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The poor orphaned Tom Riddle Jr. went without family for three cold years, and god knows how long that nasty business could have gone on if it weren’t for the power of rumors.
Then the butler heard from the young kitchen maid who heard from the old housekeeper who heard from the errand boy who heard from the newspaper boy who was courting one of the girls at Wool’s, that a child had been born a few years back on the stroke of midnight, New Year’s Eve, and there was something special about him.
‘’Cos the baby,’ the newspaper boy says, hushed, his head ducked close to the errand boy’s, ‘the kid, Mikey, e’s three, now, and ‘is name is Tom. Tom Riddle. ‘is mum went right there on a bed, but named ‘im ‘fore she died and, shit, Mikes, d’you think that old money knows e’s prolly go’a kid in feckin’ Wool’s? Cor, somebody’s got’a tell ‘im!’
The butler tells him at his desk (after three cold years) and Thomas finds out he has a grandson and that his daughter in law is dead at the same time he finds out his missing son has been murdered at London, though that bit of news comes from a telegram and not the extensive Little Hangleton grapevine and in their wounded grief, Thomas and Mary Riddle make haste to the city.
The orphanage has an iron gate, a rundown exterior and a young matron with a suspicious eye.
Their three year old grandson, who’s name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, looks as if every baby picture of their son had been polished with starlight. He has tiny little hands and a mole on his nose. His eyes aren’t the ever typical Riddle blue but a beautiful, glinting brown.
Mary knelts to the cold floor and whispers, ‘Oh, darling. Hello, sweetheart. Your eyes are so lovely, you’re so, so lovely.’
Thomas can’t even chide her to get up off the dirty tile because his knees are weak and his eyes sting when little Tom looks up at her and says, in an adorably high pitched voice, ‘They’re only brown.’
Mary’s are heartmelt silver. Thomas’s own are sky blue. His own blood, his very legacy has been living in an orphanage.
‘Hazel, my darling,’ Mary corrects, thumb sweeping over his cherubic cheek, because she always knows what to say when Thomas is staggered. Her smile is watery. ‘Your eyes are hazel. Like the nuts. You must get them from your mother.’
Tom’s eyes widen as he takes in the information.
Then his whole, perfect little face crumples and Thomas’s heart does, too.
He takes a halting, wobbly step forward, reaching for Mary and she engulfs him in her arms, burying her face in his hair and pressing kisses to his crown as she whispers her love and sorrow. She’s clinging, and Tom clings right back, the maids and matron tearing up at the doorway.
Thomas crouches to place his hand at the child’s nape, his other arm around his wife’s slim shoulders. When Tom lifts his head his cheeks are tear streaked. His eyes really are bright, brilliant hazel brown.
‘My name is also Tom,’ Thomas tells him. He strokes at the poor, small boy’s hair, curling exactly like his wife’s, and his poor, dead son’s. ‘We're your grandparents. Do you want to come home?’
Tom’s world changes in the span of a minute.
.
‘The first order of business is making you a bedroom,’ Mary says at breakfast on the veranda, which they’ve been having alone since he was thirty seven.
Tom looks confused and inquisitive. It’s been but a day and Thomas is already growing immeasurably fond of his expressive little face, and the way he bites down and tries to hide his feelings. He knows his grandson wants to ask, but he’s obviously still a bit wary, hesitating to speak up.
Thomas nudges his leg with his foot.
Tom’s eyes snap up to his, sharp and immediate and Thomas quirks his lip upward. Nods his head at Mary, encouraging.
Tom’s cheeks warm. ‘But, grandmother,’ he says, pronouncing it like granmoder all confused and endearing and Mary smiles her beaming, beautiful smile. ‘I’ve already gotten—a bedroom.’
‘A room, darling,’ Mary says tenderly, cutting a pancake piece and dipping it into her butter. And she gets on Thomas about watching his sugar intake. ‘You’ve been received in a room, but not one of your own, of course! That was one of the guest bedrooms that you slept in last night, dear. We’ll be preparing a proper bedroom, with your own closet and the walls painted your absolute favourite colour, only the best for the young lord of the house, don’t you worry.’
