Title: Kept Man
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, background James Potter/Lily Potter and James/OFC
Rating: R
Content Notes: Alternate universe (no Voldemort), angst, complicated family relationships
Wordcount: This part
Summary: Harry Evans is a lowly Dark Patrol wizard who's working hard to advance. He doesn't think much of Senior Undersecretary to the Minister Tom Riddle, but on the other hand, a one-night stand that lets them both get rid of tension seems like a good idea. Except that the one night-stand never seems to end.
Author's Notes: This is one of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics for this year. It will have three parts.

Kept Man

Harry sighed and leaned his back against the black marble wall behind him, ignoring the sharp glances that came in his direction. Yes, to some extent the Minister cared about her Dark Patrol looking neat and holding up standards, but she couldn't care too much about them, or Harry never would have been hired in the first place.

Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could still taste the blood of the ritual circle in his mouth.

To distract himself from thoughts that weren't going to do any good anyway, Harry glanced towards the Minister. She was wearing an impatient smile and nodding at the crowd of well-wishers around her. Harry wondered idly if it had really been her idea to throw a huge gala for her birthday. Other than the fact that all the money raised at it went to charity, it seemed an odd move for Minister Granger.

"Evans! The wall can hold itself up! Get out there and make sure no one's arranging to poison the Minister!"

Harry didn't bother retorting. It only meant he had to listen to lectures and nothing changed. "Yes, sir," he said, and pushed away from the wall to pass Auror Halloway. The man's crooked nose seemed to point directly at his back as Harry took up another desultory patrol around the room.

Poison Minister Granger? Honestly? Most of the wizarding world was the most content it had been at least since Harry's birth, with a reform-minded Muggleborn Minister. That she was Muggleborn contented the factions who wanted to see real change, and that she worked slowly, from the inside, contented the old guard of pure-bloods.

Still, Harry supposed there was always the possibility. So he walked slowly around the room, his wand in his sleeve, nonverbally casting the spell that checked for poisons on glasses that people held and the carafes of drinks that were being carried around the gala by the ostentatiously human servants. Nothing would happen to the drinks unless they were poisoned, when they would glow with a soft blue light, and if that happened, Harry would have to worry about other things than offending people.

As he'd expected, all the drinks in the room seemed to be fine. Harry returned to the corner where he'd been standing before and stared straight ahead without seeing anything.

He knew that eventually, as he climbed the ranks of the Dark Patrol, he would have more interesting duties. But he'd been in this position for eighteen months already, and nothing had really changed.

His last name, and his lack of legitimacy, had a lot to do with it.

Harry shook his head and snapped to attention as a Ministry flunky drifted towards him. He didn't recognize this one by sight, but that just meant the bloke didn't work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. His silver-edged purple robes said that he was someone important fairly high up.

Now the bloke pressed some kind of folded note into Harry's hand, sniffed, and said, "Well, there's no accounting for taste," before he turned away. Baffled, Harry opened the note while holding his hand up in front of his mouth to make it look as if he was just shielding a yawn.

Step outside the ballroom through the door on your right and enter the meeting room three steps down the corridor on your left. Undersecretary Riddle requests your presence.

Harry swore silently and moved smartly. Undersecretary Riddle was the Senior Undersecretary in the whole damn Ministry, serving under Minister Granger the way he'd served the three Ministers before her. No one kept him waiting and bragged about it.

Harry's life was miserable enough without incurring Riddle's displeasure.

The meeting room with Riddle in it turned out to hold a chair and an odd thing on the floor that looked like a Transfigured pallet. Harry blinked at it, but the majority of his attention was going to Undersecretary Riddle himself.

He was wearing plain black robes, not the silver-edged ones that his flunky had, but then, Riddle had never needed that sort of precious metal edging to make a statement. He stared at Harry now with intense, narrowed eyes, and Harry fought not to shift under his gaze.

"You wanted to see me, Undersecretary Riddle?" Harry finally asked. It had probably been a game to get him to break the silence first, but honestly, someone had to do it or they'd be standing here all night.

Riddle nodded. He had to be in his seventies at least, but no sign of that showed on his smooth face. He had no beard, which was out of fashion nowadays, but his burning dark eyes would have dared anyone to comment. Harry vaguely approved, since he didn't grow much more than a scraggle of hair on his chin himself.

"You'll do," Riddle said. "Since my choice isn't broad."

Harry stiffened his shoulders to keep from snapping something unfortunate. "Do for what, sir?"

