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Chapter Text

PRELUDE

Tom Riddle doesn’t believe in love at first sight—but he does believe in obsession.

The boy on the stage is built and bred for it; dark hair curling over the tips of his ears, violin tucked neatly under his chin. His fingertips dance along the strings, a wave of staccato movements that juxtapose the sweep of his bow.

He’s an obsession waiting to happen.

The music is sharp and almost caustic. It doesn’t shy away from your ears, timid or unsure. It’s boastful—it’s beautiful.

He plays like he couldn’t live without it, as if the world couldn’t pry that husk of wood from his fingers. He plays like Tom: hungry and desperate to prove himself.

Suddenly, the boy relaxes the lip of his instrument, still resting loosely under his chin, and Tom doesn’t stop to think about what to say. He only knows, with startling clarity, that this is the sort of moment where everything changes.

The stars rattle in the sky, clanging against each other, and the universe unfurls. When objects come into motion, they continue that way—Tom knows a beginning when he sees one.

Every song has a first note. He just has to play something.

The boy looks up, finally, and spies him there. He seems startled by his interloper. Eyes grow wide, shocked for a moment, before the curl of his lip tugs up; crinkling hesitantly.

“Hello there,” he says, softer than any music.

It’s so unlike the way he plays that Tom feels the words digging their fingers into his skull; the skin giving way to morbid curiosity. Fascination quickly follows in its footsteps.

Tom can feel it, the same itch that had burrowed in his bones years ago. Sat at his grandmother’s knee, watching her fingers drift along the keys, he’d felt—for the very first time—like the world, and all the people in it, might not be wholly unfamiliar after all.

He has to say something. That very first note—

(Tom will regret this. He’s going to think about this day for the next six years.)

OVERTURE

The sun dawns high and mighty over the stone walls of Hogwarts Conservatory.

The building is every bit as imposing as its reputation. Children come from all over the world to be trained by the masters; for their talent to be cultivated and ripened.

Tom was once one such child. Now, he is on the brink of his very own cadenza—the sole orchestrator of a grand new melody.     

His final year dawns before him, aching with potential. Unfortunately, most of it remains to be seen.

He hurries through the courtyard, determined to be the first one inside the Great Hall for Assembly. The yard is bustling, full of laughter and elbow jostling, the masses desperate for attention and purpose.

They all scurry away from him, like spiders in the light.

It’s no matter. Tom is brilliant. Even they can’t deny that.

He pushes the doors open at nine sharp, to the groundskeeper still hauling the oversized wooden tables across the floor with a screech. He’s nearly done clearing the space, and the open, pine-drenched room is as welcoming as always.

People start to filter in sometime after Mr. Hagrid is finished, and Tom claims a spot along the furthest wall. He will deny looking if anyone asks—but no one will.

He spots him quickly, making his way through the crowds. The shock of his hair, tumbling across his temples; the shift of his eyes, always alert.

Harry.

He watches him cross the hall, waving hello to everyone who smiles at him. He’s at home in this space; beloved Harry Potter, friend to all.

And then he spots Tom.

“Riddle,” he greets him tersely.

He looks well. Summer always does him wonders, bathing him in warm tones. His skin has darkened like honey, golden even under the harsh fluorescents.

“Potter,” Tom drawls, trying to look bored. “You were two whole seconds late on your entrance this morning. Did you forget Tchaikovsky waits for no one?”

Harry scowls. “So? It was a practice run.”

Tom scoffs, watching Harry’s eyes reflecting in the early light. The sun has been tugged up the sky, casting him in bronze, and the flecks of gold in his eyes stand out amongst the green. They’re usually swallowed whole by the bright expanse of color.

“You’re better than that.”

It’s true. Harry’s too good to get distracted.

Everyone knows that, too. And no one would try to deny it.

“Students!” McGonagall, the deputy headmistress shouts over the din. “Please report to your Head of House for schedules.”

He nods at Harry, catching one last look before slinking off. Harry rolls his eyes at Tom, stuffing his hands in his pockets, but he nods back.

“That Riddle kid's always such a freak,” he hears someone whisper as he stalks toward Professor Snape.

Tom’s steps speed up, eager to get out of the throng of sweaty, imbecilic children. He brushes shoulders with a Fourth Year, and they shoot him a nasty look, checking their shoulder against him with more force than necessary.

“Don’t be an ass, McLaggen,” Harry murmurs, as Tom fights his way through the crowd.

He leaves the same way he’d arrived—in love with Harry Potter.

PRELUDE

The other boy had begun their tune, and Tom only had to match the pace. The possibility of it all was breathtaking—opportunity stretched its limbs before them, rife with potential. 

“Your vibrato is inconsistent,” Tom says, his words as absolute as always. “But you play as though you’ve come alive for the very first time.”

The boy blinks. And blinks again.

“…Thanks?”

Tom’s palms are clammy. He fumbles, wiping them on his tailored khakis. The material absorbs his perspiration as he clumsily reaches for something to say.  

“You’re welcome,” Tom answers, and doesn’t move.

He just keeps staring. Watching this boy as he tucks the violin into the crook of his arm and flattens down his fringe.

“Erm… my name's Harry,” he responds, when the silence has stretched too thin between them to be comfortable.

Harry. What an ordinary name for a boy so exceptional.

“Tom.”

And Harry watches him for a few more moments, his smile slowly falling off his cheeks. Eventually, he clears his throat, averting his eyes.

“Well,” he says, with an air of finality—shrugging alongside a cavalier, roguish sort of expression, one that would become a staple in later years. “It was nice meeting you, Tom.” 

And then he turns away, his back to Tom, and begins putting his violin back in its case.

As the final note rings around them, its cadence is premature: haunting, and over far too soon.  

OVERTURE

When Tom is called to the office after the Opening Assembly, he can’t imagine why. He’s had a decently squeaky reputation since arriving at the Conservatory, aside from the notable exception. 

He’s even more shocked, however, when he enters the headmaster's chambers to see Harry Potter sitting on the edge of one of Dumbledore’s plush wingback chairs.

“Ah, there you are, Mr. Riddle.”

“Sorry sir,” he murmurs, settling his satchel carefully in his lap and moving to sit. “What’s this about?”

Dumbledore smiles at them, a genial thing; though it’s laced with pity by the time it reaches Tom.

“I’m very sad to say Harry’s roommate won’t be rejoining us again this year.”

Harry looks up at that, shock evident in his features. He clearly had no idea why he’d been called to Dumbledore’s office, let alone that his old friend wouldn’t be returning.                               

“As you may know, we’re a bit… low on space, shall we say. Too much talent in today’s youth!” he chuckles, and Tom resists the urge to roll his eyes. The school board is hoping to collect as much tuition as possible is more like it.

“However, that leaves us without many available rooms. As Mr. Riddle is one of the few students with a single dormitory, and Mr. Potter is now quite alone,” he continues with a pleased expression. “I thought you boys might share!”

“What?”

Harry has slid further out of his seat, balancing now on the very lip of his chair. He wobbles, as though he might fall right off the edge.

“You two are in the same year, yes?” the headmaster asks him, looking down at Harry with disapproval. The boy seems cowed by this, for some reason. Ridiculous—Harry is worth ten of Dumbledore. “You must know each other.”

“Not very well,” Harry mumbles. He’s looking at his sneakers as if they were terribly interesting, instead of peeling at the seams and speckled with mud.

“That’s fine,” Tom blurts out, the words spilling too quickly from his teeth.

Immediately, his cheeks heat, painting the highest points of his face in color. Harry looks over at him with poorly disguised confusion as Tom’s flush eats away at the deathly pallor of his skin.

It feels stifling, suddenly, in the heat of the Headmaster’s office.

The curtain ruffles in front of the open window as Tom averts his eyes. The fabric has become nearly as interesting as Harry’s trainers, all of a sudden.

“I’d hoped you’d be the one I could count on to help resolve this matter, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore implores, that manipulative twinkle refracting in his eye. “But if it’s too much for you, my dear boy, I understand.”

The sun streams in through the window, filtering through a patch of dust. Its beams lap at Dumbledore’s desk, teething at a plaque on its surface. World’s Best Headmaster, it taunts, throwing golden light against cherry-stained oak. 

“No,” Harry sighs. “That’s fine, Professor.”

“Glad to hear it boys!” The old fool chuckles. “Do let me know if you need anything, won’t you?”

Tom nods stiffly as Harry bends down to retrieve his bag from the floor. It’s covered in pins, and fraying around the front closure, and Tom shakes away the urge to offer to carry it for him.

“Lemon drop?” that doddering, cantankerous whelp offers—and both Tom and Harry make a very quick exit.

All alone together, in one little room. Him, asleep, not two feet away. His breathing in the dark, his body still wet from the shower—

It was shaping up to be a very long year already.

PRELUDE

It hadn’t gone as well as Tom would have liked, but Harry hadn’t jeered at or taunted him. He hadn’t called him any names, like the children at Primary would have.

He was perfect.

“It was nice meeting you, Tom.”

Tom has never fallen victim to stage fright. The only time he feels alive is when his fingers are resting against keys.

People are messy. They’re loud and confusing, and summarily hard to read. But music is only messy when it’s meant to be. Tom can declutter the notes, untangling them with every press of his fingers, until the piece has been wrangled into submission.

“Goodbye,” Tom says abruptly, before turning on his heel.

“Um… okay. Goodbye?”

His fingers tap along his trousers, beating Liszt’s La Campanella into the starched fabric. He makes his way quickly through the corridors, not meeting the eyes of any of the other children, swimming through the sea of bodies.

He knows exactly what to do with all his newfound energy.

When he makes his way inside his new dormitory, shutting and locking the door swiftly behind him, he goes immediately towards the PC; freshly removed from the box. Tom boots it up, his left hand still tapping the melody of Liszt’s most demanding piece.

Harry, he thinks, still stuck on the echo of Brahms’ the boy had teased from his strings.

And then he begins to write.

OVERTURE

Tom lets Harry into their now shared space, the boy trudging silently behind him. He hadn’t spoken since they’d left the headmaster’s office, and the hinges creak too loudly when he pushes the door open.

And then Tom spots his monitor still on, the screen lit up in the dark room, and stumbles immediately over to the desktop, powering it down. What if he—

“Weird taste in porn, dude?” Harry asks, fighting back a smile. His brow arches at Tom’s hastily closed browser.

“Um.” Tom’s eyes widen, darting around the room frantically. “Yes.”

Harry snorts but otherwise doesn’t speak. He does take a step back, however, looking around the room with poorly tempered interest.

Glancing over at the piece open on Tom’s desk, his brow lifts again.

“You’re working on Rach 3?”

Tom nods, gesturing to the sheet music cluttered on the desk. Harry takes it as a cue, rifling through with open curiosity.

“Yes,” he replies, watching Harry make himself at home at Tom’s desk. Swallows, throat suddenly very dry. “For fun.”

“You’re a psycho,” Harry laughs, lifting Balakirev’s infamous Gaspard de la Nuit to the light. “But respect.”

Tom tries not to flush, but it’s futile.

“Thank you,” he whispers, as Harry sorts through the fabric of his life.

A very long year indeed.

“There is something about the way his left-hand hovers before a run—as if the notes might shy away if he approached them too quickly. 

During his solo last Thursday, there was a moment, just after the minor shift, where he paused. Not in sound, but in breath. You could hear it if you only knew how to listen. 

It’s not technique. It’s not even brilliance.

It’s vulnerability.

And it’s unbearable.”

OVERTURE

When he runs out of socks to fold, he excuses himself. He can’t exactly write if Harry is there.

He sneaks away to the computer lab, mind still buzzing with the remnants of Harry’s solo in rehearsal this morning.

He had been two seconds late. Exactly. Tom had counted.

But he’d been taken by it, the way he always is; struck with awe whenever Harry plays. He boots up the school desktop, typing in his password hurriedly, and then the URL into the search bar.

The Third Interval is a monument of his own creation. He’s spent hours updating it—crafting scathing reviews of contemporary composers, and dissecting pieces with obsessive detail.

He has three followers, but it isn’t about that. It never has been.

It has always been about Harry.

He’s like a siren, Tom writes. A language I’ve spent years learning how to speak.

He calls Harry things he’d never say out loud. Beautiful. Reckless. Ruinous. His obsession isn’t sinister—it’s reverence. A sacred kind of logic.

Still, he knows what other people would think. Even kind, all-consuming Harry would flinch at the depth of Tom’s devotion.

When he finishes his newest update, he sits back, rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes with mounting frustration. He’s not sure how he’ll survive a year in such close proximity to Harry.

Fuck him, love him, consume him—

He leaves the library, then, hurrying along to his last appointment of the evening. 

Tom enjoys routine. It gives the world shape and form, where naturally there is very little. So, sneaking around the first floor, he listens for the sound of strings humming against the wind.

He doesn’t hear his own final note ringing out behind him: stretched for far too long and clanging with vibrato. He simply sits on the stairwell outside of the practice rooms, and listens—the same way he always does—as Harry plays.

And Ronald Weasley, already behind on his Music Theory paper, enters the computer lab—beelining towards the only one whose display is still blinking—and, half awake, startles at a familiar name.

“Harry Potter—how dare you make me feel this way.”

And the note sings, carried away on the wind.

Chapter Text

PRELUDE

The second time Tom hears Harry play, they aren’t alone.

Hogwarts Conservatory is for the best and the brightest—but some stars shine a bit more than the rest. And the Introductory Showcase always sets apart the dull from the great.

Neville Longbottom, a portly, sandy-haired boy, stutters through his introduction before dropping the bow right out of his hands. Ronald Weasley, a chronic underachiever, blows through the final page of Elgar’s Concerto in E minor—eager to prove himself, but lacking the talent to follow through.

They drift across the stage, mostly dull and insipid. There’s potential, surely. A few possess technical skills that stand above the rest. A smattering of children even manage to play without disgracing the grand stage their trainers squeak across.

But the moment Harry breezes past the velvet curtain, crossing to stand at the lip of the stage, it's clear he isn't like the rest. A hush overtakes the room as he sets his violin case down on the matte black flooring.

There’s something about him that makes the world stand up a bit straighter. He demands attention so quietly that you hardly notice giving it to him.  

Anchoring the violin under his chin, he ignores the sheet music propped up generously on the stand. The others had squinted at it, following along one step behind, their bows trailing a moment after the notes. You could hear the hesitance in their music; the audible sigh as they tried to keep up.

Harry doesn’t wait for the music to sweep him along. The music waits for him.

He sets his bow across the strings, perched along the G. He still hasn’t glanced at the staff paper in front of him, eyes drawn only to his fingerboard.

And then Harry rubs his thumb against the underside of the instrument’s neck—once and then back—before he’s off. Sweeping his bow up toward D, the melody is born.

Fauré’s Élégie is a mournful piece. Usually reserved for the cello, it’s been transposed for the violin; higher now, the notes whine off the strings. When Harry presses his bow as close as he can to the fingerboard, they seem to sigh as they land at his feet.

It’s breathy. Intimate.

It’s as though Harry teases out the worst of the melancholy: squeezing the piece dry of feeling and hollowing you out in the process. Yet, somehow, there’s hope hidden underneath it. Tom isn’t sure how Harry finds it.

He feels everything in the span of six minutes.

When he finishes, the room erupts into applause. Tom doesn't move, his arms still crossed, leaning halfway out of his seat to better hear the music.

And Harry glances over as he wrenches the instrument out from under his chin, a hesitant smile tugging its way across his lips. When his eyes flicker towards Tom, however, it falters—the beginnings of a frown taking its place.

Applause still rings around them, echoing under the tall ceilings, but Harry’s shoulders slump as his gaze skitters away from Tom's.

Tom can’t imagine why.

Harry’s the only other person in this room who deserves to feel proud.

