The Matchmaker

TanninTele

Disclaimer: All rights belong to J.K. Rowling, voiding that of original content and characters.

V:

The Breakthrough

"They're not coming, are they?" Harry's voice broke through the silence, like a butterfly breaking through a chrysalis. His tone was soft, almost resigned.

Tom jerked awake from his dazed sleep. He was fatigued, lethargic. It was hard to keep his eyes open. "Who?"

"The police. Someone. Anyone." Harry shifted, turning stiffly to face Tom. "It's been too long."

"It's not - " Tom's hand twitched toward Harry's phone, a familiar urge to check the time, but the device had died long ago. "We can't be certain they're not coming for us right now."

"But that's just it, isn't it? What if they don't even know we're missing. What if whoever buried us here has changed their mind? Or - or forgotten," his tone pitched with distress. "What if by the time they clue in the police, it's already too late? We can breathe fine, certainly, but - "

"You're panicking," Tom told him, deadpan. "Stop."

"I'm just trying to be practical," he defended. "We can last quite a while without food, but we need water. Dehydration is a slow torture."

Sighing, Tom pinched the arch of his nose. He tried to sound reassuring. "There's a time frame, Harry. The Matchmaker never lets his victims go more than a day underground. He's not a killer - he's - "

"Already killed someone already, hasn't he?" Harry licked his bottom lip. It trembled, as though he was on the verge of tears before he caught it between his front teeth.

"Inadvertently, perhaps," Tom admitted. "But Grindelwald was the one to smother Dumbledore, not the Matchmaker."

"They wouldn't have been in that situation if not for the Matchmaker, right?" Harry pressured, almost insistent.

Tom hesitated. "Perhaps not - but in the end, the Matchmaker helped us. He gave us the recording to prove Grindelwald was a murderer; it tipped the scale, allowing Grindelwald to be prosecuted. I've personally watched our interrogation with him over and over, he wasn't going to admit to a damn thing until we brought in that solid evidence. Without the Matchmaker . . . " Tom blinked, before scowling. "Damn."

"What?"

"I find myself . . . sympathizing with the Matchmaker." He paused. "That nap I was taking, just then? It was dreamless. That hasn't happened to me for a long time. Things must be more dire than I thought."

Harry was quiet. "It's been hours. That's a lot of time to feel quite intimate with the Matchmaker."

"Intimacy," Tom echoed. "Intimacy."

His blue eyes flooded with sudden and rapid realization.

"That's it! That's - ow." Tom's head had snapped up, colliding with the lid. The pain that ruptured through his scalp only woke him further. Everything was suddenly quite clear, although they were bathed in darkness.

Harry's mouth parted in concern. "Are you alright?"

Tom rubbed the sore spot absently. "I'm fine. It's just - that's the trigger. His motivator. Intimacy."

"A . . . trigger?" Harry glanced around, as if for a bomb or a gun.

"The magic words!" Tom nodded, urgent. He grabbed Harry by the sleeve. "Emotional intimacy. Our profile of the Matchmaker says he - or she - is emotionally touch-starved. 'In the closet', as it were, searching for love, watching others succeed, but unable to do so for themselves. We suspect impotency," he flapped a hand. Harry made an affronted noise. "So, instead, they live vicariously through their matches."

"Tom," Harry interrupted. "That's very astute and all, but how does that help us?"

Tom faltered. Reality seemed to snap back into place. He slumped back down, defeated. "It doesn't. Not without a recording device."

"But . . . just because we couldn't find one, doesn't mean there isn't one," Harry pointed out, encouraging. "You were on a roll there. Come on. Continue. Amuse me."

". . . well," Tom hesitated. "The Matchmaker is the romantic sort, you see. Nearly all the couples who left the coffin are now in a romantic or otherwise close relationship. They formed a bond while buried, and studies show that if you expose yourself to a person long enough - if you disclose enough personal information - you start to empathize with them. Gain an attraction. Mutual vulnerability fosters closeness," he quoted, lips tugging into a frown. He wasn't big on vulnerability, nor revealing his life story to an almost stranger.

Harry was considering it, wrapping his brain around the concept. "If the Matchmaker was truly watching us somehow, listening in, they would hear us admit things to one another and . . . let us out?"

"The magic words," Tom agreed.

"I mean - if we're going to be trapped down here for a while, it wouldn't hurt to distract one another," Harry latched onto the idea, and Tom could hear the desperateness in his tone. Tom was doubtful. They'd already tried opening up a line of conversation; but as soon as he turned the questions onto Tom, the man shut down.

