A/N: Woah. It's been a while. I don't really have an excuse, except I am bad at finishing things (and school is killing me), but I wanted to thank you guys sincerely for all your support. You're the reason I finally got around to finishing this chapter (which is probably rife with typos that I will go back and fix later).
MyMindWasChaos: You're awesome. You especially compelled me to keep working on this. I really enjoyed reading your interpretation of things, and each of your comments made me giddy. Whether you're still reading this or not: thank you!
I admit, the quality of this chapter is probably lacking, as I was really impatient to get it out to you guys. It may also be confusing in some parts, which is mostly intentional. Still, I hope you enjoy!
In Wonderland
He stalks through the corridors, his normally angelic face contorted in crimson fury.
He has been lied to, yet again, but this particular deception by the old man is unforgivable. Even now, as he seethes, his other half suffers terribly at the hands of a psychotic brute, and appears to have been doing so for some time, if the bruises he found are any indication. Just the memory of them - bold, black, marring the precious flesh that belongs only to him - is enough to make his soul tear with rage. He knows he must calm down, that it'll only cause problems if hedoesn't reign in on his emotions, but the hellfire coursing through him is impossible to quell after all he's learned - seen. He saw the terror in those green eyes, how his horcrux's starved body hunched in on itself, as if crumpled by the weight of his fear -
Another wave of pain not his own strikes his gut. The boy's fists clench, a murderous inferno searing his insides. He grits his teeth, and old paintings on either side of him burst into flames.
"Password?" the stone gargoyle rumbles, when he halts finally before it. It eyes him warily, having no doubt heard the portraits' screams.
"Move aside," he snarls, crimson eyes blazing dangerously. His magic fills the air, wild and scalding in his rage. It whips the statue warningly.
"Calm yourself, child," the gargoyle huffs, but moves, anyway. Ignoring it, he ascends the newly-revealed stairs, allowing the hot gale of his fury to precede him. He finds the old man sitting placidly behind his desk, his face open and calm, though his eyes twinkle curiously as they take in the boy's disheveled countenance. Nearby, Fawkes makes an agitated sound.
"Tom," Dumbledore greets pleasantly, his gnarled hands folded loosely in front of him. "I don't believe I scheduled an appointment for today."
"That's not why I'm here," Tom growls, walking forward. Dumbledore's eyes narrow slightly.
"You seem...upset," he says carefully.
Tom's lips curls.
Composure is key, he knows, especially when dealing with Dumbledore; but then another, particularly brutal wave of pain assaults his soul, and his magic erupts again as he swipes his arm across Dumbledore's desk, knocking aside several stacks of paper and the silver instruments the old man is so fond of.
"You lied to me," he snarls, as Dumbledore stares, unfazed, into his eyes. More of the man's trinkets are falling from their set places, many of them shattering as they meet the ground. The portraits of previous headmasters shift nervously, some fleeing their frames as Tom's power pervades the room in a thick, blistering cloud.
"You are acting rather unseemly, Tom," the old man says softly, while Armando Dippet cowers behind the chair in his painting. "Sit down, and we will discuss the source of your ire in a more civil manner-"
"I found him," Tom chokes out, ignoring the other's suggestion. "I found Harry Potter, today."
Dumbledore goes very still.
His blue eyes sharpen as they study Tom's face, the twinkle dimming to almost nonexistence as the old man realizes he is telling the truth. Slowly, Dumbledore leans back in his chair. His expression is grave as he murmurs,
"You opened the connection."
Tom lifts his chin. He refuses to be cowed by the old sod's dismay.
"I did," he confirms. "I was curious. I wanted...I wanted to see him, my horcrux."
His face twists into an ugly, dark expression. "Do you know what I found?"
Dumbledore says nothing, but the sorrow in his gaze is answer enough. Tom releases a ragged breath at the sight of it, his gray eyes huge and incredulous in his cherubic face.
"You knew, then," he breathes. "You know. The Boy Who Lived is living in a bloody cupboard!"
