A/N: Deepest apologies for the long wait. 2020 was horrific on both a global and personal level and I was very much Not Okay for a while, so I wasn't writing very much at all for a long time. But I'm doing better now. Hopefully there won't be any more nearly-year-long waits between chapters.
Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with this fic and left comments and/or kudos—I appreciate every one of you!
There's another mention of past Drarry in this one.
And…not sure if it really warrants a content warning but—Harry's self-depreciating comments and negative attitude about himself might be upsetting if anyone has/had similar self-esteem issues.
There are a few lines taken directly from Deathly Hallows in the beginning of this chapter, but literally only a few and then I gloss over like 2 whole pages because I find regurgitating entire passages from canon to be annoying, LOL.
Now, who wants a flashback scene? ;)
Chapter 5
[Three Months Ago—The Battle of Hogwarts]
"Try for some remorse," Harry said, knowing as he did that Voldemort most likely wouldn't listen. This wasn't going to end until one of them was dead.
"You dare—?"
Harry kept talking and so did Voldemort—almost like they were both trying to prolong the inevitable. Or in Voldemort's case, perhaps it was more like a cat toying with a mouse before finally eating it, trying to get every last second of entertainment out of it.
Harry didn't know why he bothered explaining what happened with the Elder Wand—perhaps he hoped Voldemort would come to his senses. Perhaps he still felt useless for not being able to help the twisted, miserable looking embodiment of the Horcrux in his vision of King's Cross with Dumbledore. Perhaps part of him just wanted to lord the victory over this man-turned-monster who thought himself all-knowing and unbeatable.
"…I am the true master of the Elder Wand," Harry finished.
Across from him, Voldemort looked stricken for a moment but then quickly schooled his expression and raised his wand. He opened his mouth and Harry could see his mouth shaping the first syllable of an Avada Kedavra, but then he paused—only for half a second, no one but Harry probably even noticed—and instead of the killing curse, Voldemort cast, "Potestatum Ligandi!"
Harry cast an "Expelliarmus!" to meet it.
The rest, as they say, was history.
Harry's spell forced Voldemort's back towards his own wand, just like in the graveyard, and Voldemort watched with a horrified expression as the spell crept closer and closer. When it connected, it wrenched the Elder wand out of Voldemort's hand and sent it flying across the room for Harry to catch, and it threw Voldemort backwards into the stone wall where he crumpled to a heap on the floor, still conscious but clearly weakened. The people near the spot where he fell quickly backed away, clearing a radius of maybe ten feet on all sides.
Shouts and cheers rang out, and Harry rushed forward. As Voldemort slowly sat up he seemed dazed and devastated and furious all at once. He pulled his yew wand out of his robes, where he'd evidently kept it as a spare, and he swiped it in Harry's direction, but absolutely nothing happened. Harry kept his wand trained on Voldemort and took another step closer.
"Kill him!" someone yelled from the crowd, and other voices cried out in agreement.
Voldemort tried again in vain to cast something at Harry, but again it didn't work. His eyes flicked up to meet Harry's, and the look there was something like resignation mixed with pain and a quiet sort of panic. Harry raised his wand but hesitated.
"Finish him off!" someone else yelled from across the Great Hall.
"No," Harry said, quietly, as if to Voldemort. Then he repeated it louder for the crowd, "No! No more killing! I'm not going to become a murderer for him. This is over."
Murmurs stirred throughout the crowd, and there was some rather loud disagreement, but Harry stood firm. He refused to kill Voldemort in cold blood.
"Think you can stand?" Harry asked under his breath in a grudgingly polite tone. Voldemort looked significantly weaker somehow—whatever spell he'd cast had either bound or drained his magic—and Harry found himself wondering exactly how much Voldemort's post-resurrection body relied on his magic to function.
Voldemort gave him a suspicious, incredulous look before glancing away at the floor without answering. Harry took that as an embarrassed no.
Harry sighed and said, "Come on," stretching out his hand and offering to help Voldemort up. He was rewarded with another silent, incredulous look. "Preferably before someone riles up an angry mob," he added.
A hand on Harry's shoulder had him turning and raising his wand, but it was only Hermione.
"Harry," she said, sparing Voldemort an uneasy look before continuing under her breath, "that spell he cast, Potestatum Ligandi, it binds someone's magic but only temporarily, for about an hour. You need to—"
"I'm not going to kill him while he's defenseless," Harry interrupted.
"I wasn't going to say that!" Hermione huffed. "But you need to do something to keep him secure until the Aurors get here. Kingsley sent a Patronus to a few that he trusts, they should be here before too much longer."
"I don't think he's much of a flight risk like this. It looked like he hit his head pretty hard against the wall," Harry said, turning back towards Voldemort and offering his hand again. "Come on," he repeated.
Voldemort finally reached up a hand, but it was the one still holding his wand. He narrowed his eyes in concentration and waved it at Harry again, startling a few gasps from the crowd, but again nothing happened.
"All right, give me that," Harry said, stepping closer and grabbing the yew wand right out of Voldemort's hand, and then tucking it into his own pocket.
Voldemort blinked at him, then shot him a glare that was equal parts shocked and offended. Harry shot him a look right back that said 'what did you expect?'.
Voldemort huffed out an angry breath and sharply turned his head, only to hiss in pain at the sudden movement. The back of his head, Harry noticed with a wince of involuntary sympathy, had an open gash from where it collided with the wall, and was bleeding quite profusely.
"You deserve that, you know," Harry muttered.
Voldemort glared at him and finally spoke—in Parseltongue. But all Harry heard was a series of meaningless hisses.
"What?" Hermione asked, worried. "What did he say?"
"I don't know," Harry confessed quietly. "I guess I can't understand it anymore, without the, you know," he trailed off pointedly, even though only Hermione and Voldemort were close enough to hear him, he still didn't want to say 'Horcrux' out loud. Harry assumed that Hermione had already figured out or at least suspected that he'd been a Horcrux.
Then it hit him rather suddenly that Voldemort, as far as Harry knew, didn't even know that Harry had been his Horcrux.
Voldemort's eyes hadn't left him, and they held a curious expression now as he stared up at Harry. He said something else in Parseltongue, and by the inflection it was some sort of question.
