Seamus Shamed

Seamus Shamed

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'You dare to bring me this ... this ... insult to our values?'

Seamus swallowed nervously. He hadn't expected his mother to react like this. 'It's only a permission slip.' He wondered if he should have asked his Muggle father after all, instead of assuming that his mother would have remembered her own days at Hogwarts and been more amenable.

'And what, may I ask, d'you think it's asking my permission for? It's asking my permission for you to lead a licentious lifestyle, that's what it's asking for!'

'It's not like that ...'

'Of course it's like that! I would never, never have dreamt of even showing this sort of thing to my parents! I threw mine away before I even got on the train! D'you not recall the regrets of your Great-Great-Aunt Maeve?'

'I never even met her -- she died before I was born.'

'Aye, she did. Well, I'll tell you her story ...'

Seamus settled back into his chair, resigned to a long story which would end in a moral that he could already guess.

'... she had one of these as a girl at Hogwarts. She convinced her mother to sign it -- I don't know how -- and when she returned to the school, she asked for the potion and used it to indulge in carnal relations with a boy at the school, without any fear of the consequences.'

So far, this was just what Seamus himself was hoping might happen. What had happened to the sad ending and the inevitable moral?

'But nothing came of their illicit love. I don't know what happened to the boy -- or even what his name was. He'll be long dead by now, worn out by his life of licentiousness. Maeve returned here, and met a nice Muggle, her true love, who she later married. She always regretted that she hadn't saved herself until she was married. Even on her deathbed, aged a hundred and twelve, and long a widow, she told me she had always been faithful to her husband, except for the times at Hogwarts with that boy. She praised me for having never given way to that temptation.'

She looked at Seamus. 'Now you bring me this. What sort of a son did I bring up? Would you waste your life's energy in sordid pursuits of girls who are no better? I am appalled at the very thought of it! Learn from Maeve's mistakes. Learn from my experience. Wait until you are married.'

Seamus' feelings must have shown on his face, for she frowned at him. 'You're not convinced. Have you not even listened to a word I've said?'

'Why would it be so bad to, er, indulge with a girl if I did intend to marry her?' he asked nervously. 'That wouldn't be being unfaithful, just ... anticipating the marriage.'

'You're not understanding at all,' she said despairingly. 'Maeve thought the boy at Hogwarts would love her forever, and that she would love him. She said that the boy had proposed to her, that they were only waiting until they had left Hogwarts, and he had a job and could support them both. She was misled.'

'Do you think I would lie to a girl like that?' demanded Seamus indignantly.

'No,' his mother admitted. 'I would hope to have brought you up better than that. However, you cannot know if she is lying to you.'

'I think that if I thought I loved someone enough, then I would be able to tell if she really loved me.'

'Ye're still not willing to wait until your marriage night?' She sighed. 'Very well, I make you this offer: save yourself, remain pure until your marriage night, and on the day of your wedding I will give you one hundred Galleons.'

Seamus was amazed. That might not be much money to Harry Potter or a Malfoy, but it was certainly much more than he'd ever had at one time.

'I mean it. Can you turn down that much money to start your married life, for a few thrills now?'

Seamus shook his head numbly. His mother smiled. 'Good lad.'

Seamus went up the stairs to his room, and sat looking out of the window. He was still dazed by her offer. However, he was not so dazed that he didn't realise she was going to have to take his word for it. He merely had to be convincing when she eventually asked, and if telling Professor McGonagall he'd finished his homework but left it in the Potions class by mistake wasn't good practice for that, he didn't know what was.

However, it was clearly going to be a bad idea to forge his mother's signature onto the permission slip before he got back to school.

*

Downstairs, his mother was looking at a bookshelf. She pulled out Miranda Goshawk's Spells in Adult Life and checked the index before finding the spell she was looking for. 'Ah, this is the one,' she thought, 'Veritafilias -- cast on your own child, tells you if what he says is the truth.'

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