In the last chapter: Harry goes into the third task and makes it to the cup first. Harry shows up in the cemetery where Voldemort and Philias are waiting for him and he successfully completes the ritual, telling Tom to contact him when he wanted answers before leaving the cemetery. Harry returns and is announced as the winner of the tournament. Barty confronts Harry about Voldemort's resurrection and Harry reveals that he actually helped Voldemort. Barty scoots it.
The antique grandfather clock's hands ticked on in circles with the rhythmic assurance of a metronome. Contrasting the measured clicks were the chaotic and sporadic taps against the tall window panes as gales blew large rain drops into the glass and battered the manor in an early summer storm. Thunder echoed hollowly in the distance and the faint flickers of lightning shot light through the dark clouds and almost green atmosphere.
Tom watched the building storm from his window, his tangled strings of thought reflected quite 'poetically' in the turnout of the morning's weather. The wooden frame of the window raddled and groaned against the wind. A soft knock had Tom turning as Philias Green slowly stepped into the room, closing the door behind him with his gaze lowered but spine straight.
It had been several days since the perplexing events of Tom's resurrection. The first two days saw him all but confined to his bed as he recovered both inside and out. After that, Tom spent the next few days trying to sort through what had happened on his own, but eventually he reached the end of what he could conclude on his own with this limited information and summoned Green to him. It was time he got some answers.
"Sit." Tom spoke as he made his way to one of the firm leather armchairs in his office, his tone was authoritative, but . . . not exactly unkind. Philias hesitated before taking the seat opposite him, nervous about what was to come but knowing he couldn't avoid it. "I'm sure you know why I called you here, Green. You may work for Harry Potter, but you are still my- . . . subordinate, and you will tell me everything you know about him."
Phil felt like his stomach was turning inside out, he hadn't had any contact with Voldemort after escorting the nearly unconscious man back up to the manor and putting him in his room and under the care of the house elves. Harry had seemed convinced that whatever he'd done to Voldemort would change him more than just physically and certainly implied a change of temperament, but Phil knew that Harry had never done something like this before—how could he—and so he couldn't exactly put all his faith in that.
He had to admit that Voldemort had definitely changed physically. The once wrinkled little homunculus form he'd held before was now an utterly normal-looking man—well, actually Phil didn't know if he could really be called a 'man' anymore, since whatever Harry had done had made Voldemort look more like a lad barely out of Hogwarts! He was tall and well built, but there wasn't a single line to his face and if he traded out the expensive pureblood robes for a Hogwarts uniform, he could have easily fit in amongst the sixth or seventh years.
More than the sheer astonishment from this feat, Phil felt . . . disconcerted by this development. If he'd learned anything from his time working with Harry, it was that he had a bit of a soft spot for children—as embarrassing as it was to admit—and seeing the man who could very easily kill him in one fell swoop looking like a bright-eyed lad practically still wet behind the ears, could get him into some serious trouble if he started to develop yet another guardian-complex for someone so dangerous.
Actively pulling himself from his troubling thoughts, Phil nodded and tried to quickly gather his words before he spoke. It felt entirely wrong to talk about Harry to the one who'd just recently been trying to kill the young Ravenclaw, but Harry had given him clear instructions to tell Voldemort—or 'Tom' as Harry so brazenly refers to him as—everything he wanted to know. Harry had even followed up a day later with a letter to Phil telling him once again that Phil wasn't meant to hold anything back and that Harry would be just fine. So even though he didn't want to, he really didn't have a choice in the matter.
"Before your . . . disappearance, I worked for you, but I was still pretty young, had only just entered the Ministry as a rooky Auror and had almost no power or even skill, magically. So, when the Ministry started combing through its own departments looking for Death Eaters, I went unnoticed and was able to keep my position there without a problem. I had never really been given any orders other than to get into the DMLE, so when no one was running the show anymore, I just . . . stayed. I continued to work there and slowly climb my way up for ten years. Everything was quiet, until Harry Potter suddenly reemerged in the wizarding world. There seemed to be a new article about him in the paper everyday leading up to the first of September. Then he was sorted into Ravenclaw and nobody really knew what to think! On top of that, the boy turned out to be an extremely private person and no one had even gotten a photo of him until just before his second year.
"The first time I ever met Harry, though, was during his first year. He was only eleven years old and had shown up at the DMLE unaccompanied to 'inform' me that I'd be escorting him to Azkaban of all places! Since he'd already somehow had it cleared with my supervisor, I couldn't say no and had to bring this strange, quiet little lad to a notoriously dreadful prison to visit his Godfather, who was believed to be the Death Eater that had betrayed his parents and killed a family friend along with many innocent muggle bystanders at the time. I had no idea what to make of the boy, but all I could say for certain was that he wasn't normal.
