Title: Confessions and Epiphanies of a Gay, Black Wizard.
Author: calliopeinbloom
Part [if a series]: One-shot, but ridiculously long, so you've been warned (~18,400 words)
Other pairings/characters: Dean/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, Harry/Ginny, Seamus/Blaise
Rating: NC-17, methinks.
Fair Warnings: Het, fair bit of language, non-chronological timeline and angst.

Summary: Dean's Hogwarts career and beyond, as seen through the twin lenses of race and sexuality.
Disclaimer: Wait, this story isn't canon? No, I don't own them.

Author's Notes: I was thinking about writing a really comprehensive essay on race and sexuality in Harry Potter, but then I realised how hard it would be to write a full-length paper on a handful of minor characters and one old man who likes knitting patterns, so this story was born. Also, it's my first fanfic, so thorough and honest concrit would be much appreciated :) My eternal gratitude goes to swissmarg (on LJ) for her amazing and incredibly comprehensive beta skills. All mistakes are mine.

Sometime around the end of fifth year, Dean Thomas came to the conclusion that it was perfectly all right to stare at Seamus Finnigan because Seamus was original and as an artist, Dean was drawn to originality like a moth to a flame; it was his lifeblood. So it was all Seamus' fault, if you thought it through rationally. Seamus insisted on telling the most mundane stories in a way that could make you listen despite yourself. He also wore smudged eyeliner and chipped, sparkly nail polish and a long, sandy-blond fringe that refused to stay out of his eyes as if he were the first boy to ever be a little androgynous and a little... how to put it?... sexually flexible. Sometimes, Dean really, really wanted to be angry at him because honestly, the staring thing had been fun at first and incredibly rewarding in terms of the ridiculous amount of time he'd spent sketching the stupid boy, but now his essays were piling up and he was barely sleeping. But then Seamus would catch his eye and grin at him as if he was the most fantastic thing in the world, and Dean would be drawn into the contrast between his pearly teeth and rose-coloured lips, the way the sun caught his normally sandy, ashen blond hair and turned it to spun gold and the way happiness could make his eyes sparkle like jewels. Then Dean would mentally slap himself and wonder when and how the fuck he'd turned into such a bloody girl.

Dean was pretty sure he'd been straight at one point in his life. He seemed to remember a time in his early adolescence when just the thought of breasts could make him so hard that he would almost weep with the pain and the pleasure of it; discovering the joy of his right hand (and the left one, when the right got too tired) had been both a relief and an increase in the weird, new pressure that seemed to settle over the top of his skull like a humid summer afternoon each time he thought of something vaguely sexual. Third year was the first time Dean and Seamus ever had a conversation regarding the subject of girls.

"Dean?"

"Mmmm?"

"You awake?"

"I am now."

Dean heard a low chuckle emerge from behind Seamus' curtains. "Don't pretend that you've been asleep all this time."

"How would you know?" Dean answered indignantly. "I could have been far into the Land of Nod, for all you know."

He heard a snort. "Dean." Seamus' voice was rich with a smile. "I've shared a dormitory with you for almost three years. I know what you sound like when you sleep."

Dean paused; he didn't know what to make of this. "I don't know whether to be flattered or incredibly disturbed," he said finally.

Seamus didn't answer with words; instead, he let his hand, ghost-white in the moonlight, float outside of his curtains with the middle finger up. Dean laughed.

"What do you want?" he asked.

Dean heard Seamus sigh. "Dean?"

"Yes?" He drew out the word's single vowel warily.

"What do you think about Lavender?"

Dean frowned up at his canopy. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. D'you think she's nice?"

"I suppose so," Dean said, shrugging even though he knew Seamus couldn't see him. "She's all right if you like that kind of thing."

"What kind of thing?" There was a rustle from Seamus' bed. The gap in the curtains became a proper divide, and Dean could see Seamus' sleep-tousled hair and his mismatched green pyjamas. He was sitting in a cross-legged position with his elbows in the crooks of his knees and his chin on his palms.

"You know." Dean adjusted himself to a reclining position on his elbows. "The girly, pink thing," he added, not bothering to lower his voice; he could hear the little snuffles that meant Neville was dead to the world. There was complete silence from Harry and Ron's end; they were probably under the influence of the sleeping charms Flitwick had instructed them to practise the previous day.

Seamus said nothing; he only raised his eyebrows.

