AN: Thank you all again! Sending you my love!
Teaching History (is Old News)
29 - Knowing You
"Harry is his own person. He's not yours," Regulus Black growls.
"He's not staying here with you either," Tom proclaims.
He doesn't know much about Harry's home life after the Dursleys but he senses that Harry's soul will stagnate if he's locked up in this house forever. Maybe the jovial Harry that Tom knows is an act, a role Harry plays to keep smiling. Maybe the real Harry isn't like that every day, and he's been internally anguishing this whole time. All Tom knows is that at Hogwarts, Harry feels genuine… Harry is happy.
Tom looks Regulus Black in the eye and swears, "He's coming home with me."
Regulus Black points his wand to Tom's heart. "Over my dead body."
Tom narrows his eyes, mentally cataloguing through what dark spells he knows that will incarcerate and not kill.
"Uncle Reggie, we talked about this!" Harry opens the door, arms crossed. "I thought you were going to be polite!"
"I was. For ten minutes."
"Okay. That's it. We're leaving, Tom. Goodbye Uncle Reggie. I'll write. Please read Sirius my letters," Harry walks past, tugging Tom along with him.
"Wait!" Regulus Black runs after them, the locket tossed aside onto a side table. "When are you coming back? You won't leave for several months again, will you?"
"I already told you," Harry replies without turning back, "There's something that I have to see through. I'll be back for the summer, I promise. And maybe Yule. I'm not abandoning him, Uncle Reggie."
"Harry—"
They stop directly in front of the floor, Harry's fingers desperately clutching Tom's. Regulus Black looks like he'll paralyze them both, throw Tom to the bottom of the ocean, and then take Harry to another glorified cage. Tom begins calculating how he'll get himself and Harry out of this when Harry sighs.
"Uncle Reggie, may I have my owl back please?"
The immobilized Hedwig looks like she'd nod in agreement if she could.
Regulus Black grips his wand tight. "No. Not until we talk."
"We're done talking, Uncle Reggie, especially if you're not going to listen. Now give Hedwig back or I'll tell Snape that you're single again."
Muffled laughter escapes Tom's lips, which he quickly disguises as coughs.
"You wouldn't!" Regulus Black blanches in horror.
"Oh I would. I think I'll call him Uncle Sev now, too. Unless someone lets Hedwig go…?"
Immediately, Regulus Black releases the spell. In vengeance, Hedwig bites his fingers, then quickly swoops over to Harry's arms for a hug.
"Hedwig! I'll never part from you again!" Harry rubs his face against her feathers.
She hoots back what Tom assumes is affection… or berating for not rescuing her sooner. Harry and Hedwig spend so long staring into each other's eyes with delight that Tom shoves them both into the floo, followed by a glower at Regulus Black.
"We won't be back."
"You don't know Harry as well as I do," Regulus Black snarls. "He'll be back."
Regulus Black's hateful eyes are the last Tom sees through the flames.
:
As Tom, Harry, and Hedwig return to their office, Tom keeping a hand steady around Harry's waist, they appear in a room full of streamers and balloons. The floor and walls are splattered with crumbs and icing, and the culprits, several chubby ducks and a snake, lie on the floor in obvious food comas.
[Nagini!] Tom hisses, [What are you doing?!]
[Dying, Master, the sugar was too good. My soul has ascended. Leave my mortal body behind for you to mourn!] she groans, rolling over several empty plastic containers and cupcake wrappers.
[You're a snake! Why would you—it's your fault, isn't it?!] Tom whirls on the Death Ducks.
They're all clumped together in a shivering pile of plump feathers. The one on top, probably Bella, oinks in a tone that clearly says, 'oh shit!'
"My comfort food! It was a secret stash! Why?!" Harry laments. "What will I eat to fill the void?!"
"The void?!" Tom hisses. Is this related to Sirius Black? How long has Harry been feeling empty inside—
"This means more baking!" Harry cheers, eyes lighting up like stars, as if everything in Grimmauld Place had never happened at all.
