Warning: Rated M for language, violence, and sexual content. This story is mostly Canon. For further disclaimers and warnings, make sure to read my profile.

A/N: Prompt: Bad at Love, by Halsey. This piece was part of the Sing Me A Rare B:Side OS Competition Spring/Summer 2018. I had a choice of song and I could chose my own pairing. All characters, spells, magical equipment and locations from the Harry Potter series belong to JK Rowling. Winner: One That Never Leaves You

Beta Love: LuceFray27 and La-Matrona

Bad at Love

I know he loves me by the way his hand would brush against mine when passing notes or a quill in class, the way he stares at me from across the Great Hall during dinner, and the way that he always looks back when our families separate at King's Cross, acting like we don't know one another even though we're both going home to Cokeworth, just a few streets apart.

I know he loves me by the intensity with which he hates everyone else who loves me. My parents, who he says aren't worthy of my magic. My sister, who I think stopped loving me a long time ago. And, of course, Potter.

Potter's love is an irritation.

But Severus's love frightens me.

It's a type of love I never asked for. A type of love I did not want from him.

It's finicky, never lukewarm; always either hot or cold. The hot burns, the cold is painful. There are times I think I could try to repair what once might have been something . . . something. Each time the feeling fades.

I hate his friends. I hate who they've turned him into. I hate that maybe he was this way all along. That maybe he had this darkness, this sickness, inside of him. I hate that I didn't see it before it was too late.

I hate what he called me.

I hate knowing he still thinks he loved me when he said it.

I'm bad at love because, even now, even after everything we've been through, I don't want to forgive him for it.

"Look, I don't mean to frustrate—" I try to tell her as she swings her long red hair in my face. Flips it, really. Right in my face. Kind of hurts. Merlin, she's beautiful.

"We're meant to be," I tell my best friends as they roll their eyes, groan, and throw wads of parchment at my head.

I'm bad at love.

For years I thought she loathed me. For years I thought it was funny to tug on her pigtails, tease her friends, and drive her mental. How is it that in making the edges of her harder, sharper, she's somehow softened me? Watching her as she interacts with the first years, as she lifts her chin when others—much more horrible than I am—call her the worst names imaginable, as she waves her wand with a flutter of magic that sends chills down my spine.

I never believed that Muggle-borns had less of a right to magic, but the way that Lily summons it, controls it, uses it to make the world around her dance to life . . . it makes me have faith in, I don't know, something else, something intangible. Maybe it's her. Maybe she's everything. I've always joked that I worship her, but when her goodness sucks the breath right out of me? Maybe love is divine.

Six years into this odd little dance . . . she smiles at me.

I'm caught completely off guard, and it takes Moony to give a little shove forward with Padfoot laughing behind my back as the words are taken from me.

I'm struck fucking silent.

That's new.

I'm in too deep.

"Wormtail, catch up," Padfoot tells me, waving me through the opening we found in Honeydukes years ago. I'm always trailing behind it seems.

Moony smiles as I make it through just in time for Padfoot to drop the grate that conceals the hidden passage, narrowly missing me. If I'd been in Animagus form, it might've caught my tail. I cast a glance in Padfoot's direction, slightly narrowing my eyes.

He and Prongs share a laugh that's almost identical now that they're basically brothers.

I look up at Moony, wondering if he and I could ever be like that, but he's already steps ahead of everyone else, the map we've all created in his hands. Once more, I wonder if I'm here because they didn't know what else to do with me.

I love my friends.

I envy my friends.

I'm bad at love.

Jealousy gets the best of me.

I didn't even know what it was, not really. I thought love was just another meaningless word like family, duty, honour, etc. Words that Walburga made up and added weight to before sticking to my shoulders, pushing me down until my back broke under her expectations and things that I could have never lived up to, even if I had given a shit. Which I firmly do not. Did not. Will not.

She never said it. Love, that is.

Father did once. Right before he put me on the train the very first time. Never again after that. I said it to Reg a few times. Lot of good that did.

But as I lick the blood from my split lip, wincing at the sting, I think love might be real with the way that warmth envelopes me as Mrs Potter steps into the room with a bottle of dittany and a mixture of concern and irritation in her eyes.

"I don't mean to frustrate, but I—"

"Hush, love," she says and touches my cheek with a gentle hand.

I'm bad at love because it hits me like the Hogwarts Express out of fucking nowhere, right to the chest.

My eyes sting almost as bad as my lip.

Wiping away the condensation that's built up on the mirror in front of me, I wonder why I ever agreed to sharing a flat with Sirius. James has Lily now, and Peter's busy taking care of his mother, but Sirus and I are the odd men out. Orphans, for the most part, with no real love interests or prospects of an actual future outside of Hogwarts and our work with the Order.

The mirror finally clears, and a monster stares back at me. Its eyes are sunken, a dull green that looks like the banks of the Black Lake on a muggy day. Dark patches beneath those eyes make the rest of its skin look sickly grey. Scars litter the skin that looks and feels both loose and stretched too tight all at once.

