Moorless

by Lomonaaeren

Summary:

Harry, not the Boy-Who-Lived, grew up with the Dursleys and fell through the cracks when he got to Hogwarts. Theo grew up with a father who believed children should be seen and not heard. When they find each other in their seventh year, they cling to each other with all the strength they have.

Notes:

This is one of my “Songs of Summer” fics, one-shots being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. This one, in response to several requests for Harry/Theo, will have two or three parts. Warning that this story gets very heavy in some parts.

Chapter 1

Harry rolled onto his back and turned his face up to the sun.

He had found that very few people came up to the top of the Astronomy Tower in the middle of the day. The Astronomy classes were all held at night, and snogging couples seemed to like the lower floors better. Harry could lie here, in the sun that was still warmer than anywhere else as October waned, and pretend that the heated stone under his skin was the touch of someone who loved him.

There was no one like that.

Harry had thought he might make friends at Hogwarts, once. It hadn’t worked out. The closest he’d come was when he was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team in second and third years. Fourth year there’d been no Quidditch due to the Tournament, fifth year Umbridge had disbanded the team and denied them permission to reform, and during sixth year, Harry had made a stupid attempt to get Snape to stop going after him and been given detention every night there was a practice. Katie Bell, the Captain for that year, had finally told Harry they were replacing him with Ginny Weasley as Seeker. “You understand, don’t you, Harry? We need someone who’s not having so many conflicts with the professors that they can’t get to practice.”

And Harry had smiled and said he understood. He did. He understood a lot of things.

Harry closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t want to think of that right now. He only had a few more months left at Hogwarts anyway, since he was in his seventh year, and after that, he could disappear into the Muggle world. He had enough gold to live lightly for a few years while he studied and got a Muggle education and caught up on all the things he’d missed, first because of the Dursleys and then being here. He could give up magic with ease. It had given him nothing worth keeping.

And then, maybe, finally, he would find a place he belonged.

Footsteps on the Tower’s stairs snapped Harry’s eyes open. He turned his head and squinted at the person stepping into sight.

One of the Slytherins. Nott. That was right. The one with dark hair and such silence about him that Harry had several times missed him sitting in a corner of the classroom when Harry thought he was the only one there.

But more than enough presence to make Harry feel uneasy about being up here. Harry rolled over, sat up, and averted his gaze.

Nott paused when he caught sight of him. Harry stood up and edged over to the side. The Hat had been wrong to put him in Gryffindor, Harry often thought now. He was cowardly enough to make a Slytherin, retreating when someone pressed too close.

He’d asked for Gryffindor to make his parents proud. His dead parents, who had died fighting to protect the Boy-Who-Lived, Neville Longbottom.

Not Harry.

Avoiding Nott’s eyes, he made his way back down the stairs inside the Tower, already letting his mind run into the grooves of the essay he had to write for Professor McGonagall’s class. It would be difficult to do well, but Harry was lucky. He only had to do it sort of well. Nothing that mattered for the NEWTs would matter to his future.

*

Theo stared after—yes, that was Harry Potter, wasn’t it? Theo made a point of knowing the names of everyone in his year, even the most useless.

Names were important. Names had clicked and rung in his head when Father had kept him Silenced for months at a time. Theo would read books and use his lips to shape the names even though he couldn’t speak. When he could, he would call out the names of house-elves just to hear them. He would carve them into the walls.

When he came to Hogwarts, he’d had to modify that habit. But he was still known for talking more in the Slytherin common room than almost anyone else.

Father would have been angry to hear that, a fact that could still make a smile dance on Theo’s lips.

He had come up here to speak aloud just because the silence he still fell into on a regular basis couldn’t always be dispelled by speaking in the Slytherin dormitories, not where people would hear him. The Dark Lord had been defeated during the summer by Longbottom, working under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and now people like Draco went around in a cloud of their own self-generated silences, glaring at people who dared to interrupt them. If Theo had known Potter was up here, he would have spoken to him, invited him to stay.

But presumably Potter had homework to do. Theo turned around, shaking his head, and began to speak aloud some of the thoughts that he’d had to keep caged up inside for the past week.

*

“Hi there, girl.”

Hedwig ducked her head and rubbed her beak enthusiastically against Harry’s face. Harry smiled and touched her breast feathers. Hedwig nuzzled close and stood with her head almost tucked into her own chest, letting Harry stroke her neck.

She at least loved him.

She was also the one hitch in Harry’s plans to disappear into the Muggle world. Someone would notice a snowy owl circling around and entering a house sooner or later. But on the other hand, he had months to perfect his grasp of the wards he would need to prevent anyone from noticing that. Magic that kept things invisible and undetectable wasn’t the sort that would get the Ministry called out to monitor him.

Harry had few people to write to, so Hedwig—an impulse purchase when Professor McGonagall had taken him to Diagon Alley—rarely got exercise. But he spent time with her in the Owlery every day, soothed by the soft hoots and shifting of the owls, the rustle of feathers, the soundless passage of wings as they swooped in and out of the windows.

Someone cleared their throat behind him. Harry stiffened, but Hedwig pecked at him, and he forcibly relaxed. She didn’t like it when he was tense.

Other people had a perfect right to come up to the Owlery, even during dinner, when it was usually deserted. Harry had to remember that.

He turned around and blinked a little when he saw it was Nott, the Slytherin who had surprised him on the roof of the Tower the other day. Harry nodded to him, ran one more hand across Hedwig’s breast feathers, and stepped back to leave.

“Wait.”

Harry glanced at Nott. They only had two NEWT classes in common, Charms and Transfiguration. Harry had dropped Defense, since he was good at it but didn’t have any practical need for it in the future, and since Snape was still teaching it after You-Know-Who’s defeat. Harry wondered if Nott was going to ask him about classwork. It was the only thing he could comprehend Nott asking him.

“You’re Harry Potter, right?” Nott didn’t really speak the words as a question, though. “I wanted to talk to you.”

It took a long moment for the words to struggle up Harry’s throat, working against the force of his astonishment. “All right,” he said. “But you didn’t look as though you needed any help in Charms or Transfiguration. You’re one of the smartest people here.”

Nott blinked twice and said, “It wasn’t about Charms or Transfiguration. Why did you run away when I saw you on the roof of the Astronomy Tower the other day?”

“You looked like you were there for something. I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

“But you were there first.”

“So?”

Nott looked baffled. It was the first time Harry had ever seen him look that way. Harry wanted to sigh. Of course it would be him, without human friends and just all-around useless person, who made Nott do that. “But…why were you there? Why are you in the Owlery? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Gryffindor who’s alone as much as you are. Slytherins, yes.”

Dazed, Harry reflected that Nott talked a lot more than he’d ever known about. It made Nott’s silences in classrooms even more unusual. “The others were pretty close friends from the beginning,” he said with a jerky shrug. It was a bit of a lie. Seamus and Dean had been close from the beginning, and so had Parvati and Lavender, Neville and Ron. But Neville and Ron hadn’t become friends with Hermione until after something involving a troll that made them all exchange private smiles when it came up. Harry had tried to befriend Hermione, but he wasn’t smart enough, and then it was too late. “I don’t really fit in.”

“You don’t have friends in other Houses?”

“I didn’t even approach Slytherin,” Harry said, with a glance at Nott’s snake-shaped tie pin that he knew Nott was quick enough to catch. “And I’m just not great at making friends.” It was the truth. Harry wasn’t smart enough for the Ravenclaws or nice enough for the Hufflepuffs, and when he did try with them, it was like everyone else was dancing to music, and Harry was half a beat behind.

“Okay,” Nott said. “So you spend time with your owl.”
‘
“Yeah.” Nott didn’t sound obviously judgmental or pitying, but Harry could have lived with it if he was. It was the truth.

And this was the longest conversation he had had that wasn’t with a professor or about homework in at least two years. It made Harry twitch, a bit.

“Did you know, when I came in, for a minute I thought no one human was here?”

Nott was looking straight at Harry as if he thought that ought to be significant to him, but Harry didn’t know why. Not everyone spoke as much as Nott did. “I wasn’t talking aloud.”

“No,” Nott said, and at least his voice had dropped down and was quiet now. “I mean I was looking directly at you, or the place where you should be, and for a minute I thought one of the ghosts was here. I could see through you. You were transparent. How did you do that?”

Harry shivered a little. Neville had an Invisibility Cloak that Harry had heard about and seen once or twice, but he knew very well it wasn’t anything like that. He shrugged.

“Potter?”

“It happens sometimes,” Harry said. “I’m not very good at controlling my magic. I’m just an average student, you know. My accidental magic still sometimes escapes my control and makes me do things like that.”

Nott’s eyes widened. “That’s not—”

“Have to go,” Harry said, and hurried out of the Owlery, listening behind him for any sound of footsteps following. He relaxed when there were none. Nott might be curious about what was happening with Harry’s magic, but not enough to actually chase him down.

