Chapter Text
If there was one thing seriously wrong with Harry, it was that even at forty he still clung to a few naïve, childlike beliefs.
Such as: money won’t buy you happiness. True love will find you in the end. You’re supposed to get wiser with age.
And, most recently but most disastrously - that time travel must be fun.
That last one was by far his worst delusion. He blamed the film industry for that. They had a lot to answer for and, regrettably, no liability.
As it happened, it was the source of his current, very dire predicament.
It was the reason he had somehow allowed himself to be coerced into volunteering for the Ministry’s latest experimental innovation project. That, and perhaps the fact that he was the only senior Auror with no children or family.
The mission was to go back to any point in the past for one year.
Should be fun, right?
Wrong.
Well. Perhaps it might have been, had Harry not chosen - like the idiot saviour he was - to go back to a very specific time slot to thwart Tom Riddle’s rise to power.
He had selected the year 1952 with what he’d thought was great wisdom. Earlier than that seemed complicated and risky.
First, there was the small issue of an ongoing war.
Second, he was far too old to go back to Hogwarts. The idea that he would need to deal with teenagers on a daily basis was exhausting already in theory, and likely soul crushing in practice.
And third, if he had to deal with a psychopath, he might as well wait until that psychopath had developed a fully formed brain.
The rest of the plan, admittedly, he’d ruined all by himself - by assuming he could simply wing such a thing as time travel and go back to 1952 with nothing but a wand and a few stacks of galleons.
Sure, he had read the instruction titled “Things You Absolutely Must Not Do in the Past.”
Well. He had briefly skimmed it.
He had also promised not to create any dramatic changes. Beyond that, he’d figured he was adaptable enough to handle whatever the 1950s could throw at him.
With prize-winning naïveté, he’d stepped into the time-travel device and waited for it to do its work.
He landed in a back alley off Diagon Alley and immediately noticed the air felt different. The smell of smoke and dust was more prominent than in his time.
I hope the past isn’t sepia-coloured, he thought at once.
As he stepped out onto the street, he realised his first mistake.
He hadn’t bothered to dress properly.
He was wearing his usual Muggle clothes - a T-shirt, checkered shirt, jeans, and Converse trainers - clothes he’d put on because he’d assumed that, much like international travel, one needs to dress comfortably for time travel as well.
Now, in the early spring of 1952 (he’d at least had the sense to avoid winter), he might as well have arrived from another planet.
Everyone on Diagon Alley’s main street was staring at him like he was an alien.
So he went straight into Madam Malkin’s and came out a some galleons poorer but at least dressed like a man who belonged to the correct decade.
The new looks helped him blend in enough to find temporary lodging and order a meal at a nearby café.
The food was abysmal.
It was supposedly stew, but it looked - and tasted - like potato peels braised stale fat and sweat.
After the meal, Harry walked around Diagon Alley to think.
He needed to form some semblance of a plan around Riddle. He knew Tom worked at Borgin and Burkes at this age, so finding him wouldn’t be difficult.
But how to… entice him? Distract him? Thwart his master plans without getting murdered or forced to join a cult?
Harry was so immersed in plotting that he nearly got run over by a car.
A bloody car. In Diagon Alley.
He sprang back just in time. No one else seemed remotely alarmed. In fact, the crowd parted willingly, as if the vehicle were Moses and they were the Red Sea.
The car’s windows were charmed; aside from the chauffeur, it was impossible to see inside.
“Who is that?” Harry wondered. Apparently aloud.
A witch beside him gave him a look of profound disappointment. “Have you been living under a rock? That’s Tom Riddle. Heir of Slytherin.”
Tom Riddle. In a car.
Harry’s hand twitched automatically toward his back pocket to grab his phone and look up whatever alternate-timeline nonsense had clearly occurred here.
Then he remembered.
No jeans. No back pocket. No phone. No Googulus.
Bugger.
How did people find things out in this era?
Wait. He’d once lived without a phone too. He knew how to do this. He’d do it in a way that would make Hermione very proud.
He went to the Diagon Alley library and asked for recent issues of the Prophet.
He was led to a long reading table stacked with newspapers and magazines. The sheer selection surprised him. He had no idea people in the past had been such avid readers.
Or perhaps they simply had fewer distractions.