A twist of Harry's wand and the mess vanishes, all containers put int heir place, all ducks stacked on top of each other in a strange waddling tower, with the bottom duck determined to flex his wings. Nagini gets levitated on top of a velvet pillow and Harry blows her a kiss. A little oven and table appears by Harry's hammock, along with various ingredients and baking utensils.
An apron with parakeets embroidered on it appears on Harry as he races over to the table (Hedwig following behind) with his whisk, and Tom shouts, "Wait!"
Harry pauses just as he cracks open an egg, the yolk plopping down into the bowl with a smack.
"Shouldn't we discuss what happened? In the other universe? Your visions? To Sirius Black?"
Harry goes quiet. In the silence, only Nagini's pained food coma groans and the Death Ducks' strained oinks (still standing in their tower) can be heard.
"I thought you weren't going to avoid the issue anymore." He can't stand Harry walking away again.
"…You're right." Harry pits the cracked eggshells into a small wastebasket. He looks up at Tom, wary. "What do you want to know?"
Everything.
But instead, he says, "What kind of accident was Sirius Black caught up in?"
"…He was in the Department of Mysteries, looking for me. I was trying to find someone important but I remembered things wrong again. I saw the other Harry and… another Tom. I didn't see mine at all, I just thought—never mind, it's not important." Harry's smile is frayed and worn. "The point is, Sirius got an urgent letter from me. I was panicking. He tried to stop me from doing something stupid, from falling into—well, let's just say the Department of Mysteries is a terrible place. Sirius nearly took my place, he was halfway through but I pulled him back, I couldn't lose him, even if I was gonna fall in too, I couldn't let him—"
"Stop, stop!" Tom pries Harry's hands away, unfurling them from digging skin. "Slow down. I don't understand what happened."
"…I don't either."
And Tom… tries to imagine it. Being bombarded unwillingly with multiple visions of the future, visions that aren't even branching timelines, but different universe formed by completely different circumstances. He tries imagining looking for the truth, some semblance of sanity, some thread of his true future, and following it, trying to prevent it, going mad from trying to follow it until he's hit by the possibility that maybe he saw nothing at all.
That maybe he's powerless and he let someone vital nearly die.
(No. No. No. NEVER.)
"…Where did he almost fall?" Tom asks, shutting away those ugly thoughts.
"…The Unspeakables call it the Veil. They didn't tell me where it leads to… but I could guess."
The Veil. He files that information away for the future.
"If that… if that ever happens again, you must tell me—"
Harry's face goes blank. "Why? So you can use it in the future?"
"No," Tom snaps. "I will never try to use your prophecies against you. I swear it!"
Harry looks at him, truly looks at Tom, the way he did so long ago and Tom wonders how he could have ever forgotten what this feels like—
"Sometimes…" Harry says quietly, "I'm not sure if I can trust you. I don't know who the real you is, you see… But I want to. I really do. You're so different from before, Tom… When we were in school, I—" Harry shakes his head. "No, the past is the past. The you now… I'll try to tell you what I can."
Yes!
Tom immediately puts up privacy wards and banishes the Death Ducks to the bedroom upstairs, leaving two familiars, Tom, and Harry.
Conjuring two armchairs, Harry gestures for Tom to sit.
He tells a story with many frayed pieces, of an orphan who lashed out at the world, and tore his soul seven times, of the murders piled up at the orphan's feet, of families torn apart. Sometimes the orphan became a professor, grooming potential students to dark paths, sometimes he cursed the DADA position. Sometimes, he was more cunning, and became undersecretary to the Minister, or worse, the Minister himself.
But always a Dark Lord first. But always making horcruxes. And always… a prophecy.
The one the Dark Lord marks as equal…
The baby he would try to kill.
In a few timelines, he kills the baby, there is no Harry Potter, and that thought hurts most of all. But in most others, the other Harrys survive, as the Boy-Who-Lived, a laughable name… And he's a horcrux.
Tom nearly chokes on the air. "A human horcrux?!"
