"It actually worked?!"
Harry's jaw dropped as he took in the familiar surroundings, the corridor he knew by heart, and the portrait of the Fat Lady dozing just ahead of them.
He hadn't said anything when Ron questioned Tom earlier, but if he was being honest with himself, he'd quietly been on Ron's side. And yet here they were, standing right outside the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, while Tom looked utterly relaxed, as though the whole affair had been nothing more than a leisurely stroll.
"Ron, you've got to—wait. Where's Ron? And where did Hannah go?"
Harry turned, ready to say something to Ron, only to find that just three figures stood beside him: Hermione, Ariana, and Tom.
Ron and Hannah had vanished.
[I sent Hannah back to her dormitory. As for Ron...]
Tom flicked his tail and said slowly: [Didn't I mention? Everyone except Ron.]
Harry blinked. He did vaguely recall Tom saying something like that and suddenly he felt a sharp spike of anxiety.
"Tom, please don't joke around like this. It's not funny. We can't just leave Ron out there by himself.
I know—I know you're not really in the wrong here. Ron was the one who didn't trust you first. But he's still my best friend. I can't just stand here and do nothing."
He understood, logically, that Ron was probably fine. He was on Hogwarts grounds, one of the safest places in the world, just a short walk from Hagrid's hut.
The worst he'd face out there was the dark, the cold, and maybe a spider or two. Even so, the thought of his friend stranded alone in the night made Harry feel deeply unsettled.
"Please, Tom. Go bring him back. I'll apologize for him. Or if you won't do that, could you send me back to keep him company?"
If he'd known it would come to this, he never would have made the suggestion in the first place. He'd rather shiver in the cold with Ron, or get caught by a professor, than have his friend feel abandoned.
Tom, however, stood perfectly still, as though he hadn't heard a word. As a cat of principle, he meant what he said and said what he meant.
It wasn't a long walk back from Hagrid's hut, after all. Ron was a Gryffindor; he'd figure it out. Whether Filch caught him along the way was really just a matter of luck.
Watching Harry pace in circles with worry, Hermione stepped in.
"Harry, calm down. Ron is right outside Hagrid's front door. He can just go knock and ask Hagrid to walk him back."
Harry had thought of that possibility too but what if? What if Ron didn't go in? What if Hagrid was out? What if something in the Forbidden Forest wandered too close? What if a professor spotted him and handed him straight to Filch?
The moment any one of those scenarios crossed his mind, he couldn't stop the rest from following.
'Maybe I could have Hedwig carry a note to Hagrid...'
"Harry."
Ariana spoke up quietly.
She'd been watching Harry fret over Ron, and something about it reminded her of her own brother and Grindelwald. She glanced at Tom, hesitated a moment, then moved to Harry's side and murmured: "Look at Tom. Does he actually seem angry to you?"
"...What?"
Harry looked over at Tom instinctively who was mid-yawn, leisurely and utterly unbothered. As for his expression, the corridor was too dim to read anything into it.
"If Tom were truly done with Ron and wanted nothing more to do with him, why would he still be here? He could have gone straight back to Hufflepuff."
Harry stared. "Then what is he..."
"Well," Ariana said, with a small, knowing smile, "that depends on how you read it, doesn't it?"
She had her own suspicions about what Tom was doing, but she kept them to herself. Some things Harry needed to work out on his own. She had no intention of becoming his personal decoder.
The penny dropped. Harry thought back to the time Tom had helped him finish his Herbology essay what it had cost him then and reached into his pocket. His remaining pocket money was still there.
He turned to Tom.
"Um, Tom... would you be willing to bring Ron back? I could pay for the trip. One Sickle—how does that sound?"
Tom's ear gave the tiniest, almost faint twitch. He glanced sideways at Harry's pocket.
He hadn't actually intended to leave Ron stranded for long. He'd only planned to let him stew out there for a bit. Depending on his luck, Ron might even make it back without being spotted.
So why not turn this into a bit of extra income while he was at it?
He was just about to accept when Harry, mistaking the silence for refusal, gritted his teeth and raised his offer.
"Alright—I've got five Sickles on me. Would that be enough to bring Ron back?"
Tom swallowed the words he'd been about to say. Five times the price, just because he'd stayed quiet for a moment? Was there ever a more profitable silence in the history of wizardkind?
