Chapter Text
In for the Money
Chapter I
About money management, immortal teenage angst and going to the pub.
Tom Riddle, nineteen years old, is putting galleons over the table in front of him. Twenty-five galleons, to be precise. They blink golden in the sunset, almost mocking him. They look like a lot when he places them like this, spreading over the entire surface, in a seemingly endless river of luxury. He can buy a beautiful eagle-owl with twenty five galleons, or two whole wands, or a new set of pristine robes from Madam Malking’s.
Instead he grabs fifteen coins and puts them inside a leather pouch, ready to deliver them to his landlord to pay his monthly rent.
His flat is small and dusty, no matter how many cleaning spells he tries. The wooden floor is old, scratched and splintering under the soles of his shoes; the wallpaper is torn and falling down, revealing greying walls underneath, with black mold growing all around the ceiling like a stucco frame. He has barely enough space to move around. His bed touches the side of the table, stuck between the walls and the kitchenette. At least, the bathroom is secluded in a minuscule cubicle instead of being out in the open. Small mercies.
Fifteen galleons to live are a cheap price. A cheap price for a cheap life.
Tom takes another five, and slips them into an old muggle tin can of coffee. His secret savings, diligently spared to buy a better life. Tom ignores them for a moment, pushing the can away, before grabbing four more galleons. They go into a smaller leather pouch. One galleon a week for groceries is enough to survive - not well, but just so.
“One sickle and thirty knuts for a large pack of rice crackers, that will last me for an entire week if I eat three for breakfast. Three sickles for tea, but I refuse to buy anything cheaper than that… the one I buy is shitty enough,” he murmurs, writing down his shopping list on a blank piece of muggle paper he keeps spelling clean each week to reuse, inking with a muggle ball point pen that's way more economic than a quill (and easier to pocket.) Four sickles are for the big bag of rice that will last him two weeks if he eats a single bowl a day, and another two for salt because he used the last grain in the box yesterday. The sugar also needs replacing, but he can't buy both sugar and salt in the same month, and instead designates three sickles for a bag of potatoes. Two sickles are for flour, bought once every two weeks so he can make bread that will last him for six days. Normally he would use two sickles to buy a carton of eggs, but since they’ve raised the price to three sickles and fifteen knuts he can't afford them anymore - so instead he uses his remaining money for a can of peas.
It’s not as bad as it seems, there were times at the foster home when he had way less.
When he feels particularly generous, he can spare four sickles for butter, but that tends to happen only around special dates, like his birthday. Once a month he also buys soap, toothpaste and other essentials he needs, putting together whatever sickles are left after his shopping trips. On a good day he can even get some cabbage to make soup from the old lady that lives below him if she gets too much from the market.
He scribbles the last dot on the list. There, one entire galleon gone. Bright side, buying the salt now means that next week he can afford the eggs, and make himself an omelette.
You see - Tom is used to poverty. He has lived his whole life carrying nothing but the clothes he wears, the shoes he walks on, and the school things Dumbledore allowed him through the school poverty fund. But he hates being poor with all his being. He yearns for the beautiful things laying in the display cabinets all around Diagon Alley, for the silken shirts his classmates wore, for the soft leather boots Malfoy liked to brag about, for the jewelry glittering over velvet pillows everytime he passes Golden Dreams on his way to work. He wants and wants and wants, but he has barely enough galleons to eat. So he quietly keeps his head down, spends the bare minimum to survive, and repeats himself the mantra: “If you ever lose this job, you'll have enough galleons to survive. You won’t starve to death.”
That leaves him with a single galleon. Now, Tom would usually hide it somewhere around the house. He has seven of them, equally hidden all around - one under a loose floorboard, another inside a broken lamp, and so on and so forth. They are for emergencies only, and not to be touched if not in a life or death situation. Tonight, though, he takes the coin and drops it in his pocket, already dreading the idea of wasting a perfectly good galleon when he could do something much more smart with it, like saving it.
Tom Riddle, nineteen years old, never goes out for leisure. He wakes up at six in the morning and gets himself a nice, warm cup of tea, using the smallest amount of tea he can - enough to give the water some flavour, but not enough to make the tea actually taste good. It’s still better than straight up drinking boiled water in the morning, when his body craves a warm drink. Once every two days, if he has it, he puts a single sugar into the tea.
