Before I Knew

Always
by Lang Leav

You were you,
and I was I;
we were two
before our time

I was yours
before I knew,
and you have always
been mine too.

1. Train

I'm a wizard. I have a wand. I'm going to a magic school where I'm going to learn how to do magic, Dean thought to himself. It had become a sort of mantra for him ever since his letter had arrived in July, shocking him and his parents.

He sat in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express with a nervous-looking girl in blonde pigtails and a calm-looking blonde haired boy sitting on the bench across from him. They were both first years as well, and from what he could tell from their conversations, they both came from magical families. Dean didn't participate in the talking, partly because he didn't know anything about the magical world and he also didn't much like talking.

Now the conversation had died out between the two, and they all just sat there in an awkward silence. Dean's hand itched and he had the urge to draw something, but resisted. At his old school he'd been bullied for his artistic skills, the boys calling him a poofer and a girl, and now he didn't draw in front of other people anymore.

Suddenly the compartment door burst open and a short, excited-looking boy with sandy hair stood in front of them.

"Mind if I join ye?" he asked.

Irish, Dean thought, recognizing the boy's accent.

"Got stuck in a compartment with a bunch o' Slytherin types, ye see," the boy said, striding into the compartment, closing the door behind him, and taking the empty seat next to Dean. "But you three seem like a fine lot!"

He smiled at them and Dean took the opportunity to study him. The Irish boy seemed to quiver, as if there was too much excitement in him for his body to contain, probably from nerves like the rest of them. But what Dean found really interesting was the fact that, because of the quivering, the boy's edges seemed almost blurry, and Dean felt the urge to try to capture that in a drawing.

"Me name's Seamus Finnigan, by the way," he said.

"Ernie Macmillan," the blonde boy introduced, reaching over to shake Seamus' hand. "Pleasure."

"H-Hannah Abbott," the girl squeaked, waving slightly.

Seamus turned to Dean expectantly, a wide grin on his face.

"Dean Thomas," he mumbled.

"Nice to meet you," Seamus said, then leaned in. "So, did ye hear?"

Ernie wrinkled his eyebrows. "Hear what?"

"Harry Potter's on the train," Seamus hissed.

Hannah and Ernie both gasped – apparently this Potter bloke was important – and Dean blurted out, "Who?" before he could stop himself.

Three sets of wide eyes settled on him and Dean wished that he hadn't opened his mouth. Here he was, making a fool of himself before he even got to the school.

"Muggle-born, eh?" Seamus asked, then launched into an explanation of who Harry Potter was before Dean could even nod to answer Seamus' assumption.

"I can't believe he's going to be in our year!" Hannah said excitedly.

Ernie nodded. "We could even be in the same house!"

"The house that gets him'll be lucky," Seamus said.

Then the compartment door opened. This time a girl with bushy brown hair was standing before them.

"Have – "

"We haven't seen any toads!" Seamus groaned.

The girl frowned. "No need to be rude. Come on, Neville, let's look somewhere else."

She grabbed the wrist of a round-faced, sniveling boy and closed the compartment door. They heard her stomp away and Seamus received weird looks.

"I seen her twice already," he explained. "The boy lost his stupid toad. I wouldn't be lookin' for it if it was me. Be right glad to be rid of it, I would."

Ernie and Hannah laughed, but Dean felt bad for the boy. Toad or not, he clearly cared for the creature. He tuned out the conversation as Seamus and Ernie began to speculate about Harry Potter again.

"Anything off the cart, dears?"

They looked up to see that a lady with a trolley filled with candy had opened their compartment door. Dean's jaw dropped; he'd never seen candy like that before. Ernie, Hannah, and Seamus stood up eagerly and began pulling the funny coins he'd used to get his school supplies out of their pockets. Dean didn't want to risk looking like an idiot trying to buy wizard candy with wizard money for the first time, so he just tried to look not hungry despite the rumbling in his stomach.

Seamus sat back down and glanced at Dean, then dropped about half of his candy into Dean's lap.

"No, I'm not – "

"'Course ye are," Seamus interrupted with a grin. "Ye'd have to be mad to not want some candy. 'Sides, if ye are Muggle-born, then ye haven't had any of this before. Right?"

Dean nodded. "Right, but – "

"Consider it a 'Welcome to the Wizardin' World' present then."

Dean smiled, touched by the gesture.

"Thanks," he said.

Seamus shrugged. "'Course."

Dean spent the entire rest of the train ride asking Seamus about the sweets and daring him to eat suspicious-looking Bertie Bott's Beans, and figured this short, excitable guy might be nice to have around.

This will be a long, multi-chapter fic depicting various moment throughout Dean and Seamus' years at Hogwarts. They will be in chronological order. Some moments will be long, some will be short. Some will be happy, some will be sad. Most all of them are written from Dean's perspective. I hope you like them =)

The beginning chapters will be short and mostly feature Dean and Seamus getting to know each other. Once they're in their third year, it becomes more serious and chapters become longer.

~Ki

PS. The poem at the beginning of the story I found on tumblr and I thought it fit the story really well so I just included it in the beginning and also pulled the title of this story from it

PPS. I am an American girl and did my best to show Seamus' Irish accent and my best to use British terms, but alas I am flawed so forgive me if it's not all accurate