A/N: Yes! Another Tom and Harry fic - only this time it isn't that slightly mushy really freaky kind that I usually do. More like kindred yet opposite spirits.
Word Count: 852
Scrupulous
"Why don't you just kill me," he spat, excruciatingly hunched over, on his knees, in his own little pool of blood. His hands were bound behind his back, low hanging with exhaustion and pain. Scars ravaged the surface of his flesh, covered in new blood and old bruises alike. His face, neck and chest were covered in mud - dark, thick, and mingling with the red that rivered from his skin.
But it was his expression that changed that vulnerable stance to dominance. Dominance and stupidity and stubbornness. Ooh, how it kindled a fire deep in those eyes - they didn't dull like the others, they didn't plead or beg or show off some cowardice hidden beneath the surface. No, he meant what he said. Let him die - he'd never give in.
Never, never, never.
Stupid boy.
Stupid and exhausting.
"Oh, but where would the fun in that be, my dearest Harry," the serpent hissed out delicately, adoringly, menacingly. And quietly. Oh so quietly. But it was frightening - terrifying. The serpents face was pale white, sickly. His skin was stretched across thin bones, no muscle evident. The nose was missing, two slits in it's place and terribly cut to stretch when he breathed. He was tall and he was dark - and he used to be handsome.
Not so anymore.
Except for the eyes. Those beautiful, bloody eyes that shone like a fevered blood and so many deaths it was awe-inspiring and gut-wrenching and you just had to look. Mesmerizing and horrifying. Oh, the things they have seen; the blood that has been spilt before them; the screams that echo within their depths. And the pleasure they have taken so sickly from it. Enough to make the strongest man shudder - the bravest one fall - the wisest one run away screaming in fear and anguish.
And yet this boy, this child knelt there on his knees daring him and taunting him. He was so utterly, magnificently stupid.
"Harry, Harry, Harry. My wonderful, naive boy," the serpent said in sibilant tongue, rolling and slithering and so carefully gentle. "Tell me, my Harry, tell me: What would you say if I didn't want you dead? Would you say, "Take me, train me, teach me - please"? Would you say, "Help me, mold me, create me - please"? Would you beg for my guidance and wisdom - I think you would. I know you would. Do you know why, my precious little toy?"
"You are nothing but death to me!" the boy screamed with what energy he had left. "Nothing but pain and darkness - I would never!" He spat so scathingly his voice seemed to mingle with the high laughter of the serpent.
" 'Never's never last forever, my hero; 'never's are a thing of ignorant little childes and their ignorant little dreams," the amusement and harshness showed through the light tone - the loving tone that meant so little and so much with it's hateful, greedy pitch. "You would ask for me - beg for me, because we are alike. We both know it is true. Both abandoned by family through the glorious death, both raised in hate, both terribly powerful. You would want that power to be controlled - "
"Contained, more like," the boy mapped out, voice low in hate. "Contained to keep me from becoming a monster like you!"
"No, you foolish boy! Controlled - you would want it controlled so you could exact your revenge upon those hateful muggles. I see it in your eyes, you long for vindication; deny it no longer," rasped from non-existent lips stretched over fangs dripping in acidic words dripping from acidic thoughts and an acidic mind. "You want it so atrociously that it pains you to speak it - to think it - and so you lock it away with your dark thoughts of blood and gore." His voice paused and lowered so that it gently caressed and ears had to perk and strain to hear. "You forget, my lovely, hateful boy, that I have seen your mind at it's deepest and it's boldest. I have seen you honestly."
"You have seen me only at my worst," pained virescent eyes admitted, aghast and lowered to his fragile form. "You have seen me when my thoughts became so like yours that it pleased you," his cracking, dulled voice replied. "You have seen me how you want to see me," his strong eyes looked up bravely, daringly. "You have seen me at the doorstep of my own demise - and so you must see that I would never even think it fit to say I would ask for you in any way."
"In any way?" the serpent echoed, voice disturbed and reluctant in it's intensity.
No more was passed but looks between the gorgeous, bloody eyes and the fragile, breaking form. The tile of it was unmoving, unyielding, and uncaring. Their dense loathing moment was over - no better, but far, far worse than it would ever be.
And with a green light, there was but the horrible, lengthy serpent left to his own miscalculated, grotesque thoughts.