Prompt: harry potter au where they're brewing amortentia in Potions
~~~~~
Amortentia. Of course that's what they were brewing on the day that Dean was paired up with Castiel, the boy he's had a massive crush on since their first year.
"You shall find the recipe for the potion on page nineteen of your textbooks." Slughorn told everyone as they split up and got with their partners.
Dean walked over to a cauldron. He looked around the classroom, looking for a certain Hufflepuff.
Castiel soon joined him, setting down the ingredients for the potion. He opened up his textbook to the page and starting reading the directions. "It says we need to add eight rose thorns first."
Dean nodded, grabbing the jar of rose thorns off the counter. He took out the cork and shook eight thorns out into his hand, dropping them into the cauldron. "What's next?"
The Hufflepuff looked down at his textbook again. "It says to add five millilitres of powdered moonstone, then stir the cauldron three times."
He continued following his instructions as he read them out. Dean couldn't help but stare at Castiel. He would get so distracted that he would almost add too much of an ingredient, but Castiel would catch his mistake before it was too late.
"Do you mind not staring at me, Dean? Not only is it distracting you, it's also distracting me." He scolded after a while of them looking, glancing up to look at the taller boy. "We're going to mess up if we don't pay attention."
Dean instantly looked down, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. A small blush rose to his cheeks, making his freckles stand out more. "Sorry." He said after a second. "Are we almost done?"
"Yes, there's only one more step. And that's to stir in the peppermint. We add five leaves in and stir until it looks like the color of a pearl." Castiel tore his eyes away and back to the yellow pages of the textbook. He too had a slight blush on his cheeks.
Dean grabbed another jar, this one containing the peppermint leaves. He took the five leaves out of the jar, dumping them into the cauldron. He took hold of the ladle, starting to stir it. After stirring it for a moment, he glanced up at Castiel. "Do you think the consistency is fine?"
The shorter boy peered into the pot. It had a mother-of-pearl sheen, and steam was spiraling out from it. "Yeah. Now Slughorn wants us to smell it and write down what we smell."
"But won't the potion smell the same?" Dean furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. He wasn't going to lie, he hadn't exactly been paying attention when Slughorn was talking about the properties of the powerful love potion.
Castiel shook his head. "No. It smells different to every person." He pulled out a quill, an ink well, and some parchment.
"Hmm." Dean said. He took a deep breath, before inhaling the potion. Instantly, his nose was overwhelmed, but in the best way possible.
He smelled apples. Specifically green apples, since those were the ones that went into apple pie. His mother always made apple pie for Christmas and for his birthday, since it was his favorite dessert in the world. Now, he didn't discriminate against other types of pie, but apple was his favorite.
He also smelled whiskey. His dad had grown up an alcoholic. Dean had often sneaked a drink when his dad wasn't paying attention, or if he was feeling particularly risky, he'd shoplift a bottle of alcohol. Dean could appreciate a good drink.
The final scent confused him. It took him a few seconds to recognize that it was honey, but he furrowed his eyebrows. He was baffled as to why he smelled honey.
After a minute of considering why he smelled it, he gave a small shrug. He scribbled down his answers on a piece of parchment, glancing over at Castiel. He had just finished writing down his answers as well. "Want me to turn that in for you?" He offered.
He gave a small nod, handing him the piece of parchment. Dean took it from him, grabbing his own as well. He made his way to Slughorn's desk, setting it down on the stack of parchment people wrote their answers on.
Something caught his eye on Castiel's paper. He looked back at the Hufflepuff, who was busying himself with cleaning up their work area. Dean peered closer at Castiel's parchment, his eyes scanning over the nest cursive.
Flowers, leather, and Dean's cologne, was written down.
Someone tapped him on his shoulder. He spun around, hoping that it wasn't Castiel who caught him reading his answers.
Instead, it was just another Hufflepuff. Garth was trying to turn in his paper, but Dean was in the way. He moved aside, thinking for a moment as to what he should do. Should he confront Castiel about it or pretend he didn't say anything?
After mentally debating with himself, he made up his mind. He made his way back over to Castiel. "Hey, do you need any help with cleaning up?" He asked.
"No, I think everything is pretty much cleaned up. We just need to put the jars back in the ingredients closet." He picked up the jars, starting to move in the direction of the closet.
"Wait," Dean stopped him, putting a hand on his arm. "I, um... saw what you wrote down."
"Oh." Castiel couldn't meet his eyes. He sounded crestfallen. "I understand if you don't feel the same way. I'm sure you like a lot of people. Especially girls, and not a guy." He mumbled, speaking quickly. He moved Dean's arm off of him, walking to the closet. He started placing the jars on the shelves where they belonged.
Dean had followed him. "What? Cas," he used a nickname for him, "I think I like you too. And I think I know why you smelled leather as well. My dad, who lives in America, has a 1967 Chevy Impala. It always smells of leather when you get in it."
Castiel looked up at him, shocked by the nickname, and the confession. "You do? So... uh, what did you smell?"
"Apples, whiskey, and honey." He answered. "Although, I'm unsure why I smelled honey."
"It's because of me, I'm pretty sure. My patronus is a bumblebee." He explained.
Dean couldn't help but let out a small laugh. "It's a bee?"
Cas gave a small shrug. "I know, it sounds lame. But I'm used to people teasing me about it."
"No, I'm not teasing you about it. It's just.... I've never heard of someone having a bee as their patronus."
"It's pretty uncommon." He replied.
"Anyway, back to what we smelled in the Amortentia. I'm thinking you like me. Well, I like you too. So you know how there's that Hogsmeade trip coming up? Do you think you'd want to go together?"
Castiel thought for a minute. "Sure." A smile appeared on his face.
Dean couldn't help but grin. "Okay, awesome. What class do you have next? I'll walk you to it."
"Care of Magical Creatures." He answered, walking out of the closet. A smile was still present on his face.
Dean came out of the closet too. Both literally, and metaphorically.
~~~~~
OKAY I HAVE A LOT TO TALK ABOUT WITH A HOGWARTS AU
FIRST LETS ADDRESS CAS' PATRONUS BEING A BEE
literally though can you imagine a bee flying into battle against a swarm of dementors and then blue light fucking ripples from the bee and propels the dementors backwards
aND AFTERWARDS CAS IS SO PROUD OF IT AND HE COMPLIMENTS AND THANKS IT
so next order of business: why john is in america but dean is in the uk
so i feel like that john and mary are americans who moved to england and had dean and sam there. and then for whatever the reason, they had to move back to america. BUT, uncle bobby (who is british in this case) takes care of them
yeah so those are my thoughts on this
also i was debating so much between what houses everyone would be in
like i wasn't sure if dean would be in gryffindor or slytherin
and if cas would be in ravenclaw or hufflepuff
i thought about including sam but couldn't decide if he would be in ravenclaw or gryffindor
and then i was like okay if i have sam in there i need to include gabe but i also couldn't decide what house he was in. i was thinking gryffindor at first but then he has a few slytherin qualities as well
idk what do you guys think?
and then for their blood status, sam and dean would be muggleborns, but cas and gabe would be purebloods. i feel like the novaks would be a pureblood family
yeah so anyway, there's a lot of stuff to talk about. let me know what your opinions are on this stuff!!