After his 'surprise' party, Harry had been enjoying laying in his bed with Fred. Theo and Hermione's absence was apparently a birthday gift to him.
"That tickles," Harry murmured with a quirk of his lips as Fred slowly kissed down the side of his neck.
"Good," Fred huffed out a light chuckle and continued his soft assault on Harry's neck. "It'd sure be a shame if I made you laugh on your birthday."
Harry ran his hand lightly across Fred's muscular shoulders as pleasure twisted his stomach.
"You make me laugh all the time," he admitted as he arched his back at a particularly rough, but pleasant, bite to the sensitive area where Harry's neck met his shoulder. "Fuck."
Fred picked his face up from Harry's neck, the rest of his long and lean body stretched across the top of Harry's, though his weight carefully on his forearms to prevent Harry from feeling smothered, and he grinned wickedly.
"Are you sensitive there, love?" he said, his deep blue eyes smoldering at Harry's pathetic and desire-filled soft panting. "D'you want me to do something to help you out?" he teased.
"Yess," Harry moaned, well past caring what he sounded like around Fred.
Fred who was so soft and warm.
Fred who was funny and bright and loyal.
Fred who knew his body rather well by that point, though Harry couldn't pinpoint when he collected all his knowledge.
Fred who didn't care that Harry's skin was marred and mangled - Fred who didn't think his scarred outside matched the broken mess on the inside.
Fred who loved him.
Loved him.
Loved.
Him.
"Use your words, darlin'," Fred whispered against Harry's chest as his mouth roamed around Harry's torso- seemingly aimlessly. "Should I move lower?"
"Fuck. Yes." Harry ran his fingernails up Fred's back lightly as Fred moved his body lower until only his chest was hovering over Harry's legs. "Please."
"Are you sure?" Fred whispered, his fingers tracing the top of Harry's pants as he looked over Harry's face closely. "We can stop."
Harry knew that usually they stopped by that point. Normally they didn't do more than kiss and explore one another with their eyes, hands, and occasionally their mouths, but he wanted to do more than that.
It wasn't Fred who ever wanted to stop. It wasn't Harry who ever said to stop.
But once, just once, Harry wanted to experience with Fred what he knew other people his age experienced within their relationships.
"I want to," Harry told him truthfully. "Do you?"
"God yes," Fred laughed. "I love you, Harry."
Harry hummed, unsure of whether the affection he feels towards Fred was love or not and unwilling to lie just then.
"You're gorgeous," Fred whispered, kissing Harry's hip bone and slowly freeing Harry from the remainder of his clothes. "Absolutely—"
Harry, who had closed his eyes in anticipation as Fred had been breathing against his navel and hip as he spoke, refocused on Fred since he abruptly quit talking.
"Harry, we can stop," Fred said in a gentle tone that was out of place in the current mood. "I'm sorry, am I pressuring you?"
"No, why'd you stop?" Harry cocked his head curiously at Fred's shift in his tone and the way he was slightly drawing away from Harry's body.
"I don't think you're really in the mood then," Fred said, snagging their discarded clothes off the side of the bed and offering Harry his with a sweet smile. "Which is fine," he went on, "I don't want you to do something you don't want to."
"I bloody well do," Harry protested, the previous desire filling him twisting in to annoyance. "I'm not a liar."
"Darlin." Harry followed Fred's eyes to where he sent a pointed look to and blushed for an entirely new reason.
"What the fuck?!" Harry twisted off the bed and hit the floor with a soft thud. "That's... that's not right," he protested. "What the fuck?"
Harry didn't have a lot of experience with his own body, most of the time he tried to forget he even had a body as much as he constantly disliked it, but he was positive that all the wanting he was experiencing should have had some sort of effect on… himself. But where the hard proof of that desire should have been was just... flat.
"I- Jesus Christ." Harry was certain that he had never once in his life been as embarrassed as he currently had been, and that was saying something. "I'm sorry," he mumbled as he hastily snagged his sweatpants and pulled them back on, skipping his pants entirely in an effort to quickly hide his - his dysfunction.
"You don't have to apologize," Fred said easily, already wearing his own pajama bottoms and stretching out lazily on Harry's bed. "I'm sorry, I should have realized you weren't in to it."
"I was in to it!" Harry said hotly, his face burning as he sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the wall instead of Fred. "I don't know why that happened. Or, why it didn't happen," he corrected himself.
"Are you sure?" Fred asked quietly. "Because you aren't going to hurt my feelings, I only want to go as far as you want to."
"I wanted to," Harry assured him, laying back on the pillows but continuing to avoid eye contact, still mortified as his body's lack of a physical reaction. "I just... I dunno, maybe I'm tired?" He didn't feel tired, but he wasn't sure what other explanation there was besides just another way he was freakishly broken.
"Hey, Harry, look at me."
Harry reluctantly, very, very reluctantly, turned his head slightly so he could see Fred's face.
"You know it's normal, right? This isn't a big deal."
Harry could hardly doubt the sincerity in Fred's voice when it rang clearly in every syllable he spoke. His eyes, Harry's favorite thing about him physically, were clear and deceit free. But just because Fred thought it was normal didn't mean it was true.
"It's not normal," Harry mumbled, still embarrassed, and more ashamed than ever, by his malfunctioning body.
"Course it is," Fred said, adjusting his position on the bed so he laid on his side, his head propped up by his hand, while he talked easily to Harry.
As if Harry didn't repulse him or - or offend him, the way Harry thought he might have been offended if he had been in Fred's place.
Harry would never trade his magical power for anything, he loved the way magic made feel special as he spun and controlled it in his hands, but there were times that he thought he would kill just to feel normal. Not 'one of a kind', but normal.
"It's more common in wizards because we have more outside elements that can mess with our systems, much more than muggles deal with," Fred said in an uncharacteristically factual manner. "My mum told me that."
