A/N: my muse didn't want to let go of this story to work on my others, so here's a quicker than usual update :)
Content warnings for: blood (characters cutting their palms to get blood for a spell), and tight spaces (a rather claustrophobic narrow staircase).
Chapter 6
Harry kept having these surreal little moments where the absurdity of the situation would suddenly hit him and he'd think, 'holy shit, I'm having a movie night with Voldemort,' but he shook it off pretty quickly each time and simply reached for another handful of popcorn. Movie Night With Voldemort actually ranked pretty low on the surrealism scale compared to 'Voldemort is my slave now' and 'I've had sex with Voldemort and it was actually pretty amazing despite the gross consent issues.'
Movie Night was technically inaccurate as well, since it was really only around noon, but Harry had drawn all the shades on the windows and dimmed the room to be darker before they took their seats on the sofa.
Harry was perched on the sofa between Tom's casually spread legs, and his back was pressed to Tom's chest. Harry let his head lean back to rest on Tom's shoulder, and Tom's arms were wrapped loosely around him. Harry held the bowl of popcorn on his lap, and there was a fuzzy blanket draped over them both. Tom had said the blanket was unnecessary, but Harry had just argued that Movie Night required blankets. Tom had rolled his eyes and given up, but he hadn't seemed to be genuinely annoyed.
Unlike now.
"Oh, come on," Tom complained, gesturing at the screen after Obi-Wan's famous These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For scene. "It isn't that easy to do a wandless Imperius, and he certainly couldn't cast it on more than one person simultaneously! Or are we supposed to believe those other guards standing right next to him somehow don't notice him mind-controlling their leader?"
Harry snorted and tried to hold back a laugh."It's not an Imperius, he's using the Force."
"It's ridiculous," Tom muttered.
"Why can't you do a wandless Imperius?" Harry asked, curious despite himself.
"I never said I couldn't. But the power required for any of the Unforgivables can't be managed wandlessly by most people. Wandless Unforgivables also have a tendency to backfire on the caster if done improperly."
"Have you ever done one, then? A wandless Imperius?"
"Yes. I did it quite often as a child. It's less precise when done wandlessly, but with enough force of will it's possible."
"What about a wandless Killing Curse?"
"Did you not hear me say 'tendency to backfire on the caster'? That's not something I was ever willing to attempt." Tom went quiet for a moment, then added, "But I do know of someone who managed a wandless Killing Curse once, in self defense."
"Who?" Harry asked, curious.
"It doesn't matter," Tom said, sounding bitter, "he's dead now, and the less said of him, the better."
"All right," Harry said, dropping the subject. He knew a sore spot when he heard one. "Where's the remote? You're missing important plot points." The remote sailed towards him from the coffee table, and Harry caught it. "Thanks," he said offhandedly to Tom, then he rewound the movie to just after the 'wandless Imperius' and hit play.
They made it through the rest of the movie without any more major interruptions, and Harry was pleased that Tom didn't seem to hate it. He actually seemed rather invested.
"Want to watch the next one?" Harry asked hopefully.
"Lunch first," Tom said, "but then yes."
Harry held up the half-empty bowl of popcorn, "We had lunch."
"Real food, Harry," Tom said in a longsuffering tone.
"Sorry, I didn't realize this was imaginary popcorn," Harry joked, setting the bowl on the coffee table, tossing the blanket aside, and reluctantly leaving Tom's comfortable embrace to stand up.
He turned and offered a hand that he knew Tom didn't need to help him up. Tom looked at the proffered hand for a moment, then looked up at Harry and took it as he stood.
They ended up standing very close together, because like an idiot Harry hadn't stepped back at all, so their chests were nearly pressed together and their faces were close enough that Harry could feel Tom's breath against his cheek.
Harry blinked up at Tom, who was looking down at him with a curious but slightly wary expression. Harry stepped back as if burned, then cleared his throat and said, "Sorry. Erm—food, right. Let's have lunch."
Harry dropped Tom's hand and strode into the kitchen, mentally swearing at himself the entire way for making things awkward again. He suddenly really wanted a drink.
"Hey Tom?" he called over his shoulder, trying to keep his nervousness out of his voice.
"Yes?" Tom said, stepping into the doorway and then leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed.
"This might be a completely terrible idea, but do you want to play a drinking game for the next movie?"
Tom raised an eyebrow at him. "That does sound like a terrible idea."
"I mean, nothing crazy," Harry expounded, "I was just thinking, like, a shot every time Vader Force-chokes somebody, and every time someone loses a limb, or when anybody says 'I have a bad feeling about this.' I'm not trying to get either one of us wasted, I promise."
"Still sounds like a terrible idea," Tom said, stepping fully into the room and taking a seat at the table. "Let's do it."
Harry smiled, then called Kreacher to order their lunch.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Tom honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd had a good drink—his serpentine post-resurrection body had never really had any desire for alcohol (or food, or sleep, or sex, or much of anything for that matter), and before his temporary disembodiment after failing to kill Harry the first time, he'd always been too busy or too surrounded by people he couldn't trust enough to lower his inhibitions around them.
This whiskey though? This was some good stuff—smooth with just the right amount of burn to it. After lunch, Harry had had his elf bring out a ridiculously rare and expensive top-shelf whiskey (which Harry didn't even seem to realize the value of) and they'd returned to the sofa for the second film in the series.