‘Received means to get,’ Thomas tells him, wiping the pinched, torn between confusion and joy look from his face and leaving behind only pure delight. He almost goes to wipe the dripping milk off the boy’s chin, too, but decides to offer him the tissue and let him know, instead. Let him have some control. ‘You have a little something on your chin, son.’
‘Grand son,’ Tom corrects, patting his soaked chin with the tissue, uttering a small tank you and across the table, Mary makes that sweetheart face she makes when she’s absolutely enchanted, when she thinks something is the cutest damn thing she’s ever seen and she wants to cry from it.
‘Oh, the grandest,’ Thomas agrees, and nudges her leg with his foot. She looks at him, her lips curving into a petulant frown. He allows himself a grin.
‘You stop it at once,’ she says.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, my dear,’ he replies, and if his wife wasn’t the most dignified creature to ever exist she would have kicked his shin.
Next to them, Tom dips a chocolate cookie in his milk and inquires, ‘What’s a favourite?’
After a brief explanation, Tom decides his favourite colour is blue.
‘Like grass,’ he says wisely.
‘Grass is green,’ Thomas corrects patiently. Once again, he thanks the Lord they found Tom sooner rather than later. His heart hurts for how the boy could've ended up. ‘Blue is the sky.’
‘You mean, the sky is blue,’ Mary says, because she thinks it's absolutely hilarious how he’s falling back into professor habits, coaching Tom Junior on proper grammar and pronunciation.
The joke is on her, because she’s absolutely correct. ‘You’re absolutely correct, my dear,’ he says pleasantly. ‘That is how it works—in English, the descriptor comes before the subject, and seeing as blue is a colour, and therefore, a descriptor—’
‘You really are the complete and absolute worst,’ Mary snaps, and tosses her curled, silvering hair with a huff. ‘Come along, Tommy. Your grandmother needs to get away from that horrid old man. Let’s go see the pretty gardens.’
Thomas doesn’t want to be sent to the couch at this age, so he holds his tongue on how fantastically correct she was in putting horrid before old, adjective wise, and waves to Tom with his toast.
Tom’s smile is wide and exuberant as he waves back, and lets himself be guided on a tour around what’s now all his. Thomas's legacy, once again secured. He sits back and has his tea, utterly satisfied.
.
When Harry is a year and three months old, his parents die fighting the Dark Lord Grindelwald, who targeted them at their home for reasons unknown to the general public.
Among the chaos in the aftermath of that Halloween night, the Dark Lord grievously injured and the well-loved younger Potter couple dead, he was sent to live with his mother’s muggle sister Petunia Dursley for his own safety. When his father’s best friend and his godfather, Sirius Black returns from the battlefield a year later, after the Dark Lord has fallen at the hands of Albus Dumbledore, he asks who Harry is living with. When told, the godfather loses his shit and demands as to why Harry wasn’t sent to live with James’s parents, or perhaps Lily’s mother, or perhaps James’s uncle, or perhaps James’s other uncle, or perhaps one of his cousins—or really, anyone who would raise the boy right.
So after months of neglect, he’s sent to live with his grandparents, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, who have been searching for him wildly since James and Lily died.
‘Can you talk yet?’ Fleamont inquires, peering down at him. He bumps his forehead against the baby’s, who scrunches his face. ‘Harry. Haz. Ring ring ringgg, Harry James Potter, do you talk? Respond at your earliest convenience, if you would. Or mine. Also, I’d prefer if you said something quickly, to mark the occasion, you know. It’s almost twelve, dear fellow. Oi oii. Wake up!’
Harry looks more and more mulish the longer he speaks.
‘Oh, don’t treat him like a toy, you no good, insufferable bastard,’ Euphemia says impatiently, coming round the corner from the powder room, hair down. ‘Just give him here.’ She says this, and then takes him out of his arms, so really, Fleamont wonders what the point of asking was.
