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Today’s the anniversary. Phineas knows as soon as he wakes up in the Headmaster’s bed that’s never really felt like his. He feels it down to his bones, knows that today’s going to be an off day, that he’ll stumble over his words more than usual, that he’ll jump at the slightest sound and send the students into hysterics, that he’ll pace through the grounds of Hogwarts only to stare at his memories instead of what’s in front of him.
Aesop’s going to have a day too. His leg will pain him more, his scars will feel twisted and ugly on his body and in his mind. He’ll weather it all with the same stoic grace he always does, teaching his classes, grading his papers. He doesn’t have to. Phineas, of all people, would understand if he asked for the day off, and he wouldn’t deny him. Not today. He wishes he could take a day off, but the Headmaster doesn’t get those.
He descends to the main hall for breakfast, same as always, making sure to dress to his usual standard, brushing his dark hair until it shines. When he takes his seat at the head of the table, he sinks down with a muffled sigh. He doesn’t see Aesop, but then, he supposes the potions professor might need a little time to brace himself before classes start for the day. He tries to swallow his disappointment, fails, and swallows a goblet of pumpkin juice instead.
He sees the owl stand, the one where he announces things, and his mind is pulled back to his first year.
……
It was the sorting ceremony. He was nervous, but then, he’d always been a little nervous, and a bit of a crybaby, and too sensitive by far.
“Don’t embarrass us,” his father had hissed to him before he left for his first year at Hogwarts.
“You are a son of the Noble House of Black,” his mother had cautioned. “Act accordingly.”
So he had swallowed his fear and affected a bored expression and sat on the sturdy, wooden stool when it came his turn to wear the sorting hat. He’d been a Slytherin, of course. Every member of the House of Black got sorted into Slytherin.
He’d been joined eventually by a few others, namely Sharp, Aesop and a Malfoy, Lucretia. The three of them had been inseparable from night one.
Aesop had been suave and confident from the get-go, excelling at all of his classes, charming the teachers and students alike. Lucretia, or Lottie, as they called her, had been similar. Learning everything with a laser focus that Phineas had been jealous of, getting top marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration.
Phineas hadn’t been a great student at first. He’d tried, but he’d failed, and he was almost in tears by the end of the first month, dreading the report home to his parents and their subsequent disappointment. But Lottie and Aesop had helped him, and by Christmas he was getting top marks along with his two friends.
They’d done all the things that friends did. Went to Hogsmeade starting in their third year, played pranks on their fellow students, protected each other (mainly Phineas) from bullies. Lottie once cursed someone so badly when she came upon an older student shoving Phineas into a wall that the other student could only speak in gibberish for a week.
……
He shakes himself out of his musings and returns to his office for work. It’s futile, and he gives up for another wander through the grounds, pausing beside a familiar, empty room.
……
Aesop had always been a heartthrob. His dark, curling hair, his easy confidence, and his rakish smile had all conspired to pull witches and wizards alike. Phineas had had less luck, but then, he hadn’t really been trying, more content with a book and his friends than with anyone he didn’t know as well.
Lottie had been popular, not that she’d bothered with her followers, but she had this sort of charisma that just drew people in like a gravity well. No one knew it better than Phineas and Aesop though.
Phineas, as much as he had started out small and meek, he had grown into himself by sixth year and became taller, more charming, and more confident than he had been, becoming too clever by half.
He loved his friends and he didn’t want to lose them, so when he had walked into their normal empty meeting room on the two of them kissing, his heart had dropped to his stomach. This was it. He’d always been the weak link, not as strong or as confident or as powerful as them. They’d go off with each other and have beautiful, powerful children, and they would forget about him, weedy little Phineas Black.
He thanks Merlin he froze that day, long enough for them to notice, for them to part and see him, for Lottie to give Aesop a look and turn to Phineas, holding out a hand.
“Come here, love,” she’d said, her platinum hair shining silver in the moonlight. Phineas had been helpless before her, had gravitated toward her like she’d summoned him, and she had taken his hand and pulled him into a kiss sweeter than any glass of butterbeer.
When he’d come up for air, dazed and panting, Aesop had turned him, framing his face with his strong hands, calloused from years of quidditch, and pulled him into an equally passionate kiss, dominating and devouring.
Phineas had tried his best to kiss back, and when he was finally released, head swimming from heady pleasure and oxygen deprivation (seriously, his two friends were Quidditch stars. Lottie was captain. They had deeper lungs than him), Lottie had taken him into her arms and sat them all down, pulling him into her lap and stroking his dark hair.
She called them her boys. She called Phineas handsome and sweet and pretty and clever and brave. She’d called Aesop the same, and she’d been the steady rudder that kept their ship steering straight through their stressful seventh year and their inevitable parting of ways after graduation. She’d been the gravity well between them, keeping them all circling back to each other even as she and Aesop went on to become aurors and Phineas had followed in his father’s footsteps and gone into ministry work, eventually being pushed into the position of Headmaster without ever actually being a teacher.
