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"Tom! Tom!"
A body slammed into him, he almost lost balance as the unwanted body clung to him. Hugging him.
Tom looked at the head of unruly hair and he placed his hand upon their head, hands trembling with the strength to not crush it as he saw fit. He decided to just poke at the offending forehead.
Bright eyes looked up at him from behind a pair of spectacles, "teach me how to talk to dinosaurs!"
Tom looked up at the ceiling, he was not religious and believed in no higher power besides himself but at that moment he found himself asking some otherworldly power for patience.
He closed his eyes, slowly inhaling and then exhaling.
"Toooo- oof!"
Tom"s palm smacked his target, semi-successfully pushing away the head except the vermin clung to his robes like an incessant parasite. Lips firmly setting in a thin line, "no."
He turned to leave but the wretched hands did not budge one bit. A pulse throbbed in his temple, he was glad no one was around to witness this nonsense. Him having to use two hands to push away this insect, how embarrassing it would be to be seen tussling like a bunch of muggles. On top of that, he was breaking a sweat!
Having had enough, "Harry! Unhand me at once!"
The imp hung to him tighter, "not unless you teach meeee!"
Tom heaved, he was beginning to regret being the target of the idiot"s strength. "Let go of me!"
"No."
"Harry, you daft halfwit, quit being difficult."
"I"m not an idiot!"
"Well, I"m not a wizard then." Tom dryly responded, the whole situation had him rolling his eyes like some crude.
Tom pushed against Harry"s face, trying to ease out of the death grip until he bit him. The bugger bit him...
"You little shi-"
"Uh, uh, uh," Harry tutted. "Mind your language, Tom, those snotty snob purebloods would think you"re a," Harry lowered his voice to a mere whisper as if saying something controversial, "muggle."
Tom"s eye twitched, he was close to blowing up. As much as he doesn"t like to admit it, he is just as temperamental as Harry and quick to blow a fuse but unlike the buffoon, it took him longer to reign in his composure.
"Fine."
"Really?" Harry turned so he could make eye contact with Tom, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. That was all it took, just that one little moment of Harry putting his guards down, Tom smiled viciously. He hooked his leg behind one of Harry"s and pulled, Harry lost his balance, too late to do anything but fall.
Tom smirked, pleased as he fixed himself, not breaking eye contact with Harry. While Harry on the other hand huffed from the floor. Tom picked up his fallen bag and books before stalking into an empty classroom. Harry followed in his footsteps like some chastised child.
He sat down, pointedly looking at Harry with a raised brow and the other looked like a kicked puppy. He rolled his eyes, "what exactly made you think I could teach you to talk to dinosaurs anyways?"
Harry perked up at that, suddenly smiling again, "well, it"s simple. Dragons are basically dinosaurs and dragons and snakes are like cousins, so yeah."
Tom looked at Harry, unimpressed. He hoped his face conveyed it to its fullest potential on how absurdly moronic all of this sounded. "So let me get this straight. You think that I, a parselmouth, could teach you to speak to dinosaurs because dragons and dinosaurs are somehow related to snakes."
"Yeah, they"re all reptiles. It will probably just be like different accents or dialects."
Tom blinked.
Harry blinked.
They sat in silence for a moment. Tom, trying to contemplate what he had just heard and Harry did so just for the sake of blinking.
Tom sighed, hand rubbing the bridge of his nose to ease the building tension in his head. He had entered Hogwarts with the ambition of world domination so just how in Morgana"s grace did he end up being stuck with a dolt who"s a Gryffindor on top of it all.
"Harry," Tom started, voice sounding much like a professor about to explain the lecture for the hundredth time. At the tone of his voice, Harry wilted and Tom came to an abrupt halt. His tirade dying on the tips of his tongue.
The crestfallen look on his friend"s peer"s face had his mouth clicking shut. "I"m sorry Tom, I didn"t mean to bother you." He watched gobsmacked as Harry buried his face into his arms, "I just wanted to spend more time before we graduate. We won"t see each other anymore will we?"
Tom was perturbed, "who said we won"t see each other anymore?" He blurted out, any sort of grace forgotten.
