a/n this wasn't even meant to be a slow burning thing why do i do this. i just didn't want them looking into each others eyes and saying "wowe" when they're so fundamentally different
at this point the fic is literally: harry tries to change tom's mind so they don't have to fight at the big showdown
Eyes peered from the shadows of the abandoned building. Here and there, a gaunt face appeared surrounded by long matted hair. Harry couldn't help but watch them. He saw a child, even – nothing but bones and skin and deep-set eyes. The little boy scampered away as soon as he had caught Harry's glance. Riddle paused, and with only the briefest hesitation, returned their wands.
Malfoy turned around at the first flight and said he was going to wait outside, his footsteps echoing as he retreated. Riddle merely shrugged, walking on without a falter, palming his gun.
"Do you come here often?" Harry asked the man walking in front of him, feeling uneasy. He was a wizard brought up in the warmth of a safe home. He was a wizard brought up in the welcoming halls of Hogwarts, where they never saw such… misery. There were cloths and rags scattered in the shadows – beds. Harry simply couldn't imagine living like this. Were all Muggles raised in these conditions? Surely not. Riddle had a home all to his own.
"Whenever I need a reminder." Riddle answered. "Of what I can do. What people can do."
The little boy was there again, at the top of the stairs. There must've been another path that he'd taken to get there. He had a little bony hand outstretched, the other bent behind his back. His fingers were coated in dirt, his entire body bowed, begging. But mostly his eyes. His hungry, brown, eyes that shone with pleading.
Riddle gave the child a wide berth, but Harry stopped to stare. "Riddle…?" Harry didn't have anything, but maybe Riddle kept some Muggle currency on him.
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no'?" Harry asked, a fire lighting in his own green eyes. Riddle paused in his steps.
And then his barrel was pointed straight at the starving boy.
"What do you think you're–!" Harry began in indignance, but Riddle's words stopped him.
"Turn." Riddle said coldly. Brown eyes stared imploringly back at him. "Turn. And keep your hands where they are." Harry was suddenly reminded of when he first ordered them in the Muggle compound.
The boy turned, slowly, and the hand he had hidden behind his back was firmly grasping a knife.
Harry could only stare. Riddle snorted, grabbing Harry's arm and tugging him after him. "You're horribly ignorant." Riddle sneered. Bewildered green met grey, and Riddle's tone softened just slightly. "There's little room here for hope." And then Harry was pulled up the stairs, away from the hunched boy with his dirt and blood-smeared hands, away from those pleading brown eyes.
The rest of the journey up was taken in a blur. Harry just couldn't stop thinking about despair, about doing what you had to, about striking out of fear. How people thought trust and friendship was too fickle. They were luxuries.
His thoughts were wiped away as they rounded the top of the stairs to face the awing vista of dusk, Riddle releasing his arm. A red glow cast across the world, across a sky that reached… forever. All the way across seas, across hills and mountains and lakes and train tracks and little toys of buildings, all across the planet with no end. Harry had once thought life inside the wards was all he'd ever need, but this was what freedom must've looked like.
And his people would never have it.
(Despair.)
Not unless there was peace, or unless Riddle killed all Muggles. The man had crossed the room to the unfinished wall, taking a seat right at the edge, with Harry trailing right after. There was no roof above their heads, just a real sky. From here Harry could also see the entirety of the small, burnt town. A blonde head sitting against an abandoned building caught his eye. Harry waved. Malfoy returned what looked suspiciously like a vulgar gesture.
The man beside him had one leg dangling off the edge of the building, the other tucked up right by his chest, where he had hooked an arm. The light outlined his sculpted face, his delicate eyebrows, those lips set into the slightest frown… His eyelashes were cast golden. The beautiful man Riddle suddenly looked younger than Harry remembered. Perhaps only a year or two older than himself, but he looked so mature from that way he carried himself: with that perpetual frown and mirthless eyes that had seen too much.
That contrast was ground-shattering. Harry, so happy in the halls of Hogwarts, spending his time of petty rivalries, while this Tom Riddle callously pulled the trigger of his gun.
