"And what you want to do is... fill the shadow in...just...so..."

Dean tilted his head as he followed his own instructions, long fingers gently guiding the charcoal back and forth as he darkened the ground beneath his tree. The classroom was silent, the students watching their teacher with determination, or boredom, or very mild interest. There was the occasional sound of scratching here and there as the odd student decided watching was taking much too long and took it upon themselves to begin shading in their own project. When this happened, more often than not Dean found himself huffing bemusedly in response to the eventual sound of eraser on paper as the student discovered that they'd done something less than favorable to their piece and tried to fix it. Today was no exception.

Dean moved his arm to the side and leaned back, tilting his head the other way, and he stuck the tip of his tongue between his teeth. Biting down ever so slightly, the teacher added added strokes until he was satisfied, dropped the charcoal onto the equally dark table, and lifted the paper with his cleaner hand so that everyone could see.

"What you want," he began, moving from around his own table so that he might get closer to his students', "is this faint, almost blurry effect around the edges here." He gestured to where 'here' was, the ground beneath the oak and the patch where he had drawn in its shadow. When more than a few of the students leaned forward to better see, Dean handed the paper off to one of the girls closest to him. The girl, a bobbed brunette with dimples for days, took it with a self-indulgent smile and passed it on, hardly giving the tree a second glance. All the while, her bright green eyes remained fixated on her teacher - he ignored her. "It's a technique called veiling," he continued for the sake of those who were listening, which was less than he would have liked. The majority of the students who had taken the paper had done so for the sake of the action, sparing it a glance just because it was a good picture, but then passing it on nearly as easily at the first girl had. Only a few, the few who had actually picked the class with the purpose of learning art, really took the time to peer closer at the picture in an attempt to grasp what it was that their instructor had done.

He couldn't fault them too much on their inattentiveness, though. They were usually a very good group of kids, and the atmosphere was almost always friendly. But it was the last class period on the Friday before a long weekend, after all, and Muggle students were no different from magical ones in respect to their appreciation of free time. If anything, Dean often thought that they almost deserved to be more anxious about reaching the end of the school week. Despite having spent seven years of his life in an ordinary public school, he'd still spent seven more learning about and getting adjusted to magic, and you don't simply go from one to the other without noticing how boring the first one is by comparison. His kids spent all day sitting at desks doing arithmetic (which he really couldn't mock; he missed seven years of the subject. He was lucky he still knew that two plus two equaled four) and reading textbooks and fixing up annoyingly tedious history papers.

And history was really, really dull without trolls and giants flinging goats at people.

Returning to his spot at his teacher's table, he briskly finished up his explanation of the veiling technique while his tree slowly made his way back to him. "For your homework this weeken- I know, I know, Mr. Thomas is the worst teacher in the world," he said humorously at the chorus of groans that had made it's way through the art room. "But he's only making you try it out. So don't complain, or he'll have you sit your family down for an entirely veiled portrait." This shut them up easily; the last time he'd had his students attempt to get a family portrait together over vacation, the results hadn't been so nice. Several had come back complaining that none of their family wanted to sit for it, and many others came back with completely blank canvases. A surprising number had just done the project in stick figures.

"All I want you to do is take what you've been working on in class and shade a section of it using this - yes, Mr. Lake?"

"But you haven't taught us how to do it," the boy, Noah Lake, said, leaning tiredly on his elbow, but the confusion was still clear as day in his eyes.

"Yes, that is true." Dean offered, and when he said nothing else he was met with blank stares.

"...so how are we supposed to do it?" Noah asked after a long, drawn out silence.

"With charcoals," Dean said simply, and he continued on as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Shade a considerate amount, will you? It was funny last time, but I really can't teach you sorry lot anything if you keep bringing me back Galleon-sized samples." There were scattered snorts throughout.

"Mr. Thomas, we can't bring back what you want unless you tell us what you don't want," asserted the girl with the dimples, "and we still don't know what a gallon is."

"He said galyon, Cambridge," Noah sighed, not bothering to cover up his annoyance with the girl. Poppy Cambridge sniffed.

