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Harry remembers the very first time he saw Tom Riddle skate.

He is only five, and Tom is eighteen.

Harry’s just learned to skate backward. His mummy taught him one night after she’d closed down the rink to the day-skaters. He’d sat on the bench after school, swinging his legs, watching as his mummy and daddy’s students were trained through double axels and fell on triple loops. They weren’t very good, he thinks privately, but he knows better than to say it out loud anymore.

The last time he had, Sirius, Remus, and Daddy had thought it was funny, but Mummy had not.

So, Harry has learned to keep quiet, especially when Mummy had threatened not to take him to World’s ^[1]. Worlds is in London this year, so it’s only a car trip away and he bounces in his seat the entire time. When he gets there, Harry meets so many skaters—a lot of them is his Mummy and Daddy know because they were skaters too.

They even won the Olympics when Harry was three, but he doesn’t remember because he was little.

Strangely enough, Harry doesn’t think he’ll remember much of this Worlds either.

(He is right on this. But.)

But, he remembers this—the very first time he sees Tom Riddle skate.

Harry knows who Tom Riddle is. His Mummy and Daddy watch him on television intently and Harry watches with them. He watches the eighteen-year-old boy who looks so big and lithe and powerful go across the ice with grace and speed. He watches him jump triple Lutzes and quad flips like it’s easy at the Grand Prix Final, which he’d gotten silver in. His Mummy and Daddy said it was because Tom Riddle had finally hit his final growth spurt, towering over a lot of the other skaters.

Even with how tall he is, he looks almost like a fairy on the ice. He floats.

Privately, Harry thinks that Tom Riddle’s triple axels could be better, but he’s only five—almost six—so he doesn’t say that.

He’s not even sure why he thinks it, he just knows it’s true.

It’s the short program. ^[2]

Harry is in the front row, tucked between his godparents. His Mum and Dad are in the back, next to their student. Harry thinks he’s okay, but not enough to get on the podium. He’s eavesdropped on his parents, and they think the same. But, he was good enough to get an invitation to Worlds, and that’s enough, they say, even when it’s not.

“Representing Great Britain, Tom Riddle.”

The applause is louder for him than anyone else, but he’s not even going last. He’s solidly in the middle of the pack. Harry claps his hands over his ears, looking around, as he is deafened and then the world falls silent as Tom Riddle takes center ice.

This close, he seems even taller. There are older skaters that came before him and after him, but Harry thinks he’s never seen anyone look so sure of themselves.

Tom Riddle looks up at the judges and the piano begins. He flies across the ice, circles it. He is beautiful. He is probably the most beautiful thing in Harry’s entire world, and Harry knows what it is to be awestruck when Tom Riddle flies into a quad toe loop.

When they crown him with laurels and wrap gold around his neck, Harry closes his eyes and imagines him in Tom Riddle’s place.

*

Harry remembers the very last time he saw Tom Riddle skate.

He is fifteen, going on sixteen. He’ll be debuting soon, an entire year after his rival because of the cut-off date. He’s training hard to catch up to his friends, both of them having debuted. He tries not to have any regrets except this one—that he’ll never share the same ice with the incomparable skating legend.

Tom Riddle takes center ice, hands stretched out. Harry stands between his parents—neither of them have a student in this division and Ron and Hermione have already finished.

He can practically hear the commentators.

“This year has been Tom Riddle’s year. Breaking free of long-time coach, Albus Dumbledore, after a year off, he has pushed boundaries, broken records, all set by him by the way. And at 28, you’d think he would’ve peaked. But, no. Still going strong.” ^[3]

Harry swallows as the chorus erupts over the strings and Tom Riddle goes into his first entry position. And it’s a quad loop-triple axel combination right off the jump. It’s like butter. Perfect extensions. Arms raised above his head. His hands move with the swell of the brass and he spins, going through another jump pass—quadruple toe loop-Euler-triple flip. Then, into a step sequence.

Harry is still in juniors, the last of his class to be in it. He won gold this year at Junior Worlds and the Junior Grand Prix without the distraction of the others. He knows it means nothing when Draco Malfoy just finished on the ice with what’s clearly going to be a Bronze medal routine at Worlds in his debut year.

Harry tries not to think about it. He wants to think of nothing else but this eternal moment on the ice. 

Because this is a master class.

Every spin. Every turn. Every triple axel.

Tom Riddle is teaching them all what it means to seize greatness in his two hands.

As he enters his last jumping pass, the strings stop. There is just the choir. Harry watches as Tom Riddle takes off, and he knows he will remember this. He will.

Tom Riddle takes off from the ice and twists through the air with ease. Four rotations. And then, another half to land backwards, arms held out as he glides across the ice.

He remembers his mother’s whispers, “He just did a quad axel.”

The crowd does not erupt. There is only silence as the music quiets and Tom Riddle goes through his last step sequence, spinning and twisting, his expression distorted by victory. He finally comes to a stop at center ice, where he goes into a combination spin, hands reaching up to the heavens as he straightens, and then he poses as the music storms to a stop.

Harry feels so far but so close. He thinks he can read the expression on Tom Riddle’s face.

Harry will remember that day for the rest of his life.

“And with that final moment in history, his own World Record shattered, and the first certified Quadruple Axel, Tom Riddle leaves it all on the ice, retiring at 28 as the four-time World Champion.”

Harry’s made a home on this ice. He’s grown up on this ice, at Godric’s Hollow Ice Park. He does not remember, but there are photos of him at age two standing on the ice in tiny little white figure skates, the boots laced up tight by his mother’s hands.

She keeps those tiny skates on a shelf; the rest of it is empty, except for a few bronzes from his debut year, and his two golds from his last year in juniors. Harry thinks that they meant to one day fill whole trophy cases with his victories. He pretends that it does not bother him that he does not have any.

He rubs at his forehead, where white jagged scars, fracturing like lightning grace his brow. It doesn’t bother him anymore. Or at least, he pretends it doesn't bother him, the evidence of that awful crash and fall that ended with a wicked scar and a tiny bump in his nose. But, he does it to focus.

He blinks to clear his contacts just a little.

“Through the choreographic sequence again, Harry. I just want it a little cleaner,” Lily says. She’s holding up her little pad as she takes notes, biting at the endcap and humming. She’s not even looking at him.

But.

But.

Harry goes through it again, moving across the ice that he calls home. He moves, hands cutting through the air as he makes each precise step across the ice, keeping his rinkmates at the corner of his eye as his father coaches Ron and Hermione through their lifts. He spins and then falls into his hydroblade, going across the ice and if he looks up, he can see his mother’s nod of approval.

Beat. One. Two.

Ina Bauer, layback position. His back cracks.

He hopes his mother doesn’t hear it so she doesn’t force him into another hour of yoga. He comes up out of it and twizzles. He aborts his next jumping pass and he can feel his mother’s sigh in his bones. Harry should push through to his next step sequence, but he doesn’t. The music is gone, loosened from where he keeps it in his teeth, in his blood. He slows to a stop and turns to look at Lily, hands on his hips.

“It’s not right,” he says.

“What’s not right?” Lily demands, raising an eyebrow.

Harry shakes his head. He can hear the music in his head. The choreography in his thighs. The jumps are placed wrong. Too conservative, most of them in the front half. His choreography-sequence, he likes. He designed it. The twizzles, the rocker, the Ina Bauer, the hydroblade. The delayed single axel. But nothing else.

“We should move one of the jumps to the back. My quad lutz—”

“It’s not ready yet,” Lily says firmly. “If you can’t hit 80% of the time—”

“We don’t do enough jump training to know that I can't hit it,” Harry counters.

This is an old argument. An eternal argument.

He bites his tongue and looks down the ice where Ron and Hermione are going through their original dance. They’re in sync. They’re always in sync. Their music blairs, distracting, mostly because it’s fucking Ed Sheeran, which Harry knows embarrasses Ron, and he will continue to contribute to that, thanks.

“Hey, look over here, we’re arguing, kid.”

Harry glares down at the boards instead of meeting his mother’s eyes and she clicks her tongue, a familiar and affectionate sound. Very slowly, he looks up.

“I know you want to win, kiddo, but as your coach and…as your mum…I want you to be safe,” Lily says. “So no quad lutz until you can hit it 80% of the time.”

“But—”

Lily holds up a finger. “We’ll get you on the harness to practice after your first break. Good?”

Harry doesn’t quite unwind, too coiled by irritation and expectation and desperation. He looks behind Lily and squints. He can’t quite make out the portraits on the wall, but he’s already memorized them. The Olympic wall

1992. 1994. 2002. His parents’ achievements are bookends to his birth. He knows who’ll be on that wall next. He looks down the ice. Hermione and Ron.

He looks towards the locker rooms—

“Okay, Harry, again,” Lily coaxes.

But, the Ladies’ Grand Prix Gold medallist is a mess of fire as she skids past the boards, bent low and forward like a speed skater in burgundy UnderArmor.

Her laughter is infectious as she circles him and Harry lazily turns with her. His mistake.

