𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐈𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 [𝐣.𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫]

5: 𝔲𝔫𝔯𝔢𝔮𝔲𝔦𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔲𝔠𝔨𝔶 𝔩𝔦𝔣𝔢 𝔢𝔵𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔰

Everyone knows unrequited love hurts the most.

Well, that pain is magnified by the tenfold when you fall in with your straight-as-a-ruler best friend.

Because everyone else at least had a fair chance, a little spring of hope. Everyone could start out knowing there was a possibility of their crush liking them back, no matter how small. That maybe their awkward glance at you wasn't the salad stuck between your teeth, but the sexual attraction that pulled towards you both like an animal magnetism.

It was at least fathomable, and that was all our brains needed. We could twist one mere conversation so out of proportion, convince ourselves someone likes us when they don't, and vice versa.

But Remus Lupin knew with a single doubt that Sirius would never love him.

God, it was so painfully obvious. Sirius was straight, straight, straight, and he was just torturing himself with the idea. He'd toyed with daydreams, tried kissing girls (they were nice, just forgettable, with absolutely no spark whatsoever), even managed to convince himself it was just "them being blokes" for a short while. Clearly, however, his attempts were futile.

He was one square negative eighty thousand one hundred and fifty-two, if not floating around the negative hundred thousands.

Gosh, what he'd give to have Sirius Black look at him the way he looked at Marlene McKinnon on those tight jeans.

Sometimes Remus wondered why the hell it always had to be him.

He that turned into a bloody werewolf every full moon, he that had to watch his best friend drool over girls. He that ended up falling head over heels in love with Hogwarts's no. 1 playboy. Why couldn't the universe just give him a break?

Sure, unrequited love hurts, but it's most painful knowing you never had a chance to begin with. Knowing he'll never see you that way. 

*******

Unrequited love was all James Potter had been used to, romantically.

James Potter had his eyes fixated on Lily Evans the second he saw her on the train, all those years ago. He'd been entranced with her beauty, her spunky attitude, and most of all, her generosity.

He'd watched as she gave her tie to a fellow first year who'd forgotten his, and marched up towards the Sorting Hat tieless, eyes daring someone to point this out.

Everyone said James was relentless, he just couldn't take a hint.

But the truth was that he already knew that. He knew that Lily Evans was sick of his pestering, so god, why didn't he stop?

Because his heart was so besotted with her, so utterly infatuated it kept leading him on and on, like a compass that always pointed North, even after you shook it real hard.

That compass had led him through one heartbreak after another, enduring glares and scowls and painful insults, wondering why he couldn't just pull away. Relentless and unrequited.

*******

TW: child abuse

Eleven year old Sirius Black had only ever known unrequited love.

It was the love he tried to give his scowling parents, the love Regulus begged for, only a mere child, hiding sobs beneath his blanket.

It was the lack of love that was in their parent's gazes, the lack of love as they dressed their children in expensive dress robes and pushed them towards other families, a tool for simple introductions.