Chapter Five of 'His Darkest Devotion'- Messages
Chapter Four.
Chapter One.
Title: His Darkest Devotion (5/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Tom Riddle, background James/Lily, Molly/Arthur, Ron/Hermione, possibly others
Content Notes: Extreme AU, soulmate-identifying marks, angst, violence, torture, gore, minor character deaths
Rating: R
Summary: AU. Harry Potter has been hiding in plain sight all his life, since he carries the soul-mark of Minister Tom Riddle on his arm-and a fulfilled soul-bond will double both partners’ power. His parents and godfather are fugitives, members of the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry is a junior Ministry official feeding the Order what information he can. No one, least of all him, expects Harry to come to the sudden notice of Minister Riddle, or be drawn into a dangerous game of deception.
Author’s Notes: This is a long fic and an extreme AU, as you can see from the summary. The different facets of the AU will be revealed slowly, so roll with the differences at first; in time, all should be revealed.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Five-Messages
“Hey, boy. How are you?” Harry knelt down and ruffled Sirius’s ears as the big black dog bounced up and down in front of him, barking.
The people who were passing him on the street gave Harry sideways glances, but said nothing. They had got used to the way that he had adopted the “stray” dog several years ago now. Given that only people in the Order had ever known about Sirius’s Animagus talent, it was unlikely that anyone would guess what he was actually doing.
“Mr. Potter, we should be packing up,” called Auror Yelson down the stairs that led up to Harry’s flat. He was the leader of the Aurors that Riddle had assigned to come to Harry’s home and “help him move.” “Do you want someone to find a crate for that dog? Or do you have one?”
“He likes to wander around,” Harry said. “If he wants to come with me, then he’ll find me at my new place. It’s not that far from the Ministry on the left side of Diagon Alley, after all.”
Yelson sighed and went back to floating books into a trunk with a wave of his wand. Harry felt Sirius bury his head against his chest, and ruffled his godfather’s ears. “Be good, boy,” he whispered. Then he concentrated, and his voice moved inside his head. What did you want to tell me?
Sirius’s tail wagged, once, and he gave a theatrical-sounding woof as he stood up on his back legs and pawed at Harry’s shoulders for a second. His voice came back, a soft thrum. This was a talent that nobody had known he had until it manifested after Sirius went on the run, maybe because he was so desperate to find a way to communicate with Harry and James. Mainly we wanted to be sure that you were all right, but we wanted you to know that Dumbledore did set up that assassination attempt. He had no idea you were there, though.
Harry sighed and ruffled Sirius’s ears again. I know that. I don’t blame him.
Sirius nuzzled closer, and his physical voice came out as a high whine, while his mental one stuttered. I-I also need to tell you that Lily and James contributed spells to that assault. And so did I. The kind that Albus stored and took away in vials.
Harry swallowed slowly. He’d suspected that, and there was no reason for the long, slow feeling like a pendulum swinging back and forth in his chest.
He was young, compared to them. He had always lived a life half in shadow, given whose mark he had been born to carry on his wrist. He couldn’t know exactly what had gone through their heads.
If they had thought that what Dumbledore did was right, and Harry disagreed with them…did he only do that because he’d been in the building and was letting his personal safety and sense of outrage overrule good arguments?
There was no answer in his mind, only the sensation like the pendulum swinging.
Harry? Sirius lifted his head and licked Harry’s face, which didn’t make him appreciate the slimy feeling of drool running down his cheek, but did shock him out of the half-frozen trance that he’d been locked in.
“None of that, boy,” Harry murmured. I forgive you. I know you didn’t endanger my life on purpose.
Sirius crowded closer. Harry stroked his fur down his back, and Sirius gave a happy little whuffling sound. Harry had to smile. It was probably weird to relate to his godfather like this, but on the other hand, Harry had been used to Sirius appearing as a dog and the ways that he liked to be petted since he was a kid.
I want to ask one thing, he said abruptly, the thought of the room Riddle had shown him in the Department of Mysteries burning in his head. Just to make sure that Riddle can’t use my friends against me. Ron and Hermione killed people when they broke into the Department of Mysteries?
They didn’t want to, Sirius said, and took the chance to sneak in another lick down Harry’s cheek. They had to do something to make the Unspeakables stop pursuing them, and unfortunately the tactic they chose brought the roof down.
