A/N:
a special thank you to Louve for helping me with the ending!
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Hallows, Not Horcruxes
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There is nothing new under the sun.
Harry Warren is born and raised with his twin sister, Myrtle Warren. Their parents are neglectful, angry and abusive. So Harry learns the value of silence, but mostly he learns to shield his sister—his unstable, emotional sister—from the world.
Tom Riddle is born and raised as a penniless child with no parents to speak of. Not his mother, who coerced a rich nobleman to take her abroad, away from the clutches of her violent family. Not his father, whose name Tom bears like a cattle brand long after the man abandons his mother to die.
After graduation, Harry takes the road well-travelled. He accepts the first job offer that pays the best and pays immediately. His only wish is to buy himself and his sister a place to live that is far, far away from their parents.
After graduation, Tom chases his heritage: the birthright that he has been denied, the locket of his ancestors. This determined path leads him to Borgin and Burkes, where the shop clerk greets him with green, green eyes.
They are two independent young men determined to make something of themselves, kindred spirits seeking a place to belong. In Harry's case, seeking someone to belong to.
And Tom, he has been chasing his heritage, but he has been chasing other things, too.
A stone, a cloak, and a wand.
Harry, who has lived all his life with the burden of being his sister's keeper, is bewitched. Tom promises danger, but he also promises safety, and besides that, above all that, he promises, he swears—
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Just you and I, Harry. No one else. Just you and I for the rest of eternity.
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Harry has never been selfish, but choosing Tom doesn't feel selfish. Choosing Tom feels like giving himself to a higher calling. His choice grants him purpose, committing him to a cause so much larger and grander than the tiny flat he shares with his sister.
How fortunate he feels when Tom chooses him in return. How wonderstruck is he when the touch of Tom's hand grows into more. Harry is utterly unmade by it. Their love, forbidden and unmentionable in polite company, transforms him. It saturates his days with a beautiful, mindless happiness, the likes of which he has never known before.
Harry never wants to let it go. He never wants to let Tom go.
But his love blinds him to Tom's faults, and that is by far a less forgiving mistake to make.
Tom crafts plans upon plans for a new world order. He draws Harry in with visions of a day when people like them and his sister can be free.
But that is not all Tom believes in. In the absence of absolution, Tom will carve his path to power with violence. To him, any other way is unfathomable.
And so two years of bliss shatter and give way to an ugly, monstrous reality. Love is a weapon and there is no dodging the blow.
Perhaps Harry had always known, in his heart, the kind of man that Tom was. Perhaps he should have even expected it—how an argument can surge out of control, how molten rage explodes into an inferno of unstoppable spellfire.
It happens so fast he can't—or won't—be able to tell whose wand it is that ends it.
It happens so fast he wishes he could pretend it hadn't happened at all.
Harry buries his sister in Godric's Hollow. He grieves alone, surrounded by cold, unforgiving gravestones.
It is done. He cannot erase the years, the promises, the longing that burns in his heart for a boy who had once taken him by the hand and promised him the world.
It is done.
They are done.
Harry tears himself away. From the Hallows. From Tom. He applies for the Defence position at Hogwarts and tries to forget. He tries not to wonder if it was his spell who ended a life.
By some miracle, Tom lets him go. He travels the world and learns its darkest arts, he grows his power and gathers his followers.
Then, when the moment is right, he lays waste to the world they had once sworn to save. He torches their cities and slaughters their people and waits.
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People are dying, Harry, and they're saying you're the only wizard that Lord Voldemort has ever feared.
People are dying, Harry.
Aren't you going to stop him?
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He waits for Harry to come to him.
They meet in Austria. Tom's skin has gone waxen, and his eyes are crimson as blood. He looks more monster than man.
In the months and years since they parted ways, Harry has learned that his love is very much alive. It eats at him with a hunger that cannot be satisfied. It threatens to sunder his very soul.
Harry raises his wand—holly and phoenix feather, brother to Tom's wand, except Tom has a different wand now, an elder wand—and attempts a smile he doesn't truly feel.
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Let's finish this the way we started, Tom.
Together.
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After it is done, Harry stands alone on the mountainside, the Elder Wand clutched in his bloody, trembling hand. He feels lonelier than ever.
Harry goes back to Hogwarts. He never visits Nurmengard and he never plans to. What he needs is to forget.
A young boy named Gellert Grindelwald completes his OWLs under Harry's watchful eye. He is brilliant and beautiful. He reminds Harry of Tom.
