x
"Chatter!" Harry called, startling Ginny, who sprang away from him.
Hermione took her arm and pulled her yet further away.
The house elf appeared between the two Lords and the remains of the Order of the Phoenix.
Dumbledore raised his wand, but a combined wandless spell from Harry and Tom had it flying out of his hand.
Tom Summoned it from the grass before Dumbledore had the opportunity to get it back himself. "The Elder Wand… is it not?" Tom asked the old coot, smirking.
Dumbledore remained silent.
Harry, who had had the chance to experience Dumbledore's way of thinking from the other side during his first five years at Hogwarts, didn't look away from the smiling face. He, privately, wasn't at all surprised that even as Voldemort Tom had feared this man. There was something immensely frightening in a warrior so powerful and sure of himself that he smiled at his enemies across the field.
When Dumbledore raised his hand for the second time, Harry was prepared.
"Accio Portkey," he whispered. Five separate objects including a pair of spectacles lifted themselves off of Dumbledore and shot in Harry's direction. There was a brief struggle as the old man tried to call one of them back, but Harry won, if by the skin of his teeth. He sidestepped and let the items fall onto the grass. Some of them might have been active, and Merlin only knew where they would have taken anyone who touched them.
"Vinculum," Tom cast a mere second later, enveloping Dumbledore in an imperturbable sphere to prevent him from Summoning his Portkeys back or gaining one from the handful of his followers, who were presently huddling behind the three Hogwarts students.
"That was close," Harry remarked flippantly, trying to loosen the tightness in his chest.
"Thank you," Tom responded, similarly affected. Harry refused to believe that even now Dumbledore was completely at their mercy. That was, after all, why he had called the house elf.
"Chatter, Stun and Bind," Harry ordered the creature that was respectfully standing in silence, waiting for directions.
She bowed and snapped her fingers twice in a row. Dumbledore fell over, practically mummified in thin ribbons of soft orange light. The only thing that kept him from hitting the ground was Tom's containing bubble.
The elf bowed again, waiting for further instruction.
Harry blocked out his friends' insistent questions about what he was going to do with the old man, and took a moment to think it through. "Can he overcome your magic?" he asked eventually.
Tom remained silent. The bond transmitted faint disdain and more prominent curiosity, underlined by the lingering gratefulness.
"No wizard can overcome house elf magic, Master Lord Harry," Chatter spoke confidently. "Only other house elf can undo Chatter's spells."
"Tom, is the Manor warded against strange house elves?"
"If it is not, it will be by tomorrow," Tom replied, suspending his distaste for the species he regarded as subhuman in light of their apparent usefulness.
"Chatter, this wizard will be your responsibility. He is to remain unconscious at all times and locked within a cell in the dungeons of the Manor. If you require rest or encounter trouble you cannot deal with yourself, you have permission to include other elves. In case of emergency, inform me immediately."
"As you wish, Master Lord Harry," the elf said, bowing for the third time, before she disappeared. She Apparated Dumbledore with her despite several yards of distance between them.
"House elves are ridiculously underappreciated," Harry couldn't help but quip when she was gone. He didn't wait for Tom's response – in case there even was going to be a response – and turned to the three children.
They were pale, but that was understandable. Ron was staring at the patch of grass where Dumbledore had disappeared and clutching his fists. Ginny had, after the hug from Harry, begun to adjust to the situation and was now watching with interest rather than fear. The presence of a well-dressed house elf that wasn't cowering in fear of either of Harry or Tom might have helped. Hermione was, predictably, scowling ever since Chatter had appeared, but fortunately she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut.
"Send them back to Hogwarts," Tom ordered. "We have enough to do without running a nursery."
Harry scoffed. "At their age you have been already called 'Lord' by your followers."
"And I was an idiot. I wouldn't have amounted to anything if I hadn't had you to keep me focused."
It was flattering and possibly true, but Harry decided to adjourn the rest of the mushy talk for bed later that night.
