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Chapter Twenty-Four—Claims

Tom woke slowly, his magic pulsing inside him the way his lungs did when he'd taken a particularly deep breath. He rolled over and blinked. Harry was curled next to him, his marked wrist an inch or so from Tom's eyes.

Tom touched it and watched the blue flames spill out at the same moment as he touched their completed bond. He wasn't surprised it had dragged him into unconsciousness, not when he felt how thick it was. He'd used more magic than Harry in the bed, and he'd also gone longer without the completion.

But now Harry was asleep and didn't feel, or notice, Tom gliding gently in and out of his memories. His trust in Tom was another thing that had become perfect with the bond. Tom held back the desire to crow about that, and instead carefully drew out a memory in front of him, long and gold and gleaming, like a particularly bright strand pulled from someone's temple to put in a Pensieve.

The memory glittered in front of him as Tom entered it, but the glitter faded quickly. Tom found himself in the drawing room of an ordinary cottage, and glanced around to see Harry, who looked seven or so, sitting in front of the fireplace. He was cradling his right wrist, his fingers obliterating Tom's name. This must have been long before he got the phoenix tattoo.

Tom moved across the room and stood behind Harry, resting a hand on his shoulder, even though he knew it would make no difference, as no one here could see him.

Harry stood up as Lily Potter came into the room, and Tom moved his hand. "Mum," Harry said, with a quiver in his spine that Tom could feel, although his voice was firm.

Lily glanced up from the book in her hand. "Yes, Harry? Did you want fish and chips for dinner tomorrow? I'm afraid it can't be tonight, Albus is coming over, and he asked for—"

"Mum," Harry repeated, and his mother closed the book and concentrated on him. "I don't want to—talk about dinner. I want to talk about my soulmate." He lifted his hand and thrust his wrist forwards.

A complex expression crossed Lily's face, and Tom sneered a little. The woman was playing the part of a tormented mother, as far as he was concerned. She wouldn't fight for her child. She gave in to and went along with what Dumbledore wanted.

Yet, of course, part of what had made the memory glitter so was Harry's love for his parents, and Tom knew he wouldn't be able to talk Harry out of that. He retreated towards the fireplace as Lily sat down in a chair and Harry kicked the corner of the hearth with his foot.

"You know why you can't be with your soulmate, Harry," Lily said, settling her robes around her. "We've talked about this."

"But it's not fair," Harry said, and stared intensely at her, in a way that made the declaration less than childish. Tom moved around him so that he could see Harry's face, and yes, even at this age his eyes could blaze with fire. "You said that you hated Dad the first time you met him because he made fun of your best friend. And Mr. Dumbledore's soulmate was a Dark Lord. But you were both with them."

Lily Potter bit her lip and looked less than comfortable. Good, Tom thought, though as far as he was concerned, this was far less than the lash she deserved. "Well, Harry. I mean—it isn't a matter of fair and unfair. Your father is a good person. And Albus broke off the bond with Grindelwald when he realized what kind of man he was."

"But you just say that I can never be with him. I want to know why."

There was an odd thrumming just at the edge of Tom's awareness, straining around the edge of the memory like stitches on a shirt. He cocked his head and realized it was Harry's magic, answering its young owner's agitation. He sighed, wishing he could have been here, wishing he could have done something.

Harry's control was unnatural in a seven-year-old, or six-year-old, which he might be. Most children that age still had accidental magic outbursts all the time. It spoke of the kind of hell his parents and Dumbledore had put him through.

"Because we fear that he would get hold of you, and make you want to stay with him," Lily said. She opened her arms. "Come here, baby."

But Harry didn't move. "You're saying," he said, and rubbed his marked wrist on his trousers, "that I'm not a good person? Because I would want to stay with him." His face looked ready to crumble. "I'm not a good person like Dad is a good person or Mr. Dumbledore is a good person."

Lily flew across the room then and gathered him close. Harry leaned against her, but his jaw was still clenched, and his hand was rubbing and rubbing at his right wrist. Tom could see that much from where he stood.

