Chapter Text
“Tom,” Bella’s voice rings through the phone, “we’re holding a study session this afternoon. Are you coming?”
“What time?” Tom says, his voice husky from sleep. Nagini leaps onto the bed and purrs when he gives her a scratch under her chin.
“Four o’clock, break for dinner at Leaky’s, then back to it.”
“Four,” Tom hums. He shifts up in his bed, padding across the floor of his tiny flat. “I’ll be late; I’ve got a shift that ends at five.”
“A shift?” Bella says curiously. “You got a job?”
“Mm,” Tom says.
“Where? Why didn’t you tell us? We want to visit!”
Tom purses his lips. “You are not visiting.”
“But, Tom—”
“No, Bella.”
He can almost hear her pout. “Fine. But where do you work? You’ll tell me that, at least?”
Tom kneads at a knot of tension that is rapidly forming in his right temple. If he refuses, Bella will only get more irritating, possibly even resorting to stalking to find out what she wants. If he tells her, she might disregard his wishes entirely and ‘visit’. That would be a nightmare. “Sainsbury’s. Cashier.”
“… You’re lying, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Tom snaps. “I have to go. Don’t you dare try anything, Bella. I will flay your hand open and we’ll have a class on how live muscles and bones move when one tries to clench their fist.”
“Okay, okay,” Bella says hastily. “I’ll see you at five—”
“Six,” Tom corrects.
“Six?” Bella says, incredulous. “Are you working outside of the city, Tom? Where in—”
Tom hangs up.
——
“Where is he going?” Bella hisses. Rodolphus shrugs as they trail a few cars behind Tom, turning a left away from the highway. “I’m sure he’s working outside of the city.”
“You know,” Draco says, nudging forwards from the back seat. “If Tom finds out, he will murder us.”
“He shouldn’t have been so cagey then,” Bella says with a sniff. “Seriously, where is he going?”
“Maybe he doesn’t have a job,” Rodolphus suggests.
“Why would he lie about having a job?” Draco says.
“It’s Tom,” Rodolphus says. “Who the hell knows?”
“Wait,” Bella says suddenly. “Roddy, back up! I think he saw us, back up, back up!”
Rodolphus curses and tries to hide in the swarm of city traffic. Tom’s car slides to the curb and a moment later, he sees Tom exit the car. “Bella, I think he just reached,” Rodolphus whispers, as though fearful that Tom can hear him, even when his friend is just a dark, lean figure next to a tree. They turn a corner, and Tom’s figure is obscured—only then does Rodolphus relax.
“But this is an apartment,” Bella says, flummoxed. Her large, expressive eyes are brimming with confusion. “He works in someone’s home?”
“Do you think,” Draco says slowly, “that Tom is… dating someone?”
There is a moment of silence as the three friends digest this. “No,” Bella says. “Surely not. It’s Tom.”
“Yeah, exactly, it’s Tom,” Rodolphus says. “I’m straight, but Tom could turn me gay for a night…”
“Roddy!”
“What? The man exudes sex appeal, Bells.”
“It’s true,” Draco agrees. “He’s pulling out his phone. Do you think it’s a woman or a man?”
“I don’t think Tom would be bothered about gender,” Rodolphus says.
“It’s Tom! He can’t be dating someone, he can’t!” Bella says.
Draco snorts. “Just because he didn’t want to date you, Bella, doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in dating at all.” The statement seems to strike at some tender spot in Bella’s heart because she flushes an ugly red that splotches across her high cheeks unevenly. Rodolphus shoots Draco a warning look, which is only met with a roll of his eyes.
“And what about you and that Law student? That frizzy-haired monstro—”
The car’s speakers blare with Rodolphus’s ringtone, and they fall silent. The Bluetooth display shows Tom’s name and number. “Shit,” Draco says quietly.
“Do you think he knows?” Rodolphus says, terrified.
“He will if you don’t pick up!” Bella hisses.
“But—”
“Pick up the fucking phone!” Draco says, his voice an octave or two shriller.
“All right, all right—” Rodolphus swallows and presses ‘Accept’. He plasters on a nervous grin. “Hey, Tom. What’s up, my man?”
Bella gives him an incredulous look.
Tom’s voice drawls through the speakers, slow and languid. It reminds Rodolphus of a predator coiling to spring. “Not much at all, my man,” Tom says, and there are three simultaneous winces. “I was just calling to check in. I was wondering what my best friend is up to this morning…”
He knows, Rodolphus thinks with a sharp, perfect spike of panicked clarity. He exchanges a horrified look with Bella. “Nothing,” Rodolphus says, hoping he did not just squeak. “Just, you know, having breakfast. Cereal and… milk. Usual stuff.” He clears his throat. “Did Bella tell you about our study session at four?”
