They found their way back to the dormitory. No one stirred as they entered; the enchanted sleep that Tom had cast would last until morning.
"Darkness or light?" asked Tom in a whisper as they sank down on Harry's bed.
"Darkness. You are still more familiar to me in the dark."
And the darkness fell softly around them, obscured all visible forms. Harry found Tom's face in the dark and traced its outline with his fingers.
"Is this your real face now?"
"I don't know yet," whispered Tom. "Perhaps it will be. This is how you want me to be, isn't it?"
Harry smiled in the dark. "I think so, yes." He kissed Tom's soft lips. "Although..."
"Although what?" Tom's hands caressed him as he spoke, found his skin under his clothes, set his body aflame.
Harry breathed against him. "I always feared your dark form, the terrifying Voldemort. I used to wake up screaming in the night at the thought of the dread Dark Lord. But perhaps there was also a hint of desire hidden under the fear. How strange that sounds! But I had never been close to anyone, you see, like a parent or a lover. And when I learned that you and I were bound together by prophecy and destiny, there was a... a sense of inevitability about us, about you and me, that felt almost like love..."
"I remember that..." Something in Tom's voice made Harry shiver. "Harry Potter. I couldn't get you out of my head. I hated you, but there was a certain intoxicating sweetness to that hate. I wonder if hatred that intense and personal always lingers on the brink of something else. Perhaps hate and love are like darkness and light, two different perceptions of the same underlying reality. You and me. That part was always real, always true, but our hate and love were interchangeable."
"How odd to think," whispered Harry, "that nothing is left of Voldemort now, except me. The last horcrux."
He felt Tom's arms around him, hard. "Come here, my Dark Lord, I want to make love to you..." Tom's voice was soft in his ear.
And Harry lost himself to Tom, to their wild forbidden love. My lover, the Dark Lord... Their bodies joined in new ways that seemed so familiar to Harry that he must have dreamed of them already. Perhaps he had always wanted to feel Tom inside him like this, and feel the sweet fierce joy of entering Tom in return. Their very beings blurred; they were lover and beloved, darkness and light, but Harry could no longer tell which was which. I am the Dark Lord...
Afterwards, as they lay exhausted and sore in each other's arms, Tom whispered: "Let's go away somewhere... Why do you need to stay here at Hogwarts?"
Harry muttered against his cheek: "I'm supposed to finish my education so I can vanquish the Dark Lord."
Tom laughed. "The Dark Lord is thoroughly vanquished, my love. Let's find a place where we can be alone together. Where would you like to live?"
Harry thought about it. "I don't know. I have never traveled anywhere."
"Hm." Tom reflected. "The Albanian countryside is rather lovely, but there are too many memories attached to Albania for me. I want to go somewhere new."
"How about Hungary, then? I have rather fond memories of a Hungarian Horntail dragon. A little temperamental, but with a certain gruff charm."
"Hungary it is, then," muttered Tom sleepily. "The wine is good there, and the people are too busy reading existentialist novels to pay attention to two foreign wizards."
"I suppose I should give Dumbledore the broken horcruxes before I leave."
"Why not? He may choke on a lemon drop if you plop the head of a dead serpent down on his desk. It's worth a shot."
...
In the morning, Harry found Ginny in the common room. The white light of early morning shimmered through the tall arched windows and lent a strange otherwordliness to the familiar room. The silence of the room in that early morning hour seemed to be more than just the absence of voices; it was the hushed and solemn silence a cathedral. Ginny sat by the window. Her hair looked wild and uncombed, but her face was serene, as if she was lost in a dream or a prayer. Somehow, she didn't look familiar to him any more.
"Ginny? Can I talk to you for a bit?"
She nodded wordlessly, and he sat down next to her in the window seat. Harry felt suddenly shy, as if he were approaching a stranger. She was no longer the child he had rescued from the Chamber of Secrets, but a woman he did not know. He recalled the look on Sirius' face as he had buried his lips in her fiery curls, and he wondered to himself if she had really needed the resurrection stone to call him back. Perhaps her flaming hair and ivory skin would had been enough...
Her dark eyes met his, but he could not read their expression.
"Ginny," he said softly. "I know it was you. You took the resurrection stone from Dumbledore's office and brought Sirius back."