"Tom-"
"And his uncle! That blubbering behemoth! How could you leave him with that madman? Have you been monitoring him at all? You preach about love, you foolish old loon, and then you leave what's mine in the hands of a bloody psychopath - "
"Tom," Dumbledore cuts in sharply, as books fall from their shelves around them, bursting into flurries of paper and torn binding on their way to the floor. "Calm yourself. Harry's situation is...unfortunate...but necessary - and temporary, I assure you. His aunt and uncle aren't...the best people, but Harry is with them for his own safety-"
"He's being starved!" Tom screams, his fingers twitching with the memory of his horcrux, tiny and malnourished, in his arms. The boy, according to what he's learned, must be older than him, but he possessed the body of one significantly younger, his black hair wild and his skin mottled with bruises and scars. He didn't make a sound at Tom's appearance, though he must have been startled - Tom suspects he has had much practice in the art of forced silence.
He bares his teeth at Dumbledore, who, for once, is sitting speechless before him, and tries his best to calm down. Composure is key, composure is key...the longer it takes to control himself, the longer his horcrux will suffer...
He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and leans across the desk, until he can see each dimming twinkle in Dumbledore's shocked eyes.
"You are going to take him away from there, right now," Tom says, very softly. The desk begins to melt under his hands. "Or I will."
Harry is just walking out of the bakery when he feels it: a white-hot pulse of agony in his chest. He almost drops the little cake he's just bought as he doubles over, a sharp cry escaping his lips.
What...?!
"Sir?" A young woman touches his arm, her face soft with concern. "Are you alright?"
"M'fine," he grunts after a moment, when the agony has simmered down to intense pain. Straightening, he sends her a warped parody of a smile before hurrying away, clutching his purchases in his arms as he searches for a place to Disapparate unnoticed.
Something is wrong - smething is wrong - he knows this as surely as he knows his own name - can feel it in the twist of his gut and the mounting throb behind his temples -
Tom, he thinks, unbidden, something like panic bursting within him. Ducking behind a shoe shop, Harry envisions his home and grits his teeth against the wave of pain that assaults him, along with the typical discomfort of disapparation. His mind races as the loud buzz of the city is replaced with the relative quiet of Godric's Hollow; is the boy hurt?
The sharp stab of agony in his ribs makes him think so, and Harry's instincts rise to the surface as he opens the front gate to his home, eyes alert for any sign of his charge. The grounds are empty - save Doyle Diggins, who beams at Harry from the doorstep.
"Ah," he says cheerfully, either ignoring or oblivious to the annoyed twist of Harry's mouth. "There you are, Harry! I feared I wouldn't see you today..."
He holds up a tray of scones. "I made another batch. Since you like them so much. M-Maybe we could both enjoy some over tea?"
Harry opens his mouth, ready to make a clipped reply, when his lungs constrict. He gasps, and the world dissolves abruptly into darkness swathed in murky blue, broken only by the bubbles rising from his screaming mouth -
"Merlin," Harry whispers, terror staking his heart. He tugs at his hair, sick with realization. "Tom."
The lake. But how? How did he get past the wards without Harry feeling so much as a twinge? He prepares to apparate, some part of him surprised at the panic currently lighting every nerve, but not before he knocks the God-awful scones from Diggins' s arms and shoves his treasure and the cake into them instead.
"Hold onto those," he orders, and is gone.
Dying is a horror Tom is not prepared for.
He is sinking, disoriented, to the bottom of the lake, seaweed brushing his legs, foul water clogging his throat, stifling his screams. His arms wave uselessly about him as it fills his lungs, and this is so much worse than when Potter dunked him, because he cannot breathe, cannot fight, cannot bloody think -
He can only look up at the light-ridden surface, his eyes bulging, his mind a raging torrent of terror and blind panic. Why can't he move? How did he end up like this? What was that awful creature?
At that moment, he becomes aware of something frigid - slimy - coiling around his struggling body like a snake. It winds around his legs and his torso, effectively halting resistance, and something raw, primal, bursts within Tom as he is dragged to the very floor of the lake. The light above is so distant as to be unreachable. Around him blooms an inky darkness, the same strange magic chafing his senses as crimson eyes appear just before his.
