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Harry’s new flat could hold two of the old flat that he shared with Hermione and Ron and have room to spare.
It’s a little hard to reckon with. Everything in this flat is cold chrome and sleek furniture. None of it has the coziness of his parents’ home or the home that he’s made with his friends. The stark difference between London and Godric’s Hollow has never felt more apparent.
It’s an open floor plan and he needs to walk up two steps to the kitchen. It’s so wide and spacious with an island with a white marble top.
Harry feels like he’s been here for a thousand years, but only this morning, he’d left Godric’s Hollow. It had only been this morning.
He wonders whether he has enough money to order takeaway, but when he opens his fridge, it’s fully stocked. Even the crisper drawer has an assortment of vegetation in it. There’s salmon already defrosted on the last shelf, and he thinks he sees some rice in the pantry.
He has a pantry—not just a random cupboard full of an assortment of spices and three grains of rice. Harry sighs.
Harry pulls out the salmon and sets it on the countertop for a moment. Then, he wanders to the next room. His bedroom.
While Riddle had had someone drop off his luggage, he’s glad that no one had unpacked it. It’s a nice enough room, but the sheets are white, and the rest of the furniture is dark wood. There’s nothing on the walls. No pictures. No articles. No posters. It’s like a hotel room. A place to stay, but certainly, not a place to live in.
Harry abandons the big king-sized bed and goes back to the kitchen. He’s not the best in the kitchen, but he knows enough to feed himself. He gets started, seasoning the salmon liberally and throwing it in the oven. He washes his rice, and sticks it in the state-of-the-art rice cooker.
Harry doesn’t realize he’s made triple the serving size for one person until he’s finished. He looks up—looks around for someone else to eat the rest, and realizes that there’s no one.
As he eats, he turns on the television to simulate company. It’s the loneliest he’s felt in a long time.
He watches television mindlessly, and can’t even recall what he’d originally put on. He flips to the sports channel and his nose wrinkles. Hockey. He’d never been a big fan of hockey. It’s a sport that requires little grace and while it’s more similar to football—a sport Harry can get behind—he’s always found hockey skates ugly. He sighs when he turns the television off.
Harry goes to pack up the food and then he stills.
Has Riddle eaten?
Harry doesn’t allow himself to think too hard about it as he begins to portion out a meal from his leftovers. He doesn’t question it as he grabs his keys and marches up the corridor to the elevator, with only socks on his feet.
Riddle has the only apartment on the top floor. The elevator doesn’t open directly into his flat, which is probably good. Better security that way. Instead, the elevator lets out into a tiny foyer with a very nice, expensive-looking console table next to a plain black door. Harry clears his throat and presses the tiny intercom next to the door.
A harsh static causes him to flinch and he breathes heavily for a moment before he realizes that he might come off as a serial killer. He lets go of the intercom and takes another breath.
He presses it again and says, briskly, “Hello, Riddle. Er. I made dinner and I made too much. I’m just going to…leave it here. It’s on you if you want it.”
Harry puts it on the ground in front of the door and immediately turns back around and enters the elevator.
It’s only when he’s in front of his own door again that he questions why he didn’t put the food on the console table instead of on the floor like an idiot .
Harry groans and shakes his head, looking around his empty living room again. There’s a television he could watch, but Harry can’t think of anything that he might wanna watch except perhaps an old rerun of a football game.
Hermione’s probably watching a documentary. She’s probably making Ron watch with her.
Harry wants to be there too. He wants to be made to watch a documentary that he won’t pay attention to or retain any information from.
But, he’s not.
Because he needs to be here. He needs to pursue this for himself. To at least see.
So, he decides himself to bed instead of wallowing sadness. He tugs his shirt over his head and slips into sleep pants and looks out at all of London, twinkling beneath, stars on the ground as there is in the smog-covered sky. He can see so much from this vantage point.
From Harry’s bedroom, he can see a billboard.
It’s an animated billboard, and while it’s night, the darkness doesn’t look so dark. If he squints, he can see a figure in the middle of an ice skating rink. She’s spinning, faster and faster until she stops, suddenly, spraying ice. Her face is in shadow but Harry would recognize the red of her hair anywhere.
The Adidas slogan appears over her form— impossible is nothing.
He remembers when Ginny had filmed that advert.
Ginny.
Harry frowns and closes his blinds. When he slips into bed—it’s so soft, the softest bed he’s ever slept on—he pulls a pillow over his ear, sandwiching his face as he forces himself to sleep.
When Harry gets up for a 6:30 AM practice, it doesn’t take nearly as long to get ready as it would, sharing a single bathroom with two other adults. He’s actually finished in record time and for a moment, he lingers unsure of what to do with himself. He plays with his gym bag, and fiddles with his rolling bag, where he’s packed his skates and his screwdriver because he already knows his blades are a little loose. He even debates having a second breakfast before he recognizes that it’s best to get this over with.
It feels like the first day of primary school, but that only persists for as long as he opens the front door and then nearly trips over his Tupperware.
It’s empty. Freshly-washed, still slightly warm from the run in a dishwasher. And on the front is a small note, written in what Harry can only presume is Riddle’s handwriting.
Practice at 6. Call Wormtail.
It’s 6.
“Motherfucker,” Harry snarls, stumbling over his duffel and flinging it over his shoulder. He’s out the door in record time, tunneling down the hallway to the lift.
When he’s downstairs, he nearly walks past the town car.
It’s only when he’s settled in the backseat under the disapproval of Pettigrew’s gaze that he realizes he’s still clutching the clean Tupperware in hand.
“To the rink, please?” Harry asks, rubbing sleep from his face.
“Obviously,” Pettigrew says with the amount of irritation that Harry thinks he would never show Riddle.
