Chapter Text
Harry breathed an involuntary sigh of relief as he stepped into the air-conditioned bliss of the Caesar’s Palace lobby. From the moment the plane touched down on the tarmac of McCarran International Airport, he’d felt like his every step had been a struggle against some unseen battering ram, brute-forcing hot, dry desert air into his throat and lungs. It was early April, and back in England the weather had barely begun to thaw into a tepid spring, but here both tourists and locals were wearing shorts and T-shirts (and in many cases, considerably less) quite comfortably as they walked the length of the Strip, tromping in and out of shops, restaurants, and casinos. He had been regretting the fleece he’d donned for the plane for several hours now, as he, Ron and Hermione had traversed the rush hour American highway traffic in the back of a taxi that felt more like a convection oven.
“No way! Mate, check this out,” Ron said as they joined the long line for the check-in desk, eyes glued to his phone. He thrust the screen under Harry’s nose; it was displaying a news article from one of the in-depth sports and gaming websites his friend followed religiously.
Through the haze of heat, jet lag, and smudges on his glasses from the ever-present dust that choked the air here, the headline might as well have been written in the same Latin script that decorated so many surfaces of the Ancient Roman-themed hotel they were staying at. “What is it?”
“You know that big poker tournament here this weekend I told you about?” Harry nodded mechanically; he did, indeed, vaguely remember Ron telling him, umpteen hours of flight and a dozen time zones ago, that he was excited that their work trip fell on the same dates as some event that was apparently a big deal, and was hoping to spot a high-profile player or two.
“There’s been a last-minute substitution. Montague’s out—his wife locked him in a cabinet or something, I dunno—and, get this, Tom Riddle’s gonna be competing!”
Hermione, who had been working closely with Ron over the past few months and had apparently been subjected to more than her fair share of his steady stream of sports chatter, rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Ronald, not this again, he’s just a card player for goodness’s sake—“
“‘Just a card player,’” Ron repeated incredulously, only years of wisdom and experience preventing him from slipping into a high-pitched imitation of Hermione’s voice. “Just a card player, she says, about the greatest poker shark to come out of the UK in decades. Ignore her, Harry, I can’t believe we’re sleeping under the same roof as the Riddleman, your luck’s already rubbing off on me…”
Luck. People were always telling Harry he was lucky; he was probably complimented on it more than anything else about him. Lucky shot! His teammates had cheered when he scored an impossible last-minute goal in the final football match of the season. How lucky can you get? his friends had asked, flabbergasted, when his semi-drunken rant on social media about the inferior new recipe for Bassett’s Sherbet Lemons had gone viral, scoring him an audience—and a job interview—with Albus Dumbledore, the eccentric head of Fawkes Designs, the luxury fashion house where he now worked in marketing. Dumbledore’s lucky golden boy, his boss, Severus Snape, sneered every time a meeting, collaboration, or random coincidence inevitably went Harry’s way, helping him rise rapidly in the ranks despite not having Hermione’s skill with numbers or Ron’s knack for predicting the whims of customers. The Potter Luck, as his friends had embarrassingly come to call it, was probably the main reason he had been sent on this business trip instead of someone more senior. He knew he ought to be grateful, but sometimes it was a little disconcerting that most people attributed all his successes to something that he couldn’t prove and had no control over.
“—not even a sport, it’s just televised gambling—“
“You have no idea of the strategy and tactics that go into a well-played hand of poker—“
Harry tuned back in to his friends’ conversation just long enough to confirm that they were right in the thick of a classic full-on bickering session, then zoned out again as the line inched forward, past a larger-than-life screen advertising a sold-out concert that was, apparently, another of the many entertainment options on offer at the hotel this weekend.
——————————-
Tom removed his shoes, stowed his single carry-on bag in a walk-in closet that was probably the size of some of the hotel’s cheaper rooms, and laid down on the bed, which was more than luxurious enough to appease the establishment’s eponymous emperor and his entire harem. Even for a man with Tom’s insatiable appetite for the finer things in life (things that he had earned and deserved, after his tasteless joke of a childhood), this suite was objectively ridiculous, not that you’d hear him complain. The management’s willingness to shell out on such ostentatious lodgings was proof of his importance and high value as a player.
“It’s even better than the one they filmed that movie in,” the bellhop had said with a wink, leaning into Tom’s personal space and obviously angling for a tip.
“What?”
“The movie. You know, with the tiger and the chicken!”
Not for the first time, Tom thanked all the deities he didn’t believe in that his mind had never fallen prey to the stupefying nonsense that passed for popular culture. “I certainly hope they cleaned it afterward.”
The bellhop blinked, then changed tactics with the smoothness of a true professional. “It’s also the same as the one for those rock stars here this weekend. They’re English too, you know—“
Weary of this performance, Tom had shoved a fifty into the man’s hand and shut the door, soothing himself by imagining the look on his face when he realized that it was, in fact, a pound note and would hopefully be a substantial hassle to convert.
Whether he made full use of the suite or not, Caesar’s was demanding that he make an appearance on the casino floor tomorrow night before competing officially on Saturday, so Tom shut the blackout drapes with the master remote, grabbed a black silk eye mask and two Ambien, and tried to settle himself enough to get his sleep schedule aligned with the local time. It had been an uncomfortable flight, booked at the last minute; Tom had gone right down to the wire, seeking the right buttons to push to get one of the other ranked competitors out of his way. Eventually, though, he’d managed to slip evidence of Montague’s many indiscretions to his jealous wife, and she’d locked him in a cabinet for a week, leaving him in the hospital for dehydration and the tournament hosts practically begging Tom to fill his spot.
