RP Log: Seamus Finnigan and Lilith Moon Characters: Seamus Finnigan and Lilith Moon Setting: The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade; Monday evening Summary: Seamus and Lilith have a chat, and not much of it is pleasant. Rating: R for language.
The news hadn't been good, and it left Seamus troubled. Muggles being killed and the Dark Mark above houses...it was all too familiar. With a day off, he found himself thinking about it all day. He was too edgy to work on songs, and ended up just smoking cigarettes and walking around a lot instead. It wasn't exactly helping, though, so he decided he needed to get out of town.
In a state of unrest, the best person Seamus knew to talk to was Lilith. He knew she would understand why he was bothered, and maybe she'd be something of a calming influence. Lil was usually good for that. With that thought in mind, Seamus placed a quick floo-call and arranged to meet up after she was done with dinner. Right after six, Seamus Apparated to Hogsmeade, planning to have a pint and wait for Lilith to arrive.
The minute dinner was over and the students bustled off to their common rooms, Lilith excused herself from the other professors. She summoned her favourite cloak from her tower, tossed in around her shoulders and headed out the door of the school and down to Hogsmeade.
It was a bit of a walk, but Lilith didn't mind, the fresh air had a calming effect on her. Finally, she reached the Three Broomsticks and stepped inside. Shrugging off her cloak, she glanced around and spotted Seamus sitting at a table in the corner. With a smile that was only a bit tired, she made her way over to him. "Hello, Seamus."
The smile he gave her in return wasn't his usual bright-and-cheery, either. It was quieter than usual, this smile. His habit of answering her in Irish remained the same, though. "I got your pint and your glass of water for you," he said. "But if you're not in the mood for it, I can easily take down another pint this week." Given the state of his nerves, he probably could've taken a pint of whiskey no matter if it did put him under the table. At least he might stop worrying for a minute.
"Actually, I was thinking of having a butterbeer," Lilith remarked, slipping into the seat opposite him. With a tiny smile, she explained, "I could use something to warm me up."
"Little chilly for the walk, I reckon," he agreed with a nod. Seamus signaled the barmaid and requested the butterbeer for Lilith. With that done, he turned back to her, more immediately serious than he'd meant to be. "So how's the mood at Hogwarts?" he asked.
"Subdued," she replied immediately. And then, after a moment's pause, added, "Frightened as well. But who isn't?" She shook her head, staring over at the bar. "I'm so worried for all the students. I thought they'd never have to go through anything like this, not like we did."
"I think we'd all hoped that," Seamus agreed quietly, and he took a sip of stout. "At least they're a little safer at Hogwarts than we were, though. These kids have you and Shacklebolt - we had the Carrows."
For now, it was the world outside Hogwarts that Seamus was more worried about. Though given the Carrows...he wouldn't be too surprised if they wanted revenge on the school as the scene of their previous defeat. It couldn't just be them, though, or even just the currently escaped Death Eaters. They had support out in the real world, or they wouldn't have been able to break out in the first place.
Lilith was right: it was frightening. Nobody who had lived through the previous war with Voldemort or the one before that could help but feel the fear rising up.
As Lilith grew quiet, the bartender approached with the ordered butterbeer, which Lilith took with a soft smile and a, "Thank you." Leaning back in her seat she took several long swigs, feeling the inside of her body warm. "Ah, that's brilliant," she remarked.
Setting the bottle down on the table, she leaned forward, her eyes on Seamus, "All the rumors going around, everything that's happening... really makes you want to do something, doesn't it?"
"Ye kiddin' me? 'course it does," Seamus immediately replied. "Ye know I'm no good for sittin' an' waitin' patiently. If I had any idea o' anything I could do to make m'self useful, I'd be on it."
Seamus hated to wait, and he hated being kept in the dark. Most of all, he hated feeling useless. With all the news he and Lilith were talking of, Seamus felt it even more.
Seamus' answer made Lilith perk up with interest. Kingsley had told her when she joined the Order that she was perfectly welcome to recommend new members to them, and she had an idea that she might have just found one. Of course, she couldn't exactly tell Seamus that, not without permission first.
"I'll keep that in mind. There may be something that we can do, you see." She stopped herself from spilling all of it by picking up her butterbeer and having another long swig.
It was a somewhat mysterious answer, but one that gave him hope. Something to do with the DA, perhaps?
Seamus nodded his assent. "Let me know if there is," he said. "I'll help however I can."