Even still, Harry knows he’s the late one. He sighs, squirming in his clothes, nervous. Far more nervous than he’d been just yesterday.
There’s morning commute traffic already at this hour and so it’s closer to 7 than 6 when Harry finally arrives at the rink.
“Thanks!” he throws behind his shoulder as he runs up the steps and into the rink, not even taking the time to admire his surroundings as he had just the day before. He barrels forward and nearly crashes into the owner of the second-finest rink in all of England—right after the tiny rink that Harry grew up in.
“You’re late to ballet,” Bellatrix Black growls out.
“Ballet?” Harry breathes.
“Let’s go,” Bellatrix demands as she stalks away from him and he can do nothing but follow her and try to keep up when she takes long strides down the hall and towards the state-of-the-art ballet studio just off the main rink.
“You’re the ballet instructor?” Harry can’t help but ask as they walk inside of the well-lit room and he nearly slips on the shiny wooden floors.
Bellatrix doesn’t look like a ballet instructor today. She’s dressed more like a drill sergeant in her army green boiler suit.
“Yes. No. I am for now,” Bellatrix says roughly. She tilts her head as she examines Harry, dressing him down, and he feels oddly underdressed in his Adidas track pants and his t-shirt. “Show me what you can do. Across the floor.”
“Any particular combination?” Harry asks, voice cracking. He looks over at the three other senior students huddled in the corner. He recognizes Nott by the back of his head, but he doesn’t know the girl with the icy blond hair or the Black boy with a thatch of black curls, the sides of his head shaved. He doesn’t know them at all, but they know him, he thinks as they sneak stares.
“Go,” Bellatrix says, voice hard.
Harry frowns as he thinks about the step sequence that has been playing in his head. It’s not complete and it doesn’t translate totally to a floor routine, but he does it, leaping and turning, exchanging a hydroblade for a grande jete. When he finishes, he isn’t breathing hard. He feels fine.
He looks at Bellatrix and she tilts her head.
“What?” Harry bites out, unable to help himself.
Bellatrix sniffs. “You need to be more thoughtful about hand and arm placement. Now, all of you, to the barre.”
She doesn’t give Harry a chance to introduce himself. The other three senior students fall in line, leaving a sizable amount of space between Harry and them. It makes it clear how the dynamics will go for now—him vs. them.
Bellatrix runs her ballet class with the air of someone that knows ballet but doesn’t. As if she were forced to teach these classes from an old, watery memory, rather than based in any deep understanding of the art form. But, it’s enough.
It might even be better than some of Bathilda’s classes because Bellatrix is thinking with the mind of the skater. Everything she has them do is with skating in mind.
When she finally allows them a ten-minute break, Harry has sweat pouring down his forehead and he drags up the hem of his t-shirt to mop at his head. When he lets his shirt fall again, the girl is standing right in front of him, far too close.
“Oh!” Harry yelps, taking a step back, his hip smacking against the barre. “Er, hi.”
“Hello, I’m Daphne Greengrass,” the girl says, sticking out her hand. She pumps his hand up and down, a deliberately cool look on her face as she leans into Nott’s side. “You’re Harry Potter. Riddle’s new student.”
“Riddle’s only student,” Harry says pointedly.
Daphne Greengrass smirks. “Yes, that,” she agrees. She’s pretty in an icy way, like frost on flowers during an early fall chill. She’s a bit too sharp for him, even the corners of her smile. “You know Nott. This is Blaise Zabini. He’s my partner.”
“Pairs or ice dance?” Harry asks. Zabini is handsome too with smooth dark skin and a mouth full of perfectly straight teeth. They make a good pair. Very aesthetic.
“Pairs,” Zabini says. He looks intrigued by Harry, but not impressed. Never impressed.
“I feel like…I might recognize you?” Harry says. But not to Zabini. To Greengrass. “Are you—”
“I was in ladies’ singles. By my senior debut, I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I came up with Lovegood and Weasley was right behind. So, I took the year off and trained with Zabini. And we’re pretty damn good, aren’t we, Blaise?” Greengrass asks facetiously.
“I’d fucking say so, we’re ranked third in the world,” Zabini says. He looks around, as if he’s attempting to look anywhere but at Harry. It’s jarring.
“Did you always train here or…” Harry trails off.
“No, we transferred from Olympe Maxime’s program,” Daphne says.
Harry stills. Malfoy is training at Maxime’s rink, Beauxbatons Club, in France. That’s where Dolohov is based. He looks at Nott, attempting to ascertain if he has thoughts about the trade, but Nott looks unbothered. He always looks unbothered, like he can barely care enough to be there. Harry will never understand him, and he doubts he’ll understand Greengrass or Zabini either.
“So you’re here now? To train under the Lestranges?” Harry asks. He tries to keep any dubiousness out of his voice, but it’s hard switching rinks. A rink that you’ve been at forever.
“You’re here now too,” Zabini reminds him and Harry looks away then.
Bellatrix returns from her office, a travel cup of coffee in her grip. She glowers at them all. “This doesn’t look like you’re resting! Are you done resting?” she demands.
Nott lies so easily, “Yes.”
Harry is not done resting
Bellatrix looks at them like she knows it. “Well, then. Zabini, demonstrate the combination for Potter. Potter, try to keep up.”
They’re on their first morning break, right before ice time. Bellatrix has shut herself in her office, and Rodolphus is on his way in. They’re all crowded in the team kitchen. It’s nicer than the one back at Harry’s home rink. All of the appliances are shiny chrome here, and look like they’re wiped and polished every single night. The fridge is stocked with health snacks and bottles of the fancy kind of water, and energy drinks. Harry sips delicately at a green juice that he knows costs about seven quid, and doesn’t feel bad about it in the slightest.
