Chapter Thirty-Five of 'His Darkest Devotion'- Skins
Chapter Thirty-Four.
Chapter One.
Title: His Darkest Devotion (35/?)
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 Thirty-Five-Skins
“So your talk with your friend went well.”
Harry nodded and sat down across from Gerald in the chair that he’d set up. “And so will the next one, I hope.”
“You’ve chosen to contact Mr. Longbottom?” Gerald spoke in a relaxed tone that might have fooled Harry if he didn’t know him. But he was leaning forwards slightly, as if this was a good sign that he had to chase down so it wouldn’t escape.
Harry bit back his own amusement and nodded. “Yes. I thought about it, and he’s really the best one. He was friends with me even when it seemed that I was trying to push everyone away because I couldn’t stand to either share the secret or live with it one more moment.”
“I’ve watched a few of your memories now.” Gerald spoke carefully, and Harry felt his good mood freeze and crack. “I appreciate how open you’ve been with me, including with memories of the time when the pressure of the secret on you grew so great that you might have harmed yourself.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“I know when a statement is about to be followed by but, thanks. Tom’s given me lots of practice.”
“You’ve only shown me one memory that could be interpreted as critical of your parents in any way,” Gerald said, now speaking like someone who was picking their way across an icy pond about to break apart beneath them. “I would like to see more, so that I can understand your relationship with them.”
“Have I not told you enough about it?” Harry knew his shoulders were hunching, but he honestly couldn’t help it, or the mixture of panic and anger welling up in him. “I’ve been honest. And you know that they were the ones who told me to hide my connection to Tom. And I agree with you that that’s wrong. What else do you need to know?”
Harry? Tom spoke in what sounded like alarm, reaching towards him down the bond. What’s wrong?
Harry swallowed and dimmed his response as best as he could, although the emotions were so overwhelming that he didn’t think he was successful. Nothing. I’m still with Gerald.
The sense of Tom retreated, but Harry knew he was hovering nearby, ready to move in the minute he thought he needed to. Harry massaged his forehead with all five fingers for a moment.
“Harry?”
“I-I don’t want to show you more memories of them.”
“Why not?”
Harry worked his fingers back and forth. Gerald leaned forwards for a moment as if he wanted to take Harry’s hands and still them, but sat back in his chair when Harry gave him a sharp glance.
“Because I don’t want you to criticize my parents.” Harry winced as the words slid out of his mouth. They felt slimy. He locked his hand on his knee, massaging back and forth, watching the cloth of his robes wrinkle. Gerald’s attention grew more sharp and focused. “I hear enough criticisms of them from Tom.”
“What does he say?”
The danger seemed to be retreating, and Harry relaxed, hoping the sensation would make it down the bond and cause Tom to back off, too. “That they were wrong to keep me hidden for so long, and that they were idiots for following the Order of the Phoenix.”
“I agree with him on both counts.” Gerald’s voice was mild. “And you are already tensing up again.”
“I don’t need more criticisms of them,” Harry snapped. “They did what they thought was best. They’re doing the best they can now, when what they thought of Tom was proven so wrong. I don’t need him or you to harass them.”
“Does your bondmate harass them?”
“He gives them these smiles when he thinks I’m not looking,” Harry muttered, knowing as he said it how irrational he sounded. But he knew what Tom thought of them, none better. “And I can feel the hatred moving through the bond. He-he despises them with a frightening intensity. I know that he doesn’t like Muggles and he doesn’t care much about Muggleborns, but he doesn’t hate either of them the way he hates my parents and my godfather. And Dumbledore.”
“But that last one doesn’t bother you because you hate Dumbledore much the same way?”
Harry looked up and nodded briefly. “And I know that Tom is going to get his revenge on him, and I’ve made my peace with that. But he feels like he wants revenge on my parents, too. I don’t want him to take it.”
“A source of tension between you, then.” Gerald leaned a little to the side, studying Harry with what Harry thought was too much fascination. Not that there was or would be anything sexual behind it, but Harry already had one person striving to figure out how his mind worked.
