Dean eyed the goblet with distaste. He had already spoken to Loki about that stupid thing, and the pagan arch angel agreed to spell it so that the thing would read Dean's name instead of Harry's.
Harry didn't seem to mind that Dean clearly viewed him as a younger brother of sorts (Sam was just glad Dean had put most of his brotherly affections on Harry instead of him) and Dean was a tad overprotective of abused children.
Unlike the Weasleys or Hermione, Dean gave Harry plenty of space to make his own decisions, and as a consequence, Harry tended to gravitate towards Dean like a fly to honey. As did Neville, particularly after Dean sent a silent call for Bear to enter the Defense classroom when Moody was demonstrating the Unforgivables.
Neville had hugged Bear around the neck rather tightly upon seeing the Cruciatus curse being used on the spider.
And when Draco was stupid enough to make a comment about how 'weak' Neville was because he had to hug a "stupid dog" after seeing the curse...well... Loki had a lot of fun scaring the crap out of the pure blood pest. And then he left the warning that if Dean heard even once incident of Draco bullying another student, that he wouldn't be nearly as nice as Loki had been.
One look into the cold, unforgiving glare of Dean Harvelle, and Draco took the warning to heart. No way was he getting on the wrong side of the Gryffindor. Hearing Sam was Loki's "consort", and Draco wisely avoided him.
As for Castiel...well he rarely left Dean's side, and the one time another Slytherin tried to bother him to get to Dean, the blue eyed Puff kicked his ass. Hard. He was scheduled to leave St. Mungo's in time for the selection of Champions.
Draco might not be very bright, but even the dimmest bulb can sense a predator when he sees one.
Or it might have had something to do with Dean projecting Godzilla's aura in Draco's general direction. A brat named after the Dragon constellation up against something like that?
There was never a contest. And that was before one remembered Draco was such a coward he went to his father for back up.
Still, he wasn't exactly looking forward to what was going to be a boring contest. For one thing he could win all three tasks as Godzilla, which didn't make it much fun.
On the other hand, he got to enjoy people's heads popping off from seeing how big his dragon form could get. Or watching McGonagall develop a nervous tick every time he put on his 'angel face' as Gabriel called it.
Sometimes it was the small things in life that made you happy...like causing nervous breakdowns on strict teachers. Or Snape. He was always fun.
Snape shuddered. It was that feeling again.
Originally it wasn't so bad. He always knew when the twins were about to prank him particularly hard thanks to the creeping sensation down his spine. But this...this was infinitely worse.
This was someone driving him insane to the point he would kill himself to end the agony...only for his soul to be dragged back for eternal torment.
He needed to torment some Hufflepuffs.
"AAAAEEEIIIIIIII!"
Dean hummed a dirty tune with an extra big smile. It was always fun to torment Snape while having an unbeatable alibi. Thank Death for time turners.
"Okay, what did you do?"
"Temporarily got rid of his 'best friend' and gave him two new ones on his chest, while at the same time putting him in a tight corset, too short skirt and clean hair...after telling the upper year idiots with ties to Death Eaters where to find a hooker who was already paid to show them a 'good time'. It should wear off by tomorrow, and there's no way in hell he's going to pin it on me," said Dean angelically.
The Weasley twins bowed to the master Prankster. Not even they could have come up with something that cruel and/or devious while maintaining a perfect alibi. The only hitch was that Snape blamed everything on Harry, who had his own alibi of being in the Great Hall in full view of the other teachers whenever Dean warned him about his pranks.
Snape already hated him, so he had no issue with making the man's life hell while at the same time keeping Dean out of trouble.
"Remind me again what he did to warrant your special brand of humiliation?" asked Hermione.
After realizing keeping Harvelle in check was as pointless as trying to reign in the twins, she had accepted the inevitable. Well, that and Dean swore to quite pranking her floor of the girl's dorms if she quit harping on him. Considering she still hadn't figured out how he kept pulling that off, she agreed.
"He targeted Cas the same way he goes after Harry and Neville. Nobody targets my friends like that and gets away with it. Not without a warning of escalation and much more severe consequences," said Dean.
He left a note made of carefully cut out letters from Lockhart's books. Either Snape backed the hell off of everyone not a Slytherin, or next time he would hit even harder and the effects would be permanent. Considering that letter was laced with an obscure potion, Snape took the warning under advisement.
He would still gut the little bastard responsible for it if he found them though.
Hermione sighed.
"I still don't see why you don't study more," she complained.
"One, I don't really need to graduate Hogwarts to be good at why I do. I specialize in hunting monsters and repairing cars. Two, Hogwarts is widely considered one of the worst schools in the world, and the only reason we're here is because of a badly made port key and the fact we're having trouble contacting our parents. It was simply easier to stick around until it's over with," said Dean flatly.
Hermione bristled up at the implications that Hogwarts wasn't a good school.
Dean promptly showed her the pamphlets he had Loki pick up from the ICW. Her face turned several different shades upon seeing some of the courses available in other schools outside Europe.
"Are these accurate?" she asked.