Then he washes in the small bathroom, fixing the broken shower every morning with a charm that never lasts more than twelve hours, and dresses into one of his three different outfits. They are all second-hand at best, and a mending charm away from falling apart at worst. He uses his old school shirt for one, and his old school pants on another. He can’t use the blazer, because it’s impossible to remove the Hogwarts insignia, but sometimes, when he’s cold enough to be desperate, he puts it on, hiding it under another layer of robes. The same goes for his woolen sweater, still sporting Slytherin’s green around the V on its neck. But that is much more easy to hide, and can be blamed on nostalgia, unlike the blazer. He knows a lot of wizards that keep using the sweaters after graduation, and he fully exploits it during winter.
Then he shuts the blinds, puts a protective charm around his flat (the last thing he needs is someone breaking and entering, stealing his savings) and walks to Bancroft’s Curses & Jinxes, where he meets with five others that like him are taking an apprenticeship in Curse-Breaking from old Curse-Breaker Charles Bancroft.
Unlike him, the other five wizards and witches aren’t mudbloods, so they can spend their monthly stipend of twenty-five galleons to grab a bite and a pint from the pub, or buy themselves new robes, books and materials. He should hate them, but he counts himself lucky - because if not for Old Bancroft, he wouldn’t even have the twenty-five. And of course, Old Bancroft never lets him forget the fact. It's a hobby of his to call him out, to call them all out, with his usual condescending tone, telling them: “It’s only thanks to me that you can afford an apprenticeship at all, given your disadvantage.” he says, like their blood status, be it half or fully mud - is a condition, a sickness that can’t be healed. Tom had once dreamed of being a noble, clean, rich, pureblood. To elevate himself above his peers, spitting at their heads from his high tower. Now, he sees how pointless his dream was. He’s nineteen, barely surviving, and he's groveling at the feet of a rich, bored pureblood that one day decided charity was his thing, and applied for the new A.F.A.W Program that Undersecretary Granger somehow convinced the Wizengamot to approve. It’s only thanks to her, a mudblood, if he has enough money to survive.
Charles Bancroft teaches them how to break curses and lectures them about the world, and since Tom’s blood status is the lowest one in their small group - everyone else being half-bloods - he’s the only one he sends to make tea or coffee, and the only one that gets to drink only one cup of the stuff during the day. He uses his free cup on his lunch break, snacking on rice crackers while everyone else has home-made lunch boxes with them. He’s also the only one that gets to stay after closing time, writing papers and compiling reports for everyone else, and to clean up the shop. Bancroft always casts a monitoring charm when Tom is left alone, but it's not the strongest, or the most accurate, and never prevents Tom from grabbing books from the shelves and studying well into the night, in-between working for everyone else. After midnight, he usually stops working - because Bancroft doesn’t want him to fall asleep and use the excuse to stay in the shop all night - and goes back home, where he instantly falls asleep after his bowl of plain rice.
It’s almost a year now that this is his life. If he can even call it that. Gone are the days when he thought eleven NEWTs could open doors in their small world. Now, every day it’s a grey thing.
Tonight, Tom Riddle, still nineteen, is invited to the Leaky Cauldron. He pats the pocket where the single galleon is still resting, feeling the large shape of the coin with his fingers, reassured by its presence. It’s not enough to buy him more than a single pint of butterbeer, and he'll probably save it anyway, even if the prospect of tasting butterbeer again is enough to make his toes curl. But knowing he has the choice is freeing. His joy is thwarted by the idea of spending the night at the Leaky Cauldron with his ex-schoolmates, of course, so his face is still twisted in anger and distaste when he leaves his flat at nine p.m.
School reunions should be banned by law, especially when they happen so soon after the end of the school year. But he can’t avoid it, because Bancroft threatened him with another night of unpaid work and Tom was tired of being used like a slave, and he told the man he had a prior engagement - and Bancroft asked him if it was the Reunion, and stupidly Tom said yes, and Bancroft revealed that he had been in Slytherin back in his days and perhaps he would be around to say hi. So now Tom has to go, even if he’s tired and wants nothing more than to lie down in his bed and die. Not that he can actually do it.
Tom is nineteen years old and immortal, and he hates every inch of his life with a passion.
