lomonaaeren

“Hey, Ron?”

“Yeah?” Ron doesn’t look up from the complicated sketch he’s making on the parchment in front of him, something based on the latest Chudley Cannons game.

Harry takes a deep breath. He wants to ask this, and he doesn’t want it, and his heart is going mad. But their dormitory is empty other than for the two of them, and he—he has to ask at least this part of it. Because his mind is going mad, too.

“Do boys kiss other boys?”

Ron’s mouth falls open even before he snaps his head up from the parchment that he’s looking at. “What—mate, what are you saying?”

Ron is turning bright red, and Harry knows he’s an even brighter red. Great, there’s something wrong with me after all. “Never mind. I’m not going to—”

“Mate, if you fancy me—”

Harry bursts out laughing despite himself, and Ron doesn’t look offended; he looks relieved. He pushes aside the parchment and stretches out on the bed. “You fancy a bloke? Who is it?”

“No one you know,” Harry says, because that’s true. He’s kept the dreams from everyone, even Ron and Hermione. Sometimes he does wish he could tell them, but keeping both himself and Theo safe has got to be a priority. “I just—some Muggles think it’s wrong. My uncle.”

Ron snorts. “Well, if people really want grandchildren, they’ll tell their kids that they should date blokes if they’re girls and girls if they’re blokes. But there’s nothing wrong with it. Just not everyone wants to.”

“Oh.”

“You want to?”

Harry bites his lip. But—well, Ron can be trusted to play a giant chess game where he sacrifices himself so Harry can make it to the other side, and to stay by Harry’s side even when most of the school thinks he’s the Heir of Slytherin. Harry is pretty sure that he can be trusted with this.

“Yeah. One person. Not you.”

“Okay.”

And that’s it, that’s the end of the conversation, since Ron immediately changes the subject to what Harry thinks of the Cannons’ flying formation in their last game. Harry lies back down with a comfortable warmth in his stomach.

There are still all sorts of reasons that he doesn’t want to tell Theo about his silly crush, but at least if he gets over it someday and goes on to kiss another boy, then Harry knows that Ron will be fine with it.

*

“Ron said that you talked with him about wanting to kiss boys, Harry.”

Harry wants to sink through the floor. Hermione is standing in front of him, her eyes so wide and earnest that it looks as though she’s trying to show Harry her sincerity just because of how big they are.

“Hermione…”

“I just wanted to assure you of my full support.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t have to worry about anything, just because my parents are Muggles. It doesn’t mean I hate gay people.”

“Great!”

“You don’t ever have to—”

“Hermione!”

She blinks at him.

Harry darts his eyes around the common room, where Hermione cornered him to have this conversation. She gasps a little and puts her hand over her mouth, then speaks through her fingers. “I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t realize you wouldn’t want to talk about this where people could overhear.”

“That’s all right.”

“I didn’t realize how prejudiced Gryffindors are.”

“Huh?”

“Well, if you’re afraid of what our Housemates are going to say, the only solution is to make sure that they won’t say it! I’m going to find books in the library and educate them.” Hermione nods firmly. “Don’t worry, I won’t make any reference back to your specific situation.” And she turns and marches out the common room door.

Harry plasters his hand across his face, then drops it when he hears murmurs. He’s already too interesting to some people because of the mess with Sirius Black.

He’ll just have to hope that Hermione doesn’t make their next conversation about this public.

*

“So I heard the most interesting rumor.”

Harry groans as he falls back on the bench in front of the fire. Theo will have to find some other place to sit, but given that they can both will any furniture they want to appear in their dream-room, that’s not a problem. “I knew that wouldn’t stay in Gryffindor.”

Theo taps his shoulder. Harry opens his eyes and finds Theo looking at him upside-down. His eyes are shadowed in a way that immediately makes Harry cautious. Yeah, Ron said that wizards and witches didn’t care about boys wanting to kiss other boys, but what if Theo is one of the people who does?

“You’re upset about me knowing it?”

“Not you. Just a bunch of people in our common room. That’s not where I would have chosen to have that conversation.”

