🙃 Regular Reminder That While Hozier Has Amazing Love Songs, He Is ALSO Very Outspoken About His Leftist

i couldnt get through this without dissolving into a mess of tears every two seconds!

@greyeyedmonster-18 YOU ARE THE BEST, I hv said it before but I'll say it every time you create this...THIS - gawd even the word masterpiece seems like an understatement!

Fault Lines pt. 6

Read Fault Lines parts 1-5 here (links to part 5 but the rest are there)

(final installment. thank you all for following along with the pain.)

In which Remus and Sirius are divorced and raising harry and trying their very best.

--

December 1995

Sirius and Harry sat on the roof of Grimmauld Place, heating charm encircling their bodies alongside blankets that were thrown over their shoulders. Harry had a knit hat pulled over his head for good measure, hot butterbeer between them, as they talked into the open air about the past school year and upcoming holidays and of course, Remus, who had left hours ago on a date.

“Is this considered spying?” Harry asked

“No, we just happen to be on the roof, and if Remus happens to come back while we’re out there then…I call it coincidence.”

“I think he might call us nosy berks.” Harry grinned around the top of his cup, before taking a sip, clearly not caring whether or not Remus found them to be intrusive. After years of Remus insisting he keep his flat, despite not using it for 9 months out of the year, Sirius had finally worked out a situation that met both their needs: a guest house. The backyard of Grimmauld Place was spacious--Sirius and his brother and his cousins had gotten lost in it as children when they strayed from the path-- and there was room for an entire tiny house to be built. Sirius hired a magical contractor, Remus demanded he pay for part of it, and the rest was history, Remus moving into the house the summer after Harry’s third year. They both still had their own spaces. They both still had their own boundaries. Remus still asked before he came into Number 12, especially if it was later in the night, and Sirius knocked before going into Remus’ guest house. But it worked. Even if their view from the roof could see the house in the distance, a lamp left on shining through the windows and breaking up the darkness of the ground.

“I never thought Remus would be the one who was going on all the dates,” Harry added.

“Do you mind it?”

“No,” Harry shook his head, and paused “Hey, Sirius?”

“Hey, Harry?”

“Do you think Remus will marry again?”

“I hope so.”

“Do you? Want to get married again?” Harry asked turning his head in Sirius’ direction, green eyes catching starlight. Sirius reached a hand forward, almost impulsively, stroking Harry’s face lightly. Fifteen was older than fourteen, James’ jawline as Sirius remembered it making an appearance in Harry’s face; eyebrows filling in, a smile that no longer seemed too big for his face.

“Can I be straight with you?” Sirius asked

“I don’t know, can you?” Harry returned smartly and Sirius choked on the sip of his butterbeer he had taken at precisely the wrong moment, peels of laughter wafting into the night sky decorated by starlight and winter clouds.

“Your Dad would’ve loved that joke,” Sirius said once he finally had control over his breath and was sure he wasn’t going to fall to his death off the roof.

“Was he funny?”

“I don’t think he meant to be,” Sirius said, “He…we joked around a lot together, he was always the person I felt I could be the most ridiculous with but…I don’t know if people would’ve described him as funny. Your Mum though? Hysterical. She was really quick on her feet…she’d have me laughing so hard sometimes at her responses.”

“Like you?”

“She was better,” Sirius told him.

“You can be straight with me.”

“I didn’t really want to get married in the first place, love.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“So…why did you?”

Because it was never 50/50 in a relationship. Because there was always someone who gave more, and someone who took more. Because there was always someone who worked hard to keep things running smoothly, and the other sailed along for the ride. Because after everything that happened, marrying Remus felt like the least Sirius could do to make everything feel normal again.

“Remus wanted to.” Sirius told him simply, “And I love Remus. Always will, and I’d do anything for him. If he woke up tomorrow and said he wanted to marry me again, I’d probably do it.”

“Really?”

“It’s what…you do.” It’s what I do.

“I know you’ve told me…why…did you two end, do you think? You know, now that you’re older and wiser.”

