Come down and rot with us, baby; we guarantee you'll love it

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/18051572.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: Multi
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Abraxas Malfoy/Tom Riddle, Abraxas
Malfoy/Abraxas Malfoy's Wife, Druella Rosier Black/Rosier Sr.,
Lestrange Sr./Original Female Character(s)
Character: Tom Riddle, Abraxas Malfoy, Harry Potter, Druella Rosier Black, Rosier
Sr. (Harry Potter), Lestrange Sr. (Harry Potter), Avery Sr. (Harry Potter),
Cedric Diggory (mentioned), Original Female Character(s), Hepzibah
Smith
Additional Tags: Knights of Walpurgis, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate
Universe - Non-Magical, 1930s, Murder, Cannibalism, Blood, Politics,
Philosophy, Flowers, Law, Unhealthy Relationships, power, old money,
Betrayal, rich people, Purebloods (Harry Potter), Libraries, Unrequited
Love, Pining, Manipulative Tom Riddle, Dark Harry Potter, Masochism,
Catholicism, Cliques, Is this a social club or a cult?, Eventual Harry
Potter/Tom Riddle, Other Additional Tags May Be Added, mild stalking,
Dark Academia, Feelings of Inadequacy, Sexual Content, Voyeurism,
Power Dynamics, Dom/sub Undertones, Smoking, Morally Grey Harry
Potter, Falling In Love, Sexual Tension
Stats: Published: 2019-03-09 Updated: 2021-03-06 Chapters: 12/41 Words:
84587

Come down and rot with us, baby; we guarantee you'll love it
by Baryshnikov

Summary

Everyone knew about Tom Riddle's little clique, only the brightest, wealthiest, most
gorgeous people were ever included. So, the question was, how far Harry go to get in?

Or

A 'Brideshead Revisited' meets 'The Riot Club' meets 'Stoker' meets 'Hannibal' meets 'The
Secret History' fic.

Notes

So, this is just a kind of floatation of an idea that if people like it, I’ll continue. I apologise
for it being so AU-ish, but you know, as awesome as magic is, I have an absolute nightmare
of a time trying to write it, so I hope this isn’t too awful.
 Another note, normally this sort of AU would take place at Oxbridge, but I have always had
a great dislike for Oxbridge, so instead, I’m using the University of London as the basis,
and completely messing with everything anyway. I’m also pushing it back a few years to fit
a little better around World War two, so this is probably set in the mid-1930s.

See the end of the work for more notes

 Prologue: sine qua non
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

As he was lying on his bed, staring at the blank white ceiling in the silence of after-midnight,
Harry had to wonder how it had all come to this. How his shirt had come to be spotted with red,
speckled with so many shades of someone else’s body. How he’d come to have blood on his hands,
ingrained into his skin and stuck under his nails. How he’d come to have the taste of blood in his
mouth, sliding over his tongue and staining his teeth. When his eyes were burning and that silent
static was stretching his ears, he had to wonder how tearing someone apart could possibly have
come to feel this good.

** Nine months earlier **

From the moment he’d stepped inside the university lecture hall, Harry knew he was out of his
depth. Sitting there, with the wood of the seat digging into his back, he was surrounded by pressed
suits and smart shoes and sharp smiles. Mouths that bled words he didn’t understand, and casual
hints of the private advantages they’d each had the privileged to receive. Sitting there, Harry was
surrounded by people who were so different from himself, people who knew each other from their
expensive boarding schools and country clubs, and their father’s who went to school together and
still met for an annual Boxing day foxhunt. Harry knew he wasn’t like them. He didn’t have
friends that he was predestined to meet based on who he was born to, nor did he have a family that
could pay for his every whim – he didn’t have a family at all. He was here because he had earned
it, here because he slaved away to finally be free of the people who didn’t really care about him,
and never having to go back to them would be worth enduring all the expensive chatter in the
world. That was what he told himself, told himself repeatedly.
~
It wasn’t more than a few days before he heard about them. Just them. A simple slice of a
suggestion in the corridor, that he heard as he was passing by, a name that hung heavy in the air
despite the conversation moving on. That was the first time he heard of Tom Riddle. A mere name
that seemed to hold far more weight than it should. When he’d said it aloud in his room, it sounded
sweet on his tongue, pleasant and simple, though somehow so memorable. A name that burrowed
into his skull and sat there festering. It crept to the surface at unexpected and often unwelcome
times, when he’d be listening to the professor’s drone and the constant creaking of wood as people
shifted, tapping their feet and waiting to leave. That name would come to him again. It would drift
into his consciousness and haze out the world around him. The tapping and the creaking and the
droning would all melt into a single hum, and he’d be at liberty to imagine the type of person that
such a name belonged to. It always made the time go quicker, made everything more interesting.
From that single name, he formed a friend who was like himself, and so very different from all the
others.
~
Harry wasn’t ashamed to admit he had started to listen out for that name, listen out for scraps of
information that could possibly shine a light on who his imagined friend truly was. He found that
that name was always accompanied by several others: Malfoy, Lestrange, Avery, Rosier and his
sister Druella, in various configurations, always flowered with compliments and praise and
admiration. Never anything else. Never a bad word nor condemnation nor criticism, only ever
compliments. A constant stream of exultation for all those names, how they were simply perfect.
The stars of their generation destined to shine far brighter than anyone else, to light up the lower-
class’ world with their discoveries, they would be the ones who would carve the future in their
image and make the world a better place. All without the slightest vestige of arrogance or
superiority, merely unending humility and temperance and benevolence. Harry couldn’t see how
anyone could be capable of such undeniable perfection without being completely insufferable, but
he supposed he hadn’t met the owner of those names yet. Though he felt he had. He felt as though
he knew all of them, and that he had known them for a long time now. To him, they were almost
friends.
~
People said he looked like Riddle, and they always said Riddle, never Tom. Though they always
qualified it, said it was like looking at Riddle through a misted mirror, or a windowpane blurred by
the rain. Harry wasn’t sure whether it was a compliment or not, to be told he looked like someone
he’d never met. That didn’t stop him wondering though, didn’t stop him staring into the mirrors
above the sink long after he should have been asleep, and imagining someone who did and didn’t
look like him. Someone that everyone knew their name, but didn’t dare to use half of it, someone
who everyone admired without ever really saying why, someone that everyone seemed to know,
and yet none were friends with. Staring at himself in the glass he couldn’t help but wonder what
sort of person could fashion such a faultless reputation, what sort of human being managed to be so
flawless, that everyone was simply dying to lick the dirt at their feet. It was distracting. Far too
distracting, and it shouldn’t have been. He didn’t know Tom, and so he really had no right to infect
his life like this. To distract him from everything he was supposed to be achieving. So, he made
himself a mantra, “I will not get distracted.” He repeated it to himself in front of the mirror, “I will
not get distracted, I will not get distracted, I will not get distracted.”
He repeated it every night, and yet, every night he found himself back in front of the mirror, his
mind turning over the same questions again and again and again. Always wondering how he could
have ever got so caught up in a name.
~
It wasn’t long before he got to see the thing that had plagued his head ever since he’d first heard it.
He first saw his doppelganger sitting on the grass outside the library, surrounded by those he could
only suppose were the faces that the other names belonged to. Just six figures sitting on the grass
under the October sun looking devastatingly perfect. Even from this distance, he could tell they
were different, something in the air around them was so distinct. They were rich, but not in the way
everyone else was, with they came a sophistication and a glamour, even when they were only
sitting in the autumn sun, laughing with each other, so confident in their own existence that nothing
else in the world mattered to them. It kept him staring at them long after it was appropriate, not that
they seemed to care. They were too busy laughing and talking, sprawled across the grass in a way
that almost offended moral decency. Almost. A tangle of arms and legs, bags and books, fingers
and mouth that were so offensively beautiful Harry felt he might choke on it. He wanted to look
away, pretend that he wasn’t as affected as everyone else, that he hadn’t fallen for them in the way
that everyone else had. But it was as if their very presence has cast fishing hooks into his eyes and
were now reeling him in as their next meal. He knew then, standing and watching them all lie in
the last warm sun of the year that he wanted to be them, he wanted to lie with them, and that he
would do anything in the world be granted that privilege; to be with them, to belong in their
exclusive little group.
~
He didn’t work that afternoon. Only stared at his book and saw words that seemed to describe
them. The wealth that clung to every inch of them, the talents that though he’d never seen, seemed
to be such common knowledge that he’d be a fool to deny it, the perfect combinations of everything
in the world. They were simply God’s design. It was pathetic of him really, and he knew it was,
pathetic that he should even care about these people that he knew nothing about. That he should be
so distracted by the colours of their hair under the sun, and the way they raised their arms and
tipped back their heads that he couldn’t even focus on the simplest thing. But he was. He was
hopelessly distracted. He should be ashamed. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t quite bring himself to be,
after all, he had already dedicated so much of his existence to these people, spent so many minutes
standing in front of the mirror, wondering whether in another life he could have been with them
 now. They already felt like part of him, like the friends he’d never been allowed to have before,
and that, for the first time in his life he felt as though he was meant for something, that this was his
purpose to sit alongside them. To be one of them.
~
They were still there when he eventually gave up and abandoned the library, and though Harry
knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t help but indulge himself. He sat just across from them, blurred by
the shadows, and hidden behind a book. If they knew he was lurking there they didn’t seem to
care. He assumed it was the Rosier twins that were closest to him, given that they looked eerily
similar. They were very close, their fingertips touching and thighs converging as they lay with the
setting sun sliding over their faces, apparently not having any other care in the world than for the
warm glow of gold licking their throats. Next to them was at a guess either Lestrange or Avery,
leaning back on his hands and passing out smiles like sweets to children. He was talking loudly to
the person opposite him, whom he seemed to address as Avery, so it was probably Lestrange. He
was gesturing wildly with his hands and whining about some finer point of something that Harry
didn’t especially care to hear. Avery was listening though, sitting half in the shade, legs crossed,
and his face drawn into a glare, waiting for Lestrange to let him get a word in edgeways. Between
them were Malfoy and Tom. Harry knew he was deliberately not looking at Tom, painfully
examining all the others, drawing it out longer than it needed to be, teasing himself for reasons he
didn’t want to examine. He didn’t stop though. Instead, he watched how Malfoy was lying on his
back, his hand beneath his head nodding along to whatever Lestrange was saying, though not
hesitating to occasionally interject by raising his hand and knocking Lestrange off his rhythm. He
was by far the prettiest of them, with a delicacy in his smile and an almost femininity to his
features. Malfoy simply looked like he was made of the porcelain that was only found behind the
glass of cabinets Harry had never been allowed to touch. They were all nice to look at, more than
nice, but Harry knew who it was that he had been avoiding looking at. Tom was sitting just behind
Malfoy, looking vaguely interested in what they were saying, though all the time his fingers were
picking at the grass, pulling up individual blades and scattering them in Malfoy’s hair. Malfoy
didn’t seem to notice. Harry was slow to let his eyes drag past Tom’s hands and up his wrists, and
along his neck. There was a thrill to taking it so slow, dragging it out just to torment himself. But
Tom was somehow special, like a single orchid in a bed of irises, all of them were beautiful, just
Tom was that much rarer, that much more eye-catching. Seeing him properly for the first time,
with the sun splayed over his face, it was clear to see that they did look alike. The same hair, same
deep shadows around their eyes, the same way of tilting their head back when someone was
droning for too long. They were curiously similar. But not identical, everything about Tom was
sharper, lines cut more definitely, more distinctly. Everything was structured and defined, and
perfect; Tom stunning where Harry was only ordinary, and it was physically sickening, painful to
keep his eyes on him and yet just as painful to look away.
~
Harry could have stayed staring at Tom forever, only Tom glanced up, as if sensing someone had
been looking at him too long. Their eyes met. Tom’s face bright and stained with sun, and Harry’s
dark and clouded with shade. Harry took a moment too long to react and then looked down at his
book faster than he meant to. He felt his face flush and a knot of embarrassment forming in his
stomach, as though he were a child caught stealing sweets from a drawer. It was several awkward
minutes of staring at the words, reading the same sentence over and over again, hoping for
enlightenment, before Harry trusted himself to look back up again. Tom had turned away from him
and returned his gaze to Avery’s trivial discussion. The damage was done though. Somehow with
nothing more than a gaze, Tom had managed to rip a hole straight through him, and Harry could
already feel something settling in the base of his churning stomach, like seeds being planted in a
ploughed field. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted, but he knew it involved Tom.

Chapter End Notes

Chapter End Notes

I’m sorry if this goes a little fast, I hate beginnings so I usually try and get them over
with too quickly, I’ll try and slow it down a bit in future.
 ab initio
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Harry dumped his stuff on the desk and sat down in the library, as usual, he had arrived early
enough that no one else had taken his seat, and they were not yet studying. It hadn’t taken long to
discover all of them were night-owls, much preferring to stay in the library until they were asked to
leave than to arrive early. Especially as sometimes, when they just smiled and said something no
one ever heard to the warden, they were permitted to stay for as long as they wanted. Harry had
seen it once, when he was standing behind a bookshelf, quietly gathering his stuff together. Just
pretty smiles from Tom and the murmuring from Malfoy, and they were permitted to remain as
they were, when everyone else had to go. Not that the library was particularly busy at eleven o
clock, but still. There was a power in being able to twist the rules like that, to know they were the
only ones who got to do it. Harry would be very much lying if he said he didn’t want that sort of
power.

To be honest though, it was probably good that they were all night owls, if they’d been early risers
Harry doubted that he’d ever get work done, for, as much as he had promised himself in front of
mirrors that he would not get distracted, they were the single biggest distraction in his life. One
which wasn’t going to go away any time soon.
So, he supposed it was good in some way that they tended not to arrive until the afternoon, Harry
often wondered where they were in the mornings. On weekdays he supposed they were in their
lectures, but on the weekends, there was never any sign of them, anywhere, and Harry had looked
extensively for them. Harry liked to sit in the library and daydream, imagine what things they
could be doing, whether Tom did the things that he himself did, whether they were as connected in
their methods of work as in their looks.
When they all finally did arrive, they’d arrive together. They always walked together when they
could, an exclusive group that all moved as one, almost gliding across the floor demonstrating
themselves to be the epitome of elegance, of glamour, of the utter perfection of human bodies. Tom
always at the forefront, people parted almost biblically for them, and Harry was the same, stepping
to the side if he saw them coming, as a group or alone down the corridor. He would step aside and
watch, staring at them as they passed, just watching their mouth twitch into a smile, or the flexing
of their hands or, even the scent of their cologne, always distinctive, hanging in the air, reminding
people of whose presence they had been in. It felt in those moments that the world slowed, that
time stretched out and Harry could see before him every tiny detail of those people who were more
than merely human. He wondered whether they ever saw him in the corner, whether they saw him,
whether they wondered. He hoped they did. He hoped that Tom wondered about the first-year that
looked like him when he passed him by in the corridor. But he didn’t hold out much hope, no one
ever seemed to notice him.

Harry wasn’t really sure whether he should be pleased or suspicious of how easy it had been to find
out about the six of them, because he had to find out more. Information had practically been
plastered on the walls, quite literally in some cases. The Law department itself had the Lestrange
library, created it said on the plaque outside, with the funds so generously donated by the
Lestrange family. Harry tried not to use that library. Apparently, the physics department’s new
laboratory was as a result of a similar act of generosity, this time by the Rosiers, though that was
less common knowledge, and Harry only knew because he’d heard two physics students discussing
it in the boys bathroom on the fifth floor, and he’d only been there because he was avoiding a
seminar he didn’t want to go to.
The rest of his investigations were answered by other people’s mouths. The first word that always
rolled off people’s tongues when those six were mentioned, was ‘rich’ usually quickly followed by
‘attractive’ and rounded off with ‘intelligent’. That was the holy trinity of repute. Money, beauty
and intellect; they were all things that Harry dreamed of having and yet he lacked those simple
facts that gave them the key to door after door, and those who lacked them access to nothing at all.
On the surface the most powerful of those was beauty, it was certainly the most eye-catching, and
Harry was sure that was why most people initially fell in love with them. But after a while, it
became clear it was their money that was what made people stay.
Before he’d arrived here, Harry had assumed that people were either poor or they were wealthy, but
apparently that wasn’t the case; apparently, there were multiple strata of wealth, from moderate to
painful, and the Rosiers, Lestranges and Malfoys were right at the top of that hierarchy. The sort of
old money that made even privileged students roll their eyes, the sort of money that needed
qualifiers: filthy rich, horribly rich, disgustingly rich. People said it was sickening that they could
have so much money, but that didn’t stop any of them being almost sycophantically polite
whenever they passed by in the corridor because, in the end, money was what made gods in this
world, and everyone wanted to be in the god’s favour.

Each of the six had varying degrees of access to varying degrees of family money, on one end of
the scale was Avery, provided with only a moderate allowance, at the other, was Malfoy whose
funds appeared, unlimited. Well, actually, as Harry had found out in the fourth week, not all of
them were from money. Tom didn’t have family funds, or funds of any kind. He was apparently a
scholarship student, just like Harry. It somehow didn’t surprise him, Tom had that appearance
about him, it wasn’t quite modesty, more of an arrogance born out of his innate talents as opposed
to the depths of his pockets. That somehow made him better than the others, to know that Tom was
here from his own hard work, and not at the recompense of some old favour on the part of the
university. It made him more human, more real, more like him, and though Harry wouldn’t admit it
to anyone, that made him smile. Of all the people to be like in the world, Tom was one of the better
ones.
The rest of them only confused Harry because he wasn’t sure why he was attracted to them, but he
was. They should have been everything he despised. The people who had been born with silver
spoons in their mouths, never having to work to get what they wanted were typically his least
favourites. Their privilege disgusted him, but if someone like Tom was hanging around with them,
maybe they weren’t so bad? Anyway, they weren’t exactly like the people that Harry so despised.
Those people didn’t even try, they were just here because they could be, because it was what their
fathers did, and their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers. These six people were as intelligent
as they were rich. Not to mention that Tom wasn’t like them, Tom was an outsider now on the
inside, and if Tom could do it, why couldn’t he? Well, Harry knew the answer to that, because
Tom was handsome and talented and everyone liked him. Nobody even knew enough about Harry
to have an opinion.

Those were the reasons that Harry found himself coming back to this same spot to watch them day
after day, at least that’s what he told himself. That and the hopeless belief that maybe one day they
would notice him, and watch him too, and maybe, just maybe he could join them. Deep in his
heart, Harry knew it was a hopeless fantasy, but that didn’t stop him from dreaming it anyway.
He’d spent his whole life dreaming of things that he thought couldn’t be true, but some of them had
been realised. Getting away from the remnants of ‘family’ he still had, going to university, they
had both been dreams that came true, so maybe there was hope that one more dream could come
true if he wished for it enough.

At first, he had tried to avoid them, but they always seemed to be where he wanted to go. Their
favourite corner in the library, the one that was hidden down endless corridors of advanced
mathematics, philosophy and theology no one ever read, was also his favourite corner. It was quiet
and empty, and it had them in it. He couldn’t remember when the lines started blurring together,
whether it had always been his favourite spot, or whether it had become his favourite because of
them.
Through some innate skill, they made what could have been a dreary corner, dipped in dark
shadows, pleasant. As the evening sun began to fade, and their evenings were just getting started, it
was their voices that continued to light the room, and their voices could be loud when they were
discussing something particularly contentious, or at least Lestrange’s could be.
When Harry had mentioned his name to all the vague acquaintances he had acquired, none of them
friends, but all people that he at least knew the name of, they would all roll their eyes, as by all
accounts, Lestrange was a legitimate nightmare, perpetually smug and perpetually arrogant; he was
a future barrister with a talent for making people tongue-tied. He was in his fourth year of reading
for the infamous Politics, Philosophy and Law degree that half of academia felt was the holy grail
of degrees, and the rest thought was superfluous. It was the same degree that Tom was reading for,
and no matter what the opinion on it was, it seemed to be accompanied by some academic prowess
that even the disciplines of medicine failed to command.
It was exactly the type of subject Harry expected Tom would study, pleasantly challenging, deeply
intellectual and incredibly impressive, because whilst Tom said nothing, he seemed like the type of
person to crave respect, attention, and success. Harry only knew because he too felt those things,
that need to be seen after having been ignored for so long. He could feel it in Tom, see it in his
method of study, and in his smile, charming but ambitious in a way Harry couldn’t quite put into
words but could almost feel in the pit of his stomach. The only real difference between the two of
them was that Tom had realised his dreams, he was seen, Harry still wasn’t.

Of course, not all of them were reading for such a complex degree, and at the opposite end of the
academic spectra was the Rosier twins with their ‘adorable’, to quote Lestrange as he’d passed
Harry on the stairs, study of Philosophy. Everyone that Harry spoke to scoffed at Philosophy and
called it an irrational subject, pursued only by those who failed to understand the law. Regardless
of such opinions, Rosier and Druella were both reading for a Philosophy degree, though most
people said they rarely read anything, not that that stopped them from writing gorgeous essays.
Harry desperately wanted to read one of their infamous essays, to learn what it was about them that
made those two so extraordinary, so different from everyone else and whether that special quality
was detectable simply in their words on a page. Though Harry had heard, when standing
surreptitiously by the water fountain in the philosophy department, waiting, and rather hoping to
catch a glimpse of them, and Tom when they left their only joint seminar, that many people
thought the Rosiers cheated on their essays. But that no one had ever admitted to sharing or writing
said essays for them; other people said they bribed the professors, but everyone who’d ever read a
Rosier essay said they were up to standard. So how they seemed to do so little and yet achieve so
much, still remained a departmental mystery.

In the privacy of his own thoughts, Harry wouldn’t lie to himself, there were other interesting
things about the Rosiers, besides their pursuit of something so deeply unpopular. He liked to watch
Druella as she traced her elegant fingers over her brother’s knuckles. They never talked as much as
the others, always stuck in their only little world, one that no one seemed to be able to reach no
matter how hard they tried. Malfoy tried the hardest, easy smiles for Druella, each one filled with
less than innocent invitations. Druella never returned those smiles, well, she did smile back and
nod, but then her eyes glazed over again, and she went back to her own little world, where her only
companion was her brother.
The rational part of Harry’s brain thought it was a shame she showed no interest in Malfoy, they
would have made a nice couple, all white skin and pale eyes and blonde hair. However, the
irrational part of him was delighted in a way that he couldn’t quite explain but certainly knew was
wrong. That impulsive irrationality had nearly got him in trouble at least three times now, it’d
nearly got him caught, staring right at Malfoy whenever he was sitting outside the library because
Malfoy was just so good to stare at. Somehow, and even from a distance, he exuded an aura Harry
hadn’t thought someone could possess, it was so confident and self-assured, as though he knew
exactly what everyone else was thinking, and exactly how to respond in order to get what he
wanted. Malfoy was a politician in the making, smooth woods and slick statements that soothed
troubled mind but never solved any problems. Naturally, he was in his third year of reading
Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and excelling at all of them with that infuriating ‘natural gift’
always given to the people who already have everything. Harry had quickly learnt Malfoy was not
like Tom, for Tom there was never a bad word to be spoken, he was just that exceptional student
with good looks and a future as a someone. Malfoy had all those things as well, but they were
interwoven with a cruelty, or rather a ruthlessness that made him admirable but unlikeable but
those who wanted everyone to get along. Harry had heard plenty of stories of what Malfoy was
willing to do to get what he wanted. Most of them uncorroborated, but reliable enough to get a
picture of what sort of person Malfoy could be when he was sick of smiling.
The only person Harry wanted to be smiling, was Tom. He wanted Tom to smile, Tom to smile at
him with those easy smiles. He wanted Tom to invite him over and think that he was interesting,
that he was worthy of sitting with them, and talking with them, and being one of them. But Tom
wasn’t like that. He didn’t have easy smiles for people, he had politeness and pleasantness, the
bare minimum he needed for people to like him. but Harry kept watching when the others looked
away, he saw Tom’s smile curl into something that balanced perfectly between gorgeous and
nasty. Harry saw it and wanted it, somehow, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to replicate it, or just see
it, or something else entirely. Something that lurked on the edge of his consciousness, growing
stronger the longer he looked at Tom. But Tom never seemed to look back. Instead, he stayed his
aloof self, always slightly apart from the others, as though, somehow, despite their talents and their
wealth and their beauty, they were still beneath him, and he would rather not associate with what
he deemed to be beneath him.

At least that was how Harry interpreted the sight from the corner of the room. The sight that was
once again in front of him today. Tom was still sitting, apart from the other, at the head of the table
by the window, the deepening glow of the sun heavy on his back, blurring his sharp features into
shadows. He had a book in front of him, something thick and old and not in English because to
read in English was another thing that Tom deemed to be beneath him. At a guess, Harry would
say it was Latin, but equally, it could have been Greek or any other language from a dead time that
Tom appeared to want to reawaken.
As real and intriguing though as Harry supposed the book must be to those who were interested in
such things, it was obvious that Tom was only half-reading it, the other half of his attention was on
the conversation hovering in the room. He was attentive whilst somehow looking uninterested,
keeping just enough attention to act as an apparent censor, coughing when the conversations
strayed to something, he deemed to be inappropriate. Not that Harry could ever figure out why he
wouldn’t want them talking about such uninteresting things as what Malfoy had been doing over
the summer, or any mention of a person called Mulciber that Tom didn’t seem to like much. But
apparently these were things Tom didn’t feel it was necessary to discuss, and all the others just
listened to him, and let the conversation slide elsewhere without so much as batting an eyelid.
Harry would have loved to have that sort of throbbing control over people, so palpable in the air
that it stuck to the back of his throat and made his stomach squeeze.

Harry knew that he shouldn’t be watching, no matter how interesting they all were, but they hadn’t
noticed him yet and the temptation was just too much. To give himself credit, he was trying his
utmost not to be seen. Hiding with the wobbling desk in the alcove. It was dark and a little colder,
but the view of Tom was exceptional. It showed his profile to perfection, and Harry just like to
watch him and chew on his lip, crushing it between his teeth whenever Tom shifted, whenever he
swallowed, whenever he moved in any way at all, because Harry knew those movements would
stick to the walls of his brain forever, making appearances in his daytime preoccupations and his
dreams. He wouldn’t acknowledge that it was Tom he saw standing there in the shadows of his
night-time imaginations, just standing there, smiling with his hands tapping against his thigh, but
somewhere in his subconscious, Harry knew it was him. Besides, the close walls of the alcove
were strangely comforting; it reminded Harry a little of home, and that was a comfort even if it was
only the familiarity and routine that had ever been any comfort to him.
Harry continued to watch as Tom rolled his neck, put down his book and cracked his knuckles,
apparently taking pleasure in the way Lestrange winced and told him to cut it out. He didn’t, and it
made Harry smile to see the perverse stare Tom gave Lestrange as he cracked each one of his
fingers slowly, and individually, and the way he smiled at the single sharp syllable emitted from
them. Lestrange rolled his eyes and went back to talk about something Harry didn’t care to listen
to, he would have cared if Tom cared, but Tom didn’t, he just went back to his book.

He shouldn’t be watching he thought to himself again, whilst knowing full well that he wasn’t
going to do what he should be. He should be reading cases and writing that essay on the formation
of contracts, the one that was sitting half-finished in front of him, but Tom was distracting, even
when he wasn’t meaning to be.
So, Harry just laid his head against the coolness of the desk and watched. It was mesmerising to see
Tom turn the pages of his book, tongue flicking to lick a finger before turning a page, and another
and another. The flitting of paper seemed to cut through the conversation, reminding the others
that they simply weren’t interesting enough to be awarded with Tom’s attention. Harry wished he
had that sort of power over people, that sort of command that demanded respect whether people
were inclined to give it or not.
As he watched, wasting his time on Tom’s profile, he saw Tom’s eyes flick up, it was only
momentary but also so noticeable. Tom’s gaze hovered for a second on the sixth, and in Harry’s
eyes the most forgettable, member of their little coterie. Avery.
Avery was odd, he had apparently started hanging around with them at the end of the previous
semester, then had spent the summer with them, and now they were all acting like he had always
been there. He was in his third year of reading Politics, and Harry sometimes saw him walking
with Tom, eyes all big and star-struck, when the three of them passed at the intersection between
the Law and Politics departments.
There was something not quite right about Avery though, and it wasn’t just Harry who thought so,
everyone else was suspicious as well. Suspicious as to how someone who wasn’t that
extraordinary had managed to worm their way into such an exclusive group. Most of the rumours
seemed to involve Tom, but none of them was firmly established or had any grounds, and if Harry
brought it up, people quickly shut their mouths and pretended to find nothing wrong with Avery at
all.
Even now when Avery was just sitting with the others, he was off, present but vacant. Just sitting
there, hunched in on himself, keeping quiet as the discussion rolled and swelled, moving like a
rock between topical waves. Harry suspected that was why, every so often, Tom would glance over
at him, as if checking to see if he was still there, before sweeping his gaze back over all the others.
The ones who were clearly more deserving of his attention.

Currently, Tom's eyes had left behind Avery and were rested for too long on Malfoy, which was
weird because he wasn’t talking. Malfoy hadn’t said much at all today, he was too busy actually
writing an essay. Pen scratching loudly, him occasionally sighing but not asking questions to any of
the others like he usually did. Harry supposed though he had no idea really, that Malfoy must be
writing an economics essay, and thus all the others with their extensive but humanities-based
knowledge, would be completely useless.
Without Malfoy’s interjections, and with Tom’s apparent apathy, Lestrange had been left to
monopolise the conversation, turning it into an endless drone about the intricacies of international
shipping law, and by the way Druella was examining her nails, Rosier had his head in a book and
Avery was staring absently at the ceiling, it wasn’t very interesting.
The quietude was broken though, and Lestrange finally interrupted when Malfoy slammed his
essay down into the centre of the table.
“Ha Rosier, I told you I could write the sodding thing in forty minutes,” Malfoy said, sliding the
pages over to him as if to emphasise their completion.
Rosier dragged his head up with a glare before checking his watch and rolling his eyes, “I bet its
useless,” he said, making no effort to actually look at the pages.
Malfoy scoffed, “like you’d know, you couldn’t do international trade theory if your life depended
on it.”
“It can hardly be difficult if you’re doing it.”
“Oh really?” said Malfoy, evidently getting irritated, “care to tell me what the Heckscher–Ohlin
model is then? And while you’re at it, how about you tell me its relationship to the Ricardian
model, and which one more accurately explains our trading patterns,” Malfoy continued, becoming
more emphatic the more he spoke. Rosier only looked bored and made some unhelpful
interjections that achieved nothing.
Harry watched from his corner, expecting things to heat up pretty quickly as soon as Rosier spoke
because he had a look that could only be described as completely devilish spreading over his
features like he’d been saving up all his energy just to complete this one disproof. But before he
could say anything Tom interrupted.
“Do I actually have to remind you two that this is a library? Abraxas, care to be quiet? And Rosier,
we all know you failed economics, so don’t pretend you even have a chance at proving him wrong,
and wipe that frankly Mephistophelian smile off your face, it doesn’t suit you.”
With that, Tom returned to his book. The others sat in silence until Lestrange took Malfoy’s essay
for proofreading, and Druella soothed circles on her brother’s knuckles, as though they were
physical manifestations of his bruised ego. If any of them objected, none of them said anything.

It was fascinating the control that Tom had without really trying, and Harry had to wonder what
he’d done to deserve it, to so completely gain their respect, and he wondered whether he could do it
too.
He kept watching even as Tom shut his book and leaned closer at Lestrange’s request, looking at
something in Malfoy’s essay.
Harry knew shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but that hadn’t stopped him yet. He couldn’t help
moving his chair a couple of inches just to get a better view of Tom. The wood though had other
ideas, and the legs of the chair screeched loudly over the wooden floor, and six faces turned to the
corner. Before their eyes had even properly settled on him, Harry could feel himself flushing. The
tightness slithering back into his stomach, like it had when Tom first noticed him. He turned his
face away, only darting his eyes up enough to see Tom tilt his head to the left and narrow his own
eyes like he was trying to place where he had seen him before.
It was stupid and Harry cursed himself for staring back so gormlessly. Though Tom didn’t seem to
care. He only continued to watch until Harry could feel a prickling on his skin and a fizzing in the
air Tom’s eyes roaming across his face, examining him carefully and for considerably longer than
he needed to. For every extra second that passed whatever it was in Harry’s stomach seemed to
squeeze tighter, and he never wanted Tom to look away.
“Care to enlighten us with what you were doing?” asked Tom, eyes still heavy on Harry’s.
Harry shook his head awkwardly, “no,” he said in the smallest stickiest voice anyone could
imagine. He didn’t give them another chance to speak, gathering his stuff into his bag too quickly
and getting up and out of the room before they could ask him anything else. Before Tom could
recognise him, if he hadn’t already, like the one under the tree, and the one in the corridor, and by
the water fountain, and in all the places he was. Because if Tom knew, if Tom realised how much
Harry watched, he might accuse him of stalking, which this wasn’t. It was merely a fantasy; one he
knew wouldn’t come true because life simply wasn’t kind to people who had nothing.
Chapter End Notes

I know the PPL degree wasn't a thing in the 1930s, but I just love it so much that I had
to include it regardless.
 animus revertendi

Harry did not go back to the library the next day, or the next or the next. He was quite tempted to
never to go back there again, and that could have worked. He could have studied in his room. He
certainly spent enough time there already, venturing out once or twice for a lecture before
retreating, back into that sunless, airless, loveless room that he had come to like. Although it was
small, there was no one to invade his thoughts, no one to inquire what he was doing as he stared at
them from across the room. There was no one here at all. Even the others that supposedly lived
with him, albeit in their separate rooms, were usually out. They had better things to do that to hang
around and study.
So, it was quiet and pleasant and perfectly nice, but it had nothing on the library. Nothing on the
high ceilings and warm mustiness that infected all the, more abandoned, corridors. This room had
no wide staircases or tall windows; nor did it have the low murmuring of conversation, and pages
turning, and the click of girl’s heels on the wooden floors. Most importantly though, it didn’t have
them. In this room, there was no wit or wisdom save Harry’s own, and he was quickly becoming
convinced that he was significantly lacking. Without going to the library, he had no surreptitious
opportunity to gawk and gape and gaze at people who were so much better than himself. Instead,
he had to catch any glance he could, wherever he could find it, and however pathetic it made him
feel for doing so.

It was almost predictable, but Harry had resorted back to the same thing he always did when he felt
alone. He retreated into fantasy. He liked to pretend that the person he watched in his room’s small
mirror when he daydreamed, was not himself, but Tom. He liked to imagine the conversations that
they could have together, and the smile on Tom’s face when he found that Harry was far more
interesting than anyone had ever given him credit for. That he was a someone, and that Tom
wanted to know more about him. Harry had more fantasies like that than he’d care to admit, and
they always ended the same, Tom lying beside him on the bed and telling him all the wonderful
things he could be if they stuck together.
It was hard to leave his room after those sorts of daydreams, they just seemed too real, too
distracting, too perfect. In half an hour of staring, he managed to encapsulate every feeling he had,
and it wasn’t just for Tom, at least, that’s what he told himself, he liked all the others as well. It
was just harder to picture them because they didn’t share his features. When he thought of it like
that, he was ever so grateful that he and Tom looked so similar. If they hadn’t, it would have been
that much harder to see him across the room with that perfect smile, and perfect face and perfect
everything. Harry sighed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid Tom, he just had to see him again,
had to give in to this unhealthy interest.

Harry wasn’t sure where the line between stalking and being generally interested was anymore,
and no matter how much he tried to avoid them, and he did try a little, he always ended up so close,
anyway that he might as well watch them. He would use the water fountain in a side corridor, and
they’d all be there, coming out of a classroom. He’d be waiting for a lecture on the fifth floor
surrounded by other, more confident students, and he’d see Rosier and Lestrange leaving after a
philosophy lecture. He’d been going the back way, through the mess of the politics department, to
the exit that was always quiet, and he’d come across Malfoy and Avery loudly discussing the
merits of democracy. Although he had not dared to look, he’d felt Malfoy’s eyes follow him as he
rounded the corner. The worst one though had been seeing Tom leave a seminar with Druella.
They walked too close together in his opinion, their hands occasionally touching, brief smiles
flitting over their faces.
Harry had, for a moment, wondered if they were dating and simply hadn’t cared to mention it. The
way they looked at each other suggested it, but then again, if he thought back to the library, Tom
had never sat next to Druella, nor had his gaze strayed to her unless she was speaking, neither had
hers strayed to him. The only person he’d seen Druella’s eyes linger on was her brother. But
whatever it was that was between them, Harry wished that Tom would look at him like that, to take
that much interest in the things he said, but that couldn’t happen because he was only ordinary. He
was only him.

Though for all the time that Harry spent, honestly inadvertently, watching them, he was also
getting the feeling of being watched himself. Sometimes when he was standing alone in the
corridor, Harry would swear he could feel the warmth of someone’s stare on the back of his neck,
but when he turned there’d be no one there. Sometimes he’d catch the flash of dark eyes and
sharpness of someone’s jaw turning away. Someone who looked a lot like Tom, but he brushed it
off as a lookalike staring at the pretty girl standing behind him, or the glint of the light on some
object that had no life within it because Tom wouldn’t look at him. It was all just him projecting
the things he wanted to happen into the real world, his fantasies spilling over because that was the
one thing, he had always been good at, daydreaming. It was a skill acquired by being ignored and
finetuned by being alone, and now used more than he had ever done before. When no one paid any
attention to him, he had had no one else to entertain him but himself, so Harry would like to think
he’d gotten rather good at it. Though, he knew, in his heart, he’d much prefer it if it had been
someone watching him. But he suspected someone being interested in him was more than he could
hope for.

Once when he was feeling particularly reckless, and had nothing better to do, Harry had even
arrived early to his own lecture, early enough that he could sit in on the one before. The one
Lestrange and Rosier attended. He told himself it was just because the scribbles that he’d seen on
the blackboard when he went in for his lecture interested him. But it wasn’t. It was because he
wanted to see them because if he couldn’t see Tom then he’d have to satisfy that ache inside
himself with the others. Harry couldn’t even pretend he knew anything about advanced
propositional logic, or what in the world proofs for truth-functional relations were. To him, they
resembled a foreign language, and he took on the role of a hapless tourist who knew nothing of
local dialects, but he did know that Lestrange and Rosier certainly understood what they were
talking about. They answered questions and asked questions and were practically model students,
and probably would have been called such if Rosier didn’t roll his eyes so often and Lestrange
would refrain from obnoxiously calling out flaws in the professor’s logic. But they were forgiven
their misdemeanours because they were clever and handsome and rich and because everybody
liked them. After that, Harry had sat in on that class again just to watch them, just to hear them
being brilliant, and to sate that need inside him.

He did with the others too, though he knew in some way that it was wrong, and definitely starting
to cross that line of appropriateness. He made a point of arriving early and then lurking just around
the corner to where Malfoy and Avery liked to debate as they waited for their tutorial. They never
saw him, and he doubted whether they even realised there was someone there. They had no reason
to because he kept ever so quiet and they were loud enough to cover any noise he did make. From
what he heard, their arguments were intelligent and eloquent, and they always disagreed, especially
with regards to the role of democracy. Avery seemed to represent the more moral view, strong
constitutions, heavy scrutiny, the role of the people. Malfoy was a lot more casual with regards to
it all, ready to throw away everything at the slightest inconvenience, stressing flexibility, he said,
though it sounded more like thinly veiled elitism. Regardless, Avery was the always the one to
dissolve first, he sounded inexperienced compared to Malfoy and could never defend himself
without flipping through his notes. At least that’s what Harry assumed he was doing every time he
heard the shuffling of paper and faltering sentences. Just listening to them, and to Malfoy in
particular, was like taking a shot of something sharp and strong, something with a sour edge, and
Harry loved it. That’s why he never stopped listening, even when he knew he should.

It was different though when he’d waited for Tom and Druella. He knew they always left the room
together, long after everyone else, and then they’d walk together up to the fourth floor where
they’d meet Lestrange and Malfoy, and then they’d all go to the library together, and Harry
wouldn’t follow because he was embarrassed. That embarrassment did not stop him from waiting
by the line of old lockers though, pretending for too long to be fiddling with his key. Nor did it stop
him from watching them leave the classroom, and listening to Tom explain the failures of the Rule
Utilitarian’s position, and see Druella nod along sorting through the logical steps in her head,
before forcing him to backtrack and clarify something. She kept him on his toes, and he seemed to
like her for it. He seemed to appreciate a challenge, and enjoy the repartee that ricocheted between
them. It was as they climbed the stairs, and Druella had said something particularly clever, that
Harry wished more than ever that he had her wit. Because Tom was looking at her like she meant
the world, like she had the answer to every question he could think of ever asking. Even as they
walked, Harry trying to balance being able to see and hear them, and walking too close, he could
see the smile that slowly materialised at the corner of Tom’s mouth.
“You are brilliant, Druella,” he said, smiling and leaning too close again.
“Of course, I am. I’m frankly insulted that you’d even dare to think otherwise,” she said waiting on
the landing as Tom pulled open the door and held it for her.
Tom was still smiling when he turned back to the stairway to see if he should continue to hold the
door. And although Harry had tried quickly to turn around and go back down the stairs, he knew
Tom had seen him. Again.

Harry wasn’t trying to catch Tom’s attention, though he knew he’d like it, like it more than most
people because there were things that Harry had known before he’d come here. Things that he’d
realised when he was still at school. Ever since he’d become a teenager, Harry had known there
was something unusual inside his head, something that made him different, though he hadn’t
realised what it was for far too long.
It had started, he decided, when he’d overheard the older boys talking about the girls in their year.
Privately, Harry had agreed with what they said, not always with their choice of words, but
certainly with the sentiment. Girls were lovely and beautiful, and they made his insides melt
whenever they smiled at him in that way. But, despite that, he’d always felt there was something
more, or more accurately, that there was something missing from girls. There was still a space, a
huge void, that hung heavy inside him, and he just didn’t know quite how to fill it. Then Cedric
happened. Well, perhaps it was wrong to say happened because nothing really happened. Not
externally at least, everything that changed had been inside Harry’s head.
Cedric was a new student, a good all-rounder that everyone liked, including Harry, but he guessed
his motivations for liking Cedric were not the same as all the other boys. They all liked him
because he was good at sports and because he made intelligence look effortless. The girls liked him
too because he was handsome and polite and much more mature than all the other boys. Harry
liked him for all the above reasons. He liked how Cedric really looked at him when they played
sports together, it made him feel important, like he meant something, like he was a someone.

It was in the summer when Harry was about to turn fifteen, that it had all crystallised before him.
He and Cedric had been sitting, just the two of them, on the stone steps watching the sun dip over
the edge of the world. Cedric talking about something and Harry listening because listening to
Cedric had been the best thing in the world. Listening and watching his jaw and his mouth, and
wondering how soft his lips were, and Harry had realised quite suddenly that he wanted to kiss
Cedric. That he wanted to touch Cedric’s fingers and touch his lips and just… kiss him. He hadn’t
said anything though, he’d just felt awkward and nervous, and let his stomach tie itself in knots as
Cedric had remained, well he hoped he had, oblivious to the things Harry wanted to do.
Even now, three years later, Harry remembered every minute detail of that day. The curling
shadows that covered Cedric’s face, the fluttering of his lashes, how his fingers tapped to a silent
tune on the stone. And Harry could remember every single emotion that had passed through his
own head. The hammering of his heart as he thought of just reaching out and touching Cedric’s
fingers, how tight his throat had felt when he thought of holding Cedric’s hand, and how generally
uncomfortable the atmosphere between them had become. When Cedric had said goodbye and left
him alone on the step, Harry had laid back, eyes watching the stars as they started coming out, and
wondering what this all meant.
In his head, he’d passed over so many faces, so many times that his heart had just stopped when
he’d seen someone beautiful. There were more boys than he remembered seared into his memory.
More half-smiles and heads resting on arms and fingers accidentally brushing his own, than Harry
cared to remember. He’d always liked watching the boys in his year, he’d thought he just wanted to
be them, but maybe it wasn’t that, and maybe in some way, he’d always known. He didn’t just
want to look, he wanted to touch. To feel boys’ jaws and necks, mouths and thighs. He’d wanted to
kiss them, and he wanted them to kiss him back.

But despite all that he also knew it was wrong. Somewhere in his periphery, he understood that to
have such wants were not compatible with society. That for whatever reason, to feel like he did,
was wrong, and he should be ashamed. So, he didn’t tell anyone how he felt. Or, at least, he didn’t
say anything with his mouth, only with his eyes. Once, he’d thought Cedric saw, thought that
maybe he understood what he was feeling, and maybe, just maybe he felt it too. But Cedric died
that summer; before Harry had ever had a chance to ask him.
He didn’t say anything after that. He just stayed silent and resorted to looking and hoping that
someone would see something in his eyes, and they would understand what it was that he was
feeling. No one had. Well, Harry sighed, he didn’t want to get his hopes up, but Tom was the first
person since Cedric to make his heart turn to butterflies.
In a strange respect, Tom reminded him of Cedric, but in a darker, warmer way. Back when he was
fifteen, Cedric had seemed so cold and distant like the star’s pale beauty. Something foreign and
otherworldly, just outside of his reach but forever in his gaze. In contrast, Tom was like the sun,
burning Harry’s world up one subtle glance at a time. He wanted to reach out to Tom, to feel his
fingers burn and all the butterflies in his heart turn to ashes and flutter out across the sky –
“ – You, third row, glasses, care to prove that you’re actually awake this morning and tell me the
facts of Stilk and Merrick?”
Harry snapped back into it, flushing and stuttering. He was in a lecture and everyone was looking
at him and he had no idea what to say.

Usually, Harry brought his own lunch, usually, but today he’d been unorganised, too busy thinking
about people he shouldn’t have, to pick anything up. That was why he was in the cafeteria. He
could have gone to another one, a small café down a side street and away from all these people, but
that had just seemed slightly too much effort. So, he was here. They were too. He’d seen them as
soon as he walked in. How could he not? They were sitting at a corner table, and a wide radius had
been left around them like everyone knew not to interfere.
Every so often, someone would go over. Harry assumed they took a class with one of them because
they’d stand awkwardly and ask something. The whole table shushed whenever anyone
approached and they’d all stare at the person who deigned to interrupt them. Then whoever was
addressed would answer politely and they’d all continue to smile until the person had turned their
back, and started to walk away. That was when that nice-nasty smile returned to Tom’s face, and
Harry would feel his stomach curl a little.

When they weren’t talking to someone, they were just eating, like normal human beings. Though
even that Tom seemed to make look agonisingly perfect. It was frankly unbearable to watch Tom
eat an apple right down to the core, white teeth biting just so and little teasing flashes of his tongue.
He was listening intently to Malfoy, and less intently to everyone, and just continuing to bite at the
flesh of that apple as if nothing else in the world mattered. Harry wasn’t sure how someone
managed to make eating look so sophisticated, but he wished Tom would teach him. Teach him
how to curl his wrist and tilt his head and chew in a way that was just so… provocative.
Harry knew he was the exact opposite as he sat, alone, eating just a sandwich because he was not
wasting any more of his money than was absolutely necessary here. There were more important
things to do than buy food. He knew he looked small and tense and primitive, a sandwich in his
short fingers, crumbs in his textbook. He was nothing like Tom. He was nothing like any of them.

Harry dared to take another glance. Tom was leaning over and talking to Malfoy, the others were
talking loudly and laughing with each other, like they had been the first time he’d seen them. In any
other setting Harry would have been able to hear their conversation, and, in a small way, feel part
of it, but here, surrounded by nearly a hundred people, it was clamorous and chaotic and he could
hardly hear his own thoughts, let alone anyone else’s conversations. But that didn’t stop him
looking. It didn’t stop him dreaming. It didn’t stop him wanting more than anything else in the
world for them to notice him.
Suddenly someone tripped and a plate fell to the floor, a crash followed by an eruption of noise
spread around the room, people standing and shouting. But not them. They didn’t even move. The
six of them looked over at the commotion, but continued to just sit calmly and quietly, waiting for
all the fuss to blow over. Harry wished he could be that smooth, that polished, that poised,
completely in control of the situation, even if he wasn’t really. He stopped looking at them, after
all, what was the point in dreaming?

He was trying to read his textbook and ignore the moving of chairs and tables and people all
around him when he felt it. A prickling on his cheek as though someone was looking at him, but as
he glanced around the room, no one was obviously paying him any sort of attention. The feeling
didn’t go away like someone was not only watching him, but taking pride in the fact they hadn’t
been spotted. It was the same feeling as all those times before, all those times that Harry had gotten
just a little too hopeful that someone had taken an interest in him. He tried to ignore it, he did, tried
to eat his sandwich and read his textbook, but it felt like it was burning a hole straight through his
cheek. He looked up to his left and straightaway his eyes met Tom’s. For just a moment, the world
seemed to melt away and it was just the two of them staring back at each other. Then Lestrange
threw a pencil at Tom to get his attention, and whatever circle that had been created was broken.
But even as Tom looked away, Harry could still feel his heart racing and his cheek burning.

