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Grant knew what love was. Even though he never felt it, he knew what it looked like. Fleeting touches, longing looks, heated arguments melted with painful conversations, forgiving and maybe more.
13 years, he spent them with Remus and 2 summers before. Fighting, sneaking out, caring, admiring, needing. That was what Remus was like for Grant- It never bored him. It was as if the mundanity made him feel at peace for once. Remus made him want to be himself. And maybe after spending so many years with him, Grant became Remus’s shelter. So, when Sirius returned, Grant knew he had to go. He knew he was destined to be alone, his parents left him, his grandfather hated him and he had no real close friends. He was so used to people leaving him that he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that it would be him being the one leaving this time. Leaving the person who actually cared.
Deep down he knew that this thing with Remus would end. But who could blame him? When a boy with shaggy hair and a bunch of scars walked into the room of the children’s home, flashed a shy smile and introduced himself with a peculiarly pretty name (and a slightly posh accent), Grant knew he was done for. But somewhere in those 13 years with him, Grant realized that he never really needed Remus, but Remus needed him. Grant had always looked for someone who could love him back but he kept going back to Remus because that’s just what he did. Going back to people who couldn’t give him what he wanted. And all he wanted was for Remus to want him back.
Grant got Remus at his lowest. When his life was falling apart and he was sure he was going to die, Grant held him through it. He could still remember the crinkle in Remus’s eyes when he made him smile, how they’d forgive each other after a particularly rough fight and so much more that couldn’t be put to words. But Sirius. Sirius got Remus at his highest. And Grant hated him just a little for that. Sirius had always been the star to Remus’s moon. Grant might’ve just been a passing meteor. And Sirius returning from Azkaban meant Grant had to leave. Because he knew that if he stayed, he would stop Remus from loving Sirius back again. Sirius was meant to be Remus’s forever and who was Grant to ruin that?
Even after leaving, even after all these years, Grant never really stopped loving Remus. After the news of Remus’s death reached him, Grant knew that something died inside him that could never recover. If Grant had acted recklessly, he would’ve regretted it. So, he didn’t, even though, all he felt like doing was destroying everything.
Every year, following after the war, some days he would open that one box of pictures, without Marcus knowing (Thank god he had Marcus now or else he would’ve surely gone mad), and curse himself for being born a muggle. Could he have saved Remus if he had magic? Nonsense.
In Grant’s hand was his favourite picture, amongst all of them starting from them both messing in the kitchen shot by a muggle camera to capturing Remus in bed laughing by a wizarding camera. The picture was of them both in jumpers, curled up against each other, smiling, with Remus stroking Grant’s head. Grant would always think about framing it but he just couldn’t bring himself to. It just hurt too much. He had told Marcus almost everything (except for the magic part of course), but he couldn’t bring himself to tell him about these. The most private moments between him and Remus. Even though he loved Marcus, there were just some things that couldn’t have been put to words.
He watched the picture move, capturing the never-ending laughter of him and Remus, back when they both pretended as if their individual pasts didn’t exist.
“Happy Valentine’s day, my magic” said Grant, sitting on his store room floor while stroking the picture. At midnight on Valentine’s day, surrounded loads and loads of memories floating around the room through the pictures. But Remus was never his to lose.