The North
Harry figured there was no point having high expectations.
In Harry’s mind, he was still that scrawny kid shoved under the staircase in his aunt’s house. They called him “bastard” and “freak.” They sneered at his dark hair and gaunt features. His uncle would speculate to his face about which southerner his whore mother had slept with. Harry didn’t understand that normal kids weren’t treated that way. To him, it was just life. Like spending his days laboring in his uncle’s shop and the regular beatings. His uncle had low expectations for Harry and still Harry didn’t live up to them. It felt a bit like the Dursleys were just waiting it out until Harry died.
Still, life was simple with the Dursleys. Stay quiet. Do as you’re told. Accept that everything bad that ever happens is your fault and be prepared to suffer the consequences. It was fine, Harry had learned how to take the punches.
By now, Harry had learned better. Except for all the ways he hadn’t.
He thought he’d live out his life half starved under that staircase. Then when he was the same age as his cousin Dudley started noticing girls, Harry started noticing boys. Before Dudley had ever sweet talked himself a lass, Harry had found himself feeling up Piers Polkiss behind the shop. Piers was grubby, with a fat nose and rough skin from too much time in the sun. Harry gave no fucks because Piers spat on his palm and jacked Harry off. His first orgasm from a bloke he didn’t even like. Fuck, it had been good. Harry had squeezed bruises into Piers’ arm while choking back little gasps. It was almost enough to give Harry big dreams, like getting jacked off in a private room instead of beside a trash heap. He couldn’t manage higher aspirations.
That dream was too big, anyway. Piers only wanted to fondle Harry in the alley. That’s how uncle Vernan found them. Both boys with their pants down, Piers’ rough hands squeezing their cocks together. Harry’s uncle came damn near close to killing him. The north bragged on how they tolerated queers, but Harry still woke up from nightmares of his uncle’s fists.
He’d thought living on the streets would be harder than it ended up. It wasn’t so bad. The weather was warm and he was used to being hungry. Low expectations were easy to meet.
He wasn’t looking for a job, he just heard a man barking about three hot meals a day. That was something to aspire to, Harry figured. So Harry found himself a soldier, signed up to his majesty King Voldermort’s royal army.
He told them he was gay. Cause he figured army folks would know how to beat a man all the way to death if they wanted to. Unlike his Uncle Vernon, they didn’t give a shit. They gave him condoms and made it clear healer bills weren’t covered if he got himself diseased.
In the army, Harry stayed quiet and did what he was told. He knew how to take punches. He watched boys barely trained be sent out to a war against a people he couldn’t name. But he also got three meals a day, and he liked knowing when it was his turn he wouldn’t die hungry.
He was gruff with everyone until no one even tried to befriend him. It hurt less, later, when he watched them all die. Except he still had nightmares about that battlefield and he woke up screaming.
Some of them didn’t die. The Creevey boys, one Harry’s age and one so young no sane person should have let him in. Their parents kicked it in a factory. The army seemed a better bet, or at least it gave you a bed to sleep on. Dobby, who no one wanted to like but he got under your skin. Like puss from a sword wound. He was shit with a blade but he kept the gear clean and did all the cook ups.
Cedric Diggory. He was all in charge and stuff, sent up from the south with dark hair and bright gray eyes. He was full grown, unlike the recruits who were scrawny boys who mostly had no food at home and lied about their age to get in. It was the first time Harry noticed a burly man like that. But even with all those chiseled features, Cedric had the longest lashes that looked so pretty.
Harry would have sworn up and down he wasn’t trying any extra at the job just to get noticed. Training was supposed to be the difference between life and death, but Harry’d seen plenty of blokes work hard and die for their efforts. For Harry it had always been just a thing you did. An order you followed. Then there was Cedric, in his pressed uniform with the silver buttons, his hair always perfectly tostled, speaking in that posh way that made Harry shiver. Those orders zinged through Harry. He put his all into following them for reasons that had nothing to do with staying alive.
He didn’t have any expectations. He figured Cedric wasn’t even into guys. Except for in those fleeting moments when his eyes lingered on Harry’s form when he perfectly executed a maneuver. His gray eyes went all dark and stormy like it was ‘bout to rain. If he was smart, Harry would forget it ever happened because Cedric never did anything. The most Harry could hope for was a brusk, “Well done.” All stern and swoon-worthy.
It was probably gross to crush so hard on an actual person who wasn’t interested. They just kept not dying together for more than a year. Harry felt guilty that that place, where so many boys went to die, was the best life he’d had until that point. He thought maybe it could be enough. Just keep living, with a bunch of blokes who treated him fair and a captain who was nice to look at.
