Chapter Text
For a bird to be born, it must break its cradle from within before something else breaks it from without.
The smell of grass is sharp in the air, torn and bleeding distress. There’s mud under his nails, but Tom hardly even notices past the torturous, all-consuming heat in his gut. He holds his desire to submit in between his hands and chokes it into obedience. The blood in his mouth tastes like the sweetest wine, and he won’t let his efforts today be ruined by the weakness of instinct. A large frame covers his own, burning so fever-hot that its sweat curls into the crisp morning air like wisps of steam.
The omega of the house had already left for work.
Which had left their poor defenseless alpha behind, now a puppet on Tom’s strings.
A sharp, possessive scent thickens between them and long fangs press harshly against his neck. But Tom only smiles. The bond won’t take, so long as Tom doesn’t bite back, and he has no intention of doing so. He never will.
Pain tears into Tom’s neck, piercing and familiar, and he whines into the turf, body spasming with tight, agonized jerks. The pain is all-consuming. A high. Wipes the slate of his mind clean. Fuels a slick, dizzying arousal that flares even higher. He floats upon it, warmth spreading through his limbs.
His hole flutters, gushing out even more slick, ready to welcome a knot.
Victory, he thinks. Three weeks is a new record.
He bites his lip. First, to muffle a laugh, and then to stifle his cry as the alpha’s knot finally stretches him fully open – a glorious, heady ache. He nudges his hips back, thighs quivering, to welcome his newest father home.
When Hermione sweeps into the cafe, she smells like fresh cinnamon. She spots Harry with a quick glance over the shop and hurries over to his small table with a broad smile.
He stands and walks around to pull out the other chair for her.
“Congrats,” he offers with a cheeky grin. “Ron must be stoked.”
Hermione draws him into an affectionate hug, squeezing him tightly. Harry’s inner alpha had been running ragged all week from work and from life in general, but now it finally settles, relaxing into the hug. He basks in her scent, still so soothing and familiar after all these years.
She pulls back with a chuckle.
“Thanks, Harry. Ron is stoked, but he’ll actually be more upset that you got it right away. He bet me that you wouldn’t notice until at least five minutes in, but as you both know, I’m always right. There’s no chance you wouldn’t have noticed with such a sharp nose.”
“For better or for worse,” Harry concedes.
“Yeah. Remember how after you presented in Third Year, you immediately caught onto Zabini visiting the Hufflepuff dorms at night just off his scent alone? And the horrified look on his face?”
Zabini had been totally mortified. Harry smirks at the memory.
“Like it was yesterday.”
Hermione moves to sit, and Harry follows, picking up his drink again as he does.
“So. Do you know the gender yet?” he asks.
“Not yet. I think we’ll keep it a surprise this time around.”
Harry nods agreeably. It would drive Mrs. Weasley batty to not know in advance, but knowing her, she’d likely just quilt both a pink and a blue blanket to cover her bases. Maybe a third one, too, in case neither color suited the new baby.
Harry takes a quiet sip as he examines Hermione.
She looks so happy – glowing really – that it warms Harry’s heart. Now that they’re in their thirties, life is a comfortable rhythm. It’s nothing like their ragtag Hogwarts days when Harry and Ron had always been seconds away from detention while Hermione had her nose stuck in a book, ignoring every alpha that dared to look her way.
It’s been several months since they’d last seen each other properly, beyond a few quick conversations over Weasley family dinners, and Harry has missed Hermione quite a lot. He sees Ron one-on-one often, but Hermione’s schedule is so densely packed all the time that it doesn’t have room in it for lunch, most days.
Fifteen years ago, he’d have bet his broom that Hermione would never make room for children. He would’ve been wrong – thrice, apparently. Of course, Hermione’s career as a rising champion of omega rights and rehabilitation is thriving alongside her children. It’s made easier by the fact that Ron’s a bloody fantastic stay-at-home parent – even if leaving her alpha at home has plenty of people turning up their noses over how untraditional it is.
“How’s Ginny?” Hermione asks.
“Good. The season’s going great,” Harry replies smoothly. Perhaps his answer is a little too polished because Hermione frowns slightly.
“And you?”
“Also good.”
Hermione’s frown deepens. “She’s still traveling a lot, isn’t she?”
Harry nods stiffly, not liking the turn in their conversation.
“Yeah, well, it’s an important stage in her career,” he replies defensively. He doesn’t mean for it to come out this way but he can’t help it. Hermione doesn’t understand. “The Harpies are on an all-time winning streak. She’s extra focused. It’s a good thing. I’m really happy for her.”
“Are you telling me or trying to convince me?”
Harry’s eyebrows draw tight. “It’s been months since we’ve seen each other. Can we talk about something else?”
Hermione glares, unmoved.
“No. We can’t, actually.”
Harry scoffs. He sets down his drink with an upset clack. It’s not enough to deter Hermione though. Not after she’s gotten a whiff of his avoidant discomfort.
She just laces her hands and holds his gaze steadily.
Harry braces for the dressing down that he knows is about to come.
“You hate having this discussion,” Hermione says, “but I know how badly you want pups. Multiple pups. It’s not fair for Ginny to keep you waiting for so long. It’s been over ten years. You can’t both bury your head in the sand forever. As much as I loathe it, there is a biological window, and she’s nearing the point where, unfortunately, if you keep waiting, you may only get one. Are you really okay with that? Have you actually talked to her about what you want?”
