TW & AN:A sexual scene in the chapter. You can assume Avalon plays whatever circa =/= 1997 bangers you like, but she WITHOUT A DOUBT plays:
#1 Crush, Garbage
I will burn for you
Feel pain for you
I will twist a knife and bleed my aching heart
And tear it apart
I will lie for you
Beg and steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You're just like me
Violate all the love that I'm missing
Throw away all the pain that I'm living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored
Inside the manor, the atmosphere and temperature were warm. Red and gold fixtures and carpets were lit by small fires throughout, candles, braziers, and fireplaces. It was cluttered and aged but exceptionally clean.
"My family has forgotten this place, so it is for me now," Avalon said, leading them into a sitting room to the left of the entryway, past the wide-open staircase leading to the second-floor balcony landing. "Any silliness from you, and you will go back to the school," she told Blaise, running a finger along his cheek as she sat down in one of the dozen single-seaters, everyone else copying her.
Tom was busy taking in the room, spotting several objects he'd like to pick up. Locked display cabinets lined the walls, filled with whirring, glowing or otherwise menacing and/or glittering trinkets.
"All Cedrum's. He'd bite off your fingers," Eris said, watching Harry.
"True, he's partial to fingers," Avalon agreed, "Ginny, would you come with me while I find good bottles?"
She looked at Harry, then stood up, rubbing her palms on her skirt, "Sure, okay."
After they'd left, Eris said, "She has house elves."
Suddenly, Harry was sitting with three people he didn't particularly enjoy, and an awkward silence fell.
"So…" Draco said, looking like he was in physical pain, "The Weasley is… Into necromancy… And… Does she know? Can you even tell me if she knows? How would she know? I-"
"Yeah, she's a necromancer, but I have no idea what else you're asking me," Harry said.
"Where you were, over the break…"
"Yeah, she knows."
Draco's eyes narrowed immediately and he leaned back in his seat, looking at the door the girls had gone through. There was more silence until they reappeared, giggling so hard they were breathless, levitating trays of food and several bottles into the room, stopping to take in the quiet vibe, and then bursting into laughter all over again. They placed the trays, glasses, and bottles on the table at the centre. Avalon poured what looked like straight, amber alcohol into the tumblers and distributed them, floating through the air into their hands while she and Ginny laughed sporadically.
"Tu vas l'aimer, elle est adorable," she told Eris, sitting beside him.
'She told him that he will love Ginny, that she is adorable,' Tom translated in his head.
Harry smiled into his drink about that, pleased that they liked each other, relieved of a fraction of the fear that she would hate this, that she would ultimately hate him.
Eris was watching Ginny, who had already returned to chatting with Avalon about necromancy, while Draco especially looked utterly bewildered. Tom had downed the drink too readily for Harry's taste, already extending his arm for a refill, Avalon absently obliging, levitating the bottle and pouring more bourbon.
"J'aime bien la blonde. Et lui aussi. Mais pas le garçon qui a vécu, il est mignon mais il me rappelle un peu leur seigneur des ténèbres, tu ne trouves pas? N'est-ce pas étrange?" Avalon said to Eris, who rolled his eyes.
"You're relentless," he said, taking the rest of his bourbon like a shot.
"Non, je pense qu'elles sont toutes les deux très sexy. Je me demande si elles seraient prêtes à partager? Peut-être en même temps..." She gave a little wave to Draco and Blaise, winking while they both flustered.
"Did she just say sexy?" Ginny whispered to Harry, "Wait, you understand…" Her eyes widened when Tom cut her off.
"It is best they not know," he whispered back, one eyebrow raised.
'…Are you going to tell me now or later?' Harry thought.
'She thinks Draco and Zabini are 'sexy'. She said you remind her of the Dark Lord. She wants a threesome with the Slytherins.'
Harry choked on his drink and wheezed it back out of his lungs, sputtering, "Sorry, just- choking-"
Eris narrowed his eyes at Harry, who was red-faced and avoiding his gaze.
"Music," Avalon said, whipping her wand at a record player, making it skip before it played something immediately suggestive.
"Muggle music?" Blaise asked, his tone thick with implication, and Avalon whipped to look at him, already glaring.
