SuperPotterLock - The Order of the Phoenix

Detention with Dolores

The House-elves were far better company than anyone else, but Dean grudgingly left them when he had eaten his fill and made his way up to the library, where he was supposed to meet Cas. He chose a table near the door, so Cas would see him when he came in, and pulled out his books. Cas arrived not long after and was surprised to see him.

'You're early,' Cas said. 'I was going to set everything up first. Why aren't you at dinner? Have you eaten?'

Dean shrugged. 'I ate in the kitchens. I kinda left Dark Arts early.'

'Dean, you can't skip classes anymore,' Cas chastised as he grabbed things out of his bag.

Dean folded his arms and sunk down in his chair. 'Whatever, she just wanted us to read a book the whole time, there was no point in me being there,' he said bitterly.

Cas put his bag on the floor. 'All right,' he said quietly. 'Have you had much homework today?'

Dean breathed deeply, forcing himself out of his stormy mood. 'Yeah, something about trolls or goblins or something for History of Magic, an essay about moonstones for Snape, and Trelawney wants us to write a dream diary for a month...' Dean trailed off, panic rising in his voice now that he was faced with the almost insurmountable pile of work he'd accumulated in just one day. He'd always been able to brush it off before, he didn't need to do the work, he could just coast by until MACUSA made him an Auror on reputation alone.

'Don't worry, Dean, you can do it,' Cas said kindly. 'Let's start with something simple, so we can find what works before we tackle something else.' Cas sat down beside Dean and put a book in front of him. 'Can you read the title?'

Dean looked down at it and rubbed his eyes. How was he supposed to concentrate on reading when Cas was sitting so close to him? 'Uh, it's The Tales of Beedle the Bard.'

'Good,' Cas smiled, then opened the book. 'How about this?' He pointed at the title of the first story. The font was smaller and slightly curler, but Dean managed it.

'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot.'

Cas nodded encouragingly. 'Can you read any of the story itself?'

'Um...' Dean stopped. The words underneath the title were small, and they shifted around too much. 'No,' he mumbled, cheeks warming.

'It's nothing to be ashamed of,' Cas said firmly. 'The only people that should be embarrassed are the ones that let you suffer like this for so long without noticing.'

'If you say so.'

'I do. Now, how do the words appear? Can you still see individual words, or do they all get mixed up?'

'They all kinda jump around.'

Cas nodded. 'Let's try this.' He tapped his wand against the book and the words rearranged themselves so that the spaces between them were wider. 'How about now?' 'It-it's a little better.' Dean made it a few lines in before everything started to wobble again, so Cas made the spaces between lines widen as well. 'Wow, that's great,' Dean smiled, reading the story out to Cas. But about half way, his eyes began to prickle and it got harder to read again.

'Don't be upset if it's still difficult,' Cas said soothingly. 'It's like a muscle, you can't expect it to be in great shape if you haven't been strengthening it. Take a break and we'll keep going in a minute.'

Dean nodded, rubbing his eyes. 'Are we gonna keep reading this book? 'Cause I got a lot of homework...'

'We'll get there one step at a time.'