Chapter Text
Harry stopped dead as soon as he stepped foot in the Slytherin dorms.
He blinked once. Twice. Three times.
Just as he was about to call out into the common room to see whose idiot cat had ripped up his bed, he got a face full of fur.
"Yeuck-" he spluttered, as the claws digging into his shoulders forced the weight of this small, black kitten into his face, forcing him to almost swallow an obscene amount of cat hair. "Get off me, you little-"
Then, he stopped struggling.
Because this cat was looking at him in that irritated, condescending way that only two people in the world could pull off, and he was fairly sure this cat wasn't McGonagall's breed... He shut the dorm door behind him slowly, casting several silencing spells, and finally managed to shove the scrawny animal unceremoniously from his body to his bed.
He stared at the cat, and the cat stared defiantly back.
Naturally, he burst out laughing.
"T-Tom?!" he managed to squeak out between gasps, and the cat hissed at him reproachfully.
Definitely Tom.
"I can't believe you. Are you an animagus? Why didn't you tell me? Also, seriously? A kitten? That's hilarious. And surprisingly fitting, I suppose. But really, why wouldn't you tell me something that important?" he asked, but the cat just continued to stare, its feline features somehow managing to morph into a scowl reminiscent of Tom's humanoid face. Harry stopped laughing because oh yeah, cats can't fucking talk.
"Oh... right. No speech. Gotcha. Okay, time for a good old game of yes and no. Are you an animagus?" The cat continued to stare, because of course, even as a literal fucking animal, Tom Riddle would never do anything as plebeian as a nod or shake of his head. Harry knocked his glasses lower down his nose to pinch the bridge of it, sighing exasperatedly.
"Blink once for yes, twice for no."
Tom blinked twice.
At least Harry got the small pleasure of knowing how frustrating it must be for someone as expressive as Tom to be confined to such simplistic answers, especially since he couldn't even speak said answers. He pushed the thought away quickly as the response settled in. So, he wasn't an animagus. Harry frowned as he readjusted his glasses.
"How did you-" he started to ask, but was cut off by an indignant hiss. "Oh, shit, yeah. Sorry. Erm... was this an accident?"
Two blinks. A hesitation. Another blink.
"I wish we knew morse code, this is getting confusing. Wait, knowing you, you probably do know morse code. Nerd. Okay, so, I'm gonna use my big brain here-" Tom let out the feline equivalent of a snort, which sounded a bit like a minuscule and totally non-offensive sneeze, but Harry glared anyway. "and I'm gonna guess that you willingly transformed yourself into a cat - for whatever reason - but that you were an idiot and somehow screwed up and can't morph back. Blink once if I'm correct, twice for not."
Tomcat clearly didn't want to admit to being an idiot, or that he screwed up, as Harry so eloquently put it, but blinked once all the same. Not without a soft growl from the back of his throat, however, but Harry blissfully ignored it and smirked triumphantly at his small victory. He had to force himself to school his features to be more composed, thinking fast.
"Do you know how to get out of this?" he asked before he committed to coming up with a potentially unnecessary plan.
One blink. Of course. The control freak wouldn't do anything without having a solution for all possible outcomes to the situation first. Harry sighed again.
"Great. We'll need the library, I'm guessing?" One blink. "Okay. It's late, and if I get caught out of bed again I'm dead, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow."
Tom let out a frustrated huff in response, and Harry grinned impishly at him. "You're lucky today's a Friday." he reminded, taking extra care to make sure he sounded extremely irritating.
Tom yowled.
Harry's grin faded as his eyes landed yet again on his bed, at the torn sheets and ripped pillows and feather-strewn duvet. He narrowed his eyes at Tomcat, who suddenly looked very smug. That wouldn't do at all.
Harry set his bed right with a flick of his wand, and laughed as the tiny kitten turned from triumphant to defeated. He didn't get into bed; instead, Harry made his way to Tom's bunk, snapping the curtains shut and erecting numerous muffling, privacy and sticking wards on the material. Once done, he turned back to Tom, who looked taken aback - at least, Harry thought he did, it was hard to read a cat's expressions if they didn't consist of annoyance or happiness. So far, he'd only had experience with one.
"I'll say you're sick and don't want to be disturbed. I put a muffling and privacy on there because it'd be weird if they didn't hear coughs or something when there weren't any silencing spells, and a strong sticking charm so they don't peek inside."
Tom leapt off the bed and pawed at the green curtains of his own bunk, yowling frustratedly.
Harry felt his face burn, and looked away awkwardly. "I thought that, now you had the chance without anyone knowing it was you, you might wanna sleep with your boyfriend. But I'll uh... I'll undo the sticking charm if you don't want to. It was dumb, really, don't worry about it..." he mumbled, undoing the required charm on Tom's curtains and moving away to get ready to go to sleep.
The cat froze, looking between Harry's bed and his own, and then to the door.
Harry came out of the bathroom a few moments later, clothes changed and teeth cleaned, and flopped onto his bed before releasing the privacy wards on the dormitory door. He turned the lights out, knowing the others wouldn't be back until at least 2am, and removed his glasses. Tom was still stuck between the two beds, weighing up his options...
"Night, Tom."
And Tom crumbled.
