68 – A Cure
The night's air was thick and heavy, giving Harry's whole body a sticky feeling from the result of his own sweat in this heat. It was November, but being on the other side of the equator stopped Harry and Tom from having to endure the long, cold autumn that was carrying on in England. They had been away for well over a month, staying together in the many different rooms that Tom rented, in various countries and continents across the world that held something of interest to them.
Even on their time off alone, Tom couldn't help returning to his research regularly, never quite being able to leave it properly. He was sitting behind Harry, his arms wrapped around him lovingly, his gaze cast up to the thousands of stars that were strewn across the large stretch of sky visible to them, but Harry was sure his thoughts returned to his work again and again. He wasn't quite sure why this played on his mind so often.
As for why Tom had brought him all the way here to stare, once again, at the bright night sky, Harry had no answer. He was thankful for the slight breeze here, as well as for the chance to do something more interesting than talk in their rented room, but he didn't see the point in all of this. Tom had the amusement of books and research, of letters to write, people to meet, and places to buy interesting artefacts from, while Harry had nothing to do. He had been bored for the past month, and he envied Tom's ability to find things to spend time on. There was no purpose for Harry here, nor anywhere, he feared.
"It's beautiful," Tom commented quietly. His voice was a hushed tone full of awe and wonder that Harry couldn't relate to. "There's nothing quite as calming as to see so many stars with nothing but one's own eyes... to have you here is the only better thing."
Harry shifted a little in Tom's arms, unsure what he was supposed to say. He was glad Tom couldn't see his face, which was devoid of emotion. Tom held him closer, his lips pressing to the top of his head. It made Harry think about that night back at their house, when Tom had planted a curse upon him. He was thankful that, at the very least, Tom was not squeezing him in his arms, telling him over and over again that he would never let him die... Or had he been rocking him?
"I feel often as though times like this are from another's life, as though when I hold you in my arms, I become another man. Or perhaps this world merely becomes another world..."
Surely he had been rocking Harry in his arms? Yes, Harry thought, that had to be it. It felt like a long, long time ago.
"I don't believe I ever felt this way before, prior to our relationship," Tom mused. "I've been with other people before you, have attempted relationships. I am yet to understand how it is that all else could fail, while you and I are so successful... Hmm, yet then again, I believe I already know the answer to that." A smile could be heard in his tone. "We truly are soul mates, aren't we?"
Harry agreed distractedly, having barely listened to what Tom said. Why had Tom even cursed him? It was so, so long ago. Had Harry truly run home to Tom right after speaking to Nott? They had discussed Emeric... Tom did something to him – or had Harry merely blamed him? Blamed him for the crime he himself committed. Or was it something he had forgotten to do, forgotten to check?
"... without anyone else having caused this sort of feeling. It is mad, when I think of it. Do you feel the same?"
A fraction of a second too long in hesitation would give Harry's distractedness away.
"I do," he said without truly knowing what he just agreed to.
Tom gave a breath of laughter. "Well, I'm glad," he said close to Harry, "I couldn't bare for anyone else to make you feel this way."
Harry had no idea what Tom meant. The only way he felt right now was hot and bothered by the humid night, annoyed by the bugs that flew around them.
"Can we go back?"
"So soon?"
"Yes."
Tom loosened his arms around Harry, confused. "If you so desire."
Harry stood up when he could. With effort, he brushed off his general irritation before Tom made a comment upon it. He had no idea how being back at their room would be any better than this, but he took his chances. Tom took his hand on the way, and although Harry could find no excuse to refuse it, he didn't see why Tom insisted upon doing this every evening, before returning to their rented room for the same conversations, the same food and routine, the same attempts to lighten Harry's mood by spending the quiet hours close together before dawn.
Another week passed, maybe two. Harry couldn't recall anything remarkable happening in that time, though he was sure something, surely, must have gone on. Tom was excited about many new branches of magic he was interested in; he explained everything he had learnt in great detail in the hope that Harry too would pick the subjects up in interest. Harry never did. Eventually, Tom stopped expecting it of him.
One evening, two months after being away, Tom received a letter from Avery. The letter held no substance of interest, in honesty, but it lead the evening a very different way than Harry could have succeeded in predicting in his current state. It started, first and foremost, with a joke.
"What does he mean 'Rosier's been making more jokes about strawberries to confuse the other Knights'? That doesn't even make sense."
"He's referencing to Madam Puddifoot's, naturally."
A crease formed between Harry's eyebrows. "The teashop, in Hogsmeade?"
"Yes."
Harry hesitated. He couldn't recall ever going to that shop with Tom, but he had vague memories of elaborate pink decorations strewn across the place, celebrating what he knew had to have been Valentine's Day. He had been there on a date once... with Ginny? Maybe he had been alone. Or with another girl... or boy?
Tom tilted his head a little. "You remember, do you not?"
Harry opened his mouth, but he couldn't lie about this.
"We went there with all of our followers of the time," Tom reminded him, "it was a joke lead by Avery and the others, which we only bothered to join in with because it meant we could spend Valentine's Day together. Don't you remember?"
"Oh, yeah," Harry lied, thoroughly confused. "Right..."
Tom stared at him, expecting something else.
"It was a long time ago," Harry said, trying to brush it off, "it wasn't important."
"You don't remember what happened that night?" Tom pressed. He looked annoyed.
No, Harry thought, he couldn't remember a thing. "We were with the others all day, it's not like I can remember everything that happened every night."
"It was almost the first night we slept together. You don't remember that?"
If Tom had looked annoyed before, it was nothing to how he looked now.
"Of course I remember that, it's just – it was a long time ago."
"Avery – the biggest idiot to ever follows us – remembered a joke Rosier made about strawberries, despite still having never understood it entirely. You're telling me that's more memorable than the night we spent together?"
"Look, I'm tired," Harry told him, closing a pot of ink and placing it on his night table, "Can't you drop it?"
Tom was unimpressed. He watched Harry for a time, apparently struggling with whether or not he should find out why these memories were apparently unimportant enough for him to forget. He then returned to his letter, leaving Harry in silence. Harry looked down at his lap, catching one last glimpse of the word 'break' scribbled sharply at one corner of the paper, before he closed his notebook. He set aside the quill he had been writing with and stood up.
He strode across the room, putting the quill and notebook back into one of his trunks before sealing it with a locking charm. He barely remembered doing it; his thoughts were too troubling. He still had no recollection of going to Hogsmeade with Tom or any of the Death Eaters. Not only could be not remember that night with Tom, he couldn't even recall when they did actually have sex for the first time. He couldn't remember their early relationship at all.
