A/N: So, maybe I am actually improving at this, it's been just over a month again, I might yet get to the point I am posting on a sensible type basis…maybe… Anyways, I would just like to say thank you for the lovely reviews I've got, they always make me smile. :) I promise I don't deliberately make you wait between chapters I just get very easily distracted or my brain refuses to write words down in a sensible coherent form.

Yes, anyway, enough excuses again. Enjoy the crazy story that my brain produces. Once again I own nothing but crazy Faith/Tig type person, even if I would like to.

Chapter Eight: Seamus' Fan Club

"So have you any idea where the leprechaun and the little lion are?"

It was a Saturday in mid October and Dean and Neville were in the Entrance Hall heading towards the Great Hall for tea. They had not been able to find a trace of the other two anywhere, or at least not in the Common Room or anywhere between there and the Entrance Hall, which was as far as they had bothered to look.

"Seamus and Faith?" Neville asked.

Dean nodded.

"Nope, last time I saw Faye she was sat in a corner with the twins and Lee, looking suspicious" Neville explained.

"So as per usual then" Dean pointed out.

"Yup, pretty much" Neville agreed "Haven't the foggiest where Seamus is though."

"That bodes well" Dean grimaced.

Just at that moment a small, slightly ungainly shape shot down from the stairs behind them, ducked through between them, stopped and dragged both boys by the arm until they collided.

"I'm not here, you haven't seen me"

Looking down the boys saw a rather out of breath Faith crouching down slightly, attempting to hide behind them while also peering through the slight gap between them.

"What did you do Tig?" Dean asked.

"Why do you always assume I did something?" Faith objected.

"Because you usually did." he pointed out "And you hiding and trying to pretend you're not here is probably a good sign"

"Well I didn't do anything" Faith stated, defiantly.

Neville sensed a catch. "But?" he prompted.

"Well…" Faith began hesitantly "I might have said something, and Seamus also might now be trying to kill me."

"Where is he?" Dean asked, looking around as if Seamus would appear out of thin air.

"Somewhere up there chasing me." Faith pointed towards the stairs "Thankfully because of my lovely brothers I know the secret passages better than him. I lost him somewhere on the fourth floor."

"And why exactly did you need to loose him?" Neville questioned.

"Er…well…I may have said something to Curley, Preeny and Titch that he didn't like." Faith was scratching her head and looking sheepish. The boys shared a confused glance before turning blank, bemused eyes on Faith.

Dean spoke what they were both thinking "Who?"

"Oh you know, those three second years who spent all last year mooning over that Irish Hufflepuff bloke mainly because of his accent, the seventh year, Damian thingy…"

It was at times like this that knowing Faith for over three years and having learnt to translate her 'explanations' came in handy.

"You mean Romilda Vane, Matilda whatsername and er…the other one?" Neville asked.

"Yes, exactly. Preeny, Curley and Titch." Faith said, as if it had been obvious from the start.

This was getting them nowhere.

"What did you tell them?" Neville prompted.

"Weeeell…" Faith began "It seems they just figured out Seamus is also Irish, they're clearly not that observant, I mean…"

"Tig!" Dean interrupted, stopping her rambling explanation "What did you tell them?"

Faith, looking increasingly sheepish, finally got to the point, "I may have let slip that Seamus is single. I may also have accidentally led them to believe he likes younger girls. This might possibly have led to them not leaving him alone all day."

The two boys snorted with laughter.

"He will be pleased." Dean chuckled, with Neville nodding his agreement.

"Faith Higgins I am going to kill you!" A loud voice called out. Seamus had just appeared at the top of the stairs. Neville and Dean turned to watch him make his swift decent, breaking Faith's human shield in doing so.

"Eep!" Faith squealed, ducking behind Neville, clutching his elbows and peering around him to watch her impending doom. When he reached them Seamus made a couple of attempt to get to Faith, while Neville tried to keep himself, and some distance between the pair of them, Dean tried to grab Seamus and Faith just remained hidden behind Neville. After about a minute or so of this Dean managed to grab Seamus by the arms and hold him where he couldn't get to Faith.

"You're not murdering Tig" he informed the smaller boy, who was still struggling.

"Why not?" Seamus objected.

"Because we're not gonna be your alibi" Dean informed him.

"And we're not bailing you out of Azkaban" Neville added.

"But…"

"Relax, they'll soon have forgotten about you" Dean attempted to placate him "And besides killing Faith won't make them leave you alone."

"Might do" Seamus huffed "It'd make me feel better anyway."

"You'd soon feel guilty about murdering a poor, sweet, innocent girl." a voice piped up from behind Neville.

The three boys all gave her questioning looks.