He continued to say nothing, watching Harry with interest, curious how high the number would climb.
Harry, true to form, did not disappoint. Faced with Tom's silence, he took a breath, steeled himself, and stated: "One Galleon. Surely that's enough!"
[Deal!]
He could probably have held out for more but he was after Ron, not Harry. And this was a whole Galleon. Hannah had bought an entire trolley's worth of sweets on the train for less than that.
Harry let out a breath of relief and placed the coin on Tom's outstretched paw.
Tom turned the gleaming gold coin over, glancing back at Harry's pained expression. A sly smile spread across his face.
[For the record—I was ready to say yes at one Sickle. But since you're being so generous, Harry, I'll graciously accept this Galleon.]
And with that, before anyone could respond, he vanished.
Harry stared at the spot where Tom had been, a complicated knot of anxiety and indignation settling in his chest. He'd just paid a Galleon for a one-Sickle job. Absolutely fleeced.
Ariana gave his back a sympathetic pat. Hermione opened her mouth, then thought better of it and said nothing.
The wait wasn't long but every second felt like its own small ordeal. Harry's mind cycled through disasters: Tom couldn't find Ron; Tom changed his mind halfway there; Ron had already been caught by a professor...
Just as he was on the verge of bolting out to look himself, the corridor went dark for a moment, then snapped back to normal and there was Tom, having reappeared as suddenly as he'd left, one paw loosely gripping a pale-faced, dazed Ron by the collar.
Tom released him. Ron stumbled forward and crumpled to his knees, clearly no better off for the journey.
It took Ron a moment to collect himself. When he finally looked up and recognized the familiar corridor and the friends in front of him, the color came flooding back to his face and with it, outrage.
"You—you actually—"
He was too angry to finish the sentence.
"You actually left me behind! Do you have any idea what I went through?! I was looking for you lot for ages—freezing cold, scared half to death—I thought you'd just... abandoned me!"
His voice cracked between fury and something rawer than that. Being left alone in the dark, even for a short time, was no small thing for an eleven-year-old.
"I'm sorry, Ron."
Harry hurried over and helped him to his feet.
"We did come up with a way to get you back, though. See? Here you are."
"Come up with a way? What way? Hang on, how did you get this stingy—I mean, this magnanimous cat to agree to go and fetch me?"
Ron shot a glance at Tom, then looked back at Harry.
"...One Galleon."
Harry admitted it plainly. He winced internally at the memory, but Ron's safety was worth far more than that.
"Merlin's beard! A whole Galleon?! Just to have him bring me back?! Harry, are you out of your mind? I could have walked!"
Ron's eyes went wide but the anger from before had quietly drained away, replaced by something warm and a little sheepish.
"And then been caught red-handed by Filch?"
Hermione interjected with an eye-roll.
"You're not entirely blameless in this, Ron. If you hadn't refused to trust Tom, Harry wouldn't have had to pay anything at all."
Ron went quiet. He muttered something that sounded like: "It was a completely reasonable assumption based on common sense. How was I supposed to know?"
Then he looked at Harry and said, with real sincerity.
"Harry—thank you. Seriously. I'll pay you back. Every last Sickle."
Before Harry could reply, Ron turned slightly awkwardly toward Tom.
"And... about earlier. I... I'm sorry."
Tom swished his tail in an air of superlative indifference.
[It was a transaction, nothing more. Your tuition's been paid. Just remember the lesson for next time.]
He turned to leave and then paused.
[Since you apologized with a reasonable amount of grace, I'll charge you one Sickle for the delivery fee. The remaining sixteen Sickles... consider them a deposit. For future homework commissions.]
Before anyone could so much as splutter a response, Tom disappeared.
"He's not... completely terrible, is he," Ron muttered quietly.
"Still pettily vindictive, though. I questioned him once. Once. Was all this really necessary?"
"It's the kind of pride that comes with real ability," Harry said, clapping Ron on the shoulder.
"After all, this is someone who managed to change how Professor Binns teaches.
Come on. Let's get back inside before Filch actually does catch us."
With that, he nudged the Fat Lady awake and recited the password, and the portrait swung open to reveal the passage beyond.
