A/N: I knew it! I knew cliché was the way to go if I wanted lots of feedback! It only took me, like… four years to realise it…
Ah, well… Thank you! If it wasn't apparent from the previous paragraph, I'm immensely grateful for the record-breaking number of reviews. Thanks, everybody!
To add to the author's note from the first chapter: akuma-river pointed out SheWolfe7 as a notable HP/TR writer, and I also realised I forgot cheryl bites, which I am eternally ashamed of. (I thought I was going to die reading Voldie's Book Club and How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Lord V. It would have been a most enjoyable death, too…)
Anyway… onto the second chapter.
x
Chapter Two: The Paradoxx
The New Year and Tom's (uncelebrated) birthday passed and classes started again. Harry was becoming less of a loner, his association with Tom saddling him with social obligations, not the most welcome of which was attendance of Slughorn's parties. He mostly acted as Tom's shadow, watching the boy sound out the other guests and, sometimes, form alliances, but he found nothing enjoyable about the mindless prattle that filled the room, or the champagne and the caviar… or the whole posh atmosphere. He just didn't fit in.
Tom, however, wasn't ashamed of him in the least, rather coaxed him to take part in the conversations and introduced him to people that had already been screened before. Harry learnt to move in the aristocratic society, although he would probably never like it.
The classes were over for the day, and the two seventh-year Slytherins for once secluded themselves in the Room of Requirement, enjoying a soft carpet, with Tom lying on his back and holding his book above his face and Harry on his side, with his head on Tom's stomach.
They have been like that for less than a quarter of an hour and it was already becoming unbearable to Harry. The lying on the stomach part was nice – he had been shell-shocked when Tom just did it to him one day and continued to do so until Harry decided that it probably was enjoyable and tried it today – but he could hear Tom's heartbeat thumping in his left ear, which was skin-far away from the abdominal aorta, and simply couldn't concentrate. When he realised he was trying to read the same paragraph for the third time, he just gave in and took up Tom-watching.
Tom was… Tom. He was vaguely similar to Harry, in that they both had black hair, though Harry's was longish and Tom's short. Tom also had blue eyes, but it wasn't Neville's watery blue or Dumbledore's crystalline, it was a bit darker and with a hint of green. And Tom's mouth was just… perfect. He was all bloody perfect, even though his arms were too weak for a physical fight and his ribs stuck out a bit (which Harry could feel right now) and he had to charm away the wisp that just could not be called a beard or risk humiliation.
"What?" Tom asked, finally noticing that Harry was observing him.
"You're getting on my damn nerves…" Harry hissed. It came out petulant rather than indignant.
Tom, not bothering with useless inquires, lifted an eyebrow.
Harry sat up, shook his head and turned forwards, which basically meant he turned his back onto Tom.
"Harry?"
He just had to be fucking perfect.
Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Harry twisted around, finding his nose about an inch from Tom's. His resolve was strong, but not that strong. He brought his hands up, steadily, determinedly; one cupped Tom's face, the other gripped the side of his robe to keep him in place. Deciding that two seconds had to have been enough for the boy to flee if he had been so inclined, Harry leant in and kissed Tom.
And, Salazar, was it everything he had wanted it to be. It was pliant and contrary and welcoming but not, with a lingering sense of wrongness, but Harry knew that he wanted to do it again and again and then more, until his mind was blown and there was nothing left but to begin from the start.
When Tom kissed back that whole thought shattered and there remained nothing but here and now and Harry was, for the first time in conscious memory, uncaringly happy. They remained like that for a while, just kissing, not rushing it. Time was playing with them, but they took all that they could have.
Eventually they separated, and Harry felt Tom's breath on his lips and Tom's eyes were too close to focus on.
"Good to know I can still manipulate you," Tom said dazedly, but Harry was equally dazed and the meaning of the sentence was very nearly lost on him.
When it penetrated, he wasn't angry. Not even disappointed. He had deliberately surrendered himself to Tom's manipulation when he had realised that it made him feel better than dogged stubbornness and moral high-ground.
He chuckled. "How long?" When had Tom started seducing him?
Tom scoffed. "A year? Longer?" He shrugged. "I have no idea. But I have known for four weeks now."
"Known what?" Harry asked, tensing under Tom's palms. He didn't know what he wanted to hear, although he had a clear idea about what he did not want: he didn't want shallow attraction, an arrangement or a casual relation. Harry knew Tom's passion better than Tom knew it himself, and Harry wanted it all, for as long as he could have it.
"That I want you – want you to stand by me, to watch my back and to tell me when I'm about to do a mistake. You are the second person I've ever trusted, Harry. Don't blow it. The first one regretted it – still does. Always will."
Harry breathed in so he could answer, but he had nothing to say past the obvious. So he just kissed Tom again, and this time that perfect mouth opened and Tom's tongue slid in between Harry's lips and it was slightly less exhilarating than the first foray, but Harry would never ever, ever, ever take it back.
x
The spellwork was tricky.
Harry didn't have enough time alone. He would have asked when that had happened – wasn't he the resident loner? – but he knew it was a direct consequence of allowing Tom Riddle to guide him into the fold. He also didn't know where that was going to lead him: he wouldn't become a Death Eater, no matter how this little interlude between Tom and himself would turn out, he would die before he accepted the Dark Mark, and he wasn't going to segregate people based on their ancestry.
He certainly wasn't going to rub elbows with Lestrange's sons or daughter in law, Macnair, the Carrows' and their ilk.
Nevertheless, Tom was taking over more and more of his life as the second term started, and Harry barely kept up with his class-work (not everybody could be a bloody genius), so he certainly didn't have enough time to learn spell-detection and in his rare unsupervised moments find out what exactly was the true reason why Tom had given him the frame.
