crawlersout
/ 4 /
A small girl with vermillion hair leans against the sliding porch door, cold wind in her hair and a dispossessed expression on her face. Harry sighs, rubbing her temples as she watches Tom out in the yard, once again the conductor of some kind of undead symphony. At least he looks to be enjoying himself—enjoying himself, and not attached to her hip, that is.
She supposes it's not all that surprising. It is apparently (according to the dozens of parenting books Hermione is so fond of) quite natural, considering the circumstances. Tom is insecure, and no matter what she does, he most likely will continue to be insecure about their relationship and his position in her life for some time to come. It's normal for him to be possessive. Most children are, actually, though not normally to this extent, and not normally at this age.
But then, even considering all the mitigating and unique circumstances, she and Tom are—different.
Though to be honest with herself, she'd never expected otherwise.
They have a history that Tom has no awareness of; an intimate connection, probably far more intimate than any other connection on this earth. She is a part of him, and he is a part of her; two halves of the same soul. Even if Voldemort is dead, and the horcrux inside of her has been destroyed, this doesn't change the fact that they are still irrevocably intertwined, and have been even since before she was born.
His possessiveness, his unwillingness to let her go, and his extreme panic at the thought of her having a close relationship with anyone else—these all may be due to his insecurities and abandonment issues, but it goes far deeper than that. The Dark Lord Voldemort was vehemently protective of his horcruxes; the only possessions he held in any legitimate regard. More than that, even. His obsession with them exceeded even his mad hunt to exterminate the muggles and his goal of purging the world of Muggleborns. Harry isn't foolish enough to think that's the sort of emotion that goes away—that isn't something rooted deeply within him.
"It's so cold, Tom." She whines, tugging her scarf tighter. "Why don't you come inside?"
Tom does not seem to mind the bitter chill as it whips across his face; his cheeks are a bright red, as is the tip of his nose, and there are snowflakes in his hair. But this all seems to make him even more enamored with the winter cold.
"I'll come in really soon, promise!" Is his uneager response.
Harry eyes him critically. "You're going to catch a cold," she warns, but it goes unheard. Honestly though he'll probably get sick either way—that is the beauty of school; which is just a whole lot of snotty kids rubbing their hands over everything.
The dead things crumble away, and then Tom scampers back towards her, and unsurprisingly barrels right into her and demands to be picked up and carried. She does not miss his eagerness as he wraps his arms around her neck; the tight grip of his fingers, the nose that buries itself into her hair. She adjusts him on her hip, sliding the door closed with a foot and moving into the warmth of the rest of the house. She deposits him onto the couch; the moment she returns with her tea and sits down as well he clamors over to her, resting his head against her leg as he reads his book.
Harry absently pets his hair as she goes through all the mail. How do they manage to accumulate so much of it? She hasn't given her address to anyone. Well, then again, this house gets mail in two entirely separate time periods, maybe it was only inevitable. Most of the ones from her time are junk; the twins have sent her another package of heinous shirts; catalogues from mail orders she didn't remember signing up for; a few work related things; a statement from Gringotts. There is one envelope addressed in completely unintelligible chicken scratch. Curiously she moves to pick it up. It's not addressed to her.
"Tom," she calls. He makes a reluctant noise. "You have mail."
At this, he blinks, bolting upright. "I do?" He replies with no small amount of surprise.
She hands the letter out to him, and he wastes no time in divesting the letter of its wrappings and reading through it. Quite frankly, she's impressed he can read it at all.
He pulls a face then, and hands it back to her with little aplomb, settling once more into her lap. Harry reads it herself, a bit surprised when she sees what it is. An invitation to a birthday party. A little girl's one, at that. She can see why Tom is so disturbed by it; the letter is pink with a lot of hearts and flowers on it—she can only imagine what the party is going to look like after seeing this small preview. She places it aside with all the rest of the mail.
"You don't want to go?"
He shakes his head vehemently in response.
"Why not?" She murmurs, peering down at him. "I thought this Ruth girl was your friend?"
"She's not my friend." He replies immediately, sounding horrified at the very prospect. "And I don't want to go."
"It seems like it'll be fun. And all your classmates will be there, so you'll know everyone." She notes.
"I don't care." Tom is studiously fixated upon his book. "I don't want to go to a party."
"What's so wrong with a party?" She returns.
"It sounds terrible and boring." He announces. "And anyway, I would rather stay here."
There is a long pause as Harry continues to stroke his hair, lost in thought. "It'll be good to get out, you know." She says quietly, after some time has passed. "And meet other people, and play with them. Human interaction is important, Tom."
"But I don't want to do any of that!" Tom protests, lowering his book and rolling around to look up at her. "I want to stay here with you!"
"Tom," Harry sighs, but he cuts her off.
"I don't care about any of them." He declares. "And I don't want to go to some stupid party. I don't need friends—I have you and Spot."
"Tom, Spot is a snake." Harry points out. "And I'm—well, different. You need to interact with people your own age."
"No I don't!" He cries. "I have you."
She takes a long breath. "That's different, Tom."
"But why?" He pouts, moving to sit up.
"Because—" She hesitates. "Because we're different. And that's… okay." She hedges. Tom's expression has turned very complicated. "It's okay that we're different." She reassures. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to be normal. And I don't count; I'm not your age."
"That makes no sense." He decides, mutinous. "Why would I do that? Don't you always tell me to be who I am, and never try to be anyone else?"
"Well yes," she replies patiently. "But who were are on the inside is different than what we show on the outside. You'll be put in a lot of situations where you're going to have to pretend to be someone you're not—you've already done it, haven't you?"
His nose shrivels up, and a conflicted look crosses his face. She's right; he does do that. He manipulates people into doing what he wants all the time, by acting a certain way or pretending to be something else.
"Yes," he gives a dramatic sigh. "Are you telling me that I should go, and pretend like I actually like them?"
"I think you actually do like them, and do like being around them," Harry refutes, amused. "But you would prefer to be at home, reading."
He nods.
"That's fine—but life is all about balance, isn't it? It's not good to only have a lot of one thing and not a lot of the other."
He nods again, looking reluctant at that. It is the prime principle in Alchemy, his favorite class, and a defining property in all the other forms of the dark arts. Transmutation is all about balance, and ignoring that principle is where things start to go wrong. It appears that this law exceeds the dark arts and remarks upon some significant statement on life itself. He can privately admit Harry is right, but this doesn't make him any happier about it.
"I guess," he bites out, stubborn until the very end.
Harry smiles at his mulish determination. "So you'll go then?"
He heaves another dramatic sigh, flopping back down onto the couch. "If I must."