“Why did you want to meet?” Harry asks sourly. “We both know that it’s not so you can judge my life choices.”
“Don’t just dodge the question,” Hermione scolds, looking pained.
“England is a favorite for the Cup this year, and another win would give her the all-time record. It’s important! You know that as well as I do. She’s been on fire, with her scoring record this season. Pups are important too, obviously, but so are her dreams. She wants to win. We both want it.”
“And what happens if she doesn’t win? Will your dreams wait?”
Harry doesn’t have a reply for that; he’s used all his best lines already.
The silence stretches between them, horribly awkward and taut.
“Look,” he says finally. There’s a thick knot of emotion in his throat he forces himself to speak past. “If Ginny is too old to carry, we’ll just adopt. She’s always been open to it. She’s just… sensitive about her designation. Rightfully so. Quidditch is one of the most alpha-dominated careers out there. Carrying is tough on the body, and she’s put so much work into staying in peak form. It’s just—” He sighs. “I’m just waiting for the right time to bring it up, alright?”
He stares at Hermione intently, willing her to drop this excruciating subject.
Hermione’s lips are set into a thin white line, but then she releases a huff. “Alright. Fine. I just hope you’ll take what I’ve said to heart.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Hermione rolls her eyes. “Don’t thank me yet. I have a new case. It’s a trickier one that I hate to put on you, but I don’t trust anyone else with him at this point.”
Harry uncoils his shoulders and focuses on steadying his pulse. This next topic won’t be easy either, but at least his feet aren’t being held to the fire anymore.
“Happy to help,” Harry assures.
Hermione pulls out a thick file from her document bag, and it smacks weightily onto the table.
Harry’s brows rise into his fringe.
“Your latest case kill a guy or what?” he asks, amused.
Hermione’s expression is grim. “No, but it was a near thing.
“Meet sixteen-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle. His last foster alpha practically mauled him. The omega husband found them knotted in their backyard and only called Omega Protective Services after he’d nearly lost his head trying to separate them. Nearly. To his own bloody alpha.”
She flips open the top of the file and spins it around for Harry to examine. On the first page, a pretty, brown-haired boy stares back at him. His smile looks a touch too tight at the corners, nervous, but the boy appears otherwise calm. His demeanor isn’t what makes Harry pause, however.
Photos often flatten people. Make them less than they are in life.
If the same holds true here, Harry thinks Tom might be devastating in person. Beautiful enough to topple nations, if nations were still toppled by such things.
His alpha hungers to see the boy for itself – to find out exactly how pretty he really is.
It’s not an appropriate thought, and a spike of shame follows right on its heels.
“Well fuck. That’s heavy.”
Still, Harry can’t help but stare at the picture for a moment longer.
Hermione nods, seeming unsettled. “Not the first time either. Tom had presented early with unusually strong pheromones. He’s been through several homes because every alpha he’s ever had has abused him.”
Harry grips his drink, stomach roiling uneasily.
Unbonded omegas and alphas need consistent exposure and care from a mated pair to keep their heats and ruts under control. Omega and omega pairings are exceptionally rare, so most unbonded omegas who have no homes are placed with foster families that have the far more plentiful alpha and omega pairing. It’s a common arrangement out of convenience, but results in a high incidence of abuse. One of the many aspects of their flawed system that Hermione is working hard to improve.
The same story with every family this kid has ever had… It’s simply awful.
“You want us to take him next?” he asks, already knowing the answer.
“Your pheromone resistance is in its own class. Even if it wasn’t, I would trust you with my life. You’d never touch him.”
Harry glances down at the file again. A quick skim shows that the kid – Tom, his name is Tom – has been through five homes.
Five.
The sheer consistency of the abuse is intolerable. Even though each of the previous alphas is serving out their sentences at correctional facilities, the punishments are lighter than what any decent human being ought to agree with – a failing across their society that is beyond Harry’s power to correct. He feels a growl building low in his chest and forces himself to squash it before he disturbs others in the cafe.
He’s upset. Naturally.
But managing his alpha instincts, the knee-jerk response, is a point of pride. It’s what makes him one of the good ones.
Hermione catches his grimace, and her face softens.
“You’re my first choice, and honestly, my only choice,” she says gently. “He just needs somewhere safe while Hogwarts is on break. Then he can find a bondmate of his own and the problem solves itself. He’s a very talented young man. I hear there are already alphas lining up for his hand, so you should only have him for the rest of the summer and then Yule.”
Harry knows that his heart is already set on helping… but he owes it to his wife to at least try to hold back. To be fair to her.
“I should talk to Ginny first. You know how she hates it. I mean, sometimes it feels like I’m still making up for the last time and—”
He sighs, slumping. Hermione already knows all of this. It’s not even Ginny’s fault. If anything, she’s been incredibly understanding in that she almost always allows Harry any foster case he wants. Omegas are very territorial by nature after all. But Harry’s feeling hopeful about this one. A couple months is barely any time at all.
“Of course,” Hermione chirps. “I can sympathize. If she says no, that’s perfectly within her rights. Just let me know what you decide ASAP. He’s been staying in a hotel for the past few days, but it’s best not to leave it for long. He’s pretty unsettled, as you can imagine.”
“Right,” Harry replies.
Tom Riddle.
Even from a photo, his innocent brown eyes seem to pierce Harry’s soul.
They meet on neutral ground. A park near their house.
Harry and Ginny arrive before the other pair, and so they wait on the pavement near the play area.
