Chapter Text
It would be a lie to say Tom had noticed him before.
At most, he might have registered the messy shock of black hair; flailing as the boy tripped over cobblestones or fumbled with jacks. In a sea of dirt-streaked gutter children, Harry was just another belly howling for hardtack, another mouth whining for Mummy.
He was unremarkable.
It hardly mattered that no mother would be coming for any of them. Orphans’ fantasies were simple and pathetic—that was why Tom had outgrown them in the cradle. Still, he is quite certain he’d never been close enough to see the whites of Harry’s eyes before.
That will change, of course.
But for now, Tom wakes as he always does: scowling, the sun already high and sharp in the sky. From the adjoining dormitory, Amelia Wheeler’s pitiful sniffles seep through the thin walls. She’d been sick just a fortnight ago, and for a few blessed days, the wailing had stopped.
Tom had been terribly disappointed when she’d survived. Death was so common in orphanages. Couldn’t he have been lucky for once?
Rolling onto his side, he drags the sole pillow over his head, wishing it were Amy beneath the threadbare cotton. For a moment, he indulges the fantasy—her thin legs kicking just like Billy’s rabbit, muscles twitching uselessly before they ran out of oxygen. Afterward, she wouldn’t whine anymore. She’d simply lie there, cold and still, with Tom’s fist around her heart.
He smiles.
A bird chirps faintly outside his window. Turned away, the yolk of the sun breaks across his back, warming the notches of his vertebrae, each sharp ridge protruding through his skin. He lets the heat sink into his bones, his thoughts sharpening with the morning air.
Tom supposes he’s luckier than most of the children here. Nearly all of them end up with roommates—smelly, muttering, leaking vestibules of noise and humanity—but not Tom. He’d been clever enough to avoid that indignity. In fact, he’s an expert at outmaneuvering obstacles. He handles his problems clinically, unencumbered by useless emotions like remorse or doubt.
Yes, he thinks, daybreak wrapped around him like a shroud. I am truly luckier than the rest.
Other children are messy creatures—problems in and of themselves. They breathe too loudly, disrupt his focus, crease his books, talk in their sleep. They make it impossible to forget they exist, burdening him with obscene little proofs of life.
It’s untenable to coexist with animals. So Tom takes matters into his own hands.
Burning the back of a spoon against Ricky’s soft-shelled knees had proved effective. Leaving snakes in Peter’s bed brought particular delight—the shrieks, the frantic slap of feet, the pathetic sound of piss soaking into the floorboards. A bit of rat poison in Dougie’s tea had finally shut him up, his dawn hymns drying out like raisins in the sun.
That one had earned Tom a whipping, but it had been worth it.
Dougie’s lips had turned an alarming shade of blue, his skin corpse-grey and waxen. He’d survived, unfortunately, but his vocal cords had not—seared through like an overcooked roast, tallow dripping into his lungs. After, he’d been unable to hum a single note.
He never could sing on key. Tom was doing him a favor, really.
Amy Wheeler hasn’t learned her lesson yet, however, so she cries. When the sound finally thins—wet sobs waning—Tom removes the pillow from his ears and grins.
Today is going to be a good day. He has a feeling.
He’s learned to trust these little intuitions. Mrs. Cole can barter with the preacher all she likes—that boy’s got the devil inside him, I tell you!—and subject him to pitiful sermons and half-hearted exorcisms. None of it matters.
Tom remains untouchable.
He cleans his teeth carefully, humming his own tune, pitch clear as a bell. He swallows a whole bowl of porridge, socked feet swinging beneath the table, ignoring the wary glances cast his way.
If you’re afraid of the devil’s anger, he thinks, giddy, imagine how his delight would unsettle you.
And when it’s time for chores, Tom—his thin shorts doing little against the biting September air—walks into the yard without hesitation, and straight toward Harry Potter getting the beating of a lifetime.
“Stop it!” the boy shouts, narrow arms wheeling as the crowd shoves him into the dirt. “I said no!”
This only encourages them. They laugh as a kick connects with Harry’s side, catching him before he can brace. Jamie’s shoes nearly fly off as he lunges forward: loafers two sizes too big, the hand-me-downs unsalvageable even with two pairs of thick woolen socks.
“Stop it,” Peter mocks, in a high, girlish voice.
Tom pauses at the edge of the circle, watching.
Harry’s knuckles are scraped raw, flesh pulpy and peach-bruised around his joints. Dirt grinds into the wounds, mingling with blood that smears down his wrists as he tries to push himself upright. Someone grabs his collar and shoves him back down.
Tom says nothing as the boy’s breath is knocked from his lungs. The wheeze and rasp of his chest—constricting, then flooding—is prettier than silence, Tom will grant him that.
Then Harry Potter looks at him.
Through gaps between bodies, just wide enough to see beyond the legs pinning him down, Harry’s eyes are bright. It’s unusual. Not fear, Tom thinks, but something closer to fury. They glint under the sun, chitin-green, like beetle shells.
Harry reaches out with one bony, sun-warmed hand, fingers curling toward Tom. A flower leaning instinctively into the sun.
So Tom steps forward.
Smiling so hard his cheeks ache, birds still singing in the crisp air, he brings his foot down.
His own loafers are slightly too tight, pinching at the toe, rubbing the onion-thin skin of his heel—blistering, no matter how many plasters he applies—but they bear down all the same. There’s a sharp crack as Harry’s fingers bend the wrong way, dry as twigs snapping.
Idiot, Tom thinks. Looking at me as if I’m some sort of savior. Beautiful Lucifer may have been an angel, but they clipped his wings for a reason, didn’t they?
Shock flickers across Harry’s face, pain laced sweetly through his expression, but Tom hardly gets to savor it. For one dazzling heartbeat, Harry’s eyes are wide and wet and green: grave-dark pools reflecting betrayal.
Then, in an instant—with one more sharp sound and the stale bite of ozone in the air—Harry disappears.
Like magic.
There’s no flash, no illusory wisp of smoke, no warning shaped as plague or famine. One minute he’s there—broken and gasping in the dirt—and the next there’s nothing but blood-stained grass, an empty patch of penny-soaked earth.
The laughter cuts short, dissolving into gaping mouths and blunted teeth. For a moment, no one moves.
“W-where did he go?” Jamie whispers.
Peter only swears, crossing himself with wobbling fingers.
No one asks Tom what he saw. They tolerate him the way wolves tolerated domestication—having realized they could live in luxury if they only surrendered their teeth.
Today is going to be a good day, Tom thinks again, standing content under the midday sun. My intuition is never wrong. Slowly, his smile even turns real.
It lingers, stretched tight over sharp teeth, until he finds the boy again.
Harry’s perched at the lip of Wool’s roof, kneecaps trembling but holding, ignoring the pitch of the drop below. He stares down into the boneyard, swaying, but never quite threatening to fall.
Tom watches him, in a habit he’s already forming: toes curled around the edge, small fingers gripping the slate, chest rising and falling in a careful, measured rhythm. Harry Potter stands close to the stars, defying the known laws of the universe—just like Tom.
So he supposes he ought to get him down.
After all, it wouldn’t do for something like that to break.