Chapter Text
Tom lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, wondering desperately when the hand-sized mirror by his head would say his name.
It was hot out. Very very hot. The fan in his bedroom window did little more than stir the air. He’d stripped to just a pair of boxers, and he was still hot. He could go take a cold shower, but he was waiting for Loki to ring. Well, ring wasn’t exactly the right word, since their two-way mirrors didn’t have anything like a telephone’s jingle, but a portable telephone was the closest thing that Muggles had to two-way mirrors.
Of course he could take the mirror with him anywhere, where as the portable telephone that lived in his mum’s kitchen would only work as far as the back garden. And the mirrors only worked in pairs, so it wasn’t like he could “phone” whoever he liked. Loki had given Tom half of the set of mirrors for Christmas last year, and they were the only thing keeping them both sane at the moment. Still, taking the mirror into the shower with him would just be... weird.
“Tom.”
Tom rolled over and snatched up the mirror. “Loki?”
The Slytherin’s smiling face appeared in the glass, replacing Tom’s nearly-identical one. “Hello.”
“Hi. How are you?”
“Hot. I’m in the cellars and it’s still twenty-five degrees. My room is utterly unbearable.”
“Urgh. London is like a furnace, too.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t even have a cellar, do you?”
Tom shook his head. “No. I’ve taken so many cold showers that I may turn into a prune.”
Loki snickered. “At least there’s plenty of cold water.”
“Yes.” There was a long pause, and Tom decided the conversation about the weather and how uncomfortable they both were was fairly well over. They’d had the same conversation every day for the last week with little variation. “I got my school letter today.”
“Oh, yes, so did I. Did you see that they added a dress robe to the supply list?”
“No, I barely glanced at it. I just saw the Hogsmeade permission slip and gave it to my mum to sign.” Tom leaned over the side of his bed and grabbed the list. “You’re right. What on Earth is a dress robe?”
“They’re formal wear. Like a tuxedo.”
“Oh.” Loki only knew what a tuxedo even was because Tom had recently loaned him a Muggle book that took place during the 1930s, and Loki had asked him to explain the outfits. “Why do we need formal wear?”
Loki shrugged, barely perceivable in the small mirror. “Perhaps there’ll be a ball?”
“Huh.” Images of Regency formal balls popped into Tom’s mind. “Why?”
“I’ve no idea. Why would I?”
“Well, whenever I’ve seen balls in books, they’re for… courting purposes.”
Loki laughed. “Oh, you think they’re going to try and marry us all off? Like a family with too many daughters?”
Tom had loaned Loki a copy of Sense and Sensibility earlier that summer. “I don’t know! I’m just a Muggle-born, what do I know about wizarding high society?”
“Hogwarts is hardly high society.”
“No, but you are.”
Loki grimaced. His family was in fact wizarding nobility. He and his mother were disgraced nobility, but that didn’t change the fact that Loki’s blood was terribly blue. He lived on an estate nearly as large as Hogwarts with his cousin Thor and Thor’s family. Loki and Thor’s mothers were twin sisters, and Thor’s father was the Minister of Magic. Loki and his mother lived in a run-down wing in the old servant’s quarters. Loki’s mum, Frigga, had never married Loki’s father, and refused to tell anyone who he was. In Muggle society this wouldn’t have been much of a problem - Tom’d had plenty of mates at his Muggle school whose parents had never been married - but for an old Pure-blood family, it meant that Loki and his mother were barely tolerated in their own home.
“Well, I’ve snuck into a few parties, but that doesn’t mean I have any idea why we’d need dress robes.”
“Fair enough. Maybe Tony knows?”
Loki shook his head. “He’s the one who brought it up. I got an owl from him earlier today and he asked me if I knew.”
“Oh.” Tom frowned. “I hadn’t realized that you and Tony were talking so much.”
“Just since he got to London last week.”
Tom rolled over onto his back and tried to ignore the squirming feeling in his stomach. “He didn’t mention the dress robes to me in the letter I got this morning.”
“He sent the owl to me right after he got the supply list. He wanted to know if I could come up to London to join you two at Diagon Alley on Friday.”
“Ah.” Last year, Tom, Tony, and Loki had gotten very close. For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to Tom that this meant Tony and Loki would talk so much out of his presence. But this would mean he might get to see Loki early. That would be fantastic, but he tried not to get his hopes up. “Can you?”
