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Part Two

By the time they came out of the Apparition, Tom was not entirely surprised to see doubt creeping back into Harry's face. He stared around, probably taking in the thick brush on either side of them and the small Muggle village in the distance, and cleared his throat. "Where are we?"

"The Gaunts' old estate, such as it was. It is my property, and also one place I can be sure that none of the purebloods who support the current state of things would visit."

"You meant what you said about the Gaunt family."

Tom barely managed to control his sneer as he thought about what he had found when he had visited his uncle Morfin years ago. "Yes."

"All right, then." Harry glanced around again, then hesitated. Tom watched him. He didn't think this was a late-arriving crisis of conscience. It was more that Harry had had so little hope for the last few years, he was finding it hard to resume now. "Are you—I know you said that I had to have no Gifts at all, but there's always a chance that I could have a child in the future if I didn't take the Squibarren Potion who would have a Gift from another family who wasn't mine—"

"My tests were more thorough than you could imagine," Tom said. "I am absolutely sure that you have no chance of that."

"Where exactly did you see my test results?"

"What do you imagine is secret from the Minister who encouraged the development of those tests in the first place?"

Harry stared at him, astonishment and something else that Tom found difficult to read in those wild green eyes. That was all right. He was glad that he would have someone standing beside him who could still surprise him. "Oh," Harry said softly. "You've been waiting for this for a long time."

"A very long time."

Harry nodded. His voice was still soft when he said, "What did you want to show me?"

"Why I need another Parselmouth."

He led Harry down between the thickets and to the place where the Gaunt shack had once stood. Now it was a small clearing ringed by a wall of carefully placed small stones. Harry started when they stepped into the clearing.

"Yes?" Tom thought he knew what Harry had noticed, but again, he wanted to be sure. To be thorough.

Although already he thought Harry the best chance he'd had for decades, if not ever.

"Those stones? They look like a ritual containment pattern."

"Watch."

Harry did, his brow furrowing. Tom stepped forwards and concentrated on the space inside the stone wall. He breathed in and out, and focused his mind on the image he had privately chosen years ago to symbolize this project: Jörmungandr, the World Serpent, the snake who lay coiled around the earth and stretching through the oceans with his tail in his mouth.

"Create the earth!"

There was a shudder that made Tom stagger, passing through him and into the clearing, And, slowly, the clearing began to stretch, new earth and stone and soil emerging from within what was already there. Expanding. Changing. Pushing the wall back.

It couldn't last long. It never did, when Tom was a Parselmouth by himself. He sagged back, panting, and the clearing stopped moving. It had gained perhaps three inches of space, all around.

He turned to look at Harry.

Harry, who was gaping at him with his jaw halfway down his chest in metaphor, if not in reality. Tom felt a surge of satisfaction.

"What was that?" Harry whispered. "How did you—you can make buildings and tents bigger on the inside, everyone knows that, but there's no way to do it with natural areas—you didn't make the wall bigger, did you?" His eyes darted to the stone wall, then back to Tom. "No. It's the same—it's the same size it was, the same height, I think it encircles the same amount of area, but you—"

"Stretched the earth like a snake stretching as it grows. Yes."

"That's what Parselmouths can do?"

"Yes. You have heard of the legends of the World Serpent?"

"Of course. But they're only legends."

Tom shrugged. "Of course, there is not in truth a giant serpent encircling the world and lying beneath all lands and seas, but Parselmouths working in concert can act like that serpent. We create the world, create earth from nothing and increase the size of spaces that are bounded by a firm barrier without increasing the space the barrier takes up." He nodded at the stone wall. "That is the major limitation. There must be barriers of some kind. I could not simply increase the size of a meadow that trailed off into another meadow without a clear boundary."

"So it's a variation of wizardspace?"

"If you like. With the limitation, as you said, that you cannot usually create more ground in a natural place with ordinary wizardspace charms."

"And…"

Harry walked over to the stone wall and then abruptly increased his stride and jumped over it. Tom watched him in some amusement.

