x
It was going a little too fast, but as a wiser man had already observed, no plan ever survived the first contact with the enemy.
They appeared in a familiar darkened hall. From his spot, Harry could just see the door to the ballroom where Tom had once conducted his meetings – quite possibly he was still using it. Harry detected his own enchantments on the walls, the wards that he had woven in tandem with Tom. The knowledge that it had happened a year ago and fifty years ago disoriented him.
A house elf popped in. Its eyes widened as it spotted Harry. It bowed hastily, and Harry gladly handed over his cloak.
He was about to request directions to Tom, when a Portkey deposited a pair of Death Eaters nearby. It was just Harry's damnable luck that they were Malfoys.
"Narcissa," Harry's guide said in lieu of greeting. "Young Draco."
"Sir-" the smallest Malfoy began, but his manners were lost as soon as he caught sight of Harry. "Potter! What is he doing here? Why isn't he bound?"
"Antonin," Harry warned when the man scowled at Draco. "He is but a child. A stupid one, certainly, but the welcome is not different from what I have expected. There is much to explain and we need not a Lucius Malfoy in snit on top of it."
Dolohov laughed and Harry smirked at the sputtering Malfoy. He caught Narcissa's eye and she hesitated, but eventually curtsied.
"My Lady Mother and Aunt Walburga told me about Mr Potter when I was a child," she explained, "although I have never before made the connection. I apologise…"
"It is of no consequence," Harry said, shaking his head. He caught Antonin's attention and with a gesture instructed him to be on guard. Then he concentrated and gradually unwove the glamour.
Draco's awed gasp was thoroughly satisfying.
"My Lord…" Antonin whispered, bowing.
Harry could see the relief and genuine happiness in his expression. It was the highest time Voldemort was stopped and Tom returned to them both – to the two men who truly loved him.
"I told you it was Mr Potter to you," Harry corrected, drawing perverse amusement from the fact that Narcissa offhandedly Silenced her son to keep him from making a scene.
"That was a very long time ago, my Lord," Antonin pointed out.
Harry conceded that. His sense of time was severely skewed and he could accept being called a 'Lord' easily. From Antonin – a seventy-something battle-hardened wizard – it was incredibly flattering.
"Who of the original Order survives still?" Harry asked, ignoring the two Malfoys lest he succumb to laughter.
"Thorfin Rowle, Aurelius Avery, Vulcan Mulciber, Tybalt Lestrange…" Antonin counted off. "I'm afraid that is all since Lucretia's passing."
"Lucretia was not a member of the original Order, Antonin," Harry corrected. "She was useless to us back then."
Narcissa took a harsh breath – perhaps Lucretia's general uselessness was something that contradicted her mother's stories – but the fact was that Lucretia didn't even finish school and all her shallow ambitions went out of the window after her parents signed her marriage contract. Harry wasn't certain he even wanted to know what prompted her admission into the Dark Order later on, in the event that she had actually ever been Marked.
"It… was a long time ago, My Lord," Antonin repeated uncertainly, tense, as if he expected instant retribution.
Harry regretted that Tom's condition had deteriorated so far that he terrorised his own people. The subtle flinch when Harry lifted his hand in a gesture intended to placate the man was both a proof of how bad the situation was and an explanation for Antonin's desire to meet Harry. This was a silent plea to make a change, to help the Death Eaters who had once been but freedom fighters and never intended to be party to torture and mass-murder and attempted genocide.
Antonin believed that Harry, by virtue of his mere presence, could make everything right again.
"No need to apologise," Harry said. He felt he should have been the one apologising. "The memories that are vivid to me must be all but faded to you."
Narcissa was rapidly whispering to Draco at this point, a steady flow of instruction that was necessary to prevent the boy from making an even bigger idiot out of himself. With a bit of luck, she would have a chance to warn her husband as well, and Malfoys would be converted into Harry's bootlickers rather than dead opposition.
"I am not young anymore," Antonin stated glumly.
Harry regretted that a bit. It had been unfair of him to ask this man – his friend for all intents and purposes – to sacrifice the better part of his life for someone who was not really there to appreciate it. He resolved to reward Antonin as best as he could after the skirmish was over.
"No, you are not," he admitted. "But your experience matches Tom's and you have never had an anchorless bond drag you into insanity," he said with a bitter smile. Tom must have suffered a lot. Harry recalled how much the bond had ached before it found his husband's warped presence in this time and settled a bit. Tom must have gone through that for much longer before he had found something to take away the pain. Salazar only knew what he had done to himself to survive.
Harry returned to present to find that Antonin was as good as gaping at him – his eyes were wide and his jaw had gone a little slack.
Narcissa, for a change, failed to follow the conversation. Harry didn't care a whit.
"How…" Antonin rubbed his forehead. "My Lord? You…"
"Indeed."
Harry's bitter smile turned into a much softer one, and he stepped forwards to survey himself in a decorative mirror. He looked a bit older than he actually was – he appeared to be in his early twenties. He was also taller, though far from matching Antonin's formidable height. His mock-tamed hair wasn't nearly tamed enough to display his scar, which was exactly as he wished it. Without his glasses and armed with two knives and several throwing stars he was barely recognisable.
Antonin huffed a breathless laugh, quite reminiscent of Tom for a moment, and smiled. "May I offer my congratulations… if somewhat belated?"
