Chapter Text
“May I?” asked a Gryffindor boy with messy black hair, approaching Tom with wand in hand.
“All right,” said Tom. “You’re Harry Potter, aren’t you?”
The Gryffindor nodded. “Yeah. We have Defense together.”
Now that he mentioned it, Tom did remember seeing the well-built Gryffindor in lessons, off to the side, working with his Gryffindor friends. Tom himself usually kept to his circle of associates. Probably another overly brave Gryffindor who’d heard Tom Riddle, the Head Boy and top of the Defense class himself, was an active member of the Dueling Club, and hoped to challenge him.
Fat chance. Tom had never lost a duel.
He led Harry to an open space and held out his own wand. They stepped back, bowed to each other as was customary, and began.
Tom started with a simple Expelliarmus to test the waters. Harry batted it away like it was nothing. Tom felt a smile tugging at the edge of his lip. Time for the real spells.
He sent a moderately strong tripping hex, which Harry blocked with a glowing shield. An advanced shield, one that not all Tom’s associates had mastered yet, and it was cast perfectly.
Harry fired back immediately with a Jelly-Legs Jinx. Tom blocked it with the same shield Harry had used, feeling himself stiffen. Or rather, a certain part of his anatomy stiffened. Damn. Of all times to have that physiological reaction.
Harry fired two more blurs of light. Tom reversed their course and send a third for good measure, groin throbbing all the while. Merlin, Harry was good. So good.
Tom sent a few hexes towards Harry, which the Gryffindor dodged. Fast. Had Tom ever dueled anyone else this fast, this skilled? He didn’t think so. Merlin. His nerve endings tingled. Tom bit his lip, looking at Harry from half-concealed eyes.
The Gryffindor looked back at him, bright emerald eyes shining from a face twisted in curiosity.
“Expelliarmus,” Tom muttered. Harry was distracted. A distracted person didn’t have a fast enough reaction time. He waited for the clatter of Harry’s wand falling to the floor.
And then there was a string around the edge of Tom’s wand, and it had been tugged out of his hand.
Tom took a step back in shock. Harry had beaten him.
Harry had beaten him.
Harry had beaten him.
Harry had beaten him.
Tom opened his mouth and then closed it again.
What had Harry done to him?
The Gryffindor’s dueling was just so good…
Tom swallowed thickly.
Surely it was a one-time occurrence. Tom didn’t lose. He never lost. Especially not to unremarkable Gryffindor boys with such shiny green eyes and muscled arms and -
Damn it, thinking about Harry Potter wasn’t doing anything to reduce his condition, rather the opposite, to be honest.
Tom resolved that at the next Dueling Club meeting, he would demand a rematch. Harry Potter wouldn’t beat him more than once. And he would prove to himself that he was in control of all his organs.