Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s not the first time that Harry’s had his stance corrected in Professor Riddle’s practical Defense classes—the professor frequently advised students on making small adjustments during his class, shifting a foot back here, correcting a wrist swish there—but it’s the first time that Riddle has wrapped his entire hand around Harry’s, adjusting the angle of his wand movement for an Alohomora.

All of a sudden, a frisson of warmth runs up Harry’s arm—just like the first time he had grasped his phoenix and holly wand in Ollivander’s shop—and a shower of golden sparks shoots out the tip.

He gasps in surprise. “What was that?” he asks, instinctively taking a step backwards and bumping up against Riddle standing behind him. Riddle’s hand is still wrapped around Harry’s, and his whole arm—his whole body, actually—feels so nice, buzzing with pleasure and warmth and the feeling of pure magic, exactly like the moment that he knew instantly his wand was his.

Riddle releases Harry’s hand and steps back.

The pleasant, warm buzz quickly fades away from Harry’s limbs. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a few of his classmates watching their interaction with curiosity.

“Your wand seems remarkably compatible with my magic,” Riddle murmurs thoughtfully, dark eyes flicking over Harry’s face, studying him closely. His gaze is focused and intense, and Harry wonders if Riddle had felt the same warmth and glow and connection as he had. “What else are you, child?” he adds, barely moving his lips, in such a soft tone that Harry’s not even sure if he’s heard him at all.

Harry wants to ask him what it means for them to have compatible magic, but in the next instant, Riddle turns on his heel and walks down the line of students, continuing the lesson as though nothing had happened. He doesn’t single out Harry for the rest of class.

--

A week later, Riddle still hadn’t commented on the special connection that had happened when he’d gripped Harry’s wand, and Harry was starting to think maybe it didn’t mean anything.

Harry doesn’t think he’d ever forget that moment—and how amazing it felt to have that rush of magic sparking through him when Riddle’s hand closed around his—like a bright golden firework bursting inside of him.

But maybe it was one of those things that happened all the time in the magical world—like talking paintings and moving staircases—and there was, in fact, nothing remarkable about it.

Besides, Harry had bigger problems to worry about that day, as he limps into his Thursday Defense class with an aching chest and ribs.

It had started this morning at Quidditch practice, when he banked a sharp right trying to dodge a bludger and then immediately got hit with another bludger on his other side. At first it felt like a twinge that he could easily walk off, which is what Oliver Wood had told him to do when he staggered off of his broom at the end of practice. But over the course of the day, the twinge had deepened until he could barely move without wincing in pain and curling inwards on his left side.

It didn’t make a difference in Magic of History, where Harry fell asleep. In Potions, Harry got berated by Snape for stirring the cauldron in an unacceptably crooked circle. But in Defense, where Professor Riddle had them pair up that day and demonstrate the proper pre-duel sequence of bows and stances that they were supposed to have practiced as a homework assignment, Harry was asked to stay after class.

The sinking feeling in his stomach distracts him through the rest of class. Harry doesn’t know why he’s gotten in trouble. He hasn’t fallen asleep in Riddle’s class, or gotten into fights with Malfoy, or otherwise acted up. Riddle is the toughest grader—tougher than even Snape—but Harry’s written assignments have been pretty good. He’s gotten mostly E’s, sometimes O’s.

When the door clicks shut behind the last student to leave, Riddle folds his hands on top of the desk and regards Harry from behind his desk.

Harry squirms under that stern, cold gaze.

As always, Professor Riddle looks nice. But not nice as in kind, nice as in... proper. Put-together. Perfect. Not a single line or imperfection on his face, his dark hair settling in perfect, neat waves around it, his robes always pressed and impeccable.

“Do you know why I asked you to stay behind?”

Harry shakes his head. He’s been bursting to ask Riddle about the wand connection he’d felt last week, but he decides not to say anything until he knows why he’s been kept after class.

“Your practical demonstration in class today did not reflect an understanding of anything we’ve covered in lecture over the last week. The lack of progress -” he tsks lightly, “- is disappointing, to say the least, considering the amount of potential of you’ve shown up until now.”

“I’m - I'm sorry, sir,” Harry says with an uncomfortable twist in his stomach. He very much likes Professor Riddle, even if his expectations are unreasonably high. He’s quite strict with his students—sometimes even harsh—but very fair. Unlike Snape, he doesn’t blatantly favor the Slytherins and let Malfoy get away with anything.

Riddle remarks, after a moment’s pause, sharp eyes fixed on Harry’s face, “Your bow is too shallow, but more critically, you’re favoring your right side in your pre-duel stance, even after we covered, quite extensively, in last week’s lecture why you should not leave the side with your wand arm more exposed to attack.” His gaze is dark with a deep reddish tint—intense, imposing, and serious.

Harry straightens unconsciously, trying not to wince with the movement. The ache in his side has only gotten worse since class ended, and all he wants right now is to go back to his dorm room and lie down in his bed for the rest of the day.

“I see promise in you, Harry Potter,” Riddle continues. “But only if you take this class seriously. That means coming prepared to integrate the theoretical with the practical.”

“It was Quidditch practice,” Harry offers in a quiet voice, twisting his hands in his lap. He really hadn’t meant to disappoint Professor Riddle. “I got hit this morning at practice. Right in my side.”

Riddle gives a low hum, crinkling his brow. A thin line appears between his eyebrows, but his face remains completely smooth otherwise. Harry has the oddest thought that Professor Riddle looks just like a marble statue, like the ones he saw in the art museum once on his third form field trip.

“You carry yourself like it’s an old injury,” Riddle murmurs, studying Harry carefully. Harry feels like his professor’s piercing gaze can see straight through his eyes to the deepest part of his soul. “Like you’ve a broken rib or two that’s never healed properly.”

Harry’s scar suddenly twinges, sending sharp pangs pinging around the inside of his skull. It’s done that a few times since starting the year. He ignores it. It’ll go away if he ignores it for long enough.

“Do you have a headache?” Riddle suddenly asks, peering at Harry curiously.

Harry shrugs. “Um, a little bit.”

“Do you get them frequently?” His gaze flicks up at Harry’s forehead for a brief moment.

“I... don’t know,” Harry stops to think for a moment. “A few since the start of the school year.”

Riddle nods, lowering his voice to a sympathetic pitch. “It’s quite a big adjustment, isn’t it, being in a new place away from home for the first time? The castle can be quite overwhelming to take in.”

For the first time since he’d gotten injured that day, Harry breaks into a small smile, a genuinely happy one. “Hogwarts is absolutely brilliant,” he declares. “It’s even better than I had imagined. It’s my favorite place I’ve ever lived.”

“Is it,” Riddle says softly, studying Harry closely. He adds, after a long pause, almost like it’s an afterthought, “It’s always been mine too.”

Harry nods, feeling relieved that at least one professor here gets it.

“Now, about your injuries,” Riddle says briskly. “Did you get injured as a child, maybe while playing sports or a spot of roughhousing, and injure your side?” He’s still staring at Harry with his piercing gaze.

Harry shifts a little bit. He’s not quite sure what to say. Would getting the crap beaten out of him by Dudley and his gang on a weekly basis count as ‘roughhousing’?

“Were you ever taken to a healer?”

“Is that like a doctor?”

“Yes. It’s like a doctor. When was the last time you visited the doctor, Harry?”

“Erm, I don’t remember,” Harry says. “Aunt Petunia said it was fine,” he quickly adds. “She told me I can walk it off.”

“I think what’s causing your stance imbalance is more than just a recent Quidditch injury, Harry,” Riddle presses. “I’m going to need to take a closer look. No one in your family has ever taken you to the hospital?”

“No,” Harry says, not sure why he feels like he said something wrong. “I’m, um, I’m not really their kid,” he adds in a rush, hoping that’s enough to explain.

Riddle nods slowly. “Well, you’re at Hogwarts now, and we can have specialty healing potions brewed for you to treat old injuries. Come back here at 8 on Friday night, and we’ll see about running some diagnostic tests and getting you the right treatment.”

Harry looks up at his professor with wide eyes. He got injured all the time while he was growing up, and no one had ever taken a second look at him. Mostly, his aches and sprains just kind of went away after a few days, and he never really thought about it.

But now, for the first time, someone - a teacher - actually seems to care. Riddle did mention that his magic was compatible with Harry’s. Maybe he had seen something special in Harry? Did that mean there was actually someone in Harry’s life that had finally taken notice of him - someone that’d want to look out for him?

“It’s important for you to have the correct dueling stance in order to pass my class,” Riddle says crisply.

Oh. Harry turns his gaze down again. For a moment, he had thought Professor Riddle might have seen something in Harry—he had gotten his hopes up—

He shakes the thought off.

Of course. His professor’s only concern is that Harry doesn’t fail his class.

And that’s—that makes sense, he tells himself. That’s what the professor are here for. They have to make sure their students all have a fair shot at learning the material and don’t fail class.

“In the meantime,” Riddle says, and waves his wand at Harry, who immediately feels a wave of relief wash over him, the pain in both his side and his head fading, “that should help dull the pain.”

Harry looks up in surprise. His face breaks into a grateful smile as the pain relief charm erases the minor aches and dull pains he’d gotten so used to living with his whole life that he didn’t even notice they were his constant companions.

--

Harry knocks on the door to the Defense classroom just before 8 on Friday night.

“Come in, Harry,” he hears a voice say, and he pushes the door to the classroom open.

Inside, the classroom is all dark, except for a sliver of light from a door that he’s never seen before left slightly ajar at the side of the classroom.

Harry approaches the door tentatively.

“In here,” the voice calls out from behind it as Harry creeps closer.

Harry opens the door into what must be Professor Riddle’s office. Other than a writing desk, there’s a fireplace, two armchairs, and a low coffee table. Books spill out on every surface, and Harry looks up to see that even more books are crammed onto the tall shelves lining every wall and tucked into nooks all around the room.

Riddle is sitting in one of the armchairs by the fire, with one leg perched over the other. A tea service sits on the coffee table in front of him.

“Have a seat, Harry,” he says casually, waving a hand at the empty armchair next to him.

Harry sits in the high-backed armchair. He can’t decide if he’d rather perch uncomfortably on the edge so that he can keep both his feet solidly on the ground underneath him, or if he’d rather scoot his bum back until it touches the back of the chair, but that would mean his feet would be dangling a few inches off the ground.

He settles for perching uncomfortably on the edge.

Riddle sets his book aside, observing Harry for a moment.

“This isn’t a detention, Harry,” he says, sounding slightly amused. “You’re allowed to relax.”

Harry feels tense for some reason, but he does force himself to relax just the slightest. Maybe if he sits more comfortably, it would help, so he starts to scoot back closer to the back of the chair, even if it does make his feet dangle off the side.

For the first time, he sees the frozen, carved marble expression that Riddle always wears soften, just the tiniest bit.

“Tea, Harry?” Riddle asks.

“Sure,” Harry nods. “Thanks, sir,” he adds as an afterthought, remembering his manners.

Riddle waves his wand at the tea service, and Harry takes the chance to take another look around the room as his tea is being prepared. The shiny trinkets and instruments inside the display case gleam and twinkle prettily at him, as though tempting him closer to examine them.

His professor hands him a steaming cup. Harry takes a sip. It’s milky and sweet. Riddle hadn’t asked him how he wanted his tea, but to Harry’s surprise, this is exactly how he would have flavored his tea had he done it himself.

Harry knows he was called here to discuss his performance in Defense class, but to his surprise, Riddle does not immediately dive into talking about fixing Harry’s dueling stance. 

Instead, Riddle asks Harry about his other classes, how he’s been adjusting to school, how he’s getting on with his dormmates, how the other students are treating him.

No teacher had shown Harry this level of individual attention and concern before, and at first, he’s not really sure how to answer, or if Riddle even cares to hear this level of detail about Harry’s other classes.

But gradually, reassured by Riddle’s encouraging prodding and follow-up questions, Harry’s one-word mumbled answers gradually morph into longer chattier sentences, and he is warmed both by the sweet, rich tea he’s drinking, as well as by what seems to be his professor’s genuine interest in him.

“Tell me about your life before Hogwarts, Harry,” Riddle says, with a touch of warmth in his voice. “Where you grew up, who you live with, what was your favorite subject in school?”

Harry’s stomach tightens. Would his professor go and tell the Dursleys about how Harry’s doing in class?

There was one teacher a long time ago at Harry’s primary school who had tried to do just that, bringing up concerns about Harry’s reading level, and Harry just got yelled at more by his aunt and uncle for being called in to talk to Harry’s teachers about him.

“Keep your head low, boy, and stay out of trouble!” Vernon had screamed at him. “I don’t want to hear another word from any of your teachers about you!”

Which reminds him... “Am I in trouble?” Harry blurts.

“Do you think you’ve done something deserving of getting into trouble?” Riddle asks him, taking a sip of his tea.

“N-no,” Harry says. “It’s just—my aunt and uncle, they—” he takes a deep swallow and decides to just say it, hoping his professor would understand. He surely must have encountered other students who were from families that didn’t like magic, and if Binns’ lectures about witch-burning were anything to go on, plenty of witches and wizards faced hostility from the muggle communities they lived in. “They don’t—they don’t like magic...” he mumbles nervously, gripping his hands around the sides of his mug. “So it’s best if they don’t hear about...” he trails off, hoping his point came across.

“I understand.” Riddle’s fingers twitch, as though he’s about to do something, but he instead takes another sip of his tea. “Everything you say will stay between us. I promise.”

Harry nods, relieved.

“So you never knew about magic before getting your Hogwarts letter?” he asks shrewdly, eyes boring into Harry’s head.

“I didn’t,” Harry says. “I mean, Uncle Vernon always punished me for any funny business that happened, but I just thought it was all accidents, you know, I didn’t think—I didn’t realize it was magic.”

One side of Riddle’s mouth quirks up. “I’ll tell you something, Harry, something that I haven’t thought about in a long time,” he says. “I didn’t know about magic either when I started Hogwarts.”

“Really, sir?” Harry’s eyes widen, and his heartbeat speeds up.

Professor Riddle is so knowledgeable—everyone says he’s the smartest professor at their school except for maybe Professor Dumbledore—that Harry can’t imagine Riddle starting out at Hogwarts not knowing anything either.

Riddle nods and muses thoughtfully, “Hogwarts was a challenging environment at first. I knew nearly nothing about the magical world when I started. There were other students that did not take kindly to someone who was muggle-raised. Eventually, I made friends. I excelled in classes. I discovered my true heritage, that my mother was a witch descended from an ancient and somewhat notable wizarding line. My father, however, was a muggle.”

“You didn’t know?” Harry asks, a bit awestruck. He’d never had a teacher who had talked to him about their personal life before, who took Harry seriously enough to want to share.

A brisk shake of the head. “Like you, Harry—” Riddle says in a soft voice, staring intently at Harry, “—I didn’t know my parents. I grew up in an orphanage in the middle of London.”

Harry nods silently. He feels like Professor Riddle had just entrusted him with something momentous, something meaningful, and he doesn’t want to mess up the moment by saying something dumb.

“But that’s enough about me. Tell me about, hmm, what was your favorite subject in primary school.”

Harry brightens and starts talking about geography. He tells his professor about all the wondrous and fantastical sights and places he had read about in books and how much he couldn’t wait to grow up and see them with his own eyes.

Once in a while, Riddle interjects and tells Harry about something or other he had seen on his travels in his own youth, and Harry’s eyes widen with amazement, his imagination lit up from hearing about all the incredible things that were out there to be explored, discovered, in the magical world as well.

Harry’s having a good enough time talking with Professor Riddle that he hardly notices a dull headache starting to creep its way across his head, starting from his scar and working its way around his temples, until his professor points it out.

“Headache again?” Riddle asks. Then he leans over and tips a few droplets from a sapphire blue vial into Harry’s tea, darting his hand out so quickly that Harry doesn’t have a chance to react.

“What’s that?” Harry asks, his stomach tensing and clutching on emptiness. Too late, he remembers that he had skipped dinner that night, since he was still full from lunch earlier that day.

“Just a headache potion,” Riddle says soothingly. “Madame Pomfrey distributes extras from her stores at the beginning of the school year. Pepper-up potion, calming droughts, and the like.”

Harry doesn’t know what those potions are, but it makes sense that professors would have their own stock on hand. Like how every classroom back at his primary school had a first-aid kit.

As he sips at his tea, his headache starts fading, and his shoulders gradually untense.

