let me go, hold me close

Amazing. 

If he had thought about Harry as such before this, that thought paled in comparison, even though the word was the same.

Tom was lost in this hug, to the point where those words he had thought of and suppressed earlier leave him, as he attempts to speak the words he had wanted to say. 

"You're amazing." And he means it even if it slips out. Harry is....

There are no words. 

Harry is the only other human in the zoo that surrounds him! Others were only worthy of Tom's perusal, not respect. Not really worth anything, didn't rank much above actual objects. Puppets.

But not Harry. His Harry. Who turns it onto Tom in turn. 

Makes him burn with an unknown sensation in his chest. He feels light, like he is full of air inside even while he knows his heart races, a hummingbird's wings. 

Even as the ocean envelops him. 

And Harry, amazing Harry. 

He softly strokes Tom's shoulder and back and says words that will echo around Tom for the rest of his existence. Even if it turned out it was more prudent to exist without Harry for some reason.....this moment. 

He will remember it forever. 

Even if he already never forgets anything. 

It will echo in some permanent chamber now in existence devoted solely to the upkeep of its memory. 

And then, Harry makes it better. 

He reiterates how special Tom is, and is that not just the cherry on top of an otherwise already rich, delicious and extravagant cake.

Actually, upon just a little introspection, he takes it back. There is no way possible Tom would get rid of Harry from his life. Tom would have Harry as long as Harry let him, and then Tom would win him over, was something to happen, so Tom could keep Harry forever. Harry was His. His Harry. 

"You can't ever stop being friends with me" a threat and a promise. Harry answers for both. "I can't", he says, and those are the sweetest words Tom has heard. Harry and his intuition and his just-the-right-words.

The only time Harry had made him feel less than amazed, was with his misuse of words while presenting Tom with the Map. But that had been an honest mistake that lasted two and a half seconds. 

Even though he remembers everything. 

Because he remembers everything. 

Remembers all of Harry.

That smile is pulling on his face again, he notices some time into listening to Harry further about potions discussions and asking his mother for more things for Tom. He can't help it. 

(He hadn't gotten a bag yet. Even if Harry had only said those words hours ago.)

He just nods through it all he considers Harry. 

Would Harry really do as he said? Why would he say that if he wasn't going to do it? But then again, it depended on his mother agreeing to his words...which was still a mystery in Tom's mind.

It didn't seem like Harry thought these demands would be unmet. Infact, he had already gotten his mother to do something for Tom. She had done Magic to respond to Harry solely for Tom. Even with how rude Harry had been. 

He is broken out of his pretense with the book by Harry's voice calling his name.

"Tom" he hears and is instantly alert. What Harry says next doesn't make much sense. 

"When I escort you back, I need you to let me into the Dorms with you. I won't be seen, I just want you to know I will be there. And just in case I need a distraction."

And Tom absolutely cannot make head or tails of such a declaration. He studies Harry as the words try to make sense and fail.

Harry explains partially. And what an explanation it is—

The last two sentences make sense atleast.

An invisibility cloak—

How is Harry so much more Magic than the rest of them? More rhetorical questions that he has no knowledge of. 

And then Harry....takes it off and holds it out towards Tom!

He half hopes Harry would give it to him like the Map, but he's sure it's not the case at the difference of the way the two were introduced. Harry used this, he just wanted to show Tom.

He takes his time being invisible to study Harry uncaring of how he himself was perceived. Uncaring of anything, really. Knowing you were invisible helped pretend even your thoughts were invisible.

He revisits that earlier suppressed thought. Or well, revisit is a more concrete term than the reality of the dancing-around-the-edges he had done. Even while thinking about it. 

Family was not something he has thought of in many years. Accepting reality was extremely important when your very life depended on it. If he hadn't accepted his truth then, it would have been a very painful time inside his head as well as outside. 

Family was a thought that filled his body with a steely resolve. A knowing and understanding and acceptance and a moving past. It has been many years since he's been affected by the adoption of another sniveling bastard. Many years, especially since he's only been around for eleven and a half.

As he looks at Harry though, he has to force himself to acknowledge how changed-from-usual he felt about the other boy. 

Sweet Harry. His Harry. 

He wants to reach over and hug him again.

He needs to stop being invisible, before he does something. Something? He doesn't know what.

It is equally sweet, uncloaking himself.

Harry's eyes get wide, his mouth opens just a tad, and his body rocks back for a second before he regains his footing.