Ron rubbed his stomach; the teleportation had left him feeling distinctly wrong inside and followed the others through the hole. The common room was empty. Anyone planning a midnight adventure had already left; everyone else had long since gone to bed. The warmth and familiar safety of the room washed over him, and Ron finally let out a long breath.
"I still can't believe it," he said, sinking into the nearest armchair.
"Charlie always swore up and down that Apparition was impossible inside Hogwarts."
"Maybe Tom isn't using Apparition," Hermione said thoughtfully.
"Professor McGonagall let me experience it once. It felt like being shoved through a drain pipe. Tom's teleportation feels like nothing. They can't be the same thing."
"Nothing?!" Ron stared at her.
He'd nearly been sick from the experience. It had felt far worse than Apparition.
He decided not to dwell on the distinction. After a few minutes slumped in the chair, some color had returned to his cheeks, and he came back to the larger point.
"I'll believe he can change Snape's attitude in Potions now, at least. If the enchantments on Hogwarts itself can't stop him, Snape's hardly a challenge."
Harry settled into a chair as well. The night had been full to bursting, and he was genuinely tired. He was down one Galleon or technically one Sickle, depending on how you counted and Ron had had an unpleasant scare. But they were all back safe, and Filch hadn't caught them.
"At least we made it home in one piece."
"Yeah," Ron muttered, "but the cost was steep. A whole Galleon."
"Technically one Sickle," Harry reminded him.
"You're not seriously planning to let him write your homework again, are you?!"
Hermione's head snapped up before the argument could go any further.
"I mean after last time, if you two even think about—"
"Hermione, I'm exhausted," Ariana said simply, cutting in before the lecture could build momentum. "Let's get some rest. We still have class in the morning."
That single reminder did what no amount of scolding could: it brought Hermione up short. She hesitated, then nodded, and turned to the boys with a final look.
"Classes do start early. Ariana and I are heading up. And I will be asking Tom to return the rest of your Sickles."
As the two girls left, Ariana glanced back at Harry and Ron and gave them a quick, mischievous wink.
"Thank Merlin for Ariana," Ron exhaled once they were gone. "The last thing I needed tonight was a lecture."
"She's not wrong, though. Early class tomorrow. We should sleep."
"Defense Against the Dark Arts—I thought that was going to be brilliant. Professor Quirrell is such a disappointment."
"Don't worry. Tomorrow we'll have the lesson with Hufflepuff. Maybe Tom can do for Quirrell what he did for Binns and Snape."
"I seriously doubt even Tom is that capable."
Harry had long since learned not to argue with Ron when he was being stubborn. He said nothing, and they made their way up to the dormitory in companionable silence.
Whatever tension had built between them over the course of the evening, the nerves, the complaints, the brief sting of feeling left out, all of it had dissolved by now.
That was Gryffindor friendship for you: arguments came fast and went just as quickly. Or perhaps more accurately, their friendship had been built on arguments from the very beginning.
Neville and the others were already asleep, their breathing slow and even. Harry and Ron climbed into their own beds, and within minutes, the night's adventures had carried them both off to sleep.
Or so it seemed.
What they didn't know was that Tom being a cat of magnanimous principle had absolutely no intention of letting the matter end there.
No one noticed the white bedsheet that had slipped silently into the dormitory alongside them, hovering at a careful distance, watching without a sound.
Once Ron's breathing had settled into the rhythm of deep sleep, the figure beneath the sheet curled its lips back to reveal a sharp set of teeth. Tom crept forward on soundless paws back arched, steps feather-light and made his way to the edge of Ron's bed.
Above Ron's head floated a white dream-bubble, and inside it: an older, more self-assured version of Ron, chest gleaming with a Head Boy badge, arms cradling both the House Cup and the Quidditch trophy.
Tom looked at it for a long moment, then let out a quiet, satisfied laugh. He rubbed his paws together, made a small diving motion and leapt straight in.
They say you dream of what weighs on your mind. After a night as eventful as this one, it hardly seemed right for Ron to be having such a pleasant dream.
As a good friend, Tom felt a certain responsibility to correct that imbalance to provide Ron with a rather more eventful dreamscape.
This was purely for Ron's benefit, of course. There was absolutely nothing petty about it. Absolutely nothing at all.