Tom was near again, rubbing against his side of the bond like a cat rubbing its cheek against Harry’s. Harry ignored him. He thought he was on the verge of some breakthrough with Gerald, even if he didn’t understand precisely what it was.
“Yes,” Harry acknowledged at last, as the silence grew heavy and constraining.
“And are you worried that he won’t respect your wishes, and will try to attack them?”
“I don’t think he would do that unless he thought they were hurting me. But his definition of what hurts me and mine aren’t the same.”
“Ah, I see.” Gerald leaned back and held Harry’s eyes. “So it would help if you could have an advocate who would take your side and be able to tell your bondmate when and if his anger is justified.”
Harry exhaled slowly. “It would, but for all I know, you’d see my memories and decide you were on his side instead.”
“I would not, unless you showed me memories of abuse and insisted it wasn’t abuse,” Gerald replied, as quietly as Harry had spoken. “There’s very little I think you fear to show me. So I don’t think you’re afraid of the consequences-that is, of my agreeing with your Tom or scolding you-if you showed me these. Which means you fear something else.”
Harry glared at him. “You’re unfairly good at this.”
Shadows lingered around Gerald’s eyes, but not in his smile. “I should be, considering how long I’ve trained to be good at it.”
Harry’s fingers rapped on the arms of his chair again. Then he said, “I’m afraid that you’ll pity me, or tell me something useless, like that I should have left them and sought out Tom years ago. And I’m sick of drowning in self-pity, and I can’t change the past. I’m sick of thinking about it.”
Gerald spent a long moment blinking. Harry glared at the fireplace, and the sparks of red and gold that shimmered in the stones around it.
Then Gerald said gently, “I’m aware that time travel doesn’t extend more than an hour into the past, Harry. Believe me, if a method that reached back further existed, I would have utilized it myself to go back and rescue some of my patients from their situations.”
Harry relaxed again. At least that reminded him that he wasn’t the only vulnerable person, or unlucky one, that Gerald had ever treated, even if most people weren’t specifically told that their soulmates were evil.
That realization gave him the ability to touch his wand to his temple and close his eyes. The memory was more than thirteen years ago, but it came blazing out of his mind.
Gerald was staring at him when Harry looked again. “You must remember that very well indeed.”
Harry nodded and extended his wand for Gerald to work his magic on the memory. “Can I come with you this time?”
“Of course. Although you don’t have to do anything unless I ask you a question, and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”
“I know,” Harry said quietly as he stepped forwards and into the illusion-world the spell had created. He did think that Gerald might have some questions about what he was going to see.
On the other hand, maybe he would just be upset. And Harry thought that he could get used to someone being upset on a normal level about what his childhood was like, instead of making plans to murder everyone who had made it difficult.
Tom touched his side of the bond again, but Harry ignored it. This had to be his private time, especially when he was willingly showing someone else this memory.
*
He and Gerald landed on frost-touched grass outside the small cottage where he and his parents had lived when he was eleven. Harry himself, his younger self, was leaning against the side of the house, staring up at the stars, his hand covering his soul-mark. Harry winced a little as he looked at the gouges sticking out from under his fingers.
“You’ve scratched it,” Gerald said quietly, moving to the side so that the light from the window fell on Harry’s arm. “Trying to get the mark off?”
“Yes,” Harry said, and then nodded to Gerald as the door opened and his dad stepped out. He suppressed the impulse to try and hide. They weren’t really here, and they weren’t going to be detected, and his younger self wasn’t going to suffer from them being here.
From other things, sure, but not from them being here.
“You see now why Tom Riddle is evil?” James asked quietly, sinking down into a crouch in front of Harry.
“Yes,” the younger Harry said, and Harry winced at the sound of his own voice. It was clear and thick at the same time, as if he was struggling against sobs. Maybe he had been. Harry honestly didn’t remember when the tear tracks on his face had come to be there. “Because he exiled Sirius.”
“Yes.” James put his hands on Harry’s shoulders and shook him a little. “I know that it’s hard on you, son, not to go to him. I wish with all my heart that you had a normal soulmate. But you don’t.”
