Trip the Light Ambiguous

trip the light ambiguous

2

Seamus was doing incredibly badly; far worse than anyone in the household had anticipated. He had holed himself up in his guest room and refused to come out for anything. He had even resorted to using the toilet only after everyone else had gone to bed. He would not touch food. He refused to speak with anyone. Of course, the "household" itself wasn´t collectively dealing that well, either.

"He needs his sheets changed," Hermione grumbled irritably on the Thursday following the Incident, as Draco so tactfully referred to it. "He needs the rest of his laundry done as well. Someone has got to open his door."

Draco, who was perched on the arm of the sofa, cross-legged, with a copy of Vogue Wizard Edition spread across his lap, blinked up at her, his face bearing the look of someone who was contemplating the meaning of the universe. "Hmm, thanks for informing us of that. I mean, you know, I never would have spotted that on my own. What about you, Harry?"

"Shut up." Harry said, doing as he usually did: smacking him. He turned to Hermione then, face serious. "We know, Herm. We´ve tried. He´s just...locked himself in there. It´s like...his fort or something."

Ron decided he wanted his opinion to be known then. "I´m wasting my sick days on this damned...visit, if it deserves to be called that. I intend to have fun, like we were the other day. We only have this week and the next off. Either get Seamus out of that room or I´m leaving."

Harry gave him a very harsh glare indeed. "Look. I am trying my damnedest to fix this mess, all right? It´s just...he needs to talk to Dean, and we can´t get a hold of him. It´s almost as if...Dean is ashamed of getting married."

"Hell, I would be."

"Draco! Nobody asked you!"

"You know, dearest," the little blonde imp replied with a hint of disdain, "you´re getting to be quite abusive lately. Is it the lack of sex, or..."

The murderous aura that had surrounded Harry prompted him to stop right there.

"Maybe he doesn´t want to hurt Seamus," Hermione pointed out.

"Then he´s a fucking coward." Draco said. And from the conviction that peppered his voice, he meant it. "I hope Finnigan can see that."

"So what are we going to do, then?" Ron asked, leaning against the table. "We´ve tried what we can, haven´t we?"

Draco, Hermione, and Harry sighed.

"What charm did he use, then?" Harry asked.

Hermione shrugged. "I don´t know. I don´t know if he´s used one."

The men, simultaneously, stared at her. "You mean...you haven´t even checked?"

"Well...no. I mean, it´s just...I wanted to be able to talk him out rather than...force him."

"Always the humanitarian, Granger," Draco sneered. "I see you haven´t won an award for it yet. I wonder why?"

She bristled. "I see none of you checked for yourselves, have you?!!"

"You told us you had tried everything, Hermione," Harry snapped. His mood was growing darker by the moment. "Generally by saying `everything´ a person means `everything´."

Ron glared at him. "Would you stop it?"

"I wanted to give him a chance to heal!" she hollered, stomping her foot much as she had as a girl.

"Oh, lovely job, Doctor. Unfortunately, I don´t think it´s working, is it?" Draco replied in that voice that suggested he was talking to a four year old who was in need of a scolding.

"All right, all right! Enough. Hermione, Ron, you go...open it," Harry said, rubbing his temples. "I´ll try and talk to him."

Draco pouted. "What about me?"

"Go away."

"Oh." He looked crestfallen. "What if you need my help?"

"We won´t."

Draco smirked before trotting off into the kitchen.

Hermione raised her eyebrows suspiciously. Harry shrugged.

"Let´s get started, then," he said in a very listless and rather annoyed tone.

They all made their dejected ways down the hall.

*

"He really is...a...quiet little bugger...isn´t he?" said Ron as he began trying to pull the doorknob off with brute physical strength. "You realize he hasn´t...said...one bloody...ugh!...word since we started?"

From what Hermione had come up with, the knob itself wasn´t charmed; the door just seemed to be...well, glued shut. With what, though, they couldn´t really tell.

"Perhaps he isn´t in there," Harry put in while listlessly kicking the door.

Getting frustrated, he finally put force behind it. All this resulted in was cursing and slightly injured toes.

"Oh damnit, Hermione! This isn´t working!" Ron hollered, shaking his head at Harry´s toe.

