How Fate Intended by hoboheartache on ao3

Harry put the crystal skull on display in the fourth compartment of his trunk.

He hadn't had much use for the small studio apartment that Tom had made for him in his first year, and it had just been gathering dust in his trunk for the past two years. Now though, he felt that the private space would be more useful this year than the last two. He had set the skull (and it's purple cover) on his dresser, where he had drawn a circular rune meant to keep any malevolent magic from escaping. The skull still freaked him out a little, and he didn't want to take any chances with it being around his friends.

Walking out of the house, Harry scratched Padfoot's ear, "I'm off to my totally not magical boarding school Snuffles, it would be super weird if I saw you there so this is goodbye."

The dog looked at him strangely and got up, wandering away to the woods behind the house.

The drive to Kings Cross was quiet, and the walk to the platform was equally silent. Harry didn't feel particularly inclined to pay attention to anything going on, and he quickly found himself taking up an entire bench in his regular compartment, legs thrown out on the plush seating and back against the window.

He was trying to come up with a rune scheme that would protect his walkman from ambient magic, and Tom whispered ideas in his mind as he wrote out potential runes on paper. Theo was the first to arrive, and stopped in the doorway.

"Harry?"

He glanced up, "...Theo?"

They stared at each other for a moment. Theo had finally hit puberty, apparently.

"You filled out."

"Wha- you grew a foot!"

"Four inches actually. No big deal."

Theo seemed extremely perplexed.

"Hey, why's your eye yellow?"

The mousy sighed tiredly, coming all the way into the compartment and dropping onto an adjacent seat, "I had to get it replaced. I had... an accident."

Harry winced, "tough luck, mate."

Silence descended onto the compartment as Harry returned to his runes and Theo tried to figure out how Harry had managed to grow four inches in such a short period of time. Harry could hear the tick of Theo's wrist watch in the silence.

"It was your creature inheritance, wasn't it."

"Yup." popping the p as he continued to write, Harry didn't even look up from his notebook.

"You aren't going to tell me?" Theo pressed further, his itch to understand the current mystery overriding his sense of tact.

"You haven't figured it out?" He replied.

Theo narrowed his eyes, Harry was deflecting. Something was wrong with this situation, "you're some sort of demon, I've figured that much."

"Well that's awfully rude."

"You can't keep it secret forever you know."

The temperature in the room dropped several degrees, frost crystalizing on the windows. Harry turned to the other boy slowly, anger clouding his mind. Theo automatically realized his mistake.

Glowing, angry green eyes.

"Watch yourself, Nott."

Theo sat back against the seat with a thump, hands clenched into fists.

The compartment went back to a (much more tense, and cold) silence as Harry furiously ignored the other boy in the compartment. Theo's hands were shaking, trying to forget the glowing eyes as they bore down on him.