Chapter Text
On a night in mid-October, 1944, Tom Riddle wakes to the sensation of something folding inward where nothing has stirred in over a year. It is a rather sour shift, buried deep, as if a part of him had buckled quietly under pressure he hadn’t known was there.
Sitting up, he presses a hand to his chest, half-expecting to find a foreign body trying to break free from the cage of his ribs. But there is only skin, sweat, and the dull gallop of his own pulse. When he tries to remember what he’d been dreaming, he fails.
He hadn’t dreamt in years. He shouldn’t be dreaming at all.
So Tom reaches for his nightstand and unscrews the cap of a familiar phial, swallowing his prescription dose in silence.
The nausea does not subside.
Druella Rosier is the first to tell Tom of the new transfer in his year.
It is not that he makes it a habit to speak to the younger girl. Just that it is early, and they are usually the first two people at breakfast. On any normal day, she’d spot the book propped open on his lap and understand that, for all his known proclivity for reading, it is also his well-practiced method of warding off conversation.
But today, it seems the excitement of yet another refugee from the continent is enough to dim her restraint. She plops down right in front of him and embarks on a long-winded report with no prompting—and though her knowledge is its own monster, cobbled together by second-hand reports she no doubt spent all of last night gathering, Tom finds himself intrigued by the circumstances of this newcomer’s sordid appearance.
“Ogg found the boy in the forest. Just lying there in the middle of a clearing, apparently, covered in dirt and blood. He notified Dippet right away, of course. Alphard had been doing his prefect rounds near the hospital wing when they brought him in, that’s how I know, but according to him, the boy looked as well as dead. Even Dumbledore seemed worried. Mentioned something about Grindelwald advancing on British soil. No way someone in his state could long distance apparate, after all. I mean–” She stops, takes a deep breath, then continues talking. Tom’s eye twitches. “Of course he didn’t. Die, I mean. Madam Belby healed him before he could. Though when he woke up, he didn’t remember a thing about how he ended up here. Rowle has an aunt at St. Mungos, you see, and she said that the Professors contacted their best mind healer for some insight into the matter. Even that line came back empty. It’s all very mysterious.
“But if you ask me,” She smirks, folding her arms over the table and leaning in like she’s about to divulge some secret. “I think Rowle loves to exaggerate her aunt’s position. She probably doesn’t know a bloody thing, that girl.”
Tom stares blankly back at her. If, in some moment of catastrophic misjudgement, he anticipated any practical insight, he would now be thoroughly disabused. But Druella’s usual feat of wasting both oxygen and his time is a kind of incompetence he has learned to expect from the dimwits surrounding him.
Before she has the chance to think of some other gormless thing to say, they are interrupted by Edwin Rosier, who tugs on his sister’s ear to shut her up. Druella turns a beetroot shade of red, and Tom tunes out her subsequent screeching to come to his own conclusions on the matter of the boy in the forest.
Tom Riddle has a particular method to his curiosities.
When something piques his interest, he will start by scouring the library. Typically, what he unearths is enough to satisfy him, at which point he will swiftly discard the subject in favour of the next. These are the fleeting fascinations that have, over the years, formed the body of his knowledge: mild, short-lived affairs, never quite worthy of long-term commitment—on matters such as lethifolds, wandlore, wizard genealogy, magical cores, or even mealtime etiquette .
It is only when the library proves insufficient, when he exhausts all his immediate avenues of knowledge pursuing something that remains impenetrable, does the predator in him stir. A quiet, persistent instinct that doesn’t much care for limits, scenting the blood of something intentionally being kept out of his reach. These are the rare obsessions that take hold. And nothing—complexity, taboo, effort—none of it matters in the dawn of his hunger. He is not likely to think about much else until he is sated.
Tom supposes people have the unique disposition to become these objects of obsession, if only because their lives aren’t as conveniently catalogued as most else. And perhaps that is the foundation for repulsive affairs like friendship or, Merlin forbid, love . But to Tom, people have always remained predictable. Transparent. They parade their histories like nothing is sacred and wear their thoughts so plainly it’s insulting to see. He rarely ever has to try with them. He sees everyone for what they are almost immediately—and once he does, there’s nothing left to want.