How many times had Riddle sat there in the past? Alone? Harry had the sudden urge to learn about Riddle. To connect, and ease those years of pain from him. To tell him he wouldn't need to die and it'd all be fine. To have Riddle trust him.
These strange thoughts were coming from nowhere. Harry attributed them to his apparent 'extremely empathetic' thing.
"Why?" Harry asked, and grey eyes flickered up to him. "Why would you give up your life for a people that you've hardly ever met?"
Riddle's gaze was intense in that it never faltered. He seemed to see right through Harry. "You think too well of me." He said quietly. Harry was surprised, really, that Riddle could be… docile. "It's not for all of you. It's for me.
"Do you see that building there?" They turned to where an elegant hand pointed to a black husk somewhere on the rubble-strewn street. "A lady used to live in there: between cream coloured walls and a mottled green roof. Her name was Martha."
Riddle stopped there and seemed to muse. Seeing memories and ghosts, no doubt. Harry could sense it all flickering in those troubled eyes. His question hadn't been answered, but he knew somehow that Riddle would tell him. In due course.
"You're dying soon." Harry reminded him. Riddle glanced up at him and, surprisingly, parted his lips in a small laugh. It was such a change from when he'd first held them at gunpoint. Riddle was really only… nineteen? Eighteen? Twenty? But when he laughed, it was as though the burden of years disappeared for just an instant.
"Fair enough." Riddle conceded. "So you want to hear all my stories, then?" He regarded Harry carefully, as if attempting to gauge what sort of person would want to get to know him, Tom Riddle.
"If you're not getting that wife and children of yours…" Harry said. "Who else is going to hear them?"
"I have a journal." Riddle replied simply.
"And that'll stand through an inferno?"
"If you keep it on you." If he could even ward them up, that was.
"Then I'd read it anyway–"
"It only opens to those with blood relation to me."
Harry's mouth clicked shut. Okay, that worked too. "So what then, uh, are you planning on having a kid?"
Tom raised an eyebrow at that, "I suppose we could head to the city tonight and pick up a lady or two–"
Harry quietly choked.
"–It depends on how I'm feeling by then. I'm working with fumes and whims here. But I do need to get passports and a few things for you two." Riddle tipped his head back, exposing that long, pale neck as he looked towards the sky. "It's growing dark, and your friend must be getting cold."
"He's not my friend." Harry grumbled. Riddle huffed in disbelief.
"I think that'll change." He said, standing. "You seem the friendly type. But come, now. We've seen the sights – the beautiful sight of the town I burnt down."
"Hey, Riddle–"
"Call me Tom, ..." Riddle trailed off, waiting for a name. Harry suppressed an inward grin. Yes! Progress.
"Harry." He supplied. "Tom, do you think you could give that child a coin or two?"
Riddle gave him a rather sharp look. "It's pointless. What would a few dollars buy him?"
"Hope." Harry said. He looked up to meet Tom's burning grey gaze. "And I think we need more of that in the world right now."
"And what of all the other dying souls in this building? Doesn't it carve a notch into your heroic heart knowing that this treatment is so unfair?" He said with a slight sneer.
"Tom," Harry said firmly, the name feeling foreign on his tongue. "You start small. What does your money even matter, anymore? You can give him some happiness."
Tom, with an expression of disgust on his face, did end up floating a down note to the small boy. Then he'd pointed the gun right between those shining brown eyes. "Don't pull that knife on anybody ever again."
And then they left, for the city, and Harry had smiled. He was on a time limit to change Tom's judgement, and he would make it. One step at a time.
–––
The city was outrageously bright. And loud. Colours swirled around them as they inched down the streets, bodies catching the lights, bottles glinting as they were held high.
"Muggles have bottles too?" Was the only thing Harry could think to ask, and Tom had snorted, a slight smirk crossing lips. Malfoy just groaned.
"Potter, these people are getting drunk. Why are you only concerned about their bottles? I swear, your brain must be bloody stunted."
"We're in the more promiscuous districts." Tom said, unhelpfully. "There's a hotel down the road that I'm very well-affiliated with."
"How?" Harry asked. He swore he was getting accustomed to ignoring Malfoy. It was a useful skill. "I thought you were like... nineteen."
