Chapter 6

A Riddled Affair

"He cleaned up quite well. You can hardly see the little rogue left in him."

"Tell me about it, and he's going to earn me that spot on the town committee. Everyone is chirping on about my kindness for allowing the little urchin inside my home. Honestly, all the old cows in the village stop and pinch his cheeks. Cecelia's damn near fallen in love with him, and my mother can't stop playing with his curls. That child is the only good thing that came from that bitch that ruined my life."

The middle-aged man sitting across from Tom Riddle mocked sympathy through a titter as he sipped at his tea. "My goodness, and what a scandal that was. They should string the lot of them up for practicing witchcraft and their pagan rituals on innocent folk such as you. Ever notice how all of the farmers in the area claim their livestock flourished again once that vile creature, Marvolo, kicked the bucket?"

Riddle laughed in a morose manner. "What are you insinuating, old chap? You think he had something to do with their slaughtering?"

"Oh, he was a mad one, all right. Deformed, too… I wouldn't put it past any of them. Burns the hairs in my nose just thinking on it."

"Is it any wonder that uh… er…? Henr…Harl… Hhhharry. Yes, Harry doesn't want to go back… not that he has any choice; I've taken the liberty of having papers drawn up to procure full custody of him, and I've enrolled him at Harrow School. I'm such a good daddy, Marvin; the boy is absolutely smitten with me."

Tom Riddle waved to Cecelia and Harry as they trotted past him and his business associate in the back gardens. The riders were wearing matching polo shirts, jodhpurs, and high boots, and waved back at the men cheerfully. Riddle took a long sip from his teacup and set it on the saucer with perfect refinement. "He's a natural. Celia says he could show with another year's practice. I guess he turned fourteen or something about a week ago… who knows, who cares. Anyway, I gave him that horse, Matilda, as a birthday present."

"Blimey, that was mighty kind of yea, Riddle."

"Right, well, he doesn't have any desire to return to his little shack now, so it served its purpose. He's stayed on here over the last four days."

Marvin gasped. "And none of them Gaunts have come to collect him?"

Riddle chuckled deeply in return. "Oh, they have: That Morfin character. I was going to have him arrested this very morning for refusing to vacate the grounds, but he slithered off before the police arrived. They're on the lookout for him."

"We can only hope that they apprehend him," the man said with a smirk.

"Quite right."

It had plagued Harry for days, these ill thoughts running through his head. He rubbed his scar to dull the annoying prickle plaguing him all morning. It was selfish; he knew that, to stay in such a place and feel… happiness? He was not fully content, but everything else paled in comparison. Still, something was missing.

Mr Riddle was careful to veil his emotions around Harry; there was a sense the distrust whenever the man approached. As disconcerting as it was, Harry understood Tom Sr.'s loathe for anything magical or of relation to Merope or Morfin Gaunt. His mother had duped the man, poisoned his drink with Amortentia in foolish hope of fashioning a life for herself without thinking of him, thusly creating two more lives who unjustly suffered with poverty and abuse for no good reason at all.

And Morfin was just a plain old bully.

For two solid weeks Harry spent dawn to dusk with the man, and over the last four eves he took his father's advice not to return home. He missed his mum and Tom in a way that tugged very hard at his heart. He worried incisively about his mother's wellbeing while living without either of her children. Maybe Tom had finally gone home, but if he had… why hadn't he come to fetch him?

Now, finding himself locked in his room for the night as punishment for spewing a slew of foul vulgarities at Mr Riddle, Harry sat on the edge of his gigantic bed with his head propped on fists. The man was mad if he thought he could stop him from returning to Hogwarts. Harry wanted to be angrier, to kick things and break stuff until everything was in a million pieces, but he wasn't. In fact, it was almost flattering to think that someone actually cared enough about him to want him to have a finer education and worry about how dangerous magic was to someone so alone in this wicked world of wizards and Muggles.

Not to mention that Riddle had seen the scars, the welts, and the spot on Harry's head that refused to scab properly… He was no fool to think that Harry was as clumsy as he had claimed to be.

"No son of mine will be treated poorly by those filthy creatures. The authorities are in search of Morfin Gaunt as we speak, and I will be pressing full charges against him once they apprehend him," Riddle had said. Harry didn't care whether he meant it, or not. Morfin in prison sounded like a fine idea to him.

