“I hate you.” “I love you too.”

“I hate you.” “I love you too.”

Picks up in Seven Years of Chaos from Book Five, Chapter Twelve…

Harry, Draco, and Ron had a great time flying and testing out the new brooms Sirius sent their quidditch team. By the time they landed, they were all sporting flushed cheeks and windswept hair.

“There’s no way we can lose.” Draco had a bounce in his step as they went to lock their brooms up with the others in the changing rooms. “We’re-“

“What the fuck?”

Harry’s overwhelming happiness from flying with his friends died immediately as his vision went red. Because there, leaning against the outside of the Slytherin changing rooms, was Fred.

Fred and some fucking tosser snogging.

Harry’s vision seemed to narrow down to this one person. This yellow clad older student.

Ron and Draco darted forward to yank Harry away, but they were too slow.

Harry landed a punch to the Hufflepuff boys face before he even had a chance to realize Harry was there.

“ARE YOU FUCKIN SERIOUS?” he yelled. He went to hit him again, but the prat ducked and Harry hit the building instead.

“What the hell?” the boy yelped, darting off to the side, effectively blocking Harry’s next hit.

“Harry, c’mon,” Ron made a brave grab at Harry’s right arm and yanked on it. “They’re fucking brainless morons, don’t get expelled mate.”

It was only Ron’s use of Harry’s favorite curse word that drew Harry’s eyes from the Hufflepuff boy to Fred.

Fred who was fucking grinning at him.

“Don’t touch me,” Harry shook off Ron’s hold of his arm and glared at Fred. “I will kill you,” Harry hissed.

“Why?” Fred asked innocently as the Hufflepuff boy ran towards the castle as quickly as he could. “You’re not jealous, right Harry?”

Harry’s hand flew to his pocket- only to be stopped by Draco this time.

“No!” Harry spat. God he was sick of people accusing him of being jealous. “You- I- detention. You have detention.”

Fred’s smile only grew at Harry’s blatant abuse of his authority as prefect. And Harry had never wanted to hit him so badly before.

“With Snape,” Harry sneered. “On Saturday.”

Which meant that if Fred and the coward that ran away had plans for some cute little Hogsmeade date, they were cancelled now.

Harry went to stalk off, but Fred’s laughter almost had him giving up his entire education if he could just go back and hit him one time.

“Breathe,” Draco murmured from his side. “He’s just trying to get a reaction from you.”

“Is murder a reaction?” Harry growled.

“He’d deserve it,” Ron muttered darkly. “Merlin. I can’t believe he’d be so daft.”

“Who was the other bloke?” Harry demanded as soon as the three of them were safely in the locker room and Harry had slammed the door behind them.

“Kaleb Barrett,” Draco supplied immediately. He carefully grabbed the Firebolt still in Harry’s hand from him and hung it up on the wall. “Seventh year Hufflepuff.”

“Well he’s got fuckin detention too,” Harry snarled.

“Snape might not like you giving them detention for pissing you off,” Ron said slowly. “Tell him it’s for public display of affection or something.”

Harry bit his tongue until he tasted blood and jerked his shoulders in a shrug.

Snape better just be happy Harry didn’t kill them and make them absolutely miserable during detention.

He probably would.

Harry immediately logged Barrett and Fred’s detentions the moment the three of them got back to the castle. He hesitated when he had to write down a reason before firmly writing ‘snogging in public’.

Snape would figure it out.

Harry returned to his classes with the other Slytherin boys and was relieved that everyone seemed to understand he was not in a good mood and did not want anyone to talk to him.

Draco had explained what happened in a note he passed to Susan in defense, causing her to glower and mentally swear to kick Fred’s arse. But she knew better than to bring it up to Harry when he looked half a second away from burning down the entire castle.

Even Luna kept her distance, knowing Harry needed time to calm down before she tried to cheer him up.

And, by Friday evening, Harry was mostly calm.

He was digging out every book on curses that the library offered while his friends wrote their essays for Flitwick, but he was calmer now.

He had ended it with Fred because Fred deserved better. Fred deserved someone who wasn’t broken and could give him everything he deserved.

But fuck if Harry wanted to see Fred actually snogging someone else right in front of him.

“That’s a good one,” Blaise murmured, gesturing to the book Harry brought back to their table. “There’s an excellent curse of castration in there.”

Harry wasn’t sure what castration was, but if Blaise said it was a good curse then he’d add it to his list of things to try out if he ever found Barrett alone in the halls.

“Are we allowed to talk about it now?” Susan whispered to Harry after she neatly rolled up her essay.

“Nope.”

“He doesn’t really like Barrett,” Ron jumped in quietly. “He’s just—”

“Think I said ‘nope’, didn’t I?”

“We’re talking about it during patrol tonight.” Susan crossed her arms stubbornly. “If nothing else, we can plot revenge.”

Harry just nodded and focused on his book. The rest of them finished up their essays and chatted quietly about their classes and which OWL will be the hardest and a million other things Harry didn’t give a damn about just then.

“Hi, Harry.”

Harry glanced up irritably at the girl who was standing beside the table his gang had claimed way back in first year. His friends quieted down, curious what she wanted from Harry.

Except Luna, who hummed as she stared up at the ceiling with an odd little smile on her face.

“What?” Harry snapped at the girl.

“I wanted to find out how I can sign up for your defense club,” the girl smiled coyly, twisting a kick of her long dark curls around her finger.

“Mione and Theo do sign ups,” Harry said coolly. “They’ll add your name.”

“It’s Romilda, Romilda Vane,” the girl smiled, not even looking to where Harry pointed out Hermione and Theo.

“Brill,” Harry grit out, losing what little patience he had. “Tell them.”

“I also wanted to know if you had plans Saturday?” she asked, either oblivious to Harry’s decreasing patience or ridiculously brave to continue the conversation.

Harry’s brows twitched and he cocked his head to the side as he studied her. She was pretty enough; long black curls, dark skin, and light brown eyes framed in thick lashes. She had on the school uniform, but hers looked to be shrunken on her as it clung to curves that the other boys were doing an admirable job of ignoring.

Harry opened his mouth to tell her he didn’t, and Blaise cut him off.

“He does,” Blaise said as warmly as an icicle. He gave the girl a lazy smile, “With me.”

The girl frowned and her eyes flicked between Blaise’s grin and Harry’s pinched expression of confusion before she huffed and turned on her heel to stride away.

“What the fuck?” Harry asked Blaise as soon as she was out of earshot. “What was that?”

Blaise shrugged and rolled his half-completed essay up. “If you want to make Fred upset, he’d hardly care about a vain little twit of a girl from Gryffindor, hmm? Go out with me Saturday, I’ll make sure he hears all about it.”

Harry debated it internally while his friends all fell silent as they watched the two of them.

