A/N: This was originally supposed to be the other half of Chapter Thirteen, which is why some things aren't getting resolved yet. Please, be patient with Tom. He's too damn headstrong – he'll get there when he'll get there. Consequently, bucketloads of Harry-angst.
x
Chapter Fourteen: Philosophyx
"Healer Dewhurst," Harry said as solemnly as he could, "my husband is the most important person in the world to a great many very powerful people. You do see where I am going with this."
Dewhurst, obviously nervous, sketched a bow.
Harry nodded to acknowledge her understanding. "Good. Now I will break the protocol, and you will excuse me, but I must ask for your Oath of Silence."
The woman looked at him with wide, dark eyes. Her first instinct was, naturally, to invoke Healer-patient confidentiality, but she must have recognised Harry's expression. He wasn't in the mood for compromises. When it came to Tom's health and well-being, there never would be any compromises.
"Yes, Lord Riddle," she said quietly, cowed rather than resentful. "You have my Oath of Silence regarding your husband, Lord Riddle, and my treatment of him."
Harry's magic latched onto the words and spun them into a Vow much stronger than they were originally meant to be.
Dewhurst flinched when it took hold; it stood to reason that she had never experienced anything like it.
"Good," Harry spoke softly, to himself as well as to the young woman. "Have you consulted with Apollonia?"
Dewhurst nodded. "Yes, Lord Riddle. She apprised me of the… patient's condition…"
Harry gestured her to go on, unhappy with but resigned to Tom's designation as 'patient.'
"Lady Greengrass suggested certain measures to be taken, but recommended that I conduct my own diagnostics. Frankly, sir, I wouldn't be comfortable attempting any procedure on a patient with whose condition I am not personally familiar-"
Harry raised his hand to stave off the barrage of words. The witch clamped her mouth shut, bit onto her lips and tried to not shrink under what she perceived as Harry's displeasure. He had to stop himself from sighing.
"Do your job to the best of your ability, Healer," he ordered. "In this instance we rely on your expertise – your effort shall be accordingly rewarded. Can you estimate the time you will require?"
Dewhurst took a deep breath and briefly considered the answer, compulsively tugging onto a strand of hair that escaped out of her bun. "Should there be no complications, sir, I'd expect thirty-six to forty-eight hours of intensive care, with several weeks of aftercare, depending on the patient's… diligence in following directions."
Harry wished he could snort without messing with his lordly image. There was no one who responded worse to directions than Tom. Even Harry could, at times, follow someone's lead, but Tom actually suffered, literally, when he was subjected to the will of another. Harry maintained that it was psychosomatic, but that was neither here nor there.
He really couldn't see his headstrong husband taking this – no offence intended – girl's orders.
Well, it was just another of great many bridges to cross once he reached them.
"Dock!"
The elf stepped out of a shadow.
"A house elf will be at your disposal at any time – you may ask for anything you need," Harry explained to the wide-eyed Healer. "The house elves will switch according to their schedule. You will treat them with respect." He felt the need to include this condition, because Dewhurst was, by all indications, a pureblood, and too damn many of them used house elves as convenient outlets for misplaced aggression.
"Of course, sir," the woman replied, looking mildly offended.
"If you need anything they cannot provide, they will contact me. If you require information or my presence or…" he couldn't imagine what else a Healer might need, "…basically, despite the fact that I cannot afford to spend my day at my husband's bedside, I am very invested in his well-being."
The woman's expression softened, and she lowered her head in a gesture that could have meant submission, sympathy or acquiesce. "I'll do my best, Lord Riddle."
Harry wasn't happy with the state of affairs, but when Dock calmly met his eyes and bowed in understanding of the implied command, he forced his feet to carry him out of the room and then out of the Green Suite, leaving Tom alone with the woman. The elves would watch her every movement.
x
The night was somewhat surreal. A lot of the people who usually haunted the Manor were out, managing the McKinnon situation from various ends. The former Death Eaters had a sort of an owl directory, through which they spread the word about the intended coup; the Averys were off gathering their blackmail material and having their retainers contact Gringotts, which in turn was going to pass copies of all documents to the DMLE with enough bang to make sure that Amelia Bones personally was going to be there for the arrest.
Theodore Nott the Third was curled up in an armchair in front of the fireplace in the Private Study, looking unexpectedly young, his pale face half-shadowed, half illuminated by the flickering, orange firelight. He held an empty cognac glass in one hand; the other was pressed to his cheek and mostly hidden under shaggy dark hair.
Harry cast a Silencing Ward around him to let him sleep, feeling a little guilty for not doing the responsible, adult thing and sending him off to bed. Still, the sight of him filled Harry with enthusiasm, which was something that he sorely needed tonight.
Sometimes after two (because at two Dock came to him with a brief report about Healer Dewhurst's progress and the changing of the guard from him to an elf called Laeg) Harry fell asleep at Tom's desk.
He woke before dawn, which, considering that it was late December, wasn't very early at all. There was a commotion outside, and he off-handedly cancelled the spell surrounding Theo before he went off to use the bathroom. Mildly refreshed and actually hungry, he found out what was going on.
Theodore Nott the Second was – as the Lord of the Nott Manor – managing a breach of security detected by the wards. There was a house elf whom Harry didn't recognise standing deferentially in the background while a group of four wizards crowded around a figure on the frozen ground. As they shouted, the exhaled strands of vapour formed a small cloud between their heads.
"Bitch!" one of the men roared.
Another knelt down to grab a flailing limb that was about to strike his fellow into the soft tissue. Whomever they had found, the person wasn't about to give up without a fight.
