Thursday night's conditions hadn't been ideal for the Orionids, with a bright moon making it difficult to spot the tiny pinpricks of light that dashed over the northern corner of the constellation. Seamus regularly wondered about the muggle telescopes, the giant ones on Earth and ones they'd launched into space. Terry would be a doubting thomas about their actual existence, but surely they had to be receiving better views of the meteor shower than a gaggle of teenagers on a castle tower, blessed with magic though they were.
He finished packing away the pieces of his telescope and fastened the latches before risking a glance behind him to where Morag had been cursing the state of her own equipment for the better half of the class. She was gone, and so were most of the other students, given that Seamus had been dawdling in hopes of sharing half his route back to Gryffindor with half her route back to Ravenclaw. "Brilliant," he muttered, slinging his bookbag over his shoulder and collecting the handle of his case. At least it wasn't the night for the ill-conceived raid on Snape's office. If that had fallen on yet another Thursday night, Seamus would have been more vocal about his lack of enthusiasm - regularly plotting anarchism for shifts when he, Parvati, Padma, and Anthony were patrolling the halls and grounds was getting suspicious, and frustrating.
It was this line of thought that occupied him as he made his way down the winding staircase of the North Tower, a sour mood starting to brew in his mind.
While she and Seamus had walked together from classes they’d shared now and again, even the rare night Astronomy lesson, Morag had never exactly waited for the Gryffindor before. But she lingered now, wishing her telescope hadn’t given her so much trouble near the end of their lesson and absolutely no reason to pretend to labor over her work above. Morag knew it was time to find a way to ask Wayne to take a look at it, but that particular problem was the furthest one from her mind when she heard light footfalls on the stone stair above.
Wetting her lips before tailoring a hasty smirk, she met Seamus’ eyes as he alighted on the landing. Morag had thought about what she was going to say enough to feel embarrassed about the amount of thought she’d given her words, but it was safer than just checking Seamus into a wall and having at his stupid, handsome face. Especially because she still just wasn’t sure.
“I’m curious. If I break a rule in the company of a Prefect, am I absolved of guilt?”
"Hah," Seamus laughed, something drier than a chuckle to cover the grin that had appeared the same time she had. "Depends on the rule, and on the Prefect, I'd guess," he answered. "I never give a shite if people are swearing so long as they're not cursin' out one o' the littles. But we're still guilty when we're doin' somethin' wrong."
“Naturally,” Morag conceded. “I’m just interested if, in the case that the Prefect is you, you’re willing to take a greater share of the blame.”
Seamus' head tilted to the side, and the grin became a smirk. "Are you plannin' on bein' bad, Morag?" he teased. "What'm I taking a fall for, exactly?"
Shaking her head, Morag started slowly down the stairs from the landing.
“I’m going to need your full cooperation before I tell you anything. That badge gives you an unfair advantage.”
A kernel of doubt dropped into Seamus' stomach. Was this actual wrongdoing she was talking about, rather than some sort of dubiously flirtatious banter? Was she using that to cover for something else? He didn't follow her. "Are you in trouble?" he questioned, setting down his telescope. If they got in trouble for being out after hours he would accept all the responsibility for keeping her, but if this was something worse…
Morag cast a look back over her shoulder, stopping when it was clear Seamus wasn’t following. Her nose wrinkled in fleeting irritation.
“Not that I know of. You’re awfully jumpy, Finnigan.”
She was terrible at this.
"Then why do ya need a Prefect to take the blame for you?" He was wary, but picked up his case and slowly took the few steps down to meet her.
“Bloody hell, Seamus, I’m teasing you,” Morag hissed, but more to keep her voice down, and absent (mostly) her usual venom. She was beginning to think she ought to have just walked to Ravenclaw tower alone, and spared herself the inevitable rejection.
It was difficult to stalk down the narrow Astronomy tower stairs, but Morag did her best.
Seamus rolled his eyes once she'd stepped ahead again. He wasn't sure what he'd done this time to spoil it, or what Morag was teasing him about in the first place, unless it was all for -
He made the last step down onto the even stone pavers of the hallway and paused. "Are you teasin'?" asked Seamus, hastening to catch up with steps that seemed to wish themselves farther and faster away from him, until he was able to reach out with his free hand to catch her at the elbow. "Or are ya flirtin', and I'm bein' thick about it and you don' want me to know what ya really meant?"
Morag met his eyes, her own shaded with a fringe of dark hair, lips set in a stubborn line. Her posture betrayed her, though, leaning heavy on one hip, arms crossed, anticipating… what?
Now or never again, she supposed.
“Well, you are pretty thick.”
From anyone else it would be an insult and nothing more, meriting a snappy retort or mention of Crabbe and Goyle. Somehow out of Morag's mouth, it managed to feel like an invitation to kiss her. His hand slid from her elbow to her waist. "Am I?" he asked, one last (albeit unmistakable) gesture to make sure he wasn't so thick as to read the situation entirely incorrectly.
His hand on her waist was too, too much.
“Yes,” she growled, letting the weight of her satchel and telescope case sag against her shoulder as both hands gripped Seamus’ collar, pulling his mouth down onto hers.
