Dulce Et Decorum Mori - beetaker - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1: Who Walks Among the Famous Living Dead

Chapter Text

“Tom,” Harry hissed, always speaking in the snake's tongue when it was just the two of them, eager to use their special language, one of the only things they never had to share with the other orphans. His hands tugged at Tom's arm, pulling his focus away from the rabbit, which had stopped struggling, its back feet twitching with the final dregs of death. “Tom, we have to go, before they catch you.”

Before they catch you, not us. Harry never worried about himself, ever, the most ridiculously selfless person Tom had ever met. It was the same when Harry found him standing over the stray dog–it had bit Tom, the disgusting thing, and Tom had barely been conscious as he apparently beat it to death with a shovel, only coming back to awareness when Harry spoke his name, dragged Tom and the shovel to the watering trough and washed the blood away. He'd cried then, sad about the dog, a waste of tears, but then Harry was always crying about useless things like that. Tom had the distant thought Harry might be upset with him; he got upset sometimes at how Tom treated the younger children, the ones Harry thought didn't deserve Tom's anger, as though deserving had anything to do with it. But Harry didn't yell at him, only took the hand the dog had bitten–Tom had only meant to study the thing, curious about its breeding–and cupped the wound to his mouth, kissing it better. When Tom's hand dropped away, it was fully healed.

“Are you okay?” Harry had asked then, not yet understanding Tom was always okay, some stupid mutt couldn't hurt him, not really, not with his specialness. It hurt Harry to see Tom hurt, even if only skin-deep. It always had, and in turn it had always fascinated Tom, Harry managing to feel everything Tom couldn't, some secret incomprehensible strain of his own specialness, one of the few things he and Tom would never share.

He asked it again now, successfully towing Tom from the room, back up the narrow stairs towards the bedroom they shared with twelve others. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Tom said, the usual answer, the usual indulgence in Harry's preference for their language, even though no one was even awake to eavesdrop. Tom always took his revenge while the others slept, so they could simply wake up to the evidence, the unspoken truth of it. Everyone would know it was him, and no one would know how, and so they would never mention it. “It was just a rabbit.”

“I wish you hadn't,” Harry sighed, but he still hadn't let go of Tom's hand, would never turn from him, no matter his tears, his incessant caring. He was soft, but that was alright. Billy Stubbs had cradled his soft rabbit, spoiled it, protected it from the predators of the world–but he couldn't protect it from Tom. Tom was the best predator there was; he'd shield Harry better.

And Harry had a bite of his own, when he had a mind to use it. Tom liked that part of Harry best.

“He won't ever bother you again,” Tom assured him, looking Harry in the eye. It didn't matter, never had, Harry's mind as opaque and foggy to him as always. There were others like that, though rare. Usually Tom could get at least a flicker of someone's thoughts just by catching their eye, only a few words or a couple of images, but never Harry's, even though Harry swore he wasn't hiding them on purpose, was sad, even, that he couldn't wordlessly share a joke or two with Tom at meals. Tom believed him; Harry was a good liar when it came to talking their way out of trouble with the matron, when it came to covering Tom's tracks. But he wouldn't lie to Tom. He couldn't.

“I know,” Harry sighed again, turning until his face was squished against Tom's shoulder, Tom stiffly patting his back. He didn't like to be touched, but Harry needed it, and Tom didn't hate to give it to him. But only him. “But the rabbit didn't do anything wrong.”

As if the rabbit was a person. As if only people who did wrong things should die. It was such a silly way to think. Childish. But then, Harry was a child, in a way Tom never had been. Sometimes Tom thought he must have been a grown man trapped in a boy's body. Every other child he knew was dull and nonsensical. Except for Harry, who was bright and nonsensical. Sometimes Tom wondered why he was so willing to put up with the inconveniences of Harry's meddling. He could have already been slipping back into bed by now, feeling nothing but smug pride over a job well done.

“You think I should have hung Billy instead?” Tom asked, already knowing Harry's answer.

Harry pulled back to scowl at him. He was still holding Tom's hand. “You know I don't,” he accused, before turning fretful. “I wish you wouldn't do stuff like that. What if they try to exorcise you again? What if she really does send you to the hospital? I'd have to get myself sent there too!”

And that was why Tom put up with him, he remembered suddenly, every meagre annoyance washed away by the flash in Harry's eyes, his unfailing loyalty. He'd follow Tom anywhere, the only person who had never looked at Tom with anything but warmth.

“She won't send us to the hospital. I floated the rabbit up there. She'll have no proof, and there's no way a normal child could have done it.”

Harry wasn't convinced, but Harry was always worrying over Tom, first over how other people treated him, and then over Tom's revenges, over the thought of him somehow being caught, even though he never was. Tom was too clever, and adults were too dim. When they were young, little more than the infants they'd once been, dropped into Wool's without much fanfare, Tom had found Harry stifling. His constant, big-eyed stare which offered nothing, his dopey smile whenever he brought Tom something to share, a sweet or a thin blanket, his constant touching–no one else touched Tom, even in those early days, unless they wanted to hurt him. As if some invisible part of him scared them into either rage or avoidance, everyone except Harry, whom Tom couldn't seem to avoid even when he wanted to.

And then one night Harry found Tom whispering to a little garter snake, the kind that often found their way into the old house during winter, in search of mice and warmth. Tom expected this to finally frighten the bothersome boy off, as it had with the other children, the ones who didn't calcify their fear into anger.

But Harry only gave him those wide eyes, folding himself closer, clumsy with shock and delight. “You're like me,” he whispered, and Tom felt run through by a feeling he'd never experienced, couldn't begin to identify.

“No,” Tom decided. “You're like me.”

“We're sharing tonight,” Harry said now, leading the way to Tom's own bed, as though they didn't share half the nights each week, two blankets better than one against the draft-given night.

Tom allowed this too, liked it even, didn't mind the touching so much when he was asleep. He liked being able to feel Harry breathing, being able to press a hand to his quivering chest and reassure himself he hadn't died while Tom wasn't looking.

Tom spent years thinking Harry was just some soft creature he was duty-bound to protect by their shared specialties. He wasn't easily cowed, not like some of the weaker orphans who acted like mangy dogs in fear of a good kicking. But he was easy, always quick to go along with what he was told to do, not given to the little rebellions the rest of them were, ducking chores and skivving off to play football.

Tom didn't even remember what it was Dennis called him, it was so inconsequential, Tom prepared to ignore it and then get his own back late that night, but then Harry–easy, accommodating, soft Harry–yelled at him and, in the course of his yelling, blew Dennis several metres away, as though he'd been snatched up by a sudden wind storm.

“Harry,” Tom said, looking at the comical heap Dennis had landed in, looking at the ball of righteous fury Harry had become, all in the name of defending Tom, and laughed.

“He shouldn't have said that,” Harry said, still outraged on Tom's behalf, like a growling dog protecting its master. “I hate that they're mean to you. I hate it.” Then he blinked, the anger leaking out of him, and turned to look Tom up and down. “Are you okay?”

“I'm better than him,” Tom said, nodding at Dennis across the yard, still knocked out cold. Harry nodded over and over, looking stupid, his hair flying all over the place, and then squeezed Tom into a hug. Tom still didn't know how to hold and be held, wouldn't know for some time, but he patted Harry's shoulder and then fixed his glasses once he pulled back.

“You are,” Harry smiled, easy with those too, so quick to switch from boy to hellhound and back again. “You're the best.”

Harry's birthday had just come and gone when Mrs. Cole announced they had a visitor. They shared a look at this–Harry worried it was some new priest or doctor, Tom mostly indifferent. Even if it was, he knew what to expect from those people, knew how to endure and allay suspicion long enough for them to leave again. He let Harry clutch his hand, mildly pleased at the thought of getting to see his teeth bared.

The old man was a strange one, no doubt the dodgy sort of doctor, and Harry glowered at him the second Mrs. Cole left.

“I won't let you hurt him,” Harry declared, and Tom sat back, let him have his moment of knighthood, as though a grown man would ever feel threatened by an eleven-year-old boy with messy hair and thick glasses. Harry had always ducked Tom's attempts at bettering his appearance; Tom had eventually stopped trying, consoling himself that there was something to be said for being underestimated.

“My dear boy, no one is going to hurt either of you,” said the man. He met Tom's gaze without reservation, and all Tom could see was a blank, white wall. “My name is Professor Dumbledore, and I'm here to invite both of you to my school.”

“Is it a boys’ hospital, then?” Harry glared. “A loony bin for children? Tom didn't do anything!”

“Neither did you,” Tom reminded him, Harry always forgetting to add himself to his own defence. “You are a doctor, aren't you?” No matter if this man was the sort not easily read; Tom had other methods. He pushed towards the so-called professor, threw his words like bricks through a window. “Tell us the truth!”

The man blinked at Tom, looking disappointed in him, as though he knew what it was Tom was doing and didn't appreciate it being done unto him. “I am telling the truth, young man. I am a professor at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is a school of magic.”

“Magic?” Harry said, half-suspicious, half-eager, his grip on Tom's hand tightening. “D'you mean our specialness?”

Tom cut his eyes at him; they'd agreed early on never to speak of their abilities with other people. It could only lead to trouble. Harry, likely sensing his irritation, melted against him, a show of apology.

“What do you mean by specialness?” the professor asked blithely, and finally Harry seemed to find his head, suspicion winning out.

“Grown ups are always lying,” he said flatly. “If you are a doctor, you'll just say we're mad and lock us up.”

The professor nodded seriously and pulled a stick from his strange cloak. “I cannot fault your logic,” he said gravely. “How about I go first?” He moved the stick and spoke some Latin, and suddenly a burst of colourful sparks bloomed from the tip before glittering into nothing. He did it again and this time, smoke began to rise from the floorboards, wisps of vapour shifting into dancing couples that flitted around the room before dissolving. The professor sat back, looking very pleased with himself. “Now, is your specialness anything like that?”

Harry squirmed, delighted by the parlour tricks. Tom was not so impressed; the man had needed a stick and fancy words to do his magic, while he and Harry could do theirs without either, albeit not always on command.

“Sort of,” Harry said, all suspicions forgotten. “We can do other stuff–make things move without touching them, scare off bullies. I've healed Tom's cuts before, and Tom's made a cave go completely dark. We can both speak to snakes too, is that magic?”

He said nothing about Billy's rabbit, nothing about what Tom did in the dark cave, Harry's eagerness to share their exploits not enough to override his desire to protect Tom. Harry wasn't totally useless when it came to manipulations, he just never seemed to use them for his own gain.

“It is a type of magic, yes,” the professor mused. “A very rare type.”

Harry beamed at Tom, and privately Tom was pleased by this also. He'd always known they were special, apparently even among others of their kind.

The professor's face hardened almost imperceptibly, and the boys jumped when the shared wardrobe in their room caught fire. Tom felt the rage build in him even after the flames, just as quickly as they came, went out, the wardrobe completely unharmed, Harry wide-eyed beside him.

“Is there anything in there that does not belong to you?” The professor asked, ostensibly both of them, though his eyes were trained solely on Tom. “Let me be very clear in warning you that thievery at Hogwarts shall not be tolerated.”

He meant the box of Tom's trophies, stolen from around the orphanage. He glared back at the professor, but Harry spoke first.

“But everyone steals here,” he said. “None of us have any money. It's the only way we can get toys or sweets. The others steal from us, too.” They hadn't in ages, not since Tom had cemented their reputation, but both he and Harry had been frequent targets when they were younger.

The professor's stern face softened, Harry always managing to bring out that side of adults which Tom never could. He would have to learn, before they reached this Hogwarts. He refused to be hated and distrusted even among his own kind. “You both have had a rough time of things, I understand. There will be no stealing from you while at Hogwarts, and you will be expected to follow the rules in turn. In the meantime, you will both be provided with a list of necessary school supplies and an allowance with which to purchase them, along with a map of Diagon Alley, the Wizarding marketplace. Term will begin on the first of September. I suspect both of you will do well there.”

“Do you think he meant it?” Harry asked, once the professor was gone, tracing the gilded lettering of his own name on the letter he'd given Harry. “We're really Wizards?”

“It makes sense,” Tom shrugged, though he could hardly look away from his own letter, the proof of what he'd always known, in some pit inside himself, that he was something different from everyone around him, that he was something better. He'd believed the first priest that had told him the same thing, albeit it opposite in nature, that he was a devil. It had made sense at the time, just as this answer did. Anything that offered an explanation for his being set so apart.

“I'm glad it's both of us,” Harry said, green eyes somehow greener, the natural brightness in him turning incandescent. Tom had thought he'd known the answer for that before too, dull hours at Sunday service spent gazing at the sun illuminating stained glass portraits, thinking: angel. “I'm glad we're going together.”

“We'll always go together,” Tom said, knowing it as fact, unable to imagine anything different. Wherever he went, Harry was sure to follow. It'd been that way forever. It would surely always be that way.

Tom had expected their allotted allowance to be something grand; the professor had been dressed nicely, and Diagon Alley itself was overwhelmingly illustrious; surely, if the Wizards’ world was this well-off, the students’ stipend must be appropriately large.

Any hope of that was dashed after their first visit to a shop. They had only enough for the necessities, and only if those were second-hand. It was no better than the shopping trips the matron sent them off on, with ration cards and pittance.

Still, it was a luxury to breathe in the magic, to see it performed and ingrained in every space, the very air around them full of it. Harry's pleasure was nearly palpable, his cheerful voice calling out for Tom to look at that, Tom they really fly on brooms, Tom they sell owls!

“Wish we could get a snake,” Harry said wistfully, having stroked nearly every creature in the pet shop. “If we're in different dorms, we could use it to send each other messages.”

“We won't be in different dorms,” Tom said, feeling confident in that. Not once had he and Harry been forced to separate rooms at Wool's, and he felt sure that wouldn't change at Hogwarts, though he knew Harry was fretting over it.

“Maybe we can catch a snake and tame it,” Harry mused. “There's supposed to be a forest by the school. Snakes love forests. I think.”

They had often shared a similar dream at the orphanage, though they'd never managed to convince any of the garden snakes to shake their nature and become a housepet. “Maybe,” said Tom, herding Harry back to their quest. He was even more distractible than usual, head whirling around ridiculously as he drank in all the sights, looking like an American tourist in London. Tom, by contrast, knew to use his peripheral vision to sate his curiosity; it wouldn't do to appear over-eager or out of place.

“This has been the best day of my life,” Harry sighed, scooting in closer across the bed, closer still when Tom didn't shift away. It was summer, already unbearably hot, but Harry was still near to bursting with joy, desperate to share it, and Tom had been pleased by their first foray into the magical world, and was feeling indulgent. “Thank you.”

“I didn't make you a Wizard, Harry,” Tom hissed, amused, but Harry only smiled, tucking in close.

“Yeah, but you made today even better. You always do.”

Strange boy, who'd seen Tom at his most devilish and still always asked if he needed tending to. The only person Tom had never begrudged sharing with, his meagre rations, his hand-me-down clothing, his tiny bed. It had never felt like graciousness, never felt like he was doing Harry a favour. It felt the same as doing all those things for himself, as though Harry was an extension of Tom, caring for him the same thing as survival.

Despite all of Tom's confidence, he and Harry were separated almost immediately upon entering Hogwarts. The train ride was exhausting, the castle itself magnificent, and the start-of-term feast dreadfully dull. The sorting ceremony was performed alphabetically, which would normally ensure Harry and Tom's proximity. How was he to know so many Wizarding family names began with Q, the most ridiculous letter of them all?

Harry went first, shooting Tom a nervous look beneath the massive hat. He was so small, underfed and swamped by his second-hand robes. The hat took forever to place him, longer than it had with anyone else, before finally pronouncing him Gryffindor.

That was fine; Tom had no knowledge of the four Houses beyond their silly names, though he'd felt an immediate kinship with the one bearing a snake on its tapestry. But he could work with Gryffindor too. Tom could work with anything.

But when the hat crowned his own head, it seemed to disagree.

Gryffindor? A good joke to be sure. No, I'm afraid you're practically Salazar's own, already. So they were to be in separate dorms, after all.

Tom slid from the chair mechanically, dutifully took a seat at his own table, only glancing over once to find Harry's distraught eyes already seeking his. It'll be fine, he thought, pushing the words at him strongly. Surely they'd still share classes and meals, once the festivities were over.

“Riddle?” asked one of the students beside him, cutting Tom's attention back. “You're a mudblood then?”

Tom looked at the boy, his pristine robes, the posh look about him. His mind was like an open drawer, meaning it was weak and vulnerable. Tom had never seen a vulnerability he didn't have the urge to stick a knife in. Filthy mudblood, thinks he can just sit at our table, we'll have him run out by the end of the week.

Tom smiled, the devilish one that scared everyone back at Wool's, and watched the boy fight back a shiver in response. So even other Wizards could feel the threat of Tom, he mused, had always taken pride in his ability to frighten even those larger than him. “If you like,” he shrugged, turning back to his meal, mind already running down the staircase of everything he'd need to learn: what mudbloods were, how to sneak Harry into his dorm and, failing that, how to sneak into Harry's. Tom had promised him they wouldn't be separated, and he didn't intend to break it.

The haughty Slytherin boy was named Abraxas Malfoy, and Tom allowed him one week of his tedious schoolyard bullying before taking a knife to his pet hawk, strewing its innards across Malfoy's bed as he slept, gleefully waking to his screams.

Harry was faring better in Gryffindor, though most of the friends he mentioned appeared to be ghosts.

“They're nice,” he shrugged, when Tom asked if the Baron he'd apparently gone traipsing down a hidden passageway with had been the Bloody Baron. “I think they just like having someone to talk to. And I feel like we understand each other. I dunno why.”

He was a strange boy, though he commiserated with Tom easily enough when it came to their classmates’ obsession with bloodlines. “They all think I'm a bastard of some Wizarding family named Potter,” he grumbled, slouched over Tom's table in the library. “Doesn't matter how many times I say Potter's a common last name. Apparently I ‘have the Potter look,’ whatever that means. Like we must be related because we're not white.”

“At least they don't think you're a mudblood,” Tom said, carefully unaffected, even as he felt Harry's eyes studying him.

“I could beat them for you,” Harry offered. “Bet none of them have ever been in a real fight before. They're too posh. They probably don't even know how to punch.”

Tom smiled at his book, a collection of curses he'd been memorising. “I already have it well in hand, but thank you.”

“I think that's why I'm in Gryffindor,” Harry said, tipping his chair back wildly. Tom shot a cushioning charm beneath him, just in case. “We're not cunning, but we are loyal.”

“My own personal hound,” Tom said, smirking at Harry's look of affrontement. “I found a book on Parseltongue.”

“What's Parseltongue?”

“The snake language,” Tom hissed, Harry's eyes clearing with understanding. “Apparently it's not only rare, but an inherited ability. Only people descended from Salazar Slytherin, himself. Which means we're not mudbloods, and we're probably related.”

“Really?” Harry asked, delighted. He didn't seem to give a toss about his own lineage, but he liked the idea of being tangibly tied to Tom. “Maybe we're brothers! It'd make sense, with our wands and all.”

“We aren't brothers,” Tom was reasonably sure. One of the few things he'd been told by the matron regarding his birth; that he'd been named Tom Riddle, for his father, his middle name gifted by his maternal grandfather. And his mother had died the same night, therefore unable to give birth to a second boy seven months later. “But cousins, perhaps.”

“Maybe magic brought us together,” Harry said, turning dreamy. “Blood magic's a thing, right?”

“It is.” Tom had already read several books on the subject.

By the end of Tom's first year, the rest of Slytherin was giving him a wide berth. He was still the resident mudblood, but he was unopposed to retaliating in extremes, and his mastery of the shield charm left him little in the way of exposure.

The isolation was, at first, a boon. It was what Tom was used to, and what he wanted; to be left alone. It allowed him more time to focus on his studies, throwing himself into the world he'd spent so long missing, finding in magic a joy he'd never known. But he watched the seventh year purebloods reign over the Slytherin common room, watched as everyone else gave them deference and scrambled to please them, and found that he wanted something new, something he'd never had before.

He was a descendent of Salazar Slytherin himself; why should he not carry the crown? That throne warmed by some pureblood boy by virtue of being from a rich, inbred family, was rightfully Tom's.

Surely Riddle was a Wizarding surname, if an unknown one. Tom had always been given curious looks over his surname, Mrs. Cole calling it a funny sort of name. Harry spent the summer dutifully helping Tom comb through lineage records stolen from the Hogwarts library. He hadn't cared much about his own family before, but now that he knew Tom might share that family, he was eager for discovery.

It didn't seem to matter; there were no recorded Riddle lines in any of the texts, though it made no sense. Tom was a Parselmouth, which meant he carried Slytherin blood, which meant he couldn't be a mudblood. The records were simply incomplete.

“Marvolo's your middle name, right?” Harry asked one day, squinting at a scroll as he sprawled on his stomach across Tom's bed. “It was your mum's dad's name?”

“Yes,” Tom said, shifting over to look at where Harry was pointing. Marvolo Gaunt, father of Merope and Morfin Gaunt, son of Corvinus Gaunt. An old, pureblood line that could be traced directly to Salazar Slytherin. “Merope,” he hummed, tracing the letters of her name. It had never occurred to him that his mother was the bearer of magic. If she'd been a Witch, he'd always reasoned, she wouldn't have come to some Muggle orphanage. She wouldn't have died from something so mundane as childbirth. “Why wouldn't she have gone to a magical hospital? They could have saved her.”

“There's a girl in Gryffindor, she said her mum was a pureblood but got disowned for marrying a Muggle. Maybe your grandfather disowned your mum too.”

Tom frowned, picturing this Marvolo Gaunt, the wretch he must be, sentencing his own grandson to life in a muggle orphanage, hell on earth. “Then why would she name me after him?”

“Maybe she wanted you to know where you came from,” Harry shrugged. “Maybe I'm a Gaunt too. Maybe Morfin's my dad. Neither of them have any kids listed.”

“Hm,” Tom hummed, tracing his family line backwards. He'd done some digging on the Wizarding Potters, and it was true that Harry looked remarkably like them, even down to their taste in circular glasses, which could hardly be a hereditary trait. But he didn't see any intermarriages between the Potters and Gaunts, nothing that would explain Harry's Parseltongue. Slytherin and the oldest Potter shared some ancestry in the form of the Peverell brothers, from whom they were both descended, but that was as close as their heritage got. Perhaps Harry really was the result of some bastard union, between Tom's uncle and a Potter daughter, abandoned at a Muggle orphanage so their infidelity might go undiscovered.

“Had a weird dream last night,” Harry yawned, rolling over to stretch before flopping his head onto Tom's knee. “You were in some dungeon under a sink, but you were old, like a seventh year. There was a giant snake.”

“Was it threatening me?” Tom asked. Ever since Harry discovered the existence of Divination, he'd taken to sharing his admittedly cinematic-sounding dreams.

“No, I think she liked you. She was threatening me, though.”

Tom tugged through Harry's curls, detangling them, amused. “I promise not to let the giant snake hurt you.”

Harry smiled, eyes closed, like a cat pleased to be petted. “I know.”

Tom had spent the summer preparing for his conquering of Slytherin House, so he spent the train ride back studying.

Harry, who had followed Tom's conversation enough to know the skeletal structure of his schemes before inevitably tuning out, said “Just say the word, and I'll set a bludger on them.” Harry had flung himself into Quidditch in a way he'd never done with Muggle sports, carrying an aptitude for it that seemed to shock even himself. It was unheard of for a first year to make their House's team, though the try-outs were open to all years, and while Tom found the sport just as idiotic and pointless as any other, he couldn't deny the pride he felt whenever Harry accomplished something, the rush of vindication, knowing he was right to see something in Harry, something which set him apart from the rest.

“A very Gryffindor threat,” Tom said, shaking his head. “But unnecessary. I have it under control.”

“Course you do,” Harry grinned, kicking his feet up and dropping his head heavily onto Tom's shoulder, uncaring of Tom's grunt at the weight. “You'll have them eating out of your hand by winter hols.”

Tom enacted the first part of his plan that first week, courtesy of Harry's roommate, a half-giant with an affinity for dangerous magical creatures.

“It's a cruor python,” Harry had said happily, presenting Tom with the snake. She was already large, even as an adolescent. “Hagrid fed them all summer before releasing them into the forest, but I convinced him to let me have this one. Thought you'd like her.”

“I've never seen her like,” Tom said, gently taking her in hand, hissing politely, amused when she answered with a sleepy tone.

“It's a magical species,” Harry said, eager to share his knowledge. “She's a python, so she chokes and then swallows her prey, but she's venomous too. Apparently it keeps any wound from being healed, even magically, without an antidote. She's a good girl, though,” Harry strokes her scales as though scratching the underjaw of a dog.

“She's perfect,” said Tom, biting back a smile when Harry perked up, pleased. “Thank you.”

“It's all Hagrid's doing,” Harry grinned. “He's got a way with animals.”

Privately, Tom believed this was because Rubeus Hagrid was only one step away from animal, himself. The boy was incredibly clumsy, awkward with his size, and boorish. Tom supposed he had to have some type of talent, to make up for his lack of it in everything else. That Harry had taken a liking to him made sense; Harry liked animals, too.

“You'll have to give him my thanks then,” Tom said, knowing it would please Harry further. “I'll be sure to send her up to you with any secret messages.”

“You'd like that wouldn't you, girl?” Harry crooned, smiling at her assent. “You'll like the tower better anyway, it's warmer.”

“And smellier,” Tom added, smirking when Harry shoved him.

Tom wore the snake over his shoulders as he entered the dungeons, telling her “When I tell you to, please hiss menacingly.”

“What's in it for me?” asked the snake, which was very Slytherin of her. Tom couldn't help but respect it.

“I will feed you well.”

She hummed, or as close as a snake could come to humming, and Tom grinned as his Housemates stared in factions of shock and envy.

“Wherever did you get that creature, Riddle?” asked Orion Black, a fellow second year.

“Indonesia,” lied Tom. “She's my familiar.”

Reide Avery sneered, stepping closer to peer at the python, doing his best to seem unimpressed. “That's a laugh. Just because you found a snake in some Muggle bin doesn't make it your familiar.”

“Now, if you please,” Tom said, delighting at Avery's flinch as the python hissed in his face, displaying her magnificent fangs in all their glory.

“Was that Parseltongue?” asked Calliope Greengrass, a third year, and Tom smiled beatifically. “How did you learn Parseltongue?”

Parseltongue was not a language that could be learned, which she well knew. Tom looked evenly around at the faces of his Housemates and shrugged, taking care not to unsettle the python. “I've always been able to speak it. Goodnight.”

To Tom's surprise, it was Malfoy who put the puzzle together for the rest of them. “Riddle,” he drawled the next day at breakfast, despite having spent the previous year going out of his way to pretend Tom didn't exist. “What's your full name?”

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Tom said, dispassionately, as though he had no interest in Malfoy's sudden curiosity.

Malfoy's eyes gleamed. He was mentally penning a letter to his father; truly, Tom's Legilimency was wasted here, surrounded by dullards as he was. “I see. Marvolo is a family name, I take it?”

“Yes. It's from my mother's family, the Gaunts.”

Malfoy nodded, as though he'd suspected as much, though he sounded contrite when he said “You could have just said you aren't a mudblood.”

“I let people assume what they like,” Tom shrugged, turning his attention back to the Prophet he'd stolen off Walburga. It was just as boring as the Muggle news; a budding war in Europe, advertisem*nts for self-lathering soap and some sort of hair potion. “The clever sort will figure it out.”

This attitude served him well; it allowed Tom to appear as though he'd always known the majesty of his bloodline, and was secure enough in the knowledge to not care about the opinions of others, those below him. Truthfully, he'd always cared, his search for his family turned desperate by the taunts and scoffing of his peers. Their hatred of Muggles and, by extension, Muggle blood was childish and theoretical. His pureblood classmates hated them because their parents hated them. Tom hated Muggles in a personal, logical way, having experienced Muggles’ hateful loathing first-hand.

“How's the plotting?” Harry asked, cheerfully wrapping his garish scarf around Tom's neck. He was about to play his first match of the season, against Slytherin no less. Tom was to sit among his own House, which Harry knew, but Harry could be territorial in his own way, simply smiling at Tom's glare. “C'mon, you have to cheer me on. Best friend loyalty trumps House loyalty.”

“It was successful,” Tom sighed, resigned to looking like a fool among the sea of green. “Does this mean you'll cheer for Slytherin?”

“If you ever get back on a broom,” Harry said sweetly.

Tom still found Quidditch boring and a waste of time, though even he could admit watching Harry toy with the rival Seeker like a cat with a mouse before turning on a dime to easily snatch up the snitch was entertaining.

Slytherins shared roughly one third of their classes with Gryffindors, which Tom thought might be an intentional sort of sabotage by the professors, as it resulted in most of his classmates getting next to nothing done.

It was also, Tom suspected, the only reason Harry was passable in both Potions and Arithmancy, because he had Tom to drag him through the assignments. “How can you be this bad?” Tom asked, incredulously watching Harry struggle to slice a boiled gnut. “We've read the same books. We've sat through the same lessons.”

“I have to let you be better than me in some ways,” Harry said cheerfully, even as the gnut rolled out from under his knife again. “Wouldn't be fair, otherwise.”

“I'm better than you in all ways,” Tom said, taking over, glaring when Harry sat back without argument. “Are you pretending to be awful so I do all the work? That'd be impressively cunning, for you.”

“Please,” Harry scoffed. “Gryffindors are allergic to scheming, you know. And you are not better than me in all ways. I'm better at Flying. And Divination.”

“We aren't even taking Divination yet,” Tom pointed out. “It's a third year class.”

Harry nodded sagely. “Which is why it's even more impressive that I'm already better. For instance, in my dream last night, you were trapped on the back of some bloke's head. Avoid any fellows wearing turbans.”

“I'll be sure to keep an eye out,” Tom drawled, setting their potion to simmer and waiting for Slughorn to take a look at it. It was perfect, of course. Tom refused to settle for anything less. It was hardly enough that his Housemates now knew he was descended from Slytherin. He refused to be the lazy sort who relied on his bloodline and nothing else. Tom didn't have some ancestral home and Gringott’s vault to fall back on after graduation. And there was still his Muggle father to consider, his Muggle name. He'd have to compensate greatly for them.

The other Slytherins were proving so easy to manipulate that it nearly became boring. One look into their eyes and Tom knew exactly where to press to get what he wanted. But mind manipulation was not the same thing as respect. Awe. It wasn't even the same as fear, which also proved easy to provoke. Tom didn't want them on their knees because he forced them. He wanted them on their knees because they knew it was where they belonged.

The other students, even some of the faculty, all of them stood below Tom without even realising it, just like the other orphans, just like the matron and Mrs. Cole. Everyone but Harry.

Which made for entertainment in the form of Tom's more servile Housemates flaring up at any perceived disrespect on Harry's part, as though Harry were even capable of disrespecting Tom.

He'd spent the summer before third year keeping up a correspondence with a few of them in particular, fanning the flames of their interest, their belief that Tom could lead them towards something great, though what exactly that would be was as yet undefined. He was making plans for a proper group, elite and structured, flirting with various names that felt appropriately arcane.

His letters, vague and sparse as they were, seemed to have done the trick in cementing their loyalty, resulting in half a dozen Slytherins devoted solely to Tom. That Tom's closest confidant was and had always been a half-blooded Gryffindor who loudly disdained pureblood supremacy seemed to have been forgotten until the term's start, upon which Harry dropped like a bomb over the heads of Tom's acolytes.

“What's wrong?” Harry asked, folding his way onto the Slytherin bench at lunchtime, forcing Malfoy to grumble and shift aside. Harry reached up and thumbed at the skin above Tom's nose. “You look even grumpier than usual.”

Tom merely pulled Harry's hand away, but Avery, sitting across from them, spit like a riled tomcat. “How dare you touch him without permission!” It was one of Tom's firmest rules.

Harry, of course, looked at Avery as though the thought was ridiculous. “Mate, I've been touching him our whole lives.” He gave Tom a look, mind, as always, unreadable, but Tom never had to guess what Harry was thinking. Harry had yet to forgive Tom's Housemates for their treatment of Tom that first year, and likely never would, still offering to give them a good pounding every once in a while. No amount of grovelling would ever convince him they deserved an ounce of Tom's time.

“You are the exception,” Tom confirmed blithely, turning back to his paper. It seemed that while Muggle Britain had finally declared war against Germany, Wizarding Britain had finally entered their own. He didn't know what this might mean for Hogwarts; Muggle schools had been announcing closures for months, now, in anticipation. Bomb shelters had been declared all over London. He didn't think Grindelwald had bombs, exactly, but perhaps an equivalent.

Harry grinned and then pressed their shoulders together, as though rubbing it in, a message to Avery and the rest of them: you will never get this close to him. Privately, Tom was pleased by this petty, territorial side to Harry. He had friends throughout the other Houses, shared an easy camaraderie with his roommates, but even after three years, he still always sought Tom out first, still openly preferred Tom over everyone.

“If it's Hogsmeade you're worried about, don't be,” Harry told him, sneaking a bite of ham from Tom's plate. “I've already got our trip all planned out.”

“The first time you've ever planned anything,” Tom mused. Grindelwald was moving on Switzerland. “I'm honoured.”

“You should be,” Harry agreed, now taking a swig of Tom's pumpkin juice before standing up. “Try not to die of stress in the meantime.” He left, quickly swallowed up by some new gaggle of acquaintances.

“You allow him much,” Malfoy murmured, sliding back into place at Tom's side, distaste evident in his tone. “With his inferior House and background, people will start to question your…preference.”

It was as tactful as Malfoy knew how to be, and so Tom allowed it, though this was all he would allow. “Harry has been loyal to me for twelve years,” Tom said lightly. “I'm sure you've heard the rumours of his heritage. The Potters are exceedingly wealthy, and well-regarded among the lighter factions. The heirs, in particular, are generous, and will surely be such with their half-brother. It would do to form allies and connections across a broader spectrum.”

Truthfully, it would have been simpler to distance himself from Harry, to focus on cultivating his networks within Slytherin. But it would be akin to cutting off Tom's own arm; he could do it, if he had to, but he'd rather pursue other options first.

Malfoy's head dipped, sufficiently swayed. The product of generations of politicians. “As you say.”

Tom did not expect that particular seed to bear fruit so quickly. He had only been sure to mention Harry's questionable lineage a few times in the common room, whenever Dorea Black, a seventh year soon to be married to the younger Potter brother, happened to be within earshot, and suddenly Harry was receiving a letter on the first day of winter holidays, inviting him to meet Charlus Potter in Hogsmeade for lunch.

“Will you come with me?” Harry asked, nervously crumpling the parchment in his hands.

“Of course,” said Tom, prying the letter from him, smoothing it out again.

Charlus Potter looked exactly as Tom imagined Harry would in seven years. He smiled as they slid into the booth across from him, politely asked how their schooling was faring, and ordered them both butterbeers.

Finally, once the expected pleasantries had been dealt with, he sighed and levelled Harry with a serious look. “I'll be honest, kid, me and Fleamont don't really need much convincing. Dad's dead, so we can't ask him, but our parents were an arranged match, and dalliances aren't unheard of. But mum, well. Would you mind if I cast a spell, just to see?”

Harry glanced at Tom, who had schooled his face to placidity, and then nodded. He held out his hand when Charlus motioned for it, only flinching once as a cut was spelled across his palm. Tom tensed as he watched the blood well up, even as Harry put a hand on his leg, squeezing, soothing.

“Sorry lad, just for a moment,” Charlus said kindly, before opening a cut on his own hand. He then cast a second spell, and a crimson red line bridged his hand with Harry's, as though their blood was flowing in and out of each other. He shot them a wide grin before healing them both. “Welcome to the family, little brother.”

Harry stared in shock at his hand, now whole, as though he could still see the wound. His voice, when he spoke, was quietly hopeful. “Really?”

“Really really,” Charlus nodded. “I've got something for you.” He pulled a package from the seat beside him, pushing it over to Harry. “Bit of a family heirloom. Traditionally, it's passed down as soon as you get your Hogwarts letter, so sorry it's a little late. But you just hang onto it until the next little Potter turns eleven.”

He left Harry with a bag of galleons as well, a lead-in to the allowance he and his brother were planning to provide Harry with just as soon as they got the paperwork at Gringott’s pushed through. “It won't be much,” he warned Harry. “Just five hundred or so a month. But we wanted you to have something,seeing as–well, just seeing as. And mum'll come around eventually, probably. I mean, look at you! You look like a baby Flea! She'll have to, really.”

“He was nice,” Harry murmured, curled up in Tom's bed that night, stroking the python where she laid over his hip. Tom still hadn't given her a name, which Harry was adamant made him a bad snake-owner. Tom argued in turn that she didn't need a name, though Harry had taken to simply calling her Darling. “I didn't expect him to be nice.”

“What did you expect?” Tom wondered. He was, by turns, exceedingly pleased by the meeting going so well, a fortuitous sign for his plans, and filled with raging envy. How many hours had he spent dreaming of some wealthy purebloods coming out of the woodwork to claim him, to slather him in gold and pluck him from the war-torn, mundane hell of Muggles?

“I didn't expect anything,” Harry mumbled, curling closer. “I know you care about your lineage. You always wanted to know where you came from. But I never did. Your mum died, so maybe if she hadn't, she would have kept you and loved you. Maybe your dad didn't know, and he'll want you too. But my parents just…dropped me there. Already a year old. So they had a year and then just…decided they didn't want me, after all.” He ducked under Tom's chin, and Tom ran a hand down his back. “I didn't care until you said we might be cousins. And now…I still don't care, not really. I mean, I'm glad my–my brother's nice, but he's not really my family. You're my family, even if we're not related. You're the family I want.”

Tom's hand glided up, into Harry's hair, fisting the curls, tugging until he could see those eyes. “You're mine too.” Gratified by Harry's smile, happy to be Tom's, as he'd always been.

On the thirtieth, they stayed up all night, as they had every year, watching the world as it slipped into Tom's birthday. The rest of the world could have New Year’s, but this eve was theirs. Harry gave him a shoddily wrapped gift, looking flustered. It took Tom a moment to understand why.

Throughout childhood, gifts had been either stolen or repurposed; since Hogwarts, they'd become painstakingly Transfigured objects turned into something worth looking at.

The diary was the first proper gift shared between them, bought new and well-made, with real leather and thick pages of good parchment. Tom liked the feel of it in his hands, liked the flush stealing across Harry's cheeks as he studied it.

“For your many plots,” Harry smiled.

Tom was upstairs, not hiding, because he never hid, but certainly avoiding the R.A.F. recruiters downstairs, sniffing around for any teenagers eager to sign their lives away for King and Country. He had read the War poets, their tidings of nightmarish gas, Boschesque fields of bloated bodies given to the mines and flies. It held no interest for him; he would be carving a life for himself into the Wizarding world by seventeen, long before his enlistment letter, should this War even last that long.

He was practising his wandless spells, had taught himself a legion of them just for this purpose, so he wouldn't have to spend summers going through magic withdrawal. The trace for underage magic only affected their wands; he'd checked.

Tom had found a spider in the room, which meant he could practise his Crucio. He wasn't delighting in the creature's pain, wasn't entirely sure it could feel any, but enjoyed studying the movements of its body under the effects of the curse. He was just going to feed it to Darling afterwards, anyway; he might as well get something out of it, first.

He heard Harry's heavy footsteps just before the doorknob turned, and ceased the spider's flailing with a wandless Avada Kedavra. Harry liked spiders, just as he liked rabbits, and dogs. He wouldn't be angry with Tom, but his face would droop, which would be unpleasant. “Eat,” he told Darling, prodding her lazy coils with his foot.

Harry came in then, looking beautiful with rage. “Those bastards never want to take no for an answer.”

“Why do you think I stayed up here?” Tom asked, watching Harry pace a storm across their tiny room, raising a brow when Harry turned and simply fell over him, until his head rested half on Tom's shoulder. His eyes were the exact shade of the killing curse, a gorgeous colour, though Tom wasn't sure he'd take it as the compliment it was.

“To keep Darling company,” Harry smiled, smiling wider at Tom's scoff, squirming until he was a straight line settled nearly directly on top of him.

“You take shameless advantage of my allowing you to touch me,” Tom scolded, pushing Harry's bangs up and digging his thumb into the scar on his forehead. Harry just let him, eyes falling shut. Tom wondered if he would allow him to touch him anyway he wanted, if he'd let Tom dig his nails in until he bled, grateful just to be touched.

“It's good for you,” Harry murmured, rubbing his cheek over Tom's shirt. “It'll be fine, right? They're mostly sticking to the continent and coastal cities.”

“It'll be fine,” Tom agreed, using a wandless spell to levitate Harry's glasses over to the side table, pleased by Harry's impressed look. “There's nothing worth bombing in London.”

Shortly after Harry's birthday, Tom was being shaken awake. It was early yet, hours before dawn, and Harry's eyes glowed down at him with fear.

“Something's coming,” he whispered. “Something bad. We need to leave.”

“What?” Tom asked. “Was it another dream? Harry–” The air raid sirens began to blare.

They'd slept with shoes on all summer, for this eventuality, and Harry had already grabbed his wand. Tom sprinted through dressing himself, fetching Darling from where she was ensconced in his trunk and letting Harry wrap her in his invisibility cloak. Then they ran.

The nearest bomb shelter was the Underground station two blocks away; the first bomb hit just as they reached the stairs, sending them stumbling down as the earth shook around them. Harry's head knocked against stone as he fell, body going limp, blood pooling, and for one world-ending moment, Tom was sure he was dead.

He wasn't, whimpered as Tom shook his shoulders, limping the rest of the way underground with Tom taking half his weight, Darling hissing questions at them from his arms, demanding to know what was happening.

They huddled together in the dark like rats, with the rest of the snivelling masses, as the Germans rained terror from above, Tom wondering how quickly it could all be stopped by a half dozen wands. He looked around at sobbing Muggles and thought about how there were pockets within their city untouched by bombs, untouched by anything, without any of them knowing.

Tom cast a spell that made Harry's head wound stop bleeding, though he wasn't particularly gifted in healing magic, and didn't know any spells to fix the damage completely. Surely the Ministry would forgive him under the circ*mstances; a healing spell on another Wizard during an air raid.

Harry turned and curled himself over Tom, doing his best to cover him completely. Tom's shields were good, his wandless and wordless shields even, but Harry's were practically intrinsic, thrown up near-automatically whenever his magic felt threatened, a symptom of being a natural Occlumens, according to Tom's reading.

“We'll wait through the night, and then head to Diagon Alley,” Tom decided, Harry nodding fitfully into his neck. “We'll stay there until term starts. Only three more weeks, anyway.”

“I love you,” Harry mumbled against his throat, voice muzzy, as though he was fighting sleep.

Tom jostled him abruptly. “Don't be stupid. You're not dying. At the first sign it's over, we'll run.”

“‘Kay,” Harry sighed, sinking further against Tom, though his shields never wavered. His magic, at least, remained alert.

Shortly after dawn broke, the raid subsided, and Tom collected Harry with one arm and Darling with the other, slowly making their way to Charing Cross Road. Tom rented them a room using Harry's money, and then asked Tom the barman to send for a healer.

“Can't, Tom the Student,” The barman said somberly. “They're all busy at St. Mungo's tending everyone caught out last night. Best just take him there to be seen to.”

“Thank you,” Tom said, biting back a curse. He dropped Darling off in their room and then lugged Harry through the pub's floo into the hospital.

It was mayhem, with Witches and Wizards in various states of injury glutting the halls. Tom dropped Harry like a sack of stones onto a seat and went to give the receptionist his most charming smile.

She blinked blearily up at him–she was worried about her younger brother, who had been out in Muggle London last night, and she hadn't heard from since. “Hello,” Tom said, injecting a lace of fraternal worry into his voice. He gestured towards Harry. “My little brother and I were caught in the raid. He hit his head and hasn't been right–I’m terribly worried about him. His name's Harry Potter. He's only fourteen.”

The Witch blinked again before softening completely, filling a form with a wave of her wand, which then went zipping down the hallway. “Don't worry dear,” she assured him. “He'll be seen next.”

“Thank you,” Tom sighed, crossing back to crouch down in front of Harry. “Someone will come for you soon.”

Harry frowned. “You too.”

“I'm fine,” Tom said, running a thumb across his hand, which was covered in dust. They both were. Tom's hair must look atrocious.

“You always say that,” Harry glared. “You're getting looked at too.”

Soon enough, a harried healer came out calling for a Mr. Potter, to which Harry demanded that Tom be dragged along and poked at as well.

Harry had a minor contusion and concussion, both of which were cleared up quickly, and Tom had a bit of sediment in the lung, which was summarily vanished, before both of them were politely ejected to make room for the next patients.

“Did you dream about the raid?” Tom asked. He'd never given Harry's odd dreams much thought before, though he'd said he'd had a dream about Billy's rabbit, which was what had sent him looking for Tom that night, so long ago.

“Not really,” Harry said, looking haunted. “It was weird. I dreamed about a voice talking about the War, as if it was already over, as if it had happened a long time ago. And there were pictures of bombers and a ruined London and a bunch of dates, and one of them was today. Then when I woke up, I just…knew it was about to happen.”

“You're a Seer,” Tom breathed, though he'd never truly believed in them until that moment. “Some Wizards theorise that all natural Occlumens have the Sight. Their Occlumency protects their visions from being weaponized by others.”

Harry, despite all his incessant joking about Divination, seemed spooked by this idea. “Do you think Wool's is okay?”

“Our things will be fine,” Tom was confident, protected by the dozens of protective charms he'd laid into their trunks. “I don't care about the rest.”

Wool's, they would later find out, was not fine; just minutes after their departure, the first bomb tore into their street, sending a tree crashing through the orphanage roof and into Tom's bed. Had they still been there, they would have been crushed.

Their trunks, as Tom was sure they would be, were perfectly intact, easily summoned by him to their room at the inn–another crime he was hoping to be forgiven for. They spent the rest of the month hiding behind magic like children ducked beneath their mother's skirts, while the world around them was reduced, little by little, to rubble.

And then, just days before London was to be blitzed from the map, they returned to the safety of Hogwarts.

Harry was different that year. Months spent waking up to raid sirens and huddling in bomb shelters, sleeping with his shoes on just in case, subsisting on half rations, had resulted in a changed boy. True, those first two summers, before Harry's bastard allowance, they had spent going hungry, their bodies always slow to reacclimate to the constant access to rich foods once they returned to the castle. Tom had noticed other students, usually mudbloods, with the same problem. But now Harry carried an anger always simmering just inside him, galvanised by witnessing so much death first-hand. Borne from the feeling of helplessness as he waited, hiding in the dark, wondering if he was next on the cutting block.

It pleased Tom to see Harry happy, to bask in the warmth Harry was always eager to share. But it pleased him just as much to see this rageful Harry, like a match hungry for a spark. He almost preferred it.

No one else seemed to be able to discern the subtle shift of his shoulders, the new tension in his spine. And, after a summer spent bereft of his lord's correspondence, Avery was itching in the teeth more than usual.

Harry did not always sit with Tom in the classes they shared, somehow conscious of when Tom wished to spend that time having the ear of one of his acolytes, or sometimes preferring to sit with one of his lackadaisical Gryffindors. Today, though, Harry slumped into the seat beside Tom, slumped into Tom himself, leaning on him with a sigh, breathing in the scent on his collar.

“How d'you feel about being my pillow for the next two hours?” Harry asked, words muffled by Tom's shirt.

“This is one of the only classes I can rely on you to carry yourself through,” Tom murmured, rubbing at the bruising beneath Harry's eye. “Did you not sleep?”

“Bad dreams,” Harry grumbled. “You keep dying. And when I wake up, you're not there for me to check…” To check if Tom was still alive, as Tom had often woken to check Harry when they were younger, surrounded as they were by sickly children so given to dying feverishly in their sleep. Harry's hand drifted up and pressed against Tom's chest, just over his heart.

“Still beating,” Tom smirked.

“For now,” Harry grinned, biting even through his exhaustion. This proved too much for Avery's taut patience.

“You dare threaten our lord,” he hissed. “As if a dog like you could ever harm him!”

Harry stared at Avery before looking tiredly at Tom. His hand was still atop his chest, practically a caress. “I'm going to hurt him,” Harry warned him, irritation flaring up anew. He hated nearly all the Slytherins, anyone who had given Tom trouble that first year, but he especially hated Avery, who had delighted in Tom's torment before his ancestry had come to light.

Tom could only grin, reaching up to squeeze Harry's wrist in wordless support. He adored when Harry gave into the violence that lurked within him, when he got messy with it.

Professor Merrythought was taking volunteers for a practical duel. Harry lazily raised a hand and simply cut off his Gryffindor classmate who was already speaking. “I'll go against Avery.”

Avery leapt up to make his way to the platform, Harry taking his time in following him. Once they bowed, Harry's shields went up, shattering the three rapid curses Avery cast.

Tom leaned back in his seat, feeling very much like a king on his throne, watching his favoured knight in a battle for his honour. Harry was playing with Avery, just as he played with rival Seekers on the pitch, a predator in every sense of the word despite his small stature, despite the easy roll to his shoulders. Other people would mistake his grace for lethargy, his strategy for hesitation. But after minutes spent lazily flicking Avery's hexes away, Avery growing more frustrated by the second, Harry finally launched his attack.

He fought like it was breathing, casting two, three spells one after the other as if rattling off one long word, moving with his wand as though it was an extension of his body. Harry had always had a natural gift for duelling, but he wasn't a braggart, going weeks without displaying his talent, which meant their more small-minded classmates would simply forget what he could do. Tom never forgot. Tom revelled in the knowledge.

Finally, Harry sent a stunner, a spell to freeze Avery's feet, and a disarming spell, all back to back. Avery could block the first but not the last two, wand ripped from his fist as he tried not to double over, both feet buried beneath sudden glaciers.

“Very good, Mr. Potter,” Merrythought said, the rest of the class giving applause.

Harry flicked Avery's wand back at his reddened face, uncaring, and hopped down, leaning over the table until his cheek was pressed to Tom's, a winner gloating over his spoils. “Get your minions in line,” he murmured. “Before I start hurting their feelings.”

“You may do to them whatever you like,” Tom said. “Though I'd prefer you not damage them irreversibly. They do have their uses, still.”

Harry snorted, finally taking his seat. He took Tom's hand as well, which Tom allowed, a reward for such a duel. And over Tom. It had left him with a heady feeling, a rush of pure glee, well worth letting Harry fiddle with his fingers for the next two hours, daring anyone else to question his right to do so.

No one did.

Avery was not the only one to suffer the whetted blade of Harry’s wrath. Professor Said had taken an early retirement and an odious woman named Margella had taken her place. Harry had, at first, bemoaned the idea of continuing on in Arithmancy; he’d only agreed to take the course in fourth year because he knew Tom would be there and, Tom suspected, to keep an eye on Hagrid, though Tom couldn’t imagine how the half-wit expected to pass the O.W.L.

While Professor Said had not been the best Professor, more passionate about the subject itself than the teaching of it, she’d at least tried to foster the interest of her more mathematically minded students. Professor Margella, by contrast, seemed entirely unconcerned with teaching anything at all beyond subjugation.

Forgetting supplies, tardiness, speaking out of turn, and answering a question wrong were all answered with the same punishment; correction lines written for the duration of the class with a blood quill. This was, of course, not something Tom would ever have to worry about. But for Harry, who now, more than ever, faced down perceived injustice like a bull catching sight of a red cloth, it was not to be borne.

Hagrid was that day’s victim, which only hitched Harry’s shoulders up further. The oaf simply couldn’t help himself, glutton for idiocy that he was. Even a child could have correctly calculated the problem. Tom had half a mind that the blood quill might finally make the lesson sink in, but Harry was never going to allow it.

“Maybe he’d get it right if you’d actually teach us something,” Harry bit out, and Tom watched in silent seething as he stole the stammering half-breed’s punishment, smug even as he etched numbers into the back of his hand.

Tom had the wound healed by the time they reached the Great Hall, Harry infuriatingly indifferent towards his own wound, caring more about the woman’s insults towards Hagrid than the marks which, if left untreated, would have undoubtedly scarred–though he did manage to interrupt his own ranting to thank Tom, clutching his hand gratefully.

It wouldn’t be enough; Harry would spend the year bearing the weight of the class’ follies, the whole school’s were he able, until his arm carried the entire numeric alphabet, Tom knew. He pulled Malfoy aside after the meal concluded.

“Your father is on the Board of Governors, isn’t he?” At Malfoy’s nod, Tom continued. “Tomorrow, you’ll be tardy to Arithmancy. After class, you’ll write to your father about the blood quill and ask for some sort of healing ointment. Say the Hospital Wing is out of it, and your hand is in too much pain to hold your wand.” He did not tell Malfoy what would happen should he refuse.

“Darling,” Harry cooed, pressing his face right up to the snake's. He was worried about her suffering from the trauma of the raid, a nonsensical fear, which Tom told him. The both of them were sprawled out over the Slytherin common room sofa, half in Tom's lap, Darling because she liked to be by the fire and Harry because he hadn't yet grown tired of flaunting his proximity to Tom, and Tom had not yet grown tired of letting him. “Have you had any bad dreams, my sweet?”

“No dreams,” Darling hissed sleepily. “Only sleep.”

“I told you, she's fine,” Tom sighed, tugging Harry's hair in reproach.

“Well forgive me for caring,” Harry sniped back, teething at Tom's wrist until he released him.

The silence that greeted them was stifling. Tom glanced up to find all of his knights staring, shell-shocked as any Muggle soldier. Ah, they hadn't realised Harry was also a Parselmouth. This could prove disastrous, if Tom's identity as Slytherin's sole Heir came into question.

Tom placed a hand, firm, around the nape of Harry's neck. “It was a gift,” he explained, keeping his face stoic, his voice mild. “I could share with only one, my Chosen. When we were very young.”

The knights settled as they took this new information in. They'd known Harry held his favour, that much was obvious. But for Tom to have chosen to share this piece of himself, something so special, so highly coveted–favour was no longer an apt description.

Tom looked down to find Harry was incredibly amused. “Thank you for your gift, my lord,” he smirked, rubbing his face into the weave of Tom's trousers. “This is all very silly.”

“But necessary,” Tom told him.

“If you say so.”

“Speak in your man's tongue,” Darling scolded them. “I wish to sleep.”

“Good idea,” Harry mumbled, in English. He yawned before sitting up from Tom's lap, coiling Darling up into his arms. “We're going to bed,” he told Tom, leaning in until his warm cheek pressed against Tom's, an endearingly snake-like gesture. “Goodnight, minions,” he called, disappearing into Tom's dorm room.

Tom turned immediately to Black. “Any luck?”

“Father is sending me all the maps of the castle he could find in the family library,” Black assured him. “They go back to the Middle Ages. I'm sure one of them will have it.”

“Excellent,” Tom allowed a rare smile for his acolytes, feeling very strongly that this year was going to be better than any before. He was comfortably at the top of the Slytherin food chain, sure to earn a Prefect's badge by the next year, on his way to a level of notoriety no other Wizard had ever achieved, and Harry was in his bed, waiting for Tom to join him. “It's time I claim my inheritance.”

“Tom,” Harry murmured sleepily, only half-awake, reaching for Tom's hand which lay on his chest, feeling the drumbeat of his heart.

“Yes?”

“Had a dream,” he sighed, bringing Tom's hand up to his mouth, biting at the heel of his palm.

Tom understood the impulse, leaning in, sinking his teeth into Harry's shoulder, harsh, until Harry whined. “What was your dream?”

“Promise me you won't break yourself,” Harry said, sounding suddenly desperate, eyes killing curse bright in the dark. They shuttered when Tom hovered close, running his nose against Harry's cheek, Harry's palm cupping his head, holding him there. “Promise.”

“Harry, I promise you, I'm the last person I would ever break,” said Tom, letting his lips drift over skin as he spoke, giving into the urge to dart his tongue out like a serpent's, needing every sense.

Harry hummed, mollified, turning his face to lick over Tom's mouth, a playful thing, humming again at the taste. “Don't want to lose you.”

Tom rolled until he was blanketing him, Harry pleased by this, always wanting Tom closer, as close as he could get. Tom considered his own dreams, Harry crowned in thorns, stigmata, Tom's hand inside all of his wounds, tender and merciless, a god sundered just for him. The look on Harry's face: devotion. He wanted to hurt him, and he wanted to heal the hurt. He wanted to shatter him beyond repair and then solder the shards into a portrait of stained glass, something divine. Something worthy of him.

“You won't,” Tom whispered, settling into the curve of his neck, the warm scent that lived there. “I'll have you forever.”

In the morning, Tom woke Harry with a hand around his throat, squeezing gently, just enough for him to gasp awake. Harry blinked up at him, eyes still glazed with sleep, reaching up, stroking Tom's fist where it collared him, thumb pressed to the artery in his wrist, the life thrumming there.

“You're beautiful,” Tom hissed, the first time he'd said it, far from the first time it had ever crossed his mind. “Let me see your shoulder.”

“You mean let you see what you did to me,” Harry said, sweet-edged from sleep, reaching over to tug the collar of his shirt down until Tom could see the bruise, a perfect match for his mouth, mottled purple. “What I let you do to me,” Harry added, and that was the best part of it, what Tom's dream had shown him, Harry, letting Tom stick his knife in him, letting him lick up the blood. Lying still for it, no binds necessary. Wanting it just as much.

“You'll let me do it again,” Tom smiled, watching Harry tip his head back, an invitation to his throat, a mark everyone else would see, a public branding. Who was he to decline?

It was not the sort of bruise those lust-minded couples so given to dark corners and tea shops treated as if they were promise rings. It was not more kiss than not. When Harry finally slung his uniform on and slouched out of the dorm, he wore a ring of sharp bruises above his tie, incapable of being mistaken for anything other than a bite.

Chapter 2: A Magic Day He Passed My Way

Chapter Text

Tom hardly ever went into the Gryffindors’ tower. It was nearly always packed with students slung over every inch of furniture, and many on the floor, gossiping or playing insipid card games, always digging their claws into anyone who walked through the portrait, trying to cajole them into joining in. One would be forgiven for thinking, at first glance, that the common room was a social club rather than a school dormitory. Tom wasn't sure he'd ever seen a single book in the room.

But Harry was proving more difficult to track down than usual, and Tom had already braved the Quidditch showers, leaving the tower as the only place left to check. Harry was a creature of habit, usually.

Tom shrugged off half a dozen invitations and mild House-driven insults with as much cool politeness as he could muster before heading up to Harry's dorm.

“Tom!” Harry said, brightening instantly at seeing him, which soothed some strange feeling in his chest Tom had been trying not to look at. He didn't think Harry had been avoiding him, that would have been absurd, if anything Harry wanted to see Tom more than Tom wanted to see Harry. He never seemed to itch for a moment to himself. But things had…changed, since the night in Tom's bed. Since his teeth had dug into Harry's flesh and found a home there.

Harry bounded over to him, having hastily redressed after practice, tugging Tom over to his bed, where he promptly threw himself over him like a haphazardly tossed quilt. “Smell good,” he sighed, sounding well pleased, as though Tom smelled as he did just for him.

Tom clenched a hand around the back of Harry's neck, tipping his head to get a look at the mark. “It's fading,” he frowned. It had been near a week; truthfully, Tom hadn't noticed Harry's lack at first, too embroiled in the search, grazing his fingers against the lining of each of Hogwarts’ hidden pouches like a pickpocket. But when he'd surfaced, he'd found himself irrationally disappointed to find that Harry wasn't there.

“Guess you'll just have to do it again,” Harry said, smiling. He reached a hand up to pet at Tom's mouth, rubbing his thumb against the downward corner. “Aw, don't pout. I figured you'd want some space, is all. Was waiting for you to come to me.”

The feeling in Tom's chest evolved into something hot to the touch, a woodstove hungry for weald. He wanted to dissolve Harry into a salve Tom could rub into his skin, let it sink into every pore, feed into that fire. He pulled out his wand, pressed it to Harry's temple, digging in like a sharp kiss. Harry didn't even blink, didn't flinch away, didn't shift from his look of total trust.

“Legilimens,” Tom whispered, expecting nothing and receiving it, not even a wisp of a thought. He sighed, wand falling down to the mattress.

“I wish you could read them too,” Harry said softly. “Wish you could see yourself how I see you.”

“And how do you see me?” He already knew, Harry was so obvious, never trying to hide anything on his mind. Still, he wanted to hear it.

“A darkness so thick it's comforting. Like I can just close my eyes and know nothing else will get to me. Nothing else can touch me. I'm safe.”

“I can make that happen,” Tom offered, running a hand over his ribs, no longer skeletal after months of good eating. “Lock you away in some dark place, where only I can touch you.” He considered the thought and found it enticing. He would miss the glimpses he saw of Harry throughout the day, unplanned and sweeter for it, but having him entombed in safety and utterly to himself may prove better.

“Yeah?” Harry laughed, running his own hands over Tom in turn, greedy after absence. “You want that? Me stuffed away in your trunk to be taken out whenever you want a cuddle or something to sink your teeth into?”

“The idea has its merits,” Tom murmured, and then sank his teeth in, his mouth riding the wave of Harry's throat as he gasped through the pain. He thought about everyone's hands that had touched Harry, his Harry, the most precious thing Tom had ever taken for himself–his Quidditch teammates, his Gryffindor friends–and bit harder, bit until he could feel blood leaking into his mouth.

Harry laughed at the wound, whimpered, then laughed again, reaching to wipe the blood from Tom's chin when he finally pulled back, humming around his stained thumb. “I know you don't like anyone else,” Harry said, breathless, the bite still bleeding sluggishly, neither of them eager to heal it. “Respect some, maybe. Tolerate others. Disdain the rest. I know you only care for me. Don't think I'm not grateful. Don't think I don't feel f*cking privileged.” Harry combed Tom's hair back where it had fallen free of his staying potion. “I know you don't understand why I'd want to spend time with anyone else. You hate them for having my affection. Not all the time, maybe. Sometimes you need a bloody break from me and all my,” he waved a lazy hand. “Me-ness. But I hope you know it's not a competition. It's never been. I've always loved you best. Always will.”

“It's a wonder you're so tragic when it comes to Legilimency,” Tom said, incapable of saying anything else, had always known love wasn't a real thing, just a fairytale spun for naive children, alongside Saint Nick, alongside good and evil. But he couldn't name the feelings Harry evoked in him, like this, spread under him, at his mercy and grateful for it. Some of them, yes. Hunger. Fascination. Pleasure. Anger, too. For existing, for knowing Tom as he did, for making Tom unwilling to release him. He had begun to find the mere idea of it unbearable, an indignity all its own, given Tom was meant to be able to bear anything.

Harry rolled his eyes. “It's not like I just know you, or anything.”

“You are the only one who ever has,” Tom murmured, the closest to acquiescence he would ever give. Harry looked satisfied, nonetheless. “You are the only one I want to.”

“I know,” Harry smiled. “Like I said, I'm thankful.” He turned his head, a reminder that he'd always been capable of manipulation when he fancied it, having learned from the best. Eyes hooded, ruined neck on full display. “Should I say thank you, my lord? Or would you prefer master?”

Tom's next bite was made with fury, Harry writhing beneath him, for all the world as though Tom was a true snake with a mouse between his jaws. “Demon,” Tom hissed, wishing he could bite through bone. He could, the human jaw was strong enough, but it might damage Harry beyond his skill to fix. Perhaps a spell… “The priests were right about you.”

“That was you,” Harry laughed, breaking into a wail, Salazar, no one tested Tom's self control more, he wanted to kill him and then breathe him back to life.

Tom wrenched back, eyes trained on that quivering throat, a mess of blood and bruising, indents from his teeth like footsteps across sand. He was breathing as heavily as Harry, body shaking with the effort of holding himself back, the sensation of Harry's hands soothing down his spine, over his shoulders, filtering in slowly. “You should come to the next meeting.”

Harry blinked up at him sluggishly, green swallowed up by black, slicked by desire. “With your minions?” He was bewildered, still flushed with wanting, Tom could feel the restlessness of his hips, the urge to press closer which Harry was swallowing down.

Tom had never invited Harry to attend any meetings with the Knights of Walpurgis, and Harry had never asked to attend. He could hardly stand to share space with Tom's acolytes in classrooms or the dungeons; he certainly wasn't eager to spend more time around them.

But this meeting was different. Special.

“We'll be conducting a ritual,” Tom said, frowning as he struggled to force his breath to come evenly. He had mastered his body at eleven years old, surely it should take more than a few raw tastes to tear through his control so completely. “I'd like you to be there.”

“It's not tonight is it?”

“No,” said Tom. “Why?”

“It's the anniversary of the Grey Lady's murder,” Harry said, having kept up his friendships with Hogwarts’ various ghosts over the years, even the notoriously secretive ones. “I like to keep her company.”

“Are you free on the thirty-first, or shall you be attending another Deathday Party?” Tom asked, never letting Harry forget the dreadful gathering he'd dragged Tom to their second year. Tom had sacrificed the marvellous Hallowe'en Feast for a tableful of mould and blithering ghosts who hadn't had the good sense to die alongside their corpses.

Harry rolled his eyes before pressing a hand to Tom's cheek. “I'll be there. On one condition.”

Tom tensed, and Harry laughed to see it. Tom did not make a habit of conceding. But for Harry, within reason…

“It isn't anything bad,” Harry promised, his hand slipping to brush gently over Tom's pristine throat. He brushed a thumb against the hinge of Tom's jaw. “A small one. Right here. Mostly hidden by shadow.” He looked so eager, so open, like a window Tom could just crawl through. He'd let Tom take anything, plunder all of him, in return for such a small mark, nothing like the massacre of his own neck, only a reminder that Tom felt, if not the same, at least something similar. Fondness enough to allow him this. Tom ducked his head close enough for Harry to lean up, enough for the grip of his mouth to reach.

It was not like Tom's own starving mouthfuls. There was no viciousness, only a tender sucking of the skin, wet and warm and languid. It did not stoke the stove back to its inferno, but it settled warmly in Tom's stomach, Harry's legs spreading, hands gently pressing until Tom sank down on top of him completely, Harry's sigh swallowed by Tom's skin.

It lasted for hours, Harry drinking from him, suckling like a sleepy calf, humming little sounds of pleasure that seeped into the air around them until the entire room felt warm. Tom felt himself grow drowsy, fingers weaving through Harry's curls like a tapestry on the loom. He had not expected to enjoy this, had expected the concession to rankle, to feel as though he was giving something up. He had expected it to hurt, and he had never found his own pain pleasant. Bearable, yes, but never pleasant.

But Harry's teeth, when they did meet him, were soft. Careful with him, as Harry had ever been. This, too, should have been an irritation. As though Harry thought him weak, thought Tom couldn't take it. But Harry knew what Tom could take, had seen it through the years, and now was offering him respite in response. A restfulness.

“Done,” Harry murmured, kissing the bruise for good measure, kissing Tom's cheek, the side of his nose, cradling him close. “Don't leave yet.”

Tom had a half-finished essay he'd meant to return to hours ago. He still had to put in place the finishing touches for the meeting, had to pilfer Slughorn's stash for ingredients, had to comb through the third floor, his next bit of uncharted territory begging to be charted.

He ran a finger along the ruination of Harry's throat, the texture he'd made of it, the art. Harry's eyes never strayed from his. “I won't.”

It had taken longer for Malfoy’s father to rally the Board than Tom expected; purebloods were predictable creatures, usually, and while they were not unopposed to corporal punishment within their own homes, an outsider physically harming their children was a crime against their house which could not go unpunished.

The first day Professor Margella, with a scowl, deducted House points rather than assigning sanguine lines, Harry gave Tom a knowing look.

While Tom didn't doubt his ability to break into Dumbledore's personal quarters, he did try a less inconvenient method, first.

Rubeus Hagrid had looked at first wary and then anxious to find Tom cornering him at the chicken coops, which Tom found privately delightful and then disappointing, as he knew there would be no torment to be had with the half-breed's nerves. He was too thick to enjoy playing with, anyhow.

“What's it, Riddle?” Hagrid asked, eyeing the empty fields around them, as if hoping Harry might somehow appear out of nothing. To be fair, when he skulked around in his invisibility cloak, that was what seemed to happen.

“I have a question about magical creatures and the procuring of them,” Tom said, affecting his kindest and least offensive tone, which Harry loved to mock him for.

Hagrid brightened up considerably, perhaps thinking Harry's good word might outweigh all the times Tom had allowed his acolytes to ridicule him. Gryffindors were like dogs, it seemed, content to live in the present moment with total disregard for past or future. “Oh, is it about the beautiful cruor? Yer wanna get her a friend?”

“No, though she is wonderful,” Tom said, genuine that time. Hagrid may have been a half-wit, but he had facilitated Darling's arrival into Tom's life, perhaps the only meaningful thing the boy would ever do. “I'm actually in the search for a phoenix, or perhaps just someone who has one. I don't need the whole bird, and nothing harmful to it. Only one or two ingredients for potion-making–I’m helping Slughorn with his winter stores.”

“Oh,” Hagrid frowned, as though thinking, surely a difficult task for him. “I dunno anyone with a phoenix, or any, uh, phoenix bits. Except Dumbledore, o’ course. Say, why don't yer just ask him?”

Tom very masterfully did not bite down on his tongue until it bled, nor did he curse the simpleton. “Unfortunately, Dumbledore doesn't like to offer assistance to Slytherins. I assume it's down to House rivalry, but alas, he's said no every time.”

“Oh,” Hagrid looked incredibly sympathetic. “I'm sorry to hear that. If yer want, I could ask him?”

With Tom's luck, the dolt would simply trip down the steps and break any vial Dumbledore provided him with. And that was assuming Dumbledore wouldn't check the half-breed's memory first. Even Obliviating and then Imperiusing him wouldn't be helpful, as Tom wasn't yet an expert at doing so seamlessly, and Dumbledore was a skilled Legilimens; he'd be able to tell right away.

“I appreciate the offer,” Tom said, exuding kind, exuding absolutely no f*cking offense. “But I suspect he'd just accuse me of manipulating you. I'll just tell Slughorn he'll have to butter the professor up, himself.”

He turned, grateful for the end of the interaction if nothing else, but Hagrid called him back. “Hey, Riddle!” At Tom's raised brow, he grew bashful. “Ah, look–Harry’s always said yer the best and I never understood it, to be frank with yer. But Harry's a good mate, an’ I gotta say, takes guts being where yer are, being a half-blood an’ all. I always say us half-bloods should stick together! An’ yer always stuck by Harry, so yer alright in my book.”

Tom blinked, stunned speechless perhaps for the first time in ten years. That this half-breed abomination who could barely spell his own name might think he had anything in common with Tom was pure lunacy.

Still, he was Harry's pet, and seemed to prioritise Harry's well-being, and if Tom were to hurt him, Harry would be upset. This would not be unbearable, and Harry would stand by Tom as he always had. But Tom had reached the sickening realisation that he only wanted Harry upset if it was by Tom's own design, no one else involved, only his hands wringing the tears from him, and his hands soothing them away.

“Thank you,” said Tom. “Harry thinks very highly of you as well.” And with that, he left the idiot to be pleased by the crumb of a compliment. As if Harry didn't think well of just about everyone, ridiculous boy that he was.

But he loves me best, Tom thought, rubbing at it like a coin in the pocket.

Tom had initially planned to steal the cloak. It would be easy enough; Harry used it to sneak into Tom's bed every few nights, leaving it puddled on the floor to be utilised again the next morning. It would be simple to worm his way from Harry's clutches, don the cloak, and be in and out of Dumbledore's office before dawn.

But then Tom thought about the delicious feeling of Harry saying yes, Harry giving Tom whatever he asked for, hardly ever saying no and then only when he thought Tom might mean to hurt something. Harry had never judged Tom's thievery, had participated himself more than once.

And, somewhere in that tangled miasma of feelings, Tom wanted to know if Harry really did trust him, unequivocally, unquestioningly. So he went against his better nature, his Slytherin pride, and asked permission.

“What is it?” Harry asked, already drowsy, just from leeching Tom's body heat for an hour. “You want something.”

“Would you let me use your cloak?” Tom asked, gaze focused on the ceiling, the dance of moonlight through water cast from the window. He didn't want Harry to think he cared about his answer. He didn't want to care about the answer. He'd take the cloak either way, whether he had to cast a sleeping charm or not.

“Yeah,” Harry said, snuggling closer. “Obviously. When?”

“Now,” Tom drawled, refusing to betray the thing bursting in his chest, what felt like a garden rushing into bloom all at once.

Harry pulled back a bit to look at him, reaching over to force Tom's eyes onto his. He didn't look suspicious. Only worried. “Are you okay? Want me to come with?”

Tom rolled over until he was pinning him down, didn't bother to bite back his smile, tone it down into something it wasn't. He was pleased. He was, maybe, something close to happy. He wanted to bite through Harry's tongue and then tenderly stitch it back together by hand. He'd even cast a numbing charm, first. “No questions about what I'll use it for?”

“As long as you're safe,” Harry frowned. “And don't get expelled. I'm not a schemer. I'll just end up storming the Ministry, and then we'll both get our wands broken.”

“You might be the best thing that's ever happened to me,” Tom murmured, tracing the lines of Harry's face, wishing he could touch his skull through the skin. Wishing he could dip his head into his perfect, mysterious brain like a pensieve. “You and magic.” But for Tom, Harry and magic had become nearly inseparable. There could not be one without the other.

“You're definitely the best thing that's ever happened to me,” Harry smiled. “You and magic.” He spoke brokenly through a yawn. “Sure you don't want me to come with?”

“No,” Tom whispered, taking Harry's lower lip between his teeth, biting down until Harry whimpered, and then releasing. “Get some sleep. I'll be back before you wake up.”

“Kay,” Harry yawned again, now settling into the very centre of the bed like the spoiled brat he was. “Love you.”

Tom considered lying. He spent more time lying than doing anything else. Every moment he shared with anyone who wasn't Harry was a lie. And this would be a kind one, he was sure. The sort of thing other people thought it was fine to lie about, because it made someone else happy.

But Harry had never asked Tom to be anything other than what he was. Had never seemed to want him to be. Not after the dog, not after the cave, not after the rabbit. Not after the slew of creatures he'd slain that first year at Hogwarts, which he knew Harry knew about, though he'd never asked. He knew Tom, and he knew that Tom always had a reason. He'd trusted his reasons to be justified.

He'd told Tom, just once, not to kill. That day in the cave. And Tom knew Harry was soft, hadn't wanted Amy and Dennis to die, but mostly he hadn't wanted Tom to risk getting caught. And Tom was just a child then, reckless and not in control of his magic. He would have been caught. And Harry would have lost him.

Tom wouldn't give him dishonesty now, not after thirteen years.

“I adore you,” he whispered, something he felt confident was true, and Harry's tired smile was blinding in the dark.

Dumbledore's office wards were surprisingly easy to undo. The space was small and untidy, littered with empty Sugarplum’s wrappers, the professor seemed to have a serious addiction. The bird sat perched in a cage across the room, its open eyes catching every scant bit of light and reflecting them until they seemed to glow. The effect was eerie. It stared directly at Tom, as though the cloak was opaque, rendering Tom's form visible.

He cast the strongest silencing charms he knew, and a disillusionment for good measure, before approaching the bird.

Tom still felt quite sure that animals did not feel things as people did. Their small brains simply couldn't allow for it. But his time with Darling had taught him that magical creatures, at least, do feel some things, and carry distinct thoughts of their own, even if they were less complex.

So, Tom once again took an awkwardly unnatural approach, and greeted the bird as if it could understand him.

“If it helps,” he said, wondering if the phoenix could understand human speech and body language the way a hippogriff supposedly could, or if there was a specific phoenix tongue, his own language incomprehensible. Dumbledore sometimes spoke to it, but the old man was a particular brand of fool in several particular ways, so that didn't mean much. “I'm not just taking it for my own gain. And, if you're anything like a chicken, you won't even feel it. I've tested the spell. So, if you could simply allow me to take what you aren't really using, I'd be much obliged.”

He felt as much of a fool as Dumbledore, more maybe, but Tom could appreciate beauty, and the bird certainly was that. A creature of pure magic. No matter how deeply he hated Dumbledore–and it was very deep–Tom could never bring himself to kill something like this for mere pettiness. It was nearly a shame to see it caged.

But the cage was admittedly convenient, in this case.

Tom raised his wand and cast the spell he'd spent the last week perfecting. There was no visible effect, but that was to be expected. Next, he withdrew his vial, and cast a modified cutting curse, levitating the blood into glass, before healing the wound. Throughout it all, the bird remained soundless, staring at Tom with its alien look, watching him until the moment he slipped back out the door. He replaced Dumbledore's wards impeccably, and retreated to the dungeons.

He folded the cloak–it really was spectacular, nothing like the invisibility cloaks he'd read about, for how old it supposedly is, no wear or tear or signs of the charms wearing off due to age–and set it carefully on his trunk. Then he crawled into bed, curving around the line of Harry, burying himself in the nest of curls.

“Mm,” Harry moaned, waking just a little. “Everything okay?”

“Everything went perfectly, go back to sleep.” Tom tried to shift them over so he had more than half a metre of mattress space. “I've spoiled you too much. You've taken over my bed.”

“My bed now,” Harry sleepily agreed. “I use it more than you do. You're basically a vampire.”

“Am I?” Tom nosed his way through Harry's hair and buried his teeth meanly in the back of his neck. Harry made a sound like a bird that'd had its neck snapped and then stilled, playing dead. It pleased Tom more than he'd ever thought it might; he could still feel the rabbity pulse in Harry's neck, vibrating through his teeth, panicked like a prey animal's. But Harry held himself so still, so limp, as though Tom really had killed him, as though he could do whatever he wanted to him, now.

Tom rolled him over, until Harry was on his stomach, only mostly in the centre of the bed. Tom splayed out over him, holding him down, no chance of escape. He wasn't sure Harry could breathe, face buried as it was in the pillow. But he gave no struggle, didn't even turn his head in search of air. Tom could suffocate him right then, right there, and Harry would let him.

Tom had wanted to kill people before. Not like the animals, save that first dog–the animals were tools, a means to an end. He derived no pleasure from it beyond the reaction he knew it would provoke, the hurt it would cause. But people he only ever wanted to kill reactively. He would see it play out in his scene like a film at the cinema. Someone who angered him, annoyed him, hurt him. Someone who hurt Harry. And in that split second, Tom would see them killed, see them buried, see himself getting away with it.

It was almost never worth the hassle of reality. He had never gone through with it. Came close yes, in the cave, and once when Billy had his back to Tom at the top of the stairs. But never followed through. None of them were worth the time and energy.

But Harry was different. Tom wanted to kill Harry as he imagined a painter wanted to create a master work, as he imagined a sculptor wanted to form the next Venus de Milo. Not to humiliate Harry, not to degrade him, but to exalt him. He saw it happen in painstaking detail, colours forming shapes on the canvas. Lightless black and earthen brown and green, that most beautiful shade, the colour of death itself.

Tom gripped Harry by the hair, raised his head, listened affectionately to his gasping breaths, clutching at life. “Did you think I would let you die?” he whispered, stroking Harry's flank as his body remembered how to keep itself alive. Tom skimmed his mouth down the side of his face, unmarred by his glasses, wet from watering eyes. He licked at the tears, the same flavour as seawater, and Harry groaned, flailed a hand back to clutch at Tom, bring him closer. “I won't,” Tom promised him, the tone he used when he wanted someone to know the threat was real. “Not ever.”

“Forever, huh?” Harry murmured, a laugh caught in his throat, voice hoarse. He shifted so he could catch Tom's mouth with his teeth, a kittenish nip, playful, harmless, affectionate above all else. “More vampire talk.”

The night of the ritual was Samhain, which Tom selected for what he believed to be obvious reasons, though Harry seemed reticent to understand.

“You know I hate Halloween,” he grumbled, even as he let Tom throw the black hooded cloak over his shoulders, let him smooth back his curls so the hood properly shielded his face.

Tom did know that, had known it since they were children. Another one of Harry's mysterious dreams, perhaps the earliest manifestation of his Sight besides the Occlumency; a wicked voice, a woman's scream, a flash of bright green light. As soon as Tom learned about the killing curse, had seen what it looked like, he was sure that was a part of it. A future Samhain, perhaps, during which Harry would witness the murder of some woman. Tom had, briefly, wondered if he was the one to cast the curse, but Harry had never seemed to recognize the voice, and Tom couldn't imagine a world in which Harry would find any part of Tom unrecognisable.

“I thought it might be nice to have a different memory for the day,” Tom said, adjusting Harry's glasses so they sat perfectly on his nose, though his efforts would inevitably be ruined by the inherent crookedness of the frames. Harry had let Tom change them into a slim gold pair, at least, but Transfiguration could only go so far.

“Liar,” Harry snorted. “You picked it for magical reasons. Which I get. And it would be nice if I didn't have to share you with your stupid cult.”

“It's hardly a cult,” Tom said, amused rather than offended. Only because he knew Harry's ire lay in care for Tom. Harry didn't really know enough about the Knights of Walpurgis to be upset with anything else, though Tom knew the purebloods’ more insular worldviews were sure to at least earn a scowl or two. It couldn't be helped; purebloods were still the foundation of Wizarding society, no matter how idiotic they were.

Tom didn't truly give a damn about blood status, and likely never would. He thought it was, like most things humanity decided to hinge their cares on, entirely arbitrary. He didn't have any sympathy for struggling mudbloods or even half-bloods raised Muggle like himself; after all, he had managed to top every class by the end of his first year, after starting from nothing. He wasn't about to offer platitudes to those who refused to do the same.

