x
Harry had never before done anything like this.
The only time he had ever come close was during the ill-fated attempt to rescue Sirius from the Department of Mysteries, but even if back then his friends had ultimately followed him, Harry hadn't had the time to feel all the power and commitment that came with leading a group of fighters.
He drew strength from Tom's steady presence at his right shoulder. He hadn't expected his husband to come with him, especially after all the protests against organising the raid at all, but Tom had insisted on going despite his inability to protect himself against the dementors. He completely relied on Harry, and that just added to the already very heavy burden of responsibility.
"If anyone has any questions, now is the time to ask them," Harry said quietly, letting his eyes slide over the row of determined battle-ready people.
It was unnecessary to raise his voice; the wizards and witches had been waiting for him to speak and heard every word. None of them said anything. They all had volunteered and had been briefed, and now they were just waiting for Harry to give the signal before they attacked one of the Ministry's strongholds. Ironically enough, the majority of them were Light-oriented wizards and witches who had joined the converted Death Eaters in a political movement called simply the 'New Order.' They followed Harry specifically, only theoretically aware that it meant that they were allied with 'He Who Must Not Be Named.' No one realised the alternative identity of Tom Riddle, whose original appearance didn't stand out enough to inspire suspicion – the notable exception being Mad-Eye Moody that had gone to school with them.
"No one?" Harry gave them the very last chance.
Tom, Mad-Eye and a couple others glared at him.
The only sounds were howls of the wind that brought salty air from the sea and the distant roar of waves crashing into the cliffs.
"Very well," he concluded. "Follow me."
Logic, experience and everyone around Harry maintained that he should have waited longer before he put his plans into effect, but Harry's patience had been running out with September dying. Today, on the dreary Sunday of October the 6th, he set foot onto the grounds of the Azkaban prison for the first – and hopefully last – time.
Harry had been both disappointed and pleased when Tom's people reported that the Ministry's security wasn't worth a broken knut. Since the paper-pushers that determined how much funding would go into penal institutions had decided to skimp on it, nothing stopped his team from portkeying onto the island.
Slapped in the face with a gust of chilly air, Harry sneered. The island was not as huge as to preclude the implementation of anti-Apparition and anti-portkey wards. Someone, somewhere, had decided that no one would want to come to here, anyway, and redirected DMLE's money into a reelection campaign. The wardline cut through the middle of a flat expanse of grass that separated Harry's team from their target.
"They did not even close the door," Moody remarked, disgusted.
Indeed, the front gate of the hulking, dark grey stone structure of the fort was yawning. Harry, already pumped to gills with adrenaline, simply walked in. He hexed two guards before Tom crossed the threshold, and looked around the cubby-hole that apparently doubled as the gate-keeper's office.
"They don't keep any documents here," Harry commented, not the least surprised by Fudge's pudgy face on a clip from the Prophet Stuck to the dartboard. "They must have some kind of registry in this place."
"You four are with me!" Moody barked, pointing at a group standing off to the side. "Riddle, we'll go down that way and let you know if we find anything of interest. Try not to get your soul sucked out in the meantime."
Harry wasn't sure if the comment was aimed at him or at Tom, and he didn't get the chance to ask, because Moody was already making his way deeper into the bowels of the prison along the corridor he had selected, dogged by the indicated four men.
"Meadows, take point and go right. I'll start upstairs," Harry ordered.
The rest of the group split evenly; half followed Nomiki Meadows into the low, shadowed hallway stinking of mold, the rest went up the stairs with Harry and Tom. Paradoxically, the first floor was darker and colder than the basement, infected with the lingering presence of dementors. Thick iron bars separated cells on both sides; every second cell featured a window roughly the size of Harry's palm. The corridor was crisscrossed with thin, concentrated beams of sunlight.
Several dark figures appeared; some floated along the hallway, other tried to descend from the second floor. An inmate screamed. Other screams and yelling answered, rich on slurred vulgarities and half-formed curses.
"Expecto Patronum!" seven Light wizards and witches yelled out in a cacophony.
A stampede of ghostly animals practically ran over the approaching dementors.
Harry left his people to clean up and free those prisoners that might later be of use, and with the escort of Tom, Dexia Japes and Mnemone Radford ventured upstairs in search of the registry.
