Chapter Text
There are many perks to having Dark Lord Voldemort as a pet and roommate.
Harry finally gets to go on all sorts of trips that the Dursleys would never have allowed for one, from camping in forests and mountains to sailing across open seas. Armed with an invisibility cloak and the mightiest of wizards, there is nothing in the whole wide world that poses a great enough threat to stop Harry from venturing wherever he wants. Holidays transform from fearful times at the Dursleys to occasions to immensely look forward to, thrilling adventures awaiting.
Secondly, the wizard’s return to life brings connections that Harry profits from. Not that Tom allows him to attend any meetings with the gathered followers, but they do have outcomes that are clear gifts (even if his friend pretends that they’re not by dropping information as casually as news of the weather). Like how the Malfoys upped and moved to France in a hurry, Draco enrolling in a place called Beauxbatons. Or how various packages turn up from rich folks Harry has never spoken to, carrying books and potion ingredients that are hard to come by due to being downright illegal.
The years roll by peacefully once Harry has made plausible enough excuses as to why he once more has a new cat in tow (claiming Sir Dauntless fell ill and is being taken care of by Mrs Figg). Important events such as new Defence teachers coming and going only touch Harry’s life tangentially and are little more than a perfect excuse to demand Tom teach more. The one in second year was a joke ultimately traumatised by a Boggart he couldn’t defeat, whereas Harry avoided the one after that because he didn’t want to come into the crossfire of speculation about who stole Madeye’s magical eyeball on the very first night (the culprit being Tom, who did not take kindly to having a teacher who could look through walls and spy on their illicit business in the Alchemy classroom).
As he grows out of being a child and firmly settles in his teenage years, Harry gains a reputation for being kind yet quick to anger, studious yet fun to be around on the Quidditch field. And finally, hopelessly attached to the sphynx cat he’s hardly ever seen without.
Which brings Harry to a bit of a dilemma when an event crops up that would see them separated for an entire evening.
Hogwarts has been dressed to the nines in icicles, holly wreaths and enchanted snow. Some of the corridors give the feel of stepping into a wintry forest as Hagrid dragged far more trees in than usual to impress the guests of honour that have arrived for the Triwizard Tournament. Not that Harry is particularly interested in the event. He’d left minutes into the first task because the dragon’s roaring was too much on his cat’s sensitive ears. Now as well, attending the announced Yule Ball sounds more like a bothersome chore than the exciting opportunity so many of his peers treat it as.
“Why did you insist we stay for the holidays, we could be having a splendid time in Privet Drive with the two of us,” Harry grumbles. It’s very much not a whine. Whining is a privilege reserved for spoiled cats.
Tom doesn’t look impressed by the complaint, busy licking his front paws and cleaning his ears with them. The cute sight distracts from the annoyance far too effectively.
“Harry! Already done with your potion?” Professor Slughorn booms, not unfriendly. It widens Harry’s tunnel vision to the rest of the classroom with its steaming cauldrons and herby smell.
“Our potion,” Dora mutters, too quiet for Slughorn to pick up on as their teacher walks over to inspect their work. Harry’s friend had taken out her sketchbook the minute they’d finished and is creating an artistic depiction of bat wings and lichen, two of the ingredients used in brewing today. Over the years, the walls of the fourth-year dorms have slowly been taken over by drawings. Vincent had tried to be mean about ‘the scribbles’ once and been hexed into oblivion by Blaise and Harry. As thanks, Harry had received a beautiful portrait of Tom that now proudly hangs above his headboard.
Slughorn blathers on about how the colour is perfect and how proud Lily would be. Between Moody, Dumbledore and Slughorn, it’s getting real irritating how many professors involve Harry’s parents in conversations. Whenever it happens, there’s this sting of guilt over helping their murderer and tolerating their traitor, which is not helpful. The dead should have no say over the path the living take.
Thank Merlin that the newest Professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts is under their control and has been warned against uttering a single word about it.