Lilith smiled, glad that Seamus wasn't the prying type. "Don't worry, I will."
With a few more sips, she finished off her butterbeer and set the empty bottle on the table with a frown. Almost distantly, she said, "You know... I didn't paint the last two attacks. Not they they would have been pleasant to paint, but at least for information." She shook her head. "I mean, I painted something after the escape and then the attack on that poor family. I wonder why those two, and not these."
"Hm." Seamus's brow furrowed as he thought about it. "Strange," he said. He couldn't offer much in the way of consolation, but he tried anyway. "I guess ye can't expect to pick up everything, though. Prophecy's never exactly what ye'd call a predictable gift."
"Trust me, I know it isn't predictable," Lilith replied with a wry smile. "I just... I don't know, I guess I expected some forewarning. I mean, two in a row, and then nothing!"
Seamus nodded. "Yeah, it seems there's prob'ly some reason," he said, and then he shrugged. "Fucked if I know what, though. The mysterious workings o' the future're way over my head."
Divination wasn't something Seamus had ever had a talent for. He understood the basic principles from school, but as far as figuring out the wherefores of it, forget it. Ancient Runes and Astronomy had always been more his speed, and Potions when he wasn't too busy hating Snape to do the homework.
She signaled the bartender for another butterbeer and then leaned back against the booth, eying Seamus with a smile. "So tell me, mate. What have you been up to, besides worrying about the rubbish in the papers?"
"Besides that?" Seamus gave her a wry smile and took out a cigarette. "Had a good gig at the Lemon Peel the other night. Workin' non-stop, as usual. An' in between all that, it seems I've started dating Tracey Davis. Or somethin' like that, anyway - I'm not sure "dating"'s exactly the word. We're exclusively involved, anyway."
He shrugged; his relationship with Tracey was just about as over his head as Divination was. Why in the name of Merlin did women always have to be so bloody complicated?
"Tracey Davis?" Lilith wanted to frown, but forced herself to sound casual, "I think I remember her... Slytherin, right?" In fact, to be perfectly honest she remembered exactly who Tracey Davis was. Tracey was the awful girl who had teased her throughout most of her time at Hogwarts; especially her seventh year when the Carrows had marked her as one of their hated and Tracey had taken particular joy in being rude to her. Unable to help herself, Lilith frowned in memory. She was surprised Seamus didn't remember.
"Oh, very Slytherin," Seamus replied dryly. Despite having little memory of Tracey Davis from Hogwarts, Seamus knew very well how she came off most of the time. During his first few years of school, Seamus had been too busy as The Cute One in their year of Gryffindor to worry much about what any Slytherin girls had to say about him. He got in more than a few fistfights and duels with some of the boys about his blood status, but their girls weren't a major concern for him. By seventh year, he was busy taking regular beatings from the Carrows themselves due to his mouth working overtime. Once again, he was more likely to find himself face-to-face with the gentlemen of Slytherin than the ladies. Tracey had simply never particularly crossed his radar.
"She's...look, it's weird," he said. He was raking his fingers through his hair, always a sure sign that Seamus was troubled by something. And as much fun as he was having with Tracey when they were together, when they were apart she was definitely troubling. "She's bitchy, and she's temperamental, and she's spoiled and demanding, and I know all that, but...but we ended up gettin' thrown together in this weird way, and now I can't make myself walk away. I can't even make myself want to walk away. She says something bitchy and I laugh at her for it and she gets furious with me for laughing at her, and next thing I know we're back in bed again."
Lilith's frown deepened and her voice took on an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone. "Oh yes, I know she can be a temperamental bitch." She paused and a deep furrow appeared in her brow. Frustrated, she exclaimed, "Merlin, Seamus I can't believe that you don't remember her from back then. She was one of the Carrows little pet favourites! Hell, she called them Auntie Alecto and Uncle Amycus, and they used to call her into the office after they tortured me so she could whine about all the blood on the floor and do absolutely nothing to help me."
She turned her head away to hide the pain in her eyes. She could still remember Tracey's snide little voice as she followed Lilith down the halls, calling her all sorts of names and disparaging her family and whining about all the blood there'd been when the Carrows tortured her.
Seamus lit his cigarette, and he took a long drag on it. He could tell Lilith was upset, and he felt terrible for it. But what was he going to do at this point? He was in too deep already.