“Alright,” Harry finally said, seeing no real drawback. He liked Blaise, they were already friends. What damage could a fake date do besides hopefully piss Fred off as much as he had Harry? “You’re on.”

Blaise’s honey colored eyes sparkled when he nodded at Harry and got to his feet. “It’s a date then.”

“You’re so mad,” Susan sighed as she flopped across Blaise’s lap in the empty Slytherin common room. “Why are you torturing yourself, darling?”

“I’m not,” Blaise said, fondly playing with one of Susan’s red curls. “I am helping a friend in a crisis, what a chivalrous move of me, hmm?”

“Oh, is that the game now?” Susan blinked innocently at him. “Trying to pretend to be a Gryffindor so that Harry falls for you instead of Fred?”

Blaise denied nothing, he didn’t need to. Susan knew it all anyway. Susan knew about Blaise’s crush on their friend before Blaise had fully worked it through for himself. And once Susan pointed it out, and Blaise accepted it, Susan became his confidant.

Blaise told her about being tortured by Fred’s presence at their meals. He told her about attempting to bury his feelings for Harry by burying his cock inside others. He told her of the weight on his chest when Harry and Fred danced together at the Yule Ball last year.

There were no secrets between them, not when it came to Harry.

“Hmm, not quite,” Blaise said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I’ll take Harry on this ‘fake date’ and then he’ll see that I am a superior decision to Fred Weasley.”

Susan gave Blaise a pitying look that he didn’t quite appreciate. “Blaise, Harry loves Fred. They only broke up because Harry… well… I’m not telling you why, but I’m telling you that Harry isn’t going to be like your other conquests, love. He’s not going to trip all over himself for your devilish good looks and land arse up in your bed.”

“It’s not like that,” Blaise said, sounding petulant and unable to prevent it. “Harry is different. I don’t expect to shag him and owl him a thank you note the next morning.”

Susan giggled at that, still delighted by how Blaise broke things off with Christian Hoffman, a seventh year Ravenclaw he’d had three nights in a row with that Hoffman misunderstood.

She reached up and put a gentle hand on Blaise’s cheek. “I don’t want you to be hurt when Harry goes back to Fred,” she said softly. “Because I think he will.”

“I won’t be,” Blaise lied smoothly. He smirked and tugged a little on the curl wrapped around his finger. “Now help me plan a date to knock our Harry off his feet.”

Harry laughed a little when Saturday rolled around and Blaise instructed him to ‘dress his best’.

“He’s taking this real serious, isn’t he?” Harry rolled his eyes when Blaise sauntered off to go get ready with Neville so as to not ‘ruin the first impressions on their first date’.

“Very seriously,” Draco said drily while he combed his hair in the mirror. “One could almost say that Blaise doesn’t consider this to be a fake date at all.”

Theo and Ron snickered, but Harry ignored them.

It wasn’t that Blaise wasn’t fit, fun to be around, and one of Harry’s closest friends- it was that…

Well…

Since Harry wasn’t dating Fred because he was so irreparably sexual broken, then he bloody well couldn’t start dating Blaise, could he? Especially since Blaise was what Susan fondly referred to as a ‘shameless slag’ and Blaise would rather be with someone who was open to sex.

Someone who wouldn’t freak out and push him away for his own good, as Harry had Fred.

“Blaise knows what this is,” Harry said gruffly. He messed with his hair a bit, forcing it to lay in the ‘sexy bed head look’ that Draco taught him, and then pulled on his jacket from Sirius determinedly.

Blaise wasn’t expecting this to be a real date.

That was mad.

Fred was in a right pissy mood when he and Kaleb arrived at Snape’s classroom for detention.

He didn’t care about the detention itself, it was a lark and everyone knew it. It had been hilarious and adorable when Harry assigned it— petty revenge for Fred making him jealous.

What he was pissed about was seeing Blaise Zabini- Merlin damned Blaise Zabini with his sharp cheekbones, his toned body, and his sparkling golden eyes -strut through the Gryffindor common room that morning with Neville while practically yelling about his date with Harry.

As in, Harry Potter.

As in, Fred’s Harry.

As in, Fred’s Harry who Fred was planning on spending the rest of his life trying to win back and convince him that Fred didn’t care about the sex- he merely cared about Harry.

Fred and Blaise had nearly come to blows over it. They both had their wands drawn and were shouting at one another when George and Neville interceded. Neville quietly assured Fred that Harry was only doing it to make Fred jealous as Fred had with Kaleb.

But did Blaise know that? Noooo. He bloody well didn’t seem to.

And now Fred was stuck in detention while Blaise was probably out doing his best to woo Harry away from Fred and toward himself.

Fred fucking hated Blaise Merlin-Damned Zabini.

Professor Snape held Fred back after dismissing Kaleb with an additional point loss to Hufflepuff, his own punishment for pissing his kid off, Fred was sure.

“Kindly explain to me, what precisely is going on between you and my ward?” Snape sighed when Fred took a seat across his desk.

Fred had hesitated, unwilling to break Harry’s confidence, but a vow from Snape had him spilling his guts.

And when Fred left Snape’s office, he felt better, actually. He confided in Snape about why Harry ended things and told him about Harry’s date with Blaise and really Professor Snape wasn’t a bad bloke at all.

He listened, he offered sarcastic comments, but his eyes were soft and understanding when he told Fred that he was sure Harry was merely using Blaise to make him jealous and that he would see if he could help Harry with the ‘trauma he carried over sexual intimacy’.

Snape was a damn good bloke, really.

And hopefully George spied on Harry and Blaise and would fill Fred in when he got back from Hogsmeade and prove that he was a good brother too.

Blaise glanced over at Harry as they strolled together toward Hogsmeade and fought the urge to grin. But…

“You look great,” he grinned, feeling all the happier when Harry’s cheeks turned an appealing shade of pink.

Harry glanced at him, a sneer ready to appear, then seemed to falter in the face of Blaise’s genuine smile.

“Thanks,” Harry said, sounding suspicious.

As if Blaise could not spend every moment of every day finding things to compliment Harry on.

“Are you looking forward to having your team use the new broomsticks?” Blaise asked him.

Blaise’s hope that Harry would latch on to the conversation and begin talking, truly talking, was fulfilled when Harry began discussing all the ways that the new broomsticks were better than the old model.

It was one of the many things that Blaise adored about Harry. In one moment, Harry could be a suspicious and cynical young man who used clipped sentences and curses to make a point. In the next, with the proper topic, Harry could be an eager boy passionately discussing the aerodynamics of broomsticks.

Harry was an enigma and Blaise loved him so desperately.

Blaise could spend a lifetime listening to Harry’s charming accent describe the differences between terrifying pieces of wood that transported wizards hundreds of feet in the air and protected them with a mere eight pounds of magic.