"Thank you," Harry said, deeming his appearance satisfactory. "Now take me to Tom. It is time we returned onto the way we have lost."
Leaving Narcissa where she was with the fool's hope that she would deal with her unmanageable sprog, the wizened Death Eater pulled up his sleeve and bared his Dark Mark. The heavy double-winged door recognised him and opened with a groan of strained hinges.
The meeting had already started. Harry strode in through the middle of the room to the throne, unrepentantly pushing Death Eaters out of his way with magic. Antonin, Narcissa and Draco hid themselves in the sea of black to avoid attracting attention and getting hurt in the process.
Harry managed to break the front row before he was recognised. The yells of 'Potter!' echoed in the room and Death Eaters brandished their wands, some going as far as to attempt and cast curses at Harry, before a shock wave passed through the room.
It affected everything except Harry himself.
Harry raised his head and met Voldemort's narrowed red eyes.
Confounded, the crowd of black-robed wizards and witches climbed to their feet, shrinking as far away from their Master as they could without trampling over each other. Seeing that neither Harry nor Voldemort moved or spoke, the Death Eaters also remained silent and motionless, waiting for some indication about what to do if attacking the Boy Who Lived obviously was not the correct reaction.
Or at least most of them did.
Bellatrix was too insane to act rationally. She escaped her husband's attempt to restrain her and leapt at Harry with her hood thrown back and crazy grin in place. "Die, Potter!"
Harry dodged. "Close…" he muttered, "but fundamentally incorrect."
He lifted the ash branch and struck the floor with its end as if it were a staff. He hoped it would work, because if it didn't they had huge problems. "My name is Harry James Riddle and I call upon the soul of my bonded, the soul once pledged to me!"
The ballroom froze in a tableau of shock. A familiar silver-gold-coppery light filled the room and Harry became aware of his magic reaching out in five ultimate Summoning Charms. Nagini twisted and withered and Voldemort's face lost its snake-like features. A diadem crashed into the floor and melted in a puddle of silver; a goblet joined it, making for a slightly bigger puddle of gold. Voldemort's skin rippled, similarly to the effect of Polyjuice Potion, and his appearance briefly steadied – waxy, distorted, but much more like a human. His eyes were no longer red, only bloodshot.
Someone screamed, but Harry refused to look away from the regressing form of the man he had sworn himself to. He stonily observed the metamorphosis.
Tom began to shake in a way eerily like the effects of Cruciatus. He didn't make a sound.
Harry registered the vague shapes of a ring and a pendant before they were destroyed by the furnace in the centre of the bastardised ritual, taking years and 'enhancements' away from Tom's face and body. The Dark Lord grew shorter than the frame he had created for himself, and finally there was nothing abnormal about his appearance anymore. His eyes were shadowed but blue again. Since his first Horcrux had been destroyed and those years could not be recovered he seemed older than he had been when Harry had seen him last, but he was still beautiful.
The ash turned to ash.
"Harry?" Tom asked. His voice had reverted to the familiar one Harry knew almost better than his own, dissimilar to the high-pitched tone of Voldemort's speech.
"Tom?" Harry returned.
Seemingly effortlessly, hiding all the pain from the transformation he must have been feeling, the Dark Lord conjured a ball of fire and flung it at Harry.
Harry raised his hand, caught the flame and held it in his palm. It didn't burn. Tom's magic was his magic.
Tom met his eyes. He kept his face blank, but Legilimentically and through the bond he conveyed the mixture of emotions he was holding inside. Longing, relief and lingering ache were prevalent.
"Forgive me," he said quietly, probably nearly giving half of his army heart-attacks. "I had to be certain."
Harry undid the fireball and approached Tom, who stood up to meet him. Harry felt his eyes well, thinking of how much his husband had to go through without him. He blinked furiously to quash the tears.
"I understand," he said, although he was not sure whether the test was supposed to confirm his identity, confirm the continued existence of the bond, or if it was an unsuccessful attempt to punish him. "Forgive me-"
Tom caught his elbows, stopping him from sinking to his knees. "Never kneel before me!" he exclaimed angrily, eliciting sounds of surprise from those parts of their audience that hadn't been shocked into stupor yet. "You are my husband, not my servant! You always have been and always shall be my equal!"
Harry closed his eyes, and for a moment simply soaked up the familiar yet rather unusually discomfiting presence. He could feel that Tom wished for nothing more than to soak in Harry in return, to relax for a while and do nothing except convince himself that this was real and he wasn't fighting alone against the world anymore.
"So you do not hate me," Harry hissed.
Tom let go of him, and Harry moved to stand behind the throne in a semi-shadowed spot. It didn't make him nearly as inconspicuous as he would have liked to be, but he couldn't bring himself to put a greater distance between himself and Tom.
"I could never." Tom replied in kind, surveying the derangement that remained of his followers. "Neither of us in any way compromised his promises."
"We might have been able to realise what was going to happen, but there was no precedent, Tom," Harry said, "If one of us died, the other would either follow or be freed of the bond. I didn't die, however… and the lack of anchor caused your descent into madness. I could apologise, but it would be empty words."
In hindsight Harry realised that Tom had known all that. Tom had not begun to hate him after his departure, had not blamed him. If Harry hadn't been certain of it before, this would have made obvious just how much his husband loved him.
