Potter.
The name reverberated through Tom like a gong.
Potter. Potter. Potter.
He looked to Harry, who was skinny and had dark hair, and maybe he looked a bit like Charles who had graduated a few years past. Though he couldn't remember the Potters ever being so short.
Not that Tom had paid more than a passing interest in him. He had been Head Boy but not a prefect. He had done well in his classes but had not been particularly studious. He had been in Gryffindor like the rest of his family before him.
Which would make Harry the little black sheep of the family, if that were the case.
before he could dwell on it for too long though one of the twins broke away from the others.
"Now, now, Hermione, that's hardly the way to greet our good friend who has been missing for most of the year," he swaggered over and draped a lanky arm over her small shoulder.
The other Twin moved in a near mirror image of the other to stand on her other said, "exactly, we have more pressing questions."
"I suppose you're right-" The girl began but was summarily cut off.
"Yes," one said, "we are," said the other. They shared a grin over her head and the first one broke away once more. "First things first, dear Harrikins."
"What in the name of Merlin are you wearing?" the other twin moved forward and as one they draped themselves over Harry.
Before Tom's blood had a chance to boil, or his head a moment to stop spinning, Harry shook out of his own shock. "What...How are you even here, and stop that!" He shook the twins off of him, and batted away hands that had been poking at and smoothing over the shoulders of his robes.
"That's sort of a long story, I guess," the last red head spoke up for the first time, a blush tinting his pale face as he smiled a bit shyly, "hey, mate."
Harry laughed, there was relief there, and joy as well. He took a few steps forward and the redheaded boy moved to meet him, accepting the hug as Harry threw his arms over him. "Hey, Ron. Missed you, man."
"Missed you too," Ron whispered back.
Tom did not seethe. This was a friendly reunion, if the familiarity and adoring looks were anything to go by. But he wanted some answers, sooner rather than later. And the pointed, piercing looks that the girl and twins were giving him when they weren't indulging in Harry and the boy's open affection, were not helping matters.
Tom crossed his arms over this chest, and waited.
When Harry broke away from Ron he turned to Hermione, a little bashfully, until the slope of her shoulder softened and she flew forwards into his arms.
"Oh, I'm so sorry for yelling, I was so worried," her words were mumbled into Harry's shoulders but were still loud enough to carry in the still morning air, "we didn't know what had happened."
"Yeah," said one of the twins, "everyone's been going mad trying to find you."
"Hey," the other twin cut in, "stop hogging him, come on!"
Harry happily accepted a hug from the both of them, at the same time, squished between them and smiling a bright smile that had only been reserved for Tom and Alphard before.
He was not jealous at this at all.
Harry laughed as they all pulled away, taking his time to actually look them over. He shook his head, "what am I wearing? What are you wearing? You look like you're starting a very depressing boy band." They were all wearing the same nondescript black robes. They were of a slightly older fashion than what was commonly worn now, but of good quality wool, as far as Tom could tell.
The girl snorted a laugh but the other three, like Tom, seemed completely clueless, "a what?" Ron asked. One of the twins mouthed, 'boy band' at the other who just shrugged.
"Dumbledore told us we had to blend," the girl said, "and that we couldn't draw attention to ourselves so."
"Bland robes," the twins said.
"Dumbledore...?" Tom said softly, drawing every eye to him.
Harry was suddenly at his side, lower lip between his teeth as he looked between Tom and the others.
"These are...my friends, Tom...and," he looked back at the girl, "can we go somewhere, um...a little more private?"
"I'm dying to see how different the town is," one of the twins said. How did anyone tell them apart? They were already starting to give Tom a bit of a headache.
Harry took Tom's hand and led them all away from the fountain, still running smoothly after the incident.
Harry took them into the pub, it was mostly empty and dark, he asked for a moment from the others and pulled Tom over to a table in the corner.
"Ah...look...I," he started, unsure where exactly to start.
Tom tried to give him a reassuring smile, "so...these are your friends?"
"Yeah," Harry said with a nervous laugh, rubbing at the back of his neck, "I...need to speak with Ron and Hermione for a little bit alone. If you wouldn't mind keeping an eye on Fred and George for me...they can be a bit..."
Tom laughed softly, "I understand," they seemed far worse than ten Alphards. No wonder Harry was so good with him. "But, um...which is Fred and which is George?" He at least wanted to get names right.
For Harry's sake.
"You know," Harry said with a rueful smile and a shrug, "I think only they know that."
Fair enough, he supposed. Harry stood up on the tips of his toes to place a quick kiss on Tom's lips. This did not, of course, go missed by any of his friends. The twins loudly whistled at them, and when Tom looked over Ron was beet red from embarrassment, and Hermione, from the looks of it, pale with anger.
Well...
He had wanted his birthday to be eventful...
~~~
He should...probably have not kissed Tom.
Hermione's eyes were dark and she was openly glaring now.
And he definitely should have at least told them about he and Tom before kissing him. But it had become second nature. A knee jerk reaction. He was going to go away for a time without Tom, so, he gave him a kiss.
Harmless. Really.
He hadn't thrown Tom down on the table and climbed on top of him, or any other outlandish, vulgar displays.
It was a simple kiss. And he was not going to be ashamed of it.
