"Yes," I hear myself say, "we do need to talk. Why do you suddenly doubt me like that? You did before and after the duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore, you do now … Harp, what's changed?"

She's even almost too tired to hold my gaze, even while her eyes begin to well up. "You have no idea how exhausting it is to always calculate in it might not be the whole truth whenever you speak to me. Your constant euphemisms … Every lie you tell causes cracks between us, and you lie and sugarcoat a lot, Tom …"

"Whenever I do, I just wish to protect you –"

"From what?" She shakes her head in sad disbelief. "You can't protect me from the consequences of your actions, you might have realised that by now. If I don't know what's going on with you, how can I trust you?"

I let that sink into my consciousness for a moment there, then, as if on a bitter impulse, I say, "It's not just about trust. You try to keep the world safe from me."

"That's exactly what I don't want to do! I would rather not have to keep the world safe from you!" She frowns at me as though I was an impertinent stranger. "That's the issue, see, I don't want to be the Bonnie to your Clyde, I've told you that before. I've been over this again and again, I know what we've been through – and I know exactly what I want. It's not that … I'm no saint myself, Tom, so I can't spend a lifetime preaching ethics to you."

"You don't have to – you already did …"

"Really?" She sighs with a heavy heart. "Tom, where were you before our last N.E.W.T. today? Why didn't you want to be located? I want the truth. I need to hear it."

I dully tilt my head. "Is that why you were so angry?"

"It was a factor, sure, your graduation is better than mine now," she growls while rolling her eyes, "but that duel was … you were fantastic. You really were, and I'm bloody proud of you. But I know you leave out details, something happened in London today. Isn't that true? And it's dividing us, each time you keep to yourself, but you don't even seem to notice that."

"London," I repeat, "is completely unimportant –"

"No, it's not – not for me." She glares at me. "Be honest – you wanted to hurt someone. I could see it all over your face, you were just as bold and determined as you were the other day in the chamber, with Krafft and MacDuff. But this morning you were gone so quickly and –"

"I wanted to kill Merope's former landlord."

She's hardly going to feel any better with this information.

As expected, she slumps her shoulders while shaking her head, her eyes never leaving my face. "That's so absurd, Tom … You can't haunt this world always wanting to cause what you fear the most! Can't you see that taking a life crosses boundaries that you're not entitled to cross? Death means so much suffering!" She gulps. "Wasn't the murder of Morfin enough to traumatise us both?"

"I deeply regret that for you, but I wasn't –"

"Darling, you were traumatised," she talks over me as though she didn't even care too much anymore – and suddenly I myself feel like breathing becomes way harder. "Your face turns green with revulsion whenever you see blood. You become pale like a ghost. You feel itchy, you get goose bumps, it's a prime example of haematophobia … What's happened in that forest, and that shack, didn't just change me. It changed you, too."

"After all this time?" I ask in disbelief. "Suddenly it's changed us?"

"Tom …" I can see how she's lost for words, she tries to explain her mind, but maybe she's reached a point of no return.

"Back then, you wouldn't even accept to call it a murder," I almost whisper.

Tears glisten in her eyes as she looks up from the ground to the blue sky, just to keep them from falling.

"Harper, with everything you had you insisted it was an accident. You said Little Hangleton didn't have to mean a thing …"

She nods and sniffles, barely able to hold my gaze. "But then you were able to perform those rituals. And that means you really wanted him dead. It means that Little Hangleton did change you. You were completely honest with me back then. You said it. That an accident just beat you to it … But I desperately want to believe Morfin's death wasn't that sad, you know?" She even nods at me, fondly so. "I'm willing to bend my morals that much for you, Tom. Even for Krafft and MacDuff, I couldn't care less you tortured them. What kind of man enjoys hurting women … They're scum, they don't deserve better." She shudders, then she takes in a deep breath. "But then again, I see no end to it. You don't stop there, Tom, do you? When you went to London this morning, and you weren't honest even during breakfast … you once again wanted to kill someone who you thought deserved it –"

"He put a heavily pregnant, destitute woman on the streets, and she just so happened to be my –"

"Your mother, yes, I understand that – really more than I want to. I could strangle him with rage because he was so cruel to her! What he did was despicable. But Tom, maybe he, too, has children who need him now … Don't you see that the world is more complicated than its sins? Pain only leads to more pain …"

"He does have children, yes," I confirm with a bitter laugh. "It seemed like a twisted irony of fate, you know? All of a sudden, Susan was standing in front of me. And she said Richard lived with them, too."

Harper's face lights up with surprise. "The two little ones from the orphanage?"

"He adopted them both."

"And you would've just killed him, like you urgently need to prove that you're not called Marvolo for nothing, and that, indeed, his blood is running through your veins!"

It's hard to hear because for the first time ever, she really means it, with every syllable. She immediately pauses, I can see that she's terribly sorry at once, but that only makes it ever more honest.

