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“Look I can’t do this anymore.”
The funny thing is, the way he remembered it and the way the words were actually said are entirely different. In his head, she was nostalgic and bitter, hurt by the way the world turned out and disgruntled by the way everything became so boring after the War ended. In truth, she had simply sounded defeated, as if she had given their marriage every inch of her Gryffindor courage and had still lost. He painted it a different color because he didn’t want to deal with the truth. He didn’t want to admit that they had failed. Looking back, that coping mechanism was eerily similar to the one Dean used right after the War, painting images more colorful and heroic than they had been, romanticizing everything until the line between reality and glorified memories became so blurred it was impossible to tell them apart.
He didn’t fight her on it. By refusing to put up a fight, he had surrendered without a white flag, giving up even the façade of strength. It wasn’t that Seamus Finnigan was a weak man. It was only that everything he had ever believed in was slipping through his fingers and missing all the cracks he had tried to fill. He wondered, briefly, if that meant he was a failure. It took three minutes for him to decide he really didn’t want to go down that road. “So what’re ya goin’ ta do?” There was no “we” to discuss, as she had effectively taken the “we” and destroyed it more effectively than the wedding ring she had held in her hand and shattered with a single jinx --something she did a few hours later, as she was packing her things.
She shrugged nonchalantly, and he’d like to say that was what hurt the most. But that would be a lie. What hurt the most was when she looked him dead in the eye and said, “I was thinking about getting lost for a while. Losing myself on a boat and falling in love with a man whose heart is as wild as the Irish Sea.” She had said those same words to him right before the War ended, after he asked her what she wanted to do if they survived. Hearing the past echoed in the present made tears the flavor of the sea well up in his eyes and salt linger on his cheeks.
“And th’children?” The question surprised her, and he wanted to hit her for not thinking about them. They had a ten year old, for Merlin’s sake. What right did she have to walk out on the home they had built together? By whose authority was she allowed to throw away sixteen years of her life, not to mention his? He wanted to shake her, to throw young Deanna in her face and plead with her to change her mind, if only for the sake of their children. Instead, he watched as she struggled internally for a minute and then cut her off just as she opened those pretty peach lips he had once fantasized about for hours. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle Dee. And it’s not like the others need someone ‘til December.” He didn’t bother asking if she’d written them a note, explaining any of this. He doubted, strongly, that she could articulate her decision in a way the kids would understand. It was just another responsibility he would have to shoulder; another piece of evidence that proved Lavender Anne Finnigan had never really grown up.
He watched her pack her things, magically floating everything he had ever loved into cardboard boxes and then shrinking them so they appeared almost non-existent. He waved as she walked away, watching her reach the Apparition point two houses down before he yelled out to her, “If ya ever decide ya care, come back, ya hear? I won’t say I’ll be missin’ ya, but I’m sure you know that anyway.” She smiled at him, brokenly, and a part of him wanted to run to her, pull her into a hug, and promise everything would be okay. He smothered that part violently, reminding himself that Lavender was no longer the innocent girl he had fallen for during the War. She was a grown woman who didn’t really know what that meant and needed to figure it out for herself. Consciously, he was trying to understand; subconsciously, his Irish temper knew that compassion was a feat at which he was bound to fail.
:::
Two weeks later, Seamus was standing outside his mother’s pub in Dublin, staring at the door like it led to the Great Beyond. “I do appreciate’ya doin’ this for me, Shay,” his mother had told him as she handed him the keys. Despite him being grown, with children of his own, she had never stopped calling him by his childhood nickname. “I’m a bit old to be runnin’ a Boozer like this’un, amn’t I? ‘Sides, yer ole man’s been pesterin’ me ‘bout movin’ out ta the country, like this ole city gal’s goin’ ta become some Culchie. It’s feckin’ insultin’, that’s what it is.” Seamus, knowing his mother and his father quite well after having lived with them for almost twenty years, simply nodded his head and took the keys.
“Have fun, Mam!” he had told her, as he made his way up the road. Deanna was at Mrs. Babbitt’s house for the day, as ever since Lavender left, the Finnigans’ elderly neighbor had taken quite an interest to his youngest child. Deanna didn’t mind, as Mrs. Babbit had two great-grandsons around Dee’s age, with whom she played constantly. As far as Seamus was concerned, as long as she was fed properly and kept up with her math equations, she could spend the days however she wanted. He, on the other hand, had work to do. If he was going to take his mam’s pub and make it his own by September, when Deanna would be entering Hogwarts and he could finally move in to the apartment above the restaurant, he was going to have to work pretty bloody hard.
His mother’s pub had been the keystone of his childhood, a place filled with growth and mistakes and people that had shaped him into the man he had become. When he and Lavender got married, his mother offered to move out of the apartment and give her son and his new bride the apartment and the pub. Lavender had resolutely, and not too politely, refused, stating that her husband, a war hero, was much too important to be working in a pub. Blinded by his infatuation, Seamus had allowed Lavender to make all the decisions, following her like a puppy dog for the first three years of their marriage. When he finally realized how much of a bitch his wife had become, there was little he could do besides divorce her, and that just wasn’t something his die-hard Catholic mother was going to allow him to do. So he found a job working as an ambassador to the Irish for the Ministry and he and Lavender settled down in a house tucked away in the green of the Emerald Isle, lost to the world and trapped with each other. Her leaving allowed him to claw his way back to society and claim the pub that should have been his sixteen years before.
After opening Branwen’s Best for breakfast and taking the first three orders, Seamus began to do the one thing he found most comforting in the world: cook. It took mere moments for him to have the carrots, onions, and celery dancing around him in a beautiful symphony, chopping together almost musically while the meat began to broil and the bacon relieved itself of its fat as it sizzled in the pan. He was intently focused on each aspect of the meals he was making, and yet his mind seemed to be a thousand miles away. So much so, in fact, that he didn’t recognize the blonde that had just walked in until she was standing in front of him. All at once, the vegetables fell onto the table, the bacon stopped sizzling, and the meat went from pink to black, not bothering with the brown in between.
The woman in front of him, with her long blonde waves and her bright blue eyes, was more of a mirage than the real thing. She smiled wistfully as realization sparked in his own blue eyes and he dropped his wand to pull her into a hug. “Luna Louise Lovegood. Lord is it bloody good ta see ya!” And it was. Once upon a time, Luna had been the closest he had to a female best mate. Right after the Battle of Hogwarts, Seamus’ best mate, Dean Thomas, had taken quite a liking to Luna and started courting her. Unfortunately, Luna was much more taken with Dean’s fiery best friend, a fact she made clear in no uncertain terms when she told them, “You’re wonderful, Dean, like chocolate ice cream in July, but I think I’m more into caramel.” Seamus, of course, was already engaged to Lavender, but that hadn’t stopped them from shagging six ways to Sunday that night and then figuring out a seventh way come morning. It was the only time Seamus had ever cheated on his wife while he was sober, and it was the best sex he could remember.
“Scamander, actually,” she stated, leaning her head against his shoulder. At thirty five, she looked half her age and twice it, simultaneously. She was wearing a long blue summer dress, her hair flowing down her back but clipped behind her ears. Her bottle cap necklace was falling between her minimal cleavage while her radish earrings brought his attention to her long, slender neck. “Luna Louise Scamander, as I was married, seven years ago. You were invited, but I doubt Lavender told you about that.”
Seamus shook his head, trying not to feel bad about not having spoken to the woman in front of him in at least ten years. She had been Deanna’s godmother, but only because everyone thought Lavender was going to die after giving birth to their youngest. When Lavender woke up a month later and found out Seamus had named their daughter after his best friend and made Luna godmother, the Finnigans hadn’t spoken for another month. Lavender was under the impression that because Seamus was bisexual, he had been shagging both of his best mates directly after Hogwarts, instead of only the female one. She used his naming Deanna after Dean as evidence against him and refused to continue their marriage unless he alienated his friends. It had been a stressful time, to say the least, and ended only when Seamus severed all communication with his best mates in order to keep the peace. “No,” he admitted, breathing out heavily, “Lavender didn’t tell me a thing.”