Theo’s caution fades as he sits down next to Harry on the bench, after shoving his feet out of the way. “Good. I want to know everything about you.”

Harry’s face heats up, and he can feel dizziness gripping him in its claws and turning him around like he’s a decoration on a rope. “You—do?” he croaks, while he wonders if he should tell Theo or not.

“Of course. You’re my only friend.”

Friend. Harry grips onto that. Yes, he is Theo’s only friend. If he’d had a crush on Ron, they could have got past it, because Ron has other friends, and he would have them even if things between him and Harry were weird for a little while.

But if Harry tells Theo he has a crush on him, and Theo doesn’t like that?

Theo will have nowhere else to turn.

“All right,” Harry says, sitting up and turning to face Theo. “You already know more about me than anyone else, you know that? The dreams, and that I think Lupin is a git, and that I can produce as much of a Patronus as I can?”

“You’re not showing off your prowess with that charm in Lupin’s lessons?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want him to know that he had any part in teaching me.”

Theo laughs, and the last of the shadows flee his face. “All right. Let’s practice again, and see if maybe I can cast it this time.”

Harry is glad of the excuse to take a mental step back and coax Theo through the Patronus Charm. Theo looks so handsome when he’s concentrating, his wand swishing through the motions of the charm without result so far and the fire gleaming on his face, throwing his dark blue eyes into shadow.

It’s fine, if all Harry does is look and dream. No one can be upset about that.

*

“It wasn’t me! I’m innocent! It was Wormtail!”

The words are the start of a long series of moments when Harry wishes he could do something different. Reach Theo somehow, calm everyone down, get out of danger so that Theo won’t be worried. Prevent Ron from getting his leg broken and Lupin from transforming. Keep Sirius from getting his soul eaten.

He does manage to do the last one, at last, and takes a long breath when he sees a silvery snow leopard charge into the Dementors.

Somehow, even before he goes back in time and figures out that it was his Patronus, Harry is sure that he did it.

In the end, the small hope of living with Sirius dies before it can be born. Sirius has to fly away on a hippogriff, and the Minister refuses to believe that he was innocent. Pettigrew’s fled, so Harry didn’t get to punish the traitor.

“But at least no one got their soul eaten,” Harry whispers, as he lies in Theo’s arms in front of the fire.

Theo lowers his head and buries it in Harry’s shoulder. He’s shaking. Harry pulls him close and shuts his eyes, feeling the rapid rising and falling of Theo’s chest.

“Why do you keep almost dying?” Theo whispers at last, but with tears instead of heat in the back of his voice.

Harry strokes his back, helpless to answer. So much of it just seems to be his connection to Voldemort and his stupid fame. But he knows that Theo wouldn’t want to hear that, that he would want to hear some actual suggestion on how to stop it and keep Harry safe.

Unfortunately, Harry can’t give him that.

“I promise I’ll try to be more careful,” Harry whispers. “And at least my Patronus saved me, and I wouldn’t have got so good at it if I didn’t have all those nights of practicing with you.”

Theo gives one last gasp, and then sits up. His face is full of determination. Harry eyes him warily, suddenly wondering if he’s done or said something that’s pushed Theo past some unspoken limit.

“Theo?”

“I’m not going to stand it this summer.”

“Stand—what? You know I’m not usually in danger during the summer.”

Theo gives him such a contemptuous look that Harry flushes and opens his mouth. But Theo is speaking. “Only from your relatives.”

“They still haven’t killed me. They can’t poison me with basilisk fangs or suck out my soul.”

“And you think that’s better? You think locking you in your room or a cupboard is better?”

“Of course not! But it’s also not as bad as other things.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re going to communicate this summer.”

“Oh.” Harry leans back against Theo with a long sigh. Theo means that they’ll write more regular letters. That’s something they haven’t really been able to do because of the danger of Theo’s father intercepting the owls, but they also haven’t tried that much because of the dreams and how convenient those are.

