Previously:
Harry and Tom engage in a clipped mockery of domestics. Dinner together leads to an uncomfortable conversation about Harry's parents being dead. Harry, upset, goes to bed early. Tom's plans for a quiet evening alone are interrupted by a woman with bright pink hair. It is then that both Harry and Tom learn that Kingsley Shacklebolt no longer exists.
week one
Tom writes down the things he wants. Magical history books, for one, though he doubts he'll get them. A pet snake, for another, because he's unsure if there will be any amicable ones out in the woods.
Potter likely won't enjoy the company of a snake, Gryffindor that he is. But Tom isn't about to forsake one of the things that makes him special simply because he's trapped here. Maybe hearing Parseltongue will instill some healthy fear into Potter.
A few more things to round out the list. A broomstick, extra notebooks, and writing instruments. Other trivial items that other young boys probably ask for.
Once his list is complete, Tom folds it neatly and tucks it into his back pocket. Then he casts a Quieting Charm on his shoes before he creeps back down the stairs, moving slowly so as not to be seen or heard.
Potter is still talking with the woman, whose hair is now a bright canary yellow. The woman's senses seem sharper than Kingsley's; she was more suspicious of him than Kingsley had been. So Tom stays back further than he had the other day, hovering midway up the staircase.
"I'll do my best, Harry. But I think everyone would tell you to leave it alone. It's dangerous enough, meddling with time. Who knows what other ripple effects could result if you keep pushing?"
Tom listens, but there is no immediate response.
Then Harry says, "Yeah. Maybe you're right." He does not sound convinced.
"Our best bet is to say nothing and do nothing," the woman continued. "I know it must be difficult for you. Merlin knows I couldn't stand to be around him more than five minutes without wanting to strangle him—"
The off-handed comment stirs an unnameable feeling in Tom's gut. She already dislikes him; he doesn't even know why. He doesn't even know who she is, but clearly she already has some preconceived notions of him. Had she gotten them from Potter?
Tom stomps the rest of the way down the stairs, making sure they can hear his approach.
"All done?" asks the woman.
Tom holds out his folded list. "Here."
"No promises," she says, face stern.
"I wouldn't expect any."
The woman leaves. Harry shuts the door, solemn, calmer than before. When he turns to look at Tom, the tentative smile of earlier is back on his face.
"What did you ask for?" Harry asks.
"I asked for a pet snake." Then Tom turns around and heads back up the stairs, ignoring Harry's voice as it calls after him.
The next morning, there is a box sitting on the kitchen counter, and a cage on the floor directly below it.
"Your snake," Potter says in greeting. "He wants to be called Hyperion." There's a pan of something on the stove. Eggs again, based on the sound and the smell.
Tom walks over to the cage. The snake inside is fairly small, black, and sleek. Tom doubts that the snake picked its own name. Potter must be trying to irritate him.
Kneeling before the cage, Tom waits for the snake to notice him before he hisses out a greeting. "Hello."
The snake regards him for a moment, its head twisting curiously. "Sspeaker," it says.
Tom hesitates, then asks, "Do you have a name?"
No head bob in response—a new snake like this wouldn't know how to mimic human behaviour yet, anyways—but it does hiss out, "Yess."
"What iss it?" Tom asks, wary of the answer.
"Other sspeaker callss name not in sspeaker tongue."
"Hyperion!" Potter says, his voice obnoxiously bright. "That's his name!"
To Tom's irritation, the snake responds, "Yess."
Tom unlatches the cage and reaches for the snake—Hyperion, apparently. Hyperion obliges, curling up and around Tom's wrist and forearm.
"He's very majestic," Potter says. "I've never seen a snake like that before, all black all over."
Tom lifts his arm to eye level, watching Hyperion slide further along, towards his elbow. "Well, he's mine," Tom bites out. "You shouldn't have named him."
"I told you," Potter says. "He wants that to be his name. I gave him a few options—"
"You gave him options?" Tom repeats, incredulous.
"That's generally what me letting him pick his name means," Potter says. "The eggs are done, by the way. Did you want to set the table?"
Tom doesn't move a centimeter as the meaning sinks in, as Hyperion's words play back in his head. "You can speak to snakes," says Tom.