Harry nodded and bade Sirius farewell after that. Yelson was already telling him to come upstairs so that he could choose which clothes to take, the heavy implication being that they weren’t going to take all of them.
Sirius bounded off, and no one indicated to Harry that they realized he had been speaking with a human being in dog form instead of just a dog. One of the Aurors did raise her wand with an offer to Stun Harry’s disobedient dog and bring him back that way, but Harry just shook his head and said, “He’ll find me when he needs me.”
Most of his being, even as he chose the robes and shirts and mechanically defended his jeans against Yelson’s desire to burn them, was occupied with an uncomfortable thought.
Riddle meant to kill people. It was obvious enough if you studied his voting record the way Harry had done. Ron and Hermione hadn’t meant to. Dumbledore had, but not people he thought of as innocent, the way Harry had been.
What was worse, to announce that you meant to kill someone and then do it, or to kill someone in violation of your stated principles?
*
“What’s wrong, Harry? You are very quiet.”
Harry glanced at Tom once and then turned away, stacking his books on a shelf in the new flat Tom had found for him. So far, he hadn’t spoken a word of gratitude for that. The shelves were wide and deep, the windows enchanted to always show sunshine, and the bedroom so big that Harry’s bed looked rather pathetic in it. Then again, with the wages he would soon draw from the Ministry, he ought to be able to buy any furniture he liked.
“Did you not hear my question?” Tom added, when about five minutes had passed and Harry hadn’t said anything. “I expect some expression of acknowledgment.”
Harry nodded. Tom narrowed his eyes when nothing followed that except Harry desultorily rearranging his books on the shelf.
“Well?”
“I nodded to acknowledge that I’d heard.” Harry’s voice was flat, uninterested, not even challenging. That was what made Tom start to boil beneath his skin. He caught Whipwood’s eye and jerked his head sideways.
Whipwood frowned at Harry and then at him. “Are you sure, sir?” she asked, not bothering to lower her voice. “He could be very dangerous.”
“Totally,” Harry said, picking up a book and then dropping it again. “Very dangerous. You should stay here and protect the Minister from my might.”
Tom caught Whipwood’s eye before she could launch into the diatribe that he knew her opening mouth signified. “I am sure, Jalena,” he said, and the Aurors all knew what it meant when he used their names like that. “If you would?”
Finally, she nodded and all the other Aurors filed out, although Whipwood went last and kept looking back as though she expected him to countermand his orders. Tom did not, and Whipwood finally sighed loudly and let the door bang shut behind her.
“Now that we are alone,” Tom said, and he wasn’t above lowering his voice on those words, “will not tell me what is troubling you?”
Harry jerked a little, as if fighting conflicting impulses, and stared at the shelf in front of him. Tom moved around to the side. Harry’s face had gone almost blank-a disconcerting sight when he was usually so open-but his lower lip twitched. He saw Tom noticing it and got it under control.
“You’ve upended my life over the last few days, implied I was lying on my exams and made me take them again-”
“You were lying,” Tom interrupted in a pleasant tone. The Wizarding Examination Authority had put up a kind of squeaky fight over marking one set of exams out of season, but Tom had reminded them at whose pleasure they served and they had quieted down quickly enough. “Did you know that you have an Outstanding on six of the subjects you retested on? Placing more of the weight on the practical portions did show us what you can do.”
Harry hunched his shoulders. Tom wanted to shake his head. Praise was a blow, personal attention from the Minister was undesirable, and invitations to explain himself resulted in silence. What kind of twisted ideas had the Order of the Phoenix fed Harry? Did he think he could go back to being a spy when Tom never intended to let him go/
“That’s nice,” Harry finally said.
“I know you don’t believe it of me,” Tom said in a low, coaxing tone, moving no nearer, “but my desire is to help you, Harry. You have great potential. I don’t want to convert you all at once, but I want you to understand my policy choices and my voting record, and give you the choice that your parents never did.”
Harry curled his lip, which was helpful insofar as it told Tom that his parents were on his mind, but nothing more. Harry’s hands were steady as he moved from the bookshelves to the framed photographs, which occupied only one box. Tom watched as he set up a picture of himself standing next to a red-haired boy and a girl with too much hair.
“They are your exiled friends?” Tom asked. “Weasley and Granger?” He did remember that the Weasleys were all ginger.
