Harry opens his eyes.

His heart is racing, his breathing is short, he's terrified and aroused and everything is so fucking confusing but one thing is clear.

His dream is still soft kisses and sweet smiles, but now it also includes short hair and strong arms and flat chests and hard-

His dream is of a boy.

He's not exactly upset about it, as though he already knew this before. He supposes he just never considered it enough for that memory to surface.

He's sitting upright, his chest moving fast to keep up with his breathing, and he makes a mental note to mention this to Dean before he grabs his newest poem.

"Let me just forget for a minute that you ever existed,
Let me just forget that we ever crossed paths.
Let me just wake up with amnesia for a day.
So I could feel the same bliss that you do
After having forgotten me."
-t.m.

He has that same sick feeling in his stomach that he did a few days ago, but he forces it down and grabs his bag, shoving the note under his pillow.

A paper flutters out of his bag, and Harry catches it, reading the paper with wide eyes.

"Oh, fuck," he swears softly.

He had forgotten to copy down Draco's essay.

"Fuck, fuck fuck," he mutters to himself, rushing down to the Great Hall.

He practically throws the parchment onto the table and grabs another piece and a quill, scribbling down the essay frantically.

Something about the handwriting in Draco's essay bugs him, but he's too tired and frantic to focus on it too much.

"You alright, mate?" Dean asks with a soft laugh. Harry throws him a halfhearted smile.

"Yeah, sorry. Forgot to do this."

Dean shrugs easily, pushing a few pieces of bacon on Harry's plate and leaving him alone.

************************

It's not until much later in the day, after he's returned Draco's essay and turned in his own, that Harry is walking with Dean to therapy and he brings it up.

"Dean, do you know if anyone in our school is gay?" he asks conversationally.

Dean freezes. Every muscle in his body seems to tense. "What? No. Why would you ask me that?"

"I was just wondering. I-"

"It's not really, um, acceptable, per se, to be, ya know. Gay. People judge, you know. A lot of them hate it." Dean is shifting from side to side. "If you're gay, I"ll support you and everything, but be careful who you tell."

Harry nods, and they walk a bit further before he blurts it out.

"I am. Gay."

Dean pauses slightly, but smiles sadly at Harry.

"Thank you for telling me."

"I think I have a boyfriend that I don't know about."

This is met with another pause and a raised eyebrow.

"Ya know. Memory. But I keep getting these poems, and I know that I have a significant other, I just don't know who. But I know I'm gay now, so it has to be a boy-"

"How do you know you're gay?"

Harry blushes dark. "I'd rather not say."

The grin on Dean's face is all too knowing, but he spares Harry and moves on. "So you need to find out who your secret closeted boyfriend is, although you have absolutely no memory of who it is and the only thing you know is that he writes poems? Good luck, mate."

Harry snorts, but they continue walking.

"Are you dating Seamus?"

Dean trips over a crack in the floor.

"Wha- uh, no! No, I'm not- I'm- uh-" Dean is stammering as he clambers up from the ground. "You can't tell anyone."

Harry mimics the swear on your heart gesture, and Dean relaxes slightly, dusting off his pants.

They walk the rest of the way smiling.