It’s become their tradition: when Hogwarts empties of most students for the Christmas break, Harry and Tom spend the quiet, sleepy days of the winter holiday together.
Initially, it was out of lonely, unwanted orphan camaraderie. They had nowhere else to go, no one who wanted to see them – but that was frankly fine by both of them. Tom would rather never see the inside of Wool’s again, and Harry had long given up on figuring out how to make the Dursleys love him. They had both found their first real home at Hogwarts. So, while the buzzing energy of the holidays and discussions of their peers reminded them of the things they did not have, those wounds had scarred over enough by that point that it was more of a dull ache than a sharp, bleeding pain.
From sharing silent moments as they read or ate together to discovering they had more in common than simply their circumstances, their wary friendship grew over the course of that first holiday break at Hogwarts. When the other students returned, there was a bit of awkwardness of finding how this new connection fit into their respective social landscapes – Tom has never been all that fond of Granger or Weasley, and Harry thinks the social politics of Slytherin are ridiculous, not to mention the typical Gryffindor-Slytherin hostility.
They weren’t the type of friends to spend every moment together, constantly at each other’s elbow, but they found a way that worked for them. Partnering up in class, sitting quietly at the same table in the library, meeting up for a pre-curfew snack in the kitchens – and spending each winter break in each other’s company, even if they both received invitations to spend the holiday elsewhere. Christmas at Hogwarts was their time.
And so it is that they’re sitting on the windowsill in a seventh-floor corridor, staring out at the freshly fallen snow, glittering under the light of a waxing gibbous moon, when Harry breaks the silence.
“D’you want to come to bed with me?”
The question causes Tom to still.
“There’s no one else who stayed behind, as usual, so the dorm is empty,” Harry continues on, oblivious. “Don’t have to worry about anyone being weird about your being there.”
Tom had felt it, how things were changing between them. How, this year, their shared glances had a different energy. Like everything was building to something. And he knew that they’d be able to spend long, uninterrupted days together over the holidays, without their respective groups to give them grief about spending time with someone from the enemy House.
He’d known there was a chance this was where that change might lead them. He just hadn’t wanted to accept it.
But Tom has a reputation, and certainly Harry knows it. So of course Harry would expect that from him – expect Tom to want it – if Tom has done that with other people.
And Harry is the only person Tom has ever wanted to keep. Harry understands him in ways no one else has ever bothered to try. (He had hoped Harry would understand this implicitly, but that was perhaps too much to ask.) There is little he wouldn’t do to tie Harry to him, to ensure Harry never leaves – never wants to leave, never even considers it. If this is the cost, he can bear it.
In comparison to the other things he’s gained through his looks and his body, Harry is much more precious, infinitely more dear. Power at the whims of another is what he can barter for now, but it won’t always be that way. Soon, he will hold his own power, an endless amount of it, and he will make others regret treating him as lesser than.
Giving this to Harry– no. Doing this with Harry is nothing like his previous sexual experiences. It’s not a degradation.
(But it does appear to be a necessity.)
His mind has been running as they walk back to the empty Gryffindor sixth year boys’ dorm together. He sees the coy, nervous smile Harry gives him over his shoulder as they reach the dorm door; he returns it with a confident one that he doesn’t quite feel.
“Are you okay?” Harry asks as he leads Tom through the door, closing and locking it behind them.
Perhaps his lacking bravado is more apparent than he’d hoped. Before Tom can decide whether or not to push Harry against the closed door and kiss him, the other boy is walking over to the bed Tom knows is Harry’s and pulling the curtains open.
As he climbs onto the bed, Harry begins shucking his clothes in a flurry. He’s now down to his shorts and a long-sleeve shirt, staring up at Tom curiously. “Planning to wear all that?” Harry asks.
This isn’t how he usually does things. His rhythm’s all thrown off, though he should’ve expected Harry would act differently than his other partners. So Tom removes his shoes, socks, trousers, and jumper as quickly as he can without appearing to rush. Harry doesn’t seem to want a show, thankfully. Tom’s not sure whether he could manage much in the way of seduction at the moment.
Tom gets on the bed and sits next to Harry, who’s reclining against a pillow tilted up against the headboard.
And now that he’s here, he’s freezing up. He can’t afford to ruin this, he can’t lose Harry. So he pushes through his hesitation and leans down to capture Harry’s lips in a kiss that has melted the minds (and inhibitions) of several other students. He’s putting his all into this, trying to focus on the fact that this is Harry, he wants Harry, this is okay. He never has to persuade himself with the others, it’s so unfair he has to work so hard to do this for Harry.
“–Tom?” Harry asks a bit breathlessly as he pulls his mouth away with a soft ‘pop.’ “What are you doing?”
Fuck, fuck, this is not happening. “I thought it was rather obvious,” he husks, trying to sound as seductive and interested as possible.
“Not the– I know you were kissing me, you berk.” Harry huffs a laugh. “I was asking why you were kissing me.”
Oh. Oh, this is all going wrong in a different way, and in addition to that he’s confused, and he hates being confused. “Typically people enjoy a bit of foreplay before they have sex,” he says, and he can’t entirely keep his defensive anger from leaking into his tone.
“Sex?!” Harry yelps, then covers his mouth with his hands despite them being the only people in the dorm. He whisper-shouts, “Sex? Who said anything about sex?”