Mood having worsened and not being up for chatting, the jabs Blaise and Dora make after class for once again talking to Tom aloud ‘as if he’s human’ don’t land as humorously as they normally would have, causing Harry to snap: “You’re to blame, you know! If you two hadn’t been so obsessed with this upcoming ball and ‘embracing magical tradition’, I’d be taking the train home tomorrow! Maybe I still will!”
“Whoa, it’s not as if we’re forcing you,” Blaise answers, raising his hands and eyebrows. “What’s this suddenly about? Not yet having a date?” Lowering his voice and shooting a glance at their classmates nearby, the boy mutters: “Just ask Millie, I know she’s dying for you to ask her.”
The statement is confusing enough to break the tight-strung tension. “What? Why? She’s barely spoken ten words to me since she accused me of ‘abandoning’ Sir Dauntless.” The other two exchange looks that Harry fails to read the meaning of. “What?”
“Just ask her.”
But Harry doesn’t want to ask Millicent to go to the ball with him. In fact, none of the girls are appealing options, which bothers him more the clearer it becomes that everyone expects they should be. The thought of twirling around with anyone, be it stranger or friend, feels wrong. That evening, using the talking board in the Alchemy classroom, Tom unfortunately won’t let the topic go either.
‘Whatbothersyouso? Greatopportunity.’
“It’s… yeah, but- It’s not what we usually do. Sure, making friends with the students from the other schools could be helpful in the long run, but in the moment… argh, I don’t know, Tom! I can’t even dance, for one!”
He does know. The inability to dance is the flimsiest of excuses. How could he enjoy four whole hours of an event from which his best friend is excluded?
‘Gostag’
He sits down on one of the dusty tables and defensively crosses his arms. That Tom is clearly unaffected and insisting he go, one way or another, hurts. Does the thought of Harry having fun dancing and chatting (or whatever people are supposed to do at balls), without him, not cause the slightest bit of reluctance? Does his best friend not get that same uncomfortable, borderline painful aching in his stomach when apart? Is that the real reason why some of the Death Eater meetings had lasted hours too long?
Does Tom not miss him?
Trying and failing to swallow down a lump in his throat, Harry makes a couple of awkward noises, then jumps to his feet to start pacing. Upon catching his breath again, a flare of vindication clouds common sense. So, Tom doesn’t care? Fine. It’s not like all the days they spend with each other mean something, right?
“I won’t go stag,” he snaps, embarrassment about his hope for a smidge of jealousy lending barbs to his tongue. “Being the only bloke to go to the ball without a date would make me stand out far too much. No, just you wait, I’ll ask the prettiest girl in Hogwarts, and we’ll have a grand time.”
Tom looks unimpressed and unconcerned, tail pointed high and curled elegantly as he walks across the board to spell out ‘Good’, which drives another dagger into Harry’s chest.
The snag in that plan is not having the slightest clue about what supposedly makes a girl pretty. Most of them actively grow out their hair and flip or twirl it when trying to appear flirty asking around about the ball, so that must be a factor. The ones who play Quidditch are also pretty popular, which does make a bit of sense as they’re not only highly skilled but also muscular in build. From bragging among boys in the dorms, he additionally gathers that it’s extra fancy to get a date with a girl who is less ‘reachable’, meaning older, from a different House, and not in one’s regular friend group.
No-one said that he cannot use connections from a friend in another House to score said date, though, so Harry is quick to ask Neville and Hermione about whether anyone from the Gryffindor Quidditch team doesn’t have a dance partner yet. As it turns out, only Katie Bell is already taken, so Harry rushes after the other two Chasers (the irony not lost to him) who are on their way to the Quidditch pitch for practise together after breakfast.
As he stutters out a ‘would you go to the ball with me,’ he is met with a bit of confusion from the girls, who giggle until Angelina asks: “Which one of us?”
Having learned enough social cues by now to realise that ‘Doesn’t matter’ won’t be an acceptable answer, he blurts out “You,” on a whim.