"You are anything but sweet and innocent" Dean pointed out, releasing Seamus, who seemed to have calmed down some, or had at least forgotten about violence for now.

Faith took a cautious step to her side, so she was stood beside Neville, but still ready to dart back to her hiding place at any sign of violence.

"I'm sorry Seamus." She said "I didn't mean to get you a trio of stalkers. In fact I didn't mean to say anything to them at all, it just kinda, er, happened."

Seamus was still glaring at her.

"Don't worry, if they don't stop soon I'll turn all those years of learning from Fred and George to good use." she promised him.

Seamus huffed "Fine, I won't murder you, but you're not totally forgiven. I got ten house points taken off me 'cause of this."

"How?" Faith asked, confused.

"McGonagall caught me on the fourth floor just after you disappeared somewhere." Seamus explained "Apparently I should not be 'charging through the corridors and threatening other students, even ones who seem to take pleasure in causing trouble.'"

"I do not take pleasure in causing trouble!" Faith objected.

The boys all just gave her incredulous looks.

"Well, not for you lot at least, the Slytherins and people I don't like on the other hand…" she grinned "…maybe a little."

Neville and Dean laughed at this and even Seamus, whose mood was beginning to brighten a little now, chuckled. The four of them then headed into the Great Hall, before McGonagall or anyone else could take more house points off them for whatever other mischief or chaos they were thought to be part of.

"Urgh, three whole feet on the uses of poisonous plants in antidotes, I hate Snape. I thought Potions was a practical subject!" Faith whined.

"You'd rather he poison you?" Neville asked, glancing up from the book he had his head buried in, to look at her across the table.

"Well no." Faith's tone told of how obvious this answer was "I just don't understand why we have to write about potions instead of making them."

Neville gave a small snort of laughter "You and Seamus make potions unattended? I think the answer to that is obvious."

"Huh?"

"You'd blow the whole blooming castle up!" he exclaimed.

"No we wouldn't" Faith began to object "Maybe a small part of it."

Neville chuckled and nodded his head as if to say 'exactly' then stuck his nose back in his book as Faith added another piece of parchment to the mounting pile of bits she had crumpled up.

The two of them were sat at a desk in the library, attempting to make some progress with the mountain of homework the teachers seemed intent on giving them. They were in the library because over the years they had realised that Faith stood a much better chance of actually getting her homework done when removed from distractions such as the Common Room, Fred, George, Lee, Dean and Seamus. So it had become something of a habit for the pair of them to do their homework together in the library.

Today however there was another reason why Faith was willingly doing homework. She was trying to hide from Seamus. Ever since she had let slip to Romilda and the others about Seamus being single (about a week ago) it had been impossible to go the whole day without seeing them at least five times. The three girls had taken to popping up all over the castle, wherever Seamus was, or even where they had spotted Faith, Dean or Neville in the hope that Seamus would be nearby.

This meant that Seamus had been grumpy of late, especially towards Faith, and all four friends were well and truly sick of their new giggling entourage. Faith had been hiding out in the Owlery a lot lately, somewhere she loved spending time and Seamus hated. However he seemed to have got over that in the last couple of days, enough to follow her there. Apparently his need to whinge at Faith was greater than his dislike of Sage and his feathered friends. So, Faith was quite happy to get away from the Common Room and a sulky Seamus, even if it did mean doing Potions homework.

After a couple more minutes of quite work Neville looked up from his book again and informed her "You know if Seamus doesn't kill you soon I might just do it for him."

"Why?" Faith objected, quite loudly, earning herself a glare and a 'Shush' from Madame Pince, who stuck her head around a nearby bookshelf. "What did I do now?"

Neville gestured over her shoulder to a spot behind the nearest shelf, from where there was a distinct shuffling and giggling sound drifting across to them, and three pairs of legs visible through the gaps between the books. Faith glanced over her shoulder, noted this, then turned back round and affected her best innocent face.

"Oh" She began "Well, you know killing me won't help with that. Maybe you should consider killing dear Mr Finnigan instead."

"Seamus isn't here" Neville pointed out "Yet they still are"

"Good point, well made." Faith paused, the cogs in her brain apparently whirring "Hey! Maybe they've moved on with their obsession! To you."

"Huh" Neville scoffed "That's likely."

"Why not?" Faith inquired.

"Well, I'm me." Neville stated, as if this explained everything "Clumsy, useless Neville. Look at me."

"I am" Faith smiled "I see nothing wrong. I see a sweet smart guy who is in no way useless, has protected me from Seamus' murderous tendencies on numerous occasions and is my best friend in the world." Faith smiled kindly at him, resisting the urge to comment on how handsome he was becoming, he's Neville, she reminded herself, he is your best friend, stop making things weird brain.