"The next time we crossed paths was during Sirius Black's trial where Harry had all but singlehandedly released his Godfather from prison to be his guardian, convicted Peter Pettigrew, and established himself as the young Heir to house Potter and Black. However, our meeting was brief and was over almost before it began." Phil paused a moment and chanced a look up to see how Voldemort/Tom was taking in all this information. His brow was slightly furrowed, but he showed no signs of an imminent violent outburst, so Phil continued.
"At the beginning of summer last year, I received a package and a letter on my desk at the DMLE. In the letter, it said that the sender knew about me being a Death Eater and told me to meet them later that night to discuss payment to keep them quiet. I wasn't about to allow myself to fall into the endless pit of blackmailing and being under someone else's thumb, so I went to go meet them with the intent to either obliviate or kill them. I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when I arrived to find none other than Harry Potter there, waiting for me. Harry told me that you were not, in fact, as gone as everyone thought and that you'd return. He also told me that you were unwell and that when you came back the war would start anew, many people would perish, and you would eventually be destroyed again.
"So, instead of bringing this information to the light, he decided to take matters into his own hands so to speak and help bring you to a more neutral ground where you hopefully won't face your own end. I didn't know how he'd gotten this information, or why exactly he decided to help you, for that you'll have to ask him yourself. Of course, at the time I told him that he shouldn't have anything to do with this, as he was only a child. However, Harry was quick to prove just how powerful and capable he was. He was telling me to trust him and the next thing I knew he's turning his own wand on himself and casting the killing-curse." Tom's head snapped up and Phil found himself under the Dark Lord's chilling dark gaze, penetrating through him as he sat forward in his seat, silently commanding him to continue.
"I panicked—rightfully so—and the first thing I did was check to see if the boy was really dead and . . . he was. . . Then, a moment later he opens his eyes and sits up like nothing had ever happened. In all my years, I've never seen anything like it. I mean, there'd always been rumors of the Potter child having survived the curse the last time you two met, but most people just chalked it up to exaggeration for shock appeal at the time, and I was one of them. But seeing it with my own eyes. . ." Phil shook his head, still unable to fully wrap his head around that night.
"I don't know all the details of how he does it, but one thing I can say with certainty—Harry Potter cannot die. Again, I don't know why, but that boy is exceptional beyond compare and as much as I might wish to dismiss and not have to listen to him because of his age, it's just not possible." Voldemort lost to his own thoughts, but Phil knew he was still listening, so he carried on.
"I decided to help Harry, if not just to protect him, then to see what such a peculiar boy could do and if he could really pull it off. That very same night, I swore a vow of secrecy to Harry and then came to you. Over the months that I've been working for you, I have also been corresponding with Harry, telling him what you were having me do, your physical and mental conditions, and what you were up to. But even with me here, he always seems to know what's going on before I could every tell him. That's another thing you will come to learn about Harry, I don't think he has any seer abilities, but he tends to know things he couldn't possibly know and can get around without ever being seen or heard."
Voldemort's straight, dark brow curved upwards. "The tournament?" was all he said. Phil sighed and pressed his lips together, looking almost bad for the man across from him as he nodded.
"Yes, he knew long before he returned to Hogwarts about the tournament and that you'd use it as a chance to get to him for your resurrection. The only thing he didn't know, was when." Voldemort's stern look seemed to slowly drain into something resembling more of fatigue, Phil could sympathize.
"What about the ritual? He'd obviously done something very different from what I had in mind, but you were there to witness it, tell me what you remember of it." Voldemort queried, hoping for something. Phil looked slightly sheepish before he answered.
"There isn't much to say, I'm afraid. Harry may share some things with me, but he is very tight-lipped about the kinds of magic he does or how he gets his information. From what I remember of the ritual, it involved a lot of complex runes I didn't recognize, and some sort of long incantations, but I didn't understand a lick of it." Voldemort cursed under his breath and one of his hands curled into a for a moment.
"Right before Harry left, though, he made me promise to answer all of your questions. He also told me that when you choose to, he will meet you in person to talk about the rest and all the things that I can't answer. He's on summer holiday now, so if you want more answers, I can write him." Phil offered, already standing from his chair, eager to pass on the responsibility of explaining things to someone else. Not that he was exactly thrilled about leaving these two alone to sort out where they stood in correlation to each other, but Phil honestly felt like those two stood on equal platforms in ways he could never even hope for. Harry had told Phil in the beginning that if it came down to it, he could and would kill Voldemort, and say whatever you like about Phil's judgment, but he believed him.
