Archive of Our Own

Work Text

The day Harry met Tom Riddle was a Monday, the first day of summer vacation, and from the start to the finish he was sure it was the best day of his life.He had heard back on his application just that Friday. It came in an excited call from Ron, since they’d agreed Harry should use his mailing address.Ron exclaimed so loudly Harry winced and held the phone away from his ear, but he was still laughing. He could barely understand what Ron was saying, but the gist of it was impossible to miss.That evening Harry had to carefully navigate the subject with his aunt and uncle, which had involved four major lies, one of which he wasn’t yet sure he would be able to cover up, but he’d find a way. That particular lie had been the most necessary of all, so it wasn’t as though he’d had a choice.Harry began when their program hit a commercial break and he’d done all the dishes and taken extra care plating their desserts. He set a slice of cheesecake with a fresh mint leaf for garnish on Uncle Vernon’s TV tray, and then presented a scoop of low-fat ice cream in a little cut glass cup to his aunt.The first lie: “A client at the barn told me about a job opening at Windmere.”Uncle Vernon looked at Harry suspiciously over his spoon. “That’s the place with the gates? And all the stone fencing?”Harry nodded. “Yes, that place.”“Pay better there? I like having you out of the house, mind, but the hassle of driving you to these places is hardly worth what they pay us to spare you.”Harry shifted nervously from one foot to the other, and told the second lie. “It’s a live-in arrangement, so you wouldn’t have to drive me.”Uncle Vernon looked more interested. Aunt Petunia frowned, but he knew how she was, which was why he’d thought of the third lie.“It’s just mucking out stalls.” He looked down and bit his lip. “But I’d at least get to see the best horses training, if I can get my work done early.”Petunia’s mouth twitched thoughtfully, but she seemed intrigued. Her main complaint about Harry’s present job was that he got to ride a bit after he finished picking stalls. It wasn’t real riding, just cooling down horses that had already had their exercise, but it annoyed her to think he’d be paid for something he enjoyed.Now Vernon was frowning. “But the pay? Is it better? If they’re boarding you, they probably think they don’t need to offer a wage. But we’ll have the strain of taking care of all your responsibilities here.”Harry’s heart was beating fast. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to lie about this, because he wasn’t sure where he’d find the money. The position didn’t pay, but he could tell Vernon was leaning toward telling him no, and he couldn’t bear it.“The pay is even better,” he said before he could stop himself. “Almost twice as much.”Which brought him to this morning. His backpack was stuffed with two changes of clothes and his toothbrush, and he wore the best riding clothes he had, which weren’t great but shouldn’t attract stares, even at Windmere.Harry stepped out of Uncle Vernon’s car just outside the big gates of the stable’s main entrance. Over the sign—silver metal letters on a slab of rectangular stone reading “Windmere Equestrian Center”—was a sculpture of a horse, close to life life-sized and poised in mid-leap.Uncle Vernon was frowning, looking doubtfully from Harry to the jumping horse, as though it pained him for Harry to be associated in any way with something so grand. Harry’s heart pounded at the thought that Uncle Vernon would change his mind and order Harry back in the car.But all he said was, “You’re sure I don’t need to sign a form, or anything?”“No,” Harry said. “You, um, signed them already. I have them with me.” He bent over to speak to Uncle Vernon, and his arm itched with the barely-restrained urge to slam the door and run up the winding blacktop driveway.“Hmm. Well. And your check is monthly?”Harry nodded, throat suddenly dry. “Yes.”“Your Aunt gave you what you need to mail them along, I presume. And if there’s an emergency, you may call. But we better not hear you’ve been any trouble.”“You won’t,” Harry promised. “Bye, Uncle Vernon.”“Hmm,” replied Uncle Vernon. Immensely relieved, Harry closed the door and stepped back just as Vernon took off. He watched the car disappear, before he turned to the driveway, heart swelling with excitement, and started walking.Windmere was an elite eventing and dressage facility. It was owned by a conglomerate of three supporters of the United States’ international teams, but the only one Harry could ever remember was Lucius Malfoy, because his son, who rode, was Harry’s age. Draco competed as an American, though they were, controversially, French citizens too.The head trainer at Windmere was Minerva McGonagall, a world-renowned trainer and instructor in evening, and a present coach of the U.S. Olympic team for dressage.Every summer, Minerva took on a working student at Windmere. She required references, a video audition of the student on the flat and over fences, and she was so discerning that once or twice she didn’t take a student at all, claiming that none of the dozens of applicants showed sufficient skill. But of those she did take under her wing, the majority jump-started their professional riding careers with her help.Harry had worked extra shifts at his old barn for months, telling Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon he was studying for a school project, and saved up enough for a few sessions with his beloved school master at the barn. She was an arthritic, former Grand Prix eventer with a grizzled muzzle, but she was still game to piaffe and take even a conservative jump with scope. Harry smuggled Ron in to take the audition video with his cell phone.Harry knew he was a good rider. It was in his blood, his father’s friend Remus had told him. Harry’s father hadn’t ridden professionally, but he was a decorated young rider. Remus had been the one to help Harry scrape together the money to get in the saddle in front of Alastor Moody. Moody had been out of the business a long time but happened to have been a personal acquaintance of Minerva, and they hoped he would therefore have some sway with her.It had all worked out, somehow, and here Harry was. He looked down nervously at his breeches (they were used, but the worst wear was in the calves, which he’d cover with half chaps soon anyway) and the shiny toes of his leather paddock boots (they were new, but cheap).None of that matters, Harry, Remus would say. And Harry knew that, but he also knew what kind of kids rode at places like Windmere. Still, now he was a working student, not stall help. He’d earn their respect, he was sure, even if he didn’t make any friends.The driveway sloped steeply, and Harry leaned in to it, the strain on the backs of his thighs pleasant. He was almost at the top of the hill when he heard the sound of an engine, coming fast up the drive from the road.Harry stepped off the asphalt and turned to see a glossy black convertible—it was some kind of classic, but Harry didn’t know cars well enough to say more than that. It had the distinct look of something deliriously expensive, though, and Harry assumed it cost more than the Dursleys’ two vehicles and house, combined.A guy—seventeen or so, about Harry’s age—drove it. The wind ruffled his wavy black hair, and he wore a sky blue polo shirt in the Windmere colors. He hit the brakes at the sight of Harry, with a startlingly beautiful smile that made Harry blink reflexively, as though it was a camera flash.Then he reached up with a pale, sculpted arm to take off his sunglasses just as Harry realized who he must be. Sure enough, dark brown eyes and model-worthy bone structure confirmed Harry’s budding suspicion. This was Tom Riddle, Minerva McGonagall’s rising star; the youngest rider to be scouted for the US Olympic team in the whole history of the sport. Of course, it didn’t hurt that his father was a billionaire and had bought him a series of superstar mounts.“Hello,” said Tom, easy to hear over the nearly-silent murmur of the engine. “Where did you come from?” He leaned over the supple ivory leather of the passenger seat. “Did you have a fall?” He raked Harry with his eyes for signs of grass stains or injury.“Um, n-no,” Harry was stammering, which wasn’t like him, even if he was understandably star struck. “I just got here.”Tom laughed. It lit up his eyes, and widened his smile. Harry watched, mesmerized.“Did you drop out of the sky?” He pulled the release on the door and shoved it open. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”“Okay,” Harry said, sounding and feeling a bit faint. There was a centerfold in Modern Riding that featured Tom Riddle frozen midway in the process of swinging into the saddle, his shoulders taut, his left thigh bulging as he pressed all his weight into the stirrup, the right leg in the air as elegant as a dancer’s, his ass—Well, it was almost pornographic, that photo. Harry couldn’t be the only boy who’d wanked to it, albeit guiltily, for weeks.And now Tom was inviting him into his priceless car with a friendly smile and a warm, intense stare. Harry’s stomach hurt and his palms were sweaty. But he forced himself to smile and slide inside.Being in the car with Tom was almost too much. First there was the way the leather felt: pillow soft—was that what leather was supposed to feel like? And it smelled different than he expected, too; almost like a tack room but cleaner, clearer, without the underlying polish and the ever-pervasive, but pleasant, scent of horse.More overwhelming was Tom, who smelled great also, a combination of delicate notes. The cocktail had to have something to do with how his hair was lying perfectly despite having just driven a convertible at presumably high speed, the starch in his collar, and the gloss of his cognac tall boots.”What’s your name?” Tom slid his sunglasses back on and the car glided forward, smoothly as a hovercraft, giving Harry the strange impulse to lean over the door and make sure the tires were still on the ground. Instead he looked straight ahead, seeing in his peripheral vision the way Tom steered with one wrist on the top of the wheel.Harry bit his lip. He’d been mistaken for a lesson student before, and seen how someone’s whole demeanor changed when they realized he was only the help. “I’m Harry Potter. I’m—”“Minerva’s working student,” Tom finished for him, tone still friendly. Harry’s shoulders had crept into a hunch, but lowered now as he relaxed. He smiled over at Tom, who grinned back.“I’ve seen your video,” he said. “You’ve got a great seat.”Harry was suddenly blushing furiously, imagining Tom Riddle watching the wobbly cell phone video, and hearing Ron’s occasional muttering. They hadn’t managed to edit out the sound.“Thanks,” he murmured, turning as though to admire the scene outside the car and effectively hiding his red face. Beyond the stone and wood fence the pastures rolled, as well-groomed as a golf course, dotted with the distant, bright shapes of grazing horses.Tom chuckled, and the car went faster, which startled a laugh from Harry too. It was wild, how the car soared like an aircraft but tightly hugged the sharp final curve of the drive, throwing Harry almost past the gear shift so his shoulder bumped Tom’s. The unexpected contact, the warmth of Tom’s arm, the nearness of his laugh made Harry’s laughter bloom, too, and they were both half-breathless and smiling when Tom slowed and swept the car neatly into a parking space by the stables. They’d come upon the buildings so suddenly Harry noticed them all at once. Long, looming, white steel, accented with stone wainscot and pillars, green trim and raw wood beams.“Good luck with our girl Minerva, Harry,” Tom said, stepping out of the car and stretching his arms one at a time like a pitcher at the mound. His sunglasses reflected the sky and a slice of green as clearly as a mirror. He only stood there a few seconds before turning and walking off, leaving Harry still sitting in his car and noting, despite himself, that his ass looked even better in person.Harry hadn’t thought to ask exactly where he should go when he got here. He got out of the car and looked around again. The first person he saw was a girl in a blue polo that was the same color as Tom’s had been, but clearly a fraction of the quality, pushing a wheelbarrow with a pitchfork propped inside.“Hey, sorry,” Harry called, jogging toward her. The distinct round shape of the helmet in his backpack thumped the small of his back with each step. She looked up with a puzzled smile. She had long blond braids and odd, almost lavender eyes that seemed too big for her face.“Can I help you with something?”“Yeah,” Harry said, smiling gratefully. “I’m looking for Ms. McGonagall?”The girl pointed toward the largest barn. “I just saw her first ride go by, so she should still be in the grooming bay. She always double checks the tack.”“Thanks,” Harry said. “And I’m Harry, by the way.”The girl smiled. “I’m Luna. And you’re welcome, Harry.”Our girl Tom had said. It seemed like a strange way to refer to Minerva, Harry reflected belatedly. He slowed his walk as he stepped out of the cool morning sunlight and into the bright artificial light inside the barn. The building was enormous, the ceiling vaulting a few stories high over wrought-iron stall fronts. A few curious horses hung their heads over their half doors, watching Harry curiously. He looked from one to the next, stunned. He recognized the dark bay countenance of Natilla, who Juliette Miller had ridden to the bronze in stadium two years ago, and the up and comer Fendi, a classic chestnut with a wide blaze.As promised, Minerva McGonagall was there too. She was turned in profile to Harry, checking the cinch of a monstrous grey mare who was contentedly fiddling with the loosened flash on her bridle with her upper lip, nubile as a giraffe’s.Minerva turned, catching Harry gawking at the horses. It felt like being in the green room of a movie set. Minerva was, of course, as famous as any of the horses, but he felt a little steadier when he met her stern eye and stuck his hands in his pockets.“Ms. McGonagall—I’m Harry Potter.”She continued to frown, but he had the sense that she didn’t mean anything critical by it. “Resting bitch face,” Ginny would say, then dodge Hermione’s reprimanding swat.“So you are,” said Minerva. Harry knew she had a Scottish accent, but having only seen written interviews, the rhythm of it still took him by surprise. “Well, here’s Hedwig. Take her out to the turf course and we’ll see if you have any luck waking her up.”Harry had known he’d be riding. Riding good horses, even. But the mare—Hedwig—was broad, with the muscle over her top line of an advanced horse. That he’d have the privilege of riding something like her straight off was almost as intense and pleasantly surprising as Tom Riddle, smiling at Harry and leaning over to invite him into his car.Harry shook himself and hastily sat on a bench along the wall to get out his helmet and half chaps and get them on, his fingers trembling as he zipped his chaps and tugged them by the gusset until they were as high as possible, snug behind his knees.Minerva glanced at his backpack as he stood up. “You can leave your things in a locker in the clubhouse in future, but for today the tack room will do.”Harry nodded, ducked into the tack room, identifiable by the placard in its center that read “Tack.” He promised himself a more thorough look around another time, but had a strong impression of cedar paneled walls, rows of gleaming hurdles, and saddles tucked into blue velvet covers.In the barn aisle, Minerva held out Hedwig’s reins, and tucked her own helmet under her arm.Fourteen hours later, Harry was sore everywhere. Hedwig had lagged at the water hazard so he’d started the morning half-soaked in muddy water, then spilled the oil when he was cleaning the saddle afterward. Then it had taken two sweaty hours jogging uphill to collect a rambunctious three-year-old colt from a ten-acre pasture. Then he’d been thrown three times from said colt when he’d breezed him to take the edge off before Minerva took him to the indoor ring to school him.Without exception, during every moment, it was the best day of his life.“You’re still smiling, Harry,” Minerva observed. She’d changed into a pink blouse and let her hair down, which made her whole face look almost unrecognizably soft. “That’s generally a good sign.”“Yeah,” Harry sighed, smiling up at her as they walked out of the barn.Minerva nodded shortly, but she was smiling too, just a slight curve on the left side of her mouth but it had a definite upward trajectory. “You did well,” she said, and Harry felt like he could skip despite his exhaustion.She started for the parking area. Harry was headed to the clubhouse to shower, but paused. “Thanks,” he called softly. “Thanks so much.”She shrugged, not turning, but lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers in a sort of reverse-wave.Harry showered, then began reflecting on the complications arising from the second lie. He’d formed a very half-assed plan with Ron over the weekend, but it all turned on whether Arthur left their family car at home, and they knew that wouldn’t happen every day. The Weasleys lived a relatively short distance from Windmere, but the bus route was meandering and took two hours.It was after ten when he dried off, got into his change of clothes and sat on the carved bench beside the lounge to text Ron.
Can you borrow your dad’s car, or not?
“Hello again,” said Tom Riddle. Harry had been resting his elbows on his thighs, head bent over his phone while he waited for Ron’s reply.Now he jerked his head up and saw Tom, looking even better than he had that morning, in taupe khaki breeches and his tall-boots. His hair still looked suspiciously perfect, considering he must have worn a helmet at some point during the day.“I was just going to meet a few friends. Want to come along?”Harry wasn’t sure how he was going to get back off the bench. His whole body hurt. His feet were throbbing; his legs were jelly. He looked like shit, certainly not appropriate for anywhere Tom Riddle would be going. It had to be a pity invite, which Harry had learned to watch out for.It was probably spending all day crawling on horses equivalent in value to the cost of a private college education, but Harry felt uncharacteristically sure of himself. He sat up a little straighter in the dizzying spotlight of Tom’s undivided attention, and didn’t say no.“Yeah, but I don’t have anything better to wear.”Tom’s eyes moved over him, warm and interested. “You’ll do,” he said. “But if you’d be more comfortable, we can see if Draco has anything you’d like to borrow.”“Draco Malfoy?” Harry knew he was gaping, but he couldn’t help it. Draco Malfoy was another young, very likely Olympian, though only because his father was exerting pressure on the French committee, and owned Interstellar, the World Equestrian Games’ runner-up three years ago.“Yeah. He can hardly complain, when he’s the one who told me to come straight from the barn. Has anyone shown you the locker room?”Tom walked off, and before Harry knew it, he had he stood and followed. “Locker room” was a very casual way of referring to the rows of solid wood wardrobes in a marble-tiled dressing room. Harry gaped a little while Tom went to one of the closets and inserted a key, opening the doors and gesturing in a “have at it” sort of way at the contents.“He’s leaving tomorrow for Milan or somewhere even more dull, and it’s a send-off,” Tom explained, backing out the door. “So, if you’ll come, take whatever you like. Draco won’t mind.” He winked, which in Harry’s dazed state, somehow wasn’t even a shock.He chose a pair of black jeans he would never wear in real life, and a charcoal button-down in a satiny fabric that clung pleasantly to his skin. Everything fit fairly well, and since there weren’t any shoes, Harry licked his thumb and rubbed the smudges off his paddock boots and just tucked the cuffs of the jeans down over them.He didn’t know where Tom had gone to change, but apparently he had. He was wearing slim-fitted dark grey pants that made his legs look like they were a mile long and a stretchy white v-neck under a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. He’d been scrolling through his phone, but stood up at the sight of Harry and looked him over with a slow smile.The car was where Tom had left it. Harry had noticed it throughout the day. It was no less dizzying getting into the seat beside Tom a second time.Tom lifted the top on the car and drove them out to the highway. Harry didn’t know the area, but noted the symbolism of turning the opposite way on the two lane highway where Windmere sat from the direction of the Dursleys’.Then he noticed it was already 11 pm.“I—I have work first thing,” Harry said anxiously. “God, maybe I shouldn’t be coming?” He put his hands in his hair, suddenly dismayed with himself.Tom laid his hand on Harry’s knee as though it was perfectly natural. “I’ll be sure you’re not late for Minerva,” he promised. He was smiling, just a bit, gazing through the windshield. The indirect light from the headlights painted his face into silver shadows, and highlighted the dimple in his cheek.Harry stared at Tom’s hand. His thumb was circling the outside of Harry’s knee.“Great,” Harry said, but it came out so quietly it was more of a sigh. He wasn’t sure Tom heard.They didn’t go far. The southern tail of the city curved south five miles up, with an entrance ramp to the primary connector. There Tom opened up the car with a purer version of the recklessness he’d showed off that morning. It was the same way he rode, Harry thought dizzily, imagining the video clips of Tom that had gone viral in the Equestrian social media circles. Tom had bold horses to start with, but he rode them with such confidence they seemed absolutely fearless—winged.Downtown, the glittering lights and the teeming people in short skirts and deliberately unbuttoned shirts, artful hair and heels were mesmerizing. Particularly when Harry noticed them noticing the car, and maybe even Tom and Harry. Tom lowered the roof, and Harry could hear the city too, in a way he never had.“Here’s the place,” Tom said, slowing as they approached a laughably upscale restaurant and bar with a dedicated lane for valet. Tom eased the car up along the curb and got out, circling around to open Harry’s door, too. Harry felt a lingering heat in the knee Tom had been touching, tingling and pulsing like a fresh brand.They went in, and Harry was immediately conscious of his shoes, until Tom picked up his hand and guided him to the host’s table. Then Harry could think of nothing but how long and smooth Tom’s fingers were, wrapped around his. Tom had several inches on him, which was as appealing as it was infuriating, and didn’t adjust his stride. To keep from being effectively towed along, Harry had to rush alongside him, and he felt in every way unsteady as Tom asked for the Malfoy party, then followed the uniformed host through dozens of full tables, all lit by the golden glow of a dozen chandeliers affixed forty or fifty feet overhead.Most people were in black tie, but there were a handful here and there as casually attired as Tom.Harry saw Draco Malfoy before Draco saw them. He was hard to miss, being noisily French and distinctly silver-haired.“Riddle!” He called, face alight at the first sight of Tom, then taking him in further detail, dismayed. “What,” he demanded tonelessly as Tom pulled out two chairs, “are you wearing?”“I didn’t have sufficient notice to have my tuxedo aired,” Tom said flippantly, and Harry wondered if he was being serious. Harry had no idea how one cared for dress clothes.Unfortunately, Draco’s shocked stare had found its way to Harry, and he physically recoiled at the sight.“Before you say something rude,” Tom murmured, a clear warning in his voice, “let me introduce my dear new friend Harry Potter, who I invited to borrow something from your locker.”Something indescribable was happening on Draco’s face. He was obviously being struck by several conflicting emotions all at once, and eventually covered his face with his hands and leaned over the table, mumbling in French.“What…?” Harry began, but Tom stopped him by releasing his hand and guiding him into a chair.“Harry, this is Pansy, and Theo, and Millicent,” Tom said, and the other people around the table nodded, looking at Harry with cautious interest. “Has everyone eaten already?” Tom reached for a menu, which had a leather cover that smelled like the seats in Tom’s car.Draco’s face reappeared. His cheeks were pink, but he was determinedly pleasant. “No, Riddle, we wouldn’t dream of starting without you.”Harry darted a glance at the menu for long enough to see a starter salad was $35, and swallowed hard.“I’ve eaten,” he told Millicent, because she was the only one who happened to be looking at Harry and not a menu.“You’ll offend Malfoy if you don’t eat, when he’s said he’ll treat us all,” Tom murmured. Harry glanced sharply at him, wondering if the reassurance was accidental, and still chose the cheapest thing on the menu for each course.After they’d placed their orders, Draco leaned toward Harry. Somehow, Harry was sitting almost directly across the table from him. “Tell me, Harry,” Draco said, smiling with a sharp edge. “How was your first day at Windmere?”Harry frowned. “It was good, but how did you know—?”“Ah,” Draco said, quick and careless, “Tom texted me this morning to let me know how promising Minerva’s student was.”“Oh?” Harry felt himself blush, and saw Draco notice it: a flicker of his eyes, a brief lowering of long eyelashes several shades darker than his hair.“You could say we share everything,” Draco added, and Harry felt the steady, firm pressure of a foot over his beneath the table.“Not everything,” said Tom silkily. Harry hadn’t even realized he was listening, but Draco’s foot disappeared from Harry’s and didn’t return.The food was exotic. Harry normally considered his tastes uncomplicated and basic, but now he realized he just didn’t know how good it could be. He kept encountering new, foreign things in each course, the pairing of sweetness with spice in a salad, shaved watermelon garnishing his soup, fragrant lavender sauce on his chicken. He tried to mimic Tom’s table manners at first then gave up, letting himself enjoy a meal he’d probably remember the rest of his life without letting self-consciousness ruin it.There was wine, too, though Harry had deduced that the oldest person at the table was Draco, seventeen and a half.Like the food, the wine was unspeakably delicious. Another thing Harry had assumed he didn’t like, but now he attributed the opinion to having insofar tried things that were more similar to vinegar than to whatever kept refilling his glass.By the time they’d shared two bottles—though Harry noticed Tom just had water—the entire table had relaxed. Harry had warmed to Draco, who he’d twice sent into minor hysterics arguing the conformational superiority of Holsteiners compared to any other breed. Millicent had calmly asked if Harry was homeless, then only blinked, nonplussed, when Harry buried his face in his arms and laughed for ten seconds straight.The wine; the food; the bizarre conversation; the way Tom’s thigh kept pressing against Harry’s. He felt like Cinderella, straight up until he excused himself to go to the restroom and realized it was two in the morning, and Minerva expected him to be saddling horses in three hours.He had a taxi service saved in his phone. His phone didn’t have data, so he couldn’t use Uber. He’d probably spend way too much of what was left of his life’s savings, a very meager roll of cash shoved deep in his jeans pocket, getting a ride back to the barn. But he couldn’t think of an alternative. Somehow, asking Tom to leave earlier than he would have otherwise felt impossible.Back in the dining room, Harry wound between now-empty tables. Draco’s group must be one of the last to leave at this point. Tom had his arm resting over the back of Harry’s chair, his head thrown back to laugh at something Draco was saying. Harry had never wanted to sit down beside someone so badly, but instead he hovered by the chair until Tom looked up.“I’ve gotta get back to the barn,” he murmured. “Can I get my stuff from your car?”“Oh, I’ll drive you,” Tom said carelessly. “They'll make Malfoy go soon, anyway.”The restaurant, Harry realized, wasn’t just thinning out, it was empty save for them. The only other people in sight were a few staff leaning behind the bar and speaking quietly to one another, carefully not looking in their direction.“This is one of Draco’s mother’s places,” Tom explained. “They’re used to helping her spoil her only kid.” He pushed his chair back.“Spoiled?” Draco demanded, glaring, then frowned at Harry. “You’re going?”“I am, but Tom doesn’t have to,” Harry protested. In a lower voice he asked Tom, “Are you sure? I don’t want to, um, trouble you.”Tom waved him off, saying his farewells and standing up. He seemed just fine. Harry followed him toward the doors, and an exhausted-looking valet smiled at them with such open relief, Harry felt a pang of self-loathing. Were all these people really waiting to go home until a few tipsy teenagers decided to call it a night?Tom opened Harry’s door for him again, and Harry got inside without looking up at him. Tom got in too.“Back to the barn?” he said doubtfully. “Shouldn’t I take you home?”“I’d get in trouble,” Harry said, which was the truth. “I’ll just stay in the lounge.” It wasn’t technically allowed, but Harry knew people must do it and besides, no one would know. No one, he corrected himself, but Tom. Somehow that seemed alright, though, which felt strange. Harry wasn’t used to trusting someone so soon.“Whatever you want,” Tom said doubtfully. He looked pensive, and didn’t touch Harry’s knee the entire short journey. Harry, hating himself for compromising his position, on his first day, couldn’t even enjoy the drive.When Tom pulled up to the stable, Harry opened his own door and got out, grabbing his backpack from behind the seat, and eased the straps over his shoulders with a final strained smile for Tom.“Thanks for asking me. I just, uh, wasn’t thinking when I said yes.”“Hmm,” said Tom, leaning against the rear of the car, a bit rumpled and flushed from eating and drinking, looking at Harry in an unmistakable way.It was too much, Tom Riddle looking at him like that. An indignant part of Harry noted the unfairness of it. Harry was a pathetically easy conquest. Tom probably was interested out of convenience and novelty, and it couldn’t possibly last.Full of these thoughts, Harry ducked his head. “Bye, Tom. I’ll see you…”“Tomorrow,” Tom supplied. He made as though to take a step forward, and Harry, his head still down, hastily shuffled backwards.“Good night,” he said, and turned and walked fast toward the clubhouse.****The couch in the lounge was beautiful, but hard, and Harry was so afraid of being discovered there, and so intent on reliving every moment of the past twenty hours or so, he couldn’t sleep at all.So, two sleepless hours later, he was walking up to the barn in the foggy pre-dawn with a saddle on his hip. The buildings were half-lit; the feed crew had come and gone. Harry set the saddle on a rack by the grooming bay and peered in at Hedwig. She was midway through her hay, and peered over quizzically at Harry her mouth full and a few stalks sticking out of the side of her mouth.She was only nine, but she had the temperament of a thirty-year-old lesson horse, as though deeply exasperated by everyone but willing to humor them. She walked over to greet Harry after considering him a moment, brushing her muzzle against his outstretched hands. There were little flakes of sawdust tangled in her mane and tail.“I can see you slept well,” Harry told her, chuckling, and reached for her halter.It took almost ten minutes to comb the shavings out of Hedwig’s tail. She dozed peacefully in the cross ties while Harry worked, enjoying the silence and the methodical nature of the task, until he realized he had slumped against the mare’s shoulder and was half-asleep with his cheek on her warm, silky skin.The sound of someone clearing their throat startled him back to alertness.Minerva was frowning at Harry, and not in the way he had gotten used to yesterday. This was more than sternness: it was disapproval. She was already dressed for the day, her hair in a sleek bun, wearing her helmet and clearly ready to ride the horse that Harry had yet to saddle. He blushed.“Good morning ma’am,” he stammered.“Harry, it’s Minerva, I keep telling you,” she sighed, but her expression wasn’t as forgiving as her words. “Are you ill?”“I’m...no,” Harry said carefully. “I just didn’t get enough sleep.” He fought the ill-timed urge to yawn, which was of course the sort of thing that became almost impossible to suppress the harder you thought about it, so he turned his head and swallowed it against his shoulder, horrified.“I see. One of the staff mentioned they saw you leave last night with Tom Riddle. Is that correct?”Harry didn’t really consider lying. He nodded meekly, glancing up at her and hoping his shame was easy to see.“Harry,” she began, then stopped. She closed her mouth tightly, exhaled hard through her nostrils, and started again. “Harry. It is neither my business, nor my particular interest what teenagers get up to in their spare time. Trust me when I say that. But you are a talented young man. Tom enjoys certain benefits which you—and I—do not. In many ways, his life is less difficult, and places him above the ordinary rules which most of us have to respect, if we seek success. Do you follow, Harry?”Harry hadn’t articulated any of this to himself, yet, but he’d already come to the same conclusion, more or less, the previous night. He nodded, looking down and shuffling his feet.“I really am sorry to have let you down in any way,” he murmured.“You haven’t let anyone down, Harry. But I’m not letting you on that horse in your state. You can hand walk her on the trails and then help Luna with the laundry.”Harry was far too grateful he wasn’t being fired to object to untangling polo wraps and ironing quilts, so he nodded at once.“Thanks, Ms. McGonagall. I mean, Minerva,” he amended at her sharp look.“You’re welcome, Harry. I’m an understanding person, but I’m also a pragmatic one. Take care not to become unduly troublesome, hm?”****Harry didn’t see Tom all day, but in the early evening, when Harry was hauling in the last load of scrims to the feed room with the industrial washer and dryer in the corner, he noticed the black convertible parked in the same spot Tom had chosen the day before.Knowing he was nearby set Harry into a spiral of uncertainty. Stupid, idiotic crush, making him compromise his lifelong goal, which was finally within reach. He couldn’t let his hormones steer him in this, let alone the giddy and impossible thought of really being with Tom Riddle.He was so busy lecturing himself that he hardly said a word to Luna, who stopped trying to engage him in conversation after a while. Her half-hearted “see you” when they finally folded and packed away the last load was the first thing either of them had said for two hours.Harry waved awkwardly at her, waited a few long seconds, then left too, switching off the lights behind him.Ron was supposed to be picking him up and dropping him off, but his phone buzzed as he stepped outside. Bad news, said the text from Ron. Harry had been very much looking forward to a warm, familiar bed, and felt faintly sick at the thought of sneaking around the clubhouse another night. But he took a deep breath, reminded himself to keep everything in perspective, and walked to the clubhouse to shower anyway.It was deja vu to emerge, damp but dressed, drop onto a bench to lace his shoes, and find Tom Riddle standing in the same place he’d intercepted Harry the night before.“Can I borrow you?” Tom asked quietly, flashing a smile. Again, he was still in his riding clothes, and again, it didn’t look like he’d exerted himself much. He seemed more like someone who had spent the evening modeling for another photoshoot than anywhere near an actual horse.“I have to get home,” Harry said, hating himself a little, and also feeling an odd thrill at turning down the invitation. “I have to do this all over again starting sometime around dawn tomorrow, and I barely slept last night.”“Oh,” Tom said, looking completely surprised. Harry wondered how often he’d been told “no” in his life. Could he count the instances on one hand? “Well, perhaps tomorrow evening, then? We could meet earlier. Don’t you get done at five?”In theory that was true, but Harry had quickly learned that for the staff and trainers there was no such thing as “hours of business” at any barn, even Windmere. “Not really.”Tom’s puzzled frown deepened, and Harry sighed. There was really only one mature approach.“Look, Tom. You’ve been really...nice. I don’t totally understand why, but you have been. Still, I can’t really...hang out with you. I’m not...I’m not here to, you know, have fun. I need to focus on the work.”There was a long beat of silence between them.“I see,” said Tom coolly. The transition from friendly and relaxed to chilly and distant was so sudden, Harry blinked. “If that’s how you prefer this to go.”Harry stared at him, totally at a loss. “How I prefer...what?”The space was dark. There were some outdoor lights left on, probably for security, and they cast enough light back through the oversized windows to half illuminate Tom’s face as he closed in. Harry leaned away from him, thinking too late that he should have stood up, but by the time that occurred to him Tom was standing between his knees and there was nowhere for him to go.Harry was paralyzed by shock, but his body wasn’t totally immune to the press of Tom’s calves, encased in smooth leather, through the washed-thin denim of Harry’s ratty jeans. Tom reached into the waistband of his breeches behind him and drew out a short leather crop, which he placed under Harry’s chin to tip back Harry’s head.“It’s vile to mention your fat uncle at a moment like this, but when he called over the weekend, he very serendipitously got me on the line, rather than Minerva. He had a few questions—just to clarify things, he said.”Harry’s mind blanked with horrified shock. Tom knew about at least one of the lies, then. Not that it explained what was happening now, or why the firm pressure of the crop’s popper under Harry’s jaw was making his mouth water."I kept to what was obviously your story, Harry, don't worry about that. But one thing your uncle was eager to 'confirm' was the pay. You can imagine how interesting I found it to learn that you're being paid $2,000 per month for the honor of riding and learning here. Quite a bit of money. I suppose your relatives expect some evidence you were paid."Harry narrowed his eyes. Now that he had started to get his shock under control, he had no patience for whatever was going on with Tom Riddle, who could leap so abruptly from one personality to another. If he was fired, fine, but he didn't need to sit down and listen to this smug asshole lord it over him. He braced his hands on the bench and jerked his legs up, then half-vaulted to the backside of the bench. It was clumsy, but it got him out from under Tom, whose eyes flashed like a cat looking at something on the other end of a string."Fuck off," Harry said, his voice rougher and softer than he'd meant for it to be. "Why do you even care what I told my uncle?"Tom smiled, the same easy grin he'd worn in the car, which threw Harry for another loop. "I said I'd seen your video, didn't I? I wanted you here, Harry. I could tell I'd enjoy your company. And I thought you could use my help, too.""Your help?" Harry felt lost again. "With what, my dressage?"Tom breathed out in a little huff that might have been a laugh, but he wasn't smiling anymore. "No. With your cash flow problem. That is, assuming you don't actually have six thousand dollars lying around?"Harry crossed his arms tightly over his chest and leaned back against the wall, wishing he could get further away. The bench was between them, but Tom could still reach out with the crop and touch him if he wanted to. Harry wondered why that thought had even occurred to him, and tried furiously to focus on what Riddle was saying."Like a loan?" Harry asked cautiously."No, like a payment for service rendered."Harry stared at him. "Services?"Tom nodded, utterly business-like, as he absently dropped a hand to his crotch and rubbed himself, just once, the way Harry might if he was adjusting himself over an ill-timed stray thought in the inconveniently betraying standard riding attire. Without thinking, Harry dropped his gaze to follow the path of Tom's hand against the thick, dark khaki cotton."I could use someone who will do as I tell them, and $2,000 is Saturday pocket money to me. I'd be happy to give you a company check in that amount to pass along to your uncle, and no one has to know."Harry's heart stopped, then thundered back to life, leaving him breathless and hot everywhere, especially in his fingertips, the soles of his feet, and his apparently shameless cock."Are you saying you'll pay me to fuck you?"Tom grinned lazily. "No, nothing like that. But you have a pretty mouth, Harry. I can't be the first person to tell you that. And the way you're looking at me, I have a feeling you've used it before."Harry wasn't sure whether he was supposed to be offended by the insinuation. He actually had exchanged a few blow jobs the previous spring with a junior rider named Neville. It hadn't been so bad, though—Harry reflected half-hysterically on the irony—Harry had mostly imagined Tom Riddle's centerfold when Neville returned the favor.Six thousand dollars was a lot of money for something that Harry might have been convinced under other circumstances to do for free. The only thing that might stop him was the principle of the matter, and how he'd have to grit his teeth at letting Tom, who he now knew to be the most entitled, perverted asshole on the planet, have the satisfaction."How do I know you won't tell anyone?"Tom snorted, looking surprised, which made Harry feel a weak flare of satisfaction."I guess you'll have to trust me when I say this isn't a secret I would benefit from telling anyone," he said. "This isn't something we're going to negotiate, Harry. You may either say yes or no, and don't mistake me, if you say no I will certainly ensure that you're no longer welcome here. So?""I..." Harry looked away, but there was nothing to guide him in the right direction, here. Maybe it wasn't such a big deal. "Okay."Tom looked pale, but he was unmistakably excited. His smile wavered with a fanatic edge as he looked at Harry's throat, then his hands, then his face. Or rather, his mouth. The back of Harry's neck prickled with humiliation and he cleared his throat."Right here?"Tom swallowed, composing himself in that swift way he had. Harry hated him, of course, but he was still fascinated by how Tom could do that: assemble a whole affect, expression, posture and all, and put it on like a shirt or a pair of shoes."No," Tom said gruffly, looking around the room as though just now realizing they were in a public place. Harry wondered with faint amusement if Tom, despite all his bravado, hadn't expected Harry to say yes. "We'll—maybe, my car." He looked at Harry, again turning his face at an angle that hid most of his expression and left his eyes colorless, just a dark gleam. Harry shivered."Okay," he agreed.Harry followed Tom outside, feeling the strange urge to laugh. The situation felt completely bizarre, but Harry couldn't bring himself to break free of it. It was as though the moment Tom touched him with the crop he'd cast a spell, and Harry, though conscious of it, couldn't break free. He paused, puzzled, when Tom walked around the car instead of getting in on the driver's side, then arched a brow when Tom opened the passenger door and stepped back."What a gentleman," Harry observed, voice heavy with sarcasm, and Tom met his eye without any hint of the unease he'd betrayed right after Harry had said yes."You have no idea," he said smoothly, looking straight back at Harry. After another second, Harry relented and walked past him, bemused, to lower himself into the seat. Tom closed the door, walked back around the car, and got in too. Harry jumped when he started the engine."I thought...?"Tom smirked, looking over his shoulder to check his blind spot, elbow resting on the back of the seat. When he shifted the car into gear, his right hand left the shift and slid over the seatback to settle on the back of Harry's neck."We'll find a spot that's private," he said. "I'd rather not have to be quiet."The car sped silently down the dark driveway, its headlights illuminating the pavement, the trees and fence posts. It was like being inside a bubble, except they were going so fast that the wind picked up and tossed Harry's hair. The evening was cool, and he might have been chilly under other circumstances. Instead he still felt uncomfortably hot, having mostly to do with Tom's hand on his neck, rubbing his nape absently with his fingertips as though they were on a second date that was going well, rather than driving out somewhere isolated so that Harry could suck Tom off for money.Harry felt a strange thrill at the thought of it. It wouldn't be like Neville at all. He wondered if Tom would appreciate Harry using his teeth, which was a tip he'd gotten from a website, but which Neville hadn't responded to well at all. Was this the sort of thing that should be negotiated in advance? He fidgeted, fighting the urge to cross his legs to control his own physical reaction to Tom's hand, and to the thought of going out in the grass somewhere and kneeling in front of him. It was almost romantic in Harry's mind's-eye, the hand that was holding him possessively by the neck gently cradling his head instead.They got on the highway, but barely went a mile. He thought that driving out to a dark remote location with a stranger wasn’t wise, but couldn’t bring himself to worry. If there was such thing as teenage billionaire serial killers, he doubted they could also find time to perfect their two-point over a double oxer on a muddy incline, the way Tom had in the National Finals the summer before. Ron had recorded the final go for Harry, who’d watched it three times after class before Ron had awkwardly asked to have his phone back.Tom had turned off onto a narrow gravel lane, hemmed in on both sides by tall, untidy trees, a stark contrast to the sculpted hedges and carefully pruned blossoming pear trees at Windmere’s main entrance. Harry realized, though, that they were still on the property. It was a couple thousand acres, he remembered. The new construction was layered over the old, but according to the website the property still boasted the original house and outbuildings of the historic ranch.Tom had slowed to a crawl to keep the tires from peppering the car with gravel, and Harry leaned back against his hand. “Do you do this with all the working students?” he asked curiously.“They're usually girls,” said Tom, easing the car into the grass. He turned off the engine and shifted to face Harry, his hand moving from Harry’s neck so he could trace Harry’s cheek and then his jaw with his knuckles. “I’ve never been interested in girls.”For some reason, Harry found his gentleness to be too much. He angled his head away from Tom’s touch and breathed in, steeling himself. Tom didn’t appear to be getting out of the car, so Harry tentatively put a hand on his thigh.“Here?”It was too dark for Harry to see his expression, but Tom’s profile was edged in silver by the moon and stars, and Harry could make out his nod. Hear his breath hitch and feel his muscles twitch under Harry’s palm.“What do you like?” Harry murmured, turning and putting his knees in the seat so he could lean over and be near enough to get his mouth in the right place. He looked assessingly at the steering wheel, but didn’t think it would get in the way. He moved his hand up Tom’s inseam and jumped when he felt the soft bulge of Tom’s balls between his parted thighs.Tom let out a short breath and ran his hand up Harry’s back. “I like to be swallowed. I like it wet.” He was talking fast. “I want to hold you down on it and hear you gag.”Harry rolled his eyes. Nothing surprising, then. He had a vague suspicion, which he wasn’t stupid enough to voice, that Tom hadn’t done this much more than Harry. Maybe even less.But Harry was reading something, too, from the cautious tenderness of the hand on his back. It wasn’t uncertainty exactly, but more like the way Harry had felt unbearably fond of Neville all through what were some objectively awkward and unexciting experiences. No one had ever offered any kind of intimacy to Harry, except the fierce, but at-arm’s-length love of his friends and Remus. Perhaps Tom and Harry had that in common.The thought was half-formed in Harry’s conscious, but it made his hands steady and gentle when he popped the snap at the waist of Tom’s breeches and eased down the slim zipper. Tom lifted his hips and together they eased his breeches and briefs halfway down his thighs. Tom had either stopped breathing, or was doing it too quietly for Harry to hear.Tom was about Neville’s length, but thicker, and his balls were large and heavy, which Harry didn’t think should seem so erotic, but he wanted to see if he could get them both in his mouth.Not today; he was already concerned about the angle and the space. He’d only done this kneeling, and now he was at a ninety degree angle to Tom’s lap. He put his right hand firmly around the shaft, lowered his head and inhaled. The expensive-soap-smell was heady here. There was the pungent scent of salt—sweat—too. Harry opened his mouth and sucked the head into his mouth. Tom’s startled gasp sounded like music. He moaned too, and his first closing in the ends of Harry’s hair made Harry’s scalp sting. Harry twisted his head around so he could glare up at Tom, but he still couldn’t make out his face.“What?” Harry panted.“I don’t...” He couldn’t see Tom’s face, but his mouth was practically pressed against Tom’s abs, which were taut and trembling with tension. He sounded perplexed. “I didn’t think you’d just...begin.”Harry snorted. “I asked what you wanted, and you weren’t exactly specific,” he pointed out.Tom cleared his throat. “C-continue, then,” he said, and Harry, feeling the inappropriate urge to laugh, swallowed instead and got back to work.After a few minutes of exploring, and Tom twitching every time Harry changed pressure or licked a new path across the velvety skin, Harry had found a rhythm and Tom finally seemed to relax. He had kept a loose hold of Harry’s hair, but suddenly he twisted his hand and pulled tight.“Deeper,” he breathed, and lifted his hips as Harry exhaled through his nose and sank down.The angle was almost impossible for Tom to actually make good on his initial wish, and Harry hadn’t ever taken anyone past his palate, so he felt mildly panicked when Tom pushed him down hard. But then, just as quickly, Tom was guiding him completely off.Harry let him, startled. He couldn’t imagine he’d done anything unpleasant enough to spoil a blow job, which all the articles said would be at least acceptable no matter how badly you did it. But unexpectedly, Tom was grabbing at Harry’s waist, and hauling him closer to press their mouths together, a strange bruising sort of pressure like the violent cousin of a kiss.“Use your hand,” Tom said against Harry’s mouth, his voice a hot breath, and grasped Harry’s right wrist to guide it down between them. Harry had to balance with his left hand on Tom’s shoulder, their foreheads close. A half inch away, he could finally see Tom’s eyes, ringed with amber, pupils huge and black, eyelashes dense and curled like a girl’s. He put his fingers around Tom’s cock and Tom covered Harry’s hand with his to guide the pressure and rhythm.”This...” Harry gasped, his hip lodged painfully against the gear shift, his own hardness brushing agonizingly against Tom’s forearm, but not with pressure or friction enough. “This isn’t a blowjob,” he managed, and Tom grunted and took his hand off Harry’s, tipping his head back. That left Harry gazing at his Adam’s Apple, his hand stuttering a moment without guidance before he picked the rhythm up again with growing confidence.Tom’s cock was sloppy wet from Harry’s mouth, and bigger around than Harry’s, but Tom seemed to like what Harry liked: firm, fast, with an occasional hard twist on the head.“Fuck, Harry,” Tom said, still staring up, baring his throat. Harry impulsively leaned in and scraped his teeth against Tom’s the side of his neck. Tom’s cock jerked against his palm. Harry thought for a half-second that might be it, but then Tom was wrenching Harry’s hand off of him and shoving Harry’s head back into his lap.Harry hadn’t had any time to prepare himself, but he reflexively opened his mouth. It was like jumping into a pool without taking a breath, and he had a moment of urgent panic before he remembered he could breathe through his nose. Tom’s cock went in further than it had so far, and Harry fought it with instinctive fury, gagging and digging his fingernails into Tom’s thigh, clawing him.Tom’s response was to press in another half inch and come.Harry thought he might die. It was the worst sort of claustrophobia, his vision tunneling from lack of air, and at the same time, in the midst of all of that fury, the hand Tom didn't have on his head snaked out and unbuttoned his jeans.Harry jerked his head off as soon as Tom's grip on his head loosened and grabbed him hard by the arm, coughing, murderous. "You fucking asshole," he rasped.Tom was leaning back in his seat, his fingers still hooked in Harry's fly. He looked boneless, and so smug Harry could have punched him, and he was also reaching lazily into Harry's jeans to palm him through his underwear."What the fuck," Harry growled, but the hand he had clenched on Tom's arm didn't do anything to deter Tom, and Harry couldn't actually bring himself to pull the other boy away. He had the taste of Tom's cum far on the back of his tongue; it was bitter, both literally and as a reminder that Tom had just raped his throat, more or less. But now he was caressing Harry's not disinterested cock with almost unbearable gentleness. Harry shivered and slumped back against the seat."This isn't," he panted, "Some kind of trade.""No," Tom agreed, his hand gliding up so his fingers could slip down past the waistband of Harry's briefs and race over the bare skin beneath. "You can consider this a tip."Harry looked down at Tom's hand, disappearing inside his clothes. Within the confines of all the fabric, and with his arm held all the way out, he had hardly any leverage. But his fingers were long and smooth, and his absent touch felt more thrilling than Harry's ever had.But what sent him toward the edge was lifting his head to blink in Tom's direction, expecting only the silver silhouette and shadow, and finding instead that the moon had suddenly brightened, casting Tom's face in clear relief. So that Harry, captured by the look on his face, stared mesmerized and thrust up against his palm no more than a few times before he came, whimpering, against Tom's palm and wrist while Tom skated his fingertips in slow circles over Harry's tight, aching balls.Tom pulled his hand free slowly, smirked at his messy hand, and held it in front of Harry's face. "Clean me up?" he asked, grinning."I," Harry said, feeling like he'd melded with the leather seat and would never move again, "will bite your fucking finger off if you try to make me."Tom laughed, and pulled his hand back as though the threat was sincere. "There's some things in the glove box.""Things?" Harry echoed, but he was already fumbling above his sprawled knees, searching for a glove box, concealed there somewhere. He found a release and the compartment sprang open, the automatic light bright enough to make him flinch back, eyes hyper-sensitized by all this time in the dark. There was nothing inside except a miniature manila envelope for the registration, a leather-bound owner's manual, and a soft plastic dispenser for wet wipes.Harry drew it out, mystified. "God, you get up to all kinds of shit in this car, don't you?""Ha, ha," Tom replied, wiggling his fingers pointedly. Harry grumbled a bit, but he obliged Tom by opening the dispenser, pulling out a few wipes, and holding Tom's wrist between his left finger and thumb, he carefully wiped his fingers clean.As soon as Tom's hand was clean, he took it back, the back of his hand brushing Harry's cheek what could have been accidentally. Harry closed the glove box as Tom jerked up his pants and pulled back onto the gravel. The headlights flipped on.Harry's phone vibrated. He dug in his pocket for it, and swore when he saw the little lit screen informing him he had 22 unread text messages and four missed calls. He flipped the phone open, ignoring Tom's sidelong glance and amazed laugh."Is that a flip phone? I didn't know they still made them."Harry ignored Tom and scrolled through his notifications. Ron had sent a string of increasingly alarmed messages, wondering whether Harry had made suitable arrangements and reminding him that he had a long list of friends who would be eager to help out.Harry texted him back. Sorry, phone died. I've got tonight covered. See u tomorrow. He could sleep in the lounge without anyone noticing, he was pretty sure. He'd seen in-house trainers or their guests do it in other barns. Owners usually didn't care so long as you weren't seen or heard. He shoved his phone in his pocket, and realized they were still coasting up the driveway instead of back toward the road. A yard light was illuminated what had to be the original house, a sprawling story and a half of natural stone and painted wood siding, with a curving porch and semicircular dormers, it had a sort of Victorian style Harry hadn't seen before in old country places."Where are we going?" Harry looked over at Tom, confused. Tom's smile was gone, and at some point he'd buttoned his breeches and changed his face. He didn't so much as glance over at Harry and his voice was neutral when he replied."I said your uncle confirmed everything, didn't I? I don't know where you thought you could hole up—in the hay loft or something? Honestly, Harry. Anyway. No one ever uses this house anymore, and I have a key."He stopped the car by the porch and tossed something small and gold to Harry, who caught it without difficulty and stared at it. A key."You'll have to turn the air down, I imagine, but it shouldn't be difficult to find what you need. They keep it all set up so it can be ready at once."Harry just kept staring at the key, suddenly sure he couldn't look at Tom without losing ground somehow. "Oh."Tom didn't say anything, and Harry didn't look up. After another long moment, Tom sighed, reached across Harry and flung open the door. It was oddly reminiscent, and yet nothing like, the gesture from the previous morning when they'd met on the main driveway."Okay," Harry said, closing his hand around the key and sliding out of the car, grabbing his backpack from the floorboards. He stepped back, closed the car door, sucked in a breath and looked at Tom."See you tomorrow," he said, but he wasn't looking at Harry. And then he put the car in reverse and sped backwards so fast Harry thought the tire might have grazed the toe of his tennis shoe. He drove fast, Harry thought; without the care he'd shown for the gravel on the way in. Soon the car was gone, and Harry was left in the utter stillness of the night, all the problems he'd been dwelling on all weekend abruptly solved.But he had the strong sense that he'd only traded them for something much more difficult.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When Harry woke on a curiously comfortable mattress and heavy, cool sheets, he lay, disoriented in the dark room, for a long moment. The blaring alarm on his phone was the only thing that was familiar. Then he sat up with a start and saw a bar of light under the bathroom door, where he’d deliberately left the light on, and remembered.

He remembered the bizarre turn of events, the strange soreness in the back of his throat a confirmation. He rubbed his head so that his hair stood up more chaotically even than usual.

He got out of bed, every muscle leaden, and ventured back into the bathroom. The night before he’d found a toothbrush still in the box, a tube of toothpaste with an unbroken seal under the cap, and a similar array of soap and shampoo. He had been too tired to try the shower, though now he wished he had. He could feel yesterday’s dried sweat and—everything else—gritty under his clothes.

When he turned the handles experimentally in the sleek shower enclosure and hot water came down from directly overhead like a soft, steaming rain, he laughed out loud.

Even the shower was unreal.Harry normally took showers in the late afternoon while Aunt Petunia monitored his hot water expenditure with an egg timer. So he let himself linger now, the water rinsing away the tension of the day before—maybe the week before—along with all the grime.
When he finally stepped out, dripping water, fingers wrinkled, he realized he should have looked for a towel sooner. Guiltily looking over his shoulder at the trail of wet footprints he was leaving on the tile, he used a few hand towels to blot himself dry and then got into his change of clothes, wondering when he’d find a way to do laundry. Then he realized that as well-appointed as the house was, it would have a laundry room too.

Harry’s entire day went on this way, a daze of serendipity. He found his way back to the stable by following a groomed trail directly across the property. He worried midway he’d get lost, but he didn’t. The path turned prettily through the trees along a winding, wet creek bed. Three deer, summer-dappled, leapt up out of the waterway and bounded down the path ahead of Harry, swiftly out of sight. Like the day before, he gathered and saddled Hedwig, but today he met Minerva’s eye with a confident smile.

Hedwig was brilliant the first day he rode her, but when he climbed into the jumping saddle and followed Minerva out to the ring where he’d set up standards the night before with Luna, he was sure she was going to offer him even more.And she did; when Minerva suggested he warm up with a simple line three strides apart, Hedwig rated brilliantly, soared over each fence in perfect rhythm, her neck arching up into Harry’s hands in midair so her mane tickled his nose.“Well done, Harry,” Minerva said. “She’s managing the approach much better today. You must be lending her some confidence.”“Yeah,” Harry said, blushing as he rubbed up Hedwig’s neck. “Thanks.”Minerva’s phone, left in the pocket of the jacket she’d slung over the fence, began ringing. She dismounted to answer it, calmly waving Natilla away when he lifted his head to sniff her helmet.Harry gathered the reins and wound through the course at a collected walk, occasionally making a half volte and walking on in the opposite direction, until Minerva finished her call and hailed him back over to the gate.“I’m not going to be in this afternoon, apparently,” said Minerva. “Lucius Malfoy wants to see more horses before they start looking overseas.”So that’s where Draco was going?“Is it around here?”“Yes, thankfully.” She looked at Harry apologetically. “I’d take you along, but I need you to exercise a few horses so we don’t suffer setbacks.”Harry didn’t particularly want to spend his afternoon watching Draco Malfoy try horses, so he shrugged with a smile. “I don’t mind.”“I can see that,” said Minerva. “I think we have in common a certain contentedness at home, Harry. But if you want to ride professionally, you’ll learn that you can’t just be good with horses; you have to be good with people, too. Next time you can come along.”Harry couldn’t even bring himself to sigh at the next task, catching the evasive young Leonard from his oversized pasture for some work in hand. Luna was supervising Leonard’s playtime and waved tentatively when she saw Harry heading her way.“You seem better today, Harry,” she observed, no trace of teasing in her guileless smile. “Thanks,” Harry murmured, clearing his throat. “I feel more, um, rested.” “Right,” Luna agreed. “I have some advice for you,” she added, handing him Leonard’s halter. “Leonard likes cookies.” She dug in her pocket and then held out a few flaky, hard cubes. Horse treats.“Do you make these?”Luna nodded. “I know people say you shouldn’t feed treats, but I like making the horses happy.”Harry smiled at her. “Yeah? Me too.”He took the cubes and headed out. Leonard, who’d been turned away from Harry, jerked his head up and spun around, his forelock flopped comically over one of his ears.“Look what I have, Leonard,” Harry said, holding out a hand with one of Luna’s treats. Leonard stared at him with open suspicion, but his nostrils flared and he pricked his ears at Harry’s offering.After a long moment, Leonard walked forward with long, springy steps, and snatched the treat from Harry’s palm, then spun and ran toward the far end of the pasture at high speed.Harry looked over at Luna with an arched brow. She shrugged, grinning back. “At least he’s happy.”Eventually, Leonard consented to be caught, and Harry didn’t mind the exercise. Still, as the afternoon wore on and got hotter, Harry got weary fast. Fortunately, with Minerva’s afternoon canceled, instead of tacking, hand walking and untacking in the punishing afternoon heat, Harry found himself with nothing left to do by 5 o’clock.

Nothing, he remembered as he came out of the barn and heard familiar voices, but Tom.Draco was with him, looking only slightly less perfect than he had the day before. He had a sports duffle slung over his shoulder. Without meaning to, Harry found himself comparing them. They were almost the same height, and they both carried themselves with the relaxed ease of boys with every reason to be confident. But Draco was narrower and more delicate in every way; the fabric pulled taught over his bicep and shoulder revealed a sharp angle and faint concavity in his arm. His cheekbones were so pronounced they gave him a stark appearance, even with his hair ruffled by the helmet he’d just removed.

Tom, dark to Draco’s light, was slim too but stronger through his chest. A deeper, more robust color lit his cheeks. A single wayward curl fell over his forehead. He wore white breeches, which put Harry uncomfortably in mind of the Modern Riding spread.

Draco saw him first. Whatever he’d been saying trailed off, and his expression shifted from bored to instant readiness. Tom turned, too.Harry felt a wave of nervousness, the placidity of the whole day breaking at once. He wasn’t sure what he’d see on Tom’s face; the guy was so fucking mercurial. He might be aloof, he might be familiar. Harry found himself holding his breath as Tom pivoted. He looked at Tom’s boots, which were the same cherry-brown pair from yesterday. They were so new, the ankles hadn’t even fallen. Harry wondered if they were making Tom’s feet sore.

“There you are,” Tom said warmly, and Harry exhaled, looking up. Tom was smiling, and walked forward to close the distance between them. Harry froze in shock, until Tom linked their arms. As Tom tugged Harry toward him, Draco’s fascinated expression turned sharper still.“Tom insisted we wait for you,” Draco said. Harry met his eye, only because he refused to cower while he was being spoken to. He was absurdly conscious of the way Tom held his arm, how his skin was dry, almost cool, despite how hot it still was. It was ridiculous to be thrown by this simple contact, he supposed, considering just the night before he’d sucked Tom’s cock. The thought made him touch his throat. Draco’s eyes gleamed as his gaze fell to Harry’s hand, and though he couldn’t know what Harry was thinking, Harry blushed miserably and looked down again.

“Of course I did,” Tom said.

Draco didn’t speak for a beat; the brief silence felt tangibly charged. Harry dared to look up again. Draco’s cheeks were pink, like he’d been slapped. He had fixed a half-manic look on Tom.

“Does she know that...”

Tom let go of Harry, and reached out and closed his hand very deliberately over Draco’s shoulder. Harry saw his knuckles go white from the pressure.

“Still need that ride, Malfoy?”

“Y-yeah,” said Draco, averting his eyes. Tom let him go.Harry’s embarrassment was forgotten as he watched them in confused fascination. He’d had to learn, growing up with his Aunt and Uncle, how to read people, see what they weren’t saying. He thought he was pretty good at it. But he had yet to figure out Draco and Tom’s dynamic at all.

“I’m taking Draco to the airport,” Tom explained. “I’m sorry we won’t be able to spend any time together tonight. But I wanted to give you this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, neatly-wrapped box.

Harry looked at it suspiciously. What the fuck? After he’d stared a moment, Tom tipped his hand rapidly back and forth so the contents made a muted rattling noise.

“Don’t worry, it’s not alive,” Tom laughed.

Harry took the box, then looked at Draco, uncertain.

Draco folded his arms and looked darkly back at Harry. “I already know what it is. I’m the courier, in fact.”

“Yes, but I told him exactly what to get,” Tom rushed to say, as though he didn’t want to lose credit for the gift. Harry looked from Draco to Tom, who was smiling almost shyly, which struck Harry as so strange he almost dropped the box.“Open it,” Tom said eagerly.

“Yes, for fuck’s sake,” muttered Draco. “I’ll miss my flight.”

“Don’t listen to him; it’s his father’s plane.”

Harry wanted them to stop talking, so he tore through the silky wrapping paper and found himself looking at a felt-lined, slim rectangular box with a gold, embossed emblem on the top that was vaguely familiar.

He popped it open. A black leather cell phone case rested inside, with what was probably a brand new iPhone already installed in it.

“You got me a phone?” Harry asked blankly.

Draco snorted. “The phone isn’t...” There was a muted noise and Draco exclaimed and hopped backward on one foot. “Kicking, Riddle? Really?”

Harry belatedly realized the case was supposed to be the gift. He knew the interlinked G emblem, now that he saw it again on the back of the phone case, which felt admittedly satisfying on his fingertips. He didn’t know Gucci made cell phone cases. Unreal. Everything about the day was proving to be that way.

“Thanks,” he said, and closed the box. “But I have a phone.”“Is it the color?” Draco, rather than Tom, was asking. He had gone abruptly from disdain to apparent, sincere worry. He stepped forward to frown at the box anxiously. “Or is it the iguana? I don’t know; they say that’s the best, but it sounds like something from a pet store, doesn’t it?”

“Your phone isn’t acceptable,” Tom said, refusing to take the box back out of Harry’s hands. He looked irritated, too, which made sense. Harry had learned firsthand how he reacted to negative feedback.

“I can call and text,” Harry said soothingly. “That’s all I need to be able to do.”

Draco sighed dramatically. “I’ll wait in the car.” But he was still unsettled looking as he walked off. Harry watched him go, then looked up at Tom, who was increasingly unhappy.

“This is the way I want to stay in touch,” Tom said tersely. “We have an arrangement,” he reminded Harry.

“Our arrangement is for...” Harry darted a look left and right. “Other stuff.”

Tom snorted. “I don’t think we got that specific.”

Harry frowned. “We...” But before he could finish the thought—which was, mostly, conceding that they should have had a more detailed negotiation—Tom was stepping into his space.

“Come on, Harry, don’t be difficult for no good reason. Consider it a loan? If that makes you feel better.” He slipped his arms around Harry’s waist, Harry still holding the box awkwardly between them. “How did you sleep?”

“Pretty well,” Harry heard himself say, as if it was normal to have a conversation with his face practically pressed against Tom’s chest, Tom’s hands roaming slowly from his waist to his shoulders.”What are you doing?” Harry leaned back against Tom’s hands, trying to look up into his face, but the firm pressure against the abused muscles of his upper back made him sigh involuntarily. “Oh,” he said, as Tom began to gently knead.

“I’ll come by after I drop Draco?” Tom asked sweetly, his thumb digging in at just the right place.

“Um...? Oh, yeah, there.” Harry hadn’t thought about it, but he supposed if Tom could get sucked off nightly, he probably would take advantage. They’d have a lot more space in a house than in a car. The idea wasn’t unpleasant. “Okay.”

Tom went back to rubbing for a moment, then pulled away. Harry, still holding the phone case against his stomach, blinked at him and resisted the urge to beg for more. His back felt tingly and awake. No one had ever done anything like that for him before. That had to be all it was. He imagined asking Ron for a rub down; it was laughable.Then Harry realized what he’d agreed to so easily, and considered how he could qualify his agreement. Before he could, Tom said, “Great. I’ll bring dinner,” and turned and walked out.

Harry watched him go, that odd floating sensation creeping back, a pervasive unreality. Then his phone—his actual phone—buzzed in his vest pocket. He fumbled with the box and the wrapper a moment before he got his hands freed up to reach in and look at it.

Ron: got dad’s car! want me 2 come get u?

Harry bit his lip. He thought of the cozy lower bunk in Ron’s room where he’d spent more nights than he could count, the hustle and bustle of the house on Burrow Street, which he’d always loved. Which he’d spent nights longing for at the Dursleys’.

But for some reason he didn’t want to go. For one thing, he probably had to figure out the details of the “arrangement” with Tom, and for another…
Well, he thought of how bizarre it would be, eating dinner in that picture-perfect house with Tom Riddle, then getting on his knees later for Tom Riddle...it was the most irresistible idea of playing house.
Harry: Got this week covered. Thanks though.
Harry took the path back toward the house with his head full. Half of the thoughts circling there were versions of what was I thinking—not going to Burrow Street; letting Tom Riddle rub his back where anyone could see; not declining the phone more forcefully; sleeping in a mysterious house; sucking someone’s cock when all he knew about him were the stats of his entire eventing career and that he was a spoiled asshole; lying to his relatives; applying for the position in the first place.But he didn’t correct any of his mistakes. He just walked right into the next one, eyes wide open.Inside the house, Harry took a closer look around in the daylight. It was original in some ways and totally new in others. The exterior could have been straight out of the 1880s, except for the almost opaque high-tech windows. The floors were wide, scarred wood refinished to a brilliant shine, and the walls had the telltale imperfections of plaster but the paint was flawless and vibrant. The fixtures were spare, utilitarian, like the steel-shrouded sconces that came on automatically when Harry walked in. He trailed down the hallway to the bedroom he’d chosen the night before. He’d tried to straighten up behind him that morning, but still left wrinkles in the bedspread and smears in the polished floor where he’d wiped up after his shower.

Harry tried to better erase all the little traces of his presence, but gave up after five or ten minutes. Whatever professional had set up the house had some sort of magic touch that wasn’t alive in Harry, apparently.

That train of thought led back to one of the questions that burned with its obviousness: who was this house waiting for? “Whomever Tom Riddle decided to drop off” couldn’t be the answer, could it?

Distracted by his musings, Harry stepped into the shower and spent another indulgently long time under the water, only stirring himself to move it along when he remembered Tom was coming.

He put on his last set of clean clothing, nervously wondering what he was supposed to do with Draco Malfoy’s shirt and jeans, which he’d tried to awkwardly fold and set on a chair when he’d shucked them that morning. He doubted they were the sort of things that just got thrown in the wash.Still no Tom, so Harry roamed the house until he found the laundry room, a second bedroom, the basement stairs. He didn’t go upstairs, oddly uneasy with the thought of prowling where he obviously had no reason to go, though his reservations didn’t make sense even to him.

Tom wasn’t there, so Harry inspected the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets. He found plates and set the dining room table carefully for two, like he would for the Dursleys. Then, blushing, he rushed to put everything back, sure the entire time Tom would show up and laugh at him. At Harry, expecting a candlelit dinner for two, when Tom was just coming by for Harry’s convenient mouth.Three hours later, Harry decided Tom wasn’t coming, and laid down on the bed he’d slept in before, looking at the phone for the third time. He’d decided he wouldn’t use it. That he’d force Tom to take it back. But now he wondered if Tom had used it to explain what had come up, and woke it up with a touch.

He’d used friends’ phones enough to navigate, and learned in short order there was no waiting message from Tom. Harry tossed the phone aside, annoyed.

But why was he annoyed? Sure, Tom was acting like a thoughtless, entitled jerk, but what had Harry really expected?

Also, he should be glad Tom wasn’t coming by. That meant there would be absolutely no expectation that Harry would let him fuck his face, which was the only fitting description of what the bastard had done the night before, without asking, or even warning Harry. It was bullshit. Harry should hate him.Now that he was lying down, Harry realized how tired he still was, but only moments before he fell asleep.

He woke up some time later, lying on his side and with someone spooned behind him, rubbing his completely erect cock through his jeans.“Tom?” Harry’s breath hitched as Tom’s touched lifted off so he could unbutton Harry’s fly one-handed.

Warm breath ghosted against his ear as Tom laughed. “Expecting someone else?”

Harry hissed as Tom’s cool fingers slid through Harry’s pubic hair, unconsciously grinding back toward Tom’s pelvis where he felt a reciprocating hardness. Tom inhaled, startled, and his touch fumbled. Harry grinned, then remembered the feelings of the last few minutes before he’d fallen asleep, and rolled away from Tom’s hand, onto his stomach. He grimaced at the feeling of his cock pressed tightly to the mattress—the pressure made him dizzy a half second—then he propped himself on his elbows so he could glare over at Tom.“I waited for-fucking-ever,” Harry said, sounding sharper than he’d meant to. Tom, of course, looked completely surprised.

“I didn’t know we’d chosen a time?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You know I was waiting for you. You acted like it would just be a quick thing, dropping Draco. You said...you’d...dinner...” Hearing himself, Harry hated that he’d said anything. He sounded like a whiny boyfriend, and he was neither whiny nor a boyfriend. He was a self-possessed person, always had been. And he was in a paid arrangement with Tom.

Feeding on that thought, he glared with renewed confidence. “It’s just unprofessional.”

Tom laughed. It was a nice laugh. “Unprofessional?”

Harry was tempted to try strangling Tom. He wasn’t as tall, but he bet Tom hadn’t ever had to deflect an oversized bully like Dudley. Harry was nimble.
“This isn’t funny,” he growled, but Tom had worked himself halfway into hysterics, sitting up. So, on principle, Harry was compelled to launch himself at Tom and pin his arms to his sides.“This isn’t funny!” he repeated through gritted teeth, face close to Tom’s. Tom’s eyes widened, and he strained experimentally against Harry’s grip, thrusting his hips against Harry in the process. Of course Harry had managed to end up straddling Tom, his ass nested back against Tom’s hard cock.“I like it when you’re bossy,” Tom said, voice still uneven with laughter, and he undulated against Harry rhythmically, which shut them both up for a second. Then Harry gripped Tom’s arms harder and rose up on his knees so their most distracting anatomy no longer touched.

“We need to talk about this,” he said in a steadier voice. “We need rules.”

Tom, who had begun looking distressed as soon as he couldn’t rub himself against Harry, nodded obediently. “Sure,” he agreed, reaching up and settling his hands on Harry’s hips so he could lower Harry back into his lap. “Whatever you want.”

Harry, feeling encouraged, let himself be guided back to a seated position on Tom’s cock. The position pressed the seam of his jeans tightly against his asshole, and he blinked at the thought of Tom’s bare skin there instead.

No time for distractions. He ground down experimentally and Tom hissed, eyes losing focus. “So, first rule, you need to tell me when we’re having our...um, appointments.”

Tom’s lips quirked, the ghost of a smirk, and Harry tilted his hips and watched with satisfaction as that smug line melted back off Tom’s mouth.

“Nnnh,” Tom said, nodding faintly. “Sure.”“And we only do this on weekdays,” Harry added.

“‘This’?” Tom asked, pressing Harry against himself harder and jerking his hips demonstratively. Then he seemed to lose his train of thought again. “Or just...appointments?” he asked a few seconds later.

“Appointments,” Harry agreed. He was panting; a combination of the strain of the position, the look on Tom’s face, and the headiness of being responsible for it. Tom started to reach for Harry’s crotch and Harry caught his wrist. He hesitated a moment when Tom’s eyes narrowed, then lifted Tom’s hand to his mouth and sucked his fore and middle finger inside. He nursed at them a moment while Tom’s mouth fell open, then drew them back out and let go of Tom’s hand. It flopped back to Tom’s side like all the strength had gone out of it.

“And I have a say in what we do. We can’t just do any twisted thing you want to.”“Twisted?” Tom peered up at him, his curl over his left eye, which made Harry’s heart lurch appallingly.

“You basically raped my mouth last night,” Harry said stiffly, and Tom rolled his eyes.

“I didn’t hear you objecting.”

“How could I?” Harry cried, leaning in so his cock finally rubbed against the firmness of Tom’s abs. It wasn’t enough friction, but his cock had been neglected for several minutes, so it felt strangely intense.

Tom got a hand between them again and grasped Harry successfully this time. “You were rock hard,” he insisted. “How was I supposed to know you didn’t want it like that? You looked at my crop like you wanted me to break it on your ass.”

His grip was tight, punishing. Harry whimpered and slid into a more effective position, pressing back against Tom’s cock until Tom swore.

“Fuck, Harry.”
It devolved fast from there. Harry rocking back and forth between Tom’s cock and his hand, Tom pulling Harry’s shoulder forward just enough to press his mouth into Harry’s neck, his shoulder. Not kissing and not biting, exactly, but Harry felt the scrape of his teeth and the lave of his tongue.Harry came first, in his last clean pair of underwear, and before he’d finished Tom was leaning back to brace against one hand, hold Harry down with the other, and thrust up into Harry three times, rapid and bruising, before he collapsed back. He reached up and dragged Harry down onto his chest, and Harry, still blurry-eyed from orgasm, tumbled down onto him without complaint.Tom was rubbing his back again. Harry knew he should tell him to stop, but all he could manage were little murmuring noises of unmistakable approval.

“I need a shower,” Tom said after a few minutes, and Harry rolled off of him, avoiding his eye. Tom touched the back of his neck, then his shoulders. “Will you come too, or is that unprofessional?”“God, you’re such an asshole,” Harry muttered, shrugging off Tom’s hands. He fidgeted at the wetness in his jeans and frowned. “I’ll go after you.”

“I want you to wash my hair,” Tom complained. “My shoulder is sore from my ride.”

“Um, no,” Harry said, but Tom wasn’t listening. He’d latched onto Harry’s hand and slid from the bed, hauling Harry along.

“I couldn’t do it right by myself, and my hair is so fine, it has to be carefully rinsed.”

“Which arm? They seemed fine just now,” Harry protested, but he wasn’t sure whether Tom was full of shit, or if Harry even cared. He was more than a little interested in seeing what Tom looked like naked.Tom was leaving the bedroom, which didn’t make any sense. “The bathroom...?” Harry hesitated, looking pointedly toward the en suite with the magic shower.

