Hey guys, this chapter is a little shorter due to a number of uninteresting causes that I won't bore you with.

Anyways, thank you all for the reviews! I swear I check for reviews every five minutes after I post a new chapter, I love hearing from you guys.

Winner of the chapter challenge is : My Alternate Reality ! , I'm working on the one shot but I don't know when it will be done yet though I'll try to finish it as soon as my schedule will allow.

For those who might still be wondering Isobel is Minerva's mother.

I Hope you enjoy this chapter of Only You. :)Warnings : Un-betaed, unexplained time travel, pre-slash.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Only You chapter 5

It was a cold, wet day at Wool's orphanage. The spring rain had ruined the Matrons plans of taking the children to the park. During the winter they only went out in the small yard that surrounded the orphanage so that they could come inside and warm up quickly, but the children had been getting rambunctious now that it was spring, so they were quite disappointed with the change of plans.

Only two children didn't mind.

Harry because no one would play with him and Tom because, well, because he was Tom. Playing in the park was beneath him, or so he said, secretly Harry just thought that it was that no one would play with him either.

Currently the two boys were in the bedroom they shared, the eight year old, stretched out, silently reading on his bed.

The younger boy sometimes wondered why He and Tom never played the games that the other children did, like hide and seek, or tag; but he found he didn't really mind. They didn't need games.

Large green eyes looked around the gray room until they glanced to his left to rest upon his silent companion. As if sensing his gaze, Tom's slate gray eyes flicked up from the anatomy book he was reading, meeting Harry's, the softening was almost unnoticeable, a gentle smirk making its way to his thin lips.

Harry smiled and carefully took in the scene before him, it reminded him of the book of paintings Tom had brought back from the library, though this scene before him wasn't painted by any master painter, he thought it was more beautiful than any of their works he had ever seen.

Not that Tom was beautiful in the normal sense of the word, because nothing about Tom was 'normal'. No Tom's beauty was hidden in the way his slate gray eyes were almost always half-mast when they observed the world before them, the way his nose was straight and perfect, barely turned up on the end to hint at Irish ancestry, and his cheek bones caught the light at such an angle that the made his eyes seem like they set deeper into his face than they really were and the soft skin of his cheeks nearly glow.

The way those thin lips moved as they formed softly spoken words or tilted up at the corners to give small half smiles or playful smirks that seemed like he reserved it for Harry alone. Harry had always thought Tom was beautiful, even in the moments no one else would ever see.

The moments that Tom let his carefully built guard down and the slightly broken orphan showed through, when rejection weighed heavy on his shoulders and loneliness for someone else like himself seemed to eat away at his being, Harry was there, observing the haunted look in his eyes as the elder boy woke from nightmares he would never speak about.

Harry saw the vulnerable parts of Tom that were normally hidden away behind the smooth plated armor that his friend seemed to hide behind, the armor he allowed Harry within.

Tom was beautiful.

Tom watched Harry as the younger boy stared at him, wondering just what was going on behind those expressive green about Harry had always brought out the protective side of Tom, the one that was usually well hidden, shoved down in to a small box and tucked away into the back of his mind in favor of his own survival.

But for as long as he could remember, it had felt like Harry was a part of him, when he was away from him that piece would be missing once again and a cold ache would fill his chest. Sometimes he wondered if Harry felt it too or if it was just that he was too attached to the younger boy for his own good, not that he would actually do anything about it as Harry was the most important thing in his mind.

Harry was something special, something that needed protection from the world and the dirty fingers of the other children at the orphanage. He was the one clean, innocent, spot in Tom's life and the elder boy selfishly wanted to keep it that way. He felt like the mother boa constrictor he had read about, curled protectively around her eggs to keep them safe and warm, lashing out without mercy at anything that might be a threat.

Harry pulled Tom from his thoughts when he smiled and rested his chin on his fist with what sounded like a content sigh.

"What?" The older boy asked, his curiosity getting the best of him as it did more often than most would think.

"You're pretty." Harry said listlessly before his eyes widened in shock, Tom doubted that he meant to let those words come out, he was soon proven right.

"I-I mean your nice to look at! Wait, I mean, ugh this isn't coming out right!" He said frustrated as his fingers dug deeply in his mop of wild black hair, his nose scrunched up causing his barely there freckles across the bridge of his nose to stand out.

Tom blinked in mild surprise, well; he certainly hadn't been expecting that.

"Your nice to look at too Harry." He said with a snort, gently shaking his head as he set his book across his lap before carefully reaching over and gently pulling Harry's fingers from his hair. Harry gave him a small smile, Tom always knew what to do to make him feel better. Tom never made fun of him if something he said didn't come out right.