"Dumbledore's days are numbered," Harry said intentionally in English, because he wished for the Death Eaters to hear it as well. He switched to Parseltongue for the next statement: "This time we're doing it my way. First thing we'll have to do is a cleansing ritual. I won't sleep anywhere near you, not to speak about sleeping with you, while you reek of Dark Arts…"
A group of people to whom this turn of events was slightly less jarring than to the rest began to form a kneeling line in front of the throne. There was Antonin, next to him Theodore Nott the Second and Theodore Nott the Third, Rowle, Selwynn, Aurelius Avery, Tybalt Lestrange and his two sons, Narcissa Malfoy, dragging her son with her, and couple of other people Harry didn't even recognise. The rest, however…
"Maybe not," he amended, staring skeptically at the foaming Bellatrix. "Maybe as the very first thing you'll have to deal with your followers. Some of them will have to be disposed of."
Tom felt no real regret about the proposed death of some of his people. He only grieved the loss of the decades he had wasted in insanity and that the circumstances forced him to be parted with the one person that had any chance of reaching him. In a way he was suddenly a virtual stranger to Harry, except that they still had their mind-link, according to which Tom had not perceptibly changed in half a century.
Harry, as opposed to his husband, was loath to kill, especially his own people, but he didn't see a way around it.
"Some of them are children of parents too closely related," Tom observed. "A few were perhaps tortured past the brink of insanity, but some were born slightly deranged."
"The dredges of the society," Harry summed up. "With their propaganda, there is no wonder the rest of the world thinks you stand for blood purity."
It was only starting and it was already a mess.
"Finite Incantatum!" some enterprising soul shouted.
There was a brief silence, but when nothing changed and the realisation that their Lord was bonded to a wizard that might or might not have been Harry Potter began to penetrate, anarchy started.
Aware that the meeting was shot to Hell, Tom cast a couple of Cruciatus Curses on the most vocal Death Eaters, clearing any doubts about him being still the Dark Lord, regardless of his altered appearance, and sent the followers home. Bellatrix, the loudest of them all by far, was still twitching on the floor with saliva dripping off her cheek onto the granite.
Harry had been searching the crowd for Severus Snape, with the intention to either have him swear an oath of non-disclosure of the recent events or Obliviate him, but it turned out that the man wasn't there. Allegedly (going on Apollonia Greengrass' word) Snape was attending a Potions Guild conference somewhere on the continent. Harry found that excuse easy to believe, but it presented an unexpected complication. Snape could turn up any day, come into contact with any of the wizards and witches that were present at the great revelation, and the wards on the hall were not geared toward complete inability to communicate information. Whoever might have been able to guide an outsider to believe that Harry Potter had turned Dark, and some of those people would be quick to bring their worries straight to Dumbledore.
Speaking of Dumbledore, Harry was not looking forward to explaining to Tom just how much the old coot knew. Hopefully, the recounting of how Harry had trapped the geezer would go a long way in lifting their mood.
Narcissa Malfoy remained behind. She requested a chance to pledge her continued loyalty to both Tom and Harry, regardless of recent events. Draco, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as accepting. He never stopped petulantly scowling, and bowed only after Narcissa aimed her wand at him. The witch sneered at her son, quite obvious in her disapproval, and Harry thought that perhaps Lucius's incarceration would become a much needed eye-opening experience for the boy.
Narcissa, thoroughly exasperated, kicked Draco's ankle.
The boy squealed.
Harry noticed Tom rubbing his temple and wished that the Malfoys would leave.
Narcissa leaned down and whispered into Draco's ear.
"He is what?"
"The Dark Lord's husband, dear," the woman repeated patiently.
Draco's eyes widened and a moment later he fainted. His reaction was even better than the goblin teller's, except that Tom was going to have a huge headache very soon.
"Theodore!" Harry called, rapidly taking control of the situation. The two Notts approached, each having just enough time for a quick bow before Harry spoke again: "See the Malfoys to the gates – assist Narcissa if the little ponce isn't able to walk on his own. I don't suppose the Green Suite in the Western Wing is available?"
"It is… sir…" the older Nott replied, uncertain of how to address Harry.
"We'll be there. Do not disturb us unless there is a desperate emergency. Antonin?"
The man pulled off his hood and inclined his head to indicate that he was listening.
"Find copies of the original Memorandum. We're going to rework it and start a huge campaign. Include anyone you need. Approach the Lovegoods in my name. Xenocrates and I used to have an alliance – there's a chance his son knows about it. We'll need a printer."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Perfect. Now go!" Harry ordered the huddle of hooded Death Eaters that were waiting for a chance to ask questions, or speak, or renew their vows of allegiance or some such. Tom and Harry were both drained, the former hurting on top of that, the latter frustrated. The sooner they had some privacy, the less likely it was that they would be driven to homicide.
The boot-lickers finally got the hint and scattered.
Harry shut the heavy door behind the last one, taking care to do so quietly, and descended from the dais to check on Bellatrix. She was still twitching, although she had lost consciousness in the meantime. The sight filled him with a mixture of pity and contempt – although, admittedly, contempt was prevalent.
"This is so fucked up."