The place was as horrific as Sirius's nightmares had implied, and that was when the dementors were kept at bay by Patroni. The human guards, half of which had been on their lunch break, staged a coordinated attack, but it was more of a token resistance. They were subdued without any real effort from the New Order.
On the third level they located and seized the archive and at their leisure planned which inmates they were going to free: the Death Eaters sans the most obviously insane, political prisoners and the accused that had been shipped there without a trial. Altogether, the number was slightly more than hundred.
Of those, less than a fifty had the strength and presence of mind to walk out under their own power. Harry's men had no time to bother with the rest, outnumbered two to one already by the able.
Harry had already begun to think it had all been too easy, when they crowded together on the large expanse of greyish grass stretching between the coast and the building. Seemingly the only obstacle left for them to overcome was about a hundred yards to the edge of the anti-portkey wards…
"They're coming!" Antonin called from the back of the legion.
"Dementors!"
Light drizzle began to fall from the clouded sky but turned into snow before it reached the ground. Blades of grass crunched under their feet, frozen. When some of the newly freed prisoners began to scream and wail, Harry halted.
"Tom?" he asked.
"Whatever idiocy you have in your mind now, I am not letting you do alone," the man hissed, shocking and scaring those nearest to them.
Harry accepted Tom's response without arguing and exchanged a look with Mad-Eye, who nodded and moved to lead the procession further, while Harry and Tom returned and wove through the crowd to its back.
So far the dementors were keeping their distance, but they would not for much longer. There weren't just hundred of them, but a sea, an entire ocean of black robes, slimy hands, stale breath and rattling sounds echoing from all sides. Harry felt tiny in the midst of that circle of horror.
"Take my hand," he demanded, only faintly aware of Tom never having left his side.
"What?"
"Tom Marvolo Riddle, I'm arguably the most powerful Light wizard in the world and I'm having doubts, so do as I fucking tell you and take my hand!" he snapped, all but fear and despair driven from his mind. Even the bond failed to transmit anything but pain and hatred from Tom. The world felt like Hell. Harry envied Snape at that moment-
A warm hand enveloped his own and gently squeezed. Harry felt the touch of familiar magic entering his body through his palm, and even though it was just a sensation rather than what truly was happening, it reminded him of the silver-gold-coppery glow enveloping them in the poky office somewhere on the Iceland…
"Expecto Patronum!"
He hadn't really expected anything but, if asked, he would have said that a shiny stag should have appeared and driven the dementors away.
Instead, he produced a huge (although appropriately shiny) shape of basilisk that began to work its way through the deluge of the black-robed creatures, destroying them with the power of its sight. It casually grabbed one dementor into its jaws and munched on it, while looking left and right and apparently destroying an entire species.
"Light wizard, right…?" Tom remarked, while Harry was trying to figuratively collect his jaw from the ground. "You, Mr Riddle, are a freak of nature."
When the last dementor in sight was reduced to a heap of bones, ugly greenish skin and black rags, and the glowing king of snakes disappeared from view, searching for other prey, Harry finally found his voice.
"Tell me about it."
Looking around, he found that while the dementors were playing with them, the rest of their group had portkeyed out. He and Tom walked to toward the edge of barrier, but once again did not get far.
"In the name of the Ministry of Magic of Great Britain, you are arrested!"
Harry was about to let Tom just deal with the shouting idiot, when he realised there wasn't just one idiot. There were about two hundred of them that had portkeyed in simultaneously… actually, it looked like the half of the Ministry was there.
"Harry?" Tom said quetly.
And not just the Ministry. Albus Dumbledore, accompanied by the remains of the Order of the Phoenix that had yet to defect to the New Order, made his way to the front row. This was probably supposed to be a counter-attack planned in case Voldemort would have tried to take over Azkaban. It, however, didn't work against a pair of wizards (seemingly) barely in their twenties.
"Tom?" Harry whispered, reflexively clutching the hand he had yet to release.
"Stall," Tom advised. "Our people will return any second now."
"It'll be a bloodbath!" Harry protested, his eyes skimming the rows of familiar and unfamiliar faces, queues of uniformed wizards and civilians. If they engaged in a battle today, both sides would suffer heavy losses until the New Order would ultimately lose.
"You are the icon of Light!" Tom reminded him angrily.
Harry could feel his husband's fear, but also the determination and faith in their own skills. He stood straighter and turned to face the side where both Dumbledore and Fudge were standing.
