volumetwo | (no subject)

"Yeah," James groans softly, twisting his head to meet that little lingering kiss. He pauses there to simply breath against Scorpius's mouth, eyes shut as he focuses on the sensation of that hand on him. "Always your fault," he admits, because it's true: it feels like his thoughts rarely stray far from Scorpius Malfoy these days.

It's highly embarrassing. And yet, it's also exciting. It keeps Scorpius going, knowing what he can do to someone as confident and strong as James is. If he wanted, he could bring him to his knees. And probably has, too.

"Good."

Stroking James a little faster, Scorpius closes his eyes. Taking care of James is priority number one. Sure, it makes him hard too, but there's something really kind of arousing about putting James's needs before his own.

It's easier, maybe, to be emotionally honest in moments like this. This is the ultimate form of physical honesty, too, isn't it? Maybe one just naturally follows the other, and he pants softly against Scorpius's cheek, hips rocking and shifting to try to help Scorpius out. He licks his dry lips, then impulsively licks the shell of the other boy's ear, before mumbling in a husky voice, thick with arousal: "Say you love me, too."

Merlin.

Scorpius closes his eyes, feelings his body quake against that plea. Say you love me, too. It's more difficult than he thought it would be, not because it isn't true, but because to put himself out there like that is to invite ridicule. And eventually, if he loses James, it will sting that much worse, having told him such a thing.

Still, with James's cock in his grip and James's mouth at his ear and James's body on top of his own, Scorpius can't help but be honest.

"I love you," he murmurs, and stupidly, there are tears pricking the backs of his eyelids, and he hates the tremble of his voice when he admits it aloud. He jerks James faster, as if to compensate.

If Ginny has told him once, she's told him a thousand times: you cannot Apparate into your son's apartment unannounced! Use the door like a normal person! And in theory, it makes perfect sense to Harry. He vows to give James his necessary privacy and not intrude on him, because he's an adult, and he remembers what it was like to be young and want people out of his business.

Still, there's theory and then there's reality. And the reality of it is, Harry is too used to just walking in on James at the office, if he's at home, and his flat is just an extension of that. So when Harry Apparates directly into James's flat, it's not because he's trying to catch James in some sort of lie or something - it's because he's genuinely forgotten there should be a problem with that.

"Oi, James, are you ar----"

It's like a bad Muggle comedy show. For a moment, all Harry sees is James on the couch....and then it all comes into focus. James and someone else. Someone male. Someone blond. Someone----

"Malfoy?!"

For a split second, the timing is too comedically perfect for James to even consider the fact that this might be real. This is the stuff of every boy's nightmare: caught in the throes of passion with someone else, with someone secret, with someone who is very much supposed to be in school, caught by his father. He stares up, eyes wide and face white with panic when realization sets in that no, no- this is very much real.

At least that's one way to kill his erection immediately. He flushes hard suddenly, ducking his face down and twisting, trying to button himself back into his own trousers as surreptitiously as possible as he throws himself to his feet. For a moment, James looks every part the shamed kid.

"It's - Da, it's not what it looks like," he pants out, but his hair is rumpled and his mouth is wet and his clothes are wrinkled, and James swallows hard after he blurts the excuse.

Harry doesn't even know what to do. For a horrified moment, he just stands where he is, gaping like a fish out of water, his eyes somewhat wild behind the thick frames he's worn his entire life, gaze shifting in disbelief from James to Scorpius and back again. His lips move, but no words come out. He is, quite literally, shocked stupid.

Scorpius, for his part, is up and on his feet in seconds, smoothing his clothes and muttering something about fatigue. He's so quick that he forgets how weird it must look when he uses the front door to leave and locks up after himself. And, Merlin, he left his ruined shirt on James's bed.

Blinking in a daze, Harry turns to the door, watching Scorpius go, and then back to his son, brows lifted. "...He's still in school," he says, the first and only thing that comes to mind.

