Reunion

Reunion

Blake’s earliest memory was being left alone with a sitter, a cranky old woman who smelled like nicotine and cats named Tammy, while his mama went to work.

“Be good while I’m gone, I’ll see you in the morning, my Angel.”

Opal Reed always called Blake her angel. He was her gift from God, her miracle child, her rainbow baby.

It was an odd way to call him a mistake, a bastard born of a drunken one night stand, but Blake never doubted how much his mother loved him.

Opal worked three jobs to provide for Blake. She had been determined that her son would have the same opportunities every other kid had. Opal refused to see the discrimination Blake faced every day- a black boy in social housing being raised by a single white mother had no shortage of bullies.

Blake learned to fight young; fight hard, hit first, kick when they’re down, stand your ground.

Blake had to teach himself how to fight, because the man who fathered him never showed his face to do it himself.

Opal talked about Blake’s father as if he were a god, some sort of ideal man.

“He was a broken angel,” Opal would tell Blake when she had time to tell stories. “Every woman, hell, every person, in the club wanted him the instant he walked in the room. He just had one of those faces, you know? My, when he turned my way, I was flattered. But I saw past his handsome face,” Opal would wag her finger at Blake, “I saw his broken soul. Ooh, he was hurtin’ something fierce, angel. And I just left the man I thought I loved, a rotten bastard, and I thought I could fix your daddy with enough love.”

It wasn’t a surprise ending that Opal hadn’t been able to fix her broken angel. Instead, the man who Opal could only vaguely remember his name (“Named you Blake, after your daddy, I think.”) had left the flat Opal shared with three other roommates before she’d even woken up the next morning.

It went without saying that she hadn’t been able to find him to tell him about the bundle of joy she carried when she realized it six weeks later.

Opal’s parents, Blake’s grandparents, had cut her off when she refused to abort Blake.

“I lost two babies before you, I was never giving you up.”

Opal never had any more kids after Blake and she never married. Not for a lack of suitors though, Opal Reed was a beautiful woman; she had a slender figure even after having Blake, glossy black curls that bounced when she walked, and her eyes… Opal had the most beautiful eyes in the world, Blake was certain of it. They were bright green, perfectly round, and framed by naturally thick black lashes.

Blake inherited her eye color, his father’s eye shape. He knew more about his mama’s broken angel by looking in a mirror than he did by anything else…

Blake knew his father had dark skin, and oval shaped eyes. He had to have a sharp jaw, because Blake saw it in his own features and not in his mama’s. Blake was already taller than most kids his age, so he figured his father had to be rather tall as well. As Blake got older, he stopped looking for his father’s features in his face. He tried to pinpoint his mama’s, the features of the woman who loved him, but as he got older, her eye color and the softness of his curls became the only indicators that Opal even had a hand in creating him.

Blake and Opal struggled, but they had each other, and that had been enough for a while.

Their life wasn’t ideal-

There were more nights than not that they shared a tiny dinner and pretended they weren’t hungry when it was over. There were nights when Blake returned to their cramped flat to find out the electric, already subsidized through the council, had been disconnected for non-payment. There were times when Blake would wish so badly that he had a nice pair of trainers like the boys in his classes had. There had been the time where Blake’s wish had suddenly come true, his ratty trainers with the hole in the toe had been swapped with Richard Parley’s bright blue ones, and Blake got a week of detention for theft.

Nobody, not even Opal, believed Blake when he said he didn’t touch that kid or his trainers, but the proof had been on his feet.

Blake cried on his next birthday when Opal got him a pair of shoes just like the ones he had to give back to Parley. He didn’t know how many hours she had to put in her job to buy them, he just knew her bright green eyes were dulled by the heavy bags of exhaustion beneath them when she gave him the shoes.

He hated those damn shoes, he hated the damn world, but it would have broken his mother’s heart if he didn’t wear them, so he wore them every day.

Everything changed for the Reed family on Blake’s eleventh birthday.

Blake had just unwrapped a hoodie his mama got from the thrift store, it was name brand and only had a tiny stain on the collar, when there was a knock on the door.

“Angel, did you invite your friends?”

Blake shook his head, already on his feet to peer in the peep hole.

“It ain’t one of my friends,” he scoffed. Blake didn’t have any friends anyway, but these blokes looked more like debt collectors than some well-wishers for Blake.

“Let him in,” Mama said with a wave of her hand. She stubbed out her cigarette in an old bottle of soda and got to her feet, smoothing her dress down as she did.

Blake opened the door and squinted warily at the two men.

“You lost?” Blake asked bluntly.

The man with the sloppy black bun of curls on his head laughed and offered Blake his hand.

“Not if you’re Blake Reed,” he said. “I’m Sirius Black, and you’re a wizard.”

“Sirius…” The other man with the grey hair and fucked up facial scars sighed heavily. “Tact, Sirius, tact.”

And that was when Blake found another piece of his father’s identity in his own genetic makeup.

After a long conversation with ‘Headmaster Black’ and ‘Counselor Lupin’, Blake had his acceptance letter to a school for magic and a bag of ‘galleons’ from yet another pity-program for the poor.

Headmaster Black offered to take Blake and his mama to the magic alley to buy his supplies, but Blake said they’d make do on their own.

He went when his mama was at work the next day.

And on September 1st, Blake swore he’d find a way to call his mama, and he set off to Hogwarts School of Magic.

Blake looked around the train platform he’d followed some weird looking teenagers on to.

It was… it was magical. There was no better word for it.

It was also loud and packed and Blake saw a bunch of reporters for some daft reason, so Blake didn’t linger before climbing aboard.

He didn’t have anyone to hug goodbye anyway, he’d told his mama goodbye when she left for work the night before and he’d been gone before she got home.

He wondered if she’d miss him while he was home or feel a weight lift at having one less mouth to feed for nine months.

Blake nestled himself in a train compartment and started studying his textbooks. He’d never worked real hard in primary school, but magic meant he could turn his whole life around.

Maybe he could build a house for his mama, make home cooked meals pop up every night, turn his mama’s old dresses in to something shiny again.

Show the broken angel that Opal and Blake Reed didn’t need him; Blake would give his mama the world with his magic.

Blake wasn’t bothered by any of the other students on the long ride to Hogwarts, he pretended it didn’t bother him.

When they arrived at Hogwarts, Blake held his breath in the face of all the magic.

They were met at the doors by Professor Longbottom, Headmaster Black’s assistant or something. He led the group of ‘first years’ in to the Great Hall and Blake felt the group of eleven year olds all shivering with excitement.

There was a girl with red-hair whispering quickly to a girl with blue hair. The red haired girl kept waving up at the long table in the front, Blake kind of hoped he didn’t have to spend so much time around someone so chatty.

Blake waited while his classmates were sorted by an old ratty hat.

There was an eager amount of talk when ‘Potter, Arthur’ was called up.

Blake felt a pang of empathy when the slight and dark haired boy walked to the hat. He kept his head up, his chin thrust forward, but Blake didn’t think he liked the attention he was receiving.

The hat didn’t take too long with him before yelling, “SLYTHERIN!”

Blake didn’t think anyone looked very surprised by the boy’s sorting, but almost all the adults at the professor’s table exchanged grins. A blonde haired man exchanged what seemed to be a handful of gold coins with Headmaster Black.

The red-haired girl went next, and she had to be the twin of the black-haired boy, because Professor Longbottom called her up as ‘Potter, Selena’.

And while Arthur didn’t seem to like the attention, Selena didn’t mind at all as she swaggered up to the hat with a big smile.

Blake hoped he wouldn’t go to ‘GRYFFINDOR!’ as she did. He caught Headmaster Black handing the blonde Professor back a few of the gold coins after Selena was sorted, so he assumed it was some sort of betting game.

Blake couldn’t ponder it long though, because ‘Reed, Blake’ was called next.

Blake kept his head high when he walked up to the hat. He sat down and was startled when the hat Professor Longbottom placed on his head started whispering to him.

“Oh, you’re an easy sort, aren’t you, lad?”

“Am I?” Blake murmured.

“You want the world, eh? Show everyone that you’re your own man, you didn’t need a father, you’ll give your mother and yourself everything you ever could have wanted in life, right?”

Blake grinned, “Right.”

“Easiest one I’ve had all night,” the hat chuckled. “SLYTHERIN!”

Blake grinned the whole way to his table. He was in such high spirits at being an easy sort that he sat right beside Arthur Potter and offered him his hand.

“Alright there, Potter?” Blake grinned.

Arthur had sky blue eyes that weighed in Blake’s chest heavily as he scrutinized him.

