I can’t help but be wrong in the dark • | d e a n

JULY 2001

It wasn’t a fancy bar by any standard. The wooden surfaces were scratched and chipped at the edges; marks left by too many glasses and rough handling and not enough servicing. The patrons of this place seemed mostly friendly in a loud sort of way, their rowdier presence interspersed sparingly with the odd couple or quieter group here for a quiet drink after work. Dress standard was casual, expectations were nonexistent; it was a low-pressure sort of place.

Still, Dennis didn’t quite fit in here. The silhouette of his body gave him away; his arms and legs were just a touch too long, like he hadn’t quite grown into them yet. There was something awkward in the way he leant against the window, something uncomfortable about the way he watched the cars below drive by, their headlights punctuating through the dreary rain outside. His clothes were fashionable enough in an accidental, low-key sort of way, but his body and his posture and the general shape of him betrayed the fact that he didn’t frequent these places very often.

The man working security by the door had read it a mile away. He’d scrutinised Dennis’ muggle proof of age card with a skeptical gaze that followed the eighteen year old’s skinny form even after he’d allowed the kid inside. Dennis had felt the older man watching as he’d tucked his ID back into his wallet. Dennis had ordered a whiskey, and headed to the upstairs area of the bar, away from skeptical eyes.

Unlike many of his peers, Dennis hadn’t had to jump through any special hoops to get weekends off from the international summer school. At eighteen, the Gryffindor was legally an adult by both wizarding and muggle standards. Even before his coming-of-age date, Dennis hadn’t lived with his parents for a long time. He was his own legal guardian. It made for a strange juxtaposition when at school he wasn’t supposed to decide when he went to bed or what he wore. Dennis reflected on this as he leant one temple against the cold glass window beside him.

It was quieter up here. A little darker, but still decently lit. The rowdier crowd stayed mainly downstairs. Dennis guessed it was to avoid the problem of stairs after too many drinks. He’d been lucky enough to find a  small booth in the back corner of the place, but it was a little chillier here than closer to the stairs. He hoped that Dean wouldn’t have any trouble finding him.

He’d made a sort of joke of it. Let me buy you a drink, he’d written, lightheartedly weaving a mention of the empty bottle of rum he’d left in the place of an almost-full one on Dean’s kitchen counter one several months ago. He hated to think about that night, but bringing it up in a humorous way would make things better, he thought. Dennis didn’t intend on referencing it at all tonight, and he knew Dean well enough to guess that the older man would leave well enough alone.

He hadn’t been here before. There was a pleasant, lived-in ambience, like it was a sort of place that friends met. It made Dean wonder whether Dennis had actually been here either, whether he’d chosen it out of some desire that their rendezvous would fit into the laughing groups or if he’d just chosen it because it served alcohol. Did Dennis hang around this neighborhood when he wasn’t with him? Dean really had no idea. It was part of the reason he liked it when Dennis stayed: he didn’t know much about him otherwise. Where he went, what he got up to. It wasn’t his business, but he worried.

On the one hand, Dennis had given him reason to worry. From what Dean had seen he didn’t seem like he could care for himself, or like he didn’t care to care for himself if he was able. But on the other, he knew what Dennis wanted from him and worrying was the opposite. Dennis wanted to be grown and be understood as having done so, left to make his own decisions without interference or condescension. And it was completely fair that he should. He should have been out of school by now. Even before then he was capable of uncommon maturity. Sometimes he seemed too wise for Dean to understand. But also, sometimes, so painfully adolescent it made his heart ache, and that was what made the difference.

Dean wandered among the tables, unable to spot Dennis even in the more private corners of the room, so he crossed the room to look upstairs.

Their communication had been infrequent but existent. Occasionally they’d reference the way their last face-to-face interaction had ended or some other weighty feeling in a sentence or two and leave it be, almost afraid to be too much for the other. It was weird, frankness to ward off vulnerability. Dean wondered if that sort of thing would carry over from the letters. He wanted to ask questions, but he didn’t want to force an openness into their friendship if it wasn’t there.

The boy was sitting near the window, looking out over the street. Dean cleared his throat and winced a little when Dennis jumped. “Hi, Den,” he said, catching himself holding his breath and giving him half a smile to cover his embarrassment. “You look well.” Much better than the last time he’d seen him, at any rate. He sat on the other side of the table and smiled more fully, more earnestly.

“Enjoying the Caribbean?” he asked. It was sort of a joke—it was the kind of trip some people might kill for, but he imagined neither he nor Dennis were one of those people.

The heat from his skin fogged up the glass he'd rested his face on and Dennis wiped it down with one sleeve before returning to his previous position. The rain outside was incredibly dreary; it couldn't seem to muster the energy to properly storm, but rather just coat every surface with clammy, shiny grey water. It would be a bad night for sleeping outside, he thought distantly. As if there ever really was a good night for sleeping outside in London, he added. The vacant staring gave him the look of an apathetic teen, but Dennis did feel a little anxious. It wasn't in the form of shaky hands or a racing heartbeat, but it was there deep in his chest, just uncomfortable enough to be noticed.