“Yes.”
Harry went on putting up pictures. One was of him in his Gryffindor robes, standing in front of Headmaster Dumbledore and smiling with a scroll in one hand. There was also a medal pinned to the front of his robes. Tom squinted. “I don’t recognize that particular honor.”
“Excellence in Quidditch.”
“Of course,” Tom drawled. “It’s amazing that you didn’t get the brains knocked out of your head by the Bludgers.”
“You know I played Seeker?”
“I did revise your records when I looked up your exam results, Harry. And I want to help you if you’ll let me.”
That got him a twitch of a shoulder and nothing else. The pictures continued to go up. Some of them showed a much younger Harry with his arm around a man who resembled Regulus Black, and a handsome couple cradling him close. Tom stepped particularly close to a photograph that showed Lily Potter with Harry. From the way Harry glanced at Tom, he wanted to object, but didn’t want to break his silence even more.
Lily Potter had remarkable eyes. Harry had clearly inherited them. Tom preferred to say nothing about that, though. Harry had probably heard the remark enough to tire of it. “No pictures of you with someone you dated?” he asked instead.
That got him a massive twitch, but Tom’s sense of victory was diluted by the fact that he had no idea what made that question more personal than the others. “Call me old-fashioned,” Harry said. “I don’t want to date anyone other than my soulmate.”
“And you don’t have any idea who they are?” Tom asked. It was unusual for someone to remain mateless as long as Harry had, unless circumstances like Tom’s own intervened.
“Oh, I know.”
Tom waited, but Harry had retreated into that maddening silence. Now he seemed to be involved in straightening the pictures so that all of them faced the same direction, out into the room. Tom studied the angle of sight from the photographs. Harry had put a chair in front of the fire, so he would see all of the people he treasured and he could talk to them.
Tom continued, because the subtle art of conversation was obviously lost on Harry. “And what happened? Did they find someone else they wanted to love more?” It happened rarely, considering the prestige granted to soulmates in their society and the possibility of fourfold bonds, but humans were unpredictable.
“No. I discovered that my soulmate would never accept me.”
Tom blinked. He concentrated most of the time he was around Harry now, bringing his passive Legilimency to bear on every statement Harry uttered. That hadn’t been a lie. Neither was the clear bitterness behind it. “But why not? Do they understand your power? That you have the chance to be high up in the government?”
Harry lowered his head to rest against the fireplace mantel for a moment. His shoulders shook. Tom raised an eyebrow. Sobs or laughter? And would he ever understand this deeply confusing man?
“The power would matter to them,” Harry admitted, drawing back. “But-they would never accept me because of my blood. Because of my beliefs. I won’t lower myself to begging a blood purist and someone who believes in everything your Ministry does for acceptance.”
Tom stared at him. Soulmates usually shared deep beliefs. Magic, it was generally accepted, knew what it was doing when it entwined two souls. “That-is something you should perhaps discuss with your soulmate, Harry. Beliefs can change. And blood matters less to many of us in the government than you would think.”
“I still don’t want to pretend to be someone other than I am.”
“But why not? I think you rather excellent at it,” Tom said, and knew that his words had hit home when he saw the crimson staining Harry’s cheeks.
“I’m so flattered that you think highly of me, sir.”
And the conversation died there. Tom made other observations and asked other questions, but they won no response. Harry spoke respectfully to him as far as using a title, and never said anything that sounded like rebellion, but Tom still had to resist the impulse to slam the door of the new flat when he strode out.
He thought Harry was intelligent, but Harry refused every effort Tom made to promote his rise or offer him advantages. He thought Harry was powerful, but the man acted as though no one knew it even now and things would go back to the past if he simply acted that way long enough. Harry must want his soulmate, as most people did, but utterly refused to compromise principles that Tom thought his soulmate would be all too willing to bend.
What a bundle of contradictions he is.
Tom shut the door of his office behind him when he reached it, and settled down to study Lily and James Potter’s files. It was still possible that he could reverse their banishment.
Given certain concessions from Harry, of course. And he would ignore the small part of him that wanted those concessions (absurdly) to be freely given.
*
Harry wrapped his arms around his stomach and closed his eyes. Everything in his mind hurt.
Sirius and his parents had nearly participated in killing him.
