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"Trust me,” Tom whispered into his ear, breath fanning across his throat, and Harry’s breath hitched. Fingers squeezed his own, then fell away. An unspoken acceptance of Tom’s request, submitting with wonderful ease to Tom’s every whim. If Tom had asked him to present his own heart, then Harry would likely carve it from his chest with a smile. “Good boy.” He pressed a kiss to the base of his throat, pulse stuttering under Tom’s lips, and a strangled sound escaped Harry.
“You’re insufferable.” The annoyed words were undermined by the breathlessness to his voice, the way that Harry leaned closer even as Tom stepped away.
“Yet you adore me anyway,” he reminded him, and Harry didn’t disagree. Nor did he protest when Tom tied the green fabric around his eyes, though he did tense the moment that he was plunged into darkness. His precious Harry, afraid of the dark. Afraid to wander the castle blind and helpless, wary of where the boy he had once labelled a monster would lead him, and yet still choosing to yield. As he always had done, ever since Tom had collected him.
My Harry, he thought, tugging the other boy out of the abandoned classroom. Harry stumbled along, clutching Tom’s sleeve desperately as if afraid that he would abandon him to wander the halls sightlessly. Or perhaps worried that Tom would push him off one of the staircases - he had certainly considered doing so, once upon a time.
“Are you sure this isn’t some elaborate murder plot?” Harry asked, his voice edged with amusement.
Tom clicked his tongue. “What a tragic waste that would be. I can think of far better uses for you.”
“Like what?”
Like having you in my bed, he thought, but didn’t say.
“I rather liked pillaging the Blacks’ library this summer,” he said lightly, eyes raking over Harry’s flushed face, “and you do have such a way with our dear headmaster.”
Harry let out an offended gasp. “Using me for my books and connections? You know, I ought to have known. Everyone warned me about Slytherins-”
“You’re a Slytherin, too.”
“I’m one of the honorable ones,” he said haughtily, raising his nose in the air in such a perfect mimicry of Malfoy that Tom’s lips twitched.
Tom didn’t respond. He was too focused on leading him up a particularly precarious flight of steps, savoring the way Harry obeyed, a lovely marionette moving whenever Tom tugged at his strings. The sight of Harry rendered into this pretty puppet, lips parted in suppressed laughter, hands twitching with the urge to reach out, made something greedy claw through his chest. He wanted to breathe Harry in until there was nothing left, to consume him until they were not Harry and Tom, separate beings, but HarryandTom, forever entwined, utterly inseparable.
Yes, this sight was well worth the trouble to convince him to wear the blindfold.
The pair paused now, standing before a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. With a murmur of “stay,” Tom released Harry, and paced once, twice, thrice before the blank wall. A set of tall double doors appeared, the hidden room coming when it was called, when it was needed , precisely as he had read about. The moment that he stepped inside, drawing his Harry after him, he could feel the heaviness of the magic, breathe in the scent of dust, aged parchment, and beeswax candles.
Tom let the silence stretch, just long enough for Harry to shift on his feet, growing anxious, excited. Then, smoothly, he untied the blindfold. Green eyes blinked up at him, then looked past him at the teetering stacks of chairs, the towers of chests, wardrobes, and old furniture, the collection of books aged and new.
“Oh,” Harry breathed, looking around curiously. “You found all this?”
“I did.”
“I thought you were going to lead me to something terrifying,” the other boy confessed, “or something that was going to get us in trouble.”
Tom rolled his eyes - a plebian gesture that he would only allow Harry to witness. “You always think the worst of me.”
“That’s because I know you,” Harry said dryly.
If another had uttered those words, Tom would’ve thought them deluded. Many believed they knew him - his professors, his fellows at the orphanage, his peers within Slytherin - and yet none of them had ever truly understood him. He had not wanted nor allowed it, had draped himself in as many masks as he could manage, for being seen was a vulnerability. He could not be hurt if he could not be known.
And then Harry had tumbled into his life with the grace of an unsettled elephant. When the other boy looked at him, he didn’t feel as if his skin was being scourged off, as if his ribs had been cracked open and an enemy now clutched his heart. No, when those moments came, when the other boy would pause, consider him with bright eyes, and murmur some secret that Tom had never allowed another to know, Tom felt as if he was being exalted. As if, for the first time, he had been seen, and not found wanting.
To Harry, Tom in all his ugliness and cruelty was perfect.
“Come along,” Tom breathed, and now it was his voice that was breathless. He wanted to break Harry into pieces and carry him like a locket around his throat. “I want to show you something.”
Harry let out a sigh, but still followed after him as he plunged into the stacks of precarious furniture. “I knew you found something terrible.”
“Yes,” he agreed easily, “there’s a nest of acromantula I plan to feed you to.”