OVERTURE

They brush their teeth side by side, in total silence. Tom’s jaw is locked, the shoulder closest to Harry tensed and perched halfway up towards his ear.

You could brush your elbow against his. Just an inch to the left and your skin would be flush against his own.

Harry brushes his teeth in loose circles, Tom notices: in aborted, harried motions. Tom, on the other hand, counts thirty seconds for each quadrant of his mouth, toothbrush held at a precise forty-five-degree angle.

He’d hardly think anything of it, bent over the sink with toothpaste clinging to the corner of his mouth. It seems he favors Evergreen.

Tom eyes their reflection, where two sets of hands are fumbling in the mirror. How simple of a thing most people will never get to see—Harry Potter’s fingers curled around the handle of his toothbrush.

You could lean over and wipe the lingering taste of mint from the crease of his lips—

At last, Harry turns off the tap, spitting what foam remains into the sink. Tom breathes a sigh of relief as Harry thumbs away the last of the paste from his mouth, before yawning into his palm.

He seems tired. Tom wonders if Harry had slept as fitfully as him.

Ambling back into the main dormitory, Tom goes straight to the armoire. Harry shuffles in the other direction, the soft thud of his socked feet echoing somewhere behind Tom.

He eyes his shirts, perfectly pressed and hung in a neat line. Shoes are evenly spaced and arranged above his slacks.

Harry’s clothes, on the other side of the wardrobe, are half falling off their hangers. His ties have been wrapped around the handles, looped around the neck of his polos haphazardly.

“Aw, man,” Harry mutters, and Tom turns around to see him bent over the bed, hips in the air, body facing away from him.

Tom blinks quickly, averting his eyes. Harry had been holding something in the palm of his hand, but Tom hadn’t been paying much attention to his fingers.

“Is something the matter?”

Tom darts his eyes back over, noting with distant regret that Harry had straightened. He's now sitting over the unmade covers of his bed, and when Tom speaks, he waves his hand, showcasing what he’d been searching for.

“Eh, not really. I guess I forgot to plug my phone in last night.”

Harry sighs, attaching a charger to the port before lifting his shirt over his head without warning. Tom stumbles, ripping a shirt off the hanger blindly.

It’s a Tuesday shirt, not a Monday one, but he hurries into the bathroom regardless.

Slamming the door shut behind him, Tom looks at his reflection. A red flush is already reaching down his chest from his cheeks.

He glares at the mirror, the beginnings of an erection already tenting his flannels. Lord.

Harry Potter really has no idea the effect he has.

“Every time, he plays as though it might be his last.

Like someone will wretch the bow right from his grip if he doesn’t leave all that he is on the stage.

He throws his heart down at your feet, wet and shivering, and dares you to feel something.

And I do.

Despite every attempt, I always do.”

PRELUDE

“Wow,” someone breathes to Tom’s left. “He was brilliant!”

It’s true, of course. Harry was exceptional. He deserves the accolades.

Still, Tom can’t help but feel as though something precious has been taken from him. Tom isn’t the only one who knows how extraordinary Harry Potter is anymore.

“A genius,” someone whispers as Tom makes his way towards the stage. “A prodigy,” someone closer to the podium mutters.

It seems Tom will have to show Harry he isn’t alone in his brilliance. That Tom, too, shines just as bright.

High above the rest of the world, Tom lifts his hands to the keys. As he curls his right palm, thumb on the root of the G chord, he doesn’t feel lonely.

The lights spill over his shoulders, catching on a loose curl hanging over his eyes. He chances one look over his shoulder, searching for him—

And then, like a bird aimed for flight, Tom’s left hand strikes G minor.

The note rings out in the now silent Performance Hall, and Tom knows, with great certainty, that he's no longer the only star in orbit.

The thought is surprisingly warm. How lonely the spread-out sky must be.    

OVERTURE

They walk to class in the same quiet that had permeated the morning. Harry seems uncomfortable, but he doesn’t acknowledge it.

Tom doesn’t mind. The longer Harry keeps silent about his misgivings, the more of his time Tom can monopolize.

Instead, Tom uses the opportunity to observe him. It’s been a while since he’s been close enough to catalog the minutia of Harry Potter.

There’s a smattering of freckles along the back of his neck. They’re small enough to be imperceptible unless you’re close enough to touch.

Tom counts them, greedy for everything about this boy the world might not know.

Tom tallies seven crawling down his spine, and then he loses track of the others. They slip under the collar of Harry’s polo, out of Tom’s reach.

Harry doesn’t glance back at him during Tom’s assessment, seeming preoccupied. Eventually, though, the silence wears thin. Harry isn’t paying Tom any attention. He’s acting as though Tom is hardly even here.    

“Um,” Tom starts, before stopping to clear his throat. His left hand twitches, then jumps into La Campanella, tapping the melody into the fabric of his slacks.

The dormitory is long behind them now. They step through the Grand Arch, heralding their arrival in the music wing, Harry's trainers squeaking across the shined floors of the atrium.

The boy looks over at him, arching a brow as Tom flushes. He tries again, opening his mouth, his fingers beating Liszt’s tune a little harder into his thigh. “Harry-“

And Ron Weasley, panting and red-faced, comes ambling down the corner.

“Bloody hell!" he hisses, bending over to catch his breath. "Harry, where have you been?”

Harry looks away from Tom, then, his attention stolen as quickly as it had been earned. Tom feels a scowl pinch its way between his cheeks—his brow furrowing at Weasley, who does little more than glance at Tom with poorly disguised wariness.

“Take a breath, won’t you, mate?” Harry laughs, shaking his head.

“I’ve been trying to call you all night!” the boy whispers, slanting another long, dark look Tom’s way.

“Dude, what’s wrong?”

The halls are lined entirely with glass, floor to ceiling. Passing period is always a reminder that the world turns without them. They disappear for lectures, only to return to the windows wet with rain, or the sun now teething at the glass.

“You haven’t seen?” Weasley asks, grabbing hold of Harry’s sleeve.

Harry’s skin, brushed with gold from the heat of summer, shimmers under the light reaching through the windows. He looks back at Tom, his eyes shockingly green even from a meter away, and pulls a face over Weasley’s shoulder.

Tom feels his stomach twisting, breath catching in the moment of shared humor. It’s uncharacteristic, passed between them so easily.

“Haven’t seen what?” Harry asks, laughter lining his voice as he’s tugged away.

And then Tom’s blood runs cold.

“His left hand trembled, and he still hit every note.

He plays as though he’s the only one who knows how it ends. As if every note is a question he’s begging you to answer."

PRELUDE

His fingers dance along the keys; Chopin’s Ballade teased from its strings.

Tom is a technical player—every movement precise, every note perfect. He plays as though the music had been lifted straight from the page, exactly as the composer had intended.

Today, though, his hands come down harder on the keys. He coaxes something from the music he’d never broken through before.

A tutor had once called him robotic. Not just his playing, which was cold and perfect—but himself, with his regimented practice schedule and repetitive, analytic scales.

“It’s exquisite,” Madame Belquis had said. “But there’s little love in it, no?”

Tom had been furious. His playing is exquisite. Everyone knows that.

But piano is the only thing he loves—so how can his playing be lacking in heart?

Today, though, Chopin doesn’t sound robotic. It hums, its heart beating and held loosely in Tom’s fist.

His rubato is calculated; not freewheeling, but strategic. He pushes and pulls, steering the melody forward. The tension gathers like a storm, thunderous, cutting through the quiet auditorium.

His touch softens at points, velvety when the music calls for it. And when it’s heavy, it’s never forceful or clumsy. It’s alive, in a way Tom seldom feels.

The tragedy in Chopin’s First Ballade is underscored. There’s brutality hidden under its layers, and Tom doesn’t waste his time making it pretty. He weaponizes it, instead—he makes it hurt.

‘Look at me,’ he thinks, his mind stuck on green eyes and the arc of a bow. ‘Look only at me.’

Later, when he finally picks himself up off the stage to a standing ovation, Harry is waiting by the stairs.

“That was brill,” he tells Tom, with a smile half melting off his face; crooked and unsure.

The sun drifts in through the windows, melting through the stained glass. It paints Harry in color, as vivid and warm as his playing.

“Thank you,” Tom whispers, blinking quickly and looking away.

And Tom’s heart trips over its own feet, missing a beat.

Love will be the best and worst thing to happen to Tom’s music, after all.

OVERTURE

Tom quickly learns that everyone is talking about it. It’s all anyone can talk about—

Harry Potter has a stalker.

Phones are buzzing all morning. Every class sees someone’s mobile confiscated, their peers unable to restrain their curiosity. Screenshots are traded and passed around, as the school gluts itself on a scandal the likes of which the Conservatory has never seen.

Tom feels lead harden in his stomach, sinking like stones in the river. He fights the waves of nausea, sure that someone will catch on if he sicks up.

That's if they haven’t already.

He forces himself to pay attention to the gossip, even as it curdles in his gut. No one seems to know who’s behind it—not yet, at least—but that doesn’t stop his empty-headed peers from circling the question with morbid fascination.

As the periods drag on, Tom drifts through the halls mindlessly. Time passes sluggishly as he grows more and more uneasy. Every time someone looks at him, he feels the panic rearing its head again.

It’s only a matter of time before—

He tries not to, knowing the danger it holds. Now, more than ever, Tom can’t afford to be careless.

In the end, though, it was foolish to even try. Tom finds his attention drawn back to Harry again and again.

Jealousy crests alongside the alarm, as his friends close rank around him. They’ve always been the loyal sort. Though Harry is often surrounded by people, it’s clear who he trusts.

Still, Harry is popular. People love him, they always have. He’s charming and athletic. Talented but personable. Aside from his genius, he’s everything that Tom isn’t.

He’s never been the source of this kind of attention, however.

It's another thing Tom and Harry now have in common.

"They don’t understand him like I do. They never could.

They look at him like a star, revolving around him with sickening adoration.

Harry is no star; he’s the death of them all."

PRELUDE

This is the night a ritual is born:

After the cheers and accolades, the flowers and praise, Tom feels restless. Too many people wanted to touch him; to shake his hand or clasp his shoulder.

“Marvelous job Mr. Riddle. I’m sure your father is very proud.”

He stalks the halls that night, sleep escaping him. The Riddle Manor is great, its land expansive, but the halls are hollow. They echo with a vacancy, one whose silence is heavier than all the stones of Hogwarts combined.

The Conservatory isn’t like that. It’s loud, with its clambering children and pushy upper years, drunk on the cusp of their burgeoning maturity.

The only silence to be found in these halls exists in the evening. This is how Tom finds himself wandering them as curfew stretches thin.

It was never supposed to lead to him. He should have known better, though. With Tom, everything finds its way back to Harry.

And the music that bleeds through the door is so unbearably alive it could never be anything but Harry Potter.

Tom never stood a chance.

Prelude in E minor drifts through the air, as Tom crouches on the stairs outside the practice rooms for the very first time. He already wants more, an addict from the very first taste.

It’s the first time he learns to crave something the rest of the world can’t have. Something precious and secret. Something even Harry doesn’t know he’s giving away.

The song slips through the crack in the door, and he sits there. With his chin on his knees, eyes closed, Tom hums along.

His accompaniment is soft. It's so quiet that Tom is sure it could never be heard through the other side of the music.

And when he ends up back there again, the very next night, he’s hardly surprised. Tom always did love routine.

As long as Harry never knows... well. What could be the harm?    

“He doesn’t play as though it’s a performance. As if the music is for anyone.

He plays as though he must.

As if the notes would rot inside him, with no way to expel them. 

As if another moment of silence would split his seams, and him along with it.”

OVERTURE

Surprisingly enough, it takes quite a few hours before the finger turns on Tom. Once it starts, however, the whispers take on an edge of hysteria.

“Do you think—“

At first, the sheer shock of it all, mixed with the notoriety of Harry Potter, seemed to have been enough. But before long, his name starts mingling with the rumors.

Amidst the rising sea of panic, Tom can’t help but continue to keep an eye on Harry. His stomach wrings itself dry the longer the boy sits silent, surrounded by his friends—too far for Tom to reach.

He’s become an expert in Harry Potter. Years of careful study have turned into a mastery.

Yet he can’t tell what Harry is thinking.

Tom sticks to him. His friends had been tugging phones out of his hands all day, but eventually, being who he is, he makes his way toward the library. They don’t know you at all. You never would have been content not knowing. 

Tom watches through the shelves as Harry scrolls unknowingly through his blog. Seeing the articles filter across the screen, one after another, each one carefully dissected.

Tom's breath sticks in his lungs, in short, unsteady exhalations that stutter out through his teeth. He feels sick. He can’t believe he’d been caught.

Tom had been so careful. Six years of vigilance unwound in a single evening.

Eventually, one of Harry’s rugby mates sidles up to the workbench. Harry nods at the boy—a stocky, slow oboe player who has mostly skated by on his father’s connections. He's the sort you can hear thinking; the gears turning audibly in his head.

Tom tries to pay them no mind, watching the screen instead. Harry’s scrolling through slower now, Tom’s words drifting sluggishly across the page. Despite his best efforts, however, Tom can hear their voices as they escalate in pitch.

“C’mon, he’s not like that—“

The library always smells like sandalwood. Tom inhales greedily, filling his lungs with the earth-trodden air, trying not to panic.

“You remember what happened! Jesus, Harry. You’d think you of all people would know to be careful around him.”

The voices get quieter again, Harry gesturing wildly as his companion crosses his arms. When the sweat-stained oboist finally saunters off, however, Harry returns right to his task.

He scrolls for what feels like hours, as Tom’s heart shivers in his chest.

He’ll hate you forever. He’ll never forgive you for this—

Harry looks on, growing more and more restless as he continues. The scrollbar gets smaller and smaller, going back years. There are hundreds of them to be consumed, after all, and Harry seems determined to read every last one. 

As Harry sits, the light growing dimmer, Tom sits behind him; watching from a table across the room. Harry stays until all the light has been snuffed out of the sun, biting his nails, but he doesn’t get up until he reaches the very first post.

Perhaps Tom should delete them. The whole thing, even.

He doesn’t want to. But God—

"There's a moment in every performance—just before the final note is struck—when the silence swells with something unbearable.

You stood there tonight, backlit by the dim stage lights, bow trembling just so, and I knew—I knew—you were playing it for me.

You hardly know who I am.

But I know You, Harry Potter.

It's enough—for now."

OVERTURE

He debates it for hours.

He’s never missed one of their appointments. No matter that Harry has no idea there’s an appointment to be kept—to Tom, their evenings together are sacred.

In the end, like an addict, he finds it impossible to stay away. He drags himself down to the first floor of the Conservatory, searching for the room on the corner.

What he never could have guessed is that Harry would be there. Waiting.

“Oh. Hello, Tom.”

Harry looks up, seeming very far away. He’d just been staring at the door, unmoving, seemingly unsure whether he’d like to go in.

“Do you like to practice at night, too?”

Tom looks around desperately, hunting for some sort of justification. An excuse for why he's standing here, loitering in front of Harry Potter's practice room.

“Couldn’t find any open ones? They’re usually pretty free at this time of night.”

“Beginning of the year jitters,” Tom insists weakly. “I'm sure everyone is—eager to impress."

His face heats, sure he's about to be caught out, but the boy says nothing. He just nods distantly, eyes going back to the plaque on the door.

“Diligence is the mother of good fortune,” Tom continues, a nervous string of words pulled from his teeth. “You know. So they," he finishes, clearing his throat in the middle of his speech. "So they say.”

Harry blinks at him a few times before clarity seeps back into his gaze. Then he laughs—warm and rich—and the sound sends a thrill down Tom’s spine.

“We can share if you’d like,” Harry offers, shaking the last of the fog from his eyes. “I’ve been itching to try Rach 3 since I saw your sheet music.”