Harry's bleak outlook on this conversation cleared for a moment-
"Your mum talked to you about... about..." Harry broke off and made a vague gesture with his hand.
"She did," Fred said with a solemn tone that was undercut by his newly sparkling eyes. "She called it 'the sex talk' and it was traumatic, darlin'. I may need a kiss from a handsome bloke to truly erase the memory from my mind."
Harry scoffed as Fred puckered his lips up. "Too bad," he said unsympathetically. "Snape gave me the 'sex talk'."
A riot, really. Harry thought he knew more about sex than Snape did, though Snape had covered things Harry didn't consider before.
Fred's mouth popped open and he looked horrified for a moment until both of them started cracking up with laughter. The talk with Snape hadn't been funny, not in the slightest, but with some time having passed since it happened, Harry felt he could laugh about it.
"So he told you that there's lots of reasons that happens and none mean you're not normal, right?" Fred asked after their laughter died down to just fond smiles.
"Er..." Harry scrunched his brows down as he tried to remember Snape ever mentioning any reason that Harry could feel his body filling up with pleasure on the inside and yet remain entirely unaffected on the outside. "No, I don't think so."
"Welllll... there's stress, which I'm sure you know nothing about," Fred joked. "And illnesses, of course. But I think the most common in wizards is old age and potions. So clearly this is happening because you're old now."
Harry pulled the pillow from behind his own head to smack Fred with.
"I'm not old," he said with mock outrage. "I'm young and planning on staying this way forever."
"You and every witch in her twenties," Fred winked.
Harry grinned over at him and felt warmth bloom in his chest as Fred leaned over and pecked him lightly on the nose. It really was the one thing that Harry liked the most about Fred: his relentless cheer could calm Harry almost as well as occluding did.
Harry had thought that Hermione and Theo were a perfect match, as terribly alike as the two of them were. But he didn't need someone by his side who was as shifty with their moods and constantly itching for a fight, he needed Fred. Dependable, optimistic, calming Fred.
"So... potions then?" Harry said after they'd been comfortably quiet for a few long moments. "That's what's causing... this?"
"Could be," Fred said, seemingly unconcerned with what Harry considered to be a pretty terrible personal failure. "But I'd say it could be stress too if you aren't taking any potions on a regular basis. Or you could just not be feeling it, love, it's really not a big deal."
God damnit.
That potion.
Of course his potion would ruin things with Fred too. It took away the addictively high feeling of mania, and then it took away Harry's feeling of manhood and complete control of his body.
Fucking manic-depressive illness.
Fucking messed up brain.
"It's potions," Harry sighed, twisting to lay on his back and stare dejectedly up at his bedroom ceiling. "It's always that damn illness."
Harry could almost practically taste Fred's attempt to remain casual as he mentioned his 'mental illness' aloud to him for the first time.
"What illness?"
Harry remained flat on his back, his arms folded behind his head as he followed through on his subconsciously determined decision to trust Fred with at least as much as two of his friends knew about him.
Harry trusted Fred before, with other secrets, and, as far as he knew, Fred never shared them with anyone. Plus, it made Fred happy to learn more about Harry, which made Harry happy sometimes. So it was a risk, but not an uncalculated one.
"It's called Manic-Depressive Illness," he said. Harry was pleased his voice was so even considering he was internally sweating over if Fred would want to be dating someone whose brain couldn't decide on a single mood to stick with. "I have to take a potion for it. Every month. So..." he trailed off and would have shrugged if he weren't lying on his bed, "So that's probably what's wrong."
One.
Two.
Three.
Harry was taking his fourth slowly measured inhale when Fred responded.
"What's manic mean?" he asked, his voice lacking the biting disgust Harry had feared he would hear. "I mean, I know what depression is, but I've never heard of manic."
Harry turned his head to see Fred's face and felt a weight shift off his chest once he did. There was no pity there, no disgust, no obvious cringing away from Harry's brokenness. He just looked curious.
"Manic is brill, Fred," Harry admitted with a wry smile. "It's like... like flying, but better. Everything in your head is sharper and better and brilliant."
Fred chuckled quietly at Harry's tone of wistful love while Harry considered the bad part of the mania.
"Makes me impulsive too," he admitted. "Snape hates it more than the depression I think."
"Impulsive like attacking a dragon with a sword?" Fred suggested wryly. Harry grinned at Fred's accurate guess.
"Exactly like that."
"I'm starting to feel like the 'manic episodes' are worth it if the potions going to mess with... you know." Harry blushed, unwilling to put the problem in to words but knowing Fred understood his meaning anyway.
"Oh, I dunno about that," Fred disagreed. "Because it's not just feeling like you're flying, right? It's depression too?"
"Yeah," Harry grumbled, unhappy with the reminder of the bleakness that depression forced him to wallow in. "That part's a right bitch."
Fred laughed, as he usually did at Harry's casual cursing. "Charlie used to get depression real bad," he said as he readjusted himself to put his head by Harry's and twisting their side by side legs together. "It looked terrible, I can't imagine you'd want to deal with that on a regular basis."
"Your brother Charlie?" Harry asked, surprised. He knew Theo had depression, they'd somehow bonded over their similar difficulties when Theo shared that information with him, but he couldn't imagine why Charlie did. Charlie had a huge family that, besides Percy, all seemed to love and support each other constantly. Just - just constant love and hugs and affection and acceptance. "What's he got to be sad about?" he asked with a small amount of bitterness in his voice. "He's got a great life, yeah?"
"It's more than just 'being sad'," Fred told him gently. "I don't think it mattered how his life was, his brain just worked differently, didn't it? He'd have these horrible times where he'd just lay in bed and refuse to get up. Sometimes he'd burn himself 'just to feel alive' he said, it was terrible. Mum and Dad did their best to try and fix it, but I don't think it really got better until Charlie left for Romania. That's why Mum didn't really kick up much of a fuss when he left Hogwarts a year early."
