Chapter 86:
"Harry!"
Hands were shaking him, roughly, snapping him into awareness.
Harry felt the screams die in his throat as his eyes shot open, but the pain linger in his bones like a heavy chill. Bloody Voldemort.
His wand was out in seconds, ready to defend against the Dark Lord that loomed over him, but too slow, and the wand was clattering out of his hands.
"Easy, it's me - Harry -"
His mind was a blur, hazy, before they locked on the eyes above him.
Tom. Right. Tom. Not Voldemort anymore; he'd woken up. Crap.
He let his struggles go limp, before pushing himself shakily into a sitting position. The haze lifted slowly, his body scarcely containing his shudders.
Tom. Not Voldemort. Tom.
"Sorry," he gasped, pushing his hair out of his face, glancing around the room at the Slytherins who were all watching him with expressions of annoyance, resignation, pity and undeniable sympathy blurred into one like wet watercolours.
He looked back to Tom, finding those eyes fixed on his features. He resisted the urge to immediately look away, and instead coughed slightly, rubbing his head sheepishly and aiming for a grin.
"Er, I'll just you know…go back to sleep now…maybe read a bit…you should go back to bed."
In response, Tom hauled him up on his feet, jaw tight, dragging him towards the common room. Harry winced. "Um, Tom-"
"We need to talk," the other said dangerously, tossing him in the direction of the sofa. Harry's muscles ached from the imprint of the cruciatus.
"You just got back…are you sure you wouldn't rather sleep-"
"Sit," Tom growled, pushing him down onto an armchair, and then promptly leaning over it in a rather threatening manner.
Harry pulled a hopefully innocent expression. It didn't do anything to expel the darkness in Tom's.
"So…" the Slytherin Heir drawled, "another Death Eater meeting, I presume?"
"They screw up an awful lot," Harry said nonchalantly, holding Tom's scrutiny for a moment to prove his 'truthfulness,' before averting his gaze because Tom looked very much like he wanted to perform legilimency or something equally nasty on him.
"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Tom hissed, near his ear. Harry replied without thought, smirking, staring with rapt interest at the fireplace.
"I don't think you want me to answer that." He paused, feeling Tom's glare burning into his skin. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed."
Harry moved to stand up, almost blind with panic, but Tom didn't shift, leaving only inches between them. He swallowed, shoving past, just knowing that he had to get out of this situation before things went downhill.
Fingers wrapped around his wrist in a grip that crushed his bones together, reeling him back, violently. His eyes shot up to the other's face, blazing, livid. His heart pounded in his chest.
Tom couldn't know about Voldemort, he just couldn't…it was too…personal to their current issues...and...what if he was just a...pet? This was all so screwed up.
"You are truly a wonder, golden boy," Tom said softly, menacingly, "if you can have visions of Death Eater meetings, involving failures, when no such meetings to fit that criteria have recently occurred," Tom said flatly. Oh. Damn.
"Maybe I'm a seer," he offered, cheerfully.
"Or maybe you're lying to my face," Tom returned, coldly.
Harry sighed, heavily, looking down at the floor.
"Just…go back to bed, okay? It doesn't matter, I can handle it."
"Handle what?" Tom questioned. Harry didn't answer, causing the other to tilt his head firmly upwards, fingers pressing lightly over the pressure points of his throat, not enough to hurt, but enough to warn.
"Your Occlumency isn't very good yet, Harry, I could pick the knowledge out if you don't wish to tell me."
"Or," Harry replied, flippantly, "you could act like you're capable of human feeling and leave it be if I don't wish to share."
Tom's grip tightened fractionally, but he didn't flinch. He was used to spending his nights in pain by now.
"I've tried that method for the last week, hoping you might trust me enough to tell me of your own accord," Tom said quietly. Harry stiffened. The last week? "What," Tom smiled, mockingly, "did you really think that because you put on a happy face, offered a token fight and then compliantly 'told' me what you believed I wanted to know, that I wouldn't look deeper? That I wouldn't care to? Oh, Harry, tut tut."
"It's not your fight-" Harry began.
"You're an excellent liar, sweetheart," Tom interrupted, studying him, releasing his jaw after a moment, but still not shifting out of the way. "But you're not as good as me. You never will be. You're too human."
"I didn't mean it like that," Harry muttered. "It's just…it's my fight, my problem, and its not your business to get involved in that."
"It's Voldemort," Tom said, "he's the only person you have visions of. Of course it's my problem and my business - if anything, it's more mine than yours. So, start talking, or I will legilimise you."
Harry did. Because, when it came down to it, it was easier to edit words than memories.
Ten minutes later, Tom was silent, far too silent, regarding him with no expression.
Then, abruptly, he rose to his feet from the sofa he was lounging in, transfiguring his night clothes to robes with a few swishes of his wand. Harry's eyes widened.
"Where are you going?" he demanded, grabbing the Slytherin Heir's arm.
"To give that bastard so painful a concussion that for the next month he can't bear to be in his own head, let alone anyone else's," Tom replied pleasantly.
"This is why I didn't want to tell you," Harry snapped, yanking the other back from the door. "Just leave it."
"Leave you to be tortured out of your mind?" Tom questioned delicately, something paradoxically hard in his features.
"You can't do anything about it," Harry replied, frustrated. "The paradox is crumbling; I'm going to end up in his mind until I learn to Occlude and sleep at the same time, regardless of what you do."
"Then it should make no difference to you if I hunt him down or not."
"Tom!"
Tom glanced pointedly down at the arm still in Harry's grip, before back up at his face, unreadable, but somehow less harsh then before.
"What's the real reason you kept this from me, Harry?"
"I kept it from everyone, don't take it so personally," Harry replied, letting his hand slide back to his side.
"But it is personal," Tom countered, staring at him intently, seemingly willing to stay put while his curiosity held. "You forget I know how Voldemort thinks…more or less…and this is personal. He wouldn't be wasting his time fiddling about with your messed up psyche for boredom, no matter what you may think of our attention spans."
Harry tried very hard not to flinch at the 'ours' in that statement and merely rolled his eyes instead.
"Do you want you want," he muttered finally, inwardly slumping.
"I'm going to bed."
"Did he talk during this torture fest?" Tom questioned, at his back, something in his tone. Harry faltered, turning around again.
The Common Room seemed too quiet, too familiar for such an…unfamiliar conversation. He felt off kilter, and it wasn't just the slowly fading pain talking, or the exhaustion…the permanent exhaustion.
"He does little else…it's a trait you share," Harry replied. Tom folded his arms, approaching him slowly.
"Love of mind games is another," Tom drawled. "What did he say?"
"It doesn't matter," Harry said, shaking his head.
"It does to me," Tom hissed, fury leaking into his voice for the first time.
"Look," Harry began, his own temper nearing breaking point, "you have no right to demand to know everything in my life, you know practically my whole life story, while you've told me next to nothing of your own. Trust is a two way street."
Tom blinked, and Harry took the opportunity to race back into the dorm, and the relative safety of being around the others.
He had the horrible feeling that this conversation wasn't over.
But it was for now.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, and the poll votes - I think I've come tpp a decision.
Oh this chapter...too many ideas...it just wouldn't go right. I hope it turned out okay. =)