"Hey, Nott!" one of the kneeling ones shouted. "You mind-"
"It is my property," Theodore the Second pointed out smugly, as if it hadn't occurred to everyone already – and as if he hadn't been complaining about just that yesterday. Or the day before that. Lately, days were running together for Harry. He should at least have a calendar and check them off, or he was liable to completely miss Christmas. Yule. Yes, he was now a figurehead of the British wizarding world – he was expected to celebrate Yule.
Harry remained standing in front of the Manor gates, grimly aware of the usual way purebloods of the Dark inclination dealt with invaders in their homes. The same way muggles assumed that a stranger breaking into their house was a thief, a pureblood wizard would assume the stranger was an assassin. It was expected of them to kill any such interloper, and should any torture happen before the death… who would ask? The law was on the home owner's side in this instance.
The situation here was a little more complicated, because Harry was a guest in the Nott Manor, but should he request the prisoner for himself, Theodore would be expected to comply with his Lord. And Theodore would. He was much less refined than either his father or his son, but even in Tom's absence he had the presence of mind to recognise when he was hopelessly outclassed and outpowered.
A silence spread over the group; the last couple of insults vulgar enough to make Harry want to grimace echoed off the Manor's walls, and Harry stepped forwards to look at whom they had caught.
There she was: dressed in a form-fitting green dress, with her glasses missing and her eyes wide in fear, Harry still unmistakably recognised Rita Skeeter. He didn't often feel the darker emotions tugging at him, but in this instance Harry was not going to step in. Her biography of Albus Dumbledore was already published, so no one needed her anymore, did they?
"Good morning, my Lord," the four young men said, almost in unison.
"My Lord," Nott added, inclining his head. "The secondary Taboo-response unit has assisted me in apprehending an intruder on our grounds." He sounded like he was trying to apologise for monopolising their time when they were supposed to be on alert.
Harry looked at the foursome more closely – they were, as opposed to the experimental mixed unit, all of similar temperament and probably background, too. Four pureblood wizards in their late twenties or early thirties. The best age to shape them.
"So I see," Harry replied lightly.
"I would…" Nott hesitated.
"Of course," Harry said. "As is your right. Have the unit return to their posts once you don't require their assistance anymore."
He ignored the eyes boring into his back as he turned and walked away. Still, just in case, he paused before he re-entered the building. "Please, be certain that this witch cannot use her Animagus-form, should she have one. I would be most displeased to find that her apprehension was temporary."
That was as clear an order for execution as he had ever given. It wasn't his usual way of doing things; this was Tom's purview. Still, Harry had been standing right behind Tom for years while he gave such orders regularly. Harry had learnt to kill and torture without shame, to rely on the Vision to lead him in recognising what was wrong and right. Taking pleasure in the knowledge that someone who had hurt him in the past was going to be murdered was a little too amoral for comfort… but Harry deeply inhaled the cold, crisp morning air and drew a mental line behind the business.
No more Skeeter.
Sure, there would be a slew of other 'Skeeters' following in her footsteps, but this particular contest of wills had ended satisfactorily for him.
Good Merlin, he was so far gone. He needed Tom.
His feet carried him straight to the Green Suite. He wanted to fall into his – and his husband's – bed and fuck and sleep for a week, but there was a scent of potions hanging in the air of their living room permeating in from the bedchamber. Cerys Dewhurst was slumped, unconscious, on the sofa.
Harry scowled. "Laeg, is she alright?"
"Mistress Healer is being great, great tired, Master Lord Harry," replied the new house elf – to Harry's surprise, in a distinctly female voice. "She is must be sleeping now. She is doing great good for Master Lord Tom."
"Did she say anything about not going in?" he inquired.
Laeg appeared, demure, with her eyes glued to the ground and her arms crossed in front of her chest. "She is saying no moving Master Lord Tom. No giving Master Lord Tom any potions. No magic on Master Lord Tom. Waking her if Master Lord Tom is in pain or awake."
"Right," Harry answered, and went straight to the bedroom.
Tom looked exactly the same as he had looked twelve hours ago – still, pale, emaciated. He was breathing deeply, slowly; he seemed to be sleeping peacefully at least. Harry crawled onto 'his' half of the bed and watched his husband's chest rise and fall for almost two minutes, before he felt sufficiently reassured that Tom wasn't about to spontaneously die on him.
"Laeg is sorry, Master Lord Harry," the house elf said quietly, touching Harry's shoulder and then jumping away once Harry rolled over to look at her. She cringed and raised her hands to tweak her ears. "There is being food for you, Master Lord Harry," she finished in a frightened whisper.
Harry still hated seeing a house elf so downtrodden, so he placated her and even mustered up some weak praise, all the while feeling relieved that he had, after all, not become a sociopath, even though he didn't miss his erstwhile friends or prevent Rita Skeeter's ignominious death.
He let the sleeping Healer be and set out to find something to do. He found it in the Private Study. The younger Nott was since gone, but his father dropped in to assure Harry that their unwelcome visitor had been disposed of (the report lacked detail, and Harry decided that he was supposed to be glad for that). Tybalt and Rabastan puttered around. Dexia came with the latest Prophet and an armful of scrolls, and took just as many with her as she left. Manon Avery turned up with her, dark circles under her eyes and a smirk that she couldn't seem to suppress for more than two minutes at a time.
"Bones went to get him personally, just as you anticipated, my Lord," the witch told him with unexpected blood thirst.
"What did you have on him?" Harry inquired offhandedly, mostly focusing on a piece of correspondence from Portia Prewett that was apparently written in some sort of pureblood code that he didn't have the slightest hope of cracking. He set the parchment down and rubbed his temples.
"He 'disposed' of several Squib children for his friends' families. I am not familiar with the details, but I gather they were not granted quick deaths." For a moment the young witch's smugness abated, replaced with disgust.
Harry knew how she felt. He wished he could be surprised, but he had already accepted that every politician had to be elevated into his or her position on the bony hands of the skeletons in their closets. And once a man lost his morals, there was no telling what he would do.