“Arty,” he said, grasping Blake’s hand. “Call me Arthur and I’ll kill you.”

Blake didn’t doubt him, but he doubted him even less when they were led to their dorm by Professor Malfoy, the blonde professor who was apparently their Head of House, and an older student told them they could duel each other.

“I’m waiting on my second, then I want Kennedy,” Arty drawled immediately.

Blake raised his brows at Arty. He didn’t know a single damn spell, and this kid was ready to duel what looked like a sixteen year old?

Blake could respect that.

“I’ll be your second,” Blake murmured to him.

Arty gave him a tiny smirk. “I only duel with Selena.”

Blake shrugged, “Your funeral.”

It wasn’t Arty’s funeral. It was Arty’s whole damn show.

When Selena showed up, breezing right through the doors with the blue-haired Hufflepuff girl beside her, Arty and Kennedy faced off in a circle.

“Arty’s such a show off,” Selena giggled to the blue-haired girl. “I bet he wasn’t even challenged.”

The blue-haired girl smiled at Blake. “I’m Maddie Snape,” she said, offering her hand out. “Did Arty challenge Kennedy or did Kennedy challenge him?”

Blake shook her hand and lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. “Does it matter? They’re fighting now.”

The older Slytherin girl told them to go, and Blake felt his stomach plummet as Arty attacked the older boy.

For someone who looked so fragile, with his pale skin and big blue eyes hidden beneath a messy black fringe, Arty was strong.

He was strong and fast and had Kennedy’s wand in his hand without ever even pulling his own wand.

“Winner, Potter,” the prefect drawled with a bored expression, as if that wasn’t the most brilliant display Blake had ever seen.

Headmaster Black should have brought Arty with him to tell Blake he was a wizard. He would have followed that magic anywhere.

“Dad said to duel first,” Arty told his sister with a tiny little smug smirk. He bumped fists with Blake when Blake offered it and laughed with his sister and Maddie. “And here I was worried about—”

“Ooh, did daddy teach you that?”

The four of them turned to where one of Kennedy’s mates stood with a sneer on his ugly mug.

“I wouldn’t,” Maddie told the older Slytherins. “If you’ve got a problem with my brother, I suggest you keep it to yourself.”

“I’ve got no problem with the Minister,” the ugly one scoffed. “I’ve got a problem with little Junior here acting like he isn’t just riding daddy’s coattails.”

“What an idiotic thing to say,” Maddie snickered. “As if Arty’s magical skill is because of Harry instead of his own hard work?”

Blake watched their back and forth for a moment, but he mostly tracked how Arty’s jaw muscle ticked every time someone mentioned his father.

Kindred spirits, Blake had thought. He’d be pissed too if someone tried to lay all his accomplishments at his father’s feet.

It was mostly why Blake had thrown himself in the brawl when Selena finally snapped and threw a punch. It turned in to a fight that Blake was good at, one without wands.

It ended when someone shot off a burst of magic that caught the sofa’s on fire.

“Even your father didn’t burn down school furniture during a duel,” Professor Malfoy said. The prefect had summoned him when the fire spread to the curtains, and Kennedy had been quick to point a finger at Arty. Blake stood beside Arty while Selena and Maddie stood on his other side during Professor Malfoy’s lecture.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Arty said quietly, his face blank but his jaw ticking again.

“And maybe it was me,” Selena said brazenly.

“Or me,” Maddie added with a lopsided grin.

Blake lifted a brow at Professor Malfoy. “Professor Black told me I had a lot of accidental magic, could have been me.”

Professor Malfoy didn’t look terribly amused with them. “Well I’m taking points from Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor… when there are points to be taken,” he added wryly. “Girls, come on, you’re not supposed to be here. Let’s get everyone to bed.”

Selena huffed something that sounded like ‘hypocrite’.

Blake followed Arty up to their dorm after the girls left with Professor Malfoy. They didn’t say much, but Arty offered Blake a fist bump when they saw their trunks of supplies were in front of side-by-side beds.

“You’re not bad in a fight,” Arty mumbled after they’d changed and climbed in bed.

“I’ve been fighting my whole life,” Blake said with a mix of pride and resentment.

Arty snorted. “Haven’t we all?” he said cryptically. “Night, Blake.”

“Night, Arty.”

It had only been the first night, but Blake thought he and Arty might end up actually being fast friends.

It wound up being a true prediction.

Arty offered Blake to use his owl the next morning when Blake asked where he could use a phone to call his mama.

“Phones go haywire here,” Arty explained. “Too much magic makes them go crazy. It’s why I left my phone at home. I’ve got an owl though, if you want to send a letter to her?”

Blake imagined his mama getting a letter from an owl and it brought a grin to his face.

“Thanks, that’d be cool,” he said.

Arty’s smile was bashful, a bit shy compared to the arrogant drawling boy from the night before, but Blake liked it all the same.

They partnered together in Professor Luna’s potion classes, which really solidified their friendship since Arty’s sister Selena shared their class. They sat together at meals, Blake even sat at the Gryffindor table and Hufflepuff table when Arty wanted to sit with his sister and Maddie Snape at different meals.

They even partnered up to tackle repotting Pufflepods in Professor Longbottom’s Herbology class that they shared with the Ravenclaws.

“He’s friends with my parents,” Arty explained after that class when Professor Longbottom singled him out to ‘check in’. Arty had his head ducked, but his shoulders were squared as they walked across the grounds. “Everyone’s friends with my parents. It’s a bloody nightmare.”

“Why?” Blake asked curiously. He didn’t think Arty got on with his dad, the actual magical Minister, apparently, but Blake would die for his mama. He wished Opal had more friends, any friends, really. Then maybe he wouldn’t worry so much about leaving her alone while he was at Hogwarts.

Arty kicked a clump of leaves and steered off to the left, toward the lake and away from the castle.

“You mind?” he asked. “I’ll show you the kitchens if we miss dinner.”

“Not at all,” Blake said truthfully. He followed a step behind Arty as they veered over to the ground surrounding the lake. When Arty sank to the ground in a graceful move, criss-crossing his legs, Blake did the same.

Arty breathed in slowly, his messy black hair, giving off hints of red beneath the sun, fluttered in the wind and his blue eyes focused out on the lake while he did it. His fingers plucked absently at the grass surrounding him. It was his fingers, long and slim with dirt streaked on them, that interested Blake the most.

Blake wondered if most people had as much magic in their whole body as Arty did in his little finger.

“I’ll never be anything special,” Arty said. His voice was so soft, almost feminine, but had an undercurrent of anger.

And if anyone could understand anger, it was Blake.

“Everything I do? My dad already did it,” Arty went on. His gaze didn’t waver from the view of the lake, but his fingers yanked hard on another clump of grass. “If I make friends, well Dad had a gang.”

Blake didn’t mean to interrupt, but he must have made a sound because Arty turned his head enough to smirk at him.

“A gang?” Blake asked. “I thought your dad was the Minister?”

“He is,” Arty confirmed. “And before that he had a gang and won a war. And before that he went pro in quidditch at only fifteen. And he was prefect for Slytherin, and he got eight NEWTS, and Dad was perfect.” Arty laughed, sounding just as cynical as Blake could be sometimes, and looked back out at the lake. “He’s in the history books, Blake. He’s powerful and brilliant and amazing.”

“So are you,” Blake said firmly. It was instinct, something he always did when his mama needed consoling; Blake reached over and grabbed Arty’s hand and squeezed it. “The way you kicked Kennedy’s ass? It was awesome.”

Arty smiled, just a twist of his lips with no real emotion behind it.

“Dad never lost a duel in school,” he said flatly.

“Fuck him,” Blake said, more bite than intended. “Who needs a dad?”

Blake hadn’t meant to sound so… bitter, but he must have, because Arty gave him a swift and searching look.

“Your dad’s a muggle?” he asked, curious, not judgemental.

Blake shrugged and ripped a handful of grass from the ground.

“Dunno,” he said shortly. “I doubt it. My mama is.” He gave Arty a sharp look, “Is that a problem?”

Arty had no business looking so offended when he was the one who brought up the subject.

“My dad is Harry Potter,” he stressed. “My papa is Fred Potter, does it seem like I’d have a problem with who your parents are?”

Blake struggled not to blink in surprise. He… he actually hadn’t realized that Arty had two dads. Not that Blake was judging, but having two dads was almost as mocked as having zero was in his neighborhood.

“It doesn’t,” Blake said slowly. “My mama’s a muggle, dad might be a wizard. I never met him.”