By the time he’d finished eating, the others had already left, and it was probably for the best. After
all, if they weren’t here, it gave him no excuse to do anything but go back to his last lecture and
then finish that essay and absolutely not think about Tom. That was honestly what he was going to
do. But then as he rounded the corner, he heard them.
“…and Rosier, maybe you could actually arrive before midday tomorrow?” said Tom. Rosier
audibly groaned, and Druella said something that Harry didn’t hear, but Tom didn’t deign to
answer anyway, instead, he just continued, “be there for ten.”
Someone else groaned, and Harry moved against the wall.
“Really, Riddle? You know, some of us do actually sleep, right,” said Lestrange, or rather he
whined it, like a toddler.
“Oh, my heart bleeds for you, Lestrange, having to get out of bed at nine-thirty, the humanity.”
“There’s no need to be so sarcastic.”
“Then there’s no reason for you to be so deliberately subversive, is there?”
Lestrange groaned again, “seriously though?”
Tom sighed, like a parent whose child was being intentionally disobedient in front of everyone.
“All those with a problem of being there by ten, please, raise their hands,” said Tom, though his
tone had changed, this was no longer a matter of joviality or even of casualness, now it was entirely
serious.
“Oh dear, looks like you’re in a minority Lestrange, too bad. Be there for ten.”
Though he couldn’t see, Harry suspected that Lestrange was glaring and had his arm folded, like he
always did when he was annoyed.
“Don’t be so childish, it’s just one day.”
“We could go get lunch after,” said Rosier, “then go to the library?” finished Druella. Harry
listened more intently, he’d promised he wouldn’t think about them, but that was only for today,
not for tomorrow.
“That’s fine by me,” said Tom, “is it fine by you, Lestrange?”
It must have been because then a locker was rattling, and they were all talking about something
else, and there was the shuffling of bags and they were walking away.
Harry stayed still against the wall for a few more minutes, until he was sure they were. He was too
hot, and his heart hurt for hammering so hard, but he knew he just had to be in the library. He just
had to. If he arrived earlier enough and hid in his corner and forced himself to just listen to them,
rather than watch, then they’d never been the wiser, and he could get another look of them and
then, then he could leave them behind forever. Just one more look he promised himself.
 amicus curiae
Chapter Notes

So I honestly didn't mean for this chapter to be written now, but it's happened now and
there's nothing I can do about it so I might as well post it. I'll also apologise for the
somewhat dialogue and philosophy heavy nature of this chapter.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Harry got to the library considerably before them, considerably before anyone else at all actually.
The librarian had politely smiled to him with her sleepy eyes as he walked passed at quarter past
eight in the morning. Early enough that he’d watched the sun slink up until it was in line with the
buildings. Early enough that the crispness of the day had not yet turned to cold, and the pretty pink
strips of the sun were still turning the white stone buildings into towers of pink bubblegum that the
classic’s students were always chewing.
It was nice to cross the river when there was no one else around, somehow it felt safer not to have
to deal with other people because Harry had never been good with people. They never seemed to
do what he expected them to, and when they did do as expected, it was usually something bad.
That was why he travelled through the streets when the sun had barely risen, and only the earliest
shops were opening their doors.
To walk alone also gave him a chance to breathe, a chance to think, and, today, to plan. He was
going to spend the morning reading cases and completing that essay due next week. Then maybe
he’d do some reading as he waited for them to arrive. Then, when they did, he’d watch. He’d
indulge himself one last time, and then he’d go back to the mundane world that he was used to. It
was the perfect plan.

As usual, he went to their favourite room in the library. The one at the end of the twisting
corridors, the one with the high west-facing window, the one with three small alcoves that he could
hide in. Harry hoped that by lurking in the shadows they wouldn’t see him, and that, maybe if he
kept quiet enough and didn’t do anything stupid, like he had done last time, then they wouldn’t
notice at all, and he would be free to watch; free to get his next fix of them without being
interrupted.
But after two hours he regretted getting there quite so early. No one else at all was in this part of
the library and the silence was overwhelming. So overwhelming that he found his eyes drawn to a
mouse across the room, just scuttling along the skirting to a small hole in the floor and he
wondered if there had always been mice here, and he had just never noticed. He could hear it even
when it had disappeared, just a scratching beneath the floorboards, the sort of quiet sound that
people dismissed when they weren’t alone. Were any of them scared of mice? Harry smiled to
himself as he imagined Malfoy up on the table, and Tom rolling his eyes and Lestrange sweeping
at the little creature with a broom. It would make quite a sight to know they were all afraid of
something so small and innocent, and so much like himself. For Harry couldn’t help but make the
comparisons, they were just so obvious. A mouse was quiet and small and easily forgotten, and so
was he. No one remembered the brown mouse unless it caused a problem and then all hell broke
loose, as they tried to trap it and catch it and kill it. So perhaps Harry identified a little too much
with the mouse, but he couldn’t help it really, nature had just made him this way and now there
was nothing he could do about it.
None of them were like mice, they were all far too sophisticated, far too interesting to be mere
mice. The six of them, perhaps with the exception of Avery, were more like the cats that were
allowed to wander through the library. Harry had seen them, five in total, they were supposed to be
professional mousers according to the signs on the door, but, really, he’d never seen them do
anything other than sleep. Lying on the floors and the desks, always in a patch of sunlight, or, if
there was no sun, beside a radiator or under one of the desk lamps that had been left on. They just
lay there, looking ever so pretty and infinitely aware of their own charms. The five of them were
definitely like cats. Pretty and preening, intelligent and cunning, perfectly happy to spend their
days lying around being appreciated by other people, but at the same time predatory.
Tom had the same look in his eyes when he gave that cruel-kind smile, as the cats did when they
were in a hunting mood and could see a mouse on the other side of the room. Maybe, having
compared himself to the mouse in that situation, Harry should have been scared, but how could he
be when that smile was just so intoxicating?
Even though Harry didn’t much like the cats, for he had seen enough of their claws, and the
shredded curtains that had to be replaced before shorter ones had apparently been brought in, to
know that they could be destructive, and whilst he’d never seen any evidence of it, Tom and his
friends gave off the same impression. As though, when they smiled, they knew they were blinding,
knew that people would come and gladly be dazzled by their money and glittery conversations.
Like they were just playing a game, where they were cats and all the other people in the world
were mice. Such a revelation would have made ordinary people turn their backs, walk away from
such people, but it only made Harry want to stay for longer. Perhaps it was because he so readily
accepted his place as a mouse, or maybe it was because he simply didn’t care as long as he got to
be by their sides. Whatever it was, Harry didn’t bother to dwell on it.

They were later arriving than Harry expected, and he had been in the library for eight hours by the
time he heard the sound of several shoes coming at once on the wooden floors. He turned off the
lamp that lit his alcove, which did nothing to dampen his feelings that what he was about to do
probably did cross the line into inappropriate behaviour, not that that had stopped him yet.
They were laughing as they came into the room, dumping their bags down on their usual table, like
vultures claiming ownership of a carcass. Harry even heard the tell-tale sound of books being
placed on the table top as well, but he suspected they were just for show, to pretend that they were
doing work, not that anyone would try and move them off if they weren’t.
As they came in, fingers gliding over the bookshelves and the table’s surface, Harry thought he
saw Tom’s eyes dart over to his alcove, as if Tom was looking for someone in the darkness. But
when rationality kicked in, he supposed that what he’d actually seen was just a trick of the light,
the flash of the sun on Druella’s diamond ring, perhaps.

Whether it was by habit or deliberate design, they returned to what was their usual configuration:,
Tom at the end of the table closest to Harry and the window, then clockwise, Lestrange, Druella,
Rosier and Avery, then on Tom’s right, Malfoy, sitting much closer to Tom than the others. Harry
had already moved his chair back before they came in, so all he needed to do was sit back, keep
close to the bookshelves and admire them. Admire Tom in particular. Though today he was sitting
more straight on to the others and Harry couldn’t see his face. Not that he minded, he still got to the
see the rest of him. He still got to see how he rested one arm, pseudo-casually, over the back of the
chair, the other spread towards Malfoy. His nails drawing absent little circles on the wood, as the
others got settled into their conversations. Tom was perfect. So casual, but without the usual
carelessness that came with it. Harry just wanted to pass hours watching him, running the pads of
his fingers along Tom’s forearm, just to feel if he was really human.

Harry half-listened as they talked about nothing for a while, hushed voices that he couldn’t quite
hear properly. He watched as Tom shifted, a little closer to Malfoy than usual, and continued to
survey the conversation. Harry had to notice though, that there seemed to be one voice missing
from the discussion, Avery’s. Although he was definitely in the room as Rosier had called him by
name when they first walked it. No matter where the conversation strayed, Avery seemed to be
hovering on the fringe of it, never quite invited into the fabric of the group, and it was at times like
this when it was obvious that he was new, and still didn’t quite fit in.
When there was a lull, after what seemed like a particularly dramatic statement concerning the
hypocrisy of someone called Wittgenstein that Lestrange seemed to loath, Tom was the one to fill
it.
“Avery,” he said, and though Harry couldn’t see Avery, he imagined his head snapped up like one
of those little dogs when their masters call.
“I heard you’ve been sitting in on first years Ethics lectures, find anything interesting?”
If Harry was not mistaken, and he honestly didn’t think he was, it did not sound like a subject that
Tom was remotely interested in, more that he’d felt a need to reengage Avery, stop him drifting
away. Perhaps stop the others ignoring him.
“I like Kant,” came the quiet reply a few seconds later, one that it sounded to Harry that Avery had
put a lot of effort into forcing his tongue to say.
Druella snorted, “really?” she said, leaning forward, elbows on the table, “you like Kant? Why?”
Avery audibly swallowed, “you know, he seems to have good ideas.”
“Which bit? The categorical imperative? His ideas on the good will? Oh, Avery aren’t you just
adorable?”
“What’s wrong with it? And it’s not like you’re any better, you’re a goddamn hedonist,” he said, a
new edge curling into his voice, something scrappy and irritable, like a small dog, with more bark
than bite.
“Oh, don’t use that sort of language, Avery,” continued Druella, calm and cool as ever, “and you
say Hedonist like I’m supposed to be offended.”
“You are. It’s disgusting.”
Harry could almost hear someone rolling their eyes, probably more than one person, but Druella
spoke again, now with a sharper edge to her own tone, one that sounded mildly condescending. “I
think you mistake the meaning of pleasure as something inherently sinful, Avery, as defined,
perhaps, by a religious code.”
“He associates it with carnality and indulgence,” said Rosier, suddenly contributing after an
unusual amount of silence, “it’s a rather crude and literal interpretation of pleasure.” Rosier shifted,
the chair skidding over the floor, “but pleasure doesn’t have to be like that.”
“How?”
“Well,” said Druella, “if being a virtuous person is what will bring me the most pleasure, a higher
sort of pleasure if you will, then I am none of the ‘disgusting’ things that you implied me to be.”
“What?” said Avery, continuing to sound several steps behind. Though Harry himself really had no
right to judge.
“Some pleasures are more valuable than others,” Druella said, and Harry could just see as she sat
back in her chair looking pleased with herself.
“To put it in words that perhaps you’ll understand,” said Rosier, “some pleasures are temporary,
short-lived little things that really mean nothing in the long term; these are hollow pleasures or
lower pleasures. Others are far more valuable as they will increase the overall pleasure that we feel
in society, really this was covered in the first hour,” he continued, also leaning back with the
confidence of someone who knows they’re right.

“You know, you’re being awfully cruel, Rosier,” said Tom, apparently interrupting before it
became an argument, always playing the peacekeeper. Though on this occasion, Tom’s tone did
not suggest that he was admonishing Rosier at all, rather that he found such teasing amusing.
“Am I?”
“Yes, you’re picking on someone who’s only trying to better themselves, if you want a real debate
on the merits of your ideology, surely you should speak to one of us who actually studies it?”
“Ah yes, how wonderful,” said Rosier, leaning forward again, the tips of his fingers coming into
view. “Another Hedonist, a Relativist, an Egoist and a Utilitarian, what is there to discuss Riddle,
other than you’re all wrong?”
Harry was sure Tom smiled. “Well for starters there’s why we’re wrong, or rather, why you’re
wrong given that Hedonism is terribly outdated these days.”
“Hardly, it’ll be the apocalypse before you can no longer divide people into being a Hedonist or an
Ascetic.”
“Really?” said Lestrange having managed to stay quiet for a good five minutes, which to Harry
seemed like a record.
“Yes, watch.”
Harry could just about see the tips of Rosier’s fingers as he pointed to Druella, “hedonist,” he said,
the fingers moved to point at Lestrange, “hedonist,” he said again. He pointed at Malfoy,
“hedonist, see easy.”
“I can’t help but notice that you skipped Riddle,” said Malfoy, his own fingers still tapping closer
to Tom’s than usual.
“Yes,” said Tom, “if everyone can be divided, what am I?”
Rosier was probably smirking given his tone. “It’s my theory, so the rest of you have to work it out
yourselves,” he said smugly
“Hey, that’s not how it works,” interrupted Lestrange, “you have to at least tell us – ”
“No, no, Lestrange. This could be fun,” said Malfoy, looking right at Tom and lightly chewing his
lip in a way that made Harry’s tongue stick in his mouth and that tightness in his chest to return. It
was outrageously pretty in a way that was entirely wrong, and yet just looked so good.
“What would you say I am, then Abraxas?” said Tom, no longer paying the others even the most
superficial attention. Harry had a perfect view of the way they looked at each other, like none of
the others was even there.
“Well, I think it’s quite obvious, Tom.”
“And yet you’re unwilling to answer me?”
Malfoy smiled, and leaned even closer to Tom, from this angle, and this angle alone, Harry could
see how Malfoy’s fingers pressed into Tom’s thigh, and just how close his tongue was to Tom’s
neck.
“It’s not that I’m unwilling,” he practically purred, “I just don’t want to take away the opportunity
from someone who’s just dying to talk to you.”
Harry suddenly felt cold, like someone had poured ice down the back of his shirt. He looked down,
picking up his pen and staring at the paper, knowing full well he was the only other person in the
room. But maybe he was wrong? Maybe he’d missed someone? Or perhaps Malfoy meant Avery?
Maybe? Hopefully?
They weren’t talking about anyone else. That was painfully obvious when a silence fell over the
entire room and Harry felt the heaviness of six pairs of eyes digging into his head, and just like
before he could feel that embarrassing blush spilling all over his face like spilt ink. He should
make a run for it, leave like last time and pretend that nothing had happened. That was what he
should do, but he was just stuck to the spot like a fear-frozen mouse as the cat slowly approached.
“Potter, isn’t it? Harry Potter?” said Tom, his voice cool and crisp across the room.
“Yes,” he choked out, still not daring to look up.
“Care to come over here? Or are you going to run away from us again?”

If there was ever something that Harry cared not to do, this was it. Just one of them was bad
enough, but having to face all six of them, and with the obvious stain of shame all over his face
was far more than he was prepared to handle.
“We don’t bite, you know,” said Tom, in a way that definitely suggested that Tom was ready to eat
him alive. Harry silently cursed himself for getting caught even as he felt his legs moving, then his
torso and finally his head. Walking over to them but making no effort at all to look, because if he
did that, well, he might never look away.
“Would you mind if I asked you a question, Harry? If I may call you Harry?”
Harry nodded, he wasn’t sure what to, probably everything.
“Thank you. Were you listening in to our conversations again, Harry?”
“No,” he said, though he would be honestly surprised if anyone heard him. His brain was turning
quickly to wool and what words did manage to escape were cottony and quiet. He knew he
sounded slightly pathetic, that much was obvious.
“Well I’m glad to hear that you have some boundaries,” Tom said, with what Harry suspected was
a smile, “but that, of course, means you won’t know what we were talking about, correct?” Tom
asked, like he was trying to catch him out.
Harry shook his head, so sure that Tom could see right through him, could see that his lie was as
transparent as a pane of glass.
Looking through the straggled ends of his fringe, Harry could see the razor-sharp edges of Tom’s
smile.
“That’s really a shame,” Tom said, that mouth curling around the words, “because we were talking
about me, and I think you’re quite interested in me, aren’t you Harry?”
Harry shrugged.
“This is going to be a terribly dull conversation if you’re only going to pay attention to the floor.”
Although Tom didn’t say anything, the command, and somehow also the threat was very clear.
Harry was going to have to look up. He counted it down in his head, three, two, one. He looked up.
Tom was smiling. “Thank you, though I’d hope you knew that it is common courtesy for people to
look at each other when they’re talking.”
Harry found himself nodding again, really too overwhelmed with feelings for Tom’s eyes to do
anything else. A small part of him hated himself because he had always scoffed at those romance
novels that his aunt read, where the love interest’s eyes were given so many impractical and
frankly unrealistic metaphorical comparisons, and yet, as he stared at Tom he had to wonder
whether every Romance author had taken inspiration from his face. There was just something
indescribably gorgeous about it, an almost painful sort of beauty that was only evident this close
up, the sort that people would probably die for, maybe even kill for.
He was pulled from his musing by another of Tom’s question. “You’re on straight law aren’t you,
Harry?”
He nodded, wishing that he could get a word out but still failing to.
“Do you know anything about philosophy?”
Harry nodded again, knowing that he’d definitely done it too many times now, they were probably
thinking he was usually a mute.
“Can he actually talk?” said Lestrange suddenly and conveniently.
“Of course, he can talk, you idiot,” Tom said briefly breaking eye contact to glare at Lestrange.
“Quite eloquently I imagine, when you want to, isn’t that right Harry?”
“Yes,” he choked out.
“Will you talk to me if Lestrange promises to keep his mouth shut?”
“Yes,” Harry said again, the words finally starting to flow properly, as though the temporary
blockage had been dislodged.
“You heard that Lestrange, don’t interrupt.”

“So, tell me, Harry, as you know about philosophy, do you know what an Ascetic and a Hedonist
are?”
“I think so,” he said, if just for more diversity than repeating ‘yes.’ And it was partially true, Harry
had heard the word before, and he was pretty sure he could fake his way out of any basic question
Tom was about to ask, and, well, by this point he was prepared to lie if it meant he could keep
talking to Tom, keep being close enough to figuratively drown in his eyes.
“Are you sure?”
Harry repeated his answer, and he was sure Tom recognised that he really didn’t have a clue what
he was talking about.
“Well congratulations, but would you mind if I clarify, for the sake, at least, of Avery over there,
who is not so well versed in philosophical ideas?”
“Sure.”
To give him credit, Tom kept up the pretence that it was all for Avery very well, he talked directly
to him, and Avery seemed the glow in the attention.
“Hedonism is, of course, the infamous philosophical doctrine that prioritises the pursuit of
pleasure, and not only the pursuit. An act can only be considered morally good for us, if that act is
pleasurable, likewise an act may only be considered bad for us when it results in pain.
Understand?”
Avery nodded, wide eyes never leaving Tom’s.
“Good. Asceticism is perhaps the flip-side of that coin, though I’m sure at least one Rosier, if not
both, would criticise that statement,” he said, his gaze already passing over to them. Rosier
certainly looked ready to criticise it, but he seemed to realise that this was not the time; though
such a realisation was probably better attributed to Druella digging her elbow into his ribs before
he could interrupt. Tom smiled at her and continued, “Asceticism is where one lives abstaining
from sensual pleasures. It requires considerable self-discipline, and is typically practised for
spiritual reasons, and can be linked to the ancient philosophical doctrine of Stoicism, which I will
not get into now, though if you are interested, I’m sure we could talk about it later.”
Harry didn’t care that the statement wasn’t addressed to him, nor that he was not remotely
interested in Stoicism, if he got to hear Tom talk about it, listen to that gorgeously slow and
measured way that he spoke, then he would be interested in anything and everything that Tom
wanted to talk about.

Tom somehow managed to drag his eyes off of the others and turned back to Harry. “So, Harry,
returning to our conversation, that perhaps, as you are so fond of listening in, you would like to
join.” He didn’t give Harry a chance to interject before continuing. “Care to answer this Harry, am I
more of an Ascetic or more of a Hedonist?”
Harry swallowed, trying to be as calm as Tom was. “Well, you’re not an ascetic,” he said, a little
too proud that he got through the first sentence without stuttering. “You indulge yourself in other
people too much.”
He honestly wasn’t sure where that accusation was coming from, and apparently, neither was Tom,
based on the curiosity that briefly fluttered across his features. Fortunately, a thought came to
Harry, before he started to mumble about nothing. That simple lovely image of Tom and Druella
on the stairs, Druella with her clever words, and Tom looking like he wanted to eat them. But Tom
interrupted his thoughts before he could share them.
“I indulge myself, do I? What a lovely way of putting it, care to elaborate?” he said with a
combination of interest and boredom that only he was able to pull off so exquisitely. Leaning back
in his chair, head to the side, looking both disinterested in the answer, but engaged in the method of
reaching it.
“Well – well, you feed off other people’s minds,” Harry continued, slightly more confident now.
“You consume them, intellectually; strip them of their knowledge right down to the bone. ”
“You make me sound cannibalistic, Harry.”
The way Tom said such an abominable thing was hypnotic, chewing on the word, spreading it all
over his tongue before he let it roll out his mouth. So much so that it became accusatory in words
only. The tone Tom paired it with was far more satisfied, bordering almost on seductive, as though
it entertained him to know that was what someone thought of him.
“Is that your only reasoning?” he said, his tongue catching on the final word and making prickle
run down Harry’s spine.
“No,” he said, knowing perfectly well it was. His brain felt sluggish and useless as he stood there
for just a tad too long, getting hotter and more uncomfortable as the twelve unceasing eyes
continued to watch him.
“Umm – You’re not religious, are you?” he said eventually, knowing it was grasping at straws.
Fortunately, though Tom shook his head.
“Well, you need devotion to be ascetic, and you have to have religion to have devotion, and…
you’re not religious, so you have no devotion, and so no reason to be ascetic,” said Harry the words
just falling out his mouth in a long, and hoped, coherent stream.
“Interesting,” Tom said, turning his attention away from Harry and instead to his own fingers as
they slid over the table before settling, only inch or two from Malfoy’s hand.
“Assuming your argument is valid, why then, am I not a hedonist?”
Harry swallowed again, all of them, apart from Tom, were still watching him, and he hot and
awkward and it made his palms damp. He rubbed them inelegantly on his trousers. Wishing that
they’d all look away and that only Tom would look at him.
“Because pleasure means nothing to you either,” he said eventually.
Tom turned to face him; a look Harry would like to interpret as genuine intrigue nestled between
his usual coolness.
“Go on.”
“You – you,” Harry stumbled, Tom was watching him now, really watching him. It was the same
way that he had been looking at him in the cafeteria, dark and hungry to intellectually take him
apart piece by piece, and just prove Harry right.
Harry swallowed, trying to get his words out. “You don’t desire pleasure, nor do you seek to obtain
it. It’s just something you…” Harry wasn’t entirely sure where he was going. But like before the
memory, brief and fleeting of something Harry had seen as he’d walked to his tutorial on the
seventh floor. The sight of someone he’d thought was Tom, standing on the stairway, smiling and
offering quiet pleasantries in return for a polite favour.
“Pleasure is just something you use to get what you want,” Harry found himself saying.

Tom was silent for just long enough to make Harry nervous. Just long enough that he was starting
to shuffle from foot to foot and wondering whether he could make it to the door and then never
ever come back here again. Whether he would be able to avoid them like the plague, perhaps
transfer to some distant university in Scotland and never have to look at their perfect faces ever
again. Never having to face Tom again. He could, he definitely could, all it would take was –
“I must say,” Tom began, interrupting his migration plans, “I am curious to know how you know
all that about me. In fact, I would be tempted to say that you’re a stalker Harry, one with an –
unhealthy level of interest in me.”
“I’m not,” he said, perhaps a little too quickly.
“Well that aside then, your reasoning was frankly amateurish, and much of it not remotely
philosophical, rather I would say psychological; not to mention that I disagree with a lot of it.”
Harry swallowed; his throat too tight, everything too tight, like he strung up ready to endure public
humiliation.
“But I like your ideas, I like what you see.” Tom licked his lip in a way that Harry thought was
entirely inappropriate, “I like how intimately you dissect me,” said Tom smiling, “and I am
somewhat intrigued to know what you’d think of me, if you really knew who I was.”
There was a sinister edge to Tom’s voice that made him a little uncomfortable, but it was
overridden by the intensity of his eyes, the slow steady pace of his words. His simply
overwhelming perfection.

“Could you answer me one more question, Harry?”

Harry nodded, not trusting his voice to stay steady.
“Why are you reading law? When you sound as though you’d be a lot more at home in psychology,
perhaps?”
“I want to make a difference,” he said, his eyes returning to the swirling patterns on the wooden
floor.
“Surely you could do that in any other degree, rather than subject yourself to such demands as the
law requires,” said Tom, in a statement that Harry found vaguely offensive, but he wasn’t sure
why.
“Are you saying I’m stupid.”
“Of course not,” said Tom in a way that faintly suggested he had been. Tom must have seen that he
 wasn’t convinced, “how about then, that you prove to me that you’re not.”
“What?” said Harry, finding himself in rather the same position Avery had been, and suddenly
having a lot more sympathy for him.
“I’d like it if you’d sit with us tomorrow, would you like that?”
Harry nodded with probably too much enthusiasm.
“Excellent, we’ll see you tomorrow then, Harry,” said Tom in a way that seemed to dismiss him,
like a schoolmaster dismissing an unruly pupil.

Chapter End Notes

I hope this wasn't too bad, please forgive any philosophical mistakes, I don't think
there were any glaringly obvious ones, but feel free to point to out any if you see them.
 in arguendo
Chapter Notes

Sorry for my rather long absence, here's an extra long chapter to make up for it.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The window in the kitchen was banging loudly in the wind. Harry could hear it even from his
room, a repetitive knocking like the slam of the door. Someone hadn’t put it on the latch when
they’d last been in. He could deal with it, and he probably should, but that would mean getting up
and starting the day, and that would mean having to meet them.
Harry shut his eyes and listened to the banging of the window, though now, it had become more
annoying and less sleep-inducing. He’d been half-awake for hours now, just lying and waiting,
knowing he’d have to move soon, no matter how much he was regretting everything.
He’d never been invited to meet anyone before, he was not the type to be invited to places,
particularly not by beautiful, intelligent, wealthy people who were obviously so much better than
he was. Where he had awkwardness, they had sophistication, he’d seen it, he’d spent far too long
seeing it, so this was probably his comeuppance really. His punishment for looking at the things
that weren’t his to look at. Harry knew as he was staring up at the blank ceiling, that he should
have just stopped looking when the going was good, he’d seen plenty already, but he had to go
ahead and ruin it by getting one more look, and now he was in this mess.

He spent too long in the kitchen, opening cupboards much too slow, pouring his cereal even
slower, standing with the fridge door open for much too long as he stared at the last bottle of milk
he had left, before just shutting the door and sitting at the table with dry cereal, and the window
still banging.
It was cold in the kitchen, cold and unpleasant, but at least it wasn’t with them, at least here he
could sit by himself. Here, he didn’t have to worry about what they were all thinking, what they
would say to each other as soon as he was gone. He didn’t have to think of Tom, of the way he
smiled, of the way he talked, the way he was so perfect in everything he did, but still had
something hidden under his skin. Harry was sure he’d seen flickers of it in Tom’s smiles, in the
way that he turned his head and the way that all the others, supported but never contradicted the
things he said. Tom was simply special, and Harry wanted to be close enough that, maybe, some of
that specialness would transfer to him. Maybe, if he was with them, he’d feel less – less of every
negative thing he felt.
But at the same time, he couldn’t shake the feeling of inadequacy that had embedded itself so deep
in his bones. He was the mouse to their cats, the amateur to their prodigy, he was simply nothing to
their everything, and why would they really want to have him around? He thought about it as he
went to wash up his bowl, but as he reached the sink, the cheap porcelain slipped from his hand
and into the sink, clattering and breaking into at least ten pieces too many to glue back together. It
was the perfect ending to a terrible morning.

As Harry walked towards the library, because he couldn’t sit in his silent room any longer, he
knew he was dragging his heels. Taking much too much time to do anything, including spending
far too long staring at the hazing view across the bridge; the sun invisible behind a wall of cloud.
All he could see was the outline of a golden circle faintly glimmering. There was no one out on the
bridge today, perhaps they could sense the rain coming, that or they all had conspired against him
to increase his apocalyptic sense of unease. Either way, it was not a comfort.
Harry shamefully took the longest route he needed, he turned the wrong way deliberately, down
side-streets that led nowhere in the hope that maybe he would get permanently lost in London’s
maze, and then he’d have a lovely excuse for never turning up at all. He felt like one of those
intelligent mice used in the experiments the biology students talked about over lunch. The ones
where the mouse was released through a maze, and if it found the way, it was rewarded, and if it
did not, then punishment awaited it. He wondered whether meeting Tom again constituted as a
reward or a punishment.
He did briefly consider not turning up at all. But then again, he thought, stopping on a corner
beneath a flower basket where all the flowers were dead; if he never turned up, he’d never get to
see Tom’s face, nor would he get to hear their witty conversations that gave him the only joy in his
life. Their lives had slowly become the reason for his own, and to deny himself them, was to deny
himself of everything he knew he craved. Their perfection was stupefying, painfully so, and
everyone said that they rarely spoke to anyone else, at least nothing more than the appropriate
small talk to people of their own social strata. So this really was his only opportunity.

He’d spent too long in his head. Harry knew that because as he looked around, he didn’t recognise
anything. The buildings were not the usual ones he passed, they were not places of business, but
rather, places of residence. Somehow, he’d stumbled into the residential quarter, the upper-class
one at that. Large white houses, with tall windows and black rail fences. The sort that had twisted
columns standing proud at their entrances, the sort that had flowers and grass and an overwhelming
freshness that could only be achieved with money.
In a strange way, they reminded Harry of them; of their tall pristine appearances, always elegant,
always polished. Compared to them, he was just the paperboy’s shabby bicycle that rested against
the fence at the far end. He couldn’t see the paperboy, and it was just him standing and staring and
subconsciously dreaming of the tall white houses.
They all had numbers, brass numbers right in the centre of black doors. He was standing in front of
number one, and though the street was long and punctuated by trees with dying leaves he supposed
there must be about twelve or so houses on each side.
He could have stayed there too long just watching the houses, waiting to see the sorts of people
that lived in them, but that was a step too far even for his level of procrastination, so he turned
around and walked back the way he came, trying to forget those houses that should have meant
nothing, but seemed to symbolise so much.

Harry shivered, he couldn’t help but be nervous, this was the most nerve-wracking thing he’d ever
done. There was something so finite, so deliberate about this offer. It held unspoken conditions
such as, if he failed to be as interesting as Tom thought he was, then he would lose this opportunity
and everything that went with it.
He had been standing outside the library for nearly an hour now, always deliberating, telling
himself he’d go in when the clock struck the quarter of the hour, but every time it did, he thought
of something else he needed to do, and then he’d sit a little longer on the cold stone bench, his feet
tapping against the cobbles in nervous agitation.
Since the previous day, the weather had altered, and now it was much too cold. There was also a
thick spread of clouds all over the sky, dark charcoal clouds that threatened to spill everywhere at
the slightest provocation. Harry kept glancing up at them, hoping for rain, hoping to get absolutely
soaked and therefore having an excuse for turning up so horrendously late, or perhaps not turning
up at all.
But for all his deliberation, he didn’t leave. Instead, he sat in limbo, his heart beating twice-pace
and a tremor that was nothing to do with the cold affecting his hand. Although it might just have
been a brewing storm, there was a buzz in the air, a mild static like something was going to happen.
Perhaps he read too much, had too many impossible dreams, but there almost felt like there was
magic in the clouds and that it would infuse into him if he sat out here long enough.
He was too romantic. The buzz was just the clouds, he knew because it started to rain. Just a faint
smattering began to fall from the sky at first. Small droplets that became larger as the minutes
passed until they were immense heavy things that splashed when they hit the ground. Harry stared
up at the sky, feeling the cold water run down his face, perhaps taming his hair made wild by the
wind, or perhaps merely sealing its fate as an unruly mess. He could hope for magic all he liked,
but all he’d ever get was reality.
When his face was half frozen and he could no longer feel his fingers, he went inside, no matter
how much he didn’t want to.

The library’s heating had evidently been on since the early morning, as stepping inside resembled
wandering into a freshly stoked kitchen fire. The cloying heat close enough that it was practically
suffocating like he had been pushed headfirst into a steaming pan of syrup and was now
swallowing it in hope of oxygen. None could be found.
Everyone he passed, through the cavernous rooms that constituted the underbelly of this library,
stared at him, and then glanced at the window, apparently only just realising that there existed a
world outside of their little bubble.
Least the heat, however soul-sucking, allowed him to dry quicker, or at least, superficially dry.
Underneath he was still soaked, walking in damp clothes and even damper skin, not that it was
anyone’s fault but his own.
Harry deliberated again, when he finally reached the door they always kept shut, trying to stop
other people interrupting them, and lowering their perfect average. Though he couldn’t hear
anything that anyone was saying, there was the noise of muffled conversation through the door. He
could still leave. He didn’t. In a moment of bravery that he would probably never be able to
replicate, he opened the door.

Inside, all of them were seated, all apart from Lestrange who appeared to be absent. They were all
in their usual places too, except for Avery who’d moved closer to Malfoy. All of them were doing
something to entertain themselves: Rosier and Druella were sharing a book, Avery was leaning
back with his eyes closed, tipping his chair back dangerously far, and Tom and Malfoy were
talking quietly. Harry briefly wondered who he heard talking, but he could think on it for long
because they all looked over, and most of them smiled. Actually, it was only Avery who didn’t.
“Harry,” said Tom, sitting back from Malfoy, “it had been so long, we didn’t think you were going
to make an appearance.”
“Sorry,” he said awkwardly, still holding the door handle, “it was – err – the rain,” he said trying to
justify himself despite knowing they all knew his lateness had nothing to do with the weather.
“He means we thought you’d chickened out,” said Druella, her chin perfectly balanced on the back
of her hand.
He flushed. “As – as I said – umm – the rain.”
“Yes, horrendous, isn’t it?” Druella continued, indulging his lie for a while longer, and out of
politeness, they all turned to the open window at the other end of the room.
Without conversation, the rain was loud as it bounced on the roof and smacked hard against the
glass. There was a patch of wooden floor that looked decidedly damp stretching at least three feet
from the window. But it did cool the room, removing the stickiness of the heat and replacing it
with a far fresher feeling that actually allowed Harry to breathe.
It was then that he realised he was the only one still staring at the window. The others had all
turned back to face him and were now watching with a mixture of intrigue, politeness and disdain,
though the latter sentiment was mostly coming from Avery.
“Do take a seat,” said Tom never taking his eyes off him.
“Where?” he said self-consciously, there were a couple of spare seats: one beside Malfoy, the one
where Lestrange usually sat, and the one next to Rosier that Avery usually sat in.
“Next to me,” said Rosier, pulling it out. He smiled as Harry approached in a way that was far
more genuine than any of the others. “I’m the nice one,” he said continuing to smile.
The others all rolled their eyes and let out a collective sigh.
“You’re a crawler, Rosier, and you know it,” said Malfoy.
“Gets me what I want though, doesn’t it?” he replied, Malfoy sighed again, but didn’t pursue the
point.
“Take whichever one you want, Harry, no one will be offended, will they?”
Everyone shook their head innocently. Though, for ease, Harry took the one beside Rosier.

“So, Harry,” said Tom, leaning forward just a little and paying him more attention than he usually
received in an entire week, “what is the law to you?”
That was not a question he was expecting, and Harry stumbled, apparently Tom was not one for
small talk.
“Riddle, you shouldn’t jump straight in like that,” said Rosier, “it’s a bit too brutal.”
“He can take it, can’t you, Harry?”
Harry found himself nodding, despite knowing already that he was entirely out of his depth. Tom
continued to look at him, evidently, still waiting for an answer.
“Umm – well – I suppose the law is – umm – the rules?”
Tom smiled, not quite unkindly, but with the same mocking amusement as the day before, “no,” he
said, lounging back in such a way that harry found it indecent to keep watching, and instead studied
the wood of the table again.
“Rather, Harry,” he continued, those nice fingers tapping against the wood of the table, “rather, I
want to know what the law means to you. Is it freedom or control? Passion or reason? Deception or
truth?”
Harry found himself chewing on his lip like a schoolboy before he could stop himself, trying to
think of an answer. He wasn’t good at spontaneous questioning, it was why he was so bad in
lectures, and tutorials and meeting and everything else.
“Umm – Well I suppose it’s freedom and… reason and… truth?”
“Was that a statement or a question?” Tom said, turning his head to the side and reminding Harry,
intentionally or not, of the particularly insistent lecturers. The ones that demanded opinions, and
hooked them from your every mouth if they had to, before smiling and dissecting it with immense
pleasure in front of everyone. Tom looked like that, except with a little more warmth around the
corners of his mouth.
“Umm – A statement.”
“Care to justify it?”
Harry was tempted to refuse, but Tom’s gaze was intent, and he didn’t want to refuse it, he just
didn’t want to be told he was entirely wrong, like last time. “Umm – ”
“And would it be possible not to start every sentence with umm?”
Harry flushed, “oh, um– sorry.”
He stopped and took a breath, trying to focus on the blurred words that sat inside dormant inside
his head, if he’d realised thinking would be involved, then he would have spent a little longer
sitting in the kitchen listening to the banging of the window.
“I – Well, the – the law is based on freedom, and built on reason, and enacted in truth,” he said, his
fingers twisting awkwardly at the hem of his shirt. They were too hot, even in the cool, and were
just sticky and uncomfortable. Harry knew he looked the complete opposite of the rest of them.
“That’s hardly a justification, but still, do you really believe that those qualities are true?” said
Tom, fingers no longer tapping, in fact, he was no longer moving at all, just leaning back, perfectly
still, the height of sophistication.

“Do tell me, Harry,” he said, making no attempt to move, “how are we free when we have laws
that dictate what we may do? They restrict us, constrain us and assume that we are incapable of
knowing right from wrong intuitively. They feel the need to educate us, whilst giving us no
education. The law is simply the greatest form of control that we will ever know.”
Harry sat still, blinking at him like a dumb thing. There was surely some truth in Tom’s statement,
or he would not have said it, but at the same time, there felt something truly wrong in the words;
something rare and improperly explored in how he flouted the very basis of society. It should not
have been as intriguing as it was, and Tom seemed to see his interest because he continued.
“How too is the law built on reason when, the very nature of law is so vague and indistinct, that
there is an entire class of people dedicated to deciphering its intent? It is a passionate thing that
people will fight to the death to create for themselves, and each and every one of us, dreams of
being an omniscient lawmaker, do we not? And if our passions control us, then we as lawmakers
must infuse the law with such passion.”
The words slid from Tom’s mouth and surrounded Harry, practically visible before his eyes, heavy
and important and deeply meaningful, even if he couldn’t understand why. Tom continued to
smile, and it felt like the others were melting away, and it was just him and Tom sitting across the
table staring and talking, like they were friends, even though they weren’t.
“And Harry,” Tom said, so much quieter and more intimate than before, “how is law truthful when
the very fabric of our existence is stitched together with lies? I do not know how truthful you are,
nor you, me; we build ourselves on deception, usually for our own gain; we lie, and we cheat, and
we manipulate. And if the system is built by us, and we are dishonest, then how can the law ever
be the truth? It is merely formalised perspective, and one that is limited to a narrow, ungainly, view
of life.”
Harry swallowed, unsure what he was supposed to say in return, how he could compete with such
articulacy. It sounded like Tom had been waited forever to have this conversation, and he would be
disappointed when one half of it was missing. Fortunately though, Tom took it upon himself to
answer for him, “would you agree with that assessment?”
“No,” Harry said instinctively, before pausing and reconsidering. For just a second that flicker that
he had glimpsed yesterday was once again curling across Tom’s face, a strange mixture of intrigue
and conspiracy, as though he was deliberately leading Harry astray, in hope of making him arrive at
a conclusion that matched his own.

“I think you’re wrong,” Harry said slowly, his heart beating like a wild bird against a cage. Just
like yesterday, he had no real idea where he was going, and he sort of hoped that his brain was
willing to engage, or it would all just be a mess, and an embarrassing one at that.
“The law respects the rights of individuals, doesn’t it? It gives us considerable liberty to do as we
wish, and what it prohibits us from doing is what morals would disincline us from anyway. You
might be passionate in your life, and so might I, but the law is, universally, reason free from
passion. There are not lawyers or judges or scholars that warp the law with passion, they are
merely passionate for the law. And, the – the law is not deception. Perhaps, Tom…” He stopped,
trying to decide if he’d imagined the way Tom flinched at his name. Tom only continued to watch
him unmoving but intrigued all the same.
“A–as I was saying, perhaps you are a deceptive person, perhaps you thrive on lying and – and
cheating and manipulating, but that doesn’t alter the fact that our laws are above us. They are
greater than what we are. And as such our own imperfections cannot be spread to them… you
know?” The words all came out in a rush, without a pause for thought or breath. They were
dreadful sentences, but Tom smiled at him anyway, a genuine smile, like he had been waiting for
this exact moment for a while now.
“That was awfully zealous, you would almost think I hit a nerve, did I, Harry?” he said with an
almost childlike glee.
Harry stayed silent, and that only made Tom’s smile stretch further.
“I think I did,” he said slowly and carefully, like a dangerous plant slowly unfurling the petals that
would act as bait to draw in unlikely prey.
“And I think I understand now, why you insist on reading the law.”
Harry suddenly looked down again, staring at the wood of the table, he didn’t want to hear it, but
at the same time he was curious as to what Tom thought he knew about him, “and why’s that?” he
murmured.
“Life has unkind to you, hasn’t it, Harry? And the law could not be wielded; it lay unenforced by
corruption or carelessness. You do not want other people to be in your position, that’s how you
want to help them, isn’t it? By being there when no one was there for you.”
Silence did not look like it would satisfy the situation, however appropriate, it might have been,
and so he nodded. “Perhaps,” he said, raising his eyes to Tom’s and hoping that it looked more
determined than the fuzziness of self that he felt inside, cold and exposed like curtains covering an
open window. He hoped that Tom could not see that he was right because then he might find Harry
boring.
“How coy,” said Tom, holding his eyes for at least five seconds too many before turning to the
others, “though it is a shame that Lestrange is not with us to witness your eloquence, as he was the
one to doubt it. But nonetheless, for all your linguist elegance, Harry, you are wrong, and perhaps
you will come to see that if you stay with us for a while.” Tom turned back to him. “What the law
what intended to be, and what it has become, are quite different things, somewhere along its
tributary is has been poisoned, and now, what we consume so readily is not what we should be.”
“You’re– ”
Before Harry could finish, the door opened and Lestrange stalked into the room slamming the door
hard behind him and making the books on the shelves nearby shake.

He didn’t look at any of them before speaking. “If I have to so much as look at Alphard one more
time this week, I swear I’ll fucking kill him,” snapped Lestrange, without so much as a hello first.
They all looked at him, but no one said anything, perhaps Lestrange recognised the silence because
he made a face that Harry didn’t know him well enough to interpret.
“Well good afternoon to you too,” said Tom, the sound of his voice seemed louder when it was
interrupting the intense silence. “It’s a pleasure that you could finally bless us with your company,”
he continued, though his tone suggested it was anything but a pleasure, and Lestrange should know
that.
“Now the pleasantries are out the way, do you care to, at least, give the semblance of civility, given
that we have a guest?”
Lestrange rolled his eyes and sighed and made a half-hearted sneer in Harry’s direction, “so
fucking sorry for interrupting you,” he spat, reaching his usual chair beside Tom and slumping
down into it.
When Harry turned his eyes back towards Tom, he swallowed. What warmth had been left in
Tom’s gaze had drained away, and now his eyes were now cold and empty and deeply unsettling.
The others seemed to realise, all of them averting their eyes to stare at the books and the ceiling
and the floor and anywhere other than Tom and Lestrange. Even Malfoy managed to divert his
stare from Tom’s face to the spine of a book in the centre of the table, his eyes flicking back across
the title repeatedly. Only Harry looked.
“Must we have another conversation about etiquette, Lestrange?” said Tom, dangerously quietly,
his fingers tapping against the table again, loud in the silence. Harry swallowed again, there was
something different in Tom’s face now, something much darker than before, much more
unnerving. Harry glanced between the two of them, Tom somehow maintaining a superficial
detachment that certainly wasn’t as indifferent as he wanted to appear, and Lestrange openly
seething, his jaw clenching, teeth practically grinding audibly together. For a moment Harry
thought that an argument might erupt, like the first time he’s watched them, but once again, after a
minute or so, Lestrange dropped his gaze.
“No. I apologise; it was an – inappropriate apology,” he said, still looking at the table.
Tom seemed to smirk, “and what do you say to our guest?”
Lestrange flicked his eyes momentarily at Tom, and when he got no reaction, he turned them
towards Harry. “I sincerely apologise for the interruption,” he said with an expression that just
teetered on a glare but never quite spilled over. Then his gaze was back on the wood, tracing the
grooves with his eyes, and hoping that the others wouldn’t look. They didn’t. Whatever it was that
they had just witnessed, they had all seen it before.
All the way through the exchange, Malfoy had been leaning back in his chair, smirking a little too
much, now he leaned forward. “What did Black do anyway?” he said, apparently trying to restart
the conversation. His fingers also returned to Tom’s arm, still trailing lightly back and forth. Tom
didn’t tell him to stop. And although Malfoy seemed to be playing the mediator between the two of
them, he definitely looked like he was enjoying the disagreement far too much.
Before Lestrange could answer, Rosier leaned over to Harry.
“I suppose you don’t know Alphard Black, do you?” he said quietly.
Harry shook his head, deciding it was probably better than lying.
“Well, all you need to know is that he’s reading Politics and Economics, and Lestrange absolutely
loathes him.”
Harry nodded, though he probably could have guessed. The Blacks were another of those families
that he’d heard of because everyone had heard of them, they were, according to the dotted
conversations Harry had ‘accidentally’ overheard, rich, but not special; not like these six. They
didn’t possess any particular beauty, nor any superior intelligence. Their entire merits came from
their name and their money, neither of which apparently impressed anyone in the group.
“He – ” Lestrange paused looking for a word that described it correctly, “he – insulted me,” he said
eventually, eyes still focussed too hard on the table.
Tom laughed, “oh, poor you, will your ego survive, Lestrange?” he said, his tone crossing the
delicate line into mocking. It should have been awful to hear, but Harry couldn’t help but swallow
and lean a little closer, fingers edging over the wood in a way that caught Malfoy’s eye. But he
didn’t care, Harry just wanted to hear every word, wanted, shamelessly, to be able to play it back
over and over again in his head.
He needed to lie on the edge of sleep and hear those words, that sardonic tone. He needed to see
this side of Tom, like the mask he was wearing was coming undone at the sides, and for the
briefest of moments, he was getting a glimpse of all the cruel things that lurked underneath. Was
that that Tom meant when he said if you really knew who I was?
That tone was not nice, and it should have been painful for Harry to hear, it should have made him
want to turn away from these people forever. But, then again, these were the first people he’d truly
met, and they were such lovely people, such glittery people and he couldn’t throw that all away, no
matter what tone Tom chose to address his friends in. It was probably an inside joke that he didn’t
understand. Harry chose to believe that, even when none of the others was laughing.

Harry turned back towards Lestrange, who was looking up now, his features deepening into a
glare, “he insulted you too, you know,” he said with no small amount of spite, the words flicking
off his tongue like they were poisonous.
Tom didn’t react, he only leaned his head to the side and smiled with an unnerving nonchalance,
“did he now?”
“Yes actually. He said – ”
Tom raised his hand and Lestrange stopped speaking, “I don’t care to know what he said just now,
as you can see, we have a guest. We’ll talk about it later.”
Lestrange chewed on his lip but said nothing, though the scowl did not leave his face.
“So, Harry,” said Tom, turning back to him with a smile, “resuming our conversati– ”
“Oh, come on Riddle,” Druella interrupted, “if all you wanted to do was to pick his brains, and
coax him into bed with your opinions, then you should have made a private appointment and not
forced the rest of us to endure it.”
Harry felt a flush spill like a waterfall from his cheeks down his neck, as though Druella had read
and publicly shared his most private fleeting thoughts. He honestly thought that Tom might make
another sharp comment a hair’s breadth from cruelty, something glimmering and gorgeous no
matter how malicious it was, but he didn’t seem to care, he only smiled at Druella.
“And why is that?” he said, all smooth and sleek.
“Because,” she said, leaning forward, her elbows pressed uncomfortably into the wood, “I for one,
do not care to know.”
“You should always care for other people’s opinions,” he said, still smiling.
“Not when they are on topics that do not concern me,” she replied, also smiling. The moment
reminded Harry of the time of the stairs, those smiles and those looks, were the same as these.
Clever repartee merging into teasing and balancing on the needlepoint of flirtatious. It made his
stomach curl and twist, though he didn’t know why.
“Surely the law concerns you? It concerns all of us,” said Tom.
“Money makes men above the law, Riddle, you should remember that.”
“And you are no man, Druella, you should remember that.”
Suddenly, Rosier shut whatever book he had been reading with a slap and rolled his eyes at them,
“let’s stop this now.”
“Why?” said Tom, he’d obviously been enjoying the conversation, perhaps even at Rosier’s
expense.
“Because I wouldn’t have come here if I had known that you two were going to – flirt so
shamelessly,” he said, glaring just enough to get his point across.
“Aww, do you feel left out?” said Druella, her fingers scraping back along her brother’s arm in a
way that would tickle for most people. Rosier just shook her away.
“No, of course not. I just think there are better ways to spend our time.”
“Such as?” said Tom, that gloating little smile back at the corners of his mouth.
“Oh, I don’t know, Riddle, ask Avery, he’s barely said anything today.”

