Work Text:
Dean’s life could be very bizarre at times.
It wasn’t that it was a bad life, not at all. Other than the fact that he had an uncanny ability to get into trouble (and, luckily, out of it), his… little problem just started when he decided to put his name down for the Triwizard Tournament on a dare from Benny and Victor.
It had seemed harmless enough at the time. After all, what were the odds the goblet would pick him? There were plenty of other students who had way better grades than him who had decided to do the same, and he’d be getting a round of free butterbeers the next time they went to Hogsmeade out of it.
So, needless to say, it had sounded like a pretty sweet deal to him. Cas, his best friend, had tried to warn him not to go through with it, going on about respecting old rituals, but Dean was used to the Hufflepuff thinking all of his ideas were terrible, so he had paid him no mind.
Jesus, which is why he really should have known better.
"And, finally, the Hogwarts champion is…" Headmistress Harvelle recovered the last strip of paper from the goblet’s flames and seemed to let out a long suffering sigh when she read it. She looked up, stern eyes finding Dean among the crowd with the ease of a hawk, and the aforementioned choked on the piece of pastry he’d managed to sneak into the Hall for the ceremony, "Dean Winchester from Gryffindor!" Her voice was an unamused roar, and suddenly it felt like the entire hall had turned around to stare at his wide eyes and powdered sugar-covered face.
"Fuck."
Next to him, Cas let out a sigh and met Sam’s troubled eyes where he was sitting on Dean’s other side, "I’ll get the first aid kit."
"I’ll get started on research!" Sam was on his feet before Dean could even stop choking long enough to go stand next to the other two champions.
Dean was so gonna die.
***
With a little bit of (a lot of) luck and the help of his natural ability to survive in the face of trouble (and also a lot of help from both his brother and his best friend), Dean somehow managed to make it through the first task. Though, you know, if you asked him, Dean would tell you that displaying courage in the face of mind-numbing terror was kind of his thing. Okay, so maybe he’d been a little reckless and sustained some minor burns and gotten hit with a temporary blinding curse, but things had turned out okay in the end, hadn’t they?
Sadly, when he had pointed this out to Cas, the boy hadn’t found it all that amusing and, in fact, may have kind of emptied his water goblet all over Dean’s face. And books. Which is how Dean knew he was truly pissed, because Cas had this weird love affair with the damn things—seriously, why wasn’t he in Ravenclaw with Sammy?
But nevertheless, having survived his first task meant there were only two to go, which, really, Dean could handle now that he’d resigned himself to his fate.
What he couldn’t handle, however, was the fact that he was expected to attend the Yule Ball. With a date.
And his meddling little brother wouldn’t let him forget about it.
"So when are you going to ask Cas to be your date to the Yule Ball?"
Sam asked for the nth time that afternoon, sitting across from him at the Gryffindor table, and Dean briefly considered whether drowning himself in his plate of soup would be worth skipping this conversation.
Then again, it was pretty good soup, "Sam," he said warningly, picking up some bread with a sigh and stuffing his face with it to avoid having to answer any further questions, at least for the moment.
"Dean," Jesus, Sam was a stubborn little shit and he was giving Dean his best bitch face now, "You know as a champion you’re expected to go. And you want Cas to be your date, don’t you? So why don’t you just stop this stupid ‘oh, I will just pine for him forever because he could never like me’ thing you’ve got going on and actually ask him out for once?"
"Your face is stupid," was Dean’s mature reply, and it was almost worth it for the way it made Sam’s face twist with outrage and exasperation, "I’m not gonna ask him and I’m not gonna go to this stupid ball, end of story."
"What are you talking about?" Cas, of course, chose that exact same moment to take the seat next to Dean, and okay, he might have kind of jumped a little. Even though Cas would usually sit down with them during lunch (so often, in fact, that nobody even batted an eyelash anymore at seeing him there), Dean could never hear him coming and it would never stop freaking him out.
"Jesus, Cas! I’m gonna put a freaking locator spell on you!"
"A bell would be cheaper—and safer, you know you suck at Charms," Sam helpfully supplied, the little ingrate, "Hey, Cas." A malicious glint entered his eyes and, god, Dean just knew what was gonna happen next, "So Dean was just telling me he doesn’t want to attend the Yule Ball."
As expected, the answer brought a frown to Cas’ face, "But the Yule Ball is a longstanding Triwizard Tournament tradition. Dean, you can’t just…"
And okay, maybe Dean could have handled the situation a little better then, but to be fair, Sam had been bugging him about this all day, "Jesus Christ, maybe there’s just no one I want to take to the ball, alright? Get off my freaking back about it already!"
