Tom smoothed down his robes - unfortunately not tailored, as all of his belongings had been auctioned, collected for evidence or exhibition - and stepped up to the door. He knocked once, sharply.

A strange anticipation coiled in his belly.

It didn't take long for the door to open, and for his younger counterpart to smile at him. "I'm so glad you could make it," the Horcrux said.

He hated looking at it, at its reminder of childish dreams and ambitions. Of Dark Lords and blood purity, and his world before Harry Potter.

He stepped in, the door swinging shut behind him.

The sizzling smell of roast lamb and herbs wafted from the kitchen. Harry's doing, no doubt.
Although in their past the young man had more often ended up at his house and at his kitchen table, it was not for lack of skill so much as Harry's insistent refusal to look after himself properly.

Tom's head tilted, considering.

It seemed surreal - the food at the prison for the criminally insane could be called little more than gruel. He inhaled subtly, though perhaps not quite subtly enough considering the gleam in his younger counterpart's eyes.

His fingers flexed at his sides. The Horcrux's murders were finger painting in comparison to his own cultivated masterpieces. "I take it he's in the kitchen?"

"He makes an excellent pet," the Horcrux smirked. "I truly don't know how he managed to beat you, you must have lost your touch."

"I underestimated him." He wasn't sure if he meant it as a warning or not, dismissing his counterpart and focusing on Harry. If it came down to choosing between two bits of his soul, he knew which fragment he'd choose. Tom moved closer to the kitchen, heart pounding electric in his chest.

He'd been able to touch Harry, once, at the prison. But that hadn't been the same, had it? Harry had only done it because he saw no other option, and everyone else at the scene were negligent enough to let the boy do it. That was why Harry needed him. Someone to buffer him from the world, to draw out his strength and sharpen the blunted edges of his defiance.

He saw Harry's back first, could see the lines of tension in Harry's shoulders even through the material of a fine green shirt that no doubt brought out his eyes perfectly.

Tom could feel his horcruxes watching him.

And even as he watched Harry, he saw the tension dissolve. Harry had evidently heard them coming, heard the door, but he didn't turn.

Tom wetted his lips and moved closer, the Horcrux be damned. He wouldn't let a past mistake ruin this present. He'd dreamed about a reunion between them, unfettered by glass prisons or Smethwyck's rule. He smoothed his hands over Harry's shoulders, kneading the tight skin and pressing his lips to Harry's ear. "I told you I'd come for you." Low, so his counterpart wouldn't hear.

A shudder ran down Harry's spine, and his fist white-knuckled around the kitchen knife.
But he didn't say anything. No greeting, no witty comment or even insult.

Tom frowned. He slid his hands up, taking Harry's chin between his fingers so he could nudge the young man to look at him properly.

Harry could be a wonderful actor, but Tom had spent years unravelling him, picking him apart and putting him back in new and more beautiful arrangements. Harry's eyes never lied even if the rest of him pulled it off flawlessly. He was lying now - a submission that didn't come easily to him, though most would be fooled.

Curious. He raised a questioning eyebrow, smirk tugging at one corner of his lip to show Harry just how much he hadn't fooled him.

And Harry rolled his eyes, a brief flicker of glorious emotion. "You know I'm holding a knife and could still stab you, right?" I don't need your help.

Tom pressed a kiss to his cheek and pulled back, thoroughly intrigued by this development.
The Horcrux watched them both with narrowed eyes.

"I take it back," he said, in the most sincere voice he could manage "You have him remarkably well trained, I don't know you did it. I've never seen him so docile when he hasn't just murdered someone."

It wasn't that his younger self was stupid, no part of him had ever been stupid. It was simply being so convinced of his own superiority that his ideologies didn't account for anyone matching him - like Harry. It would seem natural to his Horcrux that Harry should easily submit, that he himself would inevitably win because they always did win.

Harry shot him a look at that.

The Horcrux moved forward, sliding an arm around Harry's waist like he was a prize to be won, pressing a kiss to his other cheek. "Maybe you simply didn't have the right touch to him."

It was the strangest thing to watch.

Tom felt a hot lick of possessiveness, among other things, coil up his spine. But how could he help himself? Harry was never so ravishing then at his most dangerous. The man was scheming.

Maybe he truly didn't need a rescue, but Tom would always come anyway, even if only for the show. For the freedom rushing giddy through his veins - no matter what, he'd never give it up again.

They made small talk and discussed the dinner menu, as if they weren't all there for a fight. As if one wrong twitch wouldn't shatter the peace.

Tom studied the familiar locket around his Horcrux's neck. "So," he kept his voice casual, and kept Harry in his periphery. "How exactly did you manage all of this? I'm sure you're dying to boast."

