The next morning, Harry woke to the sound of Riddle moving about in the other room. He had slept on a hair trigger, but the Slytherin hadn't tried anything during the night.
He plucked his glasses off the armrest and shoved them onto his face, and then unfolded himself from the chair, psyching himself up for a confrontation. Even the thought of mentioning last night felt excruciatingly awkward, and there was a part of Harry - a large part - that wanted to pretend it hadn't happened. But, he told himself, he was a Gryffindor for a reason, and he'd been cooperative for long enough. He was going to make it very clear that what Riddle had tried to do could never happen again.
It was in this determined mood then, that he stormed across the room. But before he reached the doorway to the bedroom, Riddle appeared. He was still wearing his pyjamas, but his shoes were on his feet and a towel was slung over his shoulder.
"YOU-" Harry began, drawing in breath for his tirade.
"Good morning, Harry. I do hope you slept well," Riddle said, all sweetness and dimples and light, looking for all the world as if he had not put his hand in Harry's underwear less than twelve hours ago. "I'm going to go wash. It's too far to go alone, so you'll have to come along too.
Harry was completely derailed. "I - you what?"
Riddle paid him no mind. Instead, he side-stepped Harry, swept a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo off the counter and into a metal bucket, and left the cottage. Harry stared after him.
The bond pulled taut.
Harry swore, and raced to the door. Outside, he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight as he gracelessly hopped to slip his shoes onto his feet.
"WAIT - hey, where are you going?" he called after Riddle from the doorway. He was heading in the opposite direction to the sea, the pail merrily swinging from his hand.
"There's a stream just outside the wards. I normally go there," Riddle called. Shoes finally on, Harry trotted to catch up as he left the wards and started through the sparse trees at the edge of the forest. He could hear the stream before he saw it, and it finally came into view when they ambled over a low rise. It was more like a small river, narrow, but deep and fast flowing.
"About last night," Harry started, as Riddle led them down the bank.
"It's okay, Harry. No hard feelings."
Harry's jaw dropped. "No hard feelings?" he echoed incredulously. "It's not you that should be angry!"
Riddle stopped at a place where the earth dipped down to meet the water in a series of large, flat stones. He set down the towels and bucket, then turned to Harry.
"I just asked if you wanted a handjob," he said blithely. "You're so uptight - I thought it might relax you."
"Like that's all you wanted!"
Riddle scratched his chin as if he was thinking about it for the first time. "Well, I suppose it might have been polite of you to repay the favour afterwards."
Harry spluttered, red with fury and embarrassment. His face grew even hotter when Riddle pulled his pyjama shirt over his head.
"What are you doing?"
Riddle kicked off his shoes. "Do I really have to explain the concept of bathing to you? You should wash too, Harry. Cleaning charms can only do so much."
Before he could protest, Riddle stripped off his trousers and underwear. He was not at all shy. Harry half averted his eyes as he undressed, torn between embarrassment and caution. However, Riddle did not seem to have an ulterior motive. He fished the soap out of the bucket and waded out into the water.
Once his back was turned, Harry raised his arm and took a sniff. His nose crinkled.
Great.
The water looked lovely and cool under the hot morning sun. Harry eyed Riddle suspiciously, but the Slytherin seemed totally oblivious to Harry's dilemma. Hesitantly, he unbuttoned his pyjama shirt and stepped out of his trousers. He left his boxers stubbornly on as he followed Riddle into the stream.
It was wonderful - the top layer was warmed by the sun but cold water flowed past his legs. Harry could hear the morning calls of the birds and the sound of the treetops swaying in the gentle breeze. It was a truly lovely spot, peaceful and untouched, with a view of the mountains in the distance. He just stood there for a long moment, enjoying the view and the feel of the water.
Riddle wordlessly held out the soap. As Harry went to take the bar, their fingers touched and he saw for the first time that Riddle's eyes were not black, but rather a dark, deep shade of brown, only visible in bright sunlight. The spell was broken when Riddle half turned away and bent gracefully at the waist to dunk his hair. Harry watched out of the corner of his eye, unable to look away from the fine muscles moving under the alabaster skin of his back, his thighs . . .
His arse . . .
Biting the inside of his cheek hard, Harry turned his head resolutely forwards and ran the bar of soap over his own torso. It was Riddle's fault that he was having these thoughts. If it hadn't been for what he had tried to do last night, Harry wouldn't even have noticed his body. He only felt flustered because Riddle had put the idea in his head.