Riddle watches Harry finish the tea. He reaches over with a graceful hand and plucks the empty teacup out of Harry’s hand and sets it back down on the tea service.

“It’s been very nice getting to know you, Harry,” he says, with a surprising warmth in his voice that Harry had not heard before. “It’s getting late, and I wouldn’t want to keep you past your curfew, so we should get started.” He motions for Harry to stand up.

Harry scoots down to the end of the armchair and plants his feet on the ground. As he rises to his feet, Riddle puts his hand on the small of Harry’s back. He guides Harry to his writing desk and clears the top with a sweep of his wand.

“Hop up, Harry,” Riddle says, patting the top of his desk.

Harry looks over at the desk. It comes up to halfway up his chest. He’d need a chair or a stool to climb up. “That’s too tall,” he says. “Do you have a chair or—?”

Riddle doesn’t answer. He sweeps forward and encircles Harry around the chest with both of his hands, and in one deft motion, lifts Harry up and deposits him on top of his desk.

“Oh, er, thanks,” Harry says. He thought that was nice of Riddle to help him up, so he’s not sure why he feels a bit awkward from getting picked up. He chalks it up to never having had any grown-up that bothered to show him any care or notice before. Dudley would probably still get carried by Aunt Petunia everywhere, if he hadn’t gotten too heavy to be picked up by anything less than a forklift.

“Now, let’s get a look at you,” Riddle says, voice low and soft.

Harry’s headache has gone, but the slow clenching in his stomach has come back.

“You should have gotten a full medical exam before you were cleared to play on the Quidditch team,” Riddle tsks. “Unlike the heads of house, I tend to stay out of House Cup and school Quidditch rivalries, but it is simply irresponsible of Minerva to let you on the team without completing this step first,” he says, reproach in his voice.

Then seeing Harry’s stricken expression, he adds, “Nothing to worry about, Harry. I won’t say a word to her—your spot on the team is secure. Your treatment will be confidential. We’ll fix any lingering injuries, and you’ll be as good as new in no time. I expect you’ll be able to complete the practical requirements for my class at the top of your year.”

Harry nods with relief. As long Professor McGonagall didn’t find out and come to regret putting him on the Quidditch team, he would be fine with whatever treatment Riddle decides he needs. He couldn’t bear to get kicked off now.

Riddle swishes his wand, and Harry’s school robes vanish and then reappear in a neatly folded pile on the desk next to him. Another swish of the wand strips Harry of his Gryffindor-trim jumper, button-down shirt, and house tie, again reappearing in a folded pile on top of his robes, leaving Harry only in his trousers and shoes.

Harry shivers as the chill air of the Defense office hits his bare chest.

Professor Riddle’s fingers are even cooler than the air in the office. He brushes his fingertips across the top of Harry’s chest, skimming along his collarbone and dipping under to brush right over Harry’s heart. Harry tries to hold as still as possible as Riddle ghosts his fingers over ridges and bumps along his ribcage, the healed-over marks from the edge of Uncle Vernon’s belt and, one time, Ripper’s sharp and vicious underbite.

Something flashes in Riddle’s eyes, and they narrow the slightest bit, but it disappears as quicky as it came.

Harry’s flesh starts developing goosebumps in the chilly air, and he brings his arms up to hug against the front of his chest and rub his palms along his forearms to warm himself up. But Riddle gently pries Harry’s hands away from his forearms and brings them back down to rest by his sides.

“I need to be able to see your injuries, Harry,” he explains in a light tone.

Wand in hand, he runs the thin tip of his distinct white wand over Harry’s ribcage, each bone visible and sticking out over his thin stomach, tracing along the top of Harry’s stomach and then up his sides.

Harry squirms as the tip of the wand scrapes over his skin, the feeling of it much sharper than it looks.

“’s uncomfortable,” he mumbles, but tries to hold himself still, even as the sharp tip digs into his skin.

“Just a little while longer, Harry,” Riddle murmurs, “Then we can move onto the next bit. Try to relax a bit, can you do that for me, Harry? It’ll be much better for you if your muscles are relaxed and not tensed up.”

The tip of Riddle’s wand glows golden, then red for a little bit, then golden again. A burst of what feels like pure energy races through Harry’s body, and he lets out an involuntary shudder.

“You’re doing so well, Harry,” Riddle murmurs. “Just a few more minutes.”

He casts another spell silently. Some type of soft hum starts from the ends of Harry’s toes and the tips of his fingers, and moves up through his arms and legs, ending in his torso in a warm buzz.

“See, that wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Harry shakes his head.

A nice, comforting trail of warmth is left on Harry’s skin where the glowing tip of the wand had traced patterns, and it doesn’t take long for Harry to warm up again despite having no shirt on, the surface of his skin buzzing and glowing rose-gold everywhere the wand has traced over his skin.

“Does that mean you found something?” Harry asks.

“We’ll need to run monitor your progress over time, Harry, but my initial assessment appears correct.” Riddle presses the flat of his palm to the center of Harry’s back as he’s talking, his fingertips tracing cool patterns along Harry’s spine. “You have three stress fractures in your ribs that have not healed properly and some old injuries that had caused scar tissue to grow around your fractures. These will continue to cause you imbalances and affect your stance unless we treat them, but you don’t have anything to worry about, I know just the right potions protocol for you.”

Riddle has circled around the desk to Harry’s back and cups his hands around Harry’s side, just under his armpits. He is standing very close to Harry.

Without asking, he lifts Harry into the air again, and Harry can feel the rise and fall of Riddle’s chest against his bare back, before he gets set down on the ground again.

“Come back in a week from today.”

Harry nods.

“Thanks, sir,” he says, a warm, glowy feeling bubbling up inside his chest as he hurriedly throws his shirt and robes back on, with a secret trill of happiness that Riddle had finally seemed to show a special interest in him. None of his teachers in primary school had ever paid him any special attention before or said they saw promise in Harry and wanted to help him improve.

Harry rarely sees Riddle smile in class, but he offers Harry a rare smile, playing about his lips for a brief moment, on Harry’s way out.

Chapter Text

Riddle has started Harry on a potions regimen, which he dutifully picks up from Madame Pomfrey on every Monday morning.

Even so, he’s taken it on himself to personally oversee Harry’s progress, requesting that Harry stop by his office once a week after dinner.

Every time, Riddle checks on Harry’s chest, casting the same monitoring charms with his wand that he did the first time around which make Harry’s heart speed up and a pleasant hum of energy rush throughout his body. As before, he traces his fingers along Harry’s chest and over the ridge of each rib poking out of his back. Riddle’s fingers are cool but leave hot trails on Harry’s skin where they’ve touched.

All the while, he talks to Harry, like no adult had ever done before. Harry was surprised, at first, to notice that Riddle showed an actual interest in how school’s been going, what the first year curriculum is like for Harry, if he’s made a lot of friends yet.

One time Harry ends up telling Riddle about his Sorting. “I was so surprised that the Sorting Hat could read my mind! I wasn’t expecting it to have a whole conversation with me!”

“And what did the Hat say to you?” Riddle’s lips quirk up into a small, indulgent smile.

That was another thing Harry noticed. Riddle almost never smiled in class or outside of Harry’s office visits. The other students called him tall, dark, and mysterious, and were, to varying degrees, terrified at how very exacting he was. But that was because they never got to see this side of their professor. It makes Harry feel like they’re in a private club of 2 together, sharing a secret amongst themselves.

“It said I was... difficult to sort,” Harry says slowly. “That I had courage and a good mind and wanted to prove myself, that I could go far—no, that wasn’t it—” He bites his bottom lip, trying to remember. “It said I could be... that I could be great...” He laughs a little sheepishly at that, feeling a bit silly saying out loud the secret longing and hopes and dreams that the Hat had seen inside of his head.

“Did it?” Riddle murmurs, studying Harry with a curious gaze, a flare of interest lighting up his dark eyes. “Was it deciding, then, between more than one House for you?”

Harry replies carefully, scrunching his brow and trying to remember the Hat’s exact words, “I think it actually asked me, ‘where shall I put you’?”

“And what did you say?”

“I remember it said that Slytherin could help me achieve greatness, but I told it not to put me in—” Harry bites his next words back, trying not to be impolite, “—Oh, I’m sorry, sir, you were in Slytherin, I didn’t mean any offense—”

Riddle brushes a tender hand through Harry’s fringe, gently sweeping his hair away from his face.

“And why,” he asks in an unnervingly soft voice, “would you not want to be one amongst the cunning, resourceful, and ambitious?”

“Honestly—” Harry says, trying to think back to what he’d been thinking while sitting nervously on that stool being scrutinized in front of hundreds, “—I’d just met Malfoy, and he was, well, he was a bit of a git. He reminded me of my cousin, you know, so I didn’t want to be in the same house as him or his... well, those friends of his.”

To Harry’s surprise, Riddle lets out a soft laugh. “Yes, the Malfoys do tend to have that effect on people, don’t they?” he murmurs.

“Do they?” Harry asks curiously.

Riddle crinkles his eyes and huffs in amusement. “So you asked the Hat to place you in Gryffindor?” His gaze sharpens again as he refocuses on Harry with his usual intensity.

“Yeah,” Harry admits. “It said I would have done well in Slytherin though,” he adds, biting his bottom lip a little bit. “Do you think I should have...” He trails off and looks up at Riddle expectantly.

“Slytherin is a less welcoming environment for outsiders and newcomers,” Riddle says thoughtfully, continuing to brush Harry’s hair back from the side of his face. “Perhaps it’s for the best you were placed in the house of the foolhardy and the brave.”

--

One such evening, Harry is in such a foul mood from Snape deducting 70 points from Gryffindor that day for no reason at all, and then making fun of Harry’s ‘celebrity status’ until Harry felt like he was about to snap and hit Snape upside the head with his cauldron, that Professor Riddle sighs and motions Harry to sit in the chair opposite his desk.

He doesn’t need to ask Harry too many clarifying questions before it all comes tumbling out—Snape’s unfairness towards Gryffindors, how cruel he always was to Neville and Hermione and everyone else, how he picked on Harry from the moment of roll-call, and the headaches, somehow centering around his scar, that Harry got whenever he was on the receiving end of glares from Snape.

Riddle lets out a long sigh, and he looks steadily at Harry with his dark, impassive eyes for a few moments before replying. “The only fairness in life,” he finally says, “is that everyone ends up treated unfairly from time to time.”

“Okay,” Harry says, unhappily. “But sir, how does that help in any way? So you’re saying we should just... put up with it?”

“Professor Snape holds all the power while you are still students. You won’t be able to change anything with rebellion. All you can do is mitigation.”

“But—but that’s not fair—” Harry protests. “How can he just get away with it—"

Riddle cuts in. “From what you’ve described, it sounds like his greatest point deductions are when you lot are underprepared for class. So why don’t you and your friends prepare for his class with as much effort as you do mine?”

But it’s different, Harry wants to say. No one dared underprepare for Professor Riddle’s class. They all gave it their best efforts. Everyone actually wants to do well for Professor Riddle, but no one likes Snape.

Instead, Harry grumbles, “Okay, okay, fine,” filing his professor’s advice away to mull over later.

Lately, he doesn’t really worry about offending Riddle with his impertinence. The more time he spends with Riddle, the more comfortable he feels being himself around his professor, without fearing he’s about to get scolded for saying something improper or disrespectful when he’s just saying what’s on his mind. Aunt Petunia always used to scold him for saying things like that, not that Harry cared. He could care less about being rude to someone horrid like Snape, but he wants nothing more than to stay on Professor Riddle’s good side.

“I guess we’ll give that a try,” he adds, earning him a small smile of approval.

“Please do. And you may come to me if you suffer any particularly egregious treatment at the hands of Professor Snape, but I had better not hear that any of you were underprepared for his class. Best not to give him a reason to deduct points at all.”

“Alright, thanks, sir,” Harry says, giving Riddle a rueful smile in return. He doesn’t really want to do any reading ahead for Potions, but Riddle is right—it’s better not to give Snape any reason to pick on them in the first place.

For the first time in his life, Harry feels like he has an adult looking out for him, someone who has his back and cares about his well-being.

--

During Halloween dinner, a troll is let loose in the dungeons. Against all odds, Harry, accompanied by Ron, rescue Hermione Granger from the troll.

But the look of disappointment and fury on Professor Riddle’s face when he sees Harry in the aftermath of the bathroom—porcelain sinks crumbled into dust, plaster falling from the ceilings—wipes away the brief moment of victory and elation that Harry had felt, and makes him feel like he shouldn’t have been as reckless with the whole situation.

--

Around November, Riddle deems Harry has made good enough progress with the potions regimen that they’re ready to start working on his dueling stance again.

Harry stands in the center of his office while Riddle stalks around him in a circle, tweaking the angle of his elbow here, the jut of his hip there.

He comes up next to Harry and kneels down behind him. In a kneeling position, Riddle is still a bit taller than Harry standing, but he’s better able to make adjustments at eye level with Harry. Wrapping his hand around Harry’s wand hand, he carefully adjusts his grip. He places both his hands around Harry’s hips, angling them to show Harry how to present as small of an attack surface to his opponent as possible.

Then Riddle asks Harry if he wants to learn some more advanced spells for dueling than what they’re covering in class.

Harry nods eagerly. There’s nothing he can think of that he’d like more.

“These are second and third year spells I’ll be showing you, so don’t let me catch you using them in duels during class against your classmates. We haven’t covered these in the course material yet, so you’d have an unfair lead—” Riddle winks at Harry, “—but you’re welcome to use them outside of class, should you ever find yourself at a disadvantage.”

Now, every one of Harry’s weekly appointments turns into personal dueling lessons. Riddle shows Harry offensive spells like Bombarda and Confringo and teaches him Protego (the last one Harry picks up very quickly, according to his professor) and gives him some tips on how to read his opponent, and says that he sees great promise in Harry.

Harry’s head feels light, and something in his chest tugs. No one other than his Defense professor had ever said that about him before.

--

“Sir?” Harry asks, heart quickening in his chest, one evening when they’re close to wrapping up their weekly session. He finally feels enough at ease around Riddle to ask the question that had been burning at the back of his mind since that one day early in term.

“Do you remember that time in class that you helped me with Alohomora and gold sparks shot out of my wand?”

Riddle tilts his head and looks at Harry with a mild amusement playing about his lips. “I do.”

“What did you mean when you said that our magic was compatible?”

“I believe what I actually said was that your wand is remarkably compatible with my magic.” He pauses and looks at Harry in that piercing way of his. “But perhaps it can go both ways. Why don’t we try?”

“What do you mean...” Harry trails off as he watches his professor unsheathe his distinct bone-white wand and hold it out, palm up, for Harry to try.

“Go on, Harry,” Riddle says encouragingly, extending his hand with his wand in it.

Harry stares at Riddle’s outstretched hand, eyes widened in surprise. He knows that a wand is a very personal item for witches and wizards, that it’s almost like an extension of themselves, like an additional limb. He’s never swapped wands with any of his yearmates, and he can’t imagine that any professor would ever have the level of trust in him—just a regular first year, just Harry—to let him hold one of theirs.

But here Professor Riddle is – offering his wand to Harry – as though Harry is somehow special to him in some way.

Harry’s trying his best not to break out into a grin of excitement; he has to bite down on his bottom lip to prevent himself from doing so. He takes the pale length of wood and tentatively wraps his fingers around it.

From the moment that his hand makes contact with the wand, a feeling of rightness, of connection, of everything falling into place, sparks up deep inside of Harry’s chest.

He slashes the wand through the air with an experimental swish. A shower of red and golden sparks flies out of the end as a burst of pure energy zings its way up Harry’s arm and settles deep within his core.

Without thinking through what he’s doing, guided only by instinct, Harry casts Bombarda in the direction of the fireplace, followed by Protego. The mirror atop Riddle’s fireplace bursts into a thousand glittering shards, exploding outwards in their direction, only to be caught, suspended in midair, by Harry’s Protego shield, not six inches away from slicing straight through them.

Harry had never felt magic so powerful, that felt so natural, passing through his fingertips before. Riddle’s wand is vibrating somewhat begrudgingly in his grip, as though it knows it’s not being wielded by its rightful owner, but Harry’s intuition tells him that Riddle’s wand works just as well for him as his own does, perhaps even better.

Still holding the shield charm, Harry takes a moment to admire the shards caught in suspended motion around them, reflecting the golden-orange hues of the dancing firelight, a second away from slicing through them in a deadly manner.