He looked to see if Harry's lips would twitch a smile in that comment, but Harry didn't look at him. Harry was watching his Horcrux, and it shouldn't have irritated him as much as it did. But he remembered Harry visiting him in his prison cell, he remembered Harry spread out on a bed beneath him - Harry focused on him as if he was the centre of the world, seeing him.

The Horcrux drew Harry closer as if he could sense his thoughts, carding his fingers through Harry's hair with another arm wrapped around the boy's waist. "People are easy to manipulate," he murmured. "Bellatrix Lestrange was so desperate for someone to talk to, after her psychiatrist was incarcerated. She was quite happy to spill her soul to me. Such a pity I didn't have Harry then."

It galled him to see his Horcrux talk about Harry as if he wasn't standing right there. It galled even worse to see Harry stay silent and docile, even when he knew damn well that it was a trick. He'd seen Harry broken and buckling and this wasn't it.

His own arms felt achingly empty and he took a sip of his wine, wishing he could have some time with Harry alone. To speak to him properly, to hold and examine.

Harry had bite marks on his neck, delicate purple against his tanned skin.

Tom's stomach clenched tight at the sight and Harry's eyes flicked over him finally, the only sign that he was truly aware of Tom's presence in the room still at all. Their gaze locked, and the possessiveness throbbed hot between them like the lightning touch of a kiss.

Harry casually tilted his neck, exposing his throat all the more as he tucked himself like something sweet beneath his counterpart's chin. A silent taunt.

Tom looked back to his Horcrux's smug face and felt it rather too long since he'd watched someone bleed out across the floor.

Dinner was served presently and with a maddening pleasantness.

The lamb was delicious.

Harry forced himself to eat, to seem as casual as possible as if he wasn't hyperaware of sitting with two Voldemorts at a dinner table.

The last two weeks had been a minefield of manipulation. Of learning about Horcruxes, of clawing up every scrap of knowledge about Voldemort's - Tom's - past that he could. Mostly he had fragments, of grim and greying orphanages, of bombs and plans for world domination.

He wondered how different things would have been if Tom had become a Dark Lord instead of a serial killing psychiatrist, but he held no love for the world Tom's younger counterpart painted. It lacked the beauty of Tom's murders, as awful as that sounded. Compelling, perhaps, in the absolute pride and celebration of magic but disgusting and hypocritical beyond that. The Voldemort he knew was many things, but not a hypocrite.

Beyond learning, he'd worked to establish himself as not a threat. He'd played the fantasy role that Voldemort once carved out for him in butterflies and blood. He was strong, superficially. Witty comments and bravado that was easily manipulated. He was fascinated by the Horcrux's thoughts, tempted by his worldviews - and if there was a bit too much truth to his interest when the counterpart most reflected the original, well, he wasn't admitting it so easily.

Cutlery clinked, the silken shirt slid cool against his skin like he imagined Tom's touch might. Even not looking at him, Harry was aware of him. Of every breath, every shift of movement, of the stare that burrowed him with such frequency and burned into his skin. His heart raced.

The counterpart Voldemort had set everything up for a ritual to trap Tom, to trade the places between original and Horcrux so Tom was the one tied to the locket instead. Trapped, dead to the world.

Harry expected to feel happy. He didn't really, two weeks with a twenty year old Tom only made him think of his former psychiatrist more. Of dancing at the Ministry ball and warm breath on his cheek, of the nights when he'd stumbled mostly broken into Tom's house and felt soothed beyond measure.

There was a horrible irony to the fact that the last time he felt safe was in Tom's care.

There was a horrible irony that when he climbed into bed with the Horcrux and called it manipulation, a false marker of surrender that he knew Tom's creation would snatch up as eagerly as Tom himself once would. That Voldemort once would, but they were the same. Tom-Voldemort, inseparably entwined. Harry-Voldemort.

He excused himself to the loo.

Tom caught up with him almost the second he stepped out of the Horcrux's earshot.

"Harry," he called. Even listening to that voice for two weeks didn't soften the effect.

Harry steeled a breath and clenched his jaw - was he prepared to face Tom, now, finally? He'd bloody well have to be. "You're not being very subtle," he kept his voice low.

"I don't need to be subtle, we all know I'm here for you," Tom said. "You're acting very docile."

"Jealous?"

Tom's hand shot out, catching hold of his wrist. The connection seared up Harry's arm like a bolt of heat, spreading through every inch of his body.

It froze Harry to the spot, even if the grip itself was fairly loose. A touch, more than anything more restraining, handling him like he was delicate.

He turned to face Tom properly, heart jumping into his throat. "Maybe you had already broken me in," he said next, and gave a mirthless smile. "What, is the picture perfect Harry Potter not so perfect close up? Isn't this what you wanted?"