James is openly struggling, a little lost as he tries to figure out what angle he should go for here. It's with stunned silence that he watches Scorpius leave, before he moves to sit heavily on the arm of his couch, reaching up to scrub his face with both hands. Despite the casualness of the way he's seated, though, his shoulders are set, posture nervous: it's clear that he's mentally preparing himself for a fight, and a big one at that.

"So was I six months ago," he counters, and there isn't nearly the fire in his voice that he'd hoped would be. It's faltering a little instead, actually.

"Yeah, well you're not the one who somehow managed to sneak off Hogwarts' property, which is against the law and I'm Head Auror and-" Harry faltered, frowning at James. "Has this been going on for six months?!"

Harry's head is spinning. And he knows, as part of his job, he should go after Malfoy and get the truth, but all he can concentrate on is his son. The look on James's face. The sound of his voice.

James cuts his eyes down, unable to keep looking at his father. His knuckles are white with their grip on the side of the couch, and it's only then that his expression cracks a little bit.

He's terrified. Scared absolutely out of his mind, honestly afraid of his father for what might be the first time in his life. It's not that he thinks he's going to hit him or something stupid like that - but the disappointment that he knows is coming is making him sick to his stomach. He's the oldest Potter boy, and how does he show it? By sneaking around with a Malfoy, and worse: getting caught by his father, Harry Potter. Harry had vanquished Voldemort by the time he was James's age, and what had James done?

Pushed papers for the Ministry. That was it. That was all.

"You should- let Hogwarts deal with that, it's - they're the ones who punish their students," he says, struggling for breath, addressing just the first part for now.

It's against Harry's best judgment to let Malfoy go unscathed. But that's an easy thing to deal with later, comparatively. He'll have to contact the Headmaster, and Draco will likely need to be brought in. They can't have students sneaking out of Hogwarts at all hours, and certainly not to be...doing what Harry had seen him doing with James.

Looking at James, it's impossible not to see that the kid is terrified. And he should be. Harry hadn't expected this, and he has no idea how to deal with it. This is the kind of thing Ginny would excel at, but Harry is one hundred percent sure it's not his place to tell her. If there's even anything to tell. James hadn't answered him about how long this had been going on. Maybe it was a one-time thing. Maybe Harry's getting worked up for nothing.

"And you?" he asks, folding his arms. "What am I supposed to do with you?"

"We agreed to keep it secret," James says quickly, as if that might actually help fix this. In reality, he has no idea what Harry wants to hear from him, and part of him wants to apologize, to say he's sorry, to promise that it'll never happen again, that he'll never talk to Scorpius again. But after today, after that- he can't. He just can't, can't do that to himself and can't do that to the other boy. "We agreed to keep it secret," he repeats, tongue-tied and anxious. "So just - it won't come back on you or mum for a while, and we can figure out how you want to handle it if anyone else finds out, if we decide to tell people, but that wouldn't be 'till he's out of school, at least..."

He takes a gulping breath. He can't help it: he's always been so quietly, quietly obsessed with living up to the Potter name that it's never occurred to him that maybe it's not as important as he thinks it is. "I can - there's other places for me to work, we don't have to tell the Ministry..."

James, in his rush of adrenaline, has leapt immediately to the worst case scenario: he is just assuming that Harry is going to full-on disown him.

James is rattling off a million things at once, and Harry is, quite frankly, having a hard time keeping up with the facts he's learning. They promised to keep it a secret, which meant it wasn't a one time thing probably, that Scorpius may sneak out of school a lot to see James. It won't come back on you or mum, which jostles Harry, because, no, he wasn't even worried about that, and he doesn't care and how doesn't James know that? And finally, there's other places for me to work.

Harry can't help it; his brows furrow angrily, nostrils flaring as he steps in towards James and takes him by his shoulders. His grip is firm and unrelenting. If James tries to get away, he won't be able to. This isn't clumsy dad Harry; this is Head Auror Harry Potter.

