Longing for You - Deamus

A Christmas Wish

It was late December and the floor of the forest in which they slept was coated in a soft, shimmering layer of snow. The trees were bare and in their current state they looked about as wilted and lonely as Dean felt. Winter was the perfect juxtaposition: one minute it was eerie and lonely while the next it was joyful and overrun with children playing in the snow. Right as Dean stood, it was empty and lonesome.

He longed for the days where winter was happy and the snow fell and he would go outside with his sisters just enjoying the electric buzz that it created. His sisters. They played on his mind so much it was almost painful - were they okay? Did they miss him? Were they sad? He couldn't stand the thought that they might not be having a merry Christmas. His parents were probably stressed and sick with worry, unable to enjoy the holidays or answer the girls' questions about where their big brother was and why he hadn't called.

He pulled out the pictures that his sisters had drawn for the umpteenth time since they had set off. His fingers traced the crayon shapes of Mia's brightly coloured perfect family. The people in the picture were cheerful, optimistic, full of hope; all qualities that were quickly deteriorating in Dean.

He then found himself getting his sketchbook and pencils out of his bag and he began to recreate the picture. The colours weren't as bright as Mia's but the sentiment was there: he drew a picture of his perfect family, the one he remembered.

The day he came back from Hogwarts after fourth year was incredible. Dean was still upset from Cedric's death even though they weren't all that close and the reality of the magical world was starting to set in. Everyone was lost and losing hope so things at Hogwarts were spiralling into gloom. Which is why it was such a shock to enter the unassuming muggle world.

He had quite forgotten how differently the muggle world worked to the wizarding world until he was thrown straight back into it. When his mum picked him up from King's Cross, he wanted to scream about Cedric and that You-Know-Who was back and how Seamus didn't believe but couldn't. His mum was a muggle so she Wouldn't-Know-Who and besides, he didn't want her to worry. So he suppressed it and instead talked about the Yule Ball and the Beauxbatons & Durmstrang students and his friends' hilarious attempts at trying to get dates. Surprisingly, recounting all the good memories did actually make him feel better (or it at least hid the bad memories from view).

He got to the house with higher spirits although he was still fully prepared to go up to his room and cry into his pillow for a while. What he wasn't prepared for was to find the his family waiting for him in the living room with a banner that said 'Welcome Home Dean!' and party food laid out on the coffee table. When he walked in the room, his two oldest sisters ran to hug him (round the legs) and he pulled them up into his arms and kissed each girl on the head.

"I missed you so much!"

They giggled and wriggled out of his arms to go and grab some biscuits. It was a cliche but Dean's sisters truly made him happier - he had no idea what he'd do without them.

They spent the evening dancing and eating and laughing until Dean had forgotten all about what was going on in the wizarding world. Luckily for his tired head though, his sisters were young and needed to go to bed relatively early. He volunteered to send them to bed to give his mum and Michael a much needed break after having to deal with three small kids for a year.

After they'd brushed their teeth and gotten into their pyjamas, he tucked each one into bed with a kiss before climbing into his own bed and falling asleep almost immediately, still overjoyed with the memories of the evening.

He looked down at the picture he had drawn of a family. His mother and Michael were smiling broadly, hands entwined. His little sisters were playing and laughing in the sunlight with their hair in little bunches just as he remembered them. They were probably different now: bigger and louder and more grown up but he drew them how they looked in his head.

And then he found himself turning over the page and drawing Seamus. Perfect Seamus. He drew him like he'd drawn him thousands of times. Sun glinting on his mischievous eyes, sandy hair ruffled, Hogwarts uniform informal and slightly ashen. But in this picture, there was another person. Dean didn't much like drawing self-portraits but this was an exception because he was drawing a scenario which had been played in his mind from every angle. They were hugging a deep, glorious, meaningful hug with his arms draped around Sea's neck and Sea's arms squeezing Dean's back like they could stay there forever.

It was a quick drawing because he knew exactly where to put every line but he spent a while staring at it wondering if there was an alternate universe in which Dean and Seamus were together and hugging and happy. The idea seemed ludicrous in their current situation but then again, the idea that magic existed seemed just as unbelievable to him 8 years ago.

He was about to stuff the drawing in his rucksack when a large tawny owl swooped down from a tree and landed on a nearby rock. Dean stared at it intently; owls, muggle owls that is, rarely came out during the day and especially not this close to humans. It was sat happily licking its feathers with no regard to Dean whatsoever.

"You're a magical owl aren't you?" He spoke to the bird. It waddled over and pecked at his arm in friendly affirmation. And then an idea struck him.

On the back of each sheet of paper he wrote the words 'Merry Christmas'. Plain and simple, nothing too incriminating for the Ministry to unpick. Then he folded them up and wrote the correct names and addresses on them before attaching them to the spindly legs of the owl.

He patted the bird on the head and said, "Please get these to them. They need to know I'm alive." And the owl went on its way, flying gracefully off into the distance.

'>'

Holy smokes I updated! Don't get too excited though, I won't be updating for at least 2 weeks because I'm going on holiday but when I'm back I promise to continue writing. Woot woot!