"Will you stop whining for just a minute?" she answered irritably. She was going through a very large volume titled The Magical Methods to Magnificent Mischief. Seeing as it was one of the Weasley twins´ old relics given to Harry as a birthday present eons ago, the boys looked at it as her way of avoiding physical labor. "I´m think I might have found what we ne-"

"Does somebody need my help?" came the singsong voice of the Blond One from the end of the hall.

"Draco," Harry said in a very harassed tone, "We don´t need any help."

Draco ignored him...not that that was anything out of the ordinary. "I might know how to fix it." He swayed back and forth on his feet. Harry watched him for a moment.

"Are you drunk?"

"No," he said in an unsure tone.

Hermione looked him over. "I think...I think he knows something."

Ron made a very loud, very rude noise. "Stupid git is pissed off his ass; ignore him. Just come up and help me get these...thingies out of these...other...thingies. What the hell are these, Harry?"

"I am not pissed!" Draco declared.

"Muggle hinges. Those things holding them in are screws," Harry replied kindly.

"Come on Ron, let him help," Hermione said suddenly. "You say he´s quite a lot stronger then he looks, isn´t he, Harry?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

Ron, however, was still rather fixed on the screws. "Screws...screwed...Oh...so that´s where that term comes from!"

They all blinked at him for a moment. "You didn´t know what a screw was, Ron?" Harry asked.

"Well, Dad had them around, I just...never really knew what they were used for."

"You´re an idiot," Draco declared. "Now stand aside, Weasley!"

Harry shot Hermione a look. "Are you sure this is entirely...wise? You aren´t acquainted with what he can do, Herm. Especially when he´s...you know...inebriated like he is."

"I am not inebriated!" Draco hollered. He kicked Ron out of the way much as he would a house elf. "Extracus liberias!" Bright green bolts flew forth from his fingertips, and he grinned. The door glowed for a moment before dissolving into sawdust. Hermione barely made it out of the way in time.

"Did you see that? He just did that without a wand! He just made...fire...come out of his fingers!" she shrieked.

"How in the hell did he do that?" Ron cried, lying on the floor. His entire front was covered in black.

"I told you he´s unpredictable, Hermione," Harry muttered.

"It wasn´t fire Granger; it was the solution to the charm he´d used on his door."

Harry bristled. "Draco! Don´t be an a--charm?"

Draco looked quite smug indeed. "The charm. He told me about it last night."

"Why the hell didn´t you tell us sooner?!!" Harry cried.

"You never asked me," he said in an innocent little voice.

"He told you?" Hermione said in disbelief. "I find that hard to believe."

"Oh, fuck off, you Mu-"

"Um...guys? I don´t think anybody´s in there..." Ron said suddenly, peering inside the room.

Automatically, the bickering stopped, and three other pairs of eyes collectively surveyed the room.

Sure enough, there was no sign of Seamus.

Harry groaned. "Oh. Fucking lovely, real swell and all that. We destroy one of my bedroom doors only to find that the stupid ass has left. Great."

"I knew it was too quiet in there," Ron muttered. Hermione sighed.

"Well, at least we know where he´s headed," she said softly.

"Where?" This was Ron again.

"Oh, honestly...Dean´s, you prat," she replied, rolling her eyes.

"Oh. Right."

Draco brushed off his hands with a flourish. Harry stepped over the threshold into the bedroom. He glanced around noiselessly. The room had been cleaned meticulously...the sheets were clean; almost untouched. There was no luggage lying around anywhere.

"He´s really left," Harry muttered. "All of his things are gone." He turned angrily to Draco. "He didn´t tell you he was leaving, did he?"

"Of course not. I would have told you that whether you´d asked me or not."

He went toward the window and glanced out of it. There was no sign of anything...it all looked horrifically normal. Harry rolled his eyes.

Really, though, he should´ve expected it. When was the last time Seamus, of all people, had been able to keep his mouth shut for ten minutes, let alone two whole days?

*

It had been quite a long time indeed since he had flown on his broomstick. He had nearly forgotten the way the ground looked all those hundreds of feet below-alright, so hundreds may have been a bit of an exaggeration-and the way the wind whipped through his hair-although, with the way his hair was styled, it was sort of just flattened against his head. There was so much more freedom in flight. There was no traffic, no road rage; none of the silly Muggle crap that he had dealt with on the streets.