A crack splits the air, and Hermione appears at the street corner with someone else in tow.
She gives a jaunty wave. The other figure – tall, male, dressed in plain dark robes – trails behind. As they draw closer, anticipation pools at the base of Harry’s throat, tightening it.
“Ginny!” Hermione greets, stepping in for a quick hug. “It’s been too long.”
And as the pair chats, Tom steps into full view.
Harry’s previous train of thought screeches to a halt.
He had been right. About the picture.
It hadn’t done Tom any justice.
He’s breathtakingly gorgeous in the flesh – so much so thatHarry isn’t sure what he’s seeing is possible. It’s hardly even fair.
He cuts himself off before his thoughts can take an even more humiliating turn. He forces himself to look away, back at his wife, back at his friend. But not before Tom had caught him, warm brown eyes flashing with recognition.
Harry grimaces slightly, face warming. Not his best showing thinking about how stunningly attractive his potential foster son is within moments of meeting him – but if all goes well, he’ll have plenty of opportunities to do better.
Hermione provides a brief introduction and then excuses herself to observe from afar. This is to give them a chance to get to know each other more in private and for Hermione to make sure things are going well before she takes her leave.
Ginny is stiff. She’s doubly unhappy to be pulled away from practice for this.
Tom seems skittish, which Harry supposes is to be expected. His past experiences with alphas have been unpleasant.
Even though Hermione had warned him that Tom would be dosed to the gills with suppressants and scent patches, Harry still finds it disconcerting to smell nothing at all.
He reminds himself that it’s for the best. Tom would stay dosed for safety during his time at the Potter house. No scent, no heats, no danger. If any of their failsafes fall through, well, Harry has his own steel will to rely on.
He turns to Tom and pastes on his best welcoming face.
“Hi, Tom. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Tom refuses to meet his eyes this time. Or reply.
Harry soldiers on despite the silence. “I’m Harry. Hermione might’ve already mentioned but I’m an Auror.” He gestures to Ginny beside him. “This is my wife, Ginny.”
Harry pauses to give her a chance to introduce herself, but her expression is stony. The moment stretches, awkward. Tom glances between them warily.
“’lo ,” he greets quietly.
Harry resists the urge to shove his hands into his pockets, holding them firmly at his sides.
“You’ll reach the age of bonding in just a few months,” Harry continues, keeping his tone light. No one ever said this would be easy. In fact, Hermione had been very insistent about the opposite. “We’ll be able to provide a stable home for you until then. Ginny and I have fostered a few omegas before. You’ll have your own room. We hope that with time, it might even feel like home.”
Tom’s eyes flick up, holding Harry’s own for a strained beat. Harry can see his lower lip quiver, as if to speak, but then fall still. Then Tom turns to Ginny.
“Ginny. Oh. Ginny Weasley-Potter,” he says slowly. “Of the Holyhead Harpies?”
Ginny brightens, sensing a potential fan. “That’s me. Do you like Quidditch?”
Tom glances at Harry, eyes sharp and assessing – fear thinly veiled on his face. As if he’s trying to gauge Harry’s reaction – looking for permission to continue speaking to Harry’s omega – and it makes him feel sick. He’s seen this before, in some of the omegas out of bad homes. With the last boy it took a month before he finally stopped tracking Harry’s hands.
It still buzzes under his skin, tightening around his neck like a noose.
There’s no need to be scared of him.
He’s not like that—
Possessive. Irrational. A fucking beast.
But his anger must show because Tom shrinks. Immediately, guilt washes over him.
“It’s alright,” he says thickly. “You can answer.”
With a nervous bob of his head, Tom finally replies.
“I love Quidditch,” he admits, voice gaining confidence. “The Harpies are amazing this year.”
It’s enough. Any trace of Ginny’s previous frostiness melts away.
They launch into a rapid-fire discussion of the latest results, and then Ginny chatters excitedly about her predictions and preparations for the next several matches on her schedule.
After, Tom confesses, pink-cheeked, like it’s some grave secret, that he’s terrible on a broom. That he’s always wanted to improve but never had the opportunity besides a few introductory classes at Hogwarts. Ginny offers to help him so effusively she nearly hyperventilates.
It’s a relief. The fastest way to Ginny’s heart is on a broom. It’s half the reason he and Ginny had even gotten together, all things considered.
He gives Hermione a furtive thumbs-up.
She returns it with a pleased smile, her unwavering trust unmistakable even from afar, and then she apparates away.
Harry leaves Ginny to give Tom a tour through the house. The master bedroom and guest bedroom are both on the top floor, along with a second living room, which he and Ginny affectionately refer to as the ‘mini-Burrow.’ He hears them moving around upstairs while he paces around the kitchen, trying to settle on what to make for dinner.
Going all out on the first night might be too much for his own nerves, he decides.
“Hey!” he calls up the stairwell.
After a moment, Tom, then Ginny, peek over the top floor railing. Only their faces are in view.
“Tom, do you like pizza?” he asks less loudly.
Tom stares for several seconds, seemingly paralyzed. Ginny ruffles his neatly coiffed locks, murmuring too quietly to be heard. They disappear for a brief moment. Then Ginny’s face pops back over the railing.
“Yeah!” she yells down with a smile. “Pizza sounds great. Tom says he’s not picky, so our usual will do. But make it double, yeah?”
“Got it!”
Ginny vanishes again.
“Thanks!”
Her voice echoes.
