Work Text:
“Daddy looks pretty.”
Harry smiles as his daughter pats his face. Her hand is barely large enough to cover the smudge of rouge she’d spread all over his cheek.
“Yeah?” he asks, quirking his head to one side. “Are you sure I don’t need another one of these?”
“Noooo, daddy!” Lily’s hand locates and tugs on a handful of his hair, dislodging the bright blue bow Harry had tried to attach to his bangs. “No touching!”
“Ouch,” Harry says, only half-joking as he gently untangles her fingers from the side of his head.
At first, Lily scrunches her nose at him, but soon enough a giggle breaks free, and Harry can’t help but smile at her.
Ginny doesn’t wear makeup. Never cared for it in the slightest. But Lily Luna wants to try it. She wants to play with lipsticks and eyeliners and all the other ‘big girl toys’ that her older cousins have, and Harry…
Harry is a complete pushover for his darling girl. He is more than happy to learn how to braid hair and how to apply mascara and how to model pink hair clips if it makes her happy. Every possible experience that little girls want to have, he will deliver on them.
Lily reaches for a red lipstick and brandishes it with a flourish. “Okay,” she says in her very serious, no nonsense tone. “No moving.”
Harry obediently purses his lips and holds still. Then promptly breaks his unspoken promise when a silver lynx barrels through the far wall and lands crouched on the carpet next to his daughter.
“Potter,” it says in the low, authoritative voice of Harry’s superior, “report to the Ministry immediately. Subject Manticore.”
Dread topples over him like a pile of Lily’s wooden blocks. Harry wraps his arms around his daughter and drops her over his shoulder.
“I’m not finished!” she cries, beating at his back with her fist. “Daaaddy!”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he tells her, already making great strides for the floo. Time to take her to Molly’s.
Harry remembers to spell the makeup off of his face before he leaves the Burrow, turning on the spot and Apparating straight to the Ministry to report for duty.
Unfortunately for him, that is the only thing he remembers.
Kingsley wandlessly hauls Harry out of the lift before he can barely get a word out. “What—”
“It’s another bombing.”
Harry mulls that over as he is dragged down the hall towards the courts. Two more Aurors join them on the way down as Kingsley fills him in.
“The assailants remain at large, but half the courtroom is blown to shit, and Riddle still refuses to increase his personal security,” Kingsley says darkly. “Tonks, Pucey, I need you both to sweep the scene when we arrive.”
“And me?” Harry asks, already dreading the answer.
“Your job,” Kingsley says without preamble, “is to talk some damn sense into your Minister.”
Pucey and Tonks peel off as soon as they pass the two DMLE guards stationed at the large, double-door entrance that leads into courtroom five.
Kingsley cruelly abandons Harry to his unwanted fate, citing some bureaucratic bullshit that can only be done by the Head Auror. A top-tier excuse that Harry has grumbled about many times before.
With no choice, Harry plods over to the Minister, who is sitting on a bottom row bench, surrounded by his terrified-looking assistant Cattermole, his personal healer Briggs, and no fewer than seven other Aurors, each of whom regard Harry with nothing less than hostile suspicion as he approaches.
“Kingsley is overreacting,” Riddle says pleasantly to the healer tending to him. Harry notes that although Riddle’s robes are ruined, the man’s hair remains untouched, absolutely flawless with not a curl out of place. Harry has always suspected that Riddle spells it into place with magic, like the fucking ponce that he is, and here is his confirmation. “However, as it is his job to do so, I won’t fault him.”
“Minister,” Harry says as loudly as he dares.
Riddle doesn’t even look up. “Ah, Potter,” he drawls. “I suppose Kingsley has sent you to check on me? I can assure you, I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.”
Harry turns to the gathered Aurors. “Clear out. Kingsley’s orders.”
The Aurors stare at him as they walk past. Whatever. If Kingsley has a problem with Harry ordering them around, he can come and tell Harry off himself instead of sending Harry to do his dirty work.
“You too,” Harry says to Briggs and Cattermole.
Cattermole looks immensely relieved to escape Riddle’s presence. Briggs only snorts at him.
With no one else left to address, Riddle heaves a beleaguered sigh and finally lays eyes on Harry. What is strange is how his eyes stay on Harry, instead of wandering off like they usually do, implying that Harry isn’t even worth looking at.
“What?” Harry demands.
Riddle’s tone is pleasant. “Have a seat.”
Harry sits down a cautious distance away. “What?” he repeats in what he hopes is a less disrespectful tone. The last time he and Riddle had gotten into a row, Kingsley had given Harry desk duty for a month. Harry supposes that this latest bomb scare must be very bad if Kingsley has resorted to throwing them at each other.
“Nothing.” Riddle finally turns away to look at the far wall.
Harry feels some of the tension leak out of him. Being ignored is familiar territory. “Kingsley wants me to talk to you about adding to your protective detail.”
Riddle scoffs. “My orders have been quite clear. I do not require any additional personnel at this time.”
“Well,” Harry says through gritted teeth, “sir, Kingsley thinks—”
Riddle’s scrutinising gaze slides back over. One side of his mouth has lifted, a heinous act that has birthed an unfortunate dimple on his left cheek. “And as his mouthpiece, you see fit to inform me that I am grievously mistaken.”
Personally, Harry thinks they should just let Riddle be blown up and be done with it. “Kingsley knows what he’s doing.”
“As do I.” Riddle hums once, drumming his fingers across the dusty surface of his trousers. “How is your daughter, Auror Potter?”
The sudden question throws him off-kilter. “She’s fine.”
“I imagine it must be difficult for you to raise a young girl on your own while your eldest are off at Hogwarts.”
“I’m not alone!” Harry retorts, feeling the heat rise to his face. “Just because my—because I’m—I mean, it’s really none of your business!”
