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Hermione walked into her kitchen to find Harry leaning back against the breakfast table, his legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded against his chest. It was a sight as familiar as the morning sun through the window over the sink, nothing unusual.
But the man beside him (very close beside him) was not. Tom Riddle sat relaxed in one of the mismatched chairs (there were plenty to choose from; he hadn’t needed to pick the one whose arm nearly brushed Harry’s thigh) as they both spoke quietly. Harry with a slight furrow to his brow, and Riddle with a smile that spoke of teasing remarks and subtle-as-a-brick coaxing. That… see now, that was unusual.
“Riddle…” Hermione managed, the greeting she’d prepared dying in her throat. Anything would have been better than that; couldn't she have at least managed a 'Good morning'? Oh, but it felt so absurd. And 'What the fuck are you doing in my kitchen?' felt dangerously direct, albeit completely warranted.
Harry glanced up, his face brightening into a warm smile. “Sorry, Hermione. I found him outside, standing around like a wet cat on the stoop.” That’s oddly specific - is it raining? “I made him promise not to bombard you with work first thing, though. So you’re in the clear.”
In the clear, she mouthed silently, feeling a hysterical bubble rise in her chest. There was nothing in the clear about this. Tom Riddle, her ridiculously brilliant, horribly inscrutable, and intensely private boss, was sitting at her lousy breakfast table, and she hadn’t even managed to put the kettle on yet.
Let it be said: Harry was a known morning bird, oft awake before her and always awake before Ron. They’d lived together since they’d been out of Hogwarts; Grimmauld Place had been too haunted for Harry and too... well, grim for her and Ron. But! This little two-story rental right off Diagon was perfect for all of them. She and Ron could floo into the ministry, and Harry could walk right to Gringotts. The added bonus of the location being so visitor-friendly for family and friends only made their little rental homier.
...That bonus of the location being so visitor-friendly appears to have been Hermione’s downfall this morning. Knowing Riddle was a morning bird, too, didn't pack the same appeal as knowing Harry would most likely be waiting here by the time she wandered down. She was half sure this was a nightmare she hadn’t awoken from just yet.
“Yes, do not trouble yourself on my account, Ms Granger,” Riddle nodded with a charming smile. “I am more than happy to keep Harry company while you ready yourself for the day. He has been perfectly hospitable.”
Ah. Had she just been shooed in her own home? Had Riddle just dismissed her... in her own damn home?
Harry’s furrowed brow returned as quickly as it left. “I’m keeping him company, more like,” he corrected, nudging Riddle’s fancy oxfords lightly with his foot. The casual contact made Riddle go very, very still, as if he’d been struck by a Petrification charm mid-breath. “Seriously, who in their right mind comes to an employee’s house at this hour? For work?”
Harry’s words held no real heat, only a baffled amusement and a bit of annoyance for her sake—Hermione could tell as soon as she saw the little quirk to his lips. But Riddle’s answering smile was not one of his typical condescending ones; it was something softer, more disarming. She's never seen Riddle make a face like that, honestly, didn't think he could.
Riddle's eyes flickered back to Harry, and the quality of his attention shifted, sharpening and softening all at once. “A who with a pressing question that simply could not wait for office hours,” he said, his voice a low, pleasant tone. Oh, that was a look Hermione had seen, but never directed at a person before. It was the look Riddle reserved for particularly elegant arithmancy equations, or very rare first edition tomes: completely focused, appreciative, and covetous. Like he could spend hours just living in the world they built around him.
Hermione felt the pieces click together in her mind with an almost audible snap. The late-night overtime Riddle had suddenly started requesting from her, which always coincided with Harry’s known evenings at Gringotts or his weekend Quidditch matches. The way Riddle, over the last few months, had begun asking after her housemates with a casual interest, “And how is Weasley’s auror training progressing?”, he’d ask without much heart. Yet quickly follow with, “Is Potter still enjoying his curse-breaking? Dangerous work, he must be remarkably brave, or particularly stubborn.”
Had Hermione thought it was politeness? Somewhat, she supposed... after all, even someone like Riddle had to fake being polite to his underlings, right? A detached interest in the lives of the people he hand-picked to work beside him... but now, watching him tilt forward just an inch, his elbow brushing Harry's thigh where it leaned against the table, she understood. It had never been about his fake interest in his colleagues—it had been a reconnaissance! She'd been hoodwinked.
“The pressing question,” Hermione said, her voice blessedly steady as she moved to the kettle. The ritual of tea-making, something to do with her hands, should help. “Would it, by any chance, be for me? Or has my job description expanded to include providing the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister with a morning breakfast and a…,” she glanced at Harry, who was watching Riddle with a curious, open expression, “…a flatmate for company?”