She smiles politely, shaking her head. “Sorry Harry. I’m waiting for Fred to finally get off his lazy arse and ask me. If he doesn’t until the afternoon before the ball, I’ll smack a Bludger at his head and then ask him out once he wakes up in the Hospital Wing.” Then, she elbows Alicia. “However, someone was thinking of going solo if no guys had the guts to ask before ‘last minute desperation’ sets in.”
Alicia’s cheeks turn a shade darker than they already are. “That’s a perfectly acceptable standard. It’s much better to go alone than to be a pity date.” With a huff, she looks Harry up and down as if appraising a new broom. “At least you had the guts to ask someone, even if it wasn’t me. I feel like half of the courageous boys in Gryffindor can learn something from that. Would you take me as your date, Harry?”
“Oh! Errr, yeah, that’d be wonderful!” he grins, not disappointed in the slightest as he really hadn’t cared. “Thanks so much for giving me a chance!” Thinking back on how the other Slytherins had compared this event to their own stylish and elaborate balls, going on and on about etiquette and trivialities, the teen says: “I bought green, plain dress robes at Madam Malkin’s last summer, but it’s not too late to order another set if something else would match your outfit better. Your call.”
“You hooked a gentleman,” Angelina teases her friend, who looks impressed.
“I can work with green, no need to break your bank for this ball. I think it’s ridiculous that they mandated everyone buy dress robes up front, before telling us it was for Yule. I’ll need to douse mine in warming charms to not freeze in the hallways.”
Harry is thankful for that tip, for when the evening of the ball rolls around and he goes to meet Alicia at the Kelpie statue near the entrance to the dungeons, everyone’s breaths are visible. He’d taken care to clad his furless cat in warming charms since the start of October, but staved off the cold with thick cloaks and blankets himself to not pointlessly waste energy. The dress robes don’t come with a cloak and are of too fine a thread to pair with a regular one, or so his friends claimed.
“You were actually telling the truth, you did get a date other than Millie,” Blaise mutters when spotting a waiting Alicia. “Wow.”
‘Wow’ is a good description: the Gryffindor is draped in layers upon layers of semi-transparent light blue with a split train similar to quidditch capes that makes it appear as if she has folded fairy wings. Even Harry can appreciate that it looks good. Once she joins their group, they make for a fetching double date: Harry and Alicia in blue and green, Blaise and Dora in complementing black and silver – the latter having gone all out, this being the first real opportunity to show off formal wear that is closer to a dress than a robe.
Harry would have snapped back with an ‘I told you so’ if his thoughts weren’t focused on a memory of Tom, who’d been napping on their bed and once again not looked as if the separation is of any trouble at all.
Harry quickly discovers that he should have taken up Blaise’s offer of dance lessons. Alicia thankfully isn’t any more gifted, so after two songs filled with tripping and trampling on each other’s feet, they decide to ditch the dance floor and wolf down food while looking at more talented pairs twirling by effortlessly.
“Guess we should both stick to the skies, eh Seeker boy?”
“Are you sure you want me up there?” Harry jokes, giggling over a punch that he suspects to have been spiked. Probably by the Weasley Twins. “Last match we played-“
Alicia pulls a face. “Oi, no bringing up competition. Stick to our rules, Potter. My teammates are giving me the side-eye as is, bringing someone from the Slytherin team. Only Angelina’s evil eye keeps Fred and George in check. And you can bet that if Wood still attended Hogwarts, he’d have handed me a shovel and told me to start digging my grave.”
The wound of missing Tom does not heal, but the Yule ball being fun slaps a plaster on it that sticks for about an hour. During that time, he catches up with some friends (Argus is the only one truly having a good time as he was allowed to bring Mrs Norris, Hermione is enjoying a dozenth dance with Viktor Krum, and Ron is brooding alone in a corner for some reason the boy refuses to talk about) and joins Alicia on the dance floor once more when a wilder song comes on that they can both hop to without rhyme or rhythm.