“We were kids when we fell in love, Harry,” Sirius told him after considering for a moment, his hand still on Harry’s face, thumb stroking cheekbone. “We were…two kids just trying to hate ourselves a little less and saw each other and didn’t want to let go. We were young and…then there was a war and we were terrified all the time. When your parents died it was like this…scary, massive space that was left behind. And…we held onto each other because who else did we have? We started because we wanted to hate ourselves a little less and ended up hating each other a little bit more.”

“But…now?”

“I love Remus, you know. We love each other, even if we’re not together. I loved him even when I hated him and he’d tell you the same thing, I hope.”

“Do you think you’ll ever…find love again?”

“I think, that the love I have to offer is best given to you. And Remus.”

“I don’t want you to be lonely once I move out…”

Sirius gasped, “You’re moving out? What? When?”

Harry cracked a smile, “I just mean…eventually.”

“You can stay forever.”

“Don’t…you want another love? Isn’t that what…makes the world spin and all that stupid stuff?”

“I had that once, Harry. With Remus. It was…passionate and wild and…sometimes I think about the time we had in our little flat after graduation and the early days here at Number 12 and they’re so…beautiful. I had that kind of great love once. Some people might get more than one shot, but I…don’t think that's me. I think I am just supposed to have you.”

“Seems…unfair that I get all of it.”

“Nah.” Sirius said, “Why are you wondering?”

Harry paused for a long time and then broke eye contact to look at his feet, stretched out in front of him, “I mean there's…a girl. And…I might have snogged her before the hols and I’ve just been thinking about it. Love? I know that makes me a tosser but…”

Sirius grinned widely, watching as his godson fidgeted nervously as he revealed the information, “Well first things, was it a good snog?”

“I…think so.” Harry said and looked up again, “I told her she could write me over hols and she didn’t say no…so I feel like that’s a good sign, right?”

“Very good.” Sirius nudged Harry with his shoulder, “Second…your parents had the greatest love on this Earth. Your Dad would talk about your mother like she opened the sky and love was this big thing that could move mountains. I think you inherited that.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhmm,” Sirius nodded, and then picked up his wand, waving it in a pattern in front of them, light appearing in the shape of two trees twisted around each other, “See these trees? How they’re wrapped around each other?” Harry nodded, “They can grow like that for a little bit, using each other for support, but eventually the branches get knotted and they knock leaves off one another because they’re too close and they stop growing,” Sirius waved his wand again, the trees unraveling into two separate ones, extending taller and he watched as Harry’s face lit up at the magic. Still a child in the way the little things expanded his mind. “But separate? Look what they can do. Sometimes they need to do that to grow. And I think…all relationships are about finding someone you can grow with.”

“That…” Harry smiled a little, “makes a lot of sense.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now tell me, who is--” but the sound of the back door of Number 12 opening and closing cut Sirius off, Remus’ form walking onto the path towards the guest house, looking upward to spot the two of them on the roof. “Welcome back, Moons!” shouted Sirius.

“Room for one more up there?” asked Remus back, his wand up to his throat to magnify his voice magically

“Depends, can you make the climb? You might hurt yourself!” Harry responded and Sirius laughed. He and Harry used the trellis on the side of the house, the same way Sirius had snuck out as a teenager, not bothering with magic or brooms. Remus apparated though, appearing next to Harry and nudging him for the cheek.

“I’m as fit as I ever was, thank you,” Remus said absorbing into Sirius’ warming charm.

“You’re just in time,” Sirius told him, “Harry was going to tell me every last detail about this girl he snogged.”

“Oh, Ms. Chang, wasn’t it? It was the talk of the staff room before the break,” Remus grinned back and Harry’s eyes went wide. Sirius laughed, taking his sip from his butterbeer as Harry proceeded to follow up with Remus about what the teachers all knew and how they found out, thinking this was all he could ever want. Thinking that there were no people more deserving of everything Sirius had to offer than his best friend and his kid.