"Are you going to be stupid in my house?" she snarled, openly savage before she corrected herself and looked him up and down; she sneered and refilled her drink and Harry's, held out by Tom, who was smirking about Zabini's verbal lashing.
'Should we be drinking so fast?' Harry asked, nervous, while Tom downed the third glass without flinching. Tom let him feel his anger, making all his muscles tense before he pulled it back in.
'You will allow no outlet, so eager to bottle everything up, desperate not to feel any desire or release. No fighting, no drinking, no magic, no…" The rest was insinuated, heat flooding the back of his neck and face.
"…Because it's sick, it's fucking weird, can't you… Don't you think it's…? I mean… You're… How in the hell would I even manage…?" Harry didn't finish the thought, but Tom caught it anyway, yanked it out of his brain like a weed.
'How would you manage arousal? Manage to cum? With me in your head, watching you? Feeling you?' His heart was making his palms sweaty. He swallowed repeatedly while Tom continued, 'You are hard at the thought of it.'
He took another sip of his drink, hands shaking, lips pursed, making it complicated. It was an attempt to hide the flush on his face, but he didn't really think it was helping. His eyes bugged out of his head.
'That's you, that's not me, this isn't… I'm not…'
'I can assure you it is a joint effort.'
'Fuck off no it's not,' Harry insisted, readjusting in his seat. He was glad he wore his outer robes, clasped shut and hiding his embarrassment, though he was monumentally uncomfortable.
'That morning, when we dreamed of Alicent, that was you, too…' Tom crooned in his head, making him squirm again.
'No, no, it wasn't. That was your dream… So it was your…Erection.'
Tom snorted and made Ginny look at him. He shook his head, and she returned to her conversation with Avalon.
'Sometimes, only sometimes, I am endeared by how foolish you are. We were not fused then.'
'…So?' Harry tried, already realising what that meant. Tom didn't answer him, sensing his understanding with open amusement.
"Is it really hot in here?" Harry asked suddenly and loudly. The group fell silent in response, staring at him while he blinked hard. He stood up as he spoke, hoping to distract Tom with the trinkets.
'Look,' he thought, 'they've got stuff. You love… Stuff.'
To Harry's surprise, it worked. Tom had frozen in shock when they approached the cabinets that had been behind them, out of their line of sight. Avalon had joined them at the shelves and followed his eyes to what appeared to be a human skull fixed with a long, strange tube, something engraved on the forehead that he couldn't understand.
"That's-" She began, but Tom interrupted her:
"Grindelwald's hookah… How did you get this?"
By then, the rest of the group had followed, watching Harry stare at the skull.
"Yes, look at you; not stupid?" Avalon said.
"It was the inspiration for the Dark Mark, you know. In part. Along with Nagini…" Tom had said it absently, drunkenly. Harry recoiled immediately.
"I… Definitely did not know that," Avalon said, "How… Do you know that?"
'I would do genuinely anything just to touch it,' Tom thought, drilling holes in the skull with his gaze; then he looked at Avalon, eyes sharp.
'Are you going to kill her and turn it into a Horcrux with her murder?' Harry asked in his thoughts, trying for a conversational tone.
'I think I have plenty, don't you?'
"Name your price; I want to hold it."
She raised her eyebrows, nodded, looked at Eris, nodded again, a smile forming.
"They say you're a Parselmouth, like Voldemort. We have a snake; I'd love to hear what she has to say. She's been very ornery; no one can collect venom." It seemed she already had the request loaded and was waiting for an opportunity.
'We are doing it, no question,' Tom thought, then said, "Yes. Where is it?"
"Oo, downstairs, let's go," she half skipped, half ran, and Tom kept her pace. Blaise rapidly questioned Draco behind them, Ginny and Eris following the Slytherins silently.
"Why would he want to touch it? The inspiration for the Dark Mark? How would he know that? Have you ever heard that? I'm telling you, man, his own free will."
Tom didn't pay them any attention, deeply invested in following Avalon to the basement when she paused.
"Before we continue, I should say that if anyone were ever to attempt to enter this house without Eris, Cedrum, or myself, they would most assuredly die and join the legion under the front lawn -or in the walls if they're unlucky- Okay?" She chirped as she swung the door open and descended the stairs, not allowing comments or questions, Tom hot on her heels.