But Gellert never takes a partner. He surrounds himself with the Pureblood elite and graduates with top honours. He forgoes an illustrious Ministry career in favour of vanishing from the public eye.
And so Britain is peaceful for many years, but Harry's heart remains cold. The Board of Governors offers him the position of Headmaster, and though he knows he does not deserve it, he accepts for the sake of the children he has sworn to protect.
Some years later, Gellert returns to Britain. Whispers of immortality follow in his footsteps.
When Gellert applies for the Defence position at Hogwarts, Harry turns him down.
Grindelwald's Chosen raze the countryside, but the legacy of Lord Voldemort persists. Tom wastes away in Nurmengard, but his influence lives on in the ill-fated shadows that crawl through Knockturn Alley, and his voice echoes in every anti-Muggle sentiment that reaches Harry's ears.
When Fleamont Potter is found dead in Godric's Hollow, his family's little cottage burned to the ground, people look to Harry to save them. The weight of their stares grows heavier with each passing day. The Ministry is weak. Magical Britain needs a hero, and that hero will have to be him.
Harry fights off raids on Hogsmeade. He fights off raids on Diagon Alley. Others fight by his side, emboldened by his example. The Elder Wand resides in Harry's hand, guiding him to victory.
He is so certain that Gellert Grindelwald will come for him. Gellert must covet this wand, prized above all others, the perennial instrument of Death's own design.
But as the months stretch on, Grindelwald does not come to call on Harry's doorstep.
It seems the only Dark Lord who will ever haunt him is Tom.
When Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is born at the end of August, with a name ostentatious enough to surely defeat three Dark Lords, all Harry can think is how terrible it is to be a child buried under such grim significance.
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Born as the eighth month dies, the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…
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Harry does not believe in prophecy. Others debate on how many years must pass until the child will be grown enough to combat Grindelwald. They wonder how long Britain must weather war and madness before the prophecy saves them.
It is a horrid, repulsive thing, to pray for the sacrifice of an infant to deliver their nation into safety.
Still, everyone is hopeful. Even Harry, who watches gravestones expand over empty fields, hopes to be proven wrong.
On Samhain, Gellert Grindelwald is blasted to smithereens by a boy barely old enough to comprehend his parents' sacrifice.
The world rejoices. Harry, conversely, ruminates on Gellert's death with no small amount of suspicion. In his arrogant and foolish youth, Gellert had made mistakes aplenty, albeit none grand enough to prematurely expose his true nature.
It is with this in mind that Harry speaks with Horace Slughorn.
Immortality had not been so far out of Gellert's reach after all. Horace mops at his brow and stammers out assurances that such grievous events must not have come to pass, that such dark magic would not be preferred by Gellert, whose nature had always been inclined to caution.
But Harry recalls Gellert's parting words following his interview for the Defence position at Hogwarts. He recalls, and he shudders.
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I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed—
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Gellert strives for perfection and pursues immortality with single-minded resolve. Splitting his soul may be less abhorrent to him than Horace believes. Ambition drives even the wisest men to make laughable choices. Harry knows this firsthand. If Gellert was unable to master Death through the Hallows, then he would have turned to other avenues to secure his power.
But for now, Britain is safe. For now, Harry must plan.
The boy, Albus, is delivered to an old family friend of the Dumbledores—Bathilda Bagshot.
Bathilda is a brilliant woman, an accomplished professor and historian. Albus will be safe with her until it is time for him to return to the spotlight the fates have set to shine upon him.
A decade passes while Harry searches fruitlessly for Horcruxes. Examination of Gellert's past brings no insight.
Too often, Harry finds himself thinking of Tom. He can imagine, too well, what Tom's chosen objects would have been.
This is what worries him. He does not understand Gellert, and perhaps he never will. To locate even one Horcrux feels impossible.
Then, all too soon, Albus Dumbledore arrives at Hogwarts and is promptly sorted into Gryffindor.
Albus is a brilliant, talented boy. Harry is wary of such boys—experience has taught him nothing good comes of these bright, charming wizards—and so he keeps his distance. Harry treats this boy, the Saviour, like any other Hogwarts student.
Then, a few days before the end of the school year, Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel are found dead in their private home. The pinnacle of their achievements, the Philosopher's Stone, is gone.
Harry searches and worries and waits. He gathers those witches and wizards he trusts, and warns them of what is to come. But no parts of Gellert Grindelwald make themselves known, neither the man himself nor the Horcruxes that Harry suspects him of having.