They hadn’t actually killed him. Or anyone else. They hadn’t known what Dumbledore planned to do with those stored spells. But they had gone along with it and hadn’t asked enough questions.
And the plan would have succeeded if not for the chance of Harry being there.
Harry felt like a traitor and the betrayed one all at once. The problem was, he really wanted to talk with his parents and not communicate in a limited way through Sirius, but any movement of a Patronus would be noted, he knew now. And Riddle had left Aurors to watch over him.
Harry stood and moved in front of one of the enchanted windows, just to check. Sure enough, a shadow flickered to follow him, an Auror in the shade of a nearby shop turning to study the front of his flat. Harry exhaled and went back to his chair to sit down, staring at his obliviously smiling and waving family members and friends.
He wanted so badly to come up with a solution. He wanted to turn back time, with the research that Ron and Hermione had destroyed, and just make himself a useful spy for the Order and leave Riddle in ignorance of his existence.
He wished that Riddle was the kind of man Harry could have accepted for his soulmate.
Harry raised his hand and rubbed the mark on his wrist. For a moment, the black letters showed clearly through the tattoo of the shackles, the part nobody ever touched because they were so focused on the enormous phoenix. Harry held his wrist as if that would make things better, then sighed and dropped it. No, it wouldn’t make things better.
And neither would sitting here and wishing that he lived in a different world.
If it came down to it, he still had to choose the side he had been raised with. Of course he hadn’t had as many years with his parents and godfather as he should have, but whose fault was that? Not theirs.
And yes, they had created a spell that had endangered people, but both his parents and other members of the Order had explained over and over again how little Harry knew. He had to know little, for his own protection and that of other people. There were probably justifications, arguments, that made sense of everything that he was missing.
Am I the sort of person who gets my head turned by pretty words from an arsehole?
No, he wasn’t. Harry knew he must have flaws in his own soul, given that magic or fate or whatever had paired him with that kind of arsehole, but he could fight back against it, make his own sacrifice for the cause.
In the end, not having his soulmate, when his soulmate was such a berk, was nothing like the exile the Order members had endured.
Not content, but settled enough to eat something, Harry stood up and went to investigate the enormous kitchen he hadn’t wanted.
*
Peter slowly opened the letter that had arrived for him earlier that evening. He hadn’t recognized the owl that brought it, but he had sensed, before he ever touched the envelope, what it would contain.
Yes. This was Harry’s handwriting, made unforgettable by dozens of essays in the three years Peter had taught him.
I know you can’t do anything about the results of the exams, because Riddle has them already, but I would appreciate it if you would keep your mouth shut in case the Aurors come and question you about anything else. Especially what happened in third year.
Peter sighed and set the letter on the edge of his desk, then sat back, studying it. The fire was burning low on his hearth. Neatly-marked stacks of essays occupied the two chairs on the other side of his desk. Peter absently rubbed the black-edged soul-mark on his right arm-a burning sword-and picked up the tumbler of Firewhisky he’d been drinking before the letter arrived.
Third year…
Harry’s third year had been eleven years ago, but Peter still remembered it as clearly as the light reflecting through the glass he held.
*
“Now, I can’t promise that all of you will achieve what I’m about to teach you today.” Peter smiled as he watched a few faces fall. This mixed Gryffindor-Ravenclaw class was among his favorites to teach. The Ravenclaws’ academic intensity balanced the Gryffindor enthusiasm.
“It won’t be your fault,” Peter added. “This is such a difficult exercise that most people won’t be able to master it in their lifetimes. Yes, Miss Granger?”
“Then why teach it to third-years, sir?” Granger asked, as her hand bobbed back down to her side again. “Why not wait until later?”
“Because this is one way of detecting extraordinary talent early,” Peter said. “If you are one of those who are able to master the Animagus transformation, I want to know, so that I can help you and alert Professor McGonagall to give you some extra training.”
Miss Granger’s face grew as intent as a Ravenclaw’s, and Peter nodded at her. He didn’t know for sure if she was one of the people who would see a future animal form today, but he knew she would try.
He waved his wand, and a sphere made of faceted green glass appeared on the tables in front of each student. The Ravenclaws stirred, and Terry Boot muttered something that sounded like, “We’re doing Divination?”