In Lottie and Aesop’s arms he’d been cherished and loved, held and desired. He’d known the greatest heights of pleasure and happiness with them.
……
“Professor?” A student asks, pausing in the hallway. “Are you alright?”
“Of course,” he snaps, jerking back into motion. “Why aren’t you in class?”
“Class doesn’t start for another twenty minutes,” they say. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Phineas scowls. “Of course I am. Get to class.” He stalks off before the student can ask again and goes to find a secluded place to brood. Not the Headmaster’s office. It never fit right, no matter how much he’s tried to make it his own. He decides on the Owlery.
Mr. Moon, the Groundskeeper, has evidently not been here in a while, and the pellets are starting to pile up. On a normal day, Phineas would flee in disgust, but it’s not a normal day, and he just shuffles to a window, looking down across the grounds and sighing.
An owl screeches and flies to his shoulder, sticking a feathery talon in his face with a letter tucked in the pouch. Almost by rote, he removes it and glances at the addressee. It’s for him, and for a painful, confusing moment he thinks it’s from Lottie sending him a letter for the first time in eight years, but then he recognizes the script and sighs. It’s from Urusula.
Husband, it starts. Not dear, not Phineas, just husband. Great, he thinks, frowning already. He tries to read the rest, but it’s just the usual cutting reminder that he’s failing as a father and a husband by being absent so often. She goes on to play the long-suffering wife card, pretending to be supportive when she’s really admonishing.
He crumples it up and sets it on fire with his wand, dropping it to the stone floor to turn to ashes. As if he needs another reminder of his forced marriage from his wife when two of his sons are walking through the school hallways. He tries to be a supportive father, but it’s difficult when he never really wanted the situation in the first place.
……
He remembers the day his mother had announced his betrothal to Ursula Flint. The Flints were an old family, pureblooded and powerful, slipping in reputation just slightly, but enough that they would pay through the nose for the chance at an advantageous marriage to a Black.
He had run from his house, apparating to Aesop’s London flat. He’d gotten the story out through the choking tears, and Aesop had bundled him into his comfiest armchair and given him a cup of tea, with milk and sugar just the way he liked, and called Lottie.
She’d come sweeping in like an angel, smoothing it over, promising him that nothing would change, offering to run away with him. She and Aesop would keep him safe.
He turned the offer down. He can’t abandon his family. He’s the only one who’s able to carry on his family name after his older brother died when they were both children, and he swallows back more tears. He has a duty to his family.
Aesop and Lottie understand. They’re both purebloods themselves, and they have a duty to their own families to climb high and marry well. But tonight, Phineas is here, and Aesop’s bed is just big enough for all three of them.
On his wedding night, Aesop had given a toast as his best man. It was heartfelt and funny, and in the end, he said “To Phineas. You’ll always be our best friend.” Lottie’s eyes had burned from her own seat near the high table, and both their love had given him the courage to get through his honeymoon.
Even with their busy schedule as aurors and his as a ministry worker, they’d found the time to see each other. He’d sneak off to Aesop’s or Lottie’s homes and spend the night, say he was held late at work so he slept away, when really he was cheating on his wife. Any guilt he would have felt was assuaged by the knowledge that he didn’t choose his marriage. He’d do his duty. He’d work and support his family, sire children, but he knows he wouldn’t be able to find the same love in his wife’s arms that he found with his friends.
……
It’s dinner time, and Phineas picks at his meal, doing his best to respond to Matilda who’s trying to engage him in conversation about the upcoming OWLs and NEWTs. Aesop is finally there, eating mechanically, his face grayer than it should be.
He and Aesop catch each other’s eyes, and Aesop gives him a little nod. Phineas returns it. They’ll both live, but neither one is going to get much sleep tonight.
He excuses himself as quickly as is polite, retreating up to the Headmaster’s rooms and sinking back against the door as soon as it’s shut behind him, tearing at his cravat and cursing his propensity to tear up at the littlest thing. It was always something that got him in trouble growing up, but Lottie had called it ‘sweet’ and kissed his tears away until he was giggling. He wished she was here to do that now.
He dashes them away himself and pours himself a glass of wine, his shaking hand spilling it over the edge of the glass and onto the table. He curses but doesn’t bother to clean it up, downing the entire glass with one breath and pouring himself another. This one he sips, sinking shakily into his chair.
……
When Phineas became Headmaster, Lottie and Aesop had helped him celebrate. At the end of the night, the three were sat around Aesop’s table and a bottle of good wine. Aesop’s pick, because Lottie had had shit taste in alcohol, and Phineas wouldn’t drink anything but the best.