“Forgive me,” Riddle says smoothly. “I didn’t intend a slight. You see, I have little patience for children, but I sometimes find their results… amusing.”
“You dropped into this world looking like this, then?” Harry says, letting derision flood thick in his tone as he flicks his gaze up and down Riddle’s form. “If you hate children so much, I’d assume you’ve never been one.”
“Something like that.” The dimple is back as Riddle examines Harry with a funny glint in his eye. “And yourself?”
“Me?” Harry shakes his head. None of this makes any sense. “Listen,” he says, redirecting the conversation back to what actually matters, “you need to take these threats more seriously. And before you get started, this is not just about you! Anyone around you could get hurt or injured if this happens again.”
“Do you have such little faith in your peers and their ability to protect me?”
“You—” Harry forces himself to inhale a deep, calming breath. “For Merlin’s sake,” Harry says in a tense, tremulous voice, “do you want to get blown up? Because I’d be quite fucking delighted to stand by and let it happen.”
“Of course you would.” Riddle’s smile is positively infuriating, yet somehow Harry finds himself frozen as Riddle reaches over—to hit him? To shove him out of the way?
The correct answer is: none of the above. To Harry’s mortification, Riddle plucks a large pink bow from his head, dangling it from between two fingers like a dead insect.
Harry makes a swipe for the bow, but Riddle’s hand vanishes into his robe pocket, taking the ribbon with it.
Red in the face, Harry rises stiffly to his feet. “Fucker,” he spits, no longer caring if he’ll be reprimanded for it.
Riddle is once again not looking at Harry as he says, “Dismissed.”
It takes every scrap of self control Harry has left not to finish the job and blow Riddle up himself.
The next day, Harry learns he has been forcibly reassigned.
“Head of the Minister’s protection detail,” Kingsley says with a grim shake of his head.
The words might as well have been a sledgehammer to the head. “What.”
“The Minister has asked, and I quote, ‘that Auror Potter be permitted to stand by and allow me to be blown up if he so wishes’.”
Harry can feel his jaw slackening. He can feel the gormless expression consuming his face. All he can manage to say is, “What?”
Kingsley glowers. “If you let that man die, so help me, I will become the worst thing that ever happened to you, Potter.”
Somehow, Harry doubts that. No one could be worse than Riddle. But he can recognize that saying so aloud, at this point in time, will not do him any good. Only one hope remains.
“I am begging you,” Harry pleads, clasping his hands together, “to pick anyone other than me. Please. I’d rather log cauldron import violations for a month than follow Riddle around all day.”
“The only cauldron import violations you will be logging,” says Kingsley, “are for the cauldrons that come within a hundred metres of the Minister.”
Harry wonders if sinking to his knees would produce better results. “Please?” he tries. “Please, Kingsley, you can’t possibly hate me that much! I work hard, I don’t complain—”
“You will report for duty,” Kingsley says, now grimacing.
This is a punishment. This is Riddle’s way of punishing him. Anger knots in the pit of Harry’s stomach, twisting and twisting.
He is definitely going to kill Tom Riddle.
“Ah, Auror Potter. I trust you’ve been informed of your new promotion?”
“Promotion,” Harry says flatly, checking once over his shoulder before he steps into the office and shuts the door behind him.
Riddle nods. “As head of my security detail, of course.”
The snotty tone is what sets Harry off. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at, assigning me here?” he demands.
Riddle rises from his chair and rounds the desk. “I am the Minister for Magic. You are one of the top Aurors in the DMLE. Therefore, it is only prudent to have you assigned to me.” With a sudden wave of his hand, Riddle produces an all-too-familiar pink bow out of nowhere. “I believe you dropped this during our last discussion, Auror Potter.” Then he takes a bold step forward, an infernal smirk painted across his lips.
Harry holds his ground, refusing to back away, but then Riddle’s hand plants itself firmly on his chest, pinning the pink bow just above Harry’s Auror insignia. His touch is warm, overly-familiar, and infuriatingly intimate—
“It suits you.”
“I didn’t realise you had a thing for pink,” Harry retorts around the sudden lump of breath caught in his throat. He is increasingly convinced that Riddle’s sharp smile has the violent capacity to slaughter by the dozen.
Riddle’s fingers trail lightly down Harry’s chest before withdrawing. “Neither did I.”
“I don’t like you,” Harry says defensively. He forces himself to hold still even though he can feel Riddle’s phantom touch on his skin like a plague.
Riddle circles back to his desk and summons a huge stack of parchment. “What I need from you does not require that.”
Harry waits for further explanation, but it seems Riddle has moved on, leaving him no choice but to do the same.
In the weeks following, Harry reads into, perhaps a bit too strongly, a good amount of mixed signals from Riddle that he would not have picked up on otherwise. If Harry had not been told that he looked nice in pink, he might have dismissed Riddle’s continued actions as another fucked-up mind game, or an attempt at goading him into a fight.
But because of that one strange, uncomfortably-charged moment, Harry finds himself constantly preoccupied with thoughts of Riddle. Like how Riddle’s slender fingers like to curl around cylindrical objects in ways that ought to be outlawed if only because of how the memory of it sinks claws into Harry’s worst fantasies.
(Wands are unfortunately and tragically phallic—a persistent fact that Harry comes to hate more and more with each passing day.)
Truth be told, Harry isn’t unfamiliar with these feelings. These obsessive, all-consuming thoughts, and the hate-fueled urge to pummel another man into a wall with his fists and maybe even his dick. But he hardly wants to relive that portion of his youth now. It had been embarrassing enough to fool around with Malfoy in broom cupboards back at Hogwarts.
To this day, Harry remains unable to look at a Cleansweep Three without cringing violently. He doesn’t fancy that changing any time soon.
