#tomarry excerpt

Excerpt

Harry left with a lot on his mind. His mess was far from over, but it felt like he was finally making some headway.

He turned the corner and slammed into someone. His bag slipped off his shoulder, and all his books, parchment, quills, and ink bottles slid across the floor.

‘Sorry,’ he said on reflex, crouching to grab his stuff.

‘No, my fault.’

Harry’s blood ran cold, and his scar flared. He kept his eyes down as he scooped his books back into his bag. He discreetly flattened his hair over his scar. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Riddle crouch and help.

‘It’s alright,’ said Harry, hoping to stop him.

Riddle ignored his words, and Harry tried not to rush too much. You’re nobody; you’re one of many, thought Harry, the words a circling mantra.

He shoved the last book into his bag and looked around for the rest. His eyes settled on the last few that Riddle held out. Before Harry could take them, Riddle changed his mind and disregarded his hand. He shoved them into his bag and zipped it up for him. Harry tried not to wince. Bit much.

‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’ They stood up. ‘How has your first week at Hogwarts been?’

‘Great, thank you.’ Harry adjusted his bag strap.

Riddle’s voice was smooth, and he spoke softly. He was probably smiling too, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to look further than the top of his tie. Neville once said that avoiding people’s eyes made you less memorable. Harry didn’t know if that was true, but it was worth a shot.

‘If you need anything, you can come to me.’

He spoke benevolently to Harry like he was a disoriented first-year. And not for the first time, Harry wondered how Voldemort was so beloved by professors and students. He was older than him; it was beyond insulting.

‘Thank you.’ It was all he could squeeze out. He felt like a broken record.

‘I’m sorry to hear about your cat.’

That cat. That damn cat.

‘He was old but thank you.’

Harry’s dead responses got the desired effect. He glanced up. There was nothing beyond the disarming smile on Riddle’s face. He had seen that smile before in the diary, and did it always look that manufactured? It was so infectious in his second year. Perspective did wonders.

Tom could look at it for hours and still it would not have been enough.

The diadem was beautiful in the sort of way that cut, like the beauty of a very sharp edge of blade. So thin that one would not even notice it from the side, and then it would turn.

And sink down deep to the flesh and make you bleed.

Was he bleeding now?

“My Lord.”

It is with unending hesitance that his eyes flicker to the sound, to his assistant eyeing him with the sort of mischievousness that seemed just at home in that green eyed youth. He is smirking, smug in the sort of way Lucius Malfoy is most of the times, and yet countenance refined by Harry’s own intrigue, Tom is sent into thought.

One of the consequences of having an assistant as brilliant, and fickle as Hadrian ‘Harry’ Potter is that you can almost always expect some mischief in cradle.

There can only be so much stimulation for a mind easily bored.

“My Lord, you are staring.” Harry’s says, and now he is grinning, crooked and bare in the way that screams James Potter. “It’s rather enjoying but if you could dim it-“

“-Message received, Hadrian.” Tom says, and if it’s sharp, and harsh, it’s no one’s fault but Harry’s. “Don’t you have a Draco Malfoy to charm?”

The blow is not received as well he would have liked, instead it’s not received at all. Harry bloody Potter dodges like it’s a slowly advancing cotton ball, and grins up at him in that uncouth manner that looked so charming on him.

“Charmed him, beguiled him.” He says, as if he was listing off a grocery list. “He is my very best friend now, my lord.”

Tom is not at all satisfied.

Sometimes, only sometimes, he wonders how much he would like to choke that slender thin throat of his, and see how long it took before that knowing twinkle of his magnificent green eyes dimmed down.

And then Harry brings him something pretty, and rest all is history.

“Don’t look this happy.” Tom says, because he simply can. “I can easily give you some more work if that is what you want.”

Harry’s grin wavers just a bit, but then he is smiling even more. It’s blinding almost, the way cheerfulness and charm just radiates from his assistant, the way he is surrounded by married ladies, and single Lords just as soon as he enters the room.

He leans forward, rising on his toes so that he can bring his mouth close to Tom’s ear, and whispers.

“Who will stop you from keeping hands off Lady Ravenclaw’s diadem then?”

And when Hadrian takes off, towards the bar taking up two glasses of scotch on the rocks, and winking at him in the way he has come to become alarmed of. Tom wonders if he should bang his head or smile.

Tom knows Slughorn wasn’t exaggerating Evans’ skill since the first class of the first day of their last term.

Its potions, and they are brewing the fire protection potion. It’s fairly difficult, and Slughorn has his ears all but raised for any explosion, any injury as careless Gryffindors half-heartedly stir the angry grey liquid in their cauldrons.

Evans stands at the second desk, straight, eyes bowed at the cauldron and not skimming once to the textbook in front as he adds ingredients and stirs.

Tom’s eyes cannot help but be drawn to his slender hands as he chops the beetroot. Expert twitches, sharp and exact, and unnervingly quick. Evans sees nothing, and nothing but his work, tuning everything around.

Cygnus just stands there content at not having to do anything, and a bit awestruck by the way his lips stand parted. His eyes not leaving Evans once.

There are two people who leave the classroom with an outstanding, and an invitation to slug club, with an order veiled in suggestion to partner together for the other classes.

Tom does not mind it for once, but the strain of Evans eyes say otherwise. He doesn’t object though, and curiously asks Cygnus if he would mind.

