"Charm me. Furiously.

Torment me. In detail."

There was a soothing quality in sinking into the shelves of Flourish and Blotts. Apart from the chaos of the main area, where the editions needed by the students were stored, the rest of the aisles were silent. Surely isolated by a Silencing Charm, so the other customers couldn't be affected by the cries of teenagers—totally ecstatic about their summer and the imminent return to Hogwarts.

Harry found Tom with his nose buried in a third year edition of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Either way, Harry wasn't surprised. What intrigued him was that, around Tom, there was no basket or any other purchase.

Harry handed him an ice cream from Florean Fortescue's, a little something picked up on the way to celebrate the good news from Gringott's. "Still haven't bought your supplies yet?"

Without looking up from his reading, Tom raised his wrist. The loose sleeve of his robe rolled up to his elbow and exposed his holstered wand. Not having finished growing yet, the tip of Tom's wand protruded several centimetres until it reached the beginning of his fingers.

"That's all?... Wait. How did you get the holster?"

The dragon hide used for crafting is incredibly expensive, but the biggest cost of this item is the enormous charm inventory applied to it, thus making them resistant to invocations, to any damage, and to the wear and tear of time. It was usually a gift given to mark the end of studies at Hogwarts—something that Harry had never been able to do. Of all his many lives, he had chosen to never return and study there; the memory of the Great hall being used to line up the fallen during the Battle of Hogwarts still haunted him.

Tom allowed himself a few more lines of reading before closing his book. He leaned against one of the shelves, judged the ice cream up and down, then rubbed his eyelids in exasperation.

He hissed something in Parseltongue, something Harry could barely decipher as, 'Great, I'll have to sell it now.' Then he would move his hand away from his eyes and speak more clearly, "Olivander gave it to me. Where is your friend?"

"Uh ok...? I asked her to run an errand for me. So why haven't you bought anything yet besides your wand?"

"Why? Because plans have changed. We're staying at the Leaky Cauldron. A room costs a few Sickles a week. Between the two of us—" He glared hatefully at the ice cream. "We'll have just enough to stay here until the start of the school year if we use our scholarships from Hogwarts."

Originally, the plan consisted of two steps: move quickly at Diagon Alley to get their school supplies. Then, afterwards, they would bury themselves deep in the countryside in order to flee the conflict that was taking place in the cities. At the time, the plan suited their magical and financial limitations when they were still at the orphanage, but now... everything had changed.

"Don't you want to start with the ice cream first? You're melting it just by the way you look at it."

When Harry saw one of Tom's eyelids twitch, he knew what to expect—that included the sudden darkness that hung over the bookstore shelf.

"Are you doing this on purpose? I'm telling you that we barely have enough money for a room here and you use your money—not even for your school supplies, but for ice cream! Are you just stupid or careless?"

Harry shrugged off the insult. "Maybe both, who knows? In the meantime I have it now, and can't get a refund. Eat, I'm sure it will do you good considering how grumpy you are..."

"You're infuriating," Tom said with a long suffering sigh.

"Eat it… Or I will."

Tom glared at Harry, but grabbed the ice cream, grumbling, "you and your nonsense ."

Harry waited for Tom to stop glaring at him and take a few bites. Harry's cheeks were getting sore from the uncontrollable smile that stretched across his lips.

He resumed, "the book you were reading, is it interesting?"

Bringing up the subject of the books seemed to soften Tom a bit. "Very. The ones introducing the basics of potions are too…" He trailed off and his shoulders slumped slightly. "I memorized as much as I could—"

Harry interrupted, "take them."

"I have already told you, we don't have enough..." Tom's eyes sharpened. " Would you know how to steal them? "

"What! No! I'll buy them!"

The other boy raised an eyebrow as he took another bite of his ice cream, as if asking Harry to elaborate. At this point, Harry couldn't contain his smile anymore. He took out of his pocket a bag from Gringotts filled with galleons and displayed it gloriously in front of Tom... who choked on his ice cream. His next reaction was... well, surprising?

