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There is a crucial element to the sickness that all kinds of literature and music try so hard to paint in a romantic light, and Tom Riddle recognizes it as soon as he hears about the affliction: one has to understand their own emotions as love for it to take root in their lungs.
Without that conscious knowledge, there is no amount of jealousy or insecurity or other emotional maladies that can make anyone cough up anything even remotely resembling petals, because for someone to suffer from unrequited love, they first need to think themselves in love.
The mere notion of love is ridiculous, of course, but at eleven Tom truly thinks that he could never be affected by unrequited love, of all things: if he truly wanted a girl like that then he would pursue her, and if she said yes then the love wouldn’t be unrequited. If she rejected him then clearly she wasn’t worthy of his rare and uncharacteristic love in the first place, which would solve the “love” part of the equation.
Still, Tom never cares for any girl or woman, and he thinks he is safe from this particular affliction.
He is a bloody fool, is what he is.
All it takes is a Ministry ball on the very day he turns twenty-nine—irrelevant, in the grand scheme of things, except not irrelevant enough that Tom would let anyone know when his birthday is—and he is ruined.
It happens so smoothly too, as if it was natural, as if it was insultingly easy for Tom to fall. The ball is like all other New Year’s Eve festivities, everything gilded a hopeful, sparkling gold from the ceiling to the rim of champagne glasses, the appropriate diamonds and topazes gleaming on cuffs, belts, around naked throats.
It is as if only Tom could feel the merciless press of the black winter night against his back, as if only he knew how meaningless the joy of a fresh start is.
He is working his charm, making sure to share a laugh with everyone that matters—laughs are for New Year’s Eve, knowing looks and significant allusions for other functions—, moving around the ballroom in a counterclockwise circle, as always. He has passed Abraxas Malfoy six times already, his most bitter rival working the room in a clockwise rotation, as usual, and although Tom is quite aware of the significance of the number seven—he even thought to dabble in certain unsavoury arts using the magical properties of that number before realizing the worryingly severe effects Horcrux-making has on one’s sanity—he is still caught unawares when Malfoy alters his usual orbit, putting them on a collision course.
“Malfoy,” he nods when he is forced to stop, because he definitely won’t change his own path.
“Riddle,” the other man nods too, and he is close enough that Tom can catch the faintest whiff of his cologne, a painfully expensive Swiss concoction that Tom is nevertheless familiar with, because he knows more about Abraxas Malfoy than his nearest friends do. It comes with being political rivals, having spent eleven years climbing the same ladders in the Ministry, until they are finally competing for the very same position.
Not that Malfoy needs it; he is heir to England’s greatest fortune, whether or not he becomes Macmillan’s undersecretary. In fact, the higher echelons of society would rather he did not bother with formal positions at all, seeing that it keeps the country’s most handsome golden youth a permanent bachelor.
As ridiculous as all that fawning over Malfoy’s looks is, even Tom can’t deny that there is a certain splendour to the man, a dazzling quality that has little to do with his wealth. There’s something mesmerizing about it, even, and as the man leans in casually, just a little closer than strictly necessary for being heard over the music, Tom can’t resist leaning in a little too.
“Happy Birthday,” Abraxas Malfoy says, his voice dipping inexplicably into that rare tone of his that is bright and sweet like honey. This is already worrisome, because Malfoy should not know or care anything about Tom’s birthday, but before he could say anything, the other man dooms him in two careless moves.
Abraxas Malfoy clinks his own gold-rimmed champagne glass to Tom’s, the sound intimately muffled by their proximity. Then, still leaning in, he tilts his head a little, his expression nothing but pleasant, and in that moment—it doesn’t feel like a moment, it feels like a minute, a long, drawn-out, breathless minute—Tom is suddenly and brutally struck by the desire to kiss him.
He doesn’t.
“Thank you,” he says instead, hoping against hope that he seems nonchalant enough, that neither his body nor his voice betrays the sheer unadulterated terror that lances through him like a brilliant, mercilessly bright bolt of lightning. There is a scratching ache in his chest that he decides to pay no attention to as the moment passes, Malfoy leaning away now and nodding his polite farewell, Tom returning the gesture, both of them moving on for yet another social lap of the ballroom.
He drinks a little too much to drown that ache, but he is far from drunk when he finally apparates home. Still, there is something caught in his throat and the dry heaves dissolve into a coughing fit when they don’t dislodge whatever it is that got stuck.