Tom stares at the monster, paralyzed - dying - and the monster stares back.
Why are you doing this? He wonders, as black creeps into the edges of his vision. What have I done to you?
The creature seems to hear his thoughts. An icy hand, black as space, rests upon his shoulder.
You are a victim of circumstance, I'm afraid, it whispers. You needn't worry...I shall make good use of your flesh, little one.
Tom's failing heart shrinks at that. He is even less comforted by the monster's next words:
And dying isn't all that bad, really. It leans closer. It's what comes after you should fear.
The monster's hand slides to his neck, it's icy fingers burning his flesh. Tom dimly realizes that it is waiting for his death. But to what end? What does it mean by "making good use of his flesh?"
He doesn't know. He really doesn't want to find out.
I'm going to die.
It's impossible. He is Tom Riddle - young and powerful and meant to do great things. He is going to change the world. He is going to be remembered. He cannot die here, not now - not this way.
A dark finger runs along his cheek.
So ambitious, the creature croons. So hungry. Alas, little fool, this is where your story ends. There are...more important ones to tell.
It is spoken so simply, the final seal on Tom's death warrant. The terror it cleaves through him, however, is jagged and brutal. Like a blade it pierces his psyche, overwhelming him so utterly with the primal need to live that his magic erupts against its binds.
It bursts from his body with the force of an explosion, clashing with the old, strange magic and knocking the creature back. The slimy thing holding him in place loosens a little; Tom experiences a queer disconnect with his body, which is thrashing, writhing, fighting against his encroaching demise.
His mind is dim and sluggish from lack of oxygen, however - Tom sees the creature regain itself with a dark, derisive sound, and knows, as the slimy thing tightens to the point of pain around his body, that it's over.
Potter, he thinks again. The letters, strung together, are a beacon in the fading light of his consciousness. The word means something to him, but he can't remember why. As his heart stutters and his body stills, Tom recalls, with startling clarity,the brilliance of green eyes. Lost to him, once again.
This is always how it ends.
The thought comes from nowhere, strange and unbidden. His eyes droop closed.
Distantly, he hears the monster hissing in his ear, but he can no longer understand its words. Something precious is leaving his body - and taking him with it. Tom feels light and airy and so very tired -
He is floating upward, upward, out of the lake and above the trees, until the world blurs into an indistinguishable mass of color and shape around him. A woman's voice, soft, and familiar, somehow, is calling his name with tender sorrow - he sees her outline up ahead, framed by light -
And then she dissipates, like the cruelest of dreams. As his surroundings change again, Tom becomes aware of the tether still linking him to his dying - dead? - body, and, along with it, the most horrible sensation of liquid ice seeping into his flesh. It fills his veins - encases his struggling heart - gnaws at the tether, his last connection to the living, until he wants to die.
His existence narrowing down to the purest agony, Tom screams, his incorporeal form flickering and convulsing as he struggles upward, away from the pain, from the feel of his soul being forcibly removed from his body.
Under the agony is the sickening sensation of something else sliding in; he wails again, for it is a feeling of unparalleled horror.
But Tom finds something worse as his surroundings settle into a terribly familiar setting. He sees the mist and its never-ending doors, sees the black-robed figure looking down on him - and is petrified.
No, he moans. Nooooo...
He is not supposed to be here. No one is.
"Oh, dear," the figure murmurs above him. It's voice is different, however...heavy with untold ages...
Tom realizes, dimly, that he is dealing with another entity entirely. It doesn't seem malevolent, watching impassively as his form shudders with pain, but he is no more comforted by its presence than he is the creature currently drowning him. For next to this entity stands a blackened door, and the sight of it is so horrible - so unspeakably wrong - that Tom cannot bear to be near it, much less look at it.
Even in the midst of his pain, he knows that the figure before him is responsible for the ruined entrance. That alone makes it just as repugnant as its counterpart.
