“Everything alright, Harry?” Tom said, walking into the kitchen.
Harry froze where he was bringing the cup of hot tea to his lips, he’d thought Tom would be at work until late. He slowly put the mug back down, gritting his teeth through the twinges of pain moving his arm caused. He could only hope his husband didn’t recognise the faint smell of a pain potion mixed in his tea.
“Yeah, course, why?”
Tom had sat down and was now rifling through some paperwork at the other end of the table, he hadn’t looked up at Harry yet, as long as Harry played this right Tom won’t have to know.
“The reports came in, I heard there was a bit of a scuffle.”
“Wasn’t too bad, just a couple muggles had to be obliviated.” Harry fought to keep his voice sounding normal and steady.
“And that was it?” Tom asked, eyes still on the parchment before him, tapping a quill against his chin.
“Yep.” Harry said tightly, standing up and only just about managing to control his wince. “I know you’ve got meetings soon so we’ll talk later, I need a bath.”
“Of course, Harry.”
Harry poured his tea down the sink, it was incriminating evidence after all. He was about to leave the room for his bath, the only thing that might soothe his aching muscles, when Tom’s hand caught around his wrist.
He jerked away from his husband and hissed in pain. Fuck.
“Harry,” Tom said softly, “I think you're lying to me.”
Harry looked down at the floor instead of meeting Tom’s eyes, he didn't say anything. His head ached, and every time his arms brushed his sleeves he felt like screaming, no matter the bandages in between, the salve on them stung even more. Harry’s pain tolerance was usually high but he was done right now, he wanted to cry into Tom’s arms but that would probably hurt too. And Tom was going to be mad at him for hurting himself which doesn’t help matters.
Tom waited. “Sorry.” Harry croaked, “You’re busy and I… and I don’t want you to get her in more trouble because I got hurt. Some people want to kill her as it is. And I don’t want you to be angry at me. Please don’t be angry at me.”
“Okay darling, it’s alright, I’m not angry, tell me what happened.”
“Well if you read the report you know most of it, we suspected there could be an obscurial in the area for a while but searches didn’t turn up anything. Then that house caught fire and, and she was in the basement Tom and I had to get her but she didn’t understand I wanted to help at first and she grabbed my arms and her hands were burning and it hurt so much but I couldn’t just hurt her and you know how unpredictable casting a spell at an obscurial like that is but I managed to get her out and I went to the med station and everything but they were busy so I just sorted it out myself and came home when I wrote the report, I just left out a couple bits.”
He looked up at Tom to catch his husband's facial expression. It betrayed no emotion, brown eyes fixed on Harry’s face. “And you couldn’t trust me with this? You were going to suffer in silence?”
“It’s not that bad.” Harry said, the lie sounding just as fake to Tom as it did to him judging by the narrowing of his eyes. “You’re busy, I need a bath.”
Tom pulled away from Harry and picked up his wand off the table. “Expecto Patronum.” An adder, the same patronus as Harry, burst out his wand - when he’d cast that and realised he was in love with Tom he’d almost had a panic attack. “Lucius, there’s been a problem. I can't make the meeting this evening, if I find my cabinet in shambles tomorrow morning you will be to blame.” The patronus faded away to appear presumably at Malfoy manor or the undersecretary’s office at the ministry.
“Now was that so hard?”
Harry ducked his head, Tom made all his reasoning sound so stupid, why couldn’t he just let his husband help him? “No.”
He wanted Tom to just take him to their bed and hold him, but any movement would jar his burns and his muscles were still protesting. Tom seemed to see this in his eyes, either through looking at Harry’s surface thoughts or just reading it on his face.
“Now we can talk about you not trusting me with this later - later, okay, it doesn’t matter now, I’m going to make you feel better.”
Harry nodded. “Thanks, Tom.” He said quietly.
Tom used a switching spell, leaving Harry in just soft cotton trousers instead of the auror uniform he’d still been wearing. The dark red robes probably banished for their house elf, Tarly, to deal with.
Harry’s bandaged arms were now on display; Tom’s expression was stony, he hated when Harry got hurt. More than Harry did.