"So..." he stared, unable to look Hermione full in the eyes under that gaze. He shot a quick look to Tom and the twins, the later of which were perched on either side of Tom, leaning into him. No doubt asking all sorts of inappropriate questions.
Especially now.
He really should have waited.
"So," Ron said simply. He was also avoiding Hermione's eye. He followed Harry's gaze to the other table, "do you think he'll be alright with them?'
"Oh yeah," Harry said brightly, "Tom's handled worse than them before."
"So," Ron said again, "about that."
"What are you thinking?" Hermione hissed, "what was that? What are you thinking?"
Harry met her eyes, worry over her temper melting into his own banked fury, "what was I thinking? I was thinking that I was never going to get back to my time, and so I wasn't going to spend my life here alone and unhappy. I was thinking that finally, finally I got the chance to live a life how I wanted it."
"You didn't try to come back?" Hermione's tone was equal parts shocked and appalled.
Harry threw up his hands, "there isn't a way back, or, there wasn't. Dumbledore couldn't help. I lost the locket that sent me back in the first place!"
"And what, your plan was to just leave us and think we wouldn't worry about you?'
"There really wasn't anyway around that. And, I might add, it wasn't exactly my choice."
"And what about You Know Who, what about the war?"
"What about it?" Harry asked, crossing his arms, "it isn't going anywhere."
Hermione paused, blinking at him. Ron, who had said nothing in all this, looked cautiously between the two. When it appeared that they weren't about to take a bite out of each other, he said, "your plan, then, was to wait it out...wait for the war to just happen?"
"Well," Harry started.
"And then go fight the war, as an old man?" Ron asked dryly,.
"Yes."
A beat of silence as they started at one another, absorbing the information. Then, the tension cracked. Harry's ribs hurt from the force of his laughter, and seeing even Hermione wipe tears from her eyes made it that much harder to gain control of his breathing once more.
"I was going to come say hello then, too."
Ron gasped harder, folding over to clutch his ribs, "J-just, show up on our doorstep, O-old man Potter!"
Harry took off his glasses to rub his eyes, taking deep breaths, "I never said it was a good plan. Just the only thing I could think of. But-" He cut himself off, sobered, and looked over at Tom. The three of them were now staring at Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
"But," Hermione prompted.
Harry bit his lip, "you won't like it."
She shook her head, running a hand through her frazzled hair, she sighed, "I was...too harsh...we were just worried, Harry. Dumbledore didn't know what had happened, or what to do. He spent most of the year working on a way to track to you, and get us here and back safely."
"Yeah...how did you guys do that anyway?"
Hermione dug in the pocket of her robe and came out with a little disk. It didn't look like anything he had ever seen before, just a small bit of copper with a hummingbird stamped on it. "He made these, they are attuned to the magical signature of a single person. The ones we used to find you and come here were only attuned to you...they were lost in the process. These," she hefted the little disk on her palm, "are attuned to Dumbledore...but only the one in our time."
"That's..."
"Yeah," Ron perked up, "we have an extra so you can come back with us!"
"Oh," Harry said.
"Oh?" Ron asked, exasperated, "what oh?"
"So...remember how I said my plan changed?" Harry smiled at them, trying to be cheery, even as he knew they were not going to like what he had a to say. "It's about Tom....and me."
~~~
"What about Diagon Alley?" The one who said he was Fred asked.
"Yes," said George, "what is the flavor there? What are the children into in 1945?"
Tom had expected questions about himself, if for no other reason than he was obviously involved with Harry on a level that was more than friends. He had not expected for the twins to come at him, rapid fire, with questions about shops in town and the spending habits of his peers.
Or well, whom they thought were Tom's peers, anyhow.
Tom tried to keep his eyes off of Harry. There had been a rather explosive argument that seemed to be the bossy girl accusing Harry of something and Harry, to Tom's pride, had met her word for word....until it had devolved into chaotic laughter.
He tried, instead, to think of Diagon Alley, he said, "there are shops for everything that one could need...clothing, books, supplies for everything...food," he sighed, "once again it is hard for me to know what you might be looking for, specifically, if you do not tell me."
Fred tapped a finger against his lips and let out a very audible hum, but it was George who said ponderously, "we were warned against saying too much about the future, right Fred?"
"That's correct, George."
"I thought you were Fred?"
"Worry not, dear Tom," the one his left said, "if we were too, disregard the rules given to us."
"In a very long, very boring meeting," the one of his right chimed in.
"Then we would, perhaps," began the left, "inquire about the shops of leisure, as it were," added the right.
"Leisure? Like Quiddich?"
"Sure, sure," said the left hand twin, "Quiddich is great fun, we do Quiddich, don't we Forge?"
"Too right, Gred."
And Tom was really hoping a server showed up soon so he could order a drink. He wasn't really one to indulge, as Head Boy he needed to set an example. But no one from the castle was here and he might start hexing people, Harry's friends or no, if he didn't get some relief soon.
Luckily. Thankfully. And Gloriously, Harry and the others came over right about that time. Harry gave him a warm smile, before turning on one of the twins and forcing him to budge over so Harry could slide in next to Tom. Tom wrapped an arm around him, sighing deeply as tension drained from him on contact. The room warmed up, the candles didn't flash so harshly off the deep red the hair surrounding him.