"So he's found it," the figure whispers. "How unfortunate."
Tom moves to shrink away, when he feels the tether snapping. Another wail is torn from his form. He screams and screams and screams, blind and deaf and doomed, aware now only of the foreign presence seeking residence within his body down on earth, its filth burrowing down into his very cells - no -
Getoutgetoutgetout -
A soft sigh cuts into his bout of madness.
"I'll help you, little one," this other entity says. "Just this once."
A cool hand rests on Tom's head, an anchor in the chaos overtaking him. The pain recedes a little.
"I expect to be repaid," he hears. And then he feels it: the same old magic seeping from the figure's palm and into him. He looks up and sees the figure leaning over him, the ends of white hair peeking from the darkness within its hood, before the magic hurls him downwards - through the"ground" and into a blur of colors and confusion.
He falls, falls, falls, hurtling like a comet in the sky, the world below him transforming from a grid of green to Godric's Hollow, and the forest surrounding it, and the lake -
Tom sees a familiar figure running madly across its surface, just before he is dragged by the old magic down into the water's depths. He returns to his body with a jolt, and has time to see the monster's red eyes go comically round before it is thrust away from him, along with the slimy thing, the old magic gifted to him expelling the monster's presence from his body.
You-! The monster has time to snarl, before the old magic assaults it again, driving it further and further away until it is shrieking with pain and fury.
This is not over! It howls. I will find you, little runt! I will rip you limb from limb, and nothing will save you - !
Tom watches it implode on itself, a numb sort of terror filling him as black wisps scatter throughout the lake and into nothing. Freed, he struggles weakly to the surface. Despite the other figure's intervention, he still doesn't know how to swim. His throat burns from lack of air, and his thoughts are too disjointed for him to think coherently.
He's still damned.
Tom is on the precipice of accepting this, when his hand, floating idly above him, is caught in a crushing grip. He thinks for a split second that the monster has returned somehow, but it's hand was not so warm as this one. He looks up, through heavily lidded eyes, to see an angel looking down at him with the strangest mixture of terror and blistering fury. Tom's eyes widen in awe.
Beautiful, he has time to think, before he is being yanked upwards - crushed to a hard chest and cradled in warm arms. It is heaven in comparison to the cold depths, and he curls into the angel's blessed warmth as his head breaks the surface and the miracle of air fills his lungs.
His body is wracked with a series of harsh, watery coughs, and he feels a hand patting his back with a little more force than is necessary. The angel is murmuring fervently in his ear, but his head is swimming and he cannot register the words.
"Tom," it's saying raggedly, over and over. "Tom, stay with me please, please - can you hear me? - fuck - !"
His head lolls, his eyes passing distantly over the forest and the water sloshing restlessly around them. Time is a slippery thing; Tom blinks and the world tilts, so that he is staring at the cloud-streaked sky, solid ground beneath his back. Beside him, the angel is breathing too fast, its hands frantic over his body.
"Tom."
He closes his eyes. There is a sharp slap to his cheek.
"Tom."
He is tired. The sting of the blow hardly registers. Behind his eyelids, Tom sees the mist and its many doors, the strange weightlessness of the place filling his bones, along with a familiar horror. The other figure - the one who helped him - looms over him. Watching.
"Tom! Dammit, Tom, I-"
A long, ragged breath.
There is a pause, and then he feels the most peculiar warmth rolling over him, and in specific patterns.
"C'mon," the angel is whispering roughly. The warmth rolls over Tom's body, and though it is nice it does nothing to dispel the numbness settling over him, as thick as the mist of the Forbidden Place. He is divided by a peculiar dissonance; behind his eyelids is the mist and the endless row of doors, the figure tilting its head as it studies him; in his ears is the angel, making the most wrenchingly beautiful sounds.
"Tom," it cries, and he feels distantly as his body is lifted - cradled to the angel's form, wracked with what he realizes are sobs.
Weeping. The angel is weeping.
For me.
"Come back to me," it begs, and so Tom does.