"We propose a cessation of hostilities," he spoke clearly. "We offer to hand over the following individuals to the Magical Law Enforcement: Alecto Carrows, Amycus Carrows, Fenrir Greyback, Bellatrix Lestrange, Walden Macnair, Peter Pettigrew, Oedipus Yaxley. In return we demand a clean criminal record and citizenship for any individual bearing the Dark Mark not on the list. They shall become subjects of your government and punishable for any new offence."
He impressed even himself and Tom with that sheer impudence. Still, that was what he was best at – being rude. Oftentimes people were so insulted by his actions and statements that they didn't notice anything else going on around them.
"I notice you have excluded yourself and Mr Riddle from that group," Dumbledore pointed out, his eyes lacking the customary twinkle.
Harry found it disconcerting to be on the business end of the Headmaster's wand.
"I hate that man!" Tom growled, effectively raising Harry's spirits.
"Certainly, Mr Dumbledore," Harry replied sweetly. "It would be an outrage if a bunch of bureaucrats was given the leave to control Tom and me. At certain point, laws become more like… guidelines."
Dumbledore opened his mouth to cut Harry down for that, but Fudge spoke faster (probably because he actually didn't take even that split second to think about what he was going to say): "You cannot be allowed to-"
"We will be allowed!" Harry retorted, freeing his hand from Tom's hold to give both of them more freedom of movement in case it would be needed. The best defence was offence, and he was about to launch one. A part of the audience might have been on their side, which would have been really helpful to know, and Harry knew exactly what to say to catch both those snidgets into one hand.
"We're following your example Headmaster," he told Dumbledore. "The needs must, and sometimes laws had to be bent for you, seeing as you had the power to support your standing. The laws will accommodate us in exactly the same way-"
"Arrest them!" Fudge yelled, purple in the face and stomping his feet in a vain attempt to give his orders more force.
Harry laughed at him. "Go on! Send all your Aurors against the two us!" he bade the tantrum-throwing little man.
Tom, quiet and feeling just as out of his depth as Harry, moved so that they stood back to back and slightly turned his head, muttering: "Are you certain we can take them all down?"
Harry sniggered, not entirely rational with the amount of adrenaline coursing through his veins. "No idea," he replied truthfully. "But they won't send them. Besides, more than half of the Aurors are ours."
Tom laughed too. "You, Mr Riddle, are twisted."
"Said to kettle to the pot."
He belatedly realised that Dumbledore had been telling them something while they were having their private conversation, probably trying to convince them to surrender or some such.
"… you were always a good boy. I am sure it is all a misunderstanding. If you come back to us, we-"
Neither Harry nor Tom got a chance to blow up at Dumbledore's speech, because at the very moment the New Order returned to recover their leaders: Antonin and Mad-Eye appeared on the edge of the wards, each bringing a dozen of his men. Thirteen Death Eaters and thirteen prominent Light wizards assessed the situation ,and Moody burst into laughter.
"What is so funny?" Antonin asked him loudly.
Moody pointed to the, up to this point disregarded, dementor carnage.
Harry grimaced.
"P-potter!" the ex-Auror called between barks of laughter. "D-did you do something unintentional again?"
By this time Antonin, Theodore, Aurelius and a couple of others were chuckling, too. On top of everything, Harry could sense that Tom was also rather amused.
He suppressed a moan and made himself look as innocent as he could – which wasn't effective at all, mostly due to his current ensemble. "Sorry?" he said weakly.
Antonin had to catch Moody to prevent him from falling down on the ground.
The seeming impasse was broken by someone from Fudge's suite throwing a curse at Harry's side. Tom dispelled it without trouble, rapidly cast a Homing Spell along the trace of magic and followed it by a Blasting Hex. The attacker died a moment later. Harry recognised the high-pitched scream as Dolores Umbridge.
"Thanks," he said, thinking of the execution rather than the assistance.
Tom raised his wand again in a nonverbal threat, but no one made the next move. Like Greeks landing on the shores of the plain of Ilium, they waited for someone to sacrifice themselves as the first to step forth and die.
In the end it was Amos Diggory who broke the silence. He crossed the wards and put himself into the line of fire, standing approximately half-way between the two surrounded Lords and the huge crowd. There he cast a Sonorus on himself and spoke.