Harry whirled back to face him. "I can still jump over it as if the extra space wasn't there."

"Yes."

"It exists inside the boundary, not outside it."

"Yes."

Harry shivered, gaze locked on Tom. His eyes were blazing with wonder. Tom had to smile at him. Harry looked as if he were in love with the magic, and it had been so long since Tom had seen that. So many of the people who toadied to him in the Ministry wanted power, or money, or sometimes what they saw as safety from others.

Not magic. Not wonder.

Then again, Tom had often thought that purebloods who had grown up in this world in a completely secure position would never embrace and love magic the way that he did. Or other Muggleborns or Muggle-raised people, or those who had at least contemplated leaving magical Britain.

In truth, it was a little surprising that Harry, raised in a secure, loving family, understood so well. But his lack of a Gift doubtless had something to do with that.

"Why do you want to do this?"

Ah. This was the point that Tom had reached with no one else in years. He moved a step forwards. "I know you have Muggleborn friends. You have probably heard them complain about finding areas like Diagon Alley and even Hogwarts hostile to them, as if the magic were pressing against them and willing them to go away."

Harry sneered. "Yes. People like Malfoy say it's about blood, but I refuse to believe there's any difference between the blood of a Muggleborn and a pureblood."

"No, there is not. The magic to make those places unwelcoming to foreign wizards and witches was cast after Grindelwald's war, when the purebloods who wanted to do it were in control of the Ministry and used the public's panic about Grindelwald's invasion—"

"I know that history."

"But I doubt you know all the underpinnings to the spells."

Harry paused, his eyes, brilliant and locked on Tom, challenging him for a moment. Then he inclined his head and stepped back. "No, you're right about that. Please go on."

Tom did, with a curl of pleasure in his stomach. Of course, people acknowledged that he was right and deferred to him all the time, but it felt better to have someone do it for the right reasons, and someone whose respect was valuable.

"They wove their own fear and panic into the spells. The thing is, they didn't hate just foreign wizards and witches after Grindelwald managed to make it all the way to these islands. They considered Muggleborns foreigners. Muggles, of course, which is why Muggles parents come into Diagon Alley to accompany their children on their shopping trips even though they used to be able to. And magical creatures."

Harry stared at him. "The—the goblins have a bank in the middle of Diagon Alley, though. The centaurs live in the Forbidden Forest."

"The goblins almost never leave Gringotts. It is a welcoming place to them, but the rest of the Alley is not. And there are fewer and fewer centaurs, and sentient non-magical people, in the Forest every year. They are leaving as the years advance and the ground of Hogwarts becomes more hostile to them."

Harry hesitated for a moment. Then he said, "I heard there used to be half-giant students at the school. Some werewolves."

"Yes. There used to be. Even the purebloods in control of the Ministry after the war didn't imagine they would get away by rejecting all those people in the name of safety—immediately. So they wove the spells in such a way that the hostility gets worse over the years. So that those students who might have thrived there in decades past would not come now. And eventually, I believe it is their goal to eliminate Muggleborn attendance as well."

"That's stupid. Without Muggleborns, we would become so inbred—"

"Does hatred strike you as logical? These were purebloods who would have been on Grindelwald's side in other cases, had he not threatened their homes and their sense of safety. They hated Muggleborns and blamed them, in some cases, for Grindelwald becoming so extreme. And in truth, I believe that people like Rodolphus Lestrange and Xerxes Nott would not care if Muggleborns went to some other school in Ireland or the like that they did not ward. They simply do not want them where they can see them."

Harry paused, his eyes narrowed. "Say that's true," he murmured. "You still haven't told me exactly what your plan is."

"Muggleborns and magical creatures finding places to live has always been a problem not only because of the political power lying with purebloods, but because of a lack of space in magical Britain. We are on an island that is covered with Muggle areas, where magical buildings and homes and land also belong to purebloods who are not inclined to share them."

"So you're going to create space."

"Yes. If you agree."

Harry was quiet, his eyes focused inwards. Tom waited. He could imagine how big a shock this must be to Harry, who had not only grown up in that incestuous—literally—magical world but had never seen a way to change it.