They'd started out in the same position as before with Harry sitting directly in front of Tom between his legs and leaning his back on Tom's chest, but Harry had kept turning halfway around to look at Tom while he commented on or explained something in the movie. After the fifth or sixth time, Harry seemed to get annoyed with having to keep twisting around, so he'd casually turned sideways and stretched his legs out across the sofa. Then he was practically sitting in Tom's lap instead, so he only had to turn his head to look back and forth from Tom to the screen.
Tom decided he would blame the whiskey shots and the proximity requirement for allowing it.
Tom kept getting distracted by Harry's interruptions and by his own wandering thoughts, and he knew they were going to have to re-watch this movie sober before moving on to the next one. So instead of trying to keep up with the plot of the film, he took the opportunity to consider his little problem with the slave bond instead.
Magical Conquest was ancient yet simplistic bond magic that had been created by ancient yet simplistic people who thought rape and slavery were acceptable and who evidently liked things to be very literal and straightforward, judging by the way the bond decided what counted as an order. So logically, it followed that the solution to any issues with the bond would be simplistic and straightforward as well.
Maybe it was the whiskey letting his mind relax just enough to see the obvious answer, or maybe he'd made that connection already but just hadn't been willing to acknowledge it while fully sober, but it seemed like it was fairly self-evident what he had to do. The proximity requirement certainly hadn't been subtle with its nudging. And there was one thing that he knew for sure would stop the bond from drawing on his magic.
The solution seemed rather obvious—if the consummation somehow didn't fully take, or if the bond was degrading with time, it made the most sense to try re-consummating it. Harry was lonely and touch-starved and attracted to him—Tom certainly hadn't missed the many unsubtle glances and stares Harry sent his way when he thought Tom wasn't paying attention. If Tom was the one to instigate things, and if he acted like he truly wanted it, he was certain Harry would go along with it. And unlike the first time, Tom now knew he didn't have to dread it—Harry had been considerate and accommodating and he'd made sure it was pleasurable for Tom too.
The more Tom thought about it, the more he was fairly certain now, after living with Harry for a little over a week, that he really had no reason to fear Harry taking advantage of him sexually or forcing him into anything he didn't consent to. Harry had passed Tom's test that day after the accidental 'go fuck yourself' order, after all—Tom had deliberately riled him up and then walked out, and even though Harry had been first angry with him and then extremely aroused, he hadn't gone after Tom or tried to force anything. Likewise, he never tried to push things too far when Tom allowed him to sit with him to alleviate the touch-starvation. Harry always apologized after even the most minor of accidental orders, and with the exception of a few slip-ups, he'd learned to speak carefully around Tom, using either questions or declarative sentences rather than imperative ones. And most importantly—he'd kept his word about not treating Tom like a slave. He respected his privacy and autonomy, allowed him nearly complete freedom within the boundaries of the slave bond, and treated him with dignity. It truly was like they were an unlikely pair of housemates rather than master and slave.
Tom's only remaining concern about sleeping with Harry again was the precedent that he would be setting—he didn't have the patience to constantly fake a romantic interest, but he also didn't want to suffer through Harry's guilt afterwards if he knew Tom only did it because the bond was failing. Undoubtedly Harry would find some way to blame himself for it, and would feel like he was forcing himself on Tom again. Tom would rather avoid that, given the choice.
Perhaps he could get away with initiating a housemates-with-benefits type of arrangement. That was a thing people did, wasn't it?
"Tom? Are you even listening?" Harry asked, turning towards Tom with a hint of a pout on his lips.
Tom blinked and realized a bit too late that Harry had been talking to him for the past minute or so while Tom had been considering the merits of seducing him. He looked at Harry and decided on the spot that he was doing this—there was no sense in putting it off, and if the obvious solution didn't work, then he would need as much time as possible to try to find a different solution before things got truly dire.
"No," he answered honestly, glancing at Harry's lips before meeting his eyes.
Harry blinked, and a slight blush stained his cheeks.
"What were you saying?" Tom asked, giving him a hint of a smirk.
Harry blinked at Tom a few more times, then said, "Erm…I don't remember."
Tom's smile grew, and he looked down briefly before looking back up at Harry through his eyelashes. "I've been thinking…" he said quietly, trailing off leadingly.
"Uh oh," Harry said, and Tom smiled at him like that was the cleverest thing he'd ever heard. Harry blinked a few more times, seeming thrown by Tom's demeanor, then he asked, "What, erm—what were you thinking about?"
"I was thinking," Tom said, pausing as he put one hand on Harry's knee then slowly and casually trailed it higher up his thigh, "that I like the way it feels when we touch." It wasn't even a lie—proximity requirement aside, their connection from the Horcrux tended to create a pleasant, tingling sort of feedback loop between the two of them whenever they touched skin-to-skin—but Harry choked on air when Tom said it.
"I—erm—that's—fuck, I think we've had more than enough to drink," Harry finally managed to say, with an awkward little laugh at the end that sounded forced.
Tom gave him an indulgent smile, then said, "I'm not drunk, Harry—just…tired of denying it. That's all."
Harry met Tom's eyes as he gave him a serious, searching look. "I mean—I like it too. Obviously."
Tom nodded, then said, "I know. So perhaps we should do it more often."