He reflects on this as his Knights drone around him in conversation. There’s only one topic that occupies them, of course; as has been the case with all of Hogwarts over the past three days. Featureless little lives made briefly interesting by the thrill of sordid gossip. All that collective effort, Tom thinks, you’d think they’d total enough brain power to get the story straight.
“Well the Professors wouldn't be so secretive about it if he were just another refugee. Remember last year? We had four transfers who were brought into the fold almost immediately, the grounds for their arrival explained, but we have yet to see or hear from this boy.” Corvus Lestrange speculates, face taut with an anxious frown. He looks around when he says this, as though Grindelwald himself might pop out from his pot of face cream to hex him.
Thaddeus Nott, well accustomed to Lestrange’s irrational bouts of anxiety, sighs. “So, what? Corvus, they wouldn’t have brought him into the castle if he were a threat. He’s been holed up in the hospital wing, for Merlin’s sake. You heard Alphard, the boy was in a state when they found him. That takes more than just a night to recover from.”
“Alphard also said that Dumbledore was extra worried. Orion, tell him!”
“Dumbledore seemed extra worried.” Black says plainly as he undoes his tie, doubtlessly sick of recounting his cousin’s testimony to anyone who asks—most of all Lestrange, who has taken it upon himself to fret over the situation like he could prevent anything from actually happening, pillock that he is.
“Well, there you go!”
Nott, quickly losing patience, grinds his teeth together in that tell-tale way of his. “Because the kid was half-dead.” He has to emphasise. Again. “And stop yelling. You’ll wake Avery.”
Lestrange opens his mouth to say something, then snaps it shut, seeming to finally stop and consider this. His face screws up like he’s thinking very hard for a moment.
Until Malfoy emerges from the bathroom.
“I think Corvus makes a rather astute point.” He says, with all the blasé air of someone who’s just undone ten minutes worth of progress and couldn’t care less. He’s wearing his monogrammed silk robe, looking rather like a peacock in cerulean.
“You do?” Lestrange snivels, and the melodramatics start again. He sounds more put out by the possibility of being right than he did while arguing for his case. Tom decides that he cannot handle any more of this nonsense, or else each of his roommates will die hanging by their own entrails.
“Enough.”
The boys halt their arguing immediately, looking rueful as they return to their bed-time routines in silence. Tom delights in the trill of power the sight sends through his chest. It is almost enough to balm any wound their bickering inflicted on his temper, and would certainly be a decent end to his day.
Would, because Tom doesn’t go to sleep. Not for a while.
In bed, once the curtains are drawn and spelled shut around him, his thoughts return to the nameless, faceless boy. It is, he admits with no small degree of irritation, a detestable thing, to find himself just as drawn to the mystery as the rest of the student body. He has several better things to do with his time; productive things, things that would see to the accomplishment of his goals, and to the future he imagines for himself.
But Tom has a particular method to his curiosities. And nowhere, never, does it entail letting them go.
Veritaserum requires one Adder’s Fork sliced perfectly in half, lengthwise. Tom knows that this is a rather precise endeavour, and that he should focus on stabilizing the small muscle upon his workstation to ensure perfection. But he has brewed every N.E.W.T. standard potion at least four times on his own before. By now, he is sure it is something he can do in his sleep.
Currently: he might not be asleep, but his attention is otherwise occupied.
“Oh, and have you heard?” The girl behind him whispers to her partner, though whisper is too gracious of a word. Gryffindors, so unsubtle. “That kid? Yeah, the one they found in the forest. They sorted him in Dippet’s office last night. So he’s joining us. Officially now, I suppose.”
“Us? As in–” Her friend starts.
“No, no. The hat dumped him in Slytherin.”
Avery stills beside him. Tom drops the halved Adder’s Fork into the cauldron, bringing the mixture to a boil with a flick of his wand. It turns a glassy shade of periwinkle, as it should at this stage. Unlike his potions partner, who has been entirely useless this lesson, Tom excels at multitasking: able to eavesdrop and work with equal rigor.
