Archive of Our Own

The Slytherin common room was at its most pleasant in the late afternoon, when the sun sank low enough to turn the lake beyond the windows a murky, golden green. Light filtered through the water in shifting ribbons, sliding across the stone walls and the dark green upholstery of the armchairs, illuminating the occasional passing shadow of a fish. The fire had been lit despite the mild weather, and its warmth mingled with the faint smell of old books, polished wood, and whatever expensive perfume Abraxas Malfoy had decided was appropriate for a Tuesday. It was, Tom thought, a very comfortable room. One could almost forget that it was several feet beneath a lake, surrounded by water and stone, with no natural light and no view of the sky.

Perhaps that was the point. The Slytherins had a talent for making confinement look like luxury.

Tom sat in one of the armchairs nearest the fire, a book open across his knee. He had been on the same page for nearly twenty minutes.

Across the room, Abraxas Malfoy was holding court.

This was not an unusual occurrence. Abraxas held court while eating breakfast, while walking between classes, while waiting for professors to arrive, and once, memorably, while being sick into a basin after a particularly ambitious attempt at drinking something stolen from his father's liquor cabinet. He possessed the remarkable ability to turn any gathering of more than two people into an audience, and he had never encountered a subject upon which he did not consider himself an authority. 

His pale blond hair was immaculately arranged, his robes were cut from material Tom suspected cost more than the entire contents of the orphanage's Christmas dinner, and his expression suggested that the world had been built specifically to provide him with things to criticize.

Walburga Black sat beside him on the arm of a sofa, looking as though she had been born there and expected the furniture to consider itself fortunate. She was a year or two younger than Abraxas, perhaps, but carried herself with the severity of a woman twice his age. Her black hair was pinned neatly away from her face, and a silver ring bearing the Black family crest gleamed on her right hand. She had the sort of face that might have been pretty if it had ever been permitted to relax.

Orion Black sat beside Tom.

Unlike his cousin, Orion had never seemed particularly interested in commanding a room. He was quiet without being timid, thoughtful without being pretentious, and possessed of an unfortunate habit of noticing when other people were uncomfortable. He had once spent the better part of a Potions lesson helping a first-year repair a torn sleeve while simultaneously pretending to listen to Slughorn's lecture. He had also given Tom half of his lunch on a day when Tom had forgotten to eat, which Tom had found both unnecessary and vaguely insulting until Orion had pointed out that he had forgotten his own lunch often enough that the gesture hardly constituted charity.

Tom had not thanked him.

Orion had not appeared to mind.

At present, he was reading a book on magical flora, one ankle tucked beneath his knee. Every so often, he turned a page and glanced toward the fire, his expression mild and pleasantly vacant. Tom had long ago discovered that this apparent vacancy was deceptive. Orion noticed considerably more than he let on.

Unfortunately, he also tended to notice things Tom would have preferred to keep private.

"Of course, the trouble with these lists," Abraxas was saying, "is that people have become altogether too comfortable pretending they don't matter. My father says the Sacred Twenty-Eight have been the backbone of wizarding society for generations, and frankly, I don't see how anyone can dispute that."

"People dispute it because the list is hardly infallible," said a boy from the opposite sofa. "There are families on it that have been pure-blood for centuries and are still entirely useless."

"That isn't the point, Selwyn."

"Isn't it?"

"The point," Walburga interrupted, with the sharp impatience of someone who considered the existence of disagreement a personal inconvenience, "is that bloodlines matter whether people like it or not. One cannot simply decide that ancestry is irrelevant because one's own happens to be unimpressive."

Tom's eyes moved across the page.

He did not turn it.

"Some families," Walburga continued, "have spent generations maintaining their standing. Others have spent generations marrying beneath themselves, squandering their inheritance, or allowing themselves to become so diluted that they are scarcely distinguishable from Muggles. It is an unfortunate state of affairs, but one cannot expect everyone to pretend that all families are equal."

Abraxas gave an approving hum. "Quite. And yet the Ministry insists upon treating blood status as though it were an embarrassing little detail. My father says the whole system is becoming rather bland. No standards, no discernment, no appreciation for history."

"Your father thinks everything is becoming bland if it doesn't involve a Malfoy," Orion murmured without looking up from his book.

Tom's mouth twitched.

Abraxas either did not hear him or decided that acknowledging the remark would be beneath him. "There is a difference between being wealthy and being well-born. People seem to have forgotten that. Money can be acquired. An estate can be purchased. But ancestry is not something one can simply manufacture."

Tom felt the words settle somewhere beneath his ribs.

It was a ridiculous sensation. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the statement. Abraxas was repeating the sort of thing his father had undoubtedly repeated at dinner tables since the boy was old enough to hold a fork. It was not even an original opinion. Tom had heard variations of it from professors, from older students, from men who visited the orphanage and looked at the children as though they were unfortunate stains upon an otherwise orderly world.

He knew precisely what Abraxas meant.

That was the problem.

"Take the Blacks," Abraxas said, gesturing toward Walburga with the air of a man presenting a particularly impressive exhibit. "The family has a history. A proper history. The sort of lineage people recognize. You can trace a Black through generations of witches and wizards whose names actually mean something."

Walburga smiled. It was not a pleasant expression.

"Naturally."

"And the Malfoys," Abraxas added, with becoming modesty. "Though I imagine I needn't explain that."

"No," Walburga agreed. "The Malfoys have always understood the importance of preserving their position."

Tom turned a page.

It was the wrong page. He had not read a word.

Beside him, Orion's book had stopped moving.

"And then there are families who are perfectly respectable on paper," Walburga continued, "but have somehow managed to produce children with no discernible sense of their own place. It is remarkable how often a good name can be wasted on a poor upbringing."

A small silence followed.

Tom could feel it before he looked up, the subtle shift in the room's attention. Walburga's gaze had drifted toward a group of younger Slytherins near the windows, but it did not remain there. Her eyes passed over the room, paused briefly on Tom, and moved on.

Perhaps it had been accidental.

Perhaps she had intended him to notice.

Tom had learned long ago that people rarely needed to say his name to make their meaning clear.

"One does wonder," Abraxas said, "what becomes of a wizard who possesses talent but no real family behind him. Talent is all very well, but it cannot account for everything. There are certain expectations one must learn somewhere."

"One might learn them at school," said Orion.

Walburga looked at him.

"One might," she replied, "if one were capable of understanding that school is not the same thing as the world beyond it."

Orion's expression remained composed, though his fingers had tightened slightly around the edge of his book. "I didn't say it was."

"No, you rarely say very much at all, Orion. It is one of your more tolerable qualities."

Abraxas laughed.