Harry jumps when a hand collides with his arse and before he can turn, she’s skating past him, skidding to a stop, spraying ice in her wake. She grins up at him, eyes bright, freckled face so lovely, that Harry remembers what it was like to be fifteen and in love.

“Someone’s been working out that arse, ” Ginny taunts.

“Hey!” Lily shouts from outside of the rink. “This is not a hockey rink. Do you want to assist the clean-up crew for the lunchtime Zamboni?”

“No, thank you, Coach!” Ginny shouts over her shoulder, before she turns back to Harry, hands on her straight hips as she regards him. She looks him up and down, absolutely wolfish.

“You’re late,” Harry observes.

“No. I had early morning ice time with your mum alone,” Ginny says. “Working on my triple axel. I wanted to ask you, but I was told that you can’t stress out your ankle.” She sounds like she’s mocking him, but she’s really mocking them.

She understands frustration. Particularly Harry’s.

“And how is it?” Harry asks.

“Well-rotated. But, you know I prefer a flip.” Ginny shakes her head. “Can’t believe you prefer the hardest jump and your routines look like that.”

“Ginny,” Harry snarls, but Ginny shakes her head, skating backward.

He can’t help but forgive her immediately. He always forgives her, because she’s nearly always right, even when she’s stomping all over the wet beating heart that he’d offered her, bloodied, from his own chest.

“I came out here for a reason,” Ginny says, raising her voice.

Her voice echoes around the rink and Remus looks up from his novice skaters, all of whom spend most of their practice sneaking circumspect glances at the reigning Women’s Grand Prix gold medalist and the World Champion ice dancers. Said ice dancers look up, falling out of twizzles even in unison.

Harry grimaces and tries not to snort at the disgusted sound that rises from the back of Ginny’s throat.

“Is there a reason you’re interrupting an ice session?” James demands from his end of the rink.

And Ginny pulls her phone from the back of her skin tight leggings, waving the small phone in her freckled hand. “Grand Prix assignments just came out.”

“Fuck!” Ron barks and then he’s darting across the ice, low and fast. Hermione isn’t far behind him and she circles him even as he comes to a hockey stop, spraying Harry and Ginny with ice. Ginny’s hypocrisy has never been more clear than when she curses at him.

“If you two would stop behaving like children—” Hermione says primly, holding her hand out expectantly.

Ginny gawks at her, hand tightening, but Hermione just clucks her tongue and Ginny hands it over petulantly. Hermione is sweating in her unitard, tight curls escaping from the slick puff that topped her head, spilling forward into her eyes like bangs. She squints down at the phone screen, tongue just poking out from between her lips.

Hermione doesn’t notice Harry’s parents coming up behind her, nor does she notice the way Ron’s eyes linger on her mouth.

Harry wouldn’t have noticed either if Ginny hadn’t pointed it out last season and now Harry notices every time.

“Okay. Ron and I are going to Rostelecom and Cup of China,” Hermione says. She looks over at Ron, raising an eyebrow. Ron snorts back at her; in the next fifteen seconds, they have an entire conversation that makes Harry envious. Hermione smirks. “We’ll be ready.”

“You will,” James agrees gravely. “Ladies?”

Ginny grimaces. She’s always resented that— Ladies.

“Ginny…is at Skate America and Rostelecom too!” Hermione says.

Ron grins. “Nice,” he says, slapping his hand against Ginny’s, tugging her towards him and looping a strong arm around her neck.

“What did I say about play-fighting on the ice?” Lily warns, far more dangerous in tone than James. The Weasleys separate almost immediately. “And Men's?”

Harry tries to pretend he doesn’t feel the knot in his throat.

“Harry’s at Skate America with Ginny,” Hermione reports promptly. Harry grins over at her and she smiles back, brightly. “But, he’s at NHK Trophy alone.”

“Well, that’s alright. A lot of time between NHK and Skate America to tighten everything up,” Lily observes. She’s already on her phone, taking notes. She looks over at Harry. “Do you want to run through the short again with music?”

Harry keeps his gaze on Hermione. She’s still looking. She hasn’t handed the phone back.

“Malfoy?” Harry asks quietly. “Where’s Malfoy in all of this?”

He hates the grim silence that falls over the group, only covered by the shrill cries of happiness as Remus teaches the children a single axel.

Hermione worries her bottom lip. “Malfoy is…at Skate America too. And then Trophée. So, at least—”

Harry phases her out, staring hard down at the ice.

Draco Malfoy. The reigning World silver medallist.

Harry rubs his scar and looks over at his mother. “Let’s go through the short. Again.”

Harry has always known where his issues lie, in terms of his skating. The technique is precise. But, it’s also conservative. His music choice is uninspired. The limitations of his choreography don’t allow for the fullest PCS. And none of it feels unique to him. None of it feels like Harry at all. Every turn, every twizzle, every sit spin is a tribute to a legacy that he has done nothing to earn or shape.

He doesn’t think his parents mean to do this. That they mean to limit him.

But, their shadows are long, so long it’s hard for him to see out of the dark.

Harry has spent his entire life staring up at the ten Olympic medals, five apiece. It’s hard to think that there are other precious metals but silver and gold.

“What are you thinking?” James asks, sitting across from him.

“I’m not thinking anything,” Harry lies. He’s always been a poor liar, and his father’s very pointed stare down at Harry’s untouched salmon says it all.

“Harry,” James sighs. “Do we need to talk?”

“What makes you think we do?”

James rolls his eyes. “I hear we’ll be practicing your quad lutz after lunch,” James says.

That catches Harry’s attention. “Not Mum?”

“No. She’s working on finalizing Ginny’s short and free,” James says. “And she’s a bit…intense. I don’t think she expected both you and Ginny at Skate America.”

It’s the first time that both Harry and Ginny have the same assignment. Harry knows his mother; she’s harder on herself than she is on anyone else. Every failure she takes to her core and she hardens herself just a little more, so that she can be better. A better coach. A better mother. Harry thinks she grieves their losses even more than they do.

It makes Harry’s feelings a little more complicated.

“Gin’s feeling the pressure too, I suppose,” Harry allows.

Grand Prix Gold medallist. Of course, she is. She wants to perform. She wants to win.

No one says anything about Harry winning. He wants to tell them that he won’t blow up anymore. He won’t get angry; he’s an adult now. He has to be an adult about this.

“Dad,” Harry starts and he pretends his father isn’t looking at him eagerly, “I wanted to potentially talk about my free. I think it’s missing something.”

“Oh, yeah? What?” James asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Er…me,” Harry blurts out.

James hums. “You wanna pick a new song? It’s a little late but…”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Harry says. “I just don’t think there’s anything about me in the piece. I don’t feel like me. Every time, I skate, I feel like I’m floating outside of my own body. And it doesn’t help. I need to connect with the ice, and I just can’t—”

He’s starting to ramble. His ears are growing hot. Even still, James nods like he’s hearing every word.

“Well, Harry, it’s still rather early, but I think we’ve been working on this for a time. I…hm, I’ll discuss with your mother—” James starts.

“No,” Harry interrupts. “No, I don’t. Well.”

Harry’s forehead falls to the table. He closes his eyes; he knows what he wants. He knows.

He also knows his parents want what’s best for him. What they think is best for him.

He feels his father’s hand on his shoulder. “I’ll talk to your mum about transitions. Your step and choreography sequences are three times as good as hers anyway. And it’s a crime you don’t have a Biellmann in there. None of the other men can do that .”

Harry takes it. Takes what he’s given. He doesn’t push for more.

He never does.

He didn’t when he got dumped. He didn’t when he lost time and time again to fucking Malfoy. He doesn’t now.

When lunch is over, Harry does the quad lutz again and again, dangling from the harness, until he can feel it bunch in his muscles. He can feel the ghost of the jump. He doesn't get push from the others, but he’ll push himself. Even as his feet burn.

“Take a drink of water, Harry. God, you make me tired,” Ron jokes as Harry takes off the harness under James’ careful eye.

“Only once, Harry,” James warns. “And then, the four of you have ballet with Madame Bagshot.”

Ron groans, but Hermione looks properly excited. Harry puts his back to them, staring at the ice. The kids are gone. Now, it’s just Ginny running through her short. Her triple flip is as always stunning.

Harry stares down at the ice. His ice. His mother and father’s ice.

And then he skates into it, going, gliding over the ice. He feels the speed coming as he circles his half of the rink. From the corner of his eye, he sees his mother. She should be watching Ginny, but she’s not. She’s watching him.

Harry refocuses.

A deep outside edge. He pushes off with his toepick with all his might but keeps it controlled. He keeps his upper body loose as he keeps his legs slightly crossed and then, he’s in the air. He always loves being in the air. This is where he belongs.

It’s like a suspension in time, and then, he’s coming down again. He finds his feet.

This feels familiar.

When he lands, perfectly, hands outstretched, he is sure to keep his eyes forward, ignoring the applause. He slows to a stop just in front of his father.

James grins. “That was great, Harry,” he says, “now get changed for—”

“No. Again.”

And Harry goes again.

