Chapter 128:
The Great Hall was whispering with news, hushed conversations and glances towards the Teacher's Table. Dumbledore was missing, and so was Professor Carrow.
Zevi's lips tightened.
What had happened? He glanced sideways at Tom, because his lord normally knew everything that went on, but the other's face was blank but for a vague, disinterested curiosity.
He switched his gaze to Harry, but there were no clues there - the ex Gryffindor seemed not to even have noticed the commotion, but for a slight tenseness of his shoulders. He gripped his coffee mug like a lifeline, appearing lost in thought.
He flicked his eyes back to Tom again, to note his Lord was studying Harry too now, though it was discreet and he didn't say anything. The two exchanged looks, but he wasn't well versed enough in their language to hazard its meaning.
Harry returned to his coffee.
Zevi had never been a big coffee drinker himself, it seemed to be more an American thing and he preferred tea, thank you very much (British, naturally, not the horrible way they attempted it in foreign countries) but he supposed Harry had picked up the habit due to needing the extra caffeine kick to stay awake. The other was practically an insomniac, even if he had got better than before.
"What's going on?" Abraxas whispered.
Professor McGonagall stood up at the front, her features pulled back in a stern frown.
"Classes for today have been cancelled," she stated, in what he still mentally coined her 'Gryffindor prefect voice.' "A ministry official will be visiting later this week in the light of recent events."
The murmur of voices swelled even louder, and then the post was swooping in and everything was so much more messier.
He watched it all impassively, observing the hundred twirling and tangling with feathers, creased parchment and expressions of joy and sadness alternatively.
Tom's eyes didn't change when that black hawk landed in front of him, holding a large box, but everyone else in the vicinity who knew its significance went rigid - Harry most of all. The tenseness in his shoulders grew more pronounced, and his knuckles bleached white around the mug of his coffee, but his expression didn't change.
That, in itself, was alarming.
Tom shot the boy a sideways look, flicking his wand at the package, casting several detection charms, before finally allowing the parcel to unravel from its holdings.
Zevi suddenly wished he hadn't had breakfast, his stomach plummeting with icy nausea.
"Brilliant," Tom murmured, though his eyes had darkened to near black, causing Harry to glare at him flatly.
"I'm disturbed that you're saying 'brilliant' over my severed head."
Tom glanced at the other, a smirk on his face, but it was somewhat forced, not easy.
"It's not actually your head. It's called Transfiguration. We learn it in class."
"It's gross," Harry deadpanned, and Zevi wasn't sure if he was shocked, appalled or admiring of how calm the younger seemed. "Get my- the bloody head off the bloody table."
"You mean I can't keep it?" Tom asked, eyebrows arched, teasing, and Harry's eyes flashed dangerously.
Tom directed his wand at the - it looked like Harry's head, it looked disturbingly like Harry's severed head, and if it was his he'd be throwing up - transfigured object, praying it would be something less grotesque in its real form. It wasn't.
Someone actually did vomit, a first y
ear down the table, and it was drawing attention from everyone in their halls. It was another - shit, Professor Carrow! He clamped a hand to his mouth. He'd prefer to be working with Butoberpus, or…anything.
He wasn't a coward, and Tom had no use for anyone with a weak stomach, but…Merlin. The Slytherin Heir appeared utterly unaffected.
"I think you need another Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Minerva," he merely stated, blandly.
"Mr Riddle - what is - what is the meaning of this?" McGonagall shrieked, barely managing to keep her tone modulated. Her face had turned an odd greenish tinge.
He didn't blame her. It was horrible…and Salazar…they were supposed to eat off this table.
"What happened to keeping a low profile?" Harry demanded. "What did you do?"
Tom didn't answer, infuriatingly. Harry fists clenched, the one not necessarily around his coffee mug handle this time. For a split second, Zevi imagined what would happen if Harry did punch Tom in the face like he apparently desired to - and he saw Tom shift marginally as if in anticipation of the event - before he threw the theorising out of his head as heresy.