Out of habit, I don't bother to look at the rest of its body.

My body.

"You deserve love, Remus," Lily tells me so often that you'd think she would lose them emphasis and motherly tension when she says it, but she never does. Every word is genuine each time she says it.

"Need to settle down with someone," James tells Sirius when he walks in with a new bird on his arm—one whose name he can't recall so he calls her things like 'pet' and 'dove' and 'angel'.

James echoes the sentiment to me as well, as though I have options.

"You really should take better care of yourself," Peter whispers to me during an Order meeting. He should talk. He's not looking so well himself these days. Jumpy as hell. Can't blame him, of course; we're at war. It would be stupid not to be scared, right?

"We love you, Moony," Sirius says, giving me a brotherly kiss on the forehead and gripping my shoulders as my bones begin to break each full moon.

The words used to mean something to me, but now they're tainted by the worry I have about where Sirius has been lately when he's not in Order meetings and the way he cast suspicious glances in my direction when Dumbledore and Moody give me secret orders that I can't divulge, not even to my best friends.

I'm bad at love.

"No one loves you," I bitterly tell the monster looking back at me, half-tempted to smash the mirror.

Gryffindors shouldn't hide in bathrooms, sobbing with their hands over their ears because they can't get their baby to stop crying. I hate how much I love him sometimes. It makes me feel weak. I hate how much I regret motherhood in these moments when I'm sleep deprived, shaking with frustration over not knowing what to do, and terrified out of my mind because someone out there wants us dead.

I'm bad at love.

A mother's love should be stronger than this.

I want my love for Harry to mean something.

"Thanks, Wormtail," I tell Peter as the magic of the Fidelius settles over him. It looks different than it had when Dumbledore cast it on Sirius. Peter looks like the magic of it weighs more. I begin to wonder, and not for the first time, if this is too much.

Sirius stands by, his fingers twitching. He looks like hell. Not nearly half as bad as Remus did the last time we saw him, what . . . a year ago? Merlin, has it been a year?

Keeping track of time outside of Harry's growth doesn't even seem to matter anymore. My life is first words, first steps, first tooth, and Merlin, I really hate teething. Fuck, the boy has a set of lungs on him.

Peter smiles, and I feel a twist of guilt in my stomach. These are my brothers, and I've always said I loved them each the same, but I can't lie to myself. I know I love and trust Sirius more. It's why I had picked him. But Sirius is right. It's too obvious.

Still . . .

I love Peter, but I'm bad at love.

I worry that I've made the wrong choice.

I'm bad at love.

Love doesn't mean anything. It's hollow and broken and a sickness creeping inside of my the same way the Dark Mark had felt when it was burnt into my flesh. This isn't love. I don't know what it is, but I don't like it. I don't want it. I'm so scared.

"The Potters live in Godric's Hollow."

Red eyes gleam excitedly in my direction before the cracking sound of Disapparation echoes around me.

I throw up.

"Don't take it from me," I plead, tears in my eyes. Didn't know I could still cry. The salt in the sea outside the tiny window in my cell feels like it's created a layer on my skin, drawing all the moisture out of my body. But still, I cry.

Most of my fingernails are broken, some split into pieces and other cracked right in half down the middle, crusted with dried blood and dirt. Idly, I wonder if the dirt is from clawing at the walls inside the prison or from the burst ground in London, littered with dead Muggles and maybe a dead rat.

The dementor outside the bars hisses at me, tugging at the happy memories inside of my head. Memories of James and Lily's wedding. Memories of Harry's birth. The monster is replacing them with visions of my dead friends, and I scream, "I'm innocent!" into the void. I'm bad at love, but I'm not a murderer.

I suddenly feel slightly warmer and realise that I've got fur.

The dementor looks like it doesn't even see me.

It's a cold comfort.

But I can keep my memories.

Holding Sirius in my arms feels like everything will be fine. I have my friend back, and I'm sure I can figure out how to explain all of this to Harry once Sirius can explain it all to me.

He's small in my arms, and I'm sure that if I squeeze just a bit more, his bones will break.

I should have done something.

I loved my friends with everything good that I ever had in me, but I let them go so easily. I never deserved them. I'm bad at love. If my love for them had been true, I would have known the truth. Wouldn't I?

I should never have listened to Dumbledore and gone to spy on the werewolves. Sirius and I should have both been there for James and Lily. For Harry. But there's time now, and I begin to think of how to start it all when Hermione turns on me because I've taken too long to explain myself.

"Harry, don't trust him, he's a werewolf!"

Sitting in my room at Grimmauld Place, the last place I ever wanted to come back to, I've been silenced in my own home by Molly, who practically admits that she's raising my godson since I'm completely incapable of doing the job.

Dumbledore forbids me from leaving the house, Molly forbids me from doing anything resembling parenting Harry, and Moony forbids me to give up and drink myself to death.

Getting very tired of people telling me what to do.