The studio isn’t much of a studio. It’s a repurposed yoga room, with wooden slats thrown over a rubber floor. The back wall is covered in an unforgiving mirror from ceiling to floor. Harry grips the bar tight as Bathilda Bagshot waddles forward.

Harry has seen a picture of her in her youth, when she was thin and swan-like with a long neck and long forearms, body in retiré. But, now, she is old. She’s still tiny, barely level to his chest, but her skin smoothed by the age of old photos is transparent and folded. Her face is dotted with broken veins and liver spots. Even still, she seems regal, leaning on a gnarled cane, her eyes bright and alert. Her long white hair falls over her left shoulder and she purses cracked lips as she watches their warm-up.

“Very good extension, Harry,” Madam Bagshot says.

Harry used to find satisfaction in her praise. He doesn’t anymore.

“Just like that, Hermione. Strong back. Do the adagio combination across the floor for us,” Madam Bagshot commands.

Hermione steps forward. Her curls are pulled tightly back, the edges slicked down by her hard bristle brush and gel. She has a serious expression on her face as she goes through the combination, her delicate arms floating through the air, though never without purpose. She lifts onto her toes, anchoring her supporting leg as she extends her foot high and moves across the ground.

Harry smirks at her from his position by the barre. She looks so serious, but he knows what she’s thinking.

This is a waste of my time, her brow says.

He looks down and over at Ginny and her lips are pulled into a grin as Hermione finally finishes in perfect position.

“You have time to laugh, Ginevra?” Madam Bagshot barks, more fierce than ever. “You, then.”

Ginny grimaces. “Isn’t it Ron’s go?” she nearly whinges.

“No.”

Ginny sighs and steps away lazily.

Unlike Hermione in her perfectly picked out ballet ensemble accompanied by slippers from some stupid store named Capezio, Ginny hadn’t bothered to change out of her UnderAmor. She’s always shirked away from the pink ballet tights and leotards. But, her clothes aren’t what hinders her. She makes it through the combo, hits every beat.

But.

“Ginevra,” Madam Bagshot tuts, “all that power coiled but you struggle with grace.”

Ginny flinches at the reminder. She grips harder at the bar and stares straight ahead as she goes through her routine.

“Harry, show her how it’s done,” Madam Bagshot says.

She doesn’t say it, but she always does this. Showcases Harry to show Ginny’s shortcomings. Privately, in the middle of the night, when Harry thinks about where it all went wrong, he wonders if this was part of it.

Even still, he goes through the combo again and again. He dances across the floor and thinks that in another life, he might’ve been a ballet dancer. He might’ve been in something where he could still submit his feet to the altar of art, his toenails as offerings.

He thinks this as he skates that night, long after dinner, after he’s snuck out with his father’s keys to the rink. He only turns on the overhead lights as he stands in the middle of the rink. He’s never been able to perform this skate, not even for an exhibition gala. It’s new and fresh and all his own—when he’d placed third at the Autumn Classic, he’d performed a tribute to another generation.

Now, Harry wants. He wants and he doesn’t know what.

He looks up to the blinking fluorescents.

Look closely, he begs the ghosts of this place. Witness me.

Harry will never get used to America. It’s not really about the general composition of the country—American cities aren’t so different from London or any other large English city. All cities smell the same, in his opinion—like hot piss and trash. But, there’s a vulgar directness that Harry both shies from and envies.

He would never admit it, but it’s why he thinks of Credence Barebone as one of his favorite skaters of all time. Barebone never scored incredibly high, and he certainly didn’t after Riddle showed up on the scene and crushed every bit of the competition into dust, but he was sensual. Sexy. He hadn’t started that way, but he’d bloomed into that.

Harry wants—

“Pay attention, Harry,” Ginny says with a grin, elbowing him. “Look up and alive. The press is here.”

The press is always here. Always around.

Harry melts backward, lucky that every lens has grown tired of him. All eyes are on Ginny Weasley, the ladies’ favorite for this season. Harry had always known she’d be the favorite. It was clear as soon as Luna Lovegood had retired suddenly, the year after her crushing domination of her senior debut, with the crowning jewel of her Olympic gold and World Champion status.

“Enough mugging for the camera,” Lily calls. “Come on, you need to register for the draw.”

“Can you do it for us?” Ginny whinges. “I don’t want to go in yet.”

Lily folds her arms over her chest, ready to lecture the both of them even though Harry hasn’t even said anything. James puts a hand on Lily’s shoulder and they have one of their long conversations with nothing but their eyes. Harry used to ask about it because he’d noticed after a while that Ron and Hermione do it. The answer was something about partners on the ice and on the ice.

Harry finds it a bit much.

“You better be in there, ten minutes before the draw. Do you understand me? Not a moment later,” Lily warns.

Harry nods lazily. “Yes, Mum. Ginny will only be with her adoring public for a moment.”

Ginny barks out a laugh, shoving Harry lightly. “Shut up,” she gripes.

Harry rolls his eyes as he folds his arms over his chest, eyes darting over the sea of media personnel, and the skaters that dot the crowd. He recognizes a few of them cursorily and then there are a few fresh faces. A few older debuts. A young one, he looks twelve not fifteen.

“No Parkinson, I see,” Harry notes.

Ginny’s eyes narrow. “She goes by Miura when she’s competing,” Ginny reminds him, stiffly. “And yeah, I checked her assignments. She’s at Canada and NHK.”

Ginny can pretend that nothing touches her, but he knows her. They might not be together anymore, but Harry knows.

Ginny is the Grand Prix gold medallist.

But, Pansy Miura Parkinson of Japan is a World Champion.

“Don’t get into your head, Gin. She’s not even here,” Harry warns.

Ginny forces a smile, elbowing him again. “You don’t get into your head. I’m set. My ‘rival’ isn’t here. You, on the other hand—”

“Well if it isn’t the Runner-Up. How’s the scar?”

Harry makes an aborted move up to the scar that cracks across his forehead like a fractured lightning bolt. He swallows hard—swallows back the urge to drive his fist into Draco Malfoy’s throat. He can still feel the impact of their bodies colliding in Juniors. He can feel the slide of the blade across his skin, the blood dripping into his eyes, down his nose, the chill of ice under his cheek.

Harry turns on his heel to snarl at Malfoy and then stops when he has to actually fucking look up.

“You look like an overgrown toddler,” Ginny says lightly. “I’m sure you’ve got better things. Like shaving that disgusting ferret on your upper lip. Woke up a bit late this morning, then, Malfoy?”

Draco Malfoy has facial hair now, Harry notices, blinking wildly. Draco Malfoy is over six feet tall now, and broader than before. Not by much but enough to be noticeable. If Harry hadn’t known him when he was a skinny pale twig of a boy, he might even be intimidated. On flat, solid ground, he looks fine.

On the ice…well, who knew how well he had adapted to his new form.

“I’d shut up if I were you, Weasley,” Malfoy warns.

“Oh, would you?” Ginny asks, yawning, rolling her eyes. She looks around dramatically. “Where’s your Mum? I’d like to give her a tissue.”

“What are you talking about—”

“She’s always got that look on her face. Like she’s just smelled some shit. Wanted to offer her a tissue to clean her upper lip, is all,” Ginny says fiercely, attempting to shut Malfoy down before he’s even gotten properly started.

But, Malfoy doesn’t take the bait. Of course, he doesn’t. It’s an old insult, one exchanged between Malfoy, Ginny, and Harry many times before. The insults used to be childish. Now, they’re meaner. More pointed. Meant to kill instead of wound.

“My mother is on her way in. Where are your parents, Potter? In a corner somewhere dying of shame and embarrassment of their loser son?” Malfoy asks.

Harry’s eyes narrow. “I won’t hesitate to punch you in the fucking face, Malfoy.”

“And risk getting kicked out of competition. Don’t disappoint them even more, Potter,” Malfoy says and his lips curl into a smile. “Don’t disappoint me.”

“What?” Harry barks.

“Nothing would please me more than watching you below me on the podium,” Malfoy scoffs.

Harry’s eyes narrow. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he asks, more calculating than usually. “Or maybe even lower? On my knees would suit you, eh?”

Ginny snorts behind her hand.

“What’s that, Weasley?” Malfoy sneers.

“Oh nothing,” Ginny says.

Harry scoffs. “Not nothing,” Harry says. He bites his tongue. The closet is glass, he wants to say, but not even he’s such a prick. “You’re just really obsessed with me.”

He watches Draco Malfoy blink slowly. Watches him process his words. Watches Malfoy realize that Harry knows. Harry raises an eyebrow, waiting and watching as Malfoy works the complexity of his feelings, and it’s only then that it strikes Harry that Malfoy might not even know himself.

Well, isn’t that interesting.

Harry’s exhausted already.

“Obsessed with a failure who can’t see past his own shadow let alone his parents?” Malfoy asks, running his trembling hand through his stupid platinum blond hair.

Harry secretly thinks he bleaches it.

He sighs. “You might want to do better. Wasn’t your finest insult.”

“No, it wasn’t. My finest insult has the luck of the draw of being a permanent mark on your face.”

