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Jonquils and Lightning	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Tom Views: 4136 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Two—The Foretold Weapon
Tom watched the two people at the fence as he came closer to them. They were the only young people he had seen so far in Godric’s Hollow, but given that this world’s Hogwarts was probably in session, that was not surprising.
The girl on the right stared at him as if he were a prince that had walked out of her dreams. Sleek, straight black hair, large eyes, pale skin, pretty enough features. Tom supposed that he might charm her into telling him what he wanted to know, although whether she did know anything was doubtful. She looked perhaps a year younger than he was, but as with so many children in any world, his mental age was far more advanced than hers.
The boy was more interesting. Shaggy black hair proclaimed him probably a Potter. His folded arms and drawn wand and balanced body proclaimed something else.
Some Auror training? Tom revised the estimate as he glided closer. No, battle training.
He had arrived in this dimension three days ago, and none of the minds he had torn through, wizard or Muggle, contained images of any recent battles. That made the boy more interesting.
Tom gave him a faint smile, and turned to the girl. “What’s your name?” he asked softly. “Do you know where I might get shelter?”
“My parents could put you up.” The girl had her hands clasped, her face flushed. Her voice was rapid. “My name is Jonquil Potter. This is my cousin Harry. We can—you wouldn’t have to pay anything, there’s an inn but you don’t need to go there, I’m sure—”
“That’s enough, Jonquil.”
Potter. I was right. And both of them? Good. I should have my choice. Tom turned his gaze to the boy, and clamped down control on his muscles to prevent himself from recoiling. The boy had green eyes that blazed, and Tom could feel the magic building around him, on the edge of a Dark curse.
“Have I done something to offend you?” Tom asked, with his best humble smile. He’d perfected it in the last year, when he’d searched for help in dark corners and had to pretend to abase himself before creatures and the once-living that held the secrets he sought.
“I notice you haven’t given us your name.”
“Easily remedied. I am Tom Gaunt.”
The boy’s face twitched, as if he didn’t know how to react. Tom watched him closely. No, perhaps he had been mistaken about the age, despite the lack of lines in the boy’s skin. He had to be older, perhaps older than Tom, to have that much magic and that much control of his body.
Not old enough to hide his emotions, though. Tom gave a small smile at the thought.
“Harry, you’re being rude.” Jonquil gave a tug on her cousin’s arm and rolled her eyes at him, before she turned back to Tom. “You’ll have to forgive him. Harry doesn’t have the best manners. And so you’re related to the pure-blood Gaunts? They’re an ancient family.”
“Indeed. My mother was one of them. Merope Gaunt.”
Tom kept one eye on Harry as he spoke with Jonquil. Harry never looked away from him, and although his magic had settled back from the edge of striking, it lingered around his shoulders, coiled. Tom turned his head as if to include Harry in the conversation about the history of the Gaunts, and tried to send a swift probe under the surface of those green eyes.
Harry’s wand blurred until it met his throat. Tom stood there, relaxed, although it took an effort.
“Harry!”
“Next time, Rid—Gaunt,” Harry said softly, ignoring the way that his cousin was trying to make his hand move, “you’ll respect someone’s mental privacy, won’t you?”
Riddle. I’m sure he was about to say Riddle. A cold fire burned through Tom’s limbs. For the moment, however, he only inclined his head and smiled charmingly. “I’m sorry. I’m a natural Legilimens, and sometimes it slips out of my control.”
“I’m sure that you couldn’t help it. And Harry is rude.”
“Just perceptive, I think.”
Tom kept his gaze fastened on Harry as he spoke, and let his magic flare softly around him. It was soft enough that he knew Jonquil wouldn’t feel it. The vast majority of ordinary witches and wizards never would. But Harry’s lip curled, and the battle-light flared in his eyes, and his magic snapped at Tom’s with piercing teeth.
Tom was afraid he let out half a gasp before he could stop himself. Those teeth were sharp enough that he wanted to call out more magic. It had been years since he felt fear of anything but death. Tom held Harry’s eyes and smiled a little.
Harry seemed to have the same idea he did, to get Jonquil out of the picture so they could speak more openly. “Jonquil, why don’t you go ask your parents if Gaunt can stay with them? Or maybe ask Zachary and Marie? I don’t know if your parents have the room.”
“Well, they would with Rosa and Rigel at Hogwarts—”
“But when they come back, and if Gaunt’s still here, would you want him to have to share a room?”
For a moment, Tom was afraid that the girl would say he could share with her, but in the end, Jonquil nodded and ran off across the garden towards the houses further in the village. Tom backed up a step to give himself more room.
Harry’s wand snapped down. Immediately, a bubble that Tom could only make out by a slight distortion in the air loomed around them, one that would keep noises from traveling outside it. But sounds from outside could still travel in to them, Tom realized after a moment of listening to distant cows. He smiled thinly.