“Hmm.” Arty nodded and then smiled a little, a cute and shy grin, as he held his fist out to Blake. “Fuck him then.”

Blake smiled so wide that Arty could probably see his molars as he bumped his fist to Arty’s.

“Fuck him.”

As Blake became more and more immersed in the magical world, his friendship with Arty grew. Unfortunately, it meant Blake had to spend a lot of time around Maddie and Selena, but he supposed that one person couldn’t have it all.

Blake was decent at potions, a dab at transfiguration, and was as bored in defense as he was in history. Arty loved defense and hated history, which was only ironic because the first years curriculum was focused on recent magical history; which meant they spent four hours a week hearing all about Arty’s parents and the things his dad had done.

And Blake wondered which was worse - having a father you could never hope to measure up to or having one that you didn’t even know where the bar laid?

Blake thought he was the lucky one until Arty invited him to his house for Christmas Break.

“My mama will want me home,” Blake said hesitantly. He’d love to meet Arty’s family, spend time with his best friend outside of school, but he missed his mom so bad. He couldn’t wait to tell her all about the magic he couldn’t show her yet.

Arty wasn’t deterred though, he nodded and then quietly wrote a letter, asking his Aunt Susan to get Blake a portkey for Christmas Eve to go see his mom and bring him back to his house on New Years Eve.

And when Vice Minister Weasley mailed Blake a portkey- a little coin made of gold with the Ministry seal on it and a note with instructions for us.

“You did this for me?” Blake asked Arty with a swell of something unfamiliar in his chest. Arty tried to raise a brow at him, his go-to snarky expression, but stopped at the last second and grinned instead.

“Obviously,” he said. “I really wanted you to come over.”

So Blake did.

He skipped the train ride home since Professors Malfoy and Luna offered to floo them. And Blake immediately felt out of place when he arrived at Arty’s home, not that he let it show.

Arty’s house was beautiful, nothing at all like Blake’s home. He and Selena both had their own bedrooms and there were still guest rooms left. One that they kept solely for Maddie, who was apparently their aunt, to stay in.

“And now this one can be yours,” Arty said when he showed Blake to the room that his entire flat could fit in. “So maybe… maybe you can come over this summer?”

Blake looked away from the richest room to the pink cheeked face of his best friend.

“Don’t expect this at my house, Potter,” he said playfully. “You get a cot on the floor. In the bathroom,” he added.

Arty laughed and Blake relaxed.

Then he met the rest of Arty’s… family… that next night at dinner.

He met Arty’s dad, Minister Potter who insisted on being called Harry. He met Arty’s papa, ‘Fred is fine’. Blake met the first ever Vice Minister of Magic, Susan Weasley, and her husband, Charlie. Fred’s brother and sister-in-law, apparently. He met Arty’s Uncle Theo and his Aunt Hermione, along with their daughter Rose who brought along a seventh year Ravenclaw she was dating, Vic.

Somehow another cousin of Arty’s. (Blake joked that he would need a tree to keep them all straight and Arty showed him the one that Professor Luna painted in his dad‘s office.)

He also met Maddie’s parents, Arty’s dad’s father and step-mum, Mister and Mrs Snape. Maddie told Blake to call them Sev and Nymphadora, but Blake just tried to avoid calling them anything at all as they both pulled faces at Maddie’s suggestion.

It seemed like half the professors from school joined them for dinner as well. Headmaster Black was there with Counselor Remus. Professor Malfoy and Luna, along with their kids. Deputy Headmaster Longbottom. A few others came that were also related to Arty; Ron and Hazel Weasley and their daughter and twin baby boys.

It was probably a good thing Arty’s house was so big, otherwise there was no way they would have all fit for dinner. The adults took the dining room while the kids all went to the sitting room.

Blake sat beside Arty and they mostly listened as the others talked and chatted like Blake imagined most families did when they had get togethers.

It was a new experience for Blake, who always had quiet dinners with his mama, but it wasn’t wholly unpleasant.

“Your family is insane,” Blake told Arty that night when they both were laying in Blake’s bed and talked about everything and nothing.

Arty laughed and folded his hands behind his head, his warm arm brushing Blake’s.

“It’s usually even more insane,” he said. “But Aunt Fleur has the flu, Uncle Blaise and Grandmother Juliana are in Morocco, and Grandmum Molly is with Uncle George closing up the shop in Diagon for the hols.”

Blake looked up at the painted ceiling - a deep blue with twinkling white stars - and wondered what his life would have been like with so many people in it.

Probably a lot more chaos and less quiet, he supposed.

And, as much as Blake could empathize with Arty feeling like he could never measure up to his dad, Blake had to admit that it didn’t seem like Harry was concerned about that at all.

During breakfast the next morning, and all the breakfasts until Blake left to his home, Harry asked his kids questions, listened to their answers, offered Selena advice when she requested it, and shrugged carelessly when Arty said he wasn’t doing well in history.

“Who cares?” Harry said. “History’s in the past anyway.”

Harry was obviously busy, focused on his career, but he never missed breakfast with his kids and Blake didn’t hear him criticize or critique Arty or Selena even once. He was the kind of dad that Blake wished he had, when he bothered to wish for something so impossible in the first place.

Christmas Day was spent with his mama, both of them tripping over themselves as they tried to catch each other up on over three months worth of news.

“I made a friend! He’s brilliant, Mama, you’ll love him!”

“I got a new job, Angel. It pays better, so I’m only working the one.”

“I can make things float in the air and I turned a needle in to a matchstick!”

“Your Headmaster sent me a letter, he said you were doing real well.”

“Arty’s real funny, mama, his family is crazy though. His sister has green eyes, like yours but not as pretty.”

Opal Reed smiled indulgently as her angel talked on and on about his magic and Arty. His classes and Arty. Arty and quidditch. Dueling and Arty.

She couldn’t wait to meet the boy that had such a lock on her angel’s heart.

Blake went back to the Potter home on New Years Eve, wearing new jeans from his mama and a warm jumper from Maddie, who said she got it from Grandmum Molly. He also had on the silver chain necklace Arty sent him that had a permanent portkey pendant on it - specially issued by the Vice Minister - to take Blake to his home any time he touched the silver snake and spoke the password.

Arty, snarky git that he was, set the password before Blake could to ‘I wet my plants’.

Truthfully though, the gift was so thoughtful and perfect that Blake didn’t care what the password was. He just loved that Arty got it for him.

During the Potter’s New Year Gala, a truly posh event held in the atrium of the Ministry with music and dancing and fancy dress ware, Blake stood uncertainly beside Arty in a pair of Arty’s own dress robes.

“Selena is a good dancer,” Blake said lightly when Selena went waltzing by, dancing with one of Arty’s many cousins or uncles or someone.

Arty grinned and stood on tiptoes to point across the room to where Blake could just make out a head of beautiful black curls next to a head of slick blonde hair.

“Thanks to Grandmother Juliana and Cissa,” Arty said. “We’ve been in dance lessons since we could walk.”

“You can dance?” Blake asked, surprised. He shouldn’t be, since Arty always moved more gracefully than the rest of the students and the steps he took in a duel were careful and light, but Arty was just so… loud in Blake’s head.

“Obviously,” Arty drawled. He held his hand out to Blake with a challenging light in his eyes. “Come on, wanna see?”

Blake did want to see, actually. He took Arty’s hand and got swept up in a dance with his best friend, the both of them laughing and grinning like idiots the whole time.

And, when the clock struck midnight and couples on the dance floor all leaned forward and kissed each other, it wasn’t odd for Blake and Arty to do it as well.

The rest of their first year passed quickly. Blake and Arty worked hard on their final exams and were both pleased with their results.

Arty didn’t do so great in history and Blake doubted if his defense was up to snuff, but they both agreed that it could be worse.

During the summer, Blake split his time between his home and Arty’s. A few days with Opal, a few days with Arty.

A few days of working on his summer assignments and telling Opal all about magic, then a few days of flying and laughing with Arty.

Blake, Arty, Selena, and Maddie all went to Diagon Alley with Arty’s dad to get their school supplies. Blake had a small bag of galleons that Headmaster Black gave him, but Arty’s dad refused to let him use.

“You should waste that on sweets or something,” he told Blake firmly as he stacked their books in a single pile on the counter to pay. “I made all my friends in first year, so I figure you’ll be around a while, yeah?”

Blake smiled at Arty then up at the parent he most resembled.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Thank you.”

Mister Potter smirked at him, truly looking just like an older, green-eyed, Arty.

“You can thank me by calling me Harry.”