Seamus' telescope case fell out of his hand and onto the flagstone with an echoing bang that he barely reacted to, his fingers landing on the warmth of her throat below her jaw and his lips parting hers. He didn't care if the noise drew the unwanted attention of authority figures, it would be the first time ever for him to lose points for making out in the halls, and it wasn't as though Gryffindors didn't lose dozens of points every week through various means of thumbing their noses at the Carrows. Seamus' hand wrapped around Morag's back to pull her nearer. He would be as thick as she wanted, if this was the reward.
Morag’s experiences with the opposite sex were largely situations of take, take, take, where she had what she wanted or somebody else did, always with a little less feeling on one side or the other. She’d expected the same from Seamus. But what she wanted did not seem to be mildly reflected in her friend, instead earnestly, wildly, and it stumbled her.
But it didn’t stop her.
Morag sank into Seamus, hands snaking around to thread fistfuls of his hair, as though she meant to climb right up his body.
There wasn't any real satisfaction to be had in the corridors of Hogwarts, that was the true danger of these kinds of activities. Alcoves, closets, and classrooms could only offer so much privacy, and even then, all were scraping the very bottom of the barrel in terms of romance. But their kiss had an urgency that made Seamus question if he wasn't the only one who had been wanting to do this for quite some time, as though the months since Hannah's summer party were all being compressed into this one fevered minute, and he had to smother the temptation to stumble toward somewhere with a locking door. He had to slow this down. The hand at her neck moved down to her shoulder, thumb pressing against the line of her collarbone, urging a pause to speak.
"You're t-" he began in between kisses, "thick too."
“How d’you figure?” Morag drawled, withdrawing only just enough to level her gaze on him, as though following his subtle cue to slow it down proved she wasn’t. Her actions were practically under the influence, given the dizzying sensation she felt every place they touched.
"If you weren't too we would've done this earlier." Seamus grinned, over-confident now that his hand was resting inches from her bum.
He had a point, but one kiss wasn’t enough for Morag to admit it.
“You’re delusional,” she insisted, but she grinned, lips buzzing and warm. Though she had a rather powerful urge to kiss him again, Morag held back. There was something to be said for the way he held onto her, for the slow consideration of what it meant to be kissed by somebody who maybe wanted to kiss you as much as you did them.
"You're delusional," he retorted, though there wasn't any rationale for this accusation other than to fill a gap between his lips and hers.
It was difficult to find the right balance between them; he wanted to let the moment run away and see where things would go without circumstance or repercussion, but common sense and common decency made him keep from walking her backwards to the support of the stone wall. Lights were dim around them and the nearest portrait would need to be squinting diligently to see Seamus' hand edging southward.
Morag was surprised to find she felt a bit shy, but fought the complication of feelings when they likely had only a few minutes before breaking curfew, risking discovery, or any of the other ills that could befall two students Up to No Good after hours. Her hands trailed down from Seamus’ neck over his chest before she looped them behind his back. It served to bring them that much closer, and cast Morag’s face half in shadow.
“You never answered my question,” she scolded softly, her tone alluding to activities that did not involve a chaste walk back to their respective towers.
Seamus barely remembered that there had been a question. "Are you guilty, you mean?" He smirked, happy enough to tease her now and kiss her later. "Or am I going to take the fall for you and say it's my fault?"
“Well, I haven’t done anything yet,” Morag retorted, her words loaded with the growing number of things she was thinking about doing.
If it was an invitation, Seamus took it. He stooped long enough to pick up his fallen telescope and then took Morag's hand, intent on turning the corner of the hall in the opposite direction of the staircase that led toward the rest of the castle. It was a risk - the only thing down this short jaunt of corridor was Professor Sinistra's office, but it was well out of sight for anyone who didn't have that express purpose, and no portraits hanging on the walls either. "Wait for a minute or two," he murmured quietly, picking up her hand in his and giving it a quick kiss. "If she comes back to work I'll say we had a question, if not…" well, whatever she wanted, he supposed.
She waited somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty seconds before she pulled him close again by the hand he still held, hot with the press of his lips, hotter when she guided it to her hip. It was the little kiss to her hand, his unnecessary tenderness, that made Morag wonder what exactly she was getting into. Nobody had ever done anything like that before, not for her. These were uncharted waters.
But because she didn’t know how to wade, only to dive, that’s what she did.
Morag kissed him again but slowly, this time, even though they were short on it.
It seemed unwise to challenge her to wait any longer, and risk losing the chance altogether should she shove him away and storm off to Ravenclaw tower. If Professor Sinistra did catch them at it… the excuse of knowledge wasn't very valid in that case, but Seamus was getting another sort of education, this one about how Morag liked to be kissed, how it seemed she wanted to be held. He hadn't imagined she would be the sort to kiss him chastely and slap his hand, but having her be this bold was an unexpected pleasure too, after the door-slamming over incorrectly held hands. He slid his hands around from her hips, one up her back between her shoulderblades and one down to her bottom, pulling her closer with a squeeze.