He had half expected her to deny it, but she merely looked at him.
"Please, Ginny... I know you are in love with him, but what you are doing isn't right. Sirius does not belong here; he is dead. You need to let him go; you can't let him linger here as some sort of ghost. This isn't what love is supposed to be like." He swallowed.
Ginny laughed. Her silvery laugh sounded somehow irreverent in the haunting morning silence of the room, as if she had disturbed the quiet of a chapel.
Why was she laughing? Harry had expected her reaction to be different. Despair, perhaps, a heartbroken confession that her infatuation with Sirius had led her down the wrong path, a plea for help. But Ginny had laughed.
"Do you really think you are in a position to give me advice on love, Harry?" Her dark eyes glittered.
He stared at her. "What-?"
"Sirius may not have recognized your companion in the Chamber of Secrets last night, but I certainly did. Or did you think I could forget Tom Riddle? We spent quite a bit of time with each other, you know."
It took a while before Harry found his voice. "But you were sleeping last night, in the chamber..."
"I was just pretending. People are so easily fooled." Ginny got up from her seat, impatiently. "I saw how you looked at him, and he at you. You are the Dark Lord's lover, and you dare to lecture me..." There was fury in her voice now.
"But Ginny-" Harry's voice faltered. "If you love Sirius, wouldn't you want what's best for him? You need to set him free."
"Sirius doesn't want to be free..." said Ginny softly.
"But what about his soul? If you love him, wouldn't you want his soul to move on?"
"No," said Ginny simply.
She tossed her fiery hair out of her eyes and moved toward the door without another word. But suddenly she froze mid-step. They had both heard it, a slight sound, startlingly clear in the stillness of the common room. One of the tall wing-backed chairs by the fireplace had scraped against the floor. Someone was there! A figure rose out of the chair and turned toward them. It was Neville.
Harry and Ginny both stood petrified, staring at him. Harry felt his heart beating furiously in his chest. Neville must have heard every word they had spoken. What would he do now? Go to Dumbledore? To McGonagall? He could feel Ginny trembling slightly by his side, and her face was deathly pale.
But Neville merely stood there and looked at them for a while.
Ginny found her voice first. There was barely a tremor in her voice as she spoke: "So, you heard us. You know I took the stone to bring Sirius back. Are you shocked, Neville?"
But Neville shook his head, a slight smile flitting over his round and pleasant face. "I always knew it was you, Ginny."
Ginny's eyes widened. Her voice sank to a whisper. "You knew it was me? But how could you know?"
Neville looked at her for a moment in silence. Then he said. "I saw it in your face, Ginny. I saw it when you fell in love with him, I saw it when you grieved over his death, and I saw it when you decided to bring him back from the dead."
"You did? But no one else ever saw any of it..." Ginny's voice was almost inaudible now. "So how could you?"
"I saw it because I'm in love with you, of course," said Neville. He said it simply, without drama or tragedy, as matter-of-factly as if he were referring to the weather or some well-known natural law.
Ginny stood staring at him, her face flushed now. Harry wondered what she could be thinking.
Then Neville spoke softly: "Ginny, would you like to come to Slughorn's party with me tonight?"
"What? To Slughorn's party?" Ginny looked at him for a moment in incomprehension. Then she whispered. "Will you tell Dumbledore if I don't-?"
Neville frowned. "How can you ask me that? I don't tell tales; you have nothing to worry about. Either of you..." He gave Harry a curious look and shook his head. "I was simply wondering if you would like to go to the party with me. It's an invitation, not an attempt at blackmail. I don't expect anything from you Ginny. I just thought that you might enjoy one night among the living. Afterwards, I understand if you want to go back to him, but please give me this one chance..."
"A party?" Ginny stared at Neville for a long time. He waited, silently. Finally, she said: "I suppose one night among the living isn't such a bad idea. Thank you, Neville, I accept. See you this evening." And she swept out of the room, her hair an incandescent blaze in the morning sun.
...
In the afternoon, Harry found his way to Dumbledore's office. The headmaster, looking curiously old and frail, as if he had suddenly aged decades in the past few days, lit up at the sight of him.
"Ah, Harry! What can I do for you, my boy?"
Harry sat down in the chair Dumbledore offered him. "I've come to talk about horcruxes, headmaster."
Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "I am glad to hear it, Harry. I do not mind admitting that I have been sorely disappointed recently in many friends I thought I could trust. But you, my boy, the Chosen One, have remained steadfast in your appointed task. I must admit that I doubted you for a while, that I even suspected that you were behind the theft of the resurrection stone. But I realize now that I was wrong to doubt you, Harry."
He smiled benignly, and Harry felt himself shiver.
"I fear that the Dark Lord is near, Harry," said Dumbledore softly. "At first I thought Professor Slughorn was hallucinating when he thought he saw Tom Riddle, but I fear that is not the case. The horcrux that you found on your pillow suggests otherwise. I do not understand how Lord Voldemort could have contrived to enter the castle, since its many protective charms are put in place precisely to prevent that from happening. The charms and spells protecting Hogwarts are ancient and powerful indeed, and I do not think Lord Voldemort could have entered without an accomplice on the inside. I fear, my dear boy, that he is trying to get to you."
Harry smiled a little. "I suppose so, headmaster."
"Ah, you smile at the thought!" Dumbledore regarded him for a moment over his half-moon spectacles. "I am glad you welcome the challenge, Harry. You are a brave child indeed."
"I'm not a child, Professor."
"Perhaps not." Dumbledore smiled. "Now, let's talk about the remaining horcruxes, whose precise identity you have guessed, I think, by some sort of unerring intuition. Rather impressive, Harry! The Dark Lord may have met his match in you... No need to blush, my dear boy! The compliment is most sincerely meant."
"Right..." Harry smiled to himself.
"Now, about the horcruxes... I had expected that you would have more time to look for them, but for some reason, things seem to happen so quickly lately. Do you have any ideas, Harry, about where you might want to begin looking for the remaining horcruxes?"
Harry drew a deep breath. "They are right here, Professor..."
He put a storage box, retrieved from one of the school cupboards, on Dumbledore's desk and looked at the headmaster.
It took a minute for Dumbledore to react. He simply sat and looked at the wooden box in front of him, his face whiter than snow. Then he reached out with a trembling hand and opened the lid. He stared at the contents, wordlessly.
Then he spoke. "Harry..." His voice sounded thin, feeble, like a plea. Then he found his normal voice again, although it still shook: "Harry, how did you come by these items? Did you find these on... on your pillow as well?"
Harry looked at the fragile old man in front of him. "No, headmaster. Lord Voldemort brought them here, and I destroyed each horcrux in turn, using a basilisk fang from the Chamber of Secrets."
"You... what?" Dumbledore's voice faltered. He looked at Harry with complete incomprehension. "But why would Lord Voldemort bring them all here?"
"He brought them here because I asked him to," said Harry softly.
"You... you... spoke... to... Lord Voldemort?" Dumbledore could hardly get the words out.
"Yes."
"But.. My dear boy, you must have been in mortal danger... A wonder that he didn't kill you when he saw you..."
"I was not in danger, Professor," said Harry gently. "Tom... Lord Voldemort is no longer my enemy. He is my friend and my lover."
He thought for a moment that Dumbledore was going to faint. The headmaster grasped his desk so hard that the knuckles on his remaining healthy hand were white.
"Lord Voldemort... is your lover?"
Harry nodded. "Yes. But he is Voldemort no longer; he is Tom Riddle. We are together, as we were meant to be. I will leave Hogwarts, headmaster, and follow Tom abroad. My quest is complete now. The horcruxes are all destroyed, except for one."
"Except for one..." Dumbledore repeated, tonelessly.
"Except for me," said Harry softly. "That's all, Professor. Voldemort has been vanquished. I know this is not how you planned it, but this is how things worked out."
"You and the Dark Lord?" There were tears in Dumbledore's eyes now. "Harry, please tell me this is not true. No, I can see in your eyes that it is true... Harry, how can you betray us all like this? How can you betray me? The fate of the wizarding world depends on you, Harry! You cannot let yourself be seduced by the Dark..."
Their eyes met for a moment. Then Dumbledore reached into the pockets of his robe, took out his wand and pointed it at Harry. Dumbledore was crying now; tears rolled down his wrinkled cheeks, and his voice shook as he whispered: "I am so sorry, my dear boy. So terribly, terribly sorry for what I have to do..."