Harry flinches and he rocks forward, hands curling into fists.

Draco Malfoy looks both thrilled and afraid, taking a step back, his pale lips pulled back to bare his teeth. 

“I knew you did it on purpose, you fucking cliche—” Harry hisses.

“Fighting already? We haven’t even done the draw.” Theodore Nott, Malfoy’s rinkmate, sidles up.

Harry sizes him up. At least, Nott hasn’t grown much. He’s shorter than Malfoy. Still taller than Harry. Harry can’t say that he’s ever noticed Nott much. It’s hard to when Malfoy’s dumb smug face is always immediately in Harry’s, trying to bait him into a fistfight.

“They…they said,” Malfoy sputters.

Nott gives him a warning look. “Don’t do this. Not today of all days.”

“What’s today?” Ginny asks, nosey as ever.

Nott scoffs, shaking his head at her, and Ginny flushes, irritated. There’s nothing he hates more than being dismissed.

“I asked you a question—” Ginny spits.

“Draco, come on,” Theodore Nott insists, glancing over his shoulder. “They’re here.”

Malfoy glowers at Harry very specifically and then turns on his heel, stalking away, chin held high. Nott holds Harry’s gaze for just a second longer before he’s gone too, sidling through the crush of media, suddenly frenzied.

“Why are they all going off like that?” Ginny scoffs. “It’s just Malfoy.”

“Yeah, just the Grand Prix gold medallist,” Harry sneers as the media finally parts.

Malfoy and Nott’s entourage is intimidating in its completeness. Bellatrix Black Lestrange is a legend in her own right. She had retired young, as most female figure skaters did. Only 22. But, her life in the sport hadn't ended there. She’s a Black, after all, a part of her own family dynasty, descended from Russians on her matrilineal side.

The Black Family Rink had turned out a number of World Champions and Grand Prix finalists, and with Bellatrix at the helm, she turns out more, in the form of her nephew, and her student, Theodore Nott. And while Nott isn’t going to cement anything in history, he is a formidable opponent on his best days.

She is a formidable woman, her arm hooked with Nott’s other coach and her husband, Rodolphus Lestrange. Rodolphus had never been a particularly good skater, but he is a good coach. One of the best.

The pair are in the company of Malfoy’s mother, Narcissa Black-Malfoy. She was never a skater. But, she moves with the grace of one. A ballerina. Harry knows enough to know that she once danced for Bolshoi Ballet. It’s how Harry knows that they’re Russian. The trio of adults alone are enough.

And then.

Ginny breathes, “Holy shit.”

Walking behind them, colorless except for the strange glint to his brown eyes that make them look red, is Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Tom Riddle doesn’t look their way, doesn’t flinch as the media surges forward, shouting his name, bulbs flashing and exploding in his face. He walks right past Harry, so close that if Harry reached out, his fingertips would brush the cuff of the man’s coat. Harry digs his nails into his thighs instead to remind himself of his current reality.

But, it’s hard when the greatest figure skater of all time has just walked past you as if everything in a ten-kilometer radius belonged to him. Harry turns to Ginny.

“Holy shit,” he repeats, shaking his head.

“That’s fucking Tom Riddle,” Ginny whispers a hair too loud.

“Should I be jealous, then? Of ‘fucking Tom Riddle’.”

And all of Harry’s hard-earned anticipation plummets into something a little like desolation.

Harry likes to pretend that Dean Thomas being so far away from home means he no longer exists. He certainly exists in the here and now, arms spread wide, handsome grin on his face. He’s fresh off a win with the Rangers, Harry knows because he’s a masochist that keeps up with the NHL career of his ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend.

Ginny’s expression brightens even more than before. Her eyes grow glossy and she beams up at him, throwing herself into Dean’s open arms with a cry of happiness.

Dean catches her easily, lifting her up by the back of her thighs, and Ginny clamps onto him, crowing, “How are you even here? I thought you had a bloody game!”

“I took a hard hit against the Capitals two days ago. Coach gave me a rest day and then we have no more games until next Tuesday so I came,” Dean says, looking down at her with a grin. He sets her down on her feet, his hand coming up to cup her freckled cheek. “I missed you, Gin. More than anything.”

“Not more than me,” Ginny says, softer than she’s ever said anything and she stands on her toes to kiss Dean properly.

Harry looks after the media that has already gone away, hounding the steps of the star of the show and his overly-famous entourage. He pretends he’s not staring at the happy couple from the corner of his eye. He only looks back when Dean calls his name.

“Uh, hey, Dean,” Harry says awkwardly with a little wave.

Dean smiles at him, just as awkwardly, and Harry thinks that at least, Ginny has good taste in men, because Dean is handsome.

“Good luck out there,” Dean says.

Harry nods once. He doesn’t think Dean means to say it with the air of, You need it, but he’s feeling uncharitable and off-kilter at the moment.

He’ll take it that way.

Harry comes out to the main ice as part of the last group, thrumming with residual energy from the ladies’ free skate. The excitement there had been palpable, the shock and awe as one of Lily Evans and James Potter’s skaters took center ice and had delivered a storming performance.

Gold has always been Ginny’s color.

Harry likes to think he’d look good in gold too.

“How are you feeling?” Ginny asks, leaning against the boards, smiling over at him.

“Good,” Harry says honestly, for once. “I overheard the commentators. They like your choreo a lot.”

“Your parents are good at what they do,” Ginny reassures him and Harry nods his agreement.

They are good at what they do. Ginny, Hermione, and Ron are a testament to that.

Harry’s own shortcomings—well it’s independent of that. It’s entirely a part of that. It’s complicated and uncomplicated, and complicated again because Harry makes it that way. It’s easy for it to be a complicated mess so he doesn’t have to think too hard about where his parents come short too.

“The music is a bit…cliché,” Harry says.

Ginny winces. “Classic. Let’s use the word classic.”

So, she agrees.

Harry inhales messily, pinching the bridge of his nose. He wishes he were wearing his glasses. He blinks hard, trying to force the dryness from his contacts, from his eyes.

“Only trainers and competitors, Weasley. Get out,” Malfoy calls, sounding as smarmy as ever. He’s standing over with Nott, who has already skated.

Nott had done very respectably.

Ginny rolls her eyes and throws him the finger. She only softens a little when she pats Harry on the shoulder, squeezing hard. “Don’t let him psych you out, Harry,” Ginny says.

It sounds like a warning. Like she knows something.

“What do you mean?” Harry asks slowly.

Ginny shakes her head. “I watched you both in practice. You get in your own head. Don’t let him get into your head too.”

And then, she disappears down the corridor to the locker room, so she can swing up into the stands to watch from there. Harry knows she’s going to be live-texting Hermione and Ron throughout the rest. He doesn’t check his phone much during competitions. He gets distracted. Hermione had warned him about it his first year, and he’d ignored her.

Now, he can hear her voice in his head as clear as if she were right next to him.

Don’t get distracted, Harry. The outside world is just a distraction, he hears.

Harry sighs, rocking back and forth on his skates.

The moment of truth arrives.

“Now on the ice, representing Great Britain, Draco Malfoy.”

Malfoy has ditched the overtly ethereal costumes of his youth, exchanging it for navy and sparing crystals on his sleeves that only make him glow paler. It’s rather boring. Harry raises an eyebrow and tries to appear unaffected. Lily leans into his side.

“We’ll see,” Lily says with a pursed lip.

All eyes are on the Worlds silver medallist as the music begins.^[4]

Draco moves with surety across the ice. It’s one thing Harry has ever had in common with the other man. Some people just skate. Some people belong on the ice. Harry has always believed that Malfoy belongs on the ice, despite how much of a fucking dick he is.

But, there’s something off. Malfoy loves being on the ice; anyone can see it. But he’s broader. Taller. He doesn’t know how to hold himself as he sinks to his knee, sliding forward. It almost looks clumsy, except this is choreography.

But, he makes up with it with the big, lofty quad lutz-triple toe combo that he throws at the very beginning.

Harry flinches at it.

“You’re fine, Harry,” James says, squeezing his shoulder.

Harry doesn’t balk from a challenge. He never has.

But, he’s also not fucking stupid.

He watches Malfoy mechanically make his way through a very basic choreo sequence. Pushes himself into a camel spin that is textbook.

Lily snorts. “Very lacklust—”

And then, just in the second half, Malfoys throws a stunning quad toe-double toe jump. And then, another spin and a triple axel.

“Motherfucker,” Harry whispers.

Lily doesn’t even correct him on his language. The Potters stare as Draco beams as he skates into finishing pose after another sit spin and he faces the judges, beaming.

Harry closes his eyes slowly and breathes.

“Harry,” Lily says, shaking his shoulder. “You’re fine. You’re so much smoother on the ice.”

I fucking know, he doesn’t say.

Harry knows where the fuck this is going to fall short and it won’t be him that does it.

When he gets onto the ice, he can’t see past the boards. Past the white of the ice. Even his parents aren’t visible except as two little blurs even though he has his contacts in. Harry clears his throat and holds himself very still. His brain is oddly empty. He never thinks too hard about his programs before he does them, but usually he has the first jump marked in his mind.