Dean rolled his eyes. "You know," he said, annoyed. He was beginning to wish he could draw some kind of diagram or flowchart or even a foot-long essay to show exactly what he meant. Parchment and paper were much more forgiving than human ears. "She twitters on about hair potions and love spells and Celestina Warbeck, and while there's nothing wrong with that, she's just not really what I'd go for."

Seamus nodded thoughtfully. "Who would you go for?"

Dean thought and didn't actually know which name was going to pop out of his mouth until he heard himself saying: "Ginny Weasley."

Seamus threw his head back and crowed loudly, with complete disregard for the other sleeping boys. Luckily, none of them stirred. "Ginny Weasley? Oh, ho, ho, Ron is going to kill you!"

Dean sat up fiercely and scowled at him. "No, he won't, because there'll be nothing to kill me for, because you're not going to say anything."

Seamus snorted at his attempted threat. "Stand down, Thomas. Anyway, why her?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know. She's good on a broom. And she likes my drawings. Like, really likes them."

Seamus shook his head. "Big head."

Dean lay back and got under his covers again. "It is the way of the artist," he sighed melodramatically.

Seamus laughed quietly. "Goodnight, Dean."

"G'night, Seamus," he said tiredly, already yawning.

It was when he was in fourth year that Dean Thomas noticed – in a very quiet way – that he was one of very few black students at Hogwarts. For some reason, he felt a strange guilt that he hadn't been aware of this, that he hadn't taken more notice of what he felt was his blackness. He didn't even know why he felt so bad about it, he just did.

He did a quick survey at breakfast the next day; at his table, there was himself, Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson in the Weasley twins' year and Demelza Robbins in the year below (or was it two years?). Blaise Zabini was at the Slytherin table and in his year and a few taller black girls and boys he assumed were in the years above. The same applied to the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw: none in his year, but a few in the years above. And if he widened his criteria to ethnic minorities in general, there was Parvati Patil in Gryffindor and her twin sister, Padma in Ravenclaw, who were both Indian, and Cho Chang in Ravenclaw was Chinese. He chewed his toast ruminatively.

"Hello, Earth to Dean. What's up?" Seamus was shaking him gently.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing, just..." He made a vague hand gesture against his head and went back to his breakfast, still considering his odd epiphany of sorts.

He thought about it all day, turning over this new and yet not at all new information in his mind, wondering why the hell it was suddenly so important to him after all these years. It wasn't until he got to History of Magic in his fifth period that the Great Lightning Bolt of Why hit him. Binns was wittering on about the Goblin Rebellion of 1785 or whatever, when he said in response to Hermione's question: "This was because the wizarding race was under severe threat from the new forms of magic the goblins had created..."

He realised that the concept of race was different in the wizarding world; it meant something completely different to what it meant in the Muggle world because of the whole 'pureblood/Muggle-born' fight. The surprise and realisation and confusion must have shown on his face, because Seamus nudged him and poked him with a finger that ended in a perfect, suspiciously glossy fingernail.

"Dean, you're going to tell me what the hell is up with you. I've got some Firewhiskey under my bed. 'Kay?"

Dean snorted under his breath. Seamus and Firewhiskey. This should be interesting, he thought to himself.

Dean was in Seamus' bed with him, two large bottles of Firewhiskey and an obscenely varied selection of Honeydukes' finest produce sitting between them. They were already halfway through the sweets and a quarter of the way through the Firewhiskey (it had been Dean's idea to line their stomachs first). For all his bluster and his desperation to live up to the stereotype that the Irish could drink the rest of the world under the table and thus save the face of 'his people', as he termed his countrymen, Seamus couldn't hold his alcohol for shit. About two months ago at the Yule Ball, the two of them had managed to shake off their respective dates and lift some contraband alcohol – it was a weird, pink colour and it was sparkly, but it was alcohol – and Seamus had ended up getting completely smashed on two glasses, something Dean had not stopped taking the piss out of him for.

They ate and drank in silence until Seamus said: "So, you gonna tell me what's been biting you all day?"

Dean sighed. He was drunk enough for this; it had loosened his tongue. And after another glass or two, Seamus would be drunk enough to forget this. And you know, out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh and whatnot.

"Seamus, do you think of me as black?"

Seamus squinted and his whole body seemed to move with it. "What d'you mean?"

"Do you think of me as black?" Dean repeated his question; his throat suddenly became very dry and he reached for the Firewhiskey, taking a long slug.