Avery visibly swallowed, his empty head searching for something interesting to say. Although it
was almost painful to watch, Harry had to feel a little sympathy for him. After all, he’d probably
been worse earlier.
“Are you observing All Saints’ Day this year?” he said eventually, just addressing the entire room.
“Of course, we are,” said Druella, evidently slightly irritated she was no longer the centre of
attention. Harry watched silently as she rolled up a piece of paper that had been in front of her
before sliding it over to Malfoy, “hit him with that for me, would you?” she said, “I mean it’s an
insensitive question, Avery, you know we’re not heathens; no offence Riddle.”
“None taken,” he said, with a quick glance over to him that Harry didn’t miss.
“So sorry,” Avery said, rubbing his arm melodramatically from where Malfoy had defiantly taken
pleasure in hitting him with the paper. “What are you doing on All Hallows’ Eve then?”
“Oh, don’t be so pretentious, Avery, just fucking call it, Halloween, like everyone else,” said
Lestrange, though he recoiled a little when Tom glared at him, and mouthed something that looked
like an apology.
Avery also glared at him.
“Well,” said Malfoy stringing out the single syllable, and once again stepping into that mediating
role he filled so well, “we talked about meeting up at the Rosier’s.”
Heads turned back towards Rosier and Druella. She had returned her fingers to her brother’s arm,
almost mimicking Malfoy’s actions earlier.
“We’re still fine with that, and even better our grandmother won’t be around; she thinks it brings
horrible bad luck to travel on Allhallowtide, and she’s stuck in Aquitaine at the moment, visiting
her sick sister or something, wasn’t it?”
Rosier shrugged.
“That settles it then, doesn’t it?” said Malfoy, looking around the room, “doesn’t it?” he repeated
until there were visible nods of people agreeing.
It honestly felt weird, but hardly unexpected, to watch people make a plan in front of him that
didn’t include him. But he’d got his taste, and that was all he had wanted, at least, he tried to
convince himself of that, despite knowing he’d live the rest of his life dreaming of what it could
have been if he was more interesting.
He was raised from his gloom by Tom, watching him. “You’ll come too, won’t you, Harry?” he
said, with that signature smile, “I would be greatly disappointed if you couldn’t make it.”
Harry nodded a little dumbly, his insides curling and twisting, and a slightly pathetic swell of hope
 rising, the thought of all those things he’d given up on, were perhaps coming into reach again,
including Tom.

Chapter End Notes

Sorry for talking about law for too long in this chapter, I can really get carried away,
apologies.
 fiat
Chapter Notes

I'm so sorry for taking so long, I had a crisis of my ability to execute this, which sort of
paralysed this fic's development for ages, but I think I'm over it now, so updates
should be a little more frequent, at least fingers-crossed they will be.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Harry seemed to be back in the same predicament that he was always in. He was standing in front
of the mirror, staring at his clothes and wishing he was someone else. Or, rather, he was wishing
that he was more like them; that he possessed their natural elegance, their sophistication, that he
was sure had to be learnt, but still appeared to be so effortless, and he wanted, however selfish it
was, their looks. For no matter how many times he brushed his hair, and pulled and tugged at his
suit, it still didn’t look right on him.
It looked like he had stolen someone else’s skin and now was trying to wear it as his own, and
surely, they would see through such disguises. They would see that he did not belong as one of
them, and never really would. No matter how good friends they became, there would still be that
divide between them. The wealth, the looks, the family connections. He had none of them, and as
far as he knew, he never would, and he wasn’t like Tom; he didn’t possess that charm or that
charisma that would have salvaged him. He was simply ordinary, and no amount of staring in the
mirror was ever going to change that.

That didn’t stop him from repeatedly straightening his collar and tugging at his cuffs though. If
anything, it made it worse, just knowing that everything about him screamed of mediocracy, even
if he knew, somewhere in his brain, that he could not be merely mediocre because they did not
hang around with things, they thought were beneath them.
Harry sighed. Rosier had been the one to give him this frankly, too formal, dress code along with
their address, which he said any good taxi should know, with such a casual smile that Harry hadn’t
bothered mentioning that he couldn’t afford a taxi, as in his experience, that was just met with
exasperation, sometimes even horror at the thought of poverty, and all its distasteful associations.
Needless to say, he would be walking, so it probably didn’t matter if his suit was perfect or not,
because, by the time he got to their house, it most certainly wouldn’t be quite as nice as when he
had started.
The Rosiers always insisted, apparently, on formal evening wear, the sort that Harry had forgotten
people still wore on a semi-regular basis. To him, it rather seemed like one of those things that had
been lost to antiquity, left behind at the turn of the century, but it had only been abandoned by
those who couldn’t afford it. Those who could, still revelled in the fanciful nature of it all: the glitz
and the glamour of changing clothes several times a day just because they could.
Fortunately, he did have some reasonably acceptable clothes, merely because it had seemed like the
sort of thing that he would be required to get at some point after studying law, after all, everyone
said it was such a glamorous career. And though, he hadn’t yet been offered a glimpse of this
prestige, Harry supposed it was somewhere under the drab surface of studying.

For a minute he managed to stop fiddling and just stared. In his own eyes, he didn’t look too bad,
though there was a certain cheapness about the clothes, the blacks not quite black, and the crinkles
evident despite ironing, but it would have to do.
Perhaps what was worse, was that his mind was constantly calling back faint visions that he’s had
ever since they’d all arranged this. Shadowy figures on the corners of his vision that for some
reason his brain felt the need to compare him to, even though the figures were simply
incomparable. Harry knew without having to consider, that those figures were them, that much was
obvious. They all looked so nice. The very thing that he so craved was so naturally woven into
their skin, and more than that, for what they had, was not superficial. It went to the very core of
who they were. Their skin was infused with class, the more revolutionary would perhaps have said
elitism, and it went right down to their bones, filled to the brim with an organic refinement that had
been growing inside them ever since they were born.
But still, there was something under the surface that they had not yet shown him. Something off,
like milk that had been left out and was just an hour from spoiling. He could practically taste it in
the air around them, but if he had been asked to name what it was that he felt, he wouldn’t have
been able to. It was just a feeling in his gut, that there was more to them than they let everybody
see.

He left too early, just so he could drag his heels on the ground, and be overly nervous for an event
that he’d been so happy to be included in. But now that it was actually approaching, he couldn’t
help but wonder whether it was all an elaborate joke for their own amusement.
For all he knew, right now, they could be sitting on their fancy chairs, talking in their clipped
accents, and laughing at his naivety, at him in general. At all the fanciful things that they must
know had crossed his mind since they had deigned to include him in their lives. And the single,
simple thought of Tom laughing at him was enough to almost make Harry turn back now, without
so much as ever meeting them.
But he didn’t do that, not because there was feeling deep in his stomach that his own mind was
wrong and there was no way that they were laughing at him, but rather, because he did not allow
himself to stop walking. Not on the corner to consider directions, nor on the bridge to observe the
melding of the colours in the sky. Not for a moment did he allow himself to stop, because if he did,
he knew that he would never start walking in the same direction again. Harry knew, or at least
heavily suspected, that there was a very cowardly part of him that currently reigned over his
emotions as a tyrant, and if he were to stop, he would be giving in to that part of him which would
continue to hold him back forever.

At least, that was what Harry would like to think was spurring him on as the sun began to set and
stain the sky with a gold fire. Perhaps though, the more pressing reason was that he, once again,
wanted to see Tom, wanted to see him, drink his image in, as though he were a drug, as sweet and
addictive as Victorian cough syrup. It wasn’t just Tom either, though he was the most important,
Harry would be lying if he said he didn’t find the others just as charming and lovely to listen and
talk to, as real friends did.
So, he didn’t dare stop, even when he feared that he was about to make a wrong turn, he just
continued and hoped that he would manage to find them eventually, even if he had to walk past
midnight for that to become a reality.
Although that felt unlikely, as the address that Rosier had given him sounded distinctly familiar,
though Harry couldn’t quite remember why; he certainly doubted that he’d ever been anywhere
close to it before, given he could hardly afford his own hovel, even with a scholarship. He was not
in the habit of entering beautiful, expensive houses that they certainly lived in.

But when he got to the street, he realised why the address had struck such a cord when it shouldn’t
have. It was the same road as he had been stuck on before. The one with the parallel lines of white
houses rising up like Ancient Greek columns, as gorgeous and powerful as their connotations.
These were, as he had suspected, one of the homes of the wealthy beyond words. The ones to
whom wealth had become an expectation and not a privilege, those who could find more and more
frivolous ways to spend their money.
The old streetlamps were lit and cast a ghostly light in a circle around their base. Just a small, cold,
patch of light that lovers could stand under as they parted from each other’s company with a kiss.
But, despite the romance that Harry immediately thought of, as he stood under that light, he did not
feel romantic, he only felt cold and rather empty. The light somehow shining on the missing space
within him but being unable to fill it up. It made him painfully aware of the loneliness that had
been eating into him, chewing on his heart until there was scarcely the core left.
He stood there under the light in the darkened sky for a while, standing there and biting his lip and
waiting. For what, he didn’t know, it just felt like a divine intervention was about to happen in
some way, shape, or form. The sky that had failed to give him magic the other day, was now
bristling again and filling the void inside him with anticipation once more.
There was no telling how long he would have stood out there, just staring at the elegant façade of
the house, the symmetry and the straight lines fixing everything in perfect order, if the door hadn’t
opened, and a man that Harry didn’t recognise invited him in.

The man did not take the liberty to introduce himself, but Harry suspected he might be part of the
domestic service. He didn’t smile. All he did was, lead the way, encouraging Harry when he
lingered too long.
It was almost a surreal experience, walking in silence through such a pretty house. Every single
light that they passed was blaring bright, casting gold out into the corridors and dark, dark shadows
across the corners where no lights could fit. The result was almost blinding on the eyes, hurting
like someone was pushing their thumb through his cornea, and it was made worse by the décor of
the walls, pale cream and lined with mirrors that had gold frames. They were set in a repeating
pattern that ached of a Romanesque simplicity that was only interrupted on occasion by pale doors,
all of them shut. To Harry, there was something glorious in the high ceilings and perfect, smooth
walls, and something delightful in the careful click that his shoes made on the pale wooden floor.
He couldn’t help but think of the sort of high society that must walk along here, the sort that was
defined in his mind by the sound of a woman’s heels tapping on the floor; for a moment he
wondered if the novelty ever wore off, or whether Druella still smiled like a little girl as she walked
every day down this masterpiece of a corridor, for that’s all it was, only a corridor.
The doorman, or perhaps he was the butler, showed him to one of these doors, but before he could
ask anything, the man had disappeared back down the corridor, apparently unwilling to interrupt
whatever was going on inside the room. Harry wasn’t exactly surprised, they were intimidating at
the best of times, and now they were operating on their own territory it was doubly daunting.

Unlike the others, this door was open a crack, and Harry peeked through, unwilling to just march
straight in. From what little he could see, the room was similar to the corridor, that was to say
overly ornate in a simple sort of way. The walls were gold, though whether that was just because of
the light, he couldn’t really tell, for, once again, there were more than enough lights turned on.
Blocking most of his view though, was a sofa, he suspected it wasn’t the only one, and the two
people on it. Between the shadows and the brightness, Harry could make out the profile of Tom,
and Druella. They were sitting close. Too close perhaps; talking. If Harry held his breath, he could
hear snatches of their conversation.
“…Oh, come on Riddle, admit it, you like him,” said Druella, her hand coming into view as it
stretched along the back of the sofa.
“I am fascinated, that’s all,” was Tom’s reply.
“You were fascinated by Mulciber too.”
Tom seemed to smile and lean much closer.
“I didn’t think we were mentioning him anymore, hmm?”
“Well I can’t help but make comparisons,” said Druella, not drawing away from him, but rather
raising her chin and letting her eyes meet his.
Tom leaned in again, raising his hand this time and smoothing back a strand of hair that had fallen
out of place.
“Maybe you shouldn’t think of such things,” he said, his voice dipping back into the same icy pool
as it had when he’d addressed Lestrange’s manners.

Harry pushed the door open. He wasn’t honestly why that moment had lent him courage, but it had,
and there was no going back because the door creaked something horrible, and both Tom and
Druella looked over at him.
“Harry,” said Tom, or rather, he drawled it, dragging out every letter until Harry wished he was the
only person who would ever say his name.
“You found the address alright, then?” said Druella, sliding away from Tom, before standing up
and stretching her arms out in front of her.
“I guess so…” said Harry, feeling the words dying on his tongue as he stared at Druella. She
looked gorgeous, well she always looked beautiful, but now there was an extra sparkle about her. It
was the dress. How it clung to her figure, showing off her shoulder blades and the delicate bones
that made up her shoulders. Harry tried to blink to stop staring, but that didn’t work.
Druella, herself only smiled and walked around the sofa, her dress swishing as she moved so that
she almost appeared to be gliding as an angel would on earth. Just a being made of light and gold
fashioned into a point.
As she walked over, Druella raised her hand in the guise of tucking her hair behind her ear, and
Harry found himself following her hand with his eyes. Watching as the fingers touched her scalp
and how her nails clinked against her earrings, before dropping to the straps that came up behind
her neck. She ran the very tips of her fingers over those strips of gold, just showing how the
neckline dipped below her collarbone and formed a pretty triangle of pale skin.
“My grandmother never lets me wear this, but my grandmother isn’t here, and you won’t tell her,
will you, Harry?”
Harry shook his head. Mesmerised by how the gold fabric glinted off her skin, almost like magic,
drawing his eye subconsciously to the delicacy of her neck and the fragility of her every bone
“…No – I mean no, of – of course not,” he said, realising that both Tom and Druella were
watching him with smiles he would have guessed were condescending.
“S-sorry,” he mumbled.
Though before she could make any sort of reply there was the loud sound of multiple approaching
footsteps on the floors outside.

“Oh, look at that Druella, you’ve got him flustered already,” said Malfoy, arriving through the
same door as Harry had come through. He was smiling, and his arms were outstretched, in that
friendly sort of way that came so naturally to extroverts, and thus so unnaturally to Harry.
“She’s stunning, isn’t she?” Malfoy murmured, his mouth suddenly much too close to Harry’s ear,
and his hand ghosting across his shoulder. When Harry didn’t reply, he laughed to himself, before
sweeping past him with the confidence of the host instead of the guest he was supposed to be; the
same hand skimming over Druella’s waist.
“You look exquisite. Your grandmother just has no taste.”
Druella mouth curved into a smile again, and she raised her eyes to look directly at Malfoy.
“Well she is seventy-four, what can you expect?”
Malfoy looked like he was about to say something else, but a cough from Rosier distracted him.
“I’m not touching, only complimenting,” said Malfoy, raising both his hands up for Rosier to see.
“Such a protective brother you have.”
“Faithful, I think is the word you’re looking for.”
Malfoy raised an eyebrow but didn’t protest, instead, he just ambled away towards Tom, and Harry
watched as that same, wandering hand, went straight to Tom’s shoulder, and, perhaps, more
surprisingly, it was allowed to stay as Tom talked to him in a quiet voice that Harry couldn’t hear.

He only realised he was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, not helping anyone and
probably getting in the way when Druella gently touched his elbow.
“You can sit down, Harry, anywhere you like. I should have offered you something as soon as you
arrived but…” she drifted off as her gaze turned to the floor, “…but I guess I was distracted.”
“What my sister means is that we didn’t mean to neglect you, Harry,” said Rosier briefly leaving
Malfoy and Tom to join them, “please don’t think us rude hosts because, I promise you, we’re not;
you just happened to come in at a bad time.”
As if on cue Lestrange and Avery came through the door, each carrying bottles that Harry assumed
were of wine or some similar alcohol that he had never heard the name of.
When Rosier saw him watching, he smiled.
“We didn’t intend to be gone so long, but Lestrange is very particular about his alcohol. Likes to
think himself a connoisseur, and so we’re always required to agree with him,” he said, “though
we’ll all support you if you choose to deprecate his choices.”
Then he was gone, leaving Harry to nod dumbly as he bustled in on Lestrange and Avery and
starting to bicker with them over whether to open champagne or red wine or white or even all three.
Harry swallowed and nervously took a seat as far from the commotion as he could, and although,
he tried not to, he couldn’t help his eyes turning towards Tom, who was just watching the scene
unfolding before him, apparently with amusement.
He had returned to sitting on the sofa across from him, his arm resting lightly on the arm of the
chair and the rest of his body still. Malfoy was no longer talking to him, but he was still nearby, his
hand resting surreptitiously on Tom’s wrist while he loudly supported Lestrange’s bid for opening
the Rosé. Tom did not offer his own suggestion. Rather as though, he was above all that petty
disagreement, and the others must have understood for they didn’t bother referring to him.
As all the others continued in their distraction, Tom’s own eyes wandered over and he smiled.
Harry felt himself blushing, though there was no reason to, which just made it more embarrassing,
but, fortunately, all the others were too busy to notice the flush spilling under his collar, or the way
he dipped his head to avoid the intensity of Tom’s eyes. To avoid being swallowed up by feelings
he was only just coming to understand but were doing their best to pick him up in their all-
consuming storm. He liked the way Tom looked at him, as though he meant the world, he liked
that Tom seemed to find him interesting and amusing and worth having around, it made a warmth
swell in his stomach and the same fuzziness as the day before curl up through his lungs.
When he looked back up, Tom’s eyes flicked away too fast, and he returned to watching the rest of
his friends continue their bickering.

Somehow the decision was made to open all three different bottles, and Rosier began pouring
glasses without asking anyone what they wanted. Though none of them was protesting what they
got, so Harry supposed they must always drink the same. That pink wine, the colour of new-spring
blossom for Malfoy and Lestrange, champagne that fizzed for Rosier and Druella, a white, that had
no distinguishing feature for Avery, and a dark, almost bloodlike red for Tom.
Harry had never tried any wine before, and they all looked sort of pretty. Delicate, tasteful things
that sophisticated people drank as they conversed, speaking of higher things than most mere
mortals could ever comprehend.
He was pulled from his fantasies by Rosier calling his name out.
“Harry, what do you want to drink?”
For a moment he sat there dumbly, wondering whether it would be appropriate for him to ask the
difference and if he did, whether he’d even understand what the differences actually were. They all
seemed to have their benefits; he liked the way the champagne fizzed, but the rosé, as everyone
kept calling it, was such a pretty candyfloss pink, but the white was nice too, the colour of those
pearl earrings the girl in his tutorial always wore, but then again, the red was gorgeous and vivid
and looked so dark.
He realised he had once again been silent for too long when everyone was watching him.
“Umm – I’ll have…”
“He’ll have the red,” said Tom from across the room as if it was the most natural thing in the
world.
Harry nodded dumbly, half-glad that someone else had made the decision for him, and the red did
look so rich and velvety. Not to mention the way it refracted through the glass and accentuated
Tom’s skin, somehow making pale seem alluring. Tom only smiled at him, once again making the
whole world melt away until it was just the two of them bathed in the silky world of carmine that
seemed to stain everything from Tom’s mouth to his eyes. It lasted just a moment, when Tom
raised his glass, the liquid caught the light and glittered back, flooding Tom’s eyes with such a
warm crimson that Harry’s thoughts just stopped, and his entire mind too was flooded with that
gorgeous red.
Tom looked away when Druella started talking; though Harry would have gladly ignored her
forever if it meant he got to keep staring at those lovely eyes, but he turned towards her out of
politeness.
“I do hope you’ll forgive us for not using our dear butler, Harry, we do love him to pieces, but
sometimes you do want a little privacy, and humans, unfortunately, are curious creature,” she said
like she wasn’t one herself.
“That’s – fine,” Harry mumbled in reply, all too unsure how he was supposed to be commenting on
domestic staff that they would hardly consider to be people, but he himself was so close to.

There was no denying that tonight they were all so much more relaxed then all their other
meetings; tonight, was less of a performance, instead, it was merely a gathering of friends. Old
friends, who chatted and laughed and sniped at one another, old friends, who had witticisms and
anecdotes and jests that only they understood. Though Harry did not feel excluded per se, he did
not understand many of their jokes or their criticisms that they seemed to have for one another,
they had readily made a space for him at their table, and he was willingly sitting in it.
With the relaxation had come an idleness, a languor that pervaded the air and hung in every corner
of the room. It slid into all of them, infecting them with its particularly beautiful disease. They
were all looser, lazy in a way that was utterly enviable.
The tension that Lestrange usually held in his shoulders, had melted away and he was sitting
carelessly on the piano stall, his arms stretched out across the lid, like he was an ancient creature
with wings hidden under his skin on display in some museum. He was listening minimally to the
conversation, only interrupting for the most important points, and for the rest of the time simple
nodding and running his finger up and down the stem of his wine glass, taking long sips of that
pale pink wine he was sharing with Malfoy.
Harry let his eyes drift further. Rosier and Druella had lost the stiffness in their backs, the rigidity
with which they apparently held themselves into those perfect moulds, were gone and they were
free to share a seat too small for two people. Their arms touched, and their knees, and their thighs
all tangled together until Harry could hardly tell one from the other. They were both swallowing
their champagne as though it were water, and Rosier was talking about something Harry wasn’t
really following,
For whatever reason, the coldness that had surrounded them in their first meeting had also
dissipated, and in its place had bloomed a certain friendliness, even Avery smiled at him. His
mouth being pulled by invisible strings, forcing him to pretend to be happy, even when he clearly
wasn’t.
Avery was curled up on his own at the other end of the sofa to Harry. He was closest to Lestrange
but Lestrange wasn’t in a conversing mood apparently, and so he was doing as Harry was, watching
the others with an ill-disguised interest. Unlike Harry though, he was readily swallowing down his
glass of white wine that no one else appeared to want to touch.
That only left Malfoy and Tom. They were sharing a sofa, Tom in the corner and Malfoy stretched
out across the entire thing, his head in Tom’s lap. Tom appeared to be ignoring him for the most
part, though every so often his hand would touch Malfoy’s hair, and Malfoy was stretch out that
little bit further, rather like a cat having its chin stroked.

“So, Potter,” said Malfoy interrupting the discussion on where the best location for a third home,
Harry would have agreed with Rosier that Paris seemed quite nice, but then again, Druella seemed
to make a compelling argument for India. Not that that stopped Malfoy, who’d put his glass down
on the floor and was now looking over at him.
“What do think of the Great British Empir– ?”
“Riddle,” said Rosier and Druella together, “stop interrogating him.”
Tom had the audacity to look offended at them.
“I think you’ll find Malfoy was the one asking the question,” he said, his hands still carding
through Malfoy’s hair as though it wasn’t attached to the very person he was talking about.
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“Perhaps you didn’t ask it, but you put Malfoy up to it, didn’t you?” said Rosier, his eyebrow
raised and look on his face that Harry would genuinely think was rather fraternal. That was nice, in
a way, he’d never had anyone say anything for him before, even if, in this particular case he would
have been quite happy to talk about anything at all if it meant he got to watch Tom uninhibited and
have his voice solely directed at him.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Rosier,” said Tom, snapping Harry from his pleasant little fantasy.
If it was possible Rosier raised his eyebrow higher, “oh, I think you would,” he said in that goading
sort of way that Harry was starting to learn was Rosier’s speciality.
Tom, though, continued, unfazed by whatever tone Rosier chose to use to form his words.
“Does that mean, you think that Malfoy couldn’t come up with that question on his own? Because
that’s what it sounds like.”
“He wouldn’t ask it at a party because he has common courtesy,” said Druella, wading somewhat
unnecessarily into the argument, mostly, Harry suspected, because it was an argument, and she was
drawn like a magnet to all arguments.
“Then you insult him, Druella.”
“And you flatter him.”
“You do realise that I am right here!” said Malfoy, sitting up and glaring at both twins, though
Harry noticed his head was angled just slightly more towards Rosier than Druella, but he supposed
that was probably because Rosier was lower in the pecking order, and thus easier to insult without
serious consequences.
Tom continued to be apathetic on the sidelines, not glaring at anyone, if anything, he rather looked
like he had enjoyed stirring the proverbial pot, causing a disagreement simply because it gave them
something to do for fifteen minutes of their lives.
“I am quite aware that you’re here, Abraxas,” said Tom, running his fingers down Malfoy’s neck,
until he turned towards him, “that’s why I defended you; I wouldn’t have bothered if you hadn’t
been present to hear them.”
Rosier visibly rolled his eyes, and Harry found himself swallowing.
There was something in Tom’s tone that was different, something much more intimate in the way
he smiled at Malfoy like they had a secret and flaunted the fact constantly, winding the others up
like toys, but never confirming their suspicions.
“Oh, don’t make that face, Rosier,” Tom said, still not taking his eyes off Malfoy, “there’s nothing
wrong with a little flattery now and then; is there, Harry?”
Harry was caught off guard by the statement and found himself shaking his head, though he wasn’t
sure if he was agreeing or disagreeing. Not that Tom seemed to particularly care which way his
answer fell, simply that he had answered.
“See? Not everyone is so averse to praising their friends.”

Rosier made the sensible decision not to argue and sunk silently back into the chair, further
entangling himself with his sister, and with him, the entire conversation dulled as lightbulb does
when the filament is breaking.
The boredom that took hold of them all, almost instantly, was quite palpable in the air, heavy like
the wine on his tongue, Harry could almost taste its syrup balm as it coated his throat.
“Well this is dull,” said Avery in that condescending way, as though he had always suspected that
this evening was going to be the most boring thing in the world, and that, like a petulant child, he
was only here on the whims of other people.
“What would you prefer to talk about, then?” said Lestrange suddenly, “Politics? Current Affairs?
Gossip? If you’d actually suggest something instead of just whining about how dull this all is, then
maybe something would happen,” he finished, as he leaned forward to top up his glass.
When he leaned back again, he did not continue, but rather, just closed his eyes. Lestrange looked,
in that moment, entirely exhausted; dark circles that he could see from across the room under his
eyes, and a slowness in his movements that could not be solely attributed to relaxation. The
probable cause was the first formative assignments were coming out for the third and fourth years.
Harry had overhead others talking about them, about how long they were, and how unnecessary
such a length truly was for what needed to be said about the problem. He had no idea if that
problem in question was the same one that Lestrange had been battling with, but it might have
explained his apparent apathy towards the entire evening and the willingness with which he drank
his wine.
“Anything,” said Avery, though Harry had practically forgotten that anyone else was here, given he
was so caught up in Lestrange, and it was so easy to just get caught up in their faces, and their
actions, and their everything.
“Fine then, Avery, what was that book were you reading the other day?” said Druella with a loud
sigh.
Avery looked up at her, almost in surprise that any of them had actually decided that the silence
was more irritating than talking to him.
“What book?” he said ever so innocently.
“The one I saw you with, in the library on Thursday. Do tell me about it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m bored, and I want to know the disgusting things you read when you think no one’s
looking.”
Avery half smiled, half sneered, but didn’t deny her an answer.
“It was ‘God’s little acre’; it’s good, but not your sort of thing.”
“God’s little acre,” she repeated to herself, “that hardly sounds like your sort of thing either, being
about God at all.”
“It’s not about God.”
“Oh, of course it isn’t.”

“Isn’t it that one that they consider to be obscene,” said Lestrange, from across the room. He had
opened his eyes for the briefest moment to ask, and now was closing them again.
Harry couldn’t help but watch him, leaning back so elegantly against the piano, some would have
said draped, but that implied such elegance was intentional, which the action wasn’t, it was merely
innate. The sort of thing that good breeding encouraged, and if Harry so glanced the other way, and
looked at Tom, he could see the slightest differences in their beings. For whilst Tom might have
possessed that same grace, his whole façade was just slightly tauter, stretched and ironed out to
perfection. He had watched and imitated what he saw, and if he could do it, then Harry surely
could as well.
Harry could have stayed staring for longer, but the flutter of conversation drew him as it does a
moth to a bare lightbulb.
Druella was talking, and whenever Druella was talking, something interesting must be being said.
“…Simply, all the best books in the world are obscene,” she was saying to no one in particular.
“Even the Bible?” countered Avery, in a way that just so wanted to catch her without her wit.
“Especially the Bible,” she replied with a smile that showed too much of her tongue, “it’s really
rather filthy, as you’d know if you bothered to read it.”
Harry swallowed for there was a bite to her words that made him uncomfortable, made him feel
that there was bad blood between the two of them that somehow had stumbled back into the open
again.
“Is that what you do in your spare time, then, read biblical erotica? Because that’s not something I
wanted to know about you, Druella,” said Avery with a disdain that was, quite frankly,
unmistakeable, and even made Lestrange open his eyes again.
“It’s only sex, Avery, just because you’re not getting any, it doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be
prudes.”
Avery scoffed.
“Oh, but you are such a good one, Druella. You like to speak of obscenity whilst you practice that
virginal innocence that your family so adores.”
Harry had never seen someone’s expression turn to murderous as quickly as Druella’s did, but it fell
as fast as a stone into a glare that could’ve rivalled Tom’s.
“I respect my family name, and, my faith, Avery, but respect isn’t something that you understand,
is it? And if we are speaking of our dualities, then perhaps we should consider your own; for the
things you promised us, have certainly not materialised. Of course, a lot can be learnt from just
talking about the obscene, and a certain appreciation for oneself is definitely developed.”
Avery continued to smirk and leaned forward a little.
“I just think that a woman, such as yourself, shouldn’t talk of what she doesn’t know, that’s all.”
Druella did not lean forward, or make any movement at all, she just stayed perfectly still, her eyes
set upon Avery’s.
“Well, Avery, a woman, such as myself, learns that men cannot guarantee satisfaction, and as I
said, I enjoy my own company, and you’ll find I’m very good with my fingers.”
The room was silent for several, painful, seconds where no one moved, not even to take a drink.
Harry knew he swallowed too loudly and that his eyes were darting between them as though this
were a game of tennis, where the objective was one of insulting repartee.
Avery opened his mouth again, but he didn’t get to say anything because Tom interrupted before
the first word could leave.
“I wouldn’t feel the need to speak again, if I were you, Avery.”
“Well, thankfully, this isn’t your conversation, Riddle.”
Tom didn’t smile, nor did he glare. The only discernible emotion that Harry could possibly find on
his face was one of profound disappointment.
“Care to step outside?”
“I didn’t mean it,” said Avery suddenly, the same poignant awareness of the sudden gravity of the
situation as Lestrange had had in the library. It was moments like this that just suggested there was
something more hanging between them, just too high up for Harry to see.
“Didn’t you, Avery?” said Tom, pushing Malfoy gently until he moved, “Because it seemed like
you meant something, but if you’d just step outside, I’m sure we can form a better understanding of
what that was, hmm?”
Avery visibly swallowed, and for a second Harry thought that he might challenge Tom, but then
whatever fearlessness had grown, died with just as much vigour, and Avery dutifully got up.
Tom followed him out the door.

For a moment the rest of them sat in silence, just watching each other.
“Avery never does know when to shut his mouth,” said Lestrange casually.
“Well, he’d better learn,” said Druella, as she got up to pour herself another glass of champagne,
before swallowing it down in one gulp, and repeating the action.
“Oh, I think he will, you know what Riddle’s like.”
Harry couldn’t help but notice how Malfoy’s eyes flicked over to him, just for a second, before he
lay back again, apparently finding intense interest in the ceiling.
Lestrange also took the opportunity to move off of the piano stall that must have been quite
uncomfortable by now and slipping onto the sofa between Harry and where Avery was sitting. He
smiled lazily when Harry looked over at him and spread himself further into Avery’s side, but he
didn’t bother saying anything, after all, what was there to be said when such an elephant continued
to loom in the room.
As the silence rolled on, Harry took another small sip of his wine. It wasn’t bad as such, just
intensely different from anything he’d ever had before; fuller and richer in a way he couldn’t quite
explain. The edge of bitterness on his tongue that should have been disgusting but somehow
improved the overall experience. It certainly wasn’t awful, and if it made him look even half as
sophisticated as he felt then surely it must be worth the very slight woolliness that was creeping
into his vision, rather like someone had just covered everything inside his head with a thin layer of
cotton wool and it made it harder for his thoughts to move around. But none of the others seemed
to notice so Harry supposed the feeling must have all been in his head.

It was a good fifteen minutes of silence and sipping before Tom followed by a significantly more
subdued looking Avery came back into the room. He didn’t say anything only wandered back to
his seat, glaring at Lestrange for taking his cushion and sat down.
“Anything to say, Avery?”
Avery obviously swallowed down a glare that could have killed Tom if it were allowed to gain full
strength.
“I would like to apologise, Druella.”
“What for?”
They could all but hear Avery grinding his teeth together, and Harry followed how he glanced
again at Tom, who continued to sit still, Malfoy faithfully back in his lap, and running his
fingertips over Tom’s hands. He was watching Avery, and if Harry wasn’t mistaken, there was a
threat of sorts in his eyes. A dark, almost violent, thing that made silent and deeply unpleasant
promises if Avery didn’t go through with this.
“For everything that I’ve said to you this evening. It was immature of me to have insulted you in
such a way in your own home.”
“Doesn’t that imply you’d gladly insult me anywhere else,” shot back Druella, not even bothering
to disguise the venom in her voice.
“Actually, I would very happil– ” Avery stopped mid-sentence when Tom coughed, “what I mean
is that it was wrong to insult you, and I am ashamed that I did so, and I apologise for it.”
“What about my sex?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like an apology for all the women that you chose to insult with your rather crude statement,”
Druella said, crossing her legs and arms in synchrony, her own hard stare akin to Tom’s settled on
her features.
If it were possible Avery’s glare deepened further, but he managed to force a smile.
“I wholeheartedly apologise for everything that I said which insulted yourself, and every other
woman to have preceded or succeeded you.”
Druella nodded, “thank you, Avery. Just try to keep your mouth shut in the first place, next time.”

The conversations continued to drift on a barely chartered path, though now it was limited to just
Lestrange, Rosier and Druella. Avery was listening but paying more attention to his glass and not
making an attempt to contribute, and Tom and Malfoy seemed to be involved in their own personal
conversation.
Harry watched them, as subtly as he could, which probably wasn’t as subtle as he’d like to think it
was. From this angle, he was finally able to appreciate just how much Malfoy touched Tom. He’d
always noticed before how close their hands were, or how they lingered together for far longer than
necessary, but he’d never ben able to fully appreciate just what it looked like, and just how little
the others seemed to care.
Tom had his fingers buried in Malfoy’s hair and was stroking it lightly, watching as Malfoy arched
his neck a little more and leaned into his touch. Every so often, Tom’s fingers would trace a single
strand of his hair all the way down to his ribs, and then trail back up again with what must have
been an excruciating slowness. In those moments, Malfoy never took his eyes off of Tom. Instead,
he lay, perfectly motionless as Tom’s hands wandered, and all the others talked about whatever
new performance was on at the Royal Ballet this month.
 Tom’s hands were quite fascinating really; both so deliberate as they scraped the edge of Malfoy’s
neck, and at the same time, almost absent-minded, how someone might stroke a pet if it laid down
beside them. Harry shouldn’t have wanted to be in his place, he shouldn’t have wanted to be the
one lying beside Tom with his hands in his hair, but he did. He did very much want that, and
maybe a little more.
That empty space that had been so illuminated by the lights outside, was nigh on aching with want
for human touch, and for more than that, for the touch of one specific person. He had never
wanted someone else more than now, as he watched how Malfoy encouraged Tom’s fingers to curl
into the space where his neck met his shoulder, and how he practically purred when those fingers
slid into the gully of his collarbone, stroking back and forth ever so slowly.

Harry watched in silent disbelief as the fingertips disappeared and reappeared from view as Tom
peeled back Malfoy’s shirt and continued to trace his bones. Never before had Harry seen two
people so brazen with their affection in front of others before, for whenever he accidentally
stumbled in on the couples in classrooms, said classrooms and lecture theatres and hallways were
always silent and empty, those people didn’t want to be seen and much less caught. Here and now
though, was a very different matter. Here and now, they didn’t seem to care if the others noticed
how intimate Tom’s hands were getting. One still pressed into Malfoy’s hair, the other running
light fingers over the very top of his thigh, only stopping when Malfoy closed his eyes and started
to chew on his lip, rather like Harry was doing now.
That thought opened up a whole different alley, and suddenly the only thought in Harry’s mind was
of him lying there feeling Tom’s fingers against his skin. He’d never had someone else touch him
before, let alone like that. The closest he’d ever got before was his own hand, numb from being
trapped under his pillow, pressed into his thigh, but that didn’t look like it felt the same; it wasn’t
as careful as Tom’s, or as gentle, or as personal.
The others continued that apathy to Tom’s actions even as Tom leaned down so that his hair fell
forward and his lips could quite have easily touched Malfoy’s cheek, and murmured something;
his mouth entirely too close to Malfoy’s skin. Harry could see how Malfoy’s throat rose and fell as
he swallowed, but he didn’t make any move to push Tom away, if anything, it looked like he
leaned in even closer, mumbling something back to him that Tom seemed to like.

A few minutes later Malfoy got up, and mumbling something about a glass of water, he left the
room, though not before he’d grabbed the bottle of red wine on his way out. The only two to even
notice his leaving were Rosier, who just rolled his eyes and continued debating with Lestrange the
intricacies of wine pairings, and Avery, who also rolled his eyes in an entirely different way and
muttered something that only Tom seemed to catch.
Whatever it was made Tom glare at Avery, and a little while later when Tom left the room, he
caught Avery’s arm on his way out and made him spill his drink onto the floor. Tom didn’t
apologise for that, and Avery didn’t ask him to, they just glanced at each other for a moment before
Avery was grabbing a napkin from the table and dropping it to soak up the pale liquid before it
seeped into the carpet, whilst Tom just smirking from the doorway. And still no one questioned the
interaction or Tom’s leaving, nor did they bother to ask where he was going. Harry was starting to
think that they simply didn’t care enough to ask.
Harry could have done, and perhaps he should have done, but somehow it didn’t feel like his place
to do so. It didn’t feel like it was his place to question the actions or the motivations of any of
them, so he just stayed in his corner of the sofa, taking small sips of his wine, and feeling the world
start to go a little fuzzy at the edges.
In that half-daze that came between the door closing and Harry turning back to the other’s
conversation, Harry would have sworn he saw Tom’s smile in the crack and he blushed at what
was probably just his imagination, but just might have been something more.

Chapter End Notes

Chapter End Notes

I hope this was alright, and as I've started the next chapter, that should be up relatively
soon; but in the meanwhile thank you for your continued patience.
 prima facie

Malfoy and Tom had been gone for a long time now. Far longer than it was surely necessary to get
a glass of water, no matter where they were getting it from, and still none of the others seemed to
care. They continued to lie there and talk, their conversations sliding over one another, melting like
candlewax into each other until Harry’s head hurt. The clock seemed to have sped up too, and it
chimed again too soon, that long low sound resonating across the room, and still none of the others
seemed to care. Only Avery glanced at the mantlepiece as he reached for his glass again, tipping
his head back to drain it, throat moving softly as he swallowed.
Conversations resumed; a murmuring of voices that were barely there, just shadows dancing on the
walls, folding in on themselves and starting anew over and over again.
“Where’s Tom?” Harry heard himself saying, though the words themselves were sticky and distant
as if someone else were speaking them.
“With Malfoy, obviously,” said Lestrange, leaning his head back on the edge of the sofa, and
stretching out like a true cat, but not bothering to get up.
“Yeah, I bet they’re having a lot of…” Druella paused and smiled, in a lazy and knowing way, “…
fun,” she finished, somehow entangling herself further into her brother, until it was almost
impossible to divide the two of them, as though they were conjoined at the heart.
“But who can blame him,” she continued, “Malfoy’s awfully entertaining when he’s out of it.”
Lestrange smirked.
“Still remember what he did to Mulciber?” he said, “that was a work of art.”
He continued to smile and Rosier and Druella sniggered with him in some private joke. Avery still
didn’t say anything, he just poured himself another drink and stared at the ceiling.
“Who’s Mulciber?” said Harry, looking between them. He knew he’d been too quiet this evening,
sure, he’d discussed the benefits of a university education, and those policies to help the less
fortunate access such an education that Rosier said were frankly overrated. But he hadn’t really
said much, and Harry wasn’t aware of any Mulcibers that they all associated with, or even at the
university. There certainly weren’t any wings, or libraries, or other important buildings, named
after them.
But none of the others were reacting, they were just staring at the walls and at each other like they
were sharing memories simply through sight. Lestrange, for his part, just continued to smirk.
“He’s a nobody,” he said lazily, dragging out the syllables until they were ringing through Harry’s
head. A nobody. That was what he was one step away from, and if they so choose, he could once
again be relegated down to nobody status, and then he really would have nothing.

Harry was only interrupted from his thoughts, and the others from their conversation by a slight
noise at the door.
“Oh, would someone go and open that,” said Rosier, clearly unwilling to move, himself.
Harry was going to get up, but Lestrange beat him to it. He clambered unsteadily to his feet but
walked to the door with the ease of someone who knows the furniture’s positioning well.
He only opened the door a crack, and Harry strained to see what possibly could warrant it. Perhaps
the strange butler-servant, or Tom and Malfoy, or… something hazy that his mind couldn’t quite
focus on.
His questions, though, were quickly answered with a small meow, as an impossibly fluffy cat
trotted around the sofa and towards Druella and Rosier; the latter of whom cooed instinctively.
Avery merely rolled his eyes, but still stroked its fur as it went past. It was a pretty cat, though
Harry would hardly have expected anything less. A pedigree, most certainly, but what type he was
at loss to answer, and unwilling to ask; all he could appreciate was that it was very fluffy. Long
white hair that darkened around its face and paws, and big blue eyes that were more intelligent
than a mere cat deserved to be.
It wandered, slowly, and not particularly purposefully towards Rosier, before jumping up onto his
lap, somehow managing to land between the limbs as gracefully as any bird. Rosier immediately
started stroking and fussing over it, clicking with his tongue whilst his sister looked on in apathy.
Eventually, Rosier turned his eyes upward and smiled across to Harry.
“Harry, meet Aloysius; Aloysius meet Harry,” he said, holding it up in a way that didn’t look
entirely comfortable, but nor seemed to annoy the cat. It just hung there, good-naturedly, the only
sign of annoyance being a mild flicking of its tail.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to do, whether Rosier was looking for a wave, or a
formal introduction, or a smile, and no one seemed to give any indication, so he just sort of nodded.
But that was enough to satisfy Rosier as he let the cat fall to the ground; it landed heavily on the
wood. Aloysius shook himself and continued his meandering to the other sofa that had stayed
painfully empty without Tom or Malfoy to fill it.

Lestrange, meanwhile, had sat back down on the piano stall, instead of walking in the way of the
cat, and now Avery had done his best to imply he wasn’t welcome back onto the sofa, by
stretching his legs out until they almost touched Harry.
Someone, though Harry couldn’t really remember who, or when, had opened the lid of the piano
and now the keys were all exposed. And Lestrange looked entirely ready to tinker with them, run
his fingers all the way down, and then, back up again, but before he could, Druella eyed him and
spoke.
“I don’t like you that close to the piano,” she said, as her fingers mimicked how one might play the
keys, but against her brother’s thigh.
“Hey,” said Lestrange, though, despite the fact it was technically a protest, he didn’t bother trying
to defend himself, so there was probably some truth in the statement.
Rosier leaned towards Harry but didn’t bother getting up.
“You know, despite lessons for all his life, he can’t play for love nor money, nor even for his life I
imagine, and frankly, it’s awful to hear him try.”
“Godawful,” offered Avery, though it was shot down with a glare from Druella.
“I was only agreeing with your brother,” Avery snapped, “and so with you; we all know that even I
play better, and I’ve only just started learning,” he continued, apparently undeterred in his
bitterness, now that Tom was out of the room.
“Do you play, Harry?” said Rosier, a little too obviously trying to steer the conversation away from
an argument.
“A little,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie, at school it had been mandatory, and then he’d always
watched when someone had played the piano at home, in silence, of course, but still he’d watched,
and could probably still play the barest nursery rhyme.
“Well, you’ll have to play for me one day; I get everyone to,” said Druella, her fingers still tapping
out a rhythm. “I prefer people who have musical talent, it makes them more interesting.”
“Well thanks,” came Lestrange’s sarcastic reply from the piano stall, though he had got up and
now went to join Aloysius on the empty sofa.
“You know, whilst I might not have wanted Lestrange to play, must we just sit in silence?” said
Druella again, now turning her head to the side, her neck curved slightly, and addressing as the
room at large. I
t was as though she said it at the perfect time to have been labelled as perverse, and they all
probably would have done if they didn’t like her so much. Or rather, Harry suspected, if Tom didn’t
like her so much.
“Well, what else do you propose?” Avery said with a sigh that suggested he really didn’t care for
the answer anymore, only that it came without him having to interact with Druella.
“Oh, just put on the Requiem or something, I don’t want to think tonight; I do that every day.”
“Which one?” said Lestrange, already getting up again.
“Mozart, you cretin. Honestly, it’s embarrassing how little you know about good music.”
Harry found himself smiling at the exchange, at the sheer domesticity of it all; how these people
that were so revered and respected by their peers for their maturity and dignity, and yet here they
all were smiling squabbling over something as simple as background music.

As the music played, almost echoing around the room, and the murmur of conversation fell and
swelled with the notes, the images of the world began to slide together. Rosier blurred into his
sister, one creature made with four arms and four legs, hands seeming to rest where hands didn’t
belong and a smile that just seemed too wide to be real. Avery was melting too, vanishing into the
background, dissolving like seafoam into the sofa. His hair merging with the fabric and lacing
itself into the edges, until Harry couldn’t see the difference without shaking his head and blinking
several times.
He turned his head to the side and watched Lestrange, but even he was starting to blur at the edge,
his image distorting before Harry’s eyes. The shadows all too dark and the highlights too bright and
everything covered with a fine haze that just smudged reality. Watching Lestrange with his head
back against the sofa, was like watching Tom when he smiled in that special way. Like this, they
did look rather alike, with the same shade of hair and skin. But if Harry were to move closer, he
would be reminded of the distinctions between them. What they shared, was merely a superficial
resemblance, like the one between himself and Tom. Perhaps it was the mere presence of dark hair
and pale skin that got him thinking of Tom, because the more he stared at Lestrange, the less he
looked at all like Tom. His cheekbones weren’t so defined, and his eyes were more colourful than
Tom’s, and his face had a dusting of freckles across the nose. He was plainer, simpler, perhaps
even cruder; a version that was by no means ugly, but also not quite perfection. He didn’t really
look like Tom at all.

It was past eleven when everything truly started to blur into everything else; the colours and the
shapes of the room sloshing and sliding around like they were caught on a boat in a storm. And
then there was the heat.
Harry could practically see it from the fire across the room, rising up and flooding the air with a
great noxious warmth, it was cleaving and coalescing with the heat from the radiators until the
whole room was so steeped in a cloying syrup that he felt sick.
None of the others did. They just talked, their words all sliding together into an undecipherable
mess; half-formed sentences colliding with half-formed ideas, all hazed at the edges, all too thick
and meaningless to see through. Just the rich words of rich people who had no real ideas of their
own.
And it was too hot.
Too hot to think, too hot to talk, too hot to do anything but sit here and sip his drink that someone
had refilled without him asking, or even noticing. But Harry didn’t want to drink anymore, he
wanted a glass of water, more than a glass, he wanted to just lie in a bath filled with cold water and
ice. He’d almost be willing to drown if the water that killed him was cool and clear. Perhaps
Malfoy had had the right idea about getting a glass of water, even if it took him way too long to go
and get it.
And still none of the others seemed to worry, nor even notice that he was burning up, melting like a
taper from the inside out, his insides dissolving and his skin practically dripping off his bones.
Without having to check, Harry knew his hair must be damp, as so were his palms and his neck,
and his lungs had to work so much harder just to push the oxygen around his blood, and yet his
head continued to ache from the lack of air.