"Be my guest," Tom granted. "I doubt it'll work."

Harry huffed. "I suppose I'll begin, then, since you're the equivalent of an emotional iceberg?"

"Yes, and you have the intellectual capacity of a toddler," he snapped back. "Over-emotional and annoying to a fault."

Offended, Harry's mouth fell open. "If you're going to be an arse about it," he hissed. "I suppose we'll just stay trapped down here, then -"

"Fine! Fine, just do it," Tom forced out, his teeth gritted. His head pounded like it was about to crack open. He closed his eyes, massaging his temples fervently.

Harry was stubbornly silent for several long minutes. Forcing himself to meet the boy's eyes, Tom softened. "I apologize. Just - please."

Unbidden, a dry, almost hysterical laugh broke from Harry's throat. The floodgates had opened. "Do you want to know what I'm most upset about? Not - not just the fact I'm spending my last few hours alive with a complete and utter toe-rag." Tom bit his tongue to keep from retaliating. "I mean - I'm sorry, that was rude," Harry took in a sharp breath, eyes fluttering shut. "Do you want to know my biggest regret?"

Tom could think of many things. He's been in this line of work long enough to hear criminals on death row reminisce about their regrets and dashed hopes. Harry, however, was no criminal; he was a civilian, and likely had a number of trivial regrets. Tom prepared himself for the worst. A failed relationship, a life's dream set aside -

"Dying a virgin."

The words took a moment to register.

"V - virgin?" Tom repeated, appalled. "Really?" Warmth radiated from Harry's cheeks. Tom quickly cleared his throat. "I mean, you're - what, twenty-something?"

Harry covered his embarrassment with glibness. "A lady never reveals her age."

"Right," Tom let out a disbelieving noise. "So? What's the deal, then?"

He swallowed, Adam's Apple rising. "I - um. I came from a very conservative household," he said, shy. Tom noted he didn't say 'family'. "And if anyone in my town or school knew I was queer, I'd have been treated like a pariah," his words darkened. "Bad enough I was skinny and so unkempt I resembled a delinquent - if they thought I was a faggot, I'd have been . . . " Harry shuddered. "It wouldn't have been good."

"But what about now? You're young, relatively charming, and not - not ugly."

Harry side-eyed him. "Glowing compliment from you, I'm sure." He moved awkwardly, turning to face Tom. His slim shoulder brushed the coffin lid, collar slipping aside to reveal a pale, bird-like collarbone and the sharp mound of his Adam's Apple. "I suppose no one really . . . I mean, I've never made that connection with anyone," he confessed. "I always thought - well. My parents loved each other so dearly, they died trying to protect the other."

Tom could detect a sharp, bitter undertone.

The boy took in another breath, forcing back the tears that seemed constantly on the verge of spilling over. "I want a love like that. Not deadly," His eyes became glazed, like chipped shards of an emerald. "But a love that transcends life and death."

Tom's lips twitched. "Most people would simply say they want someone tall, or with nice breasts, or - "

"Sorry," Harry released a breathy laugh. "I know it's rather high standards. I just - I see others around me falling in and out of love so quickly, I wonder how their hearts can handle all that pain. Constantly breaking, never healing all the way. My heart hasn't been broken yet, and I hope it never does," he said grimly. "I – I have a friend, Ginny, who lived right next door to her 'one true love' her entire life. They've been friends forever, but when they began school, my friend fancied herself the other's 'protector'. Ginny got jealous so easily. She would arrange 'incidents' where she was the only one Luna could rely on. A shoulder to cry on. Like - " Harry rolled his head back, trying to think of an example. "Luna was bullied rather mercilessly by the other girls. Sometimes, her clothes and shoes were stolen and thrown over poles or phone lines. She would have to borrow Ginny's clothes, and I suppose Ginny liked the whole . . . marking your territory aspect of it."

Tom made a disgusted noise, and Harry tended to agree. "I caught her - my friend - burning some of Luna's clothes. Hiding them in places Luna would never look. She was the bully, the whole time."

"That's awful," Tom grimaced. "Not to mention twisted. And they're together?"

"I'm not actually certain," Harry admitted. "They're on and off. They love each other, certainly, but . . . it's a toxic sort of love. The thing is, love shouldn't be like that," he shook his head, black curls bouncing and tangling with splinters of wood. "It should be a partnership of equals - my friend never understood that." He sounded pained.

