Chapter Text
“Morning, Tommy.”
If Tom had a reaction to that dreadful nickname, he didn’t show it anymore. Tom was glad for the reputation he earned at Hogwarts that made the other students understand that his name wasn’t something they could toy with it. Harry, of course, had decided years ago that he was the exception.
And Tom let him go for it, like he always did. Even at this moment nestled in his Head Boy dormitory.
“Harry,” Tom murmured, his voice still thick with sleep, “why are you lying across the bed?”
Harry cracked one eye open, squinting up at him. “I wanted to stretch,” he mumbled. Then after another beat, “But I wanted to see you wake up, too.”
Tom couldn’t help the tiny smile that appeared at his face. Ridiculous. “You’re impossible. Come here.”
He reached forward and brushed Harry’s fringe away from his forehead just because he can, and Harry leaned instinctively into his hand all the while letting out a content little hum.
Like an adorable and overly affectionate cat.
They stayed like that until Harry pushed himself upright and groped blindly for his spectacles on the bedside table. Tom watched bemusedly as Harry fumbled them on without looking, so the left frame ended crooked against his cheek.
Harry was probably the only person Tom knew who could cast new spells effortlessly but be incapable of putting on a pair of glasses that he did on a daily basis.
He said nothing of his thoughts though and simply reached over to take the bridge into his two fingers and nudged the glasses straight. Harry, as always, didn’t thank him. He continued to swing his legs over the side of the bed as if Tom hadn’t just spared him from walking around the moving castle half-blind.
Thirty minutes later, they moved to the sitting room where breakfasts had already been laid out. They quickly ate in comfortable silence. Tom would later pour two cups of tea, into Harry’s he added exactly one sugar, because Harry would complain if there were none and would notice if there were two.
He slid the cup across and reached for his toast, he had barely taken a bite when Harry audibly swallowed the last of his own toast and went still.
“Fuck—” He shot to his feet. “I’m late!”
Tom remained unbothered as Harry vanished into the bedroom. This happened often enough that when he heard a drawer being yanked open, he just called out, “Your Defense essay is still on the desk!”
“I got it!” Harry shouted back.
Harry reappeared a moment later wrestling a jumper over his head and put a tightly rolled parchment in between his teeth. He proceeded to blink at Tom as though he had only just remembered that Tom was in the same room as him.
“I gotta run. See ya, Tommy!” and then he hurried out through the portrait hole.
Tom looked at the empty doorway for a moment longer before he shook his head. He drew his attention to Harry’s now abandoned tea toward himself and drank the rest of it.
All is well.
—
Tom would see Harry again carrying his beloved Firebolt under one arm. He almost did a double-take when he saw three separate rolls of parchment hanging precariously from his other arm.
“If you drop Slughorn’s essay in this mud pit, I’m not copying mine out for you,” Tom said.
Harry responded to Tom’s threat by shifting his arms and nearly dropped a roll in the process. Tom caught it by the end before it hit the ground and tucked it under his own arm without breaking stride. Honestly, Harry made it easy to feel useful.
“I wasn’t going to drop it,” Harry huffed while leaning into Tom’s shoulder as they walked down the slope toward the lake. “You’re catastrophizing.” Where in the world was Harry learning these kinds of words from? “Besides, Slughorn adores me. I reckon I could hand the essay in covered in sticky juice and he'd still scribble an Exceeds Expectations across the top because Mum bought him some rare bottle of mead years ago."
“Trust me, he would give you an Outstanding because he’s pathetic like that,” Tom corrected mildly. “But I still refuse to repeat of when I had to sit beside you in the library while you were lamenting having to rewrite forty inches on horn properties alone.”
Harry made a face. “It was forty-five,” he corrected while holding up a finger. “Which by the way, was complete overkill. Oh, hey, did you finally finish the charts for Wednesday?”
“I did, just last week.”
