~To Kill You With A Kiss~

Chapter 20

...

"Ah. We are about to have company, Harry." Voldemort withdrew his touch rapidly. "He is near; I can feel it. Tom Riddle is coming. How very strange it feels, to wait for the person I once was to walk through the door!"

Harry could sense it as well now: Tom, his Tom, was close by. A moment after, the heavy oak door creaked open, and Tom entered, wand outstretched. Tom's eyes widened when he saw Voldemort by Harry's side.

"You?" Tom's voice was a hoarse whisper, and the yew wand shook slightly in his hand. "Harry's guardian is... you? No, this can't be. This must be a nightmare of some sort."

Tom and Voldemort stood motionless for a moment, staring at each other. Then they began to walk slowly towards each other, as if some magnetic force pulled them irresistibly together. They paused mere inches apart and stood gazing at each other in silence. Tom reached out and touched Voldemort's pallid features with a trembling hand. Harry felt two simultaneous waves of sensations flood his mind at the touch: He sensed Tom's hesitant wonder at the smooth coolness of Voldemort's face, and Voldemort's awareness of the warmth of Tom's hand. Then Tom pulled his hand back, and a slight blush spread over his cheeks.

Harry gazed mesmerized at the two figures, Tom from the past and Tom from the future, and marveled at how curiously similar they were. Their appearances were different, of course: Tom's face was flushed, beautiful, full of life, while Voldemort's pale features were cold, distorted, lifeless. But underneath the blush of life and the pallor of death, Harry saw a strange likeness in the contours of the bones under their skin, in the almost graceful curves of their limbs, and in the shapes of their dark silhouettes against the flickering candles.

"Tom." It was Voldemort who spoke first, so softly that Harry wasn't quite sure at first that he had actually said the name out loud. "What a pleasure it is to see you! You are quite different from what I expected." He traced the lines of Tom's face with a long, pale finger and smiled slightly when Tom winced. "You are far more beautiful than I remembered, even from our all too brief encounter this afternoon. I must admit that I was rather startled to learn that Harry is your lover - and willingly, at that - but now I think I can see how such a thing can be possible. Why, your face is almost as lovely as his!" There was a faint note of wonder in Voldemort's voice.

"What... What are you doing here?" Tom took a step back. His voice was cold. "You have no business here; this is my time, not yours."

An almost imperceptible smile ghosted over Voldemort's face. "Oh, just visiting an old friend of mine." He walked calmly over to Harry and brushed his hand lightly through his hair. "We have known each other for a long time, you see, Harry and I. I received a message that Harry wanted to speak to me, and I was more than happy to oblige."

"Don't touch his hair!" Tom's wand was trembling in his hand. "I don't understand how you came to be here, in this time, but I'm telling you right now: Leave Harry alone, or I will blast you out of time altogether."

"Really?" Voldemort sounded amused. "I never thought of you as self-destructive, Tom. I remember you as being rather keen on self-preservation, actually. And yet, here you are, threatening to kill...yourself."

"You are not me." Tom's face was flushed with anger. "You are someone I will never become, born of choices I will never make. You are just a monster from the future."

Voldemort leaned his head to one side and regarded Tom thoughtfully. "Ah, but we are still connected to each other, aren't we Tom? Surely, you can feel it, too? We may no longer be precisely the same person, but we are still closely related to one another. Sort of like twin brothers, perhaps, or like... father and son?"

"Like father and son?" A harsh little laugh escaped Tom's lips. He glared at Voldemort. "You know, that's not a bad way of putting it. I think I do feel the same way about you as I did about my father, now that you mention it. And I am perfectly happy to let our relationship end the way his and mine did." He pointed his wand at Voldemort's chest. "Avada Ked-"

"Expelliarmus!"

Tom's wand flew out of his hand, hit by Harry's rapidly whispered spell.

"Harry! What in Merlin's name did you do that for?" Tom sounded exasperated. "Give me my wand back, love."

Harry shook his head. "Of course not, Tom. I can't let you kill him." Harry walked over and wrapped his arms tightly around Tom. "He's you, after all. I can feel it, Tom."

"Oh, Merlin! You are completely, utterly impossible, my tender-hearted love." Tom sighed deeply and kissed Harry softly on the lips. Harry smiled into the kiss and returned the caress with abandon. A moment later, a more rational part of Harry's mind recalled that Voldemort was watching them, and he pulled back. "Oh..."

Voldemort laughed softly. "Oh, please don't stop on my account. I find the sight of you kissing my past self absolutely ravishing, Harry. It's actually rather arousing. It was worth traveling through time to just see that."

Harry groaned and buried his flushing face against Tom's chest.