"You two better have been nice," Harry said, eyeing them sternly.
The twin Harry had forced up was now sitting next to the other, the boy, Ron, who must have been a younger brother sat next to them, Hermione slid in last. She gave Tom a very searching look.
"We were angels," one of the twins said, both of them smiling bright and innocently to Harry.
Harry huffed a little laugh, leaning further into Tom. He looked up, and Tom could feel how anxious he was through their link, "I know this is..."
Tom shook his head, "it's alright, really."
Across from Harry, Hermione shifted in her seat, "Harry?"
"Right," he sat up a little further in his seat, "I said I'd tell you how I got here," he shot a quick glance at Tom, "it's something I wanted all of you to know...well...it started on my birthday."
Harry's story was one of wonder to Tom. Dumbledore was going to come get Harry from his relatives. Dumbledore! Because Harry's safety was in danger!? This was something he did not elaborate on, though the others looked pointed at him several times in the retelling for some reason.
As though Tom would ever do anything that jeopardized Harry's safety.
"I didn't realize anything was wrong at first...obviously the locket had some sort of spell on it that read as magic being used in a clearly muggle location by a minor...but when no one knew me and I got suspicious...I gave them my mother's last name instead," Harry shrugged, "I thought, someone would see me and call me out on the lie, but they never did...then at the ministry I saw a paper with the date and...then Dumbledore came and he wasn't the same." Harry sighed again, "Dumbledore didn't know how to get me back, and I figured, if he couldn't figure it out...and I was just...so tired. With everything."
"Oh Harry!"
Before Tom could blink Hermione was up out of her seat and practically in Harry's lap, sobbing obviously from way her back shook, in between gasps she said, "with Sirius gone, and we were unable to write."
"Yeah, sorry about that, mate," Ron said lowly, "I completely forgot about the Order forcing us to stop...a few owls went missing and they got panicky. We couldn't send anything to you."
Harry patted Hermione with the patience of a saint, "it's fine...It's all fine now, really. But well..that's it. I was stuck here, so I was going to make the best of it."
"So that's why you're shacking up with this tall drink of water?" One of the twins said, and they both waggled their eyebrows at Tom.
It was at that moment that Ron happened to look down where Tom's hand rested on the table, he jumped as though shocked, "is that....that's a courting ring, oh Merlin!"
The twins sat forward as one, whistling in unison as they took in the ring on Tom's finger. Harry's hand went to the bracelet on his wrist to fiddle with it nervously.
"Harry," Hermione, who had pulled herself from Harry's person, straightening her robes as she went back to her seat, a little red in the face but otherwise unperturbed until she had looked between the ring and bracelet. "there's...we have to talk about something important."
Harry shook his head, "it really has to wait Hermione, I'm... I don't think I can handle anymore today."
"But it's about," she clearly cut her gaze to Tom this time, "and you did say you would explain everything, once you told us how you got here."
"If there is anything that you would like to say to me," Tom began, and Hermione made as though she would say something, but Harry rose a hand to forestall anymore conversation.
"Enough," Harry said sharply, "for today. Please," he added softer.
"But the Anchors," Hermione began desperately.
"He never did say that they had a time limit," Ron said helpfully, the twins nodded.
Hermione huffed, "I don't think he envisioned that we would stick around and chat."
"He should have," Harry said, already standing up, "because I can't do much more today." He pulled on Tom's hand to get him to stand.
"What are we supposed to do?" Hermione asked, a little snappish.
That brought Harry up short, "you probably shouldn't come back with us...I mean, most everyone is gone, but it might cause trouble."
"We'll get a room!" One of the twins yelled.
"Capital idea! We can book one here," the other one said, "we can meet up with Harry for dinner, yes?"
"Um..." Harry said, "I'll, let you know when..."
"We understand," the twins slid out of the booth after Tom, Ron scooting around the long way after them, leaving Hermione gaping at them all.
"Yeah," Ron said, "this is a bit crazy for all of us. I think we're good to wait. Like you said," he added with a smirk, "the future isn't going anywhere.
"Thanks," Harry said a little breathlessly, hugging Ron and the others, even a very stiff Hermione, before pulling Tom out after him into the early afternoon.
"I'm not certain it's safe to leave them there," Tom said conversationally as he wrapped a protective arm around Harry's tense shoulders. He was thinking more of the twins and their antics, and how they clearly were enjoying their time in the past.
But then Harry said, "that's hardly our problem," and snuggled closer to Tom as they walked back to the castle.
The disaster of the morning had been pushed from his mind, until they were returning over the snow dusted hills to the castle. He tightened his grip on Harry's shoulders, trying to force that misadventure from his mind.
Harry was silent and withdrawn all the way to the dungeons. He hung up his cloak and changed into his slippers in sort of trance and made his way to Tom's room without pause. Once there, with the door closed, he paced.
"Harry," Tom started, though he wasn't completely sure what he should say. He made his way to the bed, sat down and tried to come off as relaxed, "your friends seem nice."
Harry laughed, somewhere between bitter and hysterical, "my friends...Tom, I'm"
"I know," Tom said.