It’s not his money after all.
He looks at his rinkmates out of curiosity, and doesn’t really feel embarrassed when they catch him staring back. They’re all wrapped in tight black UnderArmor, the kind that accentuates their lines and makes mistakes easier to catch. It’s so different from the brightly colored ensembles from back home too. More formal.
“You need something, Harry?” Greengrass asks, leaning against the counter next to the fridge.
“Greengrass—” Harry starts.
“Do call me Daphne,” Greengrass says as she slurps down her matcha green tea latte.
Harry has to rename her in his head. He stares at her for a long time, and then he says, “Daphne, is morning practice usually that intense?”
Daphne has some of her drink in her mouth so Zabini answers, “No. Madame Narcissa is our usual ballet mistress and she’s strict, but fair. Bellatrix doesn’t have…the patience.”
“So, then—”
“She left. With Draco,” Nott says, sliding between the close huddle of his rinkmates. He pulls open the fridge and nearly sticks half of his long body inside of it, searching for something. When he emerges with an energy drink, he cracks it open and downs half of it.
“Who left because of you,” Zabini says, bored.
Harry startles because what—
“Because of me? What did I have to do with Malfoy abandoning his home rink?” Harry asks, biting out the last words viciously.
“Interesting choice of words. ‘Abandoning his home rink’,” Nott repeats, weighing each word on his tongue thoughtfully. “Kinda like you did, eh?”
Harry refuses to flinch even as his cheeks flush.
“Now, now, boys,” Daphne warns with a small smile. “Anyway, Riddle picked you. That’s what made him leave. He thought that it would be him and when it wasn’t, he left.”
Harry feels the weight of that. Of being chosen. Before anyone else. And he knows he deserves it.
“Well, it’s not really my fault, is it?” Harry asks.
Nott raises an eyebrow. “No?”
“I don’t control what Malfoy does. He can tantrum his way all the way across the pond for all I care,” Harry says with a blaseness that he doesn’t really feel. Even still, it gets a yelp of laughter out of Zabini and Daphne nods in agreement.
“He’s in for a rude awakening anyway,” Daphne says. “They coddled him here. There’ll be no one to coddle him at Beauxbatons.”
Harry frowns.
If Draco was being coddled here, he can’t imagine what he’ll be like when he has people around him who push him. It just makes him want to push even harder.
“There’s no one to coddle you here either, Potter,” Nott says. “Bellatrix will see to that.”
It doesn’t sound like a threat—Nott sounds like he could care less—but it feels like one. A reminder that he is here because of Tom Riddle and Tom Riddle alone. Bellatrix’s doubt doesn’t escape Harry, even after he’d shown her what he can do.
He’ll have to prove himself again and again.
Luckily for him, he doesn’t ever back down from a challenge.
“I’m not afraid of any of them,” Harry says coolly.
Zabini leans forward, a taunt of a smile on his face. “Not even Riddle?”
“Not even him,” Harry says firmly.
“Good to hear, little lion.”
Harry raises an eyebrow. He should’ve known that that had been Zabini’s attempt at a set-up. He turns to regard his coach and sips at his green juice again. The flavor is growing on him.
“Do you need me?” Harry asks.
Riddle has finally deigned to show his face. Despite leaving a note that practice began at 6 am, Harry had seen neither hide nor tail of his elusive coach. Now, he arrives, looking far more rested than Harry is. He’s foregone his heavy coat for now, but he’s also in all black. His sleeves are rolled up, showing off his strong forearms. Harry tries to pretend he’s not distracted by the muscle there or the sparse bits of hair.
“Come on the ice,” Riddle commands.
And then, he’s gone just like that.
There’s a beat of silence.
“ ‘Little lion’. He’s making fun of you,” Greengrass observes.
Harry snorts. “Of course, he is,” he says, and then he leaves them behind, intent on getting the last word.
Despite Riddle’s cane, he’s already rinkside by the time Harry manages to get by the bench. Harry sits down heavily, toeing off his trainers and sinking his feet into the boots. Already, he feels more comfortable on bladed skates than he does on solid ground. It feels like a welcoming. It feels like arriving home after a long day.
(Any time, he feels the chill of ice,
Harry is home.)
“I was late to ballet,” Harry says.
Riddle is looking at the ice when he says, “I heard. You won’t do that again.”
“I probably will.” Harry smirks when Riddle cuts an annoyed look at him over his shoulder. “I sleep through my alarms sometimes. I do take this seriously, though. Don’t think I don’t. But I’m only human.”
Riddle scoffs. “I was early to every single one of my practices.”
“Well, you weren’t human then,” Harry says severely as he laces up his boots, ties them as tight as he can, and then rises onto his skate guards. Riddle looks oddly pleased that Harry’s come to this conclusion.
“Are we going to start choreographing my routines?” Harry asks.
“No,” Riddle says shortly as Harry reaches the boards. He turns fully to look at Harry, looking him up and down, lips pursed.
“What?” Harry asks defensively.
“Go through every quad you know.”
Harry stills. “What?”
“I want to see all of your quads. Even your horrendous lutz,” Riddle says. He says it loud enough that it makes Nott snort behind his hand. Riddle looks up lazily. “You may laugh, Nott, when your axel is as perfect as my student’s. That is all.”
Harry can see the effort it takes for Nott to not roll his eyes as Daphne and Zabini laugh at him. Harry looks back at Riddle and Riddle stares at him expectantly. Slowly, Harry peels away his guards and slaps them on the ledge of the boards before he pushes off onto the ice. He stands there, uncertain for a second.
No harness. Just…going for it.
“Go, Harry,” Riddle commands. There’s no room for argument. None for hesitation either.
Harry sets up for a lutz and goes.