Harry shook his head slightly and told Voldemort, "Still nothing," as he tried to ignore the irrational pang of loss he felt at not being able to understand the snake language anymore.
He felt like he should say something else heroic or profound to the man who'd tried to kill him his entire life, but nothing came to mind. He tried to let himself feel relief, tried to believe that this was finally over, but he mostly just felt tired.
The atmosphere was tense and awkward—there was a low murmur of conversation throughout the crowd, and Harry and Voldemort just kept staring silently at each other. Harry hadn't been prepared for this—he'd been prepared for one of them to end up dead, not for a tense and seemingly endless wait for the Aurors to arrive to deal with an incapacitated Dark Lord.
Someone cleared their throat close by, and Harry turned to see Ron approaching. Hermione threw her arms around him, and Ron hugged her back. Then he told Harry, "I think you're bloody insane, but if you're serious about not killing him you might want to move him somewhere else before that lot tries. There's, erm, been some chatter already," he said pointedly.
Harry swallowed, then turned to Voldemort and quietly asked, "Are you going to let me help you up now, or are you going to crawl? I know which one this crowd would rather see."
Voldemort glared up at him and held Harry's gaze for a long moment, stubbornly remaining silent. Then Voldemort broke eye contact, looking away at the floor as he finally reached one arm up towards Harry.
Harry grasped his hand and helped him stand up, ignoring the gasps and mutters of the crowd. Voldemort swayed slightly, seeming off-balance despite standing still, so Harry adjusted his hand and kept a firm grip on Voldemort's arm instead.
Ron kept a wary eye on Voldemort and leaned closer to Harry to ask, "Where are we going?"
Harry thought for a moment, then answered quietly, "How about that room behind the high table, where they sent me after the Goblet of Fire announced the champions." The high table was much closer than the exit to the entrance hall.
Ron nodded, then walked a few steps ahead of Harry, making sure the crowd parted to clear a path. Harry kept his grip on Voldemort's arm, tugging slightly to prompt him to walk. Voldemort seemed unsteady on his feet, listing to the side as he tried to walk straight next to Harry. Hermione followed behind them, wincing as she got a clear view of the bleeding gash on the back of Voldemort's head.
Kingsley made his way over, and Hermione had a whispered conversation with him that Harry didn't pay much attention to. Voldemort stumbled slightly and Harry paused to shift Voldemort's arm over Harry's shoulders instead, supporting more of his weight as they continued.
It was surreal to think that this was it, that it was over—Harry hadn't expected to survive the day, let alone to actually win. It was surreal to be helping a temporarily powerless Voldemort walk across the Great Hall to await his fate. Surreal to know that not long ago he'd had a part of this man's soul inside him. Surreal to know that the Horcrux was gone now, and with it, their connection.
The murmur of the crowd behind them got louder as they arrived at the high table and then hurried through the door into the room behind it. Ron held the door open for Harry and Voldemort first, then Hermione. Kingsley didn't go in, lingering at the doorway instead.
"I'll send my Patronus through when the Aurors arrive," Kingsley told them. "Don't open this door until then." Ron nodded, then closed and locked the door. Kingsley stayed outside in the Great Hall to guard them and to keep the crowd from getting out of control.
Harry stood still in the center of the room, still supporting most of Voldemort's weight as he helped him stay upright. He wasn't quite sure what to do with himself now. Ron and Hermione stayed near the door, and spared him a brief glance before starting a whispered conversation with their heads bent close to each other.
Pressed together as they were, Harry felt rather than heard Voldemort take a deep breath. Then for the first time since his defeat he spoke to Harry in English, tersely asking, "Are you sure you don't want to parade me around some more, play the conquering hero?" There was the tiniest hint of slurring in his voice as he spoke, likely due to the head wound. He probably had a concussion.
Harry bristled and snapped back, "I wasn't parading you anywhere, I was trying to spare you some bloody dignity and get you out of what could've turned into an angry mob."
Voldemort went silent, and he turned his head to study Harry's face. Harry looked back for a moment, but found the closeness and the scrutiny and the overly dilated pupils a bit too unsettling so he looked away.
After a moment, Voldemort spoke again, his face still turned towards Harry. In a quieter, calmer tone he said, "Regardless, I'd like to sit down—or do you intend to drag me around like a teddy bear all day?"
Harry fought an involuntary shiver at the puffs of warm breath on his ear, and he huffed out a noise that was almost a laugh. "You'd make a horrible teddy bear. Give all the kids nightmares," he said without thinking.
Voldemort surprised him by chuckling—perhaps he was pleased that Harry had bantered back. Or maybe it was just the head wound softening his normally murderous and evil edges. Probably the head wound, Harry decided.
Harry blinked and caught Ron and Hermione staring at the two of them with concerned expressions, and wands drawn but not raised. "What?" Harry asked, bemused.
"You still yourself there, mate? Not possessed or anything?" Ron asked cautiously.
Harry's brow furrowed and he snapped, "Yes, I'm me. I told you the Horcrux is gone."
Ron put his wand away, raising his hands in a calming gesture and backing off.
Hermione didn't seem quite convinced. She hesitated, then said, "It's just a bit disconcerting, both of you standing there smiling about something—"
"All of the Horcruxes are gone, Hermione. Even the one I had," he said pointedly. Then Harry waved a hand dismissively and explained, "Anyway, it's nothing, I was just telling him he'd make a terrible teddy bear."
His friends both blinked at him, and he cracked another smile at the expressions on their faces.
"Did you hit your head too, Harry?" Hermione asked, still looking concerned.
"No, Hermione," Harry said, rolling his eyes.
"Did you Confund him somehow?" Ron asked Voldemort.
Voldemort sounded annoyed but also amused when he sniped back, "Don't try to blame his ridiculous sense of humor on me. I'm sure I'm facing enough charges as it is." The hint of slurred speech was a bit more pronounced than before, but he could still easily be understood.
Ron blinked, looking shocked that the Dark Lord was cracking jokes at a time like this. He turned to Hermione and muttered, "Merlin, he really did hit his head hard, didn't he?"
Hermione bit her lip, seeming to struggle with something before letting out a frustrated huff and blurting out, "We should heal that—it looks awful, he clearly has a concussion, and he's bleeding quite a lot."
Ron blinked at her, "Please tell me you're joking."