“I figured as much,” Luna said, her tone neither incriminating nor scathing. She sounded simply as if he had given her an answer for a crossword puzzle she had completed hours ago. “Where is she?” Luna sat down on a stool opposite of him and flicked her wand, sending the vegetables and the bacon back to their original tasks while she banished the burnt meat. “Lavender,” she clarified, as if there were anyone else she could have been asking about, “Or Deanna, as I’ve not seen my goddaughter since three months after she was born.” Again, there was no accusation, only the tone of a woman stating a fact that hadn’t been made obvious already.
“Lavender left,” he admitted, saying the words aloud for the first time in his life. “Earlier this month, actually. She told me she needed to go find the sea. I guess I’m just too washed up for her.” He couldn’t stop the element of self-pity that crouched behind his bitterness and jumped into the words without his permission. “And everyone else is at school, so it’s just me and Dee, now. She’s at my neighbors for the day. If you want, when I close up, I’ll take you to see her?” He stumbled over the last word as he realized that it was rude of him to assume Luna would want anything to do with him after he had abandoned her and Dean for his selfish, petulant, and soon-to-be-ex wife.
It was rude, yes, but with Luna it was taken at face value, without any mention of the last ten years. Smiling at him she murmured, “That would be nice. Maybe I’ll introduce her to my boys. Lorcan and Lysander are six now. They’re with Ginny at the moment, as she’s always more than willing to take them off my hands when I’m out on an assignment. It’s hard, raising twin boys alone.” Unlike Seamus, there was no pity in her voice. There was only the soft whisper of her words, working their way towards him like the wind. He’d always loved that about her, the way her voice seemed to float towards its intended, never bearing down or scolding its audience. She always sounded like she was singing, even when she was sad. If he had to claim the most beautiful part of her, he was almost certain he would say her voice.
“Er…alone?” Hadn’t she just said she was married? Talking to Luna could confuse even the most erudite of Ravenclaws, and far be it for Seamus to consider himself capable of keeping up with them. Sometimes, he used to stare at her for full minutes before he could comprehend exactly what it was she was saying. But Luna, with her endless patience and her easygoing personality, never blamed him for it. She would simply watch him, curiously, until understanding showed in his features and she could carry on with whatever she had been saying. Dean always caught on first, after all, so most of the time the two of them were waiting for him to catch up. “Do you mean to tell me you and Mr. --- Scamander, was it? ---are over?”
Luna looked sad for a full minute, her eyes misting over with something he would have considered tears if it were any other woman, and then she said, “I meant to tell you that Mr. Scamander is dead.” Her voice filled with emotion, sadness and strife and the disbelief that he didn’t think she’d ever feel, and for a moment, he wanted to pull her close to him and tell her it wasn’t real. But then she shook her head, blinked once, and smiled brilliantly. “But that’s almost five years ago, and it had been expected, truth be told. He was too reckless to die old. Daddy died a year before the twins were born and Rolf died a year after. Suicide, for Daddy, and they say that’s not an illness but I think they’re wrong, and a nasty incident with a manticore for Rolf.” She paused after that, her breath hitching, and for a moment Seamus actually expected her to start crying. It would have been quite shocking, that, as Luna hadn’t cried at any of the War Funerals, not Remus’ or Fred’s or even Colin’s. Instead, she bit her lip hard and then resumed speaking. “I don’t think any of us actually thought someone could die after the War ended, but if life goes on, then I guess death must as well.”
Seamus didn’t know what to say to that, so he gave her a menu and told her to choose whatever she wanted, he’d cover the expenses. As he served the first three customers, he asked her what it was she was working on. The next two hours were spent discussing a coininrosog family in a nearby forest. Seamus hadn’t the slightest clue what a coininrosog was, but he had no problem feeding Luna breakfast, lunch, and dinner as she explained the animal to him, helped with the lunch rush, and cleaned his dishes without magic as the evening turned to night.
:::
“So what do these…Co-nin-nin bogs look like?” It was nearing eleven before he closed the pub for the evening and Apparated with Luna back to his old home. Deanna was sleeping when they showed up, but she woke up when she heard her father’s voice and smiled when Luna said she was as pretty as her mother. She took an instant liking to her godmother, as children often did to Luna, and had stayed up well past her bedtime asking questions only Luna could answer.
They were sitting in the kitchen, Luna stirring her tea absently while Seamus and Deanna shared what was left of the day’s biscuits. Seamus’ mam always laughed at how fit he was, considering he ate just about everything he cooked, and he was rarely ever out of the kitchen when he was home. “Coininrosog. They’re animals that look like plants. Rolf assumed they were crossbred between a rabbit and a rose, as that’s precisely what they look like. And what they’re named, as coinin is rabbit and rosog is rose.” Luna took another sip of tea. “They look like roses, with long bunny ears and whiskers. If I find one tomorrow I’ll bring him back to show you.”
“Will you really, Auntie Luna Lou?” Deanna’s accent wasn’t as defined as her father’s, as Lavender had insisted she teach the children how to talk. Luna smiled as her goddaughter used the nickname Seamus was so fond of and gave the girl a kiss on her blonde, braided hair.
“I will, really, if you go to bed now,” Luna promised. The promise was more than enough incentive to get Deanna off the table and up in her bed. Seamus left the kitchen to kiss her goodnight and returned moments later, a bottle of elvish wine in his hand. “Is that from after the War?” Luna asked him, her voice tripping the word “war” like it was a loose stone in the middle of a walkway. A mild annoyance, at first glance, but capable of spraining an ankle if stepped on the wrong way.
Seamus nodded his head. “A gif’ from the Creeveys, after they found out I saved little Dennis’ life. Never opened, as Lavender didn’t like wine.” His pause on his wife’s name resembled Luna’s pause identically, and Seamus wanted to laugh at how pathetic he was being. There was no way losing Lavender compared to the horrors of the War. He needed to stop thinking that the two incidents were comparable; he needed to stop believing that she had ever really been that important.
“Well, let’s say we open it then,” Luna suggested, ‘Accio’ing two wine glasses to her from the far cabinets, “As I happen to quite like wine.” Seamus wasn’t sure if it was jealousy refracted in her voice, but her tone was laced with something he had never heard before. “It’s about time you drink with someone whose taste is as good as yours.” Yep, definite jealousy. He honestly hadn’t thought Luna capable of such a base emotion. Smiling, he used his wand to pop off the cork and poured the red ambrosia into the two empty glasses, watching as his first glass of wine in seventeen years appeared before him.
He held up his glass to Luna in salute, and she smiled sincerely for the first time since she had arrived. “To friends and the past and maybe a future.” He tried not to linger on the last word, tried to erase the hope as it danced across his sentence, and then smiled sheepishly upon failing.
Luna looked up at him and said, “To friends, the past, and definitely a future.” They spent the rest of the night reminiscing about their time together right after Hogwarts, and when Luna left the following afternoon, Coininrosog in tow, Seamus cried for the first time since Deanna was born, not sure exactly what it was he was crying about.
:::
He wrote her every week, on Friday, and sent the owl out any time between five and midnight. Luna always wrote back by Sunday at exactly five o’ clock and teased him for his inconsistency, an adolescent trait he hadn’t grown out of, much like his constant dirty thoughts and the lewd comments that graced every scroll he sent her. The comments were innocent at first, off hand references to the fact that he knew her body carnally and quick remarks about the way her hair looked when she wore it up. However, once she started flirting back, he couldn’t resist upping the heat of their correspondence. Therefore, he had only himself to blame when he received a five page letter graphically describing Luna’s most recent fantasy including him.
The letter started with the words: Right now, I’m standing naked in the middle of my living room with the windows open and the rain falling outside while I’m dripping in here thinking of you; and ended with the words: I just thought you’d like to know exactly what it is you do to me. Luna’s graphic accounts of wanking were not new to him, and he had numerous letters from his early days of marriage which intricately described every inch of Luna’s skin as she got herself off thinking about him. He closed the pub at nine that night, desperate to relieve the tension that had been building in his groin on-and-off for nearly four hours.
