Chapter 14

Tom watched with unease as the boy stared at him blankly, eyes glassed over and lips parted in shock. It was all right. He had planned for this; he knew exactly what words he should say to comfort and persuade him.

"Hello, Harry," he said softly, carefully reaching out to brush the tips of his fingers over the boy's cheek. His fingers came away wet.

Harry had begun to cry.

He half-expected the boy to run, half-expected the silent tears to turn into sobs and confused demands, requests for reassurances. I don't understand, what happened, what have I done. Harry said none of these.

He did run, scrambling out of bed and stumbling, but he didn't flee the room.

He ran instead for the bathroom, hand covering his mouth, and he barely made it to the toilet, where he threw up violently. Tom listened to the retching with distaste, before he slipped out of bed and tread onto the tile. He'd seen the mistresses at the orphanage comfort children who had the stomach flu, so he reached out and gently stroked Harry's hair in a graceful mimicry, his thumb brushing against the boy's scar. Perhaps it was just the last of the potion leaving his system.

Or perhaps not. Potter wrenched away from him, so much so that his head collided roughly with the porcelain wall, a strange echo of when the boy had flinched away from his touch and spilled the potion a week ago. Potter wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, never removing his eyes from Tom. He breathed harshly, chest heaving. He gagged once more.

"I know you're confused," Tom said soothingly, holding his hands out in front of him so that the boy could see him, making no sudden moves that could be perceived as a threat. "It's all right-"

"What are you playing at?" Potter demanded, ignoring the platitudes, voice shaking with suppressed rage. Tom paused; he'd expected the boy to be frightened and miserable for a while longer, but he'd expected anger as well; the boy had a temper, the only difference was that he could now direct it at Tom.

"I'm not 'playing' at anything," he said neutrally, deliberately calm. "You spilled the potion-"

"And you decided to toy with me?" the boy hissed, with more vehemence than expected.

"I wasn't...toying with you," Tom said, and it couldn't be that much of a lie if he wasn't lying right now. At least, not entirely. "I found that your company wasn't completely unbearable."

The boy froze, staring at Tom with wide eyes, speechless. Tom took the opportunity to begin threading his web of lies mixed with truths.

"I understand you're angry with me," Tom said quickly as though nervous, filled with false humility. "I did my best, and I apologize deeply for any offense I might have caused. Please believe me when I say that I do not believe that the entire connection we shared was a lie, at least not on my part. I quite like you."

The words fell from his lips like sugared rain, the lies falling more naturally than the truths, but at the same time he felt unsure which were the lies and which were the truths. Potter continued to stare at him, vulnerability in his trembling jaw and his quickening breath, as though close to tears.

"If I may be so bold," Tom said slowly, hoping the boy wouldn't flee or something else so inane. "You liked me before, didn't you? I suppose if you really wanted, I wouldn't mind terribly to try continuing, even now that it's worn off-"

Whatever reaction he'd been expecting, he hadn't expected this. Potter laughed; a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him, almost hysterical with disbelief. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Tom's neck.

"You think I-" Potter started incredulously, before breaking off, humorlessly laughing again and starting more coherently. "Look, I chased after you because of a love potion."

"Is it because I'm a man?" Tom asked bluntly.

The thought had occurred to him when he'd considered how the boy might react. He knew muggles had strong prejudices against their sort, both for their magic and their preferences, and from what the boy had told him, it sounded as though he'd been raised by some of the most bigoted of the lot.

"Is it because you're a-" Potter repeated disbelievingly, before letting out another dry laugh. "Are you so arrogant that you think that's the only reason I could possibly have for not liking you?"

"You did say...that half the school was infatuated with me," Tom said carefully, unsure where the boy led. "I assumed you meant the female half, so if these types of relations bother you, let me assure you-"

"This isn't about whether or not I'm- I'm- I'm gay!" Potter shouted, scrambling to his feet. Tom followed suit, albeit with more grace.

"Look, Harry, I understand you're upset," Tom said cautiously. "But it'll do no good to panic. It was an accident, outside either of our control-"

"Like bloody hell it was," Potter interrupted loudly, trying to edge around Tom towards the door. "Knowing you, you probably planned this!"

"You're the one who tripped," Tom snapped, momentarily forgetting his resolve to stay calm. He took a breath. "Harry, I don't know what I've done to earn your mistrust-"

Another poisonous laugh. "You're right, you don't even know the half of it."

"Then what did I do?" Tom demanded, even though the conversation had gotten off track. It seemed Potter held an unexpected grudge. He'd expected anger that Tom had taken "advantage" of the situation, not that he'd caused it. This was ridiculous; Potter had been the insufferable clutz.

"Well, you-" Potter started, and then stopped, eyes unfocused as though remembering something. "You watched while I nearly had my face burned off," he said blankly, as though realizing for the first time. Tom froze, but forced himself to respond immediately.

"I saved you-"

"No," Potter shook his head, the sardonic smile twisting his face horribly, the look in his eyes unafraid but absent, as if reliving the memory. "No, I saw you. I didn't mention it, because with the love potion, I told myself that you just froze up in surprise. I didn't want to guilt you. But Tom Riddle? Frozen in panic? Guilty? No, you watched. You waited until I got burned just so it'd be all the more impressive when you saved me."

