116Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last part of "Kept Man."
Part Four
Harry lay in front of the fireplace in the flat that Riddle had handed him the key to last week. It was supposedly their fucking place, but they had actually only spent one night together here, and Harry didn't think Riddle would intrude tonight.
Instead, he stared at the reflection of flames from white marble, and took a series of deep breaths to relax himself as much as possible.
Did he believe Riddle when he stated that he wanted to change the world, and wanted to do it with Harry's help?
Yes, he did. In some ways, Riddle might play him as false as James Potter had, but he would at least announce the new terms of their bargain if it changed. And Harry thought their sexual relationship could end and he could still remain a valuable ally at Riddle's side. Riddle had to know that Harry had no more to gain than he did by telling the truth about their affair.
Did he want to remain at the side of someone who knew such secrets about him, though, and had made this kind of bargain in the first place?
Harry snorted in the next instant. As if he was ethically pure. He had known that he would snatch advancement if he could, at nearly any price. He wouldn't have murdered anyone, and he wouldn't have done something to forge records because he couldn't do it well and he would have been caught. But the world had coarsened him since he'd left Hogwarts. He couldn't be the idealistic person he had once been because reality didn't work that way.
And if he thought about it, he was being offered a more honest chance to get ahead in the Ministry than he would have if he had grown up a Potter. There, he would have been tracked into Auror training because he of his name, regardless of his NEWT and OWL scores. Here, he had a chance to be seen for what he was, even approved by people like the Minister.
All because Riddle wanted to fuck me.
Harry opened his eyes and stared in silence into the fire, the way he had at the wall of Milady just a few hours ago. This time, at least there was no portrait to wink at him with what they assumed was the sauciness of his thoughts.
It's more than that, and you know it.
Yes, Riddle had found another Parselmouth, and he had done something besides confront Harry with it, or blackmail him, or extend a formal offer of alliance to him. He had started the sex first, presumably because he wanted to show Harry how good it could be and skip over a few steps of the possible persuasion. If the idea was already in Harry's head, he would resist it less, too.
Riddle had acted like a Slytherin, which was what he was, in every sense of the word, but Harry honestly didn't feel manipulated. Riddle had stopped the manipulation now, as far as Harry could tell, and was extending an honest offer. Harry would get no better, might get far worse, if he turned this down.
And, to be honest with himself for the final this time this evening?
I don't want to turn it down.
It was no longer even just about the fact that Riddle was one of the few people who could protect him from James Bloody Potter. Harry wanted to rub his father's nose in it. He wanted to join his father's political enemy and bring down the system that James Potter had, in the end, been such a faithful part of. That would be revenge far sweeter than any other he could get, since being promoted in the Ministry just provoked the same tantrums and attempts to control him.
But there was something he wanted to do first.
Lily was so still, sitting with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes on the floor. Harry wanted to shout, clap, poke her, do something to make her eyes blaze and focus on his. But, of course, part of the reason that he was here was that no one had done that in a long time.
"You really mean that," Lily whispered finally. "All those years that I was trying to give you a relationship with your father, you only hated it and resented it." She took a stuttering breath. "It was a waste of time."
"You were doing what you thought best," Harry said quietly. "And I was a child, and then I was an adult who thought that you should keep doing this if you wanted to and I couldn't control you. But I finally realized I was letting him control both our lives by not telling you how much I hate seeing him here. Mum, please. If you want to go on meeting up with him for some reason, fine. But don't bring me into it again, and don't do it for me."
Lily swallowed and reached out to clasp his hand. Harry took hers and squeezed it hard. He thought he could make out the first threads of grey in her brilliant hair if he looked, which hurt a little.
"Then, fine, I won't see him again," Lily said. "I thought-I always thought that this would be the time that I could get him to give you just a little more attention, or just a little more help, or just a little bit of the Potter fortune. Or a relationship with Livia and Annabelle."
