Sweet Ophelia
TanninTele
Disclaimer: All rights belong to J.K. Rowling, voiding that of original content and characters.
IV : Calm Before
When Tom returned, looking harried but no worse for wear, Harry tossed his arms around him. Tom stared through the door frame at the damage, blue eyes wide. The house was a wreck. Furniture and books were strewn about the floor, the roof full of leaks, more than the pots could hold. The yard was far worse, grass and trees torn from the root, his garden of herbs utterly decimated. His windchimes had shattered on the porch, white shards cutting into their feet.
"Where were you?" Harry mumbled into Tom's shirt, distracting him.
Tom's embrace was tight and unrelenting. "I was in town, like you asked. The storm was horrid - one of the worst in years, Missus Flume told me. Were you hurt?"
Harry's eyes were rimmed with dark smudges, skin pale and clammy. "You stayed with her?"
"Well, I couldn't stay with Sir Snape, now could I? No, Snape and 'accommodating' are certainly not synonymous," he said, stepping into the beach home. "And Mister Dobby irks me. He talks far too much. Did you shut all the windows and doors?" Tom nudged the bookshelf with his toe, frowning in intense dissatisfaction.
"I tried," Harry said weakly. His slim figure leaned against the doorframe, quite pale. He felt a bit abandoned. Tom began to pick up fallen books, grimacing at the puddles of water. "They kept blowing open."
"I'm sorry I wasn't here," Tom said quietly. "I should've seen the storm coming, and after the state you were in - "
Walking tentatively, Harry placed his arms around Tom's waist. "You couldn't have known," he tried to soothe. "It wasn't in your control."
That's what broke Tom's cool, carefully maintained exterior. Turning quickly, he dragged Harry towards him, placing fierce kisses on his face. He bit and gnawed at Harry's dry lips, earning a pained gasp from his husband. Tom pulled back, holding Harry's cheeks with a clawed grip. His eyes were dark, endless.
"Lay down," he whispered. "Go back into bed; your recovery has been disrupted, I can tell. The storm startled you. Will you rest peacefully, knowing I am near?"
"I don't want to sleep - "
Tom ignored his objections, pushing Harry almost painfully back into bed. "Stay," he commanded, as if Harry was nothing but a dog. Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Tom swept from the beach house to clean the yard.
Harry pursed his lips, frail fingers tightening into a fist. Dismissed, set away on a high shelf like a porcelain doll, carefully put aside and expected to sit pretty. In the past, he would've been grateful for the reprieve, glad to have the weight of responsibility taken from his shoulders.
Now, Harry felt more like a puppet cut from it's strings, with no other purpose but to amuse.
Harry watched with quiet contemplation as Tom prepared tea, using a cracked cup.
On Harry's lap was the packet of pictures, kept safe in his hands, like a closely-guarded secret. Eyes heavily lidded, he stared at the vial of medication as it was dripped into Harry's cup. He wondered.
"What is bothering you, my love?" Tom sat across from him, sipping idly from his steaming cup. Releasing the pictures, Harry wrapped trembling hands around the warm porcelain.
"It's nothing," he said unconvincingly.
"Have I been neglecting you?" Tom asked worriedly. By himself, he had cleaned up the storm's damage, the floors freshly swept and the books placed carefully back into their shelves. "We can spend the evening reading, if it would please you."
To keep from answering, Harry brought the tea to his lips. The bitter scent of medication met his nose, and he hesitated. Setting down the cup, he only pretended to swallow, pale throat bobbing. "Speaking of books," he murmured. "I found these inside a book on photography." Harry splayed the polaroids onto the tabletop, watching Tom carefully for a reaction.
The man stared down at the pictures with a scarily blank expression. Tom sipped at his tea, tipping his head in feigned confusion. "You didn't take these? They're rather good."
"No. They're hers," he tapped the image of the girl. "She . . . I feel like I've dreamt of her." Harry winced, remembering dead features and floating red hair. "Her name is Ginevra, see, it says so, on her diary. She lived here, before, I think."
"Hm. I wouldn't know." Tom took the pictures, holding them gently in his large hands.
"Then what do you know? I've found her hair in the sink drain, her clothes in the closet, her books in those shelves - "
A puff of exasperated air left Tom's lips. "Harry, you don't want to know," he said gravely.
