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A/N: Reminder that I do a lot of updates and stuff on my tumblr: ethrildragon. Also that I update on Monday's

Also! Happy Holidays guys!

Reaching Through Time

Chapter 20: Growing Pains

"Mr. Malfoy is making a habit of coming to the hospital wing."

There were voices floating around Harry, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't seem to force himself to open his eyes or sit up. He recognized the older voice that was speaking, but his head was so fuzzy.

"Not by choice."

That voice! Harry knew that voice; he would recognize Tom's voice anywhere.

"He's lucky the acromantula was still a baby. It's venom could have killed Hadrian otherwise."

Recognition was starting to come to Harry, but the name of the older man still eluded him. Harry struggled to open his eyes, to move, to do anything, but his entire body felt numb.

"I think he's waking up Sir Leighleas."

Tom's voice again and it sent a shiver through Harry. The paralysis his body was under scared Harry and it was only Tom's presence that kept Harry from panicking.

"Ah." There was a ruffling sound of fabric. "So he is."

Magic spread across Harry and in an instant his eyes were finally able to open and he was able to sit up on the cot he had been resting on.

"Tom!" Harry didn't even need to see Tom to know where he was. As soon as he was up Harry launched himself into Tom's arms. He didn't have far to go seeing as how Tom was sitting on the edge of the cot.

"What do you remember Mr. Malfoy?"

Harry turned his head a fraction to look at the man that had been speaking with Tom. Sure enough it was the mediwizard Sir Leighleas.

"I was heading back after getting Orion's things." Harry closed his eyes and buried his face into Tom's chest. At that moment he didn't care if an adult was watching them or what other people would think; Harry just wanted to feel comforted by the one person that had always and would always be there for him. "I heard something and went to see what it was. I thought maybe Orion or Eileen had come back for something."

"And then?" Sir Leighleas prompted when Harry went quiet.

"Pain. I-it was dark and I didn't get a good look at who was there." Harry didn't even know if he had been bitten by a creature or hit with a spell. "What happened?" He asked after taking a steadying breath and reopening his eyes.

Sir Leighleas was tapping his wand against his arm as he listened to Harry's story. "The student Rubeus Hagrid was keeping a baby Acromantula in the school. You were unlucky enough to get bit by it."

Harry frowned up at the healer from where he was still being held by Tom. He knew a lot of things, thanks to Abraxas and Tom, but Harry had no idea what an acromantula was.

"It's a giant, sentient, man eating spider." Tom whispered to Harry quickly.

A shudder of revulsion went through Harry. He wasn't scared of spiders, he had grown used to them since there had been a great many living in the cupboard under the stairs back at the Dursley's, but that didn't mean he liked them either.

"You were lucky Tom went to find you." Sir Leighleas told Harry. "The baby acromantula's venom wouldn't have killed you, but it would have seriously harmed you the longer it was in your system."

Honestly Harry felt fine even though Sir Leighleas seemed so serious. Sure the bite had hurt, and Harry had passed out from the pain, and venom, but he was fine now.

"What happened to Hagrid?" Harry squirmed a bit as Tom started to pet his hair instead of just holding him. His cheeks colored in embarrassment as he caught Sir Leighleas smirking a little out of the corner of his eye.

"Keeping a class xxxxx beast without special permits and permissions from the ministry is a major crime with possible prison time." Sir Leighleas answered quickly as Tom sneered at the half giant's name. "Professor Dumbledore is arguing for leniency and to suspend Mr. Hagrid for the rest of the term. The board wants the boy expelled."

"He brought a dangerous wizard killing beast into the school! He should be expelled!" Tom could barely contain his rage. Harry could have died if that damned spider had been even a little bit older.

His black eyes flickered dangerously to red for a brief moment until he felt Harry shift in his arms. Quickly Tom relaxed so he could comfort his little Harry.

"B-but..." Harry hesitated a moment. He knew that keeping such a dangerous creature in a school full of children was against the rules and anyone could have gotten hurt. "He didn't order the creature to attack me." He couldn't defend Hagrid very well. All Harry could think about was what if Orion or Eileen had been there instead of him? They would be the ones that had gotten hurt and Tom wouldn't have gone after them like he had with Harry.