The recent Prophet issues didn’t mention Riddle often, and whenever they did, he was referred to very pointedly as the Heir of Slytherin, as though that were a title on par with the Minister himself.
Harry frowned. Why was the heritage so important? Had… something else happened in the Chamber of Secrets?
He dug deeper into the archives and pulled issues from ten years ago. After a moment, he muttered a word-finding charm. The stack fluttered and flipped until it landed on a particular edition.
Front page.
A photograph of a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle standing in the Chamber of Secrets. Behind him, there wasn‘t the basilisk. Not even Moaning Myrtle. There was a mountain of gold, the size of a basilisk. Or two.
“Teenage Boy Reclaims the Inheritance of Salazar Slytherin,” the headline read.
Harry stared at the moving photograph of his handsome teenage crush.
Tom was smiling, bright and wide. It looked genuine.
There it was. Money had, in fact, bought him happiness.
Sometimes life was just unfair.
He turned the pages to the next mention of Riddle.
“The Slytherin inheritance goes to Riddle uncontested, amount estimated at two billion galleons.”
What.
The headlines became more and more outrageous.
“Riddle purchases ancestral manor.”
“The richest wizard in Britain graduates top of his year.”
Then the headlines started to show a trend.
“Riddle acquires Witch Weekly.”
“Riddle launches a new periodical: Wizards Monthly.”
“After unsuccessful bid for the Daily Prophet, Riddle establishes new newspapers: The Wizarding Times and The Enchanted Standard.”
Harry looked back at the table with all the press. So that was why there were so many publications. Many of them looked like tabloid trash, with titles like Spellbound! and Muffliato.
So instead of becoming a Dark Lord, Tom had become the wizarding world’s Rupert Murdoch of this dimension. And he seemed wildly successful.
Harry flipped through the more questionable tabloids. It appeared that Tom had his claws deep in the Wizengamot, too, and he was playing them like chess pieces, deciding whom to promote and who to send to doom.
“Wizengamot member Lord Mulciber caught at wild Swiss cottage party - you won’t believe what happened next!”
“Gambling debts of Greengrass family ‘settled quietly’ (or so they say…)”
“What did six Wizengamot members get up to at a Hogsmeade tavern on a Tuesday evening? Shocking details inside”
So. Tom Riddle was using his media empire to influence politics. Exactly as expected.
Harry had no idea what to make of it all. He was used to chasing criminals and dark wizards, not media moguls. And Tom wasn’t doing anything illegal per se, apart from the criminally tasteless tabloid titles.
But Harry wasn’t about to write some exposé or play investigative journalist. Besides, the Prophet and a few smaller magazines still seemed independent - the ones with the very pointed disclaimer on their covers: This issue is not associated with Marvolo Press. So there was opposition.
The truth was, this timeline didn’t need much saving.
And Harry was stuck here for a year.
He groaned so loud that the librarian sent a silencing spell in his direction. Harry reflected it with a flick of his fingers, stood up and left the library.
Maybe it was for the better. He didn’t need some complex, sophisticated plan to infiltrate Tom’s chain of command. He would lay low for a year, and then, when the time came, return to the same spot he had appeared and be taken away. This year would be nothing but a blip in his memory. Maybe he could even find someone to Obliviate it out of him.
For the first few days, the idea soothed him.
But soon another thing started to worry him: his personal finances.
He had come with a respectable stack of galleons, but it was already shrinking - between the security deposit for the lodgings and a complete wardrobe overhaul, and the few meals he had out, almost a third of it was already gone.
He had to find a job.
He tried the Ministry first, which turned out to be a mistake. He wasn’t…young, exactly, but he also couldn’t provide a single reference for his résumé. The Ministry was maddeningly thorough about that sort of thing. They wanted to check his previous employment, his education, even his family background - none of which he could produce without causing several time paradoxes and at least one Ministry employee losing their sanity.
So he moved on to the more blue-collar jobs around Diagon Alley. Cafés, specialty shops, barbers, apothecaries, parlours. But everywhere he went, he was either too strange, too experienced (his hastily invented “private security and investigative work” somehow seemed intimidating for some folk), not experienced enough, or, in one memorable case, rejected by a barber because of his hair.
He was just about ready to accept that he would have to learn how to cook from the urban equivalent of foraging - dumpster-diving - when a thought occurred to him.