Standing up straighter, Harry soon learnt that he had no idea what he wanted to do with himself now. He stared down at the trunk in front of him, feeling that consuming eeriness wash over him again, then again... There was nothing for him to do. He could sit and wonder why he had forgotten so many things about his year at Hogwarts with Tom, but the thought irritated him a little. He tried to think back to how he had even met Tom at the school. He was unsuccessful. In fact, the harder Harry tried to remember his life back then, the sooner he realised that his memories were gone.
"Tom?" Harry began without thinking. He stared at the floor in front of him, sightless.
"What?"
Harry noted the irritation in his tone and use of words – or word. He couldn't bring himself to make sense of what he wanted to say.
"What is it that you wish to speak to me about, Harry?"
No, Harry told himself, he couldn't let Tom know what was going on in his mind. He was very conscious of the fact that it was strange he could not remember what had happened in the past, but Tom would only change his brain again if he felt there was something wrong. Harry didn't want that to happen. He knew he had changed a lot already because of Tom's magic, even if he didn't quite know how. It was best he remained how he was.
"I didn't mean to forget about before," he said instead.
When Harry thought about it, Tom's annoyance at his forgetfulness proved that his memory loss wasn't something he expected to see. Again, however, Harry refrained from discussing it.
"I understand," Tom responded shortly. He didn't bother looking at Harry, he instead continued to scan through the letters in his hands steadily. For the rest of the evening, Tom remained annoyed at him. For the rest of the evening, Harry was forced to endure the torturous length of his now prolonged, deepening boredom.
He wasn't sure how much more inactivity he could take, as more days passed. Spending time with Tom was the only thing that made him feel anything, but even that did not last for an exceedingly long stretch of time. It was a week or two after realising that he was losing his memories when Harry finally found something that stopped him from the hell of his own bleak, emotionless existence. He followed an impulse that had flooded him with sickening pleasure from the moment the thought crossed his mind. That was the night when Harry murdered a boy for nothing but personal gain.
Tom had taken him up to a tiny town in Italy, the both of them moving miles upon miles north across Africa merely to be here. They would be travelling around Europe for only two or three weeks before heading back to England. It was the beginning of the end of their lengthy trip away, but this knowledge did close to nothing to help soothe Harry's impatience; he knew that back in England things would be perhaps worse for him than they even were here.
They took a walk through the small wizarding town they resided in by nightfall. The town was still awake in these late hours close to midnight, but Harry and Tom were seen by no one as they strolled down a shadowed, narrow street together, hands clasped and hidden by the flow of their dark robes and darker cloaks. They were heading the direction of the edge of town, intent upon being surrounded by the quiet, natural view they'd be able to see in the bright moonlight of tonight.
Not many stars were visible near this light-filled wizarding town, but the moonlight gave to them a view of a dipping valley up ahead, a quietly flowing river, and the silhouettes of tall tress contrasting against the few wisps of clouds above them, which slipped through the sky in haste. Harry and Tom spent perhaps forty-five minutes looking over at the scene, before the clouds finally succeeded in conquering the moon, and they warned of rain in celebration of their success.
Neither of them were very fond of the idea of returning to the Inn so soon, so taking the same route back, they instead carried on to the other side of town where a small pub was open. There were quite a few people awake and drinking even as midnight dragged on. Harry and Tom found a table near the back where they would go mostly unnoticed. At the bar, a few drunken men were talking in loud, slurred Italian that Tom seemed perfectly able to understand.
"Quidditch," Tom said quietly in response to Harry's curious glance at the wizards. "Amongst, perhaps, the most futile and meaningless of all common conversations held amongst common people. Yet it is in a close tie with many topics, in truth..."
Harry nodded vaguely, having nothing to say. The group of wizards can't have been any older than Harry and Tom themselves were. Quite a few of them were younger, in their late teens. Harry watched them over the top of his goblet, wondering what their lives were like.
Tom suggested that they leave after around half an hour of idle, non-conversation. Harry would normally have agreed without thinking much about it, but tonight he wasn't so sure.
"Do you have more work to do?" he asked.
"Merely a few letters to draft to some of our Knights. It won't take long."
That would be another hour or two of Harry doing nothing. The thought frustrated him, making him wish that he could stay here longer with Tom. Even to hear Tom mutter about the irrelevance and idiocy of Quidditch was better than to sit in their room with nothing to do. Tom got up from their chair without noticing Harry's reluctance, however, and Harry had no choice but to follow him. They were heading out onto the freezing street a minute later.
"Where are we going to go next, after this place?" Harry asked, his breath visible as soon as it parted from his freezing lips. They walked leisurely, in no rush to get back.
"To France, I believe," Tom responded, a note of contemplation embedded in the tone. "We could go there as soon as tomorrow, if that's what you desire."
"Maybe. This place isn't bad, but I don't quite fancy staying too long in a town we have no real purpose in."
Harry heard voices behind them, laughing, jeering.
"Yet there is a purpose to this," Tom said. "To spend time together is all the purpose we need."
"I guess. But -"
The door to the pub slammed shut, cutting out the noise of voices from before. A single person had walked out. Without any real reason, Harry turned to look at them from across the street.
Through the cold, icy night air, Harry made eye-contact with the lone wizard. Upon noticing that he was being watched, the young man hesitated. He had been seconds away from crossing to Harry's side. He must have been eighteen or nineteen years old, and he understood in one look that he would be making a very big mistake by getting anywhere near the two close, cloaked, staring wizards.
Something about the stranger's fear struck mirth in Harry. Did he and Tom truly look so terrifying that a nearly fully grown man didn't dare to be on the same street as them? Did he, Harry, truly look like the kind of man who would attack a stranger just for being too close to him and Tom? The idea of actually attacking the boy for even thinking this caused Harry to feel an even deeper desire to laugh. It caused, too, a desire to act upon his impulse, to act upon the adrenaline that suddenly shot through his cold, numb limbs.
Before Harry knew what he was doing, he crossed to the stranger's side of the street. His heart pulsed hard in excitement, encouraging him to follow his impulse further.
"What are you doing?" Tom hissed in Parseltongue, as if to save the stranger's ears from their already foreign language.
Harry gave no answer. A laugh escaped him. The faster he stalked this man, the faster Tom followed, trying to reach for his hand to pull him back – Harry wouldn't allow it. They were on a dark road near the edge of town and the stranger was close. Tom soon abandoned his attempts.
It was a cure for boredom. It was a cure.
The young man turned in panic, but Harry did not particularly car to hear the words he stammered, especially as he could already see him cower. Pleasure at the sickening knowledge that this was real life lead Harry further. He heard the terror in the stranger's voice at the sight of the Elder Wand.
"Har-!