Two months after Harry’s promotion, two wizards are found dead in their homes: Dedalus Diggle and Edgar Bones. Both prominent members of society. Riddle delivers a solemn but verbose speech to a crowd of reporters, declaring the murders the handiwork of the terrorists who had bombed the Ministry.
“Aren’t you worried?” Harry demands, once the press is gone and Riddle has shed his public persona in favour of his too-pretentious private one.
“The threat will be handled,” Riddle says coolly. “The perpetrators have been warned. Any further incidents will be dealt with swiftly and justly.”
It should be reassuring. It is, on a surface level, a reassuring answer. That doesn’t stop Harry from suspecting that something else is afoot.
The more time Harry spends around Riddle, the more Riddle winds up occupying his thoughts. Merely tailing the Minister is apparently not enough—Harry swears he’s begun hallucinating Riddle’s scent in his flat.
To purge the obsessive thoughts out of his system, Harry pops into one of his local haunts—a Muggle bar he frequents when he wants to be left alone—and hits it off with a pretty porcelain beauty. She’s stunning, and her wit is quick, which leaves him feeling a little out of practice.
It has been a while since he’s… well. Since.
But despite his initial doubts, the evening progresses smoothly. They share a drink, they share a laugh. They go back to his place with what Harry feels is the clear expectation of a one-night stand.
He couldn’t have planned a better evening if he’d tried. His daughter is sleeping at the Burrow, tomorrow is his day off, and there is nothing to stop him from enjoying the silky smooth legs wrapped around his waist while he lets off a bit of steam.
And so Harry gets his wish for a proper distraction that lasts all the way up until a silver magpie appears and lands on his bed, right in front of his face.
“Potter,” it says over a backdrop of distant shrieking.
Nothing else, just his name. The Muggle girl pinned beneath him, who has his dick inside her, can’t even hear it.
Not that this matters, apparently, because in the next second, Harry is making hasty excuses, struggling into his Auror uniform, and stumbling out the door.
Dozens of people from no less than six different departments are gathered outside the Minister’s house when Harry arrives. The yard looks like someone’s taken an army of Nifflers to it, and half the front windows are shattered inwards, glass blown to bits.
Riddle is surrounded by his usual entourage, looking as unbothered as ever. His drifting gaze eventually lands on Harry, who has no choice but to straighten his clothes to the best of his ability and go to meet his maker.
A path clears for him, which is not at all reassuring. Harry holds his shoulders back and hopes that the drizzling rain overhead disguises his fucked-up hair.
“Auror Potter,” greets Riddle. “You do seem to arrive late to these things.”
“I have a life, you know,” Harry snaps.
“Of course.” Quick as a fox, Riddle reaches out to swipe his finger over Harry’s jaw. The pad of his thumb comes away stained with rouge. Lipstick. “And I admire your commitment to your duties,” Riddle continues, deliberately dropping his gaze to Harry’s hastily-fastened trousers. “That is why I requested your reassignment.”
Harry feels the heat creep up his face, but he refuses to let Riddle get to him this way. “And not because you enjoy making my life a living hell?”
Riddle produces a handkerchief and wipes his hand clean. “Have I?”
“This isn’t safe,” Harry says instead of caving to his base impulse to commit murder. “We’ll have the area swept, the house thoroughly checked. I’m going to arrange shifts to watch over you whenever you’re here, and I’ll oversee the warding myself. Locations you spend a significant amount of time in, including your office, will have to be cleared before you’re allowed to return to them.”
Riddle’s answering smile is horrifically calm. “If you insist.”
The rest of the hour is spent sorting out available Aurors to escort Riddle to a Ministry safehouse, where they’ll keep guard until dawn, which is when Kingsley will return to take over.
“Try not to die,” Harry says to Riddle, holding out his Auror badge, which he has fashioned into a portkey, unwilling to trust items that have come into contact with others. The badge is the only part of his uniform that could be easily removed.
Riddle reaches out and plucks up the offering. “No hair ribbons on your person this time?”
“No,” Harry says stonily. “Now get the fuck out of here, you rat-arsed bastard.”
One of the nearby trainees emits a scandalised squeak. Harry is too tired to care.
After two hours of fuck-awful sleep, Harry arrives early at the Ministry, prepared to do a very thorough strip-search of the Minister’s office. In fact, he’s even a little excited. Riddle is such a prick, it’ll serve him right to have all of his things upturned in the name of national security.
This vindictive sentiment is strong enough to fuel Harry through the early hours of the day. He’s rifling through a drawer of what looks like personal belongings when he comes across some… interesting items.
A half-used tube of lipstick, a rollerball of perfume, a lacy pair of knickers.
It isn’t unexpected; it shouldn’t be. The Minister for Magic sleeps around, big deal. These are just the sordid trophies he keeps once he’s had his quick and dirty fun.
That will have to change, of course, now that Harry is in charge of security. He looks forward to telling Riddle that all of his future conquests will have to be screened in advance.
“Whatever you think is best.”
“You don’t—” Harry breaks off mid-beratement. “What?”
Riddle smiles from behind his mug of tea. “I said, whatever you think is best.”
That is a lie. That has to be a lie, because just this morning, Harry had definitely watched Riddle’s pretty blonde secretary drop some definitely unsubtle hints about what they could do together after hours.
“Great,” Harry says. “Fantastic. You do realise that goes for visitors to your house as well?”
“I do.” Riddle eyes him amusedly. “Perhaps you’d like to establish a routine of personally checking the perimeter on my behalf. I would feel much safer if you were present to have, shall we say, a firm handle on my personal security?”
Harry glares. Trust Riddle to be a fussy, demanding berk who considers everyone to be at his beck and call. “You’ll get what you get.”
