Family Ties

"What's up mate?"

Dean looked up sharply; Seamus was looking at him quizzically. He was sitting in a squashy armchair near the fire in Gryffindor tower, beside a table spread with two days worth of homework. He'd been staring into space; his mind on the newspapers upstairs.

"Nothing." Dean turned back to his potions essay.

Moonstones... who cares? He thought. I'd rather be in the library, finding out all I can about Gary Heaton...

He forced the thoughts from his mind; he knew what Snape would be like if he didn't hand this essay in. He struggled through, writing enough to ensure Snape didn't give him detention and then started into his Charms homework, trying to get it done so he could practice the Vanishing Spell for Transfiguration the next day.

"How's that catch-up essay coming along? You were gone for hours last night." Seamus was looking at him strangely, like he did when anyone spent time in the library voluntarily.

"It's all right."

"Which case did you pick?"

"Jack Webster."

"Whoa! He's quite famous, you know. Not as well known as You-Know-Who or Sirius Black but he was a right monster! Did you read what he did to that girl in Manchester?"

Dean had - but he didn't want to talk about it. "How do you adapt the Summoning Charm for heavier objects?"

* ~ *

Dean spent the next fortnight looking into the individual cases connected to Jack Webster. He had half his essay written, involving individual articles about each murder, noting the bias in the articles against Dark Magic in general, despite the journalistic mantra of detached reporting. There had been a big fuss over it in the Muggle world recently; they labelled it 'the journalism of attachment.' Dean toyed with the idea of incorporating this into the essay, but discarded it on the basis that he hadn't failed Muggle Studies.

Tonight he was determined to finish the essay. The last articles he was searching for were about Gary Heaton, and a follow up to a brief mention of the woman Webster had abducted with intent to harm the night he had been caught. It was a standard thing for a Death Eater to do: threaten the family of a witch or wizard they wanted to use the talents of. In this case it was a young woman who had a close relative who was a Muggle-born witch. The article didn't name her; her identity was protected by the Ministry. St Mungo's refused to comment on her treatment and wouldn't even say if it included Memory Charms.

Gary Heaton, on the other hand, had been a well known and liked man. There were rumours about his working in the Department of Mysteries but these were unsubstantiated; which figured, considering how rigidly they guarded their secrets. He had been a volunteer in an enforcement programme, dealing with the aftermath of uncontrolled underage magic.

Dean couldn't find anything confirming his official occupation, or anything about family. I suppose that might mean he was an Unspeakable; they wouldn't want to give Death Eaters leverage. There were plenty of other high-risk occupations though - Department Heads, Aurors, high level Healers, inventors. He could have been anything. Dean's search of old school awards and such had come up empty, though Gary had been first a Prefect, then Head Boy as well.

Putting the finishing touches on his essay, he packed up his things, handed the newspaper bindings back to Madam Pince and sloped off to Gryffindor Tower.

* ~ *

September passed in a haze of homework and bad weather. The whispers about Harry died down a little, though Seamus and Harry still weren't speaking to each other. The first Hogsmeade weekend beckoned and the fifth years were desperately looking forward to some time outside the castle, leaving thoughts of mountains of coursework behind them.

Climbing out of the portrait hole, talking to Seamus over his shoulder, Dean collided with someone and knocked them over.

"Ow! Sorry! Oh, Ginny, here..." He reached out his hand to help her up.

"No problem - now we're even for me and Neville knocking you over at the Yule Ball!" She grinned at him and climbed through.

Dean felt like something moved in the pit of his stomach, and he smiled at her retreating back.

"She's pretty cool you know!" Seamus gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. "C'mon! I said I'd meet Anna."

"And what the hell am I supposed to do while you're cuddled up in a corner with her?"

"Go have a drink with Jenny?"

"I'll hang out with you, if you want." Neville was behind him, sounding like he expected to be laughed at.

"Cool, let's go; let's get out of this place for a while!"

* ~ *

With Seamus ensconced in the Three Broomsticks, Dean and Neville headed into Zonko's, where they came across the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan, huddled over a display of metallic long, spiky things that Dean couldn't identify and didn't want to look at any closer.

In Honeydukes, they ran into Ginny again, who was buying a dozen chocolate frogs, a box of their luxury collection of chocolates, and a box of Mars bars. He hiked an eyebrow at her quizzically.

"Christmas shopping - my dad's got a soft spot for Muggles, thought I'd get him some Muggle chocolate," Ginny explained.

"Oh, well, I'd recommend a big slab of Galaxy too," Dean said.

"Thanks, I might do that. You're Muggle-born right?"

"Right."

Ginny turned to Neville. "Hi, are you going to the meeting in the Hog's Head?"

"Definitely. If Harry can't teach me, no one can." Neville was flushed, looking at his feet.

"What meeting?" Dean asked.

Ginny hesitated, looking at him with her head tilted, as if trying to figure something out. "Hermione's putting together a Defence Against the Dark Arts group, to learn practical defence... Harry's going to teach it. You're not one of the ones bad-mouthing him are you?"

"No! I believe him if he says You-Know-Who is back."

"Well, if you're interested, the meeting's at one o'clock in the Hog's Head. See you both later; I said I'd meet Michael." Ginny swept past them out the door, waving as she closed it behind her.

"Who's Michael?"

"Her boyfriend."

Dean couldn't understand why he was so disappointed.

* ~ *

Dean woke with a start in the middle of the night. He reached immediately for his wand and muttered "Lumos".

He reached for the dream diary he'd been keeping for Trelawney's class. The dark corridor still haunted his dreams. This time he had heard a voice behind him, female: "Go on, I will follow... you need to know..."

Dean could only assume this latest part came from his increasing desperation to find any more information on Gary Heaton; he apparently wasn't important enough to be in newspapers very often.

* ~ *

Again, it was Ginny who told Dean where to go for the first meeting of the Defence Against the Dark Arts group; he strongly suspected he was developing a crush on her. The room was strange, and amazingly well suited to their needs. What was more, he was sure he'd been in this part of the castle before and there had been no door. Dean took a seat on the floor beside Ron and Neville. "What is this place? I've never seen this room before."

"I think it's called the Room of Requirement; it becomes what you need it to be, if you ask it nicely," Harry told them, lifting down a book from a shelf above them.

A little flame of an idea flickered in Dean's mind. He wasn't getting very far with his research on Gary Heaton - besides learning that he had worked somewhere in the Ministry and had been twenty-eight when he died. There were no big stories about magical discoveries, nothing to suggest why he would look familiar to Dean. Unless he's connected to me somehow...

"How do you ask a room nicely?" Dean asked.

"You walk past that tapestry out there three times, thinking about what you need. Dunno how it works; it became a room full of chamber pots for Dumbledore once," Harry remarked, turning to the door to greet the next group to arrive.

Dean laughed with the others, a plan forming in his mind... If I ask the Room for information on Gary Heaton... what will I find?