Tom blinks. And then blinks again.

He's sure he must have misheard. He swears he saw Harry lips moving, matching the words perfectly, but Tom stands there for another moment, just staring, as Harry waits with one hand resting casually on the knob. Eventually, Tom nods, dazed, and before he can wonder if he's finally lost his mind, Harry's pushing open the door.

Practice room 23 is all warm wood and windows. In the daytime, it would be sun-soaked: shafts of light falling through the sheer curtains.

In the evening, however, moonlight spills out in much the same way. Stars sit in the backdrop of the sky, brighter against the dark wash of space.

Their light melts into the floorboards, oak slats soaking up whatever the night offers. The bleached wood is almost luminous, as shadows curl around it.

In the darkness, everything is quiet. Still.

Tom understands, more than ever, Harry’s desire to be here when the world is asleep. 

In the middle of the room sits a grand piano, slick-shined and glossy. You can almost see your reflection, half-distorted though it is, in the polished lacquer. Their blurred silhouettes are visible on its surface.

It’s almost unbearably right, the sight of their bodies side by side. It sends a pang of longing so sharp through Tom that it twinges beneath his ribs.

Next to the piano is Harry’s violin case. It’s covered in stickers—most of them various rock bands and sports teams. 

Luna Lovegood, an art student, had painted constellations across its surface. A few of his friends had scribbled on it, even, in multicolored Sharpies. ‘Roonil Wazlib‘ was etched across the handle in garish, neon pink; the ink worn down somewhat by Harry’s palm. 

It was a mess of color and contradictions. It was Harry, in every way Tom knew him to be possible. 

Perfect, he thinks, standing a few yards away from the piano. The clutter of Harry’s violin is nestled into its side, in remarkable contrast. How unexpectedly they suit each other.

Tom’s feet pad along the floor as he crosses the room, echoing in the wide, near-empty space. The smell of wood and the sharp scent of Harry’s cologne are the only things in the air. 

Tom's had a hundred fantasies just like this. Harry, smirking at him, cocky and unbearably sure as he poised his bow to strike. His body leaning against the piano as Tom knelt at his feet, his lips warm and wet and wrapped around Harry’s—

“Have you got your sheet music with you?” Harry asks, bending over to unlatch his case.

Tom quickly averts his eyes. Willing his flush to fade, he nods, digging his book out of his satchel.

The glossy pages of his repertoire shine under the starlight. The room is lit only by the leftover light spilling in from under the door, and whatever the sky deems fit to give them.

He doesn’t offer to turn on the overhead. It would be a crime, he thinks, to break the peace of the evening. To disturb the moon with anything other than music.

When he’s finished, he clears his throat, nodding stiffly. “Whenever you’re ready,” he tells Harry, moving to sit on the bench. His voice comes out low and dark.

It takes them a few measures to find their footing. Harry follows a half-beat late, thrown off by Tom’s entrance into the piece. He just shakes his head, however, drawn to the challenge.

It’s a piano piece, after all. It wasn’t meant for the violin—but that’s never stopped Harry Potter.

Harry makes quick work of catching up, gliding smoothly through Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3. Tom takes over the orchestral reduction as Harry’s hands skip over the fingerboard, effortlessly adapting the theme into something suited for his instrument.                

When he does pull forward, he doesn’t simply meet Tom’s pace. Instead, he presses his advantage, sprinting in staccato.

Tom huffs a laugh, too, increasing his tempo to match. It’s a dance, of sorts. One they each take great pleasure in commandeering the lead of.

His fingers fly across the keys, pushing the meter to its limits in a way Madame would never approve of. Or maybe she would, he wonders, as his hands dance alongside the surface. Maybe she’d be glad my music has found its heart.

Harry returns Tom’s laughter as he steals back the melody, attempting the orchestral section as Tom begins the piano solo. The notes seem to laugh with them, light and airy; catharsis mingling easily with the quick press of Tom’s fingers.

They shift octaves as the music calls for it, hardly trying for perfection. Somehow, it doesn’t feel far from it.

The chords are roaring now, Rachmaninoff’s ending soaked in triumph. The chaos is controlled, though barely held in check, as they swap back one last time for the finale.

Tom’s fingers strike a broad chord, and the sound rings under the high arch of the ceiling. The violin whines its last strains as Tom tackles the final runs, hands flashing along the keys.

Harry doubles the high notes, and for a moment, they're a blur of motion, as Tom’s foot shifts quickly on the pedals. And then it slows, the Concerto lulling into nothing but silence and starlight.

Tom rests his fingers on the keys: breathing, breathing.

The air seems to vibrate with the lingering music. Their last notes are no longer hanging in the air, but the quiet has gone static; tense with the reminder of what had stretched between them.

Harry lowers the violin, flushed.

“That was brill,” he exclaims, as out of breath as Tom feels. “I mean, it’d be better if we’d practiced, but for sight reading?”

Tom’s throat feels unbearably dry. He nods, watching his fingers, where they're still clinging to the keys.

“It had heart,” he murmurs, before shaking his head. “It could’ve been better. Perhaps we should go again.”

“What about something else?”

Harry crosses closer to Tom, fishing around in his own bag. When he finds his book, he plops down onto the bench next to Tom.

Harry's arm presses against his, and Tom's heart stills in his chest. Harry tilts a page of sheet music in his direction, leaning even firmer into Tom’s space, and it takes him a long moment to focus enough to read it.

When Tom does glance at it, however, his lip curls.

“I only play Classical,” he insists, shaking his head.

“Oh, c’mon,” Harry urges. “First time for everything?”

And he juts his lip, wholly teasing, but Tom’s mind skips like stones on a river.

“I—“

Harry waves the sheet music in front of his face, and Tom’s eyes skim over it again. It isn’t terribly long—perhaps he could make a exception.

The song is called Patience, after all. Tom could benefit from a bit more of it.

Where Harry’s concerned, at least. 

Harry settles the paper on the stand, but he doesn’t get back up. He just slides slightly farther down the bench, where his reach won't be inhibited, as Tom readies his fingers on the planks.

“Ready?” Harry murmurs, looking down the neck of his violin at Tom.

His eyes are silver-soaked in the twilight.

“Yes,” Tom breathes, unable to look away.

Harry's body is already in first position, but it’s Tom who begins this piece. From the very first note, it’s full of longing.

He keeps a soft, steady rhythm as the stars spin in the sky. It’s delicate, in moments.

It’s nowhere near as demanding as Rachmaninoff, and yet—

It’s intimate. Harry is close enough to touch, and as he joins the melody, bow carving its way along the strings, moonlight falls across his skin.

He shifts between a counter-melody and long, sweeping phrases that echo whatever fragile tendons glue the piece together. His fingers tease out a bit of vibrato, hovering over the fingerboard as he lets the music breathe.

Tom fills in the gaps, the steady drum of his fingers against the keys pattering like rain against the pavement. He keeps the structure solid, maintaining the chords as Harry weaves emotion through the piece.

As the refrain melts through the air, Tom lets his progression linger. His eyes keep bouncing away from the keys, preferring to watch as Harry drags his bow across the strings.

And as the tune drifts away, the final notes echoing off the lip of Harry’s instrument, there’s a sense of anticipation. It stretches its limbs, reaching, and Tom can hardly keep his hands from doing the same.

Well. Patience has never been one of my virtues.

“This is the most fun I’ve had all day,” Harry huffs, dry laughter breaking the silence between them.

“Yes,” Tom sighs, stuck on the way the shadows melt into Harry's skin. “Me too.”

And then his lungs stutter as he remembers exactly why Harry has been so lacking in amusement.

“Ah.” Tom lifts his hands quickly off the keys, back straightening before he can note how his posture had loosened while they were playing. “Yes, that’s—how are you?”

He starts idly thumbing chords, color sweeping high across his cheeks. But Harry just laughs again, a bit of a self-deprecating sound.

“Oh, you know,” Harry shrugs, as if his answer weren’t the only thing in the world that mattered. “Everyone’s very worried.”

“Ah,” Tom says again, terse, before swallowing. “Yes.”

Harry laughs louder this time, nudging Tom’s arm with his own. “You’re not very chatty, are you?”

He doesn't seem bothered, though, the way people had always been. He just shrugs, shaking his head and continuing.

“They think it’s, y’know—scary, or whatever. But the scariest part of all of it has been everyone else, really.”

And then shock settles in his chest, tugging at his ribs. “What?”

“Yeah, I know. Everyone says I should be terrified. But I read them. It was—I mean, it was a bit much, honestly. But it didn’t seem like some freak who wanted to hurt me or anything.”

He tilts his jaw, moonlight illuminating the pale skin of his neck. The freckles there wink like stars as he turns his head.

“It was more like—like they saw me. Really saw me. I know it’s strange. I should be disgusted, right?”

The sky spills over his skin, pooling in his collarbones. Tom hears crickets chirping in the distance as his eyes trace the constellations that drip down Harry’s back.

“But in a way, it was almost… flattering,” Harry murmurs, lashes fanning against his skin. They kiss at the shell of his eyes, the way Tom has imagined doing a thousand times.

“To be seen.” 

Later, after Harry finally falls asleep, Tom wakes the screen of his desktop. He adjusts the brightness as low as it will go, tilting the monitor away from the boy’s bed.

And then Tom puts fingers to keys—in a very different way than he had earlier—and gets to work on a masterpiece.

If Harry wants to be seen, there’s no one more suited to the task than Tom.

He types feverishly, feeling a spark of something illicit as he does. This time, he knows Harry will be watching.

The thrill carries him through typing and refining; the minutiae of crafting something so terribly important. And when he’s finished, hours later and bleary-eyed, he sits back to admire his handiwork.

He has to be up soon, but it’s no matter. He could play better than most of his peers struck blind.

You are the heart in all of my music, Harry Potter. I’ve written you a thousand love letters now—in the only way I know how.

When he leans back, finally hitting post, the sun is dragging its way up the sky. Still, he can’t help but feel content.

Harry sleeps, safe and known—and Tom watches him with an obsession that's never burned brighter.

Of course, this is when things really begin to spiral.

Chapter Text

OVERTURE

Tom wakes slowly, his head pillowed awkwardly against his palm. He’s still sitting half up in his bed, creases marring his cheek.

In a panic, he glances at the clock, but it’s barely been an hour since he’d drifted off. Sighing, his eyes involuntarily shuffle over to Harry. 

The rise and fall of his chest is steady. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, mindful of the crick in his neck, Tom settles in to watch him.

Harry’s hair is mussed—though, Tom thinks with no shortage of fondness, it’s hardly worse than usual. Without his glasses on, Harry looks younger; his face slack, his lids fluttering.    

Tom turns over fully, facing him.

Harry’s brow is slightly furrowed. That plush mouth is parted, steady exhalations slipping through the curve of his lips. 

Time slips away as he lies there, lulled by the soft sound of Harry’s breathing. When he finally manages to tear himself away, socked feet padding towards the bathroom, the sun is high in the sky.

Harry, it seems, is always sluggish to wake. Tom treasures the information, and the way it allows him to look his fill.

When Tom walks back in, however, clutching his towel, the boy is mindlessly scrolling on his phone.

“Hello,” Tom greets him, trying to ignore his partial nudity. He feels unbearably exposed, in nothing more than the cloth wrapped around his waist.

“Mornin’,” Harry mumbles in response—his voice a rumble, thick with sleep.

He stretches then, pants slung low on his hips. His t-shirt lifts to reveal a strip of sun-kissed skin.

Tom hurries over to the wardrobe, tightening his hold on the towel.

Jesus.

“Are you a morning person?” Harry asks, the bed creaking as he shifts.

Tom rifles through his shirts, fingers trembling slightly as he searches for his Tuesday polo.

And then Harry is standing very close, suddenly, Tom having missed the sounds of his approach. He leans in over Tom’s shoulder, breath tickling the back of Tom’s neck.

Tom starts, yanking his trousers right off the hanger. “Um,” he manages, eyes darting around nervously. “Typically. Yes.”

Harry huffs now, looking at Tom with sleep-lidded eyes. They’re drenched in early morning light: bright and warm and impossibly green.

“I believe it,” Harry murmurs. The low, dark sound of his voice is like thunder in the near-empty dormitory.

Tom slams the wardrobe shut.

Shuffling over to the bathroom, he clutches his uniform resolutely to his waistline, fingers white-knuckled.

“Yes, that’s—“ Tom presses the bundle of clothes tighter against his hips. “Mhm.”

He shuts the bathroom door too loud behind him, locking it quickly. Muffled laughter seeps through the wood, and it fans the heat brewing in Tom’s belly. 

The mirror taunts him. Glassy eyes look back at him, a flush stretched too tightly across his skin.

Taking a great, shuddering breath, Tom leans back against the door. He isn’t sure how he’ll survive an entire year of being Harry Potter’s dormmate.

Casting one last glance at his reflection—the debauched, rumpled version of himself that only Harry can bring out—he thunks his head back against the wood.     

Perhaps a wank before class.

He deserves it.  

PRELUDE

The first entries go like this:

He listens in the stairwell as Harry plays—a song meant just for him—and it’s not as if anyone else could understand.

Tom barely understands his own feelings. They’re suddenly everywhere, these messy emotions, all jumbled and sliding frantically into the next.

God, he plays like it hurts—the violin seems to whine, almost—it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, or heard, or felt—

Tom has never had a friend, let alone a confidant. But the thoughts have to get out somehow.

So, he writes.

It’s painful to put the words on a page—to see his devotion staring back at him. But it hurts worse to let them rot inside his chest.

So, Tom Riddle, the world’s most enthusiastic critic, risks everything.

Losing himself in the beauty of someone else’s music.

“He rushes—not because he’s careless, though he can be—but because his heart gets ahead of him.

You can hear it in his phrasing: a swell here, a hesitation there.

It’s as if he can’t decide how much of himself to give away.

It’s the only honest thing I’ve ever heard.”

OVERTURE

They walk together again, stalking through the halls.

Pushing through the crowds, thick with students ambling through the corridors, another ritual is established.

Harry isn’t silent this morning, however. He keeps up a steady stream of chatter. Most of it is about nothing, but Tom doesn’t mind. He just lets the low hum of Harry’s voice wash over him, terribly comforted by his presence.

When they get to the bulletin, however, the sounds around them swell.

People are crowding around it, pushing and laughing loudly. A scene isn’t entirely unusual here—the newest ranking list has been tacked to the wall, after all—but it’s usually a more somber affair.

The laughter is sharp and mocking. And when they approach, the whispers spike in intensity.

They’re greeted with snickering, fingers pointed in their direction. Harry looks around, confused, and the throng of people eye his reaction eagerly.

He starts pushing his way through the crowd, heads turning eagerly. Watching him.

It’s not until he’s finally standing in front of the bulletin that he pales.

PEEPING TOM?

September 06

“Harry tilts his head when he plays. Always to the left—just a fraction.

It’s enough to expose the skin beneath his ear.

Sometimes I dream of touching it. Of feeling the soft junction of his throat beneath my teeth, of finally digging into the skin over his pulse.

He shouldn’t tilt his head like that if he doesn’t want me to—“

Tom stumbles backward, bumping shoulders with some third-year who shoves him forward again sharply.

“Watch it, Peep Show,” someone hisses, as new laughter echoes around them.

His face heats, fury mixing with panic. Tom feels his fists clench, nails digging into the skin of his palms.

His breath comes too quickly, shaking through his teeth, in short, unsteady exhalations. They leave him dizzy, lungs swelling out of tune as laughter surges around him.

Idiots. You’re nothing. You could never understand—

Suddenly, a bang echoes through the corridor. The hall goes silent immediately. Every eye turns to the source, eager for gossip, for anything worth talking about.