If Tom was filthy rich in this timeline, that meant he probably hadn’t worked at Borgin and Burkes. And if he hadn’t worked there… then there might still be a vacancy.
Harry’s stomach rumbled at the thought of a regular paycheck.
It couldn’t hurt to check.
So Harry did. He went straight to the creepy antique shop, pushed open the door, and - before he could fully process the smell or the surroundings, which might very well have made him change his mind - approached the man sitting behind the counter.
“Hi,” Harry said. “I heard you might be looking for help with shopkeeping. I’m available.”
Then he noticed something.
The man at the counter was eerily still. One hand rested on the counter, the skin a worrying shade of yellow.
Is he even alive? Harry wondered, and gave the hand a cautious pinch.
The man - Borgin or Burke, presumably - snapped his eyes open and grabbed Harry’s hand like a mousetrap.
Harry jolted. He hadn’t expected that. He was ready to hit the man with a stunner from his free hand, but the man simply repositioned their hands and shook Harry’s briskly.
“I’m glad someone finally answered that advertisement I placed in the Prophet,” he said. “It was seven years ago, but sometimes it still feels like yesterday.”
Harry shook the hand for what he judged to be the socially appropriate amount of time and tried to let go. The other man did not.
“I am so glad you came,” the old wizard repeated. “In fact, I am so tired of running this shop I could die.”
“Please don’t,” Harry said immediately. “It would scare away potential customers,” he added, just in case that came across as too heartfelt.
“Ah,” the man said, peering at him with sudden interest. “You have some aptitude for sales. Good, good. That will be useful. I am ready to transfer all dealings with customers to you. In fact, I would very much like to focus on back-office work only.”
“Such as…?”
“You know. Artifact acquisition.”
Harry glanced around. The place was already stuffed with artefacts. The man followed his gaze.
“But as you can see, we have quite a lot,” he admitted. “So I may start by taking a few months of vacation.”
“What?” Harry asked, alarmed.
The man produced a key and pressed it into Harry’s palm. Then, he gestured toward the counter.
“The register is here. Money goes in. If it’s full, move it to the safe at the back office. The combination is 1 - 2 - 3. At the end of the month, you may take fifty galleons as your salary. Don’t steal - I will know the difference. Also, the artifacts are charmed. One cannot carry something out without paying. Oh, and there are rooms upstairs. You can live there; I won’t charge extra for rent.”
Harry blinked. Fifty galleons a month, free lodging… and apparently no proper training, safety briefing, or contract.
This is either a brilliant opportunity or a death trap, he thought. Probably both.
Now that was a good deal if Harry had ever heard of one.
He hastily extended his arm again and said, “I”ll start tomorrow.”
The other man just shrugged. “You have started already,” he said, grinning with a crooked, yellow-brown, toothy smile - and then disappeared with a pop.
Why do I feel like I’ve just wandered into an evil fairy tale where an old witch chained me to a tower? Harry wondered.
He checked himself for curses. Spells. Blood contracts. Soul-binding clauses.
But there was nothing.
Just the heavy, inexplicable burden of trust placed squarely on his shoulders by a shrivelling old man who had apparently handed him an entire dark-artifact shop and gone on holiday for Merlin knows how long.
That evening, Harry moved his things - well, just his bundle of clothes - into the new flat. He had gained back the security deposit, but not the rent for the month.
The flat was… interesting. Now that he knew he’d be living here for a year, everything really dawned on Harry. There were many things he’d need for his basic needs.
The flat had one bedroom and a kitchen. There was a toilet inside, thank goodness. And a shower. The water flow was unreliable, however. Often Harry had to fill the tanks with Aguamenti.
The kitchen had the same unreliable water in the tap, a chipped sink, and tiled floors. There were some pots, and the stove was fueled with wood. Harry had no idea where to get more once the pile he had ran out. Was there a wood shop? A wood guy? Or that was the thing he had to actually forage, somehow?
There was no refrigerator, only an enchanted cupboard that was slightly cooler than room temperature. All the cupboards were rickety and protested loudly when opened.
The bedroom was warm and spacious, but the mattress had been created by sticking together a collection of lumps. The pillows felt like sacks of damp gravel. It definitely wasn’t anything like the ergonomic mattress and pillows he’d acquired from IKEA in his timeline, carefully selected for his “firm, but not too hard” surfaces loving back and neck.