It was a short, polished laugh, the sort of sound one made when a person of sufficient standing said something cruel and expected to be rewarded for it. Several other Slytherins smiled. One of them glanced toward Tom and immediately looked away.

Tom was very good at being looked at.

He was even better at pretending not to notice.

"Still," Abraxas went on, apparently satisfied with the direction of the conversation, "I suppose we ought to be charitable. Some people simply cannot help where they come from."

"Charity is for people who deserve it," Walburga said. "And even then, I would suggest keeping it discreet. There is nothing more embarrassing than a person who mistakes kindness for acceptance."

Tom finally looked up.

Walburga was smiling at something Abraxas had said, her fingers turning the silver ring around and around. She looked perfectly at ease. She had not raised her voice. She had not insulted anyone by name. If challenged, she could have denied every implication and made the person objecting look absurdly sensitive.

Tom admired the technique.

He hated her for it.

He hated, more than anything, that he understood her.

"Tom."

Orion's voice was quiet enough that it barely disturbed the crackling of the fire.

Tom looked at him.

Orion had closed his book. His dark eyes searched Tom's face with an uncomfortable degree of attention, and there was something apologetic in his expression, as though he were personally responsible for the fact that other people were capable of being unpleasant.

"What?" Tom asked.

"You're holding your book upside down."

Tom looked down.

For one terrible second, he did not understand what he was seeing. Then he realized that, somewhere between turning the page and Walburga's remarks, he had rotated the book in his hands.

He turned it over.

"How observant of you."

"Someone has to be."

"Shouldn't you be paying attention to your flowers?"

Orion glanced at the book beside him. "They're plants, actually."

"An important distinction."

"Quite. Flowers are the reproductive structures of angiosperms, and not all plants produce them. I would hate for you to embarrass yourself."

Tom stared at him.

Orion's mouth curved, just slightly.

It was a ridiculous thing to say. A childish thing, almost. And yet Tom felt something loosen in his chest, a tension he had not consciously acknowledged until the moment it began to ease. Orion had not told him to ignore Walburga. He had not offered some clumsy reassurance about how none of it mattered. He had simply given Tom something else to think about, as though the conversation across the room were no more important than a draft beneath the door.

Tom looked away first.

"You are a peculiar person, Orion Black."

"I've been told."

"Frequently, I imagine."

"Mostly by my family."

There was no bitterness in the reply, but Tom caught the faint shadow that crossed Orion's face. It was gone almost immediately. Orion reached for his book again, his thumb finding the place where he had left off.

Tom wondered what it was like to be unhappy with one's family and still have a family to be unhappy with.

He wondered what it was like to have a surname that followed you everywhere, opening doors you had never asked to enter and closing others you might have wanted to leave open. He wondered whether Orion ever felt that the name Black was a weight around his neck, or whether it was simply something he had never needed to consider.

The thought irritated him.

It was one thing to envy Abraxas Malfoy. Abraxas was insufferable, and his advantages were so obvious that resenting them required very little imagination. But Orion was not insufferable. Orion was kind, and thoughtful, and apparently content to spend his afternoons reading about plants that most people would have overlooked entirely.

Tom could not even resent him properly.

Across the room, Walburga rose from the sofa, smoothing the front of her robes.

"I have a letter to write," she announced. "My mother expects me to confirm the guest list for the winter gathering, and I would rather not have to explain to her why I have invited someone unsuitable."

"God forbid," Abraxas said, standing to accompany her.

"Indeed. One must have standards."

She passed behind Tom's chair. For a moment, the scent of her perfume lingered in the air, something floral and expensive. Then she stopped.

"Riddle."

Tom raised his eyes to hers.

"Yes?"

Walburga studied him with an expression of cool curiosity. Up close, her eyes were very dark, almost black, and her face held the peculiar stillness of someone who had learned early that the first person to show emotion was the first person to lose.

"I was wondering," she said, "whether you have ever looked into your family history."

The question was so direct that, for a moment, Tom almost admired her.

"Naturally," he replied.

"And what did you discover?"

"That I am descended from a very long line of people who were unfortunate enough not to have met your approval."

Abraxas made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh. Walburga did not so much as blink.

"How witty. I suppose wit is useful when one has little else to recommend oneself."

"Then you must find it indispensable."

Orion's hand closed around Tom's wrist.

It was not a hard grip. Orion was not trying to restrain him, exactly. His fingers were warm against Tom's skin, his thumb resting just above the pulse point. The contact was so unexpected that Tom's attention dropped to it before he could stop himself.

Walburga noticed.

Of course she noticed.

Her gaze flicked from Orion's hand to Tom's face, and something cold and satisfied settled into her expression.

"How sweet," she said. "Orion has always been sentimental. He does have a regrettable tendency to collect strays."

"Walburga," Orion said.

There was no sharpness in his voice. That was what made it startling. Orion was almost always gentle, even when he disagreed with someone. But now his expression had changed, his brows drawing together as he looked at his cousin.

"That is enough."

The room seemed to quiet around them.

Walburga stared at him, plainly astonished. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"How very dramatic. I was making an observation."

"No," Orion said, his fingers still resting around Tom's wrist. "You were being cruel and pretending that made you clever."

For the first time that afternoon, Walburga's composure slipped. Not much. A faint tightening around her mouth, a slight lift of her chin. But Tom saw it, and so did Abraxas, whose expression had become abruptly fascinated.

"Be careful, Orion," Walburga said softly. "You seem to have forgotten yourself."

"Perhaps." Orion released Tom's wrist at last, though he did not look away from his cousin. "But at least I know who I am."

The words struck with a force that their quiet delivery did nothing to diminish.

Walburga's face hardened. She looked at Tom once more, and this time there was no pretense that her attention was accidental.

"Enjoy your afternoon, Riddle."

She walked away before he could reply, Abraxas following after a moment's hesitation. Their voices resumed near the staircase, low and irritated, and the common room slowly returned to its usual rhythm. Someone laughed. A log shifted in the fireplace. Beyond the windows, a pale fish drifted past, its fins stirring the green water.

Tom sat very still.

Orion picked up his book, then seemed to think better of it. "I'm sorry."

Tom turned his head slowly. "For what?"

"For her."

"She is your cousin, not your keeper. You needn't apologize for her behavior."

"I know."

"Then why are you doing it?"

Orion considered the question with the seriousness he seemed to reserve for things that mattered. "Because she hurt your feelings."

Tom laughed.

It was a perfectly measured sound, light and incredulous, designed to suggest that Orion had said something so absurd it did not deserve a proper response.

"How charitable of you to imagine I possess any."

Orion did not laugh with him. His expression softened instead, and Tom found that considerably more difficult to endure.

"You don't have to pretend with me," Orion said.