"You know?" Harry stopped his pacing to give Tom a very confused look.
"I know that you...are from the future," Tom shrugged, "I figured it out a while a go."
Harry's shoulder's slumped, "Wha..."
"In the maze," Tom said lowly, "if figured that you did not remember...you were fighting, and well, you were beyond being able to tell friend from fo, and attacked me. The shield I threw up sort of connected."
"Priori Encatantum...." Harry collapsed onto the bed, shell shocked.
Tom blinked at him, "so you knew...that that would happen?"
Harry had gone pale, his hands closed into fits on his knees. Tom reached over and took one of his hands, surprised and worried with how cold it had was. He moved closer to Harry, wrapping his arms around him. There was a question he had to ask. A few puzzling happenings that were falling into place.
It was a question he wasn't sure he wanted to ask. A answer he didn't think he wanted to have. But he asked all the same.
"Does this have something to do with what your friend wanted to talk to you about?" She had been cutting glares at Tom almost as soon as she had stepped out of the portal. All of them had, at one point or another. Harry knew about Priori Encantantum....which meant he probably knew their wands were linked.
Then there was their own, unique bond.
There was a picture forming. He might not be ready for the answers, but he needed them.
Harry looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since the arrival of his friends. His eyes were dark, they looked tired. Haunted. "Yes," he said.
"And your friend...Hermione? What she wanted to talk to you specifically, was about...me?"
"I think so," Harry sighed.
"You can tell me...you know you can. Anything at all, Harry. But especially if it involves me."
"I don't know...there's too much," Harry sighed, "I didn't think it would be a good idea to tell you...but," Harry bit his lip and look up at Tom. He didn't say it, Tom could almost feel it. The but...he wasn't going to tell Tom about how he might have played some role in Harry's life in the future...but. But he had caught Tom in the act of trying to kill his relatives.
"I want you to tell me, Harry...you....you're the most important thing in my life. I need to know."
Harry nodded, his brows furrowed in thought, "I don't want you to hear anything from them...They would say something...I just don't want you to hear it that way, but, I don't know if I could just say it. Do you think. Like how we do in the dreams, do you think I could show you?"
"That's an interesting thought," Tom mused with a tilt of his head.
"Unless you have a pensieve," Harry added with a little smirk, "I think we'd be here for the rest of the week if had to try to say it."
"It's only Sunday."
"There's a lot to tell," Harry quipped back. It would have playful, their usual banter before Tom would pounce on him, wrap Harry in his arms and kiss him. Except Tom knew that what lay on the other side this time would not be as pleasant.
"I think we could make it work like one...if you kept in mind the actual memory and didn't let your mind wander."
Harry nodded, "I think I could do that," he said, voice low in thought, "if I can get to sleep..."
Tom smiled, "that I can help with." He rose fluidly from the bed and went to one of his shelves. He made it a point to have treatments to common ailments in his possession. In case someone was in dire need of something and did not feel like going to the Hospital Wing for help. Some of them he had even brewed himself, including his sleeping draught.
He came back to the bed with a tall bottle of blue potion and a small glass, "now you must take the full dose, go to sleep and then call me in morning to make sure you are well," he said in a lofty tone as he poured a measure into the glass and handed it to Harry, "understood?"
"Yes, doctor," Harry said with a playful grin, and Tom had time to take in the use of the muggle word before he downed the glass, his grin becoming scrunched in displeasure at the taste.
Tom tended to brew his potions strong.
Taking the cup he motioned for Harry to scoot up to the top of the bed and lay down, he moved around to the side where he slept, pouring his own sleeping potion, a little less than Harry's since he could get himself to sleep on his own, he simply wanted to speed things along. Corking the bottle he lay down next to Harry who was already yawning.
"Go to sleep, Harry," Tom said softly, taking Harry into his arms as his own body grew heavy with the potion, "I'll find you and then we can figure the rest out."
Harry's eyes were closed and his breaths evened out before Tom had finished speaking, and he followed Harry into slumber almost instantly.
He was in void-space. The black nothingness that he hadn't needed to fall into in some time. Reflexively, he must ended up there from potion induced sleep. It was easy to find Harry, though, just follow the warm pulses of golden light though the endless abyss. The closer he moved, a weightless sort of flying, formless and instinctual, the more Tom became...well, Tom. He could smell the fresh air scent of a spring meadow, feel the golden sun on his chilled skin. And so, it was quite a shock when Tom stepped out onto the beach.
It was just as cold and mist soaked as it had been when Tom first encountered Harry's frantic nightmare. The sky was blotted out behind heavy banks of clouds, the steel grey waves white tipped and thrashing as they lapped at Tom's bare feet, frigid and stinging as he made his way over to the huddled form on the shore that he knew all too well.
A wisp of black caught at the edge of his eye and Tom became aware that he was wearing what he had been the first time he'd been there. The tattered and worn robe of a wraith.
It was natural, another reflex, he wanted to change it. To be wearing the robes he had picked out for himself. Something that was both practical and well made. But he held back.