Harry blinked, then said, "Perhaps, erm, we should talk about this later? Or tomorrow? Some time when we haven't been drinking?"
Tom leaned forward slightly, then caught Harry's eye and said, "Perhaps we don't need to talk about it at all."
"Tom—" Harry started.
Tom leaned in and interrupted him with a kiss, reaching one hand up to grasp a handful of that messy black hair. A sharp gasp left Harry's mouth open just enough for Tom to slip his tongue inside and deepen the kiss.
Harry let out a small noise somewhere between a whine and a moan, and then he was kissing Tom back like his life depended on it. One of Harry's hands clutched at the front of Tom's shirt, clinging on like he thought Tom might try to escape.
Their positions were a bit awkward, with Harry sitting mostly sideways in Tom's lap, so Tom reached out and nudged him, prompting him to move into a more comfortable position. "Come here," Tom murmured against Harry's lips.
Harry reluctantly broke the kiss just long enough to shift around so he was straddling Tom's lap and facing him instead, then he leaned back down to capture Tom's lips again.
Harry's hands ran through Tom's hair, and Tom's hands gripped Harry's hips—they both pulled each other closer as the kiss turned filthy and desperate and reminiscent of that first kiss back in Azkaban.
"I want you to fuck me again," Tom murmured against Harry's lips.
Harry froze. Tom swore in his head—that was much too soon, what the hell, maybe he actually was slightly drunk—but he tried to resume the kiss before Harry could fully panic.
Harry leaned back though, and stared down at him looking shocked and mildly horrified. "No you don't," he finally replied. Then he lifted one hand to cover his mouth as he leaned back even farther. "I'm sorry," he said, a guilty expression taking over his face.
"Harry—"
But Harry was shaking his head and standing up, swearing under his breath and practically running from the room, repeating a heartfelt "I'm sorry," once more on his way out.
Tom leaned back against the sofa and let out a frustrated sigh. That was not at all the way he'd wanted that to end.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Three hours later it was nearing dinner time, and Tom was pacing the house searching for Harry, who'd had the gall to avoid him ever since they'd snogged on the sofa.
The proximity requirement was screaming at Tom through the bond, and his skin was starting to tingle unpleasantly in a sensation that was part itch and part pins-and-needles. It usually didn't get bad until bedtime, but even then it didn't get this extreme since normally Harry would just be in the next room over, with one wall and only about six feet separating them.
Tom had tried to stick it out and just go about his day, his pride insisting that he not chase after the boy. That lasted almost two hours before the proximity requirement started acting up bad enough that he couldn't ignore it anymore. Then he'd looked for Harry in the usual places, to no avail. Bedroom, library, kitchen—no Harry. He started looking through the guest rooms, which were all empty. He tried to open the room with Sirius Black's name on the door, and was rebuffed by a rather stronger ward than he'd expected, but he could tell by the state of the ward that it was old and hadn't been disturbed recently, so Harry wasn't in there either. He circled back around to the sitting room, thinking Harry might've returned to it, but no luck there either.
After searching all of the rooms he could think of, he finally swallowed the rest of his pride, and called, "Kreacher?"
The house-elf popped into existence in front of him, and gave him a suspicious look before asking, "Master Tom called for Kreacher?"
"Where is Harry?"
"Master is being in the memories again," the elf croaked out, sounding both exasperated and rather judgmental about it.
"What?"
"The memory basin in the attic," Kreacher clarified. "Stayed up there for days at a time, Master used to."
"There's an attic?" Tom asked, then he demanded, "Take me there."
Kreacher snapped his fingers, and Tom found himself instantly transported to a hallway upstairs, in front of a skinny door he hadn't opened during his search because he'd assumed it was just a cupboard.
This time, Tom opened the door and turned sideways to fit through it—it was at least half the width of a normal door, if not smaller. There was a rather steep and narrow flight of stairs, which he awkwardly ascended sideways, and at the top of the stairs was another skinny wooden door. Tom opened the second door and squeezed through it into a surprisingly spacious attic.
From the looks of it, the attic spanned the entire house. It had a high, vaulted ceiling, and it was packed with armoires and boxes and old desks and other disused furniture that must've been shrunken or apparated to get it up here, because there was no way any of it would've fit up that staircase without magic.
"Harry?" Tom called, listening closely for a response, or for something dropped in surprise, or for an attempt to sneak away again. But all was silent.
Tom glanced around, then cast a locking spell on the door. Then as an added measure, he grabbed the nearest writing desk and dragged it in front of the door to the stairwell to block the exit. Then he stepped further into the attic, navigating around the furniture and assorted antiques, looking for any sign of Harry.
"Harry?" he called again."You're being ridiculous. Stop avoiding me."
Still no answer, and still no sign of his master. But the itch of the proximity requirement was lessening significantly, so he had to be nearby.
Tom turned the corner around a particularly tall armoire, then jumped and drew his wand when he came face to face with a life-sized wax figure of Phineas Nigellus Black. He kept his wand raised for a moment while his heart returned to its normal pace, then he shook his head in puzzled distaste and moved on.
There was a round window built into the front wall of the house, and he felt drawn to it somehow, so he stepped closer. As he approached, he noticed a tall but rather thin cabinet that was to the right of the window. The cabinet had its doors flung wide open, and another writing desk stood next to it. The cabinet was tall but not very deep, and it had several short shelves inside. On the shelves were rows and rows of glowing, silvery vials. On the desk sat a stone basin, emitting an eerie glow.
