Chapter Text
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↣ the riddler has joined the game!
sheasley: heyy glad you could make it
the riddler: good evening.
looney: a newcomer? welcome!
harrysnotter: hello 👋
sheasley: riddle you wanna join the discord call?
the riddler: yes, trying to play and write in game chat at the same time is rather tedious.
sheasley: cool. feel free to join vc in the stream beans server
the riddler: will do.
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beep
TomRiddle: “Hello.”
Gin: “Hey!”
harrysnotter: “Hi! Welcome to the group!”
TomRiddle: “Thank you.”
ronsneezeley: “Heyyyyyyy this place is chaos! Have fun.”
TomRiddle: “I may.”
harrysnotter: “I’ve never heard of you before, what do you stream?”
[This is a lie. He watches The Riddler’s streams religiously.]
TomRiddle: “Yes, I do not often advertise my streaming. I do whatever I like. However, I tend to stick to live readings. They are my speciality.”
harrysnotter: “You certainly have the voice for it.”
[He laughs nervously.]
TomRiddle: [Smugly] “Why, thank you.”
Gin: [Trying to hide amusement, failing] “Alright then, now that you’re here, you up for some gaming?”
TomRiddle: [Sarcastically] “Yes, that is why I accepted the invite.”
Gin: “Yeah, whatever, come over to general so I can give you the new game code.”
⌣ ‿ ‿ ‿the riddler’s live chat ‿ ‿ ‿ ⌣
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ AdderallSnorlax ⇢ what is this? tom never does gaming streams unless it’s puzzles or trivia…
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ weeta-trix ⇢ i’m not sure but i love it anyways
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ lydia_sphynx ⇢ his voice is so sexy, i’ll watch anything he does
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ its_rosier_ffs ⇢ oi keep ur simping outta the chat
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ its_rosier_ffs ⇢ that's my job
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ SlashyMcKnifeBot ⇢ GET 60% OFF YOUR FIRST PURCHASE WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST!
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ AdderallSnorlax ⇢ does anyone actually know what it’s telling us to buy?
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ weeta-trix⇢ literally no clue
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ its_rosier_ffs ⇢ is he sponsored by something??
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ weeta-trix ⇢ NO ONE. KNOWS.
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ SlashyMcKnifeBot ⇢ :)
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ weeta-trix ⇢ HOLY SHIT IT SPOKE
. . .˗ˏˋ࿐ྂ AdderallSnorlax ⇢ WTF
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“What are we actually playing?” Tom’s indifferent voice filtered through Harry’s headset and into his ears, and he involuntarily shifted forward in his chair, fingers hovering over his keyboard in anticipation.
“We thought we’d start with Among Us, since it’s pretty popular right now and most of us have experience, but we need to get a few more players.” Ginny answered, and Harry nodded before realising they couldn’t see him. He grinned at his camera, watching the chat explode with well-wishers and dedicated watchers expressing their entertainment.
‘We all saw that!’ was pretty common at that moment, and Harry laughed as he adjusted his mic.
Ah, his mic. Which he had forgotten to mute on the call.
“What’re you laughing at, Harry?” Ron asked, and Harry smiled.
“Oh, nothing. Just did something dumb and I’m being bullied about it by my chat. As usual.”
The chat all collectively seemed to laugh, as did Ron. Harry muted his mic on discord, and began to read through his super-chat.
“Thank you for the Tier 1, Its_Rosier! Thank you, Weet, I’m doing well, thanks for asking! I hope you have a lovely day, too! Thank you Poppy, I appreciate it!”
And then there was the question he’d been hoping to avoid.
pottah-stan: who’s the riddler??? are you friends????
Harry sighed, but smiled nevertheless. “Hi pottah-stan, thanks for being here! I appreciate your support. Tom Riddle is a fellow streamer, and this is my first time meeting him personally, actually! I’m very nervous, I have no idea what his play style is!” He said, laughing a little. He watched the chat flow for a while, occasionally thanking a new subscriber or donor, but eventually everyone in the call was there and ready to play.