"Oh. Yeah. I guess you didn't know that about me." Potter has two plates of scrambled egg in hand as he turns around. No, wait, not eggs—omelets.
Tom isn't sure if he's angry. He feels like he ought to be, because speaking to snakes is his birthright. It belongs to his family, to his bloodline. Potter has no business speaking Parseltongue.
"Where did you learn Parseltongue from?" Tom demands, instead of moving to set the table.
"I didn't learn it." Potter steps around Tom towards the dinner table and sets the plates down. "It's sort of something I got by accident."
Tom wants to strangle Potter for various reasons, but the way Potter just doesn't seem to care is enough to drive anyone mad. "You got the ability to speak to snakes by accident. "
"Yes," says Harry. The tips of his ears are vaguely pink. "I did. Now, did you want to eat or not?"
After a silent breakfast, Tom grabs his box of things and retreats to his room, leaving Potter to do the washing up. It's not like he asks Potter to cook for him, anyways. Tom can feed himself with whatever food there is in the house. He isn't useless. He doesn't need his meals made for him.
After locking the door, Tom opens up his box. Everything he'd asked for is inside, save for the history texts. Tom unshrinks the broomstick and leaves the rest of the contents in the box, which is on the floor at the foot of his bed. The books were the only thing he'd really wanted. And maybe the broomstick, if he ever figures out how to leave this place.
Hyperion keeps Tom company for a half hour before growing bored of the room. Tom opens the window to let the snake out, warning him to be careful. The fresh air is nice, so Tom leaves the window as is, moving to the desk opposite the bed.
A half dozen frustrated attempts to read leave Tom with few options. Potter is either somewhere in the house, or out in the yard—too close by, wherever he is.
The pale gold walls of the room are pressing in. Even the cool breeze has become suffocating. Tom leaves his books where they are and exits his room, shutting and locking the door with his wand. Time to go look at the wards again.
The trek outside is much faster without Potter to slow him down. Tom finds the shimmering edge and stops a pace away from it, staring. Maybe he should have asked for books on warding; he could have presented it as a purely educational interest.
Nothing to be done about that now. Time to see where the limits lay, and hopefully plan more from there. Tom walks along the edge, following the faint thrum of magic as it circles around the property. His path takes him into the woods, through the trees and across the forest floor. The path will become overly-familiar, eventually. Tom doesn't doubt he'll walk this perimeter again and again, determined to understand it, determined to see himself through the barrier.
After some time of walking, Tom emerges from the trees. He can see the house again. It's quaint, tiled roof and cheerful garden. Potter isn't in view. Still inside, perhaps. Or behind the house, dealing with the chickens.
A sudden breeze hits. Tom shivers, wishing he'd thought to bring a cloak, and turns his gaze up to the sky. Soft grey, today. The blueness of yesterday is nowhere in sight. But the season is changing, and soon there will be dreary days of heavy cloud cover and torrential rainfall.
Tom jams his hands in his pockets to keep them warm and keeps walking.
When Tom passes through the entrance way, his reflection catches his eye. Tousled curls, face pink with the cold. Shadowed eyes and a permanent scowl. The edges of his nose and ears are nearly red. Tom sniffles, disgruntled, and intends to stomp upstairs to change his clothes and cast several Warming Charms.
"You're back."
Potter is in the doorway that leads to the kitchen, hands knotted together in front of his chest. Worried that Tom had left him? Anxious that Tom had found a way to break free.
"Yes," Tom says.
"I fed Hyperion while you were out. I hope that's okay."
"It's fine," Tom says. He'd thought the snake would go hunting, but maybe there wasn't enough prey in the immediate area. Hyperion was a small snake, still. Too small to go too far, too small to chase larger rats?
"He's up in your room," Potter continues. "He wanted to go look for you, but I told him he'd probably get lost."
"Alright."
"Um. I wasn't sure if you wanted lunch or not, so I only made food for myself. But there's things in the fridge for you, and you can take what you like. Maybe next time I can make leftovers?"
Tom feels his nose twitching with the cold, the urge to sniff is unbearable. "If you want. I don't care."
"Okay." Potter frowns, stares at the floor. Dismayed. Upset at the rejection.
Tom crosses his arms, inhales slowly through his nose. "I'm going to get some food, and then I'll be back upstairs. We can have dinner together." He'd offer to cook, but he's only ever helped prepare meals before. The first time to attempt such a thing would be when Potter wasn't around.