He hugged Harry, then, and Harry sighed to himself as he watched Gerald’s face go rigid. Would Gerald see the love mingled in with the righteousness? His father had been a fanatic, but he had really been doing what he thought was right.
Gerald glanced at him a second later and nodded, so Harry reckoned he could relax on that score, at least.
“And you do have an important part to play,” James went on, pulling back so that he could look into the younger Harry’s eyes. “More important than a lot of people who just become bonded to their soulmates and don’t do anything with the magic.”
The younger Harry nodded. But his dad was waiting for him to say it, so he did. “Keeping him from being a dictator, the way he would be with even doubled powers.”
“That’s right. He’s terrible now, but you’re single-handedly keeping him from being worse. So that’s something you can do for us, Harry, and you can always do. You’re a hero.” James hugged him again.
Younger Harry hugged his father back. Harry watched, holding his peace, but thinking the same thing now that he had when he was part of that reality. He wanted to be a normal person with a soulmate he could love, not a hero.
“They put a burden on you to prevent a war.”
Gerald’s voice was low and angry. Harry shot a glance at him and saw him leaning forwards, staring at James and the younger version of Harry as if they were pieces in a chess game he had to win to save his life. Harry shook his head a little. “They believed the war was coming no matter what. They put a burden on me to keep Tom from being more powerful.”
“And they could do nothing to prevent this, of course.”
“They were trying,” Harry whispered. “They thought they were trying. Being part of the Order of the Phoenix and doing all the shit Dumbledore wanted them to do. But yeah, I think it broke something in them when I was born with Tom’s name on my wrist. They were-they thought they might be evil, too.”
Gerald gave a harsh laugh, and looked around as the colors began to dim. “There’s nothing more of this memory?”
“No,” Harry said quietly. There was a memory that he hadn’t offered to Gerald, one of him lying alone in his bed that night and feeling a despair so deep that he couldn’t even do anything-couldn’t stand or hurt himself or come up with a plan. He hadn’t tried to harm himself the way he had at other times in his life, but he had felt as if he was dark water going down a drain, and that was worse.
Tom leaned on him from the other side of the bond again. Harry watched as the memory dissolved into colored sparks, and they stepped back into Gerald’s office.
His Healer spent a moment frowning at his fingers and apparently getting control of his temper. Harry sat back down and closed his eyes, rippling gentleness and contentment down the bond to Tom.
Tom still asked, What was that? What happened? Why did you feel as if you were falling off a cliff with no one to catch you?
That was another way to put it, Harry thought, wearily. I’m all right, he opened the bond enough to send. Just revising a memory with Gerald that I don’t think he was ready to see.
Or that you were ready to relive.
Hush, he’s talking, Harry said, and snapped the bond shut. Tom snarled at him, but went silent, and Harry rolled his eyes to himself. What did Tom think Harry was? A puling little thing who needed comfort every moment of every day?
No. Tom was the Minister. Harry knew he had important things to do.
“Do your parents know that memory is behind every interaction you have with them, poisoning it?”
Harry blinked and stared at Gerald, who was leaning towards him with his mouth like a slash down his face. Harry blinked. “I-I don’t think so. I mean, it isn’t poisoning every interaction I have with them. I assume they remember it, or my dad does, but it’s not like they think of it every day. Why?”
“That was poisonous to say to a young child.” Gerald’s eyes glittered for a second with a chilly light, although he seemed to be holding onto his temper better than he had just a short time ago. “I mean it, Harry. That he could be a hero, that he would never be normal, that he could never enjoy romantic love…”
“Not all soulmates do, either. Some of them refuse to be together because one of them’s a pureblood with blood prejudice…”
Harry trailed off as he saw Gerald watching him. He sighed, and ignored the way that Tom was almost battering his side of the bond like a door he wanted to break down now. “You don’t think that’s the same thing.”
“No. And from the emotions I felt around the edges of that memory, neither do you.” Gerald closed his eyes, then opened them again. “I’ll take your word for it that that memory isn’t lingering behind every interaction with your parents and poisoning it, but I do think you ought to mediate on it. Talk to them about it. Work on it with your Tom.”
Harry couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “It would just make Tom want to kill them.”
