Chapter 57:
Harry blinked, slowly, squeezing his eyes shut against the harsh, blinding white light. Was he dead? He blinked again, a small groan slipping from his mouth. No, he was in the Hospital Wing. Bloody hell.
"Harry!" Hermione was immediately at his side, Ron on the other, looking terrified. "Madame Pomfrey - he's awake!"
The Medi-witch came bustling in from the other room, relief stark upon her face, as she hurried to flash lights in his eyes and perform all sorts of other spells. He recognised only a few of them, like the one for blood pressure. He tried to ignore it.
"What happened?" he murmured instead, his fingers flinching to touch the bandages wrapped around his chest, winding around his head, before Pomfrey slapped his hands away. There was cold, gooey stuff. Last time he'd used that spell against the cruciatus he'd ended up in a coma for two weeks.
"You were in a coma," Ron said weakly.
"How long?" he asked curiously, before his eyes widened. "Crap - the quidditch match, did I miss it? And I meant what happened to get me here."
"You're thinking about Quidditch!" Hermione demanded furiously. Ron looked shifty.
"We lost, didn't we?" Harry asked glumly. He didn't need an reply for the answer to that one. "How badly?"
"200 to 50," Ron muttered. Harry swore.
"Your vitals seem okay, Mr Potter," Madame Pomfrey spoke up in the silence, disapproving, presumably at his cussing. "But I'm going to keep you in for observation for a couple of days."
Harry groaned, loudly. Pomfrey rolled her eyes, used to it.
"So…what happened?" he asked again, eyeing Pomfrey warily as she circled the ward.
"Riddle, surprisingly," Ron spat. Harry arched his eyebrows.
"Why surprisingly?" he asked, albeit a tad uncomfortable. Tom had saved him?
"Because he hasn't even checked in on you in the three weeks you've been here," Hermione hissed, seemingly outraged at this fact. Harry suppressed the smallest twinge of hurt.
"Yeah, well," he shrugged. "He's probably pissed off that Voldemort beat his record." Ron and Hermione blanched.
"When did he put you in a co-"
"- Oh, I'm pissed off, but it's not about that," a voice said dangerously. Harry's head whipped around, which he immediately cursed when a sharp pain shot through his temples like a bolt of electricity. Of course Tom would be aware the second he woke up.
"What are you doing here?" Ron demanded.
Tom ignored them, the Slytherin's at his heel, striding over to his bed and picking up the clipboard at the end, gaze scanning across the information. Harry watched him cautiously.
"How is he?" Tom asked Pomfrey, over his shoulder, eyes flicking up to fix on Harry's form. He resisted the urge to fidget.
"Sitting…lying…right here," he offered pointedly.
"His vitals are fine," Pomfrey said. "He should make a full recovery, there is remarkably little damage."
"You mean you actually care?" Hermione muttered, still looking peeved.
"No," Tom said dryly. "I'm here for the view. Potter looks smoking hot in those shapeless hospital gowns. Now, get out." Hermione's mouth dropped open.
"You can't tell us to get out!" Ron snarled.
"Harry, tell them to get out," Tom smiled, coldly. Harry's mind flashed back to the last conversation they had. You won't curse me. I was referring to the mudblood and the blood traitor.
"I'll see you guys later," he said finally, narrowing his eyes.
"What - Harry?" Hermione demanded.
"Please," he beseeched, glancing at them both.
Hermione frowned, studying Tom for a moment. Harry held his breath. They left. Tom raised a hand to dismiss the Slytherins too.
"You've seen he's going to live, so go away."
The Slytherins left, Alphard patting his shoulder, Cygnus looking disappointed, Abraxas stoic in the true Malfoy fashion, and Zevi sending him a concerned grimace. He looked around to see that Pomfrey had also left for her office.
Tom swept around the bed, taking the seat that Ron had just vacated. Then he stared. Harry coughed.
"Er…rumour has it that I have you to thank for still being alive? What, um, happened exactly? No one will tell me the specifics."
"Your heart stopped," Tom stated flatly. Harry winced, just slightly.