It was the best summer of Blake’s life. Or, it had been, until Opal broke her ankle at work, a dangerous factory job, and Blake stayed home to help her. He didn’t get a chance to tell Arty, but it had been close enough to September 1st that he figured Arty wouldn’t mind a few days without him around.

A wrong assumption, apparently.

Arty was in a pissy mood as soon as the boys found each on the train. Blake opened the compartment door that had Arty, Selena, and Maddie in it and was immediately greeted by two smiles and one scowl.

“Arty’s pouting,” Selena sang as soon as Blake sat beside his silent and sullen best friend. Arty didn’t even acknowledge him, he just sat on the bench and glared out the window. Arty was moody sometimes, but he didn’t usually just ignore Blake all together.

“Why?” Blake asked, mystified and a tad hurt.

Arty whipped his head around at Blake’s genuine question and glared at him meanly, his eyes dark and flashing.

“Why?” he said. “Why? Because you just disappeared! I thought maybe you were hurt, or lost, or- or—”

“Or eloped with a handsome prince?” Selena giggled quietly.

Arty ignored his sister and kept his glower aimed at Blake, an uncomfortable experience for Blake. He liked Arty’s smiles and his secret smirks and his shy grins to be given to him, not this… this hateful look.

Blake would never admit it out loud, definitely not in front of Selena and Maddie, but it hurt his feelings.

“Mama broke her ankle, I couldn’t leave her,” Blake told Arty. “She needed help, we’ve got stairs and she couldn’t even stand to cook.”

“And you couldn’t send a letter?” Arty scowled.

“I don’t have a damn owl,” Blake snapped.

“A call?”

“I don’t have a phone.”

“You said you wanted to call your mum before?”

“AND IT GOT DISCONNECTED!” Blake yelled. He jumped to his feet - embarrassed, hurt, full of shame. “Sorry I don’t have a bloody phone to make calls with or owls to send messages with, Arty! I thought we were friends anyway!”

Blake turned on his heel and stormed from the compartment. He shouldered past a group of older Slytherins as he went. They shouted something rude at him, Blake flipped them off.

He fumed in an empty compartment for the rest of the ride and sat by himself at dinner. He saw the looks Arty kept shooting him, but he wasn’t going to talk to him until he apologized for being a jerk. It wasn’t Blake’s fault that he only had one parent and no other family. Opal couldn’t just be left alone while Blake went off with Arty. Opal gave up everything for Blake, it didn’t hurt Blake to give up the last week and a half of summer break for her.

What did hurt Blake was Arty’s anger over it. Or… Blake tried to remember what he said before he got defensive and angry… oh. Arty had been worried.

Blake peeked down the table and saw Arty glumly picking at his meal, looking sad and lonely while his sister sat with the Gryffindor’s and Maddie sat with the Hufflepuff’s.

Blake had his pride, but Blake also had a bit of logic that Arty didn’t have and figured that they both got heated and he could let it go if Arty did. He figured every spat someone had didn’t need some dramatic and girly apologies. Arty was his best mate, his… well, his second favorite person after his Mama.

So Blake figured he’d just fist bump Arty after dinner and everything would be cool again.

“I challenge Reed.”

Blake perked up in the crowd of Slytherin students. He hadn’t expected to duel, in fact he’d been more distracted with trying to get to Arty, but the fifth year girl sneering at him seemed pretty putout by him.

“What the hell for?” Arty demanded, bringing a smile to Blake’s face. He stood at the front of the crowd and easily stepped over when Blake joined him.

“Doesn’t matter,” the girl said. She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “I assume you’re his second, Potter?”

And just like Blake thought during dinner- there was no need for dramatic apologies of a ridiculous spat. Arty was his second, just as Blake knew he would be.

Blake got his arse handed to him in the duel. He’d been immediately flipped upside down and disarmed just for the girl to smirk and flip him off then drop him on his head.

He didn’t mind though, because when they went to the dorms afterward, Arty climbed right in Blake’s bed and the two of them laid there, chatting well past time to fall asleep.

It took Blake until nearly Christmas break that year before he realized it, but… but Arty slept in Blake’s bed a lot. And… and Arty was a cuddler. And Blake liked sleeping with Arty and he liked waking up and seeing the pink spots on Arty’s cheeks and the way his hair stood up all crazy.

And then, for the first time, Blake went to see Counselor Remus.

“How do you know if you like someone like a friend or like a… a more than a friend?” Blake asked as soon as he sat down in Counselor Remus’ cozy office.

Remus didn’t sigh, but Blake figured he wasn’t the first person to ask him that exact question when he was given a pamphlet on emotions and ‘crushes’ and a list of books to reference in the library.

Remus also offered to talk with Blake about his feelings, but Blake scoffed and left his office. He got the answer he needed, he didn’t need to share his feelings like a girl.

Blake did peruse those references that he was given though. And… and he thought maybe, just maybe, he might be a little gay for Arty.

Which was fine, because the books said that feelings like that ‘came and went when people were young’. So it was a fleeting crush, probably just because Arty was who Blake hung around the most and he was way more interesting than chatty Selena or little sunshiney Maddie. Also, Arty was as pretty as anyone in the castle with his keen eyes and his clever fingers. Blake was just… so wrapped around Arty’s orbit that he hadn’t noticed other students really.

A fleeting crush.

Nothing more.

Blake and Arty kissed on New Years again at the Ministry gala and Blake knew it wasn’t just a crush.

Blake spent the rest of his second year trying to notice other students. He stared hard at a third year Hufflepuff, trying to will himself to develop a crush on him, then he realized that he had the same shade of hair as Arty. He’d laughed at a joke from a dry and witty girl in their year, a Slytherin he’d never really talked to much before, but then he started comparing her sarcastic critiques of the professors to Arty so he moved on.

He even tried to notice Selena- force himself to like someone who wasn’t his best friend. And his twin was a good replacement, right?

Right.

Except Selena was sooo annoying. She just never shut up. And Arty was quiet, calm; Blake didn’t like a bunch of noise, he liked silence.

And Arty.

Blake liked Arty.

He liked him all the more when, the week before summer, Arty gave him a sweet smile, the one that only Blake and Selena ever got from him, and asked if he could meet Opal this summer. And how was Blake supposed to get over his fleeting crush when the second most important person in his life wanted to meet the most important?

That summer was the best of Blake’s life. Arty convinced his dad to let him go to Blake’s, apparently Harry had lax rules in everything except letting his kids stay at other houses, so Arty could only come over during the day then had to be home by dinner.

And Opal loved Arty.

Opal was almost as quickly charmed by Arty’s snark that was balanced by his polite manners and the way he found everything in their house so interesting.

“Dad never lets me go to muggle places,” he gushed as he turned their stove on and off. “Aunt Mione and Uncle Theo’s place has some stuff, but it’s all separate from the rest of the house while they figure out how to make it so Rose doesn’t blow up things when she apparates in the kitchen.”

Opal had wanted to hear all about Arty’s life, everything from his family to his favorite color. And Arty was as happy to sit in Blake’s crappy living room and answer all of Opal’s questions.

And Blake thought, maybe… maybe it wasn’t crush.

He watched Arty arrive one day with an armful of items from his Papa’s shop to show Opal magic. Blake laughed when Opal waved a fake wand, which turned in to a squawking yellow rubber chicken. He grinned when Arty ate a Canary Cream and turned himself in to a giant bird just for Opal to see. Blake even offered to eat a nosebleed nougat, just for Opal to see how quickly magic could heal it.

And Blake realized it wasn’t a crush at all.

He was in love with Arty.

Love was a weird concept when he was only thirteen, and he couldn’t ask Opal about it because she’d just talk about her broken angel and Blake would see the tired lines on her face and the early grey in her hair and get filled with anger on her behalf. But Blake figured if he only ever wanted to spend his time with Arty and Opal, and only they could make him laugh freely, and if… if Blake sometimes thought about feeling Arty’s fingers wrapped around his own… then it was probably love.

Which was stupid, because Arty was handsome and brilliant and everyone probably wanted to be with Arty. Also, he was Blake’s best friend. It wasn’t a great idea to fall in love with his best friend. There was no way that Arty felt the same way.

“Can I kiss you?”

Blake turned his head entirely too quickly at Arty’s question. The two of them were back at Hogwarts, laying in Arty’s bed, talking beneath a privacy charm that Arty put up. Arty and Blake had just been laughing about Selena’s front page news- ‘MINISTER’S DAUGHTER ON DATE WITH ACCUSED DEATH EATER SON!’ from where a reporter caught Selena on their first Hogsmeade trip.

