Family Ties

Seamus just looked at him. Dean's shell-shocked face told him this was no joke.

"What? What makes you think that? Your dad's at home, mate!"

Dean passed him the photo album using arms that seamed to be made of cooked spaghetti. Seamus looked at it. "This is your mam, right?"

Dean nodded miserably. "And there's a marriage certificate over there - dated eleven months before I was born."

Dean stared at his hands, feeling dizzy, cold all over and really quite sick. Everything I know about my family is wrong...Vicky's not my sister, Aaron's not my brother...Dean blinked rapidly to prevent the tears from starting again... my dad is not my dad He could hear Seamus turning the pages of the photo album, then heard a sharp intake of breath. He glanced up, asking miserably, "What now?"

Seamus set the album back down on Dean's knees. It was a picture of a grinning Gary holding a tiny baby. Dean slid the photo out of its protective cover and looked at it. It was a wizarding photo; Gary kept glancing up at Dean and grinning while the baby waved its arms. He looked at the back and felt the dizziness come back as the certainty set in. His own name was on the back, Dean - November eighteenth 1979.

I was only a day old... he's definitely my dad.

Dean flipped back to the wedding photo, which wasn't a wizarding one; telling Dean again that the wedding was not held at the Ministry, but in the Muggle world. How could you lie to me Mum? All this time and you never said a word...

Dean took the wedding photograph out of the album too, shut it with a snap and put it back on the shelf. He stood up on shaking legs; but the dizziness was gone, because he knew what he had to do. I have to talk to my mum...

* ~ *

Dean was very quiet on the Hogwarts express back to Kings cross. Seamus kept trying to get him talking about anything, anything but Gary Heaton. Dean couldn't bring himself to do much more than give one-word answers. The only thing on his mind was how on earth he was going to ask his mother about all this. How much does she know? Does she know anything?

Seamus gave up trying to get him to talk and instead practiced Vanishing the Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans he wasn't brave enough to try eating, though he did occasionally look up at him with concern.

They disembarked at King's Cross, Seamus making him promise to keep in touch over the holidays. He walked towards his mother, a journey that seemed to take forever. She looked happy to see him; as she always did because she hadn't liked having to send him to a school so far away. Even then she'd allowed him to make his own decisions. As they drove back to the house, Dean nursed a heavy heart, wondering how he could bring himself to ask her about all this.

* ~ *

"Dean? We're going into London for Christmas shopping! Want to come?"

Dean looked over the banister to the hall below. Vicky, Aaron and... his dad were standing at the door, bundled up in coats and scarves. He glanced into the living room and saw the TV was on - his mother wasn't going.

"No, it's all right. I did most of my shopping in Hogsmeade."

"All right, see you later then."

Dean waited until he heard the door slam closed. Shaking slightly, he went to his trunk and took out his copy of Defensive Magical Theory - the biggest and thickest of his textbooks, and the best place to keep photographs you didn't want damaged. He felt a familiar tug on his heart just looking at the pictures, but he dropped his eyes and steeled his resolve. It's now or never.

He went to the head of the stairs; he heard his mum laughing at something on the TV. He tiptoed down slowly. As much as he wanted to know the truth, he knew he was going to break his mum's heart and he didn't want to do that. He stood at the door and looked at her; her hair pulled back from her face, holding a sock she was darning.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

"Mum... I need to talk to you."

She looked up at him.

"Sure love, come and sit down. Tell me how the term was."

He sat down beside her, took another deep breath and set the wedding photograph on her knee. His mum went rigid for a full minute before she picked the picture up with shaking hands. When Dean could finally bring himself to look up from his feet, he saw her eyes shining with tears.

"Where did you get this?"

"Magic Mum, you'd be amazed at what it can do."

She flinched. "What do you mean?"

"I found this man's murder in an old newspaper article at school, when I was researchin-"

He stopped when he saw his mum's tears spill over as she once again went rigid with shock.

"Dead? Gary's... dead?"

"Didn't you know?"

