A./N. Thanks to my amazing wife Laura for betaing this when I desperately begged her at 10:00 PM... Can't thank you enough, darling. :)

Prompts (bolded are the ones I used): Repairs, Breakfast Table, Package, Pitch, Contempt, "They that dance must pay the fiddler"

This is my GGE fic for April (really last minute...) for Ash. Ash, I hope you like this! I'm a terrible person. You just told me how happy you are when Lavender survives in fics, and I know you love fluff... So I write you angsty dead Lavender. :( Sorry... *blushes* But I hope you enjoy, anyway!

"If I'd never met you, I wouldn't like you. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't love you. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't miss you. But I did, I do, and I will." –Anonymous

Love hurts. It hurts more than anything he has ever experienced, and yet he wouldn't give it up for anything. She is gone. Dead. And he hasn't spoken since.

The last words she heard were I love you. And right now, he wants them to be the last ones he ever speaks. Her face is dirty and marred with scratches. Some are deeper than others, and her entire body is dripping with blood. However, the cuts don't look that deep. Nothing a few healing charms couldn't fix. Mustering up the last bit of energy- and memory- he has, he quickly casts a couple of healing charms on her, and siphons off the blood.

The outward damage is repaired immediately.

The damage inside of Seamus only gets worse.

She looks perfect, he admits to himself. Her tangled blonde hair shields her face slightly, and her eyes are closed. He can't help but feel for a pulse, because she looks so alive. Now that she's cleaned up, it's almost as if she never was attacked. But of course, it's what's on the inside that counts. And inside of this beautiful girl with the golden lashes is a heart that has ceased its beating, lungs that no longer take in the air around them. Eyes that no longer look at him, smiling and bright. Lips that no longer brush against his with the slightest bit of a smirk.

She's dead. Only this past year did they really begin dating, did they become anything more than vague friends. But once they got closer, they were nearly inseparable. Lavender would always come running to Seamus after tortures from the Carrows, and he would hold her and whisper comfort into her hair until her sobbing had slowed down. And he would go to her when it just got to be too much: when Harry was gone, their only hope, and his best friend was dead for all he knew, and Neville, quiet, chubby, clumsy little Neville, was risking his life in ways the Seamus could only dream of doing.

Those were the nights when he wondered if he really deserved the Gryffindor label. And those were the nights he needed her most. But now she's gone, and he's clutching at her limp body and sobbing into her shirt, wishing that the arms he held would hold him back.

It's all Greyback's fault. The bloody werewolf. The feeling he had toward that... that thing was beyond anger. It was beyond hatred. It was utter contempt. Loathing. And yet another feeling came over him that he had never realised the strength of until this moment. Love.

He loved her. He had suspected it for months, never gathering the courage to say it until it was almost too late.

"Seamus," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "I... It hurts, Seam. A lot." He put his arms around her as gently as he could, pressing his lips to her bloodied hairline.

"It's okay, Lav. You'll be okay," he murmured back, a tear sliding down his nose. "You'll make it through this." He spoke just as much for his own reassurance as for hers, which was why he felt such a sharp pain when she responded, with surprising ferocity,

"Oh, shut up. We both know I'm done for." Seamus began to pull away, but Lavender dragged him back down by the front of his shirt. "No, no, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to sound angry. It's just... I don't want to hear lies, okay? I want to be completely honest with you, because I feel myself slipping away." Tears began to pool in her eyes also as she continued. "I... Look, Seam. I love you. I really do, and I wanted you to know that and I know this is totally cliched and kind of embarrassing and-" She broke off as the tears began to fall.

"Lavender," Seamus said, crying harder than before, "Yeah. Cliched. But, I love you." They held each other's gaze for a moment. Seamus took her hand, and she gripped it back, smiling slightly. They sat like that in silence for a few minutes, each smiling with trembling lips at the other.

At last, one of the hands let go. For the very last time.

That's how she died. Clutching the hand of the boy she loved, dripping with blood and tears.

And that's how he continues to live. Clutching the hand of the girl he loves, with her blood on his skin and dripping with tears.

He remembered them once going to the Leaky Cauldron in the beginning of the year, and dancing quietly in a corner together, just a little bit tipsy, to a fiddler's jaunty tune. Seamus was about to walk out of the pub, taking Lavender with him, when she gave him a reprimanding shake of the head.

"They that dance must pay the fiddler," she told him, her lips turned up in that smirk that made his heart skip a beat. So now, he walks over to Madam Pomfrey who is giving a potion to a weak looking seventh year, and takes a deep breath.

"Thanks," he says in a low voice. Madam Pomfrey looks startled.

"For what, dear?"

"For... for trying to save her. I know you did your best, and... thank you for that." He struggles to pay the fiddler, he thinks. He takes the music for granted, and Madam Pomfrey seems to realise this.

"Oh, dear," she cries, her voice suddenly raising pitch, "You sweet boy..." Throwing her arms around Seamus, she quickly draws back. "Well, back to work now..."

He walks back over to Lavender and takes her hand once again. It hurts to love. It hurts more than anything else, and it hurts in a way nothing else can. But he knows for certain that the memories he has, memories that can make him smile on his worst days, are worth the pain.

They're worth it all.