"Tom, I …" She's quick to shake her head, but I already feel my pulse flatten. My heart seems to freeze, it's not beating fast, it's rather paralysed. "I'm sorry, as though this family is any of your fault – it's clearly not! I didn't mean it like that, I –"

"Yes, you did, and you're perfectly right." I try to work up a smile for her, letting my gaze follow the wind over the ocean, because the visual expanse distracts me from the tightness in my organs. "It's true …"

All their toxic pure blood inside me – I have to live with that. Whenever I see red, whenever that which keeps us alive flows, it reminds me of the madness I was born into.
Morfin's blood on rotten wood.
On my hands.
Within me …

But does it really have to determine my fate – what I'm made of?
Haven't the years with Harper shaped me for the better, at least as much as I allowed them to? Doesn't my father's blood also run through my veins?

It never felt harder to look at her. "Listen, I can't deny it. Harper, I can only …" I draw in a deep breath and shrug my shoulders a little indecisively. "I can only focus on what isn't worthy of outright damnation rather than using my past as an excuse to do whatever the hell I want."

It's almost despair in her features – and I've never felt such a palpable fear of losing her before.

"Listen, Fortuna had objections today, she sent Susan," I elaborate on that, even if my body already feels numb. "And I think now I understand."

"What?" she immediately follows up. "What do you understand?"

"That merely my perception of situations doesn't do justice to most people. That it's … not up to me to judge." I let the air fill my lungs, then I add, "Everything that's happened over the last few years … We've come full circle. I mean, everything turned out fine, didn't it? Even Grindelwald thought so in the end." She shoots me a scrutinising glance, but I just keep talking. "I always thought I didn't owe the world a thing. I had nothing, and no one. Until we found each other and wanted to read the same book."

She sniffs. "Oh, Tom …"

"And through you," I continue nevertheless, "I've realized there's more. That life doesn't have to be that cold. You made me see what a loyal friend Elliott is, and that not everyone is only just an exploitable means to an end … I suddenly owe the world something. Because your family welcomed me with open arms. And because there have always been people in Soho who tried to look after my mother and me, even if it almost went unnoticed. After all these years, I've found my father and he even wants to get to know me, leading me to his daughters despite the blood on my hands – I was just too angry to realise all that until recently." I briefly pause, then I lift her chin so she's looking straight at me. "But I get it now. The world will be what we make of it."

She puts her hands on her hips, hesitantly, as if she can hardly believe that these words are coming out of my mouth. So I add, "The two of us. You and me. Be my world. Keep being it. And I vow to have some discipline whenever it comes to questionable actions for you …"

"That's an extremely vague vow with implied excuses, don't you think?" She raises a brow at me. "Almost as if you want to be able to say one day that you really, really tried, but unfortunately, your wand accidentally flashed with green light. That's –"

"Harper, I wouldn't just kill for you, I'd do anything for you – even … not kill …" I say, and mean it, with devotion. "Do you know what I was focusing on during Samhain?"

She slowly shakes her head.

"You. Us. On the fact that your doubts never outweighed your love for me. I focused on you trusting me to make the right decisions." I take her hands into mine and bite my lip. Until I quietly ask, "Do you think you still can? After everything that's happened?"

"You've blinded them all, down to the last person," she evades my question. The sun is shining high above us, but I've never felt so cold. "Everyone," she gravely says, "thinks you're the tragically brilliant Tom Riddle … They all trust you to make the right decisions now because I did. I was your perfect alibi. The best cover. But that has to end here. Do you understand? I can't live like this, Tom. If you really want to marry me, you'll never force me to be your Bonnie again. You do know it – I adored you …" She fights the tears again as she's cupping my cheek with a hand. Gulping she says under her breath, "I wanted to deny everything opaque about you so much, and you can be very persuasive indeed … It was easy to justify believing you. But by now …" She adds a cruel pause, a fact that underlines that she's taught me a lot – but that I've also taught her a thing or two … "It's no longer adoration – I love you. I see everything you are, even the darkness … And I love you despite of it. Each of your faces. I know every one of them. But I can't marry you if you think I don't sense your darkest thoughts anyway. If you think you can distract me with incomplete truths or pretty lies and carry on as before, we can't be together. If you're not honest with me and think you don't have to make a choice –"

"I already did," I claim. "Can't you see we're finally meeting halfway? After all this time, you're finally admitting to yourself that I can be a threat. And I admit to myself that I don't have to be, because you've proven it to me. We weren't from the beginning, but now … we're made for each other, don't you think? We complete each other. Like night and day."

"So we came full circle to exchange our believes?"

"Yes, but circles don't end, Harper. Beginnings and endings can never find their full purpose without each other. That's why they're only a symbol of eternity when combined. Like a ring. And I know I should've put one on you long ago, but it seemed so absurdly formal …" My heart rate is soaring as I take out the very Deathly Hallow that Grindelwald gave me after his duel. I briefly examine it in my hand with Harper. "Especially since you told me you didn't like it …"

Well astonished, she mumbles, "How the blazes did you get that back –"

"The scandalous handshake with Grindelwald."

