To Be A Magical Boy

Chapter 6 - Fourth Year (part 3)

Warning: Homophobia in this chapter

Seamus managed to make it out of the common room alone the next morning. It was ridiculously early, and not only because at his usual seven o'clock wake up everyone else would likely still be thickly embedded in sleeping the previous night's festivities off. Seamus hadn't slept at all so he didn't really have any difficulty with waking.

The common room was empty but for the fire crackling in the hearth. There was little to suggest that the Yule Ball had taken place the night before, which was only to be expected. Seamus supposed that even had any of his housemates returned to the Tower to drink or discard articles of clothing, the house elves would have swept through after them. He left the warmth of the common room for the cool corridors beyond and headed for the Great Hall.

Seamus wasn't hungry. He wasn't really anything but exhausted and gut-wrenchingly nauseous. But even so, it was better to pretend to fall back into the routine he followed even in the holidays than to let himself think. Seamus really, really didn't want to think.

The Great Hall was empty too. Empty of students and any evidence the Yule Ball had taken place at all. The icy dance floor had vanished, the round tables and overlarge head table returned to the normal four parallel lines and perpendicular companion. The giant Christmas trees had been rearranged back to their usual positions and the décor of tinsel and baubles, Christmas pixies and twinkling stars, were similarly replaced. Overhead, the typical, thin flutter of winter snowflakes fell silently and peacefully.

Seating himself to the Gryffindor table, Seamus was almost surprised to see the empty plates before him erupt into piles of toast, eggs and sausages, jugs of milk and juice springing as if straight from the table top. Or at least he was detachedly surprised; not much could draw him from his thoughts at that moment.

For Seamus was thinking. He'd never been particularly good at that, so maybe that was why he was having such a hard time of it. His mind seemed to be wandering in the same, weary tracks that wouldn't solve themselves and yet wouldn't stop repeating its steps.

Firstly, Seamus had been struck by a realisation. A horrible realisation that had resulted in him avoiding the common room until the wee hours of the morning to similarly avoid his housemates. Or one house mate in particular, that was. Seamus didn't know how he could face Dean, not after what he'd realised the night before. That he liked Dean. That he fancied him like a boy liked a girl, and that no matter how he tried to thrust the thought aside, when it had struck him and the truth of that realisation made itself know, Seamus couldn't think anything other. He knew. He knew it was true.

Seamus hated himself for it. It was one thing to think himself gay, but quite another to have that abnormality cast starkly into the light. He wasn't supposed to like people like that.

Secondly, the Hufflepuffs knew. Or at least Hannah and Wayne did. Seamus' closely guarded secret had come out, and that revelation made it seem only more real, only more impossible to change. Seamus didn't even know if he could change it, no matter how much he wanted to because God, what would his mam think? What would his uncails and aintíns think, his grandad and grandmam? His cousins – dammit, definitely Fergus – would give him hell if they didn't turn from him entirely. Seamus was scared, and even suspecting that Eoghan and possibly his dad might not hold quite the same disgust for him...

Seamus wasn't just scared. He was terrified.

And thirdly... thirdly was what had happened after. What had followed straight after Wayne had found him in the bathroom and folded himself down to the floor at Seamus' side. He'd told Seamus he'd known and then... then he'd kissed him.