~To Kill You With A Kiss~

Chapter 13

...

Tom had forgotten to light the fire, and the room was growing chilly now. Harry wound the silver sheets and blankets around them both, spinning a shimmering cocoon of warmth around the two of them. He wrapped himself around Tom inside the silky layers that protected them from the frosty evening air. Through the tall arched windows, Harry could see the flaming sun setting over the Hogwarts grounds, but there was no heat in the last deep golden rays of the dying sun as they slanted through the old leaded window panes. Tom drew closer to the warmth of Harry's limbs.

"What do you have to tell me, Harry?"

Harry looked into Tom's silver eyes and felt a strange shiver in his heart. Oh, Tom, how can I tell you of the horrors of the future? How can I speak of what you will become? He placed a soft kiss against Tom's lips. I want to keep you like this, warm and close, untouched by autumn's chill, unaware of the icy darkness gathering around you in the future. I will not speak of Voldemort, for that cold-hearted shadowy wizard of tomorrow is not yet here, although I can sense his frosty breath in the air, descending on me like a kiss...

"Why aren't you speaking? Is it so terrible, what you have to tell me?" Tom asked the question lightly, but Harry could sense the cold, black fear that was rising in him now. Tom was so close that Harry couldn't tell if he knew of Tom's foreboding from reading the thoughts that whispered through his mind or from feeling the slight trembling that ran through his limbs.

"I'm afraid of telling you, Tom."

He sensed Tom's fear washing over him in dark pulsing waves, flooding his mind and his thoughts. Harry whispered, in response to all the frantic questions Tom didn't have to utter: "No. It's not that I don't love you, Tom. How could you even think that? I love you with all my heart, and always will. Only you. No matter what."

"Good." Tom's arms wound even more tightly around his body. "Except for the "no matter what" part... I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

Harry rested his cheek against Tom's. How do I tell you of the murders you will commit? How will I speak of your terrible transformation? Perhaps I don't have to tell you. I wouldn't have to tell you the truth if I could just stay here in this time with you forever and watch over you. I would make sure you never commit another murder or make another horcrux. I could take you away from the wizarding world and live with you in a cottage by the sea. Perhaps we will bury our wands in the garden there, and they will take root and become a holly tree and a yew tree. And we will sit under the trees we planted and look out over the sea, and both Voldemort and Harry Potter will be forgotten. There will just be two men living by the sea together until they grow old and die.

"Harry?" Tom's voice was calm, but Harry felt the frantic rhythm of Tom's heart against his chest. "Tell me what's on your mind. Whatever it is, I need to know. I can't bear for there to be any secrets between us."

Harry closed his eyes. You. The warmth of your skin against mine. The two of us so closely intertwined that it feels like we are just one being. Our minds so entwined that I no longer know which thoughts are yours and which are mine.

"No secrets, Tom." He breathed deeply. "A few hours ago, in your office, I told you the name of the dark wizard who killed my parents. Voldemort..." Harry swallowed thickly and tried to look at Tom. "Tom, that name can't have been entirely unfamiliar to you. You have heard it before, haven't you?"

After all, it was your memory who showed me, in the Chamber of Secrets, how you had created that name.

"So you know about that?" said Tom softly. "I must admit it was a surprise, hearing that name again, in such a different context, but I had more pressing things on my mind a few hours ago than thinking about long-forgotten names and bizarre coincidences. Things like getting you into my bed. Which reminds me..."

Harry stopped Tom's wandering hand with his own and squeezed it gently. "Later, Tom." Why aren't you listening? Surely, you must sense what I am going to tell you? Isn't there a part of you that already knows?

Tom stirred in Harry's arms. His words came tumbling out, much too fast. "Well, of course I thought it terribly strange and quite disturbing that he had chosen that name as well. Voldemort was the secret name I chose for myself a few years ago, when I had grown tired of being the powerless orphan boy Tom Marvolo Riddle, named after a father who never loved me and an impoverished grandfather I had never met. I rearranged the letters in that hated name so that they formed the phrase "I am Lord Voldemort". It had a certain ring to it, I thought, and I began to think of myself as Voldemort. Quite a few of my Slytherin friends began to call me that in secret as well. Avery and Lestrange, who were in my year, knew that name, and Cygnus and Druella and Araminta as well. Why, even Horace Slughorn, who always knows everything and everybody, called me by that name once, half in jest. I suppose one of those idiots must have revealed the name to the monstrous creature who killed your parents. But why he would wish to assume that name is beyond me... Perhaps he liked the meaning of it: Voldemort. Vol de mort. Flight from death. When you mentioned his name, I must admit that I felt quite annoyed that he would dare steal my elegant nom de plume, but then I got distracted by the way your hair sticks up in the back, and I forgot all about it."