"Return to the school," he told the trinity. "I will contact you when we'll have dealt with this mess. McGonagall should do just fine without Dumbledore around, but you can discreetly warn her that harbouring an opposition to the New Order within the castle would be endangering the students."
They stared at him with wide eyes. Harry imagined they barely recognised him, but that was not at all surprising. Once the shock would pass, they would probably feel angry and betrayed. He found the idea only slightly displeasing.
"Can I write to you?" Ginny asked hesitantly.
"Certainly," Harry replied. "I can't promise I'll write back, but I'll read what you send. That goes for everyone from the DA who feels like they have something to tell me."
Ginny smiled, which was a small wonder, under the circumstances. "Can Remus take us?"
Harry smiled back. Even if this situation she had the courage to try and save other people. A true Gryffindor. "Yes. And take your parents and Mrs Longbottom along."
"Thank you." Ginny shrugged off Hermione's hand and walked over to give Harry another brief hug. She paused, then turned to Tom and curtsied.
Tom, startled, inclined his head in acknowledgement. "That one is yours already," he remarked when Ginny returned to the group where Ron made an attempt to berate her before he was shut up by Hermione.
The four named adults took their chance on departing without any harm coming to them and led the children toward the Anti-Apparition ward, even though Mrs Weasley looked extremely reluctant.
"I think at least one of us should go back to the Manor before the peasants have evened it with the ground," Tom noted wearily.
Now that the real danger had passed, Harry also felt the exhaustion. "You should-"
"No," Tom cut in. "You go and debrief your fighters, send the Light ones home before they start a brawl and try and instill order. I'll explain the terms of armistice to these three," he gestured toward Hestia Jones, Elphias Doge and Dedalus Diggle, who were looking as if they were waiting to be executed, but too scared to make a run for it or attack (or aware that neither would have helped them). "I will come as soon as I get rid of them."
x
Harry didn't do exactly what Tom told him to. He decided that there was no need for immediate debriefing anyway – they had lost no one, there had been no bigger injuries and Harry had been present for all of the day's major happenings, so he just sent everyone home straightaway and returned to the Nott Manor with only Antonin and the Lestranges on his heels, since Theodore Nott had gone home earlier to manage the influx of detainees they had freed from Azkaban and weren't yet certain if they were going to set free. The dungeons were going to be quite full for the next few days.
Harry's entourage entered the Hall right on time to be present for the awakening of the liberated Death Eaters. He was immediately recognised by Apollonia Greengrass, who gave him a hasty bow and launched into an appraisal of the situation.
"They were strongly affected by dementors, my Lord, so the Healers thought it best to sedate them while their injuries were tended to. We have given them each a praline, but I'm afraid there was not enough chocolate readily available to completely alleviate the effect. Nevertheless, it seems that all of them are sane, if largely confused."
Harry nodded and faded into the crowd, leaving his three companions to find their own spots from which they were going to enjoy the show. Unrecognised by anyone since Greengrass, Harry reached the dais and from the shadow of a pillar watched the family reunions all around. To say that he was unhappy about just how many underage wizards and witches had left Hogwarts to greet their relatives was an understatement. They had practically a class worth of children in the room, among others Theodore Nott, Daphne and Astoria Greengrass, Pansy Parkinson, Jonathan and Sally-Anne Perks and, right under Harry's nose, Draco Malfoy.
A green-robed witch stood over the prone form of Lucius Malfoy, pointed her wand at him and said a fierce: "Ennervate!"
The man jolted into full awareness and reflexively reached for his wand, which was, understandably, not present.
"I will have you fired, woman!" he spat at the Healer, who looked back at him dispassionately, unimpressed by his temper-tantrum.
"I followed the orders my Lords have given me," she replied. "If you disagree, take it up with them." She turned around and strode away in the direction of another patient in need of attention.