Hermione shot an irritated look at him. "Do Wizards not have an equivalent of the Geneva Convention? Rules for treating prisoners humanely?"
"It's You-Know-Who though."
"I know who he is, Ronald!"
Harry ignored their bickering as it went on, and he didn't bother to chime in—he knew Hermione would eventually get her way. Instead he found a cushioned chair that looked moderately comfortable and led Voldemort over to it, bending to carefully lower him to sit.
He absolutely did not acknowledge that he felt cold without the contact of Voldemort's arm over his shoulder and their sides pressed together. He knew (after Hermione's rather awkward intervention a while back) that he was touch-starved—but he still had standards, and he was not about to consciously indulge himself with the man who'd murdered his parents, of all people.
"What did you mean when you told her the Horcrux you had was gone?" Voldemort asked quietly. "Did you bring one of them here with you?"
Harry tensed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Erm, actually I sort of was one, up until you AK'd me in the Forest," he said quickly. Like ripping off a band-aid, he thought.
Voldemort stared at him in silence for a moment, then simply demanded, "Explain."
"The first time you tried to kill me—when the spell rebounded, part of your soul broke off and clung to the only living thing in the room. Me." Harry paused, waiting to see if Voldemort was going to throw a temper tantrum, but he just kept staring at Harry with an oddly blank expression, so Harry continued. "So…our connection, the Parseltongue, the way I could see into your head sometimes and feel your emotions—it was all because I was secretly your Horcrux all along."
Voldemort blinked at him, then his face twisted into an expression that managed to be wry and angry at the same time, and then he just started laughing. Voldemort's high, cold laugh had always given Harry chills, and it had a manic edge to it now that was even creepier.
Ron and Hermione paused in their bickering to send Harry an alarmed look, but Harry just shook his head at them and mouthed, 'it's fine.' They went back to their argument, although they both kept glancing over to check on Harry.
Voldemort laughed for at least a minute without stopping, then he reached up to swipe underneath his watering eyes with a knuckle, keeping his claw-like fingernails away from his eyes.
Harry had no idea what to say.
Voldemort finally regained his composure, then looked up at him again and asked, "Did it never once occur to you that if you had told me about this, I wouldn't have kept trying to kill you?"
Harry swallowed and said, "I didn't know until just a little while ago. I got to Snape before he died and he gave me some of his memories. I watched them in Dumbledore's Pensieve before going to you in the Forest… Dumbledore knew what I was, and he told Snape to make sure I knew what I would have to do."
Voldemort blinked, then said almost petulantly, "You could've told me then, in the Forest. Could've said it in Parseltongue so no one else would understand."
Harry scoffed, and sarcastically said, "Right, because you've given me so many reasons over the years to trust you with my life or my secrets."
" My life," Voldemort hissed, " my secrets."
Harry shivered at the possessiveness in his tone, then argued, "You would've just locked me up somewhere, or stuffed me into a locket or a diary."
"Don't presume to tell me what I would've done," he snapped. He blinked his eyes a few times and seemed to fight off a dizzy spell, then he continued, "I take care of what's mine, Harry Potter."
Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he just crossed his arms and looked away at the floor and stayed quiet. Ron and Hermione were still arguing in low voices, not paying any attention to Harry or Voldemort now.
After a minute or so, Harry looked up from the floor and stared at Voldemort in an awkward, slightly tense silence. Voldemort stared back, but blinked several times as though he was having trouble focusing his eyes.
"Why did you change spells at the last second?" Harry asked, keeping his voice down.
Voldemort just looked at Harry for such a long moment that he gave up on getting a response. But then, "Why did you tell me to try for remorse?" Voldemort finally asked instead of answering.
Harry swallowed nervously, then said, "Because there might still be a chance that you can heal your soul." Voldemort blinked, clearly not expecting that answer. Harry continued, "In…in the clearing in the Forest, I think I really did die, just for a moment. And I had this—I dunno, vision or something—Dumbledore was there, and the Horcrux that used to be in my scar. It was tiny and hideous and in pain, and Dumbledore said I couldn't help it. But maybe you could help yourself, if you tried."
For a long moment, Voldemort just met his gaze with a silent, contemplative stare. Finally he said, "Perhaps I'll consider it." His gaze went unfocused for a moment, then his mouth twisted into a grim smirk and he added, "Assuming they don't just toss me to the Dementors."
Harry repressed a shudder, and muttered, "The Dementors should be rounded up and exterminated."
Voldemort let out a sharp but quiet laugh, then he said, "Careful, Harry—that's genocide. People will start calling you the next Dark Lord."
Harry rolled his eyes, then glanced briefly at Ron and Hermione across the room, where they were still debating whether or not to heal Voldemort's head wound. It seemed like Hermione might finally be winning though.
Harry turned to face Voldemort again and opened his mouth again, not even sure what he meant to say. But then a silver lynx Patronus bounded through the wall and said in Kingsley's voice, "The Aurors are here to take him to Azkaban."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
[Now]
Harry woke up slowly, wrapped in a feeling of warmth and contentment so complete that he nearly dozed off again. But then he realized rather abruptly that there was a hand slowly carding through his hair and he was laying halfway on top of someone, so he forced his eyes open in a slight panic.
Tom—of course. Harry had ended up falling asleep on Tom's shoulder after all, but instead of shoving him off the sofa as he'd threatened, Tom had simply gotten comfortable and shifted to make room for Harry—he'd turned himself so he was sitting at an angle with his back in one corner of the sofa. Tom had one leg pulled up onto the sofa and the other bent with his foot on the floor. Harry had ended up laying half on top of him, his head on Tom's chest and his arms wrapped around his torso, with his hips and legs cradled between Tom's casually spread legs.
Tom seemed surprisingly unbothered, and instead of the newspaper from earlier floating in front of him to read, now there was a book that Harry vaguely recognized as something Hermione had given him for Christmas one year. Tom must've Summoned it from the bookshelf across the room.
Noticing that Harry was awake now, Tom's hand paused in his hair and he murmured, "Calm down, Harry. It's fine."
"M'sorry," Harry mumbled anyway, embarrassed.
"You talk in your sleep, you know," Tom said casually, finally withdrawing his hand from Harry's hair. Harry missed the touch immediately, and he automatically tightened his arms around Tom's waist slightly.
