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Harry knew how his dad won over his mum, had heard the story a million times growing up until he knew it by heart.
“Persistence,” his dad would always say with that confident lopsided grin of his. “I never gave up, I asked her every day until she agreed to go out to Hogsmeade with me. Never give up on your dreams.” He’d punctuate his declaration with a cheery wink.
Then his mum, if she were present, would smack his dad in the shoulder and say, “You mean wearing me down until I said ‘yes’ out of sheer annoyance?”
“Exactly!” his dad would beam. “It worked, didn’t it?”
And so, when Harry developed a crush on his classmate Tom Riddle in their second year at Hogwarts, he knew he wouldn’t give up until Tom said yes.
*
In second year, Harry sent small gifts to Tom, flowers he had picked in the greenhouse and, once, a transfigured paper crane that could fly. Tom set them all on fire.
When he was home for break, James would ask if he had anyone special he was crushing on, and Harry would explain how Tom wouldn’t give him the time of day. “Don’t give up!” his dad exclaimed, punching Harry in the arm encouragingly. “Your mother wouldn't talk to me for the first six years that I knew her, either!”
In third year, Harry figured that his gifts were all wrong. Tom was the smartest kid in their class, so surely he would appreciate books. He wrote to his dad to send him some rare texts from their ancient family library, and his dad happily obliged, writing back how Lily was also the smartest kid in their year at Hogwarts and how he eventually won her over from another giant swot in their class when he started taking his studies more seriously.
The books were the first gifts that Harry left for Tom that didn’t immediately get set on fire, which gave Harry a glimmer of hope like he’d never felt before.
Tom, however, still refused to talk to him, which only made Harry pine after him more.
Fourth year was the first year that Harry noticed Tom’s cheekbones. They were sharp and perfect and looked like they were cut out of marble. And then Harry noticed the soft curve of Tom’s lips, and what a warm brown his eyes were, and how well that perfect curl on the left side of his head framed his face. Tom was—without a doubt—the most handsome boy in the entire school, and Harry couldn't stop staring.
By winter, Harry worked up the courage to ask Tom to the Yule Ball. He woke up dumped at the bottom of the Great Lake, but thankfully Tom had left a bubblehead charm on him, so Harry was able to swim to the surface without drowning.
Harry smiled to himself when he broke the surface. Surely this must mean that Tom didn’t completely loathe him, did it, if he didn’t mean for Harry to die? He still had a chance.
His dad, when he heard the story, agreed with him. “Your uncle Sirius almost once killed a classmate too, but look, they’re happily married now!”
By fifth year, everyone was convinced that Blaise Zabini and Tom were dating, though Slytherin House was famously tight-lipped to the outside world, so nothing was ever confirmed. But that didn’t stop Harry from asking Tom to Hogsmeade during the school year, and owling him over spring and summer breaks to ask him to ice cream in Diagon Alley. After the fifth or sixth try, Tom sent Harry’s letter back heavily cursed with a litany of obscure spells, somehow making it past the wards of Potter Manor.
It took a team of healers from St. Mungo’s a whole week to break all the curses that Harry had been afflicted with, and he pretended the whole time not to know what had happened. “I must have accidentally touched a cursed artifact browsing one of the junk shops by Knockturn,” he said with a sheepish laugh, while privately admiring the ingenuity and sheer daring that it took for Tom to have researched and cast all those illegal spells without detection.
Harry could be patient. His crush on Tom had never wavered since second year, not for a single day. There was plenty to admire about Tom from afar, after all, while he waited patiently for Tom to come around. He liked how Tom always had the most interesting answers in class. He admired Tom’s quiet charm and confidence, so unlike Malfoy’s loud and obnoxious bragging. And he thought Tom’s cutting responses were really funny—underhandedly clever but also bold enough that he could very well have been a Gryffindor instead.
Tom was the most brilliant and fierce and intense person that Harry had ever met. It felt like falling in love with a wild gust of wind, or a dangerous and untameable winter storm.
“I’m going to marry Tom one day, just like my dad married my mum,” Harry would say to anyone who asked why he still persisted. “You’ll see.”