“We love you, Harry,” his mother says in a hushed voice. “We don’t love your choices, but we love you.”
It’s almost worse, hearing that. She sounds so tired. Exhausted really. Harry is responsible for her sounding that way, and he feels even more dreadful than he had at the start. He rubs at his eyes, glasses pushing up against his nose.
“Thank you for understanding,” he says.
His mother and father are kind enough to not speak the truth—that they don’t understand. Not at all.
But Harry has made his choice. He’s picked his bed. He’s to lie in it now.
There’s no coming back.
“Get some rest, Harry. Don’t let him break you,” James says. He means it. It’s not a joke. It’s not metaphorical. If he’d said it about anyone else, it might’ve been, but he’s so serious. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” Harry says.
For a moment, no one hangs up. They just listen to each other breathe. And then Harry ends the call and he’s left again in his lonely apartment, with no one to talk to.
He doesn’t have Nott’s number. Or Greengrass’ or Zabini’s. If he did, he might’ve invited them to the pub, but then again, maybe not. The lot of them feel a little too posh for the pubs that Harry likes to frequent. He can’t imagine Daphne Greengrass sipping a pint.
If he were back in Godric’s Hollow, Harry would’ve been in his flat with Hermione and Ron, eating their meal plan since it’s a Tuesday and not a cheat day. And then, Ginny probably would’ve been there. Hermione would probably nag them to get their eight hours, but they’d stay up watching films until they fell asleep in front of the telly.
It sounds like a good night. The best night.
Harry misses them.
He thinks about calling them. Maybe the Weasleys.
And then, he remembers Ginny’s last words to him: Then, leave.
He winces.
And Ron…Ron is touchy. Ron had said he understood, but Harry and he have had blowout fights before. He doesn’t want to push. Harry couldn’t bear it if he did and their relationship couldn’t withstand the pressure.
And that’s how he finds himself dialing Hermione, already regretting it as it rings.
“Harry?” Hermione’s voice comes through the phone slightly tinny, like she’s holding it away from her face and staring at the Caller ID to make sure it’s him. And then, her voice comes through louder again: “Harry!”
“Shh, shh, I don’t want anyone to…” Harry trails off.
Hermione is silent for a long moment except for her breathing. And then, there’s a rustling, like she’s tucking her phone against her chest and she mumbles something before she moves again. There’s the unmistakable sound of the door closing.
“We ordered in tonight,” Hermione says as an explanation.
“Takeaway? Breaking meal plan?” Harry teases.
Hermione snorts. “Our takeaway should be here soon. Ron’s going to keep an eye out.”
Harry nods even though she can’t see him. He clears his throat, unsure of what to say. Hermione helps him along, as she always has.
“How are you settling in? Where is he putting you up?” Hermione asks.
Harry clears his throat. “A flat in London. It’s a few floors down from his flat, the penthouse. It’s this high-rise and it’s all chrome and marble counters and it’s…it’s a lot of room for just me, is all,” Harry says, voice faltering just the tiniest bit.
If he closes his eyes, he can picture Hermione’s shrewd expression as she takes the time to decipher every inflection in his voice.
“We miss you,” Hermione says, voice far gentler than Harry expected.
“I miss you all too,” Harry blurts out. He swallows. “But…do you understand? You understand why I had to go. Right?”
Hermione is silent for a long time. Too long. For a moment, Harry expects her to yell at him too.
And then, she says, “Of course I understand, Harry. It doesn’t mean I like it.” She sighs to herself, long and world-weary, before she adds, “You should call Ron.”
Harry notices that she says nothing about Ginny. He flinches.
“I will. I will. I’m just…I don’t know,” Harry says.
Hermione hums. “I do,” she says, but she doesn’t bother to explain it to Harry, even though he’d like her to. “How’s training?”
“Good. He’s…he's a very good coach, Mione,” Harry says, because it’s true. “Demanding. Exacting. But very good.”
And he might be frustrated with the lack of a new program. He’s annoyed that there doesn’t seem to be much progress. But, he’s been jumping for a consistent week now, and his lutz is good now. Great even. He can feel his body shifting and changing as he trains it to move and obey. There’s a comfortability that’s coming to him, slowly but surely.
“That’s good,” Hermione says in earnest.
“How’s…how’s it back at home?” Harry asks.
“Well enough. Everyone misses you. Remus and Sirius too,” Hermione says.
Harry sighs. He hasn’t spoken to his godfathers. “Sirius probably hates that I’m training at the Black Family Rink,” Harry says. He doesn’t know the whole story about Sirius’ estrangement from his family, but he knows it has to do with his own personal refusal to step onto the ice. He knows that it’s complicated and Harry’s presence at the rink probably just furthers that complication.
“He says that he’s worried they’ll corrupt you. He’s joking but also I think he might mean it,” Hermione says.
“No worries on the corruption front,” Harry says with an awkward teasing note to his voice.
Hermione’s answering laugh is just as awkward but at least it’s a laugh.
“Harry—”
“Harry’s on the phone?” Ron’s voice comes through muffled, but it’s as recognizable as ever.
Harry’s heart stops.
“Wait,” Hermione starts.
“Hermione, pass the phone. I want to speak to him. Let me speak to him,” Ron insists, his voice getting louder as he gets closer.
Harry ends the call immediately.
His heart pounds in his throat and he stares at the ended phone call screen for a long time, shocked by his own audacity. He waits for it to ring again, for Hermione to call back and chew him out for hanging up on her.
Instead, he gets a text message.
ROONIL WAZLIB, 19:34PM
Harry. Call me back.
You need to call me back right now.
Hermione’s pissed you hung up on her.
And I’m pissed you hung up on her because you’re too afraid to talk to me.
Call me back.
He’s angry. Of course, Ron is angry.