The paper had been funny, seeing Arty’s dad storm in the castle and talk with Interim Headmaster Longbottom (Headmaster Black was in France with the sixth and seventh years for the Triwizard Tournament- something Arty and Blake firmly agreed to enter when it came back their seventh year) before making a scene at the Hufflepuff table where they’d been sitting.

Harry hadn’t yelled at Selena, he just sat there talking about their trip, reminding Selena she couldn’t date until she graduated, and glaring daggers at the fifth year Ravenclaw boy she’d went out with.

The spectacle came afterward when Albert Kennedy made a comment about Arty’s dad being hot- crudely asking if his parents marriage was happy or not. Blake, Arty, Selena, and Maddie had drug Kennedy to the Hidden Room on the seventh floor, a room that Arty swore hardly anyone knew of, and left him in there after asking for a maze of pitch black.

Headmaster Longbottom and Professor Malfoy were still looking for him.

None of which explained why there were a pair of earnest green eyes staring guilelessly in Blake’s face, only inches from his own.

Blake swallowed, trying to wet his suddenly dry throat.

“If not, it’s fine,” Arty mumbled, a pink blush starting to stain his cheeks the longer Blake’s shocked silence went on. “I just… Selena kissed that boy, and… I just wondered…”

“Yeah,” Blake breathed. “You can.”

Was this real?

Blake would have thought that he was imagining things, maybe he fell asleep already, but his imagination couldn’t have dreamt up the explosion of butterflies in his stomach when Arty slid even closer and pressed his lips to Blake’s. It was a little awkward, their noses bumped, and Blake tried to close his eyes but also keep them open and wound up squinting— but it was perfect.

It was Arty.

And just as they fell in their friendship hard and fast and effortlessly, they fell in their new relationship just the same.

Arty wasn’t very vocal about it, but Blake figured that them dating wasn’t all that different than being best friends had been. They still ate together, studied together, partnered up in classes.

Arty laughed when Blake’s braids got flobberworm saliva in them during Professor Malfoy’s Care of Magical Creatures class. Blake teased Arty when his ear plugs slipped and a mandrake cry caused him to faint in Professor Longbottom’s class.

They went to Hogsmeade together, arm in arm. They practiced dueling together in defense. They laid in their beds together and tangled their legs up and whispered about their futures, their wants, their ideas.

They only kissed every once in a while, and Arty always asked before they did it, but Blake just figured it was some wizard thing to move slowly with stuff like that. Selena didn’t, they caught her snogging in Hogsmeade and in the corridors on occasion, but Selena seemed to like being ‘a scandal’, so Blake brushed her behavior off.

And it was probably that easy shift in their relationship that made Blake think that third year had been the best yet.

That summer had not been.

Opal lost her job, their electricity got turned off, and Blake couldn’t find many people willing to give odd jobs to the black boy from social housing. Blake had to resort to going to churches, begging for assistance. It hurt his pride something fierce to do it, but it had been worth it when their power got restored and Blake could call Arty once more.

Except Arty didn’t answer and his dad said that he was sick.

And he was sick the next day.

And the day after that.

“I don’t get it, Mama,” Blake said when it had been a week of silence from Arty. Blake was sitting on the floor, his head tipped back in Opal’s lap while she redid his braids. “Do you think he’s mad at me?”

Opal smiled fondly while she made quick work of the brown locks that reached Blake’s shoulder when undone, his earlobes when they were braided.

“His daddy said he’s sick, Angel, why wouldn’t that be the truth?”

Blake shrugged and then grimaced when a tug of his hair reminded him to sit still. Selena did his hair during the school year, she knew more charms and tricks for hair care than any white girl should, but nobody did it like Opal.

“I don’t know,” Blake said in a small voice. “I- what if I messed up? Or he’s mad? Or he wants to break up? Or,” the worst case scenario in Blake’s opinion, “what if we’re not best friends anymore, Mama? He’s real… real moody, sometimes.”

Opal laughed and ran her hand over the top of his head. “Moody men can be unpredictable,” she told him. “Give him a few days, Angel. I’m sure your Arty will call you.”

Opal, as usual, had been right. It took three more days, but Arty did finally call.

“Can you come over?” Arty asked over the phone, his usually confident voice was small and uncertain, squeezing Blake’s heart.

“Of course,” Blake said immediately. “Can your Papa come get me?”

“Yeah,” Arty sounded relieved, as if Blake wouldn’t want to see him. “Meet him out back?”

Blake kissed Opal goodbye and skipped down the stairs, going to meet Arty’s Papa in the little back alley where they usually apparated to get him or bring him home.

Opal smiled when her angel left and remembered another young man, one that her baby looked more and more like every day, when she’d first met him.

“A… mind sickness?” Blake said slowly, trying to puzzle out what Arty hesitantly explained to him. They were out in the back garden, both laying out on the grass with the sun shining on them. Blake had asked Arty if he was feeling better from whatever sickness had plagued him, and Arty told him about it in hesitant sentences and quiet confessions.

Blake had been picturing the flu- puking and fevers -but Arty described crushing sadness and ideas of dying.

“They used to call it Circular Madness,” Arty said flatly, avoiding looking at Blake directly. He squinted up at the skies, no doubt burning his eyes in the rare sunshine. “It’s called Bipolar Disorder now.”

“But you’re okay, right? You’re not… feeling that way anymore?” Blake asked. He reached over and snatched Arty’s hand, holding it tightly to reassure himself that his best friend was still with him. He couldn’t imagine being so sad, so disenchanted with life, that he wanted to escape it. He also couldn’t imagine life without Arty; it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be… anything. It would be as boring and bleak as life before him had been.

“I have to take a potion now,” Arty said. He turned his head to look at Blake, but Blake got distracted by the way the sun brought out the red highlights in his dark hair. “You don’t- you don’t mind?”

Blake grinned and let go of Arty’s hand long enough to trace his knuckles across his cheekbones that were more pronounced every day.

“Of course not, I love you anyway.”

It had been the first time Blake said it, an accident, really, but Arty’s eyes sparkled and his cheeks turned pink and Blake didn’t mind letting it slip out. Especially not when they laid in Blake’s guest bed that night and Arty mumbled it back to him.

In November of their fourth year, Blake separated from Arty in Hogsmeade long enough to track down his Papa Fred at Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes and ask him an important question.

“Excuse me,” Blake smiled as charmingly as he could at the much more approachable of Arty’s parents. The shop was busy with people preparing for Christmas, but Fred still stopped to chat with Blake. “I was wondering if I could get your permission to take Arty to London during Christmas break.” Blake stood tall and squared his shoulders, hoping to look more like a man and less like a nervous fourteen year old boy.

“Our anniversary is next month and I wanted to take him somewhere special,” he explained. “I promise nothing will happen to him. You can trust me.”

Fred grinned and clapped Blake on the shoulder.

“You sure you’re not a secret Weasley?” he asked with an approving light in his eyes they were maybe a shade or two lighter than Arty’s.

Blake shuddered at the thought of being related to his boyfriend.

“I hope not,” he said.

Fred laughed and ultimately agreed to let Blake take Arty out. He’d even helped him transfer the galleons Blake had saved from the last three summers into pounds.

Blake suspected that Fred gave him a higher transfer rate than they were worth, but Fred hadn’t said anything so Blake didn’t either.

It had been worth it anyway, when Blake got to pick Arty up, both of them dressed up, and took him to a nice restaurant in London for their anniversary.

“This is brill,” Arty said, a slang term that Blake had heard his dad use before. Arty looked around the restaurant with a wide smile and bright blue eyes. His hair was brushed back neatly, and he looked especially handsome with the dark suit offsetting his sharp and pale features.

“Yeah?” Blake grinned and fidgeted with the fancy white napkin on his lap. The place he chose had been fancy enough to require a reservation and would probably take up the entire amount of savings he had. He didn’t mind though, it was a special occasion.

“Yes,” Arty said firmly, easing Blake’s worries. He smiled so sweetly across the table that Blake thought his chest might explode from it.

“Well I figured it was a special occasion,” Blake told him. He reached across the table and touched Arty’s fingers, relaxing when Arty entwined his hand with Blake’s.

“Oh.” Arty looked confused for a moment, but he blinked and then nodded with a more polite look. “Right.”

Blake thought their date had been a resounding success, all the more so when he politely (following the weird wizard customs that Arty did) asked Arty if he could kiss him when they left and stood beneath the lamp out front and Arty agreed.

Blake didn’t think of his father often, as infrequently as he could really, but he thought about him that Christmas. Mostly, for the first time, Blake thanked him for being a wizard and giving Blake his magic.

