Seamus Finnigan, tired from the six flights of stairs (or sixteen, if you counted all the searching around the castle) and drained from his fruitless search, sighed and pushed open the sixth year boys dormitory door, only to find his quarry lying on his bed, brooding. "Well, of all places, this was the last place I thought to find you."

Dean turned, apparently startled by the sound of his friend's voice, his eyes wary until they recognized Seamus. "How did you, anyway?"

"Didn't. Just gave up, you know? Came back here to finish me transfiguration essay and wait for you to stop sulking."

"I'm not sulking."

"Oh no?" Seamus quirked an eyebrow.

"No," Dean said firmly.

Seamus patted his pocket exaggeratedly. "Then I reckon I can save the whiskey until you are, then, yeah?"

"I'm not--whiskey?" Dean sat up. "You've been holding out on me, mate. Did Fred come through, then?"

"Not yet, no. I won it off of a pair of Ravenclaws. Reckoned that if we lost, I wouldn't miss those Playboys me cousin sent all that much, and if we won, a bit o' high spirits might be in order." Not that it worked out that way, thanks to the Boy-who-gets-whatever-he-fecking-wants and that ginger harpie Dean had been so fond of.

Seamus meant to chose his next words carefully, but his mouth tended to run away with him. "Thought maybe you'd be in a mood to get pissed, either to celebrate the game or drown your sorrows."

"I don't need to drown my sorrows."

"If you say so."

"I do."

Seamus closed the distance between them and plopped onto the mattress. "Let's see that hand, then."

"What hand?" Dean had always been a shite liar.

"Feck off and show it to me before I beat the piss out of you, you wanker."

Dean sniffed. "As if you could, you midget."

"Done it before, haven't I?"

Dean sniffed again. "That doesn't count, I let you."

"No you didn't," Seamus protested.

"You needed to know that I was still going to be your mate, even when you were acting like an arse. What better way to demonstrate? 'Betrayal,' you'd called it. Well, maybe I'd earned it and maybe I didn't, but it made things all right with us, didn't it?"

Seamus sighed. Well, there went a blow to his pride, anyway. "Well, we're even then because now I'm going to tell you to stop being an arse and let me heal yer damn hand."

"There's nothing wrong with it," Dean insisted.

"Good. Then I can't hurt it by looking at it, can I?"

Dean sighed and held out his hand. "Oh, fine, have it your way then, and what do you know about healing, anyway?"

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Thomas," Seamus hissed, wincing as he took in the swollen flesh and the jagged wound, still bright red with blood.

"It's nothing."

"Nothing that still has bits of glass in it, you fecking eed-jit. Are you trying to make it so you never write--no, never draw again?" He wanted to add 'because of a stupid cow, one who never deserved you', but miraculously he bit his tongue.

"Now hold still," he said. Maybe later, he would think back and remember that at least once, he held Dean's hand and his friend thought nothing of it, but for now, he was preoccupied by fear and worry. "D'you think Accio Glass will work?"

"Hell if I know. Might bring every windowpane in the room to the bed."

"No, no, me mam did something with splinters, what was it...? Extrahere Assula!"

The shards of glass glittered pink in the dying sunlight as they flew from Dean's hand to fall harmlessly onto the crimson bedcover.

"Great, now it's bleeding more."

"Episkey," Seamus murmured. Dean winced as the skin knitted together, refusing to meet Seamus' eyes.

"That's better, then," Seamus said, and felt silly for having the urge to kiss the newly healed flesh the way his mother used to. "Here," he said instead and reached into his robes, pulling out a bottle and popping the cork.

Dean took a big swig, shuddered, and offered up half a smile. "That's good," he choked.

"No, it's pure shite," Seamus said after taking a pull. "Seeing as it was Corner, the cheap bastard, I wasn't expecting Jamisons, but it's better than a kick in the head, aye?" The words 'or a kick in the heart' hung in the air between them, unspoken.

Seamus took another swig, winced, belched, and passed it back. For a few minutes, they drank in near-silence . Eventually, Dean's stiff spine slackened a bit, and the wrinkle between his eyes softened, and finally Seamus got a real smile out of him. It took a joke about a Cornish Pixie, a Leprechaun and a sexually confused House Elf he'd been saving up for just such an occasion, but it was worth it.

"You were great, man," Seamus finally said, dancing a bit closer to the elephant in the room.

"Not that great. Got outscored by a girl," Dean muttered.

"Well, the Seeker always gets the most points..." Seamus tried to point out.

"No, not her-" Dean said, and there was definitely a trace of bitterness on the last word. "Demelza, I meant. She outscored me."

If it had been any other circumstance, Seamus might have added, 'and so did Potter, and he didn't even play.' But he didn't, and he wouldn't, even if it would finally bring the subject out into the open. Hell, he hadn't even got a laugh out of the man, and the one thing Seamus knew he count on was that Dean would always laugh at his jokes.

Stupid slag.

What sort of daft cow threw away someone like Dean? He was brilliant, he was talk and dark and good looking and talented and funny and kind and....Well, that was probably a bad line of thought to be getting into at such a time, though it was certainly a puzzle that was going to keep him up tonight. Potter or Thomas. To him, the choice was clear as day.

"Fuck her," Dean said, startling Seamus out of his musings.

"Aye," he said, and they both knew they weren't talking about Demelza Bloody Robins. "Fuck 'er. You can do better." And in spite of the fact that his mind was screaming, ' Me, me, meeeeee,' he continued, "'Sides, I noticed Parvati making cow eyes at you. Might get a sympathy snog out of it, if you play your cards right."

"Oh yeah?" Dean asked, and for a moment, his eyes lit up.

But just as Seamus' heart felt as if it was going to be crushed into a bloody pulp, Dean shook his head and gave Seamus half a smile. "Nah. Through with birds for a while, they're way too much trouble."

"Aye, fuck 'em all," Seamus said firmly. "Let's get pissed and look at porn."

And then Dean smiled, really grinned, laughed even, and nudged Seamus hard with his shoulder.

"Pervert."

"Wanker"

"Takes one to know one."

"Aye, that it does," Seamus said, and dropped back against the mattress, pleased to be back on familiar ground, but still disappointed, deep down. What he'd expected to change, he didn't know, but at least he knew Dean needed him, and that was a start.