Harry did pause on the stairs and stare at his hand. It was solid. He could reach out and pinch the skin on the back of his hand the way Dudley used to like to do and feel both the skin and the pain.

Right now.

Sometimes Harry’s magic really answered his desires, although not usually in class. And if one of those desires was simply leaving the magical world without really caring about how he did it…

The Muggle world was an ideal, not a definite plan.

Harry clattered down the rest of the stairs.

*

Theo rapped his fingers on the wall, and jumped when a bird hooted angrily. He whipped around to see Potter’s snowy owl watching him, her wings half-spread as if she was going to jump off her perch and fly at him.

“I didn’t chase him away,” Theo said softly. He would have preferred that Potter stay and explain what the hell was going on. If nothing else, it might have explained the mystery of his magic. Accidental magic, Theo’s arse.

And that bit about not having any friends in his year or other Houses was true, but Theo couldn’t figure out why. Potter didn’t have personally off-putting mannerisms the way Malfoy did. He hadn’t been a Death Eater’s child. His parents were heroes for dying defending the Boy-Who-Lived.

Theo snorted at that particular thought. Yes, well, there were some people who knew otherwise, but it wasn’t like they were going to spread the truth around when the public story so perfectly fit the legend and the whole magical world was encouraged to fall at Longbottom’s feet.

Potter’s owl gave another hoot, a softer one. Theo went up to her and thrust a hand out. Most of the time, post-owls didn’t actually attack human beings unless those people threatened the owls’ humans or attacked first. Theo had had better luck with owls than with some of his Housemates.

It worked now. Potter’s owl twisted her head slowly back and forth, then stretched out a foot and edged onto Theo’s arm.

“You’re a beauty,” Theo murmured, stroking her feathers. “And I have to think that you wouldn’t like it if Potter faded, or became a ghost, or whatever it was he was doing.” He ran his fingers over her breast feathers, and she blinked in a way that told him it was probably a frequent gesture from Potter. “Hey, girl, would you like to carry a message to Potter from me?”

The snowy owl hooted excitedly.

*

Harry jumped when Hedwig flew in with the morning post-owls and slanted down towards him. She visited him all the time, but she was never carrying packages or letters when she did so. Harry just wasn’t the kind of student who got packages or letters.

He heard the chatter near him die down as he reached over and slowly untied the letter from her leg. Harry felt his face heat up under the stares. He knew it didn’t mean they thought he had done anything wrong, the way it would have on Privet Drive, but he still didn’t like being the focus of attention.

“What’s that, Potter?” Ron leaned over.

“A letter,” Harry said, and unsealed the envelope. Hedwig nudged him and chirred.

“What’s it say?” Hermione was reaching over his shoulder.

“Do you mind?” Harry snapped, louder than he’d meant to, and turned to stare at her. She fell back in her chair, looking shocked. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he had raised his voice to her. If ever? It usually happened the other way around, especially after his disastrous attempt to stand up to Snape last year.

“Hey, don’t yell at her!” Ron said, flushing brightly.

“Come on, Ron, leave Harry alone,” Neville said. He was the only one who called Harry by his first name, despite them all sharing classes and a common room for seven years, and a dormitory in the case of Harry and the other boys. “The letter’s his private business. Hermione, you don’t need to see it.”

Hermione subsided with a frown that Harry could easily translate. She didn’t need to see it, but she wanted to, and for some people, that was the same thing as having permission.

Harry shuddered at the thought of them looking over his shoulder while he read, and held out an arm for Hedwig. She hopped on happily enough. Harry stood up.

“I hope we haven’t chased you away from breakfast,” Neville said, his brow crinkling. The lightning bolt scar had shrunk to a small silver line that you would have to look for carefully to know it was there after Voldemort’s defeat.

“No, it’s okay,” Harry said. “I was done.” He walked away from the Great Hall, flushing as he felt more people staring at him. He hated that.

He could feel his left leg start to thin out and go transparent, foot not touching the floor, and he concentrated hard. That was not going to happen right now. He didn’t want to disappear, especially with so many people watching. He just wanted to get out of their sight.

He ducked out of the Great Hall, and find a private alcove to read the letter.

Potter,

I’m sending this message with your owl to apologize, and also to tell you I’d like to talk to you more, about magic and privacy and other things. How does the top of the Astronomy Tower at noon on Saturday sound to you?

Theo.

That’s right, Harry thought, after a long second of forcing his numb brain to work. Nott’s first name is Theodore.

Harry stared at the letter. It was weird enough that Nott had shown up a few times in the places where Harry had been, and weirder still that he had decided he should talk to Harry instead of just ignoring him like most people did. It wasn’t like Harry could offer Nott anything in return, after all, like tutoring or intelligent conversation.

Hedwig hooted at him. Harry looked up at her, and Hedwig nipped gently at his ear.

“What? You think I should write back?”

Hedwig waved her wings around excitedly.

Harry laughed a little. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” Worst case scenario, Nott would just learn what everyone else had learned, that Harry was awkward and ignorant, and would stop writing to him.

Best case scenario…

Harry didn’t let himself think about that.

*

“I’m here, Nott.”

Potter’s voice was unnaturally quiet, Theo thought. He probably hadn’t been under Silencing Charms most of his life, but he still spoke as though he was afraid to take up space, as though someone might get angry at him for doing so. He sat down on the top of the Astronomy Tower with quite a bit of space between them and stared silently at Theo.

Theo was too eager for a conversation partner to let Potter’s little oddities put him off. “Good,” he said. “So what’s the reason that your body seems to disappear sometimes?”

“I don’t want to discuss it.”

“I asked you here partially because I wanted to discuss it. Because it’s one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen.”

Potter blinked at him for long moments. Then he shook his head. “Why, though? You grew up in the magical world. You’ve probably seen and cast more magic than I could ever remember.” His voice was wistful.

Theo opened his mouth to talk, not at all reluctant to brag about his academic achievements, but managed to stop himself. Potter’s voice echoed in his ears. “Wait. You didn’t grow up in the magical world?”

Potter shrank a little backwards, even though he didn’t move. Theo was absolutely sure that for a second, his shoulder went transparent and flickered. Not like the way that a ghost would disappear to move through a wall, or someone would vanish under a Disillusionment Charm. Those things were still solid (well, for a given value of “solid,” with ghosts). Potter’s shoulder looked as if it just wasn’t there anymore.

That was driving Theo more mental by the second.

“No,” Potter said softly. “My mother’s Muggle relatives.” Then he shut up.

Theo blinked at him. There was no reason for the son of two of the most famous people in the first war to have grown up in the Muggle world, he thought. Even if more people knew the truth of his parents, that wouldn’t have been a reason to leave him with Muggles. It would have been a reason to raise him “properly” and watch him very, very closely, in case Potter started following the same path as Lily and James Potter had.

“Why?”

“No Potter relatives left. What was it like, growing up as a wizard?”

Potter sounded so wistful that Theo allowed himself to talk about his childhood, in a way that he rarely did with anyone anymore. How he missed his mother, who had died when he was five of a potion that had gone badly wrong. How he had mastered wandless magic that would layer a skin-tight shield over him for protection when he was six. How he wanted to be good at Potions but not pursue it as a passion, in case he ended up like his mother.

He didn’t say much about his father. Potter didn’t ask. He looked utterly enthralled, lying there and listening, and Theo felt an odd sensation pour over him like warm oil. It was the sensation of being able to say all that he wanted, of talking enough.

At last, he paused, and conjured a glass of water to swallow. Potter stretched and rolled over as though surprised by how much time had passed and how cramped his arms and legs were. Theo stretched out himself. “Your turn. What was it like, growing up Muggle?”

In an instant, all the tension that had flown out of Potter during the hours he’d listened to Theo flew back. His shoulders hunched, and he said, “Boring. Compared to the way that you grew up. Muggles have to do everything by hand, you know.”

“But I thought they had…machines? To cook and wash dishes and the like?”

“Oh, yeah. They do. But you have to put the dishes in the machine by hand, and take them out that way. No Summoning, no Repair or Cleaning Charms, no quick healing.”

Theo had got good down the years at listening to voices, what they said and didn’t say. And he saw the way that Potter kept his head ducked as he spoke, and the way his voice went a little low and dry on the last words.

Surprise stirred inside Theo. Suspicion. Anger.

“They hurt you, didn’t they?”

Potter vanished.

Theo stumbled to his feet, staring around in shock. There had been no crack of Apparition, and Theo really didn’t think Potter could have mastered silent Apparition. That was if there even was a way to silently Apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds, which Theo knew very well there wasn’t.

“Potter?” he asked.

Silence answered him.

*

Harry came back together on the staircase that led up to the Astronomy Tower, his face hot with tears.

Then he pulled himself back together figuratively as well as literally, and shook his head, wiping the tears away. No more came. That was—that had been the worst pulse he’d ever felt, as he called them, but it didn’t matter much. He had come back together. He wasn’t floating nothingness, silent bolts of perception striking through the air, never to be touched again.