Harry snorted. “He’s being cryptic on purpose, says he needs your opinion on a ward schematic for the new ministry archives, but it had to be before nine. Apparently, my opinion on them wasn't good enough."
Riddle’s lips quirked, and he nodded in that fake little way he sometimes used when the Minister said something particularly stupid but harmless. “A charitable summary of your analysis, Potter. I believe you said that they were 'just a bunch of squiggly lines', and that they also ‘looked like a wonky snitch’, which was, admittedly, visually evocative.”
That Potter did it. Not ‘Harry’, as he’d been a moment ago. Potter. Formal, yet intimate on his tongue, almost—no, definitely teasing. Hermione had heard Tom Riddle say ‘Potter’ a hundred ways in the ministry halls: dismissive, annoyed, bored. This was completely different; this was a goddamned caress. How had she been so blind?
And Harry, bless him, remained utterly oblivious. He just rolled his eyes and pushed off from the table, ever-so-casually stretching his arms over his head, unaware of his jumper riding up to reveal a slip of skin. Riddle’s gaze dropped for a fraction of a second before snapping back up, picture of innocence. But Hermione had seen it... Oh god, her boss was lusting after her best friend.
“Well, I’ve done my civic duty, preventing a high-ranking Ministry official from catching his death as a wet cat on our stoop,” Harry said, grinning at her. “I’ll leave you both to your squiggly lines; I’ve got a vault in Luxor to breach in an hour. Try not to let him draft you into a full-day project, Hermione; he seems sneaky like that.”
Harry clapped a friendly hand on Riddle’s shoulder as he passed, a gesture of pure, unthinking sweetness—so very Harry—and Hermione watched, transfixed, as Riddle went perfectly still again beneath his attention, like Harry was willy-nilly going around and cursing everything he touched, a poor man's Midas! She nearly dropped her jaw as a faint, barely-there flush crept up the back of Riddle's neck.
“I shall endeavour to be the soul of transparency,” Riddle said, his voice slightly tighter than before.
Harry laughed, not acknowledging the strain in the slightest. “Yeah, good luck with that.” He grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and disappeared into the hall, whistling.
The growing tweet of the kettle was slowly taking over Harry's departing silence. Hermione shifted slightly to face Riddle, who was now staring at the space where Harry had just been, his charming mask entirely gone. The raw, unguarded look in its place was of such aching longing that it stole Hermione’s breath. It was something she could only ever expect to see on a man who had been parched for years, watching a cool, clear glass of water walk right out of the room.
Then, in typical Riddle fashion, with a weird paranoia that he truly did have eyes on the back of his head, he turned. Their eyes locked, and his mask slipped back into place, smooth as acromantula silk. But it was already far too late, Hermione had seen, and, frankly, anyone with half their eyes could have seen it plain as day, too.
“The ward schematics, Ms Granger,” he said, pulling a scroll from his perfectly pressed robes. His tone was perfectly polite, but his eyes burned with a silent, despairing warning: Don’t.
Hermione took the scroll, her mind buzzing. She thought of Harry’s easy smile, of his passing comment that Riddle found him to be a mildly amusing, slightly irritating novelty. She thought of Ron, who would probably hex first and ask questions later if he knew about what was going on down here. She thought of possible years of secret, silent pining happening right under their noses, now in their very kitchen.
The kettle clicked off, and the silence stretched.
“Of course, sir,” she finally said, her voice too quiet. She'd never been so careful in her own home before, not even when she fought with Ron over something frivolous. Unrolling the parchment, her eyes reviewed the blueprint carefully, not finding many differences from yesterday's tweaks.
Would it be too mean to poke the nest a little? This morning has been dreadful, surely it'd be allowed? Even if it wasn't, she wanted to anyway. “I must say, for a matter so urgent it required a house call at dawn… this seems remarkably straightforward.”
Riddle met her gaze, and for the first time since she’d known him, Tom Riddle, the Tom Riddle—youngest Senior Undersecretary in Wizarding English history, looked uneasy. Trapped, even, like he'd never in his whole life been caught in a flimsy lie.
“Yes,” he said slowly, his gaze slipping toward the hallway again, as though Harry was bound to turn back down it any moment. “Perhaps the schematics truly could have waited, and the urgency was… misplaced.”
Misplaced? Hermione wanted to cry. It seemed she had more than her fair share of work cut out for her.
After all, no matter how horribly devilish Riddle could be at the ministry, she liked to think she had a keen eye for these types of things, and thought that Harry and he would make a rather good couple.