He was lightly pushed down onto a chair that Tom must’ve pulled out with magic, then he knelt down in front of Harry and started carefully but firmly unwrapping the bandages.
“Did you use any healing spells?”
“Yeah.” Harry answered, trying not to flinch away from the pain. “They didn’t really have much effect though - you know obscurial magic is weird.”
“I also know you’re shit at healing spells.” Tom didn’t swear very often, only when he felt it was especially justified or he was angry enough. Harry supposed both were true - he was really shit at healing spells.
When the bandages were off Tom used his wand to cast some delicate spells on both arms. Harry didn’t know them, he’d been ensured of his ineptitude in the healing arts both throughout and after Hogwarts. Even Tom, who generally believed any magic could be taught as long as one wanted it enough, had written him off as a lost cause.
Tom knew more than enough to make up for Harry’s incompetence though, if he wanted to be a healer he could probably start working at St. Mungo’s tomorrow with no problems - apart from the fact being the Minister of Magic was a time-consuming job, and one Tom wasn’t going to give up any time soon.
His arms were actually feeling a bit better and he was about to flex his fingers to assess the pain level when Tom grabbed his hand tightly and gave him a glare. He didn’t say anything, too busy doing some kind of chant but the message was clear. Harry stayed still.
“At least you put the right kind of salve on.” Harry didn’t know if Tom was talking to himself or trying to make Harry feel better.
Tom added more of the same kind of salve but didn’t put any bandages back on. “It’s best if you let them breathe for now. But it’s a lot better than it was - tomorrow they’ll likely have faded completely, though you’re still taking the day off.”
“I - okay.” He didn’t have it in him to fight. Especially when Tom was still on his knees looking up at him with that expression on his face, though Harry was short enough that he wasn’t looking up by much.
“Have you taken anything for the pain?”
“I had a potion. In my tea.”
“The tea you just poured down the sink.” He said with raised eyebrows.
It wasn’t a question but Harry nodded in the affirmative anyway. “But I'm feeling a lot better now anyway.” He added.
“On a scale of one to being bitten by the basilisk?”
“Three? Or two, but earlier it was like… a six. You know the fire she made was purple. I’ve never seen purple fire before.”
Tom ignored his non-sequitur and stood up, leaning against the table to look at Harry.
Harry shivered, and, looking down at his arms and chest, remembered he wasn’t wearing anything on his top half. “Can I have a shirt?”
“You’re going to have a bath and maybe eat something, then you’re going to bed. You look good sitting in the kitchen without a shirt anyway, you should do it more often - not because of secret injuries. Or any injuries.” He clarified.
“Okay, I’ll…go have a bath then.”
“Darling, I’m taking you to have a bath. I didn’t cancel my meeting this evening to leave you to suffer by yourself or spend my time alone, did I?”
He helped Harry stand, even though he was really fine now and didn’t need it, and let Harry rest on him as they walked upstairs to their room and accompanying bathroom. Maybe he didn’t need it per se, but it was nice. Harry was tired, emotionally, physically, in every possible way. That poor girl locked in the basement by her supposed family, pushed far enough that she’d set the whole house aflame, well it struck Harry somewhere deep. There’d been a few times with the Dursleys he’d stared at the walls of his cupboard and wished the house would come down in fire and agony too.
Tom could probably see what was going through his head. He was a powerful legilimens of course, the best Harry knew, when he was still alive Dumbledore was probably the only contender. But Tom knew Harry better than anyone, would know what he was thinking if he had not a drop of talents in the mind arts.
Harry wasn’t really paying attention as Tom got the bath ready, took off Harry’s trousers and eased him into the water.
“Can you hold your arms out of the water? I can cast bubble charm around them instead if you’d like?”
“Yeah okay.” Harry ached enough that he didn’t want to add any extra pain in his arms or shoulders.
Tom did so and Harry relaxed into the water. Tom was beside the bath, one hand in Harry’s hair and running his fingers over his scalp, Harry leant into it.
“What shampoo do you want?”
“Hm?”
“Shampoo. Which one?”
“Oh. You pick.” He said, closing his eyes again.
All the shampoo they had really belonged to Tom, Harry tended to use whichever one was in closest reach rather than anything specific. They all smelled nice enough.
