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It started, as many things did, during breakfast in the Great Hall. Tom’s seventh year had begun a few days earlier and he was enjoying the quiet of an early morning with plentiful food in his true home. Inhaling the steam from a cup of rich, dark coffee, he dared to think the day might be a pleasant one.
A rather unnecessarily erotic moan ripped through the subdued muttering in the hall and swiftly killed Tom’s hope for a peaceful start to the day. And, really. It was 7:45 in the bloody morning. Were these people rabbits? Did they think of nothing else?
Dozy students began turning their heads to find the source of the disturbance, some of the more alert ones with their cheeks already staining red.
“Oh my god,” the transfer student – Harry Evans, newly minted seventh-year Hufflepuff – was clearly enjoying his banana, if the blissful expression and almost pained sounds were anything by which to judge.
A few seats down from Tom, Alphard Black snapped his quill, spilling ink onto his last-minute homework. He was completely unaware of his ruined essay, focused as he was on the spectacle a couple tables over.
“You’re leaking, Black,” Tom drawled, unimpressed, gaining some satisfaction from the pureblood’s sputtering and the snickers that kicked up around the Slytherin table.
As the Hufflepuff finished devouring the fruit, he opened his eyes and noticed his audience, freezing as if that would render him invisible.
Swallowing visibly, he weakly said, “Uh, er… The bananas sure are great today, yeah?”
Growing more mortified as the words left his mouth, Evans beat a hasty retreat out of the hall, the eyes of several students glued to his slight form.
Honestly. Teenagers.
And that should have been it. But it wasn’t, because the universe existed to frustrate Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Word must have spread of the banana incident, as there were more students present at breakfast before 8 AM the following day than Tom had ever seen in his six years of attending Hogwarts. Eyes kept darting towards the dark-haired boy, who was stiltedly conversing with a couple of the other seventh-year Hufflepuffs. There seemed to be a collective holding of breath when Evans reached for a long, yellow fruit, peeled it diligently, and took a bite.
While the reaction wasn’t as… intense as it had been the day before, Evans’ eyes slid shut, his brow furrowed, and a soft moan could be heard, though only because of how quiet the entire hall had become. The boy became aware of his attentive audience more quickly this time, blinking owlishly and staring as those watching scrambled to look away and start up conversations. Tom was certain he saw more than one student hastily mop drool from their chin.
“Is there… something weird about how I eat bananas?” Evans asked his seatmates obliviously. (Tom was so disappointed his lip-reading skills were being used for this.)
As the days progressed, Tom was subjected to several lewd conversations on the topic of Evans’ appreciation for bananas from his housemates and during his Head Boy duties. He could hardly be blamed for a few hexes going awry and striking the worst offenders in these conditions. (Nothing that could be blamed on him, of course. Appearances to keep up, and all.)
If the chatter in the halls was anything to go by, that year’s introduction to Amortentia involved many more people smelling banana amongst their preferred scents than could usually be explained.
And then Evans seemed to have a continuous supply of bananas. Hopeful (pathetic) paramours from all houses brought the boy elongated, edible offerings throughout the day. These were initially met with confusion or occasionally alarm, depending on the gifter and their level of enthusiasm, but Evans eventually settled into mildly amused appreciation.
Hallway and classroom accidents hit a new high according to the professors, who long-sufferingly ignored the latest bout of lust-addledness amongst their students and tried to power through the curriculum. Those who had taught for any number of years had learned at one point or another that singed eyebrows and the occasional human transfiguration accident served as better motivation to pay attention than any reprimand or detention.
When three of his knights had to be sent to the Hospital Wing in one day – Mulciber failed to dodge a simple cutting hex in DADA and severed an artery, Malfoy accidentally spelled his right foot into a tentacle, and Black knocked himself unconscious walking into a bloody wall – Tom decided it was time to put his foot down.
He approached the boy as they were both headed back to the dungeons after dinner, affable model-student mask firmly in place.
“Evans, might I have a word?”
The boy whipped around to face Tom, eyes wide in surprise and wariness. He held his ground as Tom stepped nearer, though the tension in his shoulders belied how uncomfortable he was with the Slytherin’s proximity.
“Sure. What’s up, Riddle?”
Tom was momentarily thrown off by the oddly used words, but he was coming to realise that Evans might just be strange.
“I’ve noticed your eating habits have become a distraction to the other students,” Tom said, smiling charmingly in an effort to lower the other’s hackles. “Would you be so kind as to keep your snacking to the Great Hall from now on?”
Evans eyebrows shot up before settling into a somewhat calculating look. He drew a banana out of his bag – how did he always seem to have one at hand? – and slowly, deliberately peeled it while holding Tom’s gaze.
“I could, but none of the professors have commented on it,” Evans licked his lips, drawing Tom’s eyes briefly down to stare.
And, as Evans maintained eye contact while sliding the banana along his bottom lip before pushing it slowly into his mouth, a muffled groan and thud echoing down the corridor indicative of another student falling prey to a stationary object, it dawned on Tom.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” he accused.
Evans’ lips split into a wide grin with far too many teeth, which proceeded to chomp harshly through the fruit.
“Doing what?” the other boy asked innocently, mischief dancing in his eyes as he chewed his mouthful of banana.
And if Tom hadn’t been made to understand how weak-willed his followers were, felled by a well-handled piece of phallic fruit, he might have applauded the other boy’s deviousness.
As it was, he had knights to reprimand. Tom turned to stalk off.
“I must admit, I didn’t think it’d have any effect on you,” Evans said.
He grit his teeth but made sure his voice came out evenly, glancing over his shoulder. “You're mistaken--"
“Watch out,” Evans called after him. Tom turned just in time to avoid walking into an open door jutting into the hallway. He turned around to see Evans grinning at him, cat-like and knowing, before taking another bite of banana and sauntering off. If Tom stared after him long after he’d disappeared from sight, there was no one around to know.