Chapter Text
Tom has never liked the month of December. He doesn’t like the cold, the slippery crunch of snow beneath his feet, or the dreary clouded skies that roll in as winter fully takes hold over the landscape. He’s also never understood why so many seem to delight in it as the seasons change over.
It’s not just about the weather either. It’s the way people often go out of their way to act positively chipper and kinder to one another overall as yuletide steadily approaches. He always saw it as just that, an act which they put on to cover up that hollow pit within that surely everyone must feel deep down, the one that always seems to yawn wider as the natural flora and fauna around them dies off or goes into hibernation, as if the world were finally showing off its true dulled colors instead of the flashier false hope of blue skies and fresh greenery that represent the warmer months of the year.
He always thought that, until Harry Evans smiled at him against a bright backdrop of pure white that stretched before them and behind them as they walked back to school from the train station together. He’d just made some clever comment that Harry laughed at, but quickly forgot whatever it was he had said as he glanced over at the omega and suddenly realized this blank canvas provided by the snow was actually the perfect background upon which to highlight those pink spots of color on Harry’s nose and cheeks, brought on by the chill outside despite their warming charms. And it made his vivid evergreen eyes stand out even sharper, like deep-shaded pines standing untouched in the middle of a sunlit forest.
For the first time in his life, Tom feels like he actually gets why some people seem to stay in a perpetual good mood even in December. This feeling expands tenfold on Christmas when Harry finally responds positively to his advances and reciprocates them.
He would almost be tempted to deem it a Christmas miracle, were it not in fact the much hoped-for result after months of careful planning and maneuvering to bring them to this point. Like, for example, making sure no one else in their house would be staying at Hogwarts over the holiday break (when there often ends up being at least one or two others they would still have to share the common room with normally), just so he can finally corner the omega while he’s truly alone and has his guard down almost completely for once.
Or like convincing him to wear a corsage on their first formal date which serves as a signal to everyone else that Harry has officially accepted Tom’s bid for courtship and affirms their status as a couple. Harry’s initial nonplussed reaction to this symbolic token confirmed a long-held suspicion of his that the young omega would not be well-versed at all in the ways of pureblood high society, despite the rampant speculation and gossip circulating around that he’s secretly a Potter bastard—or as the more popular version of the theory goes, the son of a disgraced Potter squib who was scrubbed from the family tree and exiled, the supposed “muggle” father who spirited his family away to Australia conveniently right before Harry would have turned eleven and should have started his first year at Hogwarts.
Tom really couldn’t care less whether there may be any truth to those rumors or not. It is a curious choice in that case to “lie” about being a halfblood, one borne of either an excess of loyalty to those too embarrassed to acknowledge him in the first place or, as is more likely in Tom’s opinion, a decision made out of spite and pride, and an equal rejection of the Potters in turn. That’s about where his own interest in the omega’s “true” origins begins and ends though. It’s not the other boy’s distant relations after all, real or imagined, that make Tom want him so badly.
He still wants to know everything about his intended, of course, and he will in due time as he coaxes the omega more and more out of his defensive outer shell, but it’s the intimacy of getting Harry to open up to him eventually that appeals to him, not the possibility that his future spouse may or may not come with a set of wealthy but estranged in-laws who would probably reject Tom just as firmly on sight anyways. In fact, it’s better that Harry’s not close at all with the Potters (if they are, in fact, related) since it means they won’t risk exposing themselves by trying to interfere with the courtship one way or another. Honestly, thank Merlin they’re both orphans so this doesn’t have to become a dragged-out, torturously long political affair as it has for the likes of most pureblooded matches, like Ashton and Hornby.
Ashton hasn’t even given her intended omega her bracelet yet, as far as he knows. Not that it’s a competition, but if it were, Tom would have good reason to feel pretty smug right about now. His omega now wears the proof right there on his wrist for everybody to see that he is very much taken and not open to any new offers of courtship from anyone else from here on out.
If the corsage is meant to indicate initial interest in the earlier stages of courtship, the bracelet simply reaffirms that dedication and makes it clear to all who see it that they’re officially exclusive now and neither will be seeing anyone else, as some other courting pairs may continue to do for a short window while considering all their potential prospects. For that reason, it’s often one of the last steps before the actual betrothal takes place. Not that he plans on telling Harry that. Rather, he hopes to have the other boy completely ensnared by his charms and head over heels in love with him by the time he inevitably figures it out on his own.
