The Visions Of Us

You became a part of me the moment I

laid eyes on you. Wherever you go- I'll go.

Because I know, I'm part of you as well.

- Clairel Esteves

September 9, 1932

Wool’s Orphanage, London, England

[Underground, The Stars Are Legend]

Harry and Tom were idiots fair and square.

Looking back on it, they should’ve waited to go in the morning when Mrs. Cole wouldn’t catch them, but it wasn’t Harry’s fault Tom was impatient! Harry would be too if he were in Tom’s place.

Wait.

Harry could have proved his ability in talking to snakes to Tom upstairs.

Harry sighed. It didn’t matter anymore. They were both downstairs already. Going back to their room would be a bother. Harry also… couldn’t really... talk to snakes. Without snakes.

It wasn’t Harry’s fault! It just worked that way! 

They both quickly stalked through the building’s halls, their socks muffling their footsteps. If Harry hadn’t thought of the socks, and if Tom hadn’t thought of not wearing shoes, they would have both been caught within a matter of minutes from exiting their bedroom.

Harry didn’t know what punishments these people used on the children they watched over. He hadn't been here long enough yet to know. Harry didn’t even want to know.

They both sneakily broke into the storage room and hid after they almost ran into an assistant matron in the hallway. If Tom hadn’t heard her soft footsteps, all of the effort they went through to get to where they were now, from the 3rd floor, no less! Would've been for nothing. Yeah, they really should have waited until the morning for this 'trip'.

When Tom’s head popped back into the storage room after checking if the assistant matron was gone, Harry shared a fleeting, giddy smile. Full of adrenaline that had been rushing through Harry the whole night, he grabbed Tom’s hand in his own. Tom might deny ever talking to Harry after tonight, but Harry didn’t care that much. 

At least he had experienced this with Tom tonight. If he had that, then Harry was fine.

“We should’ve waited until morning,” Tom admitted quietly. Harry knew Tom’s excitement got the better of him, it was why he had been so impatient. He could finally share his gift with someone; there was another person who could speak with snakes! “We really should’ve.” Harry gave Tom a reassuring smile, only half-seen in the dark room, illuminated by the moonlight through the small window. “Is the coast clear?”

“Almost,” Tom answered as he pressed his ear to the door, trying to listen to the footsteps outside.

It was muffled, but it was there. Soft footsteps inching closer to the duo. It was Martha Charles, the assistant matron of the orphanage. Tom didn’t see her much, despite the fact that she mostly took care of the younger children and the sick kids, and she had apparently taken over the second job as a night shift guard and Demogorgon.

Her footsteps were light but pronounced, and Tom was cursing himself for ever underestimating her. Never again, he promised himself. He didn’t even know what he would do to persuade her not to punish them if she found two six-year-olds in a storage room. In the middle of the night. After curfew.

If Tom didn’t know any better, he would think they were screwed.

Hearing the footsteps start to fade as she got farther away, Tom opened the door slightly. Tom almost jumped when Harry whispered, “We are so dead.” The other boy’s head was practically resting on Tom’s shoulders. “I’m going to kill Loki for this if we get caught.”

Tom let out a surprised, but expected, sigh at the information as he watched the assistant matron walk down the steps of the 1st floor. “Loki put us up to this?” Tom asked. Harry nodded, “Yep!” 

Tom’s eye gave an agitated twitch. He really was going to kill the snake for this. If they got caught, he was going to kill that crafty serpent.

After making sure the coast was clear, Tom grabbed Harry by the wrist and quickly led them to an empty room. Tom gave Harry time to breathe before swiftly jogging towards the back exit of the building, making sure they were as silent as possible while they ran.

How they managed to reach the ground floor of the building without getting caught was beyond Harry. He guessed Tom had experience. As they finally reached the back courtyard, Harry quickly removed his socks and ran to catch up with Tom across the yard in fear of being seen from the windows, despite the late hour. They quickly shimmied through the small gap in the fence before they finally reached their destination. They really should have waited until morning.

