For Camp Potter (Archery - write about silence between two people); the Apprentice Competition (word: freedom; dialogue: "You know I'm not going to, right?"; song: 'Clarity,' Zedd, specifically the line "If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?"; pairing: deanlavender; word: impossibility); the 2013 Summer Fanfiction Olympics Competition (Floor - write one song inspired fic, using the prompts word: sunset; word: fall; word: wave; genre: romance; colour: orange; song: 'Clarity,' Zedd, with the lyrics "If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?"); the If You Dare Challenge (949. Silence); the 10 times 10 Challenge (emotion: love) and the Song Fic Bootcamp (song: 'Clarity,' Zedd; 46. together forever)

He was like a flame.

Sometimes, it felt like Dean had a firefly heart, a heart that was constantly being pulled towards his best friend's light.

He hadn't expected or planned on falling for Seamus. All he had ever wanted was the other boy's lifelong friendship. But hearts had never been meant to be chained by logic and plans, and his had gone and ruined everything he had ever dreamed of.

"Lavender?" Dean asked tentatively, approaching the girl sitting on her bed in the seventh year girls' dormitory.

The brunette looked at him. "Hello Dean," she whispered desolately.

Dean looked at her silently, trying to say everything he wanted to with his eyes.

He didn't know how the two of them had happened. It had always been Shay and Lav, and it was always supposed to him and Parvati.

But then again, war tended to change things.

When he'd gone to see Lavender in the Hospital Wing after the Battle of Hogwarts, the first thing that had struck him was how pale and dead she looked.

By then, she was already supposed to have been on the way to recovery, and she was awake and aware of the fact that he had come to visit her. But it felt like the wounds Greyback had caused had not only marred her flesh, but her very soul.

She was like a pencil sketch drawing, and Dean had wanted nothing more than to fill her in with the colour he knew was missing.

For the longest time, Dean had believed that the two of them would last forever. Lavender was a continuing work of art; something that he thought could captivate him and hold his attention forever.

And yet here they were.

"I would ask why, but I already know. I think I've always known," she continued. "I suppose – I suppose there was a part of me that was waiting for this to happen."

"Lavender, I'm so sorry," Dean said, taking a step towards the bed. Lavender's raised hand stopped him.

"You know I'm not going to attack you, right?" she asked with a slight smile, taking note of his slightly fearful look.

Dean nodded tentatively. "That doesn't mean I'm okay with everything," she continued, her face turning hard once more. "Just because I've learned how to take rejection better than I did in sixth year does not mean that I'm willing to talk about this right now, Dean. I'm still hurt, and I'm still upset," she said, her blank face a direct contrast to the steel in her voice. "I hope – I hope he knows how lucky he is." Her voice broke at the last words, and the sheer devastation on her face made him turn around and walk out of the dormitory.

Even he, one of the more clueless boys at Hogwarts, knew better than to try to stay and comfort her. Right now, he was the last person she would want around her.

Parvati was waiting at the foot of the staircase, staring at it intently. She threw him a dirty look as he walked out, and rushed inside herself. It helped to remove one weight from his mind. She'd look after her best friend.

At that moment, Dean had a best friend of his own to find.

He wasn't an idiot. He knew that the chances of Seamus returning his feelings were practically an impossibility.

But he and Seamus had promised each other in first year – there would never be any secrets between them.

So it didn't matter that he was setting his heart up to fall from the top of the Empire State Building. He had made his best friend a promise, and he was going to keep it.

"I broke up with Lavender," he announced, walking into the little alcove on the fourth floor the two boys had found in second year. It had become their place, something they never told anyone else about, not even when they started finding girlfriends and privacy started to seem like it was being sold at a premium.

Seamus looked at him, not saying anything. It was one of the things Dean liked most about their friendship. Sometimes, words were superfluous, and the silence suited him just fine.

"I'm not going to ask if you're okay," Seamus finally said. "It's obvious that you are."

Dean flashed him a wry smile. Seamus had always been able to read him better than any other person alive.

He walked forward and sat down beside him, pulling out the sketchbook and colour pencils Seamus always carried for him in his book bag.

As he started to sketch, he thought back to when he had first realised he was in love with Seamus Finnegan.

His best friend was nothing like Lavender.

She was a sketch that was just waiting to be filled, but he was her complete opposite. He was the piece of art that would be found in the greatest museums in the world, a whirl of colours and events.

From the sunrise to the sunset and everything in between, Seamus was all of it. He was the warm reds and oranges and the cool blues and greens. He was the glints of silver and gold, the sparkle on what was otherwise a one dimensional piece.

While Lavender was the work in progress that fascinated Dean, Seamus was the complete piece that he couldn't help but admire. And although Lavender was gorgeous, there was just something about Seamus that had the ability to sweep Dean off of his feet.

