Fic: Damned Demented Demons 6/32 (SPN/HP)
Title: Damned Demented Demons 6/32
Author: ME!
Fandoms: Supernatural/Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13 (for swearing)
Warnings: Spoilers for all Harry Potter books, Spoilers up to 4x10 for Supernatural.
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean belong to Kripke, Harry Potter belongs to Rowling.
A/N: I started writing this just for fun and something to do. When it got up to about 6 chapters and I was nowhere near done, I figured I might as well start posting it. I don't know how long it'll end up being (it's 9.75 chapters now), nor when I will complete it, nor exactly what will happen in later chapters, but I might as well take some other people on this amusing journey with me.
Summary: In which Harry and Sam are a little insensitive.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5
Dean was awoken the next morning in middle of another nightmare/memory, by a knock at the door. He watched Harry groggily roll out of bed and grab his wand and glasses from the pile of robes on the floor. Dean reached up and grasped the handle of the knife under his pillow, and threw a glance over to Sam's bed. Sam was burrowed under blankets, but his eyes were already on Dean, and Dean could tell that he had stayed awake while Dean had taken his turn to sleep.
"Morning Phil," Harry said, as he opened the door. Phil came into the room carrying a small shoulder bag.
"I have the information you requested, Sir," Phil said, as Harry magicked his cot back into a pillow to make more space in the small hotel room.
"What time is it?" Dean asked.
"You probably don't want to know," Harry replied at the same time Sam said, "8am." Dean groaned.
"My apologies for the early hour," Phil said, addressing Sam and Dean. "But Harry did ask that I be as discrete as possible in gathering this information, and the early morning is really the best time to be unnoticed at the Ministry. Especially when people know that you are working with an important British wizard who has not yet adjusted to the time difference."
Dean managed an eyebrow raise and shrug. Then pointed at Sam meaningfully and said, "You. Coffee. Now."
Sam rolled his eyes and tensed his jaw, but got out of bed. Dean smiled at him a little too widely.
"I could ask one of our team to get it," Phil said.
"Nah," Dean responded, "Sam could use a walk."
Sam huffed and muttered "It's fine, really, thanks." while he put on his shoes. Phil shrugged and turned his attention back to Harry. He opened the shoulder bag and began pulling out books. Dean furrowed his brow, the shoulder bag didn't even look big enough to hold two books, let alone...
"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam said, interrupting Dean's thoughts and blocking his view of the table.
"Huh?" Dean said, wondering why people were expecting him to think before coffee.
"I was about to wake you up just when he knocked, I swear. It's just that you haven't been getting much sleep lately..."
Oh, Dean thought, Sam had noticed the nightmare.
"'sfine, Sam. Go get coffee," Dean said. Sam's forehead creased in worry, a look Dean hated, but thankfully Sam turned and headed out the door. Dean wondered how far he would go for coffee just to see how large the perimeter was.
Dean turned his attention back to the table and the towering stack of books and file-folders there. In less than two minutes those wizards had turned their hotel room into a library and all they had used was a shoulder bag.
"What the hell?" Dean said, "How...when..."
"It's bigger on the inside," Harry answered without looking up from the stack of books that he was sorting.
"You're bigger on the inside..." Dean muttered, and then tried not to blush as Harry bit his lip in an obvious attempt not to laugh. Dean scrubbed at his face, he really shouldn't try making comebacks before his morning coffee.
"I'mma shower," he mumbled and started making his way to the bathroom. Phil was still pulling books out of his bag like it was a library-clown-car.
"Was that a normal nightmare, or should I widen the perimeter further?" Harry asked in a low calm voice just before Dean could enter the bathroom. Dean didn't stop walking, and he knew without looking that Harry wasn't looking at him anyway.
"Normal," Dean said, and tried to ignore the fact that nothing about his life was normal. Oddly, he thought that Harry might already understand that.
When Dean got out of the shower, Phil was gone and Sam was back with coffee and breakfast. He had gotten some for Harry too, and they were sitting at the table eating, while Harry pointed at different stacks of books around the room. The moment Harry opened his mouth, Dean wished he had remembered to bring his clean clothes into the bathroom with him.
