Tom set his fork down with a neat click onto his plate, shoving it away and watching Harry and his horcrux tense out of the corner of his eye. He wet his lips, practically able to feel the tension crackling through the air. Savouring it.

He was amazed that they'd managed to contain themselves as he helped himself agonizingly slowly through a second helping, as if he wasn't perfectly aware of the way they watched his every move like vultures.

"So," he asked lazily. "How exactly are you planning to take my freedom away from me?"

He would never allow it to happen – being caught once made him certain of how ill-suited he was to a life imprisoned. But, of course, it would be what Harry and his horcrux were striving for. It was the perfect bitter revenge for the chains he had encircled around them both, as if they didn't ache for him.

His counterpart's spine straightened and he glanced at Harry.

Tom kept his eyes on Harry too. Harry was the one who'd beaten him before, who survived him despite all the odds and proved himself worthy of the soul he carried. He knew what the horcrux would do, but Harry had always been rather more intriguing to try and predict.

Harry calmly set down his knife and fork, mimicking him and pushing it away. "We're going to put you in the locket," he said. He met Tom's eyes boldly now, unflinching. Maybe because he couldn't afford to flinch. Maybe because he no longer felt he had to.

"And why ever would I allow you to do that?" he asked. He was curious what the two had spent the last weeks scheming in his absence, what desperation and fear and obsession would drive Harry to. His beautiful deadly butterfly.

"It's not really about allow," the horcrux said smugly. "The potion to trap your soul is already in the food – all I have to do is complete the ritual."

Tom raised his brow at that, considering his options as he glanced at Harry again. "Prison wasn't punishment enough? My, how powerless you feel against me," he purred. "Even winning wasn't enough for you. Do you still wake up screaming my name?"

Harry's jaw clenched and he jutted his chin up. "You broke out of prison."

"For you."

"Is this you begging for mercy?"

"No," Tom said. "But I was in prison. You could have simply captured my dearest locket self and dragged him as the copycat to a Ministry holding cell two weeks ago – you didn't. Did you want to see if I really would come for you? If I could?" He leaned in a little across the table.

"Do you really doubt that we could do it?" his horcrux demanded coolly. "You're outnumbered."

Tom was more concerned with watching Harry swallow. Drinking up the emotions saturating the table between them like it was the sweetest, most exquisite dessert. His eyes lit up. Harry had wanted to know, needed to know, to try and desperately puzzle out how much the support Tom had built for him was a lie. He wanted to draw him close, to remind him that he alone would always be there for Harry when everyone else was gone.

"Perhaps," he murmured instead in reply to the horcrux. "Perhaps not. I believe that's still being decided. You didn't do the cooking after all, did you?"

His horcrux stiffened, turning in his seat to look at Harry. "Potter knows the plan."

"What Harry knows and what Harry does are often vastly different things," Tom said. "He's good at stalling. Good at playing us, too."

"Good at playing you, perhaps," the horcrux said.

"You're still staying silent?" Tom tipped his head to look at Harry again. "Nothing to say on this matter? No accusations? That might work with him, but I know you far better than that – I made you, after all."

That got a reaction, Harry's eyes blazing back at him like they had that night in the Riddle house when he was at his most vulnerable and most deadly all at once. "Maybe I'm done saying anything to either of you," he said. "You're not my psychiatrist anymore, and didn't you both eat the food?"

"Why haven't you done away with us both, then, if that's what you want?" Tom asked. He spread his arms, only settling further back in his seat to make himself comfortable. "This is your show, Harry. I'm merely here for the front row seats."

"Considering you hated prison, do you really expect me to believe you haven't planned against being put in the locket? That you don't intend to fight?" Harry snapped.

The horcrux looked between them more guardedly now, seeming to have realised that he'd missed something potentially lethal.

Despite all of Tom's best efforts at shattering Harry, at building him anew, he always found his way back to himself. Harry Potter was stubbornly – defiantly – himself. Even if he didn't realize it. Unswayed by torment or someone else's soul inside his head. It was the same realization Tom himself had when he stabbed Harry at the Riddle house.

"I want to see if you actually try it." It felt like having Harry in his office after hours again, delighting in watching him puzzle out his own desires and brain like it was foreign territory to him. Considering how much Harry flinched from his own heart's desires and thoughts, maybe it was. "It's a plan rather more to what most people would consider my tastes than yours, isn't it? That bothers you."