*
When Tom finally caves, halfway through their 6th year, he doesn’t exactly agree to date Harry.
What he says, instead, is, “I don’t date, but if you want to fuck, we can fuck.” His tone is bored, and his gaze even more so, as he looks Harry over from head to toe, lingering on Harry’s broad shoulders for an extra moment.
Harry is speechless for nearly a minute. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, but it was an opening, a small sliver of hope after five straight years of solid rejection.
His throat is suddenly dry when he goes to clear it, and he can feel his face flushed red. He has no idea how to respond without sounding unintentionally rude or boorish, like the only thing he cares about is getting laid. He finally settles on a choked, “When?”, and hopes it doesn’t sound too pathetic.
“When I’m bored,” Tom shrugs and walks off, leaving Harry in a state of mild shock in the middle of the Transfigurations corridor.
*
The note is unsigned. It appears in Harry’s bag sometime between Charms and Potions on a Friday morning shortly before their spring break.
8pm, Barnabas the Barmy is all it says.
There is exactly one tapestry of Barnabas in the entire school, and it’s in an abandoned 7th floor corridor. Harry happens to know the Room of Requirement is across the hall.
His godfather had told him long ago, with a knowing wink, that it’s the best place to get some action in the entire school. He has no idea how Tom found out about it, since he doesn’t have any relatives that had attended Hogwarts.
Harry shows up a few minutes before 8, hands shaking with nerves. He has to shove them in his pockets to hide his nervousness. He’s already showered three times that day, brushed his teeth at least a dozen times, and spent over an hour in front of the mirror trying to tame his hair, but it somehow ended up looking worse than ever.
Tom is already there, leaning against the wall, as elegant as a carved statue, with one of his long legs propped up against the wall behind him.
Cooly, he tilts a chin towards the blank wall in front of the Room of Requirement. “Surprise me,” he says.
Harry swallows, trying to look more confident than how he feels. He spends a few minutes with his chin bowed over folded hands, trying to think of the best setup for the Room of Requirement for their not-quite-date. It has to be romantic—soft lighting and plenty of candles, of course, and a nice fireplace too—but in a classy way. It can’t be too cheesy, he thinks, praying that the Room doesn't decide to manifest something like rose petals sprinkled on the floor or heart-shaped pillows and animal print everywhere.
And it needs a couch. They’d definitely need a couch to snog on and... possibly more. His heart gives a strange flutter. But should he request a bed? Would that be too presumptuous? Tom did make his intentions clear, but Harry still shouldn’t presume, should he? What if Tom thought he was an absolute boor? He wouldn’t want his one shot to be over before it even has a chance to begin.
The minutes tick by silently. Harry hasn’t started pacing in front of the blank wall yet, only standing there awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot, as Tom looks increasingly amused at Harry’s expense.
“Well?” Tom asks with a smirk, gesturing towards the opposite wall. He’s clearly enjoying how much Harry is torturing himself over this simple request.
Harry takes a deep breath and hopes for the best, as he starts pacing three times in front of the blank wall.
A door appears, and Tom pushes himself off the wall and opens it without waiting for Harry to collect himself.
Once inside, Harry heaves a sigh of relief. It looks nice and cozy, as inviting as his favorite corner of the Gryffindor common room, firelight flickering over the comfortable-looking couch. There’s a side table with a single red rose in a vase, which he really hopes Tom won’t laugh at him for.
Tom’s eyes flicker silently over the setup, but there’s no change of expression in his face that gives away whether he likes it or not.
Harry can hardly bear the suspense. “Is this to your liking?” he blurts.
“It’ll do.” Tom settles himself on the couch, an elegant arm casually draped over the back. He loosens his Slytherin tie with his other hand, a casual, refined motion that makes him look like a model on the cover of a magazine.
A sudden ache of arousal flares deep inside Harry’s gut from that simple motion alone. He immediately wishes he had had the foresight to wank beforehand as part of his getting-ready routine. He hasn’t even seen any skin yet. He has no idea how he’s going to last the rest of the night.
