Archive of Our Own ^beta

“We should get married.”

Harry looks up from his stinging knees. Rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes, he lets out a choked laugh. “Tom,” he says, grabbing his best friend’s hands where they’re clenched by his side, “We can’t get married. We’re seven.”

Tom glares at him. “I know that,” he grumbles. He pulls his hands free and grabs for the small bottle of disinfectant they nicked from the matron a month ago, wincing along with Harry as he drips it over his broken skin. “I meant when we’re older. That way I can always protect you.”

Harry laughs again, letting himself be distracted from the sting. “Alright,” he says. While he could tell the other boy that he can take care of himself, Tom wouldn’t believe him. “When we’re older, I’ll marry you.”

His friend glances up at him, his cheeks turning pink, and Harry grins so wide his own cheeks ache. 

“Promise?” 

“Promise.”

Nearly ten years later, Harry can’t stop grabbing at his hair as he paces across the length of Tom’s dorm, his nerves getting worse with every step he takes. Tom watches him from his bed, looking profoundly bored. “I still don’t understand why you’re so nervous,” he drawls.

Harry glares. “We’ve been over this, Tom. I know you know why I’m so nervous.”

The other boy sighs at him. 

“Relax, Harry,” he says as he rises from the bed, striding forward to drag Harry to a halt in the center of the room. Harry tries to look past the other boy’s shoulder, but Tom doesn’t let him, grabbing his chin in his hand and forcing him to meet his gaze. “If I remember correctly, which we both know I do, Ginny Weasley asked you out, not the other way around. If anyone should be worried, it’s her.”

“Well, yes, but—”

Tom shushes him. “Stop arguing,” he says, “You know I’m right.”

Harry huffs. “Merlin, you’re insufferable,” he says as he pushes Tom’s hand away.

“So you admit that I’m right?”

“Yes, you arse.” He bites back a smile at the offended look that flashes across his friend’s face. “You’re right. As always.”

“Good,” Tom says smugly, deciding to ignore the insult. For now, at least. “I’m glad we have that sorted.”

A chime sounds from Harry’s wand, and he whirls to face it, new panic rising in his chest.

“Tom—”

“You’ll be fine.” Tom’s arms wrap around him from behind, and the feeling of Tom’s breath against his neck makes him shiver. “Now go, Harry. Have fun on your date.”

He shrugs out of Tom’s hold, cheeks heating for reasons he chooses not to think about. As he speed-walks out of Tom’s dorm, shrugging his outer robe on as he goes and ignoring the odd looks the rest of the Slytherins cast toward his red and gold scarf, he’s careful not to look back. 

If he does, he might not go at all.

Tom corners him the next day. “Well?” he demands. 

Harry laughs, feeling ridiculously buoyant, like he could float right into the air. “It was great,” he says, unable to keep the smile off his face. “Just like you said it’d be.”

Tom snorts. Harry can’t help the surprised look he casts the other boy’s way. He’s usually so careful not to do anything he considers so ‘plebeian’ in public. “I believe what I said was you’d be fine,” Tom says dryly. 

“You don’t sound very happy for me.”

“Don’t I?” Tom takes him by the arm and all but drags him toward the Great Hall. When Harry takes a step toward the Gryffindor table, Tom’s grip on him grows just a bit tighter. “Well, believe me, I’m overjoyed.”

Harry casts a wistful look to where Ginny is sitting with Ron, Dean, and Romilda Vane, but in the end, he lets Tom drag him away. After all, he’s learned over the course of their friendship that it’s often less painful for everyone involved to simply let the other boy have his way.

“What did you two talk about, anyway?” Tom asks absently as he pushes Harry into a seat beside him. 

He grabs Harry’s plate from his hands and fills it with food, ignoring the way Harry grins at the leftover habit from the orphanage.

“Normal things,” Harry says. He accepts his plate back with a quiet thanks. “Quidditch. Classwork. What we want to do after we graduate.”