Harry winced in pain. He really shouldn’t have taken off his socks. Clutching his foot, he lowered himself to the ground to take a look. Both his feet were bleeding profusely, absolutely littered in small cuts and splinters. Subtly, he looked up at where Tom was supposed to be. Harry, when he couldn’t find him, looked around in a panic before letting out a breath of relief. Tom had just continued to walk to the nearby patch of trees, where they wouldn’t be seen by anybody looking out of moon-lit windows.

“Tom!” Harry hissed through his teeth urgently, trying to stay quiet. Hobbling over to Tom’s direction, he tried to get his attention again. “Tom!” Finally, the other boy looked over, an annoyed expression on his face.

Hands in small fists, in equal volume, Tom responded. “What!” His annoyed expression wavered as he saw Harry’s pained grimace. Harry saw something in his eyes, then. They flickered between the safety of the trees and Harry’s quivering form. 

What was Tom thinking about?

As Harry leaned against the alley wall for support, Tom walked over to him, cautious. Why was he being cautious?

Tom grabbed Harry's forearms and steadied Harry, roughly lowering him to the concrete floor. Harry let out an undignified squeak at the manhandling but had full confidence that Tom knew what he was doing. Slowly sitting down on the floor, he relieved Tom of his weight. “Are you alright?”

A bit confused, but not wanting to seem helpless, Harry frantically nodded. He could deal with this. He has dealt with worse before and he was ready to deal with this, too.

Tom clicked his tongue at the younger’s obvious confusion, but sat himself down directly in front of Harry. Lifting Harry’s foot to his lap, he rested it there to inspect it better. The bottom of Harry’s foot was covered in deep, sluggishly bleeding cuts and numerous splinters, the wood luckily jutting out.  Meanwhile, as Tom focused on his foot, Harry’s face was alight with shame and humiliation. He should’ve been more careful! Then they wouldn’t be in the middle of this situation right now! And- oh, what if they were caught-

 “Stop worrying, Harry. We’ll be fine.” Tom’s calming voice reached through Harry’s panicked thoughts, a shining light in the darkness. His words grounded him, and Harry took a deep breath. “What I’m going to do now is something I’ve never tried before. I-” a flash of indecision crossed Tom’s features, “I’m going to use something special to heal the worst of the cuts and take out the splinters. Is that alright, Harry?” Tom, uncharacteristically, asked gently. Nodding in affirmation, Harry braced himself. 

“S’not gonna be painful, is it?"

“I wouldn’t think so,” Tom answered, lifting Harry’s foot closer to his face. He tutted again as he assessed the wounds. “You can look away if you want to.”

Nodding, Harry looked up and tried to focus on anything that wasn’t his foot on Tom’s lap, the stinging pain of the cuts littering his foot, and definitely off of the gentle touches Tom made with light fingers, being gentle to soften the pain.

Harry instead focused on the grey night sky, lighter than it should be due to light pollution. Despite this, he tried to count the individual stars one by one. 

He had only counted twenty-five before he felt the uncomfortable ache of pins and needles throughout his foot. Shuddering, but still forcing himself to look away, Harry glanced over at the thick treeline Tom had walked over to earlier and attempted to find differences in detail between each of the trees. 

Nothing was helping.

He soon gave up on distracting himself and let out a surprised yelp when he felt Tom massage his foot, the soothing sensation calming Harry down more than he thought it would.

“How did you do that?” Harry asked as Tom lifted his foot from his lap and onto the concrete beside him. “How did you heal my foot?”

Tom simply said, “magic.”

Harry decided to stop prying. He wasn’t going to get far anyway.

Reaching into his pocket, Tom pulled out a small matchbox he had nicked from an older kid. Pulling out three matchsticks, he lit them while Harry called out for the snakes. 

“Loki!” Harry called sibilantly. Tom felt a shudder go down his neck while looking for old newspapers and trash on the ground, hoping to find dry kindling for a small fire 

So, Harry was right. He was another speaker like him. But, despite that fact, Tom would never get used to someone other than him hissing like that.

