Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Angst
Era: Post-War
Main Character(s): Seamus Finnigan; Lavender Brown
Ship(s): SF/LB
Summary: Seamus is just passing along the days until Lavender comes along with a cruel but helpful way of making him feel again.

Warnings: Were!Lav, character abuse, blood, sexual themes.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling and various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough" - Jean-Paul Satre

All memories led back to that touch.

That cold, heartless touch; given by eyes that laughed in the wake of his agony. But what was he to do? She made him feel more alive than the bottle did..so the physical marring was worth it...wasn't it?

The Irishman's eyes were red-rimmed and bruised from lack of sleep, lips chapped and swollen and he possessed a breath stronger than any whiskey could produce alone. To say he was miserable was a painful, painful understatement. And yet there was nothing to do. Because in his misery came a need he couldn't sate without pain...

She'd found him two years into his agonized, drunken state after the war, and he was all but pleased to see her. He'd thought her to be dead like so many others...but here she was, and his mind raced to a far more innocent time. When students dressed in their finest robes and danced and laughed - and most of all there weren't far so many dead among his friends. A time when her laugh lit up a room and her stolen kisses, hidden away from the bustle of all the other happy couples dancing the night away, making his heart flare for the first time with a touch of warmth.

But she hadn't come to offer him that warm, beautiful glow. No, she wasn't here to make him feel alive again, in fact, he'd begun to assume rather quickly that she was there to snuff out any hopes he'd had at improving his current, pathetic position.

The night of her arrival came back to him like it was only yesterday and at the same time it felt as though years had passed instead of months.

He'd been working in a shop in Diagon Alley, in the darker areas, where he didn't have to force a big grin for the children racing about for their supplies and giggling with excitement at the prospect of what he'd never been given - a perfect, untainted seven years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

It'd been nearly closing time, not that it meant much to him either way, as soon as he finished up sanding down the last of the bare, bristle-less brooms he'd been in charge of preparing for their next stage he'd simply go to a pub - or better, his sad excuse for a flat a mere five blocks from The Leaky Cauldron - and drink away any horrific memory that dared slip into his brain from that battle so long ago.

Despite his deep need to have no association with anything too painful from his past, or rather anyone that would serve as a painful reminder, there she was, waltzing into the shop without an ounce of shame.

But even he knew what those marks on her face, those deep gouges in her throat, meant. What she was. He knew why the shop keeper shooed her away like an unwanted beast. Because to them, that's all she was. Even the memory of Remus Lupin and how he fought valiantly in the battle for the side of good wasn't enough to change people's hearts on the particular subject of werewolves.

All the same, the shock of her wild, blonde locks that had faded and were streaked ever so slightly with gray, her brilliant blue eyes that had once been filled with laughter now dull, cold and calculating -and those scars..the deep rivets digging into the face that once held irresistible beauty, turning it into a dark, terrifying image- it'd been enough to shake him to the core.

She was certainly the last person he could've ever imagined to find was seeking him out. After nearly twenty agonizing minutes of sanding the same broom stick to near perfection he was finally let off - all but racing out the door with a half lit cigarette between his lips, out into the Leaky Cauldron, and finally onto the muggle street that lay beyond. And there she was, with her wild mane and unnervingly emotionless eyes standing across from him. Her pale, chapped lips curled upward at the edge that wasn't marred by Fenrir Greyback's cruelty. Despite the alarms ringing in his mind, his feet took him to the other side of that abandoned street.

He'd grown, now she stood just under his chin, looking frail and fragile where he was stout and care-worn. He tried to smile, but it looked more like a pained grimace.

"Hello, Seamus. Been a while." The words were cold and sharp, digging into him like tiny needles, feeling as though they pierced his very soul.

"Lavender.." Was all he could breathe out in his thickened Irish brogue, and she gave him a long, patronizing look that was followed by the coldest, most painful laugh he'd ever had the misfortune of hearing. And still he followed her as she turned, still he allowed her to lead him away. Still ignored the small part of him that had any common sense left.

