~To Kill You With A Kiss~

Chapter 26

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Warning: Same-sex love and twisted time paradoxes ahead! Possible threesome, depending on your definition of "three". Don't say I didn't warn you.

...

Harry stood immovable for a moment, staring at the crumpled body on the floor. The Dark Lord looked strangely innocent in death; his eyes were closed, and it was easy to imagine now that they had been grey rather than crimson. The cruelty that had haunted his features was no longer visible in the soft lines of his angelic face. The cold moonlight that streamed through the windows cast a silver sheen over his dark hair. Harry felt his breath catching in his throat. A murder. I have committed a murder now.

I have followed in your footsteps, Tom. Tonight, I committed a murder in the Riddle House. Tonight, I committed a murder in Little Hangleton. Tonight, I killed the spare...

Harry shuddered violently as he bent down over the still form and ran his fingers through the moon-silvered hair. You were only a dark dream of a future that will never be... Then he pressed a soft kiss to the cold lips and cried.

...

Harry's face was still wet with tears when Tom lifted him gently up from the floor in Dumbledore's office a moment later. Tom brushed the tears from his face with warm hands. The next instant, Harry felt another, colder hand tremble against his face as well.

"You did well, my love." Tom's voice was a whisper.

Harry raised his eyes and stared into Tom's face, flushed with beauty and life. The still, pale face of the Dark Lord of Riddle House was still burning in his memory. Harry flung his arms around Tom and clung to him, desperately. "I killed Voldemort," he whispered.

"Of course you did, my child." Voldemort spoke gently, his voice strangely soothing.

"I fired the killing curse at you, just like you once fired the killing curse at me." Harry struggled to keep his voice steady. "And yet, we are both still here... Somehow, we both survived the killing curse..."

The Dark Lord bowed his head gravely. "Yes, Harry. We are still here, you and I."

"Thank you, Elias." Alphard Black spoke softly by his side. His face was pale, but his dark eyes were shining. "May I... may I have the time turner back now? There are some people I am anxious to see."

"Yes, of course." Harry handed the time turner to Alphard. "Let me know how... how everything turns out, will you?"

Alphard nodded silently and walked to the door.

Dumbledore glanced up from his work for a moment. "Have a good night, Mr. Black."

"Good night, Professor. Thank you for lending us the Pensieve."

Dumbledore smiled. "Any time, Mr. Black. Oh, and if it's not too much trouble, would you mind lending me that little device you have there some time? It occurs to me that there are a few things I should take care of as well."

"Of course, Professor." Alphard glanced curiously at him, but Dumbledore was already immersed in his work again.

Alphard left, and Harry sank wearily down into one of Dumbledore's chairs. His mind was still swirling. Tom sat down on the floor in front of him and rested his head in Harry's lap, and Harry ran his fingers again and again through the soft curls. Dumbledore glanced up with a little smile, but made no comment.

"I wonder if Alphard will find Regulus alive in the future," Harry whispered.

Dumbledore peered at Harry over his half-moon spectacles. "Oh, I dare say he will, Harry." The future headmaster got up from his desk and poked at the little heap of ashes left at the bottom of Fawkes' cage. Something stirred in response, and a moment after, a bedraggled little head poked out of the ashes. Dumbledore stroked the tiny bird with a gentle finger and chuckled as the fledgling leaned into his touch. "See, he recognizes me; he always does." The scrawny little bird climbed gingerly onto his hand. "Oh, yes, Harry, I think Alphard will find the future full of unexpected wonders. But what exactly he will encounter in the future is difficult to predict."

"My parents?" Harry closed his eyes for a moment and tried to imagine them there, in the future, alive and well. "And Sirius Black? I expect Sirius will still be best friends with my father. They will laugh and tease each other, and my mother will smile and shake her head at them..." The warmth of the thought began to dispel some of the chill of Little Hangleton from his heart.

"What about you, then, Harry?" Tom lifted his head, and his silver eyes met Harry's. "I expect you will want to stay with them in the future, won't you? What about you and me?"

Harry, startled, realized that he had never really considered himself back in a restored future, living with his parents. "I never thought about that, Tom. Will we live in the future, you and I, or will we stay here? I don't know yet. I will want to see my parents often, of course, and get to know them, but I belong with you."

"Perhaps," said Voldemort quietly, "you will find that there is another Harry in the future, already living with you parents?"

"Oh." Harry felt dizzy. "Perhaps there will be-? What a strange thought! Another me, another Harry Potter, who grew up loved by his parents and his godfather, in a world without a Dark Lord?" He thought for a moment. "But this... this other Harry, he won't really be me, though? He won't have my memories - or will he?"

Tom kissed him gently on the lips. "Perhaps he will have strange dreams of a shadowy Dark Lord he has never seen. And perhaps he will feel a curious longing stirring in his heart, although he will never know why..."

