ETA!

I made a lame Seamus icon for this fic! Applaud me!

It's like HP has hijacked my muse. Every time I sit down to work on next fic in the DM 'verse (actually coming along fine, if glacially), or even that SPN fic (which I started fourteen months ago, happy belated, you insane bastid). HP is making me its bitch. But selectively; I've stalled on the Prisoner!verse.

Other, weirder HP pairings pound on my consciousness for attention. Like this puppy's done since Sunday.

So, here it is. Just be glad it isn't the Harry/Neville ficlet.

All things in due time =D
::clears throat::


Six Conversations Seamus Finnigan And Harry Potter Almost Had . . . And One They Nearly Didn't
Author: _beetle_
Pairing: SF/HP
Rating: Hard R for sexual sitches and overuse of Ogden's Old. Just say no, kids.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, nor do I own the rights to this song.
Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Slightly AU, set ten years past HBP, but no spoilers. Angst.
Summary: The title says it all. Drabbles, double drabbles, quad-drabbles, etc.



1A

He can't shake Harry's green gaze for love or money. It's . . . unsettling.

And the man's bloody unreadable, these days. For all Seamus knows, Harry's mentally replaying old Quidditch matches--or reliving his final (classified) defeat of You Know Who. Or--

Well. It's anyone's guess really, and anyone's guess would probably be better than Seamus's.

The rest of their colleagues spend these interminable staff meetings napping, doodling, or avoiding Mad Eye's gaze like cowed Fourth Years.

Seamus, however, actually finds himself catching the old codger's eye betimes, as that's far less unnerving than catching the eye of The Boy Who Won.


1B

He's in the lav splashing water on his face when a hand settles between his shoulder blades.

"Jaysus, Mary and Joseph!" Seamus blinks water out of his eyes and glares at the reflection behind his own. "Like to scare five years off a bloke!"

"Have you thought about what I said?"

And who knew the same velvet-smooth voice Harry uses in the odd interview is the same voice he uses to proposition coworkers? And who would believe Seamus if he told?

"Look, we need to talk about this," Seamus begins, and those eyes watch his lips form every syllable before flicking up to meet his own.

"I don't think we do, Seamus," Harry murmurs, nipping the back of Seamus's neck just hard enough to cause a yelp, then laving the offended area. As ever, even with a barrier of glass between them and the world, Harry's eyes seem too bright, too direct. Unyielding and strangely blank, but for the heat in them. "I think we understand each other perfectly."

"Harry--"

"No." Harry's arms slide around his waist, and Harry's teeth close on his earlobe. Seamus shivers and leans back into the embrace, his eyes slipping shut. "No more talking."


1C

Normally, it'd occur to Seamus that the boredom fostered in these meetings goes against the very concept of maintaining constant vigilance.

Normally Seamus hasn't just gotten the hummer of his young life in the Level 2 men's lav. By the savior of the wizarding world, no less.

The aforementioned savior slides into his seat across from Seamus, composed but for slightly swollen lips. . . .

. . . and Seamus's been staring at his lips for so long, Harry's begun staring back.

Alright there, Seamus? He mouths, tongue-tip darting out briefly to swipe his lips. Seamus groans; slouches lower in his chair.

Never better.


2

There's a goodly portion of Seamus's family that believes the solutions to most of life's problems can be found at the bottom of a decent pint or two. And if they can't, well, the upside is at least you've had a decent pint or two.

Despite not being a lovestruck virgin--since coming out three years ago, he's tickled enough prostate to have earned an MD twice over--working up to this has taken weeks.

"I'm not on the Floo Network, and--look at you, you're in no fit state to Apparate, or walk home," Seamus murmurs into Harry's hair. Already there are strands of silver mixed with the black.

"Tired," Harry agrees, with post-coital docility. "'S cold out, too."

"So stay."

With what appears to be great effort, Harry turns to face him, big green eyes curious and contented.

He studies Seamus for a few seconds, then smiles, blissed-out and sleepy.

"'Kay," he sighs, leaning over to plant a chaste, badly-aimed kiss just left of Seamus's mouth. Doesn't protest being pulled closer and held onto. "'Night."

"'Night."

Harry Potter, and what's between them . . . these are questions mere pints aren't going to solve. At least not tonight.