Tom knew he was right at the almost imperceptible tightening of Harry's posture. "It's how you define yourself, after all," he continued casually. "That blurring line you have struggled against for so long. What is you, what is Voldemort. Is the possibility of victory you are feeling right now mine, yours, or maybe even his?"

"I can't afford to let either of you go," Harry said. His eyes burned into Tom. "You're bloody immortal, barely human. You have hurt more people than even I can name."

"Yes," Tom agreed. "But I am not the one trapping you. You were as imprisoned as I was physically, but it wasn't truly because of me. You know that. Putting me in that locket would not set you free. Isn't that what you want – freedom? Peace?"

Harry stood up in a surge of frustration, impatient now to get on with the horror of it all. "Might make me feel better though."

The horcrux shot to his feet, panic crossing his face far too visibly.

Harry didn't even look over at him, knocking him back down into his chair and binding him there with a delightfully dismissive flick of his hand.

But then, this had never really been about the horcrux, had it? No matter how much his younger self liked to believe himself the centre of the world. Oh, Tom wouldn't let harm come to him, of course, but he had no time for Dark Lords and revolution anymore.

Tom stood up too, grinning. "Oh that would torture you, if you felt good about our suffering, especially considering the cost of completing this ritual," he said. "It takes atrocities to create a horcrux. To tear someone's soul from their body and trap it in a trinket. You do that, and you are everything I used to wish for you, butterfly mine."

Harry faltered for a second, before snapping back, "I'm sure I'd survive it." He went to the cupboard, drawing out the ritual elements, plucking the locket from around the horcrux's neck and setting it down on the table. "I've survived worse."

"Not worse than him," the horcrux said. "Put him in, then we'll talk."

Tom only needed to raise an eyebrow and Harry glared at him, furiously, across the dinner table. It was all so familiar. He'd missed this. Harry was so raw.

"I know who I am," Harry practically snarled. "I do not need you to define my sense of self."

"You're getting there."

He was certain Harry wouldn't actually be able to complete the ritual, he was too terrified of his own capacity for viciousness. Still, Harry was right, he planned for the unlikely possibility all the same.

"You have to follow the plan," the horcrux said, more desperately now. "He's trying to get under your skin – I told you he'd do this. Don't listen to him. Can't you see how easily he's playing you?"

"I'm not playing. It's your choice," Tom said. "Is the trap for me or is it for him? Have you decided? Or are we taking a moral high ground where you try and drag us to the ministry?"

"I could do it."

"Of course you could. Do you think it means you will no longer feel me in your head? What if that's not true? What if instead of the happiness I grant you there is cold, and black, and nothingness like the grave. Can you bear to suffer that eternity with me?"

Harry wet his lips. He looked down at the locket in his hands, so deliciously uncertain despite his best efforts. Then he met Tom's eyes and fiendfyre burst in his palms and the horcrux screamed and screamed and screamed.

"Your soul," Harry hissed, "is poison."

Tom's face twisted and he lunged for his wand.

It was too late. The horcrux was gone, nothing but ash and ringing silence as they pointed their wands at each other.

The emotions soared between them, disorientating and glorious and terrible beyond all measure. Harry could only grab snatches of them – hatred, fury, adoration, hurt. Like Tom's soul was finger-painting all of Harry's nerve endings. Or maybe it was the other way round.

"Poison?" Tom repeated.

Harry's heart lurched in his chest and his fingers tightened on his wand. He had to finish this.

"Poison?" Tom stepped closer, and Harry backed up to keep distance between them. "You imagine, perhaps, that I am the serpent in the garden to sink teeth into your virtue and ruin you for paradise forever?" He laughed wildly. "Even now?"

The distress felt genuine. Agonizing. World shattering. That even Harry, who saw so much, didn't understand or perhaps refused to understand.

Harry had somehow still assumed, despite his words, that Voldemort viewed him as a trophy to be collected. An obsession, for all of his pretty words. Tom felt devastated. Harry resisted the urge to shiver and the wound on his stomach gave a phantom stab. His hand twitched to cover the area before he could catch himself.

"It doesn't matter what I think you are," Harry's voice didn't shake. He was past playing the lamb now. "I'm not going to let you go, you knew that, you know that. Not with what you do with your freedom, with your eternity." He aimed his wand. He had absolutely no doubt that Tom would keep killing if he was left alone, unhindered. As if the body count wasn't high enough already.

