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There were only two things Tom hated about his job: the name of the establishment that his Mistress ran and the off-key singing that drifted into the shop front despite any and all of Tom’s attempts to prevent it.
Pandora Lovegood was one of the foremost enchantresses in the world. Witches and wizards would come from all over to commission extravagant gifts, each one a feat of magic that bent the rules of the possible. They’d bring their centuries-old artifacts to her for repair, trusting her to unravel and rebuild the work of ancient masters without damaging them. Pandora Lovegood was a baffling combination of serious and whimsical, but she always had a different viewpoint to offer, a seemingly non-sequitur thought that provided the resolution to your problem or proved to be the missing question you hadn’t known you needed to ask. The specialty work she provided was unparalleled, and Tom counted himself lucky to have won his place learning from her.
Pandora was odd and brilliant in equal measure, but after just six months learning from her Tom’s esteem of the enchantress had risen past any other teacher he’d had. He overlooked her unique sense of style, the quirks of her behavior and even the random periods of mania that dictated their work environment, because she produced undeniably marvelous results. The only thing that Tom could not excuse was the blasé name of one of the most sought-after businesses in magical Europe. Tom had closed his eyes and sighed the first time he told someone, “I work as an apprentice at Enchanté.”
Tom had trained himself to stop gritting his teeth or frowning every time Enchanté had to pass his lips. He barely reacted to the name now that he’d been studying under Pandora for just over a year. These days it got an eye roll at most, usually when a giggling witch would flutter her eyelashes and titter “Enchanté, monsieur,” at him and think herself clever as he rang up the set of jewelry with a one-way portkey and protection spells embedded into the center stone or the tea set with poison-detecting capabilities. Progress. Of course, it was just as he’d accustomed himself to one irritant that another entered to take its place.
Lilyflour & Harina had opened a month ago, and Tom had yet to go into the oddly-named bakery out of pure, fiery spite.
He had actually been planning to stop in the second morning after the owners had moved into the premises just one building to Enchanté’s right. Pandora had mentioned that they had an espresso bar as well as a rotating selection of baked goods and that her macchiato had been excellent.
“They even gave my drink a light sifting of pixie dust when I asked if they had anything to give it a little extra kick!” His boss clapped her hands twice and rose a few centimeters off the ground in her pleasure. She touched back down not even a breath later and all but bowled him over as she rushed to the back room mumbling, ‘That’s it, come at it from above or on an angle not from the side. Heaven’s sakes, Pandora, you’re thinking much too rigidly of late. Ooh, ooh! 13 degrees? No, maybe--that’s it! 49 degrees.” A few moments later Tom heard a crackling boom echo out from the workroom over his mistress’s throaty, delighted laughter and was somehow hit with the overpowering smell of freshly-shorn woodchips and the coppery scent of blood.
Like he said, Pandora Lovegood was that rare combination of nonsensical and revolutionary that resulted in true brilliance. In turn, she never judged Tom for his own quirks and foibles, treating his mercurial temperament that swung from brusque to eager at the drop of a sickle like it was as normal as having brown instead of blonde hair, and for that, she had won his respect. She was kind and easygoing when dealing with the various high-strung personalities who frequented her shop, but serious and stern when it came to applying practical magic. Tom could admit, only to himself, to being fond of her.
“Accidents in our line of work can be devastating, Tom. Whatever emotions, experiments or euphoric, plimpy-skin induced epiphany it took to reach a theoretical conclusion is irrelevant when we move into the applicable. It doesn’t matter as long as it got you to the answer and didn’t irreparably harm any living organism. But when we cast, when we carve, when we string together strands of magic that must bend or submit to do our bidding, we have to be implacable, confident, collected. It is about neutral control, not anger or exhilaration or revenge or success. There is only the doing, not the why it is done.”