Of course as soon as Dean said his name, Dennis felt relieved and not nervous at all. He jumped a little, but turned to face the young man who'd just appeared. It was easy to be anxious about social interactions when they were looming, but he usually remembered how to talk to people by the time it was actually happening. Besides, this was Dean. Things might have been awkward last time they’d spoken (Dennis shut down that thought quickly), but he knew that Dean was really, genuinely a nice person. It made tt simpler. Dennis moved a little, not sure if he should get up or not, but Dean made the decision easy by taking a seat across from him. “Hey,” he greeted, cracking a smile. A real, genuine smile.

Dennis pushed up his sleeves in answer, showing tanned, freckled skin. He was better off than a lot of his peers in that he didn’t burn immediately upon stepping into the sunlight, but he was still prone to sunburn. After the red skin healed it seemed like his freckles had multiplied. “It’s fun,” he said, his smile crooked; dimpled. “Fun in the way that I have to do it to be able to get my OWLs.” Fun in the way that, for most of this summer, he didn’t have to think about things like where he’d be sleeping or if he could afford to eat. Last summer the teenager had done things like cleaned muggle houses for money, but he’d done it with magic and after his run in with the ministry earlier this year he wasn’t keen to risk another. Learning more about the International statute of secrecy was probably a good idea, he decided.

“How are you?” He asked, getting the question out of the way early. Dennis was secretly a little thankful for societal conventions that gave him scripts to follow when he talked to someone, but this was Dean. Out of everyone in the world, Dean probably knew him the best. Not that Dean knew him very well at all, he reflected. Dennis shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable. "I ordered two drinks, they should be here soon." Absentmindedly, Dennis played with the ice at the bottom of the glass he'd just finished, pushing the cold pieces around with his straw. "Rum and cola, right?" he asked, a little cheekiness in his tone. He was a little surprised at how nice it was to be sitting across from his friend. A strange but not unpleasant warmth had replaced the anxiety in his chest.

“Could be worse, I figure,” said Dean, laughing. “Imagine a muggle school sending you to the beach for extra classes.” The look on Dennis’s face felt great, really great. He’d relaxed as soon as he’d noticed him, and Dean relaxed in kind, resting his chin in one hand.

“I’ve been good,” he said, and it felt like such a meaningless thing to say. But the last few months had been so idyllic for him that for once “good” wasn’t covering up some drama or struggle or just tiredness, it was just honest. He’d always understood it as a euphemism, a way of blowing off the question, and he figured Dennis would read his reply that way too. The last thing he wanted was for him to think they’d fallen into empty niceties. So he tried to elaborate. “You know, still working—more hours because I’m not taking classes anymore, at the moment. Just hanging around…” He looked down at the tabletop and waffled a little before admitting, “I’ve been seeing someone.”

While he did like him around, there was a part of Dean that was a little thankful that Dennis hadn’t come to stay this summer. They’d never really hung out in a group before, their friendship was something more private than a lot of others he’d been part of in the past. And the same was true of his relationship with Riley. Combining the two felt like it would be volatile, like he couldn’t be what both of them expected of him at once…or what he expected himself to be for them. But also, there was really no avoiding it if he and Dennis were going to be friends. He couldn’t just omit what had come to be such a significant part of his life, at least not without it coming out and being called on it later. He shrugged awkwardly. “And I mean, that’s going well.” And he laughed. “For a change, y’know.”

Their drinks came. For a second he was tempted to offer to pay for himself. He wasn’t sure how much money Dennis had but didn’t imagine it could be much. But it might have come across as any number of things, a lack of confidence, an assumption, a blow to his pride. Dean would let him make a gesture if he wanted.

“So what are you going to do after the summer?” he asked. They’d talked over all kinds of different futures, but he wasn’t sure whether Dennis had landed on one. “Are you staying at Hogwarts, have you decided?”

“Muggle school.” Dennis mock-shuddered at the idea, shaking his head and ducking his chin to look at the empty glass in front of him. He liked listening to Dean talk. The Londoner had such a cool, metropolitan air about him and his stories always seemed so appealing. He nodded when Dean talked about work, wondering if the former Gryffindor would consider doing some more tattoos for him. Dennis didn’t know what he wanted, but his skin was such a mess of freckles and scars and tattoos that it seemed almost disposable. Why not use the space for art? Perhaps it was a problem that he thought of his body like this.

I’m seeing someone.

Dennis was very still for a moment, but the moment moved quickly as Dennis willed it away. His smile didn’t falter, but something felt a little off. Why should he feel anything but happy that Dean was seeing someone? Why should he feel anything at all? Sure, he had entertained the idea of spending some time at Dean’s place this summer. Especially before he’d found out that the disruptions to his education had meant that there was no way he’d get his OWLs if he didn’t go to summer school. But it wasn’t like he needed somewhere to stay right now. He didn’t need Dean.