He was finally away from all of that fear, that pain, the trouble. No one laughed at him in town anymore. No one called him 'the Littler Rogue' or threw things at him, spit on him… but the sacrifice was hard to swallow. Mr Hitchens trusted Riddle about as far as he could throw him, and Mr Hitchens was a wonderful, kind Muggle. He warned Harry about his father's intensions, giving him insight to what lay beneath the sudden bout of kindness.

As naïve as Harry was, he also understood give and take. If Riddle wanted a showpiece for profit, then he would have one. He would give Tom Sr. the perfect son, and would take from this man a life of promise. That was the Slytherin way… but giving up Hogwarts was not going part of the deal.

A sharp knock at the door disrupted the boy's thoughts. "Yes?" he said in a small voice, feeling his veins pump with adrenaline. He was going to be scolded and had to take it like a man, and keep his mouth shut in the process. "Keep your mind now," he told himself. "Don't let him win. Don't let him get one over on you." The boy did not fancy the idea of holding a hunk of soap in his mouth for five whole minutes as he had been threatened with, no matter how badly the curse words were dying to fly.

He sat up as he watched his father enter the room and close the door behind him, and his eyes narrowed in wait for confrontation. "I'm not going to Harrow School, so save your breath," Harry blurted, vexed. "I have a full scholarship at Hogwarts. It's one of the finest wizarding schools in the world. Tom won't allow you to do—"

"Save the speech," Riddle replied. He put his back to the door, leaning against it as if to keep Harry locked in there forever. He appeared inebriated with spirits, his words slurred. "You're going to Harrow and that's that. Winston Churchill went to Harrow, I went to Harrow, and now you're going to Harrow. They'll make you a man, and for god's sake - you need it like no other, you little molly."

Hurray, another swipe at his lack of masculinity. Harry smirked, having grown numb from the unvarying innuendo. "Fuck Winston Churchill and Harrow School, and fuck you," he said flatly, and listened as the lovely resonance of fingernails scratched into the wood of the door the man was leaning against. Harry had never used the word 'fuck' so effectively before - or at all, to be sure. It was one of Tom's chosen obscenities that tore his mother to pieces whenever it slipped past his lips - and the effect was near spot on with Riddle.

The true test now would be whether the man standing in front of him could stay in control. Harry kept sniffling from a small cold he had caught, looking completely youthful and adorable in his little velvet knee pants; very stiff and ripe with angst on the edge of his bed. A bit of worry pricked at his heart, watching those dark eyes narrow to slits. He may have gone too far and would catch a through beating, but it was worth it.

Riddle relaxed his muscles after a moment of silent contemplation, letting his head loll to the side and a smirk matching Harry's curl his lips. He seemed to be enjoying this row as much as the boy. Perhaps being a father, to him, was not as life-restrictive as he once thought. "You've got a fire inside of you yet… I like that, Harry. Perhaps you're slightly less of a queer than I first thought."

Whatever… Harry perked up. "Does that mean I can return to Hogwarts?"

"No."

Harry slumped back into position, folding his arms over his chest for added drama. So this was what it was like to have a father. He didn't hate it, and he didn't want this dispute to end. The little hairs on his arms stood straight up. Riddle was nothing short of bemusing. If only Tom could be there to feel the difference Harry felt at that very moment, and experience how utterly delightful and downright bizarre it was to play house with someone sane. He curled his fingers around the bedding he was sitting on, fearing he might float away.

"You're going to…er…do that thing that children do when er… sit in your room all day… punished, whatever. No dessert, no horse tomorrow… right," Riddle mumbled through an odd bout of hand gesticulations. "So umm… brush your teeth and all that, tuck in…"

Harry huffed loudly as he stomped over to the adjoining room, slamming the door behind him. He flopped over the basin and looked at himself in the large golden framed mirror hanging on the wall. As strange as it was, and Merlin was it ever strange, he smiled as brightly as he could remember smiling. He felt at home.

"…near sick to death. How could you do this to her? Oh, wake up already!"

Harry groaned at the intrusion to his lovely dreams and attempted to roll onto his side, but found out quickly that he couldn't. He opened his eyes in rude awakening, and gasped as a hand clamped solidly over his mouth.

Tom was sitting straddled over him. He was dressed in all black, camouflaging him with the darkness of the room. The anger he was portraying was genuine, not the mock father figure angle Riddle had used. He struggled to hold Harry in place while he fully awoke. "Stop it! It's just me!"

Harry peeled Tom's hand away, bending his fingers back as painfully as he could. "What are you doing?" he hissed harshly under his breath.