She was able to say Livia's name without grimacing, which was more than Harry could do. A surge of admiration for his mother's strength overcame him, and he stood up and went over to hug her without letting go of her hand. Lily grasped him strongly enough that Harry's shoulders hurt.
"I don't want one with Livia," Harry said quietly. He knew that James was far more to blame than his wife for the marriage, but Livia had also loudly proclaimed her belief in blood purity and the necessity of turning one's back on illegitimate children every time she'd spoken to the press. Harry had no use for her. "Annabelle can seek me out when she's old enough, if she wants. She might never do that. I'm not going to put my life in limbo and endure my dolt of a father because someday she might want one."
Lily nodded slowly. "Then you think I did the wrong thing."
She had permitted James's visits in the first place because she had feared doing the wrong thing and cutting a son off from his father, Harry knew. Now he shook his head. "You did what you thought was best, what would have been best if my father had a moral bone in his body. As it is, it's just a difficult time that's in the past now."
Lily hugged him again, and then drew back to study his face. "And this affair you're having with the Senior Undersecretary? You're satisfied that it's for the best?"
"Yes. It might not be permanent," Harry added quickly, because he knew his mum had doubts about that. "But it feels like it could be. And it's the best offer I'll ever get. And I want him."
Lily gave the faintest grimace at those last words, but smiled the next moment. Harry was sure she just didn't want to know any more about his sex life than she'd heard when he'd been in Hogwarts and Flooing her to complain every time a fling ended. "Good, then. For what an old woman's blessing is worth, Harry, you have mine."
"I'll take my mother's blessing gladly," Harry said, bowing his head. "And you promised me that you would try to develop that enchanting business, finally. You've had your training for a year."
"Your father could still scuttle it. The license has to go through that committee he's on."
Harry laughed. "And whose office does it go through first? The Senior Undersecretary's."
Lily looked a little shocked. "I'm sure that-I'm not sure it's moral to-"
Harry squeezed her hands again. "If it's moral for all the pure-bloods to benefit from the structures in place for them, it's moral to get a license expedited for the good of a hard-working Muggleborn. Besides, Riddle doesn't even need to use undue influence for you, just make it clear that he would be very displeased if any influence was exercised in the opposite direction."
Lily looked hard at him. "And you're going to ask for that clarity."
"Yes," Harry admitted without shame. "I'd do it even if you didn't want me to, Mum, honestly. I've had enough of the way James Potter puts you down."
Lily smiled a little. "If this is the only time you do it for me. And I mean that, Harry James Evans. I need you to make the decisions that are best for you, but once I have my enchanting business well in hand, I don't want any more favors."
Harry nodded. He suspected the hard thing to do would be controlling Tom from going off and doing something on his own if he saw a situation involving Lily that he could make the difference in, rather than holding back his own impulse to interfere.
And I just called him Tom for the first time.
Harry left his mother's house with a warm glow in his belly and the determined promise of a happier future at the forefront of his mind.
"You have made your decision."
Harry raised his eyebrows a little as he put down his hands flat on the table in Tom's office. "You don't know that. I could have come back to ask for more information, or a better bargain."
"You know the first bargain was entirely in your favor."
Harry tilted his head, not wanting to dispute that. He'd even wondered about it at the time, but not enough to refuse. "So I am telling you, Tom Riddle, that I will work with you to disrupt the pure-blood system and forward the interests of half-bloods and Muggleborns."
Tom closed his eyes for a long second, which Harry took as a tribute. He could imagine that it had been a long time since Tom had shown that kind of weakness to anyone. A second later, Tom opened them again and leaned forwards. "And what will you ask for, besides the work itself?"
"That you make it clear to my father's committee that failing to license my mother's enchanting business will be taken most seriously."
A faint smile played around the corners of Tom's mouth. "And your mother agreed to that? She struck me as a formidable, upright woman."
Harry shrugged slightly. "She is. But she knows that otherwise, my father will block her from opening up the business at all, so she'll take what she considers unfair influence to fight unfair influence. She did say that that's the last assistance she'll take from you, and she wants me to make it clear."