His reaction was all the more infuriating because it wasn't like he had never seen another boy naked! There were shower stalls in the boy's Quidditch changing rooms, and Harry had never been embarrassed when other people used them or walked around afterwards clad in just a towel.
And also, it shouldn't matter what Riddle looked like naked because Harry fancied girls. He was certain that he wasn't lying to himself about that - he liked the way Fleur filled out her blouse, and Cho Chang's big dewy eyes and sweet round face. He had even looked twice at Hermione during the Yule Ball last year, with her shiny hair and floating ephemeral dress! So there was no reason at all for him to be sneaking glances at Tom Riddle in profile as he ran his long fingers through his hair, sending rivulets of water cascading down his chest, following the smooth planes of his body down, down, until they reached the sharp V of his hipbones-
"Are you done with the soap?"
Harry definitely didn't squeak. Utterly humiliated, he deposited the bar in Riddle's outstretched hand, then quickly dunked his head to hide his burning face. He was not quite fast enough, however, to miss Riddle's unbearably smug smirk. He had seen where Harry's eyes had gone. He knew what he was doing to him.
Bastard.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Harry tried not to talk to Riddle, but the other boy was skilled at drawing him into conversation. Reluctantly, he had to admit that Riddle was good company when he wasn't trying to be awful - he possessed a quick wit and a wide repartee of slightly cruel anecdotes about his time at Hogwarts.
That night he slept in the armchair again and woke up before dawn, cramped, tense and with his cock straining against his underwear. He guiltily crept out and relieved himself in the outhouse, trying very hard to picture Fleur Delacour in the swimming costume she had worn during the second task. To his immense distress, her hair kept turning black, her mouth twisting into a wide, cruel smirk as she held out a bar of soap like the devil holding out a perfect red apple -
"Do you want to?"
He couldn't look Riddle in the eye when he emerged from the bedroom that morning.
Things came to a head after lunch. Harry, who had run out of things to do, was tidying up. It was amazing how much mess two teenage boys could make. After he'd finished cleaning the dishes with magic, he fished his school robes out from where he'd stashed them under the armchair on his first night in the cottage.
As he unfolded them, he felt something crinkle in one of the pockets.
Harry frowned, and, sparing a glance for Riddle, who was still writing out a complicated pattern of runes onto a scrap of parchment, slipped into the other room and pulled the object out.
It was the Marauder's Map.
Harry dimly remembered stuffing it into his pocket, along with his other most valuable possessions after Malfoy split his bag open. It felt like a lifetime ago. He glanced at the open doorway, then unfolded it.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
Thin lines spidered across the parchment, forming into corridors, classrooms and dormitories. He eagerly scanned the map, searching for Ron and Hermione. Just seeing their names written down would be a huge comfort, a reminder that the world did not consist of the cottage and Riddle.
But they weren't there. In fact, no one was - there were no labelled dots moving across the paper. Harry held it closer, unable to believe his eyes. Eventually, he spotted just two people walking side by side down the fourth floor corridor - John Dawlish and Miriam Maddox. He recognised the name Dawlish . . . he was an Auror . . .
A lump rose in his throat. They had closed the school. It shouldn't have been a surprise - how could Hogwarts stay open when two of its students had vanished into thin air?
But even so, where had all the students gone? What about O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s? Had they been cancelled? Hermione would be so disappointed . . .
Agitated, Harry made the lines on the parchment disappear and tucked the map back into his robes for safekeeping. He reached into the opposite pocket and pulled out the knife that Sirius had given him. There was something else too, something small and round . . . he withdrew his hand-
A golden Galleon lay innocuously in the centre of his palm. Harry's thoughts dissolved into white static at the sight of it.
The Galleon.
The Galleon that Hermione had enchanted to allow him to send messages to the D.A.
Excitement roared into life inside him. He could get a message to the Order! Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George . . . surely at least one of them was still carrying their Galleon, and if they were not at school, they had to be at the Burrow or Grimmauld Place!
He scanned the digits of the serial number. There were twelve. He didn't know how to make the Galleon send letters directly, but there might be another way-
Harry dug into the open trunk for a quill and paper. He ripped off the string tied around Riddle's old notebooks and flicked through them until he found one with free space. On the back page, he hurriedly wrote down the letters of the alphabet and numbered them 01 to 26.