"I want to tell you about my son!" That caught the attention of practically everybody. Cedric's unfortunate fate was well known. "His name was Cedric. Many of you might have heard that name – he was the Triwizard Champion for Hogwarts, murdered by the Dark Lord V-v-voldemort… But we can rejoice! The Dark Lord has been vanquished! Welcome the New Order! Follow Harry Potter!"
The silence was broken at this point. Diggory swearing allegiance to the Boy Who Lived was almost missed in the shock, elation and disbelief following the announcement of Voldemort's misleadingly implied demise. Scuffles among the supposedly fellow members of Ministry broke out. Fudge was Stunned by a limping man in Auror uniform, and the Order of the Phoenix had to create a human barrier around Dumbledore. Harry was greatly let down by Hermione's, Ron's and Ginny's presence, which he hadn't noticed earlier because they had been standing behind the adults.
Moody and Antonin had a brief discussion before their relatively meagre forces spread out and enforced order by casting wide-area Silencing Spells. About five minutes later, after several surreptitious attacks on Harry and Tom, which the couple deflected with ease, the plain was quiet again and Diggory could continue his impromptu speech.
Tom was doubtful about letting him do it, but Harry remained a gambler at his heart, and Amos Diggory was exactly the kind of wild card that might have won the war for them.
"Many of you have families at home – wives, husbands, children… If you fight and die here today, who will take care of them tomorrow? Do not get mixed up in a revolution – it might grow into a civil war and, after You Know Whose-" the man obviously didn't have the guts to repeat the Dark Lord's name, "-reign of terror, that is the very last thing our society needs. We need strong leaders with clear visions of the future, and you see them in front of yourself! All of you have read the Memorandum – stand with the New Order or go home and protect your families, but do not try and oppose a tidal wave!"
"He's bloody brilliant at inspirational speeches," Harry remarked, watching the man with amazement.
"He's not all there," Tom protested feebly. Some of the spectators Apparated and portkeyed out, others stood back, watching but apparently reluctant to get involved. A larger group of Death Eaters without masks appeared behind the wards. They were carrying the incapacitated dissenters, all those whom Harry had named in his proposal of armistice and others whom he hadn't remembered at the time.
"Those are usually the people who gather the greatest following," he noted, trying to comprehend how they could be winning what was turning out to be the one and only battle of the war by simply standing there and once in a while conjuring a shield.
"Shouldn't he be the Lord, then?" Tom asked snidely with a scowl that Harry couldn't see, but sensed quite clearly. As if there was anything to be envied about Amos Diggory's life, honestly…
"He is shaping up to be the ideal figurehead, if he is controllable," Harry said, stepping closer to Tom. He watched as Nymphadora Tonks took up position by Diggory's side and acted as his bodyguard. Harry didn't understand how he could royally screw up and end up getting much better results than anyone would have thought possible anyway. "You are the one with the Vision. I am the one making it happen."
x
"You're lucky that I love you, or I would torture you into insanity for this," Tom muttered.
Harry all of sudden felt tingly and warm inside, and the corners of his mouth twitched a little. It was the first time Tom had actually said it. Harry wasn't about to point it out, of course, since if Tom didn't watch out for slips, he was more likely to say it again sometime.
"Potter!" a gruff voice barked and added a grumbled "…or what's your name," that made Harry's smile appear fully.
Moody with a group of Aurors approached the loose ellipsoid of conjured chairs Harry, Tom and their Innermost Circle were sitting on.
"I want you to meet someone, you walking disaster!"
Although outwardly his face didn't betray anything, Harry could tell Tom took an odd liking to Mad-Eye – especially to his sense of humour. That was the only reason why he allowed such impudence.
"This fellow," Mood gestured towards the limping Auror with a wild mane of hair, whom Harry recognised as the one that had Stunned Fudge a couple of hours ago, "is Rufus Scrimgeour. I'd partnered him when he was greener than grass, and you can see he got far."
Indeed, Scrimgeour's uniform featured the regalia of the Head Auror.
"Potter," the man said, sticking out his hand.
Harry waited for Moody's confirmation before taking it. Scrimgeour's eyes automatically strayed to his forehead, and Harry's smile grew icy, freezing the scheming expression on the Auror's face.
"How can I help you?" Harry asked, even though the question he meant was: 'how can you help me?'
"Dear Cornelius was… accidentally… permanently incapacitated," Scrimgeor said mildly; butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "These things happen in such a chaos, you understand… Well, as the Head of the Auror Office, yours truly has automatically become the interim Minister and, considering the bind we have found ourselves in, declared martial law."
