Farewell, Seamus Finnigan

The rain had only just begun to fall when Dean Thomas looked out of the window. At first his eyes were drawn to the world moving steadily beside the car; the sky was so grey and overcast that it served to dull all of the things he saw.

For a moment he was distracted by how much the approach to Killeshandra looked like a watercolour picture. Overnight rain had drenched the landscape, making the field of the Fair Green seem more vibrant than it did on any other day. Yet looking through the cold and hard glass of the car window, it seemed to be trickling away; beads of water had streaked across the surface and were taking the colour of Killeshandra with it.

No, Dean told himself dispiritedly. It wasn't the water that diminished Killeshandra.

It was Seamus.

Dean had been in Ireland for six months now; he had deferred the studies he fought so hard to be able to learn in the Muggle world, and he had come to Killeshandra. A place he remembered well from his youth; a place that differed so much from the Forest Gate he was born and raised in. A place where Seamus Finnigan was.

Though he was now aware of a comforting hand on his shoulder, he still did not stop thinking of his friend. He didn't need to look back to know that the hand belonged to his mother; she had come as soon as he had called. His father had been unable to make it due to work commitments; Dean knew that Seamus' father had been touched when Mr Thomas promised to raise a toast in honour of his son back in London.

His son, Dean thought vaguely. He hadn't yet considered what it must be like for Seamus' family. It was true that he had now spent every one of the days since the accident in the company of the Finnigans; he had seen Mrs Finnigan's tear-stained eyes flitting about rooms of the house, distracted by her memories.

Distracted by her sorrow. The thought occurred to him so matter-of-factly that Dean was surprised by his own callousness. Surely thinking of the loss Seamus' death caused in the lives of others should have touched him right to the centre of his heart?

It did somewhat, briefly. As soon as Dean thought about how other people felt, it was only seconds before he returned to thinking of how he felt.

He had tried to imagine what Seamus would have thought, but he just couldn't bear it.

The journey from Sheridan House had been plodding along for quite some time now; the cars that followed the foreboding hearse at the front were travelling slower than most people could walk, and along the streets and in front of the houses that dotted the route, the citizens of Killeshandra stopped respectfully to observe decorum as the funeral party drove past.

They all knew who Seamus was; everyone in the town knew the Finnigans. His family had resided in Sheridan House his whole life; a monument to a centuries old maternal heritage.

But now it was Finnigan land, and had been for longer than any of them had been breathing; that's what Seamus' Muggle grandfather had told him last summer when they had stayed there. No relation at all to the Drumalt Sheridan's, Mr Finnigan had sniffed proudly.

It was strange, he idly thought as he continued to watch the rain, but Dean never really thought of himself as a wizard until he was in the company of other wizards. And in Killeshandra, though some wizarding families lived in the outlying regions, there were no other magical folk in the town except himself, Seamus and Mrs Finnigan.

After Dean had graduated from Hogwarts he returned to London, back to Forest Gate and Upton Park, cheering on the Irons (no matter how pointless it was) and waiting for the 325 to take him up to Newham Town Hall and his father's work.

But Dean proved to be ill-suited to the career his father had chosen, and without any sort of Muggle education behind him he couldn't hope to find the kind of work that wasn't badly-paid or uncomfortable.

It was Seamus who suggested he try to make a living in his art, though initially Dean had dismissed it as impossible. He didn't have the training to be a professional bus driver, let alone a professional artist; who would hire a novice?

' ... why can't you go to school, then? Like the Muggles do? What's stopping you?'

Seamus didn't see what the problem was at all, for as far as he was concerned there was no problem.

Each one of the owls Seamus sent, urging him to give it a shot, was replied with a bleak and defeated response from Dean. He couldn't see how on Earth he'd manage to get into a good art school- any art school. There was just no way.

But Seamus insisted.

' ... be the death of me! Honestly ... there has to be something the Ministry can do, I don't see why you can't fulfil a dream just because you were learning magic the past seven years!'

No matter how despondent Dean was, Seamus continued to push him to do what he wanted. Dean envied Seamus in that way; he seemed to be happy and content with his lot and the tools he'd been given to make the most of it. It was as though nothing could stop him from doing the things he desired.

And so Dean began his quest to gain admission to a Muggle university and study art; there was no way he could sit on his hands any longer with Seamus persisting.

If Dean had a choice, if he could wave a magical wand and have what he wanted (as his father had jokingly said), he would have gone to the Ruskin School. But that was away from everything. Dean hadn't even bothered with looking into the finances of attending the prestigious school; he just couldn't be away from his family like that again. Away from the familiar people and places that he had only just returned to after seven years; how could he just pick up again and take off?