--

May 1996

“It….seems you get full custody now,” Minister Fudge said carefully, examining the paperwork in front of him.

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No, it just…is, Mr. Lupin,” he said signing on the line on the bottom of the page, “You are granted custody and all his possessions…there's a list here of things he wanted you to have. He left quite a lot to Mr. Harry James Potter, but of course, he stipulated that you manage the money and the estate until…” Fudge laughed, though it was hollow and empty like the air in the room. Like the cavities of Remus’ chest. “He is of age and passes his NEWT in Arithmancy and can look at the Black Estate ledger without getting a tension headache.”

“Sounds…like Sirius…” Remus mumbled, clenching his fists to keep his hands from shaking. Not even 36 and Sirius had thought about a will. So like him to be well-kept and organized, a tragedy turned into a political affair once there were massive amounts of money to be allocated. Sirius knew that though. Sirius…prepared for every emergency.

If disaster struck, there was a chance Sirius has already thought about it ten times over and had come up with a plan to get them out of it in three different ways. Flood or hell-fire or duels or a second plague and Sirius had prepared for it.

Except he didn’t prepare Remus for what it would feel like when he was no longer there. He didn’t leave behind a set of instructions for Remus to follow that included what to do when their fifteen-year-old kept waking up in the middle of the night screaming and calling his name or recipes for the fudge he made every Christmas or even how to be the person in the room who made everyone feel like they belonged.

Because Remus had never felt more out of place in his life.

Every space felt emptier now.

--

June 1996

“Normal” for their house had shifted drastically. Morphing from high thread count sheets to a thread barren blanket that was too short for a bed. Some days, it covered them just fine; most days…it left them cold and shaking, and worst of all Harry never knew which one it was going to be. He slept on the couch of Remus’ guest house, not strong enough to walk the several feet into the back door of his home. Not certain he’d be able to look at the empty kitchen chairs without falling to his knees and crying until tears dried out.

Normal--Sirius and Remus; Remus and Sirius-- was no more.

It was just Remus now and Harry found himself wishing for the days he spent as a child living out of a suitcase. Because even if it was hard, and Harry hated when he forgot his favorite pair of jeans in his dress, it meant that there were two places he could count on. It meant that eventually, the clothes would run out and Harry would return home and Sirius would be there.

Smiling.

Waiting.

With clean sheets.

And his favorite pair of jeans.

And two tattooed arms that wrapped around him tightly and made sure everything was okay.

It wasn’t okay.

--

“I want to leave,” Harry said one evening, pretending to eat dinner across from Remus. Both their plates were still full despite sitting there for nearly a half-hour. “I don’t think I can be here.”

“Okay.”

“Where do we go?”

I’m not sure anywhere is going to feel like home again.

“We…can figure that out. Wherever you want. Whatever you want.”

“It hurts too much to be here.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I…he worked so hard to make sure that…this big house was good. He let me paint on the walls and…there's still a scribble in the sitting room…I feel bad leaving it behind but I can’t breathe here.”

“Me neither.”

“I think we need to start breathing again.”

Somehow.

“It’s yours, you know.” Remus told him, “Whenever you’re ready…it’ll be waiting for you.”

--

May 2003

Harry was surprised the house still recognized him, Grimmauld Place appearing as he approached the front door, magic searing through his palm as he touched the knob.

It was quiet. So unlike what he remembered from the house who built him. He remembered music playing. He remembered the way it smelled--spices and sandalwood, sometimes fresh mint, Sirius telling him it was relaxing and Harry would roll his eyes. His shoes made the floorboards creak, the house moaning at someone else's presence.

Do you belong here?

Harry walked through, using cleaning charms along the way, thinking of how Sirius would’ve hated the cobwebs hanging on the stair railing banisters and the dust clinging to picture frames of his parents in the hallway. Neither Remus nor Harry had been back to Number 12 since the day they moved out of the guest house all those years ago. He had cried on the driveway for an hour before taking the welcome mat that said wipe your paws as the only reminder of Sirius, everything else too painful to even touch. Remus had waited for him in the car, the two of them finding a nicer flat in no time at all, almost taking the first option they saw because anything was better than a guest house on your dead godfather's property. It had been a long set of years, filled with trying his best to move on in a world that had much less laughter and light in it.

