Harry Potter & The Hand God

Harry Potter loves hard and loves easy. He’s established this fact with all the boys he loves. If they cannot handle that his heart belongs to them but not them alone, then they cannot work together. It just can’t happen.

Blaise -- his first love -- is fine with this. Harry being poly is a part of the Harry he loves, so, really, he’s accepted it. Come to terms with it. All the people Harry loves are good for him and are at the same standard of endeared acceptance.

All except Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle is a threat because he has Harry’s interests at heart… just not his best ones. He does not want Harry to be poly. He’ll phrase it as something more kind, reasonable, like he’s a mere monogomaist and cannot change that -- but Blaise isn’t fooled. Tom Riddle does not want Harry to belong to anyone else; he wants ownership and has never been big on sharing.

Blaise has seen Harry fall in love before. Plantically and romantically, he’s seen it. He reconginzes the warning signs as soon as they formed and his worry about the possibility of Harry choosing Tom was enough to prove to Harry that Tom choosing him back was a possibility. 

Harry Potter is in love with Tom Riddle. And impossibly, horrifyingly, Tom Riddle is in love, too. 

Blaise watches. Says little. Leaves for Winter break and allows himself to hope that things will stay the way he left them.

But Tom’s a thief. The pies he has his thumbs in are not his own. Blaise wakes with the colors of bad things to come surrounding him. He knows that if there was a possibility to change things, it’s been long swindled.

He sits with a cup of tea by the window. A letter is expected. 

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Harry kisses Neville on the cheek. “Have fun at the greenhouse,” he tells him.

Neville smiles, going red. “You’ll -- you’ll come get me if you need me, won’t you?”

Harry cups the side of his face gently. “Of course,” he says softly. Harry lets his hand fall to his side and glances to Tom Riddle, at his side.

His face is light and friendly. Beneath the surface, he is sweltering with hate and jealousy and envy but he understands (even if he does not and will never accept) that this is how Harry loves; hard and easy. And toward people not Tom.

So Tom tells, even if he does not feel it, Neville to have a fun time, too. 

Neville takes to his pastime and then it is just Tom and Harry. Just tom and Harry. He could get used to this. 

“You got any ideas on what to do today?”

Anything with you, Harry; my only condition. “I was thinking of getting some reading in.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Classic nerd.” Tom would go full feral if someone -- anyone -- else said that to him… but this is Harry. And he loves Harry. 

Harry grasps, perhaps without even realizing he is doing so, the affectionate gesture so used to him, Tom’s hand in his own.

Tom blinks. He blinks again and stumbles as Harry drags him toward the open field. Undignified, the way his face is surely lighting up. It’s a good thing his Knights are at home, because if any of them saw him like this, he’d have to kill them.

“What--?” says Tom. Merlin, his voice. He sounds whipped. Aren’t Slytherins the kings of subtly? But he guesses that even Slytherins are more than just snakes. “What are you doing, Harry?”

“You can conjure a blanket, right?”

“Well, yes, but--”

“So,” says Harry, spinning around to face him. “Let’s just set up a place in the grass. Chill. You can read and I can… well, I’m sure I have something to do -- and we can just… hang out.”
Tom swallows. This is a vulnerable move; too much heart not to be a weakness when exposed, and laying it out in front of Tom, it is not anything but. 

He could strike it down; show Harry the true meaning of humbling. A punishment for harming his men. But he thinks his men are punished enough… and his men deserved it. 

He does not want to reject Harry Potter, or his offer. 

Vulnerable -- too soft; too Hufflepuff for any acceptable snake to be seen with; too, too much heart -- but vulnerable in a way that Tom is oaky with.

After all, hasn’t he been thinking something along these same lines a moment ago? His only conditon for ‘hanging out’ is that he hangs out with Harry.

Harry Potter and Tom Riddle. Tom will get used to that.

Tom says, squeezing Harry’s hand firmly, “Okay.”

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

“Have you ever been in love before?” asks Harry, sprawled out on their shared blanket, kicking in his idly. He has assignments to work on -- an already ovderude essay -- and though work was his original intention, he finds talking with Tom is funner. 

“... You should know the answer to that,” says Tom, avoiding his eyes. (He loves Harry. His is not gay or bi; he’s a man in love and ‘queer’ seems to be the only label even trying to get him right. He is a man in love. But he is afraid -- and has he ever felt, truly, doubt before? Only when dealing with him. His heart is renewed and he’d like to think it invincible, like to think himself inclivnble… but he knows, deep down, it is a fragile thing.) “Considering my… situation with my father.”
Harry frowns but continues, undeterred (a tendency Tom cannot help but adore; only ever on him), “But I don’t buy that.”

“No? What’s there not to buy?”

“I think magic’s weird.”

“Really?”

Harry huffs. “Don’t be mean. But, yeah. What if Love Potions don’t work how we think they do?”

“Is that your theory?”

“As good as any, I’d say.”

Tom goes silent. He sniffs once and sets his book down, carefully closing the pages around their bookmark. “I have loved. Plantically,” almost similarly, “before.”

“Tell me about them.”

