Hello, everyone! So here's another chapter!

Reminder: I have edited all the chapters, the summary, the title and the image, because I felt that this story was not quite expressive to the standard I wanted. Hence, the new versions. Don't forget to read chapters 1 - 20!

Thank you to the readers who reviewed and helped me make my decision to rewrite the entire story. Hope you guys will like the edited version!

Please leave reviews!

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A single pair of polished shoes made a clack of footsteps on the stone floor. The sound approached, until finally it came to a stop on the opposite side of the table.

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"So Severus healed you up, did he?" Harry steadfastly refused to look up, and serenely kept reading the tome he had found in the library – Forbidden Practices.

"Harry."

He turned a page.

Tom settled into the seat across him, and rolled a quill between his hands. Even that mundane gesture held nothing but grace.

"Not ignoring me, are you? How mature."

Harry started the chapter on Healing Rituals.

"Harry…"

Harry was glad they were in an empty study hall with nobody around to freak out at the Parseltongue. He kept his eyes on the page, and his fingers ready to snatch his wand out at the slightest threat.

"Don't provoke me, my darling."

He didn't move.

The book flew out of his hands, and landed with a thump a little way down the table. Harry closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and knowing he couldn't hope to defeat Tom if it came to a fight. He stood up, grabbed his bag and headed for the doors….which banged shut silently. Ah, a silencing charm. The bolts slid home.

Harry turned a second too late. He was slammed against a table, all the breath knocked out of him, and the edges of the table digging harshly into his skin just above his hips. His bag went skidding while his hands wrapped around the strong hand Tom had pressed over the base of his throat. Tom's other hand laid over Harry's heaving lower ribcage. His lower body quite effectively pinned the younger wizard down.

Harry blinked, trying to get his breath back. "Anger issues?" he asked with raised eyebrows.

"Only with you."

"How flattering," Harry drawled. "I suppose crucioing me wasn't enough? You have to go around slamming me into furniture? It hurts a bit, you know."

"You were asking for the Cruciatus, Harry," Tom's eyes seemed to glow in the semi-darkness of the hall. "I'm not to blame. We had an agreement, and I'm not the one who broke it."

After a moment of stillness, Harry sighed and dropped his head back on the table beneath him. "No, I guess you weren't." Then he raised his head, aiming a steel glare at Tom. "That doesn't mean you can try to torture Snape. He was only looking out for me."

Tom's face came very close to his. "That saving–people attitude you possess is crazy and needs to be gotten rid of as soon as possible."

Harry's flashing green eyes narrowed. "So caring about people – especially about people who try to help me – is a weakness? Is that what you're implying?"

"It is nothing but a weakness. Only the faint–hearted would cling to such notions like the old fool does."

"Professor Dumbledore knows what he's talking about, unlike you, because it's very plain that you've never allowed yourself to 'show weakness in the form of emotions'." Harry pushed against Tom's chest ineffectually.

"Emotions blind people, Harry. It blocks their ability to think clearly. It hinders progress."

"Right, like you're an expert in the feelings department."

"I never claimed so, sweetheart."

Harry pushed against Tom again. "Why do you keep calling me that?"

Tom appeared to lean even more on Harry, a smirk crawling over his lips. "What? Sweetheart?"

Harry nodded, wanting to press himself away from Tom, but not wanting to give the other the satisfaction. Tom smiled – albeit a very spine-chilling one.

"Did I not once tell you that we share an intimacy that none can hope to achieve?" he all but purred. "Think about it, Harry, our minds are so closely interlinked, you wouldn't be able to tell us apart if the link was wrapped in enough magic and emotion…How personal … Don't you think? Don't we have a right to use such terms on each other, when others use them for much lesser bonds?"

"How very romantic," Harry said as flatly as he could. "Then again, you who haven't the slightest idea of love, assuming the role of a lover…is hilarious at the least. Now get off me." Tom's chuckle vibrated in his chest, and Harry shivered, feeling it. "Now!"

"Scared, Gryffindor?"

"Not in the slightest. It's just that I'm sure my back is bruised by now."

"You are very adept at tolerating pain, I noticed, darling. Care to share?"

A brief image of a glowering Uncle Vernon flashed through Harry's mind, and his jaw tightened subconsciously. He snapped his eyes away from Tom and so missed the slight narrowing of the Dark Lord's eyes. "No. And stop calling me that. I know what you're trying to do – get a rise out of me. Well, try something else, because you calling me embarrassing names isn't going to work."

