'That can't be true. A flying car?'

Seamus grinned, shaking his head as they headed through the corridors up to the dormitory. 'It's Harry Potter. That's just the way he does things, mate.'

'Apparently.'

'Why didn't we think of that?'

'We don't have a flying car, Seamus,' Dean reminded him. 'If we did, I don't think I'd like to crash it into a tree, having flown in it for the length of time it takes to get here on the train.'

'Don't ruin my dream.'

'I thought your dream was 'the ponies, Dean – the ponies'?'

Seamus grunted, shoving him into him gently. 'Shut up about that, will you?'

Dean snickered, ruffling his hair and speeding up a little to lead them into the dorm. "I said I wouldn't tell anybody else. Beyond that I make no promises. Ah – but it's good to be back, though, isn't it?'

Glad for the change of subject, though he still took the chance to throw him a withering look, Seamus nodded. 'Is. You've seen how my mam can be.'

'She's brilliant! You're just grumpy.'

'Yeah, well – she loves you. All she does is nag at me.'

'Equal opportunities,' Dean said cheekily, flashing him another grin. 'Your dad nags you too.'

'Can we get back to talking about the flying car, by any chance?'

Dean laughed, flopping down onto his bed. 'Yeah, alright. What else did you want to say?'

'Well. Where did they get it? More's the point, where do we get one?'

'I thought we agreed it was a bad idea.'

'It's the best idea.'

'Have you heard about Ron and Harry?' said Neville, coming into the dormitory to join them with wide eyes. 'Apparently they-'

Yeah, Neville,' said Seamus, suddenly and suspiciously not all that interested anymore. 'Flying car. We know.'

'Do you reckon they'll be expelled?'

'We've been over this before,' Seamus said tiredly, softening his tone at a reproachful glance from Dean. 'He's Harry Potter. They're not going to expel him – and Ron's just lucky they're friends.'

Neville hummed and sat down on his bed uncertainly, as though he was expecting it to fall to bits – Seamus got the feeling that this sort of thing happened a lot around Neville, and having his Gran around to berate him about it over summer probably made him all kinds of nervous. 'I hope you're right. I wonder why they did it, though.'

'Who cares? It was cool.'

Seamus knew he was being contradictory. Dean was still giving him the 'be nice to Neville' look, after all – but the boy himself seemed not to mind. Then again, he probably hadn't noticed he was being teased. It was the default setting for Neville. 'It was pretty cool, yeah.'

'I'll say,' Dean said, sitting up against the bedpost to join in the conversation better. 'Do you reckon they got hurt when they landed, though? Trees are… well. Pretty hard.'

'At least it wasn't the castle wall,' said Neville. His eyes were a little glazed, and Seamus couldn't help but think that he was imagining smashing into the stone himself. 'Hey, er… have you seen we've got Gilderoy Lockhart for Defence Against the Dark Arts this year?'

Even Dean looked a little incredulous that Neville didn't know this was common knowledge. Dumbledore had actually announced it, after all. Even so, he apparently had more self-restraint than Seamus did. What else was new? 'Yeah, we saw. What do you reckon?'

A little taken aback at being asked for his opinion, Neville had to come up with it before he could respond. 'I think he'll have to be good if he's written all those books.'

'I think he's full of rubbish.'

'Seamus, you would.'

He grinned over, pleased that Dean had latched on to his negativity. He had to keep reminding himself that they'd known each other for a year now. In many ways they were really close, but then again it also felt like yesterday that they'd first come across each other on the Hogwarts Express. It was weird, but it was good. It was also good that Dean already knew about how pessimistic he could be. That way it couldn't come back to bite him in the arse later if Dean didn't want to be friends with someone so negative anymore. He doubted that'd ever happen now, but even so it was nice for every part of him to feel accepted.

'He's full of it, mate. You saw how many of them my mam's got on her shelves. Dad doesn't believe it either – says there's no way any one wizard could have done all of that, and he's not even got any magic.'

'Dumbledore could have done it,' Neville said. That was quite a reasonable point for someone like Neville, Seamus thought, but then he noticed a problem with it.

'Dumbledore could have because he's not spent half his life writing shitey books about it.'

The conversation ended a few moments later, however, as Ron and Harry finally made their entrance into the dormitory. All thoughts of treating the subject of their entrance as an overdone conversation or old news went out of the window as they grinned at them, throwing jealous compliments left, right and centre.