Tom shoots a quick, sly smile over, as though he can tell what Harry is thinking.
“When did you discover the Room?” Harry asks, curious how Tom would have come across it. Harry wouldn’t have found it were it not for the Marauders telling him their favorite spots at Hogwarts.
Tom doesn’t answer, but he smiles again to himself, that smug, secretive smile that Harry’s come to love. He waves a hand towards the opposite wall. A four-poster bed appears across the room, grand and luxurious and draped in dark, expensive fabrics.
“Let’s get on with it,” Tom says, grabbing Harry by the hand and pulling him down onto his lap. “We’re just fucking, ok? I didn’t bring you here for chit-chat.”
Then he leans forward and presses his lips against Harry’s. His lips are soft and warm and feel so nice. It’s like nothing Harry has felt before. Over the years, he’d practiced making out with Ginny once or twice, but since everyone knew he was hung up on Tom, he never got very far.
But this is nothing like what Harry had experienced before—this feels like the burst of a thousand fireworks inside of his chest, like the sun breaking through the clouds and shining on his face, warming him from the inside in a dazzling glow.
He moans into the kiss, deepening it, Tom’s tongue both soft and demanding as he licks into his mouth. He can’t help but grind his hips down into Tom’s lap, but he doesn’t really know what to do with his hands, so he tries cupping them around Tom’s neck, the tips of his fingers playing with the hair curled up at the back of Tom’s neck. His arousal has continued to build, until he’s painfully hard now, his cock straining against the inside of his trousers.
He desperately hopes Tom has more experience than he does, even if it was with Blaise Zabini, because he has no idea what he’s doing. He hopes Tom doesn’t expect him to be an expert at—
His train of thought is interrupted when, without warning, Tom rubs his hand against the front of Harry’s trousers and makes an approving noise.
No one has ever touched him like this before. Even if there’s still a few layers of fabric between them, Harry’s brain nearly short-circuits when the realization sets in that Tom’s fingers are stroking along his cock—Tom’s hand is actually touching him —Tom wants him—
Harry pulls back. “Bed?” he asks breathlessly. He is completely flustered just from kissing, trying to get his breathing—and his heart rate—and his burning hot cheeks—under control.
“Alright,” Tom answers. He doesn’t look disheveled at all—he looks calm, and composed, and as perfect as he always does, not a hair out of place.
Tom grabs Harry by the hand and leads him over to the bed, pushing Harry flat against the luxuriant bedcovers. He looks so devastatingly gorgeous as he climbs on top of Harry, slowly, teasingly, as he rubs the length of his body against Harry’s stiff cock that’s tenting the front of his trousers in an embarrassingly obvious way.
As Tom settles in place and tangles their legs together, he deepens his kiss with Harry with more fervor, more ferocity, than he had before. He starts rolling his hips down on Harry in a lewd way that’s evident he wants them to start doing more than just kissing each other.
Harry’s hands have stopped shaking as he’s gained more confidence. He untucks Tom’s shirt and slips a hand against Tom’s lower back. The skin feels warm and smooth underneath his touch as he traces the ridges and divots Tom’s lower spine. With his other hand, he cups Tom’s arse and kneads, feeling his way around the round, pleasing curve of the best arse in the entire school.
Tom is still fondling him through his trousers with one hand, sending waves of exhilarating and aching arousal shooting through Harry’s body.
All of a sudden, Harry gets the uncontrollable urge to touch more, to explore more of Tom—if Tom has himself a handful of Harry’s cock, he needs to feel Tom too.
He gently rolls them over so that they’re lying side by side, and he can use one hand to unbuckle Tom’s belt and unbutton his trousers.
His hand slips inside of Tom’s waistband. His heart is pounding in his ears as he trails his fingers down, closer and closer...
And yet—to his surprise, he doesn’t encounter Tom’s cock, as he expects. His fingers, instead, easily slide between two soft mounds covered by a light dusting of hair, and then slip down against an indescribably hot, wet flesh that’s incredibly soft to the touch.
He doesn’t pull his hand back, but the surprise must have been evident in the jerk of his shoulders. His mind goes blank—
“Problem?” Tom enunciates, drawing out the syllables slowly, studying Harry’s face closely.
