To Be A Magical Boy

Chapter 14 - Seventh Year (part 1)

The old grandfather clock ticked slowly and loudly in the otherwise silent living room. Dean had always loved that clock. It was an antique passed down over generations, his mum had always said, and in the vastness of the Gryffindor common room he'd missed the comforting tick-tick-tick it constantly flicked.

Dean missed the whole living room when he was at Hogwarts for that matter. He'd spent so much of his years growing up within its walls that it had become synonymous with safety and comfort. All of it was achingly familiar – the large fireplace that consumed most of one wall beneath pictures in simple frames standing testimony to the years of his family's growth. The wide, dark couches of which all of them had their own designated cushions – not officially designated but simply always assumed. The modest television with Keira's mess of video games wedged beneath the standing cabinet, the coffee table stacked with more coasters than would ever possibly be needed given that the small size of the room would hardly be capable of fitting so people in it.

As Dean sat on the couch on his cushion alongside every member of his family in their own seats, he catalogued the room. He recorded every detail as he'd been recording those of each from all morning, even if it was so committed to memory already that he would likely never forget it. He didn't know the next time he would see it, after all.

The weight of Seamus' most recent letter sat heavily in his pocket, seeming to burn a hole through the denim of his jeans. The tone of the writing, the rapid, slanted scrawl that was even messier than Seamus' handwriting usually was, bespoke his urgency and fear as readily as the words themselves.

"... fucking insane, Dean. The whole house was on fire. I don't know if any of them made it out, but when the Aurors finally came they said they found bodies. I don't know how many, but people actually died. That was barely a street away, Dean, and it fucking terrified me. Lincoln was a Muggleborn, I'm sure of it, so that would make that the third one this week..."

Seamus didn't say it expressly, but Dean knew he was scared for him. That he feared for Dean as much as Dean was terrified for his situation, for his family, for Seamus in return. That thought ached, stinging with a sharp vicious and unshakeable pain. He wished he could have seen his best friend, his dearest friend who had become so much more than that, before he left. The last time he'd seen him... had it really only been three days ago? It felt like longer.

Dean regretted that he hadn't realised earlier. He regretted that he'd been so blind to what now seemed like very obvious clues that Seamus meant more to him than simply a friend. If Dean had realised sooner, if he'd realised the utterly obvious that was so obvious he constantly kicked himself for not realising, they would have had more time together. Just a little more time

But they wouldn't. Not now and not for perhaps a long time. Dean knew what he had to do. He knew, even if it pained him. Even if it hurt so terribly to leave, to turn away from both Seamus and his family. Seamus would be horrified when he got the letter Dean had already posted to his brother's house, the letter that told him he had to go, and that he was sorry but Seamus wasn't going to come with him. Dean couldn't drag him into that.

Just like he couldn't drag his family into it, either.

"So you're telling us," Andrew said slowly from the couch opposite him, breaking the static silence had statically pervaded since Dean's explanation, "that you honestly think it would be for the best if you left?"

Dean swallowing tightly, fighting back the pain that pleaded he retract his words. The expression on his mum's face, the disbelief in Andrew's words and the wide-eyed stares he beheld from his siblings hurt enough as it was. He nodded tightly. "It's for the best."