"Perhaps that's what the Matchmaker wants," Tom mused, fingers curling unconsciously around the hem of Harry's shirt. "To make his couples flirt with death, liberating them of their sins through rebirth. They return to life hand-in-hand, as two parts of a whole," his gaze flickered at Harry. The boy's eyes were wide. Disbelieving. (Dare he hope it, smitten.) "Sharing an experience so profound that no one else could ever understand. Forging a true, unbreakable connection . . . "

They were so close, breathing in the same air. Tom's gaze began to drift down to Harry's pink, bitten lips.

" - Forging a connection," he continued. "You'd have to be dead not to notice."

The words echoed. They almost reverberated, loud in the coffin's silence.

Tom winced. "I sound like a nutter, don't I?"

Harry sucked in a quick breath and forced a stiff smile. "No. Not - not at all." His head twitched in an almost sad shake. "We've been down here a while, Tom," he whispered. "I was thinking it too. And I always did my best thinking while trapped in a space no larger than a cupboard under the stairs."

Tom blinked at the highly specific analogy. Harry seemed to recognize the confusion, biting his lip again.

"Let's just say this isn't my first time under duress. My claustrophobia isn't irrational."

"Tell me," Tom urged. "Please."

Harry, after a moment, indulged him. "My relatives, who took me in after my parent's death, used to lock me away when I did something they . . . didn't approve of. I had to make no noise and pretend I didn't exist," the words came like a mantra. His voice was thick with disgust and self-loathing. "All I had to entertain myself was an old, musty Bible and some broken toy soldiers. I made friends with the spiders and pretended they were the reincarnated spirits of my parents, reading to me before bed."

"What did they read?" Tom said gingerly. He watched the path of a tear trail down Harry's cheek.

"They'd . . . they'd read about love, loss and tragedy. Fighting for what you believe in. 'Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. James, 1:12," Harry recited, words dripping with derision. "My father's name was James. I suppose you could say he and my mother stood the test, as it were. They died during a burglary-turned homicide when I was just a baby. I have nightmares of them pleading for each other's lives. Begging for me to live."

'Lily . . . I'll hold him off . . . Take me, not him! James! Please, have mercy . . . I'll do anything.'.

"They stood the test, but were . . . rejected the gift of living," he spat, breathing heavy. "If there is a God, he's a sick bastard. The Matchmaker, too," Harry added, almost an afterthought. His tone was bitter. "He must be deluding himself with some God complex. His intentions might be good, but still just as sick to the core." Harry choked on the words, lifting a trembling hand to his cheeks, wet tears staining his sleeve. "At least if we die down here, the company will have been worth it."

A backhanded compliment, if Tom ever heard one. But there were certainly worse people to be trapped in a coffin with than an attractive, relatively quick-witted, although horrifically damaged man like Harry.

Tom glared at the lid, cursing his pounding heart and fighting the urge to comfort the not-so stranger before him.

"We're not going to die down here, Harry. I promise," he said darkly. Green eyes met his. "Don't you worry."

Tonks tapped her pen anxiously against the desktop, a persistent, unrelenting beat.

She swiped her tongue across her front teeth, tasting coffee. "I'm sorry sir, you cannot file a missing person's report until twenty-four hours after the fact. I'm certain your daughter will turn up," Tonks said to the anxious man on the phone. "Yessir, yes," she sighed, pulling a pad of paper toward her. "I will do everything in my capability to find her. Come in today with a recent photo and a description and - "

The door burst open. Tonks nearly dropped the phone. "Where's Kingsley? We just got radioed," Diggle rushed through the precinct, water droplets flying off his uniform. It was lightly raining outside, a roll of thunder on the horizon.

Kingsley, who had been standing by the coffee machine, glanced up.

His eyes were bloodshot and his uniform in disarray. Tonks wondered vaguely where his tie had gotten up to. "What is it, Diggle?"

"A trucker spotted two men outside of the Forest of Dean," Diggle panted. "One of them is claiming to be Detective Chief Inspector Riddle. He says he was abducted by the Matchmaker."

The precinct was silent, struggling to grasp at the implication. It took only a moment for them to burst into action.

Tonks' finger crept toward the phone's switch hook. "I'll have to refer you to the Missing Person's unit, Mister Lovegood," she said softly. "Yes, yes. Good day." She hung up just as Diggle finished debriefing.

" - they're alright, only mildly wounded, but - "

Kingsley swore, dropping his cup into the trash. "Still, the Forest of Dean is two hours out. Get an EMT to their location stat and somebody – Tonks – call Tom's mother. Tell her Tom has been found, and he's safe, but don't you dare reveal any more. This information isn't leaving this precinct, am I clear?" Tonks blinked at him. "Am I clear?

