Title: Fields of Lavender; Bundles of Forget-Me-Nots

Author: Hesta's Journal

Word Count: 3168

Type of Story: Oneshot

Summary: "At times he hates it because he wakes up and realises that he's rather pathetic for not having a fling with a real girl." Seamus learns that love exists in more world than one.

Author's Note: Written for opaque-girl's The Cross-Gen Competition. My given pairing was Seamus/Victoire and I had the word prompt 'Collide', the theme prompt 'learn' and the quote prompt ""What's the whole point of being pretty on the outside when you're so ugly on the inside?" (Jess. C. Scott, I'm Pretty).
I didn't really believe that Seamus would just fall for Victoire when they're twenty years difference between them (although I'm not saying it definitely wouldn't happen - I know quite a few couples that have twenty years or more between them and they're really and truly in love). I thought that there had to be a bit of background otherwise it wasn't realistic. Although, mind you, the way I've done it isn't exactly realistic, either, if you want to think logically :). Anyway, I really loved writing this story, and I'm actually a little bit in love with it... :) or maybe it's Seamus I'm in love with...

Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter universe.

He dreams of her.

xXxXx

His first dream of her is lost in time. He remembers only that he stood in a landscape of pure white, stretching out and covering everything he could see. There is a stillness, a peacefulness in the white that he wants to drown in. All the heartache and loss of the Battle of Hogwarts has taken its toll on him, and he wants nothing more than to forget.

She is standing with her face turned away from him, seeing something that he can't see. Even though he has forgotten much of what she looked like in that first dream, he remembers being struck by her dress - it's a pale blue colour that reminds him of the dress Lavender wore on their first date. For a split second he even thinks that she might be Lavender, until he realises that her hair is straight and not curly, her skin is pale in contrast with Lavender's lightly tanned skin.

He doesn't remember what his exact words were to her, but he knows that he asked her where he was. And he knows that she turned her head slightly to look at him, as confused as he was.

And then he remembers the whiteness fading to blackness and opening his eyes, wondering whether he had just had a prophetic dream. He knows that he wrote to Parvati telling her about the dream and he knows that she replied saying that it was nothing to worry about. He also remembers her writing that Lavender had taken a turn for the worse that night, and that St. Mungo's had banned people from visiting her.

xXxXx

The second time he dreams of her is the night after he receives news of Lavender's death. It is one of the few times he has ever cried himself to sleep, the other being when he was overcome with homesickness during his first year at Hogwarts. Seamus has always been the one who sets fire to everything he touches, the reckless, impulsive, crazy one. Tonight, though, he realises that all he wants to do is go to sleep, to escape from the real world that has become almost too much for him to bear, Gryffindor though he might be.

He dreams of a field of lavender, and the strange dream-girl standing amongst the flowers. Her long blonde hair is flickering in the slight breeze that his dream has created, and this time she is facing him, her nose buried in the fragrant lavender.

This time, it's her who asks him where they are. And it's her who asks him what his name is. He tells her, gazing into wide eyes. She tells him her name is Victoire, and he politely comments that it's a lovely name. His mother has always told him that it's the best thing to say when one is stuck for words. He is surprised when this Victoire girl laughs at him, though, and perhaps he is slightly angry. Nobody likes being laughed at, and Seamus hates it.

"I hate it - my name, I mean," she says conversationally, easily. "None of my friends can pronounce it right. Only my family can."

Seamus finds himself smiling back at her despite himself. "I'm guessing that I don't pronounce it right, either?"

"No, but I'm used to it by now. I do wish that Maman had given me an easier name though," there is an underlying longing in her voice, and he suspects that she wishes for a lot of things.

And he finds that, now she has broken the ice, it's incredibly easy to talk to her. He tells her about his family and she tells him about hers. He tells her that his father is a Muggle and that his father used to take him out to Muggle movies, which his mother used to say (and still does say) are incredibly violent and unsuitable for him.

She listens to him with her wide eyes and nods along as he tells her. It's not exactly the comfortable conversation that he would have with Dean or Parvati or her (it still hurts to think about Lavender). But it's a start and he finds himself listening carefully as she tells him about her family, her younger sister Dominique who is into magical creatures and can already speak Troll and Mermish, even though she's only fourteen. About her brother Louis who is Herbology-mad and grows his own Dirigible plums.

The dream seems to last forever and he's almost disappointed when he wakes up and realises that it's not real, that all it is is a dream, nothing more.

xXxXx

It becomes a regular part of his life, to dream about her. He wonders why he dreams of her even as he looks forward to it. It's always in the same place, after the second dream. Always the field of lavender. And he learns to love the smell of lavender because he begins to associate it with her as well as Lavender.

He learns that she is sensible, careful. She told him once that it was because she knew everybody was watching and waiting for her to make a mistake, to cause a scandal. When he asked her why she thought that, she quickly changed the subject.