"I was actually referring to the whole Voldemort and a gazillion Death Eaters situation."
"Completely flatlined," Tom continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "You were technically dead for about thirty seconds."
"How does a crucio do that?" he asked, trying to probe for information. Tom folded his arms.
"The same way it does when you last tried that spell combination," he replied tightly. "It backfires, pushed back against the power of an unforgivable." Of course, Power Levels, the most power always won, and if he and Voldemort were on equal levels (unlikely) then it would be the power of the individual spell that dictated which one won out, and an unforgivable beat a fifth year blasting curse.
"And Voldemort?" he questioned tentatively.
"Disappeared to nurse his wounds after I sent a soul shredding curse and several other painful curses in his direction," Tom said icily. Harry was reluctantly impressed. "His Death Eaters went with him, and I took you up to the castle…this was about the time I had to restart your heart. Luckily for you, the silencing charm had worn off when you collapsed on me, so I could actually get you some help."
Tom wasn't glaring, that was an extremely bad sign. He'd gone past his normal rage to something else. Harry's stomach squeezed a little.
"Thanks," he said. After a moment, he tried to lighten the atmosphere, offering a placating: "At least the horcrux is okay."
It seemed to have the opposite effect of calming Tom down, because the next second the room seemed suffocating as Tom's magic came out, clawed and overwhelming. He saw Madame Pomfrey look up sharply from her papers, assessing the situation, before going back to whatever she was doing.
"No thanks to you," Tom said harshly. "What were you thinking putting yourself in front of me. He wasn't going to kill me you idiotic boy."
Harry was silent, knowing Tom wouldn't be pleased with his thought process. He knew what Tom was thinking, he thought Harry had jumped in front of him in hopes of ending the horcrux if he died, but while that would have been a good idea, he hadn't truly being thinking outside of alleviating the fear he could feel coming from the young Dark Lord.
"Yes, well, I told you I wanted to get rid of it," he said. Tom's jaw tightened.
"If you hadn't just woken up from a coma, I would hit you," he said, sounding extremely restrained. Harry didn't for one moment doubt the truth of Tom's words.
"Oh, but you wouldn't want to damage it," he spat. "That would be counterproductive."
Okay, so maybe he wasn't as calm and unaffected by the fact that Tom hadn't even checked up on him as he thought…Tom regarded him carefully.
"You still think the only reason I'm here is because of it, don't you?" the other said quietly. Harry looked away.
"Can Ron and Hermione come back in now?"
"Salazar, I take it back," Tom said, disgustedly. "You are stupid." The next second, a hand fisted into his hair painfully, pulling his head back round to face the, now definitely glaring, features of the Slytherin heir. "I'm saying this one more time. I started this not knowing you were a horcrux. Does that compute in your tiny brain?" Tom questioned scathingly. "You can just blink twice for yes if words are also too difficult to you."
"Yes," Harry growled.
"Okay," Tom said softly, mockingly. "Well done. Now, if I didn't know, and came here anyway, what does that say to you?"
"That you're an obsessive bastard?" he offered, feeling irritated. He hurt all over from waking up from a week coma, he wasn't up for Tom's mind games. The grip tightened momentarily. Wrong answer.
"My concern is not with the horcrux, at least not solely." Tom let go, standing up, angrily, making his way to the door. Harry stared as Tom disappeared from sight, before looking with annoyance at all the equipment measuring his vitals and decisively yanking them off, causing a loud beep. Pomfrey rushed in.
"Mr Potter," she shrieked. "What on earth do you think you're doing? Get back into bed right now."
Tom's head appeared around the door again, apparently he'd heard the loud beep that seemed to signify his heart flat lining. It was because he wasn't attached, so the heart thingy had nothing to measure. His friends also hurried to see what was happening.
"Harry!"
"Get back into bed," Tom ordered.
"I don't understand," he said, looking at Tom alone. "Why would you-?" Tom threw his hands up in a gesture of impatience, glancing at the other occupants in the room.
"Someone explain to Potter that his life has importance of its own merit," he instructed. Ron and Hermione stared at him aghast, before both starting to talk at once, but he was still focussed on Tom, who was striding out again.