Since Lavender, he had spent the last eight months wanking daily, if only to relieve the stress of raising his children alone while trying to single-handedly run a pub. His four oldest were home for the summer, and even though the triplets, Philip, Phineas, and Priscilla, all had jobs of their own, making sure Patti and Deanna were taken care of during the day wasn’t the easiest task in the world. Since June, he had come to treasure the hour he spent in his room before bed, staring up at the ceiling and allowing whatever fantasies entered his head to run freely across the white-wash backboard.
Usually, he fantasized about people he barely knew. The main characters in his visions were Fleur Weasley, the gorgeous Triwizard champion who married Ron’s oldest brother, and Charlie Weasley, who was the first man Seamus had thought about in a long time. It was strange, imagining a man he had only met three times in his life lying on his bed, naked and defenseless, while he used his tongue in ways he hadn’t used it in at least fifteen years. Charlie Weasley wasn’t the type of guy you forget, truth be told, and after seeing him at Harry and Ginny’s wedding fourteen years ago, Seamus had had Dean make a quick sketch of the man so he could never really forget what the second eldest Weasley boy looked like.
On Sundays, however, the fantasies always revolved around one person: Luna. He opened the parchment he had been hiding in his back pocket and began to read the words again. Right now, I’m standing naked in the middle of my living room with the windows open and the rain falling outside while I’m dripping in here thinking of you. With those words, he un-zippered his trousers, cursed his mother for having a Muggle pub, and pulled his pants from his body. My nipples are hard from the cold and from my own arousal, and my fingers are rubbing at them ferociously. The ‘y’ on the last word was slanted more than need-be, and Seamus could almost hear Luna’s moan as he imagined how turned on she probably was. His right thumb moved slowly over the head of his cock and he wasn’t surprised to find pre-cum pooling around the foreskin. He swirled his thumb in the clear gel for a moment, using it to coat the tip of his cock before spitting into his right hand and slicking the base with his own saliva. Placing the letter back on the table, he sat down in his chair and began to read more as his hand slowly pumped up and down on his shaft.
My right hand is moving down my body now. I’m thinking about you, which is obvious, as I’m writing to you at the moment. My left hand is still working my right nipple, but my right hand has found somewhere much warmer, wetter. Rowena, you make me wet. He realized, after that part, that she wasn’t actually doing what she was describing. That didn’t seem very pertinent at the moment, however, as his hand was moving faster of its own accord as his mind wandered to Luna’s cunt. He ignored the letter as he pictured her standing there, shoulders thrown back as her hands wandered up and down her slim, fragile body. The one thing he would never forget was how light she had felt against him, more like air than a real, flesh and bone human being.
As his hand moved over the head of his cock again, Seamus pushed back against the chair, arching up into his hand. He could imagine Luna moving from a standing position to one that required her to lie on the floor, her right fingers moving across her clit as she worked her left index finger in and out of her core. He watched as the scene played out behind his eyelids, his left hand working fast against his cock as his right hand moved below it to tease his balls. Luna began moaning, and the fantasy was so real he could almost hear the sound ghost his ears and smell her sweat breeze past his nose. As he thought more about it, he began twisting his hand up and down, following the natural curve of his penis.
In his mind, Luna arched up off the ground, letting go with a deep, guttural grunt that started in her toes and rushed towards her lips like a crescendo. The imagined noise sent him over the edge, and he bucked wildly into his own calloused hands as he imagined what Luna’s hands could do to her. He fell back against the chair, sated, and rested a moment before he cleaned himself off and crawled into his bed alone. The ghost of Luna lingered on his skin, but that didn’t mask the feeling of loneliness that settled over him like the comforter he used to ward off the cold.
:::
By September, Seamus had decided he needed to go back to London. This was his chance, after all, as he was free from Lavender’s vain need to disappear from the face of the earth after her werewolf scars and he no longer had to watch after Deanna, as he was currently watching her ride away aboard the Hogwarts’ Express. So that night, after spending the day making sure the pub could survive without him, he Apparated to the country and told his mother he needed an extended vacation.
“A month, Mam,” he stated, trying not to feel like he was letting her down, “I’m sorry, but I need this.” He’d never asked for anything before, as far as his mother was concerned, and it wasn’t like she had been enjoying herself off in the country. She smiled at him and nodded her head. “Take as long as ya need, Shay, M’not gettin’ any older than I already am.” Seamus hugged his mother tight, packed his trunk with clothes and enough parchment to write home weekly, and then disappeared in a whirlwind of green smoke that rearranged itself in Ottery St. Catchpole moments later.
“Seamus!” Ginny was the first one to greet him, which was strange, considering it was nearing midnight and he was positive he had Flooed to Luna’s house. “Merlin, it’s been years. How are you?” She was holding a sleeping child on her lap; she looked about eight and Seamus assumed this was the Lily Luna that Harry had written so often about. She was a redhead, like her mother, but the curve of her sleeping smile was most definitely Harry’s. Ginny looked like she was about to get up, so Seamus walked towards her and kissed her cheek.
“Yea,” he replied, looking at her sleeping daughter and then at the two blonde boys sleeping next to her, “Too long. What’re ya doin’ ‘ere? S’almost nearing midnight.” He winced at how colloquial his accent sounded compared to Ginny’s fine London speech. Even though he knew his friend wouldn’t think less of him for sounding like he just walked off the Emerald Isle, he hated how most other people looked down on those who didn’t sound as if they were from the immediate area.
“Oh, Lu and Harry went to visit Hagrid after we dropped off James. I was going to go but I had a meeting with my editor at seven so I stayed home to watch the kids. Hannah just left, actually, she doesn’t like spending her evenings off alone and because Neville’s at Hogwarts, we had a girls’ night in. With the kids. Al’s in the other room with Rose and Hugo, if you want to go have a look at them. You haven’t seen Albus since the day he was born, have you?” She shifted in order to redistribute Lily’s weight and allow Seamus a place to sit.
He had been in London the day Ginny had gone into labor with her second child. Lavender wanted to go shopping and he never refused a sojourn out of their small village, so they packed up the kids and spent the day at Diagon Alley. When reporters starting lining the streets near St. Mungo’s on the way home, Lavender had Apparated on the spot, splinching herself in the process and leaving Seamus to find a Floo in order to bring the kids home. When Phineas had heard the famous Harry Potter was having a son that day, he had insisted on saying hi. Needless to say, Lavender had been quite angry upon hearing that Seamus had stayed behind to chat with their old friends.
“Now they’re going to want us to visit,” she had bemoaned. For almost sixteen years, Lavender had refused to return to London and claim her part in the War. She had been angry because of everything the War had taken from her. After her parents died in the summer before seventh year, Parvati had been all Lavender had left. When she died, Lavender fell apart, and despite his many attempts to do so, Seamus was unable to pick up the pieces. With her best friend gone and her beautiful face destroyed by Greyback, Lavender had sought refuge in their solitude, and after everything she’d been though, he couldn’t find it in himself to deny her that. Although he continuously told her that socializing would probably help heal her pain, she refused the invitations Harry and Ginny had sent the following year for Albus’ birthday party.
Now, she seemed more than ready to face the world, but she needed to do so on her own. He knew it was selfish to be angry with her; while he had spent the last seventeen years growing up, she had been stuck in May of 1998 for so long she had memorized the days. Although he couldn’t say she had done the right thing, as abandoning five kids when they were all still teenagers could never be considered a good thing, a small part of him understood her motives and applauded her for finally realizing that the world hadn’t stopped turning the day Parvati died.
“I’ll go see the tykes, thanks,” he said, moving towards the other room. The three children were curled around each other on what Seamus assumed was the guest bed. Albus, who must have been at least ten now, was lying on his back, with a young girl’s messy hair draped over his stomach. At the foot of the bed was who Seamus supposed was Hugo, his crazy brown curls most definitely inherited from his mother. Staring at the young children, Seamus remembered how his own used to look as children, and he felt a sob catch in his throat. Despite all the pain Lavender had put him through in the last sixteen years, she had succeeded in bringing five wonderful children into the world, and for that he was eternally grateful.
