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Chapter Twenty-Two—Voice From the Past

Harry opened his eyes to the utter conviction that something was wrong. He realized almost immediately that Tom, for once, hadn't jumped to the same conclusion. He lay heavily on top of Harry, his arm curled so that Harry's neck was practically underneath it, his breathing heavy in his sleep. Harry frowned and let his eyes dart around the room without moving.

He could see the edges of the table and the bed, although not well, and no one was moving beside them, either. No Knights had come into their room with some kind of warning—

Wait, why can I see them that well?

Harry rolled his eyes upwards. Yes, the diadem was glowing, and filling the whole room with that eerie blue radiance like the edge of moonlight.

"Something you wanted to tell me, Harry?"

Harry grimaced and rolled off the bed so that Tom could get up. "I would have woken you up in a few minutes. I only just opened my eyes myself."

Tom eyed Harry in silence for a few seconds, then seemed to accept that and glanced around. "There's nothing in the room for your diadem to be reacting like that to. Do you think there's a threat outside?"

"If you didn't feel it, I don't see how." Harry brushed his hair back and took the diadem out, ignoring the sick, shivering feeling in his gut. He had suffered that other times that he took the bloody thing off, as though the diadem was reminding him that it was the only reason he could control his magic so well. "You felt Dumbledore proclaiming himself with that wave of power before I did, after all."

"That doesn't mean a lack of a threat," Tom said calmly, standing up and shaking out his robes that were hung on the chair next to the bed. Harry took the chance to appreciate his lean muscles for the moments before Tom covered them. "It only means this particular threat may be something smaller than Dumbledore."

"Or someone less addicted to dramatic announcements, maybe."

Tom smiled at him. "Exactly. Now, put the diadem back on and stay here until I send Abraxas to fetch you. Make sure that it's Abraxas, and not someone else."

"How am I supposed to do that, and why should I—"

But he was speaking to Tom's back, since Tom was bustling out of the room while belting the robe about his waist. Harry sighed in disgust and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The diadem's glow filled the room until he thought that he could probably read by it, but that still told him nothing of the threat that might be outside or what he should try and do about it.

Grumpily, he did pick up a book and start whiling away the minutes until Tom, or Abraxas, or someone, returned.

Tom found his Knights already surrounding the threat, their wands cautiously drawn. They didn't seem to know what to do when the threat had walked up and announced itself without a weapon showing.

Tom bared his teeth a little when he saw who it was. "Ah, Mrs. Potter. You could have stayed in your world for all I cared."

"And I didn't come to see you, Gaunt." Dorea Potter's eyes passed across him and behind him as though Harry would be hurrying up any moment now. "Harry's the one I'm here for."

"You won't see Harry unless I allow it."

"Oh, I see. Harry's your prisoner now, is he? Does he know it, I wonder?"

Tom felt a quiver of something very like hatred pass through him. At the same time, he knew that the woman had done nothing worth striking back at her for, and he forced his own rage under control with an effort that stung his viscera. He jerked his head to the side. "Abraxas, tell Harry to come out here."

"Yes, my lord." At least Abraxas turned and hurried off without a question, which would have loosened Tom's uncertain hold on his temper.

"That answers one question, but not others." Dorea folded her arms. "Why did you keep him here when he always meant to return to us, to his family, Mr. Gaunt?"

"You're unqualified to say what Harry wants, Mrs. Potter. Especially since you're addressing me by the wrong name." Tom paused just long enough to enjoy the uncertainty that coursed across her face, and then added, "My last name now is Potter, the same as yours."

Dorea's dropped jaw was as satisfying as the same expressions on the faces of his Knights when Tom announced his intention to bond, although unfortunately it only lasted for a moment. She straightened up with a motion that Tom was faintly impressed didn't make an actual snapping sound. "What in the world?"

"It's by marriage, Great-Aunt Dorea. Hullo, by the way."

Harry was following Abraxas out of the Manor, the diadem on his head shedding a soft blue glow around him. Tom studied it with a critical eye and decided that it might have brightened like that since another member of the Potter family was nearby. Well, he would oppose, vehemently, any attempt Harry or the diadem might make to give Dorea the jewel.

"Hello, Harry." Dorea had gone back to ignoring Tom as calmly and magnificently as if she had been doing it all her life. "I suppose that you can confirm this young man's absurd story?"

"My young man," Harry corrected mildly, stopping by Tom's side and wrapping an arm around his waist. "My husband."

Dorea closed her mouth for a long moment, her eyes blank. Then she said, "I suppose I should have seen the final death of Jonquil's hopes when she came back through the portal, but this is still hard."