“So, er, how do I cast Reparo without dropping the Protego?” he asks. He knows, instinctively, that Riddle’s not going to get mad at him for destroying his mirror and creating a potentially deadly mess in the room, and when he turns his gaze to Riddle, he sees that his face has broken out into a genuine smile with no sign of reproach.

“Direct your shield charm to send all the pieces to drop on the floor,” Riddle instructs. “There’s no incantation to it—it’s merely a matter of will and magical control. Will it to be, Harry, and it will.”

Harry takes in a deep breath and channels every last bit of his magic to get all the shards to fall on the floor around them. Now feeling somewhat drained, he has to cast Reparo a few times before the mirror is right as new again.

It was worth it, he thinks, as he turns back to Riddle to hand his wand back, and he sees something lighting up his professor’s dark eyes that he’s never seen before.

Approval.

“I wonder...” Riddle starts. “Harry, can you tell me a bit about your wand?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry nods eagerly. “It’s made of holly, and it’s 11 inches, with a phoenix feather core.”

“Indeed,” Riddle says thoughtfully, tapping under his chin with the end of his wand. “From Ollivander’s?”

“Yes, that’s where I bought it, that’s right.”

“What did the wandmaker tell you about the phoenix that gave the feather which was used in the core of your wand?”

“He said the phoenix gave another feather, just one more...” Harry’s face lights up in delight and excitement as the pieces snap together. “It was yours, wasn’t it? Your wand is also phoenix feather? From the same phoenix?” His heart is thundering in his chest.

The confirming nod from Riddle makes Harry want to leap up with happiness, but he refrains from doing so.

Instead, he tries to stay calm and not act like an idiot child. He distracts himself by repeating what the wandmaker had told him right after he’d gotten matched with his wand. “He wouldn’t tell me who he had sold the other wand to, but he said it’s really rare for a wandmaker to have sold brother wands within their own lifetime. That the odds of finding both matches within a single wandmaker’s generation is... I think he said it was... atom–atmo– um, as-tro-no-mically high,” he says, carefully sounding out the syllables, hoping he sounds sophisticated and grown up.

“Indeed it is,” Riddle confirms, looking thoughtful.

“What does that mean?” Harry asks.

“The theory around brother wands is not well-developed, as you can imagine, given how rare the phenomenon is. Nearly unheard of. Even identical siblings don’t get matched with brother wands the majority of the time,” Riddle remarks. “I need to think about this a bit more. In addition to our usual monitoring tests, Harry, do you mind if I run one to test your magical core? It’ll help me see if there are any special... characteristics about your magic.”

Harry nods without hesitation. “Yes, of course, sir.”

Riddle motions towards the armchair, and Harry takes a seat. An elegant hand stretches out and plucks Harry’s glasses off of his face, and then two slim fingers tilt his chin upwards.

“I needed to make sure there are no obstructions between us,” Riddle murmurs. “Look straight into my eyes now.”

Everything is blurry, so the only thing Harry can see is Riddle’s sharp gaze piercing into his. Riddle moves his wand in complicated patterns around Harry’s head and chest until a shimmery web of golden light surrounds him like a delicate filigree cage.

Warm sparks zing up his body, and it feels good, really good—like the first time that Riddle had wrapped his hand around Harry’s wand hand and their connection had burst into life between them. This time, pleasant spikes of warmth spread all over Harry’s skin and settle deep inside him, deep into places that he’s never really felt before.

He squirms in place, trying to hold onto that delicious, warm, cozy feeling of goodness, of belonging, that’s the best feeling he’s ever had out of anything he’s experienced.

Riddle hums thoughtfully to himself a few times, but he doesn’t give Harry any definitive answers that night, waving him off and saying he needed some time to study the results and think them over.

The warm, fuzzy feeling stays long after Harry leaves the Defense office, glowing brightly inside of him for the rest of the evening and all the way through to the next day.

--

After that, Riddle is unrelenting in finding more ways to make Harry feel special and singled out above all other students, even outside of their weekly appointments in his classroom.

He winks at Harry when they pass each other in the hallways. He’s polite but reserved with all the other students, and it’s clear that he holds himself at a distance. Despite his reserve, a lot of students say he’s their favorite professor, but Riddle somehow makes Harry feel that he’s the only one that gets any kind of special attention—and even more so now.

Sometimes, Riddle runs into Harry when he’s wandering the shelves in the library, always when he’s by himself, never when Ron or Hermione are around. He brushes a hand over Harry’s shoulder in greeting, lets his fingers linger on Harry’s lower back after he directs him to a section of books that he might find interesting, brushes a soft touch over Harry’s forehead, pushing his fringe back with gentle fingers.

Harry finds himself unconsciously leaning into these touches, and he thinks about them for days afterwards. No one had ever touched him so constantly before, in such a nice way, in a way that didn’t hurt Harry.

As the days creep closer to the winter holidays, Riddle’s casual brushes become more constant, anytime he runs into Harry outside of the classroom, whether it’s in the library or an empty corridor coming back from visiting Hedwig in the owlery.

Harry’s face always flushes and heats, and he has no idea how no one else can tell that he’s almost permanently blushing from the moment they step foot in Defense class.

As Christmas break nears, Harry wonders if he should get his professor a gift for Christmas. Some tea or chocolates maybe? Riddle seems to like tea and snacks. He always has a freshly-brewed pot ready for Harry whenever he visits.

It doesn’t sit right with Harry to have everything between them be so one-sided. Riddle has done so much to help him already, and a million thank you’s would not be nearly enough, Harry thinks. But he tries to think what he can possibly get for Riddle in return. He doesn’t really have anything that would be suitable to give to a professor. But at least he has some gold in his Gringotts account, so he can figure out something nice to buy for Christmas.

--

To Harry’s surprise, Riddle has something for him for his last Quidditch match before winter break. Waterproof gloves that repel the ice-cold sleet and snow that somehow always find their way into Harry’s regular Quidditch gloves and make his fingers freeze up.

More than ever, Harry really feels like he needs to get Riddle something for Christmas. Something other than Exploding Snap cards or chocolate frogs, which is all that Harry’s getting his friends in his year. Riddle would probably think those gifts were childish and stupid.

Harry remembers that catalogues are a good place to order things from—Aunt Petunia always had a stack of catalogues she liked flipping through—so he asks a 7th year prefect in Gryffindor where he can get wizarding shopping catalogues for a Christmas gift. He orders Riddle a set of quills made up of rare feathers collected from all around the magical world – from an augury, a gryffon, a sphinx, even a manticore – enchanted to never run out of ink.

--

Over Christmas break, all the students in Harry’s year leave except for Harry.

It’s the most wonderful two weeks Harry has ever had in his life so far.

Chapter Text

On the first day of winter break, the entire castle empties of students, but the castle still feels more festive than anything Harry had ever experienced—little baubles of golden fairy lights strung up in all the corridors, every nook of the castle smelling of fresh pine and cinnamon and nutmeg and freshly baked goods.

Harry takes the chance to sleep in, basking in the peace of the empty dormitory, then enjoys a late leisurely lunch by himself. He starts wandering from the Great Hall back to his common room, when he’s intercepted by Professor Riddle.

“I’m not surprised to see you staying in the castle over winter break,” Professor Riddle says when he chances upon Harry taking the stairs back up to Gryffindor Tower.

“Hi, sir!” Harry greets him with a wide smile. “Do all the professors stay over break?” he wonders.

“Some of us do,” Riddle replies. “For a few of us, Hogwarts is our primary home.” He leans in, the way he does when he wants to tell Harry something that’s meant just for the two of them, that he doesn’t share with any other student. He speaks in a low, steady voice. “Hogwarts has been my home too, ever since I was a student here. I never left the castle for any of the holiday breaks either.”

Harry nods, eyes wide and understanding.

Riddle straightens up. “Would you like to have tea in my office, Harry?”

Harry’s eyes light up, and he eagerly follows Riddle down the flight of stairs in the direction of the Defense classroom.

But Riddle walks past the door of the Defense classroom without stopping. Instead, he continues walking, down 2 more corridors and up a hidden flight of steps behind a tapestry. About halfway down an unfamiliar corridor, they stop in front of an unmarked door.

Riddle activates the runes around the door and pushes it open, revealing a cozy sitting room. It is packed as full of books as his office is—books on every surface, stacked up in every corner and spilling out onto half the floor.

Harry feels a thrill run up his spine. I got invited to Professor Riddle’s private quarters!, he internally cheers, trailing him in with a skip to his step.

The armchairs in the sitting room are squashier and lower to the ground, more like the ones in the Gryffindor common room than the high-backed chairs in his professor’s office.

“Harry, have a seat,” Professor Riddle’s low voice, comforting in its familiarity, says to Harry, as he looks around wide-eyed in the new surroundings.

By the time he turns back to Professor Riddle, he sees that his professor seems dressed more casually than he had ever seen him before, and it takes Harry a moment to notice why.

As Professor Riddle relaxes into his armchair, one leg perched over the other, ankle resting on knee, Harry notices that his robes are left open in a more casual style than his formal teaching robes. Underneath, he’s wearing a soft-looking jumper, grey with dark green trim, and neatly pressed dark grey trousers.

Harry takes a seat in the empty armchair, and to his delight, it’s low enough that he can actually make himself comfortable sitting against the back of it, while his feet are able to touch the ground.

As is customary, Professor Riddle starts pouring out a cup of tea for Harry, and then Harry sees him do something he hasn’t seen since their second meeting. He produces a small glass bottle with an amber fluid glowing prettily in the firelight, and tips a few measures of it into both Harry’s teacup and his own.

“Please, call me Tom,” he says, with the small smile that Harry’s only seen him wear when they’re in private. “Now that we’re officially on holiday, no need to stand on formality.”

Harry tries to quickly duck his head to hide his pleased grin. “Does that mean I get to call Professor McGonagall ‘Minerva’ then?” he asks, looking up at Tom (he lets that happy little glow settle deeper in his chest at the thought of it) and giving him a cheeky smile.

Huffing softly, Tom merely shakes his head and hands Harry’s tea to him. Their knuckles brush, and Harry gets another happy little glow at the contact.

Steaming mug in hand, he sniffs at his tea tentatively. There’s a sharp, bitter smell to it, one he doesn’t recognize from Potions class. “What’d you add to it?” he asks curiously.

Tom pauses a bit and gives Harry a searching look, as though testing him, before speaking. “A small pour of Odgen’s 25 year. Not enough to get you inebriated, by any means. You’re old enough now to try a measure of whiskey when accompanied by an adult.” He adds mock-sternly, “But not by yourself, mind you.”

Softening his expression, he brings his cup in front of Harry’s line of sight. “Cheers, Harry,” he says.

As Harry brings his cup up to clink against Tom’s, he can’t remember the last time he felt this happy.

He takes a tentative sip from the cup. Tom had added milk and sugar in exactly the proportions he likes, and there’s a sharper, biting taste to the tea that he had never tasted before, which he assumes is the whiskey. It leaves a fiery sensation down the back of Harry’s throat that burns in a different way than the hot tea does while going down.

Harry immediately feels very grown-up and sits straighter in his chair.

Tom picks up their conversation from the stairs. “I actually asked if I could stay here every year over the summer holidays as well,” he muses, sipping at his own cup. “I was told that unfortunately Hogwarts couldn’t accommodate students over summer break, so I had to return to the orphanage in London.”

Harry nods, trying to ignore the feeling of dread that’s threatening to settle in his stomach. He doesn’t want to be reminded of what’s going to happen once summer break starts, when he’d be forced to go back to the Dursleys.

“Do you get to stay at school over the summers now that you’re a professor here?” he asks instead, taking another sip of the spiked tea. It burns, again, going down, and the hot, fiery feeling settles deep inside of his stomach, making it feel like a furnace flaring to life inside of him. The thought occurs to Harry that maybe when he grows up, he can become a professor too, if that meant he got to stay at Hogwarts the whole year round.

Tom makes a soft humming noise and reaches a hand over and settles it on Harry’s knee. The two armchairs in Tom’s sitting room are placed within arm’s reach, unlike his office where they were across the coffee table from each other.

The fuzzy warmth that has settled in Harry’s stomach flares into life at a second point, right at his knee under the spot where Tom’s hand is resting. “I do, if I’m not traveling abroad to track down rare magical artifacts. I’ll tell you some more tales of my travels one day,” Tom says with a wink, stroking his thumb along Harry’s thigh. “It’s pretty quiet during the summer here, and some weeks I have only the groundskeeper for company. I believe you’re acquainted with him.”

“Yes, Hagrid is really nice!” Harry nods happily, feeling a bit light-headed and woozy, probably from the whiskey. “He brought my Hogwarts letter and took me on my first trip to Diagon Alley.”

“He was a few years below me at Hogwarts,” Tom muses. “A shame what happened, really, the poor girl didn’t need to die...”

“What?” Harry asks. He knew that Hagrid had gotten expelled, but he hadn’t heard anything scandalous like a girl’s death being connected to it.

“Ah,” Tom waves a hand. “A story for another time, remind me after the new year’s to tell you. I don’t want to dampen our holiday cheer by speaking of unhappy things from long ago.” He reaches over and tips a bit more amber liquid into Harry’s cup. “Tell me more about your first trip to Diagon Alley, Harry.”

Harry is a bit disappointed that he doesn’t get to hear the whole story now, but Tom did promise to tell him. He knows Tom isn’t like the other adults, who would just brush Harry off by giving some excuse like how he was too young to hear. Tom’s never told Harry he’s too young to learn anything, so he’ll just have to remember to ask him again sometime in January.

Harry takes another sip - he’s had some time to adjust to the burn by now so it doesn’t bother him as much - and happily prattles on for a bit about seeing Diagon Alley for the first time while Tom asks interested questions and occasionally interjects with his own memories of visiting Diagon when he was a student at Hogwarts, the whole time rubbing at Harry’s thigh with his thumb.

Something about it feels a little off to Harry, a little bit uncomfortable, like it shouldn’t be happening, his gut instincts prickling up at him, but that soon gets forgotten as another wave of heat sweeps through his body.

Somehow, they land on the topic of Harry’s disastrous visit to the zoo for Dudley’s 11th birthday. Tom actually lets out a laugh—his laugh is really nice-sounding, Harry thinks—when Harry tells him about accidentally setting the boa constrictor on his cousin.

Harry laughs too. Other than his punishment of getting locked in the cupboard for the rest of the month, it was a pretty fun memory, and it feels nice to be able to relive it with Tom. Harry’s pretty sure he’s not going to get in trouble for what he did, given Tom’s reaction to the story so far, so he continues. “And then the snake said, thanksss amigo, and slithered away, so I hope he—"

“Harry—” Tom interrupts, looking startled. “You spoke with the snake?”

“Yeah!” Harry grins. “Anyway, I hope he made it to Brazil, I know it’s a long—”

“How long have you been able to speak with snakes?” Tom interrupts again.

“I think I’ve always been able to,” Harry says, thinking back through his childhood and coming across small grass snakes when he was working in Aunt Petunia’s garden during the summers.

Tom’s eyes spark with a sudden, fervent interest, and it almost looks like glowing, dark red coal fires have been lit up inside of his eyes.

“Is that something you... can’t do?” Harry asks tentatively, intuiting from Tom’s uncharacteristic interruptions that it seems like a rare skill. He’d never really given any thought to it, brushing it aside as one of those “weird” things that seemed to always happen around him.

“Actually, I can,” Tom shares with a sharp, pleased smile. “But it’s quite remarkable, Harry; you ought to know that you have the makings of an extraordinary wizard.” His voice is warmer than Harry’s ever heard it before, and his hand tightens around Harry’s thigh, gripping it deeper as his thumb continues moving in slow, rhythmic circles against the fleshy, upper part of Harry’s leg.

The heat Harry had felt in his stomach starts to pool and move lower, and something starts feeling good in a way that is new and unfamiliar.

“You’re quite special, Harry,” Tom murmurs, eyes bright and glowing. “And I’m very glad we’ve gotten to know each other better over fall term. Have the rest of your tea, please.”

Harry nods and gulps down the last of his tea, relishing the feeling of the pleasant burn as it travels down his throat. He feels warm and relaxed all over.

Then, without warning, Tom’s hand shifts upwards and brushes something between Harry’s legs that makes a jolt of electricity surge through him, and all of a sudden, he’s alert again, tension in every limb.