"What did I say?"
Tom paused a moment before answering, "I started to stand up to leave and you mumbled 'don't go'. The bond considered it an order."
Harry felt a blush heating his face, and he sat up and pulled away, scooting to the other end of the sofa. "You don't have to stay anymore—you can get up if you want."
Tom briefly glanced away from the book, meeting Harry's eyes and nodding slightly in acknowledgment. He made no move to leave.
"Tom?" Harry said after a long moment that only seemed to be tense on his end. "Did I order anything else in my sleep?"
"No," Tom answered, sounding unconcerned. "And if you had ordered anything truly objectionable, I would've woken you up right away."
"Okay," Harry said, nodding and feeling some of his anxiety fade away. "That's good." Harry pulled his legs up onto the sofa, bending his knees and resting his folded arms on top of them as he watched Tom read.
He found himself rather fascinated with the runes around Tom's neck. Harry spent some time just tracing the shapes of them with his eyes, trying not to dwell on the memory of tracing them with his tongue during the consummation. He had no idea what the individual runes meant, and didn't remember from Tom's impromptu lesson which sequences of them did what, but they were eye-catching and sort of beautiful in their own dark way. Eye catching and beautiful like the man they bound…
No, stop it. Harry told himself to not even go there. Tom didn't want him like that—he'd been gracious enough to indulge Harry's need for contact, but if Harry wasn't careful Tom might get spooked and cut him off. And if Tom refused, Harry absolutely would not order Tom to touch him if he didn't want to.
Harry swallowed and tried to think platonic thoughts, tried to turn his gaze elsewhere but it kept returning to Tom. That one lock of soft chestnut hair that kept falling into his eyes. The graceful movement of his hand coming up to sweep his hair back into place with those long, elegant fingers. The way the dark, maroon-ish red of his eyes could almost pass for brown from a distance as long as the lighting of the room wasn't too bright. Harry couldn't seem to pull his own eyes away.
Tom allowed it for about five minutes before finally asking, "Do you intend to just sit and stare at me all night?"
"Maybe," Harry said, smirking when Tom briefly glanced up from his book and threw a mild side-eyed glare at him. Harry tamped down his inner turmoil and decided to play it off with humor. "I was wrong, you know," he said leadingly.
Tom glanced over at him again and met his eyes, his expression making it clear that he'd picked up on Harry's tone and he was only playing along because he chose to. "About what?" he asked indulgently.
Harry smirked and said, "You actually make a pretty decent teddy bear. Surprisingly cuddly."
Tom narrowed his eyes, and with a wave of his hand he sent the floating book hurtling towards Harry's face. Harry's eyes went wide and his Quiddich reflexes kicked in—he caught the book just before it would've sailed past his head.
He gaped at Tom in shock, and demanded, "How the hell did the bond let you throw a book at my head?"
Tom gave him the fakest innocent smile Harry had ever seen and said, "I wasn't aiming for your head, I was aiming an inch to the right of it."
Harry rolled his eyes and tossed the book onto the coffee table. "What a relief," he said sarcastically. He could feel a wry sort of amusement leaking through their connection rather than actual malice, so he wasn't overly concerned. He rather thought that forbidding future projectiles would sour the tentative truce they seemed to have going, so he didn't bother. No harm done, anyway.
Harry stared at Tom in silence for another moment, then bit his lip and almost shyly asked, "Erm, do you want to watch a movie or something? Ron's dad rigged up a magic-compatible Muggle telly and VCR for me that mostly works—it only melts the tapes about half the time."
Tom blinked, looking surprised by the offer. "What do you propose we watch?" he asked after a moment, adding in a teasing tone, "The Bodyguard?"
"Actually I was thinking Star Wars—it's sort of about magic, and there are aliens and space battles, and a scary powerful bad guy with a V name—I think you might like it."
Tom quirked an eyebrow at him, and Harry thought for a moment that he might actually accept, but then he looked away. "Perhaps another time," Tom said, standing up from the sofa and stretching. "I've had my fill of sitting in one spot for today."
Harry felt a slight blush stain his cheeks, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Right. Sorry again, about that."
"It's fine," Tom said dismissively, heading for the door. "Good night."
"Night," Harry said as Tom left the room.
Alone now, Harry frowned and cast a Tempus—it was 9:38 PM. It had still been daytime when he'd fallen asleep on Tom—he found it a little hard to process that Tom had let him sleep on top of him for three or four hours. Did it mean anything? Did Tom actually want his company on some level? He had been running his hand through Harry's hair…almost…affectionately?
No, stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. "Don't read into it," Harry reminded himself out loud. Don't make it more than it is. He always did that, and it always screwed everything up. "He doesn't like you, and he doesn't want you." He tried to say it sternly, but it came out in a whisper. It still hurt.
Harry let himself wallow for a moment longer, then he finally stood and dragged himself off to bed.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A week passed.
Harry and Tom fell into an awkward but only slightly tense pattern of cohabitation. Harry managed not to give any more accidental orders. Tom grew less prickly and would indulge Harry in casual conversation over meals. And if Harry happened upon Tom in the sitting room or the library, Tom would stretch one arm out over the back of the sofa or the chair next to him in silent invitation, and he would allow Harry to settle in against his side without complaint. Harry managed to fall asleep on him again twice, and both times he'd woken up to Tom's fingers carding through his hair. Neither of them ever commented on that.
Things were going relatively well, but it didn't surprise Harry that his sleep was still sporadically plagued with nightmares. It didn't surprise him that he dreamed of everyone he'd ever loved telling him they had never actually cared about him—that he was a freak and a burden and that he should've died a hundred times over.
It didn't even surprise him that he woke himself up tonight shouting in his sleep.
What did surprise him, was that when his eyes flew open and he sat up in his bed in a panic, the door to the hallway was open and there were gentle hands on his shoulders and a soothing voice telling him, "Breathe, Harry. You're safe. It was just a nightmare."
"Tom?" Harry asked shakily, still trying to reorient himself and shake off the remnants of the nightmare. The light from the hallway was dim but it cast enough of a glow into the room that he could see Tom sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning halfway over Harry to comfort him. "What are you doing?" Tom hadn't voluntarily set foot in Harry's bedroom since the day he'd given him his wand back and also given him that disastrous accidental order.
