Chapter 33: Devotion

The cold shoulder came to an end when Tom asked Harry to meet him in his office. Their office.

It was July thirty-first. Harry's birthday.

Harry followed Tom into the room, fearful. Had Tom at last uncovered the shield against Death he so dearly desired?

The room was the same as they'd left it, save for the fact that Tom's desk was once again covered in documents, and Harry's desk was bare save for a medium-sized wooden box. The box was dark, polished walnut, gleaming incessantly, the likely result of magic. Harry felt his lungs seize, straining, his breath stuttering.

Tom swept closer immediately, placing a cool hand on the nape of Harry's neck, stroking down the spine. "This is a gift," Tom murmured, the words dripping like warm honey. "For you. For your birthday."

This comment was not helpful; Tom's idea of gifts ranged from horribly expensive to terribly misguided. But if it was a gift, it would not be immortality. Harry had made his stance on that subject clear enough; it would be pure insanity for Harry's birthday gift to be an immortal life.

Harry cleared his throat, swallowing down his apprehension with great effort. "What is it?"

"Open it and see."

Harry forced his feet to carry him forwards. He placed two hands on the box, feeling the solid construction of the container, and held it up. There was a silver latch on the front, already unlocked. Harry lifted the lid with care, aware of how Tom's eyes traced his every motion.

Inside the box lay a number of items cushioned in rich, black velvet.

A journal, a tiara, a cup. The locket once bargained with by Remus, and the heirloom ring which Tom usually wore on his left hand.

All in all, a collection of trophies from Tom's past. Items of magical power and significance. Horcruxes.

Harry had never thought to ask about Tom's other Horcruxes. He'd assumed they were hidden away somewhere, protected by wards and traps.

"When did you have time to gather these?" Harry asked.

"Some time ago."

Harry bit down on his lower lip and set the box back down on the table.

"I appreciate that you trust me with this," Harry said.

Tom's arm came to wrap around him. His hand settled on Harry's shoulder, the fingers gripping gently. Harry felt Tom's lips press into his hair for a brief second, and then Tom said, "These are for you, Harry. My Horcruxes. Your life may rest in my hands, but now my life is also in yours."

This was almost a kindness. The intention was certainly there. Only… only it still was not right.

"I don't know what to say to this," Harry said honestly. "Tom… I—I don't know what I'd do with these."

Tom hummed, a low vibration that Harry could feel against the side of his head. Then Tom's fingers stretched out, like pale beams of moonlight, stroking down where Harry's collarbone lay underneath the fabric of his jumper. "You should wear the locket. The ring."

Harry went numb. He recognized the monumental meaning of this gesture. The balance of what Tom was trying to give him. And it floored Harry that Tom trusted him enough to place the anchors of his immortality into his hands, but...

"This is too much," Harry said. "I can't accept this."

Tom's breath stilled for a beat, then resumed its slow, rhythmic cadence. "It would not make for an impressive gift if it was easily given," Tom drawled.

Harry shut the lid of the box and closed the silver latch with a soft click.

"I know you want to keep me with you," Harry said. "And I promised I would stay. You don't… you don't need to try to convince me to keep my promise, Tom."

There was another pause, and then Tom spun Harry around so that they were facing each other. "I want you," Tom murmured, "as you are. As yourself. I want you to be content with your life, satisfied with what I provide for you. Life is a gift, Harry. My eternal gift to you. I only wish for you to enjoy it."

Life was no gift, not for Harry. How could it be?

"I can't give that to you," Harry said, voice high and breaking. "You know I can't. This isn't like—it's not a bargain, it's not something I can just give you—"

"You fear living," Tom said tenderly. "I can help you with this."

"No, no!" Harry shook his head, wrenched himself from Tom's grasp. "That's not it! You won't change my mind on this. You can keep me with you as long as you want. Use whatever threats you want. But I don't want this. You're the one afraid of death, Tom, not me."

Tom's countenance turned stormy, his visage glazed over with fury. Harry found himself shoved up against the desk, the edge pressed uncomfortably against his lower back as Tom bore down on him like a vengeful god.

"What do you need? What am I missing?" Tom said sharply, his anger burning dangerously with each word he spoke, cutting and deadly. "I've given you everything you could ever ask for. I've let you teach, let you travel. I let you have your friends, I keep them protected under my reign.