It shouldn't be possible, Tom almost accuses Harry of lying, but Harry is so serious, so morose, so un-Harry, that it must be true.
Harry's smile rains down like the first drops of a downpour. "Between the two of us, anything is possible."
Sometimes the soul living in the other Harrys grows too strong, taking over Harry completely, or leading him down to destruction. Sometimes, the soul shard keeps Harry as a pet, never letting Harry speak for himself ever again. Other times, it hides Harry away and Harry dies anyways from isolation.
But most visions, the soul shard stays dormant.
It's the Monster, Voldemort, that is the problem. His sanity always varies, but int eh end, he always has to kill or torture the Boy-Who-Lived personally. The worst happens when the Monster finds out what Harry's soul holds.
Hence the fate of Feral Potter.
"But I… I could never do that!" Tom hisses.
"How would I have known that when you walked me into a Death Eater meeting, when dear Aunt Bella started talking about torturing and killing muggles, and you didn't stop her?! How would I have known that when you've been making plans to find a Hogwarts Founder's relic and make another horcrux with that?!"
Tom hates that Harry is right, but, "How did you find out about that?"
"Lucky guess," Harry says drily, "and you're not subtle when you start asking around about the Founder's items."
Tom scowls. So what if he might have walked the Monster's path without his Harry as an influence? So what if he would never have seen how wrong, how mad, he would become without the Weasley Twins and their prank? He does have his Harry. He did get stuck in that closet. His existence in all those possibilities is unique and he'll show the world, all existences possible, that he is the most superior Tom Riddle of all.
He stands up abruptly, nearly knocking over the bowl of eggshells.
"I'll show you that I'm different! I'll show you that I can protect you," he snarls, whirling around for the door, not hearing Harry's confused calls.
In the empty office, Harry turns to Hedwig and Nagini, and groans, burying his face in Hedwig's feathers.
:
Tom storms over to Dumbledore's office. First order of business, destroy Grindelwald. To do that, he'll weasel the details out of Dumbledore. He won't retraumatize Harry with that conversation.
His only obstacle is that irritating gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office.
"Treacle Tart," Tom hisses out Harry's favourite pastry.
Nothing.
"Cockroach cluster. Every flavor beans. Toffee. Blood pops. Chocolate frogs. Cotton candy. Pistachio ice cream! Lollipops! For Merlin's sake, open!"
Still nothing.
Tom considers the morality of blasting apart the gargoyle to break into Dumbledore's office—would that make him more or less like the monster?—when he hears, "Oatmeal!"
The gargoyle hops aside.
"Oatmeal?!" Tom scowls. "Really?!"
Yet again, Dumbledore pops up unexpectedly, where he's not wanted. Like a zit.
"Too much sugar in my diet, I'm afraid. Need more fiber."
Tom's eye twitches.
"Now what can I do for you, Tom?" Dumbledore steps into the staircase first, gesturing for Tom to follow.
"…I had a few questions."
They walk up the staircase.
"As we all do," Dumbledore nods. "It's the first step in learning why—"
"About Harry. And Grindelwald."
"Ah." Dumbledore stops mid-step, turning to meet Tom's gaze. "I'm afraid I cannot discuss Harry's personal matters with you without his permission. It's not my place to say. Though I'm surprised that you don't already know the details…"
"I can't ask him that, right now, he just went through an ordeal when those Twins pranked us. But I need to know. For Harry's safety."
Dumbledore's eyes flash, the way he did when he set Tom's wardrobe on fire, when he looked at Tom, as if he knew every cell of him, and found him lacking. "Is it truly for Harry's safety that you say this Tom, or your own selfish ploys?"
How. Dare. He!
"I need to know so that I can protect him better than any other Tom Riddle could!" Tom explodes.
Dumbledore's mouth actually falls open, and his spectacles fall down his nose. The sight is worthy of a photo for blackmail but knowing Dumbledore, he'd probably take it as a compliment and wear the photo proudly as a badge.