"Never, never," Lily whispered. "I would never say that. You're such a good person, Harry, so good that you want to give someone evil a chance. But that just makes it more dangerous, you see?"

"No."

Lily sighed and sat back, kneeling down in front of Harry to study him. Tom noted that she kept her eyes firmly away from Harry's right arm, even though his left hand was covering the mark right now anyway. "It's easier for evil people to trick good people, Harry. You would want to give your soulmate a chance, because he's your soulmate, and you would give in to him, and you would think that things couldn't be so bad and he wasn't so bad. Even though you know he is. Do you understand?"

Harry closed his eyes. "But that's still like Mr. Dumbledore and Grindelwald. He still had a chance to get to know him. And he rejected the bond when he found out Grindelwald was a bad person. My soulmate's not a Dark Lord. Why can't I at least try? Maybe I could turn him good instead of him turning me bad."

My soulmate was more logical than half the adults in the Order of the Phoenix at seven years old, Tom thought.

"Oh, Harry." Lily touched the back of his head, not looking away from his face. "I'm sorry. I wanted to wait until you were older. But your soulmate is a Dark Lord."

Tom's magic coiled, lashing, around him, and if this memory had been reality, he would have shattered half the furniture in the room. Harry was staring at his mother with a profoundly betrayed look on his face. "What?" he whispered. "But I just thought—I just thought he was the Minister for Magic, not a Dark Lord."

Lily nodded sadly. And the infuriating thing, Tom thought, stalking in a circle around them to relieve his feelings, was that she truly did believe that, and wasn't lying to Harry. "Yes, Harry. I'm sorry. He hides it. He's preparing for a war in secret. He learned his lesson from Dark Lords like Grindelwald who were open about it. But he is one, and we can't have him with you. Imagine how powerful he would grow if you fell in love with him."

Harry rubbed his face with his hands, like he was going to cry. He was a little boy at the moment, Tom thought, and yet the memory around him began to radiate an almost adult pain, a consequence of this being something shared through the mental bond instead of a Pensieve. "N-no. I can't—I can't believe that, Mum. Why would magic and fate be so cruel and just give me to a Dark Lord?"

"I don't know," Lily said. She clung to her son, but Tom was more pleased than he could say that Harry didn't lift his arms to hug her back. "No one really understands how soul-marks come to be. They just are. And sometimes they don't make much sense. And it's possible to lose or reject a soulmate bond. You know that."

"But you said soulmates were special and good, too," Harry whispered. "And that it was Sirius's worst thing that he lost Mr. Lupin. And I thought you and Dad were special, and everyone was special, and—Mr. Dumbledore told me that he even used to think his bond with Grindelwald was special. I d-don't—why am I different? I don't want to be different!"

And then he was sobbing into his mother's shoulder, while she rocked him back and forth and whispered comforting words into his ear. Platitudes, Tom noticed. He sneered. Of course. She didn't really understand what she was saying, didn't understand what she believed, and she refused to notice the contradictions in her own belief system. If soulmates were a gift, then Harry's must be, too. If everyone else got to have a chance to dedicate themselves to a bond and only reject it after a taste, Harry should, too.

But it was different, because it was.

Because of an old man's fear.

The air around Tom shone like a sword, and he knew what that meant even though their mental bond wasn't very old. He didn't have much time left here, because Harry was waking up. He took a step back and let his mind pass up and through the memory, but his knowledge of it burned in him nonetheless.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring into Harry's open ones. Harry smiled at him tentatively, but touched the emotional bond a second later and let the smile fade. "What's wrong?" Harry whispered.

"I want to kill a great many people who hurt you," Tom told him.

Harry sighed. "I know. But I don't want you to."

Tom rolled on top of him, consumed, almost choking, with the need to hear the answer to a question from Harry's lips. Harry relaxed beneath him, staring, while his mind danced with white question marks and the bond around them chimed with his concern.

"Did you ever want to leave them all behind and come looking for me?" Tom breathed. "Tell me."

