Chapter Text
Harry Potter was not the type to have one-night stands.
He swore he wasn’t. He was the type who drank exactly one beer, went home before midnight, and ate leftover takeout over a medical journal while mentally preparing for his next twelve-hour shift. That was what he told himself, anyway, as he trudged through the biting October wind toward the only bar within stumbling distance of St Mungo’s General Hospital.
It had been one of those shifts—twelve hours of chaos squeezed into eight; three codes; one loss; one infant who thankfully survived; a hundred emotions he didn’t have the space to feel. He was exhausted down to the marrow, his scrubs still faintly smelling of antiseptic no matter how long he’d stood under the blistering shower.
He just wanted a drink.
One drink, he promised himself.
Just one.
The bar was warm, noisy, red-lit, alive in a way he hadn’t been in months. He found a stool at the end of the counter, ordered a whiskey he didn’t usually drink, and let himself stop thinking.
And then he walked in.
A stranger so beautiful Harry’s brain flatlined.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dark hair swept back like sin. Eyes—sharp, intelligent, cutting—like they could read a person with a glance. A tailored black coat, undone now, revealing a button-down shirt that clung to an unfairly perfect chest. He looked like he didn’t belong in a grimy hospital bar; he looked like he belonged in a penthouse suite overlooking the Thames, holding a glass of wine worth more than Harry’s monthly rent.
But he sat next to Harry.
And smiled like he already knew how this would end.
“Long day?” the man asked, voice smooth and warm as melted chocolate.
Harry huffed out a laugh. “Something like that.”
The stranger eyed him—really eyed him, gaze dragging over Harry’s hair, still damp from the shower, over the faded sweatshirt, the exhausted slump of his shoulders. But there was no judgment. If anything, the attention sharpened.
“I’m Tom,” he said.
Tom. Of course his name was Tom. Short, elegant, deceptively simple—like him.
“Harry.”
“Harry,” Tom repeated, like tasting it. “Well. You look like you need another drink.”
He signaled the bartender and ordered two whiskeys without asking what Harry wanted. Normally, Harry would be annoyed. But tonight—tonight he was suspended in something warm and strange, like the world had softened around the edges.
When the glasses arrived, Tom clinked his against Harry’s.
“To surviving hell,” Tom said.
Harry raised his glass. “And to doing it again tomorrow.”
They drank. The whiskey burned, but pleasantly.
Tom didn’t ask what Harry did for a living. He didn’t ask why Harry looked like he might collapse or why his hands shook faintly when he lifted the glass. He just talked. And listened. And flirted—God, he flirted—with such precision that Harry didn’t notice until he was already falling into it.
“You stare at people like you’re cataloging them,” Tom murmured at one point, leaning close enough that Harry felt his breath on his jaw. “I like it. You’re observant.”
Harry swallowed. “Occupational hazard.”
Tom’s brows rose. “Do tell.”
“No,” Harry said too quickly, and Tom laughed, low and smooth.
It should have made Harry pull back. It made him lean in instead.
One drink became two, then three, and Harry realized—slowly, helplessly—that he didn’t remember the last time someone had looked at him like he was interesting. Beautiful. Worth focusing on.
Tom looked at him like all of that and more.
And when Tom’s fingers brushed his knee under the bar, Harry didn’t pull away.
He leaned into the touch.
He let himself want.
Wanting turned out to be dangerous.
Because one moment they were talking; the next Tom’s hand was on his waist, guiding him toward the door; the next they were outside, wind cold, Tom warm, Harry warmer.
“You don’t have to—” Harry began, breathless.
“I know,” Tom murmured. “But I want to.”
And Harry—who never did this, who was always responsible, always careful—whispered:
“Okay.”
Tom’s flat was close—two blocks away, modern, minimalist, smelling faintly of cedar. Harry barely registered it. He remembered Tom’s hands more than the space: large, confident, sliding under Harry’s shirt; unbuttoning his jeans; pushing him gently against a wall. He remembered kissing him like he hadn’t kissed anyone in years. He remembered Tom’s mouth—hot, demanding, perfect.
He remembered saying Tom’s name.
He remembered Tom saying his.
He remembered falling apart.
He didn’t remember falling asleep.
Harry woke before sunrise.
His head ached faintly. His body was pleasantly sore. Tom was asleep beside him, bare chest rising and falling steadily, dark hair tousled against the pillow. He looked younger like this. Softer. Human in a way Harry had not expected.
Don’t stay, Harry told himself.
Don’t make this complicated.
He slipped out of bed, dressed quietly, paused only once to look back—
—Tom shifted in his sleep, brow furrowing, like he sensed Harry leaving.
Harry fled before he could change his mind.
He arrived at the hospital thirty minutes early.
He was rarely early for anything.
He spent the extra time scrubbing his hands like he could wash the night away, but the feel of Tom’s hands on him lingered like a burn.
Stupid. So stupid.
He was a doctor. He needed clear boundaries. He needed—
“Dr. Potter?”
Harry turned. The head nurse stood in the doorway.
“New consult for you,” she said. “Room 312. Young man. Abdominal pain. A bit…intense. Charming, but intense.”
Harry grabbed the chart.
“Name?” he asked.
“Tom Riddle.”
Harry’s heart stopped.
No.
No, no, no—
But when he opened the door to Room 312, the universe confirmed it hated him.
Tom Riddle was sitting on the exam bed, shirt half-unbuttoned, dark eyes lighting up the second he saw Harry.
His smile was slow. Wicked. Knowing.
“Well,” Tom said, voice like velvet. “Fancy seeing you again, Doctor.”
Harry almost dropped the chart.
This was a nightmare.
A gorgeous, smirking, devastating nightmare.
Tom tilted his head. “You left awfully early this morning. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t call.”
Harry stared, mortified.
Tom’s smile widened. “Oh, Harry. This is going to be fun.”