Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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The apothecary owner never suspected anything after Tom skillfully undid the damage his curse had inflicted.
It had taken him nearly all night, but after several mending spells, the shop seemed as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened by the time it opened the following day.
Defensive magic was practiced by fifth years in Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, but no other student showed quite as much zeal as Tom Riddle after he discovered he had missed the chance to woo Harriet.
"EXPELLIARMUS!" He shouted one afternoon with a barbaric cry.
His classmates watched as his handsome face twisted into a hideous snarl while he blasted the practice dummy at the front of the room with a disarming charm so powerful it sent the figure flying backwards to crash violently into the wall.
SLAM!
The other students exchanged looks of bewilderment as Tom's expression of rage remained even after his lifeless enemy had been vehemently defeated.
"Well done, Mr. Riddle……Well done." Professor Snape drawled in his low voice as he stepped forward.
Given a new post with Professor Slughorn's return to the potions classroom some months earlier, Tom snarled at his head of house.
The day's lesson had been little more than an outlet for him.
Tom had learned the Disarming Charm on his own during his first year at the castle.
As he had stood and imagined the practice dummy to be Viktor Krum, his jealous rage had become uncontainable.
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Other boys may have been disappointed or even heartbroken, but Tom wasted no time pitying his situation.
Instead, he decided to act.
The audacity Harriet had shown to choose another over him filled him with disgust.
Viktor Krum's great achievement in having Harriet Potter at his side made Tom Riddle want to gag.
As ambitious and cunning as his controversial ancestor, Tom kept a close watch on the couple day in and day out.
He memorized Viktor's schedule down to the minute.
Early one morning, during Viktor's daily swim in the Black Lake, Tom crept out from behind the rocks.
Viktor turned around as soon as he heard footsteps and frowned in confusion at his unexpected visitor.
"Good morning." Viktor said with more than a hint of suspicion in his deep voice.
"Good morning." Tom replied smoothly, "Lovely day for a swim, eh?"
"I swim if the sun is out or not." Viktor scowled.
As Tom flashed a haughty smirk, Viktor braced himself for conflict.
Not fond of games, he narrowed his eyes at Tom and blatantly asked, "What is that you want, Tom Riddle?"
"I want you to give Harriet Potter…….to me." Tom confessed with a wicked smile.
"Then you must prepare yourself for disappointment." Viktor said threateningly as he removed his tunic and faced Tom with his chiseled, pale chest bare in the chilly wind, "Harriet and I enjoy our time together. Who are you to tell us what to do?"
"Every moment you spend with her is a moment stolen!" Tom hissed as he stepped forward.
Viktor scowled as he drew his wand and took a defensive stance, but Tom moved faster.
In one swift motion, he had his wand in his hand as he cried out, "EXPELLIARMUS!"
Viktor gasped as Tom's spell sent his own weapon flying from his grasp to splash into the deep waters of the Black Lake.
The cold morning wind whipped past once more to rustle Tom's robes and hair as he held his wand pointed at Viktor.
"I have no particular grudges against you, Krum." He glowered at his enemy, "Besides your rudeness at attempting to take what's already mine."
"What will you do, Riddle?" Viktor huffed as he held his hands up, "Kill an unarmed man?"
Tom would have gladly ended Viktor's life.
He would have been particularly thrilled to watch the breath leave his body as the boy who had dared to worm his way into Harriet's affections fell down dead, but even in the magical world, bodies were difficult to hide and murder was difficult to cover.
Mind control was much harder to trace.
Tom sneered at Viktor as he swung his arm and shouted, "IMPERIO!"
The painless curse slammed into Viktor as his expression went slack.
Tom chuckled darkly as he swept over the grassy lakeside and kept his wand pointed at Viktor while he commanded, "You will turn Harriet Potter away."
"I will turn Harriet Potter away." Viktor repeated in a distant voice.
"After that, you will never speak to her again." Tom snarled.
"After that, I will never speak to her again." Viktor repeated.
"You will pursue anyone except her." Tom hissed.
"I will pursue anyone except her." Viktor echoed.
Tom paused to admire his handiwork before he took a step back and nodded, "Excellent…….Now be a good dog and go fetch, Krum. I have breakfast to see too."
As Tom removed his wand from its direction at Viktor in one slashing motion, Viktor obediently turned and dove into the Black Lake to retrieve his lost, magical apparatus.
An hour later, Tom flashed Harriet a charming smile as they locked gazes in the Great Hall.
Careful not to cross a boundary with her lover, Harriet quickly looked away, but Tom only smirked to himself as he waited patiently for his chance to comfort his darling.
