Chapter Twenty-Four
The next few days passed by quickly. Harry stayed at Hogwarts with his mates each night spending the days with his family and even venturing down to the dungeons to see Lily though that was mostly because she was with Severus so much. He helped his brother and sister with their studies, their end of the year exams coming up faster than they were prepared for. He even found time to fly with Charlie and James together, he regaled them with some of the stories of his quidditch games as they passed the quaffle around.
Harry was in Remus’ office sitting on the desk while Remus sat behind it and Sirius in front of it with a lap desk. He had been tricked into helping his mates grade papers with the promise of another date as long as they actually finished the grading before exams. So naturally Harry had offered to help and his mates had, apparently, anticipated that to be his answer and had handed him a stack they had already made specifically for him.
Harry would have thrown it at their heads just for that, but he needed a reason to go shopping for new robes so he relented. Though he wasn’t happy about it.
“Your first years are terrible spellers.” Harry told Sirius, “They’re lucky you don’t grade based on grammar or spelling because if you did they’d all fail.”
“They’re first years.” Sirius said
“Yeah and everything they need to know to spell is inside of the book they are practically copying word for word. It shouldn’t be this terrible.”
“Just grade the papers.”
“While we are on the topic of teaching however, have you decided if you’re taking an apprenticeship with Severus?” Remus asked looking up from his own papers to look at Harry, “If not then we need to decide before the end of the school year whether we are staying on as professors or if we should give our notice to Dumbledore. Despite you being able to come every day to Hogwarts I doubt you will want to.”
“I was going to talk to him about it this weekend. Potions isn’t my favorite topic of all, but it’s not terrible and I always found it interesting so it’s not like it will be terrible. I just want to ask him about a few things first.”
“Well when you decide let us know so we can decide what would be the best thing to do for all of us.”
“I will. Although I could always just lay in your bed all day waiting for my mates to return to me after a long hard day of teaching teenagers.”
"You would be miserable in three days.” Sirius told him with a laugh.
“Very true.”
“Although there is nothing stating that you can’t just take a few months or even a year to take a break, if anyone deserves a year off it’s you.” Remus said
“What would I even do with a year…well besides hanging around here.”
“Well for starters you could start filling me in on what I missed this past year.” Harry turned, surprised to find the familiar face standing between his Papa, Uncle Frankie, and his dad.
“Cillian? What are you doing here?” Harry asked
“You told me you were finishing your NEWTs the last week of May so I thought I’d give you a week of relaxation before I came down to see you again. Apparently you have left a lot out of your letters.” Harry stood up from the desk and rounded it slowly, he looked at his Papa briefly before looking back at Killian.
“Yeah well…I’ve been busy with everything.” Harry said
“So this is Cillian?” Sirius asked, Harry turned to the man watching him size up the almost nineteen year old.
“Yeah. Hi. I’m Cillian.” Cillian greeted, shaking both Sirius’ and Remus’ hands.
“I’m Sirius, this is my husband, Remus.” Sirius introduced them, “We’re Harry’s -”
“Family friends.” Sirius jerked his head in Remus’ direction seemingly just as taken back by his words as Harry was.
“What? “Sirius asked
“What?” Remus turned to Sirius before looking back at Cillian, “We’ve been friends with James since we were 11.”
“Oh really?” Cillian asked with a grin as he looked between the two men and James, “That’s wicked. I’m sure there are a lot of stories between you three.”
“You have no idea.” James said, stepping forward as he stared at his two friends.
“Well anyway Harry I came to ask you if you’re free tonight? Thought we could go get dinner and catch up a bit. You could fill me in on everything you left out in your monthly letters.”
Harry stared at his mates, willing them to say something….anything. Remus was avoiding everyone’s eyes while Sirius looked conflicted as he stared at his Alpha mate, Harry, and everyone else. Despite Sirius not being an Omega, he had served as Remus’ Omega replacement in one way or another for over twenty years, he was still a more submissive mate to an Alpha. But he was also a mate to an Omega now, he was getting pulled in two opposite directions and Harry wasn’t going to make it worse. So he stared at Remus for a few more seconds before he turned to Cillian.