It was crystal clear that Scrimgeour had been a Slytherin once – he had the language down pat – but he was too young to have met Tom and Harry at school. He was already on the way to become a reluctant ally.
"You see," the new Minister spoke directly, "I don't want a bloodbath and I see you don't want one either. You've recently dealt with the Dark Lord, and it would look pretty bad on my resumé if I tried to arrest you while the vox populi worships your name. I don't want to get into a fight with you either way, Potter, especially not if he," he waved his hand towards Tom, "is who I think he is."
Yes, Scrimgeour was one very intelligent man who recognised quickly which way the wind was blowing, and used it to his advantage, while saving countless lives in the process. He didn't seem truly sympathetic to their cause, which was a pity, but it was far better for Harry and Tom to have to deal with a neutral Minister than if they had to fight an opposed one.
"So, what do you propose as a solution?" Harry asked.
Scrimgeour was declared to the Light, and quite obviously disliked Death Eaters, so the negotiations with him were Harry's domain. Harry wasn't very happy about it – Tom had decades of experience they could have used – but felt confident that he would do well. If he had managed to turn Moody…
Scrimgeour scowled at the seated men and turned back to Harry, expressionless.
"I'll declare your New Order a legal political party and accept the terms of armistice you have proposed." He looked over his shoulder at the scattered remnants of the Order of the Phoenix. Apparently, there was another organisation Scrimgeour didn't have much appreciation for. "You will cease all hostile action against the public and the Ministry and I even let you have a go at Dumbledore right now."
"Tom?" Harry asked, not because he needed to (he could feel Tom's sentiments through their bond), but because he wanted to make it clear to everyone that his husband was (at least officially) the leader of their group.
"Don't tell me you wish for my input now?" Tom asked frostily.
Moody snorted and Antonin spun to hide his smile, but everyone else was too cowed by the murderous expression their Lord was sporting to dare do anything that might have attracted attention to them.
"This is your choice," Harry replied calmly, unbothered by the menacing aura. Tom had just said a couple of minutes ago that he loved Harry and would probably refrain from torturing him. "You decide what you want; I make it happen for you. Might not even know how, but I will," he finished in Parseltongue. The Ministry didn't have to know that the Revolution had been an insufficiently planned raid turned near debacle turned desperate attempt on stalling turned coup d'etat.
"We accept," Tom stated simply, meeting Scrimgeour's eyes and holding his gaze in that disconcerting way that made people submit to his will in effort to avoid what they felt would be mental evisceration.
"So you are Him," the interim Minister said, more weakly than he had probably intended to.
"I am Tom Riddle, Minister. I assure you most of what you have heard about me were lies."
"In that case, it is an honour to meet you, Mr Riddle," Scrimgeour replied, his confidence rapidly draining. Apparently, despite all his distaste for Death Eaters, the casual meeting with the man that had been the Dark Lord Voldemort terrified him. "I'm afraid I have to return to the office – there will be mayhem at the Ministry that needs sorting out… if you'll excuse me…"
He instinctively half-bowed, unable to stop himself, and rapidly walked away before his fear of Tom became too obvious.
"He's a good lad," Moody said gruffly once Scrimgeour and his suite departed, "but he has an aversion to Dark wizards. Mind you, I'd kill anyone who uses Dark Arts on other person, too… if I could…"
"Don't provoke the Dark Lord, Mad-Eye," Harry warned seriously. The atmosphere was seemingly relaxed, since neither of the Lords wanted to be seen torturing their people by potential followers, but Tom had a low tolerance for stupid remarks.
"I want to deal with Dumbledore first," Tom hissed sharply.
"Let's do this by ourselves. We've… well, you've waited for this for a very long time." It wasn't exactly fair of them to pin all their frustrations on one old wizard, but Dumbledore had hurt them both. It was only natural that they wished to strike back.
"I want to kill him," Tom proclaimed, but there was resignation in his voice that suggested he had already accepted that it would not be a viable solution. They did not need to create a martyr, and that was exactly what a dead Dumbledore would have become, regardless of the biography putting doubts into the minds of wizards and witches.
"That won't work, and you know it, Tom. To him, death is 'a next great adventure.' But there is one thing I know that would break Dumbledore's old heart…" Harry sent short mental thanks to Bathilda Bagshot. "Give me a moment. Antonin, take your men out of here. Mad-Eye, you and yours stand by and make sure our unwilling friends don't try something desperate."