He wasn't as infatuated as to believe it was sheer sentimentality.
Intelligence, perhaps? That seemed most probable – once Tom realised he couldn't control Harry, he would certainly want to at least watch him…
Even if it was a bug, though, Harry doubted that was all. There must have been other enchantments, because Tom didn't do things by halves.
Maybe, he deliberated, the frame was like the diary, a receptacle for a memory of Tom.
Or a memory of Harry.
"If it bothers you that much that it's empty, why don't you ask Ambercrombie to draw you a portrait," Dolohov suggested when he saw Harry glaring at the thing.
"It worries me that I don't have a clue what it would do if I put a picture inside," Harry said, perhaps a little too sincerely. "It might steal somebody's soul or something."
Dolohov chuckled, then suddenly paused and reconsidered. With a thoughtful frown, he surveyed the innocently inactive frame. "That is remarkably macabre of you, Potter. However, I would venture a guess that if you shared your anxiety with Tom Riddle, you might find an answer to your questions."
Far from reassured, Harry made a mental note to pay attention to Dolohov, because he was craftier than he appeared at a glance.
Later that night, after Tom had trudged in and gone straight to the bathroom, Harry decided to do a little manipulating on his own to see if it worked both ways. He waited until Tom had trapped himself in the shower, snuck in (tripping Tom's ward, but there was no way around that) and Locked the door with a spell that would burn a couple of phalanges off anyone who tried to break it.
Tom stood beneath the showerhead, with his back to Harry, at a glance unaware, but in fact coiled to attack. It was impossible not to pause for a few seconds and enjoy the sight of the rivulets of water running down the expanse of pale skin, but Harry quickly shook himself out of the trance and spoke up before he was blasted with a wandless firebolt: "It's difficult to trust someone, isn't it?"
Tom actually braced himself on the tiled wall as the fight left him. The air was thick with moisture and Harry had to take off his glasses, but even through the forming mist he could see how Tom's muscles gave out and it was all the boy could do not to sink to his knees. Harry regretted that he would miss such a delicious picture, but he had a different agenda tonight.
"How much would you say you trust me?" he inquired faux nonchalantly.
Tom gasped out a short, breathless laugh. "More than yesterday, less than tomorrow."
That was a good, ambiguous, politically correct response. Harry hated it, and he definitely did not accept it as an answer to his query.
He stepped closer to the stall, still dressed in his full uniform. If it got wet, the house elves would dry it – he needed it for the illusion of power over Tom. Nakedness meant vulnerability, especially for someone who never revealed himself, in any sense of the word, to the people around him, someone who knew how easy it was for others to detect and use his weaknesses unless they remained hidden at all times. Tom might have been able to seriously hurt, perhaps kill Harry with naught but his innate magic, yet the goal here was not to make him fight but to make him surrender.
"Your journal," Harry said, moving so close that he felt droplets of water on his face, and twirling his wand in his fingers.
Tom pressed his body to the wall, putting as much distance as he could between them, but he kept his arms down, allowing Harry the sight of his front – of the lean form, of sharply contrasting dark hair below his waist curling around his flaccid penis, pale thighs, a multitude of little white scars, some of which were too regular, certainly inflicted deliberately.
Blinded by his fear and the effort not to show it, Tom completely missed just how easily he could have taken control of the situation.
Harry's throat was tight as he spoke again: "You have enchanted it. Put a piece of yourself inside."
Tom's jaw tightened. He fisted his hands, ready to attack or defend himself if Harry attacked. They were standing on the edge of a blade here. Harry had not intended to take it to such extreme lengths, but there was no doing things half-way when it came to Tom.
"Are you going to be trailing pieces of yourself wherever you go?" Harry asked, putting his wand back into his holster. "Because I won't be content with half a wizard."
"I know what you're doing," Tom told him in. His voice was fragile. The mere awareness that one was being manipulated didn't preclude it from working, as Harry knew from experience.
"What did you do?" Harry asked.
Tom gathered his magic to him like a shield, a cocoon tightly wound around his otherwise bare body, and the temperature of the room instantly dropped. The fog condensed on all surfaces. Harry, dressed in a partly soaked robe, shivered.
"Give me an Oath that you will not reveal what I'll tell you," Tom demanded.
Harry shook his head. "Trust the Oaths I've already given you."
They maintained the stalemate for so long that Tom's lips went blue with chill and Harry was tempted to rub his hands together to warm his fingers. Finally, Harry reached out, pulled Tom out of the stall, against his body, and cast a warming charm on both of them.
Tom laced his fingers with Harry's around the wand, forcing a redistribution of power. Harry gave in to the temptation and trailed kisses from the corner of Tom's mouth to his shoulder. Tom became pliant in his arms.
"You'll never find anyone better than me," Tom promised.
"You don't know that," Harry replied. "The future is full of possibilities."
"But there is only one of myself."
Tom's eyes were close enough that Harry saw them clearly even without his glasses. No matter how self-assured he made himself sound, Tom was far from certain.
"Is there?" Harry countered. "Explain to me what is in the journal, if not another you."
Tom, after a brief surprise of how much he already knew without being told, Summoned a towel and told Harry about Horcruxes.
x
Spring was upon them. Sun rose earlier and set later, but there was still frost on the ground, and patches of unthawed snow here and there. Harry was lounging in the Room of Requirement, staring out of the window at a meadow of snowdrops and contemplating last night.
Tom was still sleeping, a solid body next to Harry's own, moving with regular inhales. There was a bit of warmth where his skin touched Harry's, in contrast with the chill of the room.
It was rather a nice day overall, Harry decided. As opposed to yesterday, he wasn't a virgin anymore, and it did not feel as a loss at all. He was in love with Tom and admitted it to himself, although he wasn't likely to say it out loud. He was also quite certain that – incredible bullshitting skills aside – Tom was in love with him, and once he got over the unfathomable irony of that, he found that it was the best thing that could have ever happened to him.
