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The first time Harry notices the initials, he's alone. They're carved, simple and elegant, into the stone corridors of the castle's west wing, hidden by the shadow of the flickering lamplight.
There is something almost intentionally small about them: a sloping MM and an elegant DM that could be mistaken for any scratch the ancient building had accumulated over its centuries of existence. But now that his eyes have caught upon them, it's impossible not to notice. The letters crowd together like they were meant to be close for eternity. Harry hovers his hand, hidden by his invisibility cloak, over them and feels the telltale smoky feel of magic.
He shows it to Hermione and Ron the next day.
"This is... powerful magic," Hermione breathes, eyes alight. "Simple graffiti charms don't last for this long, especially in a place like Hogwarts."
"Is it really that complicated? Fred and George did something similar their first year- ow!"
"Yes, Ronald," she withdraws her hand from where it had smacked him on the head. "Besides, that prank only lasted for a week. This looks old."
"I only meant..."
Harry watches them bicker more from the corner of his eye before tracing his fingers over the carved letters. He wonders, idly, who MM and DM are. Even after they get bored standing by the corridor and walk away, the thought still lingers in the corner of his mind.
He hopes they're happy.
They don't see any new initials for a while after that. He's forgotten about them entirely by the time he notices the next pair. They're carved into the wood of the Shrieking Shack, as small as the initials he discovered all that time ago. Harry doubts that anyone has been close enough to the haunted building to notice the way they're written into the bones of the building.
"RL and SB," Ron reads once Harry shows it to him and Hermione. "Huh."
"You don't reckon it's the ghost that haunts this place?" Harry absentmindedly wonders.
"I don't think ghosts can carve," Hermione frowns. She traces the letters with her fingers. "No magic, too."
The letters are written almost violently as if written in a heady rush. It's romantic, Harry supposes. To proclaim your love in a place so haunted that even the ghosts won't enter.
"I didn't realize wizard couples also wrote their initials on everything. Thought it was just a muggle thing."
"It is," Hermione murmurs. Harry turns to Ron, who shrugs as if saying this is the first time I'm learning about this.
"Hm."
"Wait," Hermione says. She turns back to them, her eyes narrowed. "SB. You don't think it's like..."
Sirius Black, she doesn't say. The name hangs between them, heavy as a weight. His parents' murderer, recently escaped.
"No," Harry shakes his head. "Even if it was, who would RL be?"
They drop the subject, then. Harry thinks back to MM and DM. One more mystery to add to his ever-growing list.
(It is only later, when Sirius explains his innocence and leans back into Professor Lupin, that the dots connect. Hermione gasps quietly, as if she's realizing at the same time as him. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.)
(Harry was right. It was romantic, after all.)
When Professor Lupin is preparing to leave, Harry musters the courage to ask about the initials.
"Professor!"
"Yes, Harry?" Lupin turns, his eyebrows raised.
"Did you," he fidgets, suddenly realizing how strange the question he's about to pose may sound, "ever carve your initials into the Shrieking Shack?"
Lupin's mouth drops. "Um. Yes, once, when I was younger. With a dear... friend. Why?"
"Hermione, Ron, and I saw them earlier this year," Harry explains. "If you don't mind me asking, Professor... isn't that something only muggle couples do?"
Remus, to Harry's surprise, laughs. It's full of mirth, and Harry dimly notices that it's the first time he's heard him sound so happy. "Yes, well, you have your mother to thank for that. She told all of us about the tradition, and we did what young couples do."
"All of us?"
Lupin's eyes grow soft. "It wasn't just your dad, Sirius, Peter," he says the name with derision, "and I. Your mum and her friends, even sometimes Sirius' brother, Regulus, when Sirius wasn't there. I never fully trusted him, but your mum and dad..." He cuts himself off as if he's said too much.
Harry's eyebrows raise. "My mum and dad...?"
Remus looks upwards, closes his eyes, and sighs. "Your parents... well, there were three of them in that relationship."
"They were cheating on one another?!"
"No! No, they just all loved one another. It was devastating when Black joined the Death Eaters and, well, died." He says the last part with a whisper, and Harry feels something in his stomach sicken.