She’d given him that speech six weeks into his apprenticeship, her face solemn and her blue eyes fully focused on his. He’d been hesitant about his job up to that point, thinking her behavior to be past the point of insanity and her reputation to be some grand joke that his professors and the wizarding community at large were playing on him. She hadn’t let him cast at all in those first weeks, and she kept peculiar habits that had him sneering and wrinkling his nose.
Now, after a year, almost nothing fazed him.
A sparkling pink cloud that occasionally belched the magical equivalent of dental laughing gas was traveling through the showroom? Tom watched it float about for a moment before returning to his parchment. Hmm, intriguing, wonder if I could collect it and change the composition into a powder or paste that might work with runes applications. That would really open up the possibilities of changing the emotional charge with neutral arrays. He’d make a note of it to show Pandora later.
A customer had a crup that coughed up knuts whenever it got excited and intended to bark? Honestly, convenient that. If I had any inclination towards canines I’d try to figure out how to replicate that, but alas. Also, Nagini would either bite me for bringing an unwelcome addition to our nest or eat the crup in retribution. Or both. Better to just not.
No, Tom had learned how to take things in stride and see possibilities in the ridiculous.
Unless the ridiculous was the most distressing, eardrum-rattling singing he would ever hear in his, hopefully very long, life.
He got his first dose of the unbearable racket the morning Pandora came back raving about her pixie-dusted macchiato. Tom had been craving a cup of tea and a scone ever since she’d returned smelling of yeast and fresh-roasted espresso, and he had been about to call over his shoulder to ask his boss if he could have 15 minutes to go grab himself a cuppa and a pastry when he heard it. Someone nearby was crooning that Weird Sisters song that had been played to death on the wireless the past two weeks.
Tom had already tired of the tune every time it came on the wizarding wireless between Pandora’s interactive runic puzzle programs (she had gotten him hooked and also made him play on his off days as a sort of homework. He wasn’t even mad. The puzzles were clever and ingenious. That Granger woman had a stunning mind for the subtleties of the languages and their interactions). So, when he heard someone in the next building butchering the song that had already haunted his thoughts for weeks, Tom flinched so hard he snapped his quill. Tom looked down at his hands on autopilot, hissing softly when he saw a puncture wound from where the tip had dug into his palm as well as the ink splatters now marring the wooden countertop of his workstation, his notes and his shirt.
His vendetta against the baker boy was born in that moment.
It hadn’t subsided in the slightest in the weeks since the inksplosion. Most mornings, Pandora came in licking crumbs off her lips and sipping from a to-go cup that sent the mouthwatering aroma of rich coffee and a hint of clove and spicy vanilla throughout the room. She often told him which bakery confection she’d tried out that day, unprompted and, in all likelihood, solely to rile him up further. She had a sense for how to get under his skin like no one else he had ever met.
He couldn’t be sure, but he suspected she was needling him about the baker boy on purpose. Pandora was too observant to have missed his flinches and clenched fists every time that bastard’s voice drifted in through the window, and he knew he’d seen her smile to herself whenever he gave her a new excuse as to why he hadn’t gone in to try any of the pastries she’d recommended yet.
Tom felt betrayed by his own body when her descriptions of the flakey layers of the lemon and cream pastry or the buttery fluffiness of the tomato-basil and bicorn cheese scone would make his stomach rumble. On the mornings where he’d run out the door without having had time to grab breakfast, Pandora’s culinary ravings were extra torturous.
Pandora had even started purchasing pre-cut cakes or trays of various baked goods to offer to clients when they came in for scheduled appointments. Tom refused to try any of the treats on principle, no matter how often she encouraged him to sample anything he’d like.
One of the bakery’s (extremely attractive if a tad older than Tom preferred) delivery men was often in the shop, joking around with Pandora as he helped her arrange her most recent order in an aesthetically pleasing display. Tom had heard him laugh and tease her back when she took the mickey at his precise set up of the various baked goods before Enchanté’s open house last week. The bakery had catered the whole event, even providing trays of sandwiches that James, their usual deliverer, had mentioned were in a trial phase.