“It’ll be easier for you in the jacuzzi,” Tom assured him, looking Harry up and down with a smirk. “You could hardly reach if I’m standing. Come on. It’s upstairs.”Harry should have clarified about the scope of an appointment, probably. But he wasn’t sure what he was going to do when Tom left, other than sleep, and he wouldn’t describe himself as the least bit tired. So he let Tom lead him by the hand upstairs. The landing opened directly to a sprawling master bedroom, bringing Harry up short.

“Whose house is this?”

Tom didn’t look at Harry, but Harry thought he noticed a muscle jerk in his jaw. “It’s a part of Windmere.”

“What’s it for?”

“Guests. Torrid affairs. I don’t know, what are houses for?”

Harry frowned. “How did you know it was available? I didn’t know you were so, um, involved here.”“You don’t know me,” Tom agreed smoothly, pulling Harry through the open French doors into an opulent bathroom with a circular jacuzzi that looked more like a pool than a tub.“I like it hot,” Tom advised, sitting on an ottoman and bending down to remove his socks. Harry hadn’t really taken stock of him in the midst of their rutting around on the bed, but now he saw he was wearing slacks and a silk shirt. Nothing like what he’d been wearing when he left the barn with Draco.

Harry almost asked where he’d gone, but Tom’s last, careless words were ringing in his ears. You don’t know me.
It was none of Harry’s business. He turned on the taps and water rushed into the tub as though from a fire hydrant; it was half full by the time Tom finished stepping out of his slacks, shrugging out of his shirt. Harry’s mouth was dry. Tom was elegantly made, that was all that could be said. He had long limbs, lean muscle rounding his joints and making him firm and supple, but nowhere in excess. He had skin that seemed to glow, opalescent, in the dim light of the motion-sensor-powered vanity fixture across the room that had come on when they entered.

He peeled off his underwear, careful not to touch the damp patch, and Harry saw his flaccid cock, his heavy balls, as large as Harry recalled when they were just under his cheek.“Like what you see?” Tom had straightened up and caught Harry looking, and now walked over to the tub with supreme indifference to his own nudity.

“You’re very pretty,” Harry said in a tone that was meant to be snide, but came out irritatingly breathless. Tom glanced quickly at him, his smug smile faltering, and they stared at each other from a few feet away for a protracted moment.“Good genes,” Tom said lightly to break the silence, and stepped into the water. “Or half of them, anyway.”

He didn’t seem to expect company, so Harry went looking for supplies while Tom stretched out in the water with a sigh.Tom was no help whatsoever. Harry had to wet his hair with a little glass cup he found with the mouthwash, and comb it through to be sure his scalp was thoroughly wet. Then he put a judicious amount of sage-scented shampoo into his palms and worked it through Tom’s hair. Tom leaned his head into Harry’s hands. He reminded Harry of the kind of horse that loved being scratched but was much too dignified to ever seek it out.
The room was warm, Tom’s head was lolling against Harry’s hands, and Harry was getting hard again in the uncomfortably damp and sticky confines of his clothes. he refused to acknowledge it.“Harry,” Tom said after Harry had rinsed his hair, little by little, saturating the front of his t-shirt in the process. “Maybe you should wash the rest of me.” He opened his eyes, tilting his head back so their eyes met. Harry peered down his nose at Tom and hesitated.

“You and your sore arm?” He rolled his eyes, but the water looked good. Still, he was hard again, and Tom visibly wasn’t. Harry was the one being paid; it seemed unconscionable to be the one more turned on by the transaction.But Tom wasn’t inviting him, Harry realized, as Tom twisted around and stretched out his arm pointedly. Harry sighed and grudgingly plucked a cake of pink, flaky soap from a silver tray affixed to the side of the tub and built a lather to spread over Tom’s arm. There was a wash cloth there too, which he used to wipe away the soap, and Tom gave him his other arm.Then Tom rose up out of the water and balanced on one leg so he could rest the arch of his foot against the edge, and Harry cupped his hands together and stared determinedly at the sparse dark hair on Tom’s ankle as he rubbed the soap up his calf with the palms of his hands.Harry should have been laughing, or furious at the indignity. But he wasn’t. Maybe it was the scent of the soap, or the feeling of dipping in and out of a dream which had pervaded the whole day, but Harry worked carefully, unselfconsciously, keeping his eyes on his hands so that when he was sweeping a soap-slick hand to the top of Tom’s thigh, it was Tom who sucked in a startled breath.

Tom who jerked his leg back, splashing Harry as he turned around and then sank under the water to his chin before looking back over his shoulder, eyes cool and shuttered. “I’m tired. Toss me a towel.”Harry started to say there were no towels in the otherwise perfectly-appointed house, but he saw a stack of fluffy white towels on a hotel-style rack by the vanity before he could speak. He brought one to Tom, who stood up, reached for it stiffly, and stepped out of the tub, leaving water standing in it. Harry rolled his eyes and plunged his forearm into the water, which was still quite hot, and released the drain.It was like the night before. First the minor but constant touches; the sharing-a-secret smile; the sweetly-lowered voice. Then the furiously eager, insistent fucking around. A moment of odd tenderness. And then Tom being suddenly, inexplicably aloof.Harry supposed be wasn’t being paid to wonder about this, and stayed kneeling by the tub while Tom wandered out, snatching his clothes from the ottoman as he walked by, the towel wound around his hips.The tub gargled loud as a sea monster as it swept away all evidence of the bath into its drain. The noise was so sudden Harry jumped.What the fuck was Tom Riddle’s deal, anyway?****That thought—what the fuck?—would be the theme of Harry’s Thursday.Harry started his morning by saddling Hedwig for Minerva, and a customer pony named Lexie for himself. Lexie had been dropped off because she was being difficult for her young rider, and Minerva was going to evaluate her and see whether a tune-up was in order. She was a pretty black mare with four white stockings and a star, but she was watching Harry in an appraising way he didn't like. Harry had a healthy respect for the will of ponies, and kept patting Lexie cautiously to ingratiate himself with her while he double-checked the fit of the saddle. Like many ponies, her shoulders were disproportionately round; she was in many ways wider and more substantial than a horse several times her height.“There she is,” Minerva said, walking around from the grooming bay where Hedwig was waiting to present her knuckles to Lexie for a sniff. The pony reached out daintily, her whiskers brushing Minerva’s fingers, and when she had satisfied herself Minerva gave her forehead a friendly rub.“You seem pretty fond of her,” Harry said, smiling. Minerva nodded, her constant frown turning wry. “I am. Her—good grief—granddam was my last pony, and she looks just like her.”Harry tried to imagine Minerva, young enough for pony club, and couldn’t quite contain his delighted laughter.Minerva, obviously tracking his train of thought, smiled very slightly as well.“Did you ride her dam, too?”Minerva gave him a quick look. “I schooled her mother, Star, on occasion for her first youth rider—Thomas Riddle.”Harry was startled, though he wasn’t sure why. “Tom?”“Thomas Riddle, Senior,” she clarified, smoothing Lexie’s thick forelock, which Harry had hastily braided to keep out of her eyes. “A very kind child, and man.”Harry didn’t know much about the members of Tom Riddle’s family. In magazines and show coverage, Tom was always pictured with “Benjamin and Eleanor Riddle, his loving and supportive grandparents.”“I guess I don’t know much about the Riddles,” Harry ventured. “Do they all ride?”“No,” said Minerva. “Only Thomas, and Tom, of course.” She gave Lexie a final stroke and returned to Hedwig.Harry led the pony out with a measured stride. He was used to keeping walking pace with horses that towered over him, whereas Lexie’s back only came as high as his chest. But she was quick, her small, attractively curved ears pricked, taking in her surroundings as she hurried after Hedwig.“Did you and the Malfoys have any luck yesterday?” Harry asked Minerva conversationally, as he and Lexie caught up.“No, I’m afraid. It was a long shot from the outset. Lucius, Draco’s father, has always preferred to import.”Harry could understand that. The Europeans had been refining the bloodlines longer, and tended to produce the best stock as a result."If they ask, I may have to join them in France to try horses, though they have a contact there they generally trust for general input. If they actually decide to make a purchase, I will, presumably, be involved.”

Harry nodded. That made sense.

"Should that materialize, there is a chance you could come along."

Harry tripped over nothing but shock, which caused him to inadvertently pull hard on Lexie's left rein. She shook her head and glared at him, and he soothed her with his right hand on the crest of her neck as they walked on.

"That would be amazing," he managed."Do you have a passport?" Minerva asked.

Harry frowned. "Is that like a birth certificate?" He had one of those; he was charged with keeping it safe in his own tattered folder, after the Dursleys had ordered a replacement to enroll him in school.

Minerva laughed. "No, Harry. It is something else altogether. You'll have to ask your guardians about it."

Harry noticed that she didn't say "his parents," the way people who didn't know him well tended to, and felt a slight, confusing warmth in his chest, and an almost unbearable desire to make her like him half as much as he liked her. It left him hot and flustered. He assumed a passport was the sort of thing the Dursleys would have to approve, and he couldn't imagine that they would. Aunt Petunia had a strong, nonspecific disdain for other countries which seemed to be related to the fact they couldn't afford international travel. Harry was sure she wouldn't permit him to go for any reason except criminal deportation."I'll talk to them," he promised, but what he was really thinking was that he would talk to Hermione, whom he was sure to see over the weekend at Burrow Street.

"Please do, and soon," she said. "I think, if you have to apply for one, it can take several weeks. So it would be best to straighten it out as soon as possible."

At the arena gate, Harry waited while Minerva entered and used the mounting block. He thought he could easily step on Lexie from the ground, but when he stood parallel to her and raised his left foot toward the stirrup, she spun her hindquarters around and looked at him with a gleam in her eye.

"Ah," called Minerva, voice fond again. "Yes, Lexie will prefer that you use the mounting block. And if she is still fussy, a nice scratch just behind the girth may be in order."Harry, bemused, did as instructed, adding the scratching for good measure. Lexie stretched her neck forward, eyes half-closed in pleasure. Harry grinned and kept at it until her upper lip wiggled before he finally stepped on.

He had ridden the occasional pony at the old barn; hunter ponies were the primary client horses there, where the economy of the stable was built around local showing and youth riders. Lexie was similar to his other experiences only in her size. She was as supple and well-mannered as any professional's horse, he mused, after trotting her out around the rail and testing her adjustability. He was smiling unconsciously when he and Minerva first passed left shoulder to left shoulder along the rail, and Minerva caught sight of it.

"Isn't she lovely?"

Harry nodded, leaning forward to pet Lexie's glossy neck, and he was sure he felt an extra bounce in her step as though she was aware of the praise.Things took a turn when it was time to ride a few gymnastics, and Minerva talked Harry through a simple oxer followed by a rollback to a low two-rail bounce. He had ridden something similar on Hedwig the day before, and maneuvering a large horse had been a challenge but he assumed on the more agile pony it would be no strain at all. He lengthened Lexie's canter to be sure they could make the distance, and she soared beautifully over the oxer. Feeling confident, Harry gave her a little extra rein, putting his hands in crest position and trying to decide whether he would take her straight away off the bounce or turn the opposite direction of the rollback to see if he could get an obedient flying lead change.

Lexie, meanwhile, pinned her ears flat and came to such an abrupt stop, Harry nearly went over the first fence of the bounce without her.

He got back into the saddle, flustered, and realized that the unfamiliar noise he was hearing was Minerva smothering a witch's cackle in her elbow from the center of the arena where she'd been watching."Her rider reported abrupt refusals," Minerva said slyly, and Harry's mouth fell open, though he was also fighting the urge to laugh.

"You could have warned me!"

"I didn't want preconceptions to color how you handled her," Minerva retorted, regaining her composure. "Let's try that again, and add some leg off the oxer, would you? Honestly, Harry, don't you know there's no such thing as autopilot on a pony?"Harry stayed on, which he thought a testament to his skill, since the best adjective he could come up with for Lexie by the middle of the ride was "slippery." But it required all his focus; he felt like he existed for the next hour or so inside a bubble which contained only himself, the pony, the bounds of the ring and Minerva's voice. When he finally pressed Lexie smoothly through the exercise on the dozenth attempt, he was startled into shock by the sound of laughter and applause coming from just outside the rail.

A man who was unmistakably Thomas Riddle, Senior, leaned against the fence. It was strange that Harry caught the resemblance so quickly and from a distance, considering there was nothing of his son in the man's carriage, the messy bun into which he'd thrown his very long hair, his battered jeans and well-worn Henley shirt, grey-peppered day's stubble or laced motorcycle boots. But he was practically identical to Tom in every line and proportion, his face a slightly broader, chiseled version of Tom's, without the last hint of boyishness that still rounded Tom's cheeks and softened his chin. His eyes were that same uncanny dark brown, his nose narrow as an aristocrat's. His face had the same shape, and his laugh the same pitch.

"Well done, kid," he called to Harry, stepping onto the lower rail of the fence and neatly vaulting himself over. "You did that much better than I could have.""Thomas," Minerva said, with evident delight and surprise. "You look wonderful! I had no idea you were back."

"I thought it would be nice to spend some time home while Tom's off school," said Thomas, grinning warmly at her and scratching Hedwig's chest before clapping his hand over Minerva's calf, which Harry had always thought of as a way to hug a mounted rider. It fascinated him to see someone basically hug Minerva, who, though intensely likable, didn’t invite touch. She seemed pleased by the gesture, though, and even leaned down to pat Thomas on the head.

"Oh, I'll introduce you to the boy you complimented. This is Harry Potter, my working student."

"Hi, Harry," said Thomas, turning with his easy grin. It was like seeing Tom's body injected with twenty years of age and a well-adjusted personality, and Harry found he could hardly cope.

"Hi," he said eventually, in a breathy voice he blamed on spending the past hour wrestling with a recalcitrant pony."You look like you're about my son's age. Is that right? Fifteen, sixteen?"

"I turn seventeen at the end of July," Harry said.

"Tom and Harry are acquainted," Minerva interjected quietly, and Thomas looked surprised, though his smile didn't falter.

"That's great. Tom needs to hang around with someone who doesn't throw a fit when a pony decides to be a pony. Isn't that right, princess?" This last was directed in sotto voice to Lexie, who had been looking at Thomas hopefully, and now excitedly pressed her head into his chest as he came within range.

"She remembers me," he said, laughing, to Minerva, whose smile seemed briefly sad.

"Of course she does.""It's been a decade since I saw her. Is she Malfoy's now?"

"No," Minerva said. "Your parents still own her, though she's leased to an overly confident twelve-year-old riding under Olivia Morse."

"Is that right?" Thomas inquired of Lexie, leaning back to look her in the eye with concern. "My poor girl, having to put up with someone's brat?"

Harry was startled into a real laugh, and Thomas glanced up and winked.

"Then again, they're all brats, aren't they, Harry?"

Harry laughed again, though he didn't dare to answer, and hid his smile by looking down and straightening Lexie's unruly mane."I have to go meet a friend for lunch, but it was great to see you, Minerva," Thomas said, stepping back and chuckling when Lexie followed, closing the distance with a few steps and nudging him pointedly with her muzzle. He gave her a final pat and walked backwards more quickly, Harry picking up the reins to keep the pony from trotting after him. "Nice meeting you, Harry!" he called to Harry. When he reached the fence, he leapt over it again without bothering to reroute through the gate.

"He seems really nice," Harry remarked to Minerva. Earlier she’d said that Thomas was a kind child and man. Harry didn't think she would describe Tom as a "kind child." He wondered how someone so down-to-earth and friendly had raised Tom, who was absolutely none of those things to any degree, and remembered Thomas's absence from all the media surrounding Tom for as long as Harry had been reading and watching it.

"Does he, um, live somewhere else?"

Minerva looked at Harry thoughtfully, and he wondered if he was being too nosy. Then she spoke before he could backtrack. "Thomas travels extensively for work."

Harry nodded quickly. "Oh, cool."

"He's a writer, and a documentarian," she added. She was looking straight ahead now, picking up her reins and preparing Hedwig to walk off. "You can look into his work, if you're curious. I know boys your age all carry the world wide web in their pockets."At the end of the day, of course, Tom was waiting. But his ordinary attitude of watchful ease was gone. He was pacing, restless, inside the tack room when Harry came in with the day’s bridles on his arm to clean and hang them.

“Hey.” Harry might have said more if Tom hadn’t stopped midstep to turn and advance to him, slid his hands through Harry’s tangled hair and bent to kiss him.

It was, Harry would later realize, their first real kiss. They’d performed the technical requirements of the act before, he supposed, but this time it felt like a kiss, and not just an incidental meeting of mouths. Tom held Harry’s head firmly, tilting his own to angle their faces. His kiss was pleasant, almost chaste, the way Harry thought a couple might say hello.

Then Tom brushed his nose across Harry’s cheek en route to his ear, where he gave the lobe a tiny, but sharp bite, ruining the effect.“Why haven’t you answered any of my texts?” Tom demanded in his ear, meanwhile dropping one hand from Harry’s hair to toss the bridles to the floor.

“I haven’t checked my phone since lunch,” Harry said, worried about dropping tack—a cardinal sin—but not enough to stop himself from putting his arms around Tom and bringing their bodies closer. “I’m a sweaty mess,” he added, half-protesting, as Tom very gently touched his teeth to the place on Harry’s shoulder that was still sore from his similar attentions last night.

“I like you messy,” Tom said, and then pulled away altogether, so Harry staggered a moment.

“I have to do something tonight,” he told Harry. “I’ll have you now, since we don’t have much time.”“Here?” Harry demanded, as Tom started unfastening his pants. They were nice ones, maybe more accurately referred to as “slacks.” He wore a nice tie, too, and his shirt had felt fresh and smooth under Harry’s hands. Realizing Tom was dressed for some kind of occasion gave Harry pause again.

Then he recalled himself. “I’m not going to do that in a barn!”“I can close the door,” Tom offered, an obvious afterthought, and then he froze because someone was coming in.

Harry’s cheeks flamed. “Um,” he muttered. “Hello again, Mr. Riddle.”

Thomas was looking from Harry, gaping and mortified, to Tom, whose belt was unbuckled, his hands still poised at his fly. There was nothing but unabashed amusement in his expression.

“Hello, Harry,” he said, his smile fading but not out of sight when his dark eyes settled on Tom. “And Tom.”“You’ve met?” Tom asked indifferently. To Harry’s relief, he buttoned his pants and refastened his belt, though with careful nonchalance.

“Just today,” Thomas said, nodding. “I didn’t realize I was meeting a boyfriend, but I wholeheartedly approve.”

“We’re not—” Harry began to say, before Tom stepped forward and slipped a familiar arm around his waist, silencing him immediately.

“We’re still keeping it between us.”Thomas seemed sincerely pleased, for unfathomable reasons, although he was not quite as carefree in his attitude as he’d been that morning greeting Minerva. And Tom, who was frosty with Draco Malfoy, like he was a minion and not an equal, radiated absolute frigidity toward his father.

Harry, conscious of what must be extensive and fraught history, said nothing.“Harry should join us, since I know the secret now, anyway,” Thomas suggested.

“Harry has to work tomorrow. He needs his rest.”

“Aw, we can make it quick,” Thomas insisted. “What do you say, Harry?”

Harry glanced at Tom, who was staring coldly at Thomas.

“Thanks, but Tom’s right,” Harry said, only a little stilted, and Tom rubbed his hip approvingly.

Thomas, though, wouldn’t leave it at that. “You have to eat! We’ll just get a burger. You won’t even have to change.”Thomas looked so earnest and hopeful that Harry faltered and glanced at Tom again. “Um...”

“Great! I’ll drive,” Thomas said, darting back through the door before anyone could argue.“I don’t have to go,” Harry said immediately. “Sorry, I can tell you don’t want me to.”

Tom stepped away with a frown. “No, it’s not that. I don’t want to go, let alone force you.”

Harry paused, unsure. “I mean, he seems okay. I don’t mind.”

He might have thought it ludicrous that Tom would actively seek Harry’s company, but he had. First on Monday night, and he’d wanted to take Harry somewhere the following night when they’d...formed their agreement, instead.

“He’s very good at seeming a certain way,” Tom said darkly. “I guess it’s fine. Just don’t believe any of his shit.”

“I don’t...” Harry began to suggest, but Tom was taking his hand and leading him out, so he couldn’t complete the thought.Thomas’s car was an almost comical contrast to Tom’s. It was some sort of four-door coup that clearly hadn’t been washed in years, with a noticeable dent in the driver’s side rear panel. Thomas gestured Harry into the backseat, which was littered with the remnants of recently-checked mail: empty envelopes and a few random ads and unopened junk mail.

“Do you want to sit by Harry, Tom? I can throw some stuff in the back.”

Harry had already gotten in the car, and Tom was frozen outside it, looking on in horror.

“Is this thing even reliable?” he demanded. “Maybe we should meet you there.”

“That would be ridiculous,” Thomas said firmly, and for the first time sounded something like his son when he added, “Get in.”Tom walked around and got into the passenger seat, and Harry closed his door. The car was a lot like the one Arthur Weasley drove, which was to say, it wasn’t fancy but it was obviously serviceable. Though that didn’t explain Thomas Riddle, from a famously wealthy family, driving it.

Harry’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket to check it.
Ron: how was day 4?

Harry: Good! How is having a real summer off?
After he typed his quick reply, Harry looked up to notice Tom craning over his shoulder to glare daggers at Harry’s phone.

“What?” Harry murmured, conscious of Thomas buckling his seat belt and putting the car into gear, inches away.

“Where is the phone I gave you?”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “At ho—at the house in the box it came in.”“That isn’t what we agreed,” Tom said, voice dangerously low.

“We didn’t agree on anything,” Harry muttered. “You just forced it on me.”

A quick grin ghosted over Tom’s face. “Are we still talking about the phone?”Thomas cleared his throat and Tom’s expression closed instantly, then he turned around to face forward in his seat. Harry blushed and leaned back with hunched shoulders.

“So, what’s good, and close?” Thomas inquired as though he’d overheard nothing, the car finding every imperfection in the driveway as he steered it out toward the highway. It had the shock absorption of a covered wagon.“Jameson’s,” Tom answered immediately, smirking at his father. Harry watched in complete ignorance as Thomas’s grip tightened on the wheel. Jameson’s was a bar and grill nearby. It wasn’t particularly high-end, but it had a good reputation, so Harry had no idea why a sudden, suffocating silence descended in the car while Tom relaxed against the passenger door, as though pleased.“Y’know, actually? That sounds great,” Thomas said. Tom looked at him sharply, and Thomas gazed into the rear view and met Harry’s eye.

“Up until a few years ago, Harry, a term of my diversion was that I couldn’t enter any premises that sells alcohol, but it’s not a problem anymore.”

Harry had only vague knowledge of what the term “diversion” meant, but in context he could guess. He glanced quickly at the back of a Tom’s head, then smiled awkwardly at Thomas’s reflection.

“Um, whatever you two want,” he said lamely, wishing he’d stayed at the barn.“So,” Thomas said to Tom. “How did you and Harry meet?”

Harry was sure, for a full second, that Tom would take advantage of the opportunity to shock his father and tell him the truth. But Tom rolled his head around to gaze at Thomas boredly and only said, “Through horses.”

“Oh yeah? I guessed that. At a show or something? Or has Harry been riding with Minerva awhile?”

“I started on Monday,” Harry blurted, because it was the only thing he figured he could say without messing up whatever story Tom was about to spin.“I first saw Harry at Jewel Creek last September, when Daphne’s sister rode in the pony hunters,” Tom said easily, and Harry’s thoughts ground to a halt, because Jewel Creek was his old barn and Astoria Greengrass had exhibited at the in-house show the September before. But Tom Riddle hadn’t been there, Harry knew for a fact.“Daphne had to go, and insisted Draco come. And Draco is a pathetic baby who refuses to drive himself anywhere but around the golf course, so I agreed to drop him off. I came back a bit too early, and I saw Harry on the cross country course, but he didn’t see me.”Harry had a feeling Thomas was looking at him in the mirror again, but he couldn’t tear his own gaze away from the side of Tom’s face, casually tilted toward Thomas, his hair, glossy and smooth, tucked behind his ear and just brushing his neck.

“He was on some low-level, rangy mutt, but he had her focused on the obstacles with much more confidence than she deserved. You know how they are when they have someone gifted on them—it’s like they grow five hands, and never hesitate.”

Harry had nearly forgotten Thomas was there, until he said, softly, “Yeah?”

“Yes. That’s what it was like. An ordinary horse turned extraordinary, straight over a blind water hazard with perfect trust. I couldn’t help taking an interest. And of course, he has a very pretty face too.”At some point, they’d gotten to the exit for the frontage road and were coming into the little suburb where Jameson’s was, and Harry had no idea how he was supposed to sit through an entire evening without dissolving in shock or embarrassment or anger. He had run a horse through the cross country course the afternoon of the show, showing a thoroughbred mare to a couple who tried her afterward and didn’t get along. Tom must have seen. And the rest—it had to be an act for his father. Or the kind of excruciating mockery Harry knew people like Tom delighted in. It couldn’t possibly be sincere, though Thomas seemed to have bought it. He was silent and thoughtful as he parked the car and got out.

“Tom,” Harry hissed, but Tom got out as well, before he could ask. What he would have asked was another question. He had no idea how to sort it out in his own head, let alone put it into words.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When Dudley and Harry started Kindergarten, the Dursleys put Harry on the public school bus, while driving Dudley every day. Harry hadn't minded; he'd been curious about the bus filled with laughing children for as long as he could remember.The Dursleys' home was a middle stop on a long and winding route that began and ended at Burrow Street, which meant the Weasleys rode for almost an hour, morning and afternoon. Ron was already installed that first morning in a seat next to Percy and in front of his noisy twin brothers. He and Harry caught one another's eye in an instant spark of camaraderie, sensing someone of the same age, excitement, and anxiousness. Ron smiled tentatively and elbowed Percy to scoot closer to the window, and Harry slid into the narrow bit of seat beside Ron.That was that. They were best friends by the end of the day. When the Dursleys finally consented to a playdate at the Burrow, Harry rode the bus with four Weasleys all the way through the long route. Harry had thought, staring out the window at the pink house as the bus bumped along the uneven street toward its driveway, that it looked downright magical. And he hadn't been wrong.The Weasleys lived on Burrow Street. It was a cobblestone lane that dead-ended at their teetering three-story Victorian house, where Molly and Arthur had lived since they were married. The house was painted a startling shade of mauve that Molly Weasley swore was historically accurate. Though at one time other grand houses had probably lined the street, the Weasley home was now surrounded by vacant lots and a few simple, one-story houses that looked like shoeboxes in contrast.The house was sprawling and whimsical, creaky and dysfunctional, and Harry loved it.Harry came from the bus stop past the trees and houses he knew as well as the back of his hand, walking the half-dozen blocks with his hands in his pockets. His thoughts kept straying back to Windmere, and with a pang of guilt he realized he wanted to be there more than he wanted to be here. But that feeling faded when he got close enough to the house to hear the painful screech of an out-of-tune electric guitar on a prehistoric amp. He clamped his hands to his ears, grinning, and peered inside the detached garage.

Fred was bent in front of the amp, grimacing, while George played a slow experimental chord and fiddled with the tuners on the headstock. Ron was rolling back and forth on one of the old office chairs their dad had donated to band efforts, trying to juggle his drumsticks."Harry!" Ron almost dropped the sticks, but nimbly snatched them both out of the air with his left hand in a move that impressed even Harry, who had been the one to teach Ron to juggle in the first place. "You're early!" He wrapped both arms briefly around Harry so that Harry caught the scent of the industrial-strength laundry detergent Molly used on everything, and the candy-sweet strawberry smell of the shampoo Ron had been using since they were six. He smiled, a tension he hadn't known he was carrying around went out of him, and he darted around Ron to steal his chair.

"Hey, Harry," said George, and Fred lifted a hand in a quick wave, half-turned from the amp, which was still making a low, alarming sound. Fred growled and struck the side of it hard with the heel of his hand, and it went silent in a burst of static.

"Piece of shit," Fred muttered, getting to his feet. "No practice this morning, I guess," he said, and George shrugged out of the guitar strap. Harry tried to conceal his relief.

"Darn," he said, and not very convincingly, gauging by Ron's snicker."We have science fair stuff to do, anyway," George said carelessly, bending over to get the guitar back in its case."Oh, right," Harry said. "Congratulations on qualifying for that, by the way."Fred pinched Harry's cheek and Harry jabbed him in the stomach, rolling backwards hastily when Fred released him to wrap his arm protectively around his torso, laughing. Fred continued to look at him carefully. "You look different, Harry. Must be all that important riding you're doing."George closed in on Harry from his other side, and he rolled the chair a little further away, laughing uneasily. Which was ridiculous. It wasn't like they knew, or could know...but then, these were the twins. They had an uncanny sixth-sense for secrets. For good measure, Harry got to his feet and shoved Ron toward the door."We'll leave you to it, then," he said cheerfully. "Ron, anything to eat around here?"The kitchen door was open at the back of the house, with only the screen door closed, presumably to keep out bugs. But there was a large gash in the mesh of the lower portion, which was typical, though it had been intact on Harry's last visit. The twins had a habit of kicking the door open so they could run outside without breaking stride, so Arthur was constantly repairing it.Molly, hearing the screen door slam behind them, poked her head into the little hallway.She’d tied a brightly-colored scarf over her silver-streaked red curls, and she smiled immediately at the sight of Harry. Then, because the twins were her children, after all, her eyes narrowed."Harry, honey, you look different somehow!""What?" Harry asked sharply, a hand flying to his hair as though there was something incriminating about it. He had enjoyed an unexpected send-off that morning when Tom showed up with a paper bag of croissants and a luke-warm latte. But he'd tried to destroy all the evidence before he left Windmere. He'd even taken two showers."You saw him three weeks agos,” Ron pointed out.

“I’ve gotten some sun this week,” Harry volunteered, looking down at the faint bronzing of his forearms.

“I guess that must be it.” Molly returned with the pancakes and a tug of margarine with a knife stuck in the middle like a birthday candle. “No syrup, right, Harry?”"Yeah, thanks, Molly."She messed up his hair a little. "I've got to fold some laundry. Are you staying til Monday?""It's summer, mom," Ron reminded her. She gave him a quick look, as though sensing budding disrespect, and he wilted in the chair. "I just meant, it's not like we're all going to school together on Monday. Harry has to work, so he'll leave Sunday night."She nodded. "Well, we're happy to have you however long you want to stay, Harry. You boys behave," she added, going out."So, what's the new stable like?" Ron asked, watching Harry carefully coat his pancakes in a thin layer of bright yellow margarine.Harry glanced up at Ron, feeling cagey again, though it annoyed him to feel that way. "It's good," he said.Ron rolled his eyes. "It's better than good, right? It must be amazing! It's what you've been talking about for years!"Harry hesitated, taking a bite of pancake so Ron would stop bothering him at least for a second.Ron sighed. "Well, maybe we'll wait til Hermione gets here, so you won't have to repeat yourself."Harry swallowed. "She's coming? Today?" Usually Hermione only hung out on Sundays. Saturdays were her "productive day," when she locked herself in her room and redid all her homework, and read Kafka, or something."Yeah, of course she is. She's even more excited about all of it than I am. I saw her on Tuesday and she talked about your thing more than she'd talk about hers."Harry smiled fondly. "Tell me what she said. I can listen and eat."Ron obediently repeated Hermione's anecdotes about her first days at her summer internship. She had gotten a spot at the Attorney General's office half by accident. She had so much college credit on her resume they thought she was a college freshman instead of a high school junior."Oh, and then she caught an error in a citation on some motion or something, and when she showed it to her supervisor, he freaked out. The thing had already been filed, and they had to correct it, but they were able to before opposing counsel could exploit their mistake. So she saved their asses and she'd only been there an hour."Harry grinned. That sounded like Hermione."Of course, she spent the last month researching everything they have pending, so she probably came in knowing as much about it as they did."Harry nodded, scraping the last crumbs off his plate and licking his fork. "Yeah, she was asking your dad all those lawyer questions." He wrinkled his nose. Arthur had been patient about it, but Harry had gotten annoyed more than once on his behalf. He always looked exhausted when he was home, and it seemed unfair to extract him from his shed and make him talk about law stuff. A crash sounded overhead, followed by the muted thunder of footfalls on the rear staircase: the twins coming down at high speed."What did you do?” Molly hollered from the basement. Ron and Harry's eyes met over the table and they both stood and vacated the kitchen by unspoken agreement. Harry opened the front door in the long, narrow foyer and Ron slipped out after him. Ron beat Harry to the wicker rocking chair, so Harry hopped onto the swing and looked out over the street where the sun was already becoming intense."God, it's so hot already," he sighed. "It's only June.""Global warming," Ron noted wisely. It was the kind of thing that would set Hermione off, so Harry smiled reflexively but was glad she wasn't there. He wasn't sure when, if ever, the constant friendly tension between his best friends would morph into something else, but it seemed inevitable.Hermione's little silver hatchback appeared, slowing to a crawl as she turned in at the lane. She always complained that the cobblestones were terrible on her tires, particularly when she exceeded ten miles an hour..Harry and Ron wandered down the porch steps and were waiting at the curb by the time she pulled up in front of the house. She stepped out, her hair in rows of tight braids, her smile immediate. Harry strode around the front of the car to hug her for a little longer than he had Ron."It feels like it's been longer than a week," she complained, squeezing him tightly around the waist, then pulled his head down so she could kiss his cheek."You two should get a room," Ron suggested comfortably. "Are we hanging around here, or are you driving us somewhere, 'Mione?""Honestly, I'm not your chauffeur," Hermione sniffed, pulling away from Harry, but she didn't look offended. "Want to go to Mel's or something?"Hermione drove them the two miles to Mel's, which was a hole-in-the-wall fast food place. It was popular with local teenagers because the staff didn't care if they only ordered a single extra-large soda to share and camped out in a corner booth for hours. Today, though, Hermione insisted on buying a plate of curly fries heaped with shredded cheese. Ron hovered at the counter to wait for the food while Hermione and Harry claimed their standard seats.

"Hermione, what do you know about getting a passport?"

Hermione looked at him in surprise and sat sideways in the booth so she could pull her knee to her chest. "I don't know anything about it. Why?"

Harry began shredding a napkin from the stack that Hermione had collected on their way by the condiment table.

"I was thinking of trying to get one. Minerva does some international travel, and she said I might be able to come."

Hermione reached across the table to shake him by the shoulder. "Harry, oh my God, that would be awesome!"

He grinned up at her, but his expression soured fast. "I assume the Dursleys would have to sign off, though? And they never would."

"What wouldn't the Dursleys do?" Ron inquired, dropping the fries onto the center of the table and straddling a chair."Sign Harry's application for a passport," Hermione said, frowning thoughtfully at Harry. "Maybe you wouldn't have to tell them what it was for."

"I think they know what passports are for, 'Mione," Ron said archly. "They're assholes, not idiots."

Harry snorted and grabbed a french fry. The taste of salt and cheese was glorious.

"Didn't you just eat pancakes?" Ron asked. "Sometimes I think you eat more than I do."

"I'm an athlete," Harry shot back, and Ron opened his mouth to argue then wisely shut it when Harry gave him a sidelong look.

"Where does your trainer go?" Hermione asked. "Canada?"

"No," Harry said, grinning. "The trip she was talking about is to France."

"What?" Hermione sat up. "What? Oh, Harry, we have to get you a passport.""I don't see how," Harry muttered, and silence fell over the table. Then Ron slung an arm around his shoulder and sighed.

"That's what you said about your driver's license!" Ron exclaimed. Hermione nodded.

"All we had to do was remind them you needed to know how to rush them to the hospital in an emergency."

"That was just a driver's license," Harry hedged.

"And your permission slip for the second grade field trip," Ron insisted.

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "We're not going to forge their names on a Federal document, Ron."

"I just meant, we've been able to figure it out all the times before."

Hermione was watching Harry closely again. He could tell by the look on her face what she would say before she asked. "You haven't thought about...?"

"No," Harry said tersely, and she left it at that."So what's it like?" Ron interrupted the immediate awkward silence before it could stretch too far. "Do they feed the horses on silver trays and buff their saddles with gold dust?"

Harry looked at Ron narrowly. "'Buff their saddles'?"

"I don't know what you people do," Ron said, waggling his eyebrows, and Harry rolled his eyes.

"It's definitely fancy," he allowed.

"What horses are you riding?" Hermione asked. She sounded uncharacteristically tentative, so Harry smiled at her to be sure she knew he wasn't going to hold what she almost brought up against her.

"A bunch of them," Harry said with a sigh and a smile.

Ron laughed. "You talk about horses the way everyone else talks about crushes."

Harry looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "Well, yeah."After Harry inadequately summarized all the best qualities of Hedwig, Leonard, Atilla and Spritely, he realized that Ron had eaten more than half of the fries, and looked at him reproachfully.

"Sorry, but I didn't just have pancakes," he said with a shrug.

"We can get some more," Hermione said dismissively. "The two of you are like a couple of wolves, I swear." She slid out of the booth to go back to the counter."What are the people like? Assholes, one and all, I assume?"

Harry’s throat closed for no good reason. He fought over the plate of remaining fries with Ron a moment to compose himself.Still, when he managed to say “Well,” his voice was still an octave too high. Ron narrowed his eyes.

"What is this look on your face?" he demanded.

"What look?" Hermione asked from behind Harry, then peered at him as she resettled in her seat. She blinked in surprise. "Oh, this look. Harry, is someone bullying you?"

Harry frowned. "I don't know. Not exactly?" Was bullying the same thing as threatening? He almost asked her, but didn't think it would go over well. It wasn't that he had ever expressly decided not to tell anyone, particularly his friends, about his arrangement with Tom Riddle. It was only that he would rather die than breathe a word about it to them."Don't pay any attention to them," Hermione said firmly. "There've been rich kids at every barn, and you've risen above their bullshit every time."

Harry ate a fry.

"You'll have the last laugh when you win the triple crown," Ron said seriously, and Hermione sighed.

"Ron, that's horse racing. You know, Harry makes an effort to know about your stuff."

"I know it's horse racing!" Ron exclaimed. "What's wrong with horse racing?"

"That isn't what Harry does!"

"Besides, my stuff is easier to know about," Ron insisted, but he looked apologetically at Harry. "Sorry, Harry. I do know you're not doing horse racing."

"It's fine," Harry said honestly. "Hermione, it's fine."

She didn't look convinced, but she didn't say anything else, finally reaching out to collect her first fry. It was a good one, heavy with congealed cheese.In truth, Harry didn't care that Ron didn't know about horses, and though it touched him that Hermione made such an effort, he didn't care that she was still mostly clueless, either. He had only one talent, and it was riding. The fact that his friends loved him despite it, and not because of it, had always made him feel inexplicably happy.Fortunately, the subject of "people at the barn" was averted, and Harry kicked Hermione gently under the table.

"Speaking of people's 'stuff,' Ron said you're already outsmarting all the lawyers at the AG's office."

Hermione blushed, but didn't argue, exactly. "Well, it was just one error. There's something to be said for a fresh pair of eyes. And I've always had a knack for numbers."

"You've always had a knack for everything," Ron remarked, but not in a teasing way. He said it warmly, offhand, while fishing through the tray for another fry. Harry looked at him, startled, and then at Hermione, who was staring with her mouth open, color pooling slowly in her cheeks.

"Well," she said after a moment, Ron having never noticed her reaction. She shifted around on the bench to sit with her legs folded cross style in front of her, looking down. "I don't know about that.""What are the other interns like?" Harry asked, grasping for something to rescue them from the awkward moment before Ron realized it was happening. "Are they all older?"

He already knew the answer, but it was the best he could do under pressure. Hermione smiled at him and exhaled, then told him about the college students in her ranks, choosing her words carefully but with a tiny frown that betrayed how lacking she found each and every one of them.

Harry's pocket buzzed and made the factory-setting notification sound for a text message.

"You have an iMessage," Hermione said absently.

Oh, right, the notification sound for an iMessage.

"Wait," Hermione said sharply. "Since when can you get an iMessage?""Um," Harry said, his heart beating fast. "I...got a new phone."

That, of course, did nothing to deflect Ron and Hermione's sudden scrutiny.

It's just a phone, Harry reminded himself, fishing it out and dropping it on the table like it was exculpatory evidence. "It's just a phone!""That's brand new!" Ron exclaimed, starting to reach for the phone, then drew his hand back with a gasp. "Is that a Gucci case?" he demanded, but he pronounced "Gucci" Goo-see. Harry saw Hermione's mouth tighten as she withheld the urge to correct him.

She fixed Harry with a look, though, that made it clear he wasn't going to get away without an explanation.

"It was a, um, gift," Harry breathed. The phone buzzed again, and this time Ron snatched it off the table. Suddenly horrified that there would be some explicit message from Tom flashing on the lock screen, Harry practically tackled him to get it back.

When he looked at the screen, though, all it showed him was an innocuous digital time stamp and a wallpaper of a sunset over a lake.

"Jesus, Harry," Ron murmured, eyes wide."Who...?" Hermione began, then folded her lips under her teeth and bit them. She shook her head. "Sorry, Harry. It's none of our business." But she was still looking at him in a way that reminded him they hadn't kept a secret from one another since they were ten and exchanged very serious (pinky) promises never to do so."It's not really mine," Harry said weakly. That felt true. He still thought of the phone as something he would return, just as soon as Tom agreed to take it back. Which would probably be never, but that wasn't Harry's fault.

"You said it was a gift," Ron reminded him flatly. A smile ghosted over his face, though he still looked uncertain, and his little laugh was weak. "Got a rich new boyfriend already, Harry?"

"Ronald—" Hermione began, but she must have seen Harry's face, because she fell silent. He could feel his blush; it was burning hot. He shrugged one shoulder and glanced defensively from Ron's incredulous face to Hermione's.

Feeling a little insulted, Harry spoke indignantly without realizing how it would sound. "Is that so hard to believe?""Of course not!" Hermione said in the same moment that Ron said "Fuck, no!"

Harry glanced up at them, and understood too late that he had just given them the wrong impression. "It's not..."

"Is he another rider?" Hermione asked tentatively.

Harry tried to eat a fry, but after chewing it hastily, he was pretty sure he was too anxious to actually swallow.

"Does he know you're already in love with Tom Riddle?"

Harry coughed explosively and the fry flew from his mouth and narrowly missed Hermione's hair. He met her wide eyes, horrified, and cursed her genius as he saw realization dawn.

"Tom Riddle rides at Windmere," she said, in the same quiet and sure tone he knew would one day win her a lot of cases in court. "Oh my God, Harry, are you seeing him?"

"I met him on the driveway," Harry said weakly.

"What...?" Hermione started, but Ron's incredulous laughter interrupted her.

"Harry, that's amazing! What, Hermione? It is amazing! It would be like me getting picked up by Ariana Grande!"

"He's just a rider," Harry protested. "He's not a real celebrity." He's a brat, he almost added. He came in my mouth without warning me. He's got a gorgeous ass. I hate him."And it's not serious," he said instead. "It's really not. He's got a ton of money, like they all do. He just wanted to impress me, I think, so..." he waved the phone around demonstratively. Hermione looked worried.

"I don't think you should take a gift like that from him, Harry," she said gently. "You don't know what he might think he deserves in return."

Harry was glad he wasn't trying to eat something this time, but he managed to choke anyway. Ron pounded him helpfully on the back.

"You need to drink some water," he decided, and got up, presumably to go get some.

Harry wished he hadn't. He couldn't survive Hermione's talent for mind-reading all on his own.

"I didn't want the phone," he told her truthfully. "I'm trying to get him to take it back, but I think me asking hurts his feelings or something."

She folded her arms. "I'm not going to tell you what to do, Harry, and I know you've had a crush on Tom Riddle since..."

"I don't have a crush," Harry growled. "I don't have crushes."

Hermione paused, pressed her lips together, and then shook her head. Harry realized in horror that was exactly what she did when Ron was being an idiot, but he'd never seen the gesture directed at something Harry had said.

"Whatever your feelings are," she said judiciously, "I just hope you remember what this summer is really about. That's all."

Harry sank deeper into the chair. It was even worse coming from Hermione than it was from Minerva. "I know," he muttered.

She nudged his foot under the table, and when he looked up she was smiling a very small, conspiratorial smile. "Is he as handsome in person?"

Harry grinned despite himself, then grimaced. It hurt to compliment Tom out loud, even when he wasn't around to hear it. The smug bastard. "Yeah,” he admitted. “He is."****Ron and Hermione stopped interrogating Harry about Tom, which was good because he had a feeling if the subject wasn't dropped immediately he would have revealed everything to them. He felt dizzy when he imagined Hermione and Ron knowing exactly what had transpired the week before. Not the sex—not exactly—though of course he didn't want them to know all about that either—-
It was like an eclipse, or a mythical Medusa: dangerous when stared at directly. Harry obeyed his instincts and refused to think through his own reaction or the consequences of coming clean with his best friends. Besides, it wasn't really lying, only omitting.

Mercifully, Hermione was willing to fill the awkward silence with more details about her internship. She kept it up on the drive back to the Burrow and after they’d settled in at the house.

They were in the attic, which had been the Weasley kids' exclusive territory since they were out of toddlerhood. An l-shaped leather sectional sofa dominated most of the single room, splitting and sinking in every way. Hermione was in the corner seat. Ron and Harry were sprawled on either end, facing her, and tossing a tennis ball back and forth.

"Ron, we've gone on and on, but what about your summer?" Hermione asked brightly, tucking her feet beneath her.

Ron looked smug. "While you two have been out accomplishing your dreams, I've been binge-watching Game of Thrones and eating pancakes three times a day."

Hermione rolled her eyes, but looked pleased. "What a trial.""I thought you'd already seen every episode of that show," Harry remarked. "Except the second season, of course." He exchanged a sage look with Hermione, who grimaced.

Ron's composure faltered for a moment. A blush stained his cheekbones and he threw the tennis ball hard at Harry's thigh instead of his outstretched hand. Harry caught it anyway, laughing.

"Oh, right," Hermione said. "Lavender still tells people you're a thief."

After Ron had broken up with his first girlfriend, Lavender Brown, he'd retained some of her DVDs for roughly fourteen months. The second season of Game of Thrones never was returned. Though Ron insisted it had "just gone missing," Harry and Hermione openly theorized it was still ferreted away somewhere in the house.

"Most seasons," Ron sniffed, deliberately evading the bait, "I've only seen a shitty little pirated version on my phone. But we got an HBO trial. It's perfection.""High definition tits and ass," Harry paraphrased, and Hermione snickered.

"No, no, Harry. Ron is really just into it for the plot and worldbuilding.”
While Ron launched into his standard litany of reasons why George R. R. Martin was an unparalleled artist and an historic example of visionaries who weren't taken seriously simply because they were popular, Harry rolled onto his side and scooped Ron's phone off the coffee table.

"Can I order a pizza?"

"Sure," Ron said. "No, Hermione, it's not gratuitous when it's realistic."

"How can something that includes magic and dragons be realistic?"

"You know what I meant! Oh my God Hermione, I swear...wait, Harry, why the fuck are you using my phone? Use yours."

"Right," Harry muttered, scrolling through the browser on Ron's phone so that he could find the online order option for the Pizza Hut down the street. "I hate calling in. As you know."

"He means your new phone," Hermione said after a moment. "You know, the one that could probably order pizza from space."

"Via telepathy," Ron added.

Harry looked up at them and blinked. The phone from Tom, stuck deep in his pocket, suddenly felt heavy and warm. "Oh," he said, tossing Ron's phone aside hastily. "Yeah. I, um, keep forgetting about it."Harry didn’t think he could look at either of them, though it was clear his sudden silence seemed disproportionate, so much so that Hermione and Ron didn’t even tease him.

After a long moment Ron murmured, “So, pizza...?”

Harry hadn’t looked at the phone all day, though it had chimed a few more times, and the messages could only be from one person.

“I’ll just call,” he said, grabbing his flip phone instead. He popped it open and dialed the number from memory.

“Yeah, sure,” said Ron. Harry glanced up for just long enough to see his puzzled frown. Worse, Hermione was giving Harry a searching look, her thumb curved under her chin. Never a good sign.

Harry scrambled to his feet and narrowly avoided hitting his head on the low, angled ceiling. “No signal,” he said. A lie, but a harmless one. A white lie. He trotted down the stairs and leaned against the bannister on the landing.

“...hello? Hello?” asked a voice on the other end of the line.

“Um? Sorry?” Harry said. He was too flustered to order, so he just hung up. Molly always got annoyed when they ordered pizza, anyway.After Hermione left around eight, Harry and Ron sat in the garage listening to the twins play their guitars. Cicadas sang an accompaniment from the dense trees along the creek behind the house.

They’d thought about digging out one of the bottles of pink wine they’d appropriated from the leftover cases after Bill’s wedding, but in the end wound up with regular lemonade in thick plastic cups. The sides were wet from condensation, the ice barely lasting fifteen minutes.

“I hate the heat,” Ron remarked, wriggling in the canvas chair next to Harry’s. “I dreamed of snow last night. It was amazing.”

“I hate the snow,” Harry said automatically.

“Right. Bad for riding. But the new place has one of those—what do you call them? Indoor stadiums?”

“Indoor arenas,” Harry said. His lemonade was gone but he shook a few chips of ice into his mouth and crunched them slowly. “But this is just for the summer. I won’t be there when it snows.”The phone buzzed, and Harry ignored it. Again.They went upstairs to the attic and watched an old horror movie that Fred constantly spoiled by giggling madly during every scene that was supposed to be suspenseful. Harry laughed and kept his face pointed at the screen, meanwhile cradling the iPhone in his pocket. It had begun buzzing every three minutes, like a stopwatch.Harry pointed toward the stairs, the family gesture for "I'm going to the bathroom," and went slowly down the stairs to the second floor bathroom, carefully avoiding the creaky parts of the stairs so he wouldn't bother Molly and Arthur. Then, paranoid, he changed course and went down to the ground floor, where the house was dark and silent.

He pulled the phone out and made himself look at the lock screen.

88 messages. 4 missed calls.

"Fuck," Harry said, forgetting to whisper, and darted a look around the kitchen. But he was alone, of course, so he repeated himself more loudly, and felt slightly better.

"Harry?" called Arthur, and Harry startled so violently he dropped the phone. It hit the kitchen tile with what was, in Harry's ears, a deafening crack.

"Um, sorry," Harry said. He looked up at Arthur, peering around the doorway.

"That's all right. I was just finishing up in the office, and heard you." Arthur had a tired expression and a loosened tie. He slumped against the doorway and smiled at Harry. "I hope you didn't break your phone."

They both looked down. Harry slowly bent and picked it up, exhaling hard when he discovered it was intact. No cracks. No changes at all, except that the screen now reported five missed calls.“Is someone outside?” Arthur was looking over his shoulder. Harry’s stomach plummeted, and he brushed past Arthur with a murmured apology and practically sprinted down the hall. He flung open the door and stared out at the street—and saw the neighbors pull their noisy pick up truck into their driveway and kill the engine. Everything else on the street was still and dark.

Of course Tom wasn’t there. But at the thought that showing up was exactly what the entitled prick could do, Harry swiped the screen open and skimmed the messages with his heart in his throat.Everything was a variation of where are you peppered with profanity. Harry shuddered at a couple of the phrases, for no discernible reason feeling his cock twitch.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” He muttered, typing in a quick reply.

Harry: fuck off. We said I only worked week days

Instantly, three fading dots appeared to signal Tom was responding.

Tom: So you’re alive?

Harry: of course???

Tom: Don’t ignore me Harry. When I check in, you have to respond.

Harry: why? Because u made me take this gd phone?

Tom: Because I said so. And we both remember why you have to do what I say.
Later, curled into a ball on the bunkbed under Ron’s, Harry couldn’t bring himself to fall asleep.

Normally, he’d jerk off. It always relieved just enough stress to make him sleepy. And he was always quick and silent when he needed to be. Efficient.

The problem was that his go-to fantasy involved Tom Riddle. He was conflicted.In Harry’s imagination, for one thing, Tom was austere but benevolent. After Harry tugged off his boots and peeled off his sweaty breeches, he’d kiss Harry deeply and thank him for his attentiveness, then reach into Harry’s pants and...

Harry’s hand hovered over his cock, and he froze. Fantasizing about Tom, even the very disparate fantasy-version of Tom, made him rebellious. He had other interests, particularly now that he knew what a dick Tom really was.

He browsed his memory for the last time he’d seen someone in passing and felt a definite stirring of interest. He remembered a toned forearm and a dimple under a layer of stubble, and a blurry, half-formed image presented itself. Harry eagerly cupped himself as he got hard, rubbing himself firmly with his fingertips then beginning to stroke as he thickened. For variety, he imagined himself as the recipient, the indistinct man—a little gray at the temples, but not much—kneeling in front of him and sucking a bruise into his inner thigh.Harry, sighed the man, his voice familiar somehow. Harry thrusted needily into his own palm and rolled into his stomach, lifting his hips just enough to accommodate the fast rhythm of his hand.

He imagined looking down at that dark, grey-peppered head, his cock sheathed in a hot anonymous mouth. Or—not anonymous. Gentle. Caring. A large warm hand cupping his balls. Then pulling off to suck the head, tongue soft on the underside. Tipping back his head and—

Fuck. It was Thomas Riddle in Harry’s mind’s-eye, but it was too late for the shame to do anything but push him over the edge.

Harry collapsed onto the mattress as he pulsed into his hand, reverberations coursing through his body. He had a feeling he hadn’t been so quiet after all, there at the end. A dozen sources of shame made tears well in his eyes and his cheeks hot.

But Ron, thankfully, snored on overhead.****Harry woke up before anyone else and went for a run.

At the Dursleys', he ran every morning. At the barn this week, under the...circumstances...he hadn't found the time. But it felt good to tug on his battered sneakers and set an uneven pace down the sidewalk, adjusting his stride now and then so he could avoid the breaks in the pavement and the patches of dew-slippery grass.

He stayed at the Weasleys' often enough to have a preferred route for a morning run. He headed north off Burrow Street into the mostly abandoned, original central business district a half-mile away, then threaded through those empty streets, running in the middle of the lane like a cyclist. There was never more than a car or two to avoid.Before the last couple decades of urban sprawl had made this area more or less contiguous with the city, it had been its own, separate town. That had warranted all the essential businesses which people now went into the city proper for. Harry jogged past two shuttered barber shops and myriad restaurants. Then the wide cardboard-covered windows of the hardware store he could remember visiting with Arthur several years before, when he was still prone to following him around like a lost puppy around his shed. His penchant for shadowing Arthur had always annoyed Ron and made Molly look tearful. Arthur had let him drive nails and occasionally guide the jigsaw, all under close supervision of course. Harry realized he'd outgrown that urge to hang around Arthur at every opportunity. He felt nostalgic a moment. There was a time when he longed for nothing except a weekend at Burrow Street pretending he was just another Weasley. But now his dreams were beginning to stretch further, and to feel less possible.
He broke stride and jumped up onto the sidewalk when a car came his way, not moving fast but weaving in the lane. Drunk or texting, Harry surmised, not particularly bothered. It could be either or both this early in the morning.

Jostled from his pace, he felt awkward and winded. Just a week off had more effect than he would have thought. He walked back to the house, the sun coming up and burning off the little bit of cool so that he was uncomfortably warm by the time he came in through the kitchen door.The twins were shoulder to shoulder at the kitchen table, eating Fruity Pebbles. George saw Harry and shook the box invitingly. Harry made a face."Oh, Harry," Molly said, holding up an enormous wok so laden with scrambled eggs, she had to lift it with both hands. "Want eggs?""Yes, please," Harry said. "But I'll just grab a shower first."Showering at the Weasleys was an even faster-paced affair than at the Dursleys', though Harry thought of it as an amusing challenge instead of a hardship. The only bathroom with a shower was the one that had been remodeled sometime in the sixties to include an opaque shower store with a stubborn, creaky door, and a narrow spigot that shot down an almost painfully high-pressure stream. Further, the hot water was in limited supply and finicky; you had to keep one hand on the lever at all times to make constant adjustments or suffer a random pattern of scalding-hot-to-freezing-cold until the hot water abruptly gave up and didn't return.Therefore, Harry was in and out within five minutes. He was toweling off his hair when he intersected Ginny in the hall. She yawned so widely he saw her molars. Then they smiled at each other."Hey, Gin. Where have you been all weekend?""I've been at Dean's," she said carelessly, then her eyes widened and she lowered her voice. "I mean, at Luna's.”"Oh, right," Harry grinned. "Reading poetry at Luna's, not getting naked with Dean.""Harry," she hissed, swatting at him, but he dodged her expertly. She always gave herself away by throwing her weight onto her left foot almost a full second before she swung."Why are you here so early?" he asked when he'd established a safe distance. She paused in the bathroom doorway and gave him an unimpressed look."Don't tell me you forgot.""Oh! The hike!"Ginny sighed, long-suffering, and closed the bathroom door. Harry went back downstairs with more energy, just in time to have a steaming plate of eggs set in front of him."I forgot it was the hike weekend," he told Ron, who was already most of the way through his own eggs. The twins were fishing the last of the multicolored flakes from the turquoise-stained milk left in their bowls. Just the sight made Harry grimace. "I can't believe you guys eat that shit."Fred looked at Harry reprovingly. "What do you mean? It's a scientific feat, this cereal.""You can't even taste the dye," George agreed."You're eating eggs," Fred added. "Innocent little chicken ova. That's fucked up, if you ask me. At least corn syrup doesn't have a mother.""Fred, language," Molly snapped."But Harry just said 'shit'!""Well, I didn't hear Harry."Fred and George exchanged a look. "Yeah, she never does, does she?""How could you forget the hike weekend?" Ron muttered. "A whole day of sunburn and the complete absence of cell service, during a heat advisory."Harry leaned over his eggs. He loved the annual hike. It was a rare occasion where Arthur didn't work in his cramped little home office. Everyone smelled strongly of the sunscreen they applied in copious amounts, and sometimes Arthur led them in cheesy camp songs. They built a real fire and heated cans of soup over it for lunch. It was the closest Molly was willing to get to real camping, and they'd taken Harry along every year since he and Ron met."There's not a heat advisory," he told Ron reprovingly. "Sweat is good for you.""That's a lie all you athletic types tell," Ron grumbled, cradling his phone next to his heart like it was an infant that someone was about to snatch from his arms. "That one, and the other one about a ‘second wind.’"A few hours later, they were in the main parking lot of the state park, piling out of the Weasleys' minivan. Bill and Fleur were already waiting, Fleur checking the straps on the reverse-backpack contraption Bill was using to carry the baby. The sight of them made Harry grin and the twins cackle."Harry, will you get the back of my neck?" Ron elbowed him and handed him a half-full bottle of 50 SPF. Harry sighed and obliged him, standing on tiptoe to reach."How long are we waiting for Percy and Charlie? They didn't have as far to drive as we did,” Bill asked Arthur. He and Molly were standing directly in front of Bill to coo at baby Vicci.

"They can catch up," suggested Ron, his scowl vanishing as he joined his mother in greeting the baby.

Fleur hugged Harry with one arm. She smelled sweet, even with the glow of sweat on the bridge of her nose and cheeks, like there was sugar in her sweat instead of salt. That she was inhumanly perfect and far out of Bill's league was an established family joke for a reason. "Congratulations on your achievements, Harry," she said seriously, kissing his hair. Harry blushed and rubbed the spot on his head with a wry smile.

"Thanks, Fleur."

"Harry, you'll make your boyfriend jealous," Fred said, with one of his slight, sadistic smiles, as all the Weasleys suddenly turned their heads to stare at Harry.

"A boyfriend!" Fleur exclaimed, delighted. "What's his name?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," Harry muttered.

"Oh, how sweet," Molly cried. "A first love!"

"It's very sweet," Ron agreed. Harry glared at him, betrayed, but Ron's grin only widened. "A Cinderella story," he added. Harry was trying to decide whether he hated Fred or Ron more, when Ginny prodded him in the ribs. He hadn't realized she was standing behind him, and jumped.

"Has anyone told him you already imprinted on that fancy horse boy with the pretty eyes?"So, Ginny then. Harry definitely hated Ginny the most.

"Come on, now," Arthur called, putting an arm around Harry's shoulders and drawing him toward the trailhead. "Charlie and Percy can catch up."

Harry ducked his head and went gratefully with Arthur, who released him after a moment. It was hot, and they were walking fast. Harry tried not to listen to the speculative chatter that continued behind them. Arthur, noticing, cleared his throat and asked, loudly, "So, Harry, tell me about your new job."****As it turned out, Percy and Charlie didn't catch up until lunch, and the jokes at Harry's expense hadn't worn off. He was beginning to think this could turn into a problem. He wondered if he could touch base with Neville and ask him to pretend they were still hooking up, but he thought that might be rude. Neville had seemed pretty disappointed when Harry broke off the fooling around aspect of their friendship, and they hadn't really stayed in touch."So, Harry," Percy asked, sitting down on the rock Harry was perched on, stirring a can of tomato soup with a plastic spoon. "How's Windmere?"Harry looked up, surprised Percy could get the name of the barn right. "It's good.""That's really cool. Aren't the Riddles affiliated with that trainer you're working with? Dad said something about it."Harry stiffened. "Uh, yeah, I guess.""So have you met him?"Harry stared. "Wh-who?""Thomas Riddle."Harry wasn't sure how to quantify his surprise. "Yes? How do you...?""He's really inspiring. I mean, everything he's overcome, and then that announcement last month? Is he as interesting in person as he seems in interviews?""He seems nice," Harry allowed. Somehow the word "interesting" reminded him of his accidental fantasy the night before and the smell of his soup threatened to turn his stomach. "What interviews?" Harry supposed rich people were interviewed from time to time, especially handsome ones who drove shitty cars and ate hamburgers and suffered the constant needling of their spiteful teenage sons with a perfectly even keel. But Harry had never once heard Percy express interest in a celebrity, unless politicians counted."Oh, I don't know, I've seen so many since he launched the Foundation. I just think it's awesome. Especially coming from that family."Harry kept nodding, even though he continued to have no idea what Percy was talking about. Percy seemed to realize. Harry's face was, after all, embarrassingly easy to read. He laughed. "I guess to you, they're just people with really nice horses," he said, not unkindly.****When they got back to the parking lot, Harry huddled in the backseat to check the phone from Tom. He was almost disappointed to find that Tom hadn't texted all day. In fact, he hadn't texted since the night before, like he was trying to make a point. Harry sighed to himself and pulled up the browser. He typed in "Thomas Riddle" and didn't expect much. It was a pretty common name. But at once there was a list of results. Including a row of photographs of Thomas smiling in various lighting and from various angles, none of which managed to be unflattering. Biting the inside of his cheek, Harry forced himself past the image results to the websites, and clicked the first one under "News."
From Riches to Rags and Back, the Story of Thomas Riddle

by Ethan Porter, E! News

Most of us recall the revelations of the late-May news cycle: Thomas Riddle, scion of the Riddle Empire, has chosen to divert his personal net worth to an irrevocable charitable trust, dedicated to helping teens struggling with depression and addiction.

We all know what the various talking heads had to say about Thomas's decision, but I wanted to ask for the untold story.

I met Thomas Riddle on his front porch, where he was waiting to greet me. We sat down to visit there, too, because the hundred-square-feet-or-so of deck is roughly twice the size of the Thomas Riddle residence, which is a 1965 Airstream camper that shows every year and mile of a long and eventful life. Similarly, Thomas Riddle is not the haunted teen so many recall from tabloid features two decades ago. He’s matured into a man whose roller coaster history of addiction and recovery are evident in a few premature lines and grey hairs.

Thomas instantly put me at ease with a glass of iced tea and a description of the patch of the Sand Hills he calls home. His trailer and deck are parked on a bluff in the center of the historic ranch he inherited from a childless Uncle, and admitted that he intends to keep.

EP: When you told your parents, how did they react?

TR: Well, they weren't thrilled.

He paused to chuckle, swirling the tea in his glass so the ice cubes clinked together.

TR: I guess they weren't surprised, either? My mother thought it was a good sign, in some ways. She definitely remembered that having limited access to money could keep me sober longer, years ago, before I was committed to my sobriety. But my parents, especially my father, believe that building family wealth is something we owe one another. The generations before us, and the generations to come. So they are never going to be fully supportive of my decision.

EP: Speaking of future generations, you have a son, also named Thomas, who's sixteen?

Thomas smiled in a fond, exasperated way that is the hallmark of the parents of headstrong teens.

TR: I do. We call him "Tom," though. I don't think you could get him to answer to "Thomas."

EP: Not Junior, either?

Thomas laughed for a few long moments at that.

TR: No. God, no.

EP: So, does Tom have anything to say about your decision? Does he feel, like your parents do, some entitlement to an inherited wealth?

TR: I don't feel comfortable discussing Tom's feelings. I can't speak for him.

EP: But Buzzfeed reported that Tom stated on social media that he saw the Foundation as a "personal theft."

TR: Tom is sixteen. I think his attitudes are still pretty mercurial. I'm sorry, Ethan, but I don't want to answer any more questions about my son.

EP: I understand. But the purpose of the Riddle Foundation is to assist teenagers who struggle as you did, with drugs and alcohol. Does having a teenage son of your own affect your perspective on that mission?
Ron leaned in so close his breath tickled Harry's ear. "What are you reading?"

Harry hit the home button to darken the screen and dropped the phone in his lap. "Nothing."

Ron didn't seem to buy it, but willing to pretend. "Harry, I forgot to put sunscreen on my ears. How did you let me forget my ears?" He gingerly touched his ear lobes, which were, undeniably, very red already.

"Maybe," Harry replied seriously, "because I'm not your babysitter."

"Buckle your seatbelts, kids," called Arthur. "And who wants to sing Down by the Bay?"****
Tom: did you survive the bus?

Harry: Yes. Public transportation continues to be a safe and effective way to travel.

Tom: how are your friends?

Tom: …

Tom: if you ignore me, I’ll call

Harry: My friends are fine. Are you hanging out with your dad?

Tom: what are their names?

Harry: You are so weird.

Tom: ???

Tom: it’s a normal question

Harry: Ron and Hermione

Tom: no last names? like cher and madonna?

Harry: SO WEIRD

Harry: How is your dad?

Tom: you ask a lot of questions about my father… I could almost get jealous

Harry: oh, fuck off

Tom: do you like the phone?

Harry: I don’t know why you gave it to me

Tom: I think you do.

Harry: whatever

Harry: so I’ll see you later?