By mutual consent, they acted in public the same way they had acted before: singled each other out from the crowd, made it obvious that they to a degree shared their power, but left everyone tying themselves in knots trying to figure out exactly what sort of relation there was between them. It was probably due to they're confining the relationship into complete privacy, which was rather sparse, that it took them this long to get to the next step.
Harry was already wondering what the next one would be – there must have been something, because a… love (because it was love, there was no denying it) like theirs, with all the consuming yet constrained passion, simply could not become stagnant.
"Harry…"
He shivered and looked down. Tom was staring sleepily upwards at him.
"Hey," Harry said softly.
Tom wiped his eyes and looked at Harry again, before reaching out to him. Harry had no idea what was being asked of him, but he took it as a general invitation and kissed Tom, appreciative of the lack of morning breath.
"Harry…" Tom hissed. In the current position it aroused Harry, which was exactly Tom's intention, and motivated him to deepen the kiss and bite. Tom actually whined into his mouth. His hips rose from the bed and Harry put his hand on one of the protruding hipbones, stroking along its inner side with his thumb. Tom's eyes darkened with what Harry now recognised as lust. "Take me…"
That was an offer that could not be refused, and although it had initially shocked Harry to find that Tom was mostly submissive in bed, it oddly fit the boy's disposition. After a whole day of scheming and controlling, it was only natural that he would want to let go for a while and trust someone – trust Harry – to take care of him.
x
"I want to formally introduce someone to you," Tom spoke, regally seated in the armchair at the head of the coffee table in one of the parlours Slughorn used for his parties. The old fatty had very nearly fallen over himself when Tom asked for its use for a club of sorts, and thus they had comfortable space to work in. Tom had garnered Harry's assistance in warding the room prior to the meeting, so they were relatively certain that not even Dumbledore would be able to listen in.
There were four other boys seated around the table, all of them Slytherin upperclassmen – Antonin Dolohov, Theodore Nott, Evangelos Rosier and Vulcan Mulciber. They were what one could call Tom's Inner Circle – Harry had known about them being Death Eaters in the future, so neither of them really came as a surprise. The feeling, however, was likely to remain one-sided.
"You all know this wizard and therefore might be inclined to disrespect him," Tom said frostily. By the way Mulciber shuddered, Harry reckoned it was unlikely he would face any 'disrespect' after Tom's introductory speech. "I warn you now not to do so, else I shall be… displeased."
He met the eyes of each of the four boys and the point was made. With a subtle gesture of his hand, Tom called Harry forth.
Stepping out of the shadows, Harry's previously unnoticed presence startled them. Two of them – Mulciber and Rosier – reached for their wands. Dolohov and Nott remained seated, probably aware that their leader would not have brought a threat into a private meeting.
"Potter…" Dolohov greeted, inclining his head. The name was spoken with careful neutrality, as was expected of a Slytherin faced with a player of unknown power and position.
Harry kept his face blank and his Occlumentic shields up, which turned out to be a good idea, because Rosier did attempt to Legilimise him.
"That could be viewed as disrespect, you know?" Harry said softly, taking an empty seat to Tom's right, which was a statement of its own.
"I… apologise?" Rosier offered feebly.
Tom's eyes flashed. "Have I not warned you?"
"I'm sorry!" the boy said much more forcefully. "I'm sorry… my Lord…"
Harry blinked. It was the first time he had heard Tom addressed as 'Lord', but he should have realised that it was a title reserved for private meetings. It failed to placate Tom, but Harry met his eyes and Legilimentically conveyed his own sentiments – he would let the first offence slide, merely issue a warning; the second one would be punished harshly to create an example.
"Do not test my patience," Tom said eventually.
All four boys offered semi-bows, Rosier relieved to be temporarily forgiven. It was actually kind of amusing.
"My Lord," Dolohov spoke when Tom didn't say anything for a while, "we know Harry Potter as a House-mate, but you said you wished to introduce him…"
The not-quite question hung in the air for a moment, before Tom gave them a chilly smile.
"Very well, gentlemen. Meet my right-hand man."
The anger and envy emanating from Dolohov and Rosier was almost palpable. Even so, Harry had known very well why he settled for this position, rather than accepting Tom's proposal to become his equal.
"You may address me as Mr Potter," Harry said, smiling in a way that made him look scarily similar to Tom (about which he was informed by the bathroom mirror before he hexed the annoying personality out of it).
"It is an honour to become acquainted with you, Mr Potter," said Dolohov, who seemed to be the most intelligent of the bunch.
Neither of the four, quite uncharacteristically of Death Eaters as Harry knew them, repeated Rosier's mistake.
"My pleasure," Harry said blandly. He wondered what Ron and Hermione would do if they saw him now. Probably hex first, check for Imperius and other means of mind-control later. Ask questions… perhaps eventually. Ironically, he felt like he had grown into himself here and now and became a confident wizard with a clear picture of his future.
Life, albeit ridiculously twisted, was good.
x
As finals approached, the fifth and seventh year students grew impatient, irritable, and generally irascible. The madness wasn't nearly as pronounced as Harry knew it to be in the nineties, but it was still marked. Slughorn as good as opened a shop with Calming Draughts, and did not blink at the students who came asking for dangerous, even potentially lethal doses.
Tom and his circle of 'friends' received all the potions they required from Tybalt Lestrange, who owled them to his fiancée Cathalina Syracruse – a rather plain but rumoured to be vicious Hufflepuff fourth year. Tom had them distributed to anyone who asked, but he took none himself.
He studied with the same icy calm that he always presented, except he did not schedule quite as much time to spend with Harry as he had in the months past.