Likewise, he found the idea that Muggle-blooded Witches and Wizards were inferior at magic to be objectively and quite obviously untrue. Of all the purebloods at Hogwarts, only a dozen or so had any magical power of note. The majority of the top students, academically at least, were half-bloods and mudbloods, likely due to their intrinsic need to prove their worth. And the two most magically powered students, himself and Harry, were both Muggle-raised half-bloods, a natural Legilimens and natural Occlumens, both Parseltongues, and with incredibly strong magical cores to boot. That anyone could look at the evidence and come away thinking purebloods were inherently better at magic beggared belief.

But for one to beat the house, one had to play the game, as it were, and Tom was very good at the game.

That Joaquin Mulciber thought he was any match for Tom, just by virtue of being a seventh year pureblood and Head Boy, was laughable, and Tom had laughed him right to the Hospital Wing at the beginning of term. Now no one, not Mulciber nor any Prefect, had anything to say as Tom led his Knights–and Harry–berobed and carrying lanterns, out of the Slytherin common room well past curfew.

Tom led them through the winding corridors, through the belly of the castle into its bowels, what had once been the Founders’ Crypt before their bodies were moved to an undisclosed location after too many cases of student vandalism. The Black family archives had not been helpful in locating the Chamber, but they had directed Tom helpfully to this.

“This is a place of death, which is good, because death is what this ritual requires,” Tom began.

“You didn't mention killing,” Harry whispered, looking distraught. “I get sacrifice is a part of magic but I don't want to kill anything.”

Avery shushed him with a glare, to which Harry threw up two fingers. Tom grabbed hold of his wrist, squeezing until Harry's focus returned entirely to him.

“We aren't killing anything that isn't already dead,” he promised, and Harry looked so beautifully intrigued at that, his wide green eyes so striking in the dark, that Tom's irritation at his earlier interruption vanished. “I told you, I want this to be a good memory for you. Do you trust me?”

“Always,” Harry said, looking chastened, folding his hand into Tom's.

“The stupid little half-blood can't stomach a little killing,” Avery sneered. “What the hell is this ponce doing here?”

“Just because I don't want to kill something doesn't mean I don't know how to make someone hurt,” Harry said darkly. “There are a lot worse things than dying.”

Tom was pleased to see the Knights taken aback by Harry's abrupt change in tone, the aura that suddenly seemed threatening, cloaked around him. It was good for them to be reminded that Harry could bite.

“Harry is here at my invitation,” Tom said evenly. “Do you doubt my ability to make these decisions?”

A chorus of no, my lords rang out, echoing around the hollowed crypt.

“Good,” Tom said, his tone final. There would be no more interruptions; he would see this ritual through. “This is a place of death, because death is what this ritual requires. But it is also a place of life, of continuity. Alphard, the sacrifice.”

Alphard, the only Knight Tom ever called by first name, and then only because he was Orion Black's cousin, and things would otherwise get confusing, scrambled to pull a bag from beneath his robe. From within, he drew out the corpse of a slim black cat, entirely stiff but under several stasis charms to keep it from rotting. Alphard, with much gravitas, set the cat in the centre of the circle of nine lanterns.

Next, Tom withdrew a glass jar from his expandable pocket. “With this kiss, I bring life to death.” He poured the potion over the cat and stood back, holding his breath, the only part he hadn't been able to test himself, as he'd only managed to get enough ingredients for one dose.

Finally, the cat's fur began to twitch as its muscles grew lax and then mobile. Gasps rang out in the Crypt as the cat's eyes, nearly an exact match for Harry's, blinked open. It stretched languidly and then rolled onto its back haunches, licking its chops, tail flickering. It was, and would be for the next two to three hours, alive.

The soft babble of confused questioning began and then died as Tom raised a palm, requesting silence. Their questions could wait; the ritual could not.

“With this kiss,” Tom said, turning to Harry in question. “We take life back.”

Tom could read the question in Harry's eyes as though he'd spoken it aloud. Will it be painful?

Tom shook his head. The killing curse had always been recorded as instant and painless, though of course, as no one had ever survived it, there was no way to know for sure.

Harry nodded slowly and stepped forward. The cat stared up at him, green on green. Harry raised his wand and, as though he'd cast the curse many times before, voice gentle as a caress, said “Avada Kedavra.”

It was instant. It was possibly painless. The cat fell still once again.

“Malfoy,” Tom said. “The cups.”

Malfoy dutifully passed six cups around the circle, holding the seventh for himself, until each of them held one.

“You have each brought your own blood. Except for Harry, who will be sharing mine,” he glanced at Harry, who looked back with an odd little smile, and mouthed vampire. Rolling his eyes, Tom turned back to the circle at large. “Pour your libation into your cup.” He pulled out the vial of phoenix blood and poured half into his own cup before turning to empty the rest into Harry's. “Now, repeat the incantation exactly as I say, and then drink, finish it all in one go. Repeat as I say,” he recited the Latin perfectly, uncaring of the few Knights who stumbled through it. He only needed himself and Harry to get it right. They could have done this ritual just the two of them, and truthfully he'd have preferred it, but his Knights needed to be reminded every now and again all the things he could show them, the little splinters of magic they would never find on their own.

Tom turned to catch Harry's eye as they each drank, could tell he was thinking what Tom was, wishing it was Harry's blood in his cup, wishing it was Tom's in Harry's.

Harry did not blink as he finished in one long swallow. He did not gag. When the cup dropped away, his mouth was dark and wet. Tom wanted to run his tongue along the pool, wanted to drink the remnants from Harry's tongue, wanted to leave a trail of it down Harry's body, limning him in red.

“The ritual is complete. May this bring us closer to our magic.” Tom bent and retrieved his lantern, breaking the circle. “Alphard, dispose of the cat.”

“Can't we just leave it here?” Alphard asked, and at Tom's glare, shuffled his feet. “Yes, my lord.”

“Come on,” Harry said, taking Tom's hand. “We're sleeping in my dorm tonight, I want to be cosy.”

“The half-blood thinks he can dictate where our lord sleeps now,” Avery grumbled, and Harry, whose patience had burned down to the wick, whirled around.

“You know Tom's a half-blood,” he said scathingly. “And he's the most powerful Wizard of this generation. So when you talk down on half-bloods, you're talking down on your lord.”

“Riddle isn't a half-blood,” Black said. “He's the Heir of Slytherin.”

Harry shot Tom a look of incredulity, and Tom merely dipped his head. He couldn't begin to explain the irrational leaps in logic purebloods took to circumnavigate their own convoluted beliefs when they began to contradict each other.

“Yes,” Harry said, slowly, as though speaking to an idiot. “The Heir of Slytherin is a half-blood.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Potter,” Malfoy drawled. “Slytherin's Heir would never be a half-blood. Therefore, Riddle is not a half-blood.”

“Yeah, being the Heir cancels that out,” Alphard added helpfully.

Harry stared at the lot of them, Tom feeling more and more bemused by the second. “What the hell does that mean? This isn't BODMAS!”

Before he could swallow it back, Tom let out a laugh inadvertently, charmed by the bewildered grin Harry gave him, always pleased when he made Tom laugh. The Knights looked between them, confused by the Muggle term, trying not to betray their shock at hearing the Heir of Slytherin laughing.

“Fine, whatever, can we please spend the night in my bed, my lord? ” Harry asked, though it was never really a question, his poor attempt at offering Tom deference in front of his subordinates, a gesture which Tom could appreciate despite its lacklustre quality.

He reached out and wiped a stray bit of blood caught on Harry's lip, smudging the stain even further, tugging him closer by the jaw. He felt Harry's breath hitch around Tom's thumb before giving it a slow, hard suck. “Yes,” Tom agreed, knowing how this must look, knowing they should be careful, but not finding it in himself to care.

His Knights had just seen him bring the dead back to life. They were loyal to him to the point of irrationality. And they had each already sworn an unbreakable vow to never reveal anything that happened at a meeting.

In the tower, Tom stripped Harry of his cloak and casual wear before spreading him out on the mattress and running his mouth, still wet with blood, in a line from Harry's waist to his neck, pulling back to admire the path of red.

“I like you covered in blood,” Tom murmured, investing in all his earlier wants, stroking his tongue in and out of Harry's mouth, collecting up the taste of nickel.

“I can't believe this is our first real kiss and our mouths are filled with blood,” Harry laughed, moaning as Tom ducked back down to lick at the roof of his mouth. “You're not doing a good job at convincing me you aren't a vampire.”

“I considered it,” Tom admitted, and Harry laughed again. “The sacrifice was too great.”

“Having to give up food?” Harry groaned at the thought. “I know. Plus sunlight? Ugh.”

“It was mostly having to give up magic, for me,” Tom said, amused by Harry's look of surprise. “Underbeings are incapable of any magic beyond the kind that accompanies their supernatural abilities. For instance, a vampire's thrall.” He would also be in servitude to whichever vampire sired him, broken only by that sire's death. Tom had considered trapping a vampire, forcing it to turn him, and then dispatching it, but believed it would not be worth the hassle. Besides, vampires could still die. They simply did not die of natural causes.

“Wow, that's sh*t,” Harry said, smiling when Tom huffed another laugh. “Good call. Was this ritual another attempt at immortality, then?”

“Partly, I hope,” Tom coiled himself around Harry, feeling the tacky bits of his chest, where the blood had begun to dry. “It is a relatively simple blood magic ritual. You drink the blood of a creature whose traits you wish to emulate.”

“What did we all drink?” Harry asked. “It just tasted like blood to me. Maybe a little richer.”

“I don't know or care what the others drank. You and I drank the blood of a phoenix.”

Harry hummed. “Smart. You're so smart. Should we set ourselves on fire to see if it worked?”

Tom envisioned it: self-immolation while embraced, their spread arms resembling a phoenix's wings. He'd read cases of immolated saints singing in euphoria as they burned. Framed by snow would be best, a completely black silhouette of ash, surrounded by crisp white. “Perhaps tomorrow,” said Tom.

“What about that potion?” Harry murmured sleepily, rolling Tom's arm over his side and nestling back against him. “The one you used on the cat.”

“Templus amplius,” Tom explained. “Colloquially nicknamed the breath of life. Used by portrait makers mostly. It doesn't return a person's spirit, but reanimates their body for a short time. A few hours at the most.” There was not a true cure for death, or at least not one so easily found. But Tom had a history of doing things previously considered impossible.

“I'm going to petition Headmaster Dippet to let us stay at the castle over the summer,” Tom announced. They were enjoying the first warmth of spring out by the lake, now that the frost had finally thawed. Tom was getting a head start on studying for the O.W.L.s while Harry, predictably, was not studying at all.

“You have your methods and I have mine,” he'd said blithely when Tom began prodding at him.

“I'm the Heir of Slytherin,” Tom had said, firm and unrelenting. “I will not have my Chosen be waylaid by failing his exams like an imbecile.”

He'd used the wrong tone; Harry was too used to eating from his hand, too used to Tom's weakness for him, his own hurt temper sparked up by the inexorable Heir of Slytherin, who was used to wrangling his pitiful excuse for Knights.

“Oh is that so, Mr. Lordship?” Harry had snapped, embarrassed and furious in equal measure. “Maybe you should go date one of your bookworm Slytherins then, if you just want someone to boss around!”

Tom had snarled at that, and then there was a fight–no wands drawn, they hadn't even reached for them, only for each other, Harry going down hard on the bed like a mad cat, nails digging into Tom mercilessly as Tom moved to straddle his neck, cutting off Harry's airway as he pinned both his wrists.

And then–Harry's eyes grew wide and wet, glasses lost in the fray, mouth gaping as he struggled to breathe, and Tom shifted onto his knees, taking the weight off his lungs and throat just a little.

“Tom,” Harry whined, head tilting forward, mouth open wide, and Tom realised he was hard, a noticeable erection, Harry straining to wet his tongue against the trousers, groaning as Tom cursed and thrust forward into moist heat and blinding pleasure.

Harry kept his mouth open, tongue out for Tom to grind rough wool against, it couldn't have tasted good, couldn't have felt good, but Harry just kept whining as though it was his prick being licked at.

He kept his eyes on Tom's the whole time, tears clutching at his lashes like rain on a spider's web, and after Tom came he bent down to lick them away.

Harry was hard too, desperate and shivering from it, but Tom kept him pinned, moved one leg close enough for Harry to move against, albeit barely. When Harry tried to buck closer, Tom's grip tightened until he knew it would bruise, as though he'd tied Harry to the bed posts for hours, an option he had not yet disregarded. He bent low to hiss directly into Harry's ear.

“Just this,” he whispered, voice harsh, body unyielding, mind flickering away the disgust at the current state of his clothes as he focused solely on Harry, feverish and teary beneath him. “This is all you get. You're resourceful, Harry. Make the best of it.”

“Okay,” Harry gasped, hoarse from the strain on his throat, and hopefully that would bruise too, Tom wanted him to be one giant bruise, a glorious mosaic of purple and black. “Okay,” Harry sighed, slowing, writhing against him in languid lulls, a lazy tide, a drowsy serpent in the sun. He gazed up at Tom, blinking back tears, head tipping back in pleasure, the blotchy hill of his throat. “Thank you,” Harry whispered.

“f*ck you,” Tom swore, ducking down to sink his teeth in that neck, groaning as he sprung the trap of Harry's body, legs slung over Tom's hips, clawed hands digging crescent moons into the back of his neck, the curve of his shoulder. Tom's hands slid down, grasping Harry by the thighs, forcing him into a motion more rhythmic than desperate, until Harry gasped, seizing up with his org*sm.

“God,” Harry gasped, laughed, letting Tom pull him up until he was sitting propped in his lap. “I love you,” Harry said, and then bit Tom hard on the jugular, as meanly as he'd been gentle before, refusing to let go even as Tom scratched through the skin of his back, even as he threw them both back on the mattress, only releasing when he decided he was finished, the blood in his grin sending a rush of hot pleasure through Tom so intense he thought he'd somehow managed to come a second time.

“You're ruthless,” Tom purred, all the anger from earlier washed away in the face of this, Harry sweaty and bruised, with Tom's blood in his teeth. He wanted to open the thin skin of his wrist and feed him more.

“Me?” Harry laughed, leaning in until their noses brushed. “I love you. But do you really think I'm that stupid? That I'll fail all my O.W.L.s just because I'm not studying a year ahead of time?”

He wasn't crying, which was good, as Tom would undoubtedly miss the mark at comfort. Tom didn't understand crying from sadness or upsets; he had never cried, not once, except for unavoidable physiological reactions, as in the case of cutting onions, or a cold winter wind sparking the eye. It seemed ridiculous to react to anything in such an embarrassing, emotional way.

Harry wasn't crying, but he was looking at Tom, his usual look when he asked Tom a question and trusted him to answer it honestly.

“You aren't stupid,” Tom said slowly, brushing wet hair from Harry's face, letting Harry catch his hand, press it to his mouth, three chaste kisses. “I wouldn't invest so much into an idiot. But you rely too heavily on Gryffindor optimism. I worry…it may one day fail you.”

“You worry?” Harry arched a brow.

“You know I worry. Over you, in particular.” And how he worried. Harry, caught by a German raid, unable to reach a shelter, ribs crushed like an apple beneath a boot. Harry, somehow caught between an Auror guild and Grindelwald, framed in green. Harry, pulling one of his foolhardy Quidditch stunts and falling from his broom, dead on impact. Harry, flirting with a hundred little deaths everyday, and no way for Tom to stop them.

“I know,” Harry murmured. “I worry about you, too.” His face turned wry. “So I'm an investment, now?”

“I have invested years into you, Harry Potter,” Tom drifted closer, raising up on an elbow so he could loom over Harry, who just gave him a smile. “I have cemented your place at my side. Yes, you are an investment, and one I intend to collect on.”

“You can collect me whenever you want,” Harry said, happy, flushed, brushing his hands up Tom's sides.

Now, by the lake, Harry had his eyes closed, head laying claim to Tom's lap so he was forced to levitate his book above Harry's face.

“If you drop that on me, I will feed you to the Giant Squid,” Harry said sweetly.

“I think I can manage a first year charm,” Tom said idly, by turns frustrated that the position of his book was blocking Harry's face, and grateful for it. It had only been two days since their row in Harry's dorm, and Tom was struggling to think about anything else, which was beyond infuriating. Harry had always been a distraction, but this , being carried away by the torrential wave of hormones Tom had spent years disdaining his classmates for, was simply degrading.

Tom had never experienced it before. Not with himself, and certainly not with another person. He'd had erections before, he had a working body, but they had merely been another thing to either ignore or take care of, like hunger or a full bladder. Never had it involved pleasure. In fact the first time Tom had stroked himself to completion, he'd wondered what all the fuss was about. It was messy, and took time away from literally anything else he could be doing.

But Harry underneath him, Harry's eyes, his nails drawing blood, his wet mouth–Tom was, it seemed, a teenage boy, after all. It was troubling.

And now here he was, Harry's head in his lap, Harry's hands drawing gentle nonsensical patterns over his thigh, Harry sighing and pressing a drowsy kiss to Tom's knee, cupping the bone, and Tom suddenly desperate to turn his mind towards any other direction.

Hence, Headmaster Dippet. Surely no one could feel aroused when thinking of that old bat, resembling an eternally leafless, shivering tree rather than a Wizard.

“You are?” Harry blinked up at him, gently pushing the floating book away so he could see Tom's face. “Do you think he'll let us?”

“I've kept records of the Blitz casualties. Thousands, just in London. I suspect most purebloods are ignorant of the true danger, so I'll have to persuade him. But I can be very persuasive.”

“You can be,” Harry agreed, teeth digging into his lip, and Tom felt that disastrous heat flare up in him again.

“You have to stop,” Tom said, firm, tugging Harry's lip free, stroking it with his thumb as Harry watched his face with dark eyes. “I cannot ravage you by the lake. There are ants.”

Harry's laughter bubbled out of him like a fountain, clean and bright and clear.

Headmaster Dippet agreed to see Tom with almost feverish excitement. “Come in, my boy! Come in!” the old man waved Tom into his office with aggressive cheer. Tom had no idea where he stored all his energy in that wisp of a body. “What can I do for one of my finest students on this day?” he grinned.

“As you know, sir, Harry Potter and myself are orphans who reside at Wool's Orphanage in Muggle London,” Tom said politely, knowing full well that if the Headmaster ever had been aware of that, he'd surely forgotten. “Unfortunately, the building in which we live was greatly damaged by the Muggle War, during the bombings which have claimed thousands of lives and are still ongoing.”

The Headmaster's smile vanished and he now looked very troubled. “Oh, no,” he said, affecting the look of a very pitiful, perhaps homeless, Saint Nick. “I'm very sorry to hear that, my boy.” Always my boy with these elderly Wizards. Tom wondered how they'd enjoy being called my old man.

“Yes, it was quite horrible,” Tom nodded gravely. “Harry and myself were nearly killed last summer. If we hadn't gotten out of the building in time, we would have been.”

“Well, that just speaks to the strength of your magic,” the Headmaster assured him. “You two are quite the survivors.”

“Yes,” Tom agreed. “So, with all of that being said, I was hoping you would allow us to stay at Hogwarts over the summer, as we have been over the winter holidays. Understandably, we are not keen to return to the beds that, just last summer, had bombs dropped down on them.”

“Understandably,” the Headmaster mused, stroking at his long, thin beard. Then he sighed, shook his head, the loose skin of his cheeks wriggling wildly. “I'm so sorry, my boy. But unfortunately, I can't allow it. Over the winter, there is always at least one staff member on campus, to keep an eye on any students who have chosen to stay behind. But I don't have any faculty staying over the summer, and it wouldn't be fair for me to ask them now, with so little time before then.”

“Harry and I are exceedingly well-behaved,” Tom cajoled, even as the hope in his chest turned brittle. “Not a single demerit between us in four years, and I myself am hoping to earn a Prefect's badge next year. I assure you, we will be no trouble.”

But the Headmaster was already shaking his head again. “I'm sorry,” he sighed. “It also wouldn't be fair to the other students. You two could spend those months utilising the castle's resources to get farther ahead of your classmates.”

He was worried they were going to use their extra time at a school to study? “With all due respect sir,” Tom said, perhaps a bit too coolly, as the Headmaster's face began to shutter. “We simply do not want to die.”

“Mr. Riddle, I'm afraid no one wants to die,” the Headmaster said. “But chin up, dear boy. Have faith in your magic! I dare say it didn't save you just to let you perish a year later! You and Mr. Potter will be just fine, I'm sure of it.”

And if we aren't, Tom thought viciously at him, though he did not say it, on the off chance that he didn't die, on your head be it.

Tom was shown back to the corridor with no real awareness of it. He wandered down to the Quidditch pitch with as little input from his brain as it took to push one foot in front of the other. If he passed anyone else, he had no idea, no knowledge of their greeting, their worried eyes as they took in his blank face. He felt as if he had been washed away, everything about himself beyond the fear, the constant roiling thought: we're going to die there. We're going to die.

Tom had not consciously compartmentalised his terror from the last summer. He had been too focused on survival, too focused on taking care of Harry. And then they had been safe in the inn, safe in Hogwarts, and he had simply refused to think about it.

He thought about it now. He thought of nothing else. He didn't realise he'd wandered his way into the Quidditch changing rooms until Harry stood before him, half-undressed, his smile fading away into something scared, and then something solemn.

He drew Tom into the showers with him, which were empty, Harry always one of the last ones out. He liked to luxuriate in the steady stream of unending hot water they never had at Wool's, where they were lucky if they got the chance to bathe more than once a week. Harry cast a blocking ward so strong it was likely to propel anyone who tried to enter into the opposite wall and then wandlessly flicked on one of the shower heads.

He undressed Tom gently but efficiently, taking care for all of his buttons, even the tiny ones at his wrists. He bent down to unlace his shoes before softly lifting Tom's feet, sliding them off, and then his socks. He could have simply cast a spell, but Tom appreciated the time, the effort, as his mind slowly woke up as if from a long, afternoon nap, and then abruptly threw itself against the walls of his head in a panic.

Tom blinked back to shocking awareness to find himself curled on the floor of the shower stall, hot water beating down on them, Harry kneeling before him, holding Tom's palm to his chest. He was struggling to breathe, and Harry was counting them out, coaxing him to follow the rhythm. Eventually, Tom did, and Harry collapsed into him, holding him close, their skin sliding and skidding together.

“What happened?” Harry asked, hands framing Tom's face, wiping the water from his eyes until his vision was no longer blurry.

“He said no,” Tom said, hollow voice echoing against the tile. “We have to go back to Wool's.”

“We're not going back,” Harry said, firm, and then ducked down to kiss him. Tom could hardly manage to move his own mouth. “I was waiting to see what Dippet said, but I guess I should've told you before. I've been saving every bit of the money from my–my brothers, everything that I could. I've got enough to get us a flat. Not in Diagon, probably, that's too expensive. But in Knockturn. It'll get us through the summer. And then I'll do the same thing next year, and the year after that, and then we'll live somewhere far away for the rest of our lives. Okay?”

Tom stared at him, Harry looking fiercer than he'd ever seen, no matter that he was naked and half-drowned. Tom's fingers were pruning. They must have been sitting under the water for some time. “Harry.” Tom was still looking at his hands, as Harry took them in his.

“I'll take care of you,” Harry promised.

Tom didn't look away from their hands. Harry's nails, bitten horrifically short, the scars on his knuckles from roughhousing and sport, little wounds he never noticed or cared to heal, his skin the colour of fresh soil, ready to grow something. Tom had always been pale, a sickly kind, preferring the indoors where temperatures could be more easily managed, preferring the shade. He burned easily. But Harry, Harry loved the sun, always managing to get darker with every summer, every Quidditch season. Even in the winter, he loved to go out in the snow, letting it freckle his dark eyelashes.

“Harry,” Tom said again, pulling until he spilled into his lap, hauling him closer, so close there was no air between them except the air they shared, pushed from Tom's lungs into Harry's mouth and then back. “Harry.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, nonsensically, licking his name from Tom's mouth. “D'you want that? Wanna find a home with me? You, me and Darling. In a place just for us.”

Tom wanted a great many things. He was sure he'd been born with an unfillable hole made of wanting. That was what the first exorcist said, when they were trying to name him. To explain what he was. Gluttony, that was what they landed on. The refusal to stop. The inability to feel full.

He wanted a future. Not just a scrap of one, a postage stamp alongside millions of others. He wanted a future that would be remembered. A future written about in books, taught in the same classrooms he'd first felt he belonged in. He wanted his family, the first to abandon him, to know his name. To know what they'd given up, what they'd thrown away. To know he was better than them. He wanted the bullies to know, everyone at Wool's, all the school matrons with their yardsticks, all the exorcists and nuns and doctors with their lobotomizing. He wanted everyone to know his name, to know he was something greater than they could have ever imagined. He wanted a legacy.

And he wanted Harry, Harry as he had him now, Harry as he'd have him the next year and the next, one hundred years into the future, two hundred years. He wanted Harry in every way conceivable and then he wanted to invent new ways to have him.

He wanted to know, with certainty, that he would. That he would not lose him to a stray curse, a Muggle bomb, some strange Wizarding illness, a bloody tree falling from the sky. Not to anything, ever.

“Harry,” Tom pulled him from the shelter of his neck, where Harry liked to burrow like an animal seeking warmth. “I'm never letting you go.” He meant it as a warning.

But Harry, as always, took it as a gift. His grateful smile. “Promise?”

They found a flat on Knockturn. It was one room, the bed playing neighbour to the tiny kitchenette, playing neighbour to the curtained off loo. It had dodgy temperature charms that couldn't be adjusted and dodgy water pressure and a dodgy smell Harry was sure meant a dead rat was in the walls, but it was theirs.

They didn't even need to use the papers Tom had Transfigured for them, a falsified story of two Muggle-born half-brothers newly come of age, on the run from the Muggle War. The landlord hadn't even asked, had demanded only all the rent up front plus a security deposit. He tried to ask for a pet deposit, for Darling, but Harry managed to convince him the python was just a piece of charmed decor.

“Your lying is getting better,” Tom said, newly and painfully aware that he found Harry in the midst of law-breaking dreadfully attractive.

“It's always been good,” Harry rolled his eyes. “I just don't do it all the time. Sometimes telling the truth is easier.”

“But less fun,” said Tom.

Harry's half-brothers visited them once, that first month, and clearly despaired to see the space, which mortified Harry, who'd been proud to have a flat, proud to provide a home for them.

“I'll talk to mum,” Charlus declared. “We'll take both of you. It's ridiculous, you're family!”

“I'm not going to force your mother to house the product of her dead husband's infidelity,” Harry said, firm, still prideful even when ashamed. “We're fine here. We're just happy to be out of the orphanage.”

“Orphanage,” Fleamont choked, and Tom hoped the man wouldn't break down in tears right there in their kitchen. It would be annoying in the extreme.

After that, the Potter brothers had their monthly meet-ups at a tea shop in Diagon.

The shady landlords who didn't care if they rented to underaged Wizards was one thing to say for Knockturn Alley. Another was the shady shop owners who didn't care if they hired underaged Wizards.

Tom worked as a till boy for Borgin & Burkes, where he mostly talked old ladies into buying more than they wanted to and old gentlemen into parting with heirlooms they wanted to keep. It was horribly dull work, and the pay was a pittance, but the shop owners didn't care if he poked through their backstock of dark artefacts so long as he didn't nick anything or let any rogue curses make a mess.

Tom never unleashed any rogue curses. And he never nicked anything that might be noticed missing.

“Magpie,” Harry said affectionately as he studied Tom's five-fingered haul. It made them both nostalgic, a feeling Tom had always abhorred and never once expected to fall victim to, for their childhood days, nicking gum and pocket change from unsuspecting tourists as they sold the stacks of papers they nicked from the print factory. The papers were misprintings, tossed out to the curb in the early hours, but they looked legitimate enough, and Harry and Tom always sold only a few before shuffling down some blocks to a new corner, lest some unhappy customer come back for a refund.

It had been good fun, some of the only kind they had in those days, before the War but during the exorcisms, the threats of lobotomy, of workhouses where boys learned things like work ethic and where not to drop trou.

Now they were older, established students, wearing well-fitted wool trousers and Oxford shirts, resembling the posh-looking not-quite-men they'd always jeered at from the street corners, the kind of mockery that stemmed from envy.

It was in Tom's last week that he discovered the locket. Right there in the display case, buried beneath poison rings and supposed hag skulls; he couldn't believe he'd missed it for three months.

“What's this?” Tom asked, plucking the locket from its lessers, holding it up to the light. But of course, he knew what it was. He'd seen a picture of it: Salazar Slytherin's locket. An old Gaunt family heirloom.

“Oh, some of my best work, that is,” Caractacus Burke, a king toad among toads, lurched closer. “Some fifteen, sixteen years ago, now. Lass came in, thought she was a beggar at first and tried to shoo her out. Well, she took that off her neck, asked how much she could get for it. I could hardly believe it! She was in the family way, though she looked hardly more than a girl herself. I told her I wouldn't go above ten galleons, and she didn't even haggle–for Slytherin's own locket! Anything from the Founders, boy, best believe it's worth more than your firstborn, you remember that. Best sale I ever made. It's worth three hundred, that is. Five if I can ever figure out how to get the damned thing open.”

“I see,” Tom murmured. He'd spent all summer idly fantasising about the deaths of his customers, the most annoying ones, the most boring ones, the simpering old ladies hoping to make him their kept boy. Some simpering old men, as well. The ones who managed to ring the bell just as Tom sat down for lunch. He'd imagined killing Borgin and Burke too, in the droll way that one might imagine taking a stroll down a sunny beach while they toil the summer away in retail.

But for the first time in months, Tom could see it, the way he always used to see it, when the idea of killing had not become some stale pastime and could still evoke a passion in him.

He saw Caractacus leaving the shop. Tom would–while gloved, obviously, he wasn't a simpleton–fetch the opal necklace from its place of honour in the window and put it in the till drawer, lodging it with a bit of old parchment, so Caractacus would be forced to reach in blindly to wrench it out. And he would touch the necklace. Death would not be instant, no, and it would not be painless. But he would die, before anyone could busybody in and save him.

Caractacus was notorious for forgetting his gloves when handling dark artefacts. Borgin was constantly pestering him about it. And he was like a dragon with its hoard, constantly petting what was precious for him. He was a greedy fool of a man, and that would be what killed him.

Tom stole the locket that night. He knew he would not be suspected; during his lunch, he went on a walk, crossing out into Muggle London for the first time since he'd escaped the air raid. He breathed slowly and evenly, Harry's voice counting in his head. The sky was clear; there were no bombers. The world would not fall down around him, though it looked like it already had.

It didn't take long; Tom suspected that, after the Blitz, London was teeming with more homeless than ever. He found a good fit, an older man who already had the shakes about him, shifty eyes, an obvious under-the-bridge type. His mind was already splintered; Imperiusing him was as easy as breathing.

Tom told him how to reach the Leaky Cauldron, how to get to the Alleys, how to get to Borgin & Burke. He told him he was looking for something there, but he was being followed, to be nervous, make a mess and then run. And then Tom returned to the shop.

He was in the back when it happened, Borgin manning the till. He'd already misplaced Borgin's wand in the back office. He hadn't even noticed Tom taking it, was always setting it down and then forgetting where he'd set it. The two most bumbling fools to ever own a shop filled with dangerous things that could kill them.

The man made a racket alright, Borgin screeching for help, Tom only just running in as the tramp ran off, escaping with whatever it was he'd taken; Tom, in a fit of generosity, had told him to snatch up anything that looked expensive but not deadly. He didn't really mind if the tramp got his hand burned off by a cursed ring or not, but he hadn't done anything to Tom, even if he was just a Muggle.

“What's happened?” Tom asked, appropriately shocked and dismayed, privately seething with glee to find Borgin crawling on the floor like an insect, in search of all his scattered bobs. “Were we robbed? ” he asked, incredulously.

“Stolen,” Borgin cried, working up to a wail. “All our hard work stolen!”

It was quite dramatic, given the man had only snatched up four or five items at most, but Tom put on his best sympathetic airs and said, gravely, “We should call the Aurors.”

Borgin's hag-white face in that moment told Tom all there was to know. There would be no Aurors, no inquiry, certainly no investigation. After sorting through the rubble, Borgin & Burke would tally up what they'd lost and, hatefully, add Slytherin's locket to the list.

Meanwhile, the locket would be going home with its rightful owner.

Harry found Tom sitting, pensive, in what was ostensibly their kitchen, on the floor seeing as they had no table or chairs, nor even the room for them. Harry sank down across from Tom, peering curiously at the locket he'd spent the last two hours studying.

He knew how to open it of course, it had only taken two seconds of thought. It was Slytherin's. But he held it out to Harry without a word, wondering if he would grasp its meaning.

“This is pretty,” Harry said, surprised. Most of what Tom brought home was old, interesting, or both, but never pretty. Never something anyone might miss. He cut a look at Tom. “Will they look for this? Should we move?”

“We leave for Hogwarts in two days,” Tom said, wry. “No, they won't. I have an alibi.”

“Course you do,” Harry nodded, turning back to the locket. “This looks like the Slytherin snake.” At Tom's apathetic hum, Harry's eyes narrowed. And then, because Harry was clever, even if he hardly ever cared to show it, he hissed “Open.”

The locket snapped open, revealing an empty nest. Harry sighed, gently closing it again before handing it back. “Family heirloom, then?”

“She came to him, pregnant and desperate, disowned, abandoned. She needed money. He gave her ten galleons. Ten.” Tom opened the locket. Stared at his veiled reflection. Closed the locket. Thumbed at the S, the beloved serpent. He wondered if his mother had ever carried a picture of his father inside. “He said she looked like a child, herself. The lineage records didn't list a birthdate, but she couldn't have been old, could she? She could have been our age. Maybe a little older.”

Harry scooted closer across the tile, unbending Tom's legs until he could fold himself between them, tucked in close. “She might not have been able to use magic to heal herself, if she was underaged,” Harry said, always following Tom's train of thought so easily. For years he'd wondered why his mother had died if she'd been a Witch. He knew the spells that would have saved her. “And if she'd been disowned, they might've kept her wand, or broken it. Nellie said that's what they did to her mum. She had to go out and get a whole new one. And wands are expensive.”

“Everyone failed her,” Tom mused, unsure what he was feeling. He had never once regretted his mother's death, beyond the stray thought that if she'd lived, he wouldn't have to suffer through Wool's. He'd never known the woman, what was there to feel regret over? He'd never given heed to the thought that he'd killed her, even when the priests told him so. Lots of women died in childbirth. So many that Tom often wondered why they ever went through with it. “Wizards with their inbred logic. Muggles with their paltry medicine. Everyone.”

“You didn't,” Harry said, muffled by the collar of Tom's shirt. “You got her necklace back. She probably never wanted to sell it, not something like that. Something with meaning. And you stole it back for her.”

“I stole it back for me,” Tom corrected, but charmed by Harry's softness nonetheless. “I was going to kill Caractacus for it, but the lazy sod's gone off on holiday. Won't be back until we're gone. Didn't even tell me, or I would've done it today.”

“There's always next year,” Harry said lightly, though Tom knew he felt anything but light about it. Harry carried guilt around on his shoulders. Guilt for the Muggles who couldn't flee behind magic to escape the bombs. Every animal Tom had ever harmed, probably even the ones Tom never told him about. He wondered if they crept into Harry's dreams, whispering all of Tom's dirty deeds, Harry waking up and loving him anyway.

“I don't want you feeling guilty for what I've done,” Tom told him, gripping him by the hair so he could look at his eyes. “For what I'll do.”

“You don't get to decide what I feel,” Harry said, bringing his hands up to Tom's neck, his jaw, the bowls of his cheeks. “I know you don't feel things the way other people do. The way I do. There's nothing wrong with you. I'll just feel it enough for both of us.”

Tom reached around Harry's arm and carefully slid the locket around his neck. When Harry looked at him in surprise, Tom just pressed the locket hard against his heart. “Family heirloom.” When Harry's eyes welled up, Tom wiped the tears before they could fall. A ridiculous reaction, but he did like the way the green shone when wet. “And besides, it was just stolen from my workplace. It's not as though I can wear it.”

Their first day back at Hogwarts, Tom read a fascinating article in the Prophet. “Would you believe,” he drawled, not even surprised. “That Borgin & Burke's was raided by the Ministry just yesterday after an anonymous tip about illegal dark artefacts in their storeroom? They're expected to go bankrupt, with ten years in Azkaban for each of them.”

“Mm,” Harry mumbled through his food. “That's mad.”

“Just an interesting bit of timing,” Tom said, studying him blandly until Harry scowled.

“They had it coming,” he grumbled. “And ten years with the Dementors? Is that a good enough revenge, d'you think?”

“I daresay my way would've been kinder,” Tom smirked. “You are ruthless. How'd you manage it? They don't do an instant raid on some random anonymous tip.”

“No,” Harry agreed. “But Charlus works at the D.M.L.E. Apparently they've been trying to catch them for years, but someone always tipped them ahead of time.”

“But with Burke out of the country and Borgin being the buffoon that he is, they didn't have time to hide it all,” Tom mused.

“One year for each galleon,” Harry chirped, looking well pleased with himself.

Tom leaned close, breathing the scent of Harry's hair potion from Fleamont, the sweet citrus of it always making him hungry. "I'm going to worship you tonight. My own personal lion.”

Harry's cheeks warmed to the colour of beet juice as he scrambled not to choke.

Chapter 3: I'm Uncontrollable, Emotional, Chaotically Proportional

Chapter Text

It turned out that all Tom needed to find the Chamber of Secrets was a Prefect's badge and a serious tone, concerned about some reports of dirty loo flooding. The girls didn't even question him about it.

And there, on the sinks: silver snakes. As with the locket, they responded to Parseltongue immediately.

Tom shielded himself before taking one step towards the tunnel. He may have been the Heir of Slytherin, but Tom knew well that even family could prove venomous.

The Chamber wasn't exactly everything Tom was hoping for. It was filthy, for one, why would Salazar hide it in the plumbing, of all places? And derelict, for two. Tom had been reasonably sure he'd be the first person down there in a few centuries, at least, and now he was positive.

And then there were the puzzles. They weren't the most difficult to parse, but Salazar, why puzzles? This wasn't Ravenclaw's Chamber.

And then there she was, majestic, alive, rolling out of Salazar Slytherin's stone mouth like a massive green tongue. She'd seemed agreeable to veiling her deadly eyes when Tom asked, but he still kept his own averted until he knew she really wasn't just trying to go for the first meal she'd had in hundreds of years.

She was hungry, she told him, though she didn't need to eat, it was more of a restless feeling. She knew nothing of blood status, of course; a human was a human to a snake, a Wizard was a Wizard to a Basilisk. Tom hoped Slytherin himself was rolling in his grave at that moment, his Heir the half-blood, discussing the foolishness of Wizards with his famed mudblood-killing monster.

“I would like to bring a friend,” Tom told her. “He can speak this tongue, too.”

“I can eat this friend?” the Basilisk asked.

“No,” Tom said, firmly. “He is a friend. We do not eat friends.”

“I have eaten friends,” the Basilisk argued. “I have eaten my young. I ate my mother.”

“Well,” Tom tried a different approach, respecting the creature's tenacity. “This friend is poisonous to eat. Wouldn't taste good.”

“Alright,” the Basilisk sighed. So Tom went up to fetch Harry.

He'd left him waiting in his bed in the dungeons. Harry had offered to keep Tom company on his rounds, but Tom had declined. He'd been planning to search the girls’ lavatories that night and, in case they turned nothing up, didn't want to field Harry's questions about it.

“Why are we sneaking into the girls’ loo?” Harry whispered, looking scandalised, as though sneaking into a girls’ lavatory was the worst thing Tom had ever talked him into doing. “Pretty sure I can suck you off just as easily in the boys’.”

And wasn't that a plan. For some other night. Tom already had a plan for this one.

“As lovely as that sounds,” Tom said, tugging Harry over to the sinks after ensuring the lavatory was empty. “And it does sound lovely, really, I'll be thinking of it all night–there's actually something very special about this lavatory in particular.”

Harry gave him a speculative look before glancing at their reflections in the mirror and raising a brow. “Again, I'm pretty sure you can f*ck me in front of a mirror in the boys’ loo.”

“Merlin's Christ f*ck,” Tom sighed, reaching forward to pull the locket from where it lay hidden beneath Harry's sweater. The gold glimmered beneath the lights. The snakes on the faucets, as though in answer, glimmered back. “Notice anything about the sink?”

Harry frowned at him and then dutifully surveyed the sink before him. He clocked them almost immediately. Then he glanced down at the locket, and Tom knew he finally understood. “Open?” Harry hissed, sounding a bit bewildered.

Harry, of course, had none of Tom's reservations. One moment, he was gazing at the Chamber's entrance with wonder, and the next, he was throwing himself down the pipe.

“Harry I'm going to murder you,” Tom hissed after him. “You just had to be a bloody Gryffindor.”

But when Tom reached the innermost chamber, he found Harry with the Basilisk laid heavily down at his feet as he scratched between her scales. It sounded as though she was doing her best to purr.

“I'll bring my broom next time,” Harry promised her. “It'll get all those hard to reach spots.”

“I will not eat you,” the Basilisk declared.

“I appreciate that,” said Harry. He looked up at Tom, beaming with joy. “She's amazing!”

“Isn't she?” Tom smiled. “She's nine hundred years old. She can live forever without food or water. She subsists off of magic.”

“Then Hogwarts must be feeding her well,” Harry grinned. “Is that good, Hessie? Any other problem spots?”

“Hessie?” Tom asked.

“She said she doesn't have a name, so I'm calling her Hessie. Like Nessie, you know. But it's Hogwarts. So Hessie.”

“Hang on,” Tom said, suddenly affronted. “I'm the one who found her. I'm the Heir. If anyone gets to name her, it's me.”

“You thought Darling didn't need a name even after a year,” Harry said flatly. “You've lost snake-naming privileges.”

“This is ridiculous,” Tom snapped. “You can't just storm in and name my Basilisk after I tamed her. I'm going to tell her to eat you. She has to do what I say.”

“She won't eat me, she likes my hand skills too much,” said Harry.

Tom made a face. “Don't say hand skills.”

Harry gave him a very pointed look, as if to remind Tom that he liked Harry's hand skills an awful lot, as well. “Hessie, do you like the name Hessie?”

“It will do,” said the Basilisk.

“See?” Harry argued. “She likes it.”

“That was not an enthusiastic response. How about the name Morsmordre?”

“Names are useless human creations,” the Basilisk said dispassionately. “I am the Basilisk. There is only one.”

“You don't know any others of your kind?” asked Harry.

“I have known some. I ate them. So there is only one.”

“Do you ever get lonely?” Harry wondered, and Tom stared at him. Of course he would ask the Basilisk, a creature for whom loneliness is a foreign, nonsensical concept, if she was lonely. Salazar, it was a wonder Harry never crippled under the emotional weight of every living thing in the world.

“What is loneliness?” asked the Basilisk, and Tom felt a very keen sense of vindication. He understood the beast.

“It's like,” Harry gnawed at his lip as he considered how to explain a nigh-unexplainable concept. “When you've been alone for a long time, and you're tired of being alone. And you wish you had someone to speak to. That's loneliness.”

“Oh,” said the Basilisk. “Yes. I have loneliness.”

Tom stared at this creature, nearly a millennia old, who had said she'd eaten her friends and every creature like herself that she'd come across. And had just now declared herself lonely. There really was no sense in the world.

“Don't worry, Hessie,” Harry assured her. “Me and Tom will come down all the time to keep you company.”

“And when you are finished I can eat you,” the Basilisk agreed.

“We'll never be finished,” Harry told her. “There'll be no eating us. But we can maybe bring you a deer or something.”

“Or you could release me upon my nemesis,” the Basilisk suggested, sounding suddenly very awake, and very bloodthirsty. “And I will finally sink my fangs in her and drain her of life.”

“Who?” Harry asked, shooting Tom a wide-eyed look. Tom only shrugged. There'd been no mention of the Basilisk's nemesis beyond all mudbloods, and clearly that wasn't true. “Is she a teacher here?”

“The water serpent who swims in the deep,” the Basilisk hissed. “She has eight beautiful tails, and I will drain the blood from all of them. I will finally know her taste.”

Oh, good lord. “She's talking about the Giant Squid,” Tom said. “I'm pretty sure.”

“She is magnificent,” the Basilisk sighed. “I have never seen her like. She will keep me full for another nine centuries.”

“It sort of sounds like she's in love with her,” Harry mused. “We can't let you kill the water serpent. But we'll bring back a deer.”

“Fine,” the Basilisk said, mulishly.

“Where exactly are you going to get a deer?” Tom asked, once they were safely ensconced in his bed. “You don't strike me as the hunting type.”

“I'm not,” Harry confirmed. “I'll ask the house-elves in the kitchens. They like to be helpful.”

“You are the most insane man I've ever known,” Tom said, trying to envision a guild–or whatever their plurality was called–of house-elves presenting Harry with a freshly killed deer. To be helpful.

“Coming from you?” Harry smirked, and then frowned at the look on Tom's face. “Oh, Tom, you're not insane. I was kidding. I meant because you put up with me.”

“That does make me insane,” Tom said woodenly, letting Harry pull him close.

“I mean it,” he said, softer. “You aren't insane. You aren't. You're just different.”

“When the rest of the world seems to think the same way and you don't, you start to wonder,” Tom mused. “You just met a millennia old Basilisk who has only ever lived in this castle, only ever known this existence, and explained to her what loneliness was, and she felt it. She felt it.”

“I've never been lonely either, you know. Because I always had you.”

Tom studied those green eyes peering out at him from the dark. “I used to suspect you weren't real, you know.”

“What?” Harry asked.

“They–the doctors, I mean–talked of hearing voices, seeing people who weren't real. You were so different from the disinteresting fools around me, your gifts so complementary to my own, there was a time I thought you were my creation. A living dream, perhaps.”

He could hear the smug grin in Harry's voice. “Are you saying I'm literally your dream boy?”

“You're a nightmare,” Tom muttered. What could have possessed him to confess this long-faded fear tonight? He knew Harry was real. Other people knew him, interacted with him. Tom wasn't trapped in his own head in some madhouse. He was a Wizard, in his own bed, with another Wizard.

“I'm real,” Harry said, taking Tom's hand, kissing his knuckles before laying it against his chest, curved over the bulb of the locket. “You're real. This is real.”

“You're unreal,” Tom countered. “‘f*ck me in front of a mirror,’ really?”

Harry's grin turned decidedly wicked. “I hear the Prefects’ shower has a really nice bath.”

They took to visiting the Chamber as often as they reasonably could, Tom pleased to bask in the secrets of his heritage, Harry eager to check on the Basilisk and eat away at her ridiculous loneliness. It was always well into the night when they crept into the lavatory, when the rest of the castle was sleeping.

Tonight, though, they had only time enough to drop off the treat Harry had brought for her before returning to studying for their O.W.L.s, on a regimented schedule Tom had ordered for them. The discovery of one of Hogwarts’ oldest, coveted secrets was not a reason to fail their exams.

Tom opened the Chamber and called for the Basilisk, Harry wanting to get a look at the beast rather than simply dropping the meat into the tunnel for her to feast on at the bottom.

And then, impossibly, there was another voice, its echo ringing out against porcelain, the wet fear of some girl. “W-who's there? This is the girls’ lavatory!”

Harry shot Tom a look of horror.

She stepped out of her hiding place within a stall, a bookish thing with lanky hair and wrinkled robes, still wearing that day's uniform, a Ravenclaw by the look of things. She was small, likely an underclassman, certainly no older than a fourth year. She settled a glare on them both. “Go away!”

The Basilisk was just about to crown when Harry, never one to stop and think about things before acting, ran and tackled her back into the stall, her shrill screeching making Tom's teeth itch with irritation.

“Take your meal and go back,” Tom snapped at the Basilisk.

“Grumpy,” the Basilisk hissed, yet another word she'd learned from Harry. Tom needed to stop letting him corrupt her. She did as she was told, always dutifully following Tom's commands, regardless of her colour commentary, and Tom closed the Chamber with impatience. “You can come out now.”

The girl flew out of the stall, her voice suddenly loud and hysterical–Harry must have cast a silencing charm–Harry slouching out after her, looking apologetic.

“If you hurt me, people will know,” she threatened, ridiculously, voice quivering. “My roommates know I'm in here! They'll be coming any moment!”

“No they don't,” Tom said, catching her eyes, wet and rubbed raw. “You hid in here to be alone, so you could cry. No one knows you're down here. We can do anything that we want.”

Her fear was nearly palpable. It almost made up for the annoyance of her existence.

“But we won't,” Harry told her, giving Tom a soft look of reproach. It wasn't necessary; as if Tom would waste allotted study time tormenting some random Ravenclaw. Even if she was aggravating. “No one's going to hurt you. I'm sorry about jumping you, but we're here because Tom's a Prefect, see, and a girl told him there was a curse on one of the sinks. We came here to get rid of it, but it ricocheted. I didn't want it to hit you.”

“Oh,” the girl frowned, considering them. “Why wouldn't you go tell a professor?”

“Well,” Harry said, glancing at Tom, who offered nothing, amused to watch him figure out the weaves of his own lie, which wasn't half-bad. “We knew we could handle it, and. We wanted to have some time, you know, to ourselves.” Then, absurdity seeming to taking hold, he reached over and took Tom's hand, giving the girl a meaningful look.

“Oh,” she said, catching on quickly, to her credit. Her face turned sickeningly saccharine. “How romantic!”

“Yes,” Tom drawled, clenching Harry's hand in his grip until he knew it must hurt.

“Thank you for saving me,” the girl told Harry sweetly, now bashful and flushed, simpering really. Tom wondered if he could still get away with tossing her down the tunnel to be eaten, as well. “I'm Myrtle.”

“I'm Harry,” said Harry, tugging at Tom's arm. “This is Tom. Please don't tell anyone. Not everyone is as–understanding, as you.” He really could be so manipulative when he wanted to be. The girl looked ready to promise him anything.

“I won't,” she smiled. “You can do what it was you were going to,” she offered, though she made no move to leave, as if hoping for them to put on a show for her.

“We should probably get going,” Harry said, pulling Tom along behind him, assuming correctly that another moment spent in the brat's presence would force him to react. “You should, too. Tom won't take points this time, but you don't want to be caught out after curfew.”

“The Basilisk would have been happy to have her,” said Tom, once they were well and away from any troublesome Ravenclaws. “No one would have ever known.” He mourned the lost chance to see the Basilisk at work, the hunt of live prey so much better than a dead animal. Perhaps she would have killed the girl with her eyes.

“She's harmless,” Harry shrugged, sighing as Tom summoned their texts. “Save it for when you have real enemies that need getting rid of.”

Two weeks later, Tom was beginning to suspect Myrtle Warren was his enemy, with her constant shadowing of Harry, face bright and stupid with hero-worship. She giggled incessantly when she spoke to him, always shooting Tom some ridiculous conspiratorial look, as though they shared anything between them.

“It's cute when you get jealous,” Harry grinned, Tom having just spent an impressive five minutes letting Myrtle sit far too closely to Harry, before sending her stack of books careening across the library, Myrtle scrambling after them.

“Get rid of her,” Tom said quietly, anger threatening to suffocate him when Harry only grinned wider. “Or I will.”

Harry made their excuses, not even bothering to stop her from touching his arm, strolling lazily after Tom as he led them back to the dungeons. Mulciber and Nott were in the dorm room when Tom entered.

“Get out,” he said, biting and harsh, Harry watching as they obeyed immediately. The door swung shut behind them, and Tom slammed Harry against the hardwood. “You are using her to torment me.”

“Only a little,” Harry smiled, relaxing fully into Tom's forceful hold, laying a soothing hand on his stomach. Tom refused to be soothed, not after days of Harry's terrorising. “You don't usually get so worked up when other people are friendly with me.”

“She knows where your affections lie,” Tom grit out, anger still a boiling pot inside him, but simmering down with each moment spent watching Harry's eyes, the contentment there, the devotion only ever aimed at Tom. “And still she insists on her ridiculous flirtations. It's an insult.”

“Exactly, she knows,” Harry's smile softened, turned shy, thumbing at the crease of Tom's shirt over his stomach. “I like having someone know what you are to me. Not just vague assumptious.”

It was a sweet idea, if naive. The truth was, no one would ever know what they were to each other. Tom could bind himself to Harry in some bastardised wedding ceremony in front of the entire Wizarding world, and they'd still never understand.

Still, he had known what Myrtle's clumsy coquetry did to Tom's temper, and he had allowed it anyway. It was only fitting he should pay the price.

Tom pulled back, ignoring Harry's sound of displeasure. “Kneel.”

Harry licked his lips, unblinking, and sank to his knees. Tom removed Harry's robe with a careless gesture, taking off his own much slower, before unbuckling his belt. “Open your mouth.”

Harry's mouth fell open, eager, his body already struggling to hold still, growing desperate. Tom smiled as he took himself in hand, not close enough for Harry to touch.

It took mere moments for Harry to whine, bereft, and Tom shook his head, continued his leisurely stroking. “Giving you what you want defeats the point of the punishment.”

Harry glowered, clenched his fists on his knees, and then acquiesced, tilting his head back, exposing the marks on his throat in various stages of healing, extending his tongue, prostrating. Tom enjoyed seeing him this way, baiting him beautifully, a siren luring Tom into water.

“You're so manipulative,” Tom purred, sighing as he spent over Harry's face, collecting in his hair, over the lens of his glasses, his waiting tongue.

Harry hummed, swallowing all he was given, sighing as Tom reached to rub through the mess on his cheek, folding his smeared thumb into Harry's mouth to be cleaned. “I should make you walk around like this for the rest of the day. Then everyone would know.” He allowed himself one more moment to immortalise the sight in his memory before spelling Harry clean.

Of course, one admittedly gratifying afternoon was not enough. There was still Myrtle Warren to be dealt with.

Harry's pleasure at antagonising Tom, his delight in the nature of their relationship being known and, however dubiously, supported, could be forgiven. The girl's shameless taking of liberties could not.

It was easy enough to get her alone. While she harboured obvious affections for Harry, she also liked Tom, believing them to carry some sort of friendship forged by the sharing of a secret. Her mind was open and unthreatened. It was the easiest Obliviation Tom had ever performed.

Harry figured it out within days, of course, as soon as his cheerful greeting was met with a suspicious look; why was this older Gryffindor boy speaking to her? Surely it was another prank, her years of relentless bullying making her incapable of accepting the friendliness of random strangers. She fled with satisfying speed.

“Pleased with yourself, are you?” Harry grumbled, though he didn't seem averse to Tom kissing his irritation away. He should be glad Tom had only erased her memories; that he did not send her down to the Chamber was kindness enough.

“I'm always pleased with myself.”

Harry sighed, melting against him. He was upset by the loss of his game, the loss of a friend, but that was fine. Myrtle Warren had been a mere splinter in the long life shared between them. Soon enough, Harry would forget her completely, no spells necessary. And in the meantime, Tom would soothe the hurt with his hands.

Tom had bored of Hogsmeade quickly, but Harry wanted them both to have lunch with the Potter brothers and Tom didn't actually have anything pressing he could use as an excuse.

“They're my family, sort of, so they're your family too,” Harry explained, though it was altogether unnecessary. Tom understood very well why Harry was trying to push Tom and his brothers together. He'd felt guilty since that first meeting with Charlus, that he'd managed to find at least some family willing to claim him, while Tom remained wholly orphaned. And, Tom suspected, Harry wanted to gift Tom with more family, of a kind, as though Harry wasn't more than enough on his own. As though Harry wasn't the only family Tom would ever need.

And, while Tom wouldn't refuse another summer flat shared with Harry paid for by his brothers’ fraternal charity, it also rankled that these two rich purebloods had suddenly swooped in from nowhere to provide Harry with what Tom couldn't, and wouldn't be able to for years, yet. Tom was the one who had taught Harry how to lift pockets, sometimes without even using their hands. Tom was the one who had tried to teach Harry the value of networking, though Harry had proven unteachable in that regard. Tom was the one meant to take care of Harry, to spoil him, to provide.

Now instead he had two wealthy brothers paying their rent with their pocket change. Tom's only hope was that their mother would never relent and live another good fifty years, by which time Tom would be the wealthiest and most prestigious Wizard alive, and Harry could play Quidditch or hunt deer with house-elves or whatever else he wanted to do, all while belonging to Tom.

It was this dream, rather than beheading Charlus with his own steak knife or drowning Fleamont in his own firewhiskey, which kept Tom anchored throughout the meal. The Potter brothers were a convenient access to some amount of wealth, and they had been good to Harry, which meant that regardless of how personally f*cking grating he found their existence, he would not kill them, instead letting them lead their sad little lives before fading into obscurity.

Their mother, however, should she still be alive whenever Tom's dream took hold, would not fare the same. Poison, perhaps. Something that resembled the effects of sudden onset Dragon Pox. Something painful, as ugly as blaming a child for the sins of his father.

“Anyway, I just wanted to mention it,” Charlus said, Fleamont groaning into his cup at his side, while Charlus cheerfully ignored his brother. “There's an internship at the Ministry for the summer, if you wanted–”

“Thanks,” Harry said, looking flustered. “But I'm not really, uh, Ministry potential. Tom, though, is a Prefect, and he's really into politics…”

Tom had sized up Charlus Potter the moment he'd first seen him, though of course he'd also done some digging. A Gryffindor through and through, he wouldn't react well to his disenfranchised half-brother's odd Slytherin best friend trying to sleaze his way into the position he'd picked out for Harry.

“Harry,” Tom said, quiet, embarrassed. “It's fine, I can find another job–”

Charlus sat up immediately. “Oh yeah, weren't you working at Borgin & Burke's?”

“He's the one who told me about… you know,” said Harry. “He didn't know who to go to about it.”

Beneath the table, Tom ran a hand up the warm line of Harry's inner thigh. It was ridiculous what just an inkling of Harry's manipulation tactics did to him.

Charlus softened. “Oh, kid, that was really brave of you. Really. It's a good thing we got that stuff off the street. Tell you what, I'll send you the application, you get it back to me by February, and you've got yourself a job for the summer. And believe me, whatever they paid you at that slum? This pays way better.”

“Thank you,” Tom said, looking stunned, flushing under Charlus’ attention. “That would be amazing.”

Charlus, ever eager to play the hero, shrugged off Tom's thanks. “It's nothing. I should be thanking you for saving my brother. He told me how you got him out of that bomb raid. You're a good friend.”

Tom glanced at Harry. How long had he been talking Tom up to his brothers, exactly? Harry only smiled at him. This time, Tom didn't have to affect any mask, make any tailorings to his posture, his tone of voice. “He's my family.”

Charlus and Fleamont both flooed back to Muggle London, and Tom and Harry began the trek back to the castle.

Tom slipped his arms around Harry's shoulders, pulling him back against his chest. “How long have you been working on getting me that internship?”

“Since he told me about it last summer,” Harry said cheerfully. “I did pick up some things, growing up with you.”

“You're my greatest masterpiece,” Tom said, ducking his head in the curve of Harry's neck.

It wasn't safe; they were in public, with none of his acolytes about to shield them, and the Wizarding world was hardly much kinder to two men in a loving embrace than the Muggles, though at least it wasn't illegal here. But he couldn't help it, taken in by his warmth, his smell, his joyful scheming. Salazar, he looked so good surrounded by snow.

“Back,” he grumbled, peeling himself from the euphoria of Harry's skin. “Now. I need to have you.”

“Yes, my lord,” Harry grinned, cheeky, flushed from Tom's affections, and then–

A bomb dropped on Hogsmeade.

It wasn't a literal bomb, in the way of Muggle machinery, though that was what it felt like. What it looked like, buildings cracked open like eggs and smouldering, people running amok like chickens, the whole village a raided henhouse.

And Grindelwald, the fox, front and centre.

Tom couldn't hear anything for long, fuzzy minutes, just like that night in London, his brain playing reels from past and present side by side as if to compare, to remind Tom that he had survived this before, he could again, and so could Harry.

Harry.

Where was Harry?

Tom glanced around, still waiting for the muffled ringing in his ears to dissolve back into actual sound. The pressure from the curse must have blown him some distance, he wasn't where he remembered being, farther from the village, and no Harry in sight.

He staggered to his feet, staggered forward, pushing his way through crowds of people running towards the safety of the castle, Tom pressing against their current with infuriating weakness, the failure of his physical form, and his mind went red-hot with rage, that constant simmering anger exploding out of him at once.

Suddenly there was no one in his way, and Tom found his path clear, not glancing down at any of the bodies strewn to either side, as though they'd been peppered down by a mill. He only stumbled his way through the snow, searching for the one form he'd always recognise, the only one that mattered, the village could be brought to rubble just like Muggle London for all he cared, so long as Harry made it out.

He found him not far from where they'd been standing; while Tom had been blown away towards the open snowdrifts, Harry had been blown into a wall.

He looked fragile and still, like a corpse, his glasses gone to who knew where, his lashes collecting drifts of snow like rooftops. Tom sank to his knees at his side, pawing at his chest, his shoulders, watching his head loll limply with each moment.

“Wake up, Harry,” Tom said, had no idea how loud he was speaking. “Harry, wake up, wake up. Wake up!”

A pair of silver boots stepped into Tom's field of vision and suddenly the damage to his hearing swelled and drained away. Tom blinked up to find Gellert Grindelwald smiling down at him.

“Your work?” He gestured an arm towards the dozens of people strewn over the snow. Unconscious, maybe dead, it didn't matter. “I'm impressed.”

Tom didn't have his wand in hand, but he didn't need a wand for this spell. He'd mastered it.

The green shocked through the space Grindelwald had just stood, his eerie grin the last piece of him hovering before Apparition took hold. Tom screamed at the echo and hoped he could hear it, wherever he'd ended up. Hoped he would know it meant Tom was coming for him.

A hand tugged his sleeve and Tom jerked to find Harry twitching, pain seizing up his face as he tried to sit up.

“Don't move, you f*cking idiot,” Tom hissed, pressing him back down, and then letting himself fall, bury his face in his cold, snow-covered shoulder. “Don't move. Healers are coming. Hogwarts rang the bell. Don't move.”

In complete disregard for Tom's instructions, Harry managed to move a hand up to stroke the back of Tom's head. “‘M okay,” he said, coughing as he spoke through a rush of cold air, doubtlessly painful on his bruised lungs. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Tom hissed, snatching his head up so he could stare at Harry, the shallow cuts across his face, a well of blood on his lower lip. “Christ, Harry.”

“Love it when you cuss like a Muggle,” Harry smiled, tired, pained, but still laughing at him. “‘S so hot.”

“I'm going to kill Grindelwald,” Tom told him. “If Dumbledore refuses to do his own dirty work, I will. And then I'm going to put you into an impenetrable bubble that you will never leave.”

“Oh, so I've moved on from your trunk into a bubble?”

“I'll make sure it has a very nice view,” Tom said, entirely serious, feeling somewhat outside of his own body, as though the moment, the whole day, wasn't real. Just one of Harry's odd, troubling dreams.

“Alright,” Harry decided. “I'll forgive the bubble entrapment, on account of the trauma. If you almost died, I'd probably light a village on fire, I don't know. But I'm okay. You won't lose me.”

“I won't,” Tom assured him. He'd already found another ritual, one which was guaranteed to grant immortality, if in a slightly unorthodox way.

The healers arrived then, Tom refusing to let them see to anyone else first, casting a wandless Imperio on the first green-robed Witch he saw, who very kindly didn't need much pushing at all to run up to Harry.

A broken femur, a fractured wrist, two broken ribs, a punctured lung, Christ, Harry I'm Okay Potter, Tom fuming silently as the healer cast her spells and then sent them on their way, Harry with a bit of a limp as his broken leg tried to work out that it was no longer broken.

His lungs. That was fatal. Even for a Wizard, just waiting on a medic, that was fatal. What if the healers had taken too long to arrive? What if Tom hadn't Imperiused her into checking Harry first? Harry would have martyred himself without second thought, saying I'm fine as they lowered his casket into the ground. Tom was so furious with him he could hardly breathe, surprised to see the snow wasn't melting beneath his feet from the heat of it.

“I know you're angry,” Harry sighed. “But–”

“Do not presume to know what I am feeling,” Tom said, his tone deadly and quiet. He still couldn't begin to speak to him, too aware of the curses that still lingered in the shallow waters of his mind, wanting to hurt Harry, wanting to punish.

He'd almost left Tom. Almost abandoned him. The one person Tom had, the one person who knew him.

Tom stopped walking without conscious thought, Harry stumbling to a halt just beside him. Tom stared at the snow. It'd started snowing again, all the footprints from earlier in the day already erased. Fresh slate. “If you leave me,” he told the ground. “I will never forgive you.”

“Tom,” Harry's voice broke, and Tom turned to find him wiping at a steady rain of tears. “I'll never, not ever, not if I can help it, I–I didn't know. I was so numb, I didn't feel any pain in my lungs. I thought it was just the leg, I thought a leg wound wasn't so bad–I love you–”

Tom pulled him in, smearing their cheeks together until his face was wet with Harry's tears, as though Tom was crying too. He kissed Harry's hair, wet with snow, brushed the curls aside to kiss the scar on his forehead, which had never faded since their youth, the only thing Harry kept from his parents besides his name. Kissed his cheeks, found his mouth, licked the blood from his healed lip, kissed him so deeply he thought he might just fall down Harry's throat to be carried around inside him.

“Tom,” Harry mumbled, pulling back. “When I was knocked out, I had a dream. I don't remember much but it'll happen soon.”

“Another attack?” Tom asked, chest tightening. Already? He wouldn't let Harry leave the castle until summer.

“No, it's something to do with you, just. Don't go to a–a Mystery Mansion. Okay? Promise me?”

“A Mystery Mansion?” Tom asked. “What on earth is that?”

Harry was growing frustrated, as he often lately did when he tried to relay his dreams. Where before he used to retain at least some clear fragments of them, now they were nearly all opaque by the time he woke up. “I don't know,” he groaned, starting to fret, so Tom reeled him in before he could stumble his way into a whirlpool, or something. Harry was a death magnet. “Just promise me. If you go, they'll hurt you, and I hate,” his breath hitched. “I hate when you're hurt.”

“Alright,” Tom soothed, no doubt this would be another puzzle never to be sorted. “I won't go to any Mystery Mansions. I promise.”

“Okay,” Harry sighed. “Thank you.” Then he squinted up at Tom and leaned up to kiss the corner of his mouth. “I need you to lead me through the castle,” he murmured. “I lost my glasses. Everything is really blurry.”

“It's about time you got a new pair anyway,” Tom said, folding Harry's hand through his elbow, leading their way back.

Tom, Harry, and the dozen or so other students who had the bad luck to be in Hogsmeade that day were questioned by Aurors–did you notice any other Dark Wizards besides Grindelwald? Did Grindelwald do or say anything beyond setting off a curse meant to emulate the power of a Muggle bomb? On and on, for hours, Tom gave and then reiterated his statement.

When asked if Grindelwald said anything to him specifically, Tom said yes, as he wasn't sure who else might have witnessed Grindelwald's strange conversation with Tom. He said he couldn't hear anything he said because of hearing damage from the blast.

“And then what did you do?”

“I tried to kill him.”

The Auror stared at Tom, who stared back. She cleared her throat. “You tried to kill Grindelwald?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“The killing curse.”

The Auror stared again. Really, it was all starting to grow beyond agitating and into murderously trite. “You are aware, Mr. Riddle, that the killing curse is an Unforgivable? Punishable by an immediate life sentence to Azkaban?”

“Yes,” Tom drawled.

“So why would you cast it?”

Tom looked at her as if she was very stupid, which she was. “I thought he had just murdered the person I–hold dear. Among forty or fifty other people. On top of the thousands of other lives he's already taken. Did you know I lived in Muggle London until very recently?”

“No,” the Auror said, beginning to look uncomfortable. “That must have been…difficult.”

“Quite,” Tom smiled meanly. “Have you ever woken up to a bomb raid? I have. And that's where I was yesterday.”

The Auror frowned. “In Muggle London?”

“No. Obviously. I was in Hogsmeade. But when that bomb went off–I was in my old home, getting rained on by the Germans. And I don't know if you know this, but forty-four thousand people died in those raids. So yes, I tried to kill him. I didn't even think. It wasn't a conscious decision. There was a bomb, I was in a battlefield, I saw the enemy, I tried to take him out. That's what happens in war.”

“I see,” said the Auror, though she obviously didn't. But Tom must have made some impact, because no one tried to interrogate him for his use of the killing curse. He wouldn't have told her if there hadn't been other witnesses, people who could have possibly seen the flash of green, could have recognized it. He didn't even cast it with his wand; there was no record. Still, Harry was right when he said sometimes telling the truth was easier. It seemed even the Aurors understood that against some people, the unforgivable could become forgivable.

This had always been something of a joke to Tom. Murder was understandable even by the most just in certain circ*mstances. In defence of the self or loved ones. In times of war. In the past, various so-called intelligent Muggle societies had considered murder in defence of something so nebulous as honour to be justifiable. Likewise for revenge.

History itself up into the present day was a testament to the fact that murder could be not only excusable but necessary. So what if the current justice system claimed the killing curse was unforgivable? Tom had decided early on to be his own system–the rest were simply too capricious and hypocritical. Tom didn't need anyone's forgiveness.

Truthfully, Grindelwald had been a thorn in Tom's side since the beginning. He held sway over so many of the old pureblood families whose children serpentined through the dungeons, discussing Grindelwald this, Dark Lord that.

His methods were crude and his hiding behind the Muggle War to disguise his own attempt at a revolution was childish. But he was talented, and every article detailing his life and works, whether for or against him, seemed to agree. He was highly educated, sophisticated, and a pureblood himself. And, if his zealots were to be believed, he was himself a Seer, had foreseen the current Muggle War, had done his best to get Wizarding society to stop it before it began. His own temper tantrum seemed to be his lashing out at that failure. Giving the Wizards, heads too long buried in the sand, a taste of what exactly Muggle weapons were capable of. How much of a threat they truly were.

He was right in that, at least. It was easy for oblivious, sheltered Wizards to think that, because Muggles were lesser, they were weak. But Tom had seen their brutality first-hand. Muggles were little more than insects, mosquitoes, irritating and constant but easy to swat away when there was just one. But mosquitoes could still kill. And there were millions of them.

What was a wand compared to heavy artillery? Tom didn't even know if a shield charm could stop a bullet; there were no records on the subject, as though no Wizard had ever even considered the thought. As though Wizards didn't die from guns and bombs just as easily as Muggles. Of the forty-four thousand who died in London the year before, one thousand of them had been Magical.

Grindelwald was a pest, a competitor for Tom's hold over the Slytherins, whose parents were unlikely to follow a mere teenager rather than an established Dark Wizard. He was a threat to the Wizarding world which, despite its shortcomings, Tom held very dear. Grindelwald's army could hardly hold its own against every Muggle warship that would turn against them once magic was revealed. And the established Wizarding Ministries were even more useless. Not a single Wizarding country had a standing military, in case the worst should happen. Tom had checked.

But Grindelwald was right about the Muggles. Something must be done.

Harry was waiting outside the Great Hall when Tom finally finished his statement. He stood up with a jerk, eyes wide and anxious, and Tom nodded towards the staircase, followed him up.

He'd found the Room of Hidden Things in fourth year, and was quick to show Harry. But when Harry returned on his own, he found an entirely different room, which he was quick to show Tom. Today, Tom thought very loudly and clearly: I need a place for me and Harry.

He opened the door to find their flat in Knockturn, Harry shooting him a tender smile as he followed Tom inside.

“Feeling nostalgic?” Harry asked, sitting on their horrible, small bed.

“I asked for a place for us,” Tom said, peering out the false window to see the view that had greeted them every late morning, shoppers bustling too and fro, protesters protesting, Aurors recruiting, shopkeepers sweeping protest pamphlets from their cobblestones.

“This was a place for us,” Harry agreed. “The first place that was just ours.”

Tom turned and looked at him, sunlight catching around the silhouette of his curls until it resembled a halo. He moved over to the bed, stopping Harry when he tried to shuffle over to make room, pushing him to lay down instead, and then crawling on top of him.

“I'm so glad you're alright,” Harry whispered, as though he wasn't the one who'd been thrown into a wall, the one whose lungs had gotten punctured. “I heard Helicent say Grindelwald approached you.”

Ah, so that was what had sparked the fear in Harry's eyes. “I cast the killing curse at him,” Tom admitted, since it was only a matter of time before he found out. Harry's wide eyes only widened. “It didn't work. Obviously.”

“Tom, he's going to kill you,” Harry gasped. “We have to run. We'll go to Wales, no one ever goes to Wales. What's in Wales? Charlus can send us–”

“Harry, as much as I appreciate your willingness to immediately abandon everything and flee a Dark Wizard with me, it's fine,” Tom assured him. He really had just jumped immediately to going on the run together. It was incredibly validating. “He has no idea who I am, and besides, I think he was amused. Not angry.” Of course, though it meant his life was likely not in danger, it still cut through Tom's pride like a knife. A wordless, wandless, immediate killing curse, and all he got for his trouble was that stupid f*cking grin. He wanted to kill Grindelwald with his bare hands. He wanted to peel that grin off with a flaying spell and then petrify it, giving it to Harry to wear as a necklace.

“We can never just have a quiet year, huh?” Harry smiled shakily. “If it's not Muggle bombs it's Dark Wizards.” He raised a hand up to Tom's face, drifting a finger down the curve of his eyebrow, the bridge of his nose, the bow of his upper lip. “I love your eyes,” he murmured. “I don't think anyone else has eyes this colour.”

Tom couldn't hold back his scoff. Harry, whose eyes looked like something from a Muggle fairytale, complimenting Tom's. “My red eyes?” he smirked. “The first sign of my possession?”

“They aren't red, they're maroon,” Harry said petulantly. “And they're beautiful.”

“Your eyes,” Tom paused, unable to categorise Harry's eyes. Beautiful seemed too small a word, too common. “They're the colour of the killing curse.”

Harry smirked, squirming beneath him. “Does that turn you on?”

“Outrageously,” Tom smiled, ducking down to sink his teeth into Harry's throat, Harry's hands fluttering like birds before clutching Tom's shoulders, pulling him closer, his whimpers sweet enough to drink.

The next day's Prophet announced the names and ages of Grindelwald's Hogsmeade victims. It carried quite a few scathing words for Dumbledore too, who as ever was refusing to deal with Grindelwald himself, despite the maniac having shown up on his doorstep, no doubt trying to goad him into withdrawing from his sanctuary. Tom was beginning to think Dumbledore was simply a sham; the greatest Wizard of our time crock just that, an empty title with no real threat behind it. He must be planning to wait for someone else to get lucky and defeat the Dark Wizard, his supposed nemesis.

But Tom couldn't find the time to enjoy the journalist’s slagging on his Transfiguration professor; he read through the headlining story and discovered he'd killed without even realising it.

Thirteen Witches and Wizards, all varying ages, struck dead by an extremely powerful concussive curse. Assumed to be Grindelwald's work, of course, but their bodies were found splayed out on opposing sides, as though Grindelwald had carved a path through them, vicious killer that he was. But he hadn't. Tom had.

Tom didn't care about the victims. He didn't read their names or feel guilt for, however inadvertently, ending their lives. His desperation to find Harry had simply taken over, and those people, with their panic and hysteria, had been preventing Tom from reaching him.

But Tom had always assumed that, when he killed his first human victim–for it had always been a matter of when, not if–he would be present enough to enjoy it. To learn from it. He would be able to treasure the memory in a way he never could with the animals, because the animals had just been tools. He'd thought his first time would matter.

And now he couldn't even remember it. He'd barely even been aware of his own surroundings, let alone those inconsequential people and his part in their inconsequential deaths.

It was infuriating, to lose this piece of his life which should have been so monumental. To see it chocked up to Grindelwald, no matter if that was more convenient for Tom in the long-run. He had killed them. Like it was nothing, without a wand, without even conscious thought. Those were his victims, and he couldn't care less about them. He couldn't even use them–hadn’t collected the required materials. What a waste.

Irate, Tom flipped through the paper, hardly seeing the pages themselves, until a name somehow managed to snag his eye.

Apparently Morfin Gaunt had just been released from Azkaban, after serving years for the abuse and torture of Muggles. He was to return to the Gaunt house, all that remained of the once-great family. There was a bit of history about the Gaunts, their decades dedicated to the Dark Arts, their place of pride in the Sacred Twenty-Eight, their descendancy from Salazar Slytherin. Tom cared nothing for any of it.

Morfin Gaunt was alive, somewhere out in the world, somewhere reachable. “Black,” Tom said, finally looking up at his neighbours, still mulling over their breakfasts. Black looked like a hound sitting at attention. “Find me anything you can on the location of the Gaunt house. It's time I paid my family a visit.”

Tom discovered the ritual at the beginning of fifth year, in a dust-riddled book tucked away in the back pocket of the Restricted Section. It was archaic, vague in description, but promised what Tom was searching for could be found by committing the Moste Unforgivable Ackt. It did not say what this act was, and so Tom, as he had learned to do back in first year, when he realised his Head of House’s foremost goal in life was to be well-liked, treating his students more like peers in the hopes it would earn their affection, turned to Slughorn.

That it turned out to be mere murder–and only one! One measly murder in exchange for the solution to all of Tom's problems–was something of a bad joke. Tom knew very well that murder could be forgiven, saw it happen everyday, in every War headline, in every Holy book, in the very existence of soldiers and police and Hit-Wizards. All of them could be immortal, if they only had the stomach for it. If they only had the intelligence to figure out how.

Slughorn took Tom's insouciance poorly, of course, his nerves nearly getting the better of him; a mild irritant, the old man too proud, too Slytherin to ever bring up the conversation with Dippet or, Merlin forbid, Dumbledore. Tom wasn't sure he'd fully soothed Slughorn's anxieties by the end, he'd been too focused on what the information meant for him, for his future, to really give the performance his all.

On the twenty-ninth, Tom decided, he would go to his uncle. Unless something very unexpected happened, he would kill Morfin Gaunt, and turn his death into eternal life. Black had given him the Gaunts’ last known location shortly before everyone else left for the winter, and Tom kept the address tucked safely away in his diary, beating down the urge to check on it, to touch it, every hour. He had it memorised by now.

Harry would want to spend the thirtieth together as they always did, in anticipation for Tom's birthday. He wanted to spend every moment together, in actuality, turned even clingier, needier, since the attack in Hogsmeade, and Tom indulged him, luxuriated in him. Even now, Harry asleep, tucked close against Tom's chest, Tom only let him cling, though it made his reading more difficult. He would need to rise soon, to dress, to feed Harry some believable lie that would explain his absence. Surely murdering his uncle would take only two hours at most. The man must be half-dead already after years with the Dementors.

This would be Tom's first real kill. The one that mattered, that meant something. Cutting down the last of the family that had sentenced his mother to such a pathetic death, that had abandoned Tom, and forging his own life from it. He could only hope to find something so meaningful for Harry, though he knew he wouldn't. Harry was still soft, even after so many hard years. He would want his victim to be someone terrible, someone he felt deserved it. A serial killer, perhaps. Grindelwald himself, if Tom could manage it.

Or, alternatively, an elderly Muggle wishing for death. Someone already dying, painfully, for whom the kill would be a mercy. Harry, his little angel of death.

Tom cast a Tempus charm and then sent his book back to the desk across the room. He turned and laid a kiss to Harry's head, unfailingly finding that scar even through his hair. “I have some errands to run for Slughorn.”

Harry mumbled sleepily, wiping his face on Tom's shoulder before blinking up at him. “Hm?”

“I have some errands to run for Slughorn,” Tom repeated, amused by Harry's look of contrition. “Will you survive without me for two hours?”

“Are you leaving the castle?” Harry asked.

“Yes, but only for an hour or two. He's given me a shopping list.”

“I'll come with you,” Harry decided, perking up a little. “I have to get some gifts for people, anyway. I didn't manage to do it before, you know.” Before the village in which he normally did his Christmas-shopping was burnt to a crisp.

“You can't come with me,” Tom said, already expecting the storm brewing across Harry's face. “Some of the merchants I'll be dealing with are very protective of their wares. They've been told to expect me, and only me. If they see you, I doubt they'll be happy.”

“I'll wear my cloak,” Harry argued. “I know how to sneak.”

Tom was beginning to grow frustrated, despite how heady Harry's protectiveness made him feel. “I can take care of myself. You know I can take care of myself.”

“But you don't have to. That's what I'm for.”

Frustration melted into something fierce and tender inside him. Tom rolled Harry under him, kissing him, feeling a thrill of pleasure when Harry sighed and opened up completely, letting Tom take whatever he wanted. Finally, Tom pulled away, smug at having kissed Harry into acquiescence. It was much more preferable than arguing him into submission, though sometimes Tom liked that, too.

“I am going to go run my errands, and you are going to be good and wait for me,” Tom said, smiling at Harry's torn expression, as though his desire to protect Tom and his desire to submit to him were at war.

“I don't like this,” Harry said softly. “I know you said he wasn't angry, but what if he changed his mind? What if he attacks the Alleys while you're there? And I won't be able to get to you.”

It was in moments like these that Tom wondered, somewhat idly, if he wouldn't be better off without someone following his every shadow, someone folding themselves into every moment of his day and night. He would be able to conduct his machinations without reserve, without having to come up with such ridiculous excuses, without having to ever concede any ground.

He never wondered over the thought for very long. Imagining his life without Harry in it was a futile endeavour. He did not know how drastic the change in him would be, Tom Riddle sans Harry, but he would undoubtedly lead a different life.

“I adore you,” he said, watching Harry's eyes flutter in response. “I'll be back in a couple of hours. Try to get some reading done.”

“You know I won't,” Harry sighed, leaning up to kiss him, suckling at his throat. “I love you. Please be safe.”