Tom, curiously enough, didn't confirm what his actual age was. "I used to glamour myself to look slightly older. That's how I've conducted most of my business so far."
They turned into an underground cavern: a carpark, and Tom then led them out on foot to a smaller door.
The first thing Harry did was laugh in Malfoy's face, because the corridor they'd stepped into was so lavish that Malfoy's Manor didn't even pose competition. Tom looked back, caught by the sound of Harry's laughter, before they entered the main foyer.
Tom conversed with the receptionist for a while and then gestured for the other two wizards to follow him into a strange metal box. The metal box moved, and when it opened again, they were looking at an entirely different corridor. Harry thought it all seemed rather magical. "This is our room." Tom said, opening one of the doors with a bit of plastic that beeped. "Now, if none of you want to accompany me down to the club, you may stay here."
Malfoy opted to stay, prowling the room and seriously scrutinising every piece of furniture. Tom and Harry returned to the metal box and then Tom led him out of the building. They stopped just before the glass front doors, Tom saying, "Remember this place in case you get lost." And then he pushed open the doors and they were swamped with sound and heat.
Harry followed so closely behind Tom he could've been stepping on the back of his shoes. People brushed past like a sea. He kept his head down, one foot after another. Colours. Sound. Sparkling and shiny shoes. His attention to the ground, however, didn't stop someone grabbing his arm and stopping him in his step.
"Hey, pretty." A woman purred, her obscenely long eyelashes fluttering. Her top was positively scandalous. Harry backed away with a look of shock, but she had a grip of iron. "Looking for some fun?"
He glanced around hurriedly, watching Tom's back disappear into the throng. Oh Merlin, what was Harry supposed to say? He had to go after Tom.
"We can give you a good night." She said with a wink, dragging him after her through the crowd. Harry couldn't see a hint of Tom anywhere, now. Oh no, oh Gods.
"Wait, wait wait wait, no, this is a misunderstanding, my friend's still there in the crowd, I can't just–"
"I'm sure your friend won't mind." The woman said into his ear, pressing herself up against Harry. They'd slipped from the crowd now, in front of a building with a huge neon sign with a lady on it.
Harry really, really, didn't want to go through the door to that very shady building.
Her hand was suddenly on his arse, and he squeaked as he jumped. He had to get out of here. No, this was not his idea of a good time. Malfoy had been right to stay inside. His first instinct was to dive for his wand, but these were Muggles.
"I'm gay!" He blurted at the woman, hoping it'd make her back off. It wasn't even true. He'd dated a couple of girls back at Hogwarts, but he'd never really… had objections to liking boys, anyway.
She simply batted her sparkly lashes at him and said, "That's perfectly fine, dear. We have a number of nice men who also–"
"I don't have any money!" He exclaimed instead, and then he saw the light and the seductive air around her falter.
"Oh, is that so?" She pouted, and that was Harry's opening.
"Yes, it is, I'm dirt poor, not a single penny that you'd ever use, it's such a pity– Bye." He blabbered, backing away again towards the crowd. He turned to bail, and ran straight into a solid chest.
The chest was unclothed. Harry looked up to see a man towering above him. "Did I just hear something interesting?" The man asked, staring Harry in the eye, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder.
Harry was so done. What even was this.
"If you don't have any money and you're perfectly fine to suck cock, why not come work for me?" The man asked with a leer. Harry tore himself from the man's grasp, trying to find a way around so he could at least lose himself in the crowd. Safety in numbers. "Listen now, don't think I'm letting a pretty get away as easily as that." The man sneered, moving to block Harry's way.
"I'm not interested. At all. Please, can you just–" Unwanted large hands landed on Harry's hips, and he was– no way in hell. He was bloody out of here.
Harry did what got him in detention in the first place. With all his seeker quickness, he swung a fist and connected it straight into the larger man's face with a crack! The man's expression contorted from shock into anger, but by then Harry had fled. He pushed his way into the river of people, hoping to lose the large man in case he had been chased.
"That was certainly quite a show." A familiar voice said right by his shoulder. Harry jumped, crashed into somebody else ("Sorry!") and then scowled, his green eyes blazing as he met Tom's amused gaze.