Everything had gone dark for a little.

And Harry did his best to learn from Remus and Sirius's mistakes and tried not to cling to the first person who felt familiar. He did his very best to grow and learn, now expecting his first child with Ginny, who had come along years after Harry had found the shore again, and they needed a home.

Height marks carved into the threshold in the kitchen.

The desk where Harry used to do his homework in the library, a book left open from Christmas of 1995. An unintentional time capsule.

Harry took a breath as he approached the door at the end of the hallway on the first floor, pushing it open, immediately hit with the overwhelming sensation of Sirius and his study.

It felt like he should’ve been there. Standing behind his desk, because Sirius never worked sitting down, always moving around, using the walls and the entire space to craft his ideas and write his essays. As if a mind so big and so brilliant needed an entire room to organize everything clearly. The walls were bright violet. Harry remembered painting it with him. Pale blue shag carpet. A picture of the two of them on Sirius’ desk.

Harry sat down in the leather chair behind his godfather's desk, closing his eyes. If he stayed there long enough, maybe Sirius would just…appear. Like he had been tucked away, just out of sight, for years and he’d come around the corner with his comforting smile and loud laugh and say did you miss me?

Yes.

More than you could possibly know.

He opened the top draw of Sirius’ desk slowly, hands gravitating towards a simple black journal. Sirius wrote in one because his Dad had written in one.

I started after your Dad died, and he might have been onto something.

Harry wrote in one as well.

It felt wrong, but Harry opened the journal to a random page, his godfather’s neat cursive handwriting across the top of the yellowing paper, and his heart stopped.

February 1996

Remus and I. We had our time. I keep telling myself that no matter how…real it feels now when we’re alone in the sitting room, our time has passed. Our love was another century ago and we can’t go back.

I wish I could.

He tells me I'm the brave one but...not this time around. I fucked it up once already.

I would ask to try again if I thought he wanted to.

Right person.

Wrong time.

how do people not have gay thoughts ?

most of the time when i read a male author trying to create a female character, i see the same fucking plot or the same fucking story (even when its a poem) all she does is think abt her potential boyfriend or husband!

im so sick of this!

i'll literally marry anyone who makes this for me as breakfast while im still lying in bed on a september morning and a folklore track is playing somewhere.....bonus cookie points for the eggs and bacons and a nice cup of coffee...:)

my bestie made moony’s toasts. that’s it. that’s the post.

Listen, this is gonna get sappy but I don’t care.

I am so grateful to be a young person right now. I will never take it for granted that growing up, I am being raised at a point where loving who you want and being who you are is being normalized.

I will never take it for granted that on TV, I could watch two men kiss and not bat an eyelash. I will never take it for granted that I could see a cast with so many POC and it not even register with me that it was that diverse until someone pointed it out. It was just kind of, normal. (And so well done on the part of the makers of the show.) There are so. many. people. before me that did not get that kind of representation. Even people just a little bit older than myself were so excited after Stede and Ed kissed, because they finally hadn’t been let down or queer baited.

I will never take for granted the beautiful and rich representation that I and many others got from a show like Our Flag Means Death, (and the future shows that do it as well that will one day be made)

another art block means another wolfstar 

say whatever you need to, but please. STAY.

Share. Please. In honor or this nameless hero whom because of this letter he or she sent me, could save a life tonight. 

again, my box is always open.

Sinner

I’m too loud for god. too gay. too lustful. too woman. too human.

Today is a holy night.

My mother sits and prays her night away in hopes of a better year.

I’ve been in my bed for two weeks.

drowning in work,

so suffocated in my sadness I cannot get to it.

But my drowning is normal.

My lust is silent.