A cry of shuddering panic pierced the air as his spell struck; the stranger scrapped meters across the ground after blasting back, rolling to a stop. Blood already spewed from his open wound, causing him to cowering over his left arm with his quivering body. Harry relished in the sight, unable to believe he had truly done this. He was above the stranger in seconds.
"Look at him!" Harry shouted to Tom in glee, "All the things we've done to our Knights alone, just look at his reaction to this!"
Quite a considerable amount of red liquid dripped from the gash in the wizard's arm, but Harry could see only his staring, terrified brown eyes. The sight reminded him of forgotten people from his past; he kicked the stranger in his wounded arm, hard.
The trembling howl of pain that this action evoked laughter, again, in Harry. His hands ached with the desire to do worse, and before Harry could stop it he swiped his wand through the air once more, with a curse that caused a bone-deep scrape across the stranger's right hand and upper left arm. The shouting got worse still, as if Harry had used a curse far more torturous. Harry ached for more, he wanted that laughter, that rush of knowing that he wasn't supposed to do any of this.
More strongly, still, Harry wanted to know what it felt like when those gashes formed.
It felt far from reality when Harry crouched down near the stranger, seeing, at a closer range, that he was crying. He was unable to properly protect either hand or arm after the harm Harry had inflicted upon him, but Harry helped him sit up. He giggled hysterically at the thought – he helped him up! The wizard was trying to resist, only hurting himself more in the process. The wound on his arm extended past his shoulder blade too, across his back. Harry lifted up his face, gaining access to his throat.
"I want to know," Harry explained to Tom, who stood watching, "I want to know what it feels like when the cuts are made. It's so easy – that's all we are, right? Just huge, walking bags of skin cells full of organs, full of muscle caught on bones! That's all, isn't it? And we cut so easily! And he'll cut so easily!"
Harry had his wand pressed forcibly on the wizard's throat. Despite all the noise, not one person had peered around this street's corner to learn what was happening. It was easier to stop him from crying at this angle; Harry felt the muffled vibrations of his voice as he covered his mouth. Harry's whole body felt like it was being bombarded with waves of pleasure – very addicting pleasure.
"You might wish to consider taking him elsewhere before killing him," Tom suggested.
"No," Harry said, beaming without even really knowing why, "No, I won't kill him. I just want to – I want to see what it feels like, Tom! He'll break so easily, he'll cut, but then he'll grow back! It doesn't matter that he's just a mortal human being, because he'll grow back!"
He pressed the Elder Wand harder onto the stranger's skin, sliding it across slowly. The wizard screeched in agony, having such a strong reaction to the depth of Harry's spell that he almost threw him off-course. Harry was determined, however, to continue. He could feel the wand judder when he scraped across the surface of his throat. He could feel the parting of skin as if he were holding a very powerful knife, seeing the blood seep down from either side of it.
"We have so much power, but we're all in weak skins! We have so much ability, but with this – with this alone – we can't do a thing but relish in pain! Tom, look at him! I think he's sleeping, Tom. I know he's sleeping, or unconscious – I know he's still here! His soul is still here, I can feel it. I could never find it, but I can feel it!"
Harry's very feet felt consumed with the power of his elation. He wanted more, he wanted to understand more clearly what it felt like for human flash to break in one simple action.
"Our souls are so immortal, Tom, but our skins – they're snake skins, for us! We'll shred these bodies, we'll steal another's, we'll keep our souls grounded to earth – what will that feel like? Worse than what he feels? Worse that what he's going through? We won't own the nerves to feel it, Tom. We won't have the bones and skin and hands and spines and hearts and eyes and flesh! We'll just have the soul for it all! I want to know what it's like, I want to -"
Harry's lungs shuddered and forced air out in repetitive bursts to express his joy; he was in a state of hysteria. He rose his wand up.
The first look of fear crossed Tom's face.
"I want to know! I want to feel this too!" Harry gasped and stuttered. "I want to - to understand myself, to know what is to be immortal, to lose all of this! I – I can't ever lose, Tom!"
"DON'T-"
And with that, Harry slit his own throat.
The pain was like that of any other cut at first, but it deepened by ten folds a second after the initial shock. Harry found himself unable to carry on gasping for air to laugh with. He could feel the blood pouring inside and out, he felt his windpipe and lungs fail to find a way of dealing with even this moderately shallow cut. It was deep enough for him to drown in his own blood, unable to see it properly before Tom was on his knees before him, shouting in delirious, agonizing fear and anger at what had happened.
Tom's hands were covered in blood, his eyes were unblinking and more caught up with pain than Harry could ever have imagined. Harry could barely see his surroundings, all he knew was that he was now lying on his back in the cold street. He couldn't hear a thing around him, even if he knew that Tom spoke to him in a pained, struggling voice between the words of his spells. Soon, as if through satisfaction at successfully curing his own monotonic imprisonment of boredom, Harry drifted into unconsciousness.
– X –
The darkness was all-consuming. Strange shapes and forms shifted in and out of focus in a senseless struggle to convey meaning to Harry's confused, tired mind, but no message could be made clear. No signs could get through. In the same way as with many dreams, Harry could not hold onto the memories of what happened in unconsciousness. When we awoke, finally, his mind had been wiped of all but the strange, dark shapes.
He opened his eyes to see an off-white shade of paint spread out between crooked beams, illuminated in the low light. He felt disappointment in this sight, as well as in the feeling of his tired, cold limbs. He could not be dead. He had gained a full sense of thrill during the night's events, but Tom hadn't allowed him to experience a different state of mind, one far away from his current brain and body.
Harry sat up. He looked around the room, spotting Tom resting in a chair near the end of his bed, his hands interlinked and supporting his bowed head, as if in prayer. His posture was terrible, but he sat perfectly still, breathing slowly. He did not stir at the sound of Harry moving.
"You stopped me," was all Harry could say.
This made Tom sift a little, but he did not change positions. Harry could see him breathing in deeply, as if battling with some emotion within.
"From almost dying right before my eyes, yet again?" Tom muttered. "Yes, I stopped you..."
"I wanted to know what it's like. You should have let me go."
Tom's interlinked hands tightened, his posture got steadily worse.
"It's not like I'd really die," Harry reminded him. "All I wanted to do was know what it was like to experience death – at least to know what it's like to not own a body."
"I have told you this," Tom said in a forceful hiss, "I have given you all available information currently on the subject of Horcruxes, on the subject of rebirth. Why would you do that to me..."
Harry said nothing. He wasn't entirely sure what he had done to Tom. It was his own death, after all, his own adventure. "It's not as if I forced you to join me."
"Neither of us could come back if I joined you, even accidentally in my search. Why would you throw your own body away in the first place?" Tom asked. "Why would you try to leave me here alone to search for your soul? Why would you leave me at all?"