Harry let out a sigh. “Right. Of course you did…” He rolled his eyes with obvious fondness. “…Can I have a look tonight?” He held up his palm before Tom could answer. “I’m not copying it. I just need something to compare with mine.” He grimaced. “The professor said my lines were like mimicking someone’s ‘drunken state.’”
"They were," Tom said. "I saw them."
Harry looked scandalized. “You have five seconds to take that back, before I—they were readable, Tommy!”
“They were really bad, Harry,” Tom teased and caught Harry’s thumb with visible ink stain before it smeared the parchment. "You can look at the charts after you've finished the reading for Transfiguration. McGonagall said you skipped the last two chapters."
"Yeah, yeah, I'll do it after this." Harry paused and looked out across the lawns toward the Quidditch pitch. The wooden stands were already filling with scarlet and green banners. "Listen, after the match, are you on patrols?"
"Until eight," Tom answered. "The Slytherin prefects have the dungeons. I have the library floor. Why?"
"If we win, Wood's going to talk about it until midnight," Harry groaned, though he was clearly excited about the game. "But if we finish early, meet me by the Herbology greenhouses. Hagrid said he has the owl treats I ordered for Hedwig. The ones smelling like dead mice."
“Just what I needed to hear before heading out for snacks.”
"She's picky," Harry said defensively. "If I don't get them this week, she'll start nipping my fingers when I give her letters. That reminds me, did you send the application for the Ministry internship?"
"I gave it to the school owl this morning."
"Good." Harry nodded, his pace quickening slightly as the roar of the early crowd drifted over the grass. The path narrowed here, leading toward the changing rooms. Tom stopped just before where the Gryffindor team usually assembled.
Harry stopped too and turned around with his broom in both hands now, ready to say something else but Tom didn’t give him a chance to start. He stepped forward and caught the knot of Harry’s tie because it sort of twisted almost all the way around during their walk down, with the thin end hanging over the wide one and the collar of his white shirt turned inward at the throat.
Tom untied the silk, smoothed the collar flat against the back of Harry’s neck, and tied it again. His knuckles brushing Harry’s throat. "There," Tom murmured, pulling the knot snugly against the button and let his hands drop back to his sides.
"Thanks," Harry said, blinking up at him through his smudged glasses with an easy grin. "See you in the stands?"
"Try not to do anything reckless," Tom said, reciting their well-practiced ritual. It was the same warning he gave before every Quidditch match, every venture into the Forbidden Forest, and every exam that somehow had the potential to pose a threat to Harry’s student record.
Harry laughed and stepped back toward the locker room door. "You know me, Tommy. I'm the definition of careful."
Yeah, and Tom was the love-child of Dumbledore and McGonagall.
"Go," Tom said.
Harry blew a kiss at him before turning to ran down the short path with his robes trailing behind him.
—
The moment Harry swept over the goalposts, Tom’s attention instantly settled on him and to him only. Finding Harry in the air never required too much effort for him.
Contrary to popular belief, Harry never flew unpredictably.
Others mistake instinct for spontaneity, but Tom did always knew better than others. Harry had habits and preferences and once you learned them, his next move was rarely a surprise.
Harry leaned forward slightly and Tom looked toward the space above the Ravenclaw Chasers just in time as Harry appeared there as if he apparated. The game continued and he could clearly see that Harry was already flying one-handed.
Tom barely resisted the urge to sigh.
Tom had told Harry many times enough that one-handed flying was an unnecessary risk Harry could do without. Harry only grinned and claimed it made the broom feel less fussy. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
A bludger cut across the pitch to Harry who just shifted just enough to let it pass.
Tom let out a quiet breath, the corner of his mouth lifting into a ghost of a smirk. Harry could deny it all he wants when he’s back on the ground, but up there? He never could resist showing off once he realized no one on the opposing team could keep up. Tom continued to follow him with his eyes as he flew through another lap of the pitch.
Then Tom noticed something.
The bludger Harry just avoided should have continued toward the upper stands, but it didn’t. Most of the crowd didn’t notice it because of the pace of the match, but Harry had dragged Tom to watch enough of his practices for Tom to know that a bludger didn’t lose momentum like that.
