a/n: Unsurprisingly, most of this was written while listening to songs by Ruelle. All recognizable dialogue is from Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, and there is one borrowed phrase from In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan.

Happy Pride Month!

(I know your birthday isn't until next month, but I'm impatient and you always ask nicely.)

Disclaimer: Ha, ha, no.

Title: can't help but love you

Word Count: 2K

Summary: Five times Harry missed a chance to say the words and one time he did. [Gender AU - M/M, for Pottermum!]

i.

It wasn't though Harry had meant to think about kissing him.

He was newly seventeen and terrified about his future, sitting on the bed of his best friend's younger brother. He could make out the pearly white marquee that sat outside the window the sprawling lawn full of golden decorations, feel the light summer breeze carry the scent of wildflowers in the room.

Somewhere deep down inside, Harry wondered how often he had imagined this scenario: the two of them alone with gentle sunshine pouring in.

"I couldn't think of what to get you," Gideon admitted. He sat cross-legged next to Harry. "Of course, what does one get the wizard who is about to go on a heroic quest?"

He couldn't offer a response.

Harry forced himself to look around. Anywhere that wasn't Gideon's dark eyes. Theirs was a careful friendship, one Harry now wondered how often that boundary blurred. Had it been when Gryffindor won the cup the previous school year, where their eyes had locked and all Harry could hear was the blood rushing in his ears? The long walks around the lake where Gideon's hand always seemed to linger near Harry's? Where had they gone from shared jokes to glances that made his heart stutter

"Harry?" A hand on his shoulder. His heart leaped to his throat as Gideon dipped his head. "What do you want?"

I'm looking at it, Harry wanted to say. He was leaning over a precipice and ready for the fall.

He's Rory's brother, you'll put him in certain danger, argued a different voice inside of him. Any future with him is dammed.

But Harry banished these thoughts, focusing on what he wanted because this could be his only chance. He took Gideon's hand in his and tugged him close. With foreheads touching, breathing heavily in anticipation, he could make out the individual freckles, the yearning shape of his mouth—

The door banged open and they jumped apart.

Rory stood by the doorway with Hermione hovering nervously behind her. "There is cake downstairs waiting for the birthday boy," she said.

ii.

"I swear to Merlin if I have to chase them all with a cursed beater's bat to get their attention…" Gideon purposely trailed off to see if Harry was still listening. He let go of the laces he was tying on his trainers and stood up straight, waiting, watching.

Harry stood by the line of lockers. Half-dressed in borrowed Quidditch gear, he was staring off at the distance, his eyes unfocused. Less than an hour ago he had been an animated blur in the air, trading jokes and complaining about work in the Auror Department, and now he was receding into himself.

Sometimes he got like this whenever they were together, usually alone. There would be a mercurial change in his mood and he would leave with a troubled expression, muttering how he had somewhere to be.

Gideon knew why, or at least he was almost certain he knew why. Rory had told him to be careful of Harry's delicate feelings, Hermione had offered some insight on how Harry was still coping with everything. He needs time to understand his emotions, she had warned him, eyes darting to Rory since they obviously had a better idea as to why he was acting like this. It was always more obvious when they had looked back at Gideon, knowing he had a part to blame with his emotional constipation.

It's not my fault! Gideon thought of his Fourth Year when Harry had closed himself off from everyone, ignoring all the ways Rory and Hermione had reached out to him. How now he was trying to be just as clear that whatever attraction had been building up since his Fifth Year was still there.

Gideon decided to stand in front of Harry. He nudged Harry's foot with his, a teasing gesture from the days when Harry had been his captain. "Are you thinking of leaving me again?"

Startled, Harry's head shot up. His eyes were wide behind his glasses. They were the exact color of fresh-pickled toads. Suddenly, Gideon wasn't sure what to say anymore. The former captain and brave Auror crumbled away to reveal how exposed Harry was in his presence. The nervous twitch in his jaw, the uncertainty that clung to his every move.

Harry Potter, for all everyone knew, kept his real self hidden under layers of dry sarcasm and stubborn determination. He was their chosen hero, their commanding Quidditch captain, every inch of storybook hero with his quiet gravity.

He was not, Gideon now realized, used to having people see past all of those layers.

And before he could think any more of it, Harry kissed him.

For a moment, all Gideon knew was the shock of Harry cupping his face between his hands, feeling the callouses on his fingers as they pushed the long strands of Gideon's hair back, head tilted forward to meet Harry's—oh fuck.

He was kissing Harry. It was a brief sensation, the quick brush of Harry's mouth, the hands tugging on the front of his Quidditch kit. Every poetic word he had fantasized about Harry's gorgeous eyes and crooked smile couldn't hold a candle to this kiss that seared into his soul.

Suddenly as it all had started, Harry pushed himself away. He looked up at Gideon, blinked, and calmly left the room without another word.

Slumped against the wall, Gideon wondered what the hell he was going to do next.

iii.

Dear Gideon,

I've thought for so long I couldn't have a specific kind of happiness. My relatives, the Dursleys, used to tell me how I was going to be alone and miserable for the rest of my life. You know? Parents dead, awful aunt and uncle, I was used to having no one care about me. After all, who would want me…

And then Hagrid literally brought the door down and came into my life. I met Rory on the train and I was seen. We shared sweets and Hermione came on by—do you know I also remember seeing you? You were asking if you could join your sisters at Hogwarts, laughing as you chased after the train. Not even a few months before I was this lonely orphan, and then I entered Hogwarts with my first-ever friends, and I even had someone far away wanting to know me.