"Okay." Potter looks back up, smiling. "See you then."
Tom waits to see if Potter will move out of the doorway. Nothing happens, and then Potter blinks, owlishly so.
"Oh," he says. "Sorry. I'll just go outside. So I won't bother you." And then Potter drifts down the entrance hall, brushing past Tom as he goes. Potter grabs a cloak off the rack and heads out the door, leaving a rush of cold air behind him.
Tom settles into a new pattern. They take breakfast together, but not lunch, and they meet back together for dinner. Potter doesn't push for company anymore, though he does invite Tom to help garden or mind the chickens with him every so often.
There is space between them, a gulf that Tom is perfectly content to leave.
Dinner is filled with chatter—Harry's chatter, as he talks about his day, or what he's read, or what he thinks they ought to have for breakfast tomorrow.
Having already taken mental stock of their inventory, Tom is more concerned with what they'll do if the food runs out. Gamp's Law is firm on this subject. They can make more food as long as they have it, they can make changes to the food they already have. There are chickens in the yard, but who knew how long those would last?
Tom knows what rationing feels like. It's a bit selfish, but he wants to enjoy the full meals while they last. It's only their first week, he tells himself. There's still plenty of time and plenty of food. Crates and crates of shrunken goods resting in the basement. And, of course, the well.
The well was easy to find and even easier to use with magic. Tom had given it a go, tugging up a bucket of water. Filtering the water would be simple enough, and access to the water would help keep the garden alive should their pipes fail. The garden that Harry was painstakingly fixated on cultivating.
All of Tom's experience with plants came from Herbology class, and so the only chore he bothered with was weed removal. Harry seemed content to busy himself with the rest of it, by hand of all things, and if he wanted Tom to help with magic, then all he needed to do was ask.
At the end of their first week together, restlessness and boredom are knocking. Tom itches to do something, anything. To feel productive, to feel powerful. He wants to blast down the wards and find out what this new world holds.
"You're extra cranky today," Potter comments idly over dinner one night.
"I'm bored," Tom says, shoving his portion of string beans across his plate. "There's nothing to do here on this stupid farm."
"There's still a whole bookcase in the sitting room," Harry says. "I know you can't have read them all yet."
"I'm bored of reading."
Potter scoops a mouthful of scalloped potatoes into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. He swallows, then says, "We could read something together and talk about it. Like English class."
Tom hasn't thought of English class in ages. Not since he'd started Hogwarts. English class was pedestrian, part of being a useless Muggle, part of the life he'd had before he'd become a wizard.
"Seems like a waste of time," Tom says. "What use is there in having a book club? We're not getting any prizes for it."
"Just something to do," Potter says. "Since you're bored."
"I'm not that desperate." Tom clears the rest of his plate and pushes back in his chair. "Are you done?"
"Not yet." Potter bites down on his bottom lip, pensive. "You know, it wouldn't be so… boring… if you talked to me. We could talk and do things together. People aren't meant to live on their own. It's not healthy."
"What do you expect us to do?" Tom asks, incredulous. "We're not friends. I don't know you, and you're keeping me prisoner here." Keeping him here for reasons that Tom doesn't fully understand yet.
Potter winces. "You're not a prisoner, Tom. I told you. I'm stuck in here just like you are. It's just how it has to be for the magic to work."
Tom bristles, skin crawling with that itch to lash out. "No one asked you to stay here," Tom spits out. "I would have been just fine on my own. Or they should have sent someone I'd actually get along with, instead of a brainless, tactless Gryffindor."
Potter's jaw twitches, his mouth pressing into a frown. "You don't have to be such a brat," Potter says, and it's the most rise Tom's gotten out of him since they arrived in this hell together.
"I'm sorry," Tom says in mocking tones of sympathy. "Did no one ever tell you that not everyone will like you, Harry? Or did they leave that fact out when they shoveled that silver spoon into your guileless mouth?"
"Shut up," Potter says, fists clenching on the table, wrinkling the pristine table cloth. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know enough to know that I don't care to be friends," Tom says, snarling the last word.
"Maybe if you had real friends, you wouldn't be such an arrogant tosser," Harry says, shoving back in his seat.