"A Pensieve," Tom murmured, "of course."
He stepped closer and examined the labels on the vials—some were labeled in what he recognized with a sneer as Dumbledore's faded handwriting. Others featured a messier scrawl in darker, fresher ink that he was inclined to think was Harry's handwriting.
The ones in Dumbledore's writing were rather blandly labeled in a shorthand that Tom quickly worked out- most of them had the initials TMR (obvious) and a year, along with W (for Wool's Orphanage) or H plus a number between one and seven (Hogwarts and what year Tom was), and sometimes they included another person's initials as well.
The ones in Harry's writing had more interesting labels. One said "No good and evil," and another "the Chamber," another read "nightmare or vision???" and one said "K.C. --should've tried anyway."
It was both curious and potentially concerning that Harry seemed to have an entire cabinet filled with memories regarding Tom, and that according to the house-elf, Harry used to spend an inordinate amount of time in them. It didn't change anything about Tom's decision to pursue him though—even if sleeping with Harry again redoubled the young man's obsessive tendencies, Tom didn't see another option to fix whatever was going wrong with the bond.
Tom turned from the rows and rows of vials, and peered carefully into the Pensieve instead. He didn't see an open vial, but there was an active memory swirling around the stone basin, and Harry was most likely inside it.
Tom took a deep breath, then made a decision and leaned down, letting himself fall into whatever memory awaited.
It was disorienting at first—it always was—but Tom found himself standing behind Harry who was watching another Harry snogging another Tom on the sofa. The memory was from only a few hours ago.
The proximity requirement finally settled—it would be better to be touching Harry, of course, but he was close enough now that the bond's demands for proximity had quieted into a whisper instead of a scream.
Harry didn't seem to notice Tom's arrival—he ran his hand through his hair in frustration, then said out loud, "No, go back further."
The memory distorted and swirled around them, and then it changed to the two of them sitting at the dining room table, eating lunch and making casual conversation. Harry watched, and Tom watched Harry watching, but after a few minutes, Harry sighed again and said out loud, "Not here either, go back further."
The scene swirled again, and it was their conversation while sitting on Harry's bed after he'd received the letters from McGonagall and Malfoy. It played through, and when the two of them left to go watch Star Wars, Harry let out a frustrated noise, then turned around as if to either start pacing or leave the Pensieve.
Harry's eyes widened and he absolutely froze when he saw Tom there, and his face even seemed to pale slightly.
"May I ask what you're looking for?" Tom asked coolly, as if he hadn't just spent over an hour with the bond driving him out of his skin while he tried to find Harry, and as if he hadn't been calmly standing behind him for several minutes while he reviewed the memories.
"What the fuck, Tom?" Harry finally demanded when he found his voice. "How long have you been standing there?"
"You've made it rewind twice. We were on the sofa when I arrived."
Harry blushed and looked down at the ground. "I'm trying to figure out how and when I ordered you to do…you know…that."
Tom's brow furrowed, and he said, "Harry, you didn't order anything. I kissed you because I wanted to."
"You don't want to though," Harry argued, looking heartbroken. "You never wanted any of this, and when you said— that—I realized I must've given you some kind of order without meaning to. I was trying to figure out how, so I can make sure I don't do it again." He laughed humorlessly, then said, "I looked at today, and then the past few days, and then started over with today again. I can't figure it out, but I must've done it at some point."
"You didn't order me," Tom insisted. "I would've felt it when it happened—there's always a very distinct little flare of power in the runes when you give me an order." Tom let that sink in for a moment, while Harry's expression slowly shifted from guilty and distraught to cautiously hopeful. Then Tom added, "And I don't appreciate you telling me what I do and don't want. Magical Conquest gives you the power to control my actions, not my thoughts or desires."
Harry eyed him in silence for a moment, nervously biting his lip. Finally he asked, "You're sure?"
"Yes," Tom snapped, reaching up to point at one particular sequence of runes on the left side of his neck, "it's right here, I already showed you."
"I don't know what those mean," Harry admitted, "I just have to take your word for it."
"Then take my word for it," Tom demanded. "If I kiss you, it's because I want to kiss you. If I ask you to fuck me, it's because I want you to," he said bluntly, taking a few steps closer to Harry.
Harry's eyebrows went up, and he cautiously said, "But the first time—"
Tom interrupted, "The first time, I was fully expecting it to be painful or humiliating or both. You had every reason to want to make me suffer."
Harry looked nauseous at that. "Tom, I would never—"
"I know that now," Tom interrupted. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, Harry. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it, but you made sure that I did. I've been thinking about it and I'd like to try it again, by my own choice, now that I know how good it can be." He paused for a second, then added, "If you truly don't want to, then just forget I said anything, all right?"
"I—" Harry started, but then cut himself off, looking conflicted and uncertain.
Tom sighed. After a moment, he tried again and said, "Think of it this way—we're bound together for the rest of your life. Do you want to keep denying something I think we both want and spend the rest of our lives in miserable awkwardness, or do you want us to enjoy ourselves?"
"I—well, the second one. Obviously."
"Obviously," Tom confirmed. Then he mustered up a charming smile, and held out a hand for Harry in an echo of the numerous times Harry had reached out to offer a hand to Tom. "So what are you waiting for?"