Harry paused his story and gave Blaise a confused look when they bypassed the Three Broomsticks and the Hogs Head.

“Where we going?” he asked. His eyes were bright and his cheeks were flushed, as much from the cool fall air as his enthusiasm for the subject, Blaise was sure.

Blaise tried to smile instead of smirk, as he was more apt to do. He didn’t want to force his defensive measures against Harry, not if he only had the one chance to make the day memorable.

“What’s your favorite thing to do, Caro?” Blaise asked Harry, lowering his voice a notch and stepping slightly closer. He was rewarded for his minimal efforts by the slight widening of Harry’s pupils, unfortunately hiding some of his enchanting green, yet showing he was not wholly unaffected by Blaise.

“Fight,” Harry answered swiftly, a faint smile on his lips as he said it.

“So let’s fight,” Blaise told him. He held his hand out to Harry and burst with unexpected pleasure inside when Harry unhesitatingly took it.

“You want to duel on our date?” Harry asked skeptically.

Blaise smiled as he led Harry toward the Shrieking Shack, the one place they could have a full on duel and Harry wouldn’t need to hold back. He responded with a simple yes, but truthfully he would jump off a bridge if it meant doing it with Harry.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, girlfriend and people I associate with,” Draco grinned at his table full of friends, “time to place your bets.”

“You’re lucky we associate with you,” Theo scoffed. He grabbed two butterbeers from the tray that Ron got for the group and handed one to Hermione before taking a drink of his own. “What are we placing bets on?”

“Blaise or Fred,” Draco said, as if it weren’t obvious. Merlin, his friends were dense. “Who will Harry choose?”

“Fred.”

“Blaise.”

Ron and Susan looked at each other curiously and Luna slid Draco a parchment to begin filling out the bets.

“Harry loves Fred,” Ron told Susan confidently. “Or… Fred loves Harry, anyway.”

“And Blaise doesn’t?” Susan asked with a twitch of her head. “Blaise has been by Harry’s side for years longer than your brother.”

“But Harry always looks so happy when he’s with Fred,” Hermione pointed out.

“And you guys didn’t see Harry when they broke up, he was miserable,” Theo added.

Susan looked around at the others incredulously.

“Am I the only one who thinks Harry’s going to see that Blaise is the obvious choice?” she asked, slapping the table lightly. “Blaise is much more similar to Harry!”

“Precisely,” Hermione said with a nod. “They’re too alike. Fred’s optimism and ridiculous happiness is what Harry needs more than Blaise’s similar traits.”

“I think Blaise is going to win,” Neville said softly. “I don’t want to put money on our friends’ relationships—”

Draco refused to be ashamed. He and Ron had placed much worse bets before.

“—but I do think Blaise is cunning enough to get Harry if he wants him.”

“Exactly!” Susan gave Neville a high-five across the table before shooting Luna a hopeful look. “You’re with us, right, Luna?”

“Yes,” Luna agreed. She smiled at Susan and patted her hand consolingly. “I think Harry will pick Blaise.”

Draco had no more than jotted Luna’s guess down before she continued.

“And he’ll choose Fred.”

Draco laughed and studied Luna’s perfectly serious face fondly.

“Your guess is that Harry’s going to date the both of them?” he asked. “I’ll give you excellent odds, dear, there’s no chance.”

“Why not?” Luna asked him. She frowned when she saw the others were exchanging their own disbelieving looks. “If you like two people and they’re both good fits, why shouldn’t you date them both?”

Draco bit the inside of his cheek and lost some of his previous amusement at debating the Harry and Fred and Blaise problem.

Draco… Draco really didn’t want his girlfriend to be defending the idea of dating multiple people at once. It was shocking that someone as intelligent and beautiful and kind as Luna would even want to court with Draco in the first place. How would he be meant to compete if she started courting multiple people?

“Because some people don’t want to share their boyfriend, or girlfriend,” Ron said. He plucked a chip from the basket they all shared and waved it at Luna. “Draco certainly doesn’t.”

“Obviously,” Luna drawled with a playful haughtiness. “But we’re talking about Harry.”

“And Harry really hates to share,” Theo said logically. “Trust me, he built an entire wall just so it didn’t seem like we share a bedroom.”

“A bedroom that Fred spent quite a bit of the summer in,” Hermione said. “Draco, I’m putting ten galleons on Fred.”

“Fifteen on Blaise,” Susan sniffed.

Ron and Theo also bet on Fred, Luna bet on both of them, and Draco considered the situation carefully while his quill hovered over the parchment tracking their bets…

On one hand, Harry did have an inexplicable attachment to Ron’s older brother. Even a blind wizard could see that Harry was happier, lighter, when Fred Weasley was around him. It was one of the only reasons Draco didn’t bemoan his presence within their group.

On the other hand, Blaise and Harry truly did have much more in common and Harry had been the recipient of Blaise’s longing looks since second year. And Blaise was a determined bastard.

It was Blaise’s determination that had Draco putting the quill on the parchment and writing carefully:

B.Z. 20 galleons.

Harry flopped back on the pile of pillows he transfigured the old mattress in the Shrieking Shack in to and smirked at where Blaise stood, trying to extinguish the fire Harry accidentally started.

“You said don’t hold back,” Harry told him. He aimed his finger at the flames like a gun and extinguished them from where he laid.

“I should have added that it wouldn’t be a great idea to burn down the building,” Blaise laughed lightly when he laid on the pile of multicolored pillows beside Harry. “The last time I dueled on a date, I did it in my pants in the Ravenclaw dorms.”

Harry threw his head back with the force of his laughter. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, I did,” Blaise shivered dramatically and scooted toward Harry, as if he needed Harry to protect him or keep him warm. “Miss something or other was quite put out that I forgot her name while we were rather occupied and decided to fight over it.”

Harry smirked over at his friend. “And who won?”

“I did, of course,” Blaise said. He winked when he added, “I did learn from the best.”

Blaise was a riot.

“Do you do that a lot?” Harry asked curiously when the comfortable silence between them stretched on. “Mix up your… acquaintances?”

“Side effect of being so popular, I’m afraid,” Blaise said smoothly. “If they aren’t special, why bother remembering their names?”

“If they aren’t special, why bother seeing them in the first place?” Harry countered with.

Blaise tapped his finger on the floor thoughtfully for a moment.

“If I’m honest, can I ask you a question in return?”

Harry grinned at the familiar bargain. “Sure.”

“I get lonely,” Blaise said. A simple statement that Harry felt resonate within himself. “I find company to occupy myself, realize they aren’t special, aren’t dazzling enough to hold me, and I lose interest.”

“That… that sounds even more lonely,” Harry said after thinking it over carefully. “That sounds fuckin miserable, actually.”

