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Tom Riddle had never been a patient person. He was a particular one to be sure. He was prideful. That was how he'd arrived at this place, this life-changing decision. The decision itself was no surprise—Tom had known ever since setting eyes upon Harry Potter that they would someday be wed—but the sudden elopement, admittedly, was an unplanned development.
"How do I look?"
"Do not speak." Tom did not turn his head, but in the peripherals of his vision, he saw: his handsome, soon-to-be husband wearing slightly undersized dress robes.
"Tom—"
"I said, do not speak." This time, Tom did glance over. "We have only an hour, which means this little task will not take up more than that, do you understand?"
His fiance nodded, still fidgeting and tugging at the pinstriped plum waistcoat that Tom had given approval for. It was not his favourite colour for Harry, but it would do.
"Stay close and let me handle the talking." Tom gathered a pinch of Floo powder and ducked into the fireplace. "The Atrium, Ministry of Magic!"
Green flames enveloped him quickly, the forceful transportation magic launching him through the extensive network and hurling him unceremoniously out the other end. There was never a smooth landing, which Tom hated, but it was the only discreet way to arrive that didn't involve standing in a loo.
On a weekend, the Ministry was very quiet indeed, but the lack of witnesses was desired and in fact planned for. Tom patted the breast pocket of his own robes—charcoal with crimson trimmings—where his prepared paperwork resided. All according to plan.
His shoes clicked smartly across the dark wood flooring as he strode past several more gilded fireplaces. His fiance followed at a more anxious pace, stumbling over his feet in a truly Harry-like fashion. Likely it was nerves, though Tom supposed that the drastic change in build might be similarly problematic. Harry was so deliciously sturdy.
"I had a word with Rookwood yesterday," Tom said with a cough as they stepped into the lift. "They'll be expecting us."
His fiance nodded too eagerly. They were lucky that no one here knew them—Harry would never be caught looking so… slavish.
Tom exhaled in relief as the lift doors opened to level ten, where the courtrooms resided. Fifteen minutes for the marriage license, another fifteen for a private ceremony, and then he would meet his Harry on time for lunch at the Leaky Cauldron.
It was going to be a wonderful day.
Afterwards, Tom admired the new placement of his family ring. It wasn't Harry's, obviously, but the symbolism was enough. In the eyes of the law, they were married. Harry was his.
By his side, his new husband shuffled in place, his too-tight leather shoes scraping over the flooring.
"Antidote," Tom said briskly.
A low cough. "I was wondering, Tom, if it might be better to let the potion wear off on its own?"
Tom snapped his fingers, causing his husband's outer robes to flap themselves open. A tiny stoppered bottle flew out and smacked into Tom's waiting palm. He thumbed the cork off and extended his arm. "Drink. I will now be leaving for lunch with Harry, and the last thing I need is you loitering around, looking like that."
His husband accepted the potion with an odd smile that was utterly out of place on Harry's face.
Within minutes, Barty Crouch Jr was back to his usual self, albeit now frowning.
Tom said, "I appreciate your assistance today. Thank you."
"Anything for you," Barty replied. After a pause, he took the hint and offered one last bow before Disapparating, leaving Tom alone.
Tom checked his pocket watch—a gift from Harry, in shiny midnight black with lovely silver serpent accents—and hummed in a satisfied way. He still had twenty minutes to spare. A perfect day indeed.
Married life was not much different from unmarried life. The sex was much better, perhaps because Tom was a little more excited knowing that Harry was going to be his forever.
Aside from that, Harry in his typical oblivious way made no note of the change in position of Tom's family ring, and he did not question why Tom felt a sudden need to place a similar one upon his own.
"Possessive much?" he'd said with a fond roll of his eyes as Tom slipped the plain gold band upon the ring finger of his right hand. "I'm not looking at anyone else, so you don't need to ward them off."
Tom did know that. It was all of the others who needed to stop looking, lest he impulsively decide to gouge their eyes out. "Sometimes one has to take matters into their own hands to create their own happiness," Tom said sagely instead.