I'm not used to this. Writing about my feelings is difficult for me. I don't have much experience, and it's like some part of me is waiting to ruin everything. Maybe I'm waiting for you to realize you're running after the wrong wizard and that you deserve someone better.

See how pathetic this letter is? I don't know how many more versions of it I can write.

But it's not like I woke up and realized I'm in love with you. It's more I woke up a hundred different times and started to see you clearer each morning.

You're the first person I think of each day and the last I think of every night before I fall asleep. I regret every missed chance have when it comes to telling you this. I regret not approaching you when Gryffindor won the Cup, not kissing you on my birthday, not staying in the locker rooms after I did kiss you… This is what you do to me. I regret so much because you see me in ways other people can't. No matter how hard I try, you disarm me and let the emotions in.

This is why you deserve someone better than me, Gideon, but I don't want to run anymore—

Hands shaking, Harry reduced the unfinished letter to cinders.

He was best off avoiding Gideon for the rest of his life.

iv.

It was then he decided on a more practical approach after Harry didn't respond to his third angry letter.

Gideon had taken some Floo Powder from McGonagall's office when she requested a stern talk about his low marks in her class, bribed his dorm mates to stay silent ("Are you sure he's really worth it?"), begged Aberforth if he could use his Floo-connected fireplace at the Hog's Head, and used it to end up at The Leaky Cauldron where he could Apparate to Harry's flat.

"You don't get to kiss me and leave! You don't even write a letter," he announced as he stormed inside. Of course, this was the extent of his plan as Harry stood to his full height and locked eyes with him.

They fell to the floor, rolling back and forth. A majority of Gideon's fights had been with his sisters. Fights about who was right about the twins needing a scapegoat, fights for the last dinner roll, all-out throwdowns with their explosive personalities and bursts of accidental magic setting things on fire.

But with Harry, it wasn't much of a competition, even with the weight he had lost while on the run. His body was now full of wiry muscle, used to having his back against the wall and full of fire.

Harry pinned Gideon to the floor by his wrists. His green eyes were bright with anger, every muscle in his body coiled. This was Harry sandpapered down to the sharp lines and angles of his lean body, the rough stubble lining his jaw, the faint crackle of magic in the air.

"Then kiss me." Gideon's heartbeat echoed loudly inside his ribs.

Harry let go of Gideon's wrists and traced Gideon's bottom lip with his thumb before leaning down to kiss him again.

This was nothing like their first kiss. It was bruising, his lower lip caught between Harry's teeth and their bodies slotted together Desire struck him like lightning bolt. Responding hungrily, Gideon tugged on the back of Harry's shirt, pulling it over his head and feeling the white-hot burn of their bodies connecting.

"Talk—later—" Harry gasped. He griped Gideon's hips and straddled him. Half-dressed and green eyes heavy with arousal, he appeared as if he stepped out of every fantasy Gideon had of him.

"I'm good with that."

v.

"Hold on," Harry said in the late night.

The impatient knocking on his door continued. Harry wished in his sleep-deprived state that he had invested in better wards for the flat. It was becoming impossible to do anything these days with Gideon haunting his every thought.

He opened the door and—hope, wished, yearned for a certain visitor—saw his best friend fuming on the other side. Ears red, she appeared madder than the close incident on his seventeenth birthday when she had torn him a new one about being careful in a war. Hypocritical advice, now as Harry as looked back, remembering how Rory had literally swept Hermione off her feet in a kiss after destroying a Horcrux.

"What's wrong with you!" Rory demanded. Her long hair was escaping from its plait. "Why are you like this?"

"I never said anything about having a plan."

"So, you slept with my brother?"

The burned remains of his letters were still in the rubbish bin, but Harry remembered the words as if they were inscribed on his heart. He could still feel the phantom touch of Gideon kissing the scars on his chest, the urge to say everything in the afterglow with his face pressed into his soft red hair.

"No," she said, holding a hand up to stop him from speaking. "You're the one who is going to tell him. Not me."

Harry sighed.

vi.

"You broke into Hogwarts just to see me," Gideon observed, a slight smile on his face. He was sitting on the floor of the dorm, wearing one of Harry's Christmas jumper that he must have nicked after staying over.

Harry let the rest of his Invisibility Cloak fall to his feet.

They were alone. A fire burned in the grate and the scent of dust-filled velvet filled his nose; Harry was reminded how much of Gryffindor Tower was his home. This was where he wanted to be most of all.

"I never really gave up on you," Gideon said. "Not really. I always hoped…" He blushed under Harry's gaze, fidgeting. "Unless you're here for something else than a heartfelt confession."

Harry knelt in front of him and kissed him as he wanted since his birthday a year ago. It was quiet, the crackle of the warm fire, Gideon's soft gasp as he opened his mouth and hands sliding up to cup his face. "Can I stay?"

Gideon dragged a thumb along the side of Harry's jaw. "The entire night, if you want."

Harry kissed the corner of his mouth. Cautious, hopeful. "Good. Because I have a lot I want to tell you."