(TW:There wasn't supposed to be a sexual scene in this chapter, but there is. I'm not in charge here.)
Necromancin Dancin, Bear Ghost
Yeah (waltzing forth, here they come)
I'm raisin' the dead (everyone, turn and run)
I'm lovin' the dread (killer moves that will stun)
Let's make some evil
I'm in bliss
My cadavers drive a gathering of streets of gleeful people
Seeing the deceased's advance
The risen are ridden with rhythm and dance
Dig up some flesh with plenty of mold
Disease is appeasin' for rickety bones
And make it saucy, with a hot incantation
Dominion is served with a bubbling, spirited, vibrant subjugation
"I see what you mean about Blaise," Ginny said as they walked to the Transfiguration classroom in a group. It was too early for Cedrum's class, but Avalon and Eris led them anyway.
The door swung open for them, and Harry said, "Yeah. I don't... really know what to do about it."
"He's a bit foul, non? Je n'arrive pas à croire que j'ai voulu le bécoter," she said the last part to Eris, nudging his arm. He ignored her, sat down at a desk, and crossed his legs on top of it.
Ginny and Avalon dragged their chairs to Cedrum's desk, where they collectively examined the book Tom had given the youngest Weasley. Harry sat in the back corner, content to not learn necromancy. Barely seconds had passed before his mind went where he didn't want it to go.
'… Why would you… The dream… I mean, that surely wasn't necessary to… Why would you…' Harry couldn't form the thought.
'It was your idea.'
'What? What? How? How was it my idea?'
'You said you hoped it would happen in your sleep. I thought you might need… Help.'
'Well, no, because, for starters, I'm not… And it wasn't my idea for you to…'
'I am not in the mood to explain you to you. Examine yourself.'
'What does that even mean?'
'Did you ever think to question why you felt less than nothing when you kissed Cho Chang?'
'Well, she was crying… So-'
'…The instant I touched you, Harry-'
'No, no, no. No. No. That's the curse. Knock it off.'
'Exhausting. Such an aversion to the truth it is a wonder you get anything done.'
The door opened, blessedly interrupting his thoughts. Cassiopeia poked her head into the room, quickly zoned in on Harry, and summoned him out.
"I hear you saw him today?" She asked as he closed the classroom behind him and muffled their conversation with magic.
"Yeah. Azkaban wards and… He wanted a Horcrux. That was hidden in my godfather's house. Tom gave it to him-"
"There was no other option." Tom cut in.
She frowned and looked him up and down. "At least you're in one piece. The locket? I'm going to try to talk to Nagini tonight."
"Yes, The locket. Cedrum intends to take us off the grounds," Tom told her. Harry detected exhaustion in his tone that he wasn't picking up on in his head.
"That's the last one, Tom. I know he is; it's cleared. I'll let you know when I know more," she said, leaving him in the corridor.
He was beginning to panic but couldn't understand why, his hands sweating and heart palpitating as he took stuttering breaths.
'Is that you? Are you freaking out? Why?' He asked in his head, and Tom repeatedly swallowed in reply; dozens of colossal thoughts swam at the edge of his understanding, shrouded but seemingly harder to hide.
'What? What is it?'
Tom took a deep breath and held it until his vision swam, and they saw spots. 'This is complicated. I do not like my odds,' he thought.
'What do you mean? What do you mean, your odds?'
'If I were him —which I am, Harry— I would kill us. Very little could convince me otherwise.'
Harry didn't think anything in return to that, sharing Tom's panic until they were leaning against the wall adjacent to the classroom with wide, unblinking eyes. He didn't register Draco and Pansy's approach until she waved a hand before his face, making him stumble backward.
"Oops! Sorry, geez, I didn't think he was that zonked out…" Pansy said as he righted himself.
"You're not Zabini," Harry said to her.
"No, I'm Pansy. Blaise… Couldn't make it. Squeamish or something-" She looked at Draco as she spoke, then pushed open the classroom door before Tom could threaten her to secrecy.
