A/N: I'M SO SORRY GUYS. I'm really sorry for not updating in such a long time, it's just that with all the exams and the end of the school year coming 'round I've been horribly busy. But now I (finally!) managed to find a bit of time to upload this :-)

Well, first of all, I KNOW, I promised you a Harry-Hermione-one, but I'm not sure how long that'll take me. It's quite a much slower process than I thought. But because my head is just always buzzing with ideas and I need a new notepad every two weeks cause I'm just scribbling down all these things and I really wanted to sort them out (hopefully I'll be able to do that soon!) you'll have to take just another bang of Deamus slash.

I decided to put this one out there, as I've just finished it in what felt like a decade but actually happened to be twenty minutes.

Another thing out of my mind, yay!

And yup, this is my OTP and yup, I love writing about them.

So, just enjoy (I hope you do!) this little ficlet of mine and please, please, PLEASE, review. It really means a lot!

Love,

Charlotte Xx

p.s. This was inspired by the song „Like We Used To", made by an awesome muggle band called A Rocket To The Moon. You should really listen to it guys.

Like We Used To

Dean Thomas took a deep breath. Or at least he tried to.

He felt like he wasn't able to breathe properly ever since he got up this morning.

Well, more exactly he'd started to feel a certain loss of oxygen a few weeks ago, when he came home from a stressful day at work to a dark blue, classic envelope on his kitchen table. He'd soon found out that it held an invitation card to what was probably going to be the worst day in his entire life.

The cream coloured, perfectly draped bows at the edges of the card were so not Seamus that Dean immediately wondered who'd picked them. He bet on Lavender.

The thought that Lavender was allowed to create an invitation for an event that important in Seamus' life nearly hurt as much as the words she'd written.

Dean had been reading them carefully, but still couldn't avoid feeling like he'd been stabbed in the back. His chest started to pain awfully and he could barely swallow around the lump that was forming in his throat. Tears welled up in his eyes and before he was able to force them back down again they were streaming down his face in an unbelievable speed. The ivory letters blended into an unreadable mish-mash in front of his very eyes – but he already knew them, as if they'd been burned into his brain.

Henry & Georgina Brown

are absolutely thrilled to invite you

to the marriage of their beloved daughter

Lavender Anne Brown

to the Irish gentleman

Seamus Finnigan

at the 28th of March 2013

And so on. Dean didn't notice all the unneccessary details about time, location and dresscode – he was too busy trying not to fall apart. He wasn't quite sure if he succeeded with keeping his heart together, though.

It was not until the card slipped from his hands and he failed to pick it up three times that he noticed he was shaking, as if he'd been hit by an invisible, but surely powerful cold.

Nonetheless, he'd sent them his congratulations and the „Yes, sure he'd show up and thanks for the invitation"-card quickly. He even decided to go to Seamus' bachelor party. They'd been best friends for several years, after all. He felt like he was owing this to Sea.

Okay, and maybe he was hoping that somehow a miracle would happen and Seamus would change his mind. But of course it didn't. These things only worked in the stupid Muggle movies Dean's sister loved to watch.

The date of the party came around quicker than he'd thought. With trembling hands, he'd picked an outfit, not too casual but not too elegant still, and flashed himself a sad smile before leaving to meet the others in an old, shabby pub Ron had suggested. He'd felt freezing inside.

Dean didn't know how, but he managed to get through the evening and convince everyone on how glad and supportive he was. He left the shifty club with a horribly drunk Neville by his side, trying really hard to avoid another breakdown and swallowing furiously so he was able to talk around the lump in his throat. He bit back tears for almost two hours, until he'd brought Neville home safely and was back on the tube again, heading home.

He didn't feel very Gryffindorish as he did so. A true Gryffindor would've surely been brave enough to tell Seamus what he felt, or at least have the guts to cry?

Well, Dean wasn't. He was a coward and perfectly fine with staying in the closet a little while longer, like for, uh, maybe the rest of his life.

It was better that way, he'd thought quite often in the last few weeks. Better than getting even more hurt, at last. But he cried himself to sleep nearly every night.

Except the last night before the wedding. He'd wanted to cry, he really wanted to, because he hoped that it would make the piercing ache in his chest go away somehow. But he couldn't. He couldn't sleep, either. He just lay awake for the majority of the night, trying to breathe. But how was he supposed to breathe if every inhale stitched painfully and every exhale pressed another hundred tons of a deadly weight upon his chest?

Still, the worst moment of breathlessness had been during the ceremony in the morning. Ironically, he'd been Sea's best man, carrying the rings and handing them to the guy he loved more than anything. With handing them over, he'd joined in on letting him go.

It was when Lavender and Seamus both said „I do," in unison and the priest said, „You may kiss the bride now!" and their lips finally met as husband and wife that Dean noticed he couldn't breathe. And this time it was serious.

It was not the breathlessness he'd felt for weeks, nor was it the hurting, but slowly breathing from the evening before. It was a serious, I-am-not-able-to-breathe-way of breathlessness. He gasped for air but couldn't inhale any of it. He tried to force it into his lungs with all the willpower he had, but failed. Panic creeped upon him slowly and he felt like he was drowning. The whole room turned and whirled and was nothing more than a swirl of colours and a buzz of weird noises. It was as if the more he tried to breathe, the more air was sucked out of him. And suddenly, he'd felt very light, almost peaceful.