He unmuted his mic, and spoke up. “Hey everyone. Who’s in the call right now?”
It was Ginny who answered, ever the talkative one. “Okay, yeah, it’d be good to introduce everyone. We’ve got Riddle, you, Luna, me, Ron, Hermione, Abraxas, Barty Jr, Antonin and Regulus.”
The few unfamiliar names sent small spikes of anxiety to creep into his mind, but he just raised his eyebrows. “Ooh, some new players. Can’t wait to play with you all!”
An unfamiliar voice answered, but from the voice chat bubbles he could see it was someone called AntyNinny, so he assumed it was Antonin. “Same to you, Potter.”
“You can call me Harry!”
“No thanks, Potter.”
Okay… Harry looked at his camera, showing the chat his nervous expression. “Uh, sure, that works too…” He said, then muted his mic. His chat was sympathising with him, and he grinned half-heartedly. “That was weird. But it’s okay, I’m sure they just need some time to warm up.”
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Tom Riddle kept his mic muted at almost all times. He observed his chat rarely, though he knew his mods would do their job if someone were to act out. He listened to the argument in the emergency meeting silently, only chiming in when answering a direct question or to voice some glaring suspicions.
“This game is quite interesting.” He mumbled to no one in particular. It was his first time playing, but so far he seemed to be adequate. Skilled, even, since he had been the Imposter twice and earned victory each round without any major hitches. He used his time as Crewmate to analyse the players’ game styles, picking their arguments and desperate denials apart easily.
He had pretty much all of them criticised, and knew how they all played. Apart from Potter.
The fellow streamer clearly had experience with this game, and changed his play style repeatedly. Each round was something new; he either stayed quiet, spoke up, lied, told the truth, and Tom never knew what he’d do next… it was hard to read him. Try as he might, Tom could not find a chink in Harry’s armour.
It was a welcome challenge.
Once the meeting was over, they had decided on ejecting Abraxas for supposedly killing Regulus in the first round. As Tom walked down into Shields, he was murdered by Barty. He sighed, adjusting his headphones impatiently. Whilst being a Crewmate was good to analyse the other players, it was incredibly boring once killed. He opened the death chat, and noted in surprise that Harry was also dead.
harrysnotter: hello, fellow ghostie!! ^-^
Tom saw his chat flying on the other monitor out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored it.
the riddler: ah, you’re dead too. who killed you?
He closed the chat, directing his ghost character through the wall and into Communications, where he finished his uploading task. Only once he had completed it did he open the chat again.
harrysnotter: antonin, but he’s been voted out now :)
antonin: sup
Hm, interesting. Tom closed the chat after replying with a simple “Unfortunate”, continuing to go about his tasks whilst the remaining alive players struggled to survive. He met the ghost of Potter in Electrical, still standing over his own body. Harry’s character swivelled around him, back and forth, and Tom’s lips quirked upward in amusement. He was trying to get Tom’s attention.
“Should I humour him?” He asked the chat, and was met with many replies of ‘Yes!!!!’ and the like. He shrugged, and opened the death chat once again.
harrysnotter: hey tom (is it ok if i call you tom?) we should stick together next round! give each other alibis and stuff. what say you?
Tom raised an eyebrow, that one corner of his mouth still refusing to settle into his usual indifferent mask. He sighed dramatically, and looked once again at the camera.
“You heard him. What say you?” He asked.
This time, there were quite the range of answers, which he frankly couldn’t be bothered to read through. He skimmed a few nonchalantly, content to let Harry stir in the nervousness for a few moments. His ghost character was still hovering around him, even as Tom moved into the next room. After a few seconds, Tom came to a decision, and turned away from his stream chat. They didn’t have much to add, anyway.
the riddler: you may meet me by the lower left table in the cafeteria.
After a moment’s hesitation, he continued.
the riddler: tom is fine.
The stream chat exploded. He was usually referred to others by Riddle, and Riddle only.
⌣ ‿ ‿ ‿ harrysnotter’s live chat‿ ‿ ‿ ⌣
┈┈➤ PlutoHater777: did anyone else see that tom finally let someone refer to him by his actual name??