And as long as my legs are covered and my hands are unseen, as long as my pain remains hidden under the sheer black bandages that are draped over my shoulders, no one will care.

My bones are hollowed, my organs emptied, my hair has fallen victim to the hunger. 

So god, will you take me?

Spare me your bullshit and let me die.

let me rest.

I was begged to pray today, to spend the night reading and pleading. 

Well, this is it. This is me pleading, this is my prayer.

I write this as I sin. I write this as I dream of the pleasure of a woman’s touch. As I dream of a queer love, a new love, a lustful love. But you should know that, you made me carry this love, then you punished me for it.

Yes, I am a sinner, I proudly choose hell, I choose its fumes, its pain, its heat. and I would do it again, and again, and again.

Because I write this as I sin. I write this as I fantasise about the sound of an ocean enveloping me or a rope hugging me into my final dream. I write this as I feel the peace of death comforting me because I know that her kiss makes me dirty.

I welcome its filth. 

poems to read while having breakfast at the heartbreak hotel

I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II) by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale

[you fit into me] by Margaret Atwood

You by Carol Ann Duffy

Be Near Me by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Blessed be the spectacle by Lev St. Valentine

You Are Tired (I Think) by E.E. Cummings

Hope you're well. Please don't read this by Lev St. Valentine

To Say Dark Things by Ingeborg Bachmann

Lilichka by Vladimir Mayakovski

Love and Hate by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal

Sanctuary by Jean Valentine

the winter sun says fight by Peter Gizzi

The More Loving One by W. H. Auden

A Primer For The Small Weird Loves by Richard Siken

Dirty Valentine by Richard Siken

Morning by Frank O Hara

We Don't Know How To Say Goodbye by Anna Akhmatova

You'll Live, But I'll Not… by Anna Akhmatova

from “An Attempt at Jealousy” by Marina Tsvetaeva

The Last Toast by Anna Akhmatova

In Dream by Anna Akhmatova

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

Talking In Bed by Philip Larkin

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats

i hv always imagined (since the oh-so-overwhelming epiphany) what it would be like to just say the words...just say it out loud to my parents. i really felt it when sirius said, "i didn't know being gay was an option."

I felt that. i have been in denial of my sexuality for a very long time, so being able to say this rn, it feels good.

Broken Things

(when an anon asks for a bi-harry coming out moment...you write a bi-harry coming out moment to his two gay dads. I'm not sure if this is angsty enough but...'tis here.)

cw: for sexual identity exploration; coming out questions...teen angst about identity?

Because up until his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry hadn't even thought about being gay. Because he took one look at Cho Chang and his head exploded, his tongue getting tied up in what would be the perfect thing to say and falling short every time. He found himself staring at long jet black hair, wondering if it would feel as silky as it looked and wondering if he would ever get to know her well enough to find out. But...

But then there was Cedric Diggory. The boy with the soft brown curls and wide smile who once smiled at Harry and his head exploded a second time. Cedric and Cho could've gathered around the grounds with tiny brooms and a dustpan, picking up the remnants of Harry's skull as he muddled through blushes and heart palpitations every time Cedric so much as breathed in his direction.

--

Okay.

Sirius was gay. Harry knew Sirius was gay. Because Harry had been born, and Sirius was there, with Remus, who was his boyfriend, which could've been enough information. But then Harry grew up with Sirius and Remus. Remus was also gay. And Harry knew this too.

Sirius and Remus. Together. They were together. They were married, though Harry was barely four when they got married and only remembered from pictures what the day could've been like. In the backyard of Grimmauld Place. Remus said that Sirius really outdid himself and Sirius said he'd do it again in a cardboard box.

Sirius had a husband, and Sirius was gay. Remus was his husband and Remus was gay. Harry knew this. But he didn't...

he didn't know much else about the...being part.

Because up until his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry hadn't even thought about being gay. Because he took one look at Cho Chang and his head exploded, his tongue getting tied up in what would be the perfect thing to say and falling short every time. He found himself staring at long jet black hair, wondering if it would feel as silky as it looked and wondering if he would ever get to know her well enough to find out. But...