"Wow, and people think I have a weird scar"
Dean glared, and Harry had the decency to look regretful for mentioning anything.
Then of course, Dean had to open up the whole can of worms by muttering, "Damn Cas and his damn hand..." as he rummaged through his duffle for clean clothes. He had figured that Sam would have been to preoccupied with the books to have heard.
"Dean, an angel pulls you out of hell, the least you could do is be grateful," Sam chastised, looking genuinely angry at Dean, before taking another sip of his coffee.
"You were touched by an angel?!" Harry suddenly exclaimed. Sam snorted coffee all over the book he was reading and started coughing and laughing at the same time.
Dean grabbed his clothes, glared at Sam, and then stormed back into the bathroom to change. Why God had to choose him of all people to stop the fucking apocalypse, Dean didn't know, but he sure as hell wished right now that they had just killed him instead.
*
Harry's face was full of confusion.
"I'm sorry," Sam said, and repeated "Sorry, sorry..." as he tried to stop laughing and began to frantically dry the book off. Sam saw Harry pick up his wand and mutter something, and suddenly all the spilled coffee was gone and the book was dry.
"Seriously, Sam," Harry said, "It's alright...but angels? That's how Dean got back?"
Sam glanced towards the bathroom door and grimaced. "Yeah, angels, look...just don't talk about it, ok? Not with...he isn't..." Sam took a breath and tried not to sound to desperate, "he's going to kill me for mentioning it."
"Alright," Harry said in an even placating tone, "but..."
Sam tried not to openly shush Harry when he heard the bathroom door open again, but there was no need, Harry immediately cut himself off. Dean strolled out as if nothing had happened.
"What's the plan?" Dean asked in a tone of voice that made this feel like just another case, just another Hunt.
"Research," Harry and Sam both said together. Dean grabbed the third cup of coffee from the table, and took a long sip.
"Mmm, still warm. Nice."
"Warming charm," Harry replied. Sam smiled when Dean's eyebrow shot up. Personally, Sam could get used to having someone with Harry's talents around.
"I sort of gathered there would be research," Dean said sarcastically, waving a hand to encompass the room full of books. "Where's Phil? Isn't he going to help?"
"It's his off-shift. He has to sleep sometime," Harry answered, and then pointed to a number of books stacked on the bed. "Those stacks there are for you and Sam. They'll teach you everything you need to know about Dementors and other magical creatures that you might find interesting. Concentrate on the Dementors though, we need to figure out what they are doing."
"And what are you going to be doing?" Dean asked.
"I'm going to be reading this stack of books and files," Harry continued, pointing to a large stack of books and papers next to his chair. "They concern advanced spellwork, so they'd read as gibberish to you two anyway. I'll be trying to figure out how to protect you, so that we can go our separate ways without me having blood on my hands...or the wrath of God on my head."
Sam almost told Harry that he didn't think God worked like that with Dean, otherwise why would God leave him so broken that he was practically defenseless; but Sam decided that he was better off just giving Harry a glare before he said, "Ok, let's get started."
The rest of the morning was spent reading books. Dean and Sam sitting on their beds trading books back and forth depending on what they found. Dean's muttered, "Unicorns...it really is the apocalypse," made Sam smile, and he was happy that Harry was too engrossed in his own research to read too much into the comment.
"You said that they've been controlled by a dark wizard before?" Sam stated to confirm. Harry closed the book he was reading, Muggles, Magic, and Mayham by Marvin Marlosh, and stretched out his back.
"That's the general belief, but I don't think so, no," Harry replied, sighing. "I mean - I don't think they were controlled. I think they just, well, liked him."
"It doesn't say anything in these books about motivations," Dean threw in. "You guys don't even seem to know whether the things have emotions. It's all life-cycles and history."
"I know, and maybe they don't have emotions...but, hear me out," Harry replied. "Dementors feed on happiness, right? Well, then why would they join forces with someone who was going to make everyone miserable?"
"But then..." Sam said, confused. "They'd have to be controlled then wouldn't they? You'd have to make them do that."
"No, that's just it," Harry said, "that's just why people believe it. But if happy people really provided more 'food' why would Dementors hang around a parking lot with you two?"
