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Chapter Text

Harry had assumed he was a beta. Well, he had after someone explained the absolute nonsense of secondary genders in mages to him.

Sometimes, he wonders if having magic is worth the ridiculous surprises and pitfalls it brings to someone raised as a Muggle. Only sometimes, but now is certainly one of those times.

Because, at the age of sixteen-and-a-half, years after most people present, Harry’s body decides it’s now an omega. It did not consult the rest of him and he’s frankly a little miffed.

He’d been a little preoccupied by the voices in the walls and petrifactions in second year to pay attention to the one-day “gender seminar” led by Madame Pomfrey, and he hadn’t thought anything of it because he was twelve and wasn’t convinced gender was all that important when there was a decent likelihood he’d die before he left Hogwarts. 

This held out until people started sniffing each other and having embarrassing reactions in public over the next couple years. Then Hermione had to take him aside in one of her how-does-she-have-time-for-a-break breaks (answer: casual time-travel) during third year and explain what the hell was happening. No matter how much she took to information like a duck to water, even she seemed a bit baffled by this whole secondary gender system that they’d never heard of or encountered in the Muggle world.

Once he’d spent a couple days being horrified, it kind of drifted to the back of his mind, because Harry continued to deal with a lot more attempts on his life and person than the average student (or the average auror, really). There were several times during fourth and fifth year where he’d find himself looking for a silver lining and settling on, “Well, at least I’m not suddenly growing new body parts or leaking. Or becoming a sex maniac.”

It was a grim couple of years.

Newly presented alphas and omegas were given “So you’re a ____” pamphlets with specialised information and a designated staff representative to speak to about any gender-related issues. Nothing really changed for the betas, as they were functionally the same as Muggles with the addition of a vestigial gland in their necks that allowed for the simulation of “mating.” Because that’s apparently a thing that mages can and want to do, and not some strange, niche roleplay fetish.

Then he’d hit sixth year, and it had seemed like all of those surprises for him and his peers were done. No one’s dynamic had changed during the four months since term began. 

But Harry had forgotten his Potter luck.

Which is why he’s stuck in a small room in the Hospital Wing with Madame Pomfrey, who is clinically detailing the joys of his new biology to him.

His face contorts in an expression of mortified disgust once he hears about how he can now “self-lubricate” with “slick,” and that about sets the tone for him. He’s going to ooze uncontrollably? Marvellous.

“Now that you’ve presented, you’re likely to go into your first heat in the next few weeks.”

“Heat?” he asks with growing trepidation. “Wait. First heat?”

“Yes, Mr. Potter, heat. A period of heightened sexual desire and fertility in omegas.” She ignores his flinch and dropped jaw. “They occur approximately every four months in most omegas, though heat suppressants can take that down to once every year or so, depending on the prescription.”

“You mean I have to–” He doesn’t want to say it. “Once a year?!”

“Yes. You’re welcome to ask an alpha to assist you during your heat, though there are some rules we require you and your partner to follow to ensure everyone is safe and consenting.”

Harry’s afraid he might start hyperventilating. He puts his focus on trying to stay calm, rather than listening to Pomfrey reveal that students are sanctioned to have sex at Hogwarts like she’s listing the ingredients to a calming draught.

When she asks if he has any questions, he stiffly asks, “What if I don’t want to ask an alpha?”

“Hmm. Well, it’s a bit unusual, but we’ll let you use one of the heat rooms and provide you with supplies.” Ah, the crimes against Harry’s sanity hidden in the word ‘supplies.’

“Not to generalise, Mr. Potter, but you are a teenage boy. It’s perfectly natural to have these urges and act on them. I know you were raised with a Muggle family and this is all rather new, but spending your heat with an alpha is completely normal – even recommended,” she says with the blasé confidence of someone who’s had variations on this talk with reluctant, embarrassed teenagers for years. “We just want you to be informed and safe in doing so.”

Ah, yes, perfectly natural urges for a teenage boy. That he’s never felt. Making him unnatural. 

(A freak.)

Everyone who’d ever felt the need to comment on Harry and his dating or sex life (or complete and utter lack thereof) had assured him he’d have those feelings someday; that one day he’d look at a person (or parts of them) and suddenly feel a raging desire to touch them and be touched. To press his lips to theirs, his hands to their skin, his dick– well. In short, he’d want to be with someone, carnally.

They’d say he’s just a late bloomer; he just hasn’t found the right person; maybe there’s something wrong with him.

Only Hermione had begun to listen to his silence when the topic inevitably came up, to send him a searching look that read his lack of attraction to others as something other than a flaw or temporary.

He knows he doesn’t want sex, and prior to this he hadn’t thought it would change. But who knows what being an omega is going to mean for him.

“Right,” he says numbly. “Thanks.”

Now he just. Waits around for his body to betray him.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

—

Harry has discovered that people stink.

While he’s been of this opinion generally for years in the figurative sense, he now means it literally. People – specifically people he knows to be alphas – have an offensive aroma that makes him feel vaguely nauseous. He’s guessing this is an omega thing, but when he asks Hermione about it, she’s perplexed.

“I would understand some changes in perception due to your newly heightened sense of smell, but the literature is pretty clear that alphas usually smell pleasant, even enticing, to omegas,” she says, frowning pensively. “I’ll visit the library tomorrow during our free period to see if there are any cases like yours.”

Hermione is lucky enough to be a beta, as is Ron, so neither of them can provide any experiential words of wisdom. 

Unfortunately, she doesn’t find anything new in the library.

Lavender is the only other omega in sixth year Gryffindor, and she looks at him pityingly when he says alphas smell bad.

“Oh, Harry, that’s so unfortunate,” she whines. “Alphas all smell so good to me! Like, Michael Corner smells almost like Earl Grey tea – citrusy and a little bit malty. Or Blaise Zabini, who has this spice and floral thing going on. Ooo, or Roger Davies, who smells like smoke and–” That’s about when Harry stops listening. He’s been around each of those boys, and they all smelled kind of repulsive to him in a way he can’t really describe.

He starts having to cast a spell that eliminates his ability to smell during Quidditch after he almost falls off his broom for the third time during a practice. He’s sorely tempted to use it permanently, but being able to smell Malfoy and his cronies is handy for keeping Ron and him out of detention.

It’s also helpful for avoiding the sudden abundance of posturing alphas. If one more of them tries to carry his bag or give him food or their scarf or touch his shoulder, he’s going to lose it. Bat-bogey hexes for all of them.

He resents the implication that his dynamic changing means he’s now a helpless, fainting maiden; that he’s no longer the same person and ought to be coddled and cooed over. He’s still Harry. He’s no more attractive or interesting than he was last month, when no one was particularly into him and that was just fine, thanks.

(One night, he vents to Ginny about this and she just looks at him incredulously. Later, he hears her mutter under her breath, “Unbelievable. How can someone be so dense?”

He wonders who she’s talking about, but doesn’t want to bother her by asking.)

—

Someone is stealing Tom’s things.

He thought he’d demonstrated to his peers, over the years, how… inadvisable a course of action it was to take from him. Clearly that message hadn’t fully sunk through the thick skulls of those wastes of space.

(Tom hasn’t ever tolerated trespasses against him, but he’s always felt a particular ire for people taking his things. It’s probably a result of being a possessive bastard and having so few things in his possession, growing up at Wool’s.)

It started a couple days ago, when he noticed his preferred quill had disappeared. Inconvenient, but it was almost time to replace it anyway and he had a few spares.

The next thing to disappear was his scarf – a much-needed item for being outside during the Scottish winter. And inside for that matter, what with his inability to keep warm in the dungeons. He’d set it down on the bannister and, in the time it took to remove his outer robe, it had vanished. He started keeping an eye out all the time, even more paranoid than he usually was.