He supposed - and of course felt guilty for it immediately - that a quiet, selfish part of him had thought of Dean as being part his. At some point - and he really had no idea how this had formed - he’d come to think of Dean as accessibly, reliably his. Dean’s couch, his support… Dennis hadn’t paused to think about the fact that these weren’t things he should expect or assume. He berated himself internally. Idiot, he thought. It was a mantra. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“That’s really good,” he said out loud, carefully containing his confusion and the thin ribbon of resentment he could feel twisting internally. Their drinks came before he could say anything else and Dennis insisted on paying. It wasn’t like he had wads of disposable income lying around but that was the whole point of tonight, wasn’t it? Thankfully the conversation shifted away a little. Dennis caught a whiff of Dean’s cologne and it reminded him of lying drunk in his bed, so he quickly took a sip of his drink to drown the scent.

“They want me to go back,” he said with a slight shrug, leaning back in his chair. The school administration had been good to him. “I mean… I got into the summer school on a scholarship and after the whole ministry thing…” Dennis trailed off, realising that he hadn’t really told Dean about that whole kerfuffle. How the school had written letters for him, defending his “character”. How he’d broken the law. Idiot. Sheepishly, Dennis ducked his head, a smile gracing his lips for a moment. His expression held a little bitterness. “Uh… So I kind of broke the international statute of secrecy or something?” The teenager scratched the back of his neck self-consciously, making eye contact again.

“Thanks,” said Dean, smiling gratefully. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting out of Dennis, but hearing his support made a cool feeling of relief wash over him anyway. Not relaxing him enough to continue on the subject, but enough to feel like his worries were a little more unfounded. “What about you?” he asked. “How have things been?” He was wondering whether Dennis had any light news of the kind to share, but remembered then that Hogwarts had remained a prime site for atrocity even when open to the outside world again. “I read about what happened at the end of term,” he said more solemnly. Attempted murder was nothing new for their Hogwarts, but the news was still jarring, as it rightly should have been. Especially after this nightmare of a year.

But Dennis was going back, or at least, the school was encouraging him to. “You alright with that?” he asked, a little quieter. They could speak more privately up her than they could have downstairs, which he figured was why Dennis had chosen the seat. “I mean—“ Now the students Dennis had been sorted with would be gone and he’d be stuck as an overage schoolboy, being bossed about and watched over. And more  importantly, when they’d spoken last Dennis had seemed a little detached from Hogwarts. Like it was part of his life, but a part that trapped him in traumas and memories too much for it to be a home. It was a feeling Dean knew, could remember. He wanted to tell Dennis that he could do whatever he damn well pleased. That he’d help, help find him a room and a job and whatever he could. But the boy was still speaking and his sheepish admission made Dean raise his eyebrows in interest.

“Wow,” he said, “you have been busy.” Breaking the Statute of Secrecy wasn’t necessarily hard, but Dean was still surprised. Surprised, and very interested. “Well,” he began, with a curious smile, “was it for a good reason?”

I read about what happened at the end of term

“Classic Hogwarts, right?” Dennis didn't want to talk about what happened at the end of term and he didn't want to talk about The Dome^TM. If he were honest, he didn't even want to talk about summer school. He'd much prefer to hear Dean talk about himself. Although... maybe not so much right now.

Dennis watched his friend smile as his dark gaze fell to the table in front of them. For a small moment, Dean’s thoughts were elsewhere, with another man. Dennis was torn between wanting to take a photograph of his friend’s fleeting expression and wanting to look away. The contours of Dean’s face were painted in a mix of cool and warm hues from lights inside the bar and reflections from outside. His edges were drawn in stark contrast with the inside light reflecting from the window. Dennis wondered if anyone had ever thought about him and smiled like that. Dean certainly hadn’t, and wouldn’t. Not that that mattered. The boy felt the joy seeing Dean had brought start to slip away. His mood was slowly shifting back into the monotonous sort of melancholy he’d been feeling before his friend had arrived.

Dennis took another drink.

“Yeah I…” Dennis paused for a moment. “I guess.” He dropped his gaze again, finding it strange to talk about her here. With him. His time with Foxglove had been so heartbreakingly short-lived that he’d wondered since then if it really meant anything at all. It certainly wouldn’t mean anything to her, he thought wryly. Not ever. Dennis wondered what would happen if he showed up at that restaurant near Dean’s place again. He’d been warned not to go near the redhead again and he didn’t want to get in trouble with magical law enforcement, but it was such a tantalising idea. He didn’t even know - for sure - that she was safe. Maybe that was part of why he’d wanted to show up at Dean’s again.

Either way, there had been a reason that he’d kept that information to himself. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but there was something about Dean knowing he’d had this great romantic interlude that was just off. There was something about Dean looking so pleased with himself when he talked about seeing someone that made Dennis feel defensive. It made him uncomfortable. And he hated that it made him so uncomfortable because why should it matter? Who cared if Dean knew about Foxglove, and who cared if he knew that Dean had been seeing someone?