Tom pinned him with an unreadable stare and said, "I heard you shouting."
"Shit, sorry—I forgot to put up the silencing spells." Harry ran a frustrated hand through his own hair, then muttered, "Won't happen again."
Tom blinked at him. "You sleep with silencing spells on your bed? Because of nightmares?"
Harry nodded, embarrassed. Then he glanced up and asked somewhat doubtfully, "Did you really hear me from all the way down the hall?"
Tom frowned slightly, then admitted, "I only slept in the farthest room on my first night here… the bond didn't like me being so far away, so on the second night I moved to the room right next to yours."
Harry blinked at him a few times, then said, "I thought the proximity thing gave you the run of wherever I live?"
"Technically, yes. But it's been wanting me to stay closer to you, lately."
"M'sorry," Harry said through a yawn. "You can sleep with me," he offered without thinking. Then he froze as he realized what he'd said. "I mean—just to sleep. If you want. You don't have to, obviously. I only meant—"
"I don't think that would be a good idea," Tom interrupted, his tone guarded and his expression wary in a way it hadn't been since his first couple days with Harry.
Fuck—and he'd been doing so well. Now he'd gone and ruined the easy peace they'd established by being his needy, clingy, pathetic self again. Harry tried to backtrack, rambling, "No, you're right, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, obviously you don't want—"
A gentle wave of wandless magic tingled over him, and Harry found his mouth forced closed in some variation of a Langlock. He blinked, then glanced up to cautiously meet Tom's eyes.
"Breathe," Tom reminded him, seeming amused and exasperated but still slightly wary. "It's fine," Tom continued after giving Harry a moment to pull himself together. "I know you didn't mean anything untoward by it."
Harry let out a sigh of relief, then forced a self-depreciating smile and gestured vaguely at himself before rolling his eyes.
Tom raised an eyebrow, then wandlessly undid the Langlock. "What was that? I don't speak Silent Self-Criticism."
"It's nothing. Just, I'm sorry…for being like this. Being too clingy and always saying the wrong thing and asking for too much."
Tom blinked, looking unsure before saying, "Harry—"
There was a sudden pop, and Kreacher appeared in the room. "Master Harry, someone was just testing the perimeter wards again," he announced, tugging nervously at his ears.
"Damn it, Kreacher," Harry muttered, sighing in exasperation. He'd really wanted to know what Tom had been about to say. "I told you to stop waking me up about that unless they actually get in."
"Master Harry is already awake this time," Kreacher said slyly.
"But did they get in?" Harry asked, frustration creeping into his tone.
"No, Master Harry."
"Then I don't need to hear about it."
Kreacher turned to leave, muttering under his breath about intruders and irresponsibility and the affront to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
Tom glanced from Harry to the house elf, and said, "Hold on—Kreacher?"
Kreacher paused in the doorway and gave Tom a wary look before asking, "Yes, Master Tom?" Harry had told Kreacher to listen to and obey Tom the same way he would Harry—he felt a bit icky and guilty about it, considering how Voldemort had used Kreacher as a lab rat in the past. Kreacher complied though, and he didn't seem to have any inkling that Tom was Voldemort, but he always seemed a little tenser whenever Tom was around.
"Someone's been trying to break through the wards?" Tom asked.
Sensing an ally, Kreacher seemed to set aside his wariness of Tom and he stepped back into the room. "Oh yes, Master Tom. Every night this week! Poking at the noble and most ancient protections—"
Tom turned towards Harry and demanded, "I thought you had a Fidelius over this house?"
"Yeah, I do," Harry said, thrown by the worry in Tom's tone. "That's why I'm not stressing over it—even if some random fan or leftover Dark wizard is poking at the perimeter wards, they won't get through the Fidelius."
"You're missing the rather obvious point that 'some random fan or leftover Dark wizard' shouldn't even know that there's anything to poke at. They shouldn't be able to get close enough to try or even know that there's a house here if the Fidelius is working properly."
"You think it isn't?" Harry asked, his stomach twisting with worry.
"I think you shouldn't take any chances. We should redo the Fidelius."
Harry blinked and said, "Don't you think you're overreacting a bit?"
"No," Tom said coldly, "in fact I think it was remarkably negligent of you not to tell me about this the first time it happened."
Harry frowned, glanced briefly at Kreacher, and then threw a quick Muffliato around himself and Tom before saying, "You're not actually my bodyguard, you know."
"No, I'm your slave," Tom snapped, angry like he always was whenever he had to explicitly acknowledge it. "I quite literally have no other option but to live here with you, so I would appreciate it if you'd put an effort into keeping the property safe, Master," he said, tacking on the title with a scathing hiss.
Harry sighed and ran his hand through his hair, and then cancelled the Muffliato with a lazy wave of his hand. "Kreacher? Is whoever it was still trying to get in?"
"Not anymore, Master Harry."
"Okay," he said, catching Tom's eye instead. "Can we deal with this tomorrow? Obviously I haven't been sleeping well, and I'm bloody exhausted."
Tom scoffed in disbelief, and said, "Oh, certainly—let's just deal with it tomorrow. And never mind if someone breaks in tonight and murders us in our beds, or sets Fiendfyre to the house."
Harry rubbed his eyes and then kept them closed, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on. "Tom, I don't want to argue, all right? Just go to bed."
Tom let out a quiet hiss that Harry thought would turn out to be something in Parseltongue, but evidently it was just a noise of frustration. Then Harry felt the bed dip, and his eyes flew back open to watch Tom climb over him and lay down on the other side of Harry's bed.
"Erm?" Harry said when he finally found his voice. "I sort of meant your own bed."
"Well you didn't specify that," Tom snipped under his breath so only Harry would hear. "This is a bed and I'm in it—order fulfilled."
"Damn it… I didn't mean to," Harry said, realizing too late that he'd just broken his No Accidental Orders streak.
Tom ignored him and instead called, "Kreacher? Keep a very close eye on the wards and wake me immediately if anyone tries to break through them again."
Kreacher perked up, happily chiming, "Yes, Master Tom," before popping out of the room to keep watch.
For a long moment, neither Harry nor Tom spoke. Then Harry finally gathered up his nerve and said, "What if we don't redo the Fidelius? What if we set a trap for whoever it is instead, and catch them next time they try?"