His magic was going to give Opal a new life one day, a better one where she could have anything her heart desired without working herself to death for it. Blake’s magic was going to give Blake a future a thousand times better than anyone could have guessed.

The magic his father most likely gave him had given Blake his best friend in the world.

So he was thankful, but he would still punch the man in the face for breaking Opal’s heart if he ever saw him in person.

He told Arty as much and Arty laughed and promised that if he ever saw a wizard who looked like Blake that he’d hit them for him.

As the end of their fourth year approached, Blake had been more excited for summer than ever before. Arty and his family were going to Italy to see Arty’s grandmother and uncle and they’d invited Blake to go with them. Opal had been hesitant in her letters about it, but ultimately agreed when she saw how badly Blake wanted to go.

Blake figured that Arty’s dad Harry going and talking to her hadn’t hurt either. Blake would never tell Arty, but sometimes he saw Harry and saw how Arty would look in twenty years and it wasn’t a bad picture at all.

Their big plans for Italy had been ruined when Blake returned home for a week and Opal sat him down to talk.

“Cancer,” Blake repeated blankly. He stared at Opal and her thin face, the greys that painted her silky black hair and the dullness of her usually vibrant green eyes. “Mama,” Blake’s voice broke, “no.”

Opal patted Blake’s hand and smiled, a candle to the sunshine it used to be. “Angel, I’m going to fight it. But you and I? We don’t keep secrets. So I wanted you to know. And,” she paused to cough, a sound that terrified Blake with the cancer in his mama’s lungs, “I just want you to be prepared. In case- in case something happens, my Angel, you should find your daddy. See if one of your wizards know how to find him. He’ll take care of you.”

Blake had laid in Opal’s bed that night, cuddling with his mama in a way he hadn’t for years, silently crying while she slept. He didn’t want his mama’s broken angel, he wanted his mama.

He couldn’t lose Opal. Opal was… she was the light of Blake’s life. Opal gave up everything for Blake- her family, her social life, her youth. Everything she had, she have to Blake.

So Blake sacrificing Italy with Arty had been nothing.

He called him the next morning when Opal still slept and tried to explain without crying. He couldn’t go. He was almost fifteen and old enough to work at the grocers down the road, it wouldn’t be much, but enough that Opal wouldn’t have to go back to the new factory she’d been working in.

Arty had been so understanding that it made Blake let out a fresh wave of tears after they hung up. He’d still been crying, and desperately trying to hide it when there was a knock on his door an hour later.

There Arty stood, a duffel bag over his shoulder and a stubborn set to his jaw.

“Here’s the plan,” Arty started, breezing right past Blake to dump his bag on the worn brown sofa, “you’re not getting a job, that’s mad. I’m rich for no real reason and you’re going to tell me how to pay an elekktrick bill so you can spend time with Opal. Aunt Susan will be here tomorrow with groceries and Grandpa Sev is going to try and find a potion to help, except he said that muggles can’t take most potions. Now, show me how to work the dishwasher.”

Arty spun around and crossed his arms, giving Blake the same stubborn look he wore when Blake tried to drop history for their upcoming OWLS year. Blake shut the door and wiped his face off, only slightly less embarrassed to have Arty be the one to catch him crying than he would be if it had been anyone else.

“Italy?” Blake asked, blinking uncertainly.

Arty scoffed. “Dishwasher,” he stressed. He snapped his fingers, “Move it, Reed. If I’m staying here, I’m going to be useful.”

Blake knew he couldn’t argue against Arty, not when he had an idea in his head. His Arty was stubborn as hell.

“I love you,” Blake told him earnestly when they cleaned his kitchen together. Opal hadn’t been able to clean, as busy as she’d apparently been with work and doctors appointments.

Arty splashed soapy water at Blake, staining his white tee with suds.

“I love you, idiot.”

Blake laughed, the first time since he got home, and splashed Arty right back.

“I’m your idiot,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Arty’s cheeks turned pink and then the two of them got in what they would later dub the Great Soap Battle.

Arty held Blake’s hand when Opal started chemo.

Arty told his Aunt Susan to bring soup when everything heavier than broth made Opal sick to her stomach.

When Opal’s hair, her beautiful hair that once shone so brightly, began falling out, Arty held Blake while he cried over something that should have seemed silly.

Maddie’s dad came to visit midway through the summer. He brought potions for nausea that he swore he tweaked to be safe for muggles.

“Hmm.” Maddie’s dad, Severus Snape, stood in the middle of Blake’s living room and stared at him oddly. “Mister Reed, you’ve grown since I’ve seen you last.”

“People tend to do that,” Arty drawled from where he was spread across the sofa, reading over his summer potions essay for Professor Luna.

Mister Snape ignored Arty’s cheek and moved over to the telly stand to pick up a photo of Opal and Blake. It had been taken by a nurse when Blake was born. Opal was young, beautiful, and happy, Blake was pink and screaming.

“Your mother is a beautiful woman,” Mister Snape said. His lips twitched when he looked at the photo of Opal’s dark glossy curls and her wide green eyes.

“Thank you, sir,” Blake said. He gave a bewildered look to Arty, but Arty merely shrugged.

Maddie’s dad was a good bloke for bringing the potions for Opal and refusing any payment, but he was still weird.

“Mama, I can’t leave you,” Blake said as September approached and Opal was as thin and frail as ever. Arty was asleep in Blake’s bed, the same place he’d slept all summer, and Blake was wiping sweat off Opal’s face after she finished sicking up in the loo. “I’m going to quit and stay here. I’ll go back when- when you’re better,” he said.

Opal refused, weakly argued that Blake needed to be with his friends at his school, but Blake stayed firm. It broke his heart when Arty left on the first, swearing he’d figure something out, but Blake would rather be a broke muggle and take care of Opal than a rich wizard one day.

Arty’s dad had another idea.

It had been nearly the end of the first week of September when Blake and Opal returned from her chemotherapy appointment. Blake all but carried Opal up the stairs, as light as she was, and drew to a stop when he saw Arty’s dad, Harry, and Arty’s cousin Vic standing outside the door to their flat.

“Miss Reed,” Harry stepped forward and took Opal off Blake’s arm, helping her stand while Blake fumbled in his pocket for his keys. “How are you?”

“Better now.” Opal smiled weakly at Harry and let him guide her inside. Harry settled her in her recliner and Vic covered her with a thick knitted blanket from the sofa. “How can we help you Mister Potter?”

Harry smiled, Arty’s smile, and knelt down beside the chair while Blake hovered on the other side of the chair, wondering why the Minister was in his flat.

“Just Harry, please,” Harry told Opal kindly. “I came to introduce you to my niece,” he waved a hand at Vic, who was just as tall and beautiful as she’d been the last time Blake saw her, “Victoire.”

Vic stepped forward and smiled dazzingly at Opal.

“Hello, ma’am.”

Opal smiled back, but Blake could see the way she was blinking and knew she’d be falling asleep soon. He reached down and popped the footrest up, letting Opal recline back in her chair.

“Why- why are you here?” Blake asked Harry, saving Opal from having to talk.

Harry got to his feet and gave Blake a curious look, one black brow quirked, pulling at the scar that went down the right side of his face.

“You didn’t go back to school,” he told Blake. “Arty told me what was going on, and I’ve found a solution.”

Blake waved his hand in a ‘get on with it’ sort of motion. He liked Arty’s dad, but Opal was Blake’s responsibility. He was grateful for all that Harry had done; like letting Arty stay over the summer and sending his Vice Minister with groceries… and probably paying the bills that Blake didn’t pay but didn’t get disconnected.

Harry smirked and then leaned against the wall, somehow looking like he belonged in the middle of the shabby flat that stunk like Opal’s cigarettes and trash that needed taken out.

“Vic just got her mediwitch license,” Harry said, explaining Vic’s presence. “She needs a job, your mum needs a nursemaid, it’s a win-win.”

Blake shook his head and put a protective hand on Opal’s shoulder.

“She’s my responsibility,” he said, lowering his voice when he saw Opal was dozing off. “She needs me.”

Harry’s usually hard gaze softened, but he had a stubborn look to his jaw that Blake recognized.

“You’re a child,” he said, “let the adults handle it. Vic will stay here and send you updates every day, okay? But you should be in school, being a kid.”

“You never did,” Blake countered with. “We learned about you in school, you know. When you were fifteen you fought Voldemort.”

Harry shook his head and seemed to age right before Blake’s eyes.

“And I wish I could have been a kid,” he said softly. “Let us help, Blake. You’re part of the family, yeah?”