Harry followed the Slytherins back into the classroom. Pansy sat next to Draco in front of him, whispering loudly enough for them to hear her recounting Blaise's tantrum in the Slytherin Common Room minutes prior.
"Didn't really want us to come, suffice it to say," Pansy smirked and looked around the room as though she'd been talking to everyone all along.
Ginny had come to sit beside him and didn't seem phased by the new Slytherin's presence at all.
"Are you okay? You're white as a sheet," she whispered, and he shrugged one shoulder.
Harry could tell she was desperate to ask what had happened with the Dark Lord, but he wouldn't have broached the subject even if they were alone. Sorry, Ginny. I'm a bit touchy because Voldemort wants me to raid Azkaban, be outed as a Death Eater in some vampire political parade, and then die.
"I'm- I'm good," he said instead.
Cedrum took them to the grounds, then past the wards, Harry still in a daze and Tom silent. In the end Harry was the odd one out, the others side-along Apparating each other — Avalon taking Ginny, Eris taking Draco, and Cedrum taking Pansy— to their second destination, leaving Harry to wait for Avalon to reappear and take his arm.
They shot through the tube and found himself in a dark, expansive cemetery.
"This is the Glasgow Necropolis, housing fifty thousand of Scotland's dead. Unfortunately for you two, this is not a particularly beginner-friendly lesson. Ginny, here," Cedrum motioned for her to come closer, and she did.
"Wait, she's not a beginner? What did I miss in one lesson?" Pansy hissed in front of him.
"I want you to try and feel for some of them. Sometimes it helps to put your hand to the dirt or to close your eyes," he told her, and she looked confused.
"I- I already feel them? I've always… Graveyards…" She trailed off, frowning, gesturing around herself.
"You feel them? All of them?" He insisted.
"I… Think so, I- it's a lot to count."
"Putain de merde, Eris," Avalon squawked and jumped to stand beside Ginny, grinning ear to ear, "Wards! Allons-y! Vite!" She clapped her hands, and Cedrum and Eris drew their wands to cast privacy and muggle-repelling wards. Pansy and Draco joined in, confused but helping, while Harry stood and watched.
"How many do you think you can raise?" Cedrum asked her when they were done casting a large dome over the cemetery; his, Avalon's, and Eris' attention was on her while she stuttered.
"Well, one- one for sure."
Widrich guffawed, "Let's try more than one, yes?"
"I need my book; I don't have much memorised," she fished in her bag and pulled out the tome from the Malfoy Manor, making Draco look at Harry with his eyebrows raised, Pansy following suit:
"Wait, hang on, that-"
Draco slapped her hand—which she had been using to point at the book—and spun on her with more force than Harry thought necessary,"Pansy, don't."
'Her Vow,' Tom clarified in his head, 'She cannot talk about her stay at the Manor.'
Pansy went white and sat down in the dirt, "Okay. Thank you."
Ginny was frowning at them, then looked at Harry, who shrugged. She held the book in her hands and began to chant until Avalon took and held the tome out for her. She raised her hands and rocked side to side as she intoned. Soon, there was sound among the graves and catacombs, the stones breaking apart and earth shifting. The dirt nearest them fell away from the plots as the skeletons within clawed their way free. Pansy was squealing, scrambled to her feet to hide behind Harry. Draco was standing next to Cedrum suddenly, eyes bulging.
"Not to worry about any flesh or smells, if you're delicate, this cemetery was declared full in the eighteen hundreds," Cedrum said, nearly entirely drowned out by Pansy's continued screaming.
Cedrum cast a silencing bubble over her as the skeletal remains came to stand around them in a circle. Harry couldn't see an end to the gathering. Some of the dead still retained scraps of their funeral best, a small handful still fully dressed and well enough preserved, but the majority were old, naked bones, missing random pieces, some dragging themselves along with only one limb. The one closest to him was missing his head and arms, a ribcage on legs.