It is a sight so amusing, such a joy takes hold of him at this new reveal of a Face, he starts laughing. He cannot helps himself, his chest heaves, his breaths short.

"Sorry" he tries to say, and fails.

Apologizing while continuing your error was a fallacy after all. 

And then Harry..stops the laughter. With the creation of a new Face on Tom. He cannot help it.

No one has ever touched his hair, and he doesn't know how to feel about it. He used Magic every morning to arrange it to lay perfect. And now, Harry had ruffled away the arrangement.

But he had also touched Tom so gently. So so gently. Something unlike Tom had ever experienced.

"Would you like to read some more?" Harry asks him, as he uses that spell again.

"We should probably start to walk back by nine. There's things to be done after all." And that is as vague as it had been earlier.

Why would he escort Tom and why did he need to hide and what things did he need to do?

Ever since meeting Harry, he has both, known more than ever before, and yet felt less knowing than ever before. 

It is a complicated emotion. Harry is a complicated emotion. One he cannot understand.

"What" he starts before he realises what he's done. He's glad he's stopped. The rest of the question consisted of the words 'are you doing to me'. And was that just not absolutely ridiculous. How was Harry responsible for what was inside Tom?!

"What what, Tom?", and a response is required.

"You'll walk me back to Slytherin?" He asks instead, a different curiosity, yet he cannot understand this either.

"Yes, infact, I won't even hide. I need to talk to Cygnus anyway, I totally forgot about that Prefects meeting."

And that, that fills Tom up with so much joy, he doesn't know what to do. That Harry would snub Cygnus, that boy. 

That boy who had been largely absent in his mind since lunch, when Harry introduced Tom as a friend of the family. The Family. 

"I don't think it would have been worth your time anyway" and he's sure he's right. He cannot imagine a world where Cygnus would have something to say worth listening to. 

Harry agrees.

"So, read or go?" He asks, giving Tom a final word on their actions.

"Let's walk back", he says. He'd rather get there a bit before curfew, so Harry could do what he needed and Tom could be there for it too.

And then, he remembers his bag. This time, he'll try the very opposite. Why not? Harry doesn't disappoint.

The Slytherins in the Common room are all staring when Harry holds the Portrait door open for him, but no one say a word. 

He leads Harry to his dorms, still empty, thankfully. 

"I'm going to create wards around your bed. They will stand and they will protect you, should anyone here wants to try anything." And his heart....will give out if Harry keeps being as he is. 

Will his consideration of Tom exist without cease? Without boundaries? Without eroding as the sands of Time? 

The questions are back, intermingled with his curiosity at Harry's hands, the words he mutters under breath. The symbols he draws in the air with his wand, in glowing Magic.

Once he is done, Tom's bed feels like Harry surrounds him. 

The ocean surrounds him.

He pulls his curtains closed and just lies in that feeling as Harry goes over to meet Cygnus. With a promise to be back. 

He doesn't know how long until Harry is back, but surely it's been a while as when Harry slides them back open just a bit, entering the space once more.

The ocean intensifies.

"The password to the Gryffindor common rooms is 'Apple Pie' this week. If you need to find me for any reason, you have the Map, Tom. Be safe. I will see you tomorrow morning. Have a good night. Sweet dreams."

And the words......are nothing, he realises as—

Harry leans down and fulfills a wish he had harbored and suppressed when he was barely four. He kisses the top of Tom's head, and that—

He has wanted that. That gentle and easy affection. Has seen in many times in a myriad of ways.

Harry wishes him a goodnight once again and leaves.

Tom is...lost.

Once in the relative safety of being alone in his wonderful new soft bed, he really lets his brain run.

Or tries to anyway. 

Harry is such an enigma, he absolutely does not know what to think about him.

A retelling of today's events flash through him, but it's not enough. The memories are not enough and his minds' image is not sharp enough. 

The ocean doesn't feel as deep without Harry here. 

The most bizarre thought crosses him as he lies awake. Had he dreamed Harry up? Would the other boy exist tomorrow? 

It seemed so unlikely even as he felt a hint of the ocean around him. What if Tom had thought him up, even as he knows the others students noticed the both of them. 

His efforts in vain when he tried to suppress that thought, worry echoing through him. 

He falls asleep as such, unknowing when he's pulled under. 

The next morning is much of the same. 

Will he see Harry today? Will Harry have something new for Tom today? Did Harry even exist yesterday?

Yes, he did, as Tom finds. 

Harry stands at the entrance to the Dungeons, his bag hanging on a comfortable looking chair.