"Tom…" Harry hissed. He wanted to take the man into his arms, to kiss him and hold him close so they could reassure each other of their presence, but the tendrils of Dark magic under Tom's skin nauseated him. He stayed where he was, hoping at the same time that Tom would come closer, and that he would not.
"Should I kill her?" Tom asked. It was sad to see him so confused, so tired, but at the same time Harry treasured the trust it implied.
"Don't." Putting the madwoman down would have been merciful, perhaps, but Harry had plans for Bellatrix, and Tom did not need to do any more Dark spells before the cleansing ritual. It was going to be excruciating as it was.
Tom stood above the witch's body, prodded it with his foot and sighed. "She used to be quite stunning – powerful, vicious, noble… Reducing her to this…"
Tom probably blamed himself, but they had no time and energy to expand on useless guilt trips. What had happened, had happened. It was done. They had to move on and do the best they could.
"Please tell me you haven't slept with her," Harry grumbled, kicking Bellatrix too, with more force than Tom. Four years in the past had lessened the force of his hatred toward her, but they hadn't erased it wholly. She was still one of those people on whom he enjoyed putting the hurt.
"As if it mattered," Tom scoffed.
Harry wasn't sure if that was a positive or a negative answer, and decided that he didn't want to know after all; he'd rather have no answer than one he didn't like. The touch of Tom's hand on his neck nearly made him vomit.
He pulled away, grumbling: "I'm really not sure I want to sleep with you again…"
Tom sighed.
Harry had not intended for Tom to hear. After all, he very much wanted him, regardless of the abuse his body had sustained during the past decades – if only he could get rid of the feeling of bile rising in his throat.
"I'll go through the ritual," Tom reminded him. "Won't get much cleaner than that."
x
Harry was so exhausted from the rejoining of Tom's soul and the following chaos of a meeting that he fell asleep while Tom was in the middle of the ritual.
When he woke up, on a hot August Sunday afternoon, Tom was lying on the other side of the king-sized bed, reading. He was wearing only a pair of trousers, and the sunlight made his skin look healthier, less pale than it in fact was. Harry critically observed the almost pathological thinness of Tom's body and sighed, which attracted the man's attention.
"Harry."
The word itself had no emotion in it, but the bond transmitted a wave of desire, hope, and plea for forgiveness, which Harry could not grant because he did not feel he had anything to forgive in the first place. The murder of his parents had long since become but a fact, and Voldemort's clashes with child Harry seemed irrelevant. None of that was the fault of Harry's Tom in the first place.
"I love you," Harry told him, because it was the best he could offer in the situation.
Tom's eyes were wide, almost fearful, with a hint of innocence that had in 1947 been labelled as hope, embalmed and, together with most of Tom's memories of Harry, stowed in the second Horcrux. Now that Tom had all his memories back, his mind was so familiar that they had established Legilimentic connection spontaneously within seconds of eye contact, and knowledge passed between them freely.
Tom was scared to believe him, Harry understood, but in Harry's eyes he was still perfect. It was a flawed perfection, admittedly, and maybe that was an oxymoron, but Harry had long since stopped expecting life and emotions to make sense. They were both upset and uncertain of what they were supposed to do now, how they were supposed to act around each other, but fortunately neither Harry nor Tom had ever subscribed to conventions. Harry decided to go on as if it really had been just a week since he and Tom had been living together in the Riddle estate and to deal with any problems as they would crop up.
This time there was no nausea when he held Tom's upper arm, so Harry leant in and kissed him, at first just getting used to the closeness again and then delving deeper, his tongue sliding against Tom's. It was just like fifty years ago. They fit together. Passion rose in their bodies, sweeping them like a tidal wave, washing away all lingering awkwardness between them, and Harry barely had a chance to speak while his fingers counted Tom's vertebrae.
"You would have aged well," he commented, resting against the pillows with half of Tom's alarmingly low weight on his chest.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tom asked, tilting his head to the side, trying to decide whether he should be flattered or insulted.
Harry chuckled. It wasn't easy to confuse Tom, and Harry was quite proud of his Slytherin training. "That I still think you're beautiful, and I still want to fuck you through the mattress. Or the other way around. I've spent Friday with Dumbledore's toadies and need to get off – I'm not picky," he said flippantly.
"The horror," Tom drawled, forgetting the fears in his amusement. "You should go through a cleansing ritual yourself."
"I should," Harry agreed, looking completely serious. "Just let me get out of the bed-"
Tom growled and pinned him down, setting Harry off in a fit of laughter. "You, Mr Riddle, are not going anywhere!"
x
It was easy to forget that he had jumped fifty years forward in time, Harry thought. Tom was barely different from how he had been in 1947 – still devoted to his Vision (and to Harry in private), in bed still unabashedly a bottom, still prone to baiting Harry and losing in contests of patience. His memories of life as Voldemort were there, of course, and they occasionally resurfaced, but mostly he kept them in a closed off section of his mind, under an Occlumentic lock.
Harry and Tom indulged themselves by spending the Sunday alone together, but on Monday in the afternoon it was the highest time for them to crawl out of their hidey hole and begin the labour of restructuring their power base.
They met the group staying at the Nott Manor in the dining room. All of them were seated around the middle of the long table: Antonin was there, and so was Avery, both Tybalt Lestrange's sons and the two Notts, the younger of which, Harry was pleasantly surprised to find, was mature beyond his age and an equal contributing member of the group, lacking only the Dark Mark itself.