Tom: Absolutely. 9 pm.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Hedwig had so much mud on her coat, she was almost unrecognizable. Luna, leading her in from the paddocks, met Harry's eye guiltily.Harry tried not to wince at the sight. "At least she's happy," he said lamely.Luna beamed. "I can help you after I walk the rest of them in," she promised, and left Harry to tackle seventeen hands of mud-plastered mare with a dubious frown and a sponge.Hedwig was still a bit dingy when Harry got her clean enough for tack and hurried out to the largest of the outdoor arenas. There, Minerva was beginning her Monday morning lesson. Her student, a blond girl who was probably twelve or so, was buckling the chin strap of her helmet while Minerva held Lexie’s reins."Thank you for joining us, Harry," Minerva said, without rancor. "You made good time. I thought there was a new bay on the premises when I saw Hedwig from the road."Harry grinned, glancing at the girl, who had mounted."Oh, Harry, this is Astoria Greengrass. Astoria, this is Harry Potter."The girl's eyes, which were blue and large, got even larger. "Harry Potter?" she echoed."Er, yeah," said Harry. He glanced at Minerva, but she looked as puzzled as he was."Pick up your reins, Astoria," she said, and the girl sat bolt upright and obeyed. Minerva had that effect on people.As Astoria and Lexie moved away from the mounting block, Harry positioned Hedwig next to it. She lowered her head and tried to grab her rein in her mouth, until Harry adjusted them so she couldn't reach. Then she sighed and stood patiently while he moved the steps into position, pulled his stirrups and swung on.Minerva was on the ground today because of Astoria, presumably. He watched the pony take Astoria around a few times, noting the warning signs of her angling her shoulder in the far corner, pleased with himself when Minerva mentioned the same thing. Harry didn’t have a lot of teaching experience, but he knew it was necessary for a professional rider. He kept an ear on the lesson as he let Hedwig walk out, weaving between the jump standards that were arranged for later in Astoria's lesson, and trying to stay out of the way.Two girls were standing under the shade structure. One was blond and slender, her head bent over her phone. The other, looking out over the pasture as though she was intensely bored—but not particularly bothered by boredom—was Millicent Bulstrode. The blond girl glanced up as Harry passed along the rail, and they smiled politely at each other before she did a visible doubletake."Harry Potter!" she said. Her voice was pretty, too. Harry found himself flustered, but he stopped Hedwig to nod.“Yeah, that’s me.”"I'm Daphne Greengrass," she said with a wide smile. That made sense; she looked very much like an older version of the little girl on Lexie. She tossed her shiny hair over her shoulder and slipped her phone in her pocket, leaning over the rail. Harry had no idea how he was supposed to react, so he blinked and looked at Millicent."Hello again," he said, maybe a little louder than necessary. Millicent looked at him with no more interest on her face than there had been when she was gazing out over the empty paddock."Hi," she said flatly."I missed you the other night at Draco's send-off, but I've heard all about you since then, of course." Harry had to look at Daphne again, because she was speaking and he knew you had to exercise basic manners around barn clients, but it was hard. He settled for looking at her chin and nodding reflexively. Her apparent, sincere interest was overwhelming. Girls like her either ignored Harry or treated him with vague distaste."Oh, yeah, that was fun," Harry said. "So you're friends of Draco's?""And Tom's," Daphne said immediately, with a knowing little grin."Right. Well, um, Hedwig's pretty fresh, so I'd better..."Daphne looked from Harry down at the horse, whose eyes were half-closed, one leg cocked as though she was preparing for a morning nap instead of a ride. "Yeah, she looks downright wild," Daphne commented, and took a step back from the fence with a little gesture of dismissal. "Go on, then. Don't let us bother you."Harry tried to forget there was anyone watching as he warmed Hedwig up properly. She was a bit fresh, having had the weekend off with nothing to do, apparently, but take mudbaths. However, she was also Hedwig, which meant that she was completely reliable, and carried Harry wherever he asked her to without complaint. He paused and rubbed her withers while Astoria began taking Lexie over crossrails. Harry winced three strides ahead of the third jump when he saw Lexie's right ear cock backward a second or two before she ducked out of the line, almost unseating Astoria in the process.He shouldn't make fun, he knew, but the sight of the flustered girl redirecting the pony did make him smile. Particularly when Minerva called out, "She gave herself away with the ears a mile before that misstep, Astoria. Pay attention. You're riding a pony, not driving a car."Harry hid his grin as Minerva looked his way. "We'll set this up as a gymnastic. Harry, come on. It’ll be good for Hedwig too."The gymnastic turned into jumping a short flower box with no standards. Harry was surprised by what a challenge it was even for Hedwig, who, seeing no need to actually jump, kept stepping out of the track to go around. He got her through on the third try, though, and smiled encouragingly at Astoria when they passed shoulder to shoulder so she could take it too."Good, good," Minerva called. "Now let's make this a bit more interesting." She collapsed the box so it was only a foot wide. Astoria had pulled up alongside Harry, and they exchanged a horrified glance. Minerva stood at one edge of the obstacle. "I'll guard you on this side, but you're responsible for getting them across on the other."Harry figured he should be the brave one, so he cantered a half circle then positioned Hedwig for the little box, his thigh and calf firm on Hedwig's left side, opposite Minerva, and the mare cocked an ear backward and then, with a snort, hopped over the little box.Harry was grinning ear to ear. How silly, when the jump was so small. But he'd never done anything like it."Good job, Harry," Minerva called. "Astoria, bring Lexie."The pony refused to jump, though, and eventually Minerva called Astoria to the mounting block and they traded places. The pony hopped over on the first attempt each direction, as though she'd never think to refuse. Harry, who had dismounted too, gave Astoria a sympathetic smile."It's always like that when the pros get on. They make it look easy."Astoria nodded, obviously disheartened, and then Minerva was back to hand her Lexie's rein."Again," was all she said. Harry watched with sympathy as Astoria swung back on."Take Hedwig in, Harry. That was good work. And—I got a call from Lucius already. I’ll probably leave in a week or ten days. Are you still interested in coming along?”Harry’s heart, which had felt so light a moment before, sank.“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll let you know soon though.”She frowned, but didn’t press him, turning back to Astoria.Harry wondered whether there was a way to trick the Dursleys into signing off on a passport. But even then, it was probably impossible to get one back in a week or so, even with a rush on it.Harry was abruptly drawn from his thoughts when he saw that Daphne and Millicent were poised at the gate, waiting for him."That was all very nice," Daphne said."She doesn't know what she's talking about," Millicent noted. "And she's lying, too. Just a minute ago she was saying how bored she was."Daphne shot Millicent an exasperated look, then smiled sweetly at Harry. He was reminded a bit of Fleur, and blamed the heat of the late morning for how flushed he was."It's just not what I'm used to seeing. You know, competitions are much more exciting. These little drills are hard for a spectator to appreciate, you know?"Harry nodded. That made sense. He imagined Ron trying to watch a gymnastic lesson and his smile became a little more sincere. Particularly if he imagined Ron in the shade structure next to someone like Daphne Greengrass. He'd be having a fit by now, torn between anxious fascination with the girl and intense boredom with every other aspect of the situation."Your sister is a good rider," he said, which was mostly true. They were apparently going to follow him back toward the barn, though he still had no idea why. Neither did Millicent, who was walking after them like she was being marched to jail, or worse. "Um, Millicent? You're here to watch Astoria too?""I'm here," Millicent agreed. Whatever that meant. Harry smiled uneasily at her and then averted his eyes under the pretense of looking where he was going."So, Harry, you're staying on site?""Luna told us," Millicent said. Daphne frowned at her.Harry rubbed the back of his neck. He and Tom had never really discussed the house. He certainly hadn't said that Harry had to sneak around, but neither had Harry realized that anyone knew."You're friends with Luna?" Harry was surprised to hear that. He wasn't used to clients making friends with the help—certainly, none of them had ever been very friendly with him, with a very few exceptions."Haven't we established that I'm friends with everyone?" Daphne blinked a few times at Harry. Her eyelashes were pale, but dark-tipped with mascara. Millicent rolled her eyes."Luna is Draco's cousin," said Millicent. "She doesn't really work here.""Oh," Harry said, giving Millicent a quick look and wondering how she'd read his mind. Then he realized what she'd said. "But she's here all the time. She mucks out stalls." He'd never heard of anyone doing that voluntarily."Her family situation is very unique," said Daphne, giving Millicent an openly censorious look. Millicent appeared not to notice, but she didn't say anything else.They'd reached the barn, and Harry paused again to look awkwardly at the girls. "Well," he said lamely. "See you?"Daphne laughed. "Give me your number first."Harry just stared at her, sensing that there was a joke she was about to make, and he didn't get it.Millicent read his mind again. "She's serious.""Oh," Harry said, and bit his lip. "Well, I...""New phone?" Daphne said sweetly, a glint of something sharp in her eye, but gone at once. "Well, here, give it to me and I'll text myself. Then you'll have my number too."She winked. Harry was so flustered he was handing her Tom's phone before he even realized it. She rubbed a forefinger over the case with an impressed little murmur, then fell quiet as she, presumably, sent herself a message. Harry fought the urge to crane his neck and make sure that was all she was doing. The thought of anyone seeing his messages to Tom, relatively innocent though they were, made him nervous.Just as he had over the weekend, Harry was faced with the likely possibility of his and Tom's...arrangement...coming out. At least, Harry assumed that if someone figured out what they were doing, Tom would have no scruples in filling in the blanks. Or maybe not; maybe paying someone for sex would reflect badly on him, too, and he wouldn't want anyone to know. It seemed ridiculous, in retrospect, that they hadn't talked about this yet.Of course Harry, despite the best of intentions the night before, hadn't brought it up then either. Before they could strike up any kind of conversation, Tom had been shoving him down to his knees and threading his hands tightly in Harry's hair, then—Well, after all that, Harry had forgotten to ask."Maybe the three of us can all hang out sometime," Daphne was saying, handing Harry's phone back. She grasped his fingers briefly as he reached out to take it from her, startling him all over again. He nodded noncommittally and shoved the phone back in his hip pocket. "Tom shouldn't keep you all to himself.""Daphne," Millicent said, in the same flat way she said everything.But there must have been some note of warning that Harry missed, because Daphne stiffened and took a few little steps backwards and sideways so she was further from Harry and closer to Millicent. Then she turned and said over Harry's right shoulder, "Hey, Tom."Tom wasn’t dressed for riding, but still carrying a crop. For some reason, it caught Harry's eye, and when Tom noticed he grinned. Harry rolled his eyes."I told Daphne and Millie they could join us for lunch," he told Harry.Harry blinked. "We're having lunch?"Tom laughed and rubbed Hedwig's forehead, then reached past her head to grasp the reins and tug them gently from Harry's hands. "You," he called to a passing groom, who immediately rerouted to come collect her. Harry was frowning."I don't..." Minerva always put up her own horses, unless Harry did it for her. Moreover, Harry always put up his own horses. It felt offensive both to Hedwig and the groom to hand her off.But the moment where he could have protested passed. The groom, a middle-aged man no one had introduced Harry to, led Hedwig off? and she went along easily, twisting her head around to sniff hopefully at the groom's pockets."I can't go to lunch," Harry told Tom, then he looked at the girls and managed what he knew must be a very strained smile. "Sorry. I'm working.""So dedicated," Daphne murmured. Tom laughed and put an arm around her shoulders, guiding her toward the lounge."Yes, he is. You have no idea." He winked at Harry over her head. Millicent sighed. Everyone was walking toward the lounge, including Harry, though it felt like his legs were operating with his consent. Like Tom was a sun or a planet or something else that generated gravity, and he drew everyone nearby into his orbit."We knew you couldn't get away, so I offered to have something brought in," Daphne explained. When she turned to look at Harry over her shoulder, she also stepped nearer to Tom and slid an arm around his waist. For some reason, Harry's eye twitched at the sight."Oh," was all he managed to say. He stared at the back of Tom's head, but of course, Tom didn't turn. Daphne was murmuring something to him, too quietly for Harry to hear. As Harry watched, Tom leaned his head toward her so that he could hear her better. Harry realized he was grinding his teeth and forced himself to stop.Harry looked away, and in the process, caught Millicent’s eye.“So you don’t ride, then?”Millicent looked at him assessingly and he wished he hadn’t asked.“That’s a strange thing to ask someone. Most people don’t ride horses. Because they’re animals that are large and stupid enough to kill them, you know.”“Yeah, but,” Harry muttered, looking around pointedly. “We are at a barn.”Millicent’s eyebrows raised and she looked away.“So that’s a no, then?”Millicent continued to do a very good impression of someone who hadn’t heard a word Harry said, and they arrived at the lounge.“Having something brought in” turned out to mean that a catering service was set up in the lounge. They’d brought their own white tablecloth, place settings and serving staff. Harry perched in a chair and tried not to scowl when instead of sitting next to Harry, Tom sat across from him.Daphne sat next to Tom, and scooted their chairs closer together immediately. From there she could compare the portions of everything they were given and give her excess to Tom.Millicent and Harry, by unspoken agreement, didn’t engage one another. Harry felt reassured by the idea someone was having as unpleasant a time as he was. After they’d had soup and an open-faced sandwich was set in front of him, he felt a very deliberate touch on his ankle, and froze.The foot was large, and the sole of the shoe was flat against Harry’s shin, the same angle of Tom’s entire body, facing Harry’s across the table. Millicent was dividing her sandwich into a series of little piles by ingredient, and Daphne was eating nothing and chattering to Tom. Tom appeared to be listening, but his foot was traveling up Harry’s leg with slow determination.Harry didn’t think it should feel so momentous, this bit of footsie—or whatever it was called—when he was inexplicably angry. But the touch seemed to trigger another wave of conflicting emotions, and summon a clear memory of Tom the week before, just outside this room, pressing his crop into the hollow under Harry’s chin.Tom leaned back in his chair casually, like he was simply interested in whatever Daphne was going on about. The change in posture allowed him to lift his leg so his toe was nudging aside Harry’s knee.“What?” Harry gasped. “What are you doing?”The girls were startled.“Talking,” Daphne said, just as Millicent said, “Absolutely nothing.”Tom used his knife and fork to take a bite of his sandwich, then set down his utensils, picked up the crop propped next to his chair, and thrust it under the table."Hmm?" Tom asked, his foot traveling up the seat of the chair. Harry clamped his thighs together frantically, trapping it, and Tom smirked."What kind of cheese is this?" Millicent asked, shoving a square of flaky white cheese toward the edge of her plate."Asiago," said Daphne."In a sandwich? Is this from that place up north? With the sheep?"Harry wondered if he was hearing them correctly. The hard edges of the soles of Tom's boot dug into his thighs, and the crop traced a circle on his knee."I'm not sure," said Daphne, continuing to gaze thoughtfully at her plate and eat nothing. Harry took a determined bite of his sandwich, and reached under the table to grasp the end of Tom's crop and pull. Tom's shoulder jerked forward and Daphne looked up at him curiously."Alright there, darling?" She set her hand on his right forearm, which rested on the table. Harry let go of the crop, pushed his chair back and got up, suddenly too disgusted to play along."I'm not hungry," he said, glancing at three surprised faces. "Thanks for, um, ordering it in, I guess, and nice to meet you," he muttered. Then he ducked his head and left as fast as he could walk.Of course, he didn't get far before Tom came jogging up behind him. He had good form, Harry noticed out of the corner of his eye. Back straight, head up, arms bent but loose. Harry wondered if Tom ran a few miles every morning, like Harry. Then he remembered he was mad and scowled."Could we have a new rule? That you don't fuck with me when I'm trying to work?""'Fuck with you'?" Tom quoted back, looking sincerely surprised. “I was just playing around.” He still held the crop, and he reached out and tapped Harry's shoulder with it, playfully. Despite himself, Harry shuddered, then rubbed the tingling spot furiously while Tom's eyes narrowed in a way that told Harry he was taking note."You're being an asshole."Tom laughed. "I don't think so."Harry rolled his eyes. "If it was up to you to notice your flaws, you never would."Tom snorted, falling into step beside Harry. Harry looked at him askance. "Don't you need to get back to your girlfriend?"Tom shot Harry a quick look, which became a slow smile that made Harry blush and look at his feet, walking faster. But Tom's legs were longer, goddamn him, so it was no strain for him to adjust and keep perfect pace."Jealous, are you?"Harry snorted. "Hardly. She's pretty. She seems nice. Congratulations."For a moment, Tom said nothing. Then he reached out and tugged on Harry's elbow, effectively bringing them both to a stop. Harry glared up at him, then took a surreptitious look around, wondering who might see them, standing close together with Tom's hand lingering on Harry's arm. No one seemed to be about; things always did get quiet in the middle of the day in the worst of the heat."Harry, I told you, I don't have much interest in girls," Tom said, his voice low and almost...gentle? The thought shocked Harry into jerking his arm away and taking a backward step."Well, you could have fooled me," Harry muttered, and started walking again. For a second he thought Tom wouldn't follow, but then he did. Harry could barely admit it to himself, but he was relieved not to be let go."Daphne's a tactile person," Tom said carelessly, and swung the crop casually so it struck the back of Harry's calf thigh with a soft pop. "So am I," he added."It doesn't matter if you have a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, or whatever," Harry insisted, catching the crop in his hand again to forestall further abuse. "I just want to know, considering. But obviously I wouldn't care.""Obviously," Tom echoed, grinning. Harry wrenched hard on the crop and got it out of Tom's hand, arching his arm back as if to swing. Tom held his hands up, laughing again. "Sorry, sorry. I shouldn't tease you when you're upset." He looked Harry over carefully. "I'm not interested in anyone else."Harry had no idea what he was supposed to say to that, so he grasped for the first thing that came to mind. "All out of spending money?"Tom looked disapproving. They were at the barn entrance so Harry, flustered, went inside. Tom trailed after. Harry wandered into the tack room, for no reason except that the door was open and he didn't think anyone would be inside. But when Tom came in after, he closed it behind them and flipped the lock.Harry had a strong sense of deja vu—though, last time they were in this room together, they hadn't locked the door. Harry thought of what they'd been about to do, and his mouth felt a little dry, particularly when he recalled who had interrupted him. Maybe that was the reason for his bizarre fantasy of Thomas when he was jerking off? His subconscious had linked two topics that should have nothing to do with one another. That made a lot of sense."I didn't think we'd have this conversation so soon," Tom murmured. He advanced from the doorway to stand close to Harry, sliding a hand through his hair as though to tidy it, the other at his side with the crop dangling from it like a sadistic promise. "But Harry. You know there's more going on here than just our 'arrangement.' Isn't it obvious? You've met my idiot friends. We've texted for hours. I only want to hang out with you, every night."Harry stared back, not sure whether Tom was being serious or sarcastic and equally unsure which he preferred."You threatened me," Harry reminded him. "You made me do all this so you wouldn’t tell.""You make it sound like I blackmailed you," Tom chuckled, nuzzling Harry's hair. Harry frowned."Well..." Actually, wasn't that the definition of blackmail? But then again, Harry didn't feel blackmailed. Maybe he was exaggerating the circumstances. He'd wanted Tom, mostly. Even if he was a bastard, Harry had fantasized about him for too long to keep fact and fantasy strictly separated in his mind."And the money," Harry added, a few things clicking together abruptly in his mind and leaving him in frozen horror. Money in exchange for sex was..."Shhh," Tom said, his teeth briefly seizing Harry's earlobe. "If you're worried about balance in our relationship, don't be. I want you just as much as you want me." He went back to nuzzling at the side of Harry's head, finding Harry's hand and pressing it between them, where Tom was half-hard. He groaned at the brush of Harry's lax fingers as though the touch was much more significant than it was. Harry was still only half-convinced, but Tom did seem, bafflingly, to be sincere."Maybe I should show you another way," Tom said, drawing back with an odd little frown. He met Harry's eye with a hesitancy that looked completely out of place on him. "I haven't done this before, but..." He sank to his knees.Harry was so shocked, he didn't really realize what was happening until Tom had jerked his breeches down to the middle of his thighs and pulled his cock out of his underwear. He was still too confused to be hard, but his control over his anatomy only extended so far, and Tom's deliberate touch there and the hot mist of his breath across Harry's hip had Harry thickening fast, particularly when Tom reached between his legs and rolled his balls in his palm like they were marbles, tugging at Harry's sack and squeezing just to the threshold of too much."You...you're going to...?" Harry gazed down his own chest at Tom, holding his shirt out of Tom's way reflexively, which gave him a heart-wrenching glimpse of Tom's hair, shockingly dark against Harry's pale stomach. The silky tickle of it brushing his skin made Harry shiver.Tom looked up at him, and the combination of his touch, the sight of his too-lovely face, and his intent nearly sent Harry over the edge right then. A week ago it certainly would have. But he’d had an orgasm just the night before, into his own hand with his forehead resting on Tom’s thigh less than a minute after Tom came in his mouth.But this was nothing like that. This felt absurdly one-sided; that Tom would debase himself like this. Because, Harry realized with a flush of shame, that’s how he felt when Tom fucked his throat. And he liked it.The idea of grasping Tom’s hair and thrusting into his mouth was so absurd, though, that Harry could have lost his hard-on if he thought about it too hard. Fortunately he couldn’t think of anything, though, because Tom was licking the underside of his cock with the flat of his tongue, swirling it over the head, and then for a half-second sucked the tip into his mouth before letting go and returning to slow, long licks.Harry rested his hands lightly on Tom’s head, not pushing or pulling, and tried not to whimper. Tom’s tongue was hot and wet, and where he had licked Harry, the flushed skin cooled in the open air. It was agonizing.“Tom,” Harry gasped, and Tom peered up at him, grasping Harry’s shaft and giving it a few firm, slow strokes. His pupils were blown, and his lower lip was swollen, a speck of saliva on his cheek.“Hnnng,” Harry managed. The noise seemed to please Tom. He rubbed the back of Harry’s thigh while he drew more of Harry’s cock into his mouth, creating a tight passage with his tongue and firm suction, so that Harry’s knees trembled and he had to drop his hands to Tom’s shoulders and lean over him for support, back arched.Tom sucked only the first half of Harry’s cock, stroking the rest with his right hand, while his left gripped Harry’s ass, his fingers digging into the cleft, making Harry think of him pressing his cock there—“I’m going to...” Harry gasped, and Tom pulled off immediately, so Harry came in his hand, whimpering. Tom hit his ass once, with an open palm, and Harry’s knees almost buckled.Tom got to his feet, staying close so he could steady Harry, and grinned smugly.“I knew I’d be good at it.”****Around five o'clock, Harry was walking colts in with Luna when he got a text message from Hermione. Luna watched him fish the phone out of his pocket, the opposite one from the phone from Tom, and she giggled."Why do you have two phones?""It's...a long story," Harry said, glancing up at her with a wry smile while he opened his text message inbox to read the message from Hermione.
Hermione: Can I come by? I've got something to show you. Too much to text.
Harry found that he didn't want Hermione to come by. Not at all. He'd had the experience in the tack room on a loop in his mind all day, and he was starting to wonder whether he could trust his memory at all. Maybe he was inventing the firm-but-gentle way Tom had grasped the backs of his thighs, or how he'd sounded fervent, sincere, when he told Harry there was something real between them...He shook his head to forestall that train of thought. He didn't have to deal with the question of what about Tom yet, and he didn't intend to get ahead of himself. Maybe that subject—serious or not, who knew—would never come up again. Maybe Tom would get tired of him and never send another text. There was no use putting the cart before the horse.He also knew Hermione well enough that the only thing that would make her more suspicious than happening to observe Harry and Tom together would be if Harry told her not to stop by, so he typed her a quick reply.
Harry: yeah, sure...and wtf? :P
She said she'd be there at six, so Harry hurried to get things done. He was still sweeping up around the grooming bay when he heard tires in the driveway and went out to meet Hermione. Her little silver car seemed incongruous with the professionally-landscaped parking lot, where he was used to seeing only impractical SUVs and sports cars. Hermione, too, seemed out of place, and seemed to feel it, too. She was smiling at Harry as she stepped out, but her eyes were wide."This place is..." she began, looking around."Ridiculous," Harry finished for her, smiling. He hugged her gingerly with one arm. "Sorry, I'm gross."She squeezed his waist briefly. "No you're not," she said automatically. "Is there somewhere we can..." she started worrying her lip, and Harry frowned."You sounded excited in your text, but you look like you're here to tell me someone died."Hermione winced, and Harry's heart plummeted. "Oh my God—“She winced again, grabbing Harry's arm and shaking her head. "No! Fuck, sorry, Harry." Hermione rarely swore, so Harry was only slightly reassured. "It's...I don't even know where to start. But promise you won't get mad?"Harry couldn't imagine being mad at Hermione, so he shrugged and nodded. "I guess. Just tell me? You're freaking me out."She took a deep breath, then reached back into her car and got an envelope out of the passenger seat. She handed it to Harry, and went back to biting her lip.The envelope was fairly standard, but there was something heavier than regular paper, rectangular and rigid inside. And someone had addressed it to Hermione by hand. Harry recognized the handwriting at once, and almost dropped the envelope, like it had burned him.He looked up at Hermione, making no effort to hide his reaction, and she made a small, pained sound and wrapped her arms around herself. "You promised you wouldn't get mad," she reminded him quietly. Harry's hand was shaking where he held the envelope. "Please, just...open it," Hermione said. "Then you can yell at me."Harry felt like he was going to be sick. "How could you?""Harry, open it! Please.""Opening it" just meant folding back the tab where Hermione had already broken the seal, and letting the contents fall into his opposite hand. He blinked."Is this...?"But he didn't finish the question, and Hermione didn't say anything. Even though Harry hadn't seen one before, it was obvious that he was holding a passport. His hands were shaking more badly than before as he opened the stiff little cover to the first, oddly glossy page, which listed all Harry's statistics wrapped around a small photo of a startled-looking green-eyed baby."He sent this to you," Harry said numbly, but he was unable to look up from the little booklet. He turned the page again, and saw a few stamps for various countries. He knew his father was British, so it made sense they'd traveled, even after Harry was born. His imagination churned, as it always had since he was a little kid and thought of his parents. It hurt. He snapped the book closed and held it in front of him, not sure what to do with it."So, what? You're staying in touch? Keeping tabs on me for him?""No!""Then what the fuck, 'Mione?" Harry shouted, finally looking up, and she stepped back so that she was leaning against her car door, stunned.Harry was surprised too. His anger took him by surprise; his heart was racing. He wanted to tear the passport in half, and also to carry it with him in his pocket for the rest of his life, sleep with it tucked beneath his pillow."I just didn't want you to miss out on this opportunity. I thought...I mean, it was obvious you'd had a passport, the more I thought about it. And when I looked it up, I saw that they don't expire for ages, and I...I called him.""How did you even have his number?"Now Hermione looked like she could be sick. "He gave it to me. Just in case."Harry snorted. "So you could spy on me for him.""Harry! Don't be ridiculous. I'm your best friend. All I care about here is helping you."Harry was furious, but he also believed her. There was nothing in this for Hermione. He wasn't an idiot; Hermione wouldn't be swayed by being some sort of paid informant. But he'd also never felt so betrayed. There were two people Harry trusted, truly, and until just now he'd trusted them implicitly. He had thought that Hermione and Ron would never hurt him. Childish, maybe, but that's how it had been. And he knew it wouldn't be like that again."Did Ron help you?"Hermione swallowed and shook her head. "No. He didn't know about any of it."Harry walked backwards a few steps, watching Hermione wilt, pained, as he deliberately created some distance. "I don't want to say something I'm gonna regret," he muttered.Hermione nodded. "Okay. Just..."Harry shook his head, and she fell silent. "I'll just talk to you later." He looked at the passport in his hand, and the crumpled envelope he was still holding, too. "I...yeah. I'll talk to you later."He turned and hunched his shoulders as he walked away. After a few long seconds, he heard Hermione's car door close.Tom was inexplicably absent, and when Harry texted to see if he was coming to the house, his response was just “No. Something came up.”So Harry had nothing to distract himself from the envelope, the passport, and his vivid memory of how Hermione had looked and sounded while she was telling him she'd betrayed him. And somehow, worse, that she apparently believed she'd done it for his own good. Was there anything more maddening than that?Harry roamed around the house, all of the thoughts about it that he usually dismissed beginning to fester. Why was it empty? Who lived here? And if no one ever did, why was it so ready that first night that Harry stayed there? He remembered finding a box of cereal bars in the cabinets. Dishes, simple but immaculate, as though brand new. Silverware in the drawers.Feeling claustrophobic, Harry dug out his running shoes, changed clothes, and went back outside, breaking into a run without bothering to stretch or warm up.It wasn't the right time of year for evening runs. The mosquitos descended in a cloud every time he paused, and the day was still hot and muggy. Harry enjoyed the discomfort. It was a welcome distraction. And when his thoughts started to buzz louder after a half mile or so around the edge of the meadow that separated the house from the barns, Harry picked up speed.He had almost always run on pavement. He found it thrilling how the soft ground made him feel silent, almost like he'd taken flight. His burning lungs didn't stop him, nor did the strain in his thighs. It wasn't until he turned off down a trail into the trees and came to the washed-out creekbank at its dead end that he paused, and leaned on his knees to gasp for breath.It had gotten dark, all of a sudden. Harry stared ahead of him at the creek, tranquil at the moment, just a bubbling stream. But when it broke over its banks, it must have been a dangerous whitewater. Harry leaned against a tree and peered over the edge, seeing the way the tree roots exposed by the washout emerged like curled fingers, and how the slope was studded with the sharp corners of newly-unearthed rock.He walked then, until his breath evened out, winding through the trees. He almost wanted to get lost in the little tangle of forest, but it wasn't really possible. It wasn't a dark and impenetrable forest, only the old-growth trees that hedged the waterways between clearings. So when it was too dark for him to keep going without stumbling every other step, he went out into the moonlight. He happened to be directly in view of the house.But the house wasn't as he'd left it. In the gravel parking area by the spring house, converted into a tasteful garage, there was a familiar black convertible.Harry hadn't realized how badly he wanted to see Tom, but he couldn't deny how he felt excitement, and also ease, at the thought he wouldn't be alone all night after all. And in particular, that Tom would be with him. Harry almost broke into a run again, but after a few more quick steps out of the trees he was just near enough to see the silhouette of a woman in the passenger seat of the car. He froze again. He couldn't make out much detail beyond a lot of wavy dark hair, a long, pale neck, and a slender arm dangling over the car door. Then he heard the soft sound of the door closing at the front of the house, and Tom was jogging toward the car. He'd been inside. Was he looking for Harry? The thought that he must be almost got Harry moving again. But before Harry could take a step, Tom, having turned to open the driver's side door, caught sight of him.He couldn't make out Tom's face, but every line of his body communicated, don't...so Harry didn't. He didn't call out, or move. And the woman, turned toward Tom, didn't see Harry. Tom put the car in gear, whipped it around, and was gone.Harry had left his phone inside when he went for his run. It was still where he'd left it, on the dining table, but Harry had left it face down and now it was face up. Tom must have picked it up for a moment when he'd come in. Harry read the text messages from him that had apparently led up to his impromptu stop at the house.
Tom: I'll explain later, but I'm going to come by the house, and I need you to go up to the barn until I tell you to come back.

Tom: Respond so I know you've seen this.

Tom: Harry.

Tom: I'm serious. I thought everything was under control with the house, but something unexpected happened.

Tom: this is why you should keep the fucking phone with you like I fucking asked
Harry set the phone back down and looked at it uneasily. He was no closer to understanding what had just happened than he had been when he'd come in. But at least he wasn't thinking about Hermione and the passport anymore. When he lay awake in the bedroom later, staring at the ceiling, he wasn't even thinking of Tom, exactly.He was thinking of that dark-haired woman, how she'd twisted in her seat eagerly as Tom got in beside her. There was something going on there. It had been obvious even from a dozen yards away.Harry rolled over and clutched his stomach, pulling his knees up so he barely took up any space. It was the position he always found himself in when he fell asleep. Unless you counted these few, recent, intensely strange nights when he'd dozed off tangled up with Tom.He'd told himself he wasn't going to let that conversation today mean anything, but apparently he'd been hoping that it did. That was the only explanation for how hurt he felt by the knowledge it had all been bullshit, after all.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

"Harry, come on. Wake up."Harry wasn't asleep. He'd been staring at the wall for hours. He had drifted off for a few minutes here and there, but his head was too full to let him stay that way for long. He rolled over, and whatever he looked like made Ron recoil."I...um, I just didn't want you to be late."Harry nodded, and when Ron stepped back, Harry scooted out of the bed. The bunks were three high, and cave-like, which Harry had never really minded. But he couldn't help comparing his long-time Weasley sleeping place with the one he'd fled at the house. Despite himself, he'd gotten used to having a bed so large he could barely stretch himself all the way across it, the smooth, even mattress, the fresh, heavy sheets."So, I don't suppose you're going to tell me what the fuck is going on?" Ron's hair was sticking up, as it always did in the mornings, in fine little spikes like a porcupine.Harry hesitated. "It...it's really nothing. I just don't have sleeping arrangements for now."Ron continued to look stricken, so Harry held up a hand to forestall another question."I'll tell you about it, I really will. But I don't want to get into it right now. I have to get to work.""Yeah," Ron agreed quietly. "That's what's important. I just...I just know how much all of this means to you. So I want to help, y'know? And I can't, if I don't know what's going on. And Hermione—she says you're supposed to tell me what happened with the two of you, but she sounds awful, so I'm, you know, really wondering...""Ron," Harry interrupted, quietly but firmly. Ron stopped talking, eyes wide. Harry knew that he didn't look or sound like his usual self, but that couldn't be helped at the moment. He averted his eyes. "I need to go. But...later, I swear, okay?"Ron drove him to the bus stop. It was still dark, and Harry exchanged polite nods with the other people waiting around for the early route. One man in a suit that was distinctly worn around the seams. Everyone else in uniform, or sweats and tennis shoes so they could change when they arrived.Ron leaned out his window as he started to coast off, looking like he was about to say something, then he settled for a tense smile and a little wave. Harry waved back, and climbed the steps onto the bus, dropped into a seat and rested his forehead against the window.Despite himself, he checked the phone. Nothing from Tom, though, since last night. Harry hadn't stayed at the house long; he'd almost immediately grabbed his stuff and started walking. Ron met him a few miles away from the farm along the side of the road, looking ready to murder someone. Harry felt a wave of affection and guilt at the thought of Ron putting up with his silence. He was being an asshole, for sure, but he didn't know how to behave any other way. Not without telling Ron everything, which he just couldn't do.At the end of the bus route, forty-five minutes later, Harry got out, slung his backpack over his shoulders, and jogged the few miles to Windmere. It wasn't a bad run, but he was weary in every way, and felt weak and drained by the time he reached the driveway. He slowed to a walk, half-expecting to see traffic. Half-expecting to see Tom's black car with the girl inside who looked like she was made to sit there. Overnight, Harry's imagination had filled in the vague outline with a fashion model's figure and an imperious, beautiful face. Basically, Tom's female counterpart. Of course he was with someone like that.That didn't answer the question of the house, not really. Harry still didn't understand why it was there, empty, waiting; maybe Tom used it with other guys—and girls—but surely the people in charge at Windmere didn't know? Harry could have made a half-serious argument for why it was okay for him to stay there—after all, he did work at the barn. But he’d known it was really a secret that he was staying there. Maybe someone had found out, and Tom was just helping him lie low. But then, why didn't he text again later, or call and try to explain?Because he's a spoiled fucking brat, and an asshole, Harry reminded himself. Which was true, but it didn't make him feel better. Harry slipped in and out of the lounge to change, grateful when he didn't see anyone, then bumped into the custodial staff on their way out. They looked at him in surprise, and one of them said something to the group in Spanish that made them all snicker. Harry hunched his shoulders and walked on.By the time Minerva showed up, Harry had committed himself to not thinking about Tom. Wasn't that what he'd been warned about? Wasn't that why he'd tried to get Tom to back off, that very first day? He should have told him to go fuck himself when the money came up. Now, he was painfully aware he'd look much worse for having shacked up on the property, sneaking around, than on day one when he'd only lied to his relatives. That might have been bad enough, but maybe not. Maybe Harry could have worked it out.He was here to ride. He didn't have to let Tom's mind games occupy him during the day, so he refused to.It was a dressage day for Hedwig, and Minerva was schooling her. So Harry said good morning to her, then went down to the lower shed-row barn that housed Leonard and a few young horses. To his pleasant surprise, the horses were still in their stalls eating breakfast, so he was able to slip in and close the exterior door before Leonard could lead him on a goose chase through his paddock. The youngster jerked his head up from his feed pan and looked at Harry in dismay as he let himself into his stall. Harry grinned back, triumphant."No antics today, kid," he muttered to the colt, and groomed him in his stall while he finished his hay. It was soothing to fall into the routine of rubbing the curry over every rough patch of silky hair, then smoothing the dandy brush over the colt from behind his ears to the base of his tail, squatting to brush each of his legs. Lifting his legs and prying the packed sand and gravel from his hooves with a curved hoof-pick.The sun was rising by the time Harry led Leonard into the grooming bay to tack up. The grooms were arriving. Harry liked the feeling of having been the first one there. It was how he'd planned to pass the whole summer: demonstrating his commitment by arriving early and leaving late.Well, there was still plenty of summer left for him to make it up.Minerva sent Harry out to hack Leonard. He was still too green for the cross country course, but he needed to get used to being in the open and cantering on the turf, which was an entirely different experience than the groomed sand of the arenas.Leonard was green under the best of circumstances, and Harry felt like he was taking his life in his hands riding him alone outside. But he'd learned through trial and error that horses usually met his expectations, whether they were high or low, so he pictured a smooth, easy ride on a bold, confident colt, and swung into the saddle at the mounting block in the yard hoping for the best.A groom followed him out on an ATV, since there was a rule against unsupervised riding at Windmere, and Harry supposed it was a good idea in this particular case. The morning was bright and perfect, and unbelievably, Leonard struck out along the treeline as though he'd been ridden out every day of his life. Harry leaned forward, grinning, to stroke his neck, and when he sat up again he froze at the sight of a very familiar profile riding along the same path.But—it wasn't Tom. That was obvious a moment later. The shoulders were too broad, the hair too long. When the rider twisted in the saddle to look back at Harry with a curious look, he had his confirmation: not Tom, but Thomas."Hi, Harry," said Thomas, grinning as he guided his horse to a halt and sidestepped her off the path. Harry recognized her, a bright bay named Nementh, she was a boarded horse that he'd assumed belonged to an absentee owner. But she was clearly on her best behavior with Thomas aboard, like she was his horse, not borrowed."Hi," Harry replied, a little flustered. Picking up on his unease, Leonard arched his neck and broke into a trot without picking up speed. It was like he was bouncing off his hooves, and the sensation made Harry grin.."Look, he's volunteering a passage," Thomas laughed, and pressed his mare into an abrupt trot. Harry went along, grateful. Sometimes the best thing to do when horses got agitated was to get them moving. Sure enough, Leonard settled down as Harry began to post, pricking his ears to take in the grass slope ahead of them."Sorry to interrupt you, if you're trying to take him out alone.""No," Harry said. "It's probably better he has someone quiet to follow around. He hasn't been ridden out much."Thomas frowned, and then, looking past Harry, noted the groom in the ATV. He lifted a hand and pointed to the ATV, then back to the barn. The groom, seeing him, slowed and turned back. Thomas looked at Harry again and smiled. "I'll babysit. I was just out to enjoy the morning, anyway. This will be more fun."Harry nodded back with a quick smile, then focused on Leonard, who was behaving increasingly like a ball of rubber bands, occasionally breaking stride to bounce off his front legs like he might rear. Harry balanced himself as unobtrusively as possible so that the colt didn't lose his footing. He was still learning to carry a rider and distracted besides. A few minutes later they were down at the course and Leonard was pulling up, looking at the obstacles with a combination of fascination and fear."Poor big guy," Thomas crooned. "This shit doesn't occur in nature, does it? Here, let Nem go first." He sidled past, his calf brushing Harry's, and Leonard fell in gratefully next to the mare as she walked past the brush fences and water hazards with the placidity of a seasoned horse."Is she yours?" Harry asked, nodding at Nementh and trying to pay attention to his horse, and not the startlingly vivid memory of his fantasy about Thomas. Why had he let himself do that? Of course now he couldn't be around the guy—Tom's dad—without it coming to mind. That's what awkward thoughts did, arrive, and linger, at the most embarrassing moments possible…"Nem? Oh, yeah. Well, I've been leasing her to a friend, but I don't think she rides her much. So while I'm back I've been trying to let her stretch her legs.""She seems really nice," Harry offered politely. Thomas' grin turned sly, and Harry blushed, caught."You're a bad liar," he laughed, reaching down and patting the horse on the neck. "She's got a heart of gold, but she looks pretty shabby stabled with all these fancy horses. It's a pretty funny story. I actually bought her in Jamaica.""You imported her?" Harry asked, failing to mask his surprise, and blushed harder when Thomas laughed again."It wasn't like that. We went on a trip down there, me and my friend. And we got a wild hare to go riding, and one of the tourist joints was this trail ride where you could go along the beach and swim the horses. So we went. It was a disaster. The people hardly knew which end of the horse was which. But Nem, here, well, she was a saint. Packed me along, and did the swim, all while clearly having missed a few meals, just pulled out of a big muddy pen without any shelter."So, after the ride, I asked if I could buy her. It turned out I could, and not for very much." He laughed. "But then, I had the small problem of what to do with her. I thought about finding her another home down there, but I wasn't sure how I would be guaranteeing her anything better than what I'd pulled her out of. So, next thing I knew it, we were chartering a plane and signing her up for a raft of vet-work. And a three month quarantine period in the U.S. So now here she is, with about as much invested in her as your young superstar there." He nodded at Leonard, smoothed Nem's mane, and winked at Harry. "I bet she can out-canter that fancy young thing, though. Want to try him up this slope?"Without waiting for an answer, Thomas leaned forward slightly and Nem leapt obediently into a surprisingly elegant canter, tail streaming behind her as she sped toward the slope. Leonard jetted forward before Harry could give him the go-ahead, of course, but Harry was laughing too hard to be outraged as he caught Thomas up."You could have warned me!" he called, grinning."I did," Thomas shouted back innocently."Let's gallop it," Harry suggested in a burst of confidence, feeling Leonard strong and confident beneath him.Thomas looked surprised, but game. "Sure. Go ahead, I'll keep up.""You'll try, you mean," Harry shot back, closing his legs around the colt so that he immediately let out a burst of speed. He could hear Thomas laugh before the wind picked up in his ears and shut out all the surrounding noise except his heartbeat, the rhythmic huffs of Leonard's breathing and the drumbeat of his hooves on the dry, soft grass.It was all perfect, until a rabbit leapt into the path seemingly out of nowhere, and Leonard leapt over it like it was twelve feet tall instead of less than twelve inches. Harry might have stayed in the saddle, if Leonard hadn't landed from his leap and immediately twisted and bucked. Harry, off balance and on his right side, couldn't protect himself from the consequences of inertia and gravity at that point. He dropped to the grass so hard and fast he didn't even realize what had happened until he was gazing wide-eyed at the pale blue early-morning sky, trying to fill his lungs but unable to do anything but wheeze.He finally drew a breath just as Thomas landed next to him on his knees. "Jesus, Harry," he gasped, leaning over him, face etched with concern. "Are you hurt?"Harry blinked and considered the question. "I don't think so. Leo...?""He's right here. He's hiding behind Nem, the coward. Are you sure you're..."Harry sat up in answer. He was dizzy, and winded, but not hurt. He touched the back of his helmet to feel for damage, but didn't notice anything. "I didn't hit that hard," he told Thomas, turning to look at him, and realized abruptly that they were very close to one another. Also, as he'd sat up, Thomas had put both of his hands loosely around Harry's neck to hold him still so he could stare into Harry's eyes, presumably examining him for signs of concussion."How many eyes do I have?" Thomas asked.Harry laughed, startled again. "You must not be that worried."Thomas smiled, letting him go. Harry immediately lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck, which was hot and tingling. He looked down."You're fine, I think. Kids bounce." Thomas stood up, then held a hand down to help Harry to his feet. Harry took it, and Thomas pulled him smoothly to his feet. He was strong. He was also tall. They were standing close together, and all Harry could see directly in front of him was Thomas's chest, his athletic t-shirt thin and pulled taught over his lean, but athletic—Harry took a hasty backward step, shook his head, and looked around for the horses. Sure enough, they were standing close together. Nem watching them curiously, her reins looped around her neck, as unmoving as if she was in cross ties. Leonard right next to her, chewing his bit uneasily, sweat on his shoulders."Damn it," Harry murmured, and walked over to Leonard carefully. The colt just watched him get nearer but didn't pull away, making Harry feel worse. "Sorry, guy," he murmured as he took Leonard's rein. "That was too much for your first day. Are you scared?" He stroked the sleek black neck, and Leonard relaxed marginally, but Harry could still see the whites of his eyes."Maybe we can walk them a while," Thomas suggested. He was frowning again. "Sorry, I shouldn't have pushed the two of you like that."Harry shrugged dismissively. "No, I was the one who was riding him, so it was my responsibility."Thomas looked thoughtful. "Well, we've all fucked up. Luckily, horses are probably the most forgiving animals on earth."They walked along a while without saying anything else, Thomas watching Harry carefully for signs of soreness. His attention made the heat in Harry's cheeks threaten to remain permanently. So he avoided eye contact as they made small talk, Thomas asking the standard questions about family and school. Sometimes Harry's answers made him fall quiet for a long time.When they were in sight of the barn again and Leonard was walking quietly, Harry looked up at the saddle thoughtfully."I should probably get back on and walk him back," he said."That's a good idea," Thomas agreed. "Need a leg up?"Harry hesitated.The answer, of course, was yes, since Leonard was tall and Harry was not. The stirrup hovering somewhere in the vicinity of Harry's chest, much higher than he could lift his leg. But the idea of Thomas touching him again was almost too much.Thomas took Harry's silence as acquiescence, though, and leaned down to grasp Harry around the calf and knee. "Ready?""Um, yeah, yeah," Harry said tersely, reaching up to grab a handful of Leonard's mane. Thomas gave him a good boost and he used the momentum to pull himself to the saddle and swing his right leg over. Then Thomas guided his leg into the stirrup and patted his ankle."Good to go," he said, smiling, and got on his own horse easily and without assistance. As they walked on, Thomas turned to look at Harry with a very serious look that reminded Harry starkly of Tom. "Harry, you seem like a good kid. A really good kid." He paused, furrowing his brow. "And I love Tom. I mean, he's my son. My only child. I love him like I could never love anybody else. So this is going to sound pretty awful, I guess. But I feel like I have to say it."Tom is a complicated person. And I'm sure I'm in part to blame for that. I wasn't there for him when he was little like I should have been. And maybe I'm not there for him enough now, either. But whatever the reason, Tom is...difficult. On himself and the people around him. Being around somebody like you would bring out the best in Tom, Harry. But being around somebody like Tom might not bring out the best in you. So I think you should...you know, be careful. Look out for yourself. Okay?"Before Harry could think of anything to say, he caught sight of Tom himself, leaning against a fence post by the stable, obviously waiting for them.Harry cursed his heart, which immediately started hammering, and looked down at Leo's neck. He was relaxed, his mouth quiet on the bit. He didn't seem to be showing any negative effects from Harry's fall, thankfully. But Harry was aware he would still have to admit all that had happened to Minerva."I'll take the horses in," Thomas offered, having seen Tom too.As they got closer, it was obvious that Tom was in one of his blacker moods, his eyes flashing and his stare cold. Harry slid off the horse, then handed the reins to Thomas. Thomas caught his wrist in a gentle grip and met his eyes. "Remember what I said, okay?"Harry nodded, swallowing with a little difficulty, and found himself unconsciously rubbing his wrist as he walked toward Tom."Fraternizing with the enemy, I see," Tom muttered, then his eyes narrowed on the grass stains on Harry's breeches and his expression changed suddenly to one of concern. "Did you fall?"Harry remembered Tom asking him the same question when they first met. Then, it hadn't been serious; or Tom hadn't cared; or both. Harry didn't know what to say. All the things he hadn't let himself think about were still a churning, indecipherable well of feelings, and he still had half a day's work to do."I'm fine," he said."Minerva sent you out on that green colt of Regulus'? That's irresponsible. You're a student, and that horse is an idiot.""Regulus," Harry echoed, feeling a chill. "Did you say ‘Regulus’?""And my father was riding with you?""We took a short gallop," Harry said distractedly. "Regulus Black?""That was stupid," Tom snapped. "I've been looking for an excuse to punch him in his stupid, smug face."Harry was startled out of his distraction by that image. "Chill out. I'm fine. I fell off a horse—it happens. Come on." He shoved Tom gently away from the barn and into the short, mowed grass that Harry thought of as the lawn on the south side. "I don't want to talk about that. Why are you here?"Tom frowned. "Why shouldn't I be? We didn't get to talk last night, and I thought we should." He looked around them, as though searching for some place private. Harry, recalling each and every time they'd been alone in a tack room, shook his head."No, I'm working. I can't talk to you right now."Tom's eyes gleamed. "You'll talk to me whenever I want to talk," he said darkly."No," Harry insisted. "I'm only here for the work. Whatever this is"—he gestured between them—"comes second."Now Tom looked downright dangerous. "No.""Yes!"A hard line appeared on Tom's cheek, and he looked into the middle distance for a moment. Harry was reluctantly intrigued by the thought of what gears might be turning behind his shuttered gaze. When their eyes met again, he had put on a calm mask."We should talk about this when you're less upset. Go get my spare helmet from my locker in the lounge before you go back out."Reeling from the abrupt shift in tone, Harry blinked. "What?"Tom reached out matter-of-factly to grasp Harry by the back of the neck with his left hand, and unbuckle his helmet chin strap with his right. "You're supposed to get rid of a helmet after a fall, and this one looks...past its expiration date, anyway. I have a spare. It's the one with the tags still on it.""Are you sure it’ll...""It’ll fit," Tom said. He held Harry's helmet at his side and rubbed his fingers over Harry's nape, where his hair was probably tangled and sweaty from his helmet. Then he pulled back, jerked his crop out of his breeches—fuck, was he always carrying it?—and flashed a smile, all levity as he reached around Harry and gave him a firm slap on the buttocks. "Go on."Later, Harry finally had a text from Tom—but from a new number.
Tom: text me when you're done tonight. I'll grab your stuff from the house.

Harry: I already did.

Tom: ???

Harry: I stayed at my friend's last night. It's taken care of.

Tom: All the way on the other side of town? That's ridiculous

Harry: I'm not going to hide out on the property and risk pissing someone off.

Tom: You can stay with me.

Harry: Definitely not

Tom: Why?

Harry: I have it under control. But if you want to fool around, we can do that after work, but before the last bus.

Tom: "Fool around"?

Harry: Yeah, what you're paying me for

Tom: We discussed that.

Harry: Did we?
He waited to text Tom until he'd finished all his chores, and then procrastinated further by helping Luna sweep up."You look really tired," she observed solemnly. "Maybe you should get out of here."Harry shrugged, but the fact they were both working late made him pause and look at her consideringly. "I'm fine. Tell me to shut up if you want, but why do you work out here?"She looked puzzled for a moment, then she smiled knowingly. "Oh, you've been talking to Millicent.""And Daphne," Harry said, nodding.Luna shrugged. "I like having something to do."Harry supposed that was as good a reason as any. It made him wonder what Tom did all day, when he wasn't harassing Harry. And then he thought of the dark-haired woman, and wished he hadn't invited the train of thought."Have you thought about what you're going to wear next weekend?" Luna asked. Harry turned his head to look at her with his eyes narrowed, certain he'd misheard."Wear? Next weekend?""Yes, to Millicent's brother's wedding," Luna said, eyes wide and serious."I'm not going to...that," Harry said, even as a sense of foreboding swept over him.Luna smiled at him, sweetly but indulgently. "Oh, okay. I just assumed."Harry told her good night, and finally texted Tom.

Messages received Tuesday

Ron: Will you text when you get on the bus so I can get there asap

Ron: I don't want you waiting there long this late

Ron: Harry??????

Harry: I'm not going to need to stay over tonight after all.

Harry: I'm really sorry, and I'll explain soon.

Messages received Wednesday

Harry: I'm good for the week. I'll see you Saturday morning if that's ok?

Ron: ofc, but also WTF Harry???

Harry: I don't think I can rlly explain over text

Ron: Do you plan to explain AT ALL

Harry: yes, omg

Ron: whatever

Messages received Thursday

Hermione: Are you speaking to me yet?

Hermione: Harry?

Messages received Friday

Ron: So I assume you're still alive and crashing here this weekend

Ron: ?!

Ron: ???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Harry: Sorry! I left my phone at the barn. Yeah. I'll see you soon and we'll talk okay?