Sam looked to Dean, just in time to see his jaw clench and his eyes move to the floor. Sam knew Dean had tried his best to give Sam a happy life, despite everything, but Harry had a point.
"Why," Harry continued, "when I was thirteen, did Dementors ignore a whole school of happy children and come after me? It was years before Voldemort resurrected himself, years before the Ministry even thought of using them against me."
Sam realized that Harry was mostly just talking to himself now.
"I thought you said you worked for the Ministry?" Dean said, and Sam watched as Harry's eyes refocused on them.
"Now," Harry replied, "Now I do. When I was young things were different."
"The Ministry sent those things after a kid?" Dean asked tersely. Sam wondered just how far Dean's protective streak went. Harry was their age, plus he had obviously survived; but then, Dean had always reacted badly when things happened to kids, it figured that time and outcome wouldn't matter to him.
"I survived," Harry said evenly, seemingly catching on to Dean's mood. "I had already been through worse, which is my point really. When I first encountered Dementors, I had already lost both my parents, been neglected and abused by my remaining family for thirteen years, been attacked by a teacher who was...possessed...by Voldemort, and had to defeat a basilisk and yet another remnant of Voldemort's soul. Not to mention the fact that there was supposedly a madman on the lose trying to kill me. My point is, I was a pretty miserable kid. So why would they come after me?"
"A basilisk?" Sam replied, and then felt infinitely stupid for latching on to a part of the explanation that had nothing to do with Dementors. Sam looked over at Dean and discovered that Harry had really done nothing to quell his protective streak.
"Your family abused you?!" Dean said, his fists clenched. Sam sighed at the same time as Harry. To Dean, the only thing worse than monsters attacking a kid, was a kid's family attacking a kid.
"That's really inconsequential," Harry muttered. "Can we just focus on the point here?"
"So, you're saying that Dementor behaviour is counter-intuitive," Sam immediately said, taking pity on Harry and forcing himself back into research mode. "They should go after happy people, because they have more...happiness. Except in your experience, they tend to go after umm less happy people...so..."
"So, I think they like breaking people," Harry continued for Sam. "They like going after people who barely have any happiness...maybe it's not about liking it, maybe they don't have emotions, maybe the small happiness of people with hard lives is somehow sweeter-tasting than the happiness of the happy." Harry grimaced at this thought. "I'm just saying, there's a possibility they weren't forcibly controlled. There's a possibility that they just chose to obey Voldemort because they knew he would give them what they wanted - they knew there would be more people to break."
"It makes sense, but there's no way to prove it," Sam said.
"I need to go for a drive," Dean suddenly said.
"Dean?" Sam was embarrassed to admit that in his interest over Harry's theory, he had momentarily forgotten his brother was even in the room.
"You two can stay here and talk about torture some more, but I'm going to go for a drive."
Sam blanched. He had messed up. He hadn't been thinking.
"Dean..." he started, just as Dean was getting to the door.
"I'll come with you!" said Harry, interrupting Sam.
"What?" Sam asked, just as Dean did.
"I'm guessing your car is the big black one, right?" Harry said, "It looks like a great car, mate. I'd love a chance to get a look at her." Sam relaxed as Dean smiled slightly.
"She is awesome. Grab your shoes, dude."
"Brilliant," Harry said quickly, "just let me put some of the more sensitive files away. I'll be out in two minutes, ok?"
Dean nodded and left, ignoring Sam completely, but by now Sam was used to it.
"Do you know anything about cars?" Sam asked Harry once he was sure Dean was well away from the front of the door. Harry glanced up from shoving books and files into his bottomless shoulder bag.
"Not a clue," he replied. "but your brother can't just drive off right now"
Sam was pretty impressed with how quickly Harry had thought on his feet. Harry slung the bag over his shoulder, and then took out his cellphone again.
"Deacon. Here. Now," Harry said evenly, and Sam had a brief flashback of his father. There was crack, and suddenly a twenty year-old skinny kid stood nervously shifting from foot to foot.
"Sir?"
"Deacon, I'm going for a drive," Harry said.
"A...drive?" Deacon replied.
"In a car, yes," Harry said shortly, and then shock his head a little. "Where are the Dementors?"
