Chapter Text
There’s a new face in the Great Hall that dinner, which was - granted, not highly unusual given the events of the world at large (Grindleward, the Blitz) - but still a head-turner. What took the Slytherins’ interest was that the new kid was one of theirs.
The whispering cut short when Dippet pointed out the sea of green and then just as abruptly burst up again. A private sorting for the young man introduced as just Draco, sans family name. Abraxas Malfoy had sat up a bit straighter when the new boy stiffly approached their house table, and it was easy to tell why - it was like a mirror had materialized in front of him. Underneath, Cygnus Black kicked Abraxas in the shin; it did not tear Abraxas’s stare away from Draco, who was ostensibly avoiding eye contact with everyone in the row. Tom stood up and Draco faltered in his step before turning to him. Tom smiled.
“My name is Tom, I’m a prefect here. You can approach me if you need any help.” He extended a palm. Draco sucked a breath through his teeth and took it, his fingers shaking, so Tom firmed his grip, and earned a wince. Draco drew his hand back quickly and stuffed it in his wrinkled robes. It was ripped in the corner, the same set stuck in Professor Slughorn’s spare cabinet.
“Hey,” Walburga Black leaned over the table, her eyes sparkling. “Where are you from?”
Draco chewed on his inner cheek. “France.”
Immediately Walburga spat something frenzied in the language to the boy, who grimaced with his shoulders clipping his ears but did not falter in speed as he responded just as quickly. Walburga sat back in her seat and grinned although she said nothing more, and Orion hid a twitch of his lips behind his glass.
Draco No-Family glanced furtively at the table and no one parts a-way for him, of course not. He would have to slink to the very end or fight for the box seats. That is what he did - retreated - but not without one last glance at the Sacred Twenty-Eight heir-lings’ congregation. In his periphery, Tom saw a first year scoot a space for Draco to slide in; Abraxas’s eyes remain pinned to the back of his head.
Tom sought Draco out the next morning. “Professor Slughorn - our Head of House - advised that you have no wand or books for yourself.” Draco blinked owlishly at him, then to the stack in Tom’s hands. Stationery, one of the fresh sets he’d always received come Yule, for which he was sure cost a considerable amount but made no difference to him. After all, he did not use anything he did not make himself.
“I-” Draco made a hand gesture then aborted it. “Thanks.” He took the stack from Tom and balanced it awkwardly on his hip.
“We’ll go to Hogsmeade - that’s the commercial district - for your wand this weekend.” That was tomorrow. “For today, I’m sure it’d be all theory for you. How far are you in your curriculum?”
Draco stared blankly at him. “I. I don’t know.”
“Hm,” Tom said, and tried to sound understanding but Draco flinched. “Which class schedule did you get today?”
“Um. Headmaster D- um-”
“Dippet,” Tom offered.
“Headmaster Dippet said I had to take a bunch of aptitude tests today, so they’ll know which year to place me in.” Draco wrung his hands together. “He has a spare wand for me, he said-”
“Don’t be absurd,” Tom said, and Draco winced again. Tom frowned a little to himself. He never tried to intimidate someone new before they proved their standing, let alone someone who had taken one of his Knights’ eye, but it seemed that he was missing all of Draco’s cues. He took a step back but this made Draco cringe harder. Tom cleared his throat and decided just to continue speaking. “No-one in the House of Slytherin will suffer a hand-me-down.”
Draco said, “I don’t have any money.”
Of course not. And neither did Tom, but he had his lips to the ears of anyone who did. “Your school shopping budget would hardly make a dent in Abraxas‘s vault,” Tom dismissed, because if Abraxas was going to bring back a new Malfoy heir, he might as well foot the bill.
Draco gave him a wide-eyed look of horror.
Tom found that Abraxas, in the afternoon, had nicked his family tapestry from his manor and was pouring over it in his room. There were a lot of struck-out names. Cygnus was on his bed with a tome of his own: Black Family History, it said on the spine. The both of them looked up to greet him appropriately and Abraxas looked down first. Tom turned from him to Cygnus, who left a thumb in the book but shut the cover to explain, “It’s a Black family tradition to name children after constellations.”