Harry, age two and a half, frowns up at her, blinking those enormous green eyes sleepily. ‘Dadi?’
Fleamont takes off his coat, saying, ‘Excellent, the little rotter thinks you’re his father.’
‘No, you ninny, it’s him calling me grandmother in my language,’ Effie says, bouncing him and cooing at the same time as she takes off her shoes, all while she continues, ‘since, you know, I actually remembered to teach James Punjabi? Unlike some people who were too lazy for—’
‘Tell me one practical use of Bengali in Britain, nineteen thirty three,’ he replies, leading them to the sitting room. ‘One. Just one singular use and I’ll let you have this one. By Merlin, he has the Potter hair.’
His wife gives him an irritated look, her diamond nosepin shifting upward as her nose scrunches with disdain. ‘It’s my hair color, though?’
‘Well, of course, but it looks like he got shot by lightning, Effie, use your head.’
‘Speaking of,’ she says, voice going a little distant. He’s sitting down at the sofa, now, and glances up to see what’s wrong.
His heart twists.
Euphemia is standing in the doorway with little baby Harry held to her chest, her thumb petting at his forehead, fingers smoothing off his fringe in the same way she used to do to James.
‘He’s going to be a big one,’ his wife says softly, the way she predicts thunderstorms and hail. ‘I know he is.’
‘Well, we’d better take good care of him, then,’ Fleamont replies, straightening up and gazing at her fondly. ‘So he can be a proper natural disaster like the Lord intended.’
Euphemia lets out a laugh, and Harry says shyly, ‘Dadi down?’
She cooes, lets him down and he lies on top of the fuzzy Persian living room carpet, arms spreading in a hug to the floor and falls asleep on the spot. His tan cheek squishes against the material.
They’re both quiet for a moment, entranced.
‘Get the camera this instant, you useless man,’ and he leaps to his feet with a groaned, ‘I’m off, I’m off!’
.
Many, many pictures are taken of Harry, constantly, every day. Fleamont is always the one taking them, except for one memorable time he’d been bathing the little rascal and gotten absolutely soaked, the tub flooding in a hilarious display of accidental magic and Euphemia had got the entire bloody thing on film, and watching it you can almost hear her background peals of laughter.
Harry is absolutely nothing like James. James had been a terribly difficult child, the kind to explore dangerous places like rooftops and his mother’s vanity table, his manners had been atrocious and he would have tantrums every time his feet were forced into socks.
Harry, unbelievably, can be reasoned with.
Sometimes.
‘Just one,’ Fleamont defends. His fingers holding a cigarette and his unimpressed ten year old grandson in the doorway to the stables. ‘Oh, just one, Hazza, you buzzkill, come on, it won’t kill me—’
‘It could, Dadu,’ Harry says sensibly, and Fleamont sighs as he stubs it out against the wall.
He goes to drop and stamp, but Harry says, high-pitched and clear, ‘In the rubbish bin, please,’ and Fleamont threatens, ‘I’m going to put your teddy bear in a potion,’ as he shoves the cancer stick, according to his precocious little grandson, into his back pocket and walks balefully toward his stallion, who always perks up when Harry steps in.
Everything does, really. His grandson, who beams up at him and takes Fleamont’s hand in his own little palm, is truly one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to him.
‘Come on,’ he says, clicking his tongue at his horse and squeezing Harry’s hand in his as they walk out into the lovely green field. ‘Let’s go race circles around our silly relatives.’
‘Except great aunt Dorea,’ Harry reminds him cheerfully, and Fleamont laughs, ruffling his hair and adding, ‘And especially Sirius.’
They trounce him, well and good. Harry shrieks a warcry as they get to the finish line and Sirius laughs a loud, boisterous laugh that most of the family hasn’t heard much since he was young.