He had never vanished entirely for that long before. The first times had been when he was a child in the cupboard, and he would go away into nothingness when the Dursleys left him for a particularly long time. It was just a way to pass some time mindlessly, and sometimes his body as well as his mind was affected by it.

Harry had once hoped it would stop happening when he went to Hogwarts. He would make friends there, ones who knew nothing about his relatives or how Harry was always blamed for things Dudley did, and he would be able to smile and laugh and play Quidditch and study with his friends and perform great feats of magic, and no one would harm him again, except during the summers.

It hadn’t happened. Staying with the Dursleys too long had damaged the part of him that could make friends, Harry thought. It was the reason he was going back to the Muggle world.

It was the reason he vanished.

He’d vanished in front of Nott, too, the only person in a long time who’d wanted to talk to Harry. Nott probably thought he was dangerous now, or stupid, or both. Harry shut his eyes and winced.

Then he kept going, down the stairs, the way he always did. Until the day he vanished completely, then he would just have to keep going.

*

Theo straightened up from leaning against the stones near the Great Hall’s entrance. Draco had tried to ask him what he was doing there earlier, but Theo had sneered at him until he went away.

There was Potter, walking along with his satchel slung over one shoulder and his hands in his robe pockets. He caught Theo’s eye for a second and froze.

Theo waited, but Potter didn’t come over to him. Theo rolled his eyes and walked over. A few people glanced their way, but there was little curiosity in their eyes, more pity. Potter was right. He didn’t have any Gryffindor friends.

“Where did you go yesterday?” Theo asked.

“Away.”

Potter was avoiding his eyes, shoulders still hunched the way they’d been yesterday when Theo had started talking to him about the Muggle world. Theo shook his head. He wanted to solve the mystery, wanted to get Potter talking—Theo enjoyed the sound of his own voice, but a monologue was never as much fun as a conversation—but it wasn’t likely to be a good idea right now.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get a basket from the house-elves and go eat outside. I think this is the last really fine day we’ll have before winter.” And he reached out and touched Potter on the shoulder, because he wasn’t sure he had the other boy’s attention.

Potter spun around, eyes wide. Theo stared calmly back at him, eyebrows arching. Potter swallowed.

“I—you want to eat with me?”

Normally, this kind of cringing deference would have irritated Theo. But thinking about what the Muggles had probably done to Potter, and the way that the other Gryffindors just ignored him, and the expression of interest on his face as he’d listened to Theo explain even minor details of growing up magical, made him only sad. And angry.

And determined to get to know Potter better.

“Yes, why not?” he asked.

As he’d expected, Potter didn’t question him. “Okay,” he said, and followed Theo to the kitchens.

Theo stilled all the questions he wanted to ask on his tongue, and started talking about the modifications he’d made to a potion the other day that meant he could successfully combine powdered moonstone and powdered ruby without the potion exploding. Potter, who wasn’t taking NEWT Potions, still listened and absorbed like a drought absorbing rain.

Theo found it—very pleasant.

Chapter 2

Notes:

Thank you for all the reviews!

Harry leaned against a pine tree at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, waiting for Theo. It had begun to snow an hour past, but with Warming Charms wrapped around him and his cloak, and the gloves that he’d Transfigured out of a pair of socks Seamus had thrown away, it was pleasant enough.

It did kind of scare Harry, how quickly “Nott” had become “Theo.” Harry kept waiting for—

Well, not betrayal, not exactly. How could someone he’d only known for a month betray him? But for Theo to find something more important to do and pay attention to that, the way that everyone else except Hedwig had done.

Professor McGonagall had been nice when she’d taken him to Diagon Alley, but she’d been busier with Neville and the others, helping them out of trouble or helping them along academically because they were brilliant, like Hermione. Harry was neither brilliant nor stupid, but just average.

He’d heard Hagrid had known his parents and had tried to talk to him, but Hagrid was always busy with his creatures, and later the war effort.

Neville was nice, but he had so much going on, and he had Ron and Hermione.

Their third-year Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Remus Lupin, had been friendly and interested in Harry, and had invited him for tea and chats a few times. But then Neville had needed tutoring in the Patronus, and the tea and chats had stopped. And at the end of that year, Professor Lupin had been revealed as a werewolf and had had to leave.

Harry had sent the professor an owl telling him that Harry didn’t care he was a werewolf and he was still a great teacher. But he’d never got a reply.

For a while, there had been the Quidditch team, but his conflict with Snape had put an end to that. And they’d won the Quidditch Cup last year, so it had been clear they didn’t really need Harry.

Hedwig was always, always there, and always glad to see him. But Harry couldn’t help admitting he was pinning some hopes on this friendship with Theo, even as fragile as it was and even with the constant reminders to himself that Theo had a whole life Harry wasn’t a part of.

It didn’t keep him from hoping. Harry had long ago decided that hope was as virulent as a disease.

At last, Theo appeared, striding through the snow. Harry smiled as he watched him. Theo’s hair was dark and shone out from a distance like a flapping raven’s wing against the snow. His robes and gloves and boots were all grey, and Harry wasn’t sure what material they were made of, but he knew it took Warming Charms and Moisture-Repelling Charms easily.

When Harry was with Theo, he almost never vanished anymore. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“Harry.” Theo came to a stop in front of him and reached out, laying his hand over Harry’s for a second. Harry wanted to close his eyes and savor the contact, but he was already lucky that Theo had given him a chance after Harry’s weird disappearing act the first time they’d spent talking. He moved away from Theo after a second.

“Hello, Theo. You said you wanted to go into the Forest?” Harry cast a dubious glance into the trees. He hadn’t gone there often except for a couple Care of Magical Creatures lessons, and he’d dropped that class after the OWLS.

“Yes. Come on.”

Theo took hold of his hand again and drew him along, and Harry had to admit he trusted Theo more than anyone except Hedwig. He followed, expecting Theo to let go of his hand at any minute.

Theo didn’t.

A fluttering thrill crept up from Harry’s stomach. He ignored it, again. He was just so unused to being touched that he reacted like this any time Theo’s hand brushed his. It was weird and not something to share.

He did lengthen his strides so that Theo wouldn’t have to drag him along. He could show that much consideration.

*

Even after months when Harry was the person he’d spent the most time with outside of classes, Theo thought, Harry was a mystery.

Oh, he didn’t seem to be. He asked questions, he laughed, he’d told Theo his favorite foods and about how he got Hedwig and a little about how he lived in the Muggle world. But he rarely ever volunteered anything about himself. Theo always had to ask. And half the time, the answers were more mysterious than the questions, deflections and evasions and lies of omission.

Theo still didn’t know why Harry had disappeared that day on the top of the Astronomy Tower, or how.

But he would find out. And encouraging Harry to relax and trust him was one reason they were in the Forest at the moment.

“Look,” Theo said, halting when he saw the delicate hoofprints in the snow that he’d been looking for. “See that?” He bent down and splayed his glove out next to the hoofprints. That way, it was more obvious that while one set of them was big enough to challenge his hand for size, another set was much smaller.

“Yeah,” Harry said, bending down. Snow draped over his lashes. He had no hat. Theo had tried to give him one for Christmas, but Harry had made it clear how uncomfortable he was with gifts, so Theo had held back. “Are they thestrals? I can’t see thestrals.” He chewed on his lip. It made Theo want to touch it.

But then, just about everything Harry did made Theo want to touch some part of him.

“No. The bigger one’s a unicorn.” Theo let his finger trace the cleft in one of the larger hoofprints, moving through the air only. “But the smaller one? Come on. Let me show you.” He drew Harry closer to him.

Harry shivered, but Theo didn’t think it was with cold. He nodded, and followed Theo on into the depths of the Forest. Theo cast charms that would let them walk silently and keep the snow they disturbed to a minimum.

Harry followed the wand movements with his eyes, but didn’t attempt to ask what they were. He was the most silent person Theo had ever met, next to himself—and Theo had become a great deal less silent over the months with Harry.

Theo wanted to hear him. Wanted to hear Harry laugh and explain and shout and weep.

Wanted to hear him moan.

Maybe that was just a natural consequence of getting to know Harry so well. Harry would listen to him, and he would smile, and he would laugh. But he rarely spoke, in comparison to Theo. Theo still thought a conversation was more interesting than a monologue, still wanted someone who would speak along with him.

“Nearly there now,” Theo said, when they paused on the bank of a cold stream and Harry made a questioning sound. He renewed the charms that would keep them from disturbing the leaves or the snow, and then leaped lightly across the stream. Harry hesitated.

Theo turned and held out his hands. “Come here,” he said softly. “Jump.”

Harry flickered his eyes back and forth between the stream and Theo for a moment. Then he nodded, backed up, and charged.

He leaped with a lightness that reminded Theo forcibly of his being the Gryffindor Seeker for a while—he still would have been, if the Gryffindors hadn’t been idiots—and landed on the far bank of the stream, but skidded. Theo grabbed Harry’s arms and held him steady, smiling down into his eyes.

