Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Beggar to Beggar Cried	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Tom Views: 7531 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Beggar to Beggar Cried
- 2-Chapter Two
- 1
- 2
Thank you for the reviews! This is the second, and last, part of the story.
Harry sits on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, and watches the sunrise playing over the stones. He hasn’t spent a lot of time here, but it’s the only place he could think of to go where he would be completely alone.
He closes his eyes and feels the sun on his face, the way Tom was talking about. He can hear the soft crackle of frost on the grass as Hagrid tromps across it. There are branches rustling and clacking against each other in the Forbidden Forest. If he turns his head, he can hear the soft hoots and cackles from the owls in the Owlery.
All things he’ll never hear or see or feel again if he dies.
But what about the other people? The voice of old guilt is powerful. Dumbledore has spent a lot of time training him how to listen to it. They won’t get to see or hear or feel this, either, as long as Voldemort lives. Should they just give up their lives so you can have what you want? How is that less selfish than the other way around?
Harry bites his lip and works his hand across his knee. He’s had seven years of living in the wizarding world. The children who got killed in the last war with Voldemort usually didn’t have even that long. Can’t he just go to his death knowing he’s doing a good thing and he’s had lots of good things in his life?
Then he thinks of something else, something that feels like it’s his own. At least, Tom didn’t bring it up last night.
It’s not up to me. Is it? Even if I die, if Dumbledore figures out how to kill me, there’s at least six others out there, if Voldemort made seven. I could stand up and take Tom to Dumbledore right now, and that wouldn’t kill Voldemort. He’s only found the ring. He thinks he has to find at least five other Horcruxes—or four, if he has Tom. It took him years and years of research to uncover me and the ring. What happens if he can’t find the others before Voldemort comes back? Or if Voldemort makes more?
Harry shivers and buries his head in his knees. He’s shaking because he wants to believe it so much.
I can’t end the war. Not by myself. I’m only one of seven. I’m not the Chosen One of prophecy. Dumbledore told me that. He’s right. The boy who would have defeated Voldemort died when the Killing Curse hit him. I’m only part of that boy’s mangled soul and the Horcrux joined together.
Harry looks up and watches the sun ascend above the clouds. Hagrid is whistling and calling for his dog, Fang, from near the eaves of the Forest, and Fang is barking excitedly at something he’s caught.
I know what I’ll tell Tom.
*
Tom melts into Harry’s dreams with a sigh. Even with the new memories giving him things to walk through and live for in the diary, it’s better to be out of it. Better to be back with the boy he wants to live with.
He feels no shame for the thoughts. He will be living, instead of surviving. He will be achieving something that his elder self never achieved.
That is more than worth it.
This time, although Harry’s bed still stands behind them, there are no other beds in the room. There are two chairs facing the fire, which glowers and flickers sullenly. Tom builds it up, and nods to Harry, who sits on the nearest chair.
“I made my decision.”
Tom feels as if stone hands have settled on his shoulders. In his entire existence, nothing has been more important than this. “What did you decide?”
Harry breathes out, long and slow. Then he says, “That no one Horcrux is key. Dumbledore doesn’t even know how to destroy them yet, even though he keeps researching.” Tom notes with immense pleasure that Harry has dropped Dumbledore’s title. “He could kill me, and that isn’t going to stop Voldemort. He could kill you, and that isn’t going to stop Voldemort. And for all we know, Voldemort is going to keep on making new Horcruxes once he gets his body back.”
Tom hopes he does. That will destabilize the idiot so much that he won’t be able to possess anyone, and that will put him a long step back in recruiting help once his new body is destroyed again. “True, Harry. So that means you’ll go with me?”
Harry shakes his head. Tom feels as if the stone hands have clamped him in the chair.
Harry meets his gaze and softens his voice. “I’ll help you get a body back and flee. But I’m not going with you, Tom. I need to stay. This is the only world I’ve really lived in. I have friends here. Dumbledore lied to me about a lot of things, but he showed me things that matter, too. I’m going to stay here and live as long as I can.”
