Chapter Text
✴ 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖆𝖎𝖑𝖞 𝕻𝖗𝖔𝖕𝖍𝖊𝖙 ✴
Tuesday, August 8, 2006
NEW “LEY-LINE” SYNC STABILISES ALL MUGGLE TECH
Five years after the arrival of the first magic-proof phones, the Ministry has successfully neutralised the primary cause of magic-electric interference. A new “Aether-Net” stabilises the ley-lines, allowing any standard Muggle device to function seamlessly, even in the heart of the wizarding world.
*
If Tom ever needs a way to drive someone insane, he now knows what the best way to achieve it is. It’s locking the enemy into an old, stuffy house with an alcoholic Gryffindor for a week.
Tom is an extremely strong-willed individual, and even his psyche is slowly starting to crack under the conditions. His thoughts are starting to stray.
It’s causing issues. Being unable to focus is making research difficult.
He’s been ghost-ish for days, and still doesn’t understand the physics behind it. He gets another reminder of it when Potter suddenly pulls off his sock, causing the Stone to roll out and Tom to fall through the chair he’d been sitting on.
“Sorry,” Potter says, but the word carries no meaning when it’s blended with a mocking chuckle.
“What do you think you are doing?” Tom asks as he picks himself up.
Why can he stand on the floor but not sit on a chair? What sense does that make? He should have questioned the Hogwarts ghosts more about their daily lives when he had the chance. He should have done so many things. He should have paid attention to everything instead of wasting so much time on pointless shite like caring about his status among the Slytherins and spending whole nights with them just to gain their trust.
People are useless. People who exist on a different timeline are even more useless.
“I need a shower,” Potter explains, and starts pulling off his already indecent, red Gryffindor-themed shirt right there in the drawing room. “This heat wave is killing me. I’m not even kidding—I’m so sweaty I think we may actually drown in it.”
He’s so uncouth. So disgusting.
So useless.
He’s also telling the truth, albeit exaggeratedly. Tiny beads of sweat cling to his lean chest, gleaming as Potter moves under the sunlight seeping through the thin slits in the heavy curtains.
Tom averts his eyes. “Would you mind?” he asks, sickened by the lack of basic manners. He is so tired of this dirty house, Potter’s awful habits, and the disgusting food they eat every fucking night.
“What?” Potter asks. “Did you not share a dorm with boys at Hogwarts?”
“Yes, but Slytherins have manners, and therefore know how to remain respectful regardless of the prevailing weather.”
It isn’t even that hot. Tom feels just fine.
Potter snorts. He seems cheerier than he has in the several days Tom has spent stuck in this house—a house Potter seems way too reluctant to leave. Their cohabitation is far from smooth, but sometimes Potter relaxes in Tom’s presence.
Sometimes Tom feels like, perhaps, he could do it, too. But then Potter does something stupid, reminding Tom that nothing has changed. It’s exactly like the Hogwarts dorms: being surrounded by brainless idiots who will never understand him.
But at least with Potter, Tom doesn’t have to play the part of the polite, charming model student, because the act rarely works on him anyway. Potter already knows everything. He seems to know things even Tom doesn't. It’s terribly inconvenient, but also somewhat… freeing.
“What exactly are you afraid of?” Potter continues almost playfully. “Don’t worry, I didn’t crush Voldemort with my abs.”
Tom scoffs.
Potter is so stupid. And Tom isn’t afraid of anything. Seeing such a display simply makes him uncomfortable. It makes his throat feel tight and his cheeks too hot, like a bad fever.
And it’s exactly what happens when he accidentally glances Potter’s way and catches sight of his bare chest. The muscles on his abdomen are much more toned than Tom expected, considering all the beer and pizza he seems to consume on a daily basis. It’s nothing like the chests Tom has seen before. They were teenagers. This is a man.
The differences between those two have suddenly become very clear. He’s not sure why any of this matters, but it does.
Perhaps it's just teenagers who are useless. Potter is a grown wizard who must have some exploitable qualities.
“Are you okay?” Potter asks.
Tom realises his eyes had wandered back there again, and quickly raises his head to meet Potter’s odd stare. Is he bemused? Suspecting something?
“Of course,” Tom says, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Didn’t you have somewhere to be?”
Potter furrows his brows and nods. Then he marches towards the door, fortunately keeping his trousers on, and disappears into the hallway.