Harry was far from disappointed. He did a fair attempt at reading some textbooks, but soon lost interest and decided that he knew enough to get those five N.E.W.T.s and seriously did not give a damn whether he got Outstandings or Acceptables. Instead of burying himself in notes and books, he tried to crack the mystery of Tom's Christmas present.
He easily determined there was no sentience. It was more difficult to conclude that the only active charm was a listening one keyed to particular words – the book Harry had borrowed from the library went on about range and power and intent, and mentioned Taboos – a technique that could allegedly affect a whole continent. He could only imagine what kind of use the Ministry made of that one… and the cowards in Law Enforcement didn't have the stones to put a Taboo on either of the Unforgivables.
Wizarding Britain deserved a revolution.
On the eve before the first N.E.W.T. examination – Transfiguration – the seventh year Slytherins and a few of the pureblood Ravenclaws commandeered the common room to do the final brush-up on their knowledge. Harry woke up when O'Gowan shrieked in her ridiculously high-pitched voice.
"I know nothing! Nothing! I am going to fail! Father will disown me-"
Harry glared and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.
"Shut her up," Tom ordered under his breath.
Vulcan Mulciber obediently stood up and reached for his wand. Before he could Stun the girl, one of her room-mates pushed him out of the way and approached O'Gowan.
"Drink this, Immelda," the girl pleaded, offering a vial of amethyst liquid.
Harry tried to guess if it would kill O'Gowan, knock her out or only steal her voice, but he wasn't in a solicitous enough mood to care. That had been one heck of a rude awakening, and he didn't feel up to more socialising.
He rose while Tom watched the spectacle and made his way up to the dorm. The frame, silver with ornamental green vines along the outer edge, empty, mocked him from his bedside with its inscrutability. Annoyed, he cast possibly the hundredth Specialis Revelio on it.
A little cloud of purple smoke enveloped it, and the results came back inconclusive. He cursed and cast a glance at the disguised Dark Arts books Tom kept on his shelf. Slughorn never came to the dormitories unless there was an emergency he absolutely had to deal with, so it should have been safe to keep contraband there, but leaving the titles displayed would have been sheer provocation, and it had yet to be discovered how Dumbledore came to know the things he knew.
"Deformo Dormiens," Harry tried, drawing a half-circle with the tip of his wand, before it practically coughed up a shower of silvery sparks. The sparks were attracted to magic, and a lot of them flew right back to Harry, making him light up like a disco ball, but some landed on the frame, outlining a passive charm that seemed to be tightly connected to Harry and yet another that was loosely tied to someone below the floor – three guesses who.
Harry estimated that the purpose of the first enchantment was to prevent theft, or possibly even prevent Harry from getting rid of the thing, but he didn't have a clue about the other one. It could not be surveillance, because that reacted as leastways partly active spell… Perhaps some kind of conditional locator?
"You're bright," Tom remarked, appearing in the doorway. He wore a glamour to hide the dark circles under his eyes, but Harry could easily read his exhaustion in his posture.
"Expiatio," Harry intoned. The visualisation of magic dispersed in the air. "You have a massive headache, don't you?"
Tom sank onto his bed and closed his eyes, which was as good as a positive answer.
"Stop trying to memorise the entire library before you leave, and-"
"Don't offer me potions," Tom cut in curtly.
Harry had been going to tell him to sleep, not to drug himself, but he didn't point it out. Contrariness was the last thing Tom needed at the moment.
"You'll do fine. You could easily teach the classes…" Harry was certain of this, since he had taught the D.A. once upon a time, and had been considerably more successful than Quirrel, Lockhart or Umbridge. Tom knew the curriculum by heart.
"The N.E.W.T.s mean nothing," Tom said. "I don't imagine I will encounter any difficulty there. It's what happens afterwards that concerns me."
Harry surreptitiously Locked the door, with a spell that their classmates would be able to break, but not immediately. That should give him enough of a warning.
"How many of your followers have invited you to stay?" he asked, reminding Tom that he actually wasn't facing existential problems.
"Us," Tom reminded him in turn.
"You have funding and the support of two dozen prominent families."
"Fools," Tom said with brutal candidness. "They call themselves traditionalists, and yet wish to break the established order. That is hypocrisy at its best." He glanced at Harry. "Some days even I don't know if I am a traditionalist or a liberal."
Harry snorted. "I don't see how it matters. You are man with a vision. You build on the experience of the past with the energy of the present thinking of the future. What would you call it?"
Mostly asleep, without even taking off his shoes, Tom suggested: "Freemasonry?"
x
Graduation ceremony came and went, directed by old Dippet who recycled his celebratory speech about 'bright young minds ready to enter the real world', 'education of the highest quality', 'integrity and character' and 'dark times, indeed, when we all have to watch our step and make sure that our friends are true and abominate those with sinister intentions' from last year.
Tom Riddle achieved one of the highest scores in the history of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He managed to juggle ten N.E.W.T. courses in addition to his continued study of Dark Arts and his extracurricular activities. In the eyes of the public, Harry gradually fell deeper and deeper into Tom's shadow, until hardly anyone noticed his presence anymore, as if he were some less than fancy decoration.
Harry enjoyed it immensely, especially since in private he and Tom progressed far enough to understand each other just as well as they understood themselves. They occasionally shared dreams – literally – spoke of their fears and, maudlin as it sounded, could not imagine being separated anymore. Tom began to depend on Harry just as he had once suggested he would, and Harry accepted that responsibility gladly.
After Dippet's refusal of Tom as the next Defence teacher, a careful deliberation and some testing, Tom and Harry accepted a standing invitation to the Nott Manor, the wards of which did not prevent guests from warding their rooms against the host. Harry also remembered from the future that the Notts were loyal yet not fanatic, which in the end made them the best choice for long-term hosts.