"Don't mention her name in front of me, if you want to return to your world," Tom snarled, his hand falling to his wand. Harry twisted a little so that he was standing between Tom and Dorea, and sighed. Tom hated the feeling that Harry was exchanging glances with Shara and Abraxas, who were probably giving Harry sympathetic looks.

"I am only telling the truth. It is hard to watch one's granddaughter and see her dreams destroyed."

"Perhaps if she had had any concrete dreams in the first place—"

"Great-Aunt Dorea," Harry interrupted, his voice calm and utterly inflexible. "If you've only come here to taunt Tom, then I'll just ask you to leave again."

That set Tom back on his heels a little, but he could see from the way Dorea's eyes widened that it had done the same thing to her. She gnawed her lip for a second and then nodded to Tom.

"Yes, all right. I can respect that."

And respect that, when it came down to all things that were important, Harry had chosen him. Tom put his chin on Harry's shoulder, and Harry reached up absently to stroke his hair. Tom smirked at Dorea. She turned away from him as if he didn't exist and addressed Harry.

"Are you going to come back home?"

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing really left for me there," Harry said. "Calliope hates me and she betrayed me by working with Dumbledore. The rest of her side of the family probably won't be very happy to see me, either. And there's Jonquil. She's your granddaughter. I'm the great-nephew you might have had. Let's not pretend it's anything more than that."

Dorea caught her breath sharply. There was genuine pain there, Tom judged, and he would have felt sorry for her if her first words hadn't been about Jonquil. "Harry, that's not true," she whispered. "You know I considered you true family. You might have been born in another world, but you were a Potter."

Harry sighed in a difficult way. Tom reached down to squeeze his hand just in case he'd forgotten about Jonquil and what these people had done to him, but Harry was already speaking. "Then I'm glad for that, Great-Aunt Dorea. But no, I've found a place here. A cause. This Dumbledore is terrorizing the world, and we have to stop him. And I've found a family." He turned his head.

In his eyes was knowledge of what Tom had been doing. And forgiveness for it. And choice. Harry had chosen him.

Tom leaned in and kissed him, ignoring the muffled sound Dorea made when he did that. Well, she could live with it. It was still so much better than what they could have done in front of her.

"Did you come here for revenge?" Harry asked as he leaned away from Tom. "I'm afraid that you won't get any satisfaction out of that, either. I've accepted that I could have done better by Jonquil, but what's done is done, and Tom was never going to give in and date her the way she wanted."

Tom was glad enough of the change in direction, given what it sounded like Harry had started out to say, to simply slide his fingers down Harry's wrist instead of squeezing. Harry winked at him and then waited.

For Dorea's answer, Tom abruptly realized. Funny how she hadn't given one yet. He turned accusing eyes on her.

"Not revenge," Dorea said at last, slowly. "I still want you to come home."

"Home is where Tom is, now."

I'll have to give him something special. We'll have to figure out when his birthday is, now that we've adjusted for time differences between worlds, but more than that…we'll invent an occasion.

"And also because I was a Black before I was a Potter." Dorea turned to face someone behind them, someone not worth looking at, but who must be Shara. "As is this young woman here, I suspect."

"With respect, Great-Aunt Dorea, I knew that," Harry said, mingled with Shara's slightly indignant, "I am. So what?"

"I can't remain in this world. I do have a family and a home elsewhere." For a moment, a slight, sad smile tugged at Dorea's mouth. "But I still consider you family, Harry, and I want to help you. Among other things, there are books in the Black library here that might help you."

"Shara already tried to offer them to me," Tom said, because he wanted to show that he did acknowledge the service of his Knights, and that he knew perfectly well what Shara's heritage was. "She couldn't. There are wards involved that won't let someone who's not of the family enter the library, and the books can't be copied or carried out."

"Ah. But I know the spells to get past them."

"You do? How come they never told me that?"

"You're young yet, dear. It comes of reaching a certain age and not going mad," Dorea said dryly. She turned back to Tom. "Well? Is that good enough reason to allow me to stay here for a while and speak with Harry to make sure that he's really happy?"

Tom controlled all the emotions that wanted to keep springing up in his heart, the words that wanted to roil out of his throat. He inclined his head with a faint smile. "If you can do what you saw, Madam Potter, we would be more than happy to have you."

Harry made a soft noise next to him, probably not fooled, but that didn't matter. Tom saw a certain amount of understanding in Dorea's eyes as she nodded back. He managed to smile.

Just so long as we all understand each other.

Tom probably thought he was controlling his jealousy of Dorea, even hiding it. He was so cute that Harry wanted to kiss him and tell him that he didn't need to hide anything, ever.

But it would only undermine their unified front right now, so Harry let Dorea spread out the parchment she needed on the table in front of her and sketch as she talked.