"They're still in the immediate area, Sir," Deacon reported, "of course, it's daylight, so they aren't as active, but..."
"Thanks, Deacon," Harry cut him off. "Tell me if there's any change. I'm not sure how long I'll be."
"Yessir."
"Oh, and Deacon?" Harry added smiling. "This is my good friend Sal."
Deacon turned towards Sam finally, and Sam had to stop himself from laughing at the way the kid's eyes widened at Sam's size. Deacon was obviously intimidated by Harry, but at least Harry was short. Sam could only guess what was going through Deacon's mind.
"Nice to meet you, sir," Deacon said, and stretched out a hand bravely.
"You too, Deacon," Sam said kindly, and made sure to use the smile that seemed to put people at ease around him. "Thanks for the help with all this."
"Uh, it's...no problem," Deacon stammered. There was a loud honk from the parking lot, and Harry grinned.
"I'm off then!" He said, already running out the door. "Deacon you can go back to ..."
Harry's voice faded off into nothing, and for a second Deacon looked a bit confused.
"I think Harry meant that you can go back to wherever you were doing before he called you," Sam supplied. "I've got things covered here."
"Oh, right. Umm..." Deacon hesitated, "...did you really meet Mr. Potter during the war?"
"Yeah," Sam replied, remembering their cover story.
"What was it like?" Deacon asked cautiously. Sam knew what he wanted. He wanted some tale of bravery about Harry, some recount of the trials of war, maybe some information about his commander that know one else knew, or maybe he was worried about the future and wanted to know what might come. Sam couldn't give him any of those things. Sam hadn't really been there after all. What Sam did have though, was a father that had been to Vietnam and then waged his own personal war for the last 23 years of his life.
"It was war, Deacon," Sam said somberly, "Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some reading to do."
"Yessir, sorry, sir," Deacon practically whispered. Sam made sure to give him a smile before Deacon turned on the spot and disappeared.
Sam looked at all the books, wished briefly that Harry had left the advanced ones behind, and then figured he might as well start his next round of research by looking up how to kill a basilisk and what a Voldemort was.
Chapter 7
Masterpost
Author: ME!
Fandoms: Supernatural/Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13 (for swearing)
Warnings: Spoilers for all Harry Potter books, Spoilers up to 4x10 for Supernatural.
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean belong to Kripke, Harry Potter belongs to Rowling.
A/N: I started writing this just for fun and something to do. When it got up to about 6 chapters and I was nowhere near done, I figured I might as well start posting it. I don't know how long it'll end up being (it's 9.75 chapters now), nor when I will complete it, nor exactly what will happen in later chapters, but I might as well take some other people on this amusing journey with me.
Summary: In which Harry and Sam are a little insensitive.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5
Dean was awoken the next morning in middle of another nightmare/memory, by a knock at the door. He watched Harry groggily roll out of bed and grab his wand and glasses from the pile of robes on the floor. Dean reached up and grasped the handle of the knife under his pillow, and threw a glance over to Sam's bed. Sam was burrowed under blankets, but his eyes were already on Dean, and Dean could tell that he had stayed awake while Dean had taken his turn to sleep.
"Morning Phil," Harry said, as he opened the door. Phil came into the room carrying a small shoulder bag.
"I have the information you requested, Sir," Phil said, as Harry magicked his cot back into a pillow to make more space in the small hotel room.
"What time is it?" Dean asked.
"You probably don't want to know," Harry replied at the same time Sam said, "8am." Dean groaned.
"My apologies for the early hour," Phil said, addressing Sam and Dean. "But Harry did ask that I be as discrete as possible in gathering this information, and the early morning is really the best time to be unnoticed at the Ministry. Especially when people know that you are working with an important British wizard who has not yet adjusted to the time difference."
Dean managed an eyebrow raise and shrug. Then pointed at Sam meaningfully and said, "You. Coffee. Now."
Sam rolled his eyes and tensed his jaw, but got out of bed. Dean smiled at him a little too widely.
"I could ask one of our team to get it," Phil said.
"Nah," Dean responded, "Sam could use a walk."