"I never wanted you to have to pretend with me," Tom said, so soft so sincere that it ached in Harry's chest. He wished Tom didn't mean it, as much as he wished Voldemort had never dreamed of butterflies to save him.

"You didn't want me either," Harry replied.

"I told you," Tom's voice lowered too as he leaned in. "It's not about that anymore. I find the real Harry Potter much better." Tom's other hand slid up, cupping his cheek with a disarming tenderness. "I'm here, aren't I, despite your little trap?"

Harry's stomach dropped out. "Trap?"

Tom's head tilted, and a small smile flickered across his lips. "Yes, trap. Or did you think I wouldn't know?"

Harry's mouth felt utterly dry and he twitched a little in Tom's grip, despite himself. Feeling thoroughly exposed - of course, the Horcrux could have that effect too, he was a young Voldemort after all, but he was still as blinded by his own want and entitlement as the man-monster in front of him used to be, and not half as wise. More passionate, instead, or at least more visible in the bloody teeth and heart of him whereas the elder Tom could play his personas with such flawless control that even Harry, living in Voldemort's head as much as his own, sometimes struggled to tell the difference between what was mask and what was skin.

"How?" The docility vanished, crumbled away. Unsustainable in front of this version. Instead, he burned. Burned with his own hunger, his hate, his curiosity. His voice came out raspy.

Tom's smile broadened a fraction. "You once told me that you didn't want to move on, because you saw moving on as a confirmation that what has been done to you, and the things that you have done, were okay." The smile disappeared without a trace. "If you're so convincingly playing the lamb again now, it rather suggests you're up to something. Of course this is a trap. He could not hold you unwillingly even if he wanted to."

He knew how much time he'd spent in Voldemort's head, knew Tom's murders as his own and how they'd crawled so far into each other's brains that neither of them knew how to untangle the chains...it was always a strange reminder that Tom was tangled too. This wasn't the clinical observations of a psychotic psychiatrist, objective and removed and seeing problems to fix instead of people. Not anymore. Not for a while now.

"But who is the trap for, Harry," Tom continued, palm still warm against his cheek. Caressing idly, luxuriating in a simple touch. "Is it for me or is for him?"

"If you think there's a trap," Harry wetted his dry lips. "Why are you here?"

"I promised you that I would come for you." Tom said it like it was simple. "I'll always come for you. I'll always keep my promises to you, no matter what else I may do."

Harry's breath caught in his throat, eyes widening. The world narrowed down to the two of them, to the sharp disinfectant smell of Tom fresh out of prison, to the murderous hands cradling him like he was something precious beyond measure, to warm breath puffing over his own. "That's more ominous than reassuring," he managed. "Is it me you're coming for or your soul?"

All the visions, all the emotions, because he carried a shard of a once Dark Lord's immortality.
"Is there a difference?" Tom raised his brows.

It was strange to talk so openly about such things now. But they'd probably talked too long already and this was hardly the time or place for such discussions, in the middle of a chess board.

"You know he's probably listening to every word we say," Harry said, keeping his voice quiet still. Barely audible, just between them.

"Of course," Tom said. "It's the only reason he let us both leave the room at the same time, seemingly alone. I don't care. As I said, we all know what I'm here for and I know what he's here for too. I was him, once, after all."

Harry wasn't so sure about that - there was something unhinged about the Horcrux that he could never imagine in the Voldemort he knew. He'd noted that before.

"You shouldn't be here," he said, with the same quietness as before, regardless of Tom speaking normally.

Tom's eyes gleamed at that. "Are you glad I am?"

Harry pulled away, cheeks still hot with the phantom memory of Voldemort's fingers. Steady, not-safe and yet the good memories came with it just as much as the bad. But with all he'd sacrificed to see Voldemort caught, how could he possibly let Tom go now? He couldn't, anymore than Tom's other Horcrux could.

Voldemort was both of their prison.

You're underestimating him just like you underestimated me, don't you ever learn?
He's going to ruin you, and he has no interest in making you beautiful.
You're free, why would you ever come running back to the one who caught you?
You both have this problem. A fatal flaw, really. I call it you're in love with me.

The responses crossed Harry's mind but he swallowed them down and turned away.
"I need to piss, I assume that's allowed."

He felt Tom's gaze follow him all the way around the floor and never thought he'd wish Tom would run, even for a second.

Either way, it would all end tonight.

A/N: As you might have imagined by the updating gap, I had horrendous writer's block for this story. But damn it I will finish it. So, yeah, sorry if this chapter was a bit crap, it was smash at the writer's block with all the grace and eloquence of a hammer or never finish it. This should be about 40 chapters in total, so we're inching towards the end.