But, there’s nothing. Only the roar of applause. The cool voice of the announcer declaring Malfoy’s score.

Saint-Saëns’ Aquarium trills through the rink. There is quiet. Harry opens his eyes just a tiny slit to see—his parents are watching. Ginny is watching.

Draco Malfoy is watching and he catches Harry. And then, he turns away, disinterested.

Harry begins.

Harry can hear them through the walls.

He sits up against the headboard, head tilted back, as he rests in the silent room. His parents are trying to whisper, but for how expensive this hotel is, the walls are thin.

“He doesn’t want to come to dinner with us, Lily, ” James is saying. He sounds tired. More tired than furious.

“ It was just the short.”

“And you know as well as I do that an entire medal can be lost in the short,” James warns and then Harry imagines he winces at Lily’s violent hushing. His voice comes softer again, “ He’s in fourth.”

“He had a clean skate.” Lily sounds stubborn. She’s always stubborn. Remus and Sirius said that’s who Harry had inherited his stubborn streak from.

“Lily, Harry's technical score is low. Too low. And not because he has bad skates. It's because of us. That combo Malfoy did. Harry could have done that combo, I think."

“That combo Malfoy did was fucking dangerous and reckless. And who cares about that when you look at his transitions. His spins were atrocious. ”

“And yet, he’s first. Lily—”

They’re moving in their hotel room towards the door. Harry can’t hear them anymore, not really, except for the impression of their conversation in the hallway. Harry looks at his door and waits for it. It comes quickly, the knock on the door.

“Dinner, Harry?” Lily calls.

Harry thinks of not saying anything at all. But, that would be childish. He isn’t a child. He’s not sulking. Not exactly.

“I’m exhausted, Mum,” Harry shouts, careful to keep every word steady. “I’m just going to order room service, and then sleep. Good night, Mum. Good night, Dad.”

A beat of silence. “Okay.”

She doesn’t believe him.

She would be right not to.

Harry goes through the motions. He orders food. He even sticks to his training diet. But, he’s not really there. Harry is still on the ice, going through his short program. He pours over every spin, the triple axel, the quad toe loop, his combos. His step sequence. Everything is perfect.

Everything was perfect.

That isn’t the problem. Harry knows the problem as he chews and swallows broccoli without tasting it, as he cuts into roast chicken that has been left in the oven too long.

The problem is that Harry did everything right and it wasn’t enough.

It’s not enough. That’s always been the problem. It isn’t enough. Not even that Biellmann that he’d thrown in to show off his flexibility. Everything is muscle memory.

Harry contemplates that as he debates what to watch on tv. American television is vast and largely boring. Cop procedurals dominate primetime space, and they don’t get the premium channels at this hotel without paying extra. It’s when he decides to watch a low budget comedy film that he remembers a terrible mistake just as the consequences hit him.

Harry and Ginny have this thing—when they’re at the same competitions, they exchange their extra key cards. They’d done this since they were kids. Even broken up, it had been second nature to make the switch at the concierge desk. Harry should’ve taken it from her after his short.

He hadn’t.

Here is the consequence.

His door clicks open.

Ginny slams in with reckless abandon as she always does. Her eyes are glowing. Her face is bright and flushed. She tries to tame the glow of her victory into something more appropriate, but Ginny has never been a gracious winner, just like she’s not a gracious loser.

Harry isn’t in the mood for it. For Ginny

And he certainly isn’t in the mood for her superstar hockey boyfriend.

“Harry, we just came from dinner. Your parents said you didn’t come down,” Ginny says brazenly. “Are you sulking?”

Awkwardly, Dean waves and says, “Hi, Harry.”

Ginny had skated beautifully today. Powerfully. Her free skate was even stronger than her short somehow. Her build is different from the other girls. She’s still slender but she packs muscle on easier. It’s why no one blinks when she manages to throw herself up and do the four rotations necessary for a quad flip.^[5] She had done it as easy as breathing.

Ginny had pushed herself. She had been pushed.

“No, I’m not sulking. I’m thinking,” Harry says carefully.

“It looks a lot like sulking from here,” Ginny says. She jumps up to sit atop the dresser, next to the t and she pulls Dean along with her like she can’t bear to be separated. “There’s no reason to. It was a clean skate. A good skate.”

“It looked cool from where I was sitting, mate. Those jumps,” Dean attempts to contribute and then falls silent under Harry’s deadpan stare.

“Wasn’t good enough,” Harry says dismissively. He lifts the remote and turns the television on.

Ginny doesn’t startle from the sudden blaring sound of a bad joke. But, she very deliberately turns the television back off, irritated.

“Are you serious, Harry?” she asks.

“What, Ginny? What?” Harry sighs. “I’m very tired.”

“Sure, looks it,” Ginny snorts, shaking her head. She folds her arms over her chest. “What was it this time? The choreo? The music? The ice?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Ginny’s eyes narrow. “Well, Harry, there’s always something else that’s preventing you from winning. According to you. What was it this time?”

Harry knows Ginny. He knows she likes to goad people into revelation. It’s her most toxic trait.

Harry doesn’t need a revelation. He already knows the issue.

“My base value was already lower than what I could handle. We both know the problem.”

(My coaches are the problem.)

“Harry, you got a 90.01—”

“Malfoy got a 99.64. Do you know what the highest recorded short program in men’s is?” Harry asks.

He knows. 107.83.

And the man that had set that record had seen Harry skate that mess of a program.

“That skate is full of—” Ginny starts impatiently.

“I could do that skate,” Harry says sharply, interrupting her. He squints at her. “I could. Both quads. All the combos. The sit spins. I could do that skate. But, you know why I wouldn’t? Because my coaches don’t believe in me nearly as much as I do.”

Ginny gapes at him for a minute, trying to sit with the revelation he’d dropped on her.

“Your parents choreograph great—”

“They choreograph for you. For Hermione and Ron. They push you lot because it won’t hurt as much when you break,” Harry says, almost cruelly. “I’m better than him. Malfoy. I could be better than him. But, they won’t let me because they’re afraid. I’m not afraid. Now, get out.”

He says it so suddenly that Ginny almost does as he commands, slipping off the dresser. Then, she stops, bewildered and she rounds on him.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snarls. “Stop being a fucking baby about it and do the fucking skate, Harry. Just skate better.”

“Tell your coaches to choreograph me something that’s actually challenging,” Harry snaps. “Now, get the fuck out.”

Dean finally intervenes, losing that sheen of awkwardness. “Hey now, mate, don’t talk to her like that.”

“You can get out too,” Harry says, turning away from the pair of them. He fumbles at his wallet, his hands shaking as he extracts Ginny’s. “Ginny, why do you even have the key to my room? We’re not together.”

He tosses the key card to her and holds his hand out expectantly. Ginny stares at his hand.

“Harry…” she starts.

“Do you get how fucked this is?” Harry rasps. “You come in here and tell me that I should be okay with being in fourth, not because of my ability, but because I am being held back. You tell me that after you set a personal best in the free and win gold. And then, you tell me: don’t sulk while bringing your fucking boyfriend to watch me be humiliated. Are you serious?”

Ginny opens her mouth. Closes it. Swallows hard.

“Harry, we’re your friends,” she starts.

“No. He’s not my friend,” Harry barks. Then, he winces. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Dean says, shrugging. “I don’t know you.”

“Ginny, I just want to be left alone and if you’re not leaving, I fucking am.” Harry slides into his trainers and stalks out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

He stands in the empty corridor for a second, feeling more stupid than he has in a long while.

He’d left his phone.

Harry can’t go back in there. If he goes back in, he might actually cry, and then, that’d drive him off the edge.

Damn. He needs a drink.

Harry sits at the bar but doesn’t drink.

Because he can’t drink. Not in this Godforsaken country.

He fucking hates Miluwakee and he hates Skate America. He’s just glad that Malfoy takes himself too seriously and probably goes to sleep at six in the evening with a gold flake sleep mask on to preserve his vampirish pale skin.

Harry drums his knuckles on the wood, his vision blurring as he tries to focus on the condensation ring left by his water on the dark mahogany.

There’s a steady walk behind him. A quiet thump of something else. Harry ignores it, inhaling and exhaling noisily through his nose to stave off tears.

From the corner of his eye, he sees a dark shape move to take a seat at his side.

“Ginny, I don’t—” Harry says.

“I’m afraid I’m not Miss Weasley.”

Harry knows that voice. He knows it. He’s heard it in person at press conferences. He’d memorized the cadence of it in the privacy of his childhood bedroom, when he’d started to learn that he might like boys along with girls. Harry’s mouth goes dry and slowly he looks up and to his left.

Tom Riddle allows his cane to lean against the bar. He leans forward, looking at the selection with a grimace. “A bourbon. That’s all,” he says, his accent rolling off his tongue. It’s almost posh, except for the sharp cadence that speaks to his background. Harry knows all about it. He’s read the man’s Wikipedia page a thousand times.

“You’re…Tom Riddle,” Harry whispers slowly.

