This is why apparating under duress without a clear location in mind was so dangerous. In the split second that he had between grabbing Tom, and twisting on his heel, the vague images of jungle zipped through his mind and the next thing Harry knew, he and Tom were falling towards the thick jungle canopy from nearly fifty feet in the air. Thankfully, this wasn't the first time he'd found himself plunging to his death unexpectedly.
Arresto momentum!
Their descent slowed as they slipped past the canopy and lowered gently to the ground. Tom was still staggering and breathing hard from the adrenaline coursing through him when Harry grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him down so that Harry could get in his face.
"Do the Fae have a way of tracking magic?" He demanded urgently.
"What?" Tom balked, as if Harry had just spouted gibberish at him.
"Do they have a way to track magic?" Harry repeated slowly, emphasizing each word like he was speaking to someone who'd taken a confundus to the face. Tom's ears must have finally caught up with his brain because he shook his head vigorously.
"No, I've never heard of them having a way to do something like that." Tom answered, but Harry had already released him and pulled out his wand to begin carving runes into the air with the glowing tip. Magic pulsed around them as he finished the intricate tangle of wards that had come second nature after he'd cast them so many times while horcrux hunting. Finally, the sharp edge of panic dulled in his throat and he breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they were once again safe. For now, at least.
"There, that'll keep them from using any kind of magic to locate us. Even if they're lucky enough to stumble upon us in the middle of the jungle, this'll keep them from ever realizing we're right in front of them." Harry reassured the baffled king. "These wards have a seven-meter radius, so just don't try to step out of it without telling me. If you leave and try to get back in, you'll never be able to find it and pass back through." He ended with a warning. Harry turned around to find Tom, who'd just been reaching for the hazy, oil slick barrier with his hand when he jerked it back at Harry's words. Harry rolled his eyes behind the man's back. Honestly, was he a toddler?
"So, what now? Do we return to the Cardinal until we can safely travel?" Harry asked, his mind struggling to plot a path forward in the aftermath of his adrenaline. They had just signed a treaty, surely that would guarantee that the Cardinal would help them now. Tom walked back towards the center of the wards where Harry stood, expression once more solemn and serious.
"That would be far too dangerous. I'm certain that the Fae are already watching it closely to see if we'll return. That in and of itself is dangerous, but then we also have to consider the possibility that there are Fae spies within the Cardinal's ranks as well. My personal guard has known about this mission for weeks, if they can disguise themselves to appear human even in front of other Fae, then there's a good chance their ranks have also been compromised." Tom shook his head and glared at the space over Harry's shoulder in contemplation.
"Alright, but you should warn the Cardinal of this as soon as possible. If there are Fae disguised around him, he needs to know before they can make a move now that we've gotten away. And, if word gets out about this meeting with the Cardinal, but the King ends up going missing right after, he'll want to be prepared for any fallout if people believe he was behind this." As Harry spoke, he began to assess the chunk of warded jungle they were in. The trees were dense around them, but there was a good-sized clearing where they stood that would be big enough for a small camp without having to worry about rolling right into the fire while you slept.
"I can send word once we reach the Island's port, but that won't be until tomorrow morning if we're staying here for the night." Tom, following Harry's lead, began to move branches and debris out of their little clearing.
Harry paused in his wandless gathering of twigs and dead moss he was planning to magically dry for kindling. Harry wasn't really worried about Amode and the Cardinal, he'd known them for less than a day. While his experience with Amode had been intriguing, His heart was hard to soften for anyone in a political or perilous position. Those who lived in danger, it was best not to get too surprised when they eventually succumbed to it. Harry's compassion had been far too malnourished as a child, along with his body, to grow so large as to mourn a stranger.
However, this treaty had seemed quite vital in giving Nandera the upper-hand in their precarious situation with the Fae Empire. If that failed and Nandera was immediately thrown into war, he had no reason to stay in a war-torn country. But, from the way Amode had made it sound, Nandera was one of the few kingdoms still evading the Empire's grasp. Plus, it was one of the few places that seemed almost entirely devoid of non-humans. If Harry would immediately be labeled a 'Disciple' because of his 'condition', then there was no better place to hide, than the place without Fae.