The words were gentle. Almost careless. Orion might have said them to someone who had dropped a plate or caught a finger in a door, something small and ordinary that could be soothed with a kind word and a little patience.

Tom wanted to despise him for it.

He wanted to ask what Orion thought he knew, what he had observed, what pitiful little conclusion he had drawn from a few afternoons spent in the same room. He wanted to tell him that there was nothing to pretend about, that he had earned every mark, every compliment, every scrap of admiration he had ever received, and that if the other Slytherins wanted to measure him against their ancestors, they were welcome to discover exactly how poorly those ancestors compared.

Instead, he looked down at his book.

"You're mistaken," he said.

Orion was quiet for a moment. Then he opened his book again.

"All right."

That was all.

No argument. No insistence. No attempt to pry open a door Tom had firmly shut.

Somehow, it was worse than if he had challenged him.

Tom stared at the page until the words blurred into meaningless black lines. Across the room, Abraxas laughed at something Walburga had said, and the sound carried easily through the common room.

Ancestry is not something one can simply manufacture.

Tom had never wanted to manufacture anything. He wanted to uncover what was already there, to discover the hidden architecture of the world and master it so completely that no one would ever dare look down at him again.

He was intelligent. He was talented. He was certain of both.

But certainty, he was beginning to discover, was not the same thing as security.

The Sacred Twenty-Eight had names that opened doors. They had portraits, estates, family histories, and dead relatives whose achievements could be invoked whenever their living descendants failed to produce anything of their own. They had the luxury of being ordinary because their names would carry them where their abilities could not.

Tom had no such luxury.

If he was not exceptional, then what was he?

A boy from a Muggle orphanage, sitting in a room beneath a lake, surrounded by people who could trace their bloodlines back centuries and still found time to complain about the quality of their peers.

A boy who had learned to smile before he had learned to trust, who could recite the names of the Sacred Twenty-Eight but could not name a single ancestor who might have been proud of him.

A boy who had been told, in a hundred different ways, that the world belonged to people who had been born knowing where they stood.

Tom Riddle had no intention of remaining where he had been placed.

He would learn their histories. He would master their traditions. He would become so brilliant, so powerful, so indispensable that the very people who looked down on him would be forced to look up.

One day, Abraxas Malfoy would speak his name with respect.

One day, Walburga Black would regret having ever looked at him with pity.

One day, the world would have no choice but to acknowledge him.

Beside him, Orion turned another page.

After a while, without looking up, he nudged a small plate of biscuits toward Tom.

Tom stared at it.

"You're not hungry?" he asked.

"I am."

"Then why are you giving them to me?"

"Because you haven't eaten anything since lunch."

Tom looked at the biscuits, then at Orion, who had already returned to his book as though the matter were settled.

There was no calculation in the gesture. No audience to impress, no favor to be collected later, no invisible ledger in which Orion was recording his generosity. He had noticed that Tom was hungry and had decided to do something about it.

It was an absurdly simple kindness.

Tom took a biscuit.

"Thank you," he said, the words emerging before he had time to reconsider them.

Orion glanced up, and his smile was small and warm.

"You're welcome, Tom."

Tom looked away.

He did not know what to do with kindness that asked nothing of him. He did not know how to accept it without searching for the trap, or how to believe that someone might offer him something simply because they wanted him to have it.

But he ate the biscuit.

And when Orion returned to his reading, Tom found himself listening to the quiet sound of the pages turning, the crackle of the fire, and the steady, unremarkable rhythm of someone sitting beside him without asking him to prove that he deserved the space.

For the moment, it was enough.

The first thing Tom noticed about the sunglasses was that they were offensively yellow.

Not a tasteful, muted gold, nor the sort of amber one might find in an antique shop or set into the handle of an expensive walking cane. No, these were a startling, almost aggressive shade of yellow, with thick plastic frames and lenses that caught the afternoon light like two pieces of stained glass. They sat on the nose of a second-year Slytherin named Michael, who had apparently decided that the middle of lunch was the appropriate time to announce their existence to the entire House.

"They're American," Michael explained for what Tom suspected was the fourth time. He held them up by one arm, turning them so that the yellow lenses flashed beneath the enchanted ceiling. "Well, technically, I got them in London, but they're a Muggle brand. My uncle took me shopping over the summer, and there was a whole shop full of them. You put them on, and everything looks yellow. Everything. Even the sky."

"How dreadful," Abraxas Malfoy said from across the table.

Michael's enthusiasm faltered only slightly. "It's actually brilliant. Look."

He put the sunglasses on.

Tom watched as Michael turned his head toward the windows, then toward the enchanted ceiling, then toward the enormous bowl of potatoes in front of him. His expression grew steadily more delighted.

"Merlin, even the potatoes look good."

A few people laughed. Michael grinned, encouraged, and took the glasses off again.

"See? They're brilliant."

"They're spectacles," Abraxas replied, with the air of a man explaining an unfortunate fact of life to a particularly slow child. "Coloured spectacles, at that. I fail to see what's so remarkable about making everything look as though it's been left out in the sun too long."

"They're sunglasses."

"How wonderfully descriptive. And here I thought they were a new form of Muggle medical equipment."

"Abraxas," Walburga Black said, sounding amused rather than disapproving, "you mustn't expect him to understand the difference between fashion and a novelty purchased for threepence."

"They cost considerably more than threepence," Michael muttered.

"Did they?" Abraxas leaned back in his chair. "How unfortunate. Imagine spending good money on something that makes the world look worse."

Michael's ears turned pink.

Tom took a sip of water.

He had been listening to the conversation with the mild interest one might extend to a particularly noisy bird. Muggle inventions were not usually a subject of great importance at the Slytherin table, where the prevailing opinion was that anything invented without magic was either a primitive approximation of something wizards had possessed for centuries or an elaborate waste of time. Abraxas was especially fond of this position. It allowed him to dismiss nearly everything unfamiliar without the inconvenience of learning about it.

Michael, however, appeared unwilling to surrender his enthusiasm.

"They're not meant to make everything look better," he protested. "They just change the colour. And they're useful when it's sunny."

"In England?" Abraxas asked. "How often does that happen?"

"The sun exists outside England, you know."

"How fortunate for it."

Orion made a small, disapproving noise beside Tom.

It was not quite a scoff. Orion rarely scoffed. He seemed to regard open displays of contempt as a somewhat embarrassing waste of energy, though this did not prevent him from making his displeasure known in quieter ways. He was currently dismantling a roast potato with unnecessary precision, his attention fixed on Abraxas with the expression of someone watching a child misbehave in public.

"They're rather nice to look at," he said.

Abraxas turned to him. "What?"

"The glasses." Orion nodded toward Michael. "The yellow is quite cheerful."

There was a brief silence.

Tom looked at Orion.