Ron: right
On Saturday, Ron was waiting at the bus stop. Harry was startled by the sight of him. He stood up from the bench and they looked at one another awkwardly, Ron rubbing the back of his head, Harry worrying his lower lip. Then the bus pulled away, and Harry blinked and looked away, gathering himself. He’d thought he’d have the walk to think about what to say to Ron.“One thing I guess I should say,” Ron said, breaking the silence. “Hermione told me about the passport.”Harry’s eyes narrowed. “And?” He folded his arms.Ron looked at him uncertainly, and it was answer enough for Harry.“I can’t believe it. You’re on her side.”Ron’s eyes widened. “Seriously? There’s only one side. I’m on your side, Hermione’s on your side.”“So you think what she did was okay? Did she tell you she’s had his number this whole time?”“Yeah. She did. I didn’t know about that, but…” Ron pressed his lips together and then let out his breath in a rush. “I don’t think you realize how fucked up it is, your whole thing with the Dursleys.”Harry just stared, taken aback, but his anger still rising.“I guess you wouldn’t. I mean, it’s your life. But for me and Hermione, it’s hard to see you there, and know all the ways they have fucked things up for you, and will fuck things up for you, if they have the chance. And you…” he trailed off, his cheeks flushed.“I what?” Harry said quietly, his heart beating fast. He was digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands hard enough to hurt.“You just...resigned yourself to it! When maybe he could have helped, eventually…”“He tried helping, remember? His own shit was more important to him.”“Yeah, of course I remember!”“Obviously not well enough!”They were both breathing heavily, staring at each other, and Harry noticed that they’d been shouting loudly enough that his ears were ringing faintly.“Maybe I shouldn’t stay at your house tonight, if you’re pissed off.”Ron barked out an incredulous laugh. “I’m the one who’s pissed off, huh?”Harry shrugged, adjusting the straps of his backpack and looking off to his left. “There’ll be another bus in a half hour or so. You don’t have to wait.”Ron had gone pale everywhere but the center of his cheeks and his ears; everywhere else, his freckles stood out starkly. He wet his lip. “So you’re shacking up with that guy?”“I guess.”“God, Harry, what is up with you? I thought you’d be eating and sleeping and breathing that new barn all summer. Isn’t this, like, the opportunity of a lifetime?”He sounded like Hermione, there at the end, so any sway his words might have had over Harry in that moment was outweighed by the association. Harry clenched his jaw and said nothing.“Right. I’ll just fuck off, I guess,” Ron said more quietly.Harry ground his teeth together with the effort of saying nothing, and after a long moment, Ron turned jerkily and walked off up the sidewalk toward Burrow Street. With his long legs, it didn’t take him long to be out of sight.Harry got on the next bus, and rode it back to the other side of the city.Harry obeyed Tom’s text messages and wandered through the palatial Riddle house by himself, trying not to stare. He found Tom by the pool, frustratingly fully clothed, on a chaise lounge under an umbrella.Harry stood in front of him for a moment before he realized he was dozing behind his sunglasses. The pool was reflected off the lenses in glittering turquoise. Harry nudged Tom’s calf with his foot, and Tom stirred and pushed his sunglasses down to his nose.“Do you ever swim?” Harry asked, looking out over the pool appreciatively. It was big enough for laps, but meticulously landscaped, with little waterfalls tumbling between bright-flowered plants and rocks to stream over the edge here and there.“Sometimes, after dark,” Tom said, hooking his ankle around the back of Harry’s knee and throwing him off balance, laughing when Harry swore and half-fell on top of him before scrambling back to his feet and out of range.“You’re such a vampire,” Harry muttered.“Sun is bad for you,” Tom replied, sitting up on his elbows. “I’m going to look much better than you when we’re sixty. So you’re staying here?”“Yeah.”“Good.”Tom woke Harry up early on Monday, and they stopped for coffee on the way to the barn. Tom ignored his and drove too fast on the empty highway that zigzagged across a scenic route to Windmere. Harry sipped a decadently sweet macchiatto and enjoyed the wind in his hair.“Do you have time to go get something to wear later?” Tom asked after a few miles of companionable silence.Harry turned toward Tom, the conversation with Luna coming to mind. “Wear?” he echoed, suspiciously.“Yeah. Millicent’s brother’s wedding. It’s on Saturday.”“I’m not going to that,” Harry insisted, but only half-heartedly. He liked going places with Tom, even though Tom was always grabby and otherwise out to shock him, he acknowledged with a sinking heart. He liked wondering what Tom would do next, and yelling at him about it when it was inevitably something obnoxious. He liked waking up in Tom’s enormous bed and trying to surprise him with a blow job, even if instead of going the way it did in the movies, he got a surprised knee to the stomach. He’d probably like going to some extravagant wedding with Tom, too.Tom went on. “But, you’ll have to meet my grandparents first. You can’t meet them there. My grandmother would die. They get home today, and they said you should come to dinner tonight.”“Your...grandparents.”Tom looked at him, as though baffled, then back at the road. “Yeah?”“How do they even know about me?” Harry had a wild thought of Tom describing their transactional relationship to two grey-haired people in sweaters. Harry didn’t really know any grandparents.“I’m very close to them. Of course I’ve told them about my boyfriend."“I’m not your boyfriend,” Harry said bluntly. Tom looked like he’d been slapped, which Harry might have thought was some sort of sarcastic act if Tom hadn’t also pulled the car over immediately, put it in park and turned in his seat to face Harry before responding.“What a ridiculous thing to say.”“No,” Harry hissed. “It’s ridiculous to say we’re boyfriends. Boyfriends means more than just jerking each other off.”“That’s not all we do,” Tom said sharply, as though Harry had been critical of their intimate relationship and he was offended on its behalf. “I didn’t realize you were so impatient. I do plan to…”“Stop,” Harry said, his voice coming out short and strangled. Tom fell quiet, but not without a quick, knowing look that made Harry blush. “You know what I mean. It’s more than having sex. Come on.”“We do more than have sex,” Tom insisted. “Tuesday night, you were so tired, I just put you in bed and left you alone.”Harry rolled his eyes. “Stop. You know what I mean.” But when he looked back at Tom, he looked sincerely puzzled.“Well, I introduced you to my friends. I can’t make you reciprocate. And I’m trying to introduce you to my family.”Harry wasn’t sure what to say. Eventually he settled for a very frustrated, “That’s not all it is!”When Tom just continued to look back at him as though equally confused, Harry searched his head for a simpler explanation. All that he could think of were concrete examples. “Look, Tom, if I was your boyfriend, I would know why you have two phones.”Tom blinked. “You never…”“And I’d know why you hate your dad,” Harry added, watching Tom instantly go stiff. “And you wouldn’t completely shut down whenever I bring up something that makes you mad. And if I was your boyfriend I’d want to know who the fuck that girl was, who you were with Monday, and why I can’t stay at the house. Fuck, I’d want to know what the house even is, like a place where you take dates or…? Stop, don’t say anything. I don’t care. It isn’t my business. Because I’m not your boyfriend.”Tom frowned and looked at the steering wheel, drumming his fingers against it. His jaw was tense, but his hair had fallen forward over his eye, and Harry couldn’t make out anything else in his expression.“Okay,” he finally said, brushing back his hair to look at Harry askance. “But you didn’t ask.”Harry sank back against the seat, at a loss. “Because that’s not something you ask someone.”“Unless he’s your boyfriend.”Harry shrugged weakly. “I guess. This is…” Frustrated, he ran his hands through his hair and leaned back, so that he was looking at the empty sky above the treeline, where the clouds coasted along slowly, oblivious to the chaos unfolding beneath them. “Are you fucking with me? Why would you…” he trailed off again, but it was too late. Tom had looked over with a sharp eye, and he knew what Harry would have said if he’d finished the sentence.“Are you asking me why I would want you as a boyfriend?” Tom demanded, but his voice was quiet, tempting Harry to glance over. Tom looked startled, searching Harry’s face, and when Harry’s hapless look answered his question, he laughed, soft and the slightest bit incredulous. “Oh, Harry, you’re…” he paused and pressed his lips together, still looking at Harry in a way that was...too much, really, so Harry looked back up at the sky and tried to hold his tattered emotions together.But Tom reached across the short distance between them and laid his palm on Harry’s right cheek, gently turning his face back to Tom’s. Then he kissed him, firmly, thoroughly, like a closing argument.When Tom pulled back, just enough they could learn their foreheads together, Harry realized at some point he’d taken his hands out of his own hair and carded them through Tom’s. Even the shape of his skull was stupidly perfect. His scalp was cool and smooth, his hair heavy, silky. He smelled like expensive hair wax and soap that cost more than caviar. He tilted his head just enough that their noses rubbed against one another and his eyelashes skated over Harry’s cheekbone, then he leaned all the way back in his seat, so their hands trailed down each other’s chests and arms and then found one another over the gearshift. Harry tentatively laced their fingers together.“I’m ready for my interrogation,” Tom said slyly. “Ask away.”Harry shook his head, trying to stop smiling, and failing. He leaned against the seat and looked at the clouds again. He reevaluated every callous thought he’d ever had about sappy love songs and movies, because he did feel buoyant, like Tom’s hand was the only thing from keeping him from sailing away. He certainly wasn’t going to waste the feeling on talking.“Let’s just drive for a while,” he said. Tom squeezed his hand and Harry heard the smile in his voice he couldn’t see.“Yeah, okay.”So, Harry found himself donning clothes that Tom presented him with at the clubhouse that night, and getting in Tom’s car to go to Tom’s house, as they had for a week straight. Except that this time, instead of just a handful of staff who made themselves scarce, Tom’s grandparents would be waiting for them.As Harry walked up the steps to the front door after Tom, he wondered if he was supposed to pretend to have never seen the house before. It wouldn’t be hard, exactly. The house shocked him every time he saw it. It had something like eleven bedrooms, and it looked the mansions in those period films on the BBC.“You’re nervous,” Tom observed, grinning, like this was some sort of evidence of their newly-clarified status. Harry rolled his eyes.“I don’t know how to talk to rich people.”“You don’t have a problem talking to me,” Tom said smugly.“You’re…” Harry looked at him and shook his head. “Shut up.”“Don’t say that to them,” was Tom’s advice. “They don’t like ‘cheek.’”“Oh my god, I wouldn’t tell them to shut up!” Harry hissed.“Don’t say that, either,” Tom said solemnly. “My grandmother isn’t religious, but she says saying Christian oaths are in poor taste.”“I…” But whatever else Harry could have said was cut off by the doors swinging open. A woman in uniform stepped out of there way with a little nod. Tom put his hand on Harry’s back, and Harry walked through the doorway and past the—maid?—feeling more self-conscious than he ever had in his life. He knew there were servants here, but this kind of formal service was completely alien to him.They stepped into the foyer, which Harry saw as a sort of blur of white and mahogany. He did note a few details, including the giant vase, filled with a spray of colorful flowers, that hadn’t been there before on the circular table between the doors and the staircase. Everything was lit up; the chandelier overhead and also the little lights pointed at artwork on the walls. More soft light streamed in from the dining room, its oversized French Doors left open. Harry headed that way, but Tom caught his arm.“Actually, they’ll be waiting in the drawing room.”“What the fuck is a drawing room?” Harry murmured, half-serious. Tom’s lips quirked.“Don’t swear either. I thought it went without saying.”The drawing room was a sort of very fancy living room without a television, but with a bar cart over which a grey-haired man was half-bent. Perched on a tiny sofa was a woman who seemed scaled to fit it. She was so petite that Harry thought of her like a doll, complete with perfectly coiffed, blond-tinted silver hair. She wore a black one-piece outfit that seemed like a dress, but with wide pant legs instead of a skirt. Her legs were crossed at the knee so Harry couldn’t help but admire her high-heeled ankle boots.Unfortunately, he was still looking at her feet when she said, “Ah, so this is Tom’s sweetheart.”"Harry, these are my grandparents, Benjamin and Eleanor Riddle," said Tom, drawing Harry forward by the hand. Harry was still struck by hearing himself referred to as someone's "sweetheart," but tried to smile and not look like he was a moment away from hyperventilation.Benjamin Riddle turned hastily away from the bar cart. He set his martini glass there before walking forward to extend his hand. Tom let go of Harry so he could shake it. Benjamin had a friendly, inquisitive smile. Though Harry thought Tom and Thomas looked a lot alike, he was faced with the curious realization that Benjamin only reminded him of Thomas, not of Tom. He had no particular physical traits in common with his son and grandson, but he had Thomas' warm affect."Harry, so nice to meet you. Tom has told us great things."Harry smiled awkwardly. “Yes. Me too. I mean, he’s said great things about you.” That wasn’t exactly true, but Harry couldn’t think of an honest statement that would be appropriate at the moment. When Benjamin released his hand and gestured toward his wife, Harry walked over to Eleanor. Apparently she was not going to stand to greet him.He felt like he was approaching a very small queen on a tiny throne. She had that sort of presence. Meeting her bright, scrutinizing eye, Harry had the opposite of the experience a moment earlier. She didn't look particularly like her grandson, but she reminded Harry of him intensely.When Harry was within arm's reach, she held up a hand, and Harry took it. For a hysterical moment, he wondered if he was meant to kiss the diamond rings she wore, but he rescued himself by taking it in a loose grasp and shaking it instead.Eleanor looked at him coolly as she took her hand back, like she could read his mind and wasn't particularly impressed. But then she glanced over his shoulder and real warmth lit her pale cheeks pink. Harry glanced over his shoulder and saw that Tom had come up behind him, just as Tom settled a gentle hand on the small of his back.She looked between Harry and Tom and sighed. "I see how it is, then. Well, have a seat Harry. No, not all the way over there." She shifted infinitesimally to one side of her little sofa. "Sit on the settee by me, where I can have a better look at you."Harry sat. Tom sat across from him on a longer tufted sofa, and his grandfather handed him a glass, then turned. “And for you, Harry?”“Oh, no thank you. I don’t drink alcohol.”Benjamin chuckled and winked at him. “Good boy. Exactly what you should say. But we don’t mind you having just one before dinner.”Harry felt mildly panicked. He really didn’t drink, except on rare occasions at the Weasleys’ garage, and while he didn’t mind the flavor of pink wine with an economical label, he was positive there wasn’t a bottle of it on the Riddles’ bar cart.“Er,” Harry began, just as Tom said smoothly, “I bet he’d like a gin and tonic with ice and a lime.”They all sat in stilted silence, the only noise in the room the rattle of ice cubes into a tumbler, and Harry stared at his knees. There were creases in the fabric there, which felt heavy on his legs. He’d never worn trousers like these, not even when he’d borrowed a pair from Tom Saturday night for dinner with Daphne and Millicent downtown.“Thank you,” he said automatically when Benjamin came toward him with the glass and a little cocktail napkin. He didn’t know what to do with them, but a surreptitious glance showed him that Tom was holding the napkin against the bottom of the glass, so he did that too. Benjamin sat by Tom, and for a moment they all looked at one another, Benjamin bright and expectant, Tom and Eleanor with identical expressions of thoughtful amusement, Harry with what he was sure could only be described as a harrowed look.“Harry,” said Eleanor, then, and he turned awkwardly to look at her, worried he would somehow spasm and spill his drink on the “settee” at any moment. When they made eye contact, she smiled in a way that reminded him of Aunt Petunia. Transparently insincere. “Tom tells me you met last fall.”“No, grandmother,” Tom said unselfconsciously. “I said I saw Harry for the first time last fall. We didn’t meet until his first day of work at Windmere.”Tom’s tone, and Eleanor’s patient expression, made it very clear that she hadn’t misunderstood the story the first time. She raised her eyebrows deliberately.“Oh, so you’ve known one another just a few weeks? My, you’ve gotten serious in a hurry.”“Well,” Harry began, and again, Tom filled the brief silence. Harry thought it would probably annoy him under other circumstances, but at the moment he was glad he didn’t have to labor over answers, and Tom could give them instead.“You know how these things go, sometimes, grandmother. After all, you often tell me that you knew grandfather was the man for you the night you met.”“Well,” Benjamin said with a coy look. “She didn’t need to know much more than my last name.” He winked at his wife.Harry took a drink so that he could do something with his face other than express shock.Eleanor was unruffled, but she did sigh. “I came to appreciate your many other attributes in time, my darling,” she said to Benjamin, and there was a bit of warmth in her face again as she looked at him. Harry was heartened to see it, until she looked at Harry again and it immediately disappeared.“How do you like your drink, Harry? Did Tom guess correctly? It would be a miracle if he had, given the two of you are still such a mystery to one another.”“We know each other very well, actually,” Tom said. A tiny shard of ice went into Harry’s mouth on the next gulp, and he almost choked.“Don’t embarrass him, Tom,” Benjamin admonished, his dark blue eyes twinkling. “Don’t worry, Harry, I’m sure you’re quite virtuous, despite Tom’s best efforts.”Now Harry’s choking had nothing to do with ice. Eleanor patted his knee daintily. “I don’t think he likes gin. Benjamin, dear, take it from him and get him something else.”“I’m fine, actually,” Harry said, and Benjamin remained sitting."Grandmother, Harry is a talented rider. You should come see him school some time.""I haven't been to Windmere in ages," she allowed. "But it's you I love to watch. Hasn't Minerva found you something suitable yet? It's getting awfully close to the fall season." She looked back at Harry with wide eyes. “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t bring up the fall.”Harry looked back at her, confused.Eleanor went on. “You must be heartbroken already, to think that after your brief summer together, Tom will be so far away, and for so long.”“Grandmother,” Tom said, with the faintest edge of impatience. “There’s still months until the fall season.”It all registered with Harry suddenly. He looked at Tom. “Oh. You winter in Florida?” It was increasingly common, and Harry knew Minerva spent the winters near Wellington, where there were regular competitive series.“Well,” Tom said, shrugging and inspecting his glass. “I have in the past. That doesn’t mean I’ll do it every year.”“Tom,” Eleanor said coldly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”Benjamin set down his glass. “I think they’re ready for us in the dining room!”Harry followed Benjamin gratefully, while Tom waited for his grandmother to stand and take his arm. He glanced at them out of the corner of his eye, noticing again how tiny Eleanor was, and how she beamed when she looked up at Tom. Also, how Tom’s irritation faded fast, as though he was helpless against the power of her soft smile. It would have been cute, if that was a word that could ever be appropriate with regard to either Tom or Eleanor, and Harry was pretty sure it couldn’t.“You’ve met our boy, Thomas, haven’t you, Harry?” Benjamin asked. “He’s mentioned you, I’m sure.”“Yeah—yes,” Harry said, smiling reflexively. “He’s been really nice.”Benjamin’s answering smile was wistful. “Yes, yes. He’s a good-natured young man. Always was. Here we are, Harry. I’m sure Eleanor will want you just here, by Tom…”“No, no, Ben,” Eleanor cut in from behind them. “We’ll have Tom by me, and Harry here, to your left.”Harry started that way, but Tom caught his arm and smiled at Eleanor. “We’d better set Harry off on his own, grandmother. He’s nervous enough as it is.”Her smile grew strained, but she nodded graciously and circled the head of the table to seat herself, while Tom drew Harry’s chair out for him.Harry frowned. “I’m not a girl,” he muttered.Tom just smiled at him and kissed his cheek, so quickly and with such a bare touch, Harry almost thought he’d imagined it. But when he settled into his chair and looked across the table, Eleanor’s frosty glare made it obvious he hadn’t.As soon as Tom had sat beside Harry, he reached over and put his hand on Harry’s knee. The touch soothed Harry’s nerves, particularly when Tom rubbed a slow circle over his kneecap, then gently cupped his hand, resting it there. Harry felt a strange urge to rest his hand on top of Tom’s, but didn’t. His palms felt sweaty, and he wasn’t sure that it would be right to touch Tom. He could never tell what Tom was inviting.Boyfriends. It was so bizarre. And for all his talk earlier in the car, Harry had absolutely no idea what a boyfriend was supposed to be or do.The meal was an exercise in mimicry. He watched Tom to see which piece of silverware to pick up, which things to cut and which to eat whole. The food was beautifully presented but mostly tasteless. Benjamin remarked on the blandness sometime during the salad course.“We should have let them put something flavorful on poor Harry’s plate, at least,” he said mournfully, gathering a bite of fresh spinach with the appropriate fork. “Since Eleanor would obviously rather he die sooner rather than later, he shouldn’t have to suffer her health-food regimen.”“What an absurd thing to say,” Eleanor said coolly. “I’ve only just met Harry. How could I have known in advance whether to clog his arteries?”Tom patted Harry’s knee and smiled silently at his plate.When they finally made their way to the dessert course—chilled berries with a very conservative dollop of unsweetened whipped cream—Harry was exhausted, and Tom’s touch on his knee was climbing suspiciously higher. Harry tried to bat him away, but he was concerned Eleanor might notice, she was watching him with so carefully.“Will you have coffee, Harry?”Tom squeezed Harry’s thigh just as he answered, so that his voice came out with a bit of a squeak. “Y-yes, please.”“I hope you can forgive us for being protective of our Tom,” Benjamin said, with a fond look toward Tom, which Tom returned with a beatific smile. “He’s really the best part of our lives,” he added, his eyes looking distinctly wet, and fell quiet to stir his dessert with a dry chuckle.Eleanor was looking at Benjamin again with soft eyes. She leaned over the table just enough to reach his forearm and patted it gently with her fingertips. Then she looked narrowly at Harry.“Yes, we adore Tom, of course. And more importantly, he’s never brought anyone home before.”“Well, there was that blonde—”Eleanor looked at the ceiling for a moment with a long-suffering sigh. “He’s never never brought home a young man. And anyone with an ounce of intuition would have known that girls don’t interest Tom, Benjamin. And I happen to know you have more than an ounce.”Benjamin looked up at Tom with a half-smile. “Oh, I suppose. But you know, Ellie, I don’t think we have anything to fear from Harry.”Tom’s hand slid a bit higher.“He doesn’t seem like the aggressor here.”Eleanor was in the process of raising the cup of coffee that had just been deposited by her elbow, and the cup trembled as she froze. “Benjamin!”Benjamin was laughing to himself, but at her exclamation, he laughed harder. “I didn’t mean in the bedroom, for goodness’ sake!” Then he turned his wide eyes over to Harry, and his mouth twisted into a grin, as though despite himself. “Though, now that you mention it…”Harry overturned his coffee cup half on purpose. It had the convenient effect of ending the conversation, and causing Tom to jerk his hand back before the hot liquid could scald his arm.Harry leaned against Tom as they walked back to the car. “They’re terrible, just like you.”Tom leaned his cheek against the top of Harry’s head. “Well, genetics, I guess.”As it turned out, Harry didn’t make it to the wedding. At the end of the day on Tuesday, Minerva told him they were flying to France on a redeye the following evening, if Harry still thought he could get permission to go.“I’m sure,” Harry said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” It was close enough to a lie that his blood felt cold in his veins, but Minerva just gave him a distracted smile and nodded.“Great. Don’t forget your passport, and your helmet. We’ll be riding the whole time, if I know Lucius. See you tomorrow, Harry.”Harry thought Tom might be disappointed; he’d seemed to really be looking forward to Harry going to the Bulstrode wedding with him. But he just grinned and shook Harry by the shoulders. “That’s great.”It seemed too good to be true, because it was.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Harry had never been to an interstate bus stop, much less an international airport terminal. It was exactly how he would have imagined it, though, thanks to television. The building was big, with dark blue carpet and milling with people. Weaving among them was a dog in a little uniformed harness sniffing at bags, its unsmiling handler meeting Harry’s eye with a suspicious look. Long columns of people rowed up to wait for security, the queue area designated by cables looped between posts arranged in maze-like shapes up to the checkpoints.Another man in uniform, this one portly and red-eyed but basically good-humored, examined their passports halfway through the line. Harry handed his over, feeling inexplicably guilty, like somehow, with a touch, the security staff would know how he’d come by it.The man flipped the little booklet open to the first page, glanced at Harry, and smiled. “You were a cute baby,” he said, handing it back. “Secondary ID?” Harry handed him his driver’s license, taking the passport back and feeling inexplicably shy. Maybe it was because he didn’t have any pictures of himself as a baby, but the version of himself in the shot looked startled at best. A broad, tanned thumb was visible, keeping baby Harry’s face turned toward the camera. Harry had spent more time studying the thumb than his own, unfamiliar, chubby and miniaturized face. It had to be his dad’s.The man handed Harry back his driver’s license, and that was that. Harry exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he held, and stepped back while Minerva held out her passport next. Harry checked his phone—a reflex—and saw he had a few messages from Ron. He checked them with an odd feeling of longing. They’d talked for a half-hour the other night, after Harry had given Ron his new number. The Dursleys’ phone wouldn’t work internationally, but, of course, the one Tom supplied would.
Ron: I hope you have a safe trip. I’ll track you down when you’re back.
Harry had never gotten a message like that from Ron. It sounded like something a teacher would send. And it implied there would be a period of prolonged silence, rather than a daily check-in. He stroked his thumb thoughtfully over the button at the bottom of the phone but didn’t unlock the screen to reply.“Scotland!” exclaimed the security person.“Indeed,” Minerva said grimly.“Oh, you have an accent!” said the security person, delighted.Minerva said nothing. Harry looked up to see her fidgeting, her hand held out for her passport, which the security man returned, stubbornly charmed despite her refusal to engage.“Well, ha’ a great trip!” he told her with a wink, his impression of a Scots accent so exaggerated that even Harry winced. As they edged forward in the line, Harry looked up at Minerva with wide eyes.“Do people do that a lot?”She sighed. “Yes.”Security was stressful. Harry didn’t know why he let out a relieved breath when he stepped through the metal detector, and his bag went through the scanner, without event. He’d packed carefully, cross-referencing the dizzyingly long list of rules from the airline email while Tom oversaw. There was no way he had anything he shouldn’t. His carry-on was sleek and brand new; designed for airplanes. Tom had surprised him with it when he came over to help Harry pack—that, and most of the things inside. New breeches, socks, and Windmere polos that were in the nice brand customers paid extra for rather than the plain cotton that Harry had gotten for free, and a new pair of boots. They fit perfectly, which was incredibly good luck. That, Harry thought, amused, or Tom had taken his calf measurements while he slept. Harry had almost refused everything, but Tom had such a contented look as he watched Harry open everything that he couldn’t quite bring himself to.At their gate, Harry watched through the floor-to-ceiling windows as jets taxied in and out.“Not much for travel?” Minerva asked, taking in the wide-eyed stare he hadn’t bothered to hide.Harry paused, then grinned. “I don’t know yet. I guess I did fly as a baby, but I don’t remember.”She smiled, but it was fleeting. “Well, don’t model yourself after me. I’m a nervous flyer and an impatient traveler. But some people like it.” She looked skeptically over at two young women who were talking and pointing excitedly at the airplanes.As it turned out, Harry wasn’t a nervous flyer, nor was he impatient. The whole thing felt like space travel to him. It was surreal to stare out the little window—while Minerva looked determinedly in the opposite direction with her noise-cancellation headphones in place and her eyes closed—and see the patchwork quilt of Kansas City spread out beneath him. He leaned his forehead against the window, fascinated, until the plane reached cruising altitude and the cloud cover was total. Then, he watched a film, which he hadn’t even known to expect, and ate a surprisingly delicious meal. Minerva even snuck him one of the tiny bottles of wine they left her with.“Does everyone get these?”“We’re in first class,” she said, shrugging. “I think they have to pay for their booze in economy.”First class, Harry thought, stunned. He almost texted Ron and Hermione, but then remembered they were in a fight, and also, he’d had to switch off his phone when they took off. Both thoughts made him lonely. It was surprisingly difficult to go so long with the phone nothing but a hard, near-weightless rectangle in his pocket.Minerva dozed when things got dark, and Harry had an adventure to the restroom—even though he didn’t have to go—just to see how it worked. He couldn’t sleep, though he knew he should be tired. He watched the dark sky and listened to the sound of pressure when he rested his temple against the windowpane, passing an hour lost in the ensuing thoughts.The French airport looked very much like the American one, except that now, no one was surprised or impressed by either Minerva or Harry’s accents. Minerva spoke enough French to manage without asking anyone to switch to English. Harry watched with interest as a blank page on his passport was stamped, and shortly thereafter, they were filing out into the fresh air. It was raining, and a man with Minerva’s name on a sign met them at the curb with a car.The land around the airport felt vacant and industrial, not unlike what Harry had seen when they arrived at the airport at home. Inside the car, making a longer study out the window, Harry found the differences between one place and the other much easier to parse. The bleached-dry countryside Harry had left behind at the height of a Midwestern summer was replaced by verdant green.They took a short stint on a multi-lane highway and then, from that point forward, nothing looked American at all. The buildings were all ornate and historical-seeming, even the small ones. The roads were narrow, rough, and the driving death-defying. They rocketed down a rural road narrower than most driveways Harry had seen.The trees and brush encroached so far they almost brushed the side of the car on each curve, blurry-close to the window Harry was peering through. The sky was dotted with thick, cartoonish clouds shaded blue on their undersides as though heavy with rain, and everything had the fresh-washed look of a place that had seen a recent shower.“It’s not far, according to Lucius’ texts,” Minerva said, glancing at her phone. It wasn’t until that moment Harry realized he had yet to turn his back on. He pulled it out eagerly and did so, thinking he really should respond to Ron.
Harry: Just landed. I’ll let you know what I think of the old country when I get a chance later tonight.
He felt better as soon as it sent. He thought maybe the lines of communication just needed a little traffic, and then they’d thaw. His thoughts drifted toward Hermione, and that still-unresolved betrayal. But he also felt like he was somehow complicit, now. He had used the passport. He had benefited the way Hermione wanted him to benefit. As he had several times in the past week, Harry opened a new text window and input Hermione’s name, and considered sending her a message. Something, anything, would be a monumental olive branch at this point, even a mere “Hi.” But he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, and then the car was slowing to turn. While Harry was briefly distracted, they’d arrived at the farm.Harry had never seen Lucius Malfoy before, but he knew who he was the moment he saw him. He looked just as Draco presumably would in a few more years, which was to say, irritatingly good, in an ice-blond, excessively-tall way. He was wearing slacks and a sports coat, looking idly at his phone as he waited for them at the edge of a small asphalt parking area next to an open-air shedrow stable. His hair was slightly shorter than Draco kept his—he wouldn’t quite be able to tuck it behind his ears—and he was broader and more substantial than Draco, but otherwise at first glance Harry might have mistook the father for the son. It made him think of Tom and Thomas. Just as Harry was the spitting image of James, if he were to believe what Sirius said.Harry’s mind blanked at the inadvertent thought, and he was slightly unsteady as he followed Minerva from the car. But in her haste to greet Lucius, she didn’t seem to notice.“Minerva!” called Lucius. “So good of you to come so far, and so immediately.” He had a very faint French accent, and when Minerva drew close, he kissed the air near both of her cheeks. Harry, fascinated, took a few hesitant steps away from the car and paused, but then Lucius saw him and smiled curiously.“Oh, and this is the boy. Young Tom’s special friend, Draco tells me?”“Father,” Draco interrupted shortly, appearing from around a row of conical sculpted hedges. “Don’t misquote me.” He smiled assessingly at Harry, his gaze lingering on the silky trousers that Tom had bought Harry and instructed he wear on the plane. Harry couldn’t fault his logic. They were as comfortable as pajamas but looked dressy. The shirt, too, was one Tom had gotten him. Harry didn’t own anything that would look right if he wore it at the same time as one of Tom’s gifts.But under Draco’s knowing gaze, the fine fabric felt like it itched.“Anyway, we’re still early, so Bastien has agreed to give us a tour.” Lucius gestured, and as though by magic, a decidedly French-looking man in a flat little hat drove around the bend in a small, shiny golf cart. A silky-coated spaniel sat beside him on the passenger seat.“Bonjour!” Bastien said cheerfully, pulling up so close to Lucius’ foot that Lucius took a hasty backward step and scowled. Bastien didn’t notice. He had jumped out of the cart to wring Minerva’s hand. “Mademoiselle McGonagall! I’m a fan of yours, truly. And is this your pupil?” He turned abruptly to Harry, who didn’t quite know what to make of him but nodded with a cautious smile. Bastien had a ring of white hair protruding from below his hat and a heavily-lined face but seemed spry, practically hopping from Minerva to Harry and seizing Harry’s hand with the same level of enthusiasm he had Minerva’s.“Ah, a nice grip and a kind face! The mark of the best horsemen!”Harry had never heard such a thing before but chose to be flattered. “Thank you, sir.”Bastien laughed and let go of Harry’s hand to grasp his bicep with shocking strength and shake him forcefully. “Call me Bas!” he insisted, leaping back into his golf cart. His dog sat placidly in its seat, obviously the dignified one in the relationship, and avoided eye contact with any of the guests.“Hop in!” Bas instructed, gesturing toward the back, where there were two bench seats.“Perhaps I’ll just get in the front,” Lucius suggested, beginning to round the cart, but Bas stopped him with a gesture and a laugh. “No, no, Lucius, my good friend. Pierre would never allow such a thing.” He patted the dog fondly while it gave Lucius a cool look.Lucius looked stunned. Draco snickered. Then, straightening his sleeves, Lucius nodded and went to the back of the cart, stepping in.“Harry and I will get changed,” Minerva suggested. Bas looked crestfallen, but Lucius nodded hastily, and Harry could see why. They’d have been elbow to elbow if all four of them tried to squeeze into the cart.“Just down the lane, then, there’s a guest cottage you may use,” Bas said. “See you straightaway!” And off they went, the faint whir of the electric engine fading as they cruised out of sight.Harry spotted a few horses as they made their way down the pebbled path between two lush strips of landscaping. There was a weathered wooden fence and stone pillars on either side of a wide metal gate, and the horses were grazing happily on the rich, green grass. It was a satisfying sight.“Do they ever need hay here?” Harry joked. He saw that Minerva had looked in the same direction he had, with a faint smile of her own.“Not here, or at least not often, I don’t imagine. Land is in short supply, compared to America, but that generally isn’t an issue for Lucius’ friends. Here we are.” She nodded to a little house along the path, and Harry frowned.“Didn’t he say it was a cottage?” The house was a single story, about the size of the non-Weasley residences along Burrow Street.Minerva chuckled. “What did you expect, Harry? A thatched roof? I’m sure this is what he meant.”Harry blushed, realizing he had, subconsciously, expected something that looked more like a fairytale illustration. In his defense, he’d never heard a “cottage” referred to anywhere else.The cottage was unlocked, and inside, it was somewhat spare, with the furnishings covered in cloth. The door was open to a small bathroom, and Minerva took her luggage in there while Harry roamed around, looking at things and seeing how his footprints left marks in the thin layer of dust on the wood floor.He thought of the house at Windmere. It hadn’t been shut up like something unused. There was fresh polish on its floors, and the furniture was uncovered. He really should have made a point to straighten some of these things out with Tom, but between meeting Eleanor and Benjamin and the impending trip to France, he hadn’t been able to find a moment where he could bring himself to focus on the lingering mysteries between them.And if he was honest with himself, everything that had happened in the past week felt faintly unreal. A vivid and alluring image of a life too perfect to be Harry’s. He felt like if he tested any part of it, the entire thing might vanish. And he wanted to be fooled, even if it was only for a little while longer.When it was his turn, he closed himself in the little bathroom and put on his new riding clothes. Even the tall, sheer socks were from Tom, and he refused to feel guilty about the way it felt to slide them into his boots, which were so perfectly buffed Harry thought he might see his face in them. They were black, since Harry didn’t have a good black pair, and that’s all anyone wore if they were riding to impress. He shrugged into the Windmere polo, and came out of the bathroom to find Minerva giving him a look in a similar vein to the one he’d earned from Draco outside.“Nice boots, Harry,” was all she said, but he could tell by the signs of strain in her smile and the shadow in her eyes as she turned and headed back out of the cottage, that she knew. Somehow, she knew it was all from Tom, and that her warnings to Harry on his second day hadn’t been respected.Harry was still trying to find a place to store his feelings about that in the increasingly cluttered part of his mind attributed to Things He Wouldn’t Dwell On when they came down to the arena, an oval of perfect white sand. Next to it, there was another parking area, this one larger than the one above where they’d left the car. It was small gravel and intended for parking horse trailers, Harry supposed, then amended the thought as he saw what was parked there now. Harry knew it to be a horse van from having seen a few photos on the internet. It was like a cargo truck, with the horse box directly attached to the vehicle.Two grooms were holding a big chestnut mare, still in her shipping halter and boots, while a third removed her scrim sheet.Minerva made a small sound in the back of her throat, and Harry, who had been studying the horse appreciatively, looked over, curious. Minerva glanced at him askance and spoke in a low voice.“Look her in the eye,” she advised.Harry did so and saw a seam of white, just visible around the otherwise dark iris, which like any horse’s covered most of the visible eye. It wasn’t the first time Harry had seen a horse with white sclera, and he said so.“I know it’s not scientific,” Minerva murmured, “but the part of me who was raised by horsemen like my grandfather believes that old idiom about not trusting a horse with your life if you can see the whites of its eyes.”Harry frowned, falling into step beside her as Minerva walked closer. Bas, Lucius, and Draco were coming up in the cart, but the horse, though obviously high strung, didn’t spook. Harry thought that Minerva was being unfair. She was a big, thoroughly-conditioned mare who’d just come off the trailer. A little bit of extra energy was to be expected.The grooms led the mare off to be saddled, and Harry saw as they got closer that a small, high-end sports car was parked on the other side of the van. A man stepped out and he and Bas kissed one another’s cheeks. He was maybe in his late twenties and heavy around the middle, openly leering at Draco while Draco did a good impression of Pierre in not deigning to notice. Harry and Minerva stayed just out of earshot, waiting for the horse to come back. Harry thought the air seemed fragrant, somehow, like they were never very far from something that was growing and blooming. It was heady, distracting. He felt restless, but when he looked at his phone, he didn’t have a reply from Ron.The horse came back and was led up to a mounting block near the gates to the arena.The portly man, who Harry now assumed was the owner, said something in French and gestured toward her.Minerva frowned, then looked at Lucius. “Won’t she need a lunge?”“I’d like to see how she does cold,” Lucius said. “Won’t we get the most accurate impression that way?”The owner, frowning at Minerva, said something in French.“Julien says the mare is very quiet and was hand-walked this morning. You won’t want to take the edge off, or you won’t be able to evaluate her.”“I rode her at Julien’s,” Bas offered. “Just last week. Lovely girl.”Minerva seemed convinced. She started walking toward the mounting block, and then Lucius called, “Wait. Let the boy try her. He’ll be a better approximation of Draco’s skill, won’t he?”Harry hadn’t expected to be asked to ride first, but he wasn’t shocked, either. He and Minerva had discussed that he was along to see how the horses went for someone with less expertise than Minerva, since the purchase was intended for Draco. Also, with Harry riding, Minerva could see them from the ground, which was almost as important as the experience from the saddle.“Go on, Harry,” she said, but he could tell she was unsure.Eager to prove that she had nothing to worry about, Harry grinned and nodded. An hour from now, he’d be able to say he’d not only traveled to France, but he’d also ridden a horse there.Harry adjusted the stirrups himself, smiling at the grooms, who were relaxed. The mare was holding still nicely and sniffed at Harry’s elbow as he stroked her neck.“What’s her name?” he asked the groom on the right side, who was poised ready to hold Harry’s stirrup when he swung on. The man smiled in polite confusion, and the groom on the left side answered.“Her name is Fleur, sir,” he said politely, in clear accented English, and rubbed the mare’s ear with sincere affection.Harry got on the mounting block and swung aboard, reached down to stroke the mare again, then nodded to the grooms, who stepped back and let him take up the reins.The mare felt lovely, like she walked on clouds. Harry smiled to himself at the sensation then listened for Minerva’s instructions.“Let her trot out, Harry, until she’ll walk flat-footed,” Minerva called, so Harry did. If she walked on clouds, she trotted on springs. Harry knew most of it was her high spirits, but she was obviously a natural athlete too, and her extra impulsion didn’t bother him. He found it easy to stay in balance with her, without tugging on her mouth or standing too heavily in the stirrups. He glanced over at the arena railing where everyone stood and saw that Draco looked intrigued and Lucius looked pleased, but Minerva still had a doubting frown.And then Harry heard the familiar noise of an oncoming vehicle towing a trailer, that particular rattle of the hitch and the receiver. He didn’t think anything of it, until the next moment when it became obvious that Fleur also heard, and it was pushing her over the edge of spirited and into panicked.The mare was moving sideways, fast, her penchant for effortless and swift movement suddenly working against Harry instead of for him. And the driver of the car and trailer, oblivious, of course, was only coming closer. The sound grew steadily louder, and the mare, craning her head toward its source, had her confirmation that something large and strange was coming for her when the towing vehicle appeared around the trees.She made a shrill sound and decided to run for her life, launching herself toward the arena fence with a jumper’s confidence that she could clear it, but still badly off-balance from having turned her head to look at the coming vehicle.Her shoulder struck the fence and she toppled over it, sending Harry flying from the saddle, the ground coming up fast, exactly like the fall from Leo days before, and also nothing like that at all. Harry knew, with terrible certainty in the moment before impact, that it was going to be much worse.The first thing Harry heard was arguing. It was like dreams he’d had where he felt like he was floating away, or maybe just drowning, but in a peaceful way. The people he could hear but not see sounded increasingly distant. It wasn’t uncommon for him to hear Sirius in his dreams.“...can’t do that, need to keep the light on.”“It’s important that someone with a severe concussion is not subjected to visual stimulation, Mr. Black,” replied someone whose voice Harry didn’t know, fluent English but with a noticeable accent. What kind of accent?“You’ll scare the hell out of that kid if he wakes up in a dark room, miss. That can’t be good for him, can it?”A pause. “No, Mr. Black. It can’t.”French. It was a French accent. Harry was in France. He’d fallen. He remembered hearing his helmet crack as he struck the ground headfirst.Then Harry was in a deeper, more dreamless state for some time.When he emerged again, he opened his eyes. The room was dim. It looked like a hospital, and the uncomfortable thing Harry was lying on felt like a hospital bed. He’d been in one before, of course. Years ago when Vernon had broken his arm, twisting it too hard. A spiral fracture, the doctor had called it. Harry had imagined his bone like a live tree branch he'd once twisted between his two hands until it split, green and fibrous, in the center.Now he carefully tested each of his limbs with an urgent panic, but everything seemed to work. He was bruised down one side, and his mind felt slow, like he couldn’t quite wake up completely.Maybe he still wasn’t awake?But the version of Sirius asleep by his bedside was nothing Harry’s subconscious could have conjured. He was nearly unrecognizable, in fact, with a short beard and a silver hoop earing in the ear that Harry could see. He’d know Sirius’s profile anywhere, even with the neat beard, but he was still startled by all the small differences. It had only been five years.Sirius opened his eyes, and met Harry’s gaze, but neither of them moved. Harry knew that there were strong emotions that he would typically associate with Sirius, but they all felt out of reach. His thoughts couldn’t quite stir from this half-dozing state.“How are you feeling, Harry?” Sirius sat up slowly, and his hand jerked into the air above the place on the bed where Harry’s hand laid lax over the coverlet, but he pulled back before they touched. Harry wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or disappointed. Sirius had been the first adult Harry could remember to have touched Harry with affection and gentleness. He’d been embarrassingly eager for even the most casual touch when he finally met Sirius after nine lonely years with the Dursleys.“Harry, sweetheart,” Sirius said, and now his hand did land over Harry’s. He went still a moment, then took in a shaky breath when Harry didn’t pull away. “You had a bad fall. You’re all right, but you hit your head, and you have a severe concussion.”Harry frowned. “Do people go to the hospital for concussions?”Sirius lifted his hand and gently touched Harry’s temple. “It was a severe concussion,” he repeated, his voice wavering. “Fuck, Harry. I’m sorry this happened. I wanted this trip to be amazing, not…”“It is amazing,” Harry said, thinking of the cool sunshine, the foreign greenness, the people at the airport. “I mean, it kind of sucks now, but it was amazing.”A smile ghosted over Sirius’s mouth. “You’re making a little more sense than you were. That’s good.”Harry frowned. “What? Before when?”“You’ve woken up a few times,” Sirius said, his smile fading. “They said you might not remember.”“Oh.” Harry found that thought surreal and upsetting, that he would have done or said things he couldn’t remember. He pulled his hand from Sirius’ and rubbed the opposite arm, encountering a long scrape that ran from his wrist to his elbow.“They didn’t think we should admit you, but I insisted.” Sirius looked down, the smooth ridges of his cheekbones pink above his beard. “I just wanted to be really sure.”“How did you even know what happened?”Sirius looked up, hesitant. “Well, they needed to call a guardian, when you were admitted.”Harry blinked, but he supposed that made sense. The Dursleys were always having to sign off on everything, even though they were the adults who cared least for him in the world. The Dursleys. Oh, no.“They...called them?” Harry murmured. He was sure the moment he set foot back in the U.S., Vernon would descend on him, throw him in his room and lock him in there until he turned eighteen. The thought made his mouth go completely dry.Sirius shook his head infinitesimally. “No. Minerva called me directly.”“How would she…?” Harry frowned. His heart was beating faster, his slow-moving mind managing to ratchet up to a slightly higher gear. “How would she know?”“Because I called her, after I knew you’d gotten the job. I knew you wouldn’t want me to have somehow pulled any strings, or the perception of that. I just…” he rubbed a hand over his jaw, then looked away from Harry, his hand half over his eyes. “I just worry about you. Constantly.”All Harry’s uncertain emotions coalesced into the inevitable anger he always felt, where Sirius was concerned. He’d carried that anger ever since the day Harry, expecting to go home from the hearing with Sirius—Sirius, finally—was instead told by the grim-faced social worker that Sirius Black was no longer a candidate for his physical custodian. Harry had to hear the rest of it from his seat in the courtroom. Sirius Black was arrested the night before for assault, battery, and possession of controlled substances.“Why is that?” Harry asked, his voice sounding faint, and high, over the blood pounding in his head. A dull, intense pain began between his eyes, and he closed them and rubbed furiously at his forehead as thought that would help. “Because I have to live with them? Because none of us ever knows when they’ll decide to push me down the stairs or lock me in the cellar?”Sirius made an injured noise. Harry rarely thought about the Dursleys; it wasn’t something he dwelled upon. He’d decided that after the hearing, also. Admittedly, he only gathered his resolve after a day or two of sobbing, and Vernon threatening him creatively with all forms of punishment if he didn’t shut up. Harry didn’t have to think about them. Not the Dursleys, not Sirius. He could think about horses. Even when he wasn’t at the barn, or riding, it was easy to drift away on the memory of a horse he’d ridden or the fantasy of one he’d love to ride.But now, he wanted to weaponize all the little fears that became long, complex nightmares, wherein the Dursleys did far worse than just ignore and belittle him. He knew that if he did, it would hurt Sirius.“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Sirius said softly. “But I know I don’t have that right. I should...I should go.” He pushed the chair back; it scraped noisily, reigniting the pain in Harry’s head. “I guess I thought maybe...I thought you might have forgiven me, even though I don’t deserve it.”Harry cracked his eyes open. No, he almost said. Never.But he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Sirius was looking at him with the most miserable expression Harry could have imagined. And Harry’s anger needed a fight to sustain itself. Sirius wasn’t arguing. He wasn’t defending himself. He was just getting to his feet, prepared to walk out and leave Harry alone.“I don’t…” Harry bit out, then paused and sank his teeth into his lip. He rubbed his forehead again and winced. “I don’t understand how you could have…”Sirius exhaled hard, sinking back down in the chair and burying his face in his hands. “I don’t know, Harry. Fuck. I didn’t think. I never think things through like I should. I’m a...I’m a fucking child, for the most part. I’m sorry that I’m somehow still the best option you had. I should have...I should have been better, for you. If it means anything, I hate myself. I hate the fucking sight of myself.”Absurdly, Harry laughed. A quick, soft sound, which surprised both of them. Sirius twisted his head just enough that he could look at Harry through his parted fingers with one wide grey eye.“I mean,” Harry said, voice uneven. “It helps a little. You always loved the sight of yourself.”Sirius snorted, instinctively outraged, and then his breath stuttered and he burst into tears. His shoulders shook and he sobbed into his hands. Harry, who had never seen anyone, let alone a grown man, cry in front of him like this, was frozen for a moment with no idea what he should do.Sirius had manipulated Harry’s friends. But he’d done it to keep track of Harry. He’d secretly made contact with Harry’s boss—mentor—teacher—Minerva, but he’d done it because he wanted to help Harry in any small way he could. He’d made a terrible mistake that had fucked both of them over, all those years ago, but he seemed to realize what he’d done. He seemed sorry. He was crying, for god’s sake, and Harry…Harry’s anger felt dull. All the sharp edges were sheared off. It left him with nothing to do but lean forward enough that Sirius’s quaking shoulders were in range of his hands and pat them awkwardly. Sirius felt inhumanly warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. Harry recalled that about him, too.“Harry, you don’t…” Sirius started to say, feeling the weight of Harry’s hand, but Harry just patted him more determinedly.“Shhh,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m the one comforting you, though. You’re a terrible father figure.”“The worst,” Sirius agreed, sniffing wetly, and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, which were still streaming steadily. “I can’t stop. I don’t know. I never cry? What is this?”Harry felt himself smile. None of his emotions were behaving appropriately, but he found the sight of Sirius crying helplessly to be simultaneously hilarious, awkward and sweet. He wanted him to stop immediately, and he also wanted the moment to stretch on forever.Before Sirius’ tears had dried, Harry was asleep again. It would have been shocking, if he were in his right mind, to be pulled back under so abruptly. But since he was still half-delirious from the concussion, he just surrendered to the instant weariness and let his vague, floating dreams carry him through.This time when he woke, he was completely alone, and his head felt much clearer. He wondered what, if anything, his friends knew about his fall. There was probably no way that Ron and Hermione knew. But had Draco told Tom? Harry hoped not. Now that he knew he was going to live and didn’t have any sort of serious injury, his chief feeling about the fall was embarrassment. Had he proven Minerva right, somehow? He thought back to what had happened with increasing anxiety. Could he have comforted Fleur if he’d let up on the reins? Should he have turned her toward the oncoming vehicle, or had letting her look exacerbated her reaction?He remembered the sound of her body hitting the fence, and the sight of her cartwheeling by. Was she gravely injured? If she wasn’t, would she be too traumatized to ever trust a rider as deeply as she’d need to to excel at the level she was bred and prepared for? Harry felt bitter regret that he could have been a part of ending the career of a lovely horse like that before it had even started.Maybe Minerva wouldn’t want him riding anymore.The door opened, and Minerva herself poked her head in. Harry scrambled to sit up straighter. “Hi, Minerva,” he said, uncertain. Was she going to fire him here, in the hospital room? In France?She looked terrible. She was never one for makeup or fuss, but her hair was always immaculate, her shirt collars crisp. And she was quite clearly wearing exactly the same thing she had been the last time Harry had seen her, which was, based upon his estimations of time since he’d seen Sirius, almost an entire day.“Harry,” she said after she’d closed the door behind her, looking at him earnestly. “I’m so terribly sorry.”She really was going to fire him, Harry realized, too numb to reply.His silence made all the color drain from Minerva’s face. “Of course, I don’t expect you to accept my apology. It must seem like a silly platitude. I should never have let you get on that horse, Harry. I knew in my gut it was a bad idea.”Harry/s mouth opened, then closed again. He tried a second time with better success. “You’re sorry—that I fell?”Minerva looked totally bewildered. “Of course. What else would I be sorry about?”“I thought maybe you were going to...let me go,” Harry said, shrugging. “And maybe you are, and you just haven’t gotten to that part.”“Let you go?” Minerva echoed. “Do you mean...excuse you from your position?” At Harry’s small nod, she shook her head. “Absolutely not, Harry. You’re an excellent rider, who I’m lucky to have. I’m the one who’s in the wrong, at the moment. Don’t doubt that for a moment.”Harry’s relief was instantaneous but closely chased by a thought just as pressing in his mind as his own fate. “I should have supported her better. Is she...is she alright?”Minerva’s grim expression was answer enough.“Oh, god.” Harry leaned forward and pressed his head into the blanket over his knees, feeling like he might be sick. “God.”“There wasn’t anything you could have done differently. It was just one of those things. Bas had something to sedate her with, and when the vet arrived, it was obvious what would have to happen. It was over quickly for her. Minimal suffering.”“I can’t...I can’t believe it. The Malfoys must be…”“Relieved that you were riding instead of Draco, I rather think,” Minerva said sourly and grinned a bit when Harry laughed. “I’m glad you appreciate a bit of dark humor. I’ll take note.”They smiled wearily at one another, and Harry leaned back against the pillows. “Did you find them a horse?”Minerva stared at him with renewed disbelief. “Harry, what do you think, we just dropped you at the hospital and went back to looking at horses?”Harry shrugged.“You…” Minerva touched her temple, then smoothed a hand over his disorderly hair. “You are the most peculiar boy.”Harry shrugged again. “Well, I wish that hadn’t happened and messed everything up.”“We can all agree that we wish it wouldn’t happen. Nothing is ‘messed up,’ however. We’ll look tomorrow. Oh, and Harry—I forgot, but payroll gave me something to give to you.”“Payroll?”“Yes. They asked me when you were picking up a check. Apparently they didn’t have your mailing address? And then, I thought you might want spending money for this trip, and since they didn’t have a routing number for direct deposit, they just put it on a card for you. Is that alright?” She reached into her purse and held out something that looked like a credit card. Harry stared at it.“What...check?”“Your stipend.” Minerva laughed. “Did you think you were working for free?”Harry could only stare at her. “It’s a volunteer position,” he said, recalling the letter he’d gotten from Windmere, which Ron had read aloud to him over the phone. “It said so in the letter.”Minerva shook her head slowly. “Well, I’m not often the bearer of good news, but I’m pleased to tell you it isn’t a volunteer position. The Black family established a scholarship for the internship program eight years ago. It’s only $3,000.00 per month, but at sixteen, that probably seems like a king’s ransom. What’s this letter you mentioned?”“I…” there was no way Ron had been mistaken. They’d briefly discussed it on the phone, afterward.
“What will Vernon say about the money? Er, lack of money?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“I must have just overlooked it,” Harry said. He had a feeling that the faintness he was experiencing had nothing to do with his concussion. He tried to wet his lower lip, but his mouth was dry, and his tongue felt heavy and tacky. “Who sends out those letters?"

“There aren’t any letters,” Minerva said, frowning. “I normally make the calls personally, but because he said you were friends, Tom asked to contact you himself.”

Shortly after Minerva left, Sirius came back in. Harry was still staring blankly at the wall opposite his bed. Sirius seemed to note the charged energy in the room and paused in the doorway. Harry looked over at him after a moment and blinked. He had Harry’s luggage and a plastic bag that seemed to contain the clothes Harry was wearing when he fell.

“I thought you might want your stuff,” Sirius said, advancing cautiously. Given the raw feelings between them, Harry made himself smile so Sirius could marginally relax, though he knew it probably looked more like a grimace than anything else.“Hey, I even charged your phone!” Sirius held it out, then turned it to and fro while looking at it appreciatively. “That’s a really nice case. The doctors said you can only look at the screen for five minutes of every hour, though."

“I don’t want it,” Harry said bluntly. “Burn it.”
“I don’t think you can burn electronics. Or at least, it’s not as satisfying as you think it’ll be. Do you want to...talk about it?”
Harry shook his head, drawing his knees up to his chest. He did want to talk about it, but things were still strange with Sirius. He wanted Ron and Hermione, but he’d been a dick to them and they were incredibly far away…“Oh, Harry, don’t cry,” Sirius pleaded softly, reclaiming the chair by Harry’s bed. “You can tell me what’s going on, if you want to. But you don’t have to. Obviously.”Harry shook his head. His throat was closed tight, though he wasn’t crying hard on the outside. He’d managed to keep it to sniffing and silent tears, but if he tried to speak, he was afraid he might wail. He took the phone from Sirius and launched it as hard as he could at the wall, and while it didn’t shatter the way he wanted it to, it did make a definitely cracking noise—once on the wall and again on the hard floor.“Right. Got it. We don’t need to talk about it.” Sirius picked up Harry’s trembling hand. “You know, your dad was a horror when he was upset. Like an angry cat, you’d be scared to get close.” He stroked back the hair around Harry’s face, which was long enough to be damp at the ends from his tears. “But he always wanted to be comforted even if you couldn’t tell just from looking at him.”Harry wasn’t sure how mentioning his dad was supposed to help him, when Harry was already miserable. In fact, it pushed him over the edge and his nose started running. But he let Sirius hold his hand, rub his shoulder, and talk nonsense until he fell asleep. Again.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Spending three days with Sirius was surreal; it felt like he was living one of his sillier childhood daydreams, wherein Sirius had successfully adopted him, spirited him away from the Dursleys, and proceeded to spend their days together eating ice cream and going to amusement parks. Though as it turned out, it was gelato and Parisian flea markets instead."Why do you like this stuff?" Sirius asked, frowning doubtfully at the sleeve of the vintage fur coat he'd brushed up against while they wove through the cramped stalls. "I thought you were too old to be emo."Harry shot Sirius a stunned look. "How do you even know what that word means?"Sirius rolled his eyes. "Kids. They think every adult has lived under a rock since their twenty-fifth birthday. Are you avoiding my question?"Harry shrugged, looking back at the row of antique typewriters and rubbing his forefinger over a key, gone smooth from years of use, the letter that had once been engraved on its surface long worn away."I don't know. I like thinking about them sitting in some old house somewhere, with some dead person hunched over them.""Creepy," Sirius said with a shudder, and sidestepped away from the coat rack. "If you're about done, I could use some fresh air. And some lunch.""We just ate! Where do you put it all?"Sirius sniffed as though offended. "You're one to talk." He dug a knuckle into Harry's ribs, making him help. Sirius sidled past Harry and toward the streak of sunlight above the towers of dusty objects that signaled the direction of the exit.Out along the street, it wasn't hard to find a bistro. They settled at a little table that seemed too rickety to Harry; he was afraid to so much as brush up against it, so he placed his hands carefully on his knees instead. In the end, it was only Harry who ate, though Sirius ordered for him. Meanwhile Sirius leaned back on his little stool, tipped his face toward the sun, and drank some sort of fragrant coffee beverage from a very small cup.When Harry had eaten, he felt drowsy. "You always know where the best food is," he said, after Sirius paid and they were getting back to their feet. "It's France. Everything tastes good to our poor, abused American palates. You look tired. Let's get back to the hotel."Harry nodded. "Do you think...when we get back, could I borrow your phone? Just for a sec.""The doctor said to limit your screen time," Sirius said. For some reason his half-stern expression and furrowed brow made Harry smile, but Sirius was too distracted by checking for traffic at the little blind intersection they were about to cross to notice. "But a few minutes shouldn't hurt."That's how Harry came to be propped up in his bed, forearms resting on his thighs and knees bent, contemplating the screen of Sirius' phone. There were two numbers he badly wanted to call, and it took him almost a full minute to choose which one to dial."Hello?" Hermione answered, sounding guarded. Harry shifted the phone next to his ear as he realized how the number would have shown up on her caller ID."Hi," he said. "It's not Sirius," he added, then snorted. "Obviously. It's Harry. Obviously.""Harry? You're with Sirius? How did...is everything okay?""That didn't take you very long," he thought, absently admiring her powers of deduction. "I'm all right. I fell off a horse." His throat felt tight. "They had to put her down.""Oh, fuck. Harry." Hermione never swore; the shock of it put him over the edge."Oh, no. Don't cry. Or I guess, do cry—whatever you want. I'm so sorry. Damn it."He couldn't really speak, so he went on, snuffling pathetically and knowing his head and throat were going to hurt when it was all over. He kept Sirius' phone to his ear, pressed tightly to his now-wet cheek. Hermione fell quiet, but it wasn't an awkward silence. She was good at comforting people just by waiting until they were ready for her to listen. And he found that even with an ocean between them, it was comforting to know Hermione was offering him whatever she could. "Basically," Harry said eventually, though his voice was still unsteady. "I've fucked up my entire life in less than a month. It's pretty spectacular, actually, even for me."Harry went quiet again. He had that sense of holding tightly closed the valve on a dam, and that if he pried it loose, everything he'd been holding back would come back in a rush. Was there any way to filter out what would horrify her most?Because he knew, after a day of miserable reflection, that the way things had started—or, restarted—with Tom were irredeemably fucked up. It took the thought of saying the next few sentences (if he let himself start at the true beginning of this story) and realizing what they would sound like to Hermione. He could imagine what she would say, and the thought made him pale.He'd had sex in return for money. There was only one word for that. His skin started to crawl and his head swam.Sinking back into the pillows, Harry said, "I have a really bad concussion. I'm fine, but my head is..."Hermione made a small, involuntary sound. "You've been to a hospital, right?""Yeah. And Sirius keeps taking me back there and making them re-examine me even though they obviously don't want to." Harry was smiling again, despite himself, and Hermione noticed in his tone."So you and Sirius are...?" she asked, very softly."Fine," Harry confirmed. "I mean, we'll be fine. 'Mione, I've been a real dick to you."She huffed out a laugh. "Yeah. But, I mean, I screwed up. I know that, Harry. It was really twisted for me to think I knew what was best for you. I'm not your mom."Harry scraped the edge of his thumbnail over the first knuckle above the opposite forefinger until the skin was red. "Yeah. But it's okay. I know you only did it because..." he shrugged. Because you love me was not something he could quite bring himself to say out loud."Yeah," Hermione said, almost whispering now, and he heard her sniff noisily from further away, as though she'd held the phone away from her head for a moment. Then she was back. "I could fly out there."Harry scoffed. "No.""I could!""That would be dumb. It's a bad time for a vacation, and if you left your bosses would probably lose a lawsuit or something."Hermione laughed. "No, but I could come. It's just an internship.""It means a lot that you're offering," he said, "but it really would be ridiculous. I mean, Sirius is here. And you have your stuff."Another, louder sniff. "If you change your mind you can just text me.""About that," Harry said, "my phone is broken." "Oh, from the accident." Harry didn't correct her. "But you can use Sirius’?""I guess, like, occasionally, or if you really needed something you could call. I don't think I can really text, though.""Sure, yeah," Hermione said. "You probably shouldn't have too much screen time, anyway."Hermione knew about everything. Offhand comments about the treatment of head trauma shouldn't surprise Harry, but he grinned anyway. "I better go. But can we get together when I'm back? I have to talk to Ron too. We had a fight."She didn't say I know even though Harry was sure Ron had already told her all about it."He'll be glad to hear from you.""Yeah. Okay, well. I'm glad we talked.""Me too."After they hung up Harry leaned more deeply against the pillows and closed his eyes. He was overcome by a wave of tiredness, which he'd gotten used to over the past few days. He heard someone knock softly on the door and sat up, opening his eyes as Sirius poked his head in."It's been way more than five minutes. Maybe I should take the phone. Eliminate temptation, y'know?"Harry scooped it up off the covers and tossed it to him. Sirius caught it gracelessly, having not seen it coming."Could have been a pitcher in another life," he told Harry with a grin."Something like that," Harry said, smiling, but it took effort. He yawned."Yeah, that's right, rest," Sirius said briskly, backing out of the door and switching off the light.When Harry woke up again, he heard voices from the living room area in the suite. He slid out of bed in his rumpled clothes and blinked at the gritty feeling of his contact lenses, padding to the bedroom door and pushing it open.He immediately wished he'd at least put on shoes when he found two immaculately-dressed Malfoys sitting rigidly on the sofa across the coffee table from Sirius. All three heads turned as Harry came in. Lucius covered his surprise with a piteous smile that was so expertly applied Harry would have been fooled if he hadn't seen the expression that flashed on Lucius' face first: disdain. Beside him, Draco looked pale and haunted. He gave Harry a searching once-over that might have been flattering if it wasn't the furthest thing from ogling. He was obviously looking for missing limbs or a blood.Harry straightened his back and walked out to join them with deliberately sure strides, and Draco seemed to wilt a bit with relief. Lucius, too, watched Harry critically. Harry remembered what Minerva had said, about Lucius being glad it had been Harry in the saddle, and not Draco."We wanted to be sure you're alright, Harry, though Sirius has told us you're uninjured," said Lucius, his accent more pronounced than Harry remembered. A sign of tension, perhaps? Harry smiled placidly and sat beside Sirius. When he looked askance at his godfather, he saw that Sirius was wearing the same jeans and from earlier. If he'd expected the Malfoys, he hadn't bothered to dress up for them. He also had his arms folded and was looking at Lucius with a combination of amusement and dislike that sharpened all his features."Lucius has offered us his private jet back to the States," said Sirius.Lucius continued to smile his fixed, gentle smile and inclined his head briefly in agreement. "There's no need for you to be stranded in France if you wish to go home."Harry winced. Where was he going to go, when they got back? He'd been letting himself revel in the combination of Sirius' company—his intermittent brain fog and drowsiness made it hard to focus on much else, either. As a result he hadn't thought very hard about what the next few days could bring.Lucius didn't seem to know what to say in the brief silence, so he looked determinedly at Draco. "Or, perhaps, to cheer you up, Draco could show you a bit of the city."Draco, who had been staring tensely off into the middle-distance, startled and turned. A blush stained his cheeks. For someone so tall and angular, he had a delicate complexion. "I—yes, certainly."Harry could think of few things that sounded more awkward. "I don't think..." he began. But Lucius had clapped his hands together with a radiant smile which he panned across them all."Excellent. I'll collect you this evening, Draco," he told his son, and that was that.Harry kept trying to glare at Sirius, who had let this happen, but Sirius cheerfully avoided his eye, making small talk with an equally unhappy Draco until Harry wandered off to find his shoes.When he returned, Draco practically leaped to his feet. "You're ready then?" He looked Harry over and visibly repressed a shudder. "Do you need more time to...ah, dress?""Nah," Harry said, in his best imitation of the kids in school who lived outside town and talked a lot about squirrel hunting. "All good."Draco's jaw tensed and he rubbed the back of his neck with a vague gesture toward the door. "Of course. Right. Well, let's go."After three days of nothing but sunshine and gelato, seeing the city in the evening was interesting. It felt like going from the part of a carnival that was for little kids—the games, the carousel—to the part that was full of stomach-flipping rides meant for everyone else. It put a little bounce in his step.As they followed the streets, unspeaking, into an area that was mostly restaurants and pubs, Harry almost wished he had changed into something a little more suited for going out. But it was worth the embarrassment to watch Draco shooting Harry's bare calves and tennis shoes long, pained looks."Do you want a beer or something?" Draco asked, breaking the silence at last. "Do you have the right kind of connections here?" He recalled that first night he'd gone out with Tom, Draco's mom's restaurant, and wearing Draco's clothes. He looked Draco over appraisingly, remembering how the trousers had gathered around his ankles but were basically a decent fit. Draco was thin to the point of gauntness, but he pulled it off. He had his hair slicked back and his eyes were red-rimmed; his lips had a lot of color, like a girl's. He wasn't traditionally handsome, but he was nice to look at. Like a fashion model.Realizing what he was doing, Harry blinked and looked straight ahead, just in time to sidestep a little tree on the curb."The drinking age is 16," Draco said. "At least for beer. And maybe wine. Do you want something?"Harry shook his head. "I don't think I'm supposed to." He patted his head indicatively.Draco frowned. "Right. Well let's sit, then. If we keep going it'll get crowded.""You don't like crowds?"Draco looked at Harry's shoes again, then his athletic shorts, and then his t-shirt, which had three small stains from an incident with pizza sauce but which Harry had thought no one could possibly notice. He was dismayed to find that Draco's exacting gaze moved from the speck on Harry's right shoulder, to the one on the collar, to the other on the hem by his left hip with a thoroughness that was really astounding given the low light."Who knows what people will think? That you're my indentured servant or something."Or maybe he'd noticed back in the hotel. Harry couldn't quite bring himself to be embarrassed. Instead, he found himself liking Draco more, rather than less, as he followed him into a small restaurant that was half below-ground, necessitating they take a few wrought-iron steps down beneath the level of the street. There were windows that stretched floor to ceiling so that there was still a decedent view of the outdoors, but just the lower halves of the people walking by. In the end it was Draco who broke the silence. He ordered something in terse French, not even letting Harry open his menu. "You'll do it wrong," he explained, switching effortlessly back to English with only the faintest of accents. "So, when are you going to tell Tom?"Harry blinked. "Tom."Draco's jaw was taut and shifting, slightly, like he was grinding his teeth. His eyes were intent on Harry's; he leaned nearer over the table. "Have you told him already? I can't believe that. Unless he hasn't said anything to me because he's coming here to say it himself.""I don't know what you...told Tom what?" Harry was surprised by how ordinary Tom's name sounded when he said it. It felt forbidden—loathed—inside his head."About the fall," Draco said incredulously. "Are you dense, deliberately, or are you just fucking with me?" He searched Harry's face then made a little grumbling sound and leaned back, folding his arms. "I can never tell.""A little of both," Harry admitted absently, leaning back in an unconscious mimicry of Draco's posture. He rubbed his elbows. "I haven't talked to Tom. I'm not talking to Tom." He glanced at Draco and saw that his expression was shifting again. He was easy to read, despite probably having spent a lot of his life in situations where that was very inconvenient.

"Not talking, but texting, you mean?" Draco ventured.

Harry shook his head. "No, I couldn't text him if I wanted to. But I don't want to. I don't want to so much, I threw out that stupid goddamn phone he sent you out for like an errand boy."

He'd meant to distract Draco with insults, but Draco didn't even seem to notice the underhanded remark. He was worrying his lower lip, scanning Harry's face for signs of deceit. Harry rolled his eyes.

"I'm telling you the truth. I'm...I'm done with him." His voice trembled a little at the end and he hated himself.They ate mostly in silence. Harry didn’t have much appetite. It had been hours since his lunch with Sirius, but since he’d slept through most of them his mind was convinced he’d just eaten.“Are you tired now?” Draco asked, letting Harry lead the way from the restaurant. Harry shrugged and noticed a store down the way with a few clothing racks set out. He wandered that way.
The rack that happened to be at the end of the row looked promising, so Harry paused there and filed through a few of the shirts on their hangers.
“What are you doing?” Draco looked over Harry’s shoulder and Harry glanced over to find Draco’s disapproving frown in profile and close proximity. He stepped away and sighed.

“What do you think I’m doing? Putting you out of your misery. Then you can show me somewhere fun.”

“You want to buy clothing off the rack.” Draco looked at Harry like he’d said he was going to eat raw snails.

“Yeah. Where do you think I got this outfit, Saks?”

“You’re an insult to attractive young gays everywhere, Potter. Come on.”They went to another store, which didn’t look that different to Harry, but it smelled unnaturally nice. Harry went in and out of a little curtained dressing room a few times until Draco deemed him acceptable. The clothes rang up to some dizzying number that Harry supposed would be even more disgusting after the exchange rate, and he guiltily swiped Sirius’ card.

At least now he knew he’d be able to pay back something like that.

The thought tanked his mood.

“Do you need to go back?” Draco asked nervously for the fifth time. It was really dark out now, and overcast, so all the light came filtered through glass windows or in foggy circles from the streetlights.“No, and please stop asking,” Harry said irritably. “Now that I’m all dressed up, let’s go somewhere interesting.”Draco looked Harry over with a combination of thoughtfulness and appreciation, then nodded.“All right, Potter, but if you die of a brain aneurysm I’m going to leave you where you fall and deny all knowledge.”They went down increasingly crowded streets, Draco looking assessingly at the crowds in front of the various small clubs, until at last he found one that met whatever prerequisites he had in mind. His pensive frown was immediately replaced by a smile, and he pulled Harry into the line by the upper arm.“I don’t really dance,” Harry said uncertainly.Draco looked at him down his long nose. “Where did you think I was taking you, Potter? Bowling?”Harry sighed and followed Draco in.The club was small, with a tight, winding hallway leading into a room dedicated to a long bar on one wall, and people dancing everywhere else.“I’ll leave you here to be a wallflower, then,” Draco said, rolling back his sleeves halfway up his forearms, and leapt into the fray just as the music changed.Harry was pleasantly surprised to find that Draco was an unrestrained dancer. He looked so uncharacteristically carefree, arms back and hips loose, Harry laughed in delight and joined him after all.

Harry definitely didn’t know what he was doing, but there were so many people it didn’t matter. Draco stood out—it was impossible not to with his hair and his height and his annoying cheekbones—but Harry was pleasantly subsumed by the crowd. The anonymity, the freedom from scrutiny, made him laugh again, and just move. Like the best moments in the saddle, he let feeling guide him, listening to the music and the pulse of the room for guidance and slipping past conscious thought.

Unfortunately—or, maybe fortunately? It would take him a long time looking back to decide it really wasn’t good or bad—that thoughtless surrender to the music ended with Harry dancing close to Draco. With one of Draco’s slender hands balanced lightly on Harry’s waist, Draco’s thigh between Harry’s and not quite touching anywhere else.Harry stiffened and Draco, feeling it, looked up. His neck was bent, his eyes were half-closed and his lips were parted. His hair was long on top, but always carefully combed back. Now it had fallen forward, half-obscuring one of his eyes.The music was too loud for Harry to hear, but Draco asked him something. His mouth formed he word but Harry, never much of a lipreader, just shook his head. So Draco pulled him close and leaned in to speak directly in Harry’s ear. His breath was hot and his hair, damp at the ends, now brushed Harry’s cheek.“Is it your head?” His voice was rough from exertion. When he moved in, their bodies shifted so that Harry fully straddled his thigh, though they’d stopped moving.Harry’s cock jumped and he swallowed, trying to pull back from Draco, which just increased Draco’s alarm.“I’m fine,” Harry shouted, and in the process of trying to extricate himself only succeeded in rocking his stiffening cock fully against the hard column of Draco’s thigh.Harry froze. Draco’s eyes narrowed, his mouth curving. He put his mouth back by Harry’s ear.“Don’t be shy, Potter. It happens to the best of us.” He jerked his hips and Harry felt an unmistakable hardness against his hip. Slotted together, people still dancing, bumping and brushing against them, and the music pulsing, they inevitably began moving too. Harry stared at Draco’s left ear, horrified and fascinated.“Didn’t you say you were done with Tom, anyway?” Draco’s sharp nose nudged his sweaty temple. “He probably did something terrible, didn’t he? Wouldn’t you like to fuck him over, too?” Draco’s hand ghosted over Harry’s ass, which clenched instinctively and made Harry press even harder, needier, against Draco’s thigh.Harry finally gathered his wits enough to pull away, panting and scowling. “I thought you were his friend,” he said, face close to Draco’s so he’d be heard. From up close the subtle shifts in Draco’s expression were even more obvious. He looked puzzled, and anxious, and furious in turn. Then resolute. He took Harry’s wrist and pulled him after him, out of the dancing and through the narrow hallway, out the low door onto the relatively quiet—and blessedly cool—street.Draco turned back to Harry and let go of his arm. “No one,” he said, low and intent, “is friends with Tom.”Harry shrugged, folding his arms. His head was starting to hurt, but as much as he wanted to get away from Draco, seeing Sirius at the moment was out of the question. “I don’t even care. You’re just like him. Which is how I know in advance I’m not interested in...fucking around with you. Or whatever.”Draco was stricken. “Me? Like him? Please.” He ran a hand over his hair lightly, an unconscious sort of gesture, and feeling its disarray, grimaced. “Sure, we’re both, I don’t know, in similar circles. But he’s…” he paused, then spat a few French words and turned away, raking his hands through his hair in earnest until it was in a semblance of order.“It’s good you’re getting away from him,” he said at last. He glanced at Harry, then away. “Do you want to go back in? I promise not to feel you up.”“I don’t think so,” said Harry. Draco nodded shortly and set off, Harry a half-step behind.“But I do mean it,” Draco said. “Tom’s not good for anyone’s health.”Harry sighed. “I don’t even know why you care. I’m just...the help,” he said, remembering Minerva’s phrase.Draco didn’t even flinch. He nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I mean, you’re definitely pretty hot,” he added, offhand, “but I usually stick to my own kind. No offense.”Harry blinked. “You can’t say stuff like that, then make it okay by adding ‘no offense.’ And what do you mean, your kind? Jesus.”Draco seemed offended by Harry’s offense. He gestured at Harry as though that would explain.“You’re, you know. Poor. Poorer even than most people. I know it’s not your fault or anything,” he added, almost gently.“You’re such an asshole,” Harry said, mystified. “Can we take a walk before we go to the hotel though? Sirius is going to be pissed we were out this long and I’m not ready to deal with it.”Draco shrugged, and followed Harry as he turned away from the direction they’d come. “So if you’re not friends, why do you hang around him? And buy people phones for him? And let him rummage around in your locker? And invite him to your going-away dinner? And…”“Yeah, okay. Shut the fuck up.” Draco had his hands in his pockets and looked unsettled. It excited Harry, somehow, and made him press when the topic of Tom was still putting an impassable lump in his throat.“Well? Why?”“Do I really have to tell you? He’s...the way he is. It’s...being around him is…” he shrugged, then glared. “Why’d you let that sociopathic fucker put his dick in you? Maybe we have more similar reasons than you think.”Harry almost mentioned he’d never let Tom put anything in him, actually, but he wasn’t quite sure he could get the words out. Just the offhand mention had him blushing and Draco, seeing it, rolled his eyes.“I give it a week, tops, and you’ll be sniffing after him again. He might even be interested, still. He seems to, I don’t know, like you. If that’s even possible.”“So you’re into him?” Harry asked, before his mind completely caught up with what he’d just heard. “And—no, I meant it. I’m done.”

Draco shrugged. “I don’t want to fuck him, if that’s what you mean. Well, I wouldn’t say no if he offered—which he wouldn’t—and that’s not what it is.” He shrugged. “There’s no one like him. And he...” he paused and looked caged. “I don’t really have a choice with him. He won’t...he won’t let me get close but he won’t let me get...far.”

That sounded familiar. Harry swallowed. “Maybe you need to hang out with more poor people. We’re much less demanding.”

Draco looked at Harry sharply, surprised. “Are you offering?”

“Not at all. Unlike you, I’m not that desperate.” He thought of Ron and Hermione and wished he could swim the Atlantic. “I’ve got good friends.”

Draco nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard the proletariat form very close bonds.”

“You’re not as funny as you think,” Harry said, but he was grinning despite himself. “Do you know where we are? Because I don’t, but we should get back.”Neither of them said anything for a few blocks, except that Draco pointed out all the subtle landmarks he couldn’t believe Harry had missed and which pet him retrace their steps with confidence. On the steps up to the building Draco gave a little wave then put his hand back in his pocket and his head to one side.

“Maybe you’ll be alright, Potter,” he said, as though to himself. Harry, baffled, quirked a smile and shrugged.

“Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.”

Draco chuckled, then reached out and cupped the back of Harry’s head with one hand, leaned in and kissed him.

Harry was so surprised he didn’t think to pull back. His lips parted. Draco stepped closer. Harry had paused on the first step, which made them exactly the same height. He reached out for balance and found Draco’s narrow hips.

Draco had clearly done a lot of kissing. He did it with the same unconscious ease with which he rattled off all his egotistical bullshit, but his whole affect was much more appealing when he applied it in this context. Harry let him bite Harry’s lower lip, and angle their mouths, and run his tongue over the sharp edge of Harry’s upper teeth, then pull back and kiss the corner of Harry’s mouth, lingering, humming faintly so Harry felt it in the kiss.

“What was that for?” Harry asked, and pressed the back of his hand against his mouth as Draco leaned back.

Draco didn’t answer, but he looked thoughtful.

“I get it,” he said, and before Harry could remark on his cryptic bullshit, he grinned and walked off.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“So what do you think of Paris?” Sirius asked after they’d checked out of the hotel and were wandering the streets til it was time to go to the airport. “How many stars? Would you recommend it to a friend?”

“What is this, a Yelp review?”Sirius laughed.They were walking along a canal, a footbridge arching above them, and beyond that rows of white-stone buildings with complex, detailed architectural elements surrounding each roofline and window. It all felt ancient and complicated, like a thousand stories were layered on every street corner.“Five stars,” Harry said. “Would recommend.”Sirius reached out and tousled his hair, then slung his arm around his shoulders. “So,” he asked after they’d walked a bit further, out of the shade of the bending trees and into the sun. “What do you think about me talking to Vernon and Petunia about your living arrangements?”Harry tensed, and Sirius squeezed his shoulder and let his arm fall away. “What do you mean?”“I was thinking,” Sirius said carefully, “maybe they’d agree that you could stay with me.”Harry scratched the back of his neck. “They didn’t want to do that before. What’s changed?”“Well,” Sirius said, and again Harry had the impression he was choosing each word, “that was about legal custody, not where you actually slept and ate.”“Oh,” Harry said dully. “You mean they wanted me because of the money.”Sirius grimaced, but he nodded. “If we don’t keep them from drawing down your trust account,” Sirius said, his frown deepening with undisguised disgust, “then they probably won’t care. Might even be glad?”Harry laughed hollowly, but the idea was filling him with a cautious hope. “Do you really think so?”Sirius’ eyes were bright. “I do. If they’d agree, would you want to? Stay with me, I mean? I don’t have a place in the metro now, but I could get one. Wherever you want. Close to your school, or close to the barn, or close to another school or another barn. Whatever.”“That would be amazing,” Harry said.Sirius grinned and he ducked his head. “Yeah? I think so, too.”The Malfoys’ jet was decadent, full of white leather and gold accents, and in every way exactly what Harry should have known to expect. He laughed out loud when he first looked inside. Just behind him, Sirius chuckled.

“Right?” he said in Harry’s ear, then nudged him forward. “Hurry up, I can practically hear Draco tapping his foot behind me.”

“It’s windy,” Draco called plaintively from a few steps further down, and Harry and Sirius snickered as they stepped fully inside the plane so Draco could board too.Lucius was already waiting for them, but after showing them the seating area and the restroom he excused himself to the bedroom to make a call.

Draco watched him go then leaned toward Harry and said, “That’s bullshit. He’s going to nap the whole way.”

Harry smiled, feeling the back of his neck heat up at the friendly aside. There was a definite, new familiarity between him and Draco. It was strange; he’d thought things would be awkward, considering the dancing and the—er, grinding—and of course the kiss. But nothing seemed to loom between them. There was only a friendly intimacy without the underlying tension of more.

Frustratingly, the only person Harry seemed to be vulnerable to in that regard was Tom. Who was also the only person Harry could happily murder.Sirius read a novel while Harry and Draco sat in two swiveling seats and discussed the horses Draco had tried after Harry’s accident, carefully avoiding the subject of those particular events.
“Then the next stop, we got out and it was a grey, can you believe it?” Draco shuddered. “I told them if I wanted a grey I’d just ride Hedwig.”

Harry sat up. “Hedwig? Why Hedwig?” He realized he didn’t actually know who owned her, but Draco’s arched brow told him the answer now. “Oh, she’s yours.”

“Father’s,” Draco clarified, with a little flippant gesture. “She was talented enough to excuse her genetic misfortune, I suppose.”

“Grey is a good color,” Harry said, offended on Hedwig’s behalf. Draco rolled his eyes. “A good horse is never a bad color,” Harry added.“I’ve heard that saying,” Draco said with a pinched expression, clearly unconvinced.“So? You didn’t even try the grey?”

Draco shook his head. “Straight to the next place. Father was a little embarrassed but he got over it. It’s the worst part about looking in France. Father knows everyone so he has to look at a dozen horses we’d never buy just to keep from offending anyone.”

“So what did you get in the end?”

Draco smiled wanly. “Well, it looks like I’ll be riding a grey, after all.”“You mean Hedwig?” Harry grinned, relieved. If Draco wasn’t riding her, there was a good chance she’d be sold. The thought made Harry inexplicably sad, more than the idea of any of the other horses he’d been riding over the summer moving on.
Draco nodded, and Harry laughed.
“You didn’t buy anything? After all that?”

“Importing is a nightmare, really. You never know how a horse will travel. Some of them take months to get fit again and settle in. Hedwig has been to Wellington for the past three years and she always travels perfectly.”
Wellington, meaning the city in Florida where there was a premiere warm weather competition facility, and therefore shows all winter, and therefore dozens of snowbirds’ stables.
Harry caught the look on Draco’s face and smiled too. “You do like her,” he said. “That’s good. You don’t deserve her, so you should appreciate her.”Draco looked bemused. “Of course I like her. She’s a fun horse. And I think if we focused on dressage with her she’d really excel.”

Harry agreed, and they fell quiet for a few minutes. Draco checked his phone, grimaced and set it back down. Then he frowned over at Harry’s empty hands.

“You really don’t have a phone now.”

“I have one.” Harry pulled his flip phone from his pocket and waved it around before putting it back. “It just won’t work til we land, probably.”

“The jet has WiFi.”

“It’s not that kind of phone.”

“Hmm.” Draco gazed out the little circular window a moment. “So you got rid of the one we—Tom—gave you? Did you at least find a nice charity to donate it to?”

“I think Sirius might have it, but it’s broken.”

“Tom’s been trying to reach you.”

Harry stiffened and hunched his shoulders. “I guess that doesn’t surprise me.”Draco glanced at Sirius and then back at Harry. Harry glared, the best ‘not in front of him’ gesture he could think of, and Draco seemed to understand.

“Are you going to keep staying at the house?”

Then again, maybe he hadn’t. Harry gritted his teeth as Sirius’ book rustled and he spoke up. “Stay where?”

“The house at the barn,” Draco said without hesitation. “The one that Bella said was going to be some kind of AirBnB.”

There was a short pause. “Oh, right,” Sirius said, his voice a bit hollow. “Is that where they put you up, Harry?”Harry decided he wasn’t lying depending on how liberally he interpreted “they.”

“Yeah,” he told Sirius, then asked, “Who’s Bella?”

Draco and Sirius exchanged a swift pained look. “Sirius’ cousin,” Draco said at last, and Sirius snorted.“Draco’s aunt,” he said caustically.“She’s a real—“

“—Draco,” Sirius murmured, but he didn’t look like he disagreed with the spirit of whatever Draco had been about to say.

“I thought you got along with her, anyway,” Sirius said. “She’s always spoiling you.”

“She’s always spoiling Tom,” Draco muttered, looking back out the window, his jaw tense.”I think I may have seen her once,” Harry said quietly, thinking of the elegant woman with the long dark curls, “with Tom.”

“I think she considers herself his mentor,” Sirius said. Draco snorted. Sirius looked at him with a frown.

“So it’s her, what, parents’ house?”

I’m not interested in girls, Tom had insisted. But hadn’t that girl seemed interested in him? Harry had to forcefully remind himself that if the answer to that question was ever his business, it wasn’t now. Also he didn’t care.

“Bella’s not a kid, she’s my age,” Sirius said. “She’s an owner of the barn, so I guess the house is hers as much as anyone’s. Restoring it was a big fixation of hers starting a year or so ago. But as far as I know, Harry, you’re the first person to actually stay there.”

But was he?Harry, desperate for a distraction, got up and walked over to Sirius, snatching his book from his lap.

“Neil Gaiman?” he read from the cover. “Who’s that?”

“You’re so uncivilized,” Sirius murmured, affronted, then launched into an autobiography of the writer. Harry couldn’t have cared less but he hung on every word anyway, just so the swirling thoughts about Tom couldn’t land and take root.

He didn’t care. He didn’t care. He didn’t care.

Hours later, Draco and Sirius were dozing and the cabin was dim. It was deep night outside, and there was an eerie sensation of floating in a void that Harry didn’t remember from his first journey. Maybe it had to do with the size of the plane, his distance from the window, or the fact there were relatively few people there with him.There was nothing to keep Harry from falling into the thoughts and feelings that had been stalking him since the hospital.The strongest among them was missing Tom. His touch, his voice, how he could swing so abruptly from callousness to making Harry feel...prized?But all of that was over, and it was how much Harry would miss it that intensified the anger and resentment.Was there any explanation for Tom’s actions that could end happily?No. So there was no use in Harry giving him a chance to come up with one.
Draco, Sirius and Harry had been playing some French board game with rules so complex Harry was sure he was going to get a headache, but at least it kept his mind busy. He was surprised when they landed. As they taxied in, Draco turned suddenly toward Harry. “I told Tom when we were about to land.” He looked braced for Harry to be furious, even leaned away like he worried Harry might take a swing.

But Harry wasn’t surprised. He glanced over at Sirius, then back to Draco, and shrugged. Draco looked at him warily for a long moment, but when Harry said nothing else, he murmured that he needed to check on his father and darted off.

“So, Tom Riddle, huh?” Sirius asked when they were alone.Harry rubbed his hands over his face. “No. Not...now.”

“Oh, an ex. Recent?”

Harry nodded mutely.

“The worst. Did you end it?”

Harry frowned. “No, he did. I think.”

“You think?”

“Well, it was his fault.”

Sirius smiled briefly then wiped it away and looked only solemn. “That’s not really how that works. So you dumped him?”

Harry frowned thoughtfully. “Not...officially.”Sirius’ brows rose. “You can’t ghost someone who rides at your barn, Harry, much less someone who basically owns it.”

“How do you even know what ‘ghosting’ means?” Harry demanded.

“I’m an adult human who uses the internet, Harry. Don’t try to change the subject by insulting me. I’m very hard to offend. It won’t work.”

Harry slumped in his seat. Was Tom going to be waiting for them? It seemed ridiculous and unlikely—for anyone but Tom. Harry wondered if they could just stop wherever they were on the tarmac and wait him out. He’d seen quite a bit of food in the refrigerator.”I think he might be here waiting. Draco told him.”

Sirius laughed. Harry glared at him.

“This isn’t funny!”

Sirius swallowed his laughter and put his hand over his smile. “Sure, yeah. Very serious teenage drama.”

Harry crossed his arms and looked out the window, then his stomach plummeted at the sight of a familiar black convertible, parked right there by the stair car.

“Oh God, he is here.”

“Really?” Sirius crowded his head in next to Harry’s without even trying to conceal his eager delight. “Wow, ballsy little fuck, isn’t he?””I don’t want to talk to him,” Harry said, hating how small his voice sounded. “I’m not ready yet.”

Sirius’ sadistic smile vanished and he turned to Harry with wide eyes. After he studied his face a moment, his expression turned so uncharacteristically dangerous, Harry was taken aback.

“What did he do?””It’s fine,” Harry said tersely, pulling away from Sirius so he could stand. They were stopped now. Lucius and Draco were coming out of the bedroom and Lucius’ hair was in fact conspicuously flat on one side. But Harry was too distracted to be amused.“You two alright?” Draco looked cautiously between them.“Harry, should I go tell that kid to get lost?” Sirius was still looking at Harry with an intensity that made Harry uncomfortable. Like he’d see too much.“No,” Harry and Draco said at the same time, then looked at each other.Sirius sighed. “I don’t think I want to know, but should I know what the hell is going on?”Lucius said something in French that Harry didn’t understand but made Draco and Sirius both laugh darkly.“I’ll go with you to talk to him, if you’d like me to,” Draco said easily. Harry rolled his eyes. Of course Draco would want a front row seat to an argument.“That’s not necessary. I can talk to him. And then...” he looked uncertainly at Sirius.“I’ll just get us a ride and wait for you,” he assured Harry.”I assumed the boys would all leave together,” Lucius said, still sounding faintly drowsy and frowning as he gingerly finger-combed his hair.“No, father, I don’t think so,” Draco said, his intent look wavering into uncertainty. “I’d better hitch a ride with you.”“‘Hitch a ride,’” Lucius repeated with a shudder. “What are you, a wagon?””I’ll meet you in the parking lot,” Sirius told Harry as Draco opened the door and stuck his head out into the morning air. Harry pressed his lips tightly together and followed him out.The sight of Tom with his hip leaned against the side of his car, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms and his arms crossed, made Harry stumble on the first stair. Draco swore under his breath, or at least Harry assumed he swore; the soft words had that kind of emphasis, but they were French. He caught Harry’s arm and balanced him.Harry looked up at Draco and grimaced. “You couldn’t have just forgotten to text him?”Draco managed to seem both sympathetic and unapologetic. He shrugged and let go of Harry’s arm, where he’d lingered a moment, and glanced over at Tom.Harry looked too. Tom had straightened up and his eyes were narrowed; the breeze was stiff and had moved the curl in the middle of his forehead over his right eye.”Good luck,” Draco said, and hurried down the stairs. Harry sighed and followed more slowly. Tom watched him approach, unmoving now, except that his eyes briefly followed Draco when he reached the ground. Draco hastily put his head down and made for the grass median separating them from the parking.“I thought,” Tom said when Harry stopped several feet away, “that we’d settled the subject of answering my calls and texts.”Harry glanced over his shoulder awkwardly as Lucius and Sirius came down. Sirius was looking at him in concern, and Harry forced a smile and a half-wave. When he turned back to Tom, Harry saw that his eyes had snapped to Sirius and his jaw was slightly more tense than it had been before."Sirius Black," Tom said without inflection. "I thought you didn't speak."Harry's eyes narrowed. "How would you know we had any connection to one another?"Tom looked back at him with that blank stare that Harry had quickly grown to recognize. It had always frustrated him before, but in their changed circumstances, now it infuriated him. He took a step closer, his hands balled into fists. "How did you know any of the things you happened to know, huh?" He bared his teeth in a smirk. "How long did you have to stalk me in some kind of fucked up game before you were sure you could..."Tom's mask shattered. But he didn't look angry, or caught out. He looked surprised."Is that what you think?" he reached for Harry, who dodged his touch then stepped forward and shoved him in the chest with both hands as hard as he could. Tom stumbled back a half-step, but his face stayed incredulous. "Harry," he said quietly. "It wasn't a game.""I don't care what it was! I know..." Harry was going to say I know everything but of course that wasn't right. There was so much he didn't know. "I know enough," he amended. "I know you made me believe I needed your money. I know you made me..." He couldn’t finish. He crossed his arms tightly, his face flushed and his chest tight."It was only in case you didn't understand at the start," Tom said, his tone steady, as though whatever nonsense he was speaking made perfect sense."Understand what?" Harry said hoarsely, struggling with the urge to shout; when he glanced over he'd seen Sirius standing deliberately out of earshot in the parking lot, and he didn't want him to get thrown back in jail for assaulting a minor."That you're meant for me," Tom said simply. It could have been romantic, if it wasn't so ugly: Tom's beautiful face, his eyes clear and untroubled, his voice so sure. Harry took two steps closer and Tom's lips parted and he extended his arms the slightest amount. Harry might have hesitated, but that little shift in Tom's face, that signal that Tom thought Harry was walking into his arms, made him follow through on his first impulse. He pulled his arm back and punched Tom squarely in the face.His adrenaline was high, but still the shock of the impact ran fully up his arm and made Harry hiss. There was a sharp pain in his knuckles as the skin there split. Tom's head jerked back. A vivid redness bloomed instantly on his cheekbone; Harry knew it was the beginnings of a nasty black eye. They stared at one another as though there was no one else in the world. And then Sirius grasped Harry by the waist and pulled him away, breaking the spell.Harry's hand hurt like hell. His ears were ringing. He followed Sirius and didn't look over his shoulder at Tom, and Tom didn't try to follow them.“So,” Sirius said later, after he’d settled Harry on a barstool in the kitchen island of his sparsely-furnished long-term rental. “Do you want to talk about it?”He put a ziploc bag full of crushed ice on top of Harry’s right hand, and Harry winced at the weight and the temperature on his already sore hand.Sirius leaned forward and frowned sympathetically. “I wonder if the wrist is fractured too. If I take you in, they might get suspicious. You did just have a concussion.”“They only notice that stuff on TV,” Harry said absently, thinking with distaste of his experiences at the ER. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he added, and drew his arm toward his chest so he could cradle it, holding the ice carefully in place.“Okay,” Sirius said. “Do you want to talk to Remus about it?”Harry looked up. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t call Remus.”“I haven’t yet,” Sirius said, but before Harry could feel fully relieved he added, “but I will. I didn’t bother trying because he’s not carrying a phone right now.”“Oh, right, Uganda,” Harry remembered. As one of the best humans on the planet, Remus spent his summers off from a thankless career teaching junior high history journeying over the world doing volunteer aid.“What about your friends?”Harry hunched his shoulders. “They wouldn’t get it.”“And you don’t think I will either?”Harry shifted the bag of ice so it made contact with more of his arm. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”How could anyone understand? Harry didn’t understand it. How he could have gone on this long, like an idiot, knowing Tom was horrible and letting himself get attached anyway. Not to mention getting tricked in the first place. There must have been something in the original advertisement about compensation, but of course Harry had only focused on the parts that talked about riding.“Well, maybe you should ask me some questions, to decide whether I’m likely to understand your problems.”“What kind of questions?”Sirius shrugged. “How about, ‘were you ever a sixteen-year-old gay?’”“I think I know the answer,” Harry said, smiling reluctantly. Sirius’ lips parted in a good imitation of shock. “Oh, the horror. Go on, try me.”Harry thought it over. “Have you ever been...I don’t know, overwhelmed with someone, right from the start?”“Romantically?”That seemed like a terrible word for what had gone on between Harry and Tom, but it wasn’t exactly inaccurate. “Sure.”“So, you’re asking if I’ve ever been swept off my feet,” Sirius said.Harry wrinkled his nose. “Sure.”“Yeah, I have.”Harry nodded. “How about, have you ever liked someone you knew was…” a terrible person “...kind of a mess?”Sirius hesitated. “I don’t know. I guess I’m kind of a mess, so maybe I shy away from people like that.”Harry thought that over too. “Has anyone ever hurt you?”Sirius bit his lip. “Sure. Yeah.” He reached out and squeezed Harry’s shoulder briefly. Harry blinked a few times.“I thought he was...I don’t know, I thought it was something real, and it really...I got really caught up in it, really fast. I met his dad. I met his grandparents.”Sirius whistled softly. “Wow. Intense.”Harry nodded.Sirius put his hand back on Harry’s shoulder and rubbed a few circles there. “Having your heart broken sucks. But it’s something that you can learn from, too. The next time you feel about someone like you did for Tom, you’ll know what kind of things to look out for. How to protect yourself a little more. You know?”