Walking back into the other room, he took a seat next to Ginny and Lily. “They’re feckin’ gorgeous, Gin,” he told her, slipping off his shoes, “Don’t know how you got Lily and Al out of Harry’s genes, but they’re jus’ perfect.” She smiled at the compliment, her face burning as bright as her hair, and Seamus barked out a laugh at the blush and looked at the two boys resting on the ground. “Those two’re Luna Lu’s, I’m guessin’?” He didn’t bother looking ashamed at the use of his old nickname for the blonde woman, the separation papers had been signed, sealed, and delivered three weeks ago. He knew the divorce would be long and messy, and unable to be carried out until Lavender returned from wherever she was, but as far as Seamus was concerned, he was a free man and he could freely call Luna whatever he wanted. “Lorcan and….Alexander?”
Ginny nodded, “Lysander,” she corrected, pointing to the boy on her left. His hair was longer than his brother’s, but besides that they were exactly identical. “I heard you and the Bitch split. Should I extend congratulations?” The bitterness Ginny had felt towards Lavender for what she did to Hermione hadn’t ever faded, of that Seamus was certain. While his wife had all but held him captive in Ireland for sixteen years, he’d known that anger was only going to grow. If the Weasleys were good at anything, it was being angry.
He shrugged off the curse. “She really wasn’t that bad-” except for the screaming matches that lasted all night and her constant mental break downs “-but yeah, she up and left a few months back. S’just me and the runts now.”
“That’s horrible,” Ginny sympathized, running her hands soothingly through her daughter’s hair as Lily turned over in her sleep. “Luna’s up a similar creek, although I’ve a feeling she got there on her own. After her dad died, she went and married the oldest wizard she could find, and he died a few months after the boys were born. And-” She paused and looked at Seamus, her hazel eyes burning through his, “What’re you doing here, Shay?”
He broke eye contact and looked away. “I’m lookin’ fer answers,” he told her, the words quiet against the darkness of the room, “I want to know why I gave up sixteen years o’ my life for a corpse bride who lef’me the moment she started living again.” The words sounded harsher than he had intended, and they hung there, like knives suspended in mid-air, while he and Ginny looked on, waiting for them to drop.
:::
“Luna?”
Seamus dropped the plate he was holding and watched as it fell to the ground and shattered. A simple “Reparo” would fix it, but at the moment he was having difficulty remembering his name, let alone the fact that he was a Wizard.
“Luna? Is everything all right?”
It wasn’t the fact that someone was in Luna’s house. Over the last month and a half Seamus had come to understand that people dropped in at the Lovegood residence at all hours of the night. Just yesterday he had been awoken at an ungodly hour by Neville, who was looking for an ancient Herbology recipe that Luna apparently kept on file in her office. Apparently, he had been setting up lesson plans and had misplaced his own copy of the parchment old enough to be written by Merlin.
“Luna! Are you going to answer me?”
No, Seamus’ new found clumsiness was a direct result of the voice, and to whom the voice belonged, that had just dropped in on Luna. That; and the fact that Luna wasn’t home to facilitate the one reunion he wasn’t entirely sure he could handle on his own. Having successively avoided this meeting for the last two months, Seamus was well aware that he was unprepared to face the music now. He listened as the voice drew closer, until it was right outside the kitchen, and then he gasped when he saw the owner of the voice.
“What the bloody fuck are you doing here?” Dean asked, the words spilling out like black ink over a fresh piece of parchment. Seamus stood there, letting the words bleed in to him, staring at Dean as his old friend stared back. For a moment, it actually looked like one of them would smile.
And then Dean punched him in the face. “You bloody wanker!” he cursed, landing another punch. Deep mahogany skin bruised beige flesh and Seamus instinctively held up his elbow to block the third blow. “You bloody, fucking, prick!” The words were followed by a quick jab to the sternum that knocked Seamus’ breath from his chest and forced him to open his mouth, as he was almost positive that his nose was now broken. He extended his elbow block into a punch, knowing that brute force was the only way he was going to get Dean off of him. For a painter, his old best mate certainly did know how to land a punch.
Dean reeled back, falling onto the cold kitchen floor with a resounding “Fuck!” which was punctuated by the sound of his arm breaking. Seamus jumped on top of Dean before the taller man had the chance to regain his balance and stand up. When he had his friend pinned to the floor. Seamus grabbed Dean’s wand and summoned his own. Holding it against the other man’s chest, the redhead felt safe enough to start talking.
“Calm down,” he told his friend, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “I know I fucked up, Dean. I know I let go of the bes’ things in my life for a bird who didn’t deserve it, despite everythin’ I went through with’er. But Lavender was hurt, and she was broken, and I wanted to fix’er. You know I like ta fix things. And I didn’t know what was happ’nin til it hit me in the feckin’ face and by then you and Lu were gone and I had five kids wif’er. I’m sorry.” He let the last words roll pass like tumbleweed in the American Westerns his Da use to watch on the telly. Dean stopped struggling, his muscles sagging beneath Seamus’ weight and giving way to quiet acceptance. He looked up, locking eyes with the wild Irish man and holding a gaze that never should have been broken.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, the words coming out in a pained gasp. Seamus threw a healing spell at the arm without thinking about it, his training during seventh year making it almost second nature for him. Winter Break had been spent under the tutelage of Charlie Weasley and Katie Bell, both of whom were working for the Order and hiding out in the Finnigans’ safe house in Dublin at the time. Katie was a pureblood, despite the fact that her mother was a squib, and so she was allowed to enter St. Mungo’s training program. However, she had to flee in November, when a Death Eater caught her snooping around the hospital looking for anything connected to Voldemort. Charlie had left Romania in October and began spying for the Order, and so the more hidden he was, the better for everybody. As both older Gryffindors were skilled in healing magic, they taught Seamus everything they knew, both with a wand, and without one. And in their free time, they played Healer, which Seamus had been more than willing to do, despite his semi-committed relationship with Lavender.
“Lavender left,” Seamus stated, repeating what he’d just said, “Wait for the bird to get over her scars and her best friend’s death for sixteen years and then she’s okay and she leaves. I’m a sucker, amn’t I?
“A bit,” Dean agreed, smiling at his sandy-haired friend for the first time in fifteen years, “Merlin, Shay, how’ve you been?” The question eased all the tension in the room. It was forgiveness granted not with words or actions, but with the easiness in which Dean shifted back into their long ago friendship. Seamus rocked back on his heels and pushed himself off the floor before putting out a hand to help Dean up.
He wasn’t going to lie to his best friend. Despite the fact that he had cut Dean out of his life without so much as a goodbye, Seamus was not going to insult the man by lying to him. “I’ve been a feckin’ mess, t’be honest with ya.” He confessed, looking his friend square in the eye, “I hated’er by the time she lef’, but that don’t mean it was easy to let’er go.” He looked away after that, not sure if he could get the next words out without choking, “That, and I think I’ve fallen in love wif’er.”
“With…?” Dean asked, as he doubted Seamus would ever fall in love with Lavender, regardless as to how long they had been married. Seamus colored at the question, his face quickly turning the color of the sky at sunset. Dean took a deep breath and pushed it out slowly, allowing the action to calm him as he said, “You’re in love with Luna.” It wasn’t a question, it was pure, simple fact, but Seamus nodded his head anyway.
“Oh,” came a voice from outside of the room, light and airy and so distinct that Seamus and Dean winced simultaneously before cowering like kicked dogs at exactly the same time. Luna walked into the room with a smile on her face and her eyes twinkling mischievously. “Well, then, that certainly makes things more interesting.”
:::
“That’s all she said?” Ron asked, smiling widely behind his fifth bottle of Firewhisky, “Honestly, mate, you sure you’re ready to take on Loony?” Over the years, the negative nickname had morphed into a term of endearment among Luna’s closest friends. Seamus wasn’t entirely sure if Ron was using it in the derogatory way or not, but he decided not to push. Dean was sitting between them, and the last thing either of them wanted was another brawl. Their friendship was almost back to the way it used to be, and the last thing Seamus wanted to do was ruin it because of Ron.