That was, Harry mused with morbid humour, why fanaticism was the only way to fight the system – the only way to change the world.
Thank Merlin for Tom.
"…unfortunately," Manon was telling him, under the mistaken impression that he was listening to her, "weren't able to convince them without using undue force. Since, apparently, undue force is being used on them from the other side. Uncle was under the impression that they were all on the verge of quitting."
Harry gathered that she was talking about the Daily Prophet. The headlines of today's issue were proclaiming a social coup of a wedding between some Welsh heiress and a dirt-poor half-veela with unknown background. Apparently, not even the Daily Prophet could spin totalitarian legislation proposed in the Wizengamot as something the people should be happy with.
And, of course, as Miss Avery had warned him: "It's a little unexpected to not see McKinnon mentioned in the newspaper."
Tybalt philosophically shrugged. "The Aurors have apprehended the second Chief Warlock within two months, my Lord. That is exactly the kind of press the Ministry doesn't need at the moment."
"I thought the Daily Prophet pandered to the Malfoys," Harry wondered. The only time he could recall any sort of negative press connected to the Malfoy name was… actually, it was just before his first journey through time, at the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts.
"Not hardly, my Lord," Manon refuted his assumption, and even managed to sound somewhat respectful. "The Prophet is the Ministry's mouthpiece. It obeys whomever is in power there – and that's not the Malfoys anymore."
Harry scowled and glanced over the witch's shoulder at the eldest Lestrange. Tybalt was watching her with both his eyebrows raised.
That made Harry feel a little more secure in his understanding of how the wizarding world worked. The Ministry perpetually brought the newspaper under their thumb, but parts of the Ministry were being perpetually moved under the thumbs of various interested parties. It was an anthill of corruption.
Nevertheless, Miss Avery made a correct observation in that Lucius didn't have quite as much influence as he used to have when Harry was at Hogwarts (not to mention that the woman looked to be happy about the Malfoy's bad fortune – Harry detected some resentment there).
"Not since Fudge's death and Scrimgeour's instatement," Rabastan agreed, idly leafing through a folder, reading only the titles. "In fact, not since Lucius' incarceration. He does have his bitter moments about it."
"I hope we're keeping him busy enough," Harry said dryly. Lucius had appeared content the last few times Harry had seen him – preening and strutting and showing off. He did seem to be in extraordinary form.
"His recent successes do take away the sting from that indignity," Tybalt remarked humorously.
"Swell," Harry concluded, feeling for an instance that he had done a little of his growing up in the forties.
"Found it," Rabastan announced, and handed a piece of parchment over to his father.
"Something of interest?" Harry asked, hoping to be told no.
"Unfortunately, my Lord," Tybalt answered, frowning at the parchment with enough ire to potentially set it on fire. "Selwyn raised a concern that your Potions Master is padding his invoices, but it appears that there is no fraud happening. According to this… well, see for yourself."
Harry accepted the parchment and tried to figure out what he was looking at. It was an invoice from a Potions Master, just as Tybalt had told him. Harry had never stopped to think about where his potions were coming from since Snape's ignominious death – evidently, they were being brewed by an U. W. Tannenbaum, residence in Oxford. Alright. Why not. There were security concerns, of course, but Tom would have taken care of those.
The problem was the six gallons of Nutrient Potion. Harry didn't have a clue about how many potions and what amounts of them would be needed for a group like the New Order, organised but definitely not responsible for the health of the individual members barring those who presently lived at the Nott Manor, but this was a monthly invoice, and six gallons was an insane amount. Hogwarts probably didn't go through six gallons in a freaking month!
This wasn't Tom's purchase order, Harry knew that. If Tom had commissioned it and not wanted anyone to know, no one would have ever found out.
"Who…?" Harry asked, handing the parchment back to the elder Lestrange, who stood a much better chance of making sense of it.
"Apparently, the order was filed by a house elf named Dippy," Tybalt informed him, sardonically amused.
"The house elves have been mother-henning the whole lot of us," Rabastan concluded incredulously, snorted, and sank into the nearest chair. He hid his face in his hands. "Unbelievable."
With Chatter involved, Harry would believe it. Also, she probably had some family members in the elf contingent, and if they were anything like her, the whole lot of them probably daily schemed about how to take the absolute best care of their 'Masters.'
Harry momentarily remembered poor deluded Hermione and her pointless and misguided quest to free the house elves. Slavery was bad, Harry agreed. Abuse was bad, too. But this was nature at work, and going against nature was the very reason why muggles would eventually all die, having poisoned themselves and the planet and… well, he was digressing.
Still. Muggle notions.
They needed an introductory class for muggleborns at Hogwarts. Harry jotted down a note on his scrap parchment and returned it to the lowermost drawer of Tom's desk. Those were the low-priority, low-expedience issues.
"Shit!" Harry suddenly exclaimed as something occurred to him.
The three other people in the room collectively flinched at his unexpected use of Parseltongue, and turned to him in anticipation.
"What happens to you if you overdose on Nutrient Potions?" He was never that good a Potions student, and he had forgotten everything he hadn't needed to know since he had sat his N.E.W.T.s.
"Merciful Morrigan!" Tybalt gasped, catching onto what Harry was implying. Manon and Rabastan, however, were still in the dark, and Harry wanted his answers, so Tybalt took a deep breath and explained: "Essentially, the body will stop accepting any nutrients whatsoever. Not from potions, and not from food either. Even if the wizard would start eating regularly, he would starve to death."
"But this is something a Healer would catch, right?" Harry demanded, glad that he sounded cold and detached rather than borderline hysterical. Greengrass had mentioned addiction, hadn't she? And Dewhurst said something about detox, right?