"You could read the answer out of my mind."

"I want to hear it from you." Tom carefully drew his hand back when he realized their magic was flowing over his fingernails, sharpening them nearly to claws. He didn't want to hurt Harry, and nor did he want to tear the pillows to shreds. They were poor substitutes for the true victims he wanted. "Tell me, Harry."

Harry swallowed and nodded. "I thought about it sometimes," he said. "There was one night I actually packed my trunk and grabbed my broom and almost flew out the window of Gryffindor Tower, to come to you."

Tom pictured what that might have been like, and hissed again. "What stopped you?"

"I imagined the looks on my parents' faces if I did," Harry mumbled. "They'd just been exiled, and I—I was a mess. I thought of myself as an orphan. I thought I would never see them again. I just wanted someone who could care for me because of who I was, and not who they thought I was."

"Yes, you lied to your friends," Tom said softly. "And you turned around and put the trunk away?"

Harry nodded against his chest. Tom drew back enough so that he could see Harry's eyes and hold them. He could have felt the answer through the bond before Harry spoke, if he'd wanted, but he needed to see what Harry looked like when he said it. "And is that the only time that you ever thought of a solution for your problem?"

"No, of course not," Harry said, and a long, soft chill passed through their bond. "I thought about running away to you other times, although that was the time I went furthest. I—" He turned his head restlessly away.

"Harry."

Harry half-closed his eyes. "Look, I'm not proud of the other things I tried to do, and I think they would only hurt you. So why talk about them?"

"You know that we'll share memories more and more often now, until the bond settles completely." Tom put a hand on the back of his neck and gently tilted Harry's head until they were face-to-face again. "Will you hide all of them and mutter that you want me to be safe, only to have me come upon them unexpectedly?" Harry said nothing, but his mouth shifted into the stubborn line that Tom remembered from courting him, and the bond was still. "How bad were they?"

"Bad."

Tom stared at him, and fear coalesced into certainty. "You tried, at least once," he said, his voice coming more slowly to give himself time to get used to it, "to kill yourself."

Harry closed his eyes. "Yes."

Tom said nothing, but Harry still flinched back from him, no doubt feeling what he wouldn't say. "I didn't, obviously," Harry said, and opened his eyes and glared. "It—that was only once. Other times, I was trying things that I hoped would get rid of the mark. Okay? I know now it was wrong and I should have accepted you from the beginning. I was thinking about that last night, about how if my parents and the Order had been smart they would have tried to bargain with you, and got you to moderate your behavior in exchange for keeping me safe and treating me well. It was Dumbledore's fear that made that impossible. Stop staring at me like that."

"You need a Mind-Healer, Harry."

Harry wrenched himself in his arms, although since he was under Tom and pinned to the bed Tom wondered idly where he thought he was going. "Don't say that! I did the best I could! I put up with all the stupid pressures they piled on me, and you piled on me, and—"

"I am not saying you're weak," Tom said. "Is that how you took it, Harry?" He touched Harry's face, his fingers wandering down from the old broom accident scar on his forehead to Harry's nose and lips and cheeks, and continued touching him until Harry went quiet. "You need a Mind-Healer because the inside of your head must be a horrible place, that's all."

Harry took a long breath that it sounded like was meant to cleanse him, and shook his head. "I can barely share what I went through with you, Tom. I've heard all about Mind-Healers and how opinionated they are. I don't want to listen to someone tell me where I went wrong and encourage me to make amends or whatever."

"Amends?"

"Well, yes. The only person I know who went to a Mind-Healer is my godfather, and she was always encouraging him to make amends with his soulmate and disown the prank he pulled that caused his soulmate to reject him. I don't want to get told that I should go back to the Order or that I should have come to you earlier or something."

"You have done nothing that you need to make amends for," Tom whispered, sliding his hand down Harry's back towards his arse. Harry flexed his hips and the bond altered, not subtly, but Tom ignored those signals. "I promise that any Mind-Healer who dared to suggest you had would be removed."

