Haddy + Tom = Official
It was the start of Haddy’s Fourth Year and him and Tom were ready to become official. After their first kiss last year, Tom refused to let the relationship become physical until Haddy was at least fifteen, no matter how much the Hufflepuff fluttered his eyelashes and puckered his glossed lips. Tom began his courtship of the boy with gifts of flowers, chocolates and mysterious bloodied knives he’d found at Borgin and Burkes, they then proceeded to go on long walks together holding hands the whole time and during the holidays, they sent long, detailed letters to each other. Tom was slightly mystified when he realised that aside from the gift giving, nothing else had changed, they had practically been in a relationship for years. Finally, it was a week into Haddy’s Fourth Year, they had covertly courted for months, the Hufflepuff was now fifteen and it was time for their relationship to become public. Unfortunately, no-one else seemed to have got the memo and it would take three weeks and a lifetime in detention until the school learnt of their budding romance.
Their first attempt to tell their friends that they were in a relationship and had in fact been together for months now, took place in the Slytherin Common Room. It was the first Friday of the school year so all of the Knights, many of whom were in exam years, were sat around the fire, studying and completing homework. Haddy and Tom had stopped off at the Chamber of Secrets to deliver fresh meat to the basilisk and books to the ghost (according to Myrtle the basilisk turns the pages with her tail, Haddy believes that wholeheartedly but Tom is sceptical) so the room was almost full when they got there and the Knights were all present and accounted for. Seeing that his followers had saved his seat for him, Tom motions to Haddy and they start making their way towards the group, the small boy smiles joyously before winding his fingers through Tom’s, ecstatic that he is finally able to hold hands with his boyfriend in public. Haddy begins pulling Tom through the crowd desperate to finally reveal their relationship to their friends, the older boy sighs but accepts the manhandling, quickening his pace until the two are directly in front of the group. Haddy starts bouncing on his toes in excitement, looking from one member of the Knights to another, desperately waiting for one of them to notice his presence. Over a minute passes with no acknowledgment of their appearance and Tom feels his features twist into a glare, wondering when his followers had become so disrespectful and fearless of him that they no longer bow or begin to sweat in his presence, Haddy’s confused puppy look had nothing to do with his growing anger of course.
Haddy coughs ‘subtly’ and waits until the attention of almost every Knight is on him before he pulls Tom even closer to his side, close enough that Tom can feel the heat of the Fourth Years hip against his thigh and starts exaggeratedly swinging their entwined hands.
The group give each other looks of confusion before Lestrange verbalises a response to the progressively more bewildering actions Haddy is preforming, “Umm, good evening Haddy, My Lord… Can we help you with something?”
Widening his eyes even more and gesturing towards their clasped hands with his head so erratically Tom’s surprised he doesn’t injure himself, Haddy must seem crazy (well crazier) to the befuddled Knights and random Slytherins watching this non-verbal exchange.
Giving up on the charade, Haddy sighs, pouts and holds out their clasped hands for inspection. Lestrange and Black look towards each other, look back at Haddy, then, in sync, lean towards the hands, studying them from all directions. Finally, Lestrange leans back with a soft ‘oh’, raising his eyebrows, Haddy sighs in relief, glad that their friends have finally realised what their held hands mean.
“Nice nails Haddy.”
That response seems to open the floodgates and soon every Knight is clamouring to congratulate Haddy on his admittedly very nice nails, each of them obviously eager to avoid upsetting or angering the emotional boy who has a Dark Lord wrapped around his little finger.
Haddy, realising that the big reveal was obviously not going to happen that day, sighs and pouts up at Tom who is trying his best to stifle his amused grin. It is then the older boy’s turn to pull their joined hands, leading Haddy into the now once again studious circle of students. Taking his seat and realising the lack of one for Haddy, the Slytherin grins mischievously and pulls the boy onto his lap, enjoying the flustered blush that blooms across the Hufflepuffs cheeks, Haddy smiles cheekily, darting forward to press a kiss onto Tom’s cheek, pulling back just as fast and giggling at the surprised expression on his boyfriend’s face, kisses were still new and special to them. The smaller boy looks around, surely that must have elicited a reaction, nope, the Knights were still all focused on their homework.