From the way Tom smiled absently, Harry was sure that he was going to be just as difficult to keep on a leash as Harry had anticipated. But Harry was going to work at it. After all the men in his mother's life who hadn't respected her wishes, Tom should. "What else will you ask?"
"No more secret sexual relationship."
Tom blinked once. "As you wish. But please keep the clothes, the new flat, and my other gifts."
"You aren't listening to the nuances of my words, Senior Undersecretary Riddle," Harry chided softly, reaching out to catch his hand. "I want a public sexual relationship. A consortship. I know you've never publicly claimed a consort, but on the other hand, I am not some passing fancy. Claim me."
Tom's eyes burned bright as candles for a moment, then dimmed. "That's not advisable when you just made Auror trainee. There are too many people who will spread the rumor that it only happened because you graced my bed."
"Introduce me as the only other living Parselmouth in Britain," Harry suggested, smiling as he thought what his father's face would look like when that happened. "It should explain for everyone who needs to know why you chose me and why you took me under your wing."
"Ah, I see." Tom leaned towards him, his eyes wide and bright. "We make family relationships work for us, again."
Harry nodded. How could pure-bloods question Tom forwarding the interests of his family without questioning their own desire to do so?
"Are those all your demands?" Tom asked softly. His right hand twitched.
"All that I can think of right now," Harry said grandly.
Tom stepped around the desk and gripped his shoulders. "I have thought in the past few days so many times of taking you over this desk."
Harry laughed and lay down on his back, spreading his legs. It was amazing how much more confident he felt, knowing that someone wanted him for who he was, what he was, and would stand by his side even after he had let him into his bed.
"Over this desk, Harry. On your stomach."
Harry might have balked a few days ago. That had been a favorite position of Draco and some of the other pure-bloods who had "deigned" to fuck him. It might have stirred bad memories. But Harry rolled on his belly without complaint, and felt Tom's hands tremble as they reached out to smooth down his back next to his spine.
"You should eat more," Tom murmured.
"Fucking now, lectures about health later," Harry said, wriggling his arse, and heard Tom's breath catch before he cast the spell that deprived Harry of his clothes. His own fine robes got shed and draped carelessly over a chair, Harry was amused to see from the corner of his eye.
Tom cast the lubrication and pain-killing spells wordlessly, but planted a kiss between Harry's shoulder blades before he started to press inside Harry. Harry didn't need more than that to know what this meant to Tom. He moved slowly, his hands tracing worshipful patterns down Harry's skin, and that was another sign.
As for Harry, the slow glide was almost pure pleasure from the first moment to the last. He encouraged Tom with low grunts, but never spoke. He didn't think he needed to.
Besides, he was waiting for one particular moment.
Tom's thrusts grew more savage, more erratic, and he swore under his breath. Harry lifted himself on his elbows and turned his head back. Tom's eyes met his, almost desperate.
"Come, if you want to," Harry hissed, picturing a snake in front of his eyes as hard as he could to ensure he spoke in Parseltongue.
Tom shuddered above him, and came so hard that Harry felt it as a spasm in his arse. He smiled and followed, relaxing the tight hold he'd used on himself until that point. Pleasure swept through him, and only increased when Tom bent down and gathered him in his arms.
"You have no idea what you do to me," Tom told the back of his neck, some timeless time later when Harry returned from the silence at the heart of his orgasm. "I will never find someone else like you."
"You don't have to." Harry yawned against his arm and shifted. "Now, the edge of your desk is pressing into my groin, so unless there's some urgent reason we need to stay here, can we go find a bed?"
Tom mouthed his nape, waited until Harry was shivering and hard again, and pushed himself back with a groan. "I have a meeting in ten minutes. I'll deal with cleaning up my desk and making any excuses I need to. You deal with straightening your robes and preparing your speech."
Harry, halfway to upright, stared suspiciously back over his shoulder. "Speech."