Smiling at the memory of Helen Montague’s shrieks of incandescent rage when he showed her the receipts, he blocked out the gaudy imitation frescoes on the ceiling with the eye mask and drifted off for some much-needed beauty rest.
——————————————
“C’mon, Harry, just one spin! We’re celebrating tonight!” Ron shouted to be heard over the casino’s loud mixture of laughter, music, and the incessant noise of slot machines, his face so flushed his freckles had almost disappeared. He had a drink in one hand and a stack of chips in the other, both dwindling at a steady clip.
“I don’t think I even know how to play,” Harry demurred, looking around to identify the exits just in case one of the many, many cigars he could distinctly smell started a fire. Did people really do this for fun? He felt drained after barely an hour on the floor. Maybe Ron was right that professional gambling could be a legitimate career, if only because it seemed like an awful lot of work.
“It’s roulette, mate, you literally just pick a number,” Ron assured him, dragging him inexorably toward the green, black, and red felt table.
“Hermione!” Harry called out in relief, spotting their other friend approaching them from the direction of the bar. After the work meeting that afternoon, she’d changed into a daring (for her, anyway, if not by the legitimately deranged local standards) blue dress and done…something different with her hair, Harry wasn’t really an expert on that sort of thing.
“Hey, ‘Mione, you about ready to go? Ron’s almost gone through our chips already and I—“ he started, planting his feet to resist his redheaded friend’s increasingly urgent tugging. He just needed to hold on until his ally on the side of sanity did what she did best, and knocked some sense into Ron.
“Oh, don’t be a wet blanket, Harry,” she said brightly, shocking him so much that he went completely still and speechless for a moment, giving Ron the chance to pull him the rest of the way. Hermione followed them, cutting off his escape route. “We just pulled off the deal of a lifetime! You need to learn to live a little!”
“Who are you, and what have you done with Hermione Granger?” Ron hooted delightedly, looking at her in wonderment. Well, more wonderment than his baseline level of besottedness when he talked to her, anyway.
“I am not that uptight and you know it, Ronald!” she sniped, but there was no heat in it, and she quickly regained her giddy smile and added, “But, well…perhaps tonight I am feeling a bit…rebellious.”
Harry may not know much about the games here, but he knew when he was beaten. Giving in to his friends’ two-on-one advantage, he stepped up to the roulette table alongside Ron and said, “Okay, so I really just have to pick a number?”
“And let the Potter luck do the rest,” Ron confirmed eagerly, handing him the chips. “You’re only on a massive hot streak right now, after all!”
After the afternoon they’d had, even he couldn’t really deny it.
“How could you do this, Harry!?” Hermione demanded as if he’d planned it all from the start, one hand twisting ever more tightly into her rapidly-frizzing curls. “Oh, this is a disaster, I never should have let you have the map…”
“Yeah, or maybe whoever printed it shouldnt’ve made the C’s and G’s nearly identical!” Harry replied heatedly, crumpling the useless thing in his hands. Gazing despairingly down the long, twisting corridors of the hotel’s labyrinth of conference rooms, he muttered, “They’re taking the theme too seriously, I half expect a bloody Minotaur around the next corner—“
“The Minotaur was Greek, Harry!”
“There’s a sign here, is this the right place?” Ron asked, walking ahead of them to peer at the large poster outside the next set of doors. “…Nevermind, it’s a presentation on real-estate opportunities in Arizona.”
“That’s it, then,” Hermione said in a deadened voice, all her previous flusterment draining away and leaving her face a blank mask. “When Snape hears about this we’ll all be killed, or worse, fired without decent references.”
“There’s still time,” Harry insisted, before immediately checking his phone and confirming that it was, in fact, thirty minutes past the time when they were scheduled to meet the department store executives and, hopefully, convince them to give Fawkes Designs a big distribution deal.
“‘Fraid she’s right this time, mate,” Ron said, leaning against the wall to get out of the way as the doors swung open, unleashing a stream of people in khakis excitedly discussing the new desert land boom. “Dumbledore’s a good bloke but you know how he gets when he’s disappointed.” He proceeded to do his best impression of their boss, narrowing his blue eyes until they looked almost like Dumbledore’s when they had gone cold and lost their twinkle.
Before Harry could try to cobble together a defense, a short, balding man peeled off from the khaki masses and approached them. “Excuse me, but did you just say Dumbledore? As in, Albus Dumbledore, the visionary behind Fawkes Designs?” he asked excitedly, unbuttoning his beige jacket to reveal one of the fashion house’s signature statement ties, this one cobalt blue with near-fluorescent yellow moons and stars. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with him for nigh on half a year now but I keep getting the runaround…”
Several hours later, Harry and Hermione sat in one of the smaller meeting rooms, finishing up an extremely fruitful videoconference call between Dumbledore and the bald man, who turned out to be an Anglophillic property developer and lifelong fan of the brand.
“Are you certain about this, sir?” Hermione asked yet again, raising her voice slightly to be heard above Albus’s chatter with his new best friend. “Phoenix, Arizona might not be the best place for a storefront, it’s not a major luxury shopping hub.”
“Precisely, my dear girl,” the elderly man waved her off, his half-moon spectacles glinting on the screen of her laptop. “It will become a destination attraction! And the synergy with our company’s emblem is simply too auspicious to ignore. I’ve always said you Americans have a gift for naming your cities.”
As they were saying their goodbyes, Ron strode in, back from his attempt to salvage the original meeting.
“How angry were they?” Harry asked, bracing himself for the worst.