"What is the general reaction within the Order?" Tom asked evenly, sitting down next to the younger Theodore, who couldn't quite conceal the awe in his eyes.
Harry seated himself opposite Tom, smirking smugly. Tom was, indeed, very awe-worthy, especially with the post-coital glow on his face, which Harry had put there; the fact that he was nervous about the meeting just added a humane quality that made his power all the harder to believe.
"Most assume that the major change was in your appearance, My Lord," Antonin replied concisely. "Very few were aware of your forays into soul-magic and therefore could not understand the purpose of the ritual that returned your youthfulness to you. The general consensus so far is to wait and see whether you were affected in other ways." The Death Eater turned to Harry. "Your presence, My Lord, is much more controversial. There are those who wish to kill you still, for revenge or jealousy. Some believe that you have tricked My Lord into accepting you and are going to betray us. There will be dissenters, indubitably."
"Names?" Tom requested shortly. The Notts and Lestranges, who hadn't experienced Tom's rule before, all stared at the two Riddles in amazement.
"Well," Antonin deliberated, "Bellatrix is not in a fit state to cause dissent, but she will cause trouble-"
"We're handing her over to the Ministry," Harry cut in.
Tom gave him the customary raised eyebrow, but this wasn't a point open to argument. They both knew that Harry imposed his decisions only when he believed it was necessary, and this time it was necessary.
"Until that time, we can put her into coma or just lock her in a cell…"
"If I may, my Lord…" Rodolphus spoke, voice trembling with terror. He waited until Tom nodded before he continued. "Bella has always been loyal to you, and imprisoning her like a traitor would be… mocking her stay in Azkaban…"
"Put her into coma," Tom ordered and turned back to Antonin, disregarding Rodolphus's gasp of relief at not being punished. "The dissenters?"
"Alecto and Amycus Carrows, Fenrir Greyback, Walden Macnair, the Yaxleys. I'm sorry, my Lord," the man added automatically.
Tom shook his head, refusing the superfluous apology. "They shall have a chance to change their minds before we neutralise them. One chance," he emphasised.
Harry knew better than to mistakenly believe Tom was getting soft, but the remainder was necessary for the four members of the younger generations around the table. Otherwise it would not be long before their relief at the lack of Unforgivable response to any sign of self-assertion would turn into belligerence.
"Do you have the Memoranda?" Harry asked when Tom disappeared into his head to plot.
"I found a version from 1943, one from 1945, and one from 1948. Either of them would require a major revision."
"The one from my sixth year at Hogwarts is useless," Tom said, shocking his audience by admitting that his own creation was in any way lacking, regardless of the fact that he had been a teenager when he produced it, a mere kid, no matter how smart. He went on to criticise his adult self, too: "The newest one is too radical. Start with the version from 1945 – that's the only one that had been drawn with Mr Riddle's cooperation."
Harry couldn't stop the smile from spreading. It was the first time Tom had called him that in front of anyone else, even if it was just because using his first name might have made the Death Eaters assume a familiarity with Harry that they didn't share.
"If I may suggest, My Lords," the younger Theodore spoke up, "it would be beneficial to first reform the Dark Order into a legitimate political party…"
Aurelius Avery threw his head back and laughed, and then spoke up for the first time, finally certain that these Tom and Harry were more or less the same Tom and Harry he had once known.
"You have no idea, boy… No idea."
x
Tom put the parchment down on the table and nodded. "It is satisfactory."
The three younger Death Eaters sagged in their chairs, relieved that there would not be Cruciatus Curses cast every which way.
"Has someone contacted the Lovegoods?" Harry asked.
"They have not responded. It is quite possible that the missive did not reach them, My Lord, but they are an openly Light family and unlikely to trust a letter from a Death Eater."
"Send them a letter personally," Tom ordered Harry, who simply accepted it as a suggestion and didn't bother pointing out it could have been worded more nicely.
"We'll use a muggle printer, then," Harry informed the table.
He received several grimaces and sneers for his effort, but the fact remained that Tom didn't protest.
"Ten thousand?" he asked Tom, calculating with the size of British wizarding society.
"I'll sort it out myself," Tom responded. "I cannot think of anyone else I would trust in the muggle world, and I need you to sound out the Light for sympathisers."
Harry scowled. It was pretty pathetic of the Dark Order that the only one able to competently deal with muggles was the Dark Lord himself… But Snape was a half-blood! Shouldn't he have been able to pass unnoticed among Muggles? And what about Mulciber? He wasn't pure-blooded either – both his parents had been half-blooded!
Then Harry recalled it was less than two months since the battle in the Department of Mysteries. That was why some of the Death Eaters were missing… that was not good at all. They needed those Death Eaters – some of them were the most capable, the sanest of the lot – and they had to get them out before the Order went legitimate, else they would be facing a nightmare of a public outcry followed by the Ministry getting involved, followed by a series of arrests. The wizards and witches they would have gotten out would be sent right back in.
Time was of essence.
"We should storm Azkaban," Harry said. What had seemed like a logical conclusion to him garnered a reaction of shock and indignation.
"Are you insane?" Tom demanded.
Harry's lifted eyebrow was apparently enough of a confirmation.