Theo burrows closer to Harry, holding him. Harry wonders for a second if it’s “normal” for him to be this close to the boy he has a crush on, who has no idea.

Then he decides that it doesn’t matter. Because he can’t confess to Theo, and he can’t let him go.

*

“You said good-bye to Lupin pretty stiffly, mate.”

“Yes. He can’t help what he’s cursed with, Harry, or that he forgot to take his Wolfsbane Potion before he went out to capture Sirius.”

Ron and Hermione are keeping their voices low because of the secret of Sirius’s innocence, but Harry doesn’t mind if other people know what he says next. He shrugs. “He still didn’t want to talk to me about his connection to my parents. Not in any detail. And he thought that Sirius was a murderer, but he didn’t tell anyone about Sirius’s Animagus form or the secret passages. Why?”

Hermione blinks, and she and Ron look at each other uncertainly. Harry thinks that this isn’t something they’ve thought about before. “He—didn’t want to get in trouble?”

“I think you’re right,” Harry says to Hermione, but he shakes his head. “He was so worried about ancient trouble from running around with his friends as a werewolf that he didn’t care as much about the real, present trouble.”

“But Sirius turned out to be innocent.”

“Yeah, but Professor Lupin didn’t know that. He even warned me against running around outside the castle, or going outside at all except for Quidditch games and Care of Magical Creatures class.”

He watches Hermione and Ron chew on that one. They seem surprised that an adult should be that incompetent. Harry doesn’t know why, really. They both had good parents, but they’ve been through a few terrible Defense professors by now.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Hermione decides at last, firmly. “At least we all survived, and maybe someday you’ll get to live with Sirius.”

Harry only agrees with the last part of that, but he lets the rest pass without comment. Theo is hardly the only one of his friends he’s keeping secrets from.

*

“Boy! You’re wanted at the door.”

Harry blinks and looks up as Uncle Vernon unlocks his door. This is beyond strange. No one comes to see Harry the Freak during the summers. And his uncle would sound upset about it if a wizard did show up.

Instead, he just sounds flat, as if he got a great shock. Harry tucks his wand, which he’s been able to keep out of the cupboard this summer, into his robe pocket before he goes down the stairs to the door.

He chokes when he gets there. Theo is standing on the other side.

He hasn’t been this close to Theo since Christmas when Theo examined the broom that Harry eventually did end up riding in Quidditch games. Harry’s hands tremble as he hurries forwards, and then he stops. Because Theo is wearing dark robes, and Uncle Vernon should have reacted to that. And because even though no one should know about Harry’s connection with Theo, maybe Theo’s dad got it out of him somehow.

“What gift did I give you for Christmas?” Harry asks Theo.

Theo’s smile turns brighter. “A nightshade, because it was my mother’s favorite plant.”

It’s him. Harry is absolutely sure that there is no one else who could know that. He reaches out and takes Theo’s hands. His own hands are trembling, but he tries to ignore that. “Theo, what are you doing here?”

“Didn’t I say that we would communicate this summer?”

“Yeah. But I thought you meant—letters. And the dreams.” Harry glances nervously over his shoulder. “And something happened to my uncle.”

“That was me. I stole my father’s wand. He has a little device attached to it that means no one can tell when someone’s cast a spell with it. And then I took the Knight Bus here.”

Harry just shakes his head in wonder and draws Theo through the door. He glances around for Uncle Vernon again, but the man has gone back to sit in front of the telly. “What was the spell you cast on him? And what about my aunt and cousin?”

“I didn’t see them, so I didn’t have a chance to cast on them. And the one on your uncle is just a simple Ignorance Jinx. He’ll ignore anything that’s not really important to him for as long as it lasts. He doesn’t feel enough interest in me or you to care.”

Harry smiles. Maybe he should feel bad that Theo cast the spell on a “helpless” Muggle, but honestly, it’s pretty nice to be in control for once, after all the time that he’s spent at Uncle Vernon’s mercy.

“Well, come up to my room.”