While Tom washed his hair he thought of the girl, he didn’t even know her name. She’d been taken to St. Mungos to see experts immediately and Harry had to leave like a good little auror whose job only extended so far.
He didn’t want to think about it, the pain she’d gone through, Harry’s hatred for those muggles and what they’d done to her. He watched Tom instead, who was now rinsing off Harry’s hair, moving Harry's head the best way to get all the soapy suds out.
“Getting up now Harry.” Tom said, half lifting him out of the water and then wrapping him in a warm towel.
Tom got him a pair of pyjama trousers and settled him on the bed. Harry was beginning to feel a bit like a baby, at least he assumed this was what people did for babies.
“Lie down, rest, sleep if you want, I’m going to get us some food.”
Harry yawned. “K, love you.”
Tom smiled, stroking a hand through his hair. “Close your eyes, Harry. I’ll be back before you know it.”
The next thing Harry knew Tom was getting into the bed with him armed with two bowls of noodles and some herbal tea. Harry rubbed his eyes and sat up while Tom floated one of the bowls in front of him; and once Harry was awake enough and comfortably eating he tucked into his own.
He drank the tea as well, it probably had some kind of potion in it but he didn’t care to ask what. Tom watched to make sure he'd had it all, then banished it to the kitchen with the rest of the utensils.
“Thanks, Tom, for looking after me.”
Tom turned to him then and Harry realised they were going to have the conversation he’d put off earlier.
“I’m always going to look after you Harry. We’re always going to look after each other. You remember us getting married, yes? That wasn’t a figment of my imagination?” His voice was still soft, as it’d been all night, but there was an edge.
“Yes.” Harry said, looking down at his hands, Tom was holding one of Harry’s in his own.
“But you decided you didn’t trust me?”
“No. Tom, I trust you more than anyone. I do.”
“So why?”
Harry squeezed Tom’s hand. “I… I didn’t want you to be mad I got hurt, or upset, and I know you wouldn’t but - I didn’t want you to do anything that might hurt that little girl’s chance of a good life. ”
“And?”
“I don’t - ” Harry gave up on sitting where he was and moved so he was half lying on Tom, his head tucked under Tom’s chin. Tom let him and curled his arms around Harry’s chest. “This one hit me a little hard… not a little hard, a lot. I could have been her, so easily. I didn’t know what magic was but I wanted it to go away, I wanted to not be a freak so fucking badly. In some other universe that's me in St. Mungo's killing myself from the inside." Harry took a moment to get his breathing under control. "I’m sorry, your husband’s a bit fucked in the head, Tom.” Harry almost laughed at his own joke, though it wasn’t really a joke.
Tom, careful of Harry’s injured arms, turned him around so they could make eye contact. “Harry, darling, do you know what I would do if you died?”
Harry wasn’t a seer but he felt he could almost see a vision, it contained piles of corpses, burning, maniacal laughter. He knew Tom could do it, too. He swallowed. “Things I don’t let you do now.”
“And you know where I’d be without you?” Their foreheads were pressed together.
“Azkaban?”
Tom laughed. “It wouldn’t hold me.”
That was probably true.
“I’m sorry.” Harry said again.
Tom took Harry’s chin and kissed him, harshly. “I know.” He said when they stopped to breathe. “Don’t do it again.”
“I’ll try.”
“You won’t do it again.”
“I won’t do it again.”
“Good, I’ve got to be your self-preservation instinct, because that Gryffindor head of yours doesn’t have one. But you’ve got to let me.”
“I will, Tom, I will.”
Tom dispelled the ball of light he’d conjured earlier and they settled into more comfortable positions, Harry was still practically laying on top of him but they were properly under the covers now.
“Night Tom.” Harry said, already half asleep. “Love you.”
“Love you too, Harry. More than anything.”
He whispered the last part but Harry heard it anyway. “Sap.”
“Go to sleep.”
“I’m sleeping, I’m sleeping, love you lots.”
“We’ve already done this part.”
“I can’t believe I married you.”
“Well, you’re stuck with me now, my dear.”
Harry smiled. “Night Tom.”
“Harry.”