Word Count: 2087

Warnings: Passively suicidal character / Mentions of various methods of suicide.

Come With Me

It was nothing like Harry expected, had he ever thought about such a scenario.

He stood with his wand held loosely in his hand, no intent to protect himself from the hell that was surely about to be unleashed upon him.

With his head tilted slightly to the side—giving the impression of a curious child—he waited for the green light that would ensure his death.

The cloaked figure before him made no move to kill him.

Harry couldn't even see his face, not that it really mattered in the long run. He was surprised that his scar wasn't burning though; it usually did, whenever he was in any kind of proximity to him.

Every instinct he had shouted at him to run, screamed out silently for him to hide, or to at least try and fight, but Harry remained motionless, relaxed even.

He'd come here for this. Had presented himself for slaughter. He didn't want to fight anymore, especially not for the hypocrites that wielded him as their own personal weapon, as though that was all he was good for.

He was done.

…

Tom kept his cloak firmly hiding his face from view. He was almost completely convinced that this was a trick orchestrated by Dumbledore, in an attempt to lull him into a false sense of security.

The last thing he needed—even should he have to fight his way out, if this was indeed the trap he suspected—was news of his regeneration to get back to the old man.

And yet still, there was something almost… pathetic about the young man standing in front of him that screamed for Tom to investigate the situation before he killed him.

His mind firmly protected behind shields he'd taken years to build, Tom nudged his way easily into Harry's mind.

It was a mess of jumbled thoughts and memories, swirling around in a tornado of surprising misery. Surely the Boy-Who-Lived would want for nothing? What could Dumbledore possibly have gained by making his weapon feel so... empty?

A specific memory passed by Tom four... five times, and it drew his curiosity. He reached out with his own mind and fell into the memory, listening at a closed door along with Harry, as Dumbledore spoke candidly about ensuring the young man died - at the right moment, of course.

Suddenly, it all made sense. Harry knew he had to die, and rather than waiting for the moment Dumbledore chose to throw him out into battle, he was choosing his own way, in his own time.

Tom slipped from his mind, though he still kept his hood up.

A world of possibilities had suddenly opened up, and Tom wasn't as willing to give Harry what he seemed to crave. He wasn't willing to kill him.

…

Harry's impatience to die was beginning to show, he knew, but he tried to keep his face calm as he waited. He'd felt the intrusion into his mind, but he didn't care.

It was softer than when Snape assaulted him time after time, anyway.

Voldemort could take what he wanted, Harry could care less; he wouldn't be alive to see the results of it anyway. If there was information in his mind that would help the Dark Lord beat the light, then so be it.

It really didn't matter anymore.

They knew. They all knew. The Weasleys. Remus. Tonks. He was sure there were more, but those betrayals were the ones that stung the most.

Harry had wondered, briefly, if Sirius had known before he died, but he'd shaken the thought away. No matter how unhinged his Godfather had been, he would never have sent Harry out to be killed like a pig for slaughter.

Sirius had loved him.

In the end, that was all that Harry wanted. To be with people who loved him. He wouldn't get that while he still breathed.

"You are here to die?"

The voice was surprisingly gentle, and Harry noticed it seemed to be missing the hiss he remembered so horrifyingly in his nightmares.

"Yes."

"And if I don't want to kill you?"

"You've wanted to kill me since before I was born. This makes everyone happy."

"I doubt that. Surely Dumbledore wouldn't be happy to know his little weapon was dead without his say so?"

So that was what Voldemort had seen in his mind. Harry shrugged. "He'll get over it, I'm sure. I don't honestly care."

"Even with what you heard, I'm surprised you're here. From what I've learnt of you, you're not the type to just give up."

Harry angrily wiped away the lone tear that escaped onto his face. "I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of living for everyone else. I'm just fucking tired."

"Maybe there's another way."

…

Still not completely convinced that he shouldn't just give the boy what he seemingly wanted and kill him, Tom took a few steps closer and summoned the boy's wand.

If flew through the air, leaving Harry's hand without a fight. He didn't even twitch when it left him, let alone try to hold onto it.

Tom felt an unfamiliar yearning for the young man. He felt… familiar. He felt like someone Tom had once known, and loved, and lost. It was an odd feeling, and it warred with the way he'd been so very set on seeing him dead.

And yet… Now he wasn't sure he wanted that. Now… He thought that, perhaps, he wanted Harry for his own.

"What do you mean, another way? I don't want another way! I want to die!"

"Come with me," Tom offered, the words leaving him before he could really think them through. And yet, he knew he meant them. "Let me look after you. Let me take care of you and show you the world as it should be seen. Let me help you live your life the way you want to."

Harry shook his head and Tom could see the suspicion in his eyes. "What's in it for you?"

"The prophecy. Tell me the prophecy. If it says what I think it says, you being alive will ensure my continued survival beyond anything that Dumbledore can possibly attempt."