Tom frowned deeply at Harry who at least didn't argue any more after that. "He broke the laws Harry. He'll be lucky if they don't send him to Azkaban."

"Your brother is right Mr. Malfoy."

The reminder that Tom was now related to Harry, albeit by magic, made the older teen wince a little in discomfort.

"Mr. Hagrid knowingly brought a dangerous beast into the school and has acknowledged the fact that he does know how dangerous the acromantula is. He broke the law willingly and placed the students and staff of Hogwarts at risk." Sir Leighleas wasn't trying to be harsh, but it was obvious to him that Harry had too gentle of a heart.

Sir Leighleas sighed ever so softly and his expression softened a little. "There isn't much that can be done to help him at this point."

Harry nodded dejectedly. He hated the idea that someone was going to be expelled because of him. Last time he hadn't been conscious and could say or do anything. This time he was awake, but there was still nothing he could do.

"Don't think too much about it Harry." Tom murmured as he gently stroked Harry's hair. "You'll just upset yourself."

Something dawned on Harry then and he had to quickly hide his face in Tom's chest so Sir Leighleas wouldn't suspect.

Harry had been attacked! Again! The last time it had happened Tom had killed the attackers in retribution. What would he do to Hagrid?!

As if sensing Harry wanted to be alone with Tom, Sir Leighleas sheathed his wand and nodded. "You can rejoin your housemates at lunch tomorrow Mr. Malfoy." He turned to leave the two alone. "Rest."

Once they were alone Tom quickly cast a charm so that no one would be able to listen in on their conversation.

"Don't kill him!" Harry whispered urgently once he and Tom were completely alone. "It wasn't Hagrid's fault! Not completely!" He had to make sure Tom didn't kill Hagrid. "Yeah he brought a dangerous creature into the school, but it wasn't like he sent it to attack me on purpose!"

Tom never got a chance to argue with Harry as the younger boy just kept going.

"Besides, if Hagrid goes missing as well people are going to ask questions." Harry's Slytherin tendencies were coming out then. He wasn't as manipulative as his housemates, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to talk people into or out of things.

"Harry!" Tom quickly cut in before Harry could add even more to his argument. "Why are you defending that oaf? He could have seriously hurt you with that acromantula."

"But he didn't mean to Tom." Harry pushed back almost pleadingly. "I'm positive his intent wasn't to hurt anyone."

Tom reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course Harry would defend the half giant.

"Please Tom." Harry begged, his voice getting softer. "I accept he has to be expelled, but don't kill him." He scooted away from Tom and kept his gaze down and away. It was only when his own expression turned dark that he looked back up at Tom.

"This isn't about how dangerous the creature was." Harry's voice was quiet and his words were slow. "This was because I got hurt again and you weren't there to protect me. You can't punish Hagrid for that."

"He put everyone in the dungeons at risk by-"

"Stop it Tom!" It almost sounded like Harry was snarling and it caused Tom to reel back in surprise.

"If you really cared about that then what about Senestra?!" Harry demanded. "Last I checked she's a dangerous creature that can kill with just her eyes! This isn't about the spider or Hagrid!"

Harry took a deep breath. Rarely did he lose his temper and snap at Tom, but he needed to get through to Tom. "I got hurt. Hagrid is partially at fault, but by the sounds of it he has taken responsibility. He doesn't deserve to die because of an accident."

Tom found himself clenching his jaw and grinding his teeth together. In a corner of his mind he knew Harry was right, but that didn't stop the dark nagging thoughts about wanting to punish Hagrid. No one harmed his Harry; even if it was an accident.

Even though Tom wasn't saying anything, Harry knew the older teen was not going to listen to him.

"Tom..." Harry turned was getting desperate, and desperate times called for desperate measures. "If you cause harm to Hagrid in any way," Harry warned as his shoulders shook a little. He hated what he was about to say, but he needed to say it. "I will never speak to you again. I'll swear it on my magic if I have to."