“She did, yes,” Tom says. “And I told her I would be working, a tidbit which was received with a rather disproportionate amount of curiosity… But surely that is not why you, Bella and Draco are now following me.” The final words are said with such venom that Rodolphus fights down a whimper.
“F-Following?” Rodolphus gives an unnatural laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tom, I’m at home—”
“Spare me your mumbling and drive away before I fucking—”
“Tom?”
Rodolphus and Bella exchange wide-eyed looks. “Who is that?” Bella mouths.
“Harry,” Tom’s voice says over the speaker, and Rodolphus nearly chokes from the sheer ooze of pleasantness that falls off his tone. Tom has used that tone before on superiors and teachers—but this is the first time that it has sounded, dare he say it, sincere. “Give me a moment, I’m just speaking to a friend.”
“A friend?” This Harry says. “I didn’t know you had friends, Tom.”
Rodolphus snorts and presses his lips together in effort to stifle any more traitorous noises. Bella looks torn between amusement and an immense dislike for someone who dares speak to Tom in such a way.
“I won’t for much longer,” Tom grumbles. “My fool friends followed me here.”
Harry laughs, a delighted, happy sound. “Well, where are they? I’d like to meet them. This is Rodolphus, is it?”
Rodolphus makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat.
"Yes,” Tom says, sounding pained. “All right, get over here, you three. And be good.” His tone is perfectly pleasant, without a shred of threat in it, but Rodolphus has no doubts that they will be in for a verbal flaying of their life once their out of Harry’s earshot. He shudders, and the call ends with a quiet beep.
“What the fuck do we do?” Draco hisses.
"We get out of the car and meet Harry,” Rodolphus says.
"We’re fucked,” Bella moans.
“Very,” Rodolphus agrees. “So let’s at least get what we’re dying for, yes?”
“I need to call my parents,” Draco says with a whimper.
“Shut up and get out. It’s going to be worse for all of us if we keep him waiting,” Bella says. They clamber out of the car, Draco requiring some manhandling, but eventually, they shuffle around the corner and spy Tom across the street, speaking to a shorter man by his side.
From a distance, Rodolphus studies the man who is, presumably, Harry. He’s built with lean muscles like Tom, but where Tom is elegance and deadly grace, Harry looks like the more ruffled sort. Haphazard curls pile atop his head, and a pair of large glasses slides down his nose. His jumper is a fuzzy, monstrous thing of eye-watering red-and-green. As he speaks to Tom, he is full of energy and movement, hands gesturing wildly to convey his point, feet shifting from side to side every now and then. Tom mostly listens, nodding with an oddly gentle smile that seems almost alien on his face. Despite their incongrous images, Rodolphus cannot help but think that there is something… something about them that seems… settled.
Much later, he will realise that it’s the way Tom stands, at ease without even the slightest hint of tension in his frame, the softness in his expression that transforms the cruel angles of his face into something more beautiful… kinder.
"… Hedwig, of course, is being a complete pain, waking me up at all hours of the night—Pig doesn’t help either, and I love him, but the sooner I can get him away from Hedwig the better. Hello!” Harry spins around as Rodolphus, Bella and Draco come to a stop before Tom. All three flinch when Harry’s bright-eyed exuberance flips focus with abrupt intensity. “You must be Rodolphus. Tom talks about you a lot—”
“I do not,” Tom says.
“For your standards,” Harry amends. Up close, Rodolphus notes Harry’s round face, the laugh lines around his mouth and green eyes that dart back to Tom’s face regularly. “But I’m afraid I don’t know you two…” He squints at the other two, who shift uncomfortably. Towering behind Harry, Tom fixes them with a cold look that promises pain if they step a toe out of line.
“I’m Draco,” Draco squeaks. “Draco Malfoy.”
“Bellatrix Lestrange,” Bella says, sweeping Harry’s appearance with a disdainful curl of her lip.
“Harry Potter,” he says with a grin.
Draco makes an odd noise. “Potter,” he says. “As in Potter Air, manufacturer of Firebolt airplanes?”
Harry looks sheepish. “Ah. Yeah. That would be the one. That’s more of Dad’s thing though. And my sister, Katie’s.”
Something shifts in Bella’s expression, and Rodolphus notes it with a quiet stir of dread. She smiles, an easy thing that he cannot help but be wary of. “Oh, I see,” she says, a layer of knowing and condescension wrapped in her tone that sharpens Tom’s eyes in an instant. Harry does not seem to notice a thing, smiling beatifically at her. “How did you meet our Tom then?”
Rodolphus suppresses a wince. Our Tom. Bella is brilliant, top of their class, but subtlety is not her strong suit. “It was a while ago, wasn’t it, Tom?” Harry says, blithely ignorant to Bella’s jabs. “He came in to look at Nagini for a week before she warmed up to him. He took her home and I thought that was it—but the next day he comes back to apply for a position!”
“Nagini?” Rodolphus says, confused.