Harry didn't have a very solid answer for this. He struggled for a minute, wondering if Tom would understand. "I just wanted to follow that impulse."
Tom was annoyed, he didn't seem to think this was a good enough reason at all.
"I've just never felt that before," Harry told him.
"You murdered Emeric. You never slit your own throat for that."
"The wizard died?"
"Yes. He bled to death before it could be helped."
Harry felt an odd reaction to this, which he soon understood was disappointment. "I didn't mean for that to happen."
Tom sat up straighter for the first time, but didn't look at Harry. Inhaling deep breaths in irritation, and other emotions of the sort, he tried to steady himself. Harry watched him for a long while, understanding from the look in Tom's downcast, irritated eyes that he very much disapproved of what Harry had tried to do.
"I just wanted to carry on feeling what I felt from that, Tom."
"And why is that?"
"I've been bored," Harry explained, "it was the first thing in ages that's made me feel anything."
This did nothing to help Tom's irritation. His nostrils flared.
"I wasn't thinking about you."
"Oh, that I know, Harry."
This was said with such raging force, no response could be given. Harry was alarmed.
Tom, perhaps realising he had been too forceful, stood up. He continued to refuse looking at Harry. He walked from one side of the room to the other and back several times, as if trapped in his mind as well as in here. Harry watched him steadily, wondering why he did not relish in the fact that he had saved Harry, if he cared so much about his death.
"I cannot grasp what has changed within you," Tom said irritably. "I cannot understand what has lead you to suddenly forget all we have been through together, causing you, for no reason at all, to decide that coming into close contact with death is more desirable than to be with me!"
"I'm not choosing death over you," Harry told Tom firmly. He threw the bedcovers off of him, getting up, "I'm not bored of being with you, Tom."
"Stay in bed," Tom demanded, "you're unwell."
"I'm pretty sure I don't walk with my neck. It was just a cut -"
"Won't you listen to what I say for once in your life?"
Again, Tom spoke with such ringing force that Harry was stunned into silence. He wasn't sure what he should do; he didn't want to lay down once more. Instead, he stood watching Tom in silence, waiting.
Tom was visibly angry at himself for shouting. He hesitated for a minute before doing anything more than glaring and breathing deeply. In one smooth movement, reeking heavily of previous restraint, he walked towards Harry and reached out a hand to touch his arm lightly, guiding him to sit back down.
"You must rest," Tom insisted in a lower, calmer voice. His eyes burned into Harry's. "Even if you did not do much worse than cause a severe, dangerous cut, healing the wound does not give you the energy you've lost tonight. Don't exhaust yourself further."
Harry felt better about being forced to sit down when Tom joined him. The action calmed the both of them, even if Harry's heart still raced in a need to make himself understood. Tom was thinking deeply, his eyes moving down to Harry's neck every now and then, conveying to Harry that he must still have a scar. New emotions flickered behind Tom's expression as a crease formed between his eyebrows. He brushed Harry's hair back, away from his face.
"I need to know," he said in a low voice, "that you did not do what you did tonight because your feelings for me have changed. I must have it clarified, that you did not try to escape me."
"I didn't," Harry assured him calmly. "I love you, Tom."
Tom did not look cheerful to hear it, but he understood. He nodded once, thinking.
"We have to go back home, to flee this place," he told Harry. "I shall have to put a Memory Charm on the owner of this inn so we aren't remembered by anyone; an investigation will soon go out for the man you killed tonight."
"I understand," Harry responded. The idea struck a note of excitement in him, an echo of hours before.
"For now, however," Tom said firmly, "you must rest, my love."
Harry sighed a little, his spirits dampened by the idea. "I'll try."
"We should both sleep soon," Tom commented, "it's the middle of the night. I'll be back, but I must dispose of this wizard's body before dawn. I shan't be longer than half an hour or so."
He got up, moving across the room to a dark shape that sat slumped against the wall of their room. With a wave of his wand, Tom cursed the body to rise up on two feet, hood drawn, a long cloak giving the false illusion that the dead stranger could be walking. Tom felt the room with the corpse, intent upon transfiguring his body and burying him deep in the woods beyond this town.
Harry sat where he was for the whole time Tom was gone. He wanted to tell Tom again that he loved him, and he wanted to fall asleep in him arms. But most of all, he wanted to bask in the comfort of knowing he no longer felt bored at all.
– X –
They left Italy and following day, skipping the remaining tour of Europe without stopping in any other country on their way. England was cold and dreary when they arrived, but Harry felt completely unaffected by it. Their house was warm and comfortable from the moment they returned, and it seemed to calm Tom to be back in his own house, surrounded by things that made him feel most comfortable. Harry was relieved to find that their house wasn't nearly as boring as he had previously feared.
He was surprised, a day after his return, to find that all of the books he had leant to Nott had been returned to their library. He knew that Nott must have given the books back to Tweaky, and that Tweaky had kept the promise he made to Harry to refrain from ever mentioning he had let another borrow books from Tom's private collection. Curiosity and confusion got the better of Harry before even a week had passed; as soon as he had the time, he slipped from his and Tom's house to pay Nott a visit.
Nott's small, handsome manor had smoke billowing from the chimneys and light pouring from the windows as Harry approached. He knew Nott would be the only person in the house at this hour. He wondered only if Nott did not wish to be visited by him so soon, since he had returned the books especially early. He hoped he had not alarmed him completely by trusting this responsibility upon him, and he hoped Nott didn't distrust him.
"Jonathan," Nott greeted upon opening his door. He looked close to smiling, but he couldn't quite manage it. "Come in."
They sat in their usual places in Nott's living room, getting warm near the blazing fire. Once they were comfortable, the two wizards examined each other. Nott looked tired, to say the least. His once bright eyes had become progressively darker, more forlorn than ever. He'd become unnaturally thin, and he was quiet when he spoke. His eyes wandered down to Harry's neck.
"I wasn't quite sure if you and Tom would return so soon," he began. "Did you run into trouble?"
"A bit," Harry admitted. There was no point in lying, especially as Nott would be satisfied with even this much information.
"That scar looks painful," Nott commented, "if you couldn't heal it fully with magic."
"It'll fade eventually. I've been through worse."
Nott nodded vaguely, saying no more.
"Have you been alright, these past months?" Harry asked.
"The same as always. You know how it is."
"I saw you returned the books I leant you. Tom and I weren't supposed to be back until early January, why'd you return them three weeks early?"
"I didn't return them long ago," Nott told him. "I finished them all maybe two weeks ago. I brought them back as a precaution, in case things didn't go as planned."
This was a wise choice, in truth. If Harry had succeeded in killing himself in Italy, Tom would have accused Nott of stealing his books – and he would be more angry than ever because of Harry's abandonment of his body, even if it was temporary. Nott would have suffered very, very badly for that.
