Chapter 8
“Trapped,
No more time,
No more freedom
No more weeks,
No more months,
No more seasons.”
-- Hit The Snooze, The Living Tombstone.
.XoX.
Raven Tower has never been so crowded. Members of every House flood the area. Shitty pop songs are blasting. There are banners and streamers and a buffet, fit with probably spiked punch and red solo cups. Blue bleeds into red and green merges with yellow and, though Harry’s unsure how many foreign champions are partying with Hogwarts, even they are uncaring about who they’re dancing with.
Oh, yes. Bigotry is dead tonight. In the morning, no longer caught in the high of adrenaline, alcohol, victory, they will hate each other off of the color of their robes or the color of their face or blood.
Tonight, though, bigotry is dead.
This includes everyone except, for the record, Harry Potter. He sits in the corner, glaring at everyone who comes to talk to him, large bottle of vodka in his hand. He occasionally sips from it. Mostly he watches.
There have been many instances in his life in which he related to The Hunger Games. This is one of them.
Katniss Everdeen mentions the “hollow days” in book one. No matter how much you eat, you remain hungry. You could eat all day and never reach ‘stuffed,’ never be full. It is a result of famine. On days like that, you are to indulge yourself, even if you will never be satiated.
Harry’s had his fair share of days like that -- when no food is enough food and he can skip class to eat more and still feel like he is starving. The hollow days are not good days. Harry’s days, in general, rarely are.
Today is a hollow day in a different way. Today was supposed to be a good day but it’s not. He has not had a day this bad in a long, long while, and that separates this hollow day from the rest; it was almost the best day of his life.
Today’s emptiness also has little to do with food. When he binges, he knows there is danger there. His stomach could tear or his heart could stop, etc, etc, whatever, whatever. But it is the danger that exists normally, in his day to day life, heightened only slightly.
This danger, caused by this good day turned hollow, has to do with alcohol; no matter how drunk he gets, it’s not enough to drown out the thunder of his shaky thoughts.
Every once in a while someone will yell, over the music and to cheers in return, that the Ravens are lucky bastards. Harry will huff and keep drinking.
(This is not lucky. This is rigged.)
Cedric Diggory approaches him an hour and a half into the party. Harry is steadily working his way through his second bottle. “If it ain’t the man of the hour!” Cedric greets. He kneels in front of him. His smile wanes when he picks up the empty bottle. “You seem, ah, cheerful.”
“Actually,” says Harry, swishing the bottle in his hand, “I’m hoping to die of alcohol poisoning.”
“Would be great for the competition.”
“A great thing to consider when making future bets.”
“Not likely,” says Diggoy, settling himself on the ground. “I have the right potions with me, if things go south. So I’m sticking around, party pooper.”
“I’m hardly a party pooper,” says Harry. “Hell, it’s partly my party.” He furrows his brows. “Why do you carry around potions for alcohol poisoning?”
He smiles nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “Happens when you’re besties with the TA to the Potions Professor.”
Harry drinks again. “Julian. The other king of the party. Haven’t seen him around.” He is glad for that, but it also confuses him. He’s gotten seven offers to ride upon someone’s shoulders and many string bead necklaces thrown around him. He is wearing a flower crown and has been asked to dance with over twenty times. Harry is not partying, not talking to anyone outside of his isolated corner, but he is not mistaken; He very much is the heart of the party. Given that he is not the sole Hogwarts champion, he can guess he is not alone in the attention.
But Julian is not upon anyone’s shoulders, and there are no overt signs of obsession elsewhere among the masses.
So where is he?
“Julian’s,” Cedric says slowly, not meeting his eyes, “sitting this one out.”
“You say that oddly, Cedric, dear,” notes Harry dully. “Like he’s not just sitting this one out.”
Cedric sighs. “Do you remember your conversation with him? At the library?”
“Somewhat,” says Harry. “Enough of it.” Enough to know that I have a lot in relation to someone I want none to.
“He didn’t seem weird, did he? He didn’t seem to be lying about anything he said?”
“What would he be lyi--” Then it hits him. “That bastard.”