"As in, removed as my Mind-Healer. Not killed."

"The temptation would be there, but you know for yourself how rarely I resort to murder, Harry."

Harry nodded slowly. "Fine. I'll—we'll see about getting me a Mind-Healer. But later. We have other things to do today, don't we?"

"I consider nothing more important than you," Tom said, and wondered why Harry flushed and turned his head to the side.

"I know. But for right now, I don't want to discuss this further."

Tom thought about saying that they would never truly abandon a subject as long as the emotional bond thrummed between them, but he didn't think it wise to press Harry any further on the subject right now. He nodded and stood. "Very well. We're going to introduce you to the public as the Minister for Magic's soulmate. Can you bear that?"

Harry laughed and sat up, the sadness of the previous moments falling off his shoulders. Tom wasn't entirely sure he trusted that, but then he reminded himself how many years Harry had lived while pretending there was some reason that kept him from seeking out his soulmate other than the real one, how many years Harry had lived by lying.

He could do that to the public starving for information about the Minister of Magic's soulmate, even if he could never lie to Tom himself. It might even prove to be an essential skill.

"Bear it? I'm looking forward to it. To know that I'm yours and you're mine and that means no one else had better bother throwing themselves at you? Yes, I think it's essential." Harry's hand slipped into his.

The thought echoed back and forth between them, and Tom took Harry's chin and kissed him, gently, while another thought arose that Harry might or might not be ready to share.

When they found Dumbledore, Tom intended to taunt him with musings on how the man had inadvertently made Harry an even better soulmate for him than he might have been if Tom had known about him from the cradle.

"Welcome, Minister. Welcome, Mr. Potter."

Minerva hoped that her voice didn't crack on those words. She had already had a few full days—and nights—preparing to become the Headmistress of the school now that Albus had done…what he had done. Seeing her former student at Minister Riddle's side shouldn't be that much of a shock.

"Headmistress." Minister Riddle sat down in the chair across from her desk, the one Minerva used to use when she was arguing with Albus, and folded gloved hands on his knee, his gaze politely straying around the office. He paused when it reached the perch. "Fawkes is here with you? I would have thought Albus's phoenix would have gone with him."

Minerva cast a helpless glance at the perch. Fawkes looked up from his preening to give her a cheerful warble, and went right back to it.

"He—communicated with me in some way when I entered the office for the first time to take up my official position," Minerva said, and sighed in frustration. It was hard trying to describe it. "I don't know exactly how. But he said that he remained with the school. That it was his destiny, or some such."

"How fascinating," Minister Riddle murmured, and turned to face her. "I suppose you have heard the old theory that phoenixes are creatures of Fate, and not Light?"

Minerva blinked and moved a strand of hair out of her face. "I actually hadn't," she admitted. "Not that I think I really know what Light means anymore, or else I've had it wrong all my life."

"I have found no evidence implicating you in Headmaster Dumbledore's crimes," the Minister said. "You're wise enough to know that if I had, you wouldn't be sitting here right now."

Minerva met his gaze, but said nothing. They didn't need to argue about that, of all things. "What was the main question you wanted answered today, Minister?" she asked, drawing out the ledger that she'd created to bind the many, many loose pieces of parchment that had been floating around the office. "I'm afraid that I haven't had the chance to go through all of Albus's notes yet."

"There is one class that the Wizengamot has proposed again and again, only to have it shot down by the former Headmaster."

"I am not allowing a Dark Arts class within my school."

"I don't blame you. And that's not the one that I was referring to, in any case."

Minerva paused. "I wasn't aware of any other class the Wizengamot had proposed that Albus had turned down."

Harry spoke for the first time, his voice gentle, an interesting contrast to the Minister's. Minerva supposed it was too much to hope for that Potter would restrain some of the man's worst excesses, but it was interesting to watch the way Riddle deferred to him when he spoke. "Practical Ritual Magic, Headmistress. It's a class that the Wizengamot brings up every six months and has had rejected every time."