Harry inwardly groaned at the tension headache forming between his eyes. In the end, as much as he wanted to stay as far away from the excitement and drama, there were several things he needed to do in order to secure a safe quiet place to raise his child. The first thing that had to be done, was that he needed to warn Amode of potential traitors. Then he needed to somehow make sure the unguarded king made a safe return to his kingdom so that he could continue to uphold a land free of the Empire's influence.
One thing at a time.
"We can't wait that long. The sooner they know, the better. This island will be impossible to get off of if it's swarming with Fae." Harry withdrew his wand from his pocket and with a delicate swirl, the ethereal and noble visage of a glowing stag galloped from the tip and waited for its orders from the wizard. Harry would never tell another living soul the memory that had conjured the corporeal patronus. Not when it was a moment surrounded by so much darkness and pain.
That brief moment, back in his own world, when he'd been alone after the discovery of the life he harbored, he'd allowed himself to fully imagine having a child of his own—a family of his own—to nurture and protect. That moment when he realized that this was the gift he'd been given upon his resurrection. His purpose, his reason to exist, to fight.
"Amode, King Thomas and I were attacked by our guards not long after we left. Three of them were Fae spies and the other two guards were killed. We are both safe at the moment, don't try to find us, it'll just be a waste of time. I'm sure it goes without saying, but you should check your men as well. You will not be able to track this messenger, or send a message in return. I will send another once we are back in Nandera." Harry paused, trying to think of anything else he needed to say to Amode. He worried that the Fae woman would disregard his warning and come looking for them anyways, considering how protective she'd been of him the moment she'd realized what he was.
"Do not trust their faces. Don't worry about us, the Mother protects what's hers, and her gifts are bountiful." He finished cryptically. It was possible that the Cardinal would be with her when the patronus reached her, and he'd rather the stranger not know exactly what he was implying. To someone else, it would likely come off as a throw-away prayer about the goddess watching over the king and Harry, but Amode would understand that 'us' had little to do with Tom. Hopefully she would also pick up on his implication with 'gifts' referring to Harry's ability to protect himself.
With the end of his message, the stag took off through the air, galloping over open space and disappearing through the trees with a gentle glow.
"You know, nothing you have done so far has given me any reason to believe you aren't some form of divinity." Tom brushed the dirt off his hands from the large fallen branch he'd moved from the center of the clearing. There was a shine of awed amusement and fascination behind his eyes, likely referring to the corporeal patronus he had just sent off to deliver his message, but Harry could tell that he wasn't quite as teasing about his belief that Harry was some form of deity as he had been before.
"You can create impenetrable magic barriers, sail a vessel right through a thunderbird nest unharmed, cross vast distances instantaneously, move objects with but a thought, and summon great spirits to do your bidding. And I'm sure that is only the start!" Tom seemed to become more and more incredulous the longer he spoke. "That is not the magic of mortal creatures. Even if you were secretly Fae, they enchant their weapons with power only they can wield and craft items imbued with specific properties to carry out a single task. They don't create from nothing or bend the laws of nature and magic on a whim."
He listened quietly as the man voiced his growing confusion over Harry's unorthodox displays of power. After the king's words ran out and his mind seemed to begin to consume itself, he hesitantly spoke up.
"Does it frighten you, what I can do?" His head tilted slightly and he took a single step closer to the center of the clearing.
He didn't really know why he asked it, he could have just brushed the man's worries away as he had before by arguing that he is just as human as Tom, but something stopped him from shoving it aside. Perhaps it was memories of a dead man who devoured power like it was the air he breathed and crushed anything that might threaten said power under his boney cold foot. Perhaps he just couldn't resist tugging on the threads of Tom's curiosity, luring him in deeper into his carnivorous bed of secrets that wished to consume them both. Perhaps he ached for someone to peel away the layers of calloused, scarred hide that weighed so heavily on his bones.
"No. I do not fear you, divine creature." His words lacked malice or trepidation as he stared Harry down, defiant only in his refusal to be daunted. "I fear what the world might do to you if it were to discover what you can do. I don't know the extent of your abilities, but I know that many will covet what you can do."
