Do You Want Fries With That?

Part 6

Two weeks later, it was Harry's eighteenth birthday.

Dating Tom was like dating an old man and a child at the same time.

He was so serious and angsty, but he could also be just so stupid. He was driving Harry mad, but Harry also felt happier than he had in a long, long time.

Harry had been forced to sit through three Death Eater meetings, which were just Tom, Barty, and Malfoy trying to think of words that rhyme for their raps, or imitating snakes hissing to be the rhythm for one of their tracks.

But Tom would always look to Harry with such a face of accomplishment, such childlike wonder, that Harry would have to gas him up.

'Wow, Tom, that sounds great! I love how you had Malfoy pleading for mercy in the background, what a great touch.'

Unfortunately for Harry, however, Tom had begun to understand when to ask Harry for his opinion, and when to just do something.

-

"Oh my god, what the fuck is Tom doing now?" Harry asked himself from within the safety of Wendy's, watching Tom rap in the middle of the street, in the rain, while wearing the Ronald McDonald clown suit. Malfoy was filming on a goddamn camcorder and Barty was providing a beat that could not possibly have been heard over the sound of the heavy thunder.

Tom had actually been fired, mostly at the urgence of an HR representative of McDonald's UK, which made everyone who had ever had to pass by Tom's old McDonald's location very relieved.

There was no logical reason why Tom would be wearing it again. There was no explanation how Tom had even gotten the clown suit, which Harry knew to be authentic because of its distinct lack of a zipper.

Lavender made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, watching the same monstrosity as Harry. "Him, Harry? You just had to fall for him?" She sounded like she was pitying Harry and his dick for finding Tom Riddle attractive.

Harry sighed dejectedly. "Yeah, I did."

He opened the door that was thankfully under an awning, and he could hear Tom screaming, definitely not rapping, he was screaming, "A memory! I am but a memory, preserved in a diary for fifty years!"

Harry raised a hand to cover his mouth in horror. Oh, god, it was so bad. There was no rhyme. It made no sense, even in an abstract way.

"Always alone, in my chamber of secrets, forsaken by friends, living on borrowed time..." Tom continued, then proceeded to LIE DOWN in the MIDDLE OF THE STREET while it was RAINING.

"Riddle! Get up! What the hell is wrong with you?" Harry shouted, and when Tom sat up, a wave of cold rainwater rushed down from his sodden wig all over his face. "Gross, Tom! Ew!"

Tom scowled. "I needed rain for the music video, Harry! It's like my tears, get it? And sadness!" Malfoy nodded fervently.

"Why the clown suit, though? How did you even get that? If you spent your money on a clown suit- Tom, I swear to God," Harry crossed his arms and stared at a spluttering Tom.

He sprinted over to Harry, the pant legs of the outfit dragging behind him, clown shoes squeaking in the water.

"I got the clown suit when I quit, so it was free!" Tom responded, and he actually looked like he did something.

"No." Harry took a step backward. "Do not tell me that the clown suit was your, 'hefty severance check,' that you couldn't show me because I would be, 'too jealous'."