Sure, giving him such a fine token a mere week after the first might seem a bit fast to some, but it isn’t as uncommon as one might think either to lock one’s partner down to a firmer commitment fairly early on. Or at least that’s the excuse he intends to go with if someone else like Lestrange actually realizes that Harry is unaware of all these implications and finally decides to fill him in—which is all the more reason he needs to monopolize as much of the omega’s time as he can and draw him more securely into his web in the weeks they have left before the rest of their housemates come back.
This “quick” turnaround won’t really seem that strange to most of the student body anyways, since he’s already been dropping subtle hints to every alpha or beta who’s tried giving Harry the glad eye all semester long that they’ve actually been dating in secret since the first week in October, but with enough plausible deniability that he can also say that he never told anyone such a thing if word of that eventually circulates back around to the omega either.
And to those few for whom a mere hint or friendly word of advice to back off may not have been quite enough on its own, there’s also been the occasional “accident,” like an unexpected tumble down a small flight of stairs that serendipitously only ended in a few merciful scrapes and bruises, but no broken bones which would have needed to be explained away to Madam Travers in the Hospital Wing. Or an unspoken curse in the back that caused the offender to break out into painful boils and hives all over his body, which also rather effectively gets Tom’s point across. Not that any of this could ever be traced back to him, of course, especially not with the rest of the whole school and his own sterling reputation always backing him up, but it’s certainly helped in the short term to keep any other would-be suitors at bay.
That boy simply has far too many admirers for his own good and has to be tied down quickly before anyone else starts getting ideas. He once even had to discipline a fellow Slytherin back in September for making an unwarranted comment about “the cute new omega” who just joined their house. Naturally, Tom forgave him afterwards since he hadn’t made his own intentions known yet to his circle of friends at that time, but Nott still flinches on occasion if Harry so much as brushes by his desk on his way to sit down in class, like he expects to be punished again just for breathing the same air, the pathetic spineless worm. (He would be punished again if Tom didn’t think that Harry might eventually catch on and frown upon such jealous behavior, so perhaps “forgiven” is really only a relative term here, to be fair to Nott and his otherwise justified instinct towards self-preservation.)
“What are you up to now? You have that look in your eye like you’re scheming again.” Tom perks up instinctively at the sound of his omega’s lovely voice as Harry finally returns from his dorm room, all bundled up and ready to brave the cold outside just as Tom asked.
“Scheming? Moi? Never,” Tom says with an innocent hand splayed over his chest. “Honestly, I don’t know where you keep getting these ridiculous ideas in your head about me from, darling.”
“Sure you don’t. That’s why you asked me to dress warmly and won’t even tell me where we’re going in the middle of the night, because you’re such an honorable and upstanding bloke,” Harry responds dryly.
“Exactly.” Tom primly offers his arm, grinning when Harry rolls his eyes but takes it anyways.
Something he noticed about the omega fairly early on when they met is how perceptive he can be about certain things while remaining surprisingly oblivious at other times—case in point being in how well he sees the real Tom Riddle under the perfect schoolboy veneer, and yet failed to recognize the alpha’s true feelings for him until Tom decided to make them impossible to misinterpret or ignore any longer. It may be that Harry simply doesn’t recognize his own appeal well enough to notice when he’s being flirted with, in which case Tom will just have to disabuse him of that particular misconception as well before anyone else can try to take advantage of him.
It’s a shame that he has to Disillusion them both as they head out so they can sneak down the corridors without patrolling faculty being any the wiser, but on the other hand not getting to look at his beautiful companion right now is probably good for his ability to focus on leading them to their destination without getting caught.
The fact that Harry agreed to this little outing so readily when it’s already past curfew speaks highly to the amount of trust being granted now, and gives the alpha hope about other things he might agree to later down the line as well. Harry has a stronger code of ethics than most Slytherins he knows, but that clearly doesn’t translate into a strict adherence to “the rules” just for their own sake as it does for many others who claim to also be moral individuals, when in truth they’re just doing as they’re told because they lack the courage or imagination to think for themselves. That’s another thing he’s admired about Harry from the very beginning.