"Including yourself?" Harry retorted, drawing back from the sincerity in the other's eyes before he was drawn in too far to return. Curiosity and caution waring through his head, neither willing to concede fully to the other. Tom's brow creased with a frown and he took his own step forward, but there was still about two meters between them.
"Your abilities are a curiosity, but I have no interest in using your power. I will keep my promise to you, when we return to Nandera, you are free to disappear the moment we are on land again. No one in my court will hear of what you can do, I swear on my life you will live freely." He didn't seem offended that Harry mistrusted him, rather, he appeared determined to prove him wrong.
It was easy to believe him, to believe his convictions. Whether it was their shared past of intimacy, or because Tom was just so naturally charismatic that he could convince a stone it was a butterfly, Harry was inclined to believe what he said. Still, he wouldn't be swayed to easily to rely on a near-stranger.
"Though, if I were to be candid with you, I'd have to admit that, selfishly, I wish to know everything about you. Not so that I might use the information later for the benefit of my country, or to force you to ally with Nandera. I'm afraid my motivation is purely self-serving. I want to know because soon you will disappear to where not even I could find you, and every little detail I can uncover about you will be the only thing that I can hold onto when you go." There was a sting of pain in his voice that nipped at the edges of Harry's mind. And just like that, Harry was reminded of the man's solitary life ruling a kingdom he'd never wanted in the first place.
He was reminded of another boy of the same name, abandoned in a world on fire, desperate for the kind touch of companionship. He was reminded of himself, raised in a den of neglect and hunger where he would have given anything for a friend. And when he'd found a couple of friends and disfigured himself to fit the mold that they had created for him, it took barely a breath to knock it all back down again. Oh, Harry was very familiar with the need for something—someone—to hold onto. He was sick of this house of cards, sick of the lonely climb, sick of the fall.
And that's what Tom was asking for. Not for his eternal loyalty and companionship, not for Harry to fight or die for him, but for something to hold onto. Something to fight for.
Question was, was Harry capable of returning the hope he had borrowed all those months ago? Was there anything he was willing to give to repay the second chance Tom had given him? Or would his own tattered and trampled trust turn him into a wretch that would forever ignore the debt he owed to this man before him.
"Would you swear on your life? Swear that nothing I might tell you would ever be written or told or implied to another person, on the stake of your life?" He didn't know what he was doing, but the ability to think over his actions or words beforehand had left him. All that remained was the burning flame in his chest to give something back, after all he had received unwittingly from Tom. Even if it was just scraps, even if he couldn't make any promises of his own . . . if he could only leave Tom with a memory, he wanted it to be an honest one, at least.
"Without question." Tom answered at once, sure in his statement. The immediate response licked at the flames in his chest and blew on his embers.
Bloody hell . . . I guess if I change my mind, I can just strip every memory of me from his mind with a quick obliviate. . . Harry thought, trying to justify his impulsiveness and to ease off of the intense thoughts he'd been before that were far too emotional and raw for what amounted to sharing a ridiculous story that the king would have to be insane to believe.
"Your hand." Harry said as he approached the other man, hopefully looking less like a nervous wreck than he felt. Tom held out his hand and Harry took a firm hold of his forearm, indicating with a raise of his eyebrows that Tom should mirror him. When he pointed his wand at their hands, Tom still didn't look at all nervous, despite all of the things he'd seen and heard that Harry could do when the wand came into play.
"Do you, Thomas Riddle, vow to never divulge any information I might tell you in confidence, about my past, present, or future without my explicit consent? Do you vow that anything you discover about me you won't use against me?" The familiar shimmering golden cord wound its way around their joined arms.
"I do." There was no hesitation to his answer, which helped to assure Harry that he wasn't making a colossal mistake by trusting Tom.
"And do you accept that if you try to break this promise, or use some sort loophole, that you will lose your life in trying to betray me?" Harry hated the way his voice waned in the final oath, the dread settling in his stomach that this would be too much to ask of Tom and he would change his mind. But Harry couldn't make it any less severe. He was putting his life on the line by confiding in Tom, so he needed the same from the king in return.
"I accept any consequences that may come my way." Tom finished, gently squeezing his forearm as the magic sank into their skin and disappeared. Harry quickly pulled his hand away and turned around to continue his work.