Without saying anything Harry stood up and stumbled out of the room. None of the others said
anything, none of them tried to stop him or even help him. They just watched in their silent apathy.
Though as soon as he was in the corridor, gulping at the cool oxygen that was so different from
their sticky air, he thought he heard Druella’s voice.
“Why did you mention, Mulciber?” she said, the clip in her voice sounding… angry, perhaps even
a little nervous.
Lestrange sighed, “just a slip of the tongue; it’s been less than three months, I can’t just– ”
“Yes, you can,” she cut in, “we can’t undo what’s been done…”
She said more, so did the others, but Harry didn’t hear them, he was too busy stumbling down the
corridor, feeling the floor slide beneath his feet, and the walls swaying, undulating as though they
were made of jelly.
How he managed to find a bathroom was a miracle. He’d just tried every door until he’d fallen
against black and white tiles and been tempted to stay lying there forever. The floor was so cold, so
hard and so, so real; compared to the softness he’d just come from, the feeling of permanently
floating up in the sky, hot under the sun, the tangibility of it all was refreshing. Here was
something he could touch, hold, wrap his fingers around and understand.
Slowly though, he got to his feet because, no matter how pleasant it was, lying on someone else’s
bathroom floor wasn’t particularly good manners, and if they found him, he couldn’t imagine
they’d invite him back, and even if they did, he doubted the mortification of it would actually
allow him to return.
Instead, he gripped the sink and watched his reflection sway; his hair was merging with his eyes
and his mouth slipping to the left. He felt nauseous. Both crammed full and desperately hollow and
he didn’t know why. There was just a feeling he couldn’t quite identify pulling all the wires in his
stomach, plucking on him like he was an instrument, just plucking and plucking until he feared that
his strings would snap.
He splashed his face with cold water.
It was like dipping himself into nirvana, an oasis in the desert he hardly knew he was wandering
through. He did it again. And again. And again. Not caring if the tips of his hair got wet, not caring
if the water ran down his sleeves and tickled the length of his arm. All that mattered was that he
was cool. Before his eyes, the fog began to lift and the haze started to clarify again, whatever had
been blocking his lungs became dislodged and he could breathe, breathe in the cool air and
swallow down cold water.
Despite the newfound sobriety of the moment, it was still a good few minutes before Harry
straightened up.
There was still an ache in his head, and a heaviness to his limbs, but at least the world wasn’t
spinning anymore; at least he could think. The bathroom was entirely too big, too empty, the space
between the sink and the bath felt like it was miles long, his entire life could fit into this bathroom
and he’d still have room to spare. It was impressive but also unnerving, how could people even be
this rich? Just thinking about it was sickening and gorgeous, and as much as Harry wanted to deny
it, he wanted the things they had, who wouldn’t?

He was going to go back to the others, but he went the wrong way. Or at least, he assumed it must
have been the wrong because there was nothing he recognised; just more pristine doors and high
ceilings and mirrors that seemed to give more and more distorted reflections. To make it all worse,
the entire house was submerged in a murkiness. All the lights that had practically blinded him
when he had first arrived had now been turned off and Harry found himself hopelessly feeling
along each wall, probably leaving fingerprints across their perfect mirrors, just so he could try
every door.
He was about to give up entirely when he noticed a sharp strip of light much further along, it didn’t
feel quite the right colour as the gold of the room he’d come from. This was dimmer, darker.
But it didn’t matter if it wasn’t them, it just had to be someone, even if it was just their silent
butler, he’d be able to tell him how he was supposed to get back to them.

Harry went to the door, it was ajar slightly, enough that he could look in. It appeared to be yet
another unnecessary sitting room, filled with such high ceilings and such dazzling lights; the only
difference was that here the furniture was darker. It was filled with hard, almost black woods and
red fabric, and far more mirrors than were humanly necessary, practically one on every wall. It was
rather more intimidating than inviting.
The room was empty aside for Tom and Malfoy, who were sitting on the sofa with their backs to
him, feet up on a low table, drinks precariously close to the edge. Tom’s jacket was folded on the
arm of the chair, Malfoy's was flung carelessly across the seat. Harry could see them reflected back
at him in the mirror on the opposite wall, and a mirror couldn’t lie.
They were sitting unusually close, looking too comfortable together. Their shoulders touching,
their fingers too; they were talking quietly, faces ever so near each other.
“…She’s right you know, you do have a – thing for people like you,” Malfoy was saying, just loud
for him to hear, as he leaned further back into the chair. His shirt was undone a few too many
buttons, and his hair was no longer tied back, and now fell about his face; elegantly bedraggled.
“Excuse me?” said Tom, his tone all soft, and as sweet as dessert wine.
“You have a thing for people like you,” Malfoy repeated, “Mulciber, Avery, Potter, even Warren
by Lestrange’s account. Pretty eyes, empty pockets; little lost lambs that need you.”
Tom smiled.
“What does that make you then?” he said, with a tone, Harry would almost think was smug.
Malfoy frowned and shifted once more, turning to the side.
“I’m… the exception. All the others – they fit your…” Malfoy paused, searching his mouth for the
right the words, “…taxonomy,” he said eventually.
“They’re all isolated, directionless – they want something.”
“They want me,” interrupted Tom.
“Yes… but– ”
“Is it a problem?” said Tom, and Harry couldn’t help but notice the way that his fingers just
touched Malfoy thigh as he said the words, lingering for a second too long, and then another
second, and another.
“No. I was merely – making a comment.”
“Well it sounded more like you were passing judgement,” Tom murmured, his fingers starting to
wander a little higher, “that you were practically criticising me.”
“Would I dare?” said Malfoy, leaning obscenely close, his own fingers resting on a cushion right
by Tom’s arm. He looked, for a moment, like he was going to kiss Tom, but before he could, Tom
shifted away.
“Absolutely,” Tom said, stretching his legs out and bumping them against Malfoy’s. Malfoy
smiled and knocked Tom’s legs back, his hand moving over and actually resting on Tom’s thigh.
Harry swallowed and blinked a couple of times, but every time he opened his eyes again Malfoy’s
hand was still there, his fingers rubbing small circles that would have made most people absolutely
squirm.
“You do know,” Malfoy murmured, “I’ve known you for a long time now.”
“Four years is hardly long.”
“It feels a long time to me,” Malfoy said airily, as though there were memories playing like a film
inside his head, even though his hand continued sliding up Tom’s thigh in a way that just couldn’t
be absent-minded.
Tom just laughed. It was a light airy thing that made Harry’s stomach twirl like a rhythmic
gymnast’s ribbon.
“You’re so adorably sentimental.”
Malfoy lifted his hand and hit Tom playfully in the stomach.
“You’ll be too – when you find someone,” he said, and Harry would have had to be truly
unobservant not to notice the hint of sadness that coloured every note in Malfoy’s voice.
Tom only sighed.
“Perhaps; perhaps not.”
“It could be him. I see the way you watch him. I see how much you want him.”
“You have too many opinions,” said Tom dropping his head onto the back of the sofa, before
turning it to face Malfoy.
“You like my opinions,” Malfoy mumbled, leaning over and pressing his mouth to Tom’s.
A heat curled down Harry’s spine and hooked itself inside his stomach as he slowly realised what
he was seeing, but still not quite believing it. He’d never seen two boys kiss before. He’d imagined
it, oh he had imagined what it would look like a thousand times, but this had never come to mind.
Something so soft and sweet and natural. The gorgeously gentle way that Tom’s hand came up to
hold Malfoy’s cheek and pull him just that little bit closer.
Harry had to wonder briefly if they realised what they were doing: if they were fully conscious of
who each other were, or rather what each other were. Malfoy’s face was certainly a little flushed,
the pink stain so obvious against his pale skin, and even from this distance, it was clear his eyes
were dim, and every action was just a little sloppier than usual. Harry would believe Malfoy if he
said he didn’t know what he was doing, but he wouldn’t believe Tom. He still looked as composed
as always, still precise and serene, perhaps a little more relaxed than usual, but still calm and
collected and completely in control. He knew exactly whose mouth he was kissing, and he didn’t
seem to care.
“I suppose, he’s quite pleasant,” continued Tom, making no attempt to divorce himself from
Malfoy’s mouth.
Malfoy shifted again, his whole body turning now.
“Just pleasant?” he mumbled, the words blurring into Tom’s lips, “how – underwhelming. By the
way you were staring… I thought he’d made – more of an impression on you?”
Malfoy’s thighs were spread across Tom’s lap now and they were still kissing. Tom still making
no effort to stop him.
“I never said he hadn’t made an impression,” said Tom between the lazy kisses that Harry realised
were making his heart beat a little too loudly, so much that it was banging in his head, louder than
even than the clock on the mantlepiece. A constant throbbing that made his head sway and his
hands damp and everything felt like it was blurring together in a great mess of actions and noises
and emotions, and all because they were talking about him. Well, they might not have been, but
God, did he hope they were. Standing there, hidden away in the shadows he was willing to pray to
any god whose name he knew, just in case one of them could grant his wish to be the one Tom
found pleasant.

When Harry refocused his attention, they were still talking and still kissing and still unaware that
their privacy was more than a little compromised. Not that he would tell, and even if they thought
he would, they weren’t going to murder him or anything.
“…Just not a very big impression – apparently,” Malfoy said, as he touched Tom’s face so gently,
like a child exploring something new for the first time, but by the looks of it, this was not a new
experience for either of them. It was all too perfect, too planned; they each had a role to play and
they knew exactly how to play it. They had done this before. Snuck off when they thought none of
the others would notice, and then spent the evening tasting each other’s mouths.
“I’d have thought you’d be very anxious to keep him from making any impressions,” said Tom,
and Harry could see the tips of his fingers tracing down Malfoy’s shoulders before disappearing
out of view, obscured by Malfoy’s own body.
“And why – why would that be?”
“Because, Abraxas,” he said, watching as Malfoy swallowed thickly, “then I’d stop doing this to
you.”
Whatever Tom did with his hands was evidently good, because the air caught in Malfoy’s throat,
cutting him off midway through a breath, and now he was struggling to keep his eyes on Tom’s
own. Tom didn’t stop though. He didn’t stop until Malfoy tilted his head back, his neck creasing
and his brow furrowed and his teeth threatening to go straight through his lip.
“You’re – you’re not – playing fair,” Malfoy practically groaned.
“Aren’t I?” said Tom with a smile, as he raised one of his hands to Malfoy’s chin and gripping it
tight enough to leave imprints on the skin.
“Aren’t I?” he repeated, forcing Malfoy to drop his head and look at him.
“I don’t think fairness comes into it, Abraxas. You see, I rather think this is all about your own
insatiability. Because…”
Tom took the opportunity to dip his hands again and seemed to smirk when Malfoy’s hips stuttered
involuntarily forward in response.
“…Even after everything I’ve already done for you, you still want more, don’t you?” Tom
murmured, his mouth on the very edge of Malfoy’s jaw.
Malfoy himself just stared like a lost puppy, lips parted and that faint flush darkening to a shameful
shade. He could have easily seen Harry watching if he’d just looked over, but Malfoy was much
too focussed on drowning in Tom’s eyes to even care if someone else was watching.

“You – you – love it,” Malfoy mumbled, the words all sticking in his throat; they should have been
sweet say, but now they were almost sickly, sticking to him like candyfloss sticks in the grass.
Tom just smiled again. Harry could see it, reflected back at him in all its diamond glory.
“Oh, I most certainly do, and you know what else I love about you?”
Malfoy shook his head.
“I love your willingness to indulge me, Abraxas.”
If Malfoy could, he would have rolled his eyes, instead, he merely shut them, squeezed them
tightly shut like he was doing his utmost to concentrate on something that wasn’t Tom.
“What – what do you – want?” he said, taking so many gasps of air so quick that Harry would have
thought his world must be starting to pulse and spin.
“Just the usual.”
Before Harry could wonder what the ‘usual’ consisted of, Malfoy was answering the question he
hadn’t yet asked.
“How much?” he said, still not opening his eyes.
“As much as you can give me.”
Malfoy sucked a breath between his teeth.
“G-give me a number.”
“Forty – no, fifty,” Tom said, leaning forward to mouth softly at Malfoy’s neck
“Christ, Riddle.”
Another gulp of air into his lungs.
“I – I mean – ” he groaned, “it’s – it’s in my – wallet”
Tom smiled, and leaned across the sofa, grabbing Malfoy’s jacket from the arm. With both hands
poignantly not touching Malfoy he began to search through the pockets. It was the third one before
he found the rather large brown wallet. Still not touching him, Tom opened it, taking his time to
slide his fingers over the leather, to dip them into the pockets and swirling his thumb over the zip in
way that made Harry’s throat feel too tight for reasons he didn’t want to think about, much less
explain.
Tom must have been satisfied with the notes he found though because he put the jacket down and
smiled again.
“I hope you realise how much I value your contribution, Abraxas, because I do; I do ever so
much.”

Harry continued to watch in pained silence, his shoulder digging into the corner of the doorframe,
as Tom hooked his hand around the back of Malfoy’s neck, pulling him forward and murmuring
something he couldn’t hear. Malfoy clearly could though, and that flush trickled further down his
neck, but he still smiled. He still kissed Tom’s mouth when it was offered and still mumbled words
that all blurred together into Tom’s ear.
Tom just pulled away, that warmth that held all the power in the world painted across his face.
“Well, if you want to show your gratitude, I won’t stop you,” he said, his hand staying firmly on
the back of Malfoy’s neck.
Malfoy’s next action made Harry’s stomach turned over itself. It was a strange feeling of
anticipation and anxiety that seeped through every vein as Malfoy slid down onto his knees, his
eyes, along with Harry’s, never leaving Tom.
Without quite knowing why Harry was sure of what was about to happen before him. It was the
natural conclusion of things. He’d always known it, somewhere inside his stomach; this is what
they did together. This was what all those stares across the room, and all those moments of
speaking low, and all those fingers touching, and all those moments when everything was
touching, meant. What made it so much worse was that he had wanted this to be the conclusion. He
had wanted so much for it to be real, for Tom to just possibly like him in that way, but a bit of him
hadn’t wanted to believe it; he hadn’t wanted to see the things that Tom let Malfoy do to him, but
now he was watching; every part of him too hot and too tight, just a knot being pulled tauter and
tauter until there was no hope in ever getting it undone.

Despite the fact Harry would never proclaim to be an expert on love, after all, he didn’t know
much about relationships, what they were supposed to look like, or feel like, that was all alien to
him, there was still something off about the way Malfoy looked so demure, so utterly passive. The
way that he ran his fingers along Tom’s leg as though he were made of marble and to touch
anymore would damage him irreparably. It was wrong, though Harry couldn’t say why. Perhaps, it
was the grip of Tom’s hand on the back of his neck. Harry could see it in the mirror, the knuckles
white, and Malfoy’s skin going even paler around the outline. Or perhaps it was his smile, pretty
and spread so wide, but also so cold, almost hollow. Harry didn’t think love was supposed to be so
empty.
Not that thinking that stopped his mouth turning to a desert, and his palms practically becoming
springs they were so damp, and all because he shouldn’t be watching, but he couldn’t help but
stare. It was so mesmeric watching Malfoy kiss the tips of Tom’s fingers, so compulsive in seeing
the flickers of his tongue lapping away the last threads of tension from Tom’s shoulders, so
completely hypnotic in watching.
Even when Malfoy’s body completely obscured what was happening from the mirror’s gaze, there
was still an urge left behind, an impossible magnetism that stuck his eyes to Tom’s reflection and
made him keep watching even when he really shouldn’t have.
But then, the longer he watched the more artificial the scene started to be. The glamour of it all
was fading, the shining newness was starting to dim and the reality that it was just two people
doing something that was illegal started to ooze into the room like an uninvited guest does into a
conversation. Behind the thrill and the opulence, it was all so crafted, staged and directed so
perfectly; the intimacy was real, but the feelings behind it all felt forced, as though Tom had
decided to put on a play, dressed the set to the nines, and then hired only amateurs to act. As he
watched from his place in the corner, Harry couldn’t help but think that Tom had wanted him to
see, that he had engineered this entire scenario just to show him something.

Though what that something was, Harry couldn’t guess. He did not need to witness such an
obvious display to see what Tom was. The control, the sheer force of his personality did not need a
stage and script and lights to be seen, it was there everywhere, all the time. His entire life was a
performance so meticulously choreographed that it hardly seemed to be real. Compared that, this
was so clumsy, perhaps even crude. Obvious to the nth degree. But there was hardly time to judge,
not when Tom was dipping his fingers into Malfoy’s hair, twirling a strand around his finger, and
letting it run off again rather like how water runs off duck feathers. Not when he started to coil his
hair tighter and stopped letting go. Though he couldn’t ever see properly, the mirror made sure of
that.
But Harry didn’t need to see to know what they were doing. He’d heard enough conversations he
wasn’t supposed to, to know the mechanics of human bodies. He’d seen the girl with the red
jumper and her not-boyfriend in the bathroom at the far end of the classics department, the one that
no one ever used. He knew what the tightness in Malfoy’s back and the shifts of his neck meant.
The only thing he didn’t know was what it felt like, but even that he could imagine.
In the mirror he could see Tom’s every reaction; from the faint flush spiralling down his neck, to
the press of his heel on the base of Malfoy’s spine, and he could almost feel it. The firmness of
Tom’s shoe and the heat of his fingers on his scalp.
However inappropriate it was, Harry couldn’t deny the sharpness in his stomach, like someone
pressing bits of glass in between his ribs. They hurt, but not as much as the throb in his groin. If
he’d been hidden away, really hidden, Harry wouldn’t have thought twice about pressing himself
against the doorframe. Feeling the solidness of it. Knowing it was a constant, durable, tangible
thing that he could hold, squeeze, crush between his fingers as he bit into his thumb and pretend
that that would sate this hunger inside of him, even when he knew it wouldn’t.
He was so busy thinking of things that he would do if he was alone that Harry did not catch the
exact moment that Tom looked up. All he knew was that, suddenly, Tom’s reflection was staring at
the dark corner of the doorway, staring at the just the right height to see his features highlighted.
Immediately, Harry retreated, dipped himself back into the black shadows that now seemed like a
refuge.
Tom’s reflection just smiled. And there was such a gorgeous laziness to that smile, others might
have mistaken it for carelessness, but it wasn’t. This was something much more authoritative;
confidence taking to its absolute edge, so close to arrogance, that if Tom’s smile had spread that
little bit wider, he would reach it. But it didn’t, and so he did not seem conceited with his own
achievements.
I see you standing there.
That was what that smile seemed to say.
I see you, Harry.
He should have stopped watching then and there. He should have stopped and walked away and
hoped that Tom wouldn’t mind, but he didn’t. He stayed, so completely still; just watching Tom
watch him, and wishing more than ever that he was in Malfoy’s place.
 respondeat superior
Chapter Notes

I apologise for this being a little shorter and more self-indulgent than usual.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Harry stumbled back, trying each and every door, ignoring the way that his breath caught heavy in
his throat and how everything was either too dry or too damp; until he found the one with all the
others. They were still all there, exactly how he had left them, though the music had changed,
something old and French now crooned through the room; a sultry voice that sounded like a hand
too low on his back threaded itself between the walls, interrupted only the slow bubbles of
conversation. None of them acted like they’d cared that he’d been gone for so long, and Harry
wasn’t sure whether that was a blessing or a curse.
Avery looked like he was asleep, draped across almost the entire sofa, his fingers brushing the
floor. Druella and Rosier were still too close together, an unmoving, grotesque, eldritch being that
was incomprehensible to the human eye. The only reason he didn’t think they were statutes,
strange replacements for his friends, was the smudge of Druella’s lipstick, the large mark in the
middle of her lips where it had been spread thin, like she had smacked her lips together too many
times or someone had kissed her right in the centre of her mouth.
He passed his eyes further to where Lestrange and Aloysius were still together, the latter had now
spread himself over Lestrange’s lap, and seemed to be contented as Lestrange’s fingers absently
stroked the fur on his belly. Just spreading the fur out and pressing lightly into the skin in tiny little
circles that made Aloysius stretch out even further.
As he watched, Harry couldn’t help but think of the way that Tom’s hands touched Malfoy’s
cheek, of how his fingers traced an invisible line down Malfoy’s shoulder, how they caught on
every button of his shirt and just how Malfoy had rolled his neck, let every part of him become
unstrung, and –
“Harry?”
He looked up.
Rosier was watching him, “are you alright?” he asked.
There was a concern in his eyes, but it was clouded and hazed, enough that Harry could tell this
was merely Rosier being a good host and not any sort of attempt at intervention in his feelings. If
he had seen what was happening, he wasn’t planning on persuading or dissuading him from either
path.
So, he nodded.
“Yeah, I’m – I’m fine,” he said, the words sticking in his mouth and clogging up his throat. It
didn’t sound convincing, even to Harry’s own ears, but it appeared to satisfy Rosier, who sat back,
his head tipped up to stare at the ceiling, and his sister’s fingers stroking the nape of his neck.

If, in the next quarter of an hour, any of them asked him a question, or more than one, Harry didn’t
hear them. All he could hear was his heartbeat. The pounding of his pulse under his skin, it seemed
to beat so hard that if he peeled back his shirt then he would see the skin rise and fall. And then
there was the sound. It resonated through his head and out the other side; apparently coming out of
every orifice in the room. Harry could hear it echoing around the chimney and down the line of
ornamental china across the room, he could hear it spilling from each of their mouths and sliding
through the keyhole. And it wrapped itself around him, burrowing down into every crease of his
brain, spreading like a disease, until, it was the only thing he could think about. It was
embarrassing. Mortifying even, to know that the sleekness of Tom’s smile was all it took for him to
come apart at the seams like some poorly made toy. He didn’t even know him, for god’s sake.
They’d barely talked, but Harry wanted nothing more than to lie with Tom. To speak and listen
with him, to touch and kiss him. To feel Tom’s hands in his hair, and to run his own through
Tom’s.
Unlike everything and everyone in this city, Tom did not make him want to cower; Tom’s presence
did not make him recoil to that small, empty box that he had made himself for such purposes. Tom
did not make him want to be safe. Rather, when Tom had smiled at him in the mirror, as sharp as a
shard of glass, Harry had felt the slightest stirring of defiance. A need to keep standing, to keep
watching, even when he knew he shouldn’t. What was perhaps stranger though, was how much he
liked that slow twisting in the base of his stomach; that pressing inside him, like a corkscrew
pushing into a cork and screwing down ever so deep.

It was not a thought that should have appealed to anyone, but least of all him. He was ordinary. He
did not have strange perversions, except now he did, and they were decorated with Tom’s name.
And it was horrible, in that gorgeous sort of way. A spike in his blood that ran all the way through
his body, the sort of feeling Harry imagined you felt when someone impaled you; the sharpness of
the pike pressing right through the stomach, up along the full lengths of the spine, and straight
through the back of the neck. Gorgeous, in a horrible sort of way.
Harry felt that jolt every single time he thought of Tom with his head lazily leaned against the ridge
of the sofa, his eyes never leaving that black space where Harry stood, even as his heel pressed
harder into Malfoy’s spine, and his chest was rising and falling faster than it had done before.
Harry tried to close his eyes, to take a moment. Breathe, though Harry could hardly remember how
to do that. Everything was too stuttered, from his hands continually fidgeting in his lap to the
tapping of his feet on the floor, even the oxygen seemed to stammer through his lungs, making
black spots blink prettily before his eyes.
And everywhere there wasn’t blackness, there was Tom. Tom’s mouth kissing Malfoy’s, Tom’s
lips, the curve of his smile, the clench of his hands, and the faint bob of his throat as he swallowed.
If Harry could have denied that he wanted to kiss Tom before, he certainly couldn’t now. Not when
the thought was clouding out everything else in the world, rising like a behemoth from the depths
to scrape the stars and block out the sun.
That ache was ever-present, a dull throb at the back of his lungs, so much so that it almost hurt to
breathe. Before now, the thought of touching Tom’s hands to his lips had seemed like the most
salacious thing in the entire world, but now, that innocent little thought was dwarfed by the
endlessness of the void that had taken its place. That huge emptiness which sucked all it came
across inside him until he was so full with feelings that he swore it must be spilling out across the
floor, staining into the carpet, and revealing what he longed for, to anyone who cared to look.

He was still thinking of that aching hole inside him, like a cigarette stubbed out on fabric, that
Tom’s smile had put there, when Malfoy reappeared, alone.
His appearance was immaculate; buttons all done up; hair tied back, quite simply, not a hair out of
place. He was clutching a glass of water. And it seemed almost ridiculous. After all, they all must
all know that what he performed so meticulously was nothing more than a hollow fallacy. It was
ingrained in the way Avery sighed and pressed himself further into the back of the sofa, ingrained
in the smile Lestrange flashed him, and ingrained in the words that Druella mouthed but Harry
couldn’t understand.
All of them knew, but they pretended that they didn’t. They kept their gazes low and their opinions
to themselves. Whatever Tom did with his spare time was not theirs to gossip about, and so they
didn’t, like well-trained dogs they did not touch the meat in front of them without permission.
Even Malfoy himself just sat down next to Lestrange and began to pet Aloysius like nothing had
happened; like he hadn’t just spent the last hour alone with Tom; like they hadn’t been… Harry
didn’t dare to think of it, for fear the spikes in his stomach might return from their momentary
hiatus.
Fortunately, Harry didn’t have to say anything, for Lestrange did just that; they spoke as though
they were merely resuming a conversation after a minute-long break, as though Malfoy had gone
out for a cigarette and nothing more.
He continued to watch them, but not listen. For once, he didn’t want to hear what they had to say.
Harry didn’t need to hear their pretty ideas anymore to know they were pretty, so he just watched
their tongues and their fingers and the edges of their teeth, and he wondered what it would be like
to touch them. To feel other people’s fingers against his own, to know what the bite of their teeth
felt like on his lips, and what the very tip of their tongue would taste like inside his mouth.
Even as the memories were flowing between the music and muffles of conversations he didn’t care
to hear, Harry couldn’t remember any time that he had felt like this before. Not like this. Although
he couldn’t deny he liked to watch the girl in his Criminal Law lectures, the one with the red hair,
he didn’t want her to devour him the way he wanted these people to. He wanted to walk with her in
the park on Sundays like any good boy should want to do with a good girl. But he didn’t want to do
that with Tom. No, with Tom he wanted to be selfish, he wanted to be cruel, he wanted to take
whatever he wanted and consume it.

Harry swallowed and blinked a couple of times, taking in the room again, as though it were new.
But the only thing that had changed was Aloysius, who Malfoy had, somehow, managed to coax
from Lestrange’s lap into his own, and he was purring so loudly that even Harry could hear from
the other side of the room. Lestrange wasn’t happy about it, and he looked as though he might go
as far as to argue the matter, but the door’s creaking interrupted his plans.
Tom did not have a glass of water when he came back, nor did he have any other pretences to
disguise what he had been doing with his time, but nor were there any obvious signs. As much as
Harry raked his eyes over him, he could see nothing out of the ordinary, nothing out of place. Tom
looked as though he had just arrived, still fresh from the cool air of the night, and not wearied as all
the others were by hotness and music and alcohol and affluence. Instead, he stood there, the single
thriving flower in a wilting vase.
None of the others paid any particular attention to him, not deliberately avoiding his eye, merely
not acknowledging them, through a mixture of lethargy and indifference. It was late. They were all
probably tired, Harry knew he should be too, but as he caught Tom glancing at him, he didn’t have
time to be tired, and this feeling of wakefulness only intensified when Tom began to walk toward
him.
He stood in front of Harry’s sofa, though he was only occupying the smallest corner, for almost a
minute before Avery got the hint. He rolled off, neither elegantly, nor quietly and glared at Tom.
Harry could feel the tension in the room they stood watching each other, Avery’s chin tilted up, his
ego still apparently suffering from being brought to its knees earlier in the evening.
Tom just side-stepped him and sat down, his own chin raised, until Avery got the message to go
and sit on the floor.
That would have been the end of it, had Tom not sat entirely too close to Harry for it to be
accidental. To make matters worse, Tom draped one arm over the back of the chair, and he sat with
his right ankle balanced on his left knee. It was a position that was entirely too comfortable, too
indulgent; and he knew just how good it made him look. How completely in control he was,
commanding the room as though he were its conductor, or its artist, with absolute jurisdiction over
every, single, brushstroke.
Although Harry had been grasping at straws with his descriptions of Tom, clasping at the little
snippets he saw of the man behind that mask of utter immaculation, Harry now saw that he had
been right. Maybe that should have scared him, maybe, he should have pulled back, dragged
himself away from the burning light that could only be a sign of danger; maybe that was what he
should have done, but tonight, Harry could not resist the flames.

So, when Tom turned to him with the dazzling smile that held secrets between its teeth, Harry
turned his head as well. For a moment they looked at each other, sharing the same glance that they
had done all evening, the one that made Tom into an octopus with tentacles that curled and
squeezed around Harry’s heart until its beating slowed and his breath ran out.
“You know, Harry,” Tom said, his head to the side, “we haven’t spoken much tonight.”
Although it was a casual remark, Harry couldn’t help but read it as a rebuke, not to him, but the
world, for not giving them the opportunity to have collided. Somehow, that statement was at odds
with the tone in which he delivered it. For whilst the words were meaningless, the quality of their
delivery was most certainly not. The tenor of those words was quiet, intimate, and far more alluring
than they had any right to be; rather like they were spies sharing secrets in dark corners of a café,
and not just sitting on a sofa, late at night, surrounded by friends who did not look at them.
“I – I supposed not,” Harry replied, turning his head back across the room, and trying not to focus
on how the words jumbled themselves together before they even hit his tongue.
Tom continued to smile; Harry’s own uneasiness was apparently entertaining him for there was a
flicker in his eye. The same one he’d had when watching him hide in the darkest of corners.
“There’s no need to be so nervous, Harry, I already told you, I don’t bite.”
Though he said it whilst looking like he very much wanted to take a bite, and Harry had to think of
Malfoy’s words, murmured, only hour or so before.
I see how much you want him.
Tom was certainly wanting, but for exactly what, Harry couldn’t say. If he was pressed, he’d have
said Tom wanted to eat him, roll him on his tongue like he did his name; lick him off his fingers
and swallow him. But it was all probably the dimness of the light and the intensity of the heat that
was starting to creep back into his bones. Harry would put up with all that forever though, if, he
was simply allowed to be a star, and Tom was the constant sky, swallowing him up in the ever
endless black. Then, he’d let him lick at his fingers, kiss them and consume them. Right now, he
might let Tom consume his very heart, if he asked. He didn’t ask.
The only thing that Tom did do, was lean forward, only a fraction, but enough that he could smooth
an unruly curl of hair back behind his ear. Harry’s lungs turned to stone, and he felt himself inhale
too sharply, to make up for it.
Tom let out a little laugh and le his fingers continue their course down behind his ear, detaching
themselves just before they touched Harry’s neck. Then he did it again. Two fingers pressing into
his hair, nails skimming over his scalp.
As those fingers grew bolder, Harry couldn’t even bring himself to look directly at Tom. He just
stared across the room, watching Malfoy’s hands as he petted Aloysius.

It was several minutes of complete silence, punctuated only by the sounds of his hair being
smoothed down so close to his ear before Harry brought himself to turn and face Tom. He didn’t
regret it.
Tom was just… watching him; his tongue wetting his lip, and the flicker of his teeth not far
behind. If Harry wasn’t mistaken, he would have said Tom was peeling back his layers with his
eyes alone, digging right down between the folds made of his past and his present, his emotions
and his fears, every little thing that he loved or loathed, Tom saw in such intimate detail; and still
his fingers continued their caresses.
Though, to credit him, Tom seemed to pick up on the tension that had strung itself through Harry’s
shoulders, like a plant that suddenly required a cane to grow straight.
“Do you not like being touched, Harry?” he murmured, his fingers stopping and retracting just
enough that they no longer touched a single part of him.
Harry didn’t say anything, he didn’t know what he was supposed to say, after all, being touched
felt uncomfortable, embarrassing and awkward, but… but it also felt nice. Safe.
“Or perhaps, you’ve just never been touched like this, to know if you like it?”
Tom said it as a question, even if it sounded like a statement, and Harry found himself nodding, and
Tom’s fingers began to curl back into his hair, apparently not caring at all that more than one
person was watching. Harry could feel Druella’s gaze, not accusatory, only intrigued, heavy on
him. He didn’t want to look up at her. He didn’t want to see what she thought of him.
“I’d love to talk to you more,” said Tom conversationally, as though he wasn’t stroking his hair, as
though he wasn’t leaning close enough that Harry could feel the warmth of his body, as though this
was a completely normal thing to do with your friends, late into the night. Perhaps it was. Harry
had never had enough friends to know.
“Next Sunday, at eleven, perhaps?” continued Tom, undeterred by anyone watching him.
That got Druella’s full attention.
“Sunday?” she said, her eyebrow raised and her tone, questioning.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“It’s a Sunday, Riddle.”
“Just because you’re busy wasting your time at the same hour every week, doesn’t mean I have to,
as you well know.”
His tone was cold, a single strip of ice through glowing embers, and Druella didn’t bother to argue
with him, she just threw her hands up in surrender, and Tom continued to touch his hair.
“So, would you like to talk next Sunday?”
“Yes,” Harry heard himself reply in an impossibly tiny voice that only made Tom’s smile wider.

Harry was only half awake. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but no one does, do they? And even
now that he was awake, he did not feel it. Before his eyes, the world was glazed, glassy and distant
like he was watching it all through dimmed down panes of coloured glass. His glasses did not make
a difference, it was the world itself that was glossed over.
Though, his tainted vision could not disguise the simple alterations that had taken place in the
fabric of the room, the most obvious being that Rosier and Druella had disappeared. Their place sat
decidedly empty across the room. No one else had attempted to fill it, and Harry wondered whether
they were coming back.
When they did instantly, he passed his gaze across the room: Lestrange was taking up most of the
opposite sofa, with Malfoy curled up on the corner, apparently asleep. Aloysius was beside him,
also asleep, though every so often his tail flicked wildly, and his whole body twitched. It was
probably a dream. This whole world felt like a dream. A lovely hazy dream that would be snatched
away by the morning. Harry wished it wasn’t a dream, that this was reality from now on. Lying
with these people, talking and laughing with them, just being one of them.
He blinked again, his eyes following the light trails to the fireplace. Avery was on the floor by the
fire, prodding it with a poker, beside him sat Tom. For once, they did not appear to be arguing, and
Harry could see again that genuineness that he had seen in the library. That thing, he would have
then called concern, but now would have called interest that Tom placed upon Avery.
They were talking, murmuring really, all hushed voices and pretend secrets. The two of them
looked strangely domestic sitting there together, more like siblings than lovers though, simply two
people, smiling at one another in the glow of the flames. Smiling and touching, Tom’s friendly
hand on Avery’s shoulder in a display that Harry would have labelled with reassurance and
understanding, like what older siblings are supposed to provide to their youngers, and how friends
that grew up alone have learnt to provide support.
But whatever motivation lay behind Tom’s actions, Avery appeared to appreciate it. For, although,
their conversation was inaudible, no one could mistake the way that Avery smiled, how he basked
in the attention that Tom had given him, placing him centre stage; apparently forgiving all their
animosity tonight. Though, if Harry was not mistaken, and he might have been, Tom’s nods were
nothing more than mechanical. The smiles and the words as empty as the glasses on the table and
completely substanceless. What was before him, was an empty stage, the set hanging high, but the
actor absent. Avery had no more than Tom’s superficial attention, not that he seemed to notice at
all, he was much too involved in smiling to notice that Tom didn’t appear to care.

Harry’s eyes open again later, the fire had died down to an ember, and most of the lights were off.
Lestrange had shifted and Avery was now lying between him and Malfoy. Harry turned slowly,
 everything was fuzzy before his eyes, dark shapes seemed to move, seemed to dance in the corners
and encroach on the light. There were a thousand monsters creeping into the light, flickering and
trembling, scared to take what they wanted but ever so persistent. Those monsters were beautiful,
in a way. Hidden to the world, only coming out when they deigned it to be appropriate, when they
felt they were safe to climb between the shafts of light without being seen, just so beautiful. Harry
felt his eyelids closing again, the sweet seduction of sleep too tempting to resist. But a strange
warmth beside him stopped him from sleeping.
Perhaps the unknown nature of it all should have scared him, but Harry could not find it in him to
be scared, even in this dark; so dark that it shrouded everything in black, even the warmth of what
must have been a body beside him was caressed by the monsters of the dark, to the extent that he
could not even see their face. Harry still tried though, turning his head a little, squinting into the
dark and seeing nothing but black shadow after black shadow.
“Don’t be scared,” came a murmur from the warm shape that he was resting his head on. The voice
was soothing, reassuring, even when it shouldn’t have been, just cosy and soft and safe.
“It’s only me,” said the voice again, closer this time, and though Harry’s head was filled with fog,
he remembered the tone, the sound. It was Tom speaking in the dark. Speaking to him, for all the
others were asleep across the room. Though Harry looked, though he peered and glanced through
the dark, he couldn’t make out Tom’s features; he was far too blurred with the darkness, and now
the two were inseparable. All that he could feel was the faintness of Tom’s breathing and what he
assumed was the gentlest brush of his fingers down Harry’s own back.
“Are you awake, Harry?” Tom said quietly.
Harry knew then that he truly must have been lying against Tom. Asleep on his shoulder or maybe
his chest, at least, close enough for Tom to have been smoothing his fingers through his hair for
quite a while. Just the very tips, so careful, soothing; from the top of his head, down through his
hair, over the ridge of his neck, and finally, tracing his shoulder blades.
There was silence for a moment when Harry did not move, and Tom did not say anything. A
lovely, simple, stillness, before Tom’s fingers began to climb again. They dipped into Harry’s hair,
stroking it ever so slowly.
“I know you’re awake,” Tom murmured, still drawing those sweet little circles that should have
been sending Harry to sleep, but rather, felt like pinpricks digging into his skin, waking him more
with each and every touch.
“There was something we couldn’t talk about earlier,” he paused long enough for Harry to hear his
heart pound like a beacon through the room.
“I know you were watching,” Tom said slowly, his mouth suddenly so close that Harry could feel
the heat of his tongue, “all I want to know, Harry, is, did you like what you saw?”

Chapter End Notes

It's very late here, and whilst I've given this a once-over, I'll give it a better look
tomorrow, so please excuse any typos.
 modus operandi
Chapter Notes

So, a slight change of plan. This was supposed to be a much more extensive chapter,
but when it was only a third written, it was already pushing twenty thousand words,
and my sister convinced me to split it up, (even now it's over fifteen thousand words
(sorry)). So, now, to accommodate, there are four additional chapters to this fic.

I hope this isn't too irritating (or too long), and, as always, thank you for being so
patient between updates.

Tom said nothing about what he did. Not for the rest of that night, nor the following morning when
Druella woke Harry early and showed him to the door. In fact, Druella was the only one he
properly saw that morning.
She dressed up nice, softer and sweeter than the night before; if last night she had been a starling
with glittering feather that suggested something brutal inside her heart, now, she was a blue tit, as
delicate as the dawn light on the closed curtains, as though if they were opened she would fade
away.
But, however, she looked, she still smiled the same. The glimmer of that excitement slithering
beneath her tongue
“I am sorry we can’t take you home, but it’s All Saint’s Day, and we all have our commitments,
unfortunately,” she explained as they walked through that maze of a house, though it was hardly a
maze at all to her. She turned every corner with confidence, the flow of her white dress making her
seem like a ghost haunting the walls.
Harry had nodded as she spoke, he didn’t really feel up to doing much more than that. There was a
throbbing in the back of his head, like last night’s but so much worse. If he had had to put a
description to it, he would have said someone was screwing nails into the back of his head. And it
wasn’t pleasant. Quite the opposite and he just wanted to lie in bed, or, if the option had been
available, continue to lie on the sofa in the dark with Tom’s hands in his hair and words he couldn’t
even hear whispered into his ear.

Druella showed him all the way to the door and even outside of it into the coldness that could only
be November. The sudden chill that infected every inch of the air, turning it from the substanceless
nothing, into something so liquidy, it was like the sea had switched places with the sky.
Harry had honestly expected to just be abandoned on the doorstep, smiled at, waved at, and then
left to do as he wished. But Druella’s hand stayed firm on the small of his back, and she guided
him right up the path and through the black rail gate.
On the other side was a car; a sleek, white, thing of the type that Harry saw but had never been that
close to before. They belonged to a different world.
“He’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Druella said, “until next time, Potter.”
He nodded again and watched as she turned and walked back to the house, closing the door behind
her.
In the back of his head, Harry knew he should go, that his welcome was over, and now it was time
to return to reality. Forever waiting on the edge of his seat for the moment he was invited back into
their world. Into Tom’s world.
He sighed and looked one last time at the house, its tall, white façade looking back at him. Almost
mocking the fact that he was unlikely to return any time soon.
Harry was just about to turn back to the car and leave when something caught his eye. Something
or rather, someone, sitting on the window seat on first-floor, left-hand window.
They were dipped in the shadows enough that he wouldn’t have seen them unless he had been
looking carefully at the house. And despite not knowing for sure who it was, Harry still felt he
knew. It had to be Tom. Tom sitting there with one leg bent at the knee, the other Harry couldn’t
see, but suppose it must be stretched out, running the length of the window. His head back against
the wall but there was no denying he was looking out, and not just across the way, but down,
specifically, at the street.
The details of him were all blurred out by the gloom, but Harry could still see the blocks of colour:
the white of his shirt, still undone at the top, the darkness of his hair smudging with the shadows
and the edge of his smile cutting through everything like a diamond through glass.
Harry swallowed and stared, trying to remember how exactly his lungs managed to get air into
them for they were straining. He could feel them pulsing, practically another heartbeat under his
ribs, threatening to break right through his skin and make a heart-shaped hole in his chest, that
burned at the edges. Even out here in the cold, he felt too hot like he was standing on embers that
charred his feet.
Through the dim of the pane, Harry could only just see the sliver of white that was Tom’s raising
up in the motion of a wave, and with it, a great lump rose in Harry’s throat as though he had
swallowed a searing stone. And, before he could stop himself, he too was raising his hand, and
wishing, more than anything to feel Tom’s palm against his own, to remove this unspeakable
distance between them and just have Tom touch him when no one was watching.

But instead, Harry went home. There was nowhere else he wanted to be because there was no way
he could be with them. Anyway, he had work to do, how else was he supposed to maintain his
scholarship if he spent every waking moment thinking about what they were doing, or, more
specifically, what Tom was doing.
It wasn’t, Harry thought as he sat in the car and watched the city cruise past, that he didn’t care
about the others; they were warm and friendly and intelligent and brilliant. They were everything
he had ever wanted to be and nothing that he was, and just the fact that they were willing to spend a
few minutes of their day with him would have made his decade. But them willing to be with him
for an entire evening, and a promise from Tom of another hook-up on Sunday was overwhelming.
Though, perhaps he shouldn’t call it a hook-up, because it wasn’t anything… indecent. Except it
was, wasn’t it? said a voice so insidiously inside his head; it was outrageously indecent.
It didn’t really matter, all that did, was this feeling of excitement, electricity even, like sticking his
fingers in an electric socket over and over again just to feel the thrill threading its way through
every muscle. Being with them, being with Tom was an escape from this drab little world that he’d
always lived in, and the fact that they wanted him there, well, it all just felt so magical, like fate
had a new dress and was swishing it for all to see.
In the car, it was cool, everything was cool, and Harry could see the colours of morning diffusing
out across the sky. Right now, though they were far too bright on his eyes, worming their way into
his head just to pound. And even when Harry leant back into the leather, feeling its chill under his
fingers, there was still the heat from last night on the back of his neck.
Tom’s hand resting firmly, leaving a warmth behind that burned his fingerprints into Harry’s body.
They were everywhere, a beautiful infection that he knew he’d never be able to get out, and one
that he never wanted to.
Harry have never thought he’d be one of those people. The silly boys and girls that fell in love in
the blink of an eye and could never bear to be apart from their beloved. Those sorts of people were
sweet from a distance and irritating close up, but he wasn’t one of them, he’d never been one of
them. But, then again, he’d never been one of anything before.

Arriving back at his own room, Harry could help but see how small and dingy it really was. Even
though the curtains in their great rooms had been drawn across, and any daylight that could have
got in was prohibited, the spaces still felt airy, beautiful, practically angelic. The freshness had
been something that Harry could taste on the very tip of his tongue, a sort of tingle that spoke of
wealth and privilege and general entitlement.
The only taste he had on his tongue now, was the flavour of damp. Probably mould, though he
didn’t know where it came from; it was more of an aura, a permanent presence that clouded over
him as cumulonimbus might a small town. It bit at his tongue like poverty, as harsh and discernible
as the smell of burning sugar, impossible to get away from now that he had experienced a time
where it wasn’t there.
He wasn’t jealous per se, as he sat down on the bed and stared at the blank walls; more envious,
there was no way Harry could deny that he didn’t want what they had; that grace and that
sophistication and that friendship and that money. Especially the money.
Maybe, it was just because that would be the ticket, the key, that would open up all the doors to
their opulent world, or, maybe, it was because that would get Tom’s attention. Properly.
Money would get Tom’s mouth on his, Tom’s fingers back in his hair and his pretty, pretty words
whispered in his ear. All because Tom wasn’t rich, not by birth at least, or, not to the extent that
Malfoy was, that any of them were really. But Tom didn’t need to be born wealthy, not when he
had that sleek smile and a charm that wrapped around anyone’s neck like a snake. He could get
whatever he wanted just by asking, and Harry would give him anything, anything he had if Tom
wanted it.
People would say that it wouldn’t mean anything like that, but Harry didn’t need it to mean
anything, he’d like it to, but if the best he was ever going to get was Tom’s hands on his waist
because he spared him as much money as he wanted, then it didn’t matter, Harry would take it.

Despite the ache right in the back of his head, like someone was pressing on it with a scalpel, Harry
tried to work on those essays for the rest of the day: the consideration of contracts, criminalisation
of mere offences, the Rule of law, but it wasn’t working. He couldn’t help it, there was just such a
distraction hovering over him. Just sitting here, alongside him and his books, was an agitation that
got the better of him when he was reading and reading and reading. It only grew bigger as he
watched the world come into focus with every paragraph; that distinct clarity that could only be
achieved with knowledge was spreading out, filling in the blanks of the map, but the angle was off.
And the whole experience, well, it all felt flat.
This understanding was so hollow, so fake. He might now know how the world worked but that
just meant there was a little more of it to disappoint him, and whenever the law abandoned him,
Harry was flailing in the dark. Gripping randomly to the only other thing he could remember:
Tom’s words pressing harder on the forefront of his mind.
It hurt, not Tom’s words, but the law’s emptiness because the law had always been that constant,
the never-changing steadiness in his life. It had parameters, boundaries, edges; there was less
confusion inside that little box, or, at least, there used to be. Now though, Harry was having second
thoughts. Third thoughts. Fourth thoughts.
And the more thoughts he had; the more Tom seemed to blend into all of them. He bled out
between the lines of the page, between even the letters of the words, staining them with his smile
and his opinions. Those awfully attractive opinions. Of course, they were wrong, very wrong;
attractive in an intellectual sense only, but then again…
Harry sighed and put down his pen. The more he looked at these books and these essays, the more
he could see what Tom was talking about. In contracts and constitutions and criminal justice, there
was always this undercurrent of passion and control and deception. Everything he’d so staunchly
denied was present within their legal system, seemed to lurk just beneath the surface like those
sharp rocks that cut your feet at the beach; they waited below the rolling waves invisible to
everyone but those who plunged right in. And every academic in the field appeared to have a code
of conduct, an agreement not to reveal all the nasty things about the law that no one knew.
No one saw that there were things inside the law that were rotten. That this thing people put all
their faith in was a festering infection in a wound that they thought was healed but really wasn’t.
For contracts were not designed to be friendly, they were not made to be fair or nice, inside them
was this putrid heart, forcing you to sign away your life for little or no choice at all. Having to
watch your value, as a person, as a worker, as an anything, be reduced to mere words, mere
expressions of what this entity thought you were worth.
When it came to criminal justice, there was no more obvious injustice than the men and women
who were still hung for crimes they did or did not commit; that was surely control, in its most
glittering form? And if the law was poisoned with control, then who was to say it was free of all
the other evils that Harry had always entertained as impossible.

Harry did not get long to think about it alone, as the next day he was back in lectures. Back to the
mundane routines of waking and walking and listening and learning. All without the added comfort
of seeing any of them, because, now that they were friends in the very loosest sense of the word, he
couldn’t stalk them.
What made their absence worse though, was how people’s eyes were heavy on him in every
classroom that he walked into. Suddenly, people were noticing him, they still weren’t
acknowledging him, but they were seeing. They were paying attention to him for the first time
since they’d all arrived.
Multiple times Harry had to look down and check that there weren’t great stains on his shirt or rips
in his trousers. There weren’t but people still watched. Each stare was uncomfortable, too hot on
Harry’s skin, too tight like being constantly pinged with elastic, and he didn’t really know why.
Sure, he’d spent some time with the ones that everyone wanted a piece of, but that didn’t mean
anything. He was still on the edge of being a nobody and a nothing, hardly secured in his
newfound riches, no matter that everyone seemed to think that he had something they didn’t.