“No,” Dean chipped in, the amused expression on his face becoming more and more irritating with every passing second, “She then said, ‘I guess I can guilt you into making Halloween Dinner then.’ And then she proceeded to ask me to dinner tomorrow and write out yours and Harry’s invitations.” He bit down a laugh before adding, “And she was smiling the entire time.”
“Does this mean the divorce is finalized then?” Ron asked through his own guffaws, which resulted in butterbeer spewing from his nose. As Dean helped Ron clean up the mess, Seamus threw a few galleons onto the table and made his way to the bar to say hello to Hannah. He hadn’t seen her in almost a month, not since Luna dragged him around half of Diagon Alley to “Say hi to all the DA members you abandoned.” He was pretty sure she was only half-teasing with that jibe, so he went willingly. Now, saying hi to Hannah was an escape; one he was more than happy to have.
He spent another hour talking to Hannah about the children, the evils of running a pub, and whether Blaise Zabini shaved his head as a fashion statement or because he was bald. Dean showed up just as they were getting ready to discuss Charlie Weasley, Seamus’ favorite male subject, and so the blond had to be forcibly removed from the bar by his two friends in order to make it back to Luna’s in time to get five hours of sleep before the baking began at seven the next morning.
And by seven, Luna meant six thirty. Seamus was rudely awakened with a water spell cast right over his eyes and the squeals of two little blond boys running in to his room. “Mama said time to bake,” Lorcan stated, his serious tone belied by the goofy grin he was wearing. “Are we having pumpkin pastry?”
“I hate pumpkin pastry,” Lysander stated, his blue eyes as wide and whimsical as his mother’s, “I want Shepherd’s pie.” Seamus picked both boys up in either arm and threw them onto the bed, tickling them both mercilessly. As their cries of injustice reached the kitchen, Luna made her way upstairs. Standing there, in his doorframe, with only a silk night-robe on and attempting to look stern, was the most beautiful woman Seamus had ever seen.
“Boys,” she exclaimed, her voice as breathy and blithe as always, “Go back to your rooms and get ready. Grandma Scamander’s taking care of you until dinner time and she’ll be over in a few minutes to get you.” The two boys, upon hearing that they would be visiting their grandmother, quickly raced out of Seamus’ room and down the hall. This left the two adults staring at one another, an event of which Seamus was painfully aware.
“I’m assuming I look appetizing in this outfit?” Luna asked, stretching slightly. Even in her thirties, her teats bounced playfully beneath the silk while her bum pushed out from her back tantalizingly. Seamus pushed those thoughts away as he reminded himself that the boys were right down the hall.
“You look feckin’ gorgeous,” he admitted, standing up and exposing his long, strong legs and muscled arms. “You planning on stayin’ in that all day?” As she already knew how he felt about her, it seemed pointless to hide his flirtation. Although she’d yet to act on her knowledge, Seamus was sure her resolve was dwindling, and he was determined to have her as his own by Christmas. His mother, in her most recent letter, claimed he was rushing in to things, but Seamus had a feeling he’d been waiting much too long.
“And risk getting pumpkin pastry or Shepherd’s pie on it?” Luna asked, the scandalous undertones of her voice obviously faked. “What would Zander and Lor say?” She was teasing him in a way so obvious it made him ache, but chivalry forced him to remain in bed, staring at her appetizing form with only the lustful gaze in his eyes giving away the hard-on that lurked beneath the covers.
“Anyway,” she continued, leaning out the door to see the boys as they got ready. The lean turned into an all-exposing stretch, and Seamus watched as her tits bounced playfully against gravity and her flexibility proved she still had the body of a girl half her age. An audible groan escaped him as she leaned back in to his room. A smirk danced along the corners of her lips, and he felt his nails bite in to his skin through the bed sheets. “I’ll go throw on a robe and say hello to my mother-in-law. You should put on some pants. Baking without pants could cause some difficulty for the sexual activities I have planned for us afterwards.”
With those words, she left the room, and left him gaping after her like a fish searching for water denied until a later time.
:::
The Shepherd’s pie was now cooling on the rack, and they still had two hours before the boys came back. Looking over the mess in the kitchen, Seamus grabbed his wand, intent on leaving the room sparkling clean, so that Luna could simply relax for the next two hours while he set the table and put up the last of the Halloween decorations. He performed a simple scrubbing spell on the pots, but just as he was about to rinse them off, Luna called him in to the dining room.
“Can you put these candles in the chandelier? It’s a Muggle antique, so I wouldn’t want to hurt it with magic, and you’re so much taller than me.” She was no longer wearing the shimmery sheer robes from before. Now, she was dressed in orange and black robes, her hair dancing with orange sparkles while black makeup contrasted beautifully against her pale skin. She followed the same color schemes as the old Halloween witches his Da used to tell him about, teasing Mam and saying she looked nothing like a “real witch” would. Unlike the witches in these Muggle fairy tales, however, Luna looked more like an ethereal goddess than a decrepit old hag.
Finding his voice, which was lost somewhere between the valley of her breasts and the soft curves of her hip, Seamus agreed to put the candles up and then watched longingly as Luna’s arse left the room. He was starting to feel like a hormonal teenager, and if he didn’t quench his desire soon, he was pretty sure his body would rebel and start humping whatever happened to be available. He was quite certain that walking in on him shagging a pillow would be an interesting experience, even for someone as accepting as Luna.
He finally got the last candlestick into the chandelier, which was not the easiest task, considering how old and rusted the chandelier was. He’d offer to buy a new one, if he was certain Luna wouldn’t find the suggestion insulting. She liked her ancient knick-knacks and her “pieces of history.” “If it isn’t broken, I don’t want it fixed. Imagine if we treated people like that,” she would tell him, whenever he suggested updating one of the houses many older appliances and furnishings. He never told her that most people are broken, but he had a feeling she already knew that. He had a feeling she was still trying to fix everyone.
As he made his way back towards the kitchen, he found it strange that Luna hadn’t said anything for the past thirty minutes, which was how long it had taken to screw the candlesticks in. He opened the door and almost died on the spot. He was expecting the kitchen to be clean, the plates to be washed, and the food to be sliced and ready to be served while its heat was preserved by magic. Instead, he walked in to a room still covered in flour, sugar, and other baking necessities. The dishes had stopped scrubbing themselves, but they had soap residue smeared against them, obviously not rinsed. The food was still on the cooling racks, most likely needing to be reheated, which would reduce their taste, if only slightly.
And there, lying on the table in the midst of all the mess, was Luna. Her robes were gone, replaced only with sprinklings of flour and sugar over the most intimate parts of her body. She was holding herself up with her hands, her chest thrown forward while her back was arched. The small pouch that had formed around her middle during their years of separation made her look more appetizing, as it showed that she, too, had grown, had finally gained the years to go along with her experience. Her legs were long and lithe, still capable of stretching in whichever way she wanted, as she continued to keep in shape, despite the lack of need.
“Me mam always told me not to play with my food,” he choked out, his eyes unable to cease their devouring of her body. He let them roam over ever visible inch of her, even as he remained standing in the doorway, waiting for her to let him come closer.
She looked thoughtful for a moment, and he held as his breath as she adjusted her body. “I think you can make an exception, just this once,” she said, in all seriousness, “We just won’t tell your mother.”
“I think that might be best,” he answered, as he made his way across the room. He stood in front of her, still fully clothed while she was completely bare, and yet he was the one who felt vulnerable. Luna looked in control of her nakedness, as if she knew that it gave her an advantage over him. She grabbed his hand and pulled him closer, until he was standing directly between her legs. “I’m gon’ta kiss ya now,” he warned, before leaning down and capturing her lips. She melted against him, pushing closer and closer to him until it felt like she was crawling inside of him. The sensation was so familiar, it felt like coming home.
