Chapter Text
Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!
—Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
It started with Walburga, the horrid bitch.
That was a lie, of course. It must’ve started long before then, but exactly how long, Harry didn’t want to know.
That was the proverbial quill that broke the thestral’s back, anyway. Made the curse that was his life flash so bright, even he couldn’t deny that things had gone too far.
Too far, and yet… he still could’ve turned back then. Still could’ve stopped it, could’ve done something—anything—but what he did.
But if it hadn’t been for Sirius’ hateful mother—her portrait, rather, a remnant of an ugly past—pushing him one time too many…
Excuses.
He should’ve never lost his temper like that.
He hadn’t known Albus was sitting on the steps behind him, watching. But he did know he was in the house, and that alone should’ve been enough for Harry to control himself.
Should’ve been.
A lot of things should’ve been enough for Harry to control himself.
Fucking Walburga.
“FREAKS! Vile half-bloods in my house! Be gone! Out, damned filth! Out, I say!” she’d been screaming as Harry tried for the umpteenth time to pry her portrait off the wall.
He’d wanted her gone for ages, but with Albus here for the summer, it had become more critical than ever to remove her—one way or another.
Harry himself had grown accustomed to tiptoeing carefully around the portrait—never brushing against its curtains or speaking too loud.
It had been easier when he lived alone.
But Al was a firecracker. Whether on purpose or not, he was always setting the bloody thing off. And Walburga loved to hate him.
“Disgusting scum, the both of you! Besmirching my poor house with your rotten ways!”
“Shut up, you foul bitch,” Harry muttered tiredly as he brushed a second coat of custom-made unsticking potion around the edges of the frame.
He’d been promised it could remove anything, but so far—well. The first coat had done precisely nothing—perhaps unsurprisingly, considering he’d bought it under the table from the seediest apothecary in Knockturn Alley.
But if he’d gone to the trouble of risking his job—sneaking Polyjuice from the Auror Office’s supply room to go shopping for a potion made with multiple highly illegal ingredients—he might as well try again.
“Sodding Permanent Sticking Charm…”
“One of you was more than enough, but you DARE bring that FREAK OF NATURE into my home?!”
“Don’t you talk about my son,” Harry growled angrily, wishing the potion would hurry up and dry. Not that he had much faith it would work any better the second time around. “Say whatever the hell you want about me, but you don’t talk about my son.”
Walburga shrieked out a laugh. “Where do you think he gets it from, the revolting little freak?! Just like his filthy father, the nasty boy…”
“I said SHUT UP! Expulso!”
The spell glanced off the canvas to no effect… same as every other spell he’d tried.
Walburga’s manic laughter grew impossibly more shrill.
It wasn’t hard to imagine which of her relatives Bellatrix had taken most after.
“Does he know, I wonder? Does he know his father’s filthy little secret—”
“Oh, fuck off, Walburga. Since when do you care to have a chat with me? Why don’t you just go back to screeching mindlessly like the hideous banshee you are until I’m done here?”
“No wonder he’s the way he is—your dirty, rotten blood corrupted him! Made him just as much of an ABOMINATION—”
“Confringo!” Harry shouted. “Bombarda! Bombarda Maxima! Arghh!”
Fuck this. Harry wrestled with the curtains, trying to yank them closed as Walburga went on shrieking maniacally.
“If there’s something wrong with the bitch—”
“Reducto!”
“—there’ll be something wrong with the crup—”
The words hit like a hex to the gut.
Just like that, Harry was thirteen again. Powerless. Forced to listen to Aunt Marge spewing hateful, cruel things about his dead mother—
But for someone to talk about his son like that?
No.
Too far.
Harry saw red.
Then, he saw green.
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
A crack like thunder, and the frame slid right down to the floor, landing with a crash and a cloud of ancient dust that made him cough.
The portrait lay silent.
“Holy shit, Dad…”
Harry turned in a daze. For several seconds, all he could do was blink up at his middle child, perched on the stairs above him.
“Al…” he croaked finally. “Don’t—”
His eyes flickered closed as he desperately tried to pull himself together.
“You—I shouldn’t have—Go to your room, Albus.”
Al’s eyes gleamed the way Harry didn’t like. It always reminded him of something he couldn’t quite place, like a long-forgotten dream…
And it never failed to make his stomach flip.
“Don’t think you’ve got much right to be telling me what to do. Fuck, Dad. You just cast an Unforgivable!”
Harry winced. Wouldn’t be the first time…
Wide, intense eyes studied him, unrelenting.