That was when he noticed that the whole wedding company was on their way out of the church and into the huge tent that had been set up and decorated days ago. He heaved a sigh and followed them slowly. This was not going to get any easier soon, not at all.

Dean gulped and lifted his glass to his lips, only to notice that it was empty again. He frowned and put it aside on a table, searching the room for one of the blokes that were running around with these tablets full of deliciously sweet, brightly coloured cocktails. With a sigh of relief he ran up to one, standing only a few metres away, grabbed another glass, nodded the guy a silent „Thanks" and turned around as the whole room exploded into catcalls and cheers.

He had to squint to see clear. Huh, probably he'd already had a few more drinks than he could bear?

Oh, come on, he told himself, you're a grown-up Gryffindor man, you bloody well do know your limits!

Oops, did he just hit that woman accidentally? Dean grabbed on to the person that was closest to him, stammered „S-sorry," and tried to stop the room from spinning around. Please, room, calm down, he thought, all that spinning is annoying and for sure not good for my tummy, not good at all!

But before he was able to puke or tell the room to stop spinning again or ask someone what was happening he heard a voice, swelling with pride, that was incredibly loud. He jumped a little and winced at the loudness of the voice. Bloody hell, why was it that loud?

„Ladies and Gentlemen, please give a huge round of applause for the first dance of the night, led by the prettiest couple here: Mr Seamus and Mrs Lavender Finnigan!"

The room exploded into cheering, laughing, whistling and comments being called. Dean was close to clap his hands over his ears in attempt to stop them from being that loud because god, it hurt.

Then he heard the familiar sound of the beginning of a song and froze. His view became clear again, and suddenly he was able to hear just in a normal volume; but what kind of a solace was that when your heart was being torn apart?

His eyes found Seamus, leading Lavender onto the dance floor with the biggest smile on his face.

Liar! Traitor! Everything in Dean screamed against the utter wrongness of the whole situation.

This was their song. Dean had shown it to Seamus in their third year at Hogwarts, and they'd been listening to it ever since. It was their kind of secret, hearing that song together, singing along and occasionally dancing weirdly to it, too. Whenever they wanted to meet up somewhere and one of them was there first, he'd prepare everything and turn the music up at full blast as soon as the other would arrive. And Dean would take Seamus' hands and they would wriggle awkwardly and then Dean would spin Seamus around and they would both laugh and collapse on the floor, laughing breathlessly. And then they would shout, trying to „sing" along as loud as possible, „I would've danced toniiiiiight!"

And now it was Seamus whirling Lavender around to that song that wasn't hers, and they were both beaming at each other and Dean just stood there, growing really, really angry. And suddenly, a question popped up in his mind.

Are you going to do all the things with her like we used to?

Dean found that it was a good question. But he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer; he was too afraid of being hurt again. Like he'd already noticed, he was a coward.

But the question didn't leave his mind again. It floated around in his head while he watched Seamus whirling Lavender around, it popped up as he poured another two drinks and it made everything else invalid.

And then, the song was halfway through, Dean sighed and allowed himself to think about that question properly. Maybe he could get rid of it that way.

Was Seamus going to do all these things like they used to?

Would he come home, drop his jacket and shoes right where he stood and start poking and annoying and asking about dinner, until the other would laugh and give him a perfect nipple twist through the sweater and say „Oh, shut it!" just like they used to?

Would they listen and dance and shout to that song, to their song, just like they used to?

Would he force her to watch his favorite movies and quote every single dumb dialogue and laugh at every single joke and get excited about the smallest details and she'd just play along and think quietly to herself how much she loved this guy right beside her like they used to?

Would she hold him when he cried just like Dean used to?

Would she listen patiently when Seamus told her all his favorite parts of his favorite movies even if they'd seen them a billion times like they used to?

Would she cook him his favorite meal to cheer him up because she'd called Seamus because she was missing him and found out that he was in a bad mood like Dean used to?

Would they degnome the garden together, laughing and swearing and throwing either gnomes or dirt or both at each other like they used to?

Would she patch up Seamus' hand when he'd cut himself because he was trying to make dinner like Dean used to?

Would they do all these things like Dean and Seamus used to?

Dean didn't know. All he did know was that the thought of it hurt.

The dance came to an end and the whole room cheered and applauded again, and Dean looked right at Seamus who didn't even notice him, and he asked him one last time:

Will you do all these things like we used to?

But of course Seamus didn't answer.

Dean swallowed and grabbed another drink. He was absolutely allowed to get drunk, he thought, and hoped that maybe he wouldn't be able to remember today. Maybe he wouldn't remember how jealous he was and how wrong it felt that Lavender, who didn't do any of the things he'd done for Seamus and who couldn't possibly love him more than Dean did, was going to spend the rest of her life with Seamus. It was just not fair. Not fair at all.

But still he hoped, that even if she didn't do all these things, she'd try her best to make all the rest for the better, if there was any better to aim at.

He silently emptied his glass, watched them kiss and gave away the one thing he loved most in the world, as he stood there all on his own, with tears in his eyes but a smile on his face because he remembered all the things they'd been used to.

And before he turned around and walked away on unstable legs, he tapped his nose three times, then stuck his tongue out and whispered „I love you, Sea,", using their ridicolous secret signal one last time and thinking,

I hope you still love me like you used to.