He sits at the counter. It’s nearly midnight, and he hasn’t spoken a single word beyond: “Hello.” for the whole night. His stomach is empty, his galleon is still in his pocket, and he’s ready to commit mass murder. Not only commit, he’s actually planning it, stirring the thought lazily in his mind, caressing the idea of whipping out his wand and cast Fiendfyre inside the room - watching his old dorm-mates being eaten alive by the flames. He wants to bring them to their knees, kissing the edge of his robes like the sycophants they are meant to be, wiping the smug expressions from their faces once and for all—
“Hey there, careful with the murdering thoughts,” comes a voice from beside him. Tom turns sharply, twirling over the stool to face whoever has the audacity to call him out— It’s a man. He looks well into his forties and has a mop of black hair over his head, going grey at the temples. A short, scratchy beard covers his cheeks and chin, and his eyes are hidden behind a pair of wire-rimmed round glasses. The glasses do nothing to hide the green of his eyes, though. The colour shines innaturally, reflecting the lights of the pub. But they’re not furrowed or angry, instead, he can see mirth swimming in them. His hair, sadly, covers most of his face, so Tom can’t see much more but the hint of tired face, tired beyond normal sleepiness. The man carries within the same bone-deep exhaustion that Tom feels everyday. Then he smirks, flagging down the Innkeeper, and gestures to a shelf of alcoholic bottles - poiting towards one that has a golden band all around its twisty neck.
“Two of those, thank you. Put them under my tab.”
While Tom the Nineteen years old watches Tom the Innkeeper fetch the bottle, the stranger loses himself in the swirls of smoke coming from his glass of fire-whiskey, before grabbing it and downing it in one go. The Innkeeper leaves two new glasses for them - the strong smell of elvish liquor enough to make Tom’s mouth water. He often heard his classmates brag about the beverage, making a competition out of having the largest number of bottles stored in their cellars. He has never tasted it before.
"Murdering thoughts?" Tom asks, skeptical.
“Don’t look at me like that, kid. I’m no legilimens. But I am— was, an Auror. A good one. Your face told me enough,” says the man, taking his glass, twirling it in his fingers. They’re strong and heavy looking, large enough to engulf it, with blunt nails cut just a tad on the side of too short. Tom wants to get up and leave, to tell him he doesn’t need charity, but the liquor smells amazing - and his stomach is still empty, so he takes it. Carefully, he takes a sip. The alcohol isn’t as strong as he thought it would be, and slips easily over his tongue, thick and soft as velvet. When he swallows, he finds a pleasurable burn in his throat, and the delicious aftertaste of fruits and berries coating his palate.
“What else does my face say?” he asks, challenging the man with a raised eyebrow. His masks are usually perfect, no one being the wiser about his true inner thoughts. This man, though, was able to guess just with a glance, and Tom wants to know if he sees more. If perhaps he's spent too much time around mindless beings and gone sloppy, or if it was just a lucky shot. The stranger turns slowly towards him, giving the smallest once-over, before nodding to the group of noisy ex-Slytherins gathered in the corner.
“You’re with them, I take? But you don’t want to be, clearly.”
“Clearly.” Tom takes another sip, wishing he had something fried to pair with the sweet liquor. Bacon, or maybe fries. The last time he ate something with so many calories was during the House Cup Feast at Hogwarts.
“You think they’re all a bunch of stuffy purebloods, and they hate you as much as you hate them,” the man says, bluntly. His words cut deep, holding an insane amount of truth, but everyone with a half-functioning brain and mediocre observation skills could have guessed that. Tom is not impressed, and he vaguely gestures to his own robes.
“I’m poor. I have no name.” He had learned a long time ago that the truth hurt less if he spoke it first, if he embraced it, instead of letting it be used as a weapon. “Everyone can see that.”
The man nods and breathes a low, rumbling sound that should be a laugh, but ends up being more of a huff. “What should we drink to?” he raises his glass, and Tom does the same, clinking them together.
“To stuffy purebloods.”
“To stuffy purebloods then.”