At the start of his second year, Albus Dumbledore comes to Harry's office and asks to be trained.
How certain Albus seems of his mortal fate. Harry wishes to deny it—to promise this child, barely twelve years old, that Grindelwald is long gone and no harm will befall him. But that would be a lie, and Harry will not lie, not when the war that awaits them both is so much worse.
Better for Harry to teach this boy as much as he can. Better, yes, to give Albus the spells needed to defend against a thousand wands. Better to brace him for the inevitable than to pretend a life of peace awaits him.
Albus is a quick study. His dexterity with a wand is unlike anything Harry has ever seen. He disarms with fluidity and his spells always land true. The boy handles his wand with the agility of a wizard four times his age and is the delight of every professor he has.
But training is not enough. Harry sees, in those cold blue eyes, a desire for glory. An itch for more. Albus is a twelve-year-old boy with no family. All he has is this prophecy, so large and grand, that promises his life will alter the course of history.
Harry fully believes Albus Dumbledore will alter the course of history. Whether that impact will be for better or for worse remains to be seen.
Grindelwald's Chosen spread across the country, delivering calculated strikes that bring the most elite Auror forces to their knees.
Gellert himself has yet to be seen. He remains a sinister shadow, a spectre of the past they have yet to drag into the ugly, revealing light of day. More importantly, he does not come for Hogwarts.
Perhaps Gellert, like Tom, is afraid of what he may find here.
Albus becomes quiet, withdrawn. He watches the Pensieve memories that Harry has so painstakingly collected, and there is neither shock nor horror written on his young face, only grim determination.
So Harry does not ask:
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Do you see yourself in this boy?
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He does not ask:
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Do you understand him?
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He fears he already knows the answer.
Minerva McGonagall comes to the Headmaster's office, seeking help and advice. She tells Harry about Albus' nightmares, about those voices that call to him in his sleep, about the temptations she worries he may succumb to.
There is a connection between Albus and the Dark Lord. Harry is terrified of it, but despite his fear, he continues to teach Albus Dumbledore everything he knows. When Harry thinks of his past—the sister he had to bury, the love he had to leave behind—he knows he has no choice.
The war rages on. Harry may remain at Hogwarts, but his nightmares are always of Nurmengard.
What would have been Albus' seventh year begins with the arrival of the Hogwarts Express lacking many, many students. Harry's deputy headmistress, Hermione Granger, counts the numbers with a tense, worried look in her eyes.
That evening, a Patronus enters Harry's office; a Jack Russell terrier that confirms the worst in Auror Weasley's calm, authoritative voice.
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The Ministry has fallen. He is coming.
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An hour later, Hermione informs him that Albus Dumbledore is not amongst the students in their care.
Harry possesses power that has driven hundreds of wizards to their deaths, but the Elder Wand has cost him everything. He no longer knows how to keep the embers of hope alive.
How to beat back the crushing waves of despair when he hears of Albus standing at the Dark Lord's side.
All Harry can do, now, is shelter as many as he can before sealing the secret passages and closing off Hogwarts from the rest of the world.
Nearly a year later, Grindelwald's Chosen find their way into the castle.
Harry calls upon professors and older students to fend off the attackers. Then he throws himself into the fray, searching, seeking. He cannot hope to defeat Gellert, but he must buy his students time to escape.
Harry recognizes most of the faces despite the masks that cover them. These were once his students. They once lived here, played here, and studied here. He chases them to the Astronomy tower, picking them off one by one until all that remains is darkness.
Then Albus Dumbledore moves into the light.
Each step is carefully measured, the delicate notch of a balanced scale. There is an old, heavy cloak draped over his arm that renders half of his body invisible.
Before Harry can react, Albus' wand cuts through the air in a quick, brutal gesture.
The Elder Wand is wrenched from Harry's grasp.
Harry's vision blurs as the stick of wood falls into the darkness, into Albus' outstretched hand. His stomach lurches, like a non-existent portkey has caught hold of him, making the ground beneath his feet unstable and foreign.
Amidst the surreality, Tom appears. A silent wraith returned to haunt him.
Imprisonment has done him no favours; the face Harry once believed would always be handsome, always be perfect, is haggard and plagued with cruel shadows.
Time has not been kind to him. Harry has not been kind to him.
It feels fair, then, that Tom Riddle will be both the love of his life and the aching close of it.