He was musing on the fact in his contract law class, listening but not particularly paying attention
to the drifting sounds of the professor’s voice as it curled around the syllables, taking far too long
at each and every one word until half the class were asleep.
The ones who weren’t were watching Harry; he could feel their eyes on his fingers and the back of
his head, trying to dig holes right into his brain. He ignored them. Harry ignored everything and
continued to watch out the window at the small blue tit that flitted between the windowpanes,
occasionally landing on the sill just outside the window he was next to, a perfect demonstration of
just how motionless and monotonous it was behind that glass.
Even when the door clicked, he didn’t bother looking up, there were plenty of people missing,
those with better things to do than actually turn up to classes; it was probably just another one of
them who’d decided it was worth it to arrive. Well, probably not, after all, this particular class
flung itself right over lunch, and to most students here such a thing as to attend would be
unthinkable if it meant inconveniencing themselves.
He only looked up when the person who’d arrived started to speak.
“I’m so sorry to bother you, professor,” a smooth voice all but drawled across the room. Harry
swallowed, it was Lestrange, and just behind him was Malfoy.
“But could we,” he continued, “borrow Mr Potter?” he said as he leaned against the doorframe in a
way that most people would label as provocative, though they wouldn’t quite know why. Maybe it
was the press of his fingers into the frame just as Harry had done when watching things, he
shouldn’t have seen. Or perhaps, it was simply how leaned right into the wood, pushing his hip
against it.
“Any particular reason, Aleister?”
The informality almost caught Harry off guard, it was just so jarring to hear Lestrange’s name, the
one Harry realised he hadn’t even known, be tossed around by someone twice his age. Someone
who looked like he wouldn’t the slightest thing in common with a vibrant student with his best
years still ahead of him.
Lestrange only smiled again, tongue on the edge of his teeth, “you know,” he said casually, “we
just really need him right now.”
The way he said it made Harry’s spine shiver, that sleek way his tongue ran over every word
before spitting it out in front of him was just delectable. Enough that he started to get up without
the professor even nodding his acquiesces.

Lestrange dropped the niceties as soon as they were all through the door, and that usual streak of
something that Harry would almost call cruelty was back running rivulets all over him, as though
he was standing under the spray of a waterfall.
“W-what did you want me for?” Harry asked once they’d taken ten paces and were decidedly
heading towards the exit of the building, as opposed to its inner sanctums, those deep bowels of the
university, invisible and untouchable to all but those who had learnt the way by heart.
Lestrange just rolled his eyes.
“So that we could have lunch before the next fucking century begins,” he said with an intonation
of such casualness that anyone would mistake it for arrogance.
“You pulled me out of a tutorial… to have lunch?”
“Obviously,” said Malfoy coming to walk beside him on his left, trapping him between the two of
them, “it’s not like you needed to be there, and anyway, I made a reservation for one p.m., and I’m
not going to miss it – ”
“No, you didn’t,” cut in Lestrange, talking right over Harry’s head, “you never make a fucking
reservation anywhere.”
The tone was definitely accusatory, but in a way that just about treading the right side of the wire in
terms of friendliness. It was the sort of tone that he was allowed to use, but someone like Harry
wasn’t.
“Well, I nearly did,” replied Malfoy, the edge of a pout just starting to form itself on his mouth.
Harry would have been lying if he said that it wasn’t a pretty expression, classy in a way that
certainly wasn’t fair, and, from a certain angle, docile. Harry was certain he’d seen that expression
painted on someone’s face before. The realisation jolted him hard as he understood where it was
that he’d seen that look like a live spark pressed into the back of his neck. He remembered it
stitched onto Malfoy’s mouth before, when he was down on his knees, looking up at Tom with the
same sort of gaze, not entirely submissive, but rather, according to this exchange at least, more
teasing.
Neither of the other two noticed any change in Harry’s expression, if indeed it did change at all,
though Harry rather suspected it had.
They just continued on with their conversation, that was now starting to border on a disagreement.
“It’s a completely different sentence,” Lestrange was insisting.
“They mean the same,” Malfoy was retorting just as childishly.
“Which is why,” Lestrange said with a slight snipe between the constants, “you’ll always be a
politician and never a lawyer, because you are useless at semantics.”
“Oh, and you’re fantastic, are you?” came the decidedly sarcastic reply.
Lestrange actually stopped walking, and just stood there in the middle of the corridor, waiting for
Malfoy to stop as well. The few people that were milling around at the edges, hurriedly moved
themselves along, like they knew something Harry didn’t.
“You know I am,” said Lestrange, “but I’d be very willing to give you the tutorial I just gave some
first years on the differences and uses for logical and lexical semantics, but I doubt you’d
understand past the introductory sentence, so perhaps you just want to take my word as my word
for once, alright?”
Malfoy just sighed dramatically.
“That doesn’t even make sense; your word as your word, what else would I take it as?”
“Knowing you, you’d take it for anything you fancied.”
There was a sourness to that, something that made Malfoy’s expression twist uncomfortably, but
whatever exactly it was, Harry doubted he’d ever understand. It was just too a nuanced reference,
an allusion to some private part of their lives that existed before he was around. There would be a
lot of that; a lot of knowing that things had happened before he was with them, but, if Harry played
his cards right, he might just make sure there wouldn’t be a time after him.

They were still debating, still, choice words being used, but Harry had missed a section, or maybe
two or three.
“…Oh, don’t hot-headed about it,” Malfoy was saying.
“Well, don’t be so fucking cool-headed then,” Lestrange said back, but a smile had blossomed back
on his face and there was a raise to his brow that suggested he was joking, at least a little.
As they all walked together, Harry couldn’t help but notice how they seemed calmer than when he
had last seen them, happier in a way, like a weight had been lifted from their shoulders. But the
only difference that Harry could see between now and then was that Tom wasn’t here.
That wasn’t to say the atmosphere was strained around Tom, merely that it was more… executive.
Everyone knew the part they were supposed to play, and they played it to perfection. When Tom
was around, they polished themselves, cleaned the crystal of their hearts until they were fully on
display, their veneers as sharp and shiny as their wit.
Now though, now, they were relaxed, not slackened with alcohol and music and the promise of
highbrow conversations, but simply comfortable in themselves and their intrinsic value. For once,
they didn’t feel the need to keep up a pretence and to be things that they were not.

The restaurant they took him to was large, and mostly full, though all Malfoy had to do was smile
at the man at the door and he was led inside.
High ceilings and roman style columns, which made Harry wonder whether they only went to
places with historical styled architecture; for as far as he could tell to be modern to them was to be
outdated. But, fortunately, they all suited this old marvellous world that had passed on. Ground to
dust beneath the feet of progress, the sort of thing kept alive only by fanatics and lost wanderers of
time.
Despite the grey outside, inside was lit with what had to be red in every shade available. It reflected
off the walls and lit every surface on fire so that tablecloths that should have been white were
dripping with pink that colour of candyfloss and everyone’s face was rubicund. Their clothes and
their hands and their food all sitting somewhere between crimson and scarlet and burgundy. It was
beautiful, in a bloodshot sort of way.
As they walked between the redwood chairs and those candyfloss tables and the so many elegant
pink-stained people, Harry watched as Malfoy smiled and preened, touching hands with them all; a
shake for men and a kiss for women. This appeared to be his natural environment, a peacock
wandering amongst ornamental flowers that all seemed to know him.
Lestrange followed behind him, a little too close to Harry, in his opinion, and always watching him
as a hawk might, as though he were about to bolt out the door, which was certainly a prospect he
had considered, and was still considering. He had a clear run; he could just avoid all the
embarrassment that was certainly about to descend onto him like an avalanche down those French
mountains his peers could afford to ski on, and just get away from it all; back to the contract
tutorial, and the professor’s boring voice, and that little bluebird outside the window.
Harry also got the curious feeling that people were watching him, that they were looking, and
sizing him up for slaughter, and the more Malfoy looked back at him, the more people stared.
Curious to see their new toy no doubt. For all he knew, they came here every week, always with a
shiny, or, in his case, somewhat dim, thing that they sat with, and smiled at, and sacrificed for their
own gain.
And the more he thought about it, the more he tensed; his muscles turning to stone beneath his
skin, and the more he tensed, the more he panicked, and the more he panicked, the less oxygen
was available to fill up his lungs and the less oxygen there was the more he felt like a giant was
rattling his brain all around his skull.
Lestrange took a hold of his arm, gripping it tight; the texture of his gloves strange even through
Harry’s jumper.
“Breath, Potter; in and out and in and out, you got that?” he said, his hand still firm around him.
Harry nodded, feeling the same way as when he had realised Tom’s fingers were stroking his back.
That same protection and comfort, except, Lestrange wasn’t entirely equivalent. Behind Tom’s
actions had been a sliver, however small, of warmth, and a frill or two of indulgence; with
Lestrange, it held nothing more than pure practicality.
“Now, you’re going to come with me, while we leave that peacock to finish preening, alright?”
Lestrange said, already starting to push him towards a more secluded part of this restaurant. But
before they could get that far, Malfoy had sidled up to Lestrange.
“I heard that,” he said, digging his elbow, ever so casually, into Lestrange’s waist, whilst smiling
like they were the best of friends.
“Yeah, you were fucking supposed to.”

The booth Lestrange showed him to was nice, private, but not shoved into the back of beyond.
Rather, just enough away from everyone else to make it feel as though they were alone, especially
as Harry was facing away from the crowds. Not to mention, there was something awfully
sophisticated about sitting on red leather chairs. The sound they made when he shifted and their
coolness to the touch, that smooth sleekness that shouldn’t remind him of Tom’s smile, but
somehow did anyway.
Lestrange sat across from him, his hands smoothing across the tablecloth, speckled with the cerise
that ran off the lights. Malfoy slid in beside him, which probably made the whole scenario more
intimidating than it was supposed to be, but then again, it was probably better than they couldn’t
see him wracking his hands and cracking his knuckles under the table like that would somehow
make him more comfortable.
“So… umm… w-why are we here?” said Harry quietly, unable to shake the far-fetched fantasy that
he was about to be disposed of, dumped as a friend in the middle of a restaurant because he saw
something he shouldn’t have.
“Because it’s what friends do; they go out to lunch,” said Malfoy, already opening the menu, but
looking distinctly over it, at what Harry thought might be a someone across the room. Probably
another great someone he knew.
“But – ” he started.
Lestrange interrupted.
“We want to get to know you, Potter, properly, you didn’t say much when we all got together, so
we thought you might be a little more talkative if it was just us?”
Harry swallowed. It was certainly less intimidating with only four pairs of eyes on him, especially
when Tom’s counted as an infinite number of burning irises all of which seemed to see right down
into the deepest, darkest depths of his soul. Compared to that, Malfoy and Lestrange scarcely
scratched the surface.
But still the thought of ‘getting to know them’ was nauseating, a black sludge of apprehension
began to slide its way through his blood, cooling him from the inside out until every part of him
felt clammy and deeply uncomfortable, though he couldn’t exactly why.
Maybe, it was because if they got to know him, they’d understand he wasn’t as interesting as they
thought he was; they’d discover that he was ordinary and boring and not all clever and
sophisticated, and then they’d just throw him away and he’d be left knowing what he could have
had if he was that much more remarkable.
“After all,” said Lestrange when no one had taken the initiative to interrupt him, “Riddle says you
can argue for the high heavens if you fucking want, but I’ve never heard you, and if I don’t hear
you soon, I’m going to start thinking you’re playing favourites.”
Harry might have said something, explained the situation as best he could. Make him understand
that he wasn’t playing favourites, it was merely that Tom did things to him he couldn’t explain. He
made him want to argue and debate and drag himself out of that protective shell. But he didn’t say
any of that because Malfoy was already speaking by the time his brain had even processed what
Lestrange had said.
“Can’t you watch your language? We’re not in one of your backend pubs,” Malfoy said, pulling a
face.
“It’s a private club, and you fucking know it,” said Lestrange back, the slightest of sneers affecting
his tone. “You’re just salty because you’re not invited.”
“I don’t want to be invited down some back-alley, where my chances of being murdered increase
exponentially, thanks,” Malfoy retorted, the flick of his hair, just a touch too practised to be a
merely casual gesture. Harry could picture Malfoy, flicking his hair in Tom’s direction every time
he said something, he didn’t like.
“That’s got nothing to do with the location and everything to do with the fact you’re a prat.”
Malfoy shoved him against the high back of the chair, with just enough force right on Lestrange’s
collarbone that Harry couldn’t help but see a maliciousness in the action. An unnecessary
viciousness that had Harry swallowing and almost subconsciously reaching up to touch at his own
collarbones through his shirt and wandering what it felt like to have a fist against them.
But, however gratuitously violent Malfoy’s actions were, they didn’t get a reaction. Lestrange just
continued to smile, the tip of his tongue visible again between his teeth.

Far too slowly Malfoy retracted his hand rather like a dog might give up ownership of a bone if
pressed by its owner.
“But first,” he said, clearly trying to brighten his mood from the inside out, “lunch. What would
you like, Potter? We’re paying.”
Harry picked up a menu made of the same red leather that had his fingers itching; he didn’t
remember receiving it, but it didn’t matter, it was in his hands now.
He started to scan through the options. There were a lot. Organised, apparently, in no particular
way, with no particular aim in mind other than to list. To make matters worse, the handwriting was
looped and twirled in a way that was almost impossible to read, and certainly impossible if you had
no idea what half the listings were actually supposed to be.
“Umm…,” Harry said, still scanning, always glossing straight over anything that seemed
unreasonably priced, which was pretty much everything on the menu; “I’ll just have the sandwich.”
The silence that followed made him swallow, and look up very slowly from his little leather prison,
Malfoy was staring at him with an expression that could only be described as disdainful.
“You will not be ordering a sandwich,” he said.
“I thought…”
“When I said, order anything you like, I meant something worth eating,” Malfoy continued, the
expression still not leaving. From an objective point of view, Harry would have said Malfoy had
never eaten a sandwich. Perhaps if he did, then he’d learn to appreciate the art form of poverty.
“What’s wrong with a sandwich?” Harry said, a little defensively, after all, the humble sandwich
was very much a staple of his current diet. Most meals, he’d found, could quite easily be replaced
with sandwiches in one form or another, usually with some cheap spread like honey or low-quality
jam.
“The problem,” Malfoy said, speaking as though Harry’s diet had personally offended him, “is
sandwiches are so… dull, and anyway, if we’d wanted to take you out for just a sandwich, we
could have stayed at the university, with their rather… unique approach to food. But we made the
effort to take you out.”
“Sorry– ” Harry started, thinking he should just go now and save them any further embarrassment.
“You don’t have to apologis– ”
“Correction,” interrupted Lestrange, his fingers snapping right in front of Malfoy’s face, “never
apologise.”
Malfoy glared at him and mouthed something that Harry didn’t catch. Though, by the way
Lestrange raised an eyebrow, it didn’t appear to have been appreciated.
Just by being around them for a few minutes, Harry got the distinct feeling that a discussion with
Lestrange was somewhat similar to being pelted with stones, just one thing after another until
Harry could virtually feel the bruises starting to form on his tongue. With Malfoy, it was different,
it was still being buried, but this time, it was far more similar to drowning. To have more and more
water poured onto of him, so that it was smooth on the skin, but no less suffocating.
“What I’m saying,” Malfoy said carefully, considering each word before he released it from his
mouth, “is that you can have a sandwich anywhere; but we’d love you to try something with a little
more…”
“…Class,” finished Lestrange.
For once Malfoy didn’t glare, he just continued to smile, his pink stained hands, looking almost
bloody, as they rest on the table.
“So, at least look at everything else.”

Speaking of looking, Malfoy was looking around a lot, but always at the same thing. Always subtle
enough that if Harry hadn’t been watching him so carefully, he might not have seen how he looked
over his menu and smiled.
In the guise of just looking around, Harry turned for a brief second to skim his eyes across the rest
of the restaurant. But even a short glance was long enough to see what had caught Malfoy’s eye. A
waitress balancing several wine glasses on a glass tray.
She saw them watching and smiled, before putting down the tray and its contents, and started to
approach, though not before she had surreptitiously smoothed down her dress and given her hair a
quick pat-down.
It wasn’t necessary, she was a pretty girl. Not in the same way as Druella, or that red-haired girl
Harry liked to look at, but still nice. Her hair was either cut short or done up in a way that eluded
Harry, he’d never understood how girls managed to do their makeup and hair so well every day. It
was just another one of those grand secrets that all women had but would never share.
When she arrived by the table, she smiled again all big and bright, and tucked her hair behind her
ear, even though it wasn’t in her eyes. She fitted in here, with her dark hair glazed with the red
light, and lipstick in almost a matching shade that made her smile so much whiter.
She swallowed before she spoke, her hands fumbling a little as she tried to get her notebook out of
her pocket.
“Good afternoon; what I can I get you gentlemen for – for,” she lost her train of thought quite
suddenly when both Lestrange and Malfoy turned to look at her at once. “I’m sorry – err – what
can I get you to drink or – err – to eat?”
She swallowed again like there was a rock with jagged edges in her throat. Harry knew what that
was like; he knew how hot her palms must feel, and how cold that string down her spine must be.
Though he still watched with curiosity as her eyes lingered first on Lestrange, he did not return the
gaze. Or he did, but it wasn’t the sort of gaze anyone wanted on them. Too ragged at the edges,
prickly like the blackberry brambles that used to grow where Harry used to live. And though, they,
much like Lestrange, were striking, they always pricked his fingers and made him bleed. The blood
mixing with their juices until his hands were just steeped in this sticky red sweetness.
Harry swallowed and shook himself, suddenly aware he had been staring at his hands, flexing his
fingers, trying to see every part that was inside him and imagining them coated, once again, with
that sheen that was the same colour as the wine Tom liked to drink.
Malfoy hadn’t noticed him, but Lestrange had, and his eyes were dark and interested, as though just
by looking he could see the stains on Harry’s fingers.
Harry turned away to watch the waitress’ own fingers as she fiddled with her notepad. Just
smoothing over the coil binding at the top before running the tip of her nail down the edge. If the
bubbling of conversation had been quieter, Harry would have been able to hear the scraping of her
nail on the paper. She didn’t notice him watching, she didn’t really notice anything other than the
way Malfoy was looking at her; like she really meant something.
It wasn’t the same gaze as he had afforded to Tom, rather the complete opposite. With Tom,
Malfoy had been demure, reserved, always waiting to see how much he could have before taking it,
but now, Malfoy was looking at her with a confidence that must have flowed like a river from a
self-assurance that he was indeed desirable, which he was.
He returned her gazes with the gift of a smile. A slight, lazy, smile that spread from the corner of
his mouth. It was the sort of gaze, Harry wished he could master; attractive, and provocative, and
all just on the right side of tasteful.
“Err – so, do you gentlemen know what you want, or err – should I give you a little more time?"
“I, for one, know what I want,” Malfoy said slowly, his eyes dipping down to take in the full length
of her body. She blushed and smiled, the fingers on her right hand twirling the hair around her ears.
She continued to smile even when Lestrange interrupted the moment, cutting brutally between
them so that he could order.

Without the slightest bit of shame for interrupting, Lestrange ordered a salad in a manner that just
about passed as polite enough for polite society. Or, what Harry had thought was polite society, but
now, he was having seconds thoughts. Perhaps, polite society did exist, but they weren’t part of it;
they were something much more magnificent: high society, in all its glittering gory glory.
Malfoy continued to smile at the woman like she was the prettiest thing in the world, before
Lestrange kicked him under the table, hard enough that Harry felt it as well. At which point, his
smile turned to a glare and he deigned to order the unpronounceable, in Harry’s opinion, vermicelli
soufflé.
Then it was Harry’s turn. The waitress continued to politely smile, even as Lestrange and Malfoy
talked, coerced or perhaps even threatened, Harry wasn’t entirely sure anymore, him into having
what was apparently just pasta with some sort of tomatoes.
If he hated it, it would be entirely his own fault for not wanting to probe too far, and so he was just
sort of hoping they were right that it was actually nice, or, tolerably edible.
It was entirely strange to have suggestions given to him, having choice itself was a novelty, and
one Harry was learning he didn’t really want. It would be so much easier for someone to just do it
all for him, to introduce him to these things one by one; someone like Tom. Which was weird
because the role that he assigned to Tom was no different to the one Lestrange and Malfoy were
currently fulfilling. But something made him trust Tom’s opinion in a way that he didn’t for either
Lestrange or Malfoy, no matter how much they smiled and said that it would all be fine.
All it was, was a nervous nagging at the base of his stomach, but it was enough to further put him
on edge, enough that he was subconsciously gripping at the tablecloth and twisting it between his
fingers. In the deepest, darkest part of his mind, the one that he wasn’t entirely willing to truly
acknowledge, Harry wanted Tom to be there. To sit beside him and order for him, because Tom…
would know what he wanted, even if he didn’t know himself.
Both Lestrange and Malfoy also ordered wine, with “it’s never too early to drink rosé,” as the
excuse, but that didn’t stop the creeping feeling down Harry’s back that it was indeed too early to
be drinking anything that wasn’t tea or water; he was having the latter.
The waitress smiled at their order, or more specifically, she smiled at Malfoy, and then just nodded
to both him and Lestrange. She thanked them and turned away, and Malfoy continued to watch
completely shamelessly; his eyes sweeping over every line like he was an artist painting her figure
with his eyes.
As soon as she had turned her back, and was a suitable distance away, Lestrange hit Malfoy with
his gloves.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”
Malfoy didn’t even turn to look at him.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to resort to violence?” he said, still watching the last flays of
her skirt before she disappeared around a corner and into the main section of the restaurant.

Over the next few minutes, more than a few looks were exchanged between her and Malfoy. Harry
would catch him, in between the heaves and swells of the faint and, very polite, conversation, just
drifting off slightly, his mind leaving behind the mundane suggestions of the weather and
university life, and begin to meander, as a river does, to more… personal concerns. She was
looking back as well, even when Malfoy was actually engaging in the conversation, Harry could
see her; her neck craned, looking back at the table, far more than necessary.
He might have said that it was similar to the way Tom and Malfoy had been looking back and
forth, but it wasn’t. Sitting here, watching the two of them smile back and forth at each other, the
hints of what they wanted, and it was obvious what they wanted, weaving between the people and
chatter; it was clear, this wasn’t the same.
This was soft, sweet, a fleeting moment caught before his eyes, just a tenderness. The same sort of
things as Harry had accidentally witnessed the wide, open, studios of the art department when he
had stumbled in there after dark. He hadn’t meant to be there, he probably wasn’t even allowed, but
he had been, and he’d seen the way that girl with the pale hair had smiled at the girl with the
freckles that dabbled across her skin like ivy across tree bark. He’d seen how they’d touched their
hands, and he might have seen more if he hadn’t scarpered.
But that sort of look didn’t exist between Malfoy and Tom, or maybe it did, but it was so coated in
this darkness, glazed over with sort rawness that cut straight to his bones. Watching them had been
what Harry imagined it was like to drown in oil, feeling the sticky sludge slide through his lungs,
scorching and melting as it went. Harry doubted he’d ever see that sort of look outside Tom’s
company, and he certainly didn’t see it here.
Though, every time Malfoy did look over, he was treated to a look from Lestrange. A knowing,
unimpressed sort of look; both a warning and an expression of disapproval before he’d even done
anything. To give him credit, Malfoy didn’t take any notice. Or, maybe he did, but firmly
compartmentalised any disapproval, and filed it under things he didn’t particularly care about.

By the time she brought their drinks, more than a dozen of these poison-laced glances had passed
between them, and they were really starting to interrupt the flow of conversation. Not that Harry
minded; just watching was something he was far better at then talking about things he neither
understood, nor cared about.
She didn’t appear to notice as she placed the glasses down; Lestrange’s first, then Harry’s, and
then Malfoy’s, where her hand lingered for a few seconds more than was professional.
She still had nice hands; all soft and smooth. The nails short but kept nice, unlike Harry’s own, he
caught them too much, on any surface available and they always broke low enough that they
scraggly and unkempt.
In Harry’s honest opinion, that moment, with the two of them staring at each other, seemed to last
forever, and it must have done for Lestrange as well because he coughed obnoxiously and rolled
his eyes several times, each one more dramatic than the last. At the same time, his fingers began
tapping on the gloves that he’d left prominently on the table, probably as a reminder that, as Harry
was learning, he wasn’t particularly patient.

When she managed to eventually separate herself from Malfoy long enough to actually bring over
their food, Harry couldn’t help but have apprehensions. He’d never been a fussy eater per se, but
he’d also never eaten food, he couldn’t really pronounce, and as much as that tiny voice in the back
of his head tried to convince him otherwise, he simply didn’t feel good enough for this food.
Though, his doubts were somewhat quelled when she placed it down in front of him. As far as he
could see from a first glance, it looked entirely ordinary. Not the sort of thing he’d be able to cook
himself, but the sort of thing he could imagine cooking; if he had the means, and the basic skills,
and the effort; but he could if he really tried.
To put what this dish was simply, was to say it was pasta in a shape Harry didn’t even know you
could buy, littered with ingredients of all colours he assumed must be edible. A dash of green and
smidge of orange and all of it, glazed in that same sticky pink glow that everything here was. Such
a pervasive glow that infused everything, from the forks to Harry’s water, almost making it the
same colour as their wine. But despite this prettiness, Harry continued to eye the entire meal with
suspicion, even if it did look so much better than what his usual lunches looked like, he didn’t
entirely trust it, though he couldn’t say why.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she said, her voice taking on soft lilt that it had not had
before, and her eyes once again only fixing on Malfoy.
In different circumstances, Harry might have felt offended, but, right now, he’d rather stay
anonymous. He’d only just decided that, maybe, he did actually like humans as a species, as long
as they fitted into a very specific mould, and there was no way he wanted to do anything else to do
with anyone right now, except maybe if that person was Tom.
But Malfoy interrupted his carefully construed thoughts by speaking.
“Yes, actually, I think there is,” he said looking at her intently enough that Harry couldn’t help but
feel he was interrupting something. It was as though they had known each other for years and then
somehow separated, and now they were reunited for a moment. But Harry also knew he over-
romanticised something that was not romantic. Now, what was between Tom and Malfoy, that was
romantic, at least on one side of the equator, but this, well it wasn’t, was it? This was just a search
for meaning when the world was devoid of it. The pursuit of satisfaction, even in the most
inappropriate of times.

“Could you show me the cloakroom?” Malfoy was saying, still silky and as smooth as his wine.
“Oh, of course…” she said, the disappointment obvious in her tone, “it’s just over there,” she said
her hand, waving vaguely to a doorway a few feet behind them. Somehow, everything about her
closed up in that moment, as a tulip does at night, she furled herself up, and Harry recognised well
the slight embarrassment that came with overestimating your worth.
But Malfoy merely smiled.
“I’m sorry, I think you misunderstand,” he said, standing up, a little too close to her. If the
restaurant had been empty, it would have been noticeable, but everyone here was too busy paying
attention to themselves to notice a waitress.
“I want you to show me the cloakroom.”
She blushed again and giggled at her own mistake.
“Oh – yes, yes, of – of course,” she repeated unnecessarily and turned to start walking.
Malfoy was about to follow when Lestrange slapped his hand flat down against his, trapping it,
though only superficially, on the tabletop.
“Must you do this everywhere we go?” he hissed.
Malfoy leaned down, “I rather think it makes or breaks an establishment,” he said with a smile
bright enough to burn, “how accommodating the staff are, is always a good indicator of quality,
wouldn’t you say?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Lestrange said, as he pressed his palm harder into Malfoy’s knuckles, enough
pressure that he winced, and his smile turned to a glare.
“All that I would say is Druella would hate you, and I hardly think Riddle would sing your praises
either.”
“Nor would you, apparently; pray tell, does it offend your fragile sense of morality?” he said all as
sleek and slippery as Tom might have said, but with a nuance of warmth and joviality that
distinguished it. If Tom had delivered the line it would have been murderous, but with Malfoy, it
was quite the opposite, harmless, as though this was a mere inconvenience to his day as opposed to
the weighty moral dilemma that Lestrange seemed intent on turning it into.
“Don’t talk to me about fucking morals, Malfoy,” he snapped.
“Then don’t lecture me. I’m not your wife, nor are you my Reverend, so I don’t have to listen to
anything you say. I can do whatever I want, and right now, I want to enjoy myself whilst I still
can.”
“You’ll enjoy yourself even when you fucking can’t,” Lestrange spat back. The bitterness as
obvious as a flower in bloom; at that precise moment, Lestrange didn’t sound like he liked Malfoy
or the things he did.
Harry himself wasn’t so sure what to think. It certainly sounded wrong, looked wrong, and felt
wrong. Commodification was the first word that came to mind, quickly followed by exploitation,
neither of which were particularly positive interpretations. But, at the same time, it sounded
exciting, the sort of dangerous, deviant, thing that Harry would never do, however much he was
starting to want to.
They stayed watching each other for a second like they were having a silent debate about this
behind their eyes before Lestrange lifted his hand and released Malfoy from the somewhat pathetic
grip he had been in.
“Fine,” Lestrange said, “do whatever you want, but if you’re more than twenty-five minutes, then
I’m ordering everything on the menu, including that very rare bottle of Madeira Pather, and leaving
you with the cheque.”
Malfoy rolled his eyes, “fine by me,” he said, snatching his hand back up and following the pretty
waitress towards the cloakroom.

With Malfoy gone, there was a large, empty, space beside Lestrange, and its presence, or rather
lack thereof, made conversation falter. Apparently, Lestrange was a touch too prickly to bother
with small talk. So, the space swelled, and the silence spilled out between them until it was utterly
palpable in the air; a dark, wet thing that seeped through Harry’s skin and made him damp and
awkward.
Whether deliberate or not, it was all made worse by Lestrange, even though he wasn’t doing
anything. He was just sitting there, his right hand casually splayed on the table and his left hidden
underneath.
What should have been a simple and even pleasant silence to gather his thoughts, was interrupted
by a buzzing inside his head. A single thought rebounding off the walls of his skull until he
couldn’t ignore it any longer. “I am not your wife”. It could, quite easily, have been non-literal, but
just the tang of the edge of Malfoy’s tongue has suggested it wasn’t.
Harry knew he, probably, shouldn’t be so interested in their private lives, but he couldn’t help it
when they were dangled so tantalisingly before his eyes. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to
see if it was true, confirm the thing that Malfoy had alluded to confirming. For that was the one
truly convenient thing about marriage was the evidence it left behind. Some were private signs:
marriage certificates and photographs and outfits and memories, but others, they were public
declarations. All he needed was to observe Lestrange’s fingers, just to see if he had a ring.
But, almost like Lestrange knew that was Harry wanted, he kept his left hand firmly under the
table, and instead just leaned back on the seat and sighed, cutting through that silence like one
might break an egg into a bowl. One harsh crack and all the solemnity dissolved.
With an unnatural grace, Lestrange inclined his head towards Harry but began to spread the rest of
himself out, oozing into Malfoy’s seat, now that Malfoy was not there to share it.
“You know, he thinks that this is a victimless crime,” Lestrange said, casually picking up what
might have been a walnut from his salad and tossing it into his mouth, “all because he thinks it
doesn’t impact anyone apart from him and her, but in actual fact, it has far-reaching consequences
for you and I as well.”
The way in which his tongue glided around the words was truly uncomfortable; they were touch to
familiar in his mouth, and Harry got the distinct feeling this wasn’t the first time Lestrange had
made this sort of complaint to trapped witness.
“For one, it’s fucking impolite,” he said, “and two, now we’re not going to get service because he
insisted on fucking our waitress.”
Lestrange rolled his neck back, stretching himself out a little more and taking another walnut, “I
mean, he could of, at least, had the decency to use the one over from us, wouldn’t you say?”
Harry wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say at all, so he said nothing. Instead, focussing his
energy into pushing the pasta around with his fork and hoping that Lestrange would take his
silence for agreement. After all, what was he supposed to say? That Malfoy was immoral? That he
condemned his actions? How could he? When said actions looked so fun. The sort of on-the-edge
life Harry almost wished he was brave enough to live. The sort where he didn’t have inhibitions
and he just went with the world, let every experience flow through him like water, but he wasn’t
like that. He had reservations. Multiple reservations.

They sat in silence for another minute, Harry pushing the food around his plate, and occasionally
eating a bite. It was genuinely good, but it still felt wrong to be eating when Malfoy wasn’t with
them. A violation of some practice he couldn’t quite remember learning but was now so embedded
into his psyche that he was never going to be released from it.
Lestrange must have picked up on it because he was looking at him with an eyebrow raised.
“If you’re hungry, eat; don’t bother waiting for him to get back.”
Harry smiled meekly and continued to push the food around. He didn’t why he was being so
awkward, he just was. This was all so new and exhausting, and as nice as it was to eat real food,
the emotional cost of it currently felt unnervingly high.
There was no denying that when Harry still didn’t eat, Lestrange’s fingers started to tap as a direct
response. And after a few minutes of irritated silence, he snapped and looked behind him in the
direction of the cloakroom. No one was there.
So, he leaned over, though he didn’t exactly have far to go, and took a forkful of Malfoy’s food.
“There’s no need to stand on ceremony now,” he said, immediately eating it as if it were his own.
“You want any?” he asked looking up, “I mean, it’s good and he fucking deserves it for leaving it
unattended.”
“Umm – sure,” Harry said, he didn’t know why, but this might be his only opportunity to try all
this stuff, so he might as well make it count.
“Take it straight from the bowl then, that way, if he does even notice then it’s all my fault and not
yours,” he said with a smile that made Harry feel warm, not in the same way as he did when Tom
smiled at him, but similar. This was much more friendly, innocent, and for the first time, truly, in
his life, Harry felt included in something. Even if that something was a direct robbery of someone’s
food.

About a quarter of Malfoy’s food later, Lestrange went back to his salad. Though not before he
leaned closer; his elbow pressed into the table and his head resting on his right hand as if they
weren’t in a restaurant at all.
“I’ll say this now, Potter,” he said, lifting his head just to gather a forkful of his own lunch to eat,
“if you’re going to idolise; don’t idolise Malfoy, he’s not a good influence.”
Harry swallowed.
“Who is then?” he said quietly, curious whether Lestrange would bring Tom into all this, or
whether he would continue to leave him as the unspoken extra guest at the table, somehow present
because of the sheer fact he wasn’t.
Lestrange paused. For far too long really. Enough that Harry ate smaller bites of food, just so there
would be enough to last this entire conversation. As he did so, he half-watched how the light
dappled around Lestrange, making it look like speckles of blood were dusted across his face. Harry
wasn’t sure why his immediate had been blood, but the thought of fruits or paint just didn’t do the
colour justice. And something about blood and Lestrange went together like an artist and blue
paint; not entirely necessary for each other, but significantly limited without. It might have been the
savagery in his smile or the red glitter behind his eyes, but either way, there was something that
suggested blood and Lestrange were meant to go together.
Lestrange himself did not appear to notice Harry’s considerations; he was too busy thinking whilst
staring at the light as a moth would.
“Rosier,” he said eventually, cutting into the pleasant silence that had formed.
“Not…?”
He didn’t even need to finish before Lestrange was laughing.
“Riddle? Fuck no.”
Only the second after he said it though, he seemed to realise the finality of the statement was
inappropriate. That it contravened an unspoken rule known only to a select few but sensed by
everyone. Lestrange tried to smile naturally, to settle all his features back into something neutral,
so as to take away from what he had just said and pretend that it wasn’t something unsayable.
“I mean, of course, he’s an influence, but Riddle has…” he paused, the right word clearly eluding
him for a while; hiding in the corners of his mouth where his tongue did not probe.
“…sharp edges, if you know what I mean; when Rosier, he’s as soft as a marshmallow. You ever
had a marshmallow? They’re lovely little things”
The shock of the change, from heavy to light in the blink of an eye was jarring, but Harry still
shook his head, after all, it was far easier than speaking. Though, the uneasiness remained, in the
back of his skull, like a veil behind which was a monster and not a bride.
From the short meetings Harry had had with Rosier, he would not have described him in terms of
marshmallows, but maybe he was wrong. Not that it mattered, how they’d got to this topic was
forgotten to Lestrange, now that the topic of confectionary had been brought up.
Of course, he knew what marshmallows were, he’d seen them in the shop windows and smelled
them on street corners, but he’d never tasted one. His excuse was that they were often expensive,
and even if they weren’t, it somehow seemed like a luxury he shouldn’t allow himself.
“Well, as soon as we get our waitress back, I’ll buy you some,” Lestrange said with a satisfied
smile.
“Umm…Thanks.”
“You don’t need to thank me, we’re friends.”

Harry smiled; he could feel the heat on his face; that slight blush that always appeared at the worst
possible times. At least, here he might be spared the worst of the colour visibly spilling down his
neck. Lestrange smiled too, and with an action that was excessively deliberate, he lifted his left
hand to raise his glass to him mouth. He sipped his wine slowly, the contraction of his throat oddly
hypnotic, before placing the glass down again.
Though his right hand immediately picked up his fork again and began to stab at a leaf of his salad,
his left stayed stroking around the base of the glass, his thumb sliding up and up the stem, over and
over the curve.
Harry could see it now. That little bit of gold he had been searching for. The strangely delicate ring
on his ring finger was so obvious. Harry couldn’t stop watching it. Staring and staring at the way
the light reflected on it, casting a gold sparkle onto the background of pink like the milky way had
been inverted before his eyes.
“I didn’t know you were married,” Harry said quietly, for want of anything better to say, and,
anyway, it was now like the elephant in the room. That large thing that was hanging over both of
them, just waiting to be said, so he might as well go and say it.
He didn’t mind whether Lestrange was or not. Rather, the thing pressing so acutely into the back of
his head was that marriage was just such a big thing; it held so many connotations, and
responsibilities and obligations, and suddenly Lestrange didn’t look old enough for any of them.
“Well, I am,” said Lestrange nonchalantly as he played with his salad like they were simply
discussing the weather, and not how he was spending the rest of his life with the same girl. The
same girl, that he had happened never to have mentioned before.
“How long?”
“Well…” he paused, his tongue searching for a date, “…we had our two-year anniversary in
August, and now it’s November; you do the maths.”
Two years, three months and however many days. It sounded like such a long time, even if it
wasn’t really. Suddenly, Harry felt quite young, very young; he was only eighteen now, so when
Lestrange had got married he’d only just turned sixteen, not that that mattered; but Lestrange
couldn’t have been that old either, the maximum he could have been must have –
“Before you ask, I was nineteen, we both were,” he said slowly, before adding, “it’s not that
young.”
Harry opened his mouth to say… to say… something, but there was really nothing to say, nothing
that he could say, and so he closed it again. Lestrange could say whatever he liked, but nineteen
was young. And yes, maybe Harry didn’t know what it was like to pledge the rest of his life to
someone else; before a few days ago, he’d never even thought about it, but still, the prospect of
marriage was horrifying.
Until Harry had met Tom, there had been no one he’d even fathomed wanting to spend more than a
few hours with, and yet, here was Lestrange having given away his entire life to someone else.
He took another forkful of pasta, silently cursing them for choosing a seat with no window to stare
casually out of. The only things that he could stare at without being surreptitious were Lestrange
and the cloakroom, neither of which he particularly wanted to look at right now.

“You know, you can ask questions if you fucking have them,” Lestrange said between mouthfuls
of his and Malfoy’s food.
Harry swallowed, his throat felt dry and itchy, and this whole conversation had made his stomach
turn, and not in a good way.
“It’s… you know… such a… such a… I don’t know.”
Lestrange smiled, his eyes settling on the rim of his glass.
“It’s fine, you should have seen Avery’s face when he found out; compared to him, you’re doing
pretty well.”
That was mildly reassuring. Though Harry could practically see Avery’s stumbling and fumbling,
his tongue somehow tripping over every word, he didn’t look like he took surprises particularly
well, even less, the ones to do with interpersonal relationships.
“What about the others?” Harry asked, for, whilst he could imagine Avery’s awkward blustering,
he couldn’t quite imagine what their reactions would be. They all seemed too distant, too
disconnected from the real world to let this sort of thing touch them. Really, they all appeared too
ephemeral, too transient, just passing through this world on their way to enlightenment to actually
have to deal with human connections.
“What about them?” Lestrange replied with that same detachment which was as irritating as it was
enviable.
“How did they… take it?”
“Oh,” he said, apparently caught off guard, “they were at my wedding. Druella was one of my
wife’s bridesmaids, Riddle was my best man, and Rosier and Mulc– Malfoy managed to turn up. I
can’t honestly say if they were fucking sober but,” he smiled, “they were all there.”
“Oh.”
It was Harry’s turn to sit slightly gormlessly, his mouth still open. But he could see it now, that
understanding, that camaraderie of the five of them, six he supposed if they included Lestrange’s
bride; just the six of them laughing by the flowers and dancing on the lawns and being complete
disinterested in everyone else because they were in their own little cosmos, where nothing but
themselves really mattered.

Lestrange interrupted his little daydream.

“What about you? There anyone in your life?”
“No,” he paused, now that he thought about it, the response had been too strong, too forceful, and
apparently Lestrange thought the same because now he was leaning in closer, that vicious smile
replacing the more gentile one.
“No one?” he said, eyebrow raised, “how about I rephrase the question: is there anyone you’d like
in your life?”
Harry swallowed, if the flush from earlier had died down, it now rose again like a phoenix from
the flames. There was no way on heaven or earth that he was going to outright admit to Lestrange
that the one person crushing in on his mind like Typhon waves on rocks, was his friend, even less
could he tell Malfoy that. And supposing he did tell them, well, it wouldn’t stay a secret; they’d
almost certainly tell all the others, including Tom, and then Harry wouldn’t have any choice but to
hide in his room and never come out again. For it was one thing to have a private little infatuation,
it was quite another to have the unattainable man of his darkest dreams know about it.
So, he just squirmed in his chair, half wishing the floor could just swallow him up, and absolutely
avoiding all eye contact with Lestrange. After all, if he looked at the table long enough, it did
become interesting; how the tablecloth was crinkled in some places and not others, how it
scrunched up around the drinks but not around the plates, how Lestrange’s elbows resting heavily
on the edge was messing the entire arrangement.

“There is someone, isn’t there?” Lestrange said, the words weaving out from between his teeth and
his chin resting on his hands and that infuriating smile embroidered into his mouth.
Harry shrugged as casually as he could, hoping that it neither confirmed nor denied exactly what he
was thinking and that maybe, just hopefully, Lestrange could drag his own conclusion from the
slurry without pressing him further.
“Oh, Potter, you can do better than that.”
He swallowed, excuses spinning around his head like a hurricane.
“They don’t like me… back, so, it doesn’t – really – matter,” he said, honestly, though he had
quickly decided he was perfectly willing to be dishonest if it got Lestrange away from smiling like
he knew every secret that had ever passed through Harry’s head.
But Lestrange just leaned closer, until it looked like a truly confidential conversation, the sort of
thing rich men had in restaurants like this, backstreet deals and shady transactions all veiled in the
privacy of gentlemen at dinner.
“You know, there are always ways of making people like you, Potter; we’d be very happy to start
acquainting you with them…”
Harry leant back into his chair, his hand flat on the tablecloth just to stop it shaking and drawing
unwanted attention. It wasn’t an indecent proposal, and perhaps if the object of his newfound
affections wasn’t quite so cosmic, Harry might have accepted, but still, there was a wave of
indecency that hung around the proposition like fog in the morning. A deeply, disturbing feeling
snaking between the wires in his stomach.
He must have shown the apprehension on his face because Lestrange retracted, just enough, and
not in any way that suggested he was offended.
“…if that’s something you want, of course,” he clarified, though this time there was definitely the
hint of something sinister behind his tone, like a pinch of some unknown spice that permeated all
the way through a dish, making it taste good but… different, a little ominous in ways Harry
couldn’t quite explain, but felt right in the very nadirs of his stomach.
“But still, they must have been charming to catch your eye,” Lestrange continued with that same
deliberate tone, as though he already knew exactly who it was that Harry had been watching, and
now he was merely trying to get Harry to say it out loud. To admit, just how much he wanted Tom
to notice him, just him. How much he wanted things he couldn’t even articulate but all involved
Tom’s tongue curling around words like they were candy canes.
“Someone, intelligent. Someone, argumentative. Just someone who offers a bit of excitement,
right?”
Harry shrugged and pushed the last pieces of his pasta around the plate, avoiding Lestrange’s
bright eyes that were starting to sting at his forehead, and, instead, wondering if they’d charge them
extra for the tomato stain on the tablecloth.
“Come on, Potter, I’m trying to get to fucking know you, and you’re sitting there as tight-lipped as
a doxy in the confession box.”

Harry still didn’t reply. If Lestrange didn’t like it, then he could just report back to all the others
not to bother because he wasn’t as interesting as they’d all mistakenly believed him to be.
“Silence possesses few benefits, Potter, other than trying my patience, and whilst Riddle claimed
not to bite, I make no such guarantees.”
The tone was unsympathetic. A sly thing that Harry could practically feel gripping his wrists and
telling him to talk as though this were a police investigation.
When Harry still didn’t say anything, Lestrange sat back and put down his fork. Instead, he crossed
his arms, mirroring Harry’s own movements, except with more assurance that he was right.
“Would you rather do casual conversation? Because I’m not one for that, so if you’d prefer to do
small talk about the fucking weather, tell me now, so I don’t have to waste my fucking time and we
can just wait for Malfoy to get back, alright?”
It was a cold statement, laced with a disappointment that Tom would probably have put slightly
more tactfully. Harry couldn’t even remember when he’d started comparing everything to Tom;
when he’d become the benchmark for all appropriate responses, he just had. But Tom couldn’t help
him now because, now, if he were Tom, he’d smile, and make some sort of clever quip that put
Lestrange right back in his place; and he couldn’t do that. Well, he could, but Lestrange would
probably eat him alive.
“I just – ” Harry swallowed, “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to say, alright,” he said quickly,
the words all running out like a stain on a white shirt, unable to avoid how his voice cracked in the
worst possible way.
Lestrange didn’t move; in fact, the only motion at all from him, came from his fingers as he used
them to hold his fork as he stirred the remaining leaves of his salad. Like that, he was absent,
considering all the options meticulously. Intently enough that Harry tensed when Lestrange looked
up at him, his eyes wandering all over his face.
“To be quite honest, I don’t fucking care what you say,” he said, softer than usual without that hard
strung of being right running through the middle, “as long as you say something.”
It was reassuring, fraternal balancing right on the edge of paternal; close enough that Harry had to
wonder if Lestrange wanted children. For the first time, he could imagine him with them, that
firmness mixed with a fairness that would never be appreciated until they were adult themselves.
Lestrange snapped him out of the thought.

“How about I make the question easier for you?” he said, his hand resting on the table in a way
that drew Harry’s eye for no particular reason.
“Tell me something you like, anything at all.”
“Law?” Harry said, very quietly, and looking at the table because the table couldn’t judge him.
“Which bit of it?”
“Criminal?”
Lestrange smiled, pressed forward enough to suggest he was no longer merely being polite.
“You interested in a life at the bar?”
“No,” said Harry, perhaps too quickly, but he wasn’t. Or, he didn’t think he was. The bar was the
place all his peers wanted to go, to take silk, though they must know barely any of them were
actually worth it; they didn’t even deserve cotton. Harry wasn’t like them, he understood his worth,
whilst they had coddled their whole lives into believing that they were special, he understood, he
was just… average, and when you’re average, there was no point in aiming higher than what you
deserved, or rather, what this society seemed to think you deserved. So, no, he wasn’t interested in
being a barrister.
“Shame,” said Lestrange, though Harry had almost forgotten he was even there, though now he
was looking at him Harry couldn’t help the tension stringing itself through his shoulder and his
back and his neck, because Lestrange was looking at him a little too attentively.
“Riddle thinks you’d make a good barrister,” he said slowly, and leaning in like this was something
he shouldn’t be sharing.
“Riddle thinks you’d be good for a lot of…” Lestrange paused to take a sip of his wine, wetting his
lips as he did so; enough that Harry felt that same pressure in the base of his stomach, as though a
stone was forming as a pearl does within an oyster.
Lestrange just smile,“…careers,” he finished, “particularly the bar, but then again, Riddle would be
fantastic there too, and that’s not what he wants.”

The sound of Tom’s name fizzing over Lestrange’s tongue made Harry want to ask him questions.
So many questions, like, what did Tom want to do with his life? If he wasn’t persuaded with the
thing, he’d be the best at.
Harry might have said that Tom was aspiring to academia, but somehow that was little too hollow;
it did not contain the bright, glittering dreams that he evoked in the people around him. And, unlike
Lestrange, Harry doubted Tom had much tolerance for children, even if they were legally adults. If
he was disinterested in the most interesting, people Harry had ever met, then he’d never survive
teaching in some dingy classroom with people with only an eighth of his own intelligence.
Which could all only mean that Tom had different dreams, more exciting career ambitions, and he
was simply dying to ask what they were. And maybe he would have asked if he hadn’t
remembered how Lestrange had smiled at him; how he might just have seen what Harry thought of
Tom in his deepest dreams. He didn’t want to give Lestrange an excuse to start up that
conversation again.
So instead, he said something dumb that made Lestrange smile again and take a sip of his drink.