Harry waits, still staring up, feeling strangely stuck.
It takes a moment to realize that he’s hoping that Tom might peek again.
Of course not. He’s being ridiculous. These things take time.
But it still stings.
He tries not to take it personally. As Ron likes to say: not all alphas and all that rot.
For the first few days, Harry comes home from the office and can hardly tell there’s a new addition to their home, let alone an omega.
Tom is wraithlike: only appearing in the kitchen to retrieve his meals and then holing up in his bedroom upstairs. The dark wooden door remains shut. Ungenerously, Harry thinks it makes the whole thing feel more like a coffin or a tomb.
If Tom isn’t in his room, then he’s shadowing Ginny on her errands outside like a lost pup.
He avoids Harry except for their shared dinner every night and lunch on the rare days he isn’t working. Harry still hasn’t been able to get Tom to speak a single word to him in the days since. Again, he knows it’s not personal.
Life settles into a routine. It’s surprising how easily it happens.
And even if their new addition remains aloof at each meal, Harry finds himself looking forward to it anyway. He’s never told Ginny, but he’s always thought their table is a bit lonely with two.
Two weeks after Tom’s arrival, Harry lies in St. Mungo’s recovery ward under a terrible wash of guilt over missing dinner. He sends Patronus bounding home to let Ginny and Tom know his whereabouts – ‘recovering, totally fine, be home soon, don’t wait up’ – and spares the rest.
He’d been knocked out cold and had only woken up moments before their usual meal time. A quick attempt at standing had proven the room spun far too much for that, so he’d sunk back onto the sterile white bed in defeat.
After he passes enough diagnostics to ensure that he won’t drop dead in the middle of the night, he’s Side-Alonged to his front garden by a cute but mildly handsy nurse. He waves them off with a smile and then burns the number that they’d slipped into his pocket, grumbling at the audacity when he’s clearly wearing a ring.
When he stumbles through the front door, he doesn’t bother with the hall light, not when his head already feels like it might crack in half, and shuffles into the dark kitchen for water.
He snags a glass off the drying rack, fills it from the tap, and drains it gratefully.
“Are you hurt?”
The voice comes from behind him – too close – and he nearly sends the half-filled glass in his hand flying.
“Merlin fuck,” he swears, spinning to squint into the gloom. A tall shape stands a few paces off – an intruder is his first thought, vision still swimming, and a chill running down his spine – before his eyes adjust to and the shape finally resolves.
“Tom?”
Harry hadn’t sensed him at all.
The young omega nods, stepping into the slice of moonlight streaming through the kitchen window. It illuminates his pale face.
An otherworldly sort. The kind that draws hands to touch it before the thought catches up.
The observation bubbles up without his permission, and he bites the inside of his cheek reproachfully. It’s not inappropriate, not exactly, but he’d still rather not think about how pretty Tom is considering the circumstances.
“Ginny already went to bed,” Tom says. “Early morning for her so I offered to wait instead.”
“Ah,” Harry says, with a weak smile.
It’s the most Tom’s said to him in one go, and Harry wishes he could simply feel glad about it instead of fighting down an irrational stab of disappointment. Ginny must have been very sorry to him and very grateful to Tom. The relationship between the two omegas is somehow already so much closer than anything Harry seems to share with either.
“Well then,” he blusters with more cheer than he feels. “Thanks for staying up on my account. I can manage from here – you should head up too.”
“You’re swaying.”
“A tad,” Harry admits, a touch more embarrassed. He sets a hand against the sink edge to steady himself. “Concussive blast. Put me through a wall. They sent me home with some potions so I should be fine by the morning.” Or the next day, less optimistically, he doesn’t say.
He hears a snort but opts to ignore it, bringing his glass back up for another swallow.
“Are you always this flippant about your own well-being?”
The note of disdain in his voice is unmistakable. Harry can hardly blame him – his Auror partners and friends have all badgered him about his hero complex for years.
Harry grins. “Yes. But you should see the other guy.”
For all the trouble they went to in cursing their hidden artifact, they won’t be leaving their bed for a month. It isn’t so much that he was heavy-handed as the fact that he’d just sent the spell most likely to stop them from taking out the rest of the block while panicking. Short of killing them.
Tom hums. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”
Harry’s mouth opens. It sounds sincere on the face of it and Tom’s expression is warm, but something about it sits wrong with him. Like the omega could say it to anyone, just like this, like he means it, at the drop of a hat. Whatever an alpha wants to hear – whatever keeps them interested enough to let him stay, or bored enough to look away.
Nausea churns in his stomach. Then he realizes he has no idea what to say about any of this either, and he’s instead making a fantastic impression of a mute fish with his mouth open.
He coughs, cheeks burning.
“Peachy,” his brain finally supplies. He can crawl up the stairs one step at a time if that’s what it takes.
But the smile that Tom returns is knowing.
“Then I hope Mr. Peachy won’t mind me making sure he gets to his room.” He steps closer with a proffered hand. “May I?”
Harry laughs humorlessly, knowing he’s been beaten.
“I suppose Mr. Peachy would be alright with it.”
Better to accept than humiliate himself with a struggle.
He places his hand in Tom’s and finds the hold unexpectedly sturdy given how skittish the omega’s been. It’s the first time they’ve touched too, he notes absently, and he’s sure that Tom’s aware as well.
But Tom says nothing, only leading him higher with patient and steadfast steps.