"Tomorrow I'll be announcing you as my consort," Tom said, eyes widening with what someone would have had to be several meters away to mistake as innocence. "Did you think you would get away without a gracious speech of acceptance?" He clucked his tongue. "That is the kind of unfamiliarity with politics that we simply must cure, Harry."
On his elbows and still naked wasn't a good position to hit someone from, but Harry made a spirited effort.
"Chin up, Harry."
Lily's voice was soft, but Harry smiled at her and nodded. If anything, this should be less nerve-wracking for him than her. There were people who would accept an ambitious half-blood of good family; it had always been more Harry's legitimacy and last name that worked against him than his mixed blood. But his mother was Muggleborn, and had to fear disdain from both sides.
Minister Granger cleared her throat, and the reporters and Aurors and Ministry flunkies stopped shifting about the Atrium and focused on her. "I understand that Undersecretary Riddle has an important announcement to make," she said, and moved out of the way. She actually winked at Harry before Tom separated them with his body. Harry grinned. Granger had to approve of what was happening here, even though she wouldn't know the truth about the origin of Harry's Parseltongue, any more than the others did.
"Thank you for coming," Tom said, his voice calm and yet with an undertone of genuine joy that made people gape at him. "This is an announcement that some of you might think it strange for me to make, but I wanted to take the opportunity to correct misconceptions as well as spread the news."
He lifted his hand. On one finger gleamed a thick silver ring in the shape of a serpent biting its own tail, a special shape that only those of Slytherin's blood were allowed to wear. Heart thrumming now, Harry lifted his hand to clasp Tom's.
The roar started on the far side of the Atrium and swept around it, gathering sound and body as it went. By the time it reached them again, or so it seemed, it had grown into a tsunami of noise.
Harry wore, also, the silver ring that Tom had given him yesterday.
"How?" more than one throat cried. "Why?" shouted others, and Harry caught Draco Malfoy's eye as he voiced that. Malfoy turned pinker than ever. Harry grinned hard.
He had wondered, himself, if they were pushing it to claim that Harry was of Slytherin's blood, but Tom had pointed out that no one except the two of them and Lily were aware of where Harry's Parseltongue had really come from, which meant claiming he was of Slytherin descent was the simplest explanation. Besides, Tom loved the idea of implying that Slytherin lineage had flowed through the veins of Harry's supposedly purely Muggle ancestors on Lily's side of the family, or else manifested from the Potter heritage that had been denied him.
"What implications does this have, Senior Undersecretary?" Minister Granger finally managed to voice. She was still grinning as if she was on the edge of mental.
"It means," Tom said, into the quiet that Harry suspected had been imposed by spells, it was so sudden, "that I have found another member of my family that I have been long searching for. Show them, Harry, dear."
"I'm showing you," Harry said in Parseltongue, and nearly spoiled the effect by laughing at the astonishment crashing onto the faces of every pure-blood present. The rare Muggleborn Aurors and Ministry officials looked surprised, but not as if the foundations of their world were being melted into slag.
"And that being the case," Tom continued fluidly, "I am claiming Harry Evans as my consort. Some of you will have been aware already that he was serving a political apprenticeship under me. Now my claim will be closer."
"But he's an Evans!" Malfoy shouted, somehow fast enough to get his objection in before anyone else's. Idly, Harry remembered that he had been pretty speedy in the bedroom, too. "You can't claim him!"
"As my consort, his last name will be either Riddle-or Slytherin," Tom said, his eyes nearly as brilliant as they had been when he and Harry were making love in his office. "Together, we are entitled to resurrect that ancient name."
"He's illegitimate!" shouted someone else.
"Meaning that his mother has sole claim to him. And the brilliant, talented Lily Evans agrees with me that her son deserves a place at the top of the hierarchy." Tom smiled at Harry's mum, who stepped forwards with her head up and her face flushing a little.
"He is my son!"
That was James, of course, striding forwards with his face and his plum robes almost the same color. Tom squeezed Harry's fingers for a moment in reassurance, but didn't respond. Harry nodded subtly. This would be their first test, and he had to speak, too. He couldn't count on Tom to rescue him all the time.