Leaning back into Tom’s chest Haddy mutters, “geez what does a guy have to do to get a ‘congratulations’ around here?”
Tom stifles his chuckle, pressing his lips to the side of Haddy’s head before whispering soothingly, “Soon sweetheart, soon.”
Unfortunately, that ‘soon’ was not soon enough for Haddy and every instance their friends and the wider school population ignored their very obvious relationship, the Hufflepuff became more and more vexed. Tom on the other hand, rather enjoyed seeing his boy so flustered, a form of karma for how flustered the younger boy has made him over the years. The Slytherin was able to see this pink cheeked frustration in person multiple times over the next few weeks, the most memorable occasion being the first Hufflepuff tutoring session of the year.
Since inadvertently starting the Hufflepuff tutoring session two years ago, the small group of five had steadily grown until over thirty Hufflepuff students of varying ages squeeze themselves into the library to learn and study under Tom Riddle. On a weekly basis, the library is flooded in a sea of yellow so vast that Tom needed to get special dispensation from the agitated Madam Pince to cast a mass silencing spell, in order to prevent the librarian becoming even more annoyed with the multiplying group. These Tuesday sessions have become infamous to the students and faculty alike, faculty for how these sessions evidence how Slytherins can be kind and charitable and that Tom Riddle truly is the best of the best, students, for how suddenly Hufflepuffs in every year are excelling in Defence and how common it now is to see groups of them debating the benefits of learning the Dark Arts.
So it really wasn’t that much of a surprise to find thirty or so Hufflepuffs crammed into the east side of the Library, studiously listening to Tom as he explained how to perform a perfect (semi-illegal) cutting hex. Haddy had already learnt (and perfectly executed) this hex when he was eleven, so instead of staying focused and making notes, he spent the next hour letting Tom’s voice soothe him into a state of tranquillity, idly drawing love hearts on Tom’s none gesticulating hand. In half an hour, the Slytherin’s left hand was covered from wrist to fingertips in a rainbow of different sized love hearts and some images of actual hearts. Just before the end of the session, when most students have already began packing up, Paddy and the rest of the EE’s finally realise Haddy’s absentmindedness.
“What are you drawing Haddy?”
Haddy finally looks up from his masterpiece, smiling shyly and blushing before mumbling, “love hearts”, and looking at his friends expectantly.
The EE’s look at each other in surprise, “That’s very… tame for you Haddy.”
Haddy smiles smugly before leaning on Tom’s still outstretched arm and looking up at his boyfriend all gooey eyed, “What can I say, must be love on the brain.”
Haddy dramatically pauses, obviously waiting for his friends to connect the dots and begin congratulating the new couple. The longer the silence goes on, the more severely Haddy frowns and the larger Tom’s smile gets. Haddy turns away from the Slytherin, furrowing his eyebrows in indignation and glaring at the EE’s as if questioning their intelligence.
“I SAID, MUST BE LOVE ON THE BRAIN!”
The EE’s and Tom all collectively jolt at Haddy’s shout, Tom sends an apologetic glance towards the librarian whilst the Hufflepuff girls have a silent conversation which mostly consisted of shrugged shoulders, furrowed eyebrows and a particular gesture between Paddy and Maddy consisting of the girls twirling their index fingers next to their temples.
Finally, Abby replies to Haddy’s outburst, “Haddy, honey, we know you like that Ree-yan-nar song, you’ve been singing it for months, but that’s no excuse to shout. And in the library no less! For shame!”
With that, Abby flicks her long blonde hair over her shoulder and begins to strut away, Paddy and Maddy turn to follow her, shrugging their shoulders at the bemused Slytherin and sulky Fourth Year who turns to retrieve a well-loved notepad out of his bag and begins to scribble something illegible inside.
Tom, assuming this uncommon silence from his boy means that he’s upset with Paddy’s attitude, throws his arm over Haddy’s shoulder, running his thumb soothingly up and down the Hufflepuff’s bicep.
“Are you alright Haddy, Patricia’s anger seemed to come out of nowhere, would you like me to make her pay for the slight? I can get Orion to spread a rumour she’s sleeping with Abigail’s boyfriend, what’s his name again? Tiberius?”