Upon hearing those words, Harry had a funny look in his eyes, like there were gears turning behind them. That worried Tom a little. Everything he did was for the both of them, and a part of him thought that Harry did deserve to know, but he was apprehensive as to what would happen if Harry did find out. Of course, Harry loved him dearly, but it was difficult to predict how Harry would react in a situation as... unique... as this one.
The best solution was to simply make sure that Harry never found out at all.
Tom was towelling his hair off after a fresh shower when Harry brought up the forbidden subject. Warning sign number one: the strong scent of freshly-brewed tea was waiting for him. Harry rarely thought to make tea on his own, though he certainly obliged whenever Tom requested some. The uncharacteristic behaviour was enough to make Tom suspicious.
"Just the way you like it," Harry said, pushing a mug in Tom's direction. He was sitting on one of two bar stools he owned instead of proper dining chairs, and slouching languidly against the kitchen counter.
Tom banished his hair towel and tugged the straps of his bathrobe more securely shut. "And what is the special occasion for this?"
Harry pushed at his glasses. "Well… I've been thinking."
"A troublesome sign."
"Very funny. Drink your damn tea." Harry sighed once, then straightened his shoulders. "What I wanted to say was… what do you think about marriage?" His eyes roamed anxiously over Tom's face. "Someday. Far in the future, or y'know, whenever. Is that something… that you'd want?"
Tom said quickly, "We don't need a piece of paper to prove our love." It would be such a hassle if they were to visit the courthouse only for Harry to discover they were already married.
Harry squinted at him. "Tom, you've already put a ring on my finger." He held up his hand and wiggled his fingers. "Though I suppose it's meant to be on the other one."
"Yes," Tom said hastily, "and isn't that enough on its own?"
"I mean, if you say so." Harry stared at him a moment longer. "I thought that you—well, never mind then." He took a sip of his tea. "Are you staying the night?"
Since the wedding day, Tom had been spending every single night here, and Harry had not commented on it. Tom's own lease had run its course, and he had deliberately not renewed it. All of Tom's things were already here. They were married now, so it was only proper for them to live together.
"Yes," Tom said, some of his irritation slipping into his tone.
Harry set his mug back down with a thud. "Are you mad at me?" he demanded. "What for? All I did was ask if you wanted to get married, it's not like I'm trying to force you down the aisle—"
"You are the most moronic man on the face of the earth," Tom said in a cutting voice.
Harry's face went red. "So you're saying you don't want to marry me because you think I'm stupid—"
"I am not, though I wouldn't be so wrong for thinking that way."
"Merlin's sake, Tom, forget I said anything about it." Harry scrubbed a hand over his face. "You don't want to get married, fine."
"I never said that!" Tom snapped. How little Harry knew him, to make such a statement. Obviously this was why Tom had taken such drastic measures to begin with, because talking sense to his husband was like talking to Diagon Alley's brick wall.
"Then what—" Harry stopped, picked up his mug, and drained it. "Actually, I think I need a firewhiskey if we're going to continue this conversation."
"Because you clearly have no idea why you are in the wrong," Tom said, following him to the refrigerator.
"Enlighten me, then," Harry said, thumbing the cap off of his new drink with a scowl.
"If you have to ask me," Tom said, drawing the words out one by one, "then you've ruined the entire thing."
Harry threw him a look of pure incredulity. "That doesn't make any sense."
"It means that I shouldn't have to tell you that I want to be married!" Tom yanked the bottle out of Harry's hand and hurled it into the far wall, where it exploded in a shower of glass and liquid that fizzled off into tiny sparks as wild strands of Harry's magic caught hold of it and crushed it.
"So you do want to get married?" Harry asked with a note of frustration in his voice, his dominant hand and arm still outstretched from having contained the brunt of Tom's anger. "Because I'll bloody ask you right now, but can you please stop being so melodramatic—"
"You're too late," Tom said with smug satisfaction. "We are already married, you daft git!"
Harry stilled. "We—you—what?"
"Barty and I got it done nearly a month ago. I have the papers in my drawer in our room." When Harry continued to stare wordlessly at him, Tom continued, "That day we had lunch at the Leaky. I pulled you into the bathroom stall afterwards so that we could—"
"I remember," Harry snapped, his face pinking at the memory. It was a very excellent memory. "I should have known, since normally you don't like bathroom sex."