To manage his growing web of contacts, Tom needed a job where he would be accessible by all casts of Dark wizards, while Harry eventually offered to handle the Light supporters. The Ministry would have been an obvious choice, but so far Tom wished to avoid the scrutiny of the DMLE and chose an alternative no one, not even the faux omniscient Dumbledore himself, could have expected.
He became a shop assistant in Knockturn Alley.
The decision was actually inspired by Harry's brief stint as dish-washer at the Leaky Cauldron, during which Harry managed to gather an inordinate amount of information just by keeping his mouth shut, his hands moving and his ears strained. Harry himself actually, after a bit of persuasion, got that job back, since Mrs Dodderidge and her little son Tom (talk about irony) remembered him with fondness, even though the landlady was quite surprised that someone with five N.E.W.T.s wanted a job as a dish-washer.
Well, Tom had ten Outstandings and worked as a shop clerk.
The wizarding world would never know what hit them.
By late August Harry had become accustomed to the rhythm of his employed life. He regularly met with several influential Light wizards, among others Edgar Bones, Elijah Diggory, Ignatius Prewett, Xenocrates Lovegood and Griselda Marchbanks. The newly retired Professor Merrythought chatted with Harry (who used to be one of her favourite students) often, gladly sharing stories of her neighbour Bathilda Bagshot. Harry asked to be introduced and within a couple of weeks learnt a lot of dirt on Dumbledore, including but not limited to the incarceration of his father, the death of his sister, his brief propagation of disclosure of the wizarding world to muggles and his youthful association with the current Dark Lord.
Tom presented Harry formally to a larger part of his support base, where Harry finally encountered someone stupid and vocal enough to suffer the brunt of his anger. After the idiot's fellows failed to patch him up, nobody dared to openly challenge Harry again.
On one such day, when Harry was sitting at the bar and drinking a well-deserved butterbeer, the door leading to muggle London slammed open and a ragged, dirty Professor Flitwick stumbled inside. Harry helped the diminutive man up on the barstool and Mrs Dodderidge brought him a shot of Firewhisky to calm his nerves so he could speak.
"Grindelwald…" the tiny teacher said as loudly as his squeaky voice allowed him to. "Defeated! Dumbledore took his wand! They're bringing him to Nurmengard!"
The room exploded in a cacophony of exclamations. Harry's eyes strayed to the portal to Diagon Alley and he spotted Tom, who had just entered and seemed confused by the chaos. Harry Legilimentically communicated the news.
Tom sighed and shook his head, gesturing for Harry to join him so they could Apparate home together and plan what to do next – as Grindelwald himself would have said, for the Greater Good.
x
In the end of February, Tom and Harry moved from Nott Manor into one of the Riddle estates. How Tom managed to inherit from the Riddles Harry had no idea; he was just glad they weren't living in Little Hangleton.
They barely finished refurnishing the house to their tastes when Tom returned from work one evening practically glowing.
"I've talked to Abraxas Malfoy today," he replied to Harry's unvoiced query. "We're invited to his sister's wedding sometime in May."
"You're excited about going to a Malfoy wedding?" Harry asked incredulously. Tom turned to him, stunned, as if that was the stupidest question he had ever heard. It seemed pretty impossible to Harry as well, but that was practically what Tom had just told him.
"Rather not," he said with a sneer. "I detest exorbitant amounts of sugar and that is exactly what it's going to be."
Harry chuckled and pulled the man down to straddle his lap. Being this close to Tom, able to smell him despite the cosmetic spells, feeling the magic thrumming in his veins… Harry could never get used to it and he could never get enough.
"Tell me," Harry ordered, pulled Tom's robe aside and gently bit onto his nape. Sore as the young man was after a day of hard work, it must have hurt.
"Marry me."
Harry froze. He slowly lifted his head and straightened his back, staring into Tom's eyes. His thoughts were a jumble. It made no sense, but it made perfect sense. With the correct bond, Harry and Tom would magically become one person. He still didn't understand how the prophecy implied this result but, hey, to some insane old wizards and witches it undoubtedly was absolutely clear. Even Dumbledore's blathering about love as the 'power the Dark Lord knew not' turned out to be substantiated.
"When?"
The smile Tom gave him was beatific, as if he hadn't expected Harry to agree. It was unlikely, because Tom knew him well enough to predict him most of the time.
Harry loved Tom. It was plain and simple as that.
"Saturday?"
"Okay. But not in Britain."
"Wherever you want," Tom agreed, but kissed Harry before he could make a suggestion. Swept away by the passion as they usually were when left alone for prolonged periods of time, the subject was not broached before they eventually fell asleep, too exhausted to form a coherent thought.
x
It was Saturday, the 2nd of March 1946, and the fate of the wizarding world was going to be decided soon in a small but tastefully decorated office of the Department for Magical Affairs of the Republic of Iceland.
Harry and Tom didn't bring any witnesses and planned to neither announce nor celebrate the bonding (with the notable exception of their most private celebration). For Harry, the biggest reason why he wanted to get married outside of Britain was that no one in the future would know about Tom Riddle ever having been married, which meant that there was no documentation to be found about them.
"…and so, on this day, you choose to bind your lives together until death do you part. Speak your vows." The old witch's trembling voice fell silent.
Tom and Harry faced each other over their joined hands tied together with a white silk ribbon. They had chosen a bond from the second half of the eighteenth century, a bit outdated and featuring a rather banal poem, but with all the magical aspects they were looking for. It required the poem to be recited in unison but, with the aid of Legilimency, that presented no challenge to them.