He looks down to see a small bump poking up the fabric of his trousers, and Tom’s thumb and fingers are lightly stroking the area around the bump.

It makes Harry want to let out a whimper, and a wave of dizziness hits him again.

“Harry, do you trust me?” Professor Riddle—no, Tom—asks, leaning in until Harry could see the nice patterns in his pretty red-tinged eyes.

Of course Harry does. No one had ever treated him this nicely before. Any of the apprehension that Harry had felt the first time he was kept after class earlier that fall had long melted away and been replaced by a happy, glowing fondness every time he thought of Professor Riddle.

Maybe it was a - a crush?

Harry blushes at the thought, though he knows there is nothing to be embarrassed about. Who didn’t have a crush on handsome Professor Riddle?

Several of the girls in Harry’s year had declared they were get married to him one day and doodled their combined names in the margin of their parchments with a heart around it, “Tom and Hannah Riddle xoxo”, or “Mr. and Mrs. Tom and Parvati Riddle”, but Harry knows that he’s the one that Tom favors the most.

Harry nods with enthusiasm, trying to let his admiration for his professor shine out of his eyes. Everything feels a bit fuzzy and woozy right now, but he still tries to say as clearly as possible, “Yes, sir,” along with a few more enthusiastic nods.

“Good,” Tom says, moving his hand up to thumb at Harry’s waistband. “Very good. I know you won’t tell anyone, Harry. You’ve never told anyone my secrets,” and his eyes bore into Harry’s as though to confirm.

“Never,” Harry promises, very seriously.

“Very good,” Tom says again. Harry feels cool fingers creep up and lightly brush against his stomach, which is tight with tension.

“What - what are you d—” Harry starts to ask, trying to squirm all the way back in his chair, but Tom interrupts him.

“Hold still.”

Tom’s voice is soft, but it has the underlying edge of command that he uses in class to get all the students to listen to him without ever needing to raise his voice.

Harry immediately stills. To his surprise, Tom pulls down the zipper at the front of Harry’s trousers and tucks his hand under Harry’s underwear to rub directly against his... his prick, of all things.

“Ahh!” Harry exclaims, the warm feeling spreading through his limbs. “What are you doing?” he asks again. It feels good—really good, and it makes him hot all over—but he doesn’t really know what to have expected. He’s never touched himself down there before, other than to pee.

“You’ll see, Harry, you’re doing so well,” Tom replies smoothly, shifting off his armchair and into a kneeling position in front of Harry’s chair. He takes both his hands and places them on Harry’s knees, pushing them apart so that they touch the sides of the armchair.

That’s the last thing Harry hears Tom say for a while, since the next thing he knows, Tom is bending his head forward and placing his mouth on - on Harry’s—

Harry thought the feeling of warmth couldn’t get more intense, but all of a sudden, it feels like his entire body, from the outside, is surrounded by – wrapped in – the same warmth he feels on the inside of his tummy—soft and intense and so so good he thinks he might start crying—and definitely the best thing he’s ever felt in his life.

He feels Tom do something with his mouth, swirling the flat of his tongue around Harry’s prick.

“What - what are - you—” he gasps out with effort, but the words soon fly out of his head and he’s unable to focus enough to form words. He can feel the whole bottom half of his body shaking against the chair and twitching upwards involuntarily.

As Tom continues playing with Harry’s prick in his mouth, an intense pressure builds and builds inside of Harry’s belly.

He feels the edge of something sharp – probably Tom’s teeth – graze the side of his prick—it causes a sharp thrill to run through his whole body—and his hips start giving small jerks upwards and his legs kick out against the bottom of his chair. His whole body is trembling in a way he’s never felt it do before. All he feels all over is pressure pressure pressure.

Harry, strangely, feels like there’s something that needs to burst out of him, almost like the feeling of needing to pee, but not quite the same. He has no idea how long this has been going on for, but it feels like hours have passed that he’s been slumped back in his professor’s armchair, sliding down until his bum nearly hangs off the seat, with Tom’s head still moving languidly in between his legs, the intense hot wet of his mouth surrounding Harry from all directions, lapping and lapping at Harry’s prick.

The feeling of needing to pee has only gotten stronger, until it’s on the brink of spilling over.

Harry hears himself crying out and his hips bucking up and his cheeks get wet and his vision goes white and it’s too hot and it’s too much, all at the same time—

Then the most magical feeling blooms out of Harry, and all of a sudden, his whole body is shaking and jerking upwards, as Tom’s hands come up to hold his hips down, and warmth rushes all throughout his body and down towards his prick, and a loud buzzing fills the space between his ears—a white roaring blankness—and he feels himself crying out more than he hears it, and something bright-hot explodes inside of him, and he’s gasping and crying wetly and struggling to breathe in air all at the same time—and then—

—and then—blackness envelops his senses, and then he knows no more.

--

Harry wakes up slowly the next morning, his awareness gradually returning to him. He’s curled up in a ball with sheets covering his head, and the blankets that he’s tucked inside of feel so nice and fluffy and warm, and the bed that he’s lying on feels softer than the one in his room in Gryffindor.

He pulls the covers off from over his head and sits up, still wrapped in the fluffiest blankets he’s ever felt, blinking out at the unfamiliar room. He’s not wearing his glasses, so all he can see are fuzzy dark shapes around the room that could probably be dressers or bookshelves.

Harry doesn’t have long to contemplate where he is, because in the next few seconds, the door clicks open, and a beam of dazzling winter morning sunlight floods into the room as Profess—Tom—enters the room.

Harry’s heartrate quickens, and he widens his eyes in shock as memories of yesterday evening come rushing back to him—did he—did he fall asleep in Tom’s sitting room by accident? Is that where he is right now, still in his professor’s private quarters?

His face flushes red as he thinks about how embarrassing it is to have fallen asleep in the middle of a conversation with Tom, like a little kid trying to stay up past their bedtime.

Before Harry can jump into apologies, Tom crosses the room and sits down on the edge of the bed and rests a large, reassuring hand on the side of Harry’s neck. “Good morning, Harry,” he says, a new warmth in his voice that Harry hadn’t heard before. “You got a little tired there last night, we have to make sure not to keep you up so late next time.”

Harry blinks over at Tom, whose face is blurry but no less handsome, and something in his stomach flutters.

Tom shifts closer, and his hand slides down from Harry’s neck and under the blankets that Harry is wrapped in, slowly peeling them away from Harry’s body.

Harry flushes an even deeper and hotter red as he glances down and sees that his chest is bare—in fact, he doesn’t have bottoms on either, only his underwear.

“Your flush is... exquisite,” Tom murmurs in so soft a tone that Harry has to strain to hear him, raising a hand to cradle Harry under the chin. He extends a single finger to rest on Harry’s lower lip, pulling it down and away from his gum.

The fluttery, twisty feeling returns to Harry’s stomach.

“Your clothes are folded up at the foot of the bed,” Tom says. “And your glasses are here.” He hands Harry his glasses from the bedside table. “You should get washed up and return to your dorm. Please try to make some headway on your holiday assignments today, and we can have tea again in a couple of days.”

Then he places a soft kiss on the top of Harry’s messy hair and leaves Harry to get himself dressed with shaking hands.

Harry’s head feels kind of groggy still, and he’s not really sure what happened the night before—when he thinks back to sitting in the armchair and Tom kneeling down and coming closer... and closer... it makes him feel kind of funny on the inside—a bit shaky and uneasy, and he’s not really sure why.

But Tom has shown him nothing but kindness all term, so Harry knows there’s nothing that he should be feeling uneasy about.

At least Tom doesn’t seem upset at him—Harry doesn’t think so anyway—which is all that matters to him at the moment.

--

By the time Harry has grabbed some breakfast from the empty Great Hall, the sluggish, groggy feeling has faded, and been replaced by a bubbly, glowing happiness.

On the way back to his dorm, Harry feels like he’s walking on air, a giddy feeling flooding through his whole body and threatening to burst out of him in an excited peal of laughter. But that would be too childish or girly to do, so he doesn’t squeal out loud—he just holds it in, his heart beating so fast out of excitement that he feels like he’s about to burst open.

Last night proved it, didn’t it? That he, Harry, is Professor Riddle’s favorite. Harry had felt so close to Tom, and so treasured, and so trusted.

When the time he gets back to his dorm, he collapses on his bed in the empty room, suddenly feeling very drained and ready for a long nap, despite just waking up from a full night’s sleep.

When he wakes up again, it’s already dark outside.

Chapter Text

As promised, Tom invites Harry back over in a few days. After the biggest Christmas feast that Harry has seen in his life, he is stuffed silly and drowsy-happy, and he’s wandering his way back to Gryffindor tower ready to take a late-afternoon nap, when Tom finds him in the corridor and asks if Harry wants to join him for the evening.

Harry perks up. He’s thrilled to see that they’re once again heading down the hidden corridor to Tom’s quarters instead of to the Defense classroom.

When they get inside, Harry, feeling bold and giddy from the happiness of it being Christmas Day, as well as the novelty of having gotten presents that morning, decides he wants to sit closer to Tom. Without waiting for an invitation to sit, he plops himself on the soft rug next to Tom’s feet instead of sitting in the other armchair, sitting cross-legged with his knees brought up to his chest and his arms circled around them.

Tom doesn’t say anything other than, “Tell me about what you got for Christmas, Harry,” reaching a hand out to stroke at Harry’s hair.

Harry smiles to himself, relaxing into the comforting slide of gentle fingers through his hair.

As he happily prattles on about his Christmas presents, the first ones he’d gotten in his life, he starts feeling more at home, even more at ease with Tom than he had felt before, and gradually starts leaning against Tom’s lower leg.

“Thank you for the rare quills. It’s quite the set of collector’s items,” Tom says, a small smile playing about his lips, still combing his fingers through Harry’s messy hair. “I hope you know you didn’t need to get me anything.”

Harry ducks his head to hide his blush, fiddling with the front of his brand-new Weasley jumper. Since when did he start getting butterflies in his stomach every time Tom said something nice to him? Biting down on his bottom lip does nothing to stop a smile from spreading widely across his face.

“I have something for you too, Harry,” Tom says softly. He flicks his hand, and a neatly wrapped box floats into Harry’s lap.

Harry opens the box. Inside are what looks like papers of varying age, some new and crisper, some older and faded—as he looks more closely, he realizes that they’re school records going back at least the last century.

Class rankings, OWL and NEWT results, Quidditch rosters, school commendations like Prefect and Head Boy or Girl, recommendation letters written by Hogwarts professors that were kept on file.

Evans, Lily... Potter, James... Potter, Fleamont... Black, Dorea... Braithewaite, Euphemia... Potter, Charlus, and so on, until the names start to blur before Harry’s eyes. Why is that Harry’s eyes are starting to get blurry? He rubs at them under the lenses of his glasses, and he feels a bit of moisture gets on his fingertips.

Without looking up, he opens and closes his eyes slowly, trying to blink away the blurriness.

“P-professor?” he asks, when he’s next able to find his voice.

“You can call me Tom,” his professor replies, in a low voice that soothes Harry’s jagged nerves.

“Thank you,” Harry whispers, still looking down at the papers in his lap, trying to keep his fingers from trembling.

“These are all the family members of yours that I could find who attended Hogwarts in the last century,” Tom explains. “Rubeus asked me if I had any photographs of your parents for the photo album he was compiling, and sadly, I did not, but I was able to find copies of school records.”

“Th-thank you,” Harry stammers out, holding the papers to his chest, a squeezing feeling inside that he can’t remember feeling before.

The rest of the night passes in a haze. Harry can hardly remember what topics they talked about, but he does remember at some point, Tom slipping his hands under Harry’s arms and pulling him up to sit on his lap.

He remembers being held and feeling warm and safe and cared for, and Tom’s hand slipping up under Harry’s shirt and brushing cool fingers across his chest and over his belly. He remembers the same feeling of warmth pooling inside of his stomach that happened that time that Tom had touched him a few nights ago.

Before long, Tom slips his other hand under Harry’s shirt, both of them moving against his hot, flushed skin, leaving a cool trail everywhere they ran across his skin, around his sides, his lower back, the front of his chest.

Once, one of Tom’s hands comes up to thumb at his nipple, which sends an electric jolt through Harry, who gives a sudden jerk and shudder inside of Tom’s arms. Harry feels a tightening feeling inside of his pants, like the fabric is squeezing him in.

There’s somehow not enough room inside of his trousers, and after some time, Harry looks down, and there’s a bump poking up from inside the front seam.

He whimpers a bit, bucking his hips upwards, not quite sure what he’s seeking, but he feels a straining, yearning sensation that tells him he should be seeking something—and that Tom would know what to do.

Tom chuckles softly against the back of his head. “Not to worry, Harry, we’ll get there soon... you’re being so good for me... soon, soon,” he promises.

A warm huff of breath puffs across Harry’s ear, and gradually, Harry feels his head being turned up and to the side and then Tom tilting downwards to kiss him.

It’s more than just a kiss, Harry thinks. It’s one of the best things he’s ever felt. It’s warm everywhere, and the inside of Tom’s mouth is so soft and nice, and it makes the tight aching feeling inside of Harry’s belly swell and swell until it feels like his entire lower body aches in a strange way.

He feels Tom tighten his grip around him, and gradually, one of his hands starts trailing downwards, the smooth pads of his fingertips running down the center of Harry’s stomach until it reaches his waistband. There, it pauses for a few moments, playing with the button at the top of Harry’s jeans, then runs side to side along the top edge of his jeans, occasionally dipping down inside of his pants a little bit.

The yearning feeling only grows stronger inside of him, and Harry lets out another involuntary whimper. When Tom pulls out of the kiss, Harry chances another peek down, and sees the bump is sticking out higher—

Then Tom is pulling down his zipper, and his hand slips lower and lower until it wraps around his prick, which Harry sees is standing straight up. He’s never seen it completely stiff like that before, he thinks, as another wave of warmth rolls through his stomach.

Harry lets out a startled cry as Tom starts sliding his hand up and down, and this—this—this is exactly what he had been waiting for the last few days to get to experience again—more than anything else he’s wanted in his life, he’s wanted this.

Harry’s eyes roll back in his head as he slumps back against Tom’s chest. He feels the cool air of the sitting room hit his fevered skin as Tom tugs his trousers all the way off and tugs out his prick from his pants.

It’s the best thing Harry’s ever felt in his life, Tom’s hand moving up and down on his prick and Tom’s mouth—hot and wet—on the back of Harry’s neck. He’s never felt so special or cherished before, or made to feel this nice.

Tom whispers in Harry’s ear how good – good – so good Harry is doing as he continues holding Harry tight on his lap and tugging and tugging at his prick until Harry again falls apart in Tom’s arms.

--

The next morning when Harry wakes up, he’s back in his dorm room, but he has no idea how he got back there.

The day stretches before him, with nowhere that he needs to be. After a couple of hours of idly lounging around his bed—and what a luxury that is, as Aunt Petunia never let him sleep in even on the holidays, not when there were chores to be done—Harry figures he should get a start on his holiday assignments, like his professor had told him to, so he grabs his bag and heads to the library.

There’s a dreamy, floaty feeling that’s following Harry around like a happy cloud the rest of the day.

No matter how hard he tries, he can’t concentrate on his homework assignments, because his mind always drifts back to daydreaming about Professor Riddle. About Tom. About his pretty eyes and his perfect lips and his nice, smooth hands that Harry wants touching all over him again, especially—Harry blushes—down there.

Harry feels a sudden tightness inside of his pants and squirms in his seat, wondering what’s going on and what the funny new feeling is. The library is completely empty, but he still feels a little bit self-conscious about pushing his chair back and glancing down at his crotch.

He sees something very similar to the night before—a small bump poking up right around his zipper—and, looking around furtively, even though he knows no one else is there—he tries quickly brushing his hand over the bump.

A feeling of warmth—the same one he remembers from last night—floods through his whole body and an unintentional whine leaves his lips. It feels really nice and warm deep down in his stomach in the same way that Harry remembers.

He darts his eyes around the library again, feeling suddenly awkward about being out in the open. He should probably head back to his room, shouldn’t he?

Shifting his robes over the front of his trousers to hide the embarrassing bump at the front of it, he begins the walk back to his dorm room

--

At night, Harry tries to figure out what’s going on with his body. He knows he feels warm and flushed and a certain... tightness in his pants when he thinks about Tom.