  Looking between the two buildings that surrounded them, Tom saw that the sky above both boys was clear. Tom could only see the few twinkling lights of a few stars through the slit 

A wave of unexplainable disappointment and indescribable longing filled Tom. All he felt was a spark of yearning that was void of all rationale and logic. It confused him. The clear night made Tom just want to abandon everything and travel far from the city. He wanted to see the endless stars he had heard of. The stars he had been born under. 

“D’you want to see them?” Harry asked, stopping his search for Loki and instead put his undivided attention on Tom. Standing beside him, he gestured to the sky. “The stars, I mean.”

Tom only absently heard him.

Harry’s breath hitched as he saw the clear night reflected in Tom’s glazed eyes. The reflection made them look slightly purple, but it made all the difference to Harry. The few dots of white that were present in the sky mirrored in Tom’s eyes and it made Harry want to stare more. 

And so he did.

“I do…” Tom responded absentmindedly. For some reason, Tom couldn’t keep a single line of thought as he stared up to the heavens. A small amount of stars were present, only a few specks, but it made Tom appreciate them all the more.

It was like he was staring at a murky ocean. Admiring the view despite knowing that a clearer picture existed somewhere out there. Maybe, he’d feel the sense of complete and utter contentment he’d been searching for his whole life when he finally saw it.

A hand grabbed Tom’s and brought his thoughts back into the familiar clear and sharp focus he was used to. It was Harry's hand. His eyes were furrowed in confusion and concern for Tom, but Tom couldn’t focus on that. All he felt was a sense of contentment and the surety that he was okay. 

It made Tom’s heart ache painfully. Flinching, Harry jerkily pulled his hand away from Tom’s own. It seems he had felt the pain, too. 

Despite the ache, Tom wanted to grab it again.

“Sorry,” his counterpart muttered and looked away, a faint blush on his face as he continued to call for Loki. Tom shook his thoughts away as he cultivated a small fire in front of them using the kindling he had gathered earlier.

Soon enough the snakes appeared to the boys, whispering about meeting both speakers at the same time. Loki, ever the affectionate snake, crawled up Harry’s body and rested himself on Harry’s hair like a crown. 

Harry and Tom sat on the concrete ground of the alley, illuminated only by the small fire Tom built from matches and the moonlight of the cloudless night.

“Loki,” Tom hissed, frustrated. Glaring at the reptile sitting on the other boy’s head, Tom thought of all the risks they both took to get to where they were safely. While Tom was happy that he was now aware of who the other speaker was, this definitely wasn’t the way he had wanted to find out. While he wasn’t surprised that the other speaker was the other boy beside him, he wanted to uncover that fact himself and save him from the rage he had experienced earlier. “When I said I wanted to know who the other speaker was, I wanted to find out on my own!”

Loki smiled, well, as much as a snake could smile. For a normal snake such as Loki, his grin was a silly, toothless thing. Turning his angular head towards the two speakers, he teased, “That wouldn’t have been fun now, would it, speaker? I knew you would do anything to get answers, even sneaking out of your room with the other speaker to get proof.” The snake’s voice turned smug. “It worked.”

Tom huffed, but even he had to concede to that point. Harry, on the other hand, snickered at Tom’s expense and at Loki’s very accurate deduction. He quickly shut up in the face of Tom’s glare, but then snickered even louder at the put-out look on the other boy’s face.

“You’re just mad that a snake outsmarted you,” Harry pointed out. Tom just huffed again and stroked under the chin of another snake beside him, blatantly ignoring his counterpart.

"Stupid snakes and their namesakes,” Tom muttered but it only made Harry’s soft snickers turn into full-on snorts.

12:03 AM September 10, 1932

Back Alley Behind Wool’s Orphanage

Sneaking back into their room on the 3rd floor, both boys batted off any dirt that had happened to grace itself onto their pyjamas. Both were silent in the wake of the new revelations, despite the banter they had shared in the alley only a few minutes ago.