Harry shook his head in confusion. "But I still don't understand how any of this is possible, Tom. What made me travel back in time and fall in love with you in the first place? I found an enchanted memory, but it turned out to be my own recollection, my own memory of things I had never experienced yet. What caused me to remember events that had never happened?"

Kind, blue eyes glittered behind Dumbledore's spectacles. The future headmaster of Hogwarts put his quill down for a moment and beamed at his three guests. "Excellent questions, Harry! What made you remember loving Tom before you did? Perhaps the same force that will make the unscarred Harry of the future dream of a Dark Lord who does not exist in his world... The heart knows no reason. But our hearts have wisdom of their own; sometimes they can sense truths that are beyond what our reason can comprehend." He stroked Fawkes' head softly, and the little bird fluted happily in response. "Which came first, the phoenix, or the flame? The question has no meaning, Harry, for the phoenix and the flame are one, eternally bound together. Just like you and Tom..."

Harry rubbed his forehead wearily. "Perhaps my friend Hermione was right about wizards who meddle with time... Wait, Alphard said that, too, didn't he? I wonder if she will hear it from him? No, that can't be; she said that long before I ever met Alphard..." He could feel a headache coming on.

"Come, Harry." Tom took his hand gently. "It is getting very late. You need to rest now. We should go and leave Professor Dumbledore to his work. We have taken up a great deal of your time already, Professor."

"Ah, yes. I do have a few matters to attend to." Dumbledore smiled genially at them.

Harry, Tom and Voldemort walked in silence along the deserted corridors. It was getting very late indeed, and they saw no one except the shimmering pearly shape of Nearly Headless Nick, who gave Voldemort a quizzical glance.

"Ah, Nearly Headless Nick, still as indeterminate as ever, I see?" Voldemort's dark grey eyes glittered. "What a peculiar malady you suffer, from, sir: Near headlessness! I've always wondered how someone can be nearly headless. One would think that headlessness is more clear-cut; one is usually either headless or not."

Sir Nicholas hovered before them in the air for a moment, regarding the three of them with a curious expression on his insubstantial features. Then he emitted a strange little breathy chuckle. "I hardly think you are in any position to be lecturing me about paradoxes, sir!"

Voldemort smiled. "Perhaps not," he said softly.

When they arrived at Tom's door in the teachers' wing, Voldemort paused. "Good night, my sweet assassin." He lips brushed Harry's scar lightly. "It has been a pleasure, my dear. Perhaps we shall meet again one day."

"You are leaving?" Tom looked at him in surprise. "But... But there is still so much I don't understand about you. About me. About us... "

Voldemort smiled slightly. "I think it's best this way, Tom. For you. And for Harry. I will go back to Horace's quarters for tonight, but I will leave in the morning. I think Mr. Gaunt's visit is over. I have assured myself that my ward - that my soul - is in the best of hands."

Harry reached out hesitantly and brushed the rough black cloak. "I think I will miss you."

"Will you?" Voldemort regarded him thoughtfully, his dark grey eyes inscrutable. "But you've got me right here, my dear. The true Tom Riddle, more whole and untarnished that the man he later became. Tom is me, Harry. Or very nearly me, as our noble spectral friend would no doubt have put it."

Tom looked at Voldemort for a long moment. Then he whispered: "You are me, after all, aren't you?" After a slight hesitation, he added softly: "Well, since it's your last night here, Mr. Gaunt, I feel that it would be too cruel to send you back to Horace's. Especially since we don't know where that last vial of amortentia went... Merlin knows Voldemort has been through enough for one night. You are welcome to stay in my quarters for tonight."

...

Voldemort looked around Tom's spacious quarters with a slight smile. "Ah, very nice! You have done well for yourself, Professor Riddle!" His glance swept over the large black four-poster bed with its silver sheets and the bookcases filled with antique books, and he brushed the spines of a few of the volumes of the shelf with a pale hand. "Les Fleurs du Mal? I remember this. Hm, perhaps you had better stick to more wholesome literature, Tom. By the way, do you still have your old diary? The one you kept when you were a student here at Hogwarts?"

Tom hesitated for a moment, then walked over to a dresser and pulled a book out of one of the drawers. "Here you go. My boyhood diary. As you know, I poured my soul into its pages, as so many young people have done." He flung the crumpled old diary into Voldemort's hands.

Voldemort laughed. "But few as thoroughly as you, Tom." He leafed through the pages. "Interesting... So many things I had forgotten... But I recognize this inscription on the flyleaf: I am Lord Voldemort." His glance flickered to Tom, who had grown pale.

"I destroyed that book." Tom and Voldemort both turned at the sound of Harry's voice. "In the Chamber of Secrets. In my second year."

"You did?" Voldemort frowned. "How in Merlin's name did a mere child destroy this book?"

Harry flushed. "With a basilisk fang. I killed the basilisk first."