No. Tom moves sharply forwards and wraps his arms around Harry before Harry can get out of the chair. Harry gasps and then begins to shiver in response to the thick feeling sweeping through them. This time, it reminds Tom of when he first tasted chocolate.
“You’re mine,” Tom says, and rests his head against Harry’s neck. With the uncanny strength of sensations created by Horcrux touching Horcrux, he’s sure the skin there smells and feels exactly like the real thing. “You’re coming with me.”
“I—that’s not possible, Tom. If you’re really separate from Voldemort, you should be able to choose your own life. But then I can, too.”
“I asked you if you really wanted to die. Do you?”
Harry flinches and tries to pull back from him. But even that stirs wonderful new sparks of sensation, on Tom’s cheeks and hands and chin, and Harry seems to lose the will to withdraw quickly enough.
“I think I need to,” Harry finally whispers, and doesn’t seem to notice the way that makes Tom pull him even closer. “I have my friends, but only a few. I don’t have anyone to love or care for me if—Dumbledore only cares how I die. My parents were the only ones who loved me unconditionally. And I already told you about—”
“He’s a fool to say that you’re not worth loving.” Tom pushed his nose further into Harry’s hair. “You are. Stay with me.”
“That’s the Horcrux, though. Other people hate me because of it, and you only like me because of it.”
“Does that matter?” Tom moves Harry in a series of gentle shoves and lifts, and then they’re back on the bed again. “I don’t see how we can ever determine the truth about that. I don’t know how Dumbledore determined that it’s repulsing people. Did he tell you?”
Harry stares at him. “It’s a Horcrux. What other proof does he need? Have you forgotten how we’re made?”
Dumbledore, you fool. You have left him vulnerable. By telling Harry all the while that no one would love him, or could love him, he has laid the foundations for someone to come along and swoop Harry up simply by loving him. Tom touches Harry’s scar, and waits for the sensations to increase to the point where Harry is leaning back on the bed, floating, his breathing rapid and his eyes darting around under his closed lids as if he were dreaming.
“I have not forgotten,” Tom whispers into his mouth. “And I have never thought that we deserve to be destroyed for it. We deserve to live. Dumbledore is condemning you, an innocent who has at least part of the spirit of that boy whose parents died to save him still in his body.” All of it, Tom thinks, but it’s not productive to argue about that right now. “If you were really just the Horcrux, you would have argued and fought against him from the beginning, wouldn’t you? But part of you was able to listen and still make your own decisions about good and evil. You’re innocent, Harry. You’re human.”
“Then—” Harry is panting, stretching against Tom, rolling his hips in a way that he’s still too young to understand. With the steel control that prevents Tom from joining Harry in the flood of pleasure, he holds his own hips away from Harry’s body. “Then l-let me make my own decision, Tom. Let me die! Let me stay here and die!”
“No,” Tom says. “Not unless you can tell me what you want. What the real you wants, not the part that’s a Horcrux.” To help Harry make the decision, he pulls his hand back from Harry’s scar, even though it feels like ripping his own hair out by the roots.
In truth, he isn’t sure that one can actually separate boy and Horcrux in that way. But Harry thinks he can, and Tom’s backing off will raise him in Harry’s estimation.
Which is what Tom needs to happen. He has a plan for how to get his body back, a ritual that his elder self studied along the way to coming up with the plan for Horcruxes. But it will need Harry’s full and willing cooperation.
He even has a plan on how to get away from Hogwarts and keep Dumbledore from coming after them. But that will require more than Harry’s cooperation; it will need his decision that his life is worth living.
No matter how he came about it.
*
Harry shudders and shivers. Only part of it is memory of the pleasure Tom stirred in him. The rest is just—
Doubt.
He hasn’t doubted a lot in his life. Dumbledore explained to him how he was special and showed him all the people he could save. He doesn’t even have to do something difficult to save them, not like preventing Voldemort from getting the Philosopher’s Stone last year or figuring out how to destroy a Horcrux. He just has to die at the right time.