"My parents loved a Death Eater?"
Remus sighs. "Harry.... war is complicated. It brings out the worst in the best people, the best in the worst people. Don't judge your parents on who they loved. Even if I never really understood at first, I think somewhere in the last few years," his eyes grow distant. "I think I understand now."
"Oh," Harry feels stunned. He would have had three parents. He wonders if they carved their name into Hogwarts somewhere. "What were they like?"
"They completed one another, I think. Lily grounded the boys, James gave them hope, and Regulus protected them in his way. They wanted him to meet you, I think. Even after his death was announced, I still think they were holding out hope."
Harry nods silently. Grief digs even deeper into his chest, sharpened by all the things that could have been. "And Professor, was there anyone with the initials MM and DM?" he adds carefully. For all he knows, it is completely unconnected. But Remus, to his surprise, nods.
"Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes. Marlene was one of our best friends, and Dorcas... well, I never knew much about her. Not really. She was a Slytherin, one of Regulus' friends. But she loved Marlene enough that when she was killed, it took Voldemort himself to stop her."
"She was powerful, then?" Harry thinks back to Hermione's expression all those months ago.
"The most. Rivaled your mum and Black, a hard thing to do. I wonder sometimes, if any of them had survived, how much they could have done."
They stood in silence, then, before Lupin clears his throat. "I should go now, Harry." He pauses before adding, "But if you ever want to know more about them, don't hesitate to ask Sirius and I."
Harry smiles then. "Yeah, of course."
He asks Remus and Sirius more about their years at Hogwarts afterward. It is a welcome distraction from the constant near-death experiences he can't avoid, from the nightmares that wake him up screaming, and from the way his scar throbs now more than ever. But between the way the world is going to hell and their stories, he finds solace. Sometimes, when Harry walks to his classes, he sees a flash of blonde hair and dark locs out of the corner of his eye. He hears his dad's laughter, deep and rich, in the wind. If he squints, sometimes he sees a red-haired girl playfully shoving a darker-skinned brunette with hair as messy as his own while a pale boy stands beside them and rolls his eyes with quiet mirth. They may have died years before, Harry supposes, but their love will always remain.
"So, where d'ya suppose your parents and Regulus Black carved their initials?" Ron asks once he's told him and Hermione what he's learned.
"I don't know. Where would you?"
Hermione, who's been quiet all this while, speaks. "Maybe somewhere permanent. Somewhere magical."
And in true Hermione fashion, she's right.
When they first stumble upon the Room of Requirement, Harry's so busy thinking about Dumbledore's Army that he almost misses it. Hermione, however, doesn't.
"Harry, Ron, look." Her voice is full of reverence, the way she gets when she's in awe of magic. They crowd around where she's tracing her fingers. It's small scratches, practically buzzing with enchantment, even decades after it was cast.
RAB, LE, and JP.
"Bloody hell, Harry," Ron notes, "how powerful were they?"
Harry just shakes his head. A wave of something threatens to swallow him whole; for a moment, Harry sees the three of them crouched just as he is, unaware of what they will soon face. Through their signatures, they are eternally young. They live through these carved initials, live in the magic that practically vibrates through this room.
Somewhere inside of him, something fits into place.
Harry is sure of three things in that moment. One, regardless of what happens with this war, he knows that Hogwarts will always bear the marks of teenagers just daring to love. Two, there is nothing that will ever erase that. And three, they had always been in the castle with him. Even if they were never really there, Harry knows that he had always been meant to find those initials. Eventually, he would face Voldemort, and everything that he has learned in his life will be tested. But in that moment, as Harry reaches out and feels where his parents had carved all those years ago, he thinks that he can face it.
"What's that?"
Harry breaks his gaze from the wall, looking at where Ron is pointing. There, by their feet, lies a chisel.
He picks it up. Smoky magic emanates from the tool, and Harry suddenly knows what it's for.
And slowly, just as all the people before him had, Harry begins to carve just underneath his parents' initials. He pulls back, and Hermione squeezes his hand while Ron clasps his shoulder as they examine his handiwork.
RAB, LE, JP.
And underneath,
HP.
(Maybe he can feel whole, after all.)