"Well, I don't know what that is either, do I?"

"You don't know a lot of things, you great stu-"

"Students!" Dean said loudly. "What a Galleon is is none of your business." Poppy looked to be ready to open her mouth again, and Noah looked ready to shove his charcoals down her throat, but the bell rang then. The resulting scramble to make it out of the classroom successfully snubbed out any potential massacre that might have ensued.

"That's it, then!" Dean announced, receiving scattered farewells from students already half-way out the room. "Have a nice weekend, and bring me back proper shadows!"

After the last person had left, Dean let out a deep sigh, and he allowed himself to relax onto his stool, arms planted carelessly on the table. Long weekends were a godsend for the young teacher. That wasn't to say he didn't love his job, because he did. He loved every last bit of it. But, despite his young age and the endless amount of energy and motivation that was supposed to come with it, even he needed a few nice, long breaks every now and again. Perhaps it was because he was so close in age with his students, but he found himself becoming mentally exhausted by them quite easily. It wasn't too common of an occurrence, but it happened just enough for it to seem strange. At twenty-one years old, Dean Thomas should have related to his students on a deeply profound level - or that's what his old schoolmate, Lavender, had told him once through their monthly letters. Once she'd heard he got the job (and he wasn't even sure how his employment came up in conversation or why she even knew that), she'd been surprisingly excited for him. The two had never been close - the most he'd ever heard about her was when Seamus was going through a rather odd romantic period - but she'd shown an immediate interest in his teaching job, saying that it was good he was going to be able to still connect with people close to his age group. Dean wasn't sure Lavender had properly grasped the concept of Muggle education; something told him that she was under the impression that being in year ten meant you were something close to twenty.

Chuckling at the thought, Dean let his eyes wander to the pictures lining his walls. Paintings and sketches and drawings of all types were spread on top of pale eggshell, and he mused over the never-not-interesting observation that none of them were moving - not even the photographs. His thinking it was strange was something he found a fair amount of humor in, being of Muggle heritage, but he still expected every photo around him to move, or talk, or make faces in his peripheral vision. His gaze fell on one of the photos nearest to him, this one in a frame and sat at the end of his table, and picked it up. Three people, one man and two women, stood together, each of them with different expressions. His fingers traced the clay frame affectionately, and he smiled at the memory of the day it had been taken.

"Mate," Seamus, the sandy-haired one with the faintest of freckles and playful eyes, moaned. "Why do we need to take this picture? I'm too tired, it's fuckin' midnight or something."

Dean ignored the last comment on the time easily; he was too nervous to sleep. His job started tomorrow, and he needed to work out all of the excess energy before the time came where he would be too exhausted to function (and pass a basic drunk evaluation) in the morning. "I need a picture to keep on my desk," was his answer.

"What d'you need a desk for? You're a bloody art teacher, not a cubicle worker."

"Seamus shut up," one of the woman muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. Seamus snorted in something like derision, but he was never to be taken too seriously. Besides, had he meant it, the woman might have jinxed him half-way across the room.

"Don't tell me you're into these sort of spontaneous modeling sessions, Fay. You! Of all people-!"

"I'm not!" she - Fay - snapped while Seamus laughed in that unbridled, loopy way that comes with sleep deprivation. She shot him a withering look, though, and he sort of sobered up. "The sooner you stop complaining about it, the sooner we can get it over with." Dean could have sworn he heard her mutter something else about "fucking sleep" afterward, but he knew better than to push a cranky Fay's buttons.

"Yeah, Sea, let the man have a go at a dream." The second woman, Romilda, said in amusement, all the while letting Dean nudge her into place next to the other two. Pulling her thick curls out of her face and weaving them into a quick braid, she smirked. "We all know he wants to be a freelance dirty photographer. Any moment now he's going to have us strip down to our delicates and ask us to pose..."

"Thank you, Romilda," Dean said, eyes rolling up to the ceiling as he moved into position, Polaroid camera in hand. "Okay, you guys - pose, will you?"

"See? What did I tell you?"

"Romilda, get your damn foot out of my face before I bite your stupid, knobby little ankle off."

