Omake: Guy Talk

One of the worst things about living in a dorm with four other boys was that sometimes he couldn't avoid hearing their conversations. Tom grimaced as he worked on outlining their study session. Ron and Finnegan were discussing girls and trying to draw the rest of them into the conversation. Tom managed to tune them out reasonably well until they spoke to him directly.

"So, Harry, what do you think?" Ron asked with a grin.

Finnegan leaned forward curiously.

Tom sighed. "About what?"

Thomas took it upon himself to enlighten him. "They're talking about whether Lavender or Susan is hotter."

"Who's Susan?"

The entire room stared at him. Finnegan cupped his hands and put them on his chest, jiggling a pair of imaginary breasts. "You know, the really big girl in Hufflepuff?"

Tom frowned, trying to think about girls in Hufflepuff and only coming up with their last names and faces. One face in particular stood out to him though, because now that he thought about it, he thought that Susan might have been her first name. "Susan Bones?"

"Yeah," Thomas said, rolling his eyes at his friend, who was still waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"I really don't think either of them is particularly 'hot,'" he said. This was apparently some form of blasphemy, judging by the other boys' expressions.

Finnegan studied him. "You're not into guys are you?" he asked seriously. "Cuz I mean, that's fine but I'd kinda like to know if a guy I'm rooming with might be checking me out."

Tom arched an eyebrow and made a show of looking the boy up and down. "I don't think you need to worry about that," he said drily, making Ron and Thomas snicker. "But no, I'm not interested in boys."

"Who do you like?" Ron asked. "Hermione?"

The word 'no' was on the tip of his tongue when Tom hesitated.

"Her boobs are decent," Finnegan said knowingly.

Tom shot him a scathing look. "I don't care one whit about breast size," he said. Before the other boy could say anything else, Tom added, "I don't care about butts or legs or hair or feet or whatever other body part you care to name either."

"What… what kind of person do you like then?" Longbottom, Longbottom of all people, asked timidly.

Tom grimaced, but obligingly closed his eyes. Guy talk was, he remembered, an integral part of being accepted, and he couldn't go about alienating his roommates for something as petty as being uncomfortable. Although, if a burst of Fiendfyre could suddenly break out and cut the conversation short, he wouldn't mind. "I suppose... someone intelligent and powerful... who's willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals," he said at last, the words coming slowly as he tried to think about what traits he found most valuable in a person. "Loyal, but not fawning. Someone I can relax around. And... " Something popped into his mind, and he said it before he could think it through. "Warm."

"Warm?" Finnegan repeated, eyebrows raised.

"So… No necrophilia, got it," Thomas said with a grin.

Tom huffed and threw a pillow at him. "Prats," he muttered.

One session of guy talk completed without any fatalities. Check.

AN: This scene happened, but it also doesn't really fit in anywhere other than that chronologically it's somewhere in this timeframe.