It’s easy, talking to the stranger. They fall into banter like they’ve done that all their lives. He can almost forget about the loud thoughts that manage to slip from the mind-shields of those too inebriated to maintain them. Simple beings, thinking of sex and money and how to steal more of those for themselves. Often, the thoughts coil around him, when one of his old classmates catches sight of him with the corner of their eye. A lot of people are thinking about him now. About the mudblood that has bested them in school, and is now just another nobody in a crowd of nobodies, while they are on their way to grab a seat in the Wizengamot, or bag a job for the Minister himself - here he is, drinking alone in a pub. Barely surviving with his apprenticeship. And not even one of the fancy ones - the ones that Gringotts offers. Or the ones purebloods could access through recommendation. He is doing a communal apprenticeship under ex-Curse-Breaker turned shop-owner Charles Bancroft, surrounded by another five students - all half-bloods - and he has only that Granger girl to thank for having made the program in the first place. When he meets his gaze, Tom sees Rabastan think: “It’s only fair that the mudblood found a job only thanks to another mudblood.”
There were his Knights. Laughing at him now that they had lost the thin layer of fake respect they managed to conjure at Hogwarts, when Tom was still a promising powerful wizard. When Tom still dreamed of changing the world. Before the Ministry shut every door in his face, and his dream crumbled under the weight of reality.
The stranger drowns the loud thoughts with another round of elvish wine, pushing the full glass back into Tom’s hand.
“You’re thinking loudly again, kid. Don’t waste your time focusing on them, it’s never worth it.”
Tom shakes his head, taking a large gulp of his liquor. It’s easy to say, he muses, when you’re wearing nice, expensive clothes. Robes that are worth more than Tom’s life. The stranger has money, that much is clear. Tom should hate him, envy him even, but he doesn’t. Maybe because the stranger wears his luxury fabrics like they’re an afterthought, not even caring enough to iron them, pairing them with clothes that don’t match at all. He looks like someone that wasn’t born rich, but instead found fortune later on - old enough to never forget what it’s like to be poor.
“I thought about going back into the muggle world, but there’s no family waiting for me there. And Gringotts doesn’t convert galleons into pounds for wizards that can’t afford a Vault. I’m stuck here, but even if I wasn’t… I think I hate muggles more than I hate being here,” he reveals after another long sip, eyes unmoving from the glass. It's a fancy one with a jewel cut, beautiful frosted star shapes inprinted on the sides. He wishes he could afford to drink from a glass like this one every night, if he so wanted.
“Where do you work at?”
“Apprenticeship under Curse-Breaker Bancroft. The communal one.” the amber liquor dances, lit up from the inside out by small specks of red magic floating in the liquid, like pure gold molten down and poured. He can’t take his eyes away. The edges of his mind begin to blur - Horcrux or not, he’s still human. His body still capable of drunkenness.
“Ah, I know the one. My friend Hermione made the program. Is it any good?”
The stranger is apparently high-up enough on the food chain to know the Undersecretary to the Minister by name. Tom wants to ask him then, how she made it. How she carved a space for herself in a world that tried to push them away. But he lets the question slip away, instead he shrugs.
“It’s fine. Better than nothing.”
“How many OWLs and NEWTs did you manage?” he feels the accusation in his tone even if the stranger tries his best to hide it. Everyone thinks it’s his fault, for not having tried hard enough to get a better position. Tom loves to wipe that smug claim from their faces.
“Eleven, both of them all O’s.” he takes another sip. He doesn’t have much more to drink, the glass is almost empty now, so he savours it, just like he savours the sharp intake of breath coming from the stranger when he realizes that Tom is powerful, or, if not powerful, at least smart enough to be the best.
After a while, when Tom begins to think the man will never speak again, he finally breathes: “They are a bunch of stuffy purebloods, huh? What a waste.” before he downs the rest of his drink in a single gulp.
Tom watches the man drop ten galleons on the counter like they’re nothing, getting up from his stool like he hasn’t just left enough money to buy food for two months for a single night of light drinking. He watches the coins being swept up by the Innkeeper, watches them disappear behind the counter. He feels like crying, he feels like murdering the world. The stranger puts a hand over his shoulder and quietly stirs him toward the brick wall, and then they stop just two steps into Diagon Alley.
From his breast pocket, the man takes out a pack of cigarettes, and puts one in his mouth. Snapping his fingers, he lights it up. A wordless, wandless incendio that suggests all his power. He offers one to Tom.
“You smoke?”