Tom tensed up. "That's my question to ask you, idiot. Why are you here?"

"I live here now!"

"Oh, you live here now, do you…? We don't have time for this…" Tom yanked Harry up by the arms and pulled him off of the bed. He gazed around the room, squinting to adjust to the lack of lighting. Each individual piece of furniture within the borders of the flocked walls looked to cost more than everything combined in their squalor of a shack. It was elegant and tasteful, exactly as Tom imagined it to be. His nose crinkled with revulsion. Uncaring what Harry was clad in, whether it pyjamas made of pure silk or his skivvies; as he currently was; he pushed the smaller boy toward the door to remove him from this wretched hive of evil forever.

Harry was wriggling around like a toddler to snake out from his clutches. About bloody time! Tom had finally arrived to bring him back. It was revitalizing to feel him so close again, to hear him demand that he return. His heart was thumping so hard, he felt every blood-pumping vein might burst apart. There was only one teeny tiny little problem…

Harry thrust a hand in front of him, gripping the frame of the door to put a hasty end to his brother's actions. "But I don't want to go back home!"

Tom winced as if he were stung and held a finger to his lips. "Keep it down, you bunny, you're going to wake someone up! If I had known you were going to do this, I would have just given you the… Oh, move, go!"

"Why can't you and I just stay here? Stop it, Tom," Harry protested, smacking wildly at his brother's insistent body bumping to get him moving. "He'd take you in, too!"

"Stay here…?" Tom was taken a back. The urgency to get Harry out of the room flapped its fiery wings and flew out of his already teetering conscience. He stood there, arm still clamped around Harry like anchored rope, with his mouth hung open in surprise, attempting to fathom why anyone would willing want to live among Muggles. His other hand moved on its own, cupping the boy on the forehead to check for illness. "Have you got a fever?"

Harry exhaled a hot breath of frustration, and curled his fingers around Tom's to dislodge them. "Look, Tom," he said gently, "its three meals a day, the rain won't splatter in your eyes while you sleep, and it's so… quiet. Mr Riddle might be a bit—"

"Traitor," Tom hissed. He felt Harry lock his body in place as his grip tightened on him. "Have you forgotten what a nightmare he made our lives in the village? Muggles spit on mummy, called her awful names, told her they would put us in an orphanage and turned their noses at us when she cried her eyes out and pleaded for them to leave us alone. Mr Riddle instigated all of this! How can forgive a man who put us through hell? Let's not even get into why you were confined to this room when I got here – like a prisoner."

"I don't forgive him!" Harry clarified quickly, looking horrified by this slap-in-your-face reminder. "I don't even like him, Tom, I just… well, he locked me in for calling him a… he didn't do it out of spite and he didn't hurt me. He did it so I wouldn't run away, not because I was in his way. Mummy did it for very different reasons, and you know it!"

Tom pulled a sharp breath and slapped a hand back over Harry's noisy mouth. "Will you bloody well indulge me in keeping you voice down—please?" Another bout of struggles commenced before Harry gave up and nodded, and Tom pulled both of his hands back, holding them up in peace. "I won't leave again if you come home, I promise."

Harry let out a dejected sigh and closed the door. He flipped the light switch on the wall and leaned back against it. Tom was so bloody handsome it was almost hard to look at him without sighing. He loved him, worshipped him. He missed him so much. Harry sniffled and rubbed his nose, ashamed of himself for disrupting everything around him when all he wanted to do was fit in. If only it was him that kept Tom home, and not his mother's loneliness, or Morfin's insanity, or Tom's hatred for Mr Riddle.

Harry's eyes welled up. He looked away, hugging his arms for comfort. "You don't have to do that. I would never expect you to stay home on my account. I know you don't love me… you can't even look at me. I'm not good enough for you. I'm not good enough for Morfin or Mr Riddle, and I'm sorry if I burdened your life by following you around all the time."

"Harry," Tom breathed, scrunching his features with confusion. "What are you saying? You never…"

Two fat tears trailed over Harry's cheeks. He turned his head and wiped them off on his forearm. "I just wanted you to notice me. I didn't try to be less that what you needed in a brother… I just am, and I'm sorry. I'm going to stay here. Mr Riddle doesn't like me, but at least he pretends to."