Frustratingly, you do, said a voice inside his head.

“I was seeing someone too,” he said, his smile turning from sheepish to wry. He didn’t sound defiant; the defiance hadn’t made its way into his tone or into the shape of his expression but Dennis could feel it. It bubbled under the surface in such a confusing way. I was seeing someone too. It was like a defence against Dean’s new relationship (was it a man or a woman? Muggle? Magical?) and a defence against his own confusing feelings. It was almost a truth, he thought. “Sort of.” There, that was better. He’d finished his drink fairly quickly and was now playing with the glass, rotating it on one edge with both hands absentmindedly.

“I mean, I kind of broke into some places and stole some stuff for her and did some magic and stuff.” Dennis shrugged, eyes transfixed on the glass he was turning in his hands. “And they… wiped her memory.” The boy moved his glass to one side and folded his arms across his chest. “So that was pretty shit.” He knew that it was a mix of things - confusing things - that had made his mood shift over the course of this conversation, but he was content to let Dean think it was all about Foxglove. “Anyway, the school wrote letters for me. Arranged meetings. And then they got me this scholarship - not that I deserved it or anything. So I feel like… I mean, it’s not like I have anything outside of school.” He stopped talking there, a hint of bitterness had made its way into his tone and he’d felt so good only minutes earlier.

As Dennis spoke about Hogwarts there was a rough edge to his joke, and Dean knew he shouldn’t have said anything. He’d been curious—he was always curious, because he worried. Maybe later Dennis would speak of what he’d gone through, maybe when he was drunker, or if they just spent more time together. But right now he was resisting serious lines of conversation and Dean pulled back immediately.

He looked up and Dennis’s face was unguarded for a moment, lost in something melancholy. Dean knew that expression. He felt something in him tighten—just because it was frequent didn’t mean it got to him any less. There were times in their conversations where Dennis would slip, just barely, and Dean would wonder whether any of his laughter had been genuine. The thought that the boy was putting on a front every time they spoke was uncomfortable. But the thought that things had been fine until Dean came along and did something stupid was sickening.

He was less skilled at hiding his feelings than Dennis was. As Dennis admitted to his own romance Dean couldn’t summon the sincerity for a real smile even though he was happy for him, he truly was. And if he hadn’t caught that brief, flickering crack in Dennis’s armor he’d probably have laughed, have asked him about it, have tried to get him to share more about the things that made him happy. But he wasn’t really sure what Dennis was even saying to him anymore and what move would be the wrong one. There were so many loved ones whose minds he wished desperately he could read. Relying only on outward cues to know a person felt so shallow sometimes, so frustratingly impossible.

Dean looked down into his drink for a moment and took a long sip.

Dennis had already finished his own drink and was twirling his glass idly on the tabletop, avoiding his gaze. He admitted what he’d done in a distantly frank sort of way, and Dean didn’t have time to disapprove before he moved on to what came of it. “That’s terrible,” said Dean, after several seconds and with an honest sorrow. “And she—she forgot you entirely? I can’t…” He’d never had to learn too much about the tricky business that was memory charms and he was thankful for it. He’d thought about it in his infinite romanticism, doing something special or sharing his secret self after one dinner and a night in bed, but he’d always been wilder in his thoughts than in his actions. Some part of him admired Dennis then as much as it worried. There was something to be said for such earnestness, such spontaneity.

“I’m sorry,” he said, redundantly, helplessly. There was really nothing else he knew how to do. He didn’t know if something like this could be made alright with anything less than time. And he didn’t know what to say to those last, hopeless little words. You have me, he was tempted to reply. But that wasn’t what Dennis was looking for. Dean wasn’t a purpose, and no matter how much he wanted to he couldn’t give one.

Two drinks in and Dennis was already saying things that he meant rather than things that he meant to say. Shit. Dennis was torn between questioning whether or not drinking was a good idea and the much stronger desire to dull some of his anxieties with more alcohol. Because that always works, he thought wryly. “Another drink?” He asked, proceeding to wave over the young man wiping tables near them and ordering two more drinks. He’d noticed that Dean hadn’t quite finished his drink yet - oh he’d noticed - but he pretended not to for the sake of saving face. He hoped Dean would follow suit.

Deans reaction to his story made Dennis’ heart clench just a little tighter for a beat or two. Some selfish part of him wanted the satisfaction of seeing this expression on Dean’s face - the one that proved he cared - but mostly he just felt immediately guilty. Especially when his friend apologised.

“Nah, don’t,” Dennis said regretfully, waving his friend’s apology away with one hand. Dennis frowned at himself for a moment then straightened up and gave Dean an apologetic smile. It’s not Dean’s fault, he reminded himself gently, though the Gryffindor boy wasn’t entirely sure if he was talking about Foxglove or other things. “Sorry. I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since.” Since they came and talked to him. Since they warned him to stay away. The muggle police seemed so harmless compared to magical law enforcement. The ministry was such a huge, powerful entity that Dennis could barely compare the two. Who cared about police when there were aurors or obliviators? What muggle punishment could possibly compare to the might of the ministry? Dennis shuddered at the thought, his mind wandering to old Daily Prophet articles that spoke in similar tones. He remembered reading a few scraps after the war, at a time when he’d given up on trying to be part of a world that seemed to want him to hate himself.