Tom Riddle hums, quirking an eyebrow. “And so I am,” he says. He leans closer, too close, so close that they’re recycling each other’s breath. “And you…are Harry Potter.”

“You know me?” Harry whispers, swallowing hard.

Tom Riddle’s eyes flit over him, from the crown of his head, down to Harry’s feet and then up again. “Yes, of course, I know the skater with the textbook back counter triple axel and the Biellmann. You’re very pretty.”

Harry blinks.

Pretty.

“You think?” Harry blurts. No one has called his ice skating ‘pretty’. There’s not much pretty about the choreography his parents create. Not for Harry, anyway.

A single quad toe loop. Two combos.

It’s… safe.

Riddle’s mouth twitches into a smirk and he doesn’t say anything until his bourbon is set on the bar right in front of him. He takes a generous sip. He sets it down again and turns back to him.

“I do. But pretty doesn’t win competitions unless it translates onto the ice.”

Harry pauses.

Because.

“Oh, you meant I was pretty,” Harry blurts out, cheeks burning and finds that he can’t quite meet the man’s eyes anymore. Not when he can feel the weight of Riddle’s smirk.

He feels a hand on his chin, sure and careful, guiding Harry’s gaze back to the older man’s face. Harry’s too afraid to even breathe.

“There is…something about you. Your triple axel is sublime. Your transitions are full of passion. You’ve studied the greats. Lambiel. Barebone. Flamel,” Riddle says.

“You.” Harry drags his finger along the edge of the bar, following the cut of it. “I’ve studied you.”

Riddle leans in close again, sipping his drink. “You flatter me, pretty.”

Harry’s mouth twitches and leans in too, leaning into Riddle’s hand. “I really don’t mean to.”

He knows how flirtatious that sounds without having to look at Riddle’s raised eyebrow. He knows that he has a mouth and comebacks that always sound like he means something more—Ginny has told him so before. He redirects his stare back down to the bar and bites his bottom lip, squirming in his seat.

“I look to other skaters too. Seraphina Picquery. Yuna Kim. Bellatrix Black,” Harry says unprompted.

“A fine mix of artistry and power,” Riddle observes. “You want to be complete.”

“I want to win,” Harry says fiercely. He flinches back. Too vulnerable. He’s being obvious.

“You won your last Junior Grand Prix, didn’t you. And Junior Worlds.” It’s not a question. “But only because Draco Malfoy debuted that season. Am I right?”

Harry flinches and stands abruptly. “I should sleep. I have the free tomorrow.”

Riddle stands too. Harry isn’t short, but Riddle is tall for a skater. Taller than him.

“Diamonds are formed under pressure, Harry Potter. How… hard do you need to be pressed?” Riddle challenges.

Riddle sounds like he’s coming to him. Harry hasn’t had many people come onto him—man or woman. He’s never wanted this. Or rather, hadn’t thought he could have it. The last person he’d kissed had fiery red hair. It’d been a goodbye kiss in the broom closet at his family rink.

Harry has wanted to kiss others. He has.

He’s just never been aware that people want to kiss him.

But, Riddle looks at him—at his lips, at his neck, at his waist, at his hands—and Harry knows.

Harry wants to be pressed. He wants to be pushed. “I don’t know…you tell me,” Harry says. It’s a gauntlet thrown.

Riddle raises an eyebrow, surprised, and for just a moment, Harry is worried that he’s taken it the wrong way. That he might’ve assumed. He feels heat rush to his cheeks and looks down at his own feet.

“I-I’m—I have my f-free—” Harry stutters.

Riddle grabs his chin again and Harry is silenced by a thumb pressing hard against the plushness of his bottom lip. Harry breathes wetly on the pad of Riddle’s thumb and Riddle doesn’t look away as he drains his glass and presses harder.

Harry’s mouth opens and he lets out a soft whine at the weight of the man’s thumb on his tongue, pressing down.

His cock twitches in his briefs and he squeezes his thighs together, gripping harder at the bar as his knees buckle.

Riddle lets out a quiet laugh and he pulls free from Harry’s mouth with a wet pop. He loops an arm around Harry’s waist, his spit slick thumb finding the skin where Harry’s t-shirt doesn’t quite meet the waistband of his jeans.

“Come here, pretty, we don’t want you to make a scene,” Riddle coos, mocking and Harry whines softly as he stumbles, tugged down the bar, away from the bartender and the one other patron, a man too deep in his glass to notice.

Riddle drags him around the corner, out of sight, into the alcove leading to the washrooms.

“If you had this look on your face on the ice, they'd drape you in gold,” Riddle murmurs.

Harry flinches, hurt. “What look?” he bites out. He wants to slap the hands away, the ones dragging under his shirt, covetous and large, fingers brushing over the hot skin. He can’t, only whining when one large hand slides all the way up, rubbing hard over his left nipple as Riddle leans in to kiss the hollow beneath Harry’s ear.

“Like you’re… aching,” he rumbles, slotting his thigh between Harry’s legs, snug against his half-hard cock. “They wouldn’t be able to resist you.”

Riddle presses him against the wall and his hands are huge on Harry’s hips. Harry stands on his toes, head tilted back against the wall, lashes fluttering. Riddle’s lips are hot against his throat and Harry gasps, giving shuddery little moans.

“Keep your back leg up higher,” Riddle instructs as he kisses the hollow of Harry’s collarbone. Against his pulse point, he instructs, “Arms up on that salchow. You want the extra points. They underestimate you with the low base technical score.”

“Uh-huh,” Harry groans, tight in his pants. He rolls his hips against the hard thigh between his legs, feeling his cock twitch and he drags Riddle’s head higher, sealing their lips together. It’s wet and heated and sloppy, full of breath and it’s too much.

Riddle’s fingers slide up the back of his neck before grabbing roughly to the nape of his neck, tugging him back harshly. Harry slams his head back and he groans as he spurts pre-cum in his briefs. Riddle looks down at him with a raised eyebrow. Interest.

And Harry is dizzy with it. Dizzy with interest. With want.

“Slower, Harry. Watch your jump speed,” Riddle whispers.

And then, he leans in again, kissing Harry slower now. It’s more sensual now. It feels like the kind of kiss at the end of a film. The kind in the rain where there’s no clock to beat. There’s only this. Heat and warmth and despite Harry not knowing Riddle at all, he feels safe. He feels alive. He feels like he’s kindling, burning, and like he’ll never sputter out.

Riddle pulls back slowly and Harry doesn’t even realize he’s following him, eyes half-lidded, until Riddle gently pushes him back against the wall.

“Why do you skate, Harry Potter?” Riddle asks.

Harry squints up at him, reaching up to adjust his glasses. He swallows hard, unsure of what to say, still catching up.

“Um…because I love the sport,” Harry says.

Riddle hums, leaning down, pressing another kiss in the hollow of his ear. He doesn’t pull away. Instead, he whispers, “That’s not enough, pretty.”

He takes a step back, looking Harry up and down.

“What do you mean it’s not enough?” Harry asks, frustratedly.

“Why do you skate?” Riddle demands. “You could be great in this sport, Harry Potter. You could be legendary. But, until you know why you skate, you’ll never win.”

And then he walks away. He doesn’t move with a limp and Harry absently wonders why the asshole walks with a cane.

That’s what he is. An asshole.

You’ll never win, echoes loudly in Harry’s head as he slides down the wall and lets his face fall into his hands.

( Until you know why, you’ll never win.

The problem—Harry knows why. He’s always known why.)

This isn’t the first time this has happened to Harry. It probably won’t be the last.

He understands his hypocrisy in thinking of Ginny as an ungracious loser. They’re similar in that way. But, Ginny always ends up rising above. Performing better out of pure spite. Because she needs to. Ginny doesn’t come from legacy. Ginny has to carve herself into history.

But, in some ways, it’s an advantage.

She doesn’t make her start as someone else’s footnote.

Harry is exhausted with being the footnote. When he approaches the ice, he’s almost glad that he’s going before Malfoy, Nott, and an excitable debut that keeps shooting Harry weird stares. He’s in fourth, but that means he has something to prove. He’ll claw himself forward with everything he has.

“Harry, just go out and do your best,” Lily says. He can’t quite hear her, but her hand on his shoulder anchors him to the present.

Harry shrugs it off. “Yeah, I’ll do that,” he says.

For once, he means it.

“Representing Great Britain, Harry Potter.”

Harry pushes his way onto the ice, passing his mother his skate guards. He skates to center ice.

This free skate is more challenging than last year’s. He’ll give them that. But, it’s a homage to ice skating past. To a legacy that Harry doesn’t particularly want. He channels that un-want as he begins.

If I held my breath on you

I would have died a thousand times

And if chewing was to show you how much I cared

I'd probably be wearing dentures by now

He approaches his first jump. It’s a quad salchow. He brings his hands up over his head, in the way he’s only trained it a few times. He feels his center of gravity shift, but Harry keeps the moment. He’s in the air and then he’s coming down again. It almost feels like time has slowed, and he comes down on the ice, knee bent, leg sweeping back high, his body loosening in a way that he’s never felt before. He grins, as he comes down, unable to help himself from pumping his fist.

