A/N: Sorry for the delay you guys! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed!
The discovery that the Philosopher's Stone was somehow inside of Harry's mind was one of the bigger ones of Harry's life. He would acknowledge the largeness of this event well into his adulthood, but he was far from an adult, and as an eleven year old, he didn't much care. Which is probably why he was always so irritated with Tom and Evan lately, who seemed to do nothing but talk about what to do with the stone.
"We need to hand it over to The Dark Lord. Plain and simple," Evan would argue, and Harry would agree.
"But we don't even know how it got in here, much less how to get it out," Tom would insist, and Harry would agree with that as well.
It seemed that their debates were just increasingly wordy paraphrases of these basic two arguments, and Harry was growing bored of it all.
"It's the first day of summer break, can't you two think of something better to go on about?" He asked, interrupting one of their seemingly infinite disagreements over the stone. As it was, they both agreed that it was best for Harry to keep it somewhere hidden from both of them until they arrived at a sensible conclusion. He had done so, and considered the stone perfectly safe inside of his hidey hole, and was therefore done being troubled over its existence.
Evan seemed surprised by his statement that it was the first day of summer, and his eyes widened slightly.
"We've gotta plant the watch back onto Draco before he gets on the train!" He exclaimed, and Harry groaned.
"You're leaving again?" He whined, frowning up at Evan.
"Act your age, Harry." Tom chided, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in a stress-filled motion.
Harry rolled his eyes and ignored his mentor, "When are you coming back?"
"I'll leave the pocket watch on the platform for you again. You'll step into it as soon as you walk through. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to pop into the head of the sweet girl you're about to conveniently bump into,"
Evan was gone with a soft pop, and Harry sighed.
Tom looked down at him with a slight grimace on his face. He seemed to be in a pretty rotten mood.
"Why do you think Dumbledore told me that he and Flamel are destroying the stone if it's really in here?"
Tom sighed, and collapsed onto the couch. "If it's missing, he probably thinks Voldemort has it, and doesn't want to burden you with the news that you failed."
Harry nodded. That seemed like a very Dumbledore-ish thing to do.
"I'm going to miss Hermione and Ron over the summer. I hope they write."
"The mudblood and the blood-traitor?" Harry wondered why it was that every time he said 'Hermione and Ron' one of his head's inhabitants felt the need to clarify that he was, indeed, talking about 'the mudblood and the blood-traitor.'
"My friends," Harry responded, "Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley. My best friends."
"They don't even know you," Tom scoffed.
"You know, just because you're in a horrible mood for whatever reason doesn't mean you have to be a complete tosser about everything!"
Tom stared evenly at him, his red eyes cutting cruelly into Harry's green. Harry was almost relieved by the violent gaze. Something about the harshness seemed natural. As if, at last, he was seeing Tom's eyes the way they were supposed to look. He found them strangely alluring this way.
"You're a horrible person, aren't you, Tom Gaunt?"
Tom sneered, and Harry smiled, leaning in close and cupping his face softly.
"You're a beautiful, horrible, frightening human being… aren't you?"
Tom's eyes didn't soften under Harry's inquisitive scrutiny, which only made Harry's smile broaden. He knew very little about his friend and teacher, but every single new thing he discovered fascinated him. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was all a façade, and even that was an interesting tidbit of information in and of itself. He never doubted for a second that Tom was an evil man, but seeing him be so openly mean was rare and exciting. Harry decided then that perhaps he shouldn't always try so hard not to upset the man.
Even so, a subject change seemed appropriate.
"Do you think this'll be a regular thing, then? Evan leaving each summer and going off with the Malfoys?"
"I don't see why not," Tom responded coldly, "After all he's remotely useless to have around here. I prefer him gone if given the choice."
Harry snorted and rolled his eyes. The truth, was that Tom couldn't stand the sight of Evan ever since their little run-in with Voldemort. It had ignited a strange rebellion in the curly haired man that obviously sent Harry's red-eyed companion on edge. Tom liked his words to be taken as direct commands, not suggestions, and Evan was quickly losing respect for that.
"How do you think the Dark Lord feels about it?" Harry asked, even though he was starting to get the sense that he was somewhat forcing Tom to entertain him, rather than having an amicable conversation with the man.
"How do I think he feels about what?" Tom inquired, voice dripping with boredom and the clear insinuation that he had something better to do than muse over the Dark Lord's feelings. Later in life, Harry would find great amusement over this, especially once he discovered that Voldemort himself also considered musing over his emotions to be a complete waste of prized time.
"Well about Evan and Lucius, of course! Surely, I'm not the only one who noticed they've got a bit of a thinggoing on."