Tom took a closer step, but Harry drew back from him. He froze, feeling drained of lifeblood. How could he have let this go so far as to allow Harry to think for one moment that he meant nothing to him? How could he not understand how difficult it was to distance himself from the one thing in the whole world he wanted to be closest to? Tom could not remember crying before and he refused to let that happen, but the pain clutching the edges of his heart, making it hard to breathe, crinkled his chin. "You've got it wrong," he said softly, taking another careful step closer.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Have I?"

"Yes!" Tom half-shouted. He slipped his arms around Harry's waist, pulling him in close, hugging him to his chest. "I love you. Don't ever let me hear you say any different. Harry. You and mummy mean everything to me, and she's dying for you to come home. She hasn't stopped crying since you left. "

"Is that true?"

"I swear to Merlin it's true."

The sweet melody of Harry's uneven, ragged breathing and the sudden shift of weight against him as Harry's arms came up and circled his waist, filled Tom with a peace he had not expected. They stood together in silence while Harry regained his composure, letting the last of his tears cascade down his cheeks and disappear into the soft material of Tom's shirt.

It was an unfortunate weakness the boy had shown him, something that would need to be righted; Harry was uncertain of himself, feeling unworthy of the people around him. This was simply unacceptable. No one – not Riddle or Morfin, nor anyone at school, was as fine a human being as Harry. None of them deserved to be graced by his presence, and they were the ones who had caused this.

Of course Harry would need to be removed from this manor, and now. Spending another minute under this roof would only serve to lessen his diminished spirits. Tom's ultimate goal for being there came back into mind, and pushed the emotion away, set to finish. "Are you still going to give me a fight?" he whispered into Harry's bed-mussed hair.

Harry looked up, astounded. "What?"

Tom pulled away, taking a step back. Using magic here was not an option, not yet. Tom had to maintain a level head, keep his emotions in check and not lose any semblance of control over the situation, no matter how pretty Harry looked trembling before him with his pleading green eyes. "Maybe you should get dressed, and we can talk about this a little more."

Dawn was nearing, evident by the lightened windows and the sounds of bustling about on the floor below them. He reached into his pocket, touching the vial of liquid given to him directly before his arrival at the Riddle House. It would be difficult to get Harry to drink it without stirring the staff below. People were awake, they would hear him now. Draco Malfoy had been right. He should have just administered the drug before he woke the boy up, but finding Harry locked inside his room had given Tom the false impression that he was being held captive, and would have come willingly.

Dizzied with obscurity, Harry absently nodded. As he pulled a shirt on over his shoulders, Tom looked out the second story window and quickly spotted the silver-haired man glaring back up at him from the garden. Draco gestured hotly for him to hurry; tapping his wrist with a finger and waving for him to get a fucking move on. "So, umm… what do you think, Harry? Are you willing to give me another chance?" He moved around behind the boy and took the collar of his shirt to straighten it. The vial was cupped in his palm, uncorked.

Harry curled into his warmth as he buttoned the pearl buttons and reached for his trousers. "I don't think so, Tom. I think if you just gave him a chance, you might like him. I don't fancy staying on with Morfin another minute. Mr Riddle took me to a doctor last week, had that cut on my scalp stitched because it wouldn't close up. I don't want it—" Before he could utter another word, something hard, made of glass, smacked against his front teeth and a foul tasting substance coated his tongue as it slid toward the back of his throat. Tom's hand gripped him at the jaw, forcing his head back while his he held Harry tight to the crook of his stiffened form. Without swallowing a drop, Harry's muscles slackened on their own, halting any and all attempts to spit the remainder out or struggle to free himself. He collapsed and was lifted up, still but barely conscious, and quite unable to speak or budge even a finger.

Throwing the window open the instant he dropped Harry on his bed; Tom looked down at Draco with urgency. "It's done. Get up here and help me sneak him out!"

Draco wilfully kept himself from shouting. This younger version of his master, brilliant as he was, did not think things through properly. "That was sort of the point of the potion, so you could handle this on your own before we ran out of time." He looked behind him, at the carriage passing on the road off at the end of the property while chewing anxiously on his bottom lip. "We just ran out of time. Drop him out the window. He's a wizard, very resilient to long falls, he'll be fine."

"I am not dropping him! I'll lower him out and you will catch him!" The direct order, sounding so much like his current self, stunned the Death Eater. Without hesitation, Draco moved under the window in preparation.