“It gets weary, yet it’s the game I play until I either win or lose,” Blaise said. He smiled blandly, a dim smile to his usual charm. “There are worse ways to waste time.”

Harry shrugged. That was true enough, but it didn’t sound real fun for Blaise either.

“Your turn to be embarrassingly vulnerable,” Blaise said, suddenly chipper. “Why did you and Fred break up?”

Harry felt the muscles in his arms tense so suddenly that it felt like a psychical pain. He snapped his jaw shut and turned his head, glaring harshly at the beaten up wooden wall across from them.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Blaise murmured. “About anything, everything.”

Harry forced himself to shrug and leaned back on his hands, accidentally brushing Blaise’s fingers as he did. “I didn’t want Fred to be a target,” he hedged, using the same story he’d given Fred and Snape and Ron about their breakup.

Susan knew the truth, but Susan would never mock Harry. Susan… Susan was a more secure vault than Gringotts for Harry’s secrets.

Blaise didn’t buy it. “That’s a delightful story, Harry. Come on, I won’t tell any one.” Blaise inched his hand over and put his fingertips on top of Harry’s hand. “You can trust me, always.”

“I do trust you,” Harry said immediately. He did, mostly. He trusted Blaise less than Snape, Susan, Theo, and Luna, but more than Ron, Neville, Draco, or Hermione. Blaise held Harry’s gaze and something in his eyes seemed to make Harry want to talk. There was something so earnest, unexpected, in Blaise’s eyes… as if he truly wanted to know what Harry had to say.

And how many people in the world wanted to know the thoughts Harry kept locked up inside himself?

“Fred and I… we…” Harry cleared his suddenly dry throat and looked back to the wall, the place it was safe to rest his eyes. “I guess we… we had sex, and I freaked out and made a fuckin idiot of myself and he just deserves better so I ended it.”

Blaise’s hand inched toward Harry’s until their fingers were overlapped and interlaced.

“Tesoro, what do you deserve?” Blaise asked, just a hush in the creaking silence of the empty shack.

Harry laughed bitterly and responded truthfully once more.

“Not a fucking thing.”

Blaise quietly moved closer to Harry until they were rubbing arms as well as holding hands.

“You’re wrong, Harry. You deserve everything.”

Harry turned at the heated passion in Blaise’s voice and got caught in eyes that smoldered as much as his tone did. The dry ache in Harry’s throat increased and he leaned forward, wanting to be close enough to Blaise’s eyes to drown in the molten gold.

Blaise leaned forward as Harry did, tilting his head to the side, holding Harry’s gaze until…

Their lips met and Harry felt a jolt travel all the way through his body at it.

Blaise moved a hand to the back of Harry’s head, lacing his fingers through Harry’s hair just as his other hand laced through Harry’s fingers. His breath was warm in Harry’s mouth when he took control of the kiss, parting his lips and leading Harry to part his own.

Another jolt went through Harry, starting at the base of his spine and ending in the pit of his stomach, when Blaise slowly slid his tongue in Harry’s mouth; tasting, testing, talented.

Harry would have been content to stay like that forever, warm and content and curious to explore the feeling of fire lighting his nerves, but Blaise broke away. He smiled right in Harry’s face with wet lips and sparkling eyes.

“Gioia mia, you’re dazzling,” he whispered.

And Harry suddenly realized that his fake date with Blaise… didn’t feel so fake after all.

“Oh you look entirely too smug,” Susan grinned when Blaise found her in the quidditch stands during Slytherins team practice. She patted the seat beside her and waited for him to join her beneath the cozy blanket she brought outside with her. “Good ‘definitely not a date’ then?”

“Excellent definitely a date,” Blaise sighed. “We dueled and we talked and we snogged then we talked and—”

“Wait!” Susan interrupted him with a smack to his arm. “You snogged Harry?!”

“He snogged me,” Blaise said. And Susan saw beneath his smug mask to the actual true joy in his eyes and she felt her heart leap. If Harry was Susan’s platonic soul mate, a thing much more important than mere friendship, then Blaise was Susan’s best friend and her soulmate and her best friend being so happy together would be the greatest thing to ever happen in Susan’s life.

“Tell me everything,” Susan squealed. “We only have twenty minutes before Madam Hooch comes out to tell Harry it’s too dark to practice, so talk fast, darling!”

And Blaise, wonderful friend he was, did.

Susan’s smile grew and grew and grew as Blaise told Susan about Harry confiding in him and the mutual snogging—

And that was so brilliant to Susan because her poor Harry always shied away from physical intimacies. Something she understood much better since their talk over the summer and something that made her blood boil to think over.

One day, Susan would find a way to boil the skin off every person who ever hurt Harry and make them regret it.

—and then the way they weren’t awkward after the kissing and continued doing it until they returned to the castle.

“I’m so happy for you,” Susan said. She rested her head on Blaise’s firm shoulders and watched the Slytherins begin to descend from the sky. “You both deserve so much happiness, love.”

“Harry more than anyone,” Blaise said, proving why Susan always knew that Blaise would be perfect for Harry.

“Well come on then!” Susan jumped up and pulled Blaise to his feet, beaming at the easy laughter that spilled from his lips. “Let’s go catch up with Harry. Maybe we can sneak to the kitchens and get something to warm up?”

“Will you be admitting you were wrong?” Blaise asked as they skipped down the stands together. “Miss ‘Oh he’s going to go back to Fred’?”

“I never admit I’m wrong,” Susan laughed. She raced ahead of Blaise and opened the gate to the grounds. “Especially not when it comes to—”

“Fred.”

Susan and Blaise both stopped so suddenly that Susan accidentally sprayed Blaise with mud.

Blaise’s flat tone made sense as Susan saw Harry standing with his broom in his arms and talking with Fred. Susan couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but Harry’s smirk and Fred’s laughter was clear even from where Susan and Blaise stood.

“I’m sorry,” Susan told Blaise softly, reaching out to find his hand and holding it tightly. “I’m so sorry.”

She glanced at Blaise, her face full of sympathy, but Blaise looked mostly unconcerned aside from a small flicker of worry in the back of his eyes, hidden from all but Susan who knew him so well.

“Harry told me he likes me,” Blaise said confidently. “I asked him if he wanted to date, and he said he’d think about it.”

Susan bit her lip and squeezed Blaise’s hand again. She was no legilimens, not like Snape, but…

But if she were placing bets, she’d put money on Fred asking Harry the same thing as he reached out and grazed Harry’s arm with his hand.

And Harry didn’t pull away from him.

It was mad that one person liked Harry… it was absolute insanity that there were two people who liked Harry…

Two equally brilliant people who wanted to be with Harry.

Which maybe made them slightly less brilliant, but Harry wasn’t one to judge based on levels of sanity.

