Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry squinted his eyes, looking at the video in disbelief before sucking his teeth and scrolling to the next. "What exactly is the purpose of this app?"

Seamus laughed from where he was setting up a ring light. "It's a dancing app but people upload loads of other stuff these days. You can also promote your business and stuff on it."

"Hmm. And how many followers do you have?" he asked in curiosity even as he scrolled past almost every video, a look of boredom on his face.

After positioning his ring light exactly how he wanted it, he moved behind the makeshift counter which he typically used in all of his videos and sat down on the new stool he had bought to take some pressure off of his back.

"I'm at 113k subscribers now so I'm not doing too badly," he responded, making me certain that the camera was angled perfectly before motioning to Dean to begin recording.

Harry immediately tuned him out and continued scrolling through TekTuk; he wasn't really a fan of the app but it's becoming so popular that he thought that he'd check it out and see what all the rage was about.

So far, he wasn't impressed.

Most of the videos were either corny, cringy or clickbait.

He had created an account even though he didn't necessarily need one but he was starting to regret it.

And as Seamus and Dean filmed their experiment, he exited TekTuk and got up off of the sofa he was lying on before leaving the room.

"So fucking bored," he muttered softly as he maneuvered his way through Seamus and Dean's dorm.

He would message them later as he was getting a bit hungry and wasn't one to wait until he was starving to eat.

Pretty soon, he was standing out in the hallway of the apartment complex. He just closed the door behind him and left, ignoring the barely concealed mutterings behind him.

He didn't much care if anyone talked about him behind his back. It was just annoying sometimes.

A couple minutes later, he was finally out of the building. His phone buzzed in his hand and when he looked at the screen, it was to see a message from his ex-boyfriend.

"Fuck this," he muttered as he swiped the notification off of the screen and clicked it back off.

He scrubbed a hand down his face and decided to just order a pizza as he didn't want to head back to his own dorm right now.

Rooming with an ex was already shitty, but getting message that said ex was hooking up with someone else in their dorm room was next level torture.

Those fucking bastards in Housing didn't even want to switch them as roommates even though they had more than had enough space.

He cursed lowly and began heading towards the only Cafe on the campus.

He didn't feel like eating pizza again.

…

Harry received another message from his ex-boyfriend saying that he could now return to their room; he was absolutely livid.

Tom was such a fucking asshole.

Fists clenched, he opened the message and responded to both the previous and recent message.

Harry made sure to block the bastard and delete his number this time; he didn't know why he still held some hope that Tom even regretted what he did.

That bastard did whatever he wanted without caring about other people's feelings.

He wiped his face just to make sure that no tears had escaped and closed his phone.

"Hey. May I interest you in a cup of cocoa? You look like you need it."

Harry's head snapped up to look at the person and he wasn't surprised that he didn't know him.

He was most likely a new worker or something if the name tag on his shirt was anything to go by.

'Theo'

Silence reigned for a couple seconds before Harry remembered the guy had asked him a question.

"Oh.. Uh.. Yeah, thanks. That'd be great."

The guy smiled. "Awesome! Do you want anything to eat with it?"

Harry frowned thoughtfully and looked over at the counter. "A large cinnamon roll would be great and two slices of plain cake."

The guy's eyebrow rose but he nodded all the same. "Sure thing. I'll be right back."

…

After that day back at the Cafe, Harry would visit every other day and strike up a conversation with the guy who he had come to know as Theodore or Theo for short.

He was rather attractive but Harry liked the fact that the other guy was easy to talk to.

Whenever he could manage to take a break, they would talk about anything and everything.

He quite liked talking to him since he didn't really have anyone to hang out with after Ron had betrayed him by sleeping with Tom.

It was all rather ironic to realize that Ron liked Tom. The same Tom who he had been bad-talking for years.

But it wasn't that surprising that Tom wasn't interested in him after they had had sex.

Tom was rather particular on his sexual partners and while he might have had sex with Ron just for the heck of it, he would definitely not want to continue.

Ron is not his type whatsoever.

There was a reason why everyone Tom slept with after Harry looked similar to him.

Tom was a narcissistic bastard. He was great in bed but that's where anything nice about him stopped.