Dennis leant his elbow on the table and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly, looking up at Dean again and deciding to try a little harder. “It’s been a pretty shit year to be honest. I mean, it’s…” He shrugged as if the shrug was part of his sentence, not wanting to delve into the details or reveal his various weaknesses, “…But yeah. I don’t know. I don't know what I'm doing after it's all over." A part of him hated Hogwarts. "It’s hard to talk about.” Dennis was saved from his floundering as their drinks arrived and he paid for them again, thankfully taking the first sip of his before resting it on the table in front of them. He shrugged again, meeting Dean's gaze with a mix of pleading and defiance. Can we talk about something else?

“I really—I honestly hate this, sometimes,” said Dean, without really thinking. He got onto this every now and then and it was such a pointless topic, with no solution and too many complications for someone like him to make a decision about. He dealt in aesthetics, not sociology, and he always worried his anger at things was fueled more by ignorance than understanding. “I mean, I know they can’t know about us, not on a large scale,” he said. “It’d start wars, probably. They wouldn’t trust us. I wouldn’t trust us.” It had been different when he was eleven, when he’d felt chosen, when they’d told him what great things he could do and not what terrible things could be done as well. When the wizarding world was an exciting secret to keep and not an omniscient nightmare operating beneath most of the world’s consciousness. “But I don’t like how we deal with it. It’s like a horror film—that spells exist that can make us do things, forget things—how do we know what’s—“ Pressing his lips together, Dean tried to make sense of what he was saying and quickly swallowed the last of his drink before distilling it into something more concise. “What right have we got to make people think things that aren’t real?” he said. “It’s…” He trailed off, lamely. “…Cruel.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled after a small pause. “I didn’t meant to—I’m sorry about what happened.” He’d lost sight, a little bit, of Dennis’s personal story. “I hope things straighten out,” he said. “Really.”

Dennis was looking at him more openly now, and it made him a little more comfortable. But again, he didn’t know what to say. He ran through all manner of platitudes in his head before hesitantly speaking. “You don’t have to know what you’re doing, I figure,” said Dean. “A lot of people don’t. You don’t need a career straight off—or even ever.” He was aware of how hypocritical he might have sounded saying this to Dennis. He acknowledged that he’d been lucky. Talent and hard work were common but opportunity, the convergence of circumstance that might allow one to follow their dream, was rarer than anyone would tell a child. Just working to survive wasn’t some lower tier of existence, it was how most of the world lived. “You just need to…find a place for yourself, I guess,” he said. He didn’t know if that would help, or just sound like another impossible task that would bar Dennis permanently from happiness. Dean didn’t think he’d have bought it at his age, shell-shocked and lost in no-man’s land. But everyone needed a home, to find one or make one.

They were delivered two more glasses. “I can get the next round, if we go for more,” he said to Dennis when the waiter had left. It bothered him to see Dennis waste money on something like this. Was he still trying to atone for whatever burden he thought he was putting on Dean? It wasn’t even nice rum, you know. He held his tongue. Dennis might be able to joke like that, but Dean was more tentative.

"Me too," Dennis agreed, kind of pleased that Dean was talking a bit more and not about him, specifically. He could get worked up about something like this. All he had to do was abstract a little, pretend they were talking about things in a general sort of way rather than as a response to his personal experiences and situations. "Yeah, they can't know about us, but like... So my parents are cool to know I do magic, but what about my aunt and uncle in Sheffield?" Dennis nodded about the war thing. The wizarding world certainly didn't want to lose any more lives (not that anyone was doing anything to prevent that at Hogwarts). Dean apologised again. "No, it's fine," Dennis said softly.

Deans words made an impression, and Dennis took a moment to mull them over. He was right, of course. They lived in a world where words could control people's minds or cause unimaginable pain. Where a flash of green light could steal a teenager's life. These particular thoughts didn't make Dennis uncomfortable persay. The teenager spent a lot of time thinking about death and loss and the mess that those things left behind. Dennis was a great example of that mess. No, it wasn't uncomfortable to think about because he spent so much time thinking about it. Dean was right. It was cruel.

"Yeah, I know," Dennis said, avoiding Dean's eyes for a moment as he looked outside once more. He wasn't talking about a career. Dennis hardly had any friends, hadn't spoken to his family in over a year and slept in muggle hostels when he was on break from school. At school he didn't excel at anything, had trouble socialising and spent most of the time there taking photos of things and getting angry with himself when he couldn't focus on schoolwork. There wasn't much for him at Hogwarts but there wasn't anything for him outside of Hogwarts, so he figured, why not just do what his teachers wanted? Dennis was drifting through life and his remaining tethers seemed to matter less and less. Finding a place for himself? It might as well have been another language.