Minerva blinked. It was true that she didn't think many students would take that class. Ritual magic was complicated and required a lot of study, and Merlin knew that most of the students found it hard enough to study for their core subjects. "What was Albus's reasoning?"

"That not everyone would be able to take the class because not everyone has the same level of strength in ritual magic." Fascinatingly, Harry was the one who continued to speak. "People who have found their soulmates, or who have the discipline and calm to meditate and clear their minds, are better at it."

Minerva resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. "Then we shouldn't be teaching Divination, either!"

"In fact, I do not think we should," Riddle interjected, his fingers tucked beneath his chin as he leaned forwards. Minerva didn't think it was her imagination that he had leaned closer to Harry at the same time. "The rare student who actually has visions of the future could be guided into apprenticeships with appropriate practitioners, but there is no reason for a full-blown class that untalented students need to take."

Minerva blinked. "Then why did you allow one to go on?"

"Dumbledore's reputation was too secure for me to make all the decisions I wanted to about the school. The best I could do was set up independent departments, like the Transfiguration one that you were the head of, and let those heads make most of the decisions. And Albus Dumbledore was invested in not just a Divination class, but having someone particular as the teacher."

Minerva scowled. "Sybill is useless."

"Yes," Minister Riddle said. "Unless, I suspect, you are as much a devotee of prophecy as Dumbledore was."

"Prophecy," Minerva said slowly. She hadn't even considered that that might be Sybill's talent. It was the rarest of the various methods of doing Divination, and most of the people who did See the future embedded a vision in what they felt were the right words at the right times, rather than reciting those words involuntarily.

Involuntary prophecy at the right time, though, would have explained why Sybill was still at Hogwarts. Minerva focused on the Minister. "Why would he believe so much in a prophecy spoken by someone like her?"

"If he wanted to hear it badly enough," Harry said, "he wouldn't care where the prophecy came from."

Minerva stared at her former student, a little startled by the good sense from his mouth, but then nodded. "That much is certainly true." She hesitated once. "Do you know what prophecy it was that he kept her for?"

"No." Minister Riddle's smile was cold, bordering on feral. "I suggest that you summon her here and ask her."

Minerva paused only a moment before turning to get the Floo powder. Her curiosity, something symbolized rather than denied by her Animagus form, would eat her alive if she didn't.

Tom glanced at him as the Headmistress called into the fire, and raised an eyebrow. Harry could hear his thoughts by barely concentrating on the mental bond. That was an inspired guess.

Harry tilted his head as he heard Professor Trelawney's voice coming from within the flames, and barely murmured, "There had to be some reason other than just plain fear why he wanted to keep us away from each other."

Tom frowned in the way that said he disagreed, but then Professor Trelawney swept through the fireplace and commanded all the attention in the room, the way she usually did.

"Well, Minister Riddle, Mr. Potter!" Trelawney fluttered at them. She had a gauzy scarf wrapped around her hair, and sparkling silver glasses so large that they looked like separate galaxies floating around her face. Harry did his best not to wrinkle his nose at the stream of incense she brought with her. "I hope that you've been good boys since your soulmate bond deepened." She giggled and looked back and forth between them.

Harry reached out and clenched his hand down around Tom's wrist. He could tell simply by the shift of the magic inside them, never mind the suddenly-frozen emotional bond, that Tom was furious and ready to launch himself out of the chair at Trelawney. Harry gave her a strained smile and shook his head. "We've been fine, Professor Trelawney."

Inwardly, he sent a thought towards Tom. Are you all right? Before the completion of their bond, he knew that Tom had sometimes showed his temper in public, but he certainly wouldn't have had to be restrained from physically attacking.

Tom glanced at him and breathed out softly. The thought came back. She showed you disrespect.

Harry visibly rolled his eyes and turned back to face the Divination professor as Professor McGonagall motioned her towards a seat. Trelawney chattered about teacups and tealeaves and seeing the future in the stars as she sat down. Harry wondered if she could sense the edge in the air and this was her way of trying to get rid of it.