“I am not the one constantly being injured,” Tom pointed out, enjoying Harry's scowl as he withdrew from their bed.

Tom wore his finest winter robes to Little Hangleton, both because he wished to rub his own success in the face of his destitute uncle and because he wished to dress for the occasion. There was nothing quite like one's first real murder.

Calling the Gaunt home a house was laughable. It was little more than a shack, tucked away from the rest of the town, just inside the trees on its outskirts. Tom picked his way through litter and brambles and found an ugly drunkard stumbling his way through the hitchings of what looked like a rabbit trap, though the nooses spoke to much larger game, which surely didn't exist in those parts.

The man was hissing to himself in Parseltongue. “Those filthy filths won't know what hit em, I'll get em, I'll get em all, eats them, yes, we'll eats them just like the olden days–”

Tom purposefully snapped a twig beneath his boot and watched the man stiffen, whirling around, brandishing a gnarled wand as though it were a whiskey bottle. “You,” he growled, with quite a bit of rage, given Tom was yet a stranger to him. Then his face grew puzzled. “Why d'you look so young?”

“We've never met,” Tom hissed back, watching Morfin Gaunt fall on his arse from shock. “My name is Tom Riddle. I believe you are my uncle.”

Morfin's face crumpled with disgust. “A half-blood calling me uncle, speaking our sacred tongue, that's rich. The Gaunts have no filthy blood. Take your mud and get out!”

Tom was unfazed; this was what he had expected. He watched Morfin scramble about in the detritus, looking for his dropped wand, with distaste. Killing him would be akin to crushing an ant, he was so pathetic as to be rendered practically inhuman. Oh, well. Couldn't be helped.

“Who did you think I was?” Tom asked. “When you first saw me.”

“That filthy one on top of the hill, king of mud,” Morfin spat, and then turned an ugly grin onto Tom. “Tom Riddle. She gave you the bastard's name, I s'pose. Gave you his face too, what that's worth. She always was ugly, never got our mother's looks. Only good for her c*nt, before it got all muddied.” He laughed, giving up the hunt for his wand and instead pulling a dirty bottle from the leaf litter, guzzling so rivets soaked through his mess of a beard. “Why're you still here, mudblood?”

Tom summoned the man's wand without a word. It was a pitiful excuse for a wand, hardly any magic left to it. He supposed that was what came of marrying siblings to siblings for generations, until they were practically no more than Squibs. And all for the sake of pure blood. It was outrageously stupid. Tom should have killed him for that, alone. He was an insult to Slytherin's legacy.

Morfin's eyes were bloodshot, stupid and wide when he stared down his own wand. There were no laughs to be had, now.

Tom found the house on the top of the hill overlooking the town, a rich estate, RIDDLE MANOR engraved in a plaque on the front gate. He walked inside with little fanfare.

The man who must have been Tom's father, his spitting image with several decades piled on top, and an elderly couple sat at the table, sharing breakfast. A maid was serving them tea. It was almost quaint.

The maid noticed him first and startled, dropping the kettle. The elderly couple looked merely confused. But Tom Riddle Sr– he looked petrified, staring at the wand twirling through Tom's fingers as the blood drained from his face. So he did know about magic.

“Hello,” Tom greeted politely. “My name is Tom Riddle.”

“Oh, heavens,” the old woman cried, looking faint. “Tom, you never said anything about a bastard–”

“He isn't a bastard,” Tom's father sneered, still quite pale. “He's off that woman.” He said woman but he clearly meant Witch.

Tom smiled charmingly. “Merope was my mother, yes. She died in the labour bed.”

“Oh,” the old woman said softly, not without sympathy. Tom caught her eye. She was remembering her son at his age, how handsome and charming he'd been, couldn't help but see him in Tom. She might have been kind to Tom, despite the distaste she still held for his mother, who had ensorcelled her son, stolen him away for a year, and he had returned a much-troubled man, older than his years. After all, Tom did carry the name Riddle. They had been married.

“Well if it's money you're after, you can think again,” Tom's father barked, anger overriding his fear of magic, of what had been done to him. Tom paralyzed him without hesitation, and then stunned his grandparents for good measure. The maid had done him the favour of fainting all on her own.

Tom crossed over to stand over his father, whose eyes were straining with the need to blink. He needed him conscious for this. He wanted it to hurt. “Legilimens.”

Tom watched his father swagger his way through life, wealthy and handsome, a king among rats in this Muggle village. He never looked twice at Merope, the lowly peasant from the woods, until suddenly she was all he could see.

He watched their elopement, his father suddenly entranced by this quiet beauty, the sound of her voice, the way the light fell over her shoulder. He had never been in love before. It was intoxicating, overwhelming. He noticed nothing but Merope.

It wasn't long before she was pregnant. And then one morning, Tom Riddle woke up beside a woman he did not recognize, a stranger who had trapped him in her web of false love. She was crying when she confessed, cradling her belly, the child he'd never wanted, would never have put there had he been in control of his own mind.

He'd lost a year to her Amortentia. She begged him not to leave, was adamant she loved him, begged him to stay for his child if not for her. But what did he care for the child of this witch? A child that had never been his in the first place, only hers, hers and the slave she had made of him.

Tom blinked his way from his father's mind, knowing full well that it would be agonising for the man. “Well, I cannot fault you entirely,” Tom mused, clucking at the tears streaming down his father's frozen face. Embarrassing. A grown man, as well; he should feel ashamed, unable to get a hold of himself. “But I've never cared that you abandoned my mother while she was with child. You should not have abandoned me.”

He would torture him a little. Not too much–he'd promised Harry two hours, and this little field trip was already taking longer than he'd expected. But something to take the edge off. Then he would kill him, the grandparents too, the maid. He would Obliviate Morfin, convince him he'd done it. It shouldn't be too hard, a mind so weak as that. Everyone already knew he hated Muggles. And Morfin's wand, when checked, would show the record of four killing curses.

It was altogether more complicated than what Tom had originally planned, but more poetic as well. The death of both families, Tom the only one left. Just like the Basilisk, he thought to himself, amused by it.

“Tom,” Harry said, which made no sense, Harry was back at Hogwarts, waiting for him, though Tom could see him clear as day, his green eyes swinging around the room, taking in the scene. He didn't look scared, a bit surprised, a bit worried, but when he approached Tom there was no reservation. “Are you okay?”

“You're meant to be at the castle,” Tom said, inanely. He hadn't factored Harry into this plot at all, though perhaps he should have. Meddlesome boy. “I told you to wait for me.”

“I got worried,” Harry said, reaching for Tom's face, cradling it, always so dramatic. As though Tom needed comforting.

“How did you know where to find me?” Tom asked. Harry had spent years meddling, but he wasn't omniscient. Even Tom hadn't known he'd end up at Riddle Manor, hadn't even known it existed.

“I found the Gaunt house,” said Harry, completely unrepentant as he confessed to going through Tom's things, never as afraid of Tom's anger as he should be. “Then I saw this house–it's the one from my dream. The one where they hurt you.”

“They're Muggles,” Tom scoffed. “They can't hurt me.” The idea was patently ridiculous.

But Harry was unmoved, still looking at Tom in that way of his, caring. “They abandoned you. He abandoned you. Don't say it doesn't hurt. Not to me.” Because Harry had been abandoned himself, of course. He knew better. Years spent bricking over every point of vulnerability, yet standing there, being sneered at by his father–if it's money you're after, you can think again–Tom was suddenly three years old, wondering why his father was taking so long to find him.

“They don't matter,” Harry said, stone-faced, and oh, he was angry, incandescent with rage on behalf of Tom. He couldn't even look at Tom's father, the hate leaking out of him. Harry moved until he stood with his back to the paralyzed man, a barrier between them. “He doesn't matter. They aren't your family. I am.”

“You are,” Tom agreed. “Would you kill him for me?”

Harry looked torn. He didn't like killing, hated even the thought of it, couldn't bear to smash a co*ckroach, always scooping them into a cup to carry outside, instead. But he loved Tom.

“Not like this,” Harry admitted. “Not like–I would, if it were him or you. If it would save you. But not like this.”

“But it would save me,” Tom said, curling a hand around Harry's neck, dragging him closer, crooning into his ear. He was teetering on the edge of something, so close to everything he'd ever wanted, more than he thought might be possible. He should have never underestimated Harry. He should have never underestimated himself. Of course he could get what he wanted, all of it, every last drop. “His death would serve a greater purpose. That's why I came today. There's a ritual, a type of magic called a Horcrux. It's real immortality, of a sort. All it calls for is a sacrifice. Life for life.”

Harry stood tense under his hands, though his grip on Tom remained gentle, soothing. “What do you mean, of a sort?”

“So long as the Horcrux isn't destroyed, you can't die. It is reportedly very difficult to destroy one, so I'm confident we'll manage.”

“But what exactly is a Horcrux?” Harry asked. “If all it takes to become invincible is murder, how come there aren't tons of immortal Dark Wizard? Grindelwald, for sure.”

“Most of them are unwilling to accept the cost,” Tom grinned, pressing a kiss to Harry's ear, pleased by his shudder. “They aren't strong enough. I am. You are.”

“What's the cost?”

“Only a small piece of soul, protected by the vessel. That is the Horcrux. I'm not using my soul for anything, anyway. Are you?”

But Tom knew he'd lost him when Harry pulled away, cupped Tom's face, looking sombre. “You promised me you wouldn't break yourself.”

Tom frowned. A half-asleep promise to appease Harry, frightened by a nonsensical nightmare, was hardly an oath. “This isn't–”

“It is,” Harry said, firm. “This is exactly what I was talking about. I don't remember everything, but I remember you were in pieces. You'd cut yourself into pieces and it went horribly wrong.” He ran comforting hands down Tom's shoulders, trying to rub out the tension taken hold of his back. “It's alright, you'll find another way–”

“There isn't time to find another way,” Tom snapped. “I've been searching for years and this is the best option. We're already running out of time.”

“We're only fifteen–”

“You nearly died,” Tom hissed, wrenching back. Harry clung, refused to let him go, pulled him into a suffocating hold. Tom could still see him, crumpled in the snow, lungs punctured, drowning in his own blood.

He could force him. Harry would be upset for a time, but he'd get over it. He'd realise that Tom was right, that Tom was only ensuring their safety, as he always had. He would forgive Tom after a while spent sulking. He would forgive Tom anything.

“I love you,” Harry said, tucked into Tom's neck, rising on his toes to reach, still so small, childishly bitter about it. “I love you so much. Please don't break yourself. Not even once. You promised.”

He'd been right about the bombs, Tom thought. He'd been right about Riddle Manor. So many of Harry's strange dreams were too nebulous to follow, perhaps too far into the future to know. But he had been right, before.

The Horcrux ritual was incredibly difficult, and required dubious translations to boot. Tom was confident he could perform it, but what if one of the translations was incorrect? What if there were unrecorded effects he hadn't prepared for? No one who had performed it was still alive to interrogate.

It was possible something would go wrong. And if Harry was right, the damage could be irreparable. There were too many unknowns, the cost too great. If Tom somehow managed to destroy himself, where would that leave Harry?

“I won't perform the ritual,” Tom said, voice blank as his mind. He wasn't sure he felt anything at the moment, only a pale, empty sea where feeling once was.

“Thank you,” Harry said, moving to kiss him, kissing him harder when Tom didn't respond.

After a moment, Tom's mouth began to move on its own, muscle memory taking over, warmth seeping in where before there'd been nothing. The taste of Harry, the weight of him pressed against Tom's front.

Harry pulled away, studied him, kissed him again. Then he glanced at the Muggles, still as Tom had left them. “What were your plans for them?”

“The killing curse. With Morfin Gaunt's wand. Obliviating him would be easy for a first year.”

“Clever,” Harry said. “Dramatic. What'd your grandparents ever do to you? Their maid?”

Tom gave him a scornful look. “Nothing. This isn't about that.”

Harry took Tom's hand between his own. “It's a little about that. Look, I'll stay no matter what. I'm not leaving you. But say Morfin's mind is too shattered and doesn't hold up. Say there's another servant who saw the whole thing. I'd prefer not to have to break you out of Azkaban.”

Tom sent the ceiling a scathing look. Harry and his incessant worry. Tom could have been back at the castle by now, Harry none the wiser, pleased just to have Tom back, kissing him into the mattress.

“You are a nuisance,” he glared, glaring harsher when Harry only smiled.

“I know. It's so annoying to have someone care about you. So what do we do?”

We, already including himself in Tom's criminal enterprises. Tom sent a few torturous spells at his father, revelling in his silent pain as he woke his grandparents, Obliviating them both at once. The maid was next, and then his miserable father, though Tom had one last plan for him.

“You will confess to your parents that you had a son while married to Merope. He was raised in an orphanage after her death. He has your name. You wish to bring him into the fold, into the inheritance. You regret abandoning him as you did. And then, once they have promised to do so, you will kill yourself.”

Harry was careful to stifle any reaction. He would not be talking Tom out of this.

Tom began down the hill towards the Gaunt shack, when Harry tugged him to a stop. “I already dealt with him,” he said, scowling at the thought of Morfin. “Don't worry about his wand, just break it. He doesn't deserve to have one, anyway.”

There was that word again, deserve, as though Harry was some kind of vigilante. Tom did take some measure of glee in snapping the old wretch's wand, as good as a piece of dead driftwood. He tossed it into the snow.

“What did you do to him?” he asked, suddenly curious. If Harry killed someone while Tom wasn't there to see it, he would hunt down a pensieve just as quickly as he could.

“Nothing like what you're picturing,” Harry laughed. “I just put him in one of his own traps, is all. If he can manage to get out of it once he wakes up, he'll be fine.”

“I suspect they were to be used on Muggles,” Tom mused. “It may be impossible to be remove without magic. He might die.”

“Serves him right, then,” Harry shrugged. “Dead in his own trap. By his own hand, one might say.”

“One might,” Tom agreed.

“Pulled this off him, too,” Harry said, taking something from his pocket and holding it out.

A ring, recently cleaned, carrying what must have been some family crest, though it wasn't the Gaunts’. It fit perfectly on Tom's third finger.

“Thought you'd want it for your collection,” Harry smiled.

That night, Harry pressed himself against Tom's back, snaking an arm up to toy with his meagre chest hair. “Are you okay? You can talk about it, if you want. It's a big deal. You found your relatives.” Relatives, but not family.

“I'm fine,” Tom said, because he was. He had stopped expecting anything to come from his family years ago. They could only ever disappoint. Today only proved he was never wrong. “Merope fed Tom Riddle with Amortentia for a year. That's how she got him to elope with her. Then when she got pregnant, she came clean. I don't know why. If she thought he'd come to care for her, she was an idiot. Amortentia only ever creates false love. That's why children conceived under its effects are incapable of feeling it.”

He'd researched the potion when they first brewed it in third year, as he researched every potion, every spell. Knowledge was the foundation of craft. There was some vindication to realise he really was incapable of love, by virtue of his conception. It wasn't that he did not understand it, it was that he couldn't, and thus he never had to lay in wait for the day that he could look at Harry and suddenly feel different.

“That's bollocks,” Harry said. “I know you think you don't, I know you don't say it because you don't want to lie to me. But you make me feel loved, and that's all love is.”

“Amortentia made Tom Riddle feel love,” Tom said, pointlessly. Harry was convinced Tom loved him, and there'd be no talking him out of it.

“It's weird to call him that. You're Tom Riddle. He's just some guy. And anyway, it didn't make him feel love. It just made him think he did.”

Tom hummed, rolled over and then above, Harry pleased as always to be caught underneath him. He whined immediately when Tom kissed him, smoothed eager hands up Tom's back, pressing him down, hips rising up to meet him.

Tom descended, leaving footholds of bruises down Harry's jaw, his fragile neck, the ridge of his collar bone. He could feel where their bodies were wet, sliding together, a mess of friction and smooth glide. He brought a hand to Harry's throat, watched him sigh with pleasure as he pressed down, waiting until Harry was shivering before letting him breathe again.

“I'm so glad we're not cousins,” Harry gasped, laughing, moaning when Tom bit savagely at a nipple.

“It wouldn't have mattered,” Tom shrugged, shifting to sink his teeth into the muscle of Harry's arm, a nasty bruise for Tom to savour later. He had no intrinsic care or loyalty towards either the Gaunts or the Riddles, had only ever viewed Harry with anything close to familial affection. And he had only ever wanted Harry like this, dripping with pleasure, Tom's for the taking. He couldn't imagine their sharing blood would change that. “I'd have had you either way.”

“Tom,” Harry said, scandalised, even as he kept writhing, kept begging for more.

“The Gaunts married their children to each other,” Tom pointed out, reaching up to catch Harry's mouth, luring his tongue out, snagging it between his teeth. “I'd have had you even if we were brothers.”

“You're sick,” Harry moaned, clutching Tom's arms as he came. “But I'd have let you. So I guess we're both sick.”

Both sick, Tom with his bloody hands, his bloody visions, Harry for wanting him anyway. When he came, it was with Harry's blood pooling into his mouth.

Second term came with an unexpected windfall in the way of an article published in the Prophet over the holidays, headlined A New Generation of Heroes? It contained quotes from each of the students’ statements from the Hogsmeade attacks, with special attention paid to Tom's. The Ministry must have had a leak.

In particular, Tom's admittance to trying to kill Grindelwald no matter the cost to himself, his experience during the Muggle War, and his personal achievements as a student, Prefect, and the latest descendent of Salazar Slytherin himself, in a way which somehow painted him as some sort of unsung hero and upcoming Great Wizard, the journalist going so far as to say that if Dumbledore was not going to deign to interfere with Grindelwald's reign of terror, perhaps this new generation of Wizards and Witches were.

It was all hogwash, obviously, but Tom couldn't deny the delight he found in the written applause and favourable comparison to Dumbledore, himself. When he came into real power, he decided, he'd find the journalist and make her his personal public relations manager.

Harry was also amused by the article, not least because it portrayed him as Tom's own damsel in distress, his childhood companion.

“Companion,” Harry teased, “As if I didn't spend all night with my mouth on your co*ck.”

“Companionship takes many forms,” Tom mused. “They couldn't very well write about your love for my co*ck in the article. It's a family paper.”

“‘It's a family paper,’” Harry said, affecting Tom's posh accent he'd adopted shortly after his Sorting. “What about your love for my mouth? They could have put that in there.”

“It would have run over the word count,” said Tom.

There was a noticeable reaction from both faculty and students upon the holiday's end. Even non-Slytherins had gained new respect for Tom, offering him deference in a way they never had before, either out of House loyalty or general disdain for his blood status. And the Slytherins had become nearly frenetic with it; those without family ties to the current Dark Lord looked to Tom as their up and coming king, meant to lead them into greatness. And those with parents who supported Grindelwald, most of Tom's own Knights, delighted in this sudden flavour of teenage rebellion, confident that their Dark Lord would win the battle. Both sides seemed sure there would be a battle, expectant that Tom would lead the charge, regardless of his age. It was, perhaps, the closest he'd yet come to the taste of real respect, real power, which he'd spent so long wanting. He understood how so many Ministers and military officials became crazed from it; watching as waves of students scrambled to please him, to defer to him, was a taste most addicting.

Harry teased him for this, too. “How's my favourite Great Wizard today?” he smirked, flicking a hand at Rosier that shot him down the bench so he could take his place.

“I know what you're doing,” Tom said, ensuring his mild tone never wavered. Harry knew he liked to see him do wandless, wordless magic, as if it was as effortless for him as it was for Tom. He liked to see Harry duelling and flying, would have him visibly wreathed in magic all day if he could. He wished he could physically touch Harry's core, he was sure it burned hot as the centre of the earth.

“Doesn't mean it's not working,” Harry grinned, squishing as close as he could while in public. “Don't let that article give you any ideas. No duelling a Dark Wizard before we've graduated. Or else I really will fail my O.W.L.s.”

“So you are to tell me what to do, now?” Tom drawled, amused by Harry's flush, and Avery's bared teeth as he eavesdropped.

Harry hummed, considering, and then lowered his head, baring his bitten up throat, looking at Tom through his lashes. “Please, my lord?” He would never be so vocally submissive in a language the other Slytherins could understand, but that was no matter. Tom's mouth watered regardless.

“Shameless,” he murmured. “Eat your breakfast.”

“That's not a yes,” Harry grumbled, poking at his potatoes. “Wait until you can't die, at least.”

“I intend to,” said Tom, watching Harry sink into relief. Really, he should know Tom better. Tom had never picked a fight he did not know he would win.

Casting the killing curse in Hogsmeade was the result of mindless rage, just as the concussive wave that killed thirteen others. It had worked out in his favour this time, but he would not make the same mistake twice.

As the castle grounds thawed into spring, so too did the elderly Riddles thaw towards Tom. They sent the letter through the Muggle post, which was inefficient at best, so it took many weeks to reach him. They offered to host him at the Manor during his next school break, eager to get to know the grandchild they'd only just heard of, the last vestige of their recently deceased son.

“Are you going to accept their invitation?” Harry asked, nose wrinkling at the thought. He didn't want Tom to experience even the most minor of offences, which he felt sure they would offer, flatly saying “They're white and old money, Tom, they're guaranteed to be awful.”

Tom was as pleased by the letter as Harry was reticent. He couldn't care less if his grandparents were awful; by many peoples’ metric, Tom was awful, and he could care less about that, too. What mattered was that they were, as Harry said, old money. Harry's connections as a Potter bastard were helpful, but Tom wanted his own inheritance, wanted to drape Harry in the luxuries his brothers’ charity couldn't afford them.

“They're elderly, and elderly Muggles die if the wind blows too hard,” said Tom. “I'll spend a year or two at most endearing myself to them and inherit everything once they're gone.” Tom studied Harry, in repose across Tom's bed, the lake's reflection casting waves across his stomach. “I'm going to buy you silk robes in celebration.”

He flushed so prettily, so easily. “I don't need any silk robes.”

“And perhaps a silk scarf to strangle you with,” Tom mused.

“Okay,” Harry coughed, still flustered, handing the letter back to Tom. “Are you with your minions tonight?”

“There is a meeting, yes,” Tom smirked. The last one before summer, and he had such plans. “It will be an initiation of sorts. I'd like you to come.” He'd been trying to involve Harry in more Knights of Walpurgis matters. He didn't actually want Harry to be a Knight, which was helped by the fact that Harry didn't want to be a Knight, himself. But it was good for the Knights to see Harry as a fixture, someone they would have to learn to respect or, failing that, at least not antagonise. Harry was going to be by Tom's side forever; his Knights should get used to him.

Harry was not very helpful on the antagonization front, but it did Tom good to see him snarling every once in a while.

“Fine,” Harry sighed, resigned. He flashed Tom a heated look. “But you're making it up to me later.”

Tom put the finishing touches on his Transfiguration essay, a flawless bit of work which would net him no praise from Dumbledore, and considered. He'd ordered his Knights to leave the room till that evening. They had hours to fill, yet. “I can make it up to you now.”

Harry always got a particular look when he knew Tom was about to kiss him, as though he were melting into a pool of warm liquid, satisfied that he was about to get everything he'd ever wanted. It was flattering; Tom had never seen the point in kissing, before Harry. Sex, he supposed, at least offered something in the form of a physical release, though he'd always believed the mess and inconvenience of finding a partner couldn't be worth the trouble. And of course there was the matter of procreation. But what could kissing offer beyond a waste of time and what must be a disgusting spread of saliva?

Then Tom discovered that it was not enough to see Harry, hear him, smell him, touch him. He needed to feel him with every sense, mouth charting a map of the many landmarks. And Harry loved kissing with gratifying abandon, especially pleased whenever Tom stroked his tongue with his own.

He whined, bereft, when Tom pulled away, humming with amusem*nt when Tom plucked off his glasses, a new, more sophisticated pair, and sent them over to his desk, beyond Harry's reach. “You don't need them,” said Tom. “You'll see what I want you to see. Move where I move you.”

“Yeah,” Harry breathed. “Okay. How do you want me?”

“I did say I'd make it up to you,” Tom smirked, running his nails down Harry's stomach, leaving pale lines in their wake. Harry never simply tried to take what it was he wanted, even when Tom offered, always waiting for direction, eager to please, gaining his own pleasure from it. “Bend your knees. Aren't you an athlete? You can do better than that. Or should I make you?” At Harry's wide eyes, his shaky gasp, Tom smiled. He took hold of the left thigh, a harsh grip, and slowly pushed up until Harry's knee pressed against his ribcage. Then he did the same with the right. “Hold them.”

He stared at the picture Harry made, like a pinned animal ready for dissection. He drew light fingers between his buttocks, up, before taking his sack in hand, squeezing until Harry whimpered. “Keep still,” he hushed, bending down to lick at the crown of Harry's co*ck, analysing the taste and texture. Bitter and not at all pleasant, but bearable in return for the sounds it resulted in. Harry's desperate tension as he struggled not to move was pleasurable in its own way, his idiotic babbling whenever Tom f*cked him.

There it was, now. “Oh God, Jesus f*ck, Tom, I love you, I love you, Merlin–” He seemed to love Tom even more than usual when being brought to org*sm.

Tom swept his tongue flat along the underside of Harry's co*ck and then moved to bite his sack–not so deeply as to puncture, but not gently–wondering if Harry would soon begin to cry. He did, and Tom smiled against his flesh, turned to sink a bruise into Harry's inner thigh, where he could comfortably do damage, biting until he was sure the skin would blacken.

Then he sat back up, pulling Harry by the hips, hitching them over Tom's, leaning forward to kiss him again, swallowing Harry's tortured gasps, his hysterical groan when Tom's prick sank behind him, nudging at his hole.

“You can,” Harry offered, mind empty of everything but the pleasure Tom was feeding to him. “Please, I want it.”

“It won't fit,” Tom said, gritting his teeth against impulse. Harry did the most atrocious things to Tom's self-control, fraying with each sound of pain, each look full of wanting. “I don't feel like stretching you.”

“Just the tip, then,” Harry begged. “Just enough to hurt. Don't pretend you don't want it to.”

“I'm not,” Tom took hold of his co*ck, pressing it just inside, and then, at Harry's choked gasp, a bit further. “You can take me dry,” he decided. “You'll take it. For me.”

They hadn't done it this way since the winter, Harry's Quidditch schedule unforgiving of the soreness, and Tom's patience not given to lengthy preparation. There were spells, but they dulled the sensation. He'd never had Harry without lubricant. He should have.

“God,” Harry gasped, laughing through tears, through agonising bliss. “Anything. Anything you want. f*ck, Tom.”

“I want you to come like this,” Tom said, running a finger over the dry, inflamed skin where they met, Harry's body quivering, clenching over and over, like a throat struggling to swallow. “You may move now.”

Harry lurched up, sobbing into Tom's mouth, hips bucking up wildly, without strategy, only the desire for more, for all of him. “Want you inside me,” he groaned, fingers digging like spades in the earth of Tom's back.

“I am inside you.”

“No,” Harry whispered, blinking through tears brought on by extremity. “Want you inside my skin. In my bones.”

“Harry,” Tom breathed, stilling, seeing himself making it happen. A modified cutting curse, more controlled, a staunching charm so he wouldn't bleed out too quickly. Tom pulling back the layers of skin, fat, muscle, tenderly kissing each organ as he removed them, making room for himself.

Harry's eyes were bright, an emerald fire. “I know,” he gasped. “I know.” He came, just as Tom asked for, pulling Tom's face into the curve of his neck, a wordless plea.

One day, Tom was going to scar him there, his name, perhaps, so that everyone could see and know who Harry belonged to. For now, a bite would do. Harry sighed, content, when Tom spilled inside him, running lazy hands over Tom's spine, delighting in the indentations left by his fingers.

“Don't heal the soreness,” Tom said, wordlessly vanishing the mess until their skin was dry.

“I have a match tomorrow,” Harry said, gnawing at his lip, torn between what he wanted and what would be better for his team.

Tom didn't care if Gryffindor got more rubies in their hourglass. He tugged Harry's lip free, pinching it until Harry squirmed. “Then you'll play sore. Won't you?”

“Sure,” Harry said, as though he was making a great sacrifice for Tom, rather than just doing what they both wanted. “I could beat Slytherin's Seeker with no arms, anyway.”

“And how would you catch the ball?”

“The snitch,” Harry rolled his eyes, and then batted them. “With my mouth. It's very talented.”

“It is,” Tom allowed, pushing his thumb into the mouth in question. “Don't hex Avery tonight. I have plans for him.”

Harry, who had been losing himself to the pleasure of Tom's finger, scowled, spitting it out like a wad of chewing gum. “I won't so long as he doesn't ask for it. He's an ignoramus in the extreme. They all are.”

“The Blacks have proven helpful,” Tom said placidly. He showed no favouritism among his Knights, relying on each of them striving for his favour to negate any threat of mutiny. The only person Tom openly indulged was Harry, and Harry was not a Knight, so there was no hope for replacement. “Walburga in particular is quite adept at sniffing out any love potion that's been slipped into my food.”

“Someone tried to slip you a love potion?” Harry frowned. “You didn't tell me.”

“People have been trying since third year. It's inconsequential; the potion has always been caught, and even if it wasn't, I doubt any of them could brew it correctly, anyway. The only two who did were us, and you only because I did most of it.”

“I still want to know,” Harry moved closer, tucking himself beneath Tom's chin. “That's awful.”

“That's Slytherin,” Tom shrugged. “Even with my Muggle blood, the fact that I am Salazar's descendent makes me a good match for most pureblood girls without standing betrothal arrangements. Second daughters and the like, and those with already questionable family members. An Aunt who married a half-blood, for instance.”

“I hate your f*cking House so much,” Harry grumbled. “I should just snog you in the middle of the Great Hall and be done with it.”

Tom smiled, pleased by Harry's greed, his selfishness when it came to Tom's attentions, his territorial side always eager to prove that he and he alone held Tom's affection. “It's worth considering. Marrying into a pureblood family with both wealth and connections. An heiress, perhaps. Of course, I'd still keep our little arrangement.”

“‘Little arrangement’?” Harry said, outraged until he pulled back and saw Tom's grin. “You're horrible.”

“Yes,” Tom agreed, still grinning, biting the curve of Harry's cheek. “You love me anyway.”

“I do,” Harry sighed. “Do I have to wear another silly robe tonight?”

“Just for that, I'll dress you in that robe and nothing else,” Tom said mildly. “They're traditional ceremonial robes–do try to remember you're a Wizard, Harry.”

The newest recruits exchanged looks of surprise when Harry followed Tom out into the commons, though the inner fold all looked merely resigned, in the case of Malfoy and Mulciber; unaffected, in the case of Nott and the Blacks; or quietly seething, in the case of Avery. Tom had been pleased when a dozen Slytherins who had proven themselves to be, if not noticeably clever or talented, at least good at following directions, had asked to join the Knights. A handful of them were girls as well, to Tom's–and Walburga's–satisfaction. They would each no doubt be married off to men with some sort of positioning within the Ministry, and Tom suspected housewives would make good spies.

They trailed after Tom in what he supposed was their agreed-upon hierarchy, with the original Knights first, Walburga and Alphard after, and then the newest recruits. Harry, as ever, gave not a whit about the Knights’ hierarchy, and matched pace with Tom. Tom could tell when he realised where it was they were headed, expression a mixture of elation and measured wariness.

“But this is the girls’ loo,” said Alphard, and Tom shot Harry a look of disdain.

“Should we check that no one's in there first?” Greengrass offered. “Then we can let you know if the coast is clear.”

“No need,” Tom said coolly, hissing into the lavatory, a habit borne from the Myrtle Warren incident. A metallic response was given. “It's empty.”

Harry rolled his eyes at the dramatics, having no respect for necessary theatre. But he could never fully hide his glee when visiting the Chamber, delighting in the secret of it, the adventure, delighting in the thought of seeing the Basilisk. He'd stolen a training broom to store down there, so he could itch between her scales.

The Knights stared at the sink in wonder as it pulled apart. They stared at the tunnel, expressions ranging from fearful to hungry. Tom stepped in front of the entrance.

“I'm afraid it isn't safe for anyone but myself to enter the Chamber fully,” he explained and, when Harry pointedly cleared his throat, added “And my Chosen, when accompanying me. But I thought you might like to see the legacy you have decided to join.” Leaning into the tunnel, Tom called to the Basilisk. “Shield your eyes and come up here. You are not to leave the tunnel fully.”

“More deer?” asked the Basilisk. “Is Harry there?” Harry's presence had come to signal venison.

“Harry is here,” Tom confirmed, and Harry gave him an annoyed look, likely upset about the Basilisk's impending disappointment. Fine, if Harry was so concerned about feeding a creature who needed no food to live, he could make a return trip. “He will bring you a deer later.”

“Arsehole,” Harry muttered under his breath.

The sound of the Basilisk's movements reached the lavatory before she herself did, the echoes of scales against stone growing louder by the second.

“What is that?” asked Greengrass, before being shushed by Walburga, who was clutching her robe.

Finally, the Basilisk revealed her glory, self-blinded, tasting the air to see, first greeting Tom with her customary bow, before turning to press the horned snout of her nose against Harry, who laughed.

Commendably, none of the Knights screamed, not even the girls, though they all looked some variation of startled, save Avery, who looked like a beggar with his face pressed against a shop window.

“You did bring deer,” the Basilisk said, sounding pleased, flicking her tongue out towards Malfoy, who gamely did not flinch.

“They are not to be eaten,” Tom said, ignoring her sound of contrition. “But there is one to be frightened.”

“I can frighten,” said the Basilisk. “I am very frightening."

“On Harry's command” Tom said, turning to him, watching Harry fill up with joy at the gift.

“To your left,” Harry told her, ignoring the new recruits’ shock at his Parseltongue. When the Basilisk faced Avery, who was shaking with euphoria at her proximity, Harry sent him a wicked grin. “Now.”

The Basilisk's hiss was more of a thunderous roar, rattling the entire wing of the castle. Her mouth wide enough to swallow a man whole, her fangs the length of a forearm. Avery was a true acolyte, a real believer, who would have thrown himself into the Basilisk's gullet if only Tom told him to.

But all of this faith did not stop the physical reaction of his body, the tears bursting forth, the puddle of urine pooling beneath his robe.

“Enough,” said Tom, and the Basilisk withdrew, mouth closed, face placid. “You've done well. Harry will bring you your reward.”

“Hessie, if I'd known we were coming, I would have brought you something, honest,” Harry told her.

The Basilisk shook her scales and began her slow, backwards descent into the tunnel. “If you do not, I will just eat you.”

Tom closed the Chamber and turned to Avery, still standing in place despite his shame, his pride allowing nothing less. Tom had enjoyed his torment, but he would not water seeds of bitterness in his Knights. Avery had been loyal since the group's formation, if stupid. “You did well, Avery.”

Avery, perhaps involuntarily, gasped. Tom did not dole out compliments. He did not see the need to praise people for doing what they should do. Tom watched the shame melt into smugness, bitterness into rapture. Now, when he remembered this night, it would not be with acerbity at the thought of his torture. It would be with joy at the thought of Tom's regard, which he held so highly.

But he would also remember who had given the Basilisk’s command.

“Now you've seen one of Slytherin's greatest secrets,” Tom declared, addressing the group as a whole. “The Basilisk has been guarding his Chamber for one thousand years, and I am the first of his line to discover it. She follows my every command, as you all witnessed, because I am the sole Heir. But you also witnessed her fondness for Harry.” He reached and tugged the locket from its hiding place, letting it shine over Harry's chest, the emerald serpent leaving no room for misunderstanding among the group of Slytherins. He studied each of his Knights in turn. “I know there have been questions in this regard, among you. I will not answer them, because this is all the proof that you need. An insult to Harry is an insult to me. An insult to Slytherin. I will not repeat myself,” he said quietly, letting his words settle over them like a sword dangling above their heads. “Keep up your duties over the summer. I expect to be kept informed.”

Taking this as the dismissal it was, the Knights bowed their heads and filtered out of the lavatory, discussing the night in hushed, enthusiastic whispers as they went. Tom sighed and vanished Avery's mess with disgust.

“What was that about?” Harry asked, leaning a hip against the sink. “They already know I'm your–whatever you made up so they wouldn't find out you aren't the only Parselmouth since Slither-man, himself.”

Tom made a face at the ridiculous nickname. “I didn't make it up. You are my Chosen. Parseltongue is supposed to be hereditary, spoken only by those with Slytherin's blood, of which you have none. But there are records, though all of them are anecdotal at best, of a few Parselmouths whose spouses, not of Slytherin's blood, suddenly shared the ability.”

“But I could speak it before we were friends,” Harry pointed out, as if it meant anything.

“That doesn't matter,” Tom shrugged. “I was always going to choose you. You've been mine since you were born.”

Harry stared at him before walking slowly forward until the toes of their shoes touched. “For someone who doesn't believe in love, you are extremely romantic.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “It isn't romance, it's logic. You have no Slytherin blood, ergo, you can speak Parseltongue because of mine.”

“Sure,” Harry said, biting back a grin. “I love you, too. And all that logic rubbish. But what I meant was, why do this whole song and dance over something they already know?”

“There is a difference between knowing and accepting. Some of them planned to sabotage your broom during tomorrow's match.”

“Let me guess,” Harry scowled. “Avery.”

“Among others. Walburga heard them plotting and came straight to me.”

“Surprised she said anything,” Harry mused. “She hates Muggle-blooded students more than anyone.”

“Including me,” Tom smirked. “At first, at least. I suspect she only wanted to join the Knights to spend time with Orion. But then she enjoyed herself, and now she's unfailingly loyal.” She'd become something of a fanatic after the first incident with Amortentia, which she'd managed to deduce within seconds, having an affinity for the stuff since her mother had been one of the most notorious love potioneers of all time. Tom had, on multiple occasions, wondered if Merope had gotten her stock from Irma Black.

“Should've told them not to worry about the broom,” Harry said cheerfully. “You just sabotaged me with your co*ck, instead.”

“I could,” Tom murmured, backing Harry up to the sink, lifting him onto the rim, pressing into the spread of his thighs as he banished their cloaks to the floor. “I could have you right there in the middle of the pitch, for everyone to see.”

“You shouldn't treat them that way,” Harry said, even as his breath grew shaky. He nodded towards their puddled cloaks. “Don't you know those are traditional ceremonial robes?” He clicked his tongue mockingly. “Have some respect.”

“I'm going to make it impossible for you to sit without crying,” Tom decided. “When you get dressed in the changing rooms, my spend will still be leaking out of you.”

Harry hooked his strong calves around the back of Tom's legs, pulling him closer as Harry pressed a grin into Tom's mouth. “Promises, promises.”

Chapter 4: Feeling Like A Psychic Wound

Chapter Text

On the first day of summer, Tom returned to Riddle Manor. His grandparents were overly polite, the house staff serving him with appropriate gravitas. The elderly Mr. and Mrs. Riddle were clearly unsure how to go about suddenly having a grandson, but, still grieving the sudden loss of their child, were pleased to have him nonetheless, Tom's face and name doing more to endear them than even his unfailing etiquette.

They were pleased to hear of his achievements at his boarding school in Scotland, pleased even more to be told of his internship in the government. An intelligent, talented boy, they thought to themselves, rising above the improper lineage his mother had given him. It amused Tom; the Wizards thinking his blood of poorer quality by his father, the Muggles thinking the same of his mother. Disregarding magic, they really were all the same stupid kind of beast.

When they learned he was renting an apartment for the summer, they insisted he make use of the guest house on the premises. Tom considered the request; it would certainly be nicer than the stamp-sized flat he and Harry had managed to find, and it was separate from the main house, with a fireplace he could conceivably have hooked to the floo network, making transportation to Diagon easy enough.

“I can't leave Harry,” he demurred, reminding them of the boy he'd befriended at the orphanage, his only family for the many years they'd left him to languish in abandonment. “May he come, as well?”

The old couple shared a look before Mr. Riddle, thinking himself very charitable indeed, said “Of course.”

They knew nothing of Harry's blood status, would not have cared if they did, but his Muggle blood meant nothing to them in comparison to the colour of his skin.

They were not so uncouth as to throw Harry out on sight, though they did turn quite a few shades colder upon meeting him. Harry, who had spent years learning to discern these subtle hatreds, and had never cared much for disguising his own feelings in return, responded just as frostily.

“I can just stay in Knockturn,” he grumbled, even as he gazed longingly at the lavish guest space he was hardly welcomed in. “You can visit me there.”

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Tom said, already fitting Harry's things alongside his own. “It's hardly the first time you've experienced this.” While Mrs. Cole and the matron at Wool's had been remarkably unfazed by the appearance of a dark-skinned child on their stoop, the other orphans, and the odd sundry handymen and nurses and neighbouring shopkeepers, had not been so accepting.

There was real anger in Harry's eyes when he looked at him. “That doesn't mean I want to experience it again, all summer! Forget it, you won't understand.”

“No,” Tom agreed. He could intellectually understand the existence of Muggle race superiority. But he would never experience it, and it would never make sense to him. He'd never known why it bothered Harry; surely Harry knew he was better than all of them, regardless of his skin. It was akin to being hated by beetles. It hardly mattered. “They're Muggles, just Imprius them if it's that bothersome to you.”

“I said forget it,” Harry snapped, and disappeared to sulk.

Tom smothered his own irritation at Harry's dramatics and went to Imperius his grandparents, himself. “You like Harry,” he told them, because Harry enjoyed being liked. “You want him to feel comfortable here. You will treat him as though he is your second grandchild.”

Harry glowered as Tom forced him to accompany him to dinner at the main house, and then glowered more as Mr. and Mrs. Riddle fawned over him, so desperate to ensure his happiness that they didn't even bother to eat, themselves.

In their bed, Tom refrained from pinning him as he wished to; he wanted Harry to seek comfort, wanted him to beg before Tom would capitulate and touch him. He was still irritated by Harry's earlier refusal to see sense, letting his mood be soured by something so ridiculous as the stupidity of Muggles. Tom did not often face Harry's true ire, and when he did, it was always for something he'd said or done, not anything so trite as this.

“You can't just Imperius racism out of existence,” Harry said, blinking up at the high ceiling.

“I can. I can create an entire office in the Ministry dedicated to just that. We could at least rid Great Britain of it.”

“You don't care about it, though,” Harry sighed, giving in, rolling closer.

Tom, pleased, pulled him into his side. “I don't. Why should a king care for the opinion of serfs?”

“I'm not a king,” Harry argued, setting teeth to Tom's jaw, suckling the skin with a hum.

“You will be. You're too gallant to crown yourself, so I will do it for you.”

The Ministry internship was only slightly less boring than Tom's job at Borgin & Burke's, but his sudden access to such resources was something he took full advantage of. When he wasn't sending files off to various offices or fetching tea, he was networking.

Other secretaries and interns were easiest; as Tom well knew, their bosses hardly ever noticed when they were listening or even present in the room. And no one seemed to reconsider sharing classified information if it took the form of break room gossip.

By the time Charlus Potter called on Tom during lunch, ostensibly to see how he was doing after his first month on the job, Tom knew more than even he'd expected, about the frayed nerves of Obliviators, run ragged by Grindelwald's exploits. About the Wizarding War, as it was being called, mostly tearing its way through the continent, but sure to rear its head again in Britain eventually, whenever Grindelwald felt like goading his old rival. Minister Spencer-Moon, apparently, was rather reaching his limit.

“I'm learning a lot,” Tom smiled at Harry's brother, allowing him to feel pride at having done an orphan a good turn. In a way, he had. Tom would have no doubt manoeuvred himself into a similar position eventually, but Potter had certainly saved him some time.

“You're a clever lad,” Potter said amiably. “I bet you are! Just don't go coming for my job when you graduate,” he laughed.

Tom laughed too, a disarming thing, light and airy. He wouldn't be coming for Charlus Potter's position at the D.M.L.E. He had no interest in protecting the sanctity of Wizarding laws. Creating them, yes. Moulding the law as he saw fit, so that it reflected what was needed rather than what amounted to someone's nebulous concept of right versus wrong. He wouldn't settle for anything less than Minister of Magic.

“Brought you scones,” Harry said brightly, summoning a chair over to Tom's miniscule desk. “Gabby made them, so you know they're good.” While Harry still hadn't thawed completely towards Tom's grandparents–torn between wanting to be kind to their kind facades, and recalling just how unkind they were beneath the webbing of Tom's magic–he had made friends with most of the house staff, including Gabrielle, the French chef, who tended to mother Harry, her own sons each gone off fighting nazis and likely dead in some trench.

“I still don't understand how they always have sugar,” Harry said, launching an attack on his own pastry. “It's like rationing doesn't even affect them.”

“That tends to be the case with the extremely wealthy,” said Tom. “You really came all the way to the city just to bring me a snack? Are you that restless? I do have work to do.”

“I missed you,” Harry shrugged, shameless, and Tom cast a Tempus charm.

“Fifteen minutes,” he allowed, conjuring a bit of butter. Wandless magic was no great hardship for him to perform, but he'd spent all summer delighting in using his wand outside of Hogwarts, his position at the Ministry temporarily rendering the underage restriction null.

As detestable as it was, living back in Muggle country, there was something to be said for being in Little Hangleton, which felt relatively untouched by War. It was not near enough to any factories or coasts to be targeted by the Germans, and it was too small and little known to be attacked by Grindelwald. And there was the well-maintained luxury of Riddle Manor itself; Tom certainly wouldn't despise living there properly with Harry, once they were rid of the Muggles. Every pureblood family with any real status seemed to have a country estate to their name, some of them more than one.

The night of Harry's sixteenth birthday, Mr. Riddle was adamant the boys venture down into the village's only pub, The Lonely Candle. “The villagers are simple people, with simple tastes, and it wouldn't do to socialise with them overly. But I remember being a boy your age, there was nothing quite like a fresh pint!” He gave a wheezing laugh, clapping Harry on the shoulder. “Now be sure not to end up in some woman's bed, that's where the trouble starts. But ah, I won't tell you how to be young. Go, be free!”

Tom had sipped at various types of alcohol–wine, sherry, champagne–at Slug Club parties, and had not found any of them to his taste. They were each too dry or too sweet, and he did not like how they dulled his sensibility. Harry, now looking dubiously at the pint in his hand, seemed to share Tom's reticence.

“I've had firewhiskey before,” Harry said, scrunching his nose. “That was loads better. This just tastes like water that's gone off.”

“You like firewhiskey?” Tom asked. He couldn't imagine why.

“I like that it burns,” Harry smirked.

“Hey!”

It took them each a moment to realise that, firstly, the man was speaking Parseltongue, and secondly, he was speaking to them.

Morfin Gaunt leaned precariously on his bar stool just a few feet away from Tom's. He had not yet looked at Tom's face in recognition, focused solely on the Gaunt ring, glimmering on Tom's left hand.

“Thief!” Morfin cried, only for the barmaid to snap her towel at him.

“Aw, Gaunt, for f*ck's sake. Cannae you hold your liquor or no? I'll stop serving yea, I mean it!” She turned to Tom and Harry with a pinched expression. “Sorry lads, he's the local drunk. Loses his mind in the cups, always hissin’ like that.”

“It's quite alright,” Tom said mildly, watching as Morfin tried and failed to steady himself on the bar, spitting curses in the snake's tongue. Tom wondered if he had lost the ability to speak English at all, his already pathetic mind far too splintered by his time with the Dementors. When the barmaid made good on her threat and cut him off, Morfin angrily stumbled out into the night, Tom's nicked ring apparently forgotten.

Tom considered following after him and finishing what he should have over the winter. But Harry looked at peace, flushed by the summer night and alcohol, enjoying himself as he traipsed through inane Muggle dialogues. And now that they were living close to the village, Tom would have ample time to deal with his wayward uncle. He would let this night remain Harry's; considered it a birthday gift.

Harry gamely drank half of his pint before nudging Tom towards the door, cheerfully waving farewells to the barmaid and the elderly scotch drinkers he'd befriended over discussions of golf, which Harry had never even played, but somehow managed to hold his own in conversation.

Outside, Harry looped his arm through Tom's, tilted his face up beseechingly. There was no one around, no witnesses save the stars blinking down at them, sinking their light into Harry's eyes. Tom kissed him slowly.

Harry's shields flared up with a rush that pushed the breath from Tom's lungs, enveloping him just as something made sharp contact with the back of his head. Tom looked in stunned silence–Morfin Gaunt, seething and hunched with rage, had just thrown a rock at him. As though he was a child and not a grown Wizard of forty years or so.

“Thief,” he swore, picking up another stone. “Filth! No-good, common muddy blooded shirtlifter!”

Harry wrenched himself away from Tom as Morfin spoke, whose wild eyes were trained only on Tom, only on the ring Morfin must have thought lost to a peatreek-driven blackout, not taking notice of Harry at all until Harry was upon him.

Harry had not always been such a pacifist. Two strange boys in the dodgy end of London, at an orphanage filled with impetuous children who hated anything they didn't understand, with little in the way of oversight, especially with Tom given to malfeasance as he was, the fights were inevitable. And whenever Harry couldn't conjure a strong wind from nothing, he decided his hands would do.

He seemed to have decided his hands would do this time as well, launching himself like a lion dragging its prey to the ground. He said nothing as he struck Morfin, first with his fists before picking up the fallen stone, the one meant to be chucked at Tom's head.

He was radiant with rage, every bit the hellhound Tom had envisioned him as in childhood, sent by some higher power to wreak vengeance on Tom's command. He had left all considerations of God and devils behind, knowing them now to be only more Muggle fairy tales, but now he thought Harry might have been sent to him by magic, an understanding of belonging, the universe righting itself, healing the severance of a whole.

He would kill him if he went on for much longer, Tom was sure. He desperately wanted to see it happen.

But it was not to be. Harry stilled, lungs heaving, letting the bloodied stone fall from his hand. Without the electricity of violence to sustain him, Harry looked likely to tip over, and Tom approached to steady him, studying the mess that had been made of his uncle, a glorious sculpture of blood and torn flesh.

Morfin was breathing, albeit weakly. It would be nothing to drain what little life still clung to his ravaged body. Harry gazed up at Tom, face freckled with blood, hands gloved in it. Tom wanted to see him bathed in it, rivers of red streaming down his skin as he stood, a Botticelli creation, the Birth of Venus in crimson.

“He can't touch you,” Harry said, as though Tom could ever be threatened by his pathetic uncle. “He'll never touch you again.”

“I doubt he'll ever walk again,” Tom smiled, combing through his dark curls, grown wild like a forest filled with thorns. “Come.”

He led Harry by the hand through the village, up the hill, around the main house to their private quarters, Harry stumbling along after him like a lamb, eyes bright and unseeing. He was so malleable like this. He'd do anything Tom said, entirely reliant on trust.

“You need to wash,” Tom told him, turning him towards the bathroom. “You're covered in blood.” It looked even better in the light, the shade complementing Harry's skin perfectly. Tom expected he'd be remembering this sight every time Harry wore the colour red.

Harry clutched Tom's hand, wet, smearing against Tom's skin. “We should share,” he said, not quite pleading, only asking without asking. “There's a War on. Shouldn't waste resources.”

They both knew perfectly well that the rationing didn't affect them here at Riddle Manor, but the night had given rise to an uncharacteristic benevolence within Tom. He wanted to sate Harry's every need, to reward his good behaviour.

“Undress,” Tom murmured, kissing his cheek. He went to start the shower, water warmer than he would like, though not nearly so hot as Harry preferred it. Compromise, also unusual for Tom, though more and more, giving ground to Harry's desires came with ease, edifying rather than stifling.

Wearing nothing but his skin, still stained, Harry pressed up against Tom's back, warm, wet kisses pressed to his neck as Harry's hands unbuttoned his shirt blindly.

Tom stood still and let Harry clumsily disrobe him, and then herded him into the bath. Harry himself proved the largest obstacle to washing, distracted as he was by clinging to Tom, kissing him deeply and then, when Tom managed to pull away so they might actually clean themselves, sucking hot, needy kisses along his chest.

Tom let him suckle at his throat as he shampooed Harry's hair and then gripped him by the neck, forcing his head back for a rinse. He ran the lather along the blood speckling Harry's cheeks, watching the dark fan of his lashes as Harry turned obedient, letting Tom wash the evidence away, mourning its loss even as he luxuriated in Harry, soft and warm under his hands.

“I love you,” Harry sighed, falling forward once he's clean, burrowing his face into the cave of Tom's neck. “Won't let anyone hurt you. Not even yourself.”

“Is that so?” Tom smiled, amused by Harry's persistent belief that Tom might somehow cause himself any real harm. The thought was ludicrous; not once had Tom ever considered doing so, not even when he believed he really was a demon.

Harry tipped his head, giving Tom a serious look. “It is so.”

“And if I say the same?” Tom asked, catching Harry's chin, holding him in place. “If I say I won't allow you to be harmed, I won't allow you to ever die? That I'll harm others to prevent it?”

“Always the drama, with you,” Harry smiled, letting himself be drawn up and kissed. “Why're you so sure death would separate us, anyway? I'll just find you wherever we go.”

“We won't go anywhere,” Tom said, frowning at him. He hadn't thought Harry believed in something so shoddy as an afterlife. “Death is the end. There isn't anything after.”

“Oh,” Harry said softly, realisation taking hold in his eyes. “So that's why. Well, I'm not sure I believe that. An entire, secret, magical world turned out to be real, going unseen for centuries. Who's to say there isn't another one? But it doesn't matter. When you die–”

“I won't,” Tom said, glaring when Harry pinched him.

“If you die,” Harry rolled his eyes. “I'll just follow after you. We'll be together regardless, even if it's different from what you expect.”

The water ran cold eventually, without magic to keep it warm, and Harry submitted himself to being toweled dry, Tom gently wringing the water from his hair, between his fingers, kneeling down to run terry over his legs, his buttocks, his hardening prick. Tom raised a brow at that, and Harry flushed.

“You're naked,” he laughed. “And kneeling at my feet. What'd you expect?”

“Some discipline,” Tom suggested.

“We both know I don't have any of that.”

Tom hummed, leaning forward, smug at Harry's groan when Tom licked his co*ck. “Turn around. Hands on the counter.”

Harry moved without argument, head dropping with a whine when Tom bit at the flesh of one cheek, over and over, until it would be mottled with bruising. Then he swiped his tongue in Harry's crease, and Harry rather sounded like he was dying, so Tom did it again.

He tasted nothing but skin, so freshly washed, dry and clean. He mouthed at the pucker of Harry's hole, grazing first with teeth and then tongue, licking inside, chasing the hint of musk, surprised to find it wasn't distasteful.

Harry was shuddering beneath Tom's hands, his unforgiving grip on his hips, biting back desperate sounds, which just would not do.

He moved back as Tom pulled away, as though chasing the pleasure of Tom's mouth. “I want to hear you.”

“The whole village will hear me,” Harry laughed shakily.

“Let them,” Tom said, moving back in with single-minded, ruthless assault, until Harry really did scream, and kept screaming, sobbing Tom's name as though he was being murdered.

“Is this better than when I suck you?” Tom wondered. Harry certainly never sounded this torn open.

“Nothing's better than anything else,” Harry gasped. “It's all perfect. It all makes me lose my head.”

Tom's knees made their displeasure known, so he stood, ignoring Harry's wail of dismay, dragging him into their bedroom and shoving him face-first onto the mattress. “You're going to come like this,” he decided, spreading Harry's thighs open to the point of discomfort, shouldering his way in between them. “And then I'm going to have you.”

Harry, perfect creature that he was, did as he was told, tearful and immaculate with it. His body was so limp when Tom rose, he might as well have been sleeping.

His voice was ruined by the time Tom sank into him, barely able to make hiccuping sounds of drowsy pleasure with each thrust. He was a rag wrung dry from org*sm, little more than a grave for Tom to bury himself in.

Tom watched his spend leak out afterwards, industriously shoving it back in, not caring to be gentle, Harry's hips gamefully trying to move back on his fingers, weak with pleasure.

“All that time spent washing me, just to get me dirty again,” Harry barked a hoarse laugh. “C'mere.” Tom leaned forward so Harry could reach him, twisting his face up for a kiss, licking at Tom's lips and humming, as if savouring the taste. He smiled. “Best birthday ever.”

“It's past midnight,” Tom pointed out, carding a hand through his hair, still slightly damp. “No longer your birthday.”

“Shut up,” Harry said sweetly.

The night was swollen with August heat when Tom woke to Harry's agitated writhing. His face was tortured in sleep, disquiet murmurings leaking from him as he wrestled with his dream. Tom drew closer, trying to make out the words.

“No,” Harry whimpered. “No, please. Voldemort–”

Tom froze, struck by a cold rush of fascination. He thought back to a time in his adolescence, when he'd been consumed by codes and anagrams, any method to render his private writings incomprehensible to others. This was back in first year, when he was overly conscious of the threat that his things might be stolen or rifled through by conniving roommates, no matter the strength of his locking charms.

It had been an idle fancy, one which he'd been pondering recently, the anagram he'd constructed as a child which now seemed pertinent, for his Knights’ usage if nothing else. Among the rest of the world, he would remain Tom Marvolo Riddle, too many accolades and historical value attached to the name to risk changing it. But among his followers, the truly devout, he could be someone else, something else, the adumbration of his true legacy.

Lord Voldemort. Theft of death. Or perhaps flight of death, Tom hadn't decided. He'd thought himself very clever to come up with it, as though he'd always been meant for immortality. It was right there in his name.

But he had never mentioned anything of the sort to Harry, at first because it was a childish pastime, and then because he wanted to wait until everything was in place, displaying the whole to him, rather than mere ingredients.

“Voldemort,” Harry said again, sounding devastated. Tom watched, struck anew, as rivulets of blood ran from Harry's eyes like tears.

“Harry,” Tom said, loudly, boldened by fear. Harry didn't respond, leaking now from his nostrils, his ears. Tom took hold of him and shook, hard. “Harry. Wake up.”

Harry woke gasping, sitting up so quickly Tom had to lurch away to avoid a collision. Now that Harry looked at him, Tom could see the streams staining his skin weren't blood. They were black.

Harry swiped a hand through it and studied his fingers. “Was this you?” He didn't sound upset at the thought of Tom doing whatever might have caused viscous black liquid to rain from his orifices.

“No,” Tom admitted. “You were dreaming. And then…”

Harry looked perturbed. “I don't remember the dream.” It had been months since he'd mentioned any dreams, prophetic or otherwise. Tom hadn't cared much, thinking Harry might have been keeping them to himself, or else they weren't interesting enough to ponder on. “Did I say anything?”

Tom's secret name, what he'd been considering his true name, falling like a curse from Harry's lips. “No. Nothing legible.”

Harry frowned, and then made an apologetic sound. “It got on your pillow.”

Tom took the pillow in question, using the corner of cotton to clean the rest of Harry's face, running it roughly through the crags of his ears, until the nightmarish water was washed away. He threw the stained pillow to the floor, intending to burn it later.

“Are you alright?” Tom asked, manoeuvring Harry's face, studying his eyes for any signs of illness. There was no redness, no pallor to his skin.

“I feel fine,” Harry said, moving closer. “‘M sorry I scared you.”

“I wasn't scared,” Tom lied, furious it wasn't true.

The next day, Harry found Tom in what had once been his father's study. He came up behind him at the desk, pressing his cheek to Tom's, shamelessly reading his notes from over his shoulder.

“What's ‘voldemort’?” Harry asked, no sign of recognition. Tom had been waiting for it, the reason he had his diary opened to that page at all. “A new spell?”

“In a way, I suppose,” Tom mused, turning the book so Harry could make out the anagram in its entirety, alongside its translation.

“‘I am Lord Voldemort’,” Harry read, sounding amused. “You're so dramatic. Can you make something from mine?”

Tom wrote Harry James Potter and then considered the puzzle of it. He wrote poetry and martyr in quick succession, and then J'y terrât âme. It was still imperfect, no matter how he concocted the statement, there would be a handful of letters remaining. “Your name is inconvenient.”

Harry hummed, sounding out the French, though he knew nothing of the language. “What's that mean?”

“I buried my soul there,” Tom translated, pleased by Harry's reaction, the tender kiss pressed to Tom's throat.

“What about ‘Harry James Riddle’?” Harry asked. “Try that.”

It would be ridiculous for Harry to exchange his pureblood name for Tom's Muggle side, but he wrote it down dutifully, searching out the hidden message. “Délai jards myrrhe. Extending time in myrrh gardens.” Tom turned the meaning around in his thoughts, wearing it smooth. “Myrrh has long symbolised death and resurrection.”

“Hm, so you get to be Lord Funny Name and I'm incense.”

“You're a menace,” Tom said, closing the diary with finality. They would return to Hogwarts the next day. Tom had already set several plans into motion within the Ministry, paving his way towards a more prestigious position the next summer. Hopefully his grandparents’ hearts would give out by then, so he and Harry could have the Manor to themselves. He wanted to spread Harry out in the master bed and leisurely pull him apart.

“I'm officially Captain,” Harry announced, cheerfully throwing himself over Tom's lap, disregarding the Knights’ council he was interrupting. It was an informal inquest, all of them circled around the common room fireplace, dutifully reporting their summer exploits to Tom.

“It was hardly in question,” said Tom, eyes narrowing as Harry wound a Gryffindor scarf over his neck, though the weather wasn't even close to turning.

“For the matches,” Harry smiled, curling close. “For when you come to see me lead my team to glory and whatnot.”

“Quidditch is not the only method by which the House Cup is won.”

“But it is the most fun.” Harry skimmed his nose over Tom's cheek, lips sliding against skin, the ghost of a kiss. “Be happy for me.”

“I'm happy for you,” Tom drawled. He would not do something so mawkish as cuddle in front of his Knights, but he also didn't see the need to push Harry away, instead turning back to his acolytes as Harry made himself comfortable, as though the armchair was meant for two. “You were saying, Nott?”

Nott continued to describe the position his father was to allot him, should he maintain his marks through the year. It was higher than entry-level, but not so high as Tom's expected post, as it should be. He was preparing a role for Malfoy in the Wizengamot, nothing serious, but with enough room for him to manoeuvre, and an internship for Avery at Gringotts. Greengrass’ parents were already shopping for betrothal contracts, and Tom factored that in as well. Things were going as planned. Even Grindelwald, it seemed, was being relatively quiet.

“How long until you're finished?” Harry murmured, mouth pressed wetly against Tom's ear.

“As long as it takes,” he said, pleased by Harry's obvious disgruntlement. “You will be patient.”

Harry's gaze cut like a knife. “Or what?”

Harry was usually obedient, acquiescing to Tom's wants because they so often aligned with his own. But occasionally he liked to take advantage of Tom's lenience, liked to push him, disregarding the threat of consequence. He liked to be punished.

Tom ignored him, which Harry never took well. He spent the rest of the meeting shamelessly goading, squirming every so often under the guise of seeking comfort, flagrantly rubbing himself over Tom's thighs, his groyne, snaking a hand over Tom's stomach. He hissed under his breath, mocking the Slytherins, trying to provoke Tom's reaction, be it lust or anger. He fiddled with the locket that swung from his neck, bringing the pendant up to his mouth, appearing artfully vapid, stroking his tongue along its hinge.

“That's enough for tonight,” Tom said, teeth gritted, head pounding with rage and arousal. Harry did the worst damage to his self-control. “The first formal assembly will be in two weeks.” He dismissed them with a wave before settling his hand on Harry's neck.

“Bedtime?” Harry asked brightly, eyes dilating as Tom squeezed.

“Upstairs,” Tom decided. The Room of Hidden Things, where Harry could scream and scream, and no one would ever hear him.

“Did you ask Onai about your dream essence?” Tom asked, healing the worst of Harry's wounds, though not all of them. He hoped some would scar.

“Stop calling it dream essence,” grumbled Harry, melting under the warmth of Tom's magic, turned sluggish by pleasure and pain. “It's dream gunk. And yeah, she said it was probably due to alcohol consumption. Apparently it's more toxic to Seers.”

Tom hummed, unimpressed. Professor Onai was a member of the temperance movement; she'd blame everything on the devil's drink if she could. “That's doubtful. You're hardly a lush.”

“It's only happened the once,” Harry yawned, unconcerned, grunting as he rolled onto his back, still tender from Tom's ministrations. He rose up on an elbow, leaning in to mouth at Tom's jaw. “It probably won't happen again. And even if it does, I'm fine.”

“For now,” Tom allowed, letting himself be pulled down. Harry didn't seem to care about the mysterious liquid that, for all intents and purposes, leaked directly from his obscured mind. But Harry was an idiot, and had never given much thought to his own safety. Tom could not be so cavalier; he'd put Orion Black on the task, with discretion.

“Amelia said your Housemates are terrorising Muggle-borns,” Harry said, voice purposefully light. “I told her that couldn't be true, because you rule Slytherin, and you'd never order them to do that.” He peered at Tom thoughtfully. “Was I lying?”

He was, and he knew it. Many of the purebloods, upperclassmen especially, considered tormenting Muggle-borns to be something of a hobby. So long as it didn't interfere with their coursework or workload as Knights, Tom didn't care much what his Housemates did with their spare time.

“I hardly order their days by the hour,” said Tom. “I don't have the time to play nanny.”

“But you could order them to behave,” Harry said, kissing his neck, blatantly manipulative. “They'd listen to you. You're their Lord. They have to do whatever you say, don't they?”

“And why would I order this in particular? It does them good to have their trifling amusem*nts.”

Harry kissed his way to Tom's ear, flicking his tongue against the shell. “Because not all of them are smart enough to not get caught. They're already costing you House points. Come on, don't you want to prove to me that Quidditch isn't the only way to the Cup? We'll make a game of it: I try to win through Gryffindor's prowess on the pitch, and you try to win through Slytherin's high marks and good behaviour. Even if you lose the Cup–which you will, because Quidditch is the best method–it’ll at least net you Head Boy.”

“I will be Head Boy regardless,” Tom said coolly, assessing him. Harry only smiled, summoned the blanket over them with a lazy flick of his wrist, yet more manipulation. It seemed Tom had succeeded in corrupting him, after all.

“Why do you care about random mudbloods? Schoolyard taunts hardly matter in the long run; if they're any good, they'll find success regardless.”

“You said you'd mind-control racism out of the country for me,” said Harry. “Consider this a first step.”

“The first step was my grandparents,” Tom pointed out. They were still under the Imperius as they spoke, provided their minds hadn't collapsed under the strain, in which case he'd be inheriting everything even sooner than anticipated. “But I suppose this can be the second. So long as you understand this is not to become habitual. I am not a schoolboy vigilante.” Tom would save the Wizarding world, but the childish spats of some Hogwarts students were not a part of that crusade. He, and indeed all of them, had bigger monsters to slay.

“You blatantly abuse my fondness for you,” he added, lest Harry think Tom didn't know exactly what it was he was doing.

Harry only smiled warmly, adoringly. “I do.”

Tom's eyes narrowed. “You will give me something in return.”

Harry's smile only softened. “I'll give you everything.”

He meant it, Tom knew, wanted to, and in return, such a paltry favour did not seem so great a cost.

The Slytherins did not entirely agree.

“It has been brought to my attention,” Tom drawled, at the end of the meeting–his own machinations would always come first. “That there are some people within our House taking it upon themselves to target their classmates without my authorization.”

His Knights looked around shiftily, no doubt confused by Tom taking sudden offence to something that had been happening for the entirety of his tenure.

“My Lord,” Malfoy began, diplomatically, ever the politician's son. He would do good work for Tom once he inherited his family's chair. “We will, of course, inform the rest that they are to seek your consent before acting.”

“They needn't bother,” Tom said, waving a hand, bringing the room's shadows to heel like a set of trained hounds. His Knights shifted in their seats, discomfited. “The answer will be no. This foolishness has gone on for long enough. It is costing the House points, costing us good standing, and costing me patience.”

“But, my Lord,” Avery stammered. “They're just mudbloods, it isn't–”

“Do they not have magical blood?” Tom asked. “And so will they not have a vote they could one day wield against us? Do you not see why, for our plans to flow smoothly, we must be suspected of no wrongdoings, not even the most minor of infractions? I understand very few of you, if any, were raised to consider the longevity of things. You are wealthy because your parents are wealthy. You have a position in this world that your parents have bought you. But that is why you are my followers. It is why you trust me to lead. I have done the considering for you. When I said I will bring the Wizarding world to new heights, did you think I meant only twenty-eight families? Do you think my goals so slight?”

Tom thickened the shadows until they permeated the very air, until the Knights were choking on them. And then, with a sigh, he let them drop.

“I expect better from my Knights,” he said, calmly watching as they struggled to catch their breath. “I expect better from my House. The next person to misbehave in this manner will be brought to answer to me. Do let them all know.”

Of course, one can hardly expect a hypothetical consequence to convince everyone. Just three days later, Tom had returned to the Chamber's entrance, watching impassively as Avery and Nott dragged the culprit between them–Donovan, Mulciber's cousin, a seventh year who thought himself above taking orders from his junior–and tossed him, gagged and bound, to the floor.

“You have done your House a great service,” Tom told him, with a smile. It would not do to kill the son of a family with such high standing, but the threat would do. “They will be able to learn from your mistakes.”

He spelled Donovan to his knees before the mirror, his back to the Chamber, trapping him so he could not blink. “I recommend you don't turn around,” Tom warned him, before calling his command to the Basilisk.

He gestured for Avery and Nott, who remained admirably stoic, to follow him out of the lavatory.

When they returned, the Basilisk was gone, Donovan petrified where he knelt, as though made of stone, eyes frozen in terror.

“Is he dead?” Nott asked, curiously.

“Of course not,” said Tom, speaking the countercurse in Parseltongue, kneeling so he would be the first thing Donovan saw.

He burst into tears as he regained his movement. Tom wondered if he was conscious at all during the ordeal, mind trapped within the hard case of his body, or if he had simply gone to sleep. When he peered at his thoughts, he found only an oilslick of dread.

“I am not unmerciful,” Tom told him, tightening the ropes that bit into his skin. “But I do not allow second chances.”

All of Slytherin learned their lesson from Donovan, just as Tom knew they would.

After only two weeks, the House's morale went up considerably when they noticed the rate of falling emeralds, with nothing detracted in the absence of bullying. The snide comments, passed hushed between friends, continued, and the upperclassmen kept up their grumbling, chafing at being muzzled, but Slytherin hadn't won the House Cup in years, and the allurement of it, now suddenly within reach, proved enough motivation even without the fear of Tom's displeasure.

Harry, for his part, was well pleased by the turn of events, and thanked Tom beautifully.

“I'm beginning to think this is more of a reward for you, than a sacrifice,” Tom mused, running a finger over the stretch of Harry's mouth, amused by the glazing of his eyes, his wanton moaning, as though he was the one being pleasured, rather than knelt on the stone floor, wrists bound behind his back, throat fluttering as Tom sank in deeper.

Harry groaned happily, as if in agreement, swallowing back the instinct to gag so he could take even more, take all of him, everything Tom had to give.

“Christ, you were made for this,” Tom murmured, watching Harry sink further into pleasure at the thought. It was a wonder he ever got anything else done.

The holidays passed quickly in a flurry of indulging in pleasure and engaging in correspondence with his Knights. Upon his return, Orion Black requested a private audience, an event so unusual that Tom granted it without second thought.

“Grindelwald is being hosted by my parents,” he said quietly, head bowed in apology. “Forgive me, my Lord, I could not tell you in a letter.”

“I understand,” Tom said, sure that each scrap of parchment Orion sent had been read by the Dark Wizard first. “How long will he stay for?”

“He's yet undecided. He wants to meet you. He's impressed by what he's heard.”

“Of course he is,” said Tom, considering his options. He was being honest when he told Harry he doubted Grindelwald held his attempted murder against Tom. He really had looked infuriatingly amused. But it would be foolish to assume that guaranteed Tom's safety; Grindelwald likely would have no qualms killing him just for a bit of fun. And that was to say nothing of the chance he'd discovered any one of Tom's manoeuvrings in the Ministry. Anyone with half of a head on their shoulders could look at the steps Tom had taken and see the broad path, his plan to steal the throne which Grindelwald no doubt wanted for himself.

But it was just as likely that Grindelwald, who saw himself as something of a European conqueror, wanted merely an ally; what was one measly country compared to an entire continent? Grindelwald might be just as happy to give Tom his Lordship over Britain, while playing Holy Roman Emperor, himself.

“Keep up a correspondence with your parents,” Tom instructed. “Nothing too obvious, only hinting that I may be interested. Don't ask them for too many details directly, but make them tell you as much as they can.”

“Of course,” said Orion, never one to dally, less of a politician than a soldier always waiting for command.

Tom didn't bother to tell Harry. He was enjoying this happy, laissez-faire Harry, turned sweet by contentment, by long stretches of months without either War banging at their door. He already knew what Harry would say, anyway, and discounted it quickly. Harry was too easily worried over Tom, over every silly little thing he convinced himself might bring Tom harm. Harry would argue and cajole and possibly try to f*ck Tom out of meeting him and, when he failed, he would follow after Tom, placing himself between them like an irritating, glowering wall. Harry facing Grindelwald was not something Tom would ever allow.

Orion kept Tom apprised, dutifully handing over every letter from his parents, and transcribed every word Tom fed him in return, just enough to bait.

And then, just as Tom had decided to contrive a way to meet with Grindelwald, as though Fortuna herself had taken a liking to him, Tom received most welcome news: Mr. and Mrs. Riddle were on their deathbed, it was quite certain, their last wish for their beloved grandson to be by their side as they passed.

“I'll go with you,” Harry said, when Tom showed him the missive.

“I don't know what effects their ailment has had on the Imperius,” Tom shook his head.

“I don't give a sh*t about them. I want to be there for you. I'll convince Dippet, or just use the cloak–”

“It's not as though I care about them either,” Tom said, amused. “I won't be mourning, if that's what you're concerned about. I'll return the moment they finally die.”

The Headmaster was less difficult to navigate. He gave Tom his condolences and told him to take all the time he needed, though he warned him to not fall too behind in his studies. N.E.W.T.s were only one year away, after all.

Tom Apparated to Riddle Manor, just in case he was traced, dipped his head in long enough to glimpse his grandparents reclined in their grandiose bed, waiting for death, and then left immediately for 12 Grimmauld Place.

The Black house was every inch as dismal as the Black temperament. Tom's first thought was that it would be right at home in a Dickens novel, and the image of the pureblood most ancient and noble house of Black home fitting into place within Muggle literature amused him greatly.

A house-elf, more horrific looking than the pathetic creatures usually were, saw Tom inside, leading him to a sitting room with a look of disdain, muttering about filthy half-bloods under its breath. Tom idly considered torturing the thing.

At a tea table, Gellert Grindelwald sat, looking for all the world as though he were the Lord of the house. He gestured for Tom to sit, the chair floating out as he nodded. He met Tom's gaze unflinchingly, confident in his Occlumency, which Tom quickly found to be earned.

“Tom Riddle,” said Grindelwald, amicable enough. “I have heard much about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” Tom said lightly.

Grindelwald smiled. “Many interesting things. Imagine my surprise to find the boy who tried to kill me in that little village was Slytherin's Heir, himself. Me, I am a Durmstrang man, but even I can appreciate Salazar Slytherin's savoir-faire. Tea?” At Tom's nod of assent, a kettle appeared and began to pour itself. “I must confess, even after my time in this country, I do not understand the stuff. Me? I drink coffee. So many lands pillaged by this nation, just for dead plants.” He shook his head.

“As opposed to the destruction of my country for your own reasons,” Tom said, sipping his tea. Grindelwald's gaze sharpened like a knife against stone.

“Do not play word games with me, boy,” he warned, though his tone remained pleasant. “I have been playing them since before you were born. I never lose. And don't forget, I was there that day. How many times must you have cast the killing curse, to have mastered it wandlessly? No doubt to avoid the trace, correct? Very clever. Impressive, even. You see my face? I am impressed.”

He mostly looked very condescending, though Tom only drank his tea and considered the Wizard before him. So far, the conversation had been remarkably unthreatening. “What is it you expect from me?” Because in no world would a man like Grindelwald propose a meeting without having some goal in mind.

“I must admit, I expected you to try to kill me again,” Grindelwald smiled. “I'm glad you did not. This is much more pleasant.”

“My friend survived,” Tom shrugged. “There's no reason to kill you.”

“Ah yes, your close companion,” Grindelwald's eyes brightened. “I remember those days, blinded by love, by the passion of youth–you will learn better as you age, as I did, as our kind do.”

“Our kind?” Tom asked, holding his face, his voice, his entire body in neutral. He would not give Grindelwald the satisfaction of a reaction to his ridiculous notions of adolescent romance, as if he was just an old man giving advice on matters of the heart. “Wizards?”

“Orchestrators,” said Grindelwald. “You wish to be Minister of your government.”

“Yes,” Tom admitted. There was no point in denying it. “I will not abandon my own plans to be your sockpuppet.” It was perhaps too impetuous to risk angering Grindelwald, but he didn't want this meeting to drag out any longer than it had to.

Grindelwald looked merely amused. “Have I asked you to? No, keep your schemes, little serpent. If anything, it gratifies me to see someone of your generation so eager to heal our world. In another life, we may have even become friends. In this one, I hope you can at least learn from my mistakes.”

“You wish to teach me,” Tom said, incredulous at the thought. It was ridiculous, as if Grindelwald's notions were even remotely similar to his own. They both hated Muggles, true, and they both understood the truth that Wizards were inherently better for having magic, but that was where their commonalities ended. Grindelwald did not understand the real threat that Muggles, as a worldwide population, with all their earth-shattering bombs, posed. If he did, he would never want the magical world exposed, would never risk the end of Wizardkind, which were so few in comparison, too thinned out by centuries of blood purity nonsense. A Wizard, even one so powerful as Grindelwald, even one so powerful as Tom, would never win against the entire planet of violent, heavily machined Muggle armies.

“I remember being clouded by romanticism,” Grindelwald opined, only further proving that he did not know Tom at all. As if Tom Riddle would ever let his mind be taken in by such a con. “There were days when I thought he would be by my side forever, my partner in all things. That was before I realised the truth of the matter–that love is a fallacy. Equality is, perhaps, the greatest fallacy of all. It would behove you to learn this lesson sooner rather than later. It will save time.”

“Whatever you think you know about my companion is wrong, I assure you,” Tom said, fighting the urge of physicality, lunging across the table and ripping out the man's throat with his teeth. Magic would not give him the visceral release that Tom craved. He wanted to taste Grindelwald's agony like wine on his tongue. “Nothing could convince him to turn from me.” And even if he did, even if Harry moronically tried to abandon him, Tom would simply bury him and be done with it. The act would cause him pain, but Tom had handled pain his entire life. He could bear it.

“So I thought, once upon a time,” Grindelwald graced him with a sardonic smile, a man charmed by a puppy's bared milk teeth. “But only fools take the fickle heart as fact. And I was not a fool, even then. I made him swear to never raise his wand against me. So now, you understand why he never will.”

“Dumbledore,” Tom realised, unable to contain his disgust at the thought. Grindelwald's young love was Dumbledore. He wasn't sure how he'd be able to sit through lessons on trivial conjurings, knowing this. “You and Dumbledore.”

Grindelwald seemed delighted by this reaction. “Albus was not always the man you know today. He was beautiful, filled with rage, eager for a changed world, as I was. A better world. We planned to build it together. But even blinded as I was, I ensured contingencies. You would be wise to do the same with young Mr. Potter. I can even teach you the spell, if you like.”

Tom swatted all thoughts of beautiful, filled with rage Dumbledore–Dumbledore, Christ, Grindelwald really was mad–from his head and considered his next response. He could not kill Grindelwald just yet. Even if he could manage to, and Tom was confident that he could, his plans were still best laid around the continuation of the man's stupid war. Tom still had some time before graduation, and haste almost never won out over endurance. And he could admit to himself, if begrudgingly, that Grindelwald was himself a very skilled Wizard, with decades of experience in the very arts which held Tom's keenest interests. It would be careless to not utilise every resource at his disposal which apparently, at the present moment, included Grindelwald himself.

“I would appreciate that,” he said, reeling his polite impassivity back into place. “And, while you're offering, there is a question you may be able to answer.”

Grindelwald waved a benevolent hand. Ask away.

“What do you know about immortality?”

He seemed altogether more gratified than the question warranted, as though Tom had given him a gift without meaning to. "We are men of longevity, you and I. Men with ideals, with ambitions. For the small-minded, one lifetime is enough. But for men like us, years feel like minutes. Albus was once this way as well. In fact he and I spent some time together, seeking an answer to your question. Ah, but he grew small. Traded in the world for a blackboard.” Grindelwald took a measured sip of his tea, gave a miniscule moue of distaste. “There are methods, of course, though nearly all of them are cloaked in mystery, or warnings of costs overshadowing their worth. I suspect you've found one or two of your own.”

“Horcruxes,” Tom offered, and Grindelwald hummed.

“A ritual I myself considered before discarding it. A Wizard's magic is directly tied to his soul; to wound one would wound the other. Anything else?”

“A few imitations,” Tom said, not bothering to disguise his frustration. He had never stopped in his search, even as other projects stole his attention. But he had yet to find anything that offered the guarantee of a Horcrux. “Nothing concrete.”

“It is unsurprising,” Grindelwald shrugged. “It is a treasure many great men have sought without any known success. The closest, of course, being Nicholas Flamel and his pretty rock, but even that cannot protect him or his lovely wife from being killed.”

Tom nodded; this had been his estimation as well. While the philosopher's stone prevented death from natural cause, it did not stop all other tolls age took upon the body, and it was hardly an impenetrable solution. Only an extension of life, rather than the cementing of it.

“Do let me know if you ever discover it,” Grindelwald said, giving a conspiratorial smile before nodding to Tom's left hand where it rested on the table. “That is a lovely ring, by the way. I've been admiring it all afternoon.”

“A gift from Harry,” Tom said smoothly, and Grindelwald's smile warmed.