Dennis took his drink and sipped at the whiskey. "Yeah, okay, sure," Dennis said, just a little reluctance in his voice. The boy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. If he were honest, it wasn't like he could really afford to be throwing money at alcohol. He could get a bottle of shitty wine for not much more than these drinks were costing him if he really wanted to get wasted. Still, he'd put some cash aside for tonight for a reason. Of course he'd also planned on keeping certain things secret and he hadn't planned on things getting off to such a morose start...

"Tell me about your new person," he said, trying to project the right amount of interest as he rested his forearms on the table. "How long have you been seeing... her? him?" Dennis smiled his crooked smile a little.

“I dunno,” Dean mumbled. “I guess—all it takes is the wrong person finding out. So it’s safer to keep it at minimum.” He shrugged helplessly. “If there were an easy answer we’d be doing it already. But it still just doesn’t sit right.” Sipping his drink, he tried to push aside his answerless questions and failed.

“Do you ever wonder what happened to kids you used to know?” he asked suddenly, looking down away from Dennis. “Not from Hogwarts, from before. Like, I had friends at school, in the neighborhood… And then I went to Hogwarts and I couldn’t write, I couldn’t tell them anything, and we just sort of stopped talking.” He smiled a little to himself, ruefully. “They probably hated me. Like I went off to some mysterious posh school and turned into some kind of snob.” His finger traced the rim of his glass. “Not that they’d have really been wrong. I think even my sisters felt like that. They knew about magic, but I was still…gone all the time, I was different.” He wondered what it had been like for Dennis, that miraculous stroke of luck that he was magic like his brother was. However horridly it had ended, he hadn’t been set apart from his family in the same way Dean had been.

Dennis didn’t seem to respond to any of his weak attempts at advice. “Just do whatever feels right,” Dean said after a moment, at a loss. “Or, y’know—“ he laughed softly. “Feels the least wrong. But I’ll be here whatever happens.” He wasn’t sure exactly what that would mean to Dennis. He wanted the words to be comforting, to assure him he had someone to fall back on. But he still wasn’t certain what Dennis thought of him, much less staying with him. Dean thought Dennis liked him. He’d invited him out, he’d looked up at him tonight and brightened up. But there were other times when Dean wondered whether he was trapping him just as much as Hogwarts was. This, as he watched Dennis looking out the window, was one of them.

And then, abruptly, Dennis pulled himself out of his thoughts and asked about Riley. Dean blinked and hesitantly echoed the boy’s smile. “Well, we met a few months ago—or—six or seven, actually,” he began. He hadn’t been keeping track of time lately as exactingly as he might have in loneliness. “Or, well, we knew each other… He was Gryffindor, in the year below me.” Colin’s year. They didn’t reference him so meaninglessly. “Do you remember Riley?” Dean smiled again faintly. “Anyway, we got on real well, and…well…” There had been much more to the story than that, but none of it was Dennis’s business or Dean’s story to tell.

He felt silly talking about himself with no reciprocity. He wanted to ask about Dennis’s muggle girl, who’d inspired passion and reckless lawbreaking. But that felt like it would be one of the things they didn’t speak about again.

Dennis wanted to know more about the rules pertaining to muggles. He knew people that had a muggle parent, so surely there had to be a point where witches and wizards were allowed to tell their partners about everything. It was pretty messed up, when he thought about it. Dennis didn’t know if he could stay with someone who’d basically lied to them about everything from the start of their relationships. Then again, what did he know about relationships?

“Yeah I think about those kids,” Dennis said, nodding. They weren’t really kids anymore now though, were they? Dennis had willingly thrown away his old life; tossed aside old friends. At ten, he’d thought the other kids in his working class neighbourhood would be the people he’d be growing up with. That was the sort of thing you believed in small towns, he thought. He probably would have dated more than one of the girls that lived near his street. Probably would have graduated high school with them. Done stupid things like try to make fake IDs with his boys and learn how to drive cars before he was old enough to get his license. Dennis followed Dean’s gaze as the other man looked away. “Same. I haven’t seen any of them since. Dropped them all for magic school.” After a pause, he added, “Who wouldn’t?” Dennis couldn’t imagine any muggle turning down the chance at an escape from the mundane.

He thought about how he’d abandoned everyone - parents included, really - for Hogwarts. With Colin by his side, it hadn’t mattered at all. Dean mentioned his sisters and Dennis nodded. “When Colin went to school I was so jealous. And lonely, I guess. I mean, we were two years apart but close.” Colin. Colin. He thought about his dead brother a lot but saying his name now made him realise how infrequently the word left his lips. “I wonder about the kids at my next school too.” And the one after that. Dennis had struggled through a year of muggle school where he was three years behind in every subject. Three years behind in pop culture references, three years behind in muggle fashion trends, three years behind in maths. He’d been bullied, ignored and isolated. And then he’d changed schools when he moved back to his parents house. They’d changed location when he and Colin were in hiding with their grandfather, and so when Dennis came back, he had gone to a whole new school again. Dennis had been displaced so many times.