"Is this your idea of fun? If it is, I have serious objections to it. Did you really leave me alone to those people?" Someone pushed past, bumping into Harry's side and causing him to stagger. Why didn't these things happen to Tom?! Why was Tom so bloody in of control things?
"No." Tom said shortly, stepping closer to wrap an arm around Harry's shoulder. "It seems I need to keep you on a shorter leash." His grey eyes surveyed Harry's features, "You're too pretty."
"That's a bad thing now?" Harry snapped back.
"It is, when coupled with incompetence." Harry was about to retort angrily, but he caught sight of Tom's smirk and settled with a huff.
"Merlin's knickers, nothing like that's ever happened to me before. You can't blame me for not knowing."
"I've never wasted my time here, either. But specific experience doesn't matter." Tom said, guiding them through the mass of people. Tom's arm was cool and reassuring around Harry. He couldn't help but feel safer like this. "I already know how to play people."
They entered another door into a place that was far more quieter and subdued. There was a sleek bar where plenty of men and women were seated, drinking and laughing, looking generally intoxicated, and another part of the room that was occupied with a stage and several booths.
"I'm not actually here for entertainment." Tom said into his ear, his breath brushing over Harry's skin. "I think you may have realised that by now. I have a bit of business to be on–"
"You're not leaving me alone in there." Harry said firmly. "Terrible things will happen."
Tom inclined his head. "Very well." His arm slipped from his shoulder to his waist, tugging Harry close. "If I'm taking you with me, you'll have to play the part. It'll be far too suspicious otherwise."
Harry felt only slightly uncomfortable as he walked with Tom across the room to a smaller, more inconspicuous door that blended in with the red walls of the place. But he noticed heads turning and eyes lingering after Tom, who moved with a grace every human was envious of. Tom was undoing Harry's buttons: the ones on his sleeves, rolling them up, and then he reached for Harry's collar. Harry spluttered, smacking at the other man's hands, and undid a few himself. He felt a flush climb across his cheeks.
Tom pulled open the door into a dimly lit corridor. It was still decorated with deep red, coated with swirls of gold, and they headed for one of the doors down the far end. Occupied, it read on a red plaque. Tom seemed to ignore it. He knocked, entering the room.
If Harry was blushing before, his cheeks were flaming now. Merlin, did Tom always just barge in on people like this? The room was intimately small, and in it sat a man in a chair. A woman was on his lap wearing practically nothing as she rolled her hips and curled around him.
"Ah, Tom!" The grey-haired man said, peering around the woman. He dismissed her with a hand, and she drifted away to another chair. "No no no, Amelia, out." He clarified, and the woman looked slightly displeased as she passed Tom and Harry and exited the room. "What are you looking for today then, boyo?"
Harry glanced back into the corridor, but she was gone.
"Tristan. I need a few things." Tom seated himself in the only other chair, gesturing for Harry to go… sit in his lap?
Oh, he was going to murder Tom after this. He settled on the armrest. Tom shot him a dirty look, and tugged him from his perch onto his lap, where Harry fought the urge to squirm and instead entertained himself with fantasies of fleeing and never looking Tom in the eye ever again.
"Going for the shy, fiery types now huh, Tom? Thought those weren't your usual thing." Tom had a 'usual' taste? Harry felt something flare inside him. He thought Tom said he'd never been to places like these. "You sure you want those lil' ears of his listening?"
Tom shrugged, looking utterly nonchalant as he leaned against the armrest. "He can keep his pretty mouth shut... aside from when it's against mine."
Harry was pretty sure his face was going to catch in fire any second. He was tucked snugly against Tom, his arse practically in the older man's crotch.
"I need two blank IDs. I'll get the photos done, but I don't give a shit about what name you choose. Two passports, everything for a flight for two, as soon as possible."
Tristan gave them a shrewd look. "You're not going to tell me what this is for." Harry was suddenly very, very, aware that he really needed to play the part. People were smarter than they looked. Oh Merlin, how obvious was it that the 'passport' and things were for him? Harry gave in and squirmed, partly in nervousness, partly in embarrassment.