Before long, he’s back in his room, climbing in beside Ginny, who hasn’t stirred even once, and drops into a dreamless sleep.
After that night, the wall between them thins. It’s not much, but Tom stops shutting himself away and leaves his door cracked.
Which is how Harry spots it: the corner of a ritual circle sticking out from underneath a massive pile of books and notes.
He knocks lightly, and Tom turns around in his chair, shifting to block the stack from view. The motion is casual, and yet Harry has a strange sense that it’s precisely how Tom wants it to be taken. Something aches in him – that someone this young has already learned to hide himself so thoroughly. Always braced for what the world might see.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Tom says immediately. “I know I’ve made a mess of the room already but I swear that I’ll have it spotless before I—”
“Human transfiguration,” Harry says lightly.
Tom blinks, doe-ish. “Pardon?”
“The circle that you’re hiding.”
Tom’s eyes shine with an unreadable emotion. He draws a small breath, jaw trembling almost imperceptibly.
“I’m sorry,” Tom says again, more quietly. “It’s a summer project. A bit of a challenge in bad taste between friends, nothing illegal I can assure you.”
“It’s not illegal if you don’t intend any harm,” Harry agrees, even if that’s not what he had seen. “Difficult though. And dangerous. Can you show me?”
Tom’s expression tightens, although his friendly air doesn’t fade. “Is that a command?”
“It’s a question.”
After a beat, he pulls the parchment out from under the stack and hands it over without ceremony, going very still as Harry reads it with mounting astonishment.
“This is to change a designation. I don’t think you’ve managed it, doesn’t even seem possible to be frank, but—” he brings the parchment closer to his face, examining the inner set of runes, brows climbing into his hair. “Shite, with how much power is loaded into this thing you could even blow a designation away entirely. Make someone a beta. Tom, this is—”
“No,” Tom lies, but he can’t quite stop his eyes from widening.
“In fairness,” Harry consoles, “I wouldn’t have hidden this very well either. Who would expect a random mid-career Auror to understand such a complex ritual at a glance? With just a portion? But I think you’ll agree that it’s useful to be underestimated on occasion.”
“It’s not what you think it is,” Tom protests, more shrilly.
“No. I rather think it is. It’s stupidly Dark.” Harry snorts, voice wry. “And highly illegal.”
Tom goes quiet, knuckles turning white. “Alpha. I’m sorry. There must be something that I can do to make it up to you.”
Harry jerks, something pulling tight in his chest.
“What?”
No one’s called him that in years. Not with modern sensibilities treating it as gauche. Even knowing Tom’s only reaching for it to placate him, even hearing the hollow fear underneath it, some primal part of Harry still turns toward the word. Likes it.
“Please don’t bring me in,” Tom begs, eyes watering. “I’ll do whatever you want me to.”
“No,” Harry denies hurriedly. “Bring you in? Gods no. Far from it. I’m gobsmacked. I’ve known Unspeakables who’ve spent their entire careers chasing an idea half this brilliant. Besides, you have no clue how many terribly illegal things my friends and I got up to when we were young. Hermione invented a spell that could make an alpha’s bollocks fall right off if they pissed her off enough.”
Tom’s pleading expression fractures, mouth turning down.
“I don’t understand.”
“Did you mean to harm anyone with this?” Harry asks bluntly.
“No.”
“Then why apologize? What is there to make up for?”
“Oh.” The sound slips out of Tom, soft and unintended. Almost hurt. His surprise fades fast, but Harry hasn’t built a successful career on reading people for nothing. He passes the parchment back, and Tom accepts it with open disbelief, gaze returning to Harry with a peculiar new intensity.
“You’re not disgusted?”
Harry’s genuinely curious. “Should I be?”
Only then does he notice Tom’s wand has found his hand – summoned so smoothly Harry missed the moment entirely – though it hangs loose and unaimed, with his magic wild and unfocused around it.
The first thought that pops into Harry’s head isn’t concern but rather pride – Tom should know how to defend himself, and if he doesn’t, Harry would be glad to teach him.
“Alphas benefit,” Tom says, clipped. “Lauded. Lionized. Better than—” He stops, expression dark.
“Omegas,” Harry finishes.
“Yes.”
Harry can feel the staggering resentment beneath the word – alphas like you, and omegas like me – and he shakes his head, mouth unhappy.
“I don’t believe that I’m better than you. This is incredible work. Controversial, but so are most discoveries when they’re new. It’s certainly beyond anything that I could ever come up with. Being an omega doesn’t make you less, no matter what the rest of our rubbish society thinks.”
Tom’s expression doesn’t move, and something sad tightens in Harry’s throat. It isn’t hard to see why the words would be difficult to swallow. Too neat by half.
He wets his lips. “If anyone could change their minds though, maybe you could.”
A flash of incredulity crosses Tom’s face, and it emboldens Harry to keep going.
“I mean it. Anyone says anything that stupid to you, Tom, you should make them regret it, actually. In fact, I don’t doubt that you could. There’s no shame in taking advantage of what you were born with either. I’m not glad to be an alpha, but I’m not ashamed of using it. If everyone underestimates you, then use it. A world with only betas would fix a lot of this, I’m sure, but we’d lose something too.
“An alpha-omega bond is a beautiful thing sometimes. My parents had one and I’ve never known a love like it.” Never known one like it since, he doesn’t say. More wistfully, he continues: “They could even sense each other’s moods, no matter how far apart they were. Whenever my mum had an off day, my dad would conjure a bouquet of lilies and start serenading them like the love of his life – his singing was total shite, by the way. But he’d do it until my mum stomped up to demand that he shut up and dance with the real Lily instead.”