"What am I to assume, dear Harry? That I may keep you with me, but only as you curse every second of life I have granted you? You claim to care, yet you shun my gifts and my presence. I need you beside me, nothing less than all that you are, and to deprive me of this is to spurn every promise you have ever given me."

Harry's spine curved backwards, a futile attempt to escape the fervor in Tom's scarlet eyes. This was madness. This was all madness. While Harry had known there was a measure of power he held over Tom, he had never imagined Tom to be so affected by what he said and did.

"You are my eternal companion," Tom breathed, the flow of speech now honeyed, sugar sweet, the harshness of his expression slipping away as he reached for Harry's hands, clasping them in his own. "Do you see this as I do? You belong by my side, Harry. I will cherish you and value you more than any other."

This statement was delivered with such sincerity that a switch must have flipped, for Tom's entire demeanour had shifted from depravity to attentiveness in the span of a half second. Tom was impassioned, intent, his mouth curled into the slightest of pouts as his eyes pleaded for Harry to acquiesce, to understand.

To submit.

Harry's heart was aflame. The compassion he felt for Tom Riddle had swelled impossibly large over the decades. Tom hung over every decision that Harry made. Thoughts of Tom preceded his actions, clouded his judgements.

Where did the man named Harry Potter end? Where did the man Tom had claimed as his perfect companion begin?

Harry was soaked to the bone; Tom permeated every part of him, drowning him in the tattered remains of an old, long-forgotten prophecy.

Tom lived in his very fucking soul.

They were inseparable in every aspect; Harry could not begin to unearth all the ties that bound them together. They could not live without each other. They could not live—

Harry did not dare think it, or speak of it, but on some level he knew he had succeeded in what Albus Dumbledore would have called an impossible task:

He had taught the Dark Lord to love.

And this love, in all of its harrowing, misshapen glory, meant that Tom was never going to let him go.

"You want me with you because you care," Harry said, his breaths wretched with dejection. "You care so much that it kills you inside. That it burns. That is what I feel when I think of living forever. That is what I fear."

"And what of what I fear?" Tom demanded, chin lifted arrogantly so that a lock of hair fell across his forehead, shadowing the pale skin beneath it. "I fear losing you, Harry."

Tom released Harry's hands, instead caressing his palm against Harry's cheek as he murmured, "There, I have finally said it. I do fear that I will lose you to Death's damnable clutches. Will you still see me delivered into the endless torment of your absence?"

Harry's eyes began to water, thought it was by no conscious decision on his part. He understood, painfully well, what Tom was saying. Harry could feel that very torment, that terrible ache, whenever he was reminded that the people he cared for would someday depart this world. That they would depart without him.

Harry would outlive them all by decades, if not more. The idiosyncrasies that made these people distinct and real in his mind would slip and fade away. Harry couldn't stand to lose that.

Tom thumbed at Harry's cheek with a soft touch, his brow furrowing in distress. "Tell me how to help you," Tom whispered. "How can I make you see?"

Harry was shaking his head, twisting his face away before Tom had even finished speaking. Tom was the one who didn't understand just how terrible eternity could be.

"I do know what you mean," Harry told him. "That's what I'm afraid of, do you understand? Of losing everyone around me. Of losing people again and again. Of forgetting what it means to really love someone."

Harry had to pause, then, because it was difficult to speak around the obstruction of his turbulent emotions. He placed his hand cautiously against Tom's chest, willing Tom to realize the truth.

"I can't live only for you, Tom. No matter how much you may want me to. No matter how much I want to be able to. I'll never be happy the way you want me to be."

Harry had already lost too much to the vicious cruelty of war, to the inescapable progression of time. The sweet promise of departure was calling to him, the unyielding belief that he would be reunited with the people he loved.

"If you want to help me, then you have to be willing to let me go."

Harry searched Tom's face for acknowledgment, for consent, but Tom's expression gave nothing away—

"No."

Though Harry had expected the answer, it did not hurt any less, and it did not serve to soothe the ragged edges of the gaping hole in his chest.

The suffocating dread inside of him twisted, paralyzed and insensate, and Harry felt himself deflate, shying away from Tom's touch, sinking inwards in the habitual way he had developed to protect himself from mental anguish.

Tom's impassive mask gave way yet again, shuttering over with concern, the slightest grip of panic visible in his eyes.

"Harry," said Tom. A plea, though Harry did not know for what.

Harry could not.

He could not.

He—

"Not you," Tom said. "Harry, you promised me."