Riddle stood up and strode over to him instead of answering. Harry stiffened his shoulders again. He wanted to punch Riddle in the face or curse him, but that would make him a pariah in the Ministry far faster than having the last name Evans would.

Riddle leaned down and kissed him.

Harry made an undignified blurting noise against his mouth, and tried to draw away. Riddle reached up and caught Harry's wrist, holding him still. Flickers of red, raw pain filled the corners of Harry's vision as he struggled against the grasp, which seemed much stronger than it should be.

Then Riddle's tongue plunged into his mouth, and Harry felt as if he was drowning.

He'd had sex, of course. Plenty of times, and even with a few blokes in Gryffindor and one in Slytherin who'd offered. But it had felt nothing like this, thick and overwhelming and making him lose all sight of everything, all feeling but the warmth in his mouth and the sensations that flooded down his face and into the rest of his body.

Riddle pulled back at last, keeping his left hand on Harry's wrist and his right on the side of his face. "I find myself in need of someone discreet, who will let me fuck him for one night," Riddle murmured. "It can't be someone outside the Ministry, who won't have a plausible reason to meet with me on a regular basis. On the other hand, if it's some too highly-ranked or too pure of blood, he'll expect special favors. And among the lower-ranked wizards, you are the only tolerable-looking one."

Harry let his tongue dart out to touch his lips while he thought. Tolerable-looking. Lower-ranked. Part of him wanted to tell Riddle to cram his offer up his arse.

On the other hand, a one-night stand wasn't some kind of lifetime commitment. And Harry hadn't had sex in eighteen months. He missed it.

He met Riddle's eyes and studied his face critically. Handsome, of course. But the intensity was what Harry was really looking for, and one reason he hadn't just gone out and pulled a Muggle. He wanted the magical connection he got with another wizard, and someone who focused on him when they were together.

He'd get that with Riddle.

"All right," he said, and glanced at the pallet. Now it was beyond obvious why some other piece of furniture had been Transfigured into it. "Here?"

"Of course, here," Riddle said, his voice like a whip as he stepped back and began to undress. "It would hardly be discreet to have you leave again, would it?"

Harry nodded, shrugged, and began to pull his clothes off. His heart was pounding so furiously in his ears that it probably would have drowned out any thoughts that could get through, anyway.

He did think, I'm sleeping with someone who could destroy my career if he wanted.

But as long as they gave each other what they wanted and got what they wanted, he didn't really think Riddle would have any reason to do that. Harry was so far beneath him on the Ministry ladder, after all.

He watched Riddle's body appreciatively as he removed his own robes. He kept himself fit, that was clear, with more toned muscles than Harry had expected and skin that was relatively free of scars. And the way that he breathed, moved, and focused made Harry stir and harden as he stepped out of his pants.

Riddle, meanwhile, was staring. Harry did his best to ignore that. Riddle would order him to put his clothes back on if he couldn't stand how skinny Harry was.

"Come here," Riddle said at last, his voice deep and husky.

Harry stepped up to him and kissed him first, something that startled Riddle if the half-flinch he made was anything to go by. But Harry kept his hands in place and kissed, something one of his lovers had taught him to do well, and Riddle first relaxed, then leaned into it, then nearly pushed him back into the wall with his ferocity.

Harry sighed in relief. Good, Riddle wasn't going to be one of those people who thought that Harry's inability to keep any sort of weight on meant he couldn't take a good fucking.

"On your back," Riddle whispered, and seemed startled again when Harry lay down and stretched his arms out. Is he used to dealing with people who all want to top or something? Harry wondered, even as he smiled at Riddle.

"Going to get over here and show me the reality your reputation is based on?"

Riddle covered him completely when he lay down on top of him. Harry breathed out to feel the weight of a chest against his, and kissed Riddle again while wrapping his legs around Riddle's waist and grinding against him. He sighed out when Riddle pulled back just long enough to reach thickly-lubed fingers down to Harry's arse.

Riddle must have cast at least one spell Harry hadn't heard—and probably wandless, too, but that wouldn't surprise Harry given what he'd heard about Riddle. Harry grunted as Riddle explored inside him with those fingers. Riddle paused to eye him.

"Not good enough yet," Harry told him. "Touch my bloody prostate already."

"I certainly hope that it is not bloody when we finish."

