Author's Note: It's been a very long time since I updated or wrote anything, but here I offer a little peace offering. This was written for the cookies marathon on the S.S. Ssssss on FAP, and is as such dedicated to those writers who support this pairing and write and draw so many wonderful pieces for it.
Disclaimer: Everything relating to the Harry Potter universe isn't mine. I think everything is said with this.
A Trip through London
The city had a strange effect on Harry. He loved it and loathed it at the same time, and the rare trips he made always managed to exhaust him and leave him with the strangest dreams at night. His mood would fluctuate from nostalgia to horror to melancholy. He always felt as if he had undergone a catharsis, refreshing as a spring rain on the one hand but chilling his bones to the core on the other.
London had been an escape as a child, first from the orderly fashion of Privet Drive for at least one day at a time, later from the world itself when he first walked through the brick wall in the Leaky Cauldron. It was also, however, misery and derelict houses and crime and beggars and it always reminded him of gloomy pasts. Not thinking of it was an impossibility for Harry. Today London brought back the faces of his dead friends.
It wasn't that complicated for Tom. He simply hated it. He had sworn to abolish his past long ago, but showed at least his partial failure in hating the city. Still, he visited it occasionally and spoke with disdain of even the most impressive architectural structures or the vibrant thrums of bustling streets at day or night time.
Sometimes, however, he had business there and Harry had come with him today. Afterwards they hadn't left the muggle streets immediately, and Harry was curious about this, but Tom simply continued to walk. It was an unusually warm day for the time of the year. The sun was shining brighter than on many an average summer day even. Tourists and the city's inhabitants alike had shed their winter clothes and the latter category especially, slightly more of their reserve and often general disdain for the walking, pointing, laughing, passing-through sightseers. Not so with Tom.
Harry thought they made quite a sight in their dark clothes, regardless of the adaptations to suit muggle standards, albeit grudgingly. He smiled slightly at the sight of Tom, who refused to give in to the high spirits which seemed to hold London in its hand. He looked serious as ever, sometimes bordering on downright contempt. He walked with firm passes but Harry noticed the barely perceptible hunch in his shoulders and the way he seemed to be battling with his own thoughts sometimes. He had let his guard down, or as far as Voldemort ever did such a thing. Peaceful meditation was not his thing and this was as far as he'd go. Sometimes Harry thought that everything was a struggle in Tom's life. Perhaps things only became more difficult the more you understood. And Voldemort knew so much.
Spring days seemed to lift burdens from people's shoulders and untied knots which had previously been covered by winter clouds. Harry felt it too, perhaps his breathing came a bit quicker or his heart elated in the sunrays, but he also understood Tom's gloom. Light reflecting in the windows or blossoming trees did not revive his friends' spirits. Only the leaves and flowers.
And his heart. He walked a bit quicker and put his arm around Tom's waist. The older man looked surprised for a moment, torn from his thoughts, but smiled then.
"How about we go for a coffee?" he asked.
Harry smiled. "That would be great."
They walked together, and made quite a sight. Perhaps it was not entirely their clothes that attracted the attention.
End.