Tom exhales deeply, even though nothing comes out. Why are his cheeks so warm? His senses are completely dulled in this stupid ghost mode Potter keeps forcing him into, so why is he suddenly feeling pointless things like this? Did Potter do something to him?
Is it a side effect of this strange bond between them? Or is it merely the dust he has been inhaling for days, clogging the gears of his mind and shunting his thoughts onto the wrong tracks? Trainwreck seems exactly the right term for whatever he’s slowly headed toward.
It’s all so annoying. And confusing. And frustrating.
And Tom still can’t interact with the world. The book he was reading lay on the coffee table where he’d put it just a moment before Potter ruined everything, but now he can’t turn the pages. Why can’t his nonexistent body focus on learning the important things?
Or perhaps he’s set the initial goal too high. He should start with the easier tasks. Every ghost knows how to float through things—Tom has walked through doors—so that must be the beginner level. But he hasn’t yet fallen through the floor, so maybe that’s where he should start exploring the basics of incorporeal life.
He lies on his back on the carpet, spreading his arms and legs like a starfish. Potter should vacuum sometime. Or get a fucking house elf to do it, like normal people.
The carpet feels like empty space under his back. Like lying on a cloud. If he closes his eyes, he feels like floating in nothingness, which is why he usually tries to keep them open. But now he tries to focus on that emptiness. He should be able to fall through it, because it’s nothing.
Nothing…
Tom opens his eyes to make sure the Resurrection Stone is still safely on the floor where Potter left it, and then shuts them again and tries to clear his mind.
Nothing…
Just lying on a cloud…
…a cloud above a soothing thunderstorm…
He’s just a relaxed body, temporarily floating on a different plane of existence… Unrestrained by the earthly obstacles…
With eyes closed, he starts pressing his left arm down against the floor. It’s strange—he can’t feel the carpet, but there’s firm resistance that keeps him from pushing his limbs down.
And a long moment later, it’s still there. No matter what he does, gravity refuses to bend to his will.
Tom snaps his eyes open to find himself exactly in the same spot he’d lain, and groans.
How is it even possible? To be unable to learn something?
Did he turn into a moron? Was his brain left behind somewhere in the 1940s when the rest of his body was yanked here, into moron Auror Potter’s bedroom? Along with his magic, no less!
What would even be the point of living as some useless, magicless imbecile?
Tom blinks a few times in an attempt to get rid of the dark spots from his vision, but they only start swirling around. He stares at the darkened ceiling panels above him and wonders what would happen if one of them fell on his face. Would it be preferable if the other option were to get his body back and go work in a fucking shoe factory and die of influenza or whatever those worthless Muggles tended to die from before they turn forty?
Tom slaps his hands on his temples and squeezes, even though he can’t even feel it. He can still imagine the pressure against his brain, and hope it’s enough to crush the ridiculous thoughts right out of his head.
He killed himself, Potter had said.
Was this how Voldemort had felt? Self-destructive despair?
Are these Voldemort’s thoughts?
“You don’t look so good,” Potter's voice interrupts, and this time, it’s not merely an echo in Tom’s head.
The dark spots finally stop dancing when Tom turns his head toward the door, where Potter is standing. Wearing only some sad, ugly excuse of trousers, upper body dripping wet, again.
Does he not know what towels are? Is he incapable of drying himself?
Is he doing this on purpose? Just to add more misery to Tom’s life? To make fun of his proper manners?
Tom faces the ceiling again. It’s better to count the cracks in the old, weathered paint than to entertain the odd thoughts that keep popping into his head whenever Potter acts like that.
When Potter hires an elf to clean the carpet, he should also make it paint the ceiling. One of the cracks looks like a lightning bolt.
Perhaps all these thoughts are Voldemort’s fault, too. His moronic, senile brain wants to die, and also touch Potter’s chest to find out how firm it really is. Perhaps that’s why Voldemort wanted to kill himself—he was too embarrassed about the things he wanted to do, like how he probably wanted to touch the rest of him too… or go even further and—
“Should I put it in now, or…?” Potter asks.
Unspeakable imagery pops into Tom’s head.
“No,” he blurts, pushing himself up to sitting position. Only then does he realise Potter is holding the Stone, about to turn it and put it back in his sock.
Tom can feel his cheeks heating again. His heart is beating louder than any ghost’s fake organ should.
What the fuck is wrong with him?
