Author's Note:

Warning! Slash (same-sex love) ahead! If that's not to your liking, please read a different story.

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~To Kill You With A Kiss~

Chapter 12

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For a moment, Tom sat frozen. One instant, his face was ghostly white, but in the next, a flush crept over his pale cheeks. It seemed to Harry that Tom had changed a little; there were dark shadows under his eyes now, his glance was burning as if with some strange fever, and there was a slight hollowness about his cheeks. And yet he was beautiful, so excruciatingly beautiful that Harry felt an odd stab to his heart, a melancholy sweetness almost bordering on pain.

Human. He looks human. Not Voldemort, but Tom. My Tom.

A trembling gasp, and then Tom leaped to his feet. Harry felt himself being pulled into the room and clutched in an embrace so tight he could hardly breathe. The door slammed shut behind them.

"Oh, Merlin! You are still alive! Where have you been?"

Tom kissed Harry feverishly, his face, his lips, his throat, every bit of skin his mouth could find, and he whispered against Harry's lips: "You are here. You are real, after all. I was beginning to think that you had been nothing but a dream. You.. You..." The rest of his words drowned in kisses.

Harry returned the kisses frantically. I went to the future and back. But I think it was only a dream. This. This is real. Your lips against mine, your breath against my skin.

Past. Future. Imaginary constellations we have drawn on the starry swirl of time. There is no past or future, there is no truth but the beating of our hearts. There is only you and me. Here. Now.

"You smell like spring," muttered Tom against his cheek. "Like warm grass and lilacs. Merlin, where have you been? In some distant land where lilacs blooms in September? But your skin is cold. You must have come from outside right now. Why weren't you wearing your robes? It's getting chilly out, and your shirt is thin. Here, let me..."

Tom flicked his wand at the marble fireplace, and blazing flames sprang to life in the cold grate, slowly spreading their warmth and brightness through the cheerless grey chill of the room. They huddled together on the carpet in front of the fire, arms wrapped tightly around each other.

Tom stroked the fabric of Harry's shirt and whispered: "I can't believe you are finally back... Did you know that you got the wrong shirt before? What-? Why are you laughing?"

"Oh..." Harry ran his fingers through Tom's soft curls and closed his eyes. "I didn't know if you would remember. About the shirt. About me."

"You didn't know if I would remember? How could I ever forget?"

I don't know, Tom. I don't know. But you did.

"Where have you been these past two weeks, Harry?"

"Two weeks?" Harry stared at Tom. "I've been gone for two weeks?"

"You didn't know?" Tom stroked his hair, a puzzled expression on his face. "What happened to you? I thought I'd lost you forever. I thought that you had been murdered by the dark wizard who killed your parents. Or perhaps that you had left because of what happened between us..."

Harry kissed him furiously. "You didn't think that I would just leave you, would you? Don't you know that I love you?"

Tom sighed contentedly. "I thought you did... but then, when you vanished, I didn't know what to think. I was going mad with fear that I had lost you. I stopped teaching my classes; I spent all my time searching the castle and the grounds and the Forbidden Forest for you, talking to anyone who might have seen you." He flushed a little. "I may have roughed up Malfoy a little bit."

"You did?" Poor Abraxas!

"Mmhmm. Nothing bad, just a few bruises. He had the impertinence to suggest that you had left because of me. Professor Dippet was terribly unhappy with me when he heard of that little incident, but Horace Slughorn kindly interceded on my behalf and managed to convince the headmaster that young Mr. Malfoy must have done something to deserve it. But then, later, I began to think that maybe Abraxas was right. Perhaps you were ashamed of what had happened between us? When I thought that you weren't come back, I felt sick at heart. I made up my mind to leave Hogwarts. I couldn't bear to be in this room any more without you. To remember how we kissed, and to think you weren't coming back... What did I want to be a Hogwarts professor for, anyway? I toyed with the idea of going to London, of taking a post at Borgin and Burkes, of immersing myself in the Dark Arts."

Harry flung his arms around Tom. "Don't. Just... don't."

Tom gave him a crooked smile. "Oh, don't worry. Dumbledore talked me into staying. He assured me that you would be back soon."

"Dumbledore knew I would be back?"

Tom nodded. "Yes. He said he knew that you had to come back because... What was it he said? The heart knows no reason. Yes, I think that's how he put it."

An image of Grindelwald, the broken dark wizard, imprisoned in his stark grey cell in Nurmengard, flashed into Harry's mind. Grindelwald, waiting behind the prison walls, longing for the man who had defeated him to come and see him... And Dumbledore would come, because his heart would not let him do otherwise. Of course Dumbledore understood that I had to come back.