Harry had been trying to ignore the situation and not worry about the would-be intruder, but if Tom thought it was a genuine threat, perhaps he shouldn't be so dismissive.
Tom was silent for so long that Harry assumed he wouldn't get a reply. He glanced over, wondering if Tom had fallen asleep, but his eyes were open and he was staring at the ceiling with a distant, thoughtful expression. "Perhaps," Tom finally said, "we could set up a second layer of wards farther inside the property than the first, and intentionally create a weak spot in the original outer wards. This intruder will think they've gotten through, but when the first wards are breached it'll spring a trap in the second set."
Harry considered it, then asked, "Just how Dark is whatever trap you're thinking of?"
Tom scoffed quietly. "Oh, not Dark at all," he said, his tone dripping sarcasm, "it'll turn the intruder into a fluffy kitten and hold them in place with a rainbow."
Harry snorted and failed to suppress a laugh. He glanced over at where Tom was laying next to him, and asked through a smile, "Seriously though?"
"Seriously," Tom said, still staring up at the ceiling, "I was thinking a conditional anti-apparition ward and a blood-bound Trespasser's Hex."
"What's that second one?" Harry asked, unfamiliar with it.
"Blood magic," Tom said, sounding bored. "We would draw sigils in the four corners of the house, and anyone whose blood wasn't used in the sigils becomes trapped in place once they cross the threshold of the house, until the owner grants permission for them to leave."
"Is that legal?"
"Not exactly."
Harry sighed. "Any other ideas? Legal ones?"
"Yes. Redo the Fidelius."
Harry sighed again, and decided that the discussion was over. "Goodnight, Tom." There was no response, so after a minute or two had passed, Harry glanced over again and asked in a whisper, "Are you really staying?" He tried not to sound too hopeful, but probably failed.
Tom glanced over, finally meeting Harry's eyes. He seemed to study Harry's expression in the near-darkness for a long moment. Then he sat up and pushed himself out of bed, and Harry's heart sank a little.
"Goodnight, Harry," he said, turning back for a moment as he paused in the doorway. Then he stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind him.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Something was wrong with the slave bond.
Tom had started noticing it on his second day of living with Harry—he'd been truthful with the young man about that—although he hadn't realized the extent of it then. The proximity requirement started growing more and more insistent each day, like an itch under his skin that he couldn't reach. It wanted him closer to Harry at all times. The only time it completely shut up was when he and Harry were touching.
With the revelation of Harry's touch-starvation during Granger's visit, Tom thought he could solve the problem without Harry ever realizing that there was a problem. He would 'grudgingly' allow Harry to sit curled up against him and win favor with his Master, and at the same time he would win himself some relief from the constant urging of the proximity requirement. He had never expected it to escalate so much or so quickly.
He'd had to switch bedrooms, because thirty feet down the hall was evidently too far away to stay overnight now. But that was just the beginning—lately he'd found himself fighting the urge to take Harry's hand across the breakfast table or brush their legs together underneath it. He'd found himself almost constantly staying in public rooms of the house so Harry would find him and sit with him. He'd started running his hand through Harry's hair whenever he fell asleep next to him, distracted by the smell of it and the feel of it against his fingers. He'd started actually enjoying it when Harry fell asleep against his side, because it meant at least a few hours of uninterrupted peace.
He'd found himself almost saying yes and to hell with the consequences just moments ago when asked if he truly intended to sleep in Harry's bed.
If it was just the proximity requirement, that would've been manageable. Tolerable.
But it wasn't just proximity anymore—he'd also started feeling a dull, distant tug at his magic, a lesser echo of the way he'd felt before the bond had been consummated. The bond was very slowly starting to draw from his magic again. And that was just unacceptable.
He'd noticed it a week ago, on the night he'd sent that book flying towards Harry's head (and wasn't that a fun loophole, that he could throw things near Harry as long as he didn't intend to actually hit him). It took more magic than it should've, and afterwards, it felt like his magic was…leaking. Like sand slowly leaking one grain at a time out of a hairline-fractured hourglass. It was slow now, but if it kept up it would eventually drain his magic and then start on his life force.
He'd immediately gone through the rather extensive Black library, poring over anything he could find about runes or bonding rituals. Sometimes Harry would wander into the library, and Tom would pull the chair next to him closer and put his arm around the back of it, luring Harry in beside him. Harry never asked more than a few cursory questions about what Tom was reading—perhaps because of the overly wordy and unnecessarily convoluted answers Tom gave him—and Harry tended to either get absorbed in a Quiddich book or a novel, or simply fall asleep against Tom's shoulder.
After an entire week of research, he still had no answers other than his own rather bleak conclusion that the slave bond was somehow malfunctioning, but he didn't know why or how to fix it. It had been so damned long since Tom had originally researched Magical Conquest, and in all honesty he'd stopped reading and dismissed it as soon as he learned that the master would have to claim the slave sexually as well as magically. He'd already been leaning towards 'no' because of the inconvenient proximity requirement, but the idea of rape had always disgusted him, and he'd slammed the book closed and decided to go another route. The book was one that had passed through Borgin and Burke's while Tom had worked there, and it had been sold only a few days after Tom's perusal—he didn't remember who bought it, and doubted that it was possible to track it down again after so many decades.
He wished now that he'd at least finished researching Magical Conquest despite knowing he wouldn't be invoking it. But he never would've imagined that he would one day be on the other end of it, and by his own doing, at that.
Tom stared up at the ceiling in his own room, fighting the urge to go back to Harry's room and crawl back into his bed. Damned proximity ward. Damned malfunctioning slave bond.
The news about the would-be intruder was a welcome distraction—depending on how it played out, it could be either an opportunity to gain more of Harry's favor and trust by helping capture the intruder, or, depending on how far the intruder got and how deadly their intentions were, this could become an opportunity for Harry's death to sever the slave bond. Obviously it would all depend on who the intruder was—if it was just some obsessed stalker who wanted to sniff Harry's underpants, then Tom would capture them and win himself points with Harry. If it was someone with more lethal intentions, Tom might find himself tragically just a little too slow to stop them.
But all of this was conjecture—he didn't know if or when the person would try again, or if they would succeed in getting in, or if they would fall for a ward trap, or if Harry would even agree to do anything about it instead of just relying on the existing wards like he'd been doing so far.