She grabbed his hands, without breaking their locked lips, and brought them to her breasts. He kneaded them as he had the dough earlier, carefully lavishing attention to each equally, so that they could rise to hardened peaks simultaneously. When he felt them harden, he tore his mouth away from hers and left a trail of saliva down her neck, across her collar bone, and then down to each peak. Luna’s breath began to come in short spasms, and when he clamped his teeth teasingly around her left nipple, she let out a scream he hadn’t heard for fifteen years.
Lavender wasn’t like this when they’d shagged. She was reserved, quiet, much like the women in the medieval ages had been. He knew she enjoyed it, as she was always willing and her body always responded pleasurably, but she was never as feral as Luna. She tried to maintain a sense of superiority to the basest of human desires, whereas Luna embraced her animalistic needs. As he turned his attention to her right nipple, she moaned his name, and every ounce of him danced with need.
Seamus began spreading the sugar around Luna’s nipples with his tongue, while Luna fiddled with his belt. Luna, who was normally so graceful and poised, came undone whenever sex was involved. She would stutter and stumble through the entire act, but still make it incredibly sexy and unbeatable in every way. As she pulled off his robes, he used his left foot to push down his pants, only to have them get stuck half-way down because he couldn’t pull the left side down. He pulled away from Luna’s nipple and blushed as she let out a breathy giggle. As he pushed down his pants, Luna’s giggle turned into full-scale laughter, and he couldn’t help but join in as he stood there, finally as naked as she was.
They stood there, for a moment, staring at one another with wonderment in their eyes. Luna spread her legs wider without much conscious thought and Seamus stepped closer. She reached up and ran her fingers through his sandy hair while he traced her silhouette with his right hand. There was enough uncertainty in the air to suffocate the both of them, had they not been protected by their shared need for one another. The moment, in which they hung loosely together in a timeless state of desire, played out and then Luna shattered it with a whimpered plea of “Please, Seamus.”
The plea shattered the moment like stones thrown at glass. He pushed forward with strength fueled by lust and held her close to him with his hands on her hips. She let out a tiny cry of pain before settling in to the motion, moving against him without hesitation and with unabashed emotion. Her moans soon turned into guttural groans and then sounds so high-pitched he was sure she was going to tear important vocal strings. Throughout the entire symphony, he kept a hard, steady rhythm, which allowed him to bury himself entirely inside her before pulling back out and feel her body release him reluctantly. The fact that she physically needed him as much as he needed her was enough to make his mind spin, and as his blood pounded in his ears, he was infinitesimally aware of the fact that he no longer had the stamina of a teenager.
He wanted to hold on, because a part of his heart knew he needed this moment to last forever, in some way or another, but he knew if he tried to slow down he’d lose the magic of the moment. “Luna,” he gasped, his voice coming out harsh and hungry, like sandpaper against raw skin, “Luna, Merlin, fuck, I’m close-” She understood, because her fingers were suddenly right above his moving cock, rubbing frantically at the nub of nerves that would bring her to euphoria along with him. He covered her fingers without thinking, pushing them away and replacing them with his own. As he felt her orgasm build around him, he bit back his need to let go and focused on bringing her over first.
There was a spasm, followed by another, and then she was contracting tightly around him, squeezing him towards her and then releasing only long enough for him to register the sensation. As her words of orgasmic bliss reached him, he let go of everything he had been holding back and ground into her frantically and wildly. It took three more wild thrusts before he came as well, his semen filling her up and emptying from inside him as he let out a deep groan of satisfaction. For a moment, he remained inside her, his head resting against the crook of her neck while she ran her fingers through his hair. She held him there, safe and satisfied, as she checked the time on the kitchen wall clock.
“Seamus,” she whispered, “They’ll be here soon.” He felt her reluctance as she let go of his hair and it was enough to give him hope. He pushed himself off from the crook of her neck and smiled at her. “Seamus, I’m in love with you too.” The words weren’t unsure or scared, there was barely any emotion in them at all. They were stated as fact, in a way most others would find impersonal. But Seamus knew the lackluster way in which Luna said them made them all the more real, and he brought his lips to hers in a way that brought them back to Hogwarts and yet pushed them forward together, simultaneously.
:::
For two weeks, everything was perfect. Luna spent her mornings editing The Quibbler while Seamus entertained the twins and visited various friends throughout the countryside. Their afternoons were spent going on adventures, or reading to the boys, or dancing barefoot in the rainy English autumn weather. After dinner, they would put the boys to bed at eight and then spend the evenings making delectable desserts and eating the sweet tarts and cinnamon off of one another. It was everything he could do not to feel like he belonged back in Gryffindor tower, his hand down his knickers with her name on his lips. She made life exciting again. After sixteen years of stagnant boredom, he was living life again, instead of watching it by and wondering where the time went.
One of the best things about being in England again was the constant invitations to balls, parties, and celebrations. As a war hero, he was entitled to an invitation to all Ministry parties, which he and Luna attended together, as if he didn’t still have a wedding band on his finger. As a friend of the Weasley-Potter clan, he was invited to everything else solely on principle. So when Molly and Arthur Weasley’s annual Anniversary Celebration Ball was two weeks away, Luna found the invitation she had lost at the beginning of October and handed it to him gaily. “We will be going,” she stated, looking into his eyes without question, “Molly expects me to bring a cake each year and we both know I never disappoint.” He smirked at her and kissed her nose, which made her giggle like a girl half her age. “Of course we’ll go,” he responded, teasingly, “We both know you never disappoint.”
So they went, and as Bill Weasley, the eldest, took their cloaks, Seamus realized he was in for a hell of an evening. Luna’s robes were knee length, as she insisted witches over the age of thirty-five should not wear anything shorter than that, but they had a slit up the side that reached almost to her knickers. It sparkled, because everything Luna owned had glitter on it in some way, but only when the light hit it in the right way, and worse, the neckline was deep enough for her small teats to peak out the top, like a hiding game Seamus was bound to lose. He doubted this was considered proper attire for a party of this kind, but the people present were so used to Luna and her antics, that no one commented on it, even if a few of the men were a bit more grateful for the eye candy than they probably should have been.
What was worse than the robes, however, was the fact that Luna seemed intent on teasing him all night. At first, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Luna leaned down to say hello to Lily and her robes rode up her thigh, like a curtain unveiling sunshine. He choked on his Firewhisky, which made Ron chuckle, but Luna pretended not to have noticed. Then, as Luna was helping Ginny with the food, she brushed past him only to hook her leg around his for the shortest of moments, pressing herself against him in the most tantalizing of ways. When he met her eyes a moment later, she looked completely unaware of what it was she was doing. He gave her the benefit of the doubt and went back to talking to Dean about moving to England permanently.
He allowed her to plead innocent until proven guilty up until the point that she brushed her fingers against the inside of his thigh as they danced, pressed close enough together for no one else to see. His body reacted on instinct, pushing closer to her long fingers before he had the chance to process the fact that they were in a crowded room filled with people his mother’s age. When she leaned up to his ear and whispered, “I’m awfully hot, Seamus, and I’d like very much for you to help me with that,” decorum demanded that he bring her somewhere private before he helped divest her of her robes.
He disentangled himself from her despite the protests-hers verbally and his physically-and made his way over to Ron. “I need a fav’re,” he said, his words coming out fast, “Luna….”
“Wants sex. We all know how insatiable that girl can be. It used to make poor old Rolf blush seven shades of red. He belonged to our family every time they visited, that’s for sure.” Bill explained, as he was sitting next to his brother with the children asleep around them, “Take her up to Charlie’s room. He was supposed to come but…well, he hasn’t shown up yet.” Seamus nodded and made his way back to Luna, flashing Bill a grateful smile in the process. Ron, who was a great mate and always had your back, was not very good at hiding. When Seamus found out that Molly had caught Ron and Hermione in the middle of things in the tool shed, he hadn’t stopped laughing for a week. The last thing he wanted was to become the butt of any of Ron’s jokes.