And Tom. Almost says it. 

'Youre here?' He wants to say, as incredulous as he truly feels. Yet, he stops only at "Good morning."

And then he remembers the rest of Harry's question and his response leaves in a rush before he can stop. "It was a good sleep once it started."

And vague as it was, even that was too much honesty for Tom. He looks out into the corridor, away from that dammed intuition.

Which fails. Thankfully.

Hogwarts...as if.

No matter his happiness at being here, Hogwarts is still just a place. He has conquered every land he had stepped on, so why not this one too?

But Harry....nevermind.

Harry who takes his bag again. Leads him to breakfast and makes his plate again. Again!

An owl lands in front of them with a package. Harry waves his wand and it grows larger.

He takes out a letter and reads it for a couple minutes before he turns to Tom.

"Any plans today, Tom?" And this, he doesnt know how to respond to. Finish up his books?

"Would you like to learn a secret?" Harry continues, and this! His Harry was back, barely fourty minutes into waking.

"A secret?"

"Yes. And it's a secret secret", Harry laughs. He remembers his own, 'no questions no exceptions' clause last night, so it is no matter.

"Yes", 

"Let's finish up breakfast and walk back up to the library for now. We'll get to the secret in a little bit."

The library? Tom is pretty sure there's no secrets in the library. He's looked it over pretty thoroughly that first time.

"Finish your breakfast Tom" and Harry is firm. He likes that  he finds, no one has ever really told Tom to do anything for himself. He will give in to all of Harry demands, unselfish as they were. And if he found a selfish one thrown into the mix, he would give it some extra consideration.

Harry, as he finds out back in the library, is a person of his word. He has indeed gotten Tom a bag. Full of books infact. His mother's books. He wonders if he might spy the beginnings on an invention in one of the many filled margins.

Tom doesn't know what to make of it.

Harry the mystery. Harry the surprise. Harry the gift. Harry the present. Harry, his Harry.

Who seems as uncaring as yesterday about breaking Tom's mind.

"Would you like to come with me to meet her?", he says, and Tom is....dumbfounded.

He had met Harry literally less than a full day, and Harry wanted him to meet his mother? Why?

Why was Harry being so forward? She would love to meet you, he says. Why, Tom wants to scream.

She cannot wait for Christmas he says, and Tom...

"She knows about me?" He cannot help but ask.

"I wrote to her last night, about the bag, as I said I would. And the books. It's Sunday, so she doesn't mind going in and stopping by. She stops by every Hogsmeade weekend anyway, or most of them. Dad's busier as an Auror. Magical Police."

There is a lot of information in those words. He has no time to process it all. No time to reply to Harry verbally in agreement. No time to decipher the intensity of Harry's relationship with his parents. No time to consider his dad's line of work.

No time, as Harry takes out a mirror and expectantly speaks into it. "Mom" he says as he looks at what Tom is sure is himself.

And then, he hears the sounds of a world outside their library table. "Darling", a voice says. Sweet like Harry yet feminine. "He said yes?" The words a question.

Harry looks over at him at that, Tom is still in the middle of switching bags over, and yet he cannot miss a single word.

"He said yes, yes." Harry replies, even as a smile grows on his face.

And then she takes it clean off, "I am so excited to finally meet you, Tom" says the mirror, Harry's mom, says to him this time, "I will get some of Harry's baby photos to make it fair, don't worry." And he sees a new face. Love mixed with embarrassment and a resignation, "Mom!"

The mirror only laughs and continues to Tom, "I've been waiting for you Tom, and it is nice to meet you, or will be, soon." And this, he doesn't know what to make of. Lily's words were as affectionate to Tom as they were to Harry. What kind of family were they?

"Bye darling, I'm on my way to floo there now. You do know how much I love you, don't you? And how happy I am?"

There's those words again, but they don't take a hold of him this time as they did earlier. 

"See you soon, mom, please!" Harry pleads as he ends their connection in the mirror. Pleading for what? He gets his answer.

"And she's kind-of the sanest of the lot. Moony's a bit better, but in a different way. That's my Godfather's husband. Remus Lupin-Black." More than one answer.

Even if this new idea is foreign, perhaps it's just how Magic is. How wizards and witches are. He says nothing.

He is too busy thinking of other possibilities. Of Harry's mother and their upcoming meeting in a few hours.

What if? Should he ask Harry? What if he didn't, and it came to pass? He should ask!

"If... she doesn't like me" and thank Magic Harry doesn't let him finish. What would Tom do then? He's not even sure where he was going with those words.