The friend scoffs. “As if we needed the confirmation that letting him in is a bad idea. Yvonne went in for a headache the other day and managed to sneak a look at him. She told me– I mean, did you hear about what’s on his n–”
“Shhh!”
This achieves the opposite of its intended effect. Everyone turns to stare at the two girls—everyone except for Tom, who rolls his eyes instead. He always sits at the very front of the classroom, and so the only person he risks seeing this indiscretion is Slughorn, who has been busy composing a letter to one of his various acolytes for the better part of an hour.
Avery shuffles a little in place, turning back to their workstation. “It says we have to wait three and a half minutes now.” He points to the specified line in his textbook, looking at Tom with a witless expression.
Tom blinks back, a little incredulously.
In the end, he decides not to dignify him with a response.
“And I want twelve inches on the sedative properties of Valerian root in by Monday!”
As his classmates shuffle out in a disordered line, Tom corks the small vial of Veritaserum for maturation. Theirs is one of the few groups to produce a perfect result—completely colourless, odourless, and presumably tasteless—earning Slytherin house twenty points.
Avery hovers, clutching his book bag over his chest. Tom gives him a single, pointed look. That’s enough. He leaves without a word, and the room settles into quiet, leaving only Slughorn and Tom behind.
“Tom m’boy! Wonderful work today, wonderful work! Well I was just talking to Galatea the other day about what a difficult position you put me in as your Head of House. She warned me not to be so generous with the number of points I award this year, else she’d take it up with Dippet should Slytherin win the House Cup again—and I told her! I told her, ‘Galatea, you discredit me. Had Tom Riddle been in any house but my own, I daresay you'd be lodging your complaint with their Head instead. The boy’s brilliance leaves me little choice.’ Course she had to concede to that!” Professor Slughorn says this with the self-satisfied spirit he says most things with, hands splayed over his belly and cheeks ruddy with humour.
Tom affects a humble smile. “You flatter me, sir.”
“Not at all, m’boy. Not at all!” Slughorn chuckles. He is not an unobservant man, however, and notices the expectant way Tom folds his hands behind his back. “Is something on your mind, Tom?”
Just the one thing, and it’s driving him mad.
“I apologize for being so forward, sir. It’s just… well, I imagine you’ve heard the rumours floating about the castle. At least in my year, no one’s made much of an effort to suppress them.” Tom pauses, watching the faint furrow in Slughorn’s brow to gauge just how far he can press. “I bring it to you only because it concerns me. I hate to see the speculation distract my classmates from their work. And beyond that… it hardly creates the right environment to welcome a new student into, don’t you think? Particularly one who’s been through quite a bit already.”
“Ah. You understand, Tom, that I cannot disclose anything about the boy, nor the circumstances in which he was found. But the board of governors, and indeed, even Albus himself, agreed that it would be best to admit him. Keep him close, as they say.”
Interesting. He sets this information aside for later. It’s more than he’d hoped for. More than Slughorn should have offered.
“Of course not, Professor. Nor would I dream of asking; I’ve no appetite for gossip, truly. But I did happen to hear he was placed in Slytherin, and, you see, as Head Boy, I consider it my responsibility to look after all students, but especially those of our house. I only meant to offer my help in easing his transition, perhaps as his first point of contact with the student body.”
Slughorn’s expression softens, moustache twitching with approval. “Well, I must say, that’s most commendable of you, my boy. You’ve always shown such maturity, and it does one good to see that sort of initiative in a young man.” Tom straightens his back, biting his cheek in a practiced show of diffidence. It is nauseating, what he has to resort to feed his professor’s ego. “Yes, yes, I daresay a bit of guidance might do the boy some good. Within reason, of course.” He gives a small, knowing chuckle. “Albus meant to ask the Head Girl to mentor him, but in light of his sorting into Slytherin, I must say that you’re a better fit than Miss Abbott. I trust your judgement. Just keep an eye on him, nothing too formal. We mustn’t overwhelm the poor lad, yes?”
Of course. Who else but Dumbledore would see fit to undermine Tom? It is just like the old fool—to surreptitiously disregard his position as Head Boy in favour for some flailing little Gryffindor. For all of Slughorn’s faults, at least he is discerning of where real promise lies.