He led her upstairs quietly, hoping to sneak away without alerting any of the other guests of their absences. The best thing about attending a Weasley-Potter party was the sheer quantity of guests, which always numbered above twenty, even when they were trying to keep things quaint. As they tumbled in to Charlie’s old room, Luna’s hand went instinctively for her wand, and she banished all of their clothes to the far corner before Seamus had a chance to pull at her sleeves. As much as he hated the fact that Bill and Ron were probably talking about them right now, and as embarrassed as he would be if someone were to find them like this, he couldn’t help but become incredibly aroused with how demanding Luna was being.
“I want you,” she told him, her long fingers scratching down his chest and swirling around the base of his cock. She stroked it hard and fast, the friction almost painful because it was so dry. He winced, leaned back against the door, and was promptly pushed forward as someone else barreled through it, not expecting the room to be occupied.
“What the bloody fuck?” Charlie’s voice hadn’t changed in all the years Seamus had spent wanking to him, and he felt his prick become harder as more blood left his brain. He tried to cover himself up, to feign modesty, but Luna refused t budge, her hand still working his cock with quick, insistent precision.
“I wanted sex,” Luna explained, turning her body to face Charlie while keeping her hand wrapped around Seamus. She stood there, exposing both of their naked bodies to the moonlight and Charlie’s hungry gaze, and Seamus knew his skin was at least the same color as Charlie’s hair, if not redder. “Do you mind?” She asked the question as if the answer didn’t matter, and then turned around without giving Charlie the chance to say yes.
“No,” he replied, as if he knew she didn’t care. He wasn’t looking at her anyway, despite the fact that her bum was now directly in front of him. His eyes were locked with Seamus’ “Feel free.” With that, he opened his robes and allowed his hand to find his prick, watching as Luna returned to her task of using her hands to make Seamus hard. It didn’t take her much longer, as Charlie’s eyes refused to break contact with Seamus, and the fact that Charlie was moving his hand up and down his own shaft was making Seamus fantasize about wanking the older wizard himself.
Luna didn’t seem to mind that she had become a third wheel in this dance. She simply spun them around so that she was pressed against the wall next to the door and allowed Seamus to do as he wanted. Reluctant to pull his eyes away from the sight in front of him, but unwilling to pass up a shag with his girlfriend, Seamus turned towards Luna’s arse and positioned his prick at her entrance, bending his knees slightly to make the angle better. Although he could no longer see Charlie, he heard the older man groan as Seamus entered Luna, and that was enough for him to slam his body forward, which made Luna moan appreciatively in turn.
As he found a rhythm, Seamus felt Luna twist around so that she could look at Charlie. “Why are you over there?” she asked, as if it were the most innocent question in the world. Her voice was at a higher pitch than usual, and a little more breathless, but beyond that, one never would have known she was being shagged. “Seamus has fantasized about you since fourth year. Why not give him what he wants?” Anyone else would have been hesitant to share this information with the stocky man, especially if they didn’t know if he was in to blokes. But Luna’s nonchalance somehow made the suggestion sexier, and Charlie was across the room faster than some of his dragons would have been.
The first skin-on-skin contact between Seamus and another man in sixteen years occurred when Charlie placed his left hand on Seamus’ left arse cheek. It made Seamus stutter in his movements, and Luna let out a sigh of discontent. “Don’t distract him too much,” she asked, as she settled back against the wall.
“That was exactly my plan,” Charlie breathed into Seamus’ ear, casting a lubricating spell on his own fingers while he took one of the Irishmen’s into his mouth. “Am I distracting you?” he asked, pausing only long enough for Seamus to grunt in the affirmative before he put a newly lubricated finger on the entrance of Seamus’ arse. The finger began to prod the tight muscle, forcing it to relax by making the pleasure more prominent than the pain. Charlie allowed his teeth to graze the nape of Seamus’ neck, before biting down right below the pulse point. The groan that followed was taken as an invitation, and Charlie pushed his finger inside Seamus, allowing it to rest there for a moment, for Seamus to get used to the feeling of being filled again, before he began to move it in and out.
As Charlie’s ministrations became faster, Seamus stopped moving in and out of Luna altogether. He couldn’t concentrate enough to do both. To compensate, he snaked his right hand around her body and teased her clit. She leaned in to the stimulation, and Seamus allowed that to be enough for the moment. He would please her as soon as he could see straight again. Which wouldn’t be any time soon, considering the fact that Charlie now had two fingers inside of him, stretching him out and readying him for a feeling he’d come to expect only in his dreams.
When Charlie pulled his fingers out and wiped them on his robes, Seamus knew what was coming next, and yet he couldn’t fully comprehend it. It wasn’t until Charlie’s prick was at his entrance, ready to enter, that Seamus realized what was going on. He braced himself against the wall, his arms on either side of Luna, effectively trapping her in. She pushed back against him, keeping his body aroused as the first wave of pain hit. It was a sharp, raw pain, that felt as if he were shitting out sandpapered rocks, and it stayed there, even as Luna tried to distract him by turning around fully and dropping to her knees to take his nerve center into her mouth. The first wave of pain settled as he focused on the wet heat around his prick, but as Charlie breached the rim, a second wave of pain, this one of being too filled, too spread, hit, and Seamus couldn’t help crying out in pain.
“I can stop,” Charlie offered, moving his left hand around to hold Seamus’ hips steady while his right hand moved to tug on the younger man’s nipples, “If you want.” Determined, and hornier than he had been in a long time, Seamus remained resolute and shook his head. Taking that as a sign, Charlie pushed forward, nestling himself completely within Seamus. For a moment, no one moved, and the only sounds in the room were those of hot, labored breathing.
Seamus forced himself to relax by reminding himself exactly where he was, exactly what was going on. Without thinking, he wrapped his hands up in Luna’s hair and brought her mouth back to his prick. She obliged, and Seamus let out a stuttered “Go on,” as he felt his body begin to accept the intrusion of Charlie’s cock.
This was all the suggestion Charlie needed, and he set up a nice, quick rhythm that soon had Seamus rocking back to meet him thrust for thrust. They were getting faster, more erratic, and Seamus soon took control of Luna’s sucking, forcing her to keep up with the movement of the two boys. She kept up adeptly, her mouth widening to take more of him in while her tongue flattened against the base of his cock so she wouldn’t choke. Charlie began to pull at Seamus’ hips, forcing him to stay still while he was pleasured from both ends. The stillness allowed Charlie to pick up his pace, and Seamus was soon holding himself away from the wall with his elbows, instead of only his hands, unable to completely push back against Charlie’s strength. Charlie’s movements became unpredictable, and Luna worked hard to keep Seamus’ prick in her mouth. Just when Seamus was sure Luna was going to fail, he felt Charlie’s prick tighten inside of him before pulsing out streams of cum that filled him up.
Charlie stilled after his orgasm, which allowed Luna to work Seamus until he followed. Unable to control himself, he thrust wildly in to Luna’s mouth, four more times before coating her tongue, lips, and chin with his own sperm. The contractions of his arse milked whatever was left inside Charlie, and as the older man pulled out, both collapsed upon the floor, exhausted.
For five minutes, everyone was silent. Luna assumed a kneeling position, her bum resting on her toes. Charlie was sitting against his old bed, using the frame for support as his opened robes fell haphazardly around him. And Seamus leaned against the wall, his head thrown back in utter exhaustion. They allowed the strangeness of the moment to blanket them with its warmth, the only protection any of them had from the cold November air. Then Luna shivered and said, “That was fun,” before standing up and collecting her robes.
The moment broken, Seamus got to his feet and searched for his own clothes while Charlie pushed himself up. “Nice to see you again, Finnigan,” he said, making his way out of the room, “But I really should go say hi to Mum and Dad.” With that, Seamus and Luna were left alone in the room again.
“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of Seamus’ mouth. “I ha’ n’idea he’d showup,” his words smashed together out of nerves, “Yeh din’t haf t’ask’im t’join.” Luna held her finger to his lips and smiled.
“It’s okay,” she told him, smiling, “I enjoyed myself.”
“Yeh din’t even cum,” he argued, his lips opening and closing against her finger.
She let out a low, breathy laugh, “Sometimes, sex is about more than that.” She winked at him, and a part of him believed she had this planned long before the door had opened.