“No, no, of course not,” Harry rushes to say, and then remembers how to breathe again. “Not at all.” He’s relieved his voice sounds steady instead of coming out as an unsure stutter.
“I thought you knew.” Tom gives Harry a strange look. “Haven’t you been obsessively stalking me since second year?”
“Were you not a—” The word “boy” dies on Harry’s lips. “—I mean, like back then,” he finishes lamely.
Tom gives an incredulous scoff. “Don’t you ever pay attention to anything going on outside of your three friends or Quidditch?”
“I honestly don’t remember,” Harry admits, his mind spinning. Is it possible he had somehow never noticed, falling in love with Tom’s very soul, his essence, rather than his outward appearance? How could it be possible that he had entirely overlooked Tom’s gender? Or—a more nefarious thought occurs to him—did Tom somehow fuck with everyone’s memories?
Before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “You didn’t change everyone’s memories, did you?”—knowing that it’d be an impossible feat of magic, but... if anyone could pull it off, it would be Tom.
“No, I did not put a mass enchantment on the entire school, though that’s a great idea,” Tom responds dryly.
“Why do you have a… boy’s name then?” Harry asks, again feeling like he’s asking a dumb question. Surely he couldn’t have misremembered Tom’s name the entire time they were at school together—he knows he isn’t the most observant of individuals, but he can’t be that oblivious.
“Because it’s what my dead mother named me,” Tom replies flatly. “I was teased relentlessly for it in first year, amongst other things, until I learned enough magic to... dissuade my housemates. Then I was terribly ridiculed the following year for requesting to switch to the boys’ dorm, but by then, I could defend myself against even the 6th and 7th years. And no one interfered with me after that, and no one objected when I transferred dorms in third year.”
“Oh,” Harry breathes. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” he adds, not sure what else he could say. He leans forward to give Tom a deep, heartfelt kiss, putting everything he feels for Tom into that kiss.
“Well, are we going to fuck or not,” Tom asks when he next comes up for air, his tone indicating he’s unwilling to wait and draw this out any longer.
Harry looks down and realizes his hand is still halfway down Tom’s pants. He’s still achingly hard against Tom’s leg, his arousal continuing to build and build without him noticing.
“Ok,” Harry says softly. “Yes, ok.” He crooks his fingers, curling them through the softest skin that feels like it’s drenched in liquid silk. The warmth, the heat, are slowly driving him crazy,
Tom arches up against Harry’s hand, and Harry’s fingers involuntarily slide lower. “Is this alright?” Harry asks hesitantly.
Tom heaves out an impatient sigh. “It’s a waste of breath asking for consent when you and I both know why we’re here,” he scoffs dismissively, and then proceeds on a scathing rant about the ridiculousness of Hogwarts’ affirmative consent guidelines, and how overbearing and tedious he finds checking at every step, and how it’s ruined spontaneity and makes everything slow and dull and boring, finishing with, “Because I’m in the middle of a Blood Replenishing Elixir that I put under a stasis spell, and tonight’s actually the best time to gather hogweed leaves under the new moon, so I should be getting back to those unless we’re going to proceed. If you changed your mind, that’s fine, I can easily have a wank, but I do have other things to do—”
“No, I mean, yes,” Harry interrupts. “Yes, I still want to be here. With you,” he says firmly, wholeheartedly meaning it. “It doesn’t make an ounce of difference to me, I still lo—” He stops himself before he blurts something really embarrassing like a declaration of undying love. (He should wait a few more weeks, at least.)
“I still want to try everything with you,” Harry instead says. Tom is still the boy that he’s in love with. Harry is every bit as aroused. His only shock is that he seems to be the only person at the school so oblivious not to have noticed.
He rolls on top of Tom and grinds down, so that Tom can feel every hard, aching inch of evidence of how much Harry still wants him.
“I’ll just—I can take my shirt off? And yours?” Harry says, flinching on the inside at the uncertainty in his voice.
“Generally, that’s what people do when they fuck,” Tom answers dryly.