"Mr Riddle!"
Tom didn't look at her, his gaze lingering back onto Harry for a moment.
"If you do not answer, I will be forced to put you into detention - do you have any idea how serious this is? - a full investigation is to be launched into the death of-
"Tom laughed, the sound absolutely cold, and he and every other Slytherin glanced involuntarily at the 'Boy-who-lived' to see how he was handling this, and praying he would do it well.
He wondered when they'd assigned dealing with Tom to be Harry's job, and when the other had become the only one they trusted with their leader, relatively without jealousy. Harry and Tom…they just were, nowadays, and he'd seen Tom when Harry was gone or injured and it was BAD. Therefore, he couldn't resent being second place.
"There's no investigation necessary," their Lord said. "Professor Carrow died because she betrayed her superiors, and regardless to any mysterious elements of her murder, she was a Death Eater which puts her fate into the Dark Lord's jurisdiction, not yours."
"Then why was it sent to you?" the Deputy Headmistress demanded, eyes tight with suspicion. "Under transfiguration to make it look like Mr Potter's head?"
Tom examined his fingernails in an epitome of boredom.
"Because Voldemort was trying - and failing, I might add - to make a point. Anything else? No? Fabulous."
Then he hissed something, before anyone could object to him, his last words directed presumably to Harry, as he was the only one who could understand parseltongue.
Tom had grabbed the other's arm, and pulled Harry out the hall.
Slytherin withered to something greyer without them.
Harry doubted anyone else could see it, but he could feel Tom's emotions bubbling beneath its icy prison, leaking through to him in the violent fierceness of the grip on his arm.
He went along with wherever they were walking to, not out of any trust or submissiveness, but with the intent awareness of where Tom's relentless and insistent fingers had curled - around his wrist, and his pulse. Normally, Tom grabbed his forearm or upper arm, and so he knew the action was deliberate.
The young Dark Lord could probably sense his heart racing through the beat in his wrists, the erratic fluttering brought on by seeing his own head on his breakfast table. No one could see that completely without flinching or reaction, not even Tom if their roles had been reversed.
So he allowed the hold, keeping step with Tom's furious pace.
They stopped at any empty classroom, and only then did Tom release him.
"You have questions."
"What the hell was that about?" he asked, softly. "As far as I'm aware, shouldn't Voldemort be thinking you're obliviated and kidnapped round about now?"
"Too limiting. I'm not going to play the victim longer than I have to, when it doesn't benefit me more to keep up the charade. I have plans, and I have a deadline, as you well know, I don't have the time to cater to his opinion of me…besides, Carrow was reporting on my actions."
Harry's mind stopped for a second.
She died because she betrayed her superiors…
"Did you kill Carrow?" he asked, keeping his voice carefully level
."Of course," Tom said, without remorse. "I wasn't going to refrain from retaliating to him."
"So you killed Carrow to get back at Voldemort for trying to obliviate you," Harry confirmed, with a small amount of irritation, and a nagging sense that he should be more horrified. "And that was his retaliation and now…it's war, or something?"
"Essentially, yes," Tom replied evenly.
"Tom!" he snapped. "Damn it, you need to work on that temper, you can't just- she's dead!"
"Yes, I figured that out around the time her slit her stomach open," Tom drawled.
"You can't just kill people!"
Tom rounded on him, and the next second hands were clamped on either side of his head, and the other had bent to level their faces.
"I warned him more than enough to stay away from me and my own."
"So I've turned you into a murderer; I feel so much better," Harry returned acidly.
"She deserved to die," Tom whispered harshly, hands sliding to his shoulders.
"You lost your temper," he rebutted. "This is not a logical plan. This is not you."
"No," Tom rejected, very softly, gently almost. "This is very much me. And you know that, you're just flinching from the truth, bless you."
Harry twitched his arm back, shielding the Munin Band, just in case.
"Then why are you revealing this facet of your personality right now?"
His stomach churned.