Orion, who had grown up in one of the oldest pure-blood families in Britain, who wore his family name as casually as he wore his robes, who could have had a dozen expensive pairs of enchanted spectacles commissioned if he had ever wanted them, was looking at a pair of Muggle sunglasses as though they were a perfectly reasonable thing to admire.

"They're yellow," Abraxas said flatly.

"Yes."

"They make everything look yellow."

"That does appear to be the idea."

Michael snorted.

Abraxas's expression soured. "I see. Well, perhaps you two ought to start a club. You could call it the Society for the Appreciation of Pointless Objects."

"Would there be refreshments?" Orion asked.

Tom nearly choked on his water.

It was a small sound, barely more than a cough, but Orion immediately turned toward him, his eyes bright with the unmistakable satisfaction of someone who had successfully provoked a laugh from a notoriously difficult audience.

Tom set his goblet down.

"Do try not to encourage him," he said.

"I wasn't aware you disapproved."

"I disapprove of many things. Your conversation is merely the most immediate."

Orion smiled and returned to his lunch.

Tom looked away before the expression could have any further effect on him.

The conversation drifted elsewhere after that. Michael was drawn into an argument with a Ravenclaw about the superiority of Muggle motorcars, Abraxas began complaining about the Ministry, and Walburga was soon occupied with a letter that had arrived by owl. The yellow sunglasses were placed carefully beside Michael's plate, where they continued to attract occasional glances from curious students.

Tom, however, had not forgotten them.

Because he had two pairs.

Not the same ones, naturally. Michael's were thick-framed and rather loud, with lenses that made him look like an overenthusiastic tourist. Tom's were considerably finer, with narrow, dark frames and lenses of a rich golden amber. They had been manufactured by a Muggle company called Polaroid, whose advertisements he had encountered during the summer while browsing a shop in London. He had been intrigued by the claim that the lenses could reduce glare, and the fact that the company had found a way to manipulate light without the assistance of a single charm had struck him as almost offensively clever.

He had purchased neither pair.

Purchasing things required money, and money was something Tom had always preferred to keep in reserve. Besides, the shopkeeper had been distracted by a customer who was arguing over the price of a camera, and Tom had discovered that the sunglasses were remarkably easy to slip into the inner pocket of his jacket.

He had taken one pair.

Then, after a moment's consideration, he had taken another.

He had told himself that he wanted to examine the construction of the lenses. This was true, as far as it went. He had spent an entire evening studying them, testing the effect of sunlight through the amber glass, and examining the tiny printed lettering on the inside of the frames. They were a clever little piece of engineering.

He had also, rather inexplicably, liked them.

The fact that he had stolen them had nothing to do with it. He could have afforded a pair, had he wished to spend his money. He simply hadn't seen the point.

At least, that was what he had told himself.

Now, watching Orion quietly defend Michael's ridiculous yellow spectacles, Tom found himself reconsidering the point.

"Orion."

"Hm?"

"Would you like a pair of sunglasses?"

Orion paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

Slowly, he turned his head.

"I'm sorry?"

"Sunglasses." Tom regarded him with studied patience. "Those things Michael has been talking about for the past quarter of an hour. The ones Abraxas appears to believe are a threat to civilization."

"I know what sunglasses are, Tom."

"Then I fail to see the difficulty."

Orion set down his fork. "Why are you asking me if I'd like a pair?"

"Because you said they were nice to look at."

"I said Michael's were nice to look at."

"An important distinction, I'm sure."

Orion narrowed his eyes slightly. "You have sunglasses?"

Tom considered him.

He could, of course, have said no. He could have changed the subject, made some cutting remark about Orion's curiosity, or pretended that the question had been nothing more than a passing thought. He was rather good at doing all three.

Instead, he said, "I have two pairs."

Orion stared at him.

"Two?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Must there be a reason for everything I own?"

"With you? Usually."

Tom gave him a look of cool offense.

Orion's mouth twitched. "Where did you get them?"

"London."

"Tom."

"Orion."

"Did you buy them?"

Tom picked up his goblet.

The silence that followed was answer enough.

Orion's expression underwent a series of small but fascinating changes. First came surprise, then comprehension, then an unmistakable effort to suppress a smile.

"You stole them."

"I acquired them."

"You stole them."

"I would advise you to be careful with your accusations."

"Did you steal them from a shop?"

Tom took a leisurely sip of water. "The shopkeeper appeared to have more than enough."

Orion pressed his lips together.

For one dreadful moment, Tom thought he might laugh. Not at him, exactly, but at the sheer absurdity of the situation, which was almost worse. Tom had spent years cultivating an image of himself as a young man who was sensible, controlled, and possessed of an impeccable understanding of consequences. He did not go about stealing brightly coloured Muggle accessories on a whim.

He had stolen them because he wanted them.

That was the most humiliating part.

Orion's shoulders began to shake.

"Don't," Tom warned.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're laughing."

"I'm trying not to."

"Try harder."

Orion lowered his head, pressing a hand over his mouth. His eyes had gone bright with suppressed amusement, and Tom found himself torn between irritation and the peculiar desire to see what Orion's face looked like when he finally gave up and laughed properly.

It was a dangerous thing to wonder.

At last, Orion managed to compose himself. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh."

"No, you shouldn't."

"But you stole two pairs of sunglasses."

"Your powers of observation are extraordinary."

"And now you're offering me one."

Tom shrugged, as though the matter were entirely unremarkable. "I don't particularly need both."

This was a lie. He had rather liked the idea of keeping one pair pristine while using the other, and had spent a surprising amount of time deciding which pair to wear on the rare occasions when he ventured into Muggle London. But he could hardly explain that without admitting that the sunglasses had been an indulgence, a small and entirely unnecessary thing he had wanted for himself.

Orion seemed to consider this.

Then his expression softened, and Tom immediately regretted the entire conversation.

"That's very kind of you."

Tom stared at him.

Kind.

The word was so utterly misplaced that he almost laughed. He had stolen the glasses. He was offering one pair to Orion partly because he had no idea what to do with the second and partly because Orion had looked at Michael's sunglasses with such uncomplicated pleasure that Tom had found himself wanting to reproduce the expression.

It was not kindness.

It was curiosity.

It was an experiment.

It was, perhaps, a particularly foolish form of—

"You're welcome," Tom said abruptly.

Orion's smile widened.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. You haven't seen them."

"Are they ugly?"

"Hideous."

"Then I shall treasure them."

Tom looked at him for a long moment.

There were several things he might have said. He might have informed Orion that his taste was questionable, or that he had an alarming tendency to value things simply because they had been given to him. He might have asked whether Orion would treasure a lump of coal if Tom handed him one, or suggested that his cousin had been correct about the unfortunate state of his judgment.