“I’m sure you can restrain him.”
Harry felt his cheeks flush. Gerald raised his eyebrows and waited curiously. Harry cleared his throat. “I-think I might let Tom’s rage go on longer than it should because I like the way it feels.”
“Down the bond? Or that someone is taking the time to stand up for you in that way at all?”
“Both.” Harry mumbled the words and looked resolutely away from Gerald, despite the rational part of his brain telling him that Gerald must have seen more embarrassing situations if he really did specialize in treating people who had trouble with their soulmates.
“I see.” Gerald didn’t sound as if he was laughing or about to start, much to Harry’s relief. “Then you probably know the limitations of your own emotions and your own actions better than I thought. I still think you should tell Tom about it.”
“Can I have one difficult conversation a day?” Harry asked desperately. “Or even a week? I need to speak to Neville today, and-he’s probably going to be angrier than Luna that I kept all this from him.”
Gerald’s eyebrows arched a little. “Of course you can keep it to one difficult conversation a week,” he said. “If you think that your Tom will let you, and not take out his frustrations on your parents the way you were already afraid that he would.”
Harry thought about the steady pressure on his mind-and thinking about it brought it back, a moment later-and sighed. “No, he probably would. I’ll speak to Neville this afternoon and Tom this evening.”
Gerald nodded, and then reached out and patted Harry on the shoulder. “I am truly not trying to make life more difficult for you,” he said. “I think that you will be relieved when you have helped others share your burden.”
Harry lowered his eyes and said nothing. His main fear was that he would never be as angry about what his parents had done when fighting for the Order of the Phoenix as other people believed he should be.
And he couldn’t imagine what Neville was going to say.
*
“Harry Potter to see Neville Longbottom.”
For a long, long moment, the silvery gates in front of him, set between pillars of cloud-white stone, remained closed. Harry shifted uneasily. He had been to visit Neville’s house, Longbottom Manor, before, but he never got any more comfortable with it.
Finally, the gates shifted open, swinging entirely silently, and without stirring up a puff of dust from the trail that continued between them. Harry, walking in, stirred up more than enough by himself.
He bit his lip again and again as he made his way up the long, winding path to the Manor. He traveled between flowerbeds and extensive gardens that stretched into the distance without an end. Ancient Longbottoms had done something to their land that meant it took up far more room than it officially “should” have.
Harry had the impression that every single flower, and every single butterfly fluttering over them, and every single bee pollinating them, was staring at him. He put his head up and tried to walk as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
That wasn’t really the impression he wanted to give Neville, of course, but it was the one he wanted to make on the older Longbottoms, who would certainly be the ones to meet him at the door.
Sure enough, the door of the manor stood open when he got there, and Alice Longbottom loomed in it, silently staring at him.
At least it’s nice to be able to meet the eyes of the one looking at me, Harry thought, and didn’t let them go as he inclined his head a little. “Hello, Mrs. Longbottom. Is Neville home?”
“Since you owled him and asked him to be here, of course he is.”
Alice Longbottom’s voice was full of censure, and so were her blue eyes, flat and stony. Harry hid a wince. The Longbottoms had disapproved of Harry more after his parents had fled to join the Order of the Phoenix than before that. From what his mum and dad had said, Dumbledore had tried to recruit Frank and Alice in Hogwarts, but, perhaps because of Neville’s grandmother, they’d rejected the invitation.
But they were political outsiders, not following Tom any more than they had Dumbledore. Harry could just envision what Alice and Frank would say about all the complications he was bringing into their son’s life.
Harry swallowed and nodded. “All right. I can go back to the greenhouse if you want.”
Alice’s eyes darted to his right wrist. “No. I want you to come in first, so I can speak to you.”
Harry stiffened and stepped through the door, towards the sitting room she motioned him into, but resentment had already begun to burn in him. Here were more people hating him for the stupid mark he’d been born with, the mark he couldn’t help.
I will burn them.
That doesn’t make it any better! Harry snapped down the bond, and found to his surprise that he’d said the right thing to make Tom shut up. The sensation of pressure against Tom’s side of the bond dissipated, and then came back as soft, cool cloud, coiling in Harry’s mind like a patient snake.