(It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you, as they say. And in Slytherin, even if you’re at the top of the pecking order – especially if you’re at the top – they’re out to get you.)

When someone walks off with one of his two robes, he sees red. Those things are bloody expensive and it would be such a waste to buy another one when he’ll be graduating in less than six months.

This stops now.

—

Something smells good.

Harry’s caught traces of it a few times over the past couple weeks, but hasn’t figured out what – or, he supposes, who – the scent belongs to.

Whatever it is, it smells like cloves and tart cherries and tobacco. It smells like things he’s never had but thinks he wants, warm and maybe a little dangerous. He wants to wrap himself up in that scent and take a really self-indulgent nap.

He’s back in the common room and his classes have finished for the day, so perhaps he’ll take that nap just for kicks. There’s time before dinner.

“Oi, Potter,” one of the seventh-years calls. “The Head Boy wants to speak with you.”

“He does?” His brow furrows as he tries to think what he might be in trouble for. No one should know about the singed tapestry yet… “Where is he?”

“Upstairs in the sixth-year dorm, he said.”

Well that’s not good. “Thanks!” he calls over his shoulder as he runs up the stairs to his dorm room, where the door is already open, and.

Tom Riddle is standing by his bed.

Tom Riddle, Head Boy, Hogwarts super-student, and untouchable alpha, is standing by his bed and smells amazing.

[For the longest time, Riddle didn’t tell anyone what his dynamic was. It’d probably still be a mystery if he hadn’t been called out earlier that year to help discipline some students in the middle of the night and forgotten to refresh his scent blockers.

(Harry wishes more alphas used scent blockers.)

There were enough people involved in the incident that Riddle couldn’t dismiss the rumours, and shortly thereafter he quietly confirmed his status as an alpha. 

When Harry’s dynamic was first made public, Lavender and a few other omegas cornered him to gossip about which alphas at Hogwarts were worth boning, and Riddle’s name came up with wistful sighs. Apparently, after they found out Riddle was an alpha, omegas offered to share their heats with him constantly, and Riddle – politely yet firmly – refused every single one. Lavender seemed convinced he’d be good in bed, for some reason, even if she had no evidence. The other omegas seemed to want Riddle all the more because he'd turned them down.

Harry had blocked a lot of that conversation from his head – he never wanted to hear about knotting again – but he remembered the bit about Riddle. It was comforting to know he wasn’t the only one going against expectation.]

“I believe you may have something – well, several somethings – that belong to me,” Riddle says.

“I do?” Harry asks, uncertain what the other boy is talking about.

Riddle gives him an unimpressed look. “Yes. Would you open your trunk for me?”

Harry fidgets. Did he leave any of the not-exactly-allowed items at the top of his trunk? “Do I have to?”

“Unless you’d like me to call your Head of House in, who will make you open it anyway.”

Harry’s not sure what Riddle’s up to, but he definitely doesn’t want McGonagall involved, so he opens it. And stares, gobsmacked.

Where on earth did that Slytherin scarf come from? When did he start hoarding blankets? What the hell is all this?!

Even through his minor breakdown, Harry can feel Riddle’s eyes on him. “It would appear you’re nesting. Unknowingly, from the look on your face.”

“Ne–” He might throw up.

And Harry feels the fear and frustration he’d felt when Pomfrey told him he was an omega all over again. If he can squirrel away half of a linen closet without realising it, what else is he going to do? He’s almost certain he doesn’t want to have sex ever, but what if being in heat changes that? He has no desire to become some mindless, insatiable cockslut, bad omega stereotype or whatever. He doesn’t want his body to betray what he has known about himself for years just because of some instinctive biological imperative. 

He will hex someone’s face off if they try to put a baby in him, and what the hell is his life for that to be a real sentence. Muggles don’t have to deal with this bullshit, no one prepared him for this, and he’s bitter as all hell about it.

He’s tempted to tell the Dursleys about this just to see their disgusted expressions.

“Should I call one of your friends here for you?” Riddle asks, and Harry realises he’s hyperventilating. He slowly regains control of his breathing, trying to stop his racing thoughts.

“I’m guessing that’s your scarf,” Harry says, voice a little hoarse. Riddle nods. “I took other things from you?”

“A quill and a robe are all I’ve noticed.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says sincerely. “I didn’t know I was doing… that. You can have your things back.”

But when Riddle reaches for his scarf, something in Harry goes tense and he – there’s no other word for it – growls at the other boy. He didn’t know the human voice could make that sound. The growl cuts off short in his shock, and then he’s burying his face in his hands, completely mortified.

“It looks like they’re staying here for now,” Riddle says, bemused.

“Oh god, I am so, so sorry. I don’t know what the hell’s happening.”

Riddle gives him a dubious look. “Someone must have explained nesting and heats to you.”

“Ye-es, but I didn’t really listen. I’m still denying this is actually happening to me.”

“You have a trunk full of illicit proof otherwise.”

Harry can’t deny that, much as he wishes he could.

“This is all so ridiculous,” he says, dragging a hand through his hair. “I have no idea why I took your stuff. Do you?”

When Riddle realises he’s serious, he explains, slowly and with a hint of mockery, “Omegas construct their nests with materials that bring them comfort and familiarity – that, I’m assuming, would be the blankets you have in your trunk – and materials from a person with whom they want to share their heat–”

“I don’t want to have sex with you,” Harry blurts.

Riddle stares at him for a moment, then his whole body relaxes. “Oh.”

“I didn’t even know they were your things.”

“Well then.”

“I’m sorry I’m holding them hostage–”

Riddle cuts in, “As long as you return my belongings to me – cleaned, mind you – then I’m willing to let you borrow them.”

“Wait,” Harry says, fumbling for words. “I– you– Uh. I want you in my n-nest, too! Shite. I mean. I wouldn’t be opposed? If you wanted to?”

Oh, if only the floor would swallow him up. Where did that come from??

“You want me in your nest,” Riddle says slowly, eyebrows raised.

“Uh huh,” Harry says, muffled by his hands hiding his burning face. In for a penny…

“But you don’t want to have sex with me.”

“Bingo.” Realising that may come across as a little insulting, he adds, “Ah, but that’s not a ‘you’ thing – I don’t want to have sex with anyone, in general. And actually, you’re the only alpha who smells nice to me,” Harry says, fidgeting. “The rest smell… unpleasant.”

Riddle spends several long – endless – moments giving Harry a measuring look, and he wishes the other boy would just put him out of his misery and say no, like he always does. Then Harry can forget this lapse in sanity and pretend it never happened.

But apparently Riddle’s out to surprise him.

“I’ll admit, I’m curious – I’ve never heard of a sexless heat. I’m in,” he says easily, like this isn’t a sharp deviation from his usual answer. The world has ceased to follow any logic Harry understands; it’s probably time to just roll with it.

They discuss the details – as much as they can when so little is certain – and Harry asks too many times if Riddle is sure he wants to do this, which results in Riddle sending a pinching jinx at him, but eventually they have the makings of a plan and Riddle leaves. 

When Harry gets back to the common room and flops onto a couch beside Ron, he’s still in shock. This is actually happening. What even.

“What’d Riddle want, mate?” Ron asks, focused on trouncing Seamus at chess, as he does every time they play. This is how Harry knows Seamus is a masochist.

Harry’s too preoccupied to watch his words. “He’s going to share my heat.”

Lavender falls out of her seat with a shriek. “He what?!”

—

Tom hates being an alpha.

The slight boost in status among the Pureblood crowd isn’t worth all the biological messiness and increased interest from other people. He wants them to worship him for his power and cunning, not because he smells a certain way or because his cock occasionally has a strange protrusion. 