"That's... that's messed up," Harry said quietly, uncomfortably feeling a sense of camaraderie with Charlie.
"I know you hate him, but Charlie's probably the nicest of all my brothers. He's got a big heart, like Lue, and hates to see other people unhappy which is why it was so tough on everyone seeing him so miserable," Fred said.
"I don't hate him," Harry said, his sense of discomfort at hearing about such a vulnerable side of Charlie growing. "It's just... he looks like this bloke I saw once..."
Fred rolled on to his side, keeping his leg hooked with Harry's, and let Harry stroke his hair as he talked. Fred took everything else so well and it made Harry talk too much sometimes. It made him think he could sort his thoughts out to someone, rather than only in his head.
"I was probably nine, sleeping in alleyways, yeah? And one night I was hiding behind a dumpster, trying not to freeze to death, and there was a homeless guy out in the alley," Harry explained slowly, watching it all play out again while he talked.
"He was drunk, but harmless, and he'd given me a pack of crisps before I ducked behind the dumpster. But this guy comes in the alley to take a piss, and he was huge, bulky, not fat. His arms were as round as my whole body was, and he had red hair, and looked just like Charlie, except maybe Charlie's more even muscular than he was. Anyway..."
Fred listened quietly as Harry talked about the first time he'd actually seen someone die. Harry saw dead bodies before, they were easily found in London if someone visited the places that Harry had, but before then he'd never seen anyone actually be killed. And it hadn't been a quick, nor clean, death either.
Harry knew it hadn't been Charlie Weasley who did it, only a man with similar features. And maybe Charlie looked like he could crush Harry's skull open until the ground was painted in the pink mush like the old man's head was, if he was of a mind to, but he also used to burn himself just to feel alive, and Harry knew that thought, that feeling.
It didn't do much for Harry, telling Fred about the old man and the sound of bones crushing under boots, it seemed to put Fred to sleep though. Because through it all, with all the new secrets Harry shared, Fred never interrupted him or did anything more than remain a comforting presence at his side as he talked. After he was done talking, only silently thinking of how a light really did dim when someone's life ended, Fred held Harry tightly and the two of them slept just like that.
It took Harry nearly three days after what he dubbed 'The Incident' with Fred to work up the courage to talk to Snape about it. Not about the Charlie stuff, there wasn't really much to say about that, Harry just decided to try and be a bit friendlier to Fred's older brother the next time he saw him, but about the... problem he'd had physically.
Finally, one morning during their customary early breakfast together, long before Barty or Theo would be awake, Harry squared his shoulders and cleared his throat.
"C-can I ask you something?"
Snape sat his paper down and calmly met Harry's nervous gaze for the entire second Harry held it.
"Of course you may."
Harry took a deep breath, counting his inhale and exhale time to slow his racing pulse, and fought through his embarrassment to get a definite answer.
"The potion I take, does it have any... s-side effects?" Harry glared at the wall behind Snape and ground his teeth, annoyed at his own shaky speech. It shouldn't be embarrassing. If Fred could talk about things like this with his Mum then Harry certainly could with Snape.
Snape had never once in all the time Harry had known him ever laughed at anything Harry said to him. And Harry had once asked if Snape thought he looked charming or not. Which was a riot to remember, though Snape said he did.
Snape's brows furrowed over his eyes for a split second. "Aside from the ones you previously experienced when you first began this regimen?"
"Yeah."
"Such as what?" Snape asked him.
Harry sighed in exasperation.
"It's not working," he said bluntly, gesturing to the affected area. "So... is it a side effect of the potion, or am I just - just broken?"
Snape stared at Harry for a long moment, unblinking, before his left eyelid abruptly twitched.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered. Harry was cheered by Snape suddenly avoiding eye contact as well and taking several deep breaths to steady himself. "When did you first notice the dysfunction?" he asked in a clinical sort of tone.
"Three nights ago," Harry said with a furious blush as he admitted to his incredibly private evening.
"As much as I would desperately prefer to not know the answer to this, I cannot tell you if it is a side effect of your potion or not if you do not answer honestly," Snape said. "Prior to three nights ago, were you functioning normally? Becoming stimulated sexual—"
"I dunno," Harry interrupted him, his blush somehow becoming even brighter at the question. It would be easier to kill them both, probably. Except then Harry would also have to kill Fred and that would take time. "I hadn't, er, tested it before then."
Snape covered his eyes with one hand as he rested his chin in his other hand.
"When was the last time you absolutely remember having a natural erection - in the mornings, sexually stimulated, or otherwise?"
"Valentine's Day in my third year," Harry said quickly, having already considered that question himself.
Snape's hand flew off his face as he stared at Harry incredulously.
"You have not been sexually intimate with Frederick, or anyone, since that date?"
"No. We just... uh... kiss... and cuddle," Harry mumbled.
Harry sorely wished he could wipe this conversation from both his and Snape's minds once it was done.
Embarrassing.
"And you are quite positive that you have not had an erection at all since then?" Snape asked with disbelief.
"Positive," Harry sighed. "So it is broken forever." Harry interpreted Snape's shock as a worst case scenario and slumped down in his seat. "Fuckin' brill."
Just one more thing about himself that was different from everyone else.
How long was Fred going to put up with that?
"Harry," Snape's voice lowered in to a soothing tone. "Did you not think it was odd? You live in a male dormitory nine months out of the year, surely you knew most males your age have frequent erections?"
"Not really," Harry said flatly, disappointed and annoyed they were still discussing it. "I never needed it for anything until—"
"Stop." Snape held a hand up as he interrupted Harry. "I would prefer to not know the specifics that drew this dilemma to your attention as long as it was safe and consensual."