"Tom, dear boy, I—"
"Don't 'dear boy' me!" Tom points his finger at him, tired of the hypocrisy. "Stop hiding vital information! How am I supposed to know what threats need to be eliminated if you hide them?! Harry's already been hurt by incompetent morons like you, so I'll do what you all failed to do, I—"
Tom… can't say the next word. He just… can't. And Dumbledore is… beaming like Tom is a Gryffindor he can be proud of and it's disgusting.
"Stop that. Stop smiling."
"You care about Harry a great deal now."
Tom glares. He hates that Dumbledore sees this weakness of his.
"That's not important. Just tell me what I need to know." Tom is very tempted to push Dumbledore down the stairs.
"You should already know the basics of the story. The Potters and their friends were involved with Gellert Grindelwald, as double agents for the British Ministry of Magic, hoping for a chance to defeat him from within his ranks. When one of their own was captured and tortured, James and Lily Potter tried to rescue him, but it was too late. Peter Pettigrew was dead, and Grindelwald found out that the Potters were British spies. They fled but couldn't escape. They died protecting Harry."
"But he left Harry alive. Why?"
"…I suspect you already know."
"Harry is a seer," Tom says, understanding that Dumbledore won't betray Harry's secret to anyone who doesn't already know, "a powerful one too."
"Yes. Gellert Grindelwald was very interested in seers… he wanted them to find him a weapon. It's why he found and killed Harry's grandparents—after all, Euphemia Potter was a seer. After their murders, James was never the same. He vowed revenge, changed his appearance, and became a spy. When he went… his friends, Remus, Peter, and Sirius followed."
The memories come back to Tom… how Grindelwald's right-hand man, Sirius Black, came during Third Year to 'kill' Harry, but truly, Sirius Black had been the British Ministry's spy from the beginning, and wanted to hide Harry from Grindelwald's kidnapping attempt. Tom nearly killed Sirius Black before he learned the whole story of Sirius Black biding his time as a spy to take revenge for the Potter deaths.
Tom let Sirius Black escape.
What happened afterwards, Tom doesn't know. The prophet published an article of Sirius Black's battle with Grindelwald. In a surprise confrontation, Sirius Black managed to make Grindelwald lose an eye and a few limbs. Grindelwald fled, and since then, whispers of him died down. The Dark Lord like a ghost, a horror story told to children. Insignificant. Forgotten.
Of course, being idiotic sheep, the Wizarding community embraced Sirius Black as their savior and were willing to grant him anything.
Including custody of his godson, despite the lack of blood ties.
Back then, Tom had thought Grindelwald to be pathetic, to be backstabbed by his 'right-hand' man. But he asked his Death Eaters to keep a look out for news on Grindelwald's whereabouts. Just in case.
All Tom ever heard was that Grindelwald had found something. A weapon. And Grindelwald was biding his time for the right moment. A plan that Tom never took seriously, for surely the most superior Dark Lord would triumph.
He thought he knew everything of importance, back then. He didn't even bother keeping tabs on Sirius Black, on the whisperings that Sirius Black had become a recluse. He should have known better.
He should have known.
Tom could curse his past self, if he could.
"I need to find Grindelwald," Tom decides. And finish him for good, he doesn't say.
"I admire your enthusiasm for helping Harry," Dumbledore says too gently, as if he has the right to, "but no one has been able to find Gellert Grindelwald in years. Including myself."
"Then I need to track his last known movements."
There are only so many places Grindelwald can go in the world. Tom will find him.
"Is that really the best course of action? Is that what Harry wants? What you want?"
"Yes!" Tom hisses, thinking of Regulus Black's accusations. "I need to be better! How else can I show him that I've changed?!"
"Ah… so that's what this is about," Dumbledore nods, looking irritatingly higher than thou. "Tom, while I won't discourage you from pursuing this… project… in your spare time, the only way to show Harry that you've changed is to spend time with him. Make him feel secure in who you are. What you decide to do about Gellert Grindelwald in your spare time is up to you… but please, don't forget the reason you want him defeated."