He falters, and the scene withers in his mind. He wrenches his gaze away.
“Or so Sirius tells me. I was too young to properly remember.”
His mum died in the line of duty, and that very same bond took his dad four months later.
Harry was barely two years old for either.
But he can’t resent the bond for it. Growing up knowing he had been born from a love so complete is something he wouldn’t trade, even considering what it had ultimately cost.
His own bond with Ginny isn’t anything special. He’s never said so aloud and never will; it hasn’t been a source of complaint. She’s been good to him, and he’s tried for her. It’s only that he knows that if she died first, he wouldn’t follow. He’d be wrecked. He’d never be the same.
But it probably wouldn’t kill him.
Sirius had told him once, years ago, that what James and Lily had was rarer than people like to admit, and that Harry shouldn’t hope. Not everyone would be lucky enough for that kind of match in the short span of their lives. He’d been furious about it at the time – refused to talk to Sirius for a week. But he understands now it was meant as a mercy.
There will always be a part of him that longs for it.
Someone who would always put him first.
He starts, abruptly self-conscious. “Sorry. You probably didn’t want to hear all that.”
Tom studies him with an odd expression, as if he finds Harry a novel specimen that he can’t place. It’s a crawling sort of attention that Harry’s only ever felt from wizards several times Tom’s age, and he has to suppress the urge to squirm.
Then he catches himself and feels a wash of cold shame. Five alphas before Harry. Nobody reads people this closely until reading them wrong has gotten them hurt. What Harry’s mind has just read as aggression is actually a survival skill a kid should never have.
Not even old enough to buy his own drinks, he thinks, berating himself. Just his overactive nerves on the fritz again. Nothing more.
“No,” Tom says eventually. “I understand.”
Harry waits, sensing the agitated buzz of Tom’s magic in the air, and leans against the bedpost to leave him room to keep going. Nothing comes.
It stings.
Of course Tom wouldn’t trust him with more than that.
Maybe in another life, if Harry had raised him, cared for him from the start, and shown him what it meant to be loved – maybe then he’d have said more. The world would have been a kinder place.
Maybe it isn’t too late.
Harry bites his lip, debating for a moment, and in classic Gryffindor fashion, he decides that it’s better to blunder into failure than stay too afraid to try.
“Alright, Tom.” He folds his arms and draws in a breath to steel himself. “I don’t ever expect you to call me your father or your dad or anything of the sort. I don’t even expect us to be close. Awful things have happened to you and they can’t just be erased. You have your own life and plans. I respect that. I’m not here to judge your choices as if I would do any better in your place. But I do hope— I do want to be someone for you.”
Tom watches him blankly, but Harry forces himself to finish out the thoughts that have been clawing at his ribs the past weeks.
“Maybe you could think of me more like a lame and boring and workaholic older brother, if that helps. It would mean a lot to me if we could have that. Someday. I don’t believe in talk and I don’t think you should either. But I just wanted you to hear it from my own mouth. And I’ll keep proving that I’m someone you can trust for as long as you need me to. Forever, if I must.”
The words ring into a long, frozen silence.
Had he gone too far? Too soon?
Tom seems stunned, but Harry can’t tell if it’s with disgust, or surprise, or something else happier. The awkward air pushes him to speak again.
“You don’t have to say anything back!” He draws a nervous hand through his hair as he fights the urge to keep babbling. Small comfort that Tom looks just as uncomfortable as he feels. A faint, sour note leaks into the air, and it rouses Harry’s alpha into an anxious rumble.
After several agonizing moments, Tom murmurs something too quiet to catch.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
Tom sniffs, straightening in his seat. “I said alright.”
“Oh.” Harry’s mouth curves, relieved. “Good. If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Harry’s words come out clipped, carefully skirting the last of that scent.
“Yes,” Tom replies stiffly.
The conversation is over, but Harry stays frozen anyway. Saliva pools on his tongue, and to his shock, his fangs have started lengthening at the slightest trace of Tom’s scent, even when it’s distressed. Faint as it is – too faint for him to catch the base components – it’s powerful. Meanwhile, Tom’s gone somewhere distant, his eyes nearly vacant. Lost in his thoughts.
It would be so terribly easy to close the gap. To get a better taste of it—
“Good talk,” Harry blurts, pulse pounding at the base of his throat. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Tom twitches, as if just remembering Harry’s there.
Harry, whose alpha surges up with glee, like a hound that’s finally caught a scent worth chasing.
“Yes,” Tom says slowly. “See you.”
Harry steps into the hall, horror and excitement tangled together in equal measure. He isn’t running, exactly, but putting distance between them right now seems like the wiser move. Gooseflesh climbs his arms as he goes.
That had only been a whiff, the barest whiff, and it had been—
He shoves his shaking hands into his trouser pockets and flees.
Tom misses dinner. It’s been several days since Harry had last seen or spoken to him outside of their brief pleasantries during meals, with the omega even frostier than before, as if Harry’s bumbling attempt at kindness had only thickened the gap between them.
He sighs at the two empty seats, picking at his plate. Ginny’s away for a match in Lisbon for the next few days, and everything in the fridge looks exactly as untouched as it had been when Harry finished cooking the night before.
Good odds Tom skipped lunch too, while Harry was at work.