Neville blushed at her words, looking down bashfully. "Thank you Faye." He looked up and smiled at her "but I don't think many people see that when they look at me."

"Well they should." Faith stated, matter-of-factly.

Neville smiled at her again.

"Hang on" he started "If I'm your best friend what does that make Dean and Seamus?"

"A pair of idiots?" Faith supplied.

"No" Neville chuckled "I mean, aren't they your best friends too?"

"Well yeah" Faith shrugged "I love them to bits, Fred and George too, just you're different. You're special. For a start I don't have to worry about you throwing me in a snowdrift, the lake or down a hill because you're bored or think it'd be funny."

"Um, thanks, I think" he sounded slightly unsure if that was a compliment "Wait, down a hill?"

"Yeah, d'ya not remember?" she asked "Last winter. Hogsmeade. Up from the Shrieking Shack. Seamus. I landed in a snowdrift, again."

"Oh yeah" Neville suddenly realised they were well away from the original point of the conversation. "Anyway, you're sidetracking me. The point was Curley, Preeny and Titch as you put it are hovering behind that shelf over there."

"Well it's hardly my fault they're not bright enough to realise I'm hiding from Seamus so he's nowhere near" she protested.

"Faith" Neville gave her a 'you know it's your fault' look.

"Alright, alright, I'll deal with them" Faith threw up her hands in resignation, then pushed her chair away from the table and made her way around the shelf to where the girls stood.

Neville watched her approach the girls and could see her speaking to them but could not make out what was being said. Within a couple of minutes the three younger girls had scuttled out of the library at high speed. Faith then reappeared around the book shelf, bouncing along looking very pleased with herself, with a smug grin on her face. She plonked herself back down in her seat, then humming quietly to herself picked her quill back up and pretended to get on with her work. Neville tried his best to quiz her on what had just happened but all he could get out of her was that she 'fixed it', so in the end he gave up and went back to his book. After a couple more minutes working (or in Faith's case pretending to and doodling instead) Faith looked up at Neville again.

"Hey, Nev?" she began quietly.

"Hmm?" Neville hadn't looked up yet.

"How you doing?" Faith asked softly.

"I'm not getting very far, this book seems to go round in circles"

"No, I don't mean that" she smiled slightly "I mean, about, um, you know what happened in Defence a few weeks ago."

Neville looked up and saw the same expression of concern on her face as she had worn at breakfast the day after their first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson of the year. He smiled at her.

"Faye, honestly, I'm ok" he assured her "where has this come from now?"

Faith shrugged "I dunno. I just haven't had much chance to talk to you without Dean and Seamus around since. You sure you're ok?"

"Yes, thank you for worrying though." He smiled across the desk at her "I mean, I'm kinda use to the situation now, it just caught me off guard the other week. It is nice to know I've got someone to talk to about it when I need to though, no matter how dangerous and mad she may be." He grinned at this last remark.

"Hey!" Faith was grinning too as she chucked a piece of crumpled up parchment across the desk at him.

Soon a small play fight had broken out between them with the pair of them giggling like mad and Faith's mountain of crumpled up pieces of parchment flying back and forth across the desk. It wasn't long before Madam Pince's angry face once again appeared from behind a bookshelf and the two friends found themselves swiftly grabbing their things and being kicked out of the library. They were still chuckling when they arrived outside the door; when Madam Pince disappeared back into the library with a disapproving 'humph' Faith collapsed in a giggling heap on the floor. She managed to calm down and right herself after a minute or so, although she was still grinning like an idiot as she clambered to her feet. Neville, also still grinning, handed Faith her bag, which she had abandoned on the floor of the corridor, Faith linked her arm through his and they slowly made their way back to Gryffindor Tower.

Care of Magical Creatures, Faith and the boys were quickly discovering, was a very dangerous subject. Since they had returned to the Castle for their fourth year the four of them had not managed to make it through a single lesson without at least one, usually more, of them getting injured in some way (admittedly they were usually only fairly minor injuries). It seemed Hagrid's new favourite creatures (they could hardly be considered animals), the Blast-Ended Skrewts thought Hogwarts students were the perfect target to practice their attacks on. This meant it was practically impossibly to come away from the lesson without being bitten, burnt or stung at least once and, as the creatures were growing alarmingly quickly these injuries were getting more and more painful. Faith was starting to wonder if the hideous things weren't planning a mutiny or revolution of some sort and were practicing for when they would make a move to take over the castle, which was a horribly disturbing thought.

"Why can Hagrid never get fascinated by something cute and fluffy?" Faith complained to the boys as they walked back from Hagrid's cabin after another painful lesson.