"I know exactly why I'm doing this, and I don't need your 'advice' on how to handle my affairs!"
"Very well, very well, I suppose that's fair… It's just, I heard that a Mr. Draco Malfoy dropped by again, looking for Harry. It'd be such a shame if Malfoy were to take up more of Harry's time while you're distracted—"
Tom nearly snaps his own wand. "That persistent little worm! I'll turn him into a ferret!"
"If you do, don't tell his father!" Dumbledore calls as Tom murder-runs away. "Ah well," Dumbledore muses to himself, "I tried."
:
Draco soon-to-be-dead Malfoy is smiling adoringly as Harry gestures wildly with his hands about proper owl care. Tom catches the last snippets of their conversation as he viciously plans on how to silence Malfoy for good. "This is why owls shouldn't be kept in cramped cages overnight, they need to be free to stretch their wings, explore their horizons—"
"I would never keep you in a cage, Harry," Draco Malfoy sighs, besotted.
"Sorry, what?" Harry stops mid-gesture.
"I meant, you sound like a wise sage! Yes, that's definitely what I meant, idiot! Get your ears checked!"
"Those who claim they are wise are often fools," Harry frowns, while attempting to whisk some egg yolks and milk. Hedwig, the only sane one, glares at Draco Malfoy for the slight.
"You're not a fool!" Draco Malfoy shouts. "Well, at least, not that great a fool. In fact, Harry, the reason that I came is because, well, you're rather tolerable. And you know that I favour you. And if something bad ever happened to you, I—"
"Wait. Is this about your brother again?" Harry stops him before Tom can barge in and strangle Malfoy. "Because I told you, I'm sure I'll be fine. It's nothing to me if the 'great' Abraxas tries to humiliate me again for some misplaced revenge. I'll survive."
"It's not that!" Malfoy snaps. "Abraxas, he's become involved with someone dangerous. If their plan works, you won't be safe at Hogwarts. That's why you should come with me. We can go wherever you want, no one will ever doubt or look at you funny again. I'll take care of you—"
"Take care of him?!" Tom slams open the door. "You?! When you couldn't even take care of your Transfigurations or Care of Magical Creatures grades back in school? When you can't even keep track of where your bodyguards are?! When you can barely function without a house elf waiting on you, hand and foot? Don't make me laugh."
"Riddle," Malfoy stands, fists clenched. "This is a private conversation between me and Harry."
"Harry," Tom caresses the name, because Malfoy is unworthy of calling him by his first name, "can take care of himself. He doesn't need you."
"Like you're doing any better taking care of him. Look at the trouble he got into!"
"Excuse me? I'm standing right here. I can speak for myself. And I'm fine where I am. Thank you for the offer though, Draco."
"No, you are NOT fine! He'll go after you first, I know he will!" Malfoy's face shines with wild fervor. "Just come with me, Harry, please. I'll do right by you, I'll change. You'll never have to worry about anything!" He grabs Harry's arm, hard enough to draw blood with his nails.
Tom is there within seconds, prying his hand away.
"Don't get in between us!" Malfoy roars. "You don't understand anything, Riddle!"
"Let go. He said he'll stay." With me.
"Harry doesn't know any better! He's Harry. His mind isn't normal, he needs someone to decide these things for him—"
Tom is this close to turning Draco into a dead ferret when—
"Let me guess," Harry interrupts, his gaze as cool and piercing as the day he walked out of Tom's Death Eater meeting, "you want to save me? You want to keep me well-dressed, well-fed, beautiful, and perfect, in your little manor and want for nothing? You want to decide everything for me because I'm 'special,' because I'm a bit 'mad,' because I don't think like 'normal' people do?"
Malfoy turns whiter than dying coral in the sea. "No. Harry. That's not what I meant. Well, yes, it is what I meant, but not in that way, I—"
"Forgive me. It must be my abnormal mind, but I just remembered why we don't keep in touch that much. I'm not feeling well. Could you please leave?"
"Harry—"
Tom twists Malfoy's wrist back. "He said, leave. And please don't come back without an invitation, Malfoy."