Harry rolled his eyes. Riddle thought he was interested in puns when—

No, he was interested in that. Harry arched his back with a gasp, and caught a glimpse of Riddle's smug face. Well, he could be all the smug he wanted, as long as he kept on touching Harry like that. Harry moaned his approval, and Riddle again drew back, this time in that way that meant he was probably lining up his cock.

Harry nodded, not that it looked as though Riddle would have waited for his permission, and Riddle surged into him.

It was rougher than Harry's last lover had been, and more insistent; it seemed Riddle was determined to fuck all the sounds he could out of him. But Harry loved the burn, and the way that Riddle began to move as if nothing mattered but chasing his own pleasure.

It meant that Harry didn't have to care about anything but his, either.

He did find out that Riddle was selfish in another way when Harry reached down to stroke himself and Riddle slapped his hand away. Harry rolled his eyes at the ceiling but had no trouble moaning as Riddle began to hit his prostate with every single thrust, which had to be the result of a spell.

"Your eyes," Riddle said in the middle of a gasp. Harry peered at him, and Riddle added, "They're remarkable."

Harry scowled. That was all anyone ever bloody complimented about him, his stupid eyes. What about his arse, or his magical strength, or his really great fucking skills?

To get back at Riddle, he squeezed down once, and had the satisfaction of seeing Riddle's confident rhythm falter. Riddle swore at him. Harry ignored him and squeezed again, and Riddle jammed his hips forwards and grabbed Harry's cock in a painful squeeze of his own.

"You enjoy pain, do you?" Riddle hissed close to his ear. "Not what my re-reports said…"

At least he was stuttering because of the way Harry was clamping him, Harry thought, lost somewhere between pleasure and anger and bitterness. Riddle had been investigating him? Why? Did he have to make sure that Harry's blood was pure enough or something, despite his last name?

The grip they had on each other didn't alter, and their eyes met and then their mouths, as Riddle furiously dipped his head and brought their lips together. Harry snarled into the kiss, but met it.

And then he came, and at least his vicious grip on Riddle dragged him over the edge, too. Harry gasped and shuddered through his climax, clinging to the greater pleasure that Riddle hadn't jerked him off.

Well, thinking about it, the man's cock had made him come. But that wasn't something he had to think about.

He fell back against the pillow afterwards, and Riddle leaned on top of him, glaring at him in a way that said Harry had better not even be thinking the word slump. Harry raised his eyebrows back, and waited until Riddle finally climbed off and slid out of him. Then he sat up and reached for his robes.

Riddle's arm tightened punishingly around his middle, making Harry grunt for breath. "Where are you going?"

"Back to my post at the gala." Harry kept his voice clipped. It was better than getting into some kind of odd argument with Riddle, which was what he seemed to be angling for.

"Hardly. I was promised a one-night stand. I shall have that night."

"The discretion you're also so obsessed with is hardly going to go along with me staying here."

"One of mine will tell your superiors that you had a bad reaction to some of the food and you're recovering."

Harry dropped back to the bed with a disgusted noise. Riddle leaned closer on his other side, but Harry refused to open his eyes and look at him. "And am I so terrible to spend a night in bed with?"

"They're going to think I'm weak now. That'll hold back my promotion opportunities."

Riddle was silent, and Harry assumed he had gone to sleep. He was drifting in that direction himself, despite the clamp of Riddle's arm around his waist, when he heard a surprisingly quiet, "And they hold you back?"

"I have a Muggleborn last name."

"That was a stupid decision on your parents' part, considering your father is a Potter."

Harry closed his eyes and said nothing else. There was nothing else to be said. Riddle had powerful friends and a respected bloodline, and would never understand himself.

"Careful, the smell might offend Evans's weak stomach!"

Harry gritted his teeth and continued working on the report on the gala that Auror Halloway had assigned him, "covering the part you were there for, anyway." He'd predicted exactly what would happen, and so it had. Even good rough sex wasn't worth the price he was going to pay.

Near lunch, when the rest of the Patrol officers in his department had cleared out, Harry leaned back from his desk and sighed deeply. Honestly, why was he trying so hard with the Dark Patrol? Even if he'd had married parents or a good last name, very few people got promoted from the Dark Patrol to the Aurors. Maybe being a private dueling instructor, like Mum had suggested, would be better.

Of course, if he followed her suggestion now, Dad would probably get offended. Harry sighed again. Sometimes he wished his parents had just never fucked, instead of this weird relationship where they'd fucked a few times, had him, and then James Potter had married a Malfoy and promptly decided he was too good for his Muggleborn lover and her son, except when he wanted to interfere.