"The books were helpful," Nott added, "I learnt much more about Occlumency and Legilimency than I first supposed there was to learn."
"I can see that," Harry said lightly, referring to Nott's now perfectly sealed mind. He was relieved the young Knight hadn't abandoned his request to read the books. "It'll help you a lot."
Nott attempted a smile, but it wasn't very successful. He was too distracted by a thought that bothered him. "Why did you lend me those books at all?"
"To help you. It's something you can't just learn on your own."
"It was kind of you," Nott said, as if this were confusing. "I don't know what I've done to deserve this of you."
"It would be a waste not to give you a chance to get better at that sort of magic," Harry told him. "I knew you'd learn it easily."
Nott didn't respond in a flattered or pleased way. Instead, he cut right to the point. "Are you protecting me from Tom?"
Harry almost agreed, but he stopped himself. "I'm making you a better Occlumens and Legilimens, to protect you from anyone who knows the same skills."
"I know," Nott said, sounding unsure, "but with Tom... You know he doesn't like me, it cannot be denied. You know also that I'm unsure about the Knights in general. You know I wanted to leave not a year ago..."
He was clearly scared that Harry knew he didn't want to be a Knight. "I know."
"I can never leave," Nott said bluntly, "No matter what goes on here, I can be a follower, or change identities, or die. I don't have a choice."
"You should be able to think what you like."
A crease formed between Nott's eyebrows. "And what do you think? About all of this?"
Harry tried to find an answer, but he found that the effort bored him. "I dunno, really."
Nott waited. When no more was said, he decided to talk. "I feel like... you had a better idea of what you wanted to do, before. After you found out about that boy Emeric, after you went away... I know you're going to go away with Tom again soon, you're going to learn more about the world for months at a time. But I wish it wasn't so. You keep changing, every time I meet you again."
Harry didn't know what to say to this. It made him think about the curse Tom had placed upon him. It made him want to admit to Nott that he was aware he had changed, had lost his memories, had lost every emotion within him besides anger and a desire to harm. He held his tongue. He waited.
"I know that Tom did something to you," Nott carried on, "and I know that the last time we spoke, you were scared by it. It's been three months since then and a lot has obviously changed. I just hope you know what you're doing. I hope he won't change you again, because every time I see you, you're getting worse. You're forgetting what you wanted before, and you don't want Tom to know that I realise this too."
Harry felt no emotional reaction to this, but it made him think. It was true that he had forgotten what he had ever wanted before this. He wasn't sure why he had given Nott these books, unless it was indeed in fear, like Nott suggested, or because he had wanted to protect them both from Tom. All he knew was that Nott had a point. It made him wonder more about the memories he lost, it made him desire to know what life had been life before all of this.
The thought occupied his mind for the rest of his short visit to Nott's home. He excused himself as early as he could, satisfied that Nott hadn't rejected the books, yet confused by his opinions about Harry's state of mind. Harry found himself walking longer than he truly needed to from Nott's house. He was thinking deeply, being just about able to recall how close he had been to asking Tom if it was unusual that he was losing every memory he had once known.
It can't be normal... Tom had been so angry at the idea that Harry forget their day in Hogsmeade, Harry was sure he still hadn't forgiven him for it. Could it be possible that Harry would never gain these memories back? Could it be that Tom had made a mistake in stopping Harry's emotions, and he had wiped his mind clean of everything he had ever experienced before? Harry wasn't so sure. He slowed to a stop, Apparating back home as if to leave the worry behind.
The thought could not leave him, however. He returned to his house only half an hour before Tom that night, and although by that point he could distract himself with other business, stories of the Knights, and discussions about his and Tom's work, the following day Nott's claims returned to him. Even after a week, after two, the thought never faded. Harry decided he had to do something about it.
It was nearing Christmas. Tom was sitting at a writing desk peacefully in their living room, examining a letter with deep concentration. Harry didn't want to disturb him for him work, but answering letters was the least interesting and important of all of Tom's daily work. It was the best chance Harry had.
"Tom?"
"Yes, my love?"
He wasn't sure how he was supposed to start. He couldn't gather his thoughts, couldn't make sense of how to approach the subject. "Can you change me back?" he asked bluntly.
"I'm sorry?"
"Can you put me back to how I once was?"
"They specified there were no refunds to my purchase," Tom joked, distracted.
"I'm being serious."
"What is it, exactly, that you wish to change back into?" Tom asked, turning to face him in his chair. "You haven't changed."
"I want my emotions back."
Tom was surprised. He thought this over shortly. "You still have emotions."
"It isn't enough. I don't think it's even nearly enough, I'm just not, well, sure..."
Tom shook his head, turning back to his letters. "I can't risk you feeling remorse, my love."
"Remorse?"
Tom paused, quill in hand, but didn't give in to Harry's genuine confusion. He thought it was a trick. "I'm not putting your life at risk merely because you feel as though you might not be feeling enough emotion. You've been too emotional for too long, you wouldn't miss half of it if you felt that again. It has made you stronger to be this way."
"All I feel is anger. Confusion too, now, but that's hardly an emotion."
"You're making an emotional choice as we speak, my love."
"You're wrong."
Tom might not have heard him. The letter he was writing seemed to become suddenly very important, as he paid more attention to it. Harry decided to carry on talking. He felt as though he needed this to happen, to end the feeling within him.
"I lied to you."
Tom ignored him.
"You said something about how you've never had the same sort of connection with other people that you have with me, you talked about how I made you feel things you hadn't felt before. I was lying when I agreed. To be honest, I don't know if I've felt any of that before."
Tom had become very still. With one quill in hand, he stared blindly at the table before him.
"I know that I love you," Harry told him clearly, calmly, "I know that I want to spend the rest of my life – the rest of forever – with you, but ever since creating a Horcrux, and even more so ever since you cursed me, I can't feel it. I want to feel it – or, at least, I think I want to – but it's gone, Tom. You've taken that away from me, amongst other things."
Harry was sure Tom heard him; getting a response didn't seem likely. Ink from the quill dripped onto the table, unnoticed.
"I think I'm losing my memories. I don't know how, or why, but it's definitely happening. If I was to bet on it, I'd say it's probably because of what happened recently, because of the curse. Any time we go away together, any time we talk, any time we spend hours together... I don't see it's appeal. I can't relate to half the things you say to me."
"Which sort of things?" Tom asked quietly.
"Well... well, most of it."
He still hadn't moved.