He thought he settled that debate up on the Tower this morning. Let Tom live, and live himself for as long as he can, but then die.
But Tom is promising him something more. Harry knows Voldemort is a liar and a master manipulator, but Tom isn’t lying about how much he wants Harry with him. Otherwise, he would just have accepted Harry’s offer to help him get a body back.
He hasn’t looked away from Harry even now. Harry opens his eyes to check, and there are Tom’s, watching him with unwavering calm. Harry quickly shuts his and turns his head away.
He would love Harry. He knows more about the world than Harry does, which means he could take care of them, maybe find a job. Harry doesn’t think Tom would abuse him or abandon him.
The smaller, more selfish part of him, that has always envied Ron and Hermione that families even when he was thinking about dying to save them, whispers, And he doesn’t have anyone else that he could go away to on holidays. He just has you. He doesn’t care about Voldemort or the other Horcruxes. He’ll be with you always.
Harry thinks that he shouldn’t let that influence his decision. He should be good and strong. He should walk over to Tom and tell him he’s sorry, that he’ll still help him escape, but he can’t live the way Tom wants him to. He should spend the rest of his time alive with his friends and die the way Dumbledore always said he will.
But…
The thing is, Harry does envy his friends. Part of him looked at all those families Dumbledore introduced him to, and said that they shouldn’t be able to walk freely down Diagon Alley and eat ice cream and laugh and quarrel as if their quarrels were the most important things in the world. Not if he couldn’t.
Harry doesn’t know whether that part of him is the Horcrux or not. Like Tom thinks, it’s probably impossible to tell. What he does know is that he’s going to leave with Tom. He’s going to live.
Part of him will probably be upset for a while. But—
A new voice says, maybe from the part of him that is just Harry, You believe what Dumbledore told you because he’s always been right there to whisper the words in your ear. What happens if you live with someone else? You’ll believe what Tom tells you. Because he’ll be right there.
Harry shudders and wraps his arms around himself. Yes, he will. And he can’t bring himself to regret it. Because Tom will also touch him and do—things to him (Harry is vague about what these might be)—and never leave him.
Harry looks up. Tom is still watching him. Harry knows he hasn’t looked away once. And even that isn’t something he gets with Dumbledore. Dumbledore tends to watch the wall of his office instead of Harry when he talks about Horcruxes and their deaths. He’s explained that he can’t go too attached to Harry, or he’ll never be able to kill him the way he needs to. Harry has always understood.
Well, he should understand that I want to be with someone who can stand to look at me.
Harry stands and reaches his hand out. Tom leans down and kisses him, and Harry gasps. It’s only for a moment, wet and open-mouthed and hot, and then he’s pulling back and stroking Harry’s hair and making him feel as if his entire head is eating ice cream.
“Well done, Harry.”
Harry stretches slowly in the new praise, trying to convince himself that he will get to feel like this for the rest of his life. It’s a strange thing to think, and he knows he’ll need some time to get used to it.
On the other hand, Tom doesn’t take his hand out of Harry’s hair as he starts explaining what they need to do, and that comforts Harry. It means that Tom is going to be right here no matter what.
And even though the things they’re going to be doing are Dark and difficult and hard, they don’t sound that bad with Tom explaining them to Harry.
*
Blood of the enemy, willingly sacrificed…
*
“I think I know a way to calm a Horcrux, Professor Dumbledore,” Harry says, almost whispering it.
Dumbledore sits up across the desk, and his eyes sparkle in a way that Harry hasn’t seen since he found the ring Horcrux. “You do? How wonderful, Harry! But you always were a remarkable boy.”
Harry smiles back. He hopes it looks natural. Tom’s voice is in his head now, whispering. Tom has managed to ride with him, clinging to Harry’s Horcrux magic, instead of only being in dreams, for two days. Why does he say such things when he only intends to kill you? Because he wants to make you meek and grateful to him, the only one who compliments you. The one who pretends to love you.