“In a way,” Peter said. He used the calm tone that had taken him years to master, but shut his students up instantly. “You’ll speak the incantation I give you without moving your wand. Then you’ll meditate on the glass and attempt to draw a glimpse of the form to the surface.”
“How can we know that we’re seeing what’s there instead of a reflection or just what we want to see, sir?”
Peter glanced thoughtfully at Harry Potter, who had his arms folded across his chest as if he thought that he would have lock out the image of a dog or a stag. “An excellent question, Mr. Potter. And it can be hard to tell. I will say that the true image will be accompanied by an intense emotional sensation. It’s difficult to describe, but nearly-impossible to mistake for anything else.”
Harry nodded after a moment. As Peter taught them the incantation, he made a silent bet with himself that Harry would see a stag. He was closer to James than to Sirius, after all, given that Sirius had fled into exile two years before.
But when he worked his way around to Harry’s crystal globe, Harry was shivering and staring in front of him. Peter bent over to see it. He had cast another incantation, wordlessly, at the beginning of the class that would enable him to see the students’ projections. He would be the only one besides the individual student who could. He had developed such spells early on in his career; it let him reassure troubled or embarrassed students that their Animagus forms were still a sign of talent, no matter how small or unexpected.
He gasped. The green-glowing reflection in Harry’s crystal ball was a snake. A boomslang, if Peter was correct.
He turned to Harry in wonder, and stopped when he saw the look of absolute dread on his face. “It’s all right,” Peter murmured. He was about to reassure Harry that just because his Animagus form was a serpent, he didn’t have to be upset-that the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin had no place here-but Harry interrupted him.
“I don’t want you to tell him,” Harry said at once. “Can you keep it secret?” His eyes were piercing, greener than the crystal ball, and Peter felt judged and held as he only ever had under Albus’s gaze.
Peter hesitated a long moment. Most Animagus forms were mammals, which made sense because humans were mammals as well. The next most common were birds. Transfiguration theorists held that, although birds were only distantly related to humans, they were also only distantly related to their reptilian ancestors, and many wizards’ desire to fly could overpower that distance.
Reptiles were the third most common, so not as rare as an insectile form, which might only come along once in a generation. But serpents were the rarest of the reptiles, probably because of their lack of limbs and many wizards’ wariness of them.
More to the point, Minister Riddle required Transfiguration professors at Hogwarts or private tutors to report any child who foresaw that they would have a serpent form, so they could start training early. They were inducted, often the moment they left school, into Riddle’s Serpent Guard, protecting important people and artifacts in the Ministry and throughout the British Isles.
“You would be treasured,” Peter began.
Harry gave the bleakest laugh Peter had ever heard, one which made a few of the concentrating students glare at him. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he murmured, and then met Peter’s gaze.
Under that waterfall of desperation, Peter could only nod. Harry slumped back, and told his friends later, when they asked, that he had seen a murky cloud and had tried too hard to force it into the shape he wanted, leaving him with a headache. Supposedly Peter had been trying to reassure him his parents would still value him.
Peter had wondered, often, since that day, if he should have agreed. But the sight of Harry’s eyes returned to him each time, and he had to be sure he had made the right decision.
*
Now, though, with Harry’s letter in front of him…
Peter wrote a quick response. I will not volunteer anything I learned in the past. But if they require me to participate in a test to see if you have an Animagus form, I won’t hide it. You deserve to have your talents recognized and nurtured, Harry.
Peter shook his head as he stood up with the letter in his hand. He wished he had managed to convince Harry otherwise all those years ago. He might have made his own life, without being in the shadow of his godfather-exiled thirteen years ago-or his parents-exiled nine. How long, Peter had to wonder, was Harry going to hide and pretend that he didn’t have some powerful magic or a rare Animagus form, just because it would be more convenient for the Order?
Or is that all it is? Now that he thought about it…Peter frowned. Harry’s magic and Animagus form could have been convenient for the Order. They could have placed a spy Riddle would never suspect closer to him than Harry had been in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and without the possibility of a disastrous revelation like the latest one. Harry’s desire to stay far away seemed to border on hysteria and have a different cause.
But in the end, despite running the ideas over in his mind, Peter had to admit he had no idea what the cause of that hysteria could be. He walked up to the Owlery and leaned on the cold stone as he watched the bird he had chosen wing away.
