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Their first date is by the lake. They sit with a tense distance between themselves. But every so often, they gaze shyly at each other between talking. Tom speaks slowly, voice deliciously low, and Harry hangs on his every word.
“I’m an orphan,” Tom confesses.
Oh, thinks Harry. Cool. They’re putting that out on the first date.
“I’m an orphan too,” Harry says. “Damn. What are the odds?”
Tom’s eyes widen and he gives that delighted smile that comrades share. “Really?”
Gosh and darn it, Tom is so handsome. Harry half-laments, half-marvels at this fact. He straightens his posture and leans closer to Tom.
“Yeah. Uh, my parents died in a car accident. Lived with my aunt and uncle. What about you?”
Tom smiles an enigmatic smile before shrugging. “Haven’t found out yet. Do you like your aunt and uncle?”
“Erm, not particularly.” Harry fidgets but flashes the other a grin, that fades into a grimace. “It’s a bit dark to share during a first date.”
“Next time?”
“Next time, sure.”
That there will be a next time sends Harry’s heart into the stratosphere. He can’t feel his body anymore and he’s pretty sure that if he stares into Tom’s face any longer, he’ll forget to breathe.
Harry’s heart thuds in his chest loudly when he and Tom do it for the first time. What am I doing? He wonders to himself. Every part of him feels gangly and uncoordinated. He sticks out an arm to wrap it around Tom’s waist.
“I want you to fuck me,” he tells his boyfriend.
Tom freezes. He promptly breaks down into wheezing laughter.
“What?” Harry demands. “What’s so funny?”
After wiping his eyes of tears, Tom leans down over Harry on the bed and nuzzles his nose. The indignation in Harry melts away.
“You’re so impatient. I was getting to that,” Tom complains.
Harry rolls his eyes. “You’re so slow.”
Tom just smiles back as he dips his head down to kiss his boyfriend. Their lips meld together. Harry’s hands drift to clutch Tom’s ass. As they keep snogging, they tumble around. Before Harry comes back to his senses, they’ve lost their clothes and Tom is pressed deep into him.
Harry’s gasping and it feels so good. In the crook of his neck, Tom is groaning.
“Have you seen Tom?”
Harry smiles smugly at Bellatrix, who throws him a glare. “Yeah,” Harry says to the person who asked him, “He’s in the library.”
They’ve reached that stage in their relationship where people will ask them first and foremost about the other. Everyone knows to ask Harry about Tom and Tom about Harry. It’s because of this that Bellatrix is on bad terms with Harry, since he has displaced Bellatrix in terms of importance to Tom.
They’re two parts of one whole.
Three years into their relationship, Tom proposes to Harry. He gets down onto the sticky floor of Madame Puddifoot’s and props up one insinuating knee, procuring a velvet ring box.
If Harry weren’t so in love with Tom, he’d think this public proposal is disgustingly tacky. As it is, Harry IS in love with Tom and he bursts into tears instead. It takes him ten minutes before his face has been mopped of tears and snot and he can choke out his “YES!” coherently.
Seconds after Harry began sobbing, Tom had already gotten up to console his boyfriend. Worry splotched Tom’s face pink and Harry had cried harder, convinced Tom must be hurt by the delay in response. But the “YES!” that leaves Harry after those ten minutes makes up for the painful uncertainty Tom experienced.
Tom immediately scoops up Harry into his arms and peppers him in soft kisses.
“I’m snotty, I’m snotty,” Harry cries weakly in protest but he makes no move to push Tom away.
“I don’t care,” Tom whispers to him. He has stars in his eyes as he looks at Harry. “I love you so much.”
He slides the hideously ugly heirloom onto Harry’s ring finger.
Harry’s eyes are the most vibrant hue of green they’ve ever been. They gleam with unfettered happiness as he clasps Sirius’ arm while he stumbles down the aisle to Tom. Tom, his fiancé. Tom, his husband-to-be and the love of his life.
Sirius releases him when they reach Tom and Harry takes his place across Tom. Around them, people are sniffling from emotion. But Harry only has eyes for Tom. He has never wanted anyone as much as he wants Tom.
It feels like love and home when he gazes into Tom’s warm, brown eyes. When Tom takes his hand in his, it’s solid and comforting.
Through sickness and health, they swear to each other. And Harry means every word of it.
“I love you,” Harry says to Tom as they prepare for the first dance of the reception.
“I love you,” Tom echoes.
Harry kisses Tom’s temple. His husband squeezes his hand tenderly in return. It’s been hard for Tom since he joined the Ministry of Magic. More often than not, Tom returns home from work exhausted to the bone. He’ll go on about some obscure ministry thing Harry doesn’t understand and collapse into bed.
Harry listens and comforts his husband. Once Tom is done, he takes Harry into his arms and swallows him in a love-filled embrace.
It feels amazing for Harry to be able to support his husband through his achievements and lift him up doing the harsher times, Harry muses. And he knows that Tom will be there for each of his quidditch matches.
At some point, their house elves take the place of Harry. They do the cooking and cleaning because Harry starts spending more time at the quidditch pitch practicing for the next game (and the next after that). Tom comes home to an empty house time and time again. He takes his dinner alone. Their bed grows cold.
At some point, Tom stops coming home every night.
“What do you think?”
Harry hesitates. “I don’t know,” he says honestly after ruminating. “I don’t know much about politics like that.”
Tom is silent.
It comes without surprise when Tom asks Harry if they can talk. They are now five years into their marriage.
“Harry. I slept with Bellatrix,” Tom says evenly.
Harry stops processing Tom’s words after that. His body feels like it’s been plunged in a tank where he can’t see, think, or feel.
When he comes to, Tom is watching him expectantly.
Harry says nothing and leaves the room. He packs his stuff, shoving everything he can into his bottomless bag. On the nightstand, he leaves the hideous Slytherin heirloom.
Two years later, Barty introduces Tom to Harry unwittingly at a club. Barty, drunk out of his mind, says to Harry: “Hey! Have you met Tom? He’s absolutely your fucking type. Harry’s really good at sucking dick.”
That last part had been directed more for Tom but it didn’t matter.
“No,” Harry answers stonily.
Tom looks the same as two years ago, just as handsome and stoic. Gone is the adoring look in his eyes that Harry mirrored all those years ago. Around Tom’s neck is another equally hideous family heirloom. Harry thinks of the ring.
He repeats, “No.” And then he says, staring into Tom’s blank eyes. “We haven’t met. No thanks.”
Ron taps on Harry’s shoulder. “Hey, we’re late for potions. Snape’s going to kill us. Stop ogling at Riddle.”
Harry snaps his gaze away from the Slytherin prefect seated two tables over. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Ron shrugs as they leave the breakfast table for class.
“Honestly, you should just go and ask Riddle out,” Ron tells Harry.
Harry steals another glance over at the devastatingly handsome Tom Riddle. “I’m alright,” he says. He’s just fantasised an entire relationship between them; that’s enough romance for Harry’s whole year. Heck, fantasy Riddle cheated on him.
A real relationship would be way too intense.
While they leave the Great Hall, Tom Riddle stares after Harry Potter.