Lucius looked around, frowned at the sight of his son and finally accepted his wife's hand, allowing her to help him stand. It was not very gentlemanly of him, but Harry could see that the stay in Azkaban had taken its toll on the usually impeccable aristocrat. At any rate, it was almost funny to see him with dirty, knotted hair.
"Lords?" Lucius asked of Narcissa, sounding as if he hadn't used his throat but for screaming in weeks. "A plural?"
Narcissa sighed. "Lucius, you remember when my mother spoke of the second Dark Lord…"
Odd, how history – and, most likely Tom, since he had written it for this group of people – had changed his title from 'the Dark Lord's second' to 'the second Dark Lord'.
"Your mother was a deranged hag, Narcissa," Lucius replied. Harry privately agreed and let himself enjoy the mortally offended expression on the woman's face. "I don't believe a word that had come out of her mouth, and therefore very much doubt that there had ever been anyone like that. The Dark Lord doesn't share power-"
"You are wrong, Lucius," Harry said calmly.
He cherished the stunned silence suddenly pervading the room. Faces turned in the direction of his shadow and those who recognised him bowed. The group recently freed from Azkaban watched on in confusion, although some copied their compatriots in bowing to be on the safe side.
"There had once been a second Dark Lord and there is one now."
"My Lord!" Aurelius called out, probably to inform Harry about what had transpired in the meantime, but fell silent when Harry raised his hand, clearly visible because he wasn't wearing his gloves. Indeed, the Death Eaters couldn't have made out much of him – only the hands and, perhaps, his chin. Antonin, sitting comfortably in a conjured armchair, was laughing, but Harry tolerated it from him as long as he was doing so without attracting undue attention.
"You!" Draco yelled. "You're just a-"
Narcissa slapped him before he could finish the sentence, but the damage was done.
Harry stood rapidly, remaining shrouded in the semi-darkness. "I don't like using Unforgivables, little Malfoy," he spoke, controlling his annoyance enough that no one could gauge just how offended he really was, "that, however, doesn't mean that I cannot use them, or would not use them when I deem it prudent." He was used to this kind of verbal abuse from Draco, but the moron would have to learn that it was a thing of the past.
He paused and found it most satisfying when the convention stood in respectful stillness, just as they would in front of Tom. Apparently, Harry still had it. Even Antonin was watching with only a glint of amusement in his eyes.
When the tension reached its peak, Harry met Draco's eyes. "Now, will you repeat what it was you intended to say?"
Draco remained silent, scared rather than ashamed of his conduct. The little snot was just as bad as Lucretia. Harry spared a glance at both Malfoy parents – Lucius was watching the byplay with interest, trying to assess this knew 'Lord,' while Narcissa had averted her face from Draco at an angle that allowed her to still watch, but made it apparent that she refused any responsibility for his actions. Harry had seen her try hard enough to make Draco shape up, so he respected her lack of involvement in her son's misdemeanours.
"No?" Harry said, taking a step forward, which brought him to the edge of the shadow. It still shrouded him, yet his silhouette was distinguishable from the background. "I see that you do remember how that pain feels after all. Splendid, Malfoy. Incidentally, I am willing to let the offence slide. Are you willing to beg for it?"
It was the only way Harry could imagine getting through to the boy, if Cruciatus didn't work. He really, really didn't like using that curse, and humiliation would have left a much longer lasting impression.
Draco glanced at his mother, asking for advice. Apparently, it was too late for him, because Narcissa merely raised her eyebrows. Draco, shaking like a leaf, looked around the room and finally back at Harry. Nobody spoke to him; nobody gave him a sign. He had to decide for himself.
Eventually, drawing on the inbred arrogance, Draco shook his head.
"Crucio."
Draco fell, screaming and trashing. Lucius's emaciated features settled in a deep scowl; harsh lines crisscrossed his face and Harry found the look on him fetching – like a real human instead of a marble statue he used to resemble.
