Cat Got Your Tongue
“May we come in, Mr Potter? We would like to examine the slave in question anyway.” The Ministry worker asked, her tone making it clear it wasn’t a request. Sighing, Harry stood back and allowed them in. He led them to the sitting room and invited them to sit. A moment later, they evidently saw Tom. Following their gazes, Harry looked at it from their perspective. Tom had started trembling slightly from exhaustion about half an hour ago and when the collar shifted with his swaying, it revealed red lines on his throat from when he had accidentally choked himself. He had lines of pain around his eyes and mouth and his gaze was downcast. In short, he looked like exactly what he was – a disobedient slave being well-punished.
“Oh, is that...well, that must be him, right Mr Potter?” Mr Brown asked.
“I don’t tend to have strange men chained to my sitting room wall, so I suppose it must be,” replied Harry dryly. He immediately regretted his attempt at humour when Mr Brown blushed and looked away. “So, what is this about?” asked Harry, hoping to move the conversation on. Suddenly, his gaze was drawn by movement happening behind the Ministry workers. A figure appeared in the doorway, a very familiar figure…
With a double take, Harry darted a look between the Tom chained to the wall and the Tom standing in the doorway who looked identical. Then their eyes met and Harry clutched at his head in pain as a whole three hours of insanity unfurled in his mind. The other Tom...the other Harry...the spaghetti...the duel....they were married?!
In the doorway, Other Tom took in the scene - Harry sitting staring at him, two people with their backs to him, and his counterpart off to the side...not looking so good.
“I’ll come back later,” he decided. At that point, Harry broke through the speechlessness which the memory of his counterpart revealing his marriage to his nemesis had provoked.
“Don’t go anywhere, you bastard!” he yelled, standing up and upsetting the tea-tray. Everyone looked at Harry, and then at the empty doorway he was shouting at. Looking back at Harry, their gazes seemed to express doubt in his continued sanity. Except for Tom’s: his gaze was just pained.
A few moments later, the last two minutes had been wiped from all of their memories, the tea tray was back where it should have been, and the Ministry workers were starting their inquisition.
“Did you visit Diagon Alley yesterday, Mr Potter?” Ms Filgrove asked briskly.
. . . . .
Harry’s hands grew tighter around his own cutlery as he caught the avaricious gleam in the Potions Master’s eyes when Tom had needed to stoop down in a pseudo bow to reach the fallen item. It’s his closure, Harry kept reminding himself. They would never have to be in contact with each other again – Merlin knows Harry wouldn’t want to repeat this painful experience. He tried to keep himself distracted with talking to Kingsley about the Aurors, his new endeavours in the Ministry, even reminiscing about the war in a desperate attempt to ignore what was happening on the other side of the table.
“My glass is empty,” Snape sneered. “Fill it, Tom,” he ordered, a malicious note in his voice. His jaw twitching as he clenched his teeth so hard he was almost surprised when his molars didn’t crack. Picking up the glass in a grip that he had to consciously relax in order not to crack it, he walked stiffly towards the door, deciding to take a moment in the kitchen since he had a good excuse.
Coming back with the full glass after taking as much time as he thought he’d be able to get away with, he noticed that there was a...cat? A black cat was walking towards the table, its long tail swaying in the air. Sitting down for a moment to clean a paw daintily, its red eyes met those of Tom’s.
Suddenly, memory crashed back in. Before he could grab the cat to...do something to it, him, Tom (the cat) jumped up on the table. He weaved through the dishes on the table, gaining the attention of all three people currently sitting at it, and then started eating from the Potions master’s plate, munching on his beautifully cooked salmon.
“Potter!” spluttered Snape, pointedly staying away from the cat as much as possible. “What is this?”
“It’s a cat, Severus,” Kingsley told him dryly, undeniably knowing that that was not what Snape had meant. Snape sent him a smoldering glare.
“I don’t know,” Harry said in confusion. Snape turned his fulminating look onto Harry. “Don’t look at me,” Harry snapped in response to his glower. “I don’t have a cat.”
“Let me, master,” suggested Tom smoothly, his gaze on the cat promising murder. Harry started feeling a bit concerned - exactly why did his slave hate cats so much? He wasn’t quick enough to express his misgivings, however, as Tom had already stepped forwards and had both hands around the cat’s neck, slowly throttling him. Harry gasped in horror.