“He’s not a bastard--”
“Yeah, right,” says Harry, laughing. “Not a bastard. Just a liar.”
You should take your name out of the running. I’m worried about your health.
I’m worried about mine, too.
That’s why I’m taking my name out of the running.
“Maybe he’s not lying,” says Cedric, quiet.
Luna’s letter. I didn’t mean-- “That’s ridiculous,” snaps Harry. “Of course he’s fucking lying.” Of course he’s not the only one.
“I dunno, Harry. You don’t know him like I do.”
“And what is it you know about him that’s so revolutionary to this situation?”
He is not affected by Harry’s bite. “He doesn’t lie,” says Cedric. He grins fondly. “Like, ever. He’s really shite at it, actually.”
“So if he’d lied, I’d have known, is that your thinking?”
“That’s the thing,” says Cedric. “You didn’t know.”
“I sure as Hell do now.”
“Now,” says Cedric. “But not then.”
To that, Harry drinks. And after a while of drinking, he starts talking. “Luna said she had withdrawn her name, too,” he says, red in his face.
“Lovegood?” asks Cedric.
“That’s the bitch. She said she would, Cedric, dear, and I know, like you know your friend, that she wouldn’t lie. About this? No. She had no fucking reason to lie. But,” he laughs again and it is a sour sound on his tongue. He drinks to mask it and continues: “But she lied. Your friend did, too. Grow up.”
Cedric considers this. “You’re not friendly with Jackson. Luna, though. How do you know her?”
He says, a bit too loose lipped, “She’s my nemesis.”
“Strong word there, Harry, dear.”
“Right word, Cedric, dear.”
“Sure. Tell me, though,” says Cedric, “if Julian says anything about this to you.”
“Why would he tell me anything he wouldn’t tell you?”
“I dunno,” says Cedric, laughing. “You’re his idol, dude. Favorite author, he keeps saying. People say all kinds of crazy things to their heroes.”
A hero. Harry has never been called a hero. He also has never been liked by his Ravens, let alone the entire school. Today is a day of firsts.
It is also a hollow day, so Harry drinks. Cedric looks at him worriedly but he says nothing. At one point, he pushes the bottle away from his mouth. Harry scowls. “Gimme tha--”
“You can keep drinking,” assures Cedric. Harry relaxes. Cedric holds out a vial. “You can keep drinking. Drink this, too, though. Drink this and keep drinking. That’s all I’m asking.”
Here, he is far too kind. Far too patient. Maybe this is this role to Julien, too, this practiced act, practiced voice; he is damage control.
Harry almost feels guilty. If he was sober he might’ve. Right now, he takes the potion. And then he keeps drinking.
The party ends at almost four and a half hours run time to the dot. Professors enter and start directing the students to their respective towers, handing out sobering potions to those who need them. They ask for the Ravens to stay in the common room, alongside Luna Lovegood, if she’s in there. She isn’t. Someone is asked to go fetch her.
They have an announcement.
Harry, red in the face, covered in jewelry he himself did not put on and a flower crown, stumbles up to the front of the crowd.
“Is this everyone?” Flitwick, Head of the Ravens, asks. There are some mutters but no loud No’s so he takes it as a sign to continue. “Given the recent additions of foreign students, the staff have decided the housing arrangement. One per House; Tom Riddle to Slytherin,” and, Harry thinks, isn’t that fucking hilarious, “Vixen, Gryffindors. Sally, Huffelpuffs.”
And.
And that leaves-- “Luna Lovegood to Ravenclaw. We’ll add a new bed in the girl’s dor--”
“Wait a fucking second,” Harry interrupts. He flinches. He did not think he was speaking that loud. Everyone is staring at him. “We will not,” he says, quieter, “be Housing Luna Lovegood.”
“Yes, we will. The staff figured since she’d been a Ravenclaw before she transferred--”
Harry starts panicking and starts bullshitting. “We’ll have three champions to a House, right? While every other one only has one? In what world is that fucking fair?”
“Ten points from Ravenclaw. The number of champions per House is irrelevant to their performance.”