Kneeling in between Tom’s legs, Harry rips his own shirt and tie off, but he takes more time with Tom’s, unbuttoning each button with care.
Underneath, a stretchy length of cloth is wrapped tightly around Tom’s chest. A binder, Harry thinks it’s called.
“Would you like to leave this on or off?” he asks, trailing an unsure finger down the side of it.
Without a word, Tom waves a hand and banishes the binder to the pile of clothes next to the bed. Then he wordlessly banishes Harry’s trousers and pants next, leaving Harry’s cock standing stiff and tall in the cool air of the Room of Requirement.
A fat bead of cloudy precome drips off the tip of Harry’s cock and falls onto Tom’s stomach. Harry lets out a low, needy groan at the sight.
He starts on Tom’s trousers, sliding them off of Tom’s narrow hips. And then with hands that he tells himself are not shaking, he slides Tom’s briefs down, all the way down, before he dares to look back up again.
Tom Riddle is finally naked in front of him, and Harry had never seen a more arousing sight. It takes everything inside of Harry not to give into the impulse to just shove his cock somewhere, anywhere, even if he has no idea what he’s doing.
Tom reaches down and gives Harry’s cock a few firm, confident strokes, feeling the heft of it in his palm, a pleased look on his face at the nice weight in his hand.
“Wait—” Harry says, fighting the immediate urge to come. “I want to make you come first,” he says, though he has no idea how. “Can you tell me how you’d like to come?”
Tom regards him with dark, heated eyes, much more heated than their usual warm brown. He looks more flustered than before—breathing heavily, and a curl has come loose and is dangling across his forehead. He sweeps it back with an impatient hand. “Use your mouth,” he finally says. “Suck me off.”
Harry scoots down until he’s positioned between Tom’s legs, with only instinct guiding him. The contrast of his hands, tanned and sun-kissed, against Tom’s milky pale thighs is one of the hottest things he’s ever seen.
His tongue darts out, lapping at the wetness in front of him, and it tastes so nice, Tom’s scent surrounding him, like warmth and desire and a fragrant, intoxicating ambrosia.
He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but he tries to quickly figure out what Tom likes. If he swirls his tongue in a certain way, if he flicks it quickly in and out, if he uses his fingers to pinch and roll a nipple, he can very much tell that Tom likes it, paying close attention to Tom’s thighs tensing up and his back arching off the bed and any moans that escape Tom’s throat on occasion.
Heat flares all throughout Harry’s body, as he feels himself getting closer to orgasm. He’s surrounded by warmth and silkiness on all sides, and he thinks he can die content in this position, pillowed in between Tom’s thighs.
The only warning he gets before Tom comes is a sudden clenching of his legs that cuts off all of Harry’s oxygen. A fist tightens in Harry’s hair. Tom’s back arches like a bow, and he trembles underneath Harry, and lets out a ragged series of exhales and moans, and suddenly Harry’s mouth is flooded with a heady rush of rich, silky fluid with a slightly salty tang.
When the aftershocks settle, Harry raises his head and takes stock. Finally, Tom looks thoroughly disheveled, face glowing hot and hair tousled out of its perfect coif.
The throbbing in his cock is too much to ignore, and Harry rises to his knees and takes himself in hand. He’s so close that a couple of strokes would be enough.
Tom immediately slaps his hand away and glares daggers at him.
“Hey,” Harry objects. “What was that for?”
“You’re not supposed to come now,” Tom snaps. “Not before we fuck.”
“I have to take the edge off.” Harry flushes, feeling a bit sheepish. “If you want to fuck, you have to let me last more than 10 seconds.”
“Fine, fine.” Tom reaches for Harry’s cock. “But you’d better be able to get hard again.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to be a problem,” Harry mumbles with an amused huff.
And then Tom’s hand is moving over his cock, and Harry loses himself to the sensation, waves of pleasure rippling through him, the heat pooling lower and lower in his abdomen until the pleasure starts to crest…
“Can I – can I come on your stomach?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Tom says scathingly, adding a particularly vicious twist at the end of his stroke.
