Chapter Text
I can see the future
Painted in my eyes
Open up the door and fade into the light.
Nick likes to think he has a pretty good idea of who he is.
He’s the reliable, responsible Gryffindor, the Quidditch Captain who rarely concedes a goal.
He’s the Gryffindor who spends more time in other house’s common rooms than his own, often surrounded by his circle of good friends.
He’s the Gryffindor that most pupils and professors were confused by for the first two years at Hogwarts, because he met a Slytherin boy on his first day and decided they were going to be best friends. Unheard of, back then, for a Gryffindor and Slytherin to form such a close bond.
But the whispers and pointed stares had stopped by the time the third year began, everyone realising that Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring were inseparable.
And still are, six years after they’d first met.
Nick is the Gryffindor with a Slytherin always by his side.
If two students drabbed in house colours of red and green are seen sneaking onto the Quidditch Pitch after hours or breaking into the restricted section of the library, it’s usually him and Charlie.
Nick is also the Gryffindor that hurled hexes and jinxes and got into fights during Fifth Year, when Charlie came out and other students had a problem with him being gay.
He’s the Gryffindor that hung Ben Hope upside down above the entrance of the Great Hall when he caught him assaulting Charlie in the corridor one afternoon.
The Gryffindor that jokingly gets called a Hufflepuff by his friends, for his fierce loyalty and devotion to Charlie.
So Nick knows what other people think of him.
Though no one knows him better than Charlie does.
One look from him and Nick swears he can feel it; Charlie’s unwavering gaze burning right into his soul, always able to read him like a constellation without any words exchanged between them. Something that brings Nick comfort, because Charlie knows him. He knows.
But then one day, in Potions Class, everything changes.
And suddenly, Nick doesn’t know who he is anymore.