“Unfortunately not. Uncle Odin is sending a house-elf to London to fetch what’s needed, so I won’t be able to get to Town until the first.”
Tom’s heart sank. “Damn.”
“Yes.”
They hadn’t seen each other in three months, other than through their mirrors. That was better than just letters by owl, which was all they had last year, but it wasn’t enough. Tom and Loki’s identical appears was more than a strange coincidence. They’d discovered their first year that they were actually the same person from two different universes, which meant that they were magically linked to one another. It also meant that neither of them really felt complete without the other. They were very close friends, and far more physically affectionate with one another than was usual for thirteen year old boys. People often commented that they acted like twins, but neither of them thought of the other that way. Best friends, yes. Siblings, no.
It irritated Tom that the only other people that seemed to have a bond like theirs were twin siblings. Tom’s gift of empathy - Legilimotcy, properly speaking - meant that he could feel other people’s emotions, so he knew that Loki felt much the way. Just because they looked like one another didn’t mean that they were related.
That power also meant that he could feel Loki’s emotions when they were touching. Part of the reason their conversations via mirror were… less than satisfying, was because Tom couldn’t feel what Loki was feeling, no matter how hard he tried. Loki was miles and miles away, and even with their connection, it was too far for Tom to read him. He thought that he would get used to their emotionless conversations over the course of the summer, but he hadn’t. If anything, it was worse now than it had been in June.
“Are you alright?”
Tom started. He’d been silent for too long. “Sorry, lost myself there for a moment. It’s a pity you can’t make it to Town on Friday. I’d love to see you sooner.”
Loki gave him a sad smile. “Likewise.”
“Oh well.”
“I suppose we’ll have to wait until the first like always.”
“Yeah.” Tom fell silent again. Even though he hadn’t expected to see Loki in person for another week, he felt cheated by him not being able to come up to Diagon Alley.
“Yes. I feel as though I haven’t seen you in years.”
“Me too.”
They both sighed.
“It’s just another eight days. We can survive for another week.”
Tom laughed. “You’ve been saying that all summer.”
“At least the number keeps getting smaller.” Loki grinned through the glass. “Time still appears to be moving properly.”
“Thank goodness for that.”
Loki’s laugh turned into another sigh, and he ran a finger along the rim of the mirror. Tom caught a glimpse of the scar in the center of Loki’s left palm, and glanced down at his right hand and the matching scar on his own palm. Last year, they’d both grabbed a magical Stone - one of the six Infinity Stones - and held it together. Their minds had merged into a beautiful gestalt entity, but the Stone had burned them both so badly that they’d had to let go. They still bore the scars, inside and out.
Loki visibly drew himself out of the funk that always came when they discussed their separation from one another. “So, what did you think of that last book I lent you?”
They chatted for few minutes about the books they’d most recently exchanged. One of the many things they had in common was a love of the written word, and they loaned each other books all summer. Tom was grateful for the opportunity to learn more about wizading culture, and Loki had expressed the same thing about the Muggle world. He’d read most of Tom’s fantasy novels by now, but he was rather critical of them.
“I just find it frustrating that the magic doesn’t seem to have any logic to it.”
“I agree, but it’s not like the author knew that magic was real.”
Loki rolled his eyes. “That’s hardly a good excuse. Everything in the world has rules, why would magic be any different?”
“You have to understand that a lot of writers just look at magic - or science fiction stuff - as… as a way to express things that they can’t through other means.”
Loki frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Ummm… Remember those books about dragons I leant you last month?”
“The ones set on an alien world? Yes, of course.”
“So, the early books were written in the 60s, and the author uses an alien culture to explore what’s happening in the real world around her. So there’s a lot of stuff about sexism, but since it’s not the ‘real world’ she can talk about it in a different way, you see?”
Loki thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “So by setting the story in a fantastical world, she can talk about things that would be taboo otherwise? The magic becomes a metaphor?”
“Exactly! Telly does the same thing. If you’re telling a story that’s in a world other than your own, you can point things out as obvious flaws in your own culture. Make the reader, or whoever, see things they otherwise might not.”
Loki nodded. “I see what you mean. That’s rather clever. Though I still think illogical magic is just sloppy craftsmanship.”
Tom laughed. “Not everyone has the same eye for detail as you do.”