“Pan, do you think my wife or my son would let me do anything less? Lils would have my hide if I didn’t go out of my way to help out a consistent customer let alone one of her closest friends, and Har would skin me if I didn’t display his baking to its best advantage.”
The man had pushed his long, riotous hair out of his face, showing the sloping graceful lines of his cheekbones and jaw to their best advantage, before beginning to hum under his breath while he finished his arrangement. Tom easily recognized The Glamours’ Cravings within the first few bars.
For a second, Tom’s whole body had tensed, thinking he’d found the bane of his existence in this handsome wizard and could finally tell the man off for the hours of torment he’d inflicted. But, as the delivery man made his way through the first verse, Tom drooped over his sketch of the necklace they’d be crafting for Mr. Warrington as a yule present for his wife. James was perfectly on key and in pitch, and the few words that broke through every so often before he went back to humming were smooth and rich. This was definitely not the baker whose voice could shatter glass, but he had mentioned his son as the creator of edible items. . .
So, Tom had begun plotting.
He would make the horrendous singing stop, or at the very least, he would prevent himself from being forced to endure it day after day as he worked.
Tom had started with closing the windows. A simple solution, but he’d learned not to overlook those in his work with Pandora. She’d made him feel like a child the first time he’d presented a complex and overwrought solution to a problem that could have been solved with a basic charm he’d learned in his fifth year at Hogwarts. When she’d discovered he’d already gone ahead and applied the intricate melding of powdered potion and platinum plating to the piece of furniture they’d been crafting for a customer, Pandora had taken her time to thoroughly lecture him on the importance of not overlooking the basics. So, before he jumped straight to poisoning the neighborhood baker, Tom had latched Enchanté’s windowpanes shut for the first time since he’d begun working in the shop and had triumphed in the silence.
For about twenty minutes.
Pandora had reopened the windows with a flick of her wrist the instant she’d strolled out of the workroom, airily commenting that, “Proper circulation in a room is paramount to fostering the energies necessary for both layering and deconstructing enchantments, Tom. Be sure to keep the windows open, even if the weather turns.” Her face remained completely blank as the once-again audible singer hit a discordant note during the bridge of Wake Me From This Endless Sleep, but her blue eyes betrayed her amusement when she saw his eye twitch at the vocal slaughtering of the chorus.
“I can never listen to Carson Conwell again after this,” Tom had grumbled as Pandora left him with the open window and a trio of arrays to carve into the ivory base of the statuette Mrs. Ogden had commissioned for her daughter-in-law to celebrate the birth of her son’s first child. Tom had to prevent himself from stomping his foot like a child when he heard her soft chuckle ring out behind him as his boss went to attend to the Vixtens at the observation table. This was no laughing matter, Pandora!
He’d tried setting up a silencing ward around just his workbench, but he’d taken it down within the hour of his own volition. Tom wasn’t sure why he thought he could get away with it. The shop was noisy by necessity, and he and Pandora spent as much time yelling questions to each other or answering the spoken thought process of the other as they did focusing on their own projects.
Tom had then tried setting up wards around the entrances to block out certain frequencies of noise. He’d had one blessed day of silence. His productivity had close to doubled, and he left with a spring in his step that had Pandora’s eyebrows rising while she said goodnight.
He’d even thought about finally trying out their coffee for himself when he woke up the next morning, but he decided to give it a few more days just in case he could hear the singing from the line in front of the register.
It was a good thing Tom had decided to wait, because after an hour of highly efficient (and blissfully silent) early morning casting, Tom had almost burnt the tapestry he’d been de-jinxing to ashes when the baker warbled, WARBLED, out a muggle Christmas carol. It was August for godsake, and he heard enough of Mariah Carey, curse that woman, in December. The unfortunate notes his walking musical disaster of a neighbor hit crashed through the wards Tom had raised like they hadn’t been there at all (because they weren’t anymore, damn you Pandora!), and straight into Tom’s peace and quiet like a runaway train. Tom had expressed his vexation by conjuring something useless and setting it (safely, far away from his current work) on fire.