"Oh, yes sir!"

Kingsley scrubbed his face, letting out a raspy sigh, before disappearing into his office.

Tonks was not looking forward to contacting the Riddle-Gaunt matriarch. From what she's heard at the water cooler, Merope was quite the force to be reckoned with. Even in a wheelchair.

Flicking back a strand of brown hair, the tips dyed a conservative pale pink, Tonks dialed Tom's emergency contact.

The phone rang for a good minute before the line clicked. Tonks cleared her throat. "Ms. Gaunt?" Her fingers curled around the pen, ready to tap again.

"No, dear, this is Madam Pomfrey," a woman said, her tone warm. She reminded Tonks of her mother, all fresh-baked pies and soft hugs. Tonks immediately felt herself relax. "I'm Ms. Gaunt's nurse. Who is this? Is this one of Tom's little friends?"

'Little friends', Tonks mouthed, astonished. God, the sheer intel she could get from this woman, all of Tom's embarrassing secrets - maybe even a baby photo that Tonks could photocopy and plaster across the locker room. Tonks shook herself. Priorities. "Uh - yes. I'm one of his coworkers; Officer Tonks." There was a rustle.

"Officer?" Pomfrey said, suddenly on alert. "Something's happened, hasn't it?"

"It's alright, ma'am," Tonks soothed, leaning forward in her chair. "Detective Sergeant Shacklebolt wanted me to inform you that Tom has been found - he's alive. Safe. Wounded, but only mildly," she admitted.

"Where was that boy? Oh, Merope - Tom's alright!" Pomfrey pulled back from the receiver. She repeated herself, tearful. "We want to know, where was he?"

"He was found outside the Forest of Dean with another man - we suspect they were victims of the Matchmaker, but that's only speculation, " Tonks hurried to assure as the woman's breath caught. "He's fine. Absolutely fine."

It was a lie. She didn't know for certain, but if she knew Tom, he was a tough son of a bitch.

"That 'bitch' happens to be my charge, Officer Tonks," Pomfrey said, strained.

Tonks flushed. "I - er," she stumbled over the words. "I didn't mean to say that out loud. But honestly - we'll take care of him, ma'am."

"I'll make sure to tell Merope that," Pomfrey bit out. "Damn woman keeps trying to snatch the phone from me," she mumbled. "Down, girl."

Tonks choked back a laugh. Her eyes darted up as Kingsley darted through, his uniform buttoned and a taser strapped to his waist. She placed a hand over the receiver. "What's that for?" She nodded at his belt "Think the Matchmaker's still out there?"

"No," Kingsley said, grim. "The Matchmaker is long gone. If it even was him."

Tonks sat straight, quickly muttering a goodbye to Madam Pomfrey. "What do you mean, if it was him?"

"I mean," Kingsley snatched a police hat off a hook and plopped it onto his bald head. "Tom and his match dug their way out, according to Diggle. That shouldn't have been an option. The Matchmaker should've tipped us off by now, so either he's getting brazen, bored or careless. Either way," He zipped up his jacket. "Copycat or the real deal, we're nipping this in the bud. Find out everything you can about 'Harry Potter'," he said, lips curling. "The other victim. The sooner we figure out his and Tom's 'connection', the sooner we can trace the Matchmaker to them."

Dutifully, Tonks jotted down the name. She blinked down at it. "Wait - no," Tonks stood abruptly. She bumped her desk, pencil cup rattling. "I'm coming with you."

"You aren't," Kingsley said sternly. "I want my best man on this - woman, that is. As for the rest of you, I want all hands on deck! Drudge out all the interview tapes, Grindelwald's interrogation, evidence bags - the works. I don't care how you all feel about our esteemed Detective Chief," Kingsley whirled around, barking at his moaning subordinates.

"That was one of our men buried alive for a whole fucking day, while we were in here safe and cozy, dicking around. We failed him, but the Matchmaker made a mistake messing with the DLE," he said, furious. "And we're gonna get that cowardly bitch behind bars for it, am I right?"

There was a long, pregnant pause. His coworkers glanced at each other dubiously. Someone let out a slight cough.

Tonks, eyes glinting, let out a whoop. She moved around her desk to slap Kingsley on the back. "Give 'em hell for us, Kings," she said, pushing him toward the door. "And give Tommy our love."

To be continued . . .