"Course it was," Harry rolled his eyes. "Not that it matters now that I'm some sort of - of freak who can't get it up."
Snape muttered something that sounded like a colorful curse, before silently summoning a potion.
"You are not a freak, I would prefer you to never refer to yourself in such a way again," he told Harry sternly. "Erectile dysfunction is a common side effect of your potion, one I will attempt to adjust the properties of to account for. This," he held up the sky blue potion and tilted it from side to side, the sunlight making the vial send light rainbows across the table top, "will work in the meantime." Snape held the bottle out, but when Harry reached for it, he pulled it back slightly.
"Are you happy with your relationship with Frederick? Do you feel as if you are equal partners in all aspects?" he asked Harry, his eyes scorching in to Harry's as he waited an honest answer. Which Harry would give him, since it seemed like Snape was doing him a huge favor with this potion and adjusting his monthly one.
"Yes, and yes," Harry said decisively after thinking the question over carefully.
Sort of. If they were in a real fight, Harry would have to protect Fred. If they were in a catty fight like Susan had with Hermione at times, Fred would have to be the one to apologize.
Equal enough though.
"Very well." Snape handed over the potion and gave Harry a faint smile as he quickly pocketed the bottle. "One mouthful ten minutes before you would like the desired effect to take place. And despite any embarrassment you may feel, you must inform me immediately if you have an erection that lasts longer than four hours, understand?"
"Yes," Harry said, leaping to his feet in an effort to get some space from one of the most mortifying conversations in the world.
"Safe, consensual, and pleasurable for both parties!" Snape yelled after Harry, reminding him of the other mortifying conversation they'd had last summer as he booked it from the kitchen.
"Thanks, Sevvvv," Harry drawled loudly and irritatingly as he ran up the stairs.
Snape being embarrassing aside, at least Harry had an actual solution to his current problem.
Why couldn't every problem in his life be so easily fixed with a potion?
***
"You're sure?" Fred whispered.
It had taken Harry a couple of days to find a way to subtly kick Theo out of their room for the night. The dividing wall and privacy charms were fine for most nights, but not anymore.
Harry made a plan and the plan was to make things special, or something.
Harry invited Fred over again and made sure he had the potion Snape gave him on hand, ready to follow through with what he desperately had wanted to do a few nights ago.
Safe, consensual, pleasurable. Though Harry was mostly interested in the pleasurable part of it.
Harry looked up at Fred's face, his own vision slightly blurred from the overwhelming want he had been feeling even before taking the potion and he nodded.
"I'm sure," he said, his voice breathless but confident.
Fred lovingly ran his hands down the length of Harry's body, ending on his hips as he raised them up.
"If I do something wrong, or you don't like it, tell me," Fred said.
"I will," Harry agreed.
"Promise?"
"Fuck. I promise." Harry would have probably promised anything then just to get some sort of release from the teasing build up Fred put him through.
Fred grinned down at him, his hair stuck to his forehead and his eyes as bright as Harry had ever seen them.
"Slowly then," he said.
He'd already prepared Harry, a move that might have been embarrassing if it hadn't felt so bloody good, so then he simply lifted Harry's hips up and slowly, painfully slowly, pushed inside of him.
"Ooh."
Both of them moaned at the feeling as Fred moved what seemed to be a centimeter at a time; slowly filling Harry.
"Bloody hell," Fred groaned, his body still as he waited for Harry to adjust to the much wanted intrusion. "This is good?"
"So good," Harry said, clenching a fistful of the sheets. "Fuck. So, so good."
Fred let out a breathless laugh and gazed at Harry with eyes filled with wonder.
"I love you," he told him for the twentieth time that night. "Stop me if I do something wrong."
Harry nodded absently, marveling at the sensations that were so entirely different than he'd expected or remembered. He thought he might feel exposed, uncertain about baring himself so completely to Fred, but how could he doubt the way Fred saw him when it shined through his every word and action?
Harry felt his breath leave in a dramatic huff as Fred began pulling out and thrusting back in; a slow and steady rhythm.
"Good?"
"Yeah."
"Faster?"
"Yesss, fuck, Fred."
Something of an order, really.
Fred threw his head back and the two of them lost themselves in the moment, Fred building up speed as Harry focused on the feeling.
"Fuck Harry, you feel amazing."
'You feel amazing.'
Harry clenched his eyes shut, the building desire in him suddenly twisting uncomfortably.
'You feel amazing.'
Harry had an unexpected jolt of fear shoot through him, his body freezing as it rocked through his entire body.
His previously limp limbs tensed up tightly, every nerve in his body screaming as they did.
Could he move?
He couldn't.
Harry couldn't move and he couldn't breathe.
There was a ringing in his ears, not loud enough to drown out the moan of pleasure that he could hear, but loud enough that Harry had no real sense of any other noises around him.
Which was bad.
Harry needed to be able to hear because if he couldn't then the bloke could try and add more people which would mean more hands on him, more people in him, more people owning him and less of him owning himself.
Harry couldn't breathe.
Oh, God. He was going to suffocate to death with a man inside of him. Touching him. Breathing on him.
Or the man was going to kill him.
"Stop. Please."
It was a whisper, one Harry knew would go unnoticed. Nobody cared when Harry said stop. No one. Stop was a word that nobodies like himself could shout from the rooftops and not a soul in the world would hear it.
So why did he stop?
Why did he pull himself out as soon as Harry whispered his plea and scramble away from Harry, his skin no longer burning Harry's where it touched him?
Why couldn't Harry breathe?!
"Harry?"
Harry kept his eyes screwed up as his breath came out harsh and ragged.
Why did he stop?
"Harry, open your eyes. Please? I'm sorry. It's me, it's Fred. I stopped. Merlin, I'm sorry. Are you hurt??"