“Angry? Oh, no, actually I got there before them. Stuck elevator or something. They had all missed breakfast, so we ordered in and made it a working lunch. The food seemed to put them in a right good mood too, they gave us really favorable terms.”
Now, as the day outside faded into evening, the three of them were, as Ron had said, celebrating their success under the 24-hour artificial lighting of the casino, supplied with several hundred dollars’ worth of chips by their generous new business partners.
“Hurry up, they’re about to spin!” Ron hollered in his ear. Behind him, Hermione nodded vigorously.
“Er, lucky seven, I suppose,” Harry said uncreatively, plunking his chips down on the red number. Ron barked a laugh, Hermione rolled her eyes fondly, and he was pretty sure the table host muttered something about suckers under his breath, but soon enough the wheel was spinning and had drawn everyone’s attention. Even Harry couldn’t deny that there was something hypnotic about it, the numbers and colors a blur at first until, slowly but surely, they became distinguishable once more, and then—
“Seven!”
There was a collective “ooooh” around the table, and behind him, Harry heard a high-pitched squeal that honestly could have come from either of his two friends. The host gave him a wide, yet tight, smile along with his winnings, which amounted to—well, he wasn’t sure really. Thirty-five times whatever he had originally bet, if he was figuring the odds right, but he couldn’t quite remember what each color of chip represented.
“Beginner’s luck, I guess,” he said to his general surroundings, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Better quit while we’re ahead, yeah?” The stares and murmurs were starting to make him uncomfortable, and he practically had to remind himself that winning a jackpot was an objectively positive development. Besides, now they had the perfect excuse to leave—
“Double down!” Ron yelled, loudly enough that it was obviously meant for everyone to hear, not just Harry. “You’re on a roll, let’s take that pot and go again!”
“What? Ron, no, that’s like a couple thousand dollars! The house always wins, it’s just maths, tell him Hermione!”
“All or nothing!” his supposedly level-headed friend cheered, spilling a bit of her drink in her giddiness. Harry was beginning to strongly suspect it wasn’t her first beverage of the night. Either way, he clearly couldn’t expect any help from that quarter.
“Just pick one more number, Harry,” she wheedled, and he hesitated, steeling himself to disappoint her, but it must have shown on his face, because while he was distracted Ron snatched the chips back and held them overhead, declaring, “If you don’t pick one I will, and then we’ll for sure lose it because I haven’t got your golden touch—“
It only took a split-second glance for Harry to tell that his best friend of over a decade was actually serious about this madness, and more importantly, was far too tall for him to reclaim the chips even if he jumped. More than a little panicked, he called out “Thirty-one!” at the last moment, causing Ron to place the stack there instead of his previous intended target of fourteen.
He’d chosen the number on a combination of whim and strange, convoluted logic; thirteen was said to be unlucky, so its reverse must be a decently safe bet, right?
The chips were a gift to begin with, it’s not as if it’s my own money, he told himself, desperately trying to calm his heartbeat, which was now going as fast as the wheel was spinning. He was beginning to understand why gambling was sometimes compared to a mind-altering substance, although he couldn’t fathom how anyone could actually enjoy this, let alone become addicted.
The wheel slowly spun to a halt again, the little ball clattering around, ricocheting a few times before settling on another of the red numbers…
“Thirty-one!”
This time, it was definitely Hermione who shrieked—he could tell, because Ron was on his other side, gleefully shouting every curse word he knew. Between them and the rest of the crowd, Harry could barely hear himself as his own lips formed the words, “Oh my God.”
“How much did we win?” Ron demanded, once he had regained a modicum of sense. “How much!?”
Now Hermione went quiet, obviously trying to do the maths in her head, and actually behaving like the woman he knew for the first time in two hours. Even so, the alcohol and adrenaline had clearly affected her, as it was taking much longer than her usual near-calculator speed. “Fifty-six, fifty-seven…”
“It’s over sixty thousand!” Ron interrupted in disbelief; he’d been counting the chips while she concentrated. “I haven’t held this much money in my life—“
“And you still haven’t, because they’re not cashed in yet!” Harry hissed, his patience wearing thin as the buzzing crowd pressed in on them. He knew, somewhere in his logical mind, that he should be the most ecstatic of them all right now; but between the claustrophobia and the unwanted attention, he was dangerously close to having some sort of traumatic flashback to his not-so-great childhood. If he could just get off the casino floor and have a bit of time to process, he thought, he would probably be in a perfectly fine mood to celebrate with his friends. “Let’s just get over to the exchange counter—“
“We could probably get into one of the high roller tables with this,” Ron talked over him, eyeing the chips speculatively. “There are strategies you can use, I’ve seen videos…”
“What? No! The only foolproof strategy is to know when to walk away, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do!” He made a wild grab to get the chips back before his gangly friend could abuse his height advantage again, choosing for the moment to ignore Hermione, who was trying to get the crowd to join her in a chant of wet blanket. In the ensuing struggle, he didn’t notice the pit boss approaching until he was nearly on top of them.
“Looks like it’s somebody’s lucky day! Won’t one of you fine folks introduce me to our latest jackpot winner?”
Great. Just fabulous. It was just as he’d feared: his freakish good fortune had aroused suspicion and now he was about to be accused of cheating and probably chucked out on the street.
“He’s Harry Potter!” Ron answered traitorously, pulling free from Harry’s attempt to pin his arm. “The luckiest man alive!”
“We’re staying in room 309,” Hermione piped up, her ingrained need to provide information apparently the single most immutable aspect of her personality, no matter her situation or blood alcohol level. Very helpful; maybe now hotel management would allow him to collect his luggage before they evicted him.