Harry should have known Tom wouldn't have deliberately run himself into the ground, and he was more than competent when it came to potions and dosage. He could be trusted to self-medicate responsibly.
Damn proactive house elves.
Harry swallowed bile. His fingers tightened on the handle of his wand, and it took all his self-control, combined with his recent thoughts on abuse, to stop him from going down to the kitchen elf-hive and start casting Killing Curses.
"Definitely," Tybalt assured him.
"I can't deal with this right now," Harry admitted. "Someone should tell Nott that his staff is administrating dangerous substances to us without our knowledge."
He practically ran out of the room. For a while he simply walked, not caring where he ended, but once he found himself outside, he trudged on.
He needed Tom – gods, how he needed Tom.
As he passed the training grounds, he listened to the noise and briefly considered stopping to exorcise some of this strange heat that was scorching his insides… but he couldn't. He couldn't go there, he couldn't fight people. Even in a practice duel, his magic would kill. He was brimming with it, filled so full that he felt like he would explode with the sheer pressure of it. He felt like he could crack Hogwarts' wards like a walnut. He could annihilate the whole of the Ministry. He could leave the Diagon Alley a smoking crater in the ground.
He couldn't turn it on people.
He had to bleed it off, though, lest it would control him completely. This insane rage, this insane power didn't care what it was destroying as long as it would destroy something, anything. It would thrive on screams of pain, he was sure. It would cherish the shattering of bones and soak up the smell of blood. It had to be released before Harry would be fit for human company, otherwise it would turn him into another Grindelwald.
Poor Gellert, Harry mused through the red haze of wrath. Poor generous boy, with heart so giving that he made it his life's goal to help people. So fucking hurt when he found that those people didn't want to be helped.
So angry.
Harry found a huge boulder and cast the most basic spell he could recall – Lumos. His magic churned out of him, twisted, and within seconds reduced the stone to so much powder. Harry let out an inarticulate yell of ire; there was a pulse of heat and the grass within fifty yards of him turned to ashes. Shivering, he remained standing in the centre of the blackened circle.
He tried to count his heartbeats.
It didn't work. He was still feeling murderous.
Perhaps the Dursleys… no, he wasn't going to go there. Not now, not ever. He was stronger than that. Tom relied on him. The entire New Order relied on him at the moment. He couldn't just go off the deep end.
He forced his legs to walk again. He found more boulders along the way and destroyed them, too. At some point he vaporised a small pond.
Eventually he exhausted himself. His limbs ached, his muscles burned, and he still wanted to cry and rave, but at least he felt in control of himself. His head was clearer than it had been in days.
"Expecto patronum…" he whispered. The basilisk slithered out of his wand and coiled around him like a particularly affectionate pet. Harry patted his semi-tangible head and, despite significant effort, failed to smile. "Hey, Sal. Let's go home, what do you say?"
x
Healer Dewhurst confirmed to Harry that his husband had overdosed on not only Nutrient Potions, but also on high-concentration Pepper-Ups – which had shocked her, since Pepper-Up overdose was believed to be an urban myth amongst the Healers. Apparently, the second condition somehow tied into the first, but Harry wasn't interested in more jargon. He just wanted to know when Tom was going to be fine.
"I've every hope that the patient will be ready to regain consciousness in eighteen hours, sir," the witch assured him in between ladling soup into her mouth and taking bites of a piece of bread.
She was looking grey around the edges and Harry didn't care that much about etiquette… unless she would start talking with her mouth full. He still had the nightmarish memories of Ron.
"I've been keeping him in artificial sleep – that's why he isn't waking on his own – but he'd be in pain during the procedure anyway, and maybe try to struggle, so it's safer for everyone this way."
"Does he…" Harry hesitated, but then resolved to ask anyway, since he did have her Oath of Silence. "Does he dream?"
"No," Dewhurst refuted, and wiped her mouth with a napkin. "He reacts to something sometimes – I've estimated that to be your heightened emotions, Lord Riddle. He's still quite dependent on your magic."
Harry nodded. His eyes strayed to the door to the bedchamber, standing ajar. He could barely sense Tom's presence behind it. His heartstrings were tugging at him, however, drawing him in that direction, making him go and reassure himself that Tom was breathing, was still there, just waiting to see if Harry was going to fuck up without his guidance, or if he did indeed deserve the position of the second Dark Lord and the respect that went with it.
Harry was momentarily stunned at the turn his thoughts had taken, but when he thought back to the past few weeks and the manner in which Tom had reacted to Harry's efforts it was perhaps, somewhat, understandable.
That wasn't Tom's fault. It was just the way Harry was left feeling and, without the usually ubiquitous reassuring presence of the bond, his old insecurities – thank you, Dursleys! – seemed to be cropping up.
"Excuse me, sir," Dewhurst spoke up, almost startling Harry, "but are you sure that you're alright?"
"Yes," Harry replied coolly. It's been a couple of long days for him, and before that a couple of long months. But he was going to dig in his heels and fulfill the promises he made.
"If you don't need me," she said in a tone that suggested she thought he did need her but wasn't going to argue with him, "I require some sleep before I return to work. I'm sorry but-"
"Yes, yes." Harry waved her off.
One of the elves popped in to show her a guest room she could use. There was another habitable room within the Green Suite, but that one was expected to be at Harry's disposal. Not that Harry would use it. There were plenty of sofas and settees and armchairs.
Once he was fairly sure that Dewhurst wasn't about to return anytime soon, he went through his chest of drawers and, beneath his disorganised pile of personal correspondence, located a stack of photographs. They were some of the saddest and cruelest pictures that he had ever seen – but Antonin had implored him to be cruel, hadn't he? So Harry had had these collected even before Tom had gone so wildly irrational that Harry had resorted to sedating him. He had meant to use them as a sort of aversion therapy.