Maybe if he'd listened to it, he might have been saved some agony and pride.

The walk was short, leading to a worn down looking apartment complex. She didn't speak and he couldn't seem to find his voice, so silence coiled around them, threatening to choke the befuddled Irishman. Somewhere along the line he lost his nerve-calming smoke.

Finally after slipping inside the building he assumed she was residing in, somewhere in the fog of his mind he knew what was happening but pretended not to, she led him into a dank, windowless room that nearly knocked the breath from him as he took in the reek of raw meat, animal, and dust. The door swung shut behind him, taking with it the last, dim light from the hallway.

He could look back on this and smile with a grim humor, feeling it was a lot deeper than just basking him in the shadows of the room, but trapping him in the dark, coldness of her as well.

She didn't speak, he'd begun to ache in his chest at the prospect of what she wanted from him, of what might happen. But before Seamus' mind could travel much farther into the gloom before him, he'd been shoved hard into the door behind him.

His lips had been claimed by her own torn, scarred and sinful ones. And his chest ached with more than just anxiety at the absolute wrongness that was held in her kiss. It wasn't like the Yule Ball, she didn't make his cheeks flush and his heart flutter, didn't bring new feeling into him like she'd done all those years ago.

Now it was about making him hurt, he realized. Her nails dug past his mundane muggle clothing, peirced the flesh and dug. He could only gasp in a mixture of horror and shock as she slammed him against the wall and dug her nails harder, giggling as her lips left his - relief washed over him at the freedom to breathe, but her harsh cruelty had blood trickling down his stomach, warm and just as wrong as being here was.

"Lav-"

"Don't. Don't speak. I didn't tell you that you could." Her voice was cold, making him flinch away. Then she giggled and the sound was demented and painful in his ears. "You thought I was dead. You wanted to forget me, too! And now you're afraid of me. Excellent." There was this mix of..he wasn't even sure. This violent, horribleness and a sick, borderline mad happiness, even enjoyment in her voice.

He felt dread creeping in on him from every corner as she removed her nails from his stomach, he wasn't sure how deep the cuts were but they were bleeding heavily. He thought maybe she was done as she had withdrawn from him, but he didn't dare move. Scarcely breathing.

The silence was deafening and his heart pounded so hard in his ears he thought for sure she'd hear it, call him out on it. But she did far worse. She grabbed his arm and gave a yank that made the grown man cry out, gritting his teeth to push back a scream. His shoulder burned and he feared it had been dislocated, or worse - broken.

She merely giggled and continued dragging him in his pain until with a final, "Hmph!" of triumph, he was flung forward and barely managed to spin enough to land on his side rather than directly on his stomach. Though the softness below him -and the revolting puff of dust and loose fur filled the air with the musty stench of a wild animal- was entirely unexpected.

As was the pressure atop him, the feel of her vice-like grip on his wrists as she rolled him onto his back, arms pinned above his head. And suddenly his brain was screaming, but the warmth, knowing there was a woman touching him, took more than the agonizing pain she'd already put him through.

Another sadistic giggle. In the dark he could almost pretend this was the old Lavander, that she was merely just playing and she'd soon cry out happily, "Fooled ya!" But the agony in his gut and the white-hot pain in his shoulder told him otherwise. Her cold eyes flashed in his mind and he knew this wasn't the same girl, it wasn't the same at all...But it would do, in times like this.

"Mm..Still as run by your hormones as ever, I see." Her voice wasn't as bubbly as before, now it was harsh and accusing as her hips rocked back and forth from where she sat straddling him. The motion of her pressing her most intimate parts against his own, the act of her shameless grinding, had him gasping and standing at the ready beneath her.

Continuing the agonizing thrust of her hips she leaned down and kissed the shell of his ear, licking at his neck and making him quiver, letting out throaty moans. Despite the fact that she'd released his wrists, there was a sinking feeling he wasn't to touch her.

Her lips paused over his ear where she whispered in the cruelest tone he thought she could muster, "I won't be gentle."