Harry bit his lip, then met Tom's eyes for a long, uncertain moment.
Tom kept his hand outstretched, and finally Harry took it, pulling the two of them out of the Pensieve and back into the attic.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Harry was maybe, kind of, just a little bit, absolutely freaking out right now.
He hadn't dared to hope that he would ever get to have sex with Tom again after the consummation—but Tom actually wanted him. Tom wanted to do it again. He was being oddly persistent about it too, but Harry wasn't put off by that—rather the opposite, in fact. He was caught somewhere between excitement and shock and eagerness and anticipation.
Tom hadn't let go of his hand since Harry brought them out of the Penseive—evidently he'd spotted the bed pushed up against the wall about five feet away from what Harry called the Memory Cabinet, and he was tugging Harry towards it.
Months ago, in the depths of his obsession, Harry had spent days at a time in the attic, delving into different memories of Tom Riddle's life, most of which he'd stolen from Dumbledore's office after the final battle. He'd been both trying to learn more about Voldemort and futilely trying to fill the void the Horcrux had left. Kreacher had constantly nagged him about not sleeping enough and had finally set up a bed for him so Harry would stop falling asleep on the floor or inside of whatever memory he was viewing when exhaustion overcame him. It took away Harry's excuse of not going to bed because he didn't feel like making the trek downstairs and across the house to his bedroom.
Tom was currently leading Harry towards that bed, hitting it with a cleaning charm to get rid of the dust. Harry let out a nervous laugh, then freaked out again when he realized that Tom had to have seen the Memory Cabinet, even though he hadn't commented on it yet. He was probably convinced now that Harry was an obsessive stalker. Should he say something—apologize, or try to downplay it? Or just stay silent and hope that Tom drew some other conclusion from the entire cabinet full of people's memories of him?
"Tom—" Harry started, but Tom interrupted him with another kiss, gripping Harry's hips and tugging him closer.
"Take off your shirt," Tom murmured against his lips, and then he abruptly pulled back just far enough to strip off his own shirt.
"Fuck," Harry muttered as he forgot all about the Memory Cabinet at the sight of Tom's toned, bare chest. He gave in and decided to stop questioning this and to trust Tom's word that he wanted it. Harry pulled his own tee shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor, glancing up at Tom.
"Now the rest," Tom said, and Harry hurried to comply, reaching down to hastily unbutton his trousers and shove them down.
But before either of them managed to fully get their trousers off, there was a loud pop, and Kreacher appeared near the Pensieve.
"Damn it," Harry swore, nearly falling over as he quickly pulled his trousers back up from where they'd bunched up around his knees and turned away to zip and button them.
"Masters, the intruder is being back at the wards again," Kreacher wailed.
Harry glanced over at Tom, whose expression was somewhere between disappointment and alarm, and asked, "What do we do?"
Tom met Harry's eyes for a moment, then he said decisively, "Blood-bound Tresspasser's Hex, and then we drop the wards on purpose." Tom turned towards the house elf instead, and said, "Kreacher, get me a sharp silver knife, a crystal bowl, and a teaspoon each of blackthorn and mugwort. Quickly."
Kreacher popped away but was back in seconds with the items Tom had requested. Tom pulled his shirt back on, and Harry rescued his own shirt from the dusty floor, shaking it briefly before putting it back on.
"You said this wasn't legal," Harry reminded Tom while the former Dark Lord was putting the herbs into the crystal bowl. "What if whoever that is out there reports us?"
Tom glanced up at him briefly, then returned his attention to the bowl, slicing the palm of his own hand with the silver knife and letting the blood drip into the bowl. "I'll Obliviate them after we question them. The only way they'll be reporting anything is if they escape—and even then, what would they say? 'Harry Potter tried to illegally apprehend me when I illegally broke into his home'? Don't worry too much about it," Tom reasoned. He finally pulled his hand away from the bowl and healed the cut on his palm. Then he handed the knife to Harry, and said, "Your turn."
Harry swallowed but took the knife. He'd been uncomfortable with blood rituals ever since Voldemort's resurrection, but he didn't see any other option than to go along with it. He rested the blade of the knife lightly on his left palm, then pressed it down and dragged it along his skin, cutting just deep enough to make it bleed. He winced, then held out his bleeding hand to let it drip into the crystal bowl.
Tom watched Harry's blood mix with his own in the bowl, then after about twenty seconds he said, "That's plenty," and Harry pulled his hand away. "Here," Tom offered, extending his wand to heal the cut on Harry's palm and then taking back the knife.
"Thanks," Harry said, trying not to smile as he felt something warm in his chest. He tried not to read too much into it. He told himself that Tom voluntarily healing his hand was not a declaration of undying loyalty or affection, it was just being polite.
"Kreacher?" Tom called, and the house-elf shuffled over. Tom handed him the silver knife. Kreacher looked at it with his brow furrowed, then he looked back up at Tom in confusion.
Tom gestured towards the crystal bowl, and asked impatiently, "You live here too, don't you?"
Kreacher's eyes widened, and he asked incredulously, "Masters want Kreacher to be part of their spell?"
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Harry quickly said, taking his reaction as a negative one.
"Kreacher wants! Kreacher has never been given such an honor—oh, Masters are too kind," he said, dragging the tip of the knife over his tiny palm and holding his bleeding hand over the bowl.