He’s aware that sex can be used as a tool, but it’s one he’s chosen not to use. He can flirt if the situation calls for it, but he’s certain he can find a solution to any problem that wouldn’t necessitate letting other people touch him and think themselves worthy. And if he wouldn’t sleep with the imbeciles around him normally, why would he let himself lose control and fuck one because they threw themselves at him and smelled somewhat enticing?

He makes sure to keep a firm grip on his instincts at all times, refusing to let them dictate who he is and how he acts. 

He’s never wanted an omega (or anyone else), and he doesn’t really want Potter. At least, not like an alpha is expected to want an omega. 

The other boy’s political clout, as heir to the Potter and Black Houses, is certainly an incentive to play nice. Harry Potter would make a fine addition to his collection of powerful people who owe him a favour.

Potter smells like a summer storm – ozone and soil and rain on hot concrete. It’s exhilarating, heady. Most omega scents have a saccharine quality to them; Potter smells like power, like the thunderstorms he used to love watching from under the gazebo in the park closest to Wool’s. Free entertainment and solitude – a rare pleasure.

And, most attractive of all: Potter’s not asking for sex. The boy is horrendously earnest, and he seems as dismayed by these quirks of magical biology as Tom is. He didn’t seek Tom out as a heat companion (at least, not consciously). He would accept it if Tom says no, has even given him outs in case he changes his mind at any point. 

(It’s also rather flattering to be the only alpha that doesn’t repel Potter. He’s always been much more fond of having his ego stroked than… Well.)

As far as invitations to share a heat go, he can’t imagine a more appealing offer. 

—

When they go to Pomfrey’s office to sign the consent forms – because they’ll force him to participate in a death tournament while underaged, but Merlin forbid he have not-sex without explicit, written consent – she clucks at him with a knowing smile. “I’m glad you changed your mind about spending your heat with an alpha, Mr. Potter.”

He smiles tightly back at her, signs the paperwork as quickly as he can, and pretends her smug assumption doesn’t piss him off.

And she’s far from the only person who treats him like he was being childish for not wanting to have a week-long sex marathon, full stop, but also with someone he barely knows.

He flips them all the bird when they’re not looking and tries not to care. It helps that Tom sends a low-grade tripping jinx at whoever he hears making those comments.

—

When Harry feels his temperature start to rise and the world starts to go a little fuzzy around the edges, he packs up his nesting materials, some clean clothing, and a few books at Hermione’s insistence, lets his friends know to tell Pomfrey, and goes to get a few snacks from the house elves before holing up in the Head Boy’s room. Luckily Tom is there, not having any classes this morning, so after a quick message is sent to confirm he’ll be unable to attend for a few days and a quick change into comfortable clothes, they’re ready.

Theoretically.

“So, uh. What do we do now?”

Tom gives him a look. “Why are you asking me? You’re the omega, this is your heat.”

“We’ve established I am bad at being an omega,” Harry says.

“Well, what is your body telling you to do?” Tom says, mildly exasperated. 

“Erm… Nothing particular, at the moment. But I don’t think the heat has fully started. If it has, I don’t know what other omegas are talking about.”

“You do realise you’re currently piling blankets and my clothing on the bed.”

He is. “Fucking hell.” His nesting urge is out of control. “Well, I guess this is what we’re doing.”

“Do you want me to help?”

“Uh, do you have any other pillows?” Harry asks absently, arranging the blankets and the majority of Tom’s wardrobe according to some unwritten organisational plan. He knows when it feels right, though.

“Harry. We’re wizards,” Tom says. “I may not have more pillows, but I can make them.”

“Then make me three big, fluffy ones.”

Tom does. The pillows are perfect – exactly what he wants. A part of Harry that he’d rather not acknowledge crows about how well he’s chosen his mate.

Once he places the pillows where they’re meant to be, Harry feels a warm satisfaction deep in his bones. He climbs into the nest without conscious thought and rolls around to make everything smell a bit more like him. After that, he goes almost limp with bliss.

Okay, this is a part of being an omega he can get behind. This is awesome.

—

Harry is – dare he say it – cute, sitting half swallowed-up by the heap of fabric and pillows.

“Do you like my nest?” Harry asks him, looking dreamy and somehow shy.

Tom fights the urge to laugh at him. “Yes, Harry, it’s a very good nest.”

And at that remark, Harry’s eyes slip closed and a rumbling sound starts up from his chest. Oh. Oh. He’s purring.

When Tom had read that extremely content omegas might purr, he’d thought it sounded absurd. Now, as he feels his cheeks grow pink, he understands why people try so hard to achieve this. It’s like something he hadn’t realised was tight and knotted in his chest unwinds, and he’s sure his face is doing something foolish, but he can’t bring himself to care right now.

“Come here?” Harry asks, cheeks flushed and pupils visibly blown even through his barely open eyelids.

“Yes,” Tom says. 

He joins Harry on his bed, careful not to disturb the nest’s arrangement lest he be kicked out. As soon as he starts to sit down, Harry begins pulling and prodding him into place. He almost slaps the other boy’s hands away, but Harry must have him situated where he wants, because he stops poking at Tom and looks very pleased with himself.

And then Harry drapes himself over Tom and sticks his face against Tom’s throat, where he knows his scent is strongest. 

If Harry was purring before, Tom’s not sure what this is. It feels like the whole bed is vibrating. Tom feels almost drunk. Surrounded by his clothes and his magic, and with Harry against him, fever-hot, purring up a storm and emitting happy heat pheromones, Tom feels warm and relaxed and it’s wonderful. 

—

When they surface from their stupor a couple hours later to eat something, Harry asks, deliberately casual, “So, any urge to have sex with me?”

“None at all,” Tom says. “You?”

With a shy grin tucked into his folded arms propped on his knees, Harry says, “Nope.”

It makes him feel silly, but he thinks it’s safe to try this here, in this liminal space with Harry, so Tom holds up a hand. Harry stares at it for a couple seconds before understanding dawns, and with a bright laugh he completes the high-five.

When they head back to the nest, Harry’s heat-fever returning, Tom quips, “I think it’s my turn to be on top.”

Harry thwacks him with a pillow, and Tom laughs, and Harry can’t manage to hold his disapproving look, a smile sneaking across his face.

(Tom gets his way and lays on top of Harry this time; Harry finds he enjoys being a bit squished by Tom’s weight.)

—

Harry spends the next three days dozing in his nest, cosy and content and curled up with Tom in any configuration they care to try. His fever gradually recedes, but aside from having extremely strong feelings about pillow placement, he doesn’t really experience any of the other heat symptoms he’d twisted himself into knots over. He doesn’t have to deal with slick (which Tom eventually explains is a response to sexual arousal); he never gets aroused, let alone loses his mind with the desire to be filled and bred. 

(This would lead him to think those things only happened in the racier omegan romance novels people talk about, but he’d heard far too much from Lavender and the group of omegas who kept oversharing with him. He’s the outlier, and he’s never been happier about it.)

He’s still himself, still Harry, just with his unacknowledged desire to be warm and held by another person and sleep as much as he wants in a safe place cranked up to eleven. It’s… 

It’s okay, being an omega. He doesn’t have to change.

Tom quickly gets bored of lying around and spends much of Harry’s heat reading. In his occasional moments of lucidity, Harry teases Tom for being an overachiever who can’t unwind. After Tom learns that Harry can be rendered into a human puddle when his hair is played with, Harry loses all ability to mock the other boy.

—

When his heat ends, a lot of people ask Harry how it was (“Really great,” he replies with a soft, secret smile), and how he convinced the untouchable Tom Riddle to join him (he gives no response to this aside from a shrug). Alphas start pestering him about his next heat, but Harry gets on the long-term suppressants – he’s not going through this at the Dursleys, no fucking way – and he’s seen often enough with Tom that they assume he’s taken.