Tom shifted his weight, his fingers tightening around the wooden railing. His eyes followed the bludger as it tore across the pitch nearly missing a Ravenclaw Chaser before climbing again with vicious purpose. It should have continued on its path, but it adjusted its course as though reconsidering who to target.
Tom's gaze flicked briefly toward the Beaters. Both Ravenclaw players were halfway across the pitch and occupied with driving the second bludger away from their Chasers.
His attention returned to the bludger.
It turned again and it was heading towards—
“Harry!” Tom shouted in a futile attempt to get Harry’s attention because a fucking bludger was locked in on him.
Harry didn’t even glance at where Tom was in the stands because …
… He spotted the damn Snitch.
Harry folded over his broom and quickly dove. At same moment, the bludger climbed.
Tom was on his feet before he knew it. Every thing inside of his body was screaming at him that something is very wrong, but it was far too late to act on it. Harry was already committed to the dive, one hand reaching forward.
Harry, get out of the way!
The bludger greeted him head-on.
The sound of the impact echoed across the pitch with a sickening crack. Harry’s body snapped backward with the force of it as the snitch vanished from sight.
Harry never got to reach for it.
He was unconscious before he slipped from the broom.
The next thing he knew, he was on the pitch with his knees striking the wet grass hard enough to soak through his trousers.
Harry lay only a few feet away, curled on his side and completely motionless.
No.
No, get up.
Tom reached for him, only for his hand to hesitate for a second before closing around Harry’s sweater.
Harry still didn’t move.
—
Tom had always known there was a possibility that Harry would get badly hurt playing Quidditch. He just never imagined that it could happen like this.
He was sat in a chair beside Harry’s bed. The draft from the window turned his silver badge on his chest cold against his skin but he ignored it.
Harry looked nothing like he had when he landed on the pitch.
Madam Pomfrey had seen to that immediately and ordered everyone else out of the room, including Tom. When Tom saw Harry again the mud was gone, the blood was washed from his hair, and the ugly wound above his left ear was now nothing more than a pale line hidden beneath Harry’s dark curls. There was nothing left at all that showed how violent his fall was.
When the last spell faded, Madam Pomfrey had rested two fingers lightly against Harry's temple. She remained there for several long seconds before lowering her wand.
Physically, she had said, Harry would recover.
But Tom had watched her expression change and knew that good news won’t come soon.
The impact was severe, Mr. Riddle, she had said while not looking at him as she pulled the sheet up to Harry’s chest. The magic can close the skin. It can even settle the swelling. But the mind must find its own way back to the surface. We must wait.
So, Tom sat and waited.
—
"Madam Pomfrey says he’s alright, that he's stable," Granger whispered. Tom didn’t know why, it wasn’t like Harry would be disturbed. "She said we shouldn't stay long."
Tom heard Madam Pomfrey use that word a dozen of times in two days. Harry still didn’t show any signs of waking up and Tom found it all so, so wrong. Because Harry, his Harry never managed to be still for even a minute.
Why aren’t you still moving, Harry?
Harry’s other friends visited him yesterday and Tom still couldn’t shake-off the bouts of irrational emotions he felt when they tried to comfort him. Giving him words of platitudes, Tom wanted to scream until they all shut up and stopped.
Because they were acting like Harry… like Harry wasn’t coming back.
Like he was better off as dead.
“Are you…are you staying through dinner, then?” Tom’s attention snapped to Weasley who quickly shifted his eyes from where they lingered briefly on the hand Tom had rested besides Harry.
Tom wanted to say that he had half a mind of resigning as the Head Boy just so he could be by Harry’s side until he wakes up, but Weasley might tattle on him to Harry and Tom wouldn’t hear the end of it, so he just settled for—
“Yes.”
—
Tom was indulging himself in a daydream where Dumbledore allowed him the permission to use a time-turner and was in the middle of convincing daydream Harry to stay in the safe walls of the Tom’s dormitory when the real Harry stirred.