"Well, yeah... I mean, you are black," he said slowly, as if Dean was a very stupid child. Dean rolled his eyes in annoyance and felt them continue to move in his skull of their own accord, like marbles; maybe he was more of a lightweight than he'd thought.

"I know that," he said. "But is it... is it all you see when you look at me?"

Seamus snorted, collapsing into giggles. "No, not at all. Mostly I think that you're really fecking tall. Like, a giant. And that you're always silent around people you don't know or don't feel comfortable with. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that you're a feckin' art genius who's gonna have owls chasing him constantly for portrait commissions when all you want to do is draw pictures of the people in Gryffindor. I mean, yeah, you're black, but it's not all I think about. When I think about your skin, mostly I wonder whether you ever get the feckin' awful farmer's tan I get every summer."

Dean was chewing down on a Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean when Seamus said that last part and ended up inadvertently biting down on his tongue; he could taste blood mixing with the sugary pumpkin flavour in his mouth in the strangest way. He took another deep swallow from the bottle and then ate two Chocolate Frogs in quick succession; he'd heal it later. In the state he was in now, he'd probably end up Vanishing his teeth.

"Farmer's tan?" he asked stupidly.

Seamus nodded sedately. "Yeah. Your face always gets a little darker in the summer months, but I've never been able to work out whether it looks really different to your torso."

Dean tried to work out something in his mind. "But you always walk around naked! How could you get a farmer's tan?"

Seamus looked at him askance. "Not outside." He sat up, face flushed and uniform askew as if he'd fallen asleep. "But what's brought all this on?"

"I was just thinking about being black and at Hogwarts and I can't even remember why now." Dean swept his hand over his face and blinked, trying and failing to clear his head of the pleasant, cotton-wool feeling inside his skull. "You know Blaise Zabini's the only black boy in our year?"

"Mmm." For some reason, Seamus' face was flushed. He squirmed.

"What's the matter?" It was Dean's turn to ask that question.

Seamus shook his head. "It's nothing."

"Seamus, it obviously is something. You're bright red and you're acting all... shifty."

"Shifty?"

Dean folded his arms. "Don't change the subject, Seamus."

Seamus took a Sugar Quill and started sucking, still not meeting Dean's eyes. "Blaise Zabini asked me to go with him to the next Hogsmeade weekend," he said finally.

Dean's eyes almost popped out of his head. "You turned him down?" he asked, almost as a statement as opposed to a question.

Seamus was quiet. "No. No, I didn't turn him down," he mumbled around his Quill.

"You said yes."

"Yes. I said yes."

Dean stared at him for a good minute. He was feeling an odd kind of nausea that might have had something to do with the booze and the Acid Pops and the Chocolate Frogs and the Fizzing Whizbees and all the other mental-sounding sweets he had eaten, but most likely had something more to do with the fact that there was something hot and sick-feeling swooping around in his stomach. The thought of Zabini talking to Seamus and holding hands with him and kissing, oh God, the thought of that was just too much because now there was a vice-like pressure on his temples and his lungs felt as if they were shrinking by a cubic centimetre per millisecond.

"Dean?" Seamus' voice was tiny.

He wasn't aware that he'd shut his eyes until he opened them. Seamus had the worried, contrite look normally reserved for their fairly rare post-argument make-up talks. "Yeah?"

"You're not... you're not angry, are you?"

"God, no. No, I could never... no. Seamus, it's not you, it's just..." He pursed his lips. "Couldn't you have found a nicer boy to go out with than that git Zabini?"

Seamus released a cackle that held a fair amount of relief, Dean realised. "Is that it?"

"God, Seamus, come here." He opened his arms, trying to ignore the swaying motion that followed. Seamus scrambled up into them and Dean was hit with his warmth and the lithe, small build of his body and the clean, powdery smell that Seamus' hair always gave off, one that reminded him of the scent of the tops of babies' heads. He nuzzled into Seamus' hair to get more of the smell, knowing he wouldn't mind.

"Thank you, Dean," Seamus mumbled from somewhere near his armpit.

It was only when he was rolling over in his own bed, trying not to move too fast lest he threw up, that he remembered that Blaise Zabini was a boy. And so was Seamus.

Dean saw no reason to treat Seamus differently after his little revelation. There was nothing he could do; there was nothing he wanted to do about it. And actually, looking at things retrospectively, it made a lot of sense.