“309?” the pit boss boomed with a broad, false incredulity. “An economy room? No, no, no. I’m afraid I’ll have to insist on upgrading you to one of our exclusive high roller suites! And complementary drinks for all of you, of course!”
The crowd gave another cheer, and with the inevitability of a prophecy, Harry knew that his evening was about to spin out of control even faster than the roulette wheel.
———————————
Though it wouldn’t do to be too obvious about it—it could result in his appearance fee being lowered—the center of a casino floor was truly one of Tom’s favorite places to be. At least, in the way that a sunny meadow full of fat, lazy mice was the favorite place of a predatory snake—as a happy hunting ground. The combination of basic tricks that would work on an infant—flashing lights, pleasant sounds, inconsistent positive reinforcement—and a neverending supply of adult beverages only widened the already abyssal gap between his intellect and the average imbecile’s, allowing him to make a tidy profit before tomorrow’s tournament even began. His contract stipulated that he show his face around the poker tables, of course, but if he was lucky (and he always was, because he made his own luck), he’d also get the chance to indulge in his original obsession: blackjack.
After using his brilliant mind and arguably even more sparkling charm to claw his way out of the scum of the East End, Tom had been disappointed by the reality that lay behind Cambridge’s stately facade. It turned out that the spoiled children of old families spent their time and money on the same dull vices as the bums of London: drugs, drink and gambling. The only difference, besides better decor, was that the stakes were higher and the substances more potent, leaving an easy opening for a maths genius with a near eidetic memory. All it took was a little convincing for Draco Malfoy, a lord’s son with a truly mind-boggling amount of credit card debt, to agree to stake Tom for an exclusive, top secret (which is to say, the whole campus knew about it) monthly game; Tom tripled the money, they split the profits, and word quickly got around. He taught a handpicked group of not-entirely-incompetent followers his methods—though never all of them, of course, and never to the extent that they could manage without his guidance. By the time they graduated, they’d spent countless weekends hitting casinos and private games all over the UK, and had made a small fortune between them. The blue blooded dingbats had also come up with the nickname “The Knights of Walpurgis” somewhere along the way. Tom let them have their delusions of grandiosity; it helped them forget that he didn’t share their pedigree.
Making his hobby into an actual career required that he go slightly more legitimate, but the transition to professional poker was unexpectedly smooth. People, after all, were nearly as predictable as numbers and even easier to manipulate.
Case in point: the trio of idiot tourists who had lucked out at roulette (a game that demanded no skill, essentially slots for people who fancied themselves “classy”), and were now celebrating the hotel’s “generous” room upgrade and drinks tickets. By sunrise tomorrow, they’d be hungover and just coherent enough to realize that they’d lost all their winnings and more besides. Suckers like them were born every minute, and swarmed these places like ants to sugar.
Although the apparent leader of the group was behaving a bit unpredictably, kicking up a fuss and trying to get away for some reason. Maybe he was already sloshed; Tom had never seen hair so disastrous on someone legal to drive. He unconsciously touched his own styled curls as if to protect them from contamination. Or maybe, he considered further, the black-haired young man was not as innocent as he looked, and wanted to avoid scrutiny. Some sort of wireless cheating device in his glasses, perhaps? Surely they didn’t sell coke bottles like that in respectable shops anymore.
“Hit or stand?” the dealer asked, and when Tom broke from his musings and turned back to his own game, he got the distinct impression it was not the first time the question had been repeated; the dealer, and his fellow players, looked mildly impatient and annoyed.
Tom gave himself an internal shake. He may be an apex predator in this environment, but he still needed to have his head in the game and not on some mediocre punter who was soon to lose his shirt.
“Hit me,” he said confidently, flashing a sharklike smile that he could only wish really had three rows of teeth.
——————————
Harry had been right, it turned out; away from the chaos of the casino floor, he was much more well disposed to appreciating the day’s victories. After several more futile attempts to convince his inebriated friends to ‘know when to walk away’, he had finally taken his own advice, portioning out his fair third of the chips and walking straight up to their new suite, where he found that watching beautiful people being messy and dramatic was much more fun on HBO than in person.
It had been a few hours now, the Strip fully lit up through the room’s huge panorama windows. Harry was sprawled on the opulent bed, surrounded by sweets wrappers from the minibar (American chocolate was weird) and feeling grateful that at least Caesar’s Palace wasn’t the White Lotus, when he heard a commotion of running feet in the hall, some thumping and scuffling at the door, a muted click and then—
“Harry—Harry—“
Ron burst through the door and promptly stumbled into the side table, his eyes goggling at the opulence of the room rather than watching his feet.
“Finally!” Harry grinned and sat up a bit. “I know, it’s amazing, right? I’ve already called dibs on the best bed, but you should see the bathtub, it’s got jets—“
“No—Harry—you don’t understand—Hermione, it’s Hermione—“ his friend let out short, huffing breaths in the gaps between his words.
Now Harry straightened up fully, noticing their third member’s absence for the first time. “What!? Is she okay? You didn’t lose her, did you?” Normally he’d be untroubled by the thought of Hermione on her own—if anything, it was them who might struggle without her—but tonight she had been feeling rebellious.
“No, of course not, she’s right behind me,” Ron said, catching his breath and rushing over to the bed with urgency. “That’s the thing, you see, I suggested getting a late dinner at the restaurant but she said we should get room service instead because—I still can’t believe it—it’d be ‘more romantic’, and then she smiled at me…” Here he trailed off, wonder in his voice and stars in his eyes.
“Holy shit,” Harry breathed, dropping his latest bar of half-melted chocolate on the bedspread. “It’s finally happening.”