Fred?
Harry tested his limbs, then carefully curled up on his side, keeping his eyes screwed shut, as his brain spun around uselessly and tried to figure out what was happening.
It's soft, isn't it?
Which was odd. Because motels weren't soft, they
Do they usually smell like this?
Like citrus and caramel and a sort of clean scent where Harry buried his nose in the sheets.
And it's quiet.
Except it wasn't, not really. There was someone talking to him, an incomprehensible string of words all coming out in a soft tone that seemed meant to soothe rather than scare. Which... didn't make much sense. But there was a distinct lack of noise in the background with the buzzing gone from Harry's ears. There were no car horns, no people screaming on the sidewalks. It was a very peaceful silence broken only by the quiet voice.
It was the soft tone that made Harry finally open his eyes, no real concept of how much time had passed and struggling to make sense of what was going on.
"Harry?"
Harry flicked his eyes around the room (bedroom, this was his bedroom in his home) quickly and carefully before landing on the source of the voice.
Two wide blue eyes, creased with worry but steady in their gaze, met his.
"Hey, it's me. It's Fred."
Fred.
Harry gulped in air like a man breaking out of the waves would: desperately and without true relief in the action.
"Fred?" he croaked, his voice raspy as if he really had been drowning. Maybe he had.
"Yeah, it's Fred."
Fred raised one hand, then lowered it immediately when Harry cringed away from it.
Which was a stupid thing to do.
Because it was Fred.
And Harry was nearly an adult, and he had been free for years. Nobody could own him, nobody could hurt him, not really. Harry didn't have to barter for food or trade anything for a bed anymore.
Harry remembered why he had gotten undressed, what led him to opening himself up. He had wanted to do it for no reason other than simple desire. He wanted to be with Fred in that way.
Stupid of him.
Stupid of Fred too.
Fred, who was watching him as Harry's eyes flickered and his mind caught up with everything.
"Don't cry," Fred murmured, his eyes softening and his brows furrowing down with worry.
Was Harry crying?
Harry felt his face and was startled to feel the proof of his panic streaming freely down his cheeks.
"Get out," he abruptly whispered.
Harry didn't know when his mind caught all the way up to his body, but he could feel a tremble working it's way from his core to his limbs and a heavy pressure building behind his eyes. Harry knew he had maybe a minute before he was a shaking, snotty, pathetic mess and it wasn't about to happen with Fred staring at him.
Fred had seen enough.
Harry hadn't just ruined what was supposed to be a special night together - he'd freaked out. He had lost his mind completely and Fred had seen it.
"I don't want to leave you like this. You're upset," Fred protested quietly. "Let me get Snape or someone first, then I'll go if you want me to."
Fred had to leave. Quickly.
"I'M FINE! JUST GET OUT!" Harry screamed desperately, his throat tearing with the effort.
"Don't yell at me," Fred said evenly, his voice semi-calm as he quickly pulled his shirt over his head and yanked his trousers on. "You aren't fine, I don't have to be here but you shouldn't be alone."
Harry pulled the heavy grey comforter over himself, feeling more secure with the soft touch of the blanket covering his body and he turned his face in to his pillow.
"Just go," he said, his voice muffled by the pillow but still legible.
Harry listened keenly as he pressed his face in to his pillow. He could hear Fred's soft breathing before he let out a huff of a sigh.
"I love you," Fred said softly from beside the bed. "I'll leave you alone, but I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay? I'm sorry."
Harry didn't know why Fred was apologizing to him, Harry was the one who ruined everything, but he counted Fred's footsteps as he left the room and sat up when he heard the door close.
"Complete silence," Harry ordered his magic hoarsely, pulling his knees to his chest.
Once he knew his magic heard him, and his bedroom wouldn't let out a single sound to the rest of the house, Harry inhaled deeply...
...and screamed until his throat truly did tear and he felt the trembling in his body turn in to bone deep weary exhaustion.
When Theo returned home less than an hour later, after having Fred beat down Ron's bedroom door to wake him up telling him Harry needed him, he saw Harry wearing multiple layers of warm pajamas and sleeping fitfully in his bed.
Which, Theo was sure, meant that Harry's romantic plans for the evening totally went exactly how he wanted.
"Idiot," Theo sighed, dropping himself in his brother's bed and ignoring him when Harry tried to physically kick him out of it.
***
Harry avoided Fred for the next few days. Not necessarily avoided, but...
Well, yes, avoided.
Harry spent a lot of time during the day at Invisibility Way, flying over the backyard field there. He didn't train as much as he was just replayed the events of their night together and thinking.
Harry also spent a lot of time at night thinking; not sleeping much as it kept bringing him the intrusive thoughts he'd once buried deeply inside himself. When he did sleep, he did so fitfully, tossing and turning, unknowingly crying out as he sweat his way through another nightmare.
And when he woke up, gasping for breath, he clenched his red handled penknife and just stared out the dark window and thought about it all some more.
Harry wanted to be with Fred intimately, the way everyone else did, and he had freaked out. He completely fell apart and couldn't even do that one normal thing; a thing that everyone else seemed to do with no problems.
Theo and Hermione had sex, Harry knew that. Theo didn't talk about it really, but he'd borrowed Sevvie when he ordered birth control potions ('I am not asking Professor Snape for them,' he'd said stubbornly) and Harry wasn't an idiot.
Susan had sex. She had told Harry the morning after she'd lost her virginity. She had said it was a bit awkward at first, but enjoyable by the time they were done.
Harry also suspected that all of Hogwarts knew that Blaise had sex. Theo might have kept pretty quiet about his private life, but Blaise bragged in the dorm room about the witches and wizards he'd been with.
And none of them ever mentioned having some sort of panic attack, because Harry recognized it for what it was, which meant it was a Harry only thing.