But Draco shared the same hair colour and general stature as Abraxas; which, Tom supposed, explained his current fixation on the tapestry. “Maybe,” Abraxas said to himself in an uncertain burst, “My third cousin, here?”
“Anyone can name a child anything,” Tom reasoned, which made Cygnus pout.
“Walburga said he had an accent.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “A french accent?”
“An english accent, when he spoke french. And not the other way around.”
“Hm,” Tom thought. “British parents, living in France?” Cygnus frowned harder and flipped to a new page in his book. “Oh, Abraxas, I need two hundred galleons from you.”
“Fourth cousin twice removed, here?” Abraxas angled the tapestry to him, as he accio-ed his wallet. “Although, a little far-apart to still look so much alike me…”
With how inbred the Sacred Twenty-Eight were in their desperate bid to maintain blood purity, it was hardly a straight line drawn - but Tom refrained from commenting.
That evening, Draco reappeared in Slytherin looking like a man who sat through a dozen exams at once. His eyes scanned the common room and caught Tom’s. He looked nervous but squared his shoulders and marched towards him, losing bravado by the time he reached their study table, which had Abraxas’s unsubtle glare, Rosier’s snicker, Nott’s curious prickling gaze, and Rowle’s snarl. He thrust a paper in Tom’s direction and lingered while he read it.
It was from Dippet, thanking Tom for his hospitality. “Fifth year,” Tom said. “I’ll be taking you to get your books tomorrow. Hogsmeade, bright and early, understand?”
Draco nodded and quickly scurried away, not bothering to take the letter back. Tom threw it to the sharks; Abraxas snatched it first as if he laid some claim to the boy just because they bore a similar reflection. “He looks older than that,” he sniffed.
“Perhaps his studies had been interrupted by the war,” Jeffords Nott offered, so Abraxas handed him the letter next. Rosier read over his shoulder.
“Thank you greatly, Mr Riddle,” Rosier began an impression, “for your offer to provide guidance to our new-”
“Shut up,” Tom said, and the four of them immediately turned back to their books, leaving Tom to survey Draco’s retreating silhouette up the staircase.
Abraxas and Cygnus’s conspiracy theories about lineages was making Tom’s charge incredibly uncomfortable. Tom ought to reprimand them for their lack of subtlety, but it did have the unintended effect of earning a self-regulatory Draco, who seemed intent on getting over his peculiar fear of Tom just to avoid the two.
It was amusing, to imagine that Tom was the option that presented a modicum of comfort. But he supposed his reputation did not precede him in whichever borough of France that Draco had been hiding in.
He stuck close, but not touching, and gasped when he saw Hogsmeade for the first time, eyes lighting up and jumping between the different village signposts. There was a small crowd. Draco spun around so fast to look at everything that Tom wondered how he was not dizzy, and Tom said, “A new wand, first?”
“Huh?” Draco said. “Oh, yeah!” And he started off quite excitedly.
Tom grabbed a flapping sleeve. “Wrong direction.”
“Oh,” Draco said, turning pink, and obediently followed Tom the right way. Behind them, Abraxas and Cygnus trailed after them, elbowing each other.
“A little old to be getting a new wand for the first time, no?” Ollivander said glibly. Draco sank down in his shoulders.
“I lost mine in a fight.”
Tom raised a brow. “A duel?”
“Um,” Draco said.
“I would not have lost my wand in a duel,” Cygnus said, despite the fact that the question was not addressed to him in the first place, and Abraxas agreed wholeheartedly about his own aptitude, as if Tom cared about either of their answers. Besides, they were both wrong, because Tom had wiped the floor with the both of them before.
“No distractions if you are here to watch,” Ollivander chided, and took out the first wand. Draco’s fingers trembled over it. There was nary a spark when he picked it up, and his face fell. He steeled his expression quickly and tried his second. Third. Fourth.
By now, Abraxas and Cygnus have ceased their bickering and were plastered on either side of Tom’s shoulders, the three of them watching the mounting frustration on Draco’s face.
“What was your previous wand?” Ollivander asked.
“Ten inches, hawthorn wood, unicorn hair,” Draco recited dutifully.