"They're lovers." Tom said plainly.
"Yes, but how does the Dark Lord feel about that? I kind of get the impression that he beds a lot of his followers. Do you think he cares about them messing around with each other?"
Harry felt very mature being eleven years old and having this conversation with a real non-virginal adult, but he tried to hide it by making things appear overly casual. Tom took it as cocky and found it annoying but restrained himself enough not to react.
"Harry are you trying to imply that Lord Voldemort is a slut?" He asked frankly.
Harry blushed to his neck, ashamed that Tom would take his words to mean such a thing. "No. No, no. Of course not! It's just that – well – erm. Evan is very, uh, open about him having slept with the Dark Lord… and I'd always just kind of figured that the reason you guys are arguing so much lately is – well…"
"Let me get this straight," Tom said, cracking a small grin for the first time that day "You think I'm having a petty little pissing contest with Evan Rosier, and you think that the motive for this pointless rivalry is rooted from us both having fucked Voldemort."
"Well… yeah. Yeah, I do. Am I right?"
Tom laughed outright, shaking his head all the while. "Harry, I have never and will never let the Dark Lord's sex life to mean anything to me, nor have I cared a single bit about any person that he has bedded. And please, please trust me when I tell you this – I'm quite certain that he doesn't care either."
"Oh joy," Harry chided sarcastically, "If you and Voldemort had to have one thing in common it would be the only emotion that even feels remotely honest coming from you."
"What emotion is that?" Tom asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Apathy." Harry deadpanned, "Brutal, complete, and relentless apathy. "
"Do you find me to be apathetic?" Tom asked, frowning in confusion. Harry supposed he would be confused, seeing as Tom went through a great deal to display regular human emotions – especially the sweet ones. Harry knew they were all lies though. If there was one thing that he was certain Tom Gaunt felt for him it was, well, nothing.
"Yes," He answered, truthfully, "The more you toy with me the more clearly I see just how much this is all a game to you. I don't know what you're playing for, or whether or not you care how this all ends, but if there's one thing that's clear to me it's that you don't care one single bit about me. It's … overwhelming, sometimes. How much you don't care about whether or not I live or die, or if I'm happy or sad. My well-being means nothing to you at all, and yet you look after me in a way so much more thorough than Evan does; so I have to assume that I have some part to play in whatever you're up to, and I care for you too much to pull away."
Tom went silent then, thinking, and nodded slowly. Harry was glad that the man showed enough respect for him not to argue.
"It's a sweet illusion though, isn't it? Are you content with my compassion, even in its falsehood?"
Harry snorted and shook his head fondly, looking at Tom with laughing eyes. "It all fits really, doesn't it? How many times has Evan foreseen that you and I end up together? Ten? Twenty?"
Tom did not see fit that in truth Evan had foreseen their union a great many more times than that. Harry had not yet put together that when Evan mentioned Harry being with 'Tom' it was the same as when he mentioned Harry being with 'The Voldemort inside his head'.
"He has foreseen it," Tom agreed, "What does that have to do with anything?"
Harry winked, "Well lies are for lovers, aren't they?"
Tom chuckled, rising and kissing the child on the cheek. "So they are." He approved, before walking into his cupboard and shutting the door behind him.
XxBxExLxOxVxExDxX
"This was a horrible idea," Lucius Malfoy murmured, lowly enough that only the man standing beside him could hear, "You knew he'd be here, and I've told you a hundred times that the damn eye can see through everything!"
The muscular brown skinned man beside Lucius gave a tolerant upturn of the lips and took another sip of his faerie wine.
"He's making his way over here. We should leave," Lucius suggested frantically, although his head was held so regally high that anyone would have thought he was complaining about a foul smell. In fact, he looked rather as if he had smelled something gruesome, but most of the ministry workers in attendance assumed it to be some sort of standard pureblood posture. The man standing beside Lucius knew it to be born from fear, but still found it amusing for the Malfoy to manage looking down his nose at people that were taller than him.
"Mr. Malfoy!" A third man greeted, having successfully hobbled over to them. He stuck out a somewhat meaty hand for the Malfoy patriarch to shake, and the blond did so with much resentment, plastering a falsely tolerant upturn of the lips onto his face.
"Auror Moody," He greeted in turn, "I would say that your retirement becomes you, but honestly your aesthetic remains entirely unchanged."
Moody gave a good-natured laugh, refusing to take the words as an insult and give Lucius the satisfaction of ruffling his feathers.
"I don't believe I've met your friend, Lucius." He said chattily, holding his hand out again to the other man.
