When Love Comes To Town

1: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. (Sep 12.)

There were times, Seamus decided, when being him sucked. Absolutely and completely sucked. And not, upon reflection, in the good way either. This time, he couldn't blame it on permanently squabbling parents; couldn't even make a remark about what a festering sore on the pus-filled face of humanity his sister was. Yes, that probably was going a bit too far, but Seamus figured that anyone who met Niamh would agree.

There was just something wrong about someone who was so terribly nice, you know? It was as if she existed for the sole purpose of reminding the rest of humanity - ie. Seamus - exactly what he should be like and exactly what he'd never measure up to.

Anyway. This wasn't about his sister. Unfortunately.

This time he only had himself to blame, and he resolutely, utterly, three times yes sir, no sir, thank you very much sir absolutely refused to do it.

So he blamed the school instead, and Harry because he was easy to blame, and Dean, because he was not.

Especially as Dean was refusing to talk to him. No. Since that meal, he'd given Seamus the cold shoulder, torso and half a leg, turning away when Seamus tried to say a word. Even just a word. A 'hello.' A 'will', as part of a larger 'will you help me with my Divination homework?' It wasn't as if he was debating bloody politics or philosophy or insulting his mother or anything deep and meaningful like that which had everyone else still had time for. No, it was just one single word which Dean hadn't even let him finish.

And he pulled away when Seamus touched him. Which wasn't a big deal because Seamus didn't like to touch him, of course he didn't, Dean was a guy and Seamus didn't enjoy touching other guys, but you know, it was just a reassuring kind of thing that best friends - guy friends, no, not boyfriends - did with each other and he didn't make him gay. Or them gay. Cause, you know, Seamus wasn't. And he didn't think Dean was either. Except now he couldn't ask whether Dean thought Seamus was hitting on him or not because Dean was being about as responsive as a big black rock!

And Seamus didn't mean black in any sort of racist sense. It was you know, just a technical adjective type descriptive thingy.

So, Seamus bit down on his anger and his annoyance and his frustration until one afternoon, many weeks after the Beginning of his Social Isolation, when he finally caught Dean alone in the Gryffindor dorms.

"I don't want to talk about it." Dean's tone was dismissive, almost contemptuous. Fuck it, Dean was dismissive and almost contemptuous.

"You don't want to talk about a lot of things. You also don't want to talk to me." Seamus was hurt and angry, lashing out and beyond caring, stalking behind Dean as the taller boy strode to his bed. "Let's be honest here-"

"Fine." Dean whirled, crossing his arms, and Seamus had to come up short in order not to bump into him. "We'll be honest. You and your mother seem to think that Harry is not only a raving loony but also quite possibly a murderer. Next thing you'll be saying Sirius Black is actually guilty and the Ministry has it right."

"Well, we just know he didn't kill Pettigrew," Seamus pointed out, rather unhelpfully. "He still might have killed the Potters for all we know."

Dean shot him a black look, and one hand moved to massage a temple. "What about Harry?"

"It's just what she said," Seamus huffed in response and crossed his own arms. "And I couldn't just let Harry - or anyone-" he added with a glare and a complete lack of subtlety, "get away with dissing her?"

"Dissing her? Where the fuck have you been hanging out, Degrassi Fucking Junior High?" Seeing Seamus didn't get the reference Dean shook his head sharply, once, and started riffling through his bedside drawer. "Never mind."

"Mum tells me I've picked up all these Muggle phrases," Seamus chimed in, completely oblivious to the hole he was digging himself in. "Next thing you know I'll be acting like you lot."

"You lot?" Dean's back arched, but he didn't turn around. He just sounded very very angry. "And how do we sound, Seamus? Like a bunch of silly idiots who can't use magic and therefore deserve to get knocked off, before we ruin this planet for wizarding kind? Oh, sorry, poor you. Please, feel free to kill me now."

"I didn't mean it like that-"

"Yeah, well, what the hell did you mean it like then?" Dean turned on him again, brandishing a quill, which broke Seamus' concentration.

"...What are you going to do, write angry pro-Muggle slogans all over me?"

Dean sighed. "I broke my quill, remember? And even if I did, I'm sure they'd bounce right off your pureblood skin - oh, that's right Seamus, your Dad's a Muggle, what, did your Mum raise you to hate him as well? Bet you're a good boy, just waiting for your father to get sent off to the concentration camp!"

Seamus had never seen Dean so angry, or so open. Usually he was the taciturn one, the one that kept things to his chest for the sake of them all, who could be depended upon to be dependable. But now Dean was enraged, and Seamus was enraged over the fact he was the one who caused it.

He backed away, one foot after the other, jaw set, and voice awfully cold. "You know what? You know nothing about me. Or my family. You don't understand a thing about the dynamics or the culture or the history because you're not a part of it. You're nothing here. A nothing. An outsider. Someone we rescued and benefited with things you couldn't even dream of. You're lucky we don't just sit you in the corner between lessons and give you a bucket to piss in. And maybe Mum's right when she says that at least wizards don't kill each other because we're different skin colours or genders or religions or sexualities. At least we don't poison the planet and rape the earth. Let's think about who actually does that, shall we? You! Muggles! You'd think by now you would have killed yourselves off as a species but you can't even manage that properly."

Seamus looked at Dean, breathing sharply in and out, in and out, the only noise that of his own breathing. From the shocked look on Dean's face he could tell he'd done something very wrong indeed. And then the other Gryffindor swept by him before Seamus could even start gibbering an apology, and he was left alone in the Gryffindor dorms.

Seamus Finnigan took a few minutes to sum up the situation. And then he lashed out with a foot in the general direction of one of the beds. The beds at Hogwarts would made of centuries old mahogany, treated and charmed by spells to be virtually unbreakable. Seamus' foot, however, was not.

"Ow," he said, in a very small voice, because it was the only way he trusted himself to say it. "Owowowow bloody fucking fuckering fucker..." And in a similar manner, back hunched over, he hobbled all the way to Madame Pomfrey's, and told her he'd broken his toes falling down the stairs.

Another thing he refused to blame himself for.