But then there was Cedric Diggory. The boy with the soft brown curls and wide smile who once smiled at Harry and his head exploded a second time. Cedric and Cho could've gathered around the grounds with tiny brooms and a dustpan, picking up the remnants of Harry's skull as he muddled through blushes and heart palpitations every time Cedric so much as breathed in his direction. And it wasn't like Harry was counting the breaths, because that would be insane, (but it had been twice) and Harry left both conversations wiping his hands on his school trousers, hoping his face didn't give away just how truly enamored he was.

And that was the trouble.

The trouble was...he didn't think he was gay.

The trouble was...he might be gay.

The trouble was he didn't know how to think or feel about either thing and instead spent nights lying awake in bed, especially as winter holidays approached knowing his attentive godfather would surely pick up on something. Remus already had noticed the crease in Harry's eyebrows when they met for Sunday tea at school, asking Everything okay? enough times for Harry to start avoiding tea altogether. Home from school for the holidays, Harry waited until Remus had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room in front of the fireplace--as he usually did when the school bells stopped ringing and Remus got to indulge in just as much sleep as he wanted-- and he was alone with Sirius in the library. A record player turning softly in the background, a tea tray on the table, though it had hot cocoa instead.

Harry swallowed, feeling uncomfortable on the couch, even though that was usually his favorite place to sit; maybe it was his skin he wanted to crawl out of this time. "...Hey Sirius?"

"Hey, Harry?"

"So..the rule about me asking you any question is still okay...right?

Any question except the ones about your crushes on boys. And crushes on girls.

Keep that to yourself.

It's teenager stuff and it'll...pass. You don't even know what you're feeling.

"Always," Sirius said and sat up from his lounging position in an armchair so he could look at Harry, giving him his full attention. Grey eyes met his own across the table and Harry squirmed for the briefest of moments.

It's Sirius. He loves you. Always. You know this.

Don't you?

"When...when did you know you were gay?"

Harry expected a question in return, fingers gripping the knees of his jeans in preparation.

Why are you asking me that? What made you think of that? Who asked you to ask me that? You should mind your own--

Stop it.

"Which version would you like?"

"What?"

"There's the real version, and there's the version I tell people I've come out to throughout the years that's...more...dignified."

"...Can I...have both?"

Sirius grinned, "For you, anything," he said simply and Harry already felt better, though his fingers still found absent threads on his clothing, on the couch, picking to avoid looking fully at Sirius. "For a very long time, I didn't know being gay was an option. It hadn't occurred to me. My family was traditional and sex wasn't something we spoke about. Marriage and...procreation was all about maintaining blood purity, carrying the Black line and not...about pleasure or...anything." Sirius started, and Harry found himself sitting up a little straighter, his hands slowing their picking as he listened to his godfather, his answer already unexpected, "I didn't know any different until I was shown it could be different and that was at Hogwarts through...hands-on experience."

"I don't need to know those bits, thanks."

He laughed, "Abridged version. I didn't...really realize until I was about fifteen or so that I liked men. I just assumed I had to like women and thought that...I was just too broken and damaged and defective to enjoy being with them. But... you know, from what I'd been raised in, pleasure didn't matter."

"Why would you think that? That...you were broken?" Harry asked, eyebrows knitting together. Sirius was his favorite person in the world--he looked at his godfather and saw easy confidence and brilliance that he hoped to reach someday--how could he ever look at himself and think he was anything less than whole?

"I..." Sirius paused for the first time, a sort of pain passing through his features briefly, "Thought a lot of unkind things about myself when I was a teenager. But, when I got to Hogwarts, as I got older, there were some students who were queer, that...I kind of saw myself in. Remus showed me David Bowie and Queen and I actually found out my Uncle-- Alphard, remember? I've talked about him?" and Harry nodded, "He was gay. I didn't find out until after receiving his share of the Black estate though. Point is...I was overjoyed the first time I kissed a boy and liked it, and I realized I wasn't the broken thing. That...I didn't have to like women."

