DISCLAIMER: - ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO JK ROWLING

It was the morning of December thirty-first and Tom was sleeping contentedly in his bed. Just then the alarm went on to wake Tom up, but instead of directly opening his eyes he just searched the other side of the bed to feel the warmth of his soul-mate, Harry. But Harry's side of the bed was cold. Tom immediately opened his eyes only to find that Harry wasn't in bed.

He glanced at the clock and frowned, it was just five-thirty in the morning. Harry doesn't usually get up that early, that is Tom's habit.

But then Tom remembered that it was his birthday today. 'Harry must've planned something special for me. I'll most probably find him in the kitchen with a chocolate cake and a delicious breakfast.' Harry just loved to give the house-elves a day off on such special days and take full control of the kitchen. Tom didn't mind though, his Harry could cook the best in the world.

With these thoughts in his mind, Tom got out of bed, dressed up and went downstairs.

He paused for a few minutes to check the owl-post but there wasn't a single letter, let alone the presents that Tom had been expecting. He wondered, 'How come none of his followers remembered about his birthday? Surely, they might have signed a peace treaty with the light side but still Tom was the Minister of Magic of Wizarding Britain and wanted his followers to show some respect towards him.'

He went angrily into the kitchen expecting to find Harry, but instead found a load of house-elves working tirelessly and making so many different varieties of dishes, that it left Tom staring with his mouth wide-open.

"Where's Harry?" he asked one of the house-elves, after getting over his shock.

"Master Harry left early today for some work. Master didn't told Tabby or the other house-elves where Master was going," the house-elf named Tabby answered.

"So, did he ask you to prepare all this for me?" Tom asked after a little pause.

"Oh! No! Master Tom, we're making all this for the special New Year's party that Master Harry has arranged in the evening," this time a house-elf named Buffy answered.

"But, I wasn't informed about any New Year's party!" Tom exclaimed, now more confused than ever.

"Master Harry had left a letter about it for you in the living room," Tabby answered looking slightly scared by Tom's outburst.

Tom went in the living room and sure enough there was a letter in Harry's hand-writing. It read,

Dear Tom,

This is the first New Year after the war and the whole atmosphere is so peaceful and quite. And yet, I feel that in spite of the peace treaty the hatred and suspicion hasn't fully left the air.

The two of us are the glue that has been holding both the sides together. So I feel that we should take an initiative in bringing everyone together and this New Year seems like the perfect opportunity to me. So, I've decided to keep a grand New Year party tonight and invited all our friends from the light and dark sides, as well as, the reporters just to show how well the light and dark can mingle together.

I am going to be away for the whole day as I've got an important job to do. So, considering that you've a holiday today can you please make all the arrangements of this party? I know that you would, because you're always such a sweetheart. You will have to make sure that everything is perfect because almost all the important people would be coming.

Thanks for agreeing to do this; I'll see you in the evening.

Lots of love,

Harry.

Tom was beside himself with anger after reading the letter. So, Harry just decides to disappear for the whole day, arranges some stupid party for all the useless idiots and ruins Tom's birthday by asking him to make all the arrangements. Maybe his reasons for keeping the party were correct, but still, he could've kept it on some other day. 'Looks like Harry doesn't even remember that it's my birthday' Tom thought sadly, but later decided to forget it as no one ever remembered his birthday anyways, although he hadn't expected this from Harry.

After some time, Tom got to work. He had to make this party look really grand, because after all he was the ex-dark lord and the current Minister of Magic; he had an image to keep.

On a strange, lonely island, a boy with dark messy black hair and emerald green eyes had just landed. Harry Potter climbed down from his firebolt looking quite pleased with himself. He had finally, with great difficulty managed to find the island where something special was hidden and he was so going to take it back for his lover. Harry was a little worried about Tom being angry on him but he thought this was worth it and Tom would just love the gift. So, he took out his wand, glanced around once and proceeded to search for the gift that he thought would be perfect and fitting for Tom.

The Riddle Manor was decorated in the most grand and splendid way possible and Tom was waiting at the doorway with a fake yet perfect smile on his handsome features. Soon, the guests started pouring in. Tom recognized almost all of them; there were ministry officials, his ex-death eaters, and people from the order, Harry's friends, Daily Prophet reporters and others.