Something without name rises within him, a tether of pulsing warmth, and he grasps it, allowing it to dispel the foggy world and lead him -
Home.
His soul swells, settling once again in its body, thrumming at the promiximity of its match, its bonded...
i am you and you are me
Tom opens his eyes.
The weightlessness of earlier has vanished, and he feels impossibly heavy. But the angel is still weeping, its eyes squeezed shut, its forehead drooping to rest against his. hot tears fall fast onto Tom's face. An ache building behind his temples, he focuses all his concentration into raising his right hand. It's scarily difficult, but he continues to strain, until his palm is resting at last against the cool alabaster of the the angel's cheek. Warmth sings within his soul.
It - he - freezes beneath Tom's touch.
The angel's eyes snap open, round and wet. Tom stares into them, mesmerized. He has never seen such beautiful eyes. They speak of other things. And the longer he looks, the more Tom Riddle comes back to himself, until his heart is swelling with something soft and foreign, rather than the cold hatred the face above his usually inspires.
"Don't cry," Tom whispers.
you are mine
you aren't allowed to feel pain
unless I will it
He coughs up water, then, but before he can muster the strength to wipe his chin he is being crushed to a firm chest so tightly he thinks his ribs might crack.
"You idiot," the angel - Harry - chokes. How strange, to hear him so ragged, so stripped of the composure that so frustrated Tom, because it was better than his. "You idiot..."
Tom sighs against his guardian. He is so very tired - too tired to even defend his genius. A shudder wracks his body, and he becomes violently aware of the chill settling in his bones, unaided by the soggy, ruined clothes that cling to his colorless skin.
"Cold," he croaks, against Harry's neck, subconsciously breathing in the other's scent. How wonderful he smells - like soap and familiarity and - and -
Home, Tom thinks, a strange fluttering in his chest. "Home."
Harry quiets.
"Tom?"
Darkness creeps along the edges of his vision, like shadow, and Tom's first thought is that it's come back, the monster - come to rip him limb from limb, as promised. But then Harry stands, shifting Tom in his arms, and as Tom's arms wind around his neck, the boy senses the foolishness of the notion. He is safe with Harry Potter. So long as they are together, the monster would not dare. He can't say how he knows this, but the truth of it stirs deep within him. He closes his eyes.
"Take me home, Harry," he mumbles, and he feels the other's arms tightening around him before he succumbs to unconsciousness.
Harry has grown unused to the taste of terror, how acrid it is on his tongue. Once, not long ago, he wore it like a second skin, clinging to him at all hours, and he was able to work through it then, to channel it into something useful and not overwhelming.
It seems he has lost the ability.
Terror clogged his lungs just now like the murky water had Tom's lungs, chilled his bones and frozen his blood and torn through his mind until his thoughts were wild, unfocused - too chaotic for him to even think of Apparating, lest he halve himself and Tom.
And Tom is everything. Harry realized this as he laid the boy, tinged blue and horribly still, upon the shore. Harry's world hinges upon the beat of Tom Riddle's heart, the breath in his lungs, the way of his soul. The boy in his arms means everything, because if Harry can reform him then he can reform the world, and...
And...if he is honest with himself, he has no desire to be alone. Tom is false and arrogant and the miniature version of the monster who ruined his life, but he is all Harry has in this foreign age. With him, Harry has a purpose. A reason to wake up each morning. Should anything happen to the boy, Harry knows he will not last long. The hole in his chest, which Tom so often distracts him from, would consume him.
He clutches the boy tighter, his legs unsteady beneath him. His heart is still racing, and he had a moment of panic a minute ago, when Tom did not respond to his name. He halted in his trek back to the house, panic constricting his chest again, until he felt the boy breathing hotly against his neck.
Asleep, he realized. Or unconscious, more likely.
That can't be a good sign. But Harry isn't sure. He is used to healing cuts and gashes and other wounds, but drowning and its after-effects are beyond him.
