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Fall.
The season, or the action?
It was both. Tom was living through both, and he thought he'd add a third thing to that list: the method of death. Now, whether to kill Potter or himself—hah! you thought? He was mostly thinking of pushing that stupid… rather that cheating… no still not right—that- that fool! Off the astronomy tower. Would teach him a lesson.
And would also make it so rankings such as today's never happened again.
(Tom had felt the petty urge to vandalize the board, for a few long minutes. Of course, while he was all for pettiness, one must think of how such actions could easily be traced back to him and the further damages that would incur to his reputation. He unfortunately had to concur with something called 'maturity' that he thought was way too prized in this puny society.)
"Congratulations," Tom says through a gritted smile at Harry, who only beams back at him.
Ah, to gently hold that man in his arms before VIOLENTLY PERFORMING DEFENESTRATION. And get away with it. His smile grows more genuine, thinking of the blood, the pained screams, and the broken bones.
"It's all thanks to you," Potter tells him, almost like a confession. It's the proper amount of bashful and Tom would very much like to bash that boy's skull into the pavement. Via gravity.
Why does no one realise how much of a bastard the Potter heir is? They all bask around him, cooing and trying to get an ounce of his light, but they never realise that the brighter the light, the more shadows are cast. Tom knows full well that Potter is delighting in his still pained seeming expression, and he knows the boy is waiting until they are in private to press him against a wall and whisper death threats in ears.
'You're a monster' the man would say, and while it wasn't untrue it was just fucking rude! 'I will beat you in every way, even something this pointless.'
He would feel the other boy's hot breath against his cheeks and he'd flush with rage, barring his teeth and muttering death threats back intermingled with insults and promises of destruction to everything the boy has ever held dear.
And Harry would just laugh before abruptly leaving him, almost making him fall.
Tom guesses he'd succeeded at that, this time.
He'd gone down one whole rank. The leaves outside, gently swaying downwards, make him feel like Fate herself had always predicted this doom. It read like a prophecy:
The boy whose favorite season is fall is doomed to collapse.
(And yet, after shaking hands and smiling right for a few hours, he cools down with some chaï tea while sitting on a windowsill. He sits wrapped in blankets as the night drops on the world to the beat of the colorful dead leaves dancing along to their final resting place. Because autumn should've never been named fall—it had always been about change and comfort.)