The more pressing issue was whatever had gone wrong with the slave bond. Every day that went by meant another tiny fraction of his magic lost forever. At this rate, it would take a month or two to actually affect his functioning, but even his power stores weren't inexhaustible.
But he didn't intend to let it get that far. He would figure this out, and he would fix it, and he would survive. In the meantime, he would just have to stay extra close to Harry.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Harry woke up the next day to a brown barn owl tapping rather insistently on his window. He rolled out of bed, yawning and reaching for his glasses on the nightstand. Then he stood, stretched, and walked over to the window to let the owl in.
As he did, he spotted a second owl perched on the windowsill, waiting much more patiently. It was an eagle owl, and Harry blinked before swallowing nervously, thinking 'surely not.'
He took the letters from both owls and fed them each a treat. The barn owl took off immediately, but the eagle owl perched itself on his bedpost and waited.
Harry sighed, and decided that the eagle owl could just keep waiting, because he was opening the other letter first. He flipped the envelope over, and realized it was sealed with a wax stamp of the Hogwarts crest.
Not sure what to expect, he opened the letter, and was only slightly disappointed to learn it was a rejection from McGonagall—on both requests. Apparently she'd called in a favor from an old acquaintance, and the DADA position had been filled just the day before Hermione had visited Harry. And she wrote that she'd discussed it with the Board of Governors and they'd insisted that the presence of a bodyguard would be disruptive to other students. They'd also said it would imply that Hogwarts wasn't safe enough on its own, and would be counterproductive to the sense of normalcy McGonagall and the rest of the staff were trying to reestablish. The letter went on to tell Harry that he should return anyway, imploring him to finish his education and to treat "eighth year" as a chance to recover from the war, reconnect with his classmates, and figure out what to do with his future.
Harry scoffed and tossed the letter onto his nightstand. He felt a glimmer of relief that McGonagall had effectively made the decision about Hogwarts for him—if Tom couldn't come, then Harry couldn't go. Simple as that. The proximity rule of the slave bond wouldn't allow them to be separated by that far for that long without strangling Tom.
The eagle owl hooted quietly, reminding Harry it was still there.
Harry sighed, and grabbed another owl treat, stroking the owl's feathers as it accepted the treat.
He sat down on the bed with the second letter in his hand, took a deep breath to steel himself, and then tore open the envelope with trembling fingers.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Tom was laying in bed regretting his life choices when he heard a muffled noise that might've been a sob through the wall that divided his room from Harry's. He glanced at the wall, listening in case he would hear it again—he didn't, but he heard a loud crash instead.
He grabbed his wand from under his pillow and jumped out of bed. He ran to Harry's room, not pausing to knock on the door before opening it, wand raised—his first thought was that the intruder had gotten in and somehow prevented Kreacher from telling him. He was not expecting to see Harry sitting on his bed clutching a piece of parchment in his hand and crying silently, nor was he expecting to nearly trip over the smashed remains of what had once been a wooden nightstand.
"What happened?" Tom demanded. "Where's the intruder?"
Harry blinked at him with a blank stare for a moment, then he huffed out a humorless laugh and said, "No intruder. Just me and Ulysses."
At that point, Tom noticed the vaguely familiar owl that was perched on Harry's bedpost and surveying the destruction with a distinct air of disapproval.
Tom put his wand away, then took a cautious step closer and asked, "Are you all right?"
Harry's expression grew pinched and he shook his head 'no.'
"What happened?"
Harry sniffled and said, "McGonagall wrote back—she already found someone to be the Defense professor, and she said I can't bring a bodyguard because it would be 'too disruptive' or some shit. So I'm not going back."
Tom tilted his head and studied Harry for a moment, then said, "You didn't seem very invested in returning to Hogwarts in the first place. Why are you so upset?"
He stepped closer to the bed, and noticed a second piece of parchment on the floor. He called it to his hand with a tug of wandless magic, and quickly read it—this was the letter from McGonagall. He glanced up at Harry, who was watching him with a dull expression
Tom sat down on the edge of the bed close to Harry, much like he'd done the night before. He deduced that the paper in Harry's hand was not part of McGonagall's missive, and asked quietly, "Who sent the second letter?"
Harry blinked and his expression sharpened for a moment, locking eyes with Tom before looking away. He reached up to wipe at his eyes, then said, "It's from Draco."
"Ah," Tom said. He waited for Harry to elaborate, and when he didn't, Tom prompted, "May I read it?"
Harry clutched the letter tighter in his hand, crinkling the parchment. That was a clear 'no' then. Harry sniffed, then said, "He thanked me for speaking for him at his trial back in June and keeping him and his mum out of Azkaban. Says he's still technically under house arrest, but that he has to go back to Hogwarts for eighth year as part of his probation. He…he's saying he only pushed me away to protect me. That when he ended things and said there was no future for us, he literally didn't think he would have a future if he failed the task you gave him, so he broke it off so it would hurt me less when he d—" Harry's voice broke and he put a hand over his mouth to muffle a sob.
Tom gritted his teeth, feeling a surge of possessiveness. He also felt oddly threatened by the prospect of the Malfoy boy trying to reconnect with Harry. Where would that leave Tom? If he was forced to be completely reliant upon Harry, then at the very least, he demanded to be Harry's first priority and most important person in return.
He took a deep breath and hoped that the slave bond would recognize the nuance between the forbidden 'malicious manipulation' and just plain selfish manipulation. Harry was his.
"Oh, Harry," he said softly, his tone meant to be comforting but with the slightest hint of amused condescension. "You don't actually believe any of that, do you?"
Harry blinked at him through watery eyes. "Why shouldn't I?"
Tom sighed and said, "Because it's an obvious ploy that even a first year should see through?" Harry glared at him but Tom continued, "I know better than anyone how Slytherins operate, Harry. The war's over now, so he's trying to redeem his reputation by taking up with 'the Savior,' and he's trying to rewrite history to make you forgive him. When have you ever known Draco or any Slytherin to do something for selfless reasons? If he'd wanted you, he would've kept you—and that goes double if he honestly didn't think he'd survive."