Harry breathes softly out. He can’t think about that right now. He has to think about the lie he’s going to tell Dumbledore, which would never work if not for Tom’s magic shielding his mind. Dumbledore is a Legilimens and he can sense lies.
Harry nods. “I think it’ll work, sir. But I’m not sure. See, in Potions the other day Ron cut himself a bit with his knife, and he flung up his hand and splattered the blood around. Some got on my scar.” Harry leans nearer to Dumbledore’s desk and makes his voice as soft and mysterious as he can. “The magic inside the scar was quiet for almost an hour afterwards.”
Dumbledore sighs softly. “And you think…?”
“The blood of an innocent, applied directly to the scar, might work.” Harry hesitates and bites his lip. “But I don’t know if it would destroy it or just quiet it down. And I can’t ask Ron or Hermione.” For the first time, he’s glad that Dumbledore’s always insisted he not tell anyone about Horcruxes.
“You want my blood,” Dumbledore says. He speaks thoughtfully. “In some ways, I am hardly an innocent, Harry. Not the way your friends are.”
“But that makes it better!” Harry says, and he can feel Tom laughing in his head as he widens his eyes innocently. “I mean, that way we can know if it’s because you’re an innocent, or if the blood of someone who directly fought Voldemort works better.”
“You did pay attention to those lessons on magical theory I taught you.” Dumbledore says it wistfully, but he is already reaching for a vial that seems to have been under his desk. “How much blood do you need?”
Two vials’ worth.
“I think two vials should do it, sir. And then I can use it bit by bit, and in varying amounts, to see what more of it does.”
Dumbledore gives him the blood with a peaceful smile. Harry takes the vials and nods to him, walking out the office door while wondering if Dumbledore knows the truth and might stop him at any moment.
No. He would cage you and Obliviate you the moment he found me in your head.
Harry swallows and nods at the sign of that truth, and then proceeds to the next, more dangerous part of the plan.
*
Bone of the father, unknowingly given…
*
It’s the hardest thing Harry has ever done, leaving Tom’s diary among books in demand for the NEWT revisions, where a seventh-year Ravenclaw capable of Apparating can find it, harder than making the decision that he wants to live. Tom gives him a single flare of magic that’s like being hugged by a warm wave before he’s forced to slip away from Harry and back into the book.
Harry knows what’s going to happen. The Ravenclaw will become enchanted and possessed by Tom, and Tom will make him Apparate to the graveyard where his father, the first Tom Riddle, is buried. Then he will harvest the bone dust he needs for the potion.
It’s the only way they can accomplish it, Harry knows. He certainly can’t ask someone. Dumbledore would never believe that Harry wanted the bone dust from that specific grave as a measure capable of destroying a Horcrux. At the very least, he’d insist that Harry share the potion with him. And Harry can’t Apparate, even with Tom’s magic curling through him.
It still makes Harry curl up and shiver on the inside, and he doesn’t know why until he’s lying in bed that night and realizes it.
He misses Tom.
Harry has never missed anyone or anything but his parents before.
*
“Harry? Can I talk to you?”
It’s not the Ravenclaw who Tom possessed, the only person Harry would really want to see right now. Still, Ginny is standing by his chair in the Great Hall with her eyes bright and fixed on him. He pushes his plate away. “Sure. What is it?”
“In private, please.” Ginny bites her lip and glances away towards the door of the Great Hall.
Harry immediately stands up to follow her. If she’s figured out that Tom possessed her and that she was the one responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets, he certainly doesn’t want her to say anything with the other students around to hear.
But when they get out into the entrance hall and stop near the stairs that lead down to the Hufflepuff common room, Ginny turns into one massive blush. She places her hand over her face and shudders a little. “This is so hard to say.”
Harry blinks at her. Then Ginny abruptly looks up and says, “Harry, I was the one who sent you that singing Valentine. I’m sorry!” she adds. Harry knows his face is darkening, that he can’t help himself. “But I really am in love with you, you know. You’re so brave and handsome. I won’t embarrass you like that again. But I had to say it.”