Harry doesn’t tell them otherwise; they can assume whatever they want.

(The part of Harry that decided Tom is a good mate still feels that way, and after the few days they spent locked in a room together, the rest of Harry is in agreement.)

—

When Harry’s heat ends, Tom is swarmed by a newly reinvigorated bevvy of omega suitors (whom he declines as he always has) and a glut of people asking what Harry’s like in bed (if they use polite language he simply glares at them until they leave; if they’re rude or crass, he curses them undetectably).

He starts spending more time with Harry to further cement a connection between them in the public mind, and slowly the hopeful omegas start to dwindle in number. He’ll have graduated by Harry’s next heat, and who knows whether he’ll still be interested at that point, but Tom thinks… He thinks he might be. 

(A part of him wants all of Harry’s heats, but Tom is back in control of his instincts and he’s not listening. Not now, at least.)

((But the next time Harry’s heat comes around, Tom’s there.))

Chapter Text

“What are you doing here?”

Sometimes Harry asks himself that, but it’s far too early on a Monday morning for an existential crisis. He looks up drowsily at the frowning face of the cursebreaker he’s apprenticing with and eloquently asks, “Wha?”

Mathilda purses her lips, trying to hide her fondness under a stern façade. “I didn’t expect you in, once I heard Mr. Riddle was …indisposed.”

The entirety of Magical Britain is one big network of gossipy busybodies. Harry thought he’d left that behind at Hogwarts, but no such luck. In this case, he won’t look the gift horse in the mouth.

“Ah, right – I just came in to ask if I could have the week off to spend with him. Didn’t want to waste time with an owl if you needed me here.”

That might be the smoothest lie he’s ever told; he’s doing a celebratory dance on the inside. Externally, he tries to look helpful and a little pathetic. (He’s concerned about how successfully he pulls off that last part, going by Mathilda’s expression.)

“Harry, I appreciate your diligence, but I would never keep you from your alpha when he needs you,” she says firmly. “Now shoo. I’ll see you back here next Monday.”

“Thank you, Mathilda!” he calls over his shoulder as he skedaddles out of her workshop. “Have a good week!”

“Not as good as yours!” she calls back with a knowing glint in her eyes.

Ah, if only she actually did know.

But in the year and a half since Harry presented, he’d stopped fighting people’s assumptions (...mostly. There were some exceptions, of course. He had a lot of rage stored up) and learned to take advantage of their stupid attitudes and expectations about gender dynamics. Mathilda’s a good sort, but even after working with Harry for a couple months she’s not immune to it.

Shaking those thoughts from his mind, he heads to the closest apparition point and spins towards Tom’s apartment.

The git never told Harry he’d be having his rut this week.

—

Tom had been through three ruts without anyone noticing – at Hogwarts, no less – before his dynamic was discovered. It wasn’t a problem. It had no effect on his nearly nonexistent libido, and he’d been able to layer on the scent blockers enough that even if he had smelled particularly potent, it wouldn’t reach anyone else. Really, the only symptoms he’d had were marginally higher levels of aggression and an absurd amount of energy. 

He’s never more productive (ha!) than he is during his rut.

But now that everyone knows he’s an alpha, no one will listen to him when he says he can work through his rut with no adverse effects. He’d had to include his typical rut timing with his personal information when he’d signed the job offer from the Ministry. And now his department head is demanding he stay home for the duration.

He doesn’t need to, but damned if he’ll argue against a paid vacation from those numpties.

He’d stockpiled some groceries and rescheduled this week’s evening engagements (for the optics of it all), and now he’s ready to focus the prodigious amount of energy zinging through him towards some personal projects. He’s going to get so much done.

And then there’s a knock at his door.

“Tom, let me in!” Harry calls through the door. “Mathilda made me leave to ‘assist’ you.”

He doesn’t need to see the ridiculous eyebrow waggle; he can hear it in Harry's voice.

“Good lord, do these people have nothing better to do than rabbit on about others?” he says, exasperated, as he heads to the door.

“Right? But now I’ve got the week off and I can’t be out in public lest I be accused of neglecting my alpha,” Harry says wryly as Tom opens the door. “So I figured I’d stay here.” 

Oh no. 

He takes one look at Harry and feels alarms start clanging in his head. Harry cannot come into Tom’s apartment yet.

So he shuts the door in Harry’s face and locks it, disregarding his indignant shout.

Leaning back against the door, Tom considers the facts. He, understandably, hadn’t factored Harry into his plans. He always spends his rut alone – he had last year, and he and Harry were together then. But, now that Harry has left Hogwarts and is… accessible, he’s expected to spend Tom’s rut with him.

And that wouldn’t be a problem – they get on well and enjoy spending time together, for the most part. But.

(He can hear his heartbeat in his ears; it’s pounding and getting faster.) 

But. Things are different now.

Now, Tom knows what Harry smells like after days of intertwining their scents and being as close as two sexually disinterested people were likely to get.

(Harry went off his suppressants a little before the one-year mark so he could spend his second heat with Tom during Hogwarts’ winter break. Those few days over the Christmas hols, wrapped up with a toasty warm, happy-smelling Harry, made for the best birthday he’d ever had. And he also managed to finish several books he’d been meaning to read while Harry attempted to melt into him.)

Now, Harry is here, just on the other side of that door. Planning to stay with Tom in his apartment for days on end and smelling divine.

Tom had thought Harry was overstating his worries about losing control of his body during his heat. Harry had remained himself during both heats he’d had, aside from the (hilarious) ((...endearing)) compulsive nesting. Tom had never had any difficulty controlling his instincts, even around an omega in heat, so he had no reason to believe there’d be a situation that would challenge him.

So, of course, he’s caught completely off-guard. He claims temporary insanity due to hormones as his defence for what happens next. 

“Give me half an hour,” he says through the door, trying to keep his heavy breathing inaudible.

“Seriously? You know I’m not going to judge a little mess, Tom – you can let me in,” comes the muffled response. A little mess. Try disaster. This is awful – he has no time to prepare.

He doesn’t realise he’s making a low whining sound until Harry asks, “Uh, Tom? Are you okay?”

“I’m a little out of sorts,” he prevaricates, voice unnaturally high. “But I’ll be fine in a bit. Go grab a tea from that café a couple blocks away and you can come in when you get back.”

“...Okay, if you’re sure,” Harry says eventually, sounding reluctant to leave. “Want a Masala chai, too?”

“Of course. Ta.”

He hears Harry’s feet retreating down the hallway and springs into action. He has so much to do before Harry returns.

—

Harry’s not necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed, but he can put two and two together to get four. Tom’s acting weird because of his rut and he’s probably panicking in his apartment as Harry sits here, enjoying a big mug of spicy chai. He might as well give Tom some more time to pull himself together. The man had been understanding of Harry’s rampant thieving of his stuff and never teased him too much about the silly things he does under the influence of heat hormones. Harry can be magnanimous in return.

(He’ll poke fun at him later, when Tom is self-aware again and will get properly flustered.)

Continuing his trend of only knowing the things about alpha and omega dynamics that Tom and Hermione bully into his brain – and even then, under duress – Harry doesn’t really know what could be bothering Tom. The other man usually kept his space tidy, but Harry had spent the afternoon there while Tom was on a research jag a few times, so he’s seen the apartment in the worst condition it ever got to. Tom never seemed to care before. 

Harry supposes he’ll find out when he sees Tom.

He goes back to the counter to get Tom his tea, then takes a meandering path back, popping by the owl post office to send a message to Ron and Hermione about where he’ll be this week so they don’t make a missing persons’ report. But eventually he makes it back, once again climbing the stairs and knocking on Tom’s door.

