The Young Ones

Chapter 7: Tom

Tom knew as soon as he felt Harry pass through the floo that he had made a mistake. He shouldn't have let him go. At least not alone. Dumbledore wouldn't, no, couldn't, change. Once he had something in his mind, it wouldn't change.

He would die on that hill, if only he actually died.

Tom looked behind him and could see that both Severus and Arthur were worried also. As well as deeply affected by what they had just seen.

Emotions.

He wasn't used to them.

He had shut them out, lost them even, for too long, practically his whole life. Now, however, he was flooded with them and it was affecting his mind.

And yet, he no longer thought of them as a weakness.

They were his strength. His love for his children. His need to protect them. All of them, not just the four he was meeting now.

He needed to protect Harry.

And yet he had let Harry go alone to the enemy.

He felt like kicking himself. Or worse.

He understood Harry's need to try though. The sooner this was over, the sooner and the cleaner this ended, the safer their children would be. Their babies would be safe.

They had to be safe.

He knew that they couldn't handle losing them. Any of them. The ones they now knew of, and the ones they didn't know of.

Tom paced as he waited for Harry to come home. His mind whirling with thoughts, feelings, emotions, visions.

All he could see in his minds' eye was an older, labouring Harry holding their dying son in his arms and trying to heal him but failing.

He stopped.

He felt it. The tingling that indicated that Harry had just entered their home… via the emergency portkey.

He ran as fast as he could to the entrance hall. He could hear Severus and Arthur following him, but his mind was set on Harry.

Harry was lying on the floor, in a growing pool of his own blood, clearly struggling to breathe.

He rushed over and collapsed to his knees next to Harry, Severus was there a second later, his potions bag out and ready.

"Harry, can you hear me?" Tom asked.

His only response was Harry's eyes turning to his, but they were distant. He could see in his periphery that Severus was doing what he could to heal the wound on Harry's chest.

"Harry, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you go. At least not on your own. But I promise you, I promise that our children will be safe. I promise you that our baby boy won't die. That you and our children won't be hurt. Our babies will be okay, I promise. And I don't make promises lightly. I will do whatever I can to make sure that none of the bad our future selves experienced happened, I promise you,"

A sob tore through Harry's throat. One that was a mix of both physical and emotional pain.

Tom saw Harry's eyes blinking slowly and knew that Harry was losing consciousness.

"Harry, stay with me. Please. I need you to stay with me, Harry, okay. Harry… Harry," Harry's eyes closed and Tom hated to admit to himself that he was on the verge of panicking.

"Harry," Tom whispered as he held the younger man's face gently in his hands.

"He is just unconscious, Tom. He has lost a lot of blood and needs time to recover," Severus said and Tom looked at him to find the other man's sad eyes looking at his son.

"We should get him into his bed. That is supposing you have done all you can, Severus?" Arthur said from his spot behind them.

"Yes, he will need some more blood replenishers in a few hours, and some pain relieving potions for a little while, but he is healing," Severus said.

Arthur surprised them both by picking Harry up off the floor and carrying him up the stairs. Though Tom supposed that looking after seven children allowed him that kind of strength.

Tom cleaned the blood away with a wave of his hand and followed Severus and Arthur up the stairs, his worried eyes on the pale face that rested on Arthur's shoulder.

…

Tom laid beside Harry on the other side of the bed. He needed to be close to the mother of his children. He needed to make sure he was okay.

Severus was asleep on the sofa against the wall, he also needed to be close. Arthur was in a spare bedroom himself.

Tom saw Harry start to awaken and he sat up, looking down at the younger man with worried eyes.

"Harry, can you hear me?" Tom whispered.

Harry looked at him and his eyes were clear even though they were filled with pain.

"Tom?" Harry whispered, his throat clearly sore.

"Do you need anything? I can give you a pain reliever and a blood replenisher. And some water,"

"Yes, please,"

Tom helped Harry into a sitting position and helped him drink his potions and some water. Tom could see tears in Harry's eyes, even as the younger man struggled to hold them in.

"I'm sorry," they said at the same time.

"Why are you sorry?" Tom asked, "I am the one who shouldn't have let you go. I let my emotions overrule my mind. I should have known it wouldn't have gone well. I should have at least sent someone with you,"

"I'm sorry because I failed. It isn't your fault Tom,"

"You were hurt because I let you go,"

"I didn't really give you a choice, I was going to go either way. I needed to try,"

"I promise you that I will protect you all. I will make sure that none of the bad things our future selves went through will happen. I promise you, our baby won't die. Our babies won't be hurt. You won't be hurt. No matter what it takes, we will save him. I promise," Tom said, his heart pouring with emotions.