Eventually, the dazzling lights reflected in a thousand ice crystals and the booming noise becomes overwhelming, so Harry follows a stream of fresh air out of the Great Hall, surprised to find that the Hogwarts grounds have been made part of the Yule ball. A beautiful rose garden has been planted in the courtyard and beyond. Tall, flowering hedges, statues, and twisting pathways are lit up by swarms of fairies. Had this been announced beforehand, Tom could have wandered the grounds to meet up and-
No, that would have been incredibly selfish. Even with warming charms, the cat is uncomfortable being outside this time of year, let alone when having to trod through snow. And snow there is in abundance: covering stone benches and capping the hedgerows. Harry is surprised when rounding a corner and spotting a fountain that has not been frozen over.
Coming across flirting couples at every turn, he wanders further and further into the garden until at last spotting a tucked-away, empty bench to sink down upon. He doesn’t bother dusting the snow off, for the stone is sure to be similarly cold and wet. Filling his lungs with sweet, crisp air, Harry tips his head back and closes his eyes, enjoying the sound of the wind and hushed chattering.
“Mreow.”
Blinking away the snowflakes that cling to his eyelashes, Harry gawks at the spot of bench right next to him - previously empty, now turned into a pedestal for a perfect statuette of a cat with skin as white as the falling snow and eyes the colour of a brightly blooming rose. Perfect, until an involuntary shiver ripples through cold skin.
“Tom! You- Oh Merlin, come here!” Harry says, reaching out for his best friend with the intention of covering the cat with his sleeves. Fingertips miss his feline companion by an inch, as Tom gracefully jumped out of reach, paws sinking into two inches of snow. “What are you- Hey!” he shouts when Tom comically bounces away. Without questioning it, Harry follows snowy pawprints, now and then catching a glimpse of a whip-like tail rounding another corner. A wide rose arch marks the sudden end of the garden, Tom’s trail going in a straight line across the grounds in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.
Casting a nervous glance over his shoulder, Harry judges that due to the hedges and everyone celebrating either in the maze or in the Great Hall, none should be able to see him leaving. With another deep breath, he wades through the snow, ignoring how his muscles start protesting halfway or how the warming charms are starting to fail, cold seeping into his boots.
It’s worth it. It would have been worth a thousand worse pains, for when he passes the treeline, it’s not a cat he is greeted by. Not entirely.
“I-isn’t this dangerous?” the teen whispers, wide eyes glued to elongated limbs that are clad in the thinnest of silk robes. Bare hands and feet that end in claws look far too cold to be exposed to the snow. Harry stumbles forwards, reaching out to catch freezing fingers and breathe on them in hopes of transmitting some body heat. Since resurrecting, Tom had used his humanoid form only twice at Hogwarts, and those had both been emergencies in which they’d needed to communicate quicker than could be achieved via the talking board.
“It is Midwinter,” Tom murmurs, an underlying purr in his voice that never fails to make Harry feel safe, turning his insides into mush. “Everything in this forest has retreated to their dens, and all who live in the castle are busy celebrating. A perfect opportunity to talk undisturbed in a more convenient way than usual. How was your… date…?”
Able to read Tom in a manner that he cannot with other people, Harry picks up on the sharp, forced edge. It piques his curiosity. Or rather said, his entire consciousness zooms in on it, tries to analyse the tone from a multitude of angles. A short hiss from his friend is the only warning he gets about having gripped Tom’s hands too forcefully. “Ah, Sorry! The date – errr – wasn’t a disaster. My dancing was atrocious, but so was hers, so no hard feelings.”
“Truly? Dancing isn’t that difficult.”
Harry snorts, raising his chin to meet scarlet eyes that hold too much mirth at his expense. “Nothing is difficult for you. We all know you’re amazing at everything.” In an epiphany that is accompanied by the thundering of his own heart, Harry says: “I bet I’m so bad at dancing that I’d even fail as your student.”