Tom has to bite his cheek for real this time. Dumbledore’s snub was to be expected. At least he was not late to act.
“Just so, Professor.”
Loretta Abbott walks with all the grace of an obstinate bull. Even before he turns the corner to the hallway of the Hospital Wing, Tom can make out the exact rhythm and speed of her gait. He matches it, savouring the click his brogues make upon the stone floor, and catches up to the girl in no time.
“Abbott.” He says, rather amicably.
She falters in her step, looking warily at him from the corner of her eye. They do not talk often outside of meetings. Tom imagines the red tint to her cheeks is an effect of feeling flattered, and hopes she does not get the wrong idea about his affections.
“Riddle.”
“I see you’re headed to the infirmary. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s been a slight change in plans. It seems I’ve been selected to liaise with our newest student. I was only just informed by Dippet himself.”
Dippet, of course, is none the wiser of this development. But Tom doubts that Dumbledore consulted him before selecting Abbott for the job, otherwise the headmaster would have suggested Tom instead, and they wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.
Thus the lie works, and effectively stops Abbott in her tracks. “Oh. But Dumbledore only just asked me to… I mean, I just had Transfiguration–”
“Yes, well. One can’t expect too much from a place where the modus operandi is largely improvisational.” Because both the Head Boy and Girl know that Hogwarts, with all its academic primacies, is rubbish at operating like the bureaucratic institution it should be.
“Right.” She huffs. “Okay.”
“Wonderful.” He flashes his winning smile, just shy of showing too much teeth. Abbott grimaces in return and shuffles away, less self-assured than she had been only moments ago. Tom is quite sure he’s done the school a kindness, freeing its corridors from the racket of her graceless clomping.
He is truly remarkable.
Madam Belby has harboured a particular fondness for Tom ever since she nursed him back from ‘the brink of death’ by malnutrition in his first year. Naturally, Tom had not really been anywhere close to dying. In fact, he’d considered himself in decent health at the time, especially by the standards of East End orphans. By eleven, he’d grown adept at swiping food off other children’s plates, or lifting enough coins from strangers' pockets to keep himself fed, and so he’d taken it as something of a personal affront when she’d gasped over the ‘state of him.’
Prominent ribs didn’t mean he couldn’t look after himself. On the contrary, he thought they rather proved he could.
Still, she is liberal with her affection on the rare occasion he visits. He begrudges her this—her wizened hand patting his cheek or brushing back the curl he intentionally leaves swooped over his forehead for a debonair flair—because it would be a wasted effort to make her stop.
People, he finds, are stubborn with their sympathies. Better, then, to turn it to his advantage than fail at the hopeless task of promoting his level of impassivity.
“You’re looking well, dear.”
“All thanks to you. The dreamless sleep has helped, truly.” He replies. Though his voice remains cordial, his eyes wander away from her smiling face and around the Hospital Wing. Searching. It would be a terrible breach of etiquette in more refined company, but after decades tending to the ailments of pubescent schoolchildren, Madam Belby is likely numb to a number of improprieties. “It’s lovely to see you, Madam, but I’m afraid this isn’t a social call. I’ve been asked to introduce myself to our newest student, as I’ll be assisting with his adjustment. I understand he’s currently under your care?”
The Matron’s face drops at the mention of this, lips pursing in that manner Tom is uncomfortably familiar with. She looks back over her shoulder, at the very corner of the infirmary, where Tom finally notices an occupied bed.
The white curtains are drawn around it, cutting off any access he has to the resident inside. He discovers that he quite likes the air of mystery this affords, like he is being presented with a shiny, newly wrapped present.
His hands flex instinctively. Greedily.
“Yes, alright. Follow me.” She sighs. He knows that, if left to her own judgment, she’d keep the boy under observation for at least another week. “He should be awake. Dippet mentioned he might be discharged today. Wait just a moment.”
Madam Belby slips through the gap in the curtains and secures them shut behind her. Tom can only stand there, trying to listen in. And when that fails—because she had the prudence to erect a silencing bubble around them—he amuses himself by imagining what exactly to expect from the boy of the forest; first by recounting all that he’s heard about him.