Harry closes his eyes and sinks back into the couch. He turns on the television instead, finding a football game on ESPN. He locks on that. It’s an old game. Argentina vs. Mexico. It looks like it’ll be a good one. Anything is better than confronting his bullshit.
The phone buzzes periodically as he watches the game without really watching.
Sometimes he glances down. Sometimes, he doesn’t.
You know why we’re ruining our diet plan?
Stress.
Because our best friend won’t fucking call us.
Call me.
Call me back, Harry.
And Harry can’t take it anymore.
HARRY, 20:00PM
I’ll try.
Every day, he comes in and asks to skate a routine.
Every day, Riddle tells him no. Every day, Harry asks for what he’s always asked for—a well-choreographed routine—and every day, he is made to jump.
So, he jumps.
He jumps and he falls, and he jumps again until bruises begin to bloom on his hips, dark purpling splotches where the ice is unforgiving. He trains his lutz until he starts to dream about it. He trains his salchow until it comes as easy as breathing. His axel is like butter, and he’s rarely allowed to train that. Riddle doesn’t want him to show off.
Harry wants to show off. Harry wants to show them why he’s here. That there’s potential. Harry is a well of endless potential.
If only Riddle would fucking choreograph and he could show them.
Harry sighs as he goes through the quads again. Quad toe loop is easiest.
He skates it clean and barely gets a glance for his trouble. Riddle is too busy looking down at the black notebook he carries around everywhere, always jotting notes and casting Harry furtive glances.
Harry rounds his side of the ice. Quad sal. It’s being kind today, and that one is clean too.
He looks over at the other side of the ice. Greengrass—no, Daphne—and Zabini are going through their own routine. It looks like their short program. He’s never payed much attention to pairs, to be honest. His parents are ice dancers. This is different.
The elements are all different. Zabini is practically throwing Daphne across the ice and she moves like it’s easy. It’s a bit terrifying.
“Pay attention. Quad loop,” Riddle calls.
Harry resists the urge to give him the finger and does as he’s told. The loop isn’t as strong as he’d like, but he’s lucky enough that Riddle happens to look down when he lands and his core isn’t as tight as it should be.
Harry sets up the flip and knows immediately that it won’t be a good one. He lands on one foot but he bends forward, nose kissing the ice before he comes up.
“I didn’t like that flip. We’ll train that for the afternoon,” Riddle says.
Harry pinches the bridge of his nose. “My flip is good. It’s my lutz—”
“I didn’t see you nearly fall on a lutz. I saw you nearly face-plant on a flip. We’ll train the flip, Harry,” Riddle says. He doesn’t raise his voice, but it’s so final.
Harry frowns. He sets up his quad flip again. Finds his back inside edge and this time, he’s confident in his rotations. He lands easily on the back outside edge of his opposite foot, and glowers pointedly. It’s textbook.
It’s perfect.
“Do it again,” Riddle says, and he’s not even looking.
Harry scoffs. “It was perfect. Clearly, I don’t need to work it. I was distracted,” Harry says snappishly.
Riddle sets his notebook down on the boards and stares at Harry, unimpressed.
“Distracted. Isn’t that a nice excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse. It’s just the truth,” Harry insists.
“Is ‘distraction’ the reason you got your scar? Were you distracted ?” Riddle asks.
Harry’s brain shuts down.
No one talks about his scar. Harry doesn’t talk about his scar. Talking about it sets him on edge.
And talking about it like this—like it’s something Harry did, instead of something that happened to him—minimizes it.
It’s too much.
It’s enough.
“I’m leaving.” The words fly out of Harry’s mouth before he even means to say them.
Riddle’s tiny smile falls away, curling into a snarl. “What?”
“I’m leaving. You’re my coach. I respect my coach. But I’m your student, and you don’t respect me. Let me know when you do,” Harry bites out as he marches off the ice, bypassing his need for his guards entirely. He starts to unlace his boots and pretends that he doesn’t hear the muffled whispers from Greengrass, Zabini, and Nott.
“You don’t get to walk out of here, Potter,” Riddle bites out.
Harry looks up from under his lashes, glowering. “Watch me,” he says, as he stuffs his skates into his back and then hoists it over his shoulder. He slips into his trainers and then he’s gone.
This time Harry doesn’t take a car back to his flat. He takes the bus. It’s off-peak, so there aren’t many people. He even finds a seat.
He doesn’t check his phone, even when he gets home. If Riddle has dropped him, then Harry would rather have one more night of peace before he has to deal with the fallout.
Somehow, he doesn’t even feel bad about it. Not really.
(Except, you do. You failed.
You’re a failure. And all this—for nothing. )
Harry doesn’t expect the knock on his door.
He’s in pajamas when he opens it, barefoot and undone. He lingers in the doorway, a flush spreading across his cheeks as he looks down at his oversized t-shirt, the holes in it, and the tattered hem. His pajama pants drag like a child. Then, he resolutely puts the embarrassment away and steps aside, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Are you firing me?” Harry asks.
Riddle leans against the doorframe. “I’m not sure if that’s how that works, Harry.”
“I think you could probably do whatever you wanted to,” Harry says brusquely. “Well, come in.”
Riddle enters and settles right on Harry’s couch. He sits like he owns the place, legs spread, arm tossed over the back of the sofa.
He kinda does own everything.
Harry refuses to let that small fact humble him even if he’s painfully reminded again that he’s paying nothing to be trained by this man, arguably the greatest skater of all time.
“I’m not sorry for leaving practice,” Harry says.
“I don’t imagine you would be,” Riddle allows. He looks up at Harry from underneath the fringe of his lashes. “When I have you train your jumps, I don’t do it to break you down, Harry. I am assessing the foundation that you have.”