Harry, on the other hand, was thinking about his and Tom’s friendship. From what he knew, the only people who could speak to snakes were the people present in the room. Harry would admit, the conversations he had with Tom made him very happy. For Harry, Tom and he just clicked. They could talk so easily with one another despite Harry’s first awkward attempts to speak with him. Hell, they had only planned to stay outside with the snakes for half an hour, but look at where that got them. They ended up talking for 2 hours with the snakes and each other. 

Harry wanted to talk to Tom more, to know more about the other boy. Every moment Harry spent speaking with Tom, a warm feeling enveloped him. With Tom, Harry felt safe, secure, and complete. It was odd, but it was his.

  Tom, on the other hand, was thinking about Harry. Not about their friendship, no, though he thought about that too. The boy behind him made him open up more than he did his whole, though very short, life. In the span of a week, Harry had managed to make Tom think only about him the whole time. The first time the other boy had slept in their, begrudgingly shared at the time, room, Tom had just entered the room to see the measly, battered pencil and paper he had set on his desk floating along with the sheets and pillow of his bed. The other boy was a mystery that Tom oh-so-desperately wanted to solve. His and Harry’s shared ability to speak with snakes was amazing, but Tom wanted more.  He was considering befriending the boy, as outright rejecting him would be an idiot’s decision. 

Tom Riddle was no idiot.

As both boys lay on their respective beds, Harry turned to the other occupant in the room and asked him a question, disrupting the cool silence of the atmosphere.

“Are we friends, now?”

Turning to his left, Tom faced the other boy, seeing the vivid green eyes he’d grown to think about in the past week, and answered him.

“I would believe so.”

October 3, 1932

Wool’s Orphanage, London, England

“Did you know that Bowtruckles attempt to gouge out the eyes of anything that threatens itself or its tree? It’s the way they defend themselves against predators, and it’s a pretty damn good deterrent-” Tom sighed fondly, Harry was rambling about some fantasy creature in a book he was reading, relaying the majority of what he read to Tom.

Tom didn’t mind. Despite it being fiction, Tom didn’t refuse learning. Who knows? It might be useful one day. Besides, it was Harry, anything was bound to be interesting when it came to him. Trouble always seemed to follow him.

“You are the embodiment of trouble,” Tom commented.

“No,” Harry denied. “Trouble finds meand it likes to drag me to disaster while I kick and scream for it to let me go! Kinda like Billy’s poor, old rabbit. Still dunno where that thing is.”

As they were walking towards the orphanage from school, Tom got bored and kicked a rock. Harry paused in his ramblings and told Tom, “You know, you could’ve killed someone with that.” Though the tone Harry had used clearly showed he didn’t care that much.

It was curious, how dark both their humor was. Even though they were 6-years-old, they found humor in the weirdest things.

Weird to other people at least.

“And a Bowtruckle is so small it can-?” Tom prompted, trailing off. That shot Harry back into rambling about the creature again, continuing his previous rant to a  content Tom, who was listening with a considering hum.

It was…  different… for Tom to walk back with someone from St. John’s. It was pleasantly different, though. He didn’t feel that alone anymore, which was a very weird thing to say. He never thought he would be friends with anyone, unless it was solely for his own ulterior motives, of course. It seems that his decision to befriend Harry turned out well in the end.

It felt nice. 

“Would you want one Tom? If they were real?”

Tom hummed in thought before answering, “Are they useful in any way?”

Harry smiled at Tom’s automatic, enthusiastic affirmative to his question after hearing the words, “they can pickpocket.” He was such a kleptomaniac. The box in their room was enough evidence for it, and Harry doubted that anything would prove it wrong.

“Mr. Scamander really has a nice imagination. I can’t imagine half the creatures in the book.” He had found said book on the street near a corner store down the road one afternoon. It was the best decision of Harry’s life to pick the book up. 