She sucks all the breath into her lungs. Harry just stands there, having no idea what to say. Ginny trembles a little, and whispers, “Do you think you could ever love me back?”
Harry doesn’t have to think. He would try to be considerate and gentle most of the time, let her down without making her upset, but now all he can think of is the kiss that Tom pressed to his mouth, and how good it feels when Tom holds him. He shakes his head. “No, sorry, Ginny. I can’t.” And he turns and walks away towards the Tower, ignoring the way he can hear her feet pounding in the opposite direction.
He gets up to his bedroom, empty with everyone else at dinner, and leans back with his hands folded behind his head, and watches the dust dancing between the red and gold curtains.
He wonders if he’s an evil person for not caring about Ginny’s feelings.
But honestly, the truth is that he can’t care even about that. The only thing he cares about right now is making Tom the potion and then getting away with him, faking his own death. Tom says he has a plan for that, so Dumbledore will assume that Harry is dead and not think of looking for either of them.
Harry closes his eyes. He might as well sleep for a little, since he won’t be good for much until Tom gets back.
*
The possessed Ravenclaw staggers up to his table in the library the next day, and drops the diary next to Harry’s homework. Harry immediately covers it with an essay he’s writing for Transfiguration.
It’s strange to think that might be the last Transfiguration essay he’ll ever write, if Tom’s plan works.
But strange or not, the thought flees before the warmth and triumph he feels as Tom rushes back into him. Harry can’t help ducking his head. He knows he’s blushing, and he doesn’t want anyone to wonder why. Then again, Ron is avoiding him right now because he’s angry about what Harry said to Ginny, and Hermione is asking Professor McGonagall some questions about this essay.
You have it?
Under the diary.
Harry looks. There is a vial like the one Dumbledore gave him, only this one is filled with gleaming white dust and small chips of bone.
And now?
The part I’m going to enjoy the most. Tom purrs at him, and Harry has to close his eyes to keep from crying at how good that feels in his scar. Because he was nasty to you as much as disloyal to my elder self.
Who doesn’t matter now.
The only thing he matters to me for is that he made sure you existed.
*
Flesh of the servant, forcibly taken…
*
It’s easier than Harry expected to get a detention that Snape wants to supervise personally. Harry only has to make a clumsy motion as if he’s trying to steal Potions ingredients from Snape’s stores, and Snape instantly pounces on him.
Harry doesn’t bother to listen to the attack, only looks at Snape’s left arm. Now that he looks for it, he can feel the Dark Mark’s magic humming under Snape’s sleeve.
Isn’t it interesting that Dumbledore never told you that Snape served the Dark Lord, Tom whispers.
Harry agrees, and waits for the detention with a calm heart.
It’s also no problem to sneak in a scalpel—this did get stolen, from the seventh-year Ravenclaw’s Potions kit—to the detention. Snape gives him a glare of hatred that’s only seeing his father, Harry knows, and snaps, “Get to it, Potter. The cauldrons aren’t going to clean out the mess of your idiocy themselves.”
Harry nods agreeably and turns towards the cauldrons. He knows it won’t be wise to be facing Snape when Tom makes the necessary changes for possessing Harry. For one thing, his eyes are probably going to flash red.
Tom warned him it might be painful. Certainly both Ginny and the Ravenclaw he took control of found it so.
In the moment when Tom surges forwards and takes possession of him, Harry feels as if he’s falling asleep in the warmest, most comfortable bed he could imagine.
*
Tom stretches himself out slowly, blinking at how small he feels. Then he shakes his head. It’s only because of the sensations that he and Harry have shared in the past week that he doesn’t immediately get overwhelmed by the lights of the room, the feel of the knife in his right hand, the lingering taste of beef on his tongue.
“Don’t shake your head at me, Potter. You have a detention to complete.”
Tom smiles and turns around. He’s seen a few of Harry’s memories concerning how the man treated him. It’s both hatred and foolishness—to snap insults at students who are in the midst of delicate brewing processes could make them start or slip or drop undesirable ingredients in the cauldrons—and Tom finds pleasure in punishing both.