I might die here. Not from loneliness or time-travel psychosis, but because my spine will crawl out of my body at night and report me to the authorities, Harry thought.
It’s just one year, he told himself.
Another bitter thought occurred to him.
I bet Tom Riddle doesn’t have a lumpy mattress.
He probably sleeps in a soft bed with silk sheets, the sod. In contrast to Harry, who had no sheets. And no chance to get them tonight.
After a rather horrible night, Harry struggled with the wooden stove to make coffee. The wood didn’t want to catch fire, and it all took a painfully long time. When it was finally done, it tasted like boiled peat. He yearned for his coffee maker with a milk steamer and his favourite medium-roast Vietnamese coffee, freshly ground, 100% Arabica, with a smooth body and mild acidity.
After two sips of the peat brew, his stomach churned.
Worse - some clock went off downstairs like it was being Crucio’d. It was time to open the little horror shop.
Harry went down and unlocked the shop’s front door.
He turned around. For a moment, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
The shop was dusty, so for a while he tried to clean the items, but soon realised that it created a rather unpleasant dust cloud everywhere. He abandoned the effort quickly. If the old Borgin or Burke hadn’t bothered with the dust, why should he? Dust was clearly part of the brand.
The cash register seemed to obey him, which was more respect than he’d received from most institutions and appliances lately.
The only thing missing was the clients.
Harry sat behind the counter and watched the door like a cat.
Three hours later, he was bored to death, and very hungry.
No customers had come. Briefly, Harry wondered: if no one came for a whole month, how would he pay his own wages? In those dusty, suspicious items?
But the real question was, were any of them edible? Could he cook some shrivelled hands or snakeskins together into a nice stew?
Probably not.
He decided that since the shop was entirely his responsibility now, he could take a break whenever he wished. He jotted “Back in 10” on a sheet he took out from some mangled book and stuck it to the window with a sticking charm.
Then he went out and locked the door.
He needed to buy some tea, maybe a few biscuits, and something substantial for lunch.
His haul ended with tea that looked and smelled like it had been swept off the shop floor and generously seasoned with mouse droppings. It did say Earl Grey on the tin, so technically that counted. He also picked up a small packet of biscuits, some bread and cheese, and a paper bag of potato crisps.
He was carrying it all carefully in his arms when he saw the people part again on Diagon Alley’s main street.
Was it…?
Yes.
It was Tom Riddle. In person this time.
He was walking from the opposite direction toward a large building - Harry quickly deduced it must be the Marvolo Press headquarters.
He was somehow even more handsome than when he’d been sixteen. Taller, too. Very tall. Possibly climbable.
Harry’s throat went dry. He needed to brew his mouse-crap tea promptly.
Tom moved - no, strutted - like he had no care in the world. The robes swirled around him beautifully, like he was a lady from a fabric softener ad. He looked well-fed, well-moisturised, and thoroughly well-rested. Possibly because of his well-crafted mattress.
Harry felt more rumpled, ravenous, parched and more exhausted than ever. He added a skin cream to his mental shopping list, sighed, and looked away.
Why was it that it had taken one damn look at Tom Riddle for him to feel like a complete idiot?
Maybe this was the universe telling him to stay away from the handsome, budding dark yellow-press lord. Could the press be dark and yellow at the same time? Unfortunately, Tom seemed determined to prove that yes, it absolutely could.
Some people in the crowd were already asking for his autograph. Poor creatures.
With more force than strictly necessary, Harry pushed past the lost sheep and retreated to his lair of cursed objects, dust, and misery.
Back behind the counter, he started chewing on his lunch - bread and cheese, straight from the loaf because he lacked the will to locate some darkly cursed knife among the shop’s inventory. He was midway through a particularly bleak bite when the first customer came in.
Harry’s heart picked up. Was it someone tall, by any chance? Someone handso-
It was a very old lady. So old her spine had folded in on itself like a pocket knife.
She took one look at him and his lunch and announced, “No help required.”
“Excellent,” Harry muttered around a mouthful of bread. Not that he could actually help. He had absolutely no idea what any of the items were.
Which wasn’t… good.