"The weight of the world on your shoulders, Evans?"

Riddle had appeared in the doorway as though he'd Apparated there, but Harry didn't give him the satisfaction of flinching. He only glanced at the man and shrugged a little. "You could say that." He turned back to the report. No lunch for him today, given the jokes that would go along with it.

"You're working instead of eating?"

"Yes, given the jokes about my weak stomach."

Riddle chuckled. Harry choked on temper as hot as cinnamon. What had he seen in the man in the first place? Come to that, what did Ministers and the people who fawned on him see in him?

Not that the question is going to come up for me. I'll never be promoted to those heights.

Something hit the desk, and Harry whipped out his wand and stood with it pressed against Riddle's throat in seconds. Riddle only stood motionless, elevating his eyebrows a little. "Nothing wrong with your reflexes."

Harry glared at him and then at the bag he'd slapped on the desk, which honestly looked like nothing so much as a bag of money from Gringotts. He opened it slowly, keeping an eye on Riddle as he did. The smell of saffron rice and something else he couldn't identify drifted out, making his stomach cramp painfully.

"I brought lunch to share."

Harry waved his wand, and a spiral of rice and what turned out to be pork rose out of the bag. Riddle watched him with his face gone expressionless. Harry shrugged as he Transfigured one of the crumpled parchments that had been his first try as a report into a bowl. "Needed to make sure it didn't have the kind of potion in it that would make him sick."

"Why would I do something like that?"

"For the same reason you find jokes about my weak stomach to be funny."

Riddle leaned in. "It was a decent cover story. And I find myself more interested in you than you might find comfortable, Patrolman Evans."

Harry didn't respond, locating a fork from the bottom of the desk and digging into the new mingling of rice and pork in front of him. He had to close his eyes, because he was damned if he would moan in front of Riddle. The surge of warmth in his stomach and bliss in his throat made him want to, though.

"It's Spanish," Riddle said, looking pleased when Harry glanced at him again. "And I find myself interested in your story, why your name is Evans instead of Potter."

Harry shrugged. The truth itself made his stomach ache in a way that this meal would never be able to touch, no matter how good it was, but the story was well-known enough that Riddle could find someone other than Harry to tell him if Harry didn't.

"I was born illegitimate. Mum really thought James Potter had changed from the prat he used to be, and he'd marry her. Dad decided, after getting pressure from some other people he wanted to impress, that he was going to marry Livia Malfoy and play the perfect pure-blood. Lots of people knew he was my father, of course, but he never claimed me formally, and Mum just behaved the way everyone thought Muggleborns 'should' by sleeping with a pure-blood and not casting contraceptive charms. Now the only time I see my father is when he decides that I'm shaming him in this weird borderland where he won't claim me and he won't leave me alone."

"Fascinating," Riddle said softly. "From that perspective, it sounds almost as though you wish your father had never acknowledged you at all."

Harry shrugged again. It was true enough. And Riddle didn't need to know anything else.

"My half-sister Annabelle is the Potter child my father needs," Harry said simply. "She has the looks and the magic and the blood and everything. She makes friends without trying and she's on the fast track to becoming a Wardmaster once she graduates from Hogwarts."

"And you're so certain that you are not destined for similar success?"

"Yeah, I am," Harry said shortly. Riddle also didn't need to know about the lectures James Potter had given him, threatening what would happen if Harry climbed too high in the Ministry, but also if he pursued a "shameful" career outside it.

Riddle didn't take offense at his tone, but only conjured his own bowl and poured some of the rice and pork dish into it, beginning to eat without looking away from Harry. Harry leaned back from his own meal a moment later. "This is hardly discreet. People are going to wonder why the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister is interested in a mere Patrolman."

"They may think as they like."

"No," Harry said, and used his wand to raise a shimmering barrier across the door so no one walking by could see into the office. Or rather, they would see an empty desk and nothing else. It was an illusion spell that Mum had taught him, and Harry had perfected it a long time ago. "I want to know what changed between last night and now. One-night, discreet stand, that was one thing. I could understand that. But this?"

"Perhaps you don't understand what I really want."

"That's a given. That would be why I'm doing this," Harry gestured between them and slowed his voice down, "asking questions. Do you know that word, Senior Undersecretary? People ask each other questions why they want to know something."

"No one else would dare defy me so to my face."

Riddle sounded amused instead of infuriated. Harry leaned a little towards him. "And the person doing this is also the one you won't be fucking, unless you start answering."