At least when the hatred is directed at Harry.
Snape glances up at once when Tom pivots around, and stares at him. His hands tighten on the quill and essay he’s been marking. Tom smiles at him and says softly, “It’ssss been a long time, Severusss, hassssn’t it?” He never knew this man, but what Harry knows of him, and what Dumbledore told Harry of Voldemort’s activities, will stand Tom in good enough stead to mimic his elder self.
Snape moves his hand as if he’s going for his wand. But Tom is quicker with Harry’s wand, their shared, twinned, magic throbbing and filling him with a startling clarity. That power is why he was able to possess Alex Demarch the Ravenclaw instead of waiting for the book to ensnare him, and now he chants, softly, smiling, “Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus, Incarcerous.”
Snape is frozen in the chair, roped to it, staring at Tom with his jaw clenched all the while. Tom moves calmly forwards, shaking his head when Harry’s short legs stumble. One of his first priorities when they leave will be getting Harry fed up to the point where he’s as tall as he should be for twelve.
“I know you look forwardsssss to a chance to sssserve,” Tom says, exaggerating the sibilants for effect; Harry has watched a few of Dumbledore’s memories of Voldemort in the Pensieve. The scalpel is in his hand in a second.
The ritual his elder self read up on had several differences from this one. For one thing, the servant is supposed to be the willing one, and the potion calls for the sacrifice of a whole limb. But Tom has made several modifications, and he doesn’t need to hesitate as he cuts carefully around the Dark Mark on Snape’s arm, slicing out the head of the snake.
When he steps back with it, he looks up, and has to laugh. The expression on Snape’s face is caught somewhere between hatred, horror, and anger. Tom suspects part of that has to do with the fact that he doesn’t know who is really in front of him, Harry Potter or the Dark Lord.
“Enjoy your headache, Severusssss,” Tom says, drawing out the final s because he can, and then he casts again, concentrating on the fabricated memory of a Potions accident he will implant in Snape’s head to explain the injury to his arm. “Obliviate!”
*
And one more modification. This is the one that will prevent the potion from turning out badly and making me into a monster, Harry.
*
Harry sits up in his bed. It’s long after midnight, and he knows that the other Gryffindor boys are asleep. Tom’s magic stirs behind his scar, holding him and cradling him.
But he’s still afraid. This is the most important step of the potion. If they can’t get this right—if he can’t get this right—then everything is going to be for nothing and Tom can’t be free.
It will work, Harry. I believe in you.
Tom’s warmth hugs him like a harness across his chest. Harry has to smile when he feels it. He lets the smile and the breath go at the same time. “Fawkes!”
The phoenix is in the closed coziness of his bed-curtains with him before he’s finished speaking. Harry reaches out and dips his fingers into the shifting red-gold feathers, sighing as Fawkes trills and butts Harry’s hand with his head. Fawkes has always liked him, which Harry thought was a bit strange, because phoenixes aren’t supposed to like impure things.
But on the other hand, it will come in useful now. If only Fawkes will do as Harry asks.
Harry swallows and asks, “Fawkes, can I have some of your tears?”
The phoenix goes still at once, and his shining seems to dim. He looks up at Harry with one bright eye. Harry knows what he’s being asked even though he doesn’t really speak the phoenix’s language. What do you want them for?
The lie he used with Dumbledore won’t work here. “I’ve come up with a way to leave the school forever,” he says. “And take the Horcrux with me forever.”
Fawkes puts a scarlet claw on Harry’s knee. Harry swallows and adds, “I found another Horcrux. We’re going to get him a body back. And then we’ll leave together. We won’t try to resurrect Voldemort. I promise, Fawkes, we won’t. This is Tom, not Voldemort. He—he loves me. He’s the only one who loves just me. I need that.”
He shuts up, because he’s already said more than he ever meant to say. But Fawkes goes on gazing at him, clad in the shifting colors of fire, and Harry has to whisper, “Dumbledore doesn’t love me. He wants me to die.”