"Where are you going?" he demanded, hobbling to catch up, with Pomfrey chasing after him, trying to drag him back onto the bed. Tom turned, taking hold of his arms to stop him from moving, or falling over…he did feel a little dizzy and shaky on his feet.
"To murder your relatives, or Dumbledore. Whichever one I happen to run into first," Tom replied, apparently with perfect seriousness.
Harry paled, wrapping his hands around Tom's arms in turn, to stop him from leaving. Tom raised his brows, seeming to know the question 'why' was already about to leave his lips.
"Harry, I'm a psychopath, and your emotional understanding is worse than mine. Ergo…"
"My emotional understanding is fine," he snapped, uneasily. He just knew Tom's mind was leaping straight to abuse, but he wasn't…sure, the Dursley's didn't like him, but they didn't abuse him. Tom laughed.
"Fine…" he murmured, his expression appraising. "Okay, you can blink two times for yes, and three times for no." Harry scowled. "Very briefly and generally, the definition of a Psychopath is characterised by a general lack of remorse for one's actions and low empathy, someone who puts themselves above all others, charming, with a tendency towards manipulation, yes?"
"Yes."
"Right, and what part of that definition suggests that other people can never rank on my scale, secondary to myself of course."
"None," Harry admitted, noting the temporary switch to parseltongue. Was this Tom trying to say that, in his own probably convoluted way, he cared about Harry?
"And do you think I'm a masochist?" Tom asked. "Masochist being someone who enjoys causing themselves pain, example of case - Harry Potter." Harry sneered, but answered anyway.
"No, you're actually more a Sadist. Sadist being someone who enjoys causing other people pain."
"Very good," Tom praised, still mocking. "So, if I'm not masochistic, and have an extremely high self preservation…what on earth makes you think Voldemort would ever have attacked me in any way?" Harry paused, tilting his head. "Hence, that empty threat was directed at you, and you, ever the hero, played right into it…which leads one to wonder how your hero complex could be so utterly twisted that you hadn't picked up on it being an empty threat, despite spending over a year around me. Therefore, one could assume that you have an extremely high amount of self-hatred and an extremely low amount of self-worth. A characteristic of emotional abuse. Ergo…" Tom finished his explanation, smiling mirthlessly. "I'm going to murder your relatives, or Dumbledore, whichever one I run into first. Get back into bed before you collapse again."
Tom disentangled himself from Harry's grip, shoving him back lightly into Madame Pomfrey's clutches. He walked away again. Harry could feel himself beginning to panic.
"It wasn't because of the horcrux, so you can't take the self-hatred from that," he called, ignoring Ron and Hermione's flinch as he switched to snake language. "You were scared. I could feel it, so don't give that bullshit, you thought he was going to crucio you…probably because the lack of paradox would imply you were not the same person, meaning that the self preservation wouldn't apply. Example, when you threw pain curses and a soul shredding curse at Voldemort."
Tom turned, just slightly, to face him again.
"I'm not stupid," Harry stated flatly. The Slytherin's were all flicking their eyes between them.
"No," Tom agreed. "But you were about to die, regardless, and he wouldn't have killed me. So actually, it was the masochism that didn't apply. Get some rest."
"Don't kill anyone," he said. "And I will."
"Don't push your luck. You threw a silencing charm at me."
"And you still saved my life," he said, not quite confident enough to add a teasing remark to that.
"Well, you can't torture the dead…watch yourself when you're fully fixed," Tom smirked, though there was a level of painful promise in his gaze.
"I won't forgive you if you kill them. There's been enough death for a while," Harry replied. "So unless you want me to start duelling straight out of a coma.
Tom rolled his eyes.
"Hero complex," was all he said. But he inclined his head fractionally. "I'm going now. The fluffliness of you being lectured about self worth is too much. I may vomit. Enjoy."
A/N: Extra long chapter just for you, hope you liked it. Thank you so much for all the reviews. I hope this was satisfactory. PS: I'm not a psychologist, my knowledge of psychopaths comes from google.
Just out of interest, what have your guys favourite bit been in the story, so far?