He’d been obsessed ever since. He missed the book he read while at Privet Drive, but he loved Mr. Scamander’s book nonetheless.

“I’d much prefer the Horned Serpent than your Bowtruckle,” Tom admitted, directing Harry to Page 58 of Mr. Scamander’s book before continuing to look at the surrounding buildings as Harry quickly read the passage about Tom’s much-preferred creature.

HORNED SERPENT
M.O.M. Classification: XXXXX

Several species of Horned Serpents exist globally: large specimens have been caught in the Far East, while ancient bestiaries suggest that they were once native to Western Europe, where they have been hunted to extinction by wizards in search of potion ingredients. The largest and most diverse group of Horned Serpents still in existence is to be found in North America, of which the most famous and highly prized has a jewel in its forehead, which is reputed to give the power of invisibility and flight. A legend exists concerning the founder of Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Isolt Sayre, and a Horned Serpent. She was reputed to be able to understand the serpent, which offered her shavings from its horn as the core of the first-ever American-made wand. The Horned Serpent gives its name to one of the houses of Ilvermorny.

Huffing in indignation, Harry retorted, “You like snakes, so of course, a Horned Serpent would be your go-to. You’re so predictable, Tom.”

Tom glanced at the other boy before retaliating, “According to the book,” Harry snorted at the phrase, “someone was able to understand them and used the shavings of the serpent’s horn to make a wand out of it.” ‘We can understand snakes, too,’ went unsaid, but was understood between the two. He gave a small chuckle at Harry’s glare.

“ Well,” Harry started, a mischievous grin spreading on his face. “Bowtruckles are small, and very likely to pickpocket a person, unnoticed! Or to strike against an enemy. Their sharp fingers could really do some damage to you, y’know.”

Tom hummed in acknowledgment before answering. “On behalf of snakes, they could poison, paralyze you for life… even kill you. Basilisks are easy examples. While I agree that the Horned Serpent might only be good for materials, snakes, in general, are harmful, venomous or not.”

“Speaking of Basilisks, would you like one, Tom? If it were real, I mean.”

“Of course, a Basilisk is not called ‘The King of Serpents’ for nothing.”

Entering the orphanage’s grounds, before any of the two could continue the conversation, Tom was pushed to the cold concrete of the courtyard. 

Oh, how Tom bloody hated Billy Stubbs.

Grumbling, Tom looked up to see Billy Stubbs smirking at him triumphantly, like he was better than Tom. With luck and lenience (and maybe divine intervention), Billy Stubbs could only be better than a sloth at best. Beside him, an angry Harry helped him up before glaring at the fat, barely pre-teen kid in front of them.

The bully sneered at him like he was some pest he’d finally be getting rid of. It pissed Tom off. ‘As if it’s not the other way around,’ Tom thought bitterly. In the grand scheme of things, Billy Stubbs would be nothing but an insignificant worm beneath Tom’s shoe. Oh, the moment when he’d reap his revenge on that disgusting arse. 

“What do you want.” It wasn’t a question; it was a cold demand. A demand to know why Tom was wasting his thoughts and attention on him. The fat git didn’t need to know that, though. Tom had already given up on trying to even act remotely afraid of Stubbs. The fat screwup was a bully that didn’t deserve even a small sliver of Tom’s limited pity. Even more so, the bully only deserved the worst retribution and Tom exactly knew what to do. 

His bunny would be in for a treat.

“Well looky here, everyone, Tommy’s has got himself a boyfriend,” Billy mocked, sneering when he said boyfriend.

  Tom just looked at the boy in front of him with an annoyed expression, his whole face barely fighting the urge to give him the most murderous glare he could make. 

Maybe giving the bully a murderous glare would be better. Billy Stubbs wetting his pants would make a delightful sight to see after the years he had spent making Tom’s life miserable. If looks could kill (and with a Basilisk, it could), Tom’s barely concealed glare and disgust would’ve already been like Medusa’s gaze, turning Bill Stubbs into stone before Tom broke him into useless dust.