Tom saw Harry's best friends Hermione and Ron walk in holding their hands. Hermione smiled at him, while Ron still looked too scared to meet his eye. They were followed by Harry's ex-girlfriend Ginny Weasley holding hands with some unknown guy. She glared at Tom as she passed him and didn't even bother to acknowledge him. It was really very hard for Tom to refrain himself from cursing her and he was thankful that at that precise moment a bunch of his old followers came to meet him thus providing a distraction.

There were the Malfoys, Lestranges, Snape, Wormtail, Yaxley and loads others. Tom wondered for the umpteenth time why Harry had invited so many people and where the hell was the brat himself?

Just then Tom saw Dumbledore enter the party along with Slughorn. 'Seriously, Dumbledore and Slughorn! That old coot just doesn't have any taste!' he thought to himself.

"Hello Tom," greeted Dumbledore, and added, "Thanks for inviting us to your New Year Party."

"It was Harry's idea," Tom replied to make sure that there were no misunderstandings. As if he would throw such a stupid party for a bunch of people who didn't even remembered his birthday.

"Oh! Where's Harry then?" Dumbledore asked him.

"He would be coming soon, he had some important work to do," Tom answered, wondering to himself what he was going to tell people if Harry didn't showed his face all evening. He was also starting to worry about that boy.

As all the guests went inside Tom felt a sinking feeling. It was always like this, even at the orphanage everyone used to be too busy in celebrating the arrival of New Year that no one remembered his birthday. He had thought that things would at least be a little different at Hogwarts, but it was worse there. Half of his Slytherin friends used to go home for holidays; the remaining half didn't used to bother. So, he had made it a point to never tell his birth date to his death-eaters, but still a small part of his had hoped that they would somehow try to find it out and plan something special for him, but they never did. Okay, he had never exactly been a social person, but this was something he wanted so desperately, as he had never got it.

Harry Potter was a doing a victory dance. Right now, he was in an underground tunnel present on the island where he had landed. He had finally, with a lot of difficulty, managed to find the perfect gift for his lover. It had taken his whole day but he wasn't the one to give up. He loved Tom so much; he'd do anything to see him happy. And that just made him think about how he and Tom had fallen for each other in the first place.

It had been an year earlier when Tom had discovered that the prophecy was a fake and that he and Harry were in fact soul mates of each other. He had kidnapped Harry, just to tell him the truth. Harry hadn't believed it at first of course but when he was shown all the proofs, he had finally agreed.

The discussions that followed were endless. Harry had put forth so many conditions in front of Tom and it still wondered Harry how Tom had agreed to them all.

He was asked to stop the war, make a peace pact with the order and ministry, stop murdering and torturing muggles and muggle-borns and ask his death-eaters not to either, be nice to Harry's friends, change his features to the way they were when he was young, and allow Harry to call him, 'Tom'. Tom had agreed to all of that, only asking the position of the Minister of Magic in return. People had voted for him out of fear and the relief of the war being finally over, but it seems their decision was totally correct.

Tom turned out to be the best Minister ever, and improved Wizarding Britain on a large scale. He also turned out to be the best lover ever. Initially, Harry had a lot of arguments with him and hated his rude and arrogant nature, but later on he had started loving those arguments, and loving Tom's nature, his personality, his touch, the feel of his lips on Harry's, to put it in short, he had started loving Tom, and had realized that Tom loved him back with the same passion as well.

Harry was pulled back from his thoughts as he realized that the tunnel was collapsing. He quickly grabbed his gift for Tom, and ran towards the exit.

The party had been going on for a long time and Tom was fed up with people asking him questions about Harry. The dinner was over and now came the part which Tom had been dreading the most, the dance. He watched with anger, resentment and jealousy as couples held each other's hands and walked towards the dance floor. He was feeling so lonely and he could hear sniggered whispers of people like,

"Oh! Look! Our poor host's all alone." Or,

"Poor thing! Looks like Harry's dumped him finally." And

"Of course, Harry was going to dump him, he isn't exactly a faggot."