And Harry Potter stands at the very center of the bulletin board, ripping down every single entry. Handfuls of them coming loose from the cork.

The staples fly off, flinging wildly around them. The papers, each bearing Tom’s name, tear off the wall with an audible hiss.

Tom’s sure they’re the worst ones the perpetrator could find, and he watches nervously, but Harry doesn’t even glance at them.

“Shows over,” he announces coldly, still prying dozens of sheets off the bulletin. “Your names must be pretty low in the rankings if this is the most interesting thing you have to talk about.”

At this, people quickly begin to disperse, glancing at their friends with wide eyes. Whispers erupt from behind hands, sounds bouncing wildly around the hall as the corridor empties out.

Someone elbows Tom as they go, and he jerks out of the way as the sea of children drips down to nothing.

Until Harry stands alone, perfectly still, in the middle of the corridor. Clutching the papers so tightly that they crumble in his fists.

Tom swallows, his heart pounding. “Are you—“

“Let’s go.”

Harry tosses them in the trash without a second glance. There's a faint bead of blood welling under his fingernail, and Tom's mouth waters.

The sun reaches through glass halls. Illuminated by the sky, Harry looks like a god of old: all rage and steel, born of prophecy and magic.

“As you wish,” Tom answers softly.

He watches Harry’s back, bathed in golden light, before hurrying after him. There’s nowhere he wouldn’t follow this boy.

Even to his undoing.

"Someone left the metronome running again.

I turned it off before I set up at the bench—the ticking was unbearable.

Still, I can’t help but wonder if it was him.

Practice room 23 might not belong to Harry Potter, but the ghost of him lingers. I can feel his presence, imaginary or not, when I’m inside its walls.

The bench is pulled slightly to the left—was it you?

The lights were dimmed—do you play better in the dark?

The echo of him is one I can’t escape. So, I practice there too. Comforted by the thought that there may be pieces of him left behind.

A bit of rosin on the shelves. A loose bowstring.

I want to feel what he felt.

Maybe then I can pretend he’s still here.

Playing just out of sight."

PRELUDE

Neville Longbottom quickly becomes a target.

As a Conservatory—and one of the finest—Hogwarts Academy boasts an impressive staff. With a strict regimen of studies, it’s designed to hone its pupils; to propel them to the greatest heights.  

Its alumni include some of the most prominent names in art and music. In the last century, it’s produced hundreds of stars across a variety of mediums.

Competition is fierce. Everyone wants to be the best.

One might think the students may be overly serious. And they are, mostly—but children are still children, and cruelty always finds its way in.

So, when Neville Longbottom—an unfortunate boy with an equally unfortunate name—finds his bow missing or his resin ground to dust, no one is all that surprised.

Except for Harry Potter.

Tom stumbles upon him—for once, it truly is by accident—to Harry consoling the boy. His palm rubs awkward circles along Longbottom’s back as he hiccups and cries.

“Shh,” Harry whispers over and over. “It’ll be okay.”

Harry’s face is shuttered. He's patting Longbottom's shoulder stiffly, as though he’s had little experience being comforted himself. Despite this, however, he never complains.

“Who was it?” Harry whispers, a great deal of time later. His eyes are blazing, and Tom thinks, for the very first time, about love.

Now. How to get Harry’s hand on his back, instead of ugly old Neville Longbottom?

OVERTURE

Music theory is simple.

Harmony follows logic: dominant to tonic, tension to release.

Like breathing, or gravity, you don’t need to feel it. It’ll happen whether you’re paying attention or not. Music has been cut into precise, defined rules; exactly the way Tom likes it.

People, on the other hand, are far more complicated.

The whispering doesn’t die down. Harry is in very few of his classes, unfortunately, and his absence only increases their malicious curiosity: turning it all on Tom.   

Harry’s beloved friend Hermione Granger has taken to defending his honor.

She’s always been an annoying little whelp. What she and Harry have in common, Tom has never been able to discern. Regardless, she takes great pleasure in monopolizing him.

Still pining away for him, aren’t you? Pathetic—he doesn’t want you.

She’s not particularly pretty, with overly large teeth and a veritable bush of dark, half-coiled hair. Still, she’s undoubtedly one of Harry’s closest friends.

Tom grinds his teeth as she embarks on another one of her crusades.

“I can’t imagine what could be so funny,” Granger snaps as the laughter reaches its peak.   

“Well, I can’t believe they were stupid enough to post again!” Parkinson snickers, tits half hanging out of her shirt.

Tom scowls at her words, his face hot. Turning away, he chooses to watch the slow melt of rain, instead, as it patters against the glass. Professor Vector really picked the opportune day to be late, he seethes.

“Why don’t we ask him?” someone jeers. “Hey, peep show-“

Tom feels his whole body freeze up; stilling, like a deer in headlights. He doesn’t look their way, but his shoulders tense visibly.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Granger exclaims, looking right at Tom. He can feel her eyes burning a hole in his Armani polo. “You can’t seriously think Tom wrote it.”

“He hates Harry,” Weasley agrees, his arms crossed. Slanting a dark look Tom’s way, he sneers. “Everyone knows that. I doubt he’s the one obsessed with him.”

“He is right there, Ronald,” Granger hisses.

She smacks Weasley’s arm, but the boy just shoots her a grin, her palm lingering a beat too long around his bicep. Tom watches her cheeks fill with color from the corner of his eye.

Slag. Not even Harry’s enough for her.

“Maybe it was creepy Creevey,” Bullstrode giggles, and a wave of new laughter follows.

People propose more and more fantastical accusations—

‘Snape’s hatred must be covering up a darker desire!’ Seamus laughs, and his queer little friend Dean dissolves into stitches.

‘Nah—Dumbledore has always been a bit too fond of him, don’t you think?’

Tom bites his tongue. The thought of these odious people receiving credit for his work—the thought of Dumbledore turning that kind of attention to his Harry—

He tunes them all out. They don’t matter. Tom and Harry are the only stars in the sky.

The thought is enough to cool the slow burn of shame. And as the day drags on, whispers following him like ghosts through the halls, he pays very little attention to the lectures. Music theory is simple, after all.

Love, too, is just another discipline—if you’re willing to suffer for it.

PRELUDE

It’s dealt with rather quickly, all things considered.

Every single one of Flint’s things ends up in the lake.

“Wha—!”

Children gather around, snickering into their palms, as Marcus Flint sulks by the edge. They all watch as Hagrid, the groundskeeper, wades into the water: his overly large corduroy trousers rolled up around his knees.

“Wonderful job, Mr. Hagrid!” the headmaster cheers from his comfortable, very dry position on the lawn.

“Thank ya’, sir!” Hagrid shouts back, waving at the man over his own burly shoulder.  

And then he’s promptly tripping over a branch hidden under the water, arms pinwheeling comically, before landing face first in the mud with a splash. The children immediately double over with laughter, clutching their stomachs and wiping their eyes.  

In the end, it takes them three hours to locate all of Flint’s things. By then, they’re waterlogged and mostly useless.

Tom has no proof, of course. Except for the way kind, brave Harry Potter had flinched when Hagrid collided with the lake.

Guilt written plainly across his face.

My Harry. My sweet, vengeful Harry.

What did Neville Longbottom ever do to deserve all this?

"He played Faure again.

He never plays it the same way twice. How can one person wade through so many variations—so many versions of a phrase?

It’s not improvisation; it’s something else entirely. Something instinctive.

He knows what you need before you do. What the song requires of him in this moment.

I wrote down the changes in his phasing. I know I'll never play it like him, but I wonder—if I come closer to it, will I finally understand?

Can I know, at last, what about him has ruined me so completely?"

OVERTURE

“Hey, Fag!”

Tom wheezes, breath knocked out of him, as McLaggen appears out of nowhere; pinning his shoulders against the cold stone wall.

His eyes dart around frantically, but the corridor is empty aside from them and McLaggen’s cronies. The boy shoves him harder, the sharp edges of the castle digging into his spine.

“You’ll have to go somewhere else if you want your cock sucked, McLaggen,” Tom spits, teeth bared, as a cruel grin flashes across his face. “Not even I’m that desperate.”

A hand shoots up at that, fingers digging into the starched collar of his button-down. “You little shit—“

His other hand tightens around Tom’s shoulder, nails digging in, before twisting it back painfully.

McLaggen laughs in his ear as Tom hisses, the sting blurring his vision. He looks up, blinking rapidly as his eyes water. The Atrium ceiling is a perfect dome, Tom thinks, looking up at the glass overhead. How pretty.

The scrape of harried footsteps cut through the silence. His shoulder shakes under the pressure of McLaggen’s grip, muscles groaning as they're twisted farther and farther back—

“What the fuck did I say, Cormac?”

Tom’s head bounces off the wall as McLaggen is yanked away. There’s scuffling as Tom tries to orient himself.

“Jesus, Potter,” someone laughs, as if it were all a joke. “Calm down.”

Blurry though he is, Tom sees McLaggen pointing at him, and he can’t help but look away; stomach twisting with shame.

“Don’t let the fame go to your head, yeah?” He snickers then, cruel and dismissive, as the group pats McLaggen on the back.

“Just teaching this retard a lesson,” one of the rugby brutes cackles, and they all follow; laughter erupting between the whole crew.

Tom's eyes dart over to Harry, unable to stop himself. He always looks for Harry in a crowd—it seems the habit is too hard to break, even when it would save him a wealth of embarrassment.

The well of shame that had been sinking slowly into his stomach settles, hardening, nausea fluttering in his belly. It squeezes its fists around his ribs, battering at his heart, till Tom thinks he might actually be sick.

Harry meets his gaze, and the second he catches a glimpse of Tom—whose face is uncharacteristically stricken—Harry’s expression turns stony.

It quickly grows furious: seemingly overcome with the shock of seeing typically proud Tom Riddle, leaning battered against the wall, held up only by its weight. Clutching the back of his head with his unhurt arm.

Shouts ring out in the corridor one more time as Harry steps forward, without hesitation, and barrels forward, shoving McLaggen right to the ground.

“Mr. Potter!”

Typical, Tom thinks bitterly, as more scuffling breaks out around him. You couldn’t have arrived a few minutes earlier, when the real crime was being committed?

Before they can really get going, McGonagall’s firm hands wrap around the nape of Harry’s shirt, yanking him back. She scolds him, loudly, as Harry keeps his gaze low.

He doesn't argue, but his hands stay clenched at his side as someone helps McLaggen to his feet.

When the Deputy Headmistress orders them all to Dumbledore’s office, however, Harry glances back at Tom out of the corner of his eye. And when he sees Tom, standing upright once more and perfectly poised, he smiles.

This couldn’t be better.

Not even if Harry had tossed McLaggen in the lake.

PRELUDE

“That Riddle kid is always staring at you,” someone giggles behind Harry, leaning into his space.

Tom is staring now, in fact, though he’s certain none of them can see him up here.

He’d once spent a great many days climbing the trees along the Riddle property. It had infuriated his father enough to abandon his study and shout at Tom personally, so of course he’d kept doing it.  

It didn't last—eventually, his father had given up. He no longer seemed to care if Tom fell and hurt himself, and the game outgrew its fun.

“Tom’s just… like that,” Harry shrugs amiably, with one well-carved shoulder.

The sky melts over them all where they sit, lounging in the grass. Tom doesn’t think he’s biased to say the sun shines a bit brighter over Harry Potter—draping him in the golden heat of summer.

“A creep?”

Laughter spills out in the courtyard, and Tom wiggles every one of his fingers. Watching the wind blow through the leaves above him, he tries to distract himself.

He can’t bear to climb down and be caught spying, even if it means listening to Harry call him all sorts of names. This is the last time Tom will see Harry before summer break.

“Oi!” Harry elbows the girl who had spoken. “Don’t be a jerk!”

The snickers die down to groans, and the redheaded girl at Harry’s side sighs. Tom thinks he can see her eyes roll from here—which would be impressive if it weren’t because she had the single largest forehead Tom has ever seen.

“C’mon, Harry,” she urges, wrapping a hand around his arm.

Tom seethes.

“I’m serious,” Harry insists, allowing her fingers to curl around his wrist. “Tom’s just… different. You know.”

Tom clenches his fists in the branches. Tearing off a handful of leaves, he then begins shredding them to bits.

When she finally removes her hands, Harry leans back onto the picnic blanket.

“Oh, we know,” Ron grumbles, and they all break into laughter again.

Harry doesn’t laugh, however. He just rubs his arm sheepishly, his cheeks growing pink.

“I think it’s kinda nice,” he mumbles.

Everyone else shakes their heads good-naturedly. Rolling his eyes, Ron reaches over to ruffle Harry's hair.

“Sure, Potter.”

And Tom falls in love—certain that it can’t be anything else—the way an atom bomb might.

Hurtling towards the ground. Ready to take them all out with him

“I’ve never met anyone as good as Harry Potter.

The way he loves. The way he cares. With no thought for how much he gives away.

When he held that boy—awkward and unsure but warm all the same—I thought:

This is what grace looks like w hen it’s trying not to be noticed.

Forgive me, Harry.

I can do nothing but notice you.”

OVERTURE

“I’d been planning to speak with you both,” Dumbledore begins, removing his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Though I’d dared to hope it would be under much better circumstances.”

Harry’s shoulders slump under the weight of his disapproval.

“Sorry, sir,” he mumbles, head bowed.

He’s chewing on his bottom lip. Tom watches, entranced, as the soft curve of it grows red and slick.

“It’s come to my attention that Mr. McLaggen has been exhibiting behavior that is certainly not tolerated here at Hogwarts,” Dumbledore concedes, settling his glasses back on his face. “However, I cannot overlook the fact that you assaulted him, dear boy.”

He folds his hands in his lap, looking disappointedly down at Harry, who seems to shrink even further into his seat.

“I understand, sir,” Harry replies, eyes fixed on his trainers. They’re scuffed, Tom notices with lovesick fervor. Moreso than before he’d fought with McLaggen.

“That’s ridiculous,” Tom hisses, staring Dumbledore down. From his left, he hears a sharp inhalation. “Harry was just protecting me.”

Dumbledore raises his brows at this, clearly surprised by Tom’s outburst. The man’s eyes jump over to him, before something in them shifts—his expression softening, lit up by newfound interest.

Tom—disturbed—finally turns to look at Harry, who meets his gaze with wide, shocked eyes. The elegant curve of Harry’s throat bobs as he swallows. “I—“

“I understand," Dumbledore interjects, distracting Harry from his train of thought. "There will be no record of this incident on your file, my boy.”

Harry exhales, relief lighting up his face.

“But I will be contacting Mr. Black,” Dumbledore adds, and Harry’s eyes snap back to him; seeming truly panicked for the first time since they entered the headmaster's office.

Tom bristles, confused by Harry's reaction.

He hates that there are still parts of Harry’s life he doesn’t know. Pieces of him that Tom has no access to.

Harry glances at Tom before he speaks, visibly embarrassed. “Sir, he… I don’t think he’s available at the moment.”

And Dumbledore just nods, understanding scrawled across his face. Tom can barely keep from scowling. Of course he knows. Manipulative old coot.

“Very well. Perhaps Mr. Lupin, then,” Dumbledore concludes, leaving Tom to mull. “Now—onto the other matter of business.”

The bell sleeves of his outdated dress shirt flutter as he gestures to the wall. Tom tears his eyes away from the man’s atrocious fashion sense, shifting his gaze over to the rows of trophies and plaques.

“You’re both aware of the Founders Assembly?”

Ah—he’d wondered if it would come to this.

“Of course, sir,” Harry replies, his eyes lighting up.

Each year, a few sixth-year musicians are invited to perform a piece. It’s never stated outright, but being chosen for Legacy Night is a clear distinction. A sign that you’ve been marked for greatness.