Sam huffed and muttered "It's fine, really, thanks." while he put on his shoes. Phil shrugged and turned his attention back to Harry. He opened the shoulder bag and began pulling out books. Dean furrowed his brow, the shoulder bag didn't even look big enough to hold two books, let alone...
"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam said, interrupting Dean's thoughts and blocking his view of the table.
"Huh?" Dean said, wondering why people were expecting him to think before coffee.
"I was about to wake you up just when he knocked, I swear. It's just that you haven't been getting much sleep lately..."
Oh, Dean thought, Sam had noticed the nightmare.
"'sfine, Sam. Go get coffee," Dean said. Sam's forehead creased in worry, a look Dean hated, but thankfully Sam turned and headed out the door. Dean wondered how far he would go for coffee just to see how large the perimeter was.
Dean turned his attention back to the table and the towering stack of books and file-folders there. In less than two minutes those wizards had turned their hotel room into a library and all they had used was a shoulder bag.
"What the hell?" Dean said, "How...when..."
"It's bigger on the inside," Harry answered without looking up from the stack of books that he was sorting.
"You're bigger on the inside..." Dean muttered, and then tried not to blush as Harry bit his lip in an obvious attempt not to laugh. Dean scrubbed at his face, he really shouldn't try making comebacks before his morning coffee.
"I'mma shower," he mumbled and started making his way to the bathroom. Phil was still pulling books out of his bag like it was a library-clown-car.
"Was that a normal nightmare, or should I widen the perimeter further?" Harry asked in a low calm voice just before Dean could enter the bathroom. Dean didn't stop walking, and he knew without looking that Harry wasn't looking at him anyway.
"Normal," Dean said, and tried to ignore the fact that nothing about his life was normal. Oddly, he thought that Harry might already understand that.
When Dean got out of the shower, Phil was gone and Sam was back with coffee and breakfast. He had gotten some for Harry too, and they were sitting at the table eating, while Harry pointed at different stacks of books around the room. The moment Harry opened his mouth, Dean wished he had remembered to bring his clean clothes into the bathroom with him.
"Wow, and people think I have a weird scar"
Dean glared, and Harry had the decency to look regretful for mentioning anything.
Then of course, Dean had to open up the whole can of worms by muttering, "Damn Cas and his damn hand..." as he rummaged through his duffle for clean clothes. He had figured that Sam would have been to preoccupied with the books to have heard.
"Dean, an angel pulls you out of hell, the least you could do is be grateful," Sam chastised, looking genuinely angry at Dean, before taking another sip of his coffee.
"You were touched by an angel?!" Harry suddenly exclaimed. Sam snorted coffee all over the book he was reading and started coughing and laughing at the same time.
Dean grabbed his clothes, glared at Sam, and then stormed back into the bathroom to change. Why God had to choose him of all people to stop the fucking apocalypse, Dean didn't know, but he sure as hell wished right now that they had just killed him instead.
*
Harry's face was full of confusion.
"I'm sorry," Sam said, and repeated "Sorry, sorry..." as he tried to stop laughing and began to frantically dry the book off. Sam saw Harry pick up his wand and mutter something, and suddenly all the spilled coffee was gone and the book was dry.
"Seriously, Sam," Harry said, "It's alright...but angels? That's how Dean got back?"
Sam glanced towards the bathroom door and grimaced. "Yeah, angels, look...just don't talk about it, ok? Not with...he isn't..." Sam took a breath and tried not to sound to desperate, "he's going to kill me for mentioning it."
"Alright," Harry said in an even placating tone, "but..."
Sam tried not to openly shush Harry when he heard the bathroom door open again, but there was no need, Harry immediately cut himself off. Dean strolled out as if nothing had happened.
"What's the plan?" Dean asked in a tone of voice that made this feel like just another case, just another Hunt.
"Research," Harry and Sam both said together. Dean grabbed the third cup of coffee from the table, and took a long sip.
"Mmm, still warm. Nice."
"Warming charm," Harry replied. Sam smiled when Dean's eyebrow shot up. Personally, Sam could get used to having someone with Harry's talents around.
"I sort of gathered there would be research," Dean said sarcastically, waving a hand to encompass the room full of books. "Where's Phil? Isn't he going to help?"