Haddy hums, still distracted with writing in his notebook before seemingly doing a double take and looking at Tom with startled eyes, “What? Paddy wasn’t angry, why would you think that?”
Now Tom is confused, “Haddy, she very clearly stormed out of here, after publicly reprimanding you, she literally said ‘For Shame’!”
Haddy nods in understanding before giggling and turning the notepad around for Tom to see, despite Haddy’s almost illegible handwriting, the Slytherin is able to make out the words Strut-O-Meter and a partially filled out table underneath.
“Currently, all us EE’s are competing in a diva off, specifically, ‘who can create the most dramatic exit’, we rank each other based of, ‘reason for exit’, ‘hip movement when walking’, and ‘which runway would this walk most suit, Gucci, Primark or Victoria Secret?’ and then in the last box we give our final thoughts and any constructive criticism, for me the perfectly executed hair flip definitely deserves extra points, but the butt to hip ratio when she was going down the stairs was way off.” Tom blinks in morbid awe, wondering how his boyfriend can say so many words and almost none of them make sense.
Haddy distractedly shakes his head, proceeds to ignore Tom and simply carries on writing his notes on Abby’s exit, notes more detailed and thorough than any academic notes the Slytherin has ever seen his boyfriend write.
During this whole ‘event’, the rest of the tutoring students had left, books neatly put away and barely any litter left on or under the tables (Hufflepuffs are a very eco-friendly bunch). Tom lets out a sigh accioing his book on Slytherin’s Lineage, glad that for the rest of this week at least, the only Hufflepuff he will be spending time with, is his Hufflepuff.
They sit in companionable quiet for a while, Haddy, finished with his critique of Abigail’s walk, pulls out his Transfiguration homework Tom had helped him complete two weeks ago, homework that had obviously been marked, Dumbledore was obviously not impressed, evidenced by how large sections of the work had been written over or crossed out entirely. Just as Tom is about to ask Haddy why he is reading over old homework, the younger boy takes out his green coloured quill and begins correcting the corrections, scolding Dumbledore every now and then for his lack of open-mindedness, humming to himself contentedly all the while. Tom huffs out a laugh at his boy’s antics before going back to his own reading.
When the seven o’clock bell rings, Tom deems their studying over for the day and proceeds to lightly shake Haddy out of the trance he sometimes falls into when he becomes hyper focused on one thing. As they begin to pack away their individual books, Haddy finally recognises the tome Tom had been reading for the last hour.
“Has it helped?” Haddy asks eagerly, Tom looks towards his boy in confusion.
“The book? Have you found any new information on your family?” Haddy looks towards the Slytherin hopefully.
Tom sighs resignedly, “Sweetheart, I have – I have already found my family.”
Haddy beams at Tom, clapping his hands in joy before exuberantly throwing his arms around Tom’s shoulders. Tom awkwardly rubs Haddy’s back before taking him by the shoulders and easing them apart.
“Darling, I haven’t mentioned it because it didn’t- it didn’t go well.” Tom awkwardly looks away from his boy, trying to mask the sadness and dejection he feels at just the memory of meeting his father and his father’s family over the Summer holidays.
Haddy concernedly tilts Tom’s face back towards him, gazing into his eyes searchingly, using his other hand to grasp Tom’s, tracing his thumb to lightly over the love hearts he’d drawn earlier on. “What happened Tommy, are you okay?”
Tom lets out an explosive sigh, tucking a lock of Haddy’s hair behind his ear, seeing the earnest expression on his boy’s face somehow lessened the hurt still lingering in his heart from his fathers rejection, his relatives may not want him, but this lovely boy in his arms certainly does.
“I went to see my father over the holidays, I found what remains of the Gaunts in a run-down shack in Little Hangleton, from there my deranged uncle pointed me towards the Riddle House, when I got there I was greeted by the maid who brought me to the Lord of the House, a man who could be my mirror image if I was a couple decades older. I was so happy. I tried not to be, he is only a muggle after all, if anything I should have been disappointed to see the proof that I really was a half-blood and tainted by his impurities, but just him being there was proof that I did have a family, I thought I finally found somewhere I could belong. However, before I could even introduce myself, he began screaming and throwing things, ranting about demons and devil spawn and calling the police. I got out of there before he could act on his promises, he spewed his hateful rhetoric until I was out of his sight.” Tom trails of in remembered hurt.