You are not the broken thing. You are not defective.

"It brought its own set of challenges of course but...I was much happier with myself after coming to that conclusion."

"..You said there's another version?"

"Oh. Yeah," Sirius grinned widely, his grey eyes twinkling, "There was a seventh-year. Ravenclaw Quidditch player by the name of Porter Turpin. And at the beginning of fifth year, I took one look at his arse in his uniform trousers and that really...confirmed my suspicions."

"Did you snog him?" Harry asked through laughter and the acid that was still lingering in the pit of his stomach.

"Oh, you want to know now?"

"Well yeah, now it's important."

"We did snog, quite proud of myself for that one." Sirius said, leaning forward onto his knees to catch Harry's gaze from across the room, "Anything else?"

What if I can't decide? What happens then? Did someone forget to flip a switch one way or the other? I'm somewhere in the middle of off and on and the lights keep flickering.

Broken. Shorting out.

"No."

--

Getting Remus alone was harder, Harry not realizing how much Remus and Sirius actually spent together until trying to get them apart. Harry could remember when he was younger pulling faces at the kisses they shared in the middle of the kitchen, or the way he would sometimes find them wrapped up in each other on the sofa. Or when they would share a single glass of wine at the Weasleys for dinner, taking turns taking sips like a well-choreographed routine, never understanding why they couldn't just have their own. But as he got older, he saw the morning embraces and the way Remus's head would fall on Sirius's shoulder in the evening and Harry couldn't look away.

What was it like to find your other half? What was it like to know who your other half was going to be?

Harry was able to get Remus alone, up in their bedroom, as he put away laundry into the dresser. Harry had been given his own basket to put away (which was presently being ignored, but a sexual identity crisis took precedent over folding t-shirts), and had taken a small detour, sitting on the foot of their big bed as Remus opened drawers by magic.

"D'you...want me to pair the socks?"

"You're offering?"

"I'm sitting here is all..."

"Be my guest, Harry." He said, folding a pair of jeans not so carefully. Harry grabbed a sock from the pile, going through the combination of patterns and sizes to find its missing side.

"...Remus?"

"Hm?"

Remus loves you too. You know this.

...Don't you?

"When...did you...when did you know you were gay?"

"Oh, well..." Remus paused to think in the center of the room, "I don't think there was one defining moment...I think I always knew I was gay."

Harry had to stifle a sigh, wondering what it must be like to grow up knowing everything there was to know about yourself. Remus always knew he wanted to be a professor too.

"Yeah but...did you ever think that maybe you weren't?"

"Love," Remus smiled softly, "I shared a dormitory with Sirius. I stood absolutely no chance at ever thinking I was anything but."

"But....what if that was just Sirius. Can't you like a person? Not...their...like it...doesn't have to be..." Harry fumbled awkwardly, sock tumbling out of his hand and onto the floor. He bent forward off the bed to retrieve it, blood rushing to his head and deciding that was much better than trying to articulate how am I supposed to know I'm gay or if I just really like Cedric as a friend who I barely talk to and only see in hallways, who happens to have dimples and curls and smells nice?

Remus let magic take the rest of the pants and put them into the drawer, not caring if a leg got caught and that it didn't close perfectly, coming to sit next to Harry on the bed, "When I was younger, I didn't have the words to explain being best friends with a boy in my neighborhood. I just had really big feelings. And then..eventually, I got words, and unfortunately, most of them were swear words--" Harry snorted, "But some describing once too. And the same big feelings I had when I was younger were still there when I was 12 and then 15 and then...now? And it wasn't just around Sirius. It was...around muggle boys I met during summer holidays, and every time I got a copy of Rolling Stone magazine."

Harry thought of the extra time he spent looking at Quidditch Mag. The intense heat at the back of his neck when he flipped to a page with Viktor Krum. Harry knew the big feeling well.

"So...what did you do? About...?"