Looking at the pictures of recently liberated prisoners from Nazi concentration camps made Harry sick to the stomach – Tom wasn't quite that far gone, but to Harry it seemed like it was a near thing.
The process itself – the Copying and Enlarging and Pasting onto the walls – was easy with a few spells almost every Hogwarts student learnt well before they took their O.W.L.s, but Harry found that his limbs were unexpectedly heavy as he stepped around the bed, and it had little to do with the soreness left over after his freak-out in the morning. His ankle brushed the hanging edge of Tom's blanket.
Eighteen hours, Harry promised himself. He had to be patient now.
He surveyed his morbid artwork and had to look away. It was every bit as horrible as he had imagined it would be – somewhat similar to the horror of the newly resurrected Voldemort rising from the cauldron, but at the same time worse due to its implied commonality.
He didn't want Dewhurst to see it.
A glamour took care of that.
"Chatter is saying, you is having to eat now, Master," Inky spoke softly but determinedly into the silence.
Harry sneered. "If I find my food contaminated, I'll take a leaf out of Malfoy's book," he promised to the trembling little creature.
Inky wrung her hands and stared and the floor.
"Am I clear enough?!" Harry snapped.
"Yes, Master!" the elf cried out and threw herself onto her knees. "We is very sorry, Master! We is not hurting Masters – never hurting! We is doing as Masters is saying. Clean food! Good food for-"
"Yes," Harry cut her off. His heartbeat was much too fast, his temper rising, but at least he had enough control that he wasn't cursing her. "If this happens again – if it is found that anyone was dosed with anything without permission, I will make the perpetrator rue the day he or she was born."
Huge, fat tears trickled down Inky's cheeks, before she clamped her hands to her mouth to muffle a wail.
"Tell that to everyone," Harry finished. "Dismissed."
When the elf was gone, he allowed himself to marginally relax. He thought about the way he had treated the house elves, and whether he had ultimately brought this upon himself, but decided that it was not his fault. Perhaps he should have given more thought to the elves' helpful nature, and to the manner in which their helpfulness showed when they were especially fond of someone, since Dobby should have been all the warning he would ever need… Nevertheless, the house elves' cooperation with him was usually excellent, exceeding everything he had ever seen happen for other wizards and witches, and he wanted to keep that.
Obviously, there was a need to state some new boundaries for their working relationship. He truly believed that the creatures had meant no harm – had, in fact, honestly been trying to help – but in their lack of knowledge misjudged their methods.
Once his anger would sufficiently abate – and once he'd be able to find that kind of time – he would address the issue.
Hopefully it wouldn't result in an insurgence of the elves, with the little critters proclaiming Harry their new emperor.
He could just imagine Moody laughing himself to death over it.
x
"My Lord," Lucius said with uncharacteristic deference, standing at the threshold of the Victorian Salon, where Harry, Vulcan Mulciber and Theodore Nott the Second were having a tea to calm down after their emotionally charged discussion about investigative reporters and about the pros and cons of violence against one's servants.
Harry didn't even need to look up to know that Lucius wasn't going to please him. Nonetheless, he gestured the man to a vacant chair, which Lucius accepted with his trademark grace.
Malfoy spent a few tense seconds rearranging the long, wide folds of his excessive sleeves, then he finally regained his poise and raised his eyes to meet Harry's. "I apologise, my Lord, but we failed to vote in Lady Prewett."
Vulcan let out a hiss.
"And?" Harry inquired, piqued with Lucius' overinflated sense of melodrama at the worst possible points in time.
"In the second vote, Madam Marchbanks became the Chief Warlock, with the provision that she would stay in office for six months only. It is irregular at best… but far better an option than Samuel Jordan." Lucius regally crossed his hands at the wrist in a way that displayed his snakehead cane.
Harry raised an eye-brow at the empty gesture.
"…if you will excuse me, my Lord," Lucius hastily continued, "my Lady wife is expecting me home. I will provide a written report which will include all the pertinent details, of course…"
"I must find my son," Nott jumped in. "Lucius, I'll accompany you, if my Lord doesn't need us for anything…"
Harry watched the men almost scramble to their feet, bow shortly, and beat it. It left him bewildered. "I know for a fact that I am not that frightening."
"Ordinarily, you are not, my Lord," Vulcan said dryly. "Yet I know of many whose nightmares have featured yourself on your more memorable days. Perhaps Malfoy's conscience is less than clean."
"I don't remember him being so skittish." Harry asked, wondering if he had once again missed something happening right under his nose because he was too damn busy with other things.
Vulcan took a deep draught of his tea. His hands were quivering when he put his cup down; the china rattled. He, too, was afraid of Harry, but despite that he found the fortitude to suggest: "It's quite possible that the voting would have gone differently, if the holder of the Black seats were present."
"And the holder of the Black seats is…?" Harry had an idea. It obviously wasn't Lucius – since he had been present at the session – and it wasn't Rodolphus, because as far as Harry knew Rodolphus had been put in charge of the Taboo-response units precisely because (aside from his undeniable ability) he had no other obligations.
The Tonks' had no seats.
That left Harry himself.
"My Lord has been sitting in for you, my Lord," Vulcan admitted.
Tom again.
Someone could have mentioned that, Harry mused grimly. He wasn't sure how he would have handled attending Wizengamot in addition to everything else, but so far he had managed everything he needed to do.
Fortunately, nothing horrible happened. Having Marchbanks in the position of the Chief Warlock only meant that they would be dealing with a kook that remembered the beginning of the nineteenth century and had that much more experience with changing regimes than anyone in the New Order did. She had seemed cautiously encouraging, after all.
And if that was a trick… it wouldn't be the first.
