Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Dean Thomas or Seamus Finnigan.
A/N: written for a prompt consisting of the words: chocolate milk, photo album, and radio waves
Moving photographs never ceased to amaze Dean Thomas. He could stare at them for hours the way centaurs could stare at the stars. Watching them was like watching a memory and a wizarding photo album was as good as silent film. And the photographs he had collected over the past six years at Hogwarts served as a picturesque biography.
Dean knew he wouldn't be able to return to Hogwarts for his seventh year; his mother was a muggle and his father had run off when he was little, so he had no way of proving his blood status as a wizard to the Muggle-Born Registration Commission. There was nothing to be done but to go off on his own and attempt to hide from the Death Eaters until Harry managed to destroy Voldemort.
He hadn't told his mother what he would be doing. She remained blissfully unaware of the turmoil that existed in the Wizarding World, and Dean intended to keep it that way. No, he would hide most of his belongings and pretend to go back to Hogwarts as he had for so many years. And if his mother could believe he'd be safe and sound at school, then Dean wouldn't feel so bad about leaving her. He would miss her, of course, but in the same way he always missed his mum and siblings when he went to school.
The person he would most miss while he hid from the snatchers would be his best friend, Seamus Finnigan. Dean smiled wistfully as he pulled his favourite picture out of his photo album and put it in the front pocket of his packed rut sack along with his DA galleon. It was a photograph of himself and Seamus at the first Gryffindor Quidditch match of his first year at Hogwarts.
Dean hated that he wouldn't be able to contact his best friend for who knew how long. Since the two of them had bonded over a shared love for football and chocolate milk, they had been inseparable. Every holiday had been spent either at his home or Seamus', playing football, exchanging jokes and listening to Muggle programs on his childhood radio.
Dean shook his head as he picked up his rut sack and headed down the stairs. How things had changed in just the past few years! The young man blinked back tears as he wished he could go back to a childhood of football and chocolate milk with his best friend, where the most frustrating things were not understanding Muggle radio waves and rooting for a losing team. While he still didn't understand the technology of radio waves, the way things were working out, he still was rooting for the losing team. Only, this time, the game was for a way of life.