“What I mean is that keeping the Stone in your sock is demeaning, and I demand that you find a more respectful way to carry it,” he explains, the words automatically spilling from his mouth even though his own voice sounds like meaningless white noise.
“Some degradation would probably do you some good,” Potter says shamelessly, either because he can hear Tom’s thoughts or because he’s completely oblivious of the situation currently unfolding in his head. “Perhaps it would teach you compassion,” he continues.
Must be the latter.
“Really?” Tom retorts because the words just keep pouring out, like destiny has already written his dialogue and he's just here as a puppet to play in some sick show. “I believe it would only make me bitter and teach me new sadistic ways to treat people.”
Potter rolls his eyes. He turns the Stone three times and rolls it under his rumpled sock leg.
When he walks past, Tom is struck by a potent aroma—a mixture of cold, fresh water and something charged, like the air before a lightning strike. It is what Potter usually smells like, though it is rarely this invasive. Normally, it is drowned out by the reek of Firewhisky, greasy food, and the stale scent of clothes that haven’t left the building in months.
Fuck, he smells good. It’s like a drug.
Right.
Because it is a drug.
Tom lets out a relieved breath.
Potter is attempting to lead him into a trap. Of what nature, Tom cannot even surmise, but that is a reasonable explanation.
Tom tries to think about yesterday’s Potter—the one with greasy hair and pizza burps. Somehow, the sheer disgust finally helps him to calm him down. He can feel the ground again. And see colours in their proper vividness.
When the world has stopped spinning, Tom realises he’s still sitting on the dusty carpet and quickly pushes himself up, adding some distance between him and the treacherous source of that aphrodisiac stench.
He looks around to find something else to focus on.
“You need to clean here,” he says, pointing at the floor. “Basic cleaning charms only go so far, especially since you clearly haven’t bothered to regularly use any.”
It’s uncertain if anyone has ever even pointed a wand in this room’s direction—at least not since the summer-long domestic lessons Walburga Black always drones on about in the Slytherin Common Room.
Potter yawns. “Maybe you should do that.”
“I am not an elf,” Tom says sharply. “And I have better things to do. I’m doing all the research here while you stare at the wall upstairs.“
To prove the point, he grabs one of the heavy books he was reading before his important work was interrupted by Potter’s pectoral muscles and the daily dose of existential crisis.
“That reminds me,” Tom says as nicely as he can. “I need to talk to a ghost.”
Potter hums. It’s not agreeable hum, but it’s not disagreeable either. He sits on the chair he was sitting in earlier, next to the table he’d left one of his little devices on. Potter said this one was a phone, but Tom has never seen him call anyone. Sometimes he just holds it and presses the numbers for no apparent reason.
He does that now, too. He has a focused expression on his face, and only his thumbs are moving. Tom is dying to know what purpose it serves, but he tries not to sound so clueless all the fucking time. He has no intention of providing Potter with any more ammunition during these embarrassingly desperate times.
After a minute, the device lets out a melodic beep. Potter slams it back onto the table and sighs, looking disappointed. Then he looks at Tom.
“Teenagers should do chores, shouldn’t they?” he asks all of a sudden. “So they learn all that valuable life crap, and grow up to be good people. You need a serious dose of that.”
Tom thinks about the orphanage and wonders how many of those kids end up becoming something better than streetwalkers or shady crooks. Probably not many. And they had a ton of chores.
“I’m not cleaning your house,” he says. ”Get a house elf.”
“I have one.”
“You cannot be serious. This fucking house is about to collapse under all the grime!”
“He’s not here,” Potter says slowly, as if Tom is the stupid one here. “He’s at Hogwarts.”
“You can’t exactly afford to donate your house elf to the school when your home looks like this.”
“It’s a good thing I have you now, then,” Potter smirks.
“No.”
“Vacuum the house, and I’ll arrange a meeting with a real ghost.”
Tom’s stomach starts burning as the suppressed rage inside him gathers into one large boiling mass. His jaw tightens as he tries to hold in the words that try to escape his mouth, ones that will not help his case. He swallows them, along with his pride.
He reminds himself of his goals. The little mental checklist of important things he needs to achieve in order to fix everything. There will be a time when he can take revenge on Potter for everything he’s done—once he’s gotten his body and his magic back. But to make that happen, he needs to figure all this out.
He can pretend to be a fucking house elf if he has to. He can do anything, he’s just that good.
So, he plasters on a tight but convincing little smile on his face.