He finally turned back to Tom with a challenging look. "I saw how much effort it took you to expand the space inside this stone wall by even this much. Why do you think it would work better with other Parselmouths?"

"I've traveled to other countries and spoken with Parselmouths there who managed to do it. Two Parselmouths together would be far more than merely the Gift multiplied by two. It would be even better if we could have more, but finding even one more candidate has been hard enough."

"I've never heard of this."

"It's not something Parselmouths spread about, for obvious reasons. There are people who fear us simply for speaking with snakes, although outside of areas populated by serpents, it's not a particularly impressive power. But this?"

"True enough."

"So?"

"Let me think."

Tom nodded and stepped back. He had come this far, further than he had ever expected to come even when he had begun pinpointing Harry Evans as a good possibility. He could wait.

Despite his anticipation feeling as if it were blocking his windpipe.

Harry closed his eyes and stood there, while new possibility and old caution mingled and rang in his head like a bell.

If it could be done…

You only have Riddle's word that it could be done.

But Harry had also seen a small version of what Riddle had talked about coming to life. And in truth, the mere idea wasn't so impossible, not when it resembled the kinds of expansions that people could do with wizardspace.

So what would it mean for people if it were possible?

Harry shivered just considering it. There could be spaces that weren't hostile to Muggleborns, where they could build homes and even live with their Muggle families if they wanted to. Spaces where magical creatures could trade with wizards and witches and not be dependent on the kinds of spells that Riddle said protected goblins inside Gringotts but also kept them trapped there. Businesses that could be built which wouldn't automatically turn away from the Giftless people among them.

A whole new society inside their society, breaking the bounds that that society had set on them so far.

Harry swallowed and opened his eyes. Riddle was watching him, body taut not with patience but with impatience restrained.

Harry stared at him and whispered, "And you would value me as more than just a means to get vengeance on the purebloods."

The smile that spread over Riddle's face at that looked unholy. It was the best smile Harry had ever seen. "If you knew how I would cherish you," he purred. "The fulfillment of my dreams, a Parselmouth like me, a half-blood who has known what it is to have purebloods despise you." He looked at Harry's body then without trying to disguise the look. "And someone handsome enough to tempt me to far more than political partnership."

Harry swallowed again, dry-mouthed. He had thought of seeing someone look at him like that. He had dreamed.

Perhaps he might have been able to find a Muggle who could. But he had really wanted a magical person, and no one would, flinching away as they would have from the thought that their children might not inherit a Gift.

Even Muggleborns were controlled by the desire for Gifts, the way his mother had been for a while. The way she still was, sometimes, to hear her talk.

To steal not only one of the most powerful Gifts but one of the most powerful men in the magical world, one other people had counted on marrying, from them?

It struck at the center of Harry's soul like dragonfire. And while he was attracted to witches, he was also attracted to wizards, and Riddle was—

What he was.

He opened his eyes and took a step forwards. Riddle gave him a small smile.

"I have so many questions," Harry whispered. "But the most important one, I can answer now. Yes."

Riddle seemed to have stopped breathing for a moment. Then he reached out, claw-like hands grasping Harry's shoulders to draw him nearer. Harry went, smiling up into his face. There was an answering response deep in Riddle's eyes, something that went deeper than the ruthlessness.

"You will stand with me as a Parselmouth and extend the space available to Muggleborns and magical creatures and others who wish to live in them?" Riddle whispered to him.

"Yes."

"You will withstand the hatred that will come our way? And the fighting? There will be murder attempts, I am certain."

That wasn't something Harry had thought about, but honestly, the idea stirred up delight in him. He laughed a little. "And finally be able to strike back at those aresholes for a reason, instead of having to suppress everything because surely they didn't mean it that way and anyone would be uncomfortable around a Giftless person? Yes."

Riddle's eyes moved over him for a moment, like a living flame. Then he nodded, and his hands tightened into true talons on Harry's shoulders.

"Then let me begin to prepare the ritual."