There was, however, no storage space, so he´d sent the lot of his luggage to his special storage safe in Hogsmeade for the day. But that wasn´t the main reason he´d stopped flying.

The months following the fall of Voldemort, or more accurately, the Death Eaters as a whole, had been incredibly trying for those involved, especially those of the younger set. During the actual struggle--or that accident that was supposed to be their seventh year at Hogwarts, more specifically, many lives had been turned upside down. Seamus was no exception.

He, like most of the other half Muggle students in the school, had been shipped home during the winter holidays. While enjoying his vacation time and being safe, he received a letter requesting that he not return. His parents, being the mindful folks that they were, did just as the letter told them to do. On December thirtieth, he and seventeen other magical families in their area received decrees issued from the Ministry of Magic informing them that they were to be shipped to a secure Muggle location in Soho to protect them from the threat of attack. During these months spent hiding and being generally paranoid, Seamus had been forced to leave behind his innocence and was suddenly faced with the very real threat of never being able to use his magic again.

By mid-January, the area they occupied contained thirty-two families and twenty individuals, many of whom Seamus had never even met. They were not allowed to speak to each other.

On January twenty-ninth, four hundred or so Death Eaters, and Voldemort himself, infiltrated the area. Ten Hogwarts students-a few, such as Parvati Patil and Justin Finch-Fletchley, having been Seamus´s good friends-were killed. Teams of Unspeakables arrived with Aparation units and swept the lucky ones off to some other so-called safe location.

Seamus, though, was not one of them. While trying to find his father (who was a Muggle after all) amidst the chaos, he stumbled upon the body of a girl close to his age. She was lying on the ground and was clad in denim trousers, a ratty light pink vest, and one lime green sock. To add to the effect, she was covered from head to toe in flecks of gooey reddish-gray mush. He never had the guts to find out what it was.

The thing that got him, though, was the bright orange hair, cut pageboy style. It was Ginny Weasley.

He´d picked her up and carried her away into a safe alley some distance away. They hid there for two days.

When he´d gotten around to reading the news, he discovered that Cornelius Fudge, who had gone missing two weeks previously, had been discovered amongst the corpses scattered about the narrow strip of housing, the dark mark burned into his arm. They figured that he was the person responsible for giving away the location of the refuge.

For the duration of the struggle, Seamus and Ginny, having lost connections with their families, went from place to place in hiding. There were several occasions in which they kept a correspondence with Dumbledore. The letters they exchanged generally contained information about safe places and little else was said.

By the time the danger had passed, Seamus had become much more wary of doing anything magical. He´d never really gotten over it...not completely, anyway.

*

He arrived at the Thomas residence (or what, he hoped desperately, still was the Thomas residence) at a quarter past eight. The flat looked the same: small, cozy; very tall and narrow and suburban. The walls were brick; the trim was forest green. The curtains, which matched the trim, were drawn. Dean liked the curtains drawn. There was a car parked out front...some late model Lexus. It was a shockingly bright red. Dean loved red. The lawn was in nice condition. There were roses blooming in the bushes outside. (They always did. Dean made sure of that.)

He landed next to the car and, pulling from his pocket a small mirror and comb, fixed his hair and robes. Feeling sufficiently...sufficient, he strode up to the door and rang the bell. The Hogwarts alma mater greeted him in charming music box fashion. Nothing seemed to be amiss, but he couldn´t help the horrible feeling of dread that was coursing through his body.

They can´t be right, he thought angrily, they simply can´t be.

"Coming!" he heard someone shout.

A few moments later the door opened. Seamus swallowed hard and waited for his...friend to appear.

And then there he stood. "Can I help--Seamus?"

"Dean. Hi."

Dean blinked at him for a moment. The expression on his face was caught somewhere between horrified shock and extreme joy. "I...what are you doing here?"

He´d expected that question. Sort of. "Well...I was just...in the area, you know, and...I...wanted to see you. Is that...bad? Is it okay?"

Dean smiled in a very strange manner indeed, and followed up with a laugh that was just too strained. "Of course it´s okay. We´re old mates, aren´t we?" He coughed. "So...um, come in, then. Tea´s on...you must be freezing. You flew?"