Hermione would know. He grits his teeth against the pain that thought brings, and forces himself to walk faster; he's still wary of Apparating, right now. Once they arrive at the house, Harry will figure out what needs to be done. And once Tom awakes - because he will awaken - he can question the boy as to what compelled him to such profound, suicidal stupidity.
This, in particular, plagues him with each step. Tom Riddle is smart. Brilliant, really. And, as Harry has gleaned, afraid of water to the point he would consider it a phobia. What would possess him to do something so foolish as to go in the lake without him? It seems absurdly out of character. Tom is arrogant, not suicidally brave, as some would call Harry. In fact, Harry would go so far as to call him a coward, when it comes to death and in all its flavors (much like his future counterpart).
So what happened in the time Harry left? Why hadn't Tom triggered the wards?
Harry recalls the strange burst of magic he had sensed, just before pulling Tom from the lake. It was like nothing he has ever felt, powerfully old...but still...
Familiar.
Something else is going on, here.
Harry cannot fathom what, but it leaves him with a chill, and his arm tightens around Tom's middle, his right hand burying itself in the boy's thick locks. Whatever is happening, he will find out soon enough, and it will be dealt with swiftly. He has been through too much to allow anything - be it other wizards or the Ministry or Merlin himself - to threaten the life he is building, here...
Relief floods him at the sight of the house up ahead. When he finally passes through the gates, Harry is ready to collapse with exhaustion, and has to restrain a scream when Doyle Diggins appears in front of him, still holding the items Harry thrust at him, earlier.
"You've returned - !" He starts, only to quiet abruptly at the sight of them. Harry can only imagine how he looks (probably as bad as he feels), with Tom, dripping wet and unmoving in his arms.
"What - what's happened?" Diggins asks tremulously.
"The lake," Harry mumbles, walking past him. "He almost drowned."
And it is so much worse, speaking it aloud. Guilt comes crashing down on him at last, as he knew it would, once the panic dissipated. Harry's shoulders slump under the weight of it, and he pauses before the front door, taking a moment to turn his face into the softness of Tom's hair and murmur an apology. He isn't heard, he knows. Just as he is aware of the fact that Tom will most likely never forgive him for this. For almost failing to save him.
Harry isn't sure he can forgive himself.
Tom had wanted to go with him so badly, but Harry was too selfish, too focused on the past, to even consider the boy - the fact that he had never been left by himself, before - beyond a brief twinge of guilt. And look what happened.
He enters the house, his face twisting.
I'll make it up to him, he tells himself. I will.
Nevermind that all the progress they've made over the past two months has likely become dust.
"Oh, my," he hears Diggins entering the house behind him. "Will - will he be alright?"
The man sounds genuinely concerned, and Harry softens despite himself.
"Yes," he says softly, looking over his shoulder. "I think so."
Shaken, certainly, and probably traumatized - but alright.
"I can call a doctor, if you're not sure," he offers, as Harry mounts the stairs. He needs to get Tom out of these clothes, but pauses on the first step, considering. A doctor means questions - potentially dangerous ones.
Where were you when this was happening? Away? How could you leave a ten-year-old at home by himself?
Guilt sweeps over him again, along with shame. They would surely take Tom from him, if the circumstances of his near-death experience came to light. Harry wonders if he shouldn't let them.
I'm not fit to raise a child.
He was foolish. He forgot, in his selfishness, that Tom - for all his genius and seeming maturity - was at his heart a child. Troubled - homicidal - and with anger issues - but a child. It's why Harry wasn't able to kill him in the first place.
His mouth tightens. He will not forget again. Indeed, after today, Tom is notus. leaving his a sight. His hands tremble.
"That won't be necessary," he says to Diggins. "In fact, I'd appreciate it if you kept this incident between us."
"O-of course!" Diggins sputters, his cheeks flushing. He is no doubt elated to be in Harry's confidence. "Just between us."
Harry nods once. He has no doubt the man will keep his word, if only in the hope of receiving something Harry has no intention of giving. His eyes dart to the items the older wizard still carries. "Will you set those in the kitchen?"