As he watches, tears slowly form in Fawkes’s eyes, and begin to slide down his cheeks. Harry has the vials ready, one for each side, and he catches the tears. Fawkes stands there, silent, on the blanket, and cries for him, and Harry can’t help but reach out and tickle the phoenix on the head when he’s done.
“It’s going to be all right, Fawkes. I promise, it’ll be all right.”
How could Dumbledore doubt your purity, when you reassure even the creature of our enemy this way?
It seems Fawkes agrees. He flutters up to Harry’s shoulder and rubs his head back and forth against Harry’s neck. Then he lifts his wings and disappears into a burst of flame with a last strain of melancholy song.
Harry sits there in silence for a while before he stirs and goes to the second-floor girls’ bathroom where they’re going to begin brewing the potion.
*
Brewing is spectacularly easy, even though Tom remains behind Harry’s scar and directs the process rather than interfering himself. Harry isn’t a genius at Potions, but he does much better without insults snarled into his ear and the panic about looking stupid in front of the Slytherins. Tom watches the potion come together with a smile.
Harry hesitates with the vials of phoenix tears. “Before or after I throw the diary into the potion?” he whispers, even though Tom has already told him many times before.
“One vial before, one after,” Tom says, and gently vibrates the grip of his magic around Harry’s sternum when he hesitates. “It will be all right, Harry. You will be all right. I promise this.”
Harry blinks and grips the vials and nods. “This is just—the most important thing I’ve ever done,” he whispers, and then he tips one container into the potion. Tom watches as the potion, whose surface was bubbling, abruptly quiets and smoothes out into a shining silver surface. He raises his eyebrows—well, he gives Harry the sensation of raised eyebrows—and nods to him inwardly.
It is proceeding well.
Harry picks up the diary and holds onto it for a second, caressing the cover. So thoroughly has Tom become bonded, or blended, with Harry that he doesn’t feel a thing. But he understands that this is important to Harry, only the outer case for his essence or not. He waits patiently, therefore, and Harry finally lurches forwards and throws the book into the cauldron.
The silver surface closes over it and coats it. For a second Tom can see it bobbing near the surface, and then it vanishes. He sucks in a final breath, and says in what would sound like a whisper even to him, Now the second vial of phoenix tears, Harry.
Harry nods and pours them in with a steady hand. The last tear clings to the side of the glass as if reluctant to go, but Harry shakes the vial one more time, and in it falls.
Now comes the most difficult part, or at least the part Tom is least certain about. Carefully, he unhooks his mental and magical claws from Harry. I will rejoin you in a few minutes.
Do you know that?
I do. Tom imagines a hand sliding gently around the edge of Harry’s neck, the way he held him when he kissed him. I promise that I will come back to you.
Harry sighs and releases him. Tom is glad. Without that release, he doubts he could have let go enough to dive.
But he has, and Harry has, and it is done, and Tom sends his mind and magic plunging into the potion.
*
Harry falls a step back as the potion begins to bubble more violently than before. Despite what he tries to remember, he doesn’t know if Tom told him the potion would do this or not. He digs his fingers into his palms and tries not to shake.
The potion keeps bubbling, and then one bubble rises up and gets longer and longer, dancing on the surface. Harry has to raise a hand to shield his eyes as it begins to shine. The shine is silver, like most of the potion, like the phoenix tears, but it also has a golden heart that makes Harry uneasy.
“Don’t be afraid, Harry. I’m with you.”
The golden blaze is speaking. It travels across the surface of the potion, and pops abruptly. And then Harry can see, and Tom is crouching on the edge of the cauldron, leaping suddenly to the floor. He looks exactly the way he does in Harry’s dreams, when they meet in the Gryffindor dorms, even though he’s not wearing Slytherin robes.
Except better, because he’s real.
Harry dashes forwards. Tom actually tips backwards and catches Harry in his arms, laughing. He’s naked. Harry finds himself flushing because of that, but he doesn’t care, because their skin touches, and—
The strange sensations are redoubled, waving and capering between them like a banner of flame. Harry gasps, Tom gasps into his ear, and then Tom holds him close enough that Harry can almost feel blisters forming on his skin from the heat.
