Tom had never felt such extreme, confounding sensations all at once in his entire life.
He’d been flying high, his heartbeat erratic when he’d realized he’d lucked into finding a girl he could murder, and then everything was squandered when an auror stormed in, held Tom hard against his chest and shouted, “Close your eyes!” and then fucking beheaded his basilisk.
The hysterical, pimpled girl was sent to the hospital wing with the other auror, but Tom had insisted on joining this one to explain what had happened. Now he sat in Headmaster Dippet's office with a mug of hot chocolate in his hands because he was “in shock”.
“I was so afraid the aurors would not arrive before it was too late. I cannot tell you how grateful I am, Auror Potter, for your speedy intervention,” Dippet said, weeping like an old and shitty little dog.
That part was easiest to feel–the hatred. Auror Potter was very easy to hate. Tall and thick as a rugby player with hair like the male lead from a Brontë novel, chest certainly as hairy as his arms, the man who severed the head off his XXXXX-classified basilisk in three hacks of a sword? Absolutely animal.
Tom may never recover from this hatred.
“And my dear Tom, my brave and good boy, what in Merlin's name were you doing there?” Dippet sniffled.
Tom reflexively set his eyes big, brown, and sad, about to present his perfect lie, but Auror Potter stared at him from the corner of his eyes.
Something churned in Tom at that look. It wasn't like Dumbledore's, who tried to suss out his weaknesses. This was the look of a beast with scythes for teeth. Those eyes, as green as the Black Lake, disarmed Tom, made him burn with the desire to rip right back, and his own tongue drool like the bleeding sword.
Nature recognizes nature, Tom thought, and I see you.
He swallowed and gave Dippet his story. I was on rounds, I heard a scream, I tried to help but then the aurors came, blah blah blah.
Eventually Slughorn arrived to escort Tom and the auror from the office to their respective lodgings. The griffin statue closed shut behind them and Auror Potter made them stop.
“I will have more questions for him in the morning,” he said.
Before Slughorn could respond, Tom answered, desperate to have those arousing eyes upon him again, and said, “It would be my pleasure, sir.”
And there it was: the auror met his eyes. Tom's mouth wettened behind his closed lips.
The auror nodded and left to find the guest dormitory, and Tom followed Slughorn to the Slytherin common room.
Under their feet were fat drops of blood from the basilisk’s throat like incriminating footprints–the tip of Auror Potter’s sword had slopped like a tongue all through the school. He’d only wiped the blood on his red uniform robes at the headmaster’s office.
Tom grinned madly.