There are… a lot of highly suspicious thuds and crashes (and possibly some broken glass? Sure sounds like it) coming from beyond the door at his knock, so he figures Tom knows he’s here. There’s a good thirty seconds of ominous silence, and Harry is about to knock again when the door opens enough for them to see each other, but not for him to slip inside.

Tom looks both a little flushed – likely with the exertion of running around like a chicken with its head cut off – and pale with stress. Beyond, the apartment is tidy with its usual level of ambient clutter, but the bookshelves are perhaps emptier than he’s used to. Tom might be going down a research rabbit hole.

It occurs to him, finally, that Tom might not want him around during his rut. Or perhaps he can’t have Harry around. Just because Harry’s alright to have his heats with Tom doesn’t mean the inverse is true.

“Uh, just to check – this is okay? Still no desire to have sex with me?” Harry asks quietly through the partly open door. Who knows who might be listening and ready to spread whatever juicy tidbits they pick up, given how the day’s gone so far.

“Yes, not to worry.” Tom’s voice is oddly strained. Ironically, this is when Harry finally starts getting worried and he's about to ask if he should just leave Tom alone and hide out in his own apartment for the week instead, when the door opens fully and he’s ushered across the threshold.

He opens his mouth to ask if Tom’s okay when he gets a good look at him.

“That’s… not what you were wearing when you opened the door the first time,” Harry says. 

Before, Tom had been wearing the worn-out lounge clothes he only wears when he has no intention of seeing anyone (aside from Harry). Now, each item he has on is something Harry has explicitly complimented when Tom wore it previously. 

The issue is that he’d complimented them each separately and they absolutely don’t work together. Even he, with his admittedly abysmal fashion sense, can tell that much. Harry is certain he’s never seen Tom in an outfit less coordinated than this. He needs to leave to grab a camera and get proof for later, but that’s not going to happen with the way Tom is tracking his every twitch.

The man belatedly replies, “...I spilled some ink on it.” 

“‘It?’”

“My clothes.”

“All of them?” Tom is usually a much better liar than this. Harry wonders if he needs medical attention. “That must’ve been a big spill.”

Tom’s stare has graduated from intense to full-on unnerving in the past few seconds. 

“Tom?”

That seems to knock the man out of his hormone-induced stupor, at least temporarily. “It was. Harry, could you join me in my room? I have something to show you.”

Oh god, Harry’s going to die. Tom’s finally cracked and the ensuing rampage will be both bloody and unstoppable. He knew he should’ve warned Tom not to go into civil service. No one gets out of that with their sanity intact.

Some of Harry’s anxiety must be seeping into his scent, because Tom manages to tone his fervour down a smidge. He tuts in irritation and holds out his hand, saying, “If I was planning to kill you, dear Harry, I wouldn’t let you see it coming.”

It says a lot about him, very little of it good, that this is what calms his fight-or-flight instinct.

Harry takes Tom’s hand and follows him down the short hallway past the living room. He has been in Tom’s bedroom a few times – for his most recent heat, when he helped Tom move in, a few scattered nights when he’d stayed over because one or the other (or both) of them wanted the closeness and willingly admitted it. Point being, he’s pretty familiar with the space.

“Done some redecorating, have you?” Harry says lightly.

The bed now has a few more blankets and pillows on it than usual – which is always a good thing in Harry’s mind. He is 100% down to take naps in soft, warm piles of fabric during his heat and at any other time of the year. Accepting and leaning into that desire had really helped him come to terms with his secondary gender, once he’d realised it didn’t make him a different person.

It’s the other items that give him pause. There are several towers of books surrounding the head of the bed – Tom must have pulled most of his collection off the shelves and stacked them here. Knowing Tom, there’s meaning to their order and grouping, but it’s beyond Harry’s comprehension. 

Scattered on the bedside tables and decorating the book towers are pieces of jewellery and shiny items and (he’s reasonably certain) a few less-than-legal, dark-ish artefacts that he’s going to pretend he doesn’t recognise. Harry would not be surprised if all of those things were acquired illegally. Tom is such a magpie, and it’s kind of adorable.

And then there are the bones. He’s choosing to believe they’re all animal bones even though that one propped against the headboard is definitely human femur-shaped. (They’re going to have a little chat once Tom’s rut is over.) The smaller bones are strewn artistically (?) around the heap of blankets in the middle of the book towers.

“Is it sufficient?” Tom asks brusquely, breaking through Harry’s musings. With how intently Tom is side-eyeing his reactions, he doesn’t buy the tone for a second.

He’ll have to tread carefully. “It’s not like you to settle for ‘sufficient.’”

“It’s a realistic assessment. I did what I could, given the time I had to prepare it,” Tom mutters, and oh. Tom is nervous. He’s covering it up with grumpiness, but he’s worried Harry will reject his… avant-garde sculpture?

“I’m going to be honest, Tom – I’m not sure what I’m looking at.” Seeing Tom’s shoulders sag minutely, he rushes to continue. “Not because it’s not good enough! I think it’s just one of those alpha things I didn’t absorb, even though you probably explained it to me…”

Harry considers the cues Tom has given him – he changed into clothes Harry has complimented him on before; he’s very aware of Harry physically; he made Harry a... a thing, which is obviously important to him but mostly because of what Harry thinks of it and.

Oh Merlin, Tom’s peacocking.

“Oh!” he exclaims to hide the laugh he couldn’t contain. “Is it like a nest? Er, the alpha version of a nest?”

“It’s called a bower,” Tom says sullenly.

“A bower,” Harry repeats. That doesn’t clue him in any further. “Am I meant to sit in it?”

There’s a weighted pause. “If you find it acceptable.”

“What is a bower,” he stumbles, the word resting awkwardly on his tongue. “Meant to be– er, convey in this situation?”

There’s another heavy silence, and Harry turns towards Tom to find him fidgeting. Tom is fidgeting. It’s the end times.

(Harry may never recover from this.)

“It’s. A display alphas construct in order to attract a mate. I’m sorry–” (An apology?? Harry has to pinch himself.) “–that it’s not better made or more suited to you.”

And Harry’s had his fun; it’s time to calm Tom down before he looks any more miserable. And before Harry has a heart attack over Tom acting this way.

He takes the other man’s hands in his and says, “It’s a lovely bower, Tom. I’m so pleased you made it for me.”

“You deserve better,” Tom asserts wistfully. Oh gosh, Tom is precious. Is he secretly always this sweet and it’s just hidden beneath layers of masks and cleverness and simmering rage?

(Not that Tom isn’t kind to Harry – he is. But Tom still keeps up some walls, even when they’re alone together. It’s fine, they’ve both dealt with some shite and have defences to navigate, and it’s getting easier to trust each other. But he doubts Tom was ready for this level of intimacy yet.

Harry’s not sure he was, either.)

He doesn’t respond to Tom’s words, instead crawling up onto the bed to sit at the centre of the decorations. And Tom stares at him, sitting in the bower Tom built, until the tension leaves his body and he gets on the bed to push Harry down into the nest-like part and scent-mark him thoroughly. Harry squirms a lot because he’s ticklish and Tom’s touch is gentle and skimming and merciless, until finally Tom is satisfied that Harry smells like him and flops down with his face against Harry’s throat.

Harry runs his hands up and down Tom’s back, one slipping occasionally into his hair. “Feel better?”

Tom groans. “Ugh, yes. That was mortifying.”

“It wasn’t that bad. Unexpected, but not bad.”

He snorts dismissively. “You’re not the one who just tore their apartment apart to present all your best possessions to someone in hopes they’ll accept your affections.”

Harry puts a pin in that thought, a warm feeling in his chest. 

