The Meeting

"Is it just me or did it suddenly get cold, Sammy?"

Sam gulped as his EMF reader went haywire. "I think we're real close." He was whacked in the face by a branch that his brother didn't bother to hold. "Ow," he muttered while rubbing his itchy forehead. The forest they were gingerly picking through was much too dark. Thick clouds covered the full moon. Their flashlights did almost no good. Every step they took seemed too loud because there were no forest sounds around them. No crickets. No frogs. No nothing.

Dean cocked his shotgun and felt his pockets for salt rounds just to reassure himself. Ghosts didn't usually give him the heebie jeebies like this one did. But this job was also very, very strange. The small Minnesota town they were in, Ely, had reports of vague sightings of ghostly apparitions around the forest and lake. Then there was the poor guy who apparently had too close of an encounter. He had to be institutionalized because he was catatonic, as if he had been frightened half to death. And now the Winchesters were hunting this… thing, whatever it was. Dean did not have a good feeling about tonight. His flashlight flickered. "Oh no, no, no," he breathed while banging it against his thigh. "Not right now, you bastard."

Sam's started to flicker as well. "Uh, this is probably not a good sign, right?" he guessed correctly. It was so cold now that they could see their breaths. "We should've called for backup, Dean."

"Too bloody late now, don't you think?" Dean shook his head to get rid of a fog that seemed to come over him. But he couldn't. Instead it intensified. The fog made him stumble into a tree where he leaned for a moment to catch his bearings. Inexplicable dread and terror filled him. "Sam-" he choked out as he glanced back at his brother.

Sam was on his hands and knees, shivering. The screams were so loud and so real. Yet he couldn't bring himself to help. Hopelessness froze him in place on the damp forest floor.

Dean looked up.

Three floating figures filtered through the branches, their tattered robes suspended around them. The air was still and thick with silence. The figures glided towards the brothers, unhurried.

Dean couldn't even bring himself to point his shotgun up at them. Despair weighed him down as he slid down the tree trunk. He heard Sam whimper behind him and there was nothing he could do. He watched in horror as the figures descended upon them. Their skeletal fingers reached up to their hoods that they drew back to reveal disfigured faces with no eyes, nose or mouth. They looked like corpses hollowed out into something terrible. And he realized this was the miserable end.

"Expecto Patronum."

Bright silvery light filled the brothers' vision, pushing aside the blackness inside and around them.

A graceful apparition of a stag galloped upwards, leaving a trail of shimmering whiteness behind it. It drove back the wraith-like creatures with ease. It sped through the night sky, quickly flanking the creatures and then proceeding to push them downwards, towards the thick forest. The figures tried to flee, but the stag corralled them into a tight herd closer and closer to the ground until-

A sudden flash of blinding light prompted Sam and Dean to shield their eyes.

When they gathered up the courage to peek between their fingers, they realized they could move again. Whatever had immobilized them had vanished. They scrambled up to their feet as moonlight shone down on them. A few yards in front of them stood Castiel with… someone.

Their eyes widened in realization.

Harry stowed his wand away while looking dubiously at the angel. "Did that work?" he asked.

"Yes," Castiel answered.

"What did you do with them?"

"I removed them from this world."

"Yeah, I get that. I mean did you kill them?"

Castile shook his head. "It seems they cannot be killed."

Harry let out a frustrated breath. "Great." If an angel couldn't kill those monsters, then he was really out of options. "Well… At least you tried." He scanned the sky to make sure there weren't any stragglers. "I hope they're in hell. Crowley won't know what hit him."

"What the HELL IS GOING ON?" the king of hell roared. Dementors feasted on souls with reckless abandon. Precious souls he had been harboring were disappearing right before his eyes. His souls! "WHO LET THOSE THINGS IN!?" The creatures swooped into throngs of tortured souls. It was a veritable buffet. Crowley looked wildly at his demon consort who were watching the destruction in awe. "DO SOMETHING, YOU LITTLE SHITS!" he shrieked. "GET RID OF IT!"

Dean cleared his throat. "Uh… Over here?" He waved at the men who had rescued them. "Remember us? Almost died just now?"

"Oh, yes," Castiel replied with a cursory nod. "Sam, Dean. This is Harry."

About time too, Harry thought as he caught his first glimpse of the fabled Winchester brothers. "I have heard a lot about you," he said. "That was a dangerous thing to hunt, by the way. Dementors. Nasty creatures. Best leave it to the professionals."

Dean sputtered indignantly.

An hour later, the four men were at an all-night diner, digging into greasy burgers and sugary milkshakes. The Winchesters were ravenous. All very natural, Harry had explained to them. Dementor encounters often left victims weak emotionally and physically. "You'll feel better as soon as you recharge."

"So," Sam struggled to swallow his bite, "that deer. That was your magic, right?"

"It's a shield. It repels Dementors."

"Right, right," Dean interrupted. "Cas?" He glared at the angel who was munching on his fries, ever so innocent. "Didn't think any of this was worth mentioning to us before we started out on a suicide mission?" Castiel at least had the gumption to appear sheepish while keeping his eyes on the food in front of him. Dean slumped in defeat because, apparently, there was no getting through to this angel. "You are one piece of work, man," he huffed under his breath.

He was also very suspicious of the British man sitting opposite him. Harry Potter. Famous Harry Potter. The man who cheated Death almost as often as the Winchesters. He didn't look very famous at all.

Sam gestured at the Harry and Castiel and asked, "Are you two hunting together now?"

Dean bristled. Castiel was their secret-but-not-so-secret weapon.

Castiel glanced at Harry for a second, then said, "No. Harry has a job."

Dean narrowed his eyes at this certain betrayal. "Hunting is a job."

"I mean, Harry has a life that doesn't revolve around hunting," Castiel clarified.

Sure. Stab a man in the back, then twist the blade. Dean gritted his teeth to keep from snapping.

"Sometimes he asks for help," Castiel continued on. "And then I help. It is the same as when you ask for help." He sipped on his milkshake. "But we don't hunt together." He finally looked up at the brothers. "I only hunt with you."

Harry covered up his snicker behind a cough as Dean's eyes widened and Sam scoffed. "Tone down the sap," the elder Winchester brother blurted out, clearly embarrassed by Castiel's honest proclamation.

"It is as you said, Dean." Castiel was solemn and earnest. "Bros before hoes."