A freaky thing that just highlighted how different he was from everyone else, how completely shattered in one of the most fundamental ways.
Any idiot could have sex, loads of them did. Not Harry though.
Harry soared over the trees, watching the way the green leaves diminished to specks as he rose up in the sky, and considered that.
So he was broken. That wasn't a new thought for Harry. He had a broken mind which required a potion that caused a broken body that matched his broken scars.
It also made him a fucking freak. And it didn't matter if Snape told him to 'never refer to himself that way again' because it was true. Harry couldn't even do one basic thing with his boyfriend without turning in to a shaking, screaming, sobbing freak. It was pathetic.
And...
And…
As much as Harry hated where his thoughts ended each time, it didn't make him wrong.
Fred didn't deserve what Harry could offer.
So Harry flew for three days, telling the others at his house that he just needed some time alone, and he avoided Fred while he thought about the future.
It went on until finally, the fourth morning after what was meant to be a special night for the two of them, Harry had made a decision as he got dressed.
"I'm going to Fred's," he told Snape after breakfast that morning.
"Thank Merlin," Snape sighed. "I was beginning to fear that you and Frederick would continue to play hide and seek all summer. Be safe, brat."
Harry nodded in distracted acknowledgment as he stepped in the floo. He knew Fred kept popping by to talk to him, but he hadn't been ready before so he just told Snape and Barty to tell him he wasn't in.
But as the green flames spit him out in Sirius' old bedroom, one of the many private floos in Grimmauld Place, Harry squared his shoulders for what he needed to do; because he thought about it, and he was ready to talk now.
"Hey," Harry attempted to pull his lips back in a polite smile when he found Fred. The best he could do seemed to be a mild grimace so Harry dropped it altogether. "Can we talk?"
Fred, who had been bent over a work table in his bedroom, colorful bits of future joke shop products surrounding him, wiped his potion covered hands off on a towel and nodded.
"Yeah, of course," he said with an actual smile. "Come in, darlin. George is at Angie's, we can talk in here."
Harry stepped inside the room that Fred shared with George and looked around in mild curiosity while Fred cleared away the products he worked on. The room was a mess, but Harry knew it was an organized type of chaos, with books and parchment everywhere and brightly packaged products filling every corner of the room.
"D'you wanna sit?" Fred asked, plopping on the side of his bed and patting the space beside him.
"No." Harry stayed in the open doorway, putting a privacy shield up so they weren't interrupted by any of the Weasleys staying in the house. "We need to talk..."
"We do," Fred agreed, his eyes tight with worry. "About the other night, Harry—"
"I don't want to talk about that," Harry said quickly. He needed to say what he went there to say so he could leave. The resolve that Harry built up the last few days wavered when he stood here in front of Fred and he would do the right thing. Harry didn't usually do the right thing, according to Snape, Theo, Hermione, Neville, and a lot of other people actually, but he would then.
Fred deserved that.
"We can't be together anymore."
Harry felt guilt squeeze his insides as Fred's eyes, blue like Harry imagined the ocean might be in the twilight, filled with a look of sadness.
"What? No." Fred sounded momentarily lost, as if Harry had just ripped the floor beneath him and he found himself falling. "Harry, I'm so sorry, please—"
"It wasn't you," Harry cut him off, not wanting Fred to feel guilty for anything. Fred wasn't at fault, Harry was. "And that's not why anyway," he lied. "It's this war, yeah? It's not safe for us to be together. And you're leaving Hogwarts this year, you'll be busy with the shop and I'll be busy with school. It's just… this is just how it has to be," he said flatly but firmly. "I'm sorry."
"But..." Fred's eyes were beginning to water, and Harry knew he needed to leave before he selfishly gave in. "But I love you," Fred said softly. "I don't care about being in danger, I'm ready for it. And we still have all year this year, and next year we'll see each other every Hogsmeade week—"
"I don't want to be together anymore," Harry interrupted flatly, covering his own hurt with a blank mask. A mask he could hide almost anything behind. "Someone will either try and take you from me, just because you're mine, or you'll leave anyway. So... so this is it."
Harry took a step backwards, focusing on Fred's hands instead of his face, and paused in the doorway.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "But it's better like this. You can..." Harry cleared his throat before his voice could break. "You can be with someone else; you deserve it."
Harry stepped through his own privacy bubble, dispelling it with his motion, as he turned to run back to Sirius' old bedroom.
He left so quickly that when the first tear streaked down Fred's gobsmacked cheek he missed it.
And when Fred whispered that he didn't want to be with anyone else, he missed that as well.
"Harry?"
Harry looked up from the dying fire that he had been staring at and saw Snape giving him an inscrutable look from the sitting room doorway.
"What happened?" Snape asked. Harry briefly wondered what his face must look like before he cleared it of any emotion at all.
"Nothing," Harry told him flatly. "'M fine."
If Harry didn't think about it, he was fine.
Snape moved until he was in front of Harry, looking down at him with a steady gaze.
"You are not fine," Snape said, once again proving how well he could read Harry's mood. "Did your visit with Frederick go poorly?"
"No." It didn't, it went how Harry had planned for it to go. That didn't mean Harry was happy about it though. "We- no - I broke up with him."
Snape quietly sat beside Harry and Harry shifted away slightly, not wanting to be crowded or touched.
"Would you like to discuss it?" Snape offered.
"Nothing to discuss," Harry shrugged. "There's a war coming. It's better this way."
Harry could practically feel the waves of unease rolling off Snape's body beside him. He figured Snape felt pretty out of his depth talking about something as stupid as a breakup, and it would have been nearly amusing if Harry had been in a mood to be amused. Instead, the two of them sat together quietly.
"It is admirable to try and protect him, but I believe Frederick is as capable as any of your friends in defending himself in any conflict."