"Yeah," Seamus replied bashfully as he entered the room. He set his broom against the wall. The room was warm.

"Your hair is green."

"Only some of it,"

Dean crossed in front of him, stared at him for a moment, and frowned. The uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach grew ten fold.

"I´ve missed you," Dean said, voice quivering.

Seamus couldn´t hide his resentment when he replied, "You have a funny way of showing it."

"I know, but...loads of stuff has been going on. Work is stressful, and constant, and..."

"Work?" Seamus asked dubiously.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "I´ve a job at the Ministry...security, to be exact."

Seamus regarded him for a minute. "Hmm."

And then Dean had enveloped him in a big hug, insistent and fierce and with a feeling of desperateness. All of the doubt, and the resentment, and the fear that had nestled in Seamus´s brain since Ron had told him all of those things...it all vanished. It was replaced by a very deep sense of comfort, one that he´d missed while on the road.

Dean pulled away and walked into the kitchen. Tea was, indeed, on the stove, and a plate of store bought gingersnaps sat on the counter beside it. The dishes were piled high in the sink, and laundry that needed to be done sat in a heap in the corner. There was no evidence of a wife anywhere.

Seamus plunked himself in the stool that he had sat upon the day before he had left with the band. He checked for the bit of fabric he´d burned with a cigarette...yes, there it was. He grinned.

"So. What´ve you been up to?" he asked, swinging his legs blithely.

"Oh, you know...same old shit. Two sugars, no milk?"

"Of course."

Dean went to the cupboard and pulled out two small cups...one red, one gold. They were some arty shape. Dean had always been arty. They were new.

"Are you still painting?"

Dean´s grip on the cup faltered for a moment. "No, actually. Don´t have the time, really."

"All grown up, are we?" Seamus said in a teasing tone, although now that he thought of it, it was true. Despite being home, Dean wore a white dress shirt, black trousers, and matching tie.

Dean had always hated ties.

"You could say that." He set the gold teacup at Seamus´s side. "Or maybe you couldn´t. What about you?"

"Oh, loads. You´ve read my letters, yeah? I mean...being home again is fabulous."

"I thought you loved touring," Dean said vaguely.

"Hell no...remember? I told you that in the one about New York."

Dean laughed awkwardly. "Oh! Right. Must´ve forgot."

"And our record is up for an award, can you believe it?" Seamus grinned. "For our song, even."

Dean looked rather surprised. "Our song?"

Seamus raised an eyebrow. "Yeah...our song. Don´t look so shocked, I mean...it was a good song, if I do say so myself. You...you liked it, didn´t you?"

"Well...I..." His dark eyes had gone rather blank. "Of course I did. I loved it."

Seamus watched him. His blood had gone cold. "You...you have heard it, haven´t you?"

"Of course, S, don´t be stupid. What did I just say?" Dean took a bite out of one of the gingersnaps.

"Then how does it go?"

"Well...I..."

The phone rang suddenly.

"...Seamus, I´m sorry, I just...I really don´t like punk."

The phone rang again, and Dean excused himself. Seamus set down his cup on the counter and went to listen. The anger his eyes had held during the poker game had returned. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall, watching Dean in silent, brooding fury.

"Hello...? Oh, hi Mandy...right...oh, I know...yeah, well, a friend is over...no, of course it isn´t him...right...see you, then...you too...´bye." He hung the phone up.

Seamus asked in an easy tone, "Who is Mandy?"

Dean regarded him with a very cagey look. "What are you going on about?"

"Nothing, just...being nosey. Is that still allowed now?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "You´re not being nosey."

A very laborious silence passed between them.

Dean raised his chin and smiled. It did not reach his eyes by any stretch of the imagination. "How was Greece?"

Seamus did not return the look. "Well, just lovely, really. I see you didn´t read that letter, either."

Dean looked at the floor. Seamus continued on in an innocent tone, "So what´s your excuse for this one, then? Surely you have one."

Dean bristled. "I lost it, and for your information, I did read your other letters, so don´t go pulling shit with me in my house. Need I remind you, you weren´t even invited!"

Seamus looked as though he´d been slapped in the face. "I...I´m sorry Dean, it´s just...I...you didn´t return the letters and I...I just...people have been saying things and-oh, never mind...it´s just..."