"Now, Sybill," Professor McGonagall said finally, "it's come to my attention that Albus probably kept you on staff because of a certain prophecy you revealed to him. I'd like to know what the prophecy was."

Trelawney's eyes widened, and her teacup trembled. Then she clucked her tongue and shook her head. "Minerva, Minerva. I've asked you before not to simply ask questions about the Inner Eye. It detaches the retina, you know."

I can arrange to detach more than that, said a clear thought from Tom's side of the room.

Harry leaned forwards and managed to catch Trelawney's wandering attention. "Was it about us, Professor? Our soulmate bond? If it was, then I'm surprised that Professor Dumbledore trusted you with the knowledge as long as he did."

He knew he'd laden his voice with just enough skepticism when Trelawney puffed up like a hen. "You would not be surprised if you knew the extent of our relationship," she snapped.

Harry fought back his gag reflex, since he was pretty sure she wasn't implying what it sounded like she was implying, and just shook his head. "He allowed you to remain here and teach a class that you can't really teach, given that someone either has the Sight or doesn't. So I suppose I'm not surprised. He seemed like the kind of man to indulge people who told him what he wanted to hear."

"I did not tell him what he wanted to hear! I told him the truth! There was no mistaking his unhappiness with the prophecy!"

"Well, I don't see how I can do anything but mistake it, unless you'd be willing to tell us this prophecy."

Trelawney faltered for a second, but Harry sighed and turned to Tom and said, "I was right, there's nothing here for us," and that tipped the Divination professor over the edge.

"Fine! I'll tell you! You should probably know anyway, since it's turned out to be about you and you unwisely decided to complete the bond with your soulmate." Trelawney scowled at him and then cleared her throat importantly. For a moment, her eyes appeared sharp behind the sparkly silver glasses.

"When the Dark Lord and the one bound to him come close to completion, the fortress of power will fall, the stones will snuff out life, and the master of serpents will poison the world." Her voice was a hoarse, echoing whisper that made tentacles of ice whip around Harry's spine. "Only equal power joined and commanded can face them, joined of two and commanded by the one who is a leader in disguise."

Professor McGonagall didn't look any more comfortable. Tom was still enough that Trelawney began to shake when she glanced at him after she completed her recitation. Harry touched Tom's wrist, and the emotional bond sprang back to reluctant life.

"Ambiguous as all Divination is," Professor McGonagall said stiffly, folding her hands on top of her desk. "Give me a good Transfiguration any day. You know what its limitations are, and no one mistakes it for destiny."

Tom cleared his throat with what Harry suspected he was the only one to recognize as a slight laugh. "Indeed, Headmistress." He faced Trelawney instead. "What year did you make this prophecy in?"

"1981." Trelawney's trembling had calmed, but Harry noticed that she hadn't picked up her teacup again. "The year after Harry Potter's birth." Her eyes flickered over to Harry. "Not that I knew whose soul-mark you bore, Mr. Potter. I should have recommended a mercy killing."

Tom hissed. Harry reached down and caught the green serpent that rose up between their chairs from nothingness and pulled it into his lap. The snake struggled for a second, then calmed down. If nothing else, Harry thought, although he didn't speak Parseltongue now, he knew that the snakes wouldn't hurt him when they had been partially formed from his magic.

"Do you want to be punished as part of the conspiracy that kept my soulmate from my side, Professor?" Tom asked softly. "Under the Joined Fates Laws of 1862, you could be."

"I already told you that I didn't know about it!"

Trelawney's eyes were dark with fear, and Harry didn't know about Tom, but he was inclined to believe her. He said quickly, "You knew about the prophecy, but you didn't know that it meant me and Minister Riddle, correct? You didn't suspect that I was his soulmate? And Professor Dumbledore never told you."

Trelawney gave her head a shake that made her look as if something was wrong with her neck. "No, no, I knew nothing! He never would have confided in me. He knew that I didn't want to be part of his Order."