"There's still a lot to do before nightfall. We can talk once everything is set up." Harry knew he was just putting it off until later so that he had more time to think about what he would say. If he just winged it, chances were, he'd just ramble on about every little meaningless detail until he shared far too much and felt highly uncomfortable. Harry wanted Tom to know a bit about himself and where he came from, he didn't want to unload his life story on Tom.
Without saying much, the two worked on setting up camp. Tom set up a fire for later and broke up wood to keep it going for quite a while. Harry transfigured a rock into a cup and with the spell he'd become very familiar with, kept it filed with cool, fresh water as he and Tom took turns drinking from it to chase away the heat. Tom quickly shed his cloak and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, clearly his clothes didn't have the temperature-regulating charms that Harry's had. But the wizard found himself rather unmotivated to try to charm the king's clothes when the man began to lift the hem of his shirt up to wipe away the perspiration dripping down his temples. If someone were to ask, he'd feign fear of overexerting himself magically.
Harry swallowed and quickly moved to the edge of the wards so that he could accio a couple of hares for supper. The moment they were in his grasp, he efficiently snapped the neck to end the creature's fear and prevent any suffering. Harry preferred his traps and snares, it felt a little fairer when he didn't use magic to catch his food, but knowing that there was Fae out in the jungle searching for them at that very moment, meant that he really didn't want to risk getting caught just for his food.
Limp hares in hand. Harry shed his own cloak and pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. He found a seat on a short, lichen covered stump, transfigured a twig into a sharp hunting knife, and got to work skinning and cleaning the game. He felt eyes on him as he was working on the first hare and glanced up briefly to find Tom watching him with an unreadable look on his face from where he built the small pyre for the camp fire.
"You seem familiar with that sort of work." The king stated, nodding to the confident cuts and tugs Harry made.
"Do I seem like a delicate, squeamish lad to you?" Harry retorted with mirth twining through his words. He knew his smaller, fairer frame gave many people the impression that he was some frail thing that couldn't muster up the courage to kill a bug. It had been both to his advantage and detriment over the years, but he'd grown comfortable in his skin with adulthood.
Tom chuckled and shook his head.
"Hardly. I just meant; it's been years since I've seen the meat before it ends up plated and garnished. Unfortunately, once you become king, people seem rather opposed to letting you out for something as trivial as hunting. Most in my court have forgotten that I used to be a humble farm boy, capable of chopping his own wood and cooking his own food." Tom mused, sounding fondly exasperated, with the slightest hint of longing in his words.
"Well, let's hope that his majesty's palate hasn't been totally spoiled by gourmet meals and he can stomach a simpler dish, otherwise he can starve." Harry mocked with a dramatic roll of his eyes, effectively cutting through the earlier tension and drawing a surprised laugh out of Tom. Said man tried in vain to hold in his laughter as he looked over his shoulder at Harry from where he was assembling a fire with a haughty look of offense.
"There is nothing wrong with my palate!" Tom exclaimed outrageously. "If the courts heard your wily tongue, they would surely remove it for speaking to me in such a way." Tom huffed, but Harry could tell he wasn't really offended. He was just following Harry's lead to lighten the mood after all of the chaos earlier that day. They had already decided to camp there for the night and the wards would protect them for now, stewing in worry and the precariousness of the situation would do neither of them any good. Besides, the longer he put off having to own up to his earlier decision, the more he could prepare himself.
The sun was starting to go down by the time Tom got a steady fire going and Harry had prepared the hares enough to be roasted over the flames. They didn't speak much, their flimsy ventures at distracting each other from the earlier assassination attempt had quickly fallen through as the reality of the situation settled into their minds and they soon fell to silence. So much hung in the balance, and they were stuck camping out in the jungle for the night. It was so similar to his seventh year that it made his stomach churn.
When the sun fully set and the jungle was plunged into inky darkness, the humid heat of the day quickly washed away in the breeze and a damp-cold settled tackily on his skin. He was sat a few feet away from Tom, magically rotating the meat until it was thoroughly cooked. Biting into the meat, he found himself missing the tasty meals he and Lucas would cook up back on the ship, but he couldn't complain about having plenty of warm food to eat. Everything was a hell of a lot easier with the help of his magic, too.