And he hadn't even realised it until last week.

He still didn't know what had happened between them; only that he'd somehow started to grow apart from Seamus. Slowly, it had started to feel like the two of them didn't know what was going on in each other's life, and that had just become one more thing Dean hadn't seen.

And then Neville had come up to him and told him how honoured he was that Seamus had decided to share his recent discovery that he was gay with him. He'd then laughed, and said that Dean had probably known all of Seamus' plans.

That was when Dean had realised that it was like he knew nothing about his best friend anymore. He didn't know about Shay's self-discovery, and the fact that he had told Neville first was exactly what he had needed to jolt him back to reality.

So he started to spend more time with Shay. It annoyed Lavender to no end. She had liked the relationship they had developed as Dean and Seamus were torn apart, and the renewal of that relationship meant that the one she had with Dean suffered.

But Dean hadn't cared. Seamus was his best friend, the most important piece of his universe.

He refused to wave goodbye to his best friend.

That should have been his first clue.

Of course, it hadn't been. And Dean had continued being dense until a week ago, when Seamus had commented that the new Beater for the Kestrels was hot.

And at that moment, all Dean had wanted was for Seamus to think the same about him.

After that, all the illusions he had had fallen quickly and easily. Somehow, over the course of over seven years' worth of friendship, Dean had fallen in love with his best friend.

Breaking up with Lavender may have been difficult, but that had merely been due to the heartbreak in her eyes. The decision to do it had been perhaps the easiest he had ever made.

"Dean?" Seamus' voice startled him out of his thoughts. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he said, shaking off his surprise, putting down the pencil in his hand, and smiling at Shay. "What happened?" he asked, looking down at his pad. The piece in front of him was a shock. He didn't know what he had captured while he had been lost in thought – it was colours and shadows, nothing that he could put a name to – but the colours he had used and the way they melded together made him feel like he had a little piece of Seamus' soul here, on the paper in front of him.

"I asked you why you broke up with her," he said, reaching forward to grab hold of Dean's hand. "I thought you were in love with her."

"I was," Dean murmured. "And then I realised I'd fallen out of love with her. She was – I loved her, don't get me wrong, but she was like a form of art I thought I was good at. And I found something I'm terrific at, like a style that comes naturally to me, and Lavender – I loved her, but in the end she simply wasn't right for me."

"So who exactly is the person who's right for you?" Seamus asked. For a moment, Dean almost managed to fool himself into thinking that he heard jealousy in Seamus' voice, but in the end, he knew he was just imagining things.

Another person might have had difficulty admitting what Dean was about to. But most other people didn't have a friendship like the one he had with Shay. Even though the other boy was going to turn him down, he would never do it cruelly or be inconsiderate of Dean's feelings.

It wasn't hard at all for Dean to admit that he was in love with his best friend. Nothing, not even the fact that one of them had fallen in love with the other, could alter their friendship.

"I'm in love with you," he whispered after a moment.

Seamus looked at him, a faint glimmer of surprise in his eyes.

And then, without saying a word, he reached out and tugged Dean towards him, resting the other boy's head on his shoulder. He bent his head down and gently kissed Dean's forehead.

"I wondered when you were actually going to tell me," he murmured. "You're an idiot, you know that right? There's no reason to be nervous. I've been in love with you for the last two years."

And even though Dean was surprised and shocked and thrilled at the fact that his feelings were returned – something he had never thought would happen in a million years – he didn't say a word.

Between the two of them, words had never had the ability to say much – not as much as the silence did, anyway.

He had no idea how they found themselves here, tangled up on a bed in the Room of Requirement. Seamus had kissed him, and the fire had burned.

They had never had any boundaries between them, and this definitely didn't feel like they were moving too fast.

After all, they had known each other for almost half their lives. There was nothing they more they needed to learn before feeling comfortable with each other.

To Dean, Seamus was like a flame.

And Dean – Dean had a firefly heart, and he had never been able to stay away from the light his best friend offered.

They were supposed to cancel each other out – the law of nature held that fireflies couldn't survive for long when exposed to a flame; they were just too likely to kill themselves in order to experience the single, fleeting moment of perfection that the flame offered.

And maybe that was still the fate that awaited Dean. Maybe this, here, with the feel of Seamus' lips on his own and their bodies tangled together on the sheets of a bed, was that one perfect moment a firefly felt before the flame consumed it.

But for some reason, Dean doubted it.

After all, they were Dean and Seamus, the muse and the painter, and just like Dean's art had the capability to defy the laws of nature, so did the two of them together.

There was nothing that was capable of taking away what they had. This perfect moment would last them forever.

I hope you guys liked it! As always, please don't forget to drop a review on your way out :)