"Even when we touch, even when you say things to me that I know should probably be important, all I can feel is lust, if anything. That isn't an emotion, it's just a reaction. In the past, when we first met, all I felt was pain from what I had been through, but you helped me to forget – you helped me to put all of that behind me, to focus on new things that made me feel something, anything, else. I know I felt more than lust before, with you, but just I can't understand it, not anymore. I can't remember a thing about my old life, I can't even remember being at Hogwarts with you. I can't tell you what happened the first time we kissed, nor where we even were -"
The quill in Tom's hand snapped. He was shaking, badly. His eyes were burning in ire, his jaw clenched and his lips pressed together hard as he stayed in the same stiff position. Harry didn't think he had ever seen Tom this torn before (if his memory was any scale on which to judge such things, anymore).
"I feel like I may as well be dead, Tom. None of this matters, none of this makes me feel anyth-"
Tom stood up. He turned to face Harry in one swift movement, glaring. He was enraged in a way much deeper than Harry could see in this state. Even he knew by this point, however, that Tom was the only one to blame for this. He knew, also, that Tom had an impossible choice to make, and this unsettled and unhinged him like nothing else had. He could give Harry back his memories and emotions at the risk of death, or he could keep him alive forever, but his love would be lost forevermore.
"If you're exaggerating, Harry," Tom began in a warning tone, "I suggest you tell me so. Now."
"I'm not lying," Harry told him, facing him bravely from the couch he sat on. The anger inside of Tom seemed to pour out before his very eyes. "Why would I lie about something like this?"
Tom looked away from him. He began pacing the room.
"You can change me back," Harry reminded him. "The risk of me dying is still unlikely, we don't know-"
"No!" Tom interrupted through gritted teeth. He ran clawed hands over his own skull, pulling at his hair in frustration. "To risk your death is the most foolish thing I could do! It will make you mortal, it will put everything at risk. I – I'm never – never – going to... I'm never going to!"
He was shaking his head furiously, pained. The mere thought of losing Harry had him in pieces in seconds, distraught.
"How could I have overlooked this for so long?" he asked himself madly, his voice grating. "Months, we have been here together... I thought you'd clear up from this state..."
Harry thought wildly, for no good reason, of the many brave men and women who would have happily, ignorantly risked their own lives for those they loved. They were all now faceless and forgotten to him, but somehow this echo of memory played on his mind. Immortality wasn't everything.
"There has to be another way... There is always another way! I know there is, I think of it..."
"Tom, just -"
"Let me think!" he hissed furiously, his teeth bared.
It was like seeing some deranged animal locked in a cage for far too long, tormented by memories of being mistreated, of losing all that he loved. Tom couldn't stop fidgeting with his hands, itching his face, covering his mouth as his strained eyes did everything but meet Harry's own.
"You still love me, don't you?" Tom asked frantically.
"I know I do, yeah."
"Yet the problem," Tom said, "the problem is that you cannot feel it... We know that love for me resides within you, somewhere, so the solution has for us to bring it back... If we make a Love Potion, we could use it as it if were a medicine, to cure what you have lost. This is all you need back, it will cure what has been masked."
Tom's lack of happiness at the idea told Harry that on some level, he too could see the flaw in this plan.
"I don't think it will have any affect," Harry said bluntly. "The problem isn't that I'm not in love with you, it's that I can't feel it. Even if we managed to strengthen how I feel, all of that emotion will fall under the curse, just like all emotion."
"It's worth a try! It's the only option we have, I'm not risking your life when there are other options!"
"There are no other options, Tom. You can't fool yourself into honestly believing a Love Potion will work."
He didn't want to hear it – nor any of this at all, clearly. "Yet there's no other solution!"
"Except to take this curse off of me. Tom, whatever you're trying to do right now isn't working."
"We haven't tried a thing! We have to rule out our options before making such a decision."
"We don't have a choice."
"You can't know that!"
"The curse isn't going to lessen itself."
Tom's head snapped up, his eyes ever-watchful. "Of course..." he said in a hushed voice.
"What?"
"We lessen the curse ourselves!"
Tom was staggering towards Harry, his eyes upon him only now that he had found an answer. A wide grin was breaking across his face, his sharp, even teeth flashing before Harry's eyes.
"I can make you love me again, I can try to lessen the curse in some way, to fix you."
His pupils were dilated in the low light. He was close to Harry now.
"Can you?" Harry asked. "I didn't think it could become any less, I didn't think you had control over it."
"I can find a way," Tom promised him. "I can fix this."
"With experimental magic," Harry finished. It wasn't a question. He knew this wasn't the sort of magic that gave you a choice of how badly you affected someone. This wasn't supposed to be a cure for the victim's problems, it was used only in malice and greed for the spell-caster's gain.
"You and I have done many great things in the past, and will do many great things in the future, my love," Tom reminded him hastily. "This is manageable!"
The thought didn't trouble Harry, even if there was a chance Tom might not succeed. All he knew was that he wanted his memories back and he wanted this eerie feeling to lessen within him. He nodded to Tom in agreement, saying nothing.
"I must begin researching this, as soon as possible."
Tom was already turning in the direction of the bookshelves surrounding them as he said it. He was running his thin fingers along the spines of all the books in view, until he gave up, leaving the room entirely. He returned with a book in hand from their bedroom.
Hauling the book onto his desk, Tom opened it hurriedly, flicking past all the pages that were useless to him. Harry walked over to him calmly, weaving around to stand to the side of Tom's chair.
"Here it is," Tom said happily, pointing to a page filled with the beginning of a long section dedicated to the branch of dark magic he had used upon Harry. "The more we find out about this, the sooner we can fix you. I'm sure there must be some scrap of information, some lead in there that will tell us how!"
"Brilliant," Harry commented. "How long will it be before I'm alright?"
Tom turned to look up at him. A smile broke across his face again as he stood up, towering over Harry now. His long, spidery fingers found their way to Harry's chin; he tilted his face up. Harry was forced to look into this wide, mad eyes, but he had lost the memories depicting a 16-year-old Tom in Slughorn's office, or an older Tom shaking in hysterical laugher over the blood-covered sink in their small apartment in Diagon Alley, celebrating the death of a Muggle tramp. Worse than this, Emeric's mad eyes flashed through Harry's mind to match Tom's own.
"I want to fix you as soon as possible," Tom told him, his voice shaking in the after-shock of the night's conversation. "In a week in two... just as long as it takes me to learn how to fix you."
– X –
In four days, Tom had a theory. In six, he was confident enough that he could preform this magic without a problem. The more he spoke about it, the more he described how he had found the answer hidden behind the rough, rushed descriptions of magic, the more Harry was sure that he had indeed worked it all out. After a day or two more of pouring over his books to be sure he hadn't missed a thing, Tom told Harry it was time.
"What do I do?" Harry asked calmly.
"Sit down," Tom said, indicating the chair before him. "This won't take too long, for you."