He was a little zoned out when Dean talked about school and plans. Thinking about those things made Dennis feel both overwhelmed and distant at the same time, like the mere thought of the future was so incomprehensibly insurmountable that he needed to check out for a while. He paid more attention when Dean started talking about his new lover.

“Oh okay,” Dennis said, raising his eyebrows a little at the time period mentioned. Six or seven months? So… Dennis did some quick math. They might have already known each other last time he saw Dean. Wow. A year below Dean? “Right,” Dennis said with a short nod. Colin’s year. “I don’t know, maybe?” Dennis frowned a little, trying to remember the names of his brother’s friends. Dennis had always wanted all of Colin’s friends to like him, but as a kid, he’d been pretty fucking annoying. Riley sounded familiar, but Dennis didn’t have a face to put to the name. He waited for a moment for Dean to elaborate, but when he didn’t, Dennis rushed to fill the void. “Yeah that sounds really great,” he found himself saying, the words slipping out without thought.

He didn’t sound very genuine though, so he tried again.

“I’m happy for you. Sounds like you’re all set up," Dennis smiled, but he wanted to ask more. Were they living together? Was it exclusive, serious, permanent? "Hope I'm not stealing too much of your time away," he joked. I hope I'm not too inconvenient for you. That ribbon of selfishness was twisting inside him. He was riddled with it. Dean was happier now that he had been before, thanks to a new love, and all Dennis could feel was insecure and jealous. Dean probably meant what he'd said before - I’ll be here whatever happens - but his life was moving forward and away, just like everyone else. Dennis felt like he was losing some kind of emotional tether. Stupid. "Maybe I can meet him sometime," he added quickly, "I could come over or something". The words just kept coming out of his mouth. He didn't want to meet Riley. He didn't want to go to Dean's house and see Riley there. He knew there was something off in the way he was talking, some wrong element he couldn't quite define, so he forced himself to stop talking and finished his third drink of the night instead.

"Did you want to maybe go for a walk or something?"

“I dunno,” said Dean. He wondered sometimes what things would have been like. If he’d refused the invitation to school (was that even allowed?). If he hadn’t been born magical at all. Seamus asked him once soon after the war if everything had been worth it, if he regretted going to Hogwarts. And as he looked back into the hurt face of someone it all had given him, he’d said he didn’t, not a bit. But he still wondered. “It’s not as if there’s really a choice,” he continued. “I don’t think they can force you, but… Imagine going through life knowing about magic and knowing you passed it up. How there were people who could do things like you, and they were everywhere, but you couldn’t find them.” He shrugged. “When you’re a kid there’s no question, but for parents…? Some of them must be difficult.” His mother had said that the Hogwarts letter had brought everything about him together and made it make sense, like a diagnosis giving meaning to a collection of symptoms. His parents wouldn’t have held him back from who he was. But he knew not everyone felt that way.

“They probably just remember us as being really weird,” said Dean with a small laugh. “If they remember at all by now.” But then Dennis reminded him that he’d been in muggle school more recently. Dean looked down again. “I can’t imagine just…coming back, like that,” he said. When he’d decided to take art classes he’d tried to teach himself maths and science and history from old textbooks in some fit of paranoia, tried to read all the classic literature he might have in school. As if it would come up and his ignorance would out him somehow. Dean hated lying. Less the act than the anxiety that came with it, the fear that it would all unravel beneath him. That feeling was what time in the muggle world was like for him, after Hogwarts. It was how he’d known it was no longer home. Just the thought of having to live through school as a teenager after years of magical immersion like Dennis had made his stomach clench nervously.

Dennis tried to show support as he spoke about Riley, and Dean smiled gratefully. “No, it doesn’t really sound like anything. We’re just sort of—we’re getting to know each other, and it’s going well. There’s not that much to say.” He glanced away and felt himself blushing. “I mean, well, you never know. But I’m hopeful, I guess.” He was always hopeful, stupidly so, but this relationship had given him more to be hopeful about than usual. It was his longest since Ginny, after all. And that would have been a great deal shorter if either of them had had a better sense of when to fold.

Dean finished his drink, more relaxed, but as Dennis went on he started to catch some kind of bitter edge in his companion’s voice. He might have been imagining it. Maybe Dennis was just poor at wording jokes, or maybe the three drinks in short succession were kicking in. But it was enough to make him worry. What was he doing, talking about how happy he was when Dennis had just been telling him about his nightmare of a year? Stupid. “Not in the slightest,” he assured Dennis, maybe a little too forcefully. “I’ve got my life and he’s got his.” He shrugged. You’re never in the way would sound too trite, and too much like a lie.

