[From Litha to Lammas]: The Grand Design, Harry/Tom, R, 3/3, sequel to Pride and Power

[lomonaaeren]

Part Two.

Title: The Grand Design (3/3)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, background Charlus/Dorea and Fleamont/Euphemia
Content Notes: Time travel, angst, violence
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 8000
Summary: Harry is struggling between his desire for love and his desire to fulfill his duty, to find a way to stay and a way to return to his own time. Tom Riddle’s attempts to seduce him permanently are not helping.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to both “Earning His Notice” and “Pride and Power”; read those first, or you’ll be lost. This is part of my “From Litha to Lammas” series of fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August, and will probably have three parts.

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the fic, and the end of the series.

Part Three

“How are you going to handle your family?”

Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead. He and Albus had worked all day on carving the first spirals of the runes into the floor of the cottage, and now they sat outside in the soft, warm dusk, with Harry staring up at the stars and trying to recall exactly what Ron’s and Hermione’s faces had looked like.

“I think staging an accident is best, if you’re willing to help me there, too.” Harry glanced out of the corner of his eye at Albus, who watched him gently. “They’ll mourn me, but they’ve only had a short while to get attached. If they think I’m dead, they won’t have a reason to search for me.”

“But you don’t think that will do for young Mr. Riddle.”

Harry sighed out. “No. I want him to know the truth.”

Albus shook his head. “If you must, you must. But I want you to consider that he may have more stability, in the end, if you simply disappear or if he thinks you dead.”

“I want to tell him.”

Albus nodded finally. “I was once in the same position with Gellert,” he said, smiling wistfully at the evening star appearing on the horizon. “Come, Harry. What kind of accident do you think would be best?”

“Could you create an illusion of a Muggle motor vehicle killing me?”

Albus’s eyes were deep and grave and very blue. “I would have to spend some more time studying them than I have so far, but yes, I think I could do that. Why is that your choice?”

“It’s sudden, it’s violent, it makes sense that the damaged body wouldn’t look much like me and there wouldn’t be much left to bury.” Harry leaned forwards, hands linked around his knees. “And they’re pure-blood wizards. They won’t know anything about how a death is treated in the Muggle world, either, or whether it’s reasonable for the vehicle that supposedly kills me to drive away.”

“A good point.” Albus squeezed his shoulder once. “You are incredibly strong, my boy. I only wish that you didn’t have to be.”

Harry smiled at him wearily. “Me, too.” Then he forced himself back to his feet. They still had runes to carve on some of the jade panels that they would embed in the floor.

*

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Harry stepped to one side and then turned and braced his back against the side of what would one day be Madam Malkin’s shop in Diagon Alley. Right now it was a place that sold sweets. Malfoy and Rosier were behind him, both glaring at him as if he was one of the Knights who sat around planning ways to infiltrate the Ministry.

Remember that they do think that, and you can’t give up your cover now, Harry reminded himself, and glared back. “What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t been to meetings in a fortnight.” Malfoy was turning purple in the face. Rosier seemed to be watching them both equally, as if this was a situation where he would have to choose sides and he hadn’t picked yet. “You wrote one letter back to our lord, and that’s it. I know because he hasn’t asked to borrow an owl again, and he would have. My family’s owls are the best.”

“Did you have something else to say, or are you going to brag about your family’s birds?”

“You need to come back.”

Harry sighed and conjured a bubble shield around them that would keep sound from escaping. It was the middle of a Wednesday afternoon and he’d been able to leave Auror training early since he already knew all the spells Auror Greengrass was concentrating on today. Still, there were enough people in Diagon Alley that Harry didn’t want anyone to overhear this. “Do you know what was happening when I was there?”

“Tom was stable,” Malfoy snapped without hesitating.

“I couldn’t say the same thing for sure, since I haven’t been a Knight for as long as Abraxas,” Rosier murmured while Harry stared at Abraxas in shock. “But it did seem as if he was more relaxed with you there.”

“Tom’s always been too tense,” Malfoy went on. “I always dreaded it when he got angry, because that much tension had to go somewhere. But since you’ve been there, his mind’s been clearer, and he doesn’t hurt people as often.”

“You’re delusional,” Harry finally said. That wasn’t at all the reaction he’d expected from Tom’s devoted followers. Relief, yes, or maybe plotting to take Tom down. Not…whatever this was. “I made him weaker by being there.”

“No, you’re delusional,” Malfoy muttered.

“Explain this reasoning of yours to us, Potter.” Rosier was watching him with what now seemed to be real interest. It briefly dashed through Harry’s mind that it was a good thing Tom wasn’t here. He would strike back at Rosier. But soon enough Tom would never have to do that again. “Why would you make him weaker?”

“You saw what he did to Bulstrode!”

“I did, yes. It was perfect. Such control of his magic.”

Right, Knight of Walpurgis, Harry reminded himself, and managed not to huff in response. “Didn’t it occur to you that that meant Tom was violating the rules of his own Challenges?”

Rosier and Malfoy glanced at each other. Harry didn’t understand the silent communication flowing between them, but he had hoped it would have some result other than what happened, which was Rosier turning back to him and saying, “No.”

