Harry Potter & Muggle Pens (Pt. 2)
Harry hands out his flyers -- pink and beautiful and enchanted so that anyone above the age of eighteen will only see them as a rather detailed drawing of a muskrat -- while Hermione berates him and Tom stands off to the side, observing everything but saying nothing.
Hermione is a stubborn heart and not weak in the face of Harry’s passion -- and Tom loathes calling himself anything resembling that so he will pretend he didn’t -- so she says what Tom only thought: “They will devour you alive.”
“You don’t know that,” Harry protests. He pastes a flyer on the wall with Muggle thumbtacks, seeming to have taken Tom’s advice to heart, something he now regrets, unsure of why he offered his encouragement in the first place. Harry Potter is bad company. I should care. Why do I not?
“No,” Hermione agrees. “But I do know that you have invited Purebloods of all ages to use Dark magic against you. I also know that you, sorry Harry, are not the most magically talented--” unremarkable, Tom thinks, “-- and do not stand a chance against even one well-trained Pureblood out to hurt you, let alone a possible dozen.”
“I’m not planning to win via pure magical strength.”
“Good,” Hermione says, ruthlessly. “Because you have none.”
Tom holds back a wince thinking that, surely, Harry will chide her for that remark. He saw what he did to Blaise for acting against Harry’s interests. She will, surely, be reminded to watch her tongue.
But Harry Potter just rolls his eyes and Tom realizes that he had known better. Harry allows his friends to criticize him just as heartlessly as he does them. That much had been obvious from the start. (Harry Potter is not like him.)
“I only need to memorize a few spells more,” Harry starts but Hermione nearly growls.
“Harry! No matter what you learn, or do, or whatever, you stand no chance. There will simply be too many. You could invent dual wielding and it would still not be enough.”
Dual wielding? The Muggleborn has some bright ideas, Tom’ll admit. He adds it to his list of things to look into.
“I disagree.” Harry hands a flyer to a passing student. “Truthfully, a strong ‘dome’ protego only would increase my chances exponentially.”
“Which brings us back to the first issue,” Hermione says. “Your protego is not strong enough to withstand even physical attacks. This is a mission doomed from the start.”
“Not entirely,” Tom interjects. The words slip out of his mouth unbidden. He should encourage Harry to back down. There is no need for a war between his two friend groups; it would only make Tom’s relations tenser in both parties. And yet he continues. Merlin, Harry. The things you do to me. “A protego strong enough to withstand magical attacks -- which, given, is not the highest display of magical power -- will be undeniably useful.”
“Yes,” Hermione amends, voice tight. “But he would still be vulnerable to physical attacks--”
“And?" Tom prompts. “The most relevant of spells, i.e., cutting curses, expelliarmus,stupefy, and things of that light, are all covered. Transfigured objects would be able to pass through, yes, and anyone brave enough to throw hands -- or ‘Muggle prone,’ enough as they might call it,” as Tom does, “would be able to pass through, yes. But I allege it will take time for them to figure that out, and time is valuable in a duel. If Harry is able to sustain is shield throughout the entire duration of the affair,” Tom shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter, but it does and Tom knows it does, but the words keep coming out anyway and he doesn’t know why, does not understand himself or Harry and Tom is sure the uncertainty will kill him if his accelerated heartrate does not, “then I presume his chances will no doubt be fair.”
Hermione’s hair frizzes around her like a halo, as if responding to her frustration. He has her stumped. He knows it. “I still believe this to be a ridiculous idea. What is the harm in quitting while you’re ahead?” Her voice is pleading but her argument is weak, even to her own ears.
“My cause,” Harry says. “The harm is to my cause. Currently, I am the symbol of the Dismantilist revolution--”
“To some school children!” Tom cannot help but agree. (He also finds Harry’s melodrama endearing, so he doesn’t say so.)
“Not just here. Not just because of this stunt I am to pull. My name has given me status. My occupancy at this castle,” he spreads his arms, gesturing to the walls, his home, Tom’s long dead jealously sparking, this was your home while I attached myself to the Mafloys, whose house is lovely but is just that; a house. There is nothing homely about it, “has given me status. Potter sire, the living Hogwarts ghost -- oh, how could people not talk? This will spread. Now or later, they will figure out I backed out of a duel I so boldly proposed or they will figure out I knew the odds and fought them. Win or lose, Hermione, I cannot show cowardice.”
Now there’s a strong word. Is it cowardly to preserve your livelihood, your well-being? Tom does not think so. Tom thinks it is smart. Why show up to the Capital knowing you will be stabbed?
Harry Potter is bad company. Harry Potter is an arrogant fool.
Tom Riddle keeps his mouth shut.
“Of course, I cannot do it alone,” Harry says, and Tom tenses because that is not arrogance, because Tom’s judgment with this boy -- and he is that, just a boy, a 5’0’’ foot tall boy with too much rage and not enough discipline as a child -- and only with this boy is clouded. Muddy. Something is wrong with him. He’ll have to look into that, too.
Hermione seems both relieved and wary. She is right to. “Whatever do you mean by that?”
“Tom,” Harry says and Tom could fucking melt, Merlin, just by hearing his name. “Can I ask something of you?”