Harry was crouched, if Tom had to guess, close to where he had been that first time as well, only now he was not digging in the wet sand with his hands. He sat huddled into himself in the oddest set of muggle clothing Tom had ever seen. His trousers were of a rough material in a patchily faded dark blue and the jumper he wore had clearly been made for someone much, much larger. On his feet, instead of the nice leather boots he owned, were some off white, nearly grey, canvas shoes.
Tom gestured to himself when Harry looked up, "why am I always wearing this in your dreams?" Harry sighed and Tom rose an eyebrow, "and, not to sound like your charming friends, but, what ever are you wearing?"
Harry laughed then, rising to his feet, "muggle clothes?" He said a little shyly.
"And that's what muggle kids wear in your time?"
Harry laughed harder, doubling over for breath, "you sound like an old person," when he finally pulled himself up, wiping a tear from his eye, he said with a little shrug, "it's what I wore. I...didn't have a lot of a choice."
Tom nodded, he had often not had a choice in his past as well, "and my attire?"
Harry looked him over, brow furrowed and lips pursed, "I don't know...I didn't do it on purpose."
Tom nodded, he looked around the beach, "why here? You dreamed of this place before."
Harry looked around as well, "I think this is supposed to be the beach I was on just before I got sucked through time. It didn't really look like this, though. It was in the summer and it was a nice day, and there were a lot of muggle families around. It was nice, and this is..."
Bleak.
"Your subconscious seems to be very dramatic. Let us hope it doesn't try to trickle in on your memories," Tom tapped a finger against his lips, just in case Harry couldn't control what he was thinking of, they should try for something harmless first.
"Alright," Tom said, "why don't we try something easy, something that you can be sure is correct before we move on."
"Something fun?" Harry said with a smirk. It was amazing how light Harry felt, that Tom felt through him. This was going to be a devastating ordeal, if Harry's initial nerves were anything to go by, but here he was, putting on a smile and being brave...
For Tom.
Tom stepped forward and took Harry in his arms, trying to lend him some form of strength, "something fun," he agreed.
The beach halted around them, the air simply gone, the waves frozen in a choppy tableau. Then everything shifted and faded. Suddenly they were back at Hogwarts, a group of children in robes that were different from the ones that Tom was used to, but were clearly still school robes, Slytherin and Gryffindor both, were congregating on the Quiddich pitch. They were very small children too. First years, and judging by the array of brooms clutched in too small hands they were having their first flying lesson.
Only the teacher wasn't around.
There was a blond haired, blue eyed boy, that had Abraxas' pointy features and could only have come from him, he was holding a glass orb in one hand, a broom in the other, and saying something scathing to...
The boy was smaller than the rest, he had messy black hair and glasses that were nearly too large for his face, and the scar that Tom had come to know so well on his forehead.
Tom walked forward before even knew what he was doing, he stood before the boy, who, obviously couldn't see him. The very small Harry glared at the boy who was a Malfoy, yelling at him to give the orb back. Then Malfoy was off on his broom and a little, very determined Harry racing right after him.
Tom followed their progress, breath held when Malfoy threw the orb and Harry narrowly missed colliding with the castle as he caught it straight from the air, as though it were nothing.
In his mind a sleepy Harry was pressed against his chested, mumbling drowsily.
"Best seeker in your year..." Tom said, more than a little shocked. He jerked when a hand took his own, but it was only Harry. His Harry. Smiling at him.
"My first time ever flying," his smile was so bright it put the remembered sun to shame.
"Did it...happen like this?"
Harry nodded, "I think...I can do the rest. It wasn't hard bringing the memory up. I could change it, I think, but it just sorta played out when I thought about it."
Around them the castle grounds had falled silent, the color muted, the children still as they had been. With the Gyffindor's racing to Harry and the Slytherins looking a bit crest fallen.
Tom blinked, "you were a Gryffindor?" He said stupidly. He could see it right there, it's just....
Harry laughed, "the Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin, but I asked it not to."
"You asked it...Harry," Tom rubbed his temple soothingly, though a smile still tugged at his lips, "Harry that is the most Slythrin thing I've heard in my life. You told the Hat where you wanted to go."
Harry shrugged, "Malfoy, er, Draco...Abraxas' grandson, and twice the git, was the first wizard raised kid I'd ever met and he was..."
"I can imagine," Tom grinned, "I often want to be elsewhere when a Malfoy is around."
When their laughter died, so did a little of the joy in Harry's eyes. "I suppose we should start."
Tom nodded, wrapping his arms around Harry once more as the landscape began to change. The physical contact not exactly needed, but it was grounding. At least for Tom.
The blackness around them never coalesced into something else. It wasn't the endlessness of the void. It was simply...dark.
"Harry-" he began, but Harry beat him to it.
"I thought...I thought we should start at the beginning," Harry voice was small, and when it ended the laughter began.
It was cold, hight pitched. It didn't even sound human.
But the screaming of a terrified woman was worse.
Then all around them a bright green light flashed, followed by a rushing pressure in his ears and something that Tom could only describe as being within the eye of an explosion.
Then it was gone.
They were back on the beach, though this time it was sunny and the waves were a calm and easy blue.
Harry chewed on his lip as he gathered his thoughts, Tom could just feel the edge of his whirling emotions through their link, and Tom.
Tom tried not to shake.