"Mr. Malfoy, Auror, if it isn't too much to ask. This is Drodium Shafiq, a very old friend of mine. He's here in London assisting Mrs. Zabini with renovations of one of her husband's flats, and I was trying to persuade him into taking a look at my manor in Wiltshire."
Moody raised what was left of his eyebrows and smiled cordially, "Oh? Well who knows what's more surprising, one of the is Shafiq's back in Britain, Mrs. Zabini has acquired another husband, and the famous Malfoy Manor is in need of renovation. I'll admit one thing about you, Mr. Malfoy, you always seem to have new information."
The brown skinned man grinned, in a way that he hoped was not too cold, "Well let's agree to this, gentlemen, if there's one thing to not be surprised by, it's Mrs. Zabini's new husband."
Lucius tried to laugh to diffuse the tension that he could feel building between the two men. "Yes, you're right on the nose with that one, Drodium."
"Oh I'm right on the nose with quite a lot of things, aren't I?" Drodium asked, looking pointedly at Moody's nose and trying not to make a face that was in any way maniacal.
"How is your wife doing?" Moody asked, changing the subject and turning to Lucius out of manners although both men noticed that his magical eyes was – as it had been all evening – glued to Drodium.
"She's wonderful, thank you for asking." Lucius responded evenly, "Unable to be parted from our son, who has just returned from his first year at Hogwarts. I'm afraid that when she realized he was too young to accompany us to this event, her heart could not bear the separation. She's asked me to apologize for her lack of attendance."
"Oh, no need for apologies. Just tell her I asked about her, will you? I imagine she must get lonely without her sister, I remember they were very close in school."
Lucius sneered, and Drodium clapped a hand onto his shoulder, although the hand was shaking slightly with rage that he was expertly containing.
"My dear friend, I have just decided that I will let you persuade me into spending some time with you in Wiltshire. After all, I am quite exhausted and fairly sure that Mrs. Zabini is not yet ready to let such a lovely evening end."
Lucius took a glance over to the dance floor, where Mrs. Zabini was, indeed, waltzing merrily with Ebwyn Rowle, who was, almost surely, her next intended victim. After all, she'd been just as open to this 'flat in London' cover story for Drodium as Lucius had. If people thought a fresh new face was in town to fix up her husband's flat, perhaps it would take them a moment longer to consider that her husband had been quite socially absent for nearly a month.
"Of course, go and give the lady your condolences now and we'll be on our way." Lucius agreed, and watched closely as Drodium set down his wine and stepped over to where they were dancing.
"I don't know what you're playing at, Malfoy." Moody hissed as soon as Drodium walked away, "But you know as well as I that necromancy is illegal. Lucky for you – It's also a completely lost magic that I doubt you managed to perform, so I'm not going to have you arrested, as I am still rather confused about the details of what's been done. I don't know if the poor bloke can tell that someone raised him from the dead or not – but I'll tell you one thing, if he sets a single toe out of line in this life, I'll kill the bastard. Again."
Lucius cleared his throat in a way that managed to sound haughty even though it was a nervous habit.
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," He tried, and almost laughed at the way Moody glared with the one eye that was looking him in the face.
"Yeah well I'm sure you knew better than to walk Evan bloody Rosier into a Ministry ball without me talking about something."
Lucius shook his head fondly, "Naturally. Although, I'm sure that if Evan bloody Rosier rose from the dead, the first thing he'd do would be to be put to trial for the crime that he was murdered for without conviction, don't you?"
"I'm retired, Lucius. And half these people think I'm insane without you holding a trial just to taint my reputation. We both know they won't send me to Azkaban and that Rosier has more to lose by revealing himself as alive than I have to lose by him revealing the nature of his death. You're smart men, both of you. Think about the consequences of your actions before you go throwing around threats that sound heavier than they actually weigh."
At this point Drodium returned, and Lucius put on an unauthentic expression of contentment, pulling out the portkey that would take them back to Malfoy Manor.
"Well Mr. Shafiq, Mr. Moody, this is a fun chat we've been having, and I'll not forget it any time soon." Lucius said, more for the benefit of the waiter walking by than for either of the men he was supposedly speaking to.
"Well Mr. Malfoy, I'm certainly glad that conversations like this are a new way you've found to get your entertainment. I was much disappointed by some of your former hobbies. Same goes for you, Mr. Rosier. And a good evening to you both."
Moody had just enough time to see the shock splay across the face of 'Drodium Shafiq' for a single moment before the portkey took them both away.
When they reached the Manor, Lucius stared harshly at his companion for the entire three minutes it took for his skin to bubble and melt back to how it should be.
