Thomas Prest: A Simple Magician

The next day, Tom groggily woke up, not opening his eyes just yet because he wanted to savor the pleasant after-taste of his wonderful sleep. Snuggling his cheek deeper into his pillow... he suddenly realized he was not lying on a pillow but on something more firm, yet still soft.

Tom recognized this feeling and his lips slowly curled into a lazy smile as he let out a pleased hum and put these irrelevant thoughts out of his head, deciding to just enjoy lying on Natasha's bare chest.

Natasha, who recognized he woke up, had clearly different plans, and Tom's dizzy drifting to and fro the dreamland was interrupted once again as her hand gently landed on his head, slowly and methodically caressing his hair in a way he liked.

He enjoyed that. A lot. But it also prevented him from falling back asleep and the fact Natasha was fully aware of this allowed a small seed of irritation to grow in his chest.

Despite that, he stubbornly kept his eyes closed, trying to fall back asleep even though he knew it would be impossible for him. At least his 'pillow' was still warm, soft, and cuddly.

Tom heard Natasha's amused chuckle and instantly knew the correct answer for it.

"Five more minutes, love." He mumbled before deciding to ignore the world for the next hour.

By the time Tom and Natasha finally got out of bed, Hermione was already pounding on their door, trying to tell them that the lunch they were invited to would be happening in an hour so they better wake up.

With great reluctance, the two untangled their feet and Tom rolled to the side... not stopping after just one roll and instead, rolling all the way to the edge before he fell from the bed, a small groan leaving his lips.

It served to wake him up, though.

Yeah. All went totally according to the plan...

...

An hour later, an overly excited Hermione was urging Tom and Natasha to hurry up, much to their continued amusement. Despite Hermione's attempts, the two just leisurely walked side by side while holding hands, purposefully annoying the teenage girl by walking even slower while giving her an innocent smile at her visibly growing frustration.

Honestly... both Tom and Natasha found it cute how Hermione acted. She was so excited to meet this Harry again.

It was a good thing too, in their opinion. Hermione was either trying to drown herself in books or had this constant melancholic look full of sadness. Both Tom and Natasha heard her cry on multiple occasions when they walked around her room too so seeing her so happy and excited was good for a change.

They even secretly agreed to not make fun of Hermione and Harry... much. That in itself told tales about how content they were with Hermione's improved mood.

Getting to the Weasleys was only a matter of walking through their courtyard since their tent was set up on their lawn. Thanks to that, no matter how leisurely Tom and Natasha walked, they eventually arrived at their front door.

Hermione didn't knock, though. She just opened them and beckoned Tom and Natasha in. And when they entered, they found only chaos inside.

Things were flying through the air, the children running around doing who knows what, and the house was full of noise, especially the loud shouting of Mrs. Weasley as she tried to command everyone to do stuff.

Tom was inflicted with a mild headache in the first three seconds. He felt as if he was facing some kind of dungeon boss with an area of effect crowd-control shout skill. She was just that loud. And annoying.

"Damn..." Natasha whispered, too used to being shouted at to be bothered. She was mostly amused by the almost hysterical mayhem around.

"Tell me about it." Tom grumbled while they were led to the kitchen where Arthur and Molly briefly greeted them due to being too busy before Hermione led them to the adjacent room where a big table was located and behind that table, a black-haired skinny boy played chess with Ron.

"Harry!" Hermione shouted and threw herself at the skinny boy, giving him a tight hug that surprised him, making his green eyes go wide.

Tom instantly recognized the boy as the 'Boy-Who-Lived' as he and Natasha sat down opposite him. The boy was too preoccupied with Hermione's prattling so Tom could observe him to his heart's content without making it awkward.

This Harry didn't seem malnourished. Sure, he was small for his age but Tom would say he was skinny in the way a usual skinny kid is skinny instead of looking underfed. There was not one telltale sign of abuse at the first glance or anything like that either.

Of course, Tom wouldn't forsake the possibility just because there was no visible proof. This world had magic, after all.

But in the end, it wasn't his problem. Unless he could somehow profit from helping the boy, Tom would not move a finger. This was just his personal curiosity.

"So you are Harry Potter, huh?" Tom asked, interrupting the conversation between Harry and Hermione.

Harry timidly looked at Tom, his eyes showing curiosity but also caution, "Yes, sir."

"Hermione wouldn't shut up about you." Tom quipped while throwing a small smirk Hermione's way.

As expected, the smartest witch of her generation didn't manage to find a suitable answer to this kind of teasing and could only indignantly exclaim, "Tom!"

"Er..." Harry, similarly, also didn't have a proper answer and grew a bit flustered.

Tom hummed in satisfaction with himself but then he noticed with the corner of his eyes how Ron's lips curled down in dissatisfaction and his eyes grew darker.

'He is jealous.' Tom inwardly noted. But Ron also didn't seem like he fully realized what his feelings were. 'Well, he is just a kid so this much is normal. Still... I can already tell this is the reason why there will be a problem in their friendship this year.' Tom inwardly sighed.

Ron didn't look like someone in love with Hermione. More or less, he had the look of someone who was annoyed when he didn't get the attention he wanted. Harry and Hermione talking with each other and excluding him seemed to be the real source of his jealousy and discomfort.

Even without knowing what was supposed to happen... and he didn't put much stock into his supposed foreknowledge... Tom could already see Ron causing some problems because of his own insecurity.

But once again, that was not his problem. Solving every problem for Hermione was not Tom's style.

"Are you gonna give him the shovel talk?" Natasha amusedly asked, interrupting Tom's trail of thoughts and causing both Harry and Hermione to grow even more mortified.

"Nah." Tom shook his head, but he couldn't let her off too easily, now, could he? "Hermione is big enough to decide for herself what she wants." He then turned to Harry. "Just don't get her pregnant, alright?"

The poor Harry and Hermione turned beet red and speechless, spluttering denials left and right. Even Ron was beet red, but not fully from embarrassment. Thankfully, he was also too speechless to comment.

"The lunch is ready!" Mrs. Weasley chose exactly that moment to come in and break the awkward atmosphere with a shout loud enough that the whole house almost shook.

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Author Note:

Ugh, this little scene with meeting the Weasleys was not easy for me to write. I constantly want to bash Ron while trying to not do just that. It's a horror, I tell you!