#i’ve seen a spectrum of reactions & behaviours re substance use irl and it always fascinates me

[padfootastic]

harry started smoking shortly after the events of the secret camera, he probably found the cigarettes in Uncle Vernon's things . He probably doesn't tell anyone, at first there were just a few but those of thinking that his father's "assassin" is trying to kill him,the tasks in goblet of fire, Cedric's death, the almost death of sirius here sirius is alive so after all this, it became a habit that not even sirius remus anyone in the order knows i can only imagine them discovering molly surtan...

did this get cut off towards the end? 👀

regardless, i love this sm!!! harry being full of rage and conflicted feelings, not knowing/being taught how to deal w them. he finds a cig and tries it just for the heck of it (can’t get any worse right?) and lo and behold, things don’t suck as much for a few minutes. he can peacefully float away from all his troubles if only for a small amount of time (genuinely this line of thinking leads me to more substance use hcs like harry’s had the most terrible life and it lends itself very much to those) and over the summer he gets used to those. takes a few packs to hogwarts w him, sneaks off for a smoke every now and then when things get too much, tries to hard it from the people around him.

and like, the thing with cigarettes is that they’re such a slippery slope lol so i can totally see him going for riskier and riskier smoke breaks until he’s finally caught one time. maybe at grimmauld place where there’s only so many places u can hide?

molly will definitely lose her shit, like no question. she’ll be the kind who’ll assume unwanted responsibility and berate him without giving him space to breathe imo (ik she’s much softer when it comes to harry, but i can def see her w the potential to do this). remus would probably pull another ‘your parents didn’t sacrifice their lives for u to kill urself this way harry >:(‘. arthur would bumble around a disappointed, well meaning, but ultimately useless ‘this isn’t the solution’.

sirius, though. here’s my bias coming in. i think he’d be the best equipped to deal with that bc i hc him smoking from a young age as well, for similar reasons. so he gets it, unlike literally everyone else, but most importantly he gives harry the space to talk about it. he’ll be interested in knowing what happened, why he feels the need to rely on cigarettes, and then gently GENTLY help harry come to terms with the fact that his grief is valid without having to resort to damaging substances AND help him find new coping mechanisms. generational healing and unlearning harmful things ftw amirite?

(alternatively, im also just here for a harry who started smoking super young and never stopped ngl)