"What do you mean, Kreacher?" Harry asked while Tom kept an eye on how much blood was going into the crystal bowl.
"No other master ever included Kreacher in the protections. Kreacher's magic always has to work around the protection spells to not get trapped or pushed out, even the wards." He eyed Harry warily before admitting, "House elf magic is being stronger than most Wizards' wards. Can work around it but it is always being…uncomfortable. Painful sometimes." From Kreacher's demeanor, Harry got the impression that this was something house-elves didn't often tell their masters.
"I'm sorry," Harry said, feeling horrible for not knowing about it. "I'll specifically key you into all the wards from now on."
Kreacher's eyes got a little watery and he said, "Master Harry is being too kind."
Tom spoke up and said, "That's plenty, Kreacher."
Kreacher took his hand away. He closed it into a fist, and when he opened it again the cut was healed.
Tom held his wand over the bowl of blood and herbs, and chanted an unfamiliar spell. The mixture in the crystal bowl briefly glowed with a silver sheen before returning to normal.
"All right," Tom said, standing up and picking up the bowl, then striding to the closest corner of the attic. Harry trailed after him, and Kreacher shuffled along behind him as well. Tom dipped his index finger into the mixture of blood and herbs, then very carefully drew a runic symbol on the wall. When he finished, he glanced over towards the next corner and frowned at the maze of furniture and junk in the way. "Kreacher, can you pop me over to the eastern corner?"
"Of course, Master Tom," Kreacher said, snapping his fingers. Tom disappeared from in front of him.
Harry frowned. "We should stay close to him," he said. "Mind popping the two of us over there as well?"
Kreacher snapped again, and Harry found himself and Kreacher standing in an unfamiliar corner of the attic watching Tom put the finishing touches on the second rune.
"Next corner, quickly," Tom instructed.
Kreacher popped all three of them to it. Harry was starting to get a bit dizzy from all of the apparating, but he watched Tom paint the third rune on the wall.
"Is the intruder still out there?" Tom asked Kreacher.
Kreacher nodded and said, "Yes, Master Tom."
"Good."
Harry frowned and said, "It's a bit weird that they're trying it in broad daylight this time. Hasn't it always been at night?"
Kreacher nodded.
Tom said, "It's irrelevant. Last corner, Kreacher."
Kreacher apparated the three of them to the final corner, and Tom quickly but precisely painted the final rune on the wall. The rune glowed silver again briefly, and then there was a wave of power that emanated from the four corners of the attic, crossing the area between then and then rushing to expand both upwards and downwards to permeate the entire house.
"Whoa," Harry muttered. "Wouldn't the intruder have felt that?"
"No," Tom answered, Vanishing the crystal bowl of blood. "Only the people protected by a blood-bound Tresspasser's Hex feel it go into effect," he explained. "Kreacher, where exactly is the intruder trying to get through the wards?"
"By the walkway that is leading to the front door, Master Tom."
Tom's eyebrows went up. "Bold of them," he said absently. Then he told Kreacher, "Take us to the front entryway."
Kreacher popped the three of them to the entryway, and Harry glanced nervously over at Tom.
"Are you sure about this?" Harry asked. "Didn't you say something about an anti-apparation ward the other night?"
Tom waved it off and said, "We don't need it. As long as the intruder comes inside and crosses the threshold of the house, the Tresspasser's Hex won't let them move from the spot—including by apparating. My original thought was to put an anti-apparation ward around the perimeter to trap them on the grounds and lure them into the house, but it's too late for that now. They would feel the ward going up around them and flee before it took effect."
"So we just…let them in?" Harry asked, feeling a spike of nervousness.
"Just let them in," Tom confirmed.
"Which wards am I supposed to drop?"
"The anti-intruder wards and the Fidelius."
Harry's eyebrows went up. "Seriously?"
Tom nodded. "This is just temporary. We'll put it back up once the intruder is dealt with."
Harry swallowed, then said, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Tom glanced over at him, a hint of a smile quirking his lips, and he teased, "Do a shot."
Harry smiled back but said, "Nope, we only drink when they say it in Star Wars. You and me saying it doesn't count."
Tom rolled his eyes but turned his attention to Kreacher instead, and ordered, "Kreacher, keep out of sight but stay close in case you're needed."
"Yes, Master Tom," Kreacher said, bowing and then popping away to hide somewhere nearby.
Tom turned back to Harry. "Take the wards down now, before the intruder gives up."
Harry met Tom's eyes for a moment, then raised his wand and quickly cast the spells to temporarily deactivate the anti-intruder wards, and to cancel the Fidelius.
They both held their breath, waiting for the front door to open and reveal whoever had been creeping around Harry's house for the past week. Nothing happened for a long moment.
Harry quietly asked, "Do you think they left, or—?"
Suddenly a loud, obnoxious, magically-amplified doorbell noise rang throughout the house.
DING DONNNNNG.
Tom glanced at Harry, and Harry glanced right back. "I don't have a doorbell," Harry said.
DING DONNNNNG, the noise blared again nevertheless.
"Come in," Tom called.
There was a pause.
DING DONNNNG.
"We said come in!" Harry shouted.
DING DONNNNNG.
"Fuck's sake," Harry muttered, stepping closer to the door. "If this turns out to just be some prankster after all of that—"
Tom grabbed Harry's arm and stopped him halfway to the door, pulling him back several steps until they were about ten feet away from the front door and directly next to the doorway to a sitting room they could duck into to escape any spell-fire.