“Tom! No! Stop strangling the-” he met the cat’s eyes and briefly winced in pain. “Tom! No, the- Stop strangling the Tom cat. I mean, Tom!”
The cat broke free of Tom’s unrelenting grip, only by hooking his claws onto Snape’s clothes.
“Get off me, you blasted animal!” Snape yelled as the surprisingly strong small animal started pulling his robes off by dint of the claws hooked into his sleeve. Harry just looked aghast at the whole thing, though, he mused with a small bit of amusement, at least he knew that since the cat was Tom, the Other Tom, it didn’t really matter what his Tom did - Other Tom was immortal and all. Besides, after how one-sided that duel had been, it didn’t seem too bad for Tom to get a bit of revenge. And if Snape was upset into the bargain? Somehow, he was unable to feel too bad about that. “Somebody help me!” Snape yelled, by this point, his robes half over his head and preventing him from accessing his wand. Harry glanced over at Kingsley who just winked at him. Clearly he didn’t have any intention of interrupting the show either.
Well, since the Minister for Magic didn’t see the need to intervene, Harry decided to settle back into his chair and watch the unexpected dinner-time entertainment.
Tom was trying his best to pull the cat off of Snape, surely concerned for his well being, but without much luck. Snape, on the other hand, was buried under his unnecessarily long black robe, shuffling through trying to find an opening to break free through, but, again, with no luck.
Finally, the cat. The cat, Tom, Tom the cat, Tomcat, was enjoying himself immensely by using the chance to rip Snape’s robes to shreds, sending weird little cat-smirks human Tom’s way. He made some weird meow, a chirpy sound, and apparently human Tom took offense to whatever was said.
“I don’t have anything against cats - I have something against you!”
Another meow, this time accompanied by a small purr.
“I’ll roast you for dinner next!”
One more deadpan meow, then the claws digging into Snape’s clothes were removed, sending human Tom stumbling backwards and leaving Snape to deal with his robes himself.
The cat used the chance to free himself quite easily, then hopped back on the table to rub against Harry, purring loudly. Cat Tom had passed by both Harry’s and Kingsley's plate, so it had apparently only been Snape’s he was going after.
Harry, still enjoying the show, accidentally took to petting Tom without even realizing what he was doing. When he became aware of what his hand had been doing without his permission, he paused for a moment and looked at the cat.
“Do you mind?” he asked politely, figuring that he’d rather not rile up this...cat’s...husband. The cat looked up for a moment, then flicked his ear and rubbed his cheek against Harry’s hand. Harry took it as a sign to continue.
“That’s one smart cat,” Kingsley commented, reaching over to rub the cat’s back once, then removing his hand once he’d had his fill of cat petting. Harry, meanwhile, had frozen at the thought of his counterpart arriving and seeing strange men petting his husband/slave.
Luckily for everyone, Tomcat didn’t seem to mind the petting, basking in its glory and shoving his entire body closer to Harry’s. In the meantime, Tom was sulking. Deciding to make another attempt at getting rid of the cat, he stepped forward once more.
“I’ll get rid of this vermin, now,” he announced, reaching out to grab the cat.
“Nah,” Harry said, his tone casual. “The cat can stay. He’s enjoying the salmon, see?” Tom burned with jealousy that the cat was being treated better than he was. Snape, however, had something to say about that. He’d finally managed to rearrange his clothes so he was almost back to how he had arrived - minus certain pieces of fabric in his torn-up sleeve - and was fuming at the situation.
“Well I’m not happy with the situation - he’s eating my dinner.” Harry sighed. Annoyingly, the man had a point…
“OK, fine Tom. Take him out of here. Tom,” he said, looking pointedly at Tomcat, “go with him.”
Tomcat gave Harry an agreeing look, partnered with a cute chirp, and then hopped into human Tom’s arms, who was not expecting that and flailed around, then glared. Of course, the glare had no effect because Tomcat was already clawing (but not harmfully) his way up Tom’s shoulder to make everything that much more difficult for Tom.
As they left the room, they heard Kingsley say: “So, which did you name Tom first - the cat or the slave?”
“What are you doing back here?” demanded Tom as soon as they were out of earshot of the dining room. “Didn’t you cause enough trouble last time?”
The cat leapt out of his arms onto the floor, doing some sort of flip and landing as a human. Well, a human, yes, but.. The same as last time, no.