Harry sits down on the coffee table and smirks when Riddle twitches at the uncouth move.
“You know the foundation I have. I’m not a novice, Riddle. I’m a good skater. You know that. I came to you to get the training I couldn’t find elsewhere. We are losing time. NHK is in a month and we’re working on a new skate for me,” Harry insists.
Riddle stares at him for a long time and Harry’s insistence falters. He wonders suddenly if he’d made a mistake leaving. If he’d misstepped.
And then Riddle says: “You are impatient. You are hasty. You are rude.”
“And?” Harry snaps.
“You are hungry. As I was,” Riddle says and he sounds wistful now. “I realize now…in some ways, my methods resemble my old coach. It was what I knew. The careful repetition is meant to reduce the possibility of harm. Logic dictated that I understood that, but I never did. The hunger…it always won, in the end.”
“And now?” Harry whispers, leaning in. He realizes how close they are, with Harry sitting on the coffee table, opposite Riddle, his knees tucked into the vee of Riddle’s legs. He’s leaning in and Riddle is sitting up, and they’re sharing breath and—
“I’ve eaten my fill. And I see with clearer eyes. Older eyes. You have young eyes, too big for your stomach,” Riddle says, speaking his riddles. “But, you’ll have your fill now. We’ll work on your short.”
“Really?” Harry blurts out.
“Yes.”
And in that moment, he’s no longer just Riddle to Harry.
He was a boy named Tom once. A boy that got frustrated with his own coach. A boy that became golden. He’s a man named Tom now.
Tom.
“I have a song,” Harry says.
Riddle—Tom—raises an eyebrow, crooks a finger. Harry rushes forward, holding up his phone and he presses play.
“Ah…it’s a mix of the same song. I just liked the intro on this rendition better. It’s called—”
“I know what it’s called,” Tom interrupts. He holds up a finger and tilts his head closer to the tinny sound coming out of the speakers. He hums to himself and he looks so very present and rather far away as he listens through the two minutes and forty seconds of music.
When it ends, Tom doesn’t speak immediately. The silence stretches on between them, kilometers wide. It’s so much that Harry starts to fidget, only stopping when Tom violently hushes him. A sharp burst of irritation forces a sigh from Harry’s throat.
“What do you think?” he demands rudely.
Tom raises an eyebrow and then says, “I think that you should start with a quad sal. Then a triple axel into a twizzle.”
Harry pauses. “You were…thinking about my jump layout?” Harry asks. He scoots forward, excitement rearing its ugly head again. “So, you like it? You think it’s a good choice?”
“I think that it’s different from what you’ve done. It speaks to a maturity and depth to your skating that you have yet to display in competition. I can work with this,” Tom says.
It’s a few sentences laden with backhanded compliments, that are somehow true. Harry hasn’t proven much maturity in his skating since he debuted. There is a lack of depth to the programs that his parents choreograph for him. This is something different. It’s what he needs to become.
Something different. Something better. Someone stronger.
“Okay. Good, good,” Harry whispers. He can’t help the hazy grin he shoots Tom’s way. “Good.”
“How many times do you mean to say ‘good’?” Tom asks.
Harry laughs and doesn’t even mind the fact that the man’s making fun of him. Instead, he asks, “Do you like chicken chili?” He jumps off the sofa before the man can answer, making his way to the kitchen and noisily pulling out the pots and pans he needs.
“Do I what?” Tom asks, voice flat, carrying over.
“Do you like chicken chili? It’s a white chili. I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s very good, I promise. My mum taught me how to make it,” Harry says. In his head, he’s going through the ingredients list: white beans, jalapeno peppers—he’s missing poblano peppers, but that’s okay—onion, garlic, cumin coriander, rotisserie chicken.
“Are you going to cook for me like a good Suzy Homemaker?” Tom taunts.
Harry tosses a look over his shoulder, disdainful. “Can you not cook?”
“I can, but there are better uses of my time,” Tom says flatly. “Now, I have an order of steak waiting for me.”
“Wait, no!” Harry blurts out, fumbling with the can of beans. He rounds the island and then staggers to a stop, near the sofa.
Tom’s made no real move to leave. He’s baiting Harry.
“Why are you so intent on cooking for me?” Tom demands.
Harry flushes. “It’s not just for you, you know,” he retorts.
“I’m sure. Now, answer the question,” Tom commands.
Harry swallows hard around the fist of shyness that has appeared in his throat.
“I can’t pay your coaching fees,” Harry says. He isn’t ashamed of this statement, but it’s a burden, even more so when spoken aloud and acknowledged.
“And?” Tom drawls.
“Well, I have to pay them somehow and it can’t be by selling my body,” Harry snaps.
He hears what he’s said like it’s being played back to him on a recorder and he flushes deeply as Tom smirks at him.
The other man doesn’t say anything, and Harry turns away, losing himself to his cooking to distract himself.
Harry has never been strictly allowed to skate at four in the morning. Sometimes, he gets the urge to and he aches with the need to be on the ice, to feel the chill beneath the edge of his blades. And his parents never let him have a key after he’d snuck off in the middle of the night once when he was thirteen and skated until his feet were raw.
But, it’s four now and here he is at the rink.
“Not too early, is it?” Tom challenges.
“Never,” Harry says as he presses his heel atop the boards and bends forward, touching his forehead to his knee, stretching his arms so far that he feels his spine pop.
It unravels him and as he stands straight in his skate guards, he feels ready. He tugs one elbow, stretching his top half before he approaches the boards and pulls his skate guards. He steps into the dimly lit rink. Finally, he turns back to Tom, and he tries to decipher the guarded expression on the man’s face.
Something…
“So, first?” Harry prompts.
Tom approaches the open rink door and Harry wonders what he would look like on the ice.