"Yeah and not dangerous" Dean added, glancing dubiously back at where the Skrewts' cases were still visible in the distance.

"Like squirrels" Faith continued, inspecting her hand where she had been burnt during the lesson "I could get on board with squirrels"

"Squirrels?" Dean eyed her incredulously.

"Aye, c'mon you can't tell me you wouldn't prefer squirrels to those vicious little gits" she reasoned.

"Well that's true" Neville, who was also nursing a burnt hand, agreed "At least they can't sting or burn, and are probably less likely to bite"

"Yes" Dean began slowly "But they're also not exactly magical"

"Maybe that could be our assignment" piped up Seamus "Breed new squirrels with magical powers"

Faith and Neville nodded thoughtfully, as if this was a reasonable suggestion. Dean just gave them all a look that said 'there is something seriously wrong with you'.

"You lot are all as mad as each other today" he informed them.

"Yeah, well I think you're the only one those monsters didn't injure today!" Seamus objected.

Their conversation continued until they reached the Entrance Hall where it stopped abruptly as they observed the scene before them. As soon as they stepped in through the castle doors they found their way to the Great Hall, and the tea that was calling out to them, blocked by a large crowd of students all milling around a large sign at the foot of the staircase. All Faith could make out of the sign from where they stood was 'Tri…ment" which did not tell her an awful lot, but judging by the reaction of the other students the rest of the sign said something exciting. She looked up at Dean and Neville, hoping that with the benefit of their height they could make out some more of the sign.

"Can you see what it says?" she asked.

"Something about the Triwizard Tournament" Dean observed "Other than that, no."

"C'mon" Seamus said as he began to try and make some progress through the crowd "Let's go investigate"

So, the four of them squeezed their way though the crowd as far as they could towards the sign (which wasn't far) and then Dean and Neville between them managed to decipher what it said and read it too the other two.

"The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at, er…" Dean faltered, trying to crane his head around to read the next bit, which was obscured from his view, to no avail.

Neville carried on for him. "…6 o'clock on Friday 30th of October. Lessons will end, um…"
"…half an hour early. Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and something about standing outside to greet them and a feast" Dean finished.

"Something about standing outside? I'm sure that's what it says" Faith's tone dripped with sarcasm.

"So I paraphrased, you get the gist" Dean countered.

"Aye, it's all starting in a week!" Seamus was grinning manically.

"Then we can start our mission to retrieve Jeremy a piece of it!" Faith's grin rivalled Seamus'.

"Not that again" Neville complained "I thought you'd forgotten."

But, as the two of them were back to planning harebrained schemes they did not seem to hear him.

Seamus certainly heard when Dean informed him "Hey look Seamus it's your fan club" though. All three of the others followed his eye line and spotted 'Curley, Preeny and Titch' standing not far off. When the three younger girls realised they were being watched and saw who by they quickly disappeared into the surrounding crowd. The three boys looked at Faith with surprised expressions.

"What exactly did you threaten them with Tig?" Seamus asked her.

"Why do you always assume threats are involved?" Faith protested, trying to look as innocent as she could.

"Because I saw you speak to them in the library and now they're totally avoiding us" Neville pointed out.

"Not that we're complaining" Seamus added, with the other two boys nodding their agreement.

"I didn't threaten them" Faith told them "Well, not exactly…"

"But?" prompted Dean.

"Well I just told them I knew another guy who is much more handsome than Mr Finnigan here, who also has a nice accent and who doesn't have a friend who is likely to dump large amounts of some unmentionable substance on them if they don't stop stalking him." The boys were all chuckling by she finished her explanation. Faith smiled, her innocent face still in place.

"No, no threats at all" Dean chortled.

"Hey, did you want rid of them or not?" Faith asked, indignantly.

"Alright" Dean held his hands up "Fair point"

"So who did you tell them was handsome and whatever?" Neville asked curiously.

"Zacharias Smith" Faith grinned a Cheshire Cat grin. The boys all burst out laughing.

"Oh he's going to hate you if he finds out it's your fault" Dean informed her.

"Doesn't he anyway? For no reason" Faith pouted.

"You did nearly tip him out of a boat into the lake the first day you met him" Dean pointed out.

"So? I did the same with you two and you don't hate me"

"Are you sure about that?" Seamus asked, innocently.

"Well…" Faith pulled a face "Most of the time you don't"

At this point Neville caught their attention and gestured through the crowd. Peering through between a few groups of nearby students they could see Zacharias Smith, looking rather annoyed and not far away from him a certain trio of giggling girls. The four friends watched the scene before them for a little bit, then turning to look at one another burst out laughing again.