe you should just go and talk to him.." Parvati suggested.
Lavender stared at her. That was the obvious thing to do and she'd already considered it. But what if it ruined everything? What if they talked and it became more clear to them both that the best thing for them both was to avoid each other? Or what if she was wrong and he felt absolutely nothing for her? She couldn't bear that, not now, not after their shared moment.
"Or not…" Parvati sighed as she stood up, moving to pat Lavender's shoulder. "At least come for dinner." She said instead as she moved passed the girl.
Lavender swallowed thickly as she tried to pull herself back together. She wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but she knew that if she didn't go then Seamus would assume that she was avoiding him. Of course, avoiding him was exactly what every fibre of her being was screaming at her to do just then, but she knew she had to fight it. Even if she didn't want to face reality, she couldn't let Seamus know that anything was out of the ordinary.
She gave a small sigh and a shake of her head to snap herself out of the funk that was threatening to take over her and turned to follow Parvati down to the Great Hall.
Seamus looked up from his plate just in time to see Lavender walk in. He bit his lip as he watched her take a seat with Parvati and some other girls up at the top of the table and tried to ignore the pang in his chest that she wasn't sitting with him. He was so used to her always being there by his side that he didn't really remember what it was like not to eat a meal without her. He knew he couldn't expect her to always be there though, that wasn't fair at all. She was her own person, she was allowed her own life. It would just take him a moment to get used to, especially if she was going to make this a habit now.
He wanted to go and sit with her. Well, actually, he wanted to pull her aside to have a conversation with her, but he knew that he needed to sort his own head out first before he could do that. He still didn't know whether it was possible to be in love with two people at once. Ordinarily this would have been a conversation that he would have with Lavender. She knew about love and romance and things like that, whereas Neville was more than a little bit useless. But Lavender was the one person he couldn't talk to about all of this. At least not yet.
He also really wanted to talk to Dean, to let the love of his life know that there was a place in his heart for Lavender as something other than a friend. And somehow he doubted that Dean would be very pleased about that, considering how he'd reacted when Dean had found out about the innocent kiss that he and Lavender had shared before he and Dean were even together.
He dropped his eyes to his plate. His appetite had all but disappeared now but at least the food gave him something to focus on that wasn't Lavender. He doubted that she'd be all that impressed if she looked up and found him staring at her anyway.
He only glanced up again when he felt Neville's knee bump against his. He tried to give the boy a smile but he knew that it didn't reach his eyes. He couldn't help that though. He was stressed and that was putting it mildly.
"I think I'm gonna get out of here." He told Neville as he stood up slowly, glancing up the table just in time to catch Lavender's eye. She quickly looked away but not before a pang rippled through his body causing the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
Neville didn't say anything, or if he did then Seamus didn't hear him as he all but sprinted out of the hall. He headed up to the Room of Requirement, pausing outside where the door should have been. When it didn't appear, he realised that what he really needed was to be alone with his thoughts and a room full of scared students wasn't the place for that.
Seamus made his way up to his dorm instead and flopped down on his bed, face down. He lay there for a few moments before rolling onto his side and pulling his pillow down to his cheat where he hugged it tight. He knew he needed to get a grip, but he didn't know how to do that.
Dean had tried not to eavesdrop on Harry, Hermione and Ron's conversations while they were at Shell Cottage, but it just wasn't that easy. He was too curious, he couldn't deny that. He needed to know how long this war was going to go on for. He'd been on the run for far too long now. And now that he was no longer a prisoner, he was technically on the run again. He wanted to know whether Harry was any closer to taking down Voldemort, but unfortunately the snippets of conversations that he had overheard hadn't really made any sense to him. He couldn't ask what they meant though because he wasn't meant to actually hear in the first place.
He tried to keep his mind busy by drawing. He'd managed to scrounge some ink and parchment from Fleur so he spent most of his time at the kitchen table drawing. Often he sketched Seamus, the boy's face always being at the forefront of his mind, but he also drew Ted and those that had been staying at Shell Cottage. Luna took most of the drawings of herself, though Dean didn't know what she did with them. If he was honest, he was too afraid to ask. He just left her to it. And when she sat beside him while he sketched, he let her ramble on and on about whatever she wanted. It was nice not to have to sit in silence at any rate. It stopped him from thinking and worrying and that was something that was more than welcome.
Eventually Harry, Hermione and Ron left and it was actually sort of a relief for him. At least while they weren't there, he could pretend that they were a few more steps closer to ending all of this, but while he was under the same roof as them then he was all too aware of how hurt and tired they all were. It didn't exactly help to restore his faith that this would all be over soon to know what the condition the so-called Chosen One was in.
But now that they were out of the cottage, Dean couldn't help but feel somewhat helpless. Especially when he knew that there was nothing he could do from there but keep himself alive, and the worst part was that he knew that in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't actually all that important.
So sketching was what kept him at least sort of entertained and kept his mind quiet. It was busy work, but not important work. He tried to help out around the house as much as he possibly could, to help take as much as he could off of Bill and Fleur's plates.
Bill was in and out quite often; Dean didn't ask what he was doing but he knew that whatever he did was important. What he and Fleur were doing - housing runaways - was important too. It kept a small sliver of hope alive and that was something that everyone needed.