“The jump layout is simple. Quad sal, triple axel, quad toeloop-triple toeloop, combination spin,” Tom says.
Harry frowns. And then, his brow smooths out in surprise. “That’s…that’s my jump layout,” he says.
“I was inspired,” Tom admits. “I want your combination spin into the step sequence and then your ending combination spin again. I do think it’s the beginning that I will need to focus on to build.”
“We,” Harry amends. Tom stares at him. “We’re building it. Together. I’m a good choreographer.”
“I know,” Tom starts.
Harry squints at him. Tom doesn’t. But, he will.
He keeps his silence, and looks at the man, waiting for instruction. Harry fights himself not to roll his eyes at the man’s behavior. He circles center-ice, finding his placement finding a rhythm as Tom speaks with the smug authority that seems to come as his only nature.
“Softness to begin with. We are showing autumn. Mourning. The starting pose should reflect. Like so,” Tom says, attempting to extend his arms.
Harry turns on the ice and crosses his ankle, the end of his blade kissing the ice, one hand held out.
They begin.
They will call it Otoñal, for the autumn time, Harry decides, as he slides into the quad salchow like butter. He feels the intro smoothly, exiting from his quad sal, transitioning again, swiveling.
He feels the next jump as Tom calls, “Triple axel!” and he goes. This has always been the jump he trusted the most. When he lands, he stills for a second.
Tom scribbles it down and nods, crossing something out and humming to himself. “From here,” he says, “I think a series of twizzles. The music builds here, and your entry and subsequent jump should reflect that. I want your quad toe-triple toe combo on this one. Land them on the beat. And then, we’ll transition to a sit spin.”
“Camel spin,” Harry pushes back. “Musically, it’ll be off.”
Tom hums, squinting at him. “Fine.”
This is how they work at it. Tom barks out an element and then Harry pushes back if he feels it doesn’t work. Sometimes, he doesn’t say anything, executing it separately. He does the crossovers and finds his edges, and stops when he needs to, corrects when he has to. It’s good, this back and forth.
In Harry’s experience, his choreography was set from the moment that his parents had decided. Then, James or Lily would come onto the ice to demonstrate it for him.
But, Tom can’t skate anymore, and this short isn’t just Tom’s. It’s an evolving monster of their creation, and it lives and breathes, because Harry is pressing life into it, feeling his arms move with the flow of the music, painting a story with his blades kissing the ice.
This is how it goes and before long, Harry has a sketch of a portrait of something new, something he’s never done before, and it is six in the morning, with sweat pouring down his face. He’s breathing hard, chest rising and falling, as he strikes his ending pose, holding a hand out towards Tom whom nods his approval.
And then, there’s the sound of one person clapping. When Harry falls out of his ending pose, there is Rodolphus Lestrange, clapping hard, his hands above his head. He stands up against the boards, nodding as Nott and Bellatrix stand back. Harry looks from his coach, where Tom stands there, his lips pressed into a thin line—Harry knows he has something critical to say—to Bellatrix.
Her expression is slightly veiled.
“I told you,” Rodolphus says to Bellatrix, a shit-eating grin on his face.
Harry wonders what Rodolphus told her but he doesn’t have to wait long.
Bellatrix hums. “I understand,” she says, and it feels like victory.
Harry breathes hard, still grinning from Bellatrix’s icy praise. He ignores that appraising look he gets from Theo—he doesn’t mean to be standoffish, but in Harry’s eyes, Nott is still Malfoy’s best friend—and he searches through his duffel. He pauses when he looks down at his phone.
He’s been skating for three hours. Fine.
But, it’s the notification there.
Ginny Weasley
Missed Call
Harry opens his phone, slides it to the side. He watches it ring once. Then, he closes his eyes and ends the call.
He wouldn’t know what to say anyway.
“Are you ready?”
Harry doesn’t look at the man, slipping into his beginning pose, staring straight ahead. Tom snorts and lifts his phone. The music starts up.
It is not the first time that he has run this skate through, but it is the first time that he skates it for an audience of more than one. He knows the entirety of the jump pattern now. He knows his sequences. He knows the culmination of it through his step sequence.
This will be something that the judges—that the skating world—won’t expect from him and it’s good. He knows that it will, and he moves with that edge of confidence across the ice. His salchow is cutting, with only the slightest bit of a wobble. Every axel is performed with confidence.
His quad toe into a triple toe is executed well. He’s always been more artistic, and that comes through with his sit spins and his step sequences. As Harry marks his movements across the ice, he can already hear Tom’s words loudly.
You’re in your head, Tom will say. Pace your breathing. Stop panting. You skate as if someone is chasing you. You skate as if you are afraid of the ice. The ice is yours. You are the ice’s. Act like it.
None of it makes sense.
All of it makes sense.
When Harry is done, he’s breathing too hard, he knows, because he didn’t pace himself, but he is proud of what he’s done. He can’t help the wide grin that he shoots at Tom, slightly too familiar and he pushes out of the finishing pose before Tom says he can. He skates up to the boards, ankles bouncing as he grips the sides and pushes closer to Tom’s phone.
“How does it look?” he asks.
“Fine,” Tom says.
It’s high praise when they’ve only been at it for a week and a half.
“What needs work?” Harry demands.
“You,” Tom says, taking a step back, looking down at his phone, barely paying any attention.
Harry’s mouth drops open in outrage. “What do you mean ‘me’?”
“You need work,” Tom reiterates. He sounds bored by the concept.
“I think I did bloody good for someone that just learned the choreography in the last week,” Harry snarls.
“Yes,” Tom allows, looking up from beneath his eyelashes. “But, I don’t care if you’re good. You need to be great. We’ll spend the day tightening it up after I send this tape. I would like for this routine to be in competition-shape before we work on your free.”