“Well, they’re only human.” Loki smiled, then ran a hand though his hair. He signed heavily, and Tom felt a hand clutch his heart, because he knew what that meant. “I’d best go. I could use a cold bath right about now.”
Tom snorted. “Likewise.”
Loki grinned. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. G’night.”
“Goodnight.”
Tom slipped the mirror under his pillow and headed into the bath. A cold shower made him feel less like he was living in a sauna rather than a small house in a London suburb. He read for a while, then fell into a fitful sleep. If he dreamed, he didn’t remember in the morning.
o0o
Tom’s days during the summer had fallen into the same pattern they had the previous year, and this morning was no different. He got up when the sun had barely crept above the horizon and ran a couple of miles before the heat became too oppressive and he had to head back indoors. He made breakfast for himself and tea for his mum, who generally appeared partway through his morning meal.
Neither of his sisters were home. His older sister Sarah was abroad with some friends from school and his baby sister Emma was with their grandparents in the country. It meant the house was quiet, but that suited Tom very well. He was a bit of a homebody, preferring to stay at home and read than go out with his friends.
Of course, the only one of his friends who was close by at the moment was Tony, who was in a posh part of London near Diagon Alley. There was a small enclave of wealthy wizarding families who lived in the city, well hidden from Muggle eyes. Tony had grown up in the States, and his family still had two homes there, one in New York, another in California. The townhouse where Tony stayed now had belonged to his paternal grandfather, who’d actually taught at Hogwarts as a young man back in the 30s. Tony, his younger brother Peter, and their mother had been at the townhouse for a week. Tony’s father was back in the States and most likely wouldn’t be joining them any time soon.
Tom was looking forward to seeing Tony. Other than Loki, the American was Tom’s best mate at school. Unlike Loki, Tony was in the same House; they were in Gryffindor while Loki was in Slytherin. Historically speaking, the two Houses hated each other. When Tom first became friends with Loki part way through their first year, there had been many disparaging comments about a Slytherin and a Gryffindor being friends. The worst reaction had been from Hela Odinsdottir, another of Loki’s cousins, and a Slytherin prefect. She’d made their lives a misery last year, trying on multiple occasions to get them expelled. Hopefully this year would be easier.
Tom had finished his summer homework ages ago, so he was at a loose end most of the time. He got daily owls from Loki and Tony and an occasional owl from T’Challa. In his first year, Tom had been almost as close to T’Challa as he had been with Tony, but last year that dynamic had changed. He’d grown closer to Tony and more distant from T’Challa. They were still friends; the Wakandan prince was very kind to everyone, but he had little tolerance for mischief. Tony excelled at mischief, as did both Tom and Loki. The three of them had instigated an epic inter-House prank war last Halloween which T’Challa had disapproved of, and the eventual formation of their rather tight triumvirate now.
They’d also nearly been expelled, and one of their friends had bitten by a werewolf. The three of them tried to scale the chaos back a bit after that.
Now Tom spent most of his days reading. He could usually be found out in their tiny garden or on the sofa in the sitting room, depending on how hot it was. His skin had darkened to the color of freshly polished bronze, and his curls lightened to a wheat-pale blond, bleached by the sun. His skin was darker than his hair at this point. When he thought about it, it was as though he and Loki were negative images of one another. Loki’s complexion was a shade of pale that burned at even a hint of sun, his raven-black hair wavy rather than curly. His eyes were even a different color than Tom’s, a light gray-green to Tom’s own sky blue.
But other than their coloring, they were identical. Tom was always the exact same height as Loki, even though they were both growing. When they first met, Loki had been thinner than Tom, but regular meals at school had filled him out. They were both slim, but at least Loki was no longer skinny. Well, he might be now. His cheeks looked a little hollow in the mirror.
The last few months had added a couple of inches to both of them. Sometimes Tom felt like puberty was just a giant stretching machine, like a medieval rack. His bones ached, and his voice cracked as it tried to decide if it was high or low. Loki complained of the same things. And the less said about Tom’s dreams the better.
A few inconveniences aside, it had been a pleasant summer. If he and Loki had been able to spend the months together rather than apart, it would have been nearly perfect. But no matter how nice the summer might be, Tom was desperate to get back to school. Yes, at times his life as a young wizard was more dangerous than that of a normal boy, but a life of magic and great friendships was all he ever wanted out of life.