#now0nfire

How could Theodore possibly not laugh? It wasn’t all that much of a sex dream—then again, there was a high chance there was more to it than Seamus had mentioned so far—, but the setting of it was simply hilarious. Maybe it was the alcohol (even though he hadn’t had much of that yet), but Theodore rolled on his side, looking at the other boy with a smirk on his lips.

“That’s so weird. My dream self must have been horrible at whatever I was doing if you noticed the mandrakes watching.” He could feel his cheeks heating up, but Theodore found that he didn’t care all that much. They were just having some fun, after all; two teenage boys sharing some firewhiskey and talking about sex dreams. It was completely normal.

“Anything else about it worth mentioning? I have to admit I’m curious now.”

@now0nfire for selkie verse.

Today’s hunting had been good. Rachel had found three interlopers creeping through the forest with their clumsy human weapons clutched in their sweaty hands. She had killed one and sent the other two running -- one injured and bleeding and easy to follow, the other reeking of fear -- all the way back past the borders and back to their ugly little lives, no doubt to spread more stories about the dangerous Bear Spirit that protected these woods and all the secrets that lay beyond its borders. Her paws left bloody prints behind as she lumbered through the snow and when she stood up, tossing her cloak back over her shoulders, her pale arms were red nearly to the elbow.

She was grinning through an equally bloody mouth as she walked toward the stream to clean-up before returning home -- the blood didn’t taste as good in her human mouth, but it was a taste that Rachel had become used to over the years -- but the grin fell away abruptly when she realized that she wasn’t alone. Someone else was in the clearing, someone else who walked on two legs. Had they seen her change? Her eyes were still weak and blurry from the transition and she blinked to clear away the grizzly’s sight even as her bloody hands reached for the edge of her cloak.

Rachel made herself wait; she knew she needed to ask questions before she tore the interloper’s throat out: needed to know how they’d come to be here, what they knew. “Hail and well-met,” she said, the traditional greeting rusty on her tongue. When was the last time she had spoken to any human being? Rachel couldn’t remember and for a moment the thought had her reeling, but she shook it off and shook her head, squinting at the figure as they came into focus. “What brings you so deep in the woods this fine day?”

Leaning back in his chair, Ted eyed the young boy who wasn’t really so young. A war would do that to a person. Hell, he was developing grey hairs, and it simply wasn’t fair. Though, at least he was alive to do so. Something to be said for that. And plenty to be said about Seamus Finnigan. Ted knew, because he was pretty sure he’d heard just about all there was to say, during those long months of being on the run with Dean Thomas. Too much, perhaps. The sort of sharing that came with living barely one step ahead of death constantly, trying to make amends with all regrets and grievances before it caught up with you.  

@now0nfire | in response to this.

“Are you mental?” The words popped out a little sharp, a little shrill -- but Draco was too shocked to modulate his tone to something more polite. “You want to go home? My home?” He shook his head, feeling numb -- and not from the mediocre alcohol he’d nursed all evening in an attempt to make the situation more palatable. He shouldn’t have come, but he’d thought it would be more of a problem if he didn’t -- but he didn’t belong here, and both Draco and every other person in attendance knew it.

He wasn’t sure why Seamus was even talking to him. Yes, they’d shared a few...moments during that last year of school (Draco’s last year, anyway; he hadn’t dared go back, but he had no idea what Seamus had done with himself after the war; he’d been too busy hiding from the world and gasping with relief at not being in Azkaban to pay any attention to what anyone else was doing) but that had been a matter of being thrown together by circumstance, not choice. There was no way a loud, crass, belligerent Gryffindor like Seamus would have chosen to talk to Draco without some form of coercion...

But maybe he’d just needed to talk to someone and Draco had been there. It wasn’t like anyone else was lining up in a hurry to talk to someone who’d been on the wrong side and had the Mark to prove it -- not aside from that awful conversation Potter had forced on them both when he’d potted Draco’s botched attempt at a discreet arrival and gone over to welcome him. (Draco wasn’t sure what he could have said that wouldn’t have been awkward, but “Well I’ve been here before actually, back when this was my family’s house,” was at least better than “Well if you’d died like you were supposed to, I’d probably have inherited the place and be the one throwing parties here for everyone you hate,” which had been another option.) He’d spent the rest of the night lurking in the corners and wondering how long he had to stay before he could leave without looking like he was running away.

Draco wasn’t sure exactly how he’d ended up on a chaise in front of a faded tapestry of his mother’s family tree with Seamus Finnigan’s arm over his shoulders. The only upside had been that the grumpy old house elf that Draco dimly remembered from childhood visits here was as delighted to fawn over him as ever, which had meant a steady supply of drinks for he and Seamus both -- but perhaps that hadn’t been an upside, not if it led to Seamus spouting of mad ideas like that.

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@now0nfire | continued from this.

The door burst open hard enough to thump against the opposite wall, Hermione Granger storming forward through the opening without losing any steam. Her face was as red as her boyfriend’s hair and by all appearances, the only reason smoke wasn’t rising from her ears was because her even-more-disheveled-than-usual mop of bushy brown curls was too thick to permit the passage of oxygen from air to skin.

“Seamus Finnigan!” she screeched, stomping up to his seat without any acknowledgement of the room’s other inhabitants. “Seamus, you --you! -- when I -- how dare -- I can’t even--!”