The boy, Fleamont often thinks fondly, is like a breath of cool, fresh air. Living things in general, not just his stallion, perk up when he’s around.
.
On October first, after dinner and just before curfew, Harry goes to the Owlery to mail off his letter to his grandparents on their special day, the obedient grandson that he is.
He stops short, astonished. ‘What are you doing here?’
Tom Riddle from the train, turned Tom Riddle from Slytherin, soon to turn Tom Riddle from the Owlery, turns around, holding a folded piece of parchment and giving him one of his evil looks where his whole face is blank and polite looking but his eyes are dark with sadistic, demonic, malevolent thoughts.
Those evil eyes flit upward pointedly toward the wakening owls, then come back to Harry as he says evenly, ‘Mailing a letter.’
‘I didn’t know you knew how to write letters,’ Harry replies.
Riddle’s mouth twists up, his nasty facade of goodness vanishing in an instant. Harry lets himself feel vindicated for a precious second. ‘What is that supposed to mean.’
‘Well, you have to write dear at the start, and love, right before the end, you know,’ he explains to Riddle, walking towards one of the sky high windows. ‘Sometimes, people even say yours truly. And since you’re pure evil and rude to everyone you meet and you lie all the time, I didn’t think you knew those words.’
With this lofty observation he slants Riddle a superior look.
Riddle’s pale face flushes pink with irritation. ‘For Christ’s sake, Potter, just because I didn’t want to sit with you in the damn train—’
‘You said your carriage was full!’ Harry says hotly, temper immediately cranking up for the trillionth time in the one full month, to the very day, since it happened. ‘It was just you!’
‘Because I wanted to sit alone, by myself, unbothered!’ Riddle hisses, hands coming up and fingers flexing like he wants to strangle Harry. ‘I wasn’t even talking to you, and I didn’t mean to come across as rude—’
‘Well you failed, then, didn't you?!’ Harry fires back. Hedwig soars down and settles on his shoulder, glaring at Riddle like the wonderful partner she is, a second his blind rage. ‘Who even cares, I wouldn’t want to sit with you, anyway, because you’re an evil, horrible, heartless little, a-arsehole—’
‘I’ve already said sorry, and that too in front of the Deputy Head, what else could you want from me!’ Riddle demands, absolutely seething. ‘Leave me alone, for the love of god, I have to mail my grandparents and you’re giving me a bleeding migraine—’
‘You’re owling your grandparents, too?’ Harry says, stunned.
Riddle blinks. He furrows his brows, head moving to the side in bewilderment.
Harry lifts his crumpled letter and waves it around, feeling a bit foolish as he does so.
‘Oh,’ Riddle says. ‘Yes, because it’s.’ Then he pauses, pale ears reddening.
‘Grandparent’s.. day,’ Harry finishes awkwardly. The air in the room is general humiliation and because of the lull it gives to their argument, Harry, mortified, wonders what his grandparents would think if they got another letter from Hogwarts telling them their grandson got into a fight, like they had on the train, and he winces. Dadi would eviscerate him.
Hedwig nips his ear and he looks up at Riddle, who is making the same sort of constipated expression Harry thinks he must be making.
‘Right,’ Harry says, feeling ridiculous. ‘I’ll just. Send this.’
‘Yes,’ Riddle agrees vaguely, too subdued to be scathing, and Harry ties his letter to Hedwig’s toe as Riddle ties his letter to his owl’s toe.
The silence now is almost normal, uncharged. Harry feeds Hedwig a piece of meaty bacon he smuggled from dinner. Riddle pets his owl’s pure black plumage with a tender look on his face. His lips are curved upward into a smile as he sees his owl fly off.
They walk in different directions with one last furtive—sullen from Harry’s side and tight from Riddle’s—glance back at each other.
Harry leaves the Owlery on October first changed. Mostly because he’s a lot more confused than he was going in.
.
The second train ride on the Hogwarts Express that Tom gets on is far less eventful than the first. He still goes to the last carriage, but thankfully Harry Little Pissant Potter doesn’t show up ready to fistfight him for it like he had the first time.
