Rating: R
Ship: HHr (main emphasis)
The (unlovely) procedure: all rights go to JKR for plot and characters, Scholastic, Warner, and whoever else has their hands in HP.
Author Note: This was written in one sitting this morning (I'd be interested in how you all like my `off-the-cuff' writing). I wrote this away from my notes as I saw potential for something better than what I had written down. I wasn't going to write a love scene until a chapter or two after nine; but again, the potential for a strong vision crawled out of the ashes after chapter eight. With the phrase "with every death comes life," I nearly titled this chapter suitably, "Life from Death".
***
Chapter Nine ~ Undone
Seamus became the innocent victim of a head-on collision. He was coming home quickly after working with his father at a construction site. It was his and Lavender's one month engagement anniversary. He carried with him a surprise gift: a necklace engraved with the date and time he proposed to her within the 24-carat gold. He turned onto a side-road and simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time, to put it mildly. The drunk driver swerved into his lane, and that was all it took.
Seamus died on impact.
The other driver? The other driver, completely intoxicated, walked away without a scratch. The two other people in his car also were left alive.
I thought about Life the days after receiving the phone call. I wondered, why him? Why Seamus? Why not the driver? Why not the rapist or the murderer on television? Where are those wonderful folks at? In a jail cell, living off our taxes, living off the wages of the innocence they screwed over. I remember just flopping on the couch and leaving Hermione crying in the kitchen. Seamus was my friend, a brother to me. I had been in touch with him and his family since leaving Hogwarts. He didn't live too far away from me. Now…now he was being lowered into his grave at the young age of nineteen. Just like me.
Snow drifted from the sky and landed on my black trench coat. Hermione stood beside me close with her leather-gloved hand tight with mine. We'd just heard the eulogy from the priest. We heard the tears of Seamus's mother, and the screams into the bitter cold. Seamus's mother fell into her husband's arms, swooning. Lavender ran towards Seamus's casket and held onto it, her arms trying to grasp whatever she could, her face in the bouquet of red roses in the centre. Seamus continued to lower into the ground, and I felt helpless, watching in tears while Lavender spoke to God and wondered the same questions I did.
His funeral was small, involving Hermione and I, Ginny and Neville, George and Angelina and Oliver and Dean. Before Lavender could fall into the hole Seamus lowered into, Ginny ran to her and pulled her back. Lavender fought Ginny, trying her best to get back to Seamus. I was rooted to my spot, and I felt Hermione's fingers press into my glove. The scene before us was horrendous and utterly heart-breaking.
The snow started to fall thickly. After a while, we could barely see around us as if our own little world mattered and everything else became nothingness. The Father said his last words and brought up a large cross on a chain around his neck. He put it to his lips and made the sign of the cross. He clutched the Bible against him and sauntered toward Mister and Misses Finnigan. Lavender let out a scream so powerful that she had to have busted her vocal chords, and all the while I stood still, looking on like a completely worthless fool. Lavender fell to her knees in the snow and Ginny fell right along with her, cradling her to her chest.
Lavender was taken home by Seamus's parents. She was going to stay with them until she felt like leaving, even if that stay lasted forever. Oliver and Dean gave us both embraces at the scene. They had to get to work, so they apparated out after telling Seamus they loved him and would miss him. George and Angelina stayed for a while longer, standing like the rest of us as if we were the graveyard's new shipment of statues. After what seemed like a lifetime of gazing toward the hole in the ground, George and Angelina left us before the chill became unbearable. The cold hurt me to my bone, but I didn't care. Maybe this was a punishment of some sort; so, I took what was given to me.
Hermione finally persuaded me to go back to Ginny and Neville's. I didn't want to move. I wanted to stay right there. I wanted to see Seamus crawl out of this and laugh like all the pranks and jokes he pulled while in Hogwarts. I wanted to call Lavender back and to have her happy again. I thought of me, or Hermione, in there. I saw Hermione in the casket, and I also saw me putting my wand to my skull and asking for an Avada Kedavra. That would be the end of Harry Potter. I couldn't, and wouldn't, think of what she'd do in my place. It was too much to even succumb to the thought of suicide myself. I didn't think I was crazy or a loon for thinking that way, or the possibility of going down that dreadful path of no return.