Instead, Tom found himself smiling.

It was a small smile, there and gone before anyone across the table could have noticed it. Orion, however, noticed. Orion always noticed.

He did not comment.

For that, Tom was almost grateful.

"After dinner," Tom said, returning his attention to his plate. "I'll show you."

"Can I try them on?"

"If you must."

"And you'll tell me how they work?"

"If you promise not to ask me to explain every little detail."

"I make no promises."

Tom sighed, long-suffering.

Orion reached for his goblet, still smiling, and Tom found himself watching the movement of his hands, the faint crease at the corner of his eyes, the easy contentment of someone who had been offered a small gift and had accepted it without searching for a hidden obligation.

It was absurd.

It was only a pair of sunglasses.

Tom had stolen them from a shop in London because he had liked the way the light looked through the lenses. He had kept them hidden in his trunk, alongside a handful of other things he had acquired over the summer, objects that had no practical use and no particular significance.

And now, somehow, one of those objects had become something he wanted to share.

Across the table, Abraxas was still talking about the appalling decline of standards in wizarding society. Michael had put his yellow sunglasses back on and was attempting to persuade a third-year to try them. Walburga was writing a letter in neat, furious strokes.

Tom looked at them all, then turned back to Orion.

"Actually," he said, "I think you'll suit the darker pair."

Orion blinked. "You haven't even shown them to me."

"I have eyes."

"An excellent discovery."

"And taste."

"Debatable."

Tom gave him a cool look.

Orion grinned.

For the first time that afternoon, Tom found that he did not particularly care who was watching them.

He had something Orion wanted to see.

And, for once, he did not intend to keep it entirely to himself.

Hogsmeade was a thoroughly unpleasant place to be in winter, in Tom's opinion.

The streets were muddy, the wind had a nasty habit of finding its way beneath one's robes, and the shops were so crowded with Hogwarts students that purchasing anything required the patience of a saint and the elbows of a professional duellist. Someone had spilled something sticky outside Honeydukes, a group of third-years were shrieking over a snowball fight that had already turned violent, and a particularly enthusiastic Gryffindor had managed to get his scarf caught in the door of the Three Broomsticks.

Tom was beginning to understand why the older Slytherins preferred to remain at the castle.

Beside him, Orion Black seemed perfectly content.

He had spent the better part of the morning looking into shop windows, pausing to admire things Tom considered entirely unremarkable, and insisting that they ought to take the longer route down the High Street because the snow on the rooftops was pretty. He had also purchased a paper bag of sugared almonds, eaten approximately half of them, and offered the rest to Tom with the air of someone presenting a generous diplomatic concession.

Tom had taken three.

Orion had noticed and smiled to himself, which was becoming a habit Tom found increasingly difficult to tolerate.

"Are you going to spend the entire afternoon looking as though someone has personally offended you?" Orion asked.

"I am cold."

"You have a warming charm."

"It wears off."

"Then cast it again."

"I am surrounded by people who appear to have forgotten the purpose of walking. I should not be expected to perform magic every thirty seconds merely to preserve my sanity."

Orion laughed, his breath clouding in the air. "You could always go back to the castle."

"And leave you to wander into a snowdrift while admiring a particularly attractive chimney?"

"I have never wandered into a snowdrift."

"You were looking at a chimney when you walked into that lamppost last month."

"It was a very interesting chimney."

"It was attached to a house."

"Most chimneys are."

Tom gave him a withering look. Orion only smiled, tucking his hands into his coat pockets as they continued down the street.

Tom had been discovering, with increasing irritation, that Orion was rather good company.

Not in the conventional sense. Orion was not especially witty, though he occasionally managed to surprise Tom with an observation sharp enough to draw blood. He was not particularly ambitious, at least not in any way Tom could identify. He had no interest in debating the merits of obscure magical theories for hours, and he possessed an alarming fondness for small, unnecessary things.

But Orion listened when Tom spoke.

He remembered what Tom liked and, more troublingly, what he disliked. He had stopped asking whether Tom wanted to visit the sweet shop after Tom mentioned that he disliked being crowded by children, and he had developed the habit of positioning himself between Tom and the noisiest groups of students without ever acknowledging that he was doing it.

It was a peculiar sort of consideration.

Tom had not decided what to make of it.

"Wait here a moment," Orion said suddenly.

Tom stopped.

"What?"

"I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?"

Orion glanced toward a narrow alley between two shops. There was a faint flush on his cheeks, though Tom attributed it to the cold.

"I have something to do."

"What sort of something?"

"A private something."

"How mysterious."

"Try not to be kidnapped while I'm gone."

"Try not to be murdered. I should hate to have to explain it to your family."

Orion grinned and disappeared into the crowd.

Tom watched him go.

Then he looked at the alley.

Then back at the crowd.

"Ridiculous," he muttered.

He waited for approximately forty seconds before deciding that Orion had clearly abandoned him to the mercy of Hogsmeade's appalling pedestrian traffic and that he was perfectly entitled to amuse himself elsewhere.

He turned down a side street.

The shops here were smaller, older, and considerably less crowded. A narrow apothecary stood between a shop selling second-hand books and a little establishment whose windows were filled with brass instruments, old clocks, and objects Tom suspected were either broken or cursed. Snow had collected along the edges of the cobblestones, and the wind carried the distant sound of laughter from the High Street.

Tom paused outside the bookshop, considering whether it was worth the trouble of going inside.

He had almost decided against it when he heard a faint, irregular jingling.

He frowned.

The sound came again.

Jingle. Jingle-jingle.

It was followed by a small, distressed chirp.

Tom turned his head.

At first, he saw nothing but a stack of wooden crates beside the wall of the neighbouring shop. Then one of the crates shifted, and a tiny bundle of grey-brown feathers emerged from beneath it.

An owl.

A very young owl, judging by the size of it. Its feathers were still fluffy around its head, and its enormous eyes blinked in alarm as it attempted to hop away from the crates. A thin string had been tied around its body, just beneath its wings, and several little brass bells hung from it.

Every time the owl moved, the bells jingled.

The creature stumbled.

Tom went very still.

The owl tried again, flapping its wings in a desperate little burst of effort. The string tightened. One of the bells caught against a feather, and the owl let out a thin, frightened squeak.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Tom said.

He crouched immediately.

The owl recoiled, its little beak opening in warning. Tom stopped moving.

"Yes, well. I'm not particularly pleased about this either."

He kept his voice low, watching the creature carefully. It was trembling, whether from cold or fear he couldn't tell. The string was tied in several knots, some of them pulled so tightly that the feathers beneath them had been flattened. The bells were far too large for such a small bird, and one had caught against the delicate skin beneath its wing.

A prank, then.