He has a quad toe planned next.

Harry knows he has an issue with stamina. They try to pack his quads in the front. His two quads. It’s not enough. Even he knows it. So, he pushes. Harry barely needs to shift his entry. He shifts his toe pick. They’ll know what he’s going for before he even lands.

Harry doesn’t put his hands up for this one. He skates confidently, spinning with the music.

Quad lutz.

He touches down once. Damn, but he keeps going, right into a triple flip. And then, he’s into a spin combination. Step sequence.

Here, he shines. Here he flourishes.

Triple axel.

Harry started dating Ginny when he was 16 and she was 15. They had never had sex. Ginny had wanted to. Harry had…wanted to. But, there wasn’t time. There was training. There was winning. Winning for her. Not for him. Ginny had won JGPF and JWC. Harry had…debuted. And then, there was more winning in her debut year, and she glowed so bright. She was so lovely and driven, and Harry could see that winning meant so much to her. To her family. As it should.

So, the closest Harry had ever gotten to sex was last night. The euphoria of having an older man want him. An older man that saw potential in him.

A legend of the sport that saw him and demanded more of him.

That was the closest Harry had ever been to sex.

And this.

On the ice, Harry falls in love again and again.

With every jump. With every spin.

I’m not as tired as I usually am, Harry thinks as he enters the second half of the routine. He’s coming up on his planned triple axel-double axel combo. He’s always good at those.

But, not this time. He comes up to the swell in the music and twizzles into a quad toe loop. Triple axel. The combination comes away.

He continues on, sinking deeper into the music, shoving away the applause to focus on the piano beats.

Two more triple axels for the back-half. Triple lutz. He skates them cleanly, hands held out, and he smirks at the applause. As the music swells, he hits a hydroblade. An Ina Bauer.

As he approaches the end, he goes into a combination spin, a back camel into an unplanned changed foot sit spin, pushing the difficulty, the drums thrumming in time with his heart. His blood as he comes into the end and strikes an ending pose, powerfully, as the lyrics ring out.

Karma

Remember, remember, remember

So long you run. ^[6]

When Harry skates forward, he looks at the faceless judges, he bows in defiance. He bows in deference. Touching his gloved hand to the ice, he breathes, and he thinks he can feel his own heart beneath the sheet of white. He stands again and turns to the crowd, cheering, and he sweeps into a low bow. Their cheers get louder.

Harry drags a hand across his sweaty forehead as he clears the ice for the next skater, chest heaving, vision a little blurry.

James stands in front of them, his expression switching between pride and worry. He holds out Harry’s scarlet skate guards. Harry puts them on and steps to the side. He looks over at Lily.

She’s expressionless.

Harry turns back around and very deliberately sinks to his knees as Nott is setting up.

He kisses the edge of the rink in reverence.

Then, he stands and walks to the kiss and cry, ignoring both of his parents. Lily is immediately at his side.

“You weren’t ready to do that lutz,” Lily snarls.

“I landed it.”

“You could’ve gotten hurt, Harry,” Lily says. She takes a deep breath, softening herself. “You don’t have consistency on it yet. What if you had landed wrong? What if you’d sprained an ankle?”

“Then, I’d be out for probably be out for the Grand Prix. But. It’s not sprained,” Harry says sharply. He turns to them, stopping right before the kiss and cry. His eyes go over to his father. “You have something to say?”

“Your mother’s right. We practice this a certain way—”

“It was too conservative,” Harry interrupts. “I can skate so much… bigger than you think I can. I could…I think I could be better than you. Than Malfoy. Than all of you.”

Than him.

Harry goes into the kiss and cry. His parents join him, stiffly. He can imagine how it looks on television.

This is a career-best score. He can feel it in his bones. His parents should be celebrating. But, they’re not. They’re worried. They’re blinded.

They’re good parents. The best parents.

But, that doesn’t make for good coaches. Not for him.

He hears his score. 182.19.

Harry flies up, eyes bright and he twists to look at his parents.

Lily is staring at him like she’s never seen him before. Not in a bad way. Just as if she doesn’t quite recognize him. James has a mirrored expression on his face, and Harry wonders if they finally see what he means.

What he could achieve. What he wants.

Harry walks away, chin high and he catches them before they slink off to speak about him amongst themselves. He leans in, baring his teeth. If this was war, his mouth would be bloodied by victory.

“You can be angry all you want,” Harry says, voice low and careful. He ignores his parents’ shock as he stares at them, a serene smile on his face. “But…I’m on the podium. Not gold, of course, but I’m on the podium. And that’s what I wanted. I got what I wanted…when I didn’t listen to the two of you. So, excuse me, while I celebrate.”

“Celebrate putting yourself in danger?” James snaps. 

Harry laughs slowly. “No…celebrate being right.”

Harry keeps his silver medal in his bag, wrapped tightly in the blanket he brings with him to every competition, the one that his father had given him when he was a child and Harry used to pretend made him invisible. He wants to keep it safe. He looks down at his phone, shifting back and forth in his exhibition costume, smiling down at the group chat between Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Harry.

Ginny’s already finished up her exhibition skate, headed back into the locker room, and Hermione and Ron are screeching in text form about how proud they are of the two of them. Harry scrolls up to look at the picture his mother and father had taken of the pair of them. Both Ginny and Harry are brandishing their medals, one gold, and one silver, but Harry looks the prouder of the two.

Harry looks in the mirror. Sirius designs all of his costumes. He’s good at it.

But, like Harry’s regular programs, his costumes tend to be a little more conservative and traditional to align with his choreography. No dissonance.

But, Sirius and Harry like to play with exhibition costumes. He blazes out onto the ice like a phoenix, dripping in scarlet, with mesh mimicking his skin. The red and orange feathers frame his chest, gold beads and crystal details mimic fire moving on his skin.^[7] He smooths his hand over his stomach and nods. He looks like himself.

What he imagines himself to look like.

You could be great.

Harry hadn’t imagined that.

“Potter, come on, now,” one of the volunteers snaps. It’s his third warning.

Harry nods and leaves the locker room, leaving his phone in his locker. staring straight ahead as he approaches the rink as they applaud the Bronze medallist. Harry had finally learned his name, Colin Creevey, representing Canada, though Harry’s still unsure why the kid stares the way he does.

Creevey comes off the ice and his eyes go even wider, large as dinner plates as he takes Harry in.

Harry lifts his chin and raises an eyebrow and he smirks as the kid goes pink and ducks his head.

Harry goes past him to the edge of the ice. Eyes are on him. He feels them. He looks over his shoulder down the tunnel.

Ginny is standing there. Watching him. She tilts her head.

She saw his skate. She’d admitted it stiffly that she understood. That he had soared when he’d done as he’d pleased. When he’d pushed.

It was as close as she’d get to admitting that he was right.

He is right about this.

About his choice.

He hasn’t told her yet. Harry doesn’t think she’ll forgive him. Not for his words from the night before. Not for what he’s about to do. He thinks he’s starting to be okay with it.

Harry hears his name: “A new entry into a legacy. Introducing, silver Men’s medalist from Great Britain—Harry Potter.” ^[8]

He skates onto the ice, feeling more steady on his blades than he does on solid ground. He takes his position at center ice. He stares into the darkness. The flashing lights. Hears the thunderous applause.

He feels their surprise. He hasn’t hit podium like this in years. He hasn’t proven that he’s earned his name. His fucking name.

It’s mine, he swears. It’s always been mine.

He takes a deep breath.

His parents. Ron. Hermione. Ginny.

Malfoy.

Tom Riddle.

(Watch closely, he thinks, as he goes home.)

“One knows—you can’t win a gold with a short, but you can certainly lose it. And it wasn’t Harry Potter’s to lose in the first place. He was in fourth. And he clawed his way back to silver.”

“Look at him now. This is…not the same skater that we saw on the ice earlier in the competition. Where was this skater?”

“Triple axel. Easily. You’re right, Ludo. Where was this skater. We look at his programs, all choreographed by his parents, and then you look at this: choreographed by him, trained by him, and you can see the passion he has for the sport. It’s not just sport to him. It’s art. We need this art in competition or…why do it at all?”

“His spins are stunning.”

“Gorgeous hydroblade. And he comes up so easily. He's so musical. Little micro-movements that match the music perfectly. There is an artistry to Potter that has such potential. To easily surpass his—ah, there it is again. Twizzles into a triple axel, clean as you like, landing into a spread eagle. Look at that spin. I’ve always liked his axels. Back counters are the most difficult entry.”

“You see this and you think—is he not being coached correctly? Does he feel challenged? Or inspired? Because there is a stark difference in who we saw in the free and here than who we saw in the short.”

“And you can’t say Evans and Potter are bad coaches. Look at Granger and Weasley. Gold. Their consistency in gold. Easily the favorites for the season. Look at other Weasley. Silver, but that’s not like her at all. She’s a Gold medalist. Ah, look at that upright spin variation.  Look at that. And listen to the crowd.”