Almost since they’d all first met, Harry had watched his two best friends dance around each other, observing every longing look and wistful sigh between them, first with great trepidation—he’d been terrified that they’d pair up and leave him on the outside—then with anticipation of seeing their feelings blossom, and now, after almost a decade, with a kind of exasperation mixed with a running bet with himself over whether they would ever get together. He’d been there through every one of Ron’s ill-advised flings and Hermione’s disastrous dates with men who seemed perfect on their dating profiles, and had contemplated bringing it up a thousand times, only to remember that he somehow had even less experience with relationships than either of them (Exhibit A in the case that the “Potter luck” was not, in fact, foolproof). The situation frankly baffled him—Ron was usually so impulsive, and Hermione so proactive, yet they barely seemed able to admit their attraction to themselves.
“I know it’s probably a bit of a shock,” Ron was saying now, as he started ineffectually swiping at the wrappers scattered around, “but I’ve fancied her for, well, a while now, and from what she said downstairs she has too, and—and—“
“I understand, mate, don’t worry,” Harry assured him, getting to his feet and helping to tidy up. “I’m happy for you. And this place really is romantic, check out that view—hey, do you want me to order the food? I think I saw that French thing she likes on the menu…”
“Right, er, that’s the thing,” Ron interrupted awkwardly, not looking at Harry as he stuffed the trash into a wastebasket and subsequently shoved the basket into a cupboard. “She specifically mentioned a ‘romantic dinner for two…’”
Harry nodded readily; of course he would need to order food for two, and maybe something for himself as well, all that chocolate hadn’t really filled him up—oh.
“You want me to leave,” he stated, as it dawned on him.
“Well, yes, but it’s not like I’m kicking you out or anything! All you have to do is, you know, be somewhere else for a few hours! It’s Vegas, mate, everything’s open all night and there’s loads of stuff to do even without leaving the hotel…”
To Harry, that seemed functionally indistinguishable from kicking him out, but he honestly wasn’t too fussed about it—he really was happy for the two of them, and he’d waited for this moment long enough to be past caring about the particular circumstances.
“Look, it’s really not a problem,” he told Ron earnestly, clicking off the television. “I’ll head to the restaurant myself, grab some real food, yeah? Don’t worry about it.”
Ron’s face broke out into a relieved grin. “Really? You’re the best mate a bloke could ask for, Harry, I’m not sure I deserve you. Listen, we’re not gonna hog the place all night or anything, I swear. It’s not like that with Hermione; I want to take things slow with her, woo her properly, y’know? We just need a few hours to have dinner and talk. In fact, I know what we can do—I’ll just put up the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and take it down once we’re done eating, so you know it’s fine to come back.”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed, slipping his shoes back on and heading for the door, “sounds like a plan. Good luck, alright? I’m rooting for you,” he said, genuinely meaning it.
He slipped out of the room and down the corridor, and not a moment too soon; just as he rounded the corner out of sight, the elevator doors opened to reveal a glowing Hermione, barefoot and swinging her heeled shoes from her left hand, giggling softly to herself as she padded back to their room. Harry smiled fondly as he watched her go, then continued his leisurely stroll, planning to take the lift down himself after a safe amount of time.
But just as he reached the end of the hall and prepared to double back, he heard a pair of voices from around the next corner.
“…purports to offer first-class service, but cannot even execute a simple room-service order,” the first man was saying. Harry was pleasantly surprised to hear the English accent, but it was quickly dampened by how annoyed and arrogant his fellow Brit sounded.
“I’m very sorry, sir, I’ll return this to the kitchen and bring your requested food free of charge…” The second man—it had to be a hotel employee—said, his softer voice oozing subservience. Harry recognized the tone; he’d used it plenty himself, working his way through school at menial service jobs. Curious and a bit aggrieved on the worker’s behalf, he poked his head around the corner and took a peek.
“Don’t bother,” the first man replied. Now that he was in view, it was obvious that he, unlike Harry, was exactly the type of person you would expect to see in a penthouse suite in a five-star hotel: perfectly coiffed chestnut hair, simple clothes that nonetheless screamed expensive even at this distance, features as sharp as his voice. “I’m a professional on a strict eating and sleeping schedule, which you’ve already hopelessly mucked up. I’ll be keeping…whatever this is,” he gestured at the apparently unsatisfactory covered dishes that had been wheeled up to his door, “and you’ll just have to go without a tip, Michael.” The use of the server’s name—pointedly read off the label on his vest—carried a clearly implied threat of future retaliation.
Harry’s face heated as his boiling blood rushed to the surface. There was nothing that got him riled up faster than petty abuse of wealth and power. Before he even realized what he was doing, he was striding around the corner and into view.
“Hey! It’s not as if it’s his fault, there’s no reason to be a jerk about it!”
The expensive-looking man turned his withering glare on Harry, while the server—Michael?—said nothing as he started quietly setting the dishes inside the room, seemingly thankful for the reprieve.
“And what stake do you have in the matter—oh, it’s you.” He smirked. “The high roller. Was your own suite not enough for you?”
Harry was a little surprised to be recognized from the casino—it had been hours ago, and the place had been packed—but he pushed that thought aside. “What’s not enough for me are your manners,” he said righteously, “and my stake is that you’re making English tourists look bad!”
Behind them, Michael put on a burst of speed and finished unloading the dishes in record time, then murmured almost subaudibly, “Sorry again for the inconvenience Mr. Riddle, your meal will be free of charge, have a good evening,” and fairly sprinted away with the wheelie-cart, all in the time it took for ‘Mr. Riddle’s’ handsome face to twist into a very ugly look.