Harry groaned lightly as Tom slid his hands underneath him, lifting up. He was asleep now, blissfully unaware of the happenings around him. Tom held him up on his shoulder, coddling him and petting his hair as he walked over to the escape route. As carefully as he could, he lowered Harry out slowly, feet first, bit by bit, over the ledge until he was holding him by the wrists and Draco was able to latch onto his ankles. It was difficult, heart-pounding, and if anyone were to have spotted them it would have looked quite ridiculous and very much like kidnapping.

Tom fought to hold Harry steady, although his arms burned painfully to release him as Draco situated Harry for a proper landing. "Do you have him?" he cried out, fearing his grip would not hold much longer from the sweat forming on his palms, making the task a slippery nightmare.

"Yeah, let him go," Draco returned, and Tom did so, believing in this man once more. As Harry fell, Draco caught him around the middle and stumbled forward, tumbling into the brick wall of the east side of the manor.

With a nervous intake of air into his lungs, and not before dropping a dried, blood-stained knife onto the unmade bed, Tom leapt out of the window beside them and landed on all fours.

The sun peeked out over the land, filling the valley below with brilliant light. Little Hangleton had awoken. Draco and Tom each took one of Harry's arms to support his limp form, and carried him off toward the woods.

As his eyes began to adjust to the light – the faces of his family, blurred and distorted, came painfully into view. Harry blinked several times at the horrid visage of Morfin sniffing around him, poking and tugging at the shirt he was wearing. His hair was more matted than ever and caked with something muddy, with small sticks and leaves protruding out here and there. It looked as if he were wearing a bird's nest on his head. Tom had gone and done it – he was back in the House of Gaunt. "You've got to be fucking pulling my leg," he mumbled as he tried to sit up, but a hand came down on his chest to shove him back into the bedding.

Merope's face was set. "Harry Morfin Gaunt, you naughty, foul-mouthed little imp, if I ever hear you utter another vulgar word in my presence again I will take a switch to the backs of your legs until you can't walk for a month!"

"Where's my knife?" Morfin growled. Harry squinted to look around the room for any sign of Tom. He rolled off of the bed, away from his mother and uncle to put some space between them. "Don't you run off without giving me my knife, now. I told you plenty o' times not to touch it."

"Where're my spectacles? I can't see a thing," he replied, ignoring the silly question about that stupid knife.

"That's a nice shirt… been with your Muggle daddy doing Muggle stuff, eh? I 'spect he took your wand, so you took mine. I want em back; the wand and the knife…" Morfin droned while Merope fretted between them, and Harry groaned in realisation that Tom had probably forgotten his glasses at Mr Riddle's manor. "…not gonna tell you again, runt. Gimme the knife and wand and you'll get off easy. Nail you to the fucking door, I will. Do you hear me, boy?"

"What have I told you, you old fool; get away from him."

The trio turned to gape at the door. Tom was standing there now against the frame, glaring back at Morfin; his wand visible in his hand. He was still dressed in a black rollneck and trousers as he had been when Harry first saw him that morning, looking striking and confident. The sky, through the window, had brightened the day like no other. The sun was directly above their home, warming the remaining shingles on the roof and framing the gloominess of their bedroom in such a way that Harry cracked a slight smile despite the peculiar circumstances surrounding them. Morfin had shivered under Tom's presence, there was no mistaking that. He was afraid of Tom. Something had changed between them.

A loud banging at the door made Harry jump. Merope squeaked out a gasp, but Tom turned his head slowly, as if expecting this abrupt intrusion.

"I wonder who that could be…" he murmured softly, pocketing his wand and pushing off of the frame to answer it, and added, "Maybe you should put some trousers on, Harry; I think it's for you."

Morfin pushed past a still dazed Harry as he fumbled with the closest article of clothing he could find, shoving the small bedroom window upward to squeeze his large frame through it. Merope twisted her hands up in her housedress as she swivelled her head around to watch all three males she resided with in mid-action. "Tom, who is it?"

"There 'e goes—through the window!"

Without the clear use of his vision, the blur of dark coated men filling the small home, processing into the bedroom to prevent Morfin from escape startled Harry like nothing other. He backed away, into his mother for protection as four large men grappled and slipped around and lost their grip on the old wizard's leg. Morfin had escaped.

"He's gone into the woods!"

A large hand clamped down over Harry's shoulder. One of the policemen spun him around to face the door as he looked him over for any visible signs of abuse. "This him? He looks all right, Riddle."

"Yes, that's my son. The both of them, actually."