Tom clutched at Harry's arms, shaking him once, twice, like sense would suddenly restore itself, like Harry would give in spite of having already given so much.

Harry held himself limply, kept his eyes open, distant, and let Tom have his way.

They went still for a moment, a panoramic portrait of a lover's embrace as Tom stared, nearly hysterical, into Harry's eyes, and Harry felt his Occlumency shields fall away, the mental constructs dropping and shattering like fragile glass, exposing even the most hidden depths of his mind.

Do you see me? Harry wanted to ask. Do you know me? Am I real to you?

Tom dove in, recklessly so, pouring into every crevice of Harry's open mind, filling all the cracks, desperate, searching—

And Harry could only feel relief at this, at the familiarity of having Tom thinking for him, feeling for him. Harry had always felt too much, enough for the both of them, and to have the overwhelming sensations lessened to a dull ache was nothing short of absolute nirvana.

Tom's forehead pressed to his, the distance narrowing so that they were breathing the same air, thinking the same thoughts, hearts being in time—so close, too close, not close enough.

Harry needed to reach deep down and yank out the parts of himself that burned. He had to put them on display so that Tom could see them.

I'm here. I see you.

A shiver ran through him. It might even be his soul that had quivered from the force of those words.

Somehow, they ended up upon the floor, kneeling, brows touching, eyes locked. Tom's hands rested on his forearms, lightly, like Harry was composed of bone china, warm-hued and breakable. Harry allowed the peace to wash over him, the mellow calm that came from hollowing his head and filling it with Tom.

Tom's consciousness welcomed him with open arms, and then the heavy whirl of Harry's mind flooded through their connection like a thunderstorm, a bedlam of every terrified thought Harry had ever conceptualized.

Tom recoiled.

The whiplash was sudden and unforgiving; Harry was wrenched forward, dragged across the subliminal space between them, tearing past walls that should have been there, should have stopped him—

Tom's head snapped back, eyes flashing green.

The connection broke.

Harry heard rather than felt his breath escape him, an uneven gasp that swelled to fill the entire study, echoing faintly off of the dark walls.

His body was too warm. It felt like he would explode from the sudden, searing heat, his face feverish and sweaty as he slumped against Tom's chest and shoulder. Tom carried him through the shudders that slid down his spine, soothed the tremors in Harry's hands as he brushed lips over each knuckle in turn.

It was only after some time had passed that Harry was able to blink open his eyes, dispelling the wetness that clung to his lashes, and look up at Tom.

Tom was unusually somber, what little colour that usually resided in his cheeks now absent, his mouth tight-lipped as he stroked a hand over Harry's head. Parts of his face shone oddly in the dim candlelight of the office.

Awkwardly, Harry realized that the shine was not a trick of the light at all, but rather the result of faded tear tracks that had trailed down, past Tom's cheekbones, to cradle the jaw.

Transfixed by the sight, Harry lifted a finger to touch, to test, swiping across the remains of moisture there. Tom twitched at the contact but did not pull away, merely watched as Harry's hand withdrew, his curiosity sated.

Harry coughed softly, cleared his throat to speak.

"Do you understand?" he asked.

Tom's embrace curved inwards, enveloping Harry further into the folds of his robes. Harry shifted, uneasy, then felt a puff of warm breath pass across his skin as Tom replied,

"I will try."

In the early days, when Voldemort had held court in the large meeting rooms on the ground level of the manor, Harry had been confined to the left wing, sequestered in his room unless Voldemort wanted to see him.

Other than that, the manor had always been quiet, silent save for the occasional disturbance of House-Elf magic. Harry had grown used to the empty corridors, to the unused chambers. To the home that revolved around a single person and a few choice rooms.

So it was no wonder that when Tom kept his distance, the manor felt otherworldly, more haunted than usual. This distance was not like the cold shoulder from before, however. Harry got the impression that Tom was not staying away to punish him, but rather to have the space needed to think through things properly.

It was with this in mind that Harry spent his time exploring the manor while Tom went about his Ministry work.

The basement floor was now completely sealed off, the door locked and warded. A section of the past that Harry would never see again. An element of the Dark Lord which had been laid to rest, Harry thought. Or was that only wishful thinking?

The unoccupied rooms in the manor were barely furnished, their curtains drawn shut. Harry would sit in these rooms, just so they could be put to use. He would read books or listen to the magical wireless. Sometimes he would fall asleep and wake to a blanket draped over him. Harry did not think that the blanket was the work of House-Elves.