I ended up on one of Ginny and Neville's sofas. We apparated here after they had to pry me away from Seamus. Hermione could see my pain. I don't think I blinked at all. I don't think I breathed once before, during, and after the eulogy. On the sofa, Hermione curled up on me and wrapped her arms around me. She held her cheek to my heart and held my hand, our fingers intertwined together.
Ginny and Neville sat similar except Ginny was more upright. She stared into the corner at nothing. Lights from the television flickered across her face. No one paid attention to the talking box. The television had become white noise for me; something that tried to drown me of my depression. It hadn't worked for any of us as we all remained motionless with only our breaths audible at times.
Neville shook his head back and forth as if he were trying to shake from a horrific trance. He rubbed his eyes and saw his lover seated on the edge of the sofa. He placed his hands on her shoulders and lightly massaged, coming to remove her tension. Ginny sat there a moment. Her eyes were black. Her hands were in her lap and she was tilted forward. I didn't want to know what sort of thoughts were running through her mind. I had enough of them.
Suddenly, she moved. She stood up and we all followed her. Without a sound, no footsteps heard, she went right into the kitchen like a ghostly spirit. Neville turned around to see Ginny leave, but swerved back. He placed his hands on his temples and gently rubbed them. We all heard the clinking of glass, bottles I assumed and lots of them.
I saw Ginny come back to their den. She had in her arms clear bottles and dark bottles, large and small, some I recognized and others I'd never seen before in my life. She obviously raided their liquor cabinet. She sat right back down in the very spot she stood up from. She used whatever she could, her elbows, her legs, her feet, to kick off books and a flower vase to the floor. A bowl of potpourri shattered, sanguine rose petals spraying everywhere.
She dropped the bottles in front of her. She didn't do it carefully either, just allowing them to fall from her arms and her chest. One liquor bottle cracked open from the bottom and the rich smell of pungent alcohol consumed the air. She took up a circular, medium-sized bottle and uncorked the top. She put it to her lips and pounded away at the liquid inside.
I reached over and took a long, slender clear one and unscrewed the top. One-hundred percent vodka. The odor could have knocked a grown man off his feet. I put the tip to my mouth and felt the hot, burning alcohol scorch my throat. I made a face, but pressed on anyway. I didn't care-I wanted to get drunk. I needed to get drunk. I wanted and needed everything to go away…at least for right now. I'll think about it tomorrow.
Hermione took the bottle from my hand when I'd drunk a third. She lifted a bit from my body and tilted her head back. I peeked into the vodka bottle and saw the liquid meet her tongue and pour down her throat. I saw her little esophagus rise and lower in drink. She let it go, giving the alcohol back to me when she'd finished a third in one, continuous gulp. Hermione laid back on me, her head on my chest, and her hair in chaos along my body. She closed her eyes and let out a tiny hiccup.
I put a hand on her cheek and she gripped it lightly. I leaned my head backward and alleviated the rest of the contents. My brain started to shut off, and I grew happy.
***
Hermione gripped my silver tie. Winding it within her hand, she pulled me straight off the bed. She straddled my waist and kissed me hard. She slipped her hot tongue into my mouth, and I tasted the unmistakable flavor of the stark alcohol she drank. She started undoing the knot in my tie. When the knot unraveled, I fell back to the bed and she fell with me. Her mouth stayed on mine locked in place and turned with every move of her body.
She threw away my tie and began at the buttons of my black dress shirt. I heard a moan from her throat, expressed when she breathed a second away from my lips. She was back on me after the brevity of the second, and when her tongue matched mine, I groaned. My hands were holding her to me, roaming inside the back on her shirt. I felt her muscles tense and relax with every wriggle of her torso.
I rose from the bed to have her yank down my shirt from my shoulders and off my arms. I helped her remove it, which in turn allowed me to watch her grab at the bottom of hers and pull her shirt away. Off from her head it went and tossed in some corner, hitting the wall with a simple thud. She took up my hands and placed them on her breasts, slipping them over her soft core and upward. I felt of the black lacey material of her brassiere, and the smooth flesh underneath. She used my hands to unfasten the clasp in front and down it fell around her slender hips. She wrapped her arms around me, gyrating her front into my waist.