Even Dumbledore appeared worried.
The Professors wouldn't be so secretive about it if he were just another refugee.
As if we needed the confirmation that letting him in is a bad idea.
Albus himself agreed. Keep him close, as they say.
I daresay a bit of guidance might do the boy some good.
Slowly, the mental image starts to take form, like watery strokes of paint laid over each other, saturating into something with solid edges.
Someone big. Brutish. Of the thuggish sort he imagines Durmstrang churning out by the dozen. Drawn to the Dark Arts so fiercely it’s left its mark on his body, perhaps. Or marked by Grindelwald himself, in a lasting way. In some harrowing way, surely—to have come this far, to have endured so much just to escape him.
Vulnerable for it, but nonetheless– Tall, callous, bestial. War-worn. Volatile.
Dangerous.
Yes. Dangerous. Enough to be useful one day.
(Or enough to pose a threat.)
“Tom, this is Harry Evans.” Madam Belby says suddenly, drawing back the curtain to reveal a bed of messy sheets. “Harry, this is our Head Boy, Tom Riddle.”
As it turns out, Harry Evans is none of those things.
Tom does not know what to make of the boy in front of him.
For one, his posture is appalling, and makes him seem even smaller than he is. Which isn’t saying much. He really is thin, ill-fed in a way that might be jarring to a lot of people, but not to Tom. The planes of his face have been hollowed out to cast dark shadows upon his face, and his complexion might be noteworthy was he not so… sun-starved, ashen like a burnished statue that has lost its lustre.
And the hair… Merlin, his hair. Tom itches to get his hands on a comb, to do something about the nest that sticks out in every direction. It curls at his ears, brushes his neck, frames his jaw. It falls across his forehead in a slash of black, shading his eyes and the round wire rims of his glasses.
No, Harry does not look dangerous. Harry does not look like anything at all.
Tom is not sure how he smiles, but it does not feel like his winning one. His cheeks are too tense, and his nose puckers against his will. He wonders if he should have indeed let Abbott handle this.
Nevertheless, he sticks a hand out, as is polite.
“Harry. It’s a pleasure.”
Harry keeps his hand tucked firmly at his side.
“If you say so.” He mutters, and turns to thank Madam Belby for her care. He is noticeably warmer when addressing her, his gratitude genuine. When he turns back to face Tom, all that affability melts into a puddle at his feet. A puddle which he leaves behind as he marches right past. “Let’s go then.”
Madam Belby slips a lolly into Tom’s hand before he leaves. It is a ridiculously infantilising gesture; even if it is lemon flavoured, his favourite.
But no amount of lemon lollies can appease the hot rush of indignation burning through his blood.
“Seven stories. Over a hundred staircases, some of which move, just to make things difficult. Doors may require passwords, riddles, or sometimes, gentle persuasion. Suits of armour are prone to dramatics. Most of the ghosts are harmless, barring Peeves. Avoid him. Potions is in the dungeons, Charms is on the third floor, Transfiguration is not far from the library. I’d be happy to help you navigate to your other classes. Outside is the Black Lake. And the Forbidden Forest, which, despite the name, some students still insist on testing. I wouldn’t recommend it.” Tom recites the words mechanically, running through the checklist he’d long since memorized as a Prefect. His tone remains cordial, but devoid of any real warmth. Harry’s earlier rejection still stings, and he aches to confront him on far more relevant matters than the tedious details of Hogwarts castle.
“Mhm.”
The boy in question keeps his chin tucked to his chest, eyes fixed on his scuffed shoes. Tom bites his tongue, suppressing the urge to scold him for not paying attention. If he means to spend his first few weeks here hopelessly lost, that’s his prerogative. As long as he doesn’t expect Tom to come to the rescue.
“This is the Entrance Hall. Best to remember where it is. Most of the castle can be reached through it. Dungeons are down the stairway to the right. Just here.” Tom holds the door open, stepping aside to let him through. But Harry only stares, blinking at him with a woolly, probing expression. It takes a few seconds before he seems to come to, and then he barrels quickly past.