He knows, but he desperately tries to delude himself, trying to swallow the horrible little thing—but of course it won’t go down.
On the first morning of the new year, Tom Riddle coughs up a single, paper-thin, heart-shaped petal, and has to wait a whole day for the Ministry’s library to open so that he can check the meaning of the cursed thing, just in case it is something less horrendous than realizing that his obsession with Abraxas Malfoy is, in fact, unrequited love.
But the garish pink petal turns out to be geranium, for folly—and that’s so bloody clear that it leaves no room for delusions.
At first it’s entirely manageable; Tom can predict exactly what will cause an episode, and he has ample time to retreat somewhere private while he weathers the storm. He learns that geranium petals come in all kinds of colours, but at least they are not too big, unlike the lily and tulip petals that he remembers Myrtle Warren almost choking to death on, back when Olive Hornby was rumoured to have found a girlfriend.
But then one otherwise unremarkable February day Abraxas Malfoy strides into Tom’s office, drops a Victorian-looking gilded card on his desk, and goes, “What in Merlin’s name is a Valentine?”
And not even a full ten minutes after Tom’s very short explanation is done, he is coughing up half a flower’s worth of thick white petals.
Gardenia, for secret love, one of the many identification tomes informs him. He is sick of the lingering floral smell, he is sick of the tickling sensation of those petals curling up in his lungs, in his throat. The episodes are proper fits now, and even though he slowly trains himself to hold them back for as long as half an hour, he is only hacking up those bloody gardenias now, and never just a single petal either. The disease can be triggered any day, because Abraxas Malfoy keeps coming around all the time now, probably trying to snoop and covering it up with all kinds of fit-inducing personal questions.
It doesn’t hinder Tom too badly, because he simply won’t let it, but it is becoming a permanent annoyance.
Catastrophe catches up to him on a balmy May afternoon, at a luncheon in the newly resculpted garden of the Lestranges’ Sussex estate. There is a constant breeze blowing, but even so, the weather is lovely and warm, allowing a thorough appreciation of the topiaries of dying magical creatures and the victorious forms of Lestrange ancestors standing over them—if one is prone to appreciating such things.
Tom isn’t prone to appreciating any kind of gardening choices in the first place, but it’s the least of his troubles; Abraxas Malfoy is dressed in a verdant shade of green that makes him stand out amongst the rest of the men, all in minute variations of forest green. It is impossible to not watch him, and Tom finds his eyes drawn in a way he can’t control.
He knows that he can’t last forever, but he is still, as it happens, overly optimistic. He strikes up a conversation with Minister Tuft, which is going really rather well, and he fully believes that he will be able to finish it too before he has to make up some sort of an excuse for slipping away to cough up yet another mangled gardenia in relative peace.
But all of a sudden their conversation is joined by none other than Abraxas Malfoy, cordial and unfailingly polite, and Tom’s windpipe is blocked.
“Excuse me,” he chokes out before rushing away, barely even noticing Tuft’s look of surprise at his hasty retreat. He can worry about damage control after the panic subsides, because until Tom finally manages to get around the corner of the manor, far away from the crowd so that he can begin choking on bloody flowers without anyone bearing witness to it, he cannot breathe.
He knows it before the first flowerhead falls from his lips, because by now he is intimately familiar with the sensation of a bunch of petals crawling up from his lung and this is not that, this is worse, but it’s still a shock to see a fully formed daffodil head on the grass. It’s one of those greenhouse award-winning special breeds, luxuriously thick cream white petals wreathing a rich gold double layer of frilliness in the centre, and if Tom didn’t feel like collapsing at any moment, he would laugh.
A flower suited for a Malfoy.
He keeps coughing, except it’s not as much coughing as it is a desperate attempt at not choking, and he loses count of the flowerheads gathering at his feet. In what feels like no time at all yet also an eternity his vision of them blurs, and he has to put a hand on the wall to keep himself upright. He can’t tell how long this episode will last, and it feels like it won’t stop—it feels like Tom will collapse before he can get the last of the daffodils out, like his body will surrender to death for these flowers. He feels feverish, overheated and freezing at the same time, his skull aching with the force of his hacking coughs.
He is also shaking, but he only realizes it when there’s suddenly a hand on his lower back and his entire body seizes up with panic into a statue-like stillness.