"You have held up well, my Lord," Vulcan whispered, looking in the opposite direction so that Harry could easily pretend not to have heard, since that way he escaped the punishment for presumption.
The grey afternoon light coming in through the window sharpened the lines on his face.
Vulcan was one of those who had known Tom for a bloody long time, and who were relatively familiar with Harry, too. Harry recalled him from the forties as a young wizard that had been a little too mindlessly obedient for anyone's good, but it seemed that time had changed the man for the better. He was now one of the few who accepted Harry as their leader unquestioningly, yet at the same time weren't blind to the reality of Harry's youth, inexperience, and preference for the shadows.
It was going to be over soon enough, anyway. Antonin should be returning tonight. And Tom would be awake tomorrow at the latest.
"Alright," Harry grumbled, standing up and wincing at the cracking of his joints. "That's enough leisure for one day. I have things to do."
"Thank you for your presence, my Lord," Mulciber said, hanging his head to hide a smile, which Harry noticed anyway. Damn devious Death Eaters, finding ways to make Harry relax and avoid getting Cruciated at the same time! Antonin was infecting all the veterans!
"I know what you're thinking," Harry warned him, startled at the humour in his own voice.
In the next instance there was a shift. It was different from this morning when Skeeter got tangled in the wards. He couldn't hear any voices or spells, but there was a patter of a legion of tiny bare feet.
Harry stumbled, struck by a sudden disturbance in magic.
"Tom…"
Unthinkingly, he Apparated.
Healer Dewhurst was stumbling backwards, away from the bed. She crashed into the bookcase just as Harry caught his balance. Tom's hand was extended toward the witch, fingers spastically forming claws, subconsciously attacking the perceived threat.
"Settle down!" Harry hissed, hastily stepping closer.
Tom's hand fell into the folds of the blanket, although whether that was because Tom gave up on attempting to kill his Healer or because he simply couldn't keep it up any longer was anyone's guess.
"…Harry?" Tom inquired, bemused at what was happening.
Harry briefly noticed that Dewhurst was now cowering in the corner, having the same reaction to spoken Parseltongue as three quarters of British wizards and witches did, but he was much more interested in the man in front of him.
Tom opened his eyes and blinked a few times. He seemed lucid, but unsure of why he was lying in bed, or why Harry was feeding him so much relief and elation through their bond.
"What happened?"
"You've been sick," Harry informed him. "In fact, you're still sick. The woman you've tried to kill is Healer Cerys Dewhurst. She's here to make sure you don't die on me."
Tom paused. He seemed to notice the difficulties he had with moving, but he wouldn't be himself if he accepted Harry's explanation at face value. "I'm not sick. I do not get sick."
"You were very sick," Harry argued. "I had to do something before you drove yourself into the ground."
Tom wordlessly snarled, for an instance looking fantastically ugly, but then the expression melted into one of deep thought. Eventually, Tom proved the acuity of his mind by deducing what had happened. "You drugged me."
The door swung shut behind Dewhurst, who had finally managed to gather her senses and decided to run away before she came to harm.
Harry envied her the option, but he wasn't a coward, and facing his irritable husband was nothing he hadn't done before. That was, after all, his purpose within the Order.
"I gave you Fairy Laugh," Harry corrected him, trying his best to come across as resolute and unapologetic. "A healthy person – that is to say, a non-exhausted and non-malnourished person – gets a little floaty and giggly on it. It put you out of commission for two days."
Tom didn't so much as blink. He simply ignored the validity of Harry's statement and struggled to sit up. He managed – barely. The cover pooled around his hips, and he grabbed its folds, intending to pull it away only to discover that his arms refused to cooperate.
He scowled at Harry, as if Harry was the one magically keeping him in the bed.
"I have work to do," Tom grumbled.
"Your work is being done," Harry assured him. Too aware of Tom's state of mind and of the fact that the man wouldn't welcome touch at the moment, he forced himself to clasp his hands behind his back. "You have an obligation that takes precedence to all else – an obligation to your followers and to me. It's your duty to get well enough to become our leader again."
Tom snarled.
Harry flinched. Shit, this was hard.
"You're usurping me?" Tom hissed, partly in English, partly in Parseltongue.
Harry gaped. "Is that a joke?" his voice, too, rose into a high-pitched hiss.
"You can't just take my-"
"I'm not taking anything away from you!" Harry cut in, not in the mood for baseless accusations from the one person who had fucked up – and worried him so damn much. "I'm just taking care of your Order, your Vision and your stubborn, self-destructing self!"
"I would kill you, except that you have already proven it wouldn't work."
Harry wished verbal punches left bruises, too, because he would show that one to Tom tomorrow. Grasping onto what scraps of self-control he still had, he stated almost calmly: "We've never before had a disagreement as bad as this one, Tom. You're hurting me and refusing to acknowledge it – I don't quite know how to react to that."
Tom sneered. "I'm getting up."
Harry sneered right back. "You think you're getting up. But, darling, if you stopped leeching my magic, you'd flop over onto that mattress and be glad you've got enough energy left to continue breathing."
Sadly, it was the truth. Harry ached at the horrified realisation on Tom's face as he discovered that what little strength he had was supported on borrowed magic. He allowed Harry to help him lie down again.
"Please, don't endanger yourself," Harry begged.
Tom pursed his lips. "Send the Healer in on your way out."
Harry mutely complied. He didn't have the will to continue arguing. Hopefully, Tom would calm down and regard the whole situation more rationally if Harry left him alone for a bit.
He sent Dewhurst inside, promising her that she wouldn't be harmed. She didn't entirely believe him, but he must have intimidated her more than Tom did, because she went.
Harry figured he should return to the Victorian Salon, to assure Vulcan that nothing worrisome happened and preclude him from sending someone to his aid, and also to pretend that Tom was getting better and not throwing tantrums. Tom should have been too old and too wise for such uncompromising bullheadedness.