He pushes a hand over his crotch and feels a familiar stiffness in his prick. He tries to rub himself the way he remembers Tom touching him, but it’s not the same.

Squeezing his prick between his fingers and moving it back and forth... it all feels nice, but not as nice as when his professor does it.

He tries rolling the foreskin back and feels the liquid leaking from the tip. Is that pee?, he wonders. That’d be kind of gross if so. But it doesn’t seem like pee. At least he hopes not.

He gives up after a while, knowing that he won’t be able to make it feel as nice as the night before.

Only Professor Riddle—Tom—could make him feel that way.

--

Harry hasn’t been sure what to do with the Invisibility Cloak he got for Christmas, but now that he thinks about it, he thinks he found the perfect use for it. He can use it to sneak down to visit his professor once school is in term again.

The next night, Harry decides to try out the Invisibility Cloak. Before Hermione left for winter break, she had impressed upon Harry how important it was that he find out who Nicholas Flamel is, but he hadn’t had much luck looking in the Restricted Section. The night after, he’s been wandering the other parts of the school for a couple of hours, slipping in and out of dusty hallways and deserted classrooms, when he finds the Mirror of Erised. For the next several nights, he returns to the same classroom until he’s caught by Professor Dumbledore.

When the Headmaster asks Harry what he sees in the Mirror, he only tells Dumbledore the partial truth. His parents, he says, omitting that he also sees Tom standing in the midst of his smiling, waving family, holding up Harry  carried at his hip, his strong, lean arms wrapped securely under Harry’s bum, dropping the occasional kiss on top of Harry’s head.

Something in him tells him that he can’t let anyone know about his special connection with Tom. He thinks back to Hannah and Parvati and more half of the school that has a crush on their professor, and how much they would surely gossip if they caught even a whiff of Harry’s close connection with the professor that everyone thinks is dreamy and handsome.

For once, Harry has something nice and wonderful and enviable – all to himself – something that everyone else wants, when he’s never had anything special of his own before, and he can’t bear to let anyone else find out or try to take it away from him.

--

On the eve of the new year, Harry again finds himself in Tom’s sitting room. This time, Harry is surprised to find a picnic spread atop of a soft checkered blanket in front of the fireplace, with a variety of biscuits and jams and cheeses spread out in front of them.

He’s not sure where to sit down, so he waits for Tom to sit down first, on one side of the picnic blanket, long legs stretched out in front of the fireplace, in the perfect spot to soak up all the warmth from the fire, like a snake sunning itself on a warm rock.

Harry hovers awkwardly by the side of the fireplace, until Tom grabs his hand and pulls him down into his lap, facing outwards, tightening his arms around Harry’s side.

“Have some snacks, please, Harry,” Tom offers.

Harry happily reaches for some biscuits. He much prefers sitting on his professor’s warm lap and being held by him than sitting in their separate chairs. Held with his back against Tom’s chest, the top of Harry’s head comes up to just below Tom’s neck, and he feels Tom bending his head down to nuzzle his mouth against the top of Harry’s hair.

Tom then asks Harry how his winter break assignments are coming along.

Harry nibbles on the biscuits while chatting with his professor about the homework assignments and extra reading that he did over break. Tom’s hands slip under Harry’s shirt again, and roam across Harry’s chest and back as they’re chatting. Harry feels safe and warm inside of Tom’s large, sturdy arms encircling him. He never wants this feeling to end.

“Do you know who Nicolas Flamel is?” Harry asks at some point.

His professor’s arms tense around him just the slightest bit.

“Where did hear about Nicolas Flamel?” he asks Harry in a careful, measured tone.

“Hagrid mentioned him,” Harry admits, telling Tom the story about how he, Hermione, and Ron suspected that Snape was going after something in the school, something to do with Nicolas Flamel.

Tom gives a thoughtful hum. “Where have you looked?” he asks when Harry’s done sharing his theories.

“We’ve looked in, er...” Harry thinks hard, trying to remember. “...Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, Modern Magical Discoveries, and... um, Recent Developments in Wizardry?”

“Oh, you won’t find him in those,” Tom says, sounding amused.

“You know who he is?” Harry asks, but really, he shouldn’t be surprised. Tom is an actual genius, according to everyone.

“I do.”

Harry waits, but no answers are forthcoming. Finally, Tom suggests, “Try Alchemy Through the Ages.”

“Cool, thanks!”

Harry twists a little bit in Tom’s lap to turn his head around and shoot him a quick smile. Tom smiles back down at him before capturing Harry’s lips in another burning hot and all-consuming kiss that sends a searing wave of heat straight into Harry’s core.

On impulse, Harry twists around in Tom’s lap until he’s facing his front, swinging a leg over Tom’s hip to straddle him, wriggling in place.

He hears a sharp intake of breath, before large hands come down to clamp around his hips, stilling him.

“Harry.” Tom’s voice sounds regretful as he pulls out of the kiss that’s made Harry feel like time’s stood still. He gently strokes Harry’s hair away from his face as he says, “You do realize that once term starts again, when all the other students are back, I cannot devote a similar amount of one-on-one time with you anymore.”

Ice floods Harry’s stomach, and he sits, frozen still, not really wanting to think about life outside their pleasant little bubble during winter break that didn’t feel like real life.

“That doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to see each other at all,” Tom explains gently. “It just means we need to be more... careful, now that the rest of your classmates are back. We wouldn’t want anyone to think that I’m giving you any special treatment, would we? That wouldn’t be fair to the others.”

Harry shakes his head silently, biting his bottom lip. He understands what Tom means. About needing to be discrete. Deep down in his gut, he’d actually been expecting some version of this cautionary warning as soon as he’d stayed over after the first night. Even though he’s never really had any adult figures in his life, he’s figured out enough from Aunt Petunia warning Dudley away from certain types of adults that no normal way of interacting with an adult involved them putting their hands all over your private parts.

But Harry likes Tom, and the time he spends together with Tom is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and he doesn’t care if it’s thought of as normal or proper.

Harry, who’s only ever been called a freak his entire life, has never been considered normal anyway, and he doesn’t see why he needs to start now.

“I can—” Harry swallows. “—I can use my invisibility cloak if you want. To come see you.”

“I’ll let you know if that’s necessary,” Tom responds with a soft smile.

Harry still feels off-kilter, apprehensive about the limited time before the start of term feeling like it’s slipping away between his fingers.

As though able to sense what’s made Harry upset, Tom leans forward into Harry and nuzzles at his hair.  “Harry,” he says, his voice weighty with an emotion Harry can’t name. “I’ll let you in on a secret.”

Harry starts squirming a bit again, twisting his head up to see Tom’s face. “Yeah?” he asks. “What is it?”

“Only one other person at school knows this.” Tom’s face is blank and expressionless as he speaks.

Harry perks up, curiosity making him forget his disappointment.

Tom catches Harry’s hopeful glance upwards at him, so he gives him a small smile. “Today is my birthday.”

“Happy birthday!” Harry exclaims, grinning, a bit breathlessly. He feels like his chest is expanding with a bubbly happiness that feels like balloons filling up with more and more air, getting lighter and lighter.

Harry doesn’t have any experience in celebrating birthdays, other than witnessing Dudley’s grubbing for presents every year, but he knows it must mean something special that his professor chose Harry to spend tonight with.

Feeling suddenly daring, he grabs one of Tom’s hands and brings it down to rest against his crotch, right over where a stiff bump is already pushing the seam in the middle of his trousers out.

Tom makes a pleased sound, a soft little sigh in Harry’s ear.

Then his hand sets quickly to work, unbuttoning Harry’s trousers and pushing down the front of his underwear. Harry resolves to keep his eyes open the entire time, wanting to commit the whole thing to memory, wanting to see exactly what Tom does that makes him feel so good.

Significantly less nervous and overwhelmed now that they’ve done this twice already, Harry watches as Tom grasps Harry’s cock between his thumb and first two fingers and slides upwards, pushing Harry’s foreskin up around his tip and giving it a bit of a squeeze at the top.

He watches, with wide eyes, as a drop of clear liquid emerges from the little slit at the end of his prick. He flushes hot, all of a sudden, really hoping that it’s not pee, because that would be really embarrassing.

As if able to tell what Harry’s thinking, Tom chuckles in his ear. “What you see here is precome. Your body produces it whenever you get stimulated – excited – to provide extra lubrication,” Tom explains, in a low breathy voice, tickling Harry’s ear. “It’s perfectly natural. It actually tastes pretty nice, if you want to try some?”

He doesn’t wait for Harry to answer before he presses his fingertip into Harry’s small slit, and catches a big fat bead of the clear liquid, then brings it up to Harry’s mouth, pressing it inside. Saltiness hits his tongue.

“It just tastes like salt,” Harry mumbles, not understanding what the big deal is.

Held this close to Tom’s chest, he feels Tom’s silent chuckle reverberate through him. “That’s what it’s supposed to taste like,” he says, adding, “We’ll get you used to the taste soon enough.”

He brings his hand down and smears the drops of liquid that have continued leaking out of Harry’s slit all over the tip of Harry’s prick, making it shiny and wet and feel really really nice.

Tom’s other hand snakes under Harry’s shirt and drags upwards until it reaches his nipple and tweaks it a little bit, sending more jolts of heat coursing through Harry’s body.

His body feels like it’s burning up, as Tom’s hand continues moving over his prick, smearing the silky, glistening precome down the length to the base, before moving back up.

The smooth, confident motion of Tom’s hand stroking him makes Harry feel like, for the first time in his life, that someone can take care of all of Harry’s worries and make them melt away. His eyes flutter shut as he slumps against Tom’s chest and gives into the boneless, floating feeling that he feels spreading through his whole body.

He vaguely wonders how he had gotten so lucky this year—managing to somehow catch Tom’s attention—Tom, who looks out for him and seems to care about him and can make Harry feel so, so good.

As if able to hear Harry’s thoughts, Tom murmurs in his ear a steady stream of, you’re so good for me, Harry, you’re doing so well – you’re good – you’re good, you’re so good, as Harry tenses and whimpers against Tom’s chest.

Tom adds a twist at the top of Harry’s prick every time he strokes upwards that sends lightning shocks jolting through Harry’s body with every upstroke.

He can hear his own breathing becoming heavier and more ragged as his hips thrust up jerkily, clumsily, into the tight grip of Tom’s fingers, and he can feel the fire in his veins start to build and build and build.

Pretty soon, Harry feels himself seizing up in the same manner as he had the last two times, as the syrupy warmth floods his whole body and his eyes squeeze shut and he vaguely registers himself crying out again and again as Tom wrests pure pleasure out of his body, ending in an intensely pleasurable spot around his prick.

In a half-awake state, behind droopy eyes, he watches as Tom brings his hand up to his own mouth, covered in some type of milky, cloudy-looking liquid, and lick it off.

Chapter Text

Harry is apprehensive about the start of term. He’s afraid that, once term starts, Tom won’t pay as much attention to him as he did during winter break. The holiday break had definitely been the best two weeks of his life.

He tries his best to think of Tom as ‘Professor Riddle’ during classes... not Tom, not Tom, don’t ever call him that by accident, don’t slip up during class and ruin everything.

By the time Harry gets called to meet with Tom at the end of the first week after break ends, he’s about to burst out of his skin.

He enters the empty classroom with some amount of trepidation, not sure how to behave, how to act, now that the rest of school is back and it isn’t just the two of them in their own separate world anymore.

Tom gives him a slight smile and hands him a steaming cup of sweet, milky tea, and all of a sudden, all is right with the world again.

The warmth of the tea fills Harry up from the inside and soothes his roiling emotions. He tells himself that even if he can’t get Tom all to himself anymore, now that term has resumed, he still has the sanctuary of Tom’s office and the comfort of knowing that here – locked away from the rest of the world – it’s still just the two of them.

Tom can tell that something is off. “Come here, Harry,” he says, patting his lap.

Harry happily sets down his cup and climbs into Tom’s lap, snuggling against his chest. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he murmurs, stroking Harry’s messy hair, as Harry wraps his arms around Tom’s broad shoulders and tucks his face into the soft place where Tom’s neck meets the slope of his shoulder.

“I... I really liked how quiet the castle was during winter break. It feels kind of weird that everyone is back now,” Harry mumbles into the side of Tom’s neck.

“A little overwhelming?” Tom asks, placing one of his hands on Harry’s lower back and moving it around in comforting circles.

Harry nods into the crook of Tom’s neck. As Harry is talking, Tom continues stroking the small of his back, then moves his other hand to Harry’s upper thigh and starts stroking his leg through his robes, and Harry can feel a certain tightness in the spot between his legs building and building.

He desperately wants Tom to touch that spot, but he doesn’t dare ask. He’s still a little cautious, a bit unsure of himself, after Tom had said they couldn’t spend as much time together once school starts, and he wouldn’t want to push his luck.

Instead, he just keeps talking, stammering a little bit with the effort of continuing to talk like everything’s normal, like he feels normal instead of burning up from the inside out from the hot rush of blood that’s sweeping through his body.

He wants, so badly, for Tom to touch him in the same way he did before, like he did over winter break.

Tom continues to stroke Harry’s leg, thumb rubbing along the crease where his leg meets his hip, and Harry wills it to get closer and closer to where he actually wants Tom to rub, in the spot in between his legs, right in the center where Tom made him feel so good their last few times together.

Without warning, Tom lifts Harry under the bum and spins him around his lap to face forward, so that Harry’s legs are dangling in the space between Tom’s spread legs. Tom slowly drags his hand down the front of Harry’s robes, parting them, then pushes his other hand down the front of Harry’s trousers, until it grasps his prick, tightening the first few fingers of his hand around it, rolling it into full hardness.

“Sit here, yes, right here,” Tom murmurs with a soft moan, pulling Harry in so that he’s sitting with his back right against his chest.

He rubs his hips against the back of Harry’s legs, and Harry gasps and bucks his hips up the faster that Tom’s hand is tugging on his prick, and he hears his professor’s breathing go uneven too. A firm, unyielding hand tightens around Harry’s left hip and presses his bum downwards against Tom’s lap.

There’s something strange—something firm—digging against his back, Harry notices, but he doesn’t give it much thought, too focused on the burning hot, overwhelming sensations flaring through his arms and legs, down to the ends of his toes and the very tips of his fingers.

Before long, the feeling of warmth and pleasure and release floods through Harry again as he shudders and cries out with mixed bliss and relief, feeling safe and protected and caged in within Tom’s arms.

“Very good, Harry,” Tom murmurs, and kisses the top of Harry’s head.

Harry falls into a light doze, in Tom’s arms, right at his desk.

When he wakes up, his prick has been completely tucked back inside of his pants, and his robes are done up. He’s still sitting on Tom’s lap, held tight by Tom’s right arm, while Tom’s other arm is resting on the desk in front of them, grading his way through his students’ homework assignments.

--

Tom continues to touch and kiss Harry all over when his office hours are done and the door to his office is securely locked, but he’s now started to first remove all of Harry’s clothes, rather than just unzip his trousers.

At first, Harry got a strange feeling in his stomach that his professor wanted to see him and kiss him all over while he was fully naked, but now, just the very thought of it makes him excited. It’s their secret, Tom had told Harry in his velvet-soft way, and it gives Harry a thrill and makes him feel all tingly inside, somewhere deep inside his stomach.

Harry’s naked, as was usual these days, legs dangling off the side of Tom’s desk.

Tom mouths at his bare thighs, at his tummy, and then he put his mouth over Harry’s stiff cock.

Harry sometimes wonders if this means they’re going to get married someday. It’s funny to think about him married to Professor Riddle, when half the girls at the school want to do so, but if this is what people who are married to each other do, then why wouldn’t they be, one day?

After that nice feeling that feels like something inside him is bursting (he’s since learned that it’s called an orgasm), he usually gets so drowsy that he falls into a brief doze afterwards. As he drifts off on Tom’s lap, his professor pulls his sleeping form more tightly to his chest and passes the time grading papers until Harry regains consciousness. Harry thinks this might be his favorite part, being held like this, afterwards.

The rest of their winter continues onward like this, Harry being called into Tom’s office every few days during the few hours’ worth of free time between the end of dinner and the start of curfew.

It’s a rather peaceful start to spring, with the exception of the time that Harry had peeked into Hagrid’s hut and saw that he was raising a baby dragon in the hearth.

Harry starts telling Tom about the half-baked plan he had put together with Ron to rescue the dragon and save Hagrid from getting into trouble for having an illegal dragon.