Six letters. But what to write? He tapped the end of the quill against his knee as he thought. He had vowed not to betray Riddle - he didn't think he could get away with letting the Order know about him, or the Horcruxes, or where they were staying, but he could at least stop them worrying that he was dead . . .
He wrote down his message on the back page, then translated it into numbers. Crossing his fingers, he tapped the Galleon with his wand, changing the digits just as he had done dozens of times over the last year.
01 12 09 22 05 00
ALIVE
Then he waited, fidgeting. He had to give them time to find the message and work out the code. If Hermione was receiving it, it wouldn't take long. The seconds ticked by. When he thought ten minutes had passed, he changed the numbers again.
09 13 15 11 01 25
IMOKAY
Message sent, he felt like a great weight of guilt had lifted off his shoulders. His friends wouldn't have to wonder if he was being tortured somewhere by Voldemort. Of course, they'd still be wondering where on earth he was and why he didn't come back, but it was something at least. He had just begun writing in the notebook again, spelling out the word SORRY, when he heard a small scrape.
Riddle was standing in the doorway. He was smiling politely, a pleasant veneer over the cold fury in his eyes.
"Don't stop on my account."
Harry scrambled to his feet, holding Pansy's wand out in front of him
"I was just . . ." he began, reaching for a suitable lie, "I was just . . . reading your diary. I'm sorry."
Riddle advanced into the room. He gestured with his empty fingers and the Galleon shot off the floor into his hand. He examined it, holding it between his thumb and forefinger.
"A Protean Charm. How . . . fascinating." He tapped the coin with his wand, making the numbers melt into a row of zeros, before slipping it into his own pocket. "What information were you sending to your friends, Harry?"
His dark eyes were mesmerising. Harry gulped, knowing the game was up.
"I was just telling Ron and Hermione that I'm alive. That's all. I just didn't want them to worry-"
"How thoughtful of you," Riddle said, in the soft voice he used when he was at his most dangerous. His head cocked to the side, like a cat considering a mouse.
"Look-" Harry said, turning the diary around so that Riddle could see his two messages. "That's all I s-"
"Crucio!"
Harry's wand moved without conscious thought. "Protego!"
His half-formed Shield Charm shattered on impact with the powerful dark spell, sending a numbing shockwave through his arm. But Harry was already moving. He leapt onto the bed and scrambled out of the open window into the garden. A second red curse shot over his head as he landed on the dirt. Keeping low, he half ran, half crawled around the corner.
There was a bang as the front door was slammed open, the wood crashing against the wall. Harry skittered back the way he had come - he really didn't fancy fighting Riddle with Pansy's wand while he was hobbled by the vow. His only option was flight.
But how could you run away from someone you were bound to by an invisible, thirty-foot long tether?
He heard Riddle's footsteps and bolted back around the corner, realising that he could keep the building between them. It was only a delaying tactic; Harry couldn't very well run in circles for the rest of his life, but Riddle might calm down in the meantime.
For about a minute or so it worked. Finally, he heard Riddle's reluctant laugh from the other side of the cottage and knew he had worked out what he was doing. Then quick footsteps sounded from the left side of the cottage. Harry grinned - it was a trick; Riddle would have silenced himself and gone in the opposite direction. He ran towards the footsteps-
Smack into Riddle.
"Pathetic!" the Slytherin spat, as Harry scuttled backwards, belatedly realising that he had fallen for a double bluff.
"Expelliarmus!"
Riddle laughed derisively and slashed his wand down, silently conjuring a glowing shield. Harry hated how effortless he made it look.
"Stupefy! Petrificus Totalus!"
The other boy looked almost bored as he blocked the spells, and the second Disarming Charm Harry sent after them.
"Wonderful. Now that we've established that you have an arsenal of exactly three offensive spells- Uermium Vermis!"
Harry didn't trust Pansy's wand to block the unfamiliar spell. He dodged instead, leaping nimbly over a wild rose, and the fizzing orange curse passed harmlessly to the side.
Riddle didn't immediately cast again. Instead, he considered him almost speculatively. Harry grinned cheekily in response - Riddle was fast, but he knew he was faster. Finally, the other boy raised his wand.
"Incendio Inflecto!"
Harry jumped to the side.
The spell curved.
"Protego!" Harry shouted in a panic. But the wand in his hand baulked, emitting nothing but a puff of noxious purple smoke. Acting on pure instinct, Harry let his legs go out from underneath him, dropping like a stone as a tongue of fire licked just above his head, singing the tips of his hair.