“Yes, I've read your story. Very sweet. I do hope you're right about him, you understand. Being singular,” he sighed. “One must be prepared for loneliness.”

Tom wondered how much of the presentation, if any, was real. If Gellert Grindelwald, the Dark Wizard currently scourging his way through all of Europe, truly saw Tom as something of a pupil to project himself onto. It seemed disappointingly trite. A powerful man brought so low by sentimentality. Still, it would be in Tom's favour. He could play the part. So long as he stopped speaking of Harry, Tom might even be able to enjoy it. He was curious about a great many things.

By the time he returned to Riddle Manor, the moon loomed high, and Tom's grandparents were barely breathing, though morning had burned through several hours before they finally died. Tom cast a few diagnostic charms to be sure before rising, affecting an appropriately mournful tone with which to deliver the news to the staff. Then he dismissed them, made arrangements for the bodies–cremation, he decided, to be quick about things–and returned to Hogwarts.

He found Harry at the pitch, running drills with his leonine luddards. Tom stood on the sidelines, and it didn't take long for Harry to notice him, giving a shrill whistle, calling an end to the practice before swooping down.

He was sweat-skunked, hair wilder than usual after warring with the wind, hands warm as he dropped his broom without care to touch Tom's shoulder, tugging him close. “How'd it go?”

“Better than expected,” Tom said, still ruminating over his meeting with Grindelwald. “My grandparents are dead. The Riddle inheritance is mine.”

“Are you okay?” Harry asked, unnecessarily. Tom had already made clear his feelings on the matter, which were overwhelmingly positive.

“I'd be better if I'd found you waiting in my bed,” said Tom. “I haven't yet slept. They refused to die until the morning.”

“I'll shower first,” Harry offered, pulling back to collect up his broom. “Don't want to get you all dirty.”

“In the Prefects’ bath. It'll be empty at this time of day.”

It was, and so no one–save for the coquettish mermaid portrait–could witness as Harry curled himself around Tom's back in the bath, running soap-slickened hands over his skin, washing his hair gently, shielding Tom's eyes as he rinsed. He pressed a soft kiss to the wet nape of Tom's neck and then sighed, hiding his face there.

“They were your last living relatives,” Harry said softly. “Unless Morfin's still crawling around somewhere. It's alright if you feel something about their dying.”

“I feel several things about it,” Tom said idly, turning to gather Harry into his lap, so he could lather up his shoulders. “Satisfied. Pleased. Relieved I won't have to pretend to listen to their inane chatter.”

“You can pull the ‘I'm Tom Riddle, nothing affects me’ act with someone else,” said Harry. “But I remember your hunt for your family. All the hours we spent going through lineage records. You were desperate to find them.”

“I wished to prove that I wasn't a mudblood, which I did. I was hardly hoping to ever meet my Muggle grandparents. They were a means to an end, Harry. Nothing more.”

Harry hummed, disbelieving, the sound travelling into Tom's mouth as Harry kissed him. “I know you,” he murmured, fingers trailing water drops as they cascaded down Tom's upper arm. “You can pretend around everyone else, if you like. I know it makes you feel safer. More in control. But don't pretend with me.”

He did know Tom, a fact Tom had come to terms with when he was young, Harry having inserted himself completely before Tom was even old enough to consider the stupidity of allowing it. Harry could sense the conflict in him the moment he returned and, having no idea about Tom's time spent with Grindelwald, had concluded, however wrongly, that it was about the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Riddle. His definitive trust in Tom bordered on naiveté, and in anyone else, Tom would find it vacuous, the symptom of a dull, empty mind. In Harry, he found it thrilling.

“Would you ever raise your wand against me?” Tom asked, unreasonably breathless at the thought. It would be the angriest he'd ever feel, the rage would swallow him entirely, but surely duelling Harry would be a galvination unlike any other.

Harry turned thoughtful, giving the question its due consideration. Tom's Knights would have fallen over themselves instantly to appease him, swearing it would never happen, not even sparing a moment to think on the possibility. But Harry was not some mindless worshipper, eager to serve.

“Yes,” Harry decided, sending a lick of sensation down Tom's slick spine–anger, yes, and offence, and something bordering on pain. “If I thought you were going to hurt yourself, I'd stop you.”

Every feeling dissipated save warmth, Tom flooded with adoration, more than he'd ever suspected his body could hold. Harry was still soft under his hands, falling closer without hesitation, expression disgustingly tender. Tom vaguely considered the idea of blinding the mermaid watching them from her perch on the wall, ripping her flickering canvas to shreds. He didn't want anyone else to see Harry like this, to know what he looked like, naked even below the skin.

“Not even to stop me hurting someone else?” Tom mused, curling a hand over the back of Harry's thigh, smiling when he squirmed with arousal. “One of your idiot Quidditch friends? They touch you too much for my liking.”

“Why would I attack you when I could just talk you out of it?” Harry asked, insufferably cheeky. He moaned when Tom's grip turned harsh, smile sweet even as Tom dug his nails into sensitive flesh. “It's cute you get so jealous.”

Tom clenched, stroking viciously, watching Harry descend into trembling whines. “You're mine.” It was less an attempt at seduction than a threat, a reminder that while Tom allowed Harry his various interests and distractions, Tom's patience was not endless. It would be stupid for Harry to test it.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, nipping at Tom's throat. “Because I want to be. Which means you've got nothing to worry about.”

“I'm not worried,” Tom snapped, wrenching an org*sm from him with finality, catching Harry as he collapsed in a heap of mindless pleasure.

“You are,” Harry mumbled, still smiling. Tom wanted to hold his head under the water until he was thrashing like a snake in its death throes. He wanted to wait until his body went still, and then pull him up, breathing life back into sore lungs. He wanted every bit of air inside Harry to have been in Tom first.

Harry kissed Tom's neck, licking up bathwater. “It's sweet. As if I'd ever want anyone else. I've loved you my whole life.”

One day, Tom was going to bring Harry back to this bath. He would cast a charm so Harry could breathe, or perhaps feed him gillyweed, and then he would make him suck Tom off underwater, appropriately sensate.

“I'm hardly sweet,” said Tom.

Harry kissed him again, kept kissing him, as though hoping to prove himself right by sinking sweetness into Tom's skin. “You are with me. I love it. I love you. I'd never hurt you, not on purpose.”

Tom did not argue that Harry couldn't hurt him, even if he tried. Harry would dismiss it out of hand. “Would you swear it? Make a pact?”

Harry pulled back to study him. “If it'll make you feel better, sure.”

Tom pinched him. “You shouldn't agree to binding magical contracts without asking questions,” he scolded, though he was pleased by Harry's thoughtless submission.

Harry rolled his eyes. “It's not like I'd do it for anyone else. What's the pact, then?”

“A blood pact,” Tom explained, summoning his wand from the tub's sill. “To prevent us from ever facing one another in battle.”

“Unless it's to protect you,” Harry demanded, watching curiously as Tom split first the skin of his own palm with a spell, and then Harry's. He didn't even flinch. “It's always blood, with you.”

“Hush.” Tom folded their wounds together, impelled by the thought of their blood braiding together, a piece of each of them burrowing into the other. “It responds to our magic, which is bound to our will. You only have to think of the promise, and mean it.”

“Of course I mean it,” Harry sighed, folding his fingers between Tom's as the oath took hold.

It was a rush Tom had never felt before, the closest he'd likely ever come to touching Harry's core, the burnished heat at the centre of him. Magic swarmed between them, within them, before pouring out over their heads as a small braid of blood, like a cutting of hair, pooled out from between their clasped hands and dripped upwards. They watched its ascent, watched as the ethereal phial formed from nothing to encase it. Harry caught it as it fell.

He took Tom's wand without asking, it had always responded well for him, recognizing its brother in Harry. He Transfigured a bath sponge into a bit of twine and affixed it to the phial before slipping it over Tom's head, their oath settling over his chest.

“For when you need the reminder,” Harry smiled.

Tom wondered if Grindelwald carried Dumbledore's promise under his robes, smug and assured by the very weight of it, or if Dumbledore kept it hidden among his things, proof of his boyhood folly buried like a corpse in the yard.

Comparing whatever short-lived tryst they'd had to what existed between Tom and Harry was insulting. No one else had ever had this, Tom was sure. No one else ever would.

Harry followed Tom down to the dungeons without argument, offering his usual, pettily benign grin to the Slytherins who looked at him with open distaste. They would never actually say anything about Harry's presence in the commons, his spending the night in Tom's bed, but not even the threat of the Chamber could stop them from bristling at Harry's obnoxious Gryffindorisms. He persisted in greeting them by first name, asking about their day, as if they were friends, his entire personality chafing against every Slytherin sensibility.

“They hate you,” Tom reminded him, equally annoyed and amused by Harry's incessant friendliness. “Your everything is an insult to Salazar, himself.”

“I'll wear them down eventually,” Harry said cheerfully, sprawling out over Tom, laughing as he spat out a mouthful of unruly dark curls. “I'm naturally gifted at charming snakes.”

This time, when Tom woke to Harry's thrashing, he found him weeping, ribboned with black, choking on it as he sobbed, gagging, tar pooling up in his mouth and spilling over.

Minutes after sunrise, Tom marched Harry to Professor Onai himself, a well of reactive feeling stoppered up tightly as he herded Harry up the narrow ladder, into the Divination aerie.

“This is a strange time for visitors,” Onai said lightly, impeccably dressed, as though expecting two students to climb into her classroom unannounced before breakfast.

Tom had taken Divination for one year only. He found it interesting enough, an alluring field of magic, but one that was not open to him. Divination was an inherent ability, like Parseltongue, and not one that could be learned through diligent study, like Legilimency. He realised he did not have the gene that allowed him to receive messages from vapours or tea leaves, and decided his time was better spent training in arts he could actually master.

And as annoying as Tom found Onai's restrictive health-mindedness, she was inarguably talented, one of the few people Tom could honestly claim to respect.

“The gunk came again,” Harry admitted, turning sheepish beneath the shrewd gaze of his favourite mentor. “Tom's worried.”

“It isn't natural,” Tom said with a glare. Harry was the one who should be worried, though of course he'd never given a care for his own well-being. Why should he start now? “It isn't mentioned in any of the Divination texts. And you're obviously Seeing when it happens, even if you don't remember the visions.”

Onai's face grew thunderous. “You did not tell me it happened during dreams of prophecy.” Harry squirmed. “The Sight wears on the physical body more than most kinds of magic. It is why keeping in good health is so important for Seers. I assumed the first time was simply a symptom of mild toxicities–tobacco, alcohol, these sorts of things. It is not uncommon for the Sight to manifest physically if the mind is too inebriated to properly handle it.”

“He did nothing of the sort yesterday,” Tom told her. Harry had been perfectly sober when they'd fallen asleep. “And he's hardly a habitual drinker.”

Onai hummed. “How long have you been struggling to remember your dreams?”

“A year,” Harry guessed. “Maybe a bit more than.”

Judging by Onai's disconcerted expression, this was not a good sign. “Your true eye is being blinded. That could explain this. It's likely to continue until you become unblocked.”

“How has he been blinded?” asked Tom. “A curse?” He was already considering how to dispose of the caster's body.

“Usually, a blinding is internal,” Onai explained, turning the intimidating weight of her full focus on Harry. “You do not want to see what it is the Sight is showing you. I understand, of course. I was plagued by visions of my husband's death for years before it happened. The gift of prophecy can be a cruel one. But if you continue to turn away from it, you will only suffer.”

“Okay,” Harry mumbled, avoiding her gaze, avoiding Tom's gaze, suddenly entranced by the mess of his plimsolls’ laces.

“We will meet weekly,” Onai declared, and then softened. Harry was one of her favourites as well, their shared ability something no one else in the school, even other students with some aptitude for Divination, could fully comprehend. “It can be daunting,” she said, an attempt at comfort. “But it can also be a strength, if you let it.”

“I understand,” Harry said quietly, reaching to tug at Tom's sleeve. “Let's go eat.”

Harry trudged to his sessions with Onai dutifully, always quiet and morose upon his return. They were making no real headway, apparently, and Harry woke to stained bedsheets twice more during the final weeks of term.

Tom cleaned Harry's face, pressed his teeth to unblemished skin, wishing he could drink the prophetic mucilage from Harry's body like sucking venom from a bite.

“I don't know why it isn't working,” Harry said quietly. “I want to See, even if it's horrible. Even if it's you dying,” he paled at the thought. “I want to know, so I can prevent it.”

“I will prevent it,” Tom kissed the scar, grown irritated in Harry's sleep. “Don't worry your defective little head about that.” He held said defective head to his chest, grinning as Harry bit through Tom's shirt, offended.

When the end-of-year feast came, it was with an unprecedented reveal: Slytherin and Gryffindor tied for House Cup. There were no last-minute points to sway the outcome. The triumph truly was shared, split down the centre.

The Slytherins grumbled, of course, understanding that tying for first place was not the same thing as winning it. But Harry was happier even than he'd been the year before, when his House had hoarded the glory for themselves.

“We really meet in the middle, huh?” he said, laughing, sneaking a daring kiss right there in the Great Hall, too full of delight to hold himself back.

Tom held it for just a moment, longer than he should have, not long enough by far, this treasure he would never have to share.

Chapter 5: Use All Your Well-Learned Politesse

Chapter Text

Summer settled delicately over Little Hangleton, Tom now able to cushion Riddle Manor appropriately in temperature and weathering charms with impunity. Now that he was of age, he revelled in casting spells according to his whims, smug each time Harry scowled enviously, his own birthday still two months away.

Tom returned to the Ministry, to a position befitting of his station, personal assistant for the Senior Undersecretary, an odious man whose laziness both disgusted Tom and worked in his favour. He was also nonsensically frightened by the Department of Mysteries, which resulted in Tom spending many afternoons visiting the office himself, allowing for a rapport to build with the junior Unspeakables.

Tom found the Department fascinating and, in another life, might have been content to work there, himself. Junior Unspeakables were still training and therefore not subject to the same compelled restrictions as their peers, who remained hidden behind heavily runed doors, disallowed from interacting with anyone outside their Department during working hours. Once an Unspeakable traded in their Junior robes, they underwent a cryptic ritual which severed their mind into two halves; behind the Department doors, they were their whole selves, conducting their jobs accordingly. Once they left for the day, they retained no memory nor knowledge of their work, rendering them incapable of sharing it even should they wish to. Such magic offered endless enticing possibilities. Tom greatly wished to see it performed.

He would install one of his Knights in the Department and study the ritual's effects on their mind. Nott, perhaps, or the younger Lestrange. Someone he wouldn't need seated on the Wizengamot or elsewhere within the Ministry. All of his Knights were replaceable, but some were worth more than others by virtue of their name.

The Undersecretary's horned toad Patronus appeared at Tom's desk, barking at him to report for trial. Some drunken Wizard had been caught casting inappropriate charms on a Muggle's herd of goats.

Malfoy was already in the dungeons, serving tea to the members with a bored expression. Tom took his seat at the Undersecretary's side and conjured a quill, poised to scribe.

The Wizard was found guilty unanimously by all fifty disgusted members, with a sentencing of six months, his lusty charms inappropriate indeed.

During Tom's lunch hour, he made his way to the cells where sentenced criminals awaited their transport to Azkaban. It was a reckless bit of fun, but after weeks spent focused on his work, Tom was itching for some amusem*nt, a stretching of his magic, too long constrained by professionalism.

The Wizard sat miserably on the floor, his cot stinking of urine and himself unable to clean it, bound as he was by magic-blocking runes branded on his wrists. Tom cleaned the cot for him; he could be merciful. Then he Transfigured the cot into a live goat.

The Wizard looked at Tom mulishly, though he did not speak. He hadn't spoken during the trial either, not even to defend himself and his vulgar appetites. Tom wondered if he was simply a mute, or if he was mentally retarded, though it hardly mattered either way. He was hopeful it meant the man wouldn't scream, though he'd thrown up several silencing charms, just in case.

“I thought you might appreciate a more comprehensive experience,” Tom offered, banishing the man's clothes before casting an inappropriate charm of his own, one even more violent in nature.

When the man's mouth stretched open in delightful agony, no sound fell out. After the goat had had its fill of mindless rut, Tom turned it back, cleaned away the blood, and redressed the Wizard. He Obliviated him for good measure, but did not heal the tearing. It had proved sufficient entertainment for Tom to endure the rest of his workday.

He returned home to the smell of fresh bread. While Tom embroiled himself in politics, Harry spent long hours baking with Gabrielle and gardening with the elderly Muggle groundskeeper. He could have done these things with magic, quicker and easier, but Harry liked to work with his hands.

“Made you a pie,” he said happily, greeting Tom with a kiss. “‘S got cinnamon.”

“You'll make a good housewife,” Tom smirked, enjoying Harry's blush, his childish scowl.

“I'm not putting on a dress for you,” he glared.

“I've got something better in mind,” Tom said, taking hold of him, dragging him up to the master bedroom.

Harry had been comedically embarrassed about letting Tom f*ck him in what had once been his grandparents’ bed. He'd wanted to stay in the guesthouse, which Tom had refused; he was Lord of the Manor, now, and would sleep in the Lord's bed. And he wouldn't allow Harry to sleep elsewhere.

It didn't take long for Harry's reservations to melt away under Tom's tongue. Harry was delightfully shameless when in the throes of pleasure.

Now, he let Tom strip him carelessly, before presenting him with his gift. Harry looked at the white silk dubiously, though his eyes, as always, betrayed his want.

“I did tell you I'd be wrapping you in silk,” Tom purred, kissing a bared shoulder. “Put it on and lie down on your back.”

Harry slowly shrugged on the shirt, long enough to cover his thighs. He left it unbuttoned, sitting on the bed before slowly lying back, gazing at Tom the whole time, unblinking. His back arched subtly with his movement, the muscles in his stomach tensing, legs spreading like syrup, putting on a bit of a show. He liked seeing how much Tom wanted him, how deeply he wanted to sink into him all of the time.

“Beautiful,” Tom sighed, running a hand over the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, grazing his co*ck, watching it flicker from the sensation. “Better than imagined.”

Harry smiled, warmed by the attention, holding his hands back over his head without even needing to be told. “Get rid of your clothes.”

“No, I don't think I will,” said Tom, settling over him, withdrawing his wand, settling the tip to the thin skin above Harry's breastbone as though it were a knife. “This will hurt, but you'll bear the pain, won't you? For me?”

Blackened green hot with trust, with affection, not even a splinter of doubt. Dark fluttering lashes. “Yeah.”

Tom bent his head to the skin first, testing its give with his mouth. Then he lifted back up and began to carve. He'd modified the cutting curse himself; it would bore into the bone, leaving a scar without causing lasting damage. Harry would bleed, not too profusely, though Tom had a blood replenishing potion on hand. He wanted it to hurt, but not beyond his abilities to heal.

Harry bore it just as magnificently as Tom knew he would, holding his body like a rope taught between his teeth, unwilling to ruin the design. Anguished sounds leaked one after the other, tears as well, Tom revelling in each of them, wishing he could collect them into a tub to bathe himself in. He watched as Harry clenched his fists over and over, restraining himself by willpower alone. His will was so strong, the source of his impressive magic, his stubbornness, just another muscle he had total control over. It was exhilarating to see.

By the time Tom finished, staunching the wound though not cleaning the blood, Harry was shivering with tension beneath him. The moment Tom withdrew his wand, Harry launched, grasping him with a vengeful grip, licking into him without finesse, only a violent desperation.

Tom nearly didn't notice when Harry vanished his clothing, mouth busy plundering Tom's mouth, hands busy charting Tom's skin. Tom groaned, arousal tearing through him–he'd cast the spell with his mind.

“I'm going to take you like this,” Tom decided, slicking Harry's prick, ignoring Harry's sudden hesitance. Not once during all their hours of pleasure seeking had Tom ever wanted this, never even offering it. Harry had never asked, seeming perfectly content to have whatever Tom thrust upon him.

But Tom wanted it now, wanted Harry inside him however he could, and since consuming him was not an option, this would have to do. He shoved Harry's back against the mattress and took him in one rough motion, gritting his teeth through the pain until it knifed into pleasure, a noise punched out of Harry as though he'd just been stabbed.

Tom moved curiously, testing each sensation, Harry breathless underneath him, blood smeared all over their skin until it looked like they were dying.

“Like this,” Harry suggested, soft hands guiding Tom's hips until each motion struck lightning inside him. “God, you're gorgeous. Merlin.”

“Be quiet,” Tom hissed, fighting the urge to close his eyes. He wanted to see Harry as he did this, gave him yet another thing no one else ever would. He'd shaped the architecture of Harry's pleasure, every scrap of it, and now he was adding another room. He wanted to study the burning of those eyes, each shift in his blissful expression as Tom built him higher.

Harry took Tom's hands in each of his, folding their fingers, until Tom's arms caged his head on either side. “Come on,” Harry murmured, raising his own hips, meeting each of Tom's thrusts. “Come like this. Right where you've branded me.”

“Shut up,” Tom groaned, giving into the urge for speed, the chase of momentum. He knew what the rush of org*sm felt like, had shared with Harry a thorough education in that regard. But it had never felt like this, an overwhelming threat of finality, as though he was sprinting headlong towards his own death.

“I love you,” Harry whispered, turning to bite down on Tom's wrist. “I love you.”

Tom gasped as he came, spilling over the raw, bloody patch of marked skin, just as Harry suggested. His mind fully emptied, every thought extinguished like a blown match, something Tom had never before experienced. For one blinding moment, he felt sure he was no longer something so corporeal as a person, as though his physical body had split at the seams and his very soul had burst free from containment.

He drifted back into awareness as Harry moaned beneath him, spilling into him, an odd sensation Tom wasn't sure he liked, before falling still. When Tom next blinked, he had collapsed onto the bed, Harry swarming him with kisses, mumbling nonsense into his skin.

“Ruined your shirt,” Harry said, licking the sweat from Tom's neck.

Tom looked blearily to find he was right; the silk was stained beyond hope, blood blooming in wide patches like a dozen smeared roses. “I'm keeping it,” he said, lazily casting a stasis charm so it wouldn't lose the smell of copper. He'd kept Harry's bloodied clothing from the night of his sixteenth birthday as well, tucked in a place of honour within his wardrobe.

“That's disgusting,” Harry said, looking fonder than ever, as though having his co*ck inside Tom had permanently befuddled his brain. “Are we to sleep in my blood as well, or can we wash now?”

Tom took one last, lingering look at the mess of red across Harry's skin before vanishing it with a lazy hand. The scar was clearer now at least, the stark white of a star trapped in Harry's chest. Tom had considered several designs, including a few of his own creation, before settling on the Peverell crest, the same one that graced his ring, a celebration of their shared distant ancestry.

“Satisfied?” Harry asked, amused. “Or will you need to cut your name into me next?”

“There's a thought,” Tom hummed, running his tongue along one perfect side of the triangle. “You'd let me. You'd let me cut you as much as I wanted. Until you bled out.”

“You wouldn't let me,” Harry moaned, skin freshly raw with sensitivity, as though it was brand new. “Wouldn't let me die.”

“No,” Tom agreed. “I'd feed you a potion between each mark. You could bleed and bleed and never run out.” He finished tracing the scar and sat up. “I'm nearly satisfied.”

He removed the Gaunt ring, taking Harry's pliant hand, slipping it onto his finger, where it fit perfectly. It was not quite the collar Tom had envisioned, his name coiled around the lovely curve of Harry's throat, tight enough to choke him with. But the picture he made here, Tom's locket around his neck, Tom's ring on his finger, Tom's brand over his heart, worked well enough for now.

“Always giving me jewellery,” Harry smiled, tugging lightly on the phial around Tom's neck, which he never removed, bringing him down for a kiss.

Tom had kept up a delicate correspondence with Grindelwald while at Hogwarts, disguised as letters from a Potioneer in Bulgaria. So when the Dark Wizard, now a guest at Malfoy Manor, invited Tom for a spot of tea and conversation, he immediately accepted.

Malfoy Manor was exactly the sort of place Tom expected would produce someone like Abraxas. There were peaco*cks. The absurdity of wealthy purebloods knew no bounds.

Grindelwald seemed to agree. “A bit much, but their chef's work is divine.”

Tom allowed the Wizard his vapid pleasantries before saying “You've mentioned having the Sight.” At Grindelwald's slight nod, Tom continued. “I wonder if you've ever heard of an obscure illness which affects blinded Seers.” He described Harry's symptoms, keeping his tone generically inquisitive, as though seeking knowledge for knowledge's sake.

“You are not a Seer,” Grindelwald said confidently. “This is for your friend?”

“I heard about it from my Divination professor,” Tom shrugged. “It sounded interesting, but she didn't have many answers.”

Grindelwald hummed, smiling, letting the lie stand. “It sounds like something called Seer's Sickness, which is different from a blockage of the inner eye. I've only known one Seer to ever mention it–she coined the term, in fact. Cassandra Trelawney.”

“Is she still alive?”

Grindelwald gave a shrug himself, mirroring Tom's false indifference. “I do not know. She hid herself from me several years ago. I'm not sure why. As I'm sure you'll agree, I am a very polite host. Though if you do manage to find her, I'd be obliged if you'd let me know. I have several questions for her, myself.”

“Of course,” Tom agreed.

He took Malfoy aside before his departure. “I want Cassandra Trelawney found. If she is dead, I want to know where she's buried. This takes priority. Tell the rest.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Malfoy dipped his head. “I'll send word to them at once.”

Harry had suffered through three attacks that summer already, the stretches between them thinning each time. He was forcefully unconcerned afterwards, claiming the meditation techniques Onai had taught him negated any real risks. It was scary, he assured Tom, but not actually harmful. He always felt fine by the morning.

Tom did not feel assured. The nature of the episodes, and the substance itself, were too unstudied to be sure of anything. Even Onai hadn't been positive it was caused by inner blindness, only theorised. If it was something else, something more destructive than they assumed, Harry was already in danger. Tom refused to leave his care in the hands of some hypothetical.

He'd already taken Harry to St. Mungo's, mere hours after he woke covered in tar. Every diagnostic spell returned nothing. Tom had them test the liquid itself, and nothing came of that either. They claimed it was made up of every other piece of biological matter Harry's body might produce, no different from his sem*n or saliva. Tom would argue that by virtue of it being f*cking black, there was quite a difference, but the worthless Healers didn't seem to agree, simply eager to empty a cot for some other Wizard with ailments more easily understood.

If medicine could not save Harry, nor Onai's meditation techniques, then Tom would. He had put aside the Horcrux ritual in favour of sentiment, but sentiment meant nothing in the face of Harry's death. There was still the question of madness; Tom could not ignore the fact that every other known Wizard to complete the ritual had destroyed their own Horcrux and then taken their lives. But Tom had modified countless spells and rituals. He was confident he could negate the risk, along with Grindelwald's warning of damage to their magical cores, perhaps offsetting it with a ritual meant for healing.

It would still be a last resort, if only because it would require a masterful scenario with too many uncertain variables. The murder had to be committed willingly and with intent. This would obviously be no hardship for Tom, but for Harry it would require careful manoeuvring. Regret would render the sacrifice null.

But Harry's exception to his many ridiculous morals had always been Tom's safety. He would kill to save Tom's life, he'd admitted as much. And, if it saved Tom, Harry could never regret the act, no matter how abhorrent he found it.

“Tom,” Harry said, prodding at Tom's cheek like a hellion.

“We cannot possibly go a third time,” Tom sighed, refusing to open his eyes, snatching Harry's hand in a tight hold when it went in for another assault.

“Not with that attitude,” Harry said, leaning in to bite at Tom's nose, animal that he was.

Tom glared at him. “What?”

Harry smiled. “You're so cute when you're grumpy.” His smile widened when Tom growled. “You know I love you.”

Tom knew Harry was convinced that he loved Tom, by whatever neurochemicals, brought about by shared history and mutual attraction, that seemed to rule other people's minds. But that was not the answer that would allow Tom to fall back into sleep quickly. “Yes.”

“No matter what,” Harry insisted.

“Yes,” Tom echoed, growing more apprehensive by the moment.

“And so you know you can tell me anything,” Harry said sweetly, running his mouth along the hinge of Tom's jaw. “Anything at all, and I'd never stop loving you.”

Tom suspected this was true, though there were undoubtedly things he could tell Harry which would upset him, and cause him to sulk or throw a tantrum, which would be inconvenient in the extreme. “Yes.”

“So, with that in mind,” Harry murmured, nosing his way down Tom's neck, waking his body anew, which seemed to have decided it might have a third round in it, actually. “Is there anything you might want to tell me?”

Tom froze, too drowsy with sleep and arousal to catch it. Harry hummed, feeling the tension, still suckling at Tom's skin, free hand drifting down his stomach to play with the curls on his pelvis. He mentally ran through the itemised list of things Harry could have discovered. He wouldn't care about any of Tom's political schemes, save perhaps for the poisoning of the previous personal assistant, though it wasn't fatal, and Harry had never met the girl, so probably not. He would care about the Horcrux ritual currently being dissected and reconstructed. He would care about Grindelwald.

“I suspect you already know,” Tom drawled, casting his line. He winced as Harry's grip in his pubic hair turned painful, his wordless Incarcerous catching Tom by surprise.

Harry's hand around his throat was a delicious shock all its own, the rage in his eyes incandescent. Why had Tom never pictured this during his many imaginings? He'd had Harry in every other conceivable way in his mind but this –sat astride Tom like a hunter set to skin his spoils, his hands just as deadly as a knife, the only person Tom would ever allow to loom over him, some glorious reaper of vengeance.

“Why didn't you tell me you've been meeting with Grindelwald for months?” he hissed, anger turning the snake's tongue sharper than usual.

“Because you'd want to come,” Tom answered honestly, breathless at the sight of him, the weight. He'd never wanted him more. “And I'll never let him near you. It's bad enough he already knew your name, what you are to me. That blasted article made sure of it.”

“I think you casting the killing curse at him when you thought I was dead did that,” Harry said flatly. “What am I to you?”

“Mine,” Tom said, loosening himself by centimetres. Harry could kill him, but never would. All that power, and he'd never even consider it. The thought of that did more to boil Tom's blood than anything.

“Your what? ” Harry demanded, hand squeezing until Tom's breath thinned.

“Mine to have,” Tom gasped. “There isn't a word for what you are. Not in any language.”

“And you say you don't believe in love,” Harry cooed, so much meaner than he always was with Tom. He liked to shower Tom with all the affection and warmth he felt he'd been denied, no matter that Tom had never felt deficient. But Harry wrapped in anger like a second skin was all barbed needles and hungry teeth, hard-set on going for the jugular. “You love me. You prove it everyday. You make stupid f*cking choices because of it. Like going alone to have tea and crumpets with a murderous Dark Wizard you tried to kill.”

“He's never held it against me,” Tom offered, knowing full well it wouldn't make a difference.

“I should keep you tied up here until term starts,” Harry said hotly. “It's for your own good.”

“Would you enjoy that? Having me bound to your bed, beholden to you completely? Eating from your hand, f*cking you whenever you want it?”

Harry's nails raked down his chest in a sharp kiss. “Maybe I'd let you out for walks every once in a while. Just to see the sun.”

“I promise I'd make a terrible slave,” Tom grinned, pleased when Harry shuddered, gnawed at his lip, torn between rage and wanting. “Go on,” Tom encouraged, thrusting where their hips met, goading a moan from him. “You have me right where you want me. Might as well take what you need.”

“I love you,” Harry said hatefully, shifting until they aligned, ensuring their simultaneous pleasure with each movement. “I'm so f*cking mad at you. If you get yourself killed, I'm going to take up necromancy just to yell at you.” He groaned, ducking down to kiss him. “God, you feel good.”

Tom would have expected having his arms bound to feel outrageously restricting, and in any other situation, it would, but at the moment it simply heightened the pleasure, Harry's hand wrapping around his prick, earlier threats washed away as he begged Tom to spill into the cradle of his thighs.

“C'mon,” Harry whined, scraping his tongue against Tom's teeth, abandoning his own org*sm in favour of ripping one from Tom. “Wanna be wet from you.”

A wrecked sound Tom realised belatedly came from him, and then Harry was sighing into his mouth.

“Thank you,” Harry whispered between lazy kisses. “Thank you. I love you.” Then, as if suddenly remembering the conversation that had preceded the sex, he sank his teeth into Tom's lip until the skin broke.

His mouth was red with Tom's blood when he pulled back to stare down at him, immovable as stone. “Don't do something like this again without telling me. I don't care if you don't want to upset me or want to protect me or whatever else. I'm yours, so I deserve to know when you're putting yourself in danger.”

Tom's mind, still battling its way through a haze of lust, bristled at the thought of seeking permission, but Tom bit back the instinctual refusal. After all, Harry wasn't saying he had to seek permission. He wasn't trying to leash Tom. He was asking to be informed, as someone who would be impacted by Tom's decisions. Which, since he would be spending forever by Tom's side, he would be.

At Tom's short nod, Harry softened, evaporating the restraints with a wave. He didn't struggle when Tom instantly had him pinned beneath his arm.

“I do not take orders,” Tom reminded him. He would allow it this once, blinded as Harry had been by passion. But Tom would never be muzzled. “Not even from you.”

“You’re mine too,” Harry said, shifting into Tom's hold, sighing as it tightened, comforted by the pressure. “I won't lose you.”

“How did you find out?”

Harry snorted. “You think you're so sneaky. I've known all your hiding spots since we were kids. I found the letters. Obviously.”

“And why did you go through my things?” asked Tom, clenching a fist in Harry's hair.

“I was looking for a quill,” Harry lied shamelessly, baring his teeth when Tom shook his head.

“Grindelwald sees me as something of a protégé,” Tom said, stroking the tendons of Harry's neck, digging his thumb into the give of flesh. “I think he expects me to carry on his legacy.”

“And will you?” Harry raised a brow, looking unimpressed by the idea.

“Of course not. Why would I be concerned with another man's legacy? I'll have my own.”

“I still don't like it,” Harry grumbled, pulling Tom close. “He's unpredictable. Who's to say he won't wake up one day and see you as a threat instead? I want to go with you next time.”

“Absolutely not,” Tom said, unyielding. “That is not up for negotiation. He's staying at Malfoy Manor, anyway. Abraxas will be there.”

Harry scoffed. “As if Abraxas could do anything.”

“He's not terrible at defence,” Tom smirked. “Try to be reasonable. No one can compare to us.”

“I'm going to carve every protection rune there is into your skin,” Harry said darkly, melting as Tom's hand smoothed down his back.

“If you like,” said Tom.

The season ended without the discovery of Cassandra Telawney or another tea-side visit with Grindelwald. Tom couldn't risk the latter; no matter what he said, he knew Harry would chase after him through the fireplace immediately, had felt his hawkish gaze follow him for the rest of the summer. It chafed Tom, feeling like a reckless child being nannied. But Harry soothed the rash with affection otherwise, practically doting on Tom, as though rewarding him for good behaviour.

“I am not a dog to be trained,” Tom reminded him, after Harry once again met him at the fireplace with a kiss, looking very fetching in Tom's stolen shirt.

“Would that I could train you,” Harry said cheerfully, leading Tom to the table, delectable supper already spread. “I'm not even disallowing you from seeing him again. I just want to be there when you do. I don't trust any of your idiot minions to protect their own hides, let alone yours.”

“Are the scars you put on my back just for show, then?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Don't be so dramatic. There's only four, and they're not fool-proof. They've got nothing on my shields.”

“Grindelwald threw you into a wall the last time he was near you,” Tom reminded him, pausing to gulp down some water after a bite. How Harry had managed to build up such a tolerance for spice after being reared on the same milquetoast meals as Tom would always baffle him. Harry was a talented cook, and enjoyed the act of it, but his tastes ran far wilder than Tom's. “He punctured your lung.”

“The wall punctured my lung,” Harry argued, mouth full, heedless of the heat. “And I was distracted at the time. He won't catch me off guard again.”

It was an endless argument and one they did not conclude before it was time to board the train again, Harry wearing Darling coiled over his shoulders like a scarf, chatting amiably with seemingly every student they passed, uncaring of their fear of the living python he'd chosen to accessorise with, a blatant misappropriation of such a magnificent beast, but she liked the warmth, and she liked to tickle Harry's ear with her tongue until he stroked her.

“You've spoiled her rotten,” Tom complained. “She doesn't even hunt for herself anymore. She knows you'll just bring her food from the kitchens.”

Harry was unconcerned, peppering her wide snout with chaste kisses. “She deserves the best. Don't you, Darling?”

“Yes,” she agreed. She always agreed with Harry. She'd even taken to sleeping in the Gryffindor tower without Tom, because it was warmer. Harry's roommates always complained about discovering her in their beds.

That was not to be the case this year, Tom told her. He was Head Boy, as he'd always known he would be, and as such would be given his own room in the dungeon. There would be no more nights spent in the tower for any of them.

“I can't just move in,” Harry laughed, when Tom informed him of his plan. “I have to spend some nights in my own dorm, or someone will get suspicious.”

“I'll just Imperio your entire House,” Tom shrugged. “Problem solved.” He frowned when Harry only laughed again, not at all mollified by his short, consolatory kiss.

“I'll spend half my nights with you,” Harry offered. “That's more than you got last year. And after graduation, you'll get all the rest of my nights forever.”

It was hardly enough, but Tom felt confident that, once Harry experienced the convenience of having a room to themselves in the castle, with no need for the cloak or any silencing charms, he'd be difficult to pry from Tom's bed.

Tom had been attending Slug Club parties since his first year and, monotonous though they may be, Tom would likely always have a soft spot for them. Slughorn himself had been the first adult to truly see Tom, not completely, but enough to understand that Tom Riddle would one day be so much more than Slytherin's resident mudblood. Slughorn had never seemed to care about blood status himself; he believed in fostering ambition, revering talent. His little parties weren't just for him to flaunt his own connections or achievements as a teacher. He always invited Slug Club alumni–Ministry officials, minor celebrities, expert trade Wizards–to give his current students the ability to network, to charm powerful, influential people, climbing their prospective ladders towards notoriety once they graduated Hogwarts. Slughorn understood the importance of such things, and he ensured Tom understood it as well.

Tom usually used these soirees to endear himself to whichever Ministry workers had taken Slughorn up on his invitation. Tonight the loathed Undersecretary himself was here. But after only a courteous greeting for his old boss, Tom swiped a drink from a passing house-elf and made his way to Regina Del Voragine.

“Oh, thank you, Tom,” Del Voragine gave him a distracted smile. She was a seventh year Ravenclaw, incredibly pretty, with good instincts for practical applications of charms. They'd spent the last two summers doing secretarial work at the Ministry; she'd held the coveted position of personal assistant to the Undersecretary before Tom's poison left her bedridden for two months. She'd made a full recovery of course–she was too useful to kill, and he found the unnecessary death of talented Wizards and Witches distasteful–but the Undersecretary had never forgiven Tom for replacing her.

It was almost a pity she was a pureblood, destined to be married off, rebuking any worthwhile future in favour of keeping house and spawning children. Her father was likely considering betrothal offers as they spoke.

“I do hope to see you in the office this summer,” Tom smiled. “The months you were gone were dreadfully boring.”

Del Voragine laughed, taking a polite sip of her drink. “I heard Da–Undersecretary Maverick was a nightmare and a half. But if anyone else could manage him, it'd be you. It was probably good for him.”

Even after catching herself, she spoke of the man with far too much familiarity. It was a wonder no one else had figured them out. The long lunch breaks taken in the Undersecretary's office, the lingering gazes. At first, Tom had assumed it was a known secret that merely went unspoken among the other secretaries, so given to gossip, out of respect for Del Voragine, who was well-liked. Then he realised they really didn't know, trusting that while Maverick was an ill-tempered, lazy man, he was married, with a daughter only two years Del Voragine's junior, and Del Voragine only fifteen at the time, surely he saw her as a father might, with paternal affection, nothing untoward. It was incredibly stupid, as though a wedding band meant anything in the face of lust.

“I'll never understand how you spent so much time with him without contemplating murder,” Tom said lightly, netting another laugh.

“He's not that bad,” Del Voragine said, failing to smother the besotted look on her face as she watched him schmooze across the room. “He can be sweet. He's taught me a lot.”

“I'm sure,” said Tom, smiling kindly when she glanced at him. She was clever, really, too clever for the future her sex had saddled her with, though not clever enough to evade the seductions of a doltish man three times her senior.

“What's Potter planning to do after graduation?” she asked, a subtle reminder that she too had put things together, Harry's consistent visits to the Ministry, bringing Tom lunch like a doting mother, his constant sojourning at the Slytherin table, Tom's uncommon allowance of affection. “You'll go into politics, obviously. I assume you two will stay together.”

“Harry has never planned for the future in his life,” Tom said, imagining the delight of drowning Del Voragine in the bowl of charmed punch, disrupting the illusory koi fish currently swimming in it. “He doesn't have the ability to think more than an hour ahead of himself.”

Del Voragine grinned, downing the rest of her drink, Tom politely taking her cup to discard it for her. “It's sweet, the two of you,” she said, unusually bathetic. She was sending another of those ridiculous looks of longing towards the Undersecretary, who was failing to not look back. They really were stupid about it. “I hope that, one day, you won't have to hide it.”

Tom hummed sympathetically. Let her think they were conspirators in this, as though her furtive affair with a married man was even remotely similar to what Tom shared with Harry. It would further her trust in him, and the maudlin atmosphere would send her into the Undersecretary's arms before the end of the night, the potion he'd slipped her taking effect even quicker than he'd hoped for.

They had to have been careful, to have gone over a year without any risk of begetting. Contraceptive spells, no doubt, not slipping even in the heat of passion. But Tom had found a solution for that.

When Dumbledore asked Tom to stay after class, Tom assumed it had to do with his being named Head Boy; he’d offered a false congratulations to Tom in fifth year as well, nodding to his Prefect’s badge as he prodded at Tom’s mental shields, searching for any evidence of wrongdoing. He’d been trying to wring evidence of Dark Arts from Tom for years, no doubt worried over the threat of a new budding Dark Wizard. It was enraging at first, and then pathetic, as though Tom would be foolish enough to ever let the man anywhere near his thoughts.

Now it was amusing, Dumbledore clearly projecting his wounded pride at his own failed romance onto Tom. He wondered if Dumbledore had seen Grindelwald in him even that first day at Wool’s. He’d always been fond of Harry, what Tom had chalked up to House pride nonsense, but now assumed Dumbledore saw himself in him, which was a poor joke. Great Wizard or not, Dumbledore was a shallow puddle compared to Harry’s potential, his abysm of raw power.

“Yes, Professor?” Tom asked politely, resisting the urge to jettison Dumbledore’s nosy fingers from his mind as though cutting them off with a butcher’s knife.

“Mr. Riddle, I wonder if you’ve given any thought to where your path may lead after graduation,” Dumbledore said, his usual caring mentor facade settling into place as he slunk from Tom’s mind. “Of course, you have very many options. But I thought I’d offer the suggestion of teaching.”

“Teaching,” Tom echoed, recalibrating to the sudden turn of conversation. He hadn’t expected Dumbledore to want him to stay at Hogwarts–the man clearly didn’t like sharing space with him even in the classroom–though perhaps he should have. After all, should Tom choose to remain at Hogwarts, the professor would be able to better keep an eye on him.

“You have remarkable talent, my boy,” said Dumbledore. “And, more than that, a remarkable understanding for magic. You are also the most professional Prefect I have ever seen, which has given you a solid foundation from which to approach and instruct others.”

“Thank you,” said Tom, wondering how long this buttering up was meant to last. Dumbledore was not a Slytherin; he did not chew the fat easily. He likely found the conversation as grating as Tom did. “I'll be considering many options. And, of course, I'll have to wait until after N.E.W.T.s to decide.”

“Of course,” Dumbledore agreed. “Should you decide to extend your time here at Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn and I will gladly offer our recommendation.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” Tom smiled, escape on the horizon. “If you'll excuse me, I should check in on the new Slytherins. The first week can be a difficult adjustment period, I'm sure you understand.”

“Perfectly. And, Mr. Riddle–Tom–I hope you'll be diligent in your considerations. You have much to offer. I would hate to see it being taken advantage of.”

So he knew about Tom's meetings with Grindelwald, or at the very least he suspected. Perhaps he hadn't distanced himself from his ex-lover as much as he'd like everyone to believe; Grindelwald might have told him, himself. And now, seven years too late, Dumbledore was trying to recruit Tom, offering to share his cowardly shelter. They were a pair of dogs tugging at a bone between them.

Salazar, Tom hoped the old man wasn't planning to spend the entire year pestering him. They'd reached an accord over time, presumably agreeing to simply ignore one another outside of lessons. He'd hate to see that change, this blubbering absurdity of conversation becoming habitual.

“I'll keep that in mind, sir,” Tom said, and left at a casual pace, refusing to present a retreat.

But, though the idea came from Dumbledore so Tom was loath to admit it, the possibility of teaching did not disgust him. He cherished Hogwarts, really and truly, the first place he had ever felt might be a home for him, a place of belonging. He was too young to be given any real power within the Ministry, but a few years of professorship would surely only endear Tom further to the Wizarding world, years spent shaping the minds of the Wizengamot members’ children, planting the seeds of his own ideals–the correct ideals–within them.

Tom had no real feelings towards children–a few were well-behaved, most were little more than animals–but they were malleable. Blank parchment for Tom to fill up. Merrythought was getting on in years; surely she'd be considering retirement soon. Tom could only imagine teaching Defence, anything else would be too boring to stand.

And then there was Harry, still infuriatingly guileless, completely indifferent towards any concept of profession. Harry loved Hogwarts nearly as much as Tom and, more than that, would not wish to separate. It would be no great struggle to convince him to stay on at the castle, teaching Flying perhaps, the study Harry had the most natural aptitude for.

Tom would wait to make the offer; Harry was too likely to simply leap at the first choice given, and Tom still needed to consider his options, which would prove the best not only in the immediate aftermath of graduation, but laying a proper foundation for the lasting future. An eternity was a very long time; Tom would have to make the most of it.

He did a cursory check-in with the first years; mostly purebloods from families of middling importance, along with a handful of pathetic mudbloods and half-bloods scared of their own wands. They would either rise up to meet the expectations of their House, or suffer greatly for their failures. Tom would offer very little in the way of assistance; no one could learn while being coddled.

He convened with his Knights, ensuring the longevity of the group. Should he take up teaching after all, he'd be able to continue to shepherd them himself. If not, that role would fall to Alphard Black and Calliope's younger brother Hyacinth, who would keep Tom apprised through post.

It was during this meeting that Harry slithered into the commons, cheerfully greeting the new serpents who stared at the sudden appearance of a Gryffindor as though he were a phantom. He chatted happily with the mudbloods, asking how their families were faring during the War, sympathetic towards the ones who'd come from London and the naval cities, before slouching his way over to Tom.

“I know what you're doing,” Tom said, shifting as Harry clambored and squished his way into the chair.

“Being nice?” Harry smiled.

“You show them kindness and then display my affection for you. You hope they'll believe this means I'm an ally to them. It won't work. I won't show blatant favouritism.”

“Except for your minions,” Harry pointed out. “Except for me.”

“They are not you,” said Tom, irritation dulled by Harry's warmth, the scent of his hair as he ducked his head on Tom's shoulder.

“I'm not asking you to adopt them,” Harry said, a wry grin. “I really was just being friendly.”

“Hm,” said Tom, not believing him for a moment. Harry would adopt every Muggle-blooded child if he could, leading them through the castle like a trail of homely goslings.

“Don't worry,” Harry tugged at Tom's tie, pressing an audacious kiss to his cheek. “You'll always be my favourite snake.”

“You're staying here tonight,” Tom surmised, noticing the bag slung hastily over Harry's shoulder.

“Course I am,” Harry said warmly. It had only taken a week for Tom to be proven right, the amenities of his single dorm and the habit of proximity built up over the summer enough to persuade Harry into treating Tom's room as though it was his own. By Christmas, Tom was sure, Harry would be all but moved in.

Tom woke Harry gently, watching him breach the surface of his dream. He gazed drowsily at Tom in the dark. “‘S I thrashing?” he asked, sleepily pawing at his face, searching for signs of leakage.

“No,” Tom said, pulling Harry's hand away. “I have something to show you.”

Harry hummed, brightening as the last dregs of sleep drained from him. “Is it your–”

“It's not my co*ck,” Tom rolled his eyes. “Come on, get dressed.”

He ignored Harry's noise of disgruntlement and tossed his wrinkled robes at his head.

Harry's grumbling died down significantly as they approached the girls’ lavatory. “You could have just said we're visiting Hessie,” he laughed.

“I couldn't have, because you would have wanted to take an extra twenty minutes to fetch something for her from the kitchens. Besides, we aren't visiting the Basilisk. We're visiting the Chamber.”

Tom had discovered the ritual in one of Salazar Slytherin's many dust-riddled books. Many of them were defunct by now, the information they offered proven wrong over time, but half a dozen contained perfectly workable curses, potions and rituals. Slytherin's own journals were written in Parseltongue, though with the grammar of his own time, requiring some amount of menial translation for Tom to read. Harry had taken one look at a curse meant to sever the head from its body and snorted, replacing it on the shelf, saying I'm good, thanks. That he could scoff at the thought of using dark magic against someone while simultaneously begging Tom to carve his name into his heart was just one of Harry's many idiosyncrasies.

In the Chamber, Harry ran straight over to the slumbering Basilisk, cooing at her as Tom set up the tableau.

“Harry,” he called, casting a green fire in the centre of the floor. “Come here.”

Harry came over, peering at the stage setting curiously, letting Tom take his hand without argument. He sliced it open, feeding a few drops of blood to the fire, and then pressed a kiss to the healed skin before doing the same with his own.

“Come form a circle around us,” he ordered the Basilisk, who grumpily did as she was told.

“What's this for?” Harry asked.

“This Chamber is in the heart of the castle,” Tom explained, excitement filling him up as they watched the fire writhe and dance. “The Basilisk has fed on Hogwarts’ magic for centuries; she's practically made up of it. This ritual is usually performed by purebloods, a sort of bonding ceremony between them and their ancestral homes. Wizarding houses are magical, and their magic responds to their owners.”

“So this'll make Hogwarts respond to us?”

“Hogwarts isn't a normal Wizarding house. Its magic is too ancient and powerful to bow to any individual. But this will make it recognize our magic as a part of its own. It will respond to us in some ways, and we will never be barred entry.” The protection wards on Hogwarts were the strongest known in Wizarding Britain. This ritual would braid his and Harry's magical signature into them, allowing them to come and go as they pleased, helpful for Apparition if nothing else.

It also, as Tom had hoped, opened the door between their own magic–Tom could feel the heat of Harry's caressing his own, so similar to the night of their blood pact, when Tom had briefly thought Harry's magic might swallow him whole.

“Tom,” Harry's voice sounded distant, as though reaching him across miles rather than centimetres, the touch of his hands faded, the weight of him as he crossed through the flames, unharmed, and into Tom's arms.

The well of heat was overwhelming, licking Tom's magic–his soul–glazing it from sand into glass. Even in this, Harry was tender, Tom could feel the affection in it, the apology for strength, as though Tom didn't want to burn. Magic responded to will, he'd learned that at eleven and never forgotten it, had harnessed the knowledge to master wandless magic, wordless magic, had even occasionally managed half a metre of flight without need for a broom. It responded to his will now, his want, coaxing Harry to flood him, ignite him and then consume the ashes.

Harry responded in kind. Tom's consciousness drifted from the well back into his own body, finding himself naked, both of them, moving mindlessly together, Tom's teeth conveniently placed on Harry's bared throat.

“Is this part of the ritual?” Harry gasped, moaned as Tom touched him.

“It wasn't mentioned in the book,” Tom said, groaning when Harry took him in hand, digging a sharp bite into Tom's shoulder.

“Maybe it's just us, then,” Harry laughed, turning Tom's cheek, seeking his mouth, melting over him until he, warm flesh and tense muscle and wet tongue, was all Tom could feel. “Gonna make you come,” he threatened.

Tom moved until his mouth covered Harry's heart, his own mark, licking sweat from the scar, tasting the vibration in Harry's chest as he groaned, desperation heightening between them as they raced towards completion.

The mechanics of sex had always disgusted Tom. The physical vulnerability it required, the mess. It still did disgust him intellectually, but Harry rendered all distaste null, nothing to dislike about his body, the offerings it gave when bowed low by pleasure.

“I can't believe you woke me up so you could f*ck me in a sewer,” Harry laughed, still breathless, covered in fluids he didn't even try to clear away. “In front of Hessie! We've probably scarred her for life.”

“She's asleep,” Tom pointed out, running a hand through the mess on Harry's thigh, his own spend. He watched as Harry hummed, bringing Tom's wet fingers to his mouth, cleaning them with slow licks. “You're obscene.”

Harry gave a final languorous suck to Tom's middle finger, gnawing at the knuckle, and then cuddled close. “I'm not the one who dragged us down here for a sex ritual.”

Tom frowned. He really hadn't expected their reaction to the spell, the book didn't mention anything of the sort happening. “It isn't a sex ritual. It's–”

Harry cut him off with a kiss, unapologetic. “I don't actually care. It was hot. You're hot. But it's a good thing we don't have any classes today. I'm sleeping until noon.”

Tom hummed, scraping Harry, still pliant from org*sm, from the floor, summoning their clothes from wherever they'd been banished. The fire had burned out at some point, the ritual complete. He could feel the castle's magic at the periphery of his own, not quite aligned, but aware of each other in some new way.

Harry was happy, nearly blinding with it, sloppily folding himself back into his robes before pulling Tom close again, tipping his head back to beam at him. “I love you.”

Tom framed his face, his warmed cheeks, pressed a lethargic kiss to the scar hidden by his hair. He buried his face there, breathing him in, the co*cktail of citrus, smoke and sex, Harry's hands rubbing at Tom's back, holding him. Tom could still feel the overwhelming love in Harry's magic, the heated care it treated him with, the claim it laid over his own. He wasn't sure when the feeling would fade, or if it ever would. They stood like that for a very long time.

Grindelwald was gone from Malfoy Manor by the time they held their annual Christmas party, and a good thing too, since half the guests were Ministry workers. Plenty of them agreed with the Dark Wizard, even supporting him from within, but Minister Spencer-Moon was an impressively principled man, and all the pureblood etiquette in the world would not have stopped him from duelling Undesirable Number One on sight.

Tom had interacted with the Minister himself sparingly, had been surprised and a little impressed to discover the man was, if not completely skeleton-free, then at least intensely skilled at burying them. He was a serious man, with extreme focus and a grave countenance others found intimidating, though he rarely used fear to motivate, instead setting high expectations and counting on those around him to meet them which, of course, they almost never did. Tom felt confident that, should the Minister unshoulder his own hardened ideals of magnanimity and wrest complete control for himself, the Ministry would suddenly become functional.

He was also the first half-blood to ever rise to such a station in Wizarding Britain, voted in after his useless predecessor failed to heed the threat Grindelwald posed. When faced with the shadow of War, people's need for a leader, no matter their breeding, would always win out over senselessness.

Grindelwald's absence was also the only reason Tom had elected to come; Harry would never have agreed not to accompany him, and the idea of chaining him up in Tom's trunk had lost its appeal some time ago. He'd spent the first half of the evening frowning around at the Manor first with suspicion and then with distaste, which Tom couldn't help but agree with. Most purebloods didn't even celebrate Christmas, instead considering it as something of an aesthetic, and the Malfoys always liked to be as gaudy and grandiose as possible.

Now Harry was hiding somewhere amongst the iridescent glass foliage because, in his own words, he was allergic to mingling.

“Mr. Riddle,” the Minister greeted, neither warm nor cold, exceedingly professional. “I believe I have you to thank for the impressive performance of the Undersecretary office last summer.”

“Oh, I only did my job,” Tom said, wearing the face of a humble man, embarrassed and pleased to have the Minister's attention.

“You'd be surprised how rare that is,” Spencer-Moon said dryly. “And you were hardly doing your job when you tried to rid us all of Grindelwald; that's no mean feat, either.” Like most powerful Wizards, the Minister was always Occluding, but he let a hint of real feeling leak into his tone, no condescension, only respect. “I hope you'll return to us after your graduation. The Ministry could use more people like you. Miss Del Voragine will be resuming her position, I believe, but I'm sure we can find you something suitable. Perhaps in the archives division; Slughorn tells me you're something of a savant.”

It had only been three months since Tom's conversation with Del Voragine, though he knew from some of her worried Housemates that she was already showing some symptoms. It wouldn't be long before she was showing others, more difficult to hide.

“I'd be honoured,” Tom smiled. “I've always been interested in the running of our world–though I knew I'd have to earn my way through diligence.”

“Our world's a mess,” Spencer-Moon said flatly. “But so's the rest, I suppose. And don't worry too much about climbing the ranks. I started as a tea-boy in Accidents and Catastrophes. By the time you're my age, I'd be surprised if you're not running circles around the rest of the lot.” He carefully laid a hand on Tom's shoulder, a spare offering of camaraderie, before strolling back into the crowd of highbred Wizards eager for a moment of the Minister's time.

There were few adults Tom could genuinely claim to respect, and nearly all of them were professors. Onai and Merrythought, for their magical skill and sensible attitudes if nothing else. Slughorn, who had never been so blinded by pureblood supremacy that he could not recognize true talent. And Spencer-Moon, whose only failing as Minister was capitulating to the tired notions of democracy, as though a government defined and flooded by ancient, wealthy purebloods who loathed change could ever be fair to begin with.

Tom would not give into such fairytales when he was Minister of Magic. For a new, better world, the old guard would have to be excised out.

“My Lord,” Malfoy murmured. Tom turned to find him standing with one of the Lestrange twins. “We've found Trelawney.”

The smile Tom wore now was an honest one. This was proving to be a fortuitous Christmas indeed.

Tom collected Harry from where he'd been chatting with two house-elves behind an opaline fir tree and dragged him through the manor, Malfoy and Lestrange leading them to something of a dungeon.

“Why is there a dungeon in your house?” asked Harry.

“For prisoners, of course,” said Malfoy, opening a warded door.

In distinct opposition to the bleak atmosphere of the corridor leading up to it, the room was quite comfortable-looking, more of a small study than a cell. Inside, Orion and the second Lestrange brother stood guard over a middle-aged woman wearing a tartan dressing gown and a sleep scarf wrapped over her hair. She was sitting at the table drinking tea.

“Ah, so these are my captors,” she said, not seeming at all upset about having been taken captive. “And is there a reason you couldn't have come to meet me for lunch, like civilised folk?”

“You are a very difficult person to track down, Ms. Trelawney,” Tom said politely. “We couldn't be sure how long you'd remain at your current location.”

“Fair enough,” Trelawney shrugged.

“What is this?” Harry asked, shooting scathing looks at the Knights before studying Trelawney with curiosity. “Did you kidnap someone?”

“Oh, calm down, dear,” said Trelawney, her focus now entirely on Harry. “I let them take me. To be honest, I very much wanted to meet you.” She looked at him with open fascination. “Come here, let me get a look at you.”

Harry glanced at Tom, confused and angry at his confusion. He hated being on the back foot, and no doubt the presence of Tom's Knights didn't help matters. Bad enough he had to come to Malfoy's home to begin with.

“Leave us,” Tom told Malfoy, and watched the four boys leave. “She's a Seer. She might know what to do about your illness.”

“It's not an illness,” Harry rolled his eyes, but he approached Trelawney anyway. “I'm sorry if they upset you.”

“I'm never upset,” said Trelawney, passing him a cup of tea. “Drink this. Quickly, now, I'm missing my stories.”

Harry, never able to say no to the face of motherly authority, gulped the tea down in moments. Trelawney took the cup back, setting it upside down on its saucer and then spinning it three times counter-clockwise. When she pulled it up again, the leaves and sparse juice had formed a portrait across the plate.

“What does it look like to you?” she asked Harry, who stared at the scene with wide eyes.

“A forest,” he said slowly. “A forest of death. But…like in tarot.”

“Profound transformation,” Trelawney agreed. “It's just as I thought. You aren't a Seer, child.”

“I'm not?” Harry asked, voice dampened.

“He is,” Tom frowned. “He's made predictions. His dreams come true.”

“That's because they are not dreams, but memories,” Trelawney explained, dipping a finger into Harry's teascape and sucking the liquid from her skin. “Seers, true seers, do not see what will happen, only what might. We see possibilities, endless possibilities, about everyone and everything, because nothing is ever set in stone. Even prophecies can be altered, though it's very uncommon. But what you are experiencing aren't possibilities. They are things that have already happened for you, in a previous life.”

“But I see them before they happen,” said Harry.

Trelawney nodded. “It is peculiar. I've only heard of its like once before. She was assumed to be a prophetess as well, suffering from a strange ailment, what I termed Seer's Sickness. But it wasn't the Sight so deeply affecting her. It was her own mind, struggling beneath the weight of so much memory. When most spirits are reborn, they remember nothing of their previous lives. But she did. Somehow, her spirit had been reborn into her own past. I suspect it is the same with yours.”

“So what do we do about it?” asked Tom. While he did find Divination interesting, he cared less for the philosophy of reincarnation, and more for the practicality of helping Harry. “How was the other woman cured?”

“She wasn't,” Trelawney shrugged. “She died. Quite young. Her mind simply…collapsed under the strain. But you're lucky, dear,” she assured Harry, patting the back of his hand. “We've caught it early. You might be able to seek help.”

“From who,” asked Tom, reining in his anger. It would not do to strike the Witch down before she answered all his questions.

“The centaurs of course,” she said. “You're at Hogwarts still, aren't you? Loads of them out there. They know more about Sight and reincarnation than I ever will, but they're quite stingy with their information. But I suspect you,” she gave Harry a warm smile. “Will simply be too interesting for them to resist.” She patted Harry's hand once more, with finality, before telling Tom “Thank you for the hospitality. This has been the most fun I've had in a while. Do be a dear and tell Grindelwald he'll never find me.” Then, with a tidy little pop of air, she was gone.

Harry was quiet for the remainder of the night, saying nothing as Tom led him through the Manor, through the floo network, through Slughorn's office and back to Tom's room. He said nothing as Tom undressed him, as Tom plucked the glasses from his face and bundled him into the bed.

“We'll figure it out,” Tom told him, clutching him hard to his chest. “We'll find the centaurs. We'll find a cure. You'll be fine.”

“I know,” Harry said softly, turning in Tom's arms to face him. “So many of my dreams are about you. I guess you were a big part of my past life, too. The best part, probably.”

Tom ducked down to kiss him, mouth turned harsh by helplessness, frustration that the night had ended with only more questions, more unsurety. Harry sighed, fingers digging just as sharply into Tom's back, holding tight.

The centaurs were not only stingy with their information; they were next to impossible to find , having a severe disdain for all humans, including Wizards, and an innate ability to avoid them.

Eventually, Harry enlisted Hagrid of all people to assist them.

“His half-brother's friends with the herd that lives in the Forbidden Forest,” Harry explained. “He's asked them to meet with us at Dísablót. It's in three weeks.”

“We may not have three weeks,” Tom pointed out, considering the ramifications of simply setting fire to the Forbidden Forest and smoking the creatures out.

Harry only shook his head. “I've made it this long, haven't I? We can manage another month.”

Tom had Orion Black track down Trelawney's book, published under her maiden name, in which she described Seer's Sickness and the single case of it she had documented. The doomed prophetess had died at twenty-four. Less than a tenth of the average Witch's life expectancy. The book burst into flame in his hands.

Tom spent the next weeks casting dozens of charms on Harry as he slept; if he so much as twitched, Tom would be woken so he could study him, check the steady jog of his pulse. Harry grew irritated beneath his fretting, fleeing back to his Gryffindor dorm, looking unsurprised when Tom slithered in, welling up with anger.

“Fabian, mind giving us the room?” Harry asked. His roommate took one look at Tom, flickering with rage, and loped out.

“I hope you weren't planning to sleep here alone,” Tom ground out, frustrated beyond measure by Harry's carelessness. If he were to have an attack while Tom wasn't beside him, who would wake him? Who would ensure he didn't drown in his own mind?

“Sit down,” Harry sighed, nodding towards the end of his bed, which hadn't been slept in for months. When Tom sat, Harry settled himself into his lap, holding his face so he was forced to look at him. “I know you're scared. But there's no point trying to fight something we know nothing about. You're just working yourself up into a panic, which makes me panic, and I don't really need something to stress over besides N.E.W.T.s.” When Tom moved to argue, Harry put a hand over his mouth. “I'm trying really hard not to lose my mind about this,” he admitted. “You think I don't care? You think I'm not worried? It's my mind! But I'm trying not to go any crazier than I already am. And you're making that difficult.”

Tom didn't strictly believe him. Harry couldn't be trusted to care about his own health, his own safety. He'd proven that time and again. The relaxed attitude with which he ignored his own ailment spoke to it, as if he truly didn't care, as if he thought there was nothing the matter. Surely it couldn't all be an act. Harry was outrageously fearless. It was what got him into trouble, be it injuries on the Quidditch pitch, or picking fights with bullies three times his size at Wool's.

“I don't have a death wish,” Harry smiled. “It's true I'm not scared of much. Really just Dementors. But I'm scared of you being hurt. I'm scared of you being alone. I promise I don't want that. I'll never leave you if I can help it.”

“I won't let you,” Tom said, snatching Harry's hand from his mouth. “You say you'll never leave me. Prove it. Make a Horcrux.”

Harry's eyes softened as he settled closer. “Tom…”

“It can be a mercy,” Tom said, irritated by his own frantic heart. “Someone already dying, someone in pain.”

“I'll be someone else, though,” Harry said, petting the hair at the nape of Tom's neck. “Taking a life will change me. I'll be a different person.”

“It won't,” Tom frowned.

“It didn't change you. It will change me,” Harry said, firm, as though he'd Seen it, as though he somehow knew.

“You won't be a different person entirely.”

“I will. But maybe that's what you want.”

Tom's grip hardened, needing to bruise. If he let go, he would curse the room to shreds. “How can you say that?”

“I've never asked you to change,” said Harry. “I've never wanted you to be anything other than what you are. Don't ask me to.”

Tom could see it, the easy life they might lead should Harry shed his moral qualms, his silly sympathies. They could tear the world apart stitch by stitch and remake it in their image.

But Tom had never wanted an easy life. He did not want Harry any different from how he was now, how he had always been, holding Tom close, warm and alive.

“I love you,” Tom said, some part of him still pulling at the reins, indignant at the very thought. He still could not comprehend most people's understanding of love, those insipid descriptions like a swamp of feeling, disgusting to wade through. What he felt for Harry defied all attempts at definition. He was beginning to suspect he was the only person who had ever truly loved.

Harry smiled, kissed him sweetly, tugged at his hair. “I know. I've always known. I love you, too.”

Dísablót, apparently, was the centaurs’ equivalent to Winters’ Night, a night for feasting, sacrifice, and spell-casting. The texts on centaur magic were rare and sparse, and on any other occasion, Tom would have been very pleased to witness it in action. Even underbeings could be knowledgeable of certain crafts, and centaurs were known for holding mysterious powers Wizards were largely ignorant of.

But tonight, Tom cared only about finding a cure for the strange ailment that had plagued Harry for years. That, if left to its own devices, may very well have killed him.

Upon being faced with a centaur, though, Tom found his intellectual curiosity flaring up. She was incredibly large, bigger than a draft horse, with a dark, dappled flank and a nude, muscled torso. She carried a long spear in one hand, hair unbound and wild like a bramble bush.

“Harry Potter,” she said, voice guttural, English clearly not her first language. Tom wondered if centaurs had a universal tongue or if each herd had their own.

Harry clenched Tom's hand. “That's me,” he said, friendly tone disguising his anxiety. The centaur must have appeared even larger to him, he was so short. “Nice to meet you.”

“You will join us for Dísablót,” the centaur said. “Dorran wishes to see the man out of time.”

“I guess that's me,” said Harry, glancing at Tom. They moved to step into the forest, and the centaur levelled her spear at Tom's chest so quickly he never saw it move.

“Only Harry Potter,” she said, fierce with threat. “Humans are not allowed into the Forest.”

“I won't let him go alone,” Tom warned her. “You can bring this Dorran here, or you can let me accompany Harry, but I won't let you take him.”

The centaur's lip curled. “We do not take orders from children of men. Harry Potter will come alone to be seen by Dorran. Or you both will leave this place now.”

Harry dug his nails into Tom's skin, pulling harshly until he looked at him. Nervous green eyes and a tremulous smile. “It's okay,” he said, leaning up until their heads pressed together. “I'll be okay. Wait here for me. Be good.”

Tom's frustration was a coiled rope inside him, fashioning itself into a noose. “Harry–”

“Be good,” Harry whispered, pleaded, pressing a kiss to Tom's jaw before wrenching himself away. He turned to the centaur, shoulders set, courage built into every crevice in his spine. “I'm ready.”

The centaur gave one last glare to Tom, who met it with his own, before turning and leading Harry into the trees, so dense they disappeared from his view almost instantly.

Tom was not some dog to be brought to heel. He'd smuggled Harry's cloak with him for this very reason, swinging it over himself before following after.

Tom walked for a long time. He forged multiple paths, casting disillusionment spells to silence his feet, to hide his movement through foliage. He cast a charm to see perfectly in the dark. None of it mattered; Harry and the centaur were gone, perhaps cloaked as he was by some mysterious underbeing magic.

He closed his eyes and sought his connection to the castle, its many wards, the vague sensation he could feel only when seeking it out. But the castle's magic didn't seem to include the Forest.

In a fit of rage, he lashed a curse at the nearest tree, which splintered as though struck by lightning. He did it again and again until, panting and having dropped the cloak, a large circle of smouldering death surrounded him, a crater the physical manifestation of his despair.

He could burn the Forest down in its entirety, until nothing but ash remained. But Harry was somewhere in the woods, entombed by them. Tom didn't know how much time he'd wasted. He didn't know where he now stood. He picked up the cloak and made his way to the castle, some hidden compass within him directing his way.

By the time Harry returned, the sun's first light was kissing the castle turrets. Tom had seen the genocide of all centaur-kind in his mind, always ending with the beast that had forced Harry away from him, her own spear shoved into her mouth and through the whole of her gullet as though swallowed.

Harry burst into a grin when he saw Tom, running the last few steps, dropping onto him heavily, enthusiasm bringing them both to the ground.

“I touched a unicorn,” Harry said, bright with happiness, dimming only slightly at whatever he found on Tom's face. “Oh, sweetheart.” He kissed him. “I'm fine. Better than fine. There was a ritual, they fixed it. It shouldn't ever happen again, okay? Please don't burn the Forest down.”

“What was the ritual?” Tom asked, unsure why his voice was hoarse. Perhaps he'd been screaming during his little tantrum in the woods. An embarrassing loss of control.

“No idea,” Harry smiled ruefully. “You're better with that stuff than I am. There was smoke, and a lot of chanting and hoof-stomping. Something about the stars.”

“And a unicorn?” Tom clarified. Now that Harry was returned to him, seemingly intact and possibly even healed, he let the curiosity take over.

“Yeah,” Harry said, wilting around the edges. “They sent me out to find one, and I thought for sure I never would because, well, I'm not exactly pure, am I?” He flushed at Tom's look of amusem*nt, his current positioning in Tom's lap. “But she came right to me and laid in my lap. Then they killed her, for the sacrifice. But they said they'd never kill a unicorn who didn't bow, apparently they only bow when they're ready to die. And the sacrifice was to ensure another year of peace, so, I dunno. Still a bit sad. She was so beautiful.”

Of course Harry, whose heart was large enough to grieve an animal that had given itself up to slaughter, would think being virginal had anything whatsoever to do with purity. “I'm as surprised as you are,” Tom smirked. “I thought I'd thoroughly deflowered you.”

“Pretty sure we deflowered each other,” Harry muttered, embarrassed, pleased when Tom began kissing his neck. “We're not having sex in front of the Forbidden Forest. I forbid it.”

“Who's having sex?” Tom murmured, sliding a hand beneath his shirt to stroke at his belly. “I'm only kissing you.”

“It's never just kissing with us,” Harry laughed. “Come on, I'm exhausted. I want to sleep in our bed. You won't even have to stare at me the whole time, like a creep.”

“I like staring at you.” Tom stared at him now, brushing a smudge of dirt from his cheekbone, plucking leaves from his hair. He looked like he'd slept on the forest floor. “You're beautiful.”

Harry melted into a kiss, and then another. “I love you. Let's go home.”

Without the threat of Harry's mind sickness dangling over their heads like a sword, Tom was able to return his focus to other ventures.

Regina Del Voragine's pregnancy became Great Hall gossip soon after Dísablót. It only took a week for her parents to call her home. Walburga delighted in describing the many spells and potions Del Voragine would be subjected to, her own family being just as old and pure as the Blacks, though they were recently transplanted from the continent.

“And they're Catholic,” she explained, having clearly just learned the existence of the religion. “Which supposedly means they might be even worse about things. And of course, they'll never allow her to drink the pennyroyal potion. I think they plan to force the father to marry her, even if he isn't a pureblood.”

Damolt Maverick, of course, was a pureblood. He was also already married.

After only a few days, Del Voragine returned to Hogwarts, looking pregnant and exhausted but otherwise no worse for wear. She'd been a slim girl to begin with; she would never have been able to hide the belly for very long. Tom wondered if she'd tried the pennyroyal potion herself at all. She was clever enough to be able to brew some. But his fertility potion would have rendered it useless, same as the contraceptive spells.

According to Walburga, if Regina refused to willingly name the father, the Del Voragines would likely use a version of Veritaserum, rendered harmless to the foetus, or Legilimency to find out.

“I'm surprised they didn't discover it during winter break,” she said, thoroughly obsessed with the topic. “Most parents check for purity between each term. Mine certainly do. If they'd just done their due diligence, they could have simply kept her home to have the baby in private and wouldn't have such a scandal on their hands.”

“Hm,” said Tom. “Keep an eye on any developments.”

Walburga smiled. “With pleasure, my Lord.”

Harry descended upon their group mercilessly, swinging himself over the side of the sofa and crowing with triumph in Tom's face.

“What on earth–” Hyacinth whispered.

“Potter's finally cracked all the way,” said Lestrange.

“Harry,” said Tom, trying to settle him, but Harry was not to be settled.

“I've been scouted!” he shouted, and half the roomful of Slytherins perked up. “The Arrows and the Wasps. They've sent contracts!"Ah, so it was more sport nonsense.

“Before the House Cup?” Malfoy asked, sounding grudgingly impressed. “That's early.”

“Congratulations, Potter,” said Nott, who played on Slytherin's team and, Tom suspected, was hoping to receive a few offers of his own.

Harry hid his face in the curve of Tom's neck and released a muffled scream. Tom rubbed a hand down his back. He'd known Harry was good at Quidditch, the best Seeker currently on the roster, but he didn't know he was being sought after by professional teams.

“Wait until the end of the season to see if any other teams send an offer,” he suggested. “Maybe you'll hear from Puddlemere.”

Harry wrenched back to look at him. “You think I will?”

“You're obviously talented enough for two teams in the League. I don't see why not.” Harry's smile spread slowly, his hand sliding beneath Tom's hair to thumb lovingly at his neck.

“Salazar,” snapped Walburga. “Who cares about Quidditch? We're talking about the Del Voragine bastard!”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry frowned. “Poor Regina. Myrtle said she's been crying in the Prefects’ bath every day this week.” He smirked when Tom tensed at the mention of Myrtle Warren, a blight better off forgotten. “Unclench. We're not even friends, we just chatted a bit in the library earlier. And anyway, you like me having friends, because you like knowing I love you best.”

“I tolerate you having friends,” Tom corrected. Harry rolled his eyes.

Harry's budding future as a professional Quidditch player made Tom's choice for him; he wasn't going to deliberate curriculum with the Board of Governors while Harry gallivanted around Britain. He'd head straight into the Ministry, skipping a few of the rungs in the process, so long as his gardening continued to bear fruit.

And bear fruit it did: the story broke alongside the breaking of winter, spring washing in with the news. Damold Maverick forced to resign in disgrace, his scorned soon-to-be ex-wife giving a teary interview, an investigation demanded by a dozen Wizengamot members whose teenaged sons and daughters also interned at the Ministry. Opinion seemed to be evenly split as to whether or not Maverick abused his position or Del Voragine seduced him as a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl.

Meanwhile, the Del Voragine family planned to have a hasty private wedding in the summer before packing up and fleeing back to the family estate in Ischia.

“That's horrible,” Harry said, having stolen Tom's copy of the Prophet. “He could be her father! You said it started when she was fifteen?”

“That I know of,” Tom hummed, reclaiming his paper. “Don't feel too sorry for her. She loves him. She's getting what she wanted, honestly.”

“Someone made every mirror in the castle spell whor* whenever she looks at them,” Harry said flatly. “I don't think that's what she wanted.”

“Why do you care? You never even spoke to her.”

“She was nice to you at the Ministry,” said Harry, toying with Tom's collar as an excuse to touch the bruise hidden on his neck. “I dunno. I think I'd care no matter who it happened to. I'd hate for it to happen to me.”

“It never would happen to you,” Tom pointed out, wondering at Harry's logic. “You would never have an affair with anyone who isn't me, let alone a married man.”

Harry smiled, always charmed by Tom's casual assurance of their relationship. “Not in this life, no. But if you were already married when I met you? Maybe. I might not be able to control myself.”

“That would never happen either,” said Tom. “I'd never marry anyone who isn't you. In any life.”

Harry leaned in until his lips brushed over Tom's ear. “Unfair for you to say that when I can't just snog you stupid.”

“Hm,” said Tom, finally setting the paper aside. He led Harry to the hidden closet behind Magda the Magician's tapestry.

“This a new one?” Harry frowned at the space, mentally adding it to the tally. Ever since they'd bonded with the castle, they'd begun a competition of sorts, to see who could find the most secreted spaces by the end of the year. Initially, Tom had been far ahead, by virtue of his Head Boy rounds every evening. But Harry had launched himself after him by using the cloak to slither about unimpeded.

“It will have its uses,” Tom murmured, descending upon him once the tapestry fell back into place.

Tom sent his formal application off to the Minister's office later that week, confident that between his own golden history within the Ministry, recommendations from Slughorn, Merrythought and Dippet, his list of accredited spells and potions, and his perfect N.E.W.T. scores, the position would be his. His age may be a negative factor against him, but he already had Spencer-Moon's recognition, surely he’d understand Tom was the man for the job, no matter how young he was.

During his Defence practical exam, Tom cast his Patronus and then, using Parseltongue, commanded it to breathe a small, controlled amount of fiendfyre. Madam Marchbanks, who was examining him, stared for a moment in silent shock.

“Young man,” she said, eventually. “You said your name is Tom Riddle?”

“That's right,” said Tom.

“Well Mr. Riddle, I have been conducting examinations for this committee for over fifty years, and I can safely say you are only the second student to ever perform magic I have never seen before. You are also only the second student I have ever seen with a magical creature as his Patronus.”

So she was talking about Dumbledore, with his phoenix motif. Tom dipped his head respectfully and left the room. He knew Harry was also planning to cast his Patronus during his practical. He hoped Marchbanks examined him too, so she might face the same shock twice in one day.

Harry had been the one to suggest trying the Patronus charm. Tom hadn't given it much thought–despite Harry's strange, persistent fear of Dementors, it wasn't as though they'd ever be face to face with the creatures, and the difficult charm didn't offer much else in the way of usefulness.

“They can send messages,” Harry had informed him. “I like the idea of being able to talk to you whenever I want without needing a fireplace or an owl. For when either of us is travelling.”

“And I'm sure the fact that they scare off Dementors, which you've been scared of since that dream you had in third year, doesn't hurt.”

“That too,” said Harry.

They practised in the Room of Hidden Things. Harry mastered it impossibly quickly, only casting an incorporeal mist once before a creature burst out of his wand. It was beautiful, an enormous doe, larger than a bull, with gleaming golden antlers like sunlight streaming out of its skull, smoke flaring from both nostrils.

The instructions were frustratingly vague, in Tom's opinion. What exactly constituted a happy memory? Tom didn't associate memories with emotions. They were simply snapshots from his life. They certainly didn't make him feel anything.

“I just thought about you,” Harry shrugged apologetically, when Tom demanded an explanation. “Not any one memory in particular, just. You.”

That made a bit more sense than the textbook. The times when Tom had thought he was probably happy had all included Harry in some way or another. He looked at him, perched on a table, watching Tom with warm, expectant eyes, believing Tom's success was inevitable. And then he cast.

Shared Patronuses, apparently, were often a physical manifestation of the bond between two or more people's magic. Not to be confused with similar or paired Patronuses, which only signalled a certain level of compatibility. Twin Patronuses were akin to twin flames. Twin wands. Twin souls. Most commonly found between people who had grown up together, siblings or childhood friends, whose magic had grown alongside one another.

That Tom's Patronus responded to Parseltongue was also not surprising, the more he read. Parseltongue was something he'd been born with, as inherent to him as the rest of his magic. In fact, he could apparently cast any spell in Parseltongue and his wand would respond the same. Harry's Patronus didn't react to his Parseltongue at all.

Harry looked pleasantly self-assured when he reunited with Tom after his own examination. “Examiner Tofty said he'd never seen magic like that before. And that he'd never seen a student with a magical beast Patronus. Aside from Dumbledore, obviously.”

“What did you have it do?” Tom asked, had been curious ever since Harry refused to show him beforehand, not wanting to jinx his examination performance.

“Bit of centaur magic. Here, watch.” The Ceryneian Hind bloomed from Harry's wand. He waved it again, and the ethereal animal beat its bronze hooves in a rhythmic pattern against the floor. Suddenly, the entire room began to shake, as though suffering an earthquake, Tom gripping the post of his bed to stay standing. Harry had cast quick sticking charms to keep anything from falling off the shelves. He banished the Hind and then grinned.