Magic is great and all, but sometimes Harry wishes it could be a little less efficient. Barely a day and Riddle’s house has been fully restored, once again as pristine as its sole occupant. Even the front yard has been restored to levels of floral glory that would have Aunt Petunia weeping tears of joy.
Harry kicks at the nearest lawn decoration—a wrought iron snake that hurts his foot more than he hurts it—on his way to the door.
Riddle answers after three knocks. He’s wearing loosely-tied crimson robes in a crushed velvet texture. And holding a bottle of elf-matured mead.
“Really?” Harry asks, incredulous. “Didn’t you just get home?”
Riddle ignores him and steps back from the door. “Would you like to come in?”
“I’m on the clock,” Harry says flatly, deliberately keeping his eyes above the neck, seeing as below the neck is a v-shape of creamy skin that stretches down far more than is appropriate for this setting. “Seeing as you’re clearly fine, I’m going to check the perimeter.”
“What about the house?”
Harry counts to three in his head before turning back around. “What about it?”
“Have the contents been checked?”
Merlin grant him the patience to deal with this man. “Unless you’ve brought a bomb home with you, then yes, it has been thoroughly checked over.”
Riddle’s smile looks entirely insincere as he says, “Perhaps you ought to have a look. I tend to take my work home with me, and I’d hate to have something untoward happen while you were here.”
“Fine.” Harry deliberately shoves past Riddle on his way in. “Where are your things?”
Riddle leads him upstairs and down the hall towards a master bedroom.
“Don’t you have a home office?” Harry asks, irritated.
Ignoring him, Riddle strides across the room and throws open the door to a massive closet space. “Here.” He retrieves a set of formal robes and offers them up. “What I wore today.”
Harry shoots him a dead-eyed look. “You asked me inside to look at your clothes? You could have just brought those out!”
“That would defeat the purpose of having security.” Riddle dumps the robes against Harry’s chest and swans back out of the closet. “My bag is here.”
It takes over twenty minutes to remove everything from Riddle’s bottomless bag. Apparently, being the Minister means he can have the most absurd undetectable extension charms. For a casual briefcase, no less.
Inside the bag, Harry locates a pink sash with frilled lace edges. He dangles it from his index finger, wrinkling his nose. “You did hear me when I said you can’t just take people home with you anymore, right?”
“I did.”
Harry deliberately casts some harsher detection spells on it, ones that blacken the trim, before he drops back where it came from. The strong fragrance is making his head spin. He’ll have to disinfect his hands once he’s done here, too. What a disaster.
That night, Harry lies awake in his own bed, thinking about his plans for his day off, which are none. He considers calling up the girl he’d met at the bar. She’d been exactly his type and hadn’t minded getting a little rough with him when he had asked for it.
Unfortunately, leaving in the middle of sex because his boss called had probably left a poor impression. Still, he’s not unwilling to grovel a little for a second chance.
Harry picks up his phone, weighing the device in his hands. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to picture her face. The Muggle girl from the bar. Her cool brown eyes, her prominent cheekbones. The bright red lipstick that she’d left smudged over his neck and jaw.
Almost absently, Harry raises his free hand to his face, rubbing his thumb over the same spot Riddle had touched. Then he yanks his hand back, horrified with himself. Fuck, no, he is not going there.
Teenage fumbles in cupboards aside, it is an entirely separate issue to want to stick it in his boss. Harry tosses his phone back onto the bedside table. He needs a cold shower to clear his head, and then something else—something unrelated to sex—to distract himself.
It is bright and early the next morning when Harry arrives on Riddle’s doorstep with a large cup of coffee in hand.
Riddle squints at him, lips pursed in contemplation. “What are you wearing? You look ridiculous.”
Harry keeps his own face expressionless. “They’re to protect my eyes,” he says, and really, Riddle should be glad that the shades are stopping Harry’s very mutinous glare from spontaneously setting his perfectly-combed hair on fire.
Besides, aviators are cool. Harry had wound up watching a bunch of Muggle films last night, and one of the action heroes had worn aviators. So this morning, Harry had conjured a pair on a whim, figuring that at the very least, they’d prevent everyone else from seeing how annoyed Riddle made him.
“I don’t suppose you have handcuffs to go with them?” Riddle asks, a slight smirk curling one side of his mouth.
“No,” Harry retorts, “but if you’re asking me to lock you up, I hear Azkaban has plenty of space.”
Riddle raises a hand to his heart. “You wound me.”
Harry scoffs. “I’d like to.”
With a put-upon sigh, Riddle slouches against the doorframe. “Would you like to come in?”
“No, thanks.” Harry peers over Riddle’s shoulder and scowls. That is definitely a lace bralette draped over the back of that sofa. Motherfucker.
Riddle says, “Lunch is at noon if you’re at all interested.”
Harry reaches for the door and slams it closed in Riddle’s face.
Over the course of the weekend, Riddle rarely leaves his house. The few times he does, it’s for work-related reasons.
Harry tails him around, downing several mugs of coffee to stay alert, hoping to catch the no-unscreened-visitors rule being broken. To assist his surveillance efforts, there are three dozen sets of wards on the house, and a dozen more that Harry had personally placed around Riddle’s bedroom.
None of the wards ever go off, but that only makes Harry paranoid about their efficacy. It’s starting to bother him just how many feminine things are lying around Riddle’s living space. Everywhere Harry looks, there’s some new item left out for him to find.
What’s even worse is that Riddle definitely has a type—the subtle floral perfume never changes, the lipsticks are all the same brand, and all of the lingerie bits are in shades of red and pink.
Harry is certain that Riddle is actively sneaking women into the house, smuggling them into bed right under Harry’s nose. No matter how adamantly Riddle denies defying Harry’s orders, that man has to be getting laid.