“You dare—“
But Harry wasn’t listening. “Riddle? As in, the one competing in the poker tournament? So you’re telling me your ‘strict eating and sleeping schedule’ is to help you with the grueling task of playing cards?” He scoffed. “I can’t believe I have to tell Ron you’re actually an asshole.”
*************
Tom was not in the mood to deal with this nonsense tonight.
First his room service took longer than Caesar’s reign to arrive, then they had somehow messed up his order—a simple steak, medium rare, the same thing he always ate precisely three hours before going to bed on a night before competing—and brought him an elaborate romantic dinner, complete with champagne and chocolate lava cake for two, instead. Now some scruffy runt who got a lucky break was implying that his work required no effort? Completely unacceptable.
Although it did please him that even this uncultured brat had apparently heard of the name Tom Riddle…
“Oh, pardon me,” he snarked back. “I’d forgotten that you’re tonight’s reigning expert on table games. In fact, why don’t you try your luck in the tournament tomorrow? You can start by eating this rich meal that’s sure to keep you up all night, since it apparently doesn’t make a difference.” He stepped aside and waved his arm as if to usher the shorter man through the doorway.
There was only the briefest of pauses, and then the other’s face took on a strange expression, a disturbing mix of mischief and determination, his eyes hard but the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said casually, stepping forward and—oh, this was not happening—walking right into Tom’s suite. “I was on my way to the restaurants anyway, but who am I to turn down a free meal? I’m not an asshole.”
“You have one minute to leave before I call security.”
“Oh, yeah? Do it, and you’ll have one hour before I email that sports website Ron loves so much and tell them Tom Riddle kicked a guy out of his suite at Caesar’s right after they shared a romantic dinner.” Who the hell was this ‘Ron’ who kept getting mentioned, anyway? This brazen intruder was acting entirely too familiar. Was he actually some deeply obsessed fan pulling a convoluted scheme?
The little heathen lifted the cloche off one of the dishes and peeked inside (and Tom did not find the smell that wafted out dangerously tempting, he did not). “I’ll also tell them you turned up your nose at perfectly good fettuccine Alfredo, see if anyone likes you after that.”
Tom shut the door, hastily checking the hallway for witnesses to this embarrassing display as he did so. He wasn’t giving in by any means, but he had clearly underestimated a man who was turning out to be an experienced blackmailer. The bumbling tourist act must have been a hustle. Maybe Tom’s theory about a cheating device in the glasses had some merit after all…
In that case, he’d need to adjust his strategy. His opponent may be unexpectedly cunning, but he still had a trash hand by all accounts. Tom simply needed to get off the back foot and call his little bluff.
(Also, admittedly, that fettuccine smelled really good and going to bed hungry might be even worse than eating too much saturated fat.)
Slipping his usual confident mask back into place, he crossed the room in a few long strides, joined the little upstart where he was now sitting at Tom’s table (God, he almost—almost!—admired what had to be nerves of steel), and elegantly sat down across from him.
“Don’t go starting without me now, dearest,” he said, meeting the other’s eyes challengingly. “This is dinner for two, after all.”
And two can play this game—but only one of us is a professional.
——————————
Harry still wasn’t quite clear on how he had gotten into this situation. Honestly, everything since the roulette jackpot had felt sort of like an underwater waking dream. If he had to take a stab at it, he’d guess that Michael the server had activated what Hermione called his ‘saving people thing’, and his (terrible) instincts had carried him from there. Had he really implied that he’d blackmail a sort-of celebrity? He must have, because Riddle was currently sitting across from him, forking pasta into his mouth while maintaining constant, disturbingly intense eye contact, instead of calling security like he’d threatened.
“So tell me,” he said, already sounding perfectly relaxed again, “who, exactly, do I have the pleasure of dining with tonight? Because all I know currently is that you’re quite close with a possible gaming addict named ‘Ron’.”
Even Harry wasn’t stupid enough to give his real name—he’d already messed up enough letting Ron’s slip. He mentally reached for the first alias he could think of, and was dismayed to come up with only the mystifying nickname Snape once called him when he had been feeling particularly resentful.
“I’m Felix Felicis,” he said, trying to make it sound natural and not-totally-made-up.
Riddle actually paused with his fork suspended at elbow height, looking as if he was debating whether to be insulted or amused. The latter apparently won out, and he released a low chuckle. “Fine, don’t tell me. ‘Lucky McLuck’ is as good a pseudonym for you as any, I suppose.”
Harry frowned. “I didn’t say Lucky McLuck, I said—“
The chuckle turned into a full-throated laugh. “God, you don’t even actually know Latin.”
Oh. It figured that a ponce like Snape would come up with a pretentious insult. “No, my primary school for common people didn’t offer it as an elective.”
A strange, dark look flashed across Riddle’s face before he composed himself and rejoined, “Neither did mine, but unlike you, I self-studied in an effort to better myself.”
“Well excuse me if I don’t—“
“Aren’t you going to eat your dinner?” Riddle asked innocently, gesturing at Harry’s untouched plate. “It won’t stay warm forever, and I seem to remember you saying something about only assholes spurning such a feast.”
Harry shoveled in a mouthful, deliberately stabbing at the noodles rather than wrapping them around his fork, and was immediately glad for it. No wonder Riddle’s mood had mellowed a bit; nobody could be too tetchy while tasting this sauce. Now that he thought of it, his own combative behavior earlier probably owed a great deal to his erratic blood sugar…
“Room service always beats the overpriced restaurants at these places,” he muttered to himself, and then, remembering that he wasn’t alone: “That’s a pro tip from a budget traveler.”
