This chapter was not beta read, so I apologize for any mistake.
Previously: Harry accepts to keep Tom Riddle's shade until Spring. Then starts a fragile cohabitation. Despite all odds, Harry enjoys the shade's company...
Of smoke and stone
Chapter 5: blowing winds
"Tom, I'm cold. Let's go."
"I like it here," sighed the shade. "We can see so far."
"I didn't know Lord Voldemort liked anything."
"He didn't."
They were on top of the Astronomy Tower. It was the last day of term before Christmas break and everyone from Eighth Year - even effing Draco Malfoy - was out at the pub, except for Harry. Tom had asked for them to stay behind, saying he wanted to enjoy the empty castle, not saying he was finally ready to talk.
Each time Harry had asked about Tom's coming back, the shade had dismissed his question. After a couple of weeks of buggering, threatening and yelling at him, Harry had accepted to leave him be. Asking questions was exhausting and incredibly useless. It also made Harry feel upset - and Harry wasn't willing to feel anything but dazed for the rest of his life.
Still, the questions remained.
Why had Tom Riddle's shade came out of the Resurrection Stone?
And what had happened to him since he died, why was he acting so frail, so tamed? What exactly was this Hell he had mentioned once?
"Brrr," couldn't help but whine Harry, thinking his nose was going to fall off. He crossed his arms and squeezed his hands under his armpits, in a vain attempt to warm himself up. His Warming Charms were as shite as ever.
Selfish Tom was admiring the view, looking all nostalgic, deep and mysterious, as if wishing he could fly to the end of the world. He didn't spare a thought for his living companion, who was sensitive to the sharp and biting cold.
Well, Harry wouldn't be alive for much longer if they stayed out there. Maybe Tom had planned for this from the very start ...
Oh Merlin, his poor nose.
Harry was about to make a joke about Voldemort's own lack of nose when Tom said:
"Let's go back to the Common Room. You do seem very cold."
Harry exhaled in relief, ridiculously pleased that Tom wasn't a vengeful spirit plotting to off him.
"I wanted to talk to you tonight," the shade said on the way back to the Tower. He was whispering, bringing his face close to Harry's, even though no one, except Harry, would ever be able to hear him anymore.
"How was it? Where you were? Why would you rather stay with stupid Half-blood me rather than go back there?"
The questions tumbled out of Harry's lips as if a dam had just broken.
He went through the Portrait Hole in some sort of trance, his eyes glued to Tom's white clouds.
"If I still had my powers, I would be able to show you," Tom sighed, motioning Harry to sit down in his favorite armchair. "But I don't ... I'll explain then. Please don't interrupt."
Harry grumbled and wrapped himself in a plaid, waiting.
xXx
As promised, Tom talked and talked. He talked calmly of terrible things. He was looking at the merry fire crackling in the hearth, telling the kind of stories Harry hadn't wanted to hear ever again. It felt like Sixth Year all over again, discovering how atrocious Horcruxes were and how revolting Magic could turn out to be.
Harry listened nonetheless, enraptured by the nightmarish tale.
An instant before dying, when the Death Curse was coming on him, Voldemort had felt a profound surprise. So that was it? Him, the Darkest Lords of them all, was going to die in his old school's Great Hall, from a First Year's spell?
After this last thought, he was dead.
He didn't cease to exist though. He woke up in a place with no light nor limit. It was noisy and full of dark smoke. He looked at his hands, and they were not his hands, they were black fumes only vaguely similar to his hands.
He walked around and slowly understood that the thick smoke surrounding him was made of many, many lost souls and that he was now one of them. He couldn't tell apart anyone's shape, he could only distinguish low wails and cries, some sounding like children, some like ancient people. He bet no one could make him out either.
They were all the same, conscious and meaningless particles of a giant cloud of ashes, pulled together in this grim fate but without any hope to communicate or identify themselves. And he was hearing them lamenting and regretting and pleading Merlin to kill them, but everyone here was already dead.
This was their punishment.
xXx
In this Hellish Land, time passed but nothing changed. Only the Dreams. Tom soon discovered he could, indeed, close his smoky eyes and shut out all the voices. But the price to pay was that he was having visions of all the sins he had committed during his life. At first, it was okay. He could see himself kill his Muggle family over and over, without feeling anything. It was better than hearing all the other souls crying.
But the more time passed, the more it hurt. The visions were distorted, hard and heavy, and he just longed for something nice to watch for once, something simple and easy: petting Nagini's scaly head, flying above the sea, drinking tepid bitter tea.
While watching the Dreams, he was starting to wish he had acted and talked differently, just to have a diversity of scenes to entertain himself. The visions were boring and predictable. His sins were so repetitive: kill, torture, be angry, laugh madly, kill, torture again and again.
Has his life been so insubstantial? Had he been enjoying himself? Why even seek immortality when he didn't like his life?
He started watching the Dreams less and less, for he was beginning to feel resentful and envious of his dream counterpart. If he knew ... If he had known, at the time, he would have cared more about eating. He couldn't even remember what his last meal has been. Or when was his last hot bath. He couldn't remember how warm water felt like.
Oh, how much he would do to feel some warmth, to feel anything but smoke!
But this was the only thing left, the only physical sensation he hadn't been stripped off in this hopeless afterlife: untouchable, uncatchable smoke.
And then, came the new Dream.
To be continued