/
Harry runs a wary hand through her hair, sitting at the kitchen table and attempting to sort out the mess atop it. The bills came in. That's fine and all, even though she's essentially paying a double utility bill every month—but the sum isn't even remarking upon in the thirties, so she doesn't really mind—it's not really the water and electricity she's worried about. It occurs to her that this is the season for filing taxes; this is not an event limited only to the Muggle world, unfortunately. It would be much easier if it were.
She has no idea how she's supposed to claim two separate properties that are kind of actually the same one. And how exactly is she supposed to file in the first place, when she technically doesn't exist in this dimension? And this place doesn't exist in this dimension? She could lie, but those goblins are going to find out eventually, and she doesn't want to have to go through the inevitable mess that will be.
Harry rubs her temples, wondering the best way to go about this. It's not the goblins she has to worry about—it's the state. She can only imagine the confusion that will occur once they start reading through her file.
After worrying over it for the better part of the morning, she decides it might just be best to pay the government a visit and explain it in person. It's not as if it was very far—just down by the harbor.
This is how the unremarkable morning finds Harry Potter peering curiously into an elaborate building of opalescent silver stone, standing beneath a grand archway at the center of the complex. The street behind her is crowded with the murmur of people, and in front of her was nothing but a spectacular view of the water. Light caught along the lines of waves, speckling against the intricate mosaic work in brilliant colors. She looked around the courtyard; there were four doors, two on each side of the archway. Well, if she picked wrong, it wouldn't be that hard to figure her way back, right?
"Hello, excuse me," she calls hesitantly, when she finally managed to find something resembling a receptionist desk. "I'm looking for the Department of Financial Services?"
"Union or Confederation?" Is the man's bored response.
Harry blinks. "Well—Union, I suppose." She honestly doesn't know enough about the American Ministry to know.
He ushers her down a narrow, twisting hallway. The building is clearly very old, perhaps even centuries; even clearer is the fact that the architects didn't bother to tear anything down for renovations—rather, they simply build on top of it. Or around it, in some cases. She found the Department easily enough, after asking for directions more than a few times.
Unfortunately, it appeared she was leading herself in the wrong direction.
"I'm afraid you'll have to take this down to Washington; time travel isn't in our jurisdiction." Is the apologetic response from the Financial Services director. "Not to mention, you may need to clear this personally with your Governor."
Harry gapes. It's really that big of a deal? She supposes it might have been remiss of her to assume it wasn't. She… is in a rather complicated position.
She sighs. "He's accessible through the Floo, I'm hoping?"
This is how Harry finds herself somehow, illogically, waiting in the grandiloquent lobby of Capital Hill.
The young woman looks around quite curiously; she's never been to the Capital before—in this time or her own. She'd never been to this side of the pond at all, actually, until very recently. It's quite lovely. The Ministry of Magic and the British government share very few similarities; it's clear to see the two worlds branched away from each other long ago. In contrast, the muggle government here is just as much a part of the muggle world as the magical. Maybe she shouldn't be though. After all, this was a relatively new country; England's been around since… well she doesn't even know. She is quite surprised when she's informed that the President himself is, indeed, a wizard.
"A Harvard fellow, you know," the wizard beside her adds, reverently, when she voices her surprise aloud - after he has already gushed about the man's achievements for at least another fifteen minutes.
Harry nods politely, wondering if there was a polite way to get out of this situation. "How wonderful. Law, then?"
"Not at all!" The man enthuses. "Graduated from the School of Transmutation! Really though, it's his wife that's got the talent. Not that you'd ever be able to tell, she's always holed up in her potions lab."
Fortunately for the both of them, the chattering man is drawn away soon thereafter, moving down the queue when his name is called. Harry looks around the lobby; there are very few people maundering about the vast entryway, especially considering it's a weekday. They are all dressed in fine, expensive suits, as opposed to the long dress robes she'd expected. She also would have expected quite a few more of them. As it is, there is only one other man waiting on this side of the lobby, opposite her in a comfy leather armchair, a low slung table dividing them. She's taken aback to see that the paper he's so invested in is the Daily Prophet.
"The Prophet?" She asks aloud. "Are you from England?"
"Oh no, not at all." The man says cheerily, lowering the paper to glance at her. He is quite a handsome man, with a roguish, charming smile and lemon colored hair; he looks as if he belongs here, in all this opulence, situated like a king upon a casual throne. "And thank Merlin for that."
Harry's lips tilt at that. "And yet you seem quite familiar with their colloquial terms." She reasons: no one says Merlin outside of Britain. "So you must not be from around here."
He snorts. "Well, I'm certainly not a Yankee, if that's what you mean."
"No?" She returns, politely. "Where are you from, then? If you don't mind me asking."
"Germany." He replies at length, and she thinks there might have been a beat of hesitation somewhere in there. Well, perhaps it's not all that unfounded; she hasn't been keeping up to date with the happenings in this time, but she knows enough about history to infer that this might not be the best time to be a German in America. Or maybe it was the other way around? At any rate, she vows to look it up on google when she gets back to her time—Hermione introduced her some time ago, and she is quite convinced that there is nothing better on this earth than that silly little search engine. Well, maybe her smart phone.
"Oh, that's lovely—I've always wanted to go." She smiles pleasantly, attempting to find something neutral to talk about. Small talk has never been her area of expertise, no matter how many times she's been made to do it, it always makes her fluttery and nervous. "I've been meaning to go to Berlin for ages." Preferably before it becomes inaccessible, she wisely does not say.
"You should!" He agrees readily. "Lovely place. Personally, I enjoy Frankfurt over Berlin—more modern, I think. I've never been one for the sleepy countryside; I prefer to be in the heart of it all. Not that Berlin is much of the countryside, but it's far smaller than Frankfurt."
"I enjoy the city far more than the country myself." She nods solemnly.
His smile is utterly dazzling, and incredibly lethal at point blank range. Harry blinks a few times, feeling blinded by it. "My sentiments exactly." He opines, rakishly. "Now if you don't mind me asking, what's a lovely dame like yourself doing waiting around this boring old place?"
"This 'boring old place' is the heart of legislation for the world's largest economy," she notes, amused. "But unfortunately I'm not here for the sightseeing." She holds up her folder with exasperation.
He raises a brow.
"Taxes," she explains, resigned. "Doesn't matter where in world you go, or where in the world you're from, I suppose—they're always such a tedious task."
The flaxen-haired man looks quite surprised at this. "You do your husband's taxes?"
"Oh, no, I don't have a husband." Harry reveals, laughing lightly, not taking offense. It seems to be the first thing anyone asks in this era; not to mention, the only thing anyone seems to care about. If anything, people seem to take offense at the idea of her raising a family and not having one. "I'm afraid these are all mine to deal with."
He raises a brow, looking impressed as he leans back in his chair. "Well aren't you full of surprises," he appraises, marveling. "You must either be very famous or very infamous to land yourself in here."