A round of cautious snickering resonated through the house. Harry could feel his mother tense against his backside at the words and at the towering figure standing in the living room pointing to him and Tom. Mr Riddle had come to collect his bounty.

Looking so far out of place inside of the shack that it was almost amusing; Riddle, standing stiffly, dressed to the nines, gazed around at his surroundings with a scowl. "Surely this is kidnapping. You saw the evidence, constable. That thing left a bloody knife on my child's bed! Look around you – this is no place to raise two boys."

"As if you ever cared a lick before Harry got you some notice…" Tom's eyebrow arched meticulously as his father turned to face him. The air around the room suddenly cooled several degrees. Tom moved back into the bedroom and stood behind his mother, putting an arm around her waist to keep her knees from buckling. "What is this about?" he asked politely, directing his question to the police officers. "We haven't done anything. Can't you see how badly you're frightening this poor, fragile woman?"

Ignoring him, the policeman pushed Harry through the door and into Riddle's grasp. One of the other officers jerked his thumb back at Tom. "You want him, too?"

Harry could feel the cold air setting frost on every surface. His breath was mist. A policeman rubbed his arms for warmth.

Tom's concerned visage contorted into hatred seeing Mr Riddle take Harry's arm, gripping it like a vice. "Oh no, just this little one, constable… the unspoiled one of the litter." The air between Tom and his father was turned to pure ice, and Merope's heart sank to her stomach at Riddle's ultimate and final rejection.

"And she should be jailed along with her brother," Riddle said darkly, pointing to Merope with pure distain. Harry blanched, and Tom's eyes flickered with raw emotion. "If any of them come onto my property, I cannot guarantee they'll walk away. Arrest her for harbouring that convict and holding my son hostage."

"No! She hasn't done anything!" Tom cried. "She's sick. You can't do this to us."

"Don't put mummy in jail!" Harry was panting for air as he grabbed at a kitchen chair for support. He no longer wanted to live in the Riddle House, or with Mr Riddle, no matter how fancy it was. Roughly, Riddle hauled him up off of the ground and dragged him to the door. Harry scrambled to hold onto anything. "Tom, don't let him do this!"

Without his glasses, looking desperately back at him, Harry was sure that his eyes had deceived him. From across the room, struggling to keep their mother from being ripped away and carted off, Harry caught a brief smile curling up on the corners of Tom's mouth. But as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

Through his eyelids, a flash of green light pierced into the darkness of the cupboard from under the crack of the door. Pain, like no other, pulsed once through his scar. Harry yelped and opened his eyes, wondering if another dream about the unusual colour was the cause. His muscles screamed in protest as he shifted on the cold, wooden floorboards to get a better look into Riddle's bedroom. He could hear the man's steady breath fill the silence. Harry's hands were bloodied from pounding against the door for hours, his eyes swollen and red from crying, and his throat was raw from screaming. He could not remember exactly when he had given in to exhaustion and fallen asleep, but it could not have been very long.

Another cruel jolt of green, and a stabbing, pain-filled blow against his forehead, sent Harry reeling backward against the wall of the small enclosure. He cried out and cupped his face, horrified by what was happening to him. Was it another accidental outburst of magic emanating from within, like the one that had shattered Mrs Riddle's ceramic cats earlier in the evening and caused his father to panic and lock him up? He didn't think so, but anything was possible.

The knob to the bedroom door jiggled. Harry held his breath and dropped back onto the floor. Maybe Mr Riddle was awake and might let him out. Artificial light flooded into the room. Harry clenched his eyes shut for a moment, and heard the sounds of footsteps tapping on the wooden floor. It was difficult to tell, at first, who the figure was standing over his father's bed. They were so tall, poised, with their robes seemingly flowing without breeze. Harry's breath hitched with excitement and fear as he realised who it really was.

Glancing at the cupboard to his left, Tom's cool demeanour was in check as he nudged the man sleeping quietly in his bed. "Wake up, you filthy Muggle, tell me what you've done with Harry."

Tom Riddle rose up in his bed, smirking. "Get the hell out of here," he hissed menacingly. "This is getting ridiculous. I'm going to telephone the police and have you all put away once in for all."

"No, don't do that!" Harry cried out, punching the door. If anything were to happen to Tom… He could not bear the thought of it. "Don't call the police, Mr Riddle, please!"