“I would never have left without you,” Tom says, and his voice is deep and relentlessly possessive. Harry closes his eyes and lets himself bask in it for long moments. Then he reaches for the robes he brought for Tom to resize, still not letting go.
*
Tom’s plan to make Dumbledore think Harry has died is, in essence, simple.
He has already taken a pair of the Gryffindor robes Harry will never wear again, and it is a simple matter to venture into the Chamber of Secrets and convince Sanas, the basilisk, to stab them with his fangs. A few cut holes are the most realistic touches, Tom thinks. If Harry had been devoured by the basilisk, it would probably have been after being cut by its fangs; basilisk venom may in fact be one of the few things that can hurt the Horcruxes, and Sanas has always preferred the taste of poisoned prey to that of gaze-killed. Tom has already had Harry write a note about basilisks and the probable entrance to the Chamber of Secrets off the second-floor girls’ bathroom, and it will be left in a strategic but not obvious place. The robes themselves, Tom places outside the Chamber entrance, and paints his last message as the Heir of Slytherin on the wall outside the bathroom: HARRY POTTER’S SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER.
Tom did wonder if he should be wary of Dumbledore discovering the supposed ability of basilisks to destroy Horcruxes, but in the end, he dismissed the fear. For one thing, Dumbledore won’t find it easy to enter the Chamber to get the venom. For another, he will think Harry is dead, and not be looking for him.
For another, even if Ginny Weasley remembers enough about her time with Tom to confess to Dumbledore, Dumbledore will be looking for a diary. Tom is not that. He will never be that again. He is not even sure that he is still a Horcrux.
Except for the sparking, blossoming connection with Harry, the way he holds him in his arms. And he and Harry may be the only two Horcruxes who can love.
“It’s done?” Harry whispers as he comes back out of the Chamber.
“Yes,” Tom says, and bends down and kisses him again, still delighting in the strength of the connection between them. Harry flushes and pulls away, and Tom lets him go with a smile. So many things can wait, now.
Can wait for a long time. They may, after all, still be immortal.
“Do you have everything you want?” Tom asks, and Harry nods and pats the trunk he dragged into the bathroom earlier. Tom, borrowing Harry’s wand, shrinks it for him. They will have to get Tom a new wand, but for now, given how well Harry’s works for him, there is no hurry. Harry’s wand does not even bear the Trace, since he has been living in Hogwarts for most of his life.
“Hedwig will fly and find us, right?” Harry asks.
Tom smiles down at his upturned face. Harry is going to live and spite Dumbledore, his elder self, his Muggle relatives, and everyone in the entire damn world who didn’t care for him enough. “Yes,” he says. “Now, come.” And he takes Harry’s hand and draws them through the corridors, out through the doors for the last time, to the point where he can safely Apparate.
Harry looks around him as they go, eyes touched with sadness as he gazes at the moving staircases and the way to Gryffindor Tower, the gamekeeper’s hut and the Forbidden Forest. Once, Tom felt the same way about leaving Hogwarts. But that was when Hogwarts was his home.
Now, his home is where Harry is.
They turn in the darkness on the Hogsmeade road, and Tom permits Harry one last look at the castle, standing proud and quiet against the night sky. Tom himself watches Harry’s face, and wraps his arms around him when his lip begins to quiver.
“Afraid you didn’t make the right choice?” Tom asks. He doesn’t make his voice vulnerable, but his insides churn. He wants, just as much as Harry, to be someone’s chosen person.
Harry sighs as if he’s trying to shrug off the weight of the world. Then he turns around and meets Tom’s eyes, and smiles a little. “No,” he says. “I want you. And I want to live.”
I am his choice. Tom draws Harry into his arms, holds him close, fixes his destination in mind—
Away from my elder self. Away from Dumbledore. Away from war, where we will live.
—and Apparates.
The night fills with stars behind them.
The End.
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