"I didn't lie about being human, that much was true. But . . . I'm not from here." Harry started long after they had finished eating. He didn't look over at Tom, that way he could almost convince himself he was alone. "I've come from a different world. A different reality. A different earth."
"Is it very dissimilar from here?" Tom asked after a moment, words hushed as if afraid to spook him out of talking.
"In many ways, yes. In some ways, no. There are humans and creatures and magic in my world, but that's about where the broad similarities end. Where I come from, the largest population of intelligent creature on the planet are non-magical humans. Their numbers have grown so large that they've leveled forests and built structures that scrape the clouds to live in. There's so many of them, that even thousands of people with my gifts would be wiped out in the blink of an eye if they discovered our existence. So, we've lived in secret, hidden behind wards not unlike these." His hand swept around them vaguely. If felt odd trying to explain his world to someone who had never seen it and never would.
"I can't even begin to imagine that." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tom bend his leg up to rest his arm on his knee. Harry glanced over to find Tom looking right back with an open expression of intrigue.
"Would you like to see?" Harry offered after clearing his throat and flicking his eyes away to the darkened woods surrounding them, much to the other's enthusiasm. He shifted closer and folded up his legs close to his body as Tom turned so he was fully facing him where they sat. Harry tried not to let his face heat up as their eyes connected so that he could cast the spell. He cast a silent legilimens and slipped into the unprotected mind with ease, carefully and gently.
Instead of rifling through the other's thoughts, he stayed at the edges and began to project images from his own memory into the front of the man's mind. He showed him the city scape at the heart of London and the crowds that strolled the streets without a care. He showed him cars, planes, ships, and trains. He showed him Privet Drive and its endless row of identical houses. He showed him the glowing box of the telly in the living room. Flashes of his old world zipped by and flooded Tom's head with what must have looked like an alien world.
After a few minutes, Harry slipped back out of his mind to find the man in a daze, eyes wide with fascination.
"You said that your people lived in the shadows? So that must have been the non-magic humans?" The king asked once he'd gathered himself.
"Right, we're called wizards and we refer to non-magical humans as 'muggles.' When we turn eleven, we're sent to an academy only for wizards, to learn spells to use our magic. Unlike the elemental magic used here, we use wands and spells and curses to wield magic in very specific ways. It is very difficult to just will for something to happen and for our magic to respond appropriately." Harry felt like he was back in the DA, instructing students on stuff he hardly knew himself. But for Tom, all of this was entirely new. It also seemed like a better way to cover the explanation of the things he could do by saying he learned it in 'magic school' rather than having Tom believing he's some all-powerful god.
"I take it you went to one of these academies?" Tom had said he wanted to know more about him and yet so far, all Harry's talked about is vague non-personal facts about his world.
"Yes. My . . . my parents were wizards, but they died when I was an infant, so I was raised by my muggle relatives until I was old enough to be invited to the school." He said hesitantly. After all, these weren't exactly fond memories he was dredging up.
"I'm sorry for your loss. That must have been difficult for you growing up." Tom sounded genuinely contrite. It felt like hearing those words from this man in particular should have made Harry sick, or at least uneasy, but all he felt was Tom's compassion and warmth. Harry shrugged one shoulder as if to say 'it was fine.'
"I was too young to have any memories of them, but I'm sure my life would have been a lot easier if they had been alive still." Harry knew he was leading the other towards far more personal topics instead of away, but sitting in the darkness with only the warmth of the fire beside them, Harry once again found himself bewitched by the perceived intimacy of conversing at night. Harry's fingers absently fiddled with the strap and buckle of his boot and he looked anywhere but directly at the man across from him.
"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to them?" He had never been the one to tell another person how his parents passed, everyone from his old life just knew. Something about that felt distinctly cathartic.
"They were killed." It was surprisingly easier to say it aloud than he'd expected.
"At the time, there was a man—a dark wizard—who had been trying to take over our government and trying to persecute muggles for supposedly being less than wizards. He was insane and didn't give a damn who he had to kill or torture to achieve his goals. He and his followers had been at war with the light faction, and my parents were caught in the middle of the bloodshed." Harry paused then, unsure of how to proceed from that. Did he tell Tom about the prophecy that had ruined his life? How did he put into words the nightmare his life became afterwards? Did he even want to explain it?