Harry caught his breath and lowered his gaze, shrinking into himself the way he so often did. But Theo held onto him, drawing him closer and wrapping an arm around him, and urged him further into the forest. Harry moved slowly beside him, so obviously savoring the touch and thinking he should pull away at the same time that Theo might have been using Legilimency on him.

“There,” Theo said at last, nodding to the grove of white trees ahead of them.

Harry caught his breath as he stared between the trunks. Theo put a hand on his back, and felt Harry arch into the touch.

God, he needed so much of it, as much as Theo needed words. Theo caught him closer and wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist, leaning near enough so that he could whisper into Harry’s ear, “You see them?”

“Yes, I see them.”

Harry’s voice was low and delighted. Theo smiled above his head as he watched the unicorn mare in the clearing slowly groom her nursing foal. The foal was paler than a typical unicorn foal, all white and silver in the white and silver surroundings, and as well as a small horn projecting from her forehead, small wings fluttered from her sides.

“How did that happen?” Harry asked, a tiny puff of breath escaping from his mouth with the words. The mare turned her head to look at them, but she didn’t move. Theo knew very well they had been allowed to approach.

“A unicorn and a Granian mated, I would think.” Theo was somewhat preoccupied with Harry’s back, as delicate and slender beneath his touch as the filly’s. He freed one hand from Harry’s waist to slide along his shoulder blade, so thin that a wing could easily have stretched from it.

Harry leaned back and looked up at him with drowning green eyes. Theo lost his head and bent down and kissed him.

Harry seized up beneath him, and for a moment Theo regretted what he’d done. Then Harry surged back into him, turning around in his arms, flinging himself into Theo’s hold with what seemed to be seventeen years of pent-up longing.

Crunching hoofbeats revealed the unicorn and her filly fleeing further into the Forest. At the moment, Theo couldn’t have cared less. He was holding Harry, and Harry’s moans were ringing in his ears, and they were deeper and richer than he had imagined, then he could possibly have imagined.

Harry abruptly froze. Theo encircled him with his arms so Harry couldn’t run away, but he did see one shoulder flicker towards transparency.

“Harry?” Theo asked. He sank everything he could into his voice: his own enjoyment of the kiss, the harmonics of lust and longing, his desire to hang onto Harry and learn all his secrets and take him apart.

Harry swallowed. Then he said, “I’m—sorry. You probably weren’t expecting that.”

“I’m the one who kissed you.”

“Yeah, but I kissed back like I was trying to eat you.”

Theo paused. Then he said, “You’re worried about this because you think you’re a bad kisser?”

“Well, yes?” Harry raised his head and eyed Theo. Theo was distracted by how dark his eyes were and how swollen his mouth was, but he managed to concentrate on the words. “I’ve never done this before.”

Theo thought he might know another reason now that the unicorn mare had let them come so close. But it would be cruel to say anything about it. He simply ran a slow, possessive palm over Harry’s shoulder blade again, and saw the way Harry’s eyes went soft and unfocused. The slightest touch undid him.

Theo wanted to give it all to him. The slight touches and the heavy ones, the early morning ones and the ones bound to deep night, and the ones that would bind Harry forever to him and the ones that would have him smile at the memory.

“The only thing I see wrong is that you stopped,” Theo said.

Maybe Harry could make out the honesty in his voice. He smiled, a little hesitantly, and edged closer. His shoulder was solid again, and he lifted his face and half-closed his eyes with such anticipation that Theo obliged him, running his hands up and down again along Harry’s body.

And Harry, as if he knew how much the sound pleased Theo, moaned for him in all sorts of tones and depths.

*

Harry was happier than he’d ever been, and it terrified him.

What would happen when Theo woke up and figured out that Harry was basically a collection of responses and smiles stretched over an empty center? When he ran into whatever was in the middle of Harry and made him bad at making friends?

It had to make him bad at dating people, too, right? Theo would figure that out, and he would disappear to find someone who could give him what he wanted, and—

Harry would disappear, too.

For a second, the world flickered over him, and he knew that if he looked down, he would see the covers through his knees and arms instead of his body. But he was in the middle of his bed in Gryffindor Tower, surrounded by his closed curtains, and no one could see him.

Harry shut his eyes. For some reason, Theo wanted to be with him. And even though it would only be a few months—could only be a few months until Harry said or did the wrong thing, danced to the wrong music, moved in the wrong way and drove him off—

Even though it couldn’t last past the end of the school year because Harry would either disappear completely or flee into the Muggle world—

Harry found that he wanted it. The happiness was worth the terror.

*

“How do you want me?”

Harry’s voice was so breathy, so delicate, as though he was preparing to jump the stream into Theo’s hold again. It made Theo painfully hard, and he licked his lips. He glanced around the room for a moment.

It was the Room of Requirement, which Theo had read about it in one of the old books at Father’s house. It had taken him forever to figure out how it worked, even when he knew where it was, but now it was a private room with a door no one but the two of them could open, and the bed in the middle of the room was thick and heavy and soft, with an endless tumble of soft pillows. The stone floor, too, was covered in rugs, and Theo had wanted to lay Harry down there at first and touch him until he shrieked.

But the bed would be better. Harry was skittish, for all that he also wanted it, trembling with desire and fear. Theo reached out, slid a hand beneath Harry’s chin, and kissed him until Harry was panting more than he was shaking. Then Theo stepped back and swept a hand at the bed. “Here?”

Harry smiled at him. “Yes,” he said. “Please.” And he began to take off his robes.

Theo had never seen him more than half-naked before, and that had only been for quick wanks and the like, before Harry got too nervous and slipped off again. Now Theo got to see the pale skin, and the slim shoulders, and the long legs that looked made for clasping brooms—

And me, soon.

And he got to see the scars.

Theo looked at Harry’s face, and saw the way that he half-shut his eyes and his hair flickered towards transparency for a moment. Theo thought he was starting to understand those moments of almost disappearing, even though Harry had never explained or acknowledged them. They happened when Harry was so embarrassed or fearful of Theo’s reaction that he wanted to melt away. And Harry’s magic was so powerful that it tried to make it happen.

Theo would never understand them, the ones who had decided Harry was average and not worth paying attention to.

“It’s all right,” Theo said quietly. “What my father did to me didn’t leave physical scars because he thought that would be crude, but I carry them where they can’t be seen.”

Harry’s hair solidified again, and his eyes flashed open so that he could stare at Theo. “You—he did something to you?” And in his voice was the anger that he would never express for himself.

“Yes,” Theo said. “Silencing Charms. There were months I never spoke aloud. He couldn’t stop me from mouthing words and reading along, and he couldn’t stop me from speaking when I had my voice back. But he tried his best.”

“That’s why you like it so much when I talk to you. When I try to make sure that you can understand what’s happening with me.”

“Yes.” Theo reached out and let his hand wander down Harry’s neck to his collarbone. “And I know you like it when I touch you. Is that because they never touched you? Or because their touches hurt?”

Harry’s breathing accelerated, and for a second, Theo thought the skin he was touching would melt. Then Harry straightened his back and stared at Theo. “My aunt almost never touched me, unless you count swinging a frying pan at me. My cousin chased me and beat me up with his friends. And my uncle would shove me into walls, cuff me, shove me into my cupboard.”

“Your cupboard?” Theo thought the fire on the hearth next to the bed dimmed for a moment, as though his anger had chilled it. He almost wished that was the case. Harry deserved so much more acknowledgment than anyone had ever given him. He deserved—

He deserved Theo. Theo knew he would give Harry pleasure and protection and care such as no one ever had.

“Until I got my Hogwarts letter, which was addressed to the cupboard, and they thought someone was watching them, that was where I slept. From the time that someone dropped me off on their doorstep as a baby.”

Theo wanted to hurt someone. His hands ached with it. But Harry was watching him with the kind of braced fear that he meant he wanted to fade, and Theo would lose him if he seemed too murderous. Too much like Harry’s relatives. Harry was apt to mistake any anger for him as anger at him, and Theo would not break this moment.

Theo made himself reach out and touch Harry’s breastbone, where a scar rested that looked as though someone might have hit Harry with a blade. “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m sorry that I didn’t know where you were, so I could have come and got you. I think life with my father would have been preferable to that. I’m sorry no one was truly watching, and could have escorted you away from there. I’m sorry that your parents died.”

Harry shivered. “Thank you.”

Theo stepped closer. “Will you lie on the bed?”

“Yes. I—I want to.”

Theo could tell how hard it was for Harry to spoke those words, and he reciprocated with a smile of his own. “I can’t tell you how eager I am to touch you,” he said quietly, and started stripping off his own robes.

*

Theo was glorious.

Not that Harry had ever seen anyone else naked except for the other Gryffindor boys in the shower, and briefly his Quidditch teammates when he’d played for them. But it didn’t matter. Theo was scarred, and muscled, and pale, and shaking his head as he took off the shirt, because apparently it had caught on a tiny piece of hair and pushed it into his eyes. He was doing this just for Harry.