"What happened, Harry? What is Merlin's name happened to you?"

Harry looked into Tom's silver eyes and swallowed. "It was an accident, Tom. I never meant to leave you. I went back to the Slytherin dormitory, and I lay awake thinking of you. I was going to come back the next day, but I was... transported... somewhere else, accidentally. And then I couldn't find my way back to you. I thought I was going to go mad, not being able to return to you."

"Where did you go, Harry?" Tom stroked his face with a trembling hand.

"Nowhere." Harry whispered. "I was at Hogwarts the whole time. Just not... not in this time. A different time."

Tom's silver eyes regarded him with wonder. "You traveled into the past? I've read stories about that, but I didn't know it could actually happen."

Harry buried his head against Tom's throat. "Not the past, Tom. The future."

"You traveled into the future?" Tom's voice was almost inaudible.

Harry nodded silently.

"How far... into the future?"

Harry kissed Tom softly on the lips. "Far... Fifty years into the future. To a time when Abraxas Malfoy's grandson attends Hogwarts. Tom, that's where... That's where I came from in the first place."

He felt Tom's body stiffen against him. "You are from the future?"

Harry's eyes met Tom's quicksilver gaze. "I know this is difficult to believe, Tom."

"Oh, I don't know." A slight smile now. "My miraculous Harry. It would have been much more difficult to believe that you were someone ordinary, I suppose. And it does explain why we couldn't ask you about your past. You didn't have one..." A slight pause followed. Then Tom whispered: "If you have seen the future, Harry, have you also seen the two of us in it? Are we still in love with each other fifty years from now? Oh, wait..." A look of panic crossed his face. "Oh, Merlin!"

"What? What's wrong, Tom?" Voldemort. Can he sense the truth about Voldemort?

"If you are from fifty years in the future, then I'm fifty years older than you. I must be an old man in your time... Merlin!" Tom buried his face in his hands.

Harry laughed out loud. "You think I mind that you are older than me?"

"You don't mind?" Tom looked at him, perplexed. "How can you not mind? Fifty years is half a century. In your time, I'm old, and you... you must still be seventeen."

Harry smiled. "Sixteen, actually."

Tom groaned.

"Seriously, Tom, that part is irrelevant. You... you age well... Oh, I don't want to talk about the future right now." Harry pushed Tom down on the carpet and covered his body with his own. "More importantly..." He traced the line of Tom's jaw with a series of kisses. "I'm here with you, and I'm not leaving again. And I found that spell we were talking about. My friend Hermione helped me. She's very good at finding obscure spells, you see."

Tom flushed and and wrapped his arms tightly around Harry. "You found the spell? So did I. You didn't think I would neglect my research, would you?"

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's see if it works, shall we?" Harry tore at Tom's shirt.

Tom laughed. "Here on the floor, you savage from the future? How about my bed this time? I have a bedroom, you know, a rather comfortable one, in the teachers' wing."

"I like that idea..." Harry fumbled with Tom's buttons. "But don't you think people will wonder why you bring a student with you into your bedroom? Or rather, don't you think they will know why..."

"Not at all." Tom rolled over, suddenly in command now, and flipped Harry over on his back. He kissed Harry quickly on the lips before he sat up and began buttoning his shirt up again. "It's the only responsible thing a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor can do under the circumstances."

"What?"

Tom was grinning now. "Elias Black disappeared into thin air for two weeks, and the school was buzzing with rumors that the dread dark wizard who murdered his parents had finally found him. Even now when you are back, people will assume that you are in mortal danger. Of course your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is not going to let you sleep in the dormitory you vanished from two weeks ago. Until that dark wizard has been destroyed, you are to sleep in my quarters, guarded by extra protective spells. I don't think anyone would find that very odd."

"I'm going to sleep in your room so you can protect me from Voldemort?" If only you knew how absurd that idea is, Tom!

"Voldemort? Is that his name?" Tom got up and pulled Harry to his feet. "I am partly serious about this, Harry. You told me he was still alive. Even if he was not behind you disappearance, I would sleep a lot better at night knowing that you are safe with me."

Harry wrapped his arms around Tom and whispered in his ear: "I will not let you sleep well at night, Tom. You know that." And I don't think anyone on earth could protect me from Voldemort, least of all you. For the Dark Lord has marked me, and his mark penetrated to the depths of my soul.