There is no notable difference in the accommodations, and he privately relishes the last precious moments lacking tinsel and garlands that he will witness, facing the oncoming weeks of winter break.
He gets well into his newest novel, a long one by one of his grandfather’s favourite writers. Last week, Tom used the favour Abraxas owed him for a Potions essay edit to get a long list of privacy spells, the most vital of which can be used to hide a book’s cover from anyone but the caster.
The incantation is Dissimulare, and the impressed, assessing look on the other boy’s face at the time meant he probably thought Tom required it for something darker than the actual reason, which was that Tom is viciously protective of what’s his, and this is one of those things he and his grandfather share, and if someone asks him what he’s reading they might as well be asking to steal his family.
Abraxas’s reaction was good for his standing, though, and the other boys in his dorm were obviously told what happened because the intrigue and respect in their eyes had only risen.
Really. Purebloods, he thinks, rolling his eyes. So easy to please, in the end.
When the train ride is over, Tom breathes a disappointed sigh for his broken peace and steps outside.
Finding his family is not an issue. It takes barely two or three minutes.
What he sees when he finds them, however, is a problem of the most staggering sort.
‘Grandfather?’ Tom says. ‘What—grandmother? Who are—’
‘Tom, sweetheart, we missed you so much!’ his grandmother beams. ‘Come here, darling, meet Mr and Mrs Potter!’
Months ago, just after he’d gotten his Hogwarts letter and a while before the term had started, Tom had barricaded himself in the study room to pore over the many, many textbooks and wizarding world informative manuals available at Flourish and Blotts’, Obscurus Books, Whizz Hard Books, and the two second hand bookstores his grandfather had insisted they pop into because that’s where you find the real gems, you dimwit. Annotations and all.
In that period of time, his grandmother had been irritated that grandfather hadn’t let her stop at one of the jewellery vendors. He’d learnt this only in the morning after a visit they’d made to Diagon Alley on their own, to explore.
‘What if something had happened to you?’ he’d demanded. ‘It’s so obvious you’re Muggles, what if you met a bigot, or someone who tried attacking you, did you even consider the possible—’
‘Non issue, if you must know,’ Mary had sniffed. ‘We met another couple, a magical one, who seemed quite respectable. Upper class, proper way of speaking, and all. They showed us around. Finish your milk, pet.’
‘I don’t need milk,’ he’d snapped, and sat back down mulishly.
At the time, of course, he hadn’t known that the wixen couple his grandparents had met were Harry Potter’s grandparents.
‘Dadi? Dadu, who are these—Riddle?’ Potter says, his voice shrill and outraged.
‘Not even a hug for your poor old grandmother?’ Grandfather says.
Tom flushes and steps forward to hug his grandmother, saying stiffly, ‘Hello, grandmother. Grandfather. I didn’t know you knew the Potters.’
Potter is being cooed over and plucked at by his own grandparents, and Tom gives his grandfather, who seldom doesn’t understand every one of his stupid emotions, a beseeching look.
Grandfather looks down at him over his long, straight nose, very solemnly and says, ‘This is Fleamont, and Euphemia. They’re both from South Asia. Very good thing the wizarding world has, here, not much colonialism in the magical parts. Glad they got out safely. Don’t you think, Junior?’
It’s one of the longest sentences he’s ever said that isn’t an academic rant.
Tom curses the day his letter came and turns to smile charmingly at Fleamont and Euphemia. ‘It’s so lovely to meet you both. I’m really, very sorry about what happened at start of term—’
Potter scoffs.
‘It’s all forgotten, dear fellow,’ Fleamont says airily. ‘By all but my wife, of course, who won’t stop reminding me that we’re O for two. Harry’s father also caused a disruption on the train, once, and she’s like an elephant.’
‘Tom,’ Euphemia says warmly. ‘Ignore this fool. He’s not right in the head. I bet it was Harry’s fault, anyways.’
‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Potter, but it really wasn’t,’ Tom says, just as warm, and the look grandfather gives him, he almost breaks. ‘Honestly, it was both of us. It won’t happen again, of course.’
Potter is also giving him an incredulous look. Tom glances his way to make sure his rage level hasn’t doubled, or something, considering the only reason he’s covering for him is so Potter doesn’t put Thestral dung in bedsheets or something. The Slytherin dorms are air tight but the brat would find a way.
Euphemia Potter looks at him, inscrutable. Tom smiles blandly back. Fleamont Potter glances at his grandfather who snorts in a quite undignified manner.
‘Does anyone want to go for tea?’ Mary says brightly.
.
Euphemia gives him assessing looks all through the incredibly awkward luncheon. She sips from her glass and looks between him and Potter so much that Potter shifts uncomfortably and Tom notices her eyes—they are the other end of hazel, where his are reddish, hers edge green. They’re nothing like Potter’s, though. Potter’s eyes are iridescent and otherworldly.
They go to a Muggle place in London, a favourite of his family. They enter and smooth lounge music plays softly and Fleamont says, exuberant, ‘Oh, I love this song,’ and Grandfather says, amused, ‘Really? So do I,’ and Potter looks like he wants to throw himself into the Black Lake.
‘Why do my grandparents know yours,’ he hisses from behind the menu.
‘I have no idea,’ Tom lies out the corner of his mouth, because it’s too long to whisper. ‘Get the chicken steak.’
‘I’ll get whatever I damn well want,’ he snaps, forgetting to be quiet, and the waiter arrives and he flounders, then gets the chicken steak with a resentful look on his face.
His grandmother is absolutely delighted to explain their first meeting to Potter.
‘We were at the alley, and Thomas was lying through his perfect teeth, the scoundrel, saying he wouldn’t buy me flowers, and oh, it’s so lovely how there are different species of magical flowers! so many I never even heard of, and up comes this man with the neatest spectacles on his nose—’
‘Oh, stop it, Mary,’ Fleamont beams.
‘And says to me, my, what spectacular hair!’ Mary gushes.
Tom’s eye twitches. Potter covers his face with his hands and groans, ‘Dadu…’
‘Thomas was like a tiger, he was immediately stood between us, saying, yes, my wife does have spectacular hair, like this massive ring wasn’t enough to sell it! and Fleamont, for it was Monty, of course, replied that it was almost as great as his wife’s, and we all got to talking. He told us that he made potions for a living, and he invented one for sleek and manageable hair! Isn’t that delightful, Tom. He’s a proper scientist. And he has holdings in Pears, would you believe. Effie was wonderful, too, we met up at the clothing store and she told us about the best shops and diners in the area, and about the other street, Horizont, which seems so much better suited to our needs, and she explained the money exchange far better than that uptight creature in the bank had, let me tell you—’
‘Goblins are right to hate us, of course, but really, there should be a written manual,’ Fleamont remarks, and Grandfather says, amused, ‘That’s exactly what I said,’ and Grandmother continues, watery, ‘Oh, Tommy, if you could see the bouquet your mean old grandfather got me… It was splendid. Stayed fresh for a month, wouldn’t you know it. Harry, sweetheart, can I try some of your dessert?’
Potter looks absolutely aglow. ‘Of course you can, Mrs Riddle! This is one of my favorites.’ Then, with a glance at Tom that immediately sets all his suspicions alight, he says, ‘You know, I've noticed Tom doesn’t like treacle tart, or any other dessert very much…’
The first time he’s ever called him by first name and it’s to mock him, and a badly disguised dig for information to aid his quest to poison Tom. Good luck to Potter but Tom is going to kill him first.