Tom wants to slam Potter into the wall, hold him there by the neck, close his fingers down one by one over that warm skin and bobbing Adam's apple—a countdown to Potter's last, wheezing breath. Crude, but effective.
But he can't. He can't, because killing Potter is supposed to send Tom tumbling back into the midst of World War II. Tumbling towards death, if what they say is true.
Potter's eyes are hard. There is no wand in his hand, only fists.
Tom knows that Potter plays Quidditch. Played Quidditch, when he was at Hogwarts. Potter's palms have calluses on them from gripping the broomstick too hard, even with the use of gloves. Rough hands that should have been healed over with magic. But Potter does everything the Muggle way when it suits him, so this is unsurprising.
Only… why does Potter do everything the Muggle way? Even disregarding the time Potter had forgotten they could do magic, Tom's seen Potter out in the garden, tools in hands, dirt smudges on his face and arms. Why all the effort?
Tom thinks the answer must be complicated. There's also a part of him that doesn't want to know the answer, and he's not sure why. Is he afraid of it? Of knowing why Potter is so strange and unpredictable? Why Potter is so infuriatingly nice to him?
"I have friends," Tom says. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
The heat in Potter's eyes sparks again, blazing, and Potter opens his mouth to speak, probably to disparage Tom further. But then the fire dies, dropping down to nothing, and his mouth snaps shut. Potter blinks, frowning.
"That's… fair." Potter shifts, shoulders loosening though his jaw remains firm, his hands held in a ready position. "We don't know that much about each other."
Tom doesn't relax. "I'd like to keep it that way."
"If we're going to trust each other," Potter says, "then we need to get to know each other. Or this is only going to result in more arguments."
More information. A peace offering? Potter knew enough about him to come and fetch him from the past. Tom knows very little about his mysterious saviour. Other than the tidbit about the dead parents.
"Fine," Tom says. "Let's share."
They clear the table and do the dishes in silence. Then they retire to the sitting room, where Potter pops onto one of the armchairs. Some of the tension has returned, but it's not unbearable.
"I can go first," Potter offers. "Since I technically know things about you already."
Tom holds his mouth stiff to prevent the sneer from peeking out. "Very well."
"I was born in Godric's Hollow," Potter says. "I lived with my parents, who were childhood sweethearts. My dad was an only child, and my mum was a Muggleborn. When I was a baby, they died protecting me from an intruder."
"Tragic."
Potter pauses to glare, then continues, "So I was sent to go live with my mum's relatives. They're Muggles, and they hate magic. I didn't know I was a wizard until I got my Hogwarts letter. I didn't even know my parents were magic. My aunt always told me they'd died in a car crash." Potter frowns, shrinking in on himself.
"But you found out eventually," Tom points out. "And now you have this house. And other things, I assume." Wealth and power. A name to rest his laurels on. Acceptance in a society that prizes blood over all.
"Yeah." Potter shrugs. "But Hogwarts was—is—the first real place I think of when I think of home."
Tom thinks of Hogwarts as home, too.
This simple statement tugs something loose inside of him. He can feel it slide into place, relaxing some tightly wound spring buried deep in his chest.
"Hogwarts is special," Tom concedes.
Potter's mouth falls open, just a soft parting of his lips. "I mean—yeah. It really is. There's nowhere else like it. I like to just walk the halls and the grounds at night when I can't sleep."
"I do that," Tom says, the words slipping out before he can think better of them. "Or I sit in the common room, where it's quiet."
"It must be peaceful," Harry agrees. "With the lake and all."
Sometimes the gentle lull of the water had sent Tom straight to sleep, dozing off in an armchair, slumped over his textbooks. Though it had been built for Purebloods, for heirs of noble houses, Tom knew he belonged there, amongst the ambitious and the elegant.
Then Tom remembers.
"You're a Gryffindor," Tom accuses. "When have you ever seen my common room?"
"Oh." Potter's face shutters. "I did in my second year. I snuck in."
Tom's not sure if he ought to be impressed or not. He hasn't been in other common rooms yet, but now he wants to, because it's unfair that Potter's done something he hasn't.
"I can tell you what the Gryffindor common room looks like," Potter offers.
Tom shrugs like the answer doesn't matter one way or the other.