"No-I´m sorry Seamus, I..."

"Just...tell me what I did wrong."

His lover of too many years to bother counting watched him for a moment. His face betrayed no emotion. "You´ve done nothing, Seamus, it...it´s me."

That´s when he believed it. That was when Seamus knew Ron had been right. "Why didn´t you tell me?"

Dean sighed. "Because...really, I was just feeling insecure, with you gone and everything. I mean, things...maybe things will be...that is to say...I didn´t want to, you know, break up with y-"

"Don´t fucking mess with me, Dean! I know what´s going on!" Dean´s jaw fell slack. "Why didn´t you tell me? Why didn´t you tell me that you were getting married? That you were involved with someone?"

"Who told you?"

"Ron Weasley," Seamus replied quietly.

Dean expected him to begin crying. He didn´t. "I didn´t want...I didn´t want to hurt you."

"You coward," Seamus said. A smile had fixed itself to his face. "Load of bollocks. You didn´t want to hurt yourself."

Dean said nothing.

"So who´s the lucky bitch then? Does she have nice tits?"

"Seamus, don´t be such a-"

"Yeah, I bet she´s a real knockout. Bet the sex blows your mind. So tell me, how many children are you gonna have? Ten? Twenty? I bet they´ll all be boys, too. Look just like you." Seamus patted him on the shoulder. "Well, mate, it´s been a slice. No-don´t say anything-I´ll get out of your way." He strode across the room and took up his things.

"Seamus-I´m sorry...it-it doesn´t have to be like thi-"

"Dean, don´t be so cliché. It makes you sound like a girl. Somebody might think that you´re...gay or something!" He threw open the door just as the wife appeared in the living room. Her eyes were fixed on Seamus. He straddled his broom and without another word shot off into the sky.

Dean stood in the doorway watching him go, a frown on his face. How in the hell was he going to explain Seamus being in the living room to Amanda?

*

Ginny Weasley, a bad-mouthed, pouty, freelance writer for The Daily Prophet and fashionable employee of Red Balls, London, sat upon her favorite bench in the center of her favorite park wearing her favorite fuzzy black sweater reading her favorite book (A Simple Desultory Philippic, by Avis Cooper). It was her favorite day of the week: Friday, her favorite time of day: morning, her favorite sort of weather: bright and sunny but terribly cold. And yet, despite all of this, she was in her least favorite mood: completely, utterly depressed.

But then, she always got that way around this time of year.

Glancing at her watch, she decided that it was about time to have breakfast and get to work, but just as she was about to Aparate, her mobile began to go off (it played, in a series of mournful five-part computerized beeps, Weep O Mine Eyes). She sighed in annoyance. One simply could not travel when being nagged at by their pocket-sized phone.

Pressing "Send", she said irritably, "Weasley here. What do you want?"

"Gin?"

Her eyes lit up. "Harry? Hi! Long time no talk. Listen, sorry about not being able to come to the party, I just-"

He cut her off. "Um, about that."

"Uh-oh," was her response.

"Yeah. Well, funny thing is, Seamus found out the hard way that Dean´s gone off and gotten himself married."

"Oh hell."

"No kidding. Seamus just got back from talking to him and he´s in...well, he´s a mess."

"And that´s unexpected?"

"Um, might you skip a day at the store and pay us a visit?"

Ginny sighed. "Well, fuck, honey, I don´t know. You know how Steve is. He won´t give me a day off unless I´ve got internal bleeding or something."

"Well...any...conveniently fast-moving vehicles to throw yourself in front of?"

She snorted. "Yeah. I´ll see what I can do, all right?"

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh thank you, thank you! You´re the only person left who can calm Seamus down."

"And if I don´t work?"

"Well...St. Mungo´s is accepting new patients, isn´t it?"

"Oh, ha-ha-funny, Potter."

"Erm...sorry."

"I´ll call you back."

"Gin, love, you´re the greatest."

She frowned. "Or something."

With that, she shut the little silver phone and vanished. Bad moods? Grumpy, stupid employers? Internal bleeding? Ah, she´d handled worse. But a bitchy, depressed Seamus Finnigan? That she wasn´t so sure of.

**to be continued...