"So," Harry said when he finally said anything, "I had this dream a lot. My aunt always told me that my parents died in a car crash and that this dream was just what I remember of it...I was a little over a year old when it happened...But when I was eleven, on my eleventh birthday, a large man came to deliver my letter to Hogwarts and told me I was wizard," he said it all in a rush, then drew a deep through to continue.
"His name was Hagrid," Tom must have made some sort of face at that, a tribute to his startled nerves, because Harry gave a bitter laugh and said, "Yes, that Hagrid. Well," he continued, "turns out my aunt and uncle knew my parents were magic and I would a wizard and they tried to keep me from getting the letter but that backfired...that was the night I learned that they hadn't died in a car crash...they had been murdered. They had angered a dark wizard and he had gone after them...after me, specifically. My parents were betrayed by a friend and he came one night and killed them. Tried to kill me, but it backfired."
"Backfired?" Tom said, it came out whisper thin through his dry throat.
Harry nodded, and the playful smirk was back, "you are looking at the only person to survive the killing curse. Just so you know...made me famous. Well that and that the rebounded spell was thought to have killed the dark lord. The Boy Who Lived, that's what they call me..."
And why Harry had been surprised no one knew who he was, why his friends just understood and accepted that fact. He had become a hero as a child. Raised my lying muggles, Tom ground his teeth and tried to focus. "And that was what you remember, the killing curse, the laughter, the screaming,"
"My mother," Harry said softly, looking out to the water, "and the green light of the killing curse."
"This dark lord," Tom said, "what was his name?"
He knew, with a terrible, horrendous certainty. He had never told Harry the name. He didn't allow anyone who followed him to even say it. Yet they knew. They were aware who their master had become. The role Tom had crafted for himself, the path they would all follow him on. One day Tom had planned to step out of the shadows and proclaim himself.
"He goes by, Lord Voldemort," Harry said softly.
Tom couldn't look away from his sad green eyes, he couldn't stop hearing that name...his name, on Harry's tongue. He didn't want to believe it. But he could feel it, the truth of it.
Suddenly it was hard to breathe.
"We don't have to continue."
Tom laughed bitterly. He was the monster here, and Harry was trying to take Tom's feeling into consideration. He was too good...too good for Tom. Too good to have his parent's taken from him.
"Why? Why would I..he.." It was dry and hollow, and it was all that Tom was able to ask.
Harry bit his lip and stalled for a time, it felt less like the whirlwind of his trying to sort his thoughts, and more like he was trying to protect Tom...or himself.
"There was this prophecy...it was made to Dumbledore, and one of your Dearth Eat-...er...your followers heard. But he didn't hear it all evidently. Just that someone was going to be born that had the power to defeat you...there were two of us that it could be, but you decided it was me, and so..." He held his arms out at his side as though that explained everything perfectly.
a half heard prophecy that he had only heard second hand, and he decided to go off and kill a child for it? Tom was willing to do a lot to build the world he wanted. The vision of the future that Salazar Slytherin had dreamed of, had written endlessly of in his journals and hidden safely in the Chamber for an heir that accomplish them.
Tom was going to be that heir. He had frameworks in place, he was known, he was respected, and he was feared to a certain extent. The plan was not to rule aimlessly, but to change the wizarding world for the better. Get them more power and freedom. Take them out of the shadows. If it meant that muggles had to be pushed aside, if it meant a war had to bread out, well then, Tom would do what it took to get there.
He couldn't imagine this fitting in with that plan.
"We can stop," Harry said again, when Tom shook his head he nodded and took a deep breath. "Er, well...so I had my first run in with Voldemort my first year...or well, second run in, you know, but I don't remember that one very well. Well, you've seen." He cut off his rambling by clearing his throat, and tugging a little frantically at his hair, "Dumbledore got a hold of the Philosopher's Stone, he had it at Hogwarts to keep it safe, but one of the teachers was sort of...possessed by Voldemort's...um...wraith, I guess."
The beach faded into a stone, windowless chamber, fire took up what looked like the only exit and there was a large, ornate mirror in the middle. Two figures stood in the room. The very small, and clearly frightened Harry, and a tall man in dark robes.
Tom thought they were both staring into the mirror, until he realized that the little Harry was in fact looking up into the back of the man's head, where, upon closer inspection, a horrid, twisted face looked back.
It didn't look like Tom. It didn't even look like his father, which he had come to accept would be his future some time ago. His handsome features had always done him enough good that he couldn't be completely angered that they had come from a muggle.
But this.
The eyes were merely slits, the pupils red and black and dreadful. Two small holes for nostrils and a slash of a mouth. It was something from a literal nightmare, made worse because...it was him.
In a haze he watched as the distorted face from the back of the man's head ordered the man to kill Harry. But upon touching him he shrieked, backing away with his hands badly burnt and smoldering.
The small Harry grabbed at him, determined to cause as much pain as he could, they both fell to the floor screaming, and the whole scene halted before turning back once more to the beach. It was quicker this time, either because Harry was getting better at shifting the scenes, or because he was in a hurry to get away from the memory.
"Quirrel died, but the wraith thing didn't."
The wraith thing. If they weren't in a dream Tom might have actually vomited. He took a deep breath. "You were a child."