"Harry!"

"No Tom. I'm serious." Harry scooted as far away on the cot from Tom as he could. "You can't kill people just because of an accident." As much as it would kill him to distance himself from Tom, Harry knew this had to be done.

Tom had a darkness in him that Harry had seen a few times and if Tom wasn't careful that darkness would consume him.

The last thing Harry wanted was to see Tom lose himself to that darkness.

"Fine." Tom hissed angrily. If Harry was serious enough to risk giving up his magic, then Tom would relent for the moment. "But if Hagrid ever does anything to you again-"

"If it's on purpose and with harmful intent I will not stop you." Harry finished for Tom. "Everyone makes mistakes though Tom." The unspoken 'even you' settled between the two when neither chose to speak after that.

Tom moved to get close to Harry again, probably to give him a hug, but Harry just jerked his shoulder away from Tom and looked away from him a sharp move of his head.

"I-I'll let you rest Harry." Tom whispered tightly as he got up off of Harry's cot. "I'll tell the others you are...you'll be alright." On his way out he gathered up the things Harry had had with him at the time. He might as well get Orion back his things so Harry wouldn't try and do it himself tomorrow.

Harry didn't look back at Tom as the older teen gathered everything up and headed for the door. He could sense Tom looking back at him, but still Harry kept his eyes firmly locked onto the window across from his cot.

"He means well."

The words made Harry jump in surprise. He had been so focused on ignoring Tom that Harry hadn't been expecting anyone else.

"Sir Leighleas!" Harry flushed in embarrassment over his jump and rubbed the ran his fingers through his messy hair. "I didn't hear you return."

The older wizard smirked a bit at that. "I apologize. I try to move quietly at night so I don't wake up patients." Sir Leighleas waited for a moment to see if Harry would say anything, but when the boy just went back to silently looking at the window again the man sighed.

"He really does care about you." Sir Leighleas said as he took a seat in a chair next to Harry's cot. "I get the impression Mr. Gaunt is not very good at expressing himself."

"No...Tom's never been good at that." Harrry admitted as he resigned himself to the fact the healer would not be leaving. "At least not when other people are around."

Sir Leighleas smiled comfortingly and nodded. "I knew someone like that once." His words were slow and measured, his eyes distant as he recalled past memories. "He was a very smart young man, but impatient. He wanted so desperately to go out into the world and do great things, to change the world, but family obligations kept him from his dreams."

Harry slowly looked away from the window and turned his pale green eyes to Sir Leighleas. The mediwizard had gone quiet and was grasping the front of his robes with one hand.

"What happened to him?"

The question shook Sir Leighleas from his thoughts and he smiled sadly at Harry. "We got into a fight a long time ago. A difference in opinion on how to go about changing the world." He let go of his robe and instead ran his fingers through his hair.

"There was an accident. He...He grew so angry afterwards. He blamed me for everything that had happened and I ran." Sir Leighleas looked like he'd just been struck. "I look back now and wonder if it really was my fault, but back then I believed him. So I stayed away."

The older wizard looked up at Harry then, his eyes shimmering a little in sadness. "I stayed away thinking it was best for both of us. It just made everything worse. By the time I came back..." Sir Leighleas shook his head and refused to finish the story.

"Don't be too hard on your Tom. I get the feeling it's his nature to be over protective of you and that he's had reason to be protective in the past."

Harry nodded stiffly. Sir Leighleas was right about Tom having had reason to be protective in the past. Harry's relatives had been horrible and there were still physical and mental scars that he knew would never go away.

"I just don't want to lose him..." Harry whispered, his words almost too soft to hear.

A hand covered Harry's clenching fists and the boy jumped. Sir Leighleas still looked sad, but he was smiling gently.

"Just be there to support him. Be the light he needs when his darkness gets too strong." Sir Leighleas winced a bit. "Don't make the same mistakes I did."

"What can I do though?" Harry was feeling desperate now. "I don't want to be treated like a little kid for the rest of my life." Which he had a feeling would happen if he did as Sir Leighleas said.