"I raised five hundred, but I think- I think I could do more? Should I do more?" She asked Cedrum, while Eris openly laughed in shock.
"Five- Hun- did she say- more? Five hundred?" He repeated, looking between Ginny and Avalon with his mouth ajar.
"Heavens no, dear, I don't think Eris could handle it," Widrich said.
"How many- how many do people normally raise?" She asked, and Eris answered.
"A powerful life-long master of true necromancy might hope to raise two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty, on a good day with a hearty breakfast. How many more do you think you could do?" He'd asked the last half breathlessly while Avalon smirked.
Pansy was still silenced under a bubble, sitting in the dirt again, peeking over her knees.
"I don't know, maybe another hundred? I'm not sure. I still feel… Good," she said.
The skeletons she'd summoned rattled on their rickety feet or limbs, awaiting her direction.
"Elle est meilleure que toi, Eris. Incredible, Ginny, really," Avalon said.
'She told him Ginny is better than him. He looks fine with it.' Tom translated. The necromancer did look fine with it, a smile on his usually carefully blank face.
"Uh, yeah, congratulations on your…" Draco said, pale and pointing at the skeletons while Pansy rocked at his feet.
"Let's put them back to bed before Miss Parkinson joins them," Cedrum said.
"He's joking, but she nearly did," Draco muttered to Harry, making Tom snort.
Ginny twitched her arms, and they moved at once, collectively clattering to their resting places.
Avalon and Eris swept Ginny into rapid conversation, which she immediately reciprocated. Draco Apparated a sheepish Pansy back to the castle while the young necromancers tried to convince the redhead to accompany them to Avalon's place. Ginny looked at him, and he shrugged.
"But, I want to talk-" She began.
"I don't want to talk about it tonight, Gin. I'm tired. You go ahead. Tomorrow, okay?" He didn't really know what he'd feel like saying the next day, either.
She hesitated, and he Disapparated, making the choice for her.
That night, Harry laid awake, while the thought of the week ahead made him sweat. He could sense Tom felt the same; he could see the cogs turning, however shrouded. He was tracing Harry's neck, absently curling his fingers along the side of his throat, down the front to his collarbones, making him suck in a sharp breath.
"Stop," Harry didn't know why it had come out in Parseltongue.
"Do you mean it? I have watched you think about how you felt when I-"
"That's the curse, that's just the curse, it's got nothing to do with-"
"Of course, it is just the curse," Tom crooned in the serpent's tongue, no longer tracing his neck, smirking with his face.
"Shut up. It is. Leave it alone."
Tom remained silent and amused until Harry fell asleep.
As soon as he knew he was dreaming, he was almost panicked enough to wake. He sat on one of the black chaise lounges in Slytherin's Scriptorium. Tom occupied the other and watched him with a sharp gaze, leaning back in his seat.
"It is a testable hypothesis, I think, Harry. You say it is the curse," he summoned it, watched it coil around his arm with hooded eyes, "I think it is not," he cancelled it and returned his focus to Harry, who was frozen in his seat, "Come here." Tom demanded in Parseltongue.
Heat flushed him, and he was standing before he registered why, then he was on the other couch, next to Tom, though still refusing:
"I'm telling you- it's not- I'm not-"
Tom yanked him by the scruff of his shirt onto his lap and forced Harry to straddle him. His heart was pounding as he struggled not to feel what he immediately and powerfully felt. Tom was millimetres from his mouth, unmoving, annoyingly steady as he held him, staring into his eyes while he squirmed.
"It is the curse?" Tom's breath ghosted over his lips, making him whimper and stop wriggling.
"Tell me it is the curse one more time, Harry," he pulled him closer to feel how hard they both were. "Say it again," each time his whispered Parseltongue brushed his cheek, a chill would shiver through him. He registered that he was holding Tom's robes with a white-knuckle grip. At the same time, he realised that it wasn't the curse. Static filled his head as he slowly, tentatively pressed his lips to Tom's, chest aching, hands shaking.