"It's his off-shift. He has to sleep sometime," Harry answered, and then pointed to a number of books stacked on the bed. "Those stacks there are for you and Sam. They'll teach you everything you need to know about Dementors and other magical creatures that you might find interesting. Concentrate on the Dementors though, we need to figure out what they are doing."
"And what are you going to be doing?" Dean asked.
"I'm going to be reading this stack of books and files," Harry continued, pointing to a large stack of books and papers next to his chair. "They concern advanced spellwork, so they'd read as gibberish to you two anyway. I'll be trying to figure out how to protect you, so that we can go our separate ways without me having blood on my hands...or the wrath of God on my head."
Sam almost told Harry that he didn't think God worked like that with Dean, otherwise why would God leave him so broken that he was practically defenseless; but Sam decided that he was better off just giving Harry a glare before he said, "Ok, let's get started."
The rest of the morning was spent reading books. Dean and Sam sitting on their beds trading books back and forth depending on what they found. Dean's muttered, "Unicorns...it really is the apocalypse," made Sam smile, and he was happy that Harry was too engrossed in his own research to read too much into the comment.
"You said that they've been controlled by a dark wizard before?" Sam stated to confirm. Harry closed the book he was reading, Muggles, Magic, and Mayham by Marvin Marlosh, and stretched out his back.
"That's the general belief, but I don't think so, no," Harry replied, sighing. "I mean - I don't think they were controlled. I think they just, well, liked him."
"It doesn't say anything in these books about motivations," Dean threw in. "You guys don't even seem to know whether the things have emotions. It's all life-cycles and history."
"I know, and maybe they don't have emotions...but, hear me out," Harry replied. "Dementors feed on happiness, right? Well, then why would they join forces with someone who was going to make everyone miserable?"
"But then..." Sam said, confused. "They'd have to be controlled then wouldn't they? You'd have to make them do that."
"No, that's just it," Harry said, "that's just why people believe it. But if happy people really provided more 'food' why would Dementors hang around a parking lot with you two?"
Sam looked to Dean, just in time to see his jaw clench and his eyes move to the floor. Sam knew Dean had tried his best to give Sam a happy life, despite everything, but Harry had a point.
"Why," Harry continued, "when I was thirteen, did Dementors ignore a whole school of happy children and come after me? It was years before Voldemort resurrected himself, years before the Ministry even thought of using them against me."
Sam realized that Harry was mostly just talking to himself now.
"I thought you said you worked for the Ministry?" Dean said, and Sam watched as Harry's eyes refocused on them.
"Now," Harry replied, "Now I do. When I was young things were different."
"The Ministry sent those things after a kid?" Dean asked tersely. Sam wondered just how far Dean's protective streak went. Harry was their age, plus he had obviously survived; but then, Dean had always reacted badly when things happened to kids, it figured that time and outcome wouldn't matter to him.
"I survived," Harry said evenly, seemingly catching on to Dean's mood. "I had already been through worse, which is my point really. When I first encountered Dementors, I had already lost both my parents, been neglected and abused by my remaining family for thirteen years, been attacked by a teacher who was...possessed...by Voldemort, and had to defeat a basilisk and yet another remnant of Voldemort's soul. Not to mention the fact that there was supposedly a madman on the lose trying to kill me. My point is, I was a pretty miserable kid. So why would they come after me?"
"A basilisk?" Sam replied, and then felt infinitely stupid for latching on to a part of the explanation that had nothing to do with Dementors. Sam looked over at Dean and discovered that Harry had really done nothing to quell his protective streak.
"Your family abused you?!" Dean said, his fists clenched. Sam sighed at the same time as Harry. To Dean, the only thing worse than monsters attacking a kid, was a kid's family attacking a kid.
"That's really inconsequential," Harry muttered. "Can we just focus on the point here?"
"So, you're saying that Dementor behaviour is counter-intuitive," Sam immediately said, taking pity on Harry and forcing himself back into research mode. "They should go after happy people, because they have more...happiness. Except in your experience, they tend to go after umm less happy people...so..."