Harry forces himself to look at Albus. His student, who now holds Death's unbeatable wand. His student, who surely led Gellert's men into the school. His final hope, his final failure.
Albus hesitates, his eyes flickering to his companion. Tom steps forward again. He shoves Albus to the side. His hands are steady and his shoulders are set.
Harry finds himself oddly calm. If it is not death that awaits him now, then surely it must be Nurmengard, that impenetrable fortress of his nightmares, the prison of his own making that will hold him until the end of his days.
Still, his very soul seems to twist in agony as Tom smiles at him.
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It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.
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The spell that rushes to greet Harry is not sickly green. It is the bright red of a Stunner that collides squarely with his chest, knocking him to the ground.
Harry wakes to the curve of Tom's hand—calloused and dirt-stained—pressed tenderly to his cheek. It should not feel comforting, but it is familiar, and that measure of familiarity carves at his chest with the unforgiving edge of a dull, rusted knife.
Unbidden, that old, unanswered question struggles to the surface:
Whose wand was it?
Perhaps it was Tom's either way, for his wand—his allegiance—had belonged to Tom from the moment they laid eyes on each other.
Albus hauls Harry to his knees and binds his arms behind his back, nearly pulling them from their sockets.
Will it hurt to die? That childish question flits through Harry's mind like a quivering moth. Because he is going to die.
For Gellert to claim the Elder Wand, wholly and truly, Harry must die.
But death does not frighten him. Gellert will want it to be quick, decisive. Harry draws comfort from that.
Gellert turns his eyes to Albus. His expression is calm, devoid of empathy as he addresses the boy by his side.
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You've done well, my dear.
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Gellert extends his hand, but Albus fails to move. Time has not been kind to him, either. He looks old beyond his years, with eyes as cold as ice. Too young for war, yet too damaged for peace.
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You promised me. The ring. My parents. I would like to see them. I want the Stone.
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Grindelwald's face betrays no hint of impatience or anger. A ring sits on his hand, black onyx set into lumpy, ugly gold. The Resurrection Stone. He nods once.
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A trade, then. The wand for the stone, and your beloved parents will be returned to you, as promised.
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With a wandless pulse of magic, the Resurrection Stone tumbles into the palm of Gellert's hand.
Albus holds fast to the Elder Wand, his fingers clasped tight around the handle. Death's cloak sits on his shoulder, an invisible mantle.
The crackle of magic in the air is suffocating, but Harry no longer feels the weight of it the way he did before. The allegiance of the world's most powerful wand no longer belongs to him. It belongs to Albus Dumbledore.
Slowly, Albus extends his arm, and it happens so fast.
It all happens so fast.
Albus flicks his wrist, the way Harry once taught him, the handle of his unbeatable wand snapping into his palm as he disarms Grindelwald in the same breath.
Grindelwald's lips part in a soundless scream of rage as his wand is torn from his hand—
—and Tom's face is alight with triumph as he snarls out the Killing Curse.
Green floods Harry's field of vision, violent and all-consuming vibrance that blurs his eyes with tears.
The light fades in time for him to witness the aftermath of Gellert's fall. That pale, age-worn face slammed into the ground, eyes unseeing and mouth slack with spittle that pools on the stone below.
Harry thinks to himself that he might be going mad. Gellert cannot be dead, just as surely as Tom cannot be here in the room with him.
Albus sinks to his knees with a quiet whimper, his expression pained. After a pause, Tom settles beside him and whispers something in his ear.
For several heartbeats, there is silence save for the sound of Albus' unsteady breaths.
Then Albus nods once, tiredly. He reaches for Tom's free hand and holds tight.
Tom gently pries the Elder Wand from Albus' limp fingers and aims it at the boy's head.
No, Harry tries to say. No.
But Tom says—
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Avada Kedavra.
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—and Albus, too, falls.
Tom's arms catch him. They lower the body gently to the ground. He closes Albus' eyes.
Then he turns to Harry. The triumph of before is gone; sorrow has taken its place.
Suddenly and painfully, Harry understands what had to be done. What has been done.
What Albus Dumbledore is, and always has been.
A Horcrux.
Tom comes to him, next. Kneels before him. The ropes binding Harry's arms fall away.
Harry swallows. Words fail him.
In response to Harry's silence, Tom offers his wand. The Elder Wand.
Harry takes it. It feels different in his hand, and somehow he knows it won't work for him anymore, not the way it used to, not now that it—
Not now that Albus is dead.
