Dean doodled aimlessly. His quill scrawled on the margin of the scrap parchment he had used to write notes on earlier that morning for Potions class. Slughorn had recently given the class a bit of an assignment.
Of course, under the tutelage of Snape, Dean Thomas had hated potions. His strong resentment for it was something he felt was attributed to the easily dislikable stylings of Severus Snape, but not he had found out he had a bit of a talent for it.
Notably however, he was no prodigy. But when Horace had stepped in to begin teaching the class about potions during his sixth year, he had actually found himself capable of holding a decent grade in the class, and found potion mixing a nice new activity to practice and think about. He was finally passing and doing well in one of the trickiest subjects of his school, and because of that he was happy, at least academically.
Then there was Seamus.
"So you add three things of eggshell…" Seamus muttered, looking at his notes as Dean didn't look up, doodling mindlessly.
"Things?" Deans asked him, eye flicking up from his parchment. "What kind of measurement is that?"
Seamus stopped, looking down at his notes before he flicked his eyes back up to Dean. "Uh…dunno,"
"What type of eggshell?" Dean said, as if he had practiced the question upon being asked to help Seamus with his potions homework.
"Uh….I know this one, promise," Seamus said as he tried not to peek at his notes tapping his fingers on the wooden table before he looked away. "Um….the kind with….uh….isn't it the blue kind?"
Suddenly, a smile cracked across Dean's face as Seamus squinted down at him. Dean started to laugh as he rested his forehead to the hard wooden surface of the table in the Gryffindor common rooms. After a solid hour of trying, there was just only so much he could take without laughing. "The blue kind...yeah."
Seamus squinted, his face scrunched up in a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment as an all too tired Dean closed his eyes, trying to relax and find some peace. By now everyone had long gone to sleep, only Dean and Seamus present in the common room. If Dean had more energy he would've noticed that a flash of red had streaked the irish wizard's pale, freckled face.
"Oi, Thomas," Seamus protested, pushing of Dean's shoulder. "Take this seriously, if I don't finish this report I'll fail. Do you realize what my mam'd do if she found out? Murder, Dean, bloody murder."
"Not my fault you have 'an interesting take upon the art of potion making which seems to restrict your capabilities to lighting things on fire'." Dean quoted Slughorn, his voice even pulled into a gallant and fanciful drawl to mock the professor's slightly stuck up attitude.
It wasn't that Horace was a bad guy, and compared to Snape he was a godsend. But Horace seemed to leak through in small bits and phrases which only seemed to stick with him a bit of a prejudiced attitude, what with his backhanded compliments.
I'm so surprised that a Muggleborn Wizard such as yourself is so capable at potion making!
Dean gave a small sneer in annoyance upon reflection. It wasn't like he was even saying those things on purpose, but being pure blooded and so integrated into the old wizard culture which included the stupid things that the wizarding world had to say about muggles must have rubbed off sooner or later. He guessed he just had to let it go, but that didn't make it annoy him any less.
And given that fact it wasn't like he was even Muggle Born, per se. Rather he was muggle raised given that his father had died and his mother raised him in the muggle world. Along with all of his sisters that he missed on occasion, sometimes finding himself drawing them whenever he felt a twinge of homesickness.
But he found the cure for that over time. Mainly because hogwarts had become his second home, and that meant comfort whenever he found himself taking classes, surrounded by a world of magic and mystery. The allure of the magical world to those who had not been raised in it was something so innocent and pure, full of wonder. Some of the wonder had of course faded with maturity and integration over his time at Hogwarts, but it still lingered in bits and pieces, a small piece of appreciation he knew people only like him could feel.
"Oi, did you hear what I even said?" Seamus piped up, making Dean tear his eyes away from the hard wood of the table, lost in thought again as he seemed to do nowadays quite a lot.
"Hmm, I'm guessing something along the lines of 'Argh, Dean, 'yer my only hope to pass potions! Oi, blarney stone.'" he mocked, his terrible Irish accent mixed with faint traces of fatigue, laughter and pirate.
"Fine, ya' prick." he huffed, gathering up his parchment and quills in anger. However, as he moved them quickly he found that the black liquid of the ink he had been using to mark up the-many-mistakes in his notes hadn't been sealed. Soon, black had stained the parchment, much to Seamus' horror.
Dean couldn't help but chuckle lowly, relaxing into his seat as he felt his eyes twitch and blink, desperately needing some rest. However, that action quickly brought upon a dirty look from Seamus. "Are you serious?"
"It's just, it's everywhere." he laughed, putting an elbow to the polish yet aged wooden table as he watched the white parchment soak up the black droplets, some of the liquid still lingering in pools as Seamus struggled to pick them up.
"Why are you being such a huge dick to me all of a sudden?" Seamus said, his words of frustration and anger mixing ink with a small crack, showing a feeling of betrayal.
"I'm not being a dick, you're just being clumsy and-"
"And what? Are you going to go laugh at me about how hilarious I am? Is that all I am to you? A fucking Irish clown?" he said, his tone hostile yet also defensive all at once.