"I'm afraid I'm rather boring, Harry. There was no Great Goblin Crusade moment in my coming out story... when a girl would ask me to Hogsmeade, I'd just tell her I wasn't interested and that was it. My friends knew, my parents knew...that's all that mattered to me."

"Hm."

Harry felt Remus's long fingers run over his hair, "Anything else?"

But what if I am interested? How am I supposed to respond? Can I have both? Will you love me all the same?

"No."

--

It had been days since speaking with both Remus and Sirius, nights spent tossing and turning, days spent in a fog as a flurry of faces and features clouded his mind.

Oliver Wood's broad shoulders, he noticed those.

Cho's silken hair; her white smile, he noticed too.

Cedric's light eyes, caught in hallways.

Parvati was pretty, gold jewelry on her fingers. He couldn't help but glance at Angelina's long legs during Quidditch practice.

He liked both. He wanted both.

Heart hammering in his chest in cadence with his feet down the wooden floorboards of the hallway, rushing until he reached Remus and Sirius' room, and knocked before entering. Not caring if he was fourteen, almost fifteen, and too old to be doing this; not caring if they were awake or sleeping or if he made too much noise, Harry climbed into bed, taking the empty spot next to Sirius, the spot that was vacant because his godfather always slept close to Remus.

Sirius rolled over, eyes half-open, Remus stirring beneath him, "Harry?"

"Hi," he said meekly, drawing his legs up underneath his chin, and wrapping his arms around himself as Remus and Sirius both sat up.

"What's going on? Is everything okay?" Remus asked, his voice scratchy, flicking his wrist to turn on the bedside lamp.

"I don't know."

"Hey, hey," Sirius said, warm hand connecting with his face, sensing the change in emotion faster than Harry could even start to comprehend it. He was too old to be in their bed, he was too old to be crying.

What if I'm the broken thing?

"My love," Sirius said, "What's all this now?"

"I don't know." Harry managed, looking at Sirius's face, "I...I...think I might be gay."

"Okay."

"And...and...also not gay? I...don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't...I thought if I just asked you both when you knew, that I would know. But...all it did was make me more confused because obviously, I know you...you're gay, and...other people aren't and...I'm not? but I am? and...I-I-I-I don't know."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Sirius told him gently, pulling him into his chest, and Harry clung to the fabric of Sirius's shirt like a life vest "Absolutely nothing."

He felt Remus's hand on his back, rubbing in slow circles the way he always did. Harry could remember being much younger, Remus bringing him into his arms after every skinned knee, rhythmic patterns on his back slowing tears in seconds.

"It's...called bisexual," Remus explained, his voice soothing, calm, and steady, "If...you...like both. You can like both. More than one. You can fancy girls... and you can fancy boys."

"But--"

"You can like both. Or neither or everything," Remus continued, "And you're also fourteen and...can keep figuring this out."

"I..." Harry released a breath into Sirius's chest, Remus's words washing over him, washing away worry and the ache in his bones that wouldn't subside. Sirius's words echoed in his mind: i didn't know being gay was an option. Harry didn't know either. "I...It's okay?"

"Mhmm," Sirius said, "It's okay. It's great, even. We love you, no matter what."

"There is nothing in this world you could do that would make us stop loving you, Harry James," Remus added, giving enough space between the two of them for Harry to crawl into. He had told himself the last time he slept in their bed at thirteen was going to be the last time. And the time before that at 11 before his first day at Hogwarts. But this time was going to be his last...even if it was the safest place he could imagine being. Settled between his two pillars of strength, quieting all fears with a simple i love you.

you can keep figuring it out.

you can like both. or neither. or everything.

bisexual.

a new word settling on the roof of his mouth, eager to make itself at home.

"...Even...even if I'm straight?" He asked, his arms circled around one of Sirius's, head sharing Remus's pillow.

Sirius laughed, kissing Harry on the top of his head, as Remus flicked his wrist, the room going dark once more. "Even then. Especially then."

-