‘That’s because he’s got terrible taste, darling,’ Grandmother says sympathetically, an absolute traitor. ‘Treacle tart is the best, he’s just obsessed with those little chocolate bars of his, the fiend—’
‘Grandmother,’ Tom says thinly. Euphemia sips from her glass with her eyes glinting. Grandfather is listening to something Fleamont is saying, absolutely riveted across the table. Grandmother hums in happiness as she tries Harry’s dessert and Potter grins at Tom cheekily.
‘I hate you,’ he mouths.
‘Can I try some of yours, Mrs Riddle?’ Harry asks innocently, practically batting his eyes. Tom rolls his own skyward and is caught in the act by none other than Euphemia Potter.
He freezes. There goes his perfect, contrite act.
He’s a bit panicked and opens his mouth to spin out some on the spot contingency plan, but then Euphemia does the impossible and smiles at him. Smiles. At him.
‘Tom, sweetie,’ she says, leaning in with a glint in her eyes. His eyes widen. So does her terrifying, airy smile, loose on her slim brown face. ‘I think our families are going to be the best of friends. Don’t you?’
That was probably the moment his fate was sealed.
Because at that moment Euphemia Potter had decided that he would make the most perfect grandson in law, the way she had when she’d met Lily Evans at age seventeen and James Potter had been way ahead of her.
She's quite like Tom in the way that what Euphemia Potter wants, Euphemia Potter eventually gets.
It’s quite lucky for her that eventually, their desires fell on the same line.
coda
Harry’s rooting through his bag for spare parchment that isn’t the Marauder’s Map (because it always floats to the top of whatever compartment it’s in and Sirius refuses to undo whatever spell did that) when polished loafers step up next to their spot at the library and he hears the devil’s voice.
‘Ronald, Hermione. Good morning. Having a nice weekend, I trust?’
Under the table, Harry freezes.
‘Tom!’ Hermione says a bit distractedly, shuffling through her notes. ‘Oh, good, I’m glad you’re here, I’ve been looking for you. There’s issues with the Ravenclaw sixth year prefect schedules again!’
‘Oh, how bothersome. Could we discuss it at lunch? I’m actually here for Harry. Have you seen him?’
His voice is falsely pleasant and Harry can just see the half blink he does when he’s mentally rolling his eyes, he is such an insufferable toerag—and then the last bit registers.
‘Harry?’ Hermione says blankly.
She sounds so in-the-zone that Harry wouldn’t be surprised if she followed that up with Harry who? so he clamps his hand down on Ron’s shin in warning.
Please, he thinks desperately. Please, please, don’t say I’m under the table. Cover for me. You owe me, arsehole.
Ron, bless him, takes the hint, doesn’t even pause in his quill scratching and says, as oblivious as Harry’s ever heard, ‘That’s weird, he just left.'
Thank Merlin for Ron Weasley.
Then Ron proves himself to be a self serving wanker, adding, 'How do you even know Harry, anyway? 've always wondered.'
Harry's never actually explained to his friends, in the past seven years, how and why Tom Riddle acts like his civic duty, in life, is to ruin Harry's day half the time, when the rest of the time he lives in Harry's pocket. Like now. It's just difficult, and also it embarrasses him, and also, when he tried to explain fully that one time in fourth year, Ron just literally straight up thought he was fully lying.
So grudgingly, he can see why Ron's trying to get answers from the enemy, but he pinches his leg anyway.
Tom replies, ‘He’s a family friend,’ and this is so outrageous that Harry forgets his earlier plan and leaps up from under the table to deny vehemently, ‘No! No, I’m not! We don’t know each other!’
Ron stifles a sigh.
Riddle's dark eyes glint red.
‘Harry. Why were you under the table?’
‘Listen, Riddle, it’s none of your business,’ Harry says, trying desperately to ignore Hermione’s scandalised look, he can practically hear her in his head. Really, Harry, there’s no need to be so rude, you know! Harry would beg to differ.
‘I’m sure,’ Tom says, amused. ‘Can I speak to you for a bit?’ He glances at Ron and Hermione, eyebrow ticking upward when his eyes come back to Harry’s as if he’s just remembered they’re here, too, then adds, ‘Alone, preferably.’