He let the book and his ice cream fall on the floor, summoned his wand in hand and dragged Harry out of the bookshop at full speed. "I told you not to do anything stupid without me! Damn it, Peverell!"

"But I didn't do anything!" cried Harry taken aback.

" 'Cause for you rob the same bank again is not totally stupid?!"

"Riddle!" cried Harry who continued to run, dragged by force. "Riddle, stop! Damn it!—Please! Stop! Tom! "

The effect was immediate. Tom stopped dead in his tracks. How he had managed to lead them so quickly in the middle of Knockturn Alley remained a mystery.

"This money is mine. It belongs to me. Not because I stole it!" Harry was panting, his heart racing. "Do you understand? We can take and buy what we want. Even go where we want! Everything is fine."

Tom's face remained frozen in the same expression of bewilderment. Exactly as shocked as when he first met Death.

To prove his point, Harry reached into one of his robe's pockets and pulled out two small golden keys. "Look! Do you know what this is?"

"Keys. From Gringotts." Tom recognized the bank crest, but didn't say openly that he didn't know how that explained anything.

"I didn't know that I met a certain condition to inherit an atrocious sum of money. Not from my parents, but from an ancestor. Now it belongs to me. One of these keys opens my new vault, which contains a part of this inheritance."

Tom took a sharp breath. "And the other one? What does it open?"

Harry held out the concerned key. "Yours."

A beat of silence. "Mine?" repeated Tom hoarsely. "I don't have a vault."

"Now, yes. I've put some money aside for you. I wanted to make sure you would never have to go back to Wool—"

"It's destroyed," Tom said dryly.

"Not for long. I asked my old friend if she could find a contractor who could rebuild it fast enough with a bunker there the kids—"

"Do you feel sorry for them?" Tom growled, "do you feel pity for me too? Is that the reason for the money? I don't need it if it's because you're crying over my life Peverell!"

Unlike all the other times Tom had been angry, his fury was not cold. It was hot, furious. Emotional. It shot through the atmosphere without sparing Harry, who felt contaminated by it.

Tom retraced his steps, at Harry's level he shoved him with his shoulder. This was too much, the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Riddle!" Harry screamed at the top of his lungs. "You don't seem to want to understand that human beings can be nice! For you, everything comes with a price! So take that money because that's what I owe you!"

Tom wasn't slowing his steps, but his shoulders tensed. "You owe me nothing!"

"Oh yeah, really?" Harry retorted sarcastically. "Because as far as I know, you're the one who closed the damn hole in my chest. Am I wrong? Are you not the one who constantly makes my heart beat?"

Tom suddenly turned to Harry, his eyes slightly wide.

"What! You thought I wouldn't know? If my heart stops, it's final."

Because he didn't need it. Death's magic was enough to make his body function as if nothing had happened. What Tom was doing was an impressive spell work. A heart massage that worked all the time thanks to the constant supply of some of Tom's magic. A genius sprinkled with magical ability that was beyond comprehension.

"I don't—I didn't…"

"You're not going to admit it? Alright. So what? You're also going to claim that you killed those soldiers just for fun? Coming from you that would be almost believable—"

"They shot you right in front of me!" cried Tom. "At the church I thought I had already seen you dead once and I didn't hesitate to burn the priest's face. Why should I have stopped myself from doing worse to them than that?!"

"Shit!" Harry gasped in shock. "Is that why they locked you up? "

Tom's eyes flashed wildly. "And? If I had to do it again, I wouldn't change anything…If only to see that jerk screaming again." He paused for a moment to look away. As if to find a way to ground himself in reality, he gripped his wand tighter. "When the air raid started, you had already been unconscious for two days. They weren't coming for me... So, I knew they wouldn't get you out of there either— "

Harry interrupted him by hugging him. Something that contrasted all of these screams. It was comforting. Tom remained frozen in his arms, totally still, his breath cut off.