“Wha- Why are you ten?” Tom looked his younger self up and down, thinking that, yep, this was him when he was a kid. With the long black socks, old-style shoes, a fancy white shirt with a tie and some black shorts. He looked straight out of Tom’s memories of his childhood. It immediately set Tom’s teeth more on edge than they already were by this whole situation.
“Because I want to be,” Other Tom answered, shrugging. “Plus, in case either Kingsley or Snape sees me, they won’t automatically assume I’m you.”
“Well, don’t,” replied Tom sharply. “You look...weak like that.”
“I could still kill you without moving,” Other Tom retorted. “My looks don’t make me any more or less powerful, really.” Tom crossed his arms and looked away. As much as he wanted to refute the assertion...he’d thrown everything he’d had at this man during their duel and nothing had even fazed him.
“I didn’t say you were weak, I said you looked weak,” he grumbled. “Besides, why do you even want to look like that. Our childhoods were...sub-par.”
“It’s much easier to reach Harry when I’m not a metre taller than him,” Child Tom shrugged again.
“Why would you want to...oh,” Tom stopped, his face looking green. Then a thought occurred. “Wait, if you’re this height it’s just the reverse - you’d still have a metre between you, it would just be the other way around.”
“You’re assuming that Harry likes to be any age over 12,” Child Tom deadpanned.
“He was clearly over 12 last time he visited,” Adult Tom deadpanned back.
“That’s because he stole your Harry’s body.” Tom raised an eyebrow at him.
“Last time I looked, Harry still had his body. Ergo, your Harry didn’t steal it. And he’s not my Harry anyway. You’re the one who does that freaky stuff.” He paused. “Wait, do you do that stuff while you’re 12?” Then he paused and held up a hand. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“We don’t, actually. But, by “stealing” I mean that we copied the looks exactly. I stole your body as well—usually I like to be in my early 20’s, and I have a bit more curls in my hair. Also, I’m not as thin as you, after years of eating whenever I want, and I’d like to think I’m quite strong, so muscles. You’re like.. A toothpick. My Harry, however, likes to appear around five years old and demand piggyback rides and use his cute looks to get what he wants. Sadly, it works a bit too well..” Child Tom sighed, apparently remembering past times where that had apparently happened.
Adult Tom sighed, putting a hand to his forehead. Once again, like always with this...person, he had a headache. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t had a headache before this, what with the whole dinner farce.
“Tom, why are you here?” he asked eventually hoping that for once the other Tom would give him a straight answer.
“Harry gave me a job to do,” Child Tom replied.
“What’s the job?” Tom asked, again wondering whether he really wanted to know.
“Matthew Sullivan. I’m supposed to kill him in about half an hour.” Tom stared at him.
“...Why exactly does your Harry want you to kill someone?”
“Because Harry can’t kill them himself.”
“Why not?”
“Last time he killed someone, they ended up as his slave for all eternity,” Other Tom murmured, obviously speaking of himself.
“Oh,” Tom replied, deciding he hadn’t wanted to know. But there was one other question he had…
“If you’re supposed to go kill someone, then why are you here? As in, in this house?”
“Oh, to annoy you. Also because I was hungry, and wanted to annoy Snape. It was like, three Pidgeys with one Geodude,” Child Tom nodded. Tom facepalmed. He should have known!
At that moment, Harry walked into the kitchen, saw the young Tom Riddle, took a moment to gape and then clearly reached the same conclusion as Tom - it wasn’t worth asking.
“Tom, please get the rest of dinner. My Tom, that is,” he decided to clarify - having a child Tom Riddle coming with pudding would probably send things even more sideways than they had already gone. Then, turning, he disappeared back into the corridor.
“Welp, that’s my cue, I guess. You get the rest of dinner, and I’ll go get Sullivan,” he said with a disturbingly blood-thirsty grin, made even more disturbing by the fact that it was on a prepubescent child.
Just before he left, Other Tom stopped midstep. “Matthew Sullivan is both a murderer and a child rapist, and there’s nothing my Harry hates more than those.”
Then he was gone.
As before, the scene shimmered as everything reset itself, the memories of the time folding themselves into something so small in each of their minds that they were undetectable, and even time itself reversed to make up for the lost time.
That is, until the next time Tom (or Harry) decided to make a distinctly horrible appearance in their lives.