Rating:
PG
House:
The Dark Arts
Characters:
Dean Thomas Harry Potter
Genres:
Drama
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 01/14/2003
Updated: 01/14/2003
Words: 1,548
Chapters: 1
Hits: 581

Second Sight

S. Glass

Story Summary:
Dean Thomas had always been able to see the future. He never did anything about these visions, however. Until the day he foresaw that Harry Potter was going to die.

Posted:
01/14/2003
Hits:
581


Second Sight

"A true seer is very rare...."

He had been seeing things for a long time. The first time...when he was 7, he had dreamed about a graveyard. In this graveyard, there was a gravestone bearing the words: Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me and Forbid Them Not for Such is the Kingdom of Heaven. He didn't know why, but this dream filled him with dread. Something bad was going to happen.

His sister was five years old, then. Her name was Rose, and he had always felt fiercely protective of her. After the dream, he felt uncomfortable letting her go out of his sight.

Several days after he had the dream, she went to a birthday party. She didn't make it there; the car crashed and she died instantly. They put on her gravestone: Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me and Forbid Them Not for Such is the Kingdom of Heaven. He felt as though there was something he could have done, and didn't.

This was not, of course, the only instance. Glimpses of the future would come to him at all times, and especially in dreams. Sometimes, when he touched people, a feeling like electric shock would run through him, and he would suddenly know everything about them. Sometimes, when he touched people, he would see their deaths.

At some point, though, he learned to live around it. He would ignore it, mostly. Maybe, he hoped, it would go away. Besides, he couldn't do anything about it.

Still, it did bother him sometimes. Why did he have this...this gift?

Needless to say, when Dean Thomas got his letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he was not surprised, but more relieved. This certainly explained his gift. But when he got there, no one else seemed to be able to see into the future. He would brush by someone in the hall, and he could tell: no second sight. Why was he the only one? He decided not to tell anybody, of course, because he hated being different. And he went back to ignoring it, thinking maybe it would go away.

His best friend there was Seamus Finnegan. They both did slightly better than average, and were more or less anonymous. This was, of course, how Dean liked it. Neither of them was especially good at anything, so in second year, Dean agreed that he would sign up for whatever Seamus signed up for.

Seamus signed up for Divination.

"I don't want to," Dean told him.

"Why not?"

"I don't know; I just don't."

Seamus let out a breath of air which made it clear that this was not good enough reason, and signed up for Divination. Dean sighed, and signed up for Divination also. He didn't want to know the future, he wanted to plead. He knew too much already. Would you like to know how you are going to die, Seamus?

But Divination turned out to be crap. Professor Trelawney wasn't really a seer. Of course, now he had new images haunting him. He could see things in the crystal balls and in the tea cups....

So this was how it went. Dean plodded through everything, because what else was there for him to do? He knew horrible things--knew Voldemort was coming back--but he kept silent and worked until his head ached. He pretended that the sight wasn't even there.

Then came the day he had to stop pretending. He was a fifth year, and it was a rainy grey day in November. He had seen something so awful that he could not stop shaking, and he knew that he had to do something to stop his vision from coming true.

He had seen Harry Potter dying.

Harry had brushed past him in the hall, and he had seen it. Voldemort...Voldemort would kill Harry...soon, too, next summer.... And he, he that had ignored so much could not ignore this.

It wasn't as if he hadn't let worse things slip by him, unnoticed. He had foreseen the Dark Lord coming back, after all. He had said nothing, done nothing. The future cannot be changed, he would tell himself. But this--this--

This was different.

And it was different because...because... he searched for another reason, other than the obvious one that was banging inside his head.

He was in love with Harry.

He had known this for a while now, but hadn't admitted it to himself. Since last year at least. And how could he not? He would brush past him in the halls; he knew everything that was inside Harry's head, and to Dean it was beautiful. He knew how painful it was for Harry without his parents, and how horrible the Dursleys were, and he had an almost-memory of Voldemort killing Harry's parents....

Harry was still a decent person, though. This was what amazed Dean the most of all, and perhaps, and why he was in love with him. Harry was, without a doubt, the best person Dean knew, and he had been though so many horrible things. He loved Harry's strength, his courage...

Besides, who could resist those green eyes?

So, now he had a problem. Two problems, actually. The first was that he loved Harry. The second was that Harry was going to die. He could deal with the first one easily enough, he thought. Or at any rate, it would be easier to handle the first problem than the second problem. All the first problem was going to do was torture him a little. One, because he was romantic and always tortured by his crushes, and two, because this crush was on a boy.

The second problem was infinitely worse. He had never been able to stop his visions from coming true before. He had tried, and failed. His sister had died and he couldn't stop it. But this...he couldn't let Harry die. He couldn't.

He began to study Divination very hard. He read all of Unfogging the Future. Then he read it again. And again. He practically memorized it, but it was all useless in the end. Everything in there was about predicting the future; nothing was written about stopping it. He went to the Library and checked out every book they had on Divination. Still, useless.

Also Seamus was getting irritated with him for studying Divination all the time. "C'mon Dean, Divination's not that hard. You don't need to study it all the time," he said.

By May, he was panicking. Time was running short, and he had nothing. So one day, he raised his hand, and very desperately asked, "Professor Trelawney, is there anyway to stop a vision from coming true?"

"I'm afraid not," said Trelawney, with an air of a dramatic sadness. "The number of times I've wished I could prevent something from coming to be...."

He sighed. He didn't think she would tell him anything useful.

Seamus whispered to him, "Have you gone completely nuts?"

Dean shook his head, and turned back to the class. Ron was asking, "So if you can't prevent the future, what's the use of knowing it?"

"I...well..." Trelawney was somewhat flustered.

"See, that's what I thought, too," said Ron.

The class burst into laughter.

It was June. He had no more time. It was tomorrow. He lay awake in his bed, tossing and turning. Harry was going to die. Harry was going to die!

He decided that he ought to go for a walk.

There's nothing I can do, he told himself. But there should be! a part of him yelled. Harry did not deserve to die.

He walked along the corridors and then up stairs...he was going to the Astronomy Tower...Maybe the view would relax him. He could be alone at least, and that offered some peace. But when he got up to the Astronomy Tower he realized that someone was already there.

"Harry?" he asked, tentatively.

Harry turned to look at him. "Dean," he said, and smiled sadly.

"I couldn't sleep," Dean said by way of explanation.

Harry nodded, as if to show this was all right, and then said, "Neither could I."

He knew, realized Dean suddenly. He knew he was going to die.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked.

"No," said Harry, "No, you're all right."

So the two boys stood, watching the stars. "Do you think...do you think, Dean, that someone could tell the future in them?"

Dean closed his eyes, and the opened them to look at the sky again. "I could," he said.

Harry looked at him sideways. "What do you see?" he asked softly.

He closed his eyes again. The stars were whispering to him. "He's going to kill you," he said.

He felt Harry moving next to him, and then, quite suddenly, he felt Harry's lips on his. Harry's lips were rough and slightly salty. They tasted, Dean thought, exactly how he had always known they would taste.

Harry broke away, and stood looking at Dean. "I figure, if I'm going to die, that that's one thing I needed to do."

And Dean nodded, and left him.

When Harry died, Dean felt a part of himself die also. He went up to the Astronomy Tower and cried while the stars sang to him silvery secrets.

Fin.