Tom takes it, rolling it between his fingers. It’s been months since he quit. Smoking is an expensive habit, he doesn’t have enough sickles to afford a pack - not even if he could convert them into pounds and slip into muggle London to buy them. And trying to steal them seems like a worthless endeavour when he can just stop. When he turns, cigarette dangling between his lips, ready to cast his own incendio - the stranger steps forward, pushes a hand against his neck. Calloused fingers press against his pulse point, and then he’s leaning in, his towering presence brushing against Tom’s own. He can smell a hint of cologne, covered only by the fresh smell of smoke. The tips of their cigarettes touch, fire spreading, and then the stranger’s gone - leaning with his back against the brick wall, and Tom is choking like a newbie - throat closing around the smoke he’s inhaling, his mind running a mile a minute, replaying that single moment again and again—
“First time?” asks the man once Tom has stopped coughing, eyes watering. Regaining his composure, Tom shakes his head and takes another breath. He tastes the smoke curling over his tongue. His last cigarette was smoked behind the foster house fence, hiding from his muggle foster parents, before he had to board the Hogwarts Express for his seventh year. He had already killed his biological father by then, and he was hiding to smoke a bloody cigarette.
“No, just… been a while.”
The stranger laughs, head rolling back, exposing the bronze column of his neck - the muscles, jumping behind his collar.
“They’re gonna kill me, I fear. Can’t quit. Tried many times, but every time something else happens and I have to smoke. Else, I feel like I would unravel at the seams.”
Well, Tom doesn't have that problem anymore.
He turns and smirks at the man, shifting so he’s leaning against the wall just beside him.
It’s been a good night in the end, Tom contemplates. He has managed to indulge after months of deprivation, and it felt good. It still feels good. After having spent years feeling more and more dead— a walking corspe, just doing the bare minimum to survive, to keep going propelled by fear and spite alone. It’s good - he thinks, to feel human again, even if only for an hour.
The stranger turns to him, green eyes shining. He flicks away the ash from his cigarette, tongue darting to wet his lips. When Tom lowers his hand to do the same, the man leans in, and his lips are soft and taste like tobacco and alcohol.
Tom hasn’t kissed many people in his life, not interested in his schoolmates - but he remembers one muggle boy sharing his foster house. His name was Jimmy, and Tom obliviated him as soon as he turned seventeen and went back home to gather his stuff.
Jimmy’s kisses were sloppy and wet, a bit disgusting, even. Sex with him was ugly and clumsy, just a way to get off, hiding from the world in the dead of night, when summer was too heavy to endure.
The stranger kisses like he means it. Like every movement is a statement. He cradles Tom’s head, fingers gently caressing his cheek, barely touching his ear. He wants to say that it was unexpected, but it wasn’t. Not really. The stranger wanted to pick him up from the start, and Tom— let him. So he curls his hands against his soft robe, forgetting all about the cigarette, and kisses him back - slipping his tongue inside his warm mouth.
It’s not wet, and it’s not sloppy. Another hand joins the first, touching Tom’s face with kindness before it slips down, dipping into the small of his back, pushing Tom into the embrace. A leg is suddenly between his thighs, pressing - not with urgency or desperation, but like it’s inevitable. A touch that Tom can’t escape, almost daring him to thrust against it. It’s been too long since Tom got himself off, and now he can feel the need building up in his groin. An avalanche of pleasure that’s making his mind blurry with lust. He doesn’t even care that the stranger probably thinks him easy, having bought him with two cups of elvish wine and a cigarette. Tom wants it, and what he wants, he gets.
When he pushes back to regain his breath, the man’s eyes are blown out, irises so dark the green is just a small ring all around the void. His glasses are askew, and he’s grinning, red lips glistening with saliva. He shouldn’t be so damn attractive.
“Want to get out of here?” he whispers, hands never leaving his hips, claiming Tom in a way he never let himself be claimed. The answer writes itself.
“Take a deep breath.”
Tom is not ashamed of his flat. It might be small and fairly ugly, but he’s living in it. It has a functioning roof and windows that keep the cold outside, and his bed is comfortable with all the charms he has layered upon it. So no, he’s not ashamed when he takes the stranger’s hand and guides him inside the wards, feeling his magic open up like a curtain before falling back down when they enter the threshold. The man doesn’t say anything, barely taking his eyes off Tom long enough to catch a glimpse of the place.
Well then.