"Oh, I'm neither, really," she gives him a facsimile smile. "Just complicated."
"I'll say," he observes, a winsome grin upon his face as he sprawls elegantly on his chair. "And very fascinating," he adds, lowly. Harry swallows warily, not sure if she likes his tone. It's gone in a moment, replaced by something cheery and polite. "What is it that you do?"
"I work in finance," she relays, vaguely.
"Big industry," he quips, calling her out on her obvious ambiguity. "Banking, then?"
She shakes her head. "Investing," she returns.
If possible, he looks even more surprised. Surprised—and calculating. "Very surprising indeed." He murmurs, bright citron eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "Hedge Fund?"
She shakes her head again. "Venture capital."
"How exciting," he purrs. "You hadn't struck me as much of a gambler."
"I'm not, really." Harry is not sure if she likes where this conversation is going.
"And yet, I don't think there are higher stakes than that." He points out. "Big risks."
She smiles back, tightly. "Oh well—big risks, big returns, and all that." Not that she does any of the actual investing.
She startles a laugh out of him at that. "I certainly can't refute you on that," he concedes, gazing at her shrewdly. "No better place to gain your fortune—or lose it, for that matter." And then, curious, "What made you decide to get into it? I'm sure a woman of your… temperament would have no trouble enjoying a life without the need to work at all."
In a time period like this, that actually might have been a very polite thing to say, but it only serves to exasperate her. This man is lucky she's not Hermione, who would have whacked him in the head with her chair and given him a lecture so scathing it would have stripped him of his dignity.
Instead, she simply holds her facetious smile. "Or maybe I'm just enjoying a life without the need of a husband." She turns around.
He blinks at that, clearly taken by surprise.
"You know, I don't think I've ever met a woman quite like you." He confesses, shaking his head with wonder. "And I mean that with the… highest compliments. You are quite the clever little creature."
Harry is not sure why she feels flustered at this; she has met far more forward men in her own time, not to mention far more intimidating, and far more attractive. She can't quite place what it is about this man that has her… on edge. And she can't quite place whether what she feels is excitement or alarm. It's hard to say in the face of that roguish, lop-sided smile. He is far too charming not to be dangerous.
"Oh, well, thank you. That's very kind." She replies, after a beat.
Some of her hesitation must show on her face, for he frowns at that, sitting up. "I apologize," he says sincerely, looking genuinely concerned. "I hadn't meant to make you uncomfortable."
She fights a smile. "It's alright—it takes far more than that to unnerve me." Not after she's stared her own death in the face; not when she's had to fight against the most dangerous dark wizard of all time.
"Wit, beauty and courage." He chuckles. "I'm afraid you're only endearing yourself more to me."
Harry blinks, a thought occurring to her. "Perhaps I should be the one apologizing then," she allows at length. "That wasn't my intention."
"I know." He agrees, standing up in one graceful, fluid motion, fixing his suit jacket and folding his paper over his arm. He winks. "That in and of itself is perhaps the most endearing thing at all."
And then he blinks, tilting his head suavely as he studies her. "I don't think I caught your name," he observes, with a dark, searching gaze.
Harry swallows. "Um—it's Harry. Harry… Riddle." That's okay, right? Potter is a fairly unremarkable last name; in the muggle world, anyway. But she doesn't want people to make any kind of connection between her and one of Britain's sacred twenty-eight.
She's never quite understood the whole hand-kissing thing—it only ever serves to make her uncomfortable. It's about a thousand times worse with this man; she feels her cheeks redden at the barest touch of his lips against the back of her hand. Or perhaps it's not because of his lips, but the smoldering look her fixates upon her soon thereafter.
"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman," he muses, and Harry didn't think she'd ever meet someone who could pull off a line like that so successfully. If anyone else had said something like that to her she would have laughed in their face; as it is, she is fighting to look even slightly composed.
She's not sure how he knew that he would be called away at this moment, but it's clear he did, for not a moment later a page boy walks briskly into the magnificent lobby, striding with purpose. The boy's eyes sweep the vast marble room, before he walks with determination towards them.
"Lord Grindelwald?" He greets, with an extravagant bow. "The President will see you now."
He nods once at her. "Well, it was a pleasure, Harry."
She finds her composure well and truly slipping at that, and she is entirely incapable of responding.
/
Tom leaps at her the moment she gets home, furiously demanding answers for her lateness. She answers this with a fierce hug of her own; it seems their roles are switched today, for she finds some semblance of normalcy as she breathes in the scent of his hair, finding comfort in its familiarity. The young boy seems quite taken aback by her apparent fervor, but this does not deter him from immediately hugging her just as tightly.
He pulls away then, an adorable moue of determination settled upon his features. "Harry, what's wrong?" It is less of a question and more of an interrogation.
Harry shakes her head, sighing. "Nothing. I'm so sorry I'm late, Tom. Are you hungry?" She rises to her feet, running a hand through her hair. "I don't think I'm up to cooking, honestly; what do you say to ordering out? Pizza okay?"
"Never mind the food," Tom frowns, tugging at her shirt. "What happened? Why were you so late?"
"Oh, Tom, it's nothing." She smiles brightly at him. "I got stuck running a whole bunch of tedious—and exhausting—errands, that's all. It's just been…frustrating."
He pouts, not entirely convinced. Harry is very good at pretending she's perfectly fine—but Tom is very good at reading through all of that. Unfortunately, deducing that something is wrong, and getting Harry to admit to it are two entirely different things. Harry opens up the freezer and pulls out a frozen pizza from a box—it never ceases to amaze him that a whole pizza can just be frozen up like that; is it magic?—and promptly pretends like nothing is wrong. Tom scowls. He's not a kid! She doesn't have to lie to him—he's perfectly capable of comforting her.
Meanwhile, Harry was scolding herself for being so easily shaken up about things. To be honest, she wasn't sure what it was about the whole ordeal that concerned her. It shouldn't be so surprising to see Grindelwald making his connections with the leaders of society—he was trying to wage a war, for Merlin's sake. She can only imagine what he was doing holding a meeting with the President; trying to get him to support him? Support him how? Probably money, most likely, and to help put pressure on wizarding Europe. Like many of the Asian countries, America's muggle leader and its wizarding leader were the same person. She's not sure why it's so different in Europe—but she can only imagine how much easier that's going to make things for a person like Grindelwald, who's looking for support in both worlds anyways.
He says no, she reminds herself. This is obvious; one only has to pick up a textbook to know what happens to this country in the coming war. America staunchly refuses to get involved—she wonders if there might be a reason for that. But what could the dark lord possibly have said to convince the president to attempt to stay as far away from the war as possible?