Tom raised an eyebrow, as if he was considering. Which was all just one huge bullshit play. "Two refugees want out. Things in the South are going tits up." Harry leant back into the chair, slipping off Tom's legs and into the seat beside Tom. Their legs were pressed right against each other, Harry's hooked over. His head rested in Tom's shoulder. As if practised, Tom's arm came up to wrap itself around Harry, playing with his hair.
Gods, he hadn't even known how much he needed this pseudo-embrace until now. He relaxed in Tom's one-armed hold, feeling warmth all around him and smelling the comforting scent of Tom: it was crisp and clean, a little light. Like freshly laundered blankets with a hint of the sweetness of flowers.
That was a bit of a strange comparison to make.
How Tom could maintain that calming smell after swimming through people, Harry had no idea.
"That all you gonna tell me?"
"Yes." Tom said, still looking utterly at ease, although Harry could feel a hint of his tenseness from where he was…nestled in Tom's side. All an act, Harry. All an act.
"Hm," the older, grey-haired man said, his eyes sharp. "A'ight. What'll the pay be like? Where'll you pick them up?"
Harry closed his eyes as they haggled. What a day. It'd only been a day, bloody hell, and Harry was already tired. Tired from all the new sights and sensations, the lifestyle where everything seemed to be stationary and nothing flew about, where little children starved in the darkness and prostitutes grabbed at Harry...
He was tired from trying to puzzle out the enigma Tom. Tom, who seemed so cold, yet would still willingly give up his life. He hadn't even told Harry why. Harry opened his eyes then, watching the man beside him through his lashes, whose one free arm was gesturing animatedly as he talked. Harry's eyes traced the contours of Tom's face. Tom was an eye-catching beauty, he was. He had an inner selflessness – Harry could see it – one that was battered down and hidden deep because of all the hardships he had endured. But it was there anyway. Harry thought Tom was rather amazing for it, and then inwardly flushed at the thought.
Tom suddenly paused as though surprised, looking down at Harry. Harry blinked back in confusion. What? A small smile spread across Tom's lips, and then he turned his attention back to the task at hand. That had been odd, Harry concluded, and when he glanced across at Tristan, he was also watching Harry flintily.
Strange. Harry settled back, closing his eyes.
A little while later Harry reentered their world to what seemed to be a different conversation altogether. "...Your lil' lad doesn't even seem to be properly clad! What even is this, Tommy boy?"
"You know I don't do the easy." Tom replied, although his eyes were frosty. His arm tightened protectively over Harry.
"Well, if you ever get tired of you new boytoy, you can always hand him over to me." The man said with a smirk. "I've got plenty of clients who might like him. Or, you know, I could see what he's really–"
Harry felt more than saw Tom bristle. In the next moment, Tom was on his feet, clutching Harry to his side as he jabbed a hand towards the other man.
"Obliviate."
"What–" Harry started, Tom crossing over to the blank-eyed person he'd obliviated.
"He suspected you weren't who you seemed." Tom's hands searched the man's pockets, pulling out a small rectangular device. "And I wasn't going to bother entertaining him with empty platitudes any longer.
"How'd you know he knew?" Harry subconsciously leaned towards Tom, missing his touch.
"Legilimency." He returned, uncaringly.
"That's ten levels of illegal."
"Tch." Tom didn't even look up, still fiddling with the device in his hands. "You know I don't work within the bounds of your government. I was reading his mind the whole time. Look, this man's a master of crime. Not much is going to get past him. You see this? He was recording the whole chat. I'm cutting the last bit."
The rectangular device was returned, Tom gave the obliviated man a few instructions, and then the two left the small room. Harry couldn't even bring himself to scold Tom for making Harry sit in his lap, because essentially Harry hadn't played up the prostitute boy act enough and so Tom had to clear the suspicions.
They re-entered the main room, where Tom took a seat at the bar and Harry slipped in alongside him. "Are you someone for alcohol? Muggles have alcohol, right? I didn't see any bottles back in your house."
"I'm not. Not tonight." Tom replied. They looked over at some of the booths where men and women alike were draped over each other, kissing at all the skin they could reach, hands roaming under the tables. "Of course I still drink at parties, but half the time I Vanish the lot. I don't work too well without my inhibitions."