"Why don't you want to see that we just care about each other?" Harry whispered.

"No," he croaked. "I just need you to…" his voice died, at a loss for words to add. "I don't. I really don't care."

"If you don't, I do. I care about you."

Tom grew even stiffer in Harry's arms. "Peverell. Don't be weak. "

"This is not a weakness and I will prove you wrong… Not now. Not tomorrow. But one day, you'll see."

Harry moved away without completely detaching himself. In front of Tom, he showed the key to the vault he had opened for him and slipped it into Tom's robe pocket. "Keep it. A reminder of why I gave it to you until that day comes."

The rest of the day passed in near silence.

Without consulting each other, they began to buy their school supplies. Harry wondered if he'd pushed things too far when he saw that Tom preferred to bury himself in his silence rather than ask him questions about what they were buying.

Sometimes, Harry would try to explain why this ingredient was useful, or how this trunk would be useful to Tom with its special compartment fitted to hold a whole library as large as the one at Hogwarts... But nothing worked, Tom only answered each time with a vague nod and went to occupy himself elsewhere. It was even reflected in his magic. A distant shadow that loomed close to Harry without him being able to reach it. The only good thing about his behaviour was that he didn't protest when Harry took charge of paying.

On his way out of Madam Malkin's Dresses for All Occasions—clothes were a family affair for the Malkins obviously, for there he met the mother of the Madam Malkin he knew in the 90's— Harry saw in the distance a warm orange light illuminating the sign decorated with hanging Quaffles. He was curious to see the broomsticks from that era. Since they had finished their shopping, he suggested that Tom meet him at the inn after he had had a look around the store, but Tom continued his silence and refused, still shaking his head vaguely.

Maybe Harry liked him better when he was angry. But he was willing to give him the time he needed to digest what they had talked about. He was even willing to admit that he didn't approach the conversation with finesse...

The interior of the Quidditch store smelled of new leather and wood wax. The wooden floor creaked pleasantly under their footsteps, Harry could also hear a crowd cheering for a point scored from a radio that was broadcasting a game. Seeing the brooms on display, Harry rushed to get a closer look. He grabbed a CleanSweep and judged it more closely.

"So... wizards really do fly on brooms?"

Harry flinches, unprepared to hear Tom's voice. The broom flew out of his hand and took the rest of the models on display with it.

In a moment of sheer panic, Harry forgot his magic. He rushed to catch the brooms before a domino effect occurred—and also, before the manager could ban him from the store. Harry quickly grabbed the fleeing brooms by their handles, stopping them dead in their tracks and in their potential devastation of the store. He breathed a sigh of relief, his arms full of brooms. Disaster was averted. Or not…

"I saw you! I've seen it all!" Came the booming voice of the manager.

Harry swallowed as he heard the floorboards suddenly creak much more eerily than when they entered the store. From the end of the aisle came a paunchy man with a smile that was more appropriate when you hit the jackpot than when you have a kid wrecking your store.

"Haven't seen anything like this since Llwellyn released a Bludger and caught him jumping over my counter! Look, now he's playing for the Caerphilly Catapults. I have an eye for this kind of thing, kid. And let me tell you that: you're fast. Fast as hell!"

"Thanks...?" Harry mumbled, as the stares of the other patrons began to fall on him.

"What are you? A first year? Wait. Don't move. We can't let the potential go to waste—"

The manager's words were lost on the crowd that was swarming around them as he turned back to his counter.

An uneasy feeling crept up on Harry. Really, at that moment, the store, so welcoming, seemed too narrow and suffocating. He got rid of the brooms and turned to Tom. The dark eyes studied Harry's expression for a brief second before acting. "

'Scuse us, sir!"

He wrapped his hand around Harry's wrist and led him quickly to the exit, splitting the crowd without regard to the scandalized gasps behind him as he shoved people out of his way like a rude child.

"I hear our parents calling us!" Tom pushed Harry out and poked his head through the door one last time. "We'll come back later!"