A few weeks after that found them in the Room Room with their fellow Gryffindors. Seamus was scribbling away at his Potions homework on a small, round table and Dean was procrastinating on a large-ish couch next to him by drawing a cartoon strip with Seamus as the fidgety, hyperactive superhero in multi-coloured inks, so maybe things had changed; normally, it was Dean shaking off a bored and irritable Seamus in order to finish off an essay.

A loud bang echoed through the Room and Dean looked up sharply to see Ron storming in through the portrait hole, an ugly, snarling look on his face. Trailing behind him were Harry and Hermione; Harry wore a similar expression, but Hermione just looked tired. "Leave it, you two. You know he's going to say it every day. You know he isn't worth it. Just don't rise to the bait."

Ron turned to her, furious. "Hermione, he's a racist thug! How can you tell me to just 'leave it'?" He started pacing, the flush under his skin matching his hair, as it often did.

Hermione shook her head and sighed. "Maybe because he's done it for the past four years and he'll be doing it for the next three?"

Harry's brows contracted. He didn't say anything, but there was a mean, hard glint in his impossibly green eyes that said, 'Not if I have anything to do with it.' He put a comforting arm around Hermione's shoulders and she smiled at him wearily, both of them missing the angry, longing-laden look that Ron was throwing them. Dean's drawing hand twitched.

Hermione flapped her hands about her face and shook them both off. "It's fine, boys. Really," she added at her two best friends' disbelieving expressions. "I'm going to get a head start on my Arithmancy. You two would do well to do the same," she said sternly and sat herself down next to Dean without another word, taking out pieces of parchment and quills from her satchel until Harry and Ron realised there was no more talking to her unless they wanted to be told off, and drifted off to the comfiest place in front of the fireplace to ignore her advice and play chess. She looked at Dean and Seamus apologetically.

"Sorry about that. Malfoy said something in the corridor earlier and well, you know how Ron gets." She gave a brittle smile. "It's nothing for him to get worked up about, really."

Dean shook his head. "Don't worry about it, Hermione. But Ron's right, you know. Malfoy's a dickhead."

Hermione threw back her bushy head and laughed in a way Dean didn't often see her do. "Thanks, Dean," she said and settled back into her work. He looked over at the flurry of activity happening at the table near him; Seamus gave him a questioning look. Dean shrugged minutely and Seamus went back to his work.

They spent the next few hours at their respective activities, until the Room Room emptied and there were only a few older students dotted around the place, either studying or talking in low voices. Dean looked up from his parchment of doodles with a start, not knowing why until his eyes rested on Seamus. There had been no noise from his end for a while, the reason for this being that Seamus was stretched out over his work, fast asleep. His little snores were ruffling his overlong sandy fringe with each breath and he was leaning on the edge of a book in a way that made Dean wince; his shoulder was going to kill him when he woke up. He stood up and moved Seamus gently so as not to wake him. After a moment's hesitation, he took off his own jumper and put it on top of a book as a makeshift pillow, on top of which he then arranged Seamus.

He sat back down, feeling warm and cosy. He was overcome with one of those urges to freeze the moment, not through drawing or photography even, but to physically freeze it and just be content and warm in this place in time. He snuggled back into the couch, letting his eyes drift. A rustling to his right side told him that Hermione had woken up.

She was sorting and folding pieces of parchment in a sort of terrified frenzy. Her eyes were wide and there were ink-stains all over her fingers. "Dean, why didn't you wake me? I only wanted to take a ten-minute break!"

Dean felt his eyebrows float up of their own accord. "Hermione," he started in what he hoped was his sensible voice. "You had been studying for seven and a half hours straight when you fell asleep. I would know, I counted. If anyone deserves a break, it's you."

Hermione shook her head frantically and pressed her lips together, sorting her books into tidy piles. Dean had to admit, he was both grudgingly impressed and a little horrified. He knew Hermione was clever, but he'd had no idea that she was so focussed and driven. When Dean said that she'd been studying for seven and a half hours without a break, he wasn't exaggerating. She'd barely been touched by the fun, jovial atmosphere of the Gryffindor Room Room at its loudest, but instead had been buried in her books and notes all evening.

"I can't fail," she said, her voice shaking. "There's a test in Herbology next week and we still have that essay due on the hallucinatory effects of aconite when mixed with plants from the Michaelmas family."