"You never had a claim on me," Harry told him. James stopped and stared at him, but one hand was clenching as if he would leap up and try to strangle someone. Harry for preference. "You dangled the possibility of it over my head all my childhood, but you always went back to your legitimate wife and child in the end." He lifted his eyes and let them sweep over the avid crowd. "Did anyone know that, I wonder? That you continued to visit your mistress long past the end of the relationship, and your bastard long past the time when you should have decided to legitimize me or give me up?"
"That is-I wasn't sleeping with her anymore!"
"But you continued to visit me." That was Lily, her hands on her hips and her eyes bright with the fire that Harry thought had been missing for so long. "I was trying to do the pure-blood thing. The family thing. I thought I would give you a chance to bond with Harry, and that it was wrong to keep a son from his father. But you were never interested in being a father to him. You wanted a victim, not a child."
There were cameras clicking behind them and quills scribbling away, and James was turning redder and redder. "I have the claim of money!"
Lily laughed. "What support did you give me? All my lying-in expenses and the expenses of rearing Harry, I took on. In fact..." She paused, although Harry knew she had already come up with the plan to expose this "secret," and looked around the Atrium. "Would it surprise you to know that he asked to borrow money from me at one point? It seems the Potter vaults were feeling the strain of a spoiled heir and his Malfoy wife."
Malfoy bellowed something incomprehensible. James did lunge forwards, and collided with the invisible barrier charm that the Minister's Aurors had put up. As he bounced back, two of them stepped forwards and grabbed his shoulders smartly.
"If you'll come with us, sir," the one on the right said.
"I can still claim Harry!" James yelled, struggling in place. The Aurors hesitated, since that was a pure-blood "right," and James shook them off and leaned forwards. "Come with me, Harry. I promise that you'll have the name Potter by the end of the week."
"Legitimization doesn't take that long," Harry said, letting his lip curl. "You could draw your wand right now and wave it and declare me a Potter. Let's see you do that if you mean it, Father."
James hesitated. And hesitated. The moment drew out, broken by the laughter of Muggleborns towards the back of the room.
"You see," Harry said softly, never taking his eyes from James. "Not even powerful magic and Parseltongue is enough to make him do the honorable thing. Because he never wanted me, just someone to control and spurn when he felt like it."
"You don't have the right to become Senior Undersecretary Riddle's consort!"
"I'm above the age of requiring parental consent," Harry told him sweetly. "But even if I wasn't, you were never my parent. And let me assure you, the Senior Undersecretary is above you in every way."
He turned and met Tom's eyes. They shone with pride and love, and Tom rotated their hands so that the silver rings flashed before the bewildered eyes of everyone there.
"I suggest you leave before I have you thrown out, James Potter," Tom said, eyes locked on Harry's face. "I will be taking an Evans as my consort."
Harry treasured the bewildered expression on his erstwhile father's face as he was hustled away, but he treasured more the dark-haired man who had approached his mother and was conversing in a stilted way with her. Harry knew very well that some of the unexpected money his mother had had now and then when he was young had come from Severus Snape, the Potions master at Hogwarts. It was possible that, if they were both still interested in it, they would find their way to a deeper bond than they'd been capable of as children.
Not that his mother would need the monetary support anymore, now that she would soon be successfully running her own business as a master enchanter. But Harry wished for his mother to have all kinds of happiness, including companionship if she wanted it.
His own companion stole his gaze back as Tom began to answer the reporters' questions. The Minister was fielding them the way Tom usually did for her, her smile bright and complacent. Malfoy was still pink. James was staring angrily, impotently, from the far side of the room.
But best of all was the way that Tom held his hand, casually, possessively, tightly, without looking away from the people who demanded answers from him.
Harry leaned his head on Tom's shoulder, and sighed. Being a kept man had delivered him into Tom's keeping, and he couldn't rejoice more strongly at that than he already did.
The End.