Harry decides this actually has nothing to do with her. She's fought in one war, and she has no intention of getting herself involved in another. Her eyes trail away from the oven to the little boy pouting on the couch with his pet snake. She can't endanger herself so recklessly anymore. She couldn't even imagine the devastation it would cause Tom.
But perhaps what really had shaken her was how—amiable, he was. Charismatic, handsome, practically a dashing prince charming for all intent purposes.
She remembers coming to the surprising conclusion that Dumbledore must have shared quite a history with that man—a very intimate one, at that. It's weird to finally meet the man whom her headmaster was so enamored with. Privately, she can see why. He had a way with people, that was for sure.
No wonder so many people flocked to him during his rise to power.
She pauses then, and her gaze finds itself to the boy on the couch once more. She feels something strange and sad crawl its way into her chest. Was Tom Riddle the same? Was he a charming, handsome, and alluring young man, who could entice people to his side with only an elegant smile? She remembered he had no trouble conning that old Hepizbah Smith into complacency. It wouldn't be such a stretch to assume he did the same with others.
The oven dings, startling her out of her thoughts as she bangs her head on the vent. Harry curses, before she shoves the pizza into it and promptly makes for Tom.
He is still staring determinably out the window, clutching Spot in a vice-like grip.
"Tom?" She sits next to him, wondering why he is so upset. Is it some subconscious emotional echo from her own distress? She doesn't know what else could have set him off, but either way it's clear that he's upset.
When he doesn't respond she pulls him closer, smoothing back his hair. "What's wrong, kitten?"
"Don't call me that!" He pushes away from her abruptly, with a force that surprises her. "I'm not a kitten!"
"Alright," she pacifies, growing more concerned.
Tom takes a deep breath, feeling foolish suddenly. Foolish and guilty; he shouldn't be taking his anger out on Harry. There is a quick flash of hurt in her eyes when he wrenches away from her, and it's doing terrible things to his heart. It only takes a moment before he is dropping Spot—much to the snake's chagrin—and tucking himself against her, burying his face against her neck.
There is nothing he likes less than apologizing; he is very sure he's never wrong, so it's not like he needs to. More to the point, he is also very sure that he doesn't care for anyone's opinion on him, so he never feels as if he should make it up to them. Except for Harry, of course. Harry is his, and there are very few things he can truly call his own, so he should take better care of her.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles into her hair. "I just…"
He doesn't want to have to explain it. He knows it's stupid, but he doesn't want Harry to think of him like a little kid. He wants to be more mature than that in her eyes—even if he still likes to be picked up and held by her and read bed time stories. It's… a bit of a contradiction, he knows. Which is why he feels stupid. He can't have one without giving up the other. If he doesn't want Harry to see him as a little kid, he should probably stop sleeping in her bed. The idea is mildly upsetting to even contemplate. He loves his room; he got to pick out all the furniture all by himself. He just prefers Harry's more.
"Oh, Tomcat, it's alright." She saves him from actually having to go through with the apology, fortunately. She stills then. "Oh, sorry. Would you rather me—
He shakes his head vehemently. "No, it's okay." He didn't mean to snap. Now that he's not feeling embittered, he doesn't want her to stop calling him endearing names, no matter what they are.
She huffs softly. "Well, okay then. Would you like to tell me what's wrong?"
He purses his lips, drawing away from her to study her sternly—even though he is attempting to look serious, it comes out more like a rather adorable look of determination. "Would you like to tell me what's wrong?" He parrots back to her.
She blinks at that, before shaking her head with a small smile. "It's really nothing, Tom. You don't have to worry. I was just—stressed. It's been a pretty tiring day."
"But you looked upset when you came in." Tom notes, frowning. "And sad."
Harry pauses. "Well, maybe a bit." She agrees. And then, with a slow smile she leans in to rub their noses together. "But you made it all better, right?"
He returns her smile. "Right."
She gets up soon after that, snapping her attention to the kitchen where Spot is attempting to open the oven door and make a play for the food. "Spot!" She reprimands, leaping towards him. "Stop that—you're going to burn yourself!"
"But I'm so hungry," Spot whines, wiggling around in dismay.
Harry scowls. "Then go outside and catch your own food. There are plenty of rabbits."
"I don't want to catch food." Is Spot's petulant response, before the banana colored snake sighs and slithers over towards the porch door. He is so long that it takes quite a few seconds before the entirety of him is out the door.
Harry grumbles at him, waving the door shut with an absent hand. Tom marvels at the little displays of wandless magic she performs; so practiced and instinctual, as if it wasn't hard at all. Tom wants to be able to do that. She is looking into the oven with great consternation; he wonders if she accidentally burned it. It wouldn't be surprising. Harry is very good at cooking—but only a handful of things. Everything else she's rather abysmal at. She says she hates cooking, actually, and never enjoyed it much. She had remarked once that there was a time in her life where she cooked quite often—and she hated it, and promptly refused to even touch a stove ever since. She eventually had to learn again when she started living on her own. This in and of itself is strange. He doesn't know any women who live alone, not in the neighborhood, or in the surrounding ones, or even at school. He also doesn't know of any women who don't like cooking; even Margaret and Ruth and all the girls in his class know how. Most of them have grand aspirations of being housewives like the ones on the telly. Well aside from Margaret, who wants to rule the world in a most tyrannical manner.
Harry wrenches open the oven door with a brilliant smile. "Almost burned it," she laughs weakly as she sets it upon the counter.
Tom shakes his head with fondness. Maybe he should learn how to cook. It can't be any harder than potions, and it'll save Harry from having to do it all the time.
"Good thing you didn't!" He exclaims, moving around her to grab the plates. "I'm really hungry."
Dinner is a light-hearted, but quiet affair. Spot worms his way back in eventually, complaining loudly about the exercise and the cold, even though spring is fast approaching. Harry feels a bit bad, as he probably is very cold, considering he's a tropical snake. As a consolation she lights up the fireplace and feeds him a slice of pizza. Spot is more than happy to take this as a consolation prize: Spot's favorite food is pizza, but Harry never lets him have any ever since that one time they came home to discover he'd opened the freezer and ate all the boxes. She also doesn't like to feed him from the table because she doesn't want him to beg—but Spot is lazy and whiny and would probably beg anyway.
They polish off the blumberry chocolate chip and move in for the taro flavor with mochi bits. It promptly dethrones chocolate as Tom's favorite. He manages to eat at least three servings before the sugar gets the better of him and he starts to feel gross.
When it's time for bed he darts into his own room quickly to shower and change into his pajamas. When he exits the bathroom he moves to his grand collection of books, digging out all his fantasy ones and debating which he wants Harry to read next. He feels uncomfortable, suddenly, as he sits on his unused bed and peruses through all the books. His gaze leaves the illustrious titles for the perfectly made covers and pillows; it's been more than a year since he came to live with Harry, and he has never once used this bed, aside from the day he arrived. There is a terrible pang in his stomach when he acknowledges to himself that he shouldn't be sleeping with her anymore. It is accompanied by a hollow fear. He doesn't want to stop sleeping with Harry. He knows he's too old for it, but he doesn't want to stop.