"You shouldn't make promises you might not be able to keep," Harry whispered, looking at his lap as a tear finally escaped his eyes.

"Okay. Well, I promise to do everything I can to make sure that what we saw doesn't come to pass. We have time to think of things, to do something. I know that, now we have the warning, we can work together, all of us, to figure out what to do," Tom said.

"Will it be enough time, though?"

"I don't know. But I think, maybe, so long as we know that we did everything we could to stop it from happening, even if; and that is a big if; it does end up happening, maybe… It will still hurt, of course, more than anything ever could, but it maybe won't be as bad because we would know that we did everything we could to attempt to prevent it,"

"I can't lose him, Tom. I can't watch them be hurt. I can't,"

"I know. But I promise you, that I will do everything I can, we will all do everything we can, to attempt to prevent this future from happening. We can make our own future now instead of following that path. You are here now, not when your inheritance comes. You know about Severus now, not when you come into your inheritance. We know four of our beautiful children before they are even conceived. We have this chance to make things right, for the country, and for us. And we will do everything we can to make sure that things go right this time,"

"I'm scared," Harry said, looking at Tom with wide, hopeful and yet terrified eyes.

"I know. I am, too. But we will try. You aren't alone, Harry. You have everyone in our home, and even a few beyond our home, available to support and help you. We know when the kids are born, and roughly when they are conceived. We know how old Regulus was when he… compared to when Lyra was born so we can guess when he was born roughly, or one of the older kids could tell us the precise date. We can protect you all. We have an advantage that we will use to the best of our ability. And if, at the end of all our efforts, it doesn't work, then at least we will know that we did everything we could,"

"I don't know when they are conceived," Harry whispered, but Tom heard him anyway and couldn't help the little smirk that lined his face.

"I could always tell you,"

"Nope," Harry said, a small, sad smile pulling at his lips.

"How are you feeling?" Severus said from his place on the sofa, his voice clearly tired and worried.

"Tired, but otherwise okay. Tom gave me the potions when I woke up. Sorry for worrying you. I shouldn't have gone, I just had to…"

"I understand, Harry. I probably would have gone in your position also, though I hate that I didn't think clearly enough to stop you or, at least, go with you," Severus sat on the other side of Harry, holding his hand gently.

"It's not your fault. We were all rather emotional and not thinking clearly," Harry whispered, "There were actually a few moments where I thought he might… I don't know, at least consider what I was saying. But then… it just came out of nowhere. I didn't have time to move out of the way or anything. I… I don't know… I just wish it was all over,"

"I know, Harry. But some people, especially those that have been alive for a long time, it is hard to get them to change their mind about something. Especially if they are someone as stubborn and as set in his ways as Albus Dumbledore. But Tom was right, we are all here to help. And we will do whatever we can to protect you and the children,"

"But what about everyone else?"

"We will protect as many people as we can, ourselves included. I promise. Tom is right, we have an advantage because we know everything we know now. We have more time. We have knowledge, and we can gain more knowledge also,"

"And we have things to hold over him, or go to the press with. I mean he did harm you, and a young Hufflepuff student. We could always speak to some journalists about enrolling their help in tearing him and his followers down. Get some lawyers to help press charges also," Tom said, "And if not then the more people we can turn away from him the more people we have to fight against him and his followers. And we have a lot of time to make all the plans imaginable,"

"We will be okay, Harry. Everything will be okay," Severus said, so firmly that even Tom had to believe it.

He didn't know if everything would be okay, but he knew that all of them would work as hard as they could to make sure that Harry and the children were safe.

He would do anything to make sure that Harry and his children were safe.

Anything.

Hiya my lovelies, I hope you are well.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. I am sorry for the wait, however a lot has been going on in my home life lately and I haven't really been much in the writing mood. But I am hopefully back now and going to be trying to update something twice a week again, but we will see how it goes I suppose.

I have a Facebook group called Maraudering_Paige where we talk about Harry Potter, fanfiction, share memes and talk about life and such. Everyone is welcome to join if they want to. It is also where I try to keep everyone up to date with what I am working on and such, I will be putting some kind of a schedule up soon also. I keep meaning to post more on there but things have been crazy, however now that things have calmed down I am going to try to be more active. So feel free to join, I will accept anyone. It is nice to have a place to chat and stuff.

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I hope you are all having an amazing day!