Pandora had merely said, ‘Ah, careful there, Tom. It would be hard to recover that particular tapestry if it burnt,” and then vanished the ash from the wooden chair he’d burnt. Then, adding insult to injury, she tilted her head to the side in contemplation as the baker started up a rendition of The Bowtruckle Bunch’s Ash and Rosehips and added, “Oooh, I love this song!” She hummed in a disharmonious descant that had Tom clenching his wand so hard he ended up singing his arm hairs off.
Needless to say, Tom was boycotting Lilyflour & Harina indefinitely.
He would never have gone in if Pandora hadn’t asked him to play delivery man for a last-minute client meeting.
“Tom?” Pandora had called out from the workroom, her ethereal voice sounding a touch harried. “Could you be a dear and head over to Lilyflour & Harina to pick up the rush order I put in for our 3 o’clock appointment? James and Ron are both out making other deliveries this afternoon, and Lily said they just can’t fit another drop into their schedules. She and Harry are barely able to man the counter with the catering demand today.”
Tom looked up from the notes he had been making on the blood-curdling curse that had been woven into a ovary-shriveling hex on the Pittmore’s handcrafted bed frame. Why they didn’t just buy a new one when the family was wealthy enough to afford a personalized bed frame in every room of their house, Tom couldn’t say.
He’d take any excuse, even a trip into enemy territory, to get away from this set of research for a moment. He had been working on it without result for three days now. Leaning back from his work, Tom had replied, “I didn’t realize we had anything on the calendar this afternoon, but sure, Pandora I’m happy to do it.” He was already summoning a ribbon that he’d been using to mark his place in the book and rolling up the parchment he’d been using for his annotations.
Pandora had emerged from the backroom with a distracted expression and fingertips stained with what looked like either ink or beetle guts--either option was equally likely. Her long blonde hair had been gathered up in a messy bun that was kept in place by the unceremonious use of her wand. She answered him even while staring off at the space above his head, “The Farley’s and Ainsley’s requested a personal meeting to commission a full set of bonding gifts for their children’s upcoming wedding.”
She paused, then wandered towards the sink to wash whatever the mystery substance was off her hands. “I’ve blocked off an hour and a half for the appointment, but I don’t think it will last longer than forty-five minutes. They’re the type to appreciate a spread of treats to snack on during the initial meeting and for what I’ll be changing them, it’s the least I can do.” They both shared an amused look at that very true statement before Pandora continued, “I sent a quick owl to Lily about half an hour ago when I got the meeting request via floo call, so the order should be ready sometime in the next 10 minutes, which gives us enough time to set everything out before the meeting at three.”
Which is how Tom found himself third in line at the bakery he had sworn to never frequent.
The witch in front of him looked particularly frazzled. Her bushy mane was curling wildly, reacting to the heat, and her pencil scratched across a loose piece of parchment at a frantic pace as she sketched out a few different sequences of runes that were, hmm, that’s actually quite clever. She was standing in front of him while what looked to be James--I thought he was out making deliveries?--rang up a woman and her toddler at the front of the line. The mother was balancing an absolutely humongous baking box in one hand and trying to pull her daughter away from the admittedly tantalizing display of croissants, fairy cakes, frosted cookies, scones, and cake pops.
As Tom watched the man at the till work, he realized it was definitely not James when the man raised his head from writing a receipt to reveal a pair of brilliantly green eyes. So this was the son he’d heard, literally, so much of. Tom clenched his jaw in irritation at the hours of distraction this man had caused over the last month as well as his own treacherous thoughts because Fuck he’s quite fit and those eyes on a young James’ face? I’m done for. No, nope, no way. Absolutely not. Tom refused.