“Ron’s writing to his brother Charlie, and we’re going to take Norbert and meet Charlie and his friends at the top of the Astronomy—"

“Absolutely not,” Tom frowns, looking down at Harry with disbelief in his eyes. “I’ve never heard of a more absurd proposition. Why in the world would you ever think—” he gives a light scoff, “—that it’s your responsibility to bail out adults from the failure of their own decisions?”

He takes a pause to stroke Harry’s hair back from his face, his dark gaze softening as he runs his gaze past Harry’s eyes and towards his scar. “Harry, I want you to know that fixing other people’s messes should never be your burden in the first place.”

Harry sighs and pretends to look put out, but he’s secretly feeling relieved on the inside that this isn’t his problem that he needs to spend the next few weeks fretting about.

A few days later, Harry hears a secondhand report of Hagrid’s house burning down.

But Tom was right, let the adults take care of it. Harry glows with the happy realization that he finally has that one person in his life who cares enough to look out for him and hold him dear.

--

One time, Harry doesn’t fall asleep right away afterwards. He’s sitting slumped over in Tom’s lap facing him, resting his head against Tom’s chest, and as he wriggles his bare bum against Tom’s strong, firm thighs, he feels something thick and hard and poking up against his bum.

In a flash of insight, Harry wonders... he wonders if... it works the same for Tom as it does for himself.

Tom catches him peeking downwards.

“Is there something you’d like to ask of me?” he remarks in an amused tone.

Harry ducks his head shyly.

“Now, now, none of that.”

“Do you...?” he asks, feeling like he's unable to fully raise his eyes. “Does it work the same way for you?”

Tom hums, and cups his hands around the back of Harry’s bum and gives it a light squeeze.

“You may try, Harry, if you wish,” he says in an encouraging manner.

Harry doesn’t know where to get started, but he’s not a Gryffindor for nothing. He slides off of Tom’s lap and kneels in front of him on the cold wooden ground of the classroom, shivering a little bit without his clothes on.

He reaches trembling fingers to Tom’s belt, unbuckling it, then slides Tom’s zipper down.

Underneath, Tom is wearing silky black pants, the fanciest pair that Harry’s ever seen, like the kind he glimpsed on the male underwear models in Aunt Petunia’s fashion magazines.

There’s a bulge running underneath the black silk—as long as Harry’s favorite quill, and as thick as his wrist.

“Is that—" Harry swallows, “Is that your—can I touch it?"

“Go on,” Tom murmurs, dark eyes staring unblinkingly into Harry’s, as though daring him to continue.

Harry takes a shaky breath inwards and reaches his hand over to press down on the thick length. Then he wraps his fingers around the cloth-covered bulge and squeezes down a little bit, hearing Tom’s breath hitch.

“Can I take it out?” he asks, feeling more confident.

“Yes, you may take my cock out,” Tom says, this time in a mildly teasing tone. Then he casts a warming charm at Harry and a cushioning spell under his knees, for which Harry feels immensely grateful.

When he slides the waistband of Tom’s pants down to reveal his cock, his jaw drops at how intimidating it looks.

Harry’s never seen one up close before, from just a few inches away. Even his own, he hasn’t seen this closely. He sees flushed veins running all over the surface, and a rosy tip with a leaking slit peeking out of a thick, tanned foreskin. He runs a curious finger up the line of Tom’s cock, and feels pleased as he watches it jump into his touch.

“Now lick it,” Tom murmurs.

Harry darts his tongue out and leans forward tentatively, not sure what to expect.

The first touch of the tip of Tom’s cock to Harry’s tongue makes him feel amazing—a surge of accomplishment and, somehow, the feeling of power—and he starts feeling his own prick start to stir and get stiff again.

The taste is salty—and it actually it does taste really nice, like Tom had promised the first time he’d made Harry taste his own. Precome, he had called it.

“Okay, fine,” Harry admits after a few seconds of running his tongue against the beads of clear, salty liquid leaking out of Tom’s slit. “It does taste good.”

Tom chuckles. “I wouldn’t lie you to, Harry.”

Harry just sticks his tongue out further, sliding the tip of his tongue up and down against Tom’s slit.

“I’m going to make you suck on it now,” Tom says, voice a bit breathier than Harry usually hears it, and Harry looks back up at him and nods.

Tom holds Harry’s head still, pulling at the hair at the back of Harry’s head inside of his firm, inflexible grasp.

Slowly, he guides his cock in between Harry’s lips.

Tom can only guide it in about a third of the way before Harry starts quietly gagging, and so he keeps only the tip at the edge of Harry’s mouth, sitting warm and heavy on his tongue.

“Wrap your lips around your teeth now,” Tom instructs. “And use your hands for the rest of it that you can’t fit into your mouth.”

Harry brings his hands up to wrap around the rest of the length of Tom’s cock that’s not in his mouth. Tom’s cock is so thick that neither one of his hands is able to close all the way around. 

From seeing Tom do this to him so many times, Harry has a vague idea of what he should do. He squeezes his fingers down, which draws out a stuttered moan from Tom, then starts sliding both his hands up and down, watching fascinated, close up, as the thick foreskin slides over Tom’s large, wide cock as it’s pushing inwards in small, shallow thrusts into his mouth.

Harry eventually loses himself in the rhythm of Tom pressing his cock into his mouth, and he loses track of time of how long he’s been kneeling there, trying to lap up as much of the salty-delicious-silky liquid leaking out of the tip of Tom’s cock. His jaw starts to ache somewhat, but his own dripping prick, in between his own legs, feels nice and tingly enough from sucking on Tom’s cock that he doesn’t want to stop.

At some point, Harry feels the width of Tom’s cock swell up even more, becoming even thicker inside of his mouth and within his grasp, pushing outwards against his grip.

All of a sudden, the warm hard length inside of his mouth starts pulsing, and a bitter-salty-hot gush of liquid floods the inside of his mouth. Harry starts coughing and choking a little bit with the strain of keeping his mouth open as Tom thrusts inwards deeper than he had done before, cutting off Harry’s air supply as the thick, bitter liquid continues filling the back of mouth.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, when Harry’s jaw about to cramp up with the effort of keeping it stretched as wide open as it can go, Tom’s cock starts softening and slipping out of the front of Harry’s mouth. A hot dribble of his come spills out onto Harry’s chin, and Tom runs a finger through it and pushes it back inside of Harry’s lips.

“Swallow,” he instructs. Harry wants to choke and gag and throw up, but he listens to Tom and swallows instead, forcing the mouthful of bitter come down his throat, making a face at the taste.

Tom makes Harry jerk himself off, kneeling at his feet, and it doesn’t take Harry more than a few strokes to make himself come.

--

Now that Harry’s successfully done it once, Tom wants Harry to suck him off all the time now. Harry isn’t tall enough to do it from a kneeling position while Tom is standing up, so Tom always sits in his chair and has Harry kneel in front of it and suck him down.

Harry gradually gets better at fitting more of Tom’s cock inside of his mouth. He can now get it to touch the back of his throat, and even if it makes him gag and cough, and tears to sting his eyes, he tries his very very best to keep his mouth stretched open the widest that he can, because he knows that Tom likes it, and he wants nothing more than to make Tom happy.

He feels especially warm on the inside when Tom strokes his hair and murmurs in his rich, deep voice, “Very good, Harry, good, good, you’re doing so well,” and Harry takes that feeling and hugs himself in it and wraps it around his heart forever.

Harry’s jaw always starts aching after a few minutes of keeping it stretched around the thick length of Tom’s cock, but he gets used to the feeling and comes to like it after a while. His own prick certainly seeks to like it when he’s sucking on Tom’s cock. Harry can feel it swelling until it stands straight up in the air and his arousal dripping from the tip. But he doesn’t get to touch himself until Tom is done, since he has to keep both his hands wrapped around the base of Tom’s cock, the part that can’t fit down his throat, gripping it with his fingers that still don’t go all the way around the width of it.

Once, another student comes in just at the end of office hours while Harry is absorbed in sucking on the end of Tom’s cock. He had to end up scrambling backwards to hide all the way under the desk, the first few inches of Tom’s cock still stuffed in his mouth, and has to sit very still for the better part of an hour, kneeling on the hard floor and breathing quietly out of his nose into Tom’s crotch, until the 6th year student got done asking all his questions about next year’s NEWT requirements.

“Honestly, who asks about next year’s NEWTS?” Harry asks indignantly, massaging his hoarse throat and aching jaw once Tom’s done coming down his throat, and Tom chuckles at him.

“If only you had been sorted into Slytherin House,” Tom murmurs, crinkling the edges of his eyes with fondness, combing his fingers through Harry’s hair.

Chapter Text

Spring break arrives at last, and they’re almost entirely alone in the castle again.

Harry lets out a breath he didn’t even know he’s been holding in over the last few months. He’s now free to wander back into Tom’s private quarters and spend the whole day there.

Mostly, he works on his homework assignments on the rug by the fireplace, or tries to read. When he gets sleepy, he crawls into Tom’s lap or slumps against Tom’s leg and closes his eyes for a nap.

Sometimes when he’s sitting or lying curled up on Tom’s lap, Tom cups his large, smooth hands underneath Harry’s bum and parts his cheeks and rubs his stiff cock in the space in between, sliding it up and down in the crevice.

Harry hears Tom mumbling to himself about being inside, mouthing at the back of Harry’s neck.

“What do you mean?” Harry asks, too curious to pretend he hadn’t heard anything.

Tom looks down at him, as though considering something. “Harry, can I try something?” he asks.

“Of course, Tom,” Harry says, pressing his face into Tom’s neck, then adds, “Professor Riddle, sir,” with a cheeky grin that he knows Tom can’t see. Even if Tom hadn’t asked, Harry can’t imagine saying no. He’s never once said no to Tom.

Tom whispers a few spells, and Harry feels a cool sensation tickle his bum that makes him squirm a bit in Tom’s lap. Then he feels something press firm against his bum—it feels wet and slick—it’s poking at him in a weird way—and then gets pushed inside of him.

Harry gasps out loud.

It feels really weird. Harry figures he should let Tom know in case it’s not supposed to feel that way. Everything else they’ve done together has felt nice, so nice. “Is it, um,” he asks. “Is this supposed to feel weird?”

“It can, but you’ll get accustomed to it. You’ll very much grow to like it. Like everything else we do. I promise,” Tom says, soft and encouraging. “Tell me if it starts to hurt.”

Harry shakes his head. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Good,” Tom says, stroking at the back of Harry’s head with one of his hands. “It’s just one of my fingers. Relax, Harry, breathe and relax into it, you’re doing good.”

Tom’s finger is still poking and prodding at him this entire time. Harry doesn’t know how he’s supposed to relax. It feels so weird, and kind of dirty. It’s supposed to be dirty down there, isn’t it? Maybe he should ask Tom. “Isn’t it kind of dirty there?” Harry asks, a bit nervous about the answer.

Tom shushes him and drops a soothing kiss to the top of Harry’s head. “I cast a cleansing charm. Don’t worry, Harry, it’s perfectly clean. Now hold still,” he says, and Harry feels an even bigger wider thing press against his bum, stretching his skin out even out, and start to push inside.

Harry scrunches his face against the discomfort. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t feel great. He doesn’t know why Tom wants to poke inside of his bum all of a sudden. He likes the other things that they do together, and Tom promised he would like it, so he figures he should stick with it.

“You’re doing so well,” Tom murmurs. “That's just two of my fingers. You’re doing so well for having just started today, my dear Harry.”

Harry feels himself melting with the praise and the pet name. Dear, Tom had said. He’d never called Harry ‘dear’ before. No one had. Only Dudley had been called ‘dear’ or ‘dearest’, but no one had considered Harry to be dear to them, before Tom. A bright glow of happiness builds and builds inside of Harry’s chest and fizzles out to all of his limbs, helping him relax much more than before.

He feels Tom shove his fingers in deeper and deeper, twisting them and pressing on all the sensitive skin on the inside.

Then—a jolt of electricity—Harry doesn’t know what happened, but all of a sudden, the strongest most pleasurable hot feeling crashes through his entire body and makes him cry out in shock.

His bum is feeling strangely tingly, and he feels the familiar tight feeling start to gather at his prick, and all of a sudden, Tom’s fingers inside of his bum don’t feel all that weird anymore, and he squirms down on them, willing them to press in harder, to go in deeper, to hit that spot again.

Tom chuckles. “There we are,” he murmurs. “That bundle of nerves in there is called your prostate, Harry,” he explains softly, and then he presses into the same sensitive spot again, sending another jolt of white-hot-electric-heat crashing through Harry’s body.

Harry feels his cheeks wet with what must be tears from the intense feelings of stimulation that Tom is drawing up inside of him, his prick starting to ache from not being touched throughout all of this.

“Too tight,” Harry vaguely hears Tom murmuring. “Still too small and so tight,” but Harry doesn’t know what Tom is talking about.

Harry feels his prick leaking against his stomach. He really needs to touch himself now—all he wants to do is grab his stiff, leaking prick that’s throbbing in time with his heartbeats.

But he doesn’t get the chance to, because as soon as Tom’s fingers again press into that same spot, Harry convulses and he feels a rush of blinding pleasure rush through his body and his vision starts whiting out and the last thing he remembers is shooting out come, hot white globs of it, all over his stomach.

--

Harry’s sprawled out naked on Tom’s bed.

Over spring break, Tom has been letting him stay there some nights, and Harry loves the closeness, the comfort of it—of being able to go to sleep and wake up next to someone he cares about. He can’t remember even once getting cuddled to sleep in his life, so he almost can’t believe he’s able to have someone show him care like this.

Tom’s face hovers over Harry’s prick, peering down at the area between Harry’s legs. The sight of Tom’s intense gaze is causing Harry’s prick to harden and start to stand up straight in the air.

Tom gives a soft tsk and runs cool fingers over the skin around Harry’s prick. A few dark, thin hairs have started to sprout out, though Harry’s groin area is still very bare compared to Tom’s.

Tom whispers a spell at Harry, and he feels a ripping sensation tear through his skin down there, and he cries out in shock from the sudden sharp pain. When he looks down, he sees that all of the hair around his prick has disappeared, and he’s left completely bare again, like he was at the beginning of the school year.

“What did you do?” Harry whimpers, once most of the wave of pain has passed.

“Depilation spell,” Tom murmurs. “It strips all the hair from the area targeted.” He runs the smooth, flat plane of his hand over Harry’s crotch and up his small prick, now soft and floppy from the shock of pain from the spell. “I like you better bare and plain,” he says, and he doesn’t explain after further.

--

“You’d do anything for me, Harry, wouldn’t you?” Tom murmurs, nosing at Harry’s neck, breathing in deeply. Harry, on the other hand, can hardly breathe, with Tom’s large and heavy naked body draped over his smaller one, pressing down on his chest, crushing him into the mattress below them.

Harry nods, eyes still heavy and drowsy with sleep, slowing wiping the grittiness away from his eyes. “Mm, yes,” he mumbles. “Yes, Tom.” He feels his heart swell up with... with something both light and heavy at the same time and also overwhelming and momentous and important...

...and he can hardly breathe with the realization... the realization that... it’s got to be love that he’s feeling, isn’t it?

He loves Tom, he’s sure of it. He wonders if he should tell Tom, how he should tell Tom.

“Good,” Tom murmurs in reply, “I’m so glad to hear that, my dear Harry,” and Harry’s heart swells again until he thinks it’s about to burst. It’s dizzying, this realization, the thought that he could be in love, that he feels like he’s floating above himself, like he’s somehow detached from his body.

Tom rolls off to the side, sitting back on his knees looking down at Harry. Harry looks up at Tom, at his broad, firm chest, perfectly smooth and chiseled, at the flat planes of his stomach where the lines of his abdominal muscles are pushing through, at his handsome carved-marble face with his intense mahogany-tinted dark gaze sweeping over Harry’s naked form, and Harry thinks he can’t imagine anyone in the entire world more handsome than Tom.

I love you, he thinks, not daring to say it out loud yet.

Tom shifts over, positioning himself in between Harry’s legs. He pushes Harry’s knees up so that they’re touching his chest, exposing Harry’s backside to the cool bedroom air.

Harry tenses up, guessing what will come next. He feels the whispered spell clean him out, and then Tom’s finger, coated in silky oil, prod at his entrance, and it still feels weird, even after they’ve been trying it out over the course of the last few days and Harry’s had some time to get used to the idea.