Harry almost wished his son looked scared instead of… whatever this was.
“Not just any Unforgivable!” Albus leaned in slightly, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. “You went straight for the big one.”
A smirk. Shoulders that were entirely too relaxed.
“Ambitious of you, honestly. And here I thought I was the black sheep… or, should I say, snake of the family,” he said with a subtle cock of his head toward the green and silver banner on his bedroom door.
Harry was barely listening.
…You just cast the Killing Curse.
And for that, it was the first time. In all these years, fighting Voldemort, working as an Auror, and now as the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement… he’d never allowed himself to use the Killing Curse.
Two of the three Unforgivables he’d used. But never the last.
Until today. In front of his teenage son.
“That’s supposed to be, what? Life in Azkaban?”
Harry stared at him, feeling lightheaded. “It was a portrait, not—” He shook his head. Didn’t matter. He couldn’t teach his son it was okay to go around flinging Unforgivables at (sort of?) inanimate objects.
Especially not Albus.
Al was still staring at him, and Harry couldn’t decide if his expression was more… reverent or predatory.
Couldn’t decide which he’d rather it be, either.
(There was a third word he might’ve used to describe that look, but it wasn’t one he could ascribe to his child, for fuck’s sake.)
“Are you going to turn me in?” Harry heard himself ask, his tone flat.
Albus had the nerve to look amused, of all things. He hummed and leaned back on his hands, but didn’t answer right away.
This boy is going to be the death of me.
“Do you want me to?” he finally asked teasingly, picking an invisible bit of lint off his t-shirt. “Seems like something only you would want. For me to prove I have… good morals, or whatever.”
“You do have good morals.”
“Oh yeah?” he grinned. “Says my dad who just cast the world’s most forbidden curse.”
“On a portrait.”
“Right, on a portrait…” Al tilted his head at Harry curiously.
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, the only sound the thumping of Harry’s heart, marching on like his own funeral dirge.
“I never knew…” He continued at last, voice almost breathy with wonder. It startled Harry out of the mental fog he’d slipped into. “I never realized, Harry…”
Harry shot him a look that said You know I hate it when you call me that.
But Al simply shot back a smirk that said You know that’s why I do it.
“I never realized Avada Kedavra… it’s the same color—Harry, it’s the exact same shade—as your eyes.”
Harry blinked. Whatever he’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that. “As our eyes,” he corrected distractedly.
Avada Kedavra eyes—the exact same shade as his own—lit up at that, and Harry winced at how right he was. Both he and his son (only Albus—James and Lily had inherited their mother’s brown eyes) had eyes the exact color of the Killing Curse.
Al looked positively delighted.
What Harry didn’t know was why. For years, their relationship had been rocky, to put it mildly. He’d hardly seen Al look happy at all since… Well, he didn’t know when. Since before he started Hogwarts.
He tried to hold onto the warmth of that smile, the brightness of those eyes. Tried not to let himself think too much about why now.
How long had he yearned for his youngest son to look at him like that again—like he did when he was small?
Before the Hat had put him in Slytherin… Before Harry had given James the Invisibility Cloak… Before he’d uttered words he could never take back…
“Our eyes…” Al echoed softly.
And Harry’s heart lurched. If it was in foreboding or in hope… well… He didn’t know that, either.
Does he know his father’s filthy little secret? the vile portrait had taunted.
Now that was interesting.
Walburga Black’s portrait had been horrendously obnoxious, but she wasn’t stupid.
Famous Harry Potter, heroic Gryffindor. Savior of the wizarding world.
The man who once defeated the most powerful Dark Lord in history with an Expelliarmus had cast a Killing Curse in his own home. At a portrait. With his son there.
…What are you hiding, Harry?
Well. Albus had a secret of his own. Multiple, really. But two in particular—two big ones.
One, he wasn’t sure how Harry would react.
The other, Harry definitely wasn’t going to like—not at all. At least, not at first.
But Al did intend for him to find out. Soon. The thought made him lick his lips nervously.
He thought about how his father’s tongue curled around the words. Avada Kedavra. How his wand hand sliced through the air like lightning—strong, decisive. Powerful.
When Harry committed, he committed.
He was a force of nature.
Al hadn’t been able to see Harry’s Killing Curse eyes from where he’d sat, but he could imagine them—how they looked when they were filled with fire and rage. Searing hot, like twin floo flames.
He wanted to throw himself in the blaze. Let Harry’s fire consume him—lick his body to ashes.