Dean's eyes squinted a bit, his fists balled up as he looked away. "No. Of course not, I just, I'm tired. Ok? You're not the only one who's having problems with classes. I'm worn down, and everything's stressful ok? I'm sorry, I'm just stressed out a bit."
Seamus looked at him, quills and parchment gathered up in his arms and hands as he paused for a second. He looked away, a glare of hostility melting into something which gave a twinge of guilt. "It's about Ginny and Harry isn't it?"
Dean looked at Seamus and, after a few seconds, gave a sigh, followed by a small and surrendering, "Yup".
Seamus put his things back down in their slightly crumpled piles as he buried his face in his hands. He stood there, silent as Dean sat up, his full height and looked away a bit awkwardly. It was always so rare and awkward to talk about these things.
"Bloody hell Dean. Why do you have to act like such a prick to start having these talks. It's like you get off on bein' all moody and stuff." he sighed sitting back down across the table.
"Do not." he muttered a half hearted and half baked comeback at his friend.
"Look, just remove the huge stick which seems to be implanted in your arse and just talk to me instead of sulking." he said, a small sigh of relief crossing his face, he at least knew where this was coming from now.
It wasn't exactly like Dean could just brush off all those feelings. When you were a part of a failing relationship like the one he had with Ginny, it was sort of like a bad denial fueled plane crash. Like something terrible was going to happen, but neither of them really wanted to admit what it was or maybe even that it existed at all. Of course though, Ginny had enough, and felt so withdrawn she made the first move.
Dean hadn't been screaming, raving or throwing huge speeches about why he felt betrayed or hurt, he just sulked, non stop, for the past week.
"It just sucks you know?" he muttered.
"What does? Being dumped by Ginny Weasley? It's not like she's the only pretty girl here," Seamus muttered a bit, looking up at Dean before he was interrupted.
"It's not that. I mean, I don't even know how I felt about her you know? Like we just started talking and all of a sudden she wanted to be like that and I'd never had a girlfriend befor so I just," he sighed, as if letting an enormous weight of his chest. "I just went with it. And then she dumped me, and….I don't know. I still feel….like no matter what we had, like it still was worth something, and then she just sort of moved on."
"She's always had feelings for Harry, Dean. It was written clear across her face since she was a first year. I wanted to tell you that, wanted to tell you that it wasn't going to work out but, I…." he stumbled over his wording as Dean gave a quizzical squint in his direction.
"You what?" Dean inquired, leaning forward with a look of surprise.
Seamus fought to hold his gaze, blinking like he had lost a battle of will. "I figured you could handle it. I wasn't about to ruin that thing you had because I thought different. I mean, I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to be that guy."
"You aren't that guy Seamus. You're my friend." Dean shrugged as he looked up at him, a warm smile curling his lips upward, his eye focused on Seamus as he sat across from him.
Seamus felt a little bit lost by that statement. It suddenly felt like they were too close, like even all the amount of space in the world could possibly be far enough for Seamus.
"It's just that, I feel so lost, and stressed you know? Like everything around me is just crashing down, and like I keep pushing you away. I don't want to do that, I don't want to lose you. Not in the center of this huge mess." Dean chuckled lightly, a hand finding itself squeezing the other male's shoulder as the dark skinned wizard smiled.
Seamus had to break through all the shock, and utter just two words as he couldn't help but feel everything tense up when Dean touched him. Dean's eyes stared at him, for a few seconds two long before he felt that hand pull him forward, Dean's lips crashing into Seamus'.
They both froze for a second, both a little in absolute shock of what Dean had just done before Seamus looked at him, a small gulp being emitted from his throat as he looked at him. "I didn't know you felt that way."
Dean looked at him, scratching his head with the biggest shrug ever. He even looked like he was still trying to absorb what had just happened right there and then. "I didn't either."
A small silence filled between them, a silence which was completely new and unnerving in so many ways. When you were friends you never ran out of things to talk about, because there was always something to talk about, always something to discuss, to joke and prod at or something to remember. But this was something so strange, something so raw that the two of them were baffled to even acknowledge beyond a certain point.
"Was that real?" Seamus asked, sounding almost as if he were questioning is such a thing could even happen, which was a question that also plagued his mind, but when the feeling of warmth and the taste of Dean's lips lingered, there was no real denial to have about the matter. He was really asking what that had meant, and if he wanted that, or if Seamus was just another Ginny Weasley waiting to happen, Dean seeing what something felt like and going with the flow.
"Yeah. I guess, I don't know. Maybe I always felt that way? Maybe I just treated you like a brother, and didn't think about it like that. I don't know Seamus, I don't know. But I'm so tired of this, and Ginny and Harry, school, assignments, Cedric….I'm done waiting to see how I feel. I'm tired of waiting and sulking. I want to live." Dean explained, small, fragile smile starting to come up to his lips as he rested a hand on Seamus' cheek.
Seamus felt as if his face was on fire. And he didn't know how or why, but he knew that somehow he felt the same. He nodded, as if accepting everything Dean had said as if it were a proposal. He leaned in, Dean crouching down as their lips connected again.
Everything felt so warm, and bright.
Everything felt alive.