A startled laugh escaped Harry. “You’re an unholy terror, Riddle.”
“I am, aren’t I?” he said pleasantly, smirking at Harry. “But I think you’ll like this.”
He led Harry deeper into the labyrinth of lost things, suppressing a smile whenever Harry tripped over a book or cracked his head ducking under a desk. Tom, however, moved with careless grace through the clutter - he had wandered the room’s paths many a time, and followed this particular one especially frequently. Finally, he stopped before a mirror.
Unlike everything else around them, it was not covered with dust or grime, gold frame gleaming brightly, glass clear. Along the edges of the frame were the seemingly nonsensical words “erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi” that had perplexed Tom for a moment before he had realized that the creator had a boring sense of humor. The mirror itself stood taller than them both, wide enough that he should have been able to see Harry standing beside him.
He did not, of course. No, the mirror showed nothing but an empty crossroads in the clutter, as if the both of them were vampires, until he stood directly before it. Only then did it reveal its secrets: one’s heart’s desire. For Tom, it was a remarkably predictable image - almost. Within the mirror, he sat in a massive throne, eyes gleaming a vivid red. He rapped his fingers along the arm, a gaudy ring with a black stone glittering on one finger. Below him knelt an unimpressive mass of wizards and witches, each garbed in black robes, faces hidden behind masks of bone.
If anyone were to ask what Tom Riddle would believe his heart’s desire to be, this is what he would envision - though he wouldn’t tell that to them. It was quite natural to see himself sitting above the hoards of lesser wizards, wizards who bowed to him, aware of their inadequacies, exactly as they belonged. He was destined for greatness - it was a fact he had been certain of since he was five years old and realized that he was special.
He would not have anticipated the second throne. He would not have imagined a boy with black hair, green eyes, and crooked spectacles to sit there beside him. He would not have expected the adoring look in the boy’s eyes as he stared at Tom alone.
He did not predict it, and yet, somehow, it felt right. Where else would Harry be but at his side for eternity?
“What… what is this?”
Harry’s trembling voice cut through his fantasies, and Tom turned to find the other boy directly beside him, staring into the mirror with a white face. “ ‘I show not your face, but your heart’s desire,’” he replied, and watched Harry’s agitated jerk, a half-step forwards before catching himself, before settling again at Tom’s side. “I thought you would want to know. Do you like it?”
He opened his mouth, closed it again, stared for a moment longer. “I don’t… I just didn’t…” Color had begun to creep back into his face, turning his cheeks a pale pink. “I didn’t expect to see that.” Harry had still not looked away from the mirror.
“It’s only a possibility.” Tom could not resist reaching out, his fingers ghosted over Harry’s wrist, the touch feather-light, and the other boy jolted. “Do you like what you see?”
The boy finally tore his eyes away to give Tom a panicked look. “I… you… whatdoyousee?” he blurted out.
“Us,” he said simply, finding no need to mention the other irrelevant details. Harry would rule by his side, would be crowned as his consort one day, but for now, he had other concerns. “Together,” he clarified when the boy only gawked at him, tightening his grip around his wrist. “Forever.” And he tugged him closer. “What does it show you?”
Harry looked up at him, green eyes wide and doe-like, and then he swallowed. Straightened his shoulders. “I saw you,” he said in a rush. “With me.”
Warmth seeped through his chest. Harry had seen him, wanted him more than he wanted anything else, desired him as desperately as Tom did Harry. My Harry. I will never let you go. “And what were we doing?”
He hesitated a moment, flushing an even brighter red. And then he jerked forwards, grabbing Tom’s tie and yanking down. Tom would never admit to the squawk that escaped him at that moment, or how he nearly lost his footing, would likely have snapped at Harry over it if not for being immediately distracted by the entirely unexpected feeling of Harry’s mouth meeting his.
It was a quick kiss, a soft hesitant thing that lasted for the barest of seconds, but Tom was left stupefied when it ended. Blinked down at Harry without the ability to think of anything beyond that moment when his best friend had been kissing him. Kissing. Him. Something in his mind had to have snapped for him to have never considered this before, to have not noticed that Harry wanted to kiss him and for Tom having rather liked being kissed, but then, he had never actually wanted to kiss anyone before. It had always seemed… messy.
But Harry had kissed him, and he had enjoyed it.
In fact, he rather wanted to do it again.
It was this thought that propelled him forwards, closing the distance between them again. This kiss was not brief, not hesitant; it was as devastating as a star burning out, as blinding as the sun. Tom pressed insistently against Harry, pinning him against the mirror, and Harry’s fingers curled into his robes, tugged him desperately closer. Needy little sounds escaped the boy, and he drank them in, shoved his knee between Harry’s legs.
Eternity, he thought when he finally drew back, when he saw Harry’s bruised lips and flushed cheeks, would not be nearly long enough.