“Fine.”
Potter looks surprised. He didn’t think Tom would do it. But that only proves that the self-absorbed fucker knows nothing about Tom.
The room echoes with loud humming and frustrated groaning. Every so often, a bang joins the racket when Tom bumps into furniture or knocks something over with the annoyingly short power cord, which keeps snagging on corners and table legs like a tripwire.
Tom has seen vacuum cleaners before—not quite like this, but similar. Older and clunkier. He’s never used one, though. Cleaning was supposed to be a housewife’s duty. At the orphanage, the girls usually did it so they would become good, useful women and marry well despite their poor childhoods and limited education. Boys didn’t have to do such pointless, menial tasks. They were to learn meaningful skills so they could one day take care of themselves, instead of leaning on others for the rest of their lives like some parasite.
The thought of effectively being Potter’s housewife adds a flicker of prickly lightning bolts to the dark grey rain cloud hanging over Tom’s mind. It doesn’t help that Potter is presently sitting in the room, eyes flicking toward him even as he pretends to stare at his phone. His radiating sense of superiority makes Tom want to vomit.
Tom kicks a rolled-up rug so it settles back into place. He tugs the appliance deeper into the drawing room to reach behind the disgusting, empty owl cage, but the cord is stretched to its limit and pops free again. With a miserable groan, he tosses the handle of the powerless vacuum onto the floor.
How has his life turned into this?
“How do you even have electricity here?” Tom snaps, grabbing the cord and stomping toward a more conveniently placed socket. “The Blacks would never have added that Muggle shite. And you’re supposed to let the elves deal with cleaning—especially in an old house like this.”
“I had the place added to the power grid when I lived here for a while after… the war,” Potter says. “Wasn’t easy. I had to dissolve the Fidelius Charm, so the installers could even get inside.”
Poor Walburga Black must be rolling in her grave. She is—or was—exactly what a family like the Blacks would want their daughter to be: sophisticated, traditionally inbred, and ready to dedicate her meaningless life to fornicating with her assigned cousin and hating all things Muggle.
“Why bother?” Tom asks.
“I didn’t want to live in the 1800s,” Potter says distractedly.
The device in Potter’s hands does the melodic beeping sound again, and he frowns.
Tom can’t hold the question inside any more. Soon, he will not be able to hold anything inside any more—he’s so close to reaching his limits in every possible way.
“What are you doing with that?” he asks.
“I’m playing Snake.”
“What?”
“It’s a game. You control a snake and try to eat food so it grows into a bigger one.”
Tom drops the cord and marches to Potter instead. He grabs the phone-thing, ignoring Potter’s protests, and looks at it closely. The device has a grid of numbered buttons and a green-lit box above it.
It looks pointless. Who needs a light attached to their phone? And isn’t it way too small to house a snake?
“I don’t see a snake,” he says flatly.
“You need to start a new game. Just, let me—“ Potter stands up to snatch the phone, fiddles with the softly clicking buttons, and then hands it over. “There.”
Now, on the greenish screen, a tiny black snake really does slither across, slipping off one side only to reappear from the other. Like a tiny Muggle version of the Wizarding paintings.
“Eat the food,” Tom hisses in Parseltongue.
“It’s not an actual snake. You can’t talk to it, you need to use the buttons to change its direction,” Potter says, visibly amused.
But Tom doesn’t have time to be embarrassed about it.
“You can speak Parseltongue?” he asks, bewildered.
He’s never heard anyone speak it. He was supposed to be special. The only Heir of Slytherin, the last of the line.
“Kinda,” Potter replies, uncomfortably massaging his neck. “I guess I got it from you—I mean, Voldemort.”
How could the ability be transferred to someone?
Unless…
Tom does some quick maths.
Did Voldemort—did he have children? The probability seems extremely low, but it wouldn't be the only questionable decision his future self has made.
“Are you related to me?” Tom asks, dreading the answer.
“Are you insane?” Potter asks, as if offended by the mere idea of belonging in the same bloodline as Tom Riddle.
“It’s a logical conclusion!” Tom argues defensively, even though it’s really not. He should stop blurting out his wildest theories out loud. He would never do that in normal circumstances.
Potter looks ill. “Oh bloody hell, I have never even thought about Voldemort having kids. Imagine how fucked up they would be. Could that be possible?”
It’s probably a rhetorical question, but Tom has an answer: “No.”