"If I'll walk to the end of world
Then only with thou by my side
The secrets kept so long untold
I never shall from thyself hide
My magic is thine, thine is mine
I pledge my very soul to thou
To me thou brighter than stars shine
To thou I'll remain true, I vow."
The built up energy of the binding ritual enveloped them, changing from blinding white to silver to gold to copper. The elderly witch backed away, or perhaps was pushed aside, gaping at the swirling light and wringing her hands. It was to be expected that such a complex soul and magical bond would feature some pretty fireworks, but Tom and Harry were both extremely powerful wizards and therefore the show was somewhat bigger than what even the professionals were used to.
When the light finally subsided, Harry felt his magic surge. He was connected to Tom, their entire beings were so closely intertwined that they partly merged. He could sense Tom even when he wasn't looking at him, every motion, every feeling was there for him to discern if he concentrated.
He even felt the one thing that drove him to select this particular bond – Tom's first Horcrux, so far kept in their house. It was all his – Harry's – and when the time was right, he would be able to call them and manipulate them back into one piece.
"Mr Riddle and Mr Riddle, I pronounce you lawfully wed."
x
Later that night, sated, Tom and Harry lay on their bed, contemplating married life. They should have been unconscious from exhaustion by this point, but the bonding magic was still making them hyperactive and preventing them from going to sleep.
Harry thought back (or forth) to when he came from. That life seemed surreal, like a dream or a nightmare, but Harry knew that it had happened. He would return to that time, he now realised it. What else could have made Tom decay into that parody of a human that was the Voldemort he had encountered? Two bonded wizards as powerful as they were naturally grounded each other. Harry knew he wasn't going to die in the past – his death would have snapped the bond or pulled Tom with him. No, someone or something would force (or had forced) Harry to return to the future.
There was no surprise that Tom went gradually madder and madder without Harry there to provide an anchor.
"What is it?" Tom asked quietly.
Harry let the hiss caress him until it faded into silence. How could he tell Tom – his husband – that he was going to leave him, albeit unwillingly?
"I love you," he said instead. Tom chuckled and pulled him closer, providing as much skin contact as he could, which was a lot, since they were both naked. Harry did not regret a single action he had taken since he had fallen into the corn field – neither being Sorted into Slytherin, nor visiting Tom during the summer holidays, nor kissing him, nor bedding him, nor marrying him.
"I knew that, Mr Riddle," Tom retorted sarcastically. "Now, what is really bothering you?"
Harry didn't reply. He shifted in Tom's embrace, stroking his sides, revelling in the feel of their mixing magic. His teeth and tongue traced Tom's collar-bone from the shoulder to the dip at the base of his neck.
Tom sighed. "It's the future, isn't it? You can't tell me…"
"I'm sorry."
Tom kissed him, feeling no anger at all and only a tiny bit of frustration as far as Harry could tell.
x
"What's so special about Potter, anyway?" a whiny female voice asked from the corner of the room. It wasn't clear whether she had missed Tom's and Harry's entrance, or was really stupid enough to not understand that insulting Harry was insulting her Lord.
"Taci Firgom!" Tom cast in stride and ignored the wail it induced until he was seated on the throne-like chair on the dais.
Harry, as usually, shrunk into the nearest shadow and with interest watched the effects of the Transmogrifian Torture. Yellow and red sludge trickled down the woman's hands and dripped on the floor. She hid her face under her hood, but couldn't mask the grotesque deformation of her figure – she gained a hump, her shoulders dropped forwards, her torso shortened and grew wider, but her legs lengthened to keep her the same height she had been before.
It was disturbing to watch.
"Next time it will be the Cruciatus Curse," Tom announced clearly, his eyes skimming the room.
The threat turned out to be a most effective one. Order was established within seconds, and the wizards and witches formed three curved lines in front of Tom's chair. They weren't yet uniformed, but it seemed that most of them were naturally inclined toward dark colours.
"Dolohov, Rosier, Nott and Mulciber."
Three of the named stepped out from the front line.
"Where is Mulciber?" Tom questioned. Mutters proclaiming ignorance sounded from all sides; one of the few who didn't say a word was Dolohov. The man bowed briefly and looked around himself with distaste. He gave Tom an apologetic half-frown and waited for the chaos to end.
"Crucio!" Tom snarled, aiming at the idiot that yelled louder than anyone, so that he would be heard, that Mulciber was probably selling their secrets to the Ministry. They didn't have many secrets to sell yet, but the accusation was a serious one and in the future could bring about the death of either the accused, or the accuser. They needed to learn.
The screams finally subsided half a minute later.
"Speak!" Tom ordered, looking straight at Dolohov.
"He applied for the job in the Department of International Affairs. Due to the strained diplomacy with Germany, job interviews were all moved outside of the normal work-time, mostly to evenings. He is, however, hopeful that he shall bring you good news tomorrow."
Tom nodded. "Instruct him to owl me."
Dolohov bowed again, daring to smile softly. He was one of the few who were allowed that degree of familiarity with Tom.
"Now, to the point. I have a task for you four…"
x
Harry, forgotten by most of the future Death Eaters, watched from the shadows as the Hall emptied. Nott was the last to go, one of the very few who bowed not only to Tom, but also to the place where Harry's silhouette could be discerned.
Harry assured himself that they were all gone with a Detection Charm, and walked out of the shadow.
"You are remarkably skilled at that," Tom noted. "I would not be able remain unseen if I wished to."
"You are not meant to remain unseen," Harry replied. One day, the name of Lord Voldemort would be one that everyone would know, even though no one would speak it aloud. The only ones equally famous would be Dumbledore and the Boy Who Lived. "You are the Visionary, Tom – you told me so yourself. You are the leader. You must shine."
It was just so unfair that the Vision would be suspended for so long. The butcher bill itself was enough to depress Harry… Such needless waste.