He heads up to Tom’s room and knocks twice.
“I’m alright,” comes a hoarse, thready voice from inside, followed by a small, badly muffled cough.
Clearly not, Harry thinks, unimpressed.
“I’m coming in,” he says, pushing the door open.
A wall of sick scent hits him, bitter and acrid, with the faintest sweetness buried somewhere under the sweat and upset. His alpha growls, immediately displeased.
“No,” Tom mumbles, turning away from the hall light, but not quickly enough to hide the flush in his skin. Harry shuts the door and crosses to the bed, hand extending to Tom’s forehead to check his temperature.
The moment he brushes clammy skin there, Tom moans miserably.
“No,” he pants, half-delirious, shifting his face further into the sheets. Away from Harry. “Please. Don’t touch me. Not now.”
Harry pulls his hand away as if burned. Fuck. If only Ginny were home. His scent alone probably agitates Tom in this state.
“You’re sick.”
“Am not.”
“Pathological lying does seem to be something of a habit.”
“Sod off.”
Harry barks a surprised laugh. Tom takes great pains to always present himself as posh and cultured as possible, but it seems even that can’t survive a fever.
With a small flick of his hand, wand forgotten downstairs, he casts a cooling charm over Tom’s forehead.
“Wait here,” Harry says.
The look Tom awards him is venomous.
Harry returns to the kitchen briskly and gets to work, coming back a short while later with a laden tray: several potions, two glasses of water, and a bowl of soup.
Tom accepts the potions after examining their seals and takes the water without comment.
But he pauses before the soup.
“What’s in it?”
Harry blinks, momentarily surprised – Tom has never shown himself to be a picky eater at their meals, but maybe when he’s sick? Dutifully, he recites: “Chicken broth, egg noodles, carrots, yellow onion, garlic, celery, herbs. Salt and pepper.”
“What herbs?”
“It’s chicken noodle soup, Tom. The classic recipe. I didn’t realize I was taking a culinary exam.”
“What herbs?”
“Basil, thyme, parsley, and one bay leaf,” Harry replies, mouth twitching.
Tom narrows his eyes. “What do you want then?”
“Sorry?” Harry’s not sure he heard the question right.
“What do you want in exchange,” Tom hisses, curling tighter under the blankets until only his eyes show, “for taking care of me?”
“For you to get better?” Harry says, baffled.
“Oh, for—” Tom shoves himself fully under the bedding with an unhappy sound. “You cannot be a real alpha.”
“Er—” Last Harry checked, he’s got unbearable urges to hump things twice a year and does still pop a knot when the sex is good – but he doesn’t think that’s what Tom would like to hear. “I’m sorry?”
With an agitated huff, Tom throws the covers off and sits up to glare. But the effect is undercut almost immediately by a fresh round of coughing.
Harry watches, helpless, before instinct wins out over his better sense. He sets the soup on the bedside table, sits beside Tom, and starts rubbing soothing circles along his damp, overheated back, just as his own godfather used to when he was small and sick.
Eventually, the coughing subsides.
When Tom lifts his head, his expression can only be described as wounded. Harry’s stomach drops, bile rising with an instinctive panic: had he done something wrong?
Then he remembers and jumps back.
“You asked me not to— Gods, I’m an idiot, sorry. Wasn’t thinking. I’ll go. Can take the soup too, if you don’t want it.”
“No,” Tom blurts, voice cracking. Then flushing, barely above a whisper. “I want it. Just. Can you — have a bite first?”
“It’s not dosed with anything,” Harry realizes, aghast. “Have other homes drugged you?”
Nothing in the file said as much, but Tom’s expression blanks.
It’s a reaction that’s unsettled Harry this whole time, but he finally understands. It’s really one of Tom’s most honest tells. Probably his oldest, appearing when he’s uncertain. And when he’s scared. The two of them, both stumbling through a charade of family that they’ve never really had.
Harry had guessed what his previous families had done, and he’d guessed right – although he feels no satisfaction in it at all. Something in him settles then. His unfair suspicion, maybe. Or his worry Hermione made the wrong choice.
Tom’s damaged, and none of it is about Harry at all.
Patience and understanding are what Tom needs, and Harry will be glad to provide in abundance.
Without hesitating, he spoons a generous serving into his own mouth. The flavor is mild and comforting and does nothing to soothe the fury building in his chest. If he ever crosses paths with any of Tom’s past alphas, he isn’t sure he’ll manage to stop himself from killing them on the spot.
“I’ll have it,” Tom says, after a moment, catching the sudden turn in Harry’s mood. “Since you insist.”
Harry nods, relief doing little to cut the awkwardness in the room. He watches, breath held, as Tom takes a cautious sip from the bowl. After a long moment, when the soup doesn’t kill him – or do anything worse – he looks up.
“Thank you.”
His tone remains neutral, but Harry takes it as a job well done.
“You’re welcome,” he replies, just as gently. “You can leave the bowl on the nightstand. I’ll be back every few hours with more water. Shout if you need anything.”
Tom bobs his head once, and Harry refreshes the cooling charm over Tom’s forehead before he steps away and goes back into the hall. He leaves the door cracked but shuts off the hallway light before returning to his own dinner with an odd little bounce to his step.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so impossible after all.
They’ve gathered in the living room after dinner, a few nights later, each winding down in their own way.
Ginny’s also home for the weekend, and she lies on the sofa with her feet tucked under Tom’s thigh, already half-asleep over her training notes. Her auburn hair fans loosely over her shoulders.