"Here's the address and the phone number. You can call them once the school lets out for the summer and chances are you'll have to deal with mocking laughter when they hear you're from Hogwarts," offered Dean. Then he produced a mobile. "Or you can call them right now and ask them the current rankings, before saying you're a Hogwarts fourth year."
"Electronics don't work at Hogwarts," she said automatically.
"Actually they do, but the most students slip into despair upon realizing the only way to get a signal is through satellite, which has trouble working through the wards...and because there's no outlets."
Hermione considered that for a moment. It actually made more sense. If electronics couldn't work in the school, then how did things like digital watches and the like continue functioning inside the wards? She knew Harry had stolen one of his cousin's "presents" one year because the fat bastard broke his own watch. It wasn't like Dudley ever noticed.
"I'll be right back," she said.
An hour later she looked even more pissed than ever. Dean had not been lying...Hogwarts was considered one of the bottom ten schools in the world.
Harry however looked at one of the 'folders' on Dean's laptop.
"Is that what I think it is?" he asked carefully.
"Movie night in the boy's dorms?" said Dean smirking.
"That depends. Do you think we can keep the girls or worse, McGonagall from coming in?"
"Give me an hour and I'll have that old tabby more than distracted for a full night," said Dean with confidence.
Which was how Draco found himself in a long, unpleasant detention with McGonagall and the girls found themselves trying out various cosmetic spells Dean just 'happened' to drop a book on with Lavender.
All they needed was the sworn promise not to be pranked for a week in exchange for avoiding the boy's dorms for the night. They didn't need any reasons why, but it wasn't hard to guess.
Needless to say Dean became the boy's hero once they found out his laptop had some...interesting...files and he knew a spell to project the image to every floor barring those too young to appreciate the videos. He even set up a special room for the 'yaoi' enthusiasts...ironically none of them realized it was actually a recording of an adult Sam and his boyfriend going at it that Dean taped for blackmail on his brother.
Sam would kill him if he knew Dean had taped that for Gabriel on his request. Or that he had been paid in the form of treacle tart on demand.
Which would happen about five minutes after Ron started talking about how great Dean was.
Too bad Dean couldn't escape his well-trained brother or the horde of angry hormonal females lead by Hermione upon realizing what the boys had been doing all night.
Dean, using his rather roguish 'bad boy' charm, was the first one to offer his cloak to the shivering females of Beauxbatons. The other boys were quick to pick up on his idea, and soon they were eagerly awaiting the Durmstrang students.
He was openly unimpressed with Viktor Krum.
He was American. What would he care for Quidditch when football was so much more interesting?
Ironically the only other boy who shared his name, Dean Thomas, was in complete agreement. He found football (what they called in the States 'soccer') was more interesting than Quidditch, if only because it was played more often and there was a higher chance than normal of a proper riot during the game.
Well, that and Dean Thomas also shared Dean's passion for classic cars and music.
Because of Dean's act of kindness, the Beauxbaton girls sat at the Gryffindor table, to Sam's open relief.
He did not want to have a jealous Gabriel growling over the fact that one of the girls was part-Veela.
Cas was already tense because the Veela girl was so close to Dean.
"Your resistance to ze allure is most impressive," said the girl.
"To be fair, while I am bi there's no way in hell I'm even going to consider anyone under the age of twenty-one," said Dean shuddering. He made sure to send that message to Cas, who visibly relaxed.
"Why not?" asked one of the girls, looking disappointed.
"I prefer older women," was all Dean would say.
Dean left a lot of disappointed seventeen-year-olds. Besides, he would never date someone else in front of Cas. He wouldn't do that to someone he cared about so much.
Dean grinned as he openly walked over the age line without any issues at all, and dumped an entire bag full of slips he had collected from the Gryffindor boys.
He had bet them a hundred galleons (collectively) that he could put their names in without being hit with whatever protection Dumbledore put on the Goblet.
They were willing to humor him, and some were curious as to what magic or trick Dean knew that could get him across the age line.
The answer was simple, actually. He was well over the 'age limit' set by the headmaster/headmistress of the three schools, and he only appeared to be fourteen.
Age lines relied on magical cores to determine if someone could pass through them. And Dean's core still registered him as closer to thirty than fourteen. The same went for Sam and Castiel, who capitalized on the same thing in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff respectively.
Dean was the only one not surprised when the Goblet later spat out his name.
"Dean Harvelle!"
Dean walked to the side room, smug as could be. Thanks to Gabriel, he was the only Hogwarts student stuck in this death trap of a tournament. Even if there was some confusion as to why his name came out twice.
"How did you do it?" asked the twins later, once the party died down.
"Easy. Age lines are based on the age of the 'core' inside all witches and wizards, not their 'physical' age. Mine read over the base limit set by the headmaster, meaning it wouldn't bother me. I'm guessing it thought I was a teacher or something."
Before they could ask what he meant by that, Dean closed his curtains. He didn't know how the twins managed to pay for firewhiskey, but he was glad they had.
Harry however did have one question.
"Why did your name come out twice?"
"That? Told Loki that if someone were stupid enough to put your name in, to have the goblet shunt it off to the next available member of the Potter family," yawned Dean.
Which, technically, was Dean. Even if he had a different name.
He was sound asleep before Harry could ask him about what he meant.