Blake’s chin quivered as he looked down at his mama. Opal always wanted a big family, and so did Blake.

“Your mama will need you to graduate and get a high paying job, non?” Vic said gently. “When she beats this, she will not be happy that you gave up your futures for her.”

It was Vic’s reminder that Opal would need Blake more in the future than she did the present that cracked his resolve.

“Fight hard, Mama,” Blake told Opal a few days later when he had his trunk packed and Harry waited to take him to Hogwarts.

Opal sat in the wheelchair Vic brought her, a new scarf wrapped around her head, and smiled at him. She grabbed his hand and squeezed hard.

“I will, Angel.” Blake tasted a tear when he bent down to kiss her cheek. “You study hard, okay? We need that magic house to celebrate in.”

Blake bit his lip, hard, to keep from crying.

“Okay, Mama,” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you more than anything, my Angel baby.”

Blake returned to Hogwarts - to Arty - and Harry returned to get him the night before Halloween.

“Blake.” Professor Malfoy and Harry stood in the doorway of the Slytherin common room, a solemn expression on his sharp face. “Can you come with us, please?”

Blake looked from Professor Malfoy’s solemn face to Harry’s blank one, and his heart sank.

The next hour was a blur - all Blake remembered later was that it was Arty by his side, holding his hand, when Blake sat in the Headmaster’s office and Harry told him his world had ended.

“Peacefully…”

“Quick…”

“Left you a letter…”

“I’m so sorry…”

“I want to see her, please,” Blake said, his face soaked by the tears he hardly noticed. “Please, I want to see my mama.”

“I’ll take him,” Harry offered when Professor Malfoy said he’d take him. “No, really,” he brushed off Headmaster Black’s protests. “Blake’s family.”

“I’m going too,” Arty said firmly.

Harry rolled his eyes at his son. “Obviously.”

Blake hardly noticed anything as he left Hogwarts to floo to Arty’s then apparate to his flat. All he could think about was his mama, gone.

There couldn’t be a world without Opal Reed in it. Not a world that Blake was interested in.

Blake froze outside Opal’s bedroom door. His lungs turned to ice and his muscles were locked when he reached for her doorknob.

If he walked in there and saw her, then… then it would be real.

“Go on.” Harry reached around Blake and opened the door for him. “We’ll wait out here.”

Arty opened his mouth to argue, but Harry shook his head.

“Let him do this part alone, son.”

Blake would be grateful for that later, but he was terrified in the moment as he stepped in the room. He moved automatically to Opal’s bed and climbed in the side that had always unofficially been his.

Opal looked so beautiful, a pretty blue silk scarf wrapped around her head to match the pajamas she wore. Her eyes were closed, her lashes brushing her cheek.

She could have been sleeping.

“Mama?” Blake reached up and touched Opal’s cheek. He flinched at the coldness, the proof that it wasn’t Opal - it wasn’t his mama. Opal was warm, so full of love and affection that she may as well have been an inferno. “Mama,” he cried. Blake cupped her cheek and laid his head on her unmoving chest. “Mama, please, please.”

Blake could cry all he wanted, he could beg all he wanted, but Opal was gone.

She left him behind in a world where he was alone.

“I should have stayed, Mama. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Blake cried on her chest, clinging to her when it was too little, too late. “I’m sorry. Please, I love you. I’m so sorry.”

Blake laid there, crying on the shell that had once been his whole world, and wondered why? Why Opal? Why would God take her when Blake needed her so badly?

He would have been content to stay there forever once his tears ended and the shock settled in his bones, but Arty wouldn’t let him.

“Come on, Blake, let’s get you something to drink.”

Blake didn’t know if he answered or not, but Arty reached down and pulled on him, pulling him away from Opal.

“Blake, you can’t stay here,” he said, soft and firm at the same time. “She- she wouldn’t want that.”

It was the tiny hitch in Arty’s voice, the quiver that reminded Blake that Opal had adored Arty as much as Blake had, that gave Blake the ability to let go—

How could he let go?

—of Opal and let Arty drag him in the living room.

“I should have stayed,” Blake said, his voice hollow and hoarse. Arty pulled him on the sofa and then wrapped his arm around him, holding him close, and Harry pressed a mug in Blake’s hands, forcing him to curl his fingers around the hot cup.

“She was not alone,” Vic said, bringing herself to Blake’s attention. She was curled up on the floor by Opal’s recliner, a mug in her hands and a shawl around her shoulders. Her light blue eyes were shining with tears and Blake felt only a small measure of guilt leave him when he realized that Vic, who had always been kind when Blake interacted with her before, must have become close to Opal while she’d been staying there.

Harry sat down on the floor beside Vic, thankfully not taking Opal’s recliner, and looked up at the boys gravely.

“When you’re ready, she left you a letter.”

Blake hadn’t been ready until the next night when he’d been at the Potter’s house. Headmaster Black told him to take all the time he needed and Harry had told Blake he could stay with them as long as he needed.

Nobody understood that what Blake needed was his mama.

My Angel,
If you’re reading this, then I’ve left you, baby. I want you to know I didn’t want to, I fought like a woman possessed, but everyone goes in the end.
I wish I was there with you. I wish I could see you when you’re all grown up and a man of your own. Even if I’m not there though, I know what kind of man you’ll be because I know what kind of son you’ve been. You’re going to be the greatest man to walk the earth, Angel. You’re going to do good things, amazing things, and I just wish I could tell you in person how proud of you I am when you do.
I’m not leaving you alone though, baby. Your Arty is a good boy and his daddy is a good man. They’ll be there for you while I can’t be, and one day we’ll be together again. Keep your Arty close and remember that lovers come and go, but best friends are forever.
You’ve been my best friend since the moment you were born and that will never change.
All my love, until we see each other again,
-Mama

They buried Opal Reed in the Spinner End Cemetery at Harry’s insistence. Blake didn’t know of any cemetery’s anyway, and he didn’t know how to plan a funeral. He’d chosen roses at random when he’d been asked to choose flowers for it.

It had been beautiful, and Blake hadn’t noticed any of it.

Blake noticed the coffin- gleaming white with little purple flecks mixed in, just as beautiful as Opal.

Blake noticed Arty- right by his side, squeezing his hand and reminding him that Blake wasn’t floating away as it felt like.

And Blake noticed the little white church had been packed with Arty’s family and their friends from school. He heard when people spoke to him, but he didn’t process it, couldn’t process it.

They put Opal in the ground and Blake would have jumped in after her if Arty hadn’t been holding him back.

Blake screamed when she was gone- truly gone -and it felt like he’d been ripped in half. Surely his heart was gone, gone with his mama, gone where he couldn’t reach her anymore.

It took Arty, Selena, and Maddie’s boyfriend Jake to drag Blake from the graveyard back in the church, Blake fought them the whole time.

He didn’t want to be in the church, he wanted Opal.

God.

He’d do anything to have Opal back. Anything.

Blake didn’t know if he couldn’t breathe because Opal took his lungs with her as well as his heart or because he’d been crying too hard to also breathe, but the room spun around him - a blur of roses and pity on all sides.

“Blake…”

Blake yanked his arm from Arty’s grip and then immediately regret it. He grabbed Arty by his suit jacket and pulled him to him, holding him as tightly as he could. Blake’s arms were trapped between their bodies while Arty’s arms circled him, clutching him and supporting him.

And Blake just— broke.

He couldn’t navigate the world without his mama. Opal was everything to Blake; aside from Arty, she was his whole world. The sun, moon, and stars all circled around Opal Reed.

And now there was a black hole in the galaxy where Opal once took up so much space. It was the match to the black hole in Blake’s chest where he’d once carried his mama when they were apart.

Arty pulled Blake down on a settee just inside the church doors. Despite Blake being taller and bigger than Arty, Arty let him all but crawl in his lap, desperate to hold on to the last good thing he had in life. Arty didn’t say anything, was there anything to even say? He just held Blake and let him ruin his suit with his tears and his sorrow that ran as deep as any ocean.

Deeper.

Blake’s sorrow was endless.

Returning to Hogwarts at the end of November had been a special sort of hell. Students that Blake hardly knew offered him condolences, teachers looked at him with pity.

It seemed like every student who had ever lost a parent wanted to come tell Blake that they ‘understood’ him and were ‘sorry for his loss’.

“If they understood you, they’d know to shut the fuck up,” Jake, the new transfer student who had began dating Maddie, snapped at dinner one night after a student came up and told Blake that.