Maybe he was having the strangest midlife crisis known to man? Except he couldn't ditch his car and buy a motorbike, because he was a wizard, and, seeing as he was a Dark Lord, he didn't even have a broomstick he could exchange for a newer model… and if he tried to leave his spouse and find himself a younger and more attractive lover, Harry would be not only astonished, but also quite homicidal.
Harry shuddered. This time, the 'homicidal' wasn't an exaggeration for effect. He knew that if ever Tom decided he didn't want him anymore, he wouldn't take it lying down. He would probably go mad and destroy everything he had helped Tom accomplish, and that meant killing a great many people.
"My Lord!"
Harry blinked.
There was a pair of wizards standing in the middle of the staircase, which they had been ascending before they noticed him. One of them was a Montague – the other Antonin Dolohov.
Harry felt stupidly relieved at the sight of the familiar face.
Antonin, however, was staring at him, alarmed. "Are you unwell, my Lord?"
Harry shook his head. "I am as well as can be expected under the circumstances, I suppose. I find that my tolerance for my husband's recalcitrance is rapidly waning. With as much stress as I gather daily, I need to resolve this situation before I start killing allies out of sheer frustration."
Both elder men scowled.
Montague spoke: "We have seen you at the training areas, my Lord. I take it duelling practice does not help alleviate your stress?"
As if he had the time – or the energy – to practice dueling lately.
"Not enough. It helped in the beginning, but now I just want to punch Tom in the face, except that I'm scared he'd actually break-" Harry's voice caught in his throat. He hurried past the two former Death Eaters and out of the hallway, afraid that he was going to fall apart any moment now and dissolve into a fit in front of his followers, and that would just be embarrassing. Even if he trusted them. And he did trust Antonin and the younger Theodore and even the Lestranges.
He wasn't so sure about Montague, but if any rumours surfaced, Harry would have a viable target for his aggression next time he would need one.
Vulcan wasn't in the Salon anymore when Harry arrived, but Theodore the Third was sprawled on a chaise, seemingly half-asleep. Still, he was alert enough to immediately notice Harry's entrance.
"Mr Mulciber didn't expect you would return, my Lord," the boy said hesitantly.
"You disagreed?" Harry inquired mildly, sinking into an armchair and accepting a hot cup of coffee. He grimaced at the bitter taste, but found that it fit his present mood.
Theo shrugged.
Footsteps sounded, and then Antonin appeared in the doorway. He must have sent Montague off, knowing that Harry wasn't up to socialising. Clever man. Harry offered him a shallow smile as he shed his enormous, bear-like fur coat and slung it over the back of a chair.
"You brought snow with you, Mr Dolohov," Theo said, extending his hand toward the window.
Harry automatically turned to look. Big, fat snowflakes slowly descended, coloured yellow and orange by the light coming from the Manor.
"Hah," Antonin startled. "So it seems, doesn't it?"
Theodore sagely nodded. "It is only right at this time of year."
Just as they almost managed to distract Harry, Theodore's father turned up. With a sour grimace, he reported: "My Lord, Ginevra Weasley humbly requests audience."
Harry hadn't expected that. Any other day he would have probably entertained her. It would be interesting to see if she had changed and how – it might have been something interesting to take Harry's mind off work and… other worries. However, currently he didn't feel up to meeting anyone in whom he didn't have the utmost confidence.
"Not now," he said. "Unless something's a nation-wide emergency, I don't have time for it." He took a leisurely sip from his cup and leveled a deadpan look at the elder Nott, daring him to protest.
Nott once again proved that he wasn't an idiot. He inclined his head and obeyed with a noncommittal: "Yes, my Lord."
Harry dared hope that would be the end of it, but Miss Avery nearly rammed into Theodore the Second as he exited. They steadied one another, preventing any slapstick from occurring. Manon's eyes remained on the wizard's back for a little too long as he walked away, before she turned to Harry.
"My Lord, the Riverbank Hall is ready for the ball-"
"What ball?!" Harry groaned.
"It is Yule, my Lord," the witch said way too happily. "Saturday, twenty-first of December." That was obviously not ringing any bells, so she explained: "The Yule Ball is being held tomorrow."
"Fuck!" Harry hissed through clenched teeth, censuring it by slipping into Parseltongue. "How did I not know about this?!"
It was too late to cancel the party. Also, Tom would never forgive him. This was important – it was vital to the future of the Order. And Harry had to do it alone. He didn't know the people, hadn't been the one to maintain correspondence with them, and wouldn't know what he should say to whom. It was a disaster.
"Get me the guest list," he ordered.
Miss Avery hurried off to find it for him.
Harry accepted a refill from Theodore and, armed with caffeine and Gryffindor mulishness, turned to Antonin. "Help?"
x
It was well past midnight when Harry returned to the Green Suite.
Healer Dewhurst was gone, Chatter on duty, and Tom listening to the WWN in the bedroom.
"I thought you would be asleep," Harry remarked.
"I have been asleep long enough, I think." The accusation was clearly implied.
Harry's hands paused at the lacing of his doublet as he noticed the untouched tray on Tom's bedside. He sighed, briefly closing his eyes and begging for patience. "Why won't you eat?!"
"Because I don't bloody want to!" Tom barked.
WWN put on some slow, jazzy song, which Harry automatically filtered out.
"How is swallowing potions any better?!"
"Because I don't vomit them right back up!" Tom elucidated for him.
Harry snorted. "Fantastic! Except for the tiny, insignificant fact that you've overdosed on them and almost killed yourself!" He wasn't going to tell Tom about the house elves yet, for many reasons. One of them was the fact that it would have sabotaged his arguments. Another was that he didn't need Tom to try and kill house elves in his present state.