Cas’ sad little "Oh…" was about all Dean could hear at the suddenly quiet table.
"Cas…" started Dean, unsure where he was going with this, but sure he had to at least try to explain himself.
But before he could, Cas stood up without looking at either of them, "Excuse me, I forgot I have an essay to finish before class today. It must have slipped my mind."
And then he was gone, leaving Dean staring after him.
"Shit."
Sam threw a carrot stick at him.
"You’re a jerk."
Yes, he was.
"Shut up, bitch."
But no matter. Dean was just gonna have to find a way to make it up to him.
***
Not that Cas made it easy, as he did a pretty good job of avoiding Dean after that. He was one freaking sneaky Hufflepuff—not for the first time, Dean thought Cas would have done pretty well in Ravenclaw with that clever mind of his.
It was particularly frustrating because by the time Christmas came around, Cas was still not showing his face anywhere near Dean, and they’d been spending Christmas together since their first year at Hogwarts, eventually including Sam in the tradition when the time came for him to join them.
So when Dean had woken up that morning and opened his presents along with Sam, only one little package had remained unopened—his gift for Cas. Dean had always made it a point to sneak Cas into his common room on Christmas day (Sam always snuck in on his own—the kid was clever and wasn’t as opposed to bending the rules as Cas was, on occasion), having learned early on that the Hufflepuff’s rich family wasn’t particularly into the holidays, or any sort of display of affection for that matter, having never given Cas a single Christmas present in his life. And to make matters worse, sometime during the night two new packages addressed to him and Sam had appeared by his bed, without a sender, but Dean didn’t need a gift tag or a spell to tell him who they were from. The carefully knit gloves with the words Led Zeppelin on the back for him and the used book on ancient languages for Sam practically screamed ‘Cas’.
Sneaking in to drop off their presents even though he was still hurt was so like him that it made Dean’s chest hurt.
"I’ve gotta make this better," Dean finally mumbled to himself, running his fingers gently, almost lovingly, over the knit letters of his gloves, thinking of the long, graceful fingers that had worked on them, "But I’m gonna need your help, Sam."
Sam snorted from where he was flipping through his book, "Took you long enough. So what’s the plan?"
***
His plan was nothing that elaborate. Dean had always been a fan of playing it by ear.
So when Dean asked Jo (his ‘this is not really a date, but will you help me, please? I’ll write all your Defense Against the Dark Arts essays for a year’ date) to create a distraction at the ball, allowing him to sneak out before the party could even begin, he was just as surprised (and impressed) to see the gigantic ice statue near the professor’s table suddenly burst into flames.
He’d normally have turned to congratulate her, but he was too busy grinning from ear to ear and running out of the Hall with the rest of the student body.
While the professors and prefects were busy trying to calm the fretting students, Dean snuck his way out of the castle, silently praying that Sam had been able to pull off his side of the plan.
The frozen pond where they would ice skate during their Christmas holidays was just as abandoned as he remembered it to be, and Dean gave a tiny relieved sigh in his head at the sight. The last thing he would have needed would have been some obnoxious couple making out, ruining the whole thing.
Okay, so he was kind of hoping to be doing that by the end of the night, but that was neither here nor there.
A puff of visible air accompanied Dean’s nervous sigh, and he rubbed his hands together out of habit, glancing down at the gloves Cas had knit for him with a fond smile. Even though they were fingerless gloves (Cas knew him so well), he didn’t feel the cold at all—must be some kind of warming charm, then. It didn’t surprise him. Cas had always been particularly gifted at those.
Dean didn’t know how long he waited there, just watching the stars and waiting, and hoping, and trying not to fret too much, but eventually the sound of a twig breaking made him turn around in a hurry—and there Cas was, in a coat two sizes too big and wearing that long Hufflepuff scarf he’d knit himself after declaring his Hogwarts issued scarf ‘insufficient to protect him from the low temperatures’. His nose was red from the cold and he still looked a little hesitant, but all in all, Dean was just happy he’d agreed to come out at all.
"Hello, Dean. Merry Christmas."
Dean felt a smile stretching his lips at the familiar greeting. How he’d missed that voice. "Merry Christmas, Cas."
They stood there for a long moment, silent, while Dean gathered his courage, and it was only once he glanced down at his own hands that the words came to him. He lifted a gloved hand with a smile, "So I got your present."
Cas’ eyes seemed to light up somewhat at the sight of him wearing his gift, "They were acceptable?"