"I do, Tom, I do." Harry pushed, green eyes unrelenting. "What is it?"
Tom placed a gentle hand on Harry's. "I didn't want to tell you . . . but the realtor did mention a young girl, a few years ago, who died tragically here. Drowned. Her body was never found."
A gasp escaped his lips. "Drowned. Here?"
With a flash of fear, Harry recalled the human skull. He remembered it, the bright white roundness cradled by sea water and algae. Harry knew he was unwell, but besides a bone-deep exhaustion and the occasional day-mare, he wasn't that kind of sick. It hadn't been a hallucination. "How?"
Tom shrugged idly, dark eyes lowered. He traced the girl's long, tan legs, with a strange gleam to his eyes. "Carelessness, probably," he murmured. "A silly girl who refused to heed others' warnings. The ocean can be very dangerous," he said lowly. "You know that better than most, what with your most recent brush with death. You're lucky I was there to save you."
Harry shuddered with visceral memory of the ocean's cold grasp and water in his lungs. "I am. But, Tom - look at her ring. It . . . looks just like mine."
"Nonsense." Tom barely glanced at them, sliding the pictures into his own pocket, standing tall. "Are you done asking questions, now?" Tom asked, voice like velvet-draped steel. "Your curiosity abated?"
Harry nodded reluctantly, dark curls bouncing.
"Good." Tom smiled tightly. "Finish your tea, love. You wouldn't want it to get cold."
August 10th, 1979
I must sound paranoid and hysterical, but I think he's putting something in my tea. A sort of powder - I'm afraid to ask. He's a doctor, though. Medicine? Sleep aids? . . . Poison? I feel so sore and damn tired all the time, but I can't sleep with these dreams . . .
August 15th, 1979
Please. Please. I'm scared. He never lets me outside anymore, won't let me visit town or call my family. I can't even visit the beach. He says I'm sick, and maybe I am, but I think he's the sick one -
Tom burnt the pictures.
Harry was quite certain of it, scenting smoke on the man's skin as he climbed into bed. Tom slung an arm around his husband, burrowing his long, elegant nose closer to Harry's throat. He breathed in deeply, as if committing Harry's sickly-sweet smell to memory. The thought left a horrid taste in his mouth.
"I'm dying, Tom," Harry spoke abruptly into the darkness, bloodshot eyes raised to the ceiling.
Tom's startled silence spoke volumes.
For once, the windchimes did not ring to fill the nighttime quiet. The white shells and rocks had shattered, looking like shards of bone on the veranda. Tom mourned the loss, but promised Harry they'd make a new one.
"I can feel it - the burning of my lungs with every breath I take, the inbalance to my steps, the erratic thump of my heart. I'm tired, all the time, but I know that sleep won't ease the pain. Day after day, I'm confined to this bed, useless as a sack of bones. When I fell asleep on the beach, it was the closest I've ever gotten to peace." Salty tears dripped. I almost wish you had let me drown, is what he didn't say, knowing it would hurt Tom the most. I'm dying, and my husband is lying to me.
"What is this illness?" Harry asked, voice tapering to a desperate whisper. "What did I do to deserve this torture?"
"Nothing, my love, absolutely nothing - " Tom's hands ran carefully, possessively, over Harry's cheeks. "You did nothing. You were perfect - you are perfect. I've taken good care of you, haven't I? Made sure your every need is met, providing you this beautiful home - " to spend your last days.
Harry struggled to sit up, gently extracting himself from Tom.
"I have to go," he said hurriedly, almost hysterically, feeling his body thrum from head to toe. "I have to find it." His feet slid to the floor, scrambling for purchase in the dark.
"Find what?"
"Find her. I saw her. I saw her skull in the water." Her body was never found. "You never meant for her to be found, did you?"
Tom made a noise of protestation, but Harry moved quickly, pale, rail-rod thin figure disappearing out the front door. "Harry - Harry what do you mean?"
Outside, green eyes scanned the beach, starlight guiding his path. The sand was soft beneath him as he weakly stumbled down to the shore. The waves rustled and gleamed, tickling his toes, chilling him to the bone. "Harry!" Tom shouted from the house. "Harry, come back!"
Harry shivered. Lifting the skirt of his night gown, he waded into the waters. The sea roiled around him, grasping for him, attempting to drag him in.