“As a frequent flier myself, who prefers to avoid the gossip-mongers out in public,” Riddle said, giving Harry a pointed look, “I quite agree. My question, then, is why you were out wandering the halls instead of ordering in to your own suite. One might almost think you were looking for trouble.”
“It’s kind of a funny story,” Harry shrugged, “and a long one too, but the short version is, I’m here with my two best friends. And our meal is far from the most romantic one happening right now.”
———————————
“Felix’s” story (as if—Tom would have to make use of his contacts to find out his real name later) was, naturally, as preposterous as everything else about him. Tom wasn’t sure if that made him more or less suspicious that this whole thing was some sort of long con. The idea that this man had allowed himself to be edged out of his own suite by his randy friends, only to have no qualms about barging in on a complete stranger…
Well, if this was a scam, it was at least far more entertaining than the ones his manager Barty presented to him every other week, gussied up as “sponsorship opportunities”.
“So that’s why you came beating down my door,” Tom said archly, watching Felix where he was now hoovering up his lava cake. “You were desperate to taste quality chocolate again.”
“Yeah, let’s go with that,” the other said with a sheepish grin, dropping his green eyes to his now-empty plate. The look on his face gave Tom the distinct impression that he was seriously considering swiping up the remaining ganache with his finger. Before this uncouth tragedy could unfold, the brunette silently pushed his own portion of cake across the table. He’d never had much of a sweet tooth.
“Wow, thanks! Are you sure?” Felix asked, even though he was practically vibrating with anticipation for a second helping of dessert.
Tom shifted uncomfortably (and how did that happen? He’d ruthlessly stamped out all his tells years ago). “I wasn’t going to eat it anyway, and it’s poor form to waste perfectly good food.” Bugger this unbearable man for making him remember Wool’s Orphanage twice in one night.
“Oh, really? So what were you planning on doing with all this before I came to your rescue?” He smirked playfully around a mouthful of chocolate.
“Packing it into the mini fridge and eating it after the tournament tomorrow,” Tom answered honestly. “In celebration of my victory,” he specified. “I do appreciate good fettuccine, you know, I’m not a sociopath. I simply believe in saving it for special occasions.” Why was he justifying his actions to a stranger!?
“I know.” Felix paused and bit his lip, taking the opportunity to lick a dab of chocolate from the corner of his mouth. “Er, I’m not either, really. I’m sorry I shouted at you and crashed your dinner. I’ve never done anything like this before, I swear.”
“Not that kind of guy, hmm?” Tom raised his eyebrows suggestively.
“Shut up, you know what I—shit!” He’d cut into his cake a little too aggressively—had Tom’s teasing remark flustered him? Good, served him right—and caused a jet of “lava” to squirt straight from the plate onto his white shirtfront.
Tom gave the brown stain an appraising look. “It does look like it, but I’m fairly certain it’s actually dark chocolate.”
“Ha ha. Can I use your bathroom?” Felix was already moving in that general direction, but Tom had no interest in stopping him; his next move required a bit of privacy anyway.
The moment the messy-haired man disappeared through the doorway, Tom pulled out his phone and tapped a number he’d put at the top of his contact list for this trip: one of his many discreet, professional friends down at the front desk, to whom he occasionally gave generous gifts, as any good friend would. In exchange, they could be relied upon to provide information on the whereabouts and emotional state of Tom’s competitors. Or, in this case, the true identity of the mysterious ‘Mr. Felicis’ staying down the hall.
Within minutes, Tom had confirmed that his dinner companion was actually one Harry Potter, and that he indeed seemed to be an ordinary guest, in town for a work event, who had gotten a lucky break at the roulette table. Keeping an ear out for running water in the bathroom, Tom was just entering the name into his usual instant-background-check app (you could never be too careful) when—
“Who’s ‘G. Montague’, and why is his robe in your bathroom?”
Tom startled so abruptly he almost dropped his phone, and turned around to see Felix—Harry—standing there in his undershirt, examining the fluffy white ‘custom-embroidered luxury bathrobe’ Tom had been promised as part of his compensation. Which did, indeed, have his sadly incapacitated predecessor’s name stitched on it in green thread.
“The mediocre player who was previously scheduled to compete,” Tom snapped, irritated at being treated as an interchangeable substitute. This place should be grateful he had been willing to show up on such short notice. He cocked his head to confirm the bathtub was still on. “Are you trying to flood the suite, or did you just get distracted spying on me?”
“Whew, for a minute there I was worried you gave lava cake to any old bloke who came round!” Harry said cheekily. Belatedly processing the second part of Tom’s response, he flushed and continued in a more subdued tone of voice, “I’m just filling up the tub so I can soak it. I only brought two good shirts and I sweated through the other one yesterday—wasn’t expecting the heat.” He rubbed the back of his neck, making his hair stand up even more.
Tom held his silence for a long moment, letting the little imp stew in his discomfort before playing the ace up his sleeve. “Then I suppose you’d better get back to it, Harry.”
The man’s mouth popped open in outrage. “What—how did you—I didn’t—“
“What, give me your real name?” Tom smirked and walked forward, nudging Harry aside as he made his own way to the bathroom. “Neither did I; you got it from that imbecile Michael and your little friend Ron. Turnabout is fair play.” He looked over his shoulder to where the other was still recovering from his surprise. “Now come on. You’re in luck—I happen to know something about stain removal myself, and at this point I’m willing to help if it means getting rid of you sooner.”