The silence stretched on for a while as Harry watched the embers at the edge of the fire wane and spark in the wind. Tom didn't speak, waiting for whatever he had to say and Harry was grateful.
"The dark wizard disappeared that night. As the only survivor, many foolishly thought I had somehow defeated him, despite only being a year old at the time. Everyone believed he was dead, and I grew up in the muggle world without a clue about magic or how my parents really died."
"But he wasn't dead, was he?" Tom asked after a while, sounding grim in his worry for Harry. Not that his current concern could change the past, but it made it a little easier to keep going.
"No, he wasn't. He had almost died that night and like everyone else, he thought it was something I had done. When I reentered the wizarding world, he sought to kill me so I could no longer impede him. He believed I would be the death of him. He . . ." Harry trailed off, the words evading him as he realized the full weight of what he had decided to share with the other. He didn't even know how to explain all that had led up to Voldemort's defeat and his subsequent flee from his home world. It seemed Tom caught on to his internal struggle as well.
"If it's easier, you can show me? Or you don't have to tell me at all, I don't wish to force you." Tom finished in a rush, backpedaling to give him an out, which he appreciated. Maybe it would be better to just show Tom, as he had before. It wouldn't give him the whole story, but it would give him the general idea, which had to be good enough.
Harry looked back up at Tom hesitantly, in theory it should be easier not having to find a way to explain everything and second guess every word that left his mouth, but letting Tom see it himself didn't feel any easier.
"It's . . . it's not a pleasant jaunt down memory lane. I've come from a world at war, and the lives of children were not often spared." He felt the need to warn him, to hopefully prepare him a bit. The things he'd witnessed were not for the faint of heart.
He almost jumped out of his skin when something warm touched his hand, only to realize Tom had carefully extricated it from where it was curled around his bootstrap. His smaller hand was clasped between both of Tom's, gently encased in their warmth. Such a simple touch had shivers running up his arm, setting his blood alight with excited magic.
"I cannot say I've lived through a war, but I am no stranger to bloodshed. I wish to know who you are and where you've come from. I am not afraid of your scars. Haven't I told you already? You don't scare me, Harry." Curse this man and his tender words, curse the earnestness in his eyes, curse this thief and his penchant for stealing Harry's wits, along with his breath.
This time he didn't raise his wand, it would've proved futile when it seemed their minds overlapped the moment their eyes connected. With a stuttered breath, Harry was slipping in the man's open mind as if it were his own. It felt different this time. Harry tried to once again hover at the edges of Tom's thoughts, but it was as if the other had grown familiar with recognizing Harry's presence in his mind and he reached out to pull Harry in deeper. Instead of skimming the surface, he was pulled in by phantom sunlight-hands into a coiling warmth that lapped at his skin. Harry felt like there were stars bursting along his scalp as their minds tangled together.
Despite feeling like he was being encased in the king's consciousness, Harry's thoughts were his own and he didn't feel any of Tom dripping into his own mind. He also doubted that he knew how to force Harry out of his mind with occlumency, but he could pull Harry in like quicksand, swallowing him up.
After a moment to regain his bearings, Harry refocused on the task at hand. He started off with something easier: he showed Tom the view of Hogwarts from the boats that first night, and then the enchanted ceiling of the great hall before sorting. From within his mind, Harry could feel the man's wonder at Hogwarts' beauty. He showed him the shifting staircases and living portraits. He let him see his first attempts at using proper magic in the classroom.
But his first year hadn't been all magic and splendor.
Tom soon saw Harry and his friends nearly being crushed under a troll's club, almost being torn apart by the Cerberus, strangled by devil's snare, beheaded on a life-sized chess board, and walking through flame to a room with a mirror and a man. Tom's hands squeezed his own when Quirrell attacked him and then perished in a crumbling heap under Harry's small ashen hands. Claiming his first life intentionally in his long story of death and hardship.