"It isn't sanitary, even with magic," Tom retorted.
"Okay, no, we're going back to the marriage bit," Harry said with a sharp gesture. "You went and got us married without me?"
"I was tired of waiting for you to propose," Tom said crossly, folding his arms over his chest. "Though I see now that you have no issues with stringing me along as long as you have!"
Harry spluttered. "We've been dating for barely a year, and I already let you put that ring on my finger without knowing about any of this!"
"Why does it matter how we got here, then, if you care so little about it?" Tom scowled. "I'd have thought you would be happy to have it settled without the fanfare and attention that you so detest—"
"Oh, so now it's my fault." Harry scoffed. "You're impossible, Tom. You wonder why I never proposed on my own, but did you ever stop to think that it's because your standards are bizarre and impossible and completely fucking bonkers?"
Tom made an offended noise. "How dare you say that! Our relationship has been perfect the entire time, better in fact since we got married—"
"Since you got us married."
"—and now you're complaining that I went ahead and did something for the both of us—"
"For you!" Harry exhaled and ran a hand through his disastrous hair. "But you know what, you're right."
Tom paused. "I am? I—I am."
"Yes." Harry nodded, his pretty green eyes fixed intently upon Tom's. He stepped closer and set both hands upon Tom's shoulders. "You are right. Since you went ahead and did all this anyway, now I don't have to do any of it. We're married, and that's the end of it." He pecked Tom once on the forehead, then pulled away. "I'm going to see if there's a replay of last week's Quidditch on the telly."
Tom opened his mouth to retort, only he did not know what he was supposed to be retorting to now that Harry had agreed with him. "Is that all?"
"Yep." Harry said, plopping onto the couch and spreading his legs wide in the way that Tom hated. "All good."
"Don't you want to propose to me?" Tom demanded. "Properly? With a ring?"
"Well," Harry said slowly, "evidently you didn't want one in the first place since you went ahead and married me all by yourself, so I don't see why I need to."
"You—you are lazy!" Tom snapped. He jabbed a finger in his ungrateful husband's direction. "Lazy, and useless, and that is why I had to do it myself, or else I would have been eighty by the time you finally got around to it—"
"If you didn't like that I was lazy," Harry said, raising a hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn, "you shouldn't have married me."
"I—you—" Tom did not like any of this. In fact, he thought he might hate it. "You are my husband now," he said loudly, stomping across the room so he could block Harry's view of the television. "Yet you expect me to do everything around here, how is that fair?"
Harry glanced up, a blazing look in his eyes that made Tom's heart catch in place.
"You don't like it?" Harry asked boldly. "Then divorce me."
It was awful. Tom wanted to leave to prove a point, except he no longer had his own flat to go back to.
"You are the worst," Tom said scathingly, "you are the worst, and I hate you, and I'm going to kill you, I'm going to wipe that smirk off of your face and make you wish you'd never been born, you selfish, horrible, indolent absolute waste of oxygen—"
"The absolute waste of oxygen that you married."
Tom lunged forward, fully intent on strangling his husband to death. But as soon as he was within reach, Harry's fingers leapt into his hair, tugging just so, crushing their mouths together.
Even with his hands wrapped around Harry's neck, Tom could not manage to apply any pressure while Harry's tongue was licking so insistently against his own. Tom's thumbs pressed roughly against his husband's pulse point. He thought he could feel Harry's heartbeat pounding in time with his own. His bathrobe rode up, exposing the damp skin of his thighs—an indecent exposure that Harry took advantage of, groping the flesh with greedy palms.
"Husband," Harry murmured as he began to trail little kisses all over Tom's face and jaw. "I do like the sound of that." His smile was audible as he continued, "And you know, there is one other good thing about all this."
"Yes?" Tom asked cautiously.
"With all the wedding stuff out of the way, we can skip to the best part." Harry tugged at the strap of Tom's bathrobe, not enough to dislodge the knot, but enough to convey his intentions. "The honeymoon."
And then Tom's husband proceeded to follow through on his intentions in a very thorough way indeed, cementing that the decision to get married was definitely the best decision that Tom had ever made.
END.
