The Inevitable Fate

Chapter Eighteen: All He Ever Wanted

Content Warning: Mentions of Self-Harm

Harry Potter fixed his emerald irises onto his son.

He could still hear the foreign words floating in slow motion through Albus' quivering breath.

I'm...I'm gay.

He waited for Albus to toss him a sly smirk. To admit he was only joking. Say it was nothing more than an invention created by his wildest thoughts. Confess that James—the infamous pranker—had put him up to this. Harry wanted to give his son several seconds to come clean. He waited some more, his eyes bolting onto the grand clock that slung off the thinned walls like a gargantuan, rather primeval balloon. But nothing. Albus continued gawking at him, his eyes wide and illustrated with most fear as if he'd been plummeted into the Black Lake and had come face to face with monstrous Grindylows and rancorous Merpeople; Albus was pleading, it looked like, for Harry to respond.

Harry didn't know what to say. What to think! His...his son...his youngest son...Albus Severus Potter...was...was...gay? Harry was positive he heard wrong. That—that couldn't be right. Albus never....never said anything to them before, why now? Albus never made it crystal clear that he fancied boys. He never dropped casual hints about his sexuality, either. He always talked about witches—about girls—whenever he was at Godric's Hollow. Whenever the conversation came to having crushes and James—bless his soul—was going on about his bloody girlfriend—Albus always chortled along, revealing that he had feelings for a rather reserved and bright Ravenclaw. He'd always describe her as enthusiastic, breathtaking and proudly gloat how she is the cleverest witch in school—although Harry would always passionately argue that there was no witch smarter than Hermione. The point is, it all seemed so...convincing so... real. Surely all of that couldn't have been created for the sake of fitting in? Then again, perhaps it was. There was always truth buried in the depths of fiction. Perhaps Albus was only painting fantasies of what kind of boy he wanted in his life. It was just easier to say it was a girl. Now it was obvious he had been lying. That he was trying to fit in. That, after all this time, he was only pretending to be like everyone else—pretending to be straight.

Harry couldn't even possibly imagine what that must be like. Harry never had to go through that. He was never piled with ignominy whenever he thought about the love of his life, Ginny. Back at Hogwarts, whenever he had romantic feelings for another, he never felt he was doing anything bad. It was normalized; wizards liking witches and witches liking wizards. But it wasn't the norm for witches to like witches or for wizards to like wizards.

Albus probably felt shame whenever he thought about boys. How horrible it must be to walk around hating yourself. How alone he must have felt throughout this. Why did Albus wait so long to tell them? And why—why didn't Harry come to this realization on his own? That would have been easier on his son, wouldn't it? Rather than wearing a mask every day and cutting his precious skin to cope with it all. He was all alone, wasn't he? His poor son had been struggling with all of this since he realized he was gay. How long had Albus known he was gay? Harry speculated. For years or was it a recent discovery?

Harry opened his mouth— thinking he had everything he wanted to say to him – but cowered at the last minute and closed it once more. Truth be told, he didn't know what to say nor was he aware on how to say it. He wanted to ask Albus so many questions, but wasn't sure if he was allowed to. He didn't want to accidentally upset his son whose temper was about as explosive as the Miraculous Mystic Mayhem Makers' fireworks from the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

Harry moved his discombobulated gape over to his dear wife, yearning greatly for her much needed assistance, but to his bafflement, she only gave him a dawdling, chary nod. She was beaming for goodness sake! Ginny was sneering at her husband's utter obliviousness, was that it? She knew this entire time, didn't she? Of course she did. She is Ginny Weasley Potter after all—nothing gets past her. She knows just about everything from who won the 1974 Quidditch World Cup—it was the Syrian Quidditch team—to where Lily had misplaced her personal diary—it was under the brown leather couch in the den. His wife certainly did not appear stunned at all by this certain disclosure. It was Harry who was new to all of this. Who was unaware of who his son really was. He tore away tartly from his wife's supercilious stare. The last thing he needed was to be mocked by her.