Harry told Fred the same thing he told Blaise, he needed time to think, and then when he couldn’t think about it properly, he set about getting opinions from the people he trusted the most.

“I want to choose whoever makes you happiest,” Susan told Harry as she laid beside him in his bed, their conversation hidden beneath a paranoid amount of privacy shields. “But I think that if Blaise excites you, you should choose him.”

“You said that Fred makes you feel like you’re at home,” Theo told Harry when they walked the corridors beneath Harry’s cloak together. “And, do not curse me, Harry, but I think that means something important considering how much you always needed a home.”

“You should choose both,” Luna said simply while they petted the thestrals at the edge of the forest. “They both make you happy. What could be wrong about double happiness?”

And that was the problem Harry ruminated on after realizing that he liked Blaise the same way he liked Fred. He didn’t want one or the other, he felt like he had to have both of them to be happy.

Fred was… was the water to Harry’s fire.

He was outgoing, optimistic, friendly, cheerful.

He was Harry’s seeming opposite with a mind and a heart that managed to understand Harry perfectly.

And Blaise… Blaise was gasoline.

He made Harry want to burn bigger, burn brighter.

He was fierce and had a quick wit and a slow temper. He didn’t calm Harry, he made him more driven.

And Harry was royally fucked.

So, he did what he usually did when he was so completely fucked, and went knocking on Snape’s door at one in the morning to wake him up for a chat.

Severus had been sleeping restfully- a deep sleep that carried no dreams, no flickering eyelids, no discomfort -and had been ripped from that idyllic and difficult to find place by his idiot ward.

Potter leapt on Severus, resulting in a brief sparring match as Severus had been under the impression he was being attacked, and ended only when Severus recognized the twangy voice that woke him.

“It is a quarter after one,” Severus hissed. He snatched his wand from his nightstand after pushing Potter harshly off of him. He swished his wand, lighting the candelabra’s in his room and scrutinized Potter closely. The child looked fine. Perhaps slightly wan, certainly his shirt was wrinkled and missing a tie, but reasonable effects of it being one in the morning.

“As you are not bleeding, broken, or bruised, I presume there is a dead body in my sitting room?” Severus asked him curtly. A true worry, knowing Potter as he did.

It could be a dead body. Another converted death eater brought back from the dead. Or… Severus squinted hard at Potter’s eyes… no, they were hardly glassy or glittering, and Potter had taken his potion on the tenth, it was unlikely to be mania. Unless the dosage needed adjusted…

No… Severus still discounted the idea. Potter hardly ever sought him out when he was in a manic state. He merely began behaving erratically until Severus had to discover it for himself.

“No dead bodies,” Potter said. He stretched out on Severus’ bed, with his godforsaken trainers on the clean sheets, and rolled on his side. He propped his head up with his hand and gave Severus a solemn look. “I need to talk to you though, and it’s important, isn’t it?”

Severus sighed heavily. If Potter believed it to be important, it likely was.

It absolutely was not important in the slightest.

“I am buying you a dictionary for Christmas,” Severus said. He rubbed his eyes and refilled his mug of coffee from the pot the house-elves sent up to his sitting room. Severus poured Potter a refill, as the idiot boy had already gulped his way through two cups while he explained his dilemma.

“It’s making me mad, Sev,” Potter said, his voice nearly a petulant whine. “I can’t fuckin sleep.”

“Language,” Severus murmured out of habit. He stared at Potter with blunt exasperation on his face. “Surely even you can see a simple solution to your ‘important’ problem?”

As only Potter would see two boys fighting for his affections to be a problem. Severus was rather fond of the child, but he could also easily admit that his ward had more magical talent than common sense and it was the root cause of the majority of his problems.

“Just… don’t date either of them?” Potter guessed with a pinched expression. “That’s probably for the best, I guess, but—”

“Idiot,” Severus interrupted Potter when it became clear that Potter did not see his simple solution. “Harry, you are fifteen, there is no pressure to choose a single suitor at this stage of your life.”

Potter blinked so slowly at Severus that Severus was certain the child had never even considered it. And why would he have? Potter had the maturity of a teenager, the emotional stunting from learning cruelty before he learned love, and the mental illness to truly wreck havoc within his brain and addle his decision making process.

“You can’t date two blokes at once,” Potter said. He tilted his head to the side and scrunched his nose. “Right?”

“Why not?”

“Because… because that’s fuckin’ mad,” Potter said, scowling now. “I’d be pissed if Fred- Blaise- if either of them dated someone else!”

Severus’ lips twitched fondly at his possessive ward.

“Tell them that,” he said, apparently needing to explain the simple concept to get it through Potter’s incredibly thick head. “I believe that if you ask for what you want, you may be surprised to receive it.”

Potter’s expression of irritation smoothed away to a perfectly blank expression that had Severus mentally chastising himself.

How often did Potter directly ask for things? Next to never because he truly believed that to ask for something was to open himself to ridicule or refusal.

“Tell them what you want,” Severus told Potter, gentling his tone as he only ever did for the child. “In the morning,” he amended himself, seeing it was nearing three o’clock.

Potter put his coffee mug down and stretched on the sofa he’d been sitting on.

“Can I- can I stay here?” he asked Severus hesitantly, already glancing away as if preparing for the refusal.

“You may.” Severus got to his feet and sent their tray back to the kitchen with one flick of his wand and dropped a pillow and blanket on Harry’s head with another. He smirked at his ward and raised a brow, “See? Ask and you may receive.”

Ask and you may receive…

Ask and you may receive…

Harry repeated Snape’s words over the next few days as he took to avoiding Blaise and Fred both to sort out what he wanted.

He knew what he wanted, he missed Fred’s warmth and he liked Blaise’s wit. He wanted to tell Fred secrets and feel his soft reassurance that he didn’t think Harry was a horrible person. He wanted to duel with Blaise and collapse in a tangle of limbs afterward because Blaise didn’t make it easy on Harry.

Harry wanted Fred’s softness and Blaise’s sharpness. He wanted the comfort and the thrill both.

And he fucked it all up and lost both.

“YOU GAVE ME HORRIBLE FUCKING ADVICE!” Harry burst in Snape’s office after finally getting a chance to talk to Blaise, before their DA meeting, and Fred, after the meeting. Harry had pulled his invisibility cloak on and sprinted clear from the grounds out by the lake where he talked to Fred straight to Snape’s office. He glared at Snape where he sat at his desk and leaned against the wall, struggling to ease his uneven and harsh breathing.

“‘Ask and you may receive’,” Harry mocked Snape’s words in the harshest sneer he could muster. “And what happened? Now I’m alone, Snape! You have TERRIBLE ADVICE!”

Snape got to his feet and walked over to Harry while Harry slid down the wall and pulled his knees to his chest.