Tom had been right. Lucius's stay in Azkaban had done all the Malfoys some good.
Harry counted twenty seconds and cancelled the spell. Draco remained limp on the floor, sobbing and twitching. Lucius's face relaxed marginally – there was even a flash that might have passed for relief.
"Thank you, my Lord," Narcissa said softly, aware that the punishment was relatively light.
"Wait until we get home," Lucius growled at the form of his son. It didn't look like the family reunion was going to be very pleasant, especially for Draco.
"You…" the boy hissed, struggling to his knees, obviously not as badly damaged as he would have pretended to be, had there not been a strong enough motivation for him to do otherwise. He was glaring at his father quite fiercely. "You told me to always defy him!" Realising that spittle was flying from his mouth as he spoke, Draco recovered a handkerchief and very haughtily wiped his mouth, standing tall, albeit on unsteady feet, and facing down Lucius.
Harry decided that was quite enough drama. "That may be so," he said, walking into the light. "Respect for your parents' wishes is well and good, little Malfoy, but you must learn to think for yourself. At the time your father gave you this command, I was an eleven-year-old child with little knowledge of magic. Now I demand subservience, from your father exactly as from you. You will learn to give it." The promise spoke clearly of more pain in retribution for every perceived offence, and Harry considered the matter closed. He looked away from the glaring boy to Lucius.
Lucius finally made out who Harry was. He staggered, catching himself on his wife's shoulder.
"…'cissa…"
It must have been hard for the man. He had spent more than three months in Azkaban, convicted with the help of a fifteen-year-old half-baked wizard, only to get out and find that he had to bow to the same wizard, who had inexplicably aged in the meantime.
"Narcissa, take your family home," he ordered. "In fact, all of you go home. Rest, call a Healer if you need additional medical attention. The next meeting will be…" he paused when he felt a familiar presence enter the room, but then continued anyway, knowing that Tom would cut in if he felt anything was being done not to his satisfaction, "the day after tomorrow. If you need explanations, ask your fellow Death Eaters."
Tom used his magic to forcefully clear his way to the dais. He was wearing a cloak with his hood up but, with his aura almost palpable, no one doubted his identity. He received bows even more readily than Harry had.
"Does anything require my immediate attention?" Tom asked the crowd, striding through the aisle in their middle.
Silence was his only response. Once it was obvious that there were no hesitating men or women with pressing issues, Harry took the opportunity to deliver his last directive of the day: "I don't want to see another unmarked child in a meeting unless their participation is pre-approved."
The entire congregation bowed yet again, this time to show their understanding of and compliance with the order. Tom, ascending the stairs of the dais, caught Harry's eyes and flexed his fingers.
Harry nodded. "Dismissed!"
The Malfoys were amongst the first to be gone, while the members of the Innermost Circle waited to be the last, which was a rule Tom had instilled as Voldemort and actually one of the few things Harry considered sensible and useful.
"Theodore," Harry called when the room was mostly empty. The two hosts walked forward, but Harry sent the older one back with a gesture. He regarded the younger one closely. There was a bit of blood on his sleeves and Harry would have bet that the boy had been helping the Healers. That cinched his decision. "I will speak to you tomorrow. Do not yet return to Hogwarts."
"Yes, my Lord," Theodore said quietly and went off to join his father.
Harry followed practically on his heels, coming to stand in front of Antonin, who was presently getting rid of his seat. Upon closer examination, it was clear that the man had injured his left leg – hence probably the reason he had risked conjuring a chair for the duration of the 'debriefing.'
"Antonin," he said quietly, so that Avery and the Lestranges wouldn't hear. "I just want to warn you. I consider myself indebted to you, and so I give you a lot of leave, but that decision in no way extends to Tom." He was reasonably certain that Tom would have allowed the man to sit, or even sent a Healer to him straightaway, had they known about his injury; that lenience, however, wouldn't have extended to openly laughing at the proceedings.