"Why indeed," Tom murmured. "Are you frightened?"
"No."
"Horrified? Disturbed? Repulsed?"
"Somewhat on the first two," Harry replied carefully. Tom was quiet for a while, studying him.
"I can attack Voldemort's armies without hesitation, and he knows that, though he barely cares for the individual pieces," the other began. "However, there is nothing he can do to most of my forces without causing a time paradox…you, on the other hand."
Tom's fingers curled tighter around his shoulders.
"To be honest, he was trying to kill me anyway," Harry murmured, cavalier.
"Which means it makes no difference if I destroy him for the audacity," Tom returned coldly, without missing a beat.
"I don't want you killing on my behalf! I hate that!"
"Well, I don't want you jumping into reckless, suicidal situations that end up with you near dead in the Hospital Wing because you have an overwhelming hero complex, but you do that anyway," Tom shrugged. "Are you planning on stopping doing that any time soon?"
"You bastard! That's totally different-"
"How so?" Tom enquired delicately. "All I see is that we both have traits we loathe in each other, of which we are at some point going to have to come to a compromise about, by the way. I'll change my methods when you change yours, golden boy. Until then, don't presume to lecture me."
Harry's eyes narrowed
."As for other reasons why I'd tell you…seeing as he can't get at me, he is going to use you against me as you're the only person who he can use against me, and your friends against you to be able to manipulate you in the first place."
Tom was warning him, filling him on the situation for once.
He wasn't sure what to make of that.
"Would his threatening me be able to make you do what he wanted?" Harry asked, testing the waters, pushing. Tom appraised him for a few seconds, before turning for the door again.
"I'd rather not find out. Caring about you is a curse enough already without adding that liability onto it. Watch yourself."
"You're going to retaliate again, aren't you?" Harry questioned, keeping pace again, easily, biting his lip.
"Yes. And nothing you say will change that, by the way, darling."
Harry seized his arm, pulling a slightly startled Tom to a halt with the strong grip.
"Then you watch yourself. This caring crap goes both ways."
He swept past without giving the other the chance to respond.
Her and Ron caught up with Harry in the Owlery, where he was mailing a letter to Sirius. He had the expression of a cornered snake, facing them, hunching defensively. It broke her heart.
"You've been avoiding us," Ron said bluntly. Harry sighed, running fingers through his tousled hair.
"Can we not do this now? I'm having a pretty terrible day."
"No," Ron folded his arms. "We're doing this now. No excuses. What's this prophecy and why didn't you tell us? We're your best friends!"
Harry's eyes closed for a moment, and he seemed to be trying to stave off a headache.
"Yell about it for the world to hear, why don't you?" the other muttered, before sighing again.
"And what was the commotion at the Slytherin table this morning?"
"Carrow's head."
Silence reigned. Hermione's insides twisted with shock, disgust, terror. No. No way. She didn't believe it. She…
"A-are you serious?" she whispered. "That's awful."
"Why?" Ron scowled. "She was a miserable, Death Eater scumbag." She shot him a dark glare, to which he boyfriend cowered from, his jaw ticking stubbornly nonetheless.
"Why?"
"Because Tom and Voldemort have declared war on each other, and so, naturally, everyone else gets dragged into it," Harry replied, his voice tight, his eyes shadowed. "Stupid twat's going to get himself in trouble."
"Merlin," Ron muttered, wide eyed. "Why are they arguing?"
But Hermione was thinking furiously, eyes fixed on her best friend.
"Because of you," she said, without accusation.
It was just a fact.
Somewhere in the whole thing, behind whatever excuses and justifications they were fabricating to the rest of the world, Tom and Voldemort were on some level fighting over Harry. She wasn't sure on the specifics, but she was certain Harry was somehow involved.
Ron looked between them. Harry's fists clenched.
"The thing is," he continued, "Voldemort can't attack Tom or any of Tom's death eaters-
""But he can attack you. You're Tom's weak point," she finished. Harry grimaced at the word, and, mildly exasperated but nonetheless earnest, she rolled her eyes. "That doesn't make you weak, honestly Harry, you're the strongest person I know."