The boy's hands had travelled up to the burn marks, brushing over them lightly in betrayed disbelief. Tom felt cold; this wasn't how it was supposed to go, this was beginning to go poorly-

"It wasn't intentional," he lied, not even having to feign the slightest edge of desperation in his voice. "I truly did just freeze up, I feel terribly guilty about not reacting fast enough-"

"You're lying," Potter hissed, green eyes blown wide. And Tom was lying, because he'd never felt guilty. He didn't regret his actions, he only regretted that Potter had somehow realized his very deliberate delay.

"I'm not," he insisted, stepping forward so that he stood closer to the boy, peering up from beneath his lashes appeasingly. "I am sorry."

"Sorry you got caught, maybe," Potter breathed. The boy had always had the oddest moments of insights, even when drugged. Tom struggled to regain control of the situation.

"Harry, please, if we could just talk," Tom pleaded softly, taking another step closer, and the boy pressed against the wall as though he thought he could escape through it. "I do like you. And even if you didn't like me before," he said, because with stinging humiliation and an unfamiliar sinking in his gut, he'd begun to think he'd misjudged, "Surely you can't hate me after everything we've been through? Do you really think that the love potion caused it all? Don't you think you might be able to feel something for me, without it?"

The cliché words sickened him, but the boy had been a hopeless romantic with the potion, so perhaps some of it had carried over. He might have started to love Tom even without the potion. Perhaps he just needed Tom to say it first. It wouldn't even matter if it wasn't true; Tom had seen how people went soft at the words.

He had to see. Leaning forward, he pressed a soft, chaste kiss to the corner of the boy's lips, ignoring the sour taste and how the boy shrank away from his touch. "Harry, I love-"

"You're just like your mother," Potter spoke over him, voice dull and terrible. "You planned this. And you deluded yourself into thinking that by now I would have fallen in love with you."

Tom froze, jerking away, mouth clicking shut. "What?"

They stared at each other, Harry in defiance and Tom lost, unused to people not reacting as he'd predicted. Tom felt his face burn, accompanied by a strange and unfamiliar pain in his chest; even if what he'd been about to say had been a lie, it was humiliating for Potter to cut him off like that, for the imbecile to suggest that Tom was anything like his pathetic mother-

Tom unclenched his jaw, speaking through his teeth. "Clearly I was wrong."

"Look, I don't know what you want," Harry said coldly, inching his way along the wall. "But I think it'd be best if we just stayed away from each other. I'm not going to tell anyone your secrets. You made sure of that," the boy said bitterly. "So just stay away from me, all right?"

Tom suddenly wondered if the Unbreakable Vow would hold valid if the boy had made it under the influence of the potion, but he supposed it hardly mattered. With the penalty of death, no one would be foolhardy enough to test it, even if the boy managed to think of that possible loophole.

He wanted to protest anyway, but he felt a terrible rage, one that made the sinks rattle with a swelling, wild magic.

"I should be the one saying that to you," Tom said harshly, clenching his fists. The bathroom pipes creaked in protest.

"Glad we understand each other," Potter said with equal coldness, his eyes lacking any of the warmth they'd had with the potion. Tom looked away. "Let's start now, shall we?"

The boy pushed roughly past him, knocking into Tom's shoulder forcibly as he passed. His footsteps echoed loudly behind him, and the door slammed shut with a conclusive bang.

Tom stood in the middle of the bathroom, completely and unnaturally still, until the burgeoning magic burst and several sinks cracked savagely, the porcelain shattering in a murderous rage. The pipes exploded around him, water seeping down the walls and spilling to the floor like filthy tears.

ooo

Hi folks... I'm giving you false hope by posting this. To be honest, this chapter was written seven years ago, just like the rest of this fic, and it's just been sitting on my computer. I was bored and going through old files.

To be even more honest, the rest I had written for this, I wasn't satisfied with even as a teenager. I had a whole outline, I can see from the notes I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but it never came out right- I had the rest in my "dump" folder.

For chapter 15, I'm thinking of just posting a summary of what it was going to be, so people can get closure if they want... I really, really doubt I'm ever going to actually write this to completion. But who knows? Maybe some day I'll feel nostalgic. That's what I say to myself optimistically, in the same vein of a New Year's resolution you know is only going to last a week. Haha.

That being said, it's nice to read comments/reviews. It's wild to me that people on the internet are reading this old thing I wrote SEVEN YEARS AGO, now! It's kind of neat. A story I barely remember the details of writing, has had over 7000 people read it. Isn't that crazy?! I was procrastinating on high school finals when I wrote this...I was still in the closet... I had never paid taxes... Game of Thrones hadn't yet ended in disaster! When I read the comments, it feels like I've gone back in time myself.

Thanks for cheering me on, guys. Sorry it never panned out. I'll write a good summary of the ending I had planned! I know it's not the same as a story, but hopefully it's something. I still love hearing from you all.