Which means he has figured out some way around the extensive wards that Harry has so carefully set up. Harry would have to call Bill Weasley in for a consult to see how Riddle was getting past them. If Harry didn’t have any free time these days to get some action, then neither should Riddle.
When Harry next stops by the Burrow, Lily has her trunk of dresses and hair accessories dumped out all over the floor of the guest room. Molly doesn’t mind having Lily over, but Harry does mind leaving her there. These past few weeks, he’s put in more overtime than he has in the past year combined. This round-the-clock security on Riddle has taken a toll on the time he gets to spend with his daughter, and he misses his little girl. He wants to spend more than one or two days a week with her.
She still brightens when she sees him, though, and that makes him unspeakably relieved.
“Daddy, can we practise hair today?”
“Daddy has work,” Harry says sadly, picking up his baby girl and kissing her cheeks one by one. “But we’ll have play time soon, okay?” Once Harry figures out where the security gap is and ensures Riddle is completely and totally blue-balled, then he’ll be able to take a proper break.
“Okay.” Lily presses her face into his neck, her little legs dangling. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too, duckie.” He kisses the top of her head, holding her tight. “Once the Minister is safe, then we can play with my hair again. I’ll even let you change the colour, okay?”
Lily giggles, and the happy sound is a soothing balm on his battered, sleep-deprived soul. “Yay!”
Harry sets her back down, more annoyed than ever that Riddle refuses to keep it in his pants. If Harry could only be sure that the Minister wasn’t going to pick up a homicidal bomb threat disguised as a slutty one-night stand, then Harry could be here with his daughter instead.
“I’m going to figure this out,” Harry tells her. “And then we’ll have more time to play. I promise.”
Lily nods solemnly, then offers out one of her plastic tiaras. “It has a magic shield!”
Harry takes the tiara and places it on his head. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to take good care of it.”
Lily laughs and shakes her head. “Not for you, silly!” She fluffs her princess skirt and blinks her big eyes at him. “It’s for the Minister.”
“Ah,” says Harry, frowning. “I see.”
Harry starts camping outside Riddle’s house while under the invisibility cloak. He watches Riddle move from upstairs to downstairs, from one room to another.
While Harry watches, the Aurors stationed at the perimeter of the property switch out twice. He couldn't wait to catch Riddle with his latest conquest and out him as a liar, no matter the costs to his sleep schedule and personal well-being. Besides, the safety of the Minister for Magic is important, Harry reasons, even if said Minister is entirely undeserving of the effort.
Riddle has dinner in the sitting room. Harry opens a packet of crisps to snack on. Riddle retreats to the bathroom for a long, hot shower. Harry renews the water-repelling charms on his cloak and glasses.
It’s not very exciting stuff, especially when it’s raining, and Harry is aware that what he’s doing is insane. Logging all these unsanctioned, unpaid hours outside Riddle’s house is stalker behaviour. But if he can catch Riddle in the act, then it will all be worth it. If winning means camping out here all night long, so be it. It will prove his obsessive actions are justified. It will prove he is not insane for doing this.
Most importantly, he thinks as he watches Riddle’s silhouette swan past the curtains covering the downstairs windows, it will let him get back to Lily.
“What’s this?” Harry levitates a lacy satin slip into the air with his wand. It reeks of fragrance.
“Hmm?” Riddle is in the middle of examining his own reflection in the large, full-length mirror by the door of his bedroom. He fastens the final two buttons on the front of his robes, then turns to face Harry. “Oh, that? I just had it laying around. You can leave it where it is.”
Harry can feel the slow-broil rage working its way from his chest to his face. “On the floor?” he asks acidly.
Riddle smooths a hand over his hair. “The chair is preferred, though I can see why that might be too complicated for you.”
Harry balls up the fabric and chucks it at Riddle’s face.
Seemingly unfazed, Riddle catches the slip before it can flutter to the ground. He tangles his fingers in the silky texture, lifting it to his nose for a whiff. “What do you think of the scent? Too much?”
Harry has inhaled so much of that damned perfume lately that he no longer associates it with women. He mostly associates it with Riddle being a manwhore.
“Smells like a one-night stand,” Harry tells him in a clipped tone.
Riddle sets the slip on top of the dresser behind him. “If you see it that way.”
“I do.” Harry folds his arms over his chest. “Are you done?”
Riddle’s answering smile is stiffly courteous. “I suppose.”
The atmosphere for the rest of the day would be best described as frosty. Harry can’t imagine why—surely Riddle had not been put off by Harry’s commentary on his sex life.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with one-night stands, and pointing them out—especially when true—is hardly worse than leaving discarded lingerie out for everyone to see! If Riddle wants to take offence, then that’s on him, not Harry.
Another late night, another terrible hour spent sitting like a waterlogged cat outside Riddle’s living room window. The curtains are closed, which means Harry can only speculate on Riddle’s actions based on the slow-moving shadows.
A warm, golden-hued glow emanates from the rooms within. The flicker of a fireplace from the parlour makes Harry miss spending evenings in his own house—his very warm and very dry house—and he questions for the umpteenth time what the hell he is doing here.
But then he sees movement coming from behind one of the curtains, and both his focus and resolve immediately sharpen. He knows exactly what he’s doing here. He’s here to catch Riddle in a big fat lie about sneaking in unvetted guests past Harry’s meticulously assembled security wards.
The blurry, shadowy outline behind the curtains sharpens as it comes closer to the window. Harry can make out a tall, slender stature, and the silhouette of a gauzy, floaty dress that looks like it comes up quite high on the mystery lady’s legs.
Finally! At last he had caught Riddle in the act of sneaking a guest in.
Throwing off his invisibility cloak with a sense of triumph, Harry strides across the courtyard to Riddle’s front door. He doesn’t even bother with niceties like knocking and waiting for Riddle to answer.