He can’t think of a single woman he could ever touch that way. So there’s exactly zero chance of that ever happening, even by accident. And since he’s planning to live forever anyway, there’s no reason to pass on his genes.
Potter seems somewhat relieved.
“How did he give it to you?” Tom asks. “And why?”
“I suppose it was a side effect of the Horcrux.”
“What Horcrux?”
“Well, when he tried to kill me—the first time, I mean—and the curse went haywire, a piece of him got lodged into me and—“
“Are you joking?” Tom asks incredulously. “I have done all this work, and you didn’t bother to mention that there was a piece of my fucking soul inside you?”
Potter crosses his arms in defiance and sits back down in the awful, moth-eaten armchair.
“It’s not there anymore, we destroyed them all. And I told you I didn’t want to give you any stupid ideas you might want to repeat,” he says.
“I would never put my soul in a living being! Eventually, they die, and the soul dies with them, defeating the whole point!”
“Well, Voldemort didn’t seem to think so. He made two.”
Tom buries his face in his hands. Why would he do that? It sounds ridiculous. Voldemort sounds ridiculous, which is kind of an awful thought since it’s what Tom would have grown to be.
“What were the other Horcruxes?” he asks, even though he’s not sure how much disappointing information he’s able to take right now.
Potter presses his lips tightly together.
“I will find out whether you tell me or not,” Tom presses. “You can’t change that, so you might as well speed this up. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life with me.”
Potter sighs dejectedly and starts counting with his fingers. “Me, Nagini—she was a snake—the diary, the ring— oh.” his eyes widen, and then his whole expression turns dark. “I… know what this is.”
“What is?” Tom asks, furrowing his brows.
Potter ignores him and sighs miserably. He leans back, staring at the ceiling, and mutters, “This whole thing. Fuck, I need to—I need to go to work.“
“Now? What for?” Tom asks, growing impatient.
“No, on Monday. I was supposed to go back on Monday. I need to see some files about a case. What day is it?”
Tom rolls his eyes. “Merlin, you’re delirious. It’s Saturday. What case? Does it have something to do with the Horcruxes?”
“It’s classified.”
“You can’t exactly leave me behind, so I’m going to see everything anyway,” Tom says, biting his cheek to keep his face neutral when he realises he’s going to get a private tour in the Auror headquarters. It must be filled with all kinds of government secrets. Who knows what kind of things he could learn there, especially when nobody can even notice his presence.
Finally, something good has come from all this.
“I’ll tell you when it’s necessary,” Potter says just to be difficult.
“You are the worst judge of that,” Tom notes, annoyed. “You didn’t bother to tell me you’re a bloody walking ex-Horcrux when it absolutely was necessary to tell me. I have done so much work—”
“Shut up already, or I’ll put you on a time-out.”
“Who do you think you are to—“
Tom clamps his mouth shut when Potter leans down towards his sock, which he still uses to hold the Stone against his skin. Looking infuriatingly smug about it too, as if having complete control over the state of Tom’s solidness and making him do Muggle chores weren’t enough.
Tom curls his fingers into fists, his nails digging into his palms until they sting. He clenches his jaw so hard his teeth groan under the pressure. He tries to swallow the anger, but there’s too much of it.
He wants his wand back. He wants to feel that power in his hand so he can show Potter exactly who is in control, who is going to put who on a fucking time-out. He wants to strip the smugness from Potter’s face and replace it with the cold, hollow terror Tom has to live with every waking second.
He wants to make him feel as helpless, as useless, and as utterly trapped as Tom is now.
He wants him to hurt. He wants him to bleed.
CRACK!
Tom reflexively closes his eyes just in time before tiny shards of glass raining from the ceiling like a falling firework touch his face.
One scrapes a long, thin cut across his cheek. It stings.
When he opens his eyes, the room is silent and dark—lit only by the weak glow spilling in from the corridor.
“What the fuck was that?” Potter demands, sounding alarmed. He’s sprung to his feet, body tense in a battle stance—though without a wand and only his empty hands raised and ready.
Tom looks up. In the dim light, he can see the broken light bulb dangling from the ceiling lamp, as someone had just hit it with a beater’s bat.
A small surprised laugh escapes from his mouth. In any other situation, he would feel embarrassed about accidental magic happening at his age, but now it’s a lifeline. Proof that he’s not entirely helpless. That there’s still power inside him. Buried and unstable, but in reach.
