Chapter Twenty-Eight: What Once Was Silence
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It did not make sense that he should see Ella when he was dead.
It didn't make sense. But there she was, staring down at him. With bandages all across her arms. Her face breaking into a tentative smile when their eyes met.
"You're alive," she whispered. And that didn't make sense either.
He stared, unable to process her words. It was too bright, after the blackness. Too loud. There was a thudding in his ears, pulsing in rhythm. He realized, slowly, that it was his heart, beating out of time. Ella turned away, addressing someone he couldn't see, and said, "What's wrong with him?" And then the impassive face of Severus Snape appeared in his field of vision, scrutinizing him.
"Nothing," Snape said, after what felt like an eternity. "He's perfectly fine. Snap out of it, Potter."
Ella scowled. "Don't be an asshole, Severus. Harry, can you hear me?"
"I—" Harry mumbled, and his mouth felt terribly dry. His brain seemed to be moving at the speed of molasses. He licked his lips and tried again. "Is it gone?"
Ella and Snape exchanged a look.
"You… don't know?" Ella asked, frowning slightly. "It wasn't there?"
"It was." He brought his hands to his eyes. They felt heavy as stones. "Er— I set it on fire, I reckon."
"You set the horcrux on fire?" Ella repeated in a tone of wonder. "So it wasn't just…" She trailed off, her expression thoughtful. "Were you at King's Cross?"
"I… don't know," Harry said honestly. "I dunno where I was." All he could say with certainty was that he hoped to never see it again. "But is it gone?"
"We dunno," Ella admitted, glancing at Snape again. "The tracking bubble shattered, and we couldn't get it back."
Harry struggled to a sitting position, ignoring Ella's protests, and glanced around the sitting room. It was empty. All the orbs that had surrounded him before Snape had forced him into Limbo were gone.
"Can you describe what happened, Potter?" Snape asked. "What did you see?"
"The horcrux was there." Harry glanced down at his hands, which seemed an easier task than staring at either of them. He felt shaky, his limbs too weak to work properly. "It was corporeal. Like the one that came out of the locket. We fought. I wasn't sure… I didn't think I'd come back."
"Harry…" Ella said gently into the heavy silence that followed his words. She sounded like she might cry.
"I'm fine." He glanced at her again, forcing a smile, and his eyes landed on the bandages adorning her arms. Dark stains oozed through the elastic webbing. Something clenched in his chest. "What happened? Your arms?"
"Oh, they're… they're fine," she said quickly. "Promise. I just did something that…" She glanced at Snape.
"Insufferable," he said shortly. "Both of you. Incapable of following directions. Potter, as I explained to you both"— he shot a sharp look at Ella —"your life was not at risk."
Ella scowled but said nothing.
Harry shrugged, too weary to argue. Snape may have brought him back, but he hadn't been there. And there, in the murky darkness of Limbo, death had stood waiting. Close enough to touch. Potion or not. He knew it with a certainty he couldn't bear explaining.
"Did you destroy the horcrux?" Snape asked calmly.
Harry shrugged again. Riddle had grown quiet at the end. Surrounded by the fire which had been fueled by his soul. Washe dead?
Harry didn't know. He didn't feel any different. Shouldn't there have been some big defining moment? Was he supposed to just know that the horcrux was gone?
Snape sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "I suppose, since the tracker is not responding and, as Potter so eloquently put it, he 'set the horcrux on fire,' we can be cautiously optimistic. I will see what further testing can be done to confirm this."
"Not tonight," Ella said, with fierce resolve. "It's enough, for tonight."
"No," Snape agreed. "It will take more than a scant few hours' research at any rate. You may restore your flat. I'll take my leave."
And he was gone. It was just like Severus Snape to stroll into their flat, throw everything into turmoil, and vanish the second it was done. Harry sighed wearily, letting Ella pull him to his feet. It wasn't Snape's fault, he knew that. And yet, he'd gone, leaving only damage. Just the two of them, broken seemingly beyond repair, and an empty room to put to rights.