"So I'll be a tool for you, instead of a tool for him. No deal. Kill me."

Tom stepped closer still, close enough to reach a hand out and stroke Harry's cheek with one finger. "Tell me the prophecy, Harry."

Harry glared at the still hooded figure, hating himself for leaning into the caring caress on his cheek. "You've already proven you can enter my mind, Voldemort. Take it. I don't care anymore."

…

Harry felt the second intrusion, but it was even gentler than it had been the first time. He almost couldn't believe it was the same magic that he'd had experience with before.

He brought the memory of the Prophecy forward, making it front and centre in his mind, and he let it play, in full. He knew it off by heart anyway, and he could have recited it without Voldemort entering his mind again, but he was tired of it.

Tired of all of it.

When Voldemort left his mind, Harry watched him step back once, twice. As the man lowered the hood covering his head, Harry couldn't stop the gasp from escaping him.

Where he'd expected the monster from his nightmares to be standing, he was instead met with an older version of the teenage boy he remembered meeting in the Chamber of Secrets, the ghost of a memory of Tom Riddle.

"How... I mean..."

Voldemort... Tom smiled at the shock on his face, and Harry was almost ashamed to admit that he liked that smile. It made his whole face light up, and Harry suddenly understood why people would never have connected Tom Riddle to Lord Voldemort.

The man before him looked nothing like the monster that took pleasure in murder and torture, that revelled in chaos and destruction.

"I was correct in my assumptions of the prophecy. As long as you live, I live. As long as I live, you live," Tom told him quietly, his eyes resting on Harry's face.

"I don't want to live."

"And I don't want to die. So we find ourselves at a stalemate."

…

Tom watched as Harry's legs gave out beneath him, and he slumped to the floor.

He felt an almost primal urge to reach out and stop him from falling, an instinct of protection that he couldn't fully explain. He thought briefly of the blood that flowed through both of their veins, but no blood magic he'd ever heard of could instigate these feelings suddenly flaring up.

There had to be more.

For a third time, Tom entered Harry's mind, this time searching for an answer to the connection between them. Perhaps Dumbledore had insight on the matter that Tom was unaware of.

He found a memory that looked promising and stopped shuffling around.

"Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure..."

"Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?

"It certainly seems so."

Tom pulled out suddenly, his mind whirling. It didn't take him long to put together the pieces of the puzzle, and he could have cursed himself for being so stupid.

He left a piece of himself behind that night in Godric's Hollow. It made sense. His protective urges, his feelings of want... Harry was his Horcrux.

…

Harry sat on the floor, at a complete loss as to what he was supposed to do now. As Gryffindor as he was, he didn't have it in him to commit suicide, as near a thing as going to Voldemort unprotected was.

He couldn't turn his wand on himself, and he wouldn't jump from a great height or take poison. The torture of his life threatening to go on forever was the last straw. He didn't want to be immortal.

He'd never wanted that.

"Harry."

Shaking his head, Harry refused to look at the handsome man calling his name. He didn't want to be manipulated into wanting life. He didn't want to be fooled into thinking that someone could want him for anything other than to be a weapon to be brought out only at the right time.

"Harry, look at me please."

He could feel the magic of the other man—because he was a man and not a monster, at least visually—reaching out to him, and he was surprised to find it comforting rather than suppressing, familiar rather than frightening.

A few footsteps sounded, and then a gentle hand took hold of his chin, turning his head to the left where Tom sat beside him on the floor.

"There is much that I need to explain to you, and I only hope that you are willing to listen. First, I wish to make you a promise. Will you listen to that?"

Harry nodded, unable to look away from the startling dark eyes that held his own.

"I promise that I will give you everything you've ever wanted. I promise that I'll protect you, and I promise that I'll look after you for the everlasting future we can share. All you have to do is promise me that you'll stay alive, and more importantly, that you'll live."

"I..."

"Promise me, Harry."

"Anything I want?"

"Anything that won't take you away from me."

Harry sighed, knowing he was going to ask for something Tom could never give him. "All I ever wanted was for someone to love me for me."

Tom smiled then, that same gentle smile that lit his face up, and stood up, before he reached down to help Harry to his feet. "I don't think that will ever be an issue for you again."

…

Tom wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulders, pulling him into a loose embrace. His poor little wizard. Tom would make him feel good, he would show him what life could be like.

That it ensured his own immortality was an important side-effect, but suddenly, not quite as important as Harry. The foreign feelings made him uncomfortable, but he knew if he embraced them, life could only get better.

With a happy Harry at his side, how could he fail at anything?

"Harry? Come with me?" He asked again, stroking a hand through the messy black hair.

Harry glanced up at him, and Tom was surprised to see tentative hope in the shining emerald eyes. "Okay."