Tom stepped back from the edge of the circle and studied it for a long moment. Then he nodded. He had worked harder on preparing this one than he had ever worked in his life, but the care taken did seem to have paid off.

The circle shimmered with blue fire already, even though Tom hadn't finished preparing all the runes. This was the mere sign of the magic to come, the potential already gathering. Only the most powerful circles called that magic to them, like an oncoming storm.

In the center of the circle, clad in the white linen robe that Tom had woven long ago against this contingency, Harry sat on the stone floor, his eyes closed. The necessary potion rested in a cut crystal bowl in front of him, a brighter green than his eyes.

They were in the cellar of a private house Tom owned through two fictitious purebloods who had lived outside of magical Britain for generations. And they were also in the middle of a night of the new moon, when transformation magic could be more powerfully worked.

"Harry."

Harry's eyes flicked open, and Tom doubted that the potion was as bright a green after all. "Riddle."

Tom shook his head quickly. He'd thought that moving outside of a formal situation would change Harry's approach, but it seemed he would need to remind his future partner. "If you maintain emotional distance from me, then the ritual will not work. We are going to achieve an emotional intimacy that neither of us has had with anyone in our lives very soon."

Harry paused, studying him. Then he smiled. The wicked smile went straight to Tom's groin, and he had to work to focus his mind on the ritual.

"All right, then, Tom," Harry said, and maybe it was a good thing that he hadn't used Tom's first name earlier. "Even if I sort of think this is just a way to make me say your name."

"I enjoy hearing you say it."

"Mmm. Maybe I enjoy saying it, too."

Tom had to turn away before he had an inappropriate reaction. But focusing on the runes did it. Exultation rose in him. He was so close to his triumph. He only had to sketch one more rune to bring the hanging storm-potential into being.

He glanced back once at Harry and nodded. Harry's smile vanished as if it had never been, but left something long and narrow and gleaming as a crocodile's jaws behind. He picked up the bowl of potion and held it in front of him.

Tom closed his eyes once, centered himself in the strength of his magic that had never forsaken him, and laid the final rune in place.

The world trembled like a bell. Tom's eyes snapped open as light flared around him, fountains of golden power rising like fireworks and cascading down from the cellar's ceiling. The rivers of radiance burst into heatless fire as they hit the floor and then turned and ran in several directions, curving all around the runic circle, Harry, and Tom.

Tom turned to check on Harry. He was unharmed by the magic—of course—but gaping at it, the bowl held in front of him.

"Harry!"

Harry started, luckily not hard enough to spill the potion, and remembered himself. He nodded and drank.

Tom began to chant in Parseltongue, laying out all his hopes and fears and dreams and desires for what they could achieve in the rawest, most honest words he could. There was no established ritual to add a Gift to someone who didn't have one (or the pureblood families would have been using it long since on their own "failed" children). He had had to design it.

He reached out into the magic that hovered around them, into his own longing to change things, and the magic roared and responded.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Harry crumpling to the floor. Tom took a steadying breath. He couldn't help that. Just as he had to conduct the chant, Harry had to battle through the changes the potion was making in him, and accept them.

Or not.

Tom continued to speak.

Harry had expected pain from the potion, when Riddle—Tom—had explained what it was made of, what different kinds of snake venom it included. The only way to survive it, Tom had emphasized, was to want the change so badly that Harry overpowered the poison.

But it wasn't pain that flooded through him. It was like nothing so much as standing under the cool, judging gaze of some greater being, struggling to meet its eyes.

Why should I think you special? Why should I grant you this Gift?

Harry didn't know if he was actually hearing the voice or if his mind was only conceptualizing the struggle for him. It didn't matter. It made it easier if he thought of it as a voice, so he did.

The World Serpent, Tom had said. Harry pictured that looming head in his imagination, the green-brown color of grass patterned with falling leaves, and an amber eye larger than his whole body.

Who are you to awaken me from sleep? What do you want? Why should I grant you this Gift?

Harry shakily forced himself to his feet, or imagined that he did. He looked Jörmungandr in the eye and bowed.