Harry just nodded, although he was a little surprised that she knew enough to know the Order's name. He turned to Tom and opened his mouth, but Tom was still looking at Trelawney, and the emotional bond hovering around them was pregnant with violence.

"I mean it." Harry pitched his voice low enough that he hoped neither woman in the room could hear, but at this point, he had many fewer concerns if they did. "Calm down, Tom. Now."

Tom turned to look at him in what felt like the ending of a dream. Harry met his eyes, a predator's eyes at the moment, and didn't flinch. Tom finally nodded and glanced at Trelawney.

"You can go."

Trelawney practically fled out the door onto the moving staircase. Harry wondered if that was just because she'd been sitting near it or because her hand was shaking too badly to contemplate using Floo powder right now.

"She will be replaced," Tom said into the ringing silence that was left.

"The prophecy sounds frankly ridiculous," Professor McGonagall said at once. "Maybe she made it up to persuade Albus to retain her."

"Perhaps," Tom said, although his doubt smelled like a poisonous weed to Harry down their bond. "At any rate, I meant what I said. She could be charged under the Joined Fates Laws."

"I've never heard of those," Harry said. "What do they do?"

Tom glanced at him. "They make it illegal to knowingly keep someone from their soulmate, absent evidence that the soulmate in question has already rejected the other or proclaimed hatred or a blood feud against them or their family."

"Well, she didn't know. She just made an ill-advised remark. You can't kill everyone who does that."

"I wouldn't be killing her. I would be trying her."

"Don't you have enough people in Azkaban?" Harry snapped, leaning forwards, ignoring the wide-eyed way Professor McGonagall was watching him. "And an important trial coming up this week already? Hold back, or I'm going to have to rethink my accommodations."

"If you even think of sleeping elsewhere—"

"I already told you that I was. Don't you listen?"

Tom's anger pressed at him. Harry pressed back with his own irritation, his own lack of fear. Tom narrowed his eyes. I'm not lying to you about how much she enraged me.

Then you should know that I'm not lying to you about how unimpressed I am with your temper.

Tom leaned back abruptly and nodded, his emotions shifting as he tucked them behind what Harry thought of as his "Minister" mask. He faced Professor McGonagall. "Forgive the byplay, Minerva. Our bond is still new."

"I—see." Professor McGonagall made a soft sound that would probably have been gasping in anyone else, but Harry had always admired how steady and calm his Head of House was. "Well." She rearranged some parchments on her desk and then studied Tom. "You've come to propose other new classes that Albus and the Board of Governors rejected in the past as well, I understand."

"Yes." Tom unfurled a piece of parchment on the desk. "As you can see, the timeline for the rejection of the classes was…"

Harry settled back in his chair, deciding that it was unlikely he would be called on to do anymore for a while. Tom was still eyeing him, but Harry didn't intend to give him the satisfaction of responding with a facial expression or gesture that Professor McGonagall could see. He responded with an interested, mild look when they talked, and answered a few questions about classes that he had wanted and ones that he thought could be trimmed back from his time as a student.

Even if he knew they would have a confrontation when they got out of here, at least Tom wasn't going to throw a fit in public, and that was all Harry wanted for now.

"You drive me mad."

Tom was only speaking the truth as he crowded Harry against the door of his house. Luckily, Harry hadn't made good on his threat of going elsewhere. But Tom was still bristling with possessiveness and the desire to drag Harry into bed and sleep on top of him until he forgot about his anger.

"You can feel that all you like," Harry said. He had his arms folded, but he didn't look defensive. He looked as though he was regarding Tom from a critical distance. "That doesn't mean you get to threaten to murder people in public."

"You're all right with it in private, then?"

Harry didn't answer directly, but the stream of rejection that curled towards Tom made him blink and release Harry. Harry took a stride and then turned around to face him. "Excuse me for thinking that I was soulmated to someone who was a politician," he said sharply. "As in used to keeping his calm in the face of provocation."

Tom clenched his hands but didn't move in to touch Harry. "What I said to Minerva was true."

"Which part of it?"