He’d been watching from a hidden alcove on their first week of classes as the new boy marched right up to a pair of burly Seventh Year Gryffindors and told them off for bullying some hapless little Hufflepuff in the corridors. Evans was fairly quiet most of the time and had largely kept to himself up til that point, though it was already clear whenever he did speak up that he was certainly no meek little thing, nor some shy wilting flower of an omega by any means, no matter how withdrawn or reserved he might have appeared to be at first.
The two alphas were clearly not expecting to be called out like this by an omega not even half their size, however. As they both straightened to emphasize their greater height, trying to loom and intimidate the younger omega into submission while the other student ran off to tell a professor, Tom had felt his own back stiffen up and his hackles rise. When one of them then moved to place a hand on Harry’s shoulder with a condescending smirk, he almost revealed himself then and there and would have stepped in to intervene, had the alpha not immediately been thrown backwards with a Knockback Jinx powerful enough to send him flying for several meters until he fell flat on his arse.
“First picking on girls in the middle of the hallway, and now putting your hands on omegas you just met without even asking permission? I’ve met trolls with better manners than that,” Harry had told them sarcastically. “No, actually, scratch that, it’s a lie. The last troll I fought was just as rude and pea-brained as you two, but when he tried to make a grab for me, he wound up with a busted nose and a cracked skull for his troubles.” The omega smiled charmingly then. “Something to bear in mind in future, gents.”
Tom might have swooned a bit just then. In that moment, something within him shifted profoundly. He now knew why he’d felt drawn in enough from the start to follow Harry Evans around in secret, that it was more than his curiosity or his hormones driving his actions. Although both were a factor, he could still admit. Harry Evans was fascinating—cautious, wary, and unusually closed off, yet vivacious, spirited, and bold when the situation called for it as well. And the faint whisper of his scent, which Tom had caught once accidentally as they passed close by each other during a practical demonstration in Defense, made his inner alpha perk up and take notice in a way it never had before around anyone else. He’d even manufactured an excuse later to get close enough again to catch it a second time on purpose, just to make sure the response wasn’t a fluke.
Tom knew now though that it was more than just biology trying to tell him they would be a good fit together. They matched each other in ways he wouldn’t have even known to hope for in a mate before meeting the other boy, had he ever earnestly thought about bonding with someone in the first place. He hadn’t really considered mating or marriage a viable option before in light of his other plans.
Plans which had suddenly crumbled in that near-empty corridor as those two meat-heads fled from the scornful judgment of he whom Tom now knew to be his future bride. It wasn’t just knowing that someone kind and noble like Harry would never tolerate having a Dark Lord for a husband, or the fact that he couldn’t reasonably expect to keep such pursuits a secret from his own bonded mate forever. They crumbled like half-formed sandcastles against the crashing tide because that’s all they ever truly were, and it was only now as Tom quietly adjusted his priorities and his worldview that he could finally see how childish they had been all along, like Billy Stubbs proudly proclaiming when they were eight that he would grow up to be a gun-slinging cowboy and move to the American Wild West.
It could only be fate that had brought Harry Evans to him when it did. Had he already gone too far down that treacherous path by the time they first met, he might have outright dismissed such an embarrassing revelation and stubbornly resented the omega for bringing it about in the first place. Instead, he’s been presented with the perfect opportunity to course-correct before his future plans have solidified just yet and mold himself into a prominent and powerful wizard worthy of such a headstrong wife.
“The Astronomy Tower?” Harry whispers as he realizes where Tom is leading them before they begin the slow climb up its winding steps. “What are we doing here?”
“You’ll see,” Tom murmurs back quietly, almost turning to check his watch before he remembers that he won’t be able to see it until he dispels the charm over them both. He’ll remove it once they’re at the top, just in case some unfortunate professor has been put on duty tonight to check for out-of-bounds students all the way up here, though it’s very unlikely. The Headmaster and Heads of House much prefer foisting that inconvenient responsibility onto their prefects, and as one of the few still remaining in the castle, Tom happens to know that all of them have been temporarily relieved of their duties for the duration of the holidays.
After a quick sweep to make sure they’re alone up on the roof, Tom removes the Disillusionment Charm and lays out the picnic blanket he brought along again over one of the flat stone benches with the best view of the night sky and the neighboring village not far in the distance down below. He sits and pats the spot next to him for Harry to join him.