He darted over to Harry's cot, and leapt onto the mattress before curling up under Harry's arm. Harry smiled softly to himself as Tom purred contentedly - though he'd never admit he'd done it - and reached out to thread his fingers through Tom's midnight black fur slowly, coaxing the both of them into relaxation. Tomcat didn't object, only purred louder, and so Harry kept petting until finally, he fell asleep.
~
Harry woke to the candles shining, Grindylows screeching, and a claw to the face.
"Agh- You bastard!" he seethed at the proud-looking black kitten that had scampered away to sit at the end of his bed. Tom's ear cocked towards their still-sleeping dorm mates pointedly and Harry scowled. He said nothing, however, only swung his legs over the edge of the bed - effectively knocking Tom over with his feet in the process - and put on his glasses. Around twenty minutes later, and Harry was sitting at a table in the library with a cat under his robes. He threw a strained smile at a suspiciously watching Madam Pince and averted his gaze quickly, opening a thick tome on animal transfiguration.
Which apparently warranted a bite to the ribs.
"What the fuck is your problem?" he hissed at Tom, trying not to move his mouth and make the librarian think he was talking to himself. Once Madam Pince had left her desk and turned away to go yell at snogging teenagers, Harry placed a heavy disillusionment charm on the dumb cat as he shot out from the confinement of Harry's uniform. Tom gave him a very affronted look, and Harry couldn't help the smirk gracing his lips.
"Why'd you bite me, you git?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
Tom jumped down from where he sat on the table. From the floor, he looked pointedly up at Harry, who glanced around to make sure Pince was preoccupied before getting up to follow him. Tomcat led him over to the Herbology section, which really didn't make much sense to Harry, but he followed along anyway. He couldn't hold back his scepticism when Tom pawed at a book titled Murderous Mushrooms and How To Befriend Them: Volume Seven that looked like it had sat there, untouched, for decades. Harry's scattered brain wondered vaguely how well the other six volumes had sold, and why there were so many murderous mushrooms in the world.
"Lemme guess: you ate the special type of mushroom, got high as fuck, and spontaneously turned into a cat." he said, expression deadpan.
Tom hissed insistently, and pawed the book some more.
"I'm not picking up that book." he said, eyeing the grimy cover in thinly veiled disgust.
Tom's eyes seemed to pierce through him, judging...
He picked up the book.
To his surprise, out fell a piece of parchment, conveniently addressed to him in Tom's elegant handwriting. He looked at the cat, who nudged at the fallen note with his tiny nose.
"You're mental." he declared, and scooped up the note to read it. The cat mewled in what Harry assumed was disagreement to his words, but Harry paid him no mind as he scanned the writing in his hands.
'Harry James Potter,
If you are reading this, I am a cat.'
Harry snorted, and Tomcat hissed.
'I did this with the hopes of achieving the gain of the fabled nine lives that cats are said to have. It turns out that my research was... flawed, in ways, and I am now both unable to return to my original self independently, and have no access to those nine lives. This is one of many notes I had written to you depending on the outcome of my experiment, and I shall collect and destroy the others when I return.
I'd very much appreciate it if you could use the Finite Incantatum spell on me, so that I may once again morph back into my human body. Don't screw this up.
-Tom Marvolo Riddle'
Harry sighed heavily, and looked down at the cat in disdain.
"You're such an idiot." he said tiredly, and Tomcat narrowed his eyes impatiently. Sighing again, Harry took out his wand and cast the spell.
A naked Tom Riddle materialised in the middle of the aisle of bookshelves.
Harry let out a surprised squeak and looked away quickly, very aware of how hot his face felt.
"Why the fuck did you do it now?" Tom hissed angrily, trying unsuccessfully to cover himself up.
"You didn't say you'd be naked!" Harry protested, and he didn't have to look to know that Tom was glaring at him.
"It's kind of common sense, Harry-"
"Are you really gonna try talking about common sense after trying to gain immortality from a cat body? You're not in a position to judge stupidity after pulling off a stunt like that."
"It was a reasonable theory."
"No, it was a bullshit theory! Everyone knows cats don't actually have nine lives, Tom! It's a myth!"
"Muggles think magic is a myth," Tom pointed out. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd rather not be having a naked argument in the library."
Harry huffed and shed his outer robe, leaving himself in the standard school shirt and slacks - it was a weekend but he preferred the school uniform to his ill-fitting muggle clothes - and held them out to Tom without looking at him. When he'd finished pulling on Harry's slightly too-small clothes, Harry glanced at him and smirked at his dishevelled appearance.
"What're you smiling at?" Tom asked bitterly, cheeks still flushed an enticing red from the earlier predicament.
"Your hair's all messed up." Harry stated, and Tom rolled his eyes. Amused, Harry leaned forward and planted a small kiss on one of his disgruntled boyfriend's coloured cheeks, and smiled as he pulled away and took his hand. "Come on, before someone sees Perfect Tom Riddle looking like he's been living like an animal- oh wait..." he trailed off purposefully, and laughed as Tom continued to glare at him. "You love me." he sing-songed playfully.
Tom's expression softened - Harry still found himself amazed at how it was him who caused that to happen - and he grasped Harry's hand more firmly.
"I do, you brat."
They walked out of the library, leaving behind a very confused and equally traumatised Neville Longbottom in the Herbology section.
Because Neville, who generally naturally blended into the bookshelves, had witnessed everything.
He made a mental note to ask the matron for an Obliviate.
~