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“Put me down!” Harry yelled, his voice lost amongst the drunken chatter and laughter currently filling the Slytherin common room.
Of course it was Lestrange who had attacked him as soon as Tom’s back was turned. Harry could see him from across the room, a rare smile gracing his face as he spoke to another inebriated student. The glimpse was gone, however, as Lestrange hauled his body up the stairs to their empty dorm, in the full confidence that no-one would notice their disappearance.
Of course it was Lestrange.
The Lestranges seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with Tom Riddle, though Harry couldn’t tell whether he preferred the Bellatrix of his own time or the Lestrange of this one. Naturally, because Harry couldn’t ever keep himself away from Voldemort for some stupid self-destructive reason, he’d gotten himself caught in Tom’s orbit, and Tom… well, his attentions on Harry had been enough to put Harry at the top of Lestrange’s hate list.
And those attentions were certainly reciprocated. The whole thing was more platonic than Harry would have preferred, but he kept these thoughts to himself lest he ruin his already intimate relationship with Tom.
Harry suffered a hard landing on the floor when Lestrange shrugged him off. Perhaps it was a mercy that Lestrange had taken them to the dorm, as this is where Harry left his wand, but Lestrange wasn’t stupid, despite what Tom liked to say. A second later, Lestrange’s wand was pointed between Harry’s eyes.
“Have you had anything to drink?” was the first thing out of Lestrange’s mouth, which startled a laugh out of Harry.
“Sorry, what?”
“Just answer the question, Potter,” Lestrange hissed, jabbing his wand at Harry and skewing his glasses.
“Yeah, I’ve probably had one or two. Why does it matter?” Harry spoke as defiantly as he dared. “Just what do you think you can do to me?”
Lestrange lowered his wand, but it was not in defeat. “I can’t hurt you. But Riddle isn’t here to protect you, Potter, and there’s something I want to know…” Lestrange motioned with his wand and Harry’s glasses whizzed into Lestrange’s waiting hand. When he next spoke, it was low and crazed and pining all at once. “… What is it about you that makes him want you more than me?”
Harry hesitated. “Well, I could give you some notes-”
Lestrange sneered, and any pity Harry might have felt for him dissipated. “Shut up, Potter. Try to sit still, and it will be over quickly.”
A spike of alarm went through him at that. “Wait- what do you mean-?”
Lestrange grabbed Harry by the hair and twisted him so that he was looking Lestrange right in the eye, and Harry connected the dots. Legilimency.
Absolutely not. Harry would not allow Lestrange of all people to find out his past, his secrets, and- perhaps most damningly of all- his deeper feelings for Tom. He shut his eyes, refusing to co-operate.
“You love him,” Lestrange whispered, and Harry’s heart sank. Of course, in trying to not think about it, he had thought about it. Stupid. Foolish. Weak, as Tom would say, were he not downstairs most likely forging connections through tipsy flirting. “You love him,” Lestrange said again, angrier, and tightened his grip painfully on Harry’s hair.
Harry would have borne that pain a thousand times over, though, if it prevented what came next.
Tom Riddle’s cold, taut voice pierced the dorm. “It’s rude to play with things that don’t belong to you.”
It was the only warning Lestrange got before receiving a stunner to the face, yanking him away from Harry and causing Harry to cry out- a sound which he did attempt to muffle, though he knew Tom heard it anyway. Harry picked up his glasses from where they’d fallen out of Lestrange’s hand, put them on, and stood.
He didn’t want to look at Tom’s face. He did anyway.
“You love me,” Tom stated, his expression indecipherable. Harry couldn’t read Tom’s aura either, dangerous and seductive and intoxicating as it always was.
Would Tom denounce him, call him out on what Tom perceived as a weakness? Harry believed that love wasn’t a weakness at all, but he couldn’t take it if Tom’s condemnation was as harsh as he feared. Harry swallowed.
“Don’t hate me,” he whispered after an age of silence.
Tom’s steps towards him were cautious, unnaturally so. Harry felt a stinging in his eyes despite himself which he blamed on the alcohol, and when the first tear spilled over Tom was inches from him.
“Are you so afraid of me?” Tom murmured, catching the tear with his thumb on Harry’s cheek.
“Not of you,” Harry protested quietly, forcing himself to breathe. He could fight Tom on every battlefield except this one. Now he was only awaiting judgement.
“You should be afraid of me,” Tom said, but his voice held neither malice nor any other kind of danger. “I will hurt you. I will own you and I will wear you thin. We will disagree, like we always do. It will hurt you more.”
Harry nodded. His scalp hurt. “I know.”
Tom leaned into him, his lips brushing Harry’s cheek so faintly so that Tom could whisper into his ear. “I will prize you. I will give you the world, and I will keep you by my side. Forever.”
Harry’s eyes had closed of their own accord, and somewhere along the line Tom had come to grasp Harry’s waist as if enclosing him away from the rest of the world. “I know.”
Tom whispered a spell, and Harry opened his eyes just in time to see Lestrange’s unconscious body flung out of the door, which locked behind him. When Tom pulled back, he was wearing a ghost of a smirk, closer to the Tom Harry was used to. His grip on Harry had intensified, not painfully, but enough for Harry to be certain that Tom had not condemned him at all.
“I think we should spend the rest of the party in here, don’t you?” Tom purred, leaning in again to tease him with light barely-there kisses along his jaw.
It was only because Tom couldn’t see his face that Harry gathered the courage to ask, “Tom, if you ever do, er… love me back…” he reddened, rushing onwards as Tom slowly stilled. “Feel free to, you know, tell me. If that happens. So I know where we are.”
Tom hummed, raising his head so that he could look Harry in the eyes, his expression practically fond.
“But Harry… I just did.”