All of that sounded awful, and impossible. From the idea of meeting someone other than Tom, to the idea of ever feeling for someone what he’d felt for Tom in those handful of perfect moments interspersed with all the anxiety and frustration. And the idea that he’d always hold back, now, to keep himself at a safe distance—that was just depressing.“If my arm is fractured, does that mean I can’t work?”“Ah,” Sirius said, leaning back and folding his arms. “About that. You can’t ride, but you can help Luna with chores. I’ve already texted Minerva about it.” Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Sirius held up a hand. “Even if you weren’t hurt, you’re in trouble. I’m your default parental figure for the time being, and I’m not so terrible at it that I don’t know punching isn’t allowed.”Harry snorted. “He deserved it,” he promised Sirius. But he wasn’t even sure anymore. That first surge of anger was gone, now. Harry wouldn’t be throwing anymore punches.“I have no doubt that he did, but still. It’s a hard line rule.”Harry sighed. “Fine. For how long?”Sirius seemed taken aback. “Um, a week? At least three days.”Harry tried not to smile. It seemed inappropriate, when he was being punished. “Fine. Which room is for me?”As it turned out, punching someone in the face did at least as much harm to the person doing the punching. Or at least, that's what Harry sourly surmised from the fact that he had fractured his wrist whereas Tom Riddle (albeit wearing sunglasses) didn't appear any the worse for wear. He showed up outside the stall Harry was picking awkwardly with one hand within twenty minutes of Harry getting to the barn the next day.Harry looked up cautiously, lifting his chin and refusing either to break the silence nor the eye contact. Granted, he was just gazing at his partial reflection in the dark lenses.After a moment, Tom reached up and snatched them off. Harry couldn't help reacting to the sight of his black eye."You think it's funny," Tom huffed.His words wiped away Harry's grin. "No. I don't think any of this is funny at all. I just like remembering that I punched you in the face."Tom frowned."Don't worry," Harry went on, turning stiffly to run the rake through the bedding in the stall, hunting for manure. "I won't do it again. Sirius made it very clear that if I punched you or anyone else a second time, I couldn't work here anymore.""So you aren't angry now?" Tom said cautiously. "Then why aren't you taking my calls?""Because I don't have anything to say to you.""Then the argument is over?" Tom asked.Harry looked at him in disbelief. "It's all over."Tom's face became very still, puzzled. "What are you trying to say?""This is over. I'm not going to punch you and I'm also not going to fuck around with you. Why is that hard to understand?"Tom's frown deepened and a wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. Then after a moment, he said, "No."Harry's brows rose and he laughed, dumbfounded. "No?""No," Tom repeated. "I don't accept that." He stepped into the stall; Harry dropped his rake, surprised, and stepped back to keep space between them. Tom was in his breeches, dressed for riding. Harry didn't want to punch him, but he also didn't want to—couldn't—be anywhere close to him either."I don't care," Harry said. "You can't just decide things for other people. You can't just have whatever—whoever—you want!" Tom continued to walk forward, and Harry backward, until he ran up against the wall in the stall.Tom's eyes narrowed slightly in the instant Harry cornered himself."Get the fuck away from me," Harry said quietly, but Tom kept advancing, though more slowly now. Harry tried to dart to the right, and Tom closed the last few inches quickly, grasping Harry hard by the waist. His face was downturned and close."Get away!" Harry repeated, his heart starting to race, and put his good hand between them to shove. Tom grunted, then caught Harry's uninjured wrist."Harry, why won't you just admit it? If not to me, at least to yourself.""Get away!" Harry said, but he wasn't even struggling in Tom's grasp anymore, and his voice was hushed. There were people nearby, surely. It was still the middle of the day. If he yelled, someone would come; moreover, if he yelled Tom would know someone would hear, and he would stop.Yet Harry didn't call out."I just want you to understand," Tom murmured, turning his face into the side of Harry's head and breathing in so Harry's hair stirred. Harry swallowed as Tom tilted his hips so they were pressed together, thigh to thigh."You did this," Harry said. “You made things this way.”"I just realized before you did," Tom countered dismissively. He bent his neck and his mouth skated over Harry's cheek, and Harry closed his eyes against the sight of his blurry, too-near face.Harry felt Tom's breath on his lips before their mouths touched. Then he whimpered into the kiss, a noise borne more of self-loathing and despair than lust, and yet he was thickening in his jeans. Tom, encouraged by his sounds and the press of his hardening cock, deepened the kiss just as he wedged a hand between their bodies to stroke Harry through his clothes.Harry bit Tom's lip hard and made a concentrated effort to knee him in the balls, which was impossible given how close they were to each other and the fact that Tom was a head taller, most of it in his legs."Harry," Tom said, finally losing some of his boundless patience. For several seconds they ground against each other, half-thrusting, half-wrestling, until they were both completely hard and snarling at one another. Finally Harry managed to lift a hand to Tom's face and dig his thumb hard into the tender skin beneath Tom's bruised eye.Tom swore and they broke apart, Harry more or less leaping across the stall to the door, barely avoiding a hard stumble on the forgotten rake.Positions reversed, they regarded each other."This isn't happening again," Harry told him. When Tom seemed nonplussed, with a smug look toward the bulge in Harry's jeans, Harry knew that he was going to have to do something else, something more, or Tom would never accept that Harry was done."Hasn't it occurred to you," he said lowly, "that we did what we did because you paid me? That I had no interest in you, except out of necessity?"The words had a horrible flavor, but finally, finally, Tom's face was falling. The sight of it spurred something deep and frantic and terrible in Harry."You're pretty pathetic," he said as calmly as he could. "Really, I just feel sorry for you."Tom's transformation was swift, but the moments it took seemed to stretch into an hour. He squared his shoulders, his jaw steeled, and he seemed to grow an inch. At the same time, all the color left his eyes and his face, so he was inhumanly greyscale, impossibly stark. His mouth curved into an awful smile."That's all right, Harry," he said in an icy murmur. "Have your tantrum. Explore the end of your leash. I'll see you when you tire yourself out."He stepped forward and Harry jerked back, away from the stall opening. Tom brushed past and stalked off, never glancing back.When he was out of sight, Harry leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.It was ridiculous. Tom was an arrogant, ridiculous asshole, and Harry knew that. Tom had no hold on him.And yet, that imaginary leash felt quite real.He won't let me close, Harry could clearly recall Draco saying. But he won't let me far.The day wore on, stalls and scrubbing waterers and brushing horses. It wasn’t so bad, and Luna kept up a steady stream of banal conversation. Finally it was evening, and Sirius pulled into the parking lot in the sedan he’d rented."So, you ready to go?" Sirius asked, seeing Harry. “I went and got a Playstation and Blu-Ray player. I thought we’d order pizza.”Harry smiled, and started for the car, then his face fell and his stomach turned over a moment before he realized why. Sirius had been halfway back into the driver's seat but, catching sight of the look on Harry's face, stepped back out and leaned over the top of the car toward Harry. "What's wrong?""Sirius..." Harry began, then bit his lip and looked down, scuffing the bottom of his tennis shoe against the gravel. "I know we agreed I'd stay with you, but would it be okay if...?" He trailed off again.Sirius waited a moment then sighed. "Harry, you can tell me, whatever it is. I'll take you wherever you want to go. Except, I don't know, a crack house. What's up?"Harry looked up with a grateful smile. "I'd like to go to Burrow Street. I mean, the Weasleys'.""Sure. That's a great idea. Hop in. I think I even remember the way." Harry grinned back, but it faded as he got into the car. "I don't know, though," he said. "I'd better ask first."Sirius snorted. "If I remember Ron, or any other member of his family, they'll all be thrilled to have you."Harry shrugged. "I don't know. Things have been weird lately.""Shoot him a text," Sirius suggested. "I'll head that way, and if he doesn't answer we can always get a burger or something and try him later."Harry nodded and pulled out his phone. He thought it over for a few seconds before typing out the text.
Harry: Hey, I know I've been a dick so you might just tell me to go fuck myself, but can I stay with you? Like, the rest of the summer?
He flipped his phone closed and stuffed it back in his pocket to keep himself from staring at it obsessively til Ron answered (or didn't). Before he could even draw his hand back out of his pocket, the phone vibrated.Harry jerked it back out and flipped it open.
Ron: yeah! that's something you never have to ask
Harry's cheeks strained against the force of his grin. As he watched, two other messages appeared beneath the first one in quick succession.
Ron: omfg, that "yeah" was for the staying over part, not the being a dick part or go fuck yourself part

Ron: although actually it applies to the being a dick part too
The next few weeks passed quickly. If someone had given Harry a window into how he would spend that July, he would have thought it couldn't have been more perfect. He spent his evenings and nights and early mornings with the Weasleys, their constant company making him feel more a part of the family than ever. Molly even began to lose her patience with him without apologizing for it directly afterward. After an early breakfast, Sirius picked him up and drove him to the barn, where Harry rode and worked until he was pleasantly exhausted, and Sirius showed up to drive him back to Burrow Street.Sirius in his life, tentatively discussing living arrangements in the fall and how the topic might be broached with the Weasleys. Horses. No contact at all with the Dursleys for a solid month. Horses.But what that pre-summer version of Harry wouldn't have known was that in the back of his mind Harry was constantly missing Tom.It was stupid. And it was probably just because Harry didn't have enough experience with sex and emotions and attraction. He'd just irrationally latched onto the first person who came along and offered him that combination. He'd get over it. But it wasn’t easy. Memories and worries were a constant, nagging presence in the back of his head, even though he had barely caught sight of Tom once since their confrontation.Harry also couldn't have predicted falling into the strange friend group that was Daphne, Millicent, and Draco, even without Tom there to drag Harry along.Daphne was, somehow, more curious about him even than she had been before. Draco continued to be overly-comfortable and annoyingly flirtatious. And Millicent seemed vaguely offended by Harry's very existence, but since she had the same attitude toward everyone, he decided not to take it personally.They invited him out with them on the weekends, and once or twice Harry went. (He got used to changing into whatever clothes Draco brought for him.) They went on hacks together a couple times a week, Millicent staying behind with a book, uncomplaining. Daphne talked Harry into helping her work on her counter canter, and they were both delighted when he was able to get her steady bay mare to stop dropping her shoulder to the inside. Harry was suspicious at first—and maybe they were there at least partially at Tom’s direction, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. It felt like they were real friends.Still, Harry was completely taken aback on July 31 when, during his impromptu birthday cookout at Burrow Street, Daphne's little white Audi pulled up to the curb. The three of them got out, looking comically out of place on the sparse lawn. Millicent, at least, was wearing practical shoes and slacks, so she crossed the lawn toward Harry with confidence while Daphne followed in her precarious heels, which kept digging into the ground and tripping her up, so that Draco had to stop and help her."I need to talk to you," Millicent said when she reached Harry. He look over at Hermione, who was sitting in the canvas chair beside his, bemused."Millicent, this is my friend Hermione," Harry said, tilting his head toward Hermione. "Hermione, this is Millicent."Millicent glanced at Hermione and narrowed her eyes. "Hi."Hermione's brows rose. "Hi."Millicent looked back at Harry. "Can we talk now?""I guess?"Before Millicent could say anything else, though, Draco and Daphne had made their way over. Hermione's brows rose higher and she cleared her throat, standing up."You're Daphne and Draco," she said with determined cheer. "I'm Hermione. We—""—messaged on Facebook, yeah," Draco said, nodding with a cautious grin, like someone who was trying to impress a foreign dignitary of a country with a culture they knew nothing about. "Thanks for inviting us.""Well," Hermione said, "you're Harry's friends!"The four of them looked at one another in surprise. It was the first time that any of them had said it out loud, but their presence, Harry supposed, was proof enough. They were friends."Happy birthday, Harry," said Daphne, and thrust a small box toward him. It was professionally wrapped in paper that had a glossy sheen, and some sort of perfume was emanating from it.Hermione's lips twitched. "Wow. The only other person that brought something was Dean, and he wrapped it in a paper sack. That's so pretty."Daphne looked uncertain, as though she thought Hermione was joking, but wasn't positive. Harry took the box and smiled. "You really shouldn't have," he said.Daphne shrugged, avoiding his eye, and suddenly the box felt heavy and hot in Harry's hand. He almost dropped it. "Oh," he said faintly. "So it's not from you."Daphne looked guilty, and tentatively held out her hand. "I could say I forgot it."Harry hesitated, then gave the box back to her. "Yeah. Okay." But his hands felt strangely light, and not in a good way, when she took it back."What...?" Hermione murmured, but before she could say anything, Millicent had grabbed Harry's arm and was jerking him insistently toward her.Harry laughed uncomfortably. "Okay, yeah.” He looked over at the others’ baffled faces. “Um, Millicent wanted to talk," he explained, and let her tow him away.Harry felt several pairs of curious eyes following them across the yard. They didn't go far; Millicent deemed them to have sufficient privacy when they reached the side of the garage. "I've got a proposition for you," she said. "But first, how do you feel about winters in Florida?""Well, it has to be better than here, what with our negative-twenty-degree wind chills and icy roads," Harry said. Millicent's eyes narrowed. "Are you joking? You have to be serious. I'm not good with jokes."Harry's smile faded. "I hear Florida's nice, but I haven't been. Millicent, what...?""I bought a horse yesterday," she said, and wrung her hands together a bit. Harry had never seen her express any sort of uncertainty, and found that the sight of it distressed him. He reached out and squeezed her wrist."That's cool! But...I thought...you don't ride, do you?"Her hands went still, so Harry continued to gently hold her wrist, hoping it was comforting."I don't ride," she said. "I bought the horse as an investment.""Oh.""I got a good deal, because the owner is an idiot who thinks color matters."Harry was startled. "You don't mean...?""Hedwig. I bought her. Eight-year-old grey mare with good potential, but needs an intuitive rider.""You've been talking to Minerva." Harry felt a little hollow. Hedwig, sold, just like that. But of course, that's how it went with horses, especially the valuable ones. "I want you to campaign her for me in Wellington," said Millicent.Harry's thoughts stalled. "What?""I want you to campaign her for me in Wellington," Millicent said again, slightly more slowly and louder."You don't even like me, really, do you?" Harry wondered, while his thoughts broke free and ran wild. If she was serious...but she couldn't be...but if she was...how the hell could Harry convince the Dursleys to let him spend the winter in Florida?Sirius had said he would talk to them..."I don't dislike you," Millicent said. "But this isn't about that. You're a good rider. I've been watching, and even if I wasn't, everyone says so. If we sell her, I'll give you fifteen percent.""Fifteen percent?" Harry was confused. Fifteen percent of what?Millicent frowned. "Fine. Twenty.""Okay...?"She rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to negotiate with you more than that. I'm bearing all the risk. But I'll give you a bonus on top of the percentage if we get over a hundred thousand."Harry's mouth was open, he was fairly sure. By the time he got a grip on himself and closed it he had at last caught up with the conversation. "Twenty percent of her price, plus a bonus, and...a hundred thousand? Dollars?""Those are the highlights. What do you say?"Harry was reminded of his decision to say yes to Minerva at the beginning of the summer. How he'd done it before he'd even known how to get the Weasleys to say yes."Sure," he said, and Millicent immediately grinned, jerking him into a rough hug. Her hair smelled like lavender, and she was surprisingly strong."Great," she said, pulling back and schooling her expression, then sticking out her hand. "Good," she said, as Harry took her hand and they shook. "Partners, then."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When they landed in Palm Beach, Harry wasn’t impressed. It was a hot day even by Floridian standards, and the humidity felt like a wet blanket. Draco, pink-cheeked, scowled too.“Let’s go swimming,” he pleaded. “The horses won’t even get here until tomorrow. What’s the point of rushing off to an empty barn?”Harry rolled his eyes. “Because I told Minerva I’d bed stalls and hang buckets.”Draco looked confused, then hid his narrowed eyes behind a pair of of reflective sunglasses as they deplaned.“I thought you worked for Millicent now,” Draco said. “Why are you worried about Minerva?”He wasn’t wrong, exactly. Harry’s summer program was over and had been for three weeks, and if he hadn’t had coming to Wellington to look forward to he would have been unbearably restless during that time. He’d missed the work at once.“I’m working off lessons with Minerva,” Harry said. He squinted in the pale sunlight, taking in an airport that could have been located anywhere. The same stretches of pavement and squat industrial buildings he had seen in Kansas City and France. The only distinction between here and there that he could see were a row of scraggly palm trees bordering the access road.”And I don’t work for Millicent,” he added, hurrying down the stairs. “We’re working together. As partners.”“Funny, but I didn’t see your name on the check when she bought my horse.”“Speaking of buying horses,” Harry said, deliberately ignoring most of what Draco had just said, “will you have anything to ride next Saturday?”“I can always ride one of Tom’s,” Draco said dismissively, then glanced quickly at Harry out of the corner of his eye. But Harry had barely flinched at the mention of Tom. It had been most of two months since they’d spoken, and controlling his reaction to the subject had slowly gotten easier.”So he’s definitely coming?” Harry asked, with deliberate lightness, staring hard straight ahead. A driver was stepping out of the car Lucius had arranged for them to open the doors.“Of course he is, Harry,” Draco said, a soft rebuke. He gestured for Harry to slide in first, then stepped in more carefully behind as Harry scooted all the way across the seat."If you just want to catch ride, you probably belong in the hunters," Harry observed, then laughed and ducked when Draco swatted at him."Watch your mouth," Draco said primly, sitting upright with dignity and crossing his legs. Harry didn’t mind the hunters but he knew Draco was deeply attached to his identity as a dressage rider. "I guess I'll watch you engage in manual labor for a couple hours, then, if you promise we can go swimming after.""I don't care what you do, except that if you come with me, you're going to help. Otherwise you can go ahead and swim or whatever, and I'll keep myself busy."Predictably, Draco's face filled with anxiousness. He was like a buddy-sour horse; he hated to be alone. "If you insist, I suppose I can help," he said cautiously. "But nothing that will ruin my clothes."Harry snorted. "There isn't anything you can do in a barn that won't ruin your clothes. Where do you even find white pants?"Draco glanced down in surprise at his thighs, running his hands over the starched creases down the the center of each one. "These? Ralph Lauren."Harry huffed out a disbelieving laugh and looked for the controls to turn the air conditioning all the way up. "I'm not impressed by Florida so far," he said. "But if we’re swimming, I don't want to go to a pool. I want to go to the beach.""Did you know," Draco said conversationally, "that the ocean is full of fish shit, and the beach is literally just a pile of crushed exoskeletons?" "I knew it, but I had never thought of it quite like that," Harry said wanly. "Come on, I've never seen it."Draco looked at him sharply. "Really?""Really.""I always forget how unfortunate you are. All right, then. But don't expect me to hold your hand and wade in the surf or anything."Harry laughed. "Got it."As it turned out, Draco's pants were ruined by the time the driver delivered them to the nearest beach (public, to Draco's chagrin); the hazards of clearing the dust and cobwebs out of a barn that had been closed up since early spring. Therefore, he was more amenable to wading in the surf than he'd claimed to be; his once-immaculate pants double-cuffed halfway up his long, pale calves, while Harry, in shorts, went out far enough that the rush of water pounded the tops of his knees and the heavy mist above that made his t-shirt damp.The ocean was not a disappointment. It rolled in from afar and felt like a window into something ancient and vast. He collected a handful of the colorful broken shells that peppered the sand until Draco’s patience wore out, then let himself be dragged up the boardwalk to find some shade.Later, the air turned abruptly cool as evening set in. The merciless heat from midday felt like a distant memory, and they went back to walk along the shore."Have you forgiven Florida, then?" Draco wondered. They were eating melty ice-cream-cones they bought from a stand on the boardwalk. "Yeah," Harry said immediately. "It's my favorite place on earth." He'd shucked his shoes and they dangled from the hand that wasn't holding the ice cream so he could feel the sand between his toes—the complete beach experience. "Talk to me tomorrow when you realize that it takes three days to get all the sand back off of you," Draco said, but he was smiling.As it turned out, Harry was glad that Draco had talked him into some kind of excursion, because the next few days, he was working nonstop. The barn had brought sixteen horses, and they all had to be closely monitored for signs they were lagging after the long journey, as well as adjusting to the heat."It's not usually this hot, this late," Minerva complained. Perhaps it was her Scottish heritage, but she seemed to be taking the change in climate worse than anyone, in part because she insisted on wearing long sleeves, pants and hats at all times. ("To protect myself," she said, shooting an accusing look at the bright, low-hanging sun as though it was an evil deity.)"Weather break by end of week," offered one of the grooms helpfully. Harry still didn't know all their names. They were local people hired for the season, though a few of them had worked for the barn in winters past as well."I suppose we can all survive until then," said Minerva, but she looked doubtful. Harry followed her out to walk fence, making sure that there weren't weaknesses in the posts and wire that had developed while the pasture had been empty, as well as clearing larger tree limbs.Harry fell back into the routine of more traditional barn help with surprising ease. Before Windmere, he’d had that kind of role for two years and knew it well. He'd missed early mornings at a barn; getting up long before dawn (Sirius grumbling sleepily when Harry invariably had to half-wake him to find out where he'd left the car keys) and driving out on the mostly-empty roads. The dew-wet grass squeaky under his shoes. The horses whickering quietly when they heard him walk in, some of them still lying curled in their bedding with sawdust in their forelocks.There wasn't anything glamorous about it, but it was work that was easy to measure. He liked going through each stall and hauling out the refuse and scrubbing and refilling buckets, throwing hay, then looking back over what he'd done and being able to see rows of happy, fed horses.It wasn't just Harry. There was a small crew who came through, too. They were friendly but spoke little English, which wasn't so bad. At least Harry didn't feel pressured to join in on their occasional conversations. He’d rather spend the time in that reflective, inward-looking state that only came when he felt alone.It was this routine that made Harry the first to see Tom arrive with his half-dozen new horses.The hauler came in first, followed by a black SUV with dust around the wheel wells, its driver's side window rolled down. Harry easily recognized Tom, though he hadn't expected to see him. He knew the horses were coming, but he assumed Tom would be like everyone else their age—except, of course, Harry—and let the hired men get their hands dirty, showing up some time in the mid-afternoon to ride. That was how it had been back home, but then, Harry didn't know what Tom was like when he was dealing with horses that were his, rather than catch riding.He couldn't help feeling pleased at the thought that Tom was here to see for himself that they got settled in. Harry had been working in the first stall inside the aisle on the north side, which happened to give him a clear view of the yard while making him hard to see in return. So he stayed where he was, watching the driver and another man get out of the semi and come around to open the doors and lower the ramps. Tom parked a generous distance away and climbed out of the SUV. He was wearing dark wash jeans and a short-sleeved button-down, dark blue. He hadn't put any product in his hair and it was slightly long, so a couple unruly curls were in his face.The sound of the first horse stepping onto the ramp made Harry look back at the rig. It was a big bay gelding, but there was something curious about him. He had a high-rounded neck and he was closer-coupled than the other horses standing in the barn. Speaking of which, they were beginning to raise a fuss, hearing and smelling the new arrival. The horse in the stall Harry had been cleaning paced in a swift circle, distracting him as he stepped out of her way.When he looked back outside again, he unwittingly met Tom's eye.It wasn't the first time they'd seen one another since everything happened between them, of course. Windmere was big, but it wasn't that big, and they both rode there every day. But there, Harry had always known to expect Tom, and guarded himself accordingly. Here, taken by surprise, his defenses were lowered. Tom looked and Harry looked back for several long moments.Harry was the first to look away.He was on edge the rest of the day. They passed one another in the single barn aisle and almost bumped into each other coming in and out of the tack room. Tom always looked at Harry—even as Harry determinedly looked anywhere else—but he didn't speak.Tom didn’t have to speak for Harry to know what he was thinking. He felt it every time Tom's eyes landed on him: a question. Harry didn't know how to articulate it, but the meaning felt very clear to him. Tom was still waiting.It should have made Harry furious, but to his shame, he was glad.Someday soon Tom would forget about him. That was inevitable. Tom had been fixated; Harry had been a unique challenge; that would end. There was nothing particularly interesting about Harry, he knew. He had fallen into Tom's notice haplessly, and Tom was a person whose attention could lock in on something for no discernible reason. Harry knew something—or likely someone—would soon come along and distract Tom. If anyone asked, Harry would say he looked forward to it. But in reality he dreaded it. This wasn't how Harry was supposed to feel. He was supposed to hate Tom. He did hate him. Maybe he was crazy, or even more fucked up than he’d thought, but he seemed to be perfectly able to hate Tom and want to see him smile. To want to punch him in the other eye and to kiss the palms of his hands. The emotional dichotomy was exhausting.Draco came around in the late afternoon and happened to see Harry before he realized Tom was there.Because he was Draco, he opened the conversation by thrusting his head into the tack room where Harry was cleaning a bridle and declaring, "You'd better not flake out tonight."Harry grimaced. He'd been putting off Draco and his social calendar successfully all week, but apparently he'd gotten his final extension. "Okay. What is it again?""It's Cedric's party," Draco said, with a deliberate emphasis on 'Cedric' that had Harry scrambling to figure out why Draco thought he'd recognize the name.When Harry didn't immediately react, Draco snorted. "Cedric as in Cedric Diggory," he clarified. But that didn't help Harry."Sometimes I think you're an alien," Draco sighed. "Cedric Diggory, Harry. The movie star.""'Movie star' is kind of a stretch, if you ask me," Tom said from behind Harry. Harry turned to find him standing in the aisle with his saddle still on his hip and his crop under his arm. Harry hastily stepped out of the doorway, and Tom came in hurriedly. "It was a childish fucking movie. On the Disney Channel." He rolled his eyes.Draco shrugged. "People talked about it more than I remember them talking about anything else that year. And he got signed for the big one because of it, that they're filming next summer? Where George Clooney plays his dad?"Harry's eyes widened. "George Clooney, really?""Oh, so you have seen a movie," Draco said. "What a relief." Then he looked sly. "Was Clooney your first crush? I should have known, when you're so transparently hard for old men.""Oh my God," Harry muttered. "That was one time."Tom didn’t interject, but Harry, watching out of the corner of his eye, thought his movements seemed especially tense and jerky as he shoved his saddle onto its stand and pressed his crop into the whip rack."And," Harry added, feeling the urge to argue even though he'd already said the same thing to Draco a dozen times, "I wasn't into him. I just think he's inspirational.""Jared Conner? Please. He went to the Olympics how many times, and never got above bronze? It's just sad.""Right, right," Harry deadpanned. "What a tragic career, earning four Olympic medals." In truth, he had thought Jared was cute. He had a plain face but an easy smile, and that...ease, that confidence, that did seem to be found most often in older men, but that did not mean that Harry had a fucking crush on George Clooney. He was practically a hundred years old."Are you not coming then, Tom?" Draco wondered, folding his arms. "It's on a boat and you know the Coast Guard has much better things to do. Anything could go on out there. You've always loved that kind of thing."Tom gave him a sharp look. "What 'kind of thing'?""Yacht parties?" Draco shrugged and looked away."I don't know what my plans are yet," Tom said, leaning his hand against the wall and looking over at Harry half over his shoulder.Draco breathed out through his nose and rubbed his forehead. "Right. Harry, will you be going along, or not?""I've told you over and over that I can't stay out all night with you. I get up at three in the morning."Draco winced, as though Harry hadn't literally said the same thing ten times before. "Aren't there laws about that? OSHA isn't it?""That's not...no. I'm not getting into this with you."Draco looked determinedly concerned. "If you don't sleep, you'll age at an accelerated rate.""I do sleep! I sleep at night, like a normal person."Draco pursed his lips. "So, you aren't going?" He glanced askance at Tom.Harry frowned. He realized what was going on. Draco certainly wouldn't want to go to a party alone. And apparently Tom's attendance was contingent on Harry's."I don't want to," Harry hedged. Draco, seeing a chink in his armor, grinned."But that's not a no," he said slowly."It would be, if you cared about me half as much as you care about yourself," Harry muttered. "But," he added thoughtfully, "I've never been to a party on a boat.""You'd better call it a yacht," Draco said soberly. "Diggory is nouveau, and you know how they are about things."Harry had absolutely no idea what Draco was talking about, but he'd learned to pick his battles so he just shrugged and nodded. Draco clapped his hands once. "All right, then! Harry, let's get you off to wardrobe. Tom, do you...?" He paused and looked uncertainly at Tom. Despite himself, Harry glanced too.Tom had been frowning at the ground between his boots, but glanced up at the sound of his name."I'll drive us. You can't very well have your father's car drop you at the docks. That would be a stretch, even for Lucius." He rolled his shoulders. Draco looked hesitantly at Harry."Are you sure the two of you don't just want to..." Harry began, but when Draco's face fell, he sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine.""I'll come by around ten thirty," said Tom. "Are you still at 13 Meridian? In that gaudy affair with the columns?""It's an historic greek revival beach house," Draco said defensively. "And yes.""Is it just me," Harry asked in an undertone, following Draco out to the car, "or is Tom being...?"Draco glanced over at him. "Well..." he grimaced and nodded toward the car. When they were inside and pulling away, he turned to Harry with a pointed look. "If you start speaking again, which, yes, I'm aware, 'will never happen', as you keep saying. Just remember, I didn't tell you this.” He cleared his throat. “My father said that when Tom and his grandparents were in Argentina to buy his horses, they also told him that they've decided to leave everything to his dad."Obviously Harry had missed something. "Isn't that how it usually goes?"Draco's eyes narrowed. "I don't know. I suppose. But Ben and Eleanor have been at odds with Thomas for—I don't know, since he was a teenager I guess. First because of all the drugs and crimes and such, of course. And then because he talks constantly about how much he'd like to give all his money away." He shuddered.Harry bit back the urge to sigh. "Right. So they were going to give everything to Tom?""They had. It was all drawn up and made official. Thomas got ownership of his trust fund, but everything else was for Tom. Now they’re going to change it."Harry thought about that for a moment. "Oh."Draco looked at him with an arched eyebrow and then snorted. "Yes, 'oh.'"Harry didn't know Tom as well as he thought he had, of course. But what he knew for sure was that Tom liked to be in control. And to go from having the promise of a vast fortune, to being dependent on the father he hated for any expectation of wealth...Harry saw the rub."He could sell his custom boots and a horse and still pay tuition at an Ivy," Harry said. "I'm not sure I'm that sympathetic.""Of course you're not," Draco said carelessly. "You don't care about money." He tilted his head and shot Harry a brief half-smile. "It's very curious. And...nice."It took Harry a full second to realize he'd been complimented. "Did you just..."Draco shrugged, but he was blushing faintly. "Yes, Harry, it's true. I like you. I haven't been letting you follow me around and leave a trail of filth in this car every evening as part of some elaborate plot.""I'm really touched," Harry said. "And I know for a fact you don't clean this car." But he was suddenly self-conscious at the thought someone had to. Maybe he could find one of those tiny vacuums and clean up behind himself, or sit on a towel..."I don't know what you're thinking, but stop," Draco demanded. "We're going to have fun tonight. No guilt spirals." He pointed at Harry. "I'm going to get you out of your head even if it means force-feeding you shots.""I'm not drinking at this party," Harry said immediately."Cocaine then," Draco said with a wink, then laughed loudly at Harry's expression. "I was kidding. We'll be sure to stay away from the drugs.""There will be coke?" Harry wasn't totally unaccustomed to drugs at parties, but it was usually just weed or the occasional shriveled mushroom."Of course," Draco said with a flippant gesture. "That's basically what boats are for."After they got to the Malfoys’ beach house and trailed up to Draco’s room, Harry fished out his phone. (It was a smart phone, but with an ordinary ten dollar case. Sirius had it to given him.)“I’d better call and say I’ll be late,” he explained to Draco.“Will he care?”Harry snorted. Sirius seemed mostly worried that Harry wasn’t having enough fun, always going to bed early and spending all day doing physical labor other than the couple hours he got to ride. How will you be socialized? was a common lament.“I don’t think so.”Draco gave him a quick sidelong look as he made for the closet. “Don’t mention the boat.”Harry remembered what Draco had said about the Coast Guard and cocaine, and figured he was probably right.Harry sat on Draco’s bed and listened to the phone ring until it finally went to voicemail. He frowned. That never happened. He left a vague message that involved Draco, hanging out, and being back really late, then hung up. Draco’s room was full of pictures of Draco at varying ages on a variety of horses. Harry found one that was fairly recent, on a younger, steel grey Hedwig, and smiled. Draco was sitting stiffly in the saddle, Tom on the horse directly next to his, smugly brandishing the blue ribbon while Draco’s rosette was red.They ate frozen French fries they baked in the oven, then played in the game room (Harry’s favorite was the small bowling lane) until Tom texted to tell Draco he was outside.It was totally dark, a starless night. Tom had parked his SUV under the portico and didn’t get out. Harry had a strong urge to pretend to be sick, but he didn’t want to listen to Draco whine about his compromised social life for days, so instead he took a deep breath and got into the backseat on the passenger side. Draco took shotgun.“Hi,” Tom said, looking at Harry in the rear view mirror. It was very dark inside the car, but Harry could still see part of Tom’s face clearly in the mirror; he was lit up faintly by the lights on the dash.“Hi, Tom,” Draco answered. Tom’s eyes snapped to him in brief, intense irritation, and Harry turned toward the window and fought the urge to smile.The docks weren’t far. Harry listened with half an ear while Draco rattled off a litany of facts about Cedric Diggory, Tom’s brow increasingly furrowed as Draco went on. Harry couldn’t keep himself from glancing occasionally at the mirror, or noticing the way Tom’s hair was brushing the tops of his ears. It made Harry’s fingers itch, seeing it overlong like that.After they paid for their parking they walked in an awkward formation toward the sea, which in the darkness, had the odd property of being able to be heard but not seen. Harry let that distant, rhythmic rush fill his ears, trying not to notice how Tom, walking ahead of him and a half-step in front of Draco, had worn jeans that were snug in the thigh.When they got to the docks, however, the sound of the party drowned out the sound of the water entirely. “They’re going out at eleven,” Draco said, walking faster. “We’d better not miss it.”Then Harry saw it, after they passed a first, enormous vessel the size of the Dursleys’ house, but dark and shuttered. Cedric Diggory’s boat was closer to the size of the Malfoy beach house, and spilling over with people, crowding to board or milling around on its multi-level decks, laughing, the occasional less discreet guest with a plastic cup or beer bottle in hand.“Is that Theodore Nott?” Draco murmured to Tom, and Tom frowned as they both looked into the crowd at some person Harry certainly couldn’t separate from the rest. “I think so,” Tom said, frowning. He glanced over at Draco and his frown deepened. “I’m going to go have a word with him. You—”“—monitor Harry, right,” Draco said, and Tom gave him a thoughtful look, then set off toward the other side of the board, while Draco and Harry waited in line at the designated boarding point. Harry knew better than to even bother being curious about who Theodore Nott was or why Tom might need ‘a word with him.’“How did you get invited to this, anyway?”“Hell if I know,” Draco said. “I heard about it from four or five people, including Pansy Parkinson, a mutual friend of mine and Cedric’s. She’s always wanted me to come to something where Cedric’ll be around so she can preen over having an objectively famous friend.”“Pansy Parkinson like, Parkinson Engineering?” Even Harry knew of the tech mogul based in the Kansas City metro.“Right. She’s from Overland Park and for a while we took piano lessons together.”“You play the piano?”Draco shrugged. “When I was six.”“Draco!” called a low female voice, and a girl with raven hair in a bob elbowed her way through two much taller people to appear in front of them and beam at Draco.“I was literally just talking about you,” he told her, and they briefly hugged while Draco seemed sincerely flustered by the coincidence. “I have to know—are the rumors true? Are you a witch?”“I think you’ve misheard the rumors,” said Pansy with a reproving look. “I’m a bitch, not a witch.”“Oh, my mistake. Pansy, this is Harry. Harry this is Pansy, the bitch I was just telling you about.”Pansy gave Draco’s arm a very light slap that was much more like a pat, and they laughed together while Harry smiled awkwardly.“Nice boat,” Draco said, looking around at the white railings and the scrubbed deck, then through the window nearest them toward a living space filled with chocolate leather furniture and party guests.“It is, isn’t it? It’s so nice of Cedric to share it with the public. I’ve been telling him since the first time I saw it, it’s meant to be admired by a few of the people who admire him so much.”“Now, Pansy, you’re still in high school. You can’t be a working PR rep yet.”“Hm? Oh, did those sound like terms of art? I get that sometimes. I have a real intuition for language.”A waiter brought by a tray of drinks, his formal uniform incongruous with the fact everything was being dispensed in plastic cups. Draco and Pansy each took one, then the two of them proceeded to drink aggressively, like they were daring one another. Eventually Pansy, mascara smudged, left in search of a powder room and Draco realized it had been forty-five minutes since they’d seen Tom.“He can’t have gone far,” he said, in a way that might have qualified as a snap if it wasn’t faintly slurred from the alcohol. “We’re at sea, after all.” He pointed toward the water, which was churning out behind them as they slowly inched further and further from the now-distant dock. It might have been peaceful, if they weren’t surrounded by so many people and so much noise. Instead Harry felt faintly claustrophobic, but resisted the urge to drown the feeling with a beer. He didn’t have to watch Draco very closely to know he needed a sober companion tonight. Much later, Harry guided Draco away from the third round of some kind of drinking-game-cum-spelling-bee which had quickly devolved for Draco when he started spelling everything in French."The worst part about boats," Draco managed when they got out onto the deck, wobbling more dramatically than ever, "is that you can't leave when you want to."Harry hastily wedged his shoulder under Draco's armpit to be sure he wouldn't fall over the rail and drown. "No kidding." At the back of the boat, which had been so busy when they boarded but was now mostly abandoned, there were a few chaise lounges. Harry pointed Draco at one of them, and he tumbled onto it, then turned onto his side and curled up halfway with a contented sigh."You're going to fall asleep, aren't you?" Harry said dubiously, and a soft snore answered him.He chuckled bleakly, sitting down on the next lounge over and leaning over his knees. Someone had spilled something on the part of the deck beneath it, and it had half-solidified into a shiny, gelid red puddle. At least Harry didn't think Draco was going to throw up, and if he did, he was on his side. He could maybe take a quick nap too.With that thought in mind, he swung up his legs and leaned back on the chaise, then pillowed his head on his hands and stared up at the starry sky. There were wisps of clouds parting and regathering in a silver film, to a really pretty effect. Harry considered taking up astronomy. It seemed like a relaxing past-time. He smiled as he wondered how many of the constellations Hermione already knew. The thought right behind that one, that he was absolutely sure Ron didn't know a single one, made his smile widen.Thinking offhand of his friends brought with it a familiar pang. He'd agreed so immediately to come down here and work with Millicent. Sirius had worked so hard to figure things out with the Dursleys so it was possible. He hadn't expected...He hadn't expected to wish, almost constantly, to be back in Missouri."Hold on," said a strained, clear voice. "I'm just stepping out so I can...yeah, yeah, I can hear you now. What did you...? Oh, fuck, really?"Harry opened his eyes and saw that Cedric Diggory, of all people, had broken away from his throngs of admirers and was at the rear of the boat too, a dozen feet away. He either hadn't noticed Draco and Harry or assumed they were both passed out."No, no, it's fine. I'm just surprised." He turned suddenly from the railing and his gaze caught on Harry's. Harry raised his arm in an awkward little wave. "Um, okay, then," Cedric continued into the phone, with a tense automatic smile for Harry. "That sounds fine. Yeah, yeah. Bye." He ended the call and stuck his phone in his pocket. "Sorry," he told Harry. "I didn't realize you were, um...""Awake?" Harry asked, sitting up. "Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I'm just babysitting." He nodded toward Draco."That's sweet," said Cedric, looking surprised. His next smile was less practiced and more cautious. "Is he your boyfriend?"Harry snorted. "No. He's just a friend. Um, do you know when we'll dock?"Cedric looked surprised, then glanced at his watch. "An hour, I think?"Harry nodded. "That's good."Cedric cocked his head. "That eager to go, huh? Must have been a pretty lame party."Harry's lips parted in instant mortification. "Oh, no! It was really cool. It's just...I came because of Draco, and really, I have to work, so I shouldn't be out all night like this.""Work?" Cedric echoed. Harry smiled faintly. "Yeah, I know. So weird."Cedric laughed. "Not really. I mean, it's just not what I usually hear. You know, from people our age." Harry was pretty sure Cedric was at least two years older, but felt oddly flattered that he'd conflate them into one group. He glanced around the pathway along the railing which led back the way he'd just come, then leaned his elbow against the bars behind him and crossed his legs at the ankle. "Can I ask what you do?""I'm..." Draco had forbade him from saying 'barn help' unless strictly necessary. He cleared his throat. "I'm a rider? I ride eventers. A bit of specialized dressage. And um, we have a hunter pony."Cedric looked blank until Harry said "pony," and then his expression cleared with understanding. "Oh! Horses!"Harry laughed. "Yeah."Harry heard footsteps, and Cedric straightened up. "Hi," he called to whomever was coming.Harry really shouldn't have been surprised when the person who strode into view was Tom.He looked from Cedric to Harry to Draco contemplatively, then back to Cedric."Diggory," he said."Hey, Tom," said Cedric, because naturally they were on a first-name basis. Everyone knew Tom. Cedric wasn't quite as tall as Tom, and he had a slightly more substantial build, but they were both dark-haired and startlingly handsome. They looked good, standing next to each other. Harry wondered how well they knew each other, and also didn't bother denying that he hoped the answer was not very."Here's someone who you might be able to talk horses with," Cedric aside, looking back at Harry. "Tom's really into them. Or used to be?""Harry already knows that," Tom said in a tone that was so low and icy, Cedric and Harry both looked at him sharply. Harry recovered first."Tom and I...know one another.""Oh," Cedric said, with a strained smile, still recovering from his bafflement at Tom's sharp tone and matching stare. Harry sighed, but neither of them noticed. After a moment, Cedric looked away, back at Harry. "So, Harry, huh? I'm...""Cedric Diggory, yeah," Harry said with a lopsided smile. "I know.""Now he knows," Tom said crisply. "Harry mentioned earlier tonight he hadn't seen your...film."Cedric grinned at Harry. "No? Wow, you're really missing out. It. Is. Horrible."Harry was startled into a laugh. "I'm sure it's not. I just don't really watch movies.""You didn't even have to go to the theater for it. You can watch it on television, like all the ten-year-old girls," Cedric said, looking more relaxed than he had a moment before. Harry liked that he seemed to appreciate someone being ignorant of his celebrity. It was a surprise, that someone like him would be down-to-earth instead of hung up on their ego.Tom's scowl had deepened and there was a slight furrow in his brow. His hair had gotten untidy as the night wore on. Cedric saw Harry's eyes skip to Tom and back and he looked thoughtful."Well, I'd better get back in there," he said. "It was cool meeting you, Harry. See you around, Tom."Harry smiled. "Yeah," he said, meaning it, "it was good meeting you too."After Cedric edged past Tom and out of sight, Tom's stiff shoulders hunched slightly, and he turned like he might follow. But then Harry blurted, "You don't have to."Tom turned his head slowly, his eyes still narrowed.Harry felt his face heat. "I mean, we don't have to avoid each other forever. It's not possible, anyway, even if we wanted to."Tom wet his lower lip. "Are you..." he began, then stopped himself, blinking, and decided against whatever he'd been about to say. "Okay."Neither of them moved. Draco's breath caught and he murmured something, then went quiet again."I hope he wakes up soon. I don't think I can carry him off the boat," Harry said, a lame joke, but the silence was too much."We could leave him here and he could call for a ride in the morning," Tom suggested, stepping over to the place by the railing where Cedric had been leaning. He reached behind himself to grasp the uppermost bar, just at waist height. It tightened his sleeves over his shoulders."I can't tell if you're kidding," Harry said. Tom raised his eyebrows, and Harry rolled his eyes, because of course Tom wasn’t kidding. "Okay, no. We're not doing that." No wonder Draco had gotten clingy with Harry so fast, if Tom was his best example of friendship."I know you wouldn't," Tom muttered, and turned his head to look out over the water. In profile, Harry could see how tight his jaw was. He wished he'd just let Tom walk off; it would have been satisfying, to keep punishing Tom, and yet Harry couldn’t quite bring himself to relish it like he had at first. His anger felt distant, tamed. He didn't think it would ever go away, but it more or less stayed in place in his mind to which Harry had relegated it."Harry," Tom said, interrupting Harry’s thoughts. He pushed himself off the rail and took a few long strides toward the chaise. Harry looked up, his pulse quickening at the sight of Tom's eyes on his as he got closer, looming. It made him think of those nights together, at the house at Windmere, and in Tom's bedroom the week Harry had stayed there. How Tom had an unconscious command of Harry.He could tell Tom's thoughts were following a similar vein, but he stopped himself a few feet away. If they'd each reached out, they could have touched. As it was, though the distance was safe, the eye contact alone was almost too much to bear."What?" Harry breathed.Tom let out an unsteady breath, his face full of conflict. "I..."Draco rolled over and vomited on both of their shoes.The next morning, they took the horses to Wellington. Harry wasn't riding as it was a dressage day, but he was surprised to see Tom leading out one of his new horses, the seal brown stallion that was the tallest of all of them. He had a noble roman nose and a steady eye. Tom caught Harry admiring him."I really hadn't ever imagined you on something baroque," Harry said. "I always think of you as a show-jumper, I guess."Tom smiled slowly as he handed off the horse to a groom to be led onto the trailer, then turned to Harry. "Do you?"Harry realized exactly what he'd said. "When I think of you. Very occasionally. In a riding context."Tom's smile grew slowly wider. Harry scowled. "I'll see you over there. Good luck."The grounds were park-like, with meticulously landscaped ponds weaving around the arenas, wooden bridges and verdant flowerbeds. The stabling was under white tents. Harry had been over earlier to help Miguel and Ryan hang the Windmere curtains around the stalls and set out framed portraits of each horse on easels, until the tent space was transformed into the closest thing to the lounge at the barn they could make it. But everything felt more lively and energized now that there were people and horses and show officials milling around. Harry smiled at a few passers-by and their wide-eyed children, hoping later they'd have one of the gentle horses out after its class and could let people pet it. Eventually Draco appeared, looking suitably miserable and already half-dressed. His nose was red and he was wearing a heavy fleece over his show clothes. He dropped into a chair and stared around moodily until he caught sight of Harry."You know," Harry said practically, "you have no one to blame but yourself.""I'm aware. Thank you, father.""Don't mention it, sport.""Sport?"Harry shrugged. "Isn't that what dads say?""Not since the late 50s, I don't think."Harry laughed. "When's your class?" He rummaged in the cooler beneath one of the draped tables and found a water bottle to hand to Draco."I'd better ribbon, or the Riddles will tell father, and he'll assume I'm not practicing enough," Draco muttered."He'd be right," Harry said absently, but he was hung up on the first part of what Draco had said. "What about the Riddles? They're here?""Yeah, they've come to see Tom ride that stallion. I still can't believe he bought a PRE. And I'm French."The PRE horses were more popular in Europe and South America, and didn't tend to compete very well with warmbloods. But Harry was revisiting his past opinion about them after seeing Tom school a few times. The stallion particularly had lovely gaits, and the most effortless cadence in his twos that Harry had seen in a long time."Well, break a leg," Harry said cheerfully, patting Draco on the head because he knew it would make him scowl. "I'll be ringside.""Thanks," Draco said sourly.Tom was only showing second level, so his class was early and happened to be halfway across the grounds. So Harry headed that way, straightening his blue polo and smiling politely at the people who happened to glance his way. He got some answering smiles and a lot of curious stares, like his friendliness was perplexing.We're not in the Midwest anymore, Sirius would remind him. Sirius, who should be around somewhere, but Harry hadn't seen him yet. He'd said he had planned to come by, which surprised Harry less now that he knew the Riddles were around. Sirius seemed curious about them.As though summoned by the thought, the Riddles appeared, apparently walking up from the parking just in time for Tom's class.Benjamin was wearing a powder blue suit made out of some sort of lightweight material. Eleanor wore a white sundress and a rigid straw hat with an enormous brim and a blue ribbon. Thomas was trailing after them, and had exchanged the jeans Harry had always seen him wearing before for dark khakis under a white, short-sleeved button-down. None of them saw Harry.Harry wondered how much Tom had told his family about how things were between them. He remembered the last time he'd seen Thomas, and what was, in hindsight, a very apt warning about his son. But Benjamin and Eleanor seemed particularly blind to Tom's shortcomings, so Harry supposed if they knew that Harry had ended things, they'd probably rather not see him again.With that in mind, he didn't go up into the stands, but hung back in the trees on the short end, just off the path where he didn't think other spectators would see him. His view was partially obscured by the judge's stand, but not badly, and he had a brilliant view of Tom's entry onto the court, the brown stallion straight as an arrow under him, ears forward with perfect focus despite the chaos of the show environment all around.Brown was an underrated color, Harry thought, noting how the sun picked up gold and silver and copper on the curves of the stallion’s body. It was a lovely test, perfectly ridden. Harry hadn't seen Tom in show attire up close, and though he'd always thought the dressage uniform of white breeches, black boots and jacket a little austere, the dramatic monochrome suited Tom. The crowd was quiet all through, as the stallion circled and maneuvered in response to Tom's invisible aids, Tom straight-backed as a dancer above him, returning back to the center of the court to halt where he'd started and salute the judge.There was an above-average amount of applause from the stands for a lower level test, and Harry clapped hard too, startling some of the people milling past on the path. He saw Tom's gaze sweep the stands once, twice, and then his pensive frown as he steered the horse back out the gate at a walk. Surely he hadn't been looking for Harry. But the thought that maybe he had been made something warm and insistent squirm in Harry's chest.Had Tom been about to apologize, before Draco interrupted them with the first of a series of vomiting episodes that lasted until they managed to get him home?If he had, what would Harry have said?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

On Monday, Harry almost expected to see Tom there for his usual early morning ride, though the day after a show was usually quiet. Before he could quite register his disappointment and when he was halfway through cleaning the stalls, he caught the sound of familiar voices in the aisle. He froze mid-scoop, sure he was hearing things, then stuck his head out of the stall.

To his disbelief, there were Ron and Hermione. They were looking the wrong way down the aisle and hadn’t noticed Harry yet.

"What the fuck!" Harry exclaimed, making them jump. Hermione reached out and grasped Ron's arm, then relaxed at once when she saw Harry.

Ron immediately came over to hug Harry aggressively around the neck. "You stink," he said, wrinkling his nose and messing up Harry's hair. "You smell like a stable."

"That one never gets old," Harry assured Ron, and reached past him for Hermione. "What the hell?"

"Sirius flew us in," Ron explained, scratching his neck, with the sort of careful expression that the subject of Sirius still encouraged in both of Harry’s friends. "That okay?"

"It's great," Harry laughed. "Oh my God. I can't believe you're here." He felt his cheeks straining from his smile.

"We know you're busy," Hermione was quick to say. "We won't get in the way."

"Like hell," Ron protested. "Can't you take a few days off? I want to go to the beach."

Harry hesitated, then saw one of the crew nodding encouragingly from across the aisle.

"We got it, Harry, go play," he said.

"Okay," Harry said slowly. "Yeah. I'd love to go to the beach."To Harry’s delight, Ron had almost as much enthusiasm about the water as Harry had when he’d dragged Draco there. And Hermione, who'd probably been to nicer places on her trips with her family to Europe and the Caribbean, still complimented the sand and the water and the lack of crowds, and sat on a pink beach towel while Ron and Harry ran around splashing one another, scolding them over not putting on enough sunscreen.

She wasn't wrong. By lunchtime they were uncomfortably pink in places and the allure had mostly worn off with Ron, who was decidedly indoorsy after all. Draco would have wanted to clean up and go to something upscale on the strand, but Harry, Ron and Hermione just dusted off most of the sand, toed into their sandals and found a McDonald's.

While Ron was working on his second cheeseburger, Hermione broached the subject Harry had been waiting for. "So. Tom Riddle."

Harry squirmed. "Yeah."

She watched him carefully. "He's here, right?"

Ron swallowed and pointed out, "Hermione stalks him on Facebook."

She shrugged. "Know thy enemy."

Harry laughed uncomfortably. "'Enemy' is a strong word," he said weakly. "He's here. Sure. But we're not . . . I don't know, hanging out." He couldn't look Hermione in the eye. He felt like he was discussing his sex life with his mother. Or what he'd imagine that would feel like, anyway. It was worse than Sirius' teasing, that was for sure.Hermione watched him another moment, then relaxed against the back of her chair. "Okay. Good. You don't have to tell us what happened, but I don't need to know the details to know that he's a piece of shit."

Ron made a low noise of agreement and put a few more french fries in his mouth.

Harry opened his mouth to—what? Defend Tom? He closed it again. "I guess. I don't know. It was a bad situation." Harry thought he wasn't totally blameless in those circumstances, either. But he couldn't explain that without . . . well, explaining, and he wasn't going to do that. Not ever, if possible. He hated discussing the subject at all, sure that Hermione was using her overpowered brain to piece together clues he didn't even know he was leaving for her.

"Can we watch a movie or something?" Ron asked. "I've got like twenty bucks."

Harry had a little bit of his money left from the summer, too, but he hated to blow it at the movies. "Let's rent something instead, and we can take it to Sirius'."

"Your place and Sirius', you mean," Hermione said, again in that tentative way Ron had before. Harry smiled at her.

"Yeah, I guess so." By early evening, Ron was asleep on the couch and Hermione urged Harry back out the door to return to the barn.

"I've got my book," she assured him, waving a novel around and leaning back in the oversized leather chair. Sirius hadn't liked the furniture in the apartment ("too stuffy") so he and Harry had picked out the set their second day down there. Their selections had been entirely based on what was most comfortable, involving lots of flopping, tossing and turning, and exasperated looks from the staff at the store.

"Okay," Harry said. He did need to ride Hedwig, so he changed into his riding clothes and went out.

He was at the right time for the bus, so he left Sirius' car and walked to the stop. He hadn't gotten far, though, when his phone rang.

"Hi, Draco," he said after glancing at the Caller ID."Where are you?"

"Hello to you, too."

"Right. Hi. Where the fuck are you?"

"Headed to the barn."

"Oh, great. So I'll see you in like five minutes?"

"I think the route is like twenty, actually," Harry said, trying to remember. He usually drove because he liked to get there before the earliest bus.

"Oh my God. Not the bus. Harry, didn't Sirius offer to rent you a car?"

"I don't need a car."

"I don't feel like arguing with your principles at the moment, so whatever. I'll see you in a bit."

Harry was kind of glad for the quiet, mindlessness of the bus route. He liked to sit there in anonymity, close to the window, watching the streetscape meditatively. It was good for thinking, the bus.

And he needed to think.He'd been drawn back into Tom's orbit down here. He'd let himself forget the hundreds of reasons why he should stay as far away as he could. And he'd let down his guard, which was stupid. He knew he had a weak spot for Tom, and instead of doing the right, if difficult, thing and keeping Tom at arm's length, he'd deliberately done the opposite. He'd told himself it was just practical, that civility was the adult choice, but really he'd wanted an excuse to talk to Tom. To look at him, and know he was looking back. Even that was intoxicating. Harry didn't understand it at all.

There was something about Tom, that was for sure. It was like Draco had said in France. And like Draco, Harry couldn't quite tell whether or not he was in Tom's hold against his will, or if it was exactly where he wanted to be.

But seeing his friends had snapped him out of it, to an extent. He felt an ease with them he never would with Tom. He was so proud of everything about them, and he'd always imagined he'd wind up with someone about whom he felt the same way. Proud. Not a person that he had to deceive himself with. Not a person he couldn't admit to his friends still fascinated him.Sirius had bought him a little backpack that Harry carried everywhere he went. He kept his wallet in there and his paddock boots, and he'd stuffed a few handfuls of shells he and Ron had picked up at the beach in a side pocket. He shook a few loose so he could hold them in his hand, enjoying their certain feel and texture, the sound they made as they struck against one another. He was still holding them when he got off the bus and came down the block and a half to the barn.Draco was waiting in the parking lot. He wasn't dressed for the barn and he was pacing in the moments before he saw Harry. When he did catch sight of him, he didn't even wait for him to walk across from the sidewalk, just came jogging over. Harry, not used to seeing Draco hurry, felt a wave of unease even before he saw how Draco's expression was taut with anxiousness.

"What's up?"

"I just heard from Minerva that Thomas—Tom's dad—is in the ICU."

Harry felt himself go white. "What?"

"Yeah. I was going to go over. Do you . . . ?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, um, I don't know if I should . . . "

Draco's look hardened. "I know something's up between the two of you, but Tom would . . . "

Harry didn't want to know how he was going to finish so he cut him off with a hasty nod. "Okay, fine." He followed Draco to the car, which was still running. "What happened?" Draco had seemed fine on the phone.

"Well, they're keeping it quiet, but . . . " Draco shot a look at the driver then lowered his voice. "I guess it was an overdose."It didn't take them long to get there, and then Harry trailed after Draco who barked questions at nurses until someone guided them to the waiting area where Harry saw Tom, sitting on a chair with his head in his hands, his grandparents grave-faced on either side of him.

He couldn't help recalling the last time he'd seen the family. Tom on his horse, Benjamin and Eleanor in the stands with Thomas. Harry didn't know why, he'd barely met Thomas, but he was fighting his own tears at the thought of him somewhere close by, imagining him practically lifeless. He stood behind Draco and avoided Eleanor's narrow-eyed stare, suddenly wishing he hadn't come.

Then Tom looked up and saw him too. He was pale, and his hair was standing on end as badly as Harry's. He looked at Harry, then quickly at Draco, then back at Harry. Eleanor put her hand on his shoulder.Harry met his searching stare. He hadn't meant to, but it happened anyway. Tom got up, his grandmother's hand falling away, and then Harry couldn't help it; he was making his way over and putting his arms around Tom's waist. The rightness of it was overwhelming. He felt like his whole body had been sore, and the feeling of Tom's arms tightening around his shoulders, his cheek against Harry's neck, soothed it in an instant.

"We'll, ah, go for coffee," Benjamin said. Harry couldn't see him over the curve of Tom's shoulder. But after a moment he heard Eleanor murmur her assent, and they went away.

Harry was aware of his hands stroking Tom's lower back and an all-over ease in his bones that didn't make any sense. It should have been awkward, standing there holding a person who was a head taller than he was and who he, technically, hated more than anyone else in the world. Instead it felt easy, right. It wasn't time to wonder why.

After a few long seconds, Tom straightened. He didn't pull away, but he did lean his head back and look down at Harry."Draco told you, then," he said. His voice was rough, but his eyes were dry and clear. It didn't surprise Harry that Tom hadn't cried; it didn't seem like something he would do, even if the world ended.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked. Tom's jaw tensed and he looked over Harry's shoulder.

"It's not exactly a surprise," he said lowly. "I always thought it might have to end this way."

Harry hadn't expected to have Tom admit out loud what Draco had said in the car. "So. . . he—?" Harry swallowed. "Do they think he'll be okay?"Tom looked at him sharply, and then tightened his hold on Harry, drawing him in toward his chest. Harry smelled the starch in his shirt and the scent of his skin, his collar open just above his nose. "They haven't said. Surely not. He was unresponsive when they found him."

Surely not Harry thought, his mouth going dry. "I'm sure he'll be okay," Harry said, his voice uneven.

Tom gave him a final squeeze and then pulled back, crossing his arms and turning slightly away. "Time will tell," he murmured, and went back to his chair. Harry slowly followed, sitting next to him, and the silence stretched out.

Benjamin, Eleanor and Draco returned. Benjamin stared out the window, occasionally dashing away a single, silent tear. Eleanor sat two seats away, stone-faced except for the periods when she stared coldly at Harry, and Harry kept his gaze on the floor or the ceiling so he could pretend not to notice. Draco made the occasional half-hearted attempt at small talk, which fell flat every time. He tentatively suggested he and Harry go after an hour and a half, and Tom, who hadn't moved except to breathe until that point, reached out and placed a deliberate hand on Harry's knee.

So they stayed.Harry went to the bathroom and took the opportunity to call Hermione, and then wasn't entirely surprised when she showed up with a half-gallon of Starbucks coffee in a cardboard carton and a sack of baked goods, which she sat wordlessly on an end table, quietly introduced herself as "Harry's friend," and looked curiously at where Tom's hand rested before giving Harry a little wave and leaving again.

The coffee was better received than the pastries.

Another hour passed, and Harry took his time going to and from the vending machine for waters. He passed them around and another hour passed. Then another. Harry dug the shells out of his pocket, rolling them around in his palm.

Finally, well after ten, a doctor came out, looking around with a world-weary expression that made Harry's heart stop. "Family of Thomas Riddle?" he called, sounding like he'd worked twenty hours in a row and hadn't had any good news to deliver in that entire time.

But when Eleanor stood up and half-lifted her hand and Benjamin turned his stricken face, the doctor saw them and smiled.

Harry's heart, which seemed to have stopped for a moment, began beating again.The doctor spoke to Benjamin and Eleanor in a low voice, and the more he said, the harder Benjamin leaned on Eleanor, which was astounding considering he was half-again her size, but she supported him without any expression of surprise or complaint. Then she turned and smiled tiredly at Tom, who had slowly gotten to his feet to stand by his chair.

Harry looked at Draco, who was looking at Tom with a sort of cautious dread. Harry couldn't see Tom's face, still seated behind him, so he stood too. But before Harry could catch a glimpse of Tom’s expression, Eleanor came over, holding Benjamin by one hand while he wiped at his face with the other.

"He's been moved. And he's awake and speaking," she said. "If he does well tonight, he could be discharged with follow-ups at home as early as tomorrow." She reached out and took Tom's lax hand. "We can see him now," she added.

Tom pulled his hand from hers and crossed his arms. "No, thank you."Her eyes hardened. "Tom."

He lifted his chin. "I don't know why we even came here to wait around for news. We have our proof, don't we? He hasn't changed, and he never will."

Benjamin took a handkerchief from his pocket and noisily blew his nose, then looked thoughtfully at Tom.

"Tom," Eleanor said again, in a voice that was so dangerously low and hard that Harry felt like his blood had cooled ten degrees. He didn't know how Tom could be on the receiving end and not so much as flinch.

"I'm going to go get some rest," he said, then glanced at Harry. "I can give you a ride, if you want."

Harry looked helplessly at Draco, who made a shooing gesture. "Oh, go on. I need to be packing, anyway. We're due to go home tomorrow." He looked uneasily at Tom again. "Til the weekend."Harry waited until they were in the hall to reach for Tom's hand. As soon as he grasped Tom's fingers, he stopped walking and turned swiftly to look at Harry. But his face was that familiar, stormy mask, and Harry couldn't read it.

"Shouldn't you go see your dad?"

Tom's eyes narrowed. "You, too?" His wrist twisted, and Harry thought he was going to pull away, but instead he just adjusted the way their hands were clasped so that suddenly it was clearly Tom who held Harry, and not the other way around. "I thought it was just my paranoia, but I'm right, aren't I? You could forgive him anything, just like them?"

Harry frowned. "I don't even know him. But he's your dad."

Tom's lip curled and he started back toward the doors, holding Harry firmly so that he followed along. "Yes," he said. "Unfortunately, he is."Harry should have waited for Draco, or called Sirius or Hermione for a ride, but instead he found himself getting into the SUV he knew from the barn, buckling in, wincing when the tires squealed as they pulled out. It was the middle of the night, and he had a sense of deja vu, being in a dark car with Tom. Under the circumstances it was ridiculous for his thoughts to stray like this, but he couldn't help it. He remembered that first night, feeling trapped over Tom's lap when he came in Harry's throat. The idle pressure of Tom's hand between Harry's legs, after.

He turned and looked out the window, swallowing. He realized he was still holding a handful of seashells and looked down at them, vaguely surprised.

Tom noticed his open palm, too.

"What are those?"`"Shells Ron and I picked up," Harry said absently. "Crazy how many there were. We found dozens."

Tom snorted. "Dozens, really?"

Harry glanced over, tucking the handful of pearly-white shells back in his backpack pocket. "Yeah."

"You like the beach, then?"

"Yeah, who doesn't?"

Tom shrugged. It was hard to tell where they were in the city with the car just coasting along in the wake of its headlights. Harry felt a sudden wave of fatigue, and if he hadn't been half-hard and nervous by being alone with Tom all of a sudden, he might have fallen asleep. As it was, he still felt oddly dazed until Tom reached over the console and took Harry's hand, startling him out of it in an instant.

"Tom . . . " he began, tense but not quite sure he wanted to pull away. "Nothing's changed."Tom didn't say anything. He drove on, holding Harry's hand, and Harry didn't have to ask to know Tom wasn't taking Harry directly home. Of course he wasn't. He was on some winding unmarked road along the shoreline, and the houses Harry could see were less and less frequent, and larger and larger.

Then Tom turned into a lane choked with vegetation and bumpy from accumulated sand. It felt like they hadn’t gone far enough for it to be possible, but they were suddenly on the beach itself, the headlights illuminating a stretch of dry sand, then wet sand, then at last the water itself.

Tom let go of Harry's hand, leaving the car running, and got out and circled around. Harry blinked at him when he opened Harry's door and stepped back.

"The tide carries in millions of shells. By the time it's the middle of the day, or even late morning, the water has covered most of them again. And then, some beaches are better than others for finding stuff, too."

"You're into shells?" Harry asked doubtfully, then his eyes widened when he saw that, true to Tom's word, the damp part of the sand was heaped with shells, some of them enormous, in a rainbow of colors. He found himself walking ahead, avoiding his shadow so he could see.

"My grandmother," Tom explained. He stood back and Harry knew he was watching as Harry bent over and picked through a pile of broken shells to select a spiny conch with vivid fuchsia spots. The water in the little depression it left was gritty on his fingertips.Harry saw half a leggy starfish, and plenty of flat fronds of seaweed and a springy sort of sponge. The further he walked, the less the light came from the headlights, and the more it came from the moon instead. Eventually Tom was beside him again and Harry didn't complain. Where they walked on the packed sand, it wasn't a struggle in regular shoes. And the water at low tide seemed to be retreating rather than advancing, like a companion that had turned its back to allow them their privacy. Harry's heart was beating fast, and all his certainty from earlier in the day was abandoning him. Maybe he'd been done for as soon as he hugged Tom at the hospital. It had felt, in some ways, like a surrender.

He saw the gleam of something pale blue, so he bent again to find a wide shell with both halves still connected by a delicate little juncture at the base, as though the former occupant had only just slipped out for an errand, unaware the tide would take its home away. It was threaded with pale blue. Harry set down the conch in exchange and straightened with the new shell in the palm of his hand.

"Have you thought about what I said?" Tom asked.Harry blinked. He didn't look up. He knew Tom was close; it was cool out here, bathed in the sea breeze, and his body was a point of warmth that Harry hadn't realized he was conscious of til now. "I've thought about what you haven't said," he murmured, touching the interior of the shell with a fingertip. It was smooth and iridescent in contrast to the matte exterior.

Tom paused, and Harry could vividly imagine his confused frown. "What?"

Harry glanced up through his lashes, and sure enough, Tom was close, looking down at the shell but obviously preoccupied by Harry's cryptic response. His mouth didn't ever really turn down at the corners, so when he was frowning, all it really did was make a tighter line above the curve of his chin.

"You haven't apologized."Harry closed his hand loosely over the shell and started walking back toward the headlights in the distance. Tom hesitated a moment, then followed, easily closing the gap with his longer stride.

"No," he agreed. "I am sorry, though, for how you found out."

Harry jerked his head around, lips parted in shock. "That's what you're sorry about?"

Tom looked even more confused. "Well, I'm not sorry that we spent part of the summer together. I'm not sorry you had nice things that you wouldn't have bought for yourself."Harry's anger was ablaze, so much so that he clenched his fist and felt the soft pop of the shell breaking in half. For some reason, that enraged him doubly, and he threw down the two pieces and spun with every intention of punching Tom's stupid fucking face a second time, but Tom, wise to him now, widened his eyes and stepped back out of range.

"You lied to me! To get me to have sex with you!"

"Not by lying," Tom reminded him. "By bargaining."

"You fucking . . . " Harry began, and closed the distance between them in a rush too quickly for Tom to evade him again, but Tom did catch his wrist when he would have swung. They were matched for strength so they staggered against each other for a moment before Tom's height prevailed and he wrenched Harry's arm down.

"If I'd known I had my own money, I wouldn't have bargained!"

Tom grinned, maddeningly, even as they continued to wrestle against one another, legs so entangled Harry was surprised they were still on their feet.

"Whatever you say, Harry."Harry jerked his knee up and almost made hard contact, but Tom clenched his thighs at the last moment and he only managed to give Tom's balls a soft thump. It was still enough to make Tom hiss and Harry feel a brief burst of satisfaction. Tom also loosened his grip on Harry in surprise, just as Harry leaned away. Finally, gravity prevailed and they both fell in a tangled heap into the damp sand.Harry had enough experience growing up with Ron's brothers to get the advantage on the ground, so while Tom was still panting and stunned, Harry rolled him onto his front and put his knee in the small of his back, leaning hard on his shoulders.

"You don't even realize it was wrong. I swear you're a fucking . . . sociopath!"

Tom remembered to use his elbows and levered himself out of the sand, dumping Harry off and onto his right side, then rolling over him before Harry could get out of the way. He had Harry trapped under him. Harry squirmed in vain for a panicked moment, then as Tom lifted his hand toward his face, turned his head and bit him in the wrist.

"Harry! Fuck!" Tom swore, rocking back on his heels, and Harry scrambled to sit up and scoot back as well, so they faced one another, sand-covered and wide-eyed and breathing hard.

Harry realized, belatedly, that he was also just hard, and simmered in his self-loathing for a long moment while the immediate urge to claw off Tom's stupid beautiful face passed.After a long second, Harry glanced down at Tom's crotch. He couldn't help it. He couldn't see anything, it was too dark and Tom's body was in shadow, but he realized what he hoped he would see, and wet his lower lip.

Tom had been watching him intently, and dropped back to his hands, bracketing Harry's body, with a growl.

"I'm sorry you were mad," he said quietly, and Harry might have gone off again if Tom hadn't lowered his face to the crotch of Harry's jeans and mouthed at him through the fabric. "I'm sorry we haven't been together for weeks. I'm sorry I haven't gotten to do this again until now." He used his tongue, then, hot and firm through the denim. Harry fell back on his elbows with a moan."I'm sorry you weren't with me in Argentina. Every time I looked around, I thought, ‘Harry would love it here.’" He rubbed his cheek against Harry’s cock, still just through his jeans, and sucked in a breath through his nose. "God, you smell so good."

"Tom," Harry panted. "I don't . . . I don't think . . . "

"Shhh," Tom said, and eased down Harry's zipper. Harry almost sobbed when Tom's hot breath dampened the thin fabric of his briefs. The night-cold air grazed his bare hips, a shocking contrast. He pushed his hair out of his face and realized he was faintly sweaty everywhere, from emotion and exertion.Tom didn't say anything else for a while, busy laving at Harry through his underwear til the fabric was soaked. He jerked it out of the way at last and let Harry's cock bob in the open air while Tom took his balls in one at a time, rolling them on his tongue, grazing the skin of his sack with his teeth, one and then the other until Harry was so turned on they were pulled tight.

Harry had closed his eyes, but they opened instantly at the feeling of Tom's mouth, a hot, unbelievably wet sleeve, taking his cock in one long pull. He was still supporting himself on his elbows, the sand grinding painfully against his skin everywhere it touched, and above them the stars seemed so bright it hurt.

Harry came, hard and fast, with only another minute of concerted effort on Tom's part, and Tom almost jerked back, but then relaxed and swallowed, holding Harry in his mouth through each pulse, gently sucking him clean until Harry was shivering from overstimulation.

"Fuck, fuck," Harry was chanting softly. "God. Fuck."

"I want . . . " Tom said, sounding hoarse and on-edge, his hands gripping Harry's thighs tightly as he sat back up. "I want to fuck you. Can I . . . " His belt was already rattling. Harry, drunk on lust and starlight, almost didn't object. Then his brain caught up with his body and he sat up, somehow.

"No," he said, and Tom looked up through tousled bangs, his eyes bright as an animal's, his hand on his cock halfway out of his jeans, stiff and pale and startling in size. Harry felt a second wave of arousal, like he was coming again just at the sight. "Yes. Yeah. Want you to,” he breathed.Tom's lips parted in relief, and he leaned in fast and impulsive to kiss Harry, his mouth wet and swollen and salty from Harry's cock and come. Harry got a handful of his hair and held their faces together for an extra moment, then let Tom pull back. His hands fell at once to the waistband of Harry's jeans and gave them a firm jerk, and Harry winced at the feeling of the sand on his arse.

"Not . . . not here," he panted, looking helplessly around, then seeing the headlights. But it seemed too far away. Tom pulled his shirt over his head and spread it on the sand. Harry laughed, rough and low. "Okay. Yeah. Okay." He was almost sorry that Tom didn't want his mouth. He felt hungry for him in a way that he didn't remember from the times before.

Tom lifted Harry by the hips and arranged him over the scant protection of his shirt, then pulled his jeans past his knees. He was quivering with excitement, and though Harry couldn't see his face very well, he saw the way his stomach was taut, his muscles standing out on his arms. Harry lifted himself enough to lick one tight, bare nipple, and Tom swore.

"I don't . . . I don't have any fucking lube," Tom realized aloud, even as he pushed back Harry's thighs and swept a quaking hand up the cleft of his ass. The passing touch on Harry's hole made him want it, in a way he never had. In most of his fantasies, Harry was the one thrusting into Tom, but he suddenly saw the appeal of the reverse."Wh-what about . . . " Harry said, then couldn't think of how to say it, so he reached between them and pressed the tip of Tom's cock against the space between his thighs, then clamped down.