“As the highest-scoring musicians in your respective instruments, you’ve been invited to perform a duet for the alumni.”

He waves toward a row of photos by the door: famous faces of the last fifty years, all smiling, with their arms draped around Dumbledore.

“Together,” the headmaster finishes, looking somewhat sternly at Harry, but the boy just nods, grim-faced.

Dumbledore’s brow arches again—a real achievement, as the man is rarely caught off guard—before his expression softens once more.

“Wonderful. It’s quite an accomplishment, you know.”

He glances back at the photos again, his eyes settling on James and Lily Potter, and sobers briefly.

It doesn’t last, however. Because Dumbledore turns back to Harry, scanning his face, the movement both cataloging and affectionate. And, after a moment, he smiles: something unabashedly fond in his gaze.

Harry returns it, albeit sheepishly. When the headmaster's gaze lands on Tom—for once, without a hint of suspicion in it.

Ugh.

“Perhaps one day you’ll both find yourselves on that wall,” Dumbledore murmurs, his voice a bit watery.

He ends by reminding them that the choice of repertoire is theirs, before wishing them a pleasant afternoon. And then he discreetly reaches all the way across his desk for a tissue.

“Oh—one last thing,” he calls as they grab their bags. He’s crumpled the tissue in his fist, hiding it just under the desk, and Harry slings his backpack over one shoulder, pausing.

“I have a letter for you, Tom.”

Dumbledore’s hesitation is subtle, but unmistakable. Tom scowls, his mood darkening as Harry glances over, puzzled.

“Thank you,” he manages, curtly, before shoving the envelope quickly out of sight.

They exit, Dumbledore blowing his nose loudly as the door shuts. Tom and Harry exchange an uneasy glance as the sound drags on far too long. When their eyes meet, however, their expressions melt into shared humor. 

Tom thinks Dumbledore should cry more often.

PRELUDE

He misses Harry dreadfully over the summer.

Tom had never cared for social media before. He was uninterested in all of his peers—especially the ones most commonly splashed across the internet. But now he makes an account on every platform—anonymously, of course—and follows Harry Potter on all of them.

He spends the whole summer watching.

Harry is private; a fact both maddening and enticing. Still, he occasionally offers Tom a glimpse of his life.

Tom devotes his first week back in Lower Hangleton to writing a script. Within days, it’s auto-scraping Harry’s accounts every hour.

It’s backed up redundantly: two external SSDs and a cold storage NAS. Later, he’ll add a cloud mirror with top-of-the-line encryption.

It’s what Harry deserves, after all. The very best.     

When Harry uploads a photograph of himself at the very end of July—smiling in front of a birthday cake, his eyes impossibly green in the candlelight—Tom prints it out and tapes it beside his bed.

It makes Tom feel funny, looking at it, especially in the hours before sleep. His belly grows warm, a gnawing, urgent hunger taking root there.

He traces the image: skirting his fingers over the curve of Harry’s jaw and the perfect slope of his nose. He spends a lot of time memorizing the exact shade of his eyes.

Sometimes, when no one is around, he presses a kiss to it.

One of the maids had caught him once. She’d watched, disgusted, as Tom had pressed his lips to the glossy paper. Whatever her problem is, Tom doesn’t care a whit. They’re the ones paying her, after all. She can keep her stupid mouth shut. 

Tom misses him and misses him and misses him. It’s an ache that never fully goes away.

These windows into Harry’s daily life do nothing to sate him. The thought of Harry’s world spinning on without him keeps Tom awake for hours, sometimes, staring at the shy smile tacked above his bed.

And then he dreams of him. Of being welcomed into his life.

Of a world without windows, where Harry is always close enough to touch. Never needing to spy, his nose pressed against the glass.

Of course, he doesn’t hold that hope for long. There’s a reason they call him Peep Show, after all.

"He wore the jumper again today. Forest-green, the one that brings out his eyes.

The cuffs are fraying slightly. One might think of replacing it.

He rolls them up instead, exposing his wrists—the lean tendons, the fine bones—and I’m sure he couldn’t have imagined what it did to me.

I dreamed about them last night. About those steady hands. His broad palms and careful fingers, nails always chewed to the quick.

I woke up ashamed. And then I went to the practice room, and I played better than I ever have.

Where is the line between muse and siren, Harry Potter? Will your beauty make me brilliant—or will it drag me under?

Either way, my music thanks you."

OVERTURE

Tom has never liked the cafeteria.

For a time, he tolerated it. He would sit across the room from Harry, alone, watching the boy eat. Mindlessly chewing his own food, he’d stare as Harry laughed with all of his friends.

But then Harry’s lunch period had been switched—traded with the upper years so that he could join their Practicals.

Tom had stopped going entirely.

Now, after parting ways with Dumbledore, Tom is consumed with thoughts of their upcoming performance.

Being chosen for Legacy Night is a great honor, yes—but it’s the hours of rehearsal Tom is looking forward to the most. Completely, perfectly alone; Tom can hardly contain himself.

He realizes the letter Dumbledore handed him is still in his fist. It’s crumpled slightly, and Tom quickly smooths it out, hating the sight of wrinkled paper. Then he shoves it into his satchel without a second glance.    

He can worry about that later. He has quite enough on his plate already.

Having arrived in the courtyard, Fang bounds up to him, nuzzling his leg. Purring, she angles her chin, chirping for a treat. Tom scoffs, even as he reaches dutifully into his pocket.

“Greedy little thing,” he scolds, clicking his tongue.

If he bends down to scratch behind her ears—feeding her a bit of chicken he’d clearly squirreled away just for her—well, no one’s here to see.  

She is, after all, his second favorite member of the Academy.

When he finishes his sandwich, Tom checks his watch. He’s sprawled out in the grass by the old oak tree, Fang curled up by his feet in a patch of sunlight. The sky slips through the leaves, scattering shadows that shift over his wrist as he eyes the time.

Harry should be finished with Practicals soon. They’d promised to meet and discuss their performance.

Tom feels his heart beat faster as he remembers their last rehearsal.

Standing quickly, he feeds Fang the last scrap of chicken. And then he shoulders his bag, hurrying inside.

Making his way to the bottom level in record time, Tom's shoes squeak across the freshly shined floors. Nudging the door open, he slips carefully inside—but Harry isn’t here yet.

Still, Practice Room 23 is just as pretty in the daylight. Tom looks around in an effort to bide his time. Searching for echoes of him.

Harry always chooses this room, and now Tom tries to see it through his eyes. The warm wood, the tall windows. It’s intimate—one of the smaller practice spaces.

How unusual, that someone would choose to burrow themselves away. The room is hardly a broom cupboard, but compared to others, it may as well be.

He spends a few minutes watching the sun dapple over 23. Dust swirls in these patches of sky, slants of it bending near the window and stretching across the floorboards. Tom stands as it reaches across the room, its last rays turning syrupy.

When he turns around, Harry is standing there, caught in the dying light.

“Hello,” Tom breathes, awestruck.

“Hullo.”

Stepping inside, Harry sets down his violin. As he digs through his bag, Tom takes the bench, his fingers trailing absently over the keys.

He hears the shuffling of Harry’s repertoire, and then the boy is sitting down too—closer than expected. Tom’s fingers press down too hard on the keys as heat radiates off Harry’s skin.

A minor chord rips through the silence.    

Harry just laughs, settling his papers on the music rack. “Should we start?”

Tom nods, flustered. He struggles to focus—the proximity is too much. Harry smells of soap and spices.

Tom had sniffed every bottle that belonged to Harry in the bathroom last night. It must be the cologne in the dark brown bottle. Inhaling again, dizzy, Harry fills up his lungs.

The boy's smile dies a bit as silence stretches between them. Tom, in a way he’s only ever felt around Harry, suddenly wishes he were better at this.

“Dumbledore seemed adamant to punish us with this,” Tom says, to fill the quiet.

Harry just thumbs the keys idly. “It won’t be that bad.”

Tom’s heart spasms, hammering at the cage of his ribs. “Oh?”

“It’s my fault, anyway,” Harry mutters, watching Tom’s fingers curl into D major.

“Don’t tell me you actually believed Dumbledore’s scolding.”

Harry shakes his head, smiling, before his expression sobers. “I meant McLaggen. I’m the reason he went after you in the first place.”

Tom blinks. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Harry mirrors Tom’s hands, an octave down, and the D chord rings once more through the room. A bird chirps outside the window before taking flight.  

“I know what happened,” Harry murmurs, “All those years ago. I know it was… well.”

Tom seizes up, his hands balling into fists, scrunching up the fabric of his slacks. But then Harry lets the thought die, abandoning it entirely, and Tom’s pulse begins to slow.

Breathe, hold, five.

Out, hold, five.

Tom starts thumbing the keys again, as his heart resumes its usual pace. He doesn’t play with his usual form; just teases a melody out softly.

Harry watches him pluck at the keys, and Tom feels the back of his neck grow warm.

He leans into Harry’s space, suddenly compelled to strike a C6. He thinks Harry might not mention it, Tom encroaching upon his unspoken side of the bench.

He doesn’t.

Tom scoots closer, heart racing again. He’s nearly pressed against Harry’s side now, but the boy says nothing.

Tom plays in earnest, though without his full focus. He lets the notes dance softly, unobtrusively, between them. Just loud enough that there could still be conversation.

If someone desired. 

“I always wanted to learn,” Harry remarks suddenly. “You make it look so elegant.”

Tom’s heart races at the words. Harry’s tone is casual, mild even, though his eyes are intent.

Were you watching me, Tom can’t help but think. The way I watched you?

“I could teach you,” Tom replies, trying to keep the breathlessness from his voice.

The words come out strained. But the reckless, hopeless desire he feels is held back. His gaze rests on the nape of Harry’s neck as his voice grows taut, gooseflesh prickling on his arms.

“Yeah?” Harry answers, the sound of his voice low.

Tom is overcome with the desire to lean in. To bite—his teeth digging into the flesh over Harry’s pulse until it's spit-soaked. To wrap a circle of kisses around Harry’s throat, bruises painted across his skin, leaving Harry gasping for more.

Tom leans closer, feeling unbearably warm—

And then Harry tenses.

Jerking away, Tom is jarred by his own lack of restraint. He shakes his head frantically, as if waking from a trance, feeling vaguely ashamed. 

“You needn’t say yes, of course,” Tom blurts out. “You’re already exceptional.”

His hands snap back to the keys, frantic, flickering down the piano. La Campenella erupts manically from its belly.   

“You’re worried about my distress. I doubt mastering my instrument would—would soothe those fears—“

“Yes,” Harry interrupts. “That’s—thank you, Tom.”

A smile tugs at his mouth before he can stop it. It’s too bright, really—blinding, even, and Tom tilts his jaw down, saving it for the keys. Liszt turns to Mozart as quickly as his mouth curls.

Rondo Alla Turca is light and cheerful. The notes flutter between them, airy and bright. And then Tom realizes—quite abruptly, as his fingers skate down the instrument, the silence now holding tension—Harry means now.

Breath catching, Tom’s fingers tense on the keys. Scooting closer again, he slowly erases the distance between them, and Harry nods as Tom tentatively reaches around him.

Curling his hands gently over Harry’s, he prays his palms are dry.

Guiding him, he taps Harry’s second finger softly, and Harry presses it down. The note rings around them, and they both smile. Emboldened, Tom’s other hand taps Harry’s first, third, and fifth fingers. Catching on quickly, Harry hits them all at once, a perfect triad echoing around them.

A most dutiful student, he thinks, terribly in love. Worried that it’s plain on his face.

“Very good,” Tom murmurs, trying not to seem as though he’s smelling Harry’s hair.

He is, of course. But Harry mustn’t know.  

The boy’s ears go red as Tom’s words tickle the back of his neck. The skin there flushes, heated, as Tom breathes in the scent of his shampoo.

“Not very elegant, though,” Harry counters, a bit sheepish.

The nape of Harry’s neck is so close. This might be the closest they’ve ever been, in fact.

Tom swallows too loudly, the sound amplified in his own ears. He’s dreamt about the taste of that skin a thousand times, and here it is, close enough to—

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Tom replies, and his voice catches, the words bending in the middle.

Harry glances at him over his shoulder, one brow raised dryly, and Tom is overcome by him. Afternoon is turning on its foot, evening fast on its heel. He watches the light play over Harry’s cheekbones, awestruck.

“We’ll get you there,” Tom breathes. “I’ll get you there, Harry. I swear it.”

And Harry’s eyes sort of shimmer, the humor in them softening into something gentler. He averts his gaze after a moment, rubbing the back of his neck.

“No hurry, dude,” Harry mumbles, glancing at him from the corner of his eye. “Er— Tom.”

Tom thinks he ought to have spent more time in church, seeing as miracles exist. Grandmother had always tried to convince him, but he could never fake the enthusiasm.

He resumes Rondo, then, smiling as his fingers dance along the keys.

“What song should we do?” Harry asks over the music, bending down to unlatch his case.

Tom waits until he’s bent over to look at him, and his eyes catch on a new sticker stretched around the case’s handle. It overlaps with the ‘R’ in Roonil; that odd, puzzling name.

Tom furrows his brow, determined to ask, before remembering they aren’t here to chat.

Still, music is one of his favorite avenues of conversation. He tries to summon more enthusiasm—Harry is one of the best people in the world to speak it with, after all. Tom’s wanted an excuse like this for years.

“I’m not sure. Something exceptional, certainly. Befitting both of our playing.” Tom’s voice is even, but his eyes linger. He thinks he sees the faintest flush on the back of Harry’s neck. “Something no one will have done before.”

“We could always play our version of Rach 3,” Harry suggests, straightening up with his bow and rosin.

Drawing the horsehair along the cake, he angles it slightly. A soft, dry sound scratches through the air with every pass.

Harry’s face is meditative, lost in the ritual he’s performed a thousand times. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth again.

Focus, Tom reminds himself.

“A wonderful idea,” he replies, his mouth watering. “We’ll have to compose a more official arrangement, of course.”

“Could be fun,” Harry says with a shrug.

“They’ll probably like that,” Tom adds. “Very well.”

“Where do you want to trim the cadenza?” Harry asks. “We don’t want to go over our slot.”

“Through to bar seventy-nine, I think.” Tom flips the sheet music over, marking it. “We can collapse the transition while keeping the architecture intact.”

Harry snorts. “You’re such a romantic about structure.”

Tom straightens up. “I just don’t want to mutilate a masterpiece,” he insists.

“We’d be mutilating it together,” Harry teases, mischief dancing in his eyes.

Tom swallows again, a traitorous heat swimming in his belly.

“Let’s play it again like last time,” Harry suggests, setting the rosin back in his case and lifting up his instrument. “We can get a feel for how we want to arrange it.”

Tom nods as Harry docks the violin, nestling it under his chin. He gets into first position as Harry draws his bow across the strings, and then they’re off, in perfect synchronicity.

If the first time they had played Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3 had felt easy, the second time is something else entirely. It’s lost the rawness, but none of the heart.

There’s so much balance in the music. He recalls likening it to a dance before, but this—this is closer to flight.

As the music builds, Harry pushes the tempo just enough to keep the piece alive. Tom adjusts by instinct; not following his pace, but matching it.

They’ve cut a whole orchestra down to two. Somehow, it’s better for it.

By the time they hit the Scherzando, they’re no longer reading the sheet music. Harry laughs mid-phrase—a bright, startled whoop—and Tom carries them through, his fingers shaping the harmony.

He weaves his part through Harry’s, keeping the spine of the song straight. And when they land the final chords, the music seems to stretch on forever.

Harry played the whole way through, sitting at the bench beside Tom—just like last time—and Tom feels so fond of him it aches.

“That was brill!” Harry exclaims, beaming. High praise, it seems, coming from him.

“I agree,” Tom says amiably, unable to hide his smile. “I think it’s the perfect selection.”