Tom laughed and flushed. "Come on now. Let's get you to my bedroom now, while everyone else is still at dinner. I will send a message to the headmaster that you have been found, and that you are safe for now in my care. You can go back to class in the morning, but right now I really think you need some...er... rest. I'll get a house elf to bring up a tray for you later if you are hungry."

Harry smiled. "Whatever you say, professor Riddle."

Tom gave him a feigned stern glance. "Don't mock me, Mr. Black. I'm a great deal older than you, you know. You need to treat a man who is fifty years your senior with respect."

Harry looked at the eighteen year old boy in front of him and laughed.

...

They didn't meet anyone on their way; Tom had correctly surmised that everyone was still at dinner in the Great Hall. While Tom summoned a house elf and arranged for a message to be sent to the headmaster, Harry looked curiously around Tom's bedroom. It was decorated in silver and green, just like the Slytherin dormitory, but the room was more spacious and elegant. Harry sank down on the enormous black four poster bed and ran his fingers over the smooth silver sheets.

I wonder if Tom has dreamt of me in this bed.

"There." Tom pointed his wand at the door and muttered a locking spell. "All taken care of. Now there's just you and me..." His voice sank to a whisper as he came slowly towards Harry, a deep blush on his cheeks. "Oh, Merlin, to see you sitting there on my bed like that..."

He closed the rest of the distance between them hurriedly, and the next instant they were lying together on Tom's bed, limbs tangled, mouths crushed against each other. They tore frantically at each other's clothes until the fabric that separated them from one another was gone, reduced to a crumpled heap on the floor.

"How beautiful you are..." Tom's lips brushed over every inch of Harry's skin and set his body aflame.

"Me? You are the one who looks like an angel..." Harry's hands caressed Tom's flawless face.

"An angel?" Tom laughed. His face was flushed, his eyes dark with wanting. A fallen angel... But perhaps this fall is your only hope for redemption. "Your wanderings in time must have befuddled your senses, Harry. Would an angel do this-?"

He whispered a spell that Harry recognized with a blush. Harry buried his head against Tom's shoulder as an unfamiliar and intensely pleasurable sensation followed. He felt moist and relaxed and more than ready.

"Or this?" Tom's gently probing fingers began to explore the effects the spell had had on Harry.

Harry moaned helplessly in response. "Oh, Merlin!"

"Or this?"

Harry cried out incoherently as he felt Tom enter him. This time, there was no pain, only an unfamiliar sense of fullness accompanied by intense pleasure. Harry surrendered himself to Tom's frenzied strokes and to the desperate Fiendfyre of wanting that ran though his body and his soul. He heard his own voice whisper Tom's name, again and again, and his name spring from Tom's lips in response. Tom. My angel. My Dark Lord. My murderer. My lover.

Tom's sudden scream rent the stillness of the room, and Harry felt something warm and wet flooding him. Tom collapsed against Harry's body, and shivered as Harry came against him a moment after.

They didn't even bother with any cleaning spells; they merely rested, messy and delirious, against each other, burning skin against burning skin.

"Do you still think me an angel now?" Tom whispered as he left a trail of breathless kisses against Harry's throat.

"Maybe..." Harry ran his fingers through Tom's dark curls. But I wonder if you will still be Voldemort, one day in the distant future. No, no you can't be... He closed his eyes and let the image of Voldemort flood through his mind. Could that pale monster with the cold voice really be the warm boy who rested in his arms, still flushed from their lovemaking? Harry's mind wandered to the dream he had had during his brief return to his own time. Voldemort in the Shrieking Shack. His hand through my hair, his whisper in the shadows. The Dark Lord knows no mercy. Perhaps he will kill me with a kiss...

"What?" Tom sat up with a start. "You are thinking of him? Your parents' murderer, the dark wizard from the graveyard?" He stared at Harry, wide-eyed. "You are thinking of kissing him? Harry, what is this?"

No. No. No. Harry groaned and buried his head in the silver pillows. "I forgot you could read my mind... Don't worry about it, Tom. It was just a strange dream I remembered, that was all. I didn't happen."

"But you felt no horror when the memory of that dream entered your mind. You... you wanted to kiss him..." Tom's voice was hoarse. Then Harry felt a hand grasping his shoulder, hard.

"Harry, do you love him?"

"Tom, I love you..."

"Why aren't you answering my question? Do you love him?"

Harry looked up. The pain in Tom's eyes was almost too much to bear. He reached out for Tom, but Tom brushed his arms away.

"For Merlin's sake, just tell me the truth! Do you love him?"

Harry swallowed. "Tom... I think there is something I should tell you..."