“Apparently I’m free.” Harry told him.
“Perfect. Maybe tomorrow we could all grab lunch together? I would love to meet your twin brother and little sister.”
“Yeah sure.” Harry easily agreed as he walked towards the door with Cillian, “Give me a few minutes to change and we can head out. Grab an early dinner or we could go to that Dueling Club we used to go to all the time.”
“Sounds great. I’ll just go to the gates and wait for you there.”
Harry didn’t bother to look back at his mates as he headed to the dorms and changed into more casual clothing. On his way to the gates he didn’t run into anyone and he didn’t linger, pushing his mates out of his mind for the moment to enjoy a few hours with a friend who just so happened to be an ex.
********
“What the hell was that?!” Sirius rounded on Remus the moment Harry was gone from the office, “A family friend? Seriously?”
“Well it’s better than what you were going to do.” Remus snapped as he looked at Sirius, “What was your plan? Stake a claim on him? Tell someone Harry is an omega Lycan and that we are his mates? Out, not only his status, but mine as well as a dangerous creature?”
“Of course not! I wasn’t going to tell the guy we were mates, but I sure as hell was going to let him know Harry wasn’t available. Made sure he knew Harry was spoken for.”
“You can not- Sirius you can’t just- I was letting Harry decide what to tell him..”
“No.” Sirius snapped, stepping closer to his husband, “What you were doing was distancing yourself. Again. You did the exact same thing to me. You distanced yourself and put space between us just like that until we almost broke up because I felt like you didn’t want me anymore or need me anymore and I will not let you do that to Harry.”
“Sirius-”
“You got scared. You got a stupid wave of insecurity or self doubt or what have you and you found the perfect out that you’ve been looking for. You panicked when faced with an outsider and instead of accepting your wolf and all that it comes with, you went and panicked and not only distanced yourself, but also hurt Harry in the process.”
Remus opened his mouth, but Sirius wasn’t finished.
“Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t or that Harry doesn’t need clingy Alphas staking a claim on him, I know that. But has it ever crossed your mind that Harry wants us to? No, of course not. You only thought about yourself then went ahead and put me in the middle of either betraying you or hurting Harry. Now, thanks to you, our mate is out there with his fucking ex-boyfriend for who knows how long and who fucking knows if he’s coming back here tonight after what you said so I might not even be able to see him until tomorrow.”
“Sirius-”
“Don’t. Just- Just don’t.” Sirius stepped away from Remus before shaking his head and walking out of the office.
He wanted to go back to the rooms and tell Harry not to go, but he was sure it was too late already, something in his gut telling him Harry wasn’t in the rooms anymore. Besides Sirius just needed to clear his head after that, he needed a moment to breathe and let whatever it was inside of his body that felt like it was trapped between Remus and Harry earlier to settle down and relax a little.
Sirius didn’t return to the room until after nightfall, Remus was already in the bedroom, but Sirius didn’t go in there and instead sat on the couch and waited. He wanted to see Remus, apologize to him, but something kept telling him to stay on the couch and wait for Harry. Let Remus be for the night. Focus on Harry. So he did. He stayed on the couch and watched the time slowly pass. The hours passed until finally a few minutes passed midnight the door to the hall opened and Sirius turned to see Harry stepping into the room. Sirius released a relieved breath only for it to catch in his throat when Cillian followed Harry,
“Charlie’s room is just there. He doesn’t ever sleep in it so you’re free to use it for the night.” Harry spoke softly as he opened the door to Charlie’s room clearly not wanting to wake anyone.
“Okay. Thanks.” Cillian was clearly tipsy as he leaned heavily against the wall, “Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Yeah it’s fine, I’ll just tell James you’re in Charlie’s room because you were stupid. Really Cillian, just go in there and get some sleep.” Cillian lingered for a moment before he nodded then walked into the bedroom leaving Harry to close the door behind him.