A cruel one.

Tom's expression hardened.

He had seen enough of the things students did to one another when they believed the consequences would be amusing. He had watched boys charm each other's belongings into ridiculous shapes, hex younger students in corridors, and leave unfortunate creatures in places where they would be frightened or hurt. Usually, he considered such behaviour beneath his attention.

This was different.

Perhaps because the owl was so small.

Perhaps because it had no way of understanding why someone had tied a string of bells around its body and left it to struggle in the snow.

Perhaps because it reminded him, in some uncomfortable and uninvited way, of the things people did to anything they considered helpless.

"Come here," he murmured.

The owl blinked at him.

Tom held out one hand, palm upward, and waited.

He had learned long ago that most creatures responded better to patience than force. People were more complicated. People had motives, expectations, and an unfortunate tendency to interpret kindness as weakness. Animals, at least, were honest about their fear.

The owl shuffled forward by a few inches.

"That's it."

Another inch.

The bells jingled.

The owl startled and attempted to retreat, tangling itself further in the string.

Tom swore under his breath.

"Honestly. Who thought this was clever?"

He took off his gloves and placed them beside him, then slowly reached toward the bird. It snapped at his fingers, catching the edge of his sleeve instead.

"Yes, well, I deserved that."

He waited again.

Eventually, the owl allowed him to cup it gently in both hands. It weighed almost nothing. Its tiny heart beat rapidly against his palms, and its feathers were cold beneath his fingers.

Tom had never held an owl quite so young.

He had seen hatchlings in the school owlery, of course, but those had been safely tucked into nests beneath their mothers' wings, watched over by older birds and the occasional irritated caretaker. This one was alone, shivering in a side street with bells tied around its body by someone who had apparently found the prospect amusing.

Tom's jaw tightened.

He drew his wand.

"Finite."

The bells fell silent, though the string remained stubbornly knotted. Tom examined it carefully, then used the tip of his wand to loosen the knots one at a time. He worked slowly, taking care not to catch the owl's skin or pull at its feathers. The creature watched him with enormous, suspicious eyes.

"There," he murmured as the first knot came free. "You see? It is possible to be quiet without making a spectacle of yourself."

The owl gave a soft chirp.

"Exactly."

The second knot loosened.

Then the third.

At last, the string slipped free, and the bells tumbled into the snow with a series of muffled little clinks.

The owl shook itself violently.

Tom stared at it.

The bird stared back.

Then, with the astonishing confidence of something that had been rescued from a minor inconvenience rather than an ordeal, it climbed onto his wrist and began investigating his sleeve.

Tom blinked.

"Well."

The owl nibbled at a loose thread.

"That is mine."

It nibbled again.

"Are you listening to me?"

The owl peered up at him.

Tom found himself smiling.

It was an odd little thing, with downy feathers around its face and a pale patch above one eye that made it look perpetually astonished. Its feet curled around his wrist, and it seemed entirely satisfied with the arrangement, as though it had personally decided that Tom Riddle was a suitable perch and that his opinion on the matter was of little importance.

He raised his arm slightly.

The owl shuffled higher.

"You're a very presumptuous creature."

A soft chirrup.

"Yes, well. I suppose someone must be."

He was still examining the owl when he heard footsteps behind him.

"Tom?"

He turned.

Orion stood at the mouth of the side street, his cheeks pink from the cold and his hair slightly dishevelled by the wind. He was carrying a bouquet.

Not an ordinary bouquet, either.

The flowers were wrapped in dark green paper, deep forest green that looked almost black where the shadows fell across it. Silver ribbon had been wound around the stems, and the flowers themselves were an unusual mixture of white blossoms, delicate green sprigs, and tiny yellow flowers that caught the winter light. The arrangement was elegant without being ostentatious, the sort of thing that had clearly been selected with care rather than purchased in a hurry.

Orion looked at Tom.

Then at the owl.

Then back at Tom.

"Oh," he said.

Tom glanced down at the bird, which had begun attempting to eat his cuff.

"I found it."

"I can see that."

"Someone tied bells around it."

Orion's expression changed.

He stepped closer, the bouquet held carefully in one hand. "What?"

Tom gestured toward the discarded string in the snow. "A rather pathetic attempt at humour, I imagine."

Orion looked at the bells. His mouth tightened.

"That's horrible."

"Yes."

"Is it hurt?"

"I don't think so. I've removed the string, but I haven't examined its wings properly."

Orion crouched beside him, careful not to disturb the owl. His expression softened as the little creature turned its head to inspect him.

"Hello, sweetheart," he murmured.

The owl chirped.

Tom looked at him with faint disbelief.

"It tried to bite me."

"Perhaps it was frightened."

"It bit my sleeve."

"Perhaps your sleeve frightened it."

"My sleeve is perfectly respectable."

Orion smiled, and the owl leaned forward to investigate the edge of his glove.

For a moment, the two of them remained crouched together in the snow, examining the tiny bird. Orion's shoulder brushed Tom's, and the bouquet rested against his knee, the dark green wrapping stark against the pale cobblestones.

Then Orion seemed to remember something.

He straightened abruptly.

"Tom, I—"

He stopped.

Tom looked up.

Orion's cheeks, already pink from the cold, had gone considerably redder.

"What?"

"Nothing. I mean, not nothing. I bought you something."

Tom glanced at the bouquet.

For a moment, he genuinely thought Orion had purchased the flowers for the owl.

Then Orion held them out to him.

Tom stared.

The street seemed to grow strangely quiet.

"For me?"

Orion's expression was caught somewhere between embarrassment and determination. He held the bouquet with both hands, the silver ribbon trembling slightly in the breeze.

"Yes."

Tom did not take it.

He was trying to understand.

Flowers were not an unfamiliar concept. He knew their significance in courtship, in formal occasions, in the elaborate exchanges of gifts that occurred between families whose names appeared in books of wizarding genealogy. He had read enough about pure-blood customs to know that a bouquet could mean almost anything, depending on the flowers chosen, the colours used, the circumstances of the presentation, and the relationship between the giver and recipient.

But Orion was not a girl at a spring ball, nor was he a prospective bride being courted by some ambitious heir. He was Orion Black, who had spent the afternoon admiring Muggle sunglasses and buying sugared almonds, and who was now standing in a snowy alley with flushed cheeks and a bouquet of forest-green flowers.

Tom had no idea what to do with him.

"Why?" he asked.

Orion swallowed.

"Because I wanted to."

"That is not an explanation."

"I know."

"Orion."

"Please just let me finish before you start interrogating me."

Tom closed his mouth.

Orion took a breath.

"I know I'm not the heir. Walburga is. Everyone knows that. And I'm not particularly important in the grand scheme of things, at least not in the way my family seems to think matters. I don't have her authority, or Abraxas's confidence, or the sort of position that makes people listen when I speak."

