Chapter Eighteen of 'Jonquils and Lightning'- Jonquil's Deed
Chapter Seventeen.
Title: Jonquils and Lightning (18/19)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, a few one-sided het pairings and canon het pairings
Content Notes: Angst, blood, dubious consent, dimension travel, OC’s
Rating: R
Summary: Harry Potter found peace after the war in another world where a large number of Potters live. He makes his living as an animal healer in Godric’s Hollow, surrounded by family and away from all wars. But his peace shatters with the arrival of a Tom Riddle from another dimension, who seeks a Potter who can be his foretold weapon in his own war.
Author’s Notes: At the moment, I can’t say how long this story will be.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Eighteen-Jonquil’s Deed
“It’s about time.”
Harry winced as he stepped into the kitchen, with Tom right behind him, and heard what Dorea had said. He glanced over his shoulder at Tom, but Tom didn’t seem to mind. He had a faint smile on his lips as he leaned past Harry and started to dish food for himself out of the enormous platters of eggs and bacon that were already there.
“Um,” Harry said. “I’m sorry that we spent so much time in the bedroom?” He glanced at the food again. It seemed odd that Dorea had breakfast ready to serve when it must have been at least four in the afternoon.
“Sit down,” Dorea said, nodding to the chairs on either side of the table. The six that usually stood there had been reduced to three. “We need to talk.”
Harry filled his own plate and sat down with a vague sense of dread. Tom sat down and then moved his chair close enough to Harry that he could casually drape an arm around his shoulders. Harry stiffened up, then shook his head. It was too late now to hide the evidence.
Tom’s eyes laughed at him for trying, anyway, and he drank most of his tea in one long gulp before he looked at Dorea. “I’m not giving him up,” he said.
“I don’t believe that I asked you to,” Dorea said, and sipped at her own tea for a moment, watching as Harry dug into his eggs. “But I do need to ask you do something for me. You see, Jonquil left us this note. I’m unsure of how early she actually left the house.” She held out a scrap of parchment.
Harry winced as he took it. It looked as though tears had blurred the letters. It took him a moment to actually understand it, because of that.
Tom had already understood it, but he drew in a harsh breath, which meant his reaction wasn’t any more enlightening. Harry struggled and made out the words.
Dear family, I know when I’m not wanted. I know that the man I would have chosen has chosen someone else, my own cousin. I can’t stay here and watch them be happy together. Maybe that makes me childish, but at least I know my own weakness. Tom. His name was underlined several times. I’m going to another place, the world that Tom won’t take me to.
“She went through the portal to my world,” Tom said flatly.
Harry started. That wouldn’t have occurred to him. He had thought she’d merely run away to London-not that that was great either, in a world where wizarding London was much bigger than in his own dimension and apparently had lots of dangers for a naïve eighteen-year-old. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Tom snapped his fingers in the air next to his own ear. “Now that I’m properly awake, I can hear the portal ringing. She wouldn’t have been able to get past it, but I’m still on this side. Nothing is preventing someone else from going through it as long as they originate from a world that’s not mine.”
Harry grimaced. That was why Albus had had to perform a ritual to come through. He wondered briefly if he would have to perform one to get back, and then pushed the thought away. “How do we retrieve her?”
“I don’t see any other way except for you to go through.”
“You would put my great-nephew at risk, and not yourself?” Dorea’s voice was as cold as bones in winter.
“If I go through, the portal immediately snaps shut,” Tom said. He looked pale and strained, as though he was dealing with some immense injury that would rip him open any second. “There has to be a way to brace it, to hold it open, but…” His eyes slid to Harry, and then away.
Harry swallowed. He hated that events were forcing his hand, but it didn’t make him feel as desperate as it would have a few days ago. He had chosen Tom, and that meant certain things just made sense. “I can do it.”
“I don’t want you to do it because of your cousin.”
“My cousin is only a child. It’s the reason you wouldn’t accept her as your companion in the first place. She doesn’t deserve to be trapped there. Or worse. Didn’t you say your world was in the middle of a war?”
“Not an open one as yet, but yes.” Tom was gazing only at him, although Dorea shifted in her chair in a way that meant she wanted answers. “You would do this? Knowing what it might make you?”
“What does he mean, Harry?”
“He means that I can sacrifice some of my magic to hold open the portal to his world.” Harry looked at his great-aunt, and saw the way her hand almost cracked her porcelain teacup as it tightened. “It’s what I did to keep the one that leads to my own world open.”
“Why would you-Harry.” Dorea sounded shocked. “I had no idea that you made yourself weaker than you were.”