“Really?” For the first time, he sounds genuinely curious. “What’d she have to say about your plans?”

“She thought it sounded wicked,” Harry says with a grin. He and Tom have been planning their post-graduation trip for years now, and Harry honestly can’t wait.

“Hmm.”

“Aright, what’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asks, narrowing his eyes.

“What?” Tom looks up from where he’s spreading jam across a slice of toast. “Nothing.”

“Tom.”

“I’m just surprised, I suppose,” his friend says airily. At Harry’s confused look, he sighs. “It’s well known that Ginny Weasley has been crushing on the Chosen One since before she even got to Hogwarts. I’m surprised she didn’t bring it up.”

“She didn’t ask me out because I’m the Chosen One,” Harry says with a frown.

Tom raises an eyebrow skeptically before going back to his toast. “If you say so.”

Harry grabs the knife right out of his hand, ignoring the way Tom scowls at him in response. “People can like me for more than just the scar on my forehead,” Harry insists, stung. 

“I know that,” Tom tells him. He takes in Harry’s rising ire with a look of cool disdain. “Does she?” 

“For fucks sake, Tom,” Harry says hotly, all of the joy from before dying a sudden death in his chest. He pulls away and wraps his arms tight around himself. “Why would you ask that? Of course she does.”

Ignoring the way the other boy reaches for him, Harry stands from the bench.

Tom snags him by the sleeve.

“Where are you going?” he demands. He tugs sharply. For once, Harry doesn’t give in. “You haven’t eaten yet.”

Harry glares down at the other boy. “I’m not hungry.”

That said, he turns to go, tearing free of Tom’s hold as he storms out of the hall. 

Tom doesn’t follow, evidently too concerned with his image to be seen chasing after him. 

Later, curled up beside a table in the kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate cupped in his hands as he listens to the bustling of the House Elves around him, Harry will admit to feeling disappointed. He refuses to think about why.

“Alright, out with it,” Harry says nearly a week later when he finally grows tired of Tom’s thinly veiled insults. “What’s your problem with Ginny?”

They’re sitting in a pair of armchairs in a dimly lit corner of the Slytherin common room, and while Harry would normally respect Tom’s boundaries enough to have this conversation in the privacy of his friend’s room, he’s too annoyed to care.

“Who says I have a problem with Ginny?” Tom asks, as if he hasn’t been disparaging nearly every aspect of her character for the past week. 

“You do. You say it with literally every other word that comes out of your mouth.” Harry rises from his chair and attempts to loom over his friend as best he can. He’s not nearly as good at it as Tom is, but he thinks he makes his point.

Or maybe he doesn’t.

Tom reaches out, quick as a snake striking, to grab hold of Harry’s arm and pull him forward. Harry is surprised enough that he doesn’t fight it. Before he’s entirely sure what’s happening, he finds himself perched across Tom’s lap, straddling him with his hands resting on his friend’s unfairly broad shoulders. 

“Um.” Harry feels his cheeks flush uncomfortably hot. 

“Now.” Tom grins playfully up at him. “What were you saying?”

“I—” Tom places one hand on Harry’s waist, the other falling to rest across his thigh. It’s… distracting. He has to work to keep his breaths even. “You—”

“Yes?”

“Come on, Tom.” Harry grabs his hands, pulls them off of his body. “Be serious.”

Tom sighs, slumping back against the chair’s back cushion when Harry releases him. “If I must.”

“Honestly.” Harry huffs, crossing his arms. He deliberately ignores the weight of the stares he can feel on his back as he stays seated in Tom’s lap. “What’s gotten into you lately?”

“Nothing,” Tom says too quickly to be anything but a lie. When Harry doesn’t buy it, he laughs at himself. “Nostalgia, maybe.”

Harry honestly can’t think of much about their childhood worth feeling nostalgic about. Wrinkling his nose, he asks, “For what?” 