He smiled back, faintly, and for a moment it felt like the last several months had never happened. Then the smile was gone again, for that impassiveness she was coming to despise.
"How do you know Harry's Tom's weak point?" Ron asked, in a reasonable tone of voice. "The git doesn't care about anyone."
She gave him an incredulous look.
"Have you seen them around each other?" she demanded.
"Not really, they normally go off by themselves," Ron replied, shooting Harry an apologetic glance.
"And the times Harry was in the hospital wing, for example, when his heart stopped?" she insisted.
How could he not see it? It was obvious. Or maybe it was only female's who could read subtext so clear that it could be a literal storyline.
"He didn't do anything then, he didn't say a word, and left the second Harry was stable-"
"Oh for God's sake, Ronald," she threw her hands impatiently into the air. "Did you see yourself that day? You were distraught-" he flushed as red as his hair -"and asking loads of, what he would consider stupid, questions and Tom Riddle did not say a word….he didn't insult you, he didn't acknowledge you when you tried to hit him, he didn't sit down once and he was pale as sheet. Have you ever seen him like that before?"
Ron was quiet. That spoke in himself.
She turned back to Harry, to find him staring at her.
"Ron tried to hit Tom?" there was something rather feral and dangerous that had her wanting to inch her boyfriend away, despite the fact that she knew intellectually that Harry wouldn't deliberately hurt either of them.
She immediately decided to never bring up the time she had hit him - Riddle was just so infuriating! Sexist bigot.
"You were injured!" The red head protested. "What was I supposed to think?"
"Gee, I don't know," Harry drawled, sharply. "Oh dear there's been a Death Eater attack, which one of them put a hole through my best friend's chest?"
"I don't trust Riddle."
"Doesn't give you a right to hit him!"
"I didn't actually hit him!" Ron yelped. "It was ages ago, anyway."
Harry's glare could have made a ghost exorcise itself. The air suddenly felt very awkward, and she pulled anxiously at a strand of her hair.
"And the prophecy?" she queried, softly. Eyes still possessing a cutting, laser-like quality, Harry's attention shifted to her. His shoulders slumped.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…"
Tom didn't waste a large amount of time on his retaliation, he just used whatever he had on hand - his wand, and his knowledge of the Dark Mark.
He found himself to be pretty pleased with the result, and wondered absently what Harry would think when he found out about it. Then he caught himself. He neither needed or wanted Harry's approval.
He certainly didn't need it, at any rate. Admittedly, Harry's approval tended to be a pleasant surprise, especially if it involved awe, but he wouldn't actively seek it.
Besides, there was no point wasting time on beating his elder counterpart, or dramatically trying to out-stage him at this point; he had other, more important, priorities.
Like the time spell, which was proving to be even more difficult than he had anticipated. There was just so many components, that he needed to juggle, and make permanent. It all also had to be able to be tied specifically to Harry, and Harry had yet to do something which he could twist into a Horcrux.
His soul was perfect.
Oh well. It was worth it if the end prize was Harry.
"Hello Tom," a light voice greeted. He paused, taking in the blonde girl sitting near him, knitting.
It was her.
He kept his features from twisting into expressions of annoyance. Oh how irritating this girl was. She was like a weed - she popped up everywhere she wasn't supposed to be, wild and disobedient…a bit like Harry, actually, but Harry wasn't so unbearably fluffy.
"Lovegood," he responded, neutrally. "Do you want something?
"Harry is a lovely person," she told him, quietly, randomly. "But he's very damaged. Rather like you."
"And you should hold your tongue on matters that don't concern you."
She looked up at him, azure eyes piercing.
"You're both so guarded, you don't trust each other, and you fear being vulnerable around each other…but, you are vulnerable, you both are, because you love each other whether you admit it or not."
Oh for CRYING OUT LOUD. Not this again.