“How did you do that?” Tom demanded, already wondering how he might be able to replicate it with his own Hind.

Harry turned sheepish. “Magic responds to will, right? You sort of beat that into me. And the Patronus responds to our minds, our memories. So, I just think really hard about seeing the centaurs do that in the Forest, sending that memory at the Hind, and she replicates the movements. It only works with hooves, I think. I tried to copy them on my own and nothing happened.”

“You're astonishing,” Tom said, revelling in Harry's flush. “How'd your Divination practical go?”

Harry groaned, throwing himself down on the bed. “It was weird. I know I got good marks, because I still remember what it was like to See, I can say all the right things. But there was just…nothing. I'm still not used to it.” The cost of the centaurs’ cure; to remove the malignancy within Harry's mind, they blinded that part of him completely. There was no more Seer's Sickness because he was no longer a Seer, though his Occlumency had remained. “It's weird. I'm glad I'm not having those episodes anymore, but I miss having something. Even if my dreams are just normal dreams now, I still never remember them. It feels like I've lost a piece of myself.”

“I certainly miss you waking me up in the middle of the night to warn me against talking to books that talk back. What was it you said? ‘Don't trust something that speaks when you can't see where it keeps its brain.’ Or something like that. Which, by the way, includes the portraits.”

Harry smiled. “I don't remember that.”

“We were quite young. I think it was during second year.” Tom stroked the curls from Harry's face, tracing his thumb along the scar. “I love this. Have I told you that before?”

“You love my scar?” Harry laughed, smiling when Tom bent down to kiss the marred skin.

“It was the first thing I really noticed about you,” Tom admitted. “And your eyes. But mostly this. I remember wondering if you'd been struck by lightning. If that was why you seemed so filled with light.”

“Romantic,” Harry murmured, pulling Tom's knuckles to his mouth. “I think probably my parents just dropped me down the stairs and then, when that didn't work, dropped me off at an orphanage.”

“I can desecrate Henry Potter's grave beyond repair,” Tom offered. “Call it an early birthday present.”

Harry shook his head. “I'm not mad at my parents. I'm grateful to them. They brought me to you.”

Tom lowered himself over him fully, Harry's eyes hooding as they watched him, Tom sinking down that green well, against the murky veil of Harry's shields, different from how they once felt, but no less opaque. Tom couldn't swallow back his sigh at their touch, the slick of cool water against his own mind.

“I know,” Harry said, mouth twisting in a regretful smile. “I was looking forward to you being able to read my thoughts while inside me.”

“Demon,” Tom hissed, sucking a mark into Harry's throat. “Sent to tempt me into a life of sin.”

Harry's laugh burst bright and sudden as a Patronus.

Harry bought each of his professors a graduation gift, because of course he did.

“They aren't even the ones graduating,” Tom pointed out.

“Yeah, but they got me to graduation,” shrugged Harry.

“Igot you to graduation,” said Tom. “Where's my gift?”

Harry glanced at him through his lashes, the suggestion of what exactly Tom's gift would be stunningly clear. “I'll give it to you later.”

The gifts themselves were nearly all Muggle in nature. Slughorn in particular was pleased with his, an ordinary goldfish in a glass bowl. Harry did his best to convince him that the fish was, in fact, an ordinary live fish, and would need to be fed regularly. Whether or not Slughorn actually understood this was yet to be determined.

“He seemed like he might want a friend,” Harry said, when Tom asked about it.

For Merrythought, who was indeed planning to retire, Harry bought a floppy sun hat of the sort Muggle women wore to the beach. Those were the only classes Tom shared with Harry, so he had to ask about the others.

“I gave Dumbledore a bag of lemon drops,” Harry grinned, rounding out the list. “You should've seen his face when he tried one. Like he'd just discovered God. Don't worry, I told him they were from both of us.”

“Joy,” Tom said dryly.

Unsurprisingly, Dumbledore called Tom in for one last astucious chat. After all, hermit that he was, this would be the last time he'd be able to attempt trawling through Tom's head for quite a while.

“Congratulations on your prestigious job offer, my boy,” Dumbledore said amiably. “Though of course, we're all disappointed to lose you.”

“I thought it might be a bit odd, teaching students only one year junior to myself,” Tom said, his rehearsed reasoning. Really, he'd have no trouble at all instructing even people older than him. He'd never struggled to command authority over others.

“Sensible,” Dumbledore agreed. “And I imagine it would be difficult to spend so much time apart from Mr. Potter.”

Harry had gotten an offer from Puddlemere, and had signed the contract within a week, not even waiting to see if any other teams might contact him. Puddlemere was the oldest team in the League and, according to many sport-minded people, the best at what they did. For Harry, they had no competition.

“Yes,” Tom allowed. Nothing he said would prevent Dumbledore from looking at him and Harry and seeing his own doomed romance. He might as well let it ingratiate him to the old fool.

“Ah, love,” Dumbledore said sagely. “The strongest force there is.”

“I doubt it can defy gravity,” Tom said wryly.

Dumbledore chuckled. He really was infuriating. Tom envisioned removing the old man's head from his body and puppeting it on a stick, like a showing of Punch and Judy.

“I see your point,” Dumbledore smiled. “Still, I am glad you have opened yourself to love, Tom. I hope you never close that door.”

That was just about as much pretentious so-called wisdom that Tom could take. “Thank you, Professor. If you'll excuse me–”

“Of course, of course,” Dumbledore waved him off. “And thank you for the lemon drops! I found them delightful. I'll have to invest in more.”

“You're welcome,” Tom grimaced, already walking through the door.

Chapter 6: And When I Looked, the Moon Had Turned to Gold

Chapter Text

“I'll be undergoing the ritual tomorrow,” Nott said, the moment the door to Tom's office was shut. Nott had received two offers from teams in the League, and Tom had weighed the thought of instilling him as something of a watchdog for Harry before ultimately discarding both the idea and the contracts. He needed someone loyal in the Department of Mysteries, someone who, unlike Malfoy or Orion, would never hold a chair.

“Good,” Tom said, rewarding him with a look of satisfaction. “We'll see if I can get past the Occluding implants and get a look at the memory. If they allow you a choice, try to be stationed in either the Time or Brain Room. How goes recruitment?”

“Well enough,” Nott shrugged. “More than a few who are interested. Rookwood's definitely on board, though. He's eager for change.”

“Most young people are,” Tom mused. The public reaction to his own appointment as Undersecretary, the youngest to ever hold the position by quite a wide margin, was evidence of this, the older generations hemming and hawing over Tom's age, his inexperience, the younger ones taking the news much more positively, a sign that their interests might finally be taken into account by their government. Spencer-Moon had remained stalwart in his decision, even as the Wizengamot elders threatened retirement in protest. Tom had been hoping they'd actually go through with it and save him the effort of ousting them when the time came.

It had been a productive year: Tom spent the time both cleaning up the veritable slop of a job Maverick had left behind, and facilitating his own orchestrations within the Ministry. He'd even managed to find some amount of satisfaction while doing it. And when he couldn't completely shirk the itch of boredom, well, there were always imprisoned Witches and Wizards whose suffering was much more entertaining than any animal's or Muggle's.

For many of them, as with the goat-luster, Tom found inspiration from their own crimes. The idea of retribution was silly but occasionally amusing, as though Tom's magic was being directed by some judicious force. An eye for an eye could be fun so long as the method of blinding was kept interesting.

He sometimes considered telling Harry, whose penchant for righteousness had always been adorable and irritating by turns. But Harry didn't actually have the stomach for revenge, and he'd ludicrously worry that Tom might be caught and somehow punished. Prisoners were not actually meant to be tortured within the Ministry, no matter that their mysterious wounds were never investigated.

Harry took up the remainder of Tom's time, though in intervals, his training and travel as a member of Puddlemere's Reserve Team calling him away from Riddle Manor for days at a time. The lack of him when Tom was home, the silence that would usually be broken by Harry's laughter, his fondness for Muggle radio, was an ache Tom avoided by stretching long hours even longer at his office. But when Harry was home, turned desperate by absence, he hardly allowed Tom to catch his breath.

It was a wonder, Tom thought idly, that Maverick had found the time to conduct a long-term affair on top of a twenty-year marriage at all.

“Missed you,” Harry murmured, hardly pausing before returning all his attention back to Tom's co*ck, licking at it lovingly, stroking the sensitive skin of his thighs before cradling his hips, tenderness melting into devotion. “You're so gorgeous. So sweet.”

Tom swept his curls back to reveal Harry's face, slackened by pleasure, delighting in pampering Tom, as if begging forgiveness for his time spent away. “Come up here.”

Harry gave one last, savouring suck, before crawling over Tom's body, settling into his lap, moaning happily as Tom kissed him. His time on a professional pitch had turned him even more graceful, given him a control over his body that made each movement, no matter how slight, beautiful with confidence. He moved confidently now, grinding with purpose, meeting each motion perfectly as Tom rolled him on his back.

A bruise from some wayward bludger marred the skin above his ribs and Tom healed it with a glare before replacing it with a mark of his own, Harry laughing as teeth trenched through his skin, petting Tom's hair, pressing him closer.

“Don't worry, your bruises are the only ones I want,” he said, teasing, but still honest. “Did you miss me?”

He had, infuriatingly so. Helplessly, Tom had missed him, would miss him when he left again. “I hardly noticed you were gone.”

“Liar,” Harry smiled, raising his knees to Tom's waist, bracketing him, strong muscles refusing an escape. “Did you sleep here at all?”

Tom hadn't; had learned early on not to sleep in their bed while Harry was gone. Waking up to find him missing was too disorienting, the inability to immediately ensure he was alive too harrowing. Tom had taken to sleeping in his father's old bedroom, or a conjured cot in his office at the Ministry.

Harry seemed to hear this thought, though Tom would never admit to it. His next kiss was soft, understanding. “I missed you so much,” he whispered. “I always do.”

“Then perhaps you should stop leaving,” Tom suggested, entering him without warning, drinking Harry's grunt of surprise. “Should I make the choice for you? I can tie you up, ward the Manor so you can never leave, force you to stay here with me always. Which is what you really want.”

“Some distance is good for us,” Harry argued, though the idea had clearly flooded him with heat, Tom could feel it smouldering beneath his skin. “It– ah –keeps you from getting tired of me–Tom–”

“You're an idiot,” Tom said, breaths turning harsh as he quickened his pace, carving into him without respite, Harry moving to meet him with every thrust, mewling from the unrelenting pressure. As though Tom would tire of him after so many years spent braiding their entire selves together. As though it were even a possibility.

Harry laughed at the insult, keening as Tom shoved him over the cliff's edge of pleasure, loosing a sound of satisfaction when he felt Tom spill inside him, legs locking to keep him inside, even as he grew limp.

“I should just keep you right here,” Tom mused, thumbing at the savage marks he'd left on Harry's neck. “Where you belong. Sheathing me. Forever.”

“Might make going to the loo a bit difficult,” Harry smiled.

“Why would it? You can go right here. We'll use cleaning charms. And I'll just relieve myself inside you.” Tom ran his tongue along his throat as Harry shuddered at the thought, at how much he wanted it, though he knew he shouldn't.

Tom adored his shame, his delight buried underneath it, his eagerness to submit to Tom's desires, to be claimed by him, marked as if by a dog. He wanted to see this embarrassed need, Harry's entire body cracked open and spilling with it, as he gave into the depths of Tom's wants. He wanted to see Harry's torturous pride as he killed for Tom, split his soul like an axe cleaving timber. Tom Riddle was a creature of want, but he had never wanted anything so badly as he wanted to see Harry unleashed, freed of restraint.

He would not be too entirely changed, Tom was sure. To kill in the act of saving would not go completely against Harry's nature; had he only struck Morfin two or three more times, he would be a murderer already. Tom remembered that night with all the sanctity that the disciples recalled their carpenter, the son of God, his crown of blood-kissed thorns.

Tom had never given up his surgery upon the Horcrux ritual. Harry had been right to stay Tom's hand that afternoon at Riddle Manor; he'd been just a boy, letting rage and desperation blind him. He'd only known the skeleton of the magic behind a Horcrux, the barest understanding of its theory, hardly enough to stake his own mind and magic on, let alone Harry's. But Tom was confident his patience and diligent cursework would bear fruit. It would all be purely hypothetical until tried and tested, but within the year, Tom knew he would have an answer to the possibility of true immortality, or at least as true as a mortal could reach.

And he would have Harry beside him, his partner in everything, the sole sharer in eternity, with or without Harry's permission. Forgiveness could come later, if it became necessary at all. If Tom could, he'd have them each host the other's soul. Some days it felt as though Harry already carried that piece of him, the ephemeral shard everyone seemed so certain contained their essence, the part of them that made them human.

“Where's your head at?” Harry murmured, running a hand through Tom's hair, stiffened by sweat.

“On my shoulders,” said Tom, smirking at the look on Harry's face. “You have my sole attention, don't worry.”

Harry hummed, curling a hand over Tom's neck, bringing him close enough to kiss, lips sliding together lazily, the toes of their tongues dipping into shallow waters, as though testing the temperature.

“I love you,” Harry whispered, as though sharing a secret, though he'd been saying it for years. He stroked Tom's back. “How goes your scheming?”

“Adequately,” Tom said, thinking of one scheme in particular, its blueprints hidden in a warded-off room in the cellar that no one else would ever stumble across, Harry himself playing centrepiece, a dream-blue rose blooming through a frostbitten garden.

“Tom, dear, have you tried the Riesling? It's a Müller. I know all the proper families turned off it when they started selling to Muggles, but ever since their little spat down there the family has become Wizard-only again, as they should be. It's far more affordable these days as well; I guess they're desperate, but that's what you get when you surround yourself with mud.” Francesca Goyle tittered coquettishly, referring to the Muggles squabbling over Germany, now that their tearing apart of the world was done with. The third daughter of the family, and already nineteen without a betrothal contract to show for herself; she must have been feeling quite desperate as well.

Tom smiled politely and took a delicate sniff of the wine, opalescent pink in colour. He nearly missed the scent–Amortentia, for many years, had been scentless to him, a symptom of his own scandalous conception, no doubt. Now, he smelled the faint traces of oil, the sort Harry used on his Quidditch leathers to prevent chafing. A charm would have worked just as well, but he'd always preferred to work with his hands, a charmingly bucolic habit. The smell would permeate his skin, a heady combination of sweat and olives, which had become something exquisite to Tom's nose over the past year. He often wished he could use Harry's stained skin to manufacture a perfume, that he might smell it throughout the day.

Tom swallowed his mild surprise at smelling anything at all from the potion and then took a sip of his wine. He felt nothing, as expected. Children conceived through Amortentia were largely impervious to its effects, something which had disappointed Walburga greatly, as she'd taken her appointment as Tom's dose-preventer very seriously.

He gave Goyle a charming grin before setting the mostly-full glass on the tray of a passing house-elf. “I'm afraid it's not quite to my taste.” He enjoyed her gormless shock immensely.

These Ministry galas were usually excruciatingly boring; Tom was almost grateful to Goyle for the change of pace. Then he caught sight of Vinda Rosier.

The eldest daughter of the wealthy, prestigious Rosier family, she'd had her choice in betrothal contracts before eschewing them all in favour of becoming Grindelwald's general, instead. She was not considered an Undesirable, protected by her parents’ bribes, and thus was able to attend Ministry functions and the like in her Master's stead.

Spencer-Moon, of course, would love nothing more than to drag her to Azkaban himself, but alas, he allowed himself to be hogtied by the constraints of a government that, despite his best attempts, cared more for money and pedigree than so-called justice. Tom was far from the only Ministry worker in an on-going conversation with the most wanted criminal in Wizarding Britain.

Tom made his way across the floor, politely responding to each greeting along the way, until he stood toe to toe with Rosier, who grimaced at him unbecomingly. She was not given to societal niceties, which he suspected was what had led to her disavowing purebred high society in favour of war-mongering in the first place.

“Ms. Rosier,” Tom said warmly. “How lovely to see you again.”

“Riddle,” Rosier scowled. She had always hated him, since his first luncheon with Grindelwald, either out of imagined scorned romance, blood supremacy, or fear of replacement, Tom wasn't sure.

“I wonder if your lord father has given any thought to my proposal,” Tom asked blithely, fairly certain it was the true reason for her appearance at all. Grindelwald had been forced to stop sending missives via owl or his own trained hawk after too many occasions of Ministry interception.

Rosier glowered as she passed him the folded parchment. Tied with a ribbon and perfumed; no one could deny the Dark Wizard had style. It would be charmed to burn the hand of anyone who wasn't Rosier or Tom, before incinerating itself. Stylish and infinitely paranoid.

Tom slipped the letter into the enchanted pocket of his cloak which existed for this express purpose. The last thing he needed was Harry snooping and losing a hand.

He waited until Harry, thoroughly fed and then f*cked, was in a grave-deep slumber before descending to the cellar and reading Grindelwald's response. He agreed Tom's idea had merit, but didn't want to claim Tom's victory as his own. There were his usual grandiose, cryptic wallowings before he finally wished Tom well with carrying on the dream. He was a strange man, but Tom figured that was what eighty years did to a person. He incinerated the letter himself.

Harry stirred in the very early hours of morning, pressing soft kisses to Tom's face like a scattering of freckles.

“The sun isn't even up,” Tom complained, refusing to open his eyes. A huff of warmth bathed his skin as Harry laughed.

“Early training schedule this week,” Harry apologised, petting Tom's cheek, likely wearing some moony look. “If anything ever happens to me, I don't want you to do anything rash.”

Tom did open his eyes at that, studying Harry's face for any traces of dream essence. His skin appeared clean, only a bit darker where the linen had pressed into his cheek as he'd slept. “Did you See something?”

Harry shook his head. “Just a feeling. Something I Saw before. Felt like I should let you know. Even if I die, I'll find my way back to you. Have some patience.”

“You won't die,” Tom said, an automatic refusal. “Do I need to force you to stay home?”

Harry smiled. “I promise I can handle Quidditch practice. I know you've been thinking about it. Mortality and whatnot. I just wanted to give you some peace of mind.”

Tom didn't feel at peace. He felt sure he should incapacitate Harry and keep him chained to the bathtub until the day was over, just in case. Harry looked amused, as though watching the scene play out across the screen of Tom's mind.

“I'll be fine today,” Harry assured him, poorly. “I'll be fine in general, that's what I'm trying to say! Have some faith.”

“Faith is for children and the mentally infirm,” said Tom. “People who treat lies as fact.”

“I'd never lie to you,” Harry promised, smacking one last kiss to Tom's face before slipping out of bed.

He dressed quickly in his training leathers and departed in a cloud of floo powder. Tom considered following after him, refusing to let Harry out of his sight. His vague, prophetic assurances had left Tom shaken, suddenly sure that Harry was off to face certain death, idiotically convinced he would overcome it without the aid of a Horcrux.

Perhaps he had done something, his own ritual, to ensure his survival. Tom couldn't imagine Harry doing so without first telling Tom, his eagerness to share a constant throughout their lives together. But perhaps Harry meant it to be a surprise, the only method by which he happily fed Tom dishonesty, assuaged by the idea that since Tom would know the truth eventually, the temporary lie didn't count.

Tom considered the possibilities as he dressed for work, another day of endless, pointless meetings–about the War, about the statute, about the economy, the Light and Dark factions refusing to come to any sense of agreement out of spite. There were several potions which offered their taker relative imperviousness, though they had to be taken daily and were difficult to brew, certainly beyond Harry's capabilities and likely too expensive for him to bring himself to buy. No matter how much money Tom's inheritance and Harry's own half-brothers had brought them, Harry still couldn't shake the years of poverty, hated to purchase anything that wasn't an expressed necessity.

Tom's musings carried him through the morning's tedium, and then in the early afternoon, the Ministry was enveloped by cacophony: a building-wide announcement of utmost importance.

Gellert Grindelwald had been taken alive into custody, defeated in a duel by Albus Dumbledore. This in itself was not so surprising; Wizarding Britain had been waiting for Dumbledore to take down Grindelwald for years, and while the Transfiguration professor's reputation as a Great Wizard had always seemed strange to Tom–it wasn't as though he'd had a history of duelling. As far as Tom knew, Dumbledore had never fought in battle at all–he assumed it had to exist for some reason. The true shock came later, in the form of an Auror report that crashed over the Ministry like a tidal wave: Dumbledore had found assistance, not in the form of any Auror or master duelist, but instead Puddlemere United's Reserve Seeker, Harry Potter.

“Apparently they Apparated all over Britain,” said Bartemius Crouch Jr., Tom's personal assistant, a hyperactive boy four years Tom's junior. His appointment by Tom had raised some brows, so soon after Maverick's own scandal, but Bartemius’ father being the well-respected, aggressive head of the D.M.L.E. helped to unruffle several such feathers. “Ended up on Puddlemere's pitch eventually, just for a minute or two, and Potter leapt into their Disapparition space before it closed.”

“Of course he did,” Tom said, fury sending an odd numbness throughout his body. Tom had felt rage boiling within his blood like oil spilled down a river before. He had even felt it towards Harry. But he had never before been so infuriated that his entire mind seemed to freeze over, as if trying to prevent an eruption.

He stayed in his office until the very last of the day's Ministry workers had trickled home, and then he flooed back to Riddle Manor. Harry had beaten him there, hunched beneath a palpable exhaustion, and for the first time in Tom's memory, he regarded Tom with something close to wariness.

“It appears you've had a long day,” Tom said, tone blank, expression blank, mind still frozen over like a pond in winter. He examined Harry for any obvious injury and found none. But that didn't mean there weren't any hiding beneath his leathers.

“Tom–” Harry started, interrupted by Tom's silencing spell. He threw Harry into a chair and bound him there for good measure.

“I don't think I'm in the mood to hear your excuses,” Tom said, banishing Harry's clothing. There was bruising, but nothing that Tom hadn't put there, himself. “And to think, you spent years badgering me for having tea with the man. The hypocrisy is astounding. I'm almost impressed.”

Harry grimaced and then, with a pinched look of concentration, broke Tom's muzzle, though he didn't even try to move from the chair. “I'm sorry.”

“You suspected you might not survive the duel, and you threw yourself at him, anyway,” Tom said, rage finally beginning to burn through the ice. It was the only thing that made sense of Harry's cryptic message that morning. I'd never lie to you, Harry had smiled, lying to Tom's face in their bed.

Harry became distraught. “I didn't know, it wasn't planned, I swear. Sweetheart–”

“Don't,” Tom hissed, storming over until his shadow swallowed Harry whole, those green eyes widening as he tipped his head back to look at him. The urge to rip through his chest and eat his heart like a starving wolf was so strong it was nearly blinding.

Harry tore through the magic binding his arms and for a moment, Tom thought they were going to battle physically, bloodying each other–perhaps it would do them both good, it would almost certainly do Tom good–but Harry only used his wrenched freedom to pull Tom closer, burying his face into his stomach. Long-term habit momentarily overcame Tom's wrath; he began petting Harry's curls before thinking better of it and clenching his throat in a strong fist.

“I love you,” Harry gasped, refusing to release his grip on Tom's robes but letting Tom manoeuvre his head back until the angle must have been painful, fighting through Tom's grip to grasp air. “I really didn't know anything would happen–I only remembered glimpses, that today would be important, but not why. When they showed up on the pitch, it was just…instinct. I had a feeling I should follow them.”

“Merlin forbid you not be ruled by your feelings,” Tom sneered, waiting for Harry's own irritation to spark against his, but Harry only softened, melting more with each moment spent under Tom's hand, no matter that the touch was unkind. “What exactly happened?”

“Dumbledore and Grindelwald Apparated to the pitch mid-duel,” Harry explained. “I don't think they planned it. They Disapparated after a few seconds, and I followed after them–”

“It's a wonder you weren't splinched,” Tom glared. “Nevermind getting in the middle of a duel.”

“I really didn't do much,” Harry shrugged. “He was so focused on Dumbledore. He didn't even react when I disarmed him.”

“You disarmed Grindelwald?” Tom stared down at him, Harry looking bashful, as if he didn't understand anyone's awe at his having defeated Europe's most notorious Dark Wizard with nothing more than a disarming spell. As if it was easy. “Where's his wand?”

“Gave it to Dumbledore. What use have I got with a second wand?”

“You're such a fool.” Tom pushed Harry up against the seat and sat astride his thighs, his arm a harsh band of restraint across the base of Harry's throat. “You'll never do anything this reckless again.”

“I probably will,” said Harry. “You know what I'm like. But I won't leave you, not for good. That was the other thing I remembered, sort of. Something bad might happen, but it won't last. I'll come back to you, whatever it takes.”

“Nothing bad will happen to you, because I am going to remove your limbs from your body. I'll keep you exactly where I want you. You'll never leave the Manor again. If you're very good, I might let you keep your tongue.” Tom ran a hand over the curve of Harry's shoulder, muscle wrapped in tender skin. He imagined the severing, removing those perfect arms, those gorgeous legs. He would preserve them, perhaps keep Harry's hands in his bedside table, so he might still easily access his touch.

Harry didn't even have the gall to look threatened, instead giving Tom an amused smile as he wrapped him in his arms. “But then how could I hold you?” He turned his head to kiss Tom's hand. “You really think I'll leave you? You're stuck with me and all my recklessness. Even if I do die first, I'll just haunt you.”

“Neither of us,” Tom said firmly. “Is going to die.” He would not allow it; taking time to perfect the ritual had been necessary, but all the patience and meticulousness in the world would be rendered meaningless by Harry's effrontery. Plans would have to be reworked and sped up immediately. Tom had been a fool to allow Harry to hold the leash of his own safety; he would never make that mistake again.

Nearly everyone in Wizarding Britain, fools that they were, clearly expected Grindelwald's sole arrest to be the end of the War, as though he alone had waged destruction over all of Europe and, apparently, some American city. They expected everything to go back to the way it was before the War; the last war that had raked its nails over Wizarding Britain had been in the Middle Ages, a terrific collision between Pagan Witches and Wizards and fanatical Christians, killing whole swathes of each other over religion as though they were common Muggles. Current Britons had clearly forgotten the scars their grandparents’ battling had left across the country, across their culture, ancient magic forcefully submitted beneath the weight of God, until what traces remained were upheld only by a handful of families, treated with fear and criminality, barbarous Christianity aligning what was natural, serpents and curiosity, with wickedness. Yule became Christmas; Ēosturmōnaþ became Easter, the sacrifices understood to be necessary for great feats of magic became the giving of trinkets and coin for the Church. Wizards loved to think themselves above the mundanity of Muggles, yet those beliefs had bled so thoroughly into the Wizarding world that even many pureblood families seemed to have forgotten the old ways.

During his ravenous research into the world of magic which Tom had too long been denied, he'd found that the most interesting information resided in archaic texts, nothing later than the 8th Century, after which Christianization seemed to have rendered much Wixen history unreliable at best. There had been a time, a very long time, when Muggles had known and venerated Witches and Wizards as conduits for the earth itself and various spiritual realms. Druids, later rewritten as saints, later burned at the stake after the sheep-minded masses turned their backs on centuries of balance. Humans were unbelievably easy to divert. Only a single book, a handful of battles, and they practically conquered themselves. It was a wonder they'd survived this long, as a species.

As if to prove Tom's point, Wizarding newspapers declared the Wizarding War finished, as though Grindelwald's defeat had rendered decades of turmoil meaningless. The Ministry patted its own shoulder on a job well done, though they'd done nothing. Wizengamot elders sought Dumbledore for the Minister's seat, though the man himself refused. Everyone pretended not to remember the hundreds–perhaps thousands–of Grindelwald supporters who were to blame for his outrages developing into a War to begin with. They were so naive it melted into stupidity; there was no such thing as going back from War. Muggle London, Tom was sure, would never completely forget the Blitzkrieg. And Grindelwald's soldiers, no matter how forgotten by The Prophet would never forget the man himself, nor his lofty goal they'd strived for.

A new Witch or Wizard could apply for a chair at the Wizengamot every seventeen years; the position was not one based on merit, but instead heritage. There were seventy chairs, representing the original seventy Wizards that had initially formed the body, and there would never be seventy-one. Sixty-four chairs were currently seated, destined to be passed down to whichever heir their current holder saw fit. The remaining six belonged either to families whose lines had died out over time, like the Peverells, Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, or whose chair had been emptied by requirement, like the Gaunts, Marvolo and then Morfin's sentencing to Azkaban voiding their right to Wizengamot membership.

That the Gaunts had a chair at all had surprised Tom initially; he hadn't realised that strain of Slytherin's line was so old. But he wouldn't be claiming the Gaunt chair, instead letting it fade into obscurity, just as the inbred idiots deserved. Instead, as he had planned when he'd first seen the treasured emblem on the ancient, empty seat, Tom would be claiming Slytherin's.

The Lordships of the Hogwarts Founders were more of an ornamental title than anything else. Any holdings or estates they had once held were long-emptied wells, but Tom had no need of an illustrious castle or fortune, having more than enough material wealth from the Riddles. He needed the respect and legal leverage that a Wizengamot Lordship would grant him, and that Slytherin's name would carry in particular. The only other person currently warming a Founder seat was Hepzibah Smith, her family having managed to successfully cling to their Hufflepuff lineage over the generations.

The Wizengamot very rarely sat a full house. Only seven members were necessary for the purposes of presiding over trials or voting on new laws. The only time a member's presence was mandatory was for the swearing in of someone new.

Wizengamot sessions were open only to Ministry officials and vetted members of the press, but the amphitheatre was filled to bursting as Tom strode through the sea of plum, face serene as he gazed at his forefather's throne with triumph. He greeted the familiar serpentine S with a hiss before taking his rightful seat.

The test was a simple one, archaic magic built into the chairs themselves, with the help of each original Wizard's blood. Only a direct descendant could touch the chair without being rejected violently, an attempt to stop potential usurpers from even trying. The chair greeted Tom warmly, with all the fondness his own immediate family had withheld from him.

For one long moment, the room was a riot of noise, Wizengamot members eyeing Tom with a spread ranging from pleasant bewilderment to measured disdain, while shockwaves of camera bulbs captured the ordeal. Finally, Lady Marchbanks, as the oldest presiding member, called for order.

“Lord Slytherin,” she said, stern voice amplified by her wand. He would remain a Riddle outside of this room, but while seated, his ancestor's name would be his. “Do you so swear to uphold the sanctity of this body and of magic, to defend and protect magic to the height of your abilities, and to represent the wellness of your country without personal gain?”

A fine oath for a governing body made up entirely of the country's wealthiest elite, who consistently degraded the sanctity of magic according to their own trivial whims. But Tom gave his most genial smile regardless. “I do so swear.”

The rejuvenation of a long-dead Wizengamot seat, which had not been done since Mayer Rothschild reclaimed the Bacharach chair, empty only for one hundred years, compared to Slytherin's, which had lied dormant for over three centuries, ruled Wizarding Britain's headlines for weeks. There were many flattering photographs of Tom, alongside articles detailing his impressive acts first as an exemplary student at Hogwarts, then as the youngest Undersecretary, and now the youngest Wizard ever sworn into the Wizengamot. Witches and Wizards fell over themselves to debate his ability to uphold such positions at only nineteen years of age, no matter that he was, as they all seemed to agree–no matter how grudgingly–quite talented.

While the constant attention was somewhat gratifying, Tom's focus remained on the first law he would suggest at the next session. It had to be both shocking enough to cause interest and logical enough to win votes, a subtle bridge to walk. Tom revelled in the challenge.

Tom spoke of his plan as his Knights drank well-aged scotch from his grandparents’ stores. They had no idea the drink was Muggle, and their oblivious delight in it amused him, only offering secretive grins as they tried to guess which Magical distillery it came from.

“This law is to protect mudbloods?” Rastaban asked, incredulous.

“It is to protect magical children,” Tom corrected. “By separating them from the polluted Muggle world.”

“Why not just let them rot in it?” asked Rodolphus. “It's their world, after all.”

“And who will be left to run Wizarding shops? Yourself? Your children?” asked Tom. “Who will be the ones gardening your estates? Who will be preparing the food in your beloved restaurants? A country cannot run on governors, alone. They will need people to govern. Our population is too small already, growing smaller with each generation, as more and more pureblood families fail to have children, as more half-bloods and mudbloods desert Wizarding Britain for the Muggle world, or venture abroad. Once again, you fail to see the larger portrait that true legacy entails.”

“And who will be expected to burden themselves with the raising of these mudbloods?” asked Orion, one of Tom's only Knights with any forethought. “Will they be wards of the state? Of magical families?”

“Both,” Tom said, granting him a smile, pleased by his interest. “A fostering program will be instituted, alongside a stipend to care for their needs. There are many lines in need of heirs, trade-Wizards in need of apprentices. Their desperation will overrule their own private distastes. And it's possible that not every mudblood child will need to rely on their betters; should their Muggle parents prove useful enough, they will be moved to the Wizarding world with their children, given menial work, and treated as Squibs.”

There was still patent disgust around the table, but from such an angle, the Muggles in question comparable to Squibs, their Magical children comparable to peasants, the law was beginning to seem more acceptable. This was all the evidence Tom needed for its success; if he could persuade this tableful of pureblood half-wits, he could persuade their parents in the courts.

The Light families, he knew, would vote in favour of the law regardless. They were largely content to remain ignorant where Muggles were concerned, but keen to see themselves as benefactors, and Tom was sure his own testimony as a half-blood maligned and tortured within the Muggle world would be enough to convince them, their votes often directed by sentiment rather than syllogism. It was what had led to the lack of preservations in the realm of Dark Arts. It was what had led to the censorious label Dark Arts to begin with, as though they had not historically been a part of magic as natural and amoral as any other.

During Slytherin's time at Hogwarts, Dark Arts had been a class like any other, the instruction of which had been thoroughly administered by the Founder himself. Tom could only imagine the things he might have learned from his ancestor, more even than his many grimoires and journals had provided. That they had been relegated to a class meant only in defence against them was offensive in the extreme. The rituals, the arcane knowledge, the intoxicating cursework–all banished in favour of disarming spells and the Patronus charm. Those had their place as well, of course, and Tom was particularly fond of the Patronus, always pleased to see Harry's hind appear, his voice spilling out of it like a pool of bright thread–but they were nothing compared to what could be taught, what each budding Witch and Wizard deserved to know, the true breadth of magic and all its capabilities.

First, the mudblood law, as Tom's acolytes had taken to calling it. Then, Hogwarts’ curriculum. Tom had so very many solutions to the problems that spidered through Wizarding Britain like cracks in the shell of an egg. He would heal it all, even should he have to drag the rest of Wizarding kind into prosperity. He refused to rule over a broken world.

When he said as much to Harry, who had offered his own edits to Tom's work, softening it some to sound more palatable to others, he only shook his head. “The ego on you,” he grinned, humming against Tom's skin as he kissed his neck. “Well, I can't say you haven't earned it. Lord Slytherin,” he hissed, affectionately mocking. “What else do you have planned besides education reform and a Ministry take-over?”

“Is that not enough?” Tom asked dryly, tipping his head to make room for Harry's mouth. “I had thought about an update to the marriage laws, neutralising the gendered aspects. After all, the rites themselves were originally ungendered. Only Ulick Gamp's law defined it.”

Harry pulled back, gaze as bright and warm as the fire in its hearth. “And I suppose the Minister being the first to take advantage of that should be expected. Is this your proposal, then?”

“Would you rather I kneel?” Tom murmured, letting Harry move him by the hip, sliding closer. He dragged a hand up the heated skin of Harry's arm, the sweet slope of his shoulder, his trembling throat, smiling when he shuddered, always so sensitive, so eager for Tom's touch. “Will you say no, otherwise?”

“I've wanted to marry you since I was eight years old,” Harry confessed, holding still as Tom stripped the rest of his clothing, breath hitching as they pressed together fully, nothing but shivering flesh to separate them. “I was so upset when I found out I couldn't. I didn't even really know what marriage was, I just knew I wanted to be with you forever.”

“You will be,” Tom promised him. He'd made sure of it.

The amphitheatre was mostly full during the next Wizengamot session, everyone eager to hear the new Lord Slytherin's first proposal, and Tom would have hated to disappoint. Judging by the immediate wave of upset roaring through the room, he didn't.

He had expected the ensuing debate, had planned each possible argument meticulously, and responded to them all with the same even-handed poise. He provided the evidence of their dwindling population, the number of Witches and Wizards who had died in the Muggles’ War, not to mention Grindelwald's antics, which had strained their Obliviation department near to its breaking point. Charlus had been happy to get Tom those records, happy to assist any magical children who might be languishing as his brother had, abandoned by the Wizarding world for too long, his praise for Tom's proposal grating but still as yet useful.

To Lord Black's question of where to put this new influx of children, Tom offered the same solution he had shared with the man's son, listing the names of trade-Wizards he'd surveyed, enthused at the thought of securing apprentices, no matter their blood, alongside the purebloods in need of heirs, though they'd been a bit more reticent.

“This law seeks to make these Muggles aware of their childrens’ abilities while in infancy,” Lord Malfoy frowned. “Why so young? Surely the accidental magic of mudbloods does not start before the age of two, as most Wizards.”

“I was raised in a Muggle orphanage,” Tom told the court, relishing the gasps that weren't able to be stifled. “By the time I was able to speak, many of those Muggles feared me, and hated me for their fear. For many years, I could not understand it. My first exorcism occurred when I was six years old. It was not the last. Muggles have had centuries to develop a severe hatred towards anything they can condemn as witchcraft or devilry. Each year, Muggle-blooded magical children are left to suffer at their hands. Many of them will not survive long enough to receive a Hogwarts letter. For some, it is not even a matter of abuse.” He waved Alec Dormer forward, a sixth year Ravenclaw mudblood whom Tom had groomed for his current position as British Youth Representative, both because his quietly inquisitive personality did not make spending time with him unbearable, and because Tom had been preparing for this exact moment for a very long time.

“My parents are both Muggles,” Alec began, placid and seemingly unaffected by his own speech. “I first displayed magic when I was too young to remember. I'm not sure what I did, but they became convinced I was diseased, either physically or mentally. Throughout my childhood, I was subjected to countless experimental procedures, medical examinations that bordered on torture, medications that left me unconscionably ill, and electric shock. The week Professor Flitwick arrived with my Hogwarts letter, I had been scheduled to receive a lobotomy, a barbaric Muggle surgery in which they cut away parts of your brain, leaving you with the mind of an infant. I spent months in the hospital wing, being treated for the maladies brought on by Muggle doctors. Had my parents been informed about magic when I was an infant, all of that could have been avoided.” After a surreptitious glance at Tom, who nodded, Alec stepped back to his place against the back wall.

Tom allowed the Wizengamot and press a moment to absorb the testimony. “We have it on record that, on average, five percent of expected first years never arrive, most of them having died well beforehand.”

“If it's as dire as all that,” drawled Lady Crabbe, “Why has it not been addressed before?”

Tom gave a guileless smile. “I confess, my Lady, I too am curious as to why it hasn't been. As it stands, our population simply cannot continue with its current projected rates. And, personally, I believe magic to be sacred, and magical children, no matter their situation at birth, should be protected.”

“Of course they should,” Lady Longbottom agreed. “But how exactly do we go about informing all of these Muggles? The children are informed at eleven, as that is the age at which Hogwarts admits them. Their identities are known only to the administrators, and the school has always been, rightfully, separate from the Ministry.”

“It isn't entirely,” Tom pointed out. “The Board of Governors oversees the curriculum and, to some extent, the hiring and removal of faculty. And this court oversees the Board.”

Tom had been waiting for Dumbledore, newly appointed Chief Warlock in lieu of his adamant refusal to run for the Minister's position, to speak up throughout the debate. He was mildly surprised it had taken the busybody so long to cough up an opinion, but now he raised a hand, casting a hush over the crowd, their dramatic awe striking Tom as patently ridiculous.

“If I may,” Dumbledore said politely. “Esteemed Lords and Ladies of the court, Lord Slytherin,” he added, gazing at Tom with calculated warmth. “As Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts, I admit that I am appalled and, indeed, regretful to learn such horrifying things have been befalling our students without our ever knowing. As Lord Slytherin said, the protection of children is paramount. I see no reason as to why their parents cannot be informed earlier, thus hopefully preventing years of fear and harm, no matter how well-intentioned. I myself am prepared to accept this mission. But I fail to see how plucking entire families from their homes and livelihoods will be beneficial. There are no legislative rights for Muggles within Wizarding Britain. What sort of life would these parents have?”

“The sort that protects their children,” Tom spoke without thinking, affecting a boyish grin that hopefully played off as a very recently graduated student's lingering familiarity with his professor. “Professor,” he nodded respectfully, deferentially, garnishing the ploy. “The protection of magical children is only the first goal of this law. The second is the protection of magic, itself. As mentioned, Grindelwald's decades of exploits left an impact on both Wizarding and Muggle Britain, and while I'm sure I speak for all of us when I thank you for putting an end to him, he did not work alone. Just last week, a cache of his followers tore through Muggle London. They are still making a mess of the continent, mostly France and the Baltic states. All of this weakens the strength of the Statute of Secrecy, our only real defence against Muggles, who outnumber us ten to one. But it isn't only the madness of Wizards to blame; I've collected some numbers and details on Obliviation cases in recent years. You'll notice that a staggering percentage of instances of Magic revelation is done by Muggles–to clarify, by the Muggle relatives of magical children, usually unwittingly or in a moment of unthinking enthusiasm. And as of now, the law only states that Muggle-blooded children are not allowed to reveal their magic to any Muggles beyond their own relatives, which is irresponsibly vague. A child with a very large extended family, for instance, is allowed to share their knowledge with upwards of fifteen to thirty Muggles. Cousins, grandparents, siblings-in-law. To be frank, Professor, there are simply too many Muggles who cannot be trusted to keep this secret. I understand it is a difficult choice–and this law does ensure that parents are given a choice, except in the case of genuine abuse. But it is a choice that Muggle-raised Witches and Wizards are not given, simply ejected at age eleven into the magical world with very little in the way of preparation. It is akin to finding yourself in a foreign country whose language you barely speak. This law merely gives these families more than one option: they may release their child to be raised equally among their peers, Obliviation rendering the loss null; they may follow their child into our world and be accommodated, offered both work and living spaces to suit them; or they may undergo a severance ritual and remain in the Muggle world.”

“This severance ritual,” said Lady Longbottom. “Explain that.”

“It is similar to the one undergone by every Unspeakable,” Tom dutifully explained. “When their child is with them, they will remember their magical abilities. When they are not, that memory will vanish, making them incapable of sharing a secret they aren't even aware of. Its effects are similar to Obliviation, and thus harmless. So you see, they will have the option to remain almost entirely as they are, though I suspect that many of them will choose to enter our world. The Muggle War may not have damaged Wizarding Britain, but many Muggle cities are still suffering ill effects. The opportunity to seek asylum is not one many would forsake.”

This new angle–a potential rescuing of Muggles rather than coerced kidnapping–seemed to put the remaining Light members at ease, Dumbledore peering at Tom thoughtfully over the steeple of his fingers. Finally, he gave Tom a bantam smile. “Thank you for your concision, Lord Slytherin. I do believe all of my concerns are put to rest. The court is all the better for your perspective.”

Tom blinked. He had never been genuinely complimented by the man, had never expected it, and was honestly a bit thrown. “Thank you, Deputy Headmaster.”

“I've heard enough as well,” Lady Marchbanks said decisively. “We shall now put it to the vote. All those in favour of Lord Slytherin's proposal?”

Well over half the court raised their wands. Only the Darker traditionalists were unmoved, Lords Malfoy and Black and their ilk, but that was no matter. Tom had plans for them.

“The court will now hear Minister Spencer-Moon's dissent,” said Lady Marchbanks.

Spencer-Moon, who had remained still and silent throughout the ordeal, said “I have no dissent.”

Lady Marchbanks nodded. “The Wizengamot has spoken,” she decreed. “Lord Slytherin's proposal is now law, effective immediately.”

After the adjourning of the court came the tedious hours of socialising with fellow members and shark-toothed journalists hungry for a soundbite. Tom patiently reiterated his pleasure at his proposal's passing, his hope that the law would add to the betterment of Wizardkind, and his gratefulness for Chief Warlock Dumbledore's approval, all while envisioning a sea of blood swelling in the amphitheatre, plum-wrapped bodies bobbing in the pool like dolphins cresting waves. He imagined strangling the journalist in front of him with the strap of her own floating camera, flashing a smile fit for the front page.

“Lord Slytherin,” Lord Malfoy said, not even glancing at the journalist he'd interrupted.

Tom gave her a look of polite dismissal before greeting Abraxas’ father. “Lord Malfoy. I was sorry to see us divided.”

“I was surprised it was so,” Lord Malfoy drawled with insufferable amusem*nt, looking at Tom the way one might look at a child playing dress-up. “What with your…esteemed pedigree.”

“I am honoured to carry Slytherin blood,” Tom said, a touch of reproach. He would not be lectured on his own ancestry, not when he was sure no one else in the room could even spell Slytherin's true, unanglicised name. “But I also carry the unfortunate blood of the Gaunts. I know too well the malignancy caused by a refusal to introduce new blood into the line.”

Lord Malfoy dipped his head in acquiescence. “The Gaunts were an unfortunate breed of stubbornness. It does seem that your…new blood may have been a boon, in that regard. Still, I doubt your noble ancestor would have been pleased by your proposal.”

“My noble ancestor and I share a healthy regard for the threat Muggles offer,” Tom said dryly. “He lived through the Muggle Crusades, the only member of his immediate family to survive the escape to Britain. I myself have seen firsthand the damage Muggle warmongering can do. Keeping the Statute intact is the surest way we have to avoid destruction.”

“Muggles are ants,” Lord Malfoy scoffed. “They don't offer any threat that magic cannot defend against.”

“Magic has never tried to defend against the atom bomb, which has levelled whole cities as completely as Pompeii and as quickly as Atlantis,” argued Tom. “And I, for one, would not like that tested.”

“Atom bomb,” Lord Malfoy echoed, clearly ignorant of the term. “Is it so different from the many bombs which failed to touch Wizarding London?”

The pureblood refusal to know anything at all about the goings-on of the greater world would never cease to astound. “One atom bomb is akin to twenty-thousand of those dropped at once,” Tom confirmed. “And it isn't just the impact that kills, but the poison it releases for weeks afterwards. Just two of them have killed two hundred thousand people already.”

If Lord Malfoy was troubled by this information, he gave no sign, though Tom suspected the immediate shuttering of his face was signal enough. Good, he thought. This notion Wizards had that Muggles were relatively harmless was not only stupid but dangerous. And, more, completely incomprehensible. Wizards had spent thousands of years hiding from Muggle persecution; why did they think their ancestors retreated from the world in the first place? Surely not because they wanted to.

“I must defer to your expertise in this matter,” Lord Malfoy said, still managing a tone dripping with condescension. “Though I am glad to know you do not intend to… ]elevate mudbloods.”

“I would never elevate someone who has done nothing to deserve it,” Tom agreed, curious to see if Lord Malfoy would understand his meaning or if the man truly thought so highly of himself that his own elevation would never be in question.

“Quite so,” Lord Malfoy smiled, a fool taking the gilded rock for gold. “I'm interested to know what your next proposal will be.”

“The preservation and education of Dark Arts,” said Tom, amused by Lord Malfoy's obvious pleasure. He'd make sure he stayed his hand until after the next session; Abraxas had been adamant that he could persuade his father, but Tom might just kill him for the fun of it, retribution for years spent enduring that smug look of pomposity. As it was, it'd be a kinder death than Lord Malfoy deserved.

“Lord Malfoy,” a woman spoke, stern backbone of a voice offering no room for argument. “I wonder if you wouldn't mind giving me a moment with Lord Slytherin.”

Lord Malfoy dipped his pale head, pureblood chivalry refusing to let him decline. “Of course, Lady Potter. Lord Slytherin,” he smiled conspiratorially at Tom before slithering back into the crowd.

Mildrith Potter was an objectively beautiful woman, ageing gracefully through widowhood. Tom had noticed her upon his first day in the Wizengamot, back when he was no more than Maverick's underling, and had pointedly refused to look at her since. His first thought, inanely, had been that there was something of Harry in the heart shape of her face, in the slight breadth of her shoulders, which of course did not make sense, as she and Harry were not related.

Lady Potter stood nearly of a height with Tom, and he wondered idly if that meant Harry's mother had been shockingly short. “Your proposal was very well-delivered,” she said.

Tom had not noticed which way she had voted, had not cared to look for her wand in the crowd. “Thank you.”

“I understand that you are friendly with my sons’ brother.”

Tom had wondered if she would acknowledge Harry's relation to Charlus and Fleamont. If she had referred to him as merely their friend, Tom might have simply cursed her right there in the courtroom, subtlety be damned. “I am.”

“I would appreciate it if you could extend an invitation to him,” Lady Potter said, a demand rather than an appeal. “I would like to host him at the Manor tomorrow afternoon. You may, of course, join him.”

“I'll let him know,” Tom said politely. “Thank you for the offer.” She nodded curtly and then departed, another journalist soon taking her place.

Tom sighed. Ah, well. The curse of changing the world.

Harry returned from practice that evening and dropped a perfunctory kiss on Tom's cheek before dunking his entire head beneath the kitchen faucet. He was still mussed from hours spent beneath the sun, skin musked with sweat and flecks of earth from where he must have fallen off his broom. He looked divine, training leathers clinging to every line and curve of his body. He smelled delicious.

He laughed into the sink when Tom pressed up against him, curling over the bend of his back. Harry shut off the water with a spell, rivers of it streaming from his tousled hair, down the column of his neck as he turned to peer at Tom. “All went well, then?”

“As expected,” Tom hummed, licking crisp water from Harry's skin. “I'm an excellent orator.”

“You're certainly very good with your tongue,” Harry sighed happily, sinking back into Tom's hold, tipping his head so he could greet said tongue properly.

“Lady Potter has invited us to the Manor for tea tomorrow afternoon,” Tom said, once he was finished exhausting every port of pleasure Harry had.

Harry's hand stuttered where it was collecting his glasses, which had skittered across the kitchen floor. He gaped at Tom, naked and ridiculous, soil and grass still clinging to his skin. “What?”

“I won't repeat myself,” Tom rolled his eyes. “We don't have to go.”

“Do you want to go?”

“I'm curious as to what she has to say,” Tom shrugged. “But I'll see her plenty at court. Do you wish to see her?”

“I don't know,” Harry said, face brewing a storm of muddled feeling. “Do you think she hates me?”

“If she does, she's an idiot. It isn't as though you caused her husband's infidelity.”

“Yeah, I'm just the effect,” Harry said with a humourless laugh. “I don't know, Merlin, why now? Do you think she just wants to talk politics with you?”

“She could have done that today. She specifically asked me to invite you.”

“f*ck me,” Harry sighed, Tom manfully refraining from saying anything. “Yeah, I'm curious too, damn it to hell. Hopefully Charlus or Fleamont will be there.”

Tom doubted it; Lady Potter's stony countenance had rather implied a private affair. “Perhaps.”

Potter Manor was as picturesque and resplendent as Tom expected it to be, and he felt a new wave of rage consume him at the thought that it had been withheld from Harry for the sake of some scorned woman's injured pride.

But Harry only took in the scene with a carefully measured distance, following the house-elf that led them both around to the back terrace, a quaint wicker table overlooking the grounds.

Lady Potter was already seated, three places set, kettle steaming pleasantly in the centre of the table, waiting for their arrival. She gestured for them to sit, eyes never straying from her husband's bastard.

“Harry Potter,” she said, offering a hand for him to kiss. “I was the only one who called Henry Harry. Not even his parents ever did.”

“I'm just Harry,” said Harry, turned awkward by the idea that his mother must have also called his father Harry, seeing as she'd presumably named their son. “It isn't short for anything.”

“I see,” said Lady Potter. “Charlus tells me you play Quidditch.”

“Yeah,” Harry smiled easily, comforted by the turn towards a conversation he knew well. “Reserve Seeker for Puddlemere United. Well, I'll be Starting Seeker next month. I scored more than the other guy last season.”

“I'm told you're very good,” said Lady Potter, in a manner which spoke to a complete and total lack of interest in the sport. “You played at Hogwarts as well?”

Harry nodded. “I was Gryffindor's Captain my last two years.”

Lady Potter waved a hand and set the tea to pour first into Harry's cup and then Tom's. Harry warmed his face on the steam before sipping. “And Grindelwald,” Lady Potter mentioned, causing Harry to choke on his tea.

“I didn't do much,” Harry protested, his usual response when the Dark Wizard was mentioned, hating the weight of attention. “I was just in the right place at the right time, really. Anyone would've done it.”

“They absolutely wouldn't,” Tom argued pleasantly. He refused to let Harry minimise his achievements.

“Lord Slytherin is correct,” said Lady Potter, focus still heavy on Harry. “What you did was remarkable. I wonder if you might allow me something.”

“Uh,” said Harry, still flushing from the praise. “Sure. What?”

Lady Potter held an open palm over the table. “Your hand.” When Harry hesitantly placed a hand within her grasp, she pressed the tip of her wand to his skin, slicing through it like a knife. A second spell was cast, the same one Charlus had used all those years earlier, upon their first meeting. A red glow bridged Harry and Lady Potter's hands.

“What,” Harry stuttered, gasped, hand clenched tightly in Lady Potter's as they both stared, entranced, at the glow of magic. “What?”

“You are mine,” Lady Potter said, ending the spell with a wave of her hand and releasing Harry as though his touch burned her. “I had my suspicions…your eyes…” Her own eyes were a pale echo of Harry's, though they were green enough. She did not look at Tom once, the door to her mind frustratingly closed to him.

“Yours?” Harry gaped. “But then–who’s my dad?” He was still considering himself a bastard; nothing made sense, otherwise. If he was the product of a pureblood marriage, he never would have ended up in a Muggle orphanage.

But Lady Potter, while extremely talented at swallowing back any emotional displays, could not keep herself from staring, expression reserved to her eyes, but complex–beyond that of a woman who had knowingly hidden the product of an infidelity. And there was the matter of Harry's missing year. Tom was no longer sure Harry was a bastard at all.

“My late husband, I suspect,” she said evenly. “After Fleamont's birth, I was expecting a marriage in name only. It was an arranged match, for the production of an heir. As my own father's only child, I was expected to keep the family line alive, so I did my duty. But Harry was not satisfied with only one. I was far from the first wife to lack interest in that manner–there are spells, potions, healers that specialise in those sorts of things. The effects were varied. After months of what amounted to confounding, I woke to find myself pregnant, and quite far along, with no memory of how it happened.”

Across the table, Harry looked sick. Tom found the story, its many implications, fascinating, not entirely unlike his own father's time with Merope. That someone could be repeatedly confounded enough to lose whole months of memory, no Obliviation needed, held intriguing potential.

“I told him I would never allow such a thing again,” Lady Potter continued. “It felt as though my body had been taken from me. Two sons, I reasoned, was more than enough. And for many years, Harry and I lived comfortably. I don't know if he sought pleasure elsewhere. I never cared, so long as they were discrete about it. And then one day, I woke up to find myself missing two years.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Harry said, tears welling up in those bright eyes. He looked furious with grief, and Tom wondered if he meant to desecrate Henry Potter's grave, after all.

Lady Potter remained unaffected. “When I confronted him, Harry admitted he'd used a potion of his own concoction–he’d always been good at potions, a talent he passed down to Fleamont. He'd been sure it was a cure for my…malaise, my peculiar depression. Apparently, when I drank it, I became quite amorous. Emotional. Happy. Of course, I remember none of it, so I cannot confirm. He was adamant that nothing had been done to me during those years, no begetting of another child. He died shortly after that.”

She had killed him, Tom knew that much. He smiled into his own tea. In other circ*mstances, he might have been able to respect her. Beside him, Harry reached out a hand, grasping Tom's beneath the table, seeking comfort, more pained by his mother's story than she was, his soft heart always eager to break for someone else.

“When I heard about you, I knew,” Lady Potter admitted, unrepentant, unmoved, only continuing to make her statement. “You carried his name, his young face, but those eyes…I knew, and I hid from the knowledge. I was cowardly about it.”

“It's okay,” Harry said quietly, though it wasn't. “It wasn't your fault. What happened–what he did–was horrible. I understand why you didn't want to see me.”

“It was not your crime,” Lady Potter shrugged. “I allowed emotion to rule me in a way it never has, a silly reaction. You are my son as much as Harry's. I have had you added to the vault, the estate, and the will. You have found success without much in the way of assistance, but it is your due regardless.”

“Well,” said Harry. “Thanks.”

“I hope you will come again next week,” Lady Potter offered. “I would like to know you better.”

Harry's smile was hesitant and warm. He ducked his head, shy under the gaze of his mother, his living parent, a dream he had given up in childhood. “That'd be great.”

She did not do something so tawdry as hug him at the gate, instead only squeezing his hand, before giving Tom a more professional shake, avoiding his eye again, something he'd noticed among purebloods of her generation, an innate defence against possible Legilimens when one's Occlumency was not very strong.

Harry was unseasonably quiet upon their return home, gaze distant, likely still sitting at Lady Potter's tea table in his mind. He had been deeply pained by the story of Tom's own conception in a way Tom could never understand. It stood to reason he'd agonise even more over his own sordid birth story.

Tom left him to his wallowing in the sitting room and directed Gabrielle to make treacle tart, a recipe she'd never heard of before Harry, but had been content to learn. When it was finished, Tom brought the plate to Harry, who was just as he'd left him an hour earlier.

Harry smiled at the sight but pushed the gift to the side in favour of planting his face into Tom's stomach, curling tight arms around his hips, clutching him close. “Love you,” Harry sighed, pushing Tom's shirt hem up with his nose so he could mouth at the skin of his naval.

“You should eat,” Tom murmured, combing through his hair.

“D'you think the potion affected me as a baby, the way Amortentia supposedly affected you?” Harry wondered, pulling plaintively at Tom until he capitulated, seating himself over Harry, who hummed happily, always content to be buried beneath Tom's weight. “Maybe that's why I feel so much all the time.”

It was an interesting thought. Tom often vacillated between blaming his nature on his mother's potion, like poison at the roots of a tree, and thinking himself both creation and creator, no one else deserving of credit. He could not imagine a Tom Riddle who was easy with love, just as he could not imagine a Harry Potter who wasn't.

“I think you would be this way regardless,” Tom mused, relishing the warmth of Harry's cheek beneath his hand, the warmth of his eyes on him, the adoration constantly swimming in their surface. “She should have come for you.”

“It's not her fault,” Harry argued, as Tom knew he would, incapable of withholding sympathy. “She didn't know at first.”

“She did know by third year,” Tom pointed out. “She should have come for you then.”

“She was raped Tom. I understand why she didn't.”

“So my father should have abandoned me, too?” Tom asked, curious to see Harry's face harden, the limits of that sympathy, which never extended to people who hurt Tom.

“That's different,” Harry said, turning petulant. “Your dad was a prick. And anyway, I'm glad she didn't. I wouldn't want you to be alone.” His face turned to lay a kiss on Tom's palm, hiding in the curl of his hand, uncaring how it skewed his glasses. “Will you come with me next week too?”

“Of course,” said Tom, even knowing it would never happen. Lady Potter would be lucky to last three more days.

It was shockingly easy to develop spells that killed. All it took was the reverse-engineering of a healing spell, and suddenly you had any number of fatal diseases at your fingertips.

Tom may have been grateful for the years he and Harry spent with only each other. He could have done without the poverty, without the torturous Muggles, without the bombs. But Harry's constant presence throughout had been a second sun, Tom's own personal source of light and warmth. And, like Harry, he could forgive Lady Potter's initial ignorance; it would not have ever occurred to her to search through Muggle orphanages for her lost child.

But he could not forgive the latter years she spent hiding like a child from the truth, condemning her son to summer air raids and starvation. For the gift of Harry, he chose a painless death. She would not feel her heart stop in her sleep.

The day they were supposed to have tea with Lady Potter, they attended her funeral instead.

Harry was awkward throughout, grieving the potential of a relationship but not the true thing, sad for a person he never really got to know, sad for his brothers, whose grief was large and potent, offering them strength as they wept.

Charlus, wiping his eyes, spoke to both of them. “She changed the will, I dunno if you knew. You're included in all of it. I think she felt bad about blaming you for dad's affair.” He shrugged, confirming that neither he nor Fleamont had been told of Harry's true parentage. “You're welcome to live at the Manor. We've got plenty of space.”

Harry shifted, clearly unsure how to navigate such complicated waters. “Oh, thanks, but uh,” he took Tom's hand, not meaning to make a statement, only wanting his touch. “We're happy at Riddle Manor.”

Charlus looked at their hands, eyes widening with understanding, and Tom wondered if this would be the end of his fraternal friendliness, Harry's perversion too much to endorse.

But Charlus only nodded, grin something wry and tremulous with emotion. “Tom's welcome to move in too, but it's fine either way. Just don't be strangers.” He did hug Harry then, as well as Tom, who endured it, Harry's eyes laughing at him over Charlus’ shoulder.

“Fleamont said she had no symptoms,” Harry said, batting Tom's wand away and stepping close to undo his tie by hand. “That particular sickness is meant to take months but for her it was only days. Like it was sped along.” He dropped Tom's tie to the floor, though he could have easily floated it into the wardrobe, and began working on the buttons of Tom's shirt. “I know it was you.” He ran his hands along the tense lines of Tom's shoulders, coaxing them into relaxation, huffing an annoyed breath. “You read her mind or schemed or smelled it, I don't know. You figured out she was dying and decided to help it along. It's why she wanted to make amends in the first place, isn't it?”

His theory did make some kind of sense, and as Harry–and, indeed, seemingly the rest of Wizardkind–did not know how easily disease could be crafted into spellwork, he likely wouldn't assume Tom had caused Lady Potter's illness wholesale. A sick woman's dying attempt to assuage her guilt was far more reasonable a guess.

“Harry,” Tom began, only for Harry's palm to slap over his mouth.

He looked amused at Tom's affrontement. “Don't deny it, sweetheart, it wasn't really a question. I understand why. I wish you hadn't, but I do. The healers told Fleamont she felt nothing. No pain. Thank you.”

Tom successfully pulled Harry's hand away, only for it to slide and cup his cheek. Harry's face was a whirlpool–guilt, irritation, sadness, love shining through all the rest. “If she hadn't claimed you, she'd have died in agony.”

“I figured,” Harry shook his head, raising on his toes to press their cheeks together. “You're so dramatic. I don't need you to avenge me. I told you, I'm grateful they gave me up. You should be too.”

“I am.” He was, Harry's strange appearance at Wool's the closest Tom had ever come to evidence that God might exist, might somehow care for him. “But it was still a crime that could not go unpunished.”

“Drama king,” Harry hissed, suckling the lobe of Tom's ear, sliding a hand down to toy with the hairs on his lower stomach. “This isn't a reward for your behaviour,” he said sternly, tone belied by the eagerness of his hands. “You just look really good.”

“I always look good,” Tom sighed, moving into Harry's touch, smiling at his wet gasp as Tom banished each scrap of clothing.

“You do,” Harry's laugh petering into a groan as Tom led their way to the bed, Harry helplessly following. He crawled into Tom's lap, rutting with abandon, peppering messy kisses across Tom's face, more teeth and tongue than anything else. “Gorgeous,” he sighed, slipping a thumb into Tom's mouth, stroking over his tongue. “And all mine.”

Tom's nails dug into the flesh of his back at that, Harry squirming under the touch, Tom's harsh grip over his muscular cheeks, possessive and unyielding, Harry pleased as ever to be possessed.

“I'm yours too,” he cooed, smug about it, an adult's condescending consoling of a tantrum-given child. “I've always been. And you've always been mine, no one else can ever have you. No one else can even know you, because I got here first.” He writhed with delight, the afternoon light catching on every plane of his body as it quivered, the rhythmic push and pull of his hips like an ocean tide. “Oh hullo,” he grinned, breathless, happy, reaching to stroke the hard length of Tom's co*ck caught in the net of Harry's thighs. “What a lovely snake,” he laughed, ridiculous, but no less stunning for it. “And this one responds to me, too,” he hissed.

“Enough,” Tom gripped him tightly, forcing him up, slicking his entrance with one word before sinking Harry down around him. Left to his own devices, Harry would drag the aperitif out for hours before ever getting to the main course, and while sometimes Tom was content to indulge him, just then he needed to be inside him with such consuming ache that it burned.

“Where'd all that famous patience go?” Harry gasped, moaning as he picked his tempo back up, slower now, dragging Tom's co*ck against his inner channel. “Just needed me that bad?” He laughed at Tom's growling indignation at Harry's flippancy. He curled until their lips slid together as he spoke, breathing the words directly into Tom's mouth. “I did too. Merlin, I love this. Best part of the day, having you. Being had by you.”

Harry's words, the clenched fist of his body, the sonata of his moans–all of it felt like a seam ripper taking Tom apart, unspooling him. It was a rare feeling. The sex was always good between them, as good as everything else, but rarely did Tom grant such allowances, Harry deciding the path they took, the speed at which they took it, Tom merely drifting along in the wake of his pleasure. But Tom found himself content to drift, washed by Harry's endless talking, held inside him, sensation overtaking sense.

“I feel sorry for them,” Harry said, cupping Tom's face, grinding slowly against him. “They never knew what this felt like. When you–sh*t–when you love someone so much you want to have their child.”

“Is that right?” Tom asked, grazing a thumb over Harry's prick, flushed and weeping, until he keened. “You want to have my child? There are potions for that, you know. Your co*ck would become a soft c*nt for me, your body would create a womb.”

Harry moaned, eyes rolling at the thought, at Tom's thrusts quickening, becoming mean. “I would,” he gasped, sinking his face into the curve of Tom's neck, biting the skin there. “You want that?” Tom could feel his smile, the wet heat of his tongue. “You want to sink into my c*nt, want to breed me?”

“Your mouth would test the most patient of men,” Tom said, mind blackened with lust, the same itch that usually drove him to the Ministry dungeons, to that seaside cave. He threw Harry off of him, ignoring his plaintive cry as he was wrenched from Tom's co*ck, ignoring his elongated moan as Tom bore down on him and sank back in, his rightful place, at home in Harry's body.

“You love my mouth,” Harry whined happily, knees rising to cradle Tom's hips, rising to meet every motion. “Almost as much as you love my c*nt.”

Tom considered pulling out and finishing over the gleaming skin of Harry's stomach, leaving him unsatisfied, the only way to win this war. But his own urge to spend inside him was too great, Harry spilling between them with a low moan, voice shattered by pleasure as Tom's teeth ravaged his throat, Harry clutching his head, keeping him there, as though Tom might possibly pull away before making him bleed.

“I really would have your kid,” Harry murmured, petting Tom's hair as he licked at Harry's wound. “If you want. Not until I retire from Quidditch, though.”

“We're a bit young to be discussing children,” said Tom. The idea held some appeal, the image of Harry heavy with Tom's progeny, a tangible tie between them that could never be undone. But children were inconvenient at best, a sinkhole for money and resources with very little in the way of return.

It would have Harry's eyes, he thought.

“Mkay,” Harry yawned, settling closer, as close as he could get now that Tom was no longer inside him. “Don't kill anyone else without talking to me first.”

“You intend to leash me, now?”

Harry puffed up his cheeks and blew the air against Tom's face, rolling his eyes, insufferably disrespectful. “Welcome to partnership. Oh, no, I'm asking you to involve me in your decision-making. The horror.”

“You are a horror,” Tom said snidely, pulling his hair when Harry chuckled. “You don't wish to disallow it outright?”

“You'll just keep doing it in secret. And I don't want us to have secrets. I want to know what you're doing so I can better prepare to handle it. And so I can talk you out of any really stupid ideas.”

“I don't have stupid ideas,” Tom frowned, nipping at Harry's finger as it pet at his mouth.

“Planning to break your soul apart was a stupid idea. Planning to kill your grandparents sans inheritance was a stupid idea. Having tea-time with Grindelwald was a stupid idea–though I'll let that one go, given mine was even stupider.” He smacked a kiss to Tom's scowl. “Chin up, that's what I'm here for. To keep you out of trouble.”

“The only troublesome part of my life is you,” Tom sighed, letting Harry weasel his face into the cave of his neck. “But fine. I will discuss my plans with you before acting.” Within reason.

Harry hummed, happy at the appearance of concession, surrendering to the drowsy warmth blooming between them. “That's all I want.”

Chapter 7: C'est si bon De se dire des mots doux

Chapter Text

Tom's second proposal was passed with just as much outcry as his first, albeit from the Light families, this time.

“You wish to teach cursework to children,” Lord Ogden said incredulously.

“I wish for their magical education to be complete,” Tom corrected. “Magic now considered Dark Arts has existed for time immemorial, though that term only became common use after the English Reformation, during which Christianity and Muggle Christian ideals took hold within the magical community in Britain.”

“We know our history, Lord Slytherin,” Lady Longbottom said testily. “Magic considered to be part of the Dark Arts has been proven to do more harm than good to Wizardkind.”

“Respectfully, I disagree,” Tom said politely. “Magic has, historically, relied on balance. There cannot be light without darkness, and vice versa. A complete understanding of Magic requires both.”

“Lord Slytherin,” Dumbledore smiled. “I understand and commend your scholastic love of magic and all its many attributes–indeed, I think your comprehension is to be admired. Unfortunately, there are many parties who would use unrestricted knowledge of the Dark Arts against their brethren, rather than to hone their magical abilities as a whole, like yourself. It pains me to say, my boy, but I think you may be too much an optimist.”

Tom still wasn't sure if Dumbledore meant these sorts of comments to be sly underhanded insults or if he really was just an idiot, as convinced by Tom's tempered facade as the rest of them. “Professor, I think you may be too much a pessimist. After all, Hogwarts taught the Dark Arts for two hundred years without bloodshed. There's no evidence to suggest that restoring the class would cause any more harm than the kind brought about daily by careless students brewing potions. It pains me to see generations of Witches and Wizards muzzled by ridiculous fancies of Muggle religion which equate darkness with evil, due to their fear of nature itself. An entire branch of magic–parts of which have been historically used for healing, in the case of the cutting curse, and rudimentary agriculture, in the case of fiendfyre–has been demonised and imprisoned based only on the whims of Wizards like Ulick Gamp, who was himself a dedicated practitioner of the Church of England. These arts are as inherent to us as any other kind of magic, and it is my belief that teaching children to harness it will actually lesson any accidental harm they may cause when they decide to study it on their own–and they will decide to study it on their own. I certainly did.”

“I'm inclined to agree with the Chief Warlock,” said Lady Marchbanks. “Lord Slytherin, your intellect is not in question. And were more students like you, I would not hesitate to vote for this proposal. But I have been overseeing examinations at Hogwarts for many years now, and I must sadly inform the court that it isn't the case. Young man, the mistakes I've seen made during Transfiguration are bad enough. I'd hate to see how they might stumble with fiendfyre.”

“An understandable concern,” Tom allowed. She was right, after all; most students were imbeciles. “Which is why I propose returning the class only as a N.E.W.T.-level elective available to upperclassmen who have passed their Defence O.W.L.s with an Outstanding. I am far from the only Wizard able to master the Dark Arts, but neither do I think they should be treated flippantly. And, if I may be so bold, I think this court does the younger generations a disservice. Expecting them to fail is rather unfair; giving someone the ability to prove themselves has always, in my experience, led to a more positive outcome.”

“I think we've heard enough,” Lady Marchbanks sniffed. “All those in favour of Lord Slytherin's proposal?”

Tom was pleasantly surprised when she raised her own wand, alongside the Dark families, which was expected, and a fair few Lighter ones, including Dumbledore, which was not. Fleamont Potter, having inherited his mother's chair, waved his wand at Tom cheerfully.

“The court will now hear Minister Spencer-Moon's dissent,” said Lady Marchbanks.

Spencer-Moon had once again remained silent throughout the debate, though he had offered Tom an encouraging smile near the end. “I have no dissent.”

“The Wizengamot has spoken,” Lady Marchbanks decreed. “Lord Slytherin's proposal is now law, effective immediately.”

Dumbledore found Tom easily, crowd parting around him like water for a prophet. “Lord Slytherin, I was wondering if you had any suggestions on where I might procure a Dark Arts professor so late in the year?”

Salazar, he was still hoping to rope Tom into his fold, then. “You could always try poaching one from Durmstrang,” Tom said wryly.

“A very Slytherin idea, indeed,” Dumbledore said pleasantly. The twinkle in his eye was unnerving to say the least.

That night, Tom's Knights sat shoulder to shoulder with Grindelwald's generals at Tom's table. They had only been to the Manor once before, had stuck mostly to written correspondence over the past two years as Tom guided them across the continent like orchestrating a forest fire. They remembered their leader's fondness for him, his belief that Tom would continue the man's movement in his stead. They'd proven remarkably eager to do whatever Tom told them, so long as he invoked Grindelwald's name.

All except Rosier, who continued to look at Tom as a particularly persistent bit of mud clinging to her shoe. She had mostly been hanging around Austria, hoping to break her old master out of his own prison, apparently to no avail. Tom didn't mind her dalliance; it kept her out of his way.

Now, Tom had a new plan for Grindelwald's servants. He had allowed Wizarding Britain to grow complacent over years of peace, but Spencer-Moon had recently announced his plans to retire upon the next election year, and Tom could not allow that year to be tranquil. He needed the voters frightened. He needed them desperate.

“Your work in France and the Baltics has been commendable,” Tom told them. “I particularly liked what you did to Armenia. But now it is time to return to Grindelwald's original vision: a leader who will bring us out into the open, to rule over Muggles as we deserve.”

“And you think you're that leader?” Rosier sneered.

Tom smiled placatingly. “Of course, I will only rule over Britain. Once I've secured the Ministership, I'll have Grindelwald cleared of his charges and freed. He will be our Emperor, over all of European Wizardkind.”

There was cheering from Grindelwald's supporters, some polite, pureblood clapping from Tom's own Knights. They were not so fond of this plan, their own chosen God's subservience to another. But then, they had never had the heads for long-term planning. That was Tom's domain alone.

He gave them their directives: they were to target Wizarding Britain in a series of small-scale attacks, in and out, creating as much property damage as possible in the wealthier sections–the favoured eating and shopping establishments of the elite–while spilling as little blood as possible. Some casualties were inevitable, the occasional bystander or Auror with delusions of grandeur, but Tom's plan hinged on startling the more traditional families into voting differently than they normally would, which meant they had to still be alive to vote in the first place.

Once fear of terrorism in the Wizarding community had been established, they would begin on the Muggles. Known monuments in high-populated places, done in ways which, to Muggles, would appear like accidents–gas leaks, wear and tear from the Germans’ bombs–but, to anyone with magical blood, would be the obvious work of a wand. This would ignite the fear into terror: not only that they might stumble into a bombing on Diagon, but that the Wizarding world might be exposed to Muggles after all.

The Knights and Grindelwald's soldiers alike would be masked during these attacks. It was all well and good for Grindelwald to show his face to the public he was slaughtering: he could change that face seemingly at will. But it would not do to have dozens of pureblood heirs made into Undesirables just as they were about to inherit their Wizengamot seats.

Once Grindelwald's supporters left, eager to continue the path they were sure would lead to their messiah's freedom, Tom led his Knights into the sitting room, a cosier affair that would make them feel privileged, his true inner circle.

“Malfoy, Black, Avery, Lestrange,” Tom murmured, studying the men currently draped on his furniture like serpents lazing in the sun. “You will hold your family chairs by the next Wizengamot session. I will leave you to decide what to do about your parents, but it will be done. If you need my assistance in the matter, it would be best to say so now.”

“Of course, my Lord,” said Orion, who had already begun poisoning Lord Black at the beginning of summer. The Lestrange brothers too, Tom was sure, already had a plan of attack.

Avery would be the one seeking Tom's guidance, having no mind for strategy himself. Malfoy was the only one Tom doubted, his filial duty so much stronger than any of the others’. He had stayed Tom's hand to begin with, asking for the chance to talk his father into the inheritance, rather than killing him wholesale. That stay of execution was finished. If he could not convince Lord Malfoy by now, he never would.

“Yes, my Lord,” Abraxas said quietly. Tom didn't understand why Abraxas didn't simply ask him for a mind-addling potion, a paralytic agent, or even the Draught of Living Death. He need not kill his father, necessarily; it would be enough to simply have him declared incontinent. Tom was not unmerciful.

But Abraxas would likely never come to that conclusion on his own, and Tom wasn't about to suggest it. Consider it a learning exercise.

The mothers were an unknown variable: many of them were housewives in total, the older pureblood lines still given to the Medieval notion that women were not fit for things like politics or work, but perhaps some had underlying ambitions, and the chair would pass to them before it passed to their children. If any of them chose to accept the seat rather than handing it over to their son, they would have to be dealt with as well.

“Hey, schemer,” Harry said muzzily as Tom folded himself in his arms. He yawned, squirming closer. “Have a good playdate with your minions? Is anyone going to die?”

“Not by my hand,” said Tom, smirking at Harry's disgruntlement.

“That isn't reassuring,” Harry sighed into Tom's cheek, barely a kiss, too sleep-clumsy to manage anything better.

Tom didn't care to reassure him further; everything was as Tom wanted it, as he'd designed himself, as little more than a child. He commanded a legion from the shadows. He manipulated the country according to his whims. He held respect, wealth, and power like stones in the palm of his hand. And Harry was beside him, would remain beside him through it all, the future a spool of red and silver thread unwinding before them.

Slughorn had been begging Tom to make an appearance at one of his Slug Club parties since his ascension in the Ministry, with little success. Tom was very busy, first as Undersecretary and then with the Wizengamot; he could hardly spare the time to make dreadfully dull chat with porous teenagers.

When he–very kindly, in Tom's opinion, as he did still hold Slughorn in some amount of esteem–explained all of that, Slughorn pushily reminded him that the previous Undersecretary had managed to find the time just fine, to which Tom pointed out that perhaps Maverick had done so because he was eager to see his underaged mistress, who had been a student at the time. This granted Tom some reprieve from the man's incessant owling.

But then Dumbledore accosted Tom on Slughorn's behalf at the Wizengamot, and when Tom complained about it to Harry, the infuriating man had the nerve to say that they should go, that it might be fun to see the castle again, that he wanted to pay a visit to Hessie and see how she'd fared in their absence.

“And you get to show off all your successes,” Harry smiled, planting a kiss to Tom's jaw. “I know how you love to gloat.”

They wore newly commissioned, complementary robes with only a little eye rolling from Harry, and flooed to Slughorn's office, where they received a hearty greeting indeed, alongside two glasses of extremely strong pear liqueur with conjured tiny merpeople riding the bubbles.

“What happens if we drink them?” Harry whispered fretfully. Tom could only shrug; surely nothing horrible, or the professor wouldn't be serving it.

“Here we are, gentlemen,” Slughorn announced proudly, leading them to the ballroom that had always hosted his parties before. It looked unchanged, just as the castle did, just as Tom's old Head of House.

There were people Tom recognized from the Ministry, and at least one athlete Harry knew from Quidditch, chatting with her until they were accosted by this new generation of fans.

“Oh, no, Mr. Potter wasn't in my little club unfortunately,” Slughorn was saying to some politician's wife. “He's the guest of Undersecretary Riddle–or Lord Slytherin, should I say! Yes, they were always inseparable, even as boys. Raised together, you know. It does the heart good to see the friendship of youth still carrying strong.”

Tom smirked into his glass before depositing it onto a floating table. He always enjoyed the mention of Harry or himself coinciding with the other, as though they were inextricable. He found Harry in the corner of the room, inserting himself between him and the Quidditch woman without hesitation.

“You tired already?” Harry asked hopefully. For all that he'd pushed for them to go, he'd been ready to leave the party just as soon as they'd arrived. “We should be getting home, then. Nice to see you, Albanese!” He tugged Tom unrepentantly towards the door. “Come on, I want to check on Hessie.”

“So you no longer care about my exhaustion?” Tom teased.

“You'll live,” said Harry, opening the Chamber without hesitation.

Hessie claimed to not have noticed their extended absence, though her sulky attitude seemed to differ. Harry cooed at her and spent some time sweeping between her scales in apology, promising to see what he could do to visit her with more regularity.

“I feel like we abandoned her,” Harry said, watching the Chamber close.

“I'm sure I can come up with some reason for the Undersecretary to visit the castle once per term,” Tom offered, gratified by Harry's gratitude, his slow kiss. He nearly regretted that night's plans, Harry's eyes burning in the low light, promising a wealth of pleasure once they returned home.

Sure enough, Harry didn't even wait until they passed the gate, swinging himself into Tom's arms, kissing him with abandon. “Have I mentioned that I love you?” he asked, taking Tom's lip between his teeth, sucking with a wet pulse before releasing, a prologue for what was to come.

“Once or twice,” Tom murmured, holding him still, capturing him to elongate the moment, hoping and not hoping to avoid stepping inside the house.

“Come on,” Harry laughed, interrupting himself with more kissing. “I want you in our bed.” He led Tom to the front door, inside the darkened foyer.

“The light's out,” Harry frowned, when a flick of the switch did nothing. Then, almost as if on his order, luminescence burst through the room, blinding them completely before dimming into something they could bear.

Tom blinked to find himself disarmed, held at wandpoint, hands and tongue bound. Karkaroff, one of Grindelwald's most devoted followers, a playmate from his Durmstrang years, snarled at him. Gabrielle and Walter, their gardener, lay dead on the floor. Across the room, Harry was shaking with fury and no small amount of fear.

“Betrayer,” Karkaroff spat, warm saliva leaking down Tom's cheek. He couldn't withhold his moue of disgust, no matter that he was silenced. “You will die for what you did,” he told Harry, before digging the sharp point of his wand further into Tom's neck. “But first, you will watch him bleed.”