Tom’s teeth ground together as Harry smiled kindly at the little girl whose face was now almost pressed up against the glass as she stared at the glazed buns arranged into a flower shape on a plate down on the lower row of shelves. The man didn’t look like the devil incarnate, but pretty eyes and strong arms damn it, Tom could disguise a lot of sins.
“Hi there sweetie, did something catch your eye? I know I can’t resist a treat when I see them all laid out in front of me.” The man’s voice was deeper than Tom would have guessed and shockingly smooth. It was a shame he spent most of his time in the back room making a mockery of the music industry and baking when he could probably rake in the tips working the front of the store with his natural charm.
The little girl giggled at his friendly tone and nodded excitedly, pointing one of her chubby fingers at the tray of gooey buns.
“Ooh, those are one of my favorites,” he whispered back loudly, making both her and her mother smile. “You have great taste, little miss Molly, and you know what? I just happen to have an extra back here that was a little too small to put in the display case. Would you take it off my hands for me?” His hopeful eyes glanced towards her mother, silently asking if the offer of extra sugar was alright with her. She nodded her acceptance with a grateful smile, happy to avert a probable tantrum.
Harry wrapped up the treat in a cutting of parchment paper and handed it to the grinning girl with a wink. “Enjoy it, honeybun.”
The curly-haired woman in front of Tom snorted and made a face at James’ son when he looked up and sent a mischievous grin her way while waggling his eyebrows. The mother-daughter duo just laughed at his antics and thanked him with a, “You’re the best Harry, thanks again for sneaking our order in today. Percy found out this morning that they had adjusted the rotation and we’d be hosting the meeting this month. We were scrambling to find snacks for everyone.”
Harry’s smile softened into a more friendly, natural look as he told her, “Happy to do it, Audrey. We always have time for family.”
Little Molly added a, “Fwanks, Unca Harry,” even as she stuffed a piece of the bun in her tiny mouth and followed her mother towards the door. Harry chuckled at their backs as he waved them out of the shop.
He turned his focus to the woman in front of Tom, adopting a put-upon drawl as he asked her, “And what about you, sugar? What can I get a fine slice of pie like you on this delightful afternoon?”
The woman didn’t hesitate to drop her notes on the countertop and swat him over the head while his laughter at her treatment echoed throughout the shop. “Harry Potter, you” swat, “ridiculous,” swat, “man-child!” swat. He batted her arms away and appeared to be paying more attention to the runes on the page below him than the seemingly outraged customer. “Honestly, you spend too much time with Sirius and your father,” she continued, seemingly a bit calmer now that she’d finished her assault. “Your mum at least keeps your dad in check, but for heaven’s sake Harry you can’t just do this at your place of business!”
“Hermione, relax. It’s all in good fun. You’re just mad that I’m fun Uncle Harry when I’m not even related to Molly by blood or marriage while you’re still Uncle Ron’s ‘Mione,” Harry teased. He had picked up her discarded quill and begun to fill in the few remaining spaces that she’d clearly been trying to work out before calling the runic construction complete. Tom thought she’d object to his taking over her puzzle, but she simply scoffed and said, “It’s only because Hermione is a much more difficult name to say for a four-year old. And I’m not her Aunt yet anyway, not until January.”
“Fair enough. Alright, you want a latte with two shots of espresso and a pump of witch hazel-nut creamer, yeah? Anything from the bakery today? Oh, and here’s this for you,” he said, passing her the parchment. Tom saw the sides of Hermione’s mouth lift and watched as she relaxed for the first time since he’d entered the bakery.
Hermione tucked the parchment into her purse and leaned against the counter. “Thanks, Harry. I was struggling to complete that last one and next week’s puzzle sequences are due before end-of-day today.” His smile now was a tiny thing, a simple curl of his lips that was deeper on one side, but it was that expression which made Tom silently suck in a breath because wow.
“Yes to the coffee order, and, you know what, I’ll take a cake pop while I wait,” she said decisively.
“Good choice, baby cakes.” He winked at her before walking to the display, ignoring the way she wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Today’s options are strawberry mint and cookies and cream.”