"I'm surprised you even read enough to know what that is." Billy's sneering face snapped into one of humiliated anger at Tom's retort.

“Why you little-” Before the fatass could even finish his poorly made retaliation, the matron of Wool’s burst out of the building, an angry look settled on her face. 

Tom sighed. He couldn’t get an ounce of fun, could he?

The moment the larger boy set his eyes on the matron, his expression grew sadistic and gleeful, glancing smugly at Tom, before a helpless baby act was put on for show for the matron. “Mrs. Cole! Mrs. Cole! Tommy pushed me down to the ground and said mean things to me,” he wailed like the belligerent whale of a child he was. 

At least actual whales were wanted and loved.

The matron’s face, if even possible, grew angrier at the tattle, but Tom was beyond pissed. If it wasn’t for Harry’s angry presence behind him, Tom’s self-control would have snapped and splintered. Tom could even say Harry’s fury outmatched his own.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle! How could you have done this? Billy has done nothing wrong to you!” Tom blanched in disgust at the use of his full name by the matron. It was utterly disgusting to even be a part of this scolding but unfortunately, he was the star attraction of the show. 

If only he could burn down the whole circus they called an orphanage.

The matron was oh so very gullible, considering how she swallowed up Stubbs’s very pathetic whining. Oh, how he loathed her. He would love to just torture her for all eternity.

Or, until Tom got bored of her.

Tom just took the scolding quietly and didn’t even try to defend himself; it would only end up with him getting an even worse punishment than what it should’ve been. Even if he had a bigger amount of pride than the next person, he wouldn’t, for the world of him, even want to endure that corporal punishment the matron called ‘scolding’. At least not talking back rewarded him with less of a punishment.

Harry, on the other hand, wasn’t going to let this slide. He accepted the animosity between the matron and Tom, but full-out the humiliation of his friend in front of everyone? Harry wasn’t allowing that. Plus, Billy was the older child, he should be more at fault for crying like a pathetic child in front of everyone. 

Then again, pathetic crybaby was a very accurate description of the large boy in front of them, wailing like a baby needing milk. It was no wonder the matron catered to him, he was pathetic.

 “This is so unfair.”

The matron’s head snapped at the boy behind Tom, her eyes growing softer before hardening with the realization that Harry was on Tom’s side and not Billy’s. Harry wasn’t backing down anytime soon, his head was held high and his emerald green eyes were burning with fury and rage, like embers of fire ablaze behind his very eyes, like his gaze was a Basilisk that could petrify you at any moment. 

If Tom wasn’t in the crossfire, he would’ve stared at those eyes for the whole argument.

“Why is it unfair then, Harry?”

The emerald-eyed boy stood in front of Tom, who was still staring at Harry in shock, with his head raised and daring the matron to attack him while he was speaking.

“It’s unfair because there’s evidence that Billy was the one who pushed Tom, the scrapes on his elbows clearly show it,” he exclaimed, clenching his fists at his sides as his rage bled into the air. “Billy doesn’t have a single scratch on him, and as you can clearly see, his tears only just started falling.”

Mrs. Cole’s face grew redder and angrier with each word Harry said.

“My eyes, which are in need of glasses, can see better than you! Why can’t you just see that Billy is a bully, fair and square?” Harry demanded. His voice was getting quieter but it spoke volumes. “Ask the other kids, they’ll tell you!” 

Finally, when Harry finished, Mrs. Cole finally snapped. “Go to your room, the both of you! No dinner.” 

And that was that. 

It looked as though the matron’s intelligence dumbed down in the presence of Billy Stubbs. It seemed that the fat arse’s idiocy could vandalize a whole orphanage, by the looks of it.

Both boys’ faces soured at the surprisingly mild punishment, but they were glad to hear the end of the scolding. Harry’s righteous outburst had almost won them a greater punishment than they ‘deserved,’ in the eyes of the matron. He wasn’t complaining, though. Tom didn’t want to deal with the matron’s crap right now. He wanted to make Billy Stubbs’s life miserable, and being the one being punished isn’t a good position to start with.