"Our bond is new. I want to—" Tom swallowed hard, but the bond had already told Harry what he meant, if the way Harry's eyes darkened was any indication.

"Well, you can't chain me to the bed and keep me for just you to touch."

But Harry couldn't hide his arousal any more than Tom could hide his possessiveness. Tom narrowed his eyes. "Part of you would like that."

"Yes, but not because you want to keep me from other people. Just because I'd like it." Harry swallowed roughly and continued, "And we have to appear before the Wizengamot tomorrow as soulmates, and we have to get through Ron and Hermione's trial that way, and we have to see about the new classes at Hogwarts and the prophecy and capturing Dumbledore and all the rest that way. I meant what I said about you changing your behavior, Tom. If it keeps going in this direction, I'll go back to my parents'."

"You want me to change everything about myself?"

"Not everything." Harry sounded weary now, which was the last thing Tom wanted, but he listened as Harry paced back and forth for a minute. "Think about it like this. You made some decisions that probably made sense at the time, decisions that would let you protect yourself or your soulmate when you found them. And now you want to continue those decisions. But you don't have to, because I'm here." He turned to Tom and reached out to clasp his wrist. "Please. Understand that I'm here."

"And already talking about leaving."

"Going to stay with my parents isn't the same as leaving you forever or leaving you the way Dumbledore wanted me to, and you're smart enough to know it."

Tom winced a little under the spark of Harry's temper, and nodded. "I won't talk about murdering others in public. I will endeavor to control my behavior."

"Thank you."

"But in the meantime, I want you to do something for me."

Harry nodded, eyes clear and serious and fixed entirely on Tom, while the bond writhed and danced eagerly as if he couldn't wait to hear what Tom would ask for. "What is it?"

"I want you to admit that you're a politician yourself."

Harry's brow furrowed. "I have no problem admitting that."

"It's not something you were specifically cautioned against by Dumbledore or the Order, I do believe that," Tom said, his hand sliding down Harry's back and tracing circles around his spine. "But I saw your memory this morning. I can feel the thoughts that travel through your head, even the ones that are subconscious. You said that you were soulmated to a politician, earlier, implying that you don't think you are one. And in the memory I saw, you jumped too easily to assuming something was wrong with you instead of other people. I want you to acknowledge your own strength. Doing otherwise will—irritate me."

"And Merlin forbid that you be irritated," Harry muttered, eyeing him.

"It doesn't result in good consequences for other people."

"I can't believe you conjured a serpent to attack Trelawney."

"That is one thing I will be trying to change. But one thing to ask yourself is what will irritate me most? You putting yourself down, trying to appease others by making light of your strengths and talents, and assuming they must always be right. That is a deflection technique I believe you have used more than once, including with your friends, when you were lying to them about your soul-mark. But today, in McGonagall's office…you were handling the others, Harry. It takes intelligence and no small degree of skill to do that."

A slow look of understanding dawned over Harry's face. "The kind of skill you think I've been taught to despise."

"You have been taught to. And don't imagine that this kind of conversation or the work I'm asking you to do substitutes for sessions with a Mind-Healer. We will be arranging those as soon as we find a trustworthy one."

Harry blew out a slow breath and ran his hand through his hair. "Fine. I should have known that after being separated from your soulmate for so long, you'd become a demanding bastard."

"If you think this is demanding, that is something else I want you to think about. Why is it demanding to ask that you live up to your potential?"

"It's demanding to demand it."

"You need your vocabulary expanded."

"The thoughts I'm picking up from you right now have nothing to do with expanding that."

"Well, no," Tom agreed, and dropped all the barriers on the bond to watch Harry's eyes darken again. "But perhaps your repertoire?"

Harry laughed, and they spent the rest of the afternoon expanding that and finding out what both of them liked. Tom tried to sate the burning hunger that had overcome him last night, with the completion of the bond, in Harry's lips and hands and mouth and body.

At the same time, he knew it would probably not be enough. The completion of their bond had left him more than happy; whether it would ever satisfy him was an open question.