Tom stroked Harry's hair and muttered in Voldemort's direction: "Don't you have anything better to do than watching two people in love? Don't let us keep you. Don't you have any random people to murder in your own time? Future world domination to accomplish?"

"World domination?" Voldemort chuckled. "You make it sound so terribly cliché, Tom. I prefer to think of it as unbounded personal expression. I like the world a certain way - as do you, I happen to know - and I have gone further than most men in making the world conform to my expectations of it. It's no different, really, from the machinations of many political leaders, except that I have been rather more successful than most."

"Because you have been more cruel than most..." whispered Tom.

"Oh, details." Voldemort shrugged. "As a matter of fact, Tom, I have grown somewhat less interested in personal power lately, since I came to discover that there are more important things in the world." He smiled and declaimed with a slightly ironic solemnity: "For what, after all, shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own... soul?" His glance wandered in Harry's direction.

Tom stared at him. "What's this? You are quoting the Bible now? How very... touching. You are the last person I expected to take an interest in theology! Oh, well, I suppose even the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."

"The devil?" Voldemort's smile broadened. "Aren't you being a little hard on... yourself, Tom?" He drew closer and brushed one of Tom's dark curls out of his eyes. "Although I do seem to recall reading that Satan himself was once an angel. An angel like you, perhaps?"

"Don't touch me! Give me my wand back, Harry." Tom reached for the wand Harry had stuck into his back pocket. "He is not walking out of this room alive."

"You really need to watch those homicidal impulses, Tom." Voldemort shot Tom a concerned glance as Harry retreated to the far corner, Tom's wand clutched tightly in his hand. "Murder is the road to perdition, my dear boy. I am speaking from experience, of course."

"Enough of this!" Harry pointed Tom's wand at the two of them. "Sit down, both of you. We need to talk."

To his slight surprise, both Tom and Voldemort obeyed his command; they both sat down, rather stiffly, in chairs on opposite sides of the fireplace and turned to face him. Harry drew a deep breath.

"First, give me your wand." He pointed Tom's yew wand at Voldemort.

After a slight hesitation, Voldemort retrieved his own yew wand from the pockets of his robes and held it out to Harry. "If you insist, my dear."

Harry grasped it and tucked the two identical wands away in his own pocket. He turned to the two dark-clad men. "Now, what are we going to do?"

"Kill him." Tom's answer was almost instantaneous. "If he... if Voldemort... were to die, everything would be right again."

"No, it wouldn't." Harry shook his head slowly. "If I were to kill him right now, my parents would still be dead, and so would Sirius and Regulus, and all of Voldemort's innocent victims as well."

"Regulus?" Voldemort's voice was soft. "The Black boy? The one with the curls? I do remember him very well, Harry. I had no idea you were attached to him, my dear. No, wait, you can't have been; that was long before your time."

"His brother Sirius was my godfather. Sirius was like a father to me, and he was murdered by Bellatrix Lestrange at the Ministry of Magic."

"I see." Voldemort considered this for a moment. "You loved Sirius Black? I had no idea, Harry. I'm sorry to hear that his death caused you pain. Oh, I know, it's probably difficult to believe that your parents' murderer could feel that way, but I do. I feel rather differently about you now than I have in the past, as you may have gathered. Bellatrix is dead, of course; I killed her myself. Does that comfort you at all, Harry?"

Harry sighed. "No, it doesn't. Bellatrix' death does not undo Sirius' murder. But... but your death would, if you were to die right after you became Voldemort." He was trying hard to keep his voice steady.

Voldemort gazed into the blue flames of the fire. "I see. Is that your plan, then, Harry? To fulfill the prophecy about the two of us and bring your loved ones back? To travel into the future somehow, and to murder me shortly after my transformation?"

Harry swallowed. "I have considered it, yes."

"I see." Voldemort's grey gaze lingered on Harry's face. What was he thinking? Harry found it difficult to sense his emotions now; they seemed to be hidden somewhere his mind couldn't quite reach. Perhaps you are a better occlumens than Tom, after all.

"Let him do it." Tom leaned forward, his his silver eyes fixed on Voldemort as he addressed his future self. "If you have an ounce of humanity left in you - in me - let it happen. If you care for Harry at all, let it happen for his sake. He is your soul and mine."

Voldemort was silent for a moment. "And when would my... death... occur?" He spoke as calmly as if he were discussing the weather forecast.

Harry breathed deeply. "Right after your transformation. Right after Tom Riddle becomes Voldemort, and right before you kill the eighteen year old Regulus Black."

Voldemort stared into the flames. "I see." He was silent again. Then he turned to Harry. "That would be around October 1977, Harry. I had taken up residence in my father's house at that time, in the Riddle House in Little Hangleton. The house was surrounded by some rather complicated protective wards and spells. The only way someone could enter the house without my knowledge would be by speaking the secret password, known only to me. I had chosen a rather strange little password, Harry, a reminder of the only facet of my life before I became Voldemort that I still wished to remember. Do you think you can guess the password, my dear?"