Cygnus doesn’t look happy about leaving Evans, but one raised eyebrow from Tom is enough to send Cygnus nodding a yes. It’s remarkable however when Cygnus starts hanging around the new Slytherin, talking with him, and enjoying his company.

It’s a pain to see Evans answer back as eagerly, and yet a start.

“Partner then.” Tom says in passing, a charming fake smile on his face. “I look forward to working with you.”

Evans does not reply, instead spares a lazy nod in Tom’s direction, as he moves to the next class, somehow having memorized the layout of the castle without a guide. Cygnus follows not long after, when he had have a word with Tom.

It doesn’t mean he can catch up, of course.

Hadrian has scars, Tom finds. It’s by chance really, and Tom wasn’t really looking, but he sees them nonetheless.

Maybe because Evans doesn’t try to hide them.

The lightening that struck his forehead is just one of them, and perhaps the only one others notice. It’s hard not to, when it runs all over and around his eye in jagged white waves, giving birth to more questions than that have been answered.

The one on his hand, Tom finds even curious though.

I must not tell lies.

Where must have Evans gotten that, he wonders, and before he knows the answer is on his lips. A blood quill.

Evans catches him eyeing it one day, trying to yield answers out of it just from staring. There is a flicker of anger then, just as momentary and short-lived as the one he saw directed at Dumbledore.

He thinks he doesn’t like it when Hadrian sees him like that.

“My old teachers were rather crude.” Evans says, and his eyes once again glazes.

Tom doesn’t know what to say, and maybe the fact that it is the first time that he has been speechless in years makes Hadrian Evans this special.

“It’s better at Hogwarts.” He says after a while. “Teachers are less… crude here.”

Hadrian nods, but there is slight amusement in his face. Just a minute turn of his lips, and a bit brightening of his eyes.

The Slytherin table’s whispers quieten in that moment. It’s the first time they have seen the Evans talk first without interrogation. It’s the first time they have seen him smile.

At least kind of.

Walburga flaunts her enchantment with that transfer student all week, and no one can blame Orion if he breaks away more quills than he has used in his entire life.

“No.” Tom mumbles in his sleep, his mouth gasping open and his breathing becoming louder. “Not yet. Not h-him.”

Harry doesn’t quite know how he reaches on Tom’s side, sitting by his bed. His hands are inches away from the boy’s pale face, wanting to touch, to bring close, to shake this nightmare out of him.

And yet he doesn’t. He can’t.

“Tom.” He murmurs instead, bringing his mouth close to the sleeping boy’s ear. “Tom, wake up.”

For a moment the boy beneath seems like a reflection. Dark, ebony hair and distressed lines. The sharp muscles of his face are taut, and a thin layer of sweat gleams on his forehead. A lock of black hair sticks onto his flushed skin.

It’s only a moment.

His eyes flutter open, slow and heavy, revealing steel blue orbs, and Tom fixes his unfocused gaze on him. There is a moment of panic, and Harry starts to move, but then there are strong fingers grasping his hand, keeping him in place.

Inches away from Tom Riddle’s face.

“Hadrian?” Tom says, and his voice is still rough from sleep. “I saw you in my dream.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say at that. He only knew that the boy was having a nightmare, mumbling about something, about a ‘him’. He never stopped to wonder who it could have been.

He wonders if he should have.

“You were having a nightmare.” He says instead, feeling the other Slytherin’s breath on his face. “They are not very nice, so I-“

“-woke you up?”

There is a smirk on Tom Riddle’s face. The same smirk that used to haunt him every night he went to sleep, and every time he woke up. Now there is just an odd flutter at its sight.

“How very nice of you, Hadrian?” The fingers around his hand tighten, and Tom’s smirk grows into a grin. “I didn’t know you cared.”

He is blushing now, he knows, and when he jerks the hands off him, and grumbles his way over to his own bed, he wonders if Tom Riddle knows.

“Good night, Hadrian.”

There is a cold shrill that runs up his spine at those words, and even as he inserts himself between the dark green covers and turns away from that bed, it stays.

Undersecretary Riddle looked too amused.

Entirely too amused for Malfoy to be able to enjoy the ball without worrying about the stability of his life. For all he knew, his dear friend would do something that would once again change the entirety of wizarding Britain.

It would be for the better, of course. However cunning and sly Tom might be, all he had done till now had been for the good of wizards. It had made life easier for wizards, and somehow, even his.

Still, it didn’t mean though that he enjoyed the change.

No, Lucius Malfoy did not like changes. They said it was for good, and that may be true, but there was no compulsion that said he couldn’t hate changing his perfect world.

“Tom.” He called, walking closer to the man in question whose eyes were still stuck to the corner of the room.

Lucius did not dare look at the corner. He did not dare. He certainly had an idea who it was, seeing that his own son was stood there, but he just refused to think further.

The man did not look at him, though he did turn his body to angle towards him, which was offending in a way that he just could not explain.

It did say a lot about their relationship though that he was used to it.

“Lucius.” He acknowledged finally tearing his eyes away from that corner. “I see you have come to ruin my plans again.”

His lips tugged upwards despite himself.

“Indeed.” He said, smugly. “I have detected your ominous idea resting in that corner of the room.”

Tom raised his eyebrow, an amused smile playing on his lips. “You will not even see, Lucius?” He asked, his voice incredulous. “How will you introduce me to them if you can’t even see them?”

He shook his head.

He could not for the life of him think what would the world would come to if he introduced Thomas Marvolo Riddle to… to…

“Indeed Tom.” He said, his expression blank. “I have no intention of doing… that.”