“Ooh, strawberry mint, please and thank you.” She said, glossing over the sickening pet name with an air of forced resignation even as she tried to hide her smile at her friend’s antics.
“Coming right up, honeybun.”
“Now you’re just getting repetitive.”
“Do you really want to challenge me, Hermione?”
They continued to banter as he handed her cake pop over the counter and went to start on her coffee. Tom listened in with reluctant interest as they deconstructed the runic puzzle he’d seen her sketch out. Harry was packing the espresso into the holder and setting the milk to heat for Hermione’s drink while telling Hermione that his mother had been talking just last night about how berkana and urux in combination with wunjo (which had been one of the seven foundations of the puzzle in question) would be a tricky combination to unravel since wunjo could translate as sorrow, strife, intoxication or frenzy instead of joy, pleasure, fellowship and glory when the character was flipped horizontally. In the puzzle Hermione had arranged, and which Harry had completed, the message ended up being a suggestive joke about the consequences of a wild night out.
Hermione groaned, and Tom couldn’t tell if it was at hearing someone else explain the missing piece to her puzzle that she had been racking her brain over or the taste of the cake pop that she’d just taken a bit of.
“God, Harry. This strawberry mint is a winner. I mean it,” she said, already leaning in to take another bite. “The mint is subtle and refreshing without overshadowing the brightness of the strawberry, and you kept it from being too sugary which happens all the time with strawberries.”
The cake pop then.
Harry laughed warmly. “Thanks! I thought that flavor turned out particularly well. Glad to hear it from someone else though. I’ll make sure to put that recipe in the regular rotation.” The aroma of the rich espresso wafted through the room as the two rivulets fell into the small cups Harry had laid out to catch the concentrated brew.
Hermione sighed and covered her mouth as she chewed, “If you didn’t make some of the most delicious things I’d ever eaten, I’d be so disappointed you weren’t using your quite literally prodigious talent with ancient runes in your career.”
Oh, okay, both.
Harry shrugged. “Perks of growing up with a Runes Mistress, Hermione.” He looked over at her and grinned, “Not to mention Remus’ habit of quietly pointing out the ‘alternative’ translations for runes to me whenever he saw one in mum’s work. Everyone thinks Sirius is the problem, but Remus is just as much trouble in his own subtle, quieter way.”
Harry fiddled with the coffeemaker, then added, “Besides, she gave runework up just to start a bakery with me.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Hermione groaned. “It’s a good thing you two can work just as much magic with an oven as you can with dead magical languages.”
He handed over her finished latte and leaned forward to press a kiss to her cheek. “I’m right where I need to be, ‘Mione, but thanks, really.”
She patted his hand before making her way to the door. Just before she left, he made sure to loudly sing to her, in an unrecognizable tune, “I’ll miss you, pumpkin! Come visit me again soon, pudding pie!”
How the fuck had this guy gotten his dad’s looks almost exactly but none of his singing ability? Tom couldn’t help but think. No, instead he had the same fervor for the activity with none of the skill required to not deafen his audience. God, if Tom could get away with cursing Harry’s vocal cords to never be able to produce a singing voice again, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
Tom stopped to consider the idea for a moment, then gave the lovely thought up with a sigh. Too much to lose.
Honestly! How could such a lovely man make such an awful racket? It was astounding, not to mention infuriating. Just the single line of song made Tom’s face flush with anger as his month-long one-way feud returned to the forefront of his thoughts. It didn’t matter how attractive and intelligent this Harry was; they were mortal enemies. Neither could live while the other survived.
Alright, that was a bit dramatic, even for him, but still, the point was that this attraction couldn’t go anywhere. His interest could not survive that singing voice.
It looked like his nemesis hadn’t gotten the same memo though, because Harry turned his rakish smile to Tom as soon as Hermione was fully out the door. He had just opened his mouth, no doubt to continue his shtick with the pet names, when Tom cut him off before he could do something like charm the ire out of him. Tom was taking this grudge to the grave.