“Also, we’re not talking about these objects. You never saw any of this.” Tom’s attempt at his commanding tone is rendered less effective for being muffled against Harry’s shoulder.

“Sure,” he lies. Let Tom think he’s getting away with it; Harry can play the waiting game. “Don’t forget, I’m the one who stole your belongings and a bunch of linens in a fugue state and nested aggressively without realising it. Our dynamics make us do weird things.”

Tom hums, unconvinced. 

“You’ve been really great about dealing with my heat quirks, so it’s only fair I return the kindness,” Harry adds. “But even beyond that, I’m rather fond of you, Tom Riddle. A little thing like this won’t change that.”

He feels when Tom’s breath hitches and continues stroking his back as he collects himself.

Quietly, Tom says, “I’ve never had my instincts take over like that. I pride myself on my self-control.”

Harry hums at this, considering. “Maybe part of you knows it’s safe to let go of that control for a while with me.”

Tom remains silent, but the arm he wraps tightly around Harry’s waist speaks for him.

—

They lay together in the bower until Tom’s need to keep Harry there abates. They go to the kitchen and Tom reheats the tepid take-out cup of chai, drinking it while they prepare a late lunch.

Harry spends the next few days napping on Tom’s bed (cleared of The Wooing Apparatus™), reading from Tom’s impressive collection of books, and forcing the man to eat and drink and stop working long enough to sleep. Tom’s workaholic tendencies are in overdrive, and Harry wonders how he’d survived previous ruts if this is how he acts. 

(The answer is the Hogwarts house elves, who would never allow anyone to starve on their watch. It’s one of the reasons Tom supports Hermione’s crusade to grant house elves better working conditions and wages.)

Tom is also insistent about making Harry smell as much like him as possible, randomly descending upon Harry like a gimlet-eyed, scent-marking whirlwind and coaxing him into wearing Tom’s clothes. (It doesn’t take much coaxing; the trick will be reclaiming the clothing from him later.)

It’s a far cry from the warm, languorous cocoon of Harry’s heats, when their only purpose is to press closer together and relax in contentment. But Harry gets to see a new side of Tom (and an abundance of blackmail material), and Tom finishes up two of his trickier projects and makes progress on several others. He’s also far more relaxed than usual after his rut, which he can attribute to Harry’s insistent caretaking, even if he won’t admit that aloud.

—

“Welcome back, Mr. Riddle,” the department head says when he finds Tom back in the office the following Monday. “Have a good week with your Mr. Potter?”

Tom smiles politely. “Of course, sir.”

He can’t wait to destroy this blithering idiot’s career. But he will, because these things take time. He promises himself that he’ll savour the moment of victory.

…He does like the sound of ‘his Harry,’ though. 

“But I’m ready to get back to work,” he adds.

“That’s what I like to hear!” And the man moves into Tom’s personal space and slaps him on the shoulder with unearned conviviality. Tom wants to curse his hands off, but he shows no sign of it, his self-control impeccable (now that Harry’s not around).

“Woof!” The department head jerks back out of Tom’s space with a surprised look. “You definitely had a good week, if you still smell like that.”

Disregarding how incredibly rude it is to sniff someone in the workplace, and how it’s beyond rude to then talk about it – which is a lot for Tom to disregard, but he’s a paragon of restraint – Tom is not sure what this oaf could possibly be talking about. Tom had bathed, obviously, and he’d reapplied the scent blockers he wears around everyone but Harry.

So he subtly sniffs at his shirt and. Oh for Merlin’s sake, Harry.

Now that he’s aware of it, he positively reeks of satisfied omega pheromones. He must’ve gone nose-blind from being around Harry for six straight days. 

As his first heat demonstrated, Harry is a wretched little clothing thief whenever given half a chance. Even when actively prevented from having a chance – it’s as impressive as it is infuriating. So when Tom not only gave him carte blanche to wear his clothes but also kept dressing Harry up in them for the four and a half days of his rut, well. It’s not a shock he barely has any clean clothing left.

He thought this shirt had escaped Harry’s raiding, but apparently not. He’ll have to wash everything with a scent-destroying detergent tonight. Not how he’d planned to spend his evening, but needs must.

“Oh dear,” he says, smile finally straining ever-so-slightly. “Harry must’ve been a little too enthusiastic with his scent-marking this morning.”

“Right,” the man drawls, gaze full of (incorrect) assumptions and a little jealousy. Ha, choke on that, you old lump. Tom’s mate is young and powerful and lovely and smells fantastic, and you’ll never get to lay a finger on him. He’s all Tom’s.

…Wait.

Mate?

Oh bugger.

Chapter Text

Harry thinks it’s kind of strange that people become adults in the magical world at seventeen; he finds it even weirder that there’s no indication of what this means or changes aside from being able to use magic whenever and wherever he wants (within reason, if he doesn’t want to tangle with the Ministry of Magic’s goons). And since Harry is mostly curious in ways that involve people acting suspicious, some light stalking, and skulking around in the dark, he doesn’t go in search of any information of his new responsibilities as a titled wizard in Magical Britain. Hermione and Tom tend to long-sufferingly keep him apprised of any necessary knowledge, so if they haven’t brought it up, it likely isn’t relevant to him.

What this all amounts to is Tom giving him such a look when he finds out Harry hasn’t gone to Gringotts since he turned seventeen – well over two years ago – to have a discussion about his accounts and inheritance and the Potter estate and the like. He proceeds to drag Harry there on their next shared day off, sitting beside Harry in a small but opulent office and giving him severe side-eye as Grognak, the administrator of the Potter estate, details the extent of Harry’s generational wealth. Harry insists on Tom being present because Tom will understand things much better than he would, and if Tom was going to use him for his money he’s been doing a piss-poor job of it so far, so Harry feels safe from any potential, latent black-widow tendencies on his part.

It turns out that, in addition to several Potter vaults loaded with gold and other valuables, Harry owns four properties. Including the portfolio of land, residences, vaults, Dark artefacts, etc., that comes from being the Black heir, Harry officially has fuck-you money. He could give nine-tenths of it away, never work another day in his life, and live more lavishly than he could even dream of and still not run out. It’s absurd. 

His memories of Grimmauld Place make Harry thoroughly investigate the houses and manors now in his possession before he makes any decisions, but he falls a little in love with a quirky three-bedroom country house in essentially the middle of nowhere near Mynydd Epynt in Wales, with lots of windows and rambling grounds with plenty of mature trees. Since it’s connected to the Floo Network and it’s private enough to apparate to and from, Harry decides to move in.

And, because Harry’s a true romantic, he asks Tom, “Uh. Want to live together?”

And Tom might want to hex him, but he’s also visibly calculating how much more he’ll be able to save if he’s not paying rent and halves his other expenses, and how many more books and artefacts he can acquire with that money. There’s also the fact that he and Harry have been regularly sharing space and going back and forth between their two flats for at least a year. The method of asking may be lacking, but the question itself isn’t exactly coming from the ether.

So, nearly three years after Harry’s first heat, he and Tom move in together. And the house swiftly becomes their home, with quidditch memorabilia and cookbooks and cursed artefacts cluttered together with ancient magical tomes and definitely not human bones (really, Tom?) and more cursed artefacts. It’s cosy and off-putting and so very them.

—

Tom waits until Harry’s focused on sautéeing some mushrooms for dinner one night before casually asking, “What do you think about mating?”

Harry thinks he must’ve misheard, half-listening as he was. “Wh– I– what?”

Tom isn’t meeting his eyes. He’s looking at the evening paper. The one he’s already read.  

Harry hedges, “This isn’t because of that alpha flirting with me the other night, is it?”