Ella halfheartedly waived her wand, recalling their furniture from the void where they had stored it, and trudged into the bedroom. He followed her, holding on to her fingers so tight he feared they'd hurt. She didn't seem to mind, squeezing his hand in return as they both collapsed wearily onto the bed.
"Tell me about your arms," he murmured. "What happened?"
She did, her explanation leaving him cold.
"I thought Snape might let you go," she finished. "I think… I was trying to hold you back."
She asked about the horcrux in return.
"It's all right if you don't want to talk about it," she added softly.
He didn't. He told her anyway. How Riddle had mocked him. Goaded him. Attacked him.
"He realized he would be killed." His words were a detached sort of cold. "So he reckoned he'd take me with him. I think he nearly succeeded."
"But you killed him? You think?"
"I dunno."
He hoped it was true.
She was looking in his eyes, her silence an unspoken question.
"He wasn't a person," Harry added softly. "Not like at Shadow Hogwarts. It was like a ghost, like the locket."
"Mmm."
There would be no guilt. It was no murder. She understood.
"What happened to you?" he asked then, remembering. "Before Snape came. You saw Hannah."
Ella smiled sadly, as if remembering another life. "I'd forgotten. It doesn't matter now." And that broke him into pieces.
There was too much damage. So much, they couldn't hold it all at once. He could see it shimmering in her eyes, alight in the semi-darkness of the bedroom. She shifted closer, touching her forehead to his.
She was so warm.
He kissed her.
Her lips were soft. Welcoming. She kissed him back, reaching up to brush his face with a bandaged hand. And he was falling. Losing himself in her arms until their bodies were so entwined that he wasn't sure where he ended and she began.
He traced his hands gently across the shape of her; his fingers brushing the bandages, lingering on her stomach, kneading across her chest, and her gasp was soft against his tongue.
"It's all right," she breathed, when he hesitated. "Don't stop."
And her words were all the encouragement he needed. He picked at the buttons of her shirt, unclasping them one by one, until she lay bare before him. Her skin pale in the moonlight that filtered in through the window.
"You're so beautiful," he whispered, kissing her gently. Even though the words would never be enough. Because it wasn't simply that she was beautiful, but that she was beautiful. Down her to her soul. And Merlin knew, he'd seen a lot of ugly souls.
He realized he had frozen, staring at her. Mesmerized by the look she returned, and the way her hair curled slightly as it swept the edge of the pillowcase. By the way the faint light brushed across her skin. She held his eyes, panting slightly. She raised her hand, seeking him out, but he shifted, pulling away.
"Wha—" she began to protest, but he leaned down, kissing her, slowly trailing his tongue across her chest. Across the skin of her stomach, which shivered at his touch. And the rest of her words were lost to soft gasps and softer moaning.
He explored her, his lips brushing her skin with agonizing slowness. Rediscovering every inch of her. Every dimple and every scar. He couldn't remember the last time he had touched her like this. Surely, it hadn't been long enough to forget how her stomach curved or how her chest shifted when she breathed. But he had.
When had they stopped living? Stopped stealing moments for themselves in this mad cycle of pain and death and horror?
How could it be that he had forgotten the taste of her skin?
He paused when he reached her navel, stopping only long enough to hook his fingers beneath the waistband of her leggings and pull them away. Goosebumps had formed across her stomach, crisscrossing with no pattern or reason. She shifted, moaning slightly.
"Harry…"
He bent down, kissing her slowly. His tongue dancing over hers. She was heat and fire, and everything warm. He was lost in the taste of her. He had left the darkness of Limbo. He was home.
She moaned, returning the kiss, and he pushed deeper. Losing himself in her warmth. Until her hands found him again. Held him. He wanted her then. More than anything.