Harry made a small hum at Snape's quietly spoken words. He wasn't wrong, Fred could handle himself okay in a fight, especially if he was partnered with Harry or George, but that wasn't the problem.
And Harry sure as hell wasn't going to talk about the problem with Snape.
He knew what Snape would say already:
'You are not a freak. You are not broken. Perhaps you should discuss this with Lupin.'
Well, maybe he wouldn't precisely say the bit about Lupin, but he would want Harry to talk to someone. And it wasn't something Harry wanted to talk about with anyone.
They wouldn't get it.
Fred deserved someone whole, healthy, normal.
And that wasn't Harry.
"I'm going to go upstairs," Harry said. "I'll see you later."
"Harry, wait." Harry paused and looked back at Snape. Snape's face was calm, if only giving away a mild hint of concern.
"I will not interfere in your relationships nor in the decisions you are perfectly within your rights to make on your own," he said. "However, I am always available at any time to talk if you would like to do so."
"Thanks, I guess," Harry shrugged. "But I'm fine."
And he was. Mostly. There was no use crying about it anymore.
What was done was done and Harry wasn't going to mope about, whining, when he knew he made the right decision.
So Harry didn't mope, not really.
Harry threw himself in his books- reading as much as he could. Using the Theory of Magic to block out the Theory of What the Fuck was Wrong With Him.
He painted his and Theo's room. A clean white color that made it feel less oppressively dark at night. Then black when the white made him feel dirty. Blue when Theo hated the black.
Harry tried to explain human concepts to Stevie, and attempted to get Sevvie to stop being so terrified of the giant snake.
He also unknowingly made his housemates discuss his behavior and plot ways to cheer him up from his first breakup.
"I will be brewing a batch of Felix Felicis for my seventh year students," Snape said during breakfast. "Perhaps you would like to assist me?"
Harry held in a scowl, knowing Snape preferred to brew alone and was likely only offering because he thought Harry needed company.
"No, thanks."
"Hey, Harry, do you want to come see some of the stuff from Grimmauld Place?" Barty asked, hesitating in Harry's bedroom doorway. "There's a lot of Slytherin history and dark curses hidden in the stuff Black brought over."
Harry felt a pang as he recalled Fred helping Sirius relocate all the items Barty wanted from the Black home.
"No, thanks."
"Are you drowning?" Theo asked quietly late at night when Harry assumed his faux-sibling had long since fallen asleep.
"No," Harry whispered back to him, knowing his voice would carry through the dividing wall clearly without a silencing charm put up.
"It's okay if you are," Theo responded. "I'd be pretty depressed if me and Mione broke up."
"I'm not depressed."
Which was true. Harry felt guilt and regret when he thought about losing Fred, but it wasn't the powerful waves of depression that he had experienced before.
"We could go to Italy tomorrow," Theo said. "Just us and Draco and Blaise- maybe go swimming or something?"
Harry briefly considered it; he liked Italy. And he did miss his friends. But he wasn't really in the mood to be pestered or cheered up, which he was sure was Theo's real goal in the offer.
"No, thanks."
"God damnit." Theo swore loudly as he dejectedly slumped on the sofa in the sitting room with Snape and Barty a few days after Harry's breakup. "We aren't helping any."
"What do we do?" Barty asked hesitantly, unsure if it was some sort of regular occurrence in the Snape/Potter/Nott household. Snape and Theo exchanged a loaded look and seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time.
Theo with a sigh of relief and Snape with a huff of exasperation at the necessity.
"We get Susan," Theo said. "We make Susan handle this."
***
"You idiot."
Harry, who was curled up on his bed and trying to explain what a breakup was to Stevie, looked up in surprise as Susan came in his room and made her way to his bed.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice sounding more dull than truly curious.
"Theo said you broke up with Fred," Susan told him, climbing over Stevie and moving Harry's head to her lap. "What happened?" she asked, stroking Harry's hair as Harry pet Stevie's head with his index finger.
"You already know," Harry said, "I broke up with him."
"Why?"
Harry sighed, not really wanting to rehash it all, but knowing if he had to that Susan would be the best one to do it with.
"Lots of reasons."
"Top three?" Susan asked. Harry imagined she was rolling her eyes at his vague answers, but if he was going to be talking about his relationship and his 'feelings' then he wasn't going to look up at her while he did it.
"One, he's going to leave me anyway. Or two, someone's going to take him from me. And three, I'm - I dunno, Sue, just kind of a freak," Harry admitted quietly, focusing his gaze on Stevie's cool brown scales while Susan calmed Harry by merely running her fingers through his hair.
"Why would he leave you? Who would dare try and take him from you? And you are not a fucking freak, Harry," she said stoutly. "I'll kill anyone who calls you that."
Harry scoffed lightly, "There's a whole list of people who think it if you want it," he offered.
"I do," Susan told him, her tone hard. "But I'll get it later. That's the main reason you did it, isn't it? Why do you think that you're a freak? Because Fred doesn't think so, I know he doesn't."
"You don't get it."
Harry's friends all thought Harry was so great, powerful and important, but they didn't really know the real him. The Harry on the inside that he hid from them, from himself.
Harry let out a deep breath before he exposed himself for the person he truly was to the first friend he ever had. "I- I freaked out, okay? I had this whole fuckin' thing happen and Fred saw it and now he knows. He knows what I am."
"Start at the beginning," Susan said calmly. "What exactly happened?"
When Harry explained things to Fred, it helped. When he did it with Susan, it helped. That didn't make it easier, but the thought of moving the weight off his chest was tempting.
"We had sex," Harry admitted in a quick whisper. "And we've never done that before, you know? So it was was supposed to be special or whatever, but right in the middle I just freaked out. And it was so stupid, Sue. I'm a fucking freak. I'm broken. And..." Harry's voice dropped as he admitted the true reason that he ended it with Fred, "And he deserves someone whole, someone normal, yeah?"