Karkaroff had disarmed Harry as well, of course, but his hands were free, likely his tongue as well, and Tom had faith in the strength of his wandless magic, second only to his own. And Harry was righteous with fury, with fear for Tom–this time, he would not restrain himself.

But when Harry's wrath materialised, it came in the form of a particularly strong stunner, guaranteed to have the Wizard unconscious at least until midday. He was thrown back from Tom, collapsing heavily to the floor, still breathing. Still alive.

And Harry was not the type to torture an unconscious man to death. A pity.

“Bastard,” Harry snarled, turning the gorgeous weight of his rage onto Tom. “You bastard.”

Tom unbound his tongue with a thought. “Harry–”

“Don't,” Harry raged, beautiful with it. Tom wondered if he might be stunned next. “I know this was you. Don't deny it.”

“I didn't deny it,” said Tom, unbinding his wrists as well and recovering his wand. He didn't offer Harry's back to him. He wanted to ensure it wouldn't be turned on him, first. “Harry–”

“No,” Harry spat. “I don't give a f*ck about your reasoning, I know! You set it up so I'd kill him without feeling guilt over it, and then you could split both our souls. You had him–had him kill Gabby and Walt,” he choked, either on anger or grief, perhaps both, unable to bring himself to look at their corpses.

It was a regrettable decision, as they had been good at their jobs, but Tom had needed Harry to be the angriest he'd ever been. He'd needed every ounce of that righteous fury, that avenging angel. Perhaps he should have staged his own death as well. “They're just Muggles,” Tom pointed out. “We'll find you a new cook–”

“They were good people!” Harry shouted. “They were in our care!”

“They were elderly,” Tom frowned, frustrated by Harry's histrionics. Why did he care so much about a couple of Muggles? He hadn't been nearly as upset about his mother; perhaps because he hadn't known her well. Tom couldn't understand the varying directions Harry's sea of emotions swept. “At least this gave them a painless end.”

“I cannot f*cking believe you did this,” Harry said, glaring hotly at the floor, as though he couldn't bear to look at Tom, either. “After you said you would talk to me first. I asked for one thing.”

Ah, so he was upset at being left out of things. This, Tom could understand, even placate. “You would have said no. I'm sorry for not consulting you–”

“No you aren't,” Harry snapped. “You've never faked guilt before, don't start now. Is this what you think of me? That I'm an idiot? Just another one of your minions to be manipulated?”

“No,” Tom snapped back, the last thread of his patience beginning to fray. That Harry could even think so was insanity. One miscalculated moment did not supercede twenty-one years. “Harry, look–”

“I'm done,” Harry interrupted, wrenching his wand out of Tom's pocket, striding over towards the door.

Tom was suddenly sure that he only needed to stop Harry from leaving, only needed to make him see reason, that if Harry walked away now, Tom would never see him again.

His wand raised before he even considered it, spell dying on his lips as Harry's shields flared like a pair of angelic wings over his back.

They had never seen Tom as a threat before. Not once.

Tom was still standing frozen, the image of those shields burned across his vision, when the crack of Harry's Apparition broke the silence of the night outside. He was gone.

Tom killed Karkaroff within the first hour. It was a quick, sudden thing, a burst of rage which he immediately regretted. He should have renervated him first, then cut him to death slowly, until he was little more than a puddle of blood.

He cut the dead body instead, which just wasn't the same, and then did it again first to Walter and then Gabrielle. He wouldn't have done it while they were still living–Muggles they may have been, but they were good employees–but as corpses, it wasn't as though they'd feel pain, and Tom needed to see the blood, needed the rich, cloying scent of it in the air so he could breathe again.

He wasn't sure when he cut Harry's name into his own skin, the back of his hand raw and sore with the wound, that pain doing nothing to curb the emptiness deep within him. Harry had left him. Harry was gone. He'd left him.

One miscalculated moment should not have superceded twenty-one years, years of Harry promising to never leave, claiming he'd love Tom forever, no matter what, come anything. But apparently it did.

He would find Harry, Tom decided. There was a limited number of places he would go. Tom would find him and he would strangle the breath from his throat, watching the green of those eyes veil over with death. Then he would portion him out piece by piece, meal by meal. He would eat him down to the bone, each perfect mouthful, consuming all that he had ever been, safe within Tom forever.

Or perhaps he would simply bring him home, chain him to their bed, keeping him whole and secure for the rest of eternity, even as the rest of the world rotted around them outside.

He still hadn't decided on a course of action by the time Harry returned, sometime after dawn, the sound of his heavy footfalls and then a deep sigh at the state of the room, which had become quite messy while he was away.

“Tom,” Harry sighed, walking over to him, entirely unafraid, sinking down to the floor. He cupped Tom's chin, smearing the blood there, and tipped his head so he was forced to look at him, those green eyes Tom never wanted to see fade. “Sweetheart, didn't I tell you I'll always come back? I just needed some time to clear my head so I didn't hurt you.” He caught sight of Tom's ruined hand, hissing in distress. “Though it looks like you did plenty of that, yourself.”

“I knew you'd come back,” Tom lied. “I just…”

“We must not tell lies,” Harry murmured, inanely. “You thought I'd left you for good and had a good tantrum about it. Let me heal your hand.” He did, and then kissed the clean, re-knitted skin. “What am I gonna do with you?”

What he was going to do with Tom was, apparently, shepherd him into the bath upstairs, diligently scrub him down, and then tuck him into their bed like a child sick with fever.

“You're a mess,” Harry murmured, his mouth like a salve over the burn of Tom's skin, pulling him close until he was swaddled by Harry's body. “But I love you anyway.”

“I thought you would appreciate the lack of guilt which avenging our employees and defending me would offer,” Tom explained, the closest he'd ever come to an apology. He still wasn't sorry; it had been a logical plan, influenced by past history. But he could admit he had misstepped, had undervalued Harry's attachment to their Muggle workers. “A miscalculation.”

“Thank you for not saying you're sorry,” Harry said, stilted, as though forcefully reining in his tone. “It would have been a lie, and I wouldn't have appreciated it. I don't know why I assumed I shouldn't have to ask you not to have my friends killed, but I'm asking you now. Don't do it again.”

Salazar, of course Harry had considered their hired help friends. Tom should have known, should have planned for that eventuality. Harry had never met a living creature he didn't want to be friendly with. He'd befriend ants if he could.

“I won't,” Tom promised, knowing he wouldn't. Not when it was easy enough to find other bodies, and not now that he knew the faultiness of this strategy.

“I'm not one of your puppets to be pulled around on strings,” Harry added, the edge of real anger finally bleeding through. “You wouldn't like it if I was.”

“I wouldn't,” Tom agreed, even the idea of it distasteful. Harry’s appeal lied in his knowing Tom, consistently seeing his true visage and choosing to love him anyway. A blissfully oblivious Harry, a Harry without choice, was akin to a hollowed shell drained of yolk. “I don't–I haven't ever considered you in that light. Not once. You are so far above all others it's as if you live in a different realm entirely. My only equal.”

“Dramatic,” Harry's smile was tight, but honest. He'd always found it difficult to stay angry with Tom for long. He could hold a grudge forever–against the other Slytherins, against Morfin Gaunt, against Lady Longbottom who refused to share with him her pear-apple tart recipe–but for Tom, his patience remained an endless well. “Romantic. I'll forgive you. But only this once.”

“You will not have to forgive a second time.”

“Good, because fighting with you is exhausting. When we wake up, you're cleaning that room. And I'm not helping you. Merlin, sweetheart, you couldn't have just gone to your little cave?”

Tom pulled back swiftly to look at him, Harry's face descending into smugness. “Oh, sorry, was I not supposed to know about that? You should just stop trying to hide things from me.”

“I wasn't hiding it,” Tom said, petulantly, letting Harry tug him back close. “I just didn't think you'd want to know.”

“I'll always want to know. Just like I want to know all your varied sordid schemes for immortality. Did you think I didn't want to? That I won't always try and give you what you want–within reason? I'll admit, I don't really care about living forever. I think it'll get boring. But you clearly do, and I won't leave you to go it alone. I want you to be happy.”

“I would be happy if you made a Horcrux,” said Tom, scowling when Harry rolled his eyes.

“Find a way that doesn't involve hurting yourself,” Harry reiterated. “And preferably not murder, though I won't hold my breath for that. If it does, I'd appreciate it being someone who's already dying, who wants a quick end.”

“Not a serial killer or some such?”

“No,” Harry murmured. “I don't want to kill anyone unwilling, even if they're not a good person. What if they regret their actions and decide to be good later? I don't want to take that chance away.”

“You're infuriatingly forgiving.”

Harry, looking amused, tugged at a lock of Tom's hair. “Lucky for you, that.”

Tom spent the morning cleaning as Harry had demanded, Harry stubbornly sticking to his resolution of not helping at all, still clearly furious over the deaths of their workers, so Tom generously opted not to push the matter, instead leaving Harry to whatever silly grieving process his tender heart required.

Though, for all Harry had said he would not be entering the room until it was free from all “tantrum evidence,” as he put it, Tom was unable to withhold remark upon finding the space considerably changed–namely, nearly all of the blood was cleared from the walls, ceiling and floor, the bodies themselves neatly stitched together as though they might simply be sleeping.

Harry simply shrugged when Tom asked about it, saying “I just put them back how they're supposed to be. It didn't feel right, leaving them like that. All ruined.” As though it wasn't a stunning display of power and control, a kind of magic healers and morticians spend years trying to learn, with only a fraction of Harry's talent to show for it. He did not seem to appreciate Tom's approval, frowning even as he blushed, grumbling “I'm not letting you kiss me about the corpses in our foyer, Tom, God.” Tom wasn't sure why the placement of corpses had anything to do with whether or not Harry would accept a kiss, but he left him to his scowling into steeped tea.

Tom transported the bodies to the cave, the same one he and Harry had discovered so long ago as boys, what Tom had privately been thinking of as his Chamber of Secrets, the primary one huddling in a corner now, giving him a hollow stare.

Morfin Gaunt had not changed much in the years since Harry nearly killed him. He'd managed to drag his broken body back to his shack in the trees, where Tom had gone back for him only two days later, curious to see if he'd survived. He had, and as he could clearly not be trusted with the freedom to slither about, Tom had Apparated him to the cave, which he was sure no one knew aside from himself and Harry, sure no one else would happen upon it for some time.

He came here to think, occasionally, to vent his frustrations onto a particularly well-receiving subject–Morfin had lost all affinity for English sometime after his first year there, but he would sometimes lapse back into Parseltongue, what must have been his first language, so Tom could still enjoy his pleading or, if he was feeling particularly alive, his castrated threats.

Tom wasn't sure how long Harry had known about this Chamber, nor how he had found it out, though he seemed to have such a knack for puzzling out Tom's secrets, he was beginning to think Harry was somehow unknowingly reading Tom's mind in his sleep. Or perhaps he had smelled it on him, the salted air, the peculiar depth of darkness. Perhaps Harry, like Tom, had never forgotten the scent of the cave, the alluring tenebrosity.

“I've brought you some company,” Tom told Morfin, displaying the corpses for him to see. Morfin gave a low, pitiful hiss before shuddering into himself, less a man than a heap of shivering flesh. “What's wrong? Don't you like them? You'll have much to discuss, I'm sure.”

He cast half a dozen stasis charms on the bodies before sinking them in the water. He'd periodically check on them, seeing which charms held up the best against time, against weathering. It would be a pleasant diversion, an experiment to take his mind off the tedium of politics. Sometimes he wondered if he shouldn't have simply gone into Alchemy, mining all the knowledge arcane magics and the earth had to offer.

Tom spent the morning cleaning the remaining tension and irritation from his mind, brought on by the preceding evening, by torturing Morfin and then repeatedly yanking him back from the brink of death like a dog on a chain. Now that his thoughts were unburdened, it was difficult to hold Harry's reaction against him. Tom should have planned around the endless well of Harry's heart, should have found some nameless Muggles who would have done just as well at kicking up that persistent judicious instinct. He knew Harry, knew him as he knew himself, even with all of his labyrinthine emotions which Tom would never fully comprehend, he knew their blueprints because he had watched them rise from the soil within Harry, had watched them bloom and grow over the years.

It was also, he could admit here within the well-worn sanctity of his Chamber, quiet but for the lick of water upon stone, the quiet, tormented murmurings of his uncle, difficult to hold anything against Harry now that he had seen the tunnel of Harry's forgiveness, which truly had no end, something which Tom had both believed and deemed impossible by turns his whole life, despite twenty-one years of Harry's assurances, and now he held the proof in his hands: Harry would never turn from him fully. He would rage, yes, he would flee for time enough to calm, and then he would return, he would kiss Tom's brow heedless of blood. He would never withdraw his love, which Tom had only recently begun to think genuine, but had never until this morning believed safe.

It was a heady notion, not unlike how he imagined being drunk must feel. It was a rush of power more thrilling than his discovery of Slytherin's Chamber and the beast it contained, who existed only to follow Tom's every order. More satisfying than his claiming of the Slytherin Lordship, than the passing of any proposal into law, his hands moulding the Wizarding world as he always knew they were meant to. More pleasurable by far than any torment of any creature, no matter how they had wronged him.

Harry Potter loved him, all of him, and would never stop.

“I'm terribly sorry I have to cut our chat short,” he told Morfin, interrupting his own absent-minded Cruciatus. “I have to go make it legal for two Wizards to marry.”

He found Harry in the kitchen, as he usually was whenever he was home, though of course today there was no Gabrielle chatting with him in her bastardised union of English and French, which Harry liked to utilise despite his atrocious accent, Gabrielle always gently scolding him with a spoon. Today, Harry worked alone in silence, mincing a clove of garlic with the flat of his knife’s blade. How he could be such a dismal potioneer but take to Muggle culinary arts so well, Tom would never understand.

“You love me,” Tom declared, apparently too abruptly for Harry, who startled, flinging minced garlic over the countertop.

He looked warily at Tom. “If you’re trying to get out of cleaning–”

“It’s finished,” Tom waved a hand, as if swatting that unimportant thought to the side. “You love me.”

“I do,” Harry frowned. “Did you do something else? Not even twenty-four hours later?”

“No,” Tom smiled, closing the distance between them, taking hold of Harry by the hips, Harry still wielding his knife loosely, as though he’d forgotten about it. “You love me.”

“Merlin,” Harry sighed, shaking his head, biting back the edge of a smile. “Of course this is what convinces you. Not decades of me saying it. I’m wearing your bloody brand, sweetheart.”

“I am going to propose a new Marriage Act,” Tom said slowly, watching as the smile battled its way onto Harry’s face. “And then I am going to marry you.”

“I’m still mad at you,” Harry ducked his head, a weak attempt to hide the grin breaking free, happy in spite of himself, a man in love.

“How would you like me to make it up to you?” asked Tom, cupping his chin, raising his face, kissing the corner of that perfect mouth, feeling smug when it immediately opened up to him. “I’ll spend an eternity making it up to you.”

Harry kissed him for a moment without thought, only instinct, and then pulled back, humming with consideration. “Would you leave it all if I asked you to? The politics, the scheming, every bit of it. For me?”

Tom’s incandescent mood dulled immediately, doused in the putrid colour of nauseating disappointment. He would, he thought. If Harry asked him to, if Harry required it, Tom would stomach the frustration, the regret over all his unfinished plans, his half-painted vision, his hands, meant to change the world, suddenly bereft of purpose. They would find a cottage somewhere, some sleepy European village, where Harry would keep a garden and keep house, baking fresh bread like some peasant woman from the Middle Ages. Harry would be happy with that life, nothing but a garden and fresh bread and Tom. And Tom would be…bored. He would be furious with inefficacy and stiflement. Eventually, he may grow to begrudge Harry, even grow cold towards him, the cause of his self-banishment. But he would stomach it all, the whole pastoral puddle of vomit, if Harry asked.

“Breathe,” Harry commanded, framing Tom’s face with both hands. “I’m not asking you to. I won’t. I love how ambitious you are. I love that you want to change the world. I wouldn’t take that away. I was just curious.”

“I would,” Tom admits. “But I would be…”

“Miserable?” Harry asked lightly.

“Discontent,” said Tom.

“You need your various and sundry plots, I know,” Harry said, teasing, stroking the hair that kissed the nape of Tom’s neck. “Just promise to keep me apprised and I’ll marry you whenever you want. Legal or not.”

It put Tom in mind of the various marriage rites and bonding rituals he’d studied long before the idea that this spark between them might ever see the sun. Before Harry had ever kissed him, before Tom had even recognized their love for what it was, had only known it was something he wanted to carry like a rope knotting them together forever. Now, those ancient texts hold a new, uplifting weight. He was sure he remembered something about a bond that enabled the sharing of all magic, including abilities induced by a ritual conducted by only one half of the union. It was a possibility to consider, at least.

Quite a few families of Muggle-born children had been relocated to Wizarding Britain–along with even more newly unparented Muggle-borns, distributed amongst Wizarding families and trades-Wizards alike–since the passing of Tom’s first proposal, what had become known as The Defense and Care of Magical Children Act, but Tom had never seen the sense in fostering any such family himself, until now, having found himself in need of a new cook and gardener, and with a plentiful list to choose from, which would in turn endear him further to the public, who always seemed easily swayed by any man who practised what he preached.

Mary and Edward Prescott, with an eight-year-old magical daughter named Lucy, moved into the Riddle guesthouse on a blustery Wednesday, the air shivering with rain. They all seemed aghast and quietly entranced to see the poor weather stopped by an invisible wall that began at the gates, a handy spell Tom could never risk casting before, with Muggle employees mucking about. Now, he revelled a bit in their reaction; Muggles were so easily impressed.

“They remind me of us when we first went to Diagon,” Harry mused, warmed by nostalgia.

“They remind you of you when we first went to Diagon,” Tom corrected. “I was far more discerning.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

He delighted in showing the family around the Manor, the well-groomed grounds–Walter, for all that he was an elderly Muggle, had been very good with a spade–the guest house they would be making their home in. He kept asking if they wanted refreshments, or perhaps a bite to eat, were they a bit chilly at all, he could tell Tom to adjust the temperature charms, as though he was a host, rather than their new employer.

Lucy, for her part, was less impressed by the impressive estate and more excited by the possibility of doing magic on purpose. It had only ever existed to her as something she caused by accident. It had never occurred to her that she might take control.

“So I won’t have to get dressed or brush my hair or wash my stockings or peel potatoes or anything by hand?” she asked, looking gluttonous at the endless possibilities.

“Well, no,” said Harry. “But you might like to do some things by hand.”

Lucy’s nose scrunched up in distaste. “Why?” Privately, Tom agreed with her. Harry’s persistent affection for manual labour would never make sense to him.

In a show of recusancy that was rare for Muggles, Mary was to be the gardener, while Edward took over the kitchen. “I’m rotten with anything once it’s dead,” Mary confided in them. “Plants, animals, makes no sense to me once they’re on the cutting board. Give me some seeds and potting soil any day.”

“You’ll have plenty of both,” Harry assured her with a grin. “Tom’s terrible in the kitchen, too.”

“I have never once tried to cook, because I have never needed to,” Tom said, cutting him a glare. “You have no idea how I’d fare in the kitchen. Neither do I.”

“Sorry, I meant Tom’s too lazy to prepare his own food,” Harry corrected himself, expertly evading Tom’s jinx.

After several days spent showering their home in all of the more overt housekeeping spells he’d been forced to restrain himself from casting, Tom started to consider Gabrielle and Walter’s early dispatching relatively convenient. If he could have quietly had them dealt with, Harry none the wiser, thus escaping the geyser of his fury, that might have been preferred. But, knowing Harry, he would have sulked either way, whether he thought they’d simply retired or whether he thought they’d run off, he would have fretted over them, their age, their fragile Muggle health. Better that he knows, better that they had weathered the storm and been made stronger for it, now with the added boon of magic-wrought convenience whenever they wanted.

Lucy was a strange and unaccountable variable. She was wild with the abandon of youth, as an only child with caring parents who had never once tried to stifle her, even when they thought her to be some unknowable creature.

“Thought she might be a changeling at first,” Edward confessed to Harry once over the shared kneading of dough. “You know, Mary’s family’s from the old country. They tell all sorts of stories about tossing the babe on a fire to get yours back. But, well, even if she was a changeling, we already loved her to bits. There’d be no hurting her for us.”

“I wish all parents were like them,” Harry told Tom with a sigh, likely thinking on his own parentless existence, on Tom’s. Thinking about the many Magical children who’d somehow had it worse, who’d been tossed onto fires before they could even know how to shield themselves.

“That’s what this law is for,” Tom reassured him, still quite bad at it, unable to conjure up real sympathy for these hypothetical children. People died at all ages, for all reasons. One hardly seemed to matter more than the other, in his estimation. Still, Harry was upset, and Tom disliked when that was the case. “To create more families like the Prescotts.”

“I know,” Harry said, sliding closer to meet him with a kiss. “I’m so proud of you. I know you don’t care about protecting other people, not like most of the Wizards who voted for the proposal. But they didn’t propose it. You did. It sort of means more, that you’re helping others just because you can. Just so other kids don’t have to go through what we did.”

His mind would ever be opaque to Tom, his reasoning often inscrutable–it wasn’t as though Tom wrote the proposal out of the goodness of his heart or some such nonsense; it had been a political ploy–but he would never eschew Harry’s regard.

But Lucy was a child, and children were something Tom had not known what to do with for a very long time. As a child himself, he had understood the subtle machinations of the children around him, the knowledge curated out of necessity. As an adult, suddenly faced with the bright-eyed curiosity of a very young person still learning how to navigate personhood, peering around his study in guileless irreverence, Tom was well and truly on the back foot.

“Hello,” he tried. “Are you looking for your parents?”

“No,” the girl shrugged. “I know where they are. They’re doing boring things. Muddle things.”

“Muggle things,” Tom corrected, watching her sound out the word pensively before repeating it back, likely tucking the fact into a pocket of her mind. “Are you looking for Harry? He wouldn’t mind keeping you occupied.” I would, he felt, should have been understood.

“No,” the girl said slowly. “I was just looking around. Is this room magic too?”

“The entire estate has various on-going spells placed on it,” Tom explained. “What kind of magic have you done before, exactly?”

The girl shrugged again, a boorish gesture, evidence of an empty mind that couldn’t grasp hold of a more illustrative response. She would have to be trained out of it. “I caught a motorcar on fire, once. It hit a dog and didn’t even stop to see if she was alright. She’d been carrying puppies.”

Tom had to admit, this sounded promising. “Did you mean to?”

The girl gave this question its due consideration. “No, not really. I just wanted the car to stop.”

Tom nodded, and then plucked a paperweight from his desk, a heavy bit of quartz crystal, and held it out to her. “Put this on the floor and sit several steps back from it. Then, think as hard as you can about it moving by itself. In any direction. Let me know when you’ve done it.”

The girl nodded, pleased to be presented with this new adventure, something to do to chip away at the hours. She was very quiet, focused as she was across the room, and Tom nearly forgot she was there.

The sun had changed placement by the time she finally spoke again, appearing at Tom’s side with startling abruptness, grin displaying several holes where milk teeth had once been. “It’s moving,” she said, clearly well pleased with herself.

“Still moving?” Tom asked, glancing over to find the crystal spinning in place, hovering several inches off the floor, a feat of magical precision and lasting control he was, frankly, shocked to witness. “How old are you again, Lucille?”

“My name is Lucy,” the girl corrected him, as she always did, completely oblivious to the fact that Lucille was a much more magical name, and thus would make her future somewhat easier. Tom was doing her a favour, really. “I’m eight and three quarters.”

“Very impressive,” Tom admitted, because it was. By the look on Lucille’s face, one could be forgiven for thinking Tom had just declared she was the most talented Witch in all of Wizarding London.

“I’m going to go show Harry!” she scurried off, stealing Tom’s paperweight away without thought, just another one in a varied collection of irritating childly habits.

Still, for such a young child, and a mudblood at that, she showed incredible promise, provided this instance wasn’t a fluke. Tom may not have known how to handle children, but he did know how to manage potential. She might yet prove useful; there was some appeal in moulding such prospective talent into something worthwhile. It would not be his first priority, of course, nor even the second or third. But it would be something to have a hand in, whenever his hands were not busy with more important pursuits.

Each Wizengamot member was allowed to submit one proposal per session, which meant there could conceivably be seventy proposals put forward during one session, though such a thing had only occurred once, in the fourteenth century, when the subject of constructing a school for Witchcraft and Wizardry which would service every magical child within the Kingdoms of Scotland and Britain, to be constructed jointly between the Wizarding communities of both countries. Every chair holder of the time put forward their own proposal for such a school, including such sterling ideas as placing it in a permanent bubble above the clouds, and even an underwater structure in Loch Ness. At the time, the Ministry of Magic did not yet exist, the governing of British and Scottish Wizards and Witches instead performed by a Wizards’ Council, including the Wizengamot, of which the highest position was Chief Warlock, the first of which was Ulick Gamp, later to also become the first Minister. Gamp had noble Scottish blood on his mother’s side, and it was his cousin who eventually donated the land on which Hogwarts Castle would be built. For his contribution, he was given the honour of choosing the school’s name. Why exactly he landed on Hogwarts, of all things, was forgotten to history, though many believed it may have been something of a brattish insult to Gamp, who had been said to suffer from warts since childhood, and was rather swine-like in both appearance and speech, an unfortunate side effect of his Habsburg blood.

Since that session, which reportedly ran on for the length of twenty-nine days, no more than seven proposals had ever been put forward in a single Wizengamot session. On average, two or three were discussed and voted on in a day, though none of the proposals put forward since Tom’s inheritance had been nearly so impactful as his own, most of them to do with minor changes to established property laws and, occasionally, a minute shifting or expansion of the Ministry’s funding. Tom had voted according to his whims, calculating to ensure he aligned with the Darker and the Lighter families a relatively equal amount, keeping himself a veritable swing fluttering between them, thus ensuring his would be a vote that others would always feel the need to seduce, never a given.

He did not strictly pay attention to the proposals themselves. That was what Bartemius was for, dutifully recording each speech and argument, from which the parts of highest interest would appear on the parchment on Tom’s birdcage table, so he could revise them quickly and raise or lower his wand accordingly. Every moment not spent explaining or defending his own proposals was invariably dull, but Tom was not keen to become one of the lazy pureblood seat-warmers who only appeared at mandatory sessions, having been born and raised to accept the chair as part of a lengthy inheritance, but none of the responsibilities. That sort of behaviour was to blame for Wizarding Britain becoming the font of ignorance and backwards logic it was today, and once he held the power of both a Wizengamot Lordship and the Ministership, it was one of the first changes he would wrest into being; any of the members who would dissent would not be present to vote, either way. His own Knights’ presence at each session was already mandatory of course, presenting Tom with five votes in whichever direction he chose.

As it was, Tom could count on both hands the Wizengamot members who took a respectable amount of interest in court happenings: Lady Marchbanks, who had not missed a session in forty-one years; Lady Longbottom, who, as far as Tom could discern, had never missed a session since inheriting her seat; Lords Black and Malfoy, whose dutiful attendance had surprised Tom initially, but was now rendered inconsequential; Lady Rowle, who had only raised her wand once that Tom had ever seen, in favour of some middling change to a current law regarding the amount of acreage allotted to Hippogriff farming; Lady Hufflepuff, whose general busybodiness and need to gloat over the unique status of her pedigree–not so unique anymore, with Tom sitting right beside her–required her constant presence; and Lord Doge, whom Tom was fairly certain existed mostly as a spy for Dumbledore, who himself missed a large amount of sessions supposedly due to his duties at the school.

But the Chief Warlock was at the Ministry today, having taken some time from his busy schedule to visit Tom at his office in the morning hours before court was in session. Balancing his roles as both Undersecretary and Lord Slytherin had proven time-consuming but not as daunting as one might expect. Tom fully expected to be able to juggle the Ministryship and Lordship even better, having had a few years of practice.

“Tom,” Dumbledore said warmly, not beholden to the formalities of the court while ensconced in the privacy of Tom’s office.

“Albus,” Tom replied, wondering how the old man would take it. He seemed not to care, whether that serenity was genuine impossible to know. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”

“I was surprised by the serious tone of your letter, my boy,” Dumbledore admitted, clearly fishing, though he didn’t even try to poke around in Tom’s head. It’d only taken him eleven years to learn better.

“It is a serious matter,” said Tom. “And a delicate one. I mean to submit a proposal regarding the granting of asylum to those Wizards and Witches fleeing the continent in wake of the Muggle War.”

“A very fine idea,” Dumbledore nodded. “I regret that I have a class to teach this afternoon, so I will not be there to vote in favour.”

“There will be resistance. Traditionalists who worry over the depletion of resources–especially land. I have a solution for this, of course, one I have been developing since my very first proposal, during which time I did quite a bit of study on the risks magical children face, which led me to some Obscurial studies.”

“Ah,” Dumbledore said, frustratingly aloof. “I see.”

“You did as well as you could, to shield her existence from history, but it was not too difficult to figure out. It will not be too difficult for others.”

“And if I ask you to remove my sister from your evidence?” Dumbledore asked lightly.

“I will say that the right to transparency is a fundamental one,” said Tom, cutting at that idiotic Gryffindor morality like a knife. “Perhaps especially when those in positions of power are involved.”

Dumbledore hummed, calculating, considering every move on the board. Finally, he relented. “Well, if it will serve a higher purpose, I suppose wielding my late sister’s tragedy is permissible. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer testimony given by someone who knew her to be allowed–Lord Doge, if possible. Rather than floating in a pool of statistics.” At Tom’s polite nod, Dumbledore added, “She was a wonderful girl, you know. She performed the most beautiful magic as a child. She understood animals in a way I’ve never seen since.”

“It was horrible, what was done to her,” Tom allowed. Upon the good luck of his discovery–Dumbledore’s sister, the victim of a Muggle hate-crime, an Obscurial, it was so much better than even Tom could have constructed–he had given passing thought to his own experiences in childhood. Had he not had Harry, had his own mind been even a decimal weaker, Tom could have likely faced a fate similar, a thought he did not often have. Of all the reported cases of Obscurials, several hundred had been the victims of exorcisms. It was a fascinating field of study that had unfortunately never been carried through to its full potential. In most cases, the Obscurials were destroyed before they could even be studied, a real shame.

“It was,” Dumbledore agreed. “As it was horrible what was done to you, and to Mr. Potter, and the thousands of children, Muggle and Magical alike, who are traumatised. Your attempts to heal this particular injury are commendable, Tom, truly. I am pleased to be of assistance in that endeavour.”

“You already have been, Professor,” Tom said, injecting a small amount of warmth into the words. Not too much–Dumbledore wasn’t that enamoured of him–but enough to lend credence to the idea that even if Tom had not changed so drastically as to suddenly be a kind-hearted man with delusions of integrity, perhaps his own experiences as a boy had affected him deeply enough to lead him down this particular path, for this particular cause.

In a way, Tom supposed, it had. It had allowed him to see the flaws of Wizarding Britain in a specific light, had allowed him to construct the most viable bridge towards his own vision. For a demographic so quickly forgotten, abandoned, disregarded and trampled over, children–the broad ideal of them, anyway, what they represented; innocence, the future–were a remarkably effective call to arms. To say something was for the good of the children was to say it was for the good of the communal soul.

After Dumbledore finally released Tom from the torment of extended blather–the man could chitchat the Jabberwock to death–he made his way to the amphitheatre, donning the plum robes Bartemius handed him along the way.

“Other planned proposals?” Tom asked.

“One from Lady Withershins, boss,” said Bartemius. “About the legal limit of exotic magical pets that can be kept in one urban residence. Think she’s trying to get herself a thestral calf. Merlin knows where she’ll keep it once it grows. She lives in the heart of London.”

“Salazar’s sake,” Tom shook his head. “Well, that’s no matter. I’ll go first, and then hardly anyone will care about the allowances on the Magical menageries of old spinsters.”

Tom made immediate eye contact with Lord Doge upon entering the court, pleased to find that Dumbledore had already spoken with his old schoolmate, having somehow managed to find the time to pen the man a letter whilst holding Tom hostage with utterly inane pleasantries.

Once the Minister had arrived and the court was called to order, Tom put forth his proposal.

The resistance was immediate and emphatic, as Tom had known it would be, all of it relating to the needless defence of resources, as though they were squirrels scrambling to feed themselves over winter rather than Witches and Wizards capable of conjuring items from thin air. Capable of growing food ready for harvest within minutes, capable of creating water and fire from nothing, capable of creating transdimensional pockets of space in which to tuck homes, safely veiled and separate from the world around them. They had allowed Muggles to infect their mundane fears into the very fabric of their lives without even realising it.

“My esteemed fellow members of the court,” Tom said, utilising his most overtly Lording tone to call the room to heel. “I have spoken before about the dismal path our community’s population is headed down. While encouraging the assimilation of Muggle-borns will help, they make up only a scant ten percent of each generation, hardly enough to heighten us to anywhere close to flourishment. And, while conducting the harrowing research which led to my first proposal, I made two very troubling discoveries, both of which threaten Wizarding Britain as a whole.” At this, he paused to allow for the collective murmuring of shock and dismay before continuing. “The first is the cause for the dwindling numbers of children born to pureblood families–it is not for a lack of trying, or a sense of restraint, as I had at first believed. I’m sure you have all noticed as, over the years, the amount of heirs and heiresses born to our oldest families have grown smaller and smaller. Many stopped producing any at all, resulting in the deaths of entire bloodlines. I have distributed a thorough report on this matter which you may all peruse at your leisure, but summarily, it contains the records of stillbirths and miscarriages experienced by fifty surveyed British pureblood Witches over the course of the last twenty years. You’ll note that, by comparison, the fifty Witches who did not marry into another British pureblood family experienced very few, if any.” It had been difficult information to come by; almost no Witch was comfortable sharing such intimate and, for many, shameful details with a Wizard. But women did discuss these sorts of matters with one another. As Tom had suspected, housewives proved to be very convenient spies.

He gave the court a moment to review the report, which would only tell them what they already knew. Every Wizengamot member was descended from a pureblood line; they had probably grown up witnessing the gradual fading of their kind. “The British pureblood community is even smaller than Wizarding Britain as a whole,” Tom explained patiently. These people were rather infantile when it came to their heritage; he would have to step lightly. “As such, excepting the families who have made a point to marry purebloods from foreign countries, most of these lines have become diluted over time due to inter-marrying, in an attempt to protect the purity of their blood. But in that process, the process being the breeding between people related by blood, genetic mutations occur and are passed down, growing more and more potent, over generations. Eventually, impotency becomes unavoidable. This is an unfortunate fact of biology. The addition of new genetics is vital for survival.” This caused some further disturbance in the form of dissent from the older members, many of whom had probably engaged in some inter-marrying of their own, and did not take kindly to their familial traditions being criticised. Tom quelled them with a hand. “I understand this sounds unreasonable. After all, it has been occurring for centuries. But, Lords and Ladies, you can see the results for yourselves. How many of you only managed one child, despite trying for more? How many of you only have one or two grandchildren? Meanwhile, families with foreign, common or even Muggle blood in their lineage have easily birthed whole broods? You need look no further than Lord Malfoy, whose line traces back to the Roman Occupation of Britain, yet has consistently brought in pureblood spouses from other regions of Europe, and thus has maintained a consistent amount of healthy offspring. Why, he has four sisters to show for it,” Tom added, giving Abraxas a smile, as though congratulating him on his ancestors’ good sense.

“It’s true,” Abraxas said dutifully. “My mother comes from an ancient pureblood line in Aquitaine, who had in turn married into noble houses from Portugal and Spain. I can assure everyone, she never had a problem conceiving.” This received some sparse chuckling from the crowd, beginning to thaw.

“I myself am the grandchild of inter-marriage,” Tom declared. “While I am proud to carry Slytherin blood, I am a Gaunt by birth. As many of you know, the Gaunts were devoted to the tradition of marrying siblings. Indeed, my mother was meant to marry my uncle, who was also her first cousin. I am thankful she chose to break with tradition; if she hadn’t, I would have suffered from the same weakness of magic, mind and body that the rest of the Gaunts did.” He understood the weight of the portrait he presented: Slytherin’s first magically powerful, mentally sound heir in hundreds of years, and all due to Muggle parentage. “Now, I am of course not saying you need to introduce Muggle or common blood into your family lines. But many of the families seeking asylum from the continent hail from houses just as ancient and noble as your own. Surely, welcoming them into the fold would be no great sacrifice, and it would secure the health of your descendants, the continuation of your illustrious names.”

“If what you claim is true,” said Lady Longbottom. “And I’m inclined to believe it is. I remember watching the fall of the Gaunts. Poor Hesper Black tried desperately for a child, and it’s what killed her in the end. Then your proposal makes sense so far as the admittance of pureblood families fleeing the ruination of their homes, of which I imagine there will be relatively few. But this law would grant entrance to anyone with magical blood, a population which could number in the tens of thousands. Where exactly do you mean to put them all?”

“A fair question, my Lady,” Tom granted. “Do any of you know how much of the land in Great Britain is currently being used by anyone?” At their silence, he displayed a second collection of data. “Roughly sixty percent. Did you know, Muggles have curtained off certain parts of this country from their own usage? They are not allowed to touch them, because frankly Muggles are terrible to their own environment. But, with the aid of magic, we can live in such places comfortably while leaving them virtually unchanged. Magic is a part of the natural world, after all. And that’s to say nothing of the unpopulated areas within Scotland and Wales. Do none of you find it strange that Hogsmeade is the only explicitly magical town within Wizarding Britain? Which brings me, of course, to the second threat I mentioned earlier. You have all heard stories of Obscurials, I presume?” A hush fell over the courtroom, which was to be expected; Obscurials had become something of a boogeyman over the years, a nightmare used to scare Magical children into behaving. If you don’t practise your lessons, you’ll develop an Obscurus. Is that what you want? “While not easily studied, unfortunately, they are relatively simple to understand, as what happens when a child’s body is so traumatised their magic lashes out in a last, desperate defence. In the process, the child becomes cannibalised by their own magic, which in turn becomes unstable and uncontrollable, an act of destruction only. In almost every case of an Obscurial, the trauma was caused by Muggles.” He nods to Lord Doge, who nods back grimly.

“Chief Warlock Dumbledore, whose sister became an Obscurial in her youth, has asked me to read the following testimony, so that her experience may be more fully understood and, hopefully, prevented from ever recurring,” he said, clearing his throat before beginning to read from the parchment clutched in his hand. “My younger sister Ariana was, like most children, a wonderful gift. She was remarkably well-behaved, quiet, and kind. She kept mostly to herself, befriending animals rather than people, her magic manifesting such that they seemed to understand her as a kindred spirit. No creature would hesitate to eat from her hand, or spend hours with her in the trees near our home. My family spent our early years in a small Muggle village. We were the only Witches and Wizards living there. One day, while communing with her animals some acres from our house, a group of Muggle boys happened upon Ariana and, witnessing her magic, became convinced she was a Witch, and therefore had to die. They beat her horribly, with stones and clubs, until every part of her body was broken in some way. My younger brother was the one to discover her and fetched my father, who carried her home. We expected her to not last through the night, but due to my mother’s talent in the healing arts, she survived, though she was never cured. Instead, her magic began to slowly consume her, a process that took several years. By the time her Obscurus manifested fully, she had killed my mother, along with another family friend. We had hoped that by caring for her after the attack, she might overcome the trauma, but it was not to be.” Lord Doge cleared his throat a second time before vanishing the letter completely. “I knew Miss Ariana,” he confessed. “Though by the time I met her, she was bedridden and incontinent. I’ve always wished I could have known the girl she was, the sister who was so beloved by her elder brothers. That a group of frightened children could have stolen everything from her in one hateful moment–it’s never sat right with me. The Dumbledores were kind people who helped everyone that they could. They did their best to help Ariana. If an Obscurus could manifest in that household full of love, well, it could develop anywhere.”

“Indeed,” agreed Tom. “More than any Magical beast, more even than a Dark Wizard, Obscurials pose the greatest threat to the Statute, because of their nature. They cannot be contained or reasoned with. They only know how to destroy. There have already been reports from the German Ministry of Obscuruses manifesting within the prison camps. Reports from the Sublime Porte Filistin of Obscuruses manifesting as children are run down by tanks. If the Statute falls in one corner of the world, the rest will begin to follow. The Muggles speak to one another; we cannot afford to look away and simply hope our turn will not come. The risk is too great.”

“Well, Lord Slytherin,” Lady Marchbanks said, after some time spent digesting his words. “Let it not be said that you allow us to plead ignorance. I believe we are ready to vote. All those in favour of Lord Slytherin’s proposal?” Unsurprisingly, after such a lengthy oration, combined with the testimony of the highly regarded Chief Warlock, every wand was raised. “The court will now hear Minister Spencer-Moon’s dissent.”

The Minister had never once offered an opinion during a Wizengamot session since his own first run in the Ministership, during which he had put forward twelve of his own proposals, arguing so voraciously that they all passed with relative ease, and dissented against no less than thirty-six others, forcing them to either face outright dismissal or heavy alterations. Tom had begun to think the man had simply grown tired of the ordeal, content to wait patiently for his second term to draw to a finish before fading back into comfortable obscurity free from politics. But now, he spoke. “I have long held that to change, to evolve, is to survive. Growth is easy for the young, less so when you become old, tired, set in your ways like a stone half-buried in the earth. Perhaps it is time for us old stones to give way to the youthful ones, still rolling down the hill. I have no dissent,” he admitted, turning a glimmering eye onto Tom, who felt strangely gratified by the Minister’s regard, as though he was already handing the ceremonial wand to Tom, no election necessary. “But I do have hope for what this change will bring to all of us.”

Tom, as Undersecretary Riddle, joined the accompaniment team sent to pick up the latest group of asylum seekers–mainly children this time around, fleeing persecution after being ejected from their homeland–from St. Paul’s Cathedral in Muggle London, the most prominent landmark with a nearby Ministry access point. Alongside him were Demetrius Bagnold, the recently instated Minister of Muggle-born Affairs, along with a musician popular with young Witches, and Harry and several of his teammates, fresh from Puddlemere United’s World Cup victory and planning to entertain the shell-shocked children with the distraction of a friendly match, perhaps a spot of accompanied flying.

Harry was crouched down, eye-level with a young girl, chatting about something or other. He was always delighted by children, always eager to sign their brooms or banners at a match, always waving at the gawking brats as he and Tom made a rare venture into Diagon. He was good with Lucille as well, easily pulled into her various fancies, showering her with treats and dramatic gasps at her displays of magic, as though she was his own child and not essentially a small stranger who currently lived in their guest house.

It seemed likely that Tom would be doomed to a life of fatherhood, as Harry clearly couldn’t help himself from adoring them, no matter that raising a child was certain to be a complicated and frustrating ordeal, without even an expiration date. He could only hope Harry would at least want to wait until after his retirement, giving Tom a decade or so to prepare himself for the inevitable annoyance.

He looked beautiful, even as he wasted long minutes pulling ogrish faces for the girl’s amusem*nt, his hair riotous as ever, tucked snuggly into the enchanted cloak Tom had thrown over his shoulders that morning, ordered him firmly to not take it off even once, its velvet folds heavy with protection magic.

Tom hadn’t wanted him to come, though he hadn’t felt strongly enough to cause a row. He was confident that his orders would be followed to the letter. But one should always have a failsafe.

The group having cast a covert head-counting spell and determined that yes, everyone who should be in the alleyway was, was about to move as one thick school of fish towards the access point, when the cathedral gave a terrible groan, like the threat of an angry whale just moments before facing a harpoon ship in battle.

Tom and Harry threw up a web of shields without hesitation, the other adult Wizards around them jumping to follow suit, gesturing for the children, who themselves having recent practice in sudden air raids and things of that nature, quickly huddled beneath the protective umbrella of spellwork. Just in time, too; from the top of the cathedral, the scaffolding being used in repairing structural damage from the War, began to collapse. Screams and thunderous crashing erupted from the main street, though the alleyway sheltering the accompaniment team remained relatively unscathed, save a good deal of dust that enveloped them.

After a cursory check that none of their own charges were injured, the Wizards released their shields. “Muggle construction,” the musician grimaced. “Leaves much to be desired, doesn't it?”

“Indeed,” said Tom. “I recommend we leave off now before anything else tries to fall on us.”

No sooner had he spoken, than the cathedral wall facing them erupted, coughing bricks like teeth from a punched jaw. Harry's shields flared up instantly in response, a Biblical fire of protection, Tom quick to follow him as the other Wizards stumbled over their own spells, children screaming between them as stone and mortar rained down.

This sudden burst of destruction was not so easily laughed away: the musician was sprawled on his backside, nursing a head wound which was bleeding profusely, the children he'd tried to shelter sporting bruises, scratches, and at least one broken arm between them. Bagnold, too, was injured. Tom himself had cast a wide net of protection, mostly over the children closest to him, and in the process had not covered himself as well; a small shard had slit open the thin skin of his cheek, creating a minute leak of blood.

He was relieved to see that Harry, while filthy with dust, appeared otherwise unharmed, with seven or eight perfectly intact, shaken children crowded around him.

Within moments, half a dozen Aurors and field medics cracked into the alleyway, called by the alarms tripped by dangerous cursework, the usual signal of Grindelwald's acolytes at work. In groups of three, the accompaniment team and their charges were Apparated to St. Mungo's posthaste, as the Aurors set about searching for terrorists among the rubble, along with any Muggles who might be in need of Obliviation.

Tom managed to catch Harry's eye only for a second within the crowded hospital, anger tense and hot across his face, before they were separated once again by frenetic healers. Of course Harry assumed everything had gone according to Tom's plan, a plan he appeared to have censored heavily during that morning's explanation. This only further incensed Tom, already tamping down the rage rising within him, frustrated with the Wizards who had either just proven themselves incompetent in the extreme or outright insubordinate. He had not yet decided which would be worse.

Tom felt a blooming warmth from his wand; a direct summoning from the Minister. He took one final glance at Harry, whose attention was currently focused on the same girl from earlier, currently being seen to for shock, and then, heaving a sigh heavy with irritation, left to deliver his report.

Spencer-Moon asked Tom the usual questions before releasing him with a perfunctory job well done and instructions to get some rest before returning to work the next day, their planned presentation of asylum-seekers, meant to endear the public towards the referendum, put on hold until this latest bout of terrorism was dealt with.

Tom could have simply flooed home or, keen as he was to check on Harry, assuming he would remain at St. Mungo's until the last of the children had been released, gone straight there from within the atrium.

But he knew the sea of journalists hoping to interview returning Aurors or witnesses on the attack had only thickened outside, and no matter how awry the plan had gone, it demanded Tom's own commentary if it was to be salvaged. He was swarmed immediately upon stepping through the front doors.

“Undersecretary Riddle! Can you tell us what happened? Was it the work of Grindelwald?”

“Lord Slytherin, any comment on the accompaniment disaster? Will the Ministry be closing the borders?”

Tom raised a hand and waited for the babble to die down. “This morning's terrorist attack could have so easily ended in tragedy, were it not for the fine Wizards and Witches of the Ministry accompaniment team, whose quick shieldwork saved the lives of eighteen magical children. The borders will not be closed, because we, the Wizards and Witches of Wizarding Britain, are not cowards. Instead we will remain steadfast, as we always have, in the face of violence and adversity, and I personally promise that, should I receive the honour of being elected Minister this coming week, my very first priority will be in ending this senseless violence by releasing our heroic citizens from the constraining laws which prevent us from not only defending ourselves, but also acting with finality.

“Murder has been rightfully outlawed even for Aurors, with the assumption that there will always be non-fatal ways to handle criminals. But I would argue–I am arguing–that these terrorists are not simply criminals, and their actions amount to more than law-breaking. They have evaded more merciful techniques for capture for three years, now, returning time and time again to do yet more harm. Today, they attempted to kill more than a dozen defenceless magical children, all of whom have come to our great country to escape the destruction of their own. Many of you know that I grew up in Muggle London. I lived through constant War as a child, and in times of War, everyone is a soldier. I was in Hogsmeade the day Grindelwald tore through the village; I did not hesitate to try to kill him, and I will not hesitate now. This is not simply a time of burglary or unlicensed Apparition. This is a time of War, and the enemy must be vanquished with permanence if we are to ever see peace.”

The crowd's reaction was largely impossible to discern, so overwhelming was the noise, the flashing of cameras, the trembling waves of Witches and Wizards who were not press, but had witnessed Tom's speech and were desperate to respond.

At the Manor, Tom found Harry waiting for him, still a ball of hagsweed, spitting with anger.

“You told me there would be no real danger,” he hissed, once Tom had stepped into the room. “You said nothing but property damage!”

“It appears some of Grindelwald's men took it upon themselves to improvise,” Tom admitted, watching as Harry froze, mouth opened for what was surely to be another round of castigation.

Harry blinked up at him. “You didn't plan it,” he realised. “It was supposed to be only a bit of falling scaffolding, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” Tom frowned. “Someone either purposefully disobeyed me or proved themselves to be unconscionably idiotic. Either way, they will be dealt with.”

“You're hurt,” Harry realised, scowling at the paltry cut on Tom's cheek which he hadn't bothered to waste a healing spell on. It had long since stopped bleeding, leaving only a red line behind. Harry brushed his thumb over the skin beneath it. “You shielded all those kids but not yourself.”

“If I hadn't shielded myself, I would have suffered more than a mere scratch,” Tom scoffed, but Harry only kissed his jaw gently. He'd decided that Tom had sacrificed himself to save half a dozen orphans; there'd be no dissuading him.

“Why shield them at all?” Harry asked. “Surely dead children would inspire more angry voters than children with a few surface wounds.”

Honestly, Tom hadn't been strategizing at the time. He had acted on reflex, which Harry must have read in his expression, because he struck with amorous urgency without even giving Tom a chance to speak.

Harry's mouth opened the gates of Tom's own without pause, his hands palming greedily over Tom's shoulders, the curve of his spine, wrapping under his thighs and then heaving, until Tom was held up in Harry's arms without quite knowing how he had gotten there. Harry's groan burned its way down Tom's throat, and suddenly the world was tipping backwards as Harry bore him down into their mattress–he'd Apparated them upstairs without ever once pulling away from Tom's tongue.

“Mmh,” Harry hummed, leaning up to lick a hot stripe over Tom's wound, reopening it without apology, collecting up sluggish drops of blood. “I love you.”

Tom pushed at him until he was first on his side, and then his back, Tom looming over him, Harry seemingly content to be moved so long as he didn't stop kissing him. Tom felt electrified by Harry's eager touch, the strength of him so easily bowing to Tom's wants, the faint taste of Tom's blood in his mouth. He took Harry's tongue in deep, like a fox leg caught in the teeth of a trap. He wanted to take Harry even deeper into himself, sunk in the cavern of his body with no way out.

Tom stripped Harry's clothes without mercy, neither of them giving care to the sound of cotton tearing, the exiling of buttons lost to impatient fingers. His own clothing he banished to the floor to be dealt with in the morning, his usual routine of cleansing and smoothing charms abandoned in favour of chasing this storm of lightning building between them, sparks practically hissing from the friction of skin. Tom catalogued Harry's body as he exposed it, each firm centimetre of thigh, each padded rib, no wounds to take care of, no injuries hidden beneath flesh flushed with pleasure. His glasses kept skewing with each movement, sliding down that slicked nose, eyes wet and hungry behind smudged lenses.

He looked ridiculous with his hair a spill of ink beneath him, gorgeous with the spread of his body, a feast for each of Tom's senses, his gratifying moan as Tom sank onto him, relishing the burn, the all-consuming proof of conjoinment.

Harry lay stunned underneath him, at his mercy and overjoyed by it, blinking back tears of pleasure. “I love you,” he gasped, hips stuttering to meet Tom's own. “Merlin, I really f*cking love you–”

“Quiet,” Tom ordered, skinned raw enough from physical sensation, he didn't need Harry's incessant blathering on about romance as well.

Harry ignored him, just kept on blubbering, as though each glide of Tom's hips forced more words from his lips. “I love you, Tom, God, I love–I love you, I–”

“Shut up,” Tom glared, raising a hand to Harry's throat in warning, clenching when Harry still refused to heed, strangling away first his voice and then his air, watching, enraptured, as Harry's skin began to shift towards purple, though he never tried to pull away, never even blinked, kept his gaze tender enough that Tom knew, even without Legilimency, that Harry was still saying those words in his head, thinking I love you I love you I love you loudly enough to climb the walls of his own impeachable Occlumency.

Love you, Harry mouthed, the wet glimpse of his tongue shocking Tom to his core, his hand falling away as they each gasped for air.

Harry surged up, collecting Tom into his arms, raining desperate kisses over his chest, drinking his sweat, breathing “I love you,” like prayer, over and over, until it rang like the echo of a bell through Tom's mind, harmonising with his own savage song of org*sm, the involuntary clenching of his body wrenching Harry's from him like pulling a plant from the earth by its roots.

He sat filthy and shuddering in Harry's arms, Harry's hot face buried fiercely against his neck, the dull murmur of his voice lost to the depths of his skin, for a stretch of time that felt endless, the smouldering of a fire burning slow through the night, impossible to put out.

When Tom woke up, he found Harry curled around him like a sprig of ivy clinging to a tree. He slept heavily, face tucked against Tom's neck as if seeking shelter from a storm. Tom wasn't sure how he could breathe like that, but breathe he did, even-keeled bursts of warmth prickling over Tom's skin. When Tom moved even slightly, Harry loosed a small noise in his sleep, grumbling dissent and sharp grief, as though something was being taken from him.

“I have other things to do today besides playing pillow for you, you terror,” Tom murmured, beginning the arduous process of untwining Harry's limbs from his own.

“ I'm Lord Slytherin, future Minister of Magic,’” Harry mocked, though the grogginess in his voice defanged the impression a bit. His eyes remained closed as he laughed into Tom's shoulder before giving it a playful nip of teeth. “‘I have lording and ministering to do.’”

“Well, I do,” Tom pointed out, giving into the inane urge to bring Harry's hand, just now untangled from Tom's own arm, up to his mouth, as though he were some Edwardian genteel and Harry some lady to be courted. “And I suspect you wish to spend the day at St. Mungo's, checking on the little hellions.”

“You suspect right,” Harry agreed, a blush blooming over his face as he stared at his hand, still cupped by Tom's own, knuckles brushing his lower lip. Tom kissed it again and watched the blush darken. Fascinating. Harry could be surprisingly embarrassed by very little.

“Want to come?” Harry asked, grinning at Tom's look of disdain.

“You know I don't.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed, grinning wider when Tom pushed at him.

“So why bother asking at all?”

“Because I love your little scowl,” Harry said cheerfully, leaning up to press a short kiss to said scowl, opening up with a moan when Tom pressed his advantage immediately.

Harry did spend the day at the hospital, as Tom expected him to, visiting first with the children from the previous day's attack, and then it seemed every other child currently in hospital, including a few of what Tom suspected were not sick or injured children at all, but rather random passersby who had seen their chance at a free Harry Potter, World Cup Champion autograph, and, being enterprising little conmen, took it. Tom, by contrast, spent the day traipsing throughout the Ministry’s labyrinth, delivering reports and answering questions and appearing all-around very noble, diligent, and approachable. Exactly as a Minister of Magic should.

It was easy enough to see that the public’s reaction–and those of his colleagues within the Ministry as well–to Tom’s speech following the attack was overwhelmingly positive; citizens were frustrated with the Aurors’ inability to actually stop the terrorists in any meaningful way, their attempts at capture going poorly for years now, without Dumbledore or Harry to simply stumble to Wizarding Britain's rescue. It was as Tom had anticipated: when faced with the shadow of violence, people’s need for a leader with a firm hand on the leash, no matter their youthfulness or relative inexperience, would win out over all.

Tom was not particularly concerned about the election itself. Wilhelmina Tuft, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, was a popular Witch well-known within her field, no doubt about it, but she was altogether too much of a good-natured Hufflepuff to even consider the sorts of under-handed tactics it would require to win. The Wizarding people had grown weary and outraged under besiegement; they would not be voting in a pacifistic Minister this year. Not to mention the influx of new voters which Tom’s asylum act had provided, each of them grateful to the man who had facilitated the safety of themselves and their families.

No, Tom was not concerned, was in fact very confident in his surety that, come the following morning, he would be elected Minister. Which was why he was uncommonly surprised to find connivance afoot in his office on the night of the election.

He’d been alerted by his own wards, of which there were a dozen in all, each more painstakingly crafted and unforgiving than the last. That they had snared this latest interloper was not so surprising; but only the very last ward had alerted him and, upon his arrival, Tom discovered to his dismay that it was because the spy had deftly managed to avoid setting off any of the others, which should not have been possible.

“Who are you?” Tom demanded, scrutinising the man currently strung up and immobilised before him. He was young and wiry as a fox, not more than five years Tom’s senior. Surely he should have recognized him from Hogwarts, if nothing else. “Who do you work for? Grindelwald?”

“‘M not a rat, am I?” the man scowled, though he resembled nothing more than a rat at that moment, shivering, eyes shifting beadily over the room with fear. “Just stumbled in here on me ownsome. Didn’t realise it was your office, governor. Was looking for the loo.”

“My mistake,” Tom said lightly, withdrawing his wand. “I don’t suppose you’d mind, then, a spot of Legilimency to verify. You can never be too careful when it comes to the protection of the State, you understand.” The man blanched and immediately surrendered.

“Tuft!” he shrieked. “Tuft hired me!”

“Wilhelmina?” Tom asked, incredulous. He had never been so wrong in his study of a person’s character before, had gleaned no sense of collusivity from the several times he’d combed her mind in search of this very thing. He was, spitefully, impressed by her duplicity.

“Who?” the man frowned. “Oh! The broad–no, it was Natius.”

Ignatius Tuft, Wilhelmina’s lazy sod of a son, two years older than Tom and a good deal less enterprising, instead choosing to bask in the clover of his mother’s hard work and sterling reputation. That he would choose to hire some pickpocket off the streets in a last ditch attempt to secure Wilhelmina’s victory–almost definitely without her knowledge–by scouring Tom’s office for blackmail material did not surprise Tom at all. As a scheme, it was offensively stupid; as though Tom would choose to bury any proverbial skeletons at his place of work.

“I see,” Tom mused. “And how did you bypass the rest of my wards?”

The man shrugged as well as he could while held upside down by invisible cordage. “‘S what I do, isn’t it? If you’s needing filching, Fletch is best!” He crowed this last point proudly, as though it were the makings of a radio jingle.

“I see,” Tom repeated. “Fletch is your name, I take it?”

“Fletcher,” said the man. “Mundungus s’my Christian name, governor.”

“Charmed,” sneered Tom. “Well, seeing as you’ve committed high treason against the Ministry by breaking into an official’s office for nefarious purposes–which will no doubt fetch a decade in Azkaban, if not more–it seems it falls on me to decide what to do with you.”

Fletcher’s face had paled dramatically as Tom spoke. He now looked very close to fainting. “Call Dumbledore!” he squealed, catching Tom off guard again, which was not to be borne. “Chief Warlock and such, he’ll vouch for me!”

“Vouch for you?” Tom stared. “You’ve already confessed to the crime.”

“He’ll vouch for me,” Fletcher insisted. “He will, you’ll see! You call him!”

Tom was already growing tired of wasting breath on this conversation, irritable at the sudden invoking of Dumbledore, which made very little sense. What could the Deputy Headmaster have to do with the situation, and why was some random larcenist for hire so convinced of his defence? “As it happens, I don’t need to call him, because I’ve decided to release you. No one else need know.”

Fletcher’s face shifted into that of a gormless fish who couldn’t believe its good luck at being tossed back to sea from the netting. “Really?"

“Yes,” Tom snapped. “For a price. I may have need of your talents in the future, and when I do, you will repay your debt.”

“Course I will!” Fletcher cried, indignant at the thought he might have to be forced to return a favour to the man who had only just threatened him with Azkaban sentencing. “‘M not a pettifogger,” said the man currently trussed up after attempted banditry.

“Just so,” Tom smiled, releasing Fletcher from his bonds and watching him collapse onto the floor in a puddle of clumsiness. “It goes without saying that you will never again attempt something like this against me.”

“Too right,” Fletcher nodded maniacally, collecting himself and dusting off his ragged cap, which must have fallen from his head when he was first snatched up by Tom’s ward. “Natius can do his own dirty work. He paid mite, ‘s well.” He gave Tom one last professional nod and then, with a deafening crack, Disapparated straight through the Ministry’s wards with no trouble, yet another impossibility.

The next morning, Tom was elected Minister of Magic, standing alongside Tuft, who congratulated him kindly, Spencer-Moon, who seemed relieved to be passing the torch along, Dumbledore and Lady Marchbanks, who each looked at him as though they were investors finally receiving payment. He delivered a very nice speech to the Wizards and Witches crowded before him in the Atrium, artistically framed by the Fountain of Magical Brethren, which Tom had always felt summed up Wizarding Britain quite neatly. Its plaque could soliloquize all it wanted about the beauty of magical equality, but the proof of its meaning stood clearly in the sculpture itself; the Wizard, nobler and taller than everyone else, the Witch and creatures gazing up at him adoringly, a King and his subjects, not equal at all.

Chapter 8: You See Way Down Inside of Me

Chapter Text

After a day spent celebrating democracy alongside the Wizarding public and then having his new, elevated status keyed into seemingly every single ward within the Ministry itself, Tom hosted his own celebration at the Manor. He sent the Prescotts to the guest house for the day, receiving an easy acquiescence when he instructed that, in no uncertain terms, they were not to enter the Manor until the following morning, not even–perhaps especially not–Lucille, who had the bad habit of slithering about the house after dark in search of anything that might catch her interest. She was an otherwise well-behaved child, and so Tom found it difficult to fault her insatiable curiosity regarding magic. It rather reminded him of himself, and it was, to his mind, a positive sign, that she was eager to replace the grotesque mundanity of her Muggle life with the obvious superiority of magic.

Tom welcomed Grindelwald's acolytes in one by one, giving a particular flourish to Rosier, who sneered but took his arm regardless, digging sharp nails in through his shirt sleeve.

“While I admit your work got the necessary results, the execution left much to be desired,” Tom scolded, tone light and affable–even friendly, one might say. “You went off-script.”

“I knew any student of Gellert's could handle a little improvisation,” Rosier said with a dark smile. Tom's assumption was correct, then; she'd been hoping to kill him with her little unplanned outburst. Unlike the rest of Grindelwald's soldiers, who were happy to march where led like a herd of well-trained sheep, Rosier was a wolf herself, and Grindelwald's most devoted worshipper besides. She would never forgive Tom for slipping into the role she'd been so primed for, being gifted Grindelwald's favour without truly earning it, after she'd given everything for his cause. She despised Tom for this as well, her fellow acolytes obeying his every order like lemmings while refusing to accept her leadership on account of her sex. Tom agreed the mens’ dismissal of her was poor judgement on their part, as she was clearly far more talented than the rest of them combined. But it was his good fortune that she'd been born a woman; far be it from him not to take advantage.

If she had any sense, she'd forget her fallen messiah, doomed to languish in his own prison for the remainder of his lifetime, and throw in with Tom. If she had pledged fealty to him before that fateful morning, he would have placed her in a position befitting of her expertise. But she'd sealed her fate with that little stunt of hers, which could have so easily harmed Tom. Could have so easily harmed Harry.She would die for that.

“I do enjoy triumphing over a challenge,” Tom agreed, gripping her hand over his arm with true menace. “And rest assured Miss Rosier, I always triumph.”

Rosier's eyes narrowed with cat-like temper. “We'll see,” she hissed, face slackening into shock as she peered over Tom's shoulder.

Behind him, Harry had appeared on the stairs. “Will your little party be wanting refreshments?” Harry asked, irreverent. He disliked Tom's guests immensely, but enjoyed playing host too much to restrain himself completely. He'd never once joined any of Tom's meetings after leaving Hogwarts, content that the wards in place ensured Tom's safety within the Manor, but he couldn't help himself from poking his head in, hopeful for an excuse to putter around in the kitchen.

Like a little housewife, Tom thought with sharp affection. “I have it handled,” he said, amused by Harry's small slump of disappointment. He was a tireless dichotomy, a social creature who grew restless when cooped up, a homebody who longed for their bed whenever they went out.

“Alright,” Harry sighed, casting a mournful look towards the kitchen. “I'll be upstairs if you need me.”

“You,” Rosier snapped, releasing Tom's arm in favour of withdrawing her wand, Harry staring at her with shocked incomprehension. “You took him from me!"

“Who'd I take?” Harry asked, ridiculously, completely unconcerned as Rosier did her best to curse him.

It didn't work, obviously. The Manor was impeccably warded and, sensing a threat to its master, promptly evicted the Witch from the premises with an unholy crack.

It was an annoyance; Tom would now have to take care of her at some other time. He gave Harry a look of contrition. “This is why I asked you to stay upstairs.”

“It's my house too,” Harry frowned, the same thing he'd said when Tom had barred him from the main floor only an hour earlier. At Tom's expression, he rolled his eyes, stepping backwards. “I'm going, I'm going. Though I'll admit it's tempting to just walk into the dining room if it means the rest of them will leave immediately.”

“They won't,” said Tom, watching him disappear upon reaching the landing.

In the dining room, he found Grindelwald's men circled around the large table, jovially congratulating themselves on a job well-done. His self-serving charm on the wine bottles had already taken effect, each of them clutching a glass, as expected. It was an excellent vintage.

His own Knights were abstaining, of course.

“Gentlemen,” Tom smiled, taking hold of his glass, waiting at the table's head. He raised it in a toast. “Finally, our true work is about to begin. Long live the emperor.”

The acolytes gave a hearty cheer before drinking heavily from their cups, delighted to begin the campaign towards reinstating their rightful king. Within moments, each glass was dry, the bottles drained empty.

A moment after that, the first of them dropped dead like a fly swatted down from the air.

One by one, the last of Grindelwald's army sank to the floor, collapsed in their chairs, until the room was crowded with corpses. Nott kicked at one body, testing. Not even a twitch.

Tom sat his glass, still full, on the table, studying the liquid, not even the trace of a smell. “This poison is remarkable, Orion. Do give my thanks to your wife.”

“Of course, my Lord,” Orion dipped his head.

“Rastaban, take your brother and Nott to prepare the scene. Abraxas, the bodies will be stored on your grounds until the early morning. I want everything ready by dawn.” As he spoke, Tom set about casting his perfected stasis charm on every corpse before they could become rigid.

“Right away, my Lord,” his Knights dutifully said, dispatching themselves towards his purpose.

Once the Manor was relieved of both dead and living guests, Tom crept up to the master suite, finding Harry awake and waiting for him, blinking from the nest he'd made of the bedclothes.

“Congratulations,” he said softly, curling close as Tom slipped beneath the duvet. “I know I already said it this morning, but I'm really happy for you. I knew you could do it.”

“Of course you did,” Tom murmured, knotting his fingers in a mess of curls. Truly, if anyone could do with a hair-taming spell, it was Harry, but his hair seemed intent on defying even magic, just another piece of him which remained remarkably untamed.

“You're so smug,” Harry complained, though he still surrendered to a kiss. “It's annoying.”

“And yet you cling to me,” Tom pointed out, becoming more smug at the whine Harry let out when Tom began to pull away.

“Well, I have to please my Minister, don't I?” Harry asked, green eyes widening balefully. “I'm a patriot. Got to do my duty, and all.”

Tom hummed, running a hand down Harry's warm flank, digging crescent moons into the skin over his hip. He was naked already, already eager, practically desperate. Tom wanted him desperate.

“On your stomach,” he decided, waving a hand to fetch the switch kept in their wardrobe, gratified by Harry's shudder as he realised what was to come. He shuddered more, harder, as the flexible wood caressed first the nape of his neck, then those broad shoulders, that back twisting with muscle, the firm hill of his buttocks.

Harry gasped at the first strike, not at all gentle, nothing like a warning. It left a harsh kiss on his skin, his groan sinking into the pillow as Tom dug his thumb into the irritated flesh. “Tom,” he sighed as Tom dragged the switch in the valley between cheeks, and then again quickly, leaving a sting behind.

“Don't be over-familiar,” Tom said, whipping a matching wound into the other cheek. “It's Minister Riddle, to you. Or Lord Slytherin, I suppose.”

“My Lord,” Harry hissed, and Tom chose to ignore the edge of mockery to it in favour of the rush of pure lust it sent through his body. He gave two quick whips in reward, relishing the arch of Harry's back in response, his wanton moan. Harry's hips began to grind against the mattress, seeking pleasure, and Tom considered putting a stop to that. “They might call you that. They might think you're their Lord, but they're wrong. You're mine.”

Choice made, Tom gripped Harry's writhing form, unrelenting, dragging the switch through his crease with increasingly fast swipes, until he was sure the normally sheltered skin, so sensitive, was burning, Harry practically wailing beneath him. “You will come from this,” he dragged the switch, a gentle threat, up Harry's spine. “Or not at all.”

Harry spat his own hair from his mouth as he turned his face to smile at him, eyes wet and beginning to glaze. “That depends entirely on you, sweetheart,” he grinned, grinding up against Tom, now, whimpering at the feel of him. “God, you feel good. You always feel so good.”

Tom ducked down to bite a brutal bruise into the back of his neck, letting the harsh wool of his trousers irritate the skin he'd already tortured, and then pulled back, raining strike after strike, lashing after lashing, until spare drops of blood began to erupt and Harry was a quivering mess underneath him, begging wordlessly for release, for mercy, for more.

“Don't stop,” Harry sobbed, so Tom did that very thing. A plaintive fist hit the mattress. “Bastard,” Harry hissed, choking on the sound.

“No longer feeling patriotic?” Tom wondered, squeezing wounded flesh until more blood dribbled out. “I thought you wanted to please me.”

“I do,” Harry cried, stumbling to catch his breath. Tom reached up to catch a tear with his thumb, watching as Harry turned to nuzzle it, sucking it into his mouth, the only part of Tom he could reach.

“It pleases me to have you like this,” Tom purred, rubbing his clothed co*ck where Harry was bloody and bruised. The urge to org*sm was latent and unpressing, the need to push Harry past the brink of his own will much more severe. “I think I'll keep you like this, shaking from the build up of pressure, until I have to leave in the morning.”

Harry groaned, tossing his head back, seeking Tom's mouth. The kiss was more of a bite, heavy with teeth. “Whatever you want,” Harry whispered, skin gliding where his cheeks were wet.

Tom's want was a many-headed hydra. When one was satisfied, another sprouted up in its place. He could have Harry one hundred ways, five hundred, and still never be sated.

For now, he pulled back, pushing Harry's head down until his face was buried in featherdown. He grazed the switch tenderly over the curve of his lower back, down his crease until it was caressing his sack with clear intention. Harry's terrified whine was muffled but still legible. Tom hushed him before the strike.

Harry's org*sm was a wild thing, his whole body shattering with it, his cry gone soundless. Tom tossed the blood-speckled switch to the floor before opening his own trousers, taking his co*ck in hand. He pressed the tip to Harry's hole, still puckered shut, and pushed just inside before spilling, staring at the masterwork of Harry's skin, brushstrokes of scarlet and lurid violet.

He summoned the dittany from their ensuite, applying it with murmurs of consolation as Harry squirmed and shivered, still sobbing from the crash of adrenaline, whimpering from the pain. He was a broken thing under Tom's careful hands, his healing touch. He always broke so beautifully.

“sad*st,” Harry accused, pressing his tear-wrecked face to Tom's chest as they settled.

“Yes,” said Tom, stroking his back.

“Brute,” said Harry. “How do you think the Wizengamot would feel about what you just did to me?”

“If they had any sense at all, they'd be incredibly jealous,” said Tom. “Is that what you want? For the entire Ministry to see you begging underneath me, whining like a dog?”

Harry bit Tom for that, a sharp sting on his collarbone. “No.” His eyes slipped closed, consciousness wrung out of him by pleasure. Next time, Tom thought to himself, he’d make sure the lashes spelled his name, and he wouldn’t heal the marks. “That's just for you.”

“Like this, my Lord?” Alphard asked, once again, apparently incapable of moving a corpse’s little finger one centimetre to the left without seeking Tom’s opinion on its positioning.

“Alphard, I did grant you all a bit of artistic licence,” Tom said, not bothering to look up from his own handiwork. This close to dawn, the alleyway they’d claimed was deserted, Tom and his chosen Knights on their way towards a celebratory breakfast in Diagon before beginning their respective workdays.

Then, suddenly, they were accosted by the last of Grindelwald’s crowd, incensed by Tom’s election–of course, they were forced to defend themselves, at great cost to both the terrorists and the stone buildings on either side of the impromptu battleground.

“I just want it to be perfect,” Alphard grimaced at his corpse, waving the hand back to where it had fallen to begin with.

“Perfection looks manufactured,” said Tom, placing a few last adjustments about the scene before waving everyone on to next steps; namely, the ruination of the alleyway itself and the casting of appropriate spells in expectation of wand-checking.

Of course, Tom hadn’t had the chance to legalise Unforgivables yet, but he was well aware of the truth that everyone else seemed content to ignore wholesale; that there were many other spells beyond Avada Kedavra which enabled killing.

Within minutes of the first blasting curses hurled at the walls from the wands of dead men, shopkeepers and early bird errand runners began to notify the Aurors, who arrived to find Tom and his Knights in various states of injury and disarray, having managed to fully incapacitate their attackers. They were appropriately respectful and awed as they collected up statements, more than a few of them giving Tom heartfelt thanks for putting an end to the terrorists himself, in the words of one Wizard, “As a Minister should!”

As far as first post-election headlines went, Tom couldn’t have been more pleased.

Harry did a great deal of fussing over Tom’s wounds, carefully applied by Abraxas, amusing since Harry knew the battle had been fabricated, dropping his hands, embarrassed, once Tom reminded him.

“I know,” Harry grumbled, still glaring at the minor cuts marring Tom’s face, just enough for appearance’s sake, casting a sloppy healing charm over the whole of him. “I don’t like seeing you hurt, even if it’s for your schemes.” He brushed a thumb against newly healed skin.

“Yet you enjoy making me bleed,” Tom pointed out, gratified by Harry’s blush, his look of contrition, dark lashes fluttering as Tom gripped his neck, the quivering of his throat.

“You like it too,” Harry accused, gasping when Tom’s thumbnail dug meanly into his flesh.

“Very much,” Tom agreed, allowing himself a moment of irresponsibility–he should not give into distraction; he was expected at the Wizengamot within the hour. But Harry’s eyes were wide and dark with wanting, his breath grown shallow, his mouth wet and falling open in hunger. Tom did not doubt that one kiss would slide into dozens, one minute would melt into sixty before either of them came up for air.

“How quickly you forget to be angry with me,” Tom mused as Harry’s tongue made its way over his throat. It had been only hours ago that Harry was arguing over the necessity of execution; he’d staunchly opposed the killing of Grindelwald’s soldiers, wishing Tom had simply tried and imprisoned them, instead.

Harry’s mouth hesitated in its path, though his hands did not release their grip on Tom’s robes, their instinctive petting over his chest, as though soothing him. “They died painlessly,” Harry said quietly.

“And quickly,” Tom assured him, smiling at the kiss Harry bestowed.

“I still think it’s rotten to trick them into following you just to kill them,” sighed Harry, shaking Tom by his robes. “But they killed so many innocents–they killed children. I can’t fault you completely.”

Tom studied Harry as he kissed him, how easily he always relaxed into Tom’s grip, trusting him to manoeuvre him however he saw fit, trusting him to take his weight gladly. His bleeding heart; Tom would never understand the twisting branches of Harry’s interminable morality. But if it pleased him to think Tom capable of mercy, so be it.

Every member of the court was present, eager to hear Tom’s first proposal as Minister, though it seemed none of them had expected him to approach the topic of marriage.

Lady Marchbanks was the quickest to respond. “And on the subject of heirs?”

“Our community has recently become inundated with children in need of new parents,” Tom pointed out.

“You can’t be seriously considering this,” Lord Ogden gaped. “It’s unnatural!”

“On the contrary,” Tom said smoothly. “Until Minister Gamp engendered the law, marriage rites were entirely sexless, applicable to any two people. I am simply proposing the law reflects what is, in fact, natural.”

“The original rites were also ageless,” Lady Longbottom said shrewdly. “Do you also propose we do away with the outlawing of child brides?”

“Of course not. One has nothing to do with the other. My proposal specifies two people of age. Magic has never excluded anyone due to gender. I’m sure the sensible Lords and Ladies of the court will agree that the law should not, either.”

“Well said,” Dumbledore, recently made Headmaster, declared. His expression was unreadable. Tom had been curious to see his reaction to the proposal, his own history with Grindelwald being what it was. “I confess, the disallowing of any adult Witch or Wizard to marry has always bewildered me. After all, what could be more natural than love?”

“I’ve heard enough,” Lady Marchbanks declared. “All those in favour of Lord Slytherin, Minister Riddle’s proposal?” It was the closest vote any of Tom’s proposals had ever received, but in the end, it passed. “The court will now hear Minister Riddle’s dissent.”

“I have no dissent,” Tom smiled. “And, as your Minister, I would be honoured to be the first to put this new law into practice. You are all invited to the wedding, of course.”

During the initial planning, Harry had quickly resigned himself to the fact that the ceremony would be as much of a political movement as it would be his wedding. “As long as I get to marry you, I don’t care how many diplomats attend,” he’d shrugged, which was incredibly gratifying but ultimately unhelpful as Tom pored over the prospective guest list.

Then there was the matter of the rings, which would be imbued with any number of spells as was traditional, though some were less useful than others. Tom explained each and their purpose, ending with the charm which prevented adultery by way of burning each partner’s finger whenever unfaithfulness occurred.

“I mean, you can add it to the pot, but it’s not like we’ll ever experience that,” Harry said, once Tom warned him of the spell’s effects. At Tom’s expression, Harry grinned, leaning close enough to kiss him. “I feel bad for whoever invented that, you know. All those couples who didn’t have what we have, didn’t know that they were the only one each other would ever want.”

“It’s been altered over the years,” Tom told him. “Centuries ago, it would sever the adulterer’s finger completely. Originally, it also curtailed a Witch’s ability to feel lust for anyone besides her spouse.” Such measures were never taken against the Wizard, of course.

Harry’s gaze turned heated. “Well, it’s not like we’ll need that, either.”

It was the most well-attended Magical wedding in two centuries, since Nicholas Flamel’s wedding in Wiltshire. True to his word, Harry made not a single complaint at the number of people, his dislike of such attention overridden by his excitement at marrying Tom. While Tom conducted his duty as Minister, Lord and host, Harry mostly stuck to the comfort of his own guests, classmates from Hogwarts and his brothers.

Some metres away, Slughorn was declaring to anyone who would listen that he’d always known Tom and Harry were much more than dear friends, and wasn’t it heartening to see such long-lasting love being celebrated? Tom politely decided to ignore him; he’d sent a marvellous gift, after all, in the form of a portrait of Salazar Slytherin himself, part of a match-set according to Slughorn’s boasting, which now hung discreetly in Tom’s office at the Ministry.

Dumbledore found Tom then, pleasantly interrupting the German dignitary currently divulging a recent string of attempts to infiltrate Nurmengard. “Minister,” Dumbledore said cheerfully. “Congratulations, my boy. I wish you and Mister Potter every happiness.”

Tom, despite his continuous disdain for the Headmaster, actually believed him. “Thank you, Headmaster.”

Spencer-Moon, too, had felicitations to offer, in the form of a very warm handshake. “You never disappoint,” the former Minister smiled wryly. “I look forward to seeing how you shake up society next.”

But it was Lady Marchbanks’ reaction to Tom’s polite request that she ordain the ceremony which surprised the most. “Never in my life,” she said, shaking her head, far more touched than Tom had ever thought her capable of. “Never did I think I would see a day like this come to pass. Of course I will, child.”

She took the role seriously, giving Charlus a severe look when he fumbled over handing Harry his ring–the Gaunt heirloom he’d worn for years now, imbued with so much of Tom’s magic it slightly glowed.

The rites were ancient and thus less sentimental than Harry might have preferred, but Tom gave him one last surprise in the form of their language, hissed quietly as the magic took hold between them, for no one else’s ears.

“I love you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to Harry’s ring, still warm from spellwork. “I will love you for eternity.”

“Me too,” Harry hissed, not even waiting for the last of Marchbanks’ announcements before throwing himself at Tom. They’d agreed on a chaste kiss, something for polite company, but Harry seemed to have forgotten that part of the plan, instead kissing Tom with every bit of passion usually reserved for their private rooms.

“My word,” said Marchbanks, Charlus laughing riotously, all of it fading away to the feeling of Harry’s mouth against Tom’s, his hands thoroughly ruining the staying charms on his hair.

Harry’s face, upon pulling back, was incandescent with joy, Tom hardly even hearing the announcement introducing them as husbands, the cordial applause of hundreds of guests, all drowned out by Harry’s low voice in Tom’s ear, his whispered “Take me home, husband.”

It was not so easy as all that, of course, Tom obliged to thank everyone important for attending, obliged to offer farewells in place of simply apparating Harry home so he could ravish him. Harry, for his part, played the role of clinging wife desperate to be ravished well, not at all too embarrassed to tug at Tom’s arm whenever he felt the conversation had gone long enough, eagerness turning him shameless, laughing along good-naturedly at the ribbing of guests, taking advantage of their jokes to extract them much earlier than expected.

In short order–though not nearly as short as they might have liked–they were in the Manor, in their bedroom, Harry grasping at Tom with fists and teeth. "Come on," Harry moaned, biting savagely at Tom's lip. "Need you."

Tom had Harry swept across the room, nude and spread magnificently atop their mattress in spare moments, holding the bright green of his gaze, fierce with desperation, as he stalked along after him.

