IX
Sweet Surrender

-x- Parvati Patil & Seamus Finnigan –x-

'Make no sudden movements
and no one will get hurt
you're making me nervous…
if love is surrender,
then whose war is it anyway?'

'Aw, Won-Won, you are so cute.'

Rolling her dark eyes with a simultaneous groan of disgust, Parvati Patil stood up from the arm-chair she'd been lounging in until Lavender and Ron Weasley had entered the room. Their entrance had immediately been a trigger for everyone in the near vicinity of them to get up and move away as quickly as possible, their public displays of affection too much for even the most strong-stomached hopeless romantic.

Even Parvati, Lavender's best-friend, was having a large amount of trouble dealing with the amount of snogging – if that's what it could be defined as – they were doing, especially in public. Besides it's indecency it was just plain embarrassing, and so, Parvati had been spending less and less time with her best-friend and more time either by herself or in the company of people she wouldn't normally sit with, namely Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. Though, precisely where either of them was, and in her time of need too, she had not a clue.

That said, she didn't exactly mind not knowing where Seamus was, on the account of him having a bit of a God-complex and a lot of an ego. Sure, with his mischievous smile and keen green eyes he had a right to be proud of himself, but thinking himself as some kind of Irish God or golden boy was going a bit far. Normally, she didn't mind boys with a healthy bit of arrogance; it usually meant that they were willing to show her off as well, but Finnigan? Well, he took it a bit too far.

'Hallo there lovely.'

Turning, she half-smiled, half-groaned as none other than the delusional Irish God himself walked up and plonked himself down beside her, casting an amused glance over her barely started Transfiguration essay.

'Not done yet?' he asked, smirking when she scowled at him.

'No, and I was just about to put my head down and work when you – oh bloody hell, I've run out of ink.'

Throwing her quill down irritably, she began to grind her teeth in frustration, glaring at the mostly blank piece of parchment with what Seamus felt was an indecent amount of anger. There was slight pause, in which he watched her curiously, before he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wand and transfigured the pot-plant next to him into a large bottle of ink.

'Need some o' this?' he enquired with a mischievous wink.

Parvati, who had missed this entire sequence of events completely due to having started to rummage through her bag for another bottle of ink, looked up to see a bottle of ink in his outstretched hand, a smug smile on his face.

'Uh, thanks,' she said, reaching out to take it from him and frowning as his smile changed quickly back into a smirk.

'I didn't actually mean the ink of course,' he continued as he loosened his tie a bit, grinning at her, 'when I said "some o' this" I meant some o' the Almighty Seamus.'

'Settle down there "Almighty Seamus",' said a voice from behind them, and they looked up to see Dean standing over them, an amused glint in his dark eyes, 'don't want to wear yourself out too quickly or you won't be up to par with the other few ladies you've got lined up, will you?'

'Won't ever be a problem Deano,' Seamus drawled, lying back onto the floor in a languid fashion, his eyelids fluttering closed as he did so, 'I am invincible.'

'Oh, get over yourself already!' Parvati cried, annoyed at having being caught in such a bad mood by both boys, 'You've got such a God complex!'

'Well its obvious why,' said Dean with a roll of his eyes as he sat down on her other side, 'he thinks he is one, cue the "Almighty Seamus" talk and all that.'

'Ah, but are yeh disputing it?' said Seamus, eyes still closed, his ringed finger tracing an eyebrow in a subconscious habit, 'No, I didn't think so, because like I said, I am inv-'

'You're delusional, you know that?' interrupted Parvati, setting her quill down and looking at him sprawled out beside her with the faintest expression of distaste, 'you think you're so good when in reality you're about as secure as… as… as Lavender.'

'Ooh, harsh,' remarked Dean, cringing.

'S'alright Deano,' Seamus said smoothly, apparently un-phased by the insult, 'she's just upset coz she ain't on my list of women to see.'

'Why would I want to be on it?' she retorted, quite annoyed now, 'I'm not a whore.'

His eyes flicked open.
'Are yeh calling me some kind of whoremonger?'

'And what if I am?' she challenged, her face flushed.

'I um, I'm just going to go and um, uh, talk to um, Ginny,' Dean said suddenly, leaping to his feet, smiling briefly and then hurrying away.

'What if I were to prove to yeh that I can get any kind of girl?' he said, sitting up and looking at her with a hard stare, 'what if I could prove to yeh that I could get any girl, even a girl like you?'

'Then I would take it back,' she replied fairly, before laughing scathingly, 'though I highly doubt you'll get a girl like me.'

'And who's got a God-complex now, eh?' he said with a hollow laugh, astounded by her nerve.

'You've got a deal,' she said primly, holding out a slender dark hand for him to shake.

Taking it, he shook it but didn't let go.

Fixing him with a stare, she tugged at it but his grip was too strong.
'Finnigan let go.'

'Ah, so I'm "Finnigan" now we're in a bet, am I?' he said with one raised eyebrow.

'I'm warning you,' she said through her teeth, 'stop it! Let go!'

'Fine,' he said, yanking her forward by the arm and then letting her go so fast that she barely had time to blink.

Disorientated, she was about to yell at him but had no time, because suddenly his lips were on hers. Scowling, she started to pull away, but he deepened the kiss, and all of a sudden she didn't want to pull away. Delusional, annoying and cocky as he may have been, there was one thing she could say in his defence: he was one hell of a kisser.

He held her there for a few minutes before slowly pulling away.

Opening her eyes, she cringed, waiting for the trademark cocky smirk to slide onto his face, but it didn't. Instead, a genuine smile was present on his flushed face, a look in his keen green eyes she'd had yet to see before.

'What? Was I that bad a kisser?' she said impulsively, panicking.

'No,' he replied with a croak in his voice, 'yeh're pretty damn amazing actually.'

Blushing, she smiled with pleasure before remembering one very important detail… their bet.

'You cheater!' she cried, flushing scarlet now, not only with embarrassment but anger at having been played, 'you sweet-talking, two-faced, delusional – '

Silenced by another well-timed kiss on his part, she stared at him through open eyes and pulled away. 'That's not fair; you can't keep doing th- '

But apparently he could.

A/N: lyrics used - "Sweet Surrender" by Sarah McLachlan.

I've always wondered what Parvati and Seamus would be doing while Lavender was snogging Ron, and Dean was off with Ginny... hahaha.