“You’re into criminal too, right?” Harry said swallowing the rest of his water like it would drown
out every thought of Tom that was swirling around his stomach.
“Oh, I love it,” Lestrange replied, his lips catching on the rim of his wineglass as he drank again,
and the sound of his ring echoing out as it clinked against the glass.
“Umm… d-defence or prosecution?” Harry continued with the limited court proceedings he was
vaguely certain about, and rather hoping, in the back of his mind, that he’d hit a goldmine of
conversational topics where Lestrange could give up the pretence of altruistic interest, and just
concentrate on himself again.
Lestrange’s smile certainly spread wide at the question, and in different circumstances, Harry
might have called it voracious, but even now it definitely bordered on the farther side of eager.
“Defence,” Lestrange said, “it’s far more satisfying than prosecution. After all, the law might state
that we are all innocent until proven guilty, but that’s not the case, is it?”
The way he said it, made Harry inclined to agree, though he wasn’t really sure why, and suddenly
he was quite grateful that they were in a restaurant, surrounded noise and people. Like this, there
was less weight to Lestrange’s words; they didn’t seem real or meaningful, and in the back of his
head, Harry could pretend he still had faith in the legal system, even if there was a growing feeling
in his every inch of his conscious self that that faith was misplaced.
“I mean,” Lestrange continued, “the second that you are up there, you’re guilty, everyone wants
you to be; so, the greater skill is to subvert expectations. Make them all doubt themselves, until,
suddenly, they can’t believe how they could possibly have thought you were guilty in the first
place.”
“You want… power?” Harry found himself saying, the words just slipping out without him hardly
noticing. It was the same thing that Tom did to him, how he dragged conversations from his mouth
like they were fish, and his carefully placed words were the bait.
“Well, I suppose you could call it such; it is just as hypnotic as that conventional clout the
reasonable man would call, power.”
Harry swallowed, there was something, just something in Lestrange’s tone that made the hairs on
the back of his neck raise, setting him on edge like someone was scratching ice down his back.
Maybe, it was just his smile, or maybe it was the brazenness with which he admitted to what he
wanted; with such a clarity, an understanding, and simplicity that Harry’s own dreams could never
emulate. Unless, perhaps, he could get right down to the essence of what it was that made
Lestrange’s opinions quite so fascinating, so intense that they felt as though they might swallow
him up.
“Why do you want it?” Harry asked, shifting in his seat to try and dispel the uncomfortableness of
talking about something he’d never really had.
“Everyone wants to be powerful, Potter, even you.”
“But…” he put his fork down and looked across the table to where Lestrange was sitting, haloed in
light, like an angel but with the devil in his eyes, “what if… I don’t want… to be?”
“But you do; power manifests itself in different ways; I, for instance, want to get what I want, when
I want it; but Malfoy,” Lestrange paused to snicker to himself, “he just wants the power to live his
life as… let’s call it, promiscuously, as he wants; and you, well you want power in order to change
your life, don’t you?”
“Why would say that?” he said, as defensively as he could, without sounding offensive.
“Because Riddle said so, the first time he met you. He said you were unsatisfied, that you were
lost, that you were looking for… something.”
Although he did not say it, Harry suspected the word Lestrange was going to say was not
‘something,’ but ‘someone.’ He was looking for someone. And maybe, he was.
Or, maybe, he’d already found them smiling at him from the first-floor window.

“So, for you, going back to a case and all, it’s the thrill of the chase, and not the sting of the kill?”
said Harry, his mouth as dry as a wood dust, and using the dramatic words he knew would catch
Lestrange’s macabre eye, in a desperate attempt to get away from him so meticulously
deconstructing him like he was nothing more than one of the opposing counsel’s witnesses.
Still though, there was the same insidious thought creeping up his spine: he liked this. In a twisted,
painful sort of way, being stripped back to the bones was… horrifyingly intimate.
He wondered too what this looked like to the other patrons of this restaurant; Harry had seen them
glance up casually, more out of curiosity at his presence than out of maliciousness. But still, what
did they think they saw?
Was it the methodical demolition of an argument? The casual deprivation of his case until he was
sitting there as stripped as any carcass for Lestrange’s vulture-esque entertainment. Though, unlike
with his official witnesses, Lestrange was making no attempt to remodel him, to change what he
was saying, only to record it for later purposes.
For the first time, Harry was grateful that Tom wasn’t here. Just from Lestrange talking about what
people wanted he felt like he was burning up from the inside to the out, and the thought of standing
in a court of law and having to look at Tom whilst he did that, was frankly breathtaking. If Tom
had been here now, he would have stolen away the oxygen from his lungs and watched as Harry
suffocated on the red-soaked air, and it might just have been beautiful.
But whatever it was he felt inside, Harry hoped, for the sake of the jury, Tom never did become a
barrister. Or, maybe he should, for Harry couldn’t quite imagine anyone ever denying Tom the
things he wanted, and if what he wanted was a conviction, then he was going to get it.

Harry shook his head, suddenly realising he was staring again; looking at nothing in particular for a
little too long until there were sharp lines, and even sharper edges covering every inch.
“That’s a skilful misdirection, Potter, turning everything back to me; but I’ll assume it’s flattery for
your sake. To answer your question though, yeah, you could say it like that, although, you sound
like you disagree?” said Lestrange, apparently happy to be led away from these explorations, as
though he was an oceanographer than had already surveyed those previous waters to satisfaction.
“It – just – you know…”
“You’re going to have to say in plain fucking English if you want an answer.”
Harry swallowed; he could do this, Lestrange he didn’t care what he said as long as it was
something. He could argue, he could make cases; if he did it to Tom, he could do it to anyone,
right?
“The chase, seems superfluous; after all, no one likes the fat on pork roasts, do they? So why
would a jury like it on their case? They hold so much power in their hands at that moment that they
don’t – they don’t – need any more aggrandisement,” Harry swallow, “they get to play God with
people’s lives, surely that’s the simple fact you play too, yeah?”
As he spoke, Lestrange’s head tilted to the side and his mouth spread again into one of those sleek
smiles that simply meant he’d thought of something. Though when Harry finished, all in a
breathless rush, Lestrange stayed silent, as though he was sampling the silence between them.
Seeing how uncomfortable he could make it.
“I like that,” he said eventually, “but I didn’t know you had the brutality in you, Potter; to condemn
a man to death because you want to feel like God. But then again, Riddle said weren’t as much of a
pushover as you looked, that’s why he likes you; because you’re… multidimensional. Almost
nebulous, if you know what I mean.”
Harry did not know what he meant, but it didn’t matter when he could feel his heart beating quite
so intently on the length of his tongue, pressing right down into the centre as through the slow
swirls an eddy was forming on the floor of his mouth, threatening to pull everything inside itself,
until he was choking on his own tongue. He reached for his water, and tried, unsuccessfully to
stifle a coughing gasping stutter that resulted in a fair amount of water failing to reach his mouth.
If Lestrange acknowledged him spluttering, he had the courtesy not to mention it. He just looked
over his own glass with a decorum that Harry was so far away from it was embarrassing.
“Now tell me,” Lestrange said, firmly ignore that Harry was still choking, “have you ever
considered – ?”

He didn’t get to finish, for they were interrupted by Malfoy sauntering back over to the table and
grinning like a child who’d got some candy. He looked immaculate; shirt all proper and his hair
done right, and nothing at all how he’d been around Tom. But maybe that was because it was
private, when this, well… it wasn’t.
“Twenty-three minutes, thirty seconds,” he said, slapping his hand down on the table, “I do believe
you’re picking up the bill.”
“Urgh,” Lestrange groaned, “you know, every day you stray further from probity,” he said in the
most bored tone Harry heard him use yet, as though he recognised exactly where Malfoy was
headed and had the power to stop him, but simply chose not to.
“Well, I can tell you that it was definitely worth it.”
Lestrange raised both eyebrows, “really? Worth even enough to ignore what Riddle said about
outsiders?”
Malfoy rolled his eyes and sighed. “It’s not like I plan on seeing her again, and anyway, what
Riddle doesn’t know, won’t hurt him, will it?”
There was the slightest of threats stitched through his words, and Harry suspected that, although he
addressed Lestrange, that little tiny threat was supposed to apply equally to him. That he should
consider himself, bound, and as good as dead if he were to step over that mark.
“You tell me, you’re closer to him,” said Lestrange, still spread across as much as the seat as he
physically could be without lying down.
“So?” said Malfoy, “you’ve always been his confidant, so, if anyone’s going to tell him, Lestrange,
it’d be you.”
That was probably a fact. From what Harry had seen, he suspected Lestrange wasn’t as concerned
for morals as he apparently made out, at least, not when it came to, getting the results he wanted.
No matter how many people might have to fall in order for those desires to be realised.
Lestrange laughed though, for a good twenty seconds, before his face very suddenly went still and
inclined his head to look Malfoy in the eye.
“Riddle doesn’t need me to tell him things that are fucking obvious.”
“And how, pray tell, is it obvious?” said Malfoy, leaning down, both hands now on the table.
“Would you like a bibliography?”
Malfoy didn’t smile
So Lestrange continued with that look that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing.
“One, I can smell her perfume from here; two, there’s lipstick on your collar; three it’s just fucking
obvious. We’ve all seen your infidelity enough to know what it looks like on your skin.”
The bite behind the words was now undeniable, so much so, that the question ‘how many times
had this happened?’ started to skim across the surface of Harry’s brain, before digging right down
between the folds.
“That wasn’t a particularly great list,” said Malfoy sourly, rubbing at the corner of his collar with
his fingers, as though that would make the dark red stain disappear. It didn’t, it sort of spread it
right into the fibres, like the tomato stain on the tablecloth that Harry was currently hiding under
his plate.

They stared off a little longer. Lestrange clearly enjoying his short time above Malfoy on the food
chain. “Would you, at least, let me sit down?” Malfoy said impatiently.
“Fine,” Lestrange groaned again, as if this was all way too much effort, before shifting himself
across the leather and back to his original position, as though they were resetting this entire
afternoon back to stage one.
Malfoy slid in once again beside and picked up his fork, but before he took a bite, he actually
looked at his food.
“Wait? Did you eat my lunch?” he said, motioning to the glaringly obvious forkfuls taken from the
righthand side. There was no way Lestrange could have actively denied it.
“Well you did leave it without supervision,” he said casually, examining his nails because it looked
pretentious and was just melodramatic enough to be annoying.
“You are unbelievable, do you know that?” said Malfoy.
“Yeah, well you fucked a waitress.”
It was blunt to say the least, and Harry found himself just staring at the wood of the floor,
following its grain patterns with his eyes and hoping the tension would start to melt away soon. At
least enough that he could look up, and maybe start examining the leather on the chairs instead.
“Touché,” said Malfoy, apparently unwilling to argue the point, though he hadn’t the grounds nor
the means to have refuted it. Instead, he started to delicately pick at his half-eaten and, by now,
lukewarm, if not entirely cold, soufflé. He still ate it though.
“So, what are we talking about?” he said, three bites in.
“Well now Potter and I have got the niceties out the way, I was thinking of the German elections,”
said Lestrange with a smile, “they are fucking intriguing, to say the least.”
 Chapter 10
Chapter Notes

Apologies that this took such a long time to materialise.

Harry sat in the lecture hall, listening to the continual drone of the professor as he walked over the
wood of the stage and occasionally wrote screeching words and phrases onto the blackboard. It was
a dull lecture, just like every other law lecture seemed to be, which only added to the presupposed
belief that law was the dry subject that everyone who didn’t study it considered it to be, simply to
make themselves feel intellectually better. He would have been dying of boredom and resigned to
watching a moth flitter over the light on the wall, had it not been for the new folder Harry was
flicking through instead of listening.
Ever since his first week, Harry had been moving back in the lecture theatre, now he was in the
sixth row from the back and over to the left, a secluded spot just behind a large group of young
men who spent more time whispering about the small group of girls in the seats close by, than they
did listening to what he was being said. It was a good place to hide, right in plain sight as it were.
This way, Harry was never asked questions, but he could still half pay attention to whatever they
were being instructed on.
He only needed to pay half attention anyway now because Lestrange had given him a large folder
of his own notes; it had been an apology of sorts for keeping him discussing the weaknesses of a
meritocracy for long enough that he’d missed a lecture, all because Harry had been too awkward to
say anything about it.
Having to stutter out the fact later had been mortifying, so too had been sitting in the car with
Lestrange as he was driven to where he lived. Lestrange hadn’t invited him in, so Harry had just sat
in the car. And, though he had tried not to, Harry couldn’t help himself but stare at that house; even
in the shadows of his, admittedly, half-concealed view from the driveway, it was… immense. This
infinite block of delicate lines and tight shapes and twisted spires on the horizon, and Harry had
never seen so many glinting windows in a property because windows and space and light were all
those strange luxuries that people like him could only dream of. Lestrange had probably never
even considered the absence or excess of windows, and it just took Harry’s breath away to imagine
how far all those potential rooms sprawled away behind the trees. Had Lestrange been in every
room? Did he even know what was in every room?
He wasn’t given adequate time to fully dissect the possibilities of Lestrange’s living arrangement
though, as, before long, Lestrange himself was back on the gravel carrying a hideously large
cardboard box. At first, Harry had tried to not accept it, after all, in a way it felt like cheating, but at
Lestrange’s light-hearted insistence that they were friends and this was what friends did, he’d
eventually caved and let the box be placed beside him.
The rest of his evening had been spent going through that box and examining piece after piece of
lined paper absolutely smothered in notes.

In total, he was now the proud owner of a pack of notes that reached up past his knee, fortunately,
though Lestrange’s methodology was systematic and, significantly, disciplined, with each piece of
paper titled and dated with a fastidious degree of accuracy, in a way that Harry knew his own notes
did not resemble in the slightest. If Lestrange’s notes were the great architectural achievements of
the Roman Empire, then Harry’s must have been the primitive constructions of a Medieval peasant,
one with a fairly severe visual impairment.
It was best not to compare them really, especially when Harry started reading them; in short,
Lestrange’s notes were… absolutely fascinating. Every inch of the margin of the textbooks, and
every piece of the hundreds of pieces of paper, were meticulously crammed with so many
observations and comments and opinions, all written in Lestrange’s half-legible scrawl. Some of
them were additional notes supposedly said by whoever was lecturing this class two years ago, but
others were undoubtedly original critiques; whole paragraphs discussing the interesting dynamic of
strict liability and its potential application to murder in the unique circumstances of totalitarianism,
not to mention the section that must have lasted several pages on the difficulties in applying gross
negligent manslaughter since Bateman.
And that was all from just scanning through the criminal notes of homicide offences, there was an
equal number, if not more for non-fatal offences, and theft, and fraud, and sexual offences that
Harry didn’t even want to think about. There was also a similar quantity of note pages for contract
and constitutional law, and Lestrange had thrown in property and trust as he didn’t need them
anymore. Though there was a small bloom of guilt swelling just below his ribs for having access to
all this, an even smaller part of Harry was prepared to overlook it, after all, it was about time that
he had an advantage over everyone else, and as he flicked over yet another page, he knew that this
might just give it to him.

After the lecture finished in its usual nondescript way with sparse applause and a hurried exit,
Harry left by the backdoor. It led to a longer, quieter corridor that would take him to the same
place, eventually anyway; he always took it to avoid the cram of a hundred law students milling
around in the corridor for a good fifteen minutes, before they divided themselves off and went to
pursue their daily lives.
Instead, by the time he entered into the main corridor, there was barely anyone left behind, just the
other loners who had nothing better to do than stand in the corridors and wait for something to
happen to them; Harry used to be like them. Purposeless. It had been a pitiable existence and not
one he was willing to return to any time soon.
Though it only took him mere seconds to regret thinking that, because as Harry rounded the gentle
curve of the corridor, he saw Rosier lounging surreptitiously in one of the leather chairs in what
was supposed to make up this Law department antechamber that marked the oncoming intersection
between the entrances to the Politics, Philosophy and Law departments, but it had rather become an
open meeting space, almost always busy with people moving in and out of the Law department,
buzzing between lectures and tutorials and seminars, usually with as much diligence as the most
committed worker bees.
Today though, the space was surprisingly quiet, in fact, of the five seats available, placed in a
circle, only one was even occupied. For the briefest of moments, Harry wondered whether it was
because of Rosier that the other seats remained so painfully empty; perhaps he was merely the
vanguard for the rest of them to descend here. But after a moment’s consideration, he shook that
thought out his head though, after all, he’d like to think that knew their schedules pretty well by
now, and certainly, Lestrange had said he was busy all day today, and Druella always had an
advanced ethics lecture around now, and Tom always spent at least three hours in the library. So, it
was likely just Rosier. Rosier who didn’t even belong to the law department, lounging in the law
department’s chairs like he was waiting for something, or, Harry’s mind so insidiously suggested,
someone.
Harry swallowed and stayed where he was, just out of sight, secreted behind a marble statue of
someone he had never taken it upon himself to learn the name of, but who he should probably have
known.
Rosier continued to sit, if such a position could even be classed as sitting. It was then that Harry
decided the theory he had been working on with regards to a division in the group probably held
true. He’d decided that the group of six could be divided four and two. In the group of four, which
included Lestrange, Tom, Druella and Avery, were those that sat neatly, each limb folded carefully
into themselves, and not a hair out of place. Whilst in the other group was Rosier and Malfoy, and
they were the sprawlers; they sat in a way that was reminiscent of a cat, lounging across an entire
seat, with their arms or legs, and sometimes both, spilling over the sides, and currently, Rosier was
definitely living true to that categorisation.
He was practically lying back in the chair, and in the past minute or so, had taken it upon himself to
fold his legs over the right arm whilst his head rested against the left; meanwhile, one arm was
curiously, and by the looks of it, uncomfortably bent underneath him whilst the other stayed
splayed over his chest. It was the sort of position that very few people could get away with without
looking entirely louche, as though they were treating the university like their favourite club, or
worse, Harry imagined their own home. But Rosier managed, somehow, to bring a degree of
sophistication to the entire affair, though perhaps that was, in part, due to what looked like the
intellectual conversation he was engaging in.

Rosier was currently smiling and talking with an older woman that Harry didn’t recognise, but the
familiarity of the conversation seemed to suggest Rosier, at least, knew her well; he certainly didn’t
try to display the slightest formality, either in his careless arrangement of limbs or in his informal
wording. The slights of which Harry could hear as they echoed around the high ceilings and back
over the stone floors.
It was a strangely surreptitious position to find himself in, pressed against the white plaster the
wall, listening to someone he was supposedly friendly with chat to someone else who looked
perfectly harmless. If he was braver, more confident really, he would walk right over there and
introduce himself, but the thought of that alone made his stomach churn and an uncomfortable heat
settle on his palms. He rubbed them on his trousers and glanced around the statue again; this was
certainly an intrusion into a private conversation, even at this distance, but he couldn’t find it in
himself to stop.
The woman had her back to him, but she stood up straight, in her left hand she held a collection of
papers, and her right brushed every so often against her skirt, shifting the material in a way that
caught Rosier’s eye more than once. But he appeared uninterested in pursuing it any further than a
mere frustrated glance as though the constant movement was distracting him in ways, he’d rather it
didn’t.
But he didn’t have to keep up his tense smile for too much longer, as only a minute later, whoever
she was, was turning to leave. Her low heels clicking against the stone as she headed towards
Harry and his hiding place, in fact, she walked right past him into the law department. Though, if
she spotted him standing too close to the marble statue and pretending to search his bag, she didn’t
say anything.

For a while longer, Harry stood, or rather, hid behind the statue, watching as a couple more
students wandered down from the philosophy department and nodded at Rosier. Neither of them
stayed to converse.
There was another back way that Harry knew, down a couple of flights of stairs and through three
corridors; it took you right under the main campus building and deposited you in the courtyard a
good ten metres from the nearest Law school entrance, so he didn’t have to walk past Rosier and
risk being seen, or worse, actively engage his conversation. But at the same time, Harry bit his lip,
if he wanted to assimilate himself with them, that involved meeting them not just when he was
invited, but instead, taking the initiative and just… talking to them, and who better to start with
than Rosier?
Soft as a marshmallow, that was how Lestrange had described him, and despite not having
extensive knowledge of that particular confectionary, Harry was pretty sure that marshmallows
were entirely harmless, particularly in small doses. Right now, Rosier certainly looked harmless,
with the lazy tilt of his head back on the chair’s arm, and the arm that had been splayed across his
chest wandering vaguely, as though it were searching for something.
Swallowing hard, Harry exited his hiding place and walked towards Rosier, slowly, attempting to
amble casually as though he had only just arrived and hadn’t been hiding like a coward behind a
statue for the last five minutes.
“Uh – hello,” he said, awkwardly, stopping a couple of feet from Rosier’s chair and waiting to be
noticed like some newly-orientated ghost.
Rosier looked up and his face split into a smile, “oh, hello, Potter,” he said, “I assumed that if I sat
here long enough, I’d probably come across you.”
“Yeah – umm – I was in – in a lecture,” Harry said, referencing the corridor he’d just come down
unnecessarily; Rosier probably knew this building like the back of his hand. He continued to stand
there, understanding the analogy of a lemon far better than he’d ever done before, as Rosier passed
his gaze slowly over him. Starting at his shoes and climbing like a hydrangea up to his face.
“You can take a seat if you want,” Rosier said after he’d properly examined each inch of him.
Half-heartedly his arm flung out in a vague gesture towards the seat positioned opposite his in the
circle, “or you can sit on the table if you really want.”
They both looked at the low, wooden table with the shiny veneer and several newspapers that were
days old now.
“No – I’m fine – really.”
Harry regretted it as soon as he said it, and regripped the straps of his bag, hating how they felt
slippery in his palms; Rosier had raised an eyebrow and settled himself deeper into his own chair,
leaving him to stand tall as the self-insistent fool.
“Suit yourself, Potter.”

After a bit of silence, where Harry shifted from foot to foot, and Rosier’s fingers tapped roughly
and repeatedly on the red-brown leather of the chair like there were insects under his skin, he
looked back up at Harry sharply.
“Look, you don’t mind if I smoke, do you?” Rosier asked. Though the question appeared to be one
of mere politeness, instead of actually asking permission because, in the matter of seconds that
Harry took to even start thinking of the answer, Rosier had gotten a cigarette in his mouth and was
going through his pockets, apparently looking for his lighter.
Harry swallowed, “Umm – no,” he said, in case he still cared for the answer, “but – I didn’t – I
didn’t realise that you…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to either; it was obvious
what he was going to say, and Rosier must have known that too because he interrupted.
“Oh, I don’t smoke,” he said with an eyebrow raised, “it’s such a unpleasant habit,” he continued,
his tone condemnatory, mixed, perhaps, with a hint of surprise that Harry would suggest such a
thing, as though the entire notion was ridiculous, despite the cigarette in his mouth and the lighter
now in his hand.
It was a terribly fancy thing, even by their standards, silver and coated in coils that looked like
snake scales as though there was a serpent constricting the life out of whatever poor hunk of metal
had been there before its arrival.
“But – ” Harry started.
“But what?” Rosier interrupted; there was a slight change in his tone, almost imperceptible, and
Harry certainly couldn’t tell what had changed, it was just… there was something in it that he’d
never appreciated Rosier having. A type of viciousness that made him feel almost stupid for
having asked in the first place and made him question whether Rosier was ever like that around
Lestrange. Rather like an animal prodded too many times with a stick that it now reacted violently.
There was another long stretch of silence, where Harry found himself looking predominantly at the
floor, though he snuck a glance or two up to see how Rosier held his burning cigarette to his
mouth. He exhaled slowly, letting the smoke caress his tongue before leaving it a burning cloud
that stung the back of Harry’s throat.
“And you’re not going to mention this to my sister, are you?” he said, looking at Harry quite
earnestly all of a sudden, as though his previously sharp words had never happened; but at the
same time, there was an uneasiness behind his eyes like he didn’t quite trust him to say the right
thing.
Harry swallowed, and kept his eyes on the stone slabs of the floor; he shook his head. It seemed to
be the most neutral response, and he certainly didn’t want to be the one to get between whatever
below-surface argument was happening between brother and sister.

Harry swallowed again as he watched the thin coil of smoke twirl upward with all the elegance of a
ballerina, and the relaxation evident in the soft slackening of Rosier’s smile when he exhaled
again. Even if it was a distasteful and, not to mention, expensive habit to keep, Harry could at least
the aesthetic attraction of being doused in a great haze that blurred out the unpalatable
characteristics of one’s personality.
“Who was that you were talking to just now?” Harry asked, mostly for want of anything better to
say, whilst edging back a couple of steps and trying to not breathe in the smoke-tinged fumes.
“Oh, her?” Rosier said, “that’s just my ethics professor; she’s the one supervising my dissertation,”
he added.
There was a silence where Rosier’s lips moved but without producing words, as though he was
trying to decide whether or not to say something
“You want to know a secret,” he said suddenly making a decision; he sat himself up a fraction and
beckoned for Harry to lean closer to him. Harry did, with a quick step forward and an awkward
bending at the waist that made his bag scrape the floor. This close to Rosier he could smell the
heavy scent of smoke, though, right by his skin there was the faint flavour of something else, a
light undertone that must have been the cologne he was wearing.
“You know,” Rosier murmured, soft and low like this was a wholly inappropriate thing to be
sharing in such a public space, “she’s having an affair with one of the constitutional law
professors.”
His voice dipped lower and Harry had to lean even closer just to hear him, “quite the scandal,
really,” Rosier said, “given he’s married”
“H-how do you know?”
Rosier hummed lazily to himself and took another drag of his cigarette, “she told me of course,” he
said casually.
Harry couldn’t think of any words to respond with; he’d never been one for salacious gossip, there
was always something more substantial that had needed his attention instead, but Rosier’s easy
smile suggested he was fuelled with petty gossip and scandalous rumours alone.
“But why – why would she tell you something like that?”
For a second Rosier looked at him like he had asked an absurd question, but the expression melted
away a moment later and was replaced by the same comfortable smile that Harry could now see
held a certain innocence when compared to that of Malfoy and Lestrange. In the former, there was
always a looseness in his morals or his tongue, and in the latter was a prickliness, so much so that
Harry was faintly nervous about having his skin cut open when having, even the most, innocent
conversations, but Rosier had none of that. There was nothing… dangerous under his skin, only
amiability, even if that wore thin sometimes, and maybe, Harry could see why Lestrange had said
that Rosier was the role-model he should be looking at.
“Because I asked her, Potter,” Rosier said, breaking him out of that analysis. Though he seemed to
sense that the answer was inadequate, perhaps he even read it in the way Harry’s lips pursed before
he could stop them.
Rosier tipped his head to the side and glanced across the room; “I have close relationships with all
my professors,” he said absently, “after all, it really… pays to get to know them.”
The leniency that he’d felt towards Rosier, and the relative safety of him when compared to his
friends, waned a little then, and instead, an uneasiness settled in Harry’s stomach as he stood there,
shifting his weight from one foot to another and wondering whether he was imagining the
serpentine quality to Rosier’s smile.

He couldn’t bear to look at it, there was just something incredibly slippery and deeply
uncomfortable in Rosier’s gaze, and anyway, the floor was interesting. The colour of the stone and
the shadowed patterns form the window in the ceiling, and of course the grouting. Who was he
kidding?
Harry looked up again, Rosier was still being apathetic; his eyes closed now and the burning tip of
the cigarette getting dangerously close to his fingers. If he had to put a name to it, Harry would
have called it an antiquated decadence, or maybe a simple materiality that he himself had never
had the pleasure of experiencing; a comfortableness underpinned by the knowledge that he was…
untouchable. Such behaviour was enviable, to say the least, which was probably why Harry stayed,
just to watch, and breathe in the vapours of the person he almost wanted to be.
“Umm – I didn’t know you were writing a dissertation?” he said, giving himself an excuse to
linger, though, at the same time, he couldn’t help but resent that he was putting significantly more
work into this conversation. With Lestrange it had been easy; he asked a question and Harry
answered it, simple. But this was hard, and every word that Harry said felt like another mistake for
which he would be judged later when he wasn’t around to hear the criticism.
“Oh, it’s a requirement for final year,” Rosier said, all soft and smooth like he was speaking to a
dream, “but, in a way, it’s good to finally have a chance to have our thoughts considered; you do
get sick of writing about what everyone else thinks all the time.”
“I suppose so, what are you writing about?”
That was apparently the million-dollar question because Rosier opened his eyes and smiled,
actually making an effort to twist himself around to look Harry properly in the eye.
“Utilitarianism,” he said with a touch too much enthusiasm, “specifically how, despite its
ostensible concern for altruistic values, it’s really just a conduit for self-interest.”
Harry swallowed and nodded, suddenly feeling very much out of his depth; he knew his mouth was
moving like one of those dumb fishes in the pond in the park he walked through sometimes, and
that no words, or really anything coherent at all, was coming out of it.
His brain was so empty that he was almost grateful for a voice loudly interrupting them.
“Good Lord, you and your bloody dissertation,” said the voice sharply, though it echoed a little
thanks to the high ceilings and apparent lack of restraint for using materials no room should be
made of, and so the sound was hazy and indistinct and Harry had to look over before he recognised
the speaker.
It was Avery walking towards them, his hands by his sides and this expression on his face that
Harry didn’t quite know what to make of; although if he had to say it was somewhere between
boredom and innate aloofness. As though he was pleased to see someone he could talk to, but was
disappointed that it happened to be him and Rosier.
“Is it even possible,” Avery continued, coming closer enough now that his voice no longer echoed,
“for you to go five minutes without mentioning it?” Despite apparently addressing both of them, he
was only watching Rosier, and the expression was one of judgement, not encouragement.
For his part, Rosier only rolled his eyes and tilted his gaze towards Harry before inclining his head
minimally in Avery’s direction and giving him half a smile. “I’ll stop talking about it as soon as
you can go five minutes without being critical about other people’s happiness,” he said, and though
the tone was warm, Harry couldn’t help but pick up on a certain… spikiness just under the surface.
“I’m not being critical of your happiness,” said Avery, “I’m being critical of you, there’s a
difference.”
Rosier glanced over at Harry again, like an aside in a play, and sighed deeply before turning back,
“I don’t really know why you could possibly criticise me, given you haven’t even chosen your
topic yet and it’s practically Christmas,” he said, and whatever hidden shot was disguised in the
words clearly hit its mark before Avery’s expression turned to glare.
Harry swallowed, glancing nervously between them and taking the smallest step back. There was
an undertone to the words that made them slippery, even if they weren’t overtly disparaging in
themselves; it was undeniably different from the friendly jesting that he’d heard between Malfoy
and Lestrange yesterday. That had been pleasant rifting between good friends, when this, was
coloured with a faintly antagonistic glaze from both sides.
“It’s fucking November,” said Avery, “and, anyway, I’m waiting – ”
“What for? The end of the monarchy?
“Oh, shut up,” said Avery, swiping at Rosier’s head, but missing as he ducked forward, before
taking the seat that was to the right of Rosier. He slumped himself in it with the same brand of
glare that he always seemed to be wearing. It appeared to Harry to be his permanent state and he
was genuinely surprised that those harsh lines hadn’t set themselves as a constant into Avery’s
face.

Harry watched as Avery fiddled with his own fingers, and breathed carefully; he looked like he was
working up to say something and Harry could only hope that it was going to be pleasant because he
didn’t particularly want to take on the role of mediator, that was if they would even listen to him,
which, between Rosier’s apathy and Avery antagonism, seemed unlikely anyway.
“I thought you stopped?” Avery said, referencing the second cigarette that was now burning
between Rosier’s fingers, the snide tone of nearing triumph a little too heavy to be entirely
pleasant.
“No,” said Rosier, exhaling deeply and licking his lips.
Avery continued to watch him, “I assume you’ve told you delightful sister, then?”
At that, Rosier practically choked on the smoke, “do you really think I’m that stupid?” he said,
actually taking the opportunity to glare in Avery’s direction.
Avery tilted his head and made an expression that suggested he might be willing to argue that
particular point, probably until the end of time, and Harry might just leave if they did that, make
his petty excuses and leave them to stay at each other’s throats like poorly adapted housecats.
When neither of them said anything and the silence was beginning to border on unpleasant again,
Harry shifted the bag on his shoulder and tried to take the initiative, as someone more confident
would.
“Why shouldn’t Druella – know?” he asked quietly, after all, he wanted to know, and right now he
was at a distinct disadvantage in this conversation, and they knew it. They were probably doing it
deliberately, well Avery knew it, Rosier probably just didn’t care. Which was so different to the
other, whereas Lestrange had opened up the space between them, Avery, preferred to keep it as
closed off as possible, as though he didn’t deserve to catch a glimmer of their lives, and to be
perfectly honest, Harry knew he didn’t really deserve it. He should probably just have stayed
behind that statue, or even better just stayed in the law department until the sunset when he was
required to leave.
He was pulled from that unpleasant alley of musing by Avery laughing, and it was hard to tell
whether he was being laughed at or with.
“Obviously,” he said, “she doesn’t like the taste.” Those last words came out with a certain disdain,
like the answer to that question really was obvious and Harry was the idiot for not seeing it.
“The taste of what?” Harry’s mouth said before his brain could reasonably have stopped him from
making himself the fool, again.
“The smoke,” said Rosier quietly, and it was there again, the undercurrent of viciousness that made
Harry momentarily question Lestrange’s judgement on the definition of niceness. Although, at
least this time, it wasn’t solely directed at him, but was rather dispersed through the air, scattering,
predominantly, in Avery’s direction.
After that, Harry kept his mouth shut and didn’t bother to ask why she would be tasting it if the
smoke was on the inside of Rosier’s mouth. Probably, it was just a simple slip of Avery
aggravating tongue; finding the most irritating way of saying something simple. She probably just
didn’t like the smell; Harry certainly didn’t, it was too acrid on his throat and burning on his skin,
not to mention how it lingered on his clothes for too long.

“Anyway,” said Rosier, evidently tired of having all the attention on himself, “what have you been
up to this morning?”
Avery smiled, apparently willing to indulge this civility, however temporary Harry suspected it
might be; there was a small part of him that wondered what it was about the Rosiers that Avery
disliked so much to be antagonistic to both of them. But whatever the reason was, it probably
wasn’t as salacious as he hoped it was. Most likely, from what he’d seen, it was probably an
incredibly petty fight that had been going on for months now, and whose origin Harry would find
out eventually if he played his cards right and learnt to ask the right questions.
“If you must know,” Avery said, “I was out; saw Lestrange though.”
“I thought he was busy?”
Avery rolled his eyes, “well, I saw him out with Rowle, if you count that as being busy,” he said
with enough sharpness to dress even the limpest salad to the nines.
“Oh, come on,” said Rosier, that same dreamy tone back from earlier, s though for one short
moment he was forgetting all about Avery, “it’s romantic.”
Avery just rolled his eyes “Urgh, sure it is, a walk in the park with your ticket to a media
conglomerate.”
Rosier twisted round, “if Druella ever finds out that’s what you call her, you know she’ll have your
tongue,” he said, licking his lips and repositioning himself, legs crossing back over each other and
his spine twisting further.
Avery just leaned back, both hands raised, “I’m just telling the truth; sue me for it.”
Harry looked back and forth between them as a casual spectator watches a tennis match, always
following the ball and never the players.
“Sorry,” he said, interrupting before Rosier could serve for another round repartee, “what are you –
talking about?” he said, feeling stupid even as he said it because it just felt like he should know
stuff like this; the small contextualities that gave their conversations a substance he couldn’t help
but want to understand.
They both turned their heads to look at him, and Harry knew he flushed. He could feel it, hot and
pink and awful, spilling down from the tips of his ears and splashing his cheeks.
“Lestrange’s dirty little secret,” said Avery.
It was Rosier’s turn to roll his eyes, and sigh like a particularly exhausted parent, “namely Alicia,”
he said, “Lestrange’s very lovely wife,” he continued, “and my sister’s very good friend.” As he
spoke, the wistfulness of his previous tone drained away and he was back to apathetic reality,
where he directed his glares towards Avery. Despite being new to that glare, Harry suspected there
was a warning behind it, a firm suggestion to cease causing trouble before he took it too far.
Harry swallowed. “But – ” he started, knowing already that he was probably messing up Rosier’s
intended peace-plan, but he needed to know, “Why – do you call her… you know?”
It was an awkward question, ungainly executed and so clearly showed his terrible need to be
included, whilst maintaining the fact that he probably didn’t want to know, or worse, wouldn’t
understand the answer anyway.
“It really doesn’t – ” Rosier started before Avery interjected, “because that’s what she fucking is,”
he said, evidently more than happy that Harry had taken the bait that he’d been so obviously
dangling temptingly from the low-hanging branches.
Though, clearly, Harry didn’t look as convinced as Avery would have liked as he was starting to
clarify the position. None of those words registered, none of them could cut through the distinct
feeling Harry had in his stomach; an unconvinced twisting, after all, it was one thing to hear about
this woman from the mouth of her husband, and quite another to hear about her from the mouths of
his friends, and a part of him really didn’t trust Avery’s judgement. It was something in the way he
acted, not quite slippery, but still somehow off.
“Look, I’ll put it simple for you, Potter,” Avery was saying, as he leant forward, his elbows resting
on his thighs and his hands working themselves together, “Lestrange’s family owns, through two
different companies, a good third of the national newspapers in England; Rowle’s family owns
enough to make that up to a half, hence he marries her, and he gets a textbook conglomerate,” he
said, clapping his had together and looking far too pleased with himself.
Rosier just continued to look on with a mixture of irritation and disappointment. “However,” he
said coldly, and with a kick of his foot that managed to scrape, though not cause any meaningful
damage to Avery’s chair, “they got married over four years ago now, so let’s not drag that
argument up again, alright?”
Something in Harry’s throat caught at that, four years. Lestrange had said it had only been two, and
there was quite a bit of a difference, not in the least because getting married at nineteen was very
different from getting married at seventeen. The latter was barely even legal. And just the thought
of it made prickling cold settle in his stomach, the combined feelings of distinct unease and of
being lied to by someone, and he was guessing that that was Lestrange. Of course, Harry wasn’t
naïve enough to believe that there wasn’t a market for lies and exaggerations, and maybe even such
gross understatements as denying two years of a marriage, but at the same time… why would
Lestrange lie about that?
He swallowed and chewed on his lip, biting it hard enough to leave an indent, not that they noticed;
both were still bickering, apparently unaware that the third member of their party was having a
private crisis of information. The only way he’d find out the answer would be to ask. But not now.
Harry glanced at the two of them and their continual squabbling – he couldn’t ask either of them
without committing social suicide, and especially not when they were together, then everyone
would know that he wasn’t worthy of the truth.
Harry shifted again, staring at the floor and wondering what else they hadn’t been truthful about;
was it even just Lestrange or did Tom not like him too? Was this all part of some cruel elaborate
joke on their part?
That thought was interrupted though by Avery. “Oh, well excuse me for caring about the
monopolisation of the media market,” he was saying, or rather claiming loudly to anyone in the
vicinity who might have been in the position to not only hear him but also agree with him. As
much as he wanted to Harry couldn’t ignore him, and he looked up to see Rosier, lighting up his
third cigarette.
“You don’t care about the monopolisation of the media market,” he said, using a tone that sounded
like he was bored of having this conversation, probably because he’d had to endure it so many
times in the last four years, and each time accompanied by Avery’s self-satisfied face.
Speaking of Avery, he was smiling again, though this time it was so painfully artificial, all teeth
and no eyes, his nails scratching at the stitching of the chair. “Oh, but I do,” he said, “ever so
much.”

Avery kept up his irritating grin for long enough that Rosier actually reacted.
“You are really in quite the childish mood today,” said Rosier, leaning back further in his chair and
crossing his legs over one another in the most blatant display of decadent laxity that Harry had ever
bared witness to, and it made him feel awkward and ungainly just to be standing nearby.
“Well, I have a deadline for an essay that I don’t want to write, and I don’t want to think about,”
said Avery, “that’s where you come in,” he said with a smile, though the way he shifted
uncomfortably in his chair, and the lowering of his expression into a frown at the thought of the
subject implied it was hardly light on his mind. “You’re an amusing way to distract me.”
That, even to Harry who was self-confessedly not an expert on teasing repartee, sounded like a
challenge. But if Rosier saw the bait, he didn’t immediately take it. Rather, he made no indication
at all of having noticed, and instead, let his hand hang over the side of the chair, and the tips of his
fingers scrape over the stone of the floor, almost certainly gathering dust and grit under his nails.
When he looked up, he smiled in a way that made Harry’s stomach turn on itself because that look
really had just one meaning behind it; it was Rosier seeing the line of conversational propriety and
not caring in the slightest that he was about to cross over it, in fact, there was such a disregard for it
that Harry would almost guess that Rosier thought he was above the basic decorum that the rest of
the population had to abide by. Perhaps he was just bored.
“You do know,” he said lazily, his eyes settling on Avery’s own, “that, if it’s the module I’m
thinking of, Riddle took it last year,” he said, putting a little too much emphasise Tom’s name;
“why don’t you just ask him for help?”
“Because I don’t need Riddle’s bloody help,” Avery snapped practically before Rosier had even
finished speaking, and his tone, unmistakably unfriendly.
Rosier raised an eyebrow but didn’t bother continuing that exact argument though he certainly
looked like he wanted to; there was this smile at the corner of his mouth and an energy in his
fingers. Harry suspected it was an argument that had happened several times before.
For a moment, they all sat, or rather, Harry continued to stand whilst the other two sat, in silence,
the sounds of the corridors interrupting their non-existent conversation; people talking, and faint
flapping of what was probably pigeons on the roof the building, and clicking of shoes down the
ends of corridors, not to mention the occasional slamming of a door.
“You won’t surpass him,” said Rosier suddenly, breaking the silence. As soon as he said, the air
around them changed, turning sour, prickly even, and Avery’s expression once again turned into a
glare.
“I might,” he hissed, his own fingers gripping, almost imperceptibly, tighter against the arm of the
leather chair, digging into one of the natural indents created by the stitching, and, not for the first
time, Harry was quite glad he was standing to the side of Rosier, instead of the rather more hostile
cross-fire directly between them.
“Not in political econ you won’t,” said Rosier matter-of-factly, and audaciously examining his
nails as he wound Avery up further with each word, and Avery was taking the lure. With each
passing second his glare deepened, and the heel of his shoe ticked against the wooden legs of the
chair.
“I doubt you’ll even come close.”
“Yeah, well I’m not taking the bloody advice of a hypocrite who spends his entire life whinging
about people who’ve been dead for the last hundred years, alright?” Avery snapped.
But it didn’t have any meaningful effect; Rosier just rolled his eyes and gave Harry a look that he
imagined was the sort you gave a sibling when your parent said something truly stupid; not that
he’d really know having never had either.
Nor was it apparently enough to get Rosier to even consider stopping, for a moment later he was
shifting his legs to the side so that he could see Avery’s glare for himself.
“You know, the last time I checked,” said Rosier, still smiling, “Marx was really very dead, so was
Smith, and Ricardo.” Avery jutted his jaw, but that only made Rosier’s smile broaden, clearly, he
was doing this for no other purpose than to further antagonise Avery. “I mean, even Weber must
just be a few dusty old bones – ”
“Fuck you,” Avery said, throwing what looked like a lump of metal that could either have been his
own lighter or, more sinisterly, a pocketknife, with a surprising degree of accuracy at Rosier’s face;
it caught the edge of his cheek before skittering across the floor. Almost immediately a redness
began to bloom on the bone, and Rosier’s hand went to touch it, accompanied by the sound of pain.
It certainly looked a painfully hard hit from Harry’s angle, maybe hard enough to bruise.
“You done now?”
Rosier just rubbed his cheek with one hand and took a drag of his cigarette with the other, “no,
don’t worry, I can go all day,” he said with a smile, “in fact – ”
“If you say another fucking word, I’ll – ”

Before Avery got the opportunity to describe in intimate detail what he would be doing, he was
interrupted; “you’ll what, Avery? Throw an itsy-bitsy tantrum,” said Druella as she approached
from down the corridor.
On hearing her, Rosier choked unattractively, and half-dropped, half-flung the cigarette onto the
floor, “Druella,” he said, still coughing, “I thought you’d be in there for another twenty minutes?”
As Rosier spoke, and this held his sister’s attention, Harry moved forward, just a step and crushed
the smouldering butt of the cigarette under his shoe; perhaps it was out of comradeship, perhaps it
was simply to stop a fire spreading, but either way, Rosier flashed him a grateful smile as he
slowly drew himself upright.
“Well,” said Druella, “as is often the way with men, he wasn’t as interesting as he thought he was.”
She smiled and continued casually, “so I left, and I guess I struck lucky to find all three of you
here, or at least…” she paused to glower at Avery, “…two of you.”
If Avery took offence to the gesture, he actually held his tongue for once, and Harry couldn’t help
but wonder what words exactly Tom had said to spin such a tight leash that it was clearly still
having an effect.
But he didn’t consider it for long as his eyes were caught by Druella leaning forward, over the back
of her brother’s chair. “You know, I can smell it on you,” she murmured into Rosier’s ear, soft
enough that Harry barely caught the words at all. But Rosier just tilted his neck to the side and
exhaled slowly, “and what are you going to do about it,” he said softly, letting his gaze catch her
eyes.
“You know exactly what I’m going to do,” she said, pressing herself into the back of Rosier’s
chair, her right hand spreading over Rosier’s shoulder, the nails making small creases in his shirt,
and the left, gripping hard into the brown leather of the chair.
“By the way, Potter,” Druella said, straightening up and turning to him, “I want to take you out to
lunch today.” She said it firmly enough that it didn’t sound like she’d accept being refused, “after
all, I can’t let all these… boys, monopolise your attention, however much I’m sure you’re enjoying
that.”
She smiled and reduced the pressure of her hand on Rosier’s shoulder so that she could check her
watch, “now’s as good a time as any for me,” she said, “you?”
“Uh – fine?”
“Good,” she said, “we’ll go now then.”
 Chapter 11
Chapter Summary

Harry goes to lunch with Druella.

Chapter Notes

As always, apologies for the length of time it took for me to write this; I hope it's
alright.

The place Druella took him to was… interesting. It was this great building with hideously high
ceilings and wide gaping windows that, on the outside, were splattered with rain and, on the inside,
were draped with thin, gold-gauze curtains that looked like they were left-over from the
springtime. Away from the windows, inside the hollow cavern that constituted the body of the
building, like the underbelly of some ancient beast that only those rich enough to dine between its
ribs knew existed, were multiple round tables each contained within its own, small, cosmos and
each filled with the lively smiles of rich women talking over tea.
There was something about the scene that it created that was warm and pleasant and distinctly
feminine, perhaps it was the pink-hued flowers and the easy sound of laughter; the same noises
repeated over and over as each conversation was sequestered in its own, individual, space. And
between each enclosed universe was a ring of quiet where neatly dressed waiters walked in a
controlled, slow, pace, each of them in white suits with white gloves and white smiles. The
conspicuous uniformity of each of them made Harry faintly uncomfortable and he clung close to
Druella, his hands not quite in his pockets, but drawing closer to it than was probably appropriate.
But instead of focussing on his discomfort as they walked through the entrance hall and into the
belly of the beast itself, Harry kept his focus on the tables. Most of them were filled with women
who reacted in one of two ways, the first, chattered along as though he didn’t exist, the second,
pointedly paused their conversations to watch him as he passed by, or perhaps they were watching
Druella.
Either way, there was a parting corridor of silence that opened up to them as they walked through
the room; Druella’s heels clicking loudly against the wood of the floor but her demeanour
unchanged—she still walked with her spine straight and her shoulders pushed back—the epitome
of confidence.
Harry followed slightly nervously behind, always eyeing the empty tables off to the side of the
room, by the flat expanses of creamy wallpaper or in a slightly darkened corner; he very much
hoped they’d be tucked away in a corner, somewhere where no one else could see them as he had
been with Malfoy and Lestrange. Especially, as this silence that was pre-emptive of their
appearance was almost unnerving, that, and there was something so distinctly other about these
people, something that made him feel as though Harry was an alien walking amongst them, and it
wasn’t simply that they were women as though she knew she was royalty and all these people were
but commoners.