"She already loves you. She loves you as my friend. My only friend. Don't worry, Tom. Didn't I ask you to write to her if you had questions about the Map? It will be alright! Prefect actually! Trust me?" Harry's reassurance intertwines with his doubts, soothing any worries. 

"Yes" he whispers in response, even as he is unsure about these new events.

And then Harry says something else, like he usually does. That one last push into overwhelming. "You're going to get along really well, and she's probably going to want to adopt you in the first minute."

And he really doesn't know what to think of that, so he forces himself to focus on finishing his book as planned.

Harry interrupts him for lunch, which passes in a haze much like other meals. Much like things tended to do around Harry.

They end up walking to a pretty gross portrait of a witch with one eye. Harry looks around before he opens it, directing Tom into the hole.

When the door closes behind them, they are sent into a pitch black. He cannot stand it! His reading light bursts into existence above them.

There, much better. Harry says nothing, just wraps that cloak around them as they are one again.

Tom wishes there existed uninterrupted time, so he could really revel in each facet of existence that awoke within him when he was this close to Harry. 

It ends too soon, and Harry uncovers them in a corner of the shop. He leads Tom to the door and they walk out into what is most likely the village attached to the Hogwarts train station. It is a quaint little thing, as he looks around. Tiny stores and idyllic restaurants.

He hears a crack in the air, and then another, and then he hears that voice again. 

"He insisted. And he was home. I'm sorry Harry." It says, as another just calls loudly, "Harry!"

Tom finds the source just as it calls out his own name. "And Tom. It is so nice to finally meet you. Harry's been hiding you long enough, huh?" What!

Not again! Not again, from an older doppelganger of Harry's! No! He refuses!!

Enough of the rhetorical questions! He needs his full focus to survive this perfectly without a scratch. (If only he knew, there was no surviving James Potter!)

The joke is not very funny, and yet, it is a little amusing. Harry had hid him in a way, even if he had hid himself at the start. And they had only met yesterday. And, in a sense, James Potter was just like Harry and his over familiarity. This he can work with. He has had twenty four hours with Harry already, he is prepared.

"Dad! Did you not read a single word?!" It is responded to with, "I read all of them". He wonders what they mean as he readies his greeting, intending to respond in kind to James'.

"Mr. and Mrs. Potter, it is so nice to finally meet you, as well. I fought my way through his clutches, don't worry. He knows not to do it again."

It has the intended effect, James bursts into loud laughter, even as he considers his response worthy of only mild amusement at best. Lily just smiles and waves. Hi Tom she mouths as Harry rebukes his father's reaction. 

He is hacking, Tom agrees, even as he says nothing.

"I know I said lunch, but we didn't have enough time to finish the shopping before one, and I knew you'd be done with lunch by then. You boys can get a Butterbeer and dessert if you'd like. We're starving" She starts of talking to Harry and ends up at Tom when she says you boys. She makes a sad face at Tom while she says starving and Tom is...charmed. He can see his Harry in both of them. 

He hasn't made a decision, but they haven't even annoyed him yet. Sweet just like Harry. Welcoming just as he was. 

They walk up to the restaurant Tom spied earlier, called The Three Broomsticks. It is more elegant than Tom had expected of the village. Their host, Madam Rosmerta is a pretty and big-bosomed woman with curly hair. Her smile is too gleaming for Tom to look at for more than five seconds at a time, he decides.

"The usual?" She starts to ask them, before she notices Tom. "Oh! A new guest! Well hello there, young man. I have never seen you in my shop before."

He forces himself to look as he responds, even as he wants to do anything but.

"Tom Riddle, I just started at Hogwarts, ma'am." Yes, that's his name, deal with it.

She more than deals with it. Infact, Tom is the one really left dealing with it, with their conversation. He feels icky all over, he hates being condescended to! He wants to force her to stop with her act towards him, yet he has witnesses. And they would notice, just as Dumbledore had.

"Butterbeer" he says to her waiting self, eager to get to the point where she stops talking to him or even acknowledging his existence. He feels a bit hesitant ordering a beer? but that's what he remembers Lily saying, and their host nods as she does it again. Calls him love, ugh!

Harry giggles to himself after she's done, and....what! He looks up at him, just as the rest of them do too he knows.

"Nothing, just thinking about a joke I read earlier." And that is a lie, unless Harry read something before he walked Tom to breakfast this morning. Seemed impossible. 

