My Life With Dean, Or, How Disney Nearly Ruined My Relationship

~*~*~

Don't get me started on that boy of mine.

He's a mess. Always gettin' into trouble with his mouth and his stories and his fine talent for stretchin' the truth. I had to rescue that boy outta more scrapes than I had my whole of growin' up.

Made me prematurely grey, that boy. And, grey, I tell you, don't normally show up so well on those with sandy-coloured hair. "You'll be the death of me, Seamus Michael!" I've told him on many occasions. And he most likely will. I don't know how he can keep living in that reckless, tear-through-life way of his.

But, he's mine.

And I'd do anything for him. Not that I'd tell him that. And if you do, watch out, because I can still brew an undetectable Cado Callidus potion that'll knock you on your arse.

I'd always known there was somethin' funny about that boy - he always had too much interest in certain things that only some people tend to like, if you know what I mean. He reminded me a lot of my best friend at Hogwarts - Michael Cottington - who I'd had a crush on for most of school, until he was caught in bed with a Slytherin and we never saw either man again.

I didn't want my Seamus to end up that way - hiding, ostracized, disliked. So, I watched him like a hawk and listened to everything he told me. I filed every bit away in the special 'mam files' that appear in your brain the minute you have a child.

And now people want to know when I knew? As if there is a special moment when you realize that the most important thing in your life has fallen so hard for someone and it is either going to kill him or change his life forever.

Because, my Seamus? He doesn't love. He loves.

He falls hard and fast and down a dark deep well. I pulled him up out of it innumerable times before he was even twelve years old.

But, you're wondering if there was a moment when I knew? Of course there was. Mam's always know these things. It was as simple as one thing.

He didn't talk about him.

I heard stories all summer, over every holiday and special occasion. I heard about Harry Potter and that git Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley and his twelve or seven or nine brothers. I even heard about Susan Bones and Lavender Brown and Neville Longbottom who was so nice and lost everything and, dear lord, can my boy go on! But I never heard about Dean Thomas.

Not once.

When he got a letter in the Muggle post that first summer, I left it on the table, curious as to who "D. Thomas" could be and why his handwriting looked so elegant when Seamus' was a nasty scrawl. Who would be writing to my boy?

He came to breakfast and saw the letter and blushed.

Blushed.

My son who walked back into the reception hall during my cousin Sally's wedding with his dick hanging out because he forgot his zip after coming back from the loo.

My son, who, when one of the other guests gasped and stared, looked down and giggled, "Well, cain't be keepin' this all to meself, now can I?" He zipped himself up with one motion and pulled the lady into his arm with another and in moments was waltzing her around the dance floor.

She told me later that my son was the most charming young man she'd ever met. "Lady, you have no idea," I told her.

But not one moment during his blatant cock display did my son blush. And, yet, finding a letter from this Thomas person set his face aflame.

So.

Naturally I didn't ask. But I watched.

I watched him the way a mother bear watches her cub who's going out into the forest on his own for the first time; his own hidden shadow of protection.

~*~*~

It wasn't until nearly a year later, when I got a letter in the post from one, Charlotte Thomas, that I finally sought to ask Seamus about who Dean Thomas was.

"Just a bloke I know," was his off-hand reply. "He's in Gryffindor, too."

I turned back to the stove before smiling to myself, 'Just a bloke I know,' my ever-spreading arse. Though I kept the snort to meself, in case you were wondering.

Just before their third year, Dean's mother and I arranged for the two of them to get together for two days in Diagon Alley to get their school things and hang out a little before they had to go back to school. Charlotte was going to accompany them and I'd floo to London in two days' time to pick Seamus up.

Seamus had a few days after that trip before he left for Hogwarts and bent my ear with so much talk. He told me about the students they saw while in Diagon Alley and the twenty-two new flavors of ice cream at Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor. He told me about the new Firebolt racing broom and tried sixteen different ways to trick me into buying one for him.

The damn child had spent nearly sixty hours with his best mate and I didn't hear one soddin' story about 'im.

That's love, I tell you. When my boy can't find the words? That's a big bloody Irish deal.

~*~*~

A few years later, when I saw my son's face on the cover of Witch Weekly, the whole damn neighborhood tripped over themselves trying not to ask who Seamus was in love with. No one said this time and they didn't point out that something seemed different about him...

That even in the painting, his eyes looked different.

When he came home that summer, all gangly elbows and knees and bright eyes, he told me about classes and Quidditch and every single soddin' trip he took to Hogsmeade. Let me tell you: Hogsmeade has not changed in the years since I went to Hogwarts, so I didn't need to be hearin' twelve hundred different things about it when what I wanted was for him to tell me the real thing goin' on in his life.

The thing I couldn't figure out, though, was how he really didn't expect me to notice. Idiot boy kept checking the post three times a' day and mumbling under his breath about Disney-crap.

As if his mam wouldn't notice.

~*~*~

It took him another year to tell me he was desperately in love with the boy whose letter made him blush. Even then he couldn't make his mouth explain what was shining in his eyes.

"We're... uh, it's just that... we're... movin' in together. Dean's mum found us a flat in London and we're going to find jobs this summer and it's not that far from the floo hub and you can..." he trailed off, picking at bits of lint on the elbow of his jumper.

One of me best friends likes to joke that the best thing about havin' kids is getting' to make them squirm with embarrassment. I know I've done my share of it with my boy. Poor kid has been on the receivin' end of more Finnigan ribbing than any Irishman ought to. Yet, for some reason, I couldn't stand to do it that time.

Dean was sitting in the other room - waiting, I assume - while Seamus stood in the kitchen trying to stammer it all out to me, "Mam, it's just... that I... we..."

"I know." I replied in a gentle voice that I'd not even known I had. I took his hand and squeezed it tightly and I did not cry.

Sometimes you don't need your child to tell you something when it's obvious to the entire world.

~*~*~

And now they have me over every other weekend and Seamus cooks elaborate four course meals that make me wonder if he has some sort of deal with Satan.

Seamus tells stories and we laugh at his predictability. I watch Dean's eyes follow him when he moves and I watch him watch Dean. West Ham roars from the telly when they have a game and Dean turns it on. Seamus teases Dean about their negative chances for making the English Premier League again and Dean reminds him that they won the FA cup in 1980. Then he says, It's only a matter of time, you Irish prick, and they share that knowing smile that tells me they'll continue this conversation later after I'm gone. They both touch each other more than I think they realize.

It's odd to be both crushingly excited for and slightly envious of my son.

I ache to have what he has.

And if anyone ever hurts either one of them, I'll bloody well make their life a living hell.

Don't test me. I didn't win the Full-Contact Table Skittles championship at Molly Darcy's Tavern last year for nothing. And, might I add, I didn't even flash Brendann O'Flaherty to win this time.

Though, maybe I should have.

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Thank you so much for reading! ♥