He can still feel it. Rushing inside, making his blood hot.
“Electricity mixed with old magic,” he lies, staring at the slowly steadying lamp. “It can be dangerous, everybody knows that.”
Potter exhales heavily. “I hate this fucking house. Lumos.”
Small baubles of light float up from his hand, casting long shadows across the room. The floor is littered with tiny glass shards. Potter looks around, sighing again, but then his eyes fixate on Tom’s face.
Quickly, Tom tries to wipe the elation off his features. Potter doesn’t need to know everything. If he knew Tom had access to magic, he’d try to take it away, too.
“Your face is bleeding,” Potter says.
Tom brushes his cheek with the back of his hand. It comes away red. None of it matters, though—his body always comes back shiny and pristine every time Potter drops and picks the Stone up again.
Perhaps Tom’s whole body is magic.
It would make sense.
Perhaps he is magic.
“It’s fine,” he says in a neutral tone, even though the burst of joy inside demands something else.
Potter vanishes the shards from the floor. It takes a few attempts before the spell works, so perhaps his wandless magic isn’t quite as impressive as Tom thought. There are probably a thousand tiny shards left that he will have to vacuum later.
“I’m sorry my useless fucking house tried to kill you,” Potter says. His ever-changing mood has turned broody again.
He’s so ridiculous—even if it was the house, how would it be his fault if Tom got hurt? Is there no limit to his infuriating martyr complex?
“I said I’m fine,” Tom hisses and wipes the blood, this time with the sleeve of his white shirt. It will also be squeaky-clean when Potter gets another temper-tantrum and momentarily drops the Stone, and the universe has to provide Tom a new magic body again.
“Just—let me heal it before you ruin my precious Persian rug,” Potter says dryly. “It would be such a shame if I had to go to IKEA and buy something that looks less like woven memoirs of a slave trader.”
Tom glances down. The rug’s intricate pattern seems to illustrate a hundred house-elves straining under a massive pedestal, carrying a group of well-dressed wizards on their backs. But then a shadow falls across the floor, hiding the grotesque scene when Potter steps forward, right into Tom’s personal space.
He really doesn’t smell like day-old booze today. Tom can’t get over the sharp, tangy odour surrounding him. It shouldn’t even be pleasant, it’s like a mix of wet metal and burnt grass, but he can’t bring himself to dislike it.
It’s so familiar. Inviting.
Tom swallows hard, his throat dry, even though his mouth is suddenly overly wet. His heart is still drumming from the magic, and his mind keeps bouncing to places he doesn’t want it to go.
Potter was a Horcrux. Tom tries to remind himself of it. It’s the reason he can’t concentrate properly when he’s around. His head is a compass that starts spinning wildly whenever Potter comes too close with his stupid Horcrux-stuffed chest.
It's just the bond from the Horcrux creation process. Even if the soul isn’t there anymore, the bond won’t go anywhere.
Tom needs to say something, anything, so he forces the words out. “Why do you live in this house, then, if you hate everything about it?”
Potter’s expression darkens. He raises his hand, and his fingers brush against Tom’s face. Tom has never stood this close to anyone. He’s not sure why he’s allowing it to happen now. When people get too close, they might see too much.
Potter’s fingers are cold, but his touch radiates warmth—which doesn’t even make any sense. He whispers a healing spell, and the magic caresses Tom’s skin, sealing the wound shut. The stinging sensation is replaced with burning heat.
Can ghosts be healed?
Potter doesn’t move. His fingers hover over Tom, but his eyes stare into the distance.
“Because I can’t go home,” he answers quietly. “Because if I go there, everything falls apart.”
The moment of tense silence stretches before Potter finally pulls his hand away and takes a step back, putting the space between them once more.
Tom can finally breathe properly. He can finally process Potter’s words and wonder what exactly falling apart would mean, if it’s not drinking all day every day and avoiding work, his overly attached friends, and life in general.
“Why not?” he asks, voice cracking, which he fixes quickly with a half-cough. “Angry ex-wife?”
Potter purses his lips.
“I wish,“ he says quietly and takes off his glasses to rub his eyes. “I’m going to go to sleep. I’ll fix the light tomorrow. Then we’ll try to get you a ghost date.”
Before Tom can even say anything, Potter agrees to his own plans with a determined nod and then disappears into the hallway.
Tom looks up to the broken light and tries to call forth his magic again. It doesn’t respond.