3

Gin's a beautiful bride, no mistake. Dean's so over the moon, he's glowing.

Their joy is breath-taking, makes something in Seamus clench sweetly, sadly.

He wishes them every happiness.

He also gets quite drunk.

Staggering back from the lav, he's yanked into the cloakroom . . . pushed down into a pile of cloaks.

His world is spinning. He closes his eyes--

--then opens them to a hot, hooded green gaze: close, closer, closest. He's surrounded by the taste of bottom-shelf firewhisky, and the scent of expensive cologne.

His trousers have suddenly vanished.

"Like magic," he quips.

"Shut up." Harry laughs.


4

It isn't his lover's nightmares that keeps Seamus from his rest on the nights either of them are too shagged out to Apparate home, no.

Harry's nightmares are awful, but quiet things: demons of rapid breath, damp eyelashes, eyes that roll wildly under fluttering lids.

It's Seamus's continuing cowardice in the face of this suffering that makes him restless.

On one of the calm nights, he dreams:

Moans wake him out of a light doze. He braces himself to be

Avada Kedavra'd

decked or something, but lays gentle hands on Harry's shoulders anyway, pulling the rigid, fever-warm body carefully into his arms.

Wet, haunted eyes immediately blink up at him, shadow-dark in the bedroom gloom. A moment later he finds himself embraced so tightly he can barely draw breath. Harry's face and sobs are hot and wet against his neck.

It's nearly dawn before they drift off fitfully, still holding each other. . . .

Seamus wakes in the morning to an empty bed and cool sheets, gritty eyes and a piss hard-on. He buries his face in the pillow that's become Harry's. It's redolent of sex, Harry's cologne and . . . tears.

For long moments, all Seamus can do is breathe in.


5

Harry's couch is a lumpy, uncomfortable place to wait, but wait Seamus does.

There's a crack of Apparition as Harry steps out of his bedroom, wearing his blue bathrobe. It makes him look deceptively vulnerable.

"You prick." The something in Seamus's chest that always clenches and aches at the sight of Harry with his guard up does so now. He looks away to collect himself, unwilling to be taken in by appearances again. "You let me catch you at it, didn't you? Well?"

There's a sweep of fabric as Harry crosses his arms.

"You knew there were others, Seamus," he says so calmly, so reasonably, Seamus sees red for a moment. "We've never talked about this-—about us being exclusive--"

"That's because we've never talked period! All we ever do is fuck!" Seamus explodes, his voice cracking and shaking. The tightness in his chest feels like dying, now. He knows that if he could just look Harry in the eye and see--

Anything but this same hooded stare, all green walls and distance. Walls he'd thought he'd gotten through at least a little. Distance he had hoped he'd halved.

What he wouldn't give. . . .

He shakes his head ruefully. "D'you care for me at all, then?"

The length of the silence is an answer in itself, or so Seamus thinks till Harry is suddenly there, straddling his lap. Furiously tugging off his bathrobe like a man with something to prove.

His eyes are wide, full of so many emotions Seamus can't read them all. What's easiest to recognize is anger. (Whether it's anger that Seamus is finally talking, or his own refusal to do the same is anyone's guess.

After months of apparently reading Harry wrong, anyone's guess is better than Seamus's.)

Now the bathrobe is a cool-blue puddle on the floor and Harry's a white-hot flame in his arms--kissing him hard, without any of the usual teasing or finesse. His hands crash into Seamus's as they both fight with his flies.

Base instinct pushes Harry down to the couch and pulls Seamus's down on top him—down into him, and how can they need this so much, and it's not love?

How can it be so bloody perfect, knowing what must come after?

Neither of them last very long.

Afterwards, Seamus rests his hand over the place where Harry's heart should beat. Every indrawn breath tastes like love.

Every exhale cuts like razorblades, from holding in what's been stuck in his throat for weeks:

Oh, hast thou forgotten this day we must part? It may be for years, and it may be forever. Then why art thou silent, mavourneen. . . .

"Stay," Harry whispers. Choked, like it's killing him to let go even that much.

Not unless you give me a reason. Even a tiny one. . . . "I can't."

The hand tentatively carding his hair stops. The body underneath his own tenses, seems to draw in on itself.

"Then don't," Harry says, turning his face away when Seamus sits up.