That was her only warning. And then her weight was lifted and he was left, both terrified and agonizingly aroused - and the touch of her skin on his, her bold torment of his long-neglected need, it only served to cloud him from accepting what she was doing. It had been too long..too long since he'd felt the warm skin of a woman, tasted her flesh, felt needed and satisfied.

And she was offering that, even if she had to torture him first - he hissed through his teeth as she drug those nails down his slightly sharp hip bones, the sound of tearing denim making him slip out of his reverie. She eventually had not only freed him of his constricting clothes and left him horribly exposed - he knew she could see him, even if he couldn't see her in this horrible darkness-, she'd also left a long, uninterupted gash from his hip to his ankle on both legs.

Warm blood trickled and part of him was concerned, but the majority was too busy enjoying himself as she began to rub her now bare skin against his own, his head reeling in both the carnal desires and the loss of blood. There was a mixture of horrible pain and terror mixed with shameful lust and want as she crawled back up, crashing her lips violently into his. Busting the skin and making them bleed.

He hadn't felt her lick at the blood oozing from his wounds at first, but he tasted it now, on his lips and invading his mouth with her tongue in tow, and it made him shudder in disgust, groaning as her sticky -and no doubt blood-covered- hand worked up his shaft, stroking and teasing it as she practically purred in his ear.

"Ahh..you want me, don't you? Or is it just the touch you care about? Would my face make your little friend less eager?" She gave a painful squeeze and he suddenly felt absolute, bone chilling fear overcome him at the thought that those nails - those nails that cut so easily into his flesh- were in such a close proximity to such a sensitive area.

A small whimper broke past his lips and he gasped sharply, she'd told him not to speak, and now he feared if he did she'd make him pay dearly, but at the same time, he worried that not speaking to defend against her statement might also result in what he had taken as a serious threat.

"Hm..well, it doesn't seem to matter. You still want me, don't you Shay?" She pressed her chest against his firmly, showing how well it had developed since he'd last seen her, and he bit back the urge to grasp them, fondle them. He managed to nod and make a little noise to answer her, though the pulsing need in her hand should've been answer enough.

The imminent fear of torture kept him frozen in place, broken to her will. But finally she seemed to take pity on his pathetic whimpers, rising ever so slightly before - with absolutely no warning- she brought herself down with a finality and a harshness that made him sure she would bruise both his hips as well as her own.

That didn't stop the gutteral moan of absolute pleasure from escaping him as she brought herself up and once more came down hard against him. Suddenly all to aware of the softness of her breast against his face, of the supple nipple brushing his lips.

"Enjoy it, Seamus. You're being a good boy." The endearing tone made him quiver and he was suddenly wrapping his lips around the sensitive areola and bucking his hips slightly. The room was filled with shameless moans, screams and other deeply intimate noises as Lavander ravaged his body for her own needs - and he was well aware of his own as well.

This had happened on many accounts since that day, and like every time he'd reached his breaking point with her nails deeply imbeded in his flesh, her howling like a wild animal, and he shot his hot seed deep within, she'd lower her lips to the sensitive muscle before his shoulder and giggled.

"I could do it, you know. Curse you, too. You'd deserve it. You survived with little to no real damage." She always said it, it always cut him, and she always teasingly brushed her teeth against his skin, but never did she cut him with them.

That would take away the intimidation of being cursed that gave her so much control over him in her mind.

And he always felt more and more of himself believing her when she said he deserved it.

And despite the wrongness of it all he'd started to convince himself that this painful, emotionless...thing between them was..some form of love. Some kind of need each of them had to fill - and they only suited the roles for eachother, no one else could do it.

That's what made him able to look at the deep scars she'd placed on him - never once did she taint his face, but she'd claimed his body and she wanted the world to know, even if he hid it under cardigans and jumpers.

Lavander Brown, without a doubt, owned everything that was Seamus Finnigan, and his twisted, warped mind allowed her to do so, because he had to feel needed as much as she needed control.