“I congratulate you on your skill at magic.”
“And you on your smooth tongue, Riddle. What do you want?”
“Riddle is my father’s name. I’ve never claimed it.”
“My apologies, Gaunt.” Harry’s voice was tinged with sarcasm that made Tom’s teeth itch. “What do you want?”
“I came here because I’m seeking a way to make my mark in my own world,” Tom said. He saw no point in hiding that he came from another dimension. He’d never intended to once he started to run into Potters. “An oracle foretold that I need a Potter to make that mark. There are no Potters left with children in my own world. I came here.”
Harry laughed without parting his lips. His eyes were so wild with rage that Tom was mildly impressed he simply stood there instead of hurling himself over the fence. “If you try to hurt my cousins, Gaunt, I’ll tear you apart.”
“So violent. What have I done to you?”
“A variation of you killed my parents, killed my friends, killed people I considered part of my family, and hunted me for most of my life. I came to this world to get away from the aftermath of that war. Do you think I’m going to let you hurt this part of my family?”
Tom felt his eyes widen. His breath came out in a short huff before he could contain himself. “So you come from another world as well? Why?”
“To find family.”
Tom edged to the side, studying Harry. Harry continued to watch him, with an annoying alertness. Tom wasn’t used to his enemies giving him that kind of consideration. If anything, dangerous people tended to underestimate him the instant they found out he was a half-blood. “How did you get here? How did you open the door?” Tom had made a sacrifice to the Oracle of London, but it wasn’t as though he mourned it. Power was worth more than anyone else’s blood.
Harry gave him a mocking smile and didn’t answer.
“Harry.” Tom tasted the name. He had to wonder if this was the Potter the Oracle had promised him. “You could tell me. Or I could pull it from the minds of your cousins and uncles and aunts when I meet them.”
“None of them know the truth. And the minute you try Legilimency on me again, I’m going to strike, Gaunt.”
A promise in those words. A threat. Tom’s fingers tingled. He wanted to duel. He wanted to break the silencing bubble and take Harry somewhere more private and fight him as hard as he could, until he knelt for Tom.
He controlled that impulse, and said only, “I don’t see why we need to be hasty. I’m not here to destroy any of your family. I need a Potter to help me control my world. Alienating the family would be impractical. And if someone of age chooses to go with me…” He looked along the path Jonquil had taken.
“Yes. If they choose.” Harry’s wand hadn’t wavered yet. “If you use the Imperius Curse, if you hit her with the Cruciatus, if you plant suggestions in her mind with Legilimency, then I’ll destroy you, Tom. I destroyed the other variation of you. I can do it again.”
Tom narrowed his eyes. “You don’t feel as powerful as I do.” And again the temptation to duel came to life in his chest. He wanted to face Harry’s magic, feel it ache around his skin and strike back hard enough to make the ground tremble. He’d never been able to do that with anyone. The only person he’d found who could match him was Dumbledore, and Tom could never have come up with a good excuse to duel the Minister of Magic.
Harry gave him a grin on the far side of feral, and seemed to let go of the chains that he’d coiled around his power.
Tom took a step back despite himself as the air around Harry turned dark and hazy. Magic was swirling and storming, filling the bubble, trembling longingly on the edge of attacking him. Tom began to raise his own power.
And then the magic around him vanished. Harry had sucked it back behind his shields and stood there regarding Tom with a mocking expression.
Tom licked his lips. His mouth was full of saliva, and he couldn’t help it, because this was incredible. He edged a step forwards. “You faced him in battle, and you won?”
“He cast the Killing Curse at me. I resisted it.”
Tom clenched his hands. He hadn’t encountered something he wanted this much since his mother showed him one of the rich manor houses where the pure-bloods lived. “I want to know how.”
“Not a way you could imitate.”
“You have people here whose safety you care about. If I was to ask them—”
“Again, I haven’t told them. And Tom?”
Harry’s magic shot out again, so fast that Tom had no chance of blocking it. It circled around his throat and squeezed. Tom choked and raised a frantic hand, trying to brush away the nothingness that held him. His own power flung itself forwards and crashed against an invisible shield that seemed to start at his skin.
“I wouldn’t,” Harry said, and the pressure vanished. So did the bubble of silence that had lingered around them, and Tom saw Jonquil Potter running back towards him.
Harry stared at him with half-lidded eyes. “If you can persuade Jonquil or one of the others to go with you, then I don’t care. But if you hurt them, if you persuade them with magic, if you torture them even emotionally, then I’m going to kill you.”
He stepped back and resumed a normal, placid expression as Jonquil halted beside them and shook her head. “Harry, were you being rude again?”
