The Safe Wizards

21: Northern Lights

Jasper was thinking about everything that had happened in the last few hours without waking the young man in his arms.

When he had entered the wizarding house, he had immediately sensed Harry's desperation and had been afraid that something terrible was going on. Once he had arrived in the dark-haired man's room and was reassured that there was no immediate danger, he had quickly realized that it was the letter in his hand that had put him in this state. He had then glanced at the paper and had needed only a few hundredths of seconds to read it. His heart had sunk as he had discovered that Charlie would soon be coming to see Harry and understood that the wizard had felt trapped by the situation this would create. Jasper had ignored his own feelings and tried to calm Harry down. After a while the dark-haired boy had started talking about what was going on in his head, about everything that had happened to him since he started school. He had talked about how he had been used by the wizarding world to save them from Voldemort, the greatest dark mage of their time, when he was just a child. He had confided in the people he had lost: Cedric a school friend, Sirius his godfather, Dumbledore the principal of his school whom he was quite close to, Snape a former teacher who had saved his life many times, Fred one of his heart brothers and Charlie's little brother, Tonks and Remus Teddy's parents... and others, so many others who were not so close to him, but for whose death he also blamed himself.

Harry had talked for hours. During the discussion Jasper had taken Harry to his bed and held him close. Exhausted by the flood of emotions that had passed through him, the dark-haired man had finally fallen asleep on the vampire's chest.

Since Jasper played gently with the hair of his soul mate by remaking the film of all that it had happened since his arrival in this room and the hardest for him was to put in mute his own emotions. The first, but easiest to keep under control were the happiness and love he felt for the young man in his arms. Then came the fear that he would lose him, that it would all be fleeting and that Harry would decide to disappear from his life to live his own with Charlie. Along with the fear, the jealousy, this one was vicious, like a poison, it seeped into his heart and soul, making him feel an unbearable pain. It was not so different from the anger he felt, yet they were completely uncorrelated. If the jealousy came from the fear that Harry would prefer Charlie to him, the anger came from what the wizarding world had done to his hero. He didn't understand how they could put so much responsibility on the shoulders of a child who had already lost so much. All because some crazy old woman said that he should be the one to take care of the black mage. He was also sad for his love, sad for what he had to go through and the grieves he had to go through.

The dark-haired man was peaceful at the moment, sleeping soundly. Jasper was taking the opportunity to really focus on what he was feeling and try to calm his emotions. Things were complicated enough for Harry, he didn't need to deal with other people's moods as well. He spent the night using the comfort he felt holding Harry to mute the rest of what he was feeling. After several hours of this, he sensed a change in the dark-haired man's emotions. He became agitated, in the grip of confusion.

"It's okay, Harry, you're safe," Jasper whispered.

Harry calmed down instantly, but it didn't last. Instead, he suddenly opened his eyes and pulled away from Jasper. He felt his heart break at the wizard's reaction, but took it upon himself to hide it as best he could.

"Harry, calm down, everything's fine, okay?" he whispered again, reaching out to him as if to coax a fearful animal.

The wizard looked at him, confused, as if trying to remember something as he detailed him. Jasper braced himself for a second rejection.