It almost looks like his curiosity will be assuaged by James' insistence on an explanation.

"I wanna hear it too. Harry. Harry. I wanna hear it too. What is it? Was it in today's Prophet?" Tom knows it wasn't. 

"No dad. A different joke. A joke in my mind." Definitely a lie... what was it though, that Harry is so unwilling to share. 

"Nevermind. Just a butterbeer for me as well, Madam Rosmerta, thank you", the subject closed. 

Or maybe not, as James turns back to Harry after placing his own order for the usual. "What joke in your head. Maybe I'll laugh at it too!"

Yes! Tom wants to scream. I want to know too! James is starting to grow on Tom, to be a little honest. And even more honest, Harry's parents are better than he expected. (He doesn't know what comes in a few minutes)

"It's not a joke you'd like Dad." Harry's attempts end in failure. "How do you know what kind of jokes I like Harry?" 

Tom is growing ever more curious by the second, yet he himself cannot ask about it at all. Even if he wants to know.

Why is Harry so insistent on hiding this thought? He pleads, to no avail, as James continues with the plot holes in his attempts to hide. "Anyways, didn't you say you read it at the start? And then you said it was in your mind? Which one is it?"

"Nevermind. I said. Nevermind." He turns to Tom then, "Tom would you like to try a new dessert? They have the best tiramisu in England here, I promise."

Tom nods at his words, he well do anything Harry asks, really. Just as he is growing sure Harry will for him. There isn't much time to devote to the thought, as James turns to him this time.

"Do you see how he treats me? And I'm his dad? Can you believe it? I bet you don't talk to your Dad like that. I bet you're all sweet and polite. I'll take you, I'll send him home to yours." The words make him feel.....why? Why is Harry's family just like him? Why are they like this? He needs to respond to this declaration, and honestly.

"I", he wants to keep it to himself, but it would cause problems later if they found out. What kind of problems, he doesn't know. He doesn't want to lie to Harry either.

"Don't have a Dad. Or a Mom. I live in an orphanage." The words come out as they always do. Accepting of the reality of his situation. 

James—

He truly is Harry. Or Harry is him. Tom isn't sure. 

"So you're coming home for Christmas And Summers? Sweet!" It is an offer, it is an invitation, it is a demand. It is almost as sweet as his Harry. He doesn't know what to say. Perhaps Harry's surprises the day earlier had left him better prepared today.

He turns to Harry, unknowing of how to respond. He remembers Harry's reassurance earlier, at his apprehension with the original meeting with just Harry's mother. "If" he starts, an echo of earlier, but James cuts him off, in very Harry-esque fashion.

"There's no if, unless you would rather go back. But even then, you will need to spend a few weeks with us." A demand. His attempts to soften it with, "I'm tired of the rudeness in this household. My own son", he pauses to look at Harry, "you saw how he speaks to me. How he treats me like I'm dirt beneath the shoes I slaved over to buy him."

They all burst into laughter at this statement but Tom....

He is lost. He doesn't know how to react. He doesn't know how to act. What to say. He assumed only Harry was capable of shocking him into stillness, but he's finding out now its an inherited trait.

"I'm sure I could teach him some manners. He has taught me a lot too, after all." An echo of the teasing he had shared with James earlier, an attempt at some semblance of normal even as this interaction has him overwhelmed.

And yet, he cannot hide the truth in his words about Harry either. He is proud to be the recipient of Harry's kindness! Of Harry's attention! Of his surprises!

James only responds to the teasing, "Oh he left his books long enough to teach you something?", he says, flicking his napkins at Harry. 

And Tom, he wants them to know!

Harry is the best, just as Tom is. Harry is amazing! They need to know.

"Harry is a good friend." He hopes they understand just how strongly he means those words.

They don't. They're distracted by their food arriving, and Tom is distracted by his new sweet and fizzy drink. 

Lily breaks the silence with a continuation of their earlier conversation, and a joke. He had hesitated at, 'as long as you and Harry are friends', but she is quick with her next words.

When she sticks her tongue out at Harry, he laughs and returns the gesture. And this....teasing. He hasn't had any such teasing from Harry so far, he wonders how he would feel about it, were it to happen to him.

He focuses on his new drink, at the weirdly dressed people around him, and the vague but insistent thought of these new experiences he had shared with Harry and his family. 

His welcoming family. Tom doesn't have to live at the orphanage anymore until he's an adult! He doesn't know how to feel about! Doesn't know how to feel when he finds out Harry's parents are just as good at intuition as he is!