He could have been as ugly as a house-elf and Harry would have thought he was glorious.

Theo smiled at Harry and removed his pants, and for a second, Harry shook where he lay on the bed because Theo’s cock was large, and the thought that it would go inside him was—daunting. But he had been Sorted into Gryffindor for a reason. Harry firmed his jaw and clasped his hands behind his head, acting as casual as he could.

Theo looked up, saw him, and lost his smile. He made a little choking sound.

Harry could feel the magic rushing through his body, wanting to turn him transparent and make him disappear. He forced himself to ignore the temptation. He shook his head and murmured, “What is it?”, while concentrating on the softness of the sheets beneath him and the heat of the fire. The magic retreated.

Theo took a step towards him. “You look…Harry, I don’t have the words.”

“I thought you already saw me naked.”

“Yes, but…” Theo let it trail off for a second, and then came over and swept his fingers lightly, reverently, down Harry’s stomach. Harry arched and wriggled towards him, but Theo wasn’t looking at his cock. Rather, his hands. “Harry, what do you think about trying to keep your hands in that position?”

Huh. That seemed a little strange to Harry, but he didn’t know anything about sex, and that meant Theo probably knew more than he did. Harry swallowed and said, “Okay? Do you want to conjure something to tie them down?” Harry wasn’t sure how he would feel about that, but he was willing to try. For Theo.

“No. I—I just want you to hold them there because I tell you to.”

Theo’s voice was shaking and soft, and his hand pressed down for a second on Harry’s stomach as though he was trying to press straight through and get inside. Harry blinked. That told him how much Theo wanted it, if not why Theo wanted it.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try. But I might start moving if you start making me feel really good.” He did his best to smile and make it come across as teasing, and that worked. Theo smiled back at him, and his eyes sparkled the way they had when Harry had kissed him in the Forbidden Forest.

“That’s more than acceptable,” Theo said, and bent down and kissed him languidly. And then he bent down further and took Harry’s cock into his mouth.

Harry didn’t know how to deal with it. His back arched and his thoughts went away. Magic whipped through him and he was happy, and he didn’t fade, and the warmth and the wetness locked around him made him—he was happy and he was full of pleasure and he wanted to come—

Somehow, he managed to keep his hands locked in the position above his head on the pillow that Theo had wanted, but he gave a low, long sob.

Theo pulled back with a pop and studied him for a minute. Harry could feel himself flushing. HIs mind seemed to have returned to him with the sensations gone, and the only thing he could think was that Theo might think he’d sounded weird.

But Theo said, “I want to hear every sound. It doesn’t have to be words. Just—your voice, Harry, your voice.” He leaned over and kissed him again, his hand tangling roughly in Harry’s hair. Harry opened his mouth and gave a sound that was part whimper and part not, and Theo’s cock surged against his thigh.

“Yes,” Harry gasped when Theo pulled back. “All of that. Please, give me all of that.”

“I will,” said Theo, and his own voice was husky. He reached for his wand.

He had already explained about the preparation and lubrication spells, and they’d used a few of them when they were meeting up to give each other wanks. Harry spread his legs and squirmed and made a small sound when the cleaning spell touched the inside of his arse. Theo kept looking at him like each noise was a revelation.

And then Theo reached for his legs and moved a pillow underneath him, and Harry flung his head back, keeping his hands in place, savoring the sensation of Theo’s hands running up and down, fingers rubbing him, nails lightly scratching.

*

Harry was goddamn distracting in every single way, but lying there and letting himself be bound by Theo’s voice alone was one particular way that Theo was pretty sure would form a part of his wank fantasies for the rest of his life.

He took his time with the spells, not wanting to hurt Harry at all this first time. He didn’t think Harry would be into pain, although he didn’t know for sure. Harry seemed surprisingly into keeping his wrists still. And he was into Theo practically bending him in half to slide inside him, and stared up at Theo with bright, dazed eyes that almost made Theo come right away.

Theo stared at Harry and felt a vicious sense of welling, possessive pleasure inside him.

Mine. He’s mine. No one is going to take him away.

Someone should have, years ago, Theo thought, as he waited for Harry to adjust, and stared at him, and Harry stared back and panted, keeping his promise to let Theo hear his voice. The Gryffindor Quidditch team should have noticed his value for reasons other than being a good Seeker. Someone should have noticed how powerful his magic was and helped him work on controlling it. Someone should have stopped Snape from going after Harry.

But no one had, and now Harry was here under Theo, and Theo would take such good care of him, for always, forever.

He began to move, and groaned aloud at the sheer heat of it. He was babbling, words that he was barely aware of, letting his hands slide all over Harry, half-slipping off his legs with the sweat running down between them, and Harry was babbling back, little broken sounds of joy and happiness, and Theo was thrusting faster, and Harry was meeting him, and for a moment Theo thought he heard a shout that started somewhere outside both of them—

His orgasm ripped him down, broke him in the best of ways, and tossed him onto the bed beside Harry, where they lay panting, sated, in the ensuing silence. For once, Theo didn’t want to break it. He rolled over and lay on top of Harry, touching him everywhere, and it made Harry go so relaxed Theo could feel his heartbeat radically slowing.

But he’d kept his wrists in place. Theo wished he could get hard again.

“Hands down,” he whispered into Harry’s ear.

*

Harry had waited to hear that, had wanted to hear that, because keeping his hands in place until Theo told him otherwise meant all the other sensations were more concentrated. Golden warmth was spreading through his bones, a golden haze through his mind, but he still grabbed hold of Theo’s shoulders and pulled him closer until Theo’s face was resting on his chest.

Theo’s breathing was slowing down, and he didn’t try to move. He just nuzzled his face into Harry’s neck. Harry nuzzled back, and lay there, reveling in the weight of someone on top of him. Not moving away. Not melting away.

Someone who wanted to touch him.

Harry was still afraid that this might end. Theo might discover something about Harry that was beyond the pale, no matter how much he liked what he’d seen so far. He might still get upset when he found out Harry wanted to move to the Muggle world. Or they could have a fight and Harry’s magic would dissolve him into nothingness.

But for now, Harry planned to cling, and hold. Theo would have to tear himself free if he wanted to go. No one else was allowed to have him.

Mine, Harry thought, for the first time about someone other than Hedwig, and mouthed at Theo’s shoulder, aware of all the places their skin touched. All mine.

Chapter 3

Notes:

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the story.

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry hunched his shoulders and stared at the floor. This was the kind of hostility that normally made him tempted to fade, but he had never done that when he was Snape. There was just too much of a chance that that Snape would do something with that information, and Harry had to resist the impulse. “Sir,” he whispered.

He’d been waiting not far from the stairs that led down to the dungeons for Theo. It had been a mistake. Harry had done well at avoiding Snape so far this year, since he wasn’t in a class the man taught anymore, but his luck had run out.

“Always so pathetic,” Snape said softly, pacing in a circle around Harry. Harry stared fixedly at the floor. “The child of parents who did not seek to protect him. The Gryffindor so cowardly that he quit my class rather than take another year of it—”

“Professor Snape.”

The curt voice was Theo’s. Snape swung around to face him at once. Harry winced and shook his head at Theo behind Snape’s back. Theo just gave him a long, blank look, as though he didn’t know what Harry was talking about.

Or maybe like he agreed with Snape. He hadn’t thought about how pathetic Harry was before now, and now he would leave—

No. Harry remembered that Theo had heard him begging and crying out on multiple occasions now, and he’d shown no inclination to walk away. Harry was just panicking because it was the kind of thing that would have happened to him in the past. He rolled his shoulders and waited. Theo would actually have to say he was going before Harry would believe it.

And even then, he would do his best to cling to Theo with teeth and nails.

“Mr. Nott. What are you doing here?”

Snape’s voice had the kind of soft deadliness that would have made Harry surrender at once, but Theo only said, “Meeting Harry,” and walked over to clasp his hand.

Harry stared at him in astonishment. They hadn’t taken great steps to keep their relationship private, but no one had really noticed. Harry thought that was more because of people’s tendency to ignore them both than anything else.

Now, Theo was looking at Snape with his eyebrows arched, and his hand was tight in Harry’s, and he looked as though he might charge his Head of House.

Snape narrowed his eyes. “Mr. Nott, I need to check you for the Imperius Curse.”

Harry flinched. Theo laughed. “Really, Professor Snape? Just because you don’t like Harry, you think no one could date him?”

“I think you are a young man with a bright future,” Snape said, his eyes darting back to Harry. Harry looked back at the floor. “Who does not need to tie yourself to someone so pathetic that he has no friends in his own House and is only taking three NEWT classes.”

“And I think that you’re pathetic for clinging to an ancient grudge,” Theo said, his words low and sharp. “She didn’t choose you. Get over it.”