You are right. I apologize, Harry. When you are able to tell me what would make it better, then I will do it.
Harry had just enough time to turn his attention away from Tom and back to Alice Longbottom, who was letting the door of the sitting room fall shut with a simple click. She settled back in the chair nearest the door and stared at him. Harry remained standing, his hands fisting together behind his back.
“How could you never tell us that your soulmate was Minister Riddle?” Alice asked quietly.
That wasn’t the line of attack Harry had expected. He had thought it would be all about potentially drawing Neville into dangerous politics, either Tom’s or the Order’s. This sounded as if it was more about offending Alice and Frank. Harry eyed her thoughtfully. “I never thought it was an option.”
“Of course it was!” Alice pushed her hair out of her eyes. “You saw enough of us during your childhood that you should have known that. We tried to give you a different perspective, one that didn’t depend on Dumbledore’s word the way your parents’ did. And you still ignored us and stayed silent about it all along?”
Harry opened his mouth, and the last words he had expected fell out. “So you’re blaming me for not being mature enough at seven, or nine, or eleven, to go against my parents’ orders and Dumbledore’s abuse?”
Alice blinked. “Of course not. I would not blame a child for being abused.”
“But it sounds as though you don’t think I’m a child.” The fire was burning in Harry again now, and maybe it was only because he couldn’t say the same words to his parents without starting down a path that he could never come back from, but it burned behind his words, too. “Or that I wasn’t. I should have somehow been mature enough to realize that you were right and my parents and godfather and the Headmaster they almost worshiped as a god were wrong, and reached out to you. How did I even know that you would have treated me better than they would? I know you don’t think Tom is a secret Dark Lord, but you don’t like him.”
Alice’s mouth tightened into a slash across her face. “No child should have been made to fear and hate his own soulmate.”
“You never said that to me.”
“You never told us about the mark!”
Harry shook his head. “It all comes down to me, doesn’t it, Mrs. Longbottom? I should have been the one to tell people about the mark, or keep it secret, or approach Tom, or not approach him, or restrain him, or influence him in the direction someone else wanted. You never told me that you approved of anything Tom had done. The only words you said about politics were that everyone would stay away from them. How could my mark not be political? How could I have thought of you as a source of help?”
Alice frowned and tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair. Her mouth remained tight. “This is going to involve Neville in politics that could change the fate of the magical world.”
Harry stared at her. “Then he can make the decision to not speak to me. He’s my age. Almost exactly, even. Why do you have -he didn’t write me that letter saying that he wanted to speak to me at all, did he? You did.”
He had thought Neville’s handwriting looked a little odd, but, well, any number of things could have accounted for that, including that Neville had been nervous and not really willing to talk to him. Harry had taken a chance despite how nervous he felt, and now he was glad that he hadn’t sat down. He turned and paced a circle around the sitting room.
“We have a right to know what’s going on with our son,” Alice said, her eyes narrowed a little. “He’s still vulnerable. He hasn’t found his soulmate.”
Harry wondered how much of this was about that, and then discarded the thought with a blink. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that the friend he’d come to speak to wasn’t even there, and Harry didn’t know if he could write to him reliably, since apparently his parents intercepted his post. It took some doing to interfere with a post-owl’s desire to deliver the message to the right recipient.
“Listen, Mrs. Longbottom-”
Abruptly, the door of the sitting room came flying open, and Harry spun around and dropped his hand to his wand, the pooled magic from his and Tom’s bond surging up in him. Tom hissed like a serpent uncoiling, but then they both had to stop their defensive instincts when Harry saw Neville standing in the doorway.
You are well?
Harry sent back a positive impulse in response to Tom’s question while he stared at Neville. He was a lot taller than Harry had ever seen him in school, but his face and hands were still covered with dirt, and Harry would still have recognized him by that if he’d met him suddenly on the street in Diagon Alley.
“The house-elves told me you were here,” Neville said, apparently to him, and then turned and stared at his mother. “What are you doing, Mum?”