Tom’s brow furrows in irritation. “You asked me to come to bed–”
“To sleep!” Harry barely keeps from shouting once again. “Just to sleep.”
He blinks. “Sleep,” he repeats, feeling wrong-footed.
“Uh, yeah, though now that I think about it, I guess I can see where you misunderstood…”
“You ‘guess’?” Tom hisses, incensed. “I misunderstood? Harry, that’s what people say when they intend to have sex!”
“Well, how was I supposed to know? You never seemed interested in that sort of thing, I didn’t think I had to specify–”
Tom wonders, not for the first time, how someone can be both so observant and painfully oblivious.
“Harry,” he says, a little frustrated with how this entire evening has gone. “You do realise I’ve had sex before, yes?”
“Uh, yeah, I have eyes.” As if to demonstrate this, he rolls them hard enough that Tom can barely see their bright green irises.
Cheeky little shit. “Then, why–”
“I’m not completely daft, Tom. I’ve seen how you look at the people you’ve slept with,” Harry says, sounding almost offended. “It’s the same way Ron looks at chess pieces – like they serve a particular purpose and you're thinking of the best way to move them around to get what you want.”
That was concerningly accurate. He’d never thought of Harry as unintelligent, but perhaps he’d underestimated how sharp he could be.
“When you look at me, it's different. At least, that’s what I think.”
Tom huffs. “I should never have doubted you, darling.”
“That’s right, you shouldn’t,” Harry says. “So don’t doubt me now. Tell me: what do you want?”
“I– it’s not as simple as that,” he insists, because it isn’t. Harry doesn’t understand, and it rankles, because why is this where his understanding fails?
“I never thought I’d see the day I have to demand to know what you want,” Harry says, a bit amused and a little disbelieving.
Because it’s you, he thinks. It matters – I’m trying to compromise – because it’s you.
“Come on, Tom, just tell me,” Harry wheedles.
Here goes nothing. He’s already holding his breath when he says, hoarsely, “I don’t want to have sex.”
“With me?” Harry asks evenly, unreadably.
“With anyone,” he clarifies.
Harry’s eyes almost glow in anger as he leans up on his elbow, and Tom slips his wand into his hand just in case. “Have people been forcing you–”
“No, no, nothing like that. As if they could,” Tom says, releasing some of the tension in his body, amused by Harry’s willingness to play knight in shining armour for him. “Sex is a tool to use when it’s the most expedient way to get what I want. It’s not something to which I attach emotions or any real pleasure, nor is it something I want to have purely for the sake of it.”
He’s known this for himself for quite some time, but this is the first time he’s said it aloud for someone else. Someone whose opinion matters. He finds himself wincing a bit at the clinical tone, even though it is accurate to how he feels. Harry is a creature of emotion far more than Tom is, and he doesn’t always agree with Tom’s way of seeing things.
“Oh,” Harry says. “Okay.”
Tom watches Harry warily. He doesn’t sound upset, but… “Okay…?”
“Yeah, that’s fine by me,” Harry says easily. “If you don’t want to have sex, we won’t have sex.”
That is far too calm a reaction, unless Harry likes him less than he’d previously thought. “Not just tonight – I don’t want to have sex ever, probably.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Harry says with a grin. “S’fine.”
“But. This,” Tom says quietly, indicating the bed between them. “This can’t be enough for you.”
Harry sets his jaw mulishly. “I can decide for myself what’s enough for me and what I want. And I’m trusting you to do the same. So don’t ever force yourself to do something because you think I want it,” he adds, voice tapering off towards the end into something a little desperate-sounding. “I want you, Tom. Not whatever you think I should want.”
Tom swallows hard. “What if you change your mind?”
“What if I don't?” Harry says pointedly, before exhaling loudly and adding, “Sorry, I don't mean to be dismissive. If this was the first time I was finding out you didn’t want to have sex with me, yeah, I’d probably be pretty torn up,” he allows with a shrug. “But I’ve had time to think about it, and what I want, and I decided a while back that I wouldn’t mind never having sex, if it meant I could be with you.”
Tom stares. He can’t help it. He can hardly tell which way is up anymore.
“But that’s enough about that.” Harry asks, again, “What do you want?”
After a moment, Tom says, hushed, “I want to sleep in this bed with you.” Honesty is easier when spoken softly in the dark. He braces himself for mockery, for disappointment, because, no matter what he says, surely Harry expects more than this. Tom has a reputation, after all.
But Harry only asks, voice warm, “Anything else?”
“I…” This leaves him feeling a little too vulnerable, but he pushes through. “I want to hold your hand.”
After a moment, Harry rests his hand on the bed halfway between them and wiggles his fingers. Slowly, Tom reaches out and rests the palm of his hand against the palm of Harry’s, carefully intertwining their fingers. Harry hums contentedly and squeezes their joined fingers gently.
When Tom looks back at Harry’s face, he is smiling with a light flush of colour in his cheeks. “Good?” he asks.
Tom tries to say ‘yes’ but it feels like there’s something blocking his throat, so he nods instead.
Harry nods once in return before he takes off his glasses awkwardly with his left hand and sets them on the headboard shelf. He looks over, eyes just a bit out of focus, and says, “G’night, Tom.”
Tom squeezes Harry’s hand a good deal harder, prompting Harry to tighten his hold in turn. “Good night, Harry.” If his voice shakes a little, Harry doesn’t mention it.