"Orion, that is—"

"Please."

The word was quiet, but it stopped Tom more effectively than any sharp command could have.

Orion looked down at the bouquet.

"I was thinking about what you said. About the sunglasses. About how you had two pairs and decided to give me one, even though you didn't have to." His fingers tightened around the stems. "And I thought that perhaps I could do something like that, too."

Tom looked at the flowers.

"Buy me a bouquet?"

"Yes, well, when you say it like that, it sounds rather ridiculous."

"It is rather ridiculous."

"I know."

Orion gave a small, nervous laugh, but it faded quickly.

"There are traditions in my family," he continued. "Old ones. Some are rather unpleasant, and some are so absurd that I suspect nobody remembers why they started in the first place. But there are others that I think are quite beautiful, if you look at them properly."

Tom felt a strange tension gathering beneath his ribs.

Orion looked up at him.

"One of the older traditions, though it isn't practised as often now, is the act of devotion. A person who wishes to pledge themselves to someone they consider worthy offers them something meaningful. It used to be a jewel, or a family heirloom, or something taken from an enemy. In some of the older accounts, it was a sign that the giver had chosen to place their loyalty in the hands of someone they believed could lead them."

Tom's fingers curled slightly beneath the owl.

"That sounds rather like surrender."

"Some people interpret it that way."

"And you don't?"

Orion hesitated.

"No. I think it means that you have the freedom to choose where you stand. That you can decide someone is worth following, worth supporting, worth trusting, and that the choice belongs to you. Not your parents. Not your family. You."

He looked down at the bouquet again, and his blush deepened.

"I know I'm not offering you a jewel. I don't have an enemy's head to present you with, either, which is probably for the best, because I suspect you would find it terribly inconvenient to carry around. And I haven't exactly got a family heirloom I can give away without causing a scandal."

Despite himself, Tom felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

Orion took another breath.

"But I wanted to give you something. Something I chose. Something that says I want to stay with you, Tom. Not because my family expects it, or because I think you'll become someone important someday, or because I want anything from you."

His voice grew quieter.

"Because I think you already are someone worth choosing."

Tom stopped breathing.

It was not a particularly elaborate declaration. Orion did not speak of destiny or greatness, nor did he promise to serve Tom until the end of his days. He did not kneel in the snow or swear some dramatic oath that would have made the entire affair easier to dismiss as childish romanticism.

He simply stood there, holding out a bouquet of flowers, his face flushed and his eyes painfully sincere, and told Tom that he had chosen him.

Not his future.

Not his power.

Not the name he might one day make for himself.

Him.

Tom's mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

For one terrible, bewildering instant, he was back in the orphanage, sitting at a long table while the other children were collected by parents who smiled and called them darling. He was standing in a school corridor, listening to boys talk about their estates and their fathers' accomplishments, pretending that the ache beneath his ribs was contempt. He was in the common room, hearing Walburga Black speak about ancestry as though it were a measure of a person's worth, and wondering whether there was anything he could ever do to make himself belong.

He had spent years believing that affection was something people gave in exchange for something else.

Good behaviour. Good marks. Good manners. A promise of usefulness.

He had learned to be clever because cleverness earned him praise. He had learned to be charming because charm made people easier to manage. He had learned to be exceptional because he had never been given the luxury of being ordinary.

And Orion Black, who had every reason to remain safely within the boundaries of his own family's expectations, had gone out into Hogsmeade and bought him flowers.

Because he wanted to stay.

A small, involuntary gasp escaped Tom.

It was barely audible, no more than a sharp intake of breath, but Orion heard it. His expression changed immediately, his brows drawing together in concern.

"Tom?"

Tom looked down.

His vision had blurred.

For a moment, he did not understand why. Then he felt the hot, humiliating track of a tear sliding down his cheek.

He went utterly still.

No.

Absolutely not.

He was Tom Riddle. He did not cry in the middle of Hogsmeade because someone had bought him flowers. He did not stand in the snow with a baby owl perched on his wrist and allow a boy with kind eyes to dismantle years of carefully constructed defenses with a handful of winter blossoms.

He would not.

He lifted his free hand and wiped the tear away so quickly that the movement was almost violent.

Orion said nothing.

That was the worst part.

He did not look startled or disgusted. He did not laugh. He did not ask Tom why he was crying, or make the mistake of pretending that he had not seen it.

He simply waited.

Tom swallowed.

"That is an extraordinarily foolish tradition."

His voice came out rougher than he intended.

Orion's shoulders relaxed a fraction.

"Yes," he said softly. "I suppose it is."

"And you have apparently decided to participate in it."

"I have."

"Without consulting anyone?"

"Well, I did consult the florist."

Tom stared at him.

Orion's mouth quirked. "She was very helpful."

A laugh escaped Tom before he could stop it. It was a small, unsteady sound, and he hated how close it came to breaking into something else. He looked away, blinking hard, and fixed his attention on the owl, which had settled comfortably against his wrist as though it had every intention of remaining there for the foreseeable future.

"You're an idiot," Tom whispered.

"I know."

"An absolute idiot."

"I've heard that, too."

Tom looked back at him.

Orion was still holding the bouquet out between them.

Slowly, Tom shifted the owl into the crook of one arm and took the flowers.

The wrapping was cool beneath his fingers, slightly damp where the snow had touched it. The forest-green paper had been chosen to complement the flowers, and the silver ribbon was tied in a neat bow. There were white blossoms tucked among the greenery, their petals delicate and almost translucent in the winter light, and tiny yellow flowers that reminded Tom, absurdly, of the sunglasses he had given Orion weeks earlier.

He wondered whether Orion had remembered that.

He wondered whether Orion had thought about the colour when he chose them.

He wondered how long he had spent standing in the shop, trying to decide what to buy for a boy who had never learned how to accept a gift.

"Thank you," Tom said.

The words were so quiet that he almost hoped Orion had not heard them.

But Orion's expression softened.

"You're welcome."

Tom looked down at the bouquet again.

"I shall have to find something appropriate to give you in return."

"No, you don't."

"Orion."

"I mean it. You don't have to give me anything."

"That is not how gifts work."

"Perhaps not in your experience."

Tom's gaze snapped up.

Orion's expression was gentle, but there was no pity in it. No suggestion that Tom was broken or that he required fixing. He was simply acknowledging something Tom had never said aloud.

"I didn't buy them because I wanted something from you," Orion said. "I bought them because I wanted you to have them."

Tom felt the ache return, sharp and unfamiliar.

He lowered his eyes before Orion could see too much.

"Well," he said, with as much dignity as he could muster while holding a baby owl and a bouquet of flowers in the middle of a snowy alley, "your taste is acceptable."