Tom was on his feet instantly and all of the stress of the past three days seemed to disappear, replaced by the relief that back through his chest. Tom’s throat suddenly felt tight but he swallowed the feeling down hard and leaned down close to Harry’s face.
“Harry…” Tom said with a voice so small, he wouldn’t even guess it came from him.
Harry’s eyelids fluttered and he turned his head slightly on the pillow. He groaned and Tom thought it was the most beautiful sound he had heard, just second to Harry laughing.
Madam Pomfrey emerged within seconds with her wand already lit. “Back, Mr. Riddle. Give him room to breathe. Mr. Potter? Can you hear me?”
Harry continued to blink and his eyes started watering because of the sudden flare of light from Madam Pomfrey’s wand. Harry’s hand instinctively rose up to his face, his fingers searching. Tom took that as a cue to reach down and pick up Harry’s glasses from the bedside table and slid it carefully into Harry’s hand.
Harry pushed them onto his nose and the frames were sitting crooked against his bridge. Tom resisted the urge to fix it, afraid Harry might go back to being still if he startled him too much. Harry blinked two more times before his green eyes came into focus.
“Wha…” Harry swallowed, his throat dry. “Madam Pomfrey?”
“Yes,” she said. Her wand begin tracing silver arches above his forehead. “Tell me your name.”
“H-Harry Potter.”
“Your age?”
“Seventeen…why—"
“Do you know where you are now?”
“In the hospital wing,” Harry answered, his voice now gaining strength to Tom’s relief again. Harry looked annoyed by Madam Pomfrey’s interrogation and Tom took that as another good sign. “Hogwarts. I … we were playing Ravenclaw. The bludger—”
“Well,” Madam Pomfrey said briskly, “you know who you are, you have your last memory intact and managed to answer all of my question without any nonsense.” She gave a Harry a pointed look. “I’m still keeping you in here for another day, Mr. Potter.”
Harry frowned faintly. “What happened?”
Tom took this as a chance to ease Harry with his presence. “You took a nasty bludger to the chest during the match,” Tom recited. Don’t think about Harry laying In the middle of the field, ”you fell off your broom and struck your head when you landed.”
Don’t think about it.
Harry’s gaze left Madam Pomfrey and found Tom’s. Harry’s face flattened as he took Tom in all his ruffled state. Then, Harry frowned. Tom would have taken that as a sign that something was wrong, but he was more occupied with the fact that Harry was awake. So Tom smiled at him, the smile he allowed only Harry to see.
“You should lie back again, Harry. You’ve been out of it for a while.”
Harry didn’t smile back nor did he shift his shoulders to make room for Tom as he had done ever since the winter of their fourth year. “…Riddle?” His next words the final nail in the coffin. “Why are you here?”
Tom looked at Harry without speaking.
Riddle.
Not Tommy.
Not even Tom—Riddle.
Harry hadn’t called him that in years.
Tom tried to grasp on straws, he found himself waiting for a correction. A sheepish grin with—I’m just messing with you, Tommy.
It never came.
Harry continued to look back at him all puzzled.
Tom searched desperetaly then, looking for … something or anything. He was staring at Harry’s eyes as if he could will the familiar brightness that always appeared in Harry’s eyes whenever he looked at him.
There was nothing.
Tom opened his mouth to try to speak, but the words didn’t come.
Before Hogwarts, before he understood why things happened around him…there had been moments at Wool’s when everything became too loud and too frightening. Whenever that happened, he had run. He either slipped out the back door, climbed the garden wall, or hidden himself whenever no one would think to look.
Running had once been the only thing a frightened orphan could do. Tom was completely on his own then.
Tom tried to hold his composure for exactly three more seconds, closing his eyes. When he opened them, Harry’s blank expression remained.
Tom broke.
He turned without a word and walked out of the hospital wing. And the darkness of the castle's corridors brought Tom back at the orphanage—back to when he was nursing a hurt that burned his soul.
All alone.