He found himself asking the same thing after a few months back in London. It had taken some creative wizardry (approved by the Ministry on special application) and a lot of hard work for Dean to earn his place at Westminster; the trips between Harrow and Forest Gate had seemed worth it when he took the Illustrations degree into consideration.

In the middle of study and applications Dean had written a brief letter to Seamus, apologising for the lapse in his once constant series of owls to his old friend; he had had to sacrifice much of his time to get even half way up to speed with the things he was expected to know.

' ... who'd have thought drawing a picture would take so many essays? ... don't worry Dean, you're still the best artist I'll ever know ... '

Seamus' sense of humour and encouragement helped Dean get through the ordeal of knowing seven years worth of information less than any other student in Britain applying for the same places; when he thought he didn't have anything left, just a short note from across the sea would push him to go on.

But now, he thought listlessly, another stretch of road drawing away and becoming another, there was nothing - there was no one - to encourage him, no one to reassure him when he had doubts.

He was alone.

It didn't feel like reality anymore.

Stepping out of the car and walking slowly towards the cemetery, the place which would hold all his hopes and dreams forever, he didn't quite know how he could still exist with the way he felt.

He felt so ... there were no words.

Dean had been asked to be a pallbearer by Mr Finnigan a few days ago, during the first night they had all stood around Seamus' coffin, bearing witness to him as he lay in rest. It would have been the very least Dean could have done to honour his greatest friend.

He hadn't replied Mr Finnigan immediately, just a slight nod, one that said he would think about it and would most likely accept.

But standing there at the foot of Seamus' coffin, to his left Mrs Finnigan's MacGovern brother, and to his right a Finnigan cousin, he was reminded that the two families often had disputes when it came to the only son of Mr and Mrs Finnigan. Dean couldn't serve as a pallbearer if it meant his inclusion would push out a Finnigan or a MacGovern.

They were two matriarchal families, at the head of each side stood Seamus' grandmothers, both fiercely protective women who dominated the children they had born and their offspring too.

It annoyed Seamus' Finnigan grandmother no end that her counterpart often addressed their grandson as "Seamus MacGovern".

It wasn't entirely incorrect; MacGovern was one of the given names Seamus bore. Dean always smiled when he heard her explain the history of her name; it suited Seamus perfectly. MacGovern was an approximation of a very old Irish name, Mag Samhradhan - 'son of Samhradhan'.

Dean wasn't sure how he knew, but the fact that 'Samhradh' meant summer seemed to have been present in his mind without being told. Mrs MacGovern always doted upon her very own son of the summer; she attested that was where his blond hair and light features came from.

But in the face of his death she was completely changed.

Standing side-by-side with that "infernal Finnigan woman", the daughter of the summer looked like she would join her grandson -- she would sooner it be that than to live in the long winter she expected the rest of her life to be without him.

The words being spoken by the priest who had baptised Seamus did not touch Dean's ears at all; he had been focusing on his memories and did not look up until the elder Mr Finnigan began to move from his chair.

Seamus' grandfather had always appeared haggard and old to Dean; but now, as he struggled to his feet, leaning on the cane that Seamus had once told him belonged to sixteen generations of Finnigan's previously, he seemed absolutely decrepit.

Dean couldn't keep looking at him without feeling his throat burning. He didn't want to cry in front of Seamus' mother; he knew she wouldn't take it well. So he averted his eyes to the ground, not looking into the grave or at any of the wreaths and bouquets; he just focused on the wet green grass beneath his feet. Colour seemed very dull to him now.

As old Mr Finnigan began to sing, his strong voice quivering on the first note, Dean felt the tears begin to well up in his eyes.

Dean knew the song immediately, and from the muffled sobs and the quiet sniffs rising from the Finnigan family and a few of the other Muggles, he could tell it touched them in the same way it did him.

Maybe not the same way, Dean re-considered bleakly; no one had loved Seamus like he had. No one had been his best friend like he had. No one knew how much he mattered to me.

His head lurched forward suddenly, like he was going to retch at the sight before him. From the corner of his eye he saw his own mother comforting Mrs Finnigan; they had both seen his startled motion. Though a black veil obscured her dark brown eyes, Dean knew that his mother had begun to cry on seeing him doing that; she knew he was holding back.

But it doesn't feel like that, Dean whispered inwardly; if he had said it aloud he didn't know if he could bear the hopelessness of his own voice. The summer's gone ...