Although Tom was confident in his own skill, knowledge, and ability, Harry sensed he was tense. Harry turned in the direction of the chair, intent upon getting this over with as soon as possible, but Tom stopped him. He had found Harry's hand with his own, and from there he pulled him closer. With one lingering kiss, Harry understood that some part of Tom was unnerved.
"Will it hurt?" he asked quietly as they parted.
"No, not for long, my love."
It didn't bother him, in truth, but Tom's behaviour did. He seemed almost guilty.
He sat down on the chair before him in silence, waiting for what was to come.
"Try not to move too much," Tom advised. "You're going to seemingly fall asleep for most of this process. When you wake up properly, I should be finished."
Harry nodded. All he wanted was for this to end. He closed his eyes.
It was almost calming, the way Tom audibly walked around him, leafing through the pages of the book in his hands. He talked to Harry over the next few minutes, explaining what he was doing, explaining what Harry should do, and somehow this was comforting. Soon, Harry knew, he would be himself again.
"Prepare yourself," Tom warned him gently. "Three, two..."
Harry took a sharp intake of breath as Tom's spell struck. The comfort he took in Tom's soft movements was being swiftly replaced by distracting thoughts of the pain. He stayed quiet about it, understanding it wouldn't be long now until he drifted away.
Several long, pain-filled minutes passed. It was as if Harry's body was alarmed by Tom playing with his mind, so it reacted with odd pulses of shooting pain. Before he could help it, Harry was breathing heavily, struggling to keep quiet.
"I'm going to bring sleep upon you now, my love."
Harry was relieved. A fog was starting. "I love you, Tom..."
He thought he heard Tom give a breath of satisfied, comforted laughter, as well as a mirrored response, but he wasn't sure. He was drifting higher and higher, away from his body...
He fell into a deep sleep, but this did little to stop him from waking up for seconds at a time during the process of breaking the curse. In these moments, he felt a searing pain starting in his head, causing him to tremble and shudder in delirious agony, muttering words of why it wouldn't stop, why he was here. Tom fixed the enchantments as calmly as he could when this happened, putting him back to sleep. The process of the magic lasted half the night.
At random, Harry found he was lying in bed, with Tom standing beside him. The pain droned on and on, but for the second time this evening, to a much stronger degree, Harry found comfort in Tom's presence. He wasn't crazed like he had been last time, he wasn't shaking Harry and talking in demented circles about how he wouldn't let him die. He was sure of himself. His expression was quizzical and wondering, and Harry was falling back in love... before falling back to sleep.
The next time Harry awoke, it was for good. Tom's looming form was the first thing he saw yet again. Reaching out a hand, Tom touched the side of his face, running a thumb across his cheek in adoration. Harry felt too warm, bothered by the sticking sheets around his body. He sat up. He tried to swallow to sooth his dry throat, but the taste of his own putrid mouth made him feel even more nauseated than the previous pain. Before he could help it, he rolled over to the edge of the bed, vomiting all over the floor.
He gasped and shuddered at the alarm his own sickness brought upon him. He clasped his hands around his pounding head, which worsened at the smell of vomit. When he reached one hand out blindly for the Elder Wand, he found it on the night table beside him. With a wave of it, the mess cleared away instantly.
"I take it this isn't a bad sign?" he managed hoarsely.
"No," Tom said softly, stroking back his hair. "It went well."
Harry signed in relief. His stomach was twisting into knots at Tom's touch. This was the first emotional change within him, after his escalating heartbeat, and it told him that things were returning back to how they once were. He felt like hell, but he embraced the pain, knowing that he was finally freed of that monotonic hell Tom had cast upon him. His emotions felt limited still, but it was as if Tom had merely kept a dam to hold back a river of his feelings, giving him sight of the sky, the sun, the trees, the stars, once more.
"How do you feel?" Tom asked curiously.
"Like vomiting again."
"And emotionally?"
"I feel great. I feel like – like I've never felt in months."
Harry was beaming, eager to describe to Tom what he remembered their lives before. He could recall all of the time they spent together at Hogwarts, all the time they were alone from the Death Eaters, longing to stay together like this for the rest of their lives. His eagerness faded, however. The moment he set his eyes upon Tom, his heart skipped several beats, and his smile faded.
It was as if Harry hadn't seen him in months, in a year. He had aged greatly; his eyes had grown more bloodshot and darker these last few months alone. It could have been the stress at almost losing Harry, but somehow it seemed far deeper than that. Something within Tom's very being had changed, something had become lost. As Harry stared back at him now, all he could see was the man who would one day murder each and every other human being he had loved.
Fear rose from so deep within Harry, all he could do was stare.
Until, eventually, he found the courage to stand up. The floor was clean. Harry had the perfect excuse to leave Tom: hid body was covered in sweat, his mouth was coated in his own sick. He needed to clean himself off.
"I'll be right back," Harry managed, turning away from Tom's unblinking stare.
He was in their bathroom in seconds, pushing the door half-closed behind him. His legs would barely hold him up, even as he staggered to the sink five feet into the room. He ran the taps in one swift movement, covering the sound of his own heavy, terrified breathing. Tom had fixed him. He was back to how he once was, more lucid than he had ever been after creating his Horcrux.
He cleared the putrid taste from his mouth with the Elder Wand, storing it back in his pocket when he was finished. His hands cooled down instantly under the cold water from the tap, so he cupping it and brought it up to his face too, soothing his sweating skin. He felt like puking again – or worse, but he wasn't quite sure what 'worse' was. He tried to steady his breathing and slow his racing heart. It was to no avail.
He was Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived. It felt strange to think about this alone. He had been wrongly deemed the only living wizard strong enough to defeat the Greatest Dark Wizard of All Time. He had been born to a family of two Sorcerers in love, but had grown up in a different house full of abuse and hatred directed at him merely for having abilities that unnerved and enraged his only living relatives. Harry had never had the opportunity to know his parents... he could remember, now, each and every moment he had agonized over this thought as a child.
Harry stared at his own reflection, unnerved by the strange face that stared back. It was such a painful sight, to see the red of his bloodshot eyes mix so sharply with the bright green of his irises. None of the people he had once known would be able to recognise him at all, he knew. As a child, Hogwarts had given him strength. His friends, his teachers, his guardians, his godfather, had all given him the care and love he needed to heal from what happened in the past. If he had them back now, could all of their love and adoration have even a chance of curing him? He wasn't so sure.
He was Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived.
Tom's love had cured him of the terrible memories he left behind from his old life, but somehow they had returned. It was as though the last two or three months of losing all emotion had triggered within him a desire to know about the memories he had fully lost. Now that he was beginning to recollect flashes of his life at the Dursley's, of meeting Hagrid, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore, of living a far better life at Hogwarts, he was becoming addicted to pulling back ancient events and feelings that would have otherwise been lost. He wanted to know it all, he wanted to feel it again...
Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived.
"Are you alright?"
Harry glanced at Tom for only a second, but it was long enough to send what felt like spears shooting through his midriff. He stared down at his hands, which felt numb from the cold of the water.
"I'm fine. I just need to wash up a bit..."
He was walking closer. Harry wished he wouldn't, even as Tom's strong hand slid down his back comfortingly. He stood to the side of Harry, encouraging him to meet his gaze with one soft movement of his finger on Harry's chin.
"You'll be perfectly fine, my love."
It was torture. Tom's touch sent Harry's heart into a flutter of high emotion, it caused a steak of desire to run through him, surrounded by torrents of soaring adoration and love, but it also sickened him down to his core. He could barely comprehend how it was possible that those dark, bloodshot eyes could be capable of harbouring a look of such care, satisfaction, and, perhaps, love.
"How do you feel?"
A rush of terror made Harry want to do several bad things at once. He's going to curse me... If he suspects a thing, he's going to drag me back to that room to force the magic on me again...
"I'm fine," he said, trying not to leave an odd pause, "I can definitely feel emotion again..."
"Good," Tom said softly, tilting his head to the side a little as he smiled.
Voldemort, Harry thought agonisingly. Voldemort did that before killing him, before he went to King's Cross in his mind, before he was sent to this era... It was hard to look Tom in the eyes, but looking away too much suggested guilt, suggested treachery...
"I think I'm gunna run a bath," Harry said monotonically, knowing this was an excuse to turn away.
"I could always clean you up myself," Tom commented.
"I'd rather take a bath," he said without much pause.
He began fumbling with the taps, his back turned to Tom. In seconds, he reminded himself, in a minute, Tom would be gone. In seconds, in a minute...
"It – it'll relax me," Harry added, when he realised Tom was waiting.
He knew Tom was close to adding in a light comment about how he could help him with that too, but Harry didn't look back at him, nor give any other inclination that he wanted anything but to take a bath on his own, to clear his head, to steady him.
What Harry did next took every ounce of will he had within him. Standing up straighter and turning around, he attempted a small smile, a comforting expression. "I won't be long. I'll come back out to you when I'm finished."
Tom returned his smile, far more genuinely, and nodded once in understanding. "If you wish."
Harry waited for him to leave. In seconds, in a minute... Tom walked closer to him, making Harry worry this would take longer, but Tom merely leant in to kiss him once on the forehead before turning away. In seconds, he was out the door, closing it fully behind him.
Harry breathed in deeply, filling his compressed lungs for the first time in a minute – he had been holding in his breath in agony. The struggle for breath brought on another shaky gasp, soon, and another, which rose the emotions within him as if he had plunged into a sea of his own sorrow, forcing rippling waves to erupt in all directions. The running water masked the sound of his frustration, fear, and anguish. He was Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived, who would live forevermore...
Voldemort had just walked out that bedroom door. Voldemort had just kissed him on his forehead, on his scar, after smiling sweetly at him. Voldemort had held him close all those nights they spent alone, he had told Harry of the glory that erupted from his heart, of the feelings he had never known possible before meeting him – The Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived. Voldemort was the man who would suffer the same heartbreak that Harry was forcing upon himself this very moment, frozen in the horror of his situation now, the choices he had made to place himself here.
Remembering the past was the opposite of everything Harry had wanted these last six years. Recollecting the years he had spent with his two best friends was something he had forced himself to stop long ago, but tonight, for the first time, memories of Ron and Hermione weren't the worst feeling he could face. It was Tom that had helped him to forget, but Tom, now, who he had to disappoint. He had lost every single witch, wizard, Muggle, beast, and creature he had ever cared about because of the only man he had left to love. Tom did not bring him happiness. Tom had destroyed his old life, and now he was destroying his very soul.
Harry was tearing at his hair, breathing in and out so rapidly he was sure that Tom would hear him if he didn't calm himself down soon. His body was a prison, his soul was shattered and broken and it stole most of the life that lived beyond his now crushed, muddled, muffled, and limited emotions. He was no one. He was not the boy he used to be, he was a shattered, unstable young man who didn't know what he was supposed to do now. Every choice he had made, every attempt to find happiness in the only man who would take him in, had been in vain. No matter how much he loved Tom, no matter how much he was loved by him, it could not change who they were at heart.
Emeric's death had been no more terrifying than any of the other deaths Tom caused, but it was the first in which Harry had no rationality to forgive him for what he had done. Tom had hurt him again; he was always going to hurt him. It didn't matter if Harry joined him honestly, or defied him from inside out, Tom was going to hurt him as surely as Harry felt this pain. No matter how much love smeared his ability to see Tom for what he was, no matter how many terrible things Harry did to numb his inner voice, no matter how many lives he took or promises me made, he could not change who he truly was. He could not change what Tom had always been.
He was Harry James Potter... Harry wasn't sure if he could take the pain that poured through him. In his emotionless state of the last three months, he had thought of a plan. He wanted nothing more than to tear away at the skin of his forehead, to let his body breath through the prison walls that his skin sealed around him. He had betrayed every man, woman, boy, and girl he had ever felt love for in his old life, he had broken his own heart and had destroyed the lives of all who had believed in him. Now, on this freezing, snowing December night, it was time to start betraying Tom. There was nothing else he could do to stop deeper guilts from killing him first.
Harry didn't know how he made it through this night. He took his bath, he prepared his mind, and he walked back into the bedroom to face Tom in bravery. He shut down his own emotions, he gritted his teeth. Tom kissed him slowly, strongly, playing to the new emotions he knew Harry felt for the first time again. By morning, they drifted off to sleep, and when Harry awoke later that day, it was to find himself in blissful lonesomeness. He got out of bed, got himself ready, and left the house without seeing Tweaky.
December's chill was too weak an enemy to bother Harry's skin. He was headed in the direction of the only other house he seemed to visit alone these days. Emotions haunted him, burning his heart, blinding his eyes – but never yet could Harry cry. This was too important, he was too numb to dive into that sea of emotion yet. There was something of much greater worth for him to attend to, and when Nott's house came into view his thoughts slotted into place as if dancing. He ascended the steps in front of Nott's door, and knocked.
The pale, tired face of the only friend he had left appeared within minutes. Nott wasn't surprised by another visit from him, but something in Harry's expression made him pause before saying his usual greetings. Nott could read Harry's face like a map, he could make out all the places he'd been this last night, and he understood why. Harry didn't have the words to start explaining, but still Nott understood. He took in a deep breath, his eyes full of melancholy care.
"Come in, Harry..."
