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The first night Harry goes to Hogwarts, everyone goes to Lily and Mary's to get drunk and cry because they don't know what they're supposed to do without him. Inevitably though, they make it work, and he goes back the next year, and the next year, and the next until he's home for the holidays at the end of the fourth year and has decided that now is the time to officially embrace being a teenager.
They have a little routine set up for parenting. As his parents and step-parents, Harry spends one week at Mary and Lily's and the next with James and Regulus.
It's a quiet afternoon with Harry at his mum's house, or so Regulus thinks until the door bursts open and Harry tumbles in, looking like the world just ended; face crestfallen, chest heaving, and eyes full of tears that are about to fall.
Regulus is understandably alarmed as he surges forwards, but James gets there first, the perfect person to comfort anyone, except this somehow makes things worse as Harry pushes him away with a tear-filled "Go away, I hate you!"
"Harry!" James cries out, equal parts surprised and concerned because this isn't how he was raised. He's a good kid, he doesn't throw around words like hate easily, but Harry pushes past him and slumps against Regulus, who instinctively wraps his arms around him.
"I just want you, Papa", he moans into Regulus' chest. He and James share a long look of immense concern before he wraps an arm around Harry's shoulders and leads him into the living room, where he slumps into the couch, the very epitome of utter misery which only makes Regulus' concern mount higher.
"What's going on?" he asks softly, hoping he doesn't screw up this whole feeling talk.
"Well," Harry replies, voice muffled from where his head is pressed into the couch. "You know Draco, right?" and Regulus inwardly sighs because it's going to be one of those chats.
Everyone has heard about Draco.
His eyes are like stardust.
He laughs like angels sing.
His hair is like fibres of light woven in strands of luminance.
They all know Harry has a crush on him; he told him a year ago, even though there was no official coming out. He had his first boyfriend in year two, which lasted three days until he came home complaining about how men suck and he hates them all.
Mary had never looked more proud.
Outwardly, all he says now is, "Yes, I know Draco", and this seems to be all the invitation Harry needs to go into a fit of teenage hysterics.
"He hates me, I hate him, I never want to see him again."
Regulus takes a deep breath and tries not to laugh because, as concerned as he is, it seems Harry has inherited his dramatics from Sirius.
"You're allowed to hate a lot of things, but your Dad isn't one of them, so you can go apologise after this," he says sternly before adding a softer, more encouraging, "What happened with Draco?"
"Do you remember how I was saying that we were sort of becoming friends, and then we'd hang out alone, and he said it would be cool to come over in the holidays, and I thought it meant he liked me?" he asks in one breath.
"Yes…"
"And you all agreed it meant he liked me?"
"We said it was a good sign of wanting to be friends and seeing what happened next," Regulus says carefully, sensing this is important.
"That's what I said," Harry says dismissively before returning to his dramatics. "Well, he doesn't care about me at all, and we just hung out, me, him, Ron, Hermione, Blaise and Pansy, and he ruined everything!"
"Does he like someone else?" Regulus asks gently, thinking he's figured out the problem here, and Harry nods his head miserably.
"Is it a girl?" he asks next, and Harry shakes his head.
"Is he straight?"
Harry clearly gets impatient that he hasn't asked the right questions as he wails, "No, he likes boys, and I like him, and I thought he'd been nice because he has a crush on me, but he only wants to come here because he has a crush on my dad!"
Then he promptly bursts into tears, and after a few stunned moments, Regulus scoops Harry up from where he's slumped into the cushions and lets him cry into his shoulder.
Regulus consoles him, trying not to laugh but also unable to blame Draco in the slightest until Harry sniffs wetly and then looks up.
"You like my dad," he begins slowly, staring at Regulus, who has no idea where the conversation is going.
"Yes, and we all love you," he replies encouragingly.
"No, I know that; it's not what I meant," Harry replies dismissively.
"Okay then …"
"I was just thinking that if you like my dad and Draco likes my dad, then you can tell me what you like about my dad so I can be like him and make Draco like me," Harry says earnestly, and Regulus huffs out a sad laugh.
"I don't think that's quite how it works."
"Tell me anyway, what you like about him."
"I like how he's kind and funny and can always make me happy," Regulus says simply.
"I'm kind and funny and always make you happy."
"You are, and you do," Regulus agrees.
"Maybe it's the clothes then," Harry mutters before jumping up and leaving the room with a look in his eye that is unmistakably James'.
Regulus hopes he has enough of Lily's rationality not to act on it.
He's wrong, as it turns out, when Harry comes home the next day in yet another perpetual breakdown ignoring James again and heading straight for Regulus.
He shoots James a confused look but dutifully takes Harry through to the living room again to hear about whatever problems he's having now, but gets stuck on seeing him wearing one of James' pairs of jeans which are far too big and a nice cashmere sweater that Regulus bought for him years ago.
"Those aren't your clothes, Harry," Regulus says slowly, bracing himself for today's Draco update, but despite the lack of questioning, it's all Harry needs to explain.
"I went to hang out with Draco today, and you know how you said that since he likes dad instead of me and that I already act like a dad, then I should dress up like him so he'll like me?" he asks in one quick burst, and Regulus winces, already knowing some variation of what's just happened.
"That is a conclusion you drew, not an answer I gave," he replies carefully, but again, Harry doesn't seem to care.
"So we meet in Diagon Alley, and I'm wearing Dad's nice clothes that he always wears, and we have the same hair and the same glasses, and so I looked like him, and do you want to know what Draco said? It was nothing good, even though that was supposed to work to make him like me. Ask me what he said!"
"What did he say?" Regulus asks amusedly, and Harry wails like the world is ending as he declares, "he told me that I looked weird and stupid and that I never wear nice clothes. Then he asked why I wasn't wearing my light blue shirt that complimented my eyes like sunlight glinting on the ocean or why my hair didn't look like soft feathers descended from the heavens above."
"And that's… a problem?" Regulus asks hesitantly.
Harry looks at him like he's stupid. "Yes, it's a problem! Can't you see how he hates me? I need you to tell me what to do because you like my dad, and Draco likes my dad, so how can you make him like me."
"I think you should be yourself, just like I said," he says, raising his eyebrows.
"Well, that didn't work, so what other advice do you have?" Harry replies brattily, but Regulus is luckily saved from needing a response when Harry's eyes light up again.
"You're not helpful because you're a Slytherin . You're too opposite. I need someone who understands," and then Regulus follows the rushed footsteps to see Harry race into the kitchen where James is still seated and stare him in the eye.
"Dad," he declares with all the seriousness in the world, "I need you to teach me how to make a Slytherin fall in love with me."
Two months and five days later, a beaming Harry pulls a blushing Draco through the front door.
Harry and James high-five.
Draco and Regulus share a look of equal part exasperation and adoration.
Harry and Draco are each other's first loves. They remain each other's last.