Nice, fluffy Dean/Seamus. If you don't like slash, go away, I don't own Harry Potter. All the typical stuff.

Three weeks into first year, Professor McGonagall made them fill out surveys about how they felt about Hogwarts. To make sure no one was thinking about committing suicide or something, Dean guessed.

It seemed ridiculous to him, but it did get them out of Transfiguration, so he supposed he didn't mind so much. The questions were fairly basic: they named their favorite classes, their favorite teachers, how much sleep did they think they were getting, and so on. He hoped they wouldn't be showing it to his mother.

Down towards the very bottom of the page, though, was a question that stumped him. Who would you consider your best friend here at Hogwarts?

While Dean supposed it was understandable that they would want to make sure everyone had friends, he wished they wouldn't be quite so blunt about it. He looked up from his paper and glanced around the room, to see if he could guess what everyone else was writing. Parvati and Lavender were giggling and pointing at each other's papers; Harry Potter and Ron were sitting next to each other, and he supposed they would write each other in. Hermione Granger, who seemed to have cleaved to Neville, was sitting in front of him; and he could see her neat handwriting filling in his name.

Everyone was taken.

Dean certainly didn't want to write someone in and have them write in someone else; that would seem pathetic, and he didn't want to be put on suicide watch before he'd been away from home even for a month. So he wrote in the name of the sandy-haired Irish boy sitting beside him—Seamus Finnigan.

Seamus was sitting beside him. Dean nudged him and pointed to his answer. Seamus' eyed brightened and he grinned; before indicating with his quill that he had already filled in Dean's name on his own paper.

That was how Dean Thomas made his very first friend in the Wizarding World.

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After they had filled in each other's names on the survey, both of them almost felt obligated to hang out together. The next day at breakfast, Dean made a point of sitting with Seamus.

They had more to talk about than he had expected. Seamus had been raised in a Wizarding family, and was all too happy to tell Dean about everything from Quidditch to some different types of art hat were common among wizards. And both of them were eager to debate the various merits of football versus Quidditch—football was the obvious winner in Dean's eyes, but Seamus didn't seem to see it that way.

And so—it worked. Seamus had a taste for mischief, and Dean was ready to follow him. He painted a giant poster of Snape with pink hair, Seamus charmed it to move, and they both snuck it into the Potions classroom between passing periods.

It stopped being an obligation and started being real almost as quickly as it began.

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It was in third year that Dean's painting became less of a hobby and more something he had to do. He was quickly loosing the illusion that magic could cure anything; after all, Sirius Black had escaped, and his mother was a muggle.

It was easier to just combine the two things he loved most: painting, and Seamus. Between them, they were quite enough to distract anyone.

He painted Seamus everywhere; lounging on the grass outside, flopped on his bed nearly asleep, concentrating on his homework, wolfing down breakfast. He got to the point where he had memorized every angle of Seamus' face, where he could imagine the way a particular source of light would look on him, or how he would look in some new piece of scenery. He could imagine Seamus' face as he laughed, and his voice as he related the joke for Dean to hear.

He knew what his hands looked like, rather small, rough with calluses and with the nails bitten down to the cuticles. He knew the way his bangs curled down to his eyebrows, and he could picture the way Seamus blew them away from his face as he talked.

He found himself doodling him in the margins of his homework, sketching his face on the back of napkins. Seamus appeared on his notes and essays and tests, all without Dean having much of an idea how he had gotten there.

Seamus only teased him a little. "You've made me much better looking than I am," he joked. "You don't need to suck up to me, Dean. I'll still be your friend if you draw me like an ugly troll."

Dean smiled and nodded. And he kept drawing Seamus the way he always had.

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Dean got his first kiss in fourth year.

Some third year Hufflepuff he hardly knew, Hannah Abbot, came up to him after breakfast and asked him to go to Hogsmeade with her. He was more than a little surprised, but it would be rude to say no, wouldn't it?

"Okay," he said, a bit surprised to hear his own voice coming out in a squeak. "That would be great."

He told Seamus later that night, after Ron and Harry and Neville were all safely snoring. "I'm going on a date," he said simply. His heart was pounding and his face was quite hot. He knew that he cared far too much what Seamus would think about a stupid little date with a stupid Hufflepuff that he'd hardly ever talked to before.

"Oh," Seamus said flatly. "Well, congratulations! I hope you…have fun."

Dean felt himself relax upon hearing that Seamus was annoyed. Surely that wasn't right. He laughed. "I doubt it," he said. "I wish I didn't have to go, but I already said yes."