At Doyle's agreement, he turns away with a murmured thanks and resumes his trek up the stairs. He will turn his attention to the portrait, later. Tom is all that matters, at the moment.
I'll be better. I'll be everything he needs.
Harry is dreading the inevitable fallout when Tom awakens and lashes out at him, but for now, he is content to lay the boy in his bed and marvel at how angelic he looks when not plotting Harry's murder. He doesn't know any drying spells, so Diggins proves himself useful in this regard, helping to restore Tom to normal temperature before being forced to leave on business.
Harry, though grateful, is not sorry to see him go. After several failed attempts to awaken Tom, who bats irritably at him each time, Harry sighs and sets about ridding Tom of his new clothes, fitting new ones on him with another flick of his wand.
"You're alright," he says aloud, as much to assure himself as Tom. He pulls the comforter up to the boy's chin, carefully tucking it around his frame. How thin he is. Harry really should set about feeding him more. "You're alright."
He sweeps away raven locks from his charge's cherub face, surprised at the tendernessd of his own actions. Oh, the monster this boy would've become...and here Harry is, worried sick over him. He experiences another moment of surrealism as he looks down at Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle. The sneering memory in the Chamber of Secrets - the red-eyed murderer screaming a curse -
The boy who had looked so awed upon first stepping into Diagon Alley. Who had blinked at him so innocently in the ice cream shop, a dab of chocolate on his nose. Who always flushed with such pleasure at Harry's praise, though he pretended indifference, and clung to him so tightly that first day in the lake, his thin face scrunched up in the fiercest scowl...
Harry closes his eyes.
The boy is not the monster. He knows this now.
Still...
Harry buries his face in his hands. He sits with Tom for a while longer, lost in thought, before getting to his feet. Tom will be alright. He must turn his attention to other things. He wards the room before leaving it - just in case - and heads downstairs.
Each step feels impossibly heavy. It is a painful day for him. He must honor it - her - nonetheless...
He walks into the kitchen, telling himself that he will make this quick - that he will do what needs to be done, and then head back upstairs and collapse next to Tom. He's so tired...
Harry ignores the portrait at first, walking past where Diggins set it on the kitchen table. He isn't ready to face her, yet. The hole yawns wider than ever within him, and he busies himself by tidying up, cleaning the counters and the stove and rearranging the food in the cabinets, his hands trembling.
Finally, when he can put it off no longer, Harry pulls all the curtains over all the windows until the first floor is considerably dark. He mutters a spell under his breath, and the area around him grows bright again with the lights of a hundred little flames. They hover around him, casting an appropriately somber atmosphere, as he seats himself at the kitchen table.
Slowly, Harry frees the cake from its container. He considers it for a moment, the blue frosting - her favorite color - and the assortment of candles sticking up from its surface. Eighteen of them. She would be eighteen, today.
He lights each one by his own hand, as a muggle would. Once the match is discarded, Harry sits back, studying the flames.
It is a long moment before he can collect himself, fully, and even longer before he can muster the strength to reach for the portrait and set it upright, so that they are facing each other.
His head begins to pound.
Ginny.
She waves at him from the portrait, her face lit with a smile. How beautiful she is, even now, when she is but a collection of paint strokes and magic. The artist is truly a master. He has recreated Harry's memory so vividly, he can almost pretend it is really her looking out at him, her flaming hair lifted slightly in an imaginary breeze.
He takes a deep breath. The Ginny before him is little more than a figment of his memories, before everything took a turn for the worst. She is not sentient, or even real. Allowing himself to believe otherwise, even for a moment, would be detrimental to his life here.
Ginny is gone, Harry reminds himself, his hands curling into fists. He knows this, he does, but it does not change the fact that she, of all his loved ones, has plagued his every waking moment, from the time he opens his eyes in the morning to the time he closes them in an attempt at sleep. Her ghost sits upon his shoulders with all the weight of the world, so heavy that any hope of lasting progress towards the future is impossible. Harry cannot move forward while the memory of her clings so fiercely to him.
He cannot love Tom while he is haunted by Ginny.
And so this is goodbye.