——————————
It turned out that Riddle—Tom— really did know his way around a stain. It was only one of many hints Harry had gotten tonight that there was more to this shark than met the eye. Somewhere between the bathtub (“Stop splashing me.” “Bugger off, you’re the one splashing”), the travel-sized bottle of vodka in place of rubbing alcohol (the minifridge had been fully stocked with them; “It’s one of my sponsors and take my word for it, they taste exactly the same,” Tom had said with a grimace) and the hair dryer (Tom had aimed the nozzle while Harry held up the wet shirt; to his chagrin, he had at one point gotten impatient and jibed, “Turn it up, you’re meant to dry it, not coif it,” only to be met with a well-deserved blast of hot air to the face), he’d even started using his first name, if only in retaliation. The smug bastard hadn’t missed a single chance to call him Harry—he still wasn’t sure how he’d figured it out so fast—and turnabout was fair play, according to a professional gamer.
The upside was that Ron and Hermione were sure to be done by now. It had been over two hours, and Tom and Harry were living proof that was enough time to eat dinner for two and plenty more besides. He was eager to get back to his own room, especially since—
“Will you leave me alone already? I reckon I can find my way back on my own, I don’t need a bloody chaperone!”
“That’s rich coming from you,” said Tom, his long legs easily keeping pace with Harry as he hurried down the hall. “And anyway, I disagree—I intend to make sure you don’t menace anyone else, it seems to be a habit of yours.”
Harry wouldn’t have minded so much, but he really didn’t want to deal with the interrogation he’d surely get when his friends saw him being escorted by Tom. Tonight was supposed to be his chance to tease Ron and Hermione about their love lives.
Except…
“Oh, no, the Do Not Disturb sign is still up.”
“So?” Tom looked genuinely puzzled. “That’s for the help, not the people staying there. Now for the love of God, tell me you still have your key—“
“You don’t understand. We had an agreement, I’m not supposed to come back while the sign is up. I thought for sure they’d have finished dinner by now, Ron’s usually a really fast eater…” Tom’s baffled expression remained, but had shifted from something like I don’t understand to I cannot believe you are this stupid. “What’s that look for?”
“Harry, dear, if you haven’t yet divined that your friends are in there shagging each other's brains out, I doubt anything I say can enlighten you.”
Harry could feel the tips of his ears go red. “What? No, they’re not like that, Ron told me he wanted to do it proper like…stop laughing!” Because Tom was chuckling again, smug as you please, as if he knew Harry’s own friends better than him!
That only made him laugh harder, but Harry was starting to seriously wonder what on earth he was going to do now. If Tom was right (and he really, really didn’t want to dwell on that, seeing as Ron and Hermione were only one thin wall away), the suite might be off-limits for the entire night. He wasn’t hungry anymore, and the casino was now likely even more crowded and loud than when he’d fled hours ago. Maybe he could ask for his old room back? Unless…
“Okay, hear me out,” Harry ventured, once Tom had calmed down a bit. “What if I stayed with you just a bit longer?”
Based on the look on his face, Tom’s next words were going to be No, Hell no, or What the fuck, so Harry barreled on before he could reply. “I won’t be a bother, I swear! I just need a place to crash for the night, watch TV or something. Actually, I know—it said there was a HotD marathon on later, we could catch that…”
“Excuse me!?”
“House of the Dragon,” Harry clarified, “I don’t have HBO back home. But if you’re not a fan that’s OK too, it’s already half eleven and I should probably get some sleep before my flight tomorrow.”
Before he could continue his campaign to convince Tom that he was, contrary to his first impression, generally considered to be a very gracious overnight guest, the other man held his large hand out in the universal gesture for Stop. His other hand was pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I'm going to stop you right there before you make an even bigger fool of yourself, and you are going to listen to me for a change.”
*************
Tom couldn’t quite believe what he was about to do, but this ridiculous walking contradiction of a person had forced his hand. There was only so much a man could take.
“First, let me make absolutely certain I’ve understood you correctly. You, a young, attractive person on an undeniable streak of good fortune, when finding yourself in need of a spare bed in Las Vegas—“ Tom wasn’t sure how that ‘attractive’ had slipped in there; he hadn’t intended to say it. Well, he supposed Harry did have a sort of happy-go-lucky charm, if one was into that sort of thing—“are begging a hostile stranger instead of employing the obvious solution—“
“You’re hardly hostile, you gave me cake!” Harry interrupted, proving that he could not, in fact, shut up and listen for five minutes. “And whatever solution you’re talking about doesn’t seem very obvious to me!”
Tom thought back to Harry’s confusion over what on earth his little friends could be doing for three hours, and found himself wondering how long it had taken him to put together where babies came from. “I’m suggesting that you find another young, attractive person willing to share their sleeping quarters and get lucky, darling.”
“Keep your voice down!” Harry blurted in a panic, as if he weren’t the only one shouting. He looked genuinely scandalized, it was almost cute. “I don’t know the first thing about—about picking somebody up—“
“Clearly not, seeing as you’re uncomfortable staying out past eleven. Which is why I’m going to help you accomplish it, if only in service of my increasingly futile quest to be free of you—“
“Like you weren’t planning to quaff an Ambien or two and conk out the minute I left,” Harry said churlishly. “I’ll bet you don’t even know where to find hot young singles in this town.”
Had this little hellion snooped in his medicine cabinet!? And Tom did know the name and location of the hottest venue in the city, thank you very much. Even if it was only because Malfoy hadn’t shut up about it since Nott’s stag do last November. And someone of his reputation would surely have little difficulty getting them past the velvet rope. Yes, he’d be blowing what remained of his routine straight to hell, but it was worth it to fob off the bad penny that was Harry Potter on some other unfortunate soul.
He felt his mouth curl into the familiar shape of his favorite smirk. “I’m afraid that’s one wager you’re going to lose, dearest.”