The light has diluted down to almost nothing. It’s gone soft with the last of the sun, bolts of the sky licking at the warm wood around them.

“Perfect,” Harry agrees, grinning from ear to ear. “In fact, it was—God—it was exactly what I needed right now, I think.”

He laughs and shakes his head, curls tumbling into his eyes.

Tom watches as he tilts his jaw back, twilight lapping at his throat. It kisses down his neck the way Tom has always dreamed of.

“Yes,” Tom echoes, breathless; watching dusk reflected in the green of Harry’s eyes. “Perfect.”

The way he smiles at him—just at him.

Perfect.

Even the reminder, lurking beneath it all—the reason why Harry so desperately needed a distraction—can’t dim his pleasure.

“I’ll be right back, yeah? Gonna use the loo,” Harry announces suddenly, clapping Tom on the shoulder.

He leans into it, just a little. He enjoys the feeling of Harry’s broad palm pressing firmly against his back, fingers digging in slightly. Fleeting and all-consuming, Tom savors the warmth of his skin.

It lingers long after Harry’s gone.

Tom quickly loses himself in thoughts of their transposition. Grabbing a blank piece of staff paper, he begins drafting a rough outline. Perhaps Harry could begin the solo, Tom muses. And I could finish it.

He grabs a pencil too, the nub half worn down, and absorbs himself in his scribbling. Immersed in the notes, in the methodical theory of it all, he hardly notices how long Harry has been gone.

He barely even notices his phone—never silenced, for who would text him—buzzing on the table. When it vibrates again, however, rattling against the wood, he’s shaken from his concentration.

The display blinks, and he picks it up, curious. Swiping his finger across the screen, he unlocks it—and his heart, still so full of happiness, hurtles right into his stomach.

Who are you?

The blog has its very first message.

I just want to talk.

-HP.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

OVERTURE

The sixth-year class is always invited to the Founders Gala—though being asked to perform is something else entirely.

Black tie is mandatory. The alumni will be dressed to the nines, after all, so it’s important that they represent the academy’s ‘grand legacy.’

When Tom catches his first look at Harry—green silk shirt perfectly pressed, buttoned tight at the base of his throat—he nearly drops his champagne flute right onto the marbled floor.

Beautiful. God—

The way his slacks hug his hips, clinging, just shy of indecent, to the swell of his arse. His shirt, tucked in and cinching him at the waist, reveals broad shoulders tapering into the lean lines of his hips. All soft, shimmering fabrics and cutting potential.

It’s nothing new, feeling so overcome by him. The certainty that Harry Potter is the loveliest thing he’s ever seen.

The way Harry breaks into a grin at the sight of him, however, is new.

Startling, like the sunrise: though it peters over the sky every morning, it still manages to disarm you. Catching it in the act always feels biblical, no matter how many times the earth turns. 

God, Tom thinks again, rapturous, breath hitching. He’s nearly dizzy with it, in fact—knees weak under the weight of that smile. He forgets to feel guilty as Harry’s eyes pin him in place across the room, the sick, sinking feeling of waiting for the rug to be swept out from underneath him vanishing.

Replaced by the startling heat of the universe breaking open. The sensation of finally being seen. His eyes are shocking, even from three feet away. Impossibly bright and trained right on Tom.

Harry weaves through the thin crowd of students near the stage, dodging fifth-years who flit about anxiously, completing last-minute preparations. It’s a substantial portion of their final grade, after all, and they wear the burden of it plainly, flustered and frantic.

Harry, who manages to belong wherever he goes, simply parts through the chaos like the eye of a lantern. Bodies cleave like fog to make way; burned off like shadows under the sun.

“You clean up nice,” he teases, eyes dragging slowly over Tom.

His gaze feels like a brand: searing through Tom’s skin, all the way to his bones. A physical caress, hot hands sliding down the backs of his thighs. Tightening over his throat and brushing down the front of his slacks. Teasing out whatever goodness is left in him, eyes wide and hungry, as he whispers, I always knew you were exceptional, Tom—

“You look…” Tom starts, and then stops, swallowing against the sudden dryness in his throat.

The main performance hall is a grand, gilded space. A massive, vaulted skylight hangs overhead, and the setting sun peeks through the glass, painting them all in shades of dying gold.

Harry, to no surprise, shines the brightest.

He snorts, however, taking Tom’s stunned silence as teasing. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

He rolls his eyes in mock pity, and it’s so like their old banter: familiar, easy. But this time, Harry’s teasing is soft. Drenched in warmth and affection.

Tom has always believed they propelled each other to greatness. That they were the only two people who even understood what that meant. But everyone else was blind to it.

Now, though, Harry's words are soaked in laughter. And when they drift out into the hall, Tom can feel that good humor infecting their simple-minded peers with confusion.

He spies a few people glancing over at them, and the concern on their faces is vindicating. See? Tom wants to say. He’s mine. And now you know, as I always have, that we complete each other.

The other students—and faculty, even—had stopped batting an eye at the two of them. What would have once seemed unusual, seeing them side by side in the halls each morning, no longer startled anyone once consolatory word had spread: hushed whispers, which always seemed to find Tom’s ears, muttering about Harry’s misfortune.

That poor boy—stuck with Riddle. Such terrible luck he’s suffered.

Now, however, they can deny it no longer. Because Harry is smiling.

At Tom.

Harry laughs again, this time at the severity on Tom’s face during his scheming. And as the sound rings out, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley approach the pair warily.

“Don’t you look lovely,” Granger says to Harry.

She offers him a warm smile—with a softness in her expression that burrows into Tom’s skin. As she speaks, she leans closer to smooth down his collar, fingers trailing too comfortably across his chest.

Slut, Tom thinks bitterly, as his nails dig into the meat of his palms. The way she touches him, so entitled, it’s as though she owns him. As if he were hers to prod at as she pleases. As if she had the right.

Whore.

He hardly notices Weasley mirroring his frustration. Tom forgets he’s even there, in fact, until the boy mumbles, “Yeah. You look like a million bucks, mate.”

Ronald’s hands fiddle awkwardly with his own collar; the edges fraying and patched in two different shades of thread. Well-loved, someone kinder might have said, trying to veil the cruel sting of poverty.

Tom isn’t kind. It’s a very ugly shirt.

“Thanks,” Harry says, with a sheepish shrug.

Why must you always be the last person to know how exceptional you are? The sun itself seems to reach for you—haven’t you noticed you’re always bathed in its light?

Granger clears her throat, pointedly. “That’s a nice tie, Tom.”

He glances down, thumb brushing the silk absently. The embossed Hermes logo shimmers beneath the light—a late birthday present last year from his father, sent via overnight mail. The handwriting on the accompanying card had been his grandmother’s, of course, but he’d taken the time out of his very busy schedule to slap on a stamp.

“Thanks,” Tom says.

And nothing more.

Silence stretches between them, fraught and uncomfortable. Tom refuses to fill it, a sick pleasure rising in its wake. He watches the quiet rake its nails down their backs with some vindictive, poorly contained sense of glee.

Then, Harry laughs—half delight, half mania. “So nice to see us all getting along, yeah?”

Granger shoots him a chastising look, and it eats at Tom. There it is—another display of her self-presumed entitlement. You’re not his keeper, he wants to snap.

“There’s no need to be cruel,” she mutters, glancing awkwardly at Tom. He just smiles at her—sharklike, with far too many teeth—and she blanches.

“Yeah, Harry,” Weasley chimes in unhelpfully. “I mean, no one’s saying it’s not weird—”

“I really think we should talk about it,” Granger cuts in sharply. “About… you-know-what.”

“Nothing to talk about.” Harry shrugs again, managing to sound wholly unconcerned.

This only serves to ruffle Granger’s feathers, however, and as she puffs up, so full of that gosh darn righteous indignation, Tom can’t look away from Harry.

He feels his heart cracking open; ribs pried apart to offer the wet, shivering mass of it up. Uncovered, it reaches right for Harry. As heat pools beneath the muscle, sinew seared, the tissue drips into his belly; gristle fills up his lungs, each breath thick and wobbling.

So many of Tom’s fantasies begin this way: Harry, scorning the people he once preferred. Choosing him, instead, as they watched, wistful, miserable. On the sidelines of everything that mattered, the way Tom has always been, long before he’d met Harry.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Granger insists, laughing with an edge of nerves.

“Yeah, mate,” Weasley snorts. “There’s obviously something going on.”

Granger steps on his foot with the pointed edge of her sensible heel—a remarkably ugly pair of nude pumps—and he curses.

It’s a rather crude litany of words, none of which Tom finds worthy of repeating. No surprise there. Lord knows what those country folk grow up learning.

“Ron,” Hermione hisses, and Ron shuffles back in a bid, no doubt, to save his secondhand loafers from her wrath.

“What?” he asks, affronted. “Even Peep Show has to admit this is mental—”

“Keep your thoughts to yourself, mate,” Harry says coldly.

The silence that falls is suffocating. Heavier this time, as Granger flinches, swallowing audibly in the stifling quiet.

She glances back at Tom—in condemnation or a bid for sanity, he can’t be sure—but Tom merely takes a sip of his punch: lifting a brow as she stands there gaping.

“Maybe we should talk about this privately,” she says, when the tension has stretched too thin between them.

“I told you, ‘Mione.” Tom’s teeth grind at Harry’s endearment. What a stupid little nickname. “There’s nothing to talk about—”

“Are you kidding? Just look at him!” Weasley barks, laughing too loudly. More than a few heads turn to look at them. “He’s doing it right bloody now! Oi, Peep show—”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Harry snaps suddenly, all of his earlier warmth gone. He’s scowling quite fiercely, now, in fact, all that beautiful, righteous anger—and it’s devoted to Tom.

“Wha’,” Weasley scoffs. “You guys are friends now? Come on, Harry—”

“So what if we are?”

It lands like a slap. Granger certainly makes a sound like she’s been struck, sucking in a sharp, startled breath.

Tom’s chest feels like a war drum. He can hear his blood rushing too quickly beneath his skin; the sound of his heart hammering is muffled and sluggish in his own ears. The whole world sounds distorted, in fact, as though he were underwater. Delayed, like looking in a funhouse mirror, his reflection warped and two beats behind.

“Harry!” Granger pleads.

And then Harry grabs them both by the arm, dragging them into the wings.

Tom watches them go as the curtain sways behind them—still rooted in place. Surprise has caught him, too, and he can only stand there as their voices drift farther away.

He presses a hand to his chest, over the soft lapels of his jacket. Feeling the fine wool underneath his fingers does nothing to calm the clamber of his heart, thudding like a rabbit’s, as it wracks its fists against the cage of his ribs. Thrashing, as though it’d like to escape and crawl home—to be laid to rest under Harry’s skin instead.

So what if we are?

He creeps closer to the curtain. The sound of their voices is hard to make out, and he strains for Granger’s clipped, commandeering tones or the sound of Weasley’s grating cockney accent. There are mostly shuffling, overlapping noises as the three talk over each other.

“…I know what McLaggen did was fucked up, Harry, but—”

He sees a few people eyeing him suspiciously, pressed too close to the curtain. Taking a sip of his drink, he tries to look inconspicuous.

“…all my fault! …any idea what this has been like for him—”

Tom leans in, ear flattened instantly against the fabric, uncaring if people are looking at him.

“Harry!” Granger, again—obvious by the shrill, whining quality of her voice. “You can’t be someone’s friend out of pity.”

I hate her. I really, truly hate her. I’d carve those vocal cords right out of her throat if I could, so that she could never say Harry’s name again. Peeling every inch of skin from the bone, one strip at a time. Just as soft and intimate as she’s ever dared to touch him.

“Oh, bugger off,” Harry snaps. Weasley mutters something in protest, likely defending the girl, but Harry barrels right over him. “I’m not befriending him out of pity.”

Tom exhales, shaky, his lungs rattling. His breath has been wrung dry, nothing but dregs left to pour out through his teeth.

It isn’t until Harry says the words that something inside him dares to unfurl. To believe, finally—in a way he’d never acknowledged doubting—that their connection was truly sacred. That Tom hadn’t made all this up his head: the lonely dreams of an unloved boy, clinging painfully to scraps of kindness.

Pressing his thighs together, as his cock stirs in trousers, sudden and poorly timed, he wills away the surge of arousal. Not now. Not here.

“Harry, please,” Granger urges. “I know what’s happening now isn’t Tom’s fault. But you remember what he did—”

“I don’t care!” Harry shouts. Loud enough that Tom would have heard him even if he wasn’t guilty of every crime they had accused him of. If his ear wasn’t pressed to the curtain, spying, lecherous.

Harry’s next words are much quieter. Too quiet, in fact, that even as Tom strains, he’s unable to make them out. Each hushed, unidentified sound digs its teeth into Tom’s chest, anxiety unspooling beneath his ribs.

Desperate, he toes closer, until the tips of his loafers slip beneath the curtain.

“Everyone was rotten to him long before that,” Harry is saying, his voice gruff. “They just don’t understand—”

“And thank god for that!” Weasley sneers, no doubt making some awful, freckled face. “Wouldn’t want to know what goes on in the head of a nutter like that, myself.”

Harry just scoffs, the sound leeched of humor. “Then you’re lucky to be so thick,” he says coldly. “You couldn’t even if you wanted to.”

“Well,” Ron chokes out, toeing the line between vulnerability and fury. “If you’re such good friends, why don’t you just spend our whole last year babysitting him?”

“Fine!”

There’s a beat of shuffling, and then, in an instant, the curtain rips back. Tom stumbles, clearly caught, and Weasley laughs—an ugly, knowing sound.

“You just can’t help it,” he spits. “Can you, Peep Show?”

Tom doesn’t respond, but he’s not sure Weasley was really expecting him to. He certainly doesn’t stick around long enough to receive one.

Instead, he brushes past, knocking Tom’s shoulder hard enough against him to set him off-balance. The boy glances back at Harry for a moment, hesitation warring with his pride, before storming away.

Granger hurries after him, the clack of her stupid shoes echoing off the marble. Harry watches them go, silent, sullen, but he doesn’t follow them.

Instead, he stays behind.

With Tom.

“Are you alright?”

Standing in the spotlight’s edge, he’s framed in the leftover warmth. Even with his mouth curled into a grimace, widening the longer he stares at Tom, he’s never been more lovely.

Me. You stayed with me—chose me.

“Yes.” Tom swallows. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

“Don’t be.” Harry smiles sadly. “You had every right. It was about you, after all.”

Harry shifts until he’s cradled in the shadows just beyond the spotlight. His collar is rumpled again, unsoiled by Granger’s hands, and it takes everything in Tom not to fix it. To smooth it over, replacing her touch with his own.

Tilting his head, Harry exposes the juncture of his throat. The top button of his shirt digs its teeth into Harry’s pulse, and Tom aches to do the same.

His cheekbones have been carved out in the backlight: the contrast like a hand curled around his jaw. It’s all so distracting that Tom feels lightheaded, as though his knees might give. And what would Harry do if they did? Lift me up—hold me?

Tom thinks he might.

“Are you two ready?” The stage manager interrupts. She’s one of the more capable fifth years, holding a clipboard in steady hands—and with startling clarity, Tom realizes that he’d almost forgotten why they were here. “They’re seating the donors now. You both have to get backstage.”

As Harry turns, looking out into the din, the house lights spill over his cheek. The side closer to the artificial sun is cast in gold.

Tom’s phone burns a hole in the bottom of his pocket, but his mind couldn’t be farther from his lies. The house of cards he’s built wobbles, threatening to fall, but he doesn’t look down.

Instead, he looks at Harry, shining and steady. Belonging even in uncertainty. And for a moment, it makes Tom feel like he belongs, too.

Harry nods. “We’re ready.”