Tom moved forward over the bed. The telephone clattered noisily across the room, its cord ripped from the wall. Riddle was on his feet, moving aggressively around the bed. He was slightly larger than Tom, looming over him as he grabbed the boy and tossed him like a rag doll onto the mattress. Harry could only see Tom's shoes dangling over the side as Riddle climbed on top of him.

"Tom?"

There were sounds of a horrible struggle; choking gasps, clothing being ripped. Riddle was cursing, out of breath. The bed shook the floor. Tom was kicking his feet to get any sort of leverage. Harry felt sick inside. He grasped the doorknob with both hands and sobbed. There was a thud, catching his attention. Again, Harry dropped down to peek under the crack and saw Tom lying on the floor, clutching his throat, looking back at Harry in horror.

"Harry, you all right?"

"Ye—look out!"

Riddle dropped from the bed, catching Tom by the ankle as he crawled to the cupboard to release his brother. He slid the boy's body back into place beneath him and straddled his hips. "Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

"No, no, no…" Harry whimpered for lack of any other word. He could see the life draining from Tom's body. His legs and arms went limp to his sides as his head was pounded repeatedly against the floor. The knob locking the cupboard shattered like crystal and the door swung open. Harry wasted no time in aiding his dying brother by jumping on the older man's back.

Gulping in lungfuls of oxygen, Tom thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled his wand free. He sat up; shoving Harry off of Riddle's back and jammed the wand into the side of the bastard's head. –Avada Kedavra!—"

With a look of sheer surprise forever etched in his features, Tom Riddle fell to the floor, dead.

Harry was on his hands and knees beside the bed, retching from the third and final jolt to his system. Tom shakily pocketed the wand and pulled him into his arms. "Oh gods… I didn't mean to kill him," he cried, resting his head on Harry's trembling shoulder. "I'm so sorry you had to see that."

"You killed him? He's dead?" Harry was shaking like a leaf. He tucked his head under Tom's chin.

Tom was white as a ghost. He rocked Harry in his lap until the jitters began to subside. "I'm a murderer… Oh, God, I'm a murderer."

Lifting his head, shaking it to and fro, Harry shushed his older brother. "No, its okay, stop it, Tom. Hush, okay? Stop it, please. He was going to kill you — you had no choice."

"Does it still hurt?" Tom asked, and wiped at a line of blood leaking down his brother's face. The pale, sickened, I'm-a-murderer look had disappeared as his attention shifted to the lighting bolt shaped scar. "I thought this might happen. It should heal quickly though."

"No, I er… it's nothing," Harry stammered, confused by Tom's sudden recovery.

Tom helped them stand. "Let's get out of here, alright?" As nice as it was to feel Harry against him, there was a mission to complete; wands to plant, memories to alter, and revenge to be served at last. As promised, Harry had taken witnessing murder a lot better than he had hoped. Harry had now seen death, just as Tom had. "You have to promise you'll never tell anyone about this. They'll put me in Azkaban for the rest of my life. They won't care that it was self defence."

"No! You had to do it! Surely they'll listen to the reasons why," Harry compelled.

"They'd never believe it… unless…"

"Unless?" Harry breathed, looking hopefully at the older boy. He did not want Tom to go to Azkaban for anything. "Unless… what?"

"No… I couldn't," Tom said, cringing. He opened the bedroom door, steering Harry away from the elder Riddles' bedroom. "We could… pin it… you know, on Morfin… I mean, that way they could cart him away instead, and we'd be really free… I don't know, it's only a thought, is all. They're going to investigate. They'll figure out I killed them… If we implanted a memory and this wand on him… there's a slight chance… it might work."

"Could you really do that? Is that really possible – implanting a memory?" Harry asked him in awe, clenching tighter around his waist as they walked through the dark hallway, "because if it is… that's exactly what we're going to do."

Feeling the weight of the world lift from his shoulders, Tom suppressed the great urge to smile. There was no other like him, Harry was unique. Tom kissed the top of his head. "I love you, Harry. Everything is going to be okay."

The feeling of something being terribly off would not sit right in Harry's mind. All the same, what would it truly matter if the bad men were finally gone and Tom remained? Did it really need to be a concern about how it happened? This was something they had fantasised, dreamed, talked about for years! There was no love lost for Morfin or Riddle. All Harry ever wanted for any of them was a life without these two villains, and now it was theirs. He pushed out any last residue of concern and pressed closer to Tom's side as they stepped out into the back garden. "I love you, too, Tom," he whispered, feeling new vitality soar through his veins, "more than anything in the world."