The wizard chuckled and he pat at Harry's hands a couple times. "Stand up for yourself, but be reasonable. How would you feel if Tom was the one getting hurt all the time and you weren't always there to protect him?"

Just the thought of Tom getting hurt had Harry's heart pounding and his eyes going wide. "I'd feel terrible."

Sir Leighleas nodded encouragingly.

"I would...I would want to protect him in any way I could."

"And that is just what Tom wants to do." The man's brown eyes reminded Harry of melted chocolate, but the more the boy looked into those eyes the more he started to see something else; something hidden.

"Be a voice of reason for him. You may think he treats you like a child, but I can tell he values your advice." With that said Sir Leighleas stood up. With a flick of his wand he dimmed the lights closest to Harry's cot. "Now. Get some rest Mr. Malfoy. I'll bring you some breakfast in the morning."

Maybe it was a combination of the magic of Samhain and the spider venom, but as Sir Leighleas turned away from Harry's cot, the air around the wizard seemed to shiver a little. For a moment Harry's sensitivity spiked and he had to shake his head and blink several times to clear his vision.

"Good night Sir Leighleas."

For a moment, just a split second, the man's hair had seemed lighter than what Harry was used too.

Harry woke that morning to the feeling that something was off with his magic. Before he'd gotten bitten by that blasted spider his magic had been super charged from the Samhain party; after attending so many ritual events with the Malfoy's Harry had gotten used to the super charged feeling.

This morning though it felt like his magic couldn't decide if it was riled up or sluggish. One moment he was wide awake and hyper and the next Harry felt like he was going to be sick and collapse.

"Ah. You woke up before I could get to you."

Harry turned his head carefully to look at the mediwizard as he strolled over to Harry's cot with a tray of food in his hands.

"You're probably feeling the side effects of acromantula venom." Sir Leighleas sounded apologetic as he set the food down in order to take up his wand to wave intricate circles above Harry's head. "The venom is a powerful paralytic that can disrupt a person's magical core."

As soon as Sir Leighleas was done Harry's magic seemed to settle and the young pre-teen was able to take a deep breath in relief.

The sudden chaos that his magic had been in though had broken Harry's careful focus and his over sensitivity to magic returned to its normal state. Harry rubbed at his arms as the static feeling that Sir Leighleas' magic gave off caused the hairs on his arms to stand up.

The mediwizard was the only one close enough though for Harry to focus on in order to keep the magic of Hogwarts from overwhelming him like it almost had when he had first seen the school.

It did make Harry wonder about something though. He'd been visiting Hogwarts for years secretly, so why hadn't the magic of the school bothered him then?

It was a question he would bring up to Tom later.

The distraction of Sir Leighleas' magic gave Harry enough time to refocus on his bond with Tom. He could feel Tom's magic surrounding him once more and it calmed Harry's senses.

He was concentrating so hard on what he was doing that Harry failed to notice Sir Leighleas watching him intently.

"There is...something else-" Sir Leighleas was trying to say only to be interrupted when the hospital wing door slammed open.

"Hadrian!"

Harry felt his entire face turn bright red when his adopted mother rushed into the hospital wing only to gather him up into her arms as soon as she reached his cot.

"I was so worried about you! First you get attacked by those horrible boys and now you were bit by an acromantula! My poor boy!"

If there was ever any doubt about whether or not the matron of the Malfoy family cared about Harry, that doubt had fully and completely been squashed.

"M-mother!" Since being adopted Harry had gotten used to calling the woman mother; she had insisted frequently enough that eventually Harry had felt strange just calling her 'Mrs. Malfoy'.

At least she wasn't calling him her poor baby boy.

"Please do not over stimulate Hadrian, Mrs. Malfoy." Sir Leighleas interjected quickly as the woman began to pet Harry's hair in a comfortingly manner and rock him gently in her arms.

"What are you doing here mother?" Harry asked once the Malfoy matron relaxed her all encompassing hold on him.

Sir Leighleas was the one to speak up then. "It is standard procedure to notify parents or guardians when a student is grievously injured."