"Riddle," the hatred on Malfoy's face is laughable. "I know this is your doing. If you weren't around, Harry would—"
Tom rolls his eyes and pushes him into the floo. Then he closes their floo permanently for the week. Good riddance.
He turns around to see Harry frowning and staring at his scattered baking supplies, flour and sugar covering everything.
"How are you?" Tom strides towards him, conjuring up a cloth to begin wiping away Harry's face and neck, the flour stubbornly clinging to his skin like a heartbroken ghost. "Did he hurt you?"
"No," Harry turns away from the cloth. "He didn't hurt me. Not really."
Tom frowns. "But he hurt your…" he hates how trivial this word feels, "feelings."
"…He wasn't trying to hurt me."
Tom presses the cloth harder against Harry's cheek and nose. "But he did."
"He wasn't wrong either," Harry lowers his chin, making himself small, like he used to when he talked about the Dursleys. "My mind's not normal. Maybe Regulus was right. Maybe I don't belong out with other people."
Tonight, Tom will make sure Malfoy never works at the ministry again. And Regulus is dead to him. Family status means nothing. "Is that what people, what Regulus, used to tell you, when I wasn't around? That you were mad? That you weren't right in the head?"
Harry doesn't answer.
"…Well, maybe not Regulus or Sirius."
But doesn't that mean everyone else did?
Fury boils through Tom's veins. Screw it all. He'll figure out how to make his Death Ducks human again and have them hunt Grindelwald's whereabouts for him. He's not leaving Harry's side for one second if he can help it, not with these pests ruining Harry in front of him.
"They're wrong," Tom hisses. "You may think and see the world differently then everyone else but that doesn't mean you're unable to think, unable to know your own self!"
Harry gives Tom a look. "Isn't that what you used to think about me as well?"
"If I thought like that, I would have forced you to join me! I wouldn't have invested so much time into trying to recruit you!"
Harry stares at him, in a way that Tom has never seen before, bewildered and a little confused. "Oh," he says quietly.
Tom wonders what other Tom Riddle Harry was expecting to see then.
"I'll show you that I've changed! That I'm different too!" Tom hisses.
Then he leaves again, a confused Harry staring back at him.
:
Tom impatiently knocks on the flat door until a sleepy Dragon Weasley pokes his head out, wearing an abomination called a dragon onesie.
"…Huh? Riddle…? It's almost midnight, why—"
Tom shoves the survey in his face.
The survey reads with the following question:
- What is the best way to show someone that you care about them platonically (the letters in 'platonically' are written in bold slashes and erased crossed-out lines) and make them trust you eternally?
Slowly Dragon Weasley blinks up at Tom, as if to verify his existence.
"It's for research," Tom says tightly.
"Right, right," anything makes sense near midnight.
Dragon Weasley looks back down at the page and the following answers that Tom has already received:
- Just kiss already! from Madam Hooch (this idea has been crossed out aggressively)
- Apologize and go back to sleep from Professor McGonagall
- Have you tried dancing? from Flitwick (next to this note, a scrawl that writes research dancing)
- Give them a three-headed puppy named Fluffy from Hagrid
- Harry likes sweets from Cho Chang
"Huh," says Dragon Weasley when he realizes that the survey consists of people from Tom's work and Harry's friendship circle, judging from some of the several page shovel talks, likely from Diggory and Longbottom, who did not bother reading the question. "Shouldn't you just… spend time with him?"
Tom scowls the way he does when students meander around an answer. "I do spend time with him. At work."
Dragon Weasley slowly twitches. "…Alright, but do you do anything together in your free time..?"
"We run the dueling club."
"No. I mean," Dragon Weasley looks close to either collapsing or tearing his hair out. "Do you do other things that you both enjoy together? Do you bake with him? Knit? Do origami?"
Tom rolls his eyes. "Why would I do that? It's a waste of time."
Dragon Weasley stares for a bit in disbelief, then throws his hands up in the air. "Okay, but not to Harry! Never mind. It's too late for this shit. Go home, go to sleep, good night!"