Antonin's eyes glittered with his nowadays almost constant amusement. "Thank you, my Lord. It is an honour to me that you care so much as to give me that warning. But rest assured, I know both my Lords better than anyone else knows them." He bowed, despite the pain it had obviously caused him, repeated the same in Tom's direction, and left.
Harry and Tom remained alone. The walls of the vast empty hall echoed the sound of heels of Tom's boots hitting the floor. As the two of them were now, solitary in the familiar place they thought of as theirs despite it, in fact, belonging to the Nott family, it seemed as if the time had stopped for them. The room had changed little in fifty years, Tom even less, and Harry hadn't changed at all. For a moment it was hard to believe that outside of these walls there were children and grandchildren of their peers, that Dumbledore was on his way to lifelong detainment without the need for a trial, that the Minister was practically a puppet on their strings… It was all too shocking, and Harry would need time to wholly grasp it.
"What was that about?" Tom asked, finding himself within touching distance from Harry, who promptly turned around and pulled off Tom's hood. The man's face was pale and drawn, lines of worry and exhaustion almost as deep as Malfoy's. His hair was in disarray that, rather than fetching, made him look even worse off.
"He did something for me, something I wasn't able to do-"
"Harry!" Tom barked impatiently. "Tell me."
Harry had hoped it wouldn't come to this. It wasn't as if he was afraid to tell Tom, not at all, but he felt reluctant to speak of it. This was an agreement between him, Antonin and the late Theodore, concerning secrets that weren't Harry's to tell. It also painfully reminded him of the fact that while Tom might have still looked twenty-five, he was in fact sixty-eight, and those years in between had been spent terrorising the wizarding world and his Death Eaters alike.
"Harry!"
Tom was becoming annoyed with him. Harry could understand – it was late, they had been in a battle today, they had had an encounter with Dumbledore, they had dealt with hundreds of dementors… they should have been resting.
"Not here," Harry protested.
Tom, without a word, gripped his arm and Apparated them to the Green Suite. Perhaps it was time for them to select one of their own estates to move in. It wouldn't be the same as before – Harry recalled the pile of rubble that was all that remained of their house – but at least there would be the yearned-for bit of freedom.
Harry called a house elf and requested tea. It would have been alcohol, were it not for Tom's aversion to it. Tom, while waiting for the elf to return, took off his cloak and started disrobing. Harry, after a brief hesitation, followed the example.
In about thirty seconds they had their tea there and Tom pinned Harry with a glare that could not be withstood for much longer.
Harry took a sip of the hot drink and carefully set the cup back on the table. "I asked him and Theodore to stick with you through the decades of madness. You needed someone to take care of you and I more or less trusted them. Antonin has done so, all this time, even though I know it pained him."
Tom scowled and closed his eyes, trying to recall the events of 1947 before Harry's forced departure. He had, however, never paid close enough attention to his followers to be aware of their emotions, except of those he could exploit. That someone would be willing to subject themselves to torture for a vision not their own was barely comprehensible to him.
"Make sense of this for me. I don't remember our years together quite as clearly as you do."
This was exactly what Harry didn't want to get into. He would do so, of course, but it still felt a bit like a betrayal of confidence… even if, theoretically, there had been no confidence, since he had found this information by spying. He tried to rationalise his decision to himself while watching the pretty shapes growing over the desk, until he realised those shapes were frost flowers spreading from Tom's hands.
He shuddered.
"Antonin had," he spoke softly, hoping that Tom wouldn't be too angry with him for the procrastination, "at one point, been in love with you. I don't think he ever stopped caring about you. I trust him with your welfare."
There. It was out now, and Harry watched Tom's face, searching for some kind of acknowledgement. He found nothing. Tom's face was, uncharacteristically in private, inscrutable.
The frost flowers melted and a tiny trickle of water ran down the leg of the table.