"Okay, but what, seriously, are we doing here then?" Harry asked. There didn't appear to be much point in remaining in a place like this. Neither he nor Tom seemed to be the type to indulge in these… sensualities.
"I need time to think." Tom said with a frown, drumming his fingers against the bartop. The serving man gave him a questioning glance, but Tom waved him away. "I've already acted callously enough today."
Harry gave a bit of a joking laugh. "I didn't know you took time to think. Plans just seem to pop into your mind from nowhere. I mean, you didn't know Draco and I were going to come busting through the fence, but you had us away pretty quickly."
Tom glanced around them for a second, and Harry saw his hands make a few movements. He was casting subtle silencing and privacy charms. Tom: forever on his toes. "As a matter of fact, I had suspected it. Everyone in the office was talking about how they'd managed to create a momentary lapse in the wards. I knew some bumbling wizards were bound to stumble into the compound. In any case, I could sense your magic as soon as you let off that confringo. Powerful piece of work, by the way."
"...Thanks? Malfoy probably could've managed it, too, though."
"I doubt it." Tom replied. "Technicalities aside, spells depend on the force of mind, or will. Don't get me wrong – I'm sure your friend can be terribly persistent in some things – but this unwavering determination of yours is something you should be proud of."
Harry didn't know how to feel in the face of all this praise. He might have flushed a little. Uh– he was supposed to say something polite in return. What could he say about Riddle… What could he say…? Hi, I think your face is really pretty? If you weren't a lone wizard and if you weren't so harsh and focused on survival, I bet lots of girls back at Hogwarts would fall over their feet for you? I think you're secretly incredibly selfless, and I'm planning on thwarting your plans?
"Um," Harry managed, eloquently.
Tom seemed to have noticed that Harry was two seconds away from slotting his foot into his mouth, and he rapidly changed the subject. "Tell me, what's it like in your world?"
Brightening instantly, because this was something he could go on forever about, Harry began to talk. He spoke about Hogwarts, mainly, and he stayed away from his own family because he knew Tom was an orphan. How Hogwarts was a home to all, because it had something for any and everybody. Whether they were a sly Slytherin, a bull-headed Gryffindor, an eager Ravenclaw, or a happy Hufflepuff; whether they felt at home among cauldrons or broomsticks or plants or books, it was a place that appealed to some part of every witch or wizard that stepped in.
Harry told him about the moving portraits and the life. What the Muggle World was missing. But most of all, he told Tom about the lives of the hundreds and hundreds of wizards within the wards.
"You're wanting to free so many, I get it. It's a wonderful thing to do. It's amazing." Harry said to him. He spoke so earnestly that, for a moment, Tom felt guilt rise in his throat. "But you shouldn't. Not when there are billions and billions more that you're ending."
"You've got it the wrong way around." Tom said somewhat impatiently, pushing away all foolish feelings like guilt that those green eyes stirred. "It's cute that you've decided to shower me with sentimentalities, but the truth is that I couldn't give a damn about you wizards. Whether you're free or not doesn't impact my life at all, and I'm awfully, awfully, selfish. What I care about is wiping the all Muggles off the face of this planet." Grey eyes blazed with conviction. "Freeing the rest of my kind that hasn't been my kind at all – that, is a side bonus."
It really struck home then, that this was such a pointless endeavour. Harry could try reach the sun/moon before Tom, yes, but what he couldn't change was the blackened part of his heart. "I don't believe you."
"If you choose not to." Tom said carelessly. "It doesn't matter what you think of me," he lied, "what matters is that I've chosen to give my life to end this reign of Muggles.
"You know, I've changed my mind." Tom continued, turning on his chair and gesturing to the barman. "We have to get drunk immediately."
"Tom–"
The rambling continued. "Lowered inhibitions? I think that, with a death on the horizon, my inhibitions are already substantially lowered. Here, drink." He shoved a glass into Harry's hands.
"Hey–"
"Muggle alcohol. It's not bad. Not that I can say much, considering I've never had Wizarding drinks–" Someone began approaching their chairs, and Tom immediately broke off. Both of them cast wary eyes on the sandy-haired man who swayed up to Tom's chair and placed a hand on the bar. The man was dressed sensibly, there was no obscene amount of skin showing, but still.