Tom’s lazy grin slides away, is replaced by a critically appraising gaze and a smidge of hesitance. Then:
“Let it not be said that Lord Voldemort cannot teach the worst dancer in the world to stride across a ballroom with deserved confidence.” In one fluid movement, Tom has rearranged their limbs and adjusted their grips, Harry’s brain fogging up when his right hand finds itself placed on a jutting hipbone. His heart seems to be lodged in his throat all of a sudden, beating frantically.
They’re close. It’s nothing new as they spend plenty of time hanging out or sleeping in bed together even as humans during holidays, as best friends do, but Harry feels there’s a different weight to it this time. They’ve snuck away into a forest after dark, the puffs of their breaths mingle in the wintry air, and Tom practically glides over twisting roots and patches of glittering snow as he pulls Harry along, softly giving instructions of ‘square your shoulders’ or ‘follow my left foot with your right, that’s it’.
‘He should have been my date’ Harry thinks in a daze. He’s about to voice it aloud when the magical moment of whirling around is broken, Tom stepping away with a last, formal bow.
“You should head back to the castle before you are missed.”
“I’ve been at the party long enough. I’ll head back to the common room, so you might as well join me.”
Tom dips his head in quiet acknowledgement. “An excellent idea. I need rest after this evening.”
Unwilling to go just yet, Harry reaches for Tom’s hand again, entwining their fingers as he makes a questioning noise.
“I briefly met with my closest followers near Hogsmeade to impart words of wisdom for the upcoming year and to remind them of the power I can grant them. A winter solstice celebration during which I gave them a taste of magic that will ensure that in my absence, none get any strange ideas about the pecking order.”
“If I were to ever join you for one of those meetings, where would I rank in that pecking order?” he asks out of genuine curiosity.
“If anyone dared to peck you, I would rip their hearts out right then and there,” Tom assures with a disarming smile and a caress to Harry’s flaming cheeks. “Naturally, you are above all of my servants.”
When the man changes into a cat and jumps onto a narrow shoulder demanding to be carried back to the castle, Harry wonders whether it’s because he’s a friend or just the highest-ranking servant.
The cold no longer bothers Harry as they make the trek back to the castle, going around the rose garden until reaching the nearest entrance to the castle. Mentally, he’s already in the dorms, thinking of how they’ll spend the rest of the evening in their cozy bed, chatting the night away. At the halfway mark, however, a huddled-over figure that is quietly crying in a lone staircase makes those plans pop.
“Hermione?” Harry rushes to the girl’s side, ignoring how claws dig into his shoulder in protest, as he cannot simply walk past a friend in need. “What happened?” Mere minutes ago, she’d been laughing and dancing. “Was Krum rude to you?”
“Viktor?” she asks in a shrill voice. “No, no, he was absolutely perfect. But then Ron just had to go and- and- ruin it.” A tear-stricken, puffy face lifts from shaky arms to show how fury swims in Hermione’s eyes. It’s scary enough that Harry is unwilling to prod the issue with more questions.
In his opinion, talking about it is less effective than taking the obvious way to improve the situation. There is only one effective remedy to sadness. Gently plucking Tom from his shoulder, he whispers to the cat: “Go and find him.”
Tom blinks once, then speeds off into the darkness. What follows are painfully awkward, far too long minutes in which Harry pats Hermione’s back as she leans onto his shoulder. Salvation is only moments away though, and arrives in form of two pairs of glowing eyes when Tom returns with Hermione’s ginger hero in tow.
Tears finally stop flowing when Hermione notices Crookshanks. The Half-Kneazle may not be one of Harry’s favourite cats due to a short-lived feud with Tom last year, but in this touching moment, the boy would like to give the beast a smooch for rushing to his owner’s aid. As the mountain of fur climbs into Hermione’s lap and starts purring, a weak smile finally graces the girl’s face again.
“Mreowwwww!”
“I need to go” Harry whispers, glancing over to where Tom is pacing impatiently, looking like he might murder both Hermione and Crookshanks if they take up any more of their precious time.
So engrossed with their respective cats are both teens that neither notice the metallic green beetle that crawls out of Hermione’s hair and takes flight.