"Sweetheart," Harry cooed, trying for cajoling. But Tom was adamant that tonight would unfurl according to only his whims; he would not succumb to Harry's temptations, pretty though they may be as he flexed his broad thighs, legs shifting over the bed linens, tongue slicking those lips which folded into a beckoning smile. "Husband."

"Yes," Tom said, spelling ropes to lash first one wrist and then the other to the headboard, and then two more for each ankle, drawing those inviting legs just as far as they could spread. He really was fantastically flexible; perhaps Quidditch was good for something after all. Tom ran a lazy hand along the bulge of toned calf, the sensitive flesh of tense thigh, thumbing at the curls crowning flushed co*ck with an air of indifference. "I am your husband. Which means you need to service me, isn't that right? It's my due."

Harry licked his lips, already his breaths growing heavier, stomach pulsing with want. "Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, let me please you. I want to."

"You're pleasing me a great deal now," Tom assured him, casting one final rope, a small thing, tight around the base of Harry's co*ck, drinking in the gargled whine its grip earned. "Your pleasure is not important tonight," Tom explained, as though teaching a young child. "Your body is only for me to enjoy."

"Merlin," Harry swore, head tipping back as he laughed helplessly. "Yeah, okay. Take what you want, then."

"I will," Tom said smugly, finally banishing his own clothes before settling into the warmth of Harry's thighs, his fluttering chest, eyes hot and tender on Tom in the liminal light of dusk. "I won't stretch you. You don't need it. Your body wants me that badly, wants to welcome its master home."

"God," Harry cursed, head lurching up impotently, not near enough for what he wanted, desperate to have his mouth on Tom's. "f*ck, just take it, please, take me–"

True to his word, there was no reprieve of preparation before Tom's slow thrust inside, coaxing Harry's hips into a lethargic rhythm, nowhere close to enough for either of them to org*sm, but that was the point. Tom luxuriated in Harry's babbling, his head rolling from side to side as he struggled to bear the tease, the wall barring him from release.

"Hush," Tom purred, smiling down at him with true menace. He wanted to shatter Harry like a priceless mirror, only to pluck him up piece by piece and fit him back together, brittle and serrated. "You can only have what I give you. But that's more than enough. You're grateful for it."

"I am," Harry said, gasping, writhing within his limited range of motion, following every inch of Tom's co*ck as it fed at the trough of his body. "I love it. I love you."

"You do." Tom's hand caressed Harry's hip, his muscular buttock, before slipping down to thumb at his hole. "How much?"

"Enough," Harry gritted, even as his eyes widened with just a bit of fear. He bared his teeth, never one for cowardice. "Do it."

Tom wormed his finger in alongside his co*ck, an intense sensation, watching with fascination as Harry's entire body locked into one tense line beneath him, around him, in an involuntary clench.

"f*ck," Harry whined, gaping like a beached fish in the throes of suffocation. "f*ck, Tom. Do you feel it?"

"I do," Tom admitted, letting his finger slide out and then back inside along his co*ck. "You're magnificent. You take it so well."

"You–" Harry laughed brokenly and then burst into tears, sobs indistinguishable from moans of pleasure like juice dripping from a burst plum as Tom rode him straight to the peak he could not crest. "I love you."

"And I you," Tom said, emptying inside him. His finger was as wet as his co*ck when he withdrew, raising it to Harry's mouth, watching him lap at it like a cat as tears flooded his cheeks. Tom removed the band from his co*ck with a wave and watched as it spilled passively, fluid leaking from its tip as though it were crying too, Harry's groan of completion tight with agony.

Tom leaned down to study the imprint of the rope, its bite having left a purpling bruise around tender skin. He put his mouth to it, curious about the texture, and then ran his tongue along the track, cruel against the chafing. Harry continued to make his pained sounds as Tom worked, coaxing one more pitiable burst of spend, accompanied by a whimper so high-pitched that surely only dogs could reliably hear it.

Now satisfied, Tom moved back to study Harry's face, dark and wet, kissing him too deeply for Harry to catch his breath properly.

"You bastard," Harry laughed, belied by the fact that upon his total release, he only clutched Tom even closer. "You know I hate crying."

"Mm," Tom hummed, licking up the tears in question. "But you're very good at it."

Harry scoffed into his mouth, and then moaned, folding their tongues together tiredly, lips nearly slack with total submission. "I'll be lucky if I can sit down at all this week," he murmured, licking plaintively at the roof of Tom's mouth. "Which I know is what you wanted."

"Your agony is breathtaking," Tom agreed, drinking the laugh from his mouth. If Harry truly didn't enjoy the pain, he would simply heal it himself. But Tom knew he liked the soreness, the evidence of what Tom had done to him.

"Weirdo," Harry said affectionately, running a hand through Tom's hair before pulling his head down to nest at his throat. "I love you."

"I'm aware." Tom pressed a kiss at the bulge of his apple, that delicious bite of sin. "They probably heard you wailing it from the guest house."

Harry gave an impertinent pinch to his backside. "Bastard," he muttered, but there was a grin in his voice.

Tom's new Marriage Act as well as his enormously public marriage to another man was begrudgingly well-received by the general public, the main consensus seeming to be that if Wizarding Britain was to be run by a poofter, at least he was a descendent of a Hogwarts Founder (in the words of pureblooded families) and at least he was Wizard enough to put a firm end to the terrorists (in the words of more common Witches and Wizards). And, if the Minister of Magic had to have a husband, at least he was a World Cup-winning Quidditch star, who had helped take down Grindelwald, himself. In the days following the wedding, there were many Prophet headlines which amounted to “These hom*osexuals are still respectable in spite of their hom*osexuality.”

Harry was equally chagrined and pleased by the articles, taking offence to the idea that other hom*osexuals might be deemed unrespectable by virtue of their lesser accolades or blood status, but hopeful that his and Tom's good standing might pave an easier path for them in the long run.

He became more tender towards Tom during this period, kissing him sweetly, saying such ludicrous things as “You've done so much for others, you know,” and “You've already made such a legacy, I'm so proud of you, I’m proud to be your husband,” despite knowing full well that Tom had never once cared what sort of impact his own actions might have towards hom*osexual Witches and Wizards at large. He was not even himself a hom*osexual; should Harry have been born a woman, they would have stood where they now did regardless.

But when Tom pointed out this irrefutable fact, Harry only kissed him again, smiling, and said “I know, love. I'm still proud of you, though.” It seemed Tom would suffer Harry's pride no matter what.

Harry's interest in the opinions of the public at large paled in comparison to the opinion of the Prescotts, which he seemed to dread remarkably, a fear Tom could not comprehend; it hardly mattered how they felt about things, so long as they had the good sense to keep it to themselves and continue working diligently. And if they proved unsensible, he would simply have them removed and replaced.

It would result in the loss of Lucille, which would be regrettable–she had become something of a student to Tom, and Harry delighted in her presence–but then, there were other homeless children to keep Harry occupied with.

In the end, Harry's worries proved unfounded, as ridiculous as Tom had assured him they would be, even as Harry demanded his presence during the conversation, which Harry had begun by blurting out that he and Tom were now married before turning a humiliated shade of plum.

“You mean you weren't already?” Mary asked, surprised by the revelation, as Edward patted her hand and turned a pitying eye onto Harry.

“Congratulations, son. And don't you worry about us thinking any which way on it. I myself was in the navy during the War, and Mary–why, she's got seven brothers! It's all a numbers game these days, isn't it?” None of which made any sense at all, of course, but Tom thanked them both regardless, content to know that at least this waste of an hour would settle Harry's nerves.

Tom's Knights were too well trained to show any visible disdain at the news, but when Tom remarked on the somewhat surprising lack of reaction at all, Abraxas said only “My Lord, we've assumed as much since fifth year. He was your Chosen, after all.” Tom, in a display of rare generosity, chose not to point out that the Knights, more often than not, were astoundingly short-sighted, so of course he would never expect them to glean things of such subtle nature.

Tom could not spend much time luxuriating in his new marriage; his obligations as Minister were too vast, the most pressing being his meeting with the Muggle Prime Minister, a man he’d met a scant few times as Undersecretary but had never directly spoken with. Clement Atlee was, for a Muggle, a surprisingly capable and attentive man, with a sense of quiet humility that lent itself to the image of a porter or secretary rather than the leader of an Empire. They spoke briefly of their time in London during the War, which Atlee was surprised to learn, his knowledge of Wizarding Britain being what it was, having thought all Witches and Wizards were divested entirely from the Muggle world, untroubled by Muggle warring.

“On the contrary,” Tom explained, “We share the earth, simply inhabiting separate spheres of it which coexist. It is why I intend to have Muggle weaponry studied so more comprehensive defensive spells might be developed, for which your assistance would be appreciated. Far too much magical blood was also spilled by the Germans.” He did not divulge that their own War had resulted in just as many, if not more, Muggle deaths, or that he would be ensuring the devisem*nt of much more than defensive spells to be used against Muggle militaries; that Wizarding Britain had gone so long without a standing army was an insufferable oversight.

Atlee was amenable to the idea, but much more interested in Tom’s Asylum Act, had apparently been considering something similar for his own people, in an attempt to repair the shattered remains of Britain’s economy as well as atone for what he saw as the Empire’s misdeeds in southern and western Asia, an ideal Harry would no doubt agree with, even if Tom didn’t much see the point. If a people were strong enough to defend themselves, they wouldn’t be conquered in the first place.

The Muggle was also fascinated by Tom’s recent Marriage Act, had been informed of the news by the Ministry of Magic’s Muggle Britain liaison. “It’s heartening to see,” Atlee admitted. “I doubt I’ll see even a reforming of sex laws within my lifetime. Now, my wife will never forgive me if I don’t ask, but what of women’s suffrage in your world?”

“There has never been a suffrage movement among Witches that I’m aware of,” Tom answered. “The first female Minister of Magic was Artemisia Lufkin, in the eighteenth century.” It was a bit misleading; Witches had, of course, never held quite the same status as their male counterparts. For every Witch in office, there were eleven Wizards, societal regulations rather than laws doing much to keep them in the realm of the home rather than anyplace more ambitious. But Atlee clearly saw Wizarding Britain as an idealistic haven, a goal to reach towards, and there was sense in encouraging such a perspective.

All in all, Tom considered his meeting with the Muggle Prime Minister a success. The man clearly thought of Tom as a fellow Platonist, which worked in Tom’s favour. Idealists could always be easily seduced by a handful of pretty words, pretty actions which seemed Romantic in the right lighting. As a Muggle, Atlee was particularly vulnerable, his many thoughts exposed to the elements and ripe for Tom’s plucking. He would always be able to tell the man exactly what he wanted to hear, the map laid out towards whatever Tom wanted.

There were other necessities in need of Tom’s attention, of course; the Ministry, and therefore Wizarding Britain as a whole, was deeply in debt to the Goblins, by virtue of Gringott’s essentially existing as the country’s entire economy, the only bulwark against another economic bubble, in the hands of not the Wizards who earned and utilised the currency, but instead left entirely up to the whims of Goblins, whose distrust and disdain towards Wizards was famous. The inner workings of Gringott’s, moreover, was frustratingly opaque, nearly every Ministry record on the bank either unsubstantiated, incomplete, or theoretical, such that they could hardly be deemed records at all.

There was also the matter of the Department of Magical Warfare, which Tom instituted and then curated and now must oversee, its creation not nearly so controversial as it might once have been, not after the witnessing of two coinciding Wars on separate fronts.

As Tom orchestrated his various political machinations in the months following his election, Harry devoted his own time to Aisha.

Tom was not surprised when his husband, mere weeks after their wedding, sat him down and carefully pitched the idea of adoption. Tom had noticed, however peripherally, Harry’s constant distraction, his daily visits first to St. Mungo’s and then the recently constructed Wizarding orphanage where parentless Magical children awaited delegation. The bond he’d formed with the small girl from the attack on St. Paul’s had been swift and unimpeachable; it was only a matter of time before he brought her into their home.

“Just so long as she doesn't expect paternity from me,” was Tom's consensus on the matter. “You could do with something to keep you occupied during the off season, now that I'm busy.”

“You talk such crap,” Harry said fondly. “But I've seen how you are with Lucy. You have tea parties.”

“I allow her a bit of tea during her lessons,” Tom frowned. While it was true he'd taken a personal interest in Lucille's Magical edification–someone had to do it, after all. He was hardly going to allow any ward of his home to enter Hogwarts ignorant–it certainly wasn't a sign of affection. It was simply practical. “It's hardly a party.”

“Whatever you say,” Harry said, giving him a knowing look, though there wasn't anything to know.

Aisha came to live with them the next day.

She was a quiet girl, though not timid, as introspective as Lucille was endlessly curious. Unlike Lucille, whose mind was a constant rambling of thoughts like a freshwater brook, Aisha's mind was an impenetrable fog, perhaps a sign of innate Occlumency, like Harry's, perhaps the reason he'd felt so drawn to her to begin with, even more than their shallow similarities in appearance. She could, at first glance, be mistaken as Harry's by birth.

It was just as likely, though, that this was simply another facet to the type of magic Aisha had been taught from a young age, different from the sort found in Britain, more conducive to the elements, hardly necessitating any tools at all. Aisha could control the temperature of a room with ease, but her few attempts at using Tom or Harry's wand yielded little results, though Tom conceded that might have to do with the difficulty of navigating language; she was still learning English, and most spells were a bastardised form of Latin, clumsy block towers constructed by Mediaeval children.

Mary and Edward were kindly towards her, as Tom had suspected they would be, as most parents in his experience tended to act parental even towards children that were not their own, though of course there were exceptions–Lady Potter, for instance, who had not been maternal even towards her biological son, and of course Tom’s own father. Lucille, for her part, appeared mostly delighted to have a partner in her childly exploits throughout the Manor, even if said partner was mostly silent.

Harry, though, became a besotted creature. Tom had expected a great deal of doting to come from him, but he was a bit taken aback by the instant ferocity with which Harry took to fatherhood, referring to Aisha always as his daughter–as his and Tom’s daughter–never their ward.

He even took off the first few weeks of the new Quidditch season to help with the girl’s acclimation, though it hardly seemed necessary, Aisha being a particularly self-reliant child, never hesitating to simply summon food when she was hungry, or keep herself occupied. She was, all told, quite bearable; Tom often found himself forgetting she was even in the room, too still and quiet to prove a distraction.

On one such occasion, Tom finally glanced up and noticed her, perched across the study, only once he began to stop shivering, the cooling evening air suddenly gilt with a bit of warmth. He found her studying him, looking for his reaction no doubt. “Were you cold?”

“You too,” she said, her English still quite simple, even with her daily lessons with Harry and constant onslaught from Lucille.

“Yes,” Tom agreed, tidying the Department of Mysteries reports he’d been analysing and sending them off to his office with a wordless wave. “It can get very cold here in the later months. Your homeland was quite warm, wasn’t it?”

Aisha tilted her head in thought, likely translating his words before parsing their meaning. “Cold at night,” she said slowly. “Cold in tall earth.”

“Mountains,” Tom corrected. He did not actually know much at all about the country she’d come from, beyond the war-torn headlines he’d briefly glimpsed in Muggle newspapers. It was supposedly still under British control, though for how much longer, he could not guess; Atlee had seemed eager to relinquish it back to the natives, or else some new batch of Europeans.

“Cold water,” Aisha said decisively. “And sweet.”

“They taught elemental magic there?” Tom prodded, settling back to sate his curiosity. He'd been meaning to have Aisha show him some of her spellwork, wanting to get a sense of her abilities, her potential for more. “Magic of the earth?” Long before Britain became a country, her Witches and Wizards also utilised a kind of elemental magic, more attuned to the world around them. Most spells and rituals from that history before history had been lost to time; that there existed, in some other part of the world, something similar at the present moment was a fascination all its own.

“Of God,” said Aisha. “Who is earth, and air, and water.”

Tom’s disappointment to find this alluring type of magic inextricably linked to religion was short-lived. He would simply train Aisha out of such nonsense, directing her to show him what she could do, mentally noting how best to teach her. Lucille worked best if praise and esteem were dangled as a possible result. She was also highly susceptible to bribery, which worked just as well for Tom, her tastes being as simple as they were. But it would not be the same with Aisha; she required a deeper understanding.

“You like her,” Harry smiled, having spent long minutes indulging in Tom’s deciphering of their new ward. “Knew you would. She reminds me of you when you were her age. Not as mean as you were, though.”

“I was not mean,” Tom said mildly. He’d always known how others saw him, especially as a child. It had never bothered him until Dumbledore, until suddenly he could recognize the virtues of presumed good behaviour. Still, he had never mastered the art of appearing kind .

“You were,” Harry teased, tugging Tom’s arm around him as they settled into bed. “You were a bully.” He shuddered and squirmed away as Tom’s hand slithered under his pyjamas. “Tom,” Harry scolded. “Aisha’s room is right next door.”

“Are silencing charms beyond you now?” Tom mused, refusing to release him. Harry could fight him off if he truly wanted to escape; that he didn’t was an acquiescence in itself. “You’re a fool if you think I mean to never have you again while she’s under our roof.”

“Not forever,” Harry groaned, moving into Tom’s touch even as he tried to deny him. “Just until she’s settled. What if she needs us during the night?”

“She won’t.” Tom kissed his neck, shucking his own clothing with a wordless spell.

“Tom. I said no.” Harry tensed as Tom ignored him, tugging at pyjamas until his bottom was completely exposed.

“You also said I’m mean,” Tom pointed out, thumbing at his hole until Harry was biting down on a whine. “A bully, that’s what you called me.”

“You are,” Harry hissed, shivering as Tom sank into him, too quick, too dry, too painful, shivering more as Tom reached around to coax his co*ck into hardness. “You’re going to force me even though I don’t want it.” The accusatory tone to his voice was defanged by his hips, moving to match Tom’s rhythm of pleasure.

“You don’t know what you want,” Tom murmured, punctuating it with a bite to Harry’s neck, sucking a bruise into existence as Harry moaned and writhed beneath him.

“Stop,” Harry gasped, making a noise of outrage as Tom withdrew from him completely, drawing up onto both knees. He grasped Harry by one hip, curling an arm over his shoulder, around his chest, bringing him upright against Tom’s chest, and pushed back in. “Merlin,” Harry swore, shifting back against Tom’s co*ck, forward into his hand, restless and eager.

“I won’t stop,” Tom assured him, forcing the motion, watching, enraptured, as he sank in and out of Harry’s body in increments.

“I know.” Harry turned his face, pleading, mouth sliding against Tom’s with a moan. Neither of them had cast a single silencing charm, and Harry had always been terrible at muffling himself when he became lost to pleasure, loosing long, broken sounds with each thrust. He flung his head back over Tom’s shoulder as he came, gasping wide-eyed up at the ceiling, clenching over Tom’s co*ck like a firm fist, practically wringing every drop out of him, until it spilled messily between their thighs.

“You're a nightmare,” Harry said, voice hoarse–had he been shouting? Tom couldn't remember, those last moments blinding each of his senses with pleasure, still warm where it leaked from Harry's body. “You are a bully. The meanest.”

“Yes,” Tom agreed, placing a tender kiss on Harry's throat.

If Aisha overheard their lovemaking, she didn't show it the next day. Even if she were to, Tom doubted very much that it would scar her in whatever way Harry worried it might; she was far too sensible for that. She must have had parents at some point, and presumably they were not celibate before being killed by some Muggle tank.

“They were killed by the settlers,” Harry said sadly, when Tom thought to ask how Aisha had been orphaned. He did consider asking the girl herself, but should she do anything like cry, he would have found it trialling. “They demanded her family give up their home, and Aisha's father refused. So they killed him, along with his wife and his brother, his brother's wife, their children. Aisha was the only one who survived. She'd hidden in a cupboard.”

“Were they Muggles?” Tom wondered. He'd assumed Aisha was a pureblood, given her breadth of magical knowledge.

“I don't think so. She didn't understand what non-magical meant. I think the Prescotts are the first Muggles she's ever really known. You should ask her these questions, it might do her good to talk about them.”

“I have no interest in watching her wallow over the dead,” Tom dismissed the thought entirely. “It will be better if she moves on quickly.” Harry was clearly displeased by this assessment, and Tom dismissed that as well.

That Aisha's parents were magical yet had died at the hands of Muggles, in some sort of execution, was nearly incomprehensible. But then, they seemed to practise a different kind of magic, perhaps not lending itself to defence. Aisha herself could bend the wind and trees on the grounds to her will, but struggled to cast a simple unlocking charm. She still preferred wandless magic, something she'd need to be trained out of, as she'd be expected to use one while at Hogwarts.

Lucille was quick to refer to Tom and Harry as Aisha's fathers, something which delighted Harry and made no significant impact on Tom, though Aisha herself called them only by their first names for her first two years at the Manor.

It made for quite an awkward moment with a Prophet journalist who, upon accosting their family one day in Diagon Alley, asked Aisha with a saccharine tone, as though speaking to an infant and not an intelligent girl of eight, how she liked living with her father, the Minister, only for Aisha in her even-keeled way to say “My father was shot in the head.”

“Serves him right for coming up on her like that,” Harry had said hotly, Tom privately agreeing while hiding his own amusem*nt at the ordeal, giving an appropriately grave statement on the importance of respecting the trauma many magical children experienced before finding their way to the haven of Wizarding Britain.

The journalists themselves became even more of an annoyance than Tom had already found them. His residential address was, of course, confidential, and Little Hangleton would hardly be any Witch or Wizard's first guess, but should they happen to step foot into Diagon as a family, they immediately found themselves surrounded by flashing levitating cameras and the flinging of desperate questions. A photograph of Tom, Aisha and Lucille watching Harry's match from the family box seats made the front page, ahead of news of Durmstrang fending off the Muggle Soviet Union, whose leader seemed determined to weaponize magic in his petty war against the Americans.

The fascination with his family–in no small part because of his husband, both the fact that he had a husband at all and that Harry had managed to net Puddlemere two World Cups in a row–was nauseating. Tom had never had much respect for the field of journalism, but he was becoming convinced it truly did cater to the dregs of society.

“What did you expect?” Violetta asked, when Tom, with fresh irritation, relayed that morning's accosting while placing an order for newly tailored dress robes. “Every Minister's family gets treated as half celebrity, half curiosity–and yours is twice as famous and curious as most. It doesn't hurt that you're all so photogenic, even if Harry has no idea what to do with his face once a camera's on him.”

This was true enough, though as Tom's public relations manager–and, by extension, Harry's–Violetta Castlinger was an old hand at ensuring no unflattering photograph of Tom or his family ever saw the light of day. It was likely the facet of her job which kept her the most busy, Harry's instinctual expression towards unexpected cameras resembling that of a startled prey creature suddenly ensnared by the beams of a motorcar. She herself had been a journalist of some notoriety for several years before Tom first approached her with the offer of a more prestigious and exclusive position; she, of course, had considered her first editorial, after Grindelwald’s attack on Hogsmeade–less of an exposé on Tom and more of a scathing critique of Dumbledore–only one in a series of articles under her name, nothing very remarkable. But Tom had never forgotten it.

“I suppose I believed the Minister of Magic and his family would be treated with some modicum of respect, rather than a carcass to be torn at by hyenas,” Tom said mildly, to which Violetta snorted.

“That is respect–that’s the secret of journalism, your Ministership; we’re all hyenas.”

“Well then, as my chief hyena,” Tom decided–journalists often proved, in his estimation, far better investigators than Aurors– “I’d appreciate it if you turn your attention onto your fellow scavengers. I wish to know the name of every skeleton in their closets.”

Violetta, a pureblood through and through, wrinkled her nose at the Muggle idiom. “I doubt they’ve actually killed anyone.”

Tom sighed. “Their crimes, Violetta. Their mistakes, their shameful secrets. Find them.”

Violetta’s look of confusion evolved into a smirk. “That I can do. You want them published?” She had many friends at the Prophet, and her proximity to Tom meant that anything she wrote saw a quick turnaround in the paper.

“Not yet.” After all, the true strength in armament lay in the tension it held, the constant threat of the bomb, the fear in living beneath its shadow.

As irritated as Tom was by the scavenging of journalists, it was nothing compared to the meteoric outrage evoked within Harry, so explosive it caught even Tom off guard. Through his years in the spotlight, Harry had only ever felt muted disdain towards the press, if that, but one too many commentaries on the girls set fire to his apathy.

“I’ll Crucio the bastard,” he declared, spittingly angry, as though he were a street cat defending its alleyway. “I swear to God I will.”

The article in question committed two sins, in the form of disparaging the Minister and his partner–the word emphasised needlessly, as though to invalidate their marital status–for choosing to treat an unorphaned mudblood as though she were their child, as evidenced by Lucille’s presence at Aisha’s side on several public outings. It was unclear if the author–a Mister Polark Cabbel-Ushtey, a relatively young pureblood from a common pureblood Scottish family–was disquieted by the favouritism shown towards Lucille because she was a mudblood or because he thought it a shameful attempt to steal her away from her biological parents, an absurd accusation given the Prescotts’ constant and appropriate gratitude towards Tom and Harry for explaining the magical world to their woefully uneducated daughter. He did call her a mudblood, but while the term Muggle-born had become more common in polite society, mudblood was still used regularly even by people who weren’t strictly blood purists. Cabbel-Ushtey cast even more suspicion on Tom and Harry’s fitfulness as parents by highlighting Aisha’s relatively childish grasp on English, though her progress with the language was well above the average, something even Tom had found impressive.

“You’ll condemn me to single parenthood so quickly?” Tom asked, amused by Harry’s wrath, finding it delightful as ever, even if it only seemed to rear its head for the most ridiculous of reasons. “It’s a toothless article meant to enrage us to the point of stupidity.”

“It’s working,” Harry snapped. “He called Lucy a mudblood. He called Aisha stupid! Can’t you make it illegal to insult children in the papers or something?”

“It would hardly be appropriate for a democratic leader to wage war on the freedom of the press,” Tom explained, biting back a smile as Harry’s glower darkened.

“Since when are you an appropriate democratic leader?” he grumbled. “Take him to your little island, then.”

“Is that what you want?” Tom asked, sliding a hand beneath Harry’s hair, grown long and wild after months without a trim, thumbing at the smooth skin of his neck. “For me to be your collared beast, to spill blood whenever you call for it?”

“What I want is for you to care about your daughter," snapped Harry, shaking free of Tom’s grasp.

“I am not her father,” Tom reminded him, tightening his grip on his patience. Harry had agreed not to hold Tom to any ridiculous paternal standards; he was to be the girl’s legal guardian, nothing more.

Harry, perhaps seeing the coming battle was not one he would win, simply scoffed and disappeared, likely in search of the girls to offer them needless comfort; it wasn’t as though they would be reading the article, anyway, being too young to have any real interest in the goings on of the outside world. Tom had, of course, sat them down on several occasions to discuss what they were allowed and disallowed to say and do in public, given how public he was, and his family by extension, but they hardly cared about or even understood politics beyond the vague notion that Tom was some sort of magical Prime Minister and therefore other people were curious about his personal life.

That Harry would assume Tom had no plan of retribution could only stem from his blinding emotions, Tom told himself, teeth grinding as he withheld from storming after his husband and demanding the fight Harry had so carelessly ignited. He contented himself with a visit to the island, where he could lash out with abandon and, when that failed to soothe, spent the rest of the sleepless night working on his more backstairs pursuits; there were spells to be tested against Muggle weaponry, and Muggle military officials to be interrogated and then disposed of. The Goblins, as well, had to be dealt with in a more subtle fashion, their intellect requiring a scheme even Tom found quite difficult to design. If they weren’t such inherently disturbing creatures, Tom might be able to admire their cunning.

Still, Tom was glad he managed to keep himself distracted rather than see the row with Harry through; his temperance was well-rewarded the following morning, when Harry saw Violetta’s unbarred rebuttal in the Prophet, which displayed in exacting detail each of Cabbel-Ushtey’s many failings not only as a writer but as a Wizard, throughout his short, miserable life. That he would never again be published beyond perhaps by some little-known tabloid was a given, though Tom doubted very much that he would even try. Violetta was very good at what she did, especially when well compensated.

Tom could practically smell the apology wafting off of Harry in waves, when he crept up behind him, throwing both arms around Tom’s shoulders, nuzzling his face into the curve of his throat. “‘M sorry,” he whispered, punctuated with a kiss. “I should’ve known better.”

“You should have,” Tom agreed, not yet feeling forgiving. He wanted Harry to beg.

Harry flattened a palm over Tom’s heart, smoothing his other hand down his stomach. “I love you,” he kissed him again, and then a third time. “You’re a good dad.”

Tom frowned. “I’m hardly–”

“You are,” Harry interrupted, completely failing at seeking forgiveness. “You have tea parties with the girls. You spoil them, don’t think I don’t notice your little bribes. You take care of them, protect them–that’s all fatherhood is, you know. They never have to question going to you if they need something.” He forced Tom to turn, leaning up until his smile pressed against Tom’s mouth. “You’re a good dad. A good husband.”

“And yet you doubted me,” Tom pointed out. “You were not a good husband yesterday.”

“I know,” Harry agreed, sinking to the floor, shouldering his way between Tom’s legs, nosing at his co*ck, beginning to wake within his trousers. “I should make it up to you.”

Letting Tom f*ck his face was a good start towards earning his way back into his good graces; even better was the picture he made after, face stained in tears and come, screams silenced by magic as Tom etched bruise after bruise into flushed and trembling skin.

“Everything you have, you have because I gave it to you,” Tom hissed, biting through the thin skin over his hip, lapping at the trickling of blood. “I gave you your home. Your ring. Your child.” He pulled back to find Harry nodding tearfully, glazed eyes aimed at the ceiling as he threw his head back with a soundless wail, Tom’s hand vicious around the base of his co*ck, strangling Harry’s pleasure in its crib. “I think I’d like to hear some gratitude.”

He tore the silencing charm away in time to hear Harry’s sobbed “Thank you, I love you–” The melody of his gulping breaths, his stammering Parseltongue. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“When you come, it is because I allow it,” Tom murmured, releasing Harry’s prick, watching as it quivered pitifully through org*sm.

“You forgot something,” Harry gasped, still catching his breath, curling exhausted limbs around Tom, clutching him close enough to kiss. “You make me happy,” he sighed, mouth lazy with satiation. “Everyday.”

Tom tried to envision some parallel life without the man currently underneath him, eager to love him, eager to have him pressed close, eager to carry every marking Tom saw fit to give him. In that life, Tom might hold just as much power–perhaps even more, perhaps even the most enviable strength of immortality. He might not be as limited, beholden to another’s whims, chained by the consideration of someone else’s happiness alongside his own. He might even be content.

But he would not hold within him the bone-deep satisfaction that could only come from knowing he was loved beyond barrier, beyond condition. And not only loved but understood, trusted, cared for. It was, he suspected, the closest to happiness someone like him was capable of having.

As though wading through Tom’s thoughts, Harry sighed, pulling him further against him, as though Tom might be able to sink into his skin. “Want you closer,” he mumbled, even as he successfully buried his face in Tom’s neck.

“Any closer and we’d be indistinguishable.”

Harry sighed at the thought, and Tom could envision that too, though realistically it would prove too inconvenient; instead, perhaps, a piece of himself, carved and then stored within Harry for safekeeping, so Tom would forever be inside him, no matter where he went.

Tom didn’t have to kidnap Cabbel-Ushtey–or have him delivered–to the cave. He did not have to physically impart upon him the destruction which Violetta had so deftly caused with the written word. And he did not need Cabbel-Ushtey’s death or disappearance in order to prove the point Violetta’s article demonstrated to others like him; that criticism of Tom, as Minister, were allowed, even encouraged to a point–the most well-regarded arguments were, after all, responding to something–but his wards, and Harry, were off limits.

So Tom did not need to order Avery to shadow Cabbel-Ushtey who, head hung low in the wake of the complete and utter liquidation of his career, slouched back to his sleepy home village in Scotland. As expected, the man didn’t even attempt to repair his reputation in the eyes of the Wizarding public, instead focusing only on licking his wounds with the aid of ale in private. Avery was happy enough to stalk the pathetic creature anyway, always eager to follow Tom’s every order, treating each as gospel equally deserving of reverence.

And so when Tom finally delivered Cabbel-Ushtey, lost to the slumber of a drunken stupor, to the cave eight months later, it was not to make a point that had already been long-made, but instead only because he wanted to. And, having been eight months since the man’s name had graced any byline, there was no one left to notice his absence from the world.

Tom watched with approval as Aisha correctly levitated the stack of books about eight feet into the air before bringing them back down, with only the topmost one toppling off on the descent–unlike Lucille, whose burst of power had sent the whole stack crashing down in a flurry of pages. She let out a breath as she finally let her wand hand fall back to her lap, the obvious strain dissipating from her shoulders. By the end of the year, Tom was confident she’d be able to cast the charm with ease.

He’d learned early on not to teach the girls together; they distracted one another too easily, and their competitive natures often drove them towards rash decisions in an attempt to rush to complete a task better suited to methodical execution. Their motivations were singularly different as well; while Lucille worked best when praise or bribery was involved, Aisha required a suitable challenge. Tom had spent a fascinating three years studying each girls’ learning process and developing appropriate lesson plans in response; it had certainly proved a welcome respite from the drudgery of politics, forcing his way through meetings with the dreadful Muggle Minister who’d replaced Altee, and being frustrated at every turn in his attempts to overhaul the Wizarding economy. Harry had spent most of that time teasing Tom for living out his professorship dreams on the girls, even as he eagerly joined in on every Defence lesson, and happily led them through their foolhardy attempts on a broom, which only Lucille had any real aptitude for.

“She’ll be on the Gryffindor team for sure,” Harry crowed proudly, watching Lucille surge over their heads with a peal of laughter, Aisha still struggling to get only a metre above the ground.

“We’ll see,” Tom mused. Of the two of them, only Lucille had a true talent for scheming; Aisha mostly did what she wanted to, true, and had very little respect for anything resembling authority, but she never hid her rule-breaking, her brazenness often catching others off guard due to her quietude, though Harry and Tom had learned quickly not to underestimate her. Lucille, having been raised by two caring, attentive parents, took many more pains to avoid their notice. She was also the more ambitious of the pair, though her ambitions hardly ever made sense.

Now, Tom looked over his daughter, her perfect posture enunciating her remarkable height, now standing several centimetres over Lucille, and quietly smug about it. After three years, it was difficult not to see the similarities the girls shared with Harry and Tom’s child selves. Even now, Aisha carried the same muted signs of anxiety that Tom had at her age, nearly unnoticeable unless one knew where to look.

“Your wand skill is more than adequate,” Tom assured her. “You’ll be on par with your peers, and no doubt surpass many of them.”

“Yes,” Aisha agreed, not one for false modesty.

“There will be other students from your homeland,” Tom said, taking another guess at what had her ill at ease. “I’ve checked.”

“Yes,” Aisha agreed again. “I suspected.”

“Yet you’re still nervous.”

Aisha’s head dipped, a signal she was choosing her words carefully. She was fluent in English by now, but it was still not her first instinct. “The fear is not reasonable.” This was a phrase she and Harry had cooked up; if Aisha’s upset could be fixed by interference, it was reasonable–thus, it could be reasoned with. If the upset was unreasonable, Harry understood to simply offer whatever comfort she sought and let the feelings lie.

Tom, who found other peoples’ emotions unreasonable nearly every time, was not usually privy to these sorts of emotional conversations. But Harry was currently playing a tournament in Wales and wouldn’t be back for another two days, just in time to see the girls off at King’s Cross.

He bit back a sigh. Years of parenthood had only built upon the foundation of patience which being around Harry required. “What is the fear?”

“I will leave you both,” Aisha said slowly, obviously referring to himself and Harry. “And you will both die.”

“Ah,” Tom said, considering this turn of conversation. Of all the fears she could have mentioned, a fear of death was perhaps the only one Tom might feel any understanding for. His own, which had bloomed in the bosom of War, nearly mirrored her own; after all, Aisha had lost her previous family suddenly and explosively. Her history being what it was, it was almost reasonable for her mind to expect the possibility of recurrence. “And what do you think might alleviate this fear?”

Aisha gave this question some thought. “Patronus?” she asked.

“What about it?”

“Send your Patronus every night,” Aisha explained. “To tell me you are both okay.”

It was the sort of reassurance used for children much younger than she, but a few moments out of Tom or Harry’s evenings–mostly Harry’s, Tom was much too busy–was not much of a sacrifice. “Alright,” he allowed. Harry often did this sort of thing anyway, using his hind to wish Aisha goodnight whenever he was away for a match.

“Thank you,” Aisha said, gracing him with one of her rare smiles. She was an unfailingly honest girl; what she said, she meant. It would earn her respect from some and dislike from many. She still did not grasp the concept of the polite lie.

“You are my daughter, and I trust you will behave as such,” Tom warned her. “Should you be caught misbehaving, I will not step in on your behalf. You will face the consequences without argument.”

“Yes,” Aisha agreed, though Tom suspected this would be a lesson she’d have to learn through experience. Harry had coddled her over the years, playing the role of doting father dutifully. Tom himself had never seen the point in disciplining her; he had spent his own youth eschewing rules as he saw fit, and Aisha’s crimes had never been ones he cared about. The Prescotts had never dared to punish her; she was not their child, and in the hierarchy of the house, she outranked them. Tom suspected her time at Hogwarts would be Aisha’s first real taste of constraint. He was curious to see how she’d react.

There would be no blood quills in her future, at least; the criminalization of corporal punishment at Hogwarts was the first change he’d made to the school.

“I will miss you,” she added, uncharacteristically saccharine. Normally, she saved such sentiments for Harry. Having it aimed at himself sent a strange warmth through Tom. He had felt some measure of affection for her before, largely as an extension of himself, a fondness for the traits he’d fostered in her, the satisfaction at seeing his efforts come to fruition. This sense of fondness was likely another shade of the same.

“As will I,” Tom allowed, unsure if it was true. Some amount of dishonesty was required in the rearing of children.

Parenthood had been gratifying in ways Tom had not expected. Pride like a flower bloomed within him with each of Aisha’s small triumphs, as though they were his own. Her intellect was something to admire, her curiosity something to be fed. And the aspects of parenthood that did not please him were easily placed onto Harry’s shoulders, as he was more than happy to bear the weight of her emotional needs and childish wants.

Still, there were moments in which Tom’s reactions surprised even himself. During her second year, Aisha caught Dragon Pox. It was not a fatal case, though it was discomfiting, her body a stranger to the foreign germs of Wizarding Britain and thus more vulnerable. She was bedridden for nearly three weeks, though impressively stoic in the face of her own disgusting symptoms. Harry sat vigil for all of it, by her bedside for nearly every moment, offering all the fretting and pampering she could have wanted. Tom could have easily spent the time in his own office, tending to his own affairs, giving little thought to the sickly girl upstairs.

And yet, he’d felt propelled towards her bedroom by an illogical and unignorable urge, conjuring a second chair so he might study his reports on her other side, offering little in the way of conversation or attention, pointedly ignoring the adoring looks Harry shot him over her green, mottled head.

After that, she began to call both of them Father.

Chaperoning the children while shopping for school supplies was yet another experience that was unexpectedly not dreadful. There were the dull moments of waiting in line or otherwise occupied with mindless, menial tasks. Tom had initially expected to leave the entire day to Harry, whose pestering about it’s the only time you’ll ever be able to take your daughter to Diagon for her first year! nevermind that both of the girls had been to Diagon Alley dozens of times already, had proved beyond Tom’s ability to ignore.

Perhaps there was something to all of Harry’s hemming and hawing; it was surprisingly amusing to watch Aisha and Lucille light up upon catching sight of the stores they’d grown used to suddenly outfitted enthusiastically in celebration of the new school year. They debated over which cauldrons to choose from, scrutinised every broom, and cooed at every owl and kneazle for sale. They’d each already been chosen by a wand from Ollivander the year before–that magical children were actually allowed to wield a wand under parental supervision at the age of ten was yet another way in which purebloods had flourished while their mudblood peers fell behind–but there were more than enough first experiences to make up for that. Rarely did Tom ever feel nostalgic, but he couldn’t help thinking back to his and Harry’s first trip to Diagon, their first real taste of magic and all it could offer.

“You’re glad you came, admit it,” Harry grinned, leaning heavily against Tom where he stood watching the girls seriously debate over which chocolates to select in Honeyduke’s. A sign floating its way through the store loudly proclaimed everything half off, in expectation of the location’s impending closure and replacement with some new confectionery.

“It isn’t as tortuously boring as I expected it to be,” Tom agreed, rolling his eyes when Harry’s face turned insufferably smug. “I’ll now have twice the amount of work to catch up on, you realise.”

“Yes,” Harry said gravely, before folding something into Tom’s hand. “But this is the only place I can buy those nasty blood lollipops you like.”

Tom found himself smiling before he could swallow it back; they were the only sweet he’d ever really liked, and he hadn’t had one in years, not since leaving Hogwarts.

“You’re welcome,” Harry beamed, popping up on his toes to kiss Tom’s cheek.

A camera flash went off then, surprisingly late into their public outing. The photograph would grace the next day’s cover of Witches Weekly, one of the only periodicals Violetta never bothered to stop from printing stories on Tom’s family, no matter how many times he asked her to. After all, she argued, the Witches’ vote accounted for half the total, and Witches throughout Wizarding Britain had been enchanted by the supposed romance of Tom and Harry’s relationship since their marriage first made headlines. Tom found it frivolous, but if thousands of silly women wished to vote according to how romantic they found the candidate, he could hardly stop them.

Harry cried pitifully on the platform as they saw the girls off, just as Tom knew he would, though he was not alone; Edward teared up as well as he hugged first Lucille and then Aisha goodbye. Tom was at least joined by Mary in finding their husbands’ emotionality ridiculous. The girls would hardly be unsupported at the school. They had each other of course, but they also already knew Slughorn, who had delivered their Hogwarts letters personally, and Dumbledore from a handful of social engagements over the years, as well as Hagrid, whom Harry not only sent tickets to for every World Cup, but also required the stadiums to strengthen the weight-bearing charms on their seats for.

They would also be bringing Eclair, Lucille’s kneazle, and Darling, whom Aisha had grown immeasurably fond of despite her inability to speak with her–You realise that’s most people and their pets, Harry said dryly, when Tom remarked on it–and had already gotten in trouble on several occasions for bringing the lazy serpent into places that were decidedly not allowing of snakes, tamed or otherwise. It was only a matter of time, Tom suspected, before they received a missive from the Headmaster about their daughter sneaking the snake into class. He’d make Harry deal with it, obviously.

It would have been more logical for one or both of them to purchase an owl, and in fact Tom had directed them to the Emporium in an attempt to avoid this precise scenario. But Aisha already had her heart set on taking Darling, who was rather excited at the idea of returning to the castle, and Lucille fell in love with an orange kneazle in the Menagerie’s window, and Harry admitted that he didn’t mind the girls using Hedwig, his own personal snowy owl, he only ever used her during the playing season, after all, and even then, quite sparingly. And so off the girls went, no owl between them, trunks floating behind like a pair of dogs on one lead.

Tom had been expecting to enjoy the peace and quiet of a childless household–even a girl as quiet as Aisha could compare to a pack of moonstruck wolves on occasion–and was once again found wrongfooted.

In the evenings, the girls usually pestered him for tea whenever he made some for himself. It was easier to simply make three cups so, thoughtlessly, he summoned three mugs from the cupboard and then stared at them blankly.

Edward, still cleaning the remains of supper preparations, patted Tom on his shoulder. “We miss them too, son. It’ll be odd not having them running about underfoot.”

“Yes,” Tom frowned, sending the extra two cups back to their place on the shelf.

“It’s awful,” Harry whined, staring morosely at the letter Aisha had sent after her first night at Hogwarts. She hadn’t had much to report beyond their Sortings–Aisha in Gryffindor, Lucille in Slytherin, and how pleased Darling was to have returned to the tower, a statement which made Harry crow with pride while Tom remained adamant that there was no way to know for sure how Darling felt, as Aisha could not speak Parseltongue.

“The season doesn’t start for another two weeks,” Harry continued to opine, flinging himself dramatically over the sofa. This reaction had been expected; Harry had fallen into fatherhood with joyful relish. “I’ll be bored to pieces without them.”

Tom studied his husband, his stretched form, lithe and toned from years of athleticism, his long curls splayed across the cushion like they’d been poured from a painter’s palette. The skin of his face and hands grown darker over time in the sun, while the rest of him, hidden beneath his leathers, remained several shades paler. His eyes were unchanged, still just as electrifying as they’d always been, still striking Tom like the killing curse each time Harry’s gaze turned on him.

“Will you?” Tom asked, raising a brow when Harry shivered at his tone, at the look on his face, no doubt that of a predator catching sight of easy prey.

Harry licked his lips and arched his neck, the undone buttons of his shirt stretching to display collar bones in sharp relief. He looked like some sort of nymph, the personification of summer. “Yes,” he sighed, eyes a warm pool of green water, inviting Tom to drown. “I’ve nothing else to keep me occupied.”

“Is that so?” Tom prowled closer, unblinking as he watched Harry’s clothing remove itself, revealing more and more of his perfect flesh, the loving brand still in stark white contrast over his heart, unwilling to miss a moment of it as Harry’s breath quickened in anticipation. “I suppose we’ll just have to find some way to fill the time.”

He spent the remaining hours of the day–and well into the night–reminding them both just how agreeable a childless house could be.

After the first weeks, the rest passed quickly. Harry’s season picked back up, and Tom really was outrageously busy; he still had three years left to his first term, and he did not plan to spend them being idle. Aisha sent at least one letter a week, with Lucille’s for her parents carried alongside by Hedwig, and Harry answered with his own enthusiastically. Harry sent along a well-wishing Patronus every evening, with Tom stepping in once or twice when he was rendered unable, waiting with unanticipated interest to see what form Aisha’s own charm would take. The girls already mirrored them in so many ways, he’d be unsurprised if they produced twin Patronuses, themselves.

Soon enough, it was winter, and Harry was joining Mary to pick their respective daughters up from the platform. Tom’s final meeting for the day ran late, so the moon was high by the time he finally returned to the Manor and saw Aisha for the first time in months.

She’d managed to grow yet more while she was away, Harry grumbling fondly about it, how she was sure to overtake him, saying “Just like your father,” while shaking his head, as though he’d truly forgotten for a moment that she was not theirs biologically.

She gave Tom a shy, affectionate look, as reserved as he was with physical affection, only moving to stand close to him so he might study her changes better. He caught a long, thick coil of hair and felt the weight of it; she really did look terribly similar to Harry, the differences similar enough to Tom’s own appearance that she could truly be mistaken for a combination of the two, a concept that filled him with satisfaction, reminiscent of a thought from years earlier, a moment drunk on lust and avarice.

“Your studies are going well?” he asked, though she’d said so in her last letter.

“Yes,” she agreed, leaning ever closer, like a plant seeking sunlight.

The Prescotts joined them then, Lucille at their heels like an enthusiastic sheepdog. Edward had baked a cake, everyone waiting for Tom’s arrival before carving the first slice, and as they circled the table in celebration, he caught Harry’s eye and wondered if he was sharing Tom’s own thought, his memory of Wool’s, his self satisfaction at the girls’ excitement to return to the Manor, their happiness to sit at this table, something neither he nor Harry could have ever felt towards the building they’d spent their childhood in but had never considered home. It was a senseless thought, unhelpful and strange, Tom typically not one for reminisces, but Harry still gave him a knowing look filled with heat, taking hold of Tom’s hand and pressing a soft kiss to the skin stretched thin over his knuckles.

Aisha had clearly been contemplating something since entering Tom’s office, though she was still piecing the thought together in her head. Tom waited in silence, expectant, until finally she spoke.

“The Slytherins,” she began haltingly, likely considering how best to refer to the students in question. “Not all, but some. They are rude to Lucy with not rude words. Because of her blood?”

Ah, Tom had been expecting this ever since Lucille’s Sorting. He was surprised it had never cropped up in Aisha’s many letters, but it was possible she hadn’t quite understood what was happening. Blood purity didn’t seem to have been much of an interest in her home country, or possibly it was, but had been discussed differently. Either way, she was obviously confused, knowing that her friend was being targeted while not knowing why, or how best to address it.

“Lucille is a mudblood, or Muggle-born,” Tom explained. “You know what that is.”

“When both parents are without magic,” Aisha nodded. “Like Mary and Edward.”

“That’s right. There are many Wizards and Witches who believe the children of such people are inferior to them, and they treat their children to think the same. Most of them will never say such things outright to Lucille, as they know her close proximity to our family. But they will infer it. You understand?”

“To say without saying,” Aisha frowned. “Coward’s speech.”

“Sometimes,” Tom allowed. “Sometimes honesty is brave, but sometimes it is also stupid. What has Lucille said on this subject?”

“That she will handle them,” she scowled. “But she has not. She cries in secret.”

“I see. You know, when I was your age, the Slytherins said the same things about me. And worse, because I had no connections.”

Aisha looked distressed at this news. “But you are not mudblooded. You are Lord Slytherin.”

Tom nodded. “Yes, but no one knew my heritage at that time, not even me. I was orphaned in infancy; everyone believed both of my parents had been Muggles, and treated me accordingly. I was the only known mudblood in Slytherin House at the time, as well.”

“What did you do?”

“I learned how to play the game as a Slytherin. There’s no winning any other way. To earn their respect, first I had to earn their fear.”

Tom watched as Aisha swallowed this shard of wisdom and turned it over in her mind, inspecting it, learning from it. “I understand.”

Tom did not know how well she understood until early in the girls’ second year, though he decided–after one evening spent allowing himself to be furious–not to bring it up until they returned home during the winter. After all, they did not know about Slytherin’s portrait, Tom’s ancestor dutifully spending an allotted amount of time weekly roaming the castle halls and reporting his findings from his frame in the Minister’s office. Tom would keep this secret for a bit longer, the better to keep an eye on his wayward daughter and her friend.

Tom waited until he had Aisha alone before casting upon her a stern look that had made more than one aide begin to tremble. It was a look which clearly communicated: I know exactly what you’ve done, and I am extremely displeased about it.

Aisha, being a Riddle-Potter and steadfast enough to deserve the name, did not tremble. But she did look a touch reticent.

“You are aware that to use Polyjuice to assume the identity of a Ministry official–especially one so high ranking as the Minister–is an offence that carries a minimum of five years in Azkaban?” Tom asked, forcing his tone of voice to remain mild. The girls had displayed idiocy, yes, but they were only twelve years old. While Tom did not believe in diminishing a child’s personhood down to their age, the lack of sufficient brain development was a dominant factor; that Tom’s own mind seemed to have developed far more rapidly than other children was, he’d been reliably assured many times by Harry, however mockfully, an outlier.

“I did not,” Aisha said slowly, which was undoubtedly true, both because she remained a mostly honest girl and because she had never displayed much interest in the goings-on of law or politics.

“And as I have just informed you, you will never again be able to rely on the defence of ignorance,” said Tom. Finally, curiosity overcame him. Slytherin had been unable to actually follow the disguised girls into the lavatory, after all. “Were you able to access the Chamber?”

“Yes,” Aisha confirmed his suspicion. They had outfitted themselves as Tom and Harry in the hopes it would grant them the ability of Parseltongue. “We did not speak as easily as you do, but we could speak.”

“And the Basilisk?”

“She said her name is Hessie,” Aisha smiled. Tom sighed; Harry’s blasted nickname was destined to forever mar the creature, it seemed. “She allowed us to take her skin shed if we swept her scales.”

“And what exactly did you need a Basilisk’s shed skin for?” Tom asked, though he was sure he already knew the answer.

“Lucy used it to win the game. Like a Slytherin.” She looked very proud, and Tom could not disagree.

“You were lucky not to get caught,” he warned, obligated by parenthood. “It’s a risk that should not be taken twice.”

“I understand,” Aisha promised, and he trusted that she did.

Tom had initially not intended to tell Harry at all–as the girls had not been caught by anyone else, there was no real need to involve him–but then thought better of it, hoping it might curb Harry’s propensity for loosening his lips. It was, after all, his fault that the girls even knew the Chamber existed, let alone its exact location, given his insistence on sharing each and every boyhood exploit with their daughter as though they weren’t secrets for a reason.

After his nascent fury gave way to baseless worry and then finally begrudging acceptance that there wasn’t much he could do about the matter, Harry was mainly very discomfited by the knowledge that the girls had spent roughly two hours occupying the bodies of himself and his husband.

“Which do you think was which?” he asked, before shaking his head. “Nevermind, don’t answer. It’s bizarre either way. I don’t want to think about it. I’m glad they got to meet Hessie, though! Thank Merlin she shielded her eyes, thinking they were us.”

“She found out they were imposters fairly quickly. Apparently their magic tasted differently from ours in the air. Which begs the question of why they were able to speak Parseltongue, if their magic remained their own even while their bodies weren’t.” He was already considering how best to study this new curious aspect of the potion and its effects.

“Our daughter and her best friend dressed up in our skin like suits and played with a Basilisk in order to conduct a hostile takeover of Slytherin House and you’re thinking of potions experimentation,” Harry said, incredulous, though why he seemed surprised, Tom couldn’t fathom. In light of this new knowledge, experimenting with Polyjuice was the most reasonable response. The rest of the situation was already finished.

“It was hardly hostile,” Tom scoffed, a bit miffed at the accusation; his takeover of Slytherin had been much more aggressive. He’d done far more to utilise the Basilisk than placing a bit of shed skin in the beds of his dorm mates.

“You’re a terrible influence,” Harry grumbled, even as he fought back a laugh, likely because even he knew the ridiculousness of the statement; it had been his storytelling that had sent the girls into Salazar’s cavern. “Another letter from your pen pal arrived today,” he added, the roll of his eyes far less violent than it once might have been. “That’s twice in as many months. Prison must be getting boring.”

Being sentenced to a lifetime within his own impenetrable fortress had not put an end to Grindelwald’s correspondence with Tom, so much as it interrupted it for a time. When the first letter post-trial arrived, Tom had at first suspected Harry to react with outrage, but it seemed that disarming and effectively chaining the Dark Wizard had rendered Harry’s concerns null. He mostly just made a face of distaste whenever he caught sight of Grindelwald’s handwriting.

“The attempts at breaking him out of Nurmengard have continued,” Tom read aloud. “He’s amused by them. None have come close to succeeding, of course. He made the castle’s defences himself.”

“If he does escape, and he comes to the Manor, I will be very upset,” Harry said mildly, though Tom took it for the warning it was.

“He won’t. He respects us too much for that. Including you, you know. He congratulated us on our wedding. He apologised for being unable to attend.”

“It’s forgiven,” Harry said dryly. “Do you know who’s trying to free him?”

“The International Confederation is astoundingly useless,” Tom shrugged. Members from every civilised magical society in the world, yet it took the actions of a professor and Quidditch player to put an end to the Dark Wizard that had evaded capture for two decades? It was the height of ineptitude.

But the Confederation’s ignorance regarding the attempts at infiltrating Nurmengard were no matter; Tom already knew who it was. Vinda Rosier was the only person with both the magical ability and the fanatical loyalty to Grindelwald to continue working so tirelessly towards his freedom over the years since his downfall without being caught. That she was apparently dead set on releasing her master was of little consequence; that she continued to evade both the Confederation and Tom’s people was beginning to shift from an annoyance into a full-blown offence.

So long as she remained in the Alps, consumed by her senseless crusade, she was of minor concern, but still, her rampancy was irksome.

Agnar Mundr was, perhaps, the most physically intimidating human Tom had ever met. He put him in mind of the centaurs from Hogwarts, a domineering, martial presence. The man didn’t have to speak to inspire caution, though speak he did, each word given weight by the sheer bass of his voice, the cultivated power of a man whose culture was designed around the inevitability of war.

“You offer trade,” the Headmaster mused, stroking his beard, well-kept and braided, ornamented with stone beads Tom now knew carried charmwork embedded, granting extra protection and strength, each one symbolic of a duel Mundr had won.

“Yes,” Tom agreed, frustratingly wrongfooted. He’d spent weeks attempting to prepare for this meeting, only to discover that Wizarding Britain’s records on Durmstrang were woefully deficient. The so-called scholars had gotten even the Institute’s name wrong, a clumsy attempt to make the true name easier for an Anglo tongue.

Truthfully, Tom had always been intrigued by the mysteries hidden within foreign countries with their own particular magical knowledge and resources, so difficult to study within Britain as British Wizards had never seen much point in documenting non-British–and therefore uncivilised–magic with any accuracy or breadth. There had been a time when Tom strongly considered eschewing Wizarding Britain entirely in favour of travelling, learning every bit of magic the globe had to offer, and Durmstrang had always been at the top of his own private list, its aphotic magical arts enticing.

“You head the only military Wizarding school within Europe, and thus control the only European Wizarding Army. We offer knowledge in return for an alliance–our weapons for your manpower, as it were.”

Mundr looked amused by this proposal. “We have magic same as you,” he pointed out, not unkindly. “We have herrseiðr. War-Magic. What could you hope to teach us?”

“I understand you’ve been having trouble with the Soviet Muggles,” Tom said, treading lightly. While he had confidence in the spellwork developed and crafted over years of intense study, he had very little in the ability of Wizarding Britain to produce well-trained soldiers within less than a generation. They had spent too many centuries depending on the Confederation and their own blinded isolationism; if nuclear war came as quickly as the Muggle Prime Minister seemed certain it would, Tom’s best efforts would be squandered by the relative impotence of his countrymen.

“We have held fast against Russland since the first of the Romanovs,” said Mundr. “We will always hold fast. Mun engi maðr ǫðrom þyrma. Our motto.”

“What does it mean?”

“No man will have mercy on another,” Mundr grinned. “It sounds grim to you, I know. But for us, it is a warning. Should Stormenstrang fall, so too will the rest of the world, as though the hound of Hel is unbound.”

“Your military prowess is certainly unmatched,” Tom acknowledged. “However, I’m sure you share my sentiments regarding the latest abomination created by Muggles–I’m told the Soviets have their own atomic bombs, or soon will.” At the thunderous cloud roiling over Mundr’s face, Tom knew he’d finally struck the right chord. “What if I tell you I can show you magic that will protect against even a direct attack from such a weapon? The Soviets could drop as many as they wanted on your Institute, and it would remain completely untouched.”

“Impossible,” Mundr said, though his eyes shone with unbridled curiosity.

Tom smiled, gesturing for Bartemius to reveal the jewelled fruits of their labour, Mundr’s grizzled face growing slack with surprise. “The Muggles manufacture their energy by bastardising the earth around them; we pull ours from magic, from the natural world. It will thus need to be charged by an ancient place of power, relatively close in proximity for best results. I’m sure you can find somewhere suitable.”

It was a risk, to be sure, offering the head of a foreign state such a weapon. But, similar to a Muggle bomb, it required manpower to wield it, several dozen men to bear the Magical brunt of such magnitude, and quite likely to die in the very process. Tom was hardly going to sacrifice his own citizens, when there were perfectly good bear-sized foreigners to feed it instead. Besides, these Northern barbarians practically lusted after the idea of dying in battle; it was the only thing they were reliably good for.

“I will need to see it work,” Mundr declared. “But I have a place in mind, yes. Svalbard is full of ancient power. Magic sleeps within the ice.”

“Of course, you must see it in action,” Tom agreed. “And, coincidentally, the Soviets have planned to test one of their bombs later today, and I just so happen to have a portkey to the testing site. Headmaster Mundr, would you care to do the honours?” He held out the Transfigured Krone on the flat of his palm.

Mundr’s answering smile was nearly boyish in its enthusiasm. “With happiness.”

After witnessing the atomic-ward’s prowess, akin to witnessing the death of a hot star, Mundr was more than willing to trade however many of his graduates Tom could possibly want, though he was feeling complaisant, and asked only for eighty-four, the exact number needed to facilitate the spellcraft. Ostensibly, they would be entering the workforce of Wizarding Britain as expatriates; in reality, they would be on interminable standby, a constant holding of the breath in anticipation of the blow to come–and when it came, they would be ready.

“You created this,” Mundr murmured, gazing at the wardstone with reverence. “Magnificent.”

“My team,” Tom demurred, still play-acting the benevolent king as he always did in these diplomatic meetings. Mundr shot him a look of bemusem*nt.

“Do not bury thorns under roses,” Mundr said lightly. “You and I are men of accomplishment. Modesty does not fit well on us.”

Tom could not disagree. In his experience, men of Mundr’s size tended to rely purely on their girth rather than their intellect, but he was beginning to think Mundr was an exception.

“Do you wish only for men?” asked Mundr. “Or women as well?”

Tom blinked, thrown by the question. “I was under the impression that Stormenstrang only taught Wizards.”

Mundr looked amused by this idea too. “And so where do we put our women? Out to sea? The school was founded by a Witch–Vulchanov, the last of the great valkyrja, the ulfheðnar. Wolf-skinners.”

“She was a werewolf?” Tom asked, fascinated by such a thing. That a werewolf–and a woman, at that–might have founded one of the strongest, longest lasting magical schools in the world, was near unbelievable.

“It was not so unusual in those days, though most chose the skins of a swan or raven. But those who put courage and strength above all–they became feeders of the wolf. Vulchanov led her tribe to safety at the top of the world, slaying hundreds of Christian crusaders in her path. She built Stormenstrang as the last guard, a place to train for the foretold war to end wars. Perhaps this next one will be that.”

“You are awfully generous with your people’s history, which has been unknown to us for so long,” Tom remarked, only to be faced once again with Mundr’s thin laughter.

“You English,” he tutted, shaking his massive head. “You never ask. Because you do not care to know,” he shrugged. “Is okay. I do not care much for yours.”

“Well, I find myself curious. I have always found your protection of the Dark Arts admirable. There was a time I wished to study among your kind.”

“You may have done well,” Mundr allowed, scrutinising him, though Tom knew his slender physique likely left much to be desired by the polypheme. “Though the winter winds may have done away with you.”

“Were you the Headmaster during Grindelwald’s tenure?”

“Ah,” Mundr sighed, pulling again at his beard. “Gellert. No, I was but a classmate. I remember him, though. Skinny, like you.”

“I’ve always wondered what spellwork it was exactly, which saw him expelled,” Tom mused. If Mundr delighted in providing answers, Tom would be foolish not to take advantage. “What Magic could be so dark it was decried by the school famed for its allegiance to the Dark Arts?”

Mundr squinted at him for a moment before erupting into laughter. “Is that what he told you?” he howled. “That he was expelled for practising dark magic? Ha! No, little Minister, Gellert was never so scary as he wanted to be. An unmatched duellist, to be sure, he never lost a fair fight. But it was not his magic which saw him cast out from Stormenstrang. He committed crimes of ergi.”

“Ergi,” Tom echoed, forcing the strange word over his tongue. “What does it mean?”

Mundr waggled a thick hand. “Hard to translate. Unmanliness, you might say. Cowardice. He drew blood from unarmed victims. Did not respect the rules of battle. Underhandedness, torturing of animals which posed no threat, things of that nature. And the lying with of other men.”

“He was expelled for being a hom*osexual?” Tom clarified.

Mundr’s laughter had dissolved into a more contemplative air. “Mm. Lust between shield brothers is not a crime. Is common for warriors, blood heated by battle, is understood. But Gellert took on, shall we say, the woman’s position. That is ergi.” He shrugged again. “If only this, it would have been overlooked. There are other womanly men who are well-respected. But atop everything else–Gellert was not a warrior in spirit. He would have preferred to be born in some softer land, your England, or France. That you thought him expelled for dark magic,” Mundr shook his head, incredulous at the thought. “We Stormenstrangr are born and raised in darkness. We are people of the long night–unlike you southerners, we do not fear it.”

“I can assure you,” Tom said stiffly. “I do not fear anything.”

Mundr’s gaze was frustratingly unreadable, his mind a white expanse as wide and blinding as his land of ice and midnight sun. “As you say.”

Not every meeting went so satisfactorily; the Goblins were still proving infuriatingly immovable, supposedly indifferent to all of Tom’s methods–save torture, which was unfortunately not an option, as Goblins were incapable of experiencing either pain or anguish. He could always simply kill them, but a successful genocide which managed to avoid outright war with all other Goblin factions would take quite a bit of time that he no longer had.

He was still dissecting his latest failed attempt at bribery when Harry stumbled into the room, rubbing blearily at his eyes, skewing his glasses. It was late, Harry half-undressed and mussed from sleep as he slouched over to the table, folding a tired kiss into Tom’s hair.

“Still working?” he mumbled, curling his arms around Tom’s shoulders until he was draped over Tom’s back like a cloak. “Is this to be a night of no sleep again?”

“Reelection is in a year,” Tom sighed, Harry’s hum vibrating through the skin of his throat.

“Want a cuppa?” Harry offered, voice sweet, the whole of him sweet, the guileless care in his bright eyes, still glazed from dreams.

Tom pulled and shifted him until Harry fell easily over his lap, pleased to be there, pressing into a slow kiss, still clumsy with drowsiness. “Is that a no to the tea, then?” Harry gasped, grinning, clutching Tom’s head as he sank his teeth into Harry’s neck. “Want something else?”

“You know very well what I want,” Tom said, running his hands over Harry’s hips, down his thighs, feeling the cotton dissolve as he moved, until Harry wore nothing but bare skin. “I want what’s mine.”

Harry hummed, shifting until he caressed Tom’s clothed prick with every roll of his hips. “I’m tired. You’ll have to do all the work.”

“Don’t I always?” Tom dug his nails into the cheek of Harry’s ass, piercing through to the sweet blood that pooled underneath.

“Rude,” Harry shivered, moaning at the sensation of sudden looseness, slick dripping down his inner thighs. Tom swallowed his sigh as he slid inside, Harry, true to his word, puddling against Tom’s chest, entirely relaxed and unmoving, content to simply host Tom within his body, content to warm him without motion. “Well?” he murmured, peppering light kisses over Tom’s jaw. “Is this what you wanted?”

Tom cast a weightless charm, Harry shuddering at the sensation of his magic washing over him, and began shifting his body, creating a glide of friction. Harry smiled, lazily letting his head fall back, the blank canvas of his throat inviting, his entire self an offering, a divine spread worthy of some Renaissance artist’s Last Supper. Tom lifted him easily, standing to paint him over the table.

Harry remained uncharacteristically wordless–no declarations of love interrupting his bitten whines, his swallowed moans uninterrupted by the song of Tom’s name. He was still half-asleep, but he was also, limbs splayed and unreaching, doing his best to provide the experience of an non-sentient hole for Tom to sink into, nothing more than mindless sensation, the closest Tom would ever get to f*cking a corpse. They’d spoken before of Tom taking Harry while unconscious, administering a sleeping draught to render him unable to wake, incapable of his own action. It was an attractive thought, but not as appealing as Harry writhing with want, Harry’s voice crescendoing as Tom pushed him into org*sm, Harry’s mouth wet and eager against his own.

But this was an agreeable confluence, Harry’s heavy-lidded eyes hot on Tom’s own as he withheld from participating beyond placing himself at Tom’s mercy, giving pleasure without seeking his own, accepting only what Tom chose to hand him.

When he spent, it was with the burning rush of a matchstick struck and then immediately extinguished, Harry’s cry echoing in his mind even as his ears were deafened, every sense giving over to the one of touch, so it became the only focus. When Tom finally blinked back into awareness, Harry was watching him with an indulgent look.

“Please say that tired you out,” he laughed around a yawn, reaching up to comb through the sweat-slicked hair curling over Tom’s forehead. “Come to bed, sweetheart.”

Tom eyed the mess that had become of his reports, crumpled or tossed aside by amour. With a wave, he had them recollected into a tidy stack beside Harry’s hip. “My work is not yet finished,” he said with honest regret. He could picture himself, having followed Harry upstairs, blanketing him in their bed linens. It was a pleasant thought.

“Still on the Gringott’s thing?” Harry asked, casting a glance at the stack of parchment. “You should talk to Griphook. He’s the one who helped me set up the Puddlemere charity for magical orphans. Hates Wizards, but he’s got a good head for business. He won’t be totally opposed to working with you, at least.”

“Of course you managed to befriend even a Goblin,” Tom scoffed, bending to taste a bead of moisture teasing him from Harry’s stomach. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

Harry squirmed beneath his tongue. “I wouldn’t say we’re friends, per se,” he said, breathless. “But he’s interesting. Knows loads of stuff about history. If he didn’t hate Wizards so much, I’d suggest he try for the History of Magic position at Hogwarts. He’d be good at it, I think–though really anyone’d be better than Binns.”

“I’ll bear him in mind,” Tom said, amused by Harry’s noise of satisfaction, happy to have his suggestion accepted. When he slid a hand down to see to Harry, the hardness he could still feel between their bellies, Harry caught his wrist.

He brought Tom’s hand up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the palm. “I really am tired,” he said, sheepish and apologetic. “Just wanted you to feel good.”

Tom was thunderstruck by a sudden cacophony of wants, the urge to have Harry again immediately, from every angle that was possible, and to be had by him at the same time, to be surrounded by his warmth and lust and pleasure, his hoarse voice cradling Tom’s name. The urgency of this need was staggering; it felt imperative that Tom act on the imagery just then, an impossible feat of physicality, as though if he didn’t, he would never again have the chance.

As if newly gifted with a talent for Legilimency, Harry took Tom’s face in hand and smiled knowingly, bringing him forward into a chaste kiss. “Come get some sleep,” he murmured. “You’ll have the rest of our lives to f*ck me. I’m not going anywhere–except to bed, hopefully with my husband.”

The reports still needed to be analysed, the new plans finalised, his Knights interrogated about the state of their orders and new orders initiated where needed, his upcoming proposal to the Wizengamot completed with watertight arguments–and yet, Tom found himself incapable of doing anything beyond pulling away, carefully helping Harry down from the table, and following him up to their bed like a helpless creature, a man seduced to his doom by some siren, a moth ensnared by fatal love for the flame.

During their fourth year, the girls were to experience their first Yule Ball, an occasion which Tom remembered as a mediocre excuse for networking, and which Harry remembered not at all, as he’d spent each of his latter years at Hogwarts avoiding it completely.

“But Professor McGonagall says it’s mandatory to attend,” Lucille said, when Harry admitted he had little advice for her or Aisha, as he’d never gone to the Ball, himself.

Minerva McGonagall, it seemed, was Dumbledore’s replacement in the Transfiguration classroom, having graduated some years after Tom, remembered by him as a studious, solitary girl he’d never interacted with. She seemed to be an adequate professor, judging by the girls’ assessment, a stern but instructive teacher with absolutely no interest in endearing herself to her students.

“Ah, yes,” Harry coughed, clearly floundering for something to say that wasn’t simply admittance to his flagrant disregard for school rules when it suited him. “Tom went every year, I’m sure he can teach you how to dance.”

Tom gave him a raised brow to let him know he was aware of Harry throwing him under the bus, as it were, in an attempt to avoid an inquisition, before generously standing and offering an arm to Lucille. “It will be a modified waltz, to begin with. Simple enough, I assure you.” Lucille looked dubious, but took his hand nonetheless.

Harry set the wireless playing while Tom took Lucille through the triple-timed steps while Harry and Aisha watched, the former with fond amusem*nt, the latter with the intense scrutiny of a general studying an enemy’s strategy. At the song change, Tom released Lucille and took Aisha through the same lesson, before setting the girls off to practise with each other.

When Tom proffered his arm to Harry, his husband only laughed. “I’ll stomp your feet to bits,” he protested, though he didn’t pull away when Tom took him in arm.

“I’m good enough to carry the both of us,” Tom assured him, sweeping Harry into a turn, Harry stumbling only over the first few steps. “I was always surprised by your reluctance to attend,” Tom mused, casting his mind back to those nights in his adolescence. Harry had never been one for interplay, but he’d been sociable enough, and most of the other students treated the Yule Ball as a well-decorated party.

“I would’ve spent the whole night moping,” Harry said with a wry smile. “I wanted to be with you so badly, the way our classmates were excited to be with their dates. I would have wanted to dance with you, and I couldn’t, and so I would have just been miserable.”

“You’re dancing with me now,” Tom pointed out. “However poorly,” he added, as Harry stumbled once again.

“I told you I would,” Harry grumbled, halting their momentum completely to pull Tom into a kiss. “This is exactly what I wanted,” he murmured, having shifted them into some sort of slow swaying motion, mouths still close enough to breathe one another’s exhales.

“This isn’t dancing by any metric.”

“Shut up, Tom,” Harry said sweetly, diving into another kiss which spooled out between them like honey stretched from a spoon, only breaking when Harry couldn’t hold back his laughter at Lucille’s sounds of disgust from across the room.

The next day, the first of September, when all school-aged children were to be packaged back onto the Hogwarts Express, Wizarding Britain woke up to a collective seismic shift in the form of The Prophet’s first page: for the first time in over half a century, Gringott’s had suffered a break-in.

Much of the blame in that first week was directed at Tom, which was to be expected; the head of a state receives all of the accolades for each triumph, and all of the blame for every loss. Violetta’s commendably scathing retorts quickly put an end to that particular outcry by publicising every instance from the previous six years in which Tom had warned the Wizengamot of Gringotts’ failings and was rebuffed by the elders’ reluctance to shift what they considered a staple of the country’s foundation, still scarred as they were by the economic recession of the mid-19th century which had seen the entirety of economic control reinstated to the Goblins in the first place. After that, the outcry was redirected towards the Witches and Wizards who had voted time and again not to ratify the Ministry’s contract with Gringott’s, and the high-ranking Goblins who had refused each of Tom’s attempts at negotiation.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Harry said over breakfast, when two weeks had passed since the break-in, and public outrage had still not been replaced by resolution.

“Of course I do,” said Tom, trying and failing to not feel insulted. Everything was proceeding according to plan–perhaps not his first, preferred plan, but at least one that was his own design. Every object stolen from each significant vault was accounted for, currently waiting in the bowels of Malfoy Manor for careful redistribution, and the thief, who had finally earned his self-proclamation of ‘the best,’ had been compensated handsomely; Tom did not see the point in burning a bridge that may yet be utilised in the future.

Fletcher had proven himself surprisingly adept at thievery. Tom hadn’t actually expected him to succeed, had in fact included a safehold in case he didn’t, in the form of a tidy little curse that would activate upon Fletcher’s capture, killing him instantly and rendering him unidentifiable in the process. Luckily for him, his triumphant return to Tom rendered that particular bit of spellwork null, with Fletcher himself none the wiser.

“You’s a good one, governor,” Fletcher had said, bashful and smug simultaneously, as Tom gave him his payment. “You got me vote, surely.”

“Thank you,” said Tom, relatively certain that Fletcher had never and would never vote for anything in his miserable life. He might not be entirely sure what voting even meant. Tom removed his memory of the robbery before sending the buffoon on his way.

Harry was still a bit miffed that Tom hadn’t chosen to seek out his Goblin acquaintance and settle the matter amicably–that Tom wasn’t behind the robbery did not appear to have even crossed Harry’s mind, and Tom would not insult his intelligence by indulging in the farce–but as the crime was victimless in the physical sense–wealthy Witches and Wizards losing a spare bit of said wealth was not something Harry would ever lose any sleep over–his upset was mild and easily managed.

“Your friend will be present at my meeting with Gringotts’ governor later this week,” Tom said, placating. “Shall I give him your regards?”

“You’ll do what you want regardless,” Harry grumbled, though he did not shy away from Tom’s kiss.

Bagnold II was the most passive aggressive, uncompromising, masterful liar Tom had ever met, which made him a very good Gringott's governor, and very irritating to do business with. He carried a veneer of false politeness that had even Tom outmatched, a fact which grated to admit but required acknowledgement for Tom to succeed; many a man had fallen victim to the age-old mistake of underestimating their enemy. Tom would not add himself to that list.

Griphook was indeed present at the meeting, which had only managed to proceed because of the Goblins’ newly precarious position; Tom's previous invitations for discussion had all gone either denied outright or warped utterly in such a way that the true topic at hand–control over the Wizarding economy–was never even broached. Now, such machinations were rendered impossible; the Goblins required a solution just as much as the Ministry. Witches and Wizards had begun withdrawing their gold and closing out their accounts in droves.

Griphook was, apparently, to play the role of scribe on behalf of Gringott's, sending Tom and his team a scathing look before summoning a quill and parchment to begin the bank's record of conversation. He looked relatively young for his kind, though Tom had little understanding of how Goblins aged, so he might have been much older than he appeared at first glance. He seemed every bit as disgusting and bad tempered as the rest of the little creatures; Tom couldn't begin to see what might appeal to Harry about him, but then, Tom almost never understood what Harry found appealing. Harry could enjoy spending hours in a vile puddle of filth and mud. He'd probably refer to it as a beach.

“Minister Riddle, since you were the one to call for this meeting,” Bagnold said, his dry voice like the cracked spine of a book. “Perhaps you should be the one to begin.” This was in itself an act of strategy; it was almost always the better position to be the reactor rather than the first to draw.

Almost always. “Certainly,” Tom smiled. “This meeting is an offer of good will on behalf of the Ministry. Out of respect for our longstanding relationship with the Goblins of Britain, and with Gringott's in particular, I am informing you of our intention to withdraw from your bank entirely.”

Bagnold carried an impressive control over his emotions, releasing only a mild amount of visible amusem*nt at Tom's threat, while the rest of his Goblin cohort descended into uncontrolled, snarling laughter. Griphook even paused in his recording to offer a snort or two from his own quivering lips.

“And may I ask where it is the Ministry intends to store their finances?” Bagnold asked, still convinced Tom's assertion was no more than bluff. “We are the only bank in Wizarding Britain.”

“You are,” Tom conceded. “But not for much longer.” At his nod, Bartemius put forward the packet which constituted a Wizard-run bank to be opened within the week, planned in excruciating detail, a process which had begun three years previous and had simply been waiting for a proper opening.

Bagnold's secretary snatched the report from Bartemius’ hand and passed it to his governor, whose smirk dimmed with each word he read. He was not so undisciplined as to scowl outright, but the placid mask of ice which swept over his craggy face was hardly better. Tom allowed his own feelings of triumph to diffuse within him.

“Very well,” Bagnold declared, setting the stack of parchment aside, no doubt to be scoured at a later moment for any available flaw. “If you do intend to divest, there is of course the matter of the expansive debt the Ministry owes to Gringott's, which has heretofore been generously ignored in favour of our working relationship. The amount will need to be paid, including interest, upon the closing of all accounts.”

“Of course,” Tom agreed, waving a hand, upon which Bartemius produced a second report. “And there is the matter of the outstanding debt that your bank has incurred in the form of unpaid rent. I was incredibly surprised to find no evidence of any payment made since 1474.”

Bagnold's restraint finally snapped as he glared at Tom. “We owe no such rent. Gringott bought that plot of land in its entirety. Its ownership has belonged to the British Nation of Goblins for centuries.”

“The original plot, yes. But in 1598, you authorised an expansion which encompassed two further plots in Diagon Alley which were, at the time, abandoned, but by no means disowned. And then there is the matter of air space.”

“Air space,” Bagnold repeated, violence heavy in his tone.

“Air space,” Tom confirmed. “For security reasons, you disallow flying, even that of permitted Wizards and Witches, above the bank. In so doing, you have effectively made an intention to purchase the air space through a de facto contract. That, in combination with the two plots, accounting for interest and inflation over the years, adds up to the amount listed before you. As you can see, quite coincidentally, it is only a bit more than the debt currently owed to you by the Ministry. In light of our long, occasionally mutually beneficial relationship, we are quite willing to allow the negation of each by the other, in which case we shall simply, and amicably, go our separate ways.”

“I see,” Bagnold hissed. On either side of him, the other Goblins were shivering with barely contained rage, though the little monsters seemed to be reared on rage against Wizardkind like mother’s milk. Tom had never known another species so averse to moving past some historical perceived injustice, save perhaps for centaurs. “So this is to be the end of our engagement? Legalised robbery?”

“Governor, please don't misunderstand,” Tom smiled. “I have the utmost respect for the cunning of yourself and all your predecessors. You cannot fault me for learning from you.”

“You are but a child,” Bagnold gave a menacing grin. “Your little bank will fail quickly, while Gringott's will stand firm as we always have. Wizards will choose our legacy over this chicken feed substitute. And when that happens, you will find no reprieve from us.”

“Perhaps,” Tom allowed. After all, every ounce of meticulous planning could not always overcome the stupidity of the general public. “But I assure you, I can be very persuasive.”

The Wizengamot was, to no one's surprise, much more willing to hear out Tom's proposal for a Wizard-run Wizarding bank and shift to a free-market economy–which would require much less in the way of Ministry aid, which usually simply added to the government's outstanding debts, and expected instead the influx of sellers and response in consumers to stimulate the economy for the most part, the Ministry only stepping in when necessary, usually in the form of subsidising charities which used their gold to support the public, anyway–now that Gringotts’ security was so openly in question.

“And if another recession results in this bank's failure?” Lord Ogden asked, having been a child during the Famine which had seen Gringott's placed back into Goblin control after the Ministry's floundering, the economy buckling beneath the sudden waves of new Witches and Wizards combined with the scarcity of food, given that Wizarding Britain, like its Muggle counterpart, had until then received much of their crops from Irish farmland. It was just another in a series of poor decisions, the sort that often led to an empire's downfall; the inability to produce for themselves what they took from others would always bring the same end result. Eventually, a beaten dog would always bite back, and maintaining control over the situation would always require an ability to do the dog's job until a replacement was acquired. Keeping more than one dog was only an option so long as they could all be kept fed, and even then, it meant more teeth in the hand should they go bad. Tom could never be accused of refusing to learn from history. He had always been different from the conquistadors of old. He understood that for a nation to be considered great, it first had to be self-sustaining. Even the Goblins seemed to have managed that.

