Harry Potter & Blood
“Wipe that look off your face before Blaise gets here,” says Harry quietly, eyes searching the street. Harry squeezes Tom’s hand in his own.
“Why don’t you wipe it off yourself?” Tom smirks, leaning in, but Harry places a hand on his face and pushes him away.
“I’m serious. You can not like him -- as I’m aware you do, with or without my say so,” Harry rolls his eyes, releasing his hand. “But there’s this thing called civility.”
Treating your enemies with respect? thinks Tom. It’s called hypocrisy, dear, and I think you implement it. Only from you it is in any way charming. “I mean no disrespect to Blaise--”
“Then,” Harry smiles, “take to looking like it, mhm?”
“What if I don’t wanna?” Surely Harry understands the rejection of courtesy, the momentary and, for him, rare thrill of letting go of the guise of politeness that he lives him? Harry understands because Tom understands and most of the time, Tom’d like to think, they are one in the same.
Harry mutters something that sounds suspiciously like childish prat before standing on his tippy toes and planting a kiss on Tom’s cheek. “Just try, love.”
And how can Tom argue with that, when there is a pretty boy at his side, a kiss on his face, the knowledge that Harry chose him hanging over him? He is an actor. He can play pretend just a little longer. For Harry.
“I want to thank you again. For setting up this appointment for me, with the goblins…” Harry swings their enclosed fists between them. “It must’ve been hard -- and don’t do that ‘oh, no, of course not’ thing you do, ‘cause I don’t buy modesty -- so thank you. Really.”
Tom hums noncommittally. A single thanks is scarce return for such a huge favour -- and though he wants to give Harry the world, he wants Harry to give him everything. His love, his hands, his exquisite and ever-challenging mind, all should go to Tom, where it belongs.
Still…
A thanks is nice.
Tom can tell Blaise has joined them not by Blaise alone, but by how Harry’s face lights up. It is like a dying plant given water and makes Tom want to make something else dying.
Patience, he reminds himself. Civility. Acting. He has waited so long for things to go his way and cannot afford to let things go wrong because he refuses to wait a bit more.
Harry wraps his arms around Blaise, all smiles, all laughter. “I’m so glad that your parents let you come with us on this trip, since it’s winter break and…”
And though Blaise is smiling too, his arms mirroring Harry’s, saying all the right words at all the right moments (acting, acting), his eyes are on Tom’s. Tom smiles and this time, it’s real. Let your contempt distract you from your love. Harry balances it quite well. It’s odd, imagining yourself like he does, isn’t it? I do not have to imagine.
That’s what makes me better than you, Blaise. I am genuine in all the ways that matter.
(Harry, if he ever knew the truth, would tend to disagree. But it’s fine. Because Harry does not know the truth. Not yet.)
“...It’s an inheritance test,” Harry’s saying, peeling himself off of Balise and instead grabbing Blaise’s hand in one hand and Tom’s in the other, “so if blood freaks you out, Tom, look away.”
Tom’s more interested in seeing how the son of a god’s blood will react with goblin magic than anything. “I’m fine with blood,” he says. All things considered, perhaps too fine.
The steps of Gringotts are as blindingly white as ever. Tom recalls the first time he walked up to them, new to the wizarding world. The goblins had not treated him kindly and he had not known, at that age, that they treated everyone like that. And the moment he did learn that, he’d thought it unfair. Tom was better than these people, more deserving of respect, of proper title.
Tom walks up these steps today different. Humbled. (Only slightly humbled.) And, unlike that first time… not alone.
“Appointment for Harry Potter, sir,” Harry tells the goblin at reception. Showing respect for people who do not deserve it -- why, the sentiment is echoed with the boy beside him.
The goblin makes a face at them -- all three of them, now that’s equality -- and asks to confirm if this is for the inherence test.
“That’s the one,” says Harry.
“One moment, please.”
Harry watches their retreating figure with a frown. “What do you think’s got him so upset?’ he mutters.
“Goblin culture is naturally adverse to all things Merlin.” Tom shrugs. “It may seem an unkind position, but Merliners have dominated any religious congregations for decades, overshadowing both smaller wizarding spiritualities and any sort of spirituality pertaining to any sort of magical creature.”
“... No,” says Harry. “I get that. But what does Merlin have to do with us?”
Tom looks at the son of Merlin and the Clavorant wizard and thinks, A lot more than you’d know. “Nothing, I suppose,” says Tom, saving face. “A goblin's respect is harder to earn than a wizard’s… and much harder to get rid of once pertained.”
Harry looks like he still isn’t following. “Nerd,” he mutters. Tom cannot help but smile fondly. Where would you be without me, Harry?
Balise looks at him oddly.
After a minute or so of waiting, they are ushered into a backroom -- not after, of course, Harry is asked if he is sure he’d like those two to come with him, present company can always be replaced, they’d said. Harry looks at them and says, earnestly, “That doesn't mean it should be.” Tom grins smugly and though Blaise is not the type to do anything smugly, his face softens in response.
“Very well Mr. Potter. Onward.”
They are led to their attending goblin -- a woman that is so old her skin practically hangs off her skeleton, a narly sight -- who sits in a desk that looks like she hasn’t moved from in over a year. There are two chairs in front of it. “Take a seat,” she says, her voice a hoarse thing.