Voldemort stopped him with the raise of his hand and Phil froze.
"Not—Not yet. I have many things to think about first. For now, leave me." Voldemort ordered distractedly as he rose from his own seat and moved back over to the window he'd been at when Phil had entered. Phil nodded to the other's turned back and left quietly.
Tom rested a long-fingered hand against the dark wooden window frame as his midnight gaze swept over the rain-trodden countryside beyond his property. Slowly, his eyes drifted up to the unending cover of dove grey cotton clouds above, the storm having settled to a drizzle. The wind was no longer ripping leaves from the branches or rattling front doors in their frames. The gales within Tom had also hushed, and with his eyes no longer squinted against their assault, he found the destruction of his mind and memories left to collect dust and wore down over so many years of rage and thunderclaps.
Now he had to sort through it all, figure out what was salvageable from the wreckage and what would be left to fade with all the rest of it. He had to rediscover his lines and edges. He had to create all new morals, because the ones he had before his horcruxes were those of a child; they were naive and didn't fit with all he knew now about the world, and the ones he had after his horcruxes had been bent, skewed, and melted down to fit his own insanity and never-ending wrath. He wasn't suddenly some newborn child to be remolded into a saintly and pious man, but he was . . . lost. His old behaviors and ways of thinking wouldn't work anymore, and he needed to rethink what his goals were going to be, what he wanted in this life, and how to get it.
Tom didn't know how long it would take him, but until he knew with absolute certainty, he couldn't move forward. Until then, he wouldn't seek out Harry Potter.
Soft pale green eyes blinked open, glossy like polished turquoise stones amongst the warm white sheets, pillows, and duvet. Harry hadn't just awoken, he'd been awake for hours—since the dark, dusty purple morning hours—trying in vain to capture just a little more sleep. It wasn't the first night since summer holiday had begun that Harry had gone with only a few hours of sleep. It had been weeks since he'd returned to Grimmauld Place and the comforting company of his guardians, and yet . . . even as he sank into the relaxed routine of leisure and bright afternoons with his family, an uncomfortable and anxious stone had begun to form behind his stomach, growing with each passing day.
It made him restless and chased away the relent of sleep, leaving him too tired to do anything productive to distract him, but at the same time too wound up to get any rest. He knew the cause, but unfortunately, he also knew there wouldn't be an easy fix for it. Ever since Tom's resurrection, the only thing that had occupied Harry's mind was their next meeting. He'd done everything he could, and now he had to wait to see if Tom would choose a new path, or continue down the road to self-destruction. If he chose the former, they would meet, and Harry could continue to guide the other man if he so chose. If he chose the latter . . . then Harry had no choice but to kill Tom and prevent him from causing the world more ruin.
Harry softly groaned and turned over to push his face into the cool swell of the pillow. He had dedicated so much time into this task, the thought of throwing it all away had his gut turning over once again. With his eyes closed, his mind unhelpfully provided the vivid image of rich dark blue eyes taking in the sight of his face, smooth pale skin marked by a few small dark moles here and there. Treacherous, was the only word for his own mind right then. Harry quickly rolled out of bed, physically trying to shake the image from his head.
Phil had been sending Harry letters almost daily—which he appreciated more than he would admit, even if it was mostly the same news every time. Phil had told him when he'd been summoned to Tom's personal office and had repeated a summary of everything he'd said to Tom during that meeting. Since then, Tom had apparently locked himself in his rooms and hadn't been seen outside of them at all. Harry had made a reluctant Phil go and question the house elves about how often they brought Tom food and what they were feeding him.
Harry told himself it was purely concern for the recipient of his untested ritual and that he only cared about Tom's physical well-being. Neither Phil nor his invisible companion seemed convinced, but they didn't venture to question it. When Phil had reported back that the man in question was only calling the elves for one meal a day of less than acceptable nutrition, against his better judgement, Harry had intervened.
With the help of Phil, Harry had covertly met with the elves in charge of the new-bodied dark lord's meals and had explained to them that their master was currently very weak and needed proper meals to recover quickly. Using the care-giving nature of the elves, Harry was able to convince them to work outside of their Master's explicit orders to make larger, more healthy meals and to bring them at least three times a day. Harry purposely ignored any thoughts about what he would say or do if Tom ever discovered this fact and confronted him about it.
It didn't exactly uphold the hands-off approach he'd been attempting while waiting for Tom's decision, but he had to admit that it had gone quite far in appeasing the boiling anxiety. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't a permanent fix. Soon he found himself once again going long nights without sleep or the opposite and sleeping for far longer than was normal, and thoughts of Tom never strayed far from his mind for too long.