Haddy sniffles and wipes tears from his eyes, wrapping his arms firmly around Tom’s shoulders, trying his best to comfort Tom and soothe his emotional hurts.
Tom gathers his boy in his arms, pressing a kiss to his forehead, “I was so angry when I was leaving that house, so in pain, maybe if I had never met you, and never learnt the benefits of patience, my anger would have taken over and I’d be taken to Azkaban on charges of patricide, but I left my father alive and so I must now live with emotions that come with that.”
Haddy gives him a final squeeze, before leaning back far enough that Tom can see his red rimmed eyes, Tom chuckles lightly at his boys pouty face, to which Haddy responds with a light shove and a muttered, “I can’t help getting emotional at your pain, I’m an empath.”
Tom laughs even harder, glad the emotional atmosphere had dissipated, reaching out his hand towards Haddy and leading him out of the library. Haddy keeps his eyes focused on the multitude of hearts he had drawn on Tom’s arm, using both hands to trace over his creations, Tom smiles down at his boy, thinking to himself that his germophobic mannerism will have to be put on pause for today, Tom wants to keep the evidence of Haddy’s love for him on his arm, for as long as possible.
Three weeks since the start of the year and nothing had worked, any time either of them (mostly Haddy) had tried to tell people they are together, it has either backfired or gone completely over their peers’ heads. Tom and Haddy were walking towards the Great Hall and the older boy knew something was up, Haddy is so much more exuberant and hyper than he has been since they had first started failing at telling people they are together. The duo arrived at the corridor to the Great Hall two minutes after breakfast had officially began, the reason for their lateness: apparently, Haddy had stayed up late last night practising his script (script for what he didn’t say).
Less than half a corridor away from the entrance, Tom and Haddy are startled by a sudden cacophony of noise, shrieks, laughter and cursing all coming from the direction of the Great Hall. Tom begins to speed up, concerned that his fellow student might be in trouble and he (as a prefect) will be reprimanded if there are any serious injuries.
Haddy in contrast let out a manic cackle, whispering joyously to himself, “It’s finally happening”, before catching up to Tom who was frozen at the doors, struggling to comprehend the chaos he had just walked into.
Students of all ages and houses were running around in a panic, whilst others stood still, staring at their classmates in confusion. Everyone’s normal dark grey uniforms had been replaced with yellow or green monstrosities that had deformed, moving polka dots scattered over the garments. Tom steps away from Haddy and grabs the nearest student, pulling them towards him so that he could get a closer look at the enchanted clothing, the nearest student to Tom happened to be a Second Year Ravenclaw who initially protested the manhandling before realising that it was Tom Riddle doing the yanking, at which point she let out a terrified squeak before closing her mouth and staring at the Sixth Year in fear. On closer inspection, Tom finds that it isn’t polka dots on the robes, but miniature moving images of badgers and snakes. Badgers and snakes which were doing lewd and dirty things to each other. Lewd and dirty things no badger and snake has ever done in the wild.
After scrutinising the clothing for a while (staring at the badgers and snakes in morbid curiosity more than anything) Tom sees something out of the corner of his eye which is surprising enough that it distracts him from mentally questioning whether a badger can really be that well-endowed.
The Slytherin walks towards the nearest table, instead of the normal napkins present at every mealtime, beside each table setting there was a napkin with a print of Tom’s face on it. That’s not exactly true, it seemed like on every napkin there was a different picture of Haddy and Tom, most of them taken in the last week or so, all of them moving, as wizarding pictures always do. There was one of him and Haddy taken during their stroll around the grounds, there was one which must have been taken only yesterday where Haddy is attempting to spoon feed soup to Tom who is distracted reading a book, this attempt obviously fails and results in tomato soup being spilt down Tom’s front, Haddy frantically trying to clean it up. The most concerning image Tom can see from where he’s stood, is one where it is obviously night-time, Tom is obviously asleep and yet for some inexplicable reason, Haddy is also in his bed, fully dressed and wide awake.
Still staring at the image, Tom raises his voice and distractedly asks, “Hey Haddy, who took this picture of me sleeping?”