Harry stills, inhaling sharply. “A free too? I don’t…do you think I have time to learn a new free?”
“Not entirely. We’ll be modifying and increasing some of your old choreography. Set to a new song, as well,” Tom decides.
Harry nods slowly, racking his brain for something that could be improved upon. Then, he stops. “Where are you sending that tape to?” he asks.
Tom looks up and hums. “Your new costume designer.”
Harry’s heart stops. “I don’t need a new costume designer,” he says immediately.
Tom raises an eyebrow. “I daresay you do,” and it’s said with such snarky disinterest that Harry immediately feels a rush of irritation. He feels the need to defend Sirius’ work.
“My costumes are bloody good,” he snaps.
Tom lifts a shoulder. “I suppose. These will be better.”
“But, Sirius—” Harry starts.
Sirius has always made his costumes. Harry had thought—he hadn’t asked but he’d assumed—that Sirius would continue to make his costumes. Not everything has to change. And then, he sees the actual design that is being offered.
Tom doesn’t care. He turns his phone around, presenting it to Harry.
Harry’s words die on his tongue. He recognizes these costumes. Particularly the lovely yellow one.
“ Send in the Clowns,” Harry whispers. He’s memorized this routine. It’s immortalized in his brain. [1]
“Exactly. She knows what she’s doing. And she’ll be doing us a personal favor, getting this to us so quickly. You’ll need to go in for a fitting soon,” Tom says sharply, moving through the assortment of sketches. “She’s creating two options.”
Harry leans in closer, half-leaning over the boards, peering at the screen. They’re…revealing. Mature. He likes them as much as he likes Sirius’ designs. Still flashy, which the designer had rightfully assumed was Harry’s taste. But sleek. As if to say, This is a new chapter.
“Okay,” he murmurs.
“Okay?” Tom repeats.
Harry looks up and only then does he realize how close the other man is. He’s not nearly as tall like this, with Harry in his skates. Tom stares down at him, unblinking.
Harry thinks there’s some red in Tom’s brown irises. It’s odd. It makes them look almost burgundy.
If Harry pressed up just a little, he might even taste the man’s lips again.
And then, he pushes back, hard onto the ice, blood rushing to his cheeks at the thought.
“Should I go again?” Harry asks and he hates how breathless he sounds.
Tom’s expression is as undisturbed as a tundra. “Yes. Again.”
The phone doesn’t even ring once before Harry hears: “It’s about fucking time, mate.”
Harry sinks into the sound of Ron’s voice for a long moment. He hasn’t even been gone very long, but he’s hit with a wave of homesickness, the same kind that he felt when he spoke to Hermione. Despite the aggression in Ron’s voice, Harry can’t help the smile that tugs at his mouth.
If Ron is angry, that means he’s angry enough to care.
Harry still matters to him.
It’s a relief.
He knows it’s irrational. He knows that Ron wouldn’t abandon him for this. But, it’s different than with his parents. Harry’s parents love him. He’s their son. He knows they would never abandon him, no matter how upset they are. But, with Ron and Hermione and Ginny —
“Hey, mate,” Harry says quietly.
Ron snorts. “ ‘Hey mate’,” he mocks. “ ‘Hey, mate’ .”
Harry twitches with annoyance. “Are you just gonna repeat what I’ve said?”
“Am I just—hey, fuck you, mate, thanks for finally calling me back, you arse,” Ron snarls.
Harry scoffs. “Ron, look—”
“Don’t you think I’ve been bloody worried about you? One moment you’re fine, just won at Skate America, and then the next second, you’re bloody moving to London to train with Tom fucking Riddle,” Ron spits. “You don’t think that warrants a bit of concern ?”
Harry falters. “Well, of course, it does, but I just…”
Ron’s sigh is a noisy one, loud enough that Harry loses his train of thought. They sit in silence and Harry can hear the sound of Ron breathing.
And then so quietly, Ron whispers, “It’s been two weeks, Harry, and you couldn’t call?”
“I’m sorry,” Harry insists. “I wanted to, but I…”
“But you?” Ron prompts.
“I was scared.”
It’s an honest confession. A terrifying one too.
“You are my best mate,” Ron says after a long moment of deliberation. There’s an awkward sincerity to his voice, that Harry feels. Doing this over the phone. It’s nearly enough to make him laugh.
“And you’re mine,” Harry says in earnest.
“No, really, mate. You’re my best friend,” Ron insists forcefully. “You shouldn’t be scared to tell me what you think. Sure, I’ll be upset. I am upset. We’ve been training together our entire lives and then you just… left. And I’m going to be upset. But, you shouldn’t be afraid to share with me.”
Harry nods even though Ron can’t see him. “Yeah, you’re righ—”
“You should be afraid of Ginny,” Ron finishes.
Harry winces.
“Ah. Right.” He isn’t sure what to say. He squirms on the sofa, picking at the fraying hole in the knee of his jeans. “How is she?”
Ron makes a noncommittal sound. “She’s…Ginny.”
It says nothing.
It says everything.
“Right,” Harry mutters.
For a moment, he wonders if he should tell Ron what it’s like to train under Tom Riddle, but when he tries to find the words, Harry’s not sure they exist. He doesn’t know how to describe his own coach. Ron saves him once again.
“You should come over for Skate Canada,” Ron says. “We miss you. Your parents are going to order takeaway and we’re going to all crowd on the couch and watch Miura-Parkinson.”
The current reigning ladies' World Champion.
“What about…what about Ginny?” Harry asks.
It’s weird to say her name out loud. He has been deliberately avoiding saying her name, he realizes.
There’s a long beat of silence.
And then Ron says: “Come anyway.”