In the end, he rationalizes with himself that he has to stop being such a child. He is far too old, and far too mature, to be scared of the dark. He should have no trouble sleeping alone.
He scowls down at all the books, shoving them away and climbing into his bed. It feels foreign and cold.
He tugs down the bed covers, and is greeted with a very familiar blanket. His heart constricts on itself as he reaches to run a hand over it. It is so soft, and when he leans in he can smell the faint, familiar scent of laundry. It's a smell he's long since learned to associate with this house, and with Harry. He shuts off his light, curling in next to it, burying his nose in the fabric.
He curls tighter when he hears the light thud of Harry's footsteps, her voice as she calls for him curiously. The footsteps draw closer, and then the door is opening every so slightly.
"Oh!" She says, in a whisper. "Are you sleeping?"
He makes an unintelligible noise.
She moves closer, resting a lovely, warm hand over his head. "Are you okay in here, Tomcat?"
He makes another unintelligible noise.
Harry doesn't quite take this as assent. "Do you want to sleep with me?"
"No." Yes. He scrunches in tighter, refusing to allow himself to give in.
"Alright then," is her soft response. "Do you want me to bring Spot in here?"
This he caves on, nodding readily. His snake will make this at least marginally better.
"Okay, let me go get him." She whispers quietly, as she leaves the room. She returns after a moment, bodily dragging in the enormous snake. Most of Spot is in her arms, but she has to drag his long tail behind her. She deposits the snake on the bed; his is much smaller than Harry's, and Spot takes up almost the entirety of it, even draping himself over Tom a couple times. Harry leans down again, brushing a kiss against his forehead. This almost breaks his resolve, but he wraps his arms around both Spot and his blanket, so tight he's surprised Spot isn't protesting yet. "Goodnight, Tomcat." She runs another affectionate hand through his hair, before she straightens up.
He feels the incessant urge to leap away from here and back into her arms, but somehow manages to find the strength to refrain. "'Night Harry." He bites out, after a beat.
She hesitates for a moment, and then she is out the door.
/
Suffice to say, he was in for a long night.
He didn't get much sleep at all, and when he comes to school the next day he is cranky, irritable and upset with himself. It shouldn't be this hard to sleep alone! He's disappointed in himself, is what it really is. He thought he was stronger than this. But then, he's always acknowledged that Harry was his weakness. With everyone else he is stoic, cold, and manipulative. He doesn't need anything or anyone but himself; he doesn't need help with his assignments, he doesn't need friends on the playground (but followers are nice to have); he doesn't need the attention of his peers; he's the best in every subject. Even his teachers are always commenting on how smart and mature he is. Except he is not particularly smart or mature with Harry.
If he was smart he would have known to keep her at arms length ever since they met, just like he had the rest of the world. If he was mature he wouldn't need her constant attention, or constant affirmations of her affection. But he's long since decided that having one exception for Harry is acceptable.
He is moody and irritable and trying to stay calm through all his classes. He managed to cast a lightning bolt all on his own today and it still did nothing to lighten his spirits. He is less inclined to indulge his friends than usual, when normally he would at least humor them with a remark or two. Ruth is utterly ecstatic about her birthday, and hasn't talked about much else. He knows she's a muggleborn, but she appears to have invited practically the whole school, so the majority of the people there will be young wizards and witches and their parents.
To make matters worse, Professor Oz pulls him aside to ask him how he's doing. Tom doesn't want to talk about how he's doing, even less with Professor Oz.
"I'm fine." He bites out, shifting his weight on his feet as he tries to peer over his shoulder and see what the rest of the class is doing.
Unfortunately his teacher sees right through that. "Are you sure?" He prods, gently.
"Yes." Tom snaps, perhaps more acidly than he had intended. He crosses his arms with a frown. "I'm doing quite fine; I got the spell down before everyone else." He points out. Shouldn't his academic prowess be the only thing his Professor cares about?
"That you did," the man agrees. "Very well, in fact."
There is something grave and solemn to his tone, but Tom has no idea why.
"Tom, what can you tell me about curses?"
Tom blinks. What an odd question. Not to mention it is far too vague a question to even warrant a legitimate answer. He tries anyway. "Curses are predominantly classified as active-offensive spells." He parrots, dutifully from their textbook. "Although there are also more latent, passive-offensive curses."
"Very good." The professor nods. "But what is the key to curses?"
His brow furrows. "I'm sorry?"
"How do you go about casting a curse?"
Oh. This, he can answer. "Curses are about intention."
"True—more than that, curses require complete control. Remember, you control the curse, not the other way around. And that has a lot to do with intention, and mentality." Tom doesn't quite know where the man is trying to take this conversation. His professor seems to read his incredulity, for he smiles slightly.
"Tom, I'm going to tell you a secret; there are two ways to cast a curse, and one of them is infinitely harder than the other. The first is with your emotions—as I'm sure you have learned already, magic reacts to how we feel. There is a common saying that to cast the Cruciatus Curse you have to want to inflict pain on others, and while that's true, that's very misleading… and dangerous. You are using your emotions to control the cruciatus, not your mind. And it should be the other way around. Curses are very dangerous things, you know, and not just for the recipient. The caster must also take into account the kind of magic he wields."
The boy frowns deeply at his professor, seeing the truth in his words. His mind turns on its own, digesting this information and what it must mean. Professor Oz is right, of course. Using anger to induce the effects of the curse is a dangerous, slippery slope.
His teacher smiles again; Tom isn't fond of the expression, it makes him think of an overly excited frog, but he forgives the man this once. He is, after all, assisting him. "Do you see what I'm trying to say here?" He tilts his head. "That was a very fine demonstration of elemental casting, but I want you to try it without using your emotions as the conduit."
Tom sighs, but nods all the same.
Turns out, it doesn't come to him so easily after that.
This isn't so great a loss. He would prefer to learn the spell the correct way rather than the easy way—even if the easy way came naturally to him.
/
Tom returns home in far better spirits than he had left it. His face was smudged with ash and dirt, but he was quite satisfied with his progress. By the end of the lesson he'd managed to cast his spell with the same intensity as he had in the first place, but this time had done it all on his own. It was truly wonderful what a few new spells and a lengthy book passage or two could do to a person; he actually smiled a few times. There was nothing he enjoyed more than learning new things.
Unfortunately his good mood soured quickly when he remembered why it had left him in the first place.