“What happened?” Snape stopped in front of Harry, too far for Harry to kick if the idea struck him, but close enough that Harry could see the frown that pulled his lips downward at the edges.

“They hate me and I hate you,” Harry spat cruelly before ducking his head to his knees. “They’re gone, Snape. Fred told me I had to choose and Blaise said he didn’t want to share. And now…” Harry swallowed and worked harder than ever to clear his mind and keep his annoying fucking emotions at bay. “And now I’m alone.”

Harry sensed it as Snape knelt down on the ground and slowly scooted over to sit at Harry’s right side.

“You are not alone,” Snape said. Harry felt it as his hand touched the top of Harry’s head, causing him to jolt lightly. “I am sorry that they hurt you.”

Harry waited until he was positive his voice wouldn’t break before responding.

“I don’t hate you,” he said quietly, slightly muffled by the knees he still had his face hidden in. “Your advice was bloody rubbish though.”

“Apparently so,” Snape agreed. His fingers carded through Harry’s hair, a soothing motion that Harry tried to not lean in to. “I know this feels truly tragic, but a heartbreak at fifteen does not need to taint your entire life.”

Harry kept his comment to himself, not wanting to fight with Snape and lose him like he did Fred and Blaise, but it wasn’t as if Snape was a good one to talk about heartbreak ruining your whole life, was he?

And that’s what it was, Harry realized as he sat on Snape’s cold stone office floor, it was heartbreak.

Harry tried to have it all and he lost it all.

He never should have wanted them both, wanting something so insane was a vulnerability and Harry thought he’d actually rather die than feel as terrible as he did just then.

“YOU TOLD HIM WHAT?!” Susan shrieked. She pulled her wand and locked the dormitory door before swinging it and aiming it directly at Blaise’s chest. “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND?!”

“Allow us to help you find it,” Theo sneered. He didn’t draw his wand, but he fingered the throwing star of Harry’s he had in his pocket that he was surprisingly not terrible at hitting a target with. “Repeat now, very slowly, what you told my brother that has had him locked up in Snape’s quarters all weekend?”

Theo should have known that he couldn’t trust Blaise around his brother. As a friend? Sure. As a partner or boyfriend? Absolutely not. Blaise had a terrible habit of disregarding his partners so severely that Theo wondered why he bothered to seek them out in the first place. Theo thought that Blaise’s pathetic crush on Harry would be enough for him to treat Harry with a modicum of respect, but that had clearly been a mistake.

“Harry expects me to share him with Weasley and somehow I’m the bad guy?” Blaise demanded. He didn’t pull his wand, apparently intelligent enough to realize that he was outnumbered as Theo, Susan, and Hermione were all horribly disappointed and furious with him.

“That’s not exactly what Harry said though, is it?” Susan asked Blaise. She took a step toward him and jabbed her wand in his chest. “I asked him what happened and he said he asked you if you would still want to see him if he saw Fred too, I didn’t hear him expecting anything.”

“It sounds like Harry wanted something,” Hermione said. It was sweet, in Theo’s absolutely unbiased opinion, the way that Hermione always watched over Harry like a doting older sister. Not that Theo knew what a doting older sister was, but certainly it had to be something less vicious than Susan and more rational than Luna.

“And how often does Harry want anything?” Theo asked, fixing a dark glare at where Blaise was pinned against the dorm wall by Susan. “Hardly never. Not normal things, anyway,” he corrected himself before Blaise could.

Harry wanted world domination, which was mad and he would probably get it one day.

Asking the two blokes he was seeing if it was okay if he still saw the other, being so uncharacteristically upfront about his wants, was positively rational for Harry and Theo was pissed that he apparently wasn’t going to get it.

“He expects— wants,” Blaise caught himself before Theo could throw the star in his pocket at his kneecaps, “Harry wants me to not see anyone else, but he can see Fred.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you planned on sleeping around if you had a chance with Harry?” Susan said in a falsely sweet voice. “I was under the impression that you wanted Harry more than you wanted to shag the rest of the castle?”

“You know I do,” Blaise hissed in Susan’s face, admirably ignoring the wand in his sternum.

“Then what is the issue?!” Hermione said. She threw her hands up in exasperation and sat down on Theo’s bed. “You want to be with Harry, he wants to be with you, who cares if he’s seeing Fred too? This sounds like a win-win for you both!”

And for Harry, Theo silently added.

“It is not a win for me to be a consolation prize to Fred!” Blaise scowled. He knocked Susan’s wand away from his chest and side-stepped away from her. “I’m so glad that you’re all soo willing to defend Harry when not a single one of my supposed friends cares about my feelings on the matter!”

Susan and Hermione softened at the reminder that they were meant to be Blaise’s friend as well as Harry’s, Theo did not.

When he called Harry his brother, it meant something. Harry was the only family Theo had, and that meant a hell of a lot more than his friendship with Blaise.

“Darling, of course your feelings matter,” Susan said. She pocketed her wand and offered Blaise her hand. “You know I love you, but I think you’re letting your wounded ego blind you to what should be the obvious reason behind Harry’s question.”

Blaise accepted Susan’s hand and held it tightly.

“What’s that?” he asked gruffly.

Susan’s smile was kind and genuine then.

“Harry wants to be with you. Don’t let your ego fixate on the rest of it.”

Theo walked with the girls down to the Great Hall and gave Susan an admiring look.

“You’d make an excellent mind healer one day,” he said honestly. “You’re very insightful when it comes to people.”

Susan smirked and flipped her hair over her shoulder in an irritatingly haughty move.

“I know,” she said waspishly. “Unfortunately, I’ll be busy being Vice Minister of Magic.”

“God save us all,” Hermione whispered.

Ron loved his brother, but his brother was also an absolute brash and idiotic Gryffindor and he took a lot of pleasure in telling him just that.

“Let me get make sure I get what happened… Harry, the bloke you supposedly love, came and told you he wanted to get back together, because he missed you, and he wanted to work on whatever problems you guys had… and you told him no?” Ron snorted and crossed his arms. “You’re a bloody moron, Fred.”

“I’m a moron?” Fred paused his irritated pacing around his dorm room, a room that Ron, Draco, and Luna weren’t technically supposed to be in, but they were there anyway. Neville was technically allowed, but he was an honorary snake in Ron’s opinion.

“Harry’s lost his bloody mind, he has,” Fred went on. “He’s- he’s howling mad!”

“Careful.” Luna sat between Ron and Draco on Fred’s trunk and looked around the room with her usual expression of complete obliviousness. “It almost sounded like you were being mean to Harry.”

“I wasn’t,” Fred snapped. He continued his pacing, weaving in and out of the trunks and belongings scattered about the room. “Harry’s amazing and perfect and just… ugh! But Zabini? Why should I be with someone who doesn’t even think I’m good enough on my own? Huh?”