"James Sirius Potter." The name almost shakes coming out of his mouth. He's equal parts hurt and angry that James would even think anyone in their family wouldn't want him around for something like that. "What the hell are you thinking?" It comes out a little rougher than intended, but Harry doesn't have any experience dealing with this, and it's difficult on the best day to be a parent anyway. "Do you honestly think I'd...what, disown you?? Merlin, James." His jaw is hard, and he can't find breath for a minute. The mere thought of disowning anybody was one of the most painful things he'd ever experienced. "I love you. There's nothing you could do to shake that." He tries in vain to loosen his grip; he just can't seem to let James go. "James, look at me."

James can hear the anger in his father's voice, can see it briefly on his face when he steps forward, and he inhales a sharp breath of alarm when Harry's hands land on his shoulders. He resists, but only for a split second, and it's clear following that that he's steeling himself for the worst. When he hears the What the hell are you thinking? he's sure that all of his worst fears have just been confirmed, that this is it, that his life with his family is over.

And then Harry explains, tells him he loves him - loves, present tense, not past - and James feels like the floor drops out beneath his feet. No. No, no, that wasn't what he was expecting at all, and it's probably a good thing that Harry hasn't let go of his shoulders, because he is suddenly very dizzy.

"But I'm a Potter, da." The words sound pitiful, childish, even in his own ears. "I'm not supposed to be gay. I'm - really not supposed to like a Malfoy. People are going to talk." Didn't Harry understand the gravity of this? And then James blurts the next thing without thinking about it, says the one thing that had thrown him so off-kilter for so long, had made accepting this relationship with Scorpius so, so intensely difficult. "I'm broken."

Being gay was fine, but not when he was. It was deeply flawed thinking that he'd never allowed himself to dwell on. He was the oldest boy - there were expectations of him. How was he supposed to handle not living up to those?

"No," Harry snaps, his grip only tightening. "No, James. You are not broken. Do you hear me? There is nothing wrong with you, and if anybody thinks differently then that's their problem, not yours."

Harry is suddenly incredibly angry. At the world, even at James a little bit, for letting his surname get the better of him. Harry had tried very hard to give them a normal life, but he couldn't erase what he'd done, nor would he ever want to. It was just that where most people saw a hero who could do no wrong, Harry knew better. He'd thought he'd taught his children that much at least, if nothing else.

"I don't give a shit if people talk." He never had, although Ginny will certainly point out it'll make life more difficult for Al and Lily if anyone were to find out. "You're my son, there is nothing wrong with you, and you are free to date anyone you want, so long as the relationship is consensual." Which, God, he hopes it is. That's a conversation he really doesn't want to have.

It will occur to James later, much later, that he was doing his father an extreme disservice here -- that of course he should have known that both of his parents loved him unconditionally, that neither of them had ever done anything to even suggest otherwise. It was just too much at once: trying to figure out what the hell adulthood meant, what he was supposed to be doing with his life, what he was supposed to be doing as a Potter, if it made him some sort of monster to love Draco Malfoy's son. Generally, James was a happy, bright fellow, but when he let himself dwell on these thoughts too long, it sent him into a fit of self-loathing that made reason hard to see.

If he couldn't stand himself, how could he expect his father to? Except there Harry was, fingers digging into his shoulders and telling him that he did, and James has no idea how to answer. Numb, he searches Harry's face, and while he finds anger in spades, he can't locate any disgust.

"You don't hate me," he finally says, something breaking in his expression. "You really don't." Quietly, like this is some new, profound discovery, like this changes everything -- which it does, truly.

"Merlin, no, of course not," Harry says, brows knitting together a bit more and the anger in his expression giving way to something else. "You'd have to do a lot worse than this for me to even consider hating you, James. And I mean a lot worse. Like torturing Muggles or calling yourself Voldemort worse."

A smile almost breaks through, threatens to anyway.

"I'm shocked. I think that's understandable, yeah?"

"Between you and me, I was pretty shocked, too," James mumbles, and ducks his head to rub some unbidden tears away from his eyes as surreptitiously as he possibly can. "But I promise not to ever torture any Muggles, da. You know I can't even deal with torturing Lily too long before her yelling drives me completely batty."

It's half-hearted, but he's trying so, so hard.