"Did you, now?" Voldemort looked both puzzled and intrigued.

Tom uttered an oath. "Oh, Merlin, the basilisk! It's still in the chamber, isn't it? I really need to do something about that. I will destroy the basilisk in the morning, and that accursed diary as well."

"Destroy the diary? You are ready to kill your own soul, Tom?" asked Voldemort quietly.

"My soul is right here." Tom wrapped his arms tightly around Harry and kissed him on the forehead.

Voldemort regarded them for a moment, his face impassive. "Are you happy with your life, then, Professor Riddle? Is there no part of you that still longs to be something more?"

Harry glanced uncertainly at Tom, but Tom merely laughed. "Something more-? You are Voldemort, the dread Dark Lord who gave Harry his scar. I am Tom Riddle, Harry's friend and lover. I would never wish to be you." He added softly: "But perhaps there is a part of you that longs to be something more?"

"Something more than the Dark Lord?" Voldemort's lips curled in a slightly ironic smile. "What could be more than that, Tom?"

Tom turned to Harry, a strange glitter in his silver eyes. "Shall we show him, Harry?"

It took Harry a moment to understand. But when Tom took his hand and led him to the four-poster bed, he suddenly flushed. "Tom, you can't be serious..."

"Oh, can't I?" whispered Tom against his lips.

"In front of him?"

"Mmhmmm." Tom's kisses were hard and urgent against his mouth.

Harry glanced uncertainly at Voldemort. The Dark Lord stood immovable, eyes fixed on Harry's face. Was it just Harry's imagination, or did the slightest hint of color brush those pale features now? Harry flushed deeply and returned Tom's kiss. Voldemort's eyes, those dark grey eyes lingering on him... Harry buried his head in Tom's neck and shivered. Tom's breath came faster now, and Harry felt a frantic heartbeat against his chest. Does your heart beat faster under your cloak now as well, my Dark Lord?

Harry and Tom tumbled onto the bed together, tearing at each other's clothes, aflame under the dark inscrutable gaze, fingers brushing over burning skin. Tom undressed Harry slowly, lingeringly, kissing each inch of skin as it emerged from the fabric of his clothes, claiming Harry's flesh with his mouth. Tom's eyes were dark with desire, as dark as Voldemort's, and a hectic color burned in his cheeks. Harry's breath caught in his chest. Tom, beautiful, ravishing Tom... Here, warm in my arms, and there as well, watching in mesmerized silence...

Making love with Tom was always hot and dark and sweet, but being with Tom when Voldemort was watching was beyond belief. Each small sound of pleasure that sprang from their lips magnified that dark and frantic longing Harry sensed pulsing towards them from him, from the other darker Tom. Consumed now, possessed by the yearning in the two pairs of dark grey eyes, beyond reason or shame, Harry tore Tom's clothes off and ran his hands over the warm skin underneath. He turned his head slightly, and his eyes met Voldemort's for a long moment. His hands found Tom's hard shaft, and his touch drew a strangled cry from his lover's lips. Can you feel this too? Are you as hard as Tom under the folds of your dark cloak, I wonder?

"Now, Harry. Now." Tom pushed him frantically down on the silver sheets and covered his limbs with his own. Harry saw Voldemort's eyes widen as Tom whispered the spell; he sensed a dark yearning tugging at him, at them. He cried out incoherently as Tom thrust into him. There was a slight movement across the room, and Harry glanced up and met the Dark Lord's eyes. Harry came undone under that dark gaze; he surrendered himself to Tom's body and Voldemort's eyes. He was falling, flying, swept up in a great black and silver wind, and the black and the silver were one. How can he stand there, so still? No, he won't be able to bear it. Any moment now, he will come over here and press his cold lips against my skin... A moan escaped Harry's lips. But Voldemort never moved or spoke; he simply stood there, silently, his dark eyes fixed on Harry and Tom.

Tom was crying out in pleasure, but Voldemort was silent. But the dark Lord's thoughts were flooding Harry's mind now. He wants me. More than he hungers for power, more than he yearns for immortality. He wants me. He wants us. I can sense his desire, merging with Tom's, becoming one with Tom's...

*I love you, Tom.* Harry's incoherent cry in Parseltongue finally drew a soft moan from across the room. A moment after, Tom and Harry both came, in a rush of serpentine whispers and cries. "My love..." Tom pressed a breathless kiss against his forehead.

A slight rustle now, like the movement of a cloak. Harry gazed up and saw dark eyes, quite near now. He reached out and felt rough fabric against his hand.

"You had better take your cloak off," he whispered.

Voldemort's eyes were black against the pallor of his face. "Lord Voldemort never undresses in front of anyone, my lovely assassin."

Harry and Tom glanced at each other for a brief moment. Then they both reached out and pulled the dark-clad figure down on the bed.

"In that case," breathed Harry against the pallid cheek, "you will no longer be Lord Voldemort."