His previous conversation with Tom was not forgotten; the chest of Horcruxes sat in Harry's room, warded and protected in one of his desk drawers. Harry remained baffled by his gift. It was unthinkable that Tom would concentrate the power of his immortality in one place—in Harry's hands. What had been the intention of that?

A sign of faith or devotion or—

Something else.

Harry had not thought of the word since his birthday. The enormity of it did not fit with what he had once known of Voldemort, of Tom Riddle. But even if Harry was only an obsession, a victim to Tom's warped version of sentiment, this knowledge was a heavy, heady feeling. He and Tom had crept up on each other, stretching like vines, tangling together.

But Harry did not love him.

Harry might crave Tom's company, might even love it, might long for the physical affection that Tom so easily offered. But it was not the same love that he felt for other people. For his parents, who had died for him. For his best friends, forever out of reach. It could not be the same feeling.

Tom was separate, distinct from everyone else. A category all on his own. Impossible and mercurial, intelligent and charming. If someone was to live forever, it only made sense for it to be Tom, who embodied the best and worst parts of humanity. The physical perfection, the intellectual acuity, the magical prowess—all of it contained in a vessel missing only one piece: a heart.

Harry tried to imagine the small portion of himself that must reside within Tom's chest. The existence of more than darkness in that cavernous gap. The claims of love that Tom held dear.

Voldemort had cared for Nagini, had even mourned her. But the bond that lay between Harry and Tom must have surpassed that long ago, long before Tom had ever held him close and murmured soft promises into his ear.

Tom had said he would try, but that did that mean? Where did this new promise fit in the field of wild wishes that had lived between them?

Only time would tell. Time that could, ostensibly, stretch for years and years to come.

Harry woke in the middle of the night from dreams of fire and smoke, the invisible ashes burning in his lungs. Restless and unnerved, he forced himself out of bed so that he could pace his room, eyeing the streams of moonlight that slid through the gaps of his curtains.

Eventually the room felt stifling, and Harry moved out into the corridor and down the hall, his bare feet padding down the plush carpeting and carrying him to the one room he rarely visited.

The door was ajar, but Harry knocked softly anyways, trusting in Tom's night owl tendencies.

"Come in, Harry."

Harry crept around the door like a mouse, suddenly overwhelmed with the awkwardness of what he had done. It was some odd hour in the middle of the night, he was dressed only in pyjamas, and he had come knocking at the Dark Lord's door.

Tom was clad in black silk, pyjamas in the same cut as Harry's. A paired set, even though they never slept in the same room. Harry had originally thought the silk to be extravagant and unnecessary, but after some time he had come to agree that it was preferable, the fabric cooler and softer against the skin.

This room, the master bedroom, was everything one would have expected from the personal chambers of the Dark Lord. The window view was large, leading out to a beautiful curved balcony that Harry had only ever properly seen from the outside. The curtains were a dark forest green, tied off with silver rope.

The floors were a polished hardwood, dark brown mahogany covered partially by a long, rectangular mat where a pair of plain black slippers rested. And the bed, tall and wide in equal measures, was wrapped around by green hangings that matched the curtains.

In Harry's previous visits to this room those hangings had always been closed, but tonight they were open, revealing black silk sheets and clean white pillows.

"Did you need something?" Tom asked, his voice a low rumble, fogged with sleep.

"I woke up," Harry said.

It was a non-answer, but apparently it was satisfactory because Tom gestured for Harry to approach him.

Harry padded forwards. He felt like a child again, young and trembling, awoken by nightmares and seeking comfort.

Instead of pulling Harry close as he usually did, Tom resumed facing the window. Harry followed his gaze to the tall panels of glass that held back the warm summer air, shielding their eyes from the full intensity of the brilliant moon.

"You consume my thoughts," Tom said solemnly, factually, the sudden statement startling in the silence of the bedroom. "You persist, like a plague, in every corner of my mind. I find I cannot rid myself of you, your words, your feelings. I had never imagined that I would seek to understand love, yet I seek to understand you, and you confound me at every turn."

Harry licked his lips, his throat dry. Did Tom expect him to respond to this?

"You have a heart that grows. A heart that bleeds." Tom's brow creased, almost as an afterthought, then flattened out again as Tom shifted to look at him. "Would you die for me, Harry? As you would for your family, your friends? If my life was at risk, in mortal peril, would you save me?"