Harry knew where this was going, and he didn't like it.
"Beauty," the man's hazel eyes flickered up to meet grey as he spoke. "I couldn't help but notice you seemed to be getting a little irritated in your unwanted–" (Harry quietly fumed. The nerve!) "–company. I thought maybe I could–"
"I'm terribly sorry." Tom cut in, his eyes steely. "I think my man here is enough company. Thank you for your offer, but I'm going to have to decline."
To Harry's surprise, the man simply peacefully inclined his head and left.
"I thought he was going to put up a fight."
"I subtly compelled him." Tom said, nonchalantly. "I do that quite often with Muggles."
Harry raised a dubious eyebrow. Well, if Tom needed to. "I'm also surprised by how… unsurprised you were. Do you seriously get men coming up to you all the time? Is that more acceptable in the Muggle world?" The answer to the first question was probably yes. Harry could see them now, the occasional once-overs and leers that both men and women were giving Tom.
"Is it acceptable among wizards?"
"Well I–" Harry cut himself off, flushing furiously. Some deep, inwardly Slytherin part of him almost believed he'd done that on purpose. Let Tom know he was perfectly fine with being gay. He saw Tom's eyes flash, noting Harry's reaction. "Yeah. Kind of."
Tom sat back, idly refilling his glass. "In this Muggle line of work, the field is dominated by men. Of course I've seduced a number of them."
Harry just sort of blinked at him. Tom smirked back. "You're… nineteen?"
"Glamours." Tom reminded him, taking a drink. Harry did the same.
"Your world's so different from mine. Your life is bloody insane."
"I've noticed," Tom said drily. "Mr Hopeful who lives in the sunshine, are you sure you want to go to the Omega power plant? You might begin crying at the sight."
"What do you mean? Of course I'm sure I want to go. I'm not going to let you do this on your own. Well, with Malfoy," Harry added hastily, "but he's pretty much no one anyway."
Tom always seemed to be amused by Harry and Malfoy's bickering. "Nuclear factories aren't the only things up there. They've got nuclear warheads. Detonated against the wards before, even, but magic only falters to electrical energy. It didn't do a thing." Tom relaxed, running a hand along the bartop. "Muggles have slaughter each other by the hordes. The Omega power plant epitomizes that. Muggles have bombed an entire cities and killed hundreds of civilians where children, too, suffered years after from the lingering effects. All of this killing wasn't even my doing."
"You wouldn't do that."
"Wouldn't I? I did say that all it'd take was an imperio." Tom asked, eyes glittering. But then he sighed, the predator dropping from his features. "You may look at Muggles and Wizards and think magic is the only thing that differs them, but the differences run far deeper than that. I have journals, left by my predecessors, and their spines are bent by all I've poured over them. They've written about Wizards. Wizards, and how they choose to live. What do Wizards value, Harry?"
That was a difficult question. "Gold? Power? A family?"
Tom's lips twitched into a bit of a wry smile. "Ancestry. Preserving the old. Claiming that you're Slytherin's descendant could get you anywhere. But do you know what Muggles want? Muggles are fundamentally different – they're always chasing the new, afraid of falling behind. The bigger. The better. Regardless of the sacrifices they have to make."
"I don't see where you're going with this." Harry admitted. "So what?"
Tom locked eyes with him over the glass he was tipping back. He set it down with a resolute thunk. "Ah, then I suppose I'll leave you to piece it together – why Muggles and Wizards will never be compatible. You should look in the history books sometime."
"Sure." Harry said, although he didn't know where he'd possibly get a history book out here in a place that was a far cry from a library. "Hey, Tom, it's getting late. Do you want to head back – Gods, did you really drink that much?"
Tom gave him a smirk, reaching for his wallet. They were out of the place in no time, and back on the crowded streets. The volume hadn't diminished one bit, but what took Harry off-guard was that Tom had grabbed his hand to lead him through the people. Tom's fingers were cool against his own – Harry was suddenly terrifyingly aware that his own hand was clammy and warm – and they threaded with Harry's and settled there as though there was nothing odd at all.