Tom opens his mouth, but Dragon Weasley rudely closes the door.
:
Tom's mind races as he stares at the survey results, all of the suggestions too general, too menial to prove anything to Harry. He should ignore Dumbledore's suggestion and hunt down Grindelwald to present the corpse to Harry, that should be suitable. And yet, the thought of Malfoy sneaking around, waiting for an opportunity to take his Harry away… the thought that Harry might let him, because Harry hates himself, because Harry forgives too easily… even someone like Tom Riddle…
His hand hovers on the doorknob to their shared office when Tom quietly opens the door.
Harry is sitting at the fireplace, wrapped up in a blanket, with all the Death Ducks gathered in front of him as he reads them a muggle storybook. Speechless, Tom doesn't move, as he watches Harry read The Hobbit to them, going off into tangents about the consequences of greed and long lasting hatred… The flames in the fireplace dance around as Harry retells the bit with the dragon, the sparks jumping up to create tiny flame hobbits and dragons that dance around in front of the excited ducks.
By the end of the story, the ducks, Nagini, and Hedwig are all too quiet, and Harry shuts the book tight.
"So," Harry murmurs, "the moral of the lesson is… Well, I don't know. I guess, protect him well. Be his friend. Real friends. And please, please, think about why you hate muggles. Think about whether they deserve it. Otherwise… you might lose something dear to you…"
The Ducks look down at the ground, their eyes oddly misty.
"Oh, and if you don't, I'll just let you stay ducks," Harry laughs.
Oddly enough, the oink-not-quacks that sound from them resemble laughter too…
Tom… can't intrude on the moment, can't walk in to where Harry has made the room so warm and peaceful, everything that Tom is not.
He flees to another classroom to sleep for the night.
He does not sleep.
The nightmares hold his eyes open.
:
"Is Professor Riddle possessed?!" Lavender Brown asks, the next day, on a truly terrible weekday known as Monday.
The entire school has just witnessed Riddle pulling out a chair for Professor Potter, and then putting food on a plate for him. Professor Riddle even took the time to grab some treacle tart, nudging it to Potter when he didn't touch the food. Their hands, Lavender is sure, have even brushed a few times, and Professor Riddle won't stop staring intently at Professor Potter, half-starved.
The twins grin. "Isn't—"
"—It—"
"—Obvious?"
"They've made their relationship public!" Both twins exclaim with jazz hands.
"That's silly, they're obviously just good friends! So many women would love to be Mrs. Riddle!" Lavender crosses her arms.
"Oh Lavvy," one twin sighs.
"Poor poor Lavender."
"So blind."
"So unfortunate."
Both twins lean against each other and chorus, "We heard Professor Riddle specifically call Harrykins his last Saturday, in front of the entire staff."
"…His friend?" Lavender asks hopefully.
"Nope. His Harry."
:
The odd behavior persists throughout the week.
Professor Potter's Divination classes end with Professor Riddle coming in to get Professor Potter hot chocolate. Angelina Johnson spies them drinking hot chocolate together every evening at the astronomy tower after last classes.
Sometimes Professor Potter observes Professor Riddle's classes and provides actual competent DADA advice to students. Riddle begins participating in Potter's morning meditations and glares at any student who dares giggle or slack off during the exercise.
Ron Weasley swears that he sees a little green crane resting in Riddle's hair. Zambini insists that Riddle's been seen nibbling on some sort of bitter pastry that must be baked by Potter.
And to make it all the more absurd…
Riddle is always followed by a trail of purple ducks who guard the perimeter of his classroom.
And Potter is always seen with Nagini draped around his shoulders.
If twitter was a Wizarding invention, hashtag Tomarry would be trending.
:
Tom has not been sleeping. But Tom is fine. Sleep is for the mortal. Tom is better than petty mortals. He has a plan.
Operation: Be-the-Only-Tom-Riddle-That-Harry-Sees is going well. Tom hasn't had much luck with finding out more about Grindelwald, limited to letter correspondences with information brokers, but keeping Harry occupied has been far more interesting.