"We've got lots of squashy armchairs," Potter says. "And rugs, and the large fireplace. Lots of tables for studying or playing games with your mates. The entrance hole is covered up with the portrait of the Fat Lady. She's sort of loud, but she's mostly nice if you humour her. Oh, and inside, our stairs that lead up to the dorms are separate for boys and girls, but in your first year you get the dorms at the very top, so you can see out across the grounds real easily."
"Sounds nice," Tom says, and he does mean it. He had wandered the castle rooftops before, to take in the sight of the grounds. The Quidditch pitch and the Great Lake. The Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade in the distance.
Hogsmeade. Tom would have been permitted to visit Hogsmeade this year. But now he wouldn't get to, because he would be here with Potter instead.
"Maybe you'll get to see it once we're out," Potter adds. "I could show you."
Tom kicks at the floor. "Once we're out. You don't even know when that will be."
"Well," Potter says, "there's nothing we can really do about that. So we just have to make the best of it, you know? I'm going to keep studying for my OWLs, anyways. Just in case."
OWLs. Tom doesn't like the reminder that Potter is older than him. That he knows more.
"What were your relatives like?" Tom asks, because he knows the question will bite. "The Muggle ones."
As expected, Potter doesn't answer immediately. "They're not the nicest people," Potter says, shifting his gaze to the bookshelf. "I'm glad to be away from them."
"You stay with them every summer?"
"Yeah." Potter turns his head back to face Tom. "I always wanted to stay at Hogwarts, though."
They stare at each other. Two young boys with upbringings that aren't quite the same. Tom feels discomfort creeping around him, curling up his spine, coating his lungs like tar.
"Here's not so bad," Potter says after a pause, tone full of false cheer. "No one to tell us what to do. It's nice to have a break from other people."
Tom's not so sure if he feels the same way. He's always thrived with people, plucking their threads, kicking the pebbles that lead to avalanches. Say this, cause this. The give and take of behaviours that Tom knows better than any spell or textbook. He knows people. This is the advantage he has, the power he uses.
Except Potter.
Once again, Potter proves to be a frustratingly competent exception to Tom's plans and conceptions. A disaster and a puzzle rolled up into one. Tom's picked people apart before. His housemates, his professors. He learned what made them tick and twisted it to his own agenda. But Potter is kind when he ought to be cruel, understanding when he should have been as bigoted as the rest of his kind.
If what Tom's seeing and hearing and guessing is true, then Harry Potter never grew up with a silver spoon. He never grew up with any silver at all.
"Let's go out to the yard," Tom says. "I want some fresh air." He stands, deliberating, eyes sweeping over Potter's mop of dark hair, his gleaming green eyes. The wide set of those eyes that implies innocence. The jagged scar on the forehead that suggests Potter is more than he seems. "You can tell me about the gardens," Tom adds, gentle.
Harry smiles. It's genuine, beautiful, and lights up his eyes with a dazzle that Dumbledore never managed for all his grandstanding and placating words. Tom finds that he can trust this boy, this smile, this silvertongue that matches his own.
"Okay," Harry says, scrambling to his feet. "I was really glad when I saw there was space for one. My aunt has gardens in her yard, mostly flowers. She never let me grow anything, and I had to trim everything the way she liked. So it wasn't the same. But here I can grow all sorts of things, mostly food, but it's going to be really great once it's done, Tom, you'll see…"
Tom lets Harry ramble on as they walk through the house. He'll pick Harry apart in a different way. Learn the bits of history that make him up. Pry apart those open arms, that bleeding heart. Scrape up all the kindness there is, find out what's left over.
And then, maybe, he can convince Harry to side with him, help him escape this place. Because they're tied together now, tied by time, tied by the wards that hold them in place. Harry's fate is tied with his, and Tom will drag them to where they need to be.
A/N:
whew. now i can stop getting confused and typing 'harry' when i mean to type 'potter'.
i feel like since the previous chapter, my writing has gotten a lot better? i spent a solid period of time just churning out 'til death do us part' (WHICH STILL NEEDS TO BE FINISHED 😭) and 'the office tribute', and i think the difference is noticeable. but maybe that's just me.
anyways, i am gonna be bold and estimate a total of nine chapters for this story. let's see if i stick to it this time.
also, special thank u to kelsey for hyperion's name ❤️👌
reviews are greatly appreciated.