“Do you remember when we were kids?” Tom asks. “You always used to get pushed around by the others, and I—”

“And you were always there to scare the bullies away?” Harry offers with a grin.

“No,” Tom snaps, looking flustered at the interruption, “Well, yes, but… I was always there to help you clean your scrapes, to help you feel better again.”

Harry can’t help the laugh that bubbles up from his chest and into the air. “You used to steal plasters from the corner shop,” he says, smiling. A rush of fondness for his oldest friend catches him off guard, making his chest feel tight. “Because I thought the ones with pictures would make me heal faster, and Miss Clair only ever had plain ones.”

“That’s right,” Tom says, expression softer than Harry has ever seen it before, “I did.”

He reaches out again, and this time Harry lets him, settling into the feeling of one hand against his waist and the other captured in his own. He laces their fingers together and traces a mindless pattern against the back of Tom’s hand.

He lets the silence rest for just a moment longer.

“Tom,” he says softly. The other boy looks up at him, and in the dim light his dark eyes gleam. “Why does Ginny bother you so much?”

“I don’t know.” Tom looks away. He’s lying again, but Harry lets it go this time. He holds the other boy’s hand tighter. “I suppose I’m just… not ready.”

“Not ready for what?” 

“For things to change.”

“Tom,” Harry says with a laugh, gently chiding. He releases Tom’s hand and moves instead to cup the other boy’s face in his hands, squeezing just enough to make him huff out a laugh of his own, reluctant as it may be. “Tell me, what’s changed?”

His friend reaches up to grab one wrist, his thumb resting on Harry’s pulse point. “Nothing yet,” he admits. His thumb moves in slow circles against Harry’s skin. “But it will, won’t it?”

Harry sighs, exasperated and yet unshakably fond. “It doesn’t have to,” he says. 

“But, Ginny—”

“Ginny and I have been on one date,” Harry says, interrupting whatever nonsense was about to spill out of his friend’s mouth. “One, Tom. That’s all. It’s nothing serious.”

“But it could be.”

“Maybe,” Harry allows, because it’s true. He watches Tom’s face carefully, taking in the little hints of his expression that he’s never quite managed to hide from Harry, for all that his deception works like a charm on almost everyone else. “But it doesn’t have to be.”  

He really does like Ginny, but he likes Tom more. 

Tom looks startled. Harry isn’t entirely sure why. “But you— Really?” He sounds confused. It’s honestly quite adorable. “I can’t ask you to—”

“You’re not asking,” Harry says, interrupting him again. Tom must be really bothered by this, Harry thinks, because he usually doesn’t let Harry get away with that so easily. “I’m offering. If me dating Ginny is really so horrible to you, then I’ll call it off. We were friends before, and we can stay that way.”

“Right, well.” Tom still looks unsettled, like he expected something entirely different to come of this conversation. “I suppose that’s alright, then. As long as you remember that I was your friend first.”

Harry just laughs, leaning forward to press his face into Tom’s shoulder. 

“Well, obviously” he says. He wraps his arms around Tom’s neck and smiles at the way his friend hesitates before pulling him closer. “You never let me forget it.”

The next time someone asks him out, Tom is there to see it happen.

“Excuse me.” 

Tom stops speaking mid-word. When Harry sees the way ice settles over his expression, the beginnings of a mean smile playing across his lips, he whirls to face the boy who interrupted them.

“Yes?” he asks, and his welcoming smile is only a little bit forced. 

Hopefully, if he heads Tom off, he can prevent any emotional trauma before it occurs, though he supposes there’s nothing stopping his friend from going after this boy later. He’ll have to wrangle a promise out of his friend to leave him alone before he has to leave for class. When he actually gets a good look at the boy who interrupted them, Harry realizes he knows him, though he has to take a moment to remember how. He’s on the Hufflepuff quidditch team. A beater, Harry thinks, only a year below him. 

Alan Driscoll, Harry remembers triumphantly.