As both boys entered the safety of their room, Tom swiftly turned to face Harry, face scrunched up in rage.

“Why did you do that?! I had everything under control!”

Harry had calmed down on the way to their room, but he got angry again at the tone of Tom’s voice. Tom didn’t control him. “It didn’t look like it, Tom! I didn’t want you to continue to get harassed by Billy as he did to me! I hate him!”

“I hate him, too, but I had it under control!” Tom knew that, as he shouted, that their argument would get them nowhere if they didn’t agree on a compromise. He knew that they were both stubborn, that they wouldn’t back down without a fight, and that a physical skirmish would occur if they both didn’t calm down.

“I just wanted to protect you! To help you!” Tears were brimming in Harry’s eyes, why couldn’t Tom just understand? He understood Harry in everything else.

“I know you did! Just…” Tom quickly sobered up and looked his counterpart straight in the eye, his own pair blazing with emotion. It sobered Harry up quickly too, his sniffling quieting, and his tears were just brimming in his eyes instead of rolling down his face. It caused an ache in Tom’s chest for some reason, seeing that.

  Tom wrapped his arms around Harry’s shoulders. His counterpart was shocked at the action, before immediately wrapping his arms around Tom’s torso and stuffed his face in the taller one’s chest, while Tom rested his chin on the other’s hair. Harry’s cries grew significantly louder and more ragged, but it was muffled due to his face being stuffed against Tom’s chest. Tom, despite being incredibly warm and a little bit uncomfortable, endured it all. He kept telling himself, “If you didn’t like Harry, you wouldn’t be friends with him,” over and over again while his arms were full of said boy.

It was a small moment, just for the two of them to experience.

Tom’s shirt was slightly damp from tears, but he found himself not minding it at all. His first and only focus at the moment was to calm down his friend, well, his best friend really. After what happened outside, the other kids wouldn’t want to be their friends anymore, but that was okay. They had each other. It was the two of them against the world.

As Harry’s sniffles grew to a slow but sure stop, Tom asked him, “Are you okay now?”

Harry sniffled as he wiped the tears from his eyes before answering Tom, “Yeah, I didn’t expect you to do that. You’re not the type to hug people out of the blue.”

Tom winced at the reminder of that fact and drew away from the hug. Now, his only physical connection to Harry was both their hands linked with each other. “I’m- I’m not that kind of person,” He agreed, sheepish. ‘Usually.’ It was a weird sight to see, even Harry had to admit. Tom Riddle was not a sheepish person, even in the short time Harry was here.

Harry gave Tom a grin. “Then get used to it,” he said before assaulting Tom with a bear hug.

Tom ‘oomph’ed slightly at the impact before hugging Harry back with just as much enthusiasm.

Harry didn’t know how long their hug lasted, but they eventually pulled themselves apart. It could’ve been minutes or even just mere seconds, but Harry wanted this warm feeling to last forever. It was weird, they had only met each other less than a month ago and now they had hugged as if their lives depended on it. Maybe they did, Harry didn’t know. All he knew was that it was a damn good hug.

He voiced his observation to Tom.

“I noticed it, too. I don’t normally warm up to people this easily.” Tom had his head down, swinging their linked hands side-to-side, obviously trying to distract himself from his own thoughts.

Harry snorted, wiping his tear-streaked face roughly. “You don’t warm up to people at all.” He softened. “But I’m not complaining.”

When Tom’s head snapped up, Harry gave him a bright smile. The other hesitantly returned the gesture.

“So…” Harry trailed off, a silly grin on his face. It made Tom wonder what was going on in Harry’s mind. “Are we friends, now?”

Tom gave Harry an incredulous look. “Of course.” Harry lit up at the statement. “Now, let’s go and get revenge on Billy Stubbs.”

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.”

-John Green, The Fault in Our Stars