“Gwenog, thoughts?”

“Sublime. That is a talent that is being wasted.” ^[9]

Tom Riddle never cared for the banquets after figure skating events.

Bella always did. She loved getting dressed in long gowns, the slinky kind that revealed her bare leg as if her legs weren’t almost always on display in her figure skating costumes. Men had always acted as if they’d never seen her legs before, so it seemed to be working, but only on lesser men than him.

She liked to wear gold, when she won—which was more often than not.

Bellatrix Lestrange doesn’t wear gold now. She wears no jewelry. She’s too sullen for it.

“I can’t believe…” she starts and stops. It’s already old by now, her frustration. She glares from their table towards the dance floor.

Nott had finished off the podium, but he doesn’t seem torn up about it. Instead, he is snug between another young man and a young woman, both grinding on him to a song about a black beetle.^[10]

“Well, he is American. A lack of mental fortitude,” Tom says cruelly.

Bellatrix glowers at him. “He’s half-American and he only competes for them because he gets better sponsorship. Nike sponsors him.” She’s sputtering her excuses for her student.

Tom Riddle scoffs. He remembers his figure skating days. Nike. Adidas. Car companies. Airlines.

“This is so uncivilized,” Narcissa interrupts primly. She looks disgusted as she watches her own son do shots with some of the ladies' skaters.

Tom rolls his eyes.

“I’m sure it’s Russian vodka, Cissa,” Rodolphus placates her, as if that’s the problem. “And your boy is a winner. He should celebrate.”

And that does placate the woman, her nose wrinkling. She smiles slowly, sitting up taller and nodding. Narcissa has always been that kind of woman. When Tom had first met her, he had thought she was the youngest. She has the air of a spoiled child, used to winning, and Bellatrix caters to her emotional whims like she is one. But, she’s the middle daughter.

“Of course, he’s a winner.” Narcissa pinches her colorless cheeks. “His father and I are very proud.”

Lord Malfoy of the House of Lords is very proud. Lucius Malfoy, Vice President of the International Skating Union is very proud indeed.

“He almost wasn’t,” Tom finally says. He takes a long sip of brown liquor and lets it work through him. It contributes to the numbness in his knee, doing its best to drive one the effects of his medication just a little longer.

Bellatrix stills. She knows what fascination looks like, sounds like, on Tom.

“The Potter boy,” Bellatrix says. She looks around for him.

Tom had done that the moment they’d entered the banquet hall. She will find what he did.

Lily Evans and James Potter, formidable in their own right, in formalwear. Ginny Weasley, a middling skater, no matter what her scores said. But, no Harry Potter.

“The Weasley girl. She’s good,” Rodolphus says.

“She has the jumps. She struggles with her transitions. Not everything is about a quad, Rodolphus,” Bellatrix says sharply. She frowns and shakes her head when she doesn’t find Harry. “The Potter boy. Now, he’s good. Shame about his programs.”

“They’re terrible,” Tom says, hiding a tiny smile in his glass.

“I looked at his program rundown. Off the cuff lutz. That’s…something,” Bellatrix allows. “He has a beautiful step sequence. Beautiful choreographic sequence. But, Lily and James have always…”

“Always?” Narcissa pushes.

“They have a particular style of coaching. Not bad coaching. Just a style and he doesn’t seem to respond. I caught a few things that seemed…familiar,” Bellatrix says, shooting Tom a look.

Tom looks away, looks at Rodolphus. Rodolphus looks thoughtful.

For once.

“I think he’s better than Draco,” Rodolphus finally says.

Narcissa looks like someone’s just shot her.

Bellatrix barks out a laugh. “What?”

Rodolphus frowns, seriously. He nods. “Yeah, I think he’s better than Draco,” he insists. “He has…an it-factor. I can’t put it into words.”

Tom can. When Harry’s on the ice, he looks hungry.

“Well, it won’t amount to anything. Clearly,” Narcissa says, slightly shrill. “Bellatrix already said his parents are terrible coaches.”

Bellatrix laughs even harder. “I suppose I did say that, didn’t I?”

“And after all, we’re not on their side. Remember they sided with him. With both of them,” Narcissa growls out.

At this, Tom closes his eyes and shakes his head. This is Black family business. Tom doesn’t care. He’s already heard it all before.

His knee twinges. Tom grabs his cane from where it leans against Bellatrix’s thigh.

It startles her out of her sisterly squabbling. Bellatrix frowns.

“Tom,” Bellatrix begins and stops.

They don’t talk about the cane. They never talk about the cane.

Tom stands fluidly as the pain waxes over him. His expression does not shift. He stares down at her and takes the cane in hand.

“I’ve had enough of watching teenagers grind on one another,” Tom says. “The three of you have fun with that.”

Rodolphus sighs. “Tom, you wanted to come.”

“To see,” Tom says. He doesn’t elaborate on what. He knows what they think. They're almost right. “And I did. Now, good night. We have a flight tomorrow.”

He needs to sleep with his leg elevated to reduce the chances of it swelling on the long flight home. He’s already at a disadvantage despite being in first class, with enough room to stretch his long legs out.

Tom strides out of the banquet hall and even amongst the sea of chaos, he draws attention. None of them look at him as if he were a normal man. He is not a normal man.

He is Tom Marvolo Riddle, and he is their god, in many ways. He can see it in their eyes.

When he is alone in the elevator, he stares at his own reflection. He has spent at least four other Skate Americas in this hotel. In this elevator. He has gone up to his suite over and over again, after a banquet. Two of those four times, he had not been alone. This is his first since his retirement.

Tom looks older. He’s only 30, but there are lines at the corner of his eyes.

This is not the same face of a man who was an Olympic champion. This is not a man that dominated the sport for over a decade.

This is a man that is bored and has been for some time.

When he gets to his floor, there are only two other suites. One belonging to Malfoy Jr and Nott. The other to the Black sisters and Rodolphus.

Tom pushes his key card into the slot and opens the door quickly. He shuts it behind him, pitching the world into darkness.

Tom stills.

There is someone in his suite.

Nothing, in particular, is out of place. But, he can feel the extra presence.

Very carefully, Tom takes off his suit jacket and hangs it in the wardrobe by the door. He sets his cane by the wall and unbuttons the top two buttons. He moves slowly and deliberately, giving the illusion that he believes that he is alone. But, he knows better.

Squaring his shoulder, he rolls his neck. His knee doesn’t feel nearly as affected by the long down on his feet as it should, even as the painkillers’ effect ebbs away. Tom takes a step forward, back straight. He looks around the sitting room. The flat-screen television is off. There is no one on his couch. Housekeeping has come by, straightening and fluffing the pillows.

But, the door to his bedroom is cracked and there’s a weak light streaming from the room—the yellowing flicker of the bedside table lamp, not the overhead lights.

Tom clears his throat and strides forward, throwing the door open.

Harry Potter is more than pretty.

Tom had thought that from the moment that he first saw him.

He’s gorgeous, and Tom thinks he is even more so now, sitting on Tom’s bed in a burgundy suit so dark that it looks nearly black. His coat is open, his crisp white shirt wrinkled and three buttons open. He shifts as if he has no idea what he looks like. Tom might think it a tactic if he hadn’t had this boy’s mouth himself, had felt how unsure and eager it had moved under his. No, this virginal boy isn’t here to seduce him.

“I was going to go to the banquet. I even got dressed,” Harry Potter says, staring at Tom like he belonged here, in his bed.

As if he hadn’t broken in.

“How did you get in here?” Tom asks.

Harry Potter flashes a smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would. It’s why I asked.”

“No, you want to know why I’m in here,” Harry corrects brazenly. He’s confident with his silver.

Tom would not be so satisfied.

“Fine. I do want to know why you’re in here,” Tom allows.

Harry’s smile slides away and he shuffles to the end of the bed, kneeling up until he’s not craning his neck to meet Tom’s eyes. “I did what you said on the ice. All that advice you gave me while we…” Harry trails off, cheeks flushing prettily.

“You did very well,” Tom allows.

Harry’s blush darkens. He's a pretty thing.

“Yes, well, I touched down. It was only enough because Nott fucked up and the Bronze medallist is a kid still. I got silver,” Harry says, shaking his head. He inhales sharply and he stares directly at Tom’s bare collarbones. “You asked me why I skated. It’s because I love the ice. And because I’m good at it.”

“Are you?” Tom asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I could be,” Harry says slowly. “They’re holding me back. They don’t mean to, but they are. Every skate I do is in dedication to the monument they built. An unintentional dynasty. I want no part in that.”

“You don’t?”

“I am not the shadow,” Harry Potter says, eyes meeting his. “I am what casts it.”

And Tom can’t help but smile. Not the proper one that he used to practice in his youth. The one that tempted men and women. The one that soothed the media. No, this is a proper one—wild and wide and with far too much teeth.

“What do you want, Harry Potter?” Tom Riddle asks.

“Be my coach,” Harry Potter says, pressing his hand to Tom’s chest, pressing hard.

It is not a question.

Tom Riddle laughs.