As they headed towards the most central table in the room, Druella dropped back so that she was
no longer leading, but rather was walking by Harry’s side as—dare he think—a friend might. She
smiled at him, something sparkling in her eyes.
“You know, Potter,” she said, “it is a common opinion that a woman must sacrifice her femininity
so that she can remain competitive to a man, because, of course,” she said with a perfect eyebrow
raised, “a man is the ideal that we all must emulate.” As she spoke, her tone was markedly sardonic
and there was something cold at the centre of it, as though she were quite willing to put the heel of
her shoe through the chest of anyone who deigned to disagree with her.
Harry chose not to say anything—it was easier than having to edge his way around a conversation
he didn’t know anything about, and Druella seemed to like that because her smile widened, and she
continued with her portion of the conversation.
“So,” she said, “I rather like having this space that is exclusively our own, that way we have the
power to decide to share it.”
They stopped at the centre-most table that, like all the others, had a pretty cream tablecloth and a
glass vase with pretty pink flowers blooming from the top. It was soft and sweet, and, had it not
been from the cut-throat sharpness of the menus and the serrations on the knives, Harry would
have relaxed entirely. But the presences of those particular articles made him hesitate and glance
around, looking for some unknown danger that was breathing down his neck. Though, maybe, that
feeling was simply the one that every man felt when they were in the presence of someone as sharp
and serrated as Druella Rosier.
“When I have the power,” Druella continued, as she took her seat and gestured for Harry to do the
same, “I can wear my favourite blouse without a man looking in places he shouldn’t, and I can
have an intelligent discussion without having my credentials questioned by someone who thinks he
knows more because he’s educated,” she said, spitting out the final word as though it had
personally offended her—perhaps it had.
Harry swallowed and shifted a little in his seat, which was all at once spindly and secure, soft to sit
on but hard against his back.
“What about the waiters?” he said, nodding his head up to one of the many male waiters who
paced passed him, this one, carrying a large jug of water.
“Oh, Potter,” Druella laughed, “they’re hardly people,” she said with a dismissive wave of her
hand, even as she signalled one of the waiters holding water over to the table.
Ignoring what he was doing, just as you might ignore the inconsequential acts of nature as you
walked down the street, Druella continued to chat as he approached.
“What you need to do, Potter,” she said, “is to find yourself one of these physical spaces,” she
continued, shifting herself, rearranging the cutlery and the glasses and the menu to her satisfaction,
and moving the flowers to the side so that Harry could see her face.
In the warm glow of the room, she was unbearably beautiful, the soft lights spilling down from the
ceiling and smoothing out the shadows on her face until it was smooth enough that she could have
been made from glass or alabaster or marble, or any of the other precious materials that the great
artists carved their signatures into.
“…Somewhere that you can call your haven,” Druella was saying, and Harry figured that he must
have missed part of the conversation for the comment seemed so offhand, so unnecessary to make,
particularly as Harry didn’t need a space. He didn’t exist for long in any physical spaces, he simply
slipped through them as a marked intangibility that was never permanent because it was far easier
to live in a state of ephemerality than to be marked and judged in the state of permanent being.
But before he could bring up that point, the waiter arrived, his white smile shining and his hands
steady as he poured them out two tall glasses of water, before placing the glass jug filled with
leaves and what might have been a lemon—Harry wasn’t sure, and it was probably rude to ask—on
the table.
Druella didn’t watch the pouring of the water as he did, nor did she acknowledge the waiter in any
other way, very much how Lestrange had behaved; dismissive bordering on irritated at someone
else coming into their assiduously sculpted spaces.
“By the way, I do hope,” Druella said, interrupting Harry’s thoughts, “that Lestrange and Malfoy
weren’t too rough with you; they can be a little…” she paused, her tongue running over her lips,
“…much, sometimes,” she said eventually. “Especially, if Malfoy gets his eye on a pretty thing,
and Lestrange is left to dominate the conversation with that rather reformist legal drivel of his.”
Harry shrugged; he wouldn’t admit it, but he’d rather liked hearing Lestrange’s reformist legal
drivel—though, maybe, having to listen to it every day, or during a dinner party would sour
someone’s opinions of it somewhat.
“Oh,” Druella said, “you don’t have to pretend you enjoyed every second, believe me, you’re not
the first who’s had to endure it, and I doubt that you’ll be the last either.”
As she spoke, she reached for her water, taking it in her hand and sipping it slowly, tasting and
judging it. When she swallowed, she glanced over at the waiter, who had continued to stand there,
probably waiting to see if they were ready to order; she quirked an eyebrow, her eyes pointedly
glancing towards the door. But the waiter’s eyes were glazed over, and it took a moment for him to
get the hint; in the meantime, Harry found himself alternating between staring at his plate and
smiling sympathetically at him. Eventually, and after several increasingly less subtle hints, he got
Druella’s insinuations and left them alone.

“I do hope you won’t mind,” Druella said as soon as they were, once again, alone in their bubble of
privacy, “but I like to take my time to get to know a person before I invite them anywhere people
will take note,” she said, tracing her nails over the gold edging of the menu but not yet picking it
up, “and whereas Riddle likes to interrogate a man to determine his intellectual prowess, I’ve
always preferred a more… intimate touch.”
She smiled, her fingers moving to lightly touch the plate before skimming around the rim of her
teacup, if it had been a glass, it might have sung; even so, there was such a furious delicacy behind
her movements, her fingers at once both elegant, feminine, things made to be looked at, and useful,
masculine, things, perfectly capable of executing her more violent intentions—the ones that Harry
could almost see glimmering just beneath the surface of her skin, but never quite coming into the
light.
“Nothing untoward though, don’t you worry,” Druella continued, that same smile that Harry would
almost class as mischievous, spread over her mouth and pushing indentations into her skin, “I just
think more can be revealed about someone through casual conversations, than through what can
only amount to a cross-examination; your opinion?”
Harry looked down at his plate and, out of sight, under the tablecloth began to pull at the ends of
his jumper. “I guess—they both have their merits?” he said eventually, glancing up to catch
Druella’s reaction.
But it must have been the wrong opinion to have, as immediately, Druella’s face tightened, her lips
squashed into harsh lines and her fingers abruptly stopped their swirling over the china.
“Please, Potter,” she began, more coldly than before; her tone brittle and the corners of her mouth
sharp, “don’t sit on the fence. It’s the one thing I’m going to ask of you; opinions are the most
attractive thing that anyone can have about them at any time,” she said, “I mean, sure, diamond
rings are gorgeous, and I’ll always give a man in a Savile Row suit a second glance, but an opinion
is what makes a woman stay, or…” she said, pausing dramatically, her eyes fixing on his, “should I
say a man in your case?”
The natural flow of oxygen caught in Harry’s throat and he choked on the air. Blindly—desperately
—he reached for the glass of water the waiter had provided and practically poured it down his
throat. It didn’t help. At least, it didn’t abate how uncomfortably warm Harry now felt under the
scrutiny of her gaze, though there was no judgement in her face, merely a distinct curiosity like she
had a bet going on this and would rather enjoy the victory if the outcome were to be in her favour.
Harry swallowed another desperate gulp of water and tried to ignore the churning embarrassment in
his stomach; somehow his perverse—for they were perverse—preferences didn’t sound right
coming from Druella’s mouth, it was more something Malfoy would say whilst grinning in that
vaguely inappropriate way. But regardless of how wrong it sounded in her mouth, Harry couldn’t
ignore her, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t ignore what she had just said and indeed the
implications of her saying it because it meant someone knew. Someone had seen his thoughts. Just
thinking about them all watching him staring at the things he couldn’t have made a blush bloom
thick and red like the university rose garden over his face—almost indecently lurid in the presence
of such pastel propriety.
Scarcely without thinking about it, Harry’s hands retreated under the table, pulling at his sleeve
harder in the hope of unravelling it and thereby giving him an excuse, albeit a poor one, of leaving
and never coming back. Although he knew of his insidious inclinations—and he’d been certain the
moment he saw Tom’s hand slide into Malfoy’s hair—Harry had hardly dared to allow himself to
have a thought about… about men. And he’d certainly never articulated them before; especially
not to someone who had the power to ruin him for the decisions of his heart.
Rather those preferences were his sacred secret, a smooth, sleek he thought about in the dead of
night when the world was dark, and his predilections couldn’t be appraised by the reigning
morality of English law.
Those moments, the ones he caught late at night when the covers scratched on his skin and there
was such a dryness in his throat, were lovely in a horrible, torturous, way. Just the thought of
faceless smiles got under his skin in a way that no rational thought could explain, and the memory
of Cedric and his soft hands and gentle gaze was all but suffocating. Though, if Harry were being
honest with himself, it hadn’t been Cedric visiting him when all the lights were out and there was
no one to police his thoughts.
At first, the identity of his twilight fantasies had been defined merely by sensation; the smell of old
books, and sweet cologne, and the touch of fingers on the back of his neck. But they’d become
more sophisticated as time passed and he’d almost felt the stroking of someone’s hand through his
hair and the asphyxiating colour of black honey eyes watching him. Those nights were the longest
and darkest and most smothering things that Harry had ever lived through, and what made it worse,
was that, just recently, something new was bleeding into those moments, something tangible,
slowly solidifying as time continued. Sometimes this thing—this person—had pale eyes and pale
hair and spoke in two voices, and would surely now be wrapped in smoke, other times they had a
razor-sharp smile and red speckled hands, but mostly it was another someone; this one with
choking eyes and a smile that was torn at the edges. Someone who looked like Tom.

It took several moments of stretched out silence for Harry to realise that Druella was staring at him,
and when he did, he almost jumped; all at once embarrassed at his thoughts and glad that her
attention hadn’t wandered to a more interesting specimen. Though, he still blinked hard and tried to
focus.
For her part, Druella tilted her head slightly, she was still sitting across from him, her delicate
hands resting on the table; the ring on her middle finger glittering.
“So?” she said, her words continuing in their clipped formality, but the tone, easy and genuine.
“Umm…” Harry found himself saying, as he tried to swallow down the swelling lump in his throat
with more water. “Umm—either is fine—I guess,” he said eventually, feeling how every letter
stuck to his tongue and made talking almost impossible.
“Either,” Druella repeated back, faintly amused as her fingers tapped on the tablecloth, but still not
passing any judgement on him, rather just letting the flavour of the words seep into her mouth and
give her a proper palette for a reply.
“At least you know yourself,” she said finally, before sitting back, “I mean,” she continued, “I do
love Malfoy, but he was terribly fickle; and, before you accuse me of illiberal, I’m all for the
exploration of oneself, but…” she said with a roll of her eyes, “lurching back and forth between
descriptors, is the apex of indecisiveness and, as I said before, indecisiveness is very unattractive.”
As she spoke, Druella raised her glass of water to her lips and sipped at it delicately, leaving behind
a faint lipstick stain on the side; a perfect imprint of her lips that Harry imagined many men would
love to have the privilege of exploring.
“How did you…?” he started, though he trailed off when he realised what sort of question that was,
and what sort of place they were in. Not that Druella seemed to care, for she just smiled at him—
smug and knowing.
“Know?” she offered, “well, Malfoy was the one to guess, hardly a surprise really. He said it was
the way your eyes lingered.”
“Lingered on what?” Harry said before he could stop himself. In the moment of silent realisation
that followed he reached for the tablecloth and tugged at it, twisting around his fingers. Sure, his
eyes had lingered on everyone to be perfectly honest, but that didn’t mean he thought it was
obvious. In fact, he’d always thought he’d been so, so subtle.
The warmth of his blush took the opportunity to expand its territory like some war-driven country
and began to track itself over his skin, staining his throat and making hot shame prickle at his ears.
When they had all been together, they had all looked at him, was that what they were all thinking?
How his eyes lingered? The possibility was mortifying, and Harry tugged harder at the tablecloth.
“Well,” Druella said, still ever-so-casually as she leaned in closer again, her hand now splayed
across the table, “I imagine your eyes were lingering on an attractive man.” The way she said it
was so knowing, as though she had seen exactly who Harry was staring at and knew every shift in
his thoughts. He dipped his head to stare at the table and at his fingers caught up in the white
fabric.
“There’s no shame in it,” Druella added, “some men really are worth staring at—Riddle, for
instance,” she said, though she took far too long to pronounce his name, and just let it just drip off
her tongue like candle wax, “he’s almost irresistible.”
Harry swallowed, the heat on his skin spilling down further, curling down his neck and pressing
heavily under his collar. There was a lot about Tom that was irresistible, from the way he looked to
the way he spoke, he oozed that awful something that Harry wanted to get his teeth into.
“Is that what you find attractive then?” Harry found himself saying, the words slopping out of his
mouth before he had had the opportunity to vet them for impropriety.
But Druella just smiled and looked up from the menu she had now picked up and was handling
gentle, as though too much pressure would ruin the pages.
“Well,” she said again, “superficially, perhaps, but there’s so much more to a man than what he
looks like, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” Harry said, and, though he felt shallow just thinking about it, he faintly suspected he
might be willing to overlook some of the cruder characteristics of a woman or a man with a nice
face, just for a little while at least.
“You don’t sound convinced,” Druella said, her hand still resting delicately on the sharp edges of
the menu.
“I’m not.”
“Well then,” Druella continued, that little smile creeping further over her mouth as she did so, “if
you really want to know—which I think you do—I like a man who knows his place, or at least, has
the proficiency to learn it.” She leaned in closer as if she was sharing a shiny little secret, “I like a
man who not only enjoys having his place given to him, but wants it, craves it even, and will do
anything to get it.” Her mouth stayed upturned in that glittering smile, but now it was joined by
glimmering shimmer spreading over her eyes and lighting the impossible blue like the hottest of
flames. “Simply,” she murmured, “I like a man who is so infatuated that he doesn’t mind getting
down on his knees.”
The words hung between them for a moment, heavy on the china and bending the menus under its
weight until suddenly Druella was leaning back, laughing and breaking open the soft sweet second
and letting all the meaning run out.
“I can’t imagine your tastes are similar,” she said, dipping her gaze briefly down to the table again
and rearranging the small knife and fork that were folded into the napkin.
Harry swallowed, at least this way he was saved the embarrassment of having to look her in the eye
whilst he tried to properly comprehend the question she was asking. He liked a lot of
characteristics, at least, he always thought he had, and for some reason that made him too complex
to define his ideal ‘type’ in a few short sentences, but now… he wasn’t so sure, and none of this
would have happened in the first place if he hadn’t met any of them, and their snaking ability to be
exactly what he wanted in ways he couldn’t quite express.
Instead of answering, Harry swallowed again, his fingers fiddling once more with the rounded edge
of the table, just picking at the veneer through the tablecloth as though the answer could appear in
wood splinters.
“So?” Druella prompted, her nails tapping against the white of the tablecloth, once again making
creases that reminded Harry of the way Rosier’s shirt crinkled when she gripped his shoulder.
There was certainly the same passivity to the both of them, and, although, one was sentient and one
not, both of them still let Druella do whatever she wanted to them.
“What are your tastes, Potter?” She was looking right at him now, her eyes still glimmering and
the very tip of her tongue visible between her teeth.
After a moment more silence she spoke again. “And don’t worry if you think they’re too salacious
for a woman to hear,” she said, a delicate hand raised to her chest in mock-scandal, “because you
needn’t worry, I’ve endured the company of both Malfoy and Alicia, and believe me, between the
two of them, there’s hardly a sacrilege left to commit.”

Once again, Harry shifted and stared at the table, though he only had to do that for a minute or so
before Druella couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Alright, if you’re not going to reveal,” she said, placing her hand flat on the table, crushing down
the menu, “I’ll have to guess, won’t I?” As she spoke, Druella hooked her eyes onto him, and
looked, though ‘looked’ certainly didn’t do the gaze justice, for it was so much more than merely
looking; it was scrutinising at the very least. A sharp, focussed dissection of his personality that
made him squirm.
“You like someone who…” she started, pausing to bite her lip and let her eyes roam further over
his face as though she were reading predilections that were written into his skin. “…who knows
their own mind; someone… compelling, and capable, and compulsive… and I think, deep down,
under all those prickles, you like being told what to do,” she said, slowly, as though the fact
fascinated her, “and so you want someone who knows what you need even better than you even
know yourself…” Druella trailed off, her voice blurring out into the murmurs of the other patrons,
and the clinking of teacups against saucers, and the chewing, and the footsteps.
“Am I right?” she said, louder, her voice cutting through the noise and interrupting the thoughts
that were starting to swirl through Harry’s head like steam gathering above teacups and curling into
the air. But he couldn’t say anything, not when there was a tightness in his throat and his stomach
was turning over itself.
“Umm, well…” he started and ended; knowing Druella was right, painfully right and he had never
even realised it. And now that that thing was out in the open, released from where it had sat so
heavily in the back of his mind ever since he’d met them all—ever since he’d seen Tom yank
Malfoy forward by his hair and pressed down so hard on his spine—it was everywhere.
There were so many words swimming through his brain, words that weren’t even inappropriate in
their colloquial meanings but still felt indecent on the tip of his tongue; the sort of thing that he
couldn’t possibly say aloud as they sat in a restaurant where there were strangers sitting nearby and
enjoying their lunches.
“Don’t worry,” she said softly, her hand still resting on the table, now curved upward, all feminine
and gentle, “I won’t judge you, Potter, after all, my own tastes are hardly…” she glanced at the
table beside them that was filled with a group of older women in fancy clothes, “…respectable, are
they? I mean a man down on his knees, what an outrageous concept.”
Harry shook his head, trying to shake himself free of such embarrassment, and just say it, after all,
by the way, that Druella was watching him, he didn’t think that she wasn’t going to let this one go
until he said something that suited her tastes.
“I think—I like… personality,” he said finally; it didn’t do any of his feelings justice, but at least it
was based in the truth. After all, the thing that had been hovering on the edge of his thoughts was a
charismatic personality that integrated itself with the folds of his brain and curved down into his
lungs, filling him up from the inside out with feelings he hardly knew he even had access to, let
alone that he would want. But he did want it. Someone compelling. Someone capable. Someone
compulsive. Someone who could see him from the inside out and still liked—maybe even wanted
—what they saw.
Druella interrupted that daydream.
“Like a wave knocking you right over,” she said, “the air forced out of your lungs, and the swell
practically consuming you. Do you like the idea of drowning base splendour of someone else’s
character?”
Harry was silent for a moment; his tongue limp in his mouth, as he watched the lights catching on
the glass of the vase. “Yes,” he murmured.
Just for a second, Druella let herself slip into a proper smile, before reigning it in and darting her
hand across the table to straighten out Harry’s menu, “then you’ll consider yourself lucky,” she
said, “that there is such a lot of personality here to go around.”

In a periphery glance, Harry could see a waiter starting to approach, but Druella just waved her
hand he quickly changed course to the table a little to the left.
“We couldn’t possibly order before a decent conversation about it all,” she said by way of
explanation as she picked up her menu again and ran her fingers down the edge of it; it was almost
a surprise that she hadn’t cut herself already.
“Any drink you like the look of?” she said, now opening the little menu book with a precocious
delicacy and watching him over the top of it, “I’m willing to consider tea or coffee, whichever you
prefer.”
“I don’t—drink coffee,” Harry said quietly, and it was true, coffee had always had a distinctly
unpleasant aftertaste, not to mention the smell seeped into everything he owned and hung there for
weeks, festering until he could afford to wash his clothes. He didn’t drink coffee or, for that matter,
be around people who did, if he could help it.
Apparently, Druella disagreed with that idea, because she had lowered the menu to properly reveal
the blunt instrument that was her mouth. “Perhaps you should try it one day; after all, it is an
awfully good stimulant for when you’re out of it.”
There was a glimmer of a smile in her voice, but also the trace of something else; a suggestion if
those late nights doing… dubious things that knocked them ‘out of it.’
“But it’s fine,” she continued, “you’ve made your choice easier, and, anyway, I am, of course, an
expert in all things tea, so ask anything you like.”
Harry nodded awkwardly and started to read down the menu. It quickly became apparent that half
the things written here were unpronounceable for him, and the descriptions provided next to each
on in this twirled script didn’t exactly help to determine what they actually were. Phrases like
‘deep fruity notes’ and ‘a gently perfumed aroma’ were perfectly pleasant to read, but utterly
unhelpful in determining what was actually in the drink he was thinking of putting into his body.
He stayed silent and continued to scan through the names again and again, trying to decide which
would be the least awful simply by the arrangement of letters that made up its name.
“You know,” said Druella, leaning closer once more, making the interaction far too intimate like
they were sharing in an affair and not lunch, her menu was now covering her mouth and muffling
her words a little, but the intention to hurry proceedings along, was obvious.
“I said to Riddle that I was going out to lunch with a friend today…” Harry looked up at Tom’s
name like a dog who just heard his master’s call, “…I didn’t say who I was going with—after all, a
woman can’t give away all her secrets—but he told me to order the Rose tea for my ‘friend.’” She
paused, watching him intently, her eyes just glittering in the light, “have it with two cubes of sugar,
he said,” she paused again, “is that what you want, Potter?”
She said it with a challenge in her tone, daring him to have what Tom wanted him to have because
surely Tom must have known it was him, she was going to seek out.
Harry didn’t need prompting.
“Yes,” he said, looking at her straight in the eye with what he hoped was a steadfast confidence
that he didn’t feel inside. He turned to the waiter who had now appeared, beckoned simply by the
examination of a menu, “I’ll have the Rose,” he said, a hot feeling prickling at the back of his neck,
like everyone here knew what he’d just done and how it made him so hot and jittery in his skin.
His head entirely dizzy with thoughts of Tom sitting there and telling him what he should order, all
because he thought that Harry might like it. These thoughts were so heavy and so deep that it was
only in the vague distance, like a sound coming to him from underwater, that Harry heard Druella
order her tea and something to go with it—sandwiches maybe—the words all too fuzzy to hear
through the rushing in his head and the giddiness in his heart.

When the waiter was gone again, Druella leaned back in her chair looking self-satisfied with a
heavy smile and her hand wrapped loosely around her glass.
“You made a good choice,” she said, “but I must ask, and you must answer, Potter: do you like
attractive men giving you recommendations?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” said Harry, his brain giving a response before he’d even had time to properly
process the audaciousness of the question.
Instantly, though, Druella’s smile widened and her face glimmered, almost unnaturally bright under
the paleness of the lights.
“Oh, look at you,” she said, her voice coloured with notes of amusement, “you’re just so much
sharper than I thought you were. I won’t lie…” she said with a quirk of her eyebrow and a flex of
her fingers, “…when we first met, I thought you were just another grovelling little sycophant; a
shiny thing that caught his eye because you were everywhere he was, but then I heard you talk, and
talk to Riddle like that no less.” Druella laughed, “no one ever tells him he’s wrong to his face
—well—no one apart from us, that is.”
“I didn’t tell him he was wrong,” Harry protested quietly.
“Believe me, you did. It was all he talked about,” Druella said, taking another sip of her water, her
thumb gliding over the side and leaving a streak through the condensation.
“He talked about me?” Harry said—blurted out, really—fast and loud enough to make Druella raise
her eyebrow again, forming that perfect arch that must make everyone feel wildly insignificant.
But Harry couldn’t help it, the swelling satisfaction inside his ribs just wanted to spill out
everywhere and make a mess at the thought of him being stuck in Tom’s thoughts and on his
tongue.
“Naturally, he did,” Druella continued, still that deliberate smile on her lips, “and I would know
because I had to go to lunch with my grandmother’s friend the next day, and—of course—I
brought along Riddle because he’s such a lovely thing to have around if you’re not in the mood to
talk.” She paused momentarily to lean forward and place her glass back down onto the table.
“Anyway, the important part of this is that you were definitely the prolific topic of conversation;
this wonderful learned little thing that Riddle had found the darkest corners of the library.”
“He finds me…” Harry swallowed, “…interesting?” he said, the word catching in his throat in faint
disbelief because it was one thing to suspect the way that someone looks at you means something,
and quite another to have it so blatantly confirmed.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Druella said, laughing openly again, “you are far too obvious to be interesting.”
It was scarcely moments after the words left her mouth that the small swell of hope was receding
like the tide and Harry’s stomach was turning itself in knots.
“But,” Druella continued and Harry’s heart started to beat hard again, swaying back and forth like a
bell in a church tower, ringing and ringing until his thoughts became a mess.
“You are fascinating, and if Riddle is fascinated by someone then he must have his reasons, and I
will find exactly what it is about you that’s got him so... enamoured”
“Enamoured?” Harry parroted again like an idiot; it was a wonder that anyone would want him
around at all if all he managed to do this afternoon was mimic everything that everyone else said.
Though he could hardly help it, not when his heart was pumping hard enough to obscure the sound
of his thoughts as the moon sometimes does to the sun; he shifted again, once more twisting the
edge of the tablecloth between his fingers as he remembered the way that Tom’s gaze had passed
over him and the feeling of the tips of his fingers as they ran over the back of his neck.
“Of course,” Druella said, “who wouldn’t be? You’re very…” she dropped her eyes to run them
around his silhouette, “…unusual.”
As she looked at him, her smile caught at the corner of her mouth; though her gaze was firm and
curious, and it left Harry feeling a little like one of those long-extinct animals that were stuffed and
marvelled at in museums by the well-to-do on rainy days—the ones that people looked at with
almost pity as they read about his poor adaptability for the world around him that would have led
to his untimely demise.
“And you like unusual things?” he heard himself say.

Druella was about to reply, but before she could there waiter was back, still with his white smile
though, at least to Harry, it looked a little forced—his mouth stretched across his teeth, not because
he genuinely wanted to, but because he knew there were consequences for not playing by the rules
set by rich people’s whims.
This time, Druella did not chat through his presence, rather, she stayed there, silently staring and
surely judging the exactness with which he placed down each plate and the shake of his hand as he
did so. The waiter must have been looking at her as well because the slightest raise of her eyebrow
led to an exponential increasing in his shaking, though whether it was from authentic nerves, or
this strange desire to prove his competence, Harry couldn’t be sure.
They both watched in silence as he placed down a silver spire-esque contraption that Harry had
only ever seen in cake-shop windows that at the base held sandwiches, and on the second level
held scones, and the third was reserved for small pots of sauces: one yellow that might have been
mustard, one white that must have been cream, one that was simply butter and a final one, that he
assumed was jam.
After placing it all down, the waiter looked briefly between them; his eyes lingering a slight of a
second too long on Druella’s face, it made her tap her fingers, the points of her nails scratching
over the tablecloth and her eyes going cold.
“The manners of some people are truly barbaric, don’t you think?” she said, addressing Harry,
though she looked firmly at the waiter, and he recoiled before Harry had the opportunity to reply,
hastily removing himself from their table and scarpering over to the corner and out of sight. Less
than a minute later, a second waiter was coming over wearing the same winning smile and finished
the task of the first. Druella ignored him, which apparently, was the better option.
“Riddle certainly does—like unusual people, that is,” she said, as though there was not a new
waiter standing before them pouring them tea that should have been done by the one that Druella
scared away.
“He likes to chew on them,” she continued with a teasing smile, “in fact, he rather likes to get them
between his teeth, and to bite down hard, and to swallow them whole.” She laughed again,
knocking her head back and letting the light skitter of her hair and radiate out as though she were an
angel.
Harry was smiling too, though his was born from nervousness, that strange desire in the pit of his
stomach to get along with her, and to do that, he needed to smile when she laughed. But the
humour of the moment imbued him with a sense of false confidence, and quite by accident Harry
heard words exiting from his mouth that should have stayed squarely on his tongue.
“What else does he like?” he said.
Druella snapped her head forward and raised a perfectly plucked brow again, “how presumptuous,
Potter,” she said, still wearing that loose authority around her neck as she waved away the waiter
and picked up her cup of faintly green tea.
Harry flushed, again—or rather even more—and swallowed, his eyes settling on his own, fittingly
pink, cup. “No—not—not like that,” he said, even as his brain politely suggested it was exactly like
that. There was so much he wanted to know about Tom, he wanted to glut himself on his life story
and absorb each part of his personality until he intimately understood the frequency that Tom
existed on, but it wasn’t entirely because his heart beat harder at the thought of Tom. Rather—at
least partially—it was because he wanted to imitate them, for there were so much of these people
he liked, and Harry wanted to cut them out like teenage girls do with the posters of their heroes. He
wondered briefly if Druella had posters in her bedroom.

That thought was once again interrupted by Druella herself—she did a lot of interrupting.
“Well,” she said, “in what respect, then? Tea flavours? Professors?” she paused, her smile
widening, “or indeed, his salacious affairs, perhaps?”
Harry flushed harder, the colour of his face must have been nearing indecency, especially when
surrounded by such delicate, pastel, shades of pink—all sweet and sophisticated compared to the
raging shade that was burning itself into his cheeks.
“Just—what’s he—you know—like…?”
Druella raised her newly filled cup to her mouth and sipped, the heat of the tea not, apparently
bothering her. “So, you’re asking for a behavioural profile?” she said, before adding, “oh, don’t
pout at me, Potter, it’s obvious.”
Harry dropped his eyes to the table and tried to settle his mouth back into something decent,
Druella just rolled her eyes and looked so painfully like her brother that Harry had to wonder how
identical they would be if Rosier were to grow his hair to her length or if Druella were to wear his
clothes and sprawl so casually over the furniture.
“Fine,” she said, even when Harry had made no more attempts at persuasion and was, in fact, fine
to drop the matter entirely, “because I like you,” she continued as she placed down her cup, “I
would say that Riddle is… ravening for things, it can be people or just experiences, but whatever it
is, as soon as he has his teeth around it, he won’t let go,” Druella said, reaching out to take up one
of the sandwiches in place of her teacup.
She took her time, ripping a small corner off it and placing it into her mouth and Harry mirrored
the action, though rather than taking a proper bite of his sandwich, he nibbled at the edge of it. The
thing itself didn’t taste awful when it touched the tip of his tongue but that didn’t mean he was
going to be any less tentative about eating the rest of it.
“To be honest, and don’t tell him that I said this,” she said after she swallowed, “I wish he’d be a
little more careful with the people he consumes, slow down and savour them a little perhaps,
instead of treating them all like analeptics.”
She shook her head slightly like she was remembering all the people who had been chewed up and
spat out over the years, before leaning forward conspiratorially.
“Personally,” she said, all but speaking hushed secrets behind her palm, “I’d diagnose it as some
sort of malady that he has, and one that I think you might have as well,” she said, pointing the rest
of her sandwich towards him almost accusingly
“A malady?” Harry repeated weakly, the parrot in him rising again; though that wasn’t the part of
the conversation that he should be taking issue with, that title belonged to the fact she’d just
alleged that he had a problem, and he certainly didn’t want that. Although, on the plus side, it
would be the same problem that Tom had so it couldn’t be all that bad.
“Yes, obviously,” Druella said, rolling her eyes and, once again, looking terribly like her brother, “I
think you have a profound need for understanding that gets under your skin, like a hunger, really,
or a sickness; I get snippets of it every so often when you forget yourself and just talk. It’s quite
fascinating to see.”
She leaned back in her chair, gripping hard at her sandwich so that her fingers left behind prints in
the bread and watching him with an intentness that made Harry shift uncomfortably and stare at his
plate.
“Of course,” she continued, “you’re not as voracious as Riddle is with knowledge, but that might
just be because you’re younger, and you’re new to this…” her tongue searched over her lips for the
word, “…intellectuality,” she settled on, “but, the bud is blooming—I’ve heard you argue, and
Lestrange says you have such fanciful ideas—these uncompromising visions of what you think the
world should be like.”
“That’s not my fault,” he protested as loudly as he dared, though the pitch and tone must have
sounded desperate for it drew the attention of the women sitting on the next table over.
Druella just laughed as she always did.
“Oh no, Potter, you miss understand me,” she said, “I don’t think it’s a problem, and much less any
sort of mistake or attribution of fault, none of us do.” She paused again to take a bite of her
sandwich—a different one now, with white bread and small slices of cucumber, so thin they were
like green circles of paper—and chewing it slowly and carefully before swallowing.
“In fact,” she continued, “my brother and I are, obviously, theological determinists, so it’s hardly a
surprise that you’re here because it was all meant to happen, wasn’t it?” Druella said
enthusiastically. “We were meant to meet,” she said, her eyes still bright and that blunt mouth of
hers moving in animated delight, “and you were meant to be with me here—that’s destiny, you see,
you have these views and you were meant to share them with us.”
Harry didn’t quite follow the argument she was making so he just nodded and busied himself with
plunking sugar cubes into his tea and watching the ripples.

“You know,” Druella said casually, now working her way through yet another sandwich—taking
each bite with a starving daintiness like a raven pecking only the best parts of a piece of roadkill,
and alternating between tearing pieces off of it and eating like one of those intelligent squirrels he
saw in the park as she sipped at her tea, “you have another malady in common with Riddle too.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, Potter,” she said, “you have a malady, one that involves a certain beguilement with
morality—and, personally, I find that far more interesting than the simple pursuit of knowledge for
its own sake.”
Harry reached over to pick up his cup filled with pink-stained tea and taking a small, small, sip—
the delicate flavour sliding over his tongue and making his mouth hot, both with the temperature
and the implications. Tom wanted him to drink this. Tom had sat and thought about his
recommendation and now Harry was fulfilling it, and that made something hot and heady begin to
grow between his ribs like a fungus.
“Why?” he said, before swallowing down another mouthful, and clarifying, “why, do you think
I’m interested in morality?”
Druella did another one of those laughs where her head tipped back and her eyes sparkled with
something that wasn’t quite pleasure, but rather nestled itself closer to condescending amusement
as though Harry was the latest in a string of peculiarities that she brought here to decide whether or
not they were worthy of her interest.
“Well,” Druella said, replacing her sandwich with the water jug, “by the way you talk, I would say
that you’re consumed with whether or not you, yourself are a moral man,” she said, watching the
water slosh into her glass, filling it right to the upper rim, “and, you know, it’s such an adorably
superficial preoccupation.”
Harry just frowned at her—she hadn’t quite answered the question, in fact, she had quite
successfully skirted all the way around it with her fanciful words and pretty fingers wrapped
around the stem of the jug. But the set of her mouth suggested that she wasn’t willing to answer the
question either and Harry just had to accept that.
“To go further,” she continued, ignoring the confused way he was looking at her, “I think the
question of whether you are a moral man plagues you all the time, but instead of facing it head-on
like most people would, you hide in the letters of the law.” She paused, and leaned forward again,
creating that artificial intimacy that made something shift in Harry’s chest, his fingers clenching
around his sandwich. “You hide yourself behind your statute books and your cases, looking for
something sentimental—dare I say something meaningful—in what is simply the cold and
dispassionate disciple of law?”
“You’re wrong about the law,” Harry said, the speed and intensity of his words almost surprising
him, but just as there had been with Lestrange, there was something in her tone that made him want
to prove her wrong. Perhaps it was the boldness of her assertions or the dexterity with which she
shared them, but either way, he wanted to prove himself to her—show her, as it were, that he was
worth her time. That and her insult struck as lightning does to a tree, hitting the skeleton and
burning up the flesh in such a way that it was as though his opinions had been personally
condemned, and for a moment, Harry was reminded of the set of Druella’s mouth and the cruelty of
her tone as she addressed Avery.
“Oh, am I?” Druella replied with feigned surprise, her hand raised to her chest again in mock
horror just like Malfoy had done, and Harry wondered how deep the similarities ran; whether these
were basic superficialities that each of them had picked up over the years of knowing one another,
or perhaps whether they were deliberately shared among friends—idiosyncrasies given out like
gifts.
“It’s not cold,” Harry clarified, the exactitudes of the argument he planned to make still absent on
his tongue, but maybe—hopefully—they would appear with whatever provocative prompt Druella
blessed him with.
“Well,” she said, “Lestrange certainly acts like it is the coldest thing in the world—sub-zero one
might say,” she said with a smile at some joke Harry didn’t get, “he does, indeed, claim to be the
sole objective reasoner left in a world filled with hot-headed heretics.”
“Well, he’s wrong then, isn’t he?”
“Is he?” Druella said, leaning forward, her hands pressed flat against the tablecloth and her
sandwich abandoned, “he’s been doing this for nearly four years, but somehow you already know
better, do you?”
There was the same challenge in her tone and indeed in her eyes as there had been when she
suggested that he order the Rose tea, as though she was daring him to say something to contradict
the others merely so that she could prove a point of argument of her own with them later, or
perhaps it was more parasitic than that, perhaps she was harvesting him for his opinion and, later,
in the privacy of her own home, she would dissect his answers.
“Yes,” Harry said, far more confidently than he felt, though there was something in his bones that
told him, he simply had to do this, he had to share his opinion. When Druella stayed silent, he
continued, “he’s had four years to confound his beliefs, so he’s blinded to how things really are.”

“But your eyes are wide open, aren’t they, Potter?” Druella said, still leaning forward, though now
her fingers were tapping against the tablecloth, their sound dampened but still loud in their
questionable silence; Druella sitting and considering what he said, and Harry squishing his
sandwich down to a pancake and doubting every word that had come out of his mouth.
“You think,” Druella eventually continued, “you see the world how it really is, in all its ugliness
and that makes you special.”
Harry swallowed. “I don’t delude myself,” he said carefully, “neither does the law—I mean—it’s
there, all the time as this constant objective arbitrator that protects us and our morality, isn’t it?”
“You tell me, Potter, you are, after all, the expert.”
Druella leaned back, her fingers still tapping, “however, if you want my opinion, the law may set
out a manifesto on morality, which it believes to be axiomatic, but that has nothing to do with, real,
individual, morality.” Druella smiled, “that,” she said, elegantly lifting her hand to take one of the
scones from the topmost shelf—the remains of her sandwich still sitting on her plate now entirely
unimportant—“is an entirely personal endeavour.”
For the first time in a while, Druella took her eyes off him and focussed on her scone instead; the
removal of her gaze shouldn’t have been as liberating as it had been, but there was something so
intensely suffocating about her eyes and without them on him, Harry could take a deep, full,
breath.
“And as such,” she continued, not looking up, as she cut open her scone and started to spread it,
first with butter, letting it drip over the edges before turning the knife over; she looked up and
smiled, and kept smiling as she reached for the small pot of jam. “Sometimes,” she said, “you have
to embrace your own morality—dissect yourself—and confront what you find in the very depths of
your soul.”
Druella raised her scone to her mouth, “for instance,” she said matter-of-factly, “could you kill a
man, Potter?”
“No,” Harry said instantly, a knee-jerk reaction to the unthinkable because such a thought was
entirely unthinkable, after all, there were academic notions and the discussions of the certainty and
appropriateness of the law, and then there was the crimes it was meant to protect people from—
crimes such as murder.
Druella continued to watch him but she didn’t speak for her mouth was full, instead, she chewed
slowly, her jawbone moving steadily in circles and another spot of jam dripping onto the
tablecloth. She swallowed.
“Could you kill a man to save a friend?” she said, just as casually as before like this was no more
than one of her ethical studies, and perhaps it wasn’t, but how could anyone like a study that
allowed one to muse on such horrific concepts as the murder of a fellow man?
“Umm—no?” Harry said again, though even he could hear the lilt of a question affecting the final
syllable. He shook his head to try and get the traitorous sound out.
“Could you kill a man to save yourself?” Druella continued, apparently on a matter of principle
now, “after all I do believe the law will forgive you for that one.”
“I don’t – I don’t know,” Harry heard himself admitting, though now it sounded truly distant like
he was underwater, and the words were floating above the surface, calling out to his mouth but
never quite finding it. And he didn’t know the answer. Killing a man sounded like such a violent,
monstrous act, an abomination—perhaps even a perversion—of what it meant to be a human.
Druella just smiled before taking another bite.
“Perhaps you should consider it,” she said after swallowing that bite too, “you never know when it
might come in useful to know just how far you’re willing to go.”
There was something unspoken in those words, an unwritten rule or perhaps it was a mantra that
suggested things that they were all willing to do for the sake of something. And though it forced a
sickness up and along his throat, the contents of his stomach shifting uncomfortably, Harry still
forced himself to look in her eyes and ask the question that was scratching at the back of his throat.
“How far would you go?” he said.
For a moment, Druella narrowed her eyes and there was the flicker of a smile over her mouth
giving away some emotion that Harry couldn’t quite read.
“Well, that, of course, depends on the stakes, doesn’t it, Potter?” she said, though immediately, she
seemed to sense that her answer wasn’t fit for purpose as she smiled sweetly and put down her
scone, taking a sip of her tea before continuing.
“Would I kill a man to protect myself? Yes, I would,” she said, simply and always holding Harry’s
gaze, “would I kill a man to save a friend? Yes, I would.”
There was a gravity to the way she spoke, this inherent seriousness that almost made Harry’s heart
ache because she had thought about this, they had all sat down and discussed the murder of another
person, and they had all come to their own natural positions on the morality of the action. What
decisions had Tom had come to?
His thoughts were interrupted by Druella coming to her conclusion: “would I kill a man?” she said,
“well, that depends on what he did, doesn’t it, Harry?”
It was the casual calmness to her tone that got Harry, that distinct slowness to the letters as though
she was forcing herself to be calm even as her insides buzzed with excitement and Harry couldn’t
help but think that maybe it wasn’t just Tom who like to eat people up.
“Surely, it doesn’t matter?” he said, a lump forming in the back of his throat because killing, and
even just talking about killing, went against everything that the law stood for, didn’t it? And he
hated that there was a question now in his head because he had been wrong about the aspects of the
law, hadn’t he? So, could he be wrong about something like this as well?
“Extra-judicial killing is wrong no matter what,” he said, trying to keep the slight tremble out of
his voice and to look Druella firmly in the eye. She held his gaze, her hand holding her scone out, a
spot more of jam dripping down onto the plate.
“I would profoundly disagree,” she said, “say a woman is ruined by her husband; he is cruel and
controlling and she kills him—how—how can you say that’s wrong?”
“The law will rebuke him—she doesn’t need to take justice into her own hands.”
“Oh, Potter,” she said, slightly condescendingly, “it won’t,” she said, simply enough, “the law in its
current form doesn’t care for you if you are a woman, or if you are poor, or if the colour of your
skin is not to their liking—there are entire swathes of the populace who are unloved by the law—
and if the law is tailored for so few to enjoy, then why should the rest of us obey it?”
“Because the law is what maintains order.”

This time Druella raised both her brows and sat back in her chair, the lights of the room dappling
shadows across her eyes and making dark, murky, spots form about her mouth; their formation
mirrored a smile, but one that was cold and cruel in the best possible way.
“Is it?” she said carefully, “I mean, I took a module—that I would highly recommend, by the way
—last year with Riddle and Lestrange, on criminal morality, which concerned itself with the
intersection of philosophy and law, and there was the simple question that permeated through
every aspect: what differentiates a society and a civilisation?” Druella paused to look at him
directly, the dark patches in her eyes glistening with something as dark as it was delicious, “do you
happen to know, Potter?”
Harry shrugged and avoided her gaze, and Druella only took that as encouragement.
“Well,” she said, “the secret is, law and philosophy; by all accounts you can have a society with
just philosophical principles guiding the masses, making them rely on their supposedly inbuilt
morality—there’s no formalised order and individual get by through internalised shepherding.
However, in order to have a civilisation, you need a formalisation of moral conceptions, simply,
you need a legal system—you need order. But shall I tell you the most fascinating thing?” she said,
barely pausing for his answer, “the most fascinating thing is that both are viable for human life—
formalised order enacted through the law and the courts and the police can all be snapped out of
existence just like that,” she snapped her fingers and Harry swallowed hard at the sound.
“That means you can essentially decide which theory you want to live by and pursue it, so, which
would you rather live in?”
“You know my answer,” he said quietly, picking at his scone with his fingers—there were too
many thoughts inside his head that he couldn’t focus. Not when there was the thought of murder
nestled between the petals of the flower on their table and staining the food he was eating with a
foul, but distinctly moralistic, aftertaste, and all his thoughts on the law were being so casually
challenged by someone who had barely spent a moment learning it. The great, intellectuality of it
almost made him wish to be back with Lestrange and his careful prompting and equal careful
dissections of arguments—all calm and slow and insidious—that allowed him time to think.
“You’ll have no shame in saying it aloud then, will you?” Druella prompted.
Harry swallowed forcing his tongue to do something other than flop about his mouth.
“A civilisation,” he said ever so quietly.
“Why?” Druella said, “And don’t say because there’s the law.”
“Because there’s a coherency.”
“There’s coherency in philosophy, isn’t there?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Harry said, the tone dipping somewhere between defeat and bitterness—after
all, something about this examination felt like unfair, “that’s not exactly my specialism.”
Druella smiled and leaned back in her chair—her argument thoroughly won—the tips of her fingers
running over the edge of her teacup.
“Then I suggest you get to know,” she said, “after all, no one likes a man who builds his
foundations on ignorant ground.” The way she said it was so confident and self-assured, as though
she, herself would never commit such a social faux pas as being ignorant.
“And how am I supposed to do that?” Harry said.

Druella opened her mouth to speak again, but before she could say anything there was a cry, or
rather a squawk from across the room.
“Druella, my darling, is that you!?” a voice came squealing from behind them, and Harry looked
up to see a large, older, woman with a heavy mound of red hair piled up on top of her head in a
style that even he could tell had gone out of fashion several decades ago. He exchanged a look with
Druella, whose own mouth had set itself into a single hard line, one that stretched right to her jaw,
and her eyes had darkened like the swell of the sea before a storm.
With practised restraint, she closed them and swallowed, when she opened them again, she was
smiling, though there was an obvious inauthenticity to the stretch of her mouth if you knew what
you were looking for.
“Hepzibah?” she said, turning around, smiling and speaking with such a sickly sweetness to her
tone that it surprising that world around her didn’t dissolve into sugar.
“Oh darling,” the woman—Hepzibah—said as she approached the table, invading other people’s
spaces on her way, and somehow leaving a trail of broken conversations and chairs in wanton
disarray, behind her, “I had no idea that you were going to be here today, and—oh—”
She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes fixing on Harry’s, and so clearly studying him.
Harry studied her back: taking in the glittering of her earrings, and the powder-pink of her dress
that would have flattered Druella but was off against her skin even to his untrained eye and looked
more like wet candyfloss pressed into the grass after the fair had come to green; it clashed with her
hair.
“Druella…,” she began again—addressing Druella—and, apparently, having recovered her
sensibilities, “care to introduce me?”
Druella continued to smile tensely, her jaw drawn tight and her teeth probably grinding together,
pressing down on each other.
“He’s a friend,” she said coldly, her scone now placed down on her plate, and Harry suspected
Hepzibah, whoever she was, was a frequent invader of everyone’s privacy, as well as their spaces.
But even so, his heart squeezed a little at the thought of being counted as Druella’s friend.
Right now, though, what made it worse was that she didn’t say anything, rather she stood there, her
hand resting on the table looking at Druella in such a way that even Harry was uncomfortable—her
eyes just roaming over him as though he were an oil painting that she was determined to reveal as a
fake. He looked down at his plate, staring at the string of flower strung like pearls around the rim
and the crumbs in the centre—vaguely wondering what time it must be.
“You know,” said Hepzibah eventually, her tone shifting into something proper and hypocritical,
“people will talk of your fancy man, if you’re not careful, sweetie.”
Harry kept his head down, so he didn’t see if Druella broke her smile, but she certainly didn’t offer
a reply and only began to tap her nails on the tablecloth again; this time the sounds were curt and
unfriendly. And that pause that Hepzibah had so clearly left for her own moral elevation now felt
painfully empty—not to mention awkward.
“But anyway,” she said when all the silence and cold stares became too much, and as she leaned
over to grab the jug of water and pouring herself some into Druella’s glass, “I’ve been meaning to
visit you, darling.”
“Hmm?” Druella said, watching as Hepzibah drank from her glass, her vulgar shade of lipstick
staining the side.
“Because,” Hepzibah continued, “I need you to tell me how my Tommy is doing; I haven’t seen
him in so long that I’ve started to suspect that he’s been avoiding me,” she said with a laugh, as
though the entire notion of someone wanting to avoid her was impossible to conceive—it must
have been nice to be so utterly un-self-aware.
Druella winced at that laugh, her head dipping to hide the grimace of her expression and Harry
would swear that she was gritting her teeth, her knuckles rimmed with white as she grasped her
knife, still slicked red with jam.
“He’s fine,” Druella said eventually and with a tone that would make most people wither—not
Hepzibah though, she continued to smile at Druella as she took another sip of her water.
“Oh, that’s just fabulous to hear, darling, as I said, I haven’t seen him for at least a week now, and
you know how hard that is for me,” she said with a flutter of her hand towards her face, her last
trembling with artificial exhaustion, “with my delicate health and all.”
Druella rolled her eyes and clenched her hand even tighter, her fingers still wrapped elegantly
around the silverware, her ring surely leaving an ugly indent in her skin. But Hepzibah either didn’t
notice or was too self-involved to care and she continued to chat away.
“You know,” she said, “he was coming around three or four times a week to see me,” she said,
weaving a sort of possessiveness into the words that made Harry curl his hand into a fist under the
table, pushing his nails sharp into his palms and surely leaving behind some stinging marks; there
was just something so garish about this woman that made him entirely disinclined to share
anything with her, least of all someone as special as Tom—even if he had no right to claim that
Tom was his to share.
“All that effort just to talk and… well, you know…” Hepzibah said with a preening expression that
made something in Harry’s stomach clench because there were implications to her saying that, and
they were implications that Harry would rather not think about at all.
But, fortunately, before he could think too hard, Harry’s entire thought process was interrupted by
the cool voice of Druella and her sickly smile that was getting increasingly close to snapping off
her face like a rubber band.
“Well, he’s been awfully busy recently,” she said, the tone that was ever so sweet on top, and ever
so sour underneath, “but I’ll make sure to tell him to drop by the next time I see him.”
“Thank you, dear,” said Hepzibah, preening slightly as though she had proved her worth simply by
having a man like Tom remotely in her orbit, “after all, you know how much… pleasure I find in
his company,” she said, before snorting at her obnoxious innuendo and smiling wider—grinning,
really—and it complemented the cloying quality of her crooning. How Tom put up with it—
because clearly, he did—Harry didn’t know.
“He speaks highly your company as well,” Druella said stiffly, knocking back her tea like it was
champagne and turning herself to face Hepzibah. Taking that as yet another cue to continue talking,
Hepzibah smiled and stepped closer so that she could stroke her fingers down Druella’s shoulder;
she stiffened.
“Well,” she said, “as you’ve finished here, I would love it if you’d join me—your friend too, I
suppose,” she continued, her hand raising off Druella to reference Harry like he was a rare creature
in the zoo to be admired on the occasion.
“Oh, I’m afraid that I’ll have to apologise on his behalf,” Druella said before Harry had the
opportunity to say otherwise, “because Potter here, has got another appointment to get to.”
Harry was going to protest that he really didn’t have anywhere else to be, but Druella kicked him
under the table, hard and right to the shin; the point of her pretty shoes surprisingly sturdy.
“Another time, perhaps,” she added with a forced diamond smile that looked like Tom’s.
With feigned upset, Hepzibah simpered at him before turning back to Druella, “oh well,” she said,
“you’ll still come won’t you, sweetie? I mean, of course, you will—so, I’ll be in my usual seat,”
she said with a final pat to Druella’s head like she was a good little pet that did what she was told.
In all honesty, Druella looked like she might bite that hand, or maybe shove her jam-coated knife
through it. But whatever violent fantasies she entertained internally, externally, Druella simply
nodded and smiled, and that seemed to satisfy Hepzibah as she turned and whisked herself away
towards the back of the room, leaving yet another trail of devastation behind her.