“It really was the best solution,” Harry said, wondering why she looked as if he had broken her arm. “My magic before that was so chaotic and powerful that I couldn’t really control it. I killed people when I only meant to wound them and make them back off.”
“These would be people who were trying to kill you?” Tom sounded only mildly interested, but glancing at him, Harry could see the heat in his eyes. He tried not to grimace. Of course this was turning Tom on.
Well, Harry had been the one to choose him. He couldn’t complain about it now. “They were. But I still wanted to capture them and keep them for the Aurors. I couldn’t, because my magic would always move to defend me with lethal force even if that’s not what I wanted. I can control it a lot better now.”
The silence on the other side of the table made him turn to look at Dorea, who was staring at him in wonder. She said softly, “You must have made-such an impression when you walked in that world.”
“I did, but it was like causing earthquakes. It’s better for me to be the way I am now.”
“But you won’t be that way you are now if you give up more of your magic to hold the portal to Mr. Gaunt’s world open.”
“I know.” Harry smiled a little wistfully and held up his hands. Blue sparks danced over his fingers, and he watched them. Then he closed his hands into fists. The sparks vanished. “I’ll miss the magic. There are times that I’ve done things I shouldn’t be able to do because of it, and I’m grateful.” He could feel Tom’s heated gaze on his back, no doubt remembering some of those things. “But I’ll also be normal. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. A normal wizard, with a family.”
“I will grieve for what you lost,” Dorea whispered. “I did not know the price of what Jonquil did would be so high.”
“I’ve never had a cousin before-well, I’ve never had a cousin I liked before,” Harry admitted, thinking of Dudley. They had sort of reconciled just before the Order of the Phoenix took the Dursleys away, but then Harry had never seen him again, which made it hard to tell what their relationship would have been like if Dudley had stayed. “I didn’t treat Jonquil the best. This is a chance to make up for some of those mistakes.”
“Still…”
“I really don’t mind, Dorea,” Harry told her quietly. “This is the way that I want things to be, now that Jonquil has gone through the portal. I’ll get her back, don’t worry.”
Dorea and Tom exchanged glances. Harry wondered why, until Tom put a hand on his shoulder and said, “When he speaks in that tone, you know that everything’s going to be all right, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” Dorea narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think you’ve told me every detail of what you did to save your world, great-nephew.”
Harry shrugged. “I can’t see that it matters now.” He stood up, casting his mind back to the night that he’d stabilized the portal to his first world so it would never shut. “I’ll need a full night’s sleep. A good meal in the morning. A silver knife. I brought one with me, but I don’t know where it is right now.”
“I will find it.” Looking relieved to have something to do, Dorea turned and bustled out of the room.
Harry nodded to her, but he only had time for that before Tom took his shoulders and turned him around. His eyes were narrow as he scrutinized Harry’s face. “You really are going to do this, aren’t you? Are you willing to give up everything that matters to you so you can find your idiot cousin?”
“I’m not giving up everything that matters to me,” Harry pointed out. “I’ll have my family, my friends. And you, unless you decide that you won’t want to sleep with me when I’m less powerful.” To be honest, part of Harry was braced, expecting that. Except for the bonds of blood and long-term friendship, it seemed he mostly knew people who had turned on him.
Tom gave him a single, sharp shake, which made Harry’s teeth clip closed on his tongue. He wiped away the small trickle of blood and blinked incredulously at Tom, who said, “I know that you aren’t insane. And this was the solution I recommended in the first place.”
“Yes? Then why you are upset?”
“Because I wanted you to choose it of your own free will, because you wanted to be able to see me after I returned to my world. Not be forced to it because of your idiot cousin.”
Harry reached out and touched Tom’s hand, then healed his own tongue with a movement of his wand. “I’m not being forced to it. And Tom, people will always matter more to me than power. Yes, it’s nice to have magic that means I can defend you from Dumbledore and hold portals open long past the point where they should have closed. But it’s not the thing that I’m going to allow to define my life. I’m going to let the people I love do that.”
For a second, Tom’s eyes were as wide and luminous as the night sky. Then they clouded over, and he nodded shortly. “And you will consider visiting my world with me, then? Or letting me come back and visit you?”
“I just told you that I didn’t want to give you up.”
Tom closed his eyes, and Harry realized with a start that he was with someone who was even more used to people walking away than Harry had been. Harry clasped his hands and held them until Tom opened his eyes, then promised, “If I ever want to walk away from you, I will tell you, Tom. Not hint around the topic and pretend to be talking about something else.”
Tom’s face relaxed finally. “I suppose there’s something to be said for having a forthright Gryffindor lover.”
“And I think more of you than I ever realized I could,” Harry said, and let Tom kiss him right there in the kitchen, where anyone from the house could have walked in on them.