The basement was magically expanded, an underground cavern with an artificial sun. Most of the space was a lake, the water's surface completely free of ripples, reflecting the orb of light like a mirror.
"Ekeer!" Eris shouted, banging on a metal frame that looked like it was used to hold slaughtered animals, meat hooks dangling from the rack. He whistled, ear-piercing, and hammered the metal again like a gong in the cave-like space.
The water began to ripple, small at first but rapidly larger, until a massive, forty-foot-long serpent floated lazily to the surface.
"Stay well back," Eris warned.
Tom took her in, frowning, mouth open. Silvery, nearly black scales; blue eyes, a deep blue gem set between them, the same hue, and two sets of white horns on her head.
"That is a fucking Horned Serpent Avalon, they are extinct…?" Tom exclaimed, breathless as she swam closer, expecting food.
"Yes, well, not entirely," she shrugged as if it were no big deal, but her eyes said otherwise.
"Ekeer," Tom began in the serpent's tongue, gasping at the sight of her. She stilled in the water as he spoke, "My name is Tom Riddle."
"You speak, human?"
"Yes," Tom looked back at Avalon with barely veiled disbelief,"I have been told you are unhappy. Is your habitat unsuitable?"
"It is fine here. I am full, and the water is nice," she said, resting her head on the stone edge while Tom crept as close as he dared.
"I want a mate. I am lonely, and my eggs never hatch," she told him.
"Oh," he said in English, glancing at Avalon, who watched him with rapt interest, "She wants a mate."
"Oh," she repeated, sad, "Well, that is just awful. I wanted a problem I could fix."
"We will see what we can do, Ekeer," Tom told her, even though he'd just called her extinct. He knelt and examined her eyes.
"Keep talking to her. She might as well get a conversation out of you," Avalon told him, still squinting at him. She was the only person he could see from his angle.
'You talk to her,' Tom commanded in his head.
'What? This is your thing; you want to play with the human skull.'
"Uhh, do- is there anything else we can do?" Harry asked Ekeer.
"Tell them I prefer pigs, and I prefer Eris. I want a warm light under the water."
He repeated her demands, and Eris laughed at Avalon's disappointment in not being the favourite.
"Do you… Like poetry?" He asked.
'Are we too drunk to be this close to a snake that big?' Harry wondered as he noticed the stones were slippery.
"What is poetry?" She asked, the end of her tail creating delicate ripples that repeated to the cavern's walls.
"A collection of words," Tom told her before he sat down cross-legged.
"…Show me one," Ekeer told him, her fierce eyes locked on his, "I will tell you if I like it."
Tom was smirking, though Harry wasn't sure why.
"They weave a slow andante as in sleep, scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; with blue and lidless eyes at watch, they keep a treachery of silence; infinite." His cadence was melodic and echoing, and Harry wasn't sure if it was the alcohol, but it sent chills down his spine.
"Ancestral angers brood in these dull eyes, where the long-lineaged venom of the snake meditates evil; woven intricacies of Oriental arabesque awake," as Tom spoke, the snake had inched closer, though he was entirely unperturbed by her enormous face.
"Unfold, expand, contract, and raise and sway swoln heart-shaped heads, flattened as by a heel, erect to suck the sunlight from the day," he reached out smoothly, slowly, so that his hand was in front of her nose. She nudged him, and he ran his fingers between her eyes until they reached the gem between them, larger than his hand, sparkling under the artificial sun.
"And stealthily and gradually reveal dim cabalistic signs of spots and rings among their folds of faded tapestry; then these fat, foul, unbreathing, moving things droop back to stagnant immobility."
There was a moment of stillness where Harry could only hear his heartbeat, face to face with the incredible, colossal serpent, sharp eyes piercing his own.
"I like poetry. And you. You can come back if you wish." As she spoke, she retreated into the water, vanishing beneath it, and Tom carefully stood them up.
"Where did you find a Horned Serpent?" Tom asked Avalon immediately, ignoring the rest of the group's silent stares, "Genuinely? What is this place?"
"She's Cedrum's; the place is mine. What did you say to her? She usually eats people for less than being too close. I don't think anyone has ever touched the gem on her head, have they, Eris?"
Eris was frowning, arms crossed, directed at Harry, "No one's ever touched her head."