:::
When Hogwarts let out for the winter, Seamus knew he had to make a choice. He also knew the choice he had to make, as going back to Ireland after the last four months seemed absolutely impossible. So he followed Ginny and Harry to the train station and picked up the five children his wife had so easily left behind. “Da!” Deanna greeted, running towards him with her wild blonde curls chasing after her, “I thought grandmam was picking us up!”
“She was going ta,” Seamus acquiesced as he enveloped his youngest child in a hug, “But I figgered you guys needed ta see yer ole da.” He gave both Philip and Phineas handshakes as they approached and hugged his other daughters, Priscilla and Patti, with equal gusto. It wasn’t until Patti pulled away that he noticed a fourth blonde female standing in front of him, this one older than the rest, with a smile much less exuberant, and a wedding ring on her left finger so similar to his it ached.
“What’re ya doin’ ‘ere?” he asked, his voice betraying all the anger, bitterness, and pain he thought he’d gotten over.
“They’re my kids too,” Lavender pleaded, as if asking for the last cloak at a particularly expensive clothing store. The five children moved away from their parents, knowing that there were only two ways this could end, and neither would be good.
“We’re not doin’ this’ere,” Seamus said, his voice back to being level and cold, “C’mon.” With that, he walked towards the partition and over to another platform, where a train was just pulling in on its way to Ireland. Priscilla shook her head; this was definitely the worse of the two options.
The seven of them made their way towards train in silence. When they stepped aboard, Philip and Phineas ushered the other children towards a compartment separate from their parents. Lavender and Seamus made their way to an empty one and sat down across from each other, both looking as determined and ready as they had sixteen years ago when they were preparing for war.
“Why’re yeh’ere Lilac?” he asked, his voice weary. The old nickname was out of his mouth before he could bite it back, but he did not allow himself to feel embarrassed by it.
“’… and you'll learn to hate me , but still call me baby, oh, love, so call me by my name’.” She sang the song in a half-whisper, and Seamus was reminded of flowers in the wind.
“What?” he asked, the words meaning nothing to him. He wondered if she’d picked them up in her travels.
The blonde shook her head “I want to fix this,” she said, sounding more like the girl he had fallen in love with sixteen years ago than the woman who had left last spring, “I want to come back.”
“Yeh can’t.” It was strange, saying those words, but it was even stranger that he meant them, “We can’t be togeth’r, look at how much happier we ‘re apart.” It hurt, to acknowledge it, but it was impossible to deny. He hadn’t seen Lavender look this vibrant since Deanna was born, and he wasn’t ready to surrender the life he’d been leading since she’d gone away.
“Padma said you’re sleeping with her,” The words were said without context, but thrown willfully, like a threat. She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice as she pointed them at his heart like a knife, but the desperation in her voice to reclaim her lost territory.
He wanted to let the accusation pass unnoticed, but her eyes remained pleading, so he answered. “I am,” he replied, his voice much less passionate than hers, “Since September.”
“Oh,” the sound was more like a last gasp for air than anything else, “Oh,” repeated, like a cry of defeat. With that, she rose from the seat and Apparated away. He sat there for the remainder of the train ride, unable to tell his children that their mother had left, again.
:::
It was eight at night before the remaining Finnigans made it to their grandmother’s home in the Irish countryside. She had dinner waiting, ham and sodabread and warm tea for her only son. Seamus hugged her tightly, afraid to let go, and she couldn’t help but feel as if she were back during the War years, when people left without explanation. “Sometimes people need to leave,” she told him, after the children had gone to bed.
“Shay?” his father asked from down the hall, “Shay that gold thin’ yeh keep in yer wallet is glowing somethin’ awful rig’ now.” It was his DA galleon. The galleon he hadn’t let out of his sight in sixteen years. The same one that hadn’t glowed in sixteen years, either. He was off the kitchen stool before his feet found the ground, and after a quick fall to his knees, he was back on his feet and racing toward the couch.
The gold coin read She’s here, and nothing else. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts and try to understand what that meant. When he did, he felt his stomach drop to his knees and his heart get caught in his throat. “Mam, I need to use the Floo,” he said, trying to keep his voice as even as necessary, “I’ll be back in the morning.” He was gone before she had the chance to reply.
Five minutes and two international hops later and Seamus was falling through Luna’s fireplace, tripping over the soot and trying to catch his breath. “Lavender!” he called out, the name sounding foreign in Luna’s home. He took a moment to gather his bearings and then made off towards the kitchen, still calling her name. “Lavender, leave’er the feck alone.” The words came out like a curse, and his grabbed his wand before he opened the door, not knowing what to expect.
He walked in to Luna standing above Lavender, his wife bound on the floor with magic ropes while Luna stood there looking like she was crying, except there were no tears. “I’m sorry,” the younger girl told the woman on the floor, “I’m sorry. But I love him. I’ve always loved him. And he wasn’t happy with you.” The words were said with absolute certainty, unable to be refuted or ignored.
“He could have been,” Lavender replied, struggling against the ropes, “He just never let you go. He never let any of you go. He was so wrapped up in the past he never found his future!” Her screams seemed horribly unnecessary considering how quiet Luna’s voice was.
“You took him away from everything he knew and loved and tried to make him someone else,” Luna explained, as if speaking to the twins, “You can’t take a kneazle and turn it in to the Grim.”
“How dare you?” Lavender asked, first looking at Luna and then turning her gaze upon Seamus. Addressing her husband she said, “How dare you let this whore talk to me like this?”
“Don’t,” he warned, the word whore making Luna flinch, “Don’t call her that.” Very few people knew that the Death Eaters had sexually abused her while she was in their care. The fact that Lavender was now throwing this knowledge in Luna’s face felt like a slap in his face.
“Call her a whore? She is. The stupid slut took you away and we aren’t even divorced yet!” her voice was raw, wild, and animalistic. It hurt him to see such pain in her eyes, but it hurt him even more to hear such words being used to describe the woman he loved.
“I’ve loved her for seventeen years,” he told her, the words just as loud as Lavender’s, but somehow much less personal, as if they were arguing about Quidditch instead of their marriage, “I’ve been in love with her for seventeen years,” he repeated, at a more normal level, meeting Lavender’s eyes and watching her heart break through them, “She isn’t a slut.”
The declaration was the last straw, and as the fight went out of Lavender’s eyes, Luna untied her. “I guess that’s all there is to say then,” Lavender stated, rubbing the rope marks on her wrists. “I’ll have a lawyer draw up the divorce papers. I assume I’m allowed to see my children?”
“Whenever you’d like,” Seamus assured her, surprised at her sudden strength.
“You really are the best man I ever met,” Lavender assured him, before pressing a chaste kiss to his dry lips. “And I think you deserve him more than I do,” she told Luna, looking at the younger woman’s neck instead of in to her eyes. With that, she gathered her wand and left the room, the white hem of her robes acting like a flag of surrender.
Luna waited until Lavender was out of the house before turning towards Seamus. “You’ve been in love with me for seventeen years,” she stated, her wide eyes belying the question beneath the certainty.
“Yes,” he said, his mouth suddenly very dry.
“That’s good, then,” she said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. She stood on her toes and pressed a kiss over the one Lavender had just given him, reclaiming the fact that he was now, as he always had been, hers. “Come to bed.”
“The children…” he started, turning away from her.
“Are safe,” she finished, grabbing his hand and moving towards the door that led to the stairs. “Come to bed.” He did. He followed her up to her room and in to her bed and he realized that there was nowhere else in the world he could have been right then and there. He realized that the last sixteen years were a dream, and it was only now that he was waking up and facing the reality he should have started after the war ended. A reality with Luna, with Dean, and with the world he had grown to know as his own.
Tomorrow, he would go home and close the pub. Tomorrow, he would explain everything to the children. Tomorrow, he would make a clean break with the caricature world he had been trapped him and he would begin his new life of love and happiness and freedom.
But right then, he simply pulled Luna closer and got lost in the scent of vanilla, stardust, and love.