Orion smiled.

"High praise."

"Don't let it go to your head."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

The owl chose that moment to climb onto Tom's shoulder, its little feet catching in the fabric of his robes. Tom startled, nearly dropping the bouquet, and Orion reached out instinctively to steady the bird.

"Oh, careful," Orion murmured.

The owl gave a small, indignant hoot.

Tom looked at it.

Then at Orion.

Then at the bouquet.

"This," he announced, "is becoming a ridiculous afternoon."

Orion laughed, bright and unguarded, and the sound carried down the narrow street.

Tom found himself smiling again.

He tucked the bouquet carefully beneath his arm, keeping the flowers upright, and adjusted the owl so that it sat more comfortably on his shoulder. The creature settled against the side of his neck, warm and soft and apparently convinced that it had found a perfectly suitable home.

Orion watched him with an expression Tom could not quite interpret.

"What?" Tom asked.

"Nothing."

"You are staring."

"I know."

"Would you care to explain why?"

Orion shook his head, still smiling. "I just think you look rather nice."

Tom felt heat creep into his face.

It was deeply inconvenient.

"Your judgment is clearly deteriorating."

"Possibly."

"And your family will be delighted to hear that you've begun devoting yourself to boys who steal Muggle accessories and collect stray owls."

"Well, I haven't devoted myself to the owl."

"You appear to have made a rather compelling start."

Orion laughed again.

Tom turned toward the High Street before the warmth in his chest could become something unbearable.

"Come along, then. We ought to find someone who knows how to examine the bird properly."

Orion fell into step beside him.

After a moment, he glanced at the bouquet.

"Do you like them?"

Tom looked at the flowers.

The forest-green wrapping. The silver ribbon. The white blossoms and tiny yellow petals. The careful, deliberate arrangement of something that had been chosen simply because Orion had wanted to give it to him.

He thought of Walburga Black's ring, of the family heirlooms and ancestral names and old traditions that had been used to measure the worth of every person who entered her world.

He thought of Orion, who had taken one of those traditions and made it his own.

"Yes," Tom said.

Then, because the truth seemed to demand more than a single word, he added, "Very much."

Orion's smile was small and radiant.

"Good."

They walked back toward the village together, their shoulders occasionally brushing as they navigated the crowded street. Tom kept the bouquet tucked securely beneath his arm, careful not to crush the flowers, and the owl remained perched against his neck, its feathers soft against his cheek.

He would have to find a name for it, he supposed.

He would have to discover who had tied the bells around it, and whether the creature had sustained any injuries, and whether the school owlery would accept another resident.

There were practical matters to attend to.

Practical matters were safe.

But as they passed beneath the snow-covered shop signs, Tom glanced sideways at Orion and felt the strange, fragile relief of being wanted settle somewhere deep inside him.

He did not know how to keep it.

He did not know how to trust it.

For now, he simply held on to the flowers.

And when Orion's hand brushed his, Tom did not move away.

By the time they returned to Hogwarts, the owl had fallen asleep inside Orion's coat, the bouquet had been deposited in a vase in their dormitory, and Tom Riddle had decided that the afternoon had been an unmitigated disaster.

He had been forced to visit a shopkeeper who sold owl supplies, listen to Orion coo at a creature that had attempted to eat his collar, and endure no fewer than three separate inquiries about the flowers. One of these had come from Abraxas Malfoy, who had looked at the bouquet, looked at Tom, and developed the expression of a man who had just discovered a particularly entertaining piece of gossip.

Tom was going to kill him.

Possibly not today. He was tired.

"You're sulking," Orion observed.

"I'm contemplating murder."

"That sounds rather more serious."

"It is. I'm deciding whether to use poison or a particularly inventive curse."

"Abraxas?"

"Who else?"

Orion laughed, settling into the armchair beside Tom's bed. Their dormitory was quiet, the other boys having gone down to dinner, and the little owl was curled in a nest of folded blankets on Orion's bedside table. Every so often, it made a tiny clicking sound in its sleep.

Tom opened his trunk.

"Here."

He withdrew a small, dark case and tossed it toward Orion, who caught it against his chest with an undignified squeak.

"What is this?"

"The sunglasses I promised you. Try to keep up."

Orion opened the case.

Inside lay a pair of amber-tinted sunglasses with slim, dark frames. They were considerably more elegant than Michael's bright yellow monstrosities, and the lenses caught the candlelight with a warm, golden gleam.

Orion picked them up reverently.

"Tom, these are lovely."

"Yes, well. I have excellent taste."

"Did you steal these, too?"

Tom looked offended. "I fail to see why that is relevant."

"You're wrong, but you'll never admit it, will you?"

Tom stared at him.

Orion stared back.

Then Tom reached into his trunk and withdrew the second pair, identical except for a slightly lighter tint.

"These," he announced, "are mine. And if you ever tell anyone about the shop, I shall deny everything."

Orion's eyes widened with delight. "You really did steal them!"

"I am beginning to regret our friendship."

"You have a friendship with me?"

Tom froze.

Orion froze.

For one terrible second, the room was silent.

Then Orion's face turned scarlet. "I meant, well, obviously we do, I just thought—"

"Put the glasses on, Orion."

Orion obeyed immediately.

The effect was catastrophic.

He turned toward the window, then toward the fireplace, then toward Tom, his expression growing increasingly delighted as the world acquired a golden hue. Finally, he looked directly at Tom and gasped.

"Oh, you look terrible."

Tom blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Your face is yellow."

"The lenses are yellow."

"Yes, but it's very funny."

Tom put on his own pair. "You look like a particularly stupid canary."

Orion burst out laughing.

Tom tried to maintain his dignity for approximately four seconds before the absurdity of Orion's expression became too much. His laughter escaped in a sharp, startled burst, and Orion, seeing his opportunity, leaned forward and pointed at him triumphantly.

"You don't actually mean that."

"I absolutely do."

"You think I look handsome."

"I think you look like you've been dipped in mustard."

"Handsome mustard."

"An appalling concept."

Orion reached over and squeezed his hand.

It was a small gesture, warm and thoughtless, the sort of thing Tom was beginning to suspect Orion did without considering the consequences.

Tom looked down at their joined hands, then back at Orion.

Neither of them moved.

Outside, the lake cast shifting green shadows across the walls. The little owl stirred in its nest, jingled one of the bells Tom had forgotten to discard, and settled again.

Orion smiled at him through the amber lenses.

Tom squeezed his hand back.

"Don't get used to this," he muttered.

"To what?"

"Sharing things."

Orion's smile softened.

"Too late."

Tom rolled his eyes, but he didn't let go.

And, for once, he didn't particularly want to.