A sniffle, "you"re going to be Prime Minister and won"t have time for me anymore?"
"Harry, don"t be stupid."
"See. Why would you involve yourself with someone dumb like me? You will surround yourself with those rich people, with their posh accents like you"re already doing now. There"s no place for someone like me. We"ll say goodbye at graduation with talks of keeping in touch but will only see each other at some events and before you know it one of us will be inviting the other to our wedding-"
Wedding?!
"Where I"m just going to be some stranger having to stand all the way at the end of the crowd. Hell, the reporters will have an easier time getting into the wedding than me."
How was it devolving so fast!
"And then, you"re a father-"
Tom"s brain short circuited. A father?!
"By then, you"d have forgotten all about me and named your child some ridiculously long name like Ursa Major Marvolo Gaunt Slytherin Riddle Black."
Why am I married to a Black!
"And then before you know it, I"m dead!"
Tom"s eyes widened at the direction their conversation was heading. More so concerned about the ending of the said hypothetical path.
"You won"t even attend," the sniffle had Tom going rigid, mouth agape, not knowing what to do. "You won"t even give a speech at my funeral!"
Tom jerked back when Harry suddenly lifted his head, eyes accusing him of something that hadn"t even happened.
"How could you Tom? I thought we were best friends!"
Best friends...
His heart gave a thump.
Tom blushed, "w-we"re not be-best friends!" His voice came out a bit shrill as heat spread down his neck.
At his own little outburst, Harry looked at him in betrayal and there it was. That slight wobble of the lips, the furrowing and unfurrowing of his brows as if he"s holding back his tears.
Tom"s lips set in a frown, feeling a bit...bad...
"We"re not even...friends..." Harry blinked, looking at nothing in particular, lost in his own thoughts. His face was of someone who had been told the most devastating news and was in disbelief, unable to process it yet.
Then, Tom"s eyes watched in horror as a teardrop rolled down Harry"s cheek. All sense of rationality was thrown out the window.
"Why are you crying!" His voice was so sharp it grated his own ears.
"Because you said we weren"t friends! All those years and I"m not even a friend! It was all one sided..."
"Because you"re more than a best friend." Tom rushed out and after that, his mouth clicked shut when he processed what he just said. Surprised and somewhat mortified by his own confession.
His mortification eased as Harry hugged him over the table. He scrunched his nose when he felt a spot of wetness on his chest, hoping it was just tears and nothing else. He patted Harry"s head although it was stilted.
"Have you calmed down?"
He felt Harry nod and was able to take an exhale of relief. "I just want to spend more time before everything changes." Tom sighed when he heard those muffled words. He had been what some may say awfully distant preparing for his N.E.W.T.s. So much so that he hasn"t even held any meetings, world domination would have to wait after his exams.
But Harry...
Tom would say his resolution waned after this whole debacle but he didn"t think he"d had one from the start. When Harry is involved he-
...
Tom blinked.
Where were his thoughts going?
He scowled. Clearing his throat, "okay, we can have your dinosaur lesson on the weekends. I"m not promising anything so if you get your head chomped off by some incensed Tyrannosaurus, don"t come running to me."
Harry finally moved his back from his chest, a full grin in place and Tom thought perhaps it wasn"t all so bad. Maybe he can persuade these great beasts to his cause, the Wizarding world will have no choice but bow to his might.
__
Hermione easily joined in steps with the only other in the hallway. She looked at Harry, eyebrows raised in question, "so how"d it go?"
What she received in return was what she can only call a very cheeky grin and Hermione huffed out through her nose.
"You may have doubted me but I have delivered."
"There"s no way you were able to rope in Riddle for something so ridiculous as talking to dinosaurs, Harry." Hermione shook her head, unable to believe it.
Harry laughed, "better believe it "cause the lesson"s starting tomorrow. Don"t feel too lonely now." Harry smiled and Hermione let out a soft snort, shaking her head at the rambunctiousness.
"One lesson and you"re already over the moon."
"Well, I did get something far better than just lessons."
Hermione shot him a questioning look but Harry"s attention was elsewhere, eyes lost in a memory and lips curved in a secretive smile.
More than a best friend huh...