“You know he’s the Minister’s soulmate,” Alice said, almost hissing as if she were a Parselmouth herself. “It isn’t safe to be associated with him.”
Neville dragged his hand across his forehead in what looked like a common gesture of frustration, judging by the streaks of soil that he left behind. “I should have been the one to make that decision!”
Harry stood and watched, not sure if anyone wanted him to speak. If he could. If he should stay here at all. Neville prepared to speak to him was one thing; Neville probably not having an idea of why he’d come was another.
“You don’t have good political instincts.” Alice swallowed, and Harry could see the fear in her face, abruptly. The thought slipped into his head that even though the Longbottoms hadn’t listened to Dumbledore the way his own parents had, they’d apparently been tainted by the Potters’ fear of Tom. “You’re our only child. We have to keep you safe-”
“Not by withholding information from me,” Neville said, in a quiet, deadly tone, and turned to stare at Harry. “Why did you come here?”
Harry cleared his throat. “For advice.”
And you want him to be the one to give it to you?
You know very well what you would say, Tom. You’ve already offered me more advice than I can use. Good advice, but not unexpected. I need the perspective of someone who stands outside the situation.
Tom shut up in what frankly felt like surprise, if the cool blue feeling pressing against the gates of Harry’s mind was what he really felt. Harry turned back to Neville with a sigh. Neville was eyeing him speculatively.
“What advice could you want from someone who hasn’t found their soulmate?”
“Neville! Are you planning to talk to him?”
“You practically sealed my decision to do so by interfering, Mother.” Neville spared one more glance at Alice and then turned and jerked his head at Harry. “Come on into the greenhouse. I can guarantee that no one will be trying to overhear us there.”
“Neville,” Alice said in an injured tone.
Harry just followed Neville out, keeping the impulse to shake his head to himself. He had envied Neville having parents who were there, instead of obsessed with Order politics or, later, on the run. He supposed that the old saying was true, and the wand you didn’t hold always looked more powerful.
*
“What advice do you think I can give you?”
They were in the middle of what appeared to be Neville’s favorite greenhouse, at least judging by how well it was warded. Neville was sipping a glass of orange juice and stroking a tendril of a huge red plant that stood in a pot beside him.
He seemed more relaxed than he’d been in the house. Harry assumed the presence of greenery surrounding them had a lot to do with that.
Harry sighed. “Just someone who’s not part of this whole blame game my parents and Tom have going with each other.”
“Tom, huh?” Neville glanced at him.
Harry raised his chin. If this was going to be a bad choice because Neville was prejudiced against Tom, better for Harry to know now. “Yes. He’s my soulmate. I’m not going to deny him, and I’m not going to run away the way I think my dad would prefer me to. Even my mum and Sirius would prefer that, I think.”
“Why? Why did they make you keep your real mark secret?” Neville’s eyes dropped to his arm.
Harry drew back his sleeve in response to the silent question, turning his arm so that Neville could see Tom’s name darting in and out among the shackles beneath the phoenix. “Because they know that someone who loves and is truly loved in return could have fourfold powers, and maybe even immortality. They were already scared of how strong Tom was. And they thought he was a Dark Lord bent on exterminating all Muggles and Muggleborns. The last thing they wanted was for him to be more powerful.”
“Did your parents not care at all that they were depriving you of your soulmate?”
“They cared. But they talked about it as a sacrifice that made me a hero.”
Neville gave an unexpected, cawing laugh. Harry blinked at him and just sat there. He hadn’t the least idea of what had prompted that, and no way of guessing.
Neville shook his head. “I always thought we were a little alike, you know. Both born in July just a day apart, both Sorted into Gryffindor, both sort of on the wrong side of politics when it came to the Ministry if only because my parents refuse to pick a damn side…but I didn’t know how alike we were.”
“I hope your parents didn’t make you keep your soul-mark a secret?”
“No. I still haven’t met my soulmate yet, but I have no idea who it is, so it’s not like my parents can be upset about that. But my parents have preached heroism to me since I was six years old. Their very own, very particular kind of heroism.”
“What was that?” Harry had to admit he didn’t have any idea what Neville was talking about, and that made him curious.