“That’s bullshit -- you can’t know th--” Someone puts a hand on his arm.
“Harry,” they say, calmly, “It’s okay. Luna joining us is okay. You’ve had a bit too much to drink.”
And he has. He definitely has. But he is tired of pretending like that is relevant. “Luna joining us would be detrimental to the Hogwarts’ champions performance.”
Flitwick rolls his eyes. “Nonsense. Without further--”
“My performance!” shouts Harry. “My performance, okay? It would be detrimental to my performance.”
Flitwick sighs and stares at him, like he’s considering whether or not he should indulge him. Apparently, the answer is yes. “Fine, Potter. How would Luna Lovegood existing near you inconvenience you so strongly?”
“We have some…” bad blood, he almost finishes, but he knows that is not enough. So, fuck it. “We’re in a marriage contract. And that’ll be really fucking awkward. So let’s fucking not. Okay? Let’s not.”
Flitwick blinks at him. He takes a moment to recover. “I apologize, Harry, for the discomfort--”
“But I thought you were in a marriage contract with Marvolo,” says someone in the crowd.
Harry thinks that he has more than a little too much to drink, but he sees everyone else looking at the same person in the crowd and decides that, no, he is not hearing things. “Who,” he snaps, “the fuck is Marvolo?”
They go red in the face. “Tom Riddle -- he likes to go by Marvolo, and he was telling people, during the party, that he was engaged to you--”
“You’re capping,” says Harry immediately.
“I’m not!”
“Then he’s capping! Who cares! I’m engaged to Luna Lovegood and do NOT want to share a House with her!”
Flitwick cringes. “Again, I am sorry, and will see what I can do, but am unsure of whether anything will be accomplished--”
“He knows the layout of your house,” says the child again. He is relentless.
“He don’t know shit,” dismisses Harry.
“He knows you were offered to be engaged with either Luna Lovegood or Neville Longbottom, too.”
Harry falters. “How did you…”
“I didn’t anything,” says the child. “Marvolo did.”
And then suddenly something strikes him. A part of him has always been a little bit intuitive -- the notches in Dumbledore’s nose; Tom’s lying; his own, at times, helplessness -- and that part rears its head.
The Dark Lord’s son knows something he should not know. Something that Harry has not talked about to anyone, ever.
He knows one thing that he shouldn’t.
What else?
“What House is he being settled in again?” Harry asks. The words do not fit in his mouth properly. It has been a weird day. Nothing about it feels real and drinking could not have helped.
“Uh, I probably shouldn’t say--” because maybe this kid is a little intuitive, too, just a little bit, or maybe Harry is just that bad at masking his curiosity, his interest.
And someone else can tell this curiosity, too, and shares it, so they say, a bit too gleefully, “Slytherin.”
Harry is walking and then he’s running before he can realize it and people are calling out his name, asking questions, but you know what? He’s been asking questions for a while now, too. He is the one here who needs answers.
He trips over nothing a few times. Trips over his own feet more so. It is a long -- or short, or not a journey at all, it is hard to tell -- to the Slytherin dorms. He bangs shakily at the door. “Hey -- hey, Riddle! I need to talk to Riddle! Fucking hubby, where you at, huh! Open up! You can dish it, can’t you fucking take it?”
A small sixth year opens the door. He is not Riddle, not who Harry is looking for.
“Go get Riddle,” snaps Harry.
“That’s…” he glances behind him, into the Slytherin common room. “That’s not something I can recommend.”
“Don’t care. We need to talk.”
“Do you know who his father is? And he’s been saying all kind of crazy things -- and the smell--”
“Listen, kid,” he is at least a year older than Harry so he's being condescending and rude here, but whatever. “Everyone knows who his father is. Okay? Everyone knows. The son of Voldemort is kinda hard to overlook. I don’t care about his daddy or his crazy sayings or his smell--”
“You should,” says the Slytherin. “You should care.”
“But I don’t. So go get him.”
“You called him hubby. Are you the one who…”
“Is in a marriage contract with him?” Harry laughs, crossing his arms. “Hardly.”