"Precisely dear." Mrs. Malfoy smoothed down Harry's messy hair again and smiled fondly when it only sprung back up after her hand had moved away. "When I got Sir Leighleas' letter this morning I came over straight away."

Harry was practically smothered in maternal love as Mrs. Malfoy pulled him in for another hug. "I wasn't hurt that bad!" He insisted as he squirmed within his adopted mother's arms. His cheeks were red in embarrassment as he noticed the mediwizard smirking a bit at the sight of the two of them.

"As stated in the letter I sent you, Mrs. Malfoy, the acromantula was just recently hatched and its venom has only caused minor reactions." Sir Leighleas assured the mother as she continued to refuse to let Harry go. "A good breakfast and bed rest for a few hours will be enough to bring your son back to full health."

"Thank goodness." Mrs. Malfoy sighed in relief, but it took a few more gentle assurances from Sir Leighleas before she finally let Harry go once more.

"I'm going to go have a word with your headmaster." Mrs. Malfoy stated crisply as she stood up with all of her pure-blood poise, but only after Harry started eating the breakfast that the mediwizard had brought him. "I'll be back soon." She cooed softly before leaning down to give Harry a kiss on the top of his head.

Once Mrs. Malfoy was gone Sir Leighleas reached into a pocket. "This came for you this morning. I didn't think you wanted to read it with your mother hovering over you."

It was a letter from Harry and Tom's benefactors.

"Finish eating and then you can read it." Sir Leighleas lifted the letter away when Harry tried to reach for it. "It's important you get all your nutrients for the next few days, to make sure your body is strong enough to fight off the last of the venom's affects."

"I understand Sir Leighleas." Harry took the offered letter and set it down on the night stand next to his cot and went back to eating; although he did eat a bit faster than before.

The mediwizard waited until most of Harry's breakfast was gone before nodding and walking off towards the door leading into his office.

Harry waited until Sir Leighleas was in his office and the door was completely shut before he set the rest of his food to the side and grabbed the letter.

"Harry,

If you're reading this then you've learned that Tom can't always be there to protect you. It's a hard lesson and I know you feel lost, but trust that this feeling won't last forever.

Both of you are growing up and there will be growing pains. Trust that no matter what happens Tom will never stop caring deeply about you. He only wants to do right by you.

He needs you right now Harry. Tom will never admit it, but he's terrified of losing you; either to your new friends or to circumstances beyond his control.

I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty. You need to know.

Talk to him. Let him tell you how he feels. Maybe take a weekend for just the two of you.

Oh! There's a book in the Slytherin library you and Tom should both read. I think it'll help with the whole protection thing. The book is "The Magic that Binds us" and it's written in parselscript. It'll help with your dueling lessons.

Take care."

Harry didn't know why, but there were tears in his eyes. It felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders after all this time. And yet there was a heaviness in his heart. Was Tom really afraid that he was losing Harry? It was true he had been spending a lot of time with his new friends, but he hadn't realized until then just how much time he'd given to them instead of Tom.

He thought back to all the times back at the orphanage when the other kids would try to befriend him. Tom would always get jealous and over protective, and in the end Harry would learn that the other kids couldn't really be trusted. And yet Harry still always tried to make friends.

The sound of a door opening made Harry jump and quickly stuff the letter under the blanket so no one else would see it. He grabbed his tray to finish the fruit that was still there.

"Hadrian dear, how are you feeling?" Mrs. Malfoy asked as she hurried back over to Harry's cot to sit down next to him. "Did you have enough to eat?"

His adopted mother's fretting was comforting and for a moment Harry just enjoyed the feeling of having a mother to take care of him.

Despite having Mrs. Malfoy there to talk to him and fuss over him, Harry found his mind going to the bond he shared with Tom. He wanted to see his life long friend and apologize for everything. He wanted to do just as the letter suggested and spend time with Tom. Harry was still mad about Tom's over protectiveness, but he understood better now why Tom was acting the way he was.

A/N: I've dropped a few clues and hints into this chapter. See if you can guess what the heck is going on?!

Special thanks to: Louise to, Maurey, and Deb