“Then I’m quite puzzled as to what could be giving you so much trouble,” Ollivander mused. “Wait here.” He disappeared into a back room.
They waited, and Cygnus demanded, “Are you a squib?”
“No!” Draco protested. “I’ve done magic - why did I say it like that - I’m magical!”
Ollivander brought out a stack of boxes that featured wands of increasing peculiarity. Some produced tendrils of spells, bursts of light that made Abraxas and Cygnus hum, but never any to Tom’s and Ollivander’s satisfaction.
“This,” the man eventually tapped a box, “is the last thing I have for you to try.” Tom and Abraxas and Cygnus leaned forward in trepidation to watch Draco take the wand. A hush settled over the little store.
With a trembling hand, Draco picked up the wand to wave, and…
“No,” Ollivander said, ripping the wand from his grasp and snapping the box shut.
“How is this possible?!” Draco’s voice wavered. “I used a wand yesterday - a spare one in the Headmaster’s office - for my assessment practicals!”
“Is he a squib or not?!” Abraxas growled.
“He is clearly magical,” Ollivander said. “But no wand will claim you as their own. As you know, the wand-”
“-Chooses the wizard,” Draco said miserably. Tom raised an eyebrow. Was that also a saying in France? Ollivander chuckled.
“Indeed. How exactly did you lose your previous wand, boy?”
“I dropped it on the floor when I was… running,” Draco said, shame-faced.
Cygnus asked, “Who were you running from?” Draco didn’t answer.
“I’ll find you one yet,” Ollivander declared, like it had become a matter of pride, “And owl you when I do. For now-” He retrieved a box from five tests before. “This one had responded quite favorably to you. Not as much as I would prefer, but you should still be able to practice your spells - with a bit of effort.”
Abraxas grabbed the box before Draco could and tucked it under his arm. “Owl me, we haven’t got one for him.” Ollivander was cool in his face, and he looked to Draco for assent, who nodded miserably.
“Thank you for your time, Mr Ollivander,” Tom said graciously. Abraxas stormed out first, Draco following after him like a little chick, and Cygnus tossed seven galleons on the counter behind them as they left.
They went shopping for the rest of Draco’s things afterwards, and Abraxas paid for the rest of it all despite the money he’s already foisted to Tom earlier. Draco spent the entire time looking to Abraxas for guidance on his purchases, which stroked Malfoy’s ego like no other; he began lecturing on invisible stitching and thread count and Draco nodded fervently along. 500 galleons was the price to dress Draco to Abraxas’s satisfaction for the year, from a formal dress to his pyjamas, more than double of Tom’s initial budget for him.
“God forbid anyone who looks a little like a Malfoy dare dress humbly,” Cygnus whispered to Tom. He was wearing an ensemble that did not cost much less.
When they returned to Hogwarts, Abraxas and Cygnus dragged Draco into their room, the poor sod. Tom heard a yelp when the door closed, before the weight of a silencing charm settled over it. Tom rolled his eyes. The trio emerged before dinner, and Abraxas was chattering away - Tom heard a cousin or two slipped into his sentences, and Draco looked terrified under his arm.
Cygnus strolled after them, looking quite annoyed. He must have lost the lineage tracing battle.
“Will Abraxas get him on the Malfoy tapestry proper?” Tom asked Cygnus, as he was still quite clueless about the propriety of these things.
Cygnus just shrugged. “He’ll threaten him off, more likely.” He looked like he’d eaten something sour. “Even though Draco might be from a branch so distant they’ve been long blasted off the main tree, Abraxas isn’t exactly gunning for extra competition as heir.”
Pressing his chest up against Draco’s spine was a weird way to scare someone, Tom thought, but it looked like it worked - Draco could hardly make eye contact with Abraxas for days after.
Tom was not to be outdone by one of his followers - nevermind that Abraxas was soon-to-be a patriarch of his House and also older (not by much). He ought to listen; and yet had grown a little bit more mischievous around his cousin, dodging around Tom’s more subtle attempts to speak with them.
Tom got his chance to approach Draco again on one of the evenings - but to his surprise, Draco yelped and ducked under Tom’s arm quite comically to avoid being boxed into the wall.