Harry can’t hold back any longer, and he comes with a cry in Tom’s hand, his orgasm shattering through him. His arms are shaking too much to keep himself propped up above Tom, and he collapses to the side, taking a few moments to catch his breath and for his vision to stop swimming and return to normal.
When he blinks away the dizziness, he sees his come splattered tantalizingly on Tom’s stomach, and it gets him hard right away again. “See?” he says, gesturing downward towards his stiff cock. “I told you I’d still be good to go.”
Tom waves away the drying come pooled across his stomach. “Let’s get on with it then.”
Now feeling more confident, Harry easily slips his hand between Tom’s legs again. It’s so much warmer and wetter than before. Especially when he slips two of his fingers inside. Now, it’s like molten lava, pressure all around, squeezing down on him from all sides. He can’t imagine what this might feel like around his cock.
As he dips his fingers in and out, luxuriating in the feeling of softness and heat and slickness, a faint spark of an idea comes to him.
“We don’t have until the second coming of Merlin,” Tom snaps at him, arching his hips up to guide Harry’s fingers in deeper. He reaches down to pull Harry up by the shoulders.
“Wait,” Harry says. “I want to try something first.” He crooks his fingers inside Tom, fluttering a soft pressure through his fingertips.
And—there. Tom’s breath hitches. Harry presses upwards, harder, curling his fingers, stroking them towards the entrance with a newfound confidence.
“Ah, ah, fuck,” Tom gasps, biting back a moan.
Harry only needs to do this a few times more before Tom is shuddering underneath him again, and a gush of fluid spills out onto the sheets underneath him.
“God, that’s so hot, you just came all over my hand,” Harry murmurs, his voice rough with awe and arousal.
He’s left staring at his glistening wet hand like he couldn’t quite believe what happened. The bed is soaked underneath them, and he doesn’t think he can ever get enough of the sight. He thinks about how much wants to lap up every drop of delicious come that he can draw out of Tom’s body and swallow it all down. Next time, he tells himself.
He rolls on top of Tom and settles himself between Tom’s legs before Tom can snap at him again to hurry it up.
He sees Tom open his mouth to do just that—
“Shut up,” Harry says, kissing Tom, interrupting what he’s about to say. “Shut up. I get it, okay, you want to fuck.”
Tom only smirks at him.
Harry’s mind blanks out the next few moments due to sheer nerves, but he vaguely registers Tom guiding his cock to his entrance.
When he finally slips inside, it feels better than anything else he’s ever felt—far better than his own hand, and even a hundred times better than Tom’s hand had felt earlier.
Heat rushes through his entire body. It’s so good his heart might explode before he gets a chance to come for a second time, he thinks.
His hips thrust forward and then pull back, and he tries to be less awkward and mechanical about it, trying to remember what Sirius had told him about finding a rhythm.
It’s hard to get the hang of at first, but he thinks he’s worked up to a good pace when he hears Tom moaning softly underneath him and arching up to meet each thrust.
He notices Tom’s slipped a hand in between them and starts rubbing in circular motions, which increases the heat rushing through Harry’s body, seeing Tom get off at having Harry inside of him. “That’s so hot when you do that,” he murmurs. “I’ll learn how to do that for you too next time, I want to learn everything,” he promises.
Tom only clenches down around him in response, and Harry nearly loses his entire rhythm, crying out a choked moan. His vision goes entirely blank for a moment before Tom lets up on the pressure and he can move normally again.
“You’re trying to kill me.” Harry lets out a breathless laugh.
“Oh, if I were trying to kill you, you’d know,” Tom mutters darkly. Harry’s heart swells up in fondness for him.
He starts thrusting deeper, harder, more forcefully, trying to see how deeply he can push himself inside, and playing around with what angle he needs to use to draw those soft, pleased gasps out of Tom. He wants to crawl all the way inside and stay there forever.
When Tom comes, clenching tightly all around him, squeezing the very breath out of Harry, that’s all Harry needs to come as well, his thrusts increasing in force until the headboard starts banging against the wall behind them. He comes with a sweet, gratifying rush, filling Tom up as much as he can, pumping his release as deep inside of Tom as it will go.