"You have spent your life endlessly sacrificing yourself for other people." Tom prowled closer still, like he couldn't possibly stay away even with the rage pouring off him, digging into Harry's skin. "Even now, you rushed headlong into danger – alone – because you feel hopelessly responsible for my crimes as if they were your own. I'm not the poison, Harry. Any venom you've choked on has always been your own."

"I'm your Horcrux!" It was the first time Harry had said it aloud to him, and the emotions flared again. Possessive, silken warmth that Harry could sink into so easily if he let it entice him properly, if he ignored the shards of glass buried ready to cut him among the welcoming folds of Tom's brain. "That's what you meant when you called me your soulmate!"

He'd spent so long feeling tainted, contagious, alienated from his own brain. All anyone saw when they looked at him was Tom's face, and maybe they were bloody right so why even bother?

Tom made no effort to hide, feeding Harry everything as the emotions nuzzled against his Occlumency barriers and slipped past as if there was nothing there at all. But then, Harry should have always known that he couldn't keep out something that was already inside him long before the fortress doors were shut.

Voldemort was immortal. Locking him up in a measly mortal's prison wasn't – couldn't be – enough. The bars would rot and the magic would fade to dust before the man ever did. Harry had never felt more terrified in his life. This wasn't an end, this wasn't closure or peace, it was eternity.

"Yes," Tom breathed. "You are." They stopped only a few feet away from each other, and for all of Tom's reverent tone his expression stayed serious now. Harry didn't flinch as his hand stretched out, fingers just brushing Harry's cheek like he always did. "But that doesn't make you responsible, that just makes you my greatest creation. I am responsible for you, not the other way round." The words were almost even kind, and Tom spoke softly. "I haven't infected you, for all my efforts."

The kindness of it made Harry crack. He could have dealt with the rage and the violence, with the corpses and the crime scenes, but never that happiness or this love.

"I feel infected."

"Wounds do that when you don't give them the proper care." In a second he was properly close, not just brushing Harry's cheek but cradling it. "You could come with me, Harry. If you wanted to."

Harry's breath rattled right out of his lungs, and the whole room felt airless. He couldn't take his eyes off Tom. "Come with you?" he repeated. "I'm not going on a murder road trip with you. I-I need to finish this. We need to finish this."

"You want to save the world, even though the world has done nothing but abuse your kindness," Tom said. "I want to save you. I certainly would prefer not to sacrifice you for the sake of my freedom and my life."

The butterflies had symbolized – offered – the world's most twisted form of salvation, hadn't they? Whether that salvation was wanted or not. Purification through fire and blood, death spilled to fashion rebirth whenever it came to him. He'd thought it before, but it still struck him every time. While all of Voldemort's murders had been artistic in their way, it was the butterflies which had always been for Harry. Love and hate and happiness and rage, all dizzyingly entwined.

"You'd stop killing if I came with you?" Harry felt abruptly lightheaded.

"I cannot promise it would never happen," Tom said. "Should I feel the need to defend myself. But … what use have I for pale substitutes when I could have you?"

Harry should curse, he should return the blade Voldemort had stuck in his insides, he should do anything but say yes. Then they would fight, and there were no Aurors knowing where to find him this time. He should make one last sacrifice, and keep going even if in his heart he knew there would always be other cases. There would be copycats, and Horcruxes to track down if he wanted to destroy Tom properly. There would be other killers who wanted to prove their dominance through butchering him without beauty or thought. There would be people wanting things, wanting answers, wanting him to save them. There would always, always be someone else to save until Harry wasn't even a few old scars and bandages and was just dust. Broken.

It was so nice not feeling like poison when he was with Voldemort. Tom thought he was beautiful, astonishing, so many things that Harry wished he was.

"And if I say no, you try to kidnap me instead?" Harry raised his brows and tried to remain casual. "For my own good or some shit?"

"I have considered it, for the imprisonment you would force on me," Tom replied evenly. "It would be fitting – but no. I, unlike you, prefer choices instead of ultimatums. You know that."

Harry nearly spluttered, eyes narrowing. "I believe in choices! Our choices define who we are. You choose to murder people and I choose to stop you. You can't twist that!"

"Stop killing, or I'll kill you. Stop killing, or I will take your freedom away from you. Do as I say, or I will force you to. You are not offering a choice, Harry." Tom's voice cracked whip sharp with frustration, irritation, that lingering distress that lurked real beneath all masks of professionalism. "A choice is: kill Barty Crouch and save your friend, or walk away and save yourself. A choice is: come with me, or do whatever else you please … but note that I will respond to that decision accordingly. I do not try and stop you from making your choices, I never have. I influence, I persuade. I would never imprison you and call it justice."