"Very true," Harry agrees. He spends another few moments in silence just looking at James, how tortured his eldest son looks. Those tears, even if they haven't fallen, don't go unnoticed either. He's been trained to see things others miss. And right now, he sees everything. The tenseness still etched into James's posture, the sag of his mouth even when he tries to joke, the wipe of tears.

Harry can't help it. He pulls James up off the arm of the couch and into a hug, squeezing him tight.

"It's all right, though, honestly," he says, keeping James close. "Please don't ever think I'd throw you away over something like this."

It takes James a second to figure out how he should be responding to this. A hug was literally the last way that he expected this exchange to go, and when he realizes that things might actually be okay, he sort of melts into the hug. After a moment of lingering hesitation, his own arms go up, gingerly hugging Harry back, before it turns into a tighter squeeze. For a little while, James lets himself cling to his father, as if he can't believe his luck.

"I love him, da," he says, because if he's not honest now, he's not sure he ever will be. "And he loves me, too, and I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, but I was scared. I was really scared."

Harry takes a breath in. It's...a lot. A lot to take in, and James just seems to keep shocking him. It's not like Harry is blind; he and Ginny had sort of thought Al might turn out to be gay, and after Ginny confessed she'd 'experimented with girls' in Hogwarts, it was sort of an eye opener for Harry to the world of sex and youth. He'd never had time for any of that. Who knew where he'd have wound up if he had.

Still, knowing that James considered himself gay, that he and Scorpius were in love... It was a lot. And admittedly, the whole thing didn't settle right in his stomach.

"It's all right," he says anyway, rubbing James's back for a minute. "I understand. Well, I mean I don't understand, but I understand." Harry laughed a bit, diffusing some of the tension as he pulled back and smiled at James. "I'd be happier for you if Scorpius was out of school, but...he's... I mean, you two didn't...before he was..." Harry knew Al was of legal age in these sorts of things, but was Scorpius?

"Da," James mumbles, leaning back away from him. He's admittedly soothed a lot by the way Harry rubs his back, and he ducks his head to desperately try to hide the wondrous sort of half-smile on his own face. It's an expression of pure relief, as if he can't actually believe that this is real, that this is happening.

That maybe things are going to be okay. Maybe he's going to be okay.

James opens his mouth, starts to say something again, and then finally just kind of jerks forward, grabbing him into another hug.

It's been a while since any of his children wanted to hug him, and Harry can't say it's been pleasant to wait for the moment when they would again. Having James jerk into him, pull him close, it sort of breaks Harry's heart in the way only a familial relationship can. Harry returns the hug, just as tightly as he did the first time.

"I know, I know," he says, laughing a little. No child wants to hear their parent ask about their sex life. But, hey, that's kind of his job, to ensure James is being safe at the very least.

For now, he lifts a hand and runs it through James's hair, like he did when James was a little boy and had a nightmare.

"Will you let me be the one to break it to mum?"

That hand through his hair takes him back to the sort of feeling of safety and security he had when he was a little kid, when things were clear and everything made sense. He breathes softly, lingering there, trying to cling to this feeling as long as he possibly can.

"And- and Al, too, he deserves to hear it from me. Scor was his friend first. And- Merlin, this is such a nightmare. He's going to kill me." Pulse still hammering in his throat, he leans his forehead against his father's shoulder. "...thanks. Thank you. A lot."

"Of course," Harry agrees, letting James slump against him. He'll take this for as long as he can. "It's not my place to tell any of them, and you need to do it on your own terms, when you're ready." He kissed the top of James's head, keeping him held close. "Although you know your mum; she'd rather hear it sooner than later. It won't change her love for you, I know that much."

Harry lingered there for a moment longer, and then gentle leaned back, trying to catch James's gaze.

"This doesn't mean you're not in trouble, though. Scorpius is still in school. You should know better than to encourage him sneaking out. I'll have to inform the Headmaster."

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2 bc I am a horrible person.

2/2 ohgod i'm so sorry james

HAHA

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

ohgod James *gross sobbing*

DRAMATIC TEENAGER IM SO SORRY...

no it's so perfect <3 <3

<3 good BUT STILL totally dramatic

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

ohgod James gross sobbing