Tom, not expecting such a brazen and clumsy escape from a fellow housemate, just blinked in bewilderment.
Draco blinked back, and he was rapidly turning pink. “I… um…”
“Apologies for startling you,” Tom said as quickly as possible, hoping to stave off the embarrassment for the both of them.
“You-” Draco swallowed and ducked his head, “Just reminded me of someone, that’s all.”
“Oh?” Tom said, very curious. “And who would that be?”
Draco fell silent and turned his head away. Tom waited. Eventually Draco said, “No one.”
“Alright,” Tom said magnanimously, and stepped away. He could be patient.
The following weeks passed uneventfully. Their mid-term tests launch most of Tom’s syncopaths into fervent studying, and they ask him for help. Of course they do. Even Draco hangs around during the Slytherin group study sessions, fervently eavesdropping, even though Tom is explaining NEWT concepts to the older students - surely, something that would be irrelevant to Draco in his year, but his eyes sparkled as he listened.
He had a textbook in his lap, well-worn by several generations of students. Abraxas was trying to swap it out for a new one, but Draco had his fingers curled stubbornly over his hand-me-down from Slughorn’s cabinets.
“I like the annotations,” Draco defended. “I used to have books with them, passed down by-” He began to look upset. Abraxas then tried to trade his own copy over until Rosier stamped hard on his foot to shut him up. Tom figured that it was for the best. Abraxas, despite his upbringing, had quite the atrocious handwriting.
Draco’s relaxed demeanor (on par with Tom’s own), as it turned out, was due to his exclusion from this run of examinations. He continued to hang around as everyone scrambled around him, content in his armchair in the common room, one of Cygnus’s coats draped over it like Britain's most expensive throw blankets. It was incredible to observe, especially from the eyes of a decrepit orphan. Draco had remained pleasantly shy but not contrite enough around Malfoy and Black, not the way Tom had been in his earlier years when the Sacred Twenty-Eight decided he earned their favor and began showering him with galleons. Tom had been working up to comfortability then. Draco began here, already an expensive fascination.
Midterms passed smoothly and regular lessons resumed. Defense against the Dark Arts was a class Tom enjoyed and loathed in equal proportions - it was a refreshing opportunity that reflected something actually useful in the real world, and a maddening exercise in self-restraint. Merrythought spoke plainly and practically about war, a topic that others (like Dumbledore) tripped around. It had been theory after theory leading up to midterms; now that it has concluded, they were eased into a practical.
A duel was the sort of excitement Tom itched for. Unfortunately, he was queued last, as always. But this time, as a treat, Draco was invited first.
Merrythought had mused: “Perhaps, to demonstrate the duelling prowess of our french counterparts?"
Draco looked terrified.
He disarmed Rowle. Then Abraxas disarmed him. Draco was called to sit, and they went round-robin, until there was no interesting pair left sans the strongest dueller and the unknown variable, so Tom was called - finally! - to stretch his legs.
Draco’s ill fitting wand returned to his hand. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and then settled, steady, and he looked Tom in the eye with a confidence that betrayed him only during instances when he thought no one was looking; when he was wrinkling Cygnus’s robe like he owned it.
And then Tom drew his wand.
There was an impressive gasp from Draco, which made Tom realize that Draco had never seen it before, despite the weeks they’ve been spending time together - in their other classes Abraxas or Cygnus monopolized his time instead, and Tom preferred spellcasting wandlessly to practice outside of that. For some reason the boy drew his hands over his mouth as he stared. The class watched him warily. Draco looked from Tom, to his yew wand in his hand, then back up to the boy, and Tom startled, realizing there was a new sheen of wetness in his eyes.
And then abruptly Draco lunged for him.
It was in poor taste to use fists in a wizarding duel. Tom remained rooted to the ground, because there was no damage a physical assault could do to him that could not be fixed by magic; also, they were still in a classroom, and he knew that no real harm would be allowed to come to him. Still, he braced himself with his arms, acting like he was surprised.
But Draco did not hit him. Instead he wrapped his arms around Tom’s shoulders, trapping his arms between them. And then he burst into tears.