"Hermione..." Dean started, tentatively putting a hand on her shoulder as she stood to go to the girls' dormitories. "You do know that both of those assignments are in for next week?"

"I can't fail," she repeated in a whisper.

Dean's eyes were manga-wide. "Hermione," he repeated, his voice low with shock. "When have you ever failed at anything?"

At these words, Hermione dropped the books and notes in her arms and burst into tears, not the attention-seeking kind that fizzled out after a few seconds, but noisy, painful sobs that came from an anguish that was buried in some deep and horribly dark corner within. Automatically, Dean slid his arms around her and pulled her into his front. She was small, her head not even reaching his shoulders, so her frame fit into his perfectly. He rubbed her back soothingly and patted her head, muttering nonsense words and noises to calm her down. Never let it be said that an emotionally volatile younger sister wasn't good for anything, Dean thought to himself with grim amusement, a mental image of Sabina floating in his head.

Eventually, Hermione calmed down and she seemed to come to her senses, because she tried to pull away from him and collect her things. Dean didn't let her escape, though. Instead, he pulled her down onto the couch with him, a heavy arm still slung around her shoulders. She was tense for a moment, then snuggled into his shoulder. He ran a hand over her hair to comfort her.

"I know we're not particularly close, Hermione," he said. "But I can't in good conscience let you go to bed after that. Those were the cries of someone who needs help. And if you don't want it from me, I want you to promise that you'll talk to someone else."

She was silent, and Dean panicked that he'd been too patronising, too overbearing, so he almost didn't hear her when she asked a question very, very quietly.

"Am I inadequate, Dean?"

He pulled back to get a good look at her tear-stained face and frowned. The chalk-tracks and blotches and wild hair made her look so much younger than she was, yet Dean's eye was trained to see things that others didn't and at that moment, he could see the child Hermione had been and the woman she was going to be. She was going to kick arse – Ron's, house-elf owners', the Minister's – and she was going to be strong and incredible and wise and that keen, almost intimidating intelligence would never dim, and it made him ache that someone as strong as Hermione was doubting herself, even for a second.

"You couldn't be inadequate if you tried, Hermione," he said fervently. "You are so intelligent and brave and beautiful and – listen to me!" He held her face because she'd started to pull away from him on the word 'beautiful'. "You are, Hermione!"

"Then why isn't it enough?" Her voice broke halfway through her question.

"Enough for who?"

"For everyone!" Her tears started in earnest again. "It'll never be enough that I'm Hermione Granger who knows the answer to every question on every test ever written because I'll always be that... that buck-toothed Mudblood!"

Dean didn't know what to say. Oddly enough, of all the things he could be feeling, he was upset. Not upset for her, not really. He was genuinely and... and separately upset that she was feeling this about herself. But he didn't have the words to make her feel better; he didn't even really know if there were any, so he threw caution to the wind and went with his instincts.

Her mouth was warm and dry and surprised against his and when he pulled away, his cheeks were wet with her tears. She was wearing a look of blank shock, one that didn't change even as he used the cuff of his shirt to wipe her face dry.

"Please, please don't think about yourself that way. Please. Malfoy's a racist fuck, and so are the rest of his cronies. Most of them don't even deserve that title because they don't even believe the shit their parents spout. They're only cowards who are just jealous and pissed off that a girl who spent her entire childhood unaware of her magic has not only caught up, but has done better than they could ever have dreamed of.

"And there's absolutely nothing wrong with having Muggle heritage. I mean, look at what you're doing with S.P.E.W. How many witches and wizards even thought of giving elves rights before you came along? You're... you're bringing the best of both worlds together. You're a force to be reckoned with, Hermione Granger. Honestly."

"You really think so?" Her small face was hopeful.

"I know so."

Her eyes threatened wetness again, but she was smiling this time. "Thank you, Dean."

He leaned in and kissed her forehead. "No problem." He pulled her into his side and held her hand in his.

When Dean woke up, there was a crick in his neck and a warm weight on his chest; looking down, he saw Hermione's head of very full hair, hair that resembled the mane of their House symbol. The image made him smile. With a few awkward contortions and twists and one near-miss, he was out from underneath Hermione. He gently arranged her on the couch so she would wake up comfortable, taking off her shoes and tie and arranging her things neatly.