It was actually stormy that night. They had to trudge through mud and shit to fight those fuckers in their pleated leather gear. The gear Dobby carried was to water logged he needed help and Harry’d been assigned. Dobby didn’t care that Harry refused to talk to him because he talked enough for the two of them. Harry knew Dobby’s whole life story, as uneventful as it was. From life on a farm destroyed by the war, to his three years since in the army. Plus at least a thousand of Dobby’s hopes and dreams. For such a little guy, he had big ambition.
Honestly, Harry expected Dobby to outlive them all. That was where he, and everyone else in the garrison, fucked up. You can’t go in having big ambitions. Big ambitions mean that when barbarians come out of the rain slog and cut up half your men before you start fighting back, you’re going to have to live with the let down. Harry expected Dobby to be fine like he always was, so Harry just left him there, with the gear, while Harry moved out with cold, apathetic efficiency. Harry was good like that. Killing cleared his mind. Reduced him to heartless movement.
Then he came back to himself and found Dobby foggy eyed and dead. Made him appreciate his time with the Dursleys, where he’d learned to accept that everything bad that ever happens is your fault and to be prepared to suffer the consequences.
They had to fucking go on. With almost everyone dead. Harry carried everything they couldn’t leave behind and wouldn’t let anyone help. They moved stealthy this time. Found whoever they needed to find. Killed them.
At base, Cedric had Harry, now his most senior soldier, stand with him when he gave the mission report. Eight out of ten dead. The death toll didn’t matter. The mission was declared a success. Cedric stood at attention as he accepted congratulations before being dismissed. But outside the room Harry could see Cedric was ashen.
They’d hardly made it outside before Cedric began to pant. He grasped at his chest, couldn’t seem to get any air. Harry caught him before he fell. Got him out of sight. Freaked out and began muttering nonsense questions like, “what’s wrong?” over and over again even though Cedric couldn’t fucking talk. Cedric clung to Harry for what felt like forever but maybe was no time at all.
Then Cedric came back to himself. He was able to breathe. Harry thought Cedric would push him away but he didn’t. Cedric took Harry to his officers quarters for a “celebratory drink,” at which point he told Harry he was promoted. Unsaid was how it was only because everyone else was dead.
“We’re going to die too, aren’t we?” Harry had asked.
Cedric finished his drink. Put his glass down. Stepped up to Harry, eyes dark gray and stormy.
Instead of answering the question they had sex. Because Cedric didn’t want to die without having sex with a man. And because Harry really fucking wanted him.
After that Cedric talked to him plenty. In private. In public, it was brusk orders and hard work. Harry was responsible for training recruits now and Cedric had demanding standards. First, Harry focused his time only on the biggest and strongest of the boys, leaving the rest to die. That was the first time Cedric ever yelled. He made sure Harry remembered how scrawny a boy he’d been when he joined. Made sure Harry knew that Dobby had lived three years being small and scrawny, and better yet kept more people alive because of it.
Cedric wouldn’t fuck when he was angry. Only when he was especially happy. Or when Cedric was terrified they were going to die and he wouldn’t get another chance.
Harry found himself trying desperately to make Cedric happy. He dedicated himself to training recruits. Each time a new soldier performed a new maneuver expertly Cedric would give Harry that look. The one that still made Harry’s stomach flip. Harry lavished his soldiers with attention and guidance. He did whatever it took to make them succeed.
Harry liked the desperate, I-may-die sort of sex. He liked how Cedric was too frantic to prep him slow and it burned to take him in. He liked feeling it after. It’s just Harry liked it when he was happy just a little more. Cedric would be so fucking gentle. He’d use his fingers and tongue to take Harry apart. Make Harry whimper and beg for it as Cedric got him loose and gooey and it was easy to slide even his giant cock all the way in.
When he was happy, Cedric would tell stories afterwards. He’d lived a full life as the son of a southern lord with a modest estate. He had everything a man should to live a comfortable life, but some politics got the best of their family and the king had turned on them. Cedric joined the army so his family could make amends. He planned to return home a hero. Find a nice wife, marry, have children. Simple ambitions that broke Harry’s heart.
Or so he thought, until Cedric stepped in front of the strike that was meant for Harry and the wrong man died. That was Harry’s first true heartbreak.
For the first time in battle, Harry ran hot. Rage made him reckless. He brutalized dying men as if their pain might make his go away. He wanted to kill everyone.
At base he had to stand at attention and accept their damned congratulations on his own. They gave him a medal. Commended him for his valor. Remarked on his success in training recruits. Noticed his dark hair and strong features. Said that he could almost pass as southerner, if not for the eyes. They had a need for new officers and so Harry was sent out for proper training.
Harry took Cedric’s body back with him to the south. Made sure his parents got to bury him proper.