"Oi! I'm just giving him what he wants." Romilda laughed and lowered her leg, which she'd lifted in an imitation of a ballerina's extension, and she bared her teeth playfully at Seamus. "Also, my ankles are gorgeous, thanks."

"Oh for the love of Merlin..."

"Sorry, Fay."

Pursing his lips to keep from laughing, Dean pressed the shutter button, and the camera flashed, stunning his makeshift models into temporary silence as they blinked their vision back.

"Christ, Dean," Seamus gasped, rubbing the back of his hands against his eyelids while Romilda pressed her palms against her own; even Fay was blinking, blue eyes dilated and unfocused.

"Now will you guys stand still and smile for the freaking photo please?" Dean shook his head while the photo printed, and when it did, he snorted. The three of them had been caught in very strange positions indeed. Folding it, he tucked it away into his pocket before the others could see. It was forgotten in a heartbeat. "Alright, c'mon."

Seamus looked to have recovered sooner than the other two, and he quickly threw an arm around each of their necks. Romilda crossed her arms in response, playing at being mad and failing miserably, while Fay simply glared in Dean's direction. He very carefully avoided her gaze, not keen on having to look at every bit of her "this is your fault I should be sleeping and I hate you" look. Seamus saved the moment, though, sort of, when he squeezed her shoulder, jolting her out of her glowering session and coloring her cheeks an embarrassed pink.

"We're ready!" Seamus said, and Dean could hear Fay's muttering of "Speak for yourself," but he chose to ignore it and held the camera up once again.

"Alright, ready? One...two...three!"

Dean cocked his head at the resulting photo, as he always did after reminiscing the scene, and while he wasn't a first class photographer he had to admit it had come out quite well. It didn't move, of course (Romilda had asked if the camera had been bought faulty), but he was almost glad for that. It was a moment that he was happy to have frozen in time: Seamus was beaming at the camera with a smile that touched every inch of his face; Romilda had her head leaned comfortably on his shoulder, a characteristic hybrid of a smirk and a grin that shouldn't have worked but did shaping her lips as she waved; Fay half-smiling, most likely for the sake of Dean and Dean alone, a bit of residual pink powdered across her cheeks. And for once his thumb couldn't be seen peeking out the edges. "Well," he muttered to himself through a stretch, replacing the frame and reaching out in front of him to loosen up a back stiff from hours of pouring over various projects, "'M not gonna get anywhere sitting here all evening."

Quickly, he gathered up his shoulder bag and packed it up, double checking as he left to make sure he had everything: gradebooks, pencil case, sketch pads, notebooks, wallet. He had the key turned most of the way in the lock before he swore lightly under his breath, pushing the door back open again and making a bee-line to his table. He reached a hand beneath it and felt along the underside until his finger brushed against something slender. Lifting it from its hooks, Dean removed the wand and twirled it, a sigh escaping through his nose. Content with the knowledge that he now had everything, he returned back to the door to lock it. Cautious eyes darted up and down the hallway, and when he was sure he was alone, he smiled.

"Home."

And with a sharp pop! Dean Thomas disappeared from the corridor of West Galway Secondary.

Author's Note: I've never been very good at introductions so I'm just going to jump right into things. While this is by no means the first fanfic I've ever written, it is the first I've sat down to actually compose in a long time. With chapters no less. Needless to say, I'm pretty darn excited. Also probably needless to say that I'm pretty new to the concept of ANs? I guess I'd usually use these to clarify things? But as this is only the first chapter there's nothing to be said...? So yeah. I'm not going to give any promising dates or anything, or deadlines, because despite the fact it's good to set these sort of things for yourself, the chances of me posting weekly or biweekly is incredibly slim at the moment. The story so far is only a little bit of a thing, and it has no set pace.

I've probably just babbled away to myself here, but if you've taken the time to read the AN, thank you! And that you, as well, for taking the time to read my little fic. Comment and review if you like, and hopefully I'll be hearing from you in the future.

(The School isn't in Galway, though. And We'll be seeing Luna soon enough.)

-Skye