"I want it to make changes for other people, and to stand at Tom's side, and to get vengeance on the people who wronged me."

Jörmungandr considered him. Harry could feel the coolness of the potion pooling in his stomach. The poison wanted to destroy him, in whatever way a potion could want something. But he wanted to live.

He stood and looked the serpent in the eye, and the judging gaze dove into him.

Harry hoped he was thinking and feeling the right things. He had no idea what a gigantic serpent as big as the world would think was a good goal or one worthy of deserving the Gift of Parseltongue.

And then he reminded himself that this was only the way his own mind was thinking of the struggle of the magic and the potion in his body. He calmed his breathing and tried to turn his attention to the battle.

It wouldn't turn. He still floated in a black imaginary space with the great serpent's head hovering in front of him.

And then Jörmungandr said, Yes.

The pain gripped Harry and threw him back into his body. He felt his back arch, heard the screams emerging from his mouth as if they were coming from someone else. His attention was mostly on the way that his throat seemed to be swelling like a cobra getting ready to attack, and the way that his stomach burned, and—

And then it was done.

Harry sat up slowly. He was panting, and his limbs shook as if he had been lying on all of them at once. He turned his head back and forth, wondering for a second if his eyesight had been damaged, and whether he should have asked Tom more about the consequences of the ritual and the potion—

And then his vision gave an odd snap, and he could see again.

Tom stood in front of him with his head hanging and his robe sleeves swinging around his arms, his body heaving with his breaths. He kept his gaze on Harry.

Harry smiled at him.

"Did it work?" Tom asked. Harry couldn't hear his voice, but he knew what he was saying from the motion of his lips.

"Yes, it did," Harry hissed.

He had to concentrate to make sure the words didn't come out in English, but it was worth it. His throat vibrated differently, his tongue dashed through different sounds, and he could feel the magic reverberating in his chest and spreading through his body. There hadn't been the Gift before, and now—

Now there was.

Radiant joy burst in him like the light that had begun the ritual. Harry looked up at Tom and waited for a moment for his reaction.

The flames that lit his eyes made Harry scramble to his feet and reach for him. Tom did the same thing at the same time, hands passing easily across the ruined remnants of the ritual circle.

"Harry," Tom hissed.

The sound of his name in Parseltongue was another revelation. Harry was sure now that Tom had never said the word before, even though he'd spoken in Parseltongue around Harry a few times as they got ready for the ritual and the potion-drinking. And the embrace that grabbed him and swung him around made him feel as if Tom had never really touched him before.

Harry leaned his head on Tom's chest and closed his eyes. Tom's heartbeat was warm and quick beneath his ear, and he reached up and covered that portion of Tom's chest with his hand.

"If you know what you mean to me."

Harry lifted his head and laughed wetly. "I've only had Parseltongue for a few minutes. You knew that I was a good candidate for this, but other than that, you don't really know me all that well."

Without taking his eyes from Harry's, Tom reached down, picked up Harry's hand, and lifted the backs of Harry's knuckles to his lips. Harry felt as though his face was trying to catch on fire.

"Do I not?" Tom murmured back. "Do I not know that you were courageous enough to take the risk, bitter enough to want to make the purebloods pay for what they have done, ruthless enough to approve of my ruthlessness, compassionate enough to see why it makes sense for us to help Muggleborns and Muggles and magical creatures?"

Harry took a moment to accept the words. Then he hissed, "Bitterness and ruthlessness don't sound like the kinds of qualities you should normally put such trust in."

"Neither of us is normal."

Well, Harry had to agree with that.

He laid his head against Tom's chest again, and Tom cast a Lightening Charm and scooped him up. He carried Harry to the room where he had put on the white linen robe, and laid him in a comfortable bed.

"Sleep well, Harry. Tomorrow, we move the world."

Harry smiled drowsily as Tom's hand swept the fringe back and traced what felt like a protective runic design on the skin of his forehead. Yes. Yes, they would begin to make things better.

And to show those bastards what they're missing.