Harry's answer was instantaneous.

"Why wouldn't I?"

Tom laughed. The sound was mocking, sharp like a bark. Harry shrunk away for a second, disturbed, before the meaning sunk in. The laugh was not intended to mock him; it was Tom's self-directed derision that had prompted the sudden twist of black humour.

"You would die to save your immortal enemy. A man who has caused you enough misery to drown in."

Harry shifted, uneasy. "Yes, I would."

Tom was as much of a person as anyone else. If Harry could intervene to save him, then it only made sense to do so. After all, Tom was the one who wanted to live.

Harry would give his life for strangers, for people he'd met only in passing. He would give his life for Tom, who had grown into some measure of kindness, who had proven that light could shine even in the darkest of hearts if only someone was brave enough to try it.

"You are ridiculous," Tom said flatly. "And I will never understand you, Harry Potter. Not even if you gave me all of eternity to do so."

Harry blinked at the phrasing, at the hypothetical.

"I guess you won't," Harry said slowly, his tongue dragging on the words.

Tom's eyes closed, then, the deep red irises vanishing behind ivory eyelids and dark lashes. "Do you hate me?"

Though Tom could not see, Harry shook his head. "No. I don't think I do."

Tom motioned with a hand for Harry to draw nearer. Harry shuffled over, obedient, invisible ties leading him towards the man who owned his life in all but name.

Once Harry was standing before him, Tom cradled Harry's face in his hands, fingers smoothing delicate lines over Harry's jaw and cheeks. The trails left behind were scorching, like a hot brand on Harry's skin.

"Harry," said Tom, imploring, like a sigh that had been building for a millennia was at last being released. "You are as selfless as I am selfish. The true counterpart I had never known could exist. The beautiful heart that tempers my ruthless ambition."

At this, Harry could feel the flutter of that very heart in his throat. He could feel the hum of tension that existed when they touched, and the pulse of Tom's emotions, just beneath the surface, blazing so fiercely that the sensation was impossible for Harry to ignore.

"You have given yourself to me, promised to remain mine," Tom breathed. His eyes flashed, the ruby red of adoration. "It would ruin me to give you away, my darling, my Harry. It would destroy the very heart which you have laboured so dearly to save."

Harry's hands clenched against the silken sleeves of Tom's shirt as the words danced around them, curling in like talons, sharp points prickling on his skin all over. This was a confirmation of all that Harry had sought to avoid. His vision was consumed by Tom's gaze, by those gleaming, volatile eyes that only made promises in absolutes.

There were two concepts Harry had named as universal:

Love, eternal.

Death, inevitable.

Tom would have him promise eternity, forgoing his humanity in favour of a different, more potent devotion. Harry could see, very easily, the dream Tom wanted them to achieve together.

Tom's hand slid down his neck, fingertips dragging over his throat with gentle pressure, solidifying Harry's breath in place. "I want you to be happy," Tom said at last, a whisper that dissipated in the darkness of the room. "Could you ever allow me that?"

Harry had no response, but Tom must have seen something in his eyes, eyes wide and hopelessly green like his mother's, because the familiar tension suddenly froze over, the surrounding air going cold.

Tom replaced the space between them, the void opening like a yawn, and Harry would have stumbled if not for Tom's hands fastened to his forearms, pinning him to the floor like a statue.

Tom's voice returned to a regular volume, the syllables rough around the edges as he said, "My office, tomorrow. Nine sharp. Do not be late."

Was that a dismissal?

Tom stepped back. Harry's head spun with disorientation as his support fell away, leaving him anchorless. He was struck by an urge to reach out as he watched Tom retreat to the balcony, shutting the door quietly behind him.

The sound of the door latch, magically shut, echoed thinly in the large bedroom.

Harry did not unstick his feet from the floor right away, did not move to leave Tom's room and return to his own. He ought to—he ought to be upset. Or disgusted. Or anything other than filled with this helpless feeling of abandonment as he eyed Tom's silhouette through the balcony windows.

After a time, Harry returned to his room.

When he slept, his dreams were of the forest, damp and earthy, strewn through with vibrant, blooming flowers.

A/N:

chapter count is officially final. the rest of the story is written and will be posted shortly. i am currently editing through the older chapters of this story, and hopefully it will all be completed by the time i finally post the epilogue.

reviews on this chapter are highly welcomed and appreciated!