"Oh, Harry." Susan's empty hand reached over Harry's shoulder and grabbed his free hand to squeeze it once. "Fred deserves whoever he wants. And you are not a freak, and you're not broken. I freaked out a bit the first time I had sex, it's a normal reaction to taking such a big step in your relationship. It's totally normal, Harry."
It wasn't normal.
Susan just didn't get it.
But that was because she didn't know. Didn't understand all of it.
"It wasn't normal and... and it wasn't my first time."
Susan's hand that was stroking Harry's hair paused for a split second after he admitted one of his most shameful secrets to her.
"How old were you your first time?" she asked, her voice steady and calm.
"Eight," Harry said, eyes closed and refusing to let that memory enter his mind for even a second.
"I love you." Susan's voice sounded a bit strangled as she said that. She cleared her throat then repeated herself, "I love you more than I've ever loved anyone in the entire world."
Out of everything Harry expected to hear Susan say, that wasn't it.
Harry twisted his head and looked up at Susan's face. He searched for pity, or mockery, or anything else that would have shut him up, maybe wiped her memory, but all he saw was a sense of honesty and a fierce look of affection in her eyes.
"It was different with Fred," Harry said, turning his head back in her lap to stare at the pattern on Stevie's scales as his mind focused on when it all went wrong. "It wasn't like before, but then it was. I liked it, wanted it, but then I couldn't breathe, Sue. It was like I was a stupid little kid all over again and I couldn't move and I was just... I was just frozen."
Harry tried, he really did because he was too old for whining about, but a small sob ripped it's way free of his chest and broke the damn he built up since he'd spoken with Fred.
Despite how he'd told himself that none of it mattered, the past was the past and he would never live like that again, never let himself be owned like that again, it all just rushed back at him. In that moment with Fred he wasn't fifteen year old Harry; the figurehead of an important gang, powerful wizard, aspiring political leader. Instead he had suddenly been kid Harry; starving, weak, willing to trade the freedom of his body for food and warmth, convinced that the touch of strangers inside him was worth it if it meant he would live another day.
Harry would never admit something so pathetically weak out loud, but it had been terrifying when he switched from who he was to who he used to be when he had been with Fred that night. It meant he could switch any moment, any time.
What had been almost equally terrifying was the shift in who Fred had been in the moment. When Harry changed, so did Fred. Fred went from his boyfriend of over a year, someone who loved him, respected him, and turned him on to a stranger with a leering smile and rough hands and an indifference to Harry's pain.
No matter how much Harry had told himself that neither of them actually changed who they were when Fred was inside him, it hadn't mattered. That was how it felt, how it truly seemed in that moment, and Harry had panicked. Panicked and freaked out and exposed one of the most utterly, and irreparably, damaged parts of himself to Fred. Harry couldn't take it back, he couldn't fix it, and he cared about Fred too much to let him be with someone so entirely broken.
Harry turned in to Susan's lap to hide his face while he cried, his anger at himself and sadness over losing Fred causing him to forget himself for a while. Susan continued petting his head, knowing there was nothing to say in the moment and simply being a calming presence for him.
"I don't want to be like this," Harry finally said, breathing in Susan's sweet coconut scented lotion as he calmed himself. "I want one thing about me to be normal, Sue. One fucking thing. It's not so much to ask for, is it?"
"Of course not," Susan murmured. "But you're the only one who thinks you're a freak, Harry. I don't. I'm sure Fred doesn't, and pushing him away isn't fair. He deserves better than that."
"Of course he does," Harry agreed, turning his face back to Stevie and seeing the lazy snake fell asleep while Harry had his head buried. "But that's why I ended it, because he deserves better."
"You're an idiot," Susan sighed. "You know that's not what I meant."
Harry shrugged and released Susan's hand to flex his fingers out - she had been squeezing them tightly up until then and he could feel them aching slightly.
The two of them laid in Harry's bed, wrapped up in their own thoughts. Harry thought of Fred while Susan apparently thought about what Harry had shared with her.
"I'm going to kill whoever it was," she eventually said, clueing Harry in to the direction her thoughts had carried her to.
"Too late," Harry said with a forced casualness to his voice, knowing who and what she was referring to. "I killed one of them when I was ten and I dunno who the others were."
Susan's leg muscles twitched underneath Harry's head. "One of them?" she hissed. "There was more than once?"
"There's only so many ways that a kid can survive on his own for three years," Harry said as nonchalantly as he was able to. He knew that Susan would be his friend no matter what, she wouldn't care that Harry admitted to being on the streets before, but that didn't make his worry that she would find him disgusting lessen any.
"Three years plus the two weeks in our second year?" Susan guessed wryly, and accurately.
"Oh yeah." Harry had made a valiant attempt at blocking out those long, miserable, cold, two weeks in his second year when he was expelled and thought his friends had all abandoned him. "Those too," he said.
Susan took a deep breath, Harry could feel her chest expanding and shrinking behind his head as she did so, before she spoke again. "I am going to kill your muggle relatives, and Albus Dumbledore, with my bare hands," she swore. "And also, in case you didn't know it already, I love you, Harry Potter."
Harry released a shaky breath, relieved that it didn't seem as if Susan was going to end their friendship over the secrets he shared with her. He felt the empty feeling of regret shrink inside him for a moment as his chest was filled with an overwhelmingly warm sense of affection for Susan Bones.
His first friend. His best friend.
One of the few people that Harry knew he could tell absolutely anything to and she would still always be there for him- ready to wreck vengeance on his behalf or simply hold him together when he didn't think he was holding himself together very well.
"I love you too," he said as he nestled further in her lap.
Of that - Harry was sure.