"Fuck. Fuck, yes," Tom said, startled out of breath, and pushed Harry's knees back further so he was braced half-over him. Harry's inner thighs were already slippery with sweat, but it wouldn't last long. Tom spat into his hand, pulled out and wet his cock, then shoved it back through the gap in Harry's thighs. With Harry's back curled and his ass lifted half off the ground, he felt Tom's shaft stroke his perineum, the way his balls, so heavy they were hard to fit in Harry's mouth, connected to his ass with a soft slap.It took only a few seconds and Harry got hard again imagining that Tom was in his ass instead of between his legs. That he was feeling the force of each thrust inside him. He grasped Tom's straining thighs and dug in his nails. Even without penetration, the position felt shamefully good. Being under Tom, letting him fuck Harry how he liked, should have set Harry's teeth on edge but instead it felt deliriously good, and the feeling soared to new heights when Tom came between Harry's legs, on his cock and his stomach.

They rolled onto their sides, the sand making Tom wince, and Harry laughed. "Tell me about it." The shirt was bunched under his hips and he didn't want to know how long his skin was going to sting from the burn of the sand. But before he could worry more than a moment, he felt Tom's hand close around his cock and writhed a bit at the feeling. "I can't," he whimpered.

Tom continued to stroke him, slowly and firmly. Harry bit his lip. With his other hand, Tom reached out to brush the come from Harry's navel, then around to slick Harry's hole with it.

"Next time," Tom said, pressing his fingertip past Harry's rim without preamble, and Harry came again, with a quiet sob, practically dry. Tom caught the dribble in his hand.They walked back to the car, Tom shaking out his shirt, Harry hugging himself. When they got there, Tom opened Harry's door, and leaned in. Harry froze, and before he could turn his head, Tom had kissed him. But he sensed Harry's stillness and after their lips had brushed the barest amount, he pulled back enough to look Harry in the eye.

"What?"

"Nothing," Harry mumbled, and ducked into the car. Tom stood outside his door for a long moment, while Harry stubbornly faced forward, buckling his seat belt. Then Tom slammed the door harder than strictly necessary and circled around to his seat. He slid in, rested his hands on the steering wheel, and breathed in through his nose."You're still pretending like there's some reason we shouldn't be together."

Harry fought the urge to argue about the semantics. A direct response would be best. He was learning this about Tom. "There are a lot of reasons," he said, as gently as he could. "I don't want to talk about this when your dad just . . . "

"Don't make an excuse," Tom snapped, turning to face Harry. His mask was back on, except that now, his face was flushed and his mouth was red from everything he'd been doing with Harry.

"Fine," Harry said as calmly as he could. "I don't want to talk about this when we've just fucked. It . . . confuses things."

Tom took another breath, then put the car in reverse. For a moment Harry thought they wouldn't break loose from the sand, but Tom switched on the four-wheel drive and the SUV bumped off the beach the way it had come.

The drive felt very long. When they got to Sirius', Tom pulled up to the curb and didn't move. Neither did Harry, at first.

"Let's just give each other some space," Harry mumbled eventually. It sounded lame as fuck, even to him. Tom turned his face toward his window.

"We'll talk tomorrow."

If he hadn't just come twice, and if he wasn't itchy with come and sand, and if he hadn't gone roughly twenty-four hours without sleep, Harry definitely would have argued. Instead he just opened the door and got out. The SUV didn't move, he noticed, until he had unlocked the garage door and gone in.As it turned out, they didn't speak the next day, or the next. Harry was waiting for any of Tom's typical, overbearing behaviors, but he only received a few texts that felt cursory. The standard demands Harry remembered from early in the summer: where Harry was and what he had done that day. Like after-the-fact surveillance. It didn't even bother him now. He responded obediently, but didn't offer anything he wasn't asked for. And he felt faintly disappointed as one day and then another passed without a call or catching sight of Tom. He was coming so early for his rides that even Harry, on his early schedule, missed him. He found Tom's stallion groomed and his tack sweat-damp. The stallion's halter was consistently left carelessly on the ground by his stall, and Harry picked it up every time and thought, despite his irritation at the mistreatment of the equipment, that it was nice to know Tom had just been there.

The problem was that Harry was probably in love with Tom, if that's what it meant to hope that someone was happy and well, wherever they were, and to want to see them smiling whether they were with or without you. And also to miss them, constantly, and to want to fuck them or let them fuck you, it didn't really matter which, so long as they were panting in your ear how much they liked how you felt and smelled . . .

Yeah, love. Probably. Harry wished he had never felt it, but now that he had there was no real use denying it. When Tom called, Harry decided he'd tell him. Or maybe when Harry finally managed to bump into him at the barn. Until then he'd try to come to terms with this new information about himself.

On Friday morning, Harry came downstairs at his usual early hour and found Sirius at the breakfast table, to his surprise.

"Hey, Harry," Sirius said softly, switching on the lamp by the table. "I need to tell you something."Harry paused on the stairs. "What?"

Sirius reached out to pull out the chair next to his and Harry came forward slowly, his throat tight with dread. "Is it Ron or Hermione?"

"No," Sirius said at once. "No." He kept his hand on the back of the chair, and when Harry sat down, he moved it to his shoulder.

"Sirius, you’re scaring me.".

Sirius rubbed a hand over his mouth, nodding. "Yeah, best to just tell you. It looks like there was some sort of break-in at the Riddles' house back home."

"Oh, shit," Harry said. "Like a robbery?" Benjamin and Eleanor had taken Thomas home after he was discharged so he could recover in a familiar place. "Were they home? Are they . . . they're okay?"

Sirius slowly shook his head. "No. Or, yes—they were all home—Ben, Eleanor, and Thomas. And they . . . they were killed, Harry."

He stared at Sirius, his ears starting to ring, and Sirius' hand tightened on his shoulder.

"They were shot, and it sounds like it was—quick."

"Oh, my God," Harry said, the words sounding loud in his ears, where his pulse was pounding. "Oh, my God. Does Tom . . . he knows . . . ?"

"Lucius is looking for him. He goes out really early to ride. But . . . "

Harry shoved back his chair and dug in his pocket for his phone. No battery. Fuck. He'd left it off the charger all night, he remembered now.

"This is a family matter, Harry, we should let them deal with it," Sirius said quietly.

"I'm . . . he's . . . " Harry stammered, all the blood in his head seeming to make his thoughts swirl, unclear. "I need to be there for him," he finally managed.

Sirius searched his face, then gave a hesitant nod. "Okay, then." He nodded toward the door. "I'll drive you."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

(almost) five years later
It was a bright, slightly cool afternoon, the kind that made everything look like emerald and gold on the course. In the distance, the jutting mountains were faintly snowcapped, but that was the only sign the summer wouldn't last forever. Harry leaned down to double-check the girth extension, and while he was there, stroked Hedwig's shoulder, rubbing right at the junction of her neck the way she liked. She arched her neck and wiggled her upper lip, tilting her head so that she could see him with her right eye, dark and steady as always."You ready, girl?" he murmured, and she looked ahead, as though in answer. The horse ahead of them came out of the gate. Harry casually knew the rider, so they exchanged friendly nods. She’d had a decent round, except for the novelty jump at the end, which her horse had refused the first time, costing her precious seconds. Though the misstep didn’t knock her entirely from the running because half the horses had done the same thing, if they hadn’t jumped shallow and knocked it.Harry let Hedwig saunter in at a walk. Pansy said that fans liked the contrast in her temperament and literally every other competitor, which would come in prancing or at minimum a bold trot.Sure enough, Harry had the crowd’s attention and not just because this would be the last ride of the contest. He gathered the reins with a grin and sat up to ask her to canter off.She departed like her legs had springs, so Harry was grinning wider still as they made their pass in front of the grandstand.The announcer called out, "Next is fan favorite, Harry Potter, riding Snowy Lady, an eleven-year-old Dutch Warmblood mare. Potter and his 'horse with wings' have the lead in the first two phases and expectations for their performance in the jump-off here at the Colorado Horse Park couldn't be higher."Hedwig was light as air but felt powerful, too, like she was as fresh for the challenge as Harry. It was probably more the weather and the crowd, but Harry also felt, as usual, Hedwig was demonstrating how she was very much more than just a horse. Particularly when he gave her rein to lengthen and got into two-point position, crouched closer to her neck and lifting himself from the saddle, bearing his weight on his thighs. She powered gracefully past the starting timer and ran steady to the first fence.It was perfect. Hedwig, of course, never rushed, but today she didn't need to be pushed out of the jumps or even encouraged through the single-stride line where Minerva had, two years ago, promised Harry he would eventually need spurs to manage her. Instead she handled herself with absolute perfection, as though Harry's presence wasn't even required.(Later, he'd watch a recording of the televised version, where the commentators said:"Fabulous round so far from Potter! But he's closing in on the obstacle that's given everyone trouble this morning, the Duchevny Jewels novelty jump. It's so narrow that even the scopiest horses have struggled to line up.""That's right, but we all saw the YouTube video where Potter jumped this horse over a single chair at a hand gallop in open turf. I'm not worried.")In fact, Hedwig found her center easily over the diamond-shaped penultimate obstacle and blazed into a turn so tight Harry almost lost his balance, but she adjusted to compensate for him with one stride of subtle half-pass that made him want to cry with love for her."Here we are, Hedwig," Harry breathed, more for himself than to her since the wind was whipping past them and would surely steal his voice. But one silver ear tipped back and she seemed to hear, dropping her head and picking up speed toward the last fence, a big narrow double oxer with a heavy log base that had two wrestling bears carved into the wood.Everything was perfect. They landed, crossed the finish line a full second ahead of the leading time, and the crowd erupted. Harry slung his arms around Hedwig's neck and she came to a standstill as though she hadn't been running her heart out a second before, then turned her head around and licked his elbow. The crowd cheered harder (and the photographer Pansy had hired neatly captured the moment).Very reluctantly, Harry let someone else walk out his horse so he could slide out of the saddle and talk to the reporters. There was a gaggle of them, outside the arena and behind a feeble little barrier made of plastic flags on a string. Harry was still breathing hard. He pulled off his helmet, wondering if Pansy would yell at him for it later because the manufacturer was a sponsor. Harry shook back his hair, brushing sweat off his forehead with his wrist, grinning without effort. Sometimes answering all the questions was hard, but the adrenaline flooding through his system made it easy.“Great ride, Harry,” said a blogger in the front Harry almost considered a friend.“Thanks, Paul,” he said, smiling back. They’d met in Wellington three years earlier, long before Paul was covering classes Harry was a part of.“Can you tell us a little bit about your horse and how she felt out there?”Somehow, Harry smiled harder.(Later, the YouTube comment with the most upvotes would read, Find someone who smiles like this when a reporter asks them about you.)“She was just fantastic. She always is, and still I’m amazed by how she just shows up at every fence with a level head and so much trust. I’m so lucky to ride her. She makes me look good, no matter what.”"Harry," called a reporter in the back of the crowd, "How are things going with Tom?"Harry's smile dimmed immediately. Then he cleared his throat and tried to force it back. "I don't like to talk about my personal life," he said as politely as he could manage. "Is there anything else? If not, I owe my horse about a dozen carrots."The groom brought Hedwig back around and Harry stuck his helmet back on for the win photos, mounting back up a moment before Minerva came running out and squeezed his knee. "So proud of you," she mouthed, and Harry ducked his head.(In the media box set up for the video broadcast, where no one at the live event could hear, the commentators speculated about the World Equestrian Games."So, does this lock Harry and his winged horse in for next year's US Equestrian Team? It's a big year for the US going into the Olympic season, with tight scores in the upper rankings for eventing. But there's no one more likely to garner viewership and this victory is the third in a row for the pair.""You know, it's all going to come down to whether anyone is willing to take a risk on Potter after what happened last year.")The pictures were a challenge as always, Hedwig being bored by now and ready for her stall. Therefore, no number of squeaky toys or angled mirrors from the photographer's assistant could get her to look alert and prick her ears. Finally, Minerva wiggled a treat in front of her nose surreptitiously, and with a quick snap the photographer captured her looking, at least, not half-asleep.Harry walked her back to the barn himself, as he always did, and things quieted down considerably the further he got from the arena. Back at the barns there were mostly just grooms walking horses, and a couple of do-it-yourself riders like Harry who gave him half-waves of congratulations. Harry looped the reins over his forearm and rubbed the sweet spot in Hedwig's shoulder constantly as they walked. She stretched out her neck, luxuriating in it and making Harry smile, lovesick, the whole way."What do you think about that team, girl?" he asked her quietly, and she tipped an ear toward him, a good listener even if it was all gibberish to her. "Want to go to Rio?"When Harry reached the barn where they were stabled, he saw a figure in the shadows, leaning up against the wall. He slowed down and Hedwig lifted her head at the sight. Then, recognizing the silhouette before Harry, her ears went straight forward and her eyes grew bright. The photographer would have been ecstatic. She curled up her lip and let out a low nicker, and the person stepped forward into the light a moment after Harry realized who it had to be."Tom," he murmured, pleased despite himself. "I thought you weren't gonna make it."Harry was long past being annoyed that Hedwig seemed to like Tom just as much as anyone. He always kept those expensive oatmeal horse cookies in his pockets, so she couldn't be blamed. He was wearing his "blending in" attire: jeans, a henley, minimal product in his hair. He also needed a shave, which was a rare sight. Harry was so surprised, he didn't see Tom leaning in to kiss him until it was too late to decide whether to allow it. He could only stand there and feel the brief, warm pressure of Tom's mouth and the faint rasp of his chin. Harry was reluctantly intrigued.Tom slipped Hedwig's reins from Harry's hands. Harry let him. She followed him into the barn happily, bobbing her head and audibly crunching her second cookie. Harry watched them go. Tom must have flown in privately after the senate hearing. Harry had watched it, the video choppy on his phone, not that it mattered since there was a transcript being updated nearly in real-time, too, on the Riddle Family Foundation website. Harry had been able to see Tom looking undeniably perfect in what had to be a brand new suit, standing at the podium with that careless ease that commanded attention. Attention that was getting increasingly intense.
“My father always told me that the first taste was too much. By the time he took the first prescribed dose of his opioid with instructions to self-administer, his life as he knew it was over. He just hadn't realized it yet. That's how I know that passing this law will save lives. In the end, it wasn't his addiction that killed my father, but that was because he was one of the lucky ones. Lucky to have tremendous resources, lucky to have parents devoted to his recovery. He always recognized that. He always said it takes more than willpower and we're all one bad roll of the dice from disaster. In his memory, I want to remind you what power you wield over the future of so many people, how you can protect hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lives with one simple law."
Tom had become famous for unfortunate reasons after the story of his family broke. The media loved the movie-star handsome, orphaned billionaire kid. Tom had hated it at first but, being Tom, learned how to use the tool he was handed instead of letting it work only against him. He’d cultivated his renown and now, when the average person saw his picture or heard his name, his dedication to the opioid crisis was their first association rather than the grisly triple-murder of his family.Harry walked into the barn and said without thinking, "So, have they voted?"Tom had pulled off Hedwig's saddle and set it on a rack. He turned slowly back toward Harry with a faint smile. "So you've been following it?"Harry sucked in a breath, but since he was caught, he didn't try to backpedal. "Of course," he said, shrugging. "I also, um, read about the hearing.""Did you?" Tom asked evenly. He took a curry comb from the grooming box and began working it over Hedwig's coat, starting just behind her ears. She leaned against the cross ties to cock her head in his direction pointedly, and he paused to fish out another cookie and give it to her."Yeah, I heard it went well. Like, the testimony was very effective.""The hearing was this morning.""Yeah.""There’s barely been any coverage. Someone would have to be pretty determined to find it. Especially someone who was preparing for a huge day in his career."Harry rolled his eyes, slouching back against the wall on the opposite side of Hedwig from Tom. "Fine. I read the transcripts on the Foundation web site. And..." he looked down at his foot and scuffed the sole of his boot over the floor, “...I watched the live stream on my phone. But only because I needed a distraction."Tom set down the brush and folded his arms over Hedwig's back, then set his chin on his wrist. Harry didn't have to look directly at him to know how smug he must be. "And was I? Distracting?"Harry had this thing he was trying, where he refused to let Tom make him feel shy, so he lifted his head and met his stare dead-on. He hadn't been fully prepared for the full effect of the soft hair and the stubble, though, so he just swallowed hard instead of saying anything.Tom's smile faded. He straightened up, walked around Hedwig with a hand over her haunches, then closed in on Harry with intent, solemn eyes."Are we still fighting?" He came in close. Harry's hands were still against the wall and his feet just far enough apart Tom could step in and put his between them. He reached out and slowly placed his hands on Harry's hips. Harry felt his breath ruffling Harry's hair. "I don't know," Harry murmured, refusing to reach out in turn, though his hands practically itched to do it. "Do you still want me to give up everything that's important to me and move to a disgusting city?"Tom refused to be baited. He tightened his grip on Harry's hips and tugged gently so their bodies were flush. Harry closed his eyes and inhaled Tom's smell helplessly. He'd missed him. Even though he was selfish and conniving, he was also the one who knew Harry best, for better or worse. Who carried Hedwig's favorite treats in the pocket of his designer jeans."Is this the right place? It said Barn Two, right?""No, I think that's an eight..."Tom stepped away immediately, startled by Hermione and Ron's voices. Harry let out a harsh breath, not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed, and put both of his hands to his head so he could tug on his hair. He grimaced when he realized it was still faintly damp with sweat. "Hey, guys," he said in a tone that was falsely cheerful even to his own ears. "Right here."As soon as he had stepped toward Hedwig, it was easy to see Ron and Hermione coming up the path. They grinned at the sight of him, then a moment later, they must have caught sight of Tom. Ron's face underwent a slow transition from openly excited to devious fascination, and he stole a glance of his own, sidelong, at Hermione to see her reaction.Hermione hadn't stopped in her tracks, but she did look the way Harry imagined Hedwig would if someone forgot her cookies — or at least her carrots — after a winning round. Shock. Disappointment. The things Harry hated most to see; he'd always prefer anger but Hermione had grown out of that long ago. Then she recovered."And Tom. Hi." Her mouth twisted and then she sighed and added, grudgingly, "Great job in the senate hearing this morning."Tom had stepped up beside Harry with his hands casually in his pockets. "Thanks, Hermione. How have you been?""Everything's been fine," she said stiffly. "That's good to hear. And you, Ron?"It was still strange hearing Tom call them by their first names without a hint of mockery. If his heart hadn't been in his throat, Harry might have been fascinated by watching them interact. Ron was visibly torn between his basic fondness for Tom and his loyalty to Hermione, as well as his grudging agreement with Hermione that, technically, Tom was Not Good for Harry."I've been alright, Tom. I graduated this year, so I'm enjoying the hell out of my summer anyway." He saw Hermione frowning at him and cleared his throat. "Starting a Master's at Missou, but I'm not sure why." Hermione's frown deepened and he grinned. "I expect it's because a Bachelor's Degree is meaningless.""That's what I've been telling Harry," Tom said coolly. Hermione's eyes narrowed and her mouth opened. Harry, too concerned about his friends' reactions to remember his own anger, was inordinately grateful to Ron when he said smoothly, "Well, unlike the rest of us, Harry already has a job."Hermione and Tom stared at Ron. Harry laughed, feeling like a line of tension that had been tugging tighter and tighter since he spotted Tom in the barn aisle had finally snapped. "Before you guys bite each other's heads off, are we going to dinner?""I don't think so. I've got an early flight." Hermione folded her arms."It's only two," Harry reminded her, frowning, but she was already backing away with a furrowed brow. She caught his eye and smiled briefly."You guys should catch up. Congratulations, Harry. I'm so happy for you." She hugged him with one arm, gave a little wave, looked at Ron and jerked her head meaningfully back in the other direction."Amazing job, Har. We'll see you at Thanksgiving?" Ron gave Harry's shoulder a squeeze, then shook him gently. "That was really cool, man, and you know if I think so it was really something. I barely know the front from the back. No offense, Hedwig," he added. She was dozing and didn't notice.That left Tom and Harry alone once more. Harry walked past him to finish brushing Hedwig, and Tom stayed in the open doorway. It had an overhead door that was thrown all the way open, and the view was surprisingly good, considering Harry didn't think anyone had built the barns, of all things, with that requirement in mind. Then again, it was hard to find a bad view here in the foothills. Everything had the backdrop of the bigger mountains, buffered by curving green hills.“You really love it up here," Tom said eventually. He had one hand on his hip, one knee cocked. His shirt was hiked up on one side so Harry could see exactly what the cut of the seat of his jeans did for his ass. He sighed to himself."Yep," Harry said. He had stopped assuming Tom's questions were ever rhetorical. He always wanted an answer and silence didn't count.Harry took Hedwig's quilts and wraps from the wooden trunk in front of her stall then knelt by her right foreleg and rolled the first one into place so it covered her snugly from knee to fetlock. He heard Tom walk up beside him, and without looking away from his task, Harry held up a second one. Tom took it, went to Hedwig's other side and went to work on the opposite leg."So, the vote?" Harry asked, squinting at Tom under Hedwig's barrel. Tom glanced up at him and smiled. "They think it'll happen tonight. Jones says it looks really positive, but I guess we won't know til we know."Harry wanted to tell Tom that his family would have been proud, but comments like that weren't well-received in his experience, so he only offered a small smile in return, meaning it. "That's really great."When they were done, Harry unsnapped Hedwig's cross ties so he could put her in her stall. Someone had carefully raked it and added bedding, and she plunged happily into the fluffy wood shavings. As she stirred them up a pleasant pine scent rose out of them. Harry watched her dig around a while before she had things to her liking, and went to the hay net hanging in the corner. There wasn't much there, just enough to keep her busy until later in the evening, when she'd be walked and fed again.When he came back out, Tom had his hands back in his pockets and a curious look on his face that went away when he saw Harry looking, before Harry could quite figure out what it meant. "Are you going back to Boulder tonight?"Harry shook his head. "No. I don't have class Monday, so I'm going to stay over here then drive back to Longmont with Hedwig. I left my car there.""But I could drive you," Tom said. A year ago, it would have been I'll drive you, so Harry hesitated before telling him 'no.'Tom was trying. He was getting better. Every time Harry thought he could be truly done with Tom, Tom showed back up and Harry realized he was kidding himself. But he also knew from long and exhausting experience that if he made things too easy for Tom, he could expect to have the exact same arguments on a loop. If he made things difficult for Tom, they might only have to have them once every six or eight months.So instead of relenting immediately, Harry shook his head. "I'd like to make sure she gets off the trailer okay.""Oh." Harry could tell it took some effort for him not to argue. Then he said shortly, "It's up to you what you do. If you want to stay out here, I understand. Things are really taking off with Hedwig, and you still have a semester left in Boulder." He glanced up at Harry. His hair needed a trim. That errant curl was half over his eye, and it did horrible things to Harry's emotional resilience. "But can I ask that we just talk about it, after you graduate?"Harry paused for a long moment, but his answer was an easy one. "Yeah. We can do that."They looked at one another again, Tom searching, Harry worrying his lip. Then Harry added, "I have my own room at the hotel. If you want."Tom's expression didn't change. He nodded a little more quickly than could be considered aloof, though, and when Harry started out of the barn and their hands brushed together, Harry wove his fingers through Tom's and squeezed.The drive to the hotel was quiet. Harry murmured directions, but mostly kept his head leaned back on the seat and let himself enjoy the way Tom’s hand rested with casual ease on his knee. The day was still all sunshine and cool air from what Harry could tell. He’d won an A-rated show. He was going to force Ron to go whitewater rafting the following afternoon before he drove back to Kansas City. Tom was there.Yeah, it was a good day.The hotel was pretty nice. Pansy had gotten Harry a great deal in exchange for putting the hotel logo in the bottom right corner of a page on his website. Tom kept his head slightly downturned as they walked through the lobby. Harry didn’t bother, but he was almost never recognized when he was more than five miles from a barn and this was no exception. No one took more than passing notice of them as they got on the elevator.Finally Tom broke the silence. Or rather, his ringing cell phone did. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen, a line in his brow.Harry watched closely, biting the inside of his cheek. Tom looked up and grinned.“It passed. By a landslide.”Harry forgot the awkwardness in his excitement. He whooped, dropped his messenger bag and leapt on Tom, who caught him around the waist so tightly he didn't make it all the way back down to his feet, poised instead on his toes. And they were kissing, because that's how these moments always ended with them. If their faces got close, they snapped together like magnets. It was a hypothesis Harry had explored carefully over the years and it never failed. Right now Tom's kiss was warm and sweet, half-chaste, and Harry felt his smile even as Tom took advantage of the opportunity to slip one hand under Harry's shirt and squeeze the side of his waist, his long thumb digging into the soft place just above Harry's hip."I'm gross," Harry said weakly, pulling back far enough to speak. Tom bent his head and kissed him again, nipping his lower lip."You smell like a horse," he agreed, and nuzzled against Harry's cheek. "But I like horses."Harry laughed and they broke apart as the elevator doors slid open and a few older women filed in, giving them knowing smiles that made Harry blush, horrified, grab his bag and bolt. Tom followed at a leisurely pace, unbothered, and Harry stayed a few steps ahead until he got to the room. Tom caught him around the waist again while he was looking for the key in his wallet."It's the middle of the afternoon," Harry observed while Tom nudged him up against the closed door and put one knee between Harry's."Then no one should be around to complain," was Tom's answer, but Harry shoved him back and fended him off with his elbow while he got the door open and let them inside."I'm going to shower," Harry said, and when Tom started to leer he added, "alone."Harry hurried through his shower as much as possible, considering he had to do some creative prep. He owned the kind of stuff you could take with you when you traveled, but he hardly ever bothered. He and Tom could happily get by with oral and handjobs in a pinch, anyway.But this felt like a special occasion and he wished he had his stuff. He’d only really brought and used it all twice — the two times that Tom had taken him on vacations, which also happened to be the past two summers. He remembered a year ago, the peerless white sand of a private Mexican beach off a small bay, how the sheltered, shallow water was full of coral, turtles and fish. The year before that was Hawaii, hiking in the mountains and, memorably, eating in a restaurant built up into the trees where you could practically reach out and pick fresh fruit from your seat.Those big gestures made Harry deeply uneasy, though. Though he finally had some money of his own through training horses and endorsements, the amount Tom could spend thoughtlessly still boggled his mind and it could be difficult to enjoy it without being distracted by trying to mentally put a price tag on everything. Somehow this surprise, Tom simply showing up, felt more special than the way they'd marked the last two summers combined.He got out of the shower at last, the mirror foggy, making him wonder if he'd been in there longer than he'd meant to be, and dried off hastily. He slung the towel around his hips, figuring there wasn't much use bothering with clothes, and went out into the room with a smile.Tom was sitting on the bed, propped up against the pillows, his head slumped to one side, fast asleep. He hadn't even gotten around to removing his shoes.If Harry knew Tom — and though he still wasn't sure sometimes, for the most part he thought he did — then he'd been up most of the night before, if not most of the week, preparing for the hearing testimony. Then he'd gotten directly on a plane to see Harry ride. He had to be exhausted. In fact it seemed obvious to Harry, suddenly, that there were bruises under his eyes and that he looked a little hollow in his cheeks, as he did when he wasn't eating enough.Harry leaned against the wall, thoughts turning back on the loop they’d been stuck in for weeks. A part of Harry wanted to move to New York with Tom. Of course he did. He wanted to make sure Tom ate and slept and smiled at least once a day. But the idea of the city also made Harry feel faintly ill. Who would he be there? What was he supposed to do to wile away the hours — and hours, and hours — when Tom wasn't around? He imagined having to commute two hours to a barn with decent pasture, and shuddered. Not only for the pain of traveling that much day in and out, but also being that far from the horses if something went wrong.Harry realized, now that the thrill of having Tom show up had settled in, that he too was exhausted. It was a combination of the aftermath of all the nerves leading up to the hearing and the show, and the bone-deep contentment that he had everything he wanted, at least for a moment. He yawned so hard his jaw cracked, then drew the curtains, casting the room in deep shadow.He tugged off Tom's shoes, tucked himself under Tom's arm, and was asleep in what felt like a second.When Harry woke up, the room was pitch dark, and Tom wasn't in the bed. Harry reached stretched an arm out beside him and encountered only empty mattress. He propped himself up on one elbow and frowned into the darkness, blinking until the bare amount of light edging from beneath the curtains created vague shapes, one of which was unmistakably Tom. He was standing halfway between the bed and the window, still fully clothed except for his shoes from what Harry could make out. And he was holding Harry's crop.How did you even snag that from the barn? Harry wanted to ask, but his ability to speak had left him entirely, the way it did when Tom was like this. He'd fallen asleep with the towel still wrapped around him, but now it was mostly loose. He rolled over and kicked it off his legs, shivering at the feeling of being abruptly uncovered. His mouth felt hot and wet, but he still didn't say anything, just moved back onto his stomach and rested his cheek on his folded hands, looking at Tom.The light was behind Tom, which meant what little there was would be pooling on Harry, making it easier for Tom to see him than it was for Harry to see Tom. He wondered what he looked like. He really didn't feel comfortable with video but he'd let Tom take a few pictures of him now and again. Though he mostly trusted Tom to keep them from going on the Internet, Harry drew the line at full frontal nudity just to be safe. But he had been surprised by the way they made him look. He thought it was because Tom took them that it seemed like the camera too saw Harry in a different way than anyone else did. In a way that was beautiful. There was one like this. Harry ready for the crop, waiting for it. He looked lean, long, pale except for the hair on his head and the shadow of body hair on the backs of his calves, his forearms and in the crux of his thighs.They were long past the early days when he'd craved and feared the crop, and now the sight of it made him feel like all the tension in his body and mind unspooled. He'd already been halfway there, falling asleep so tired and high on victory and the surprise of Tom's presence, not to mention his relief and pleasure that Tom had been the one to negotiate the end of their argument. Harry was already halfway to that dreamy place that the crop sent him, faster than ever, as though someone had injected a sedative right in his vein.Tom came toward the bed and reached out so the crop touched Harry's shoulder, then fell into the groove of his spine. He traced a path all the way down to the small of Harry’s back. Harry shuddered pleasantly at the feeling and wet his lips. He couldn't see Tom's face, but he felt Tom's stare like a weight. He knew he was looking at Harry and he'd seen the expression often enough to picture it exactly. He would look hungry, almost reverent. The first time and even the second, third, and fourth time Tom looked at him like that, it had terrified Harry, and also made him wonder if he'd only imagined it all. Now he trusted it. There were plenty of things about Tom he didn't trust at all, but his feelings for Harry were no longer among them."Ten?" Tom asked. His voice was clear and low like a bell in the silent room. Harry started to get hard; it took effort not to squirm. He shook his head infinitesimally. Tom cocked his head, still only a silhouette to Harry, but his approving smile was evident in the shift in tone when he asked, more softly, "Twenty?"Harry didn't move, except to tremble, and Tom tapped the crop once against his right buttock."Answer.""Twenty," Harry said, his voice already wrecked. He swallowed, circling his hips the slightest bit against the mattress, which was too soft and yielding to offer much more than frustration, yet he was somehow still full and getting harder. It had been too long since they'd done this.Tom struck him. Harry never anticipated the first hit, and this time was no exception. It made him flinch. The first one always did. The feeling was more of a sting and shock than real pain. Harry had never wanted anything more than that, and if Tom did, he hadn't asked for it. But still, the hurt was real, and Harry's throat closed over a grunt as Tom settled into his rhythm and painted Harry carefully from the curve of his ass down to the juncture of his thighs.Harry was in deep by the time Tom's last lash striped his perineum. He moaned, wishing he'd put a condom on since he was definitely messing up the hotel bed, leaking onto his stomach and the duvet.Tom dropped the crop and put his hands on Harry in that overwhelming, gentling way he had. Slow, soft circles on his back, his thighs, a tiny kiss on his tailbone and then, sidling up beside him so he was stretched out on his side while Harry stayed on his stomach, face turned toward him, Tom kissed his mouth.He lingered there so that they were kissing between Harry's deep, elevated breaths, his face finally so close that Harry could see his eyes, which seemed enormous and dark, nearly black. Harry's ass was burning perfectly and his endorphins were surging, but his cock was insistent. Sometimes, he didn't even get hard under the crop. It wasn't really about sex, or at least not anymore. But it had also been weeks since he and Tom had fucked. His right hand wasn't quite the same. Yet he couldn't quite assemble the words he needed to ask for it. His brain was still syrupy."What do you want?" Tom murmured, lifting Harry's chin with his knuckles and kissing his cheek. "Should I fuck you?" He swept his other hand over Harry's hair, gentle, and then let it rest on the nape of his neck.Harry's brow furrowed with the effort of putting words together. "Wanna see you," he managed eventually.Tom's mouth quirked into a fond smile. "You can't ride me, baby. You're too out of it. And your ass is a mess." His look turned smug.Harry felt so indignant, his mind cleared enough he blinked and frowned, lifting his head determinedly. "I can," he muttered. "Lie down."Tom smirked, raising a brow, but obligingly shimmied out of his trousers and scooted up toward the headboard. He was hard, the outline obscene in his underwear, which were a light color, surprising Harry who was used to him wearing black.Harry tried to conceal his wince when he levered himself up onto his hands and knees and sent a fresh wave of sensation from his ass to his fingers, toes, and the ends of his hair, but it wasn't unpleasant. He crawled up determinedly between Tom's sprawled legs, too impatient to do anything but jerk his underwear out of the way. He was halfway toward putting his mouth on Tom on simple impulse, but he felt too eager to have Tom inside, so he just held him firmly while he got into position, straddling Tom's hips with thighs which felt watery and weak."Okay there?" Tom cupped his left cheek with a grin. "Want to admit defeat?"Harry's eyes narrowed and his grip tightened until he heard the soft, satisfying sound of Tom's breath hitching. "No. Lube?"Tom held up a hand, and in it he had a little packet of lube and a condom. Harry tilted his head."What a gentleman."Tom chuckled and eased his hand between them, replacing Harry's with his own as he rolled on the rubber and slicked himself. Harry bit his lip impatiently, then sucked in a startled breath when Tom's slippery fingers went between his legs, over his cleft and circled his hole.Harry tried not to think about the whole condom thing. It was an argument he didn't really understand well enough to want to repeat. His own objections made him feel paranoid. Besides, he was panting and dizzy with excitement, and when Tom lined himself up and lowered his left hand to Harry's trembling thigh to signal he could ease down, he wasn't thinking about anything but the perfect stretch and the way his clenching muscles set his ass on fire again."God," he said after he'd taken half Tom's cock in a very slow, determined pace. His thighs were shaking and the combination of pain, pleasure, and nerves had his head spinning."You're doing great," Tom breathed, stroking Harry's sides. "Look at you. God, you feel perfect. Harry."Harry swallowed and sank down the rest of the way out of necessity more than anything; he didn't think his straining muscles could hold him. He was still tired from the course, and the lethargy of the crop and, god damn it, Tom was right. He wasn't fit to ride a stick horse let alone Tom's cock. Still, he was too stubborn to say so, grinding down onto Tom and delighting in Tom's stuttered breaths and the hint of a moan."Baby, baby," Tom said, soft and harsh, almost a gasp. "Let me. Okay? Let me."Harry wasn't even sure what Tom meant, but he could hardly argue at this point. He leaned over Tom's chest, the changing angle making him whimper, and then realized what Tom had meant. He slowly pulled up Harry's knees, then lifted his own hips, fucking into Harry from below."God," Harry moaned. Tom's collarbones felt sharp, biteable, but Harry didn't have the energy to do more than mouth at him. "Tom.""You feel so good. Amazing. Fuck." Tom's words quickly trailed away into pants as he put his all into the demands of the position; Harry felt his straining abs and shoulders, feeling delightfully boneless and passive in contrast. In this position, Tom’s abs, hard under his shirt, ground against his cock with every thrust. Harry came without warning, in a rush of bliss that knocked him the rest of the way out of himself into a floating, distant otherwhere.He was only vaguely aware of Tom murmuring in his ear, slipping out of him and easing Harry onto his side, one leg hanging off the bed. Tom lifted his other leg, put one knee against the edge of the mattress and finished himself off just like that. The angle was shallow but Tom made up for it with a brutal pace. Harry thought with irritation he was going to feel every step he took tomorrow and shouldn't plan on sitting down if he could avoid it.Asshole, Harry thought with intense affection.Tom cleaned him up. He was always very diligent about that. And since Harry had mostly come on Tom's chest, the bed didn't have to be stripped before Tom would stop whining about sleeping in it, so they settled in for the rest of the night a minute or so later, to Harry's relief.He worked his way up against Tom's side and Tom rolled toward him so they were chest to chest. Harry leaned his forehead against Tom's sternum and inhaled deeply."You're always smelling me," Tom said in the tone of someone complaining, but Harry knew better."I'm smelling us," Harry said, vaguely aware that he wasn't making sense. Tom didn't say anything for a long moment, stroking Harry's back. He kissed his hair, then left his mouth there, his breath warm and close on Harry's scalp."Go to sleep.""You first," Harry mumbled, but his stubbornness had finally run out, and the last thing he heard was Tom chuckling before he sank into unconsciousness.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It was late morning and the room would have been full of sunlight if Harry parted the curtains. Instead it was kept almost completely dark. Harry has woken up at six o’clock sharp, like he almost always did regardless when he went to sleep. It was an internal alarm drilled into him by years of habit, so that he could be one of the first people to the barn.But Harry wasn’t going to the barn this morning and he wanted to let Tom sleep.Tom was lying on his stomach in the bed with his head buried between his forearm and the bunched sheet. It was like him to make up for weeks of minimal sleep by going practically comatose. He became practically vampiric for weeks leading up to the culmination of one of his self-imposed goals, barely sleeping but feeding off of some other energy force that made him restless and agitated all night long. But after, he tumbled back into a normal sleeping pattern that always kicked off with a few days of uncharacteristic laziness. Harry had enjoyed this part of the cycle in the past: sleepy sex and room service or takeout, catching up on a year's worth of movies. But today, of course, was different.Harry was on the little hotel couch, his knees drawn up to his chest. He'd pulled on his boxers and taken a spare blanket from the cabinet in the bathroom. He had his phone in his hand and he'd been reading, despite his better judgment, for an hour by the time he heard Tom's sleep-rough voice."That had better not be Twitter."Harry's head jerked up, caught, then he pursed his lips defensively and shrugged. The motion made the blanket slip off his shoulder and he shivered, tugging it back up."It's not. It's Facebook."Tom breathed out through his nose, a huff. "That's even worse."Harry bit his lip and scrolled. "I just have to...""No." Harry hunched his shoulders. When he snuck a sidelong look at Tom, he saw that he'd lifted himself onto one elbow, and as usual, his hair fell almost perfectly into place the moment he raised his head. Witchcraft."You've already read way too many comments, I can tell. Come here." He held out a hand — a command, not an invitation. It rankled, but still Harry slid off the couch to hand Tom his phone, leaving his blanket behind."I..." he began."Your rules, not mine," Tom reminded him simply, powering off Harry's phone and tossing it carelessly toward the pillows. Then he caught Harry's wrist.Harry didn't exactly regret that he'd made Tom promise, years ago, to keep Harry off post-competition social media no matter how Harry begged, but in moments like this he couldn’t remember why. There were people talking about him. Not many yet, but by the time the more in-depth articles from yesterday were posted — which could be any time — there would be a dozen articles and shares.Right now there were just the comments. And at least half of them were on the exact subject Harry was most inclined to wallow in."They're not even talking about the win," he said hollowly. "Just last year.""That's because humans are sharks, and sharks are entertained by others' pain, not their triumphs."Harry sighed. Sometimes Tom was such a self-aggrandizing intellectual. Harry really didn’t think words were distraction enough. He looked down at Tom's hand, which still held his wrist in a loose grip. "What are you going to do with me?" His eyes moved cautiously toward Tom's face, almost expecting to be asked to lie down and hold still no matter what, or to be tied up. As usual, Harry was unsure whether he would be eager or object. But Tom's frown was only thoughtful, his smile quick and breezy when their eyes met."I'm going to feed you," he said, letting Harry go so he could sit up."Is that a euphemism?"Tom laughed and got off the bed, naked and perfect. The look he shot Harry over his shoulder was chiding. "No." He walked into the bathroom and flipped on the light. Harry frowned, still standing by the bed. Then Tom called, "Well?" and Harry followed him.Tom turned on the water in the shower and shuffled through the complimentary toiletries on the sink basin, looking narrow-eyed at the brand names on the front of the containers. Then he tossed them back. "Cheap," was his unsurprising verdict, and he stepped past Harry back toward the bedroom, squeezing his hip and dropping a kiss on his temple in passing. "Get undressed and I'll join you in a minute."Harry was surprised, but was too tired to think about it very hard. He eased out of his boxers, wincing a little when his thumbnail grazed the mark snaking over his hipbone, and held a hand under the rush of water to test the temperature. It felt too hot, so he reached for the lever to adjust."Leave it," Tom said sharply. He was back with a handful of his own shampoo, conditioner, and soap. Of course."It's scalding hot," Harry complained.Tom gave him a firm push between the shoulder blades. "It'll feel good. Aren't you sore?"Harry was. From the ride. From the crop. From the, er, other ride. Harry sighed and gingerly stepped in, hissing at the heat.Tom followed him, leaving his stuff on the little shelf carved into the wall, and Harry bumped awkwardly against the sliding door. "There's not enough room," he murmured. Tom maneuvered them so that Harry stood facing away from the showerhead while the water beat down on his shoulders and coursed down his ass. He let out a strangled yelp, but Tom stood facing him, one bare and water-slick leg between Harry's, and his hands on Harry's waist, steadying."Easy. Give it a minute."Harry whimpered and leaned into Tom, elbows and forehead against Tom's chest. "Why do I let you do this to me?"There was a long moment of silence, and Harry realized that his words could be taken several ways, and he kind of wanted to know the answer to each version.Tom, seized upon the interpretation with the most levity. “Because you're a sub, Harry," he said, digging his fingernails into Harry's sides pointedly. Harry jerked his head up and lifted one foot, threateningly, like he might knee Tom in the balls. Tom, face wet, hair slicked back and eyelashes inky black with moisture, laughed.Harry was annoyed and also slightly breathless, so he just blinked back. Then Tom took his hands off Harry's body, reached out to the shelf and dispensed a dollop of shampoo into his own palm. He rubbed his hands together then worked them into Harry's hair.This had never happened to Harry before, outside of the relatively impersonal sort of thing before a haircut. It felt nice, in that context, but this...he moaned helplessly, his head falling back toward Tom's shoulder, arms sliding around him. Tom's fingers were firm and sure, massaging his scalp, then when he had finished he held Harry by the jaw and tipped his head back. Harry's eyes fluttered closed and the water sluiced down his forehead, fell in rivulets over his face, and washed the lather out in a tickling, foamy stream down the small of his back. The heat seemed to have soothed the burning from the crop for now, though, and the sensation was only pleasant.Tom lathered and rinsed his hair a second time. Harry fell quiet. It was half out of necessity. He felt soap on his neck and near his eyes and water coursing everywhere. It wasn't the time for talk. The sensations and closeness felt like a conversation in and of themselves. Tom's slick chest, Tom's long fingers, firm and purposeful, and the rhythm of the water. The steam building up everywhere. By the time Tom was finger-combing conditioner into Harry's hair and pulling his head out of the spray to give it time to set in, Harry felt as loose and pliable as if he was asleep.He lifted himself onto his toes so he could get his chin over Tom's shoulder. Tom grunted and spread his legs, gathering Harry closer with an arm around his waist. His other hand rubbed circles over Harry's back and darted between his legs, slippery with soap. Harry didn't even flinch at Tom's businesslike touch; it had no undertones of sex, Tom was only getting him clean.Harry wondered if this was a sign of something changing between them. Their pattern of fighting and reconciling and fighting again, finally breaking. Tom's phone rang, interrupting Harry’s musings. Tom’s hand stilled on the back of Harry's thigh. The ringtone was the theme from Game of Thrones, to Harry's dismay."What...?" he began, stirring from Tom's shoulder."Why would Ron be calling me?" Tom asked, going back to soaping Harry."Oh, fuck," Harry groaned. "I was supposed to meet him. For rafting."Tom laughed. "Well, that's off."Harry squinted through the water, stepping away from Tom so he could douse his head and rinse out the conditioner. "No, it's not. Why would it be off?"Tom arched an eyebrow, reached behind Harry and pinched his ass. Harry parried by digging a knuckle into Tom’s ribs."Doesn't rafting require sitting?""I can sit!"Tom rolled his eyes."I can," Harry insisted, rubbing the soap off his legs and reaching for the shower door. He paused and gave Tom a quick look, still close and wet, standing half under the shower stream. "Will you still be here when I get back?"Tom only shrugged, but then Harry narrowed his eyes and he relented with a sigh. "Yes. I'm here for the weekend."Harry turned his head quickly to hide his smile. Tom's ego didn't need to see it. "Okay, then I'll see you tonight."Harry found Ron coasting along the curb in the pick up and drop off lane, driving the blue sedan he’d rented for the trip. Harry hailed him and somehow managed not to wince as he slid into the passenger seat. Ron tossed him a brown paper sack half-saturated with oil. Harry caught it, delighted. Greasy donuts were their tradition."I got you a latte too, but then I decided to drink it before it got cold." Ron pointed to two disposable cups in the holders in the console. Harry grimaced, pulling open the wadded-closed top of the bag. "I'm really sorry. I...overslept."Ron snorted. "Yeah, whatever you want to call it."Harry's gaze snagged on Ron's phone on the dash, but as he reached for it, Ron smacked his palm."No phones."Harry sighed, settled back in the seat, then winced when his ass complained. He tried hard not to move any of the essential anatomy again as he carefully pulled his seatbelt across his lap and reached into the bag."You didn't even leave me a bearclaw.""Yeah, I got hungry on my tenth lap around the parking lot." He pulled off the curb and reached out to tousle Harry's hair, signaling his debts were paid and all was forgiven. "Want to go to the barn first?"Harry, caught a moment after a large bite, swallowed before saying, "Yeah, if you don't mind."Ron nodded, unsurprised, and managed to go five full seconds before saying casually, "So. Tom?"Harry glared on his window, chewing with deliberate slowness. When he swallowed again he just said, "Yep," and took another bite. It was an old-fashioned donut, crispy on top. He smoothed the front of the bag to look for a brand name but couldn't find one. Ron glanced over."It was a place called Holy Dough," he said helpfully. "Kind of a dumb name but really good. So are you two back together?"Harry groaned. "I'm just trying to eat." Ron nodded. "Fair. And I'm just trying to gather information so I can text Hermione before noon, when she'll definitely start calling and demanding intel.""Fine. Yeah. But it's not like we were ever not together." Ron blinked slowly at him, then laughed shortly and looked out the windshield again, one hand against his mouth, his opposite wrist resting on the wheel as he merged onto the four-lane out of the city. Harry narrowed his eyes. "What?""Self-awareness. I never thought I'd see the day."Harry debated throwing the donut sack at Ron, but since they were going about seventy on a busy highway, he decided against it. “So what about New York, then?""I don't know. We, uh, tabled it.""Is he going there for law school?""I don't think he's decided.""But he got in, right? I mean, he wouldn't not get in. But officially? Because letters went out, right?""How would you..." even know when letters went out was the rest of the sentence, but Harry trailed into silence and remembered what Ron had said a few minutes before. "Oh my god, Hermione applied to NYU?"Ron shook his head hastily. "Not what I said.""This explains so much.""Again, you couldn't accurately say that I told you anything about Hermione.""Right, right. Plausible deniability.""Aw, look, you already talk like a lawyer's husband."Harry grinned and for some reason, blushed. "This is the exit," he muttered, pointing to the sign. "Why didn't she tell me?" Harry added quietly, smile fading."She didn't tell anyone. You know how she is about rejection. Or at least, the idea of rejection, since she's never actually been rejected."But she did tell someone, Harry thought bleakly. She told you. Then his own pained thought led him in a familiar path."So how are you two?"Ron was signaling for a turn at the stoplight. He looked over with a puzzled frown. "What do you mean, ‘we two’?"Harry just looked back patiently.Ron cleared his throat. "It's not like that. I've told you. That's all in your imagination."Harry snorted. "Trust me, I'm not that creative." But he hated how uncomfortable Ron looked, so he changed the subject. "So she doesn't want to go to school with Tom?" Maybe the answer was obvious, but it bothered him. Hermione and Tom had so much in common that the fact they had never managed to get along grated on Harry. He felt...guilty about it, in a way. If he hadn't disclosed certain things to Hermione during certain heartbroken or angry rants, they probably would be...well, if not friends, at least non-problematic acquaintances. Or maybe they would be friends. Tom was good at making friends. Hell, look at him and Ron. Harry could never have predicted that friendship."I don't know. She just wants to make a fully-informed decision. You know." Ron gestured vaguely. "You know how she is.""Yeah," Harry agreed quietly. "Speaking of decisions, what about grad school? Are you really doing that?"Ron scratched his jaw. "I guess. I paid the deposit."Harry wrinkled his nose, and Ron gave him a quick look, mouth tight. Harry held up his hands. "I didn't say anything."Ron put both of his hands on the steering wheel and flexed his fingers. "I know what you think. You don't think I thought it through, but I did."Harry thought that Ron was going to school for no reason except that it was important to Hermione, which he'd never said in so many words. He wasn’t going to say it now, either, so he distracted himself by watching the park come into view."Go around the back, there. Yeah, turn there." He directed Ron around to the gravel parking lot behind the stables, and waited until Ron was getting out before stiffly climbing out of his own seat, gasping quietly. He had really overestimated his ability to sit.They went into the barn and Harry waved at the staff, feeling slightly uneasy until he saw Hedwig's head appear over the half door. Her eyes were bright but her expression was relaxed, and she nickered a familiar welcome as they walked up."Hi, girl," Harry said, rubbing his hands over either side of her muzzle before digging a carrot out of the half-empty bag stuffed in the trunk. She chewed happily while Harry let himself into the stall with her and ran his hands down each of her legs. Someone had already removed her wraps that morning and she had a grass stain on her right side where she must have taken a celebratory roll in the turn out pen."How does our champion look?" Ron asked, looking uncertainly through the stall door while staying out of range."Like a champion," Harry confirmed, straightening up, slowly and with the care of morning-after experience. He started back for the door."That's all?" Ron looked comically excited, then adjusted his expression back to neutral. "I mean, usually the minimum time you spend in a barn is like, an hour."Harry grinned. "No, this is a day for you and me. This was just a quick stop." He gave Hedwig a final scratch under her chin and then bent and kissed her on the warm velvet of her nose. Tom wasn't the only kissing magnet in his life."Okay, so, I was thinking," Ron said casually as they walked back toward the car. "Maybe we could go into Denver. And, I don't know. Look at art." Harry looked at him, opening his mouth to ask why, but Ron went on with a wink. "Or watch a movie, standing in the back."Harry's cheeks flamed. "I...um. Okay."Ron put an arm around his shoulders and drew him in close, laughing. "Yeah. That's what I thought."When Harry got back to the hotel, Tom was sitting in the neatly-made bed watching a movie. He’d gone out for a run and it didn’t look like he’d showered yet; he still had on his running clothes. Harry flopped down beside him on his stomach and Tom dropped his hand onto the back of Harry’s head automatically.“So?” his voice was thrumming with amusement.“So what?”“How was your day?” His fingers curved and straightened in a slow rhythm so his fingernails rasped softly against Harry’s scalp.“Good,” Harry said with deliberate nonchalance, voice muffled by his folded forearms.“Did you have good water? I hear the currents have been strong this summer.”“Who told you that?”“Don’t answer a question with a question,” Tom chided. Harry could hear his grin. He sighed and knocked Tom’s hand away and levered himself up on his elbows.“We went to the zoo, okay?”Tom was startled into a short, bright laugh. “The zoo?”“We couldn’t think of anything else. It was the zoo or the museums, and...” Harry wrinkled his nose.“And since you’re twelve years old, the choice was obvious,” Tom finished smoothly. Harry poked his thigh and dropped down to one elbow, lying mostly on his side. His stripes didn’t sting any more, which meant they were fading. For some perverse reason that always disappointed him.“Actually, it wasn’t that great.”“Oh?”“I assume you’ve been to a zoo.”Tom shrugged. “Sure. Not since I was a kid.”“I only went once, for some school thing because Dudley was going and the Dursleys couldn’t avoid taking me along. Then, it seemed...amazing. I mean, all the animals, all the exhibits, the people. Magic.”“Loses some of the allure when you realize it’s just sad animals in cages?”Harry’s mouth dropped open because —“Yeah,” he murmured fervently. He’d tried to explain to Ron. How he couldn’t enjoy any of it, just kept staring at the fences and the ceilings and the clipped wings, glazed eyes, manic pacing. Ron had nodded supportively and then they’d compromised by spending extra time standing at the restaurant bar drinking stupid mixed drinks with animal themes. (Harry’s favorite had been a violently green, sweet cocktail called a Peppy Iguana.) Ron hadn’t really seen where Harry was coming from, though. It had been obvious.But Tom…Tom got it at once. Harry got up to his knees, put one hand on either side of Tom’s surprised face and kissed him.“The strangest things turn you on,” Tom teased when Harry pulled away after a moment. “Want me to put you in a cage?”Harry pretended to consider it, which made Tom grin, then shook his head. “Nah, I’m good.”Tom rubbed Harry’s upper arm thoughtfully. “I really want to fuck your mouth, but I’ll do you a favor and shower first. Then we’ll go to dinner.”Harry rolled his eyes to conceal how his stomach clenched and his mouth got wet at Tom’s flippant words. “You’re so good to me,” he said with heavy sarcasm.“Well, you know.” Tom kissed the corner of his mouth then swung his legs off the bed. “The things one does for love.”Harry was so shocked he didn’t move until Tom was out of the room and the water was on in the bathroom.They’d never said it. Or even alluded to it. And Tom had just...hadn’t he?Harry was gripped by the juvenile urge to confide in someone. Since Ron was driving and Hermione was pretending, he and Tom were just temporary, like a nightmare, he decided to text Draco.But when he found his phone on the nightstand and turned it on, his twitter alerts showed 96 notifications.Harry frowned but just closed the window deliberately and opened his text message. After all, he was well-aware that staying off social media was smart, but the last message from Draco didn’t help matters.
Draco: Is this normal post-show radio silence or are you freaking out about the article? No one reads that stuff Potter, honestly. Call me when you have a minute and I’ll praise your ride in detail so you won’t be tempted to read any of the coverage.
All Harry could think, of course, was what article?Tom came out of the bathroom, a towel around his hips, and held out his hand. Harry cradled his phone to his chest. “I’m just texting Draco!”Tom didn’t relent. He stared, hand outstretched, until Harry sighed and handed it over. When Tom went back in the bathroom and Harry heard the shower door open and close, he got Tom’s phone off the nightstand.Password: Alohomora. Tom had a thing about passwords always being the same, and he’d told Harry his WiFi password for his apartment a couple months before.It looked like he hadn’t changed them recently. The phone unlocked. Harry opened a browser and searched for Potter equestrian.The first result was ironically the article Draco had referred to. It had to be.
#NotMyUSET: Why the USA Can’t Go for Gold if Potter Rides at Rio

by Colin Creevey

Like everyone else at the Colorado Horse Park, I knew that Potter had the contest in the bag by the time the stands filled for stadium Saturday morning. Why? Because Potter and his star mare Snowy Lady never disappoint — in the arena.
Out on the cross country course is another story. It’s obvious to anyone who’s keeping an open mind despite Potter’s poster-child smile and charisma that the cowardice we witnessed last year wasn’t an anomaly.A text message notification distracted Harry from his horrified fixation on the article.
D Malfoy: saw the vote. Not surprised

D Malfoy: do you want to go see Harry? I bet he’s a mess.