"Bold of you to assume I would want a second night."

Harry turned back to his report.

Riddle seized his wrist. Harry didn't need his wand to cast deadly magic, though, and he settled for a sideways glare. Riddle laughed, long and low. "Very well, yes. I wouldn't mind having you in my bed again. And in return, I will help you gain the promotion that you desire."

Harry shook his head. "It would be too obvious. Someone like you taking an interest in someone like me? Someone would assume nepotism right away, and enough people know their genealogies that they would assume lover rather than relative."

"Someone like me?"

"If you're fishing for compliments, you won't get them. But someone with a powerful bloodline all wizards know and fear."

"I don't think," Riddle said softly, "that those wizards include you."

Harry shrugged. "I was still raised by an independent mother even if people despise her. I don't have any reverence for your bloodline."

"Perhaps that is the source of the defiance that makes you so intriguing." Riddle considered him for a long moment. "I find it all the more interesting that you have not expressed any distaste for the idea of being a kept man."

"What, don't you think it's like mother, like son?"

The words fell into motionless silence, like the bottom of a deep pool. Riddle leaned forwards with his chin propped in his palm. "No," he said softly, when there was absolutely no chance that his words could have been mistaken for a mere response to Harry's. "One thing that separates you is that your mother, by all accounts, truly did believe that James Potter would marry her. You are actually arguing against the idea of a permanent relationship."

Harry said nothing. Most pure-bloods, or powerful half-bloods like Riddle, would have been discouraged by the reminder that Harry was illegitimate. He chewed and swallowed the last of his lunch and turned to his report again.

Riddle reached out to catch his wrist. Harry looked at him from the corner of his eye. "It doesn't matter how good-looking you are. If you keep touching me when I don't want it, then I'll shout, and your discretion will be ruined."

"This is the arrangement I propose," Riddle continued, his voice smooth and soft. "I give you all the traditional rewards of a kept man. I give you better food, better clothes-" His gaze swept Harry's robes and his nose wrinkled. "A better place to live, the promotion you want. In return, you be discreet, cooperate with me, and admit no one else to your bed."

"It sounds like this arrangement is unbalanced," Harry commented, while his heart hammered. Riddle hadn't even mentioned what would be the most attractive part of all this for Harry: that Harry would have someone protecting him powerful enough that James Potter couldn't control his life anymore. "Why would you settle for so much less?"

"You have no idea when was the last time I had the kind of release I enjoyed last night." Riddle leaned towards him. "Or how tiresome toadying becomes."

Harry leaned back in his chair, increasing the distance between them again. The air between them was too warm, too charged. He had to have some distance. "You like that I'm defiant?"

"And intelligent, and capable of being a good conversationalist." Riddle's lips quirked. "Not that many people have given you a chance."

"You don't know that I'm capable of being a good Auror, though."

"I know that Minister Granger has noticed you," Riddle countered. "She's asked about you a few times. I think she would promote you, but the precarious nature of her position means that it would take at least another two years. And your qualities...yes, you would make a good Auror. Why should I not help that along?"

Harry swallowed. It felt as though one of the stars he had so often wished on as a child had suddenly glanced down and noticed him personally.

Perhaps in Hogwarts he would have refused this, still intent on being an idealistic Gryffindor, but then, back in Hogwarts he was somewhat shielded from the reality of being an illegitimate half-blood with a Muggleborn last name in the Ministry. Headmaster Dumbledore had created an atmosphere welcoming of all. Then Harry had graduated and found out that the ambitions and dreams he had been encouraged to nurture would wither on the vine in an instant.

And even if he had had the right last name, he would still have had a father intent on controlling everything he did. Riddle's arrangement represented one of the few genuine chances Harry had ever had to combat that.

Besides, the sex had been really good.

He sighed. "Your word that you won't try to force me to reveal our relationship in public, that you won't stray, either, and that you will tell me when this needs to end."

"My word." Riddle's eyes were as bright as starlit darkness. He leaned forwards and lifted Harry's hand from the desk, kissing the back of it and making Harry's skin tingle so much that he caught his breath. Riddle smiled, lifting his gaze and his eyebrows at the same time.

"I think that you will make a good Auror," Riddle repeated, as if he still had that on his mind after what Harry had said before. "And a near-perfect lover."

Staring into Riddle's face, Harry wasn't sure if he could say the same thing, but he knew he wanted the chance to find out.