Tom let go and stepped away from him, jaw clenched before he sighed, rubbing his temples. "It's not your fault," he allowed, in a far too patient tone. The psychiatrist tone again. "You can't help what you are anymore than I can. I can offer you various tools to change and patchwork for the wounds you deal yourself in your guilt, as I always have and will for as long as I live, but healing is up to you. As is your forgiveness."

Harry's brow furrowed and he wrapped his arms tightly around himself. He couldn't actually think of a good response to that. A thick lump had wedged in his throat.

"Being locked in a prison cell with Smethwyck really did change you."

"The influence is not Smethwyck's," Tom said, shooting him a somewhat pointed look. "I told you, it's not about butterflies anymore."

Harry looked down. "You never answered what it was about instead."

"Life, death, beauty," Tom listed lightly, flashing him a strange smile. "A butterfly's heart perhaps?"

"Right, wouldn't want to actually kill a horcrux, however tempting that would be." Harry's voice had turned hoarse. A butterfly's heart. His ears rang.

"The world would be a far uglier place without you in it." The emotions tugged at Harry, lingered on him, hungry to have and to hold til death do them apart. "And you know you could be happy with me," Tom said. "If you let yourself." He turned away, scooping the locket up off the floor and tucking it into his pocket. "Look after yourself then, Harry Potter. I'll be around if you need me."

He was leaving.

He hadn't even anticipated the thought of Voldemort just leaving – leaving him, without death or any kind of fight at all. Voldemort had fought so hard to claim him that his leaving now seemed wrong.

"Happy?" It was like someone had struck a fire beneath his skin and in an instant Harry had crossed the room after Tom, shoving him hard. "Happy?" He shoved him again. "Fuck you. You thought I was happy? You tore me to a million pieces like it was a game to you, for your fucking art project. It wasn't happiness, it was relief because I assumed that for a second I'd found something good, something I could depend on."

"And you have become remarkably strong through surviving the ordeal. It's not quite going right down to the foundations and building up again, but I think I did a rather exquisite job on you." Tom caught hold of his wrists, nails digging into the skin. "You just told me no, even when it could save people to surrender yourself over to me, didn't you?"

Harry stopped, eyes wide. His head reeled.

"I believe that's quite a breakthrough in your therapy, Harry." Tom kissed him then – a devouring, firebrand of a kiss that sparked heat all the way down to Harry's toes. When they parted, he gasped for air like he was drowning, cheeks flushed. His fingers had white-knuckled from holding Tom's shirt so fast.

"No," Tom murmured, eyes bright. "I don't think you need me to rescue you anymore, my butterfly."

Harry touched a hand to his lip, feeling like his stomach had bottomed out."And that's it? Job done, he's capable of telling me to fuck off instead of putting his head on the chopping block. Let's just leave him to it. What the hell type of therapy is that?!"

"I thought you didn't particularly appreciate my interference and efforts in your life? I thought I was poison?"

Harry's jaw clenched at that question, and he stared at his hands still knotted in Tom's clothes to keep him in place. Of course he didn't want the murders, the torture, the shattering on someone's doorstep in the middle of the night. But how could Tom just take his brain and shake it around and then just leave like that was nothing? How could he practically confess love and walk away?

"I don't – but this isn't like you. This isn't your pattern of behaviour."

"Have you ever considered that I simply don't want to waste my considerable time and intellect rotting in Smethwyck's prison until he decides he'd rather fry my brain than let someone else have it? You are currently attempting to force me to either spend life in prison or kill you. Neither is something I am willing to commit to."

His grip on Tom tightened further, it had to be painful by now.

"So you're just leaving? No manipulation, no threats, no severed limbs mailed into my letterbox in two weeks time?" Harry could scarcely believe it. He didn't believe it. Voldemort had to be scheming something.

Tom's eyes narrowed. "I have no interest in enabling your heroic destructive streak by playing the villain for you. You either want to come with me or you don't, it's as simple as that. Any other course of action at this stage is both foolish and boring. You can continue to deny your own obsession if you would like, but I will not indulge you in it and let you act like my soul is poison to spit back in my face. I like myself too much to put up with that. The next move is yours. Let me know when you've decided what you want."

And then he was gone.

Happy Halloween! I just about made it. The end is in sight for this haunted, cursed fic and I have never been more relieved in my life.