6

Yet another day-waster meeting.

The kind you bring a quill and parchment to just so there'll be something to do besides nap.

Seamus doubts staying awake'll be a problem this day. He's shown up late, and the only seat left at the table is next to Harry, who doesn't so much as twitch when Seamus sits down. Doesn't slow the doodling of what appears to be the Whomping Willow on his own bit of parchment.

Halfway through the meeting--what Seamus hopes and prays is at least halfway through--he's suddenly no longer staring at Harry's profile, but into those too-calm green eyes for the first time in weeks, and he's--

"No more talking," Harry whispers, turning Seamus to face him. He smiles, and without breaking eye contact, slowly kneels. Seamus braces his hands on the sink. . . .

--about to chuck up.

Seamus excuses himself hastily and barrels out of the conference room. Barely anyone notices, least of all Mad Eye (who never notices anything mid-tirade but snickers and someone sticking gum under the table).

He makes it to the lav just as his stomach turns over mightily, momentarily robbing him of breath and logic.

He does not chuck up.

He heaves a little, then belches, tasting this morning's shite take-away, and stomach acid.

But he does not chuck up.

He stumbles to the first sink--the sink--and splashes his face. Looks in the mirror for the first time in weeks: faint greyish circles under bloodshot blue eyes. Cheeks an unhealthy shade of pale and too hollow for his face. Hair lank despite washing.

Sighing, he shuts off the water.

Back in the conference room, Seamus slides into his seat and hunches low, meaning to take up doodling again. But he notices his last doodle (Harry's face, badly rendered) and sets the quill back down, clenching his hand to quell the shaking.

"Alright there, Seamus?"

Barely audible whisper. Harry's not even stopped doodling on his parchment. A bristly Acromantula is taking shape in the Willow's branches.

"Never better," Seamus lies softly, his stomach already roiling again. Harry hmms distractedly. Adds a pincer.

Seamus toys with the idea of animating his Harry-doodle, just to have it look at him. See him. Smile at him. . . .

In the end he balls up the parchment, closes his eyes, and wishes for the day to be over.


7

It's Friday night, and Seamus is steadily working his way through a bottle of Ogden's Old.

There's a knock on his flat door.

He levers himself up on numb legs and shuffles to the small foyer, which has widened exponentially since he started drinking. The knocking resumes insistently when he's only halfway to the door.

"Lay off, mate, I'm comin'!" Not that he's in any state to put up with Dean's marriage woes, but he's not cruel enough to send his best mate packing back to an angrily pregnant Ginny.

It's not Dean he finds on his doorstep however, hand frozen mid-knock.

"Did I wake you?" Harry asks, somewhat inanely. Or it would seem inane if Seamus were sober enough to make such distinctions.

"Was drinkin', so . . . no." He holds up the bottle he'd forgotten to put down. Offers it out of politeness.

"Thanks, but I'll pass," Harry declines just as politely. "You've had enough for the both of us, I'd say."

Seamus glares, suddenly remembering that Harry Potter is a faithless, heartless prick. And since they're not dating, or fuck-buddying, or--whatever, anymore, he doesn't have to take this shite.

"Wait--" Harry pushes his way past the closing door and shuts it behind him. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that--"

"Shouldn'ave come here, Harry. Feck off, wi' ya?" Seamus turns away, toward couch and comfort, leaving Harry to find his own way back out the door. But he's pulled around and kissed softly, lingeringly, desperately. Cool gentle hands cradle his face.

He gasps into the kiss, and returns it just as desperately. One of them is moaning like he's about to come or die, and it's not Seamus.

"Merlin--can't stop thinking about you--can't eat--can't sleep--need you--bloody miserable--!"

Seamus isn't at his best, must be hallucinating, what with the copious amounts of firewhisky and the frenzied snogging. "Wha? You--what?"

Harry pulls back, panting. Looks Seamus in the eyes for a long time. "I--if you still want to, um, talk . . . I'll try."

There are still walls in his eyes, still distance, yes, but he's here. He's . . . trying.

For now, it's enough. It's bloody everything, and Seamus crushes Harry to him. The horrible tightness in his chest eases some for the first time in ages.

"Prat." Harry laughs breathlessly, casting Reparo and Scourgify between kisses. "You've gone and dropped the bottle."