When they’d been at the ministry’s Yule Ball the previous weekend, while Tom was off rubbing elbows with some useful department head or other, Harry had found himself cornered by an alpha auror with plainly amorous intent. He remembered her vaguely from Hogwarts; she’d been several years older than him, and a chaser on the Ravenclaw quidditch team. 

She’d been rather… persistent in her attentions at the ball, despite Harry’s polite – and then much less polite – refusals. So he’d taken her down a few pegs, catching her with a jinx any auror trainee should’ve been able to deflect, let alone an established auror. Honestly, she was lucky Tom hadn’t gotten to her first, or it’d be more than her ego in pain.

“I’ll have to mark this day on the calendar – Harry Potter finally noticed someone flirting with him,” Tom says dryly.

“Oh shush, you. We’re not all Tom Riddle, Merlin’s gift to magic and omegas,” Harry replies, rolling his eyes. “I’m surprised you can get anything done with how people throw themselves at you.”

Tom stares at him, narrow-eyed in fond exasperation. “I can’t help but feel that you’ve missed the point, but I’ll forgive that since you recognise how amazing I am.” 

Harry laughs. “You’re amazing, alright. Amazingly arrogant.”

“It’s not arrogance if I can back it up, darling,” he retorts with his picture-perfect smile, charisma at max levels. Harry can practically see the air sparkling around him.

It takes a moment, but he realises Tom is distracting Harry from his initial question, which means he’s nervous about Harry’s answer – which means Harry needs to take this seriously.

“Of course, O Great and Powerful Tom,” he teases. “So, you want to do the whole mating thing.”

Tom sobers, his face taking on the plastic quality that Harry can only recognise because he sees it so rarely in private. Before the other man can give a circuitous non-answer, Harry adds, “You know that I think it’s a bit strange in general, but if you tell me why you want it, I’ll consider it.”

“You will.” Tom’s flat tone doesn’t disguise the cautiously hopeful look sneaking onto his face.

“Of course I will.” Harry reaches out to cup Tom’s cheek, the other man canting slightly into his hand. “There’s little I wouldn’t do for you, you know.”

“I do,” Tom says quietly, eyes closed and brows slightly furrowed as he processes having a complicated positive emotion. “But it never hurts to hear it.”

Harry hums. “Give me a few minutes to finish up and we can talk about it over dinner.”

—

Tom wants it known that Harry gets hit on all the time. Just because he doesn’t recognise it as such, or thinks it’s about his status or dynamic and thus not genuine, or whatever ridiculous, convoluted reasoning he’s cooked up this week to justify thinking no one is authentically interested in him, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Now that they’ve been together for a few years and intend to stay as such, Tom is more open about his claim on the younger man. He’s always been possessive (in a way that would frighten any sane person but Harry thinks is sweet), so he’s never been shy about letting others know Harry is his. As that’s what is expected of an alpha for their omega, it’s never caused any backlash. However, since the realisation he considers Harry his mate… His possessiveness has jumped a few levels, to the point that immediate, cold-blooded murder of any alpha within ten feet of Harry (or any person at all within five feet of him) seems not only reasonable, but the only acceptable course of action.

He doesn’t plan to tell Harry, but there are already schemes in the works for Hilliard, that covetous oaf of an auror, to have a rather unpleasant accident.

Establishing a mating bond between them would hopefully deter Harry’s more stubborn suitors, but Tom wouldn’t really mind if he had to continue reprimanding them as he has for the past few years. No, the bond would simply make permanent and apparent (to Harry in particular) something Tom already feels in his bones – that Harry is his, forever.

—

Later, as they’re digging into some gardener’s pie, Harry says, “So. We live together, we’ve been partners, more or less, for three years – why bond? What would that add?”

Tom finishes chewing his mouthful and sets his fork down, turning his whole focus to Harry. It remains a bit intimidating in its intensity. “A bonding mark is tangible – something I can see and touch, something that won’t fade the same way emotions will.”

Harry doesn’t bother trying to convince Tom otherwise. He knows this is part of Tom’s history that colours his interactions with others and the relationships he forms. He’d decided years ago that the best way to show Tom otherwise was to stick around – prove it with his presence. 

He nods. “Okay. Anything else?”

“Well, there’s also the thought of you bearing my mark…” Tom trails off as he gets a little lost in the thought, the sudden heat in his eyes doing a decent job of finishing the sentence for him. That look sends a shiver through Harry. 

“Is it an alpha thing? A possessive thing?” 

Tom considers this. “Both, I think. Having a clear indication that you’re mine is appealing, and not just as a deterrent to other would-be suitors.”

“And you’d be mine, too,” Harry says. Tom looks ready to baulk at that, so Harry shoots him a look.

“Of course,” Tom says smoothly, acting like he’d never hesitated. “It goes both ways. You’d leave your mark on me, as well.”

Harry’s eyes widen and his jaw drops, just a bit. That’s… He didn’t expect that. Tom admitting he’s Harry’s is already more than he’d thought to hope for before this conversation. Even if these things are understood in the theoretical sense, putting words to them affects Harry more than he’d thought it would. 

And getting to leave a mark on Tom in return… The thought creates the same deep-seated glow of warm, possessive satisfaction he feels at the beginning of his heats when he has Tom perfectly situated in his nest and all is right with the world. He thinks he understands a bit better why Tom wants this. 

“Okay,” Harry rasps, then clears his throat and repeats, “Okay. Yes. We can do that.”

Tom’s smug, satisfied amusement almost makes him take it back. Almost. “I’m delighted we could come to an accord.”

“I bet you are,” Harry huffs. “So, how do we do this? What does it do?”

He has the inimitable joy of striking Tom speechless. “…Harry. Why did you agree if you didn’t know what it would do?”

Harry shrugs. “I do lots of things without really knowing what will happen.”

Tom knows this; Tom pretends to hate it, but also never stops Harry. He enjoys watching the resulting chaos, Harry thinks.

“And, I mean, you wouldn’t be asking for it if there were weird side-effects. You’re too careful for that,” Harry adds.

Tom frowns at him. “You’re too trusting.”

“Only for you,” Harry replies with a cheeky grin. It’s the truth, but he also knows it’ll make Tom blush, the light pink tint across the bridge of Tom’s nose and the high peaks of his cheekbones a rare treat.

—

Two weeks later, Harry is heat-flushed and tucked against Tom, with both of their necks bleeding sluggishly as the newly created bond hums contentedly between them. They have the next week of Harry’s heat for the bites to heal, though if the satisfaction Tom got from gnawing on Harry is any indication, the omega’s neck may be an open wound for the foreseeable future. He licks a spot of blood from his lip and gives his own version of a purr to match Harry’s rumbling.

This is happiness. And Tom gets to keep it.

Chapter Text

“Good afternoon, Potter.” 

Harry curses under his breath.

They’re at the Autumn Equinox celebration of one pureblood or another, and Harry had really been hoping to avoid it. Tom’s rut had started later than usual and only finished a couple days ago – just in time to attend. Joy.

Tom is off playing politics or letting his followers associates fawn over him or something. The only thing that bores Harry more than being left on his own at these events is having to stand next to Tom while he hobnobs and hide his grimaces. 

So, here he is, keeping at a distance from the other attendees that borders on rudeness, eating fussy little canapés and tossing bits to a few fancy ducks in a nearby pond. And despite it all, the occasional person keeps coming over to talk to him, hoping to get into Tom’s good graces by entertaining his uncultured mate.

(Fat lot of good it will do them, but there’s always at least one at every event who tries it.)

That’s why this person has approached him, certainly. Harry recognises him from Ministry galas as someone who works in the same department as Tom. The only reason he remembers his last name is because Tom has ranted about how much of a nuisance the man is a few times. Tom’s rants were as memorable as they were colourful, and they often had Harry in stitches at some of the bespoke insults Tom would come up with off the cuff.