With another truly scary smile – this one showing all his perfect pearly white teeth, Tom stepped away finally, allowing Harry his personal space. Said wizard straightened up, letting out a groan of pain as he moved off the table he'd been pinned against.

"As a matter of fact, I don't think you trust me at all. Am I right?" Harry asked, gingerly rubbing his fingers over his back. Tom stared back with his normal ice–blue eyes.

"I suppose I could say the same of you," he retorted. Harry stayed quiet, needing to hear more. "There should be some form of trust between us. The mere existence of our link could lead to great disaster without something to hold our belief in each other."

"Trust needs to be earned." Harry said softly. "Today you hurt me when you found me alone with Snape. That shows you didn't trust me not to turn against you. I think you feel vulnerable. You can put up all sorts of barriers around you, but as long as the link is there, you'll never completely be closed off from me."

Neither of the two moved for a few minutes. Then Tom spoke. "We cannot be more different from each other. I feel you are somewhat of a masochist–"

"And you're a sadist!"

"Exactly. We're different. You care. I don't. You feel. I don't. Yet here we are, bound to each other. Harry, I saw you cry for a child who got hurt – from your point of view, because of you. You shielded a person you detest simply because he was innocent, even though you knew you'd have to take his place. I would never do anything like that. And do you know why we are so different?"

"Aren't you about to tell me?" Drily, Harry responded.

Without a hint of a smile, Tom answered him. "Because while I do not allow myself to admit to anything other than logic, you are ruled by your emotions. They bubble inside you, a disorganized, revolting whirlpool of feelings! You succumb to whatever your emotions lead to – never once using your brain!"

"It isn't wrong to follow one's heart!"

Tom continued as if he hadn't spoken. "It was guilt that made you shed tears for Creevey. It was fear and concern that made you decide to save Severus. It is–"

"It's my EMOTIONS that are making me stick with you despite everything you say and do! It's relief and reprieve and hope and happiness and – and comfort that's making me stay beside you even with everything and everyone pulling me away! Why can't you see that?!" He was suddenly blindingly angry, and just wanted to just show Tom, just show him what it was – the blankness was driving him insane – he seized the link and opened it wide at his end, willing him to see and to come out and feel and know how mad he drove Harry, and what he made him feel, the relief of being with someone he didn't have to explain himself to, someone who understood him and saw him for what he was…

Deep inside, something uncurled – Harry didn't know whether it was in his mind or his heart or somewhere else altogether…and he felt as if he was inside a tornado, everything blurred past, and for a moment all he could see, hear, feel, was Tom Tom Tom Tom…and someone was gasping – was it him…no, why would he, he was safe and warm and…

…on the floor on his knees…

Harry lurched forward, vaguely aware of his ears ringing, and his brain going from fuzzy to clear in the space of a heartbeat. "Tom?" was the first word to leave his mouth, and "You idiot." were the first words to reach his ears.

He blinked once or twice, and realized that Tom was holding him up, just like he was holding Tom up, and both of them were on their knees on the cold stone floor. Tom's eyes were closed, and his brow furrowed, and Harry's hands clenched in Tom's robes, wondering if he was hurt.

"Tom?" he contemplated slapping him across the face just to spite him, but then it wouldn't do him any good in the long run.

Fortunately – or unfortunately – Tom opened his eyes by himself. "Well done, Golden Boy, you've widened the possibilities of the link, singlehandedly, I might add. What did you do?"

Harry looked back at him. "Nothing. I mean, I don't know – I can't explain it."

Tom looked at him some more, then shook his head with a half–hearted "Figures."

Somehow that one word dissolved the remaining tension between them, but it seemed Tom wasn't finished.

"So now we're best friends? How… disgusting."

Harry let out chortle of laughter, getting to his feet and brushing himself off. "You know, friendship isn't something you can just decide based on logic. It just happens. And yeah, if you want to, we can be friends. You know," Harry paused with a smirk of his own, "I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings…"

"Repeat that, and I'll break something of yours. And here's a hint – it won't be anything outside your body."

"Right, back to threatening. So….when can I introduce you to the rest of my Gryffindor friends?"

"Don't even contemplate it for a second."

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