“He killed her for me…” Albus whispered to his reflection, staring into his own green eyes that were so like his father’s.
Not for James or Lily. Not for their mother. Not for Uncle Ron or Aunt Hermione…
For me.
His reflection smirked back at him, fluttered his long, dark lashes.
Then, without thinking, Albus pressed his open mouth to the cold, hard glass. Imagined that pink mouth was soft and warm and tasted like Harry’s peppermint toothpaste.
It wasn’t enough. How could it be?
Al flopped back on his bed, letting out a slow, shaky breath.
Just thinking about it made him so hard he thought he would pass out.
His dad, casting the Killing Curse for the first time. All because Walburga insulted Al, went after Al.
Fuck, he was sexy.
The thought gave him a thrill with its wrongness. Sent chills up his spine.
Harry would hate it. He would be absolutely mortified if he knew how his son felt about him. He would get all cute and red and flustered…
Would affect that ridiculous voice he used sometimes when he tried to be stern and paternal, but didn’t really know how to do it.
And somehow knowing that made Al feel a little angry, a little hurt, a little amused…
And even more turned on.
He clenched his fists in the sheets, his hips bucking up of their own accord. It was a game he liked to play to see how long he could hold out before taking himself in hand. How long he could think about Harry—Harry losing control, Harry growling with pure want as he finally gave in to his basest desires, pressing Al down into the mattress and taking him, claiming what was his, what was always his—before he was writhing and panting with need.
Today, he knew he wouldn’t last long.
And no amount of wanking was going to sate him. Not after this. Not after Harry proved his love, proved Al was special to him in a way no one else was.
Al ached to burst into Harry’s room and confess his love for him. Declare he knew, he knew Harry felt the same, and if he would just let himself—
He was halfway off the bed, still raging hard, before he stopped himself.
No, he had to be smart about it. As bold as Harry was about some things, he was surprisingly timid about others. He would see it as a moral failing on his part.
Stupid, self-sacrificing Gryffindor.
He wouldn’t care that Albus wanted it, needed it… was begging for it…
Even if Harry didn’t outright reject him, he would think he was stubborn enough to wait him out. To hold Al off until he lost interest.
Well.
Unfortunately for him, when it came to stubbornness, the Dirigible Plum didn’t float far from the tree.
Maybe it was time to tell Harry about his other secret. Maybe then his dad would understand that this wasn’t just a phase. It wasn’t some silly crush.
It was, quite literally, destiny.
Albus had tried to bring it up to Harry once before, when he was twelve.
“You remember Tom, Dad?” he’d asked casually between bites of porridge one morning while his mum was away, traveling for the Harpies. He watched Harry’s face carefully for his reaction.
The first second or two was crucial. After that, Harry would get his expression under control, but, if Al was lucky, there would be a brief moment when his true feelings showed.
Harry almost choked on his coffee, and Al catalogued each tiny flicker of emotion.
Shock. Fear. Grief? Yes, heartache. Anger. Guilt… Regret.
Then, his expression settled into a slightly self-deprecating calm. A face that said You’re being stupid, Harry—he’s obviously not talking about that Tom.
And Al had to bite back a smirk at that because of course he was talking about that Tom.
It was all so quick anyone else might have missed it, but Al was attuned to Harry’s face. He knew every line, every angle, every expression by heart. The way his lip twisted when he was thinking. The way he ruffled his hair when he was nervous.
The way he touched his scar when he was sad and thought no one would notice.
(Albus always noticed).
“Tom who?” Harry took another sip of hot coffee before he was even completely done choking on the last.
But Al had learned what he needed to learn. Harry wasn’t ready to talk about it—even then, nearly twenty years after the fact.
He already knew Harry and Tom had been extremely important to one another and that Tom had died sometime before Harry married Al’s mum—presumably during the war. Of course it was a difficult thing for Harry to think about.
But evidently, Harry was even more deeply traumatized by Tom’s death than Al had realized. The tangled knot of feelings was far more complicated than plain sorrow…
Maybe Harry felt betrayed that Tom had died and left him here, alone.
You’re not alone anymore—I’m here! I came back for you! Al wanted to shout.
“A kid at school. I know I mentioned him before, Dad. Weren’t you listening?” he said instead.
“I’m sorry, Al, I must’ve forgotten. Tell me again?”
So Albus dutifully made up a story about a non-existent classmate he definitely hadn’t mentioned before, and Harry listened with rapt attention.