He was ready to move on from the subject but Dennis was stuck there. He proposed a meeting. “If you want!” replied Dean, unable to hide his surprise. He’d thought about how they might meet, of course. When he’d taken Riley in he wondered how Dennis would feel about someone else in the flat that Dean had started to think of by then as theirs, whether he’d still want to stay. Even when they were alone Dennis had the tendency to feel intrusive and third-wheeling a couple might have been too much to bear. Summer school had negated that worry, as would, apparently, continuing at Hogwarts. But if Dennis had an interest in meeting Riley anyway he wouldn’t say no. He thought they might actually get along, if they got to know each other.

As Dean watched Dennis, though he wasn’t sure that he really had an interest. His face looked a little like he was unraveling. Often Dean wanted to reach out for him, or to tell him everything was alright, but he was afraid of having misunderstood when he didn’t know exactly what was wrong. So he let Dennis suggest they take a walk. “Sure,” said Dean, hoping that was what he actually wanted. “Anywhere in particular, or just…walk?”

"Not at first - obviously - but, y'know, after... I thought about it," Dennis admitted, "My parents didn't want me to go back and I'd already been out for a year." And Colin was dead. "I went to a new school again and thought that was the end of that." He might have said went to a new school, but really his words detailed months of skipping class and refusing to get out of bed. If he'd left it for longer, maybe he would have started thinking like Dean was describing - imagining the magical world buzzing unseen all around him, wondering what he was missing out on. As it was, however, he'd just felt so messed up that anything had to be better than the reality he was living in. Even magic. Especially magic. "But then one day, after two years of not touching my wand, I hitchhiked to London and found Diagon alley - which was pretty hard actually," Dennis snorted and shook his head, the memory of that day abstract enough to be almost funny.

Dennis wondered what it was like to feel hopeful about a relationship. He wondered what it was like to have a sustained relationship, and realised that Dean was probably the closest thing to one that he'd ever had. Aside from Dean, real connections with other people were more like scattered pinpoints of light, or bizarrely intense but painfully short-lived bursts of energy like Foxglove. He wasn’t sure what sort of work he had to do to cultivate something more sustained. Just thinking about it made him feel many things in rapid succession; overwhelmed, lonely, angry, defensive, jealous, closed.

Not in the slightest.

Dennis looked up, something in the tone of his friend’s voice catching his attention. Dennis blinked, flicking his puzzled gaze away again as Dean kept talking. He was regretting asking anything. It had made him feel weird and now he was acting weird and the worst part was that Dean could tell. He could feel the other man’s eyes on him, could easily imagine the questions there that Dean was too careful to actually say. The concern there that was appreciated - desperately, sometimes - but also sometimes pretty fucking condescending. Dennis’ muddy green-brown eyes slid down to his empty glass. He was only a few drinks in, but maybe his thoughts were already addled by the alcohol. He felt it a little, just at the edges, but he also felt irritatingly sober in other ways. “Yeah, maybe just a walk for a bit?” Dennis got to his feet. He waited for Dean to follow suit before moving to the stairs.

He was being selfish, stupid. By now, though, he thought he actually probably could put a face to the name Dean had given him. Riley. Dennis felt like he was a muggleborn? He wasn't sure; couldn't remember exactly (and that irked him) but if he was a muggleborn and a Gryffindor, there was no way Colin hadn't known him. Dennis wondered vaguely what had happened to him during the war. Was he a runaway too? Maybe he and Dean had bonded over it. Dennis trotted down the staircase to the lower level.

"There are a few little bars a couple of roads from here, you know, near that old brick building that used to be a wool factory or something?" He slowed his pace, falling into step with Dean as they made their way to the door. "I was thinking we could go somewhere quieter." He tried to give an excuse for his actions, give a reason for suddenly wanting to get out of the place he'd invited Dean to. Dennis wasn't usually so awkward or strange, but he usually didn't feel so vulnerable either. He usually didn't feel so invested or like things he did actually mattered. Maybe that was a problem, he thought vaguely.

"It's... I dunno. Talking about that stuff - the muggle stuff - I don't really do that." That was an acceptable excuse, he thought. Not a lie. "...Not that I don't like talking about it," he added honestly. They stepped outside and Dennis shivered, the colder temperature taking him by surprise. He focused on the feeling, the immediate tightness in his shoulders and the goosebumps appearing up and down his arms. It was distracting, and distracting was good. The outside air was damp, but the rain had slowed to a sort of misty mizzle so he didn't bother with spells or umbrellas. Dennis started walking in the direction of the other bars he'd been talking about, but beside the cold being outside was actually pretty nice. The icy air was sobering and it cut through his churning thoughts like a blade. "I don't have any other muggleborn friends," he said, "I think about it a lot, but yeah. I guess I don't talk about it."

Dean was better at expressing, he thought. More in touch with his feelings, more able to turn them into words. Less constrained, perhaps by what an adult was supposed to be like and what a man was supposed to be like. Dennis' mind wandered back to when he'd first reached out to Dean and when he'd first been in his house, minimising his presence as much as possible and not sharing anything. How had they gone from that to Dennis being able to speak his thoughts more with the Gryffindor alumni than anyone else in the world? There was something about Dean, he decided that just made things easier.