It's after the dawn has come and gone that she sees him. They've all grown and changed over the past year, but where he was once joking and fun, now he laughs at death and dances daily with fate, doing some Irish devil-may-care step that she both envies and fears. She still fears for him, even though she supposes that now it's really all over. But this whole... free from You-Know-Who thing, it's just a little bit crazy. Just a lot crazy.

She was never cut out for this. She wasn't ever meant to be a fighter, someone who would take their life into their own hands and try to defend it as well as they could. She was elegant and floaty, carefree and, if she'll admit it, rather useless. Or she used to be. Now she could duel to not only defend herself, but to protect other around them and kill if she needed too. She swallowed. She didn't want to think about what she'd done a few hours before. But there had been a mask and a dark robe, and cruel laughter, and flashing lights and she'd just screamed out, "Avada Kedavra!"

Then the laughing was gone.

She shudders, rubbing her shoulders with her hands. She'd been terrified and elated at the same time, and that sickened her beyond belief. I never meant to kill anyone. But she'd been scared, so scared, and she thought that you had to mean the unforgivable curses but apparently fear could stand in for will sometimes. She didn't like it, but she didn't like a lot of things like that. Fear could stand in for a lot of things when it came down to it.

She turns her attention back to him. She's bruised and bloodied, and she doesn't know if her left eye is gone or merely swollen shut and covered in dried blood, but she can't open it. She knows that she ought to get someone to look at it, but she can hear the Healers still fighting to save lives and she doesn't think it's that urgent. She could lose an eye if someone else lived. She could lose a lot more things than she could have the past year if someone else lived.

But if she looks bad, he looks like a dragon chewed him to bits and then threw him up after having a really bad hangover. No Healers are fussing around him despite this, but he's probably scared them off with his glare. His face is dark somehow, even though he's obviously lost more blood than she thought anyone had in their body and he was pale anyway. She swallows hard, then stands up and walks towards him, only running into a table once because she can't see it.

When she comes to a stop in front of him, he looks up at her, but doesn't say anything. She speaks up instead, her eyes flicking over the myriad of cuts lacing his body. "You should get those seen to." A few months ago she would have greeted him with a kiss, maybe even a few days ago. They'd been something between friends and lovers, and she'd never been entirely sure what, but she'd always wanted more.

"Really," she says, going on even though he's not speaking. "Blood loss can send you into shock." She bites her lip, wishing he would speak, anything but just stare with hooded eyes. When he doesn't she sighs and sits down next to him on the bench, pulling on her shirt and ripping off a bit. She conjures a shallow bowl and fills it was water from her wand, then casts a slight heating charm on it. She dips the piece of cloth into it and then folds it over, reaching over for his arm. She grips it gently, holding his wrist and starting to clean off the blood, working up his forearm and across his elbow, stifling winces at every scar new and old that she crosses.

He doesn't object, and for that she's grateful. She has to change the water before she's done with his right arm, and she has to clean the scrap of linen because it's stained red. He's like a statue, not hissing in pain when she accidentally presses too hard with the cloth, or rubs it over an open cut. She has to not do so herself, and she doesn't know how he's so silent. Then again, she's never been able to really know what he's thinking.

She finishes his left bicep and sees a dark patch under his sleeve, but he turns away slightly when she reaches to push it up. She lets him. She turns to his face and swallows hard, wringing out the cloth in the water that's been changed again and then dabbing gently at the lacerations on his face. His eyes are still on her and while it's unnerving, it gives her shivers up her spine that she's rather fond of. Once his forehead is clear of dried blood she moves down to his cheek, cleaning a long cut that runs for the point of his jaw on the right to his nose, barely stopping before his eye. She mops up the blood that's spilled from it and then stands after doing the same for a long gash on his neck.

It's terrifying that she can see what's under his flesh, and yet she knows inherently that he won't let anyone else do this. She walks over to the Healers and asks quietly if she can have a salve that's good for curse cuts and bruises, and something to dull pain. A kindly and distracted woman hands her some stone containers, and she carries them back to where he's sitting. He blinks slowly as she sits down, and she speaks again. "This is a numbing salve," she says as she opens it. "I know you'd never admit it, but you've got to be in a lot of pain." She smears it as gently as she can across the worst of his cuts, taking care especially with the one on his face and the other on his neck.

"This is a healing ointment," she continues, closing the first container and opening the second. "It's supposed to be good for curse scars and magically inflicted injuries." She dips two fingers into the thick, dark purple stuff and begins to apply it to his arms.