"Uh… I- told her a poem," Harry told the stone floor, already heading for the stairs on Tom's command, pushing past Zabini, who stood on the stairs.
He could hear them chattering as they followed him up, Tom pacing them in front of the cabinet when he reached it.
'You're like a crow,' Harry thought, 'Do you see something shiny?'
"Seriously, if we break this, we're all joining the lawn people," Avalon said as she rested her hand on the cabinet and waited. It hissed and clicked open. She collected the hookah and took it to the table, levitating the drinks and food to the floor. The music continued to play in the background, but Eris turned it down.
"So, it's… He used it to smoke?" Ginny asked her, and Tom answered:
"He used it to show his followers his visions at his rallies. The smoke clouds would manifest his prophecies… He foretold wars… He foretold Dumbledore's death…"
'Would you shut up,' Harry hissed in his head, constantly blindsided by Tom's propensity to just say things, particularly while drunk. As Harry thought it, Tom used the curse to pour himself another drink while the Boy Who Lived frowned, and everyone in the group winced.
"He—did he really?" Draco asked. As soon as Tom released the darkness, the group leaned in.
Tom swigged the entirety of the bourbon and then picked up the skull.
"Für das höhere wohl," he said, while Harry realised that was what was carved into the skull's forehead. Their stomach was doing somersaults. Harry could tell it was in part due to holding Grindelwald's Hookah and in another part due to what they'd done—both to Dumbledore and to Grindelwald—but he could feel the massive, unidentifiable emotion, hiding just below the surface along with the rest of it.
"What does that mean?" Ginny asked.
"For the greater good," Harry told her, whispering.
"How did you know it inspired the Dark Mark?" Avalon asked.
"Uhh. I-" He frowned at the skull that Tom refused to put down, 'How do we know that, Tom?'
'I will lie if you wish; I find lying impractical.'
'Lie,' Harry immediately thought.
'Of course, you would say lie.'
"I read it in the Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore."
Harry could tell that he'd put no effort into it, that at least three people present had surely read that book by now. No one called him out, though.
'A lesson on the impracticality of lying.'
Avalon practically had to wrestle the skull from Tom's grip, and as soon as she pried it free, he immediately poured himself another drink. The very instant it was returned to its place and locked inside, Harry felt Tom's attention on him. He drained the glass pointedly, now five neat bourbons deep, cheeks flushing.
'Are… You trying to get me drunk?'
'I am trying to get myself drunk. Stop resisting.'
"I don't want to get-'
'Harry. Enough.'
By then, Avalon and Ginny had resumed talking rapidly at each other. They sat on the floor, eating strawberries and cheese from the tray. Draco and Zabini were muttering in hushed tones, and Eris stared at Harry while nursing a drink.
He looked away, red-faced, furious at how Tom's commands seemed to affect him, not making any sense…
'I can make it make sense…'
'No, thanks.' Harry snapped.
'No? Are you sure?' Tom thought as he poured another drink with the curse, downing half of it.
The alcohol was making his skin hot, made him want to take his robe off, but the darkness and Tom's commands had made the idea… Undesirable. It felt like Tom was struggling, too, fighting to keep his thoughts and emotions under wraps as he usually did while they approached proper drunkenness.
All at once, Harry felt too weird to be where he was, too exposed for the bizarre thoughts that kept rabbiting through his head. He stood, and Ginny looked up at him, frowning.
"I- Sorry, I need to go, Gin, are you- do you want me to Apparate you? Or…" He wasn't sure if he should be Apparating, but he was sure as hell going to give it a shot.
"Oh, are you sure? Avalon was going to show me something and-"
"She can stay here; she'll be safer than safe," Avalon said, looking between them like a child asking for a sleepover.
"Is that- if that's what you want to do, Gin? I need to talk to… and go to bed," he tried not to stumble as he spoke. Ginny nodded furiously, and Harry was nervous to leave her there, but…
"I will kill all of you if she is harmed," Tom added, looking mainly at Zabini.
"Er, great, thanks, Harry," Ginny tried to laugh it off as she stood and shooed him out the front door.
"You'll need to go past the wards; don't fall in! Psycho…" Avalon called after him as she and Ginny closed him out.