By the end of June, he was driving Phil up the wall with his constant prodding for information and had to cut back significantly on his letters when the man threatened to send him a howler—Harry's privacy be damned!
Remus and Sirius were quick to catch on that something wasn't right with Harry, but had difficulty approaching such a topic. Ever since they'd been reunited with the boy, they'd been thrown through hoops trying to figure out how to offer any sort of help or comfort. Harry . . . he tries, but they both knew he had problems with opening up to people or relying on them.
Getting the truth from the young Ravenclaw was like pulling teeth. They knew Harry had secrets, about his life before they took him in, secrets about what he was up to now, but they also knew to tread carefully. Harry was a very independent boy and might not take their prodding as concern for his safety. It was a mutual, unspoken truth that the pairs biggest fear was waking up one morning to find Harry gone, having left home. They knew that if they pushed too hard, Harry might think it better to go off on his own. Perhaps it was the paranoia of two men who'd had abrasive and/or neglectful home-lives as children and had left before coming of age.
They had been as understanding and patient with Harry has they could, and they knew that Harry cared for them, but even though they'd never talked about it, they could tell that Harry's life before Hogwarts—before them—had been harrowing. Harry had already had that look about him when they first started living together: the look of someone who was here for today, but always had a way out. It was something that stayed with you for a very long time.
And over the last few years, they'd thought they would just wait until Harry came to them for help and advice, or whatever he might need. However, whatever Harry was hiding, it was affecting him now in ways that had begun to worry the two new parents. He was looking more and more tired as days went on, despite this being his break from school and supposedly time for rest. On several occasions either Sirius or Remus had gone looking for him in the library—as that was where he spent most of his waking hours—only to find him instead in the drawing room, a cold cup of barely touched tea set in front of him, and gazing unseeingly at the blank expanse of wall, not even noticing their arrival, eyebrows pinched together as he was lost in thought.
Sirius and Remus had begun talking at night about what to do. Sirius had wanted to just sit Harry down, tell him that they will love him no matter what, and then ask him what the hell was going on. Remus thought that that would just scare Harry off and that they needed to think it through thoroughly before they carefully broached the subject, making sure Harry knew that he didn't have to tell them if he didn't want to but also, they were worried about him, is all.
What the pair didn't know, was that a floor above them, Harry was in bed listening to the silent council of his hallowed friend and turning over onto his back with a sigh.
You're right, before things become even more complicated, I should tell them. Harry spent several more sleepless hours imagining just what he would say, what they would say, and then contemplating whether he could get away with saying nothing at all. It was an effective distraction from his other problem . . . but, unfortunately, not one that allowed sleep to come any easier.
Every moment he felt more and more anxious about finally being called to meet with Tom and he counted the hours endlessly, hopelessly, but he also knew that it meant he was slowly running out of time. If things went the way he'd hoped, then his days may become more occupied and he couldn't excuse the missing hours for just needing time to himself or going to visit his friends.
It was more than that though, it wasn't just about not having to come up with excuses for where he was. It was like there was this slowly growing ache in his lungs that begged him to confide in his parents. It was unfamiliar and perplexing in many ways to the young raven, but the more he thought about telling them, the more that ache eased and the surer he became.
These weren't just friends, they weren't just an avenue to release some of his stress by confessing his secrets, they were his family, and with each passing day that was beginning to mean more and more to him. These were his parents. Not the people who had conceived and loved him for his first year of life, no, and not the ones he physically resembled when he looked the mirror. But more his parents than Lilly and James were anymore.
He resembled his parents not in looks, but ways that mattered more to him—in his mannerisms and morals and personality. He recently discovered that even his laugh had changed, resembling Remus' quiet, soft rolling laugh that always reminded Harry or the warm hours they'd spent together in Remus' office when he still taught DADA and how close they'd grown during that time. He resembled Sirius in the way his nose would scrunch up a little when he smiled genuinely, or his open, dry humor that was a bit on the side of juvenile when he was in a lighter mood.
It had taken Harry a while to really understand it, but now he knew that parents and family had a much bigger effect on you than you realize and that when we allow it, we reflect the people around us like a stone. We aren't mirrors that show only the other person before us, but we aren't so dull as to show nothing but ourselves either. We have small and big facets facing all sorts of directions that show little bits of the world around us without overtaking our overall colors and dimensions.
This meant that Harry's parents were a part of him that he would never forget or be rid of and he simply could not hide the rest of himself from them forever and he sincerely didn't wish to. So, he would tell them, and soon, because his life was only going to expand and become more complex and it just wasn't a question of whether or not they would have a place in it. He couldn't move forward without them.