"No! Of course not! He left me - us - not long after you were born."

Dean - glutton for punishment - set the second picture on her knee; the one of Gary holding him as a baby. For the briefest of moments, a smile flickered on her face.

"He was so proud of you when you were born... Then he changed overnight."

She closed her eyes as if steeling herself, opened them at looked straight at Dean. "He said there was someone else, and he left in January. You were seven weeks old."

"When did he change, Mum?" Dean asked, his voice very quiet.

"A few weeks before Christmas. You were about a month old at the time. He came home from work one night, looking very grey."

"Where did he tell you he worked?"

"He was a Civil Servant."

Dean couldn't help it. He laughed. His mother looked shocked. "Mum, he wasn't who you thought he was..."

Dean told his mum everything he had learned; well, almost everything. He spared her the gory details of Gary's death, though he did tell her that Gary had died protecting them from harm. When he was finished, his mother burst into tears. "He didn't want to leave me... Why oh why couldn't he have told me the truth?"

"If he had Mum, we'd probably be dead by now. He did what was right for us."

His mum looked at him with bright eyes. "Mark is your father now; he's looked after both of us since you were six months old."

Dean lowered his head. "I know, he'll always be my dad, but I'm glad I know about Gary now too. Why didn't you ever tell me about him? That I had a birth father out there somewhere?"

"Dean... he walked out on us when you were less than two months old, claiming to have cheated on me. I was heartbroken; I didn't want him to ever come back into our lives. Mark was different. He adored you from minute one. He's been a good father to you."

"Yeah, I know."

* ~ *

Christmas was a happy affair now that he didn't have the weight of this secret hanging over him. What Dean didn't know was that he'd bought his little brother a pair of the same socks Harry had bought Dobby last year; they screamed if they got too smelly. "Don't wear them to school sports, Aaron; you'll get me into sooo much trouble if they start wailing!"

Vicky was crazy over the Sleekeazy Potion Dean had got her, recommended by Hermione. Vicky's hair was long but incredibly curly, and she longed to have it straight. She combed some of it through her hair as soon as she opened it and had long straight shiny hair in seconds. Dean was worried she might hug him, so he moved over beside the Christmas tree to reach for his mother's present. He'd gotten her a huge box of Honeydukes' most expensive collection, something he did every year but she loved anyway.

When his mum went out to the kitchen to check on the turkey, he followed her to give her another present he didn't want to give her in front of the rest of the family. He placed a small velvet box into her hand. "I found it in the Room... I thought you might like it."

She took Gary's wedding ring out of the box and looked at it for a long time before wrapping him in a hug. "Thank you Dean... but it's yours now."

She put it back in its box and gave it back to him. "I'm glad you told me the truth about him, I feel much better about everything now, but Mark is my husband, and I love him. This ring is yours now."

She gave his shoulder a quick squeeze and went back to the living room. Dean looked at the ring, and then closed the box with a snap. He wasn't going to wear it, but he'd keep it safe. When he got back to the living room his dad had opened his present - a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages. "Someday I'll take you to a game dad, you'll love it."

* ~ *

After dinner he wrote to Seamus, enclosing a card and his present - a new pack of Exploding Snap cards (because the old ones were so worn they barely jumped let alone exploded) and two boxes of Skiving Snackboxes - Nosebleed Nougat and
Puking Pastilles. Fred and George were raking it in.

He told his family he was going out to send a letter and headed to the nearest owl post, five streets away. He used a great grey that looked at him condescendingly before reaching out its leg grudgingly. Dean would have sworn it knew that it was Christmas day and didn't want to fly anywhere. Dean put five Sickles into the box under the owl's perch and walked back home.

When he got in the door, a loud screech greeted him. He followed the sound to the living room, where he got a brief glimpse of flapping wings before a heavy weight landed on his shoulder. The owl nipped his ear affectionately. "Helios? What-"

"I wrote to that newspaper you were subscribing to all summer, asked to buy the owl."

Dean grinned at his mother. "Thanks Mum, just what I needed."