And then they were seeing walls painted in blood and a dank subterranean chamber. Harry was careful to exclude any memories of the horcrux from his second year. He didn't see the man before him as the same one who had caused so much strife in his life, and he refused to let Tom feel any misguided guilt for something he didn't do. So, he showed the basilisk with its fang plunged into his arm and he forced the sword of Gryffindor up through the roof of its mouth and moved on to dementors, werewolves, and escaped convicts. He swept through tournaments, dragons, merfolk, and a deadly hedge maze in mere moments.
The memories of the graveyard came up almost involuntarily. The limp body of Cedric tumbling to the ground, a grotesque pale monstrosity emerging from the cauldron, the remembered agony of the cruciatus curse ripping through his body, and the brilliant struggle of two different streams of magic meeting between them in a stubborn refusal to turn brother wands against each other. Harry pulled back the memory of sobbing over the corpse of a new friend in the midst of a jubilant celebration before it could fully form and moved on.
He skipped his fifth year right to the battle at the Ministry. Just a rag-tag group of cocksure teenagers stumbling into a trap of Death Eaters and barely escaping with their lives. He once again didn't linger on the memory of Sirius being blasted back into the veil, and moved on to Voldemort and Dumbledore battling in the atrium with near-God-like displays of magic. And then the latter was tumbling over the railing of the Astronomy tower from an avada kedavra to leave Harry alone to bear the weight of the war.
The next memories to pass between them was a trickle of moments when he was on the run. Moments of frantically battling Death Eaters and not looking back to see if their spells hit their mark and ended another life. Moments in the forest of Dean where every day was spent on edge. Harry and Hermione searching for ways to destroy the horcrux in their possession while Ron sat hunched over the radio waiting and dreading to hear the name of a brother or sister or parent as one of the many dissenters who were executed in the new regime.
The only warmth in those frigid memories coming from the moments in his sleep when he slipped into the hazy bed between worlds. It was a bit embarrassing to show these moments to Tom—despite the other having been there—but he needed to let the other know that he had also been a life-line for Harry, and that he wasn't the only one who had been saved.
The contrast between his dreary hallowed days and intimate tender nights was even more jarring in retrospect. Harry felt the soft sweep of fingers over the thin skin on the inside of his wrist, back and forth, and he took it as the man's silent acknowledgement of how much those moments meant to Harry. Similarly, Tom's mind caressed and squeezed his own but it seemed like more of an unintentional by-product of him wanting to comfort Harry. A mental echo of the urge that had caused him to touch Harry's wrist like that.
The battle of Hogwarts was probably the hardest thing to show Tom, but also one of the most important to understanding what he'd lived through. Once again, he felt his hand being squeezed and even the brush of Tom's other thumb over the back of his hand as memories of the battle began to enter his mind, pouring as much comfort and reassurance into their one point of contact as he could. Reliving those terrible memories, Harry certainly needed it.
Raining spell fire all around, students still in their uniforms fighting witches and wizards more than twice their age and losing, blood and screams misting the air in crimson clouds of viscera, stumbling over bodies while in the middle of their own lethal duels. Fear and the electric burn of spells wrought the air in its pungent odor.
Harry didn't spare Tom the horror. He wasn't trying to punish the man, but he needed the other to understand. He needed him to know why Harry craved a life of safe monotony, away from danger and excitement. Harry wasn't going to share the full reason, he wasn't going to tell him of the life he carried, but this would be enough.
He knew Tom likely wouldn't understand it, but he also showed his final fight Voldemort, how he was struck down, and then came back to defeat the wizard. He didn't let him see the brief moments he spent in the arms of death, since Tom would see his own face. He showed Voldemort's pitiful end and then the time spent after that, in which Harry tried to hole up in Grimmauld Place to heal but was ultimately chased out by those he'd trusted. The battle in Diagon Alley flashed by and then he was stranded alone in the woods.
The final memories Harry shared were of running from the Aurors and his friends, and then the ancient stone archway that would then transport him to another world. Harry withdrew from Tom's mind and he could feel the tendrils of warmth trying to cling to him, but he retreated nevertheless. With his faculties fully returned, Harry became entirely too aware of where Tom was holding his hand. It was too much. After sharing so much, in this nebulous atmosphere of uncertainty with how the other would see him now that he knew about his origins . . . the vulnerability of their position made him slightly nauseous.