"Do you actively have a death wish?" Tom demanded. "Anyone could be out there. Put up a shield charm and I'll open the door from here."
DING DONNNNG.
"Fine," Harry said. Then he took a deep breath and cast a silent Protego Maxima around himself and Tom. Tom glanced at him, and Harry confirmed, "It's up. I'll hold it."
Tom glanced back towards the front door, seemed to take a breath to prepare, then with a flick of his wand he opened the front door to reveal…
…nothing but an empty doorstep.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Ten minutes later, Tom was perched on the arm of the sofa with his arms crossed, watching Harry who was still fuming and stomping around the sitting room.
"I cannot believe we got bloody ding-dong-ditched!" Harry ranted in between putting the wards back up over Grimmauld Place. This time, at Tom's prompting, he'd gone ahead and put an anti-Apparation ward over the house and extended it out to the edges of the property as well.
Tom watched him out of the corner of his eye while pondering the would-be intruder's actions. There had been no one at the door when he'd opened it. Harry hadn't trusted his eyes, and had cast Hominem Revelio and a handful of other detection spells that Tom was impressed that he knew, and then he'd sent Kreacher to search first outside and then inside the house thoroughly for anyone who might be hiding or might've snuck in through a window or something.
There was no one.
Tom had cast a spell of his own, recording the traces of magical signature the would-be intruder had left behind on the front porch. There wasn't much to go on—the traces themselves were miniscule and although he could compare the recorded traces to a live suspect if he happened upon one, there was no way to track the person down or identify them from magical traces alone. But one thing that stood out about these traces was that there was much less residue than an average magic-user would've left behind. That meant the chances of this intruder being one of Harry's obsessed but harmless fans had just decreased drastically. Whoever this was knew how to cover their tracks—they had training, and they were probably dangerous. It was also not likely that the intruder was just 'a ding-dong-ditch bitch' which is what Harry had started calling them under his breath now.
The question now was whether or not to enlighten Harry to his findings and his suspicions.
If the intruder returned, and if they somehow got in next time, they might try to harm Harry. They might be dangerous enough to actually succeed. It could be the opportunity Tom had been waiting for to let death sever the slave bond. As he'd told Harry already, if the master died, so would the slave. But (as he had no intention of ever telling Harry) the Horcrux in Harry's scar would keep Tom tethered to life and would allow his spirit to take over Harry's body and live freely after Harry's death, although under a false identity.
But…did he still want that?
Tom blinked, a bit shocked to find himself second-guessing his original plan. Of course he wanted to be free. Even if he had to masquerade as Harry for the rest of his life.
But…wasn't it too soon? He had barely seen Harry interact with his closest friends, surely he wouldn't be able to convincingly pass as him yet? A handful of ways around that occurred to Tom immediately—use Legilimency on Harry's friends, or stage a massive argument and never speak to them again, or become a recluse and cut off all contact and only go out heavily disguised—but he dismissed them all.
"Harry?" he called.
"—seriously cannot believe the audacity—" Harry was still ranting under his breath.
"Harry!"
Harry snapped out of it and met Tom's eyes, then gave him a forced but warm smile and said, "Sorry, what?"
"They covered up their magical signature," Tom confessed, feeling strangely lighter as he did. He was giving up a slight strategic advantage and reducing his chances of an opportunity for freedom, but somehow it felt right. He rather hated that it felt right.
"The ding-dong-ditch bitch?" Harry asked, his expression darkening.
"This wasn't a prank," Tom said solemnly, trying not to let his internal conflict show, "this was a test run—to see what you would do, to test the defenses, and to see who else was here. They'll likely be back, and I don't think you should write them off as harmless. Covering up one's magical signature to this degree requires specialized training. It isn't something just anyone can learn how to do."
Harry blinked at him, then crossed his arms and said, "Okay, well, that's good then, right? It narrows down who this could be. Can you track them down, from the traces you did get?"
Tom shook his head. "No. And it doesn't actually narrow it down that much—Aurors on undercover assignments are trained to conceal and dampen their magical signatures, and so are Unspeakables who are sent out for field work. I learned how to do it from a former Auror who joined me, and so did about a dozen of the Death Eaters."
Harry's eyebrows went up. "You think it's an Auror or an Unspeakable or a Death Eater, then?"
"I don't know for sure, Harry," Tom said. "But I know you need to hurry up and redo that Fidelius."
"Fine. Kreacher?" Harry called.
Kreacher popped into the sitting room in front of them, still wringing his hands over not being able to find the intruder earlier. "Master called?"
"I'm redoing the Fidelius, stay here with Tom so I can tell you guys the address again."
Tom watched, reluctantly impressed, as Harry cast a new Fidelius charm over the property—it wasn't a complicated spell but it took a lot of power. Tom felt his mind go a little fuzzy once it was done and once Harry had made himself the Secret Keeper of…something…what was going on again..? Where was he..? But then Harry was kneeling in front of him, taking one of Tom's hands and one of Kreacher's hands, and telling both of them, "Our home address is Number 12, Grimmauld Place."
The fuzziness and disorientation cleared and Tom blinked a few times as the knowledge settled back into his mind.
