AN: Yup, new chapters. Don't expect this to mean that this story is guaranteed to get finished - it's just going to go further than it was. I managed to get 98 pages written of the sequel, but then life got super-busy again and I haven't managed to get any writing done for about a month. I'm *hoping* that I'll get time to work on it again in the coming weeks, but there are no guarantees. Just the same, I got a decent chunk written, and I promised to post it, so it's going up. I still need to re-read and do some editing and clean-up, so release of new chapters will depend on me having the time to do that, but it shouldn't take too long to get them up.
This starts up directly where the last chapter ended, so if it's been a long while since you read any of this, you'll probably need to re-read the last chapter at the very lease.
— —
Harry watched Tom as the pair sat at the Ravenclaw table the next morning for breakfast. It was early and the Hall was sparsely populated.
Tom looked decidedly distracted… again. He'd been zoning out a lot the last month, although more so recently. He would just look off into space with a pensive look on his face and a pucker in his brow, and not say a word until Harry said or did something to pull him out of it.
Finally, Tom seemed to heave a sigh and almost looked as if he were shaking his head to himself before he turned his focus back on the table in front of him.
"This is so bizarre," Tom muttered a few moments later as he looked down at the empty plate in front of him.
Harry smiled. "It really is. But you get used to it. Honestly it quickly becomes much more boring that weird."
"Yes, I've been anticipating that. I've actually made a few plans for some activities to keep me from completely losing my mind while stuck here."
Harry paused from reaching across the table to grab some scrambled eggs from a platter in the center of the table, and looked curiously over at Tom. "Oh?"
"Mm, yes," Tom said distractedly as he piled some healthy portions of several items on offer onto his plate.
"Are you going to elaborate?" Harry asked, rolling his eyes.
"Well, for years I've wanted to actually start really organizing and writing down some of the spells I've created over the years. I've debated the value to actually writing two different spellbooks. One for the more innocuous spells I've crafted that the general public might still benefit from - of which there are many - and another with the less legally approved ones - honestly I'd probably have to split that into several different volumes for different branches of magic. But the general spellcraft book could probably be published, if I bother to take it that far. However I've simply never had the time to do it, and it's honestly never been high enough on my priorities to warrant setting aside the time needed for such a task. Now, however, I suspect I'm going to have an exorbitant amount of free time. So…" Tom trailed off and shrugged.
Harry stared at him for a moment before a wide smile broke out across his face. "Hah, that's brilliant. Wish I'd thought of something like that to keep me busy, actually."
"You could always finally start putting together your own Grimoire," Tom proposed.
Harry blinked at him as if he'd just had a significant dawning realization. "Merlin, I'm a bloody idiot. I could have been doing that all these years."
Tom rolled his eyes skyward and shook his head.
Harry chuckled and sighed. You know… speaking of you writing a book, can you imagine if you wrote a textbook that was one day used at Hogwarts? Won't let you teach here, but they'd teach from your book." Harry snickered.
Tom glanced over at him and arched a single brow but there was a look of amused interest on his face for a moment before he chuckled lightly under his breath. "That would be amusing."
At that moment Terry Boot came over and sat down in the empty spot on Harry's other side and began to grab some food.
"Mornin' Harry," he said with a yawn. "Merlin, you two are up early."
"I wanted to get a head start on showing Dom around," Harry said. Tom's eyes narrowed and he glared slightly at Harry, which only earned him a teasing grin in return.
"Just to clarify," Tom began, "Just because Harry calls me Dom does not mean I approve of the nickname. I prefer Dominick."
Harry snickered.
Terry looked curiously between the two of them for a moment before shrugging it off and returning to his task of piling his plate with some bacon and hash.
More students slowly filled the hall and the four heads of house finally appeared and started making their way down each of the house tables with the student's timetables. Professor Flitwick greeted Tom enthusiastically and welcomed him to Ravenclaw house before making his way down to the end where all of the first years (that had managed to find the Great Hall) had huddled together.
The second years first class of the day was Charms with the Hufflepuffs followed by History of Magic. After lunch they had Transfiguration with the Gryffindors and then Defense against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins.
"Defense with the Slytherins," Tom mused with a small approving nod.
"I think that Remus likes to make sure Slytherins and Ravenclaws are paired up for his classes. Can you imagine if it were with either of the other houses? The Slytherins and Gryffindors would start a war, and the Slytherins would scare the crap out of the Hufflepuffs."
Tom chuckled before leaning in close. "Merrythought taught each house separately, what's the deal with doubling things up like this?"
Harry shrugged. "They're understaffed, honestly. None of the teachers have assistants anymore. It's weird."
Tom looked at Harry with an almost incredulous expression. "None of them?"
Harry shook his head. "As far as I can tell, nope. Remus certainly doesn't. At first I thought maybe they only had teacher assistants for the NEWT classes, but after asking some of the upper years, even those don't have any. And the classes are way smaller too. Most of the teachers won't take anyone with a OWL score lower than Exceeds Expectations into their NEWT classes."
Tom scoffed scornfully. "Dippet was a much better Headmaster. He at least kept this place running smoothly."
"Dumbledore has too many responsibilities," Harry said shaking his head. "International Federation of Wizards and being Head Mugwump of the Wizengamot - it's no wonder the school is in such a state. Just wait until you see History of Magic. It's horrendous."
"You two talking about Binns?" Kevin Entwistle asked from across the table and down a seat further from Harry.