Harry nodded, unable to speak. Rain. The password is "rain".

"Excellent. I will give you a detailed sketch of the house, of course, and teach you a few powerful spells that may help you along the way."

"Wait a minute." Tom stared at Voldemort. "You are going to let him kill you? You?"

Voldemort smiled slightly. "Does that surprise you, Tom? I thought it was what you wanted."

"Surprise me?" Tom shook his head. "That's an understatement. It is what I want, yes, but I can't believe that you would ever let that happen. You are not going to let it happen. I know you; I know your terror of death, your desperate thirst for immortality... There is no way you would choose to die."

"Not even for the sake of my soul?" Voldemort's voice was gentle. "And by soul I do not mean that flimsy construct of the theologians, some imaginary invisible entity just beyond our grasp. By soul I mean - well, him." He glanced at Harry, and Harry felt himself flush. Voldemort's hand reached out, hovered near Harry's head.

"I said don't touch his hair! " Tom sprang up from his chair. "Harry's got my wand, but don't think I need a wand to kill you. I'm younger and stronger than you, and I could throttle the life out of you in an instant."

Voldemort laughed. "Jealous, are you, Tom? Don't you trust... yourself?"

Tom glared at him. "Not much, no. So you are saying that if Harry were to travel to the future and kill you soon after your transformation, you would let him? Just like that?"

Voldemort nodded gravely. "Yes. I would."

"And you would not attempt to stop him, or to harm him in any way?"

"I would not stop him. And I would never let any harm come to Harry. That I think you know, Tom."

Tom stared at Voldemort in silence for a moment. Then he muttered: "I suppose you wouldn't. You are speaking the truth, I can sense that. But I still don't like this. I don't trust you..."

Voldemort shook his head. His dark grey eyes glittered. "Tom, Tom! You wound me, my dear. Trust me. I would never do anything you wouldn't have done."

Tom frowned. "I don't suppose I have a choice but to trust you. But I can't help thinking that you have something up your sleeve... Are you really willing to die?"

Voldemort sighed. "You know, I recall being rather more intelligent than you when I was eighteen. Don't be absurd, Tom! Of course I have no intention of dying."

"What? But you said..."

"I said that I intended to let Harry kill me in the year 1977, yes. That doesn't mean that I am planning to die, in any permanent fashion. I would have thought that you knew me better than that."

"What?"

Voldemort shook his head. "I find the thought of dying absolutely revolting, Tom. Not my cup of tea at all. Surely you know that?"

"But..."

Voldemort turned to Harry with a slight frown. "Is he always this dense, my dear? I was hoping that it was his brilliant intellect, not just his angelic face, that made you fall in love with him. I do hope I wasn't wrong about that. Harry, can you please explain this very obvious plan to your charming lover? He doesn't seem to be catching on."

Harry couldn't help laughing at the baffled expression on Tom's face. He wrapped his arms around Tom and kissed him on the cheek. "It's very simple, Tom. Of course he won't die. I will travel to the year 1977 and murder the Voldemort of that time. But he, the future Voldemort we know, will still be alive, because he will stay here, in this time, while I do so. If he were to travel back to the future, to his own time, he would cease to exist when I kill the earlier Voldemort. But if he stays here, in the past, he will be fine. At least, I hope he will. And my parents and Regulus and Sirius and all of Voldemort's other victims could be saved."

"You've got to admit that this is a rather good plan, Tom?" Voldemort glanced at Tom. "The prophecy about Harry and me would be fulfilled, with no permanent harm to either one of us."

Tom nodded, reluctantly. "I suppose so. There might even be a part of me - a very small part, mind you - that would prefer you not dead. You are me, in a manner of speaking, after all. But we don't have to be stuck with you in this time forever, do we?"

Voldemort laughed. "I do think you would grow to like me over time, Tom, if you just gave me a chance. We have a great deal in common, you and I... But I wouldn't dream of intruding on your happy life with Harry. Unless you wanted me, too, of course. I'm not so sure Harry is altogether opposed to the idea. You do like me, don't you, my dear? Oh, don't worry, Tom - I will go on a long holiday in the 1920s if you wish, to give you some privacy, as long as I am welcome to visit you on occasion."

Tom sighed gloomily. "Oh, all right. As long as you don't..."

"Touch Harry's hair?" Voldemort's eyes twinkled. "I will try to remember that. Excellent. Now, Harry, we need to talk. We have an assassination to plan, you and I, and your victim is a rather clever dark wizard - although not nearly as clever yet as me... Poor young Voldemort of the future! He won't stand a chance against the three of us."