Kreacher got a little teary-eyed over being included this time instead of being treated like furniture the way house-elves usually were, but Harry just said, "This is your home too, Kreacher, and I don't want the wards to hurt you anymore, or for you to have to constantly work around them."
Kreacher thanked Harry about a dozen times and then popped away to keep an eye on the new wards, and then Harry stood up and looked Tom in the eye almost shyly as he let go of his hand.
"So, erm," Harry said awkwardly. "I need to go tell Ron and Hermione the address again to let them back into the Fidelius—they'll panic if they try to Floo call or come over and suddenly can't reach me—but, erm, after that maybe we could," Harry blushed severely but continued, "pick up where we left off earlier? Only if you want to," he hurried to add. "I mean, I guess the ding-dong-ditch bitch kind of killed the mood, but," he trailed off and shrugged.
"We'll see," Tom said, because he didn't want to seem overeager. He softened his response with a slight smile, then he added, "And you seem to be forgetting about the proximity requirement—I'll go with you to meet your friends."
Harry frowned. "I thought you could stay by yourself for a little while as long as you stay wherever I'm living?"
Tom's expression grew pinched and he answered, "On a good day, yes. But I told you that the bond has been acting up. It doesn't want me to be across the house from you right now, let alone in a different house."
"Right, sorry, I sort of forgot," Harry said. Then he blinked and his apologetic expression turned into one of concern. "Erm, I know you told me to trust your word," Harry said cautiously, "and I will, but…is there any chance at all that the proximity part of the bond is making you…you know…want me like that? Since it wants us closer?"
"No, Harry," Tom said, rolling his eyes. "We've been over this."
"Okay, good," Harry said, sounding relieved, "I just had to ask."
Tom looked at Harry for a moment, and it hit him again suddenly just how lucky he'd gotten that Harry had walked into Azkaban that day. He didn't even want to think about what would've happened otherwise, if he'd been left in the 'care' of the guards after the incident with Anderson. The guards would've taken their revenge and taken their pleasure and not cared one bit about his consent or his comfort or his wellbeing. Unlike Harry, who tripped over himself trying to make sure he didn't do anything Tom didn't consent to, and who had trained himself out of using imperative sentences over the course of a week to avoid giving Tom accidental orders, and who had (rather stupidly from an objective standpoint) allowed Tom to retain the use of his magic and pretty much do as he pleased. He had killed Harry's parents and tried to kill Harry repeatedly and torn the Wizarding World in half with war before finally being defeated, but Harry treated him with kindness after all of that. Kindness, and dignity, and even affection—and Tom didn't understand it. He was grateful for it—grudgingly—but he didn't understand it.
"Erm, Tom?" Harry asked, looking concerned by Tom's long silence as he'd been essentially staring at Harry.
Tom blinked, then forced a smile and said, "Sorry. Just thinking." He mentally chided himself for that lackluster explanation.
Harry gave him a tentative smile in return, and asked, "About me?"
"Yes, actually," Tom admitted, feeling a sudden impulse to kiss Harry again—not for any calculated reason, and not to quiet the proximity bond—just because…he wanted to. He took a second to consider, then decided 'to hell with it' and stepped in close to Harry.
Harry's breath hitched, and Tom leaned in and kissed him, one hand holding the back of Harry's neck and the other hand sliding around Harry's waist and then down to his lower back to press him closer. Harry kissed him back immediately this time, and both of his hands found their way into Tom's hair. The proximity requirement went completely silent, and the Horcrux bond started humming with a feedback loop of pleasure between them.
Tom pulled away before things could get too heated. He caught Harry's eye, then nodded towards the fireplace. "Your friends," he reminded him.
Harry blinked a few times, visibly collecting himself, then he said, "Right. Yeah. We should, erm, yeah."
"We should go through the Floo together," Tom said, though the thought of it gave him a twinge of anticipatory nausea. Floo travel was already so turbulent, and two people going through at the same time was twice as rough and tended to end with the travelers crash landing in a tangle of limbs on the floor.
"I thought people weren't supposed to do that?"
"It isn't recommended," Tom answered, "but I'm not eager to find out how the proximity requirement would react to you Floo'ing away from me."
"Good point. Shall we get this over with, then?" Harry asked, holding out his hand and waiting for Tom to take it.
Tom hesitated, because the reaching out was really starting to become A Thing between them, and he wasn't sure whether to be pleased by that or annoyed. Regardless, he took Harry's hand and allowed himself to be led to the fireplace.
Harry laced their fingers together as they arrived at the fireplace, then he used his free hand to grab the Floo powder from the jar on the mantle.
"Ready?" he asked Tom. Tom nodded and they stepped into the fireplace together. Harry tightened his grip on Tom's hand, then threw down the Floo powder and called, "The Burrow!"
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A/N:
Harry is in Besotted Dumbass Mode and is not even thinking about what could go wrong with taking Tom to the Burrow…but I assure you, I absolutely am. *evil author laugh*
Also, Tom starting to catch feelings for Harry without consciously recognizing that he's getting attached is my jam.
Also, I was originally planning to reveal the intruder this chapter, but then my muse looked down and whispered "no." And I know ding-dong-ditch is called various other things in the UK but none of them rhyme with an insult, so I'm using the US term for it.
Bonus points to anyone who caught the reference to Snape's backstory from my other fic Always and Forever :)
Comments give me life!