"Yeah well," he shrugged, "that never seemed to matter to anyone."
Before Tom could point out that it should have mattered to at least someone, his relatives, his friends, the adults in his life that were supposed to look after him, the beach began to shift and fade once more, this time into a chamber he knew all too well.
Harry hadn't grown much between this child and the last, if he were being generous he would say that maybe there was an inch difference in height, but he was just as scrawny and just as worn looking. It was the other figure, however, that gave him pause. Chilled him to the bone. Because, it was Tom. A little younger, with his Prefect badge and a cruel smile that he had only ever directed at those who had wronged him repeated, it was the cold grin of satisfaction soon to be wrought.
It was a look that should have never been directed at Harry.
It was harder to watch the horror unfold this time. To see him, as Tom, ruthless and bloodthirsty, and have it all turned to Harry and the small, pale girl on the chamber floor. Related to the twins and the boy, Ron, if her hair was anything to go by.
This Tom, though spectral at first, was gaining substance. It wasn't until Tom spotted the book...his old journal that he understood why.
This was the bit of his soul he had carved from his chest and placed into a book. This was his Horcrux. Some distant part of him wanted to be smug at the fact that it had worked. Here he was, alive again, or there about, when all he had been before was a wraith in the back of a fool's head.
But the Horcrux was toying with the little Harry, he called the basilisk to distract and kill him. He was killing a young girl to gain his life. This was the part of Tom that had accepted responsibility for Myrtle's death and saw only opportunity in it. A part who only thought of gain and not the whole picture.
He couldn't even remember being that person.
The basilisk had been over a thousand years old, it was a shame to see it perish. Or it would have been. Had the outcome not have been Harry or the snake and Tom was more than happy that Harry had walked away.
The basilisk fang through his journal jolted him, though only in a distant, vague way. It was good that it was gone now...A sliver of soul that knew only pain and destruction had no place being a corporeal being all its own.
The Horcrux vanished and Harry was saved by a phoenix. A phoenix he knew.
"Fawks?" Tom said in numbed disbelief. Dumbledore's pet saved Harry.
He needed to find a nice lizard for it to eat when they woke up.
"Yeah," Harry said a little bashfully as the chamber turned to beach once more. "he saved me...you know the cores of our wands came from him."
"No," Tom said slowly, "I didn't know that," Tom needed to find him two lizards now. He shook his head at Harry, still having trouble processing everything he had seen, "you pulled the sword of Gryffindor from the Hat?"
"Yeah...Dumbledore said only a true Gryffindor could...but I think if you're desperate enough the Hat wouldn't just hold out on you, you know?"
Tom laughed despite himself. "When was that?"
"Second year," Harry said lowly, "it was pretty awful for me. Lucius Malfoy, er, Abraxas' son, put that journal in with Ginny's, she's Ron's little sister, well he put that in with her school things when we were out shopping, and whatever enchantment was on it possessed her. She opened the chamber and people got petrified and well..." Harry shrugged, "it was just an awful year, everyone though I was the heir when it came out that I could talk to snakes...Then Hermione got attacked."
"Your friend?"
Harry nodded and then shrugged, "she's a muggleborn. That's all the basilisk seemed to care about."
Tom nodded, suddenly very tired. He sat down on the sandy shore and watched the waves, when Harry got down to lean against him he said, "she had been raised to target muggleborns. Salazar had wanted to keep the magical knowledge within the magical community only....he feared muggles and what they could do with great enough numbers. The Basilisk wanted only to help him in this quest."
"I think that's pretty stupid," Harry said promptly, "Ron said that wizards would have died out long ago if they hadn't started marrying muggles and muggleborns. And Hermione is the best witch in our whole year. She's so smart the ministry gave her a timeturner so that she could take as many classes as she wanted our third. I mean, it was a pretty bad idea, but you get my point."
Tom snorted at that, it did sound terribly reckless. "And what horrors befell you in your third year?"
"Well, quite a lot actually," Harry laughed. Laughed! At the fact that he had been tormented at thirteen. "But not by you...not really. My godfather broke out of Azkaban, he shouldn't have been there at all. But everyone thought he was some crazed murderer, so they set dementors out to find him. And they really, really like me for some reason. So I started getting chased by packs of them whenever they were around. I learned to make a patronus, and met my godfather, and the person who actually set my parents up for murder. We were able to help him get to freedom along with a convicted hippogriff...and well...all things considered if was a pretty good year."
"Wait, wait...that's...a convicted hippogriff?" Tom pressed his palms into his eyes. What the utter hell was the future?
"He bit Abraxas' grandson, and Draco and his parents threw a hissy fit over it."
Tom gave a laugh at that, which he hoped wasn't hesterical. But he sobered quickly, "your godfather?" Harry had said he had died recently...and at the mention of him Harry seemed to deflate.
"Yeah...his name was Sirius Black, he was..." Harry smirked, "he was a lot like Alphard, in looks. Though a little less rambunctious. Even though he could turn into a large black dog animagus."
"I'm sorry. That you lost him."
Harry leaned against him, "it's okay...there's not a lot left to show. Do you want to continue?"