I hope he doesn’t blame me too much, when all is said and done. I’m a teacher. Who doesn’t want to see their pupils learn and grow?
*
“Well, I hope you’re satisfied.”
Albus stared at the thick vial of white liquid he held, and swallowed roughly. “I have to be,” he whispered. “This is-not the kind of warfare I would have wished to conduct, but he’s proven that we can’t destroy him through conventional means.”
The figure resting swathed in thick black robes on the cot snorted hard enough to disturb the flickering flame of the candle nearest it. “You still haven’t proven that he needs to be destroyed at all. It’s not like he’s proclaimed himself a Dark Lord and gone on a genocidal rampage.”
Albus flushed, and turned further away so the redness on his cheeks would hopefully look to be from the fire. They were in a deep cave that even the candles and the flames lit poorly. There was a chance. “I handled the one who did that, too.”
The figure on the cot laughed. “And it took you so long to do it that he almost won.”
“Why do you think I want to move more strongly on this one?” Albus snapped, staring for a moment at his hands. “Getting the war stopped before it starts is the action that makes the most sense.”
“Whatever you say,” the figure muttered, and then slumped back and began to cough.
Albus sighed and reached for the vial of healing potion he’d brewed the day before. He was getting tired of collecting the same ingredients and making the same repetitive stirring motions, but it wasn’t as though he could entrust this to anyone else.
*
“I want you to destroy the dummies that are across the room from us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tom frowned as he watched Harry take up his position at a designated line in the middle of the room, a thick one drawn on the floor with a Paint Charm. Gone was the man who had challenged him in his office and analyzed his voting record, but gone too was the boor who had spat crumbs all over himself at Tom’s Public Day. This version had hunched shoulders and blank eyes and watched the floor more than anything.
Tom knew the symptoms of the Imperius Curse, or he might have suspected that. Then again, the exam results in Defense indicated that Harry was strong enough of will to probably throw off the Unforgivable anyway.
Perhaps this is simply his true personality, the one hiding under all the masks, Tom theorized to himself as he watched Harry blow the dummies up with precisely-targeted and never-varying curses.
But Harry turned his head back towards Tom when he was done, and stood there, and Tom couldn’t believe it. Not when the lines of his body had been so defiant before, and were so slumped now. Not when his eyes looked so different.
Not when he had used such wonderful and beautiful spellcraft before-most of Tom’s Aurors had admitted that they would never try to catch falling rubble with fire-and used only regular Blasting Curses now.
Tom flicked his wand at the wall. With a sizzling sound, a barrier of white light sprang up between him and Harry and the rest of the room. From the corner of his eye, he saw the little attentive shudder Harry couldn’t hide, and smiled grimly.
“Duel with me,” he said, turning to face Harry.
The mask slipped. Defiance flickered at the edge of Harry’s eyes again, and then it was gone. Harry said in his flat voice, “I’d lose, sir.”
“So? Many, many people have lost a duel with me. You would have no special distinction.” Tom began a slow stalk that would take him around in a circle towards Harry, and Harry lost the battle against his instincts and began to move in the opposite half-crescent. Tom laughed in exhilaration. “Show me what you’re capable of.”
“I already have.”
Merlin, his eyes were on fire. He looked so angry that Tom couldn’t help casting a spell, the Whip Serpent, which coiled out of his wand and towards Harry in a complicated slithering motion that most people couldn’t anticipate the direction of.
Harry didn’t bother trying to anticipate it. He met it with the full power of his will, and the serpent exploded into sparks and light that danced in the air and then faded.
“You’re going to be so much fun,” Tom told him, and threw a barrage of missiles.
Harry darted forwards, accepting a multitude of small hits. Tom studied him, looking for the skin-tight shield he must wear, but couldn’t see it. Was he really just-
Harry was close enough now, though, and he cast a spell Tom had never seen before, one that appeared to add a long iron boot to his left foot. Then he spun on his right foot and kicked Tom in the solar plexus with his left one.
It really was made of iron, and Tom’s shields were meant to stop spells, not physical hits. He bent over, wheezing, and Harry nearly kicked him in the temple. Tom managed to flick his head aside at the last moment.
His Aurors were shouting and pounding on the barrier that separated them now. Harry grinned at him. “Shouldn’t we let your babysitters in?”