When she has covered every last cut and bruise she can find, she sits back. She doesn't know how much time has past, but no one's really left the Great Hall for long. There are still tears and people are still crowding around Harry Potter. She understands, but right now, the Boy-Who-Lived doesn't matter as much. Yes, she'd probably be dead or wish she was if he hadn't defeated You-Know-Who, but he hasn't made her heart dance, hasn't confused her and certainly hasn't made her fall in some kind of love with him.

He's still watching her, and even though he's got purple gunk all over him, it's not a funny sight. She looks at him, taking in every inch, then stands to go. He needs his time alone and she knows that—she hasn't seen his best friend anywhere, but she's probably because she's refusing to look at the bodies.

A hand holding her wrist makes her stop in her tracks, and she halfway turns around. "Sit," he demands gruffly, and she does so, wincing as he takes the water-soaked cloth and begins to minister the same treatment that she just gave him. He slowly clears the blood off of her eye, and when he tells her to open it she does so, slowly, waiting for the pain to hit. It doesn't though, and suddenly she can smell the pain-numbing salve on his fingers.

He treats her shoulder next, where there's a bite mark from human teeth. She closes her eyes as he tends to it, remembering screaming as that... thing bit her. There's more marks on her back and covering her shoulder, and she almost falls asleep sitting up as he works, and he shakes her ever-so-gently to wake her more than once.

It's something of a shock when he swings his legs around to the other side of the bench and slips off it, kneeling by her left leg. There's a set of three long slashes on her calf, tracing over her shin and almost down to her ankle. She looks at them in surprise. "I didn't even know those was there," she mutters. They must have come from Greyback as well. He coughs. If she didn't know better, she's think he was hiding a laugh.

He still doesn't say anything as he attends to the wounds, spreading the purple medication onto them with tender fingers. When he's done he sits back down on the bench, and she doesn't know what to do. She offers a shrug and asks, "Now what?"

A faint smile, something she hadn't expected, twitches at his lips. "Let's get out of here." His voice is rough, rougher than normal, and yet she's so pleased to hear it it sounds like music.

"And go where?" she asks.

He's quiet for a minute, then holds out his hand. "Trust me." She takes it with a smile, and he Apparates both of them. The barriers that prevented Apparation on the castle grounds have long since been blown apart, and people have been disappearing and reappearing from the Great Hall the whole day.

They reappear with a crack onto a bluff overlooking a forest. "Where are we?" she asks.

"I have no idea," he replies. She's hesitant in laughing, but eventually it spills out. He watches her, a tiny smile on his lips.

"Why did you help me?" he asks once she's calmed down slightly, a little embarrassed for laughing like that while he just stood there.

"Because you're my friend," she responds immediately.

"So you would have done that for anyone?"

Is that a trick question? She's confused, but says slowly, "No. Not really. Anyone I would have sent to the Healers, but you're... different."

"Why, Lavender?" Him saying her name causes a shiver to run up her back again, more icy heat in it than just his eyes produced.

They're not best friends and he knows it. They're not boyfriend and girlfriend and he knows that, too. But they're more than friends, if less than romantically engaged, and she doesn't know quite what to say. She fumbles for words. "I... I don't know, really. I love kissing you," she blurts out, then feels a flush cross her face. "And I just... I care."

Those simple words seem to make something break in him, and he steps forward and hugs her, tightly but being careful not to bump either one of their patchwork of hurts. She's surprised but she hugs him back, just as tightly. "Why did you help me?" She asks him back.

He pulls away slightly, placing a hand on the side of her face. She can still smell the salves on his fingers, lingering residue that mingle with his unique scent. "Because I love looking into your eyes." She knows she must still look awful—she hasn't had a shower in a few days, what with all that's happened, and the battle lasted all night and she's got to be filthy—but apparently he doesn't see that. Or maybe he doesn't care. She can feel by the stinging in her eyes that they're red with exhaustion and pent-up tears that she won't allow to fall because there simply hasn't been time, but he's staring into them like he can see nothing else.

"Seamus..." she breathes before his mouth is crushing onto hers, and she's kissing him back with the same desperate intensity and even though she needs to breathe she just doesn't want to. He pulls back for the slightest moment and she draws a deep breath, mirroring him before they meld together again, her hands pressing him tightly against her as his hands tangle in her hair. She lets out a low moan and her responds by pushing closer (how was that possible?) to her.