┈┈➤ pottah-stan: OF COURSE
┈┈➤ suckmybassildick: whos tom
┈┈➤ curious_niffler: ONLY THE BEST STREAMER TO EVER EXIST!
┈┈➤ pottah-stan: um, no, that’s harry.
┈┈➤ feycity_riddle: i mean, i’m only here from tom’s stream. sooo…
┈┈➤ tannutk: okay y’all, calm down. we all have our opinions
┈┈➤ SunnieBottie!: Thank you for the sub, feycity_riddle !
┈┈➤feycity_riddle: oh, i didn’t know streamers had sub messages?
┈┈➤pottah-stan: harry does!! he usually thanks us himself but when he’s busy, sunnie does it for him <3
┈┈➤ pottah-stan: he’s the sweetest
┈┈➤ feycity_riddle: hm, maybe i’ll stick around then…
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Harry stared at the words on his screen with wide eyes. For a second, he couldn’t react. His favourite streamer just agreed to ally with him? And they’re on a first-name basis? Harry couldn’t quite believe it, at first.
But his disbelief stayed inside his head; he was on stream, his reactions were live, he could not edit this later. So he smiled, and looked up at the camera cheerfully. “He said yes!” He exclaimed, even though the chat had already seen it. “Maybe we’ll stay alive longer next round, then.”
He directed his character into another room, finishing his tasks; it was inevitable that the Crewmates would win this time, as Barty was fairly new to the game and unfamiliar with Imposter strategies - not that it had stopped Tom.
He absent-mindedly did his tasks as he read the chat (many of them were surprised that the aloof streamer had agreed to team with someone, amusingly) and thanked those who donated, but each time he ran into Tom, his smile would widen a little, just for a second.
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Before Tom knew it, a week had flown by, and he was already well-acquainted with the gaming group.
It was a Saturday - no, Sunday now. After a full six hours of streaming, everyone was exhausted. They’d played a variety of games; Halo, Apex Legends, and some classic Among Us. During the week, he’d discovered many new games, courtesy of these streaming sessions. Surprisingly, he found that he rather enjoyed them. They were all tolerable people, and Tom did not dislike playing with them, even off-stream.
Particularly with Harry.
“Anyone up for some Minecraft?” Said man asked, and a chorus of tired groans broke out.
“Mate, I’m wiped. It’s 3AM, I’m going to sleep.” said the weary voice of Ron Weasley, and there were several assenting murmurs.
“Oh, okay.” Harry said, and Tom blinked at the disappointed tone.
He’d never played Minecraft before. Never even heard of it. He glanced at his stream, to discover that most of the mods had left and gone to sleep by now.
“I can play if you like, but I’m not going to stream it.” He said, his voice slightly rough from the late hour. He hadn’t slept properly for the whole week, all his time being consumed with streaming and gaming - he even made some appearances on Ginny Weasley’s YouTube videos… but only if Harry was there, too.
They’d struck up quite an unlikely friendship.
Harry was very cheerful, and interacted with his audience as if they were the very thing that kept him going; which, maybe they were.
“Really?” Harry asked, and Tom smiled a little. “Okay, cool! Uh, do you wanna make a private server, or…?”
“Whatever you wish.” Tom said, because frankly, he didn’t know what that meant.
“Okay! I’ll DM you the server link. And we should get off of the voice chat in this server, in case others need it.”
“Sure.”
Tom heard the click of Harry muting his mic, and assumed he was saying goodbye to his viewers. Tom, too, turned to his camera, and commenced his usual outro.
“Thank you for watching. If you wish to contact me anywhere else, my business email and other social medias can be found in my Twitch bio. Goodnight.”
And with that, he ended the stream.
He opened up Minecraft, startling at the unique design. He’d bought the game months ago, but never bothered to play it. This would be interesting.
A notification popped up on his discord, and Tom opened it up; Harry had sent the link.
He pasted it into the server IP, and hit enter.
↣ the riddler has joined the game!
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