A second finger joins the first one, and soon, both are pressing on the spot inside of Harry that makes fireworks explode behind his eyes.

Then Tom adds a third finger for the first time, and Harry screws his face up with the feeling of something too-big-too-large-too-much being forced inside of him, but Tom keeps pressing on that magical, blindingly-good spot, and Harry’s cock is leaking like crazy all over his stomach so he doesn’t say anything other than, “Ok, ok, I’m ok, I’m ok, ok, ok,” the words spilling out of him like a soothing chant he repeats over and over again to comfort himself.

Tom pats Harry’s tummy, then pulls his fingers out and scoots closer to Harry. Before Harry can register what’s going on, he feels a blunt force pressing at his entrance, and—

(—he lets out a loud whimper, losing his bearings for a brief moment—)

—and it’s so thick too wide too much that it seems impossible that it can fit inside of him... it feels like something the size of a bludger is pressing against his entrance and trying to force its way in, and he can’t imagine how Tom could possibly think it can fit.

The blunt pressure at his entrance, splitting him open, is hurting Harry immensely, and he grits his teeth, trying to choke back a cry.

“Still not ready yet,” Tom murmurs.

Harry feels a violently intense stretch inside of him, like he can’t accommodate any more, like he’s about to be cleaved in two, but Tom continues patting Harry’s stomach and murmuring comforting words and pressing forward and pressing forward until Harry nearly blacks out from the pain.

“Owww, it hurts,” he finally cries, voice so soft he can barely hear himself, not wanting to say anything and have Tom be disappointed in him. His heart clenches inside of his chest, fearing Tom’s disappointment.

Tom stills. He doesn’t continue pushing forward but he doesn’t pull back out. “You’re doing so well for me, Harry, can you hold here for a bit?” he says, rubbing at Harry’s lower belly soothingly. “I’m only about an inch inside of you, you’re just so tense, you’re squeezing so tightly around just the head of my cock, but this feels so nice, Harry, you’re so nice and tight.”

A few choked sobs escape from Harry’s throat as pain wracks his body, but he doesn’t ask Tom to pull back. Instead, Tom holds himself just inside of Harry’s entrance as his shaking dies down and he starts getting used to the size of Tom’s cock inside of him.

Then Harry tilts his head down to see—it’s so strange to see Tom’s cock sticking out of him—only the tip buried inside—entering him—stabbing, impaling him—and Tom brings a hand up and starts stroking the uncovered part of his cock, sliding the thick, veiny foreskin back and forth over the length of his cock that’s not inside of Harry’s body, and Harry feels himself squeezing down tight on the tip of Tom’s cock, blunt and heavy inside of him, even as the pain starts to fade somewhat.

Harry starts fading in and out of awareness, and he doesn’t know how much time has passed that Tom is stroking himself off, with only the tip buried inside of him.

Eventually, he starts to feel the telltale signs of the start of Tom’s orgasm that he now knows to recognize—the hitch in Tom’s breath, his hand speeding up, the swell of the first couple inches of his cock inside of Harry, and then—the swelling and pulsing and twitching that precedes all of Tom’s orgasms.

Harry can feel Tom shooting out his seed; he can feel it inside of his bum—he can feel the hot sticky liquid flood out of Tom’s cock and heat up the sensitive skin just inside of him.

It makes him feel... he’s not sure how it makes him feel. Like he was empty before, in some way he couldn’t name—but now he is full. Like he’s overflowing from the brim with love and—warmth. Like Tom has left something important, something precious, inside of him. Whatever it is, he wants to feel this way again.

“Next time, we’ll go all the way in,” Tom murmurs, before dropping his weight down on Harry’s chest, crushing him against the bed so that it’s hard to breathe again.

Harry nods to himself. Tom is still inside of him. He draws comfort from that part, Tom leaving part of himself inside of him, surely that means Harry didn’t do such an awful job at it, then?

Harry squeezes his bum a little bit, trying to feel all the hot come left inside of him. As Tom’s cock softens, Harry can feel Tom’s spend start to dribble out of him and onto the bed underneath, feeling heavy and syrupy and thick.

He wants to be the best at this. For Tom’s sake, he’s determined to be. He wants to make Tom happy, more than anything. Anything he can give Tom, he would.

Chapter Text

After spring break, Tom keeps trying to get Harry used to taking his whole cock fully inside, to get Harry to enjoy that intense stretch that feels like it’s tearing him in half.

“You’re so tense, dear Harry,” he remarks, running large, soothing hands up and down Harry’s back. “Maybe if something relaxes you first...” he murmurs, then looks like a thought has occurred to him. “Oh yes. I believe I have something that should get you over the psychological hurdle...”

Without further explanation, Tom waves a hand, and the cabinet where he stores his potions supplies flies open. Two vials float over—one with a sky blue liquid inside, and another one pale yellow. Harry wants to show off a little bit, so he reaches out and snatches both out of the air in rapid succession, like he’s catching a snitch.

“Muscle relaxant potion and a cheering elixir,” Tom says, rewarding Harry with a soft smile. “Half a dose of each should do it.”

He gives Harry an expectant look.

Understanding what Tom wants him to do, Harry uncorks both of the bottles and downs half of each, and sets both on the side table next to Tom’s bed. He ends up wiggling a bit in Tom’s lap as he does so, which draws out a sharp hiss from Tom, so he does it again.

Soon, a relaxed, floaty feeling floods all throughout his body and flows thick and sweet through his limbs.

This time, when Tom lays Harry down flat on his bed, he doesn’t tense up. Tom pushes his knees back up to his chest, and all Harry feels is a fuzzy warmth as Tom’s head bends down in between Harry’s legs to suck at his prick, slowly pushing one, then gradually more, of his fingers inside.

Harry doesn’t feel any nervousness or tension this time—only intense pleasure and warmth and a dream-like floatiness as Tom pushes further inside, stretching him out, loosening him up for taking his whole cock.

He feels like he can stay in this warm, perfect place forever, Tom sucking him down and fingers slowly pressing him open.

For the first time, he doesn’t feel swept up in a wave of arousal as his orgasm crashes through him—instead, it feels like he’s cresting in slow-motion.

When Tom resurfaces, he shifts on top of Harry, pushing Harry’s knees closer to his chest, and nudging at Harry’s loosened entrance with his hard length. Harry feels the blunt tip of Tom’s cock pressing down, and he bucks his hips just the slightest, urging Tom in.

Tom doesn’t hesitate and slides in smoothly, until he’s buried fully inside of Harry.

But this time it doesn’t feel like it’s splitting Harry in two—it feels more like the satisfaction of that last puzzle piece slotting into place after working on a hard jigsaw puzzle for days and days. It feels so intense­—yet, Harry is so relaxed all over—the two conflicting instincts resulting in a tangled snarl in Harry’s chest that he tries to ignore in favor of focusing on the pure physicality of Tom being fully inside of him, something that makes him so happy he thinks he could cry.

If Harry thought Tom’s fingers rubbing against his prostate was good, Tom’s cock rubbing against that spot feels so nice it nearly brings him to tears. Tom moves a hand in between them and wraps it around Harry’s prick, stiff and aching to be touched again, rolling it inside of his curled-up fingers in exactly the way that feels best for Harry.

“If only you could see yourself right now, Harry,” Tom murmurs, looking down at Harry with flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “You’re the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen.”

Harry flushes in response.

“Lying back and taking my cock inside of you,” Tom remarks as he pulls back out, then slides back in until he’s bottomed out inside of Harry. “Gorgeous,” he breathes, looking down at Harry with a dark want in his eyes. “It’s enough to drive anyone crazy, to drive the most devout man to sin.”

Harry doesn’t really know what Tom means, but he knows the words mean he’s doing a good job. He bites down on his bottom lip to keep it from trembling too much.

“You are a marvel, Harry, a gift. I thought you were so small that this hadn’t seemed possible, yet you managed it,” Tom says softly, breath ragged, eyes locked on Harry’s, grinding his hips down against him.

Tom’s words, along with the movement of his hand on Harry’s prick and his cock rubbing against the nerves inside of Harry’s arse, light up an uncontrollable fire—red-hot and intense—inside of him.

Tom keeps playing lightly with Harry’s cock, pulling him back from the brink every time he comes close, and Harry doesn’t understand why. He whimpers each time he thinks he’s going to come but Tom stops just before.

“Patience, Harry,” Tom murmurs. “You’ll reach your end at the same time that I do,” he promises him.

Harry can tell when Tom starts getting close, as his breath starts catching and his hips start slamming in harder.

True to his word, Tom tightens his grasp and speeds up his hand until Harry convulses and his eyes roll back as a flood of pleasure surges through his body and he feels like he’s squeezing down hard, so hard, on Tom’s cock buried inside of him.

When Tom finally comes inside of Harry, Harry relishes the flood of hot sticky come filling him up from the inside out; he feels so full and satisfied and like he accomplished something momentous.

Something warm and precious bubbles up from inside him, and he whispers, I love you, so softly that there’s no way that Tom would be able to hear.

--

“You’ve been teaching at Hogwarts for a long time, right?”

“Are you calling me old, Harry?” Tom replies.

“I—” Harry glances up at Tom and realizes that he’s merely teasing. “How old are you anyway?” he asks, momentarily distracted from what he was originally going to ask.

“Let’s just say I’m older than you are,” Tom answers casually, patting Harry’s knee. “Now, what were you planning to ask me?”

“Did you know my parents?” Harry asks in a small voice, dropping his gaze and feeling suddenly self-conscious.

“I did,” Tom says. He places his index finger under Harry’s chin and tilts it up. “You can ask me about your parents anytime,” he says, eyes softening as he looks down at Harry. “I would have given anything to learn more about my parents during my time at Hogwarts.”

“Did they – I mean, your parents – go to Hogwarts too?” Harry asks, suddenly curious about what Tom’s parents were like. It’s a funny thought—he can’t imagine someone like Tom having parents.

“No,” Tom replies. “I never did learn much about them. But I believe we were talking about you. Don’t you want to go ahead and ask me anything?”

Harry feels a bit overwhelmed. He doesn’t even know where to begin asking. “Were they nice? Did – did you like them?” he asks, desperately hoping that Tom thought well of his parents—he can’t think of anything else right now that he wants more than that.

“They were brilliant,” Tom says softly. “Top grades in their year, Head Boy and Head Girl. Your father was the star of the Quidditch team. He was a very promising duelist, and I have high hopes for you as well, Harry.”

Harry nods vigorously. It matters more to him than anything else in the world to not disappoint Tom.

“And they were nice?” Harry asks. He doesn’t know why he needs to hear the answer from Tom, but he wants, so badly, to have the confirmation that Tom liked his parents.

“Their fellow Gryffindors spoke very highly of them.”

Harry nods, noticing that Tom did not say if he liked his parents.

“They could have gone on to do anything, if they hadn’t been caught up in taking a side during the war,” Tom continues, with a touch of disappointment in his voice.

“Oh.”

Tom presses his lips against Harry’s forehead and keeps them pressed there as he murmurs, “They were good people, Harry. They loved you very much.”

“Oh,” Harry says again, because he can’t think of anything else to say.

Tom pulls back and looks at Harry with a contemplative glimmer in his eyes. “I would have loved to have crossed paths again with them after they left Hogwarts,” he says. “In a professional capacity.”

“What do you mean?”

“I would have liked to take them under my wing, you see. Your parents had grand ambitions, and it may be immodest of me to say, but I think I could have helped them reach their goals.”

And then, something passes over Tom’s face, a shadow, a certain darkness that Harry can’t place. It makes him shiver.

Tom presses a kiss to Harry’s temple. “Harry, I have no doubt that, if you fully applied yourself, you’d be one of the top students in your year as well. You have only Miss Granger and Mr Malfoy to beat.”

As Harry drinks in his words, Tom continues, “Your mother was particularly skilled at Charms and Potions, and your father was a prodigy in Transfigurations.”

Harry, slowly, haltingly, starts asking more questions about his parents’ time at Hogwarts, and he passes the rest of the afternoon with Tom who obliges him in answering.

--

By now, Harry is much better at accommodating Tom’s cock, and they end up having sex—real actual adult sex—every few days, which makes Harry feel very grown-up.

Sometimes while Harry’s on his back, sometimes when he’s on all fours, but the position that he likes the best is when he’s on Tom’s lap, facing him, so that he can press small fluttery kisses to the side of Tom’s mouth. He’s always thrilled whenever Tom reciprocates.

“You’re so tight still,” Tom murmurs while buried inside of Harry, who’s straddling his lap. Tom runs his large hands up Harry’s sides, sending shivers through Harry’s body. “So small and so tight, you were perfectly made for me, weren’t you, Harry?” he whispers with a breathy chuckle, kissing the center Harry’s forehead gently.

Other times, Tom has Harry sit in his lap, facing outwards, cock inside of his bum, while he’s grading papers. “Keeping it warm for me,” he says with a huff of amusement, viciously marking red ink all over a particularly atrocious 5th year assignment, and slapping a g “T” on top with a flourish.

Gradually, Harry’s essay scores start improving in all his classes, not just Defense. He’s spent enough hours reading Tom’s upper-level grading that he’s absorbed what makes for a good essay compared to a sloppy one – things like how to avoid a weak conclusion, how to always cite sources, and what entails proper verb conjugations, which he never learned all that well during his primary school days.

“How’d you get good at this kind of stuff?” Harry wonders out loud one day.

“Get good at what?”

Harry gestures towards the papers. “How to tell what’s right or wrong in writing essays. No one teaches it at Hogwarts. They just expect us to come in and perfectly write 12 inches on the use of borage bean in shrinking solution or whatever.”

“Presumably, you lot would have learned it prior to Hogwarts,” Tom replies, placidly, flipping a page.

“But I didn’t,” Harry says. “Not really.”

“Nor did apparently the bulk of your peers,” Tom sighs. He rests his chin on the top of Harry’s head, tucking it into the front of his neck. Harry loves being in this spot, tucked inside of Tom’s warm hold on nearly all sides. “Which is why they turn in such...” he pauses, with distaste apparent in his tone, “...atrocities against the English language.”

Harry laughs. He thinks it feels kind of neat that Tom has let his guard down enough to complain about the other students in front of him. Like Harry is set apart from them, like he’s special in Tom’s eyes, rather than just any other student amongst several hundred others.

“To be honest,” Tom reminisces, hand coming up to stroke the top of Harry’s head, next to where his chin is resting, “I didn’t either when I came here. I could pick up patterns that I read in books, but I was substantially behind my classmates, initially, who had more formal schooling or private tutoring. It was one of the things I spent my first few years at Hogwarts improving, along with my less refined accent.”

“You had a different accent?” Harry asks, amazed. Tom sounds so proper and posh; he speaks perfect Queen’s English, like the television newscasters that Harry hears on the nightly news.

“Yes,” Tom says simply, and flips to the next page.

“Hey—” Harry says, making a grab for the page that Tom had set aside. He pokes his finger at the second paragraph, “—you forgot to cross this part out. Only the Patronus can defend against a lethifold’s hypnosis; mental shielding doesn’t work.” He turns his head and looks up to Tom for approval.

“I know for a fact that it does work if you’re a master Occlumens like myself, but you’re correct –this defense wouldn’t be broadly applicable.” Now it’s Tom’s turn to look taken aback. “How did you—” He pauses and lefts out a disbelieving huff. “You’ve been reading every correction I marked, haven’t you,” he says in a fascinated tone.

Harry shrugs. He hadn’t noticed he’d been doing it. It earns him a long kiss pressed into the side of his cheek.

--

Harry doesn’t wait for Tom to initiate every time.

Sometimes he feels an ache, an emptiness, inside of him, and he goes to Tom, who Harry loves wholeheartedly, to fill him up with something that feels like love in only the way that Tom can make him feel.

He’ll stand by Tom’s chair—standing up, his head is the same height as Tom’s, and he’ll wrap his arms around Tom’s neck and lean his body against Tom’s chest. He places small, shy fluttering kisses on Tom’s cheek, until Tom gives in, and draws Harry into his lap and pulls his face down for a full-on kiss on the lips, Harry’s lips parting to welcome Tom in, Tom’s tongue pushing its way inside of Harry’s mouth, which sends warm tingles down to Harry’s stomach and makes his cock twitch and ache.