He stretched, wincing a little at the pop of his bones, and yawned widely. It was then that he realised Seamus wasn't there, and nor were his things; only Dean's jumper remained on the table, folded neatly. Smiling to himself, Dean shook it out and was about to spread it over Hermione when he realised what would happen if Ron came downstairs to find the jumper of a male, fellow Gryffindor draped intimately across the body of the girl he was madly in love with, even if he didn't know it yet. He got the cloak he'd draped over the back of the couch and tucked Hermione in. Now it would just look as if she'd grabbed the nearest warm fabric and crawled underneath it.

Dean gathered his own things and headed to the boys' dormitory, dumping his things quietly next to his trunk when he got in and changing into a pair of pyjama bottoms. When he straightened up, he noticed that Seamus' bed was empty. There was only one other place he could be right now. Dean looked down at himself. Oh, well. If Seamus was uncomfortable with his bare chest, he could bloody well lump it. Annoying git.

He got into bed, taking some of the quilts from The Great Covers Stealer none too gently. But Seamus wasn't asleep; he turned over and threw an arm over Dean. Seamus stared up at him with those great, glassy eyes of his, the pale colour looking eerie in the half-darkness.

"Dean?"

"Mmm?" He felt mean for thinking it, but he hoped that Seamus didn't want some kind of heart to heart; he'd already used up his empathy quota for the month and he was exhausted.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're feckin' amazin'?"

"Um. No."

Seamus rubbed his cold nose against Dean's shoulder and Dean squirmed. "Well, I am."

"Oh. Well, thank you."

Seamus' smile stretched against his skin. "You're most welcome," he replied, teasingly echoing Dean's formal tone. "Goodnight, Dean," he said, wrapping them both up in the quilt in an unprecedented act of bed-related generosity.

"Goodnight, Seamus."

Dean felt that it was somehow wrong to go about normal life as if the talk he had with Hermione never happened. So he made a concerted effort to smile at her more in the corridors, and she always smiled back and waved, but Dean still felt this wasn't enough, so he got to work.

He thought about doing a simple line drawing in a heavy pencil or India ink, or even using pastels, but they and all of his other ideas just weren't magnificent enough. Only one thing would do. He got out his oils from under his bed and brushed them off reverently. He gathered a few brushes and his art supplies bag, begged a scholarly-looking photo of Hermione from Creevey and found an empty classroom in one of the many forgotten wings of the castle.

He set up an easel and canvas, mixed his colours with much more care than usual, and began to paint.

However many hours later, Dean was done. He was exhausted (he always forgot how weirdly physical painting could be), but he was done. He didn't usually blow his own trumpet, but this was brilliant. He didn't see any way that this gift would be badly received. Waving a quick drying spell over the painting, even though he usually hated using magic on his drawings unless to animate them, he packed his things quickly and ran to the library, wincing a little at the noise his feet made on the flagstones. It was dark and silent in the corridors and Dean had the nasty feeling that he was out after curfew; he kept expecting to see the red, glowing eyes of Mrs Norris around each corner or hear something to herald the disastrous arrival of Peeves.

He finally made it, a little out of breath from his fast pace. He tiptoed around, peering behind and around bookshelves and sure enough, he found Hermione at a window-seat, twirling a quill in her fingers as she considered a question.

"Hermione?"

She jumped and clutched her chest. "Oh God, Dean! You scared me."

He chuckled. "Sorry. Anyway, I... um. After, you know, the other day I wanted to give you something, you know, something to cheer you up, so... here." He handed her the canvas carefully and decided to let the work speak for itself. She took it cautiously, as if she were afraid of being bitten by it.

She looked at it for so long without speaking that Dean was sure he had offended her. He was just wondering how much trouble he would get into for Obliviating her, when:

"You've made me pretty." She said it baldly.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Hermione, beauty needs no embellishment. You look exactly like that; the painting is you. She's just you a decade or so later."

Hermione frowned. "But I'm not going to look like this in ten years."

Dean laughed. "I could actually put money on you looking like this in ten years' time. Honestly. When you're twenty-five, owl me a photo of yourself and see if I'm right. Which I will be." He came round to stand by her shoulder. "Are you really telling me that you won't be working on elves' rights when you're an adult and Harry's kicked Voldemort's arse?" He pointed to all of the tiny features in the painting that were labelled S.P.E.W or signalled an association with it. Hermione blushed and smiled. He talked her through it, explaining his idea and the objects and the place in the painting. When he fell silent, she nodded and looked up at him, blinking bright eyes.

"Thank you."

She didn't say any more, but Dean understood.