He asks her if she goes to Hogwarts and she tells him that she is a seventh-year (he is beginning to worry over how inventive his imagination is, to create all this backstory for one character in a dream), and that she wants to be a wandmaker - during the summer holidays she works as Ollivander's apprentice.

Perhaps he could say that, after almost a year of dreaming about her, she has become his best friend. But Seamus is in denial - he cannot be best friends with a dream-figure. Seamus has always been in denial at some point or other in his life: he didn't believe he was in love with Lavender, he didn't believe Voldemort had returned, he didn't believe that he could die. Eventually he had learned the truth, of course, had learned he was in love with Lavender, that Voldemort had returned and that he wasn't immortal.

Now he is in denial again.

xXxXx

He watches her as she talks to him one night, in the field of lavender. He watches the way a dimple forms on her cheek when she laughs, the way her eyes flash when she's emotional, the way she snorts inelegantly when he's being ridiculous. He sees how her face takes on a look of transparent wonder as she talks of the future, of how unexpected it all is.

Perhaps him noticing all of this should have been a clear indication, perhaps if he had been Dean he would have realised immediately. Seamus isn't Dean, though, and he revels in the moment rather than trying to make sense of the world around him.

He marvels at the way his heart clenches slightly when he makes her smile, at how she says his name in her soft voice (a voice that he's pretty sure people outside of a dream don't have, it's so faint and otherworldly). He watches her and thinks that, if two planets chose to collide at that moment, he wouldn't notice. He also thinks that his two worlds - the world of dream and the world of reality - are preparing to collide and he doesn't care.

And so when she pauses for breath, pauses to wait for him to say something, Seamus leans forward and kisses her. He doesn't know why he does it, doesn't know whether it's what he should be doing. And it's a strange feeling, kissing somebody and knowing that they're not real, tasting the unreal-ness of it all on her lips.

And it's after he pulls away from her, after he looks into her shining eyes, sees her dimpled smile that he admits to himself that maybe, just maybe, he might be falling for a dream-figure.

xXxXx

And so he begins a strange relationship with a girl in his dream. They kiss, they talk, they argue, they make up. They aren't really boyfriend and girlfriend, because she's in love with a boy called Ted (which makes him slightly jealous) and to him she's only a fling. He doesn't know what to think about it, doesn't understand it. At times he hates it because he wakes up and realises that he's rather pathetic for not having a fling with a real girl. Dean said to him once, several weeks ago, that he ought to get a girlfriend, just before Parvati almost snogged Dean's face off.

Seamus really wants to hate this Victoire of his dreams. He really wants to want stop dreaming about her. He wants to forget about her, even as he hopes that he never will. He hates himself for thinking this as well, and, one night, when they're lying down on the lavender and she says to him out of the blue that she thinks he's beautiful (Seamus has never been called beautiful before, but he finds strangely that he doesn't mind when she calls him 'beautiful'), he suddenly sits up and says to her despairingly, "What's the whole point of being pretty on the outside when you're so ugly on the inside?"

He remembers thinking the moment the words were out that she might take them the wrong way, might think that they were intended for her. But she doesn't, she knows that he's talking about himself and she actually laughs slightly. She laughs that he calls himself 'pretty', she explains before becoming serious and telling him that, if he were a truly ugly person on the inside, she wouldn't be spending any time with him - and neither would any of his friends in real life. She tells him that she thinks he's beautiful, again, but this time she changes it so that she says that she thinks he's beautiful, inside and out.

And Seamus feels strangely pleased and dismayed at how easily she makes him happy again, how easily she can influence how he feels. He imagines those two worlds of his inching ever nearer to one another, closer and closer until they are almost ready to collide. But they don't. Not yet.

xXxXx

He notices that she's changed the way he does things. He never used to think about what he did before he did it. He never used to wonder how other people were feeling at the time - not because he didn't care, but simply because it never crossed his mind. His mother commented on it the other day, and all he could do was smile and say that he guessed living by oneself did wonders for you.

Victoire has torn him apart and put him back together, the differences between the old him and the new him almost unnoticeable. He says to himself that he feels nothing more for her than what he would feel for any fleeting romance (Seamus has given up denying that she's one of his best friends and has moved onto denying that he loves her). He says this even as he notices one day that he's no longer jealous about this boy Ted that she talks about - he realises that he's happy if she's happy, no matter how horribly cheesy that sounds in his head. He says this even as yells at the field of lavender when she tells him with a sad smile that she and the Ted boy have broken up, and he can see that she's not telling him everything and he can see that she's hurting inside. He finds himself comforting her, finds himself telling her stupid, inane jokes that make her laugh. Finds himself feeling a swirl of love and protection and giddiness when she smiles at him in thanks and tells him that she's glad he's there with her.

And one night, on the the day before the second anniversary of the Battle, he dreams of her standing in a meadow of soft green grass (the lavender has vanished) with a bundle of forget-me-nots pressed against her nose, eyes shut blissfully. Seamus watches her for a few seconds, feeling something rise up inside him that he doesn't quite know how to explain. Distracting himself, he calls her name out and his heart leaps in his chest as she opens her eyes and smiles at him. She holds out the flowers to him and he takes them with a questioning look.