Harry shuffles around in Tom’s lap until he feels the hardness build underneath his bum, pressing against him more and more firmly the longer he kisses Tom and the more aroused Tom gets. Then it’s a matter of letting Tom’s large hands roam his body and stripping off his clothes. Letting Tom prepare him until he’s warmed up and nice and loose, and can easily sink down onto Tom’s cock.

Harry never wants this school year to end. It’s been the best year of his life that he can remember. He can’t bear to think about the summer, about how he’d be forced to be separated from Tom, from Hogwarts, for a whole 2 months—it’s too painful of a thought.

Instead, he focuses on the feeling of love inside of him, bubbling up from every corner of his heart, like a nice hot bubble bath running through his veins.

It warms Harry from the inside out, no matter how cool Tom’s hands are, touching him all over; it fills Harry with a twisting, fluttering hope, giving him a lifeline to hold onto when everything else seems bleak.

He loves Tom so much, and all he can hope for is to be together, forever, with Tom—he can’t imagine his life without him at this point.

Chapter Text

Harry doesn’t know what possesses him one day, but he has to ask Tom about Voldemort. “Did you – do you know why Voldemort killed my parents?” he asks.

Tom stills. “Are you sure you want to hear about this?” he asks Harry. “You don’t have to learn about it now. You can wait a few years, if you want.” He brushes aside Harry’s fringe and looks at him curiously, with a strange intensity.

“Yes,” Harry says firmly. He’s old enough to have sex, surely he’s old enough to know about his parents. “Yes, I do want to hear about it,” he says, his voice ringing out clear and confidently in Tom’s office.

Tom bows his head in assent. “Very well, then. I’ll tell you what I can remember.”

Harry sits up straighter, trying not hide the yearning expression on his face, the desperation to hear any bit more about his parents.

“Both of your parents, James Potter and Lily Evans, were brilliant students here, as you know. Before graduating Hogwarts, they had already been recruited to fight against the Dark Lord, even as students,” Tom says in a grave tone.

“As students?” Harry asks, stunned.

“They were very young, but very talented.”

“So that’s why Voldemort targeted them?” Harry asks. “Because they fought against him?”

“Not many witches and wizards in those days were brazen enough to openly stand against the Dark Lord.”

“But why did it have to be them?”

“They were soldiers, Harry. They knew the risks.”

“Then why me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been – I was thinking about this, and I don’t understand – well, if my parents had already died that night, why did Voldemort try to kill me too?”

“I don’t think anyone who wasn’t there that night will ever know,” Tom replies.

“What do you think?” Harry presses. He doesn’t know why he feels so insistent about wanting to hear what Tom has to say about this. “Everyone says you’re the most brilliant Defense professor to have ever taught at Hogwarts. So why do you think he’d try to kill me too?”

“Perhaps he saw in you a threat.” Tom’s voice is strangely distant and neutral, as if he’s speaking to Harry from behind some type of glass wall, like the boa at the zoo, which feels weird to Harry, because he is right there.

Harry scoffs in response. “Me? A threat? I was just a baby.”

“Every child has potential,” Tom says slowly. “And yours, I daresay, must have been high.”

“That’s—seriously messed up,” Harry replies.

“Or perhaps he didn’t want to leave you alive as a symbol of the resistance,” Tom offers. “Or perhaps—” a curious look entering into his eyes, “—you may consider, Harry, that you were the one targeted in the first place.”

“What?” Harry scrunches up his face in disbelief.

“Has it occurred to you, dear Harry, that your parents died to protect you?” Tom’s voice drops low, with an intensity, a fervor, that Harry had never heard before. “How precious your very life is?

Harry shakes his head silently, pinned by Tom’s gaze.

Tom flicks his hand and locks the door to his classroom.

Harry startles. It’s the middle of Tom’s office hours—he usually lets Harry hang around his office, doing his homework and waiting for office hours to end, but he never locks other students out before office hours have ended. That would be too irregular. It would raise suspicions.

It seems like Tom has ceased caring, though, because in the next few moments, he’s crossed over to the other side of his desk and picked Harry up and dropped him on top of his desk, where he proceeds to tear Harry’s robes off without care, ripping right through the fabric, until Harry is entirely unclothed perched on the edge of Tom’s desk.

But Tom’s large, firm hands, despite being rough and destructive with Harry’s robes, are gentle and soft running all over his bare skin, from his chest down to his thighs, warming them up from the sudden cool of the classroom air.

He mouths at Harry’s neck, at his jawline, at his scar, sending a burst of heat flaring out of the inside of Harry’s head and down through his body until all of his skin feels warmed up from the inside out.

“Uh - um, Prof—I mean, Tom?” Harry asks, a bit concerned for the state of his robes and school uniform and how he’s going to get replacement ones.

Tom ignores him. He picks Harry up again like he weighs nothing, and plants Harry down onto his lap.

Harry wonders what’s come over Tom. He’s never been this careless before, allowing himself to get swept up in what they do and forgetting all about the potential consequences.

A simmering, glowing heat lights up Tom’s eyes, and they look like they’re glowing from the inside with some type of reddish-hued light.

“I need—I need to be inside you, Harry,” Tom says, and it sounds like a plea. “I need to be inside you now.”

“Oh-okay.”

Tom deftly unbuttons his trousers and pulls his cock out, already hard and leaking at the tip and swollen with so much blood that it looks like it’s ready to burst. As he presses his lips against Harry’s forehead, he murmurs to him, “You must be blessed with the most exceptional luck in the world.”

Harry, held in place in Tom’s lap with a firm hand on his back, doesn’t know what to do with his own hands, so he brings them down in front of him and wraps them around Tom’s cock, giving it a stroke.

“Hold on,” Tom cautions, cock twitching within Harry’s grasp. He slicks his hand and brings it to Harry’s bum, pressing a finger in and then two.

“You take me so well now, Harry,” he murmurs in praise. “Look at you, taking two fingers right away like it’s nothing for you. Very good, you’re doing so good,” and Harry’s heart swells up, as it always does whenever Tom says something nice to Harry in that nice way that only Tom can do.

Despite his earlier urgency in tearing Harry's clothes off, Tom still takes the time to slowly press more fingers into Harry, to stretch him out in a nice way that he knows it won’t hurt to take Tom’s full cock inside of him. Harry kisses along Tom’s jawline, nudging his face against Tom’s stubble, finding something to occupy himself with as Tom gradually stretches him out, the minutes slipping by while Harry heats up from the inside like a burning furnace.

When Tom decides Harry’s ready, he cups his hands around Harry’s bum and positions him right over his cock. As he slowly pulls Harry down on his cock, he stares at Harry with an intensity unlike anything else Harry’s seen on his face before. Almost—almost in wonder.

“I need you to know—” he says, “—that you’re so lucky to be here, Harry.”

Harry’s mouth opens slightly to gasp out a soft, “Oh,” as Tom's hands move up his sides, kneading gently against his bony ribs.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable—it defies all the laws of magic,” he says, kissing along the side of Harry’s face up to the ridge of his brow. “How—how?” he breathes.

Harry lets out a slight stuttered moan as he’s pulled all the way down to the base of Tom’s cock.

Tom was right. Harry really does take him more easily now. It’s almost a nearly effortless routine by now, the way his body knows how to relax and make room for Tom to slide all the way inside him.

“You’re a marvel, Harry, you truly are,” Tom murmurs in Harry’s ear. He presses slow kisses to Harry’s hair, his cheeks, his forehead, burning hot hot hot under the graze of Tom’s lips. “No one else in the world has ever survived the Killing Curse.”

Tom’s palms rub against Harry’s shoulder blades in a calm, soothing manner, sending gentle thrums of heat and magic up and down his back. “How on earth did you survive it? You’re remarkable,” he says. “You’re extraordinary.”

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever felt so treasured. Cherished, even.

Tom lets out a soft sigh, a needy, desperate sound as he bucks his hips into Harry's, pressing ever deeper and deeper. “You were made for me, Harry.”

Harry doesn’t exactly know what Tom means, but he knows it means he’s special in some way in Tom’s eyes.

“You’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine,” Tom says breathlessly in Harry’s ear, as he moves his hands down to grip around Harry’s hips and thrusts into him faster, rougher, nearing his end. “No one else has ever survived the impossible. Your life is so special, Harry, you’ll no doubt go on to achieve great things.”

I love you, Harry thinks, as he so frequently does these days but doesn't dare to say. Instead, he buries his face in Tom's neck, smooshing his lips against the marble-smooth skin at the crook of his neck. It's his favorite spot to burrow and breathe in deeply, the rich, soothing scent of Tom's skin flooding his senses and grounding him.

“You could be anybody’s good luck charm—” Tom whispers against Harry’s flushed skin, adding a twist to the end of his stroke around Harry’s prick in exactly the way that makes Harry shudder and near his end, pressing his own cock against the spot inside of Harry that makes white sparks explode across the inside of his eyelids, squeezed tightly shut, “—but you’re mine, only mine.”

The next set of Tom’s hisses are too low and quiet to hear, before he comes with a deep groan, cock swelling wider and wider and pushing against Harry’s insides, hot and hard and pulsing with his release.

“You were made because of me,” Tom says in Harry’s ear in one last breathy whisper, squeezing him tight, and Harry has never felt so precious to anyone before.

--

“I’m going to need you to do something with me, Harry,” Tom says one night late in the term, right before exams.

Harry lifts his head from where he’d been resting it on Tom’s lap, closing his eyes in a light doze while waiting for Tom to finish his final reading for the night before they moved to the bedroom. Lately, Tom’s been letting Harry stay over during the school nights too, as long as he pretends to go to bed at the same time as his roommates and sneaks out later using his Invisibility Cloak.

Harry understands in a vague way that it’s quite risky, that it’d be quite catastrophic if anyone catches them. But it’s so close to the end of term that it seems like Tom has stopped caring so much about being careful.

“Okay,” Harry says immediately. “You mean right now?”

Tom nods. “And if it’s a little dangerous?” He gives Harry a small smile. “Would you still come with me then?”

Harry nods. He trusts Tom, more than anyone he’s ever met.

“Very good,” Tom says briskly and stands up. He holds his hand out for Harry to take. “Put on your Cloak. We have a bit of an adventure to go on.” His lips quirk into a smile as he says softly, “I need my good luck charm with me.”

At those words, Harry’s heart speeds up. It sounds serious, whatever it is that Tom needs help with.

With the Invisibility Cloak over his head, and many silencing charms applied, Harry trails Tom down a few corridors and staircases until they’ve arrived at an unfamiliar door in the third floor corridor.

Tom pushes it open, and Harry slips in behind him.

From there starts the most exhilarating and puzzling two hours of Harry’s life.

First, they walk through the lair of a monstrous three-headed dog, which Tom immediately tames with a conjured harp. Then Tom directs Harry down a trapdoor, and he falls onto a pile of writhing, twisting vines that try to strangle him until Tom beats them back with a conjured flame.

Harry slips his smaller hand in Tom’s larger, firm grasp as they make their way through the rest of the obstacles. He only lets go when Tom directs him to jump on a broomstick and catch an old-fashioned ornate silver-winged key, which he proudly presents to Tom when he deftly catches it.

Tom hums, amused. “Suppose Quidditch has some use after all,” he says dryly.

They finally reach an unmarked door beyond the wall of purple flames. Harry’s hand remains tightly clutched around Tom’s as they gulp down a vial of blue-black potion. He has no idea what they just did or why all these strange defenses were set up deep inside of the school’s bowels anyway.

Inside the room, dimly lit by fire inside of scones placed around the wall, is an ornate mirror that Harry recognizes.

“The Mirror of Erised,” he murmurs, mostly to himself.

Tom lets out a pleased huff. “Indeed it is. Seems like you’re familiar with how it works.”

Harry nods.

“Do you know why we are here, Harry?” Tom asks.

Something niggles in the back of Harry’s mind, something that he, Hermione, and Ron had been speculating about all year.

His mind makes the connection—the last leap—to something Tom had said a long time ago, over Christmas break.

“Nicolas Flamel!” Harry gasps. “The Philosopher’s Stone!”

“That’s right,” Tom nods, looking down at Harry with a fascinated smile like he’s very proud of Harry putting all the pieces together.

“Snape’s going to steal it!” Harry blurts.

“Not if we get to it first,” Tom says, smiling steadily at Harry. “You see, Dumbledore was called away on urgent Ministry business today—most likely a ruse, I’m afraid—and I don’t fancy holding off Snape in a duel until Dumbledore gets back...” he trails off.

“So if we take it first and keep it somewhere safe, then Snape can’t grab it,” Harry says, grinning broadly, now that he finally understands his role in all of this.

“That’s right,” Tom murmurs. He places a hand on Harry’s shoulder and directs him to stand in front of the mirror. “Now, let’s step up to it and see what you see.”

Harry knows what he’s supposed to see. His family again, as well as Tom, now the most important person in Harry’s life, standing amongst them.

Instead, he sees his reflection winking at him, and then a second later, he feels a heavy weight deposited in his pocket.

“I got it!” Harry exclaims, fishing the ruby-red stone out of his pocket. “Whoa, it’s really pretty looking—it looks just like your eyes,” he says without thinking and then, mortified, he claps the hand that’s not holding the stone over his mouth.

Tom smiles at him again. In the dim lighting of the windowless room they’re in, lit only by torchlight, his eyes are even more crimson than Harry’s ever seen them. He deftly plucks the stone out of Harry’s hand and pockets it.

“Thank you, Harry,” he says, and he looks a bit wistful. “You were truly delightful company this year. A wonderful treat for what will be my last year at Hogwarts.”

“But why will it be your last—” Harry asks, and then all the pieces fall into place.

Tom looks at him steadily, his carved marble face set into a blank mask.

“You’re the servant of Voldemort who was tasked to steal the stone?” Harry exclaims, in shock. He’d been... cozying up with a follower of Voldemort all year long?

Tom’s smile still lingers on Harry. It’s actually the longest that Harry has seen him smile for.

“Close,” Tom hums. “I’m sure Dumbledore will be quite chagrined to know that I spent the year corrupting his golden boy right under his nose.”

But Harry doesn’t give a damn about Dumbledore.

“So if you’re not a servant of Vol—you’re—you’re actually Voldemort himself?” Harry asks, all the pieces falling together, swaying on his feet in shock. All the blood rapidly drains from his face, and he feels suddenly light-headed and like he needs to sit down immediately.

And he does, plopping right down on the floor before he feels so faint that he might tip over.

“Yes,” Tom—no, Voldemort—says briskly. “Again, I do sincerely and truly mean this, Harry—please understand that I genuinely enjoyed your company this year. You truly are my little good-luck charm.”

He turns to leave.

Harry huddles in on himself, on the cold stone floor, his arms wrapped around his knees, still processing the shock of what he’d just been told.

But maybe—just maybe—has everyone been telling Harry the wrong things all along? Voldemort hadn’t been trying to kill him all year—in fact, Tom had been kinder to Harry than any other adult he’d known.

Harry feels so faint and there are so many distressed, panicky thoughts swirling around his mind that his whole head feels like it’s filled with sharp white static. He doesn’t at all notice that, at the last second, Tom stops before he opens the door and crosses back through the room, until Tom is standing right before him again.

He extends a hand to where Harry is sitting on the floor. Harry looks up at him, still in shock, tremors running through every limb.

“Actually,” Tom murmurs, tilting his head to the side, “Would you like to come with me, Harry?”

Harry thinks back to all of Tom’s kindness towards him and all the special attention and the extra tutoring and Tom’s Christmas present for him. And their matching wand cores, and their secret language, and how Tom said Harry was made for him, and the million other secrets that they shared.

And how much Harry loves him, how he’s the only person Harry has ever loved.

And so he says shakily, pushing himself up from the huddled position he’d been in, “Yes. Yes, I would.”

Tom’s dark eyes light up with a look of approval.

“Yes,” Harry repeats, more resolute this time.

He’s never felt so sure about anything before.

With determination in his heart, and the certainty that he’s making the right decision, he pulls himself up with Tom’s extended hand to stand up next to Tom, holding his back as straight upright as he can.

“Let’s get out of here,” Tom murmurs, a soft smile playing about his lips. The one that he reserves only for Harry.

Harry grins in response, all his doubt cast aside, excited to join Tom on whatever his next adventure might be.

Hand in hand, Tom leads Harry towards the flame-covered door, towards an unknown future, with Harry guided only by the sense of love and belonging burning with so much brightness inside his heart like nothing else he has ever felt before.