When I attacked her throat with caresses, she stretched her neck. She tilted her head back and let escape a moan. Her eyes closed and I heard her pant. I held her backside and flipped us over, shoving her little figure into the mattress. I fit between her legs and drove myself into her. Her head hit the pillows, pushing them to the headboard. I pushed into her again, her hand going out to catch herself on the metal-and-wood above her face. She turned her head to the side as I bit down on her shoulder, and I felt her buck into my hips in reflex.
I slid my hands from her breasts, down along the trim of her form, to her lower body. I maneuvered my fingers sneakily into the elastic band of her black skirt and undid the clasp holding the sides together. The rigid, secure band loosened around her waist. I skated the cotton material down her legs. I bit her neck lightly after biting down on her shoulder, moving up to meet her mouth where she moaned into me. Having alleviated the bottoms, I slid right back between her thighs. Her hands pushed me into her by my rear.
My eyes were closed. I used my other senses to feel the tenderness of Hermione, the sweet taste of Hermione, and the fragrant smell of vanilla all around her. My lips hadn't broken away, her hands crossing my abdomen muscles to take care of my belt. I heard the aluminum metal of the clasps hitting each other and the gradual relieving of my black slacks. She couldn't get my pants down all the way as much as she tried with difficulty, fidgeting. I held where her hands held, pushing them into my crotch and ground into the centre of her body. She broke away from our kiss to breathe a heavy sigh.
I buried my face into her throat and licked at the hollow. Fingers entangling in my messy hair, she pulled at me as I kicked off my slacks. Our eyes opened quickly at the same time to see each other before shutting once more, our nearly naked bodies moving back-and-forth in synchronized friction. I had my fingers at her hips, my nails digging into her soft thighs. I slid away her panties and the black hosiery from the funeral. I heard a tear in the hosiery as I fought with them and eventually found myself with pieces of the sheer fabric in my hands.
I think I went to apologize for ripping her clothes, pulling away from her mouth only to have her halt me in a hard kiss. She lifted and tugged at my boxers. I pushed her back into the bed with my weight and helped her move the rest of my clothes down my knees and off my feet. Her lips were wet when I kissed them, the region down below similar to what I felt above. We paused for an instant, just for a moment when I pushed into my love slowly. She tightened around me, her hands holding at my neck and her legs wrapped around me. She arched into me, her body slithering underneath, rolling against my bare chest and stomach. I heard her clench her teeth, a hand going back to the headboard. She went to move into me, but hesitated, pushing against the wood with a sharp, sudden gasp. Her eyes went wide, and then rolled back into her head.
I tasted the saline amongst her lips when I kissed her again. Tears had fallen upon her cheeks, drizzling down along the crevice beside her nose and dripping to her chin. The tip of my tongue followed one trail on her cheek, kissing the spots that leaked down her neck before pushing forth against her mouth. I rocked into her gently, finding a steady rhythm with her body.
***
We lay looking at each other, our bodies satisfied far beyond biological gratification. I stroked her hair, combing each individual lock and strand in-between my fingers. She had an arm around me. Our faces were close, nose-to-nose. She'd open-and-close her eyes, never really blinking. We were still smashed, buzzed, but aware enough to realize the passionate harmony we made as one body with two minds. We breathed life into each other. I felt her warmth push against my face lightly, her panting subsiding.
The sheets were sprawled partly on us. Across the middle of her stomach at an angle, folded abstractly along my back. Her eyes wandered on my intent focus. I saw them trace along the features she could see without having to move, staying stationary after our love-making. I ran the pad of my thumb alongside her forehead, making her shutter against the coolness of my hand. She came back to me and smiled, her little breaths becoming a bit erratic from my light touch, but eventually slowed down.
She lowered her forehead on my chin and sighed. I felt her hot breath on the scruff of my neck, "I wanted to give myself to you before life could take someone else I love away from me."
A tear trickled down my cheek from her words. I pushed myself off the mattress and gently wrapped around her. I nuzzled my nose along hers and kissed her with intensity, my heart beating fast. She moved with me, bobbing her head to the side, our faces meshing together. I held the frame of her face with my hands, cradling her. I felt her toes curl around mine beneath the tepid sheets.
I said, "I love you," before pressing back into her.
{Inspirations for the Chapter: Come Undone by Duran Duran on loop; the psychological duality of music and lyric are so alike in the way our minds have evolved}
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