"You are."
"We need to get the usable Death Eaters out of there before we propose armistice," Harry implored.
Tom shook his head, stood up from the table and paced across the room to the empty fireplace and back to work off his fury.
Harry patiently waited for him to return and explain what the heck was his problem.
"I have other ways of getting my followers out, Harry," Tom hissed. "Look around yourself – Dolohov, Avery, Nott and both Lestranges were all there for less than a month before I recovered them. Macnair is also free, and it's only a matter of time before we get Malfoy, Rookwood, Jugson and Mulciber. I'm thinking of leaving Crabbe there-"
"Tom, we need more bargaining power, and can you imagine anything short of taking Hogwarts or the Ministry itself – which would be too violent and raise a huge wave of resistance – that would make such an impression? You are the one using fear of power to inspire loyalty. You figure it out." Public outcry was all fine and well if it helped promote them.
Tom sat back down, put his heel up on the edge of the seat and stared at the ceiling. The Dark Lord relaxing even slightly in the presence of his followers was previously unheard of, and the sight made Harry realise that this group of six was effectively the Innermost Circle of Death Eaters.
"We cannot oppose the dementors, and they have not joined me," Tom tried to explain why he objected to Harry's suggestion so vehemently. "Even so, I am Tom Riddle now, not Lord Voldemort, and I can't offer them even as much as I had offered before."
"We'll cast Patroni," Harry said. It seemed simple enough to him – after the end of his third-year when he had banished dozens of dementors with a single Patronus, Azkaban didn't seem impossible at all.
"Dark wizards cannot cast Patroni, Harry!" Tom exclaimed.
Everyone except Harry winced at the harsh hiss. Despite his acting with less decorum than he usually kept in front of Death Eaters, Tom's wrath was no less frightening than ever.
Harry put his elbow on the table and made a show of appearing unconcerned. "That might be a problem… Am I the only Light wizard on our side?" He didn't want to argue, but it appeared to him as though Tom was making up excuses. Maybe it was a natural reaction to Azkaban; maybe the place was so horrible that even the Dark Lord refused to go near it, but Harry felt that it had to be done, and if Tom was going to be a chicken, Harry was perfectly capable of leading the raid himself.
Antonin nodded sadly.
Tom closed his eyes, lines of distress appearing on his face. "We had you and your contacts and that entire web fell apart. Without you, there wasn't anyone to maintain it."
It wasn't really such a great surprise. Harry had always handled the Light part of their support base because Tom was the paragon of Slytherin, of traditionalism, too smart and skilled and powerful to be trusted by members and former members of other Houses or wizards with mixed heritage who already felt like their position in the magical society was in jeopardy and they had to keep their head down. Harry was less known, more approachable, and that had made the difference for many.
"I don't want to be too critical, Tom, but you really messed this up."
"I know," Tom said ruefully, meeting Harry's eyes to convey the depth of his regret. It was staggering. "I… needed you. More than I ever realised I did and, trust me, that's saying something."
Harry really didn't know what to say to that, but apparently Tom didn't know what he wanted to hear, so it worked out.
"My Lords?" Avery reminded them of the presence of the others, who were being left out of the debate and growing more nervous as time passed. Only Antonin and Avery were not overly concerned – they had witnessed similar hissed exchanges before.
"I think we should finish for today," Harry opined. "Perhaps tomorrow there should be a full meeting…" He intentionally left that matter open, but Tom wanted to call the Death Eaters as soon as possible anyway.
"Don't do anything too spontaneous," Tom admonished when Harry stood to leave.
It was too early to do anything about Azkaban, and Harry didn't feel like getting himself maimed or killed. He was prepared to bide his time on this one, but after a day of idleness he was itching to get some work done.
He raised his hand in a wordless goodbye and said: "I'm going to see a lady about some blackmail material."
x
Harry returned to Nott Manor late in the evening, his head filled with fifty years' worth of information about Albus Dumbledore overstepping conventional moral boundaries, with the side-dish of some very interesting facts about Rita Skeeter.
Tom didn't badger him. He had quite a lot to think about himself, primarily today's meeting. The Death Eaters had been called and already began to trickle in, taking their proper positions in the formation – a sort of pecking order, Harry thought humorously – while Tom observed from his throne and Harry from his shadow.
The light grey of the floor gradually disappeared beneath the draping folds of black robes and dresses. Harry disagreed with the setup and was already plotting how assemblies should be conducted in the future – without kneeling, definitely, and perhaps it would be a good idea to provide seating for the crowd – when it occurred to him that all Death Eaters had been called in.
"Is Snape going to be here?" he asked. It wasn't a good time, but better now than too late.
"He should," Tom replied. "Why is it of importance?"
Harry scowled. He had no idea how to best handle Snape. The Potions Master's loyalty could probably be won, but he wasn't sure how to go about it. Appealing to his sentimentality was doable, but Harry didn't believe it would work on the man that had bullied him for five years. Offering benefits would have no effect, because Snape had already gone through that and moved past the desire for power or riches. Aside from a freezing desire for revenge on men who were already dead he was mostly apathetic, and it was as good as impossible to win the loyalty of an apathetic man.
Either way, they could not let Snape return to Hogwarts without some assurances of his loyalty or, leastways, discretion.