He drew back, stripping away the remaining layers of cloth, until there was nothing but skin between them. He reached for his wand, casting the protection spell. Slowly. Deliberately. She was holding his gaze. Waiting. And it filled him with warmth — how brave she was.
"I love you," he breathed, and he slipped inside her.
She gasped and moaned his name, pulling her arms around him. And he pulled her close, too. Held her as they rocked together, moving in a steady rhythm. The tension building between them, pulling him to the brink, until he wasn't sure he could go a moment more. He slowed, wanting to stretch the time between them. Hesitant to finish before Ella was ready. But she gasped, "Don't stop! Fuck me!" And clasped her arms tightly around him.
And it should have been the climatic moment. The culmination of love and desire and arousal. He wished that it were. He wished… but a coldness had stabbed suddenly through his whole body. And he heard another voice. A cold, dark voice sliding out of the crevices of his memory. Wrapping itself around his heart in tightening coils.
"I see when you fuck your wife."
And Ella's face beneath him suddenly felt terribly distant. They no longer occupied the same space. He couldn't reach her. She shifted beneath him one final time, and he felt the release of the tension that had built within him. But there was no desire in it any longer. No satisfaction. The pleasure simply gone.
"Fuck," he whispered.
He pulled away from her, falling back to the bed. He was furious. Devastated. His heart was full of Voldemort and all his failings. And why, why couldn't he let this go?
Ella opened her eyes and turned, scrutinizing him. "Are you OK?" she said finally.
"Yeah." He nodded.
"All right." She said nothing else. She simply rolled over and held him. And he pressed his face to her chest and breathed in the smell of her. Sweet and slightly floral, and overwhelmingly of sex. And he felt his eyes sting as he thought of her. Of this moment that he'd let slip away. Of all the moments that they had lost, and the ones they would lose still.
And he wondered how it could be that memories could be so heavy. How they could slip in, unwanted, and steal an entire life. Suck out its joy.
When would he finally, finally be strong enough to fight off the Voldemort who lived on in his heart, and tormented him still?
Morning crept into the bedroom, the sky lightening slowly until the last traces of night faded to pale daylight. Harry blinked awake as the light prickled at his weary eyes. Beside him, Ella still lay sleeping, her hair a messy dark tangle against the stark whiteness of the sheets.
He got up slowly, draping the blanket across Ella's bare shoulders to fill his absence. The previous night's events hung heavy, shadowing his movements. He didn't have time to unpack them. It was nearly seven. Robards would be expecting him. There would be hours of paperwork to work through regarding yesterday's cave incident, which now felt like something out of another life. Robards would likely want him to follow up with questioning Burke. It was a distraction he could hardly afford, when the entirety of his mind was occupied with tracking Rookwood. With tracking Voldemort.
He was sick and tired of always thinking about bloody Voldemort.
He yawned, blinking out the light as he rubbed a hand across his face, and started toward the door, his mind drifting to thoughts of coffee.
And then he paused, steps away from the bedroom door. Almost against his will, he closed his eyes again. He opened them. Closed them again.
[Hello, Harry.]
Tom Riddle was standing in the darkness that had bloomed behind his eyelids. He smiled, his teeth perfectly white and sharp and very malicious.
Harry shook his head vigorously, opening his eyes again. The room was pale in the feeble daylight. Utterly unremarkable. Ella still lay sleeping. It looked as if it might rain.
With a sense of growing dread, he closed his eyes again.
Tom Riddle stood waiting, exactly where he'd left him. That smile still stretching unnaturally across his face.
[Oh no,] he said softly. [This isn't a dream. Did you really think you had gotten rid of me? On the contrary, it looks like we'll be seeing quite a bit more of each other. Well]— his smile grew wider —[at least you will, Harry.]
He stepped closer, slashing the distance of the black expanse between them.
[I have existed nearly thirty years in your shadow,] Riddle whispered, his eyes aglow. [Won't this be nice, Harry? Now, you can live with mine.]