Theo looks with flat eyes at the locks and the cat flap on the door, and then lifts his wand—his father’s wand—and begins casting more spells. Harry stares with his mouth open as his bed gets Transfigured into a comfortable couch like the one they’ve shared so often in the dreams, and Theo conjures a floating ball of warmth that flickers and hisses like a real fire.

“Theo,” he breathes.

“I’m not just leaving you like this,” Theo says. “My father is—gone on a mission. He won’t be back for a week.”

“But then wouldn’t he have needed his wand?”

“He took a spare one with him. He always does, in case he encounters an Auror who could trace a spell back to him.”

Harry swallows even as Theo walks over and sits down on the couch. He feels—overwhelmed is a good word for it. He doesn’t even know what he can do other than just stand there and feel.

Theo is right here.

“Harry?”

Theo sounds uncertain, if Harry is listening closely enough. He smiles and crosses the distance between them, sitting down next to Theo and leaning his head on Theo’s shoulder with a sigh. This is something they did often enough in the dreams that it won’t seem weird now.

Theo lets out a soft breath and strokes Harry’s hair.

Harry wants this never to end, and he isn’t even really worried about betraying his crush. Having Theo here is worth it.

*

“Harry!”

Harry comes flying out of the nightmare, gasping and clutching his head. He can’t see anything for a second, and then Theo is pressing his glasses into his hand. Harry pushes them onto his face and tries to concentrate past the overwhelming pain in his forehead.

No, not just his forehead. His scar.

“Harry, talk to me.”

Theo’s voice is low and that sort of calm that makes him sound scary. Harry turns and leans against him, and Theo strokes his forehead. The bed is a bed again, and they’re both sleeping in it, but Harry honestly had no time to be embarrassed about that yesterday evening, and he isn’t now, either.

“I had a dream,” he whispers. “A voice talking to Wormtail, and a Muggle man dying in a burst of green light.”

Theo goes so still that Harry leans harder on him. When Theo speaks, his voice is low and raspy. “The Killing Curse.”

“The—the spell that gave me this scar?” Harry does remember Theo saying something about that last year, during one of the bursts of information when he was marveling at Harry’s ignorance, but they never discussed it in detail.

“Yes.” Theo smooths back Harry’s hair. “What else did you see in the dream? Anything?”

“There was a huge snake. And Wormtail and Voldemort were talking about some kind of plan. But the dream ended before I could get any detail. Or maybe I’m forgetting the details.”

Harry feels terrible for doing that when the dream might be so important, but Theo just speaks softly to him and makes him lie back on the pillow. “It’s still worth it to have some glimpse of what the Dark Lord is doing,” he says. His face is very pale when Harry can blink and focus his eyes again. “We need to be careful, but we can use this knowledge.”

“How?” Harry whispers, partially just to keep Theo talking. It’s so quiet, so intimate. He already feels less scared than he did.

Theo touches his scar with such gentleness that Harry presses closer without meaning to. “I can start dropping hints around my father and asking the kinds of questions that will make him think I’m ready to be initiated as a Death Eater. He’ll be thrilled. And you can see whether anything specific about those plans or related to my questions shows up in your dreams.”

“Theo, that would be so dangerous for you.”

“No, because my father would be thrilled.”

Theo’s voice is flat in a way that makes Harry reach out and catch hold of his wrist. “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t think I’m hard enough, devoted enough to the Dark Lord’s cause.” Theo’s hand moves restlessly up through Harry’s hair, stroking his scalp in a way that makes Harry practically collapse into Theo’s arms. Theo smiles a little, but he doesn’t stop speaking. “He would be happy that I’m finally listening to him, as he would put it.”

“But what if he suspects?”

“We’ll have to make sure that he doesn’t.”

Theo’s voice tells Harry his mind is made up. Harry swallows and nods. He’ll accept this, because ultimately it’s Theo’s decision.

But that doesn’t stop him from clinging to Theo as hard as he can while he’s still here.

*

“I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t want you to go, either.” Harry leans forwards and grabs Theo’s hands. It’s been easier than he thought not to think about his crush for the last week, but now, he has the strong temptation to kiss Theo. He ignores it. “But you know that the Weasleys are coming to take me to the Quidditch World Cup soon, and you can’t be here when they do. And you have to be home when your father is.”