Instead, he yells out, “Exigent circumstances!” at the top of his lungs, then kicks the door off its hinges. After a few hard kicks, it splits down the center and falls forward out of the doorframe, a splintered mess.
Harry stomps his way past the splintered frame, the shattered wood crunching satisfyingly under his boots, and turns left to head towards the living room. Granted, he could have used a blasting charm, but it felt so much more satisfying to kick Riddle’s front door in. Like he wants to do to Riddle’s face.
He can’t wait to rake Riddle over the coals for lying to him about national security concerns. Indeed, getting an unauthorised person past the Aurors’ extensive security checks is a serious breach in their counter-terrorism measures.
When he reaches the front parlour, he’s greeted by the sight of the mystery woman he had seen through the curtains, her back turned to the parlour entrance. She’s wearing a see-through negligee, with a racy wine-red bra and matching g-string panties, and lacy stockings that end mid-thigh held up by strappy garters. Curiously, her hair is cropped short, as short as a man’s, and then when she turns around—
Harry nearly falls over. He thinks he might be hallucinating. Who he thought was a mystery guest, a cheaply perfumed one-night stand, is in fact—
Minister Riddle, dressed in one of the most scandalous, seductive outfits Harry had ever seen on someone outside of a magazine spread, glammed up with full rouged lips and cat-eye liner, wearing an audacious half-smile to match. His immediately recognizable bone-white wand is tucked behind the bow of the bejewelled garter strapped around his left thigh.
Harry feels himself flushing a deep, hot red, like his face is going up in flames, in sheer outrage at Riddle’s audacity. He clenches his fists open and shut a few times, then gestures hotly at the lurid display in front of him. “Care to explain?” he demands from between gritted teeth.
“Took you long enough.” Riddle smirks at him, circling around Harry as the strappy high heels he’s wearing click against the hardwood floor.
“You were fucking with me the whole time!” Harry accuses.
Riddle plays with the neckline of the delicate nightdress, pulling it down to reveal the scalloped lace edge of the top of his bra. “I was starting to think you were a tad… slow.”
Indeed, Harry’s brain hasn’t fully caught up with the situation yet. “So there was nothing wrong with my wards all along!” he yells. “You’re such a fucking wanker! Are you TRYING to overcomplicate security so that something even more dangerous slips past the wards this time?”
“I’m afraid you’ve reached that conclusion all on your own, Auror Potter,” Riddle replies, sounding just as cool and collected as he always does. “I never said—”
“I’m doing another perimeter check, then I’m going to make it back home before midnight for once,” Harry says loudly, ignoring the rest of Riddle’s smug reply.
Strangely, he feels his cock start to tingle for some unknown reason, but he pushes it away and ignores it as an odd stress response.
Riddle gives him a once-over. “Like what you see?” he asks in a low, husky voice, then saunters towards Harry, crowding into his space.
Harry’s cock again gives some sort of twitch inside his trousers, which he again ignores. He really has been under too much stress lately.
“Move,” he demands in a clipped tone. “Out of my way.” He tries to shove his way past Riddle and out the parlour door, but Riddle doesn’t let him get very far.
Riddle simply extends an arm and blocks off the door to the hallway. Harry doesn’t know what gets into him—maybe all the pressure and lack of sleep from the last month of trying to catch Riddle in an incriminating situation—but his body just reacts.
He grabs Riddle by his bare shoulders and slams him against the doorframe, then presses a kiss—hot, needy, and open-mouthed—against his perfectly rouged lips.
Riddle unfurls beautifully—kissing Harry back just as greedily, grasping at Harry’s shirt and tearing it open, a long leg wrapping itself around the small of Harry’s back and pulling him in—tighter and tighter—until their hips are pressed together and their hard cocks rub against each other and send sparks of electricity up Harry’s spine, separated only by a few scant layers of fabric.
Harry doesn’t even know how much time has passed that they’ve been snogging, but the next time he regains awareness about the situation, and comes up for air, he sees that both of Riddle’s legs are wrapped around his waist, the dress hiked up around his hips, his back shoved against the hallway wall. Lipstick smeared hot and sticky across his uniform collar; a gauzy sash pulled snug around his neck.
Harry had not known Tom Riddle could look as hot as this, let alone that he would be so attracted to it. He certainly had not known that Riddle would figure this out and immediately use it against him as a form of fucked-up foreplay.
A high whine is knocked loose from his chest as Riddle squeezes his clothed cock, an unholy, thoroughly-satisfied grin draped across his rouged lips.
“I’m going to fuck you,” Harry says roughly. “Right here, against the wall. I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to stand for your press conference tomorrow.”
“Do it,” Riddle says with a wicked, teasing smile, a triumphant light in his dark eyes. “If you can deliver on that, I’ll give you a raise.”
Riddle moves to strip the negligee off of him, tugging it upwards towards his shoulders.
“Leave it.” One of Harry’s hands is cupping Riddle’s arse from behind, but with his free hand, he shoves the shift back down again. “You look—it’s really hot on you.”
The smile that Riddle bestows on him looks genuine for once, soft and tender in a way, and not at all smarmy like his usual self.
Harry gives Riddle’s arse a squeeze, then shifts his hand under the panties and towards Riddle’s entrance, a lubrication spell at the tip of his tongue.
His fingers catch on something. Something hard and metallic, and Harry yanks it out and holds it up to the light.
A diamond-encrusted solid platinum anal plug. Of course the Minister would be so ostentatious to have precious metals and jewels up his arse—his entire office is decorated with artefacts of the same theme. After examining it, Harry laughs and chucks the plug on the floor, then shoves his fingers back into Riddle’s hole. It’s loose and wet with lube, with just the right amount of give, and Harry’s cock throbs inside of his trousers.