Getting very tired of being cooped up and useless to a war that I've never stopped fighting. I wonder if this is how James felt.

The details of Moody's angry words fly over my head because I'm too focused now on a decision, a choice that I finally can make. Harry is in danger at the Ministry. The love I have for that boy breaks me open right at the chest, smothering me in grief and shame. It's not a clean love, but I'm bad at love, aren't I? I let James down by putting my trust in someone else. No more. I don't trust anyone. That part of my heart has been broken beyond repair, and I'm tired of always making the same mistakes.

I'm taking action.

The firewhisky doesn't even burn anymore, and I've lost count of the times that the bartender has refilled my glass. The sound of the pounding in my head still can't overpower the sound of Harry's screams and the overwhelming silence coming from the veil as it took my best, my last, friend from me.

As I stumble through headquarters, reeking of liquor, I send an owl off to Dumbledore. It had taken me an hour of focus, trying to make my penmanship not reveal my current state, but even if he knows I'm drunk, I doubt he'll give it much thought seeing that I'm finally agreeing to his wishes.

I'm going back in.

I have nothing left to live for.

I have nothing left to love.

A noise in the corner startles me, and it takes a good few moments before my eyes adjust in the darkness, but her scent hits me without effort on my part, knocking me back a step. I've spent the better part of a year trying to ignore the way she looks at me during meetings, the way she smiles, the way her breasts move as she breathes, the way her eyes sparkle as they shift into colours I think are meant just for me.

"Wotcher, Remus."

Her voice is the only thing in my world right now that doesn't taste like ashes.

I'm bad at love, and I think it might be too late to turn back.

I'm fucked.

I'm bad at love.

Bloody expert at being bad, really, if there is such a thing.

Fell in love with my best friend at Hogwarts, and he turned out to be gay and then just not interested much in the way of relationships or love or even sex. Fell in love with one of my trainers at the Academy, years older than myself, but work and sex are never a good idea.

I don't think of the Order as work. Maybe that's why it's easier to wrap my legs around Remus's waist and wantonly groan because, Merlin, his grip is tight, and he feels like he's afraid to let me go. I try not to think much on that considering everything the man has been through.

I try not to wonder if I'm processing my own grief and fear and worries in an unhealthy way, but as he presses into me, I stop thinking altogether, filled instead with something that finally doesn't hurt or make me feel sick inside.

Remus looks at me like I'm something rare, which isn't exactly something I'm not used to considering my abilities. But he seems to stare past the shape of my nose, the colour of my hair and eyes, as though he's searching. Like he's afraid I'm gonna walk away the moment he lets go.

He's the one that walks away in the end.

I'm always the one that gets left.

Even when I corner him, demanding he explain himself, he gives me nothing but rehearsed lines.

"I'm broken, Dora."

"We're at war, dummy. Ain't a single one of us who isn't damaged at this point."

Shared breaks and fractures and the overwhelming desire for love while we still can has us running down the aisle the very moment he stops hating himself even just a little bit. I thought once that maybe my love could patch up all of the breaks in his heart, but navigating a war is chipping away at what naivety I've got left.

The honeymoon doesn't last long, and he's already looking like he needs to escape. Like he's trying to spare me witnessing his death. I'm pretty sure he's made some deal with Dumbledore that he's not told me about.

I'm annoyed he's holding back. Then again, I'm not entirely great at being open and honest myself. And I've got a bloody whopper of a secret.

His eyes are sad. Always sad. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't . . ."

"Hadn't what?" I feel my heart skip.

"I thought you might be the one. To fix me."

Did I mention that I'm bad at love?

I know it's not the best time, and he practically has his trainers on, one foot already out the front door, but I've never been the kind of person that's good at timing.

"I'm pregnant, Remus."

I never realised that the Horcrux in my head was heavy until it was no longer there. The weight on my shoulders is gone too, now that Voldemort is dead and the Death Eaters have all been rounded up by the Order and Aurors.

Ron and Hermione have disappeared to help the rest of the Weasley family, but I can't bring myself to go near them knowing that it's my fault they've lost so much.

I'm not surprised when Ginny finds me, but it's still a shock to see her, to have her so close to me after this year. Her face is dirty save for the tear tracks down her cheeks, her hair is messy and windswept, and her clothes have blood stains on them. She's so beautiful it makes my chest hurt.

The look in her eyes is expecting.

Voldemort is gone, but I'm not just going to suddenly go back to being a normal teenager, if I ever was one. Being alone with Ron and Hermione this past year has given me a lot of time to think about my life and how the events of it have probably fucked me up beyond repair. Even if I'd not been forced to fight a war, save an entire magical community, I'd still feel rage in my heart over my childhood on Privet Drive, and frankly, it's so strongly present that even I'm aware of how unhealthy it is, and I'll be the first to admit—after Hermione—that I'm not always the quickest when it comes to noticing things.

Ginny deserves something good after everything she's been through.

"Ginny, I'm bad at lo—"

She kisses me and mutters, "Shut up, Harry."