Old Mr Finnigan continued to sing and Dean tried desperately to stop relating to the words as though it were Seamus. But that familiar old voice, so proud and now so gentle, reminded him of his friend too much.

I don't want to leave you, he implored the ground he was staring at. It didn't feel like Dean was the one leaving Seamus. The song was wrong; it was the other way around. Seamus had left him.

Every summer, Dean found himself promising, and every winter, and every day.

The first morning he woke in Killeshandra without Seamus had been the most surreal one of his life; even more surreal than the day he discovered he was a wizard. The kind of forces in motion that settled within him on that first day without his friend, without the only boy ...

The only boy. The words repeated themselves automatically and remained there, stopping the order of his thoughts.

He didn't need to correlate the events to know which had the greater effect; becoming a wizard had enabled him to meet Seamus, and waking up alone, without him, to a day that would be like every other for the rest of his life, meant that being a wizard never really mattered in the first place.

It was at those last words that Dean felt himself buckle; Mr Finnigan's voice had cracked just slightly on that line.

I love you so. Dean sang it to himself, but he couldn't without his own silent voice struggling. He exhaled deeply and looked up from the earth to the sky above the cemetery; today it was shadow.

All the days are shadow, he insisted wilfully, finding that his resolve to remain stone-faced was weakening tremendously. He snapped his eyes shut, and while his shoulders tensed up he tried to find some words of solace, words of comfort that may have been uttered to him in his life before. Wasn't that what people who didn't have answers always said?

As if in defiance, the daffodils of Killeshandra had never seemed more alive to Dean than they were this day; their brilliant yellow mocked his sadness.

There were no daffodils on Dean's first day in Killeshandra; it wasn't the right season. It wouldn't have mattered if they never came, the way Seamus spoke so longingly of them during their school days, Dean would have known what they looked like even if he had no sight to see.

'There's words,' Seamus had told him late one night in the Gryffindor common room back in seventh year. 'A poet, one of those Muggles ones, he talked about them. He said, "All at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils" - he was talking about Killeshandra.'

'How do you know that?' Dean had asked with a small laugh, knowing well enough that Wordsworth had certainly not meant those words for Killeshandra.

Seamus had given him a quiet smile, but spoke with all belief and sincerity. 'Wait until you see them; you'll know he meant them for Killeshandra.'

This Spring now, with its glorious daffodils, was the first one he had ever seen at Killeshandra.

He remembered being woken by Seamus early one morning, being rushed out of bed with the sleep still in his eyes, and pulled out to the street in somewhat of a daze.

They had walked up along the street, or rather, Seamus had half-ran and turned around every so often to beckon Dean to hurry up. Dean had no idea how his friend could have so much energy when it was barely six in the morning, and he complained loudly that it was far too cold for anyone to be up and around that early.

Seamus had only laughed, his playful laugh that told Dean to not take things so seriously; cold weather was immaterial. It wasn't until they had reached the Grand Gates that Dean realised Seamus was right.

From a few yards behind, Dean could see Seamus' pale hands clinging to the cold white bars on the gate, his face leaning so far forward that it was resting against the iron.

Beyond the gate was an avenue that paved the way up to Hamilton Castle, and while the domineering facade of the building peeked menacingly over the tips of the trees and below the lightest of fogs, it couldn't hope to compare to the spectacle of the Killeshandra daffodils.

Along either side of the avenue a floral carpet had weaved itself into place, the daffodils blowing listlessly together in a sharp breeze that gave rise to goose bumps on Dean's arms, causing him to pull his coat around him tighter.

But not Seamus, he was enthralled by the sight, even though he'd seen it many times before and would see it every day of the Spring to come. Dean doubted that even a shower of hailstones could have pulled him away from the gate, and he spent the next fifteen minutes listening to Seamus telling him about playing in the daffodils before he went to Hogwarts.

Seven years of school away from home meant that Seamus had not seen them in a very long time. He asked Dean to come straight back to Killeshandra with him after they had finished school, but Dean had hesitated.

Ordinarily nothing could have kept him and Seamus apart during the summer. Over the years they had alternated between Forest Gate and Killeshandra; Seamus being as thrilled with the streets of London as Dean was with the quiet lakes and rivers of Cavan. While Seamus had marvelled at the zealousness shown by Irons fans at Upton Park on the weekends, Dean had been surprised by the ferocity the Cavan Sunday Quidditch League players displayed against their opponents. Even the Slytherins weren't that hard.

