Author's note: I've shipped Dean and Seamus since I first read the books in third grade. That was before I knew about shipping, slash, fanfiction, and homosexual relationships. Nevertheless, I've loved these two together, and now. . . I've written a story about them! This can be read either as slash or friendship. This is set during Order of the Phoenix, right before Harry and Seamus reconcile.
Words in this story: 605
"Seamus?" Dean tentatively opened the door to an unused classroom. "You in here?"
"Where else?" came the grumbled reply.
"Harry, Ron, and Neville still mad at you?" asked Dean, sitting next to his friend.
"No," sighed Seamus.
"Do you want them to talk to you?" Dean slowly moved closer to Seamus.
"What do you think?" snarked Seamus.
"Why don't you apologize?" offered Dean.
"For what?" scoffed Seamus. "Defending my mother?"
"For not believing in Harry," Dean said softly.
"I do believe in Harry!" Seamus jumped off the desk he was sitting on. "I do! But I can't disagree with Mam! She's bloody terrifying, you know that! And she's good at magic!"
"But Harry's your friend," Dean said.
"Dean!" cried Seamus, grabbing the taller boy's shoulders. "That doesn't matter!"
"Why not?" asked Dean.
"Because," Seamus said. "Even if Harry and Dumbledore aren't lying, and they probably aren't, nobody believes them! Besides, they could still be insane! And if we do believe them? What happens then?"
"What should happen?" Dean asked.
"The Ministry is publicly humiliating Harry and Dumbledore," Seamus continued. "At work, if you support or agree with them and the wrong people find out, your job gets harder. You could get fired. If you do it too publicly, your name will be in the Prophet right next to Harry's and Dumbledore's."
"But why don't you tell Harry this?" pleaded Dean. "Maybe you could be friends again."
"First of all, Harry knows how bad it can get," answered Seamus. "And. . . what if he doesn't understand?"
"Why wouldn't he understand that you don't want to get in trouble?" Dean could not understand his friend's logic.
"It's not that," sighed Seamus.
"What is it, then?" demanded Dean.
Seamus threw his hands up in frustration. "I don't want to get my family in trouble."
"How will they get in trouble?"
Dean was not stupid. At his Muggle school, he got full marks in all his subjects, and his teachers raved about a bright future for him. Like his classmates at Hogwarts, he knew that Umbrige teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts was the Ministry's way of keeping tabs on Dumbledore. He knew that siding with Harry about Voldemort put one on Umbitch's bad side, and that it could ostracize one from his or her peers. But for the life of him, he could not understand Seamus' reluctance to reconcile with someone he had known, and was friends with, for the past four years.
"If word gets out that I'm friends with Harry, that I believe him, the Ministry will make Mam's life hell," explained Seamus. "She owns a nice little shop, you know, you've been there. What she sells, school supplies for those who can't get out to Diagon Alley, is 'Ministry approved'. They could shut her own. Dad doesn't make much money. What little he does is Muggle money."
"I'm not telling you to go around wit ha sign that says, 'The Ministry are Morons! Voldemort is Back!' I'm just saying. . . apologize. Get back your friends!" Dean sat on a desk, putting him eye-level with Seamus.
"Maybe," said Seamus. "You know what? I'll think about it."
Seamus wanted to be friends with Harry again. He wanted Ron to look at him. He wanted Neville to stop shooting him accusatory glances when they made eye-contact. Maybe tomorrow. Yes, that's right.
"Tomorrow," Seamus said decisively. "I'll apologize tomorrow."
And you know what? He did.
Furthermore, it went well.