“It’s just me,” Abraxas Malfoy says, and judging from his tone he means those words to be reassuring. Tom is quite literally incapable of being reassured by anything he could possibly say, because the last person he has ever wanted to find him in such a pathetic state is now standing over him. “Oh, Riddle.”
Tom is fairly sure that he is imagining the fondness in Malfoy’s voice, partly because Malfoy has no reason to be fond of him, and partly because he feels almost delirious with pain and a lack of air, so imagining just about anything is a possibility. The flowers stop crowding his lungs as suddenly as they appeared, but the pain lingers, and he feels almost dizzy with it.
“Here,” Malfoy pushes something in the hand Tom has fisted in the front of his dress robes, as if that could alleviate the ache of his lungs, and a blurry glance confirms that the silkiness is because it’s a proper handkerchief, probably embroidered with the Malfoy crest and all that. “There’s blood.”
Tom presses the handkerchief against his lips as he is carefully manhandled into standing, guided away from having a steadying hand on the wall. It’s not a great idea, but he doesn’t have the strength to tell Malfoy, still shaking from the whole despicable ordeal and the fact that he has managed to reveal his worst vulnerability to the one person who should have never learnt of it.
“Come now,” the other man says, voice smooth as always, but also sweeter, gentler than it usually is. It is also unlike Abraxas Malfoy to be gracious about a grown man all but slumping against him, which is what Tom can manage at the moment, pushing that handkerchief against his mouth as if it could take all those bloody flowers back. “There’s no woman worth getting so out of sorts over.”
“’s not a woman,” Tom mutters, not paying much attention to his words as he closes his eyes wishing, for the first time in his life, to just die on the spot.
“Oh?” Malfoy exhales, and the arm Tom hasn’t noticed was wrapped around his waist tightens for a moment. “Well, a man too blind to appreciate you isn’t worth it either, sweetheart.”
Much like he hasn’t noticed Malfoy’s arm, Tom suddenly becomes aware of the fact that he himself, in fact, has two hands; and while one of them holds the silk handkerchief, the other one is holding on to Malfoy’s shoulder, as if he were some pretty little witch trying to swoon into an unsuspecting wizard’s arms.
But as Tom’s minds slowly clears enough to start feeling ashamed about that, it also clears enough to realize that Abraxas Malfoy has two hands as well.
One is holding Tom’s waist, which, frankly, is not the most inconspicuous place to casually touch another man in the first place, but then there’s the other hand, which is somehow finding its way into Tom’s hair, Malfoy’s palm a hot, soothing weight on his nape.
“It’s a shame, wasting your time pining for someone,” Malfoy continues, his voice slipping into an even lower register, into something velvety that is definitely not a tone common between political rivals, “when you could be… enjoying yourself.”
Tom is forced to reevaluate his entire relationship with Abraxas Malfoy from their first meeting to this very moment, standing in what seems to be a strategically placed little corner of the tasteless gardens, complete with a bloody cushioned wide bench—as if the three-foot thick Silent Spruce hedges surrounding them weren’t enough to make sure a visitor noticed that this is where discreet love affairs are supposed to be conducted—but it’s not making much sense after that reevaluation. Yes, the location and the fact that Malfoy is holding him in a way that anyone else happening upon them would describe as non-platonic are pointing to one thing, but Abraxas Malfoy has never made his interest in Tom known, and he doesn’t see why he would miraculously begin to do so now.
Still, it is equally unlikely that Malfoy is just trying to help, and doesn’t notice the place he took them to, or the way he is holding Tom. And did he accidentally call him sweetheart of all things?
“Feeling better?” Abraxas Malfoy asks, and for the life of him Tom can’t hear anything in his voice but actual friendly concern.
“Yes,” he rasps, removing his hand from the other man’s shoulders, because whatever the situation might be, there’s definitely no need for that. He should really begin to disentangle himself from their surprise embrace too, but it is shockingly comfortable, and since he is relatively sure that it won’t last long enough, he doesn’t move.
“Good,” Malfoy all but purrs, not showing any signs of wanting to let him go either. He tilts his head down, his words a warm caress against Tom’s neck which makes him shiver with the imagined promise of that mouth on him. “In that case, let me take your mind off of the bastard.”
Oh.
So perhaps that was more promise than imagination.