#nottmort

Ch. 1 of 3, Nott Sr./Tom Riddle

Tom Riddle in his thirties was a vision of professionalism in his dour wool robes of indeterminate grey-brown, the sort of color not to show ash or soot when stepping out from a floo. He carried a leather case that looked as though it came from one of the stock shelves, unsold for the past few decades, and he held his pen cap between his teeth when he wrote his name on the generic shop business card before handing it over. Thoros, made blunt by death, asked, “Was that truly necessary?,” and Riddle rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored him.

For @hprecfest!

A Sense of Self in Decline by Phantomato @phantomato.

E | 16k | Tom Riddle/Thoros Nott.

Voldemort goes to recruit a Death Eater. Fight or fuck, someone said, instead of fight or flight.

I recommend reading this one in conjunction with their Nottmort Manifesto, which beautifully contextualizes the ship and provides fascinating insight into Voldemort's character.

A Generous Minute by papermonkey @dracomort.

E | 7k | Tom Riddle/Abraxas Malfoy.

Abraxas Malfoy is in love with himself. Tom Riddle is planning a murder. Possibly ten. Or: when one walking red flag meets another.

Regretfully Yours by Maria_de_Salinas @maria-de-salinas.

E | 39k | Petunia Evans Dursley/Severus Snape.

They were never really close.

I have not really done omegaverse. A Sense of Self in Decline (Harry Potter, Nott Sr./Voldemort) started as an alpha/alpha drawer fic, and in making it suitable for publication I erased the explicitly omegaverse elements of it. The remaining tells are the physicality of the sex, I think, especially the biting and spit and mentions of smell. (Not that I dislike those otherwise, but it’s a bigger part of that story.)

So, like: I don’t like omegaverse. I think the sex can be hot! I love very physical sex. But the actual labels ‘alpha’ and ‘omega’ (and ‘beta,’ though lbr I am not here to write betas I am going to write some fucking knots if I ever do it) are so offputting to me. The worldbuilding aspect of having a secondary gender, whenever it manifests, however it’s handled, is a big ol’ nope. I do not want to write that, it doesn’t work for me, and this is always my least-favorite part of reading omegaverse.

But I can always get behind new freaky ways for my faves to fuck. In my mind, Thoros is an alpha—I want him to knot the hell out of Tom. Tom I can go either way on, alpha or omega, depending on what feels fun at the moment. Two alphas whose instincts should be to fight but they fuck hard instead? Wonderful. Tom’s an omega and Thoros is his perfect quiet complement? Delicious. I suppose this could give me an easy way to write mpreg baby Theodore, which is adorable, and breeding kink before that, which would also be new to me!

Nott Sr./Voldemort, E

In an Arctic summer, two men talk about magic.

This fic was finished a year ago, and I reread it for the occasion. It’s one of my favorite Nottmorts—and there are a lot of those, so there’s some stiff competition!—because it was a labor of capturing what I love so much about doing research.

Thank you for such kind words! ❤️ They’re lovely to hear. I’ll refer you in part to my past posts that touch on Harry, and also encourage you to send me a DM (here, Discord, wherever) if you want to chat in more depth! I love chatting. For the ask game, I’ll stay on the ships and limit it to a reasonable length.

Why don’t you ship Tomarry?

Because I dislike it and every trope that underlies it, and then at a certain point it became a matter of stubbornness and frustration as a Tom Riddle fan who did not ship it.

What would have made you like it?

I cannot give a fair and equitable answer to this! My dislike is as calcified as the tropes within Tomarry, lol. I will note that I rarely ship enemies-to-lovers, and so any possible way that I might ship this loses one of the essential pillars of their canon dynamic. I think that’s generally unsatisfying, as both an author and a reader, and so it’s best that I don’t try and find a vision of Tomarry which would work for me.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

It’s the big ship for Tom, and I appreciate it so much when a Tomarry reader stumbles into my rare pairing corner and decides to give my writing a shot. Fewer people would be reading niche Tom fic if not for Tomarry’s popularity.

What made you ship Nottmort?