"That's not—"
Tom didn't let him interrupt. "Let me guess—he wrote something about getting back together and going public with your relationship this time?" he said, raising an expectant eyebrow.
Harry's face fell, and he mumbled, "He said he wouldn't want us to hide anymore, but—"
"But nothing," Tom said decisively. "Have some self-respect and don't let anyone use you like that."
Harry's hurt eyes locked with Tom's and he didn't look away for a long moment. Then he sniffled again, and said, "Yeah… Yeah, I suppose you're right." He crumpled the letter in his hand and threw it over the edge of the bed.
Tom waited a moment, then wandlessly Summoned the letter and quickly read through it. Harry didn't comment or make any move to stop him. Tom finished reading and frowned, because it actually seemed like Draco might be at least partially genuine in what he'd written. But what Tom said aloud was, "I'm sorry." He wasn't sorry. "I know you wanted to believe him, but—"
"But who could ever really love me or want to be with me without an ulterior motive, right?
Tom blinked. "That is not what I was going to say," he said emphatically. This self-esteem issue was really turning out to be an annoyance. One that Tom could use to his advantage, but still.
"It's true though," Harry said, sounding near tears again as he ran one anxious hand through his already-messy hair. "I'm too fucked up for anyone to really love me. Or even just be with me. I scare everybody off in the end."
Tom found himself—for perhaps the first time in his life—at a total loss for words. He definitely didn't want to encourage Harry to date Draco or anyone else because it would mean losing a significant amount of influence over his master, and because he found the idea of anyone being with his Horcrux that way distasteful. But at the same time, Tom hadn't laid the right kind of groundwork to try to claim that he himself was romantically or even just sexually interested in Harry… And that wasn't a route he was sure he wanted to go anyway, because of the power imbalance and Harry's obsessive tendencies and a few minor lingering concerns about what Harry might demand of him.
"Well," Tom finally said, still not sure what to say but not wanting to let the silence convince Harry that he agreed, "perhaps you just haven't met the right person yet." Eugh. That was terrible.
Harry made a noise that was part laugh and part scoff and said, "Wow. Please spare me the platitudes. I can't handle that kind of bullshit from you."
"It isn't bullshit," Tom lied, doubling down because he hadn't come up with anything better yet. "You can be a bit… intense, yes, but you just need to evaluate someone's compatibility more thoroughly before you get too invested."
"Sure, I'll just start asking people right off the bat if they're looking for a clingy, touch-starved, obsessive, traumatized—"
"No," Tom interrupted firmly, shutting down the self-criticism. "You would just need to find someone who enjoys having your constant attention, and who wants to be the center of your world."
Harry scoffed. "So one of my obsessed fans, then? Great. I'll put out an advert in the Daily Prophet."
Tom sighed and gave up. He was starting to get seriously annoyed with Harry's self-depreciation. Someone who carried half of Tom's soul shouldn't think so poorly of himself. He scooted closer to Harry on the edge of the bed, then turned and pulled his legs up to rest alongside Harry's.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked, sounding anxious. "I didn't order anything, did I? If I did, then cancel it."
"Hush," Tom said, settling in next to Harry with his back against the headboard. He reached out and put his arm around Harry's shoulders, and Harry practically melted into his side. After a moment, Tom asked, "Why did you destroy your nightstand? I would've thought you'd be happy at first, after reading his letter."
Harry sighed. "I was, for about two seconds until I remembered the other letter. Draco has to go to Hogwarts as part of his probation. I can't go, because I can't take you with me."
"So you were angry with me?" Tom asked carefully.
Harry shook his head slightly where it was pressed to Tom's shoulder. "No. Not at you—just at the situation, I guess. And I was upset with myself to think that I'd misread him back then—that I'd let him fool me into thinking he didn't care while he was actually being selfless and trying to protect me." He went quiet for a minute, then said in a bitter tone, "I suppose it's for the best that we can't go to Hogwarts, if he was only trying to manipulate me. I don't think I could handle seeing him every day."
Tom made a vaguely affirmative "Mmhm," noise. He squeezed his arm around Harry's shoulder a little tighter, then rubbed Harry's upper arm in what he hoped was a soothing manner.
Harry seemed to relax against him even more, and he reached for Tom's free hand, entwining their fingers and lifting their clasped hands up to press a quick kiss to the back of Tom's hand.
"Thank you," Harry murmured, while Tom was still blinking in surprise and staring at their joined hands. "I know you don't really care, but thank you for being nice about it."
Tom blinked a few more times, then cautiously said, "You're welcome."
Neither of them said anything else for a long time, and Tom started to wonder whether Harry had fallen asleep on him again.
"Harry?" he asked quietly, not loud enough to wake him if he was actually asleep.
"Hmm?" Harry answered.
Tom squeezed his hand, and said, "Why don't we go watch that Space Battle movie?"
Harry laughed. "You mean Star Wars?"
"You knew what I meant, obviously," Tom said, rolling his eyes.
"Do you really want to?" Harry asked, sitting up and looking Tom in the eyes, seeming nervous.
"Your description of it piqued my interest," he said casually.
Harry grinned. "All right, let's go," he said, his nervousness turning into excitement as he climbed out of the bed, still holding onto Tom's hand. Harry tugged him towards the door, pausing to pull his wand and cast a hasty Reparo on the wreckage of the nightstand.
Ulysses the eagle owl seemed to finally realize he wasn't going to get the return letter he was told to wait for, so he flapped his wings and took off from the bedpost, flying across the room and out the still-open window.
From the doorway, Tom looked over his shoulder and smiled. With a flick of his hand he closed the window, and then wandlessly set fire to the crumpled letter on the floor, reducing it to ash in seconds, before snuffing out the flame and letting Harry pull him out of the room.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A/N: …Did I plan to post a chapter featuring a flashback of the Battle of Hogwarts on actual May 2nd, the anniversary of said battle? No, I did not, but it worked out that way and I think that's beautiful :) It's still May 2nd for another hour or so in my time zone :)
Happy upcoming Star Wars Day too! May the 4th be with you :)
Also, for a while I fully intended to have them go to Hogwarts, but the more I thought about how I want this fic to go, the more it just wouldn't work. So…yeah. I hope nobody's too horribly disappointed about that. Unlike my other 2 WIPs, I didn't start out already knowing where this one is going.
Comments give me life!