Chapter 26:
Harry walked back into the shared room.
Tom looked around briefly when he entered, before returning his gaze to the window, staring out at the streets of London around them.
The window was open, a cool breeze flittering about the room.
Harry walked over, joining him, resting his back against the windowpane Tom was leaning his folded arms upon. Tom looked at him again. Harry raised a brow.
"What?" Tom questioned innocently, but his eyes were sparkling.
"Sirius just had a talk to me about how I should be careful around you. I don't think you made a good impression."
Tom continued to look at amused at this, though his tone was almost perfect in it's contrite worry, as was his sigh.
"Oh no, really? Should I go give him some flowers?"
Harry laughed at the image, before growing serious.
"Why were you acting like that?" he asked. "It wouldn't kill you to give them a chance."
Tom's head tilted, surveying him intently, despite the pseudo casual smile on his lips.
"Probably not, but the effort to be nice could be painful, and you're masochistic enough for the both of us." he replied.
"I'm not a-" Harry began, infuriated, before he just shook his head, folding his arms and surveying the other back, trying to ignore the word 'orbit' flittering around in his head. "Do you want to know I think?" he questioned instead.
"Not particularly," Tom said dryly, "but that's never stopped you before."
"I think you're testing them," Harry persisted, doggedly. "You're observing them, but varying your personality so they can't do it back. You can't get a handle on something that doesn't stay still."
Tom merely turned back to the window in response, neither confirming nor denying his statement, but this time, Harry was certain he was right, and grinned inwardly in silent victory.
He wandered away from the window again, burying his hands into his pockets, and it was this self- assurance and confidence that made Tom turn round to watch his movements, curiously.
Harry pulled his hand abruptly out of his pocket when he felt something smooth and cold…the locket.
It lay innocently in his hand, the green 'S' twinkling up at him.
The self-assurance vanishing once again to a million uncertainties.
"What does the 'S' for?" he asked, in vague interest, but more to fill the silence.
"Slytherin," Tom replied. "It was my mother's."
Harry's head shot up at that, before he looked down at the locket, with two more labels, one of more significance to him than the other, to give it aside from 'Horcrux.'
"Don't you want it?" he asked, unbelieving that Tom would not - he hated his family, he'd professed desire to murder them (and had on a Voldemort timeline murdered them) but he was also riveted by his own ancestry.
Harry could understand that, as a child, he'd sit in the cupboard envisioning his family for hours on end in the gloom.
"Of course," Tom said, his voice uncharacteristically flat.
Harry held it out immediately, an offering
."Then have it, it's yours," he said. "I was going to give it to you as a Christmas present anyway, back when I thought it was still a locket." Tom made no move, merely watching him. "Tom, it's yours, take it," Harry urged, confused.
Tom smiled slightly, bitterly. "I can't," he said. "It's a Horcrux, which means it contains part or a variant of my soul," the elder Slytherin laughed softly, mirthlessly. "The paradox isn't in null yet, Harry. I can't touch the thing."
Harry bit his lip, an ache in his chest, before he made a spur of a moment decision that he immediately wondered if he was going to regret, but couldn't find in himself at that moment to.
He looped the locket arouund his own neck, the heavy gold settling above his heart.
"Then I'll keep hold of it until you can," he said, with a ring of promise.
The 'can' rang in the air between them.
"Get some rest," Tom instructed after a moment, quietly. "You look exhausted…and keep the silencing charm down."
Harry woke up to the horribly familiar wrenching jolt of nightmarish awakenings.
Something was on his chest, something burning hot and searing and - it was gone, the screams died in his throat, his eyes tearing feverishly around the room, before fixing on Tom.
The Slytherin Heir was sitting next to him, the Horcrux levitating a couple of inches above his hand. Harry gasped deeply for breath, eyes lidded.
"I thought I told you to keep the silencing charm down," Tom snapped, harshly.
Harry struggled to sit up, blinking, a hand automatically going to the odd sensation on his chest, only for his gaze to flick down.
There was a gaping hole burnt through his t-shirt, an ugly scar across his heart.
His eyes snapped up to Tom again, and the Horcrux, his whole body shaking.
"You said it wouldn't hurt me," he said, half accusing, not sure why he felt so…betrayed.
"I also told you not to use a silencing charm," Tom spat, before his tone softened. "I had to severe the locket off your chest - here, you can have it back now." Tom dropped it into his lap, and Harry caught it automatically, though wary.
"What…er…happened?" he questioned, his breathing starting to regulate again, his throat raw from screaming.
"Silencing charm means no one can hear you screaming," Tom said lightly, too lightly, "which means no one wakes you up, which means your magic runs rampant until it tears the silencing charm in two in an effort to get you help, and generally sends out distress signals due to your pain…and when you wear a Horcrux that has the same soul and thus, the same thoughts as me, largely, presumably, it latches on to wake you up before you cause injury…a locket is a locket and can't physically shake you awake like I would…" Tom waved a hand at his chest to finish his explanation. "So keep the silencing charm down. I've told you a thousand bloody times."
"I've been using silencing charms for years," Harry said sullenly. "It hasn't had the effects you talk about before…well, before Slytherin. It's been fine when I wasn't in Slytherin dorm, so…" he shrugged defensively. "Besides, you didn't tell me how the Horcrux would react!"
He still felt exhausted. He just kept seeing snake attacks in his head now, along with Horcrux dreams and the normal ensemble. He looked down at the Golden Locket, lying once more in his hand, innocent and unassuming, just a limp piece of jewellery.
"Why does it even care? The diary, which I assume was your first, wouldn't have…and you'd only go more Voldemort-ish and liable to kill me from then on."
Tom frowned marginally, seeming at loss for answer for the first time in regard to the Horcruxes, before his eyes began gleaming.
"I don't know…" Tom said, "why don't we ask it?"
"What? Tom-" Harry began, panicking suddenly, as well as being absently thankful that he hadn't woken the whole house up.
"Open."
A/N: So it, er, shorter again, but not too shabby in content, right? ;) Thanks for all the reviews, much much much appreciation. They fuel my ridiculous update speed. Did you guys see Merlin and the Doctor Who finale? :O I was/am hyped. Yay! Can't wait for Merlin next week…and Doctor Who, was of course, brilliant. Adios!
With my ridiculous updating, I think i've found a pattern...the fastest updates are either when I want to find out what happens next in the story, pr when I'm not particuarly fond (more so than my normal self criticism) and want to put it behind me. Hum. Interesting. You guys didn't really need to know that...heh.