“Nice night for stargazing,” Harry mutters appreciatively as he takes his seat, staring up at the sky with a look of serenity on his face that makes Tom almost wish he were a painter so he could capture it on canvas forever. He smiles without responding to Harry’s comment, not wanting to spoil the surprise early. A discreet look at his watch tells him they have just under fifteen minutes until it’s showtime.
He pulls out the other blanket folded up in his robes and unshrinks it as well, scoots closer to the omega after placing another warming charm on it, and wraps it carefully around both of their shoulders. Harry turns to face him with a soft look of gratitude that makes Tom badly want to kiss him.
Not just yet, he tries to remind himself patiently, and reluctantly pulls his arm back without dislodging the blanket from Harry’s shoulder. For the final touch, he takes a thermos and two insulated copper mugs out of his expanded coat pocket and pours them both some hot chocolate.
“You really do always think of everything, don’t you?” Harry says, taking the first offered mug, before giving a scandalized little gasp. “Except for the fact that there are no marshmallows! Tom, how could you??”
“Don’t be ridiculous, love. Of course I didn’t forget about the marshmallows,” Tom reassures him, taking the small bag out of his other coat pocket where it wouldn’t be crushed. He drops a few into both of their cups, not showing his own surprise when he sees that they’re shaped like stars and dusted with cinnamon sugar. Wimzie and Tizzie rather outdid themselves this time, didn’t they? He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised, given that he only remembers their names in particular because those two keep going on about how excited they are to be helping him woo his intended, referring to themselves in the third person whenever they speak as house elves generally do.
Harry and Tom sit huddled together for warmth under the blanket, sipping their cocoas for a minute or two in comfortable cozy silence.
“Oh, before I forget,” Harry says suddenly, keeping his volume low as if he doesn’t want to interrupt the hushed quiet of the night that calmly envelops them both. “I got you something.” He sets his half-drunk mug aside and digs around in his own coat pocket to pull out a small box. “Happy birthday, Tom!”
Tom blinks confusedly, looking from Harry’s face to the present in his hand with a strange tightness in his chest. “Who told you it was my birthday today?”
“Oh, I, er, just asked Professor Slughorn about it the other day,” Harry says with a short laugh, glancing away briefly. “Should I…not have?” he asks slowly, expression turning a bit worried as he looks up at Tom again.
“No, I didn’t mean—I mean yes, yes, you, er, you should, it’s just…” It’s Tom’s turn to look away, feeling self-conscious from how flustered he’s getting for no good reason. “I’m sorry, I’m just not…used to people acknowledging my birthday very often.” Or ever, really. Professor Slughorn did also wish him a happy birthday earlier this afternoon, as he usually does, and he’s pretty sure his annual Christmas gift from the man always includes more than one item because of how close the dates are, but nobody else in the castle even knows about it as far as he’s aware. He can’t remember ever getting a present explicitly meant for his birthday before. Everyone at the orphanage gets a cheap little trinket or toy of some kind on Christmas, but only Mrs. Cole’s favorites get birthday gifts as well. Tom has never been on that list.
The look on Harry’s face now is one of quiet understanding, not pity, for which Tom is silently grateful. He’s already embarrassed himself enough just now as it is. Oddly though, he doesn’t actually feel ashamed for revealing something so personal as he would if it were one of their other housemates he’d admitted that to. Somehow he’d known Harry wouldn’t judge him or assume he was merely whinging out of self-pity as anyone else might have.
He finally sets his own cup aside to take the box from Harry. The other boy mumbles something about getting him a second gift later on the next Hogsmeade weekend to make up for Christmas, which makes Tom’s heart swell even more. It would be quite reasonable after all to simply call this the makeup Christmas gift and a birthday gift all in one, especially since Harry doesn’t have a single knut to his name that didn’t come from the Hogwarts disadvantaged fund, but Tom doesn’t do the morally correct thing here by telling him he doesn’t have to. He wants that second gift later, even if it turns out to be something as small and inexpensive as a single sugar quill from Honeydukes, simply because it’s proof that Harry cares enough to get it for him even if it significantly dips into his savings.