"The wards on the library resonate in tune with a mind that has existed a certain number of years, and also has a balance of sanity. Most houses' and families' wards were constructed this way, once, at least in my world." She broke off to nod to both Harry and Tom. "It's a good way of protecting them. Unless one's mind sings in tune with the maze, one won't find one's way through it."

"Singing in tune with a maze makes no sense," Tom said, his lip curled in a sneer. Harry elbowed him, but Tom didn't retract the words, even though he must have been able to see what a petty complaint they were.

"That's one reason that the protections on the Black library are so effective." Dorea turned a brief, amused glance on Tom, which made Harry sure that she understood the true source of his objections but wasn't holding them against him for some reason. "They involve the ability to conceive of sound as space."

Tom frowned a little and half-closed his eyes. Harry was sure that he was working through the concept in his vast brain, and that he would be able to come out with something that would startle Harry in a few hours. Meanwhile, though, Dorea was busily scribbling down something that looked like a cross between a house map and musical notation.

"I always wondered why my aunt and grandmother would be humming under their breaths when they went into the library," Shara breathed, practically hanging over Dorea's shoulder.

"Are you sure that the same wards will guard the Black library in this particular universe?" Harry had to ask. "I mean, the same concept, sure, but the same maze?"

"There aren't many ways to construct wards like this, which is probably why they aren't more widely used." Dorea folded the drawing she'd made and studied the crisp corners for a second as if assuming that they would get up and do something interesting on their own. Then she nodded and tapped the parchment with one fingertip. Harry caught his breath sharply, and so did Tom next to him, as the parchment got up and flipped cartwheels down towards the edge of the table.

"How did you do that without extending your magic from your own body?" Tom demanded. Harry nodded. That was the unusual part. He'd wielded wandless magic himself, but power always had to flow away from him when he was doing that, or he might as well have asked the action he wanted to do to happen of its own accord.

Dorea smiled smugly at them over her shoulder. "I put the magic into the parchment by recalling what I know of the wards."

Then she followed the parchment, which had expanded as it hovered by the side of the table, making itself bigger than Harry thought it possibly could have, and covering the wall like the wings of a swan. "Shall we go, gentlemen, lady?"

Tom wasn't entirely happy about trusting Jonquil's grandmother, but it was true that the books of the Black library here would be a bonus that Dumbledore would have trouble countering. He kept a tight hold of Harry's shoulder as they stepped into a snowstorm of what looked like feathers, though. He wouldn't put it past Dorea to attempt to snatch the diadem from Harry's forehead and take it back to her world.

The journey they took was dizzying. Now and then wings flapped up and down next to them. Now and then, lines that looked like the ones Dorea had drawn on the paper flipped past their eyes. And sometimes Tom would have sworn they were crossing through a vast white space that was crisscrossed with the notes of a loud song.

Harry only nodded when Tom muttered a brief account of his conflicting impressions out of the corner of his mouth. "My Great-Aunt can be impressive when she wants to, can't she?"

Tom didn't know that he would have gone that far, but on the other hand, Harry wasn't asking him to admit it aloud. He shrugged, and saw the way that a corner of Harry's mouth quirked up. He wouldn't have tolerated that from anyone but his husband.

They moved on through a swirling maze of parchment and ink and sound and turns, and all the time, Dorea Black never looked over her shoulder. Shara, on the other hand, watched this woman who was not exactly her relative with wide, adoring eyes.

Tom shook his head. Something would have to be done about winning Shara's loyalty back from other people when this was over with, he could see now.

Dorea paused at last in front of a silver knob that seemed to hover in the middle of a blank wall of white, and looked over her shoulder. Her face was unusually solemn.

"I will ask that none of you reveal what you have learned this afternoon to anyone else."

"I don't even know how to do it," Harry said, shaking his head. "Not that Tom and I probably could, anyway, since we're Potters and not Blacks." His hand under Tom's arm was supportive and warm. "Just make sure that you don't tell anyone anything," he added, looking at Shara.

"I won't." Shara was beaming, in a way that made Tom suspicious, but Dorea seemed to find her promise secure enough. She nodded and twisted the silver knob in front of her.

It opened with something that sounded to Tom like a snatch of song, and then they stepped out into a gloomy library. Tom had seen something like it in Shara's memories, and he sighed at the sight of books on the shelves.

"Welcome."

Tom jerked around, seizing Harry's arm and moving him behind him in the same movement. The diadem burst into light, Shara drew her wand, and Dorea's mouth opened in shock, or something that was at least well-feigned to look like shock.

Dumbledore stood up from the chair where he had been lounging, his eyes as hard and bright as Tom had ever seen them. "It seems that my own Black loyalists were right about who was tampering with the wards. Mr. Gaunt, Mr. Potter, I'm afraid that your little rebellion ends here."