From further away than he expected, Haddy replies, “I bribed a house-elf to follow us around and take candid pictures of our budding relationship.”
Tom, still distracted by wondering how Haddy got into his dorm in the first place, haltingly responds, “But these pictures are not candid Haddy, your smiling directly at the camera in every single image.” Lowering his voice, Tom whispers to himself, “its rather creepy to be honest.”
Haddy doesn’t respond, so Tom turns around, ready to question his boy on what an earth is going on, but Haddy’s not behind him.
Haddy is in fact stood on the Headmaster’s podium, his tiny 5’3 frame barely visible behind the Owl Lectern.
“Hem Hem, assembled students, if I may have your attention”
The hall goes quiet, Tom contemplates whether he should put an end to whatever this is before it begins or if he should just let it run its course. He doesn’t decide quick enough.
Haddy clears his throat, takes a pile of flashcards out of his pocket and sombrely begins his pre-prepared speech, “I will begin this presentation with a short poem... ‘I’m dating a guy called Tom who’s a genius, I often ask him to reach down and touch my pe-”
“My Lord what is going on?” Tom is distracted from listening to the rest of Haddy’s ‘poem’ by Avery’s frantic whisper. Turning around, Tom finds three of his Knights behind him, begging him with their eyes for an explanation to this madness.
“I don’t know” Tom replies, “I can only hope that whatever it is, it ends before the Professors get here.” The Sixth Year pauses, looking around in bewilderment. “Speaking of, where are the Professors?”
During Tom’s confusion, Haddy’s speech had moved on from the poem, “… Our ship name will be Tomaddy or Rivell, whichever gets more likes on Twitter-”
All of a sudden, a commotion from the corridor outside becomes audible and many students become distracted from the Fourth Year’s ongoing speech by the sound of hurried footsteps, raised voices and what sounds like multiple Haddy’s speaking over one another?
Tom begins speed walking towards the podium, when a group of harried looking Professors reach the entrance to the Great Hall, their robes were in disarray, their hair was frizzy and they were surrounded by flying, screeching, pieces of paper. Howlers.
Tom hurries his step even more when he hears one of the Haddy-voiced Howlers primly ask the Defence Professor, “If Haddy Peverell needed to cast a Patronus, what image would he think of, a) Tom Riddle’s butt, b) Tom Riddle’s abs, c) Tom Riddle’s eyes?”
Professor Merrythought fruitlessly tries to curse the letter, pulling her hair and frenziedly pleading, “Oh Merlin, please God make it stop!”
“No, the answer is C you filthy pervert, get your head out the gutter!”
From what he can hear, each of the other Professors are similarly suffering, their own Howlers asking them equally inappropriate, subject specific questions about Tom and Haddy.
Tom reaches the podium before the Professors even realise the object of their vexation is standing at the Headmaster’s Lectern, “Time to go”, he says to Haddy before using Haddy’s own hand to pull the boy over his shoulder, there is no time for anymore of Haddy’s admittedly hilarious antics, the Professors will see him any second now.
As Tom begins to almost run out of the Great Hall, Haddy bouncing on his shoulder with every step, he hears his boy cast a muffled spell. Two steps later the purpose of the spell becomes clear, the four massive banners exhibiting the emblems of each House transform in an instant, the distinct tapestries changing to promote a singular message.
HADDY + TOM = OFFICIAL
Just before Tom crosses the threshold into the corridor, he hears his boy cast a Sonorus, using his core to lift his body from its relaxed position over Tom’s shoulder and (unseen by Tom) Haddy thrusts both hands in the air curling his fingers into peace signs.
“THANK YOU HOGWARTS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK, AND GOODNIGHT!”
Leaving the Great Hall and trying, but failing to supress his chuckles, above the sound of the Professors screeching, and the continued harassment from the Howlers, Tom hears a random student ask a question.
“I thought everyone knew they were together, I mean their relationship has been obvious for years I didn’t know it was a secret?”
The random student is answered by other random students who likewise did not need a presentation to know that Haddy and Tom belonged to each other. That, more than anything is what finally caused Tom’s chuckles to become an outright laugh as he carried on his jog away from the Great Hall, Haddy swinging behind him every step.