Then he screamed. Knives were stabbing at his insides - he hadn't heard the incantation, but Riddle must have got him with a Cruciatus. Mercifully, it was over almost before it began and, trembling a little, teeth gritted and absolutely furious, Harry rolled to his feet.
"Expelliarmus!" he cried again, whipping his wand forwards in a blur. Riddle cast his own spell in the same moment. The two jets of light, one red and one yellow, missed each other by a hair.
Riddle's spell hit Harry in his wand-arm, making his fingers spasm painfully and open. But Riddle's wand flew high in the air at the same moment. Harry ran forwards, reaching out his other hand to catch it, but Riddle barrelled into him before he could, shoving him to the ground. Harry hit the dirt and scrambled immediately back up.
Riddle strode forwards, eyes full of malice. "You are going to pay for that."
"Am I meant to be scared? Your wand is all the way over there."
Riddle's dark eyes seemed to bore into his very being. A sensation like pins and needles erupted all over his skin, growing worse by the moment. Harry hissed in pain and rubbed at his arms.
"I don't need a wand to hurt you, Harry," Riddle whispered, low and delighted.
Harry blinked, then slugged him as hard as he could in the stomach. The prickling sensation disappeared.
"Looks like I don't either, genius," he crowed as Riddle doubled over, wheezing. Harry didn't wait for him to recover. Pressing his advantage, he shoved him hard, making him stagger backwards.
There was a dark part of him that wanted to hurt Riddle. He wanted payback for every horrible thing the Slytherin had done over the last few days and months. And while Riddle was a good six inches taller, he was so narrow that they probably weighed about the same - Harry fancied his chances in an all-out physical brawl.
He drew back his fist and cracked him in the face, hitting him just under his right eye. Riddle's head snapped back, but then he seized Harry by the shirt and kicked him hard in the shin. Harry howled, hopping on one leg. Riddle grabbed his sleeve, but rather than be pushed to the ground, Harry let himself fall forwards onto Riddle.
The Slytherin's eyes widened in surprise at the move. They fell together, and he let out a winded gasp as Harry landed heavily on top of him. Harry drew back his fist again, but Riddle wrapped a leg around his hip and used his leverage to roll them over, his knee between Harry's thighs. He caught Harry's wrist before he could let fly his punch and pinned it to the ground.
For a moment, they panted together. Harry was still flat on his back in the long grass, while Riddle knelt over him on all fours, his curls in disarray. Almost as an afterthought Harry tried to spit in his face, but missed, the spittle landing on the collar of his shirt. Riddle didn't even blink - instead his eyes dissected Harry, gazing down at him like a butterfly pinned to a board.
Harry reddened at both the scrutiny and the position. Riddle's thigh was between his legs and to his mortification, his crotch rubbed against the rough material of the other boy's trousers with every laboured breath. There was a bead of sweat running down the Slytherin's neck - unwillingly, Harry was reminded of the river water running down his chest-
"You're hard."
"Am not!" Harry cried. And if he was, it was only the adrenaline.
Rather than answer, Riddle leant forwards, just so. Harry groaned, embarrassingly loud, as his thigh ground against his cock, sending electric shivers of pleasure up his spine.
"No," he tried to say, but to his horror, it came out breathy. Riddle gazed down at him, his eyebrows drawing together, like Harry was a puzzle he was trying to solve. His eyes flicked to where Harry's free arm lay limp in the grass.
Not fighting.
Not struggling.
Harry went red in embarrassment as those dark, sceptical eyes panned back to his own.
But Riddle did him the courtesy of not contradicting him. Instead, very slowly, very sensuously, his fingers traced up Harry's bare arm and closed tight around his wrist like a shackle.
Harry swallowed. He was completely pinned. Whatever happened next was not his fault. He met Riddle's eyes again, and finally struggled in his hold.
In a complete coincidence, the movement rubbed his cock against Riddle's.
The Slytherin growled and lowered himself down so they were pressed together, grinding forwards. Harry could feel his weight on him, feel his breath tickling his skin, feel that he was hard too-
It was exciting. The most exciting thing ever. Harry canted his hips up, finding a rhythm with Tom - with Riddle - and threw his head back, gasping, as they pressed together again and again. Riddle let go of his wrists, sacrificing the hold for better leverage, and Harry flung one arm round his waist while the fingers of the other wound through his hair. His curls were as soft and silky as they looked-
"I hate you," he gasped out as Riddle moved between his thighs, shaking with pleasure and the sheer thrill of it. It was like running down a steep grassy hill as fast as he could, knowing that at any moment he was going to fall, that it was inevitable.