*
Tom stood well back as he watched Harry approach the glittering outline of the portal back to his world. Harry had warned him that, from what he knew of portals, Tom shouldn’t be too close, or he might be drawn through and the gate would snap shut.
Tom knew he would spend the rest of his life, if necessary, finding a way to get back to this dimension if that happened. But it would be convenient if he never had to.
Harry had his hands held out in front of him, and Tom saw a soft sheen forming between them. It had the texture of starlight instead of firelight, which Tom had thought it would look like, for some reason. It shimmered and blazed, and it acquired swimming gold and silver colors, so beautiful Tom wanted to touch it.
He clenched his hands and kept himself still.
Harry took a step towards the portal. His voice began to build into a chant, but Tom couldn’t understand the language he was using. It didn’t seem to be Latin or English. Instead, it was as if the magic around him had taken form as words. The sound swayed back and forth, and Tom let out a sudden breath as he watched it snap into being around Harry as swirls of white mist.
At the same time, the outline of his body brightened. Harry still had a distinct sheet of radiance pinioned between his spread fingers, but the circling maelstrom around the rest of him increased and grew and grew, projecting the shape of a human being in silver and gold high into the sky.
And grew.
Tom stared. He had never realized that Harry had this much magic; it wasn’t like he had seen it manifested like this the other times that Harry had used it against him, or for him. It made him wonder what Harry had been like before he sacrificed part of his magic to brace the other portal open.
Magnificent. Overwhelming. Huge.
Desperate.
Tom nodded slowly. Harry valued connections to other people. He would have despaired of achieving that when he had such strong magic, except where other people already knew him and valued him without having that incentive to do so. He would have been glad to give it up.
And part of him would be glad to give half of what he had up, although not as glad, Tom thought.
He watched as the glowing outline turned and stepped away from Harry, shrinking back to the size of a human figure as it faced him. Harry opened his eyes and smiled a little. He held out the shining weave between his fingers to the kneeling, hollow figure of light.
The figure reached out to take it. At the same moment, sparks left Harry’s body and streamed to the kneeling one, making it seem as if Harry stood in the midst of an exploding comet.
Tom clutched the silver knife that Harry had told him to take. He would have to hand it over in a minute, and he hoped he would know when to do so. Harry had told him that it would be “unmistakable,” whatever that meant.
Then Harry reached out a hand and turned his attention from the kneeling figure to Tom, and Tom knew. He strode forwards, holding out the silver knife. Harry nodded, grabbed the knife, and made a tiny slit across his forehead. Tom narrowed his eyes. He had assumed Harry would cut his hand or his wrist, as was usual in a ritual like this.
Then again, that was where the scar had been that had once hidden Voldemort’s Horcrux. So it might make it a good symbolic place after all.
Harry tossed his head backwards, to make sure that the blood wouldn’t drip into his eyes, and clapped the hand that didn’t hold his knife over the scar. It came away with the blood arranged into a perfect five-pointed star. Tom stopped breathing for a second. The air was so heavy with hovering magic that he didn’t have much of a choice.
That, of course, was when someone tried to stab him in the back.
Instinct, more than knowledge, sent Tom spinning aside as a Stunner sped past him. It struck feet away from Harry, disappearing into a sharp sparkle. The magic around him was great enough to eat any smaller incantation.
Dumbledore stood there, a hooded figure next to him. Tom readied his wand.
Dumbledore sighed a little. “His cousin has told me all about what kind of person Harry Potter really is,” he said softly. “I was keeping away out of respect for him, but I see now that I should never have allowed myself to be fooled. Someone who keeps company with a terrorist is a terrorist, by definition.”
Tom stared at the hooded figure. Jonquil. She didn’t go through the portal after all. Which means that Harry is giving up his magic and he’ll go search for her for no reason, and-
Well, Tom could kill her first. He moved to the side, the Killing Curse already busy on his tongue, but Dumbledore stopped him with a curving shield that would have wrapped around Tom to keep him there if he hadn’t darted away. The shields snapped shut on emptiness and then vanished.
“You really think that you can duel me, Mr. Gaunt?” Dumbledore asked mildly. “I was old and powerful when you were young.”
Tom said nothing. What he knew was that he had to defend Harry, and he wasn’t about to back away. He changed the spell waiting in his mind and on his wand from the Killing Curse to Parseltongue magic. It was the only thing he knew that Dumbledore might not be able to counter.
“And now,” Dumbledore said, as the air all around them filled with the light of falling stars and the portal became limned in silver, “we will begin.”
Tom hurled himself into the fight.
Chapter Nineteen.
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