"So, I think they like breaking people," Harry continued for Sam. "They like going after people who barely have any happiness...maybe it's not about liking it, maybe they don't have emotions, maybe the small happiness of people with hard lives is somehow sweeter-tasting than the happiness of the happy." Harry grimaced at this thought. "I'm just saying, there's a possibility they weren't forcibly controlled. There's a possibility that they just chose to obey Voldemort because they knew he would give them what they wanted - they knew there would be more people to break."
"It makes sense, but there's no way to prove it," Sam said.
"I need to go for a drive," Dean suddenly said.
"Dean?" Sam was embarrassed to admit that in his interest over Harry's theory, he had momentarily forgotten his brother was even in the room.
"You two can stay here and talk about torture some more, but I'm going to go for a drive."
Sam blanched. He had messed up. He hadn't been thinking.
"Dean..." he started, just as Dean was getting to the door.
"I'll come with you!" said Harry, interrupting Sam.
"What?" Sam asked, just as Dean did.
"I'm guessing your car is the big black one, right?" Harry said, "It looks like a great car, mate. I'd love a chance to get a look at her." Sam relaxed as Dean smiled slightly.
"She is awesome. Grab your shoes, dude."
"Brilliant," Harry said quickly, "just let me put some of the more sensitive files away. I'll be out in two minutes, ok?"
Dean nodded and left, ignoring Sam completely, but by now Sam was used to it.
"Do you know anything about cars?" Sam asked Harry once he was sure Dean was well away from the front of the door. Harry glanced up from shoving books and files into his bottomless shoulder bag.
"Not a clue," he replied. "but your brother can't just drive off right now"
Sam was pretty impressed with how quickly Harry had thought on his feet. Harry slung the bag over his shoulder, and then took out his cellphone again.
"Deacon. Here. Now," Harry said evenly, and Sam had a brief flashback of his father. There was crack, and suddenly a twenty year-old skinny kid stood nervously shifting from foot to foot.
"Sir?"
"Deacon, I'm going for a drive," Harry said.
"A...drive?" Deacon replied.
"In a car, yes," Harry said shortly, and then shock his head a little. "Where are the Dementors?"
"They're still in the immediate area, Sir," Deacon reported, "of course, it's daylight, so they aren't as active, but..."
"Thanks, Deacon," Harry cut him off. "Tell me if there's any change. I'm not sure how long I'll be."
"Yessir."
"Oh, and Deacon?" Harry added smiling. "This is my good friend Sal."
Deacon turned towards Sam finally, and Sam had to stop himself from laughing at the way the kid's eyes widened at Sam's size. Deacon was obviously intimidated by Harry, but at least Harry was short. Sam could only guess what was going through Deacon's mind.
"Nice to meet you, sir," Deacon said, and stretched out a hand bravely.
"You too, Deacon," Sam said kindly, and made sure to use the smile that seemed to put people at ease around him. "Thanks for the help with all this."
"Uh, it's...no problem," Deacon stammered. There was a loud honk from the parking lot, and Harry grinned.
"I'm off then!" He said, already running out the door. "Deacon you can go back to ..."
Harry's voice faded off into nothing, and for a second Deacon looked a bit confused.
"I think Harry meant that you can go back to wherever you were doing before he called you," Sam supplied. "I've got things covered here."
"Oh, right. Umm..." Deacon hesitated, "...did you really meet Mr. Potter during the war?"
"Yeah," Sam replied, remembering their cover story.
"What was it like?" Deacon asked cautiously. Sam knew what he wanted. He wanted some tale of bravery about Harry, some recount of the trials of war, maybe some information about his commander that know one else knew, or maybe he was worried about the future and wanted to know what might come. Sam couldn't give him any of those things. Sam hadn't really been there after all. What Sam did have though, was a father that had been to Vietnam and then waged his own personal war for the last 23 years of his life.
"It was war, Deacon," Sam said somberly, "Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some reading to do."
"Yessir, sorry, sir," Deacon practically whispered. Sam made sure to give him a smile before Deacon turned on the spot and disappeared.
Sam looked at all the books, wished briefly that Harry had left the advanced ones behind, and then figured he might as well start his next round of research by looking up how to kill a basilisk and what a Voldemort was.
Chapter 7
Masterpost