With that, they took long strides away from the hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley to the main public area of the Cauldron. Harry dropped like he was made of lead onto a vacant booth seat away from the noisy bar.

After breathing deeply for a while, he got rid of his glasses to massage his eyelids. "I hate crowds."

"I noticed..."

Harry had a faint exhausted laugh. What could escape Tom and his big genius brain to begin with?

"With strangers around you, you behave strangely. Just like your magic. It becomes volatile... Ready to fight. "

Harry opened his eyes again, and Tom took his place facing him. Even without his glasses, Harry could clearly see Tom's sharp eyes.

"You have a lot of secrets," he hissed conspiratorially, leaning forward. "So many that I'll need to raid the stationery store to get enough miles of parchment to list everything."

"What? Being undead isn't enough for you?"

Tom pointed an accusing finger at Harry. "That. That's when I'm digging where I shouldn't. Your damn humor to deflect the conversation."

In response, Harry covered part of his face with the back of his hand. Exposing his own chicken scratch handwriting scarred into his skin where it read, 'I must not tell lies'.

"Who knew? Being cursed develops the wit"

Tom had a spasm in his jaw, as if he was holding back very hard from biting something. He glared at the menu of the Cauldron. He pulled out his wand and with a sharp tap on it sent an order to the kitchen.

"I'll lie for the both of us then," he hissed.

Harry sighed. He knew what that meant. "Don't offer this to me expecting a counterpart. Instead, tell me directly what you want."

"What I want?" asked Tom. He leaned closer to Harry after a pause. "To inspect you like clockwork. Take apart your entire mechanism piece by piece. Find out how your gears tick." And then, he smirked. "Is that possible?"

Harry was silent for a moment, inwardly praying that Tom was only speaking figuratively. "You really don't want to ask me instead?"

Tom frowned with his sharp, suspicious black eyes. "Fine. Do you know why Olivander gave me the holster? 'Cause a family was before me. When I heard the Wandmaker mention the wood and the core, I realized that you had given me the component parts of my wand—" At this he unconsciously stroked the latter. "The right ones on top of that. How did you even know?"

Harry was cleaning his glasses in his robe to save time. His thoughts were racing again as he wondered if he would also be Tom's new trigger with his obsession with prophecies and divination—as if the whole death thing wasn't enough.

Putting on his glasses, Harry said, "I've said it before. I just know a lot of things."

Tom grunted and his hand tightened around his wand. No doubt eager to test all his new curses that he had learned earlier in the day. "I hate you. You and your half-truths."

"Cursed. Remember?"

"If I were you, I would be very careful about asking me to remember anything," Tom said in a low threatening voice. "I can memorize a whole shelf of books without any trouble, so just imagine the day when I get tired of what you're hiding from me? That day I'll drown you. Dip you so deep under all the little revelations you've accidentally dropped that you won't even be able to breathe ."

According to Harry, all the bookworms in the world suddenly became much more dangerous. He jerked back in his seat as the ordered plates appeared on their table. For good measure, Tom stabbed his meat and arched an eyebrow at Harry, daring him to retaliate.

Harry pulled out his wand…and ordered lavender tea from the menu. What he had promised himself if he got out of Gringott's alive. His nerves were worn out.

"Did Olivander tell you that you were destined to achieve great things?"

Wary, Tom responded only with a nod.

"There. That's the point. Between the day I talked about and the day you're actually speaking about, you need to hope that mine comes before yours."

"What if it's the other way around? If I pierce your secrets before... I refuse to say such nonsense," he hissed irritatedly. He cut a piece of his meat and chewed it fiercely, giving Harry a death glare. "How could proving that you care about me be so important? What happens if you don't make it before I put my finger on the truth?"

Harry's tea appeared before him, but this time he didn't flinch. His intensely green eyes plunged into those that would one day turn red. The smell of lavender wafted across their table as Tom's meat dripped with blood.

"Things will happen...terrible things."

"And you think you can stop them from happening?"