It is a wonder he cares. Though not unexpected. This is Harry Potter, after all, and that is what Harry does; ask for information that serves him in no way; information he does not need… but that he does want. “I was young. And it went bad. So. It is not something I like to talk about.” Or think about. But it is something that breaches the surface, every once and a while, without his will or consent. Naming his new snake Nagini. His determined confidence; the kind that is not spawned from nothing. 

Harry shuffles. “I get that,” he says. And just like that; trust. No pushing or probing. Understanding. Harry Potter is the whole package. “I loved my mom like that. Like it was losing a… a limb, some part of myself when she died.”

“How can you stand to talk about her?” Doesn’t his his heart just stop, for just a moment, at the mere mention? Love comes at a cost and that is why Tom will protect his investments. Harry Potter will never die because Tom Riddle will not allow it; because he cannot let himself lose a limb.

“I couldn’t. Not at first. I’d freeze up and hide in some corner somewhere. But,” and Harry smiles, “I got it eventually.”

“Got what?”

“That the dead walk still.”

“That’s,” ridiculous; naive, “not the kind of thing to give me comfort, Harry.”

Harry shrugs, looking up at Tom through his lashes. “They -- she -- lived to twenty five. Young… but not unfulfilled. She has many published and succesul works in Charms. She got married. She had me,” Harry laughs, like the idea he can be listed in her accoplsihments still astonishes him. “And then she kept me safe before she died. It was a life well spent.”

“But it’s a life over.”

“And that’s the price of life; that is ends. Blessed be the ones who have it ended happily.”

Tom screws his mouth shut. Harry… is different than him, at some parts. At parts that never fail to surprise Tom and draw him in; hook, line, and sinker. 

But Harry Potter is also like him. Exceptionally like him.

So their grief is different. The reasons why and the way how -- but Harry Potter is like Tom Riddle and if Harry is onto something… then maybe Tom can be, too.

“Nagini,” says Tom, slowly, “was a few years old.”

“Who?”

“My snake.” He pauses. “My first one. I didn’t know how old, exactly. Those things are near impossible to tell without the exact date of the birth… but she was a young snake. And…” cotton in his cheek, sucking out all the mosrtiure, “I loved her, I think. I did love her.”

“She lived a good live, I bet. Did she, Tom?”

Tom struggles with a smile. “She did. I warmed her with whatever I could -- and, and I protected her. From the other kids.” He cleared his throat. “They didn’t like snakes.” Though that’s partly my fault, isn’t it? Attacked with them one too many times and any child would be afraid.

“But you did, Tom. You liked snakes.”

Tom clears his head. “Right. I did. I do. And I bought her mice with pocket chage,” and stole them whenever I couldn’t, “and let her wander in and out of my room whenever it got too stuffy and… and--”

Harry hums. “And what Tom?”

“And then she died. And there was nothing I could do.”

“When she lived, she was happy. Wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” says Tom. “She was happy. So happy.” 

“Do you love her now, Tom? She’s dead. Do you love her even so?”

“Yes.”

“Then the dead walk still. She lived happliy and lived loved and then died, and when you live with that in mind… then it gets easier.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah. It still hurts. It hurts for a long time. And then it fades. It’s still there, when poked too harshly. But you can learn to live with it. I did.”

That is how Harry Potter grieves. How he gets through the day to day without his mother, without his almost-lovers and friends used to be held dear and now unable to be held at all. He hurts. He heals. And then he lives, because he knows all the time he has left will only go unwasted if he lets it. 

It is not how Tom lives. He hurts and then makes it so he cannot be hurt again.

And it’s not how he will deal with Harry. He loved Nagini but Harry’s different. Harry always is.

Tom says, “To answer your question, I have been in love before. With her. And, in a different way, with…”

Harry asks, trying to hold back the eagerness he feels (because he knows the brave are onto something; cowardice is no way to win a heart. If there is no risk, is the reward even worth it?), “With who, Tom?”

Tom says, breathless, turning toward Harry, “You. I suppose.”

“Can I tell you something, Tom?”

Anything. “Yes.”
“I knew.”

“Do you? That’s not all that fair.”
“Well. I guess I didn’t know. I hoped.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know why I hoped?”

“I have my guesses of my own. If they are worth anything.”

“They are.”

“So?”

“So tell me them. So guess.”

And maybe Tom’s judged Gryffinords too harshly. He thought bravery was easy because bravery is stupid -- and he’s right with that. Bravey is ridicously stupid… but it’s also hard. 

It is a trial he must go through, however hard, however much the words stick in his throat. He says, with a heart of pink he feels and does not need to fake, “You love me, too.”

Harry grins. He cups Tom’s face in his hands -- like he did with Neville… but that’s not a thought he wants right now -- and brings hisown face closer. Tom can feel his breath on his lips. Harry’s eyes, blocked by glasses, can be seen clearer than ever this close.

His eyes, Tom notes (and what an odd thing to note at such a time), are very pretty.

“It’s a good guess, Tom.” And then he pulls Tom closer and Tom feels what Blaise and Neville get to feel all the time; warm, chapped lips and passion and…

Love. Yes. Tom supposes he would call this love.