Harry takes his place and a natural and unspoken agreement between Blaise and Tom leaves them both rushing (in a manner that is almost casual) to get the other one. Like every interaction between them, it is Tom who wins. He sits with all the grace of a husband by his lover and Blaise stands, awkward and defeated, behind them.
If Harry notices their childishness, he says nothing of it. If To had to guess, he tires of it.
“You know how the test goes, yes?” asks the woman. She sniffs, opening up her desk drawer and taking out a book larger than Hogwarts: A History. “Or did you come here unprepared? I would put nothing past your people.”
Harry clenches his jaw. There is that implication again. Your people. The Ministry, Gringotts, Tom… who else knows the truth and will not give it to the one person who needs it the most?
“I’ve done my research,” Harry gifts out. His anger is barely contained. Tom rubs a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.
These people are minuscule, thinks Tom. With me by your side, everything will be.
“Sure, sure,” says the goblin. Tom wonders why bother to ask a question if you refuse to accept the answer you’ll get. “Here’s the deal: your blood is taken by one of our state of the art enchanted quill. The way your blood reacts corresponds to one of the magic types -- whether that be more wizarding blood, Seer, werewolf, or something far more obscure, all of it is listed in this book. Understood?”
“Already was,” says Harry. “But alright.”
He is handed a quill -- black, with white stripes along the edges -- and Blaise's eyes it… suspiciously breathless, if there is any way to acquire one of his own, just to keep, just to have. For personal use, he says.
And Tom is both a bastard and intuitive bastard so he knows that there is nothing personal about how Blaise is eyeing that, how Blaise looks from the quill to Tom with something insatiable in his eyes.
“Unfortunately,” she snarls sickly, “this is a one of a kind artifact, and I am well trained in protecting it, Mr. Zabini.”
Tom smothers a victorious grin. See, Blaise? Getting rid of me won’t be that easy. And, even so, Harry would not be so easily swayed by my bloodline. He was not before. He would not be again.
(... Unless there is something I am not seeing here. Something for your eyes only. Seeing souls, I recall, and seeing the future. That’s your thing.)
Harry twirls the quill around once -- much to this woman’s mourning horror -- and asks, “Where’s the parchment? To put my blood on. So you do your weird blood studying thing.”
“It is not weird, it is an ancient and meticulous magic.” She takes a deep breath. “And, for you, it is my suspicion that a parchment will not be necessary.”
Harry furrows his brows, looking at Tom to Blaise to the goblin and back at Tom again. “You’re all acting odd today,” he mutters. Then he rolls his eyes and jabs, without hesitation, the quill into his fingertip.
The room goes silent.
Tom had known something -- everything -- about Harry was special. The way he walked and talked -- his abundant weakness and his abhorrent strengths -- and his heritage.
Of course his heritage, where it all started, where it is continued now.
Harry blinks at the sight of it. His blood, trailing from his finger now in a long, downward droplet, but rising into the air. It is nearly mist. No, thinks Tom, horrified and fascinated, it is mist. Harry’s blood… has turned to mist.
It is remarkable. Like how everything about him is. From his personality to his blood.
A deep, rambunctious laugh, edging into something hysterical breaks the group from their stupor. Harry is laughing so hard he’s doubling over, holding his finger up in the air, like it is a victory, like it is a trophy.
Tom stares at him. “Harry? What are you…”
“I know this one,” he says between cackles. “Don’t you get it, Tom? This is it. I know this one.”
“No need for the book, then?” says the lady, but even her voice lacks the usual bite. Harry has that effect on people.
Harry has finally sobered up. “I’m a demi-god,” he says at last. He locks eyes with Tom and a vicious grin spreads across his face.
Blaise speaks softly, “Are you sure? Because this is not…”
“I’m a demi-god, Blaise!” He hops up from his seat and slams his hands on his desk. “Isn’t that right, lady? Do you need to double check your books? Cause I know this one, don’t I? Don’t I know this one?”
She leans away from him, her wonder not enough to discount her resentment. “Yes,” she says. “The misting of one’s blood means that one is either godly, or that of godly heritage.”
“That’s astounding, Harry,” soothes Tom. Also not new news to Tom. Astounding nonetheless. “I will, of course, help you track down which of your parents it could be--”
“No need,” gushes Harry. “No need, Tom.”
Tom gawks at him. His sense quickly returns to him. “I… what?” (Or, at least, his sense tries to.)
Harry twirls around to Blaise, grabbing his hands up in his own. “I just need one little confirmation,” he continues, his excitement evident. “Just one, and I’ll have it, and we’ll have it. I know this one, too.”
“What are you going on about, Harry?”
“Your parents wouldn’t mind if you stayed one night at Hogwarts, right? One night, that’ll be fine, right, Blaise?”
Blaise does not hesitate. “One night… should be fine,” he says, choking at the full weight of Harry’s attention on him.
“I need you for backup.” He turns toward Tom. “Both of you.”
Tom breaks. “What is going on?”’
“I,” says Harry, “have a good idea which parent it is. And I have an even better idea of who else does, too.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Blaise watches the blood trailing from Harry’s finger and wonders if this is really the sign of a demi-god. Because it is green. The color of only the son… and not like the father or the mother.
Like the grand and alluring steps of Gringotts, it is a color so pure and awing he cannot mistake it for anything else.