A/N: written for the Ollivander's Challenge hosted by simplypotterheads on tumblr. Prompt: "You have no clue what you're doing, do you?"
Unbetaed as it is due tomorrow - because I procrastinate everything - so please know that I'm not a native speaker and there are probably very dumb mistakes in there.
The first time he saw the sea, Dean was ten. A week in Brighton, gift of his family's new social worker. He remembered getting there after sitting for hours on an old, uncomfortable bus, and the banging of his heart against his ribcage. He had stared and stared and stared out of the window of the holiday center for hours, that first night, his eyes squinting to catch a glimpse of the waves in the dark ink of the night. He had found the sea properly fascinating – a gigantic force of nature, one where dreams could sail and drown alike, sometimes in a matter of seconds.
On the second day, he had pretended a headache and stayed behind with the younger children, rather than following the older ones into an excursion in a nearby town. He had sat on the steps to the center, and drawn the sea, its infinity, every shimmer, every sparkle.
Leaving had been heartbreaking, and Dean had vowed to himself to come back every summer, if possible, but Professer McGonagall had walked into his life – you're a wizard, Dean, she'd said, and as she had looked at Dean's white stepfather, she had seemed like she wanted to add something. Dean hadn't dwelled on it much, though, because that revelation had opened doors he had never dreamed of ever opening. But going to Hogwarts had meant that the first time he saw the sea had also been its last. Spending ten months of the year in Scotland meant spending ten months far from his mother and his half-sisters – they only had two months together, and Dean intended to spend each and every day with them.
So the second time Dean saw the sea, he was seventeen. Seventeen, and feeling like he was a hundred years. He had spent months in hiding, fearing his own blood would get him killed, making friends with other runaways and watching them die, learning truths about his father he never even begun to suspect.
Shell Cottage looked nothing like the Brighton holiday center had – it was old and warm and homely where the holiday center had felt very much like an overcrowded factory – and, of course, seventeen year old Dean was nothing like the kid he'd once been. As he looked out of the window in the room Fleur Weasley had just prepared for him, Dean realised that even the sea didn't seem as good as it had once looked. What had once been the source of a million possibilities now looked like the end of the world – because as much as men tried to, they could never tame the water.
What if the war never ended? Would he have to stay in hiding for years, sharing the small house with everyone else? Would he spend his life as the third wheel to a happily married couple, as the odd Gryffindor in a group of three best friends who were so obviously co-dependant, as the fugitive who had been somewhat free for most of the year when Luna Lovegood and Ollivander had shared a cell for months? Would he always be the one who was just there, floating around the otherswithout ever finding his place, the symbol of everything he'd lost over the last few months staring back at him every time he would look out of the window and catch sight of Dobby's grave?
They had been at Shell Cottage for a week when Luna joined him on the beach. It was sometime in the afternoon, and he had been sitting there for hours. Dean didn't hear the soft sound of her steps in the sand, and it was only when she sat down next to him that he realised he wasn't alone anymore.
"Hi," she said, and when Dean simply nodded, she added "You never speak much around here. I remember you being louder."
Sometimes, Dean had trouble to remember that he had spent more time with Luna Lovegood than most people at Hogwarts, because it felt like it had been a million years ago, and in the light of what had happened since Dumbledore's death, weeks of training in the Dumbledore's Army side by side and a few months of dating Luna's best friend didn't seem like very much at all.
"Do you remember being louder, Dean?" Luna asked, and Dean shrugged.
"I'm not even sure whether half my thoughts are dreams or memories," he said.
Luna smiled. "Aren't they kind of one and the same?" she asked, and Dean wished it was that simple.
"I just feel... old," Dean finally admitted after a few minutes. "So old. So much older than any seventeen year old should."
"You have no clue what you're doing, do you?"
Dean looked at her – properly looked at her, not out of the corner of his eye like he'd done since she sat down with him. Luna's hair was softly blown by the wind, her eyes sparkling, her mouth in a smile.
"You're becoming who you are, Dean. Sometimes it's easy to forget, but we're teenagers. This is part of our growing up."
Dean merely rolled his eyes. "Teenagers don't usually watch their friends die," he spat, but Luna didn't seem to take offense.
"They do, actually. It may not be murder for most teenagers, but a lot of teens lose relatives and friends to illness and accidents. My mum died long before that war even started, and I'm pretty sure that lots of seventeen year old Muggles have had to go through similar experiences."
She paused, looking at him, and Dean found himself unable to look away when she put her hand on his cheek and said "We're at war with prejudice and injustice, and so are millions of other teens across the world. We're not alone. You're not alone, Dean. And the sooner you learn that what is happening to us is common, the better you'll feel."
And then she left. Just like that, just like she'd arrived. Dean watched her silently as she walked her way back to the house, her small feet leaving prints in the wet sand. He looked at her until she walked through the door, and when Dean turned back to stare at the sea, he smiled – the waves looked like those he had drawn in Brighton.
A/N: thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought of this. :3