"Tom..."

"It's really very adorable. Your hair. It's quite impossible not to want to touch it once you notice it." Tom's fingers ran lightly through Harry's hair, but Harry could feel that his hand was trembling.

"Tom! Don't do this." Harry's voice was a whisper. "You know the truth, Tom. Deep down, you must know it. About Voldemort. About you."

Tom was silent.

"Tom?"

Tom shook his head. "It can't be, Harry. It can't. It's impossible. I saw... I saw his face so clearly in the memories that ran through your mind. I saw his terrible, inhuman features. That was not my face. I was terrified for a moment when you first mentioned his name, but then I remembered his face, and I understood that it couldn't have been me after all. He was someone else altogether." His quicksilver gaze met Harry's for a moment, before it turned away. You know the truth, Tom.

Harry stroked Tom's face lightly. "You saw in my mind that I dreamed of kissing him, Tom. Do you think I would ever dream of anyone but you?"

Silence. Then Tom pulled away from Harry, buried his head in the silver pillow and moaned. "No. No. No!""

Harry wrapped himself around Tom and held him tight. "Remember, Tom, that the future hasn't happened yet. None of it needs to happen."

"Your scar..." Tom lifted his head now. "I gave you that scar? I was the one who tried to kill you? The one who murdered your parents? How is that possible? I love you... " He traced Harry's scar with an unsteady finger. "God, what have I done to you-?"

"Nothing. It hasn't happened yet. Listen, Tom." Harry found Tom's mouth with his own and kissed him deeply. "Just listen. Let me tell you the story of you and me, the way it happened in the future I remember. And then, once you know that story, we will write it all over again, together, until it ends quite differently. When you have heard that story, we can erase it and create a new story, one that ends in a cottage by the sea, rather than on a battlefield."

"A cottage by the sea?" whispered Tom. "With you? I would like that... Tell me, then, Harry. Tell me the story of... Voldemort."

It was growing dark now, and Tom's face was beginning to fade into the shadows. But Harry felt Tom's breath against his face as he talked, and Tom's skin was still warm against his own. He breathed deeply and told Tom his story from the beginning. This, my Dark Lord, is the story of the Boy Who Lived. He told Tom about the long years of abuse and neglect at the Dursleys, about the miraculous letter from Hogwarts, about Ron and Hermione, the troll in the dungeon, the sorcerer's stone and the two-faced professor in the underground chamber. Tom did not speak, but Harry could feel him tremble as he spoke of the Chamber of Secret, the shadowy boy from the diary, and of the basilisk. Tom listened in silence as Harry told him about the dark dementors, about Sirius Black and the traitorous Peter Pettigrew, about the Triwizard Tournament and the false Moody, the encounter with Voldemort in the graveyard, the excruciating detentions with Umbridge, the battle at the Ministry, Sirius falling through the veil, Slughorn's memory of Tom and horcruxes, Snape's assassination of Dumbledore, his own travel into the past and back to the future, the message he had sent to Voldemort...

"No." Tom sat up in bed abruptly. "No, Harry. That part of the story must be wrong."

"Wrong?" Harry reached for his wand. He managed to light the lamp by the bedside so he could see Tom's face, hauntingly lovely in the flickering lamplight, but the spell he directed at the fireplace in the far corner did nothing.

Tom shook his head and sighed. "For such an enchanted creature, you have the most pitiful grasp on ordinary spells, my love. You can resist the Imperius curse, survive the killing curse, and travel through time, but you can't light a fire. Didn't you ever pay attention in class? Here..." He took Harry's wand from him and used it to light the fire in the fireplace. He smiled, but his hand was shaking, and Harry could see that he was deathly pale.

Tom sank back down among the silvery sheets. "Your story... God, it makes me sick at heart, Harry. I was the one who did all this to you? And yet I know that it must be true. There is a part of me that could have done all that. There is a part of me that could become him. It's true... All except for that last thing. That can't be true. If you sent a message to Voldemort after you traveled back in time and fell in love with me, how could I not remember?"

Harry looked down. "It had been fifty years, Tom, and you... You had changed a great deal."

"No. That wouldn't have mattered. I could have lost every fragment of humanity I once possessed, I could have lost my body and my soul, but I would have remembered you. Your message must not have reached me."

"It did reach you. Malfoy told me had given you the message, and that you had no idea what I was talking about."