He continues fucking his come deep inside of Tom even after he’s finished with his orgasm, even after everything feels incredibly sensitive.
After a few minutes, his cock is starting to feel somewhat raw from too much pressure and friction, and he feels Tom squirming a bit underneath him. But he doesn't want to slip out. He wants to stay buried in that perfect soft heat forever.
But then Tom starts to shove him off, with more force than necessarily, and Harry reluctantly pulls away and rolls off of Tom.
In his post-orgasmic daze, he barely registers Tom cleaning them up with freshening spells. When he finally returns to himself, he remembers something that his dad and Sirius had mentioned long ago.
A spike of blind panic shoots through him, and he sits bolt upright in the bed.
“Oh my god—Tom,” he says frantically, trying to grab for his wand even though he has no idea where it had ended up. “Fuck, oh fuck, Tom, oh my god, I’m so sorry. I forgot to use a contraception spell. And I was taught a really good one too, my godfather made sure I could cast it even while totally shit-faced!”
Tom looks nonplussed. “I suppose we’ll have to live on the edge then,” he says in a dismissive tone.
I’m too young to be a father, Harry thinks in a panic, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, drowning out all other sound.
Then Tom cracks a sly grin at him, his eyes crinkling in amusement. “You’re cute when you get riled up,” he grins. With an arm tucked up behind his head, he looks relaxed and at ease, more so than any other time that Harry can remember. It feels so intimate in a way that it makes Harry’s chest hurt. “Don’t worry,” Tom adds, “the hormone potions that Madame Pomfrey has me on include a contraceptive.”
Harry kisses the smirk off of Tom’s face. And then he kisses him again, and a few more times, for good measure. He’s sure Tom won’t stay here with him for much longer, given what he’d said earlier about being in the middle of brewing some complex potion, so he wants to get in a few last-minute snogs before Tom gets up and leaves him for the night.
Harry himself is too boneless and comfortable to move, so he makes a vague plan to sleep off his exhaustion for the rest of the night in the Room of Requirement, and make his excuses to his roommates tomorrow morning.
To Harry’s surprise, Tom instead snuggles closer, wrapping his arms tightly around Harry like he doesn’t plan to let go.
Harry feels Tom tapping his wand against the pillow behind his head. “I’ve set an alarm for an hour from now,” Tom explains.
“For what?” Harry asks drowsily, fighting to keep his eyes open.
“For us to go again.”
Harry’s already come twice that night so he doesn’t know how that could be humanly possible. “I’m not – er – I’m not sure if I can – well, you know...”
Tom gives a mocking huff against Harry’s sternum.
“You know what, never mind,” Harry mutters. “Sure.” He nods to himself, thinking that he’ll figure out some way, even if he has to use some type of charm on himself.
As he peppers light kisses across Tom’s forehead, he can hardly believe that this is real. He’s dreamed about this moment for years. It seems almost impossible to him that he’s here, finally here, with Tom in his arms. All the love that he’s felt for Tom over the years and that has built up and built up inside of him and feels like it’s swelling his chest so full that it’s about to burst out.
“We’re not dating now, by the way.” Tom’s sharp voice cuts in on Harry’s thoughts. “So don’t start getting any ideas, Potter. I don’t want to see flowers or any other disgusting shows of affection.”
“Sure,” Harry agrees, smiling to himself as he buries his nose in Tom’s perfect hair.
At least Tom has now acknowledged Harry’s existence—he’ll take that as a start. He was patient, so patient from a distance, for the last five years, and he can be patient for many more.
Harry’s love for Tom feels as enchanting as stars falling from the sky, as wild of a fever dream as snow on the beach. There’s no one that Harry can imagine loving more. He loves Tom with his whole heart, his whole soul—with an all-consuming devotion that feels more grounding than anything else he’s experienced in his life. He might be getting ahead of himself, but he can’t wait to tell his dad (and Uncle Sirius, too) the good news.
Harry’s last thought before drifting off is that he knows, more than ever, that he is definitely going to marry Tom Riddle some day.