Not wanting the moment to turn into an awkward silence, he stomps over it - grabbing the man by the shoulders to push him onto the mattress. The man is smiling, and when his knees touch the bed frame, he goes down, sprawling over the sheet in his expensive clothes, legs falling open like a promise. Tom doesn’t waste time. He pops open the clasp of his outer robes, letting them fall to the ground in a pool of wool, then he climbs over the bed, slithering between the man’s legs. Now it’s his turn to push his knee to his groin, feeling the hardness hidden in his trousers - big and throbbing, just for him. No words are necessary - not when the man throws his head back with a moan, and Tom slips his fingers around his throat. With clumsy hands, the man tries to open his clothes, revealing a sliver of his chest - broad and big, with soft skin covering the hidden strength beneath. He can’t resist but thread his fingers among dark curls, following them from his sternum to his navel, and down still, until he touches the edge of his trousers. Another moan leaves the stranger’s mouth when Tom slips his long fingers underneath the fabric, to taste the base of his erection.
“Fuck it.” he says, a murmur between his gasps, and suddenly he’s naked, clothes vanishing with a whisper of thread, forever taken by magic. Tom startles, giving the man enough time to regain his focus, opening his eyes-
“Did you just… wandlessly and wordlessly vanish your clothes?” your expensive clothes, he wants to add. The man doesn’t even look sheepish, he just grins, and bends his knees further apart to expose his heavy cock sitting in a sea of dark curls, his toned thighs and the swell of his ass. He has tattos all over his strong arms, swirls of ink dancing over his body like fine jewelry - runes and dragons and snakes forming celtic knots and phoenixes flying in the smooth expanse of his shoulders. Tom wants to bite, to lick, to see if they taste like anything, or if magic will spark under his tongue. He can’t even differentiate between decorations and scars, littering his torso in pale slashes that tell another story altogether.
Licking his lips, Tom slips over him, incapable of stopping - not after such demonstration of power. The mere idea makes Tom’s head spin, and he quickly grabs the edge of his own shirt to push it over his head, followed by his belt, disappearing with a satisfying snap, and his trousers and boxers. He’s never undressed faster, he needs to feel the man’s body under his. Skin against skin.
Slowly, Tom begins to thrust their erections together, keeping his moans inside - eyes rolling in pleasure each time their cockheads touch. Soon, though, it becomes not enough. Tom needs more, he needs to see this man destroyed. So he grabs his thighs, and pushes the man's legs over his shoulders, and finally, finally, Tom wets his fingers with a whispered spell and traces the path around his rim. He pushes his fingers inside, further as they go, until his knuckles are seated deep between his cheeks. The man is loud, his moans breaking each time Tom curls his index to press against his prostate - on the brink of overstimulation after mere seconds. He looks ready to fall apart, undone by pleasure - like it’s too much, like he can’t survive. Tom takes his time fingering him open, making the ring of muscles relax around his presence, get used to his fingers - two, and three, and four, until the man’s cock is leaking so much there are pearly drops decorating his stomach like moon jewels. When Tom enters him with a single thrust of his hips, he tightens the fingers around his throat, choking the yell that twists the man’s face in a mask of pure pleasure.
It’s hot, and messy, and Tom’s muscles burn. The man keeps telling him: “Harder!” until it’s almost painful - until he’s coming all over himself, the hand around his cock going lax - until Tom is pushing out and releasing himself all over him, too. Shooting spunk over his bronze skin and open legs.
Tom is too tired to care about the mess, but he still casts a silent spell to vanish most of it, before collapsing in a tangle of limbs. The man grabs him, kissing his mouth, and keeps him close. He pets his hair, until Tom can’t keep awake anymore.
For once, his bed is warm, and going to sleep doesn’t feel like a chore.
When Tom wakes the next morning, he’s alone. The bed has long since gone cold, but for a blessed moment, he can turn and catch a glimpse of cologne still staining his pillow. His body is sore, but in a good way, and just the memory of last night is enough to spark his cock to stiffen, albeit not fully. He grants himself five more minutes, spent relaxing and feeling the sheets against his bare skin, before he finally grabs his wand and casts the strongest warming charm he knows at the room. He also summons the outer robe from the floor, and uses it like a cloak to paddle into the bathroom.
Under the spray of water, he tries his best to kill any disappointment he feels at having been no more than a night of fun for the stranger. It’s fair, he tells himself over and over, that he’s gone. They are nothing to eachother, they haven’t even shared names.
