Heads Will Roll
To Tom, it felt like Christmas came around quickly that year, especially since Haddy had decided to spend Yule at Hogwarts with him, rather than going home for the holidays. They had decided to spend Christmas morning together in the Slytherin Common Room, exchanging gifts and sharing the Mince Pies Haddy’s father had sent him (thankfully Lord Peverell is a much less deadly cook than his son).
Haddy was currently sat on Tom’s lap after a rather explicit show of thanks for the gift Tom had given him. Tom had a silly, satisfied smirk on his face as he absentmindedly tried to straighten his collar and neaten his hair from its mussed state, watching his boy squeal and bounce up and down in excitement, franticly trying to undo the clasp on Slytherin’s Locket. Tom takes back the precious heirloom which he’d ‘acquired’ over the Summer holidays after seeing it wrapped round the neck of an opulent yet graceless older women in Diagon Alley, Tom lovingly places the locket around his boy’s nape, placing a kiss to the skin next to the clasp, glad that his family locket is finally gracing the neck of a Slytherin Consort once more.
Haddy loved his new gift, Tom loved that the tracking charm he had embedded into the gift means that as long as Haddy wears the locket, Tom will know where he is. An unfortunately necessary precaution due to the worryingly numerous amounts of times Haddy had gone missing for hours, only to return with flecks of blood drying on his clothes and skin.
The Hufflepuff gets up from his boyfriend’s lap, giving Tom a swift peck on the cheek before reaching behind the couch where he had obviously hidden his gift to Tom. The Fourth Year excitedly passes over the expertly wrapped box, the paper was an expensive looking deep green, adorned with a silver bow, it was rather large, around the size of Tom’s torso. And it was wet?
“Haddy, why is my gift leaking?”
Haddy shakes his head, bouncing up and down in excitement, “Just open it!”
Tom undoes the ribbon, lifting the lid on his moist present and promptly lets out a ‘manly’ scream, before slamming the lid back down again, “FUCKING HELL HADDY! THERE’S A HEAD IN THERE!”
Haddy claps his hands and beams beatifically at Tom, “I know right, isn’t it great!”
Tom reluctantly re-opens the box, sneaking a peak at the semi-decayed face, “Oh Merlin Haddy, is that my fathers head?!” Tom puts the box to the side, then starts grasping at his hair in an ineffectual attempt at self-soothing. Even if he isn’t genetically predisposed towards male pattern baldness (which by the look of that healthy hairline on the otherwise decrepit looking skull he isn’t) he’s going to be bald before thirty anway with Haddy in his life.
Haddy, socially inept, chaos gremlin that he is, does not realise the mental turbulence his boyfriend is going through, instead, he reaches for his back pocket, pulling out a party popper. Haddy pulls it, excitedly screaming, “Merry Christmas!”, as the multicoloured streamers fall on Toms head, glitter descending like snowflakes onto his hair, Tom mentally starts counting to ten.
The Slytherin takes a deep breath in, “Haddy… Do you remember the conversation we had at Abraxas’ birthday party?”
Haddy turns towards Tom from where he had been looking around, searching for where he had put his other party poppers, a confused expression on his face, “About how making an ice-cream birthday cake for someone who’s lactose intolerant isn’t appropriate?”
Tom takes another deep breath, “No Sweetheart, I’m talking about the conversation where we discussed how severed limbs, are neither a good nor acceptable gift!” despite trying his best to stay calm, Tom’s voice had become tight with badly concealed frustration.
Haddy looks towards Tom incredulously, as if he had just said the most baffling, outrageous thing Haddy had ever heard, “I thought you were joking?!”
Taking deep breaths wasn’t working, “HADDY, YOU GIFTED HIM HIS GRANDFATHER’S SEVERED HAND!”
“HE SAID HE WISHED HE STILL HAD SOMETHING OF HIS TO REMEMBER HIM BY! After the funeral, he was all cry-y and sad, saying that all he wanted was a piece of him to keep his memory alive!” Haddy stands up, gesticulating wildly before turning to look at Tom with a scowl, “What was I supposed to think?”
Tom likewise gets to his feet, “YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO THINK SEVERED LIMBS!”
All of a sudden, Haddy deflates, curling his arms around himself and letting out a subtle sniffle, “So you don’t like your gift then?”
The question stops Tom in his tracks, did he like his gift? Tom ignores Haddy’s dejected body language for a second, needing to analyse his own feelings before his Haddy-prioritising nature takes over and he says something he doesn’t mean just to stop his boy from looking so upset.