Harry had to look up, because he had no idea what Theo was talking about, and no idea what Snape’s reaction would be. Harry had never known why Snape hated him. He had tried asking Professor McGonagall once, and she had looked uncomfortable and simply said that it was Snape’s private reason, which she couldn’t talk to Harry about.

Snape’s eyes were wide, and he stared at Theo as if he had turned into a dragon. Then he turned and walked in the opposite direction. Harry gaped after him.

“Come on,” Theo said, tugging gently at Harry’s hand.

Harry nodded and followed him, but murmured, once they were near the entrance hall doors, “Don’t think that you’re getting out of explaining that.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Theo said, and twisted around to kiss Harry, his hand tangling for an instant in his hair. When he pulled back, they were both panting, and Harry, at least, was thinking longingly of the Room of Requirement and their bed, but Theo’s face was solemn. “I think it’s time that you heard the truth about your parents.”

*

“You need to understand that I don’t have absolute evidence for anything I’m saying. I learned it from my father and eavesdropping on some of the conversations he had with other Death Eaters.”

“I don’t care,” Harry said, and curled up harder against him. “I just want to hear it.”

Theo stroked his hair. They were resting just inside the border of the Forbidden Forest, a place that had become almost their own private garden. Hagrid rarely intruded here, since the herds of thestrals and hippogriffs lived elsewhere. It wasn’t the “exciting’ part of the Forest with Acromantulas and the like that students wanted to sneak into, and it wasn’t anywhere with good Potions ingredients, either. The centaurs never came this near Hogwarts. Harry and Theo could both sit on the grass—revealed now in muddy patches of melting snow—and lean against tree trunks and shred dead leaves between their fingers and talk as much as they wanted.

“All right,” Theo said, and took a deep breath. It was harder than he had thought it would be to talk to Harry about this, even though he had known it most of his life and had also thought that it was going to be something Harry would want to hear someday. “The story that your parents died defending Neville Longbottom isn’t true. They died attacking the Longbottom wards.”

He could feel Harry go absolutely still. Theo stroked Harry’s hair and down his spine, slow and sure, over and over again. His main concern right now was Harry, and showing Harry that whatever his reaction to the truth, it wouldn’t change how Theo felt about him.

“They were Death Eaters?” Harry whispered.

“Allies of the Dark Lord,” Theo corrected. “Neither of them was ever Marked, as far as I know, and they didn’t regularly join the Death Eaters on their raids.”

“But—why? I mean, my dad was a pureblood, so I suppose I could see why he might agree with You-Know-Who, but my mum was Muggleborn, and the one thing people have told me about her is that she was really smart. Why would she join the people who wanted to kill her? That would be really stupid.”

“What my father said—”

Lily Potter was a wildfire no one could control. The Dark Lord was a fool to try.

Those had been Father’s exact words, but Theo thought Harry would find them confusing instead of clear, so he said, “He said that your mother cared about knowledge more than anything else. He couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t Sorted into Ravenclaw instead, but maybe it had something to do with the lengths she went to to get that knowledge. She wanted it. She didn’t care about who stood in her way or the reason that someone might give her for why she couldn’t have it. She wanted to practice Dark Arts and necromancy, and brew potions that no one would teach her. She allied with the Dark Lord because he promised to give her that, and in return, she would brew some of those potions or cast some of that magic for him.”

Harry was quiet, breathing against Theo. Theo kept one hand on his back. Some kind of touch was necessary to ground Harry, he had discovered. Not that he at all resented providing it.

“And my dad?” Harry finally asked, in a small voice.

“He loved her so much that he followed her,” Theo said simply.

When he had first heard that explanation from one of the Death Eaters speaking with his father, Theo had been skeptical. He couldn’t imagine feeling something like that, or that someone who loved and disagreed with a particular person would just give up the argument and follow them around.

Now, he understood.

“Oh,” Harry said, and stared into the Forest.

Theo ran his fingers slowly and rhythmically through Harry’s hair. He had no idea what Harry was thinking. But Harry finally stirred and whispered, “So—why were they attacking the Longbottom wards?”

“Again, this is speculation—”

“I know. I trust you, Theo. Go on.”

Harry’s impatient voice made a thrill of happiness move through Theo. It wasn’t a declaration Harry had had to weigh down with solemn words and stutter before he got out. It was just the way things were. It was the truth.

Theo held back his impulse to order Harry to hold still and go to work with his own hands and mouth. He said, “My father thinks that your mother wanted a collection of old artifacts that the Longbottoms had behind their wards. Longbottom’s grandmother traveled all around the world before she came back to Britain and married his grandfather. She had a reputation as an explorer and rediscoverer of old knowledge. But she wouldn’t share it with anyone else who asked, and the Longbottoms were very firmly on the opposite side of the war from your parents. It wasn’t like they would give the artifacts to your mother for the asking, either.”

“And…”

“Your parents dueled the Longbottoms, and didn’t survive,” Theo said simply. “Or rather, they dueled Frank Longbottom, and a man named Sirius Black who was your father’s best mate in school. He didn’t join the Dark when James Potter followed his wife. It was a duel to the death out of sheer bitterness, from what my father said. Apparently, your parents did break through the wards, but by that time, they were so exhausted, Longbottom’s father and Black were able to kill them.”

“But my mum and dad killed them, too?”

“Yes. And then the Dark Lord, who had come too late to save your parents, faced Alice Longbottom, killed her, and did whatever it was with the Killing Curse that backfired and made Longbottom the Boy-Who-Lived.”

Theo’s father had certain theories about that. Theo would share them if Harry asked, but they were the kind of Dark magic that frankly made Theo’s spine crawl, and he saw no reason to make Harry have nightmares unprovoked.

Harry stared at his hands. Theo spent a long time touching him and having Harry sigh and lean back against him before Harry spoke.

“What did you mean about Snape getting over it?”

“That’s another thing my father said,” Theo murmured. “Directly to me this time, before I came here, because he suspected I would end up in Slytherin and he wanted me to have blackmail on my Head of House if I needed it. Snape was in love with your mother.”

Harry twisted around to stare at him. “What?”

Theo nodded. “It was fairly well-known among the Death Eaters. He played a large part in your mother getting an audience with the Dark Lord and being accepted as an ally at all, apparently. He wasn’t so happy about your dad following her. I think he believed he might have a better chance with her if Potter had divorced her. But that didn’t happen, and now Snape is mistreating you endlessly because you’re the son of a woman he wanted and a man he hated.”

“Wow,” Harry said.

“Yeah,” Theo murmured, and drew Harry back into his embrace again. He watched carefully, but he didn’t see any sign of Harry thinning out or disappearing.

They stayed still long enough for a lark to leap to the forest floor and start pecking near them. Harry stirred, and the lark flew away.

“Is it bad if this doesn’t change much how I feel about them?” Harry asked quietly.

“I would never think that anything you feel is bad,” Theo whispered. There were things he would try to talk Harry out of, like if he decided he had to leave Theo, but that was different. “What do you mean?”

Harry sat in silence, with his eyes downcast, but Theo wasn’t discouraged. He went on holding him close, the only person who had ever valued Harry enough to do that, and Harry finally swallowed and spoke in a rough voice.

“I spent so many years thinking that—kind of hating them. They were heroes, when I thought they fought to defend Neville, but they still defended him and not me. They didn’t think I was worth living for. They abandoned me with the Dursleys, even if they didn’t know that was going to happen.”

Theo nodded against his neck. He was starting to think that Harry had been abandoned in the Muggle world by someone who simply couldn’t get over their own reaction to James and Lily Potter’s “betrayal” and deaths. It could have been Lupin, although Theo would have bet on Dumbledore. They didn’t keep Harry in the magical world and see to his “careful” raising because they could barely look at him, the son of two brilliant and promising Gryffindors who had turned to the Dark.

And if they hadn’t known that, if they’d really thought the Potters had died heroes as the common story told it, then they simply didn’t care about this particular orphan next to Longbottom.

“But now,” Harry whispered, “I don’t hate them because they were fighting for You-Know-Who or anything. I don’t hate them for the reasons I should. I hate them because they still cared about something else more than me. Old artifacts. Or if my dad was just following my mum, he cared about her more than me.” He stirred, and Theo let him go enough for Harry to roll over and stare up at him. “Is that bad?”

“No,” Theo said, and kissed him, enough that Harry started panting for breath beneath him. “It’s what you feel, Harry. And it seems to be an accurate summary of things to me.”

He knew that other people would have told Harry different things. That his parents had probably still loved him or why keep a child that would be born into a war when there were simple potions that could take care of that? That they had probably never thought they would die at the wands of Frank Longbottom and Sirius Black, or that the Dark Lord would be brought down by a toddler, and had planned to raise Harry.

But it was Harry’s grief to feel, and Theo didn’t want to change it. He wanted to hold Harry in his arms as the lark sang and the snow melted all around them.

*

“Can you take this?” Theo whispered into his ear.