Seamus laughed tensely. "Yeah," he said. "Well, anyway. Maybe next time."

Dean felt sick to his stomach the entire date. Seamus was hanging out with Ron , who was avoiding Harry, and the Weasley twins. He felt insanely jealous of Ron, and had the strong urge to abandon Hannah and run over there to intervene.

He knew he shouldn't. After all, he was a teenage boy, and Hannah was pretty; she had thick brown hair and bright blue eyes. She was shy, and hardly talked at first, but once he bought her a butterbeer she turned out to be pretty funny.

His eyes kept finding their way towards Seamus' table. Seamus, with his rough almost-blond hair and warm almost-green eyes. Seamus, his best friend.

Seamus, he noticed, was looking at him just as much as he was looking at Seamus. He smiled once, as if to say, Well, what can you do?

Dean was absolutely sure Seamus was watching when he leaned across the table and kissed Hannah Abbot.

He was sure because he saw the way Seamus' face turned white, then glowed red. He was sure because of the way he got up and left a few minutes later. He was sure because of the way he ignored him that night in the Common Room.

He was sure because he knew the satisfied feeling in the pit of his stomach came from the fact that he knew Seamus was jealous.

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He apologized the next morning. He felt very un-Gryffindorish as he did so. After all, he hadn't actually done anything wrong. He had just gone on a date, and kissed a girl—no harm done.

But he had wanted to make Seamus jealous.

"Listen," he said, feeling the blood rush to his face. "Sorry if I freaked you out yesterday. Kissing Hannah like that right there in front of you."

Seamus didn't look up from his bacon and eggs, but his face blushed deeply and his voice was high and warbling. "Why should I care who you kiss?" Seamus asked.

Dean shrugged weakly. "I dunno," he said. "It just seemed…"

They ate the rest of breakfast in silence.

Dean, needless to say, did not go anywhere else with Hannah Abbot.

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Dean spent the Third Task in the stands beside Dean. They both held huge banners supporting Harry and wore so much red and gold it almost hurt to look at each other.

Not that it was enough to stop Dean from stealing glances at his best friend when he didn't think anyone was looking.

Then Harry Potter came back clutching Cedric Diggory's body.

They were shuffled along to the Common Rooms quickly enough. Everyone sat around fire with their mouths hanging open. Parvati and Lavender were both sobbing, as were most of the first years.

Dean's head ached and he was tired and he didn't want to stay any longer.

When he headed up to the dorms, Seamus followed him without so much as a word.

They both collapsed onto their beds with the lights on and the curtains still open. Neville was still downstairs, and Ron was in the Hospital Wing with Harry. Dean didn't think he remembered the dorms ever being this quiet.

"Oh, my God," Seamus whispered finally.

Dean made a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "Do you think it's true?" he asked softly. "That You-Know-Who is back?"

Seamus turned on his side so he was facing Dean. Dean had never noticed how far away the beds in the dorms were, before. "I don't know," Seamus answered, his Irish accent so think he was barely understandable. "I guess we'll wait and see. But my mum says it was really bad, last time. If he's back—if he's back, it'll be war."

Dean nodded, and felt a sort of reckless impulse. He stood and moved beside Seamus' bed. Seamus was kneeling, and they were on eye level.

"Listen, Seamus," he said. "If this is war, then I guess people will be dying. And, well, this will probably sound silly, but I want to know that I—"

Seamus smiled brightly and cupped his cheek effectively cutting him off. Dean could hardly breathe, let alone talk. His lips were trembling and his mouth was dry, but he could see every freckle on Seamus' face so how could anything be wrong?

"I know," Seamus said. "Me too."

Seamus gave Dean his second kiss. His lips were dry but his hands were warm, and he tasted like chocolates and mints. Their noses touched softly and somehow Dean was lying beside Seamus in bed.

This was better than Hannah Abbot.

He thought that the Sorting Hat was right about putting him in Gryffindor, after all.

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He spent that summer at Seamus' house. Mrs. Finnigan was a boisterous, loud-spoken woman, and Dean did not think it would be prudent to get on her bad side.

So they acted as normal as they could around her. They tried not to brush up against each other at breakfast, and Dean his drawings of Seamus in his trunk. He did not think that Mrs. Finnigan would find a picture of Seamus wearing nothing but a bracelet quite as appealing as he did.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Seamus told him once. "I mean, I understand. I mean, if it freaks you out to do this with me. I won't mind."

Dean looked at him like he was crazy. "What do you mean?" he asked fiercely. "I love, you, you nut."

And that was that.

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