Harry gives Rodolphus an odd look. “His cat, of course.”
“You have a cat?” Rodolphus says, staring at Tom.
“I did mention her, didn’t I?” Tom says. “I told you how she tore a hole in my sofa.”
“I thought you had a rat problem,” Rodolphus says. He did think it was strange that Tom named the rat, but it wasn’t as strange as the idea of Tom Riddle actually caring and being responsible for a pet.
“So you run a pet shelter?” Draco says.
“Yeah,” Harry says. “I wasn’t doing a very good job of it, mind—I haven’t the head for finances… Thank God Tom came along, or else I might be out of business by now, then where would all the poor cats go?”
“What a terrible thought,” Tom says, and Rodolphus is certain that Tom doesn’t really care about the plight of homeless cats.
“Terrible,” Draco echoed. The expression on his face suggests that he is very much in agreement with Rodolphus.
“How often do you work?” Rodolphus wonders, because it doesn’t sound like Tom is on a casual basis.
“A few hours,” Tom hedges.
“A few hours? He comes in for at least two hours on weekdays and a full day on Saturdays,” Harry says. “I tried to get him to cut down his hours, but somehow, he always manages to turn my arguments around on me…”
“That sounds like Tom,” Rodolphus agrees, even as he internally reels. Eighteen? Tom, a 4.0 GPA medical student, works eighteen hours a week? Rodolphus can barely find a minute for himself these days, and Tom is working nearly twenty hours a week?
"But that’s ridiculous,” Bella blurts. “How do you have time for this with the exams coming up?”
The look on Tom’s face is enough to make a seasoned war veteran cower. Harry glances between Tom and Bella. “Tom, I thought you said your exams weren’t for a while yet.”
“I haven’t been neglecting my studies, Harry, don’t worry,” Tom says.
Harry presses his lips into a thin line. “Tom, when exactly are your exams?” When Tom doesn’t reply, Harry’s eyes narrow. “Tom.”
“Around the 26th,” Tom says, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Good God, Rodolphus thinks. Is Tom fidgeting?
“Of?”
“July,” Tom mutters.
"Tom!” Harry says, his mouth falling open in outrage. “That’s less than two weeks away! I told you that I would give you time off when your exams were close!”
“And I told you that I have my studies well in hand. Don’t I, Rodolphus?”
Rodolphus swallows. “Er, well, yes,” he admits. “He’s our top student.”
Harry’s eyes are green slits. “You’re banned from your shifts until your exams are over,” he informs.
“Harry,” Tom sighs, exasperated.
“No—you need to study, Tom. Even if you know the material well, there is always something to study. My mother went to med school, and she told me just how demanding it was.”
“I assure you, Harry, I know my textbooks by heart. Besides, I could use a few breaks. You always say how I need to wind down a bit.” He gives Harry a look that is so forlorn and open that Rodolphus’s heart almost fucking melts and he knows what Tom is really like.
“I know what you’re doing,” Harry says. “And working is not supposed to be a break, Tom.”
“It’s the pets,” Tom declares. “Working with the pets relaxes me.”
Harry gives Tom a long look. Rodolphus cannot help but be impressed with how long Harry is managing to hold out. He thought, at the beginning, that Harry is soft and naïve in all the ways that Tom isn’t, but perhaps, that isn’t quite right… Underneath plump cheeks and a cheery smile, there is a core of steel that refuses to bend to Tom’s charms. “No more Saturdays,” Harry says. “You’ll come in on Monday and Tuesday evenings for two hours each, and I’ll quiz you if there’s no one looking at the animals.”
Tom’s expression is calculating, and Rodolphus recognises as one he wears when he is trying to analyse his opponent, picking apart their decisions and thoughts, trying to figure out if there’s room to wriggle. Eventually, however, Tom nods. “Done.”
“Effective immediately. I’ll handle the shelter today. You take today off to study.”
“You—” Tom breaks off, looking frustrated. “Fine.”
Harry nods. “Bring your notes on Monday.” Somehow, he makes it sound more like a threat than anything. Tom nods, and Harry smiles fondly. “Don’t worry about the animals, Tom. They’ll be fine without you for a while.”
Rodolphus is pretty sure it’s not the animals that Tom is concerned about. Tom pulls Harry off to the side and exchanges a few quiet words. Rodolphus politely develops temporary deafness, but Draco and Bella do not seem to extend them the same courtesy. Bella even inches forward a bit in an attempt to catch a few words. Harry pulls Tom in for a hug, and Rodolphus promptly chokes when Tom accepts it, sliding his arms around Harry’s waist as though they belong there. After Harry leaves, Tom rejoins them. There is a decidedly murderous look in his eye.
“So,” Tom purrs, his teeth glinting in a smile that looks more like a snarl. “Bella. Let’s talk.”
Rodolphus quietly whimpers and attempts to fold himself into a vague shadow with Draco.