"What is it this time?" Tom asked warily, rubbing his temple.
Harry recognised the signs of an impending headache and moved over to kiss Tom's brow. His temperature was perfectly normal.
"Unforgivables?" Harry asked after a while. He must have changed very much since his sixteenth birthday if the display he had seen earlier didn't bother him. The fact was that the morons had been getting on his nerves, too, and Tom must have been pretty incensed about all that denseness standing in the way of his dreams.
Cruciatus wasn't such a bad solution… unless it was overdone.
"I will be labelled a criminal anyway. It won't damage my reputation."
Harry sighed, sat on the arm of the chair and leant back. "Is it necessary?"
"It's not a question of necessity," Tom replied. "It's a question of effectiveness. Besides, look at what happened to Grindelwald. I need to be able to give my followers a fighting chance against the Aurors."
But having the Death Eaters use the Unforgivables would cause radicals to rise to power – men like Crouch and Scrimgeour. They, in turn, would give their Aurors Licences to use the Killing Curse, too, and the Ministry would form its own Death Eaters. It was going to be two sided terror, and apart from the fear and death the only thing accomplished would be making Dumbledore look good.
"They'll go wand-happy – both your followers and the Aurors."
"We need an advantage the other side does not have!" Tom protested hotly. It was both daunting and heartening to see that, despite a whole slew of wizards and witches treating him like their Lord, Tom was still only twenty years old. Granted, he was a genius with incredible memory retention and a natural talent for politics, but still, despite everything, he was only on the edge of adulthood.
"How about the Vision?" Harry suggested, despite knowing that he was going to lose the debate.
"A vision won't save a man when he's faced with one of the Ministry hounds. Contrary to popular belief, there are curses that cause damage just as bad as the Unforgivables can. I guarantee you none of the 'Ministry hounds' would hesitate."
Harry nodded solemnly. He knew all too well that the 'Light' and 'Dark', as well as 'good' and 'evil' in this war were just illusions. He was the third worst turncoat, after all, right after Pettigrew, whom Harry would very much like to kill one day, and Snape, who turned due to Voldemort's madness and might yet have been salvageable. Harry, with his added maturity, viewed Snape from a much more objective point of view, and found him a more than worthy potential ally.
Speaking of which…
"I'm just wondering if a goal that cannot be accomplished without Unforgivables is worth it."
"Do you wish to… leave?"
Harry started. He stared into Tom's eyes, struck by the sound of that voice, laced with pain, but genuinely offering a way out. He had never meant it like that. Tom was his other half and Harry only ever aimed to temper him – never to abandon, never (again) to stand against.
Harry was also moved by the fair chance to back out Tom was giving him – he doubted any of the future Death Eaters would have received such an offer. He knew what happened to people who got cold feet – as evidenced by Regulus Black's fate.
"Hardly," he replied softly, shaking his head.
Tom's relief was obvious.
"Tom, I am ultimately a Light wizard, and I'm just pointing out how they're going to perceive you. Since Grindelwald's defeat, majority of the wizarding society is openly Light."
Traditionally Dark families were proclaiming themselves Light right and left, if only to avoid persecution. Those who wished to avoid such break of tradition, or who continued to practice those traditions out of sight of the public, naturally drifted to the new Dark power – the rising Lord Voldemort.
"I'll never understand how I got mixed up with someone who considers themselves Light," Tom sighed and gestured Harry to come closer.
"I got transported in time," Harry explained unnecessarily, smiling. Tom's hands on his waist pulled him forwards, and he had to brace himself with one knee on Tom's throne-chair and his hands on the arm-rests, because the moment Tom kissed him he lost any semblance of balance.
"You scared me. It's disconcerting that something can still scare me that much." Tom's sibilant whispers went straight to Harry's groin and it was very hard for him to process the actual meaning of the sentence.
"Probably just means you love me," he hissed back. Tom never spoke it, actually never conveyed it in any way but his actions, but that was more than enough for Harry, who wanted to feel loved, not to have meaningless words repeated to him ad nauseam.
"Salazar would spit at my feet," Tom concluded, more or less confirming Harry's statement, and then he smirked. "Fuck him."
x
Harry didn't know when he was going to return to the future but, from what he remembered, Tom Riddle disappeared sometime during 1947 and came back ten years later, mutated into an early form of what Harry called 'Voldemort' in his head. Harry liked to believe that with him there Tom would not have gone… which meant the time of his departure was nearing.
He took the opportunity presented to him by the Christmas soiree at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, which actually looked startlingly presentable in this time, and approached the two men he had singled out from all the candidates. These were the only people currently alive (except Tom) he might have considered his friends – the only people he would trust without a binding oath.
"Antonin. Theodore."
The two addressed men stood and without a word followed Harry out of the living room, down the stairs and into the kitchen. The house elves scattered. Harry sat down at the table and cast a Silencing Spell at the door.
"I need to talk to you."
They both solemnly nodded instead of (accurately) informing him that he was pointing out the obvious. Harry smiled. This was why he chose these two to trust: the respect, coupled with their intelligence and loyalty. They were, for all intents and purposes, his favourites among the future Death Eaters.
"I fear that time will come, quite soon, when I will be unable to support Lord Voldemort. He will change, for the worse. He will… need someone who will stand by him regardless of those changes. I wish for you two to be those people, and if you have children to lead them to be equally loyal. Forgive Lord Voldemort if you feel betrayed by his actions – they won't be his own." He paused to give them a chance to think about it. To their credit, neither of them required explanations and neither asked how Harry could know these things. They simply accepted their task with grace.
"Can I count on you?" he asked after Theodore finally looked away from the fire and met his eyes.
"Yes, Mr Potter," he replied immediately. Harry didn't bother trying to hide his smile.
"I shall do as you ask," Antonin seconded.