"No. I've been warned that I can't stop them occurring, unfortunately... But I keep hoping I can. Or, at least, that I can prevent the worst."

Tom stood still for several moments, his thoughtful gaze remaining in Harry's. "And these terrible things, I'm the main one responsible for them," he deduced. "What I can't figure out is the connection between that, what you're hiding from me, and the fact that you're trying to prove to me that you mean well."

Harry linked his hands around his cup. The lenses of his glasses were fogged with condensation from the tea, making the green of his eyes misty. Ghostly.

"There will be times when you are lost. And every time, it will be me who finds you." Around them, the sounds of the inn seemed to have fallen silent. The smell of lavender turned to that of mold and the liquid filmed with frost. "Times when you'll need to remind yourself that the only weakness is refusing to be helped. And I'll be there for that, in the times when you need it the most."

A bone-chilling coldness announced Death's arrival. Without the two boys giving her a glance she settled down beside Harry. When she put a hand on Harry's shoulder, he knew it was time. He instinctively raised the Deathstick and pointed it at Tom. The pupils of his dark eyes narrowed, as if in imminent danger.

Death's other hand curled around Harry's hand on the handle of his wand. She leaned into his ear and whispered, "if you think this is the way you want to take... Then do it. Do it now."

Harry pointed his own wand in the direction of his own face.

"What are you doing?!" Tom suddenly cried out.

"Dying, Tom ."

"What?! No, you can't! I forbid you to die!"

"Oh? Do you? Try me."

Tom leapt to his feet, his arm already outstretched to dispossess Harry of his wand, but a green spell drowned the Cauldron in its light.

The sparks of the deadly spell glowed in Harry's green, unearthly eyes as he winked at Tom. With a last breath he whispered, "we'll meet again."

In the general panic no one saw Harry's body slump on the table, and Tom's face turn livid as Death disappeared with a laugh and the corpse of her master.

Tom did not move. A child lost among the uncontrollable flow of customers who jostled to reach the exit. He remained motionless, an equally uncontrollable flow of emotions tearing at his chest. He didn't understand, everything had happened too fast! He didn't hallucinate Peverell's existence! ... But there was nothing left. No evidence.

Even his cup was gone. Just like his trunk containing his belongings that he had bought today and kept miniaturized on him. Or his wand. Really, it was as if Peverell had never existed.

This must be one of his tasteless jokes, Tom thought. Not a funny joke as usual. He abandoned his plate, his appetite strangely suppressed.

That night, Tom did not sleep a wink. He spent it watching the door of their room, waiting for a trickle of light to penetrate the darkness and reveal Harry's scrawny figure in the crack.

When the July dawn cradled the room, Tom still believed that Harry would return with a smile so big that it would distort the scar on his cheek, eye and forehead.

"Harry can't die," he said as he walked back into Diagon Alley. "He must be hidden."

In the alley of stores, a hand clutched Tom's shoulder. The owner of the quidditch store. He too remembered Harry. He too was looking for him. He was dragging Tom inside to try to get more information, he was worried about the news that was spreading: rumors about a terrible accident that had happened at the Cauldron.

"No, nothing happened," Tom denied as he looked at the exposed brooms that Harry had managed to catch before they escaped. "Nothing happened. Really nothing happened at the Cauldron."

"Well, if you say so...These are the latest models. Your friend would make an excellent seeker. I'm willing to give you a discount if you buy one as a gift."

Tom's expression darkened. "I don't have any—" He paused.

The hand in his pocket found something there. He was pulling out the key Harry had slipped into it.

Tom would grab a broom. When it was time to pay, the manager would tell him to ask Harry to stop by the store so they could talk.

Tom nodded and clutched the craft-wrapped broom like a lifeline. "He'll be back. He promised me we'd meet again."

Amid the shock and his denial, there was something else. Something Tom couldn't quite name. Harry's absence was digging deep into his chest. Tom was trying to figure out how to name the regret. The regret of another's life extinguished before his eyes.