Neville turned and stared out the wall of the greenhouse for a moment, or Harry assumed that was what he was doing. It was so covered with plants, though, he probably couldn’t see anything through it. “To stay out of it.”
“It?” Harry echoed blankly.
“Politics. Debates. Arguments. Important issues. Life.” Neville abruptly banged his elbows on the little table between them and turned to face Harry again. “They were so convinced that things would go badly if Riddle noticed us or if Dumbledore noticed us that I wasn’t allowed to do well at anything, except-”
“Herbology,” Harry murmured. He had thought it kind of strange that Neville did so well in that class and so poorly in his other ones, barely scraping Acceptables. He had never thought it was deliberate, though, except in the sense that Neville preferred to put more effort into Herbology than the other subjects. He’d still got seven NEWTS, and it wasn’t like he wanted a job in the Ministry that would need more, or higher marks. “Did they try to stop you from doing well in that?”
“They argued about it.” Neville turned to stare at the plants again. “My dad said it probably didn’t matter, but it was a risk. My mum argued that I needed something to work with and this was the most boring subject, and neither Riddle nor Dumbledore would have any interest in gardeners.”
“Gardeners,” Harry repeated, and shook his head. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Neville. That’s awful.”
“I can’t say it was more awful than what your parents did to you, but…” Neville dragged a hand down his face, still staring at the plants. “I don’t know exactly what your owl said.” He turned to Harry. “Did you want to just tell me in person about your soulmate, or what?”
“I wanted your advice about a few things, but I don’t know if I should ask you. You have enough to deal with.”
Neville gave that cawing laugh again. “At least listening to someone else might give me new problems to think about.”
Harry eyed him cautiously, but he only got a stare, so he gave in with a sigh. “My soulmate is angry at my parents for keeping the secret from them. My Mind-Healer is upset at them, too. Basically everyone is except my parents themselves, and Sirius, and-me.”
“You don’t care at all that they didn’t let you be with your soulmate?’
“Of course I do!” Harry snapped, and then saw from Neville’s slight grin that that was probably the reaction he’d meant to provoke. He settled back with a sigh. “But I don’t see the point of dwelling on it. My parents walked away from Dumbledore. They’re never going to follow him again. My Mind-Healer wants to pick through my memories of the times they told me I couldn’t be with Tom, and Tom loathes them. I thought he got along well with my mum at first, but that changed when the emotional bond started deepening and he learned that she’d told me some specific things he didn’t like.”
“Hm.” Neville ducked his chin. “Well, I can tell you what I did.”
“With your parents, you mean?”
“Hm,” Neville said again, and nodded. “Yes. I know it’s not perfect, because they’re still intercepting my post and the like.” His voice dipped violently, then returned to normal. “But I stood up to them and told them that their politics made me sick. They tried to deny having any politics, and I told them that of course that’s having some.”
Harry nodded. He had never held the particular stance that Neville’s parents did, having been born to one side whether he wanted to be or not, but he had heard people at Hogwarts talk about not having politics and thought they were idiots.
“I told them that they have a chance to reconcile with me, apologize and promise they won’t do anything like intercepting my post again. They’ve given me half-apologies, because they really do think that their way of protecting me is the best. But now I’ve made my decision. I’m leaving when I meet my soulmate.”
“Because of the letter I sent and your mum answered? I’m sorry, Neville,” Harry repeated.
“Don’t be. You set me free.” Neville turned eyes towards him that finally looked haunted. “And I’d advise you to do the same thing, Harry. Speak to your parents. See if they can actually admit that they made a mistake and Minister Riddle is your soulmate whether they want him to be or not. Don’t let it fester, the way I did.”
Harry nodded. He supposed that was the best thing to do, but he’d needed to hear it from someone else. Both Tom and Gerald were too committed to sparing him pain to suggest it. He stood up. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Neville glanced at him, eyes narrowing for a second. “And if you hear of someone who has a soul-mark like mine, then know that I wouldn’t mind adopting whatever the politics of their side were.”
Harry nodded, and squeezed his shoulder, and left.
Chapter Thirty-Six.