He felt really proud of himself for all his progress today, but it would not make him seem any more mature if he kept sleeping in Harry's bed. He frowned at the idea of having to return to his own bed, dreading it already. He reminded himself that this was ridiculous, he was far too old to be so dependent and needy; it didn't matter if he was the greatest sorcerer in the world, he'd still seem childish if he couldn't even sleep by himself. Tom didn't even come running and leaping at Harry when she arrived home; he sedately greeted her from his spot on the couch, refusing to budge even an inch. And he didn't insist for her to pick him up and carry him around, and when they returned to the living room after dinner he sprawled out in front of the fireplace with Spot instead of sprawling out in her lap.
Harry did not comment on this, though she did toss a wary glance Tom's way every once in a while. Tom did not look back.
The weeks progress in a spiral of sleep deprivation and severe irritability. He tosses and turns restlessly in his bed, clinging to the familiar softness of the blanket he'd forgotten. It is still reassuring, but a shadow of what it represents – the girl down the hall. Every night he closes his eyes and is reminded of how easy it would be to simply slink out of his room and dart down the hallway and worm his way into her bed. She wouldn't even protest. If anything, he thinks she would welcome him and reassure him and lavish him with attention. This sounds like exactly what he wants, but still he refuses.
It makes him snappish and irritable all day long, and moody and reclusive in the evenings with Harry. He wants to tug at her sleeve until she picks him up; crawl into her lap when they're sitting at the table and eat ice cream out of the same bowl; lay together on the couch or in front of the fire, reading books. But he doesn't. He hugs her tightly when she comes home, but makes sure not to linger for too long; they eat ice cream together, but it is not on the same chair and not from the same bowl; he's taken up roost on the armchair across the room when they retire to the fireplace to read.
His one reprieve is school, where he is progressing nicely in all his classes. Though Professor Oz still casts him wary, concerned glances every once in a while, Tom is very keen to cast curses correctly, using his mental and magical discipline rather than his stewing, negative emotions. Unfortunately the teacher was right though; it is far harder to cast with the former than the latter. But Tom is nothing if not a perfectionist. Wolcroft is an opportunity he doesn't intend to waste; he wants to learn everything he can from this institution, and learn it correctly.
His necromancy teacher is so enthused with his progress that she has him start summoning his very own minions. It's hard (and gross) work but he's more than willing to put in the effort. Tom finds it very fascinating how all the dark arts work in tandem with each other; summoning necro-hordes has a lot to do with conjuration magic and alchemy wards. He can't really summon legions of dead minions yet; actually, all he can do so far is create a rather pathetic looking shadow fiend. Professor Caithe's shadow fiends are enormous, inky black creatures with terrifying, glowing eyes. In contrast Tom's shadow fiend looks like an adorable black fuzzball. But his professor assures him that with enough time and practice—emphasis on the time, as his magical core is still growing—he'll learn to do the same.
When he's not learning about blood magic or shamanism he's at home reading through Harry's Hogwarts textbooks.
The curriculum is vastly different and shares little to no similarities with Wolcroft's, but is fascinating nonetheless. He too has a Charms class, and it appears that the spells are about the same in both. Transfiguration sounds mouth-wateringly appealing, and while he learns about wards, runes and marks in both Curses and Enchantments and Necromancy and Healing, Ancient Runes combines many practices of Arithmancy and follows separate branches of casting that they won't cover here. He supposes Alchemy shares some similarities with Potions, enough to call them distant cousins at the very least, but Potions is about precision where Alchemy is about intent. And Defense Against the Dark Arts…
Tom snaps the book shut, rolling over onto his back and staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling.
The idea of defending himself against the Dark Arts never even occurred to him. He always supposed that if someone tried to curse him, well, he would curse them right back. Isn't that how it worked? But aside from more passive defensives he's learned in other classes, like buffs and enchantments, he doesn't think he knows any truly defensive spells. Does he know how to cast a shield charm? He doesn't think so. He's seen Harry wandlessly and nonverbally cast one before, but he doesn't know how to go about that. And what of this disarming charm?
The boy leaps to his feet at that, racing up towards the library on the second story of the house. Harry's library is more of a study than a library, and more of an office than a study. She doesn't use it often, but Tom likes to come up there when she's gone and read in the calming silence. At any rate he pulls down a large encyclopedia of spells, looking for two in particular: protego and expelliarmus.
Protego is the shield charm, and it has a more powerful variant, the Protego Maxima. And Expelliarmus is the disarming spell.
Both serve to fascinate him and flummox him. Why use a shield charm when a great barrier of earth would be more effective? A great deal of his classmates can raise sheets of bedrock out of the ground, even Washy, the slowest and laziest of the lot. Or conjure metalloids to deflect spells, as alkaline metals absorb most damaging curses? And at any rate, spells can't cross through corporeal objects, so any sort of physical shield would do—though he could see how it would be unwieldly enough to fall out of favor. And why use a disarming charm when there were a great deal of ways to disarm an opponent? Tom can think of thousands just off the top of his head, some far more creative than others; casting a vine snare to trip someone would certainly count as disarming, or alternatively lopping off some limbs would also do the trick.
But perhaps he was thinking on it too literally. After all, black magic was all about intent. Wouldn't it go to infer then that its counter-curses would be equally as reliant on intent as well?
There was rustling from down the stairs: Harry was home.
"Tom?" He hears her call up the stairs. "Tom, where are you? I've brought dinner!"
"Coming!" Tom shouts back down, moving to put all the books back where he found them.
But before he does he makes sure to earmark the last spell he'd seen in the textbook, one that had caught his fancy far more than the others: expecto patronum.
"Okay—but come really soon! There might not be any left!"
Tom shakes his head fondly, fitting the book back in its home on the bookshelf. "You're not feeding Spot again, are you?"
/
"Sounds like a typical moody prepubescent boy to me," Ron shrugs, noisily slurping down his green smoothie. Harry doesn't know why it's green; incidentally, neither does Ron. She supposes it's for the best that he doesn't know, he'd probably spit it all out if he found out there was spinach in there or something.
Harry snorts. "Well you would know, wouldn't you?"
"For sure!" Ron enthuses, not taking particular offense. "Listen Harry, I've had to deal with this for most of my life."
Harry empathize with him silently; she can only imagine Percy Weasley as a moody, reclusive teenager.
"Just let him do his own thing," Ron advises, polishing off the entirety of his drink—the largest size. "He'll come round eventually—or maybe like, not eventually. Merlin, it took Charlie years! Nevermind the twins."
"If you're trying to reassure me, it's really not working." Harry points out, blandly.
Ron shrugs. "You're the one who wanted to raise a teenage boy, Harry."
She pouts mutinously, but sees his point. She really has no one to blame but herself. At least she can revel in the relief that this is all apparently quite normal for a boy his age. Or at least, she hopes this is what Ron is trying to say. Because the alternative is far worse—and far less predictable.