Harry had the uncomfortable realization that if he wanted to eat, he actually needed to sell things. And for that, he needed to be able to advise customers. Or, at the very least, lie with confidence.
He inspected the shelves behind the counter. There were indeed several books - no, tomes - labelled Inventory. He dragged one onto the counter and opened it at random.
In small, spidery handwriting, Borgin or maybe Burke had written:
Object: Severed ear
Original Owner: Hieronymus the One-Eyed
Year: circa 1856
Properties:
- Warms slightly in the presence of danger
- Twitches toward nearby secrets
- Responds poorly to criticism
Care instructions:
- Do not submerge in tea
- Do not store next to cursed teeth
Price: 120 galleons (firm), negotiation price 150
Well. This wasn’t that bad. If the other objects were just as ridiculous, Harry could read this for entertainment value.
Alas, they weren’t.
Object: Opal Necklace
Original Owner: Unknown (multiple fatalities)
Year: Circa 19th century
Properties:
- Induces slow-acting curse upon skin contact
- Whispers vague threats
Care instructions:
- Handle with dragon-hide gloves only
- Do not wear “just to see what happens”
Price: 1500 galleons (strictly no returns)
Over the next few days, Harry finished reading the whole inventory. He still had no idea where most of the items actually were, but at least he could Accio them.
His sales skills hadn’t improved. Not that there was much use for them.
The clients had a certain pattern.
Mornings were mostly empty, so Harry didn’t bother opening the shop on time anymore. People started appearing around lunchtime - if Harry remembered to unlock the door, which he had, embarrassingly, forgotten twice already.
He could have used the mornings for something productive, like dusting, auditing the inventory, or doing wall yoga. Instead, he lazed. He had found a large sack of something labeled Professor Copperfield’s Miracle Legumes, dragged it behind the counter, and used it as a beanbag while reading a first edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
So Harry liked the mornings.
The afternoons were much, much more problematic.
He hadn’t realized it at the time, but his first client - the old lady who required no help - had actually been a dream client. Because most clients were the exact opposite.
They asked questions. They complained about prices. They criticized the items. For some of them, a shrivelled foot was too shrivelled. For others, it was too soft. Some didn’t like the pedicure.
And so on.
Harry realized that working in customer service was not his forte. In fact, he wasn’t sure such people even existed - people who could do this job and not lose their minds.
It was no wonder Tom Riddle of his timeline had ended up so insane. Clearly, a stint in customer service hell had contributed.
Harry did his best to maintain his sanity. He developed a standard set of responses - it seemed longer conversations only invited despair.
“Absolutely not.”
“Nothing I can do about it, I’m afraid.”
“That’s how the item is.”
“That’s what the price is.”
“Please purchase it before you throw it.”
“If you buy it, you can continue to criticize it at home.”
The last one was particularly effective. Harry had already made whole two sales with it.
So that was the other good news - despite the slow start and the occasional door-lock fiasco, Harry had managed to sell a few things. Or the items sold themselves. After just two weeks, he had even taken an advance payment from the cashier.
In contrast to his modest successes in the world of cursed antiquities, his personal life was suffering greatly.
In hindsight, he should have known that life in 1950s Britain would not have the comforts of his 2020 home. But knowing didn’t mean being morally - or emotionally - prepared for it.
He had done his utmost to improve his flat. Every unlump charm he knew had been applied to the mattress. He had bought a new pillow - with real feathers. He had deep-cleaned everything, renewed the cooling charms on the cupboard, and even got himself a wood man.
He had bought a recipe book from a muggle store, How to Make the Most Out of Rations, and was making the most of what he could find locally. No more brutish gnawing on loaves of bread. He missed good quality meat, though.
But it was the small things he missed the most.
Proper soap, especially for dishes. Even with magic, all he had were strange soap flakes that barely worked, particularly when cooking something greasy.
Proper, soft, three-layered toilet paper - not the coarse, single-ply, grayish sandpaper or newspapers cut into squares. Harry had even done a calculation whether subscribing to a newspaper was cheaper than continuing with the sandpaper rolls. In any case, his bottom was outraged.
He missed quiet nights with Bake-Off on in the background, playing a silly game on his phone.
And he missed his underwear drawer. How had he not packed more pairs with him? The options here were criminal. Harry liked his boxer briefs and was very particular about them - he ordered them online, in bulk, all black, from a nice, soft and stretchy cotton blend.