Somehow, he manages to unbuckle himself and dig his cock out without dropping Riddle onto the ground like a clumsy idiot. He teases the head of his cock against Riddle’s hole, sliding it back and forth against the sensitive, furled skin.
“Come on,” Riddle urges him on, biting his lower lip. “Make me feel it tomorrow.”
Harry lines himself up, then cups both of his hands around Riddle’s arse and lets go, letting gravity do its job and dropping him down onto his cock.
A muffled, “Mmph,” escapes Riddle’s lips and a pink flush starts creeping its way up his neck as he squirms and adjusts to Harry’s full size. Then Harry lifts him again by a few inches and drops him back down again, delighting in the tightness squeezing around his cock as he slides in.
Fully buried inside of Riddle’s tight, scorching heat, Harry groans as a fresh wave of arousal slams through him. “Feels so good,” he pants against the shell of Riddle’s ear. “Fuck, you feel amazing.”
It truly does feel better than any sex he’s had in recent memory—better than that leggy woman from the bar (and the resemblance is just starting to dawn on Harry why he had been so attracted to her). Riddle—throwing his head back and gasping every time Harry bottoms out in him—is hot and snug around his cock—everything Harry has subconsciously fantasised about these last couple of months but refused to admit to himself.
He wants to fuck Riddle and defile him against every piece of furniture in the entire damn house that he has wasted the last month meticulously combing over. When Riddle starts clenching down and squeezing tightly on all sides around Harry’s cock, he tries to slow down and hold back for longer, but all the heat surrounding him feels so good that he tips over in a burst of pleasure and comes deep inside of Riddle.
When they’re done, Harry’s legs are wobbly with the exertion of not only keeping himself upright, but also all of Riddle’s weight as well, and he gives into his exhaustion and collapses to the ground.
“Oh no, you’re not. Not in my front hall,” Riddle mutters. Surprisingly strong for his slender frame, he drags Harry up by the hand, then leads him down a familiar path to the master bedroom.
Harry collapses face-first on the soft and inviting-looking gigantic four-poster bed. He hears Riddle kick off his heels and then feels a dip in the bed as Riddle stretches out next to him. Harry feels like he’s forgetting something… something important… then he realises he doesn’t think Riddle has come yet.
He blames his inattention on the prolonged sleep deprivation from trying to find out the hole in Riddle’s security—though he's definitely found the hole now—rather than on being an inconsiderate lover. It does feel nice to have yet another thing to blame on Riddle.
Propping himself up by the elbow, Harry reaches a hand down and presses it against the straining bulge at the front of Riddle’s red lace knickers. Struck by curiosity, he asks, “Riddle, why do you—you know—” He gestures at the elaborate get-up.
Riddle presses into his touch. “Don’t you think I look hot?” he asks with a self-assured smile.
Harry makes a choked-off noise of assent.
“Then why wouldn’t I?” Riddle answers simply, and Harry has to concede that it’s quite a good point. “And please, call me Tom. I think we’re past surnames by this point.”
“I’ll be sure to use Tom at your Wizengamot impeachment trial when you get charged for sleeping with a subordinate.”
Tom gives an amused huff. “I’d like to see them try.”
“Can I—can I suck you off?” Harry asks, palming at Tom’s hard cock. It feels quite large in his grasp, and he can’t remember the last time he had a nice, thick cock in his mouth.
“Not right now,” Tom replies languidly, arching up into Harry’s touch.
“I can’t stay here all night,” Harry argues. “I mean, I can’t stay inside. I need to go do another patrol check around your house.”
This time, Tom lets out an outright laugh at Harry. “I can assure you there is no one on my property other than ourselves.” He hooks an ankle around Harry’s thighs and pulls him closer. “We’re not done quite yet, Auror Potter,” he adds with a sharp, tight smile.
Harry kisses him again. When they break apart, he sees that Tom’s makeup is still somehow flawless despite half of it coming off and smearing all over Harry’s clothes.
Despite feeling sated from earlier, a sudden feeling of arousal shudders its way through Harry. Slipping a hand underneath the negligee, he runs his fingertips up Tom’s flat, smooth stomach. Tom’s skin is flawless underneath the sheer shift—not a single mark or blemish, nor a single bit of body hair.
“Take this off?” Harry asks. He wants to explore more of Tom’s body, plant kisses on him from neck-down until he reaches that delicious-looking cock of Tom’s and swallows it entirely down.
Tom pulls out his wand from behind the garter straps running up his thigh. He vanishes both Harry’s clothing and his own slip. “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” he murmurs.
“Er… a couple of months?” Harry asks tentatively. Surely Riddle hadn’t had his eye on Harry for longer than that, considering they had barely spoken before that first security incident.
“That’s long for me, when I have my eyes set on something. But you were unusually resistant,” Tom murmurs against Harry’s neck, sucking a deep love mark into his skin.
Harry keens into the sharpness of the bite. Tom moves to kneel between Harry’s legs, his nails running up Harry’s thighs as he nudges them apart.
It’s not until Harry feels slickened fingers pressing against his entrance that he realises what Tom wants. His spent cock tries to stir and stiffen up in interest again, but he can’t get hard again that fast. He’s in his late 30s now, and his refractory period is not like it was when he was younger.
A heightened sensitivity lurks just below the surface of his skin, as Tom’s fingers breaching his entrance feel more intense than he’s ever felt before in that area. Harry lets out a sharp hiss. It’s almost too much, to the point where he’s not sure if it feels good, or just overly intense.
As Tom keeps pushing forward, slowly stretching him out, Harry squirms under the steady, unyielding touch. He tries to give his cock a stroke to take the edge off, but it feels too sensitive in a sharp, nearly painful way.