‘About what, what d'you want?’ he demands. ‘Help with DADA? Can’t quite get the Patronus right, is it?’
For some reason, Tom’s quirked lip curves higher, his grin lazy. ‘It’s not really academics related.’
Hermione chokes on a shocked laugh. Ron keeps writing his Charms essay. Harry wants to melt into a puddle of mortification at how he’s framing this.
‘Fine,’ he snaps, flushed. ‘Just make it quick.’
Tom is basically leering. ‘No promises.’
They duck into an alcove where shelf on shelf is stacked with useless goblin war texts that no one has touched in decades.
‘Never do that again,’ Harry hisses.
‘I thought it was hilarious,’ he says, all perfect white teeth.
Harry is seething. ‘What could you possibly fucking want.’
‘What, can’t two family friends like us chat every now and then? You act like you hate me.’
‘I do hate you,’ Harry snaps.
Tom leans in closer, and breathes, ‘You break my heart.’
Harry thinks he might go blind with the heat of his frustration. ‘Oh my fucking god, I’m leaving.’ He makes to duck out but Tom’s fingers clamp down on his wrist so tight Harry almost feels his bones grind together, with the force of it.
He yanks him in again, and this time they’re practically chest to chest. Or—chin to chest, as it were.
Tom smiles down at him, smooth waves of hair falling into his eyes, the pinnacle of charm. His hand is still tight against Harry’s wrist, holding it to the side. ‘I need you.’
Harry is so used to his inability to express himself in normal ways, and his unbelievable violence that he doesn’t even bat an eye at the intense statement nor can he muster up a reaction for how he’s being manhandled. ‘For what.’
‘I can’t spend the winter at home but my grandparents are insisting. I need you to back me with an excuse for why I’d have to stay at the castle.’
‘Okay,’ Harry says.
Tom raises an eyebrow. 'Just like that?'
'What, you thought you'd have to convince me?'
Tom smiles like the snake did in heaven in his family's stupid religion, and murmurs, 'Well, I wouldn't mind at all, of course.'
Harry tries to pry his wrist away, but Tom only tightens his hold. His thumb sweeps over Harry's inner palm, almost comforting, and Harry is acutely aware of their difference in strength. Tom has Mr Riddle’s long, pianist fingers and his broad palms. Harry has been cursed with nimble fingers that Dadi says he ought to be more grateful for.
'Well, whatever, Riddle, I'll do it. Just let me go.'
Tom leans in closer, nose brushing against Harry's. 'Mm, but I've missed you.'
Harry inhales. He smells like that geeky shit he puts in his hair, the high end cologne that haunts Harry’s dreams, and like mint. Fresh mint, on hot breath.
'You have?' Harry says, mistrusting but blinking up at him anyway. Heart pounding away.
'And I'll miss you this winter,' he exhales, red eyes half-shut. You would think he’s sincere. 'Half a world away, I don't quite know how I'll survive it, my dear.'
Harry pauses. 'Are you staying over at Malfoy’s.'
Tom goes still.
Harry steps back, realization dawning on him grimly that he was right from the start. He’s always been right about Riddle. 'I don't know if I can cover for you.'
'Harry,' Tom says, a warning.
‘You know, your family doesn’t deserve this,’ Harry whispers, low and furious. ‘But I suppose it’s easy for you now, lying to your grandmother’s face.’
His grip loosens for just a second but it's enough for Harry to shake him off in disgust.
'Have fun with your sycophants,' he bites out, and the second he turns the corner he whips out the cloak and there's no one there for Tom to try and manipulate when he comes out from behind the shelves, eyes a warm hazel and eyebrows drawn tight.
'I'll see you later,' Tom echoes. He looks almost regretful.
But he’s the devil, so Harry would have to be stupid to believe him. So he stalks back to his seat with Ron and Hermione and thinks darkly that all the love in the world couldn’t rewrite what’s in Tom Riddle’s bones.