Harry bobbed his head, mouth open in a silent cry.

“Verbally, Harry.”

Harry opened his mouth and managed to give a gasp. It was a small whistling noise, but Theo seemed to understand, because he kissed the back of Harry’s neck and went on lazily pumping inside him.

They were in the Room of Requirement again, on the bed, and stark firelit shadows flickered across the wall. Harry was kneeling on the bed with Theo behind him, inside him. Theo mouthed at Harry’s shoulder, and Harry cried out again. Theo’s hands smoothed up and down his sides.

Harry’s elbows were braced on the bed, holding him up. He hadn’t moved for something that had turned from minutes into hours. His muscles felt like hot lead. His cock was so hard it was painful, and longing to come ricocheted through him and chased all the other feelings.

He had never felt so alive. So real.

Theo draped over him, and even though he wasn’t touching literally every inch of Harry’s skin, Harry felt like he was. Even the skin on his cheeks was stretched, stained with tears. His mouth was open and releasing the sounds that Theo told him to make. His body from his neck to his arse was covered with Theo, and he couldn’t move without falling, and he didn’t want to fall.

He wanted to come, but he wanted not to, at the same time. Because that would end this.

Theo finally groaned and drove into him, and Harry shuddered as he felt the release of the warmth. But Theo didn’t pull out of him.

“Can you stay like this?” Theo asked him.

“Yes,” Harry said, managing to force out the air from some hidden pocket he hadn’t even known he had.

Theo remained within him, knees trembling, in a way that Harry could feel. His cock was soft. He didn’t thrust anymore. But he was there, and he was there, and he was there, and no matter what he asked, Harry answered yes, yes.

With his cock hard like this, with his body anchored to the bed, he couldn’t disappear.

*

Theo slowed his steps. He and Harry had partnered in Transfiguration that morning and worked on a transformation of a collection of needles into two rats, not just the one Professor McGonagall had asked for. Harry had left the classroom looking back at Theo with joy and promise in his eyes.

Now, Theo could only see Harry’s back from where he was standing on a set of stairs, but Harry’s shoulders were hunched. One was showing a glimpse of stone wall through it.

“…just concerned about you.”

“Okay,” Harry whispered.

“Being friends with Slytherins isn’t a bad thing. But we saw the way he was using you for points in class today. It shouldn’t become a habit.”

The voice was Longbottom’s. Incandescent rage hurled Theo down the steps.

He landed right behind Harry, who twitched and turned to look at him. Theo wound an arm around his shoulders and pulled Harry against him. Harry gave a gasping breath and relaxed. It wasn’t the boneless kind of relaxation that he got when he and Theo were together in the Room of Requirement, but Theo wouldn’t have wanted Harry to show that kind of vulnerability to the Gryffindors who were clustered in front of them on the stairs anyway.

Longbottom was in the lead, eyebrows creeping upwards under his faded lightning bolt scar. Weasley and Granger bristled at his shoulders. Weasley had his wand partially out of his sleeve, and Granger’s arms were crossed in her self-righteous stance.

Theo hated them all and one and impartially. They hadn’t bothered to pay attention to Harry for seven years, they hadn’t even noticed when he had almost vanished out of existence, and now they’d decided that Theo was using Harry for marks?

“Nott,” Longbottom said slowly.

“Longbottom.” Theo didn’t disguise his hatred, or the way his magic was mounding up around his shoulders, invisible but cold. Longbottom’s hand inched towards his wand. “I’m only going to say this once, so you should listen well. Harry and I are dating. We’re a lot more than friends. You have no right to speak to him like this when you haven’t given a shit about him for years on end. Leave him alone.”

“Or what?” Granger snapped.

Theo looked at her, and she gasped. Theo wasn’t sure what was in his face, but he could guess. “I’ll hurt you,” he said.

“Look, you can’t threaten her!” Weasley began hotly.

Longbottom moved his hand in a little flick, and Weasley abruptly shut up. Well, it was good to know that Longbottom had some measure of control over his minions. Theo stood rigid and stared at Longbottom, but more than half his attention was on the way that Harry was quiet and warm next to him.

Longbottom breathed out, slowly. “Do you know the truth about what happened the night I got this?” he asked, and laid a finger against his scar.

“Yes.” Theo didn’t elaborate. He could have told Longbottom that Harry hadn’t, not for years, and that if Longbottom had been treating him warily based on his parents’ reputation, it was wasted effort. But not exposing Harry’s vulnerabilities rated a lot higher for Theo than clarifying things for Longbottom.

“Then you know that we…” Longbottom darted a glance at Harry. “We need to think about the implications of future paths, and where they lead.”

Theo sneered. “It’s good to see how much of a hypocrite you are, Longbottom,” he said conversationally. “Because, of course, all the speeches you make about forgiveness peter out the minute you think there’s something wrong with someone. Because Harry didn’t conform exactly to your pretty picture, you judged him and isolated him. Because I’m not another Gryffindor, you decided that I had to be using Harry.” Theo paused as another thought came to him. “Or would you have warned another Gryffindor off, too? Is that what you did? Is that why Harry doesn’t have any friends in his House?”

It had seemed strange to Theo when Harry had mentioned it, although Harry had explained how tight the friend pairs and trios in his own year were. But still, Harry had played on the Gryffindor Quidditch team with other people not in the same year, and he’d had a lot to offer as far as Seeker skill went. Gryffindors should have admired that if they didn’t anything else.

Longbottom’s face tightened. “Of course not.”

“All right, perhaps you didn’t,” Theo conceded. Just because Longbottom was a hypocrite who thought Harry should have been a perfect little Muggle-lover and had decided that he must be exactly like his parents when he wasn’t didn’t mean he had sabotaged Harry’s friendships. “But you might consider this, Longbottom. You’re your own person, not just a combination of your parents, no matter that they died to save you. Did you ever think that applies to people who aren’t you?”

Longbottom looked stricken. Maybe it was just the terms Theo had put it in. Maybe he really never had thought that before. He turned to look at Harry, so Theo did, too.

Harry lifted his head. He was staring at Longbottom with utterly blank green eyes. Theo hadn’t known he could remove that much emotion from his face. But he looked, and went on looking, and Longbottom was the one who flinched back.

“I’m not like you,” Harry said to Longbottom, voice perfectly flat. “That doesn’t make me evil.”

“Yes,” Longbottom whispered. “I know that.”

“With how much of you?” Harry asked.

Longbottom looked at his feet, suddenly more like the fumbling child Theo remembered from first year than the confident if coddled person he’d become since. Theo put a hand on Harry’s shoulder and steered him past Longbottom, ignoring the questions that Weasley and Granger fired after them.

As long as the three of them didn’t try to interfere again in Theo’s and Harry’s relationship, Theo didn’t care what they did or how they eventually decided to think about this confrontation.

*

Harry broke down shaking the minute he and Theo reached the Room of Requirement.

Theo drew him into his arms, making such deep soothing noises that Harry could feel them rumbling through Theo’s chest into Harry in turn. Harry cuddled closer and closer. He could feel his magic roaring through his veins, lashing like ocean waves.

He wanted to disappear. He wanted to fade away and never come back. He didn’t know how he was going to face Neville and the others in the Tower that evening.

But he also wanted to stay with Theo, and Theo was holding him and urging him towards the couch that had appeared this time instead of a bed, and Harry curled up against Theo, half in his lap, still shaking.

Theo spoke to him. The words didn’t matter. Now and then Harry heard him reciting lists of Potions ingredients, and there was one tale of a battle that Theo had fought with his father through their house, and there were stories from books, and names of house-elves, and stories of Theo’s mother.

There were words. Curling around Harry, binding him closer to the world, instead of isolating him in the endless silence that he had carried around him with him for so many years.

Harry really couldn’t imagine how he had survived before Theo.

Finally, Harry could feel his magic calming down. Theo’s voice had long since gone hoarse and scratchy. Harry sat up, leaning his head on Theo’s shoulder. Theo must have asked the Room for a glass of water and maybe a painkilling potion, because a glass appeared next to him and he drank from it, then whispered, “How are you?”, sounding a lot better.

“I’m okay now,” Harry said, and grimaced. “But I don’t want to think what will happen when I go back to the Tower. It’s not really Neville, it’s Ron and Hermione,” he added, when Theo tensed under him. “Ron is probably going to be angry because Neville stopped him from attacking us, and Hermione thinks everything is her business.”

“So we stay here tonight.”

Harry blinked at Theo. “We do?”

“Yes, why not?” Theo was smiling, already standing up and lazily beckoning Harry over to where a bed was forming. “I’ll ask an elf to come with food, and then we’ll eat, and go to sleep. That’s the nice thing about not taking too many NEWT classes. You can take an evening off from homework now and then.”

Harry nodded. He had a revelation brewing in his mind now like the magic had built up earlier. Theo seemed to sense it, and looked at him.

“I was planning to leave for the Muggle world after the end of this term,” Harry blurted, and watched the way Theo became still.