He’s already admitted before to being quite selfish anyways, and it’s not as if Harry will want for much after all when Tom fully intends on spending his own earnings on him during their Hogsmeade outings together—basically whatever he can comfortably afford while still holding onto enough to pay for first month’s rent on a flat of his own next summer. He will absolutely not be returning to the orphanage for one more year now that he’s reached the legal age of majority in the wizarding world.
Inside of the box is a pendant made to look like a small golden snitch, about a quarter the size of a real one. The chain attached to it is fairly simple, but the grooved designs on the ball and its tiny feathered wings are astonishingly intricate. He lets out a small breath of surprise when he brushes his finger over it and the thing comes to life, hovering ever so slightly to meet his touch, its wings beating furiously like a hummingbird’s with a barely audible sound like the rapid tinkling of little bells.
“Sooo…that’s a real snitch I stole from the equipment shed down at the pitch and shrunk to fit on a necklace, but obviously don’t tell anyone else,” Harry admits to him a bit sheepishly. “The hard part was enchanting it not to fly off on its own anymore and just hover in place like that when you touch it, mostly because I had to figure out how to get around the anti-tampering charms first. Er, don’t tell anybody I know how to do that now either. I don’t want people thinking I might try to cheat during a match or something.”
This casual, yet somewhat bashful, explanation makes Tom wonder if Harry even realizes how impressive the work he put into this gift actually is. Tom may not know much beyond the basics of quidditch, but he’s quite aware of how notoriously difficult those anti-tampering charms are to break through without simply destroying the ball completely in the process. And that he was willing to resort to theft just to give Tom something meaningful for his birthday—well, what a pair they truly make, as he originally pilfered the bracelet from the Room of Hidden Things and then modified and transfigured its appearance until it was perfect for his beloved.
“I won’t tell a soul, darling,” he promises. “So, why a golden snitch?” He already has a pretty good idea of the reason, of course, as he eyes up the little design stitched into the side of the omega’s adorable new hat, but he wants to hear Harry say it out loud. He’s greedy that way.
“Um, well…” Harry immediately starts blushing and tugs self-consciously at the bracelet on his wrist, a nervous habit Tom has noticed frequently in the past week that often makes him have to suppress a satisfied purr deep within his chest, his inner alpha greatly pleased to see his omega toying with the constant reminder of who he belongs to even if he doesn’t know it yet.
“Same reason you chose snakes and asphodels for this, I suppose,” Harry finally admits, lifting his wrist to show off the bracelet more deliberately this time. “I get something that, er, always makes me think about you…” His blush grows even deeper as he glances away again, like he can’t bear looking his alpha in the eye while he confesses something so sweet and sentimental to him. “So, it seems only fair I return the favor, right?”
“Yes,” Tom breathes, inching closer to him. “I couldn’t agree more.” There’s nothing traditional per se about an alpha wearing a token like this reciprocal to the one he gave his omega, but Tom only cares about what tradition dictates as much as it suits him to and no more beyond that. He’ll gladly wear something that marks him as Harry’s just as Harry is his.
The scar of a mating bite is already something which both of them will proudly wear forever from their wedding night on, or perhaps even sooner than that if Tom plays his hand right, so what’s one more clear signifier of their eternal bond to come?
Harry still seems to have trouble meeting his gaze, which is possibly an indicator that Tom may be letting too much of his true emotion leak through and is now coming on too strong, but it’s difficult to tamp it back down again when his omega picks the pendant up by its chain and leans in now to clasp it around the alpha’s neck for him.
“You know, um, well actually, I don’t know if you know this already or not, but snitches have something called a ‘flesh memory,’ which means that it’ll always remember the first person who ever touched it,” Harry starts to babble, his hands still clasped around the back of Tom’s neck even with the necklace secured in place. “Which, uh, in this case is you since I made sure to keep gloves on whenever I was working on it. It’ll only respond to your touch and you can even hide things in it if you want. I mean, it’d have to be something really tiny or shrunk down to fit first, obviously, but yeah, it’s kind of like a mokeskin pouch that way, I guess. Thought you’d like that since it’s not just ornamental but kind of useful too, you know?”
Gods, could he be any more perfect? That he would know Tom so well to anticipate a need like that, to even tacitly approve of a bit of trickery or mischief while at the same time clearly trusting him implicitly not to misuse it for something awful, well, that’s…it’s…fuck.