None of this bodes well for the man who is currently taking a seat at Harry’s table.

“Afternoon, Gage,” he says, barely glancing away from the duck pond to greet the interloper. He could only hope the other would get offended and leave.

“I’m surprised you and Riddle made it today,” Gage comments. “Given that he’s been out for the past week for his annual.”

“Tom’s always been quick to recover,” Harry says absently. “I think it’s harder on me to wrangle him.”

It takes a lot of effort to make Tom eat and sleep when he’s in his rut, on top of being attacked without warning when Tom’s hormones demand he scent-mark Harry.

A beat of weighted silence drops between them before Gage coughs and continues. “Er, yes, well.”

He falls quiet again. Harry doesn’t bother to fill the awkward silence. One of the ducks is chasing another around in the water, and that’s much more entertaining.

But all good things must come to an end. Finding his voice, Gage says, “You know, some couples sync up their heat and rut so they only have to go through that sort of thing once a year.”

Why in Merlin’s name is this man talking to him about this? In spite of the strangeness, Harry thinks about it. “Uh, I don’t think that would work for us,” he says, alarmed and a little amused. “We definitely wouldn’t survive the week.”

They would absolutely kill each other. Harry’s need to nap and cuddle versus Tom’s obsessive need to work out his excess energy? There’s no winner there. Even if they did somehow make it through alive, they’d both be so frustrated. No, the system they currently have works for them. Better to have one of them less addled by hormones to keep things from going off the rails.

Gage stares at Harry in shock, a flush spreading across his face.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing!” Gage splutters, waving their hands. “I just. Wouldn’t have thought you two would be that passionate.”

…What?

—

It takes a couple hours and trying to relate the experience to Tom for it to sink in, and then Harry’s the one blushing and dropping his head into his hands.

“He thought we were going to fuck each other to death?!” he cries.

“Apparently,” Tom says, patting Harry’s shoulder absently without taking his eyes off the evening edition. 

“Ugh, this is ridiculous.”

“Indeed. And by now I’m sure the rumour mill has gotten hold of it, so everyone will have heard it by noon tomorrow.”

Harry lays down on the couch and puts a cushion over his head. “That’s it. I’m going to live in the wilderness and avoid talking to anyone from now on. I’ll live off the land and make friends with the animals and no one will ever even think about my sex life again.”

This time Tom pats his knee, and it is distinctly condescending. “There, there.”

Pulling the cushion off his face to glare at Tom, he sulks, “You’re awfully calm about this, considering it’s your reputation, too.”

“It’s not the first time people have believed untruths about either of us, and I’d hazard a guess it won’t be the last. And they’re more likely to believe what fits with their worldview, even if it involves some mental contortions.” Tom turns to look at him, expression rueful. “To them, it makes more sense that, as an alpha and omega, we’d have too much sex and neglect basic needs enough to perish than it does that we don’t have sex at all. Really, it simply shows their lack of imagination.”

“Based on Gage’s face earlier, I’d say there was plenty of imagining happening,” Harry mutters darkly. Tom huffs a laugh.

“For better or worse, we are the subjects of great amounts of interest – much of it prurient. Whether you like it or not, you are a bit of a celebrity in this world.” Tom gives him a knowing look as Harry scrunches up his face in distaste. “And I have worked hard to make a name for myself and become a public figure. Add in that we’ve neither of us been involved with anyone else and are particularly private about our relationship, and it’s not really a surprise the masses are rabid for any tidbits to fuel their speculations.”

Harry hugs the cushion to his chest. “I guess… But I don’t have to like it.”

“Of course not,” Tom says. “But what you’re failing to consider is how we can use this to our advantage.”

He takes in Tom’s mischievous look and perks up. “What d’you mean?”

“Well, if they’re that desperate to know about us, and they’ll believe anything that implies we have an enviable sex life…” Tom trails off leadingly.

“...Then we can have some fun at their expense?”

“I was going more for extortion and manipulation, but yes, I have no doubt it will be entertaining, too.”

It’s in moments like these that Harry knows there’s no better match for him than Tom Riddle.

Chapter Text

“Tom, this has to stop,” Harry sighs as Tom enters their bedroom.

It was bad enough when Tom started collecting bones. He had a fondness for ritual magic, so Harry had long accepted Tom’s penchant for keeping odd ingredients on hand. Except eventually it became clear that Tom, left to his own devices, would collect certain things endlessly. It put the groaning shelves packed with all sorts of books and the rare artefacts cluttering all available surfaces in a new light.

Then came the jewellery fixation. The ring and the locket were family heirlooms, it’s only right Tom had them. But suddenly their home was flooded with necklaces, brooches, tie pins, rings of all sizes and styles. After digging a bit, Harry learned Tom’s sticky fingers weren’t solely an issue in his youth, and that he’d been pillaging the houses of his wealthy followers. Tom had pouted and glared when Harry put his foot down – no more thieving jewellery – but he’d abided by the new rule.

And now. 

Now...

Harry keeps finding creature eggs around the house. Rare, dangerous creature eggs – he’s pretty sure the last one was an occamy’s, what with the silver shell. Tom assures him they’re infertile, nothing is at risk of hatching out of them. Harry asks if they have a purpose or are meant to be decorative and Tom starts prevaricating or suddenly has to go somewhere else. 

And today Harry wakes up next to a still-warm dragon egg.

Tom has just returned from the bathroom and is staring at Harry and the egg with an odd look on his face. Harry’s not sure it’s entirely a result of his exasperation.

“Are you intending to sell creatures on the black market? Raise your own dragon army?” Harry asks, resting a hand on the egg for emphasis. “What’s the plan here?”

Tom briefly looks like he’s considering fleeing, but a look from Harry has him staying put.

Harry tries a different tactic. “Are you having a midlife crisis? Is this your version of a sports car?”

Tom’s face scrunches predictably at the mention of both Muggle things and any reference to his approaching thirtieth birthday, and Harry battles a grin off his face. "Harry," he says long-sufferingly.

With the slightest hesitation to belie his nerves, Harry asks the more dangerous question. "Are you trying to tell me you want to have kids?"

“Don’t be silly, of course not,” Tom says immediately, and Harry feels the anxious knot in his chest unwind. “It’s simply… Simply a matter of security.”

Harry blinks. “You think we need a dragon for security?”

Now Tom is the one giving him an exasperated look, before his eyes cut to the side for a second. One of Tom’s few tells. Whoops, Harry had better stop joking around if Tom is trying that hard to give him a real answer.

“I think.” Tom pauses, licking his lip. “I need the security.” 

Harry puzzles at that for a moment. Tom is a formidable wizard, so is Harry, and their house is warded to the teeth. Tom has conducted several legally dodgy rituals for just that purpose. They’ve been together for more than ten years at this point and have weathered enough rough patches to feel comfortable and solid in their relationship, so Harry truly hopes Tom’s not worried about them breaking up all of a sudden. And with the Potter and Black fortunes, Harry has enough money–

Ah. Harry has enough money. Tom has never expressed any issue with spending said money, but perhaps it’s a matter of old habits dying hard. Harry is no stranger to odd behaviours developed from a less than ideal childhood, after all.

Carefully, he jokes, “A nest egg, so to speak?”

Tom glares at him, but the bit of pink colouring the tops of his ears means Harry’s figured it out.

“Okay,” Harry concedes, and Tom’s shoulders unwind the barest bit. “That doesn’t explain why there’s a dragon egg in bed with me.”

Tom’s flush stretches from his ears to his cheeks as he mutters something about them looking pretty together.

Well, Harry supposes, there are worse things than being considered part of Tom’s hoard.