“So why are you here? You’re putting yourself in danger--”
“That’s enough, Fallion.” Tom Riddle steps out from behind the door. He tilts his head and Harry, even drunk, can tell the threat in the movement. “Excuse us, if you will?”
The sixth year, Fallion, apparently, takes one last pleading glance at Harry before disappearing into the Slytherin dorms. The door clicks behind him.
Harry gets his first good look at Riddle. He is tall -- 6’3’’, 6’4’’ somewhere around there -- and his hair is a dark auburn brown. He stands, hands held in a way that makes them seem armed, with a slight smile on his face. It is mocking.
The light bounces off his foreign robes in a way that makes him look like a holy saint, halo'd in a cathedral.
Tom Marvolo Riddle is handsome, objectively.
But he is also… Harry narrows his eyes, unexpectedly old looking. Of course, he’s 17, an adult, his senior, so he is to look something like it.
Still. He looks like he is in his twenties. Early twenties? He is certainly called “mature for his age,” and although Harry gets that, he also thinks its something more than that.
He thinks it suspicious.
And it does not end there. Of course it does not end there. This is Tom Riddle. Why would it ever end there? “The man of the hour,” drawls Tom in way of greeting. “What an honor to see you.” And from that he gets his first good smell of Tom Riddle, the next block of suspension added to the tower.
He thinks again of The Hunger Games, of President Snow.
He thinks of that because Tom fucking Riddle’s breath smells like blood.
Harry vomits on the floor. Tom Riddle looks ever composed, ever unimpressed. Harry straightens himself, and spits out, “Fuck you.”
He has the gall to look offended. “Before the first date, hubby? I didn't think you were this straightforward, but if you say so--”
Harry puts up his hand. “No. God, you’re obnoxious. And a liar. But I don’t give a fuck about that, truth be told. Let’s talk business, Tom.”
“Marvolo,” he corrects. His face stays the same but if you look closely, and that’s what Harry likes to do, what Harry does on instinct, on second nature, there is a curious gleam in his eyes. “I would think that my lying is the business, ‘truth be told,’ hubby.”
“You lied about marrying me. I’m not anybody’s first pick, so it’s weird that you’d lie about it, but, hey. I don’t care.”
“Why not? The fact that so many people have taken my word at face value shows what else I could do. Are you not threatened? Are you not interested?”
“No. Whatever reason you have for lying is probably stupid.”
“Really?” Tom grins. It is still outwardly pleasant but if you asked Harry, it could almost be taken as insulted. “Whatever gave you that impression?”
“I don’t know,” says Harry. “That’s the thing about men with stupid fathers; we take after them.”
Tom’s expression almost sours, like his face wants to but his mind says Fuck you. He has this composure down to an obvious art. It is impressive. And still telling. “Alright, then. Let’s talk business.”
“How do you know about the fact that my parents offered Neville Longbottom as an alternative to marrying Luna? Like four people know that and none of them are stupid enough to tell your father. Or anyone related to him.”
Tom pretends to think. “Why, I don’t know, hubby. You’d have to hang around me to find out, wouldn’t you?”
Harry ignores that. “The layout of my house. You know, that, too, allegedly. How?”
“Something to do with my stupid father, I presume.”
Harry scoffs. “My mother would never let a dark Lord into her home.”
“So you’d think.”
“‘Do you ever tell the truth, Riddle?”
“Of course I do,” says Tom. “I am alike to my father in more ways than one.”
And Harry ignores that, too. “Why are you doing this? Lying about me is one thing, but talking about me? Why? What do you have to gain?”
“You heart.”
“Fat chance,” snaps Harry. “You don’t seem the type to want hearts, anyway.”
“Well, hubby,” he grins. “What type do I seem?”
“I don’t know,” says Harry. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”
.XoX.
“And when I leave, I will leave quietly
I will not go kicking and screaming and fighting
I will go soft and cold and limply
And in the morning, the only way you will know I am gone is from the cold
Sitting where I once was warm
Do not mourn me
I want my death not celebrated,
Not despaired, not talked about
In the wind, through the grapevine
When I die
Leave me dead.”
-- Harry Potter, “The Devil.”