Riddle spoke into the crook of his neck. "I know."
And he could feel Riddle panting, his hips moving faster. Harry moaned, the sound completely indecent, and slung a leg around Riddle's so they could press even closer together, each of them hopelessly tangled up in the other. Harry was combusting, burning up under the hot sun-
Riddle shuddered on top of him as he came and not a moment later white bloomed behind Harry's own eyelids as he followed him down.
Harry drifted down from his high like a leaf falling from a tree.
Riddle had rolled off him and was lying on his back next to Harry, almost shoulder to shoulder. At some point, he had wandlessly Vanished the mess they'd both made in their clothes. Harry ought to be fighting him and demanding explanations, for appearance's sake if nothing else, but the sun was warm and the adrenaline from their fight had mellowed into a pleasant thrum of contentment in his veins. It was so pleasant to lie in the soft, fragrant grass, aching and satisfied.
He turned his head. Riddle was gazing up at the clouds passing high above, his head pillowed on his arm. There were grass stains on the elbows of his white shirt and a bruise blooming high on his cheekbone where Harry had hit him. He raised a hand to touch it, then paused and let it fall.
Riddle didn't miss the aborted movement. "That was a good punch," he said ruefully.
"Aren't you going to heal it?" Harry asked. He almost didn't want him to.
"I can't."
Harry's forehead creased. He didn't know how to himself, but he had seen lots of people heal bruises - Hermione, Mrs Weasley . . . Riddle seemed to know a lot of magic. Why would he make Horcruxes, but not learn to fix a bruise? It was so backwards.
"It's the penalty for using Dark magic," Riddle sighed. "It destroys your ability to use healing charms. A wizard's magic recovers a little if they stop, but it can take years. I haven't been able to fix as much as a paper cut since I was twelve."
"What Dark magic were you doing when you were twelve?"
"None of your business."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Healing seems a pretty useful thing. Is it really worth it?"
"All the good offensive spells are Dark. Most Aurors can't heal, although a few keep their magic clean so they can provide first aid in battle."
Harry hummed noncommittally.
"I'm going to be an Auror," he said after a moment. He ought not to be engaging in pillow talk, but the lazy mood was making him chatty. At least the pillows were metaphorical.
"Are you really." There was something mocking in Riddle's voice that made Harry squint at him.
"I don't like your tone," he complained. But there was a smile on his lips. He was getting used to Riddle's caustic personality. It was strange: they'd met less than a week ago, but Harry felt like he'd known him forever.
Given the Horcrux in his scar, maybe he had.
"I'm going to conquer Wizarding Britain," Riddle announced.
"When did you decide that?"
"I don't know. Probably when I found the Chamber of Secrets."
"How long were you looking for it?"
"A good three years."
"Wow. How come it took you so long? Do you have a bad sense of direction or something?"
"I have an excellent sense of direction," Riddle groused. "I just wasn't expecting the entrance to be hidden in the Victorian era plumbing in the second floor girls' bathroom."
"What did you want to be before?"
"A teacher."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem the type."
"Why do you want to be an Auror?"
"Because a Dark wizard killed my parents," Harry drawled, voice laden with irony.
Riddle grinned back at him, not taking the bait. "You aren't very good at duelling."
"Excuse you! You try fighting using Pansy's wand. It hates me. I want mine back."
To his surprise, Riddle acquiesced. "We'll go to Knockturn Alley tomorrow. If I can find a wand that works for me, you can have yours." He folded his other arm behind his head too, basking in the hot sun like a snake.
"This can never happen again," Harry said firmly, a few minutes or an hour later.
"Of course not," Riddle replied. Harry turned his head just in time to catch him rolling his eyes.
The quiet, tenuous peace between them lasted all day, and when they went to bed that night, Harry didn't sleep in the armchair. Riddle cuddled up behind him straight away, no longer keeping up the charade of facing the wall. His hands roamed over Harry's thigh, hip, chest, neck – the touches were somewhat sexual, but mostly just possessive. Staking a claim.
To Harry's shame, he didn't mind.
A/N: The "Dark Magic rots your ability to heal" idea is inspired by Riddletobien's excellent Keep Your Enemies Closer.