A few people asked Tom to dance with them, but he declined everyone's offers, his mood becoming damper and damper by the minute.

Just then, all the lights went off and only a single spotlight remained on Tom, he looked around frantically and saw that another person was in a similar spotlight too. It was Harry.

Relief, happiness, anger and a variety of other emotions flared up in his heart on seeing Harry. He was about to say something, when he noticed that Harry was walking towards him and held out a hand for him. Tom grabbed it. He could hear the most romantic tune ever being played in the background as he and Harry slowly swayed to the music, tightening their hold on each other. Tom realized that everyone must be looking at them and suddenly felt very shy. He turned back to stare at Harry, only to realize that there were a few bruises and cuts on his face.

"Where in the name of Salazar had you been? And what were you doing?" he whispered concernedly.

"Oh! I had just gone to get a special birthday present for you," Replied Harry in his careless manner.

"So you do remember that it's my birthday?" Tom asked him.

"Me and everyone else," seeing the look of disbelief on his face Harry just smiled and turned on the lights with a flick of his wand.

Tom saw everyone in the crowd (even Ginny) smiling at him, and carrying presents. There was even a large birthday cake that said, 'Happy Birthday Tom Marvolo Riddle'.

Soon he was cutting the cake, blowing the candles, accepting presents from everyone and celebrating the first proper birthday in his life.

"Where's my present?" he asked Harry while feeding him a piece of the cake.

"Wait. I want to do this in the proper way," Harry replied as he went down on one knee and took out a box from his pocket.

"That's not what …" but Tom stopped suddenly as he saw a pair of beautiful rings, a gold one studded in rubies and a silver one studded with emeralds.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle, I have been in love with you for a long time now and I know you love me back too. The way you have changed yourself, just to make me happy is more than anything I could've asked for. I might not be the best person in the world but I promise to always keep you safe, happy and loved. So, do you want to give our relationship an actual name? Will you marry me?" Harry's face blushed a bright red as he uttered the last part.

Tom felt utterly speechless for a moment but then his face split up into a wide grin.

"Yes of course! I'll marry you," he answered, his cheeks now becoming bright pink in colour.

Harry quickly slid the emerald ring on Tom's finger and waited patiently as Tom put the ruby ring on his fingers.

Harry and Tom stared at each other for a while and then both leaned forward simultaneously. Harry started kissing Tom and soon Tom was kissing him back. It was a blissful moment as they just enjoyed each others feel and taste, neither wanting to ever leave the other.

It was only when the crowd started giving them a loud applause, did they realized where they were, quickly breaking the kiss and blushing furiously.

Harry held Tom's hand and spoke to the crowd at large, "We love each other a lot and are soon going to get married. I had kept this party just to tell this to all of you and also to ask you to keep the past behind. Our world will benefit much more if the light and dark sides work together. I really wish that we all could work together like friends."

Tom saw with amazement as how everyone listened and looked up to his Harry. It was as though Harry was the glue holding both the sides together. Soon, everyone approached them and started congratulating them.

The party continued. "So, where did you got those rings from?" Tom asked Harry, as they waltzed together.

"Well, those are ancient rings for people who are soul-bonded. Gryffindor and Slytherin had made them for each other. I found them on their ancient island, thought I'd take the risk as these would be totally perfect for us," Harry told him.

"Thanks Harry," Tom whispered pulling him closer.

The ball continued until the clock finally struck mid-night. There were loud cheers, as people wished each other.

"Happy new year, Tom," Harry said, smiling at him.

"Happy new year, to you too Harry," Tom wished him back.

Well, Tom thought to himself, the New Year had finally arrived. His birthday was over, and he just couldn't stop the happiness filling his heart at finally having a real birthday celebration and getting the best gift ever, as he looked at his Harry and bent down to kiss him.

A.N:- Hello, everyone! Well, this was my first ever attempt at writing anything romantic so I decided to stick to a one-shot. Please tell me if I messed it up. I chose HPTMR for this story coz' they are like my favorite couple. I am sooo thinking of writing a multi-chapter story on this couple soon, (don't worry though; it won't be as bad as this one!).

Please review, and tell me what you think about this story!