Tom turns to stand near the fire, letting the warmth of the flames lull him into a state of pensiveness. What is a gift? From what he understood, based on Pureblood gift giving culture, the purpose of gift giving is to show your appreciation for a person by getting them something they perhaps will not, or cannot get for themselves. That was also the description Tom had given Haddy after the ‘Lactose-Limb Incident’. Tom had told Haddy, on multiple occasions, about how much he wanted to kill his father. Tom had likewise told him that he would never act on these desires due to fears the Aurors would find out. Is he upset his father is dead? No, in fact, the knowledge that his hateful, muggle father no longer walks this earth, fills Tom with a sense of satisfaction and jubilation.
Tom feels himself calming down, his breath slowing and his shoulders relaxing, he can’t be angry at Haddy, he had only followed the gift giving parameters pre-set by Tom. Tom does like his present but at this moment in time, he is too overcome by worry to fully appreciate what a gift his boy had given him. Haddy is not the most cautious of criminals and he most definitely had not adequately covered his tracks, if he had even made an attempt at all.
Tom goes back over to Haddy who was still sniffling and surreptitiously wiping his eyes, gently taking his Hufflepuff’s hands and placing an achingly tender kiss to the back of each one. Tom waits until Haddy’s eyes meet his, before smiling ruefully at his boy and exclaiming, “I love your gift Sweetheart, thank you.”
Haddy’s red-rimmed eyes widen in happiness and he blushes, biting his lip in embarrassed happiness.
Tom presses a series of kisses to Haddy’s face until he hears his sweet boy’s giggle, before accioing his muggle coat from his dorm and swiftly pulling it on. He retrieves the leaking gift box and casts a spell to prevent the stench of week-old corpse from escaping the box. He has a crime scene to go fix.
Haddy, still high on Tom’s appreciation for his gift, starts twirling his hair, giggling to himself, “Well if you like that gift, you’re gonna love your birthday presents.
Tom looks up from where he’d leant down to tie up his laces, “…Haddy?”
Haddy noticing Tom’s suspicious tone, turns towards his boyfriend with a self-satisfied but still rather innocent expression, “No, no, it’s a surprise!”
Tom realises he’ll have to play this game Haddy’s way, when it comes to potential Azkaban level punishment, a small bit of trickery is for the greater good (Tom felt nauseous at how much his inner voice sounded like Dumbledore in that moment). The Slytherin walks towards his boy and gently takes Haddy’s face in his hands, “Come on Sweetheart, give me a hint?”. Tom grins charmingly, “Please, for me?”
Haddy blushes again, before smiling up at Tom mischievously, “Let’s just say, your Grandparents both came down with a mysterious illness, poor dears, cut down in their prime.”
Haddy starts giggling again and Tom sighs in relief, poison, or an illness curse will be much easier to hide than corpses with missing body parts.
“… A mysterious illness called Missing-Head-Disease!”
Haddy starts laughing manically at his own joke, Tom’s emotions, at this point, are see-sawing between incredulity and fond exasperation.
Haddy clasps his arms around Tom’s neck, pressing their bodies together, still giggling intermittently, “Come on Tommy, you know I wouldn’t spree kill using different methods! My OCD wouldn’t let me!”
Tom sighs, squeezes Haddy’s waist and replies, “No, of course not, that would be too easy.”
Haddy, evidently done with the situation and all the confliction emotions that had come with it, detangles himself from Tom and gathers his cloak, “Cool! Dya wanna go get food now Tommy? I convinced the elves to serve blood flavoured candy canes for breakfast, wanna share one?”
Tom helps Haddy put on his cloak, before turning towards the bowl of lettuce (one of which has been placed in every room Haddy frequently goes to) Tom reluctantly picks up a green and red shelled Beyoncé and places it into Haddy’s outstretched hands. The couple turn to exit the Common Room, the obnoxious jingle of bells following them out, CeCe, dressed as an elf (bells and all), jumped to the front of the group, not allowing the increasingly embarrassing outfits his owner dresses him in to damage his pride.
Instead of carrying on towards the Great Hall, Tom releases Haddy’s hand, kisses him gently on the cheek and turns towards the entrance to the school, “I’ll meet you there Darling, I just need to do a little clean up beforehand.”
Haddy waves at Tom confusedly before shrugging and muttering to himself, quiet enough for Tom not to overhear, “Daddy and Tommy are so similar, both of them leaving me alone on Christmas so they can go ‘clean’. Germaphobes.”