Harry and Tom left the Innermost Circle behind, casually walking toward the Headmaster and his most faithful. McGonagall was absent, probably watching over the school, but there were still more people than Harry would have expected to stay for this long: Molly and Arthur Weasley, Augusta Longbottom, Hestia Jones, Remus Lupin (staring at Harry with a thoroughly crushed expression), Elphias Doge and Dedalus Diggle. The children – Ron, Hermione and Ginny – had formed their own group slightly apart from the main one. Harry met Ginny's eyes and Legilimentically ascertained that the three of them had been dragged into the mess by Dumbledore, who believed their presence might have helped change Harry's mind. It was another wholly unnecessary black point to the old coot's name.
Harry closed his eyes and mentally called upon the one being that would be able to change what was going to happen. It was quite an unforgettable presence, powerful yet objective, and Harry hoped that it might decide to stay out of the conflict if asked to do so.
"Fawkes," he breathed when the air turned warmer. He opened his eyes again and found the phoenix measuring him from its perch on Ginny's shoulder. The girl was holding onto Hermione, almost buckling under the weight of the bird's body. Her head looked like it was on fire.
Fawkes chirped quizzically and then twittered, presumably returning a vocal version of Tom's sneer.
"We don't want to kill him," Harry said serenely, on a certain level aware that the phoenix understood not only what he was saying, but also what he was talking about, "but if you would just transport him out of prison anytime, we will."
Fawkes trilled a demure melody, looking from Harry to Dumbledore and back.
"Well, I am sorry, too," Harry said, feeling guilty for disappointing such a unique creature. "But his slate is not clean and, despite his generally more or less nondestructive intentions, he has made bad decisions that he needs to account for now."
Fawkes hung his head, let out several mournful tones staring at Harry, then repeated the process in Dumbledore's direction, and finally disappeared in a swirl of flames. Harry felt an odd emptiness inside at the thought that he would never again meet the phoenix.
"Why are you doing this, Harry?" Ginny asked tearfully, imploring him with her eyes to make everything alright again, as if he was some kind of a hero… actually, she might have seen him like that. He had once been lauded as the Saviour. Then she glanced at Tom, and Harry knew she recognised him. If they still received the Quibbler at Hogwarts, she had probably realised what had happened.
"Family comes first, doesn't it?" he asked gently.
Tom was busy having a staring contest and a Legilimentic battle with Dumbledore, and let Harry have the little chat with his friends.
"Yes!" Ron exclaimed, flushing pink.
Ginny merely nodded, hugging herself. Yes, she knew.
"We thought we were your family," Hermione said tentatively.
Ginny sobbed.
Harry shrugged. It had been years ago to him. He cared about them and was willing to welcome them warmly into his fold; should they join the New Order, they were prime candidates for the Innermost Circle.
"I stand by my husband," he said simply.
Ginny smiled bitterly through her tears.
"Husband?" Ron exclaimed.
Hermione bit her lip and cast a side-ways glance at the other girl, who must have shared her suspicions.
"H.J. Riddle, right?" Ginny scoffed. "Do you… hate us now?"
Harry shook his head.
Encouraged, she walked toward him, halting when there was about two feet of space left between them. "May I?" she asked, lifting her hands.
Harry hugged her. It was the first time he had touched someone except Tom like this since more than four years ago. It was strange, but not uncomfortable.
Tom glanced at him, surprised, but voiced no objections.
"I have never suspected you, Mr Potter," Dumbledore spoke, freed from the mental clash when Tom looked away. "You were the most cunning of the Slytherins, even more so than your husband."
Harry released Ginny and looked at Dumbledore, ignoring Ron's insistent questions about all sort of things starting with "Slytherin?" and ending with "Are you crazy?"
"Thank you, Mr Dumbledore, but I do implore you to use my correct name," he replied coldly.
The old man tried to say something to the rather vocal Ron, who had yet to take the hint and shut up, but could not.
"I would cancel the ward on you," Harry said without concern, "but it shan't be necessary. We have a room for you, right next to your once-upon-a-time lover."
Tom finally caught on and smirked. "As Gellert Grindelwald would say-" he paused, caught Harry's eyes and they finished in eerie unison: "For the Greater Good."