As soon as the water grows cold again, Tom steps out of the shower and dries himself with another spell. It’s Sunday, his only free day, but usually he goes to the shop anyway to finish his workload before Monday arrives. He has more reports to complete and send the Ministry, weekly documents needed to keep their funded apprenticeships in check. It should be Bancroft’s job.
Sighing, he returns into the main room of the flat, searching the kitchen for his usual cup of warm-tea-water, but something else catches his attention first. A brown parcel in the middle of the table, and a note scribbled with his ballpoint in his notepad. Curious, he grabs the note first.
Hello! Sorry if I disappeared, but I completely forgot I had a thing this morning. I’m just thankful the Patronus Hermione sent me hasn’t woken you up. I wanted to tell you that yesterday was amazing, and asking if you wanted to at least exchange owls? Or lunch! We should get lunch! Anyway, sorry again. I wanted to make you breakfast but I guess you haven’t been shopping yet, so I asked my elf to grab you something instead. I hope you like pancakes and bacon.
Have a nice day.
HP
p.s. I almost forgot again, if you want to write to me, send your owl to “Harry James Potter, 12 Grimmauld Place.”
It takes a few seconds for the information to truly sink in, but then Tom is gripping the paper and his eyes are widening — because it cannot be. Did he bloody sleep with Harry Potter? The bloody Harry Potter? He blinks, once, twice, then drops the note on the table to grab the parcel. Inside, under a perfectly stable stasis charm, is a plate filled to the brim with pancakes, and a small container full of fried strips of bacon. The smell alone is enough to make him weak in the knees, and Tom grabs the chair with one hand before he can do something ridiculous like falling with his ass on the floor. Tucked in one corner there’s a sealed pack of cigarettes.
He’s so shaken, he takes a strip of bacon and almost forgets to taste it - thinking: I fucked Harry Potter, over and over again.
Harry Potter, forty-six years old, is a legend among the wizarding world. Only one to ever survive not one but two killing curses, and bring an end to the reign of terror of the late Dark Lord Grindelwald with the help of Albus Dumbledore. Head-Auror and local hero, married to the Quidditch star Ginny Weasley - even if the papers are spreading rumors about a possible divorce. Neither of them has made a statement, yet. The Boy-Who-Lived, Master of Death, if the voices are to be trusted.
Tom covers his face with a hand. Harry Potter, sprawled over his old, uncomfortable bed - Harry Potter, inside his dirty, ugly flat. With his legs open, taking Tom’s cock like he was born to do just that. Hole clenching around his length, screaming “Harder!” as Tom fucked him into the mattress.
Tom dresses quickly and grabs a pancake to eat on the go, tucking the rest of the breakfast safely away. He has counted ten whole pancakes and fifteen strips of bacon, and if the charm is as strong as it seems, they can last him for an entire week, if not more. Then he grabs one of the emergency galleons from its hiding place (under an empty flower pot) and walks into Diagon Alley, ignoring Bancroft’s shop for the first time in a year. His destination is the public Post Office, given that he doesn’t have an owl.
What does he need one for, when he has no one to write to? He steadies himself, commanding his body to stop fucking shaking, and pays for parchment and ink, tucking away into the shop to write a brief letter. He can’t let the note go unanswered, after all. Not when he bloody fucked Harry Potter. So he pencils in:
Hello.
The Patronus didn't wake me up, don’t worry.
I would like to exchange owls, but I don’t have a personal one, never needed one, in fact. As for lunch, it can be arranged.
Yesterday was nice. Very nice.
The pancakes and bacon were also very nice, thank you.
My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. Please tell your owl to wait for my answer before he leaves, or I won’t be able to send you a response quickly. You know my address.
Have a nice day, too.
TMR
There. That sounds normal. Tom can’t help but smirk when he closes the letter with wax, pressing down the generic seal of the Post Office. He still can’t believe it — but if he plays his cards right… Harry Potter can be the open door he needs. A name, a powerful one, and money. Friends in almost every field. And the man wants Tom. Somehow, in a single night, he decided that he wants Tom. A giggle manages to bubble out of his mouth, and he’s almost happy to pay the galleon when he sees the barn owl take flight with his letter, knowing where it’s going.