Well that wasn't exactly true, but still.

Not to say that Harry was suddenly interested in Theo but the vibe that the other boy was showing seemed to scream that he was interested.

He wasn't sure he even wanted to be in another relationship right now.

Him and Tom had been dating straight out of high school and to move on from that relationship this quickly wasn't easy for him as it was for the other man.

Sighing softly, he broke himself out of his thoughts to smile at Theo who was quickly approaching him with two slices of cheesecake in both hands.

"Hey, you. I can't help but notice you wallowing and polluting the atmosphere with sadness."

Harry snorted and gratefully took one of the plates from him. "You should be used to my wallowing by now."

Theo laughed and sat down in the opposing chair. "That's true. But still, I see you, it's like you're reliving bad memories."

He just shrugged and took the offered fork from Theo.

What could he say to that?

"You should make new memories to get rid of the bad ones."

He sliced off a piece of the cheesecake and looked up at Theo while placing the fork in his mouth. "It's not that easy."

"Au contraire." Theo sighed and relaxed back in the comfortable armchair. "It is that easy, actually. You just need to accept that you made those bad memories and once you do, you should realize if you continue thinking about them, your entire mood is going to be ruined. Just try to let loose. Do something spontaneous. What do you have to lose?"

Harry looked out of the window of the Cafe, observing the different types of people walking by in momentary fascination. "If I were to spontaneously kiss you. What would you say? Every action has a reaction, after all."

Theo snorted. "While I've never considered kissing a guy before, I'd say that you don't exactly look like you're interested in me and while I don't mind giving kissing you a shot, I'm not into being a rebound for Riddle."

Harry's head snapped around in shock; he stared at an amused Theo in shock. "H-How?"

"It's obvious. Riddle is one of the most popular guys on campus. Ever since you guys came here, everyone knew about your relationship. Everyone's been wondering how you even put up with that ass." Theo shrugged and stabbed his fork in his own cheesecake, a look of concentration on his face. "No offense, Harry. But Riddle has been hooking up with other people since you guys started your first semester which is a miracle that you haven't contracted anything from him. No one wanted to butt into your relationship but we used to tell your best friend so that he could at least make it known but turns out he also wanted to sleep with the bastard. Bad luck, huh?"

He remained silent.

Not to say that it was shocking. He had known for a long time that Tom had been sleeping with other people. He just didn't want to confront him because he wanted to avoid disappointing their parents who had been eagerly waiting for them to get married.

Harry has been holding on to the thought that maybe if they got married Tom would start being more mature and faithful but he had just been fooling himself.

He had tried so hard to make their relationship work but Tom always ruined it.

He had held on for so long and Theo was right. If he continued to wallow in the past, he would no sooner drown.

It was a lesson that maybe you shouldn't sacrifice your mental health to change or help someone that didn't care nor want to change.

Both him and Tom were adults.

Tom needed to grow up and he needed to start prioritizing himself.

"Terrible luck," he muttered as he bit
into the cheesecake harshly after forgoing the fork. "Tom's the biggest asshole on this earth. But you're right, I should start making new memories."

A tear slid down his face and he closed his eyes as the painful memory of walking in on Tom and multiple people came to the forefront of his mind. "You're totally right."

He sniffled and wiped at his face, looking back at Theo who was looking at him sadly.

"What do you say we hang out tomorrow? We could even film one of those lame TekTuk videos."

Theo laughed and leaned forward. "I hope you know that I have a huge following on TekTuk. I'm gonna make you go viral."

Harry just snorted and shook his head. "I'm sure.."

In response, Theo stuffed the rest of the cheesecake in his mouth and pulled out his phone as he chewed. "Lep e shw u."

He snorted but allowed the other boy to push his phone in his face to see his following.

Maybe opening himself up for another friend might help with rebuilding his trust in others after Ron and Tom's betrayal.

While Seamus and Dean were okay, they just hung out sometimes as both of them were together and in one of those lovey dovey relationships.

He didn't need that negative energy.

And looking at the proud grin on Theo's face, he couldn't help but think that he was off to a good start.

Who knew where this friendship might take him.