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Tom drifted through his classes that day with anticipation eating at the edges of his nerves.
That evening, he resisted the urge to grin as he noticed Harriet's abscense at dinner.
After he quickly ate his meal, he stood and hurried out of the Great Hall.
Knowing there was only one precious hour before he would be herded back to his dormitory along with the rest of his peers, Tom pinpointed Harriet's location with a tracking spell considered to be advanced for a student his age.
In the evaporating twilight, he slapped a solemn frown on his face as he walked up the Owlery steps to meet Harriet where she stood, peering out over the castle grounds.
Harriet Potter was not a weepy girl, yet another trait that enamored Tom to her.
Although her eyes were not wet, she glanced over at him with an expression of lamentful anguish on her fair face as he approached.
"Harriet!" He called with a smile, "What are you doing up here?"
Harriet turned her face away as her shoulders shook with her repressed sob.
"Harriet?" Tom asked as he feigned surprise, "Is something wrong?"
"N-No." Harriet stammered, "I just wanted a bit of air, that's all."
Tom walked up beside her and frowned as he glimpsed the tears that ran down her cheek.
"There's no need to lie." He frowned, "We're friends, you and I. We have been for years, Harriet. I can see when something's the matter."
She sniffed as she turned to look at Tom.
Tom made certain not to smile in amusement as he watched her open up to him, "It's……I don't normally cry, you know that!"
"I do, yes." He solemnly nodded, "Which is why I find the sight of you weeping even more distressing."
Harriet sniffed as she turned to look out over the castle grounds and shrugged, "Viktor ended things with me today."
"...What?" Tom asked as he imitated shock.
"He told me he never wanted to see me again." Harriet said as she wiped her cheek with her index finger, "That's fine and all, I just wish he would have told me why. He just…..He screamed it at me and ran off."
"Oh, Harriet……" Tom said in feigned sympathy as he placed a hand on her shoulder, "Krum must be out of his mind to throw a treasure like you away."
He couldn't disguise the smirk that formed on his lips at his own play of words.
Harriet sniffed as she wiped her nose with the back of her cardigan sleeve and nodded, "On top of that, the Yule Ball is in two weeks and I'm now without a date. Don't you remember? They moved it to the spring season this time round?"
"Of course, though I doubt you'll have cause to worry." Tom quipped.
"...What do you mean?" Harriet blinked as she glanced over.
"I'll gladly take you to the ball, Harriet." Tom smiled, "It'd be a pleasure."
"Oh, Tom….that's very kind." Harriet frowned, "I don't want to get in the way of your plans. I'm sure you've already got a date. Everyone has a date."
Tom had not sought out a companion for the Yule Ball because no one deserved his company except his flawless, pure, beautiful Harriet Potter.
"I hadn't even decided if I wanted to go or not yet." He lied with a shrug, "Though I'll gladly attend with you, Harriet……if you'll have me, of course."
"Gladly!" Harriet smiled, "Thanks, Tom. You're a really good friend."
As Tom flashed Harriet a charming smirk, he disguised the sudden impulse to laugh with a cough as he turned his head.
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The Yule Ball was as magical as Tom Riddle had dreamed.
In the weeks leading up to the event, the extra hours he put in at the apothecary allowed him to purchase a dapper set of dress robes for himself.
He watched the way Harriet's emerald eyes sparkled once they fell on him as he waited for her at the bottom of the steps.
She floated down the stairs towards him like a magnificent princess in her impossibly gorgeous gown, secured with Hermione's help.
A smile, a greeting, and a short walk later, he and Harriet danced together in the Great Hall which had been converted into a ballroom for the evening's event.
As the band played a slow tune, Tom gently waltzed Harriet around the dance floor, with one hand holding hers and the other on her waist.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Harriet asked Tom as she glanced around at the decorations before he met his gaze once more.
"Yes." Tom smiled, "You are."
Harriet blushed at his forward confession as he waltzed her into the farthest corner of the dance floor, concealed by the sheer amount of other couples.
"I'm glad I'm here with you tonight." Harriet confessed as she gazed up at Tom.
"As am I." He chuckled.
The music hit a small crescendo and in accordance with other couples, Tom elegantly twirled Harriet under his arm before he caught her in one smooth motion, with their chests touching.
He willed himself not to glance down at her cleavage that smashed against the soft fabric of his black dress robes.
Harriet became caught in the intensity of his smouldering, dark gaze as he dipped her while the song ended, but she did not protest her entrapment.
Thrilled about what could happen next, Harriet leaned her head back with the motion of their bodies as Tom bent forward.
Softly, gently, after years of longing, their lips finally touched.