"I picked them earlier - they're beautiful, aren't they?" she explains. There is something different about her tonight, Seamus realises. She seems freer, lighter.

He nods wordlessly and sniffs the flowers. They smell refreshing after all those nights of lavender scents. They smell very Victoire-like, and he glances at her curiously. She places a finger to his lips, stopping him from saying anything. There is a sadness in her eyes that is at odds with her smile, with the lightness around them.

"Can I just say something, Seamus?" her voice is soft and insanely beautiful. He can't tear his gaze away from her.

"Mmm?"

She presses her lips against his lightly, wide eyes closed. He feels himself falling, falling and he finds he doesn't care anymore. He wants this moment to last forever, wants to be able to hold her forever with her lips against his. The forget-me-nots tumble from his hand and onto the grass as he wraps his arms around her waist gently.

She breaks the kiss almost as slowly as she started it, her eyes flickering open. "I love you."

It's the last sentence he expected her to say and he can only say what feels natural, what feels right. "I love you, too."

And he finds that the words are true, he finds that he no longer mourns for Lavender because, though he'll always miss her and she'll always be his first love, he's learned to move on. He realises that Victoire, dream-girl that she is, possesses his heart completely. He can almost hear the worlds collide as he realises that he loves her. And a small part of him wonders what will happen to him now that his two worlds have really and truly collided.

Before he can tell her his discovery, before he can tumble out all the words that will tell her how much she means to him, he wakes up, eyes blinking at the sudden darkness of his small room. He glances over at the clock on his bedside table and whispers Lumos, heart thudding.

12:00 AM the digital clock - the one his father bought him for his sixteenth birthday - glares back at him.

xXxXx

It's the last time he dreams of her. No matter how many nights he closes his eyes and thinks of her, he always dreams about something else, something different. He dreams of Dean, of Lavender, of Parvati, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, his mother, his father. He dreams of many people, but he never dreams of her.

Perhaps Victoire was really only his subconscious mind, teaching him how to get over his past and move on with his life. At least, that is Parvati's suggestion when he tells her - in sketchy detail (he doesn't want to say that he has fallen in love with a dream-girl) - about his dreams.

Before long, Seamus is back to his old fire-blazing ways. He is not really the same as he was before the Battle (but who is?), yet the fiery delight he takes in setting things alight, in acting impulsively has returned. He has learned to think a little bit beforehand, and he is more mature than he once was, but Victoire and the Battle have taught him to enjoy life whilst it lasts and he is ready to rise to the challenge and do live life with as little regrets as he possibly can. He returns to setting fire to everything he touches, although instead of the fierce, blazing fires he used to create during his school years, they are warm, encouraging fires that urge people to live life on the edge because this is all the life they've got.

Nobody is really surprised when he starts working with the fire-breathing dragons under the careful eye of Charlie Weasley.

xXxXx

It's the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts and he Apparates to the small town of Hogsmeade and trudges up to the Hogwarts gates. There are multitudes of people mulling around the Hogwarts grounds, waiting for Harry Potter to give a speech commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. Several young children are running around on the grass, chasing each other and laughing as they stumble and trip. The adults are quieter, many reliving the Battle, if the grimaces on their faces are anything to go by.

He pauses at the back of the crowd, just behind a frizzy-haired girl who is standing arm-in-arm with a brunette. He hears them whispering to each other about so-and-so being together and can't resist snorting in disbelief. They're talking about dating at a commemoration service? A small part of him whispers that they were born after the war, and that those who didn't live through it cannot really understand why the older people are walking around with grave faces and sad eyes, staring at the monument that bears the names of the dead as though they cannot really believe that it was so long ago.

"Did you just snort at them?" a voice says curiously on his left, interrupting his thoughts. He turns, about to say something along the lines of 'well, didn't you?'.

And then he freezes on the spot.

Because the girl who has spoken is wearing a pale blue dress and has long blonde hair, and wide eyes. She is smiling a slightly dimpled smile at him, and there is faint look of confusion on her face at his stare.

"I... what's your name? I'm Seamus," he adds quickly, half-hoping half-scared that he might be losing his mind.

"Victoire," she says simply, and then snorts inelegantly. "I hate my name, though, because everyone always pronounces it wrong."

And, even though he's thirty-eight and she doesn't look much more than eighteen, he realises that he's experiencing a strangely familiar falling sensation as he gazes into her eyes. Realises suddenly that he might just be falling in love with a teenager that he's met in his dreams almost two decades ago.

She gazes back up at him curiously and he notes appreciatively that she's broken the ice - like she did so many years ago in his dream - and finds it easy to have a follow-up conversation with her. By the end of the conversation he's fallen utterly and hopelessly back in love with her (was he ever out of love with her?).

And maybe, just maybe, she will love him back one day.

xXxXx

He doesn't dream of her anymore. He doesn't need to.