Tom has everything he’s ever wanted, right now. Standing in front of him, finally close enough to touch.

“Yes,” he echoes, voice hoarse.

He can’t explain why he does it. Except that, for the very first time, he’s sure he won’t be refused.

“We are.”

Leaning in—close enough to smell Harry’s aftershave, the one in the little green bottle—Tom reaches up to straighten his collar. Fingers brushing the fabric carefully, the flash of skin under his thumb warm to the touch.

I’ve never been more ready for anything.

Who are you?

Tom still isn’t sure how to answer that. But for the first time in his life, he thinks he might be someone Harry won’t walk away from.

PRELUDE

The first time Tom stumbles across Fang, the sky is pattering against the pavement.

The clouds part in a sea of fog; just a sliver of the sun peeks through the dull rain. The ground is wet and slick, and Tom’s shoes nearly skid over the cobblestones as he runs.

How could you be so stupid—

That’s when he sees her. Lying there, shivering, fur drenched and clinging to her body. She’s huddled beneath the old oak tree, yowling pitifully, and the web of its branches does little to stop the assault of rain. Her predicament is bad enough, it seems, to beg for help from the worst kinds of people.

Tom is the last person she should turn to.

He’s never been sure why Dumbledore hired that bumbling caretaker. Hagrid is dim-witted and wholly mediocre at his job. Tom had always thought so, and now he’s certain, because his cat is huddled there, soaked to the bone. Alone, shivering in the rain, and teething on Tom’s Italian loafers.

Tom doesn’t like cats. He hardly likes anything but Harry Potter and the feeling of his fingers sliding over keys.

All the more reason, he thinks, to blame Hagrid. Even he could do a better job than that imbecile, and he—

You ruined it, all of it. He’ll never, ever forgive you for this.

Running a reluctant hand over the cat’s flank, she arches into his touch. Tom can hear her begin to purr, even as pitiful and waterlogged as she is.

Bridging the gap between them, she nudges her cheek into his palm. Seeking to get closer, even if only to steal his warmth.

You let yourself be caught—

The sound of jeering still echoes in his ears. It plays on loop as Tom retrieves a towel. Continuing on, even as the rain slows to a drip.

Fang squirms in his hold when he sets to gently drying her fur, claws digging into his thighs as she attempts to wriggle from his grasp, but he bears it. She’s not the only one desperate to escape him, after all.

When she’s finally dry, he holds her close, letting the soft rumble of her breath wash over him. Buzzing softly against his chest, the heat of her body seeps into his skin.

Two hours ago, he’d sealed his fate with Harry Potter. PEEPSHOW, they’ll go on to call him, though he won’t find that out until the morning.

The whole school will never let him forget what he’d done in the showers. Harry will certainly never look at him the same.

But Fang doesn’t know any of that.

She just breathes—paws kneading at his ribs; body a warm, steady weight against his chest—and allows him to forget, for one moment, that he’d just ruined his own life.

OVERTURE

“Are you nervous?” Harry whispers, as a hush falls over the room.

Dumbledore has taken to the stage. Everyone leans a bit closer when he speaks, seemingly unable to help themselves. The old fool has always had that effect.

Ugh.

Looking over at Harry, the two of them stand just inside the wings. They’re obscured only by the curtain; the thick velvet of it brushes against Tom’s cheek as he turns his head to better watch Harry.

“No,” he answers.

It’s the truth. Tom has always been remarkable, and more certain of this fact than anyone else.

“Me either,” Harry replies, grinning.

The stage lights have washed him once more in gold. Tom’s always thought the color looked right on him—as if he were some king of old, meant to be draped in laurels and precious metals.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Tom whispers, as a wave of applause ratchets through the room. “You’ll be exceptional.”

Harry looks out at the sea of people, each more famous than the last, and then his eyes return to Tom’s.

“Yeah,” he agrees softly, as the applause dims, petering out into silence. “You too.”

Dumbledore finally gestures their way, a sanctimonious sweep of his arm beckoning them forward. The stage has been already been set: a glossy piano rests atop the well-shined floor, slick as oil as it reflects underneath the stage lights. Each of their footsteps echoes faintly as they cross.

Harry’s shoes click as he makes his way toward a singular music stand. It sits at downstage right, but he stops before he can get there. Pausing near the piano, leaving the sheet music abandoned, Harry takes his place at the bench. Right next to Tom.

Exactly where he belongs, Tom thinks, breathless and reckless all at once. With me.

The sky has settled, darkness blanketing the room. The sun has been snuffed out, and only the soft, warm light of chandeliers seeps into the space.

The house lights dim fully as they sit. A faint hush goes around the room as Harry settles at Tom’s side, a lone spotlight carving them out. It bounces softly off the keys as Tom sets his fingers against them.

He notes the glint of his cufflinks as they catch in the residual glow: a single spot of silver amongst all the gold.

Then Harry anchors the violin under his chin, glancing over at Tom. In response, Tom brushes his fingers over the keys, resting them there a moment longer than necessary. Anticipation brews as the two of them lock eyes—and then he nods.

With practiced grace, Harry lifts his bow. He’d rosined it already, backstage, as Tom had watched with greedy eyes. Stuck on the practiced, perfect motions. Lost in the weight of finally being a part of them.

After a single, solitary breath, Harry presses the bow against his strings, and they’re off.

Only a few notes in, the shock is obvious. Not everyone in the crowd is familiar with classical music—Hogwarts offers a variety of mediums—but it’s what the Academy is known best for. And as the very first sighs of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto Number Three echo in the grand hall, people sit up a bit straighter.

No one speaks, for that would be against every known law of theatre etiquette. But the intrigue is palpable; all of them leaning forward in their seats, as if to better hear the music.

A duet cut from one of the most technically demanding pieces in the piano repertoire would have been extraordinary on its own. The way both of them play, too, expertly reducing an entire orchestra down to two, would have greatly set them apart.

But Harry isn’t even a pianist. The transposition, the mastery over their instruments, the knowledge it would take to rearrange—

It isn’t just a performance. It’s a redefinition.

Under their fingers, Rach’s piece becomes a conversation. Every swell and passage, each shift in tempo, is transformed into dialogue. They’ve discarded every other player—notes instead passed back and forth between two. Defined by what they choose to say, rather than the music itself.

Rachmaninoff penned this piece over a century ago, but Tom and Harry breathe new life into it. Breaking the work apart and piecing it back together; bones sturdy, spine still straight, but wearing a new face.

It’s vulnerability in motion.

Tom feels broken open under all these eyes. Laid bare with his own two hands, every bit of his yearning reflected in the hum of strings. Unable, now, to hide.

Harry doesn’t seem to notice. He’s lost himself in it, the way he always does, eyes half-lidded, staring down the barrel of his fingerboard. They flutter closed at points, the swell of vibrato quivering alongside them.

Tom watches, helpless, his every nerve exposed. The music wrings itself right out of him: the way he’s learned to do from watching Harry Potter.

There can’t be a soul here who doesn’t see why they were chosen. The air is heavy, charged, the crowd sitting silent, clinging eagerly to every note. Tom can’t make out their faces—they are nothing but shadowed interlopers to their success. Flickering in the foreground of Tom’s vision: hushed, reverent.

People have bombed before. Very few, as only the best of the best are even offered the chance, but some have choked under the pressure. Yet, despite the Academy’s unforgiving reputation, this moment feels self-mythologizing.

Legend: two boys and the music between them. Like fables warning against pride and hunger. The sort of moral tale that Tom is too late to guard against.

Stars spill out from the skylight, pouring over Harry’s back. His neck is slightly bowed, moonlight cradled in the hollow it forms. Shadows kiss at his fingers, and, lit by portraiture, cast his profile in bronze.

He looks up at Tom for just a moment, a single curl falling over his brow, and just like that, the world falls away. Nothing can touch him here: not rumors or cruelty. No betrayal or pity.

The feeling of being watched fades. Everything disappears, in fact, until it’s only the two of them, sharing breath and music; space and feeling. And when they finish, the room erupts, applause stretching on so long that Tom’s smile strains.

One look at Harry, however, and it’s easier to stomach.

When anything but the raucous crowd becomes audible again, brief snatches of conversation are overheard.

“Holy shit,” someone says in the back, muffled and coming from the student section.

They’re quickly shushed—likely by a professor—but it’s halfhearted. Everyone can tell they just witnessed something exceptional.

At his side, Harry huffs softly. Just a breath of laughter that brushes against Tom’s ear. “I think that about covers it.”

Tom couldn’t agree more.

Holy shit, indeed.

Hermione: What are we going to do?

Ron: see if I care!

Hermione: Come on, Ron. He’s your best friend, and he’s in trouble

Ron: he’s a prat, is what he is!

Hermione: Well, I won’t disagree with you there…

Hermione: But something isn’t right here.

Hermione: Tom suddenly wants to be Harry’s best friend? After what he did to him?

Hermione: And Harry’s just going along with it??

Ron: what are you saying, mione?

Hermione: I’m saying that something is wrong.

Hermione: Very, very wrong.

She snaps her laptop shut, every article on that wretched blog disappearing. She can hardly stomach reading that sort of thing about Harry—about her best friend—no matter how utterly stupid he’s being right now.

Hermione: And I’m going to find out what it is.

She’s no computer whiz—but someone in this school’s got to know how to track an IP address, right?

Chapter Text

INCIDENT AT THE PRESTIGIOUS HOGWARTS CONSERVATORY SPARKS RUMORS OF MISCONDUCT

Students Whisper As Administrators Rush To Contain Fallout

HOGSMEADE, U.K. — The Hogwarts Conservatory—Britain’s most exclusive academy for prodigious young talent—found itself at the center of controversy last term.

Chapter Text

OVERTURE  

The morning after Legacy Night, as is tradition, the Conservatory’s students depart for half-term.

They line up like toy soldiers at the gate, boarding the train single file—eager to return to happy, coddled families and warm, wide houses. A whistle echoes down the hill, and the sound lingers, thinning into the grey afternoon.   

In the dorms, Tom wakes slowly, blinking sleep from his eyes. The room is warm and dim, air still thick with dreams. Thin slats of light peek through the shutters, casting strange shadows on the walls; high enough to indicate it’s well past morning.  

His body sinks deeper into the mattress. Everything is warm—linens pressed to his cheek, fabric sweet-smelling and soft. Something solid is pressed against him, and he curls closer instinctively, burrowing into the heat before his mind catches up with his body. 

Harry is staring at him: barely awake, lashes clumped, eyes half lidded. His hair is a dark halo around him, curls brushing his cheeks, and he smiles when he notices Tom is awake. 

“Hi,” Harry whispers.

For a moment, Tom can only stare. Then his whole body flushes; he jerks upright, scrambling away until his back hits the wall. He’s mortifyingly hard beneath the sheets—his body a traitor, a wicked, perfidious saboteur.   

Oh God, he thinks, lungs stuttering as he tries to catch his breath. Did he notice—  

Harry laughs, low and dark. “Good morning.” His voice is rough with sleep, and he stretches his arms above his head, shirt riding up just enough to reveal a strip of skin—still golden, even in winter’s pallid light.

He’d fallen asleep in his button-down, faintly scented with cologne and cigarette smoke. The top buttons have come undone, baring the broad slope of his chest, and the hem untucked, revealing a thin trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his waistband. 

“Good morning,” Tom echoes, words little more than a croak.   

Harry hums, glancing lazily at the clock. “We having a lie-in?” he teases. Tom follows his gaze, and the numbers on the display blink blearily back at him: 10:56.

He bolts upright, sheets twisting around his waist. “Have you packed yet?”  

Harry doesn’t move. “Nope.”   

His arms stay folded behind his head, pillow bunched up beneath him. The motion makes his forearms shift obscenely against the rumpled cotton, muscle straining, veins marking a passage Tom’s tongue longs to trace.  

His stomach flips, turning over so quickly he feels nauseous. Get up, he tells himself, prying his gaze away. Move.    

He forces himself to his feet, angling the lower half of his body away from the bed. “You’d better hurry,” he mumbles, face hot as he runs a trembling hand through his hair.

He tries not to stare—not to ogle the boy in his bed, sunlight catching on the messy spill of his hair. Like this, Harry is the picture of everything Tom has ever wanted: fantasies given flesh, dreams come to life.

If he packs quickly enough, Tom can probably have a wank before the scent of Harry's sweat fades from his pillowcase. He imagines pressing his face into salt-soaked fabric, cotton warm and sleep-rumpled under his lips—enough that he can pretend it's still Harry beneath him, pliant and drowsy, yielding to Tom’s touch.

Then he can close his eyes and reimagine this moment—properly—if only he’d been brave enough to do it right. To wake up honest, with Harry’s smiling face the first thing he sees, and to kiss him senseless, sending him home with memories made better for being real. 

“No need,” Harry says, eyes still half-lidded. “’M not going home this break.”  

Tom’s head snaps toward him. “You’re not going home for Christmas?”   

“Nope,” Harry says lightly, shrugging with practiced indifference—the easy tone undercut by carefully constructed apathy.   

Tom frowns. “The train is still leaving soon,” he murmurs, and Harry rolls onto his side, facing Tom fully. Propping his cheek up on one palm, his gaze is steady and curious.   

“You aren’t going to say goodbye to your—“ Tom chokes on the word, “friends?”  

Harry rolls his eyes. “They’re perfectly able to say goodbye to me themselves,” he mutters. “And yet.” He gestures to the empty room, palms open. 

Harry's mouth curves wryly, and something cruel takes root in Tom’s chest, thorn-tied ivory around the cage of his ribs. It coils quickly between the prongs, leaving the bloody pulp of his heart to drip onto the shared carpet. 

You don’t need them, it whispers, dark and mean. Joy sharpens to a point as he imagines Harry all alone in the world, turning his back on everyone but Tom—staying like that until they belong to each other completely; the only stars in the sky as the rest of the world grows cold and dark. 

I can be your everything. I can be the only thing that matters.

“Won’t your Godfather miss you?” Tom asks quietly.

Did he hurt you, Harry? Should I do something about it?  

For the first time, Harry’s smile falters. “Sirius is... busy this year.”  

Tom's voice drops low, hesitant, before slowly taking a step forward. “I’m not busy,” he whispers.   

Harry’s expression is unreadable, but Tom has never been good at placing emotions on other people’s faces. His own mind is remarkably straightforward—as a child, he was known for mercurial, temperamental fits, but that was simply his nature.

He was an honest creature: he never spoke in riddles or buried meaning in subtext or implication the way others did. When he screamed or demanded, there was no hidden teleology; he wanted exactly what he was shouting for.

“Won’t your family miss you?” Harry throws back, playful but pointed. “Your dad and your grandmother?”  

Tom feels the flush return, heat crawling up his spine. He remembered. He knows me, too. 

“My father couldn’t care less,” he says at last, voice even. “And Grandmother’s in Paris.”  

He plucks a postcard off the desk, a tacky souvenir shaped like the Eiffel Tower. The letter from his father, lying beneath it, remains sealed. Days have passed; whatever it says can’t possibly matter anymore. 

“That could be nice,” Harry says, finally sitting up.

He stretches again, the hem of his shirt lifting just enough to paint light across his stomach. For a moment, Tom imagines lowering him back onto the sheets, keeping him right where the sky holds him. To stop time entirely, trapping Harry in the sun’s honeyed fist.

Instead, he watches Harry swing his legs off the bed, padding toward the bathroom, socks whispering over the floorboards. He leaves the door ajar as the water runs.

“It’s sort of perfect,” Harry calls around his toothbrush, voice muffled. “After last night, y’know. That talk about us having our own fun?”  

Tom’s lungs lurch in his chest. His heart, too, gives a painful jolt.   

“I’m sure you won’t want a game of footie,” Harry teases, emerging with damp hair, strands already curling at the ends. "But we could do something festive.”