“Call me muffin and I’ll choke you to death with one of those treacle-tangerine scones,” Tom threatened in a low, cold voice.
Harry’s face froze in wild-eyed surprise. Tom guessed he wasn’t used to such hostility, especially in comparison to the sweet thank you the little girl had given him just minutes ago. Hermione was obviously an exception, since the two seemed quite close.
However, in the next instant the shop was echoing with his laughter as he roared it out so loudly Tom almost thought the walls were shaking with his mirth. He had a brief chance to think, how can someone with such an atrocious singing voice have such a pleasant laugh? before Harry calmed himself down enough to shoot him an appraising glance. His lovely-- no, Tom! --green eyes raked down Tom’s body and back up to his face, which Harry examined slowly despite the increasingly loud clanging Tom could hear every time the door to the hidden kitchen in the back swung open with a newly packed box of goodies floating out and settling on the table for James and Ron to grab on their way to the next delivery.
“Well, you know what,” Harry finally said, lips twisting up into a seductive smirk and his first words sending a tingle of recognition shooting down Tom’s spine. Fuck, that’s not possible. Except, the rest of Harry’s sentence confirmed that it was, “There are worse ways to die, but let’s postpone it for at least another day, shall we, dumplin?”
The man was full-on grinning now, muscled damn, was that all from kneading? forearms bulging where they were crossed over the chest of his ‘kiss the baker’ apron
Oh God. Oh, holy shit. He’d just met his soulmate. His gorgeous, brilliant, kitchen-savvy soulmate. His tone-deaf soulmate who he, fuck, just threatened with murder.
Nemesis and soulmate were basically the same thing anyway, Tom thought faintly.
There was a subtle, but not unpleasant burn against the skin on his back where the first words from his soulmate had lived for all of his life. Tom didn’t have to see them to know that they were changing color and, judging by the itch on his left hip, resettling. Tom’s heart beat a little faster as he dazedly wondered where Harry’s words had been… and where they were now.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He closed it again. Tom had never before had a problem coming up with something to say, but there were no words for this situation. All of the important words had been used up and imprinted into their respective skins.
Soulmates.
In the end, Harry took pity on him and offered Tom a hand and an introduction, “Hi, I’m Harry Potter, one of the co-owners of Lilyflour & Harina. Sorry for the insane words you’ve had to deal with your whole life. Mum always said I never learned when to let a joke end.”
Tom wordlessly slid his hand into Harry’s, giving it a slow, but strong shake. Harry’s grip was firm and he radiated heat, scorching Tom with a gentle warmth that he could feel down to his bones. Tom opened his mouth, racking his brain for something worthy of the moment to say.
“I’m--I’m here to pick the order for Enchanté?” Not that. Fuck.
The instant those inane words popped out of Tom’s mouth he wanted to turn around and walk out of the bakery sans the order that brought him here in the first place. Maybe if he returned empty handed then Pandora would spring some weird Albanian curse on him for not finishing his task, and he could use that as a solid reason to never show his face in here again.
Harry’s smile had no right to be so kind in the face of such awkwardness, especially considering Tom had been plotting his soulmate’s murder for the past week.
“The fig cookies and chocolate selkie salt biscotti? Yeah, I think I have that one all ready to go for you.” He took a look over his shoulder and scanned the boxes lined up on the back counter waiting to be sent out for delivery. “Mhm, sure do. Pandora pre-paid like usual, so let me just bag these up for you and get you back to your meeting, alright dumplin?”
The atrocious pet name that had sat at the base of his spine for years shook Tom out of his embarrassed stupor and made him snort indelicately. He shook his head, partially at his behavior and partially at Harry’s, before meeting those glorious green eyes once more and offering Harry a chagrined but honest smile of his own.
“I prefer to go by Tom, but I guess I can make an exception if you insist, cupcake. It’s nice to meet you, even if it was completely unexpected, and sorry for making your words a death threat.”