After today, he will do his best to lock her away, in the deepest, most precious confines of his heart. It won't be easy, by any means, but - like so much of his life - it must be done.
He must lose her to save her. And if that means forgetting everything - the scent of her hair, the breadth of her smile, the love in her eyes - then so be it.
I will always love you.
"Happy birthday," Harry whispers.
He pretends he doesn't feel as hot tears slide down his cheeks. But more come, dripping into the table in copious amounts, until the portrait and the flames blur before his eyes. He bows his head.
Tomorrow, he will do his very best not to think of her, but today he will remember. Today he is allowed to ruminate on the life they might've had.
And so Harry gives in to the despair one last time, before he must straighten his back and wipe his eyes and pretend he is not riddled with holes again. It is so hard, being strong. So tiring.
There are days he wakes up and wants only to die.
But that would be cowardice, and Harry intends to follow his friends and leave this world as a Gryffindor.
Right now, he feels terribly weak, and most unbecoming of his House. Harry's grief numbs him to the world, settling over him like a cloud - impenetrable enough that he does not feel as the wards he set are breached. He does not hear the stairs creak under another's weight, or feel the eyes boring into him as he succumbs to his own melancholy. After this, he will not think of her. After this, he can focus on -
"Harry?"
Harry shoots upright, his head snapping to the source of the voice. Tom stands in the living room doorway, his head tilted to the side.
Harry hastily wipes at his eyes, gritting his teeth against the urge to snap at the boy.
"T-Tom," he says, hating how tiny his voice sounds. "You're awake."
Tom watches him. He is still a little pale, his hair ruffled and his overall appearance a far cry from his usual tidiness, but he looks much better than he did earlier. His eyes have regained their usual sharpness.
"You're sad," he observes.
"I'm fine," Harry lies, wondering at the softness of the other's voice. He expects acid - venom - curses and threats for his role in Tom's almost-demise...but the boy is only studying him intently.
It'll come, Harry knows, turning away. "You should get back into bed. You need to rest. I'll bring you something to eat in a minute."
Tom says nothing. Harry takes that for acceptance, until he feels a touch on his arm. He looks to see Tom peering up at him, his eyes large and smoky gray. There is something strange in them, something other than the disdain Harry expects, and it makes him uncomfortable for reasons he can't quite pinpoint.
"Tom," he says, unable to keep the bite from his tone. "Go back to bed. I told you I'd bring you - "
His words dry into nothing as the boy climbs onto his lap, settling himself there as though Harry were Santa Claus. Harry stares at him, his brow furrowing. He is utterly lost.
"Tom."
"You're sad," the boy murmurs again, raising his hand. Harry flinches, but Tom means only to - to brush away his tears? The pad of his thumb sends little jolts of electricity along Harry's skin. What is going on here?
Suspicion curls in Harry's gut, and he is fully intent on removing the boy from his person, when Tom's arms wrap around his neck in a familiar action.
What in Merlin's name - ?
"I don't like it when you're sad," Tom whispers, startling him into silence. He sounds - he sounds genuine, but then, Tom Riddle is a very good liar...
Harry's chin quivers. Despite himself, he finds his arms wrapping around the boy in turn. Tom makes a pleased sound, curling into him with convincing affection, and though he knows it is a lie, Harry cannot bring himself to dispel the illusion. He has no desire to deal with the ugliness that is the real Tom Riddle at this moment in time.
Right now, he is solid and warm in Harry's arms, and a reminder that he is not completely alone. That he still has a purpose. That he is sitting here before the portrait of his lost love for a reason.
He rests his chin against the top of Tom's head, his eyes squeezed shut, and so does not see how Tom gazes at the portrait, his eyes cold and calculating. He does not register the possessiveness of the boy's hold, how his arms encircle Harry's neck like a noose.
Like every bad horror-movie protagonist, Harry Potter is ignoring the signs.
Far, far away, in a place outside of time - where angels fear to tread and human beings may never go - a figure swathed in darkness shakes its head.
Thus it begins.