“In the event of a recession, the Department of Magical Economy will be authorised to offer the minimum amount required to stabilise the bank and economy at large, which the bank will then repay at a low interest rate once the economy has recovered. But I'd like to remind the court that the reason for this Department to begin with is to prevent economic stagnation or recession, and to prevent the predatory lending and selling practices which a monopolist market–such as what we currently have–so quickly becomes. For instance, Lord Ogden, you own and operate the only British firewhiskey distillery.”

“I do,” Lord Ogden agreed, pride puffing his chest up.

“Which means, of course, you can never say you create the best British firewhiskey.”

Lord Ogden scowled. “I can't, you say? I dare you to find me a better one.”

Tom gave him a genial smile as the court tittered, amused, affectionate for one of their own, coven of old fools. “I cannot, which is my point, my Lord. If there is no competition, you cannot rightly be called the winner.”

“Hmm,” Lord Ogden frowned. “I see. Well, I've never been afraid of a bit of competition. In fact, I welcome it! Let any man–or woman, I suppose–who thinks their firewhiskey might surpass mine come put it to the test, I say!” He grinned at the small round of applause this declaration netted him.

“I'm very glad to hear that,” said Tom. “As that is the very ideal on which the free market is based.”

“That's all well and good for the businessmen,” Lady Longbottom huffed. “But what of the rest of us? I do hope you aren't expecting everyone to close their family vaults at Gringott's just because of a little break-in. That bank has sheltered Longbottom gold for centuries.”

“Of course not, Madam,” Tom said, affecting a tone of kind understanding. “This bank will simply be offering what we all should have had since the beginning; a choice. For those Witches and Wizards without family wealth to depend on, in particular, I suspect a second option will prove exceedingly helpful.”

“An admirable goal to be sure,” Dumbledore granted, Tom exerting every ounce of self-restraint he contained so his eyes wouldn't roll back in his head. He'd been hoping the Headmaster would be too busy to show up for this hearing, but of course here he was, as if to rain condescension across Tom’s plans. “I, for one, am incredibly interested to know how the formidable bank was burglarized and by whom. Lord Slytherin, have there been any updates on that front?”

“There have not,” Tom said lightly. “Though it's hardly the first time Gringott's has suffered a break-in. The last was in 1890, during many of your lifetimes.”

“That's true,” said Hephzibah Smith, entirely unnecessarily. “I recall spending weeks thinking it was the Hufflepuff vault which had been vandalised, only to learn later that it was cousin Rackham's.”

“Thank you, Lady Hufflepuff,” Lady Marchbanks said, putting a firm end to the tangents. “We shall now put it to the vote. All those in favour of Lord Slytherin's proposal?”

The recent insecurity of Gringott's must have startled more purebloods than Tom expected it to; the majority of the court raised their wands, Lord Ogden chief among them, eager to display confidence in his product.

“The court will now hear Minister Riddle's dissent,” said Lady Marchbanks.

“I have no dissent,” Tom smiled. “Long live Wizarding Britain.”

Tom's second election carried with it much less fanfare than his first. When Lucille attempted to prod a reaction from Aisha, saying “Your dad's gonna be the Minister again,” Aisha looked unimpressed. “So nothing will be different,” she shrugged.

“Should we expect a fourth Goblin rebellion?” asked Harry, when the election results hit The Prophet, kissing Tom's cheek, begrudgingly congratulatory.

“Bagnold is far too prudent for that,” Tom assured him. “And the Goblins’ pride will prevent them from anything so underhanded as assassination. At most, the anti-Wizard sentiments at Gringott's will rise, which will work in my favour, anyhow.”

“Griphook only glared at me when I stopped by to check on the charity account,” Harry sighed. “He wouldn't even accept a co*ckroach cluster, and I know they're his favourite.” The look he gave Tom was a blending of affection and admonishment, an expression Tom knew well. “A decade out of school and you're still ruining my friendships,” Harry tsked, shaking his head.

Still, he folded closer immediately when Tom tugged lightly on the belt loops of his trousers. “And yet, you continue to allow me,” Tom murmured. “Because you prefer me above all others.”

Harry huffed, half laughter, half scolding. He thumbed at the short hair along the nape of Tom's neck. “Not even a competition,” he admitted, voice soft, eyes warm. In the morning, he would stand by Tom's side as he delivered his victorious speech and ushered their country into a new septenary. “You're so annoying. I love you anyway.”

“Such sweet things you say to me,” said Tom.

The crowd formed a bottleneck outside the Ministry, clamouring for entrance into the Atrium, to witness Tom’s second swear-in. Ever the magnanimous ruler–a man of the people, in Violetta’s eloquent and well-bribed words–Tom waved off the security trolls so that the journalists and commonfolk might approach him as he stood triumphant on the topmost step, Harry a wall of awkward but unyielding support, the both of them flanked by Tom’s own Knights as well as a handful of Crouch’s best Aurors, as Tom gave his most photogenic grin, the one Harry referred to as ‘white Aly Khan.’

“Lord Slytherin!” called one journalist, their camera hovering ever closer. “What’s first on the agenda for your second term as Minister?”

“I’m honoured to have the chance to bring Wizarding Britain even further into the modern age,” Tom said. “While continuing to celebrate and resurrect the parts of our magical culture which should never have been condemned to the past–”

“Lord Slytherin!” This was a voice Tom knew, one which, if considered, he would have assumed he would not recognise so immediately, given how many years had passed since he’d heard it. He had not forgotten her, not completely, but it had been some time since he’d truly thought of Vinda Rosier as a threat. She was certainly playing the role of one now, hatred gleaming from the very core of her, as though baked into her skin. She glared at Tom and Harry, no doubt wishing her eyes carried the power of the sun, the ability to reduce them both to ash without the protective cloak of atmosphere. “And what of the agenda to free the Wizarding world’s true master, your emperor?”

Rosier was a talented Witch, true, but she had picked her battle unwisely, with the impatience of an angry child rather than a grown adult, led first as always by her incessant emotions, the reason she still hadn’t managed to free Grindelwald herself in the last seven years. She was outmatched and outnumbered; even as she withdrew her wand, Knights and Aurors moved to intercept her, so quickly that Tom didn’t bother to arm himself. He nearly felt embarrassed for her.

“Traitor!” she hissed, curse following after her voice, impressive for being wordless, but nonetheless destined to be stillborn.

It should, by all rights, have been stillborn. That was the purpose of Aurors, of Knights, the time and attention put towards their training leading to moments like that one, their destiny being that of a shield meant to protect Tom–and, by proxy, Harry, whose protection Tom had instilled in the minds of his Knights as of the utmost importance, second only to Tom’s own. And yet, Tom was forced to watch with useless eyes as one by one they failed to react in time, cameras flashing away, crowd gasping and parting from Rosier like a hive-minded swarm of insects, each of their reflexes paling in comparison to Harry’s, Harry who had spent years honing his body, Harry the youngest Seeker in half a century, Harry whose instincts were nearly prodigious in nature, the foremost of which had always been the instinct to save.

Still, it shouldn’t have mattered. Harry’s shields, surely, would sense the threat. And, failing that, Tom’s own spellwork, the ritual he’d had Harry perform shortly after their wedding, which should have rendered him nigh unkillable–still vulnerable to such miseries as ageing, but strengthening him against mortal wounds–surely that, surely one of Tom’s many arrangements, his tireless work to ensure Harry’s survival, a goal which he had never shorted.

That was how it should have happened, yes, the only thought that manifested in Tom’s mind as he watched–useless–as the curse found its mark in Harry, burying itself as he moved, intercepting, death like an arrow in the welcoming give of his body, which fell back into Tom’s arms without so much as a whimper. No last words, no light leaving those green eyes as the life faded within them. By the time Tom took hold of his heavy weight, took hold of his face, Harry’s eyes were already empty, his entire form limp, nothing to save, Tom incapable of even something so simple as the killing curse, so intrinsic as avenging rage, not noticing as the Aurors finally did their bloody jobs and captured Rosier, who did not attempt to flee or defend herself, instead allowing herself to be collapsed down to the ground, tipping her head back gleefully to the sky with a shrill, triumphant laugh.

And all the while, Tom could only think: he shouldn’t be dead. It shouldn’t be possible.

But it was. The proof of it lay in the seventeen stone of weight in his arms, the lovely, horrible shell of Harry Potter’s corpse.

Chapter 9: So Sweet, So Cold, So Fair

Chapter Text

The Ministry was in chaos–it was the first assassination attempt on a Minister of Magic since Faris Spavin foolishly insulted a centaur–Rosier was taken into custody and stowed away in a cell; Nott and Crouch did their best to persuade Tom into either releasing his hold on Harry’s body or accompanying them to St. Mungo’s, and all the while, the cameras recorded the melee, the journalists shouted their questions, and the commonfolk wept as though they truly cared for Harry, as though they had the right to grieve him.

Eventually, Nott simply side-alonged Tom, still bowed under Harry’s weight, still clinging to the skin and bones of him, to the hospital, where they were rushed to the room kept aside for Ministry officials who required privacy from the public. Tom watched as the best Mediwizards and Witches cast their armada of spells to no effect, he watched as every potion in stock was administered and did nothing. And then, because he was a very good Minister, he thanked them all, took Harry back into his arms, and went home, tearing through his own wards to appear directly in their bedroom, where Harry could be laid in their bed. With his eyelids spelled closed, he looked as though he were sleeping, an Ophelia safe and dry in silk linens.

Something I Saw before, Harry had said once, in that very bed. Even if I die, I’ll find my way back to you. Have some patience.

Tom thought back to the ritual he’d cajoled Harry into conducting by his side, not a week after they were married. An archaic rite, in which spouses could bond their very magic together to strengthen them both, once popular among marriages made for political or martial gain. Harry had voiced concern about its effects on Tom in particular–So if I die, will you die as well? I don’t want that–as if he’d been expecting to die first, to die young and sudden. He’d felt sorry for the thestral being sacrificed as well, had always held a strange fondness for the creatures, which he’d been able to see since he was a child, after so many years spent watching fellow orphans succumb to fever in their beds. It had taken Tom some convincing, explaining that should one of them die, the other would not automatically follow, before Harry capitulated, taking Tom’s hands, saying If this will bring you comfort, caring nothing for his own longevity, only for Tom’s happiness.

Something bad might happen, that was what Harry said, his stupid attempt at consolation. But it won’t last. I’ll come back to you, whatever it takes.

Harry had never lied to Tom, truly. His many flaws aside, he was an honest and loyal husband. He had asked Tom for patience all those years ago, this very event likely buried in the mental cemetery of Harry’s visions, only the echo of it left behind.

Tom was capable of patience when it suited him. When he knew the only thing standing between himself and his goal was time, to be utilised according to his will. If patience was all Harry asked of him, while he took the necessary time to return, Tom could grit his teeth and gift it to him. It made far more sense that Harry was not gone forever, that he had conquered death in his own strange way, which required a temporary respite before his eventual return. A world absent of Harry Potter was illogical, unnatural, so improbable as to render the very possibility of it non-existent.

So Tom settled himself in for a wait, though if Harry knew what was good for him, he would not take too long. Tom's patience was finite. A year, surely, would be enough for Harry's needs. He'd never been capable of planning for any longer.

It was strange, being a widower for a man who was not truly dead, not in any way that mattered. Of course, Tom could not convey that to the public, who mourned Harry with aplomb. Editorials about Harry's life, his achievements both as a Quidditch prodigy and the man who disarmed the greatest Dark Wizard of their lifetime–to say nothing of his role as Tom's husband, the father of their daughter, his many charitable efforts. People Tom had never heard of gave interviews about their interactions with the First Husband, how his death had dealt a blow felt by Wizarding Britain as a whole.

His loss was inescapable. Tom received mountain ranges of correspondence, apologies and consolations, until he simply warded both his home and office from receiving letters entirely, sending them instead to be dealt with accordingly by his Undersecretary. But that did nothing to dissuade those greeting him in person; it took a monumental amount of self-restraint to not flay the skin off the German Minister when she ended their bi-annual meeting with some hapless platitudes about how Harry would want to see Tom heal from this, to carry on even stronger. As though the woman had any notion of what it meant to lose Harry, as though anyone else might understand. Their grief was a cheap caricature, an enchanted bit of portraiture imitating the real thing.

His only reprieve came in the form of his Knights, whom Tom could inform, and Aisha, whose own mourning was an introverted affair. She did not weep openly, if she wept at all, and when Tom sat her down to explain the truth of Harry's impending return, she took it as she did most things, quietly and unquestioning.

“Magic did not return my previous mother and father,” she said.

“Your previous parents were not Harry,” Tom reminded her. “And you are not me. He will return, even if I have to help his plan along some.”

Tom had already scheduled a meeting with his Knights the evening after his reelection; what would have been a celebratory occasion was sullen with tense silence as his followers tried to suss out his mood. Most of them had known him in school and thus had seen firsthand his attachment to Harry, which newer recruits had never fully understood. They believed Tom’s family to be a front, the strategically intelligent set-dressing of a publicly beloved politician, rather than a husband and daughter Tom felt any real affection for.

This was especially evident in Bellatrix, Orion's eldest niece, newly seventeen and strangely enamoured with Tom's cause, for all that her own father didn't seem to care one whit for it. As it was, she showed an affinity for the Dark Arts which Tom mildly encouraged, in hopes that her melodramatic tendencies and immaturity would be ironed out with age.

Aisha disliked her as much as she seemed to dislike anything, and Lucille hated her outright, but as the girls typically chose not to attend such meetings, there was thankfully little in the way of the cattish squabbling which teenage Witches seemed so prone to, and which Tom frankly could not abide.

“Will you be intending to remarry, my Lord?” Bellatrix asked now, either oblivious or purposefully ignorant of her senior Knights’ wariness, their discomfort at not knowing what to expect in the wake of their Lord's recent loss. “Should we begin searching for an adequate replacement?”

“Bellatrix,” Orion hushed, the closest Tom had ever seen him come to admonishing someone outright. “Hold your tongue.”

Bellatrix scowled, looking ready to unleash said tongue upon the table as a whole, only hesitating when Tom raised a hand.

“It's alright, Orion. Your niece is only trying her hand at proactivity. This is the reason I have you all gathered here, after all: so I may reveal to you the truth, which no one outside of Riddle Manor will be able to comprehend.” At the wave of expectant gasps, Tom smiled. “Harry will return.”

“My Lord?” Abraxas ventured tentatively. “How is that possible?”

“Through magic, all things are possible,” Tom said airily. “Or have you forgotten the reason behind everything we do? Nevermind how it will happen. It will, though I cannot say when. Only expect his reappearance within the year, and know that I do not wish to hear more from anyone on the matter. You will tell no one what I have told you tonight. We will allow the public their time of mourning, and use it to our advantage. And, upon Harry's return, we will use that as well.”

“And what of Rosier?” asked Rodolphus. “Should we begin the hunt?” Vinda Rosier, after being found unanimously guilty of murder and sentenced to Azkaban, had managed to escape the incompetent Aurors assigned to escort her from the holding cells to the prison.

“Do not worry about Rosier,” Tom declared. “I will take care of her myself, as I should have done to begin with.”

This set the senior Knights on edge, as it should have; if they had succeeded at capturing Rosier when she'd first escaped their clutches, this would have been a very different meeting. To that end, Tom instructed Orion, Abraxas, Nott and the Lestrange brothers to remain behind after releasing the others to their various duties.

The men waited anxiously as Tom watched their juniors file out of the room until only the six of them remained. The moment carried with it a strange hint of nostalgia, a reminder of their school days, when the Knights of Walpurgis had been little more than children grasping at something much larger than themselves.

“Harry will return,” Tom said, bursting the bubble of silence. “But he did die. All because you, my finest, could not find it within yourselves to catch one solitary Witch.”

Abraxas, likely under the incorrect assumption that his years of loyal servitude had earned him some amount of safety from Tom's wrath, spoke first. “My Lord, we didn't–”

And thus, he was the first to taste Tom's Crucio. It lasted mere seconds, but was enough to render him a squirming mass of pain on the floor. “I am disinterested in defences or excuses,” said Tom. “The fact that Harry managed to find a way to survive is the only reason you are being punished rather than executed for your crimes of ineptitude. You should thank him upon his return.”

Tom saved Nott for last, leading him down to the wine cellar afterwards, which had long been refurbished to suit Tom's particular needs.

There, he presented Nott with a body, Harry's perfect double, Transfigured from his favourite broom–punishment for Harry himself, for taking Rosier's curse in the first place, for not informing Tom of his plans, he could take his pick upon his return, when he would surely be offended to find his prized Nimbus missing–and relished Nott's look of disgust.

“You will make the appropriate funerary arrangements,” Tom told him. “This will be the corpse they prepare.”

“Not the real one?” asked Nott.

“Of course not. He may yet need it for when he comes back.”

Nott gave Tom a piercing look. He'd evolved into a quiet, overly serious man, doubtlessly inspired in part by his time in the Department of Mysteries, entire years’ worth of experiences and discoveries he could never access outside of those rooms, curtained off even from himself. “Yes, my Lord.”

“And I'll be seeing your other self tomorrow,” Tom said, prodding at the wound in him. “I think it's time the Minister takes a more active role in your lovely Department, beginning with the Time Room.”

“Lord Slytherin!” Rosier cackled, casting even as Tom moved to kill, her own corpse hitting the ground simultaneously with Harry's.

The crowd shrank back from Tom's cry, more of a roar than any sound a man might make, but it did not matter; the time-turner released him back to the present, in which Harry remained dead, and snapped into one hundred brittle pieces, pulling blood from Tom's palm.

This was the fiftieth time-turner that had failed him. It did not matter how far back Tom went–if he managed to convince Harry not to attend the speech, Rosier killed him just outside the Manor. If he warned the Aurors of Rosier's intent, Harry was struck by a rogue curse during the impending duel. If he warned Harry, Harry only put himself in harm's way quicker.

Tom flung the glass to the floor and had Rookwood screaming within seconds. “Why is it not working?” he demanded.

“It–it must be a fixed point!” Rookwood gasped, struggling to speak through the agony.

Tom released the pathetic creature from the curse. “Explain.”

“There are moments fixed in time,” Rookwood panted. “Completely unchangeable. The stability of the timeline depends on them, so they cannot be manipulated. The moments around them, sure, but the moment itself–Potter’s death, for instance–must happen.”

It was an infuriating notion, but it did make some amount of sense; Harry must have known, on some level, which was why he allowed it to happen. His intrinsic shields hadn't even flickered. Tom had always found that odd, and now there seemed to be a reason. It explained the ineffectiveness of the ritual as well. If Harry was meant to die exactly when he did, no amount of protective magic could have prevented it, and no amount of magic could now undo it–or so Tom would believe, if he subscribed to the concept of fate.

But Tom did not believe fate was some immutable, pre-ordained law. He had always moulded fate according to his leisure, and he would continue to do so now.

If the Time Room would only continue to fail him, Tom would simply move along to the next room over. He gestured for Rookwood to stand, which he did, shakily. “Take me to the Death Room.”

Tom had conquered many forms of magic that had been previously deemed insurmountable. Death would prove just as susceptive.

The dreams were by far the worst part.

Tom had never been plagued by his subconscious, not in the way Harry so often was. There had been nightmares, yes, of the bombs, of the fevers that came like one of the ten plagues to terrorise the orphanage each winter; he and Harry had never succumbed to the threat, something he now understood was due to the magic that strengthened their blood, but the fear of it was constant in childhood, the idea that it might take Harry, the only thing Tom had ever cared for with any reliability. But they had been easily washed away by the morning light.

His dreams following Harry’s death were different. They were not nightmares as such. They were much worse than that–glimpses of natural, warm days, waking to find Harry by his side, Harry smiling over breakfast, Harry kissing him sweetly, Harry happy and maddeningly alive, as he should be–only for Tom to wake in an empty bed, Harry’s side of their shared pillow cold, Harry’s body cold, downstairs, with only Tom’s daedal work of stasis charms to keep it from rotting.

Tom took to avoiding the bedroom completely in an attempt to keep his traitorous mind from tricking him, the horrible moment come every sunrise, when he, still languorous with sleep, believed his husband had never left him. With a particular combination of potions and charms, he was able to go without sleep for an unnatural length of time, though not forever. Eventually he had to succumb, doomed to wretched hours in which he held a projection of Harry, a phantom, in dream-cast arms.

His waking hours were devoted to the study of Death Magic, the knowledge of which was frustratingly vague and more often assumptive than evidential. While the Time Room was filled with all manner of inventions and experimental records, the Death Room held very little beyond the Veil, an archaic tool of execution which provided only further curiosity rather than answers. Tom briefly considered the possibility of entering and traversing the plane beyond in search of Harry’s spirit, leading it back to the world of the living, but quickly disregarded it as an option. He was not yet immortal, thus his odds of entering the Veil without dying himself were far too low, no matter his precautions.

Have some patience, Harry had said. Tom could feel that patience dwindling with each day Harry spent beyond Tom’s reach, beyond touch, beyond everything it seemed magic had to offer. He spent long hours studying Harry’s body in its place of rest in the cellar. He’d Transfigured a transparent coffin from a shard of glass, thinking that when Harry finally woke up, he’d find the Grimmesque artifice funny.

Aisha asked only once about the extended absence of her father, sending a letter on the subject eight months after Harry’s death, which Tom only resigned himself to answering after Mary’s incessant pressuring, her cajoling “That girl’s lost three out of four parents now, and I know you’re still hurting, love, but she’s hurting too. You’ve got to help each other through this.”

Tom didn’t bother to show her the letter, Aisha’s When exactly will Harry resurrect? hardly the words of a whimpering teenage girl mindless with grief. He wrote only Whenever he pleases, it appears, his own annoyance at being made to wait no doubt leaking through into the parchment.

Twelve months passed and then the anniversary of Harry’s murder was announced–businesses began selling memorial items, like miniature replicas of Harry’s favourite broom. His chocolate frog cards doubled in stock; his face, rendered in soft, adulatory brushstrokes, smiled charmingly from every window, every newspaper, every wall where it’d been haphazardly hung with sticking charms, until the whole of Wizarding London was impossible for Tom to traverse without his jaw clenching instinctively at those hollow representations of his husband, mocking him, highlighting Harry’s continued absence, his refusal to stop being dead.

Dumbledore granted Aisha a leave of absence to spend the day at Riddle Manor, where she and Tom held vigil in the cellar, at Harry’s coffinside, neither the type of person to force needless conversation as they waited. There would never be a more perfect time for Harry to wake, to bring his plan into fruition, sitting up with a yawn, giving them the sheepish grin he wore whenever he knew his thoughtlessness would be forgiven.

The sun rose as they sat in wait. Harry didn’t. Without a word, Tom Apparated to the master bedroom, which he managed to destroy while his mind was entirely absent from his body, coming to in the midst of ruins, shredded curtains and bed linens, all of Harry’s clothing cursed into heaps of scraps, the fixtures in their ensuite shattered, water gurgling sluggishly out of beheaded pipes, the walls cratered and war-torn. Tom had half a mind to descend back downstairs and give Harry’s body–still empty, still lifeless, and apparently doomed to remain so–the same treatment, rending it limb from limb, plucking those vacant eyes from his skull. Instead, he locked the master door, boarding it up for good measure, and went to the cave.

It had been some time since he visited last; he hadn’t trusted his own restraint. Now, he studied the havoc it seemed Rosier had wreaked in his absence. The other prisoners–Morfin, a handful of wayward journalists and political dissidents, and two Goblins he’d used to study the effects of various tortures–were dead, large swathes of their corpses missing, Rosier having chosen to eat the available meat rather than quietly subsisting on Tom’s cobweb of spellwork which kept any living thing within the cave alive without need for food, water or sunlight. The Witch herself looked wretched, like a Muggle’s portrait of an evil hag, rather than the wealthy pureblood Tom had known. He remained unimpressed by her barbaric attempts at bludgeoning him with a rock, immobilising her without a word and transporting them both before she was able to do much more than release a hoarse screech, more like an owl than anything human.

Hogwarts’ centuries of warding should have made it impossible for anyone to Apparate directly into the castle–not even Dumbledore would have chanced such a thing–but the ritual Tom and Harry performed, practically marrying their own magic to that of the school’s, allowed him something like a door keyed to him in particular. Perhaps he should have tested first whether or not he could bring another person with him without adverse effect; truthfully, the thought of Rosier’s own safe passage did not even cross his mind until they already stood in the Chamber. Tom had simply wished to bring her with him and Hogwarts, like so many things before it, bowed to his will.

“Now you will finally kill me?” Rosier sneered, hardly giving the dungeon a glance. Tom supposed that compared to being killed in a sunless cave by the sea, being killed in a sunless cavern beneath a castle made little difference. “I thought you’d lost your touch, little false lord.”

Her voice was cracked and broken after nearly a year without use. From within the belly of the Chamber, Tom heard the tell-tale slide of scale over stone as the Basilisk woke and began to make her lumberous way towards them. Rosier did not react to the sound, her mind fractured into idiocy, or perhaps unable to even hear it. There was a time when Tom would have gladly studied the effect of isolation as a weapon, sharpened and honed on the whetstone of Rosier’s pain. But that time had recently run out, every reserve of Tom’s patience drained. He would no longer be expecting Harry’s plan–if he’d ever even had one–to be enough.

And, more than impatient, Tom was enraged. If Harry came to him now, whole and breathing, Tom could not be sure he wouldn’t simply strangle the new life from him, himself. In lieu of that, Tom would take his revenge where he could. He had promised Harry he would not sever himself, but Harry was no longer here. Tom would not be leashed by a dead man.

“You sealed your own death the moment you stole from me,” Tom told her, as the Basilisk’s head finally crowned the entryway. “But first, I need something from you.”

Rosier, back to the serpent and ignorant of her still, spat, mouth too dry for the act to be effective. “I’ll give you nothing.”

“You will,” Tom promised, conjuring a mirror and holding it, too quickly for Rosier to know enough to close her eyes. “I will hear you beg for death before I allow the peace of it.”

Her first petrification was instant and soundless, her eyes frozen in the stupidity of shock as she toppled to the floor. The Basilisk dipped her tongue against the air languidly. “Can I eat it?”

“Not yet,” Tom said, waiting a few minutes before releasing Rosier from her fixed torment.

Rosier gasped back to life in much the same way Tom had spent the last year expecting Harry to, which only heated his rage further. “What–” she choked, eyes widening as they caught sight of the underside of the Basilisk’s massive head. “What–?”

“What was the curse you used on Harry?” asked Tom. Even after months of searching, that particular spell remained unrecognisable to him.

“f*ck you,” Rosier spat, though her voice was still riddled with fear, her eyes wide and bulging with it. “He’s maggot food, and you’ll join him soon enough.”

“Well,” Tom said, raising the mirror again. “You’re correct on one count.” This time, she managed half of a scream before petrification took hold, frigid mouth left gaped open.

“Now I can eat?” the Basilisk asked.

“You will eat when I say you will,” said Tom, reviving Rosier, already screaming as she awoke.

It took seventeen petrifications in total to break Rosier into a pleading, snivelling mess. If Tom hated her less, he would admire her perseverance.

“Please,” Rosier sobbed, reduced to a begging, shuddering mass on the floor. “End this.”

“You wish to die?” Tom asked, razor-edged pleasure thrumming through him as she nodded helplessly at his feet. “You want me to kill you?”

“Yes,” Rosier breathed. “Yes, damn you. Kill me. Just kill me.”

“Very well,” said Tom, benevolence incarnate. He used a cutting curse; Avada Kedavra was too painless for the likes of her. He looked at the Basilisk, waiting calmly for her meal. “Would you do anything I asked of you?”

“You are my master,” said the Basilisk.

“And if I asked you to die?”

The Basilisk did not speak for a long moment, the shielded lids of her eyes reflecting only his own face back at him. “Where is Harry?” she finally asked.

“Harry is dead,” Tom said, surprised to find the words came so easily. He had never said them before.

“Alright," said the Basilisk, to whom time and death meant very little. “Will you eat me?”

“In a way,” said Tom. “You may eat her first, if you want.”

The Basilisk swallowed Rosier whole before laying down heavily, the Chamber rattling around them with her weight. She closed her eyes. “Goodnight, master.”

Years of magical study had led to this moment: a consenting murder, a willing sacrifice of sufficient magical power. Tom’s magical core would remain intact, replaced by the sheer energy of the Basilisk. He would retain his sanity thanks to the willingness of his victim, and the stability of his core. There would be no way around the pain of his soul splitting, but Tom withstood it with relative ease. He had watched the destruction of the only thing he’d ever truly cared for; this pain was nothing compared to that.

When he regained consciousness, Tom felt electrified with power, all of the Basilisk’s magic not swallowed up by the ritual transferred into him. He touched a hand to the diary, the one Harry had gifted him so many years before, and felt a pulse of familiarity, the piece of himself locked away, eager to reunite with the soul left in his own body. He left the diary, and the Basilisk’s empty shell, no better than a skin shed, transporting to the edge of the Forbidden Forest with little more than a thought.

The air carried with it a cacophony of scents he was able to discern with small tastes, an unexpected but appreciated side effect, the transference of the Basilisk’s ability. It took no time at all to hunt down a unicorn, as vulnerable to the killing curse as most living things. He followed the stink of horse and men to the centaurs’ campsite, deep in the belly of the woods, and dropped the carcass at their feet.

“You will tell me where Harry Potter is,” Tom demanded. “And how to retrieve him.”

A male, tall even among the rest of the creatures, padded slowly towards Tom, likely a chieftain of some sort. “Abomination,” he said, his voice dark as wet soil, heavy gaze flickering from the slain unicorn, to Tom, and then back. “You should not be here.”

“You will tell me what I want to know,” said Tom, feeling the well of barely restrained magic rush up within him, desperate for release. “Or I will raze this forest to the ground.”

“We cannot give you the answers you seek,” the centaur said, as though Tom’s threat was meaningless. “The boy out of time returned to where he belonged. Where he was needed.”

“Ineed him,” Tom hissed. “How do I bring him back?”

“You cannot,” the centaur shrugged. “Only Death and his masters can travel between veils. We are simply the record-keepers.”

“So you are useless,” Tom declared, a burning sensation flooding his eyes, and for a moment, he thought they might be tears, the first he’d ever cried.

The centaur said something to his brethren in their guttural language, hooves stamping the earth with authority. “You may try to kill the forest, son of Basilisk,” he said, eyes averted still, though it felt less like deference and more like strategy. “But it will not bring him back.”

Tom envisioned the forest withered and dead, charred bones of trees and piles of ash that were once living things, a black spot visible from the moon’s face above them, evidence of Tom’s rage, his grief, his torment unleashed upon the world. Even the thought did not bring relief, only more anger, outrage at the futility of his wrath, no matter how powerful.

With a last, serpentine roar, he Disapparated.

Avery had spent the last several years enjoying his station as a warden of considerable rank within Azkaban, and relished the opportunity to give Tom, as Minister, a guided tour of the prison.

Tom had very little interest in Azkaban as a whole. “Where do you keep the extraneous Dementors?” he asked, refusing to waste any time wandering about, gazing at huddled inmates.

“In a windowless room beneath the prison proper,” said Avery, redirecting their path without question. “Only Wizards with corporeal Patronuses can enter, and always in groups of three. We use the spell to herd them.”

The room was little more than a writhing mass of black, Dementors slithering among one another like a nest of snakes. Avery did not hesitate to open the door upon Tom’s command, though he could not disguise his unease completely.

One of the few subjects the Death Room contained reliable information on was Dementors, as they had been first created by the Ministry some centuries before, an attempt at designing a state executioner that would remain untroubled by fits of conscience. They’d succeeded, if only by accident. The proto-Dementor was little more than an Obscurial, aimed at a convict like a canon. The first true Dementor was that convict, what became of his spirit after a death caused by unending despair. Each time a Kiss was sentenced, a new Dementor was born.

They were ghosts, of a kind, creatures of death and anguish. They did not speak, did not require sustenance or sunlight, and did not seem to want much beyond their constant hunger for living souls and their warmth, the happiness contained within them. Tom had often wondered how a Dementor might react to a man who had never experienced joy.

He was now about to discover how they’d react to a man with a severed soul.

Tom knew, after the Horcrux ritual, he would no longer be capable of producing a Patronus. It had seemed an insignificant cost. Now, he remained unguarded as the first of the Dementors began to flock closer, curious and starving.

Dementors did not have eyes, which he suspected would render his Legilimency ineffective, though whether or not it had ever been tested before was unknown. So, upon the first of the creature’s thoughts washing over his mind like a shallow splash of water, Tom found himself pleasantly surprised.

Like us, the thing thought, the voice of its mind nearly soundless, a spare whispering of wind beneath the bottom of a door. It is like us, but not. Half man. Half soul. Like us.

It was, Tom discerned, rather pleased by this assumed similarity. The other Dementors crowded about, sensing him in their own strange ways, before coming to the same conclusion; Tom was soulless enough to remind the Dementors of themselves, and therefore did not meet their requirements for a meal. But the glimmer of his remaining soul was a fascination all its own, inspiring interest and obeisance within the creatures, their minds as uncomplicated and eager to follow as an animal’s. They would follow him blindly, he realised, the thought of a Dementor army at his back attractive, though he had little need for such a thing at present time. Still, he found it difficult to believe such loyalty would not prove helpful at some future point.

“What do you know of coming back from death?” Tom asked, unsure how much they were able to comprehend from human speech.

Back? the Dementors thought among themselves, chewing at the question like a bone. Back? There is no back. There is only death. Cold like night.

“And yet, you are not dead,” Tom pointed out. “Not fully.”

We are shadow, the Dementors agreed. Death’s echo. Death’s footsteps outside the door.

“Can you travel beyond this world? If a soul escaped you, could you hunt it down?”

Beyond? Beyond…the Dementors wondered, dumb mules being asked to consider where the water in their trough might spring from. No beyond, not for us. Only here. Only the souls we are fed here. You will feed us? They had begun to notice Avery, his intact soul like a plated roast just outside the room, still warm from the oven. Hungry. We are hungry. You will feed us?

“No,” Tom told them. “Do you remember being alive? Do you have memories?”

We remember being full once, the Dementors lamented. We are so hungry. Never full again.

A pathetic existence, to be sure, so much worse than the clutching at life that Hogwarts’ ghosts were guilty of. Tom would find no answers from this group of witless beasts, driven only by a single base desire. He stepped back, waving for Avery to close and seal the door, amused by the sigh of relief his Knight released upon the wards settling back into place.

“Should we begin with the maximum hold next, my lord?” Avery asked eagerly. “So you may see them in action?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Tom assured him, already tracing his way back to the prison’s entrance, ignoring Avery’s ridiculous droop of disappointment. Tom was a busy man; it wasn’t as though he had time for something so asinine as a social call. “I’ve seen all I needed.”

Tom did not expect his recusal from office to shock Wizarding Britain greatly; he had spent the year after Harry’s death doing merely the bare minimum required of him, had not put forward nor voted on a single proposal, and had ordered his Undersecretary to attend every meeting Tom himself was not specifically needed at. His intention to retire in the wake of his husband’s death should have come as no surprise, but then, the public at large had always been relatively stupid.

“Can you blame them?” Violetta asked, still in a state of disappointment and frustration herself, likely due to the loss of such a well-paid position. “You’re a media darling. You’ve done more for the country in one term than any Minister in the last century.” She then attempted to discuss the upcoming election, in which his replacement was to be selected, a conversation which Tom easily and unabashedly tuned out.

He was still clearing out his office in the Ministry–having already banished his underlings, as they had proven more annoying, with their begging him to stay, than helpful–when Dumbledore decided to pay him an unannounced visit.

This was, at least, another positive to his abandonment of the Ministership; no longer would he have to entertain the Headmaster’s whims and social manipulations. Good riddance.

“Lord Slytherin,” Dumbledore greeted politely, entering Tom’s office with nothing more than a single limp-wristed knock. “I was sorry to hear about your resignation.”

“Were you?” Tom asked, dry, knowing full-well that Dumbledore had probably celebrated over the headline. “I suspected most of the Wizengamot would cheer.”

“My dear boy, surely not,” said Dumbledore. “You forget, the majority has always voted in favour of yourself.”

Yes, because Tom had painstakingly arranged it that way. He was not in the habit of confusing business decisions with affection. “I suppose you’re right. What can I do for you, Headmaster?”

“Oh, I was in the area,” Dumbledore smiled blithely. “And thought I might drop in on my old student. How are you, my boy?”

That particular parlance–my boy, as if Tom had ever been anything of his–would be cause alone to hex the old man. “Seeing as I am entering an early retirement in a state of mourning, I’m extremely well,” Tom said wryly.

“The loss of a loved one is a terrible thing,” said Dumbledore, the perfect co*cktail of sympathetic and grave, conductor that he was. Tom wondered if, like him, Dumbledore had a stock of predesigned expressions and intonations for every social interaction, to better project his normality. “What happened to Mr. Potter was a tragedy. How fortunate that you and Miss Said have one another during this time.”

His choice to drop the Riddle attachment to each surname was yet another manipulation, an unsubtle insistence that Tom’s claim to them meant nothing. Tom had very little affection for his own name, that hollow gift from his useless Muggle father, but Harry had been idiotically fond of it, had relished the changing of his Puddlemere jersey after their marriage. He’d been more conscientious of Aisha’s desires–asking the child’s opinion on the changing of her name, which Tom saw as yet more empty platitudes, given the name change was a necessity. Lineage was practically everything within Wizarding Britain, and however distasteful Tom found his surname, he had built it into a legacy worth embracing, whilst Aisha’s previous family name meant next to nothing in her new country. Still, Harry had demanded she have a say, ridiculous as it was to give such control to a child, even one so sensible as Aisha. She elected to hyphenate in the end, like Harry, which pleased him greatly, so Tom could not complain overmuch.

“What could you possibly know of my loss?” Tom asked, allowing anger to drive his words in a way he usually was forced to withhold. But they would no longer be sharing the court–either of law, or public approval. Dumbledore was no longer a political rival Tom had to weave around like water avoiding a stone; he was simply an old, condescending man, and Tom was simply a grieving widower. “Your sister, whom you knew a handful of years before her descent into madness? Your parents, whom you had for less than two decades? Your lover, who lives still, a romance of one mere summer before you forsook one another–what could you possibly understand about my loss?”

Between them, the desk rattled and then burst into a pile of wood hardly fit for kindling. Tom could not even feel embarrassed by the childish display, his magic lashing out as the anger built up within him. He only glared at the Headmaster, Dumbledore’s gaze grown pitying, not even a speck of fear within those damnable eyes.

“It is true, no two losses are comparable,” Dumbledore said, plucking his words wisely. “Harry’s death has left Wizarding Britain bereft of one of its brightest souls. But Tom, he would not want you to turn from love, or from the many who would offer you support.”

What a fool he was, to think he might tell Tom anything about Harry which he did not know, to speak as though Harry hadn’t been the only thing worth loving. Harry’s heart was a veritable flood, nearly Biblical in its expansiveness, its willingness to spread out over every inch of world, and Tom had lived in its centre, like a fence post swallowed whole by a growing tree. Of course he would want Tom to forgive the universe its treachery. He’d want Tom to find solace in Aisha, in the Prescotts, perhaps even in Tom’s Knights, whom Harry had disliked for many reasons, the foremost being that he did not feel they cared for Tom well enough.

But Harry, were he still there, would know better than to expect it. He’d know better than to even ask it of Tom. He knew Tom’s many strengths as though they were his own, and knew forgiveness, a willingness to compromise, was not among them.

And, more to the point, Harry was not still there, had abandoned Tom to the living, and thus stolen away any chance at convincing him not to carve his path of retribution.

“The fondness he held for you is the only thing staying my wand at the moment,” Tom told Dumbledore, wordlessly righting the table until it looked perfect and untouched. It was not strictly true; if Dumbledore had been imbecilic enough to try this conversation at Riddle Manor, Tom would not have hesitated to reduce him to ash. “The next time you attempt such paltry consolations, you will find me much less gracious.”

Dumbledore, perhaps for the first time in his annoyingly long life, held his tongue, only watching silently as Tom, without another glance, took his final leave.

Grindelwald had always been coy about his own forays into death magic–a persistent rumour that he’d dabbled in necromancy had piqued Tom’s interest early on in their acquaintanceship, though the man’s evasive refusal to ever confirm it had convinced Tom such gossip was baseless, inspired by the public’s fear and Grindelwald’s own theatrical disposition. But these were desperate times, and Tom did not even have to search for the Dark Wizard. Helpfully, Tom already knew exactly where he was, and that he was, for the time being, quite immobilised.

Nurmengard Castle looked much as Tom had imagined it would, every inch the creation of a man so given to melodrama, with such garish tastes. That said man was now the sole prisoner of his own work, ostensibly for the rest of his life, was an artful bit of irony. The wards were easy for Tom to weave himself between, so similar to those of Hogwarts that he suspected Dumbledore may have played a large part in their crafting, perhaps tenderly knitting his lover’s magical cage.

There were no noticeable guards, nothing to obviously repel intruders; frankly, Tom thought Rosier’s inability to rescue her messiah from so lax a prison spoke more to her ineptitude than anything else. It was, frankly, embarrassing.

Tom wasted no time in exploration; he did not care for whatever Vaudeville decor Grindelwald might have feathered his home with. The man himself was locked away in the topmost room of the tallest tower, like some enchanted princess from a children’s story, and Tom found him without delay.

“Lord Slytherin,” Grindelwald said cheerfully, seemingly both unsurprised and delighted to host Tom’s illegal visitation. “To what do I owe the pleasure of such impressive company?”

“What do you know of death magic?” Tom asked, disinterested in playing the cunning game of conversation, disguising true wants behind meaningless flummery.

“More than most, I imagine,” Grindelwald said, matching Tom’s baldness in turn. “Though much of it is theory and history, only. The practical applications of such spells are often…lacking.”

“And what practical applications have you found?” asked Tom, testing the magic-dampening effects of the room. They seemed to be keyed to Grindelwald’s magic specifically, skimming over Tom without ever truly touching. He could cast as many curses as he’d like.

“Do you know why I chose this spot, in all the world?” Grindelwald asked. “To build my throne?”

Tom considered snidely reminding Grindelwald that his throne had been turned into a jail cell, but the man hadn’t yet earned such rudeness, so he swallowed the thought. “You prefer the snow?”

Grindelwald’s smile was as coquettish as ever. “I do, yes, but no, it was much more than that. The earth on which this castle is built used to be home to a temple, thousands of years ago, for Sinthgunt, the night-walking one. The mountain spring I built around was hers; there were some accounts of the water being able to revive the dead.”

“You tested it,” Tom surmised.

“I did,” Grindelwald agreed.

“And? Was there any truth to its abilities?”

“Some,” Grindelwald granted, tilting his head. Since Tom’s arrival, he had yet to move any other part of his body; Tom wondered if he’d been rendered physically immobile, as well. “Not much more than the spell to reanimate a corpse. I assume you know it?” At Tom’s nod, he continued. “The physical body is healed, in much better shape than a corpse’s, but they are mindless and do not live for long, unlike an Inferius.”

“Is this truly the extent of your knowledge?” Tom asked, irritated to find himself at yet another dead end. “A mere parlour trick?”

Grindelwald eyed him shrewdly. “And why should I tell you, if it is not?”

Tom was armed and aiming before he’d even considered it, the slumbering burn behind his eyes itching for release. “To give me a reason not to kill you, of course.”

To his annoyance, Grindelwald laughed. “Ah, but it does a man good to hear the flattery of threats,” he sighed. “My other visitor is far too gentle. No matter; I would tell you regardless, you know. I was very sorry to hear of poor Harry’s demise. So young, too.”

Gritting his teeth so they did not loose the killing curse, Tom hissed a low, admonitory breath. “Get on with it,” he said, warning clear in the violence of his tone.

“Ah, your generation. So impatient!” Grindelwald laughed again, before the gleam in his eye became something manic. “My dear Tom, what do you know about the Deathly Hallows?”

The Gaunt ring. To think Tom's maggot of an uncle had held the resurrection stone, a fabled magical relic, on his worthless fist for years, insistently ignorant of its power–to think Tom had never seen it for what it was, to think Harry had died wearing it, his corpse wearing it even now. Supposedly all Tom had to do was turn it thrice and he'd have Harry returned to him–as a shade, yes, but Tom felt confident he could find some cure for that as well, so long as some piece of Harry's spirit was available to work on.

His return to England was almost shockingly quick; he'd expected to spend months abroad at least, investigating ancient archives and archeological sites, interrogating any Wizard who might have some semblance of an answer to Death's particular riddle.

Instead, he'd been away for barely a week before finding what he sought, in the words of a children's story, no less. But, having been fed tales of wicked Witches as a boy himself, by Muggles too stupid to discern fiction from reality, Tom knew well how much truth a fairytale could hold.

He did not bother notifying anyone of his return; once he had something to show for himself, his Knights would be called upon, and measures taken to ensure Harry's continued life within this plane. He found Riddle Manor dark and lifeless, it being the middle of the night, and descended to the cellar without pause.

There, the coffin stood in its transparent glory, entirely empty. Harry's body was gone.

Aisha had returned some days earlier for the Yule season, and Tom pulled her from her dreams with no small amount of violence. In turn, she gazed up at him with eyes like blackened glass.

There were a finite number of people who even knew where Harry's body had been kept. The public believed him to be buried in a place of honour within the Ministry's Mausoleum. This left only Tom's most loyal Knights, who would never act without first seeking his approval, Aisha and likely Lucille, as Tom suspected Aisha told her most if not all of what she knew.

“Where is he?” Tom asked, impatience sharpening his tongue like a knife. He had never before caused his daughter harm. She had never truly sparked his anger.

“It torments a spirit, to withhold burial so long,” Aisha murmured. “I said the prayers, but he needed to be washed and clothed and buried, so his soul would not stay lost.”

“You stupid girl,” Tom hissed, closing his eyes as the embers within him caught flame. “I will be the one to retrieve his soul. Where did you bury him?”

“In the garden,” Aisha said quietly. “His favourite spot.”

Tom knew the place she meant, Apparating there with his next breath. Harry's grave would have been easy to find even without the stone she placed there, the earth raised in the vague cylindrical shape of a body. Aisha's marker was elegantly understated, glimmering moonstone with a spelled engraving: HARRY RIDDLE-POTTER. HUSBAND & FATHER. MAY HE FIND PEACE.

Tom did not give a rot for whether or not Harry found peace in the afterlife, provided an afterlife existed. Harry would find peace by his side, where he belonged, amongst the living. With a single wave, Tom shifted the soil like removing the lid from a jar.

Inside was a grave, some white cloth, presumably spelled to never stain or decay, and nothing else. Not a single black hair, no wire spectacles, no Peverell heirloom, and no Harry. As though he had dissolved into the earth.

Aisha, when Tom unceremoniously fetched her and dragged her out into the garden, was similarly shocked to find her father's body missing. “Is that normal for Wizards?” she asked, bewildered, and Tom could only spit out that it was not, before Disapparating to a place where he could appropriately scream without witnesses.

Well, there was one witness, in the form of a Muggle tramp Tom had not noticed sleeping in some sort of manufactured trench upon the beach, but he was easily dispatched, killed by a single unthinking glance, Tom's unmuzzled eyes only shifting at the strangled sound of surprise. Tom bore the body away into the cave, where he spent the better part of three weeks in experimentation, only for nothing to come of it.

He could make an Inferius impervious to nearly everything, including fire–including even his own petrifying gaze, by utilising Parseltongue while casting–but the useless creature was still always an Inferius, with no true consciousness, no sense of self, no semblance of the man he had been, though admittedly he had been the basest sort of Muggle, and thus little more than an animal to start with.

Tom abandoned the Inferius to its eternal mindlessness and set his sights instead to the place he'd planned to first visit, should his interview with Grindelwald prove pointless. A place Harry had once made mention of, after once again lending company and sympathetic ear to the Grey Lady, who had been one of his favourite ghosts despite her timid nature, second only to Sir Nicholas.

Albania as a country was far more wild than Britain had been for centuries; it was not unusual for Tom to hear the lamentations of some wolf pack very close by, or to go long stretches without glimpsing a single other human, buried in the bowels of forests as he was. The Grey Lady had not specified which forest she'd fled to, only that it was isolated enough to convince herself that the Baron would never find her.

She was, of course, wrong.

Time became deconstructed after a certain point. Days were measured by the rise and set of the sun, but Tom did not care to count them. The nights were long, it being winter, and the forest was blanketed in snow, gilded in ice, though Tom remained unbothered by it, perhaps due to the Horcrux. There were many physiological changes he suspected could be blamed on the ritual; his body demanded less food and water than it naturally should have, and the elements seemed to have no real effect. He kept a modicum of magical warmth around himself for comfort, but it didn't seem to be truly necessary.

And then there was his inability to sleep, though this had been expected, sought out, even. It was the part of his humanity he'd purposefully severed, his redesigns of the ritual allowing for more precision in that respect. Now, at least, he would no longer be haunted by Harry in his dreams.

He relied mostly on the local population of snakes, many dragged by him out of hibernation, who hunted what little food he needed and proved themselves fitting guides, leading him to water and, more pressingly, sniffing out any splinters of magic within the woods.

It was an old wood, practically unspoiled by Muggle hands. There were many splinters, magic having burrowed itself into this part of the world long before humanity thought to ruin it. Like the snakes, Tom prodded magic from its slumber, irritated anew each time he found a needle that wasn't the one he wanted. In another life, he might have revelled in such relics, what arcane knowledge they might offer. In this one, Tom would remain unsatisfied until his particular goal–the only one that meant anything at all–was met. Surely the Diadem of Ravenclaw, an item said to be wisdom incarnate, would hold the answers he needed.

Seasons changed. One forest was replaced for another, and then another after that. Snakes were born and died under Tom's purview. He would later discover the search had taken him just under four years, before he finally found it, buried in a hollow in the centre of a tree, its body grown over the tiara over time, magic pulsing quietly within it like a beating heart. Like a heart, the tree did not survive its removal.

Where is Harry's body? Tom thought loudly within his own head, as he raised the diadem to crown himself. Where is his spirit? How do I retrieve him fully?

The wisdom he required was incredibly specific, but the diadem was not a scalpel. It did not offer wisdom in small doses, nor did it have the dexterity to answer only two or three questions pertaining to one matter. It was a battering ram. An atom bomb, its detonation leaving a crater in the mind as palpable as the levelling of a city.

Tom regained consciousness–unable to recuperate through sleep, Tom had simply buckled into a strange stasis in which his body remained in motion while his mind became a sinkhole in which wisdom unspooled from a neverending skein–to find he'd wandered into some sort of cavern, filled with a magic so potent he could taste it, reminiscent of earthen fungi and iron-rich meat.

“What gift have you brought me, son of serpents?” A hoarse voice called from the shadowed underbelly of the cavern ceiling.

Tom tipped his head back and peered through the dark to find a raven, the largest he'd ever seen, gazing back at him, head tilted in bemused curiosity. Its eyes were clouds of milk and mist, a sure sign of blindness, though the bird gave every indication it could see, its gaze following Tom with ease and confidence. It was clearly a magical creature, its wingspan three metres long at least, much larger than any natural raven should be capable of. The diadem, which Tom had only just caught sight of, must have been plucked from his head by one of the bird’s massive feet, now gleaming from between its gnarled toes, like a knut being rolled over knuckles.

“Shiny,” the raven said, approvingly. “A good gift.”

Tom felt rather like a candle that had been burned nearly to the wick, the only reason he could conceive for how quickly he lost his wits and, with no thought to what such a mysterious creature might offer him, allowed the Basilisk’s gaze the reins, incensed by the theft of the diadem. To his shock, the raven remained unpetrified, ruffling its feathers as though to rub it in.

“Your snake eyes won’t work on me, child,” the bird said, humour embroidering the rasp of its voice. “You must offer payment when entering my home. Either the shiny or yourself will do.”

Tom took this for the warning it was, blinking the rage back into its cage within him. “Very well. My apologies. What should I call you?”

“Whatever you like,” the raven chortled. “Humans are fond of names. I have had many, though I have no need for them. What are you called?”

Tom’s birth name was on the tip of his tongue before he thought better of it and swallowed it back. Names, like any other word, contained power when spoken with a magical tongue. “Lord Voldemort.”

The raven gave a throaty hum of contemplation. “And what are you lord of? What is it you seek here, in my dominion? Thought? Memory? Something new, perhaps?”

It had been some years since Tom’s long hours of conversation with Mundr, his tales of strange magic, warriors of old who wore the skins of fabled creatures. But Tom could remember the lessons wrought by those stories; if it was power you sought, or courage, or wisdom, you took it. Anything could be taken, so long as you were willing to do what was necessary. Tom had always been willing to do what was necessary.

Most wore the skins of swans or ravens, Tom recalled, and smiled. “Death,” he said. “I seek Death.”

Wizarding Britain had not changed much while he was away. Tuft had been elected as his replacement, which suited Tom’s needs for the time being. Should those needs change, there was always her unrealised allergy to Alihotsy, and her excessive love of fudge, to be taken advantage of.

Tom’s Knights had maintained their positions during Tom’s time away, and had faithfully convened at Riddle Manor upon his declared intention of return. A group of them–a dozen of his most loyal–had only just Apparated to the grounds when Tom alighted down before them, drinking in their awe with satisfaction. He had always known how to make an entrance, what Harry had condescendingly referred to as his love for dramatics.

Flying without a broom had taken only a bit of time for him to master and, draped as he was in black, his robes could certainly resemble a pair of very large wings. “We have much to discuss,” he told his acolytes, disinterested in the bumbling questions they were sure to ask should he give them the time to do so. “What information do you have for me?”

Nothing of real note; recently instituted laws from the Wizengamot, an heir or two who had inherited their parents’ seats during Tom’s time abroad, several experiments from the Department of Mysteries that they knew of, though not in any great detail, Tuft’s election which had gone mostly uncontested, Crouch not having nearly as much congeniality as either Tuft or Tom.

“And you, my lord?” Abraxas finally asked. “Undoubtedly you have found your answers. No mystery can evade you for long.”

“Undoubtedly,” Tom agreed, amused by Abraxas’ prostration. He had asked after Aisha upon his arrival, inquiring whether Tom had greeted his daughter yet, who had graduated in the midst of Tom's Albanian convalescence. Abraxas had a spawn of his own now, apparently, which seemed to have given him the idiotic idea that he and Tom now had something– fatherhood, that trite concept–in common.

Tom had assuredly squashed that notion, and Abraxas was now currying forgiveness in the form of licking Tom's proverbial boots. It was, as it had always been, extremely satisfying.

Truthfully, Tom had seen Aisha, only a glimpse of her dark hair, her dark eyes, face a placid mask, thoughts kept hidden from him by the Occlumency he'd meticulously trained her in, before she'd let Lucille pull her through the fireplace in a cloud of green smoke. Lucille had not been so sparing with her feelings, cutting Tom an impressive glare. That his last interaction with Aisha, already so fraught, and subsequent extended disappearance had negatively impacted his daughter was, he supposed, to be expected, though he'd hoped her generally level-headed disposition would have meant the evasion of the usual upsets of other teen girls. He was not especially concerned; his retrieval of her more tender-hearted father would surely soothe such fickle emotions. For now, said retrieval remained the top priority.

“I have found a method by which to achieve our goal,” Tom announced, as his goals would always be the goals of everyone at this table. “But first, I must win an audience with Death.”

“Is there a ritual?” asked Nott, which was not a poor guess.

“Of course,” Tom smiled. He could nearly taste the blood to come, rivers of it rioting within his head. It would be glorious, death reaching such heights even a god would struggle to comprehend. And, best of all, being borne towards him over the river like Moses, would be Harry. “The oldest ritual there is. And, in accordance with this mission, I think a change of terminology is in order. No longer are you the Knights of Walpurgis. Such festivals will be child's play compared to the magic we'll unleash upon the world. From now on, you will be my Death Eaters. Like ravens, we will feast on the carnage.”

Bellatrix was the first to cheer, as Tom expected her to be. She was young and hungry because of it. His oldest Knights had grown soft and lazy over years of peace and parenthood. Bellatrix and her peers, many of them still fresh from Hogwarts, were eager to prove themselves, and eager to take their own bite from the world, the pounds of flesh owed them.

“My lord,” Orion began, no doubt about to attempt to placate Tom's bloodlust with talk of underhanded politics and bribes. He was a senator at heart these days, not a general.

“Do you think I mean for all of you to kill the legions of Muggles we will need to gain entry to Death's door?” Tom asked, affecting a look of condescending amusem*nt, like a father watching his child's fruitless attempts at walking. “You would never be able to, even if you had the skill. I, however, will raze numbers to make even the Muggles, with all their bombs, tremble. I know you each have your theories about what I've done these past years, what changes I've brought to myself, and what was required to make those changes. You have noticed some–my ability for flight. My eyes, perhaps?” At their unsure nodding, Tom grinned. “Their colour is indicative of a deeper evolution. I carry the gaze of the Basilisk, to be wielded at will. Of course, I would never wish to unleash it upon any of my Death Eaters, but perhaps you require a demonstration?”

“Oh, would you please, my Lord?” Bellatrix smiled, excited beyond measure. The sight of Tom killing a man with his stare alone may well bring her to the fervent religious ecstasy of Bacchus’ maenads, a reaction which both disturbed and fascinated Tom in equal measure. He could never understand worship. Nothing existed which rose above himself.

Soon, even Death would be brought to heel.

“I thought I told you not to do anything rash,” said a voice from the doorway, sardonic yet fond, so familiar it felt painful and, for a moment, Tom was sure he must have been hallucinating.

He followed his Death Eaters’ stares and turned to find Harry Potter, looking exactly as he had the morning of his execution, standing firm and alive. He flashed Tom a wry grin that was nearly physical.

“I told you I wouldn't leave you for good,” Harry said pointedly, as though Tom had been the fool for assuming otherwise, as though five years were a paltry amount, as though Tom could have spent the time doing anything at all beyond hunting his wayward husband down.

“Revelio,” Tom hissed, putting perhaps much more power into the spell than necessary, consumed with a sudden, nightmarish belief that this Harry was an impersonation, a conman who, once revealed, would be tortured beyond known viciousness.

Instead, nothing happened beyond a softening of Harry's eyes, which Tom was sure had never looked so green. “Can't blame you for questioning it, I guess,” he admitted, slouching closer, the exact way which Harry used to walk, as though wanting to skirt others’ notice, as if he wasn't always the most interesting thing in every room. “It's me, sweetheart.”

“Leave,” Tom ordered, unable to look away from him, trusting his followers to understand his commands. They did, Abraxas and Nott leading the departure, their juniors peering at Harry curiously, having never met him, his existence something of a fable to them.

Once they were alone, together–together, for the first time in years–Tom stood from his seat. Harry stilled, just within reaching distance, and studied him, as though he was just as surprised to find himself face to face. Tom wondered if he had haunted Harry, too.

“You broke your promise,” Harry frowned, gaze settling on the tell-tale red of Tom's eyes, a shade that left no room for nuance. Tom had, on multiple occasions since the splitting of his soul, amused himself with the thought of the Muggles at Wool's and the horrification that would consume them at the sight. Perhaps they might drop dead of fright, no Basilisk magic necessary.

“As did you,” Tom reminded him. Rage and elation had been warring within him since Harry's appearance, and for a moment, rage won out, sending his hands into motion before his mind, until they collared a threat around Harry's throat, itching to strangle the new life from him. He pictured those eyes paling once again, Harry limp in his arms, his perfect body once again encased in the glass coffin downstairs, a priceless work of art, never to leave Tom again.

They had found themselves in this position many times before, and Harry had never flinched, had never once feared Tom, perhaps even when he should have. He flinched now.

This, and the true fear he glimpsed in Harry's eyes–a mere second's worth, but enough to startle–was what ultimately made Tom hesitate, grip relaxing into harmless touch.

Harry closed his eyes, sighed, and then opened them, nothing but trust echoing out. He raised a hand to Tom's cheek, as though tenderly stroking a horse. “I missed you.”

“I ought to kill you,” Tom said, the stampede of his heart betraying him, Harry smiling as if he could hear it.

His mouth dipped into something wry, something heavy and dark. “Wouldn't be the first time.”

Tom's heart finally paused. Beneath his thumb, Harry's pulse sang, evidence of his return, proof he had kept his promise, though his punctuality left much to be desired. “I think you should start from the beginning.”

“Is the beginning when Rosier killed me?” Harry asked, laughing when Tom scowled, which had obviously been the intention. “Okay. Well, when I died that time, I woke up shortly after I'd died the first time, forty-three years in the future. It was…not optimal, timing-wise. There was a lot that needed to be sorted out.”

“How did you die in the future?” Tom asked, intrigued despite himself. There were cases, albeit rare, of a Witch or Wizard travelling back to the past, but never had anyone gone forward, at least not on record.

“Lord Voldemort’s killing curse,” Harry said, holding fast to Tom’s robes, as though expecting him to pull away. He didn’t, shocked frozen, though he thought he probably shouldn’t have been.

They’d known for years that Tom must have played a large part in Harry’s previous life, his life in the future. Tom had never given much thought to how far into the future Harry had fallen from, or what sort of relationship they might have had then. He’d suspected immortality to play a part, and had had no real reason to consider this other life of Harry’s, much too busy building his own, a better one, which Harry would obviously prefer.

“He tried many times. None of them quite stuck,” Harry grinned, in annoyingly good humour even while discussing his own death. “When I woke up after Rosier, I had all my memories of this life, of you. Not like it was here, where I’d only catch glimpses. I remembered everything as I’d lived it. I was so worried about you–and then I had to turn around and destroy you. Well, old, snake-faced you.”

“Not me,” Tom snapped, though he’d of course wanted to ask Snake-face? Explain. Differentiating between himself, his true, best version, and the apparently tasteless, elderly version of himself from the future, was more important.

Harry’s thumb traced over the divots in Tom’s lips, soft and reassuring. “I know,” he agreed. “He was nothing like you, really. He was powerful, sure, but had none of your good bits. Though,” he hummed, gazing thoughtfully. “You have his eyes, now.”

“I tried to kill you as revenge,” Tom surmised. “Because you left me.” Five years had been long enough; he could easily imagine the bitterness he’d be consumed by after forty years.

Harry snorted, and then laughed again at Tom’s affronted look. “Sorry. It’s not a bad guess, but no. Voldemort from my time–he was Tom Riddle, but he wasn’t you. He was never Minister, he never got married, never adopted a daughter. He never had a single friend in his whole life. Before I was born, he started a war over Muggle-borns. He thought they should all be killed. My mum was a Muggle-born, so my parents obviously fought against him.”

“Your mother wasn’t a Potter?” asked Tom, choosing to ignore the rest of the story for the moment. Why any version of himself would choose to start his uprising over mudbloods was baffling. They were hardly enough of a threat to warrant that, and with the Wizarding population so low, their numbers were vital. It would have been easier and simpler to, much as he had in this time, segregate all magical people, including mudbloods, from Muggles.

Harry shook his head. “She was a Muggle-born. My father was James Potter, Fleamont’s kid.” Tom vaguely recalled Fleamont’s marriage to Euphemia, shortly after Aisha’s arrival into their lives. Charlus and Dorea, still without any children of their own, had been taken by the idea of a niece to thoroughly spoil. As far as he was aware, his brother-in-laws were both still childless, though admittedly Tom had not thought to check, and had not spoken to them at all since Harry’s false funeral, their dozens of letters going unread, their floo calls unanswered. They had been devastated by Harry’s death, but their devastation had grated; they had not truly known him, not like Tom, and thus their grieving of him felt unearned.

“Then, right before I was born,” Harry continued, “There was a prophecy about a child who could defeat Voldemort. He decided it was about me, so he killed my parents, and tried to kill me, but his killing curse backfired–supposedly because of my mum sacrificing herself for me, though I don’t know about all that. It seems…”

“Idiotic?” Tom finished. “A trite, half-baked theory? Many parents have sacrificed themselves for their children. If that was all it took to defeat the killing curse, we’d know about it by now.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “But I don’t know what else could’ve done it. I was only a year old, it’s not like I could defend myself.”

“You’re the strongest Wizard I’ve ever known, besides myself,” argued Tom. “Magic is intrinsic, defensive magic even more so. I have little doubt that yours managed to shield you, even then.”

Harry flushed handsomely, Tom drawn in by the sight, laying his mouth against the heat of his cheek. Then, to his dismay, Harry’s breath began to hitch, tears welling and leaking out, wetting Tom’s lips. “Sorry,” Harry said with a wet laugh. “I just really f*cking missed you.”

It took only a moment to turn Harry in his arms and have him seated on the table, the better for Tom to bury himself into, face hidden in Harry’s throat, Harry wrapping around him in turn, clutching with both arms and legs, like mating snakes twined around each other. “You will not leave again,” Tom ordered, no matter that it sounded like a plea. “The future cannot have you.”

“I won’t,” Harry promised, turning to press a kiss against Tom’s hair, then his brow, the peak of his cheek. “I sorted everything out. They don’t need me anymore. Also it kind of sucked, being seventeen again, knowing I had a husband and daughter to get back to.” He pulled Tom’s face from its hiding place and kissed him deeply. “I love you,” he murmured, rising against him, and Tom was pleased to find that with the Basilisk’s magic, he could smell Harry’s arousal, the heady, oceanic brine of it.

Tom meant to take him hard enough to overwrite any damage wrought by his other self, but instead found himself turned admittedly tender by Harry’s touch, his hitched gasping in Tom’s ear, his whimpering of Tom’s name. He tensed briefly when their eyes met, likely remembering the eyes of that future Voldemort, the one too foolish to see the magnificent creature in Harry. Tom kissed him softly, and Harry shuddered back open, once again willing, eager as always to let Tom have his way.

“God,” Harry gasped, tipping his head back on a laugh, rolling into Tom’s thrusts with shivering delight. “I love you. Tom, I–I love you–”

“Harry,” hissed Tom, losing himself to pleasure he hadn’t felt in years, had forgotten what it was like, the heat of Harry’s body, the painful thrill of Tom’s name in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Harry whispered, nonsensically, pulling Tom closer still, until all motion was rendered tight by proximity. “Come on, sweetheart, I want you to.”

Tom’s groan upon release was instinctive, Harry’s answering keen stabbing the swollen air as he clutched at Tom’s back and drank from his mouth. “Merlin,” Harry panted, laughing again, combing through Tom’s hair, dampened by sweat. “We lasted eight seconds!”

“Eight minutes at least,” Tom said, jostled by Harry’s laugh, neither of them pulling away, luxuriating in the novelty of touch. “It’s been five years.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed, flinging an arm about for his glasses, knocked off during their coupling. “Sorry about that. If it makes you feel better, you’re still the only–I never–not even before, in my other life. It’s always just been you.” Shame battled with satisfaction across his face as he stuttered out the confession, finally finding his glasses and fiddling with them, rather than meeting Tom’s eye.

“Of course not,” said Tom, who did feel better. “You’ve been mine since you were born.”

Harry hummed, noncommittal, a pretence given they both knew the truth, and sat up. “C’mon. I’m knackered, and I want to sleep in our bed. Coming back to life really takes it out of you.”

Tom didn’t recall the state he’d left the master in until they came upon the boarded door, the wreckage within left to rot for the past four years. Harry shot Tom a knowing look before setting the room to rights with a wordless spell.

“Sweetheart,” Harry sighed, leading Tom to bed, lazily shucking half of their clothes before crawling onto the mattress. “Well, ‘m glad to know you missed me,” his words fought their way through a leonine yawn. “If you’d remarried while I was gone, I’d’ve been right pissed.”

“You did not think I’d remarry,” Tom said, the idea patently ridiculous.

Harry stroked a thumb over the dark hairs of Tom’s brow. “No,” he admitted. “I did worry you’d do something stupid, though. And I was right.” He softly presses a thumb to the side of one red eye. “We’ll fix that when I wake up.”

Tom scowled. “You left. There’s nothing to–”

Harry, death having not cured him of his impertinence, slapped a hand over Tom’s mouth without apology. “Hush. I really am tired, so I am going to sleep, and you are going to hold me, and we’ll deal with the rest in the morning.” As he spoke, he tugged Tom’s arm over him, as though Tom was a quilt rather than a husband, and closed his eyes.

Tom did not sleep, wondering if that future Voldemort had shared the inability, if that was why Harry suspected he wouldn't. His other self must have created a Horcrux, given Harry's knowledge of the matter. He might have even performed the original ritual, as an impatient teenager, without Harry there to curb his impulses.

Tom studied Harry as he slept, the rise and fall of his chest the only thing to set him apart from his corpse, now entombed by Tom's arms rather than a glass coffin, and all the better for it. Tom considered if he might have spent the last five years in a dreamless sleep, Harry's body in his arms, while waiting for Harry's return. A painfully boring existence, to be sure, but there was something attractive about the picture in his mind.

Once, it had been commonplace for Harry to blink awake beside Tom, leaning up for a perfunctory kiss in greeting, humming as was his way, as though savouring Tom's taste.

As it happened now, Tom could nearly forget the period of time when this morning ritual had been absent.

“Morning,” Harry sighed, reluctant to stop kissing, curling his body closer as he suckled Tom's tongue. “f*ck, you're gorgeous. Stop distracting me. We've got things to do.”

“Have we?” Tom asked, stroking a hand down Harry's chest to thumb at a dark nipple, revelling in Harry's whine.

“We have.” He bit Tom's lower lip, admonishing. “Where's your Horcrux?” At Tom's hesitation, Harry raised a single brow. “Shall I guess, then? The Chamber?” At Tom's frown, he grinned. “You're so predictable.”

“Predictable,” Tom scowled, incensed further by Harry's laughter, hardly mollified by his nails gently scraping at Tom's scalp, a casual offer of comfort. “I am far from predictable.”

“Hmm,” Harry hummed, disagreeing wordlessly. “Maybe just to me.”

This was more difficult to dispute. Harry did know Tom, more than Tom had once considered possible. There were times in his life he’d felt Harry's Sight went beyond a nebulous future or past life, that it burrowed beneath Tom's skin and bone to analyse the core of him. “Perhaps,” Tom allowed, rewarded with Harry's smile, the warmth of his regard. All those years of knowing Tom, truly seeing him, and he had never turned away.

“I didn't want to kill Voldemort,” Harry confessed, voice dimming into whisper. “I couldn't, actually. Because even if he wasn't my Tom, he was Tom Riddle. It didn't matter, though. His curse backfired on him again, for good that time. Because I'd destroyed his Horcruxes. All of them. Even me.”

Tom had never tested his flight while holding another person but, upon Harry discovering that Tom could fly sans broom, he demanded to be brought up as high as Tom thought possible.

It was an even headier feeling, with Harry clung tight in his arms, Harry's triumphant laughter in his ear as Tom propelled them through clouds until they were soaked and shivering.

“That's way better than Apparating,” Harry declared, stumbling as they alighted at the boundary of Hogwarts’ grounds. “That's not from the Horcrux, is it?”

“No,” said Tom, inordinately pleased by Harry's praise. “It's from something else.”

Harry studied him for a long moment, expression impenetrable. “We talked a lot about what I spent the last five years doing. We should discuss what you got up to, too. For instance; you stepped down from the Ministership?”

“It suddenly held very little appeal,” Tom said stiffly. He had done a fine job that morning, not thinking of the harrowing year following Harry's departure, nor what steps he'd have to take now that Harry had returned. That the Ministership would be retaken was a given, but how exactly was still to be devised.

Harry said nothing, only taking Tom's hand and squeezing it in his own, before Apparating them both into the Chamber.

Tom had not returned since conducting the ritual. The Basilisk lay where he had left her, protected from natural decay by some latent magic of the castle, even the parts of her Tom had excised for consumption. Harry gazed sadly upon the corpse, glancing at the cobwebbed broom he'd once used to soothe her.

“The girls haven't seen her like this, have they?” Harry fretted.

Tom had not even considered that possibility. “I don't believe so.”

Harry sent him a frown sodden with judgement. “When was the last time you spoke to your daughter?”

“It has been a while,” Tom admitted. “Our last encounter was…fraught.”

“Tom,” Harry sighed, bringing a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose in irritation. “Our daughter isn't one of your cronies you can just ignore whenever you feel like it. She's our daughter–I can't believe you abandoned her.”

“You abandoned her first,” Tom pointed out, neck growing warm with anger and something he thought might be a kind of shame. “You abandoned me.”

“And I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you both,” said Harry. “But to Aisha especially. You're a grown man. She was a child. Did you at least attend her graduation?” At Tom's telling silence, Harry tipped his face to the dark ceiling with a groan.

“I believe she's renting an apartment with Lucille in Knockturn,” Tom offered, Abraxas having kept tabs on the girls while Tom was away. “They work at a shop there.”

“In Knockturn?"Harry asked, sounding scandalised, despite the fact that he and Tom had rented an apartment on that very street in their youth. Tom doubted that pointing that out, or the fact that he had ensured Aisha's lifelong access to every one of their well-stocked vaults which meant she had chosen Knockturn rather than fallen there out of necessity, would do much to improve Harry's mood. “Right. First, we patch up your soul. Then, we take our daughter and her–friend? Girlfriend?” He rolled his eyes when Tom shrugged indifferently, having no real care for what the girls were to each other. “We'll take them out to dinner. As a first step.”

“And an announcement to the public that your death was much less permanent than it first appeared?” Tom asked, amused by Harry's blanching.

“Whatever, we'll come up with something. I'm sure you can cite some strange arcane magic no one knows much about.” Harry turned back to the Basilisk's unweathered body. “You adapted the ritual, right? That's why you're not insane.” Because the Lord Voldemort he had known had not been so conscientious, his mind and magic split alongside his soul with each Horcrux he created, just as Grindelwald had predicted.

“Yes. A human life, eagerly given. A willing sacrifice of magic powerful enough to substitute for my own.” Tom reached out tentatively; historically, when Harry was upset with him, he shied from Tom's touch for a time. He needn't have worried now. Harry leaned into his hand like a flower seeking sunlight. “It may not be reversible. And even if it is, death is not something I wish either of us to ever experience again.”

Harry sighed. “Death isn't awful. I want you to know that. It's…peaceful. It doesn't hurt. And each time I died, someone I loved was waiting for me.”

“The train,” Tom recalled. Harry's strange afterlife had been fitting; King's Cross, the place that symbolised the journey to their first true home. “The first time you died, you chose to wake up in my past?”

“I didn't actually plan it or anything,” Harry admitted, turning bashful.

“When have you ever planned anything?” asked Tom.

Harry swatted at him. “Shut up. I just–Dumbledore had shown me some memories of Tom Riddle, and one of them was when you–he–was at Wool's. And I remembered thinking how lonely you–he–must have been. Like I was. And if I hadn't had my friends at Hogwarts, I might've turned out not far off. I just thought…no one deserves to be alone like that. I wanted to prevent it. And then I guess that's where the train took me. Dunno why I was a baby. I guess it took a long time to get me there.”

“How long did it take you to return the second time? Could you not have directed the train to the day of assassination? The day after? Yet you made me wait five years.”

“Cut me some slack, it took more effort that time around. I wasn't just going backwards in time. Growing up with you shifted this universe out of alignment. I had to go through the Veil and travel through time and space. And there was an enormous wolf there–stop distracting me.” He gestured to the Basilisk. “I know you don't regret killing Rosier. But can you honestly say you don't regret Hessie's death?”

Tom looked at the creature, who had so loyally laid down for slaughter upon his command. She'd been nearly one thousand years old, a beast of breathtaking power, trapped her whole life in a glorified sewer, confined to solitude. He didn't know if she had ever seen the sun or breathed the fresh air of a forest. He suspected she would have greatly enjoyed the Albanian wilds.

“No,” Tom admitted. “I cannot.”

The reintegration of his soul did not feel as Tom expected it would. He'd believed it must be as painful as the severing, and while there was pain, it was akin to stepping into uncomfortably warm water, not enough to burn the skin, only a sting that tightened the lungs and welled the eyes.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself prone on a conjured sofa, Harry puttering about the Basilisk's massive head, which seemed to be expelling breath.

“I did not realise unmaking the Horcrux would rejuvenate her,” Tom frowned, watching as Harry jumped and then glanced shiftily around the Chamber, looking distinctly suspicious. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Harry said immediately, before thinking better of it. “A bit of necromancy, I think. Maybe. It's all very confusing. But before I explain, I need to tell you something else.” At Tom's expectant look, Harry crossed over and knelt beside the sofa until their eyes were level. Harry's smile was flushed with relief. “Your eyes are perfect again.”

“Harry, my eyes after the ritual were capable of killing someone with a single glance. My vision was impeccable. I could see heat signatures. They are far less than that now.”

“They're perfect,” Harry insisted, reaching to rub a thumb along the skin below Tom's right eye. “My favourite colour.”

“This is what you had to tell me?”

“Hush, I'm getting to it.” He squared his shoulders, falling into a serious countenance. “I won't ever let you die alone, or in pain, or go someplace awful. I will always be by your side, no matter which train takes us where. Whatever you're scared might happen, wherever you're scared you might end up, know that we won't be separated. I won't allow it.” When Tom said nothing, Harry began to worry. “Do you believe me?”

Tom studied the scar on his forehead, faded now that the splinter of Voldemort's soul had been removed, Harry himself like a strike of lightning across Tom's life. “I think I might.”

Harry's smile was a slow, victorious curl. “Good. Now, I need you to hold something for me.” In short order he'd withdrawn the Gaunt ring, his own invisibility cloak, and, to Tom's surprise, what appeared to be Grindelwald's wand.

“Did you break into Dumbledore's office while I was unconscious?” Tom asked, feeling somewhat bereft at not having been able to accompany him.

Harry gave him a dry look. “No, I asked if I could borrow it. You know, it's amazing how quick and easy you can make things for yourself by asking for help occasionally.”

“I'll take your word for that, shall I?” said Tom, grasping the offered bundle.

“Ah,” he said, and for the second time in just as many hours, was rendered speechless.

“Happy birthday,” said Harry brightly. “You're functionally immortal, no murder necessary.” He smacked a kiss to Tom's cheek.

“My birthday isn't for another six months,” Tom argued, inanely, still somewhat shell-shocked by the breadth of magic that had momentarily subsumed him.

He then wrangled an explanation from Harry–it was not just anyone, apparently, who could hold all three Hallows and be granted mastership over death. They had to have no fear of death, complete acceptance of it. And even then, Death itself had to embrace them.

Tom raised a brow at that. “I recall no embrace, and I find it difficult to believe Death eager to welcome me, given my recent intention to do battle.”

But Harry only shrugged. “Death and I had a long chat about you, and I asked nicely. I mean, we're married and all, so technically, what's mine is yours.”

Harry Potter, friend to all creatures, even Death, even the Dark Lord who'd spent nearly two decades trying his level best to kill him.

“And a good thing, too,” Tom said, finding it suddenly strangely hard to swallow. He studied the elder wand in his hand, its lazy pulse of power like a slumbering hellhound just waiting for the Devil's command. What Tom could do…the world he could shape with it…best to leave such thoughts for another time, perhaps another him. “You'd be lost without me.”

Harry laid his hand over Tom's, their rings glinting in the flickering candlelight as, across the room, the Basilisk began to raise her drowsy head. “Let's go apologise to our kid.”

“Master?” the Basilisk hissed sleepily, before seeming to wake with abruptness. “Harry? Did you bring me deer?”

Harry's laugh echoed through Slytherin's chamber like a heralding of bells.

Chapter 10: في كل نغمة و كل ندبة صغيرة،

Chapter Text

The night of Samhain, Tom woke to find Harry missing from their bed. This was no longer unusual; Harry often woke from night terrors inspired by his first life, only to find himself sharing a bed with the man who’d killed him. Unable to bear the memory, too close to the bone, he’d slip away downstairs to hide.

Tom searched the kitchen first and then the sitting room, whose sofa Harry tended to prefer. He even checked Aisha's quarters, which Harry sometimes fled to, finding solace in their daughter, someone who had never made an appearance in his other life. Finding each room empty save Aisha's, which housed only herself and Lucille, he continued his search outside in the garden, where he finally stumbled upon his husband, sitting on the grass before his own empty grave, staring up at the stars.

Tom folded down beside him, careful to keep space between, though he needn’t have. Harry shifted over immediately until they were pressed side to side. “You died tonight, in 1981,” he said, never tearing his gaze from the sky. “You killed my parents, and then you tried to kill me. And then you died.”

Tom didn’t bother to correct him, though his very spirit longed to grit teeth, to spit out, once again, that it wasn’t him, that man who wore some mangled version of his face, the creature who had replaced Tom’s entirety with a mask of death and destruction. It was a tired argument, and not one either of them would ever win. Harry knew it wasn’t Tom. But he also knew it was; the capability of Tom, the possibility, in a way Tom himself could never fully deny.

“Do you regret it?” Tom wondered, refusing to elaborate, trusting Harry to know, as he always seemed to, what it was Tom meant. Did he regret this second life, the pain it had brought him, the agony of being stretched between two worlds, two lives, two Harrys and two Toms. Did he regret the solitude of it–he could tell Tom everything, every minute detail, and still Tom would never fully understand, no one would, Harry alone carrying the whole weight of it.

Harry moved slowly, twisting until he could swing one leg over Tom’s hips, as if mounting a horse. His eyes shone eerily bright in the darkness, as though lit by the same cosmic fire as the stars, an uncalculated distance of death. His hands, when they framed Tom’s face, were cool from the damp earth, wet with dew. “You love me.”

It was not a question, but Tom answered it anyway, the truth that had only fully settled, uncontestable, when Harry had been wrenched from his life. “You know I do.”

“Yes,” Harry leaned close until their cheeks were aligned, nosing at the hair falling over Tom’s ear, still mussed from their pillows. “I found you across lifetimes. I’ll never regret you, Tom Riddle. You’ve been mine since you were born.”