"Give me a moment," Tom said, walked over to the bathroom and disappeared within, shutting and locking the door behind himself. Harry focused on the bond, trying to gauge what was it Tom was feeling that drove him away and whether he was cross with him, but the connection was closed off from the other side.
Harry sank into the sofa that usually neither of them used. He pulled his knees to his chest, resting his chin on one of them. He felt too old and too young at the same time, if it was even possible. Their revolution was underway, due to a series of mistakes on his part that turned out to be to their advantage, but Harry felt alone… like he used to feel before Tom. Maybe people normally felt like that and he just associated it with adolescence… but, for Salazar's sake, he was twenty! That wasn't yet old enough to be able to direct the world. He could be the second Dark Lord, but not without Tom being the first.
Harry was instantly ashamed of himself. He wasn't supposed to feel like this – he wasn't supposed to be weak.
He stood up and headed for the bedroom in hope that he would be back to normal after a good night's rest. The bathroom door opened and Tom practically staggered out, looking haggard like Harry had only rarely experienced him before. Harry did an about-face and met Tom in the middle of the sitting room, pulling him to his chest and holding him so tight that it must have been uncomfortable, but there was no protest voiced, so he just stood and waited for some kind of explanation of what had happened. It was not forthcoming, but he could feel a wave of despair coming from his husband, and it was obvious that Tom was only angry with himself, probably for something that had not been his fault in the first place… so Harry kept on waiting.
Tom Apparated them about seven yards over, to the bedroom.
Harry let go of him, bemused, looking for some kind of a clue about what was expected of him.
Tom carefully, holding onto the bedpost, sank down onto the mattress. The tidy covers, arranged by the house elves, creased and crinkled around the edges. Harry still waited, worried about the way Tom's eyes were fixed on the rug. Tom never kept his head down.
"You were right," Tom said after a while. His voice was raspy and weak. "I was a monster."
There was nothing Harry could say to disprove that. The disassociation between Tom and Voldemort wasn't nearly complete enough to claim that it was a different person that had done the atrocities Tom could remember. Harry would be lying if he said it didn't matter.
He remained silent, racking his mind for something he could do to make it easier for Tom. In a way, he was responsible for the fact that it had happened. He had known exactly what he had been doing when he had married Tom. He had known there would be Voldemort. He had known what Voldemort would be like.
He deserved to be locked away in Nurmengard with Dumbledore.
"Not only to… enemies," Tom continued in the same harsh whisper, forcing Harry to deal with these demons before he could banish his own. "I tortured them, mercilessly, for the minutest of mistakes, sometimes for invented mistakes. My followers died around me and I didn't care. They feared and reviled me… I didn't care as long as there were new ones to take their place. And look at them – sadists and radicals. The few sane are those that believed in your return."
Harry leant down, cupped Tom's face in both hands and forced him to look up. "Tom… Tom, what brought this on?"
Tom sneered and Harry felt another wave of mental pain pass through him. "I killed Theodore. In a fit of rage. I've killed one of my most faithful. For nothing." There was a hint of incredulity in Tom's voice.
He had a huge mental weakness now – one they had decided to call Voldemort. Tom refused to use the name nowadays, due to the associations, but Harry had never realised just how crippling those memories were. He would have to watch out for signs of these lapses and find ways to allay them.
Harry closed the space between his and Tom's face, hoping that perhaps intimacy would work to at least calm the man, if not actually make him feel better. There was a hint of salt in the corner of Tom's mouth; Harry lapped it up before delving past Tom's lips. Annoyed by his partner's lack of participation, he moved forwards, braced his knees on the bed on the sides of Tom's hips and, forced Tom to tilt his head further back. His grip tightened so much that the nails of his thumbs dug into Tom's cheeks.
Finally, with his neck bent backwards to the point of snapping, Tom gave in and engaged in the kiss. Harry loosened his hold enough to make it enjoyable for both of them, smoothing over the cuts on Tom's face. He wouldn't have Tom going mad again. Not as long as he was here.