As he maneuvered the lawn, attempting not to sink into it, it dawned on him that Ginny had just shooed him out of a house full of Slytherins, hanging out willingly with Draco Malfoy and some previously fugitive necromancers. Tom was feeling for the wards and Disapparated forcefully the second he felt them end.
As soon as he saw the castle in the distance and felt the little bubble of triumph on Tom's behalf, Harry realised he was now drunk and alone.
"Don't… Don't try anything weird. Why do you feel weird. I'm too drunk to be around people I need… Aren't we going to warn Cassiopeia that the Dark Lord is going to be stupid?"
"We can find her tomorrow night," Tom said as he faked steady toward the castle.
"And now we're just going to sleep, right?" Harry asked, and Tom ignored him.
Harry asked again when they reached the castle and again when they reached the Room of Requirement doors, "We're just going to sleep, right?"
In response, Tom removed his outer robe and glasses and crashed them face-first into the bed, groaning: "Shut up."
"So, we're going to sleep?" Harry asked again, muffled by the blankets in his mouth.
'Do you want me to say no?' Tom thought, and he finally stopped asking.
He rolled onto his back sloppily, and the room spun until he sank into unconsciousness.
He'd wondered if he'd woken immediately until he realised he wasn't alone as he stood in the Room of Requirement, which appeared as his bedroom; the other occupant made consciousness impossible. It was dark, the clouds obscuring the sky, only a dull glow outlining Tom Riddle as he inched toward Harry.
"What are you doing?" He asked when Tom got closer, Harry backing away as he spoke.
"Sleeping."
The curse was spitting —black and sparking green dim light— from his left hand as he stalked Harry into a corner, then along the wall, mirroring his movements, methodical.
"I'm not kidding. Knock—knock it off," Harry stuttered as he was pinned against his bed. His only option was to crawl over it, which would make him vulnerable.
"Tell me to stop, Harry," he whispered, a foot from his face, "Mean it."
The blackness reached across the short distance for his chest, and he betrayed himself by leaning in a fraction, letting out a shuddering sigh when it made contact with his skin. It wound up under his shirt, wrapped around his neck, and made his knees weak. It siphoned all sense from his brain, fluttered his eyes shut.
"Open your mouth," Tom commanded, his voice close, his hand closing around Harry's neck along with the darkness, erasing all distance between them. Harry did as he was told, mind empty, stomach rolling, heart thundering as the curse snaked between his lips, down his throat, while Tom pressed hard against him, making him rock his hips into his automatically, eagerly. Tom's free hand was in his hair, pulling it tight as he watched the curse render Harry limp and gasping.
He made Harry look at him, relaxing the darkness before he crashed his mouth into his, biting his lips, drawing blood where the curse had just stung him, still squeezing around his throat. Tom still held his hair, pulling tighter, his other hand gripping with the spell, pushing him into the wall. Harry's hands were moving of their own accord, grabbing at Tom's robes, splitting buttons free, grasping at his chest, up his neck, where he found the curse wound around him, as it was Harry; both of them frantic, trying to tear each others clothes off; or tear the other apart, until it dawned on him what was happening….
And he snapped awake. He didn't move as he realised he was dangerously close; he could have shifted wrong, and it would have been over. His heart was in his throat as he processed the dream, the heat that still washed through him in tandem with his pulse, the way Tom had already begun undoing his shirt buttons, the curse forming tiny ringlets around the fingers of his left hand as they worked.
"What- What are you doing?"
"Tell me to stop," Tom told him, halfway down, the curse nipping at his stomach and making the muscles twitch, made him buck his hips and whimper.
"Tell me to stop, Harry," Tom repeated in Parseltongue, tracing under his belly button, his shirt undone, "Mean it…"
He was gasping by that point, pressure building as he thrust his hips up to meet his hand, the blackness still blistering along his pelvis until Tom tucked his hand under his waistband, the sensation almost enough to end him; an overwhelming desire was crushing his mind as he rocked. The instant the curse and his fingers touched his cock; he saw stars; blinded as pleasure ripped him in half and sent him rigid as he cried out; flushed immediately with intense heat for longer than he thought possible; until he collapsed, still twitching, panting.
"Rest," Tom whispered in Parseltongue, still making patterns with the curse on his abdomen, "You've done so well."
(AN: Tom recites the Andante of Snakes by Arthur Symons.)