D Malfoy: I could fly you to Denver. We just got back from Palm Springs.
”What am I going to do with you?” Tom sighed, plucking his phone from Harry’s hands and startling him. “I have no idea how to make you behave. Spanking clearly hasn’t helped.”“Looking was its own punishment,” Harry muttered. “You’re dressed?” A rhetorical question. Tom obviously wore dark wash jeans and another Henley, this one baby blue. He didn’t answer Harry’s question except by cocking an eyebrow. Harry sighed and got up.“Too hungry for sex?”Tom tilted his head. “You’re not cute when you’re moping.”Harry laughed. “What are you in the mood for?”“Anything but fish.”“Deal.”They went out through the lobby, where of course Tom had given the keys to the valet. While they waited for the car to be brought around, Tom folded his arms and met Harry’s eye.“So, what did you read?”“Just a nice little article about how I ruined my entire career when I pulled up at that streambank last year.”Tom didn’t change expression. He didn’t look pitying or even sympathetic. He didn’t look encouraging. At most he looked bored. “And?”Harry grit his teeth.“That Colin Creevey thinks I shouldn’t be on the team.”“That’s all? Two articles?”“Just one,” Harry said, blushing for some reason.“So you read one article. And you deliberately chose the one article written by the columnist who lambasted you after last year’s qualifier.”The car was there, so Harry, awkwardly perhaps, didn’t answer as Tom tipped the valet.“Do you?” Harry blurted out before he could stop himself. Tom looked sincerely confused. “Do you think I’m a coward?” Harry demanded, then felt all the blood drain from his face and turned away. “N-never mind,” he hastened to say. He didn’t care what Tom thought. It was like asking an android for feedback on human behavior. Reassurance. A crisis of confidence. These weren’t the sort of things Tom understood. He had no reference point. And this is why I need to find a human being to date, the little voice in the back of Harry’s head lamented. Harry headed for the car but Tom held back. When Harry glanced over his shoulder. Tom was gazing at him with a perplexed little frown, and his eyes had that faraway look he got so often, and which made Harry feel lonely even when they were side by side.“You drive,” he said. There weren’t many statements that would have come as a greater surprise to Harry. But then Tom was tossing the keys, proof it wasn’t just a trick of Harry’s ears. Harry reached up automatically to snatch them out of the air.“Why?” he asked warily. Tom’s blank expression morphed for a moment into a half-smile, but he didn’t say anything, only circled the car and got in on the passenger side.Harry slid into the driver’s seat. It wasn’t that he never drove, it was just that he never drove with Tom. He felt strangely self-conscious as he adjusted the seat, buckled his seatbelt, and adjusted the mirrors. Everything was set up for Tom and his obscenely long legs. Tom settled into the passenger’s seat as though it cost him nothing to have Harry at the wheel. He sank back in the seat and hooked his arm over the door.“Remember that place in Durango?” he asked. “I meant to go back and get that geode.”Harry remembered a geode the size of a dinosaur’s egg, displayed in the local museum. “What do you mean, ‘get it’?”“I was going to buy it.”Harry frowned, putting the car in gear. “I don’t think it was for sale.”“It might require a negotiation in-person,” Tom said, turning to look out the window. “Let’s head up there.”Harry was well-past getting flustered by Tom’s abrupt changes in plans. Trying to buy an artifact on a whim was very in-character.Harry started out of the parking lot and signaled for a left turn, but Tom reached over and brushed his fingertips against his knee, shaking his head and jerking his chin right.“Let’s take the scenic route.”That was a winding, badly-marked mountain road, as it turned out. Harry had to focus to keep the passenger-side wheels out off the crumbling asphalt of the steep shoulder. As they went on, the road straightened out a bit, and the mountains seemed to fall away. They drove along a narrow crest with a sheer, breathtaking drop to one side. Harry glanced over, admiring the view, and saw Tom watching him.“Speed limits are suggestions, you know,” he remarked, crossing his ankles and linking his fingers over his stomach. Harry rolled his eyes and nudged the gas. The car handled beautifully, and it was fun, guiding it along the twisting lane. As they rounded the next bend Harry hugged the center of the road, then had to correct his path when an oncoming car appeared. He felt his stomach clench as the swerve pointed the hood, for the barest moment, into the virtual oblivion on the other side of the feeble guard rail.“This is why I don’t let you drive,” Tom drawled, yawning. Harry’s eyes narrowed, and he hit the pedal harder and dove deeply into the next turn, the car gripping perfectly but the force throwing him onto his left foot, braced against the floor. He grinned when Tom laughed.Tom reached a hand behind Harry, his wrist on the headrest, and ruffled the hair on the back of his head, a casual touch. The road got steeper and the car soared down it. A glimpse at the speedometer showed they were pushing ninety when the road leveled out and swept into another blind curve. Harry stayed carefully in his lane and didn’t touch the breaks, so the tires spat gravel as they brushed the edge of the road. Now his smile was broad and unconscious, adrenaline singing, and he was almost disappointed when the road from there on was safely hemmed in upward slopes instead of deadly valleys.He felt Tom’s eyes on him, and looked over. “What?” His smile wouldn’t quite leave his face. He was going to steal Tom’s keys more often.Tom’s hand eased further around behind him, two fingers rubbing a soft path back and forth across the side of his neck. Tom smirked.“I don’t think cowards drive quite like that,” he murmured with a swift wink, then turned to gaze back out his window once again.Harry leaned his head against the seatback, watching the road down his nose, the soaring mountains furred with trees, the bright path of a stream and the clusters of roofs and roads that made up the little mountain towns. He stretched out his right hand and after a moment, Tom took it.Tom got his geode, and they ate ice cream and wandered around town. It had been a long drive and Harry didn’t even angle for the keys on the way back. He reclined the seat, twisted onto his side under the seat belt, and slept in the dark car the whole way, Tom’s hand on his thigh.When they got back to the hotel, Tom woke him and opened and closed the car door for him, even let Harry lean on his arm as they went in.“I guess I never thanked you for coming.”Tom wrinkled his nose. “I wouldn’t miss something this important.”“But the hearing.”“Go brush your teeth.” Tom pushed him gently toward the bathroom. Harry went, yawning, and leaned against the sink. He had obediently gotten picked up his toothbrush before he paused to call to Tom, out of sight in the other room.“I’ve been meaning to ask, how did you fly out?””On a plane,” Tom replied, barely raising his voice.“Yes, smartass, but whose? It had to be private.”There was a slightly overlong pause. “Malfoy, naturally.” Tom might have sounded stiff and suddenly cool, or his voice might just be carrying strangely.“But Draco...” Harry began, then trailed off, remembering the messages he’d seen on Tom’s phone. Draco hadn’t even known Tom had flown out. Draco’s plane had been in Palm Springs.Tom was lying.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Harry was relieved to get back to Boulder and his routine. He didn’t have class on Monday or Tuesday and was spending extra time in Longmont at the barn. It was busier than ever, particularly due to the recent arrival of two geldings off the race track for Harry to retrain, part of his and Millicent’s newest business venture. He was also taking his habit of staying off his phone more seriously than ever, in part because he didn’t know how to reply to Tom’s texts. Harry certainly hadn’t forgotten what he’d found out on Sunday. He’d been too shocked, though, to figure out what to say about it, or whether he should say anything at all. It had strained his last night with Tom, but Tom either hadn’t noticed Harry’s reserve, or chalked it up to lingering feelings from their argument about New York.When Pansy called on Monday morning, Harry assumed she was going to scold him about his Twitter inactivity. Her chief goal was for Harry to “establish brand recognition on social media,” a concept Harry only half-understood. No one who bought horses from him and Millicent, or hired him to ride, would ever come through Twitter.But Pansy was easier to appease than argue with. A Tweet a day, Potter was her common refrain in their weekly calls. As it turned out, Pansy’s call was neither critical nor Twitter-related. When Harry answered, she opened with a jubilant, "Potter! You won't believe this."Harry stuck the phone between his shoulder and his chin, flipping the handle on the water hydrant to fill the empty water buckets he'd just carried out from the barn."I'm sure I won't," he said. "I've never heard you sound happy. What could possibly be the cause?""Funny, Potter. No one realizes that your best talent is your wit."Harry grinned, switching out one bucket for the other. "So, don't keep me in suspense. What's up?""Cedric Diggory is shooting a western."Harry wrinkled his nose. "Do they still make those?""Ha, ha.""Okay, sorry. That's great news, Pansy. Cedric Diggory, movie star, is making a movie.""A western. But he's afraid of horses."“That's an interesting choice, then," Harry said, then couldn't resist adding on principle, "He's afraid of horses?” He grimaced. “Wow, and I thought I liked him."Pansy sighed. "You're not even excited.""No, because I still haven't figured out what any of this has to do with me." He turned off the hydrant and picked up one bucket with each hand, starting back toward the barn with measured steps so the water didn't splash against his legs. "They lost their stunt double. They need a replacement. And there are two scenes that involve a lot of close shots and advanced riding, so they need a good stunt double. I suggested you. The trainer is a fan or something, and he agreed.""A fan?""Yes, of you. He's a real guru. Knows everyone. This is a big opportunity, Potter!""I don't know," Harry said dubiously. "When would I have time to be in a movie?"There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then, finally, a pained laugh. "Potter, you are so precious that I almost can't believe it isn't an act.""Precious?" Harry frowned, affronted. He was back to the stall and needed both hands to heft the bucket onto its hanger, but didn’t trust himself to try without dropping the phone. "I just don't think it makes any sense to have me do it. I don't have time and I wouldn't know what I'm doing.""You have to ride a horse from point A to point B at a fast canter a few times. You could do it in your sleep. And the set is just in Colorado Springs. It couldn't be more convenient." He could tell from the strain in Pansy's voice that she couldn't believe she was having to talk him into it. Finally she said, "It pays twenty thousand, which isn't great, but for a one-day gig and a first time..."Harry almost knocked over the bucket. "Twenty thousand dollars?""I guess that's where I should have opened," she said flatly. She sniffed, and Harry could almost imagine her peering at her lacquered nails the way she did when she was especially exasperated. "Really, Potter. You have no natural ambition. I don't know why I rep you.""Because Draco makes you," Harry said cheerfully. "And because I'm 'low maintenance,'" he added snidely.Pansy sighed. "You're never going to let me live that down, are you? I meant it as a compliment."Harry laughed. "That's exactly how I took it."Pansy finally laughed too. "Okay, then, I'll tell them yes. Well, I already told them yes. But I'll text you the details. Don't fuck this up, Potter. It could be the beginning of a whole new phase in your career.""How many westerns do you expect Cedric, a horse-phobic actor I happen to resemble, to make?""It's about the big picture, Potter. I'm going to hang up now. I have higher maintenance clients to manage."Harry laughed again. "Got it. Oh, wait, when do I — ”He frowned when the line went dead, realizing he hadn’t asked for any basic details, such as date and time. But if he had to skip class, he thought ruefully, it wouldn’t be the first time.He thought of calling Pansy back as he hung the water buckets. But by the time he was done, he had Pansy's text and an answer to the question he didn't get to ask. It made him swear.
9314 Big Sky Circle, Colorado Springs, CO, **tomorrow** 6 a.m.
"Tomorrow?" he snorted to no one. Even the horses were all turned out. But he would probably have jumped in the car for an appointment that afternoon if it paid twenty thousand dollars, so he shrugged it off. At least he wouldn’t miss class.Still, he found himself wondering late into a mostly-sleepless night what exactly a stunt double did. Harry finally dozed off after midnight and woke just a few hours later, showering hastily. He had to set out at four to be sure he made it in time.The hour was more night than morning, dark and cool. The drive out was eerie and pleasant. As he drove, the sun began creeping up between the mountains and throwing pools of golden light around the slanting shadows of the tall evergreens that bordered the road. GPS took him to the address on the first try, thankfully, and there was no question that he was in the right place. The road was closed to through traffic, guarded by a plump policeman holding a cup of coffee and leaning against his car door. When Harry slowed down and wondered in a panic what kind of credentials he needed and didn't have, the cop just smiled and waved him on.The second smattering of traffic cones and signs was a little more intensive. Two girls who looked about sixteen stood close together in cut-off shorts, looking at a phone screen. They both had clipboards wedged under their arms. Harry stopped at the sign that said "check in here for parking and badge" and waited, flexing his hands uncomfortably on the steering wheel. Finally, one of the girls came over.She had an excited little smile. "Are you Harry Potter?" she asked, then she grinned slyly and leaned against the door, bending at the waist so that her cleavage was precisely at eye level. Harry tried not to look. "You are, right?""Yeah," Harry said, not sure how he felt about being recognized. It hardly ever happened."That's really cool. We heard you got hired." She giggled again, bit her lip, then asked in a rush, "What's he like?""Um?" Harry stared back at her."Tom," she murmured, eyes bright and wide. "Tom Riddle. He's so — I mean, isn't he just — ?"Harry grinned, relieved to the point of laughing out loud. "Yeah. He's 'so,' and very 'just.'""Quit harassing him," scolded the other girl, who'd walked up while they talked. She thrust a badge on a lanyard at Harry. "Here you go, Mr. Potter. You can park by the horse trailers and you'll check in at tent six."Horse trailers. Tent six. Easy enough. He gave them a little wave and drove past the barrier.He was driving past the shoulder of the road on a path through the trees that clearly hadn't been designed for vehicles. Even at just a few miles an hour the car bumped violently through uneven spots. Paying little mind to Harry, people buzzed on either side of the road, coming in and out of trailers, vehicles and tents. Harry saw the numbers on the bigger tents — one, two, three — and yet more people gathered beneath them, many in period dress. There were horses here and there, too, managing the chaos with the sleepy ease of long experience.He saw the trailers and tent six at the same time. There were three trailers, sleek four-horse slant-loads that were well-maintained and high-end, but old. If the equipment was borderline shabby, though, the glossy horses being led past were lovely. Warmblood crosses, Harry assumed, based on their size and the way they carried themselves.Not exactly realistic for a movie set in the American west, but Harry was very accustomed to misrepresentation of horses on the big screen. Really, authenticity would be the thing to surprise him.Tent six was small and crowded with more people wearing comical combinations of eighteen-hundreds-period attire and grimy make up, with random inclusions of personal clothing or items. Like the woman in a long, dingy full skirt with a tightly-laced bodice and her hair done up elaborately on top of her head, sitting on a bench with her legs stretched out in front of her wearing rainbow knee socks and bright blue sneakers.Harry saw another young woman with a clipboard and made his way toward her. "Harry Potter!" she said. "I'm Evelyn. Glad you're here. I'm the assistant producer you'll be working with. So if you need something, ask." She scrawled something on the clipboard. "Cade!" she added without looking up or turning, and a kid popped his head around a tent support. "Can you show Harry to costume?"Cade looked a little more adult up close, with lots of smile lines in a tanned face. He was petite and wearing a baby blue polo shirt and khaki shorts which definitely contributed to the youthful air. He was reminded of the freshman fraternity pledges at school.Cade showed Harry to an enormous trailer with ramps to various doorways off one side, then up the ramp and into the body of the trailer which was crammed with clothing racks and bustling with more staff. The set was like a campsite with the population of a small town stuffed inside."You'll need Jill, I think," Cade said, standing on tiptoe to look over one rack, then another. On his third try he said happily, "Hi, Jill!"A woman who must have been kneeling on the other side of the rack stood up. She had two straight pins with red heads stuck in her mouth, and a knitted brow below tight iron-grey curls."This is Cedric Diggory's stunt double for scene twenty-six," Cade said. "His name's...""Don't need to know his name," said Jill, her voice muffled around the pins. She looked Harry over narrowly from the neck down. He'd never felt so objectified and yet it was also totally impersonal. "So he needs the reserve set, it should fit decently, but we'll have to let the shirt out in the shoulders. I need some time. Take him to hair and makeup then bring him back."Dismissed, Harry followed Cade through the maze again, this time to a row of tents against the side of a trailer, blazing with lights plugged into a grumbling generator via a web of heavy extension cords. Cade almost tripped over the cords as they started toward the tables and chairs at which people were having their hair and make up done."I've got Cedric Diggory's stunt double for scene twenty-six," Cade called out."Jennifer will have to take him," said a girl with two bright red braided pigtails, not looking up from her task of combing what looked a lot like mud into the hair of the man in her chair. "She's the only one who can get Cedric's hair right."Jennifer had gone for a donut, and was back after a few moments. By then Harry was convinced it was mud being painstakingly applied to the actor's hair. Jennifer had a sleek, platinum blond bob and was well over six feet tall. She wore overall shorts and her bare arms and legs were dark gold and miles long. She gave Harry a sunny smile when she saw him, finished her donut in three bites and waved him into her chair while she washed her hands."So, have you done a lot of gigs?" she asked cheerfully, raking some product into his hair without preamble. "Actually, no," Harry admitted. "This is my first."She laughed happily. "Oh my God! How cool. Come by later and we'll take a shot. We went through most of the good stuff last night but there's always odds and ends around here.""I've got some Peach Schnapps I think," said the girl with the red braids, still not looking over. "I can't bring myself to finish it. It smells like hairspray.""Everything smells like hairspray," Jennifer said sadly. "Okay, Harry. I'm going to have to break out the big guns. I think your hair is immune to ordinary mousse."When Jennifer was done she waved him off cheerfully and Harry, not daring to touch his own head or ask for a mirror, followed Cade back to the costume trailer, which he couldn't have found by himself.Jill was there, brandishing two hangers under plastic that was marked CD STUNT DOUBLE SC. 26, SET 2 which she shoved toward Harry. He was fascinated to notice she still had pins in her mouth and she spoke around them again, pointing to a few opaque screens. "There. Change."Harry did. The clothing was strange, being coarse and yet obviously tailored. Loose in the sleeves, tight in the chest. Very tight through the ass. Harry was almost blushing when he finally got the boots tugged on and came out for Jill to inspect him.Again, she seemed uninterested in anything above the neck. She grumbled over his collar for a while and tugged on the shoulder seams, then walked around him and, he was sure, gave an approving grunt at the state of his lower half. Apparently the costume was supposed to fit like that."He's good," she told Cade, and disappeared around a clothing rack again."You have a seven thirty call, so we had better get you to the trainer quick, so we don't hold everyone up.""The trainer?" Harry echoed."The animal professional," Cade explained. "The guy with the horses.""Oh, yeah." Harry nodded. He'd never given it a lot of thought before, but obviously providing the horses for these kinds of things was a sort of business. It wasn't like a group of movie producers could just go rent a string of trail horses. "The trainer is nice, but..." Cade looked thoughtful. "Eccentric. They say that the trainer ran off the last stunt double, but I don't think that's how it went down.""'Ran them off'?" Harry echoed worriedly. But, he reassured himself, he'd ridden for the masters, including a traditional German or two. How bad could a Hollywood animal trailer be?Back at tent six, a person who had to be the trainer was waiting, holding a horse and smiling pleasantly at Harry.Harry had the rare and unsettling experience of subverted expectations. He'd imagined a stern, tight-lipped perfectionist in a black turtleneck, and instead the trainer had soft, flowing grey hair, a long, sparse beard and a beatific smile. Also, the trainer was wearing camel khaki trousers over long, lean legs, and a long-sleeved tunic which fell to mid thigh in a pattern of rainbow pastels. The pink in the fabric was nicely set off by the trainer's lipstick.The trainer held the reins of a lovely black horse in rough western tack, which Harry assumed was his ride for the day."Harry," said the trainer in a low voice. "It's lovely to meet you. I'm Albus." The trainer extended a long-fingered hand with immaculate French tips. Harry shook it."I'm jealous," he said, grinning at Albus' hand as they let go of each other. "I got a manicure once, and I ruined it within ten minutes of setting foot in the barn.""The very young have yet to learn the value of a light touch," Albus said, eyes sparkling in a way that made it impossible for Harry to take offense. "Now, before we work together, Harry, I'm afraid I must make a quick assessment.""Okay," Harry said cautiously, taking another step forward. The horse glanced at him and Harry smiled back."Tell me," Albus said evenly, reaching out to touch the horse softly behind its right ear. Its eyes fell half-closed. "In the classic seat, which position is appropriate for extended canter?"Harry's heart fell. This was the sort of thing those German masters Harry had just been thinking of (and not fondly) had assumed Harry knew, because classical riders were supposed to grow up devouring books written a thousand years ago by people with Greek names. Harry had grown up reading the Saddle Club series.Harry sighed. "I have no idea."Albus' smile was instant and blinding, teeth even and perfectly white. "Excellent. There is no technical thinking in excellent riding. Horses don't have buttons," Albus added with a scoff, holding out the horse's reins. "You may lead Elliott, if you like."Harry grinned back, lifting a hand to ruffle his hair in an unconscious gesture but stopping himself at the very last minute. He had a feeling there was another side to friendly Jennifer that he might see if he messed up her hard work. He took the reins instead. "Thank you, sir." Then he paused and his cheeks felt hot. "Or, um, is it ‘sir’?"Albus' eyes twinkled as though perfectly aware of what Harry was asking, but then only said, "Please, call me Albus," and winked.Harry chuckled. "Right. Okay."Albus led the way, tunic flowing, almost long enough to be considered a dress, particularly on someone who wasn't quite so tall. "I saw your ride last weekend." Harry was surprised. "Oh, yeah? At the Park?" To say that Albus would have been incongruous among the relatively conservative horse show set was an understatement, but Harry never paid much attention to the audience. "Oh, no, my boy, on YouTube."Harry smiled reflexively. For some reason the thought of someone over the age of forty on YouTube always seemed funny to him. Elliott was smelling the inside of his elbow, so Harry held his arm out a little bit to give him better access, walking along with Albus past the edge of what Harry had been thinking of as the camp and into quieter woods. "You have a lovely relationship with your mare," Albus went on. "You're certainly far more qualified than the riders they usually present me with." Albus didn't sound unhappy about that, exactly, only vaguely regretful. "I wouldn't mind — I'm a patient sort — but I pity the horses." Albus reached out and stroked Elliott's neck absently. The path they were taking through the trees got narrower, marked at intervals with pink tape and, at one juncture, a metal sign staked into the ground on which someone had written "river set" with an arrow. Albus led Harry in that direction."River?" Harry said, interested."A sorry excuse for one." Albus smiled. "Then again there's no film scene these days that would impress an eventer. Most of the truly perilous shots are done with CGI these days. But one of my earliest jobs was assisting the head trainer on The Man From Snowy River. Do you know it?"Harry shook his head. "Sorry, no.""Google it later," Albus advised, and the same way the mention of YouTube had made Harry smile, hearing Albus say "google" in his refined voice left Harry swallowing a giggle."Will do."They rounded a bend in the trees, and a familiar voice called, "Harry! It's really you!"It was Cedric Diggory, wearing an outfit that (obviously) matched Harry's exactly, and a wide grin. Harry, pleasantly surprised, smiled back. He hadn't expected to be remembered. He'd only met Cedric one time, after all, though the way Pansy liked to ramble about her favorite client, he probably knew more about Cedric than he did some of his close friends."Hi, Cedric," Harry said, taking in the set with a stunned glance. Enormous lights, giant fuzzy microphones on poles, dozens of people, and a steep slope that angled down toward a fast-moving but shallow creek. It was a beautiful example of nature that looked like it had been cut out and dropped in a studio somewhere. Fascinating.Then Harry took in Cedric, who had gone from a nineteen-year-old who was an undeniably attractive boy, to a twenty-four-year-old who was startlingly handsome. Of course, the subtle make-up and artfully tousled hair contributed, as did the pants which Cedric pulled off much more effortlessly than Harry. Harry had never met a movie star — well, except for Cedric himself, but there was a difference between Disney-famous and blockbuster-famous. Cedric had made three movies in the last four years, all of which were box office leaders, and you couldn't walk into a grocery store without seeing his face plastered on magazine and tabloid covers."It's really good to see you again." Cedric grabbed Harry’s elbow while giving Elliott a very cautious look, then hastily backed away. Elliott, despite being treated like some sort of fire-breathing dragon, only bumped his nose against Harry's arm and waited patiently, apparently prepared to catch a quick nap during the downtime."You too," Harry said, surprised to find he meant it. He'd forgotten, considering all the chaos of that summer, how he and Cedric had hit it off so easily that night on the ship. Harry, close friends aside, didn't often have a sense of camaraderie with people, and it felt nice to fall into a rapport so easily.Cedric was looking at Harry's hair with a funny smile. "I always thought mine was special," he said, faux-wistful, "but they made yours look even better."Harry scanned Cedric's perfect, loose curls and snorted. "I don't think that's possible." Cedric caught his eye and grinned. "No? Let's take a selfie and we can compare better."Albus wordlessly took Elliott's reins so that Harry, dubious, could stand next to Cedric while Cedric dug for his phone. He slung an arm around Harry's shoulders then held the phone out to snap the picture. Harry remembered to smile at the last minute, but wrinkled his nose at the flash."Here," Cedric said, his arm falling away but staying close to Harry as he held the phone in front of both of them, cupping a hand around it to block the glare. On the screen were Harry and Cedric's faces, Harry looking a bit off-camera so his eyelashes angled across his eyes, color in his cheeks and a line on the bridge of his nose. Cedric was looking askance at Harry with a big, teasing smile. "That's a really nice picture of you," Cedric observed kindly, then pointed first at Harry's hair, then at his. "And see what I mean?"Harry did see. They hadn't done much more in hair and make up than smudge his face with something to brighten his skin tone to be a closer match to Cedric's, but his hair was a very close match. It had never looked that good in Harry's life, except for when Tom made them go to the salon together and the stylists worked their magic."Cedric," called a woman with a clipboard sweetly. Harry had become conditioned over the course of the morning to assume everyone with a clipboard was a producer, though presumably the ones that helped Cedric were higher on the chain than Evelyn and Cade. "Are you ready?"Harry suddenly noticed that everyone was looking at them with a variety of expressions, some of them curious and most of them sort of determinedly blank, badly concealing their impatience. "Yeah, yeah," Cedric said. "Sorry, guys." He sucked in a deep breath and looked over at Elliott with trepidation. "I'm ready."Albus was frowning. "Won't Harry ride the mark first?""No," said the producer. "Cedric is already here and prepped, and we need him on the tavern set in an hour.""But it's a complex mark," Albus said, voice soft but unyielding. "The stunt could require at least ten takes. Perhaps I should speak to the director."The producer looked stricken, then disappeared into the tent. Harry was surprised that a trainer had this much clout. It seemed right, since Albus knew the animals better than anyone, but Harry was accustomed to people expecting the horses and their handlers to conform to them rather than the other way around. That was certainly how his part of the industry worked.Harry turned to Albus and asked hesitantly, "What is my, er, mark?"Albus pointed toward the slope. "You ride him down the slope to the flag at the stream, then through the water, and then across the meadow into those trees across the clearing, all of it as fast as you can."Harry nodded thoughtfully, stepping nearer the slope to peer down it.The producer came out of the tent with the director. He had tidy white hair and piercing blue eyes, and even Harry, who only watched the occasional movie and only when dragged there, knew who he was. "What’s the problem, Albus?” Mr. Grindelwald asked kindly, then glanced at Harry. “Hello. You’re the stunt rider?”Harry nodded, and didn’t have to say more because the producer was frowning at the sky. “We need Cedric now, Gellert, and the stunt rider gets two takes, maximum. We’re losing this light already.”“And you’re giving my schedule trouble, are you, Albus?” Mr. Grindelwald asked, with a serene smile for the trainer."I just want your film to be as successful as possible, my love," Albus said in a sweet, low voice that made Mr. Grindelwald's eyes narrow and his mouth curve.Harry looked back at Albus in surprise, but the soft look directed at Mr. Grindelwald was unmistakable. Oh.Mr. Grindelwald was a stark contrast to Albus in every way, wearing a linen button-down collared shirt and a pair of elegantly-tailored grey slacks. Somehow he'd even managed to keep leather oxfords shiny despite all the dirt and grass of an outdoor set.Harry cleared his throat. "I can do it in two takes." Honestly, it sounded very simple. He didn’t see how he wouldn’t get it on the first try. No one got to have do-overs on a cross country horse, and the mark was simpler than any course Harry had ridden since he started in the junior division.Albus seemed about to respond, and Harry smiled reassuringly. "I can. And the horse will probably appreciate getting it taken care of, right? The slope will be kind of draining."Then Harry frowned at Mr. Grindelwald. "But can I jump the stream? He'll want to, based on the distance at the bottom of the slope."Mr. Grindelwald tilted his head thoughtfully, and the producer perked up. "That would look great."Mr. Grindelwald nodded slowly. “I agree. It would be more dramatic. Albus, do you care to share your thoughts?”Albus still didn't seem sure, but nodded cautiously. Harry smiled and started to touch his hair, but stopped in time. "Okay, cool. I'll just, ah, wait over here."Someone found Harry a chair, and he watched Cedric do a shot several times that seemed to consist of him staring off into the distance, then looking alarmed and turning with convincing haste to mount Elliott, but then losing his pace completely when he had to actually mount the horse. Mr. Grindelwald, with dwindling patience, made him retake the scene several times, obviously because of the last part. Throughout every take, Elliott stood as still as a statue while Cedric climbed off and on.Finally, they’d run out of time. Cedric was needed on the other set. He stopped to say goodbye to Harry while they were moving things around."I wish we could hang out later, but I leave tonight to go back to the primary location. If you're in town some time, give me a call?"Harry didn't think for a moment Cedric meant anything he was saying, but he was convincingly polite. "Sure. Great job. That was really interesting to watch."Cedric paused and grimaced. "I'm really bad with the horse parts," he admitted softly, as though it was a secret. Harry managed not to smile. "I don't know what it is, but they freak me out, you know?"Harry not only didn’t know, he couldn’t even imagine being afraid of them. "They're very big?" Harry offered.Cedric laughed, looking surprised. "Yeah, that must be it. Well, good luck with your shot. They're gesturing to me. You always know you're running late when they gesture." He winked at Harry and jogged off toward a little golf cart waiting for him, hopped in and sped off.“You ready, Harry?" the producer asked.Mr. Grindelwald was unbuttoning his cuffs and folding back his sleeves. "The audience needs to be left breathless by this scene. And, if possible, slightly more in love with the hero than they already were. Can you do that?"Harry frowned. "Um, I can ride the horse down the slope, jump the creek and gallop to the trees. I think all the, ah, hard and emotional stuff is probably someone else's job?" He pointed vaguely toward one of the men with cameras. "Maybe his."Mr. Grindelwald laughed, a pleasant, loud sound, like a bell. "Oh, aren't you a darling," he said, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully on Harry's face."Drop that thought, my love," Albus said dryly. "He's one of ours, not one of yours."Mr. Grindelwald sighed. "Pity. The most charismatic specimens never want the spotlight. All right then, Harry, we'll bring Leviathan out for you. Maria?"The producer nodded. "Rodney has been warming him up, but he was paged when you finished your take with Cedric. They should be here any minute.""Leviathan?" Harry asked, frowning."We call him Levi," Albus confided, unhelpfully."Elliott isn't used for this kind of scene," Mr. Grindelwald said, seeing Harry's expression and looking suddenly unsure. "You didn't think we used the same black horse for every scene? A horse that will gallop down this incline is hardly the sort of horse that can tolerate Mr. Diggory, is it?"Actually, Harry had definitely assumed that he'd be riding Elliott. He'd based his estimation of riding the mark on having a steady, calm mount. But the rapid hoofbeats that announced another horse coming gave Harry a heads up that his assigned ride was going to be a very different experience than Elliott would have been. Sure enough, the horse that blazed around the path, tossing its head and with a white lather started at the base of its neck, was similar to Elliott only in color. For one thing, he was aptly named, being around six inches taller than the other horse, and for another he was lean like a racehorse. Harry scowled at the thought that the audience wouldn’t instantly realize the horses had been exchanged. This was the kind of thing he hated about westerns.A young man, probably Harry's age, swung off the horse. "All yours," he told Harry cheerfully, holding out the reins. Levi was still excited, sidestepping next to Rodney and arching his neck. Harry dubiously took the reins, let Levi look at him for a moment, then got on.Harry had from time to time done some catch riding — riding someone else's horse at a show so that it could compete in a different division, or because its regular rider was hurt or unavailable. He'd gotten the hang of it, but it wasn't his favorite thing. Still, despite his excited attitude, Levi felt trusting and settled under Harry, so Harry wasn’t worried about getting the mark as easily as he’d already promised. He trotted to the starting point, roughly the spot where Cedric had been plaguing Elliott, and waited for the crew's signal."If you need another few takes, Harry, it's no big deal," said Mr. Grindelwald. "Just relax and we’ll get this one under your belt."Harry was relaxed, but he'd also noticed the producer grimacing and looking at the sky again. Even Harry could sense it, the light changing, making everything seem brighter and less mysterious. But the horse felt solid and ready. One take, he was sure. He hated the idea of making Levi descend the slope over and over; the strain aside, the footing would get loose and slick after too many passes. He'd ridden enough water entries over the years to know that.At the last moment, Harry realized that he hadn't been on a horse without a helmet more than once or twice in his entire life, then firmly pushed aside his hesitation. It was a simple obstacle compared to what he was used to, and at the end of the day he'd get a twenty thousand dollar check. When Mr. Grindelwald gave the word, Harry let Levi go without hesitation.Riders called a horse like Hedwig a push style; before every obstacle, she needed support from the rider, leg and rein to encourage her to stay in rhythm and not hesitate or pull back. Levi was the opposite — the more common temperament among eventers — the rider support he needed was steadying, rebalancing, so he didn’t rush. But he was still lovely and responsive; as they got to the slope, Harry very slightly tensed his thighs and his abdomen and Levi immediately adjusted beneath him, stepping with care off level earth and into the pitch of the slope with a soft grunt.From here, it was all about balance, not power. Levi didn't have to propel himself down the slope with his hind legs the way he would run on a level surface or up an incline, but he had to utilize his forelegs to manage his own momentum. Every slope is a controlled fall Minerva had once told Harry. He thought of that, surrendering to it, sitting back as far as he could to counteract gravity.And then they were at the bottom, the creek rushing twelve feet ahead, which was precisely enough room for Levi to gather his hind legs under him like a spring and in one stride, launch off the wet edge of the bank and soar to the other side. It wasn't a difficult jump; going through would have been more treacherous. The shallow streambed was slick with mossy rocks. Then Harry bent over Levi's neck and gave his blessing for the eager horse to run his heart out, and Levi happily complied.The running horse is nature's most efficient mechanism, Minerva had also told Harry. It was the day she had shown him diagrams of the horses’ anatomy, describing in excruciating detail what he'd never known about their bodies despite riding for years. As he heard the rhythmic snorts of Levi’s breath, Harry thought of how the rise and fall of Levi’s massive lungs in his ribcage mechanized each breath, forcing out air in the exact rhythm of his pounding legs.Levi deserved to be in the movies, Harry thought as the incredible speed tore tears from his eyes.It was all over in about thirty seconds. Harry reached the mark, shooting into the shade of the trees, and eased back in the saddle. Levi willingly decelerated, and Harry looked around for signs of life around them. Back near the mark, a tech was jogging over from the cluster of cameramen, waving a walkie-talkie."Mr. Grindelwald says it was perfect," called the tech, his grin showing evidence of a tobacco habit, but Harry grinned back at the stranger unreservedly. He always felt amazing after a ride, and even though that one hadn't been much of a challenge, the horse had been a delight. "Great job," the tech added, heading back toward the rest of the crew. "They'll come around for the horse if you want to hang out a few minutes."Harry leaned forward and began rubbing big circles on Levi's shoulders, the reins over the horse's wet neck. Levi was still bouncing around on his legs like he wanted to go another hundred miles. Harry took him back out of the trees into the meadow, laughing and posting through Levi’s little bouts of excited trot then soothing him back to a slower pace so he could cool down. Looking back toward the stream, he realized the slope was quite a bit higher than it had seemed in the moment. It should be a pretty impressive shot, and between the horse and the director, Harry hoped the audience fell in love with Cedric for it like Mr. Grindelwald hoped.A few minutes later, Harry gave Levi over to Rodney and went back up to the set. A crewmember drove him back in another golf cart like the one Cedric had left in. At tent six, Cade was waiting. He helped Harry turn in his costume and signed him out, then left him at yet another little tent to wait for his check. Harry did it all with a dopey grin on his face, finding the entire energy of the set appealing now that he understood the common purpose. Maybe he'd been wrong about movies all along; he'd never understood the glamor of Hollywood, but there was an undeniable romantic aspect to the way so many people were putting in their talent and experience for a common endeavor.When they were finally ready for Harry, a man handed him an envelope, looked at a list and marked out Harry's name, then looked back up as Harry thanked him and started to walk off."Hey, you got flagged for a bonus," said the man, and handed him another check. "Great job. Thanks for your work on the film," he added tonelessly, in the nature of a rote line.Harry, too curious to wait, tore open both envelopes. One, sure enough, had that mind-boggling $20,000.00 printed on it. The other, to his shock, was for an additional five thousand.He half-hoped to see Albus back around the horse trailers when he went for his car, but didn’t. No one was around, horse or animal, a contrast to the earlier crowd under the tent. That left Harry with nothing to do but get in his car and stick his checks carefully in the glove compartment. His phone was there, where he’d left it when he locked the car. He pulled it out and checked his notifications.
Pansy: OMG this is more than I could have hoped for. This is the start of something big, Harry. I knew your ass was destined for greater places than horse stables.
Harry had no idea what she was talking about. Had she found out about the bonus somehow? Also, while Pansy was occasionally crass, the slang didn't sound quite in character.But then Harry saw the text from Ron.
Ron: Since I assume you haven't seen this yet, here's what's trending on Twitter. And why didn't you tell me you were going to be in a movie?!
He'd attached an image, which Harry downloaded.It took him a second to realize what he was looking at. Two men standing next to each other, zoomed in enough that the background was blurry, and they were wearing the same — — the exact same pants. Harry knew Cedric by his slightly taller and broader frame and the fact he had his arm around Harry's shoulders while he held up his phone for their selfie. Otherwise, Harry had to admit, they really were a pretty good match from a distance. The magic of film.Harry: why the fuck would that trend on Twitter?*He wondered who had taken it.
Ron: Read the caption. lmao
Harry's eyes narrowed and he opened the screenshot again. There at the bottom: who wore it best? C-Digg, my stalkee w/ hunky stunt double Harry PotterHarry winced, and against his better judgment opened Twitter.There were hundreds of retweets with captions like oh no they've cloned him guess I'm polyamorous now and actually the advantage goes to the stunt guy LOOK AT THAT ASS!And then the trending version: Cedric Diggory's famous ass thwarted by pro-equestrian stunt double Harry Potter. I didn't know this level of bodily perfection could occur in nature. #hpotassHarry groaned and leaned against the steering wheel, his forehead hitting it so hard he winced.Unsurprisingly, Tom called instead of texting. Harry hesitated but there was no way he could avoid answering, even if he was still feeling off-balance with Tom. But this was the kind of thing that could make Tom furious if he was left to stew in it too long, so Harry sighed and took the call."Hey," he said, putting the car in gear and starting to slowly retrace his path toward the set exit. "So, have you been on Twitter today?"There was an eerie silence on the other end of the line. Then, coolly, "I didn't even know you were going to stunt double."Harry sighed. That was a fair complaint, really. "I assume they didn't allow you to wear a helmet," Tom added. "That doesn't do wonders for all that safety advocacy you say you’re committed to."That remark gave Harry pause. "It's a western. They didn’t have helmets," was what he chose to say, and it sounded incredibly lame even to his own ears. "And I just found out yesterday that I was doing it. It was really last-minute.""Then you could have called me yesterday."Harry would have, under normal circumstances. "I could have, yeah. I was just busy, getting stuff done at the barn so I could be gone.""And it's Cedric Diggory's movie." Tom's tone was darker still, and Harry realized abruptly what part of the day had Tom most bothered. He wasn't sure whether to be flattered or annoyed."Yeah. Hadn't seen him since that boat party you and I went to.""But he recommended you for the movie.""No, Pansy did. It just worked out because his manager is at her agency, you know?"Harry waved to the girls at the entrance with the clipboards and hoped they weren't looking at what he thought they were looking at on their phones. They looked up, grinning and winking, respectively, and waved back."No," Tom said coolly. "Draco inquired, and it was Cedric's word, not Pansy's, that got you the call.""Oh my God," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "You've been investigating this pretty intensively considering you probably have only known for an hour. Remember when we talked about boundaries?""No."Harry grit his teeth. "You talked about them. I didn't voice my opinion because you clearly didn't welcome it."Harry couldn't fight with Tom right now. He knew it would lead to an outburst about the lie, and he wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Or at least, that wasn't the way he wanted to talk about it. "I have to go," he said. "I'm driving. Home. Alone. I haven't been seduced by Cedric Diggory if that's what you're so worried about.""I can't think of anyone less threatening.""He doesn't even like horses," Harry added, then realized he was reassuring Tom which was a way of indulging this ridiculous behavior, and grit his teeth again. "Anyway, I'm going.""I'll call you in two hours. That should be about how long it takes you to get home.""I have class.""You have class at four-thirty. You'll have time to talk."Harry felt it again, the urge to shout into the phone, Why don't you talk to me about what the fuck is going on with you?So he just hung up and tossed his phone in the back seat. The happy glow from the shoot was gone, and the drive home felt twice as long as the drive out. He turned his phone off so he wouldn't even be tempted to take Tom's call, then left it on his nightstand when he went to class.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

That weekend, Harry met Sirius for brunch at one of Boulder’s higher-end places, a two-hundred-year-old bank building full of marble and ornate fixtures called Teller’s. Sirius abhorred exclusive restaurants on principle, but also had the sort of tastes you'd expect from someone who was raised by millionaires. He made exceptions for anything that offered a buffet, insisting buffets could never really be fancy."Stop," Harry insisted after Sirius apologized for the third time for missing the show. "You can't come to all of them.""But this was a big one," Sirius protested. He was slouched in his chair, looking half-dejected, half-interested in the curvy waitress assigned to their table. "Well, yeah," Harry allowed. "But there will be bigger ones, hopefully."Sirius gave him a quick look, and Harry grinned at his plate."You think? The USET?"Harry shrugged. "I don't know. There's a lot of buzz about it. And Hedwig has never been better." It was probably the last chance Harry'd get at the Olympics in eventing with Hedwig. By the next round of selections, she'd be considered a little too old for the most intense of sports at the highest level."About time they came to their senses." Sirius was grinning. "Fuck, Harry, that's amazing.""Well, it hasn't happened," Harry said hurriedly, his smile falling away. "But it's exciting to think that it would even be a possibility."Sirius sank back in his chair with a big grin, clearly already imagining a gold medal around Harry's neck. That's how he was. He always sincerely believed that Harry was the best at anything he tried. It was ridiculous and also really, really nice."I know I should ask about school, because that would be the responsible thing, as a parent."Harry snorted. "You're not my parent.""But," Sirius went on, undeterred, "what I really want to ask about is the movie."Honestly, Harry was surprised they'd gotten halfway through brunch without Sirius asking. "It was pretty cool," he admitted. "Kind of a blur. But it paid really well. And, I don't know, Pansy thinks there could be more opportunities."Sirius slapped the table. "I'm so jealous. I always wanted to become famous without actually having to work for it."Sirius had been on various magazine covers in his life for the dumb luck of his last name and ancestral fortune, but Harry didn't feel like pointing that out. He felt magnanimous, the combined effect of the decadent food and Sirius’ company. Sirius had that effect; anything he said amused rather than rankled.Harry told him a little bit about the movie, glossing over the danger of the stunt — Tom’s comment about helmet advocacy had stuck in Harry's head somehow — and focusing on the sights and sounds and other cast members.But it wasn't the actors' names that caught Sirius' attention. "Gellert Grindelwald? Really?" He looked surprised and the slightest bit guarded."Yeah. Why? You know him or something?" Harry said it jokingly, but it wouldn't have surprised him. Sirius had a varied social network which ranged from hedge fund managers to starving artists."No, just of him. I guess it was a long time ago, but years back there were rumors he was up to no good with his amassed fortune. International political investment, sketchy stuff. This was when he was acting, though, not directing."Harry wondered absently what “international political investment” meant. It didn’t sound that sinister. He shrugged. "His...partner...was really cool," Harry volunteered. "Albus Dumbledore." He spoke the name with the confidence of someone who had shamelessly Googled for hours after returning from the set. "He trains animals for movies and commercials. It seems like a really awesome job.""Yeah," Sirius agreed. "It would be, I guess. Does that interest you?"Harry frowned. "I don't know how to train anything but a horse, and it's not really the same thing. The horses they had were so tolerant. You should have seen Cedric Diggory around them. It was..." Harry began to snicker, but then he felt bad. Cedric was nice, and Harry was talking about him behind his back. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, he's not really a rider.""Big screen magic," Sirius said. "Between CGI and stunt doubles and green screens and what have you, they can cast whomever they want and make it work.""I guess so. Albus said something a lot like that. Have you ever seen The Man from Snowy River?”“Is that a play?”“A movie, I think. I’ve been meaning to look it up.”It was time for the bill, probably, but Sirius always lingered obnoxiously in restaurants. At least he also left a healthy tip. He was leaning back now, folding his napkin over and back on itself until it formed a little triangle. "Alright, so. School. How's that?""One more year to go, and that's the best thing about it," Harry quipped. Then more seriously, "I don't know though. I've only been back a couple days. Maybe it'll be a great last year. Isn’t that what people say about being a senior?" Sirius snorted. “I think the term you’re looking for is ‘senioritis,’ and it doesn’t have positive connotations.”Harry laughed halfheartedly. He had never thrived on academics, but he was a capable student if he put the time in. He wasn't sure whether he'd find the energy to do more than scrape by this last couple of semesters, though, so maybe the stereotype fit. Harry caught Sirius frowning at him intently. He was startled. "What?"Sirius looked down, shrugging. "Oh, I was going to say something really stupid.""I can't decide what's more surprising, that you were going to say something really stupid, or that you stopped yourself. I didn't know you had the ability to put a barrier between your head and your mouth."Sirius' head jerked up. "Hey! Mean." He threw his napkin triangle at Harry, then grinned when Harry simply caught it before it could bounce off his cheek. Harry laughed. "No, tell me, really."Sirius' smile faded, and he leaned his elbows on the edge of the table. "I don't know. I was going to say—fuck it. If you don't want to finish school, don't finish school."That thought made Harry feel strange. A few conflicting emotions ran through his head in close succession: first a guilty thrill, then pure delight at the very suggestion of freedom, and finally, more guilt, the heavier, stickier sort that left an aftertaste. (Unsurprisingly, what would Tom think also came to mind.) When his thoughts settled, he sighed."I don't think that would be a good choice, when I'm already this close to finishing."Sirius’ brow furrowed. "Yeah, maybe not.” Deprived of his napking, he began fiddling with his unused spoon. “I just want you to be happy, you know?"Sirius’ sudden melancholy was unpleasantly familiar from just after Thomas’ death, making it easy for Harry to connect the dots."You're thinking of Thomas," Harry said quietly.Sirius believed Thomas Riddle tried to kill himself with his overdose. While he'd never gone into any detail, Harry knew they'd known one another growing up, and had reconnected after Thomas got clean. Sirius had seen him at the show earlier that day, and hadn’t seen any signs of relapse."Yeah," Sirius said. "But not just him.” Harry grimaced at the thought that Sirius had other friends who were gone, or had tried to go. “I know those feelings aren’t the same as just a — a passing unhappiness. But you hear about people all the time that seem like they have it all, and then they..." he gestured feebly. "I'm not going to..." Harry began uncertainly. He was bewildered, and though he felt it had to be said he couldn’t quite finish the sentence."I know, I know," Sirius interjected. "I don't even mean—that you would ever—or that you're in that kind of a place. I just don't want you to ever get anywhere near that kind of place, y'know? I only want you to be happy, Harry. Always."Harry felt a warm feeling replace his discomfort about the topic. He tried not to think about Thomas—or his parents—at all, if he could avoid it. He smiled at his godfather. "I know, Sirius. I am." He personally didn't think "always happy" was a realistic life goal, but he also thought Harry had the basic ingredients in place. Most days, the closest thing he felt to negative emotion was bafflement at all the good luck he'd had in his life. "I'm really happy," he repeated, and kicked Sirius under the table to get him to look up. Harry smiled like it was proof, and it seemed to work. Sirius slowly smiled back."So, what are we doing to burn off these calories?" Sirius asked briskly, pushing back his chair. "I think I ate ten pounds of mascarpone."They decided to take a municipal walking trail that merged into one of the parks. Harry was wearing sneakers and Sirius, perfectly in-character, bought a really expensive pair at a corner shop so they wouldn't be delayed by going back to his hotel so he could change. They should have looked ridiculous with his slacks and sport coat, as they were bright white with lime green accents, but instead they just looked cool. Someday Harry wanted to run an experiment to see whether Sirius could pull off any combination of clothing and accessories, but he hadn't gotten around to it yet."Ah, nature," Sirius drawled, taking in a deep breath. But Harry knew he wasn't being entirely sarcastic. The path was groomed, but to either side the mountain landscape was beautifully intact: dark green, hardy grass studded with rocks, the occasional slender young pine tree deepening to older growth as the land sloped upward into a craggy hill to their left, and to their right a rocky streambed. "It's nice,” Sirius said, “hearing the water running. I might start leaving the tap on in my en suite at night."Harry snorted, focusing on the sound of the stream as well. He remembered how the noise of rushing water had caught his attention almost daily when he'd first moved to Boulder, and now it was such a constant he had to consciously take note. "There are fifty-three streams in Boulder County," Harry recited. "Depending on who you ask, they might say they're pretty inconvenient.""Oh?" Sirius looked over, squinting when the angle put the sun in his eyes. "Well, when the snow melts it causes a ton of flooding. And they keep the streets from making sense.""Can't blame them, really," Sirius pointed out. "Streams are out there doing's god's work."Harry laughed.They got to the point in the path where the creek had a choke point and a waterfall, and they paused on the mossy outcropping above the water for a while, looking down at the coursing water over the jagged rocks. It was loud enough they would have had to raise their voices to speak to one another. The lack of conversation felt good, companionable. After a few minutes, Sirius broke it. "What's over there?" He was pointing to the other side of the creek, where a less official path wound up through the trees."You'll ruin your shoes!" Harry half-shouted back. Sirius instantly rose to the challenge, scrambling down the rocks and finding some stepping stones to reach the other side. Harry followed him.The ground was fairly dry, but Sirius' shoes were certainly discolored by the time they had gone up the slope. It was steep enough they occasionally grasped the lower limbs of the young trees for balance and the bark felt pleasantly rough on Harry's palms. On the far side of the bank through a thin stand of trees was a meadow. The gently swaying, knee-high grass was peppered with wildflowers and the majesty of the midday sun lit everything as though from within."Well, isn't this lovely," Sirius murmured, squeezing Harry's arm. "No wonder you like it here." He tipped his head back, probably to study the backdrop of the bigger Rockies, rowed up to the west like sentries."This winter we should go up there and ski or something," Harry suggested. "You're probably too delicate to do much, but you might enjoy the view. And they have easy slopes, you know, that children can manage.""You are the child of my heart, you giant brat," Sirius declared, stabbing him in the waist with his forefinger, right where he was ticklish. Harry wheezed and clutched himself protectively as Sirius strode off across the meadow, arms half-spread. "Let me revel in peace."Harry smirked, but obeyed, turning around to make his own study of their surroundings. For being so close to the trail, the meadow really did give a sense of being further than it was from civilization, with few signs of human visitors. Harry always liked stumbling upon something like this. He walked through the shorter grass along the treeline, watching Sirius wander out to a big rock in the meadow and perch on it. Then he looked back into the trees when a nearby branch rattled. He watched a plump, spotted bird with a scarf of black feathers poise its beak at a gap in the bark, then hammer determinedly.A few strides ahead, a larger tree angled into the sunlight of the meadow. Strangely, its trunk looked like it had half-swallowed a large rock full of green quartz. Harry blinked, realizing that in fact, the tree was only growing over the boulder set so deeply in its path. He looked at it for a long time, seeing how there was still a clear distinction between rock and tree, and how bright and clear the patches of quartz were. The tree couldn’t penetrate the rock, and the rock couldn’t stop the tree from swelling around it, enveloping it. Harry wondered if that meant that one or the other was winning and if so, which one."Hey, Harry?"Sirius' voice startled him. He turned to find Sirius looking at him apologetically, his hands in his pockets. "I lost track of time. I have to get to that meeting. But we'll meet up for dinner?""Yeah," Harry said. "Sure."*Two nights later, Harry was lying on his bed, his computer on his lap, when Ron texted.
Ron: are you up?

Harry: yeah

Ron: wasn't expecting u to be. isn't it after 9 p.m.? :baby_chick:

Harry: …

Ron: Oh I meant :baby:

Harry: I've fallen down a youtube comments black hole

Ron: What??? I thought you had a policy about this, you masochist

Harry: not one of my videos.

Ron: What then?
Harry hesitated, then typed in a link. It took forever. He'd probably have been better off finding it on the YouTube app on his phone than trying to get all the cases correct on the long string of numbers and letters in the link. But he felt a sense of accomplishment when he sent it and after a moment it flashed a still frame from the correct clip.
Ron: wtf is the man from snowy river

Harry: a classic film.

Ron: I thought you didn't like horse movies. Which is ofc very ironic of u now

Harry: ha, ha. so what are you doing?

Ron: nothing. I ate too much pizza and now I feel weird

Harry: you're the :baby: here

Ron: true

Ron: ok this movie looks sort of cool. did he really run straight down this fucking mountain???

Ron: was the shot you did 1/2 this cool?
Harry laughed, considering his answer. Finally he replied.
Harry: No but like, the shot in this movie looks dangerous af. IT's probably rumors but people say that horses died when they were making the movie.

Ron: Oh, that sux

Ron: the horse looks like he's into it tho
Harry was surprised by Ron's insight. Harry had noticed that too. How the rider kept his hand up the horse's neck, maintaining his own balance. Not unlike the way Harry handled the descent from a particularly high fence and onto a slope, he was laid almost all the way back in the saddle. The horse was keen.
Harry: yeah, well, the horse probably shouldn't be the brains in the outfit