"Malfoy?" Tom stared at him, wide-eyed, for a moment. He made an odd little sound that was half way between a strangled sob and laughter: "You sent a message with Malfoy? No wonder it got lost. Oh, Merlin, what an idiot you are, Harry! You trusted Malfoy?" He assaulted Harry with a storm of fiery kisses. "Well, that explains a lot."

"Not Abraxas," moaned Harry through the kisses. "His grandson, Draco."

"Same thing," muttered Tom. "Why would he be any more trustworthy than his flighty grandfather? If this future Malfoy gave me your message, I would have sent a message back begging you to meet me. But that little twerp probably didn't tell you that. Perhaps he was worried that I would kill you? He was probably trying to save your life or something by interfering in our correspondence and convincing you that I did not want to meet you."

"Really?" Harry frowned as he pondered this for a moment. Could Draco Malfoy have wanted to protect me? From you? What a terribly strange thought. "I don't know, Tom. Draco is a death eater, one of Voldemort's supporters. He's supposed to be on your side."

"A death eater?" Tom made a face. "Yuck. Please tell me I wasn't the one who made up that inane term. What was wrong with "The Knights of Walpurgis"? That's what my... er... circle used to call themselves. A little melodramatic, perhaps, but not without a certain flair. But death eaters? Seriously?"

Harry couldn't help laughing. "Anyway, Tom, I'm not sure Draco Malfoy would have wanted to save my life. He has always disliked me."

"Disliked you? Now you are just being absurd, Harry. Nobody could possibly dislike you, my love, not with your hair sticking up like that. This errant Malfoy of the future probably adores you in secret but is too ashamed to admit it."

"No, I'm pretty sure he hates me."

"Oh, nonsense. How could anyone hate you?"

Harry laughed shakily. "That sounds a little strange, coming from someone who tried to murder me repeatedly in the future."

Tom groaned.

"Sorry." Harry kissed him gently on the forehead. "Everything's changed now, anyway. The future won't be the same anymore. I think we have managed to mess up the future I remember pretty well by now. It's 1945, and I am Voldemort's lover. I don't see how history could ever be the same."

"Really?" Tom's lips lingered against Harry's. "Perhaps we should mess with history a little bit more, just to make sure..." Rogue hands began to roam over Harry's body.

Harry smiled. "That would probably be a good idea. But this time, it's my turn to use that spell."

...

Harry sank down on his pillow, breathless. "There. You don't think Voldemort could possibly exist after that, do you?"

Tom was gasping for breath as well. "I'm not even sure I still exist after that, you deliciously savage monster. Who would have known you had it in you? You look so sweet and innocent, but Merlin, those looks are deceiving! Nice touch, the Parseltongue, though."

"Enjoyed that, did you?

"Mmmhmm. Very much, as you could tell..." Tom ran his fingers through Harry's hair and kissed him softly on top of the head. Harry closed his eyes, and nestled in Tom's arms, comfortably drowsy now.

"Harry?" Tom whispered softly. "What if... What is he is still there? Voldemort... You have already seen him, and he has left his mark on you. Are you sure we can make the future you have already lived go away? What if he still lingers somewhere in the future? What if he can't be undone?"

Harry shivered and clasped Tom more closely. "Oh, don't talk like that. How can he be real if he doesn't exist yet?"

Tom kissed Harry's scar gently. "How can your scar be real if no one has yet given it to you?"

Harry frowned. "I don't know, Tom. Perhaps we can ask Alphard what the future will look like. Alphard has a magical time-turner, and he has been traveling here and there. He was the one who... er... gave me a ride back here. Apparently, Dumbledore told him where to find me. I'm sure Alphard will return to the time I came from soon; he seems to have fallen for my girlfriend."

"You have a girlfriend?" Tom stared at him. "Now you tell me?"

Harry laughed. "My friend Ron's sister Ginny. We were dating for a few weeks. It was never very serious, though, nothing like you and me... I think she has started going out with Alphard anyway."

"Glad to hear it." Tom sighed. "We will await the reports of the enamored time-traveler, then. Hopefully, he will find the future very different next time he visits it." Tom's kisses trailed down Harry's neck. "Harry? If Voldemort still exists out there somewhere in the future, I promise you that he will never harm you again."

Harry swallowed. "How do you know that for sure, Tom?"

Tom's silver eyes glittered as he looked at Harry. "If he ever threatened you in any way, my love, he would have to reckon with a foe more formidable than any he has ever faced. You told me that Dumbledore was the only one Voldemort ever feared. But if Voldemort ever attempts to harm you again, he will find himself pitted against a wizard far more powerful than Dumbledore." Tom's voice sank to a whisper. "If he tried to hurt you again, Harry, he would have to deal with me."