“Hey.” Harry greeted with a small smile when he noticed Sirius sitting on the couch, “Stayed up to make sure there wasn’t a goodnight kiss did you?” Harry was teasing now as he walked towards him removing his traveling cloak before setting it on the couch.
“No, just stayed up to see you.” Sirius told him, staring up at Harry as he stopped a few steps away from him, “Did you have fun?”
“If your definition of fun is hanging around an ex for the last few hours in a sweaty smoke smelling Dueling Club watching him get his ass beat in his weird attempt to impress you then sure. I had a blast.” Harry looked around the room, his eyes lingering on the bedroom door before looking back at Sirius, “Remus asleep?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t seen him in a while, we sort of- well I sort of yelled at him after you left.”
“You did?” Harry asked surprised, Sirius hummed sitting back against the couch relaxing now that Harry was back in the room and in front of him, “I’m sorry.”
“No. Don’t be. It’s not your fault, you certainly didn’t put me in a position where I felt no matter what I said or didn’t in this case would hurt one mate or the other. Not a very fun position to be in, that's for sure.”
Harry pressed his lips together for a moment before he held his hand out for Sirius to take, “Come on, let's go to bed.”
“You’re not going to ask?” Sirius stood up and followed Harry to his bedroom.
“I figured if you want to tell me you will.” Harry said, removing his shirt as he walked to the closet.
Sirius and Remus both came to realize Harry had very little regard for his state of undress. He was never really shy or hesitant about sleeping in his boxers or without a shirt on. They didn’t know if it had something to do with growing up around werewolves, or if it was something else, but they had learned pretty quickly to expect Harry to start undressing as soon as the bedroom door was closed.
“Remus never really accepted being a werewolf and anything that reminded him of being a werewolf. He never introduced me as his mate, hell he hardly ever called me his mate, always preferred different normal terms like boyfriend or husband. When we were younger, late teens, I learned that to werewolves the term Mate meant more than boyfriend did and so I started saying it. Remus got so uncomfortable about it though so I stopped. I know some of it was because he is one of the lucky ones that is not on the Ministry records, but it was only around family. People who knew what he was and we trusted. Anyway I always wanted him to call me his mate, but over the years I just moved on.”
“Then I came around.” Sirius nodded at Harry’s words.
“Then you come and he gets more comfortable with the word. Then your ex shows up and suddenly it’s like we’re teenagers again. It just feels like we went backwards.” Harry came out of the closet in a pair of pajama pants and came to stand between Sirius’ legs.
“Remus missed out a lot because of how he was raised and who raised him. In werewolf packs you learn a lot about being a werewolf and what it means. You have support and you grow up excited for the day you meet your mate. The only reason I didn’t actively seek you out the moment I smelled your scents was because I had my birth father and siblings waiting for me and it would be rude to ditch them for two strangers. Even weirder since it turned out to be two people they consider family.”
“Especially because we were sort of spying on James at that moment.” Sirius said
“Right.” Harry chuckled lightly as he sat on the edge beside Sirius so he was facing him, “Do you want to rant to someone who knows you don’t actually mean everything you say? I’m a great listener, you know.”
Sirius laughed, shaking his head, “No it’s alright.”
“Okay well if you’re sure then why don’t we lie down and get some sleep. I have a feeling we have a big day tomorrow between Cillian and Remus.”
“It’s not Remus you have to worry about if pretty boy gets too handsy with you.” Sirius mumbled darkly as he got off the bed and pulled the covers down, “I am a Black, I don’t know how much your Papa told you about us, but we can be quite creative if we need to be.” To Sirius’ surprise Harry looked oddly pleased, if a little red-cheeked when he looked up at the teen boy.
“You have nothing to worry about.” Harry told him as they got situated in the bed, Harry cuddling up to Sirius’ side and throwing an arm around his waist.
“Good.”