Tom sits at the other end with a book open in his lap, well beyond the scope of Hogwarts’ curriculum. Something about Mesopotamian sacrifices that promises to be equal parts dry and revolting. Harry, meanwhile, has the armchair and a spread of case files that have been bothering him all week.
Still, it’s a comfortable sort of quiet, with only the soft whisper of pages turning and a crackling fire.
The top sheet of Ginny’s notes slips from her arms and falls to the rug.
It startles her awake.
“Right,” she announces, unfolding from the sofa. Tom floats the escaped page back onto her stack. “Early Portkey. Don’t stay up too late, you two.”
“Travel safe,” Tom says.
“Night, Gin,” Harry says.
She drops a kiss at Harry’s temple on her way past and vanishes upstairs.
Harry’s attention returns to his case.
“You don’t have to stay,” Tom says, after a beat.
“I know. These smugglers won’t catch themselves.”
“You don’t need to lie either.”
“I’m not,” Harry replies, unbothered, jotting a note in the margins of a report. But, as the quiet resettles stiffly, he sets his quill down and turns his focus to Tom. “Trust isn’t easy, I know. You have a lot to be angry about, I know that, too. I’ve seen plenty of awful, more than enough for one life, and it’s not something I can forget.”
Tom doesn’t reply, absorbed – or pretending to be – in his book on grotesque rituals.
“I’m glad you’re here, and I promise you’re safe.”
The fire crackles again, but Tom still doesn’t argue. Harry picks up his quill and resumes writing.
“I mean that. Truly. I’ll do everything I can to keep it that way.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tom’s expression finally shift. The new one he wears is not quite vulnerable, but Harry thinks it’s not particularly brave either. It is a very controlled nothing. Despite how it unnerves him, he offers a reassuring smile before pulling a few files back in his lap, giving Tom room to sit with whatever doubt he’s working through.
Harry doesn’t need Tom to like him, but he hopes Tom believes him.
It takes him some time to fully return his attention to the case, memorizing routes through Manchester he’d forget within a month of closing it out.
When he finally glances back up, the omega is gone.
Ginny gives him a knowing look as he makes his way to his side of the bed.
“Someone’s happy,” she says.
“Am I?” Harry asks, surprised by the half-formed smile that he hadn’t noticed lifting one corner of his mouth. Then he shrugs as he slides under the covers. “Suppose I am. Making progress, y’know?”
Ginny hums sagely. “Good. I was worried for a minute there that you two would still be tiptoeing around each other the whole time I’m traveling.”
“Traveling?”
“For the Cup?” Ginny raises a brow.
Settling into his spot, Harry abruptly realizes her meaning.
“Oh, shite. That’s tomorrow?”
Ginny nods. In the run-up to the Quidditch World Cup, she’ll be away more often than she’s not.
Harry groans. “Where did the time go?”
“I’ve only been prepping all month,” Ginny says, expression amused. “Babe, are you alright? I swear you weren’t this much of a prat when I married you.”
“Sorry,” Harry says, chagrined. “Didn’t mean to lose track, just—”
“Just Tom, and work, and — yes, I know. It’s fine. I love you anyway.”
Harry relaxes into his pillow with a relieved snort. “Must be rough.”
“Eh, I’ll live. Besides, I’m leaving you to be a single parent to our not-kid for three weeks. Makes me the deadbeat parent between the two of us.”
Harry’s stomach does a sudden swoop. “Do you really need to go?”
He and Tom had only just—
“Afraid so,” Ginny says, with an unsympathetic laugh, as if it’s somehow Harry’s fault that he and Tom had gotten off on the wrong foot, and not the fault of every alpha who’d hurt him before. ‘Guardians’ very much like Harry, and yet, very much not.
Then he thinks of how desperate Tom had been to hide his sickness, searching for a trap in Harry’s every move. And how Tom turned toward the slightest mote of kindness like a flower to the sun.
It makes Harry more determined than ever to prove that good alphas exist.
A family that can care for Tom exists and, not only that, it’s here.
Ah, hell, there’s no helping it, is there? He wants to do everything he can to make it so. Each time that they’d taken in a foster omega, Harry had always promised himself that he wouldn’t get attached. They’re Hermione’s stopgap. The kids would never stay for long, and it’s for the best, because they would find an even better family than the half-formed thing they could offer.
Tom is different. Harry had gone and gotten himself attached.
He drags a tired hand over his face. “Merlin help us all.”
Tom sits at his desk in the dark for a very long time. Sits there long after both of his newest foster parents have fallen asleep.
Ginny, he dislikes.
Harry, he hates.
He didn’t need to show him. His wand had been in his hand the whole time, and it would have taken one word to pluck the parchment back out from the alpha’s memories. A tidy theft, hardly anything. But then Tom had wanted to see – had wanted to know.
Weak, weak, weak, screams a shrill voice inside.
The soup. He could have knocked away the bowl. Could’ve gotten on his knees and begged.
Tonight, he lingered when he could have left.
Sentiment, fetid and foul, curls through him like smoke. He thinks of what might be left to hatch in another bird’s nest, too large and too ugly to be anything but wrong, and yet…
Soft. Helpless.
A dependent thing, before the cruel press of reality hardens innocent instinct into something else.
He sits with two fingers pressed to his pulse until it finally slows into a rhythm he knows.
Tomorrow then. In the morning, it ends.