He didn't, really. But there was a part he was missing. Hermione had been anxious, there was threat after Harry. But from what Tom had seen his future self, repulsive as it was, couldn't have really cause much harm. Or at least, not anything too dire. Not alone and weak as he was.
Tom opened his mouth several times before he was able to find the right words, "It...or I...come back. Don't I? That's why your friends want you back."
"Not you," Harry began in a small voice, "Volde-"
"I'm Voldemort, Harry," Tom cut him off, "I am Voldemort already. Don't you see?' He asked with a bitter laugh. "I already made the Horcrux that nearly killed your friend. I was responsible for Myrtle's death," he hung his head in defeat or shame... he couldn't tell which.
Harry shook his head vehemently, "it wasn't you. Not how you are now...it was you, but."
"Myrtle was an accident...the basilisk was ment to scare muggleborns away. No one was supposed to die."
Harry nodded, "the ugh...Tom from the book said as much."
"A Horcrux, Harry," Tom corrected, "a part of my soul that I tore apart so that, even if my body were to die, a part of me would live on."
"That's..." Harry began, but couldn't seem to come up with what it was exactly. Tom helped.
"Horrible? Wretched? Depraved?" He threw out rapid fire, "It is a terrible bit of dark magic that shouldn't be done lightly. One must become a murderer to do. I waited over an enitre year after Myrtle's death before working up the courage to do it..."
"How many times have you done it?" Harry asked in a small voice.
"Just once," Tom said dully, "though I had planned to do it again."
Understanding flashed in Harry's eyes, sad and tired now, "I wonder how many times you did it before, er, well, how many times you have done it after the first?" He huffed softly, "talking about the past and future as one is really confusing."
Tom gave a small smile, "yes, it is."
"Was it another Horcrux, another enchanted item, that brought me..it, back?"
Harry shook his head, "It was the wraith again...I guess it's the bit of you that was unable to die when your curse," Harry shook his head, "when his curse hit me. I won't think of him as you, Tom. You wouldn't do that to me."
He had not posed it aa a question, yet there is a kernel of uncertainty in his voice. Tom pulled him close and looked him dead in the eyes, "Never," he tried to put as much certainty and truth in that one single word as he could. Harry had to know he would never.
Harry nodded, "I think I'd like to just show you then." Tom nodded, and the beach warped into darkness.
At first he thought it was another scenario like the first, then his eyes adjusted to the gloom. It was a deeply dark night, clouds obscured any hint of star or moon, and the scent of fresh tilled, wet earth hit his nose. They were in a graveyard standing before a headstone that was much larger than the rest, the name and dates upon which were eerily familiar.
As was the silhouette of the manor house on the the hill.
"Is this part of the trial?"
Tom whipped around, noticing the two boys for the first time. One was tall and broad, most likely Tom's age, it was hard to make out more of his appearance in the dark, other than that he was dirty and obviously tired as though he had ran a long way, but Tom thought he caught a hint of Hufflepuff yellow on his robes.
The other boy, to no surprise, was Harry. Older than the last vision, probably close to his age now, he was just as dirty, and to Tom's horror, bloody, as the other boy. Harry appeared to be leaning on him in favor of one leg.
A high pitched voice filled the air and with a flash of green light the scene burst into motion. The Hufflepuff boy was dead, and Harry was being tied to Tom's father's headstone, his wand having fallen near his dead companion.
If Tom had ever had nightmares, what followed would surely have been in them. The small man, still much bigger than Harry, preformed some ritual Tom had never heard of before, dropping a bundle of what must have been Tom's future wraith into a cauldron with Harry's blood, bones from his father's grave, and the small man's entire right hand.
What emerged from the cauldron was even worse. Tall, skeletal, and pale as death, the creature, fore it was not a man, had the a face very similar to that which had stretched the back of Quirrel's head. It was clothed by the small man and handed a wand. It payed no attention to the frightened and exhausted Harry, instead it reached down and lifted the small man's sleeve, the creature had called him Wormtail, but that surely couldn't be his named. Upon his arm was some sort of brand or tattoo that the creature placed one long finger against. Wormtail howled in pain at the touch, and then, one by one, the dark night filled with others. Black cloaked figures all wearing pale masks.
Tom was hanging on my a thread. It had been thin and weak from the start, and upon seeing Harry handled so, it had begun to fray. The creature was going to kill him, that was painfully clear. The group of cloaked figures he called had an agitated, bloodthirsty air about them that his put together and well bred Knights did not.
It seemed that as Tom grew and, piece by piece he was stripped apart and remade, the Knights had twisted and devolved with him.
He wanted to call it all off. Yell that it was enough. It had been enough the moment the creature had risen from the cauldron. It had been enough the second Harry told him the truth of the his past. Tom's future. But he couldn't. Couldn't form the words on hhis parched tongue, couldn't push them out of his too tight throat.
Harry fought the creature, with the pitiful amount of defense spells that he knew. He was saved because their wands linked, like his and Tom's had before. As shadows of what Tom could only assume were this creature's last victims fell from the glimmering link, there was a pressure on his hand.
Harry was there, he had been close the whole time, Tom knew. He had simply grown too numb to feel him there. Until he was touching Tom once more.
The graveyard shifted and Harry squeezed his hand.
Tom opened his eyes to muted late after light in his underwater room.