So when he visited a muggle underwear store and saw his options - tiny, gray Y-shaped briefs with impossibly high waists and rubber waistbands already too loose - he shed actual tears.
The boxers were no better - mostly unavailable, or somehow too tight where they should have been loose, and too loose where they needed to be snug. The fabrics were stiff, plain, and unyielding.
He had bought a few of each, but his heart remained heavy. And his bottom…already abused by the sandpaper toilet paper, the wardrobe situation was the last straw. Harry was sure his bum would remain thoroughly insulted for the rest of the year. He sympathized with it, truly - but there was no hope to cheer his bottom up, either.
The gay scene, if it existed, was largely considered sinful. And it was risky: protection among muggles was unreliable, and among wizards…well, laying low while looking for someone to “help give my bottom some fun” seemed practically impossible.
So that was how Harry’s life was going to be for a year. It could be worse, he supposed. If he’d traveled to the dinosaur age, he could have been eaten in a blink. If he’d gone to medieval times, he’d probably die from something natural - plague, lack of hygiene, or just old age, for those times.
He bought a wall calendar to mark off the remaining days in this place and picked up a few more books. At least he could educate himself. Maybe, once he got used to life here, he could restart some sports or pick up some other hobbies. For now, one step at a time.
That’s why, one morning, he was taking that step dutifully. He had unlocked the store. As no clients arrived, he slumped behind the counter on the beanbag and started reading. The morning was very warm. So warm that his eyelids fell shut.
After a while, he felt someone shaking him.
“Do you store artifacts that belonged to this man?” a low, smooth voice asked. A blurry card was shoved in front of his face.
Harry took the card. “What did you say?” he mumbled, trying to blink the sleep away.
“I require everything you have on him,” the voice said, a bit annoyed now.
On the card were two words:
Tungwin Yorebottom
Is this a prank? Harry thought.
Immediately, he deployed his favorite phrase: “Absolutely not,” and rolled onto his other side, dropping the card somewhere.
Probably some stupid kids playing around.
The person huffed. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. Then, louder, with far too much authority, he demanded, “If you are not able to service me, go and fetch someone who can,” and shook Harry again.
Ugh. Fine. Harry blinked several times and stood up to face whoever was trying to ruin his morning.
As he stood, he noticed the person was actually well-dressed. Very well-dressed - in stark contrast to him. Harry wasn’t bothering with proper attire for shop work anymore; sometimes he just threw a robe over his T-shirt and jeans, but not on a warm morning like this one.
The person was also tall. Very tall.
And handsome.
Oh no.
Tom Riddle was standing in his shop, holding a card with a name that sounded like a schoolboy’s prank - and seemed entirely unaware of it.
This might be interesting.
Harry cleared his throat. “Could you state what you want again for me? And… read the name out loud? I’m not sure I caught it correctly,” he asked sweetly.
Tom raised an eyebrow but turned the card with his long, elegant fingers. “I want to obtain any items from… Tungwin Yorebottom,” he said.
Harry waited. Five, four, three...
Somehow, the joke still didn’t seem to register to Tom.
Harry needed to help him.
“Excuse me, sir, but…a tongue…in my what?”
Tom’s eyes widened as they darted to the card. Then he froze. His cheeks warmed, his eyes flicking to Harry. “I… I hadn’t-”
“And whose tongue are we referring to? Your own? Or someone else’s?” Harry continued innocently, picking up a notebook and quill as if ready to take meticulous notes.
That was it. Tom was angry now.
“ You…” he started, but his composure unraveled and words were lost to outrage. He straightened and tried again. “How dare you even hint at… at something like that!” Tom yelled.
Harry considered deploying his usual arsenal of standard phrases, but decided to fully indulge in the moment - after all, it was the most fun he’d had in weeks. And, truth be told, his bottom appreciated the attention.
“Sir,” he began, adopting the scandalized air of a young maiden disturbed from her morning nap by an uncouth intruder, “I assure you, I have not the slightest intention of hinting at anything improper. In fact, it was entirely you who disturbed me from my peaceful slumber, brandishing cards with words so… suggestive.”
“It’s one card! With the name and surname of a wizard!”