Watching as Harry smiled, Tom made a quick decision and stood up, tugging the younger boy along with him as he did so. Harry allowed Tom to lead without protest, curious to see where Tom was leading him.

The floor boards creaked as they walked down the hall towards the stairs to the third floor, usually the third floor housed any teenagers that lived at the orphanage, though it was empty and silent as they walked to the room at the end of the hall, there were no teenagers living at the orphanage, Edward More, the last one to sleep there had left the spring before, having turned eighteen.

Edward had been one of the few people at the orphanage other than Harry that Tom could stand the thought of conversing with, though that might have been because he had been the one to teach Tom how to read and do simple math problems and thus keeping him out of trouble unless someone started a fight with him. Tom wouldn't deny that he had the tendency to become quite...aggressive when he grew bored.

Edward was observant and had realized that, most people seemed to think Tom was just mean-spirited.

Once when Harry had been in an interview with a couple looking to adopt, Edward had watched as Tom alternated between pacing a hole in the floor and glaring at the wall as if it offended him by existing. Sensing trouble on the horizon Edward had quickly sought to distract Tom, nothing good would come from letting the boy stew like that.

He had taken Tom by the hand and brought him up to the third floor and swore him to secrecy, mostly to keep the boy interested but also because he didn't want to get in trouble for what he was about to show him.

Edward had opened his closet door and pulled down a trap door to show a ladder covered in cobwebs that looked like it had seen better days, then turned with a grin to the younger boy and climbed up, vanishing into the dark hole on the ceiling.

Tom had hesitated, eyeing the ladder with a mix of distrust and disgust, honestly the thing was unbelievably dirty, before he climbed up behind the teen.

He drew himself up into the musty room, rewarded with the site of a dusty attic, filled with broken furniture, cobweb covered bookshelves, several boxes that were labeled with names that Tom didn't know and many other things that sat around covered in sheets.

"I come up here to think sometimes, it's so far up you can hardly tell that there's an entire orphanage just a few floors down." Edward said as he made his way over to what looked like a sheet covered trunk that sat just in front of the small window that looked out over London.

Tom led Harry to Edward's room and proceeded to mimic the elder's actions, going so far to swear Harry to secrecy even though he knew the boy didn't have anyone else to tell, and wouldn't want to if he did.

Once again Tom had found himself grimacing at the dirty ladder and promised himself he would come to clean it sometime before he climbed up into the hole above, waiting nearby to make sure Harry could get up alright.

Harry's green eyes widened to shocking proportions as he let out a small gasp, looking around in wonder; It always amazed Tom how such ordinary things could make those green eyes go so unbelievably wide. He found he rather enjoyed seeing just how wide they could go.

He took Harry's hand once again and led the younger boy to the window and sat down on the cloth covered trunk, gently patting the spot beside him.

"I like how quiet it is up here, like we're a world away from Wool's." Harry said breaking the silence that had settled over them like the dust that covered their surroundings. Tom looked at him for a moment before looking back out the window with an understanding nod, Edward's words coming back to him.

"I'm giving this to you; I know you'll appreciate it. I'll be gone in a few years so you'll have the place to yourself unless you want to share it with someone else who will appreciate it, I'm sure you'll enjoy it even more if you do." He had said with a half-smile.

He was right. Here in the quiet of the attic he couldn't help but think that he would enjoy anything if Harry was at his side.

In the years to come Harry would close his eyes and see Tom staring out that attic window, the muted light that came through, making the gray of his eyes look smoky instead of harden slate like they normally did.

He would pause to think over his childhood contemplations; more than once in that attic as he got older. He would carefully look at them and add more observations to them that he had collected over the years, as he grew closer to Tom, and Tom drew him further inside that thick plated armor that protected them both.

Eventually Harry would decide that Tom was a beauty that could only be appreciated over time, his personality an acquired taste. And Harry fully intended to spend the rest of his life appreciating and tasting.

So before you ask no the next chapter is not going to be a time jump to when their teenagers or adults.

Ok now that is out-of-the-way I would formerly like to ask if anyone knows someone who would beta read this story, I've been searching for a beta reader since I posted the first chapter and I still haven't found someone who will return any of my messages, it's not urgent or anything but it would be nice to find someone to help out, that way I could focus more on actually writing than proof-reading my work three times before I even think about putting it in Doc Manager. So please if you know any beta readers up for the task, let me know via PM or review.

Thank you if you read all that and thank you once again for reading!

Please review,

-Birdy