Harry squeaks a little in surprise but quickly melts into his touch, as Tom finally gives into the overwhelming impulse that’s been steadily building for the past several minutes and drags the omega closer into his arms until he’s almost sitting in Tom’s lap and starts kissing him ravenously.
Harry kisses him back just as ardently. It’s even better than Tom could have hoped for when he first hatched his plan to win the omega over. Daringly, he slips a hand in under Harry’s jacket and slides it up over the thinner material of his shirt underneath. Harry shivers at his touch and presses back against him, allowing the alpha’s hands to wander a bit longer, but eventually pulling back once Tom’s questing fingers start to play teasingly at the gaps between his shirt buttons and the top line of his trousers where the fabric has been tucked in.
Tom takes this for the obvious signal that it is and pulls his hands out from under the jacket, leaving them to rest chastely but still somewhat suggestively on Harry’s hips instead while the kiss continues but turns a little more slow and sensual as well. If Harry wants to take it slow, then they’ll go slow. They could do nothing more than snog like this for minutes or hours on end and still he would never grow tired of it.
They stop at the sound of a distant crack in the distance, almost reminiscent of the sound that Apparation makes. Harry immediately tenses up and starts looking around with an alertness that makes Tom realize he should have warned him about the reason they came up here tonight in the first place. He’s seen that kind of look before, in the eyes of one of the orphanage workers who hadn’t evacuated to the countryside along with the children during the height of the Blitz, when one of the younger boys blew a long high note on a whistle out in the garden last summer.
It’s not the first time in these last few months that he’s noticed the omega give a somewhat odd reaction to things or observe his surroundings with a heightened level of vigilance, but it’s the first time he’s done so in such an obvious way that makes Tom feel a bit guilty for not piecing together sooner that there might have been a reason all this time for the other boy’s previously unapproachable attitude.
“It’s alright, darling,” he murmurs while rubbing a soothing hand up and down Harry’s arm. “It’s just the fireworks show down at Hogsmeade, see?” Another crack resounds, and he’s glad when Harry doesn’t tense up again under his hand. They both turn to watch as a great green dragon made of fire and light roars silently to life across the night sky. Then a yellow sphinx, a red manticore, and on and on it goes for a while.
“Wow, this is so cool! I had no idea Hogsmeade would put together a fireworks display for New Years,” Harry says.
One side of Tom’s mouth quirks up into a little smile. “Yes, I suspect most students don’t or we would have had more competition in picking out the best spot for the most breathtaking view,” he says, his gaze firmly affixed on the beautiful omega sitting beside him in profile.
“I’ll say,” Harry mutters in agreement, clearly thinking he still means the fireworks as his own eyes continue to track their colorful movements.
For tonight, Tom will let things lie and won’t bring up the other boy’s unusual reaction from a few minutes ago. Harry himself seems to have already forgotten, or quite possibly didn’t recognize his own behavior as peculiar enough to make note of in the first place. Another mystery from Harry’s past to unravel in time, he supposes, though the important thing is simply to show the omega that he has nothing left to fear with Tom at his side…and possibly to do something about whoever put that fear inside him in the first place, if they’re still around somewhere.
Harry is his omega now, in all but name and bite, and he won’t allow any bogeyman from the past, alive or dead, real or imagined, to come between them. He’ll chase any such specters away, much like Harry has unwittingly done for him in a few ways already. He used to hate his own name, for instance, until he heard it on the other boy’s sweet lips.
He likes the name Harry Riddle even more, and can hardly wait until the time comes to finally give it to his new bride-to-be.
“Happy New Year, darling,” he leans in to whisper right into the omega’s ear as the fireworks show ends, reveling in the shiver he gets because he knows the boy can’t resist him when his voice goes dark and husky like that.
Harry turns to face him once more, still sitting close enough for their noses to brush. “Happy New Year, Tom,” he whispers back, and leans in first to kiss him again softly. He’s less sure who deepens it after a minute, only knows that it fans the flames thrumming through his veins and makes his blood run even hotter to know that the desire between them is entirely mutual.
They stay out there on that tower for a long time, wrapped up and warm sitting snuggled under the blanket together, neither of them feeling the wintry chill as the first snows of January fall.