He can vaguely recall a conversation or two following a match, but nothing stands out as to why this boy might be coming to talk to him now.

“Erm, well. I just wanted to say...” Alan looks down at his feet, flicking his eyes back to Harry’s face as he nervously ruffles a hand across his tightly coiled hair. He’s... cute. Suddenly, Harry is feeling far more receptive to this conversation. “Hi. And, er. I know we haven’t talked much before, but I’d really like to change that.”

When Alan looks up at him again, Harry smiles as nicely as he can. It’s a look that Tom often makes fun of him for, calling him a suck-up as if he isn’t the most casually manipulative person Harry has ever met. “I’d like that,” he says. For all that they really haven’t talked much, he remembers coming away from their conversations happy, and he’s never heard a bad word spoken about the other boy.

“Really?” Alan looks surprised, and Harry laughs brightly, a giddy feeling pooling in his chest. 

“Really.”

“Oh, that’s great! Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me this week—”

“Harry has plans,” Tom says flatly, cutting off the other boy’s question as he steps closer against Harry’s back. 

Harry will never admit this to anyone, but he’d almost forgotten Tom was standing there. Honestly, he can’t even begin to imagine the fallout from that confession. But that’s beside the point.

The point is, he’s never seen Tom act so blatantly rude before, especially in public where literally anyone can see.

“Tom,” he hisses, elbowing his friend in the side. 

Tom is, of course, unrepentant. “What?” he asks, looking offended. As if he has any right to be. “You do.”

Harry sighs.

As much as he hates to admit it, Tom is right. “I’m sorry,” he says, turning back to Alan with a kind smile, “Tom’s right. I can’t go this weekend.”

“Oh.” Alan looks down at his feet again before he seems to gather his courage once more. “That’s alright; maybe—”

Before he can finish speaking, the first bell sounds. 

Not even waiting for Harry to say goodbye, Tom grabs him by the arm and drags him away. Harry allows it, though he makes sure to turn back and wave lest the other boy feel completely rejected. “Sorry!” He calls back, and he hopes Alan can tell how much he means it, “I’ll see you later!”

Alan just waves back at him, looking dejected. 

As soon as they round the corner, Harry plants his feet, forcing Tom to stumble to a halt. “What the hell was that?” he demands. 

“Harry—”

“Tom, that was rude.” He steps closer, crossing his arms. “And anyway, why’d you drag me away so fast?”

“Class—”

“You don’t even have class this period!” 

Tom glares at him. “No,” he grits out, “but you do, and you know you can’t afford to miss anything. McGonagall certainly wouldn’t forgive you for it.”

“Um, fuck you,” Harry says, cheeks heating. “I am doing just fine in Transfiguration, thanks.”

“You know what?” Tom says, crowding Harry back against the wall and looming over him in a way that should definitely not make him feel this flustered. “You should be thanking me. After all, I’m the one who’s helping you, aren’t I?”

Harry can feel angry tears starting to gather in his eyes, and he swipes them away furiously. When he gets enough control over himself to look back at Tom, the other boy is watching him with a panicked expression. “Harry…” He reaches out one hand, as if to touch his face, and Harry slaps it away.

“I’m not sad, you moron,” he says, sniffling, “I’m angry.” 

“Oh.” Only some of the panic fades. 

Tom doesn’t say anything else.

With a disgusted snort, half at himself and half at Tom, Harry pushes at Tom’s chest, just enough to get the other boy to give him some space. “I’m going to go to Transfiguration,” he says as calmly as he’s able. When Tom nods, still hesitant, he continues, “And you are going to leave Alan alone.”

“Alan?” Tom asks with obviously false innocence. When Harry glares, he raises his hands in surrender. “Alright. I will.”

With one final glare aimed Tom’s way, Harry shrugs his bag higher on his shoulder and stalks away, finding some satisfaction in the way his bag knocks against Tom’s hip as he passes. The other students in the hall watch him go, fascinated by the display they’ve just witnessed, and Harry does his best not to let any embarrassment show. 

