Harry meets his imaginary best friend when he is six years old.
Tom has been around since Harry cracked his skull open and nearly died when Dudley pushed him off a swing set.
“You should kill them,” Tom says.
In his peripheral vision, Harry eyes the man leaning his hip against the Dursley’s kitchen counter. At first, it had been very strange to see the tall, mysterious stranger in black haunting the Dursley’s Very Normal household. Now, though, it was simply an occurrence Harry found himself used to.
“I’m not going to kill them,” Harry sighs, exasperated. “I burnt the bacon. I should know better by now. I’m ten!”
They’ve had this conversation before. When Harry showed Tom his cupboard under the stairs, Harry thought the man might murder the “muggles” himself. But, as promised, Tom couldn’t be seen by anyone – not even Dudley! And he was rather like a ghost; he could walk through walls, not be heard by anyone other than Harry even when ranting and raving, but sometimes he could knock something off the shelf if he really put his mind to it.
“Starving a child is not acceptable behaviour, Harry, even should that child burn the bacon,” Tom replies, examining his nails with arch superiority. “I repeat: you should kill them.”
Harry shoots Tom a sunny grin. “Your solution to everything can’t be to kill someone,” Harry advises wisely.
“Why not?” Tom shoots back, expression mulish.
“Because then where would I live?” Harry replies, eyebrows raised imperiously.
“Anywhere but here,” Tom answers prissily.
Harry knocks his grin up another notch and turns back to the new batch of bacon, ignoring the three frozen Dursleys sitting at the kitchen table, watching their nephew with wide eyes as he talks to thin air, flipping pancakes and turning crisp bacon without a care in the world.
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