“Congratulations Phin,” Aesop said, his smile bright and soft all at once. “You deserve it.”
He shakes his head. “No, I don’t. I’ll be a terrible Headmaster, and it gives me even less time to spend with you two.”
“You’re cleverer than anyone knows,” Lottie chimes in, her hair shining like spun moonlight. “And we’ll make it work. We always have.”
He sank into the familiar warmth, trusting them. They’ll work it out somehow. He won’t lose his best friends.
And it was true. Whenever he managed to get away from his new, demanding job, he’d meet them. He was putting off spending time with his own family for them, but he didn’t care. They were his family. He chose them, more than he had ever chosen Ursula and their brood of children.
……
He polishes off the wine and unearths a bottle of whisky. It’s time. Aesop’s probably back in his room by now, brooding. He descends the stairs, weaving his way through the hallways until he comes to Aesop’s door. He knocks.
Aesop opens it, his hair looks like he’s been running his fingers through it, and his eyes look haunted and vaguely guilty.
Phineas shoves his regret down and brandishes the bottle. “Care for a drink?”
……
It was two days after it had happened, and Phineas had just received the news. He’d gotten an owl from the Ministry, and he thought almost nothing of it, breaking through the wax seal and opening the note at breakfast in front of the entire student body and accompanying staff.
He’d skimmed it, then done a double-take and read it properly. He’d paled, staggered to his feet, fallen back into his chair and knocked over his pumpkin juice. He didn’t notice.
It’s a lie, it has to be, he chanted in his head. Aesop. Aesop will know the truth. The letter said he was in St. Mungo’s, so Phineas had given Matilda the school for the day and hurried back to his office fireplace to floo there.
He came out the other side, shaking and dusted with soot, but for once he couldn’t care about his appearance.
“I’m here to see Aesop Sharp. Where is he?”
“Honey, why don’t you sit down?” the kindly nurse offered.
He shook his head and leaned harder on her desk. “I demand you tell me which room he’s in this instant!” He was used to getting his way. He was the next head of the Noble House of Black. They had to listen to him.
“I’ll have someone show you to his room,” the nurse said, all business now that she knew he was serious. She motioned for another nurse to take him to the correct room, and when he arrived, Phineas thought they had gotten the wrong one.
Aesop had always been bigger than him. Taller, broader, stronger. He filled a space more fully than weedy little Phineas ever could. But right then he looked small, swaddled in white bandages, covered in white blankets, one side of his handsome face covered, one familiar eye dull and sunken in his skull.
Phineas had cried out his name, nurse forgotten behind him, and thrown himself at his bedside, clutching his uninjured hand.
And Aesop, strong, confident Aesop, had started bawling. Through fits and starts, shoving more than one nurse away that tried to comfort an upset patient, he had gotten the story out, and it made Phineas’ blood run cold.
Phineas regrets what he said then. He had blamed Aesop, had railed at him, had said it was all his fault, and that he should have saved her, and Aesop had just taken it. Had laid in bed and nodded along like he already knew it, and Phineas came back to his senses. Apologizing so quickly he tripped over his words, half-climbing into the bed with him to touch whatever un-injured parts he could reach, contradicting his earlier blame. But his words, capable of cutting more precisely than anyone else, had already found their mark and carved themselves into Aesop’s heart.
Phineas had given him a job after his recovery. He was the Headmaster of Hogwarts. He got final say on the teaching staff, and he said that Aesop Sharp would be the new Professor of Potions. And Aesop had been with him ever since.
……
They’ve drunk half the bottle in silence before Aesop breaks it.
“She wouldn’t want this for us,” he says, smooth voice low and rumbling. “Drowning our sorrows in a bottle of whisky.”
“No,” Phineas agrees. “But if she were here she’d join us, and say this single malt was just as good as her usual swill.”
It pulls a chuckle out of each of them, and Phineas sighs, leaning his head onto Aesop’s shoulder. After Lottie’s death, they’d tried to make it work between them, sneaking off to this or that room, and they’d found comfort and passion and love between each other, just like always. But there was also a piece missing. A piece that was shaped like a woman with moonlight in her hair and an endearing compliment on her lips.
My boys, she used to say. My two lovely boys.
Every bed felt too large without her there. One side of Phineas was always cold, and always would be henceforth.
They still slept together occasionally, in both senses of the word, but Aesop had retreated into himself, becoming sterner and more reserved, and Phineas had distracted himself for a time by growing his family. And now here they were, eight years later.
“I still miss her,” Phineas whines, tears springing to his eyes. Again.
“I know,” Aesop answers. Me too. He doesn’t need to say. They both know.
Phineas doesn’t make it back to the Headmaster’s rooms that night, falling asleep in Aesop’s arms, still as strong and warm as ever, and Phineas is content, even if the second pair of arms is still missing, and always will be.