"As you might remember, Lil, I had a few worries of my own at the time," Seamus answered her quietly. "So no, I don't remember her from back then. If I did, it might've gone differently when she made her pass at me. But she never really crossed my path, so it didn't go that way."
Lilith clenched the butterbeer that the waitress had handed her. She stared over at Seamus, her eyes narrowed, her voice rising the longer she talked. "Oh yes, well then that's just fine, right? You didn't know her then and know that you do, the past is all the past and it doesn't matter that she made someone's life absolutely horrible, or that she was the little pet of Death Eaters for Merlin's sake! No, it doesn't matter at all, as long as you get to snog her now, right?"
She forced herself to stop, feeling herself get so angry that she almost trembled. With a rather loud clink, she set the still half-filled bottle of butterbeer on the table. "I'm sorry. I just can't-" Shaking her head she pulled her bag up from between her feet, rummaging around until she found a few coins which she tossed on the table. She stood up, commenting in a distant voice, "I just remembered, I have some exams to grade. I should go."
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Lilith!" he snapped back at her. Seamus stood up, because he wasn't one to let anyone walk away from an argument with him. His temper was legendary for a reason, and the greatest part of those reasons were a collection of major shouting matches that rang throughout Hogwarts. "What do you expect me to do? Tell this girl that because she fucked up a lot in school, she's got no chance of ever being a worthwhile human being? That'd be a fine showing of principles."
Lilith glared at him, eyes flashing with anger. She was just as loud as him and didn't care that the other patrons of the bar were turning to stare. "Oh no, Seamus, I'm sure someone that spent her school days being rude and nasty to her fellow students and sucking up to Death Eater's has a perfectly fine chance of becoming a worthwhile human being."
She slipped on her cloak and then crossed her arms. "I'm not going to tell you what to do. It's your life, isn't it? You're free to be with whoever you want, but I'm not going to stand by and make nice about a girl who helped make sure that my final year at Hogwarts was a living hell." She started to walk away and then stopped, turning to point a finger at him as she said, "I will tell you this, though. When she hurts you, which I'm pretty sure she will? Don't be surprised when I say I told you so."
"People change, Lilith. We were kids back then!" he retorted as he glared back down at her. "She was doing what all the rest of us were - playing the role she got handed by her family and her house and her professors and her friends. I'm not saying it was right...but it doesn't mean that's all there is to her. Underneath that attitude, there's something more. I wouldn't bother with her if there wasn't."
"No." Lilith stamped her foot on the ground. "She wasn't doing what the rest of us were, Seamus. The rest of us were fighting for our lives, dodging curses and trying to stay alive while she whined about my blood getting on her precious shoes." She stopped, shaking her head, knowing she wasn't going to be able to get through to him. "Sometimes people don't change, Seamus. Sometimes its just who they are. But you keep telling yourself that. Maybe if you keep making excuses for her, you can ignore how awful she really is."
"I'm not making excuses!" Seamus was going pale, always the first sign that he was getting truly furious. "But where the fuck would I be if I hadn't gotten a couple of second chances? I wasn't in the DA at the beginning because Harry and I had a fight so bad that we weren't even speaking. But I got another chance, and I made something of it. What kind of person would it make me if I didn't do the same for other people? Sometimes kids are idiots, but they can still grow up decent."
Lilith's hand rose slowly to her mouth, her eyes wide and hurt. "I'm sorry, Seamus. I just- I can't listen to you making excuses for that-" Bitch. "-for that woman. It was more than a kid just being an idiot, Seamus, and it scares me that you can't see it. I can't- Forget it. I have to go." She clutched her cloak around and her and turned to leave.
"Damn it, Lilith!" Seamus stormed after her, for once glad that it was impossible to simply apparate back onto the grounds of Hogwarts. It meant she had to walk and therefore he could force her to listen a little while longer. "What the fuck is this, Lilith? I go out with someone you don't like, so you're just going to throw more than five years of friendship out the window?"
Merlin, she hated the fact that you couldn't apparate back to Hogwarts. Bloody wards. She refused to look over at him, talking over her shoulder as she walked. "I'm not throwing away our friendship, Seamus. I'm still perfectly willing to be your friend. I just- I don't want to talk about her, or think about the fact that of all the people you could have chosen to be with, you chose her." Softly, almost to herself, she added, "You deserve better."