They entered the glass doors of the hotel, still hand in hand. Harry pulled the interlocked fingers in front of Tom and asked: "What's this supposed to be?"
Tom simply hummed as they stood before the metal box, waiting for it to open. "Has anybody ever told you that your eyes are the most brilliant green?"
"Gods, I swear you're incapable of answering questions. Tom, you're drunk."
"I," Tom said solemnly as they stepped into the metal box, pulling Harry after hi, "have a legendary alcohol tolerance. I do not get drunk."
"You just told me a while ago that you didn't drink because it lowered your inhibitions."
Tom waved his free hand dismissively. "Don't be silly. Never trust my words." The doors dinged! and opened to reveal the lavish corridor. Tom turned to face Harry, walking backwards, a small smirk fixed on his face. "Did I ever tell you I thought you were a fool at the start? Not one like your friend Malfoy, who carelessly tried to knock me out, but a naive fool. I saw you with your blasted pretty face and thought: that one has a poor judgement. All innocence and not a hint of deceit–"
–Oh Tom, what you didn't know–
"But your bold justice is something great. Keep it, close to heart. It's something I paradoxically hate and love. Hate, because I cannot afford it. And love, because," Tom shrugged, "who can stay away from a hero?"
"I'm really not that great, Tom. You're the one who shines. Half the people at the bar had their eyes on you. You command people, have them just wrapped around your fingers." –Tom's thumb traced a circle across Harry's skin in that moment, as if to laugh– "You're right when you say you know how to play people. You catch their eyes like I never can." Harry looked at Tom, whose cheeks were slightly flushed. "But on the other hand, those drinks are really going to your head."
"Ah," he heard Tom mutter. "My mouth is loose. But what does it matter anyway?" Harry felt incredibly guilty then, because he was still planning on keeping Tom alive.
He knocked on the door to their room. There was an expectant pause.
"I know you have a keycard with you," Malfoy said from inside, his voice sounding muffled. "So stop being lazy demanding arses."
Tom sighed, reaching into his pocket and then withdrawing the plastic rectangle. They walked in to see a Malfoy swathed snugly in blankets up to his shoulders, his blonde hair and pointy face reflecting lights from moving pictures on the wall.
Harry let go of Tom's hand in surprise. "Muggles have moving pictures too?" He asked in complete awe. He heard Tom gently thump his head against the wall, but Harry's eyes had fixed on the pictures of what appeared to be cherries in white cream swirls. "Oh Gods, they make sounds as well?"
"There are thousands of lights inside the screen." Tom explained, sounding slightly pained. Malfoy just watched, enraptured by the pictures where a man was gesturing at the cherries. "The images don't actually move." Then Tom shook his head, mumbling something under his breath about 'a blissfully ignorant idiot' as he headed for the bathroom.
A blissfully ignorant idiot, Tom thought somewhat fondly, who shone like the moon. Because said incompetent, useless, righteous, perfect bloody idiot would be there to cast light upon the dark.
–––
Now, Amelia didn't tend to take these sorts of jobs. These jobs in the stuffy red rooms, shirts off, sitting in sweating, stinking, laps.
But this was something different. This was a personal favour.
She held the phone right up by her mouth, palming the recorder in her hand. The hidden room was dark, light streaming in from a single pinhole by her head – light from the back, red room where people took private shows. "You know Tristan, five years ago when you really got into the swing of crime, your brother asked me to keep an eye out for you. Without you knowing, of course."
There was a pause. "Amelia." The phone replied.
"You always take this room. I installed a little cubby here years back, and I've been keeping a camera out. Every. Single. Time." A smirk curled on her glossy red lips. "You really just thought I was your little plaything.
"But that's not what I called for. Something really interesting's happened in your room this time. You might not remember, but magical stuff, eh?
There was a longer pause as she waited for the implications to sink in.
"I'm gonna give you this recording, and you're gonna give Tommy boy a wake-up call."
a/n: before you start thinking the cherries were a metaphor for something, malfoy was actually watching a cooking show for reasons unknown
can anyone guess why tom had that little hiccup where he looks surprised and smiles at harry?
this story is sickeningly sweet gurk and it's like becoming a muggle and wizarding study. action kicks in soon, promise.