The problem was, not only had Harry not been ready to talk about it, but he wasn’t ready to see Al for what he truly was.
A few more years, he’d promised himself.
Al knew he was impatient. Of course he’d rushed to be born as Harry’s child so they could be together sooner.
The price was that Harry saw him as just a kid.
Worse. His kid.
But Albus was more than that. As far back as he could remember, he’d had vague, shadowy memories of his past life. A boy named Tom who’d played a vital role in his dad’s life.
Unfortunately, Al could remember very little about Tom beyond his name—and even then, only his first name. It didn’t really narrow things down.
Curse Tom for having such a common name.
The most vivid part Al had of him were his nightmares.
His whole life, Al had had recurring dreams of a place he’d never seen in the waking world—a dreary, institutional-looking building packed with sniffling children, all crowded within sad, gray walls.
An orphanage. Of course Tom was an orphan like Harry! They must’ve bonded over it. Albus was almost jealous he couldn’t be an orphan, too, to share that with Harry. But then, he wouldn’t have Harry at all.
Worse than the orphanage were the dreams of the ghostly, piercing wail of sirens, swelling and fading away over and over again. The air smelled like fear and damp concrete as the crying children stumbled along, their screams echoing through a long, dark tunnel.
Al had never read about that side of the war in history books, and Harry never talked about it. But Harry wouldn’t talk about the war at all.
Who were all those children? They weren’t Hogwarts students. Were they Muggles?
And why had Tom been abandoned in a Muggle orphanage during the war?
Albus had more questions than answers.
Sometimes, his nightmares featured Harry—his Harry, but younger than Al had ever seen him—about the same age as Al was now.
And these dreams, they were the worst of all. Because in these dreams, Harry was crumpled on the ground—dead. A shell of the fiery person he was. A beautiful corpse.
Seeing Harry dead clenched their hearts—Al’s and Tom’s—with an iron fist. Made their body curl into itself. A grief that felt like dying—strangling the voice, stealing the breath, crushing from within—
It was obvious how deeply Tom had feared Harry dying… how terrified he’d been that one day Voldemort would actually succeed.
And wasn’t that ironic? Because in the end, it wasn’t Harry who died.
It was Tom.
But the most important thing Al knew about Tom was that he was connected to Harry in the most profound way a person could be. Far more connected than Al’s parents ever were to each other.
Harry and Tom’s bond was unbreakable. It was soul-deep.
Death had ripped them apart too soon, and Harry thought Tom had abandoned him, but he hadn’t. He’d rushed back to his soulmate as quickly as he could.
He was reborn as Albus Severus Potter.
A few more years…
Al’s fingers clawed tighter into the sheets, then released. A huff of breath escaped his lips, his excitement mounting…
It would be hard for Harry to accept that Albus was his reborn soulmate if he was just a kid to him. And Al didn’t want that. He wanted Harry to see him as his equal.
But… it had been a few years, hadn’t it? he mused, finally allowing his hand to creep over his clothed erection, fingertips dragging featherlight over the straining heat.
Albus was almost as tall as Harry now. He was sixteen—practically seventeen. Soon, he’d be of age.
It would probably be smarter to wait until after he’d graduated Hogwarts to tell Harry about Tom… But after today, his skin was on fire, his fingers itching to do something—anything.
He was tired of living as half of a whole when his other half was so near.
The press of his palm grew firmer, his fingers more insistent, as he painted a moving portrait of Harry in his mind’s eye.
How he’d looked, standing there—brow furrowed in focus, determination radiating off him in waves. Lips parting like the promise of a kiss to blow the unruly fringe from his Killing Curse eyes.
The way barely restrained anger—all on Al’s behalf—simmered beneath the surface, ready to burst through in the most spectacular way. A tightening grip on his wand and a slash of lightning through the air—a perfect mirror of the mark on his forehead.
Al’s hips canted up with frustrated need.
Every day that passed, he was just… waiting. Existing. Holding his breath until Harry could finally see him.
That wasn’t living. Not really.
And the hardest part was that Harry was trapped in that very same limbo. Even Al’s mum could see it, he was certain. Why did Harry think she’d asked for a divorce?
Still, Harry refused to see Albus as anything more than his son. All he did was suppress his feelings. Ignore their connection.
It was maddening. Infuriating. Heartbreaking.
Soul-crushing.
Al’s grip tightened around his cock so hard it hurt, but he reveled in the grounding pain.
No, he knew it—he felt it deeper than he’d felt perhaps anything ever before.
Neither of them could live… while the other merely survived.