“Oh, Merlin.” Draco rolled his eyes and stretched an arm over Luna’s shoulders to poke Ron in the shoulder. “And the Gryffindor’s call us dramatic.”

“Oi,” Ron budged Neville with his foot, grinning down at where Neville sat cross-legged on the floor. “You might as well resort, mate, tell them you’re afraid for your safety being here and catching the theatrics.”

“I dunno about that…” Neville’s face went harder and more angry than Ron had ever seen it before when he looked up at Fred. “Harry’s awfully dramatic too. He’s been locking himself away all weekend.”

In a move so smooth Ron would swear Luna and Neville rehearsed it, Luna cleared her throat before quietly adding, “That’s not Harry being dramatic. That’s just Harry having a broken heart.”

Fred stopped pacing at once and dropped his hands from where he’d been pulling at his hair.

“He’s broken hearted?” Fred asked, sounding sad enough that Ron decided it was his brotherly duty to guide him to the answer that made his best mates and his brother the happiest.

“Did you think he wouldn’t be?” Draco sneered. Ron hushed him with a quick jab to his bony shoulder and then rested his arm over Draco’s on top of Luna’s shoulders to give his older, and much dimmer, brother some advice.

“Harry likes you, everyone can see that,” Ron told Fred patiently. “Who cares if he likes Blaise too? Which is more important? You not wanting to share, or you being with Harry?”

Fred looked as if he hadn’t even considered such a bloody simple concept.

“Hear, hear!” Draco cheered sarcastically. “Also, Weasley, did you consider that Harry is a touch high maintenance? If anyone needs two partners to handle him, it’s Harry.”

Ron actually didn’t even consider it, but Draco wasn’t wrong. Harry was a mad bloke who did mad things like fight basilisks and dragons with swords and move dead ex-death eaters in his house.

Merlin, Snape should get married just so he had a second parent to help watch Harry.

Ron wouldn’t be the one to suggest that though because Merlin knew Susan would probably volunteer and Ron didn’t want to attend a wedding between his professor and one of his mates.

“For fucks sake…” Neville got to his feet and patted Fred on the shoulder much more kindly than Ron would have done. “It isn’t difficult, mate, just figure out what’s most important to you and go from there, eh?”

When Ron walked to the Great Hall for dinner with his friends, he smiled at them happily.

“I think we handled that well,” he said cheerfully. “Either Fred’ll get his head out of his arse or we can find Harry a much better bloke than Fred or Blaise. Someone smart, maybe Diggory? He’s handsome enough.”

“This is why people think you’re gay,” Draco snickered.

Neville sent a pointed look to where Ron and Draco both walked with their arms linked over Luna’s shoulders.

“Yeah,” Neville drawled sarcastically. ”That’s why people think Ron’s gay.”

Ron and Draco exchanged bewildered looks while Luna giggled from in between them.

Fred paced the corridor outside Snape’s quarters, feeling like a right berk.

When Ronnie had to point out how thick Fred was being, then… well… it was a sad day to be Fred.

He’d spent a year and a half dating Harry, two years pining for him before that. Then he’d spent the last couple of months in a miserable funk, desperately wanting Harry to give him another chance.

And what did Fred do the instant Harry offered it to him?

Told him all but to piss off because Fred didn’t like the terms he’d offered it to him with.

“You are an idiot,” Fred muttered to himself.

“No arguments here.”

Fred looked up from the worn paved floor he’d been pacing to see Blaise leaning against the wall, his arms crossed and a smirk on his face.

“What are you— no,” Fred cut himself off and closed his eyes, breathing in and out very slowly. Harry wouldn’t exactly like it if he fought with Blaise right outside his guardian’s door, would he?

“Are you looking for Harry?” Fred asked Blaise once he was fully certain that he wasn’t going to yell.

Blaise uncrossed his arms then crossed them. He shifted off the wall, then back on it. He seemed… nervous, actually. And Fred didn’t think he’d ever seen Blaise Zabini look nervous.

“I am,” Blaise said. His eyes flicked toward Snape’s door. “I assume he isn’t accepting visitors that aren’t named Luna?”

“Dunno,” Fred admitted, also frowning at the door. “I haven’t worked up the courage to knock yet, have I?”

Blaise scoffed. “Some Gryffindor you are.”

Fred took a step away from the door and bowed deeply toward it with his arm waving, “Be my guest, Zabini.”

When Blaise didn’t move, it was Fred’s turn to smirk.

“How’d you piss off Harry?” he asked him, curious why he’d be so wary of Harry.

Blaise and Harry got on like a house on fire usually; probably a sign Fred shouldn’t have been so surprised by Harry’s (in hindsight) simple request.

“He… may have asked me something and there is a possibility I reacted rather poorly,” Blaise said vaguely. “I was planning on apologizing, but if you’re busy?”

“Oooh.” Fred blinked at Blaise as it clicked in his head. “Did Harry ask you to date me as well?”

“Obviously,” Blaise sneered.

“And…” Fred squinted in surprise. “You said no?”

“I may have… phrased it differently,” Blaise said slowly. “More colorful, less succinct.”

“You told him to piss off?” Fred truly was surprised by that. “But… you’ve fancied him for ages?”

Blaise stuck his chin out, pretty arrogant for a bloke who buggered up as badly as Fred.

“I had some issues to work through and I came back to ask him if he is still… interested,” Blaise said. He squared his shoulders and took a few determined steps to the door before faltering with his hand raised.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were proving what a coward I am by knocking yourself?” Fred asked with faux-shock.

Blaise sneered over his shoulder at Fred. “You know, this isn’t exactly the way I envisioned being with Harry.”

“Really?” Fred raised his eyebrows as high as he could. “Because this was exactly how I pictured it. First I get Harry back, then he gets a second boyfriend, then we get married and I haven’t worked out the logistics just yet.”

Blaise scoffed then knocked in a moment of what Fred could admit was actual bravery.

“The only way you marry Harry is if you join our marriage as a Zabini,” he hissed. “And I would rather die.”

“Jokes on you,” Fred whispered, “Harry will never give up the Potter name. You don’t even know him.”

“I hate you,” Blaise spat while footsteps could be heard approaching the door.

“Love you too, sweetheart,” Fred scowled.

“You have visitors.”

Harry looked up from Stevie, who Snape apparently was willing to smuggle in Hogwarts ‘under extreme duress’. Not that Harry considered him hiding camping out on his sofa in Snape’s quarters to be ‘duress’, but he hadn’t been unhappy with curling up with Stevie and having hissed conversations about life either.

“Is it Susan?” Harry asked. He’d seen Snape go answer the door, but Stevie had been mid-story about how snakes reproduced that Harry hadn’t paid much attention.

“It is not.” Snape stood in front of Harry and stared at him with a blank expression. “It is Frederick and Blaise.”