Tom nearly did a double-take. "Binns?" He looked with a sort of demanding question in his eyes at Harry.
Harry snorted and nodded. "Yeah, he's still here," he said softly before speaking louder. "Apparently he died while sitting in the staff room between classes, then 'woke up' as a ghost and walked right out of his body to go teach his next class."
"And how long ago did this happen?" Tom asked incredulously.
"Early 80's I think," Harry said before taking a drink of some pumpkin juice.
"So he's been teaching as a ghost for more than a decade?" Tom exclaimed, stunned. "Is there a budget deficit or something? What possible reason could they have for not hiring an actual living professor to fill the post?"
Tom leaned back a bit with a disgusted look on his face before leaning in closer to Harry. "That man was a wretched bore when he was teaching fifty years ago."
"He's much worse now," Harry muttered and Tom grimaced deeply.
—
"I'd swear they're teaching even simpler concepts than when we were in second year," Tom mused in disgust as he let himself fall gracefully onto his bed. Harry climbed into his own and sat cross-legged before pulling his knapsack into his lap and digging around inside it. It was now Friday and they'd finished their last class of the week and had retreated to their dorm room for some peace and quite while the rest of their dorm mates busied themselves somewhere else.
"I honestly thought the same thing last year," Harry said. "I managed to find an old copy of the Standard Book of Spells from our first time around and compared it to the one we're using now and they're almost identical. There's been a few revisions and they've updated some of the spells with more efficient versions, but overall, it's practically the exact same."
"That's pathetic," Tom groused with a sneer. He turned his head towards Harry and looked at him curiously. "What are you doing?"
"Homework."
"Are you serious?" Tom said incredulously. "Do it later. It's not like it'll be a challenge."
Harry snorted. "That's precisely why I'm doing it now. It's always a major chore since it's so mind-numbing. If I don't force myself to do it right off, I'll put it off and never bother. But it's only second-year stuff. It won't take me more than a half hour to power through the whole week's of work."
"Hmm…" Tom responded unconvinced.
Harry reached down to the gap between his bed and his bedside table where he'd placed a lap desk he'd had stored and shrunk down in his trunk. He knew he could move to his actual desk, but he didn't want to bother to climb out of the bed.
With the lap desk spread across his crossed legs, he pulled out his charms textbook and flipped it open to where he had a piece of parchment folded between two pages. On the parchment he'd written down the details of the assignment for later, not that he really needed the reminder. He pulled out a blank piece of parchment, and a self-inking quill and quickly started writing out the required information. Perfect memory certainly aided in speeding this process up, but being easy did not stop it from being mind-numbing or tedious.
He'd been scratching away on the parchment for several minutes when movement from Tom's bed caught his eye. He glanced over and found that Tom was laying on his side, elbow bent and hand propping his head up, and just staring at Harry with an uncharacteristically fond smile on his face.
Harry arched a single eyebrow in question, which only made Tom's smile widen.
Which was weird.
Tom didn't smile fondly at anything.
Harry chuckled. "You want something?"
"I love you."
Harry's hand seized up and dropped his quill as he stared at Tom in stunned silence. His chest felt tight and his breathing seemed to stop.
He snapped himself out of his stunned stupor an instant later and frowned deeply with worry. "Are you okay?"
Tom laughed, shook his head and ducked it down, smiling softly at the blue and bronze bedspread. "I can't tell you I love you?"
"Sure you can. You just never do," Harry said, shifting the desk off his lap and onto the bed before climbing off and coming over to sit on Tom's. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Tom reached out and brushed the backs of his knuckles against Harry's cheek. Harry's eyes fluttered shut and he leaned into the hand.
"I'm good," Tom said softly. "Really. I'm fine. Go back to your work."
"You expect me to be able to focus on homework after you say something like that?" Harry laughed shakily, still feeling unsteady by the uncharacteristic declaration.
"Are you going to say it back?" Tom asked, smirking.
Harry coughed out a laugh, shaking his head incredulously before bending down and capturing Tom's lips in a gentle kiss. He pulled back a moment later somewhat breathless and hovering only inches from Tom's face. "I love you."
Tom smiled softly before pulling Harry back down and kissed him much deeper. Harry moaned into Tom's mouth and started maneuvering his body around and then lifting one leg over Tom until he was straddling him, all without actually stopping the kiss. Tom wrapped his arms around Harry's back and rear and things quickly became rather heated. Harry whispered out 'love you's between kisses and ground his hips against Tom's, enjoying the friction and the warmth of being in Tom's arms.
The proximity ward went off first, but Harry didn't even notice it, he was so absorbed in their activities. So it was the sound of the door knob being turned that finally alerted him. Harry gasped and leapt off of Tom so fast that he ended up rolling right off the side of the bed and falling to the floor with a loud thump.
Tom sat up and looked over the side of the bed to see Harry laying there, looking stunned.
Terry Boot, Anthony Goldstein, and Michael Corner's voices filled the room first, but they were quickly masked out by Tom's hysterical laughter.
The three boys paused, looking over towards Tom and Harry for a moment before going back to whatever discussion they'd been having before, and heading over towards Corner's trunk to get some things.
Tom's laugh had subsided into snickering chuckles as Harry pulled himself up onto his knees and glared at Tom over the side of the bed. The glare was short lived however.
He couldn't remember the last time Tom had laughed like that. A good maniacal cackle was one thing, but this… this was different.
It was… unreal.
— —