“Cheers, Jake,” Arty scowled darkly, his hand on Blake’s leg beneath the table and his expression scaring off any more ‘well meaning’ students. “Bloody idiots, they are.”

“Eat,” Selena said bossily, adding food to the empty plate in front of Blake. He hadn’t been hungry since he returned to Hogwarts the day before and every time someone looked at him so pitifully, his appetite vanished even more. “I mean it, Blake Cristopher, you have to eat or I’m telling Professor Luna to send you nutritional potions.”

“Ooh, Blake!” Maddie leaned forward and her eyes glimmered with mischief. “If you eat, I’ll tell you about the girl that asked Arty out on the train!”

“What?” Blake felt a flicker of annoyance burn through the dull weight of grief that had settled in his stomach. He glanced over at Arty and raised his brows. “Really?”

Arty rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, a dark blue sky that night.

“Yes,” he drawled. “And it was very embarrassing and I told her to fuck off.”

Blake took a bite of his potatoes and turned an expectant look toward Maddie, who was a terrible gossip. Someone asking his boyfriend out would have been the only thing to interest him, if their conversation hadn’t taken a quick turn into utter confusion.

“Amy Sanderson,” Maddie subtly pointed toward a fourth year Ravenclaw girl with curly brown hair and a crooked tie. “She came right in our compartment, Blake, bold as brass, and asked Arty out in front of us!”

Selena added a scoop of carrots to Blake’s plate and narrowed her eyes when Blake tried to push her hand away.

Potter’s were stubborn as hell.

“I told her no, of course,” Arty said. “I was shocked she’d ask me.”

Jake, who sat between Maddie and Selena and didn’t seem all that bad of a guy despite his odd accent, shrugged.

“Well Blake didn’t ride, right?” he asked, continuing when Arty nodded. “So she probably thought you guys broke up.”

It was insulting, but made sense to Blake. What Arty said did not make sense and shocked the grief right out of him for a moment.

“We aren’t dating,” Arty hissed, his face an adorable shade of red.

Blake and Maddie both turned to Arty, Blake with his eyebrows high up on his forehead and Maddie with hers pinched together.

“We aren’t?” Blake asked him slowly, puzzled and hurt. Had they broken up and he’d been too overwhelmed with Opal’s death to notice?

Arty looked surprised when he turned to Blake.

“Er… no?” he said, just as slow and uncertain as Blake. “Right?”

“Wrong,” Maddie sang. “Haven’t you guys been together for like…”

“Two years,” Blake told her, still looking at Arty in shock. “What the hell?”

“What do you mean?!” Arty yelped, causing Blake to wonder if maybe he’d been obliviated. He didn’t seem to think they broke up, just that there wasn’t a relationship between them. “When did we start dating?!”

“When you kissed me!” Blake said, momentarily forgetting that they were surrounded by their friends and other students at dinner. “You said you loved me!”

“I do love you,” Arty said quickly. “Of course I do.”

“And we kiss all the time!” Blake told him. Had Blake misunderstood that? Was it some odd pureblood thing?

“For like… practice!” Arty said, his voice getting high pitched and his eyes wide. “I- I thought we were practicing?”

Blake nearly laughed. Practicing? Who practiced snogging with their best friend?

“We sleep together all the time,” Blake said, quieter then and with a heat in his cheeks to match Arty’s red face. “All summer we cuddled every night.”

“And Dad won’t even let me go on a date,” Selena pouted.

“Platonically,” Arty told Blake, ignoring his sister.

“Your hand is on my leg right now.”

Arty didn’t move his hand, his fingers merely flexed.

“You’re sad.”

“We went out last year to celebrate our anniversary!”

“Oh.” Arty blinked and his lips curled upward on one side, a small smile. “Was that what it was for? I was rather confused what the occasion was.”

Blake didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry. He’d been imagining a relationship with his best friend for years. His very cuddly, kissable, comforting best friend whose hand was still on his leg.

“Surely one of you asked the other one out?” Jake asked, jolting the boys from their silent stare off and reminding them of their presence. When neither of them said anything, Jake, Maddie, and Selena all laughed.

“I thought it was some wizard thing,” Blake muttered, embarrassed then. He ducked his head and his small appetite fled once more. “Stupid, I guess.”

Blake pushed his plate away and steeled himself to go curl up in bed, probably cry and curse the world, but Arty cleared his throat pointedly until Blake glanced over at him.

“Do you- do you want to be dating?” Arty asked, his eyes on his hand that was tapping away on the table.

“No, I just thought we had been for years because I hated the idea of it,” Blake deadpanned.

Arty glanced over at Blake and there was a smile on his lips, a blush still on his cheeks, and a light in his eyes.

“Yeah?” he said. “Well too bad. If you hate the idea of it, you’ll have to break up with me proper, Reed.”

Blake grinned, and it was small, still a little confused, but it was the first grin he’d given anyone in a month.

It made sense that it had been Arty who received it.

That December, it had been Arty who took Blake out for their two year anniversary. And it had been Arty who took Blake to the cemetery on Christmas, skipping the get together with his family, to sit quietly by Opal’s grave.

It had been cold enough to freeze the tears on Blake’s cheeks, but Arty wiped them away with his mittened hands when the sun set and they left together.

“Ready to tell my dads we’re together?” Arty asked on New Years Eve, an hour before they left for the Ministry Gala.

“You’re sure they won’t want me to leave?” Blake asked. He was pretty sure that Fred, at least, already knew they were dating, since he’d given Blake permission to take Arty out last December, but Arty had been full of nerves to tell Harry. Blake was nervous too, but mostly just that he’d end up on the streets if Harry didn’t want his son’s boyfriend to live with them. There was no way that Harry would be upset with Arty, anyone could tell that Harry loved his kids as much as Opal had loved Blake.

Blake tried to not be jealous that Arty had both his parents in his life; healthy, supportive, loving, but it still reared up occasionally and he ignored it when it did.

Arty squeezed Blake’s hand tightly just before knocking on his Dad’s office door.

“If you leave, I’ll leave too,” he said. Which was just the sort of mad thing that Blake should have expected from his Arty.

“Dad, Papa, Blake and I are dating.”

Harry sat behind his desk in a chair large enough to hold him and Fred. It was sort of funny to see a middle aged redhead in the Minister of Magic’s lap, but Blake refrained from laughing for Arty’s sake. Arty stood in front of the desk and looked like he’d just confessed to a crime and Blake would never say so, but Arty was rather dramatic at times.

“Arty, Blake,” Fred looked at them both gravely, “Harry and I are married.”

Harry abruptly scowled and shoved Fred off his lap, dumping his laughing husband on the floor with a fond roll of his eyes.

“Not the time to brag, you prat,” Harry told him before looking at the boys. “When did this happen?”

Fred popped his head up and winked at Blake.

“Two years ago, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Blake nodded, relieved that he hadn’t just been imagining his relationship after all.

“What?!” Harry yelped and his eyes flicked from Arty to Blake to Fred and then back to Arty. “You didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t know!” Arty cried. Blake squeezed his hand reassuringly and tried to not laugh. “I thought we were friends!”

“You guys kiss every New Years,” Fred snickered.

Blake bit back a laugh and nodded at Arty’s Papa.

“Thank you,” he sighed. “Arty didn’t even know we were dating.”

“You never said so,” Arty told Blake with a scowl.

“Oh, love.” Fred tilted his head over on Harry’s lap and laughed. “That boy right there? That boy with my eyes? That is your son.”

And that had been that.

Blake thought, at a minimum, that Arty’s parents wouldn’t want them sharing a bed anymore, as they rather openly did, but nobody ever said anything so Blake figured Arty’s dads just didn’t think they’d do anything inappropriate under their roof.

They were wrong, of course. It seemed like once Arty realized they were dating (something Blake took great pleasure in teasing him over as often as he could), all the restraint that Blake chalked up to ‘weird wizard customs’ had disappeared.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?” Arty said breathlessly as they laid in Arty’s bed, both naked, panting, and sweating from what had been an awkward, fumbling, and amazing first time together.

Blake rolled on his side and trailed his fingers down Arty’s bare arm to tangle them with Arty’s fingers that were just as clever in private as they were in every other aspect of his life.

“Yeah?” Blake grinned and kissed Arty’s nose. “Been harboring a crush long, love?”

Arty grinned wryly. “I’ve fancied you for ages, haven’t I? I just… I didn’t want to ruin our friendship if you didn’t feel the same.”

Blake laughed and pulled Arty against him, trying to wrap them together as much as he could.

“You’re oblivious,” he said fondly. “You’ll always be my best friend.”