I accidentally walked into it through a fic that was meant to be another pairing tbh. But really, it’s the flexibility that appeals to me—Thoros isn’t even his real name, for goodness’ sake, it’s totally a fan construct. Nott Sr. exists as whatever I want him to be because there isn’t any canon to contradict that. We’re not going to have slap fights about correct characterization for Nott Sr. And what that amounts to is that I’ve gotten to create my own character, with exactly the traits I most enjoy, to pair up with Voldemort. It could have been some other surname-only Death Eater of that generation, so it having been Nott comes down to circumstance. Now that it is Nott, I’m never giving him back. Nott Sr. belongs to the canon of Harry Potter; my Thoros belongs to me.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

I love that Thoros is just as selfish as Voldemort—his key difference is that he expands the self out to encompass Voldemort as well, and Theodore in universes where Theo is born. It’s an interesting model for Voldemort to encounter, to have to reckon with; this is a man who suggests that it’s possible to have and maintain friendships, to function within normal society, all without adopting the moral values that someone like Albus argues are necessary. And Thoros isn’t hypocritical about it in the way that e.g. Mrs. Cole might have been, demanding virtues of Tom that she did not possess. 

I love that a life with Thoros requires Voldemort to ask what his values actually are, and how he wants to prioritize him. My Thoros is stubborn enough to say ‘no’ when asked for something he’s unwilling to give, and so Voldemort is forced to confront that he cannot live eternally with Thor by his side. If it’s love, and Voldemort always does know that it’s love, then he must make a choice about what love is worth to him. 

And the devil is in the details—these characters are peers, of the same age group; they spend formative years together; they have many of the same acquaintances and cultural references; they respect one another; they are both academically-inclined and value knowledge in the same way. There are a lot of similarities, which make the philosophical questions stand out more and feel possible to reconcile, or even make them feel worth reconciling. 

Ultimately, I crafted Thoros to be exactly the partner I want for Voldemort. That’s cheating, I know. I fell in love with Thoros in his own right, though, and I take that as a success.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

—

In the creeping grey light of pre-dawn, you wake. You don’t wish to wake; you rub your face against the pillow cover, not your own, and hug it closer. Beside you, your lover snuffles—he won’t wake until you leave the bed, and you would give almost anything not to leave the bed.

He wouldn’t, though. That’s the trouble.

You’ve known him by two names. He pretends you’ve known him by one, and you let him.

You’ve loved him for decades, in fantasies, and years, in person. He pretends you’re only just acquainted, and you let him.

So it is you who must wake and leave—who else would it be? If it were your home which hosted these meetings, he would move in and pretend he had only called for tea, and you would let him, you would arrange your wardrobe to give him half the space and buy the goat-milk soap he likes best, the kind with rose petals in it. He would never leave, but he would never admit he was staying, and that’s a worse torture than even this.

If you don’t rise now, you’ll fall back asleep.

That would be unacceptable. Your office doesn’t need you for a few hours yet, but he must reassemble himself before he can leave. To be with you, he casts aside parts: the shortness with words, the dark expressions, the twitching wand hand. They are him, but aren’t; he wouldn’t wear those pieces so completely if he weren’t what he’s trying to be.

You sit up.

You wonder if he would have done this if you’d been with him sooner. When you were both young, before he left—it’s a useless question, a what-if which cannot exist, and you hate that you ponder it. Your life has been comfortable. It could have been his, too. He reaches for your hip because the shifting blankets wake him, and in the moments before you slide out of bed, you squeeze his hand. He squeezes back.

Then it’s off to fetch his dressing gown to tie about your waist, and put the kettle on in the kitchen. You’ve got a toothbrush by the bathroom taps, blue plastic while his is green. There isn’t a person in this world who you would trust to know he uses a plastic toothbrush. He shouldn’t trust you. He does.

He takes three scoops of sugar in his tea, and milk as well—when he’s at home. He takes it black when you meet him officially, under mask and cloak, though he’s sour all through the cup. You suppose it’s part of the image, which is sour to start with and can bear a bit extra, but you’ll never comment, and you’ll never forget his sugars when it’s your turn to mother.

You carry tea and toast back to the bedroom. “My dear.” He takes his cup. His cheeks are pink from the steam or the endearment.

You had sex last night, so you’re naked under the dressing gown, and he’s naked under the bed covers. He puts his hand on your bare ankle as you sit across from him, at the foot of the bed, his blanketed legs slotted between yours.

It’s no longer true that you always have sex when you stay over.

That’s the assumption—between you, and that you expect anyone else would have, hearing the arrangement. Sometimes, though, you talk until it’s too late to justify, or you or he are tired, or you kiss and it’s better than sex. He puts his tea on the nightstand and, wordless, gestures for your hand, which you give over. He kisses it now, the webbing between your fingers and the muscle under your thumb. He presses his mouth to the hollow of your palm and you wrap your long fingers over his face, spanning it, as he nuzzles in.

You cup his cheek. You wish you could stay. Today, he might have you, and tomorrow, and the next, until you’ve got nowhere left to hide from what you really are to one another. That’s when it would crumble. He’s worked so hard to be what he wants to be; you love him too much to take that from him.