She takes a mental note for a moment there and eventually nods. "Me supposedly not liking that ring is but an excuse. You were in London today. To kill someone … As though you couldn't have gotten another ring today, or all the days before –"

"But this one means something." I'm holding her gaze for what feels like an eternity. "It can't possibly just be any ring … Even if this one's, granted, not the prettiest."

"I was just being mean when I said that, I was angry with you," she sighs, trying to hide her impatience in vain. "It doesn't look too bad."

"Well, it does a bit, and it belonged to the insane part of my family." I flash the set stone with its deep red reflections as I reopen my hand to glance at the heirloom. "But that makes it an ironic analogy of my own heritage – and therefore the perfect ring for us. If you can force yourself to find nice words for this ring, perhaps you can continue to do so for me."

"Force," she repeats, immediately shaking her head. "Tom, your edges are rough, but again, I think you know yourself that your good sides can be very persuasive …"

I shrug, trying to unclench my jaw. "Obviously not enough. Not anymore …"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm summarising what you've been telling me since we got here. That you no longer want rough edges in your life, which translates to you not wanting me in your –"

"That's what you heard, huh?" Almost mad, she pushes me away. "I'm here fighting for us and telling you the rules of the game and you think I no longer want you in my life?"

"It's what's happened to anyone in my life so far –"

"But I'm not anyone!" she snaps in bewilderment. "I'm the love of your life!" Clearly irritated, she adds, "I mean, I think …"

"You think?"

"Well, you were convinced for quite a while that you couldn't even love me."

"Why don't you tell that to my soul that refused to be split?" I retort. "To my Insomnia that won't let me rest whenever you're not around! How much clearer could it be?"

"Fair." She keeps watching the cloudless sky for a few more heartbeats long, then she turns back to me. "Listen, I don't want to doubt you. But I want honesty. Always! Is that really so hard to understand?"

I slowly shake my head.

"There you go! And be so kind, stop threatening people with such flamboyant regularity – no wait, actually, stop doing that in general! You simply can't do that!"

"Yeah, fine …"

"Really, Tom, that –"

"I know!" I gravely nod. "No more anarchy just because the executive power would never catch me."

"Not everything you can do, you should do –"

"Yes, we've been over that – crime and punishment, guilt and atonement, the things we want, should and could," I list while smiling at her like a celestial apparition. "You've had so much patience, Harper May … Let me prove to you that it wasn't in vain until death do us part."

"I know you, Tom, inside out by now." She slightly tilts her head. "But you'll always be a riddle. A mystery in itself, you know … But in the end, this is all that matters." She puts a hand on my chest as she feels my heartbeat. It promptly speeds up when she looks me straight in the eye again. "What's it full of?"

"Anxiety," I jest, though in all seriousness, "since you're still making no move to accept my proposal …"

"Oh," she hums, smirking, "so this is it? This is supposed to be the proposal I've been waiting all this time for? The way you're standing there, proud and straight?"

I swallow phlegmatically as it dawns on me what she's getting at. "Harp, the ground's dirty, you're not really asking me to get down on my knee –"

Examining her dark red fingernails, she mumbles, "It's not that serious to you, then, I see."

"No, I'm dead serious …" I assure – and just as I'm about to kneel, she stops me, giggling.

"It's alright, no need to follow through, the ground is muddy … It's enough that you would've done it."

"Then say Yes," I urge and pull her into my arms. I've never done it that afraid of losing her – and for the first time ever, I truly feel it's raw and pure love in its most sincere form. "Say Yes, marry me, Harper."

"Yes." She starts to smile despite the tears welling up in her eyes again.

"Why are you crying again?"

"Because I'm happy."

I'm overwhelmed, I can't even mask it. "But you were crying earlier because you were completely desperate, but now –"

"But now you told me the truth about London, and you seem to understand what my problem with vigilante justice is … Don't look at me like that!"

"Like what?"

"Indecisively," she claims, grabbing my hands. "You've mastered the most impressive magic I've ever seen, but emotions are still so hard for you to understand …"

"So that means you're leaving me?"

"No, Tom Riddle," she protests, beaming, "I'm marrying you!"

"Are you?"

She vigorously nods.

"Really me, not kindhearted, good Dean?"

"It was only ever you," she says with unexpected gravity, but also pride and satisfaction. "Only ever you and me. Everyone knows."

"I don't want any cracks between us," I whisper, as though it were a secret. "I wanted them in my soul, but never between us …"

"I know," she whispers, touched. "So be honest with me. Share your struggles and we can do anything. Without masks. Without cracks. We hold all the cards, remember?"

"You said that in the Restricted Section, just before I kissed you for the first time and had no idea yet that you'd become the ace up my sleeve."

She chuckles. "You are sentimental after all …"

"Rarely ever, and just for you," I say, appreciating the pretty sight of her as though it was the last chance. "I hang on your every word …"

"As you should." She grins and proceeds to hug me so tightly that I just know we can fix all the cracks in me, between her and me, together.

Had the stars not aligned to light my way, maybe our collective reality would've been a nightmare. But today, right here and now as I kiss her, everything is as it's supposed to be.