The first morning Tom pulled out a chair for Harry, his Harry had looked at him all perplexed and lost, like Tom had done something statistically impossible but completely unique to himself.
The feeling was as exhilarating as the first time Tom felt magic through his fingertips.
Tom kept up the stream of little deeds to keep an eye on Harry's mental health. Nagini happily took her position as Harry's new bodyguard, always sniping with the demon owl, and the Death Ducks have served as good monitors for silly student behavior. He's sure that the most aggressive ducks, who have attacked the twins for trying to prank people over a dozen times, must be Bella and Barty.
To Tom's surprise, Harry began tentatively doing the same, accepting Tom's earlier offer to shadow his classes, and even offering Tom some dark chocolate biscuits that Tom can truly tolerate. They're rather addicting with coffee.
When Harry is in Tom's classes, suddenly something clicks, something Tom didn't known was missing in his teaching element. Harry notices the students Tom overlooks and gently fixes their mistakes while Tom keeps the structure and discipline in the class. He hears a few students call them a 'power couple' and Tom… doesn't hate it.
But there's still a wall in Harry's eyes, some darkly guarded vision, another Tom he sees. And Tom hates that other Tom, whoever he is.
So Tom tries harder, to do something the other Tom Riddles would never do…
"…Shall we bake together?" he asks when he sees Harry setting up his baking ingredients.
Harry's knee jerks into his little table, nearly spilling all the bowls and spoons off the table.
"Who are you and what have you done to Tom?"
"What? I can't try to spend time with you?" he snaps. Then tries to stop, because that is exactly what the other Tom Riddles would do.
"Tom, you don't have to force yourself to do all these things for me just to prove that you're different. I know that you are. I just have trouble remembering that sometimes. And I am trying to trust you. It will just take time."
"I'm not forcing myself!" he snaps. He likes taking care of Harry. Perhaps that makes him just as pathetic as Draco Malfoy, but he's the one that Harry chose. Not Malfoy. And he will never let Harry change his mind or fall in love with someone else.
There's still so much he doesn't know about Harry, so much of Harry that only Longbottom or Diggory or Chang has seen. Faces of Harry that Tom will never know…
"Is it not enough that I want things to be different between us? That I want things to change? I want to know you, Harry, I want to know why you do what you do."
He needs it more than he needs air or horcruxes.
Harry's lips tremble, and there's a watery light in his eyes, like some bright star that Tom forgot he was chasing a long time ago.
"…Alright," he says. "I'll get you an apron."
It's green, the exact dark shade that Tom favours, with black outlines and tiny embroidered ducks at the edges. Tom's fingers trace the embroidery, as he wonders how long it took for Harry to hand stitch them all in such detail.
He puts it on and he helps Harry knead the dough.
They work quietly together, masks gone. And in the monotonous and repetitive rhythm of making bread together, Tom feels… lighter.
Magic makes things so much easier, but somehow, this sort of thing isn't bad either, he thinks, as he wipes off more flour from Harry's face.
:
"Tomorrow," Harry says quietly as they wait for the bread to bake, "I'll turn the Death Eaters human again."
Tom and the ducks gape at him.
Harry shrugs. "You deserve a chance." No, Tom doesn't deserve anything from his Harry who is too good, too stupidly forgiving, and too eager to give out his love, "Come on, let's go eat that bread."
It's sweet… but Tom doesn't mind.
Just this once.
Dumbledore: (says Gellert)
Dumbledore: (shit, Tom will know I was hot for Gellert and then stab me, shit, shit)
Dumbledore: ...Grindelwald, Gellert Grindewald, yes that's what I meant to say
Tom: (not paying attention to anything outside Harry context) So Imma go kill yo boi now
Dumbledore: TOM NO AND NOT BECAUSE I AM EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED
Me: yeah thats how that conversation went right?
Me: enjoy the calm before the storm...
EDITED CHAPTER: March 15th, 2020