“Relax for me, just relax into it,” Tom says softly, as he starts sliding the head of his cock past the ring of muscle at Harry’s entrance. “Take a few deep breaths.”
Harry tries, but it just makes him feel dizzier.
Tom keeps pushing forward, the delicate lace of his undergarments brushing against the flushed, overheated skin of Harry’s chest. His hand rises to cover Harry’s hand that is still loosely wrapped around his half-hard cock. All of the nerve endings inside of Harry feel completely fried under the competing stimulus.
“Ah—ahhh, that’s too much,” Harry gasps out as Tom bottoms out.
“Good,” Tom murmurs, thrusting back and then forwards again.
Harry was wrong, earlier. This is the hottest thing he ever experienced—Tom Riddle clad in a gorgeous lingerie set, the expensive, fine lace clinging to his perfect marble skin—as confident in his own skin as ever, fucking into Harry until he can’t breathe anymore.
“God,” Harry creaks out, his voice cracking every few words. “You’re so beautiful, Tom, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner—”
“Me either,” Tom mutters with a slight snort.
Harry gives a surprised laugh. That kind of smug statement would normally make him want to punch Tom in the face, but he doesn’t feel those urges in this moment. Instead, he feels full, so full, and hot all over, and feverish, like he’s delirious.
The view of Tom’s dusky nipples barely visible underneath the sheer silken fabric adds to Harry’s delirium, making him feel like he’s in a dream. Harry had never imagined how much he would like having someone in a lacy knickers set fuck into him with the largest cock he’s ever taken, but now he doesn’t know how he’s ever lived without it.
An ache runs up his body as he thinks about how much he would like to come. Tom’s hand around his cock tightens, and it’s too much it’s too much he can’t take it—
Harry hears himself let out an undignified whimper that just seems to spur Tom to move faster, thrusting harder and faster inside of him, and grasping onto his cock even tighter.
The room starts to fade and blur in the periphery of Harry’s vision.
He’s never before felt anything quite like this level of overstimulation—an overwhelming amount of feeling from everywhere in his body. It comes up in waves and waves and swallows him until it feels like he’s drowning in all the excess sensation.
It feels so good, but at the same time, it feels like he’s burning up with dragonpox and every part of his skin is hot hot hot to the touch and painful and delicate and—
Harry is so sensitive that he feels every bit of hot come gush out of Tom’s cock as he thrusts forward and lets out a moan with the onset of his orgasm. Usually, Harry can’t really feel anything different when he’s fucking someone raw and they come inside of him, relying on their words and reactions to let him know when they’ve come. If anything, he’s only ever felt slightly wetter, but this time, he feels each separate gush of Tom’s release, warming him up from the inside, making him feel so full and a bit defiled in a way that really turns him on.
He gives his cock another tight squeeze, but coming a second time doesn’t seem to be in the books for tonight.
Tom stays inside of Harry after he’s finished, holding Harry tight until he passes out.
The sound of Lily’s excited squeals and giggles echo throughout the house as Harry returns from his weekend shift supervising Auror trainees. He’s balancing a tray of iced coffee in his left hand as he pushes through the front door, unsure of what he’ll find.
At the start, Lily had been equally unsure about her new babysitter, but some very specific promises had been exchanged, and Harry had left in the morning reassured that his daughter was in good hands.
“Daddy! Come here, come!”
Harry does as he’s told, pausing only to detach the coffee cups from their tray before he heads towards the source of the sound.
On the low settee in the centre of the room is Lily, surrounded by palettes and stacks and piles of eyeshadow and lipsticks and nail polish, along with a million other things that Harry has no idea what the names for them are.
The sitting Minister of Magic is currently lounging cross-legged on the floor in front of her, eyes closed as she applies with a careful hand a thin line of winged eyeliner onto Tom’s top lid.
Harry smiles, taking in the sight of his two favourite people in the world getting on so well.
“Daddy, look! Look what I did,” Lily exclaims, grabbing one of Tom’s hands and holding it up to the light. His nails are decked out with delicate bejewelled patterns of magical plants and flowers, against a shimmery background of light pink. “It took me two whole HOURS to do all this nail art, but Minister Tom sat still the entire time and didn’t even move once!”
“You did a great job, Lily. Looks like you two had fun.” Harry grins, catching Tom’s eye and winking at him. Lily really does have an artistic eye—Tom looks absolutely stunning. Not that it will take much convincing, but he’ll have to tell Tom not to wash any of it off before they go to bed that night.
“Minister Tom is way better at this than you are, Daddy,” Lily declares. “Look, he even did my nails too! And taught me some Astronomy, which he says I’ll get to learn all about at Hogwarts next next year!” She waves her fingers excitedly in the air, showing off the glittery patterns of different constellations painted onto her nails.
“They look great,” Harry agrees.
Tom smiles smugly and holds his hand out for an iced coffee, which Harry hands to him, stifling the urge to roll his eyes and brushing his own fingers—sun-worn, calloused, and tan—against the back of Tom’s hand.
“Be a shame to remove these after your daughter spent so much time on the artwork for me,” Tom remarks casually. “Think I’ll keep them on for the press conference with the French minister tomorrow.”
“If you like,” Harry says. “I know it would make Lily happy to see her handiwork in the papers.”
“Pays to have a stylist in the family,” Tom remarks, tipping his face upwards.
Harry knows what Tom wants, so he leans down and allows Tom a kiss, which leaves pink sparkly lip gloss on his cheek.
Lily giggles at them, hiding her face in her hands with a squee. “You got some on you!”
“Yeah,” Harry agrees, this time making sure to roll his eyes in Tom’s direction. Out of all the places that lipgloss is going to end up, this one is the most chaste. “I think I definitely did.”