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"Where are you taking me?" Tom asked as he was led by Harry. The other teen in question, just turned back and smiled. His robe was half slung over his sleep clothes. Hair rumpled and Invisibility slung over Tom's shoulder after the Harry had been caught during one of his rounds.
"Somewhere…nice…quiet." Harry said as he turned back, turning the corner, hand still wrapped around Tom's wrist. "You'll like it."
Tom frowned. "I would like it a little more if you just listen to me and stay in in the dorms. He narrowed his eyes. "Is this where you sneak off too whenever the mood calls for it?"
Harry didn't answer. Just hummed some cheery tune that Tom had never heard before, and carried on. His grip on Tom's wrist was tight. Those slender fingers wrapped firmly around his, nails close to digging into the flesh. "Potter." Tom said firmly. Harry made a small affirming sound. "At least loosen your grip."
Harry made another sound. It had a disagreeable tone. "No. Then you'd find a way to drag me back to the dorms."
That was true, Tom would do something shady as that. But the lack of faith was honestly disappointing. They stepped outside, the cool air greeting them silently. Tom looked up at the stars, how…quaint.
He had better things to do than stargaze with Potter. And before he could get a word about his duties again, Harry was on the move. Dragging him further over the grass.
"I swear, if this all a ploy, to drag me into the Forbidden Forest and feed me to werewolves."
Harry snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. You wouldn't taste nice to wolves. All rubbery and…evil."
Tom bit the inside of his cheek. The nerve of this kid.
They walked up a hill. It was full of clover. Generic. "What is the meaning of this midnight trek?"
"I need your help."
Tom blinked. Confused. For a second, his hazel eyes adjusting to the grass. "There could be anything in this patch right now, are you daft?"
"Like what?"
"Like…rodents, insects, snakes." He hissed.
Harry smiled. Tilting his head amused, for a second before walking over the hill carefully. Each step was heavy as if he was searching for something. "But then you'd talk to them. You'd tell them not to hurt me."
Tom's eye twitched. How…insufferable this Potter boy was. Hurt him. Like Tom would ever anything hurt them. Absurd. But Harry had never been anything short of absurd.
"What are you trying to do?" Tom asked as he watched Harry stomp over random patches of clovers.
"I'm trying to find something."
Harry was straying further away from him. Tom stepped forward. Too much distance, it was not preferred. "I doubt you could find anything here, much less in the middle of the—" He fell through the ground.
For a second, Tom felt his life flash before his eyes. His past, his present, his future— and then he looked up and saw Harry's face staring down at him with a shit eating grin.
"You found it. Lucky bastard." Harry smirked. Peering through.
Tom looked away and around at him, soil and mud everywhere. Like a hole carved out from underneath the patch. And a narrow tunnel to his right. "Yes, Potter, I have appeared to have fallen into a latrine, congratulations."
There was a thump, of someone falling and then Harry was over him holding his hand out. Tom pushed it away before standing up.
"Is this what you were searching for? Some tunnel under the castle. Where does it lead, Godric's hidden treasures. A stash of gold." Tom scoffed, wiping his robes as he stood straight. It was too dark to see ahead. And Harry's Lumos was quite frankly, abysmal.
"Hopefully, but I think you'll like it nonetheless." Harry was being sarcastic, surely? There was nothing to like here, it was dark and dingy and he was pretty sure bats come here to breed or whatever—
But then Tom was dragged off again, into the tunnel, wand in hand with Harry up ahead acting like some loony Gryffindor.
They walked, for a while. In relative silence, because despite it all, Tom was rather curious. Maybe this place did lead to somewhere worth going. They stepped out of the tunnel— well, more…climbed out by exact definition.
Into a house. An abandoned…house.
"Potter, if we are scheming to become burglars—"
"Relax, this place has been abandoned for a while."
Tom looked around, it had been…abandoned. There was a fine layer of dust over all the furniture. The flowers had long since withered and moulted. There was a rotting smell erupting from the kitchen.
"Did someone die in here?"
Harry looked around, then shrugged, then headed upstairs.
Tom had his wand out. The silence felt deafening. "Potter." Harry just turned back just enough to egg him on, before disappearing into a bedroom. It seemed like he knew the place like the back of his hand. How…odd.
He had just spent the while hopping about in the clover field in search of the entrance. But then again, Harry had always been known to be directionless and rather…disaster-prone.
Speaking of which, the boy was now climbing onto the balcony, and then…
"Have you gone mad?" Tom sneered as he looked up at Harry scaling the roof. What if he fell? What if he— Harry was holding his hand out, and sooner Tom was hoisted up along with him.
They sat on the roof. It made an odd groaning sound which Tom did not appreciate much. But he didn't say anything else. Because he looked back and he saw all of little Hogsmeade stretched out in front of him. The trimmed shops, and rustling green trees. And in the far far distance, Hogwarts.
"It's nice isn't it?" Harry said with a tilt of his head. "In another life, I don't think I would've enjoyed it as much." Tom turned to Harry. The delicate moonlight painting his face.
Had Harry's lashes always been that long? Or was it simply a perceptive trick. Harry's messy hair had something stuck in it. A clover? Perhaps so. Tom clenched his jaw and looked back at the town. "It is…adequate."
Harry snorted. And what followed was an amicable silence. "Why here?" Tom asked, the silence seemed rather unbearable.
"It's quiet. And nice. And I thought you'd like it…" Harry said, and his voice felt smaller. Not quite like his brash, taunting tone earlier.
Tom looked up, at the stars. There were so many, the entire sky seemed to be full of them. It was one thing, to view them with a telescope, and another completely to sitting on the roof of an abandoned shack with a boy he'd come to respect.
Alone.
The world was silent. Pleasant.
Harry leaned against Tom, head against his shoulder. And Tom, for what it was worth, did not stiffen.
"You're insufferable." Tom whispered.
"Takes one to know one." Tom did not look back at Harry. He didn't need too.
Harry was right. Tom did like this place.