He undoes the remaining buttons as he speaks, shrugging out of his dress shirt—wrinkled, creased by Tom’s sheets—to reveal broad, naked shoulders. 

“Say, I heard they were having a movie marathon down at The Starlight.”  

Slipping off his top, he tosses it aside; the fabric lands on the sheets with a soft thwip. He peels off his undershirt as well, the cotton clinging to his pecs before he tugs it free. A flash of sun-bitten skin, a glimpse of that wiry trail of hair, bares itself before the afternoon light. 

“Oh?” Tom murmurs.   

Harry nods, tossing his shirt in the hamper. Bare-chested, he reaches into the wardrobe, rugby-trained muscles shifting as he rummages for a jumper. Tom swallows audibly, throat clicking in the quiet.  

“What do you think? Mind putting up with my company for another evening?”  

Harry grins, hopping slightly as he pulls his loafers on one-handed. His hair, already drying haphazardly, frizzes at the edges where he'd yanked the shirt over his head. These strands catch in the sun, lighter, forming a halo of sky-bleached curls.

“Yes,” Tom says quietly, hope breaking open in his chest. His gaze softens as he lets himself stare at the boy in front of him: vulnerable and terrifying and perfect. “I think that could be very nice.”  

PRELUDE  

Even the clocks seem to have wrung their hands, suspended in golden lamplight. Dust motes drift through the fogged windows, curling in the still air. Time itself feels dislocated, wearing thin into the morning; the sky behind the panes, once dark as pitch, has turned a bruised gray. 

Dumbledore hasn’t spoken since he’d closed the door behind them. He only took his glasses off, setting them carefully beside the inkwell, and stared at the wall of photographs behind his desk.

His eyes, a blind shade of blue, are red around the rims.   

“You know,” he begins softly. “I’ve been working here for forty years.”  

Tom says nothing.   

“I’ve seen so many children grow up.”   

The carpet is thick under his shoes, muffling the way he drags his loafers against it. The room smells faintly of tea leaves and lemon oil, sweet and sterile. His gaze drifts somewhere beyond Dumbledore’s shoulder, fixing on a polished brass pendulum as it swings back and forth, back and forth.   

He imagines the sea of children who have stood here—trembling, tearful, repentant. He feels their echoes and still can’t summon any empathy. None of them had borne this kind of ruin.

“Do you understand the severity of what you’ve done, Tom?”   

Tom nods, though he doesn’t. Not in the way Dumbledore means, with the moral comprehension that his actions are wrong. But he understands the way they’ve taken it—twisting it, bastardizing it—an act of love turned obscene. He understands the vocabulary of punishment: liability, violation, expulsion.

“I’ll have to notify the board in the morning,” Dumbledore sighs. “I much prefer to deal with misbehaving children, I’m afraid. At least they have the excuse of ignorance for their outbursts.”

There’s a constant, rhythmic ticking—the heart of the room, beating through a grandfather clock along the far wall. Its steady pulse drags him into the present, yanking him from the safety of his own mind, as moments stretch and warp around him.

“And—well. I’ll have to notify Harry’s relatives, of course. And your father.”   

Tom’s throat clicks when he swallows.

Everything in the past six hours has felt unreal, like walking through someone else's dream—blurred around the edges, vision overtaken by a strange, gauzy film. Every sound is too loud and somehow delayed; Dumbledore’s words reach him a beat too late, as if spoken through a tunnel.  

“You must realize this can’t possibly be contained to the school, Tom,” Dumbledore continues, sounding weary. “In truth, you may prefer to be withdrawn quietly—“

“No.”  

The word escapes him in a hiss. His hands tighten on the arms of the chair, and the leather groans, wood creaking as he shifts. Harry—  

Dumbledore studies him, expression unreadable. “Why?” he asks after a long pause. The question, though baffled, is almost gentle. “Why would you do something like this, Tom?”  

They’ll say it was for many reasons: revenge for being an outcast, a cruel joke or blatant attempt at humiliation. Some will call it a power play to eclipse Harry’s brilliance—he’d never quite shone the way Harry did, after all. No one could. 

They’ll say he was angry, that he was jealous and vindictive, and people will believe it. It’s easier to accept than Tom had done it for love. But the truth is far more compelling.

“You know you have to give me the footage, right, Tom?”   

He hisses again, fingers tightening around the cold body of the camera. The metal bites into his palms, sharp enough to score the skin, cracks forming along his fists.

A few hours from now, he’ll lie in the dormitory and trace those marks, counting the crossroads where they cut through his loveline. Believing, for just a moment, in fate: in the cruelty of destinies that offer no escape. Orpheus looks back every time the story’s told.  

“You’re a brilliant young man,” Dumbledore says quietly. “But brilliance without empathy is only ever dangerous.”   

Tom disagrees. It was empathy that led him here—empathy, and love, which twisted him into something fallible. Something unrecognizable.   

And it's empathy—love for one boy—that ruined his life.    

OVERTURE

By evening, the only sounds left in the castle are the hum of old radiators and the faint whistle of wind through the eaves.  

The corridors feel wider without the students, hollowed out like the shell of an orange. Even the light seems thinner, stripped to its bones, quickly overtaken by shadows. Tom imagines a lonelier boy might have minded the emptiness.  

He doesn’t. To be alone with you, Harry, he thinks, adjusting his scarf at the bottom of the staircase, there can’t be a sweeter feeling.  

He feels warm despite the stone walls and December air. Somewhere behind him, the Great Hall clock ticks, its hand dragging toward six, each second echoing behind his ribs—he’s painfully eager to be alone together.

Harry appears a moment later—on time, as opposed to Tom, who had arrived seventeen minutes early. He’s tugging a hat over his ears, stubborn strands spilling out from beneath the hem. They curl around the edges of his face, tickling his cheeks, which are already flushed: brushed with the cold and the exertion of four flights of stairs.  

“Ready?” he grins, breath misting in the chill. “They’re showing a whole marathon. It’ll be freezing by the time we get back.”  

“I can’t imagine why you seem pleased by that fact,” Tom grumbles, tucking his hands deeper in his pockets, clutching the lapels of his coat around his chest.

“Feels proper Christmassy, y’know?” Harry shrugs, a smile tugging at his cheeks. “Never had many of those before.”

How sweet he looks in the wintertime. Tom has missed him these summers and Christmases apart. He only had photos—blurry candles on birthday cakes, pale snapshots from seaside trips—to fill in the blanks. To guess what Harry sounded like laughing in July, or how bright his eyes were in the early-January sun.  

“Mr. Potter!” A voice greets them, halfway down the corridor. “And Mr. Riddle. What a pleasant surprise.”  

When they turn, Dumbledore is standing at the end of the hall. He’s wearing a truly heinous red-and-green jumper, as well as—Tom blinks—a thick, knitted hat shaped like a reindeer; antlers and all. He looked absurdly pleased with himself, head to toe in garish felt.  

“Off somewhere festive, are we?” he asks, eyes crinkling.   

Harry laughs. “There’s a cinema in the village. They’re doing a marathon tonight.”  

“Ah,” Dumbledore says, nodding sagely. “Cultural enrichment is always seasonal.” He pauses then, glancing between them with obvious sentimentality. “You know, I was very proud of your performance, boys.”  

Tom feels the old, reflexive urge to scowl. Ugh.    

“Thank you, sir,” Harry murmurs, his cheeks now pink with more than the cold. 

Dumbledore’s eyes soften. “It does an old teacher good to see two of his brightest students getting along so well.” He smiles, adjusting his ridiculous hat, eyes twinkling as the antlers flop about. “Do enjoy the films, won’t you? And try not to fall asleep before the happy ending.”

When they step out into the cold, Harry is still laughing. “God, did you see that hat?”  

“I’m trying not to remember it,” Tom mutters, tugging his scarf tighter around him. Still—the old coot may have had a point, for once.

They walk side by side, the snow whispering underfoot. Lamplight pools across the cobblestones, gold spilling into blue shadows.   

The gate looms ahead, haloed by frost, village lights blinking faintly in the distance. For a long time, neither of them speaks. There’s only the sound of their footprints, the crunch of their soles against the slush, to break up the journey.

Then Harry’s hand brushes against his—just once—and Tom realizes loneliness is something he could never feel with Harry Potter.

PRELUDE  

The video camera is a gift from his father. 

He receives it the summer after his first year at the conservatory. The season is quiet: painfully spare, broken only by the hours he spends scrolling through Harry’s social media. There, he lives silently, vicariously, alongside someone who has no idea he's watching.

The house is still. Grandmother is off at the Ladies Patronage Luncheon, reminding society that the Riddles’ manners are just as polished as their ledgers. Tom, however, spends his morning at the piano, whittling away at Études until the keys grow warm beneath his fingers. 

The air shimmers with July heat, just days shy of Harry’s birthday. He's chosen this piece, in part, because he imagines Harry would like the melody. Perhaps, if he were to play it for him, Harry could finally feel the thread between them—the tin-can telephone stretched taut across their ribs, carrying the sound of his longing. 

When he looks up from the sheet music, his father is standing in the doorway.  

“How like her you are,” Thomas Senior says, awkward and stiff when he catches Tom’s gaze. “Your grandmother would sit like that for hours when I was a boy.”  

He smiles briefly, an unfamiliar expression, creasing his face in a way that almost makes him look human. For a moment, Tom can imagine his father at that age—before he'd been burdened with Tom, the son he never wanted. Before expectation and disappointment had seeped in, infecting him with a severity absent from childhood photographs. 

To his surprise, his father crosses the room slowly, placing a small, square box atop the piano lid. “For your work,” he says, clipped and uncertain. “At that school of yours.”  

Tom’s hands hover over the paper. “What is it?”  

“A video camera,” his father replies shortly. “Your grandmother mentioned—that is, your letters said that you’ve begun performing. I thought you might like to...” He motions vaguely, seeming embarrassed by the gesture. “Review yourself, I suppose.”

Tom unwraps the box carefully. Inside rests a matte black camera, sleek and modern, catching the light. He can’t imagine his father pausing on it in a shop window for more than a second before turning away.

It sits atop the piano now, neat against the glossy surface.   

“I always liked capturing things on film myself, when I was your age,” his father says, voice distant, as if recalling a half-forgotten memory. “There was even a time I considered...” He trails off, shaking his head to dislodge the thought. “Do well in your studies,” he adds quietly.

“Thank you,” Tom mutters, but his father is already turning toward the door.  

When he leaves, silence folds over the room. Only the faint hum of the camera fills the space as Tom switches it on, the lens blinking awake, a single red eye glowing in the fading daylight. 

He runs his fingers over the cool metal casing, tracing the engraving—T.M.R. Different initials than his father's, yet too close for comfort. His thumb abandons them, retreating to the familiar spill of keys.

He plays a few notes to fill the sudden quiet. Chopin answers him, music full of heart. Harry’s laughter seems to ring alongside the chords, brightening the corners of the melody, as the dying sun spills through half-closed shutters and dust motes dance in pairs through lonely slats of light.  

That summer, Tom films everything. His practice sessions. His attempts at mastering the nocturnes. His first, shy wank over Harry’s Instagram, the morning of the boy’s birthday, dirtying the screen. As Harry smiles with one missing tooth over a candlelit cake, Tom makes his own wishes.

He dreams of sharing these pixelated memories someday—of the way they might laugh next year, watching the snakes rise in his garden, or how they would smile over fumbled scales, arpeggios falling like warm August rain.

He could never have imagined that this rare moment of understanding with his father would turn sour. That this syrupy memory of his childhood would become his undoing—rotting with time, sharpened under newer lenses. A memory once sweet, now edged in bitterness and loss.

Even after everything, he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. The evidence had been destroyed—the lawyers wouldn’t have settled otherwise, not with Tom refusing to apologize. Still adamant that no crime had been committed. That the only victim was him, spurned by the same boy he’d weather mountains for, insisting it had all been for love. 

But he kept the camera. It was blameless, after all.  

OVERTURE  

The theatre was smaller than Tom expected.   

Only two narrow aisles and a screen that looked as if it had been hanging there since the 1950s. It was framed by thick, velvet curtains that, while dust-free, had long since lost their sheen.   

The decor, too, was dated: gold paint chipping from the molding, the faint, irritating buzz of a neon sign hanging over the ticket booth. Everything smelled like butter and sweetly-burning sugar, a haze of popcorn oil clinging to the air. 

Tom pays before Harry can argue, sliding his card across the counter. The bored-looking teenager working concessions barely glances at him, too absorbed in scrolling on his mobile.  

“Oi!” Harry protests, elbowing him lightly. “I’m getting it next time, then.”  

Next time curls like daisies in Tom’s belly. The petals tickle his lungs, disrupting their tune with startled catches of breath. Next time. You want me next time.

They find seats near the middle, just beneath the balcony. The room is already humming with townies and the low buzz of previews; the radiator clicks every few minutes, a cough rising from the back, and then the lights flicker softly, dimming until only the fisheye bulb of the projector remains.

Tom sits too straight at first, awkward, unsure of what to do with his hands. He folds them neatly in his lap until the warmth of Harry’s sleeve brushes against his arm, and then he fights the urge to unfold them again. The proximity is unbearable: Tom’s body is painfully aware of the darkness between them, of the scant inch of space separating them. 

He forces himself to look at the screen.   

The opening credits roll, letters trembling with the age of the film. Some romantic comedy from the sixties, by the looks of it. Tom doesn't catch the title—too busy noticing Harry’s elbow skirting his own as he reaches for the popcorn to register the useless words.  

The colors bleed slightly at the edges, frames jittering, but the audio is well preserved, and the shots are neatly framed. If he could pay attention long enough to catch what any of the characters were saying, perhaps he’d even enjoy the film.   

Suddenly, Harry leans close. “Wonder why everyone back then talked like that,” he whispers against the shell of Tom’s ear.   

Tom shivers before he can answer. The scent of cologne hits him all at once, sharper now that Harry is pressed along his side, and he fills his lungs with it, greedy. 

“Like what?” he whispers back, voice breaking.  

“Dunno,” Harry chuckles, low and raspy. The words brush Tom’s neck as he pulls away. “Like they were in a hurry or something.”  

Tom fumbles for the popcorn bucket, needing something to occupy him. Without meaning to, he catches sight of Harry slouching slightly in his seat, relaxed at Tom’s side—perfectly content to watch old films in some decaying theatre, so long as he had Tom for company.

The warmth in the room leaves him equal parts drowsy and bogged down with wanting. He thinks he can feel the hum of the projector, its pulse rattling in his ears, though it’s probably just his own heart: dizzy, punk-drunk, reaching for Harry, who is closer than ever. 

It hits Tom then: that he isn’t observing him. Not standing on the sidelines, parsing gestures for meaning—but with him, existing in the same suspended world. Invited to participate, for once, not merely a witness to his own private reverie.

A second movie begins before Tom realizes the first has ended, and Harry yawns, stretching slightly in his seat. “You up for another?” he whispers.

Always. I’d outlast the stars for you, Harry Potter. Nowhere without you is worth going.  

“If you’d like,” Tom murmurs back.  

They stay for all three. Even as the crowd thins out, popcorn growing sparse enough to see the base of the bucket, they linger, unwilling to part from the vignette they’ve created. The rest of the theatre blurs into nothingness, soft and out of focus, making space for their fable.

He couldn’t tell you how any of the movies had begun. Only that they all felt like love stories, their joy woven through Tom and Harry’s. Cups shared, doors held, eyes caught: these ordinary, cinematic gestures fold into the warmth between them, becoming grand. Even tears are transformed by the lens of shared affection—just another way for lovers to reach across the screen and be embraced. 

They stay for hours, laughing, leaning closer as the films stretch on—and they don’t miss a single happy ending.