Now that he knew Lilith wasn't ditching him, Seamus wasn't so upset. Abandonment issues were one of the few things his louse of a father had given him outside of a few black eyes. The threat of losing a longtime friend didn't sit well with him at all. "All right," he said, quieter than before. "We don't have to talk about her. You're too good a friend for me to want to do anything to upset you - even though I know you probably don't believe that right now."
Why does he have to be so sweet? Lilith thought, slowing her pace so he didn't have to hurry to keep up. "I know you wouldn't purposely do anything to upset me, Seamus. But it's not like I can just forget what she did to me, and how horrible she made me feel. I mean its bad enough when you're 17 years old, lying on your professor's floor, bleeding from all the curses they threw at you. But to cap it off with being paraded in front of one of your own classmates and having to listen to her whine about your dirty half-blood blood getting on her expensive shoes? It isn't something someone gets over easily. I just-" She stopped walking and turned to face him. "I just don't get it. Why her of all people? I mean aren't there plenty of other witches that like you that you could be with?" And that was cutting it just a bit close for her personal liking. Sure, she used to fancy him a bit, but that was in the past now, right?
He stopped as well, and awkwardly raked his fingers through his hair once again. "I wish I could explain it, but the truth is I can't even get it to make sense to me," Seamus helplessly replied. "It's just..." He searched for the example, and finally made an earnest attempt at making her understand. "It's like from the first time she grabbed my hand, she's never let go. There's a connection there that keeps pulling me back over and over, and I don't know if it's love or lust or what, but it's there whether I want it to be or not. And I can't make myself leave it, even though I know there's got to be something wrong with it."
"Yeah, alright." So what he really means is, the shagging is really good. She wasn't about to say that to him. Instead, she sighed and stared down at the ground, her hand reaching up to idly tuck a stray bit of hair behind her ear. Quietly, she replied, "I just really don't want to see you get hurt, Seamus, and with past experiences as they are, I can't help but think she's going to hurt you. Badly." It just seemed to her like he was incapable of admitting to himself what sort of person this girl really was, like he was determined to think there had to be some good in people somewhere. Lilith was of the opinion that with some people there just wasn't anything else. She didn't know Tracey enough to make that judgment completely, but if she was anything like the people she seemed to look up to, than she couldn't be a very good person.
Lilith was right - Seamus did want to think there was good in everyone. He was willing to accept that there were some people who had buried it so deep that it wasn't worth looking for anymore, but he always wanted people to be redeemable. It was one of his many qualities that managed to be either endearing or exasperating depending on the situation. He was touched that Lilith was worrying about him, though - it wasn't something most people thought to do. He reached out and touched her shoulder, giving her a little pull toward him. "C'mere, you," he said gruffly, having found that in spite of his tough bloke persona he could really use a hug.
Lilith smiled in spite of her frustration and moved towards him, opening her arms to give him a friendly hug. After several quiet moments, she pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. "I swear to you, though, if she hurts you I will not be nice happy Lilith. So help me, if she breaks your heart, and I run into her..." She didn't finish the sentence, but she figured he got the general idea.
Seamus nodded, and he gave her a little smile. "Fair enough. I'd do the same for you, so I can't really argue against it going both ways." He felt better now that he and Lilith weren't shouting at each other anymore. He could avoid mention of Tracey if it would keep the peace, and hopefully it wouldn't actually come to any violence. Both women were important to him, and Seamus didn't want to ruin things with either one.
"I know you would, Seamus. That's what friends do." She sighed and then stared up at the castle in the distance. "You know, I don't actually have any exams to grade. We can go back and have another drink? Although it might be a bit embarrassing considering the shouting match we just had."
"Eh, it was all in Irish," Seamus replied, giving her a playful grin. "They won't have a clue what it was about. And besides, it's not as though I haven't embarrassed myself spectacularly in Hogsmeade before." Lilith would certainly remember The Coconut Rum Incident in the Three Broomsticks the year after they graduated. The reference was something to take them off of any discussion of Tracey, and that would hopefully make her laugh a bit, so Seamus slung his arm around her shoulders. "C'mon. Let's go finish our drinks."
Lilith nodded in agreement, "Yeah, I guess you're right. And I'm sure none of them understood a word." She began to grin at what he said, remembering with glee The Coconut Rum Incident of a few years ago. She laughed, and chided, "Well alright. But I'll be sure not to order you a coconut rum this time!" Still smiling, she wrapped a few arm around his waist and the two headed back to the Three Broomsticks to finish their drinks.