You Can't Con a Con Man (Part 2)

You Can't Con a Con Man

Tom kept looking between the paper—with its blaring title 'Expelled Student Saves Egypt', complete with picture depicting some sort of cursed sand dragon being chased by a familiar figure atop a Blazing Desert Tail—and Harry's letter. While the letter was all sunshine, and smiles, and peace, and bloody puppies, the picture—and its protagonists—was fierce, and frightening, and intimidating, and wild. The article went on to explain that Harry, after being found as a fraud hiding at Hogwarts, took his NEWTs and together with having a hand in destroying a wanna-be Dark Lord got hired as a curse breaker in Egypt.

Apparently a curse was a lot stronger than the curse breakers thought, took the form of the dragon and escaped towards civilization in order to create mayhem and destroy everything in its path. That was when Harry had the brilliant idea to jump on an undomesticated dragon of his own and rush after it. What's more incredible was that the bastard managed to somehow fly the wild beast, stop the curse before reaching anything but dunes and have two broken plus a punctured lung to show for it. Now, the damage was minimal—what could have been a catastrophe ended with a night of uncomfortable sleep for Harry—but Tom couldn't help but wince when he read over the passage.

Looking again between the paper and the letter, Tom sighed and let his head drop on the table with a thunk.

"Hello, handsome," Larissa said cheerfully, sitting down next to him. . It was perhaps a bit odd to see a student from another house sitting down to have breakfast, but Tom knew most teachers adored him and most students feared him or lusted after him—nobody dared to say anything the first time it happened or since. As it should be.

Tom made a noise of acknowledgement, but didn't lift his head. They were in the Great Hall, having breakfast, his lovely, fascinating Gryffindor girlfriend—Larissa Potter, yes, he was dating Harry's relative, her brother being Harry's grandfather; yes, he was a prick—by his side and all he could think about was how beautiful Harry looked in that photograph. He was thinking in circles: how mad he was at being lied to, how it warmed his heart that Harry had tried to protect him, how Harry's eyes glittered with determination, how his lips thinned in concentration, how his entire demeanor had an—to be honest—expected result on Tom's body, and again how absolutely wrathful he was at Harry for leaving things out in his letter.

Larissa ducked her head and kissed his cheek. "What's this?" She noticed the papers then. "Is this a letter from Harry?" More shuffling of papers. "Is that Harry?! On a dragon?! On a wild dragon?!" Larissa asked, shrill and incredulous.

A brunette with untamable hair and clear blue eyes, Larissa knew Harry and the whole scandal surrounding him, as did the whole school and whoever happened to read the paper. When Harry was forced to leave the school they agreed to part ways, relationship-wise. Harry's arrival and his repeated warnings meant changes for Tom—such as an interest in a new companion, Julian Rowle, a shy but brilliant Ravenclaw—and with Harry gone, Tom had wanted to keep that novelty in his life. Brave, brash, affectionate Larissa seemed a good fit—the fact that she was a Potter was an added advantage and a reminder that Tom was still Tom no matter what happened.

Pushing forward as always, Larissa tried to make sense of the papers. "This is a letter from Harry. You got it... this morning. And the article is about events that happened... three days ago. What's the problem?"

Tom lifted his head for a couple of seconds, then brought it back down to abuse the table some more. "Read them," he said muffled by his current position.

"Oh," Larissa interjected. She sounded horrified. "Oh!"

"What?" Julian changed tables and landed with no grace whatsoever on Tom's other side. "Why does everything interesting happen around you, Tom?"