"We need to single him out. He must not leave."
"So he is a traitor." The calm in Tom's voice was unnatural, and Harry suspected that Snape's life expectation had just been radically shortened. That was exactly what he had been trying to avoid.
"He was once faithful. I think Voldemort drove him away, in which case he might be coming back if you don't kill him. If he refuses, then by all means."
Tom gritted his teeth and his face twisted into an ugly grimace, but Harry was resistant to it. One had to be tough to survive a Riddle – that applied to both of them. Tom despised traitors, he even despised Pettigrew, and not because of his unplanned downfall caused by the reflected Avada Kedavra, but because of the simple fact that the rat had committed treason against those who held him in confidence. Pettigrew was under a lock and not attending the meetings – Tom believed that if he had betrayed once, he would do so again. He perhaps could have excused it if Snape had fled and never returned, but spying on his Order made Tom homicidal.
"Silence!" Tom snapped. Obedience was instant. "Ssseverusss Sssnape!" The air around Tom crackled with the magical reflection of his fury.
Harry was worried that at this rate Tom would kill the Potions Master without intending to.
Snape walked out of the formation and knelt, taking off his mask and letting his hood fall back. His face was pale but he held his head high, and only his trembling hands revealed that he was not perfectly content in his current position.
Harry felt a detached, abstract admiration for that gall.
"I had my suspicions, but had I been able to think clearly, I would have seen through his act years ago," Tom hissed very quietly, never taking his eyes off of the Professor, who was experiencing approximately what a bug under a looking glass felt like. Beads of sweat trickled down Snape's forehead, stinging his eyes, making him blink too often.
"I don't want to have to say it," Harry replied impudently.
"Yes – if I had been blind enough to miss this, I probably deserved to be spied upon. The insanity could not have inspired loyalty but in the equally insane." Tom switched into English and addressed the Potions Master: "Go to the Open Study, sit down and do not move an inch!"
Snape bowed and walked out with the same efficient, purposeful stride, but the look in his eyes was dead.
"Do not thank me yet," Tom stated before Harry had a chance to say anything. "I want to hear what he has to say before I decide to let him live."
x
The meeting went unreasonably well; an occasional Cruciatus kept even the alleged dissenters in line, and those were clearly the tiny minority. The mood of the evening was uncharacteristically cheerful – the Death Eaters were happy about Tom's regained charisma, about his regained sanity and eventually also about Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived and formerly their greatest obstacle, joining the cause. By rights they should have been skeptical, but apparently Voldemort's sadism and general insanity had not endeared him to his following.
Suddenly it seemed as if the Dark Order had a real chance to win, and while virtually everyone found something in the Memorandum they objected to, everyone also found something they wished for. Two thirds of them were undoubtedly scheming to take advantage, and Tom was almost proud of them, like a parent of a preschooler that had called his harpy of a kindergarten teacher something vulgar and graphic. It was naughty, but it was smart.
The only truly negative occurrence was when Macnair asked for a leave to go torture some muggles for sport and Harry reacted by Petrifying him and having a house elf transport him into a cell adjacent to Wormtail's.
By the time the meeting was dismissed, Harry came to the conclusion that they had the Dark part of their following as well in hand as could be expected. The only one that remained to be sorted out ere the beginning of their revolution was Snape.
While the Death Eaters and sympathisers filed out, Harry frantically finalised his strategy for approaching Snape. He was far from satisfied with it, and the trek to the Open Study was entirely too short.
Harry walked into the Study behind Tom. Snape was sitting in an upholstered armchair as he had been instructed to. He noticed Harry but dismissed him as a part of the background, playing with the stem of a goblet full of clear liquid. Harry guessed that it contained some fast acting poison with which the man hoped to grant himself a quick death before he was dragged off for torture and interrogation.
Tom sat down opposite Snape, with his back to the door, comfortable only due to his confidence in Harry, who was covering him at every moment.
"I was told of the extent of your 'cooperation' with Dumbledore," Tom started bluntly, shocking Snape yet paler, "by a wizard I trust far more than I trust you, so let us dispense with the pretences of your loyalty to the Dark Order."
Snape took a deep, rattling breath and cradled his goblet closer. "May I congratulate you to your rejuvenation, my Lord?" he returned tonelessly, automatically using the address that might have been called spurious, but that came naturally to any Death Eater dealing with Tom.
Tom ignored the unrelated observation; he only took note of the genuine surprise that Snape did not bother to conceal. Obviously, no one had filled the man in on what had happened at the last meeting. The news about Harry Potter being married to the Dark Lord were spreading like wildfire among the Dark witches and wizards of Great Britain, but Snape had been once again left out due to his lack of interest in socialisation.
"It was pointed out to me that you might have had a valid reason for turning to the so-called 'Light side'. You have now an unprecedented, singular chance to explain yourself to my satisfaction."
Harry perversely enjoyed seeing Snape lost for words. Tom did nothing to hide his loathing of the man, but the mere fact that he was being ordered to talk instead of tortured without a question had stupefied the Potions Master.
"Speak!" Tom snapped, not having the patience to wait until Snape deigned to collect his wits.
"I do not expect you to sympathise, My Lord, but I have only ever cared for three people. One of them was beaten to death in front of my eyes by a drunken muggle. I found your cause to be something I wished to fight for. I lost that ideal when the other two died by your own hand."