“Oh, no. Gaunt and I came to an understanding, that’s all. Do your parents have room for him?”
“Yes, they do,” Jonquil declared, as if she expected her cousin to contradict her. She reached out and waited for Tom’s nod of permission before she took his arm. “Come on. Our house is down this lane and around the corner. They said you can have Rigel’s room. And you can redecorate it however you want, he never comes home from Hogwarts for the Easter hols…”
Tom made soft noises of agreement and gave her a dazzling smile that seemed to do the trick better than anything else could have, but he did turn his head so he could watch Harry from the corner of his eye. Harry was walking rapidly towards a barn that presumably stood on some Potter’s property.
The Oracle had told him that he would know the right Potter by an unmistakable sign, but hadn’t mentioned what it was. As far as Tom was concerned, he’d just seen it.
There did remain the small matter of persuading Harry. But Tom had charm, and time, and other weapons that Harry didn’t possess a glimpse of.
He had already betrayed one secret.
He thinks that what he did or lived through is so horrible that he doesn’t want his family knowing about it.
Tom could exploit that. Tom could happily exploit that.
*
“A fine foal you have,” Harry told Princess, keeping his voice low. He watched the colt dance around her. He was a sleek black-and white at the moment, echoing his sire’s colors. “I’m glad you didn’t have the kind of problems that Dorea told me you had last year.”
Princess nudged him hard enough that Harry swayed back from the stall door where he gripped it. He laughed and reached out, lightly stroking his fingers through her mane, feeling as if the spinning world had finally slowed down.
Tom Riddle—Tom Gaunt, whatever he called himself. Here.
Harry sighed. He supposed he shouldn’t have antagonized the man like that. No, Harry wouldn’t let him hurt any of the Potters. But there was no guarantee that he even wanted to do that. Not if he wanted to persuade someone to come back to his world with him.
“And conquer it?” Harry murmured to Princess, shaking his head as he watched the colt examine his own hooves. “Why would you even have goals like that? What’s wrong with wanting a goal of a loving life and a loving family?”
Princess licked her colt and didn’t answer, of course. Harry turned to go back to the house. He’d really spent more time than he could justify examining Princess and her foal if the family had a guest. Dorea was strict about that.
Charlus was the one who met him at the door, though. “This Gaunt fellow who’s being put up at Arthur’s house,” he said in the abrupt way he had, leading Harry into the kitchen and gesturing at the pickles and tomatoes and cheese and bread spread out all over the table so Harry could help himself. “What do you know about him?”
Harry sighed and began to make his sandwich. “He’s powerful. And Jonquil is really attracted to him.”
He sneaked a glance at Charlus, who was frowning. But the man only shook his head when he saw Harry looking, his wild hair standing out around his head. “She’s of age. We can’t stop her from going with him if she wants.”
“No,” Harry agreed. And he did have to wonder, as he sat down to much his sandwich full of pickles and cheese and ham, if this might be a solution for Jonquil. She didn’t have a career in mind, she was ambitious, she wanted power. It wouldn’t be great for her to go off with Tom Riddle-Gaunt and conquer a different world, but on the other hand, Harry couldn’t stand in her way and he didn’t want to save another world. And Tom wouldn’t hurt her if she was this weapon the Oracle had foretold for him.
“I sometimes wonder, Harry…”
Harry glanced up. Charlus was watching him. “Wonder what?”
“If you care about anything except your family?”
“The friends I left behind in the other world. The animals I take care of here.”
“But not the wider world?”
Harry had to grin as he reached for a mug of butterbeer that Charlus pushed towards him. “Not really? I did my part in the last war I was in. I reckon I deserve a rest.”
Charlus nodded, his hazel eyes bright with curiosity. He had always wanted to know more about Harry’s first world, but he also respected that Harry didn’t want to tell him. “Well, let Jonquil go off and see if she can care about the whole world, assuming this Gaunt fellow will take her with him. He looks as if he could do it, and she has the scope for it.”
Harry just chuckled weakly and nodded. He wasn’t a fan of Tom Riddle’s methods, but he had done his part. He’d had his war.
He wanted Gaunt to leave him, and his family, in peace.
*
By the time that he lay down in a hastily redecorated boy’s room that night, Tom had met all the Potters except for the children currently away at school. They had various strengths, various shades of welcoming smiles for him, various weaknesses and ways of talking and walking.
But none of them were as strong as Harry. None of them pushed back or were as much of a challenge.
It was true that the Oracle had told him the Potter he sought would be strong enough to help him conquer his world. The thing had never said that the Potter would actually be a weapon. That was the interpretation Tom had put on it.
But someone who had the potential to be his equal…
Tom fell asleep smiling.
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Jonquils and Lightning