“Will you ever tell your friends about me?”

“When you want me to. When you’re safe from your father.”

Theo nods, his eyes distant. Harry doesn’t know why, but he suspects Theo is thinking about that distant day. Then his eyes focus, and he gives Harry a faint smile. “I’ll see you in our dreams tonight. And I suppose that we’ll have a little more to talk about.”

Harry laughs. For the past seven days, he and Theo have still dreamed of each other, but they’ve simply curled and dozed next to each other, dreams shading into true sleep.

“Thank you for coming, Theo.”

“It was for me as much as for you,” Theo says simply. “And I’m gladder than I can say that I was with you when you had that dream about the Dark Lord.” He reaches out and glides his hand down Harry’s cheek. “I wish—”

He doesn’t finish, but Harry asks, “That there was no Dark Lord, and we could just be friends? I know.”

But he doesn’t know if he wishes that was entirely true, himself. He and Theo would probably already be friends in real life, and not need the dreams, and then would he ever have realized that he has a crush on Theo?

He doesn’t intend to act on that crush. But he keeps it safe like a glittering jewel that he can’t touch too often, for fear of tarnishing.

“Did I tell you that I have a theory as to why the dreams started happening?”

“No, you did not,” Harry says, his attention snapping back to the Theo in the real world instead of the one in his imagination.

Theo smiles at him. “It’s significant that it happened during the summer after our first year, when you were so lonely because you weren’t getting those letters from your friends—”

“My other friends.”

Theo’s smile widens, but he only says, “And my longing for a friend was at a fever pitch, too. I thought I might make some when I went to Hogwarts, but I didn’t, and I was lying there one night contemplating six more years of loneliness, and wishing I had one friend.”

“You think our magic found each other?”

“Our magic, acting for our loneliness. We have to have some fundamental magical compatibility, or we would never have sustained the dreams for this long, especially after we started meeting in person.”

Harry wishes he could kiss Theo. He adores everything about him, from his dark blue eyes to the way he sounds when he’s explaining theory.

But Theo is looking at him expectantly, and Harry has to answer.

“I think that sounds like it’s possible,” Harry says quietly. “And I’m glad to know that it wasn’t, like—the result of a spell cast on us to make us—do something.”

“It’s only a theory. I don’t know for sure.”

“It’s a bloody good theory.”

Theo looks startled, the way he always does when Harry compliments him. It’s another to add to the long list of reasons why Harry would like to strap Theo’s father down on a table somewhere and hold a wand to his throat.

But then Theo smiles more broadly and says, “We’ll keep it as the working one for now.”

A few moments tick by. Harry knows that Theo has to leave to catch the Knight Bus. He did cast the jinx on all the Dursleys a few times, but his father arriving back home unexpectedly is the main danger.

And yet, it’s so hard to let him go.

“Harry,” Theo whispers.

Harry gets that urge again, to kiss Theo and hang on and never let go. But he can’t think how he would explain it. And what if Theo doesn’t want to?

“Good-bye, Theo,” Harry says, in as calm a voice as he can muster. It’s not very. His words are shaking. “I—thank you so much for being here.”

Theo looks a little dissatisfied, but before Harry can panic and wonder what he was meant to say, what Theo wants to hear, he softens and leans forwards to touch Harry lightly on the cheek. “I’ll miss you.”

“Until tonight.”

Theo’s eyes darken, and he gives a little nod. Then he turns and starts hurrying down the street, keeping to the shadows. He can summon the Knight Bus anywhere, Harry knows, but it will be a little harder to explain if someone Muggle sees his robes.

Someday, he might leave like this, and it would be the last time you’ll ever see him, something whispers in the back of Harry’s mind.

Harry swallows. He—that could happen, but all sorts of things could happen. He just has to keep living his life, and reach out to Theo when he can.

He quietly shuts the door and turns back to his lonely real life.