Ginevra had refused to be dragged in.
As would he.
"Harry - please, love. Let's talk about this," Tom's voice travelled, easily ignored, as Harry searched the waters. He followed a trail of rocks, fondling moss-lined stone. He worried that the bones had been swept away by the storm. Fingers closed around Harry's elbow. "Harry," hot breath puffed against his neck. "You're unwell."
Tom stared at him, blue eyes wide and scared - for him.
Briefly, Harry considered a break for it.
He could straddle the bike and retrace Tom's path into town, convince Missus Flume to let him borrow her car. Or steal it. The wrath of Missus Flume and her daughters seemed minimal in comparison to Tom's dominating hand on his spine. Harry doubted he would make it very far before collapsing, anyways. Tom's hand slipped his wrist, fingernail scratching possessively against the wedding ring. "Harry, come back inside with me," he spoke lowly, as if gentling a skittish colt. "You're not well."
With a desperate sort of laugh, Harry tried to pull away. He tripped deeper into the sea, the water now reaching his knees.
His ring slipped off, Tom palming it with a mournful expression. He began to approach, water parting beneath him like Moses, eyes glinting in the darkness. "This is how it's going to end, then? You needn't die today, my love, just come home with me."
"T - Tom," Harry stumbled back, fearful.
Tom caught him, pulling Harry flush to his chest, the cool sting of a blade pressed beneath Harry's ribs. "Oh, darling," Tom sighed softly, his breath a warm, light breeze. "How I loved you so. You understand, don't you?"
"Understand?" Harry spat. "Of course I do. I'm just another toy to you, aren't I, played with until my threads fray and my body collapses? I can't live like that. Knowing that I'm just going to be replaced, like Ginevra was."
The older man frowned, fingers pressing into Harry's back. "Does God see his creations as toys? Did he see Eve as a replacement of Adam? No, he found them beautiful together, mortality and all. Isn't it best that you die by my hands, rather than that of something out of my control? Do you see? How beautiful this is? How beautiful you are?"
God drowned his creations, Harry realized, just as Tom struck, the kitchen knife gutting him like a fish, piercing his stomach with a final penetration. Blood blossoming like a rose through his nightshirt, Harry was gently laid into the water.
Tom cushioned Harry's head with his palm; pale lips smiling sadly. The sky twinkled above, lacking in luminescence compared to Tom's ocean eyes. "I never wanted to hurt you. Neither of you." His words echoed, rattling around Harry's blurred, senseless mind.
"Ginny didn't understand me like you did. She was stubborn, unbreakable, and it seemed the only way to qualm her was through drugs. I am a doctor. They were rather easy to procure. But . . . she began to distrust me, suspect me, and snuck out one night only to be swept up in the waves. I didn't mean for her to die, and - and, I swore that if I ever loved again, I wouldn't let them die by anything other than my hand."
"We were doomed from the start," Harry croaked weakly. "Was I ever really ill? Or . . . could you only love me when I was utterly dependent?"
Tom smiled resignedly at his boy. "Love is a sort of sickness, isn't it?"
Harry closed his eyes.
Was this how Ginny had died, laid to rest and rot in the calm ocean waves? Poisoned, bled out, and drowned like a damsel in some Shakespearean tragedy? Would Tom's next lover be dispatched in the same way? Harry didn't want to remember him like this. He sucked in a deep breath, smelling Tom and the sea.
"K - kiss me, Tom."
His voice was faint, but Tom heard every word. The man relented, indulgent, like he had been so many times before. Harry's body calmed, comforted by the familiar pressure of lips against his. Tom licked his silver tears away.
Staring up at the Beast, unchanged by true love's kiss, Harry fell into an endless sleep.
Tom, fingers dripping with salt water, gently closed his eyelids. Wiping his hands, removing the knife from Harry's chest, Tom stood, and let the body be swept away. With a pang, he remembered that he never got to give Ginevra a final farewell. He'd have to find her bones - Harry said that they had swept up to shore. Perhaps, with her teeth, he could rebuild his chimes. And one day - years from now, when the waves returned him home - Tom would have something to remember Harry by as well.
"Harry," he breathed. "Of all that I have loved, will love," Tom said to the sea. "I think that I will miss you the most."
The sea said nothing back.
All was not well.