“I’ll see you later, then?” Tom calls after him.

When Harry looks back, he’s leaning casually against the wall, looking as put together and handsome as ever. Harry can’t help the smile that spreads across his face.

But still.

The only answer he gives is to raise his hand in a rude gesture over his shoulder, and the sound of Tom’s surprised laughter follows him all the way down the hall.

It keeps happening. And then it stops.

Somewhere between the first week of November and the next, people stop approaching him in the halls. He still catches them watching him, but now the looks are less appreciative and more… wary. As if he makes them nervous. 

While he might have enjoyed the change any other year, now it just makes him worry.

“I just don’t understand!” Harry whines as he flops down to sit by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, leaning all of his weight against Ron’s side. “What did I do?”

Hermione, who’s watching from where she’s curled up on the couch with a large tome open in her lap, snorts. “Harry,” she says, shaking her head, “It’s not you. I promise.”

“Then why?”  

Ron and Hermione exchange a long-suffering look over his head, and Harry pouts. Ron pats him consolingly on the shoulder. “It’s Riddle, mate,” he says. 

Harry sits up, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“He’s been warning everyone off.” When he sees Harry’s obvious confusion, he shrugs. “I thought you knew.”

Harry turns to Hermione, hoping she might help him make sense of all this, but she just smiles. “Maybe you should ask him about it,” is all she says. 

Maybe he will. 

“Ron says you’ve been warning people off of me,” is how he chooses to greet Tom when he plops down to sit beside him at the Slytherin table the next morning.

“Really?” Tom asks, “You’re doing this now?” When Harry just raises his chin stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest, Tom sighs. “Alright, then.”

He grabs Harry’s hand and stands, leading them out of the hall toward the dungeons. 

“So Ron was right,” Harry says when they finally reach Tom’s empty dorm. “You are warning people off.”

Tom sighs heavily. “I can explain—”

“Can you? Because I’m gonna be honest, Tom, this is weird, even for you.”

“I don’t want you to date anyone.” Tom says it in a rush, the words clumsy and obviously forced out before he can have second thoughts.

“I— What? Tom, that doesn’t—” 

Tom ignores him. “Anyone else, I mean.” 

Harry feels as if his heart skips a beat. He must have misunderstood. There’s no way Tom means it like he thinks he does.

Does he?

“Tom,” Harry says, and he manages to sound remarkably calm, considering, “I need you to explain because it sounds almost like—”

Before he can finish speaking, Tom stalks toward him and crowds him back against one of the columns of his bed. He grabs Harry’s face, cradling it between his hands and forcing him to look up, to meet Tom’s intent gaze. “You promised you would marry me,” he says.

It takes a moment for Harry to catch up

“I—” Harry feels lightheaded. “Tom, we were seven.”

“So you lied?”

Harry tries to look away, but Tom doesn’t let him. “No,” he says. Surer, then, “No. I didn’t.”

Tom’s lips twitch into a smile. He rubs one thumb across Harry’s cheekbone, and Harry leans into the touch. “Good,” he says. “Because I meant it.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Harry tells him. He laughs when Tom huffs, mildly offended. “It’s important to me that you know that.” 

“Fine. Maybe I am,” Tom allows. His smile stretches into a smirk, and he presses his thumb against Harry’s bottom lip. “But you’re the one who promised to marry me.”

Harry laughs again, feeling giddy. 

“I did.” He can’t say that he ever thought Tom would expect him to follow through, but now that he thinks about it, he really should have. “I do.”

Tom pulls him into a kiss before he can say anything else, leaning down, and Harry rises onto his toes to meet him. He wraps his arms around Tom’s neck, pulling his body as close as it will go. 

Later, when Hermione asks him why he was late to their first class that day, he’ll smile as he raises a hand to his lips, where the memory of Tom's kiss still lingers, and everyone will know.

From that day forward, no one ever makes the mistake of asking him out again.