“I see no need to do that,” Tom rasped, and burst apart the floor underneath Harry. Harry was already climbing into the air, twirling at the end of an invisible rope and a modified Levitation Charm, and received nothing except a few nips on his legs from the wooden shrapnel.
After that, the spells were cast too rapidly for Tom to do anything but keep up. He’d known people who could match his speed, but none who could match his creativity, or anticipate what he was going to cast. Harry could do both. Fire met water, ice met fire, and Harry cast two or three other spells Tom had never seen. He was never less than willing to take a hit on his bicep, except when the curses were poisonous or disabling, like the Whip Snake. And he fought as if he was born to do nothing else.
Tom spun away from a red-edged throwing star made of pure magic and laughed in exultation. It was almost like-
Almost like he had imagined dueling his soulmate would be, if he ever found them.
His mood soured rapidly at the reminder, and he stepped back and raised a shield in front of him that would hold both physical spells and curses at bay, but also prevent him from casting out. Harry halted at once, panting, his hand clasped to his side where a stitch had probably started. He had recognized the spell, then, and the end of the duel that it signaled.
“Enough,” Tom said softly. He raised another spell that covered the barrier and cut off the sights and sounds of the furious Aurors. “Don’t think that you can hide from me again.”
Harry laughed aloud, tossing his sweat-soaked black hair back from his forehead. He was made of fire and wonder, alive and utterly beautiful. Tom’s eyes traced the line of a bead of sweat making its way down his cheek before Harry said, “What else have I been doing?”
Tom narrowed his eyes, but let the strange statement go. “Now I know what you are capable of. Where did you find the spell that added the iron boot to your foot?”
“Oh, I reckon it’s in one of those old books I read at Hogwarts.”
“Another way you tried to disguise yourself,” Tom said, and couldn’t help the purr that had entered his voice. “You wanted me to believe you were a Quidditch-obsessed Gryffindor. The Hat offered you Ravenclaw, too, didn’t it?”
Harry laughed abruptly as though someone had flipped a Muggle switch in him, and then cut it off with what looked like a wince. He shook his head. “No.”
“Ah, well.” Tom waited for a moment until Harry began to relax, and then stepped up close to him. Harry froze at once, hand on his wand and muscles ready to move in any direction.
I know the Order didn’t train him to be a fighter. Which makes this all the more remarkable, really. It’s all his own ability. Tom leaned in and spoke softly into Harry’s ear, pleased that the closeness or perhaps the warm breath on his earlobe made the young man tremble. “I know exactly how intelligent and powerful and skilled you are now. I can value you as you deserve.”
“You can never make up for exiling my parents or my godfather or-”
“You should know that I’ve submitted your parents’ cases to the Wizengamot for reconsideration.”
Tom was close enough to feel the fine tremor that made its way through Harry’s arm. But he still tossed his head back and said, “They won’t agree. And this is a bribe, and everyone will know that it’s a bribe.”
“In view of the assets that I’m about to acquire,” Tom said, letting his hand glance down Harry’s arm as he took a step back, “I doubt most people will care.”
He turned to dissolve the barrier and the charm that kept them from being seen or heard, and added over his shoulder, “Don’t hide from me again.”
Then the spells were down, and he had to answer the maddened questions of his Aurors. But it was more than worth it.
*
Harry stood there with his hands clenched and ignored the wary glances he could feel straying towards him. He was too consumed by temptation.
And shame. Less than twenty-four hours since he had mentally recommitted himself to the Order’s cause and he was already being led away from it.
They were right not to trust me with secrets like what Ron and Hermione were doing. I’m weak. So weak. I can’t be trusted to make the right decision.
Harry opened his eyes and stared at Riddle’s back. The man apparently had the bloody mental ability to tell when he was being looked at, since he turned around and gave Harry a faint, sincere smile.
Harry turned away with a rough shake of his head. Or it’s because the bastard’s my soulmate, and he’s always going to seem tempting to me when he wouldn’t to other people. I already spend too much time thinking about what he looks like, what he’s feeling.
I’ve got to stop feeling this way. I have to.
Harry knew it wouldn’t be easy. But neither was staying hidden for twenty-four years, and he had managed that. He had even managed to shade the truth in his conversation with Riddle today, making him think spells that Harry had created himself were just present in obscure books.
I’ll manage it. I’m weak, but I’m no traitor.
Chapter Six.
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