Ron wanders the city while she finishes up at work, and then the two of them are pushing their way through the crowded muggle streets, Harry leaving the directions to Ron in favor of furiously typing out an email. This was an idea doomed to fail; Ron had no idea how to operate google maps. He also did not know how to write an email, so Harry found herself attempting both at the same time. At least it was in walking distance; she shivered at the idea of attempting to teach Ron how to call an uber.
Hermione flagged them over once they were in earshot, looking haggard but happy. She had changed from her Ministry robes to a large sweater and boots, and blended in perfectly with the fashionable crowds pandering back and forth the street, to the point Harry almost didn't recognize her. She supposed she wasn't all that recognizable either, in heels and a work dress. Only Ron mirrored his adolescent self, looking part-ruffian part unintentional homeless hipster. It was strange to think that not two years ago she didn't own more than a few t-shirts, formless jumpers and jeans. She would have never imagined herself looking even remotely professional, walking into some restaurant and calling up Hermione's reservation for three. It made her maudlin as they picked their way through the restaurant to their table: she would have never imagined she would travel through time and space to give her worst enemy a second chance, either.
Harry knew she'd give in and confess to her friends eventually; she managed to valiantly hold out until the last of the tempura rolls had been gobbled up before she spilled. "So," she starts without preamble, nervously twiddling her chopsticks around. "I—went to Capitol Hill the other day."
"Washington?" Hermione clarifies, perplexed. "Whatever for?"
"Well, maybe not the other day, more like a century ago, but at any rate I totally forgot to file my taxes—
Hermione throws her a scandalous look. "What do you mean you forgot? Harry, did you even read any of the pamphlets I gave you—"
"In the other time," Harry adds, petulantly, "And I got the run around trying to find the time traveling department."
"They have one of those?" Ron guffaws.
"Apparently so," Harry shrugs. "At any rate, I ended up having to confirm all this with my state governor—surprisingly, he didn't seem to care all that much about what I did, where I came from, or why I was there." She paused, thoughtfully. "He seemed more concerned over the goblins, actually."
Hermione's eyes were wide and concerned. "And what of the goblins?" She presses.
"Well, they didn't care all that much either, aside from confirming I was paying my taxes for both times." She replies. "They might have charged me extra interest; I wasn't paying much attention."
Hermione shook her head in wonder. "When did magic get so bureaucratic?"
"I'd prefer the bureaucratic mess; at least no one flipped out over it." Harry confesses.
The conversation drifts off into the problematic British Ministry, Hermione ranting for at least a quarter of an hour on how ineffectual the entire system seemed to be. Their food comes in the interim, and the two of them realize they have to teach Ron how to use chopsticks. In the end it is a lesson in futility, and they instead just magic them to work regardless of how he holds them. Truth be told, Harry isn't all that much better at it; the Dursley's certainly never took her out to fancy restaurants to try foreign foods. She spares a brief passing thought on them—she wonders what they were doing now? More importantly, she wonders what they would say if they saw her now, holding a powerful position in one of the most influential organizations. She is greatly entertained at the thought of their reaction; raving envy.
"So—about Capitol Hill," she starts again, when she's cleaned off her plate. "It was, um, interesting, to say the least."
Hermione perks up. "Was it? I've never been, Harry—you must tell me all the details!"
"To be honest, I wasn't paying all that much attention to it," she admits. "It was very… nice to look at. I didn't know that the muggle government and the magical government were actually the same thing."
"At the highest levels." Hermione nods. "The President is the leader of both the muggle and magical government—it splits up under him, though, with two separate legislative and judicial branches."
"If you say so," Harry is not particularly interested in American politics, or politics at all. "But there were more important things to worry about then that, Hermione—Grindelwald was there."
They both reel back in shock at that. "Gellert Grindelwald?" Ron confirms, even though this is the foregone conclusion. "Merlin Harry, what was he doing there?"
"Probably trying to sway the country in favor of himself." Harry suggests, bitterly.
"But of course he doesn't succeed." Hermione chimes in, immediately. She frowns, worried. "Still, that must have been quite the shock…"
"I don't know what I expected of him," Harry reveals, quietly, gaze lost in her tea as she stirs it around listlessly. "He was—endearing. It was the strangest thing."
"Maybe that's to be expected." Hermione points out, just as quiet. "He had to have enticed his followers somehow, after all. I imagine he was quite the charismatic character."
Ron scoffs under his breath. "Practically the opposite of the dark lord after him."
"Right." Harry agrees. "Voldemort was—unstable." And destructive, and insane. He had lost whatever sanity he had once possessed, leaving him overtaken by a madness of his own design. At any rate, this just made it all the easier for Harry to defeat him. Grindelwald, she couldn't even begin to imagine. Charismatic and clever; a master manipulator. Was that what Voldemort was, before he ruined his soul?
Not this time, she reminds herself. The lovely little boy standing outside in the snowfall would not turn into that monster.
"What are you going to do?"
Harry shakes herself out of her thoughts. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you can't just sit around and do nothing!" Hermione exclaims.
"What else am I supposed to do?" Harry replies, quizzically. "I can't exactly just kill him, right? I mean, who knows what that will change."
"What does it matter?" Ron shrugs, to her surprise. "It's not actually connected to our time, right?"
"Yes that's true," Hermione agrees at length, thoughtful, "They are two entirely separate lines of existence…"
Harry raises up a preemptive hand. "Please don't go into another time relativity rant."
Hermione harrumphs, crossing her arms. It's been her favorite subject ever since this whole thing happened, much to Ron and Harry's consternation. They were not Albert Einstein or Steven Hawking; it all went entirely over their heads—Ron especially, as he'd never had to labor through a science class. Harry was not that much better. She didn't understand space or dimensions or the fabric of reality, and nor did she want to. She just wanted to… to change what happens, somewhere, for someone. She might not be able to change her own past, but maybe she could change someone else's. Maybe there will be a little redheaded girl who will grow up with two wonderful loving parents in a world without a dark lord. Or a little boy, even, with dark hair and glasses. Who knows.
"Well, my point is that Ron is right." Hermione continues. Harry is fairly sure she hears, 'for once', under her friend's breath, and stifles a laugh. "Whatever consequences occur won't have any effect on our own time. But I still don't know if that's reason enough to change something. Even though it won't really matter to us, it'll matter to someone, right? How are we to know what changes will have what outcomes? If you do something about Grindelwald, does that mean Dumbledore will never become headmaster?"
Harry's head starts to hurt. "Why don't I just do nothing?" She suggests, rubbing her temples. "Doing something sounds far too complicated."
Ron nods sagely.
Hermione hums in response, taking a thoughtful sip of tea. "That's always an option." She concedes, after a moment. "I guess that's really up to you, Harry."