"I'm a psychopath. I. Don't. Love."
"You love him," she insisted, unafraid. "As much as you, a psychopath, have ever loved…or obsessed…over anyone. And he loves you." Her normally dreamy eyes were sad. "It terrifies you."
"Stop reading poor romance novels and inflicting their distorted impression on the world around you," he bit out icily. "You sound ridiculous."
"You don't know what you're doing with him, and so you push him. You push in search of his breaking point, because only that leverage would, you believe, make you feel safe again from that vulnerability you so despise. But it would hurt you more than him, if you found that point, if you pushed too far. Broken hearts can't feel, and it would destroy you to see the life and emotion drained from him, especially by your own hands, however much you scorn his sentiment."
"It's probably a good thing I'm not aiming to break him then," he said, turning on her, sick of the topic. She skipped up, following after him.
"Well, you were never aiming to be your elder counterpart either," she said, softly. His back stiffened, but he gave no other reaction to her uncanny knowledge. "Harry's never let anyone in like he did with you, you know. He's…different with you."
He spun around again, with the suspicion she would follow him to places even less suitable for this awful conversation.
"Do you think I'm unaware of that?" he questioned, icily, his temper volatile. "I'm not stupid. Is there a point to this?"
"No," she shrugged. He closed his eyes, praying for patience, sensing his oaths wouldn't allow him to hurt her as he so wished to do.
"Then why are you following me?
""Because your side looked empty without him, and the space made me sad."
His jaw clenched.
She might actually be worse than Granger.
Harry had finally finished talking with Ron and Hermione.
It felt like a great weight he hadn't even realised was there had been lifted from his shoulders. They taken it…okay, all things considering, better once he'd explained the theory he and Tom had come to.
Hermione had stared at him in what looked suspiciously like astonishment.
Her spell was also going well, her time spell. He figured his version was less complicated than Tom's because he didn't have to try and prevent a paradox while doing it.
Everything was progressing slowly.
The night before Tom had claimed to know nothing about the Dumbledore/Grindewald thing, except that they'd supposedly known each other in some capacity before the war - and didn't that stir uneasiness in his gut.
Last night…he cringed to think of it.
Why did he still keepinglosing to Tom! It was maddening. He had no reason to - Tom couldn't use his friends against him any…Tom couldn't use his friends against him anymore? So why was he still acting like he had something to fear?
Because Tom had another weapon.
He'd seen how Harry had reacted on the Astronomy Tower, what felt oh so long ago, and it had exacerbated with rumours to be that the second Tom started doing something even remotely like hitting on him he just…cowered. It was pathetic.
It wasn't like Tom would ever take it far enough to…would he? He'd like to think it had been an act, that Tom wouldn't unwillingly force him onto him just to prove a point.
The problem was that he wasn't certain Tom wouldn't. It would be horrible if he did.
Harry knew, instinctively, that any level of comfort he had with the other boy would vanish if Tom did something like that, even if and when he told him to stop.
It made him cringe just to think about it.
It was the one…area…he hadn't pushed in, pretty much. The whole 'everyone assumes we fancy each other' area. He didn't want to go there. Tom didn't care.
Tom had the advantage, if he ever needed it, and he had shown no inclination to use that threat particularly judiciously either.
He needed to get rid of that threat…but how?
He needed to find some more Horcruxes too for that matter…and merlin, he was not going to go into the long list of everything he needed to do.
Crying.
Someone was crying.
He froze on the spot, wondering if he should just quietly back away and go in another direction…he edged forwards.
Did someone need help?
He couldn't just-Lestrange.
Lestrange was crying.
He had never felt so awkward. He stumbled backwards, wishing he'd just done that in the first place.
A floorboard creaked.
They locked gazes.
Oh no.
A/N: This chapter was horrible to write :( It just wouldn't jazz. I'm sorry people. Next one will be better, I promise...
Thanks for all the amazing reviews :) 200 to go for 3000! :O