Tom bared his teeth, and his next words came out sibilant. "I have not overdosed on anything! I'm not a mentally deficient squib – I know what I'm taking and how much of it is safe!"
"As long as you ingest nothing unmonitored," Harry pointed out, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "But apparently that's what happened here, right? Since you claim you've been in control of the situation – until you weren't anymore."
"I don't know what happened," Tom admitted.
He meant to continue in the same breath, but Harry cut him off by pointing out: "I told you not to get addicted to potions."
"Ah, the inevitable 'I told you so'."
"Are we truly sinking to this cliché?!"
"When you become the nagging-"
"Don't finish that statement if you value your dignity at all."
Tom gritted his teeth, but it gave him pause. After a short reconsideration, he decided not to say whatever he had been about to say.
"…I apologise."
"Accepted," Harry replied. He didn't even have to think about it. "Cliché as it is, do you acknowledge that I 'nag' because I give a damn?" He was not the only one giving a damn, but he was unsure if mentioning their followers' concern would anger Tom and make him close off, or, on the contrary, finally imprint upon him the true scope of the situation.
Tom hummed. He gave Harry a flinty non-smile. "If you don't have a goal, I suppose love is as good as anything to give you direction. But I have a goal – and obviously there is a point at which sentimentality becomes a hindrance."
"If it is untempered with practicality, perhaps," Harry allowed. "But I know what I am doing. If you've stopped trusting me…"
He didn't actually know how to end that statement. If Tom stopped trusting him, the fault was entirely on Tom's side. Harry had been a good consort, conscientious and helpful beyond what anyone could reasonably expect, and the fact that he advanced their plans a little beyond what Tom anticipated was not through any failing of his.
Tom had responsibility – to Harry and to his supporters. He needed to be reminded of it.
"I must request that you temporarily vacate these rooms," Tom told him coldly. "At least until such a time that I will feel safe in your presence – I am not presently capable of estimating how long it will take for me to regain confidence in you. Were you anyone else, you would have already been executed for poisoning me."
It was a testament to how often lately Harry had been sucker-punched by something Tom said, that he only nodded. Completely numb, he raised his hand and cancelled the glamours on the posters on the walls.
"Just so you have something to compare yourself to."
If Tom replied anything to that, Harry didn't hear it as he spun on his heel and stomped out of the chambers.
He didn't take his things. He wanted Tom to be constantly confronted with reminders of his absence: from the empty half of the vast bed to the clothing in the wardrobe to the bloody toothbrush on the shelf beneath the bathroom mirror.
He leant against the wide, cold sill under the window opposite the door of the Green Suite. Said door slammed an instance later, but there was no sound – it had been Silenced. Harry was glad for that. It didn't feel quite so final…
Oh, Merlin damn it, who was he kidding?!
He almost vomited onto Nott's floors.
The hardest thing about this was that Tom had been so good to him, so considerate, going out of his way to fulfill Harry's requests despite his own insane schedule, that Harry felt like he was the villain here. He was the bad one for being angry, for contemplating underhanded schemes, for not being strong enough to keep Tom from giving all of himself away.
He felt guilty.
It made his midnight sandwich taste like ashes in his mouth, and that in turn helped him understand that Tom also felt guilty. Finally, after weeks of just not understanding why now, now when they were supposed to be victorious and resplendent and reinforcing their people's belief in themselves, they were falling apart. Tom was killing himself, whether consciously or subconsciously, because his oftentimes insufferable self-confidence had broken under the weight of his conscience.
This was all Voldemort's fault.
And Voldemort was their fault. Harry didn't believe in karma, but it seemed like he and Tom had brought all this upon themselves by having created Voldemort – with their use of Horcruxes and extreme bonding vows and simply caring only about themselves without sparing a thought to how their relationship would affect the world around them. It seemed quite absurd: they had been just two teenage boys, falling in love. Could they be blamed for not realising that it would change the world?
And why on Earth had they even been given the opportunity? They had been born half a century apart, by rights they never should have been put into such a situation!
Was it magic itself? Who or what else could have caused Harry's trip through time?
Had this all been meant to happen? Was it a prophecy? Did divination actually work?
Harry had too many questions and no answers. Well, he had no objective answers. His heart was practically screaming at him that he ought to sod all the 'would' and 'should' and other destiny crap, and focus on what was important here. Tom was important. His presence or absence. His health. His regard. His Vision.
If, in the end, Harry would come out of the deal as the evil one, it would hardly be surprising, anyway.
Just, how was he supposed to deal with it without Tom? The last time Tom had been without Harry, he had become Voldemort. The Vision couldn't afford another bout of insanity.
"Rip my heart right out of me, why don't you?" he whispered, tapering off into soundless sobs. He raised his hands to cover his face, just to take a moment, to catch his breath, to center himself. Maybe he should Apparate elsewhere, only for the night, but… what about tomorrow? There was too much to do and Tom was inarguably too weak to do it. Harry couldn't… couldn't give up now. Not when they've gotten so far.
A hand softly touched Harry's shoulder. For a moment he thought it was Tom, but instantly the mad hope was dashed – there was the frigidness of the bond and the fact that Tom physically couldn't move from the bed.
"May I?" a low voice inquired just as Harry was about to Obliviate the witness to his misery.
But this was Antonin. Harry trusted Antonin.
He let his arms down.
Without another word, Antonin gathered him into his arms and tightly squeezed him. Harry hadn't been hugged in such a long time that his body didn't know how to react at first, but then another sob shook him and he let go. Antonin bore his weight; he even dared to drag his knuckles lightly over Harry's hair.
They stood there for perhaps a minute, before Harry felt a little like himself again. He took a deep breath.
"Thank you."
Antonin's arms compulsively tightened, and before he released Harry he muttered: "Anything for you, my Lord."