Ron: I'm telling Hedwig you said that

Ron: ok the movie made me sleepy

Harry: good night
Harry watched the clip again—"Jim's Ride"—and studied it more carefully yet. He'd spent hours in the comment section of the video old blog posts, most of them on the subject of whether the shot was a feat of horsemanship or shameless cruelty. He’s learned with surprise the actor had ridden the stunt himself. It made sense, he supposed, because his face was clear through most of the shot, and it was filmed in the 80s, long before decent CGI. Harry began restlessly watching the movie from the beginning, too, and wasn't immune to its old-timey charm. But every time someone jerked on a horse's face, he flinched, and eventually he closed his laptop and set it aside.He thought of the slope he'd ridden Levi down. He thought of the passing thought he'd had about the helmet, swiftly dismissed. He didn't feel guilty about that, exactly, no more than he did taking reckless turns on the mountain road in Tom's car. But he imagined the dozens of things that could have gone wrong down the slope. If Levi had been frightened by something, maybe a deer bursting out of the trees. If there was a bit of loose soil or rock on the incline that made the horse lose his footing. How quickly that could have converted into a somersaulting fall.For a vibrant moment Levi wasn't a black gelding but a petite chestnut mare. Harry threw his arm over his eyes and prepared for a sleepless night.*It didn't surprise Harry when Tom showed up. That's what always seemed to happen if Harry ignored his texts and calls long enough. Which meant, he supposed sourly, that he had wanted Tom to come. Otherwise he would have appeased him, the way he did over the years when he truly didn't want Tom anywhere near him. The occasional text and clipped phone call at intervals of a couple of days at most. Total radio silence always had one effect, even if it took a few days or even a few weeks. Tom showed up outside Harry's door with his eyes burning and within half a day Harry was back in his thrall.This time, though, felt different. When Harry came home from his last class on Friday and found Tom in the hallway of his building, leaning up against Harry's door with his ankles crossed like he could comfortably wait all day, Harry didn't feel that burning anger in his gut ebb. Nor was it the sort of active flame that could be stoked, so that he instantly snarled something calculated to start a fight. Harry just felt that same penetrating heat that sped his pulse and had lurked in the back of his mind for days, called up in an instant whenever he thought of Tom. Whenever he thought of the lie."Did you know your ass has its own Twitter moniker?" Tom asked conversationally. "I have to know, is Pansy euphoric or disgusted?"Harry stopped in the middle of the hallway and met Tom's eye, his keys dangling from his hand. "How did you get here?"Tom looked for a moment like he might give a flippant reply, but he must have derived something from Harry's expression or tone, because his eyebrows lifted marginally and all the levity left his face. "Oh, so that's what it was."Harry felt transparent, the way only Tom could make him feel. There had been moments in the past when that feeling had been almost nice. It had made him want to be closer to Tom. But right now it just made him angry."Malfoy flew me in," Tom said, and Harry choked back a bitter laugh. Tom nodded slowly, as though to himself. "But last time, he didn't. I lied to you."Harry hadn't expected this conversation, whenever and wherever it happened, to go like this. He'd imagined Tom denying it, trying to convince Harry he was crazy or paranoid or... well, anything but this. Just copping to it. Harry swallowed."I don't want to have a fight in the hallway." He looked at the door pointedly, and Tom straightened up, then stepped away from it so Harry could walk up and unlock it. They were very close, but Tom didn't touch him. Harry looked askance and saw Tom's eyes were fixed on Harry's hand, which trembled slightly as he fitted the key into the lock. He bit the inside of his cheek, jerked the key back and opened the door as fast as he could. He left it open behind him, trusting Tom to close it after he wandered in.Harry's apartment was very simple, just a small studio. But being in Boulder proper, it still cost an exorbitant amount. Tom looked around as though he hadn't been there a week ago."So, who was it, then?" Harry's voice was tremulous, and he hated himself for it. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking. He'd thought the whole thing backward and forward and couldn't quite puzzle it out. Who would Tom lie about? Why would he think he had to? It wasn't as though he'd gone to Hawaii on a lover’s vacation with someone else. No, he'd flown in on a tight schedule to see Harry. None of it made sense in a cheating context. Also, Harry wasn't even sure that if Tom was fucking someone else, it would count as cheating. Harry had never admitted to himself that they were in an exclusive relationship, let alone discussed it with Tom. And only in the past couple years had he admitted they had a relationship at all."It's not what you think," Tom murmured, turning away from the photograph he'd been frowning at. It was one of Harry's favorites, from the day Sirius bought Millicent out of Hedwig. Sirius held the very end of her lead rope while she strained against it, trying to reach the grass that was just off-camera.Harry crossed his arms. "What do I think?""You think I'm in love with someone else."Harry felt like his eyes had crossed, but it was just general dizziness induced by the sound of the word "love" in Tom's mouth. He cleared his throat and walked across the room to drop his bag and his keys in the corner that was their usual resting spot. Then he stood facing the wall with his hands in his hair.He could feel Tom getting closer, though he moved silently across the living room rug, like the fucking giant cat he was."It was someone who I detest, but who is necessary until I get access to all my assets." Tom's voice came from close behind him. It made the back of Harry's neck warm, to sense him so close, but he was still just as angry as he was confused."I need to know who it was, and why you lied," he insisted, half-turning and stepping away before Tom could completely corner him."When he felt like he had a little distance, the armchair and coffee table positioned between them like a mote, he looked quickly at Tom. Tom's eyes were dark and unshielded, the way that Harry, after observing Tom in a hundred social contexts, had begun to think Harry alone was privy to. The sight made his stomach turn over, but he pressed back the familiar weakness resolutely and just stared back, insisting.Tom finally pursed his lips. "It was Bella Black."Harry's mouth dropped open for a moment. "Sirius' cousin?" he blurted, disbelief making his voice a little louder than he'd intended. He didn't know her, except for the occasional half-drunk rant Sirius had launched into when they lived together. If Sirius was to be believed, she was crazed, evil, and generally diabolical. Based on Sirius’ stories, Harry hadn't regretted never meeting her.Tom nodded, looking cautiously from Harry's eyes, to his clenched fists, and back. "She thinks I may be able to do something for her, I suppose. In return she provides loans, of her property in this instance. Sometimes cash."Harry supposed he could see why someone might want to cultivate a connection with Tom, who would be one of the youngest billionaires in the world the day he turned twenty-five and gained control of his trust."Why lie about her?"Tom lifted one shoulder. "I thought you'd assume the worst."“I’m definitely assuming the worst now. Because you lied."Tom looked at Harry's hands again, then slowly up his body to his face, which was flushed and hot by the time Tom's gaze settled there. "I thought you would, no matter how I told you."Harry wanted to grind his teeth. "Maybe. Because I don’t trust you. Why would I?"Tom lifted his shoulder again, and this time kept it up a moment longer before letting it fall. "I don't expect you to. That's why I lied."Harry wanted to laugh. It was one of the most ridiculous things he'd ever heard, particularly because Tom was so incapable of recognizing the irony in his own words. But he couldn't find it in his chest, there was only that swelling anger and—whatever else it was. A dark, demanding force coiled there too. He didn't know what it was, but it was strong and violent and wanted an outlet. It made him want to grab Tom and throw him down and— Harry swallowed."Anything you wanted," Tom said quietly, "anything I could do for you, I would.""I don't believe you," Harry snapped. Tom just held still, maddeningly. He was waiting, but Harry didn't know what he could possibly be waiting for, and all the while Harry was wrestling with whatever was unwinding in his mind, in his body, demanding he cross the room and—"Anything?" Harry echoed. He almost didn't recognize his own voice. It sounded deep and measured, and nothing like how the chaos inside of his head felt. He saw Tom's eyes widen the merest fraction, but then his face settled back into its familiar, watchful stare.Tom nodded. "Anything," he said breezily.Harry walked across the room, flexing his hands, and when he reached Tom he grasped him hard by the shoulder, and shoved him to his knees.Tom didn't even look surprised. He tilted his head back and looked up at Harry, questioning. Harry jerked loose the button and fly of his jeans and pushed them down to his thighs. He gripped the back of Tom's head with both hands. He was already half-hard, to his own dismay, but Tom just opened his mouth and took Harry in, all the way, not even protesting when Harry laced his fingers through Tom's hair and pulled him deeper.He was thickening in Tom's mouth. He knew the feeling from being on its other side, and felt dazed at the implication that he might be in any way making Tom feel the way Tom so often had made Harry feel—almost trivial, there to be of service. He groaned and pulled back, panting.Tom looked up, eyes slightly glassy, and licked a thread of spit off his bottom lip. Waiting."Anything?" Harry growled, pulling hard at the hair that was still wound around his hand.Tom didn't even wince. "Anything," he said, voice just slightly rough.Harry let go of him, stepped out of his shoes and pants, and stalked toward the bed, shrugging out of his shirt and casting it aside too. Naked and stopped at the foot of his half-made bed, Harry looked over his shoulder and saw Tom slowly getting to his feet to follow him, his face unreadable, his hair a mess. Harry hadn't even known that was possible, but he'd never dared to pull on it, either. Tom hadn't lost his composure though. He didn't even look nervous as he came to a stop within arm's reach, still with a patient, questioning expression.Harry nodded at the bed. "Get in."Tom got onto the bed in a kneel, then kneed over to the middle of the mattress before sitting down, legs stretched out in front of him. Harry grasped his cock and palmed it for a little relief, licking his bottom lip. "Lie back."Tom didn't hesitate, leaning back on his elbows and then, when his head hit the pillow, stretching out with his arms at his sides. He was still fully clothed and Harry saw he wasn't hard. Harry was glad. He slid the shoebox out from under the bed, tipped back the lid and pulled out the rope.Harry only knew how to tie someone up based on observations he'd made while being tied up, which wasn’t a good frame of reference, as the perspective was a bad angle and also very distracted. So he might have made the knots tighter than was strictly necessary, and he lost the end of the rope enough times that when he finally had Tom’s wrists restrained, he was too eager to take the time to do his legs.Tom's eyes had the barest shadow of trepidation—at last, Harry thought fiercely, still barely understanding what was driving him—but he didn't resist as Harry manipulated him, pulling his thighs apart so he could settle between them, stroking Tom's stomach under his shirt."Anything?" he asked cruelly, running one hand between his legs, feeling his cock and balls soft and loose inside his jeans, then driving his three long fingers deliberately down the seam toward Tom's hole. He’d rested his other hand on Tom’s thigh for balance, and felt it tighten as Tom's mouth went taut, almost a frown.A second later his expression eased. "Anything."Harry opened Tom's fly and studied his flaccid cock. Even soft, it was large, long and dark pink in a sparse nest of fine black hair. Harry had a lot more hair on his body than Tom. He knew this, in an absent sort of way, but it had been a long time since he'd had the opportunity to study Tom at leisure. In fact, it had only happened once before, years ago when they'd had occasion to sleep in the same bed and for once Harry had woken up well before Tom. He'd pulled the blanket back carefully and looked at Tom from head to toe, like he needed to memorize him.The memory felt powerful with a significance Harry didn't understand but that made his eyes sting. He swallowed and jerked Tom's jeans and underwear down his legs and threw them to the floor along with Harry’s.He was kneeling between Tom’s ankles, staring up Tom’s body, seeing his face, head craned to be high enough to look back at Harry. The trapped thing inside Harry’s chest was hammering at his ribs now, so he reached back down to the shoe box and groped blindly in it for lube. The little bottle came into his hand and he poured some into his palms, hearing Tom’s breath hitch.“You said anything,” Harry reminded him, pausing. “Did you change your mind?”There was a long pause, Harry holding Tom’s eyes. Then Tom’s head fell back against the pillows and his chest rose and fell in a single massive sigh.“No.”Harry crawled back up between Tom’s legs and quickly slicked him from his balls to his hole, making him shudder and clench. Harry remembered how nervous he’d been the first time Tom had touched him here. Instead of going slow, Tom had been relentless. He recalled, also, the first time Tom tied him up, how he’d been horrified by how much he’d enjoyed it. The idea of being subjected to both experiences for the first time, simultaneously, almost made Harry stop. But instead it drove him on, like he was answering a challenge or after revenge. He rubbed Tom’s perineum with his thumb while pressing the tip of his forefinger past his rim.Tom’s breath shuddered. He was so tight around Harry’s finger it was mesmerizing. “You have to relax,” he found himself saying, his voice quiet and faraway as he rested his cheek on Tom’s quivering thigh, giving himself an unobstructed view of the place where his finger was just inside Tom, hot and tight.Tom didn’t say anything, of course, but he seemed to forcibly relax, and the pressure on Harry’s finger eased fractionally. The moment it did, Harry drove in to the first knuckle and Tom spasmed around him.“Fuck,” Tom breathed. “It feels…”Harry breathed against Tom’s thigh, which looked smooth from any distance, but Harry could feel the fine, pale hairs there rasping very faintly against his cheek.“I know,” he murmured, and pushed in the rest of the way, his fingernail raking whatever was in his way. Tom hissed.“I didn’t think you had it in you,” he panted, Harry’s finger still locked tight in his ass. “Didn’t think it was your thing to hurt—ahhhhhhh.” Tom interrupted himself with a sigh as Harry sucked his soft cock straight into his mouth, thinking of how it had felt when Tom did this to him minutes before. He wanted Tom to like it, Harry in his ass. He knew that would be the most difficult thing for Tom to bear. Being breached like this and wanting it. And Harry wanted to make this hard, wanted to break Tom’s facade, wanted him to beg—for Harry to go on or stop, Harry didn’t really care. The thought horrified him and also made him moan, rubbing himself against the mattress. Tom’s cock jerked at the vibration and simultaneously he seized around Harry’s finger. Harry thought of experiencing that sensation around his cock and felt a little burst of precome wet the spot in the mattress he was pressed against.Harry felt around with his finger until his touch made Tom twist and react. The little spot felt small for something so significant. Harry rubbed circles there until his hand was cramping, until Tom was fully hard and his jaw ached. It was hypnotic, to strain to keep up the rhythm, to coordinate massaging and sucking, so much so that Harry didn’t realize at first that he could hear Tom, and Tom was saying…Harry pulled his mouth off Tom’s cock. “What?” he asked, ears ringing, finger still in Tom, Tom’s cock bobbing, shiny and wet, beneath his chin.“I’m…” Tom’s head thrashed against the pillow. “Stop,” he managed, “or I’ll…”“Come?” Harry asked, intrigued, and began moving his finger again.“I don’t know,” Tom panted. “It feels different.”“Maybe you come dry from a prostate orgasm,” Harry said, watching Tom’s cock begin to wilt now that he was paying attention to it. “Some people do.” Then he realized something else and froze. “You said stop.”Tom rolled his head back and glared down his nose at Harry. “You didn’t stop.”Harry began to slowly pull back his finger, and Tom grimaced. Harry understood. That dragging sensation was the least pleasurable part, at first, but it was worth it, because—he watched Tom’s face intently and shoved his finger back in.Tom let out a sound that could only be called a shout and his legs jerked, jostling Harry. One of his heels caught Harry in the thigh, hard enough to hurt, but Harry didn’t move.“You want me to stop?”Tom’s cock was only half-hard. His head fell back again and his chest rose and fell, fast, uninhibited. “If I...will you…?”Harry frowned, going back to rubbing Tom’s prostate, and Tom huffed out a breath and his knees shook before his legs relaxed. He was suddenly, finally, loose around Harry’s finger and, to Harry’s fascination, he bore his hips down against the pressure of Harry’s hand.“If I say—hhhhhhng—if I say to go on, will it be over? Will you forgive me—for—”Harry pulled back just enough that he could press a second finger against Tom’s rim, gently probing for entry alongside the first.That isn’t how forgiveness works, Harry knew he should say. He shouldn’t be doing this at all, knowing that Tom had said to stop, but he was also visibly enjoying it—and that, Tom liking it despite himself…it fed that dark thing that had overtaken Harry, and he didn’t know how to stop.“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.” He slipped the second finger in. It was still lube-coated and went in easier than the first. Tom rocked back and forth against the ropes.“Then don’t stop,” he said, strangled. Harry tilted his fingers back and forth to rub against his rim, the way Harry liked, and then ducked his head to suck on Tom’s balls, one by one, the way Tom liked.Tom cursed and spit and Harry listened intently, drinking in every vulgarity, every noise that wasn’t quite a word. None of them were “no,” but some of them were deliciously, hideously, shamefully close. When Tom jerked back against Harry’s hand with a grunt, Harry reached down to palm himself to hardness. And when Tom was hard again, he took his fingers out of Tom’s ass, filled his palm with lube again and stroked Tom’s cock, getting it sloppy wet.Tom’s eyes were wide and unfocused as Harry straddled him, and he was still confused in the moment Harry lined himself up and sank down on Tom’s cock, one hand behind him so he could probe at Tom’s hole at the same time, not going back in, just feeling how it was fluttering and loose.Then Tom’s eyes narrowed, because of course, Harry hadn’t put a condom on him.Harry had expected more of a difference. Tom felt the same—slick, hard, hot—with or without the barrier of latex, it seemed. But things must have felt more different from Tom’s perspective because his indignant look only lasted until Harry sheathed himself and rolled his hips. Then Tom groaned and pulled against the rope, like he wanted very much to hold Harry by the waist and fuck up into him.Suddenly Harry wanted that too. He closed his eyes against the sight of Tom’s restrained arms, leaned back to grip Tom’s thighs, and fucked himself fast and rough instead of drawing it out anymore.Tom came first, without a sound. Harry felt it. Not just the throb of Tom’s cock as he came but a warm, faint pressure as his come surged up into Harry. It was the idea of it, more than the feeling, that made Harry come shortly thereafter. He gripped his cock, stroked it furiously and came into his hand, then rolled off Tom and lay panting in the space on the bed beside him.Harry was facefirst in the blankets, the lemon smell of his detergent commingling with the heavy scent of sweat and come permeating the entire room of the little apartment. He felt bone-tired and also restless. If he had the strength he’d pull on his shoes and run ten miles. But he thought he might never move again.“Harry,” Tom said calmly, “you have to untie me or I might lose a hand.”Harry shot up to his elbows, blinking. “Did I fuck up the knots?”Tom grunted a wordless conformation. Harry, muttering to himself, got the knots undone with some difficulty. They’d pulled tight around Tom’s skin and against themselves, leaving dark red bracelets on Tom’s smooth wrists. It took all his focus and a few choice words to get them undone.He had to adjust his position several times to get better access to the knots from this angle or that, so that by the time they were undone he’d maneuvered himself without realizing it to basically sitting on Tom’s lap, holding his hands and rubbing his thumbs over the marks from the rope. Kneading the blood back into his palms, squeezing his fingers. He did all of it in the same rhythm he’d brush a horse, his head bent, avoiding eye contact.”I’m sorry,” Harry said eventually, chin tucked to his chest, working his hands over Tom’s. He could feel Tom’s breath in his hair. “I shouldn’t have done that.”Tom’s noiseless laugh was just a huff of breath and it blew Harry’s bangs briefly into his eyes.“I’ve done it to you plenty of times,” he pointed out practically, but Harry could tell he was rattled, because he left his hands lax in Harry’s, only moving to scoot backward enough to remain sitting up more easily. “True,” Harry said. Hadn’t that been his justification, in that half-crazed state of mind that he’d ridden like a cresting wave? Now, in the aftermath, he knew that it wasn’t right, but it did seem like some sort of strange justice to have tied Tom up and made him come.A few minutes passed, and Harry’s hands began to shake. That was when Tom took his hands back from Harry and settled them hesitantly on Harry’s shoulders. When Harry didn’t stiffen, he rubbed slowly with his thumbs. When Tom began rubbing the back of his neck, Harry leaned in and put his forehead on Tom’s chest.“You’ve been fucking other people,” Harry said flatly. He smoothed his hands up Tom’s chest. He still had on his shirt, but it was come-spattered now and wrecked. Harry found its ruination satisfying. “I...”“You don’t have to say anything. You have been.” Harry fisted the fabric so it pulled taut around Tom’s chest and lifted his head, meeting his eye. “But never again. You’re my boyfriend, and you’re not allowed to.”Tom’s eyes were night-sky-black and ocean-deep and frightening. He gave a tiny nod. “Alright.”Harry laid his head on Tom’s shoulder. “You love me,” he added quietly.Tom’s hands moved from Harry’s neck to his back and continued making their slow circles there. “I do,” he said. It sounded almost too solemn to be Tom saying something emotional. But Harry felt it in his gut like a vow.“I love you, too.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Fall was one of the few habitable seasons on the east coast, as far as Harry was concerned. He was trying not to let his aversion to moving to the region with Tom sour him on every visit, but he'd found that each time Tom brought up New York, Harry hated the busy airports and congested roads a little bit more. He even grew annoyed by the rural areas which weren't so different from the horse-centric places he'd enjoyed so much in other parts of the world. But the New England versions seemed smaller and more confined than the sprawling acreages of the west. He missed the majestic backdrop of snow-capped mountains.Harry tried to shake off his attitude. It was his first visit in awhile, and though he still didn't fully understand Tom's interest in polo—of all things—it was only fair that Harry make it to the occasional match, considering Tom was a regular in the stands at Harry's competitions.It felt strange to be walking out past a turf course, smelling the stables nearby, wearing oxfords and jeans instead of boots and breeches. Harry was so rarely a spectator. But he didn't want to bother Tom back at the barns. He'd learned from experience that Tom took even the local competitions far too seriously for his own good. Harry was more likely to start an argument than to put Tom at ease if he tried to wish him luck.He was heading for the audience seating when he caught sight of a familiar face and stopped short.Draco Malfoy. He was walking toward the locker rooms with his mallet over one shoulder and his clothing bag over the others. He has his head turned toward the teammate walking alongside him. But then he glanced Harry’s way. Draco’s eyes widened, he angled his head and put his hand over his brow, then Draco began power-walking down the path. His friend was left in his wake, a puzzled look on his face. Harry rolled his eyes and gave chase. It didn't take him long to catch up. The path narrowed as it neared the locker room entrances, leaving Draco cornered. He could only have evaded Harry by jumping into the bushes, and as Harry closed the last few feet between them Draco shot a look at the shrubbery as though he was considering exactly that. Then Harry grabbed his arm and Draco swung his head around, and fixed Harry with a watchful look, his cheeks pale."Hey," Harry said casually. He let Draco go at once and slipped his hands in his pockets. "You've been avoiding me.""Hi, Harry," Draco said stiffly, looking askance at a couple of other boys who glanced at him and Harry curiously as they filed past toward the doors. "How are you?"Harry raised his brows. "Oh, so it's like that? We're just going to pretend you haven't answered a call or text in weeks?"Draco bit his lip. He had gotten handsomer with age, filling out into his frame. His silver-blond hair fell across the right side of his forehead in an artful, asymmetric cut. It flattered him, making his grey eyes stand out. He looked different than he had at sixteen, definitely, but of all Harry’s friends, he’d changed the least. For example, he'd never developed any tolerance for pressure. Just Harry’s patient stare had him fidgeting.Finally he blew out a breath through his teeth, practically a hiss. "Okay, fine. But it'll have to wait, Potter. I've got to get ready for the game." He took a half-step toward the doors, the way a young horse would edge closer to a gate left half-open behind you."I won't keep you," Harry said cheerfully. And when Draco, eyes widening in relieved disbelief, bolted for the door, Harry fell into step beside him."What are you doing?" Draco demanded. Harry smiled pleasantly, nodding to the other players who were chatting just inside the single room. Over by a row of lockers, someone vaguely familiar looked over at Harry, clearly recognizing him. He had a nice face, dark skin and great cheekbones, but Harry couldn’t quite place him."Hey, you're Harry Potter!"Now that he’d heard his voice, Harry recognized him, too. Like Draco, he'd been on Tom's team before Tom recruited a few especially aggressive new players and reshuffled the rosters. "Hi. Mark, right?""Yeah!" The guy was grinning. He was about Harry's height and rangy, which was a little on the short side for a polo player. The key seemed to be long arms and short ponies, considering the mallet needed to easily reach the ground. "I forgot, but you totally date Tom Riddle.""Riddle?" echoed the player immediately next to Mark. He was blond, but had totally different coloring than Draco. His honey-gold hair was the slightest bit curly, and he had much more height than Mark. His arms were very nice too, Harry noticed distractedly as he tugged his fitted t-shirt over his head and balled it up, tossing it into his locker. "Your boyfriend is an asshole. Hi, I'm Jess.""Nice to meet you," Harry said, second-guessing his decision to wander into a locker room, after all.Draco gripped his arm. "You should get out of here," he muttered. "We'll talk later."Harry sighed and shook Draco off. "I'm not giving you a chance to run off again," he said practically. "Get changed and we can talk before you go play."Draco's jaw tightened, and he went to the lockers with visible reluctance and set his bag down on the bench."Oh, wait, Harry Potter?" another guy said belatedly. "The eventer! I've seen you on ESPN. That's awesome."Harry smiled awkwardly. "Yeah, maybe. I've only been on twice.""It was definitely you," the guy said, looking Harry up and down in a lingering way that made Harry feel awkward. Then Harry’s mortification redoubled when the guy started unbuttoning his jeans. Harry hastily looked away."Is everyone bisexual in here?" Draco snapped. "You'd think you were a bunch of dogs slobbering over a bone."The young men all laughed comfortably.“No, we’re all just whores for a celebrity,” Jess corrected him. Draco gave him a considering look, but it was Mark who said, quietly to Jess, “Don’t forget whose boyfriend he is, yeah?”"Any tips, Harry? From a pro rider to a bunch of amateurs?" asked the unnamed guy to Harry's right who was stepping out of his jeans. Harry continued to look at him only indirectly and answered with a shrug. "Keep the horse between you and the ground."More laughter, a few more half-serious comments and questions, and then everyone seemed to realize Harry and Draco needed a moment and finished up. So that wandered out with a few waves and nice-to-meet-yous in parting.Harry rounded on Draco, who was watching him warily, his helmet dangling from his hand and his hair falling into his eyes. "Oh, god," Harry muttered. "You look like you're about to be punched or something. It makes me wonder what you did." His eyes narrowed.Draco's jaw jutted just a bit with familiar stubbornness. "Don't you know?""Not really," Harry admitted without hesitating. "But I have a few guesses."Draco just watched him, so Harry sighed and folded his arms. "I've been thinking about it a lot. All those times Tom said you were taking him someplace—or had taken him—like you were his personal pilot or some fucking thing."Draco flushed, but snorted, too. "Believe me, I've felt that way on occasion. Notwithstanding the fact I don't actually fly the jet. So I'm really more of a stewardess.""Flight attendant," Harry corrected absently. Draco's nostrils flared but he didn't argue. "Anyway," Harry went on, "then I thought back further. Little moments where you'd start to say something and then stop. Sometimes I thought you were just going to warn me, like you did back in France."At Harry’s mention of the “F-word,” as Harry had come to think of it over the years, Draco paled. Harry, his characteristic patience burnt, snapped a reply. "Don't worry, I'm not going to bring up you kissing me. I know that sends you into some kind of an episode, even though I don't have any idea why..." When Draco grew alarming pale, Harry trailed off and shook his head, frustrated. "No, really, I don't want to talk about that. It's ancient history. But what isn't ancient history is what's still happening.” He was talking faster, his heart beating harder. Considering how much he’d thought about it, saying it out loud shouldn’t be this hard. But it was. “I think you've known all along. About her."Draco still didn't say anything, but at least he was regaining his normal coloring, which was to say a faint pinkness in his pale cheeks. "I already know," Harry said dully, even though he hadn't, really. Not until he'd said it all out loud and instead of looking outraged, or shocked, Draco just looked like he was assessing the fallout of a miscalculation and preparing for damage control. Sometimes he was so like Tom, it made Harry sick. Sick of them both. He cleared his throat and shook off the thought. "Since I already know, you may as well admit it."Draco swallowed, reaching down to pick up his mallet. He gave it a few short swings, then met Harry's stare. "Yeah. I've always known about her."Harry's throat felt a little sore. "But you never said anything."Draco winced. "What was I supposed to say?" He looked away."You're my friend too," Harry pointed out, in a softer voice than he'd intended. Draco looked at him sharply.He looked like he was struggling with something, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to sympathize. Finally Draco said, dragging his hand through his hair, "It's like I said. In France. Tom isn't my...boyfriend. It's different for me than it is for you."That wasn't what Draco had said in France. Harry remembered that conversation pretty well, he thought, and when Draco talked about Tom that night he'd seemed angry. Trapped. Harry hadn't thought about it much in a long time, but now that he was, it gave him a sort of uncomfortable itchiness. He rubbed his arms."So you're always going to be on his side," Harry said flatly. "Good to know."Draco's jaw clenched like he was grinding his teeth. He swung the mallet again and it hit the floor this time with a sharp sound like a gavel. "If that’s really how you see it, like your side and his side are two different things, maybe you should give that some thought.” He met Harry’s eye for a moment, uncharacteristically direct, then he tossed his mallet a foot in the air and caught it by the handle. “I need to go mount up."Harry stepped aside and waved an arm toward the door. "Yeah, by all means. Get the fuck out of here."Draco flinched and looked at Harry like he was wondering whether he was serious. Harry endeavored to give nothing away, just fixing Draco with a wooden stare in reply. Draco breathed in and out once in quick succession, then strode past Harry and out of the building.Harry followed him out then went toward the field, seeing Draco join his teammates on the way to the barn to collect their horses. He was trying not to think about Draco’s parting words in the locker room. Harry hadn’t meant it like that, like there were more things that Harry and Tom were divided than united by. All couples had disagreements, right? It was natural for him to want to vent to a friend, a friend who knew them both. Harry found an unclaimed chair beneath the rows of tents in the audience. It was a light crowd. This was the sort of game that only drew a few casual audience-members, and mostly just family and close friends. So he was able to sit right at the barrier. Feeling exorbitant, Harry caught the eye of the waiter and paid an absurd rate for a domestic bottle. While he waited for his drink he saw Tom ride out at the apex of his team on his best pony, a bay Connemara named Janie.Harry leaned back in his chair, watching Tom post with unconscious grace. He was wearing a dickie Harry gave him the previous Christmas, white with an emerald green gingham check. He initiated a passing drill with a sharp swing of his mallet.Then Draco’s team was coming out too. Mark and Jess were laughing together as Jess tried to shove Mark off his horse. The last member of their team to join them was still hastily buckling his helmet with his reins in one hand. Meanwhile, across the field, Tom’s team had completed their passing drill at the trot and transitioned to doing the same intricate exercise at a canter. Even Harry was impressed, and he thought with amusement that one of these teams was definitely taking the scrimmage much more seriously than the other team.After they’d gotten their horses warm, they began assembling for the starting lineup while an umpire on a grey-faced chestnut with her ears fixed in a pinned position prepared to give the ball a toss to start the game.Jess saw Harry and waved, getting Tom’s attention. When his dark eyes latched onto him, Harry felt a familiar little thrill. Except it was more intense now that they’d both declared their...feelings for one another. And since Harry had declared their relationship officially. Boyfriends. It felt like a juvenile label for what was between them but it made Harry want to smile and blush like an idiot, too, so he’d decided to just enjoy it.“Your lager, sir,” said the waiter. Harry looked away from Tom to smile politely, start a tab and scratch out a tip on his receipt.“Harry,” Tom called, suddenly much closer. Harry looked over, startled, to find that Janie and Tom were just on the other side of the little white fence that marked the field, and Tom was swinging down.“Uh, hi,” Harry said, getting up and leaving his beer balance precariously in the seat of his chair. “Isn’t the game about to start?” The players and the umpire were all in position, but no one seemed inclined to ask Tom to hurry. “What exactly are you…?”Tom stood next to his horse and extended a gloved hand toward Harry, his mallet leaning against his leg. “Come here.”Baffled, Harry stepped over the fence. As soon as he was within reach, Tom put his arm around Harry’s waist, pulled him in, and kissed his startled face firmly on the mouth.“For good luck,” he murmured, then stepped away just like that and mounted again. Harry met Janie’s eye and had the distinct impression that she felt just as bemused as he did by their Tom’s total lack of predictability. Tom smirked and rode off, and Harry looked back to the center of the field, having forgotten that, of course, most of the players were watching.Harry felt the tingle of Tom’s still-invisible stubble on his lower lip exactly like a brand. He rolled his eyes and went back to his seat.Harry watched the game with only cursory interest. It was exciting when the horses thundered down the field in a pack, but it also made him nervous, like steeplechasing or fast highway traffic. There were too many ways for too much to go wrong, in his opinion. He’d played casually with Tom from time to time over the years but he was too protective of his horse to ever be a suitably aggressive player. Tom played polo like he did everything else: with single-minded excellence. By the end of second chukkar, Harry was into his third beer, Tom had scored half the team’s points, and Draco’s side was so far behind they’d visibly given up making more than a token effort. Tom had only changed horses once. He was now on a chestnut gelding he must have borrowed off someone, since Harry didn’t recognize him. Harry was absently thinking the horse wasn’t responding very well to Tom’s leg aid, when a grey horse ran hard up alongside and another rider’s mallet caught its knee in the backswing.The horse squealed and stumbled, colliding with the horse behind it and the horse to its right, and just like that three horses and riders were down, tangled together in the grass.Tom’s horse leapt out of the way a moment too late, and a flailing hoof struck him hard in the flank. He somersaulted, and Harry watched with sick horror as Tom’s body was launched a short distance into the grass. He landed like a gymnast, rolling through the momentum, but Harry was already out of his chair and rushing out onto the turf with the officials.When Harry reached him, Tom had already gotten up and was running into the worst of the wreck, where all the riders were up but the grey horse was still, gut-wrenchingly, down. Tom stopped at the edge of the circle of people and horses that had coalesced around the fallen horse.Harry put his hand on Tom’s shoulder, and when Tom turned to him with a grimace, Harry briefly cupped his dirt-streaked cheek. “You all right?” he demanded. Tom nodded with the ghost of a smile, taking Harry’s hand from his face and squeezing it.“Yeah. Let’s not watch this,” he added, tugging Harry away from the place in the torn-up turf where the game veterinarian and her assistant were kneeling next to the grey horse. Someone had caught Tom’s gelding and was leading him in their direction. He seemed to be sound.“You shouldn’t ride something like that,” Harry said tersely, just for an outlet on all the anxiety he had over what was going to happen to the grey. He had barely noticed the horse before but now that it was lying down he could only think of how Hedwig would look just like that if she suffered an injury out on the course: white coat mud-sprayed, and the perfect canvas for the vivid red of fresh blood.“He’s not so bad,” Tom said, taking the gelding. Harry could see the whites of the horse’s eyes, and a thin edge of red in his flared nostrils. He looked away.“He isn’t the one who went down,” Tom pointed out reasonably. He looked over his shoulder at the crowd around the horse. “That was Knott’s horse. A good one. Been in the rotation for years.”Theo appeared fine, Harry was glad to see. But he couldn’t help the sick feeling about the horse.Suddenly everyone backed away in a rush and with a violent thrashing, the grey got its legs beneath it and surged to its feet.The pony stood there, saddle askew, streaked with mud and grass and bleeding from a half-dozen superficial wounds, looking dazed.A few minutes later the vet completed their examination and declared the horse “fine.”A relieved exclamation swept over the crowd, not quite a cheer. Theo looked glad, but still pale and a little haunted. Harry made a mental note to have Tom make him get checked for a concussion.“We’ll forfeit,” Mark said to the umpire. “Forget the fourth chukkar.”It would hardly keep anyone on the premises from playing again and again, but it did seem like the right call given the sudden sobriety of both teams. Tom and Harry started wordlessly for the stables.They’d gotten most of the way there before Harry realized they still held hands. He glanced over at Tom, surprised, but maybe this was just a variation on his territorial behavior from earlier. Tom looked distant, though, like he’d forgotten anyone else was around. The horse walked obediently on Tom’s left but still had a look on its face like it had seen something it wouldn’t forget. “Have you heard from Jose again?” Tom said. The question felt like it came out of nowhere. Harry shook his head, but felt in his pocket for his phone.“No,” he confirmed after glancing at the lock screen. “I’ll call him in a bit.”Tom nodded. His thumb swiped up and down the heel of Harry’s hand, the leather of his glove smooth and warm against Harry’s palm. Harry has a momentary, vivid thought of Tom taking the crop to Harry while wearing those gloves. Pausing to stroke Harry through the leather. It felt like shameful timing to have such a thought, so Harry pulled his hand loose and wrapped his arms loosely around his stomach as they reached the stables, which were open-air stalls under a flimsy metal roof, not intended for long stays. While Tom untacked, Harry wandered down a vacant aisle and called Jose.“Harry,” Jose said by way of greeting. He had the baseline temperament of a Labrador retriever, which was to say, abnormally cheerful. But he sounded faintly weary, so Harry already knew what he would say before he even asked.“How’s she looking?”“Tracking sound,” Jose said at once, “but she lays back that ear at the trot. Turned her out today and she didn’t take her lap, just stood and grazed.”Harry sighed. “Thanks. I’ll check in tomorrow morning?”“Sounds good, boss,” Jose agreed. Harry could almost see the wink accompanying the word “boss,” which he’d been telling Jose not to use since the day he’d been hired as Harry’s full-time assistant.“Don’t call me that,” Harry chided by way of good bye.A few seconds after the call ended Jose sent a slightly blurry photo of Hedwig in her stall, wearing her ice boots and with half a carrot dangling from her mouth. He smiled and ran the tip of his forefinger down the middle of her face like a pet, then stuck his phone back in his pocket.Tom was finishing up. His horses were side by side in the cross ties. Harry gave Janie a treat from his pocket and then, begrudgingly, gave the chestnut one too. Tom looked over the horse’s back, which he’d been sponging with warm water.“Has he gotten off your shit list, then?”Harry shrugged and gave the gelding’s forehead an apologetic rub. He almost advised Tom to go get changed and showered and let Harry put up the horses, but it would be an empty gesture. Tom wouldn’t agree to see to himself before the horses were seen to, and Harry wouldn’t want him to.“No one asked him if he wanted to play,” Harry allowed. “But I don’t want you to use him ever again,” he added, muttering. He went back to Janie, Tom’s chuckle in his ears.“Jose says she’s the same,” he added, rubbing Janie just behind her jaw the way she liked. She helpfully twisted her head around to give him easier access, like a cat tilting its chin into a scratch. “So, when will you decide?”“If we’re going to make the show, we’d have to load out in three days. So if she doesn’t seem one-hundred-percent tomorrow, I’ll call it.”Tom nodded and didn’t comment. Harry appreciated it. Ron and Hermione didn’t understand. All they heard was “she’s technically fine” and immediately they were on the side of “Harry, it’s the Olympics.” But Tom knew that Harry had to trust his gut. It just seemed like the worst kind of irony that his gut was telling him something was wrong just days before the show that would either cinch him a spot on the team or ensure he lost it.“There’s a second option,” Tom said, matter-of-fact. “You could take her early, break the trip up, give her plenty of rest. Then you could see what she’s like when you get there. Didn’t you say she just cycled?”“Yeah.” She’d been extra-snuggly, a dead giveaway. “So she could just be cramping. I can’t even get near Janie a day or two out of every forty-odd days.” Harry smiled. He’d personally seen Janie make a solid effort to bite Tom’s hand off when he went to catch her in the wrong part of her heat cycle.“I hadn’t thought about going out early,” Harry admitted. “That’s not a bad idea.”“You could put her at Windmere. You know Minerva would make room.”Harry looked at Tom carefully, but he still seemed utterly casual. Interesting. They hadn’t talked freely about Windmere or anything to do with their old territory in Kansas City since Tom left for college, apparently determined not to look back. Harry hadn’t really expected that to ever change, but it seemed like a good sign if it had.“I’m sure she would,” Harry agreed. “I’ll give her a call. Thanks. It’s a good idea.”Tom winked at him, tossing the sponge into the water bucket and reaching for the liniment. “That’s the only kind I have.”After Tom finished with the horses and put them back in their stalls, Harry sat on an overturned bucket to wait for Tom to clean up. He hadn’t been there long when he heard voices. One familiar—Lucius Malfoy—and another unfamiliar.“...Yes, it’s a dangerous sport, but then, what joy can be had without a degree of risk?” Lucius was musing.“There’s taking a risk, and there’s being reckless,” answered the stranger grimly. He had a low voice with what Harry used to think of around home as a “rural” accent, but which some people who weren’t from the deep south might call southern.“Ah, well, it’s just an unfortunate coincidence you saw that hang-up. Most matches go quite smoothly, point differential aside. Really, Draco, couldn’t you have asked that mare of yours to show a little heart?”“No use exerting her in a match that doesn’t mean anything,” Draco said lowly. “Of course it means something,” Lucius snapped. “Arguably the challenges you take up against your allies are more crucial than those against a true opponent.”Draco sighed. “I see we’re speaking in transparent metaphor now.”Harry was still trying to hide his smile when the three rounded the far end of the aisle and came his way. Draco looked surprised to see him and also showed signs of a repressed urge to flee. It gave Harry a flashback to earlier in the day when he’d had to chase Draco down. This time, though, Draco followed his father, the hunted look vivid on his face.“Ah, Harry,” Lucius said in the vaguely surprised way he always acknowledged Harry. As though, even years later, it mystified him that Tom kept him around. “We’re looking for Tom.”The man with them was familiar somehow. He was tall, slightly pot-bellied, and shabby in his attire—khakis, leather Doc Martin boots and a short-sleeve button-down—with snow-white hair. Yet Harry was sure he’d seen him before. “He’s showering and changing,” Harry explained. “He should be back in ten minutes? Maybe less.” He smiled politely at the stranger.Lucius seemed to realize that Harry and the man didn’t know one another, a fact which obviously surprised him. “Ah, but surely you’ve met Tom’s Uncle Randall?”Harry blinked, and then he got up from the bucket so hastily he kicked it against the wall. It made a dull banging noise, startling the horse on the other side. Harry couldn’t even feel awkward about it, he was too distracted by the sudden realization that he was looking at a man who very closely resembled Benjamin Riddle. Except that where Benjamin—and his son and grandson—were objectively handsome, Randall was not. His features were just slightly asymmetrical, his long nose a bit too wide, his dark eyes too close together. “Hello, young man,” said Randall, holding out his hand. He had calluses on his palms, Harry noticed at once. “I’ve wondered if we’d ever meet. It’s been so long at this point I’d given up.”“Sorry?” Harry said, with a half-smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He hadn't, except for Tom complaining about his “unqualified trustee” and their refusal to let Tom take control of more property before everything became his outright when he turned twenty-five. Harry knew the trustee was his paternal great-uncle, and somehow for whom Tom had no respect. But he’d imagined some pale old man who’d envied his brother’s tremendous success and was therefore delighting in punishing a young man he saw as an entitled heir.Instead Randall made a distinctly positive first impression on Harry. He had a salt-of-the-earth attitude, signaled by how obviously comfortable he felt in a setting that had to be deeply unfamiliar, and how he didn’t so much as fidget in his comfortable and practical attire while standing next to Lucius, whose Gucci belt probably cost more than the entire contents of Randall’s luggage. Harry saw Draco, just behind Lucius, typing furiously into his phone, and wondered if he was texting Tom. Then he shook off that thought and smiled at Randall again.“You saw the match, I assume?” Randall nodded. “Never understood the appeal myself, but Ben was always horse-mad. I guess he passed that along. And you’re a rider too. I’ve seen your name from time to time in the news.”That kind of offhand remark still left Harry stunned, but he was getting better and better at concealing it. “Yeah, so far so good. I’ve been really lucky.”Randall looked thoughtful. “I assume you’re quite gifted as well.”“Quite,” Lucius said, in the way someone might admit something they struggled to come to terms with. Harry was surprised and flattered; he couldn’t remember ever receiving a direct compliment from Lucius in his life.“I don’t know,” Harry hedged. “I’ve just loved riding, always. I think that’s what it takes. Love and time.”Now Randall was cocking his head to one side, a gesture Harry saw quite often in Tom when he was in the middle of solving a puzzle. But that didn’t make sense. There was nothing to be puzzled about here. Harry wasn’t that complicated. Did Randall just think he was full of shit?“Where are you from, Mr. Riddle?” Harry asked, then realized his mistake just as Randall’s smile turned briefly shadowed and wry.“That wasn’t on the list of the many things you’ve heard about me, huh?” he asked, but though he was gruff, he was good-natured about it too. Harry let his smile turn wry, acknowledging how he’d stretched the truth a bit.Randall went on to answer. “I live outside the family place in Nebraska.”“Oh, the Sand Hills Ranch,” Harry said at once, brightening. “I’ve seen pictures. From Thomas’ interview up there.”Randall’s face looked soft and fond. “It was our great-great grandparents’ land trust claim but my father sold it when he was a young man. It made Thomas proud to buy it back. He spent a lot of time up there when he needed to get away.”Harry nodded. “I can see why. It looked beautiful. I didn’t even know Nebraska looked like that.” Rock formations that appeared carved by some giant’s hand from red rock, striated with shades of gold, and all around them oceans of blue-tinted, waist-high grass.Before Randall could respond, Tom’s cool voice preceded him as he stepped into view at the other end of the row of stalls.“Uncle.”Draco and Lucius pivoted at once. Randall smiled at Harry—with only one side of his mouth, but still Harry counted it a win—and then turned more slowly. “Tom,” he replied, just as coolly. “Congratulations on winning your game. But then again it didn’t seem like you had much of a fight. Sorry, Drake.”Draco choked, whether because he was offended or because he’d just been called “Drake” was anyone’s guess.Also, Harry noticed that Randall’s accent was more noticeable now than it had been a moment before. He must be doing it to annoy Tom. The thought made Harry grin. But then Tom glanced at him and Harry sobered. He didn’t want to make what was clearly a tense situation even worse. But he did watch with fascination as Tom and Randall regarded one another.Randall had obviously been close with Thomas, which went a long way toward explaining Tom’s apparent dislike. No matter what he stated on the record to journalists and lobbyists, Harry knew Thomas’ death hadn’t really changed the way Tom felt about him.”I thought you’d left this morning,” Tom said, deceptively casual. He crossed his arms. “Flight was canceled,” Randall said shortly. “Knew you had a game and got in touch with Luke, here.”Draco coughed again. Harry swallowed his smile.“And maybe it’s for the best. I got to meet your beau, finally.” He jerked his chin toward Harry. Tom’s glance moved briefly to Harry and back, giving nothing away.“I see.”“Could I take you all to a celebratory dinner?” Lucius suggested.“No, my flight leaves in about two hours. I’d better get to the airport or I’ll miss this one too. Security and such, you know,” he added. Lucius, who Harry assumed hadn’t flown commercial in his entire charmed life, conjured a serene smile.“Of course. Well, then, permit me to drive you.”Randall nodded slowly. He held Tom’s eye another moment, then turned to Harry and shook his hand again.“Good to meet you, really,” he said, a little warmth in his dark eyes. “Likewise,” Harry said earnestly. Then Randall followed Lucius and Draco outside.Harry was trying to think of what to say when Tom spoke instead.“I took the liberty of calling Minerva. She was thrilled, obviously, and said it won’t be any trouble. There’s stabling for Hedwig, and the house is available.”Harry was shocked on at least three levels. “Don’t you want to talk about...? You called her? And you’re coming? The house?”Tom smiled indulgently. “Of course I am. It’s a big weekend for you, which means it’s a big weekend for us. Where else would I be?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It felt strange waking up in the house. Harry stayed stretched out in bed, gazing at the familiar coffered ceiling and listening to the quiet of the morning all around. He’d forgotten just how peaceful Windmere was. In the middle of the estate like this, far from the road, the only noise was the breeze and the occasional songbird.He rolled onto his side, and there was Tom. Awake naturally and already dressed for the day. He had his knees bent so his shoes weren’t on the bed, and he was propped on one elbow, smiling at Harry.“Good morning,” he murmured, raking his fingertips gently through Harry’s sleep-tangled hair, but not in a concentrated way. He knew by now it was hopeless. Harry’s throat was sore from a thorough face fucking and he was sticky between his thighs. Tom had been too spent to clean them up as thoroughly as he usually did. Harry had never felt better first thing in the morning.“I have a meeting,” Tom said, “so I have to go. Don’t forget lunch.” Tom’s hand moved lower so he was cupping Harry’s jaw when he leaned in to kiss him, close-mouthed. Harry sighed as Tom pulled back.“Do we have to?” Daphne was alright, and though he didn’t know her well, he thought Astoria wasn’t bad either. Astoria’s fiancé on the other hand...Tom squeezed his jaw hard enough to bruise, but just for a moment, then his touch was once again feather-light. His dark eyes were steady on Harry’s, an unspoken answer.Harry sighed, wriggling away from Tom and his touch. “Fine,” he mumbled and pressed his face into his elbow.Tom’s hand settled on the back of Harry’s neck, a sure grip. Harry kept his face buried, but the little bit of tension he’d felt on waking, the sense of being both somewhere familiar yet out of place, eased. The sheets had a certain smell. The detergent, yes, but also something else. Almost woodsy. Or maybe that was the raw pine bed frame. Whatever it was, he hadn’t realized he remembered it, or how it would transport him back to so many mornings like this, head down while Tom parted his thighs, wriggled a hand under his hips to lift him just an inch, and...“Roll over,” Tom murmured.Harry lifted his head and Tom’s hand slid down his back, splayed between his shoulder blades.Harry felt vaguely uncertain, turning over under Tom’s hand, so Tom’s fingers briefly cupped his side, then his knuckles rested on Harry’s chest, the very center where it was faintly furred with sparse dark hair. Tom looked down at him, his eyes hidden by his lashes, his curl. He kept his fingers half-folded in a loose fist and trailed them over Harry’s abs, making him shudder.“You haven’t been eating,” Tom chided. He didn’t look up, but Harry saw his face tilt, following the path of his touch with his eyes. His touch, which stayed light. Deliberate, pensive, like he was making a study of Harry for himself, and Harry’s reactions were secondary.Harry couldn’t quite trace his uneasy feeling to its source. If it was Tom’s lingering touch, the way the soft morning light looked behind him, how the moments of silence between them felt big, long, and breathing. Harry hadn’t even realized he was getting hard until Tom sat up on the edge of the bed and pulled Harry toward him by the hips.“What do you want?” he asked, leaving one hand on Harry’s hip, the other back to its tracing, just his first knuckle brushing over Harry’s stomach, making him tremble.Harry couldn’t answer. He felt off balance, still—still, or more—and when he grasped around in his confused mind all he could find was levity.“I don’t think you’ve ever asked me that,” he said, breathing out a chuckle, but it cut off when he realized it was probably true.Tom did look up then, at last. His eyes were dark, his expression solemn. He started to speak, then seemed to change his mind and moved that stroking hand between Harry’s thighs.His right ass cheek, his inner thigh, sweeping down below his knee and back. Harry’s cock twitched.“I thought you had to go,” he said, wincing at how ragged he sounded. Tom’s eyes darted to his throat, but instead of blooming into that familiar, prideful smirk, his face stayed mirthless. A wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows.“Did you want that?” he asked softly, but it didn’t sound like a real question and he didn’t give Harry time to answer. “You did, I know it,” he went on, speaking a measure more quickly than was usual. “You like it when I fuck you. There—“ the heel of his hand swept past Harry’s asshole, glancing “—or there.” He bent quickly and kissed the corner of Harry’s mouth.Tom’s face stayed close, invisible that way, his chin on Harry’s cheek, his hair brushing Harry’s face, as he grasped Harry’s cock at last. Harry hadn’t realized how affected he was—or he’d known, but hadn’t realized how the effects were all going to his cock too. Tom’s shirt brushed Harry’s side, his sleeve rasping, the fine weave like silk, as his arm moved to jerk Harry fast and firm.Harry sucked in a breath and his hips rose up despite himself into Tom’s hand. Tom’s mouth moved close to Harry’s ear.“You like this, don’t you?” his tone was knowing.Harry swallowed, savoring the way his throat ached, and Tom's voice warm against his ear: "You liked it when I fucked your throat last night. I can tell. You looked up at me like I was giving you a drug." He twisted his hand and leaned into Harry, putting his knee into Harry's thigh, hard enough a dull pain bloomed there. Pinning him. Then his hold went a bit slack, his hand slowed. "What do you want?" he insisted, then bit the lobe of Harry's ear. If he'd still been jerking him hard, that could have put him over the edge, Harry thought. That sharp unexpected pain. "I want," Harry started, but couldn't finish; he jerked his hips in illustration. "Tom.""Me?" Tom asked, sounding amused, still so close to Harry's ear, his breath warm, tickling. "I can't fuck you at the moment, baby. I've got an appointment. Come on, tell me. I'll give it to you. Tell me.""Your hand," Harry tried again. "Your..." he licked his lips. "Your mouth."Tom kissed his neck. "Good boy." And then he was over the edge of the bed and between Harry's knees, pulling him further so his ass was at the edge of the bed. Tom stroked Harry’s thighs and took him in his mouth, warm and immediate, all at once.Tom was sucking him hard, not teasing at all. He’d never done it this way. Harry’s hands scrambled for something to hold onto; one wound up in Tom’s hair, the other grasping the tangled sheets so hard he felt his fingernail pop through the fabric. Tom took him deeper and deeper until Harry’s cock pressed into the firm tightness of his throat, unlike anything Harry had ever felt before.He was looking at the ceiling again, blurred by his watering eyes, as his back arched and he came in Tom's mouth, embarrassingly fast. It felt like he came for a solid minute, pulsing onto Tom's tongue, Tom sucking him through it, swallowing it, petting his thighs. When Harry was finished and quivering, Tom slipped off, rested his cheek against the inside of Harry's knee and kissed him there, softly, in the ticklish crease."See?" Tom asked, sounding smug. "The value of communication." He stroked Harry's stomach, as though in farewell, and got to his feet. Harry turned his head to blink at him as he walked toward the door. "Don't forget lunch," were his casual parting words..*Harry's hair was still wet from the shower when he started walking toward the barn. It wasn't that early any more. The day was already angling toward too much heat. It was easy to forget how hot it could get here. Harry had become calibrated to the mountain climate over the past few years, and happily so. Even in blizzard conditions, somehow the winters never seemed as cold as the plains, where the biting wind chill made everything so bitter. And in the summer, there was no comparison. The warmest sunshine in the Rockies still had an edge of soothing cool.Still, the heat sparked a lot of fond memories too. The way he could feel the pavement through his running shoes that first day on his way up the drive to Windmere, when he'd heard the sweep of Tom's tires and looked over to see him framed in white leather and the backdrop of emerald-green pastures, too good to be true.Harry rubbed the smile off his face and broke into a jog up the path to distract himself. He hadn't been for a run in a few days and the strain felt good; he pushed himself on the inclines and balanced carefully coming down the slopes, taking the long way that circled along the treeline. He saw unfamiliar horses grazing in the fields, which made him a little melancholy. The last time he'd taken a morning run at Windmere he'd known them all by name. Then he saw a familiar face. Jose, leaning against the fence in his trademark starched wranglers, the pointed toe of his right boot propped against the lowest rail. Harry sprinted the last bit of distance between them and Jose, hearing his footfalls, turned and smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. His canines were slightly crooked which, for some reason, made his wide smile all the more infectious."Hey, boss," he said cheerfully. He'd been chewing a blade of grass, which he now cast down on the other side of the fence. Harry, breath pleasantly heavy, just smiled in response and turned to lean his back against the fence, folding his arms loosely. Jose had been watching a few horses in the distance, but in the other direction Harry could study the familiar shape of the driveway, parking area and barns. It all looked the same."You just get here?" Jose asked. "Thought I was the one runnin' late." His short, spiky black hair was neatly combed, his cheeks clean-shaven. If he'd been in a hurry that morning, Harry couldn't tell."Yeah. Well, I was up at the house." Harry gestured toward the trees that hid the house, then realized by Jose's puzzled frown that wasn't enough of an explanation."There's an old farmhouse on the property that's been restored," he explained. "They keep it for guests. I stayed there for...wow, like a year and a half, I guess, when I was technically living with Sirius.""Ah, so you've come home," Jose said, with another sunny smile. "S'nice."Harry looked around, surprised to find Jose was more or less right. "I guess so. Those were pretty good years.""Before fame made things complicated?" Jose teased. "Come on, lazy bones. Let's go see the lady."Hedwig was in an oversized stall meant for a mare and foal, in a lower barn with a shaded attached paddock. They were expensive accommodations, but apparently since no one was using them, Harry got to use them temporarily free of charge. He thought that the special treatment could have something to do with Sirius who, despite being estranged from his family, still seemed to have some clout, particularly with his younger brother Regulus.Or, maybe it was Minerva's influence. At this point, she'd been in-house with Windmere long enough they ought to do whatever she asked them to just to keep her around. Her reputation as a coach had only improved in the past five years, and she'd even expanded successfully into the hunters, training one of the top children's mounts the year before to a national title.Hedwig was in the paddock when they walked up, doing her best to strip the leaves from a low-hanging branch. "What a giraffe," Jose said fondly. At the sound of his voice, she turned her head around, a twig hanging out of the corner of her mouth.She looked bright-eyed, and she'd come off the trailer the evening before fine. Harry still felt trepidation as he watched her walk to the fence. He put his hand on the gate latch while Jose picked up her halter."Did you leave this on the ground, boss? You heathen," Jose accused, half-seriously, shaking sand off the leather halter with Hedwig's name engraved on a brass plate on the left cheek. "Must have fallen off the gate," Harry said, not paying attention. He held out his hand and Jose gave him the halter. Harry slipped through the gate and slid the halter over Hedwig's head, rubbing her ears absently in passing, then led her out onto the crushed-rock path, looking her up and down for signs of discomfort as she followed him.Harry watched her walk so closely he should have been able to trick himself into seeing something that wasn’t there, paranoid as he was. But her steps were even and graceful, easy. Her expression was relaxed, one ear cocked in concentration as she tried to work her teeth over the twig and strip the leaves without biting down on the bitter wood.“Ridiculous,” Harry murmured, pausing to tug the stick from the corner of her mouth then strip the leaves, foamy with saliva. He fed them to her one by one and tossed the twig down.“This is why she’s a princess,” Jose observes wryly, standing at a distance so he could watch her move. “Want to have a look, boss? She’s right as rain to me.”Harry nodded and let Jose take the lead rope. He watched the silver mare walk off, still chewing, and then Jose broke into a jog and she trotted with him, still looking perfect, with none of the slight stiffness she’d had coming off the trailer in the past week.Jose grinned. “Buena, no?”Harry smiled back, cautiously optimistic. “Yeah,” he agreed after a moment. “She looks good.”Harry hung around the pasture rail for two hours while Hedwig wandered and grazed, watching with extra care when something occasionally caught her eye and made her canter across the field. But every step she took was confident and rhythmic. She was sound even by Harry’s exacting standards. Jose lost interest after a half hour and went to clean the stall and the trailer. Usually Harry helped him with things like that when he had the time, but today he couldn’t take his eyes off Hedwig. He was watching her with one eye even as he answered texts from Ron, Hermione, Sirius, and Draco. On his short phone call with Pansy.Finally it was hot and buggy enough Harry decided she’d have to come in whether she liked it or not, and he climbed the fence, gathered her and took her back to her temporary lodging. Then he went back to the house, walking the trail he’d jogged that morning. Even taking his time and passing through patches of shade, he broke into a sweat. The air was still and muggy in the trees.Harry took his second shower of the day and dressed in what Tom had left out for him. Feeling cooperative after the morning’s excellent blow job, he even found the little unmarked canister of hair wax. They were horrifically expensive and Harry had resisted Tom’s efforts to groom him, but he finger-combed a small amount through his damp hair. Harry could tell a slight difference in the orderliness of his hair and it made him smell a little like Tom, which he was reluctant to admit he liked.Tom had wanted him to rent a car, but Harry had a perfectly good pick up truck to drive after he’d unhooked the horse trailer. Even if it had two extra rear tires, was a hassle to park, and smelled a lot like a barn. Daphne only ate lunch at two local places. She and Draco were always jockeying to see who could be the fussiest and she won their contests more often than not. She’d chosen the bistro with the tiny tables and intricate floral patterns on all the plates which simultaneously made Harry feel nervous and annoyed. He almost ate a cheeseburger on the way, eyeing the drive-through places he passed on the freeway with longing. The food at Daphne’s place was proportionate to the tables.Despite his best intentions, Harry was fifteen minutes late when he slunk through the door. It had taken forever to find somewhere he could park the truck, and he needed to work a streak of mud off the khakis, transferred there from the running board when he slid out. But when he searched for the table with Tom and the Greengrasses seated at it, he only found Tom, alone at the corner table by the shaded window.Harry caught his eye, and Tom set down his phone and smiled. He leaned back as Harry walked over, one arm arched over the back of his chair. Harry bent and kissed him, and Tom’s knuckles brushed his cheek. It was a sudden reminder of that morning, and Harry barely remembered to be annoyed when he slid into the chair across from Tom’s.“You gave me the wrong time.”“That’s because I preferred you to be ten minutes early instead of ten minutes late.” He glanced at his watch. “Or is it fifteen?”Harry didn’t dignify that comment with a response. He picked up his menu just for something to look at and scowled at the options. “If you behave, maybe I’ll have steaks brought to the house later,” Tom murmured, picking up his own menu and nudging Harry’s ankle with his toe. Harry wasn’t sure it was deliberate; there was no space under the table.“I always behave,” he muttered back, curling his legs under the chair and out of Tom’s reach, just in case. “How was your appointment?”Tom had met with his lawyer and his accountant, if Harry remembered correctly. “I might need to reconsider that firm. I think they have me meeting with a junior associate, for fuck’s sake. Who do they think I am?”Harry didn’t think he should answer that. “Soon you can be your own lawyer I guess.”Tom hesitated, then shrugged. “If I decide to practice in that area,” he allowed, the slightest bit stiffly. Harry glanced up, feeling like he’d missed something, but the moment had already passed and the Greengrasses were coming in. Harry tried to paste on an appropriate smile and by the way Tom snorted, assumed he’d failed.But that night, Tom did have a catering company bring by two steak dinners, the fat, melt-in-your-mouth kind with delicate vegetable sides on the plate, arranged like artwork. Tom ignoring his plate, let Harry eat out of his lap (without even calling him a heathen) so they could sit on the back porch and watch the sunset, Harry’s socked feet in Tom’s lap, Tom drinking red wine and talking about how convenient it was that Astoria’s snobby fiance had been so easy to dazzle.Harry ate and said nothing except to murmur encouragingly when Tom rolled his thumb under Harry’s arches. When they rinsed the dishes and went upstairs, Harry had the passing thought that it was all so nice, just this everyday time together, he could almost be tempted by New York.Almost.*The weekend was over too quickly. When it was time to leave, Jose drove the truck. Harry and Tom followed in Tom’s Porsche. It was a seven-hour haul; they stopped for two hours to hand walk Hedwig and have lunch. When they reached the venue, Tom followed Harry through the arena to the show office while Jose got Hedwig settled in.While they walked through the crowds of familiar faces, Tom drew some curious looks. Harry realized that in most of his competition years since Tom started at Yale, Tom had been in the audience, not the trenches. Most of the people Harry rode with now, he hadn’t known back when he and Tom met, even in the winters doing the circuits in Florida.But it was nice, even if Harry was fairly sure Tom should be in class. This was Tom, though; he never did anything he didn’t want to, and denied himself nothing. And for whatever reason, he’d decided they were doing this together.Impulsively, Harry reached for Tom’s hand. Their fingers brushed and Harry paused, about to pull away again. But Tom swiftly and immediately caught his hand before he could second guess, a warm and reassuring clasp. Harry’s cheeks felt warm. It had been a long time since Tom made him shy. He actually hadn’t thought it was possible anymore, after all the things he’d let Tom do to him.At check in Harry saw a young man leaning against the counter speaking to the show secretary and was drawn straight out of thoughts of his relationship. Tom, sensing his reaction but obviously not recognizing the ordinary-looking journalist, shot Harry a puzzled glance when Harry froze in the doorway.“Creevey,” Harry hissed under his breath to Tom, just as Colin saw them and stood up straight, turning away from his friendly banter with the show staff to give Harry a steady smile.“Hi, Harry,” he said evenly.Harry felt Tom’s grip tighten.“Colin,” Harry replied, with every ounce of civility he could muster.“Been a while,” Colin went on, his freckled face impassive. Behind him, the woman at the computer looked torn between wanting to look away out of secondhand embarrassment and abject fascination. “Yeah. Funny, since we go all the same places. Know all the same people.” He glanced at Tom and saw that Tom’s eyes were fixed on Colin in a way that Harry thought should probably worry him. “This is my—um, boyfriend. Tom Riddle.”Colin looked at Tom, his hazel eyes unaffected by the polite smile he put on as he extended a hand to Tom. “Nice to meet you.”Tom lifted his hand and totally bypassed Colin’s, instead snapping his fingers and smiling brightly, as though making a sudden realization. “I have it! Where I’ve heard your name. Colin Creevey. The kid whose parents bought him a six figure hunter and he couldn’t get her over a single fence. No wonder you’ve resorted to the sidelines. A blog, isn’t it? Well, the internet needs content too. Maybe one day you’ll find someone who thinks your output is worth the price of ink and paper.”“Tom,” Harry hissed, meanwhile wondering if the faint, bubbly feeling in his chest was shock or delight. Colin was pink in the cheeks. “Right. I see. It’s not my job to be nice, Tom. It’s my job to be honest. If Harry isn’t willing to face a particularly difficult course, should we be willing to send him to Rio when—”“Three horses went down over that bank and one didn’t get back up. I think Harry’s refusal to compete was the only responsible choice. One more of the competitors should have made.”Harry looked at Tom sharply. “You…?” He began but didn’t finish. It wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to discuss in front of even a small audience — particularly an audience that included Colin Creevey — but Harry had always wondered what Tom’s opinion had been when Harry had essentially taken himself out of the running for the USET two years before. He’d scratched Hedwig from a premiere event in Tennessee, concerned the cross-country course design was too dangerous.At the time, he and Tom has been in one of their periods of distance. Or one of their periods where Harry tried to keep Tom at a distance, that is.“Isn’t this office for competitors, anyway?” Tom finished coldly. His warm smile for the show Secretary was a dizzying contrast that made her blink, her hanging-open mouth snapping closed“Yes,” she said immediately, seeming to surprise herself. Harry, who knew the power of even a fraction of Tom’s charm, sympathized. She looked back at Colin and looked even more chagrined.He held up a staying hand with a calm smile. “That’s fine, Brenda. I should leave you to it. Just wanted to say hi.”Brenda smiled gratefully. She wiggled her fingers at Colin and then turned a tense smile on Harry. “Checking in?”He tugged his hand free of Tom’s so he could pick up the pen.*Hedwig warmed up beautifully that evening. Harry waited out the heat, not saddling until well after sunset. That meant the show jumping course was empty when he rode her out under the gauzy white lights. If he listened carefully, he could hear the low humming of the powerful bulbs high overhead, and the buzzing clouds of insects that formed around them.After a few laps at the walk, Harry tried the trot, then the canter. She never took a misstep. He looked over to where Tom was leaning against the fence and they exchanged smiles, Harry’s tentative, Tom’s sure. Harry’s hand shook as he rubbed Hedwig’s neck.Harry slowed to a walk just as a few men came in with a big black mare. Or rather, she came in, half-dragging them along. She was large and lovely, her head high, her coat shining blue under the lights.“...you beast...god damn monster…” Harry heard one of the handlers saying through his teeth as the mare flew sideways through the gait, the man clinging to the reins like the string on a kite. Harry winced, watching the mare bear her teeth in response to what had to be painful pressure on her tongue and jaw.Seeing less-than-ideal treatment was something Harry had learned to live with since his earliest days among horses. Still, he hoped the guy barking orders at the handler to be “firm with the bitch” got dumped on his ass. And it looked like the odds Harry’s wish would come true were good; a third man helped the handler restrain the mare at the mounting block before the rider got into the saddle and she held still with a tension in her shoulders that bode ill for his first few moments astride.Hedwig, alert to the other horse’s energy, turned her head to watch as the mare immediately reared back on her hind legs, tearing the reins from the handler’s hold. The rider yelped and slid straight out of the saddle, over her tail and onto the ground. The other men flew backward, startled, leaving her free to trot briskly away from them unhurriedly, like she’d swatted off a gnat and was now going about her business.Harry put a hand on Hedwig’s neck, but it wasn’t necessary. Other horses might get excited at the sight of a riderless horse prancing around the arena, reins waving and stirrups flapping, but Hedwig was Hedwig. She yawned.The black mare, now cantering, turned her head sharply. Harry, watching her, looked too. Tom was leaning against the inside of the railing where he’d been on the outside a few moments before, posture casual, head tilted. The mare eyed one of the taller upright fences, lined herself up to it and sailed over, then looked at Tom again, as though to say “How was that?”Harry heard Tom’s laugh from across the course and it drew a laugh from Harry, too. Then he heard the three men swearing as they arranged themselves to intercept the mare, and grimaced. As satisfying as it had been to watch her dust her rider, Harry had a feeling she was going to pay later for being uncooperative.For now, though, she was easily evading the men, easily bolting away from their every effort to corner her. She looked like she would never tire, and Harry had to admire that. She occasionally leapt over one of the arranged jumps like it was fun, someone knocking her heels together when they skipped off a curb.Out of nowhere, she broke her pattern of rounding the course, and wheeled around, broke to a walk, and wound up standing calmly next to Tom. He reached out and touched her neck; she nuzzled his hand. The three men, now panting, caught up but paused at a cautious distance.“Diabla,” one of them spat at the mare. “Worthless, dog meat,” he added. “Thanks for grabbing her,” he added grudgingly to Tom. “Sorry for the hassle,” he added over his shoulder to Harry, who shrugged, not wanting to see what happened next, but sure there was nothing he could do to intervene. Of course, now Tom was involved too, and he lacked Harry’s restraint.“Worthless, you say?” he asked calmly. “Then the price must be right. How much?”The man who seemed to be in charge of the others, and who was greying and blotchy-cheeked from jogging uselessly after the horse for ten minutes, snorted. “You’d get yourself killed, kid. Don’t want that on my conscience.”“Oh,” Tom said calmly, “but you see, unlike your rider there, I’m capable of riding more than a stick horse.”The rider in question, wet sand still clinging to most of his lower half, made a strangled noise in objection, but the other man cut him off before he could form actual words. Tom ignored them, patting the horse in a slow and soothing manner. She’d dropped her head four inches and her eyes were half-closed, docile as a kid’s pony. Harry bent his head to hide his smile.“Okay, smartass,” grumbled the owner, “that’s enough. It’s late. Come on.” He held out his hand, then thought better of it and elbowed the rider. The rider held out his hand for the reins instead, though he didn’t look happy about it.“I’m not joking,” Tom said practically. “I’d like to buy her. If you’re worried about my safety, let’s make it contingent. I’ll buy her, but only if I can mount up now and breeze her without issue.”All three men laughed lowly, but apparently Tom had annoyed them enough they no longer particularly cared for his welfare.“Tom Riddle, right?” the owner asked after a moment. “I remember you. How about this? You take any jump on this course and stay rightside up, and you can have the bitch for free.”Tom grinned, checked the girth and adjusted the stirrups, and spoke into the mare’s ear a moment, still rubbing her neck, slow and methodical. His hands were pale on the silky black coat, and Harry felt a little rush of uncertainty, sliding out of the saddle on impulse and unstrapping his helmet.“At least…” he began, holding it out, but Tom just winked at him and leapt into the saddle with a dancer’s grace. It wasn’t the right size for him, but that didn’t matter. He got his feet in the stirrups as the mare’s energy came back up. Instead of holding her back when she started to dance beneath him, Tom curved his body over her neck and went with her as she gathered her legs like springs to launch into a gallop.At first the men laughed, self-satisfied, and even Harry couldn’t quite tell whether Tom had miscalculated. The horse was running, the reins lax along her neck, Tom high in the saddle and low over her neck like a jockey. He looked to be secure in the saddle, but at first she barreled around the arena with no more care for anyone else, including Tom, than she’d shown riderless. Then, after a few moments, the men’s laughter stopped. Harry’s breath caught. It was like watching a chase turn into a dance. As the mare’s posture changed, straining less for distance and engaging more for grace in each stride, Tom sat up, too, echoing her. Within a few moments they’d fully transformed, both held in perfect balance, Tom’s back a beautifully straight line, his chin up, guiding the mare invisibly toward the massive roll-top jump in the center of the course.They approached with measured, sure strides and the posie of a pair who had been together years rather than minutes. Harry felt the pounding of the mare’s hooves in the sand like a pulse in his ears and her snorts as each stride drove the breath from her lungs. Then the hitch in her breathing as she left the earth, the moment of silence while she flew through midair, Tom a part of her, weightless, buoyant, and the thud of her forefeet making contact on the far side before she regathered in perfect rhythm and galloped on, content with her passenger.Tom brought her back to a trot, then a walk, and circled back to the silent, tight-lipped men with the mare on the buckle. She pinned her ears at the sight of them, then looked away. Tom patted her neck.“So, you’ll bring the paperwork by in the morning, I assume?”There was some grumbling, shouting, and hands thrown in the air. Harry left them to it, taking Hedwig out with her bridle off and the rein around her neck to let her crop grass outside the gate. When Tom finally sauntered out, leading his prize, Harry trembled with the urge to kiss him, and settled for biting his own lip and shaking his head.“Show off,” he muttered affectionately, tugging up Hedwig’s head and falling into step beside Tom, looking the glossy mare over curiously. “What’s her name?”“Naga,” Tom said without pause, giving her neck a quick, resolved pat. “Doesn’t it suit her?”“Sure, maybe, if I knew what it meant.”“A serpent deity,” Tom said. “I’ve been waiting for the perfect horse to name that. Don’t you like it?”Harry sighed. “Well, she does seem crafty,” he allowed. “It was like she planned the whole thing.”Tom didn’t say anything for a moment, glancing from his new horse toward the pools of light around the stables they were walking toward, then over at Harry. “Is there anything wrong with that?”Harry fumbled with the answer for a moment. He was well-aware neither of them thought a horse was capable of scheming for a transfer in ownership, so he knew they were talking about something else.“Not necessarily,” he allowed at last. Tom smiled, sly, and Harry instantly regretted his answer. But he still felt like he didn’t even know what he’d been asked.*That night in the hotel, Harry rolled toward Tom, who was laying on his back, looking at his phone. Tom arched a brow at him, questioning. Harry leaned on his chest with both forearms. When he ran his right knee up and down Tom’s thigh he felt the soft cotton of his pajama bottoms bunch up.“What...what do you want?” Harry asked, looking Tom in the eye. He kissed the side of his throat, then pulled back so he could see his face again. Tom’s dark eyes were curious; watchful. He tossed his phone toward the nightstand but didn’t put his hands on Harry.“You know,” Tom said quietly.Harry shook his head slightly, easing his right leg over Tom’s, straddling him, most of his weight on his thighs and stomach and therefore on Tom, who grunted and lifted his hands to Harry’s back, lightly falling to his waist.“Communication, remember?”Tom’s eyes seemed to get darker. Harry’s heart sped up, almost afraid.“You can tell me,” he insisted, but his voice sounded strained even in his own ears. Did he really mean it?Tom’s hands tightened and he took handfuls of Harry’s oversized T-shirt in his fists. “Can I?”Harry nodded, resolute, like he hadn’t just asked himself the same question, and levered himself up to he was on his knees over Tom, his hands resting on Tom’s clothed chest. Tom tilted his head to one side like he was lost in thought, hands making a thoughtful, warm path down Harry’s thighs to his knees then back to his waist. Harry squirmed, already getting hard.“I wanna know,” he said fervently, holding Tom’s eye, proving he meant it. “I want you to have what you want.”Those words surprised Harry. He’d never thought directly about Tom’s goals or Harry’s feelings about them. He’d always considered it none of his business. But if they were together—and they were—and stayed that way—which Harry was determined to do—then Tom’s plans for his own life were now incredibly relevant for Harry.And more deeply, he wanted Tom happy. He never wanted him to suffer. He wanted him to live a life of purpose and satisfaction and to see him smile and surrender himself to the moment the same way he had when he’d jumped onto a half-wild, strange horse.He loved Tom. It was true. But he had to wonder whether there would be some price to each one of the jewels Tom imagined for his crown, and what that price might be.Right now, though, he couldn’t think of anything he wouldn’t pay. “Tell me. What do you...how do you want it?”Tom’s thumbs dug into Harry’s ribs a moment while his eyes narrowed. “I want to.” He swallowed. “Tie you up while I lash you. Hit you so hard you can barely walk.” Harry shuddered and Tom’s eyes flew, so focused, to Harry’s face. “But the thought makes me sick too... I never want to see you even flinch. I want to suck a bruise over your heart—“ his hand crawled up to splay over Harry’s rubs “—and I also hate seeing a single mark on you.”Harry felt a little lightheaded. He thought of all the things they’d done and realized Tom had always known, uncannily, what Harry liked best. How Tom taking control was always, in a way, Harry taking control, because they both knew how Harry loved it: Harry passive, letting Tom be rough. Or sometimes, when he wanted to, wrestling Tom down and riding him.He leaned into Tom’s hand, hips tilting so the base of his cock and his balls ground softly against Tom’s, and they both breathed in, sharp.“So you want, what — ?” Harry smiled, unsure. “Everything? Nothing?”Tom smiled back, jerking his hips up against Harry. “Oh, everything, definitely.”Harry leaned over him and they laughed against each other’s cheeks, quietly, just rubbing against one another and feeling, considering. A dark thought occurred to Harry and though he wanted to shy from it, he forced himself to ask instead. “What about...what about with other people? Do you...”Tom’s hands, back on Harry’s waist, squeezed. “I’ve never... You’re the only one I’ve ever really...”Harry had tucked his face against Tom’s neck, hiding, but now Tom rolled them over, caging Harry with his arms, kneeling between Harry’s splayed knees. The look on his face was almost too much. Harry couldn’t look away, though it hurt. Tom’s face was half-shadowed, but his expression was wide open. Harry had only seen Tom look at him that way once before. The memory was like a shock to the heart.
Tom, sitting on the floor with the remains of the hotel room he’d destroyed all around him, his head buried in his hands. “They’re gone,” he’d said hollowly to Harry, then looked up. His eyes dark and wide and endless, like he was far away and lost and Harry was his only hope of an anchor....
Harry dragged himself back to the present, where Tom was scanning his face, unspeaking.“I want to give you everything,” he said at last, lowly. “You’re the only one left who matters.”He was stroking Harry through his pajama bottoms, and the intensity of everything had Harry erect. Tom rolled Harry onto his back and slid Harry’s sweats and underwear down over his ass, leaving him exposed for a half second before Tom sheathed him with his mouth.It was, Harry thought dazedly, the fifth time he’d been sucked off in as many days and in all that time, Tom hadn’t fucked him. But he wasn’t quite to the point of worrying about the implications, if any. He let Tom tease him, all tongue and no pressure, until he couldn’t stand it, and worked his own hand between them, fast and determined.Tom took his come on his tongue, sucked the last few drops off his head, and laid on Harry’s chest.“Heavy,” Harry complained, feeling like his head was hazy, unsure whether to think about his heart or his cock or the competition the next day. “Want me to...?”Tom’s head moved against his chest. He stroked Harry’s arm. “You’ve gotta ride your ass off tomorrow. I saw your course map.”Harry smiled. He felt it, sleep coming for him, inevitable. But he was sure of it, in those last moments of clarity that can come, for an irretrievable instant, right before sleep.There was something to be known here, about Tom. And Harry was missing it. He was missing it.*The next morning Harry woke before Tom, slid out of bed, and went for a run while it was still dark. All the territory around the hotel was an unknown, so he kept to the lighted space of the parking lot, making lap after lap, thinking about his course.When he got back, he showered and got dressed before he realized Tom was already gone, but then, Harry had been accused of being “single-minded” on show days and figured Tom thought it would be better to stay out of his hair. Then he didn’t think about it again. He showered, put in his Bluetooth earbuds and played Chopin on his phone, and got dressed with the music flooding his head, drowning his racing thoughts, so instead he could envision the course. All the obstacles with their order number hovering beside them, one after another. And he imagined navigating each one flawlessly on Hedwig, over and over, like it had already happened.*At the barn, he and Jose only exchanged nods and silent grins, and then launched into their routine. Hedwig was already fed, walked and groomed, but Harry went over everything a second time, speaking to her quietly, just hearing his own voice over the music. Then he and Jose tacked her up, Jose handing him things, Harry getting everything into place.When nothing was left but mounting up, Harry took out his earbuds and heard all the ordinary sounds of activity in the barn aisle. People talking a few stalls away, the tinny call of the announcer’s stand across the building on the course, and horses moving and snorting and whinnying nearby and at a distance.He checked his phone and found texts from his friends, the Weasleys, and one from Tom.
Tom: gl
Harry rolled his eyes and smiled, typing out a quick reply before he put his phone into Jose’s waiting hand.
Harry: gl? Really? Couldn’t even take the time to spell everything out?
The USET committee had gotten good seats, of course, spread out over the first couple rows but still easy to identify by their white polos with the logo on the pocket. Harry tried not to look at them, managing tense smiles for Ron and Hermione, also near the front row. He didn’t see Tom.“All’s well,” said the TD who had checked his tack at the gate.The first part of the course was the most difficult, which was anticlimactic for the audience and atypical, but brilliant in its own way. The horses —or riders— who lost confidence early on would suffer time in the simpler obstacles that came after. Plus, there was a lot of open country later in the course when horses might be too tired for their peak speeds.It wasn’t an ideal course for Hedwig. Her strength was her mind and heart, not her sheer power. Complex courses that caused other horses to get frazzled or sloppy were where she had the most advantage, staying calm and collected even in the most intricate or crowded course paths.. But if he kept it clean he could make up for a slower time in the other events, so Harry wasn’t worried. Besides, the first segment, a few winding brush jumps over sloping footing followed by a bank and water hazard, wouldn’t phase Hedwig.“Oh, you’ll go for a blood draw after the course,” said the TD. Harry frowned at her, distracted. “Huh?”“Someone found a few syringes of bute in the dumpster. Your horse has been selected for random testing,” she said more slowly, with a smile that said she understood why he was struggling to pay any attention to her. “Have a good run,” she added with a wink. “I’m a fan.” Harry managed a smile for her too.When Hedwig walked out on the course and he urged her into a canter, everything blurred to nothing as he settled into his place of focus. Deep inside him, somewhere over the bank and just before the splash of the water on its far side he heard for just a heartbeat the soaring crescendo of Chopin’s sonata.Then Hedwig flattened into a gallop down the course toward the last few obstacles, faster than he’d ever felt her, and the only music in him was his heartbeat and the singing wind. By the time they got to the end, Harry knew the time would be fast before he heard the announcement. His hands felt numb from surging adrenaline and he couldn’t stop smiling, laughing, rubbing Hedwig’s neck in big long strokes. He almost forgot to stop for the blood draw, but he saw the vet trailer and remembered the TD’s instructions. So instead of walking back toward the holding area where Jose, Ron and Hermione would be waiting, he waited for someone to come for them. He walked Hedwig in long slow circles while they waited, rubbing her sweaty chest into a lather, finding all the favorite spots. “You’re brilliant, you’re perfect,” he assured her. She snorted and got snot on his sleeve, then nudged his cheek as though in halfhearted apology. He let her trim the grass along the barrier around the vet trailer, which still seemed strangely abandoned.Finally someone came out to tell him his test was waived. Harry hadn’t been chosen for the random draws often and though he thought it was strange that the TD at the start had been wrong, he figured they had plenty to keep straight and little mistakes were bound to happen.No one was in the holding area except Tom. Harry was still too silly-happy to be surprised. “That was marvelous.” Tom’s eyes were bright with sincerity. He grinned. “When did she get so fast?”“I don’t know,” Harry said, laughing, which made Tom laugh too. This time when their hands found one another’s it didn’t seem strange at all.*
Snowy Lady a scratch for the remaining events at the St. Louis Special

By Colin Creevey

It’s never a victory in our industry to lose a competitor to lameness, particularly not a USET hopeful. But it would appear that Harry Potter’s meteoritic rise to notoriety, attributable to his once-in-a-lifetime horse, Snowy Lady (aka “Hedwig”) has come to an end. While the only official word we have on her condition is a scratch for medical reasons, sources stalled near Potter report that the mare is suffering swelling in her right foreleg that elevated to the point she was non-weight-bearing on the limb this morning after a winning cross country ride yesterday.

There will be no Rio for Potter, which my readers may believe has me cheering. But though I continue to believe a USET without Potter is the USA’s best bet, this isn’t the way I wanted that outcome realized.

Best of luck to Snowy Lady and her owners and caretakers, and best wishes to Harry Potter. We here at the Eventer can only imagine his disappointment.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It was a particularly cool morning, the cusp of fall. Even the fragrance of evergreens and the suggestion of frost on the breeze didn’t improve Harry’s mood. Jose had the weekend off, and he was halfway down the row of stalls with his wheelbarrow and pitchfork when he heard the crunch of gravel under tires.

Assuming it was an early FedEx delivery or possibly someone who was lost, he poked his head out the stall door testily. He couldn’t see the car from where he stood.

He leaned the fork against the wall in the stall and stepped outside, surprised by who he saw. “Millicent.”

As usual, she wore black dress pants, loafers, and an untucked button down. She would look slightly too casual at the office and of course she was overdressed for the barn. She’d recently cut all her hair off in a close buzz cut after growing it out to the middle of her back.

“Harry,” she replied with a steely look. “I’m here about Vengeance.”

Harry went back in the stall and grabbed his pitchfork. “Of course you are.”

She made a disgruntled sound under her breath, appearing between the grill of the stall front, a scowl on her face. “You can’t scratch my horses without telling me.”

Harry, feeling mean, smiled grimly at her. “I thought they were

our

horses.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Either way. They’re not just yours, that’s for sure. I buy them, and then pay all their bills.”

Harry bent his head to his work, wondering if he could will her to disappear, or more realistically, if he could just ignore her long enough and she’d go away.

“I know you’re frustrated about Silver Lady.” Millicent, of course, was perfectly matter-of-fact, like she was noticing his preference for Ariat boots, emotions weren’t relevant.

Harry grit his teeth. He knew this was just how Millicent was, and he couldn’t blame her for not understanding. But.

“Vengeance is for sale, and anyone who’s taken an interest is going to wonder if he was scratched because he’s not fit to show.”

“Let them wonder.”

“I don’t want to let them do anything except confidently offer to buy the horse.” Her voice was a little louder, betraying her answering frustration. “How long are you going to be like this?”

Harry considered. Hedwig would never jump again. He’d be lucky to one day ride her comfortably out on the trails. The Olympics were lost now and possibly forever, considering his tenuous reputation in light of suspicions he’d drugged his horse.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, the fight draining from him, and leaned against the wall. The pitchfork clattered to the floor.

“Vinnie is fine. But

I’m

not. That’s why I scratched.”

Millicent looked thoughtful. “We could lower his price. Move him along, get him off your plate.”

They’d made a tidy business together taking thoroughbreds that didn’t make it on the race track for whatever reason, and retraining them as beginning jumpers or eventers. Vengeance, a big bay gelding, was their most recent and most promising acquisition.

“No, don’t,” Harry said, sighing. “I’ll see if they’ll let me enter late. I need to get out there again, and it’s just a local thing.”

Millicent stepped back from the stall, still frowning. “You still can’t scratch without telling me. Even when you’re sad.”

Harry laughed mirthlessly. “I know, Mill. I’m sorry.”

She just stared at him. “I don’t care if you say you’re sorry. I want you to say you won’t do it again.”

Harry sighed and looked her in the eye. “Right. I won’t do it again.”

With that, Millicent visibly relaxed. “Good. Well, good thing I caught you. You’re leaving today, right?”

“As soon as Jose gets back, I’m heading to the airport, yeah.”

“Don’t extend your trip,” she said sternly. “You’ve got work to do here.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

*

When he’d cleaned the stalls and refilled water buckets, he went out to Hedwig’s pasture for however long it took Jose to get back. The sight of her bandaged legs still made him wince no matter how many times a day he saw her. She noticed him coming and walked over slowly but steadily to meet him at the gate. He emptied his pockets of the stubby carrots he’d stuffed them with and then followed her around while she grazed, pausing when she stood still to lean against her shoulder, drifting after her when she wandered on with one hand on her firm, warm back, where he used to put his saddle.

The airport was crowded with the mid-week usual flyers. Businessmen, retirees. He kept his head down, face shielded by the bill of a baseball cap. It was rare he was recognized, but when it happened lately it was a miserable experience.

Harry had always hated leaving his home base — Kansas, then Florida, then Colorado, wherever his horses were — but today he felt oddly and pleasantly untethered as the jet ascended. On the other end of the flight was Tom and a physical distance from the daily reminders of Harry’s failures. It was a relief already.

By the time he landed and deplaned, looking through the crowd at baggage claim for Tom’s familiar silhouette, he felt more alert than he had in weeks. At the sight of Tom, standing a head taller than the cluster of people around him, an involuntary grin stretched across his face.

Tom saw him, too, with an answering sincere if much more reserved smile, and he shifted through the crowd to meet Harry at the rounded end of the luggage conveyor belt.

Harry held him tight and thrust his face into his chest. “Missed you,” he muttered against Tom’s shirt, breathing in his overpriced smell.

Tom rubbed his back. “You too.”

Harry drew back reluctantly to look at Tom’s face, keeping his arms looped around his waist. He looked thin. And there were lines of tension around his mouth, even as he looked back down at Harry with a curious smile.

“I like this greeting,” he murmured, rubbing his thumbs over Harry’s hipbones. “What did I do to earn it?”

Harry sighed and let him go so he could shove his chest, but gently. “If you’re going to tease me, I’ll keep my feelings to myself.”

Tom slid his arm around Harry’s waist and pulled him to his side, bending his head a bit to drop a kiss on his temple. “Don’t you dare.”

They watched the luggage carousel for Harry’s orange-tagged black luggage in companionable silence, Tom’s arm around Harry, Harry’s head on his shoulder.

“How’s your uncle?” Harry asked eventually.

Tom stiffened but didn’t pull away. “Pleasant as ever,” he said dryly. “There’s your luggage.” Then he did let go of Harry so he could reach for the bigger piece and pull it toward them as it came around. Harry, with only his carry-on, rolled his eyes.

“I can carry my own stuff.”

“But so can I. Come on; I’m parked illegally.”

Tom was parked

very

illegally, but Harry watched him charm the parking attendant out of finishing writing the ticket she’d started, and put his stuff in the tiny trunk of a silver Audi.

“Did you buy this?” he asked in surprise, looking at the temporary plate.

Tom slid into the driver’s seat. “It’s borrowed.”

“Who do you know in Omaha other than your uncle? Is it his?”

Tom breathed out through his nose; Harry watched his nostrils flare. “It’s not his. I drove up from Kansas City. It’s Lucius’ car.”

“Why were you there? I thought you had finals for your summer classes.”

“I finished them early. They were take-home. I needed to catch up on a few things with Lucius, and it was practically on the way.”

Harry was oddly annoyed and didn’t know why. If

he

had spent two days in another state without Tom knowing, Tom would be furious. But Harry didn’t want to model Tom’s relationship strategies, which left him stuck.

“Did you see Minerva?”

Tom smiled. “Yes. I took her to lunch and while I had her hostage I made her look at photos of Nagini.”

Harry laughed and leaned his head back against the headrest as the car charged out of the terminal parking and merged onto the freeway. Tom rested one hand on the back of Harry’s neck and drove with the other. It was warm enough to our down the top on the Audi, so they did. The wind was a welcome noisy distraction in Harry’s ears and on his face.

Harry leaned toward the window. It was early evening, but the days were still long enough that the sky was full of violet light. He could see the landscape spreading past the road, dotted with fewer and fewer signs of human habitation. The sand hills reminded him a lot of the rolling landscape he'd grown up in eastern Kansas, but the skyline had harder edges, the occasional suggestion of a rectangular rock formation pressing against the carpet of grass like bones under a hide.

Tom turned off the four-lane highway onto a two-lane asphalt road with a steep shoulder, and at the same corner, Harry saw a cylindrical corner post made of stacked stone, inset with a square of weathered wood marked by an R with a bar to either side.

"So this is it." Harry leaned toward Tom to look out his side of the car at more angular prairie. "This is the ranch?"

"Excellent skills of deduction," Tom said dryly, pushing Harry back into his own seat. "I'm trying to drive, here."

The perimeter of the ranch ran two miles along the asphalt road. The scope of it stunned Harry. So much unencumbered land, empty save the occasional distant dark specks of grazing cattle and, near the road where they crossed a narrow-bridge, several startled antelope that were drinking from the little creek.

"It's beautiful," Harry said, but Tom's mouth tightened and he didn't answer. Not that Harry had expected him to. The ranch had too much to do with memories of Tom's father, of course, and the constant reminder that he wasn't free to do what he liked with his inheritance.

Harry squeezed his knee and Tom still said nothing, but the taut line in his jaw eased a bit.

At the next turn, the land took a sudden, sharp dive toward the rocky shores of a sparkling lake. There, built into the slope close to the water, was a rambling one-story ranch with tall windows reflecting the sunset in the lakewater. Harry's eyes were wide at the sight. There was a roadway built up like a dam road from the blacktop to the house, with a meadow above it bordered in wooden fence. A barn that had to be a couple hundred years old, built entirely of white stone, rose from a mowed patch of grass, immaculate and twice as distracting as the house.

Tom took in Harry's reaction out of the corner of his eye and shook his head. "I knew you'd love it," he said. Harry looked at him quickly, but Tom looked rueful, not angry, so Harry relaxed against the seat and drank in the sight of everything they passed as they came up the driveway.

"In my defense, it's objectively cool," he said. The house was even more dramatic up close. The ceilings must all be vaulted to two-stories; the windows had to be twenty feet across. A latticework of multi-tiered decking connected a veranda to the boat house tucked against a generous dock at the water's edge.

Tom parked outside the garage like a guest, and Harry got out then hesitated at the trunk. "Should I get my stuff?"

"Yes, unless you were planning to sleep in the barn," Tom said dryly, elbowing Harry out of the way so he could get his luggage himself.

"Is that an option?" Harry asked half-seriously, and grinned when Tom snorted with a brief, reluctant smile.

"No, because

I

refuse to sleep in a barn."

"Not even for me?" Harry was teasing, but the look Tom gave him in answer was surprisingly solemn. Harry sobered and distracted himself by wrestling his checked bag out of Tom's hand and carrying it himself toward the house's double doors, covered in irregular panes of opaque colored glass.

As Harry had predicted, the interior of the house was a study in solid-wood paneling, exposed beams and furniture that involved a lot of cowhide and yet still looked tasteful in the grand space. Harry pivoted just inside the door, taking in the oversized stone fireplace with a massive stone chimney disappearing into the angled ceiling, the curved built-in book case that partially divided the open-concept living room from the kitchen, and the mural-sized canvas of a stylized herd of galloping buffalo, their bodies streaked with pastels and the dirt they kicked up in their furious run dotted with metallic gold.

"I knew you'd love it," Tom muttered again, less patiently this time, and dragged Harry by the elbow into a hallway off the foyer. Halfway down, next to a console table below an individually-lit portrait of an unfamiliar man in a battered cowboy hat, Tom pushed open a door into a lake-facing room. The wall dividing them from the view was floor-to-ceiling glass, with sliding glass doors leading out to a deck housing two Adirondack chairs and the kind of table built to hold a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"This place is ridiculous, even by your family's standards," Harry decided, flopping down on the king-sized bed. Then he realized the bedspread was white, of all colors, and sat up hastily to look behind himself and see if he'd gotten it dirty.

Tom dropped Harry's luggage by the walk-in closet and looked out the window with a frown. "What's the point of a palace in the middle of nowhere?"

"Some people dream reclusive dreams," Harry said, shrugging. He could almost consider himself one of them, though he thought over time the repetition of being alone would wear on him. "Or they just want to have really great vacations. I could spend a couple weeks a year here, for sure."

Tom looked unconvinced. "Well, we'd better go see my uncle."

Harry got back off the bed at once. He was curious about so many aspects of this place, but most of all about the man who lived here, the alleged bane of Tom's existence. Harry recalled his own first impression of Randall at Tom's polo match, and wondered if he'd seem different if Harry spent more time around him on his own terrain.

They found Randall in an Adirondack chair like the one that was outside Tom and Harry's room, but this one looked much more lived-in, and instead of a delicate designer table it sat next to a milk crate containing a twelve-pack of beer.

He stood up when he heard the door open. In wranglers, battered boots and a pearl snap shirt, a professional couldn't have dressed him better for his part. "Boys," he said, looking at Tom then Harry with the same stern look. "Flight alright?" he asked Harry, pointing with his chin to a pair of chairs he'd dragged over closer to his. They were on the second platform of decking and from there, Harry could hear the gentle waves churning across the lake.

"It was, yeah, thanks for asking," said Harry, sitting where he'd been directed and accepting a proffered can of beer with a smile. Tom stood stiffly by the third chair, not quite looking at either of them. Randall didn't bother offering him a beer.

Harry sipped the bitter contents. He wasn't a beer drinker under the best of circumstances, and he'd frankly never understood the appeal of the sour watery taste of most domestic lagers. But he was thirsty enough that anything was welcome, and leaning back in the chair and stretching out his legs after a day spent in cars and airplanes was hard to beat.

"Auctioneer'll be here in an hour to set up," Randall told Tom. "I told him he could use whatever part of the house he thought best."

Tom nodded shortly but offered no further acknowledgement.

Harry glanced between them and sipped his beer.

"This is quite a place," he told Randall. But Randall didn't seem to take it as a compliment.

"It's a place," was his answer. Harry thought, but would never dare say, that though Tom and Randall didn't look much alike, they reminded him intensely of one another in this moment.

Harry's stomach chose that moment to interrupt with a lingering growl. Randall chuckled and Tom looked down at Harry with displeased surprise.

"Have you eaten?"

Harry frowned in thought. He wasn't much for breakfast, then he'd been getting ready for the flight. The delay in his response was apparently answer enough for Tom, who rolled his eyes. He looked briefly at Randall. "Is there still anything left from last night?"

Randall shrugged and nodded. Tom kicked Harry gently in the ankle. "Up. Honestly. How do you manage without me?"

Harry set down his beer can carefully and stood up with regret. The chair had been comfortable and the view was sublime. If he hadn't been suddenly hungry, the beer stirring his stomach back to life, he could have stayed there all night. "See you later, then?" he asked Randall. He earned a quick, surprised look, then another shrug.

"Seems likely."

Harry didn't realize he was smiling until they were back inside and he caught Tom giving him a strange look and took stock of himself. "What?" he asked defensively. "He's funny."

"I knew you'd like him, too," Tom grumbled, pulling Harry by the elbow toward the kitchen. He sat him on a stool at a smooth quartz countertop. Harry ran his thumbnail over the metallic flecks in the smooth surface while Tom pulled a tray of finger sandwiches out of the refrigerator and set it in front of him.

"You should eat, too," Harry said, giving Tom's gaunt face a knowing look. "You act like I'm the only one with unhealthy eating habits. But you know, pot, kettle." Harry pulled a soggy tomato slice from a miniature turkey sandwich with a grimace, then picked the sandwich up with his thumb and forefinger and popped the whole thing in his mouth.

Tom poked at the contents of the plate with a forefinger, obviously not interested.

"So what was the occasion for fancy sandwiches yesterday?" Harry hadn't known there was anything official happening ahead of the auction tomorrow.

Tom pushed the sandwich tray toward Harry. Harry raised his brows in challenge and pushed it back. Tom relented with a halfhearted glare and but into something on marbled rye. Harry contentedly extracted another unappealing tomato slice and ate a second turkey and cheddar. It was a little dry and the bread was chewy, but he was really hungry, though he’d only just realized it.

“Something to do with the board,” Tom said. It was just a handful of them here. The bank president, Randall of course. A couple neighbors. Probably the only candidates my father ever considered, in all his wisdom. He probably doesn’t know another soul in this entire state.”

“What did they talk about?

Tom looked at him, not chewing.

Harry swallowed. “What? It’s small talk.”

Tom looked down at the sandwiches, like he was trying to choose the edible from the unappealing. “Succession, mainly. They want to find a permanent director since Randall has declared he’s giving everything my dad left him to the foundation.”

Harry blinked. “Wow. Did he say why?”

“Something along the lines of not wanting to live rich off the spoils of tragedy.”

“Wow.”

Tom shot Harry a hard look. “I suppose you think it’s honorable.”

Harry definitely thought so. He shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s like to have money. I don’t know what I’d do with it if I did.”

“Sirius will probably leave you his money.”

The thought honestly shocked Harry. “He’ll have his own kids to leave it to.”

Tom looked briefly amused. “I highly doubt that.”

“Or he’d leave it to a charity or something.” Harry went on. “He wouldn’t—not to me.” But the longer he thought about it, the more worried he got. Sirius wasn’t particularly philanthropic, and he did have a general disregard for the significance of his fellow man, apart from Harry, Remus, and to a certain extent, whomever he happened to be dating at the time.

Somewhere Sirius likely had a will with Harry’s name on it.

“If something happened to him tomorrow and you got it all, what would you do with it?” Tom put another bite of roast beef sandwich in his mouth and looked expectant, but also like he already knew what Harry would say.

“I don’t know,” Harry muttered, suddenly not hungry. “Probably I’d mostly be sad that Sirius was gone.”

He thought hollowly of Tom in the direct aftermath of his family’s deaths, and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Tom was tense, but Harry could only tell because he knew him so well. The calmer Tom looked, the more deliberate his movements and serene his expression, the more rigid his arm would feel under Harry’s hand, the harder his heart would pound.

“That money would become your responsibility,” Tom said, finally picking up another bite of food. “Anyway, the foundation is about to be more than just a few lines from Dad’s trust documents. And if it’s going to have funding, it’ll need someone to decide what to do with that funding, presumably.”

“Doesn’t the foundation have to be for environmental preservation? I thought that’s what your dad wanted.”

“More or less.”

Harry wanted to pry, but it was obvious Tom didn’t want to talk about it. He was actually surprised Tom wasn’t in a worse mood. The auction had been delayed for years because Tom wouldn’t sign off on it, and it was only happening now because the five year window the court had set was almost expired. He should have been a mess.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Tom suggested, not waiting for an answer before he pulled back the tray and took it back to the frig.

Harry licked a speck of mustard from his thumb and slid off the stool. “Okay.”

*

The barn was even more impressive inside. It had never been adapted to modern uses on the lower level. Its stone-cobbled floors and the wooden mangers and partitions were entirely original, making it easy to imagine the last days of its use decades before.

After he looked around under Tom’s amused eye, Tom gestured toward the stairs to the hayloft. Harry went up eagerly. At the top was a small landing and a door, beyond which the barn ceiling sloped upward dramatically, making Harry feel like he was standing beneath a vast, capsized ship.

He was so busy looking up, at the hazy sunlight illuminating a constellation of tiny dust motes, that it wasn’t until Tom impatiently cleared his throat that he looked down and noticed the scene.

His laugh came almost without his consent. The delight of discovering a present he hadn’t been expecting. He advanced toward the sleek piece of furniture, a simple spreader bench in polished mahogany and oiled leather.

“How did you manage to get this up here?” He looked over at Tom in amazement, his grin widening when he saw Tom had his crop in his hand. He should really learn never to underestimate Tom’s preparedness.

“Do you want to interview me, or do you want me to flog you?”

Harry’s hands dropped to the button of his jeans so fast he had to stagger for balance. In short order, he’d shucked his jeans and boxers.

“Shirt, too, but leave the socks,” said Tom. “Wouldn’t want you to get a splinter.”

The bit of practical advice didn’t penetrate the haze of feeling that had descended on Harry, the unsteady bliss of submitting. They’d never used this kind of bench before. Was Tom planning to fuck him there after he’d flogged him? Harry shuddered with anticipation, barely able to wait for Tom’s nod before he swung himself into position, elbows on the bench, knees on the elevated kneelers. The leather felt squashy and comfortable beneath him, quickly warming to the temperature of his skin. He sighed at the feeling and tried not to think about the sight he must make, naked (except for his socks) and ass-up, the spread of his legs leaving his cock and balls dangling and exposed.

“Since this is a special occasion, I thought we should try something new,” Tom murmured. “Do you remember your words?”

It had been a long time since things had felt formal between them. They’d visited a few clubs, and Harry had appreciated but never asked how Tom seemed to have a baseline familiarity with the etiquette. It shouldn’t have surprised Harry; Tom valued research in all areas of life. It had been a while since they’d gone, though; they’d both been content with marking up Harry’s ass now and then, and living apart left them little time to go deeper than that.

But Harry had to choose words at the beginning before Tom would hit him. And he’d chosen the easy-to-remember classics: green, yellow, red.

“Yeah,” he breathed, pressing his forehead onto the bench between his wrists. “I’m green for new things. Very green.”

“You don’t know what they are,” Tom reminded him wanly, but he sounded excited, too. They both preferred to walk on the wrong side of the fine lines of consent.

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry said. “Green. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

He heard Tom chuckle, and the sound made his toes curl. Then the crop landed with a sound

snack

directly on his balls.

Harry lurched forward against the bench, possibly bruising both hips and making the furniture jerk forward an inch across the wood floor with a squeak.

“FUCK.”

Tom hit him again, and Harry howled, too incoherent now for expletives. But he hadn’t said

red

, so Tom hit him again.

This time Harry managed to stay still through the shock and the coil of sick pain that snaked through his stomach, and he was filled with that tight, full-body misery that he knew,

knew

carried an immeasurable payoff if he could summon enough will to endure it.

Tom trailed the edge of the crop from his tailbone down the crack of his ass and Harry set his teeth into the back of his curled fist and moaned.

“You are a bastard,” Harry whimpered.

“Patently untrue.”

Harry laughed, then moaned. His body had taken steps to protect itself, drawing his abused balls up tightly against his shaft. The crop traced a circle around them and Harry tried not to hyperventilate.

“You look amazing like this.” Tom said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but as usual with you, the reality is much better than I imagined.”

Harry felt a quiet glow of pride blossom in his chest and some of the tension leached out of him. He stretched out his fingers and curled them over the edge of the bench. “More.”

Pain was a strange thing. Harry thought of it as a soap bubble, that when nursed carefully, could expand to a massive scale, float high, refract the sun into a rainbow that hadn’t been there before, all these feats performed with the knowledge it would soon burst.

Harry didn’t know when Tom stopped. He lost count. He was floating near the sun, feeling its warmth and light, and his body was one boneless mass of sensation, like an ember. When he could control his eyelids well enough to open them, Tom was squatting beside the bench, carding his fingers through Harry’s sweaty hair.

“Alright?” he asked. The sunlight was mostly gone. The hayloft was blanketed in a single gradient of deep silver and it made Tom’s dark eyes look like liquid mercury.

“No,” Harry said, his voice a little cracked from screaming, then crying. Dried tears had adhered his cheek to the leather bench. He felt superhuman. “I’m never going to walk again.”

“There’s a bed over here if you’d like it.”

Harry, attention riveted by the bench, had missed it, but Tom was correct: A neatly-made double bed sat in the corner, as though it had been conjured with magic.

“I guess some poor delivery man somewhere in the area knows about your deviance,” Harry murmured, thinking about trying to lever himself off the bench with his arms, then deciding against it. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

Tom smiled wryly. “Yes. I’ve been wanting to hit you in a way that wouldn’t get you off. I just wanted it to hurt.”

Harry smiled fondly. “Twisted bastard. It did. I don’t think I’ll ever get hard again, either.”

“Pity.”

“Pick me up.”

Tom did, carefully at first, then with decreasing grace, trying to manhandle Harry into a bridal carry. He grimaced horribly when he finally managed it, staggering toward the bed. “You weigh more than a horse.”

“Should’ve thought it through,” Harry muttered around a gasp as his thighs chafed his poor balls. “Put the bed closer or something.”

Tom snorted, setting Harry down on his side then helping roll him onto his front.

“So we

are

sleeping in a barn,” Harry realized with delight. “Very good evasion earlier.”

“I’m very duplicitous,” Tom agreed, laying on his side next to Harry, his hand back in his hair. “Was it really okay?”

Harry’s smile flexed unbidden against the soft cotton of the bedspread. “Yes.”

“Can we do it again?”

Harry would have rolled his eyes, but they were closed. “Not

right now

.”

“Obviously,” Tom muttered, then went quiet.

Harry sighed. “Yes. Yes, we can. It was good. It hurt like I can’t describe. It was good.”

Tom’s hand trailed down Harry’s naked back. “Good.” Harry wondered if it was strange that he knew Tom so well, he could tell from his voice when he was smiling. It was his last semi-clear thought before he fell asleep.