Harry winced and his hands tightened on Stevie’s smooth scales for a moment.

“I actually don’t feel like fighting much tonight, so tell them to piss off,” Harry told Snape. His eyes flicked to the door then back down to Stevie.

“As I am neither a doorman nor a message boy, I believe you can handle it yourself.”

“Snape! Wait!” Harry flung a hand out to grab Snape’s robes when he turned on his heel as if he was just going to walk away. “Don’t go! Can’t you tell them I’m sick or something?” Harry ground his teeth and weighed how much he hated asking for things against how very little he wanted to be mocked to his face by two of his friends at the same time.

“Please?” Harry said through a jaw clenched so tight he could feel it clear to his shoulders.

Snape sighed and removed Harry’s hand from his robes.

“Go see what they want, if they say a single word not to your liking, I will swear to Minerva and Albus both that they attacked you and you caught them on fire out of self defense.”

Harry dropped his hand and blinked.

“You’d do that for me?”

Snape gave him such an exasperated look that Harry went ahead and summoned him a pain reliever that he handed over wordlessly.

“I have been covering your crimes for years, what’s a spot of arson for the most beloved killer in Hogwarts?”

Harry grinned a bit when Snape strode off, tipping back the potion vial as he went. Even if Snape was joking about letting Harry catch them on fire, it was flattering the way he thought Harry was such a proficient killer.

Mildly cheered, Harry sat Stevie on the sofa and inched to the door as slowly as he reasonably could.

Nothing they say can be worse than what they already said, he reminded himself. And if it is, just… just hit them.

A plan firmly in mind, Harry stuck one hand in his pocket to clench his knife and opened the door with his other hand.

“Can I help you?” Harry asked as coolly as he could. He looked at a point midway between Fred and Blaise, refusing to look at either of them. Even if Harry hadn’t done anything as embarrassing as cry in front of Snape, he hadn’t held the same reservations in front of Stevie. The only person Stevie could tell was Timmy, and Harry kind of doubted if Stevie would betray him in such a way. Either way though, Harry wasn’t entirely positive his eyes wouldn’t give him away and he wasn’t eager to test the theory.

“Oh.” Fred made a quiet puff of a noise. “You look really bloody unhappy.”

Harry rolled his eyes and curled his lip. “I’m having a fuckin great weekend actually, Weasley.” Harry could see Blaise smirk from the corner of his eye and curled his lip all the more. “What do you want?” he asked again.

“Will you look at me?” Blaise asked.

Harry narrowed his eyes at the wall. “No.”

“Do you hate us?” Fred asked quietly.

Harry’s eyes flicked to him rather unwillingly. His clenched hand loosened when Fred’s face was all soft and sad looking.

“Do you hate me?” Harry asked him instead of answering. Harry didn’t hate Fred or Blaise, and that made it all the harder. It would be easier to hate them and ignore them forever. Maybe even drop them in Slytherin’s Chamber with Lockhart’s corpse and then join the search party for them.

‘I have no idea where they are, I hope they’re okay,’ Harry would say. Susan would back him up too.

’Harry was with me the whole time,’ she’d say.

Unfortunately, Harry felt humiliated and… and hurt, but he didn’t hate them.

He wouldn’t be bloody admitting it though.

“I don’t hate you,” Blaise said, answering Harry’s question to Fred. Blaise took half a step forward then stopped when Harry made to close the door. “Gioia mia, I could never hate you.”

“And you know I love you, darlin,” Fred added quickly, earnestly. “You just… you just caught me by surprise and it hurt my feelings a bit. It felt like you were saying I wasn’t good enough on my own.”

“And I was merely insulted to share anything with Weasley,” Blaise drawled.

Harry looked over at Blaise then, working hard to keep his face clear of his surprise.

“And now?” Harry asked them, bracing himself for another blow. “What changed?”

“And now…” Blaise took a deep breath then offered Harry his hand with a charming smile. “And now I’ve decided that I don’t care about sharing you with Fred, not if it means I still get you.”

“And I’ve realized that this is just mad enough that it might work,” Fred added. He held his hand out with a warm smile as well. “Come eat dinner with us?”

Harry hesitated even while his grip on his penknife loosened in his pocket.

“I… I don’t have to choose between you two?” Harry checked, masking his anxiety behind a bored drawl. “Because I’ll fuckin choose Neville, I swear to god.”

Fred laughed, Blaise grinned, and Harry relaxed.

“First act of the Harry Potter Boyfriends Club, kill Neville Longbottom,” Fred told Blaise with a goofy smile on his face.

“That’s act two; the first act is to get dinner,” Blaise disagreed lightly. “No pressure, but if you don’t come to dinner, Susan may kill me in my sleep.”

Harry smirked and stepped out in the corridor, hissing a goodbye to Stevie and closing the door. He bit back a laugh when he accepted Blaise and Fred’s hands and the three of them turned toward the direction of the Great Hall.

“Who’s scarier, me or Susan?” Harry asked them.

“You,” Blaise said at the precise instant Fred said, “Susan.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Susan has a body count of precisely zero kills,” Blaise rolled his eyes at Fred. “Harry could kill half the castle before anyone realized it.”

Harry nodded in agreement.

“But Harry isn’t scary to me,” Fred stressed. He swung his hand and Harry’s arm with a grin. “Suzie-Q hates me, Harry doesn’t.”

“I despise you,” Harry said deadpan. He glanced over at Blaise, deciding to treat them equally. “And you.”

“Aww...” Fred laughed and pulled Harry to his side. Blaise followed and Harry was suddenly sandwiched between them. It should have felt smothering or uncomfortable, but it felt… it felt right. Like walking with Susan and Luna.

Fred and Blaise felt like Harry’s oldest friends with a spark of something new running between them.

“That’ll be a sweet sentiment to share at our wedding one day, darlin,” Fred said, wiping away a fake tear.

“Which we’ll have in Italy,” Blaise winked at Harry. “Of course, you’ll have to get over your crush on my mother, it would be quite odd for you to be hitting on her during the vows.”

“Don’t be fuckin daft,” Harry stuck his nose in the air in an excellent imitation of Draco. “I’m marrying her after your tragic and untimely deaths. I’ll think of you when I’m shagging your mum in Costa Rica.”

Blaise and Fred both fell to a complete stop, staring at Harry in surprise.

Harry smirked and flipped them off with both of his newly freed hands just before taking off down the corridor, racing to the Great Hall.

While Fred and Blaise chased Harry, calling after him and filling the corridor with playful insults and laughter, Harry realized he’d have to come up with different comparisons for them.

After all, Fred couldn’t be water and Blaise be gasoline because Harry knew for a fact those two things didn’t mix. And, he glanced over his shoulder and grinned at the both of them, clearly Fred and Blaise mixed just fine.