At their pace, they soon reach the blank stretch of wall that conceals the Slytherin common room. Curiously, Harry stops before Tom can tell him to, right where he ought to. Tom observes the way he stands—tense, expectant, barely keeping still. Both irritable and uneasy, as though something crawls beneath his skin.
“The Slytherin common room.” He says. And if the information means anything to Harry, the boy hides it well. “The password changes every fortnight. They’ll be posted on the notice board. Atramentum.”
The blank wall yields, revealing a large, vaulted chamber. No matter how often he’s seen it, quiet reverence catches in Tom’s throat. The common room is especially sacred when no one is around. Its emptiness makes the ceilings look higher, arched like the belly of a great stone leviathan. Light seeps in through the lake, casting the room in an aquatic colour that shifts faintly across the flagstone floors. The air is cool and still, thickened with the barest trace of damp; which is not unpleasant, merely old. Ancestral.
Harry takes a slow breath beside him. When Tom looks over, he expects to see a flicker of awe finally softening the choler that has etched itself upon his face.
Instead, he finds Harry looking right at him. And there’s something simmering in his gaze—not gratitude, nor anger, but a far less simple thing. One which Tom doesn’t have the mind to decipher; not as he realizes, only then, that he hadn’t truly noticed his eyes before. He is sure he would have remembered if he had.
Because they are the most remarkable shade of green. Sharp and gem-bright; their colour so incongruous with the washed-out pallor of his skin, they look out of place.
Tom is suddenly gripped by the urge to pin him down, to dig his fingers into Harry’s skull and wrench them from their sockets to keep for his own. It’s a brutal, all-consuming desire, so intense it clamps down on his chest and rattles his heart against his ribs. He can hear the swift blood rush to his head, drowning out any other intervening thought he might have, leaving nothing but the raw, jagged mantra: steal, steal, mine, take, want, steal, mine, mine, mine.
In that moment, the world blurs. The violence, the hunger, feels like the only thing worth pursuing, like nothing matters more than to mark the immaculate rug beneath them with the carnage of his impulses. The thought is so irresistibly intoxicating, Tom almost lets himself fall into it.
Until Harry steps back, his face wiped clean of whatever intensity briefly overcame him, once again donning that trademark skin of wary emptiness. Tom, jolted out of his haze, is forced to pull back from the precipitous cliff he’d been teetering over only seconds ago too. Absurdly, before he can fully compose himself, he worries if Harry might have read into his mind. But the notion is absurd, and he shirks it with a quick test of his occlumency barriers. Intact.
Though perhaps he should’ve been the one looking. Their eye contact had been the perfect opportunity; a proverbial open door. He wonders what Harry’s mind feels like. Is it cluttered? Tightly walled, like a locked drawer overflowing with objects he cannot name? Chaotic, unfinished, deeply private? He knows it would not be empty, but surely uninviting and loud in resistance.
Tom finds it harder to talk now, for whatever reason. Brittle silence hangs between them, then. Harry fills it by wandering aimlessly around the common room, poking at different artifacts with detached curiosity. It rings hollow, but Tom doesn’t care. He doesn’t care for anything he would have cared about just an hour ago. The aftertaste of unfulfilled cruelty is bitter. He knows nothing will supplant it but blood, or time.
He licks his teeth, gathering his last dregs of sense to form a coherent sentence.
“The boys' dormitories are up the staircase on the left. The last door down is ours. I am sure a bed has been prepared for you. Dinner is in two hours at the Great Hall. It would not do to miss it.” He says perfunctorily. It seems a very appealing thing, to distance himself from this wretched, confounding boy. If only for a moment. If only to better rouse his mind.
“We’ll see.” Harry replies. He does not seem to care that his school-assigned liaison is abandoning him so soon after introductions. Unable to help himself, Tom lingers on this—about why he, a Slytherin no less, is so careless with first impressions, or why he hardly paid attention to the tour; why he makes no effort to endear himself to the one person who could open doors for him amongst their peers; why he came to be here in the first place; why the Professors are all so damn wary of him, and why Tom does not see what they all seem to.