Instantly, Tom flipped him onto his back and pressed against him, not breaking contact, biting his lips, his jaw, his neck, tearing his shirt open and undoing the top button of his pants, digging his nails into his sides. Harry rocked under him, gasping, already lost in it. He tried to undo Tom's robes until he did it for him, vanishing his top layers. Harry ran his hands down his bare chest, astonished at the desire building in his gut, wholly his, wholly overwhelming.
Tom returned to his mouth and summoned the darkness from his lips, kissing the pain into him. Each grinding into the other, pressure building in his solar plexus with an intensity unlike anything he'd ever felt, as though he was starving with it as he grasped at every inch of him. Harry summoned the curse from his fingers instinctively, making Tom moan —something he hadn't heard before, making his stomach somersault— breaking the kiss to arch his back while he rhythmically ground against Harry, the friction enough to drown his sense until they both cried out, pleasure bursting like fireworks in his middle and spreading outward like wildfire. Tom held him down with one hand as they came, taking his breath away, sending him silent and still, rolling his eyes closed.
The instant Harry woke, Tom entered Voldemort's head.
"-All I am going to do, Nagini. Draco Malfoy has been ordered to befriend him; he is not 'alone', as you will it. Now, enough."
"You think I don't notice…" She glared at him and put down her charcoal, her fingertips black.
'HATES YOU SHE HATES YOU TOO LOOK-'
Without warning, he drove his head forcefully into the table, startling Nagini standing. He felt her magic, seeping into the back of his neck and swimming brain.
"We're so screwed," Harry said as Tom exited the Dark Lord's mind, then, "Wait, Malfoy?"
While he processed that information, Tom grew angry, an emotion that Harry realised he shared. It was still early; a Tempus showed it was nearly six in the morning. Tom got them out of bed while Harry questioned.
"What? Where are we going?"
"Malfoy."
"Uhhh. I—I want a shower first, actually…" Harry's anger caught in his throat and evaporated at the memory of the dream. His heart was in his mouth as he quickly showered and changed while Tom silently waited, watching his thoughts with no indication of his feelings.
Tom took the invisibility cloak out of Harry's bag when he was dressed and threw it over them. He then headed for the dungeons, checking the map to ensure the blonde was there. Instead, he spotted Ginny waiting outside the tapestry. He removed the cloak and opened the doors to let her in, deflating as he did so.
"Hey, sorry I didn't stay last night," she said as she entered.
"No, it's fine. I'm glad you like them," Harry said, sitting in one of the single-seaters and rubbing his face rapidly.
"So… What happened yesterday?" Her eyes flicked to his right arm, covered, but it didn't matter.
"There was a Horcrux at Twelve Grimmauld Place, stolen by Regulus Black. He wanted to destroy it, but I guess he couldn't. We sent Kreacher to get it for him…" He glanced at her, feeling guilty about handing over the Horcrux, his dread over what it meant combined with his shame.
"…Oh," Ginny said, chewing her thumbnail.
Tom was less interested in the conversation and more interested in confronting Malfoy.
'You're not going to hurt him, are you? It's not like he could have said, 'No, thank you; I don't want any more friends,' is it?' Harry thought.
'I will not harm him. I do not want false loyalty. He can tell the Dark Lord we declined.'
'…Declined nicely?'
Tom ignored him, and Harry sighed.
"Are you alright? He didn't hurt you or anything, did he?" Ginny asked.
"No, he didn't. I'll be back in a bit, okay? I have to go and talk to Malfoy," he stood up and threw the cloak back over his head, already exhausted by the day as he pushed through the Room of Requirement doors.
As he moved through the castle, his anger bubbled up again—annoyance that nothing seemed real, that everyone's motives were unclear, that he could trust no one, and rage at the fact that, ultimately, he had failed so repeatedly that he was a dead man walking, a dead man opening the Slytherin Common Room doors with a Parseltongue command.