Defence and Mayhem

Sweet Summer Home

Please note that this is the first chapter of a triple update. Next chapter should come out within the next hour.

Picture above shows what I imagine the Peverell Cottage to look like.

With a swirl of green, the fireplace at Peverell Cottage's living room lit up, and one Harrison Peverell came stumbling through it, rather ungracefully.

Right after, Tom came through, looking much less disoriented than the man who came before him. As they both gathered their bearings, Tom took a look at his new home for the summer.

The fireplace they came out of was placed in a cozy-looking living room, with a neutral, if somewhat warm, color scheme. The furnishings were tasteful, although Tom believed them to look a bit too simple for a house of a Most Ancient and Noble family of the Wizarding World.

"How is it?" Harrison said, startling Tom from his assessment of the decor. He gave the man a small smile and a nod indicating his approval of the interior, following Harrison as the latter led him farther into the house.

The pair moved up a flight of stairs, Tom looking around with mild interest as they passed through a sunlit corridor with large windows to their left showing a view of a wide grass plain, wildflowers and shrubbery scattered about, and a river, most likely River Orwell by the location, in the distance.

Harrison stopped before one of the three cream-colored doors to their right, opening it to reveal a large albeit bare of decoration room. "This will be your room," Harrison told him. "It only has the base furniture with no decorations since I thought it would be best to leave the decor to you," Harrison said while tugging lightly with one hand on his other arm, a sheepish mannerism Tom noticed the man sometimes had.

Stepping into the room, Tom looked at its state. A king-sized bed on the far right wall of the room, a bedside table to each side of it, and a bed-end stool placed at the foot of the bed. The sleeping section of the room was finished with privacy curtains, going all the way from ceiling to floor.

The rest of the room was adorned with a small sofa, a couch and a coffee table for seating space, tall bookcases, and a desk for his work.

It needed work, but it was a good start. A much better start than he ever had before, that's for sure, and this room truly belonged to him, unlike the one in the orphanage, this room was his.

_______________

It has been a week since the summer holidays began, and Tom was starting to get used to their new routine.

At first, though, Tom did experience a slight cultural shock at Harrison's lifestyle.

Firstly, Harrison, for reasons unknown to Tom, did not own a house-elf.

All the Wizard-Borns who could afford it that Tom knew had at least one House-elf at their personal disposal, not to talk about the many more in their estates, so it baffled Tom as to why a very rich lord of an old wizarding family like Harrison wouldn't have one at his estate.

He found out that fact when Harrison, on the evening of their first day at Peverell Cottage, asked Tom what he wished for Harrison to purchase for dinner on his trip to the city. Dinner which the man then proceeded to cook by himself, manually, as in without using magic.

While eating the surprisingly good dinner of roasted chicken and cheese and bacon-filled jacket potatoes he asked about the absence of elves and was answered with 'I probably do own a few House-elves but not in this estate, and I'm fine with doing some cooking and gardening myself so it's really not a bother', which only brought up more questions, because although Harrison did mention not living in the Ipswich cottage before, didn't he live at another Peverell estate before coming to Hogwarts? And who would ever teach him how to cook and garden when it's so obviously servant's work unbefitting a man in his position?

After this week, where he constantly saw Harrison cooking, shopping, and gardening the muggle way, only using magic for cleaning when needed, Tom was sure of it.

Harrison didn't grow up as an heir to a prestigious magical line or as the heir of any magical line at all. Harrison knew his way around magic, yes, but was he used to the magical abundance of the luxurious pureblood life?

No, Tom didn't think so.

____________________

At first, Harrison was a little worried about it. 'It' being living with Tom. Not because of who Tom could become or about what Tom might do, but because Tom was very perceptive.

And that meant Tom could find out.

While Tom had no reason to question his identity, he had every reason to try and analyze his behavior and figure him out. It was simply the 'Tom thing to do'.

But after a week of living with Tom, Harrison's worries eased a little. He could see a spark of interest in Tom's eyes whenever he did something of a Muggle nature. Tom probably took an interest in his upbringing, which Harrison could understand, since he never disclosed much about his personal life to Tom, even after an entire school year. However, Tom didn't push it, and Harrison was thankful.

He still hadn't decided when he would tell Tom the truth about himself, or, at least, a part of it.

He would do it eventually, there was no avoiding it. He didn't want to base his relationship with Tom on lies of omission.

He will tell him, just... not now.

_____________________

Harrison watched as Tom paced around the library, once in a while reaching for a book to add to the growing pile that floated behind him. This has been going on for the last three days- with Tom spending most of his waking time in the library, reading for hours non-stop, only stopping to write a few sentences in a notebook for short moments before returning to the book he was occupied by at the moment.

Harrison wasn't even sure that Tom knew he had entered the room, even though he had been there for over half an hour by now.

Going to the table Tom's discarded pile of books was on, he skimmed the titles, trying to figure out what Tom researched, but, like both yesterday and the day before that proved, it was to no avail.

Like the days before, the books Tom picked out had nothing in common, at least from what Harrison gathered.

From Ancient Runes and Arithmancy to Magical Creatures, Harrison had no idea where to begin in guessing Tom's intentions with this research spree.

Sighing, Harrison went to find which bookshelf Tom was hiding behind. After all, busy or not, Tom still had to eat.

It was on the fifth day that Tom decided to leave the library at his own will and join Harrison at the lounge where he was enjoying a fruit salad he made for himself.

Sitting beside him, Tom seemed to gather himself before speaking.

"I have a favor to ask."

Published on Tuesday, 25th of July, 2023.