“It’s alright,” Harry said, smirking over his shoulder and making Tom’s blood heat in response to the darkly amused look on his chiseled face. “You’re welcome to choke me if you’re so inclined.”
Gods. Tom inhaled so fast his breath went down the wrong tube and he had to cough to clear his airway.
Harry just laughed that loud, echoing boom of his and cheekily offered Tom a glass of water which Tom waved off, coughing as he struggled to get his breath back.
He tried to pull himself together. So what if his soulmate was an attractive, witty entrepreneur? He was Tom Riddle: the youngest apprentice Pandora Lovegood had ever accepted and a recognized up-and-coming contributor to the field of applied enchanting. Not to mention he was handsome in his own right, good looking enough to make even the non-Slytherin witches giggle and titter at him when they passed him in the castle corridors. If Harry wasn’t flustered then there was no reason for Tom to be so discomposed. He was calm, he was experienced, he was rumored to be utterly unflappable, he was-- very grateful none of his Slytherin yearmates had been around to see this. This was all just another odd occurrence that he should take in stride like any of Pandora’s oddities.
With that in mind, Tom sent a charming smile Harry’s way along with a velvety, “Thank you, Harry,” for his offer of a drink.
“Of course,” Harry replied easily. He returned his attention to the baking boxes he had been packing, then took a moment to pull something from the display case. Tom raised his eyebrows as Harry placed one of those potentially-weaponized treacle tangerine scones on a cocktail napkin and slid it in front of him. “Thought you might want to try one of these before you head back,” he said. “You know, since you’re so interested in their potential and all.”
Tom huffed a laugh. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you,” he said with a wry smile.
It wasn’t a question, but Harry answered anyway. “Absolutely not.”
Tom shook his head but still broke off a piece of the fruit-studded confection. Almost the instant he tasted the first bite, Tom moaned. Obscenely. He closed his eyes in bliss, missing Harry’s pleased grin and the accompanying flush that settled in his cheeks at the sound.
“Fuck,” Tom swore. The scone was incredible, fluffy and packed full of flavor. Harry had countered the usually-overbearing sweetness of the treacle syrup with the sharp, citrusy bite of the tangerine. It was rich and buttery, with just enough salt to make the rest of the flavors pop, and Tom was filled with an instant regret for all of those missed opportunities to try some of Harry’s other baked goods. Pandora was going to tease him forever about this.
Without thinking, Tom told him, “You know what, you can continue with your awful singing while you’re working in the kitchen. I won’t even fight it anymore if it means I get to eat things like this.”
“When were you fighting it, and wait, when have you even heard me sing?!” Harry asked, his voice rising in pitch towards the end as his eyes widened in dawning horror. Tom’s eyes snapped open. The first thing he saw was Harry’s frantic face and open-mouthed expression.
The second thing he saw was the two fully-filled bags on the countertop.
A Slytherin knows the value of a well-timed exit. Tom put on his best disarming smile and hustled to place the remainder of his scone in the closest bag so he could finish it later.
“Ah, well, thank you for filling that order last minute! Pandora and I are so grateful for all you do for Enchanté. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve gotta get back for this meeting,” Tom said swiftly, sweeping up both bags in the middle of his spiel and backing towards the door. Harry’s eyes grew more and more frantic as his uninterruptible babble continued. “Thanks again for the scone, and I hope you’ll let me buy you a drink after we both get off of work one night. Okay, bye!”
“No, wait, Tom! Get back here! When did you hear me actually sing? And what do you mean I’m awful at it? TOM! If you don’t get back here right this instant I will never stop calling you dumplin' and other embarrassing, baking-inspired pet names!”
Eh, Tom thought as the door closed behind him and he booked it back to Enchanté before Harry could drag him inside again and convince him to admit to the seventeen different ideas he’d thought up this past week on how to get away with Harry’s murder. I can get used to the flour-y endearments when they come from a man who looks and bakes like that.