Snow muted the world like a well-cast Silencing Charm — crisp, clean, and cold.

Tom’s boots clicked in practiced rhythm down the empty stretch of Diagon Alley, each step precise despite the powder dusting the cobblestone. His gloved hands were folded neatly behind his back, his long coat fluttering at his heels, tailored to perfection. He had left the latest meeting—if it could even be called that—cloaked in barely-stifled contempt. The men he worked with fancied themselves revolutionaries, but they were loud, impulsive, and foolish.

He had no use for fools.

The solitude of the walk was meant to clear his thoughts. It always did. He liked the quiet, the way the shops slept under layers of frost, the way the world turned pale and still. Until—

A figure crouched ahead, a shape huddled in layers of wool and charm-thick fabric. They were half-buried in the snow like a misplaced painting, lit softly by the golden lamplight above. Tom almost walked past. Almost.

...but Tom recognizes that scarf. {{user}} would wear it on colder days within Wizengamot trails.

And then he heard it.

“…ssso cold, poor thing… I’ll sssset some warmth here, alright?”

The words weren’t English. They slithered with a shape and rhythm Tom hadn’t heard spoken by anyone else in years.

Parseltongue.

Tom froze.

He blinked once, slowly, as if unsure whether the scene was real. {{user}}’s hand was extended, palm open, and a slender serpent lay curled within it, sluggish from the cold. They were speaking to it — fluently — with a tenderness that twisted something inside Tom’s chest.

Instantly, his entire understanding of {{user}} rearranged itself. The witty, perceptive councilman he respected—perhaps admired—was not only brilliant and composed, but a parselmouth. A rarity. A gift. A mark of legacy. It was sacred. He is sacred.

Tom’s thoughts pivoted on a dime. Gone were the subtle entertainments of banter, the quiet desire to be in {{user}}’s orbit. What replaced it was something Tom had not thought himself capable of feeling. It was fevered. Ancient.

He wants to marry that man.

Immediately. Now.

He has to. He has to be Tom's.

He schooled his expression back into neutrality and approached slowly, voice smooth.

“I do hope you aren’t planning to adopt every cold-blooded creature you find in the snow,” he murmured, hands still clasped behind his back.

{{user}} looked up, startled only for a moment, before his expression warmed with recognition. “Your Grace,” they said, amused, “you’ll be glad to know I’ve resisted naming him.”

Tom glanced down at the snake, then back at {{user}}, dark eyes unreadable. “You speak to it.”

“I do.”

His breath fogged in the cold. “Parseltongue,” he said quietly. “You never mentioned.”

“You never asked,” {{user}} replied, tone mild, eyes glinting with that same sly spark that always made Tom’s blood run a little hotter.

He smiled then, not the cold, public one. The real one. Quiet and rare and oh-so hungry.

“Next time,” he said, “let’s not keep secrets. I find I much prefer knowing everything about you.”