Harry pushed his husband deeper into the covers and slid his right palm down the thin chest, pressing down on the last pairs of ribs; they bent inwards under the force. Tom choked a little and Harry let his hand further down, mapping the sharp hipbones, then hooking his forearm under Tom's knee and pushing his leg up, as far as Tom's trousers allowed it.
Tom rapidly twisted his head to the side, breaking the kiss, and hoarsely whispered: "Will you hurt me?"
Harry pulled away so that he and Tom could look into each other's eyes. "Do you want me to?"
"Yes."
Harry nodded. He didn't want to cause more pain to Tom than the man already had to endure, but he had always known that the position of a Dark Lord's lover and second would require him to do many things that went against his wishes.
He recovered his dagger from the sheath on his belt and tightened his grip when Tom's eyes went wide and his body tensed in Harry's arms. Fear was palpable in the air, would have been even if Harry hadn't been able to feel it freezing through their bond. Tom's heart sped up; his breath hitched and he began to tremble as Harry traced his jaw with the razor-sharp blade.
The dagger paused at the tip of Tom's jaw and after a moment continued down along his throat, leaving a small incision over the Adam's apple when Tom unexpectedly swallowed. Harry bit down on the side of Tom's neck; this time Tom wised up and didn't move at all, fearful of the nearness of the weapon to his jugular.
Harry moved to the side, off of Tom's chest, putting a lot of his weight on the thigh under him. He shifted the dagger to his right hand, letting go of the leg he had been holding onto, and followed an imaginary line down Tom's breastbone, cutting the tunic, nicking the skin every time Tom breathed in. He didn't stop until the garment was completely open, then threw the dagger away and set to licking off the little blood that welled from the snicks while his hands worked on opening Tom's trousers.
Only now, in the absence of the weapon, Tom started becoming aroused. Harry braced himself and bit down on the inside of Tom's left thigh.
Tom sobbed.
"Does it hurt yet?"
Tom nodded.
Harry sat up, ignoring the tear-track leading from the corner of Tom's eye to his temple and disappearing in his hair. "Strip."
Tom shuddered but obeyed. The sensation of dread coming through their bond lessened and Harry, feigning calmness, set to removing his own clothes, keeping his back turned to his husband. He shouldn't have been put into this position – giving comfort to the Dark Lord – especially when he was already feeling too fragile himself. He wanted to curl up and cry…
But Tom needed Harry to hurt him, so that was what Harry would do.
x
The sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly, obliterating everything in front of Harry, so he couldn't see anything but vapour hanging in the air…
Then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, a dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron. A high, cold voice spoke from behind the steam and, after a moment that only served to strain Harry's nerves to the point of breaking, the thin man stepped out from his vessel and closer to Harry… and Harry stared into a face whiter than a skull with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils… and before Harry could move, before he even thought of defending himself, he had been hit by the Cruciatus curse. The pain was so intense… all-consuming… white-hot knives piercing every inch of his skin, his head was going to burst…
Then he was screaming-
A sharp slap made Harry open his eyes. He froze, confused by the sudden change of his surroundings. It was dark and he was lying on his back on something much softer than the ground, and above him there was a pale face-
He flinched, just before his brain jump-started and informed him that this was Tom, not Voldemort. He was gripped by an urge to giggle, and almost gave in, but seeing as Tom raised his hand to slap him again, he refrained in favour of catching Tom's wrist before the blow fell.
Harry ignored the stinging in his cheek and rolled them over, hovering over Tom only for as long as he needed to make sure that last evening had not left him with any serious injuries, and then lay down, burying his face in Tom's nape, breathing the familiar scent, tinged with fear and blood.
The tendons in Tom's neck flexed as if he tried to say something but changed his mind in the last instant. Harry blindly reached out, sought Tom's hand, laced their fingers together and thought about how much he loved Tom, hoping that it would be enough reassurance for both of them.