“Why?” Theo whispered, after a minute when he seemed to be struggling against the silence.

“Because I didn’t fit here,” Harry said. He was shaking, but he wasn’t disappearing, and he could say this, no matter what kind of shocked horror had appeared on Theo’s face. “But I thought I might be able to fit into the Muggle world. I’d be able to study to make up for the schooling I missed and live on the contents of my vault, and I thought—if I’d stayed there long enough, if I studied it, if I tried, I could make friends.”

“And now? You said you were planning on that.”

“Yes. But—I don’t want to be without you.” Harry reached out and put two fingers on Theo’s chest, above his heart. “I love you, Theo. I’ll stay in the magical world if that’s what you want. You would make everything worth it.”

*

Once, Theo had assumed he would never hear anyone say those words to him after his mother’s death.

It was like a firework going off in his chest, the feeling of hearing them now, and he reached out and grasped Harry’s wrists and pulled him close for a kiss. Harry eagerly followed the pull, humming in happiness. He looped his arms around Theo’s neck, more aggressive than he usually was, and kissed him until Theo’s head swam and they lurched backwards and fell on the bed.

Harry moved suggestively on top of him, and Theo smiled at him and caressed Harry’s neck with a finger. “Not tonight. I want to make sure that we eat well and get enough rest.”

Harry nodded and rolled gently off to the side. “But you’ll be with me.”

Theo kissed him, and said, “I love you. Yes. And when the term ends, we can go wherever we want.”

The way Harry looked at him…

Theo knew people who would have killed a lot of others to have devotion like that. It was their loss that they didn’t have it, and Theo did. And would kill as many as he needed to keep having it.

*

“Erm, Harry.”

It was Neville’s voice. Harry sighed and turned around. Theo turned with him. Since the day when they’d confronted Neville, Ron, and Hermione, Theo was always beside him, at least when they were in class together or walking the corridors or at meals, when they mostly ate in the Room of Requirement. Theo had NEWT Potions, Defense, and Arithmancy, which Harry didn’t, and Harry had NEWT Herbology, which Theo didn’t, but Harry knew lots of hiding places from his years around, and Theo trusted Professor Sprout with Harry’s safety as much as he could trust anyone.

“I wanted to return something to you,” Neville said. He was clutching something in his fist, but Harry couldn’t see what it was at first. “I—I have it not because it belonged to my parents or me but because…Professor Dumbledore was worried that you would misuse it. But it’s not mine. It belonged to your dad.” He held it out with a nervous, jerking motion, a lot like the boy Harry remembered from first year.

Harry swallowed as he felt softness being draped over his arm, which vanished. Theo snarled, but Harry leaned into his shoulder. “It’s an Invisibility Cloak,” he murmured, and met Neville’s eyes. “So you did know the truth about what my parents did that night, all along.”

Neville shut his eyes and nodded. He looked as pale as though he had some kind of disease. Theo would probably have said “Good,” but Harry did feel sorry for him. “Yeah. I—the story that your parents were heroes was spread for propaganda purposes, really. So people who a lot of others remembered as brilliant and great wouldn’t serve to persuade people to join the Dark.” He sounded like he was quoting someone. Maybe Dumbledore, Harry thought, maybe his grandmother. “But Gran told me the truth. And Professor Dumbledore warned me when I got to Hogwarts. He said that we didn’t know if you had inherited your parents’ convictions, but we didn’t know you hadn’t, and I should be careful about how I handled you.”

“Inherited convictions,” Theo said, in a mocking voice that obviously cut Neville like a blade.

Harry squeezed Theo’s arm and said, “I grew up in the Muggle world. I didn’t know anything about my parents until Professor McGonagall came to get me. Did you know that?”

“I thought it was weird that you almost never mentioned them, but—I didn’t know that you grew up in the Muggle world until third year. I thought it was strange that you didn’t know more about Professor Lupin. So I asked him, and he said that Professor Dumbledore thought leaving you in the Muggle world would be the best thing so that you could make friends and get to know people who weren’t magical and form your own impression of them. Not your parents’ impression.”

Harry felt a long, slow stirring of rage. But there was nothing to be done about it. Dumbledore was dead. He had died at the beginning of last summer of some kind of wasting curse. Harry knew it was linked to the defeat of Voldemort, but not how.

“And why didn’t the high and mighty Lupin come and rescue Harry once he found out that was the case?” Theo asked. “Offer to take him in?”

Neville swallowed. “He was—he was too hurt. I mean, legally he wouldn’t have been allowed to adopt Harry anyway because he was a werewolf, but he—he said it was hard to look at Harry. Without r-remembering that two of his friends betrayed the cause Professor Lupin fought for and killed another of his friends.”

Harry shook his head. He felt old, and weary, and cold. So there was no chance that Professor Lupin would ever write back to him.

Fuck, I’m so glad I have Theo.

“But that Cloak was your father’s,” Neville repeated more firmly, and nodded at the Cloak draped over Harry’s arm. “Professor Dumbledore gave it to me for Christmas our first year. Said I’d need it.”

“Would you ever have given it back to Harry?” Theo demanded.

“I don’t know.”

Theo was very slightly shaking in the way that meant he wanted to rip Neville apart, but Harry kept his hand on Theo’s arm and shook his head, equally slightly. Theo exhaled hard. Harry, for one, appreciated Neville’s honesty.

“But just because you’re with a Slytherin doesn’t mean you’re a Dark wizard.” Neville was staring at Harry now. “And I realized that—I could have tried harder to be a friend to you, and I didn’t. That doesn’t fit with the way Gran raised me. It was to be kind to everyone who needed it, not just people whose parents I like.”

Harry couldn’t imagine the courage that had brought Neville here to say this. Harry wouldn’t have had it, Gryffindor Sorting or not. He half-smiled. “It’s all right. I didn’t know the truth about my mum and dad until Theo told me, but I can’t say I would have reacted well to someone whose parents killed my dad.”

Neville half-smiled back. “I—thanks. If I can help you—”

“I don’t think so,” Theo said, as bitter as cyanide, and Neville flinched.

Harry tugged a little on Theo’s arm. “I think it’s too late for that,” he said. The shadow of what his parents had done would lie between them forever from Neville’s side, and the shadow of Neville not trying to be friends and not telling Harry anything forever from Harry’s own. “But thank you for giving me the Cloak back.”

“Yeah.” Neville had a genuine smile now, as far as Harry could tell. He waved and turned his back, walking towards the Tower.

Theo immediately started casting detection charms on the cloak. Harry rolled his eyes at him.

“Better safe than sorry,” Theo said, and the way he worked, busily, reminded Harry of the way that he had held Harry the other day, and so many other days. Harry leaned on him as they walked to the Room of Requirement.

*

“Theo?”

Theo woke up at once. He’d only been half-dozing, anyway, thanks to another session of sex with Harry that had relaxed him as much as it pleased him. “Yeah?” he whispered, turning towards Harry, who lay curled up on his side next to Theo in the bed.

Harry smiled at him, and it was the most open smile Theo had seen on him. “I’ve decided where I want us to go when we leave Hogwarts.”

“Yeah?” Theo hoped he didn’t say the Muggle world. Theo didn’t hate Muggles, but he also had no idea how he would function there.

“I want us to leave the country,” Harry breathed, and rolled towards him. Theo had arms willing and ready to receive him. Harry tucked his head under Theo’s chin. “I just—I don’t even know how many other people are waiting to judge me because of my parents, how many people know the real story. And I don’t have fond memories of Hogwarts or Diagon Alley or anything like that. I don’t think you do, either.”

“More fond memories of Hogwarts than you do,” Theo murmured, raking his fingers lightly down Harry’s scalp, to feel the solidity and reassure himself that Harry was here. “But it’s not my home in the way I once thought it could be.”

Harry nodded against Theo’s chest. “Then you’d be willing to go?”

“Yes,” Theo said, and kissed Harry’s ear. “Let’s go find someplace where no one knows us, where there’s no preconceptions, and we can figure out what kind of magic we want to study, and what to spend our gold on, and what kind of people we want to meet.”

Harry tilted his head back and gave Theo a smile as brilliant as his eyes. “I love you,” he said, with words, the way Theo needed it said.

Theo said the words back, but he also kept his hands in place, weighing Harry down, holding him, the way Harry needed it said.

*

When the end of term came, Harry hadn’t disappeared for two months.

He stood by himself on the top of the Astronomy Tower the last night and tilted his head back to watch the stars. He wondered if there was some afterlife where his parents could look down on him.

But he didn’t need there to be.

He heard footsteps on the stairs, and turned. Theo came up to stand beside him, and Harry leaned into him with a long sigh. Theo looped an arm around his waist.

Tomorrow, they would be leaving Hogwarts and all the other people here behind.

Tomorrow, they would go where they wanted.

Harry leaned against Theo and shut his eyes, and dreamed.

The End.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 24 of Songs of Summer