His surprised tone was amusing and Dean couldn’t help chuckling, shaking his head, "Dude, they’re perfect. You’ve really gotten better at this." Dean had a trunk full of Cas’ previous knitting experiments to prove it (okay, so they hadn’t all been wearable, but he hadn’t had the heart to throw them out like Cas had asked him to—but he’d take that secret to the grave).
Cas seemed to glow with the praise, "I’m glad."
"Yeah, so, see…" Dean took a step closer. And another and another, "it seemed a little unfair that you weren’t around so I could give you mine."
Now that Dean was watching for it, it was so easy to see the way Cas’ breath seemed to catch in his throat at Dean’s proximity. The way he swallowed nervously and stared down at the small package Dean presented to him, looking adorably confused.
"For me?"
He reached out for it at Dean’s encouraging nod and took the gift so hesitantly, unwrapping it with just as much care as the very first time Dean had presented him with one tiny stupid box of chocolate frogs. Always so humble, always so grateful—never expecting anything.
The moment he pulled out Dean’s silver ring hanging from a leather necklace was absolutely stunning. The way those blue eyes widened and looked up at him immediately, full of disbelief and warmth and… something that looked a lot like hope.
"I wanted you to have something that would remind you of me too. But since I can’t knit or do any of that other stuff, I figured this was the next best thing." Dean’s mouth felt dry with nerves, but the way Cas kept staring at him gave him courage, "I had Sam help me enchant it so we can talk when you go home for the summer." He paused, fingers hovering over the gift in Cas’ hand, his voice a tentative whisper by now, "Can I help you put it on?"
Cas’ response was to hand him the necklace and to turn around without a word. Dean was sure his fingers lingered a little too long on the warm skin beneath Cas’ scarf, but the other boy didn’t seem to mind, because when he turned back around, he was looking down at the ring and smiling that gummy smile that made Dean’s heart melt.
But there was still something else he had to do.
Dean took a deep breath and pointed at the discarded wrapping paper that Cas was still holding, "You missed something in there."
He watched Cas take out the folded note and stare at it in confusion as he worked it open, his lips mouthing the words ‘Will you be my date to the ball?’ as he finally read over them, and then freezing once he got to the end. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again, "But the Yule Ball is inside the castle. And I thought you didn’t want to go, that—" There was a hesitant pause and he glanced up at Dean briefly, "that there was no one you wanted to take as your date."
"Well," Dean cleared his throat, reaching down to tug the note away from Cas, taking that hand in one of his gloved ones instead and trying to ignore how the action made him flush, "I guess you thought wrong. See, I thought that ball was stupid, so I figured we should have our own."
When he led Cas to the edge of the lake, the other boy followed without complaint, and when they stopped under the giant tree where they’d met for the first time, it seemed as if a thousand magical fireflies suddenly exploded from out of thin air, filling the space around them and encasing them in their own small haven of warmth and light as the first snowflakes of the night began to fall.
Cas glanced down at their joined hands and then up at the illuminated sky, a small, secretive smile on his face, "Sam has grown incredibly talented at Charms."
Dean’s laughter was half pride and half teasing, "If you’re not careful, you’re not gonna be Singer’s favorite anymore."
Cas’ hand squeezed Dean’s, blue eyes searching his face, "I think I can live with that."
Dean’s heart was beating a thousand miles per minute, but he still forced himself to let go so he could turn and give Cas the dorkiest bow he could pull off, offering his hand theatrically, "May I have this dance?"
Cas’ eyes were even more stunning with the light of the fireflies reflected in them, but his smile when he finally took Dean’s hand?
That’s what left him breathless.
"Yes. Yes, you may."
***
In the end, Dean did end up winning the tournament. And while he was limping and sore, and probably more than a little contused, he still managed to catch Cas when the boy quite literally ran into his arms after the Cup transported him back to Hogwarts.
And, well, Cas then proceeded to kiss him out of nowhere, which, to be fair, Dean hadn’t been expecting.
So, really, it wasn’t Dean’s fault that his fingers decided to forget to hold on to the Cup while he was busy focusing on kissing his boyfriend back.
The metal clank of the base hitting the ground and the sound of glass shattering at their feet made them both pull back, breathless and red-faced, and shamelessly unconcerned.
Dean glanced down at the remains of the Triwizard Cup and then caught sight of Headmistress Harvelle’s irate face coming towards them through the crowd.
"Shit, you’d think they’d make these things sturdier."
(They did manage to get it fixed in the end.)
(But Dean still had to clean all the bathrooms in the school for a month.)
(He still thought getting to kiss Cas in front of their entire school had been totally worth it.)