As soon she was out of direct view, Druella’s smile dissolved like sugar in tea and it was replaced
with a half-sneer.
“I apologise, Potter,” she said struggling to keep the curt frustration out of her tone, “but it looks
like I’ll have to cut this short.” As she spoke, she picked up one of the perfect sugar cubes and
placed it on her tongue like she was running out of internal sweetness and this was her poor attempt
to replenish the supply.
Harry continued to watch her as she chewed the sugar, the sound rather loud in the, now tense,
silence; it made him distinctly nervous, as though the slightest wrong move on his part would
instigate an avalanche that would bring the full brunt of Druella’s tongue down on him.
“Who was that?” he asked, awkwardly, just as he had done with Rosier and Avery—always on the
wrong side of the frosted glass of conversation, desperately clawing at the pane like a desperate cat
wanting to be let into the house.
“Hepzibah,” Druella said, “Hepzibah Smith. An old friend of my grandmother, and…” Druella
paused to glance behind her, Harry followed her gaze to where they could see Hepzibah, over at the
far side of the room engaged in animated conversation with a waiter,“…she’s officially my
godmother, but I use the term lightly.” As she spoke, Druella watched, her gaze steely and her eyes
cold; so much so that Harry couldn’t help a mild clenching in his stomach as he watched Druella,
and she clenched and unclenched her fingers to her palm.
“That woman is ungodly,” she said, casting her own eyes to watch her fingers, “and if you can
avoid her company, as my brother so successfully does,” Druella looked up, “then, I suggest you
do so.” Her tone was so mechanical in that moment that Harry wondered exactly what it was that
made Druella hate—and it was hate in her eyes—her godmother so very much.
“Well,” she said with another glance over her shoulder, “it was lovely talking with you, but I
probably won’t see you until Sunday.”
“You’ll be there?”
Druella swallowed and smiled at him. “Oh, we wouldn’t miss it,” she said, standing up and
stretching herself out like a swan, before composing her features into a bouquet arrangement of
sweetness and harmony, and wandering over towards Hepzibah’s table—her hips swaying and her
dress swishing around her knees.
 Chapter 12
Chapter Summary

Harry meets Tom alone in the library.

Chapter Notes

I am genuinely sorry for not updating this thing in so long—I can only hope the wait
was vaguely worth it.

Sunday arrived far slower than Harry would have liked, and he spent the whole morning
pretending he wasn’t nervous. He was. He was so nervous because he was about to meet Tom
—alone—and that should make anyone nervous.
At least he knew where he was supposed to be meeting him though, for he’d received a note in the
mail—just a scrap of a thing—telling him to meet them in The Slytherin Room in the third
basement of the library. It all sounded rather clandestine; him, alone with a handsome man in the
basement where no one could hear you and no one wanted to be heard. For all Harry knew there
could be monsters living inside the walls and bodies rotting under the floorboards, but that was
probably passing into the realm of make-believe, after all, there were a lot better places to hide a
body than under the floorboards.

Sunday was an especially quiet time for the library. Most students weren’t working on Sundays,
perhaps it was for religious reasons, or perhaps—and more likely—it was because they had better
things to be doing than wasting the good years of their life holed up in dark corners, whittling away
at their youth. To be honest, though, Harry wasn’t sure if the absence of people made it any better.
There was certainly no denying that the silence amplified his footfalls on the stone stairs, until they
were loud, crystalline things ringing through the air and letting everyone who wasn’t there know
that he was coming.
In his entire journey down to the third basement, Harry saw no one but the librarian, and she was
asleep at her desk, her cheek pressed into the grooves of the wood and the expression of rested
bliss on her face; Harry edged past her, practically on his tiptoes, in his (successful) attempt to not
wake her up. Beyond her, the absence of people and indeed the absence of life itself, did nothing to
settle Harry’s nerves, and the strings inside of him felt like they were being plucked by a
particularly ambitious, but not very gifted, player; their fingers getting caught repeatedly between
the cords and twanging at the strings with a ferocity that made Harry fear for the functioning of his
legs. Each beat of his heart was louder than the last until it was rattling around his chest and
knocking on every rib, beating him blue from the inside out. He shivered despite the sticky heat of
the building itself. That cloying, curling heat that latched onto him like a leach and worked its way
inside of him, stretching out his blood vessels and sinking lower into his stomach until he was
pulling at his sweater just to have something to hold on to.

It only got worse the deeper into the hollowed hallways that Harry went, those dark winding
corridors lit by only a thin stream of buzzing fluorescence that painted each wall with eerie colours
that were as magical as they were maniacal. There was only one student down here, amongst the
monsters, and she was hunched over a desk in a small puddle of light, anxious not to be seen and
not to be heard by whatever lurked in the darkness.
Harry could feel her eyes on him—pricking at his back—as he passed her by and disappeared into
the writhing maze of books and shelves and tiny little rooms that no one had entered for years. The
dust was the most poignant reminder of the abandonment; the itching, prickling sensation that
always hangs around old buildings, that and the constant, almost choking, heat that was still
wrapping itself around him even this far below the surface of the city. This was truly what it was to
walk through the belly of the beast; to feel the functions of its body beat around you—its heart, its
lungs, even its blood vessels slowly squeezing the hot air between the shelves and into Harry’s
skin. This was what it was to have been consumed.

To his immense relief, the door was exactly where it was supposed to be, at least according to the
directions written in faded paint up on the wall, and had its name engraved on a little silver plaque:
The Slytherin Room. Harry stood outside it, staring at those slick black letters and almost feeling
the weight of them on his tongue; he’d never heard of anyone coming down here, much less being
invited down here, and thought of Tom inviting him made another shiver start in the base of his
spine. He swallowed. This was the moment when his life would begin—when he would become an
elusive somebody, and the things he did would mean something.
Harry shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his hand wrapped around the handle, but not
quite ready to push it open. Not when his heart was throbbing like this—threatening to push its
way out, stretching apart his ribs and forcing itself through, just as it had done when he’d first met
Tom, and every time their eyes had met since. It made a hotness spread beneath his skin, a burning
embarrassment, combining with the feeling of being special for the first time in his life because
someone had looked at him. Someone had noticed him. And, as though a ghost was following him,
he could almost feel the brush of gentle fingers on the back of his neck and between his shoulder
blades; cooling, calming sensations that were so different to the abrasion of his bag against his shirt
and the painful pounding of his heart.

He was going to push the door open, of course, he was, but as the moments stretched out longer in
front of him like the atoms of a lifetime lined up and waiting to happen, Harry faulted. The doubt
creeping into the back of his skull and diffusing out between the folds of his brain and making his
hand stiff on the metal of the handle; he squeezed his fingers and swallowed.
Perhaps it was fate that made a noise behind the door—enough of a sound that Harry pulled his
hand from the handle, his heart beating, pounding again, between his ribs.
Inside the room, there was the sound of a voice—two voices—one, identifiable as Tom’s, the
other, a man that Harry didn’t recognise. Maybe, he should have left it there; turned around and
returned through the darkened corridors and empty rooms to reach the stairs and climb his way out
of the third circle of hell. But he didn’t. Harry stayed, his right hand pressed flat into the wood,
balancing himself, and his forehead resting against the centre—listening.

"I'd be careful, Alphie,” came Tom’s voice, “that you don't get involved in something you
shouldn't,” he said, his tone, as casual and condescending as it had been when he’d admonished
Lestrange. That laxness in the syllables that made them run together ever so slightly, as though he
cared so little for the matter that he couldn’t even be bothered to enunciate them correctly.
"I'm already involved," the other voice snapped back, every syllable delivered with a biting
precision. “Mulciber made sure I was involved,” the guest added accusingly, and Harry imagined
that each word had been accompanied by the pointing of a finger right at Tom’s chest. “And now
you have to deal with the consequences of that.”
"Oh, right, the consequences—is that supposed to intimidate me?" Tom said, “is this whole
charade of yours supposed to intimidate me?”
The tone was so confident and so mocking that had Harry been the one standing there in front of
him, he would have withered to the ground at the utter shame of his pitiful existence. But whoever
Alphie was, he didn’t wither. He took two quick steps forward and Harry imagined him standing
over Tom, a crease in his forehead and his hands squeezed into fists. He imagined Tom too, his
chin tilted up, a disdainful eyebrow raised, his entire body strung with that impressive disinterest
only achievable by those who are so certain of their self-worth.

Sensing that the next words that would be spoken would be done so in a soft but devastating tone,
Harry shuffled further forward to press himself closer to the door, and to embody the eavesdropper
and the snooper, the pryer and the meddler.
But, as hard as he pressed his ear to the wood, he couldn’t hear anything that was said. He couldn’t
hear anything. Though, he did feel something—a small indent in the wood that was hidden by the
gloom. Harry raised his fingers to it, feeling the scratch as it flowed up and down, zig-zagging into
the shape of an M. The letter stood stark against the wood, and now it was there, Harry couldn’t
help but keep touching it, running his nails deep into the groove and feeling the smooth edges with
the pads of his fingers—it wasn’t a new marking. There was no splintering at the sides and the four
straight lines had been made smooth with the press of fingers, as though young lovers had leant
against the door and caressed the marking like it was their beloved’s cheek.
Harry was willing to pass it off as just that—two people young and in love writing it down so that
everyone would know—if it hadn’t been for the markings that came after. His fingers caught in
them as he traced the M for the fourth time, and it began with a small mark the shape of a comma
and moved into several more characters that muddled together. He swallowed and began to outline
each one slowly, the lines were harsh, carved with the sharp strokes of a pocketknife and worn
smooth with fingers over time, but Harry got into a rhythm of drawing them out and matching them
up in his head with the correct letter: an N, an I, an H, another I and finally and L, then a small
space and another word. In all, it spelt out nihil dicit.
The words themselves were unfamiliar but from Harry’s, admittedly limited, experience in
language, it was probably Latin; that was the language of the moment and the millennium, the
language of the elite, and the language of the law.
For reasons Harry couldn’t place, his heart was heavy on his chest, beating in time to the
conversation on the side of the door, and he was so caught up in notions of the illicit and the
forbidden—not that this was either. The words, whatever they meant, were carved clearly into the
middle of the door, if the six of them hadn’t put them there, they must at least know that they were
there, and no one who was committing crimes, was bragging about committing them quite
explicitly.

But Harry was dragged away from that thought by the sound of the voices again; although the
words themselves were still soft, their manner of delivery was becoming increasingly unpleasant
and the volume was rising to the point that Harry was starting to hear phrases again.
"They won't always be there to look after you, Riddle,” Alphie said, all snide and determined, as
though this wasn’t the first argument they’d had behind closed doors, “and without them, what are
you? Nothing but a scrappy little wannabe who thinks he deserves so much better than he can get.”
“And what does that make you, Alphie?” Tom replied, lingering on each word and finding little joy
in the taste of them, “the family disappointment? The first Black that doesn’t seem to quite
measure up?" He paused as a comic does to gain the full effect of their punchline, “at least, that’s
what I heard.”
The remark clearly didn’t sit well with his companion because there came an audible, angry, huff
and the sound of footsteps close to the door followed by a curt, but muffled, comment that Harry
didn’t quite hear. What he did hear, was a heavy thunk right against the door—the sound of
something metal going into the wood. Harry fumbled back, his heart banging as he waited for
someone to open the door and find him. No one did. The only sound at all was a lowered voice—
Tom’s voice—speaking so softly through the wood that Harry couldn’t hear him no matter how
close he got to the door.
"You wouldn't," Alphie said a moment later and with an air of confidence that wasn’t genuine; it
was too frayed—too weak—at the edges and soft in the middle. The voice of a man who’d met his
match and only realised it far too late.
"Do you want to bet your life on that?" Tom said, louder now, enough that each cold syllable was
delivered into Harry’s ear with all the weighty clarity it deserved, “because, I assure you, it will be
your life you’re betting with.”

Alphie didn’t reply and as Harry pressed his ear right to the wood, he could almost believe he
heard the nervous swallow that afflicted everyone when they feared for their lives. Not that he was
any better himself—like a deer hearing its mother get mauled between a predator’s teeth, Harry
stood still, his heart asphyxiating itself, and he waited; waited to be heard, waited to be found,
waited to be eaten in the same way.
“I didn't think so,” Tom said, a murmur more than anything but it scraped over Harry’s ear and
wouldn’t it be nice to have all Tom’s words close enough to graze his cheek? His tone cold and
sleek, serrated at the edge and just hypnotic, like hot molasses, and Harry wanted to drown in it; to
be enveloped and suffocated and consumed.
“Now run along,” Tom continued, “and take your pitiful attempt at intimidation somewhere else.”

The fumbling at the doorhandle gave Harry just enough time to scrabble away from the door before
it was swinging open and he was face to face with both Tom and his companion—a dark-haired
boy who could have been handsome if the dark circles of exhaustion were not so deep and his
mouth wasn’t misshapen into such a sneer.
Upon seeing him, Alphie stopped, his hand still on the door handle and his gaze tracking up
critically over him. He rolled his eyes.
“You just can’t stop yourself, can you?” he said, still staring at Harry with withering disdain, but
not addressing him. “Which gutter did you find this one in?” he said, turning to look at Tom—to
glare and to gloat over a statement that was neither witty nor interesting.
“The same one your family dragged themselves out of—now, as you can see, I have company.”
The dismissal was so blatant that Harry felt a cringe of embarrassment for every extra second that
Alphie lingered there.

Alphie stayed though, still seething, and words were coming out of his mouth that Harry didn’t
care to hear because he was looking past Alphie to where Tom was standing—motionless and
disinterested and very handsome. Even with the light behind him and the fluorescent shadows
carving up his features and glazing him with a green mosaic, Tom had the sort of face that invited
people to turn back and stare; the sort of face that got him remembered.
Harry couldn’t help himself and he let his gaze drift downward, passing over Tom’s mouth and
following the line of his neck right down to his shoulder. It was surely wrong to look at a man like
this, to spend so much time lingering on the cut of his features and the way that his shirt just clung
to his body, but Harry had been waiting all week to see Tom again and he wasn’t about to waste an
opportunity, especially not when Tom was still distracted with Alphie and so didn’t see him
staring.
And that was probably why Harry saw it. The simple, almost innocuous, act of Tom sliding
something in his pocket—something that looked awfully like one of those switchblades that people
with less than respectable reputations carried with them. Before he could stop himself, Harry
glanced at the door that Alphie was still standing beside and at the new dent in the wood, just
above his shoulder.
Small splinters coated the edges of the hole and the wood that was exposed was pale, and Harry
could imagine the blade cutting into the door before being levered out by Tom’s hands. He could
imagine Alphie pushed back against the door, as Tom traced the metal across his throat, settling
the point right into the hollow of his neck. Your life, Tom had said, probably as he flicked the tip of
the knife upward and left a pretty scratch on the crest of his throat.
Harry twisted his hands uncomfortably against his thighs, just one thought heavy in his head: did
he like it? Did Alphie like having a blade up against his pale throat? The tip of it reminding him
just how fragile his life was? Alongside the question was the weight of shame that thinking such
things made bloom in Harry’s heart because no good man should be thinking if it felt good to have
a knife pressed to his throat.

With one final comment that Harry missed, Alphie stomped away from Tom, purposefully
knocking into Harry as he went; but, somehow, the action didn’t feel like it born from malice.
Rather, it was the cry to be noticed, to be seen, and Harry tried to see. He looked, in that brief
moment when their shoulders collided, at Alphie’s hollow, over-stretched eyes with those darting
pupils like a deer in the hunt, and he tried to see what it was that Alphie wanted him to see.
“Harry,” Tom said, cutting into the space as he stepped out of the room and into the corridor.
“Harry,” he repeated, his hand touching at his shoulder, his fingers curling over the ridges of his
sweater and down his arm to his back so that Harry could feel the press of Tom’s fingertips on his
spine. “Come on.”
As Tom led him inside, Harry glanced one final time over his shoulder and watched as Alphie
blurred into the darkness of the corridor, not bothering to turn back and perhaps that was the one
impressive thing about him.
“Who—?” Harry began, allowing himself to be led.
“Alphard Black—he’s a friend,” Tom said, and Harry swallowed, the remark that that wasn’t how
you treated your friends saying firmly on his tongue. He left it alone though—perhaps even forgot
about it—as he let himself be guided across the threshold, marked by the door, and into the space
that marked out the known and the distinguished from the nameless and unremarkable.

The room wasn’t especially small, but the largess was offset by the furniture, and the whole effect
was rather comfortable; the typical concrete of a basement floor covered first with wood and then
with a carpet, and the walls lined with bookshelves—heaving with the sort of books that were
either too unpopular or too niche to keep upstairs.
Over to the right were several chairs and lamps for studying and, to the left, through a wide arch
was a common area, consisting of a green leather sofa, and two club chairs that matched it,
between them was a low, rectangular table strewn with pens and books in neat stacks. That part of
the room was not coated in books, but rather a dark wallpaper that widened the shadows until they
ate up the corners and licked at the backs of the chairs. In many ways, it was like their space
upstairs or like the sitting room at the Rosier’s house; an intimate space where they could do
whoever they wanted, and say whatever they liked, and be whoever they were. But if those rooms
represented freedom, then this one must represent a form of moral anarchy—the dark blotting out
the proper considerations and letting ideas flow as sleek and serpentine as they liked, and Harry
found himself drawn to it, pulled into the room by a mixture of curiosity and craving.

Tom removed his hand and took a seat in the middle of the sofa, the leather dipping under his
weight and creaking ever so slightly. Was it wrong to want to be a sofa? To want to feel the weight
of someone else on top of you, crushing you? Probably, but that didn’t stop Harry from wanting it
just a little. And for a long moment, Harry felt separate from his body—both within and without it
—as he stared at the room—the hollow that had extricated itself from time and space and floated in
the void of the universe as stars float in the sky. He stared at Tom too, and like a thief, he took
great, greedy gulps of his face and swallowed them down just so he could have them forever close
to his heart.
“Won’t you sit?” Tom said, a hand gesturing to the other chairs before lingering at the sofa. Harry
felt the urge to look around and see if anyone saw, even when there was no one there to see.
He sat as far from Tom as he could manage without seeming impolite and stole gazes like a
starving dog stealing scraps.
Tom’s jacket was neatly folded over the arm of the sofa and the sleeves of his white shirt were
rolled up to his elbows, but that wasn’t the part of Tom that Harry’s eyes were drawn to; that
privilege was reserved for the undone button at his collar. It was such a small detail, but Harry
stared at it anyway. As Tom sat back, the material of his shirt shifted over his chest, a crease
forming at his shoulder and pulling the fabric tight and there it was—a slice of his neck dipping as
far down the hollow of his throat. Harry licked his lips; it was such an intimate part of a man and
getting to see was like being allowed to hold his hand and Tom was indulging him with his head
tilted back just a tiny bit. And perhaps that was what made Harry snap out of it, the fact that Tom
made it obvious that he knew exactly where his eyes were going—the fact that Tom knew.
Harry jerked his head up—a guilty movement, all jerky and nervous—and met Tom’s eyes. He
flushed and felt like an idiot, sitting there staring with his mouth open and his hand gripping
hopelessly at his sleeve because he needed to have something pressed between his fingers.

“Tell me,” Tom said, shifting himself to sit a touch closer—the fabric of his trouser sliding over
the leather, “do you find my company so unpleasant?”
“No,” Harry cut in, barely before he’d even finished speaking.
“Then why,” he continued, “do you look like you fear I’m about to eat you?” Tom’s gaze on him
was unceasing as he spoke—his eyes sharp and appraising, and his lips parted just enough for
Harry to get a glimpse of his teeth. He likes to chew on them. Druella’s words rested heavily in the
back of his mind; Tom certainly looked like he wanted to take a bite out of him—a big bloody bite,
and Harry almost wanted him to.
“I’ve promised more time than I care to remember that I won’t bite,” Tom said, every word too
conversational, as though this was merely a discussion on the more tedious aspects of contract law,
and not whether Tom intended to eat him whole. “But,” he continued, “I can promise it again if you
want,” he paused, “do you want me to?”
Harry swallowed and stared at the carpet, tracing a loose thread that had got caught on the leg of
the table and caused a wrinkle to form. He likes to chew on them. It was all he could think about,
Druella’s teasing smile as she rolled those words over her tongue and, now, the edges of Tom’s
teeth as he smiled.
“Just one more time,” Harry said, turning to him and trying on a small smile—it felt too big and all
lopsided, but the look Tom gave him made it entirely worth the awkwardness of wearing it.
“Okay then,” he said, “I promise that I won’t bite.”

It was only a small thing, but Tom had the decency to say it with the utmost sincerity and Harry
was inclined to believe him. So, he sat back on the chair, moulding his spine to the leather and
letting one hand rest on his thigh whilst the other fidgeted with the sofa seam, pulling at the little
green thread and listening to the creak of the stitch as it came away from the body, and tried to
relax. He couldn’t though, because of that tiny niggle in his brain; the thought that he didn’t belong
here, not when he was so disconnected from the room—from himself even—like a stitch being
pulled from the sofa, he felt stretched and worn, wrenched out by nervous fingers until he could
hardly recognise himself.
“Do you ignore all your friends?” Tom said from across the sofa, “or is it a privilege you reserve
just for me?”
Harry glanced up at him. “Uh—no—I mean…” Tom watched him and left the space in the
conversation painfully empty for him to continue. “I mean,” Harry repeated, “I didn’t mean to
ignore you, it’s just—I don’t know what I’m supposed to be saying.”
It was so brutally honest that he thought Tom might laugh, after all, from Harry knew about him,
Tom wasn’t as patient as Lestrange and he certainly wasn’t as understanding as Rosier. Tom didn’t
laugh; he didn’t even let his mouth twitch or his eyebrow raise, he just continued to watch Harry
with that cool neutrality that smoothed over Harry’s awkwardness like icing over an uneven
sponge.
“Well then,” Tom said gently, “why don’t we start with what you were doing earlier this week.”
“W-what?” Harry said, not meaning to sound so on edge but managing it, nonetheless.
“Oh it’s nothing untoward,” Tom said—borrowing liberally from Druella’s lexicon, “just, if you
don’t mind me saying, I’ve been hearing rumours,” he said, as he leant back, his legs apart enough
that Harry had to glance at them, his eyes lingering for far too long on the wrinkle at the top of his
thigh.
“Rumours,” Tom continued, “that our friends have been harassing you.”
Harry pulled at his sleeve, dragging it over his knuckles; there was a glimmer to Tom’s eyes and a
casualness to his stance that suggested this wasn’t a serious criticism, but then again, Harry wasn’t
about to make the same mistake as Alphard and assume that Tom didn’t have specks of glass
embedded in his tongue—the sort that could make you bleed if he wanted.
“Uh, they weren’t… harassing per se,” Harry said carefully, though some of the interrogation
techniques that he had been subject to would probably come under a claim for harassment; a formal
cross-examination in the Crown Court would probably be less gruelling. “Just enthusiastic, I
think.”
“Well, that makes a change,” Tom said, “and probably means they liked you,” he continued,
speaking about them all like they were animals that either loved or loathed new company. “In fact,
Druella told me yesterday that having you for lunch was quite lovely.”

Harry should have been pleased, but at that moment there was only one thing on his mind.
“Does Druella tell you everything?” he said, the words tripping on his dry tongue and coming out
far more sore than he intended them, but this was a sore subject and all he could do was hope that
Druella hadn’t shared every single thing he’d ended up admitting to her. That might have been too
much to ask though because Tom was already looking at him and smiling like he knew that he was
the subject of Harry’s secrets.
“Of course not,” Tom said, “she likes having her secrets too much.” Harry was tempted to breathe
a sigh of relief and thank some higher power for Druella choosing—because it was a choice—to
keep her tongue behind her teeth. But before he could, Tom was leaned over to him in that
conspiratorial fashion of plotters and blackmailers whispering plans to one another.
“But that’s not to say she tells me nothing,” he said, keeping his tone light, almost teasing, “for
instance, she tells me when she enjoys herself, and she tells me when she finds her company…
satisfying.”
Harry swallowed, torn between staring at Tom’s mouth as he licked his way around every letter of
the alphabet, and staring at the floor as he regretted ever coming here. He chose the floor. And he
watched the wood, examining the gaps between the boards and the pale, scraped, marking across
the floor from where the furniture had been rearranged. If he had to, Harry could entertain himself
for hours by staring at other people’s floors—he’d had enough practice at it.
It quickly became clear though, that staring at the floor was the wrong choice because now he
could feel Tom’s eyes gouging out a hole in the side of his cheek, and he could feel the warmth of
him, and even hear the soft crinkle of his shirt as he shifted, but he wasn’t looking at him and to
look up now would somehow be to admit defeat in a game he scarcely knew they were playing.
Harry continued to look at the floor and pull at the thread of the sofa; just pulling at it in a
wretched attempt to ignore Tom’s shirt with that open slit at the top and the sinews of Tom’s neck
as he moved, and what it would feel like to run his fingers between the creases of his shirt and
touch at his throat. Harry just wanted to touch it, to revere it and hold it and squeeze it between his
fingers.

“You know what else she tells me, Harry?” Tom said, pulling Harry out of his fantasy, he finally
looked up and came face to face with the softest, most sacred part of a man that he rarely ever got
to see.
“She tells me when someone takes my recommendations,” he paused and let the words linger,
diffusing out and spreading thick between them. “Did you like it?” Tom said eventually.
“Yeah,” Harry replied, unsure whether he was answering the direct question or the unspoken one
that simmered just below the surface of the conversation, threatening to bubble up at any moment
and devour him.
“She also tells me when a man has principles that she admires.”
“Principles?” Harry echoed.
“Yes, Harry,” Tom said, “she thinks principles make a man, and, for once, I’m not inclined to
disagree—though, she seemed to think that one of your principles was a belief in non-violent means
of remedy, is that the case?”
Harry was silent for a second, turning over the reasons for lying and for truth-telling. He thought of
Druella remembering everything he said, maybe even writing it all down in a little book she kept to
herself and choosing which parts she wanted to share, and which little secrets would be hers alone
to keep. And he thought of Tom, right there, watching and waiting for him to answer.
“I’d say more… valuing all human life,” he said.
“Why?”
For a moment, Harry couldn’t speak, after all, the why was hardly relevant; human life was
valuable in and of itself, and something so intrinsically precious shouldn’t be questioned with the
casualness that Tom was questioning it with. It should be respected and esteemed, and not looked
at as though it was an academic experiment that yielded results and founded conclusions, and
entirely ignored the fact that these were real people with real lives.
“Because,” he started, “people are fundamentally good—and they will always try to do good
things, and that should be respected.”
“Will they, though?” Tom said, a hand on his thigh, smoothing out the crease in a way that was as
elegant as it was distracting, “what makes you so sure of yourself?”
“People are just inherently good,” Harry said, the hint of snappiness coming in at the corner of his
mouth because he meant it. “It is their circumstances, not themselves, that make them do less than
good things.”
“So,” Tom said, “where does the law stand in such a theory? Does it uphold these circumstances
and thus contribute to the decline of humanity? Or does it stand against them—a beacon of hope in
the restoration of decency?” He paused a moment, letting his hand wander back through the
persistent crease and drawing Harry eye again. “That is, essentially, to say, does the law lead to
undesirable behaviour, or…” he paused again, his thigh lingering on the crest of his thigh before
dipping down to the inseam, “…does our intrinsic depravity do that all by itself?”
“The law,” Harry said, his mouth working faster than his brain, “but a corrupted version—one that
is dirtied by capitalist ideals and—and other devaluations of human life,” he swallowed, his tongue
tingling—this was the first time he had spoken all the tongues that clung to the back of his throat
and it felt good. “In its proper form, the law should provide justice and certainty—it should be a
tool for freedom and not for the subjection of some people over others.”
“Careful,” Tom said, “or you’ll be accused of being a communist.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Harry replied, still bubbling and reckless from being able to say
whatever he liked and have no one mock him for caring about others.
“To the contrary,” Tom said, as he smiled again, though, this time it wasn’t as sweet, that
innocence that had always veiled his mouth was replaced by an expression, nothing short of, sultry;
the masculine equivalent of those Hollywood bombshells that all his peers saw every week at the
pictures. “But you didn’t quite address the other issue, did you, Harry?”
“Which was?”
Tom’s smile widened, and he leant in even closer, “don’t you think it is in our nature, as people, to
be monsters that like wearing human skin?”

Harry was silent, the words catching on the back of his throat and dying before they could reach
his lips. Frankly, it was outrageous to suggest that everyone in the world was a monster—self-
interested, cruel, and vindicative—ready to do whatever they had to to get what they wanted. To
think that the law was the only thing that held human morality in place was disrespectful to every
decent person that Harry had ever met, and yet, for every discourteous person with whom Harry
had crossed paths, it seemed to be a fitting description—and wasn’t that such a terrible thing to
think?
Tom’s shoulder was nearly touching his and he could feel the warmth of his body and the close,
stale air on the threshold of stagnation—there was something rotten eating at the room and it made
time slow down before Harry’s eyes. His heart squeezed between his ribs and every exhale of his
lungs sounding louder than the last. As if separated from his body, Harry stared at himself—did he
have something inside him? Something horrible and wretched squirming around like a maggot in
the stomach of a corpse?
“Tell me, Harry,” Tom said, making his head snap up and room strike itself back into focus,
“haven’t you ever wanted to do something monstrous just because you could?”
“No,” Harry said, even as he thought the opposite. Those boys from his childhood, and even from
his adulthood, who thought themselves so much better than him for no other reason than they had
been born with the world at their feet and he hadn’t. He had wanted to do things to those boys—
violent, horrid things with his nails and his teeth, and cruel, gouging, things with the sharpened tip
of a pencil.
“I don’t believe you,” Tom said, “everyone wants to be a monster.”
A part of Harry was disgusted; disgusted with Tom for saying that, disgusted with himself for
secretly agreeing, and yet, at the same time, he was so enthralled with the idea that everyone had a
monster embedded in their bones. It was the same feeling—settling heavily in his stomach—as he
had when Druella talked of killing people, as though it was the natural solution to life’s problems,
and when Rosier had said it paid to have secrets on everyone like people were playthings, and
when Lestrange suggested that there were ways of making people like you as if manipulation was
the only way anyone would ever fall in love.

He didn’t know why, but at that moment, his mind went back to the words on the door and to the
letter that sat before them. People didn’t carve things into wood unless they wanted them to be
remembered, it was why the stone pillars, up on the roof of the English department were engraved
with hearts and initials and romantic quotes about the nature of life and love and the mortal coil.
Likewise, no one would take the time to write something like that so prominently, unless they
wanted everyone to see, and, in Harry’s experience, the only two things people wanted others to see
were declarations of love and confessions of their darkest secrets—so which one was this?
“You’ve gone quiet—something on your mind?” Tom said.
“Uh, yes,” Harry said, reaching for one of the pens on the table, “what does this mean?” he said,
writing the phrase from the door out on his hand because he didn’t have any paper. Harry’s heart
thumped as he scribbled out the words, minus the M, of course—he might not have been the most
intelligent person in any room, but even he could work out that the M was an identifier—
something or someone that was special enough to be written into eternity.
He offered his hand and Tom took it as casually as if it were merely a bag from the greengrocer.
Gently, Tom turned the palm towards him, his eyes passing over the words and his spine
straightening out. He let go of Harry’s hand with a suddenness that was noticeable.
“Where did you see this?” Tom said, a stiffness in his tone and his mouth souring at the edges, “if I
may ask, of course?”
The question was innocent, but the stillness in the room and the set of Tom’s features—a sort of…
contempt leaching from his mouth, outwards to the rest of his face made Harry swallow. He didn’t
like the look on Tom’s face, from the shadows that crept in, to the twist of his mouth that he’d only
seen him do when reprimanding Avery. So, Harry paused, his mind whirring as he wavered
between telling Tom exactly where he saw it and keeping that information to himself.
“It was just in a paper I was reading,” Harry said, not quite meaning to lie but not quite feeling
morally obligated to correct himself, “and I didn’t know… and I just thought of it again… so I
thought I’d… ask you.”
Tom’s face softened and he reached again for Harry’s hand, taking it in his palms and smoothing
his thumb under the scrawled out words; he caught the last letter with his nail and it smudged—a
long streak of black ink going up along Harry’s finger.
“Sorry,” Tom said as he glanced up with that lovely face of his.
“It’s fine,” Harry said, knowing already that he was going to treasure that mark—trace it with the
very tips of his fingers as he fell asleep, comforted by the closeness of someone else.
“It’s law Latin,” he continued, “and means he says nothing—admittedly, it’s more common in
America but occasionally the English courts have found a use for it.” With that, Tom dropped his
hand and retracted himself as if he had just realised the impropriety of holding another man’s hand
like it was the loveliest thing in the world.
“If you want to know anything else,” he said, “you should ask Lestrange, he’s always been the one
who liked the legal lingo.”
“You mean, you don’t?” Harry said.
Tom smiled at him, “I mean,” he said, “it gets the job done, but it’s a little pretentious, and I didn’t
come to study law because I secretly wanted a career in theatre.”
“What do you want, then?” Harry said, his mouth, as usual, bypassing his brain.
Tom sat forward; his knee touched Harry’s on accident, but he didn’t move it, if anything, he
leaned into it until his thigh was pressed against Harry’s too and Harry was forced to decide
whether he wanted to back away—maybe even get up and sit across the room—or stay, exactly
where he was. He chose to stay, even as his skin prickled beneath the seams of his trousers and he
squeezed his legs together because to have them apart felt indecent.
“Oh, now there’s a question,” Tom said, “what exactly do I want?” he repeated back to himself, but
still holding Harry’s gaze. “But do you mean that with respect to my career?” he said, “or…” he
paused, his eyes settling on Harry’s mouth before tracking down to his collar and his tie and his
sweater, and even lower to the buckle of his belt. “…something else?”

Harry’s heart was pounding on his tongue and his hands were scrunched into his jumper and he
couldn’t possibly answer even when he knew the answer. Sure, he was interested in Tom’s future
career, but, right now, all he could think about was the something else that lingered, indecently, in
the sliver of space between them.
For want of something to do with his hands, Harry tugged at the neckline of his jumper—trying to
ease the mugginess that stuck to his skin—and began to pull awkwardly at his tie, the material
scratching at his neck and threatening the suffocate him.
“You know, you can take it off if you want,” Tom said, half motioning at his tie, “there’s no need
to maintain propriety just for my sake.”
Harry swallowed and almost without thinking reached both his hands up to his throat and began to
work them into the knot of his tie. He was only undoing a shred of fabric from around his neck, but
he felt like he was stripping nude and the way that Tom was watching him didn’t help; his eyes
were heavy and Harry could see the steady rise and fall of his chest. His lungs swelling and
contracting and his heart beating below his ribs. Harry could hear his own heart as it thudded on
his ribs and he wondered if Tom had ever watched a woman undress, or maybe even a man—
Malfoy working his slim fingers into buttonholes and pulling his shirt off with the garish
confidence of someone who knows they’re what everyone wants. He wondered how he compared,
even though he wasn’t actually undressing, much less undressing for Tom; was his coltishness was
endearing or embarrassing? And was his throat nice or did it make people avert their eyes?
Harry’s hands fumbled as he tried to undo his shirt button. Tom caught his hand and for the second
time, he smoothed his fingers over Harry’s palm and held him still.
“Let me,” he murmured. Tom’s hands were warm and gentle as he reached up and slid the button
out of its hole and spread his collar, the pad of his thumb catching on the crest of Harry’s throat
and making the whole universe shrink down to just this room, just this sofa, just those hands.

“Don’t you think it’s fascinating, though, that people can have a whole thing inside of them?” Tom
murmured, “a part of them that no one else will ever see?” he said, tearing his eyes off of Harry to
flex his hand, watching the outlines of the bones as they moved. Harry watched too. Tom’s hands
were pretty; firm and slim, articulate somehow, as though they were a mere extension of his mouth.
“I think it would be a waste,” Harry said, and he knew, the moment that the words left his tongue
that they had been too harsh, too incredulous, surprised even. They had been wrong for the
moment.
Tom hummed and looked up at Harry; his gaze focused and dissecting, “how do you mean?”
“You should always show people what you are,” Harry said carefully—he’d shown himself to
Druella, let her strip him back to the bare interior walls of his personality and a part of him wanted
to do the same to Tom, just pull him apart like braised meat from the bone, and see what thing he
had inside him.
“What if people wouldn’t like it?” Tom said, though he didn’t sound concerned about the prospect
of not being liked, if anything the thought appeared to pull at the corners of his mouth and make
something wicked spark in his eyes.
“Someone would,” Harry heard himself say softly, “someone would still want to get their fingers
into you and… open you up and… find out how you worked.” Someone would like to do that;
Harry would like to do that.
Tom didn’t reply immediately, he only held Harry’s eyes and let the heady silence envelop them,
wrapping itself around Harry’s throat and making it hard to swallow. Down here, the only sound
was the pipes rattling behind the walls and the heat rushing in your ears—it was suffocating.
“Your fingers, Harry?” Tom said eventually.
“What?”
“Do you want to get your fingers into me?” he said with all the slick impropriety that it deserved,
and Harry knew he was flushing—from the tips of his ears to the line of his jaw must have been an
embarrassing shade of red that flattered no one.
“Uh—umm—I—I wouldn’t—” he stuttered out, though his brain was already imagining them
being close enough for him to press his fingers against the base of Tom’s ribs and pushing into him
and curving around the bones.

They were practically close enough already, for Tom hadn’t moved back and so they were there,
together, knees and thighs and hips pressed together, choking out the space. And his heart was still
pounding on his tongue and his palms were almost damp; he pushed them into his thigh, eyes
darting across to Tom.
As subtle as he tried to be, Tom must have noticed because he turned his head and took a long
moment to trace his gaze up Harry’s body, starting at his cheap shoes and working his way up to
his mouth. Harry licked at his lip as though his saliva could serve as a boundary between him and
Tom—as though it could stop Tom from seeing him. Tom just smiled.
“If you see something you like,” he said, “I recommend you just look at it—it’ll save you time.”
“I wasn’t—” Harry began.
“You were,” Tom counted, “you’re quite the one for watching,” he said, “for seeing things you’re
really not supposed to.”
Harry’s mouth burned and by the heat of his face, he guessed his face was following suit. He
should have known that Tom would have remembered and that Tom would bring it up now
because whatever he might promise Tom would bite.
“I was supposed to see last time, though, wasn’t I?” Harry said, the bravery fizzing up from
somewhere inside him, and, grasping it with both hands, he added, “you wanted me to see you.”
“And what if I did?” Tom said, squeezing himself into his space, which only made Harry painfully
aware of Tom’s spare hand—the one that rested on his thigh in a mock-carelessness; the one he
wanted on his thigh.
“Does it give you ideas, Harry?”
His name sounded so intimate in Tom’s mouth, just rolling off his tongue as slick as oil. And Harry
stuttered because he had ideas, so many fucking ideas but he couldn’t do any of them and he
couldn’t say any of them because they all involved Tom’s collar and Tom’s throat and Tom’s
bloody mouth.
“Because it certainly gives me ideas,” Tom murmured, his hand coming to touch at Harry’s cheek,
his thumb running down his jaw and tilting his head upward. “A lot of ideas.”
Harry could scarcely breathe and a small, fervid, part of him wanted to take Tom’s face between
his hands and with a self-assurance that wouldn’t be lost on Malfoy, kiss him until his jaw ached.
But he didn’t because he wasn’t Malfoy—he didn’t have that cool certainty in everything he did.

Tom traced his thumb downward, following the natural curve of Harry’s neck, over the crest and
into the hollow where his tie used to be. Harry scrunched at the crumpled tie in his palm, squeezing
his fist until his hand hurt and trying not the stare at Tom’s mouth.
“I can feel your pulse,” Tom said, the words quiet and, Harry would almost say, tentative, as
though Tom was surprised that he would have a pulse. “Can you feel it?” he continued, “throbbing
on my fingers?”
“Yeah,” Harry breathed as he listened to the slow, deep, pounding inside himself; it was soothing,
in a way, and sensual—a rhythmic connection to his own body that came and went as dependable
and infinite as the waves rolling over the shore. Harry had never felt as calm and composed and
connected to someone else as he did then, for Tom was touching him, feeling him from the inside
out and no one had ever been that close to him before.
“Can you feel mine?” Tom said, and for a moment, Harry hesitated, unsure quite what Tom wanted
him to do, but it dawned on him soon enough, and as soon as it had, he couldn’t reach out fast
enough. His hand darting out to touch at Tom’s throat as if he could find salvation under the skin
of another man. Harry didn’t find deliverance, but he did find that hard, steady beat of a human
heart and wasn’t that a heady feeling? The intimacy of hearing the beat of someone else’s heart
was unbearable and all Harry could do was sit there—so conscious of himself and the space he
occupied, and the sound of the sofa made beneath him. He knew he should have looked away—
moved away—but it was like he was stuck there, jammed between his pulse and Tom’s gaze.
And Tom’s eyes were so dark and cold—the colour of dank earth and rot—and he was watching
Harry’s mouth with such care and such interest. It was how someone might look when they held an
orange in their palms and slowly peeled away the skin, the side of their nails stinging with the
juice, but their eyes unwavering as they pared away the rind and separated out the segments.
Somewhere in his mind, Harry wondered if he was being segmented by Tom’s gaze, pulled apart
by tender, hungry fingers.
Tom swallowed and Harry followed the movement through Tom’s jaw and down his throat and
back to his fingers pressed against Tom’s neck, where, if he wasn’t mistaken, Tom was leaning
into the touch—like a wild animal one generation away from domestication. Tom’s lips were
parted, and Harry could see the edges of his teeth again and he couldn’t help but wonder what it
would take to make Tom bite him with those teeth; to chew on him like a piece of tenderloin beef.
“Did you feel it when you were watching me?” he said, holding his gaze just as Harry had done,
and Harry heard himself swallow, his saliva scraping down his throat. He could still remember
every detail of Tom’s face reflected at him, from the angle of his jaw as it tilted upward, to the
colour spilling down his cheek and the bob of his throat as Malfoy inclined his head.
“Did you like it?” Tom continued, and Harry was uncomfortably aware of the warmth of Tom’s
fingers pressed against his skin and the slightest pressure of his thumb on the very crest of Harry’s
throat; it made him itch, right under his skin, right inside him. And, as if it would stop the rolling
of his stomach, Harry gripped at Tom’s throat, pushing the blunt curve of his nails into Tom’s
neck. In response, Tom leaned into his space, dipping his mouth so close that Harry could image
the taste of it on his tongue. “Do you want it, Harry?”
“I—I…” Harry was nodding though he didn’t know exactly what it was that he wanted, only that
whatever it was, he wanted it; he wanted to have it, to possess it, to hold it between his fingers and
call it his own.

But it was the sound of the door slamming that ruined it all. Harry nearly jumped out of his skin
when he heard it and he lurched back against the arm of the sofa like a deer at the cocking of a
gun; he gripped at it with both hands as he, one leg up on the seat, and panted and swallowed and
did his best to ignore the embarrassment that was churning in his stomach.
Avery appeared around the arch, shrugging his coat off, though he stopped when he saw the two of
them sitting there, at once suspiciously far apart and suspiciously close together. Without taking his
eyes off them, Avery continued to take off his coat, sliding it off his stiff shoulders and pulling his
gloves off, the right and then the left—he put them into his pockets, before hanging up the coat on
the other side of the wall.
“You’re both very quiet,” he said, stepping through the arch and letting the shadows crawl over his
face, and his mouth twisted with a sneer, “I didn’t interrupt something, did I?”
“No—” Harry began, but Tom spoke over him, “yes, actually—you did,” he said, as he curved
himself into the leather of the sofa, his head tilted back, somehow looking down at Avery even
when he was looking up.
“Well,” Avery said, stepping forward again and leaning on the back of the nearest armchair, his
hands resting on the lip and his fingers gripping hard enough to make his knuckles white and the
imprints of his finger pads embed themselves in the leather, “I won’t say I’m sorry because I’m
not.”
“I never presumed you would be,” Tom said, and there was silence. Avery standing and watching
with barely concealed disapproval and Tom sitting and, in his silence, challenging Avery to say out
loud what was bothering him.
“It’s just you, is it?” Tom said eventually.
“Yeah,” Avery said, “it’s just me,”
“Well then, take a seat, Harry and I were just– ”
“I noticed,” Avery snapped, too fast and too sour for it to have been anything other than
condemnation. He continued to stand there and look between the two of them, the same way he
looked between Druella and Rosier, though, Harry noticed, Avery spent a lot more of his time
looking at Tom than looking at him—frankly it was a blessing. He didn’t want other people to see,
let alone, know just how much he liked the way Tom had been looking at him.
There was another minute of uncomfortable silence, punctuated only with the squeaking of leather
as Harry rearranged his limbs in an awkward attempt to pretend that he didn’t exist.
Tom was the one to interrupt the quiet. “Is your problem with Harry, or with me?” he said, his tone
firm, almost nasty, though he didn’t even bother looking at Avery, choosing instead to examine his
nails.
“I don’t have a problem.”
“Of course, you don’t,” Tom said, “so would you prefer that we discussed this outside, or are you
going to get over yourself?”
Avery glared; his jaw tight and his teeth practically grinding, but just as he had done before, he let
go of the chair and came to sit in it like a dog when its master whistles. Sitting did not improve his
mood though, and he continued to glare as he sat with his legs crossed and his arms folded.
“This better?” he said with a touch too much antagonism—just as he had when he was talking to
Rosier; a biting resentment that must have had a source, though Harry doubted Avery would be
willing to part with it—much less in front of someone else.
The remark clearly did exactly what it was supposed to because it made Tom look up and Avery
smiled unpleasantly at him like a cat just after it had pushed an expensive vase off the high shelf.

Without saying anything, Tom stood up and crossed the short distance to where Avery was sitting
with his arms folded and both feet on the floor—it made him look like a petulant toddler, but Harry
wasn’t about to voice that opinion. Instead, he just stayed still and quiet and watched how Tom sat
on the arm of Avery’s chair; not inappropriately close, but close enough to suggest he trusted
Avery not to be violent.
“You know,” he said softly, his hand resting on Avery’s shoulder in a way that was so intimate that
Harry wanted to avert his eyes, “if you want my attention, you just have to ask for it,” he paused to
smooth his thumb over the seam of Avery’s jacket, “are you asking for it?”
“I’m fine,” Avery said, shrugging off Tom’s hand, but not pushing him away like Harry thought he
might. But whatever he might say, Avery didn’t sound fine; he sounded bitter and frustrated,
 though he looked up at Tom like a small child looked at adults—envious and awing and covetous
—like Harry looked at all of them. Not for the first time, Harry wondered what had passed between
them and made a mental note to ask Rosier about it the next time they were alone.
Despite Avery’s rebuff, Tom was persistent, and he leaned into his space. “How was that book I
leant you?” he said still all gentle and slow, how one might address a child.
“Good,” was the equally childish reply.
“That’s hardly a comprehensive analysis.”
“You want a fucking book report?” Avery hissed, jerking his gaze away and choosing to stare at
the floor with his jaw set tight and his hands clenched.
Tom wasn’t fazed. “I just want to know that you liked it—sum it up in one sentence.”
Slowly Avery turned his head back and Harry swallowed again because the air felt heavier between
them.
“The degradation of man into beast was as seamless as it was grotesque,” Avery said, every word
pronounced with the utmost clarity, and his face steely as it stared at Tom. Unspoken words passed
between them—a silent argument to which Harry was not invited to join. Probably for the best, if
he’d learnt anything about Avery, it was that he didn’t want to be caught up in his arguments.
“And do you think all men are beasts?” Tom said, his hand coming to rest on Avery’s shoulder
again, and this time, Avery didn’t push it away. Rather, he merely continued to watch him; his
mouth hard and something cruel on the back of his throat—Harry would see it twisting his lips.
“Oh, I know they are,” he said, “and so do you.”
Tom raised his brow, and Harry couldn’t help but feel that Avery had said something he shouldn’t
have—some secret that was best kept hidden behind pleasant smiles and polite conversation.
“By the way,” Avery added, “the librarian was asking for you—she sounded needy.” He pulled his
shoulder out from Tom’s grip, “you should probably go and see her.”

End Notes

This is also way more ambitious than what I'd usually attempt, but you have to challenge
yourself occasionally, don't you? Anyway, I hope this wasn't too terrible.

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