"So how do you like the Map, Tom?" James starts. Tom doesn't know what to say. It was originally this man's possession after all. He continues at Tom's lack of response.

"You know, I was the one with the idea for the Map in the first place! If you have questions about it, you should write to ME! I'm bored in the office all day long, and Lily does shit that interests her. Oh, wait! Can I say shit?" He stops, his eyes wide.

I did it again!" He looks at Lily right as she slaps him on the back of the head. "Sorry babe" he says, but his smile isn't sorry at all.

He turns his attention to Tom again. "Do you have an owl?" Another question. A bit easier, maybe. Tom shakes his head. They know he's an orphan, and he's a Muggleborn. What use is hiding this truth.

"I thought not, with the Muggles. I'll send you an owl. It's yours. It can live at the owlery in school until you're back with Harry." James and Harry and Lily could be one person by how alike they were. It's a good thing they looked completely different. Well, with exceptions.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Potter. You are very kind. I am honored to be invited into your home." And he is. He is beyond any real words to describe his emotions towards this subject. It's a good thing he has months to get over it. Or attempt to atleast.

"Another thank you out of you and I take that invitation back." James' voice almost sings with the lilt of his teasing. He sticks his tongue at Tom as Lily had done Harry. 

He also remembers how he had liked when Harry had indulged Lily. Perhaps the reverse was true too. He makes a decision, even as he laughs at James' obvious needling.

"Tha—" he starts on purpose before he returns the gesture. James resulting laugh is louder than it was even in the street, but Tom doesn't care.

His meeting with these strangers had gone swimmingly, it was looking like he could keep Harry forever and the people he kept by him didn't grate at Tom. It was wins all around. 

They finish their food and say their goodbyes to 'Rose', walking down to 'Zonkos', as Harry and James had said.

"Mom, dad, could you send Tom one of my broomsticks from home. Last years Firebolt, I think it's in the shed, not in storage.", and Tom doesn't know how to feel about these gifts that continue, ceaseless, always just as surprising.

And then James, James who keeps growing more and more on Tom, turns to him and says, "I call dibs on Tom."

And no one, no one ever chose Tomwith such a finality, with such dedication. Tom has never been picked. They all either feared him or they seethed with jealousy. A new experience, in words he could hear. 

Harry's entire family seems to want to lay their own claim on Tom in some way. He doesn't know what to think of it.

"Dad! You can't do that. I wanted him in my team! That's unfair!" and there is another face. Annoyance. Petulance. He vows to memorize every new one that showed. 

"I called dibs, Harry. Dibs. Or did you forget?"

"No" Harry's face grows deeper into that emotion even as he gives in.

"Good boy. Tom you're on my team for the next family Quidditch match. You better be good!"

And at this, Tom watches with wide eyes as Harry shoots a jet of light from his wand that James dodges with a laugh.

"Your aim is terrible! I take it back! Bad boy! No bone!" He wags a finger at Harry, before he reconsiders his words.

"Oh wait, that's the other person who's as rude to me as you are. I'm gonna get rid of you both and just keep my sweet three", at this he mirrors Harry from earlier and wraps himself around Tom.

Tom doesn't know what to think of this action, a circling introspection, as he half listens to James, and they walk around the shop.

He likes James and Lily Potter, he decides. Perhaps not as much he does Harry. But that is neither here nor there. 

And as Tom carries his new belongings, half the shop it seemed like, Lily stops him at the door with another surprise.

More books.

Tom hasn't even opened the ones he had gotten this morning. He is in disbelief.

James promises to send him his own mirror with the owl, and Lily invites herself as a potential conversationalist as well.

"You boys better head back to the castle now. Prepare for the start of the year tomorrow. Tom. It was so so nice to meet you, young man. You are indeed the best friend Harry could have made. So polite and charming. I am waiting to see you again next Sunday and ofcourse, to have you over for Christmas. I can't wait!" 

She's drawing closer to them as she reaches the end and then—

She hugs Tom just as Harry had. 

And Tom....is still not disgusted or angered or anything, really. 

James and Lily were sweet extensions of His Harry, and he would take them as they were.

She moves on to Harry, as James takes his turn enveloping Tom goodbye.

More of their time through the shop flashes through him.

He is not unwelcoming, he realizes. He is surprised. Maybe he thinks he understands. Maybe. Skeletons buried long past indeed, he feels them scratching at the dirt underneath. 

And they walk back to the castle the way they came, together as one, his reading light leading the way.