Harry considers this carefully. "I'll only take any action if it truly starts to concern me—or Tom." She adds. If Grindelwald tries to even go near Tom Harry won't hesitate to take care of him, Dumbledore be damned.
Still, dinner conversation topics aside it was very nice to have a night out to herself again, two best friends at her side. She truly did enjoy Tom, and she had no regrets in starting a new life with him, but sometimes it was nice to talk to people her age. Work was always a nice relief, but her work friends were not like Ron or Hermione, who have known her since she was eleven, who were part of her world, who knew all she had to hide.
Much to her chagrin they do end up somewhere downtown watching some assortment of sports games. Ron has also proved himself to be a huge hockey enthusiast—he says he likes the violence of it all. Hermione was predictably quite scandalized; apparently the furthest she had ever forayed into the world of muggle sports was cricket and occasionally golf. Harry herself was quite clueless, but happily went along for the ride anyhow. The evening was actually quite nice. Ron was rather adventurous in his beer; she and Hermione downed an entire bottle of wine. Some favored team won and the whole bar was overflowing with liquor.
Harry didn't arrive home until about an hour later than she had said she would, but she wasn't particularly worried about it. Tom was a very mature young boy, more than capable of handling himself for a few hours. He had certainly been left to his own devices for far longer during summer, and that was not even to remark upon his time at the orphanage, where he most likely had no supervision at all.
This was why she was quite surprised when a lump of blankets barreled straight into her the moment she walked into the door, nearly falling over with the added weight of it.
"Harry!" Tom cries, throwing the blanket off of his head, where he was wearing it as some kind of oversized cloak. "Where have you been?"
She looks down at him quizzically. "I told you I was going to be late today—I left dinner in the fridge, did you eat it?"
"Yes." He replies, frowning. "But you didn't say when you were coming back." His eyes are big and grave, and Harry is overwhelmed by a tide of fondness when she realizes this adorable little pout was actually his expression of concern.
"Were you worried about me?" She grins, crouching low to readjust his blanket-hood. He continues to pout at her, little hands fisted in the material, keeping it around his shoulders.
"Of course I was!" He retorts, scowling. "Its really late!"
"Is it?" She looks at the clock. It was certainly a lot later than she normally came home.
When she turns her attention back to the young wizard she is alarmed to see his expression had gone from concern to practically hysteria. A consternated look crosses his features as he bites his lip, looking both conflicted and upset. Finally he throws himself at her and buries his face into her shoulder. This was most certainly not the reaction she had been expecting. She had assumed she would walk in to some familiar scene; Tom sprawled on the couch with one of his new books, or out in the yard making the most of her absence and staying out late to resurrect dead things out of the dirt. Or maybe even nefariously attempting to make his own potions in the kitchen again; feeding Spot ice cream (again); practicing dark spells in the house (again). She had acknowledged that he might be a bit put out by her lateness but nothing like this.
Harry rubs his back consolingly, still very bewildered. The boy is trembling. Did something happen? Did someone tried to come in? He appears fearful and ill at ease.
"Tom, are you alright?" She asks, leaning her head against his own.
For a long moment he does not respond, little fingers tightening against her shirt with a surprising grip.
"I'm fine." He replies, totally lacking any sincerity.
Harry harrumphs. "Tom," she starts again, patiently. "You are not fine. You're shaking!"
He releases her very quickly at that, retreating back into the blanket. "No I'm not." He insists, and then he takes a few steps back. Harry grows even more confused when he chances another glance at her, and then darts up the stairs.
Merlin, she thinks, warily. Does this behavior still fall under Ron's vague sub header of 'typical moody preteen', or should she be concerned? Ron is probably right; he is a growing boy and she remembers being rather volatile and confused at that age. But who he is and where he comes from certainly does not help matters. And she supposes that Ron doesn't know Tom the way she does, and only she can really judge the severity of the issue.
She sighs, moving to remove her heels, rubbing at her feet where they're sore from the height of them. Harry runs an absent hand through her hair, messing up all the curls pinned about accidentally; it's an awful habit, she always messes up whatever elaborate style she attempts by the end of the day no matter how many times she reminds herself not to do it. She hauls off all her accessories one by one like a trail of jewelry about the house until she's left with nothing but her leggings and dress shirt. Harry stands for a moment, just looking about the silent house, barefoot, arms crossed over her chest. A slithering sound draws her attention, and she watches Spot unwind himself off the banister in the most uncoordinated way possible.
"Aren't snakes supposed to be graceful?" She snorts, watching him flop to the floor in a heap. She takes pity on him, untangling the rest of his tail off the stairs.
"You try moving about with these kinds of growing pains," Spot whines, uncoiling off the floor.
Harry frowns. "On the subject of growing pains—do you think Tom has been acting strangely?"
Spot blinks slowly. "Strange how?" And then he flicks out his tongue. "Do I smell fish?"
Harry smells herself. She doesn't, but it's probably the aftermath of sushi. "Don't deflect the question." She retorts.
Spot lets out a long-suffering sigh. "He's been rather rude lately," he notices. "Getting mad at me for no reason! Humans…"
Harry looks down thoughtfully. "What do you think it is?" She murmurs, more to herself than anything.
"I don't know. Maybe he should just sleep more or something."
Harry's head snaps up. "He's not sleeping?" He's been sleeping on his own lately, and seems to be alright with it. Surely there was a bit of a transition period… but certainly not still…?
"No," Spot reveals, wiggling around to get a better sniff at her. "He just tosses and turns… rolling all over me, the foul cretin…"
"I thought you liked him!" Harry protests.
"Yes of course, as far as you barbaric monkeys go." Spot agrees, slithering up her leg. "Is this salmon I smell?"
"Stop that!" Harry dislodges him from where he's wound his head around her knee, shaking him off. "If you answer my questions I'll feed you as much salmon as you want, how about that?"
"Add tuna, and I will accept this deal."
"Fine!" Harry retorts, impatiently. "Just tell me what's going on."
Spot waves his head in the air thoughtfully. "There isn't much to say," he hisses thoughtfully. "He doesn't like being alone without you. He doesn't like being home alone, and he doesn't like sleeping alone. Is this not obvious?"
"I suppose—but he has always been a rather solitary boy." Harry points out. "He certainly doesn't like being around any of the neighborhood children, or even the children at school, and I think he's even grown to like them."
Spot casts her a nonplussed look. "He is a hatchling," Spot explains, slow, as if he is speaking to a dim-witted child. "A very young and scared hatchling. And they do not like to be very far from their mother."
"I'm not his mother," Harry returns, quietly, feeling something strange overcome her at that.
"No." The banana colored snake concedes, slithering his way up her torso, and this time she doesn't even bother to protest. "You are much more than that."
For some reason, that sounded infinitely more ominous.