"Thank you."
Harry inclined his head, surreptitiously cast a Listening Charm and walked out of the room. He paused on the landing, leant against the wall and listened.
"What was that about?" Theodore asked.
"Pretty obvious, isn't it? He loves the Lord. Would do just about anything for him. You've got to respect that kind of loyalty, even in a rival." Had it been anyone else in the room, Harry would have Obliviated them immediately. Somehow it didn't surprise him, however, that this particular man managed to see through Tom and Harry after more than three years of observation.
"There is no rivalry, Antonin," Theodore informed him carefully, as if wary of the reaction he might receive.
"No, I'm afraid there's not." Harry could hear the smile in Antonin's voice. "It is of no importance any more, Theo. I have loved the Lord for years and do not plan to stop, but I shall never stand in either his, or Mr Potter's way."
"I don't know… I've never seen a sign… You really believe they are lovers?"
"There is no doubt about it."
Harry released the Listening Charm. Antonin's reactions to some occurrences made much more sense in the light of this revelation, but it was obvious that the initial jealousy was gone. Harry wasn't afraid that Antonin would stab him in the back and neither was he afraid that the rumour of himself and Tom being together romantically would get out.
Hopefully, once the insanity would have consumed Harry's Tom, there would be at least two wizards protecting him anyway.
x
With the end of July near, Harry completely lost his appetite. Tom had to order him to eat; else he would have starved himself. He slept badly and woke to frequent nightmares. Horrific memories from his life in the future became more and more vivid with each passing night, and Harry began to dread sleep as such.
Tom was there to hold him through his post-nightmare shakes, but he wasn't helping much. Harry was used to dealing alone, and the company forced him to put on a calm façade; an emptiness that rapidly grew inside Harry's chest actively hurt when he was trying not to cry. He did a good job of pretending, too. Tom didn't need a snivelling kid to smear snot all over his night-shirt.
The realisation of what was happening came to him gradually. On the eve of July the twenty-eight Harry knew he was not staying here past his birthday. Whether he would just cease to exist or wake up in the future, on the first of August 1996 or 2000, or if there was another trip planned for him was anyone's guess, but it was going to be a world without Tom that was going to need a complete make-over, and Harry would be the one charged with it.
"I wish you could tell me what ails you, Harry," Tom whispered into the summer night, stroking Harry's hair, pushing the sweaty fringe out of Harry's eyes, tracing the lightning-bolt scar. "I wish I could stop this, or at least make it easier for you…"
Harry could think of nothing but how much he loved, loved, loved Tom and how much they were going to miss each other. Tom kissed a stray tear away from his cheek.
"There's nothing, but… make love to me?"
And Tom did, ignoring the maudlin wording and putting Harry's need for escape before his preferences.
Harry stopped going to work completely. He sent Tom off every morning and spent the entire day closed in, trying to memorise what it felt like to have a home and a family – tiny, two-people family, but one he could always rely on – to the point when he was sick with cabin fever and had to go out onto the grounds. He walked around the orchard and the pond that technically belonged to them and came back at twilight, just in time to take the Daily Prophet from Tom's hands.
"Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore!" he read the headline, and glanced at Tom to gauge his reaction.
"It was always going to happen," Tom said, resigned. "Sadly, this will result in sanctioned ostracising of all students with Dark or traditionalist background. They will learn that there is no justice in the world and, especially Slytherins, will take it as an invitation to a free for all."
Harry set the newspaper onto the table and sank into his chair. Tom was spot on in his prediction. In the seventies Dumbledore would encourage bigotry and bullying to the point when Severus Snape would fear for his life within the school. In the nineties Hogwarts was less of a school and more of a battleground of a cold war.
"Dumbledore brought down Grindelwald, people love him, there's no way to oust him out of the school and I doubt that it's possible to assassinate him." Harry knew that Tom realised all that, but saying that there was nothing they could do sounded too defeatist.
"You were going to Hogwarts for your first five years," Tom said with certainty. They had never talked about it, but Harry's familiarity with the castle spoke for itself. "Was he your Headmaster?"
Harry didn't reply. He shielded his mind but let Tom read him otherwise.
"How long, Harry?" Tom demanded. "Ten years? Twenty? Hundred?"
On the verge of bursting into tears, Harry stood up and fled the dining room. He took refuge in their bed, crawling under the duvet, and felt as if – for all the changes he seemed to have undergone – he had not really grown up a bit in the last four years. He was still in a way dependent on others, on Tom's followers, on Tom, on the home they had created together.
He hoped something would survive, that he wouldn't really be on his own if he returned to the future. That the people who made him into the Dark Lord's second would remember him.
A frame stood on the shelf, not empty anymore, holding a pencil-drawn sketch of Tom and Harry that moved, even if the two young men could not speak aloud. The picture was a present from Selena Abercrombie, who perhaps had a bit of a Seer in her, because she seemed to understand the nuances between Tom and Harry way too well for a casual acquaintance. He hoped she did have the Inner Eye, because she had drawn them older and still together.
For once in his life, Harry wanted to believe in divination.
In the morning, they ate breakfast in silence. Harry could think of no final gesture to mark his last day in the past, nothing he could give Tom, nothing he could say to him that hadn't already been said. He went with Tom to the meeting, the last one he was going to attend for decades, watched him curse the one idiot who still hadn't gotten the memo about Harry being above him in the proverbial food chain, and lay down sketchy plans for the organisation of Tom's political movement, including a vague idea of a Mark to distinguish the members.
Then they went home, Harry made love to Tom and concentrated on not crying afterwards. Once Tom had fallen asleep Harry wrote a short note and left it on the desk and fully dressed, holding his wand and keeping couple of things he refused to leave behind Shrunk in his pockets, went to sleep.