Tom briefly closed his eyes and Harry could sense him crushing tendrils of self-recrimination. Snape's was a tragic story, and very close to what Harry had anticipated they would hear. It was far from unique and fairly predictable.
"Who?" Tom demanded.
Snape raised his chin. "The first one was my mother. The other two were Regulus Black and Lily Evans."
Tom's fingers tapped a rhythm-less melody against the wooden armrest of his chair. They were stick thin, betraying the frailty of his body that he had attempted to hide by wearing an additional layer of clothing.
"The Dark Order has undergone a revolution during your absence, Snape. I am now who I used to be before the madness gripped me – my sanity was returned to me together with the humanity you have already commented upon. The cause we are now fighting for has also been altered." He recovered a slightly crumpled copy of the Memorandum from his robe and handed it to Snape, who shifted his goblet into one hand and accepted the parchment with undisguised skepticism.
As the man read, keeping his expression impassive, Tom once again started growing impatient. Harry tried to placate him through the bond, but the effect was negligible.
Eventually Snape gave the Memorandum back and with all the dignity he could muster said: "I am sorry, My Lord, but this act – although well contrived – does not convince me. You have nothing to support your claims of change-"
"Wrong, Mr Snape," Harry spoke before it was too late.
He was tempted to point out that the world didn't revolve around Snape and that the Dark Lord did not have the time or resources to waste on creating such a theatre solely for the benefit of a traitor who had very nearly outlived his usefulness, but the situation called for a quick fix, so Harry could not make Snape angry just for the sake of seeing him blow up. Besides, it would have been pathetic, kicking someone who was already down.
"I will vouch for Mr Riddle." He walked into full light, quite suddenly separated from the background in which he had taken refuge, and stood at Tom's left shoulder.
"Potter…" Snape let out, torn between incredulity, horror and utter confusion. Harry's older appearance, his presence next to Tom Riddle, his support of Tom Riddle's claims, all that must have been a tied Snape's thoughts into a Gordian knot. Tom looked ready to employ Alexander's solution to it, but Harry took a measure of satisfaction from the look of utter confusion on Snape's face. What remained of the little boy persecuted by his Potions teacher considered this a moment of justice.
"Potter?" Harry tsked. "Everybody says that. I'm becoming tired of having to correct everyone I meet."
Tom scowled at him, not in the mood for jocundity. "You will continue to either correct them or ignore it. The time has not yet come."
"Time… a damn fickle thing, isn't it?" Harry mused. He wished he could put his hands on Tom's shoulders, but their audience wasn't ready for that, even if Tom had been inclined to allow it.
"Say what you mean to say, Harry, and finish this," Tom said sharply. "If I had my way, this scum would be a head shorter now and the problem solved."
"What have you done this time, Potter-"
In a split second, Tom was standing straight, towering (despite his not really imposing height) over Snape, with his wand aimed straight between the two wide black eyes. Harry's hand was gripping Tom's wrist. They had both moved too fast to register, and had to momentarily pause to let their minds catch up to their bodies.
Very slowly, Tom turned from Harry to the Potions Master.
"You owe your life to Harry twice over, you deceitful abomination," he growled.
Harry amused himself by watching as it finally dawned on Snape just why he was still alive. The man quickly considered what kind of hold the Boy Who Lived might possibly have had or pretended to have over the Dark Lord, and probably came up with a blank.
"One more offence, and nothing will save you!" Tom stated definitively, and switched to Parseltongue: "I do hope you appreciate this compromise I am making for you."
Harry nodded. He stroked the soft skin of Tom's wrist with his thumb before he let go. "I do, Tom, greatly. I understand your feelings on the matter, but he is a unique case. I will not ask for mercy for anyone else."
Tom nodded his acceptance and stalked out of the room.
Harry cocked his head to the side, listening for any distant crashing sounds, but there was nothing to be heard.
"Potter-"
"That is not my name!" Harry barked, letting his personal feelings for this man show now that the game of verbal tag had been left to him solely.
Snape opened his mouth, but Harry was no more in the mood to listen to his sniping than Tom had been.
"I will not tell you my name until and unless you deserve the honour. I am not returning to school, so you technically do not need to know it. I will give you a fair warning before you try anything: I am now twenty years old, and while that may seem very young to you, I assure you that my title of 'Lord' is deserved. You will address me as such, unless I give you the leave to do differently-"
Snape stood up and cut in. "Desist with this charade, Potter! This room is not guarded! Nothing stops me from dragging you to the Headmaster, so do yourself a favour and come quietly!" When he reached for his wand, it was all over for him.
Harry Petrified him and sighed. He had done quite a lot more than he probably should have in the effort to preserve this man, and Snape had thrown it into his face. It was a case of a previously abused animal biting the hand that was trying to feed it, but he didn't have the time and energy to expend on a stick-and-carrot routine with a wizard that might not have been salvageable anyway.
Keeping the incapacitated man on the edge of his peripheral vision, Harry walked to the door. To his surprise, Tom was standing there, waiting for him.
"It might have worked if he just listened," Harry said, not bothering to hide his disappointment.
The last thing Snape saw before a blast of lethal green light enveloped him was the Dark Lord lowering his head to kiss the Boy Who Lived.