“Maybe,” says Tom, truthfully. “You know it is my friends who plan to challenge you.” My associates who I have been connected with for far longer than I have you and therefor should be my priority, those insufferable extentions of myself but only to a certain extent.
Should and are; two very different things.
Hermione seems to bristle at the reminder, but Harry places a hand on her shoulder, unbothered. “I know,” says Harry. “I also know I am your friend.” And Tom freezes.
Friends? Tom has not had a friend in so long -- Nagini, cold and lifeless, brains splattered on the pavement, days spent in bed, the irrelevance of being dead or alive -- and Tom was not planning on making more. But they are, aren’t they? Friends. He sits with them at meals and tags along on library trips when he can and helps them study and has conversations -- deep, meaningfully conversations about right and wrong and Harry’s ideals of it, Harry changing him, faked at first, faked when he gave his speech about House qualities but not later when his definition of a Hufflepuff shifts so drastically it almost does not feel like his anymore. Harry Potter was an interest at first. He is in the center of his mother’s possession -- body-sharing, he knows -- and God’s hand. He still is.
But now he is more.
Friends.
That feels right.
Tom schools his expression over, hoping his mixed pot of feeling had not spilled over, and says, “I do not wish to betray either of you.” It is a coward’s answer. Is that really so wrong?
“Then don’t,” Harry says, and it’s a genuine offer. He will not be mad, no matter what choice Tom makes. (The leeway he gives his friends borders on foolishness.)
“If I did,” Tom says, careful, “hypothetically, help you… Then what would you ask of me?”
Hermione watches on, brows furrowed. She has never seem Tom like this. No one has.
“I’d need strategy advice,” Harry says, smiling, like he knows he’s already won, and he fucking has, Merlin of course he has. “I will need to learn spells in order to do this and do it right. Given the week time-period, there’s not much room for learning. I can memorize five, at most.”
“You will need help narrowing down your options, then. “ Tom is already making a list in his head. “I can also brew potions, if required.” A bottle you smash on the ground that makes fog appear; if the liquid of another touches your skin you are temporarily blinded. So many options. Tom is giddy, he realizes.
Tom Riddle does not get giddy.
He does now.
“They could be of use,” Harry says. “Only if you are willing to help me, of course.”
“I will,” Tom says. “Help you, that is. But when I show up to the duel, I am not there to support you, you must understand.”
“Loud and clear.” Harry is smiling widely and although there is bloodlust in his eyes there is affection, too, for Tom, for this and for everything, and Hermione, for just being there, trying to save him from his own reckless actions, even if he does not need saving.
Affection. Real and pure and genuine.
… Tom Riddle could get used to affection.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Harry had put a lot of effort into making his posters. Ron says the pink hurts his eyes but he’s got the fashion sense of Severus Snape, so he doesn’t care that much. Harry has always loved pink.
He had also spent an embarrassing amount of time charming it to avoid adult intervention, Blaise helping him toward the end, when he got out of the infirmary. No matter how duels and things like them pertain to the Ministry, instigating fights is still something the school can and will punish you for.
So Harry was careful.
But he’s Harry Potter. Careful is never careful enough.
Someone had ratted -- he’d love to find out who, would love to get his hands on their snitch-ass neck -- and now Severus Snape has called him into his office, flyer in hand and sneer on his face.
He must’ve thought that someone was duping him at first, Harry thinks. This poster says that Potter’s starting a war, look at this! No -- what? No! It’s not a drawing of a muskrat. Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss?
But now, Harry suppose glumy, he’s got it all figured out. What a big brained asshat.
“You insolent boy,” Snape is ranting. “Do you have any idea of what you are getting yourself into?” Merlin, why does everyone keep asking me that? “If you have even an ounce of self preservation left in your body, then imploy it!”
Harry scoffs. “I am acting in my best interests.”
“You arrogant fool!” Snape shouts, unaware that he is the second person to assume that about Harry today. “You are a Squib at heart--” not technically incorrect, though neither of them know that “--unable to brew a simple healing potion correctly, and you are as ignorant to assume that you can win a war
“Something like that.”
“I could very well have you expelled,” Snape mutters.
“On what grounds?” Harry says, mockingly. “A drawing and some rumors? People do not like me. There are many reasons to lie about whatever it is I ‘plan to do.’ I have many enemies,” he tilts his head. “You included.”
“Then die,” Snape says.
Harry blinks. What?
“If you are so eager to step onto the battlefield, if I am unable to remove you from this school myself, then go through with this. I endorse it. Do not let me deny you your suicidal tendencies. Something tells me they run in the family.”
My father. You are obsessed with him. What did he do to deserve it? Despite this, Harry is apprehensive at being let off so easily. “You really will let me go?” he asks.
“Death has always flirted with you. I will not step between you two. Though, we are lucky to be without war. I cannot see the sense in starting another one.”
Harry ignores that last comment. “No detention? Nothing?”
“When has punishing you ever done anyone any good?” Snape hands Harry back his flyer. “The consequences of your inane actions will prove punishment enough.”
“And if that punishment is death?”
Snape pushes Harry out the door, “Then you cannot get to it quick enough.”