Albus Dumbledore is the true master of the Elder Wand, and will be forevermore. He has chosen death, and with his death, the wand's power has been broken.
This wand that is now nothing more than a wand. Harry closes his fingers around the handle. He has carried it for years, borne the burden of its power as punishment for his sins.
Now he is free of it. But at what cost?
As if sensing his distress, Tom sets his hands on Harry's shoulders, reeling him in, and rests their foreheads together.
Harry breathes in. He has not allowed himself to be this close to anyone for years. He has been aching for this moment, for Tom.
Tom withdraws. His smile is faint, knowing.
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Go. Help your students. I will be here when you return.
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Harry hesitates. He does not want to leave, not when so much remains between them. Not when there is so much to say. But Tom is right. Gellert may be dead, Albus may be dead, but the school remains under siege. Hogwarts needs him.
Harry rises unsteadily to his feet. Dark spots swim in his vision, but he blinks them away. He swore an oath to protect his students and he must see it through no matter the cost.
The only body recovered from the Astronomy tower is Gellert Grindelwald's.
Harry is not surprised. He shouldn't be, anyway. Tom is gone, and Harry will likely never see him again.
Tom is gone, and maybe…
Maybe it is better this way.
Hogwarts rebuilds. She rises from the ashes, and the scars of her war-torn walls begin to heal. With all the work there is to be done, Harry has no time to spare for thoughts of his fallen protegé or his erstwhile love. Or at least, that is what he tells himself.
Britain mourns Albus as a martyr alongside so many others who died in the Battle of Hogwarts. They do not understand that simply mourning children who died in a war is not enough, not when it happens again and again and again.
Albus Dumbledore's legacy, carved into a stone memorial that rests on the grounds of Hogwarts herself, is a reminder of everything that must never happen again.
Harry swears he will make sure it never happens again.
NINETEEN YEARS LATER.
On a cool summer day, Harry leaves Hogwarts for the last time. He has finally forgiven the mistakes of his own past. He has found closure.
He knows the school will be in good hands; Hermione is nothing if not a judicious perfectionist, and the passage of time, with all its accumulated wisdom, has softened her harsher, judgemental edges.
Harry has done what he can to make it easy for her. He has created a safe space for his students. They have been given the love and care they deserve. Their prejudices have been thoroughly dismantled, and he has dissolved the house system over the protests of traditionalists across the continent.
He thinks—hopes—he has broken the cycle of neglect that turns bright, charming boys into cold, lonely killers. He hopes the generations of students he has fostered will lead them towards a world where everyone can be free.
And he may admit, now, that he has done all of this while thinking of Tom. That he still thinks of Tom, all these years later. That he wants to see Tom again, even if it is the last time before he departs this life for good.
There is a man waiting for Harry at the castle gate. A man just as old, just as withered as he is. By his side is a younger man with long, auburn hair, a hefty walking staff in his hand.
Harry smiles at them both and greets them like old friends.
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Hello, Tom. Hello, Albus.
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Later, Harry will learn about how Gellert went to Nurmengard, seeking the secrets of the Elder Wand. He will learn how Tom agreed to help defeat Harry Warren in exchange for freedom.
Later, he will hear about how Albus and Tom conspired together in secret to destroy Horcruxes and overthrow a Dark Lord. How they have travelled the world together these past few years, waiting for Harry to join them.
For now, Harry simply smiles. He extends his unconquerable wand, handle first, to Albus Dumbledore.
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I believe this belongs to you.
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Albus inclines his head and accepts with a smile. The Invisibility Cloak is draped over his right arm, and the Resurrection Stone rests on his non-dominant hand. He looks more at peace with himself than he ever did at Hogwarts. Harry is all the happier to see it.
Burden relieved, Harry turns to Tom. It is easier to see him now. It hurts less than it once did.
Later, they may talk about the years that they've missed. The time Tom spent in Nurmengard, regretting his mistakes. The time Harry spent at Hogwarts, repenting for his own.
There is nothing new under the sun. They have been here before, and they will be here again. The possibilities stretch on and on, and there will be time to explore them.
Harry offers out his hand.
For now, for ever—
Perhaps even for eternity.
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END.
A/N:
i originally wanted to write this as something much longer... still might. or at least i will think about it. also i really truly hate the formatting here on ffn. if you're reading this, it's me begging you to switch to AO3 instead