“Oh, yes, of course. Let’s call it that, then. It certainly doesn’t reflect your… repressed desires. At all,” Harry said, every ounce of sarcasm dripping from his voice.
“I’m not repressing anything!” Tom protested.
“Oh really? Then what made you so interested in this particular wizard in the first place?” Harry asked.
Tom closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Harry pressed his lips together, stifling a grin.
When Tom’s eyes reopened, he leaned in, dangerously close.
“Do you know who I am?” Tom asked, voice low.
Harry shrugged. “A human? And maybe a slightly clueless pervert? Unless your true form is some sort of snake. If so, please don’t shed your skin here. We have enough snakeskins already.”
Tom froze. Then stared. And stared some more.
Damn him. Harry had to admit - Tom’s eyes were beautiful. Not just maroon, but flecked with amber that caught the light of the morning sun. They glinted like specks of gold.
“I’ve never encountered such insolence before,” Tom said, fingers twitching - probably for a wand. “And from a lowly customer service worker. A nobody.”
This will not end well.
“First time for everything. Please,” Harry said, gesturing toward the door, “if you don’t like me, you are encouraged to use the door handle to service you better than me. From the outside.”
Tom’s fingers stopped twitching. He studied Harry carefully now - Harry’s hair, clothes, even his trainers.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Harry shrugged. “A lowly customer service worker. A nobody.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“Absolutely not. I would never mock a customer!” Harry said, feigning horror. “But I’m afraid I cannot help you. We don’t have any belongings of one Tungw- of the wizard on your card. My apologies. Better luck next time. Et cetera.”
“Et cetera,” Tom repeated, but he didn’t move. He just kept looking.
“My lunch break will start soon,” Harry finally said.
That did it. Tom snapped out of whatever had possessed him, turned, and left, without another word.
Harry exhaled. Finally… he was gone.
Then it hit him.
That wasn’t exactly “laying low,” was it?
Oh fuck.
What the hell possessed him? Why - why, instead of simply lying low - had he launched into that bizarre, insult-laced flirtation? Or had it been flirt-laced insulting?
Harry knew the problem. It was Tom Riddle. He had precisely zero chances of behaving normally around him.
Let’s hope that doesn’t make things worse.
It did, in fact, make things worse. By the very next morning.
Harry woke to a strange noise in the kitchen.
He grabbed his wand out of instinct and went to check. It wasn’t a long journey - the flat was tiny. He usually didn’t even bother closing the bedroom door, but apparently he had last night.
The moment he stepped into the kitchen, he saw he had forgotten to close the window last night.
Not terrible in itself. Except there was now a strange owl perched on his counter, clutching a letter and looking deeply unimpressed with its surroundings.
He took one step forward, slipped on the tiles, and went down hard, flat on his back.
The floor was covered in a shallow lake.
His head throbbed.
He squinted at the pipe beneath the tap - it had split at one of the seams.
Just my luck.
The owl, meanwhile, was growing impatient. It waddled to the edge of the counter and peered down at him with open disdain.
“I don’t have any treats,” Harry said immediately, just to set expectations.
The owl gave a muffled, offended sort of scoff through its beak and rolled its eyes. The letter dropped onto Harry’s chest.
He opened the envelope. The parchment was thick, smooth, and felt expensive. He already had a strong suspicion about its contents.
____________________
To: To the Senior Management of Borgin & Burkes,
I hope this letter finds you well, though given the standards presently displayed in your establishment, I cannot imagine that it does.
I hereby wish to file a formal complaint against one of your shop assistants.
On the 22th of April this year, I entered your shop with a simple request: to locate artefacts belonging to a certain wizard by the name of T. Yorebottom. Instead of offering assistance, the person chose to ridicule the wizard’s name. Shortly thereafter, he saw fit to extend that mockery toward my person, apparently unaware of the calibre of client he was addressing.
That was not the full extent of his conduct. Upon entering the shop, I received no greeting. The individual in question was asleep behind the counter on a sack of potatoes. His apparel was abhorrent: not only blatantly Muggle, but offensively unbecoming of an employee representing what purports to be a respectable establishment.
As a long-standing and - until now - patient client of your business, I will expect a formal apology from this individual, both in writing and delivered verbally. I trust that such a matter can be resolved promptly, without necessitating further attention.