The seventh year summer was meant to be a Forest Gate one, except this was the final summer; the first one of their lives after Hogwarts. No more school, just real lives to get on with; it wasn't foreseeable that either of them, living in different countries, would spend any more summers together.

And yet Dean felt that Seamus should have been with him, and from the sad look of regret on the Killeshandra-bound wizard's face, he felt exactly the same way.

Both of their families were expecting them. How would Dean's mother take it if he had said he wasn't coming home but he was going to Killeshandra instead? He was certain that Mrs Finnigan would have reacted similarly.

And so they said their good-byes.

Good-bye.

Dean wasn't saying the farewell to Seamus; there was no good-bye. There would never be one. They promised it would never happen; he promised he would never be so far that Dean could not see him.

Closing his eyes and swallowing hard, Dean wiped the tears away before they could spill onto his cheeks.

'I will never be so far away that you cannot see me.'

Seamus had promised him. A promise. How could he break it? How could he die and leave him all alone like that? How could he?

An involuntarily sob crossed his lips before he could stop it, starting a wave of reactions from the people close-by.

The black-gloved hand of his mother reached up to her face, a white handkerchief dabbing at the tears that were wept more freely than her son's. His heart felt very tight seeing her like that, watching her try to comfort the inconsolable Mrs Finnigan.

Mrs MacGovern was standing to Dean's left, a veil much darker than any of the others he had seen that day covering her face.

She had always approved whole-heartedly of Dean's friendship with her grandson, the fact he was a wizard meant a lot to her.

It doesn't - didn't, he corrected himself - mean anything to Seamus, he didn't care about familiarity with wizardry - he cared about Dean.

He did, he did, Dean insisted to himself. He knew it was true and that he didn't have to feel insecure about it, but it was hard to remember when the only person who could tell him was not there to do so.

Dean would always feel insecure now; there was no Seamus to lift his spirits.

No one to tell him it was all right.

Not that that mattered; it would never be all right ever again.

Dean sucked his breath in quickly in order to contain another quiet plaint, refraining from exhaling until the image of their lonely flat faded away.

My flat. He would never spend another night there.

Seamus had chosen it long before Dean had arrived in Killeshandra; it would be the first taste of freedom for the both of them.

They had been lucky to find lodging in the old Protestant Rectory, despite the Finnigan grandparents frowning on the Protestant part; it really was a wonderful place to live.

Their second floor rooms faced out to the front of the building; sometimes they would sit in Dean's room (the one with the window, he was a "real live artist” and needed the light, Seamus had reasoned) and watch the very few people drive past on the street. Dean had sketched the view from his window so many times it was now as familiar to him as ... as Seamus' face.

Sometimes, when he thought Seamus was still sleeping (and even when he knew he wasn't), Dean would get up and sit in a chair by the dying ashes in the fireplace, just watching him with his eyes closed. He'd focus on parts of Seamus, his eyelashes that fluttered occasionally, his chest that rose and fell with quiet breaths; it was for no reason other than to look.

He wouldn't draw him; he simply concentrated, trying to ... he wasn't quite sure what he was trying to do, it just made him feel content.

Sometimes a small and telling smile would always creep onto the supposedly sleeping boy's face, his eyes flickering open quickly.

'Why don't you draw me?' That was something that would always happen, too; Seamus asked that question every time until Dean finally answered a couple of months ago.

'I don't need to,' Dean had said quietly; this was the answer he had given himself constantly since they were in sixth year, 'I keep your picture in my heart-'

Seamus had sat up immediately, his expression half-way between "that is the silliest thing I have ever heard” and "if you can say it, you won't regret it” …

'- where I need it.'

After that, Dean had thought the place that Seamus would always be lying would be beside him.

But not now, not anymore.

Seventy-two days.

That's all it had been. Out of an eternity they had promised each other, just seventy-two days in which they welcomed each other into their beds, into their hearts ...

Mine still beats on and I wish it would stop, Dean made the plaintive cry inwardly. He knew that Seamus would have rolled his eyes and given him a cheeky grin at how "silly” that was, but he wasn't there -- Dean was. He was still alive to keep that promise of eternity; Seamus had no forever to give him.

Oh please, let them be, let them be. The plead for Seamus' happiness went out to whomever it was that could make it true.

For a second, just one, the thought that Seamus could hear him despite the barrier between them was a comforting thought.

The words of Mr Finnigan's song touched him again, and he lifted his head up mournfully, as though the weight might be too much for his neck. For the first time he looked directly at the daffodil-laden casket in front of him.

I love you.