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Tom hadn’t paid much attention to Harry Evans at first. A Hogwarts transfer student was a rarity, but other than the novelty of his arrival, there was little to note. He was just a boy, scrawny and slight, with a mess of hair and the most fetching green eyes. He’d soon put the new addition to the student body out of his mind.
Shortly thereafter, word of Harry's dynamic status spread. He was a bonded Omega. One whose mate was gone. Rare enough to see an Omega mated so young, rarer to see one in bereavement. How unfortunate for the young man. He'd quickly garnered the sympathy of the school, even that of the snootiest Purebloods. He was an interesting peculiarity, but nothing particularly interesting to Tom.
It hadn't been until the next year that Tom learned how preposterously wrong his first impressions had been. Harry Evans was a treasure. One Tom had nearly passed over in his hasty dismissal.
Harry was still in the requisite window of grieving for a widow, but Tom knew the expectation was formality more than a proper restriction. Upon acknowledging his interest, he had extensively researched the gender dynamic customs of Pureblood wixen and could confidently say that Harry was free to reciprocate his invitational cues though they were barred from acting upon them until the mourning period had fully passed. He knew the other boy was as drawn to him as Tom was to Harry. Those fetching green eyes would always find his no matter how crowded the room, the pair of them drawn together like magnets. Their scents were complementary, a wild storm of lightning and nature made ever more beautiful by their mixture. No, the only reason Harry would demure so heavily and avoid his advances would be because he truly mourned whoever his Alpha had been.
The thought infuriated him. No matter who the unnamed Alpha had been, surely they paled in comparison to Tom himself. Tom was of an age with Harry, popular, handsome, intelligent, virile. His pedigree was prestigious, his magic powerful. His only lack was in material wealth, something easily remedied with the brains and connections he had.
It had been months of polite, socially acceptable distance. Months of Tom wretchedly enduring the proper customs regarding an Alpha's approach to a mourning Omega. He would endure no more; Tom was determined to put an end to this maddening limbo now.
“Bugger off!”
Harry fought him, shoving frantically and attempting to duck out around Tom's form, but Tom would have none of it. He used their height and size difference to his advantage, manoeuvering the smaller boy as he saw fit until he managed to slam him back against the castle walls, careful to keep a cushioning palm behind Harry's head. How delightfully soft those locks of black felt threaded against his fingers.
“Calm down, Harry.”
“You're the one trapping me! Unhand me!”
An angry Harry was a magnificent sight to behold. The flush of his skin made him positively glow. Tom had the sharp urge to bite his cheek.
He allowed the boy to wriggle and shout, caging him back easily every time he was almost free. They were causing quite the ruckus, but no one would be coming to Harry’s rescue; the castle was nearly empty over the winter break.
In the ensuing struggle, Harry’s scarf fell open. Being the holidays, he hadn’t worn a tie and his throat was free for Tom’s viewing. Tom had dreamed of this neck for weeks, spent ages imagining the shade and length of it, morbid curiosity bidding him to conjure possible bond scar after possible bond scar. What lay beneath the other's collars? A neat little lining of fangs, as demure as dear Harry? Perhaps a jagged gash, frantic as the Alpha allowed to gorge on the feast of Harry's flesh must have been? Never could he have imagined he would find nothing.
“You're unbonded,” Tom breathed, both wondrous and furious. His fingers traced down Harry’s throat, awed at what he was seeing. “What is your game, Harry? Spurning my advances, playing at mourning Omega when your swan neck is as bare as the fresh fallen snow.”
He pushed hard, fingernails biting meanly into the puffed, unpierced gland at the base of Harry’s neck. The action must have hurt as it drew forth a pitiful whine from the smaller boy. Tom would swallow the sound if he could.
“Tom,” Harry protested. He renewed his token struggle, pushing almost kittenly against Tom’s shoulders. It only spurred Tom further, to lean in close, to dip his nose into that intimate space between shoulder and collarbone and inhale. Mystery upon mysteries. The deception had been laid bare, yet there was no mistaking the astringent tang of grief which emanated strongly from Harry's tantalizing glands. The heady sting of Harry’s scent, like ozone after lightning, was clearly soured by an emotional attachment to someone else.
“How can this be? Who broke your heart, Harry? Who do you love so dearly that they lay claim to your body without a bite, from beyond even the grave?”
He was jealous beyond reason, deeply upset that someone other than himself held such influence over Harry. He breathed Harry in again, through nose and mouth, practically gulping the heady scent down. Tainted or not, Tom would have all of Harry, his scent included. Harry deserved better than whoever had broken his heart. Tom would never subject him to such anguish for Tom would never die.
Harry looked at him forlornly, emerald eyes glittering. There was a distance in his gaze as if he looked upon someone else, as if he saw not Tom but the interloper whose shadow invisibly, doggedly stalked their interactions all these months, whose absence continued to shroud Harry's scent.
“Look at me, darling,” Tom tutted. He gripped Harry’s pretty little chin between his fingers, unable to resist laying a kiss upon it, reverent and soft, practically begging. “Whoever you see is long gone. It is I who stand before you, I who shall not abandon you.
“Be mine, Harry.”
The Omega looked shaken. Those gorgeous, deathly eyes which Tom so loved looked back at him finally, seeing.