You may, perhaps, be aware of my position as proprietor of Marvolo Press, as well as certain other ventures and holdings. I would prefer not to conclude that my continued support for your business is being taken for granted. It would be unfortunate if I were compelled to reconsider where my influence - and my considerable spending - are best directed.
Signed,
Tom Marvolo Riddle, Heir of Slytherin, Managing Director of Marvolo Press
PS. You may wish to note that a page from The Annals of Willard the Thickest has been removed and affixed to your front window with a scrawl reading “Back in 10.” I assume this is not standard archival practice.
____________________
Oh fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Harry groaned. Not only was he wet and in pain - he now also had to save Borgin or Burke’s business from being eviscerated by Tom Riddle.
The owl was still there, waiting impatiently, eyes unblinking, clearly judging him.
Right. He needed to act like an adult and sort out the kitchen and the letter problem. For that, he needed something stronger than mere willpower.
Harry stood up and went to one of the wall cupboards, took out a bottle of whisky and poured himself a glass.
Armed with that - and Tom’s letter - he trudged back to his bedroom, where a small desk was located. Opening the drawer, he found a quill and some ink. It was dry but he could renew it with a simple spell. The parchment sheets were stained and wrinkled, but they would do.
He sat down in his soggy briefs and wet undershirt, quill in hand, whisky next to him, feeling like the embodiment of a middle-aged, alcoholic writer from the lost generation. He let his mood dictate the tone of the letter:
____________________
To: Tom Marvolo Riddle, Heir of Slytherin, Proprietor of Marvolo Press and Other Highly Respected Ventures and Holdings
Dear Sir,
I was lying on a wet kitchen floor - courtesy of a burst pipe that turned the entire room into a pond. I hit my head on the tiles with considerable force, as confirmed by the stars that are still dancing in my vision.
That was the state in which your letter found me.
I beg your pardon if my letter appears somewhat… disheveled. I am in a state of distress.
I fully share your concerns regarding the shop assistant. Alas, the situation is far worse than you can imagine. This individual is lazy, refuses to clean the shop, and heats and consumes his lunch from the Whispering Cauldron formerly belonging to the great Madame H. Plumridge. On two separate occasions, he neglected to unlock the shop entirely for half of a day.
It is indeed a great pain for me as a small business owner to employ such an unpredictable creature, but alas, in these trying times, young people insist on exorbitant wages despite possessing neither proper work ethic nor basic competence.
I assure you, he will receive no fewer than ten lashes with the Crimson Crop of Silence - an artifact capable of inducing both exquisite and prolonged discomfort to a person's nether regions.
However, and with great regret, I cannot guarantee the apology you request.
The individual appears illiterate, despite pretending to be able to read a book. I have repeatedly found him holding said book upside down. As for a verbal apology - once the lashes are administered, I fear speech will be impossible for at least two weeks.
After this interval, should you still wish to pursue the matter, I will personally ensure that the apology is rendered.
In the meantime, I offer you my own deepest and most sincere apologies for this unfortunate situation.
Respectfully,
Representative of Senior Management
Borgin & Burkes
PS. Thank you for notifying us about the front window, the page is shoved back so deep into the Annals that Willard the Thickest himself would be proud
____________________
It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.
Harry slipped the letter into an envelope and gave it back to the impatient owl.
He looked around the kitchen again and sighed.
It was a disaster. Water still pooled everywhere, and now he could see the debris it carried - crumbs, mouse droppings, splinters. At least the counter cupboards had been forced to reveal the secrets they’d been hiding underneath them for years.
It took him the entire day to clean the place. Lucky for him, it was Saturday, so the shop didn’t need to open. When he finally stepped back, he could honestly claim that he had deep-cleaned the kitchen in the deepest way imaginable. Deeper than the Annals went.
His body ached from the physical labor. That wouldn’t do. He needed to get back to some kind of training to maintain stamina and muscle. Next week, he promised himself.
Later that night, to his mounting frustration, Tom had still not replied.
Wasn’t that the point of the letter? To get rid of Tom’s attention?
By the next day, with no response, Harry found himself thinking about what he had written. Maybe he had overdone it. Maybe not. Maybe he had really put Tom off for good.
And that was… a good thing, he told himself. Very good. He could lay low now.
So why did he still feel frustrated?