It agonizes him, being so utterly out of the loop. But Harry (for all his mystery, for all his strange unspoken knowledge) does not look dangerous. Not in the way he should. Not in the way they talk about.
And yet…
And yet–
Tom leaves. Harry lingers, inconveniently, at the edge of thought; not quite seen through, thus not quite gone.
He has time to kill before dinner. This is perhaps the worst time for it. He’ll find no answers at the library.
Harry is not at dinner. Nor is Dumbledore.
His knights ask him about his meeting with the new boy. Tom has no proper answer. Not one worth sharing. He tells them his name is Harry Evans, yet the surname sticks oddly in his mouth.
Midway through his soup, it dawns on him why: he’s never once thought of him as Evans. It was Harry from the start.
He tells himself that this is because the name is not even worth thinking about. Even Riddle sounds better than Evans.
On the walk back to the dormitory, Lestrange peels off toward the library, muttering something about warding spells. He doesn’t seem reassured by Nott’s insistence that their new roommate won’t slaughter them in their sleep, perhaps because Nott sounds almost eager as he says this. Tom senses something similar wafting off of Malfoy. And Avery. And Black. They orbit him like carrion birds, half-bored and half-hungry.
But the curtains around Harry’s bed are already drawn when they arrive. And unlike Lestrange, he does not need a book on warding to hold them off. No one thinks of disturbing him—least of all Tom, who is still weighing too many variables in his head.
The next day breaks with the kind of crystalline cold only autumn can manage, burrowing under their sheets until it’s sleeping alongside them. It’s a Saturday. His roommates take this as divine permission to rot where they lay.
Harry’s bed, conversely, is empty. Perfectly made.
Tempus tells Tom it’s seven o’clock. Early, even by his standards. Despite yesterday’s intuitions, restlessness coils tightly in his gut.
They don’t see Harry at all that weekend. And it rankles.
Occlumency does not come naturally to Tom, but he excels at it through sheer force of discipline, a talent for weaponizing stillness and a refusal to tolerate internal disorder.
In this mental architecture, emotion cannot be indulged. Thus every shiver of impulse is catalogued with precision. And he knows, now, exactly where the darkest parts of him reside. Knows how to keep them from surfacing when it would be unwise.
His bloodlust is a hazard, to be leashed until it can serve a purpose.
His ego is permitted to flourish, so long as it remains neatly folded beneath the surface.
And his obsessiveness is apportioned according to relevance; a measured dose for his studies, the rest funneled into less sanctioned pursuits, carried out well beyond the reach of curious eyes and under his complete control.
But something has slipped.
Not much. Just enough to make him notice. Enough to irritate him in that insidious, low-burning way that slips past his usual defenses and takes root before he can excise it cleanly. He finds himself thinking about Harry without preamble, catching stray questions circling his mind in the oddest hours of the night.
Harry, who does not flinch. Who neither courts favour nor postures, who doesn’t respond the way people ought to. Who moves according to a private logic that Tom cannot decipher.
Harry, whose non-presence isn’t fear or submission, but dismissal.
And Tom does not stomach irrelevance well. He knows he should leave it. There are greater, more important things. But already he can feel it tightening, that maddening compulsion to excavate the boy’s mind, if only to quiet the part of himself that keeps asking why.
Why is Tom so unremarkable to him? So undeserving of mirrored fascination?
Perhaps he’d misjudged the introduction. Been too subtle, too reserved in how he offered up his brilliance. What was it he said? Harry. It’s a pleasure, with an underwhelmed smile that spoke too loudly. He should have crafted something more elaborate, laced with mystery and intrigue to present himself as compelling as he knows himself to be.
Or worse: perhaps the boy caught a glimpse of his mind in that moment, when Tom’s only intelligible thought was how best to take his eyes.
It gnaws at him. Not necessarily Harry’s secrets (though they are numerous, and Tom has not ruled out violence to pry them free) but the fact that he wants them at all. That is what offends; how this hunger too closely resembles need.
However brief, it makes Tom aware of himself in a way he despises: less like a mind in perfect order, and more like a locked room full of teeth.