“Why would it be a violation?” Malfoy asked. “I mean, yes, technically Bulstrode didn’t yield to you, but you obviously won the Challenge. And Bulstrode could have killed everybody in the room with that stupid chandelier trick. We would have died if you were a less powerful wizard. Tom killed Bulstrode because he was too stupid to be a Knight, not just for what he did to you.”

Harry heard the wood of his wand creak in warning where he gripped it. He relaxed his hand and shook his head. “But that means he’s hurting someone the way that you said he used to.”

“He knew exactly what he was doing,” Malfoy countered. “He was cold, then. Controlled. Most of the time when we were younger, he would lash out, and he might not even aim at the person who’d caused him the most aggravation. Frankly, I prefer you at our lord’s side, Harry. You balance him.”

Malfoy had only called him by his first name a time or two in the past when obviously trying to ingratiate himself. Harry shook his head now with his eyes fastened on the earnest, pointy face.

I have to go back, or his grandson might never be born.

“But not everyone thinks your way. He’s going to appear weak in the eyes of others. I’m surprised he already hasn’t, with the way he wants to touch me and keep me at his side.”

“I haven’t heard one person say that since his demonstration with Bulstrode. They know now not to attack you or allow you to come to harm in any way. And that’s a good thing. None of us want your place, you know.”

“Right,” Harry said, and heard his own voice grow frosty. “None of you want to be second-in-command., Rosier. Of course.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Rosier studied him for a second. “None of us want to be in our lord’s bed, or that close to him. It would mean bearing the brunt of his regard.”

“You would do it for power.”

Rosier rolled his eyes. “Maybe some of the idiots like Bustrode would, but they’re the ones who would have no chance against you and almost never attend regular meetings, anyway. You’re the right one for this position, Potter. Believe me. Staying a few circles away from Riddle is the best idea. You want him to notice you briefly, not permanently. You’re his only exception.”

Harry took a deep breath and shook his head. He was doing it again, letting himself be drawn into debates about this as if reality would change if he spoke about it often enough. He’d made his decision. “I’m not coming back.”

“Please, Harry,” Malfoy said, hands stretched out as if to show that he wasn’t holding a wand. “Your objection is that he killed Bulstrode, right?”

“Yes.”

“More people are going to end up dead if you don’t come back.” Malfoy’s grey eyes had thousands of shadows behind them. “His mind—our lord’s mind is practically disintegrating under the pressure.”

“Ridiculous,” Harry managed to say, although his lips were dry enough that he wanted to lick them. “I haven’t been there for long and he was fine for years before I was.”

“But now he needs you. We want you to come back.”

“No,” Harry said, and moved enough away from the shop not to be overcome by its Apparition wards before he leaped through space.

He sat on the bed in his flat, knees drawn up to his chin, and kept his eyes closed. He could too easily picture how Tom’s eyes might flash red and his hand might go to his wand to punish someone in a way he would be sorry for later.

But you can’t prevent that from happening. You already proved that when he killed Bulstrode anyway.

Harry swallowed. Yes, maybe more people would die. But not as many as would if he stayed here.

He sent out an owl with an order for the food he’d gone to Diagon Alley to get, and turned to feverishly reading the book with the description of the runic pattern again. He had to be sure that he’d got it exactly right.

*

“This is nearly perfect.”

Dorea’s voice was soft. Harry leaned against the chair he’d taken next to her, without answering. They were in the gardens behind Fleamont and Euphemia’s house, a sprawling place that nevertheless didn’t rise above one floor. There was antique wood and stone everywhere, making Harry wince as he thought about what he might happen if he ever had to cast to defend himself inside it.

Being out in the garden, the way they were now, was much better. Harry lazily watched fairies circle the star-shaped white flowers on a climbing vine in a trellis in the corner.

Neville would love this place.

Harry managed to swallow a sticky mass in his throat. Taking another sip of the wine that Dorea had offered him helped. He would get to tell Neville all about it when he saw him again. It wouldn’t be long now.

He tried to picture the way Neville would look, and strangely enough, he couldn’t. Harry blinked and stared into his wineglass. He was pretty sure that he knew why. In his first two years here, he’d been sure he would never find a way back. He had worked to fit in and keep his head down, and not concentrate on what he’d lost.

It made sense that some memories would fade and be lost, or get misty. But he would renew them soon enough.

“Harry?”

Harry glanced sideways at his grandmother. She was studying him with a wistful smile. “I know that you’ve told me more than enough, and you probably feel like I’m prying,” she said, half-laughing. “But you’ve been melancholy this evening. Did something else happen? Did you fight with your young man?”

Harry did manage to smile, picturing Tom’s face if he ever heard Dorea call him that. “Not exactly. But I realized it wasn’t going to work out.”

“Oh, Harry.” Dorea reached over to him and caressed his cheek. “Why?”

Harry leaned into her touch and sighed. Yes, he would be leaving, but for the moment, he tried to memorize the way her hand felt on his skin and the soft-as-starlight concern in her eyes. “He did something that he knew I wouldn’t approve of, and he made sure I didn’