"I told you that was a bad idea. I told you that was a bad idea!" He shouted, once he was looking at Evan's face instead of Drodium Shafiq's.
"We got what we needed, didn't we?" Evan asked, reaching into the pocket of his now much too big dress robes and pulling out several shrunken books, "Everything the ministry has on mind magic, transferring solid objects into the psyche, and the philosopher's stone. I'd say this is a pretty valuable haul, even if Moody did recognize me."
Lucius sighed, "Did you get into the Department of Mysteries, or was it too little time?"
"Didn't you just hear me say everything the ministry has?" Evan retorted sassily, "I'll have you know that two of Mrs. Zabini's ex-husbands were unspeakables, and despite the job title, we do know that our dear lady has a certain talent for getting her beaux to speak."
Moving past their success and back onto their failure, Lucius frowned, "Shafiq was way too conspicuous, Evan. You should have just chosen a half-blood name."
Evan looked absolutely horrified, "Lucius I was born a pureblood and it will be a cold day in hell before I deny that. No matter how much polyjuice I've drunk."
"Right, except that now people will start checking in with the real Shafiq family to see if they have a Drodium on their tree, and as you know, they do, and as you know, he was not in London tonight."
Evan nodded, looking unconcerned, "Yes, well as you don't know, since you've never met the guy, he's currently chained up in my basement and shaved half bald."
Lucius' eyes widened to the size of saucers. "You got the hair for the polyjuice from the Drodium Shafiq."
"I don't like to do anything halfway," Evan explained.
Lucius looked even more stressed out about this, and collapsed dramatically into a chair, just as the flu reared up and his wife stepped through, looking quite 'windblown' if Evan was being nice about it.
"You're supposed to be subtle about an affair, Cissy," He reprimanded playfully.
Narcissa looked between the two of them and snorted, heading up to her rooms without deeming the comment worthy of verbal response.
"The books," Lucius said, trying to focus the subject back on the positive because it seemed like the things gone wrong with today were piling up a bit too quickly and too high for him to get a mental handle on.
"Yes, the books. I need you to put them in Harry's mental library so the Dark Lord can do some research."
"Will you be doing any studying yourself?" Lucius asked.
"Of course, but first I want to enjoy a bit of the summer. Oh! I almost forgot, this entire arrangement was not without its costs. I told Zabini I'd pay her three hundred thousand galleons for her cooperation, so I'll need you to loan me that until I get a proper handle of my vault."
Lucius shrugged lazily, "You could probably fish that out of the couches if you're diligent enough."
Taking it as a personal challenge, Evan began the process of upturning every sofa cushion in Malfoy manor. Fifteen minutes and fifteen hundred galleons later, he had his hand shoved in the crevice of one of the sitting chairs in the Library when he felt something odd. A book. Admittedly not that odd of a thing to stumble across in a Library, but there was something a little off about it.
He was just getting firm enough grip to pull it out properly when he heard Lucius calling him back into the sitting room. Deciding that maybe it wasn't that important and could wait another moment, he shook off the weirdly familiar feeling that was pulsing off of the leather tome and went to see what his lover wanted.
What Evan did not realize, was that he'd severely damaged the comfort of the chair by leaving the book half wedged and half freed, and later that summer, Lucius would lose patience with the mysterious lump and investigate, thus, reacquainting himself with something that he'd recently forgotten.
It was the little moments, like that one, that made Evan Rosier so key. After all, had he not half-yanked Tom Riddle's diary out of its hiding spot, who knows what Harry would have experienced in his second year?
These events, though not far off, were not the day we were speaking of, however. On this day, Lucius was fuming to his lover about how he'd just received a letter to warn him that Arthur Weasley would be arriving the next day to search his house for any misused muggle artifacts.
"We can spend the day somewhere else. I was thinking Morocco for lunch. I've got a taste for couscous." Evan suggested.
"Oh? And what are we to do about the body you're keeping chained up in your house?"
"We can bring him along! I find that a Crucio can often loosen up the tongue to a whole new pallet. By the time I'm done with him, he might like Moroccan food too!"
Lucius rolled his eyes, not thinking anything of Evan's semi-murderous comment, but in the corner, trembling and holding up a tray of tea that Lucius had forgotten he'd requested, two terrified eyes were open wider than the saucers for the tea-cups the creature was barely keeping a grip on.
Dobby remembered very well who Evan Rosier was, and Dobby was very, very afraid.
A/N: Well that's the end of this chapter. Big thanks to you all for reading and sticking with this story. Another huge thanks to my reviewers – past, present, and future.
Love you guys!
-Beloved