Before she knows what she's doing, she's tugging on what's left of his shirt, pulling it off of him and running her hands over his chest, still careful of the cuts that she didn't get a chance to clean. Even though she's barely seen where he's been hurt the image of him is burned into her memory and she just knows where to be gentle.

He's the same, unbuttoning her shirt and pushing it off her shoulders, tender around her wounded shoulder and managing not to hit her other cuts. Then they're on the ground, springy green grass underneath them and then she's laying on his chest. She removes his belt as he hooks his thumbs into the band of her panties, pulling her jeans low onto her hips. There was no point in wearing robes in the battle—the moment she knew there was going to be a fight, she'd changed into something that she could move in.

For one moment, after they've both lost all their clothes, he's still. "We don't have to do this," he says, his voice a husky whisper betraying his words. He wants her, and that makes her feel sexy and beautiful despite the dirt, sweat and blood that's still covering her.

"Yes we do," she replies, and that is the last that's said for a long while.

After, they're laying under his cloak watching the sun go down. She's curled into his chest and he has his chin resting on her head, arms pulled around her protectively. This is right, she thinks, turning her head to rest her cheek against his chest.

"What happens now?" his voice rumbles and she feels his question more than hears it.

She's silent for a while, her eyes on the sun as it slips behind the trees. "We go home. We let our families know that we've survived. We see our friends. We," her voice catches and she swallows hard. "We cry for the dead. We go to funerals and memorials, because we owe it to them."

"You keep saying we." He comments in an unreadable voice.

"Because I want you in my life, Seamus. There's been so much death; I need happiness too. And so do you."

"I don't have anything I can offer you."

"What does that have to do with anything? I just want you."

He puts his hand under her chin and turns her face to his. She's looking at him with shining eyes and his breath hitches in his throat, something that hasn't happened for a long time. It's been months since they started kissing, and they've known each other for years. He remembers talking with Dean about the prettiest girls, and she was always at the top of his list. He remembers asking her to the Yule Ball and being so pleased when she said yes, even though he stepped on her feet when they were dancing and she had clearly had dancing lessons. He remembers feeling insanely, inexplicably jealous when she went out with Ron, then sickened by how she acted. She was never like that around him. Or maybe he just hadn't minded when she was like that around him.

And then he'd watched her grow and struggle and cry the past year. He'd seen her tortured for a missing assignment on why Muggles were disgusting and worthy of being crushed, and helping her stand up, ignoring Carrow's threats. He took his own Crucio that day for supporting her, and she cleaned him up then too. It was becoming a habit of hers, but this was the first time he'd reciprocated. He remembers the night before the fight (was it really only last night?) and seeing her in the Great Hall, light shining in her hair and a determined, yet fearful look on her face. She had changed so much, but there still was some kind of fear about her and he liked that, because it made him want to protect her.

The bite marks on her shoulder had made him want to hurt the person who did that to her. He doesn't know who it was; they had been separated despite his wanting to look after her in the fight. He hopes that they had taken a long time to die. He kisses the side of her neck, drawing a mild shudder from her. "This won't happen again," he swears, tracing a hand down her shoulder.

"Nothing like this will happen again," she murmurs, turning her head to press her lips to his hair. They are silent for another long period, and then she sighs. "We should head back."

He makes a noise of discontent and she smiles against his scalp. "I don't want to either. But I need to let my parents know I'm all right, and... there are things that need doing." He knows it's true but he doesn't want to go, and it's with reluctance that they both start gathering their clothes and donning them.

It's nearing eleven at night when Lavender gets home. She knocks on the door and greets her little sister by throwing herself into the smaller girl's arms. Her mother and father race to the door as well, and there's a pile of Browns hugging in the door frame for minutes before they disentangle themselves and head inside.

Seamus knocks a few hours later, hands shoved into his pockets and cleaned up a bit. She brings him inside and introduces him to her parents. She's changed clothes and has taken a shower, and they eventually go to her room, because everyone is exhausted by the past few days. She knows that normally her parents would throw a fit about her having a boy in her room, but everything's gone mad now, but in a good way, so somehow it's all right.

They attend funerals and memorials, reunite with friends, laugh and cry and smile together. And somehow, even though the world has gone completely mad and then it righted itself to an even crazier place than before, a place where kids can be kids and not have to worry about fighting evil and for some reason this is nearly incomprehensible, he knows it will all be okay. And the best part is, he knows that she knows it too.

It's fluffy and short. But it popped into my head and... yeah. Leave a review if you enjoyed it, or have a suggestion on how it could be better or whatever. All reviews are welcome!