Quietly clearing his throat, Harry slipped his hand out of Tom's and shifted back around to face the fire. To distract himself, he tossed more wood on the fire, it having grown dim and smaller while they had been in Tom's mind. Harry mentally reassured himself that if he wanted to, he could always change his mind and obliviate Tom later on. It helped ease the prickling sensation under his skin a bit.
He still didn't fully trust him. He'd only shared what he had tonight in hopes that it might bring them both a bit of closure so that they could part on mutual terms. The mystery of Harry had been solved, their encounter had been just a random glitch in the universe and he was nothing more than a bitter war 'hero' looking to escape his demons.
In part, it also felt like a repayment for Tom having already shared with him his own life story back on the ship that one night. Harry had perhaps shown a lot more than the other, but he felt secure in the oath he'd received. It was uncomfortable knowing that Tom had now seen glimpses of Harry's horrid tale, but there was nothing the king could do with this knowledge. There were no Death Eaters or Dark Lords to betray him to in this world. The name Harry Potter held no weight. And even the fact that he'd come from another world would never be believed without proof that the man couldn't provide with his oath in place.
"Why . . . why did your friends try to hurt you?" The words startled Harry, who had been too caught up in his own thoughts. He had expected the conversation to end when he'd shown Tom all he'd been willing to share. When the question caught up to him, he had to take a moment to think of how to answer that without giving anything away.
"Because, the dark wizard I'd defeated and I had some similarities. I suppose they thought I might follow in his footsteps?" Harry shrugged and picked up a stick they had been using for the fire to prod a half-charred log that had rolled towards them, back into the flames. "To them, I probably seemed dangerous. I had killed one of the most powerful wizards seen in centuries, and now that I wasn't fighting him, they were afraid to leave me free for what I might do next." That was mostly true. The ministry and his 'friends' were the only ones who knew of his pregnancy, the public were all too eager to turn on him just because they feared him.
He jabbed the fire with a little more force than necessary and a few sparks swirled up into the air.
"Somewhere at the end of the war, I lost sight of the reason for fighting what seemed like a losing battle. Aside from trying to survive, I didn't see the point in the war. I couldn't understand why people—children—were dying in the name of light or dark supremacy. If it would have stopped all of the senseless killing, I would have surrendered to the dark faction long ago, and I think they realized that. I wasn't the shining beacon of light idealism they wanted, and I was too dangerous to leave alone." Harry could hear the cold acerbity in his voice as he spoke. It was biting, but also, weary. Harry set the stick aside and pulled his knees up to his chest so that he could set his folded arms on top of them and then finally his chin could rest on his arms, hiding the lower half of his face from view.
"Some people would cut off their own hand if they thought it might disobey them." Tom's words were a cautious creature in the air between them, hesitant to prod at Harry's boundaries and cross a line, but daring to approach nonetheless. Harry peeked over his arm at him for a moment before looking away.
"Would you? Cut off your own hand, that is." He couldn't help but ask, even though he was unsure of how he would answer his own question.
"I trust my hands, if they disobeyed me, I think there would have to be a very good reason for it." Tom quipped back confidently.
Harry scoffed softly at Tom's ridiculous response. "You're a fool." In spite of his words, hidden in the fold of his arms, his own lips betrayed him by smiling and his stomach had no right to flip like that.
"Ah, but what a wonderful way to live, as a fool." Tom sounded wistful and Harry had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Why must this man be so damn talented at making me laugh when I shouldn't? Harry scooted back away from the fire a bit and laid back on the ground, his cloak and a few cushioning charms making him almost forget he was out in the middle of the forest with Fae after them when he closed his eyes. With one hand under his head and the other loosely settled over his belly, he felt his exhaustion already beginning to drag him down.
I wonder if a sense of humor could be genetic.
I hope so. . .
AN/: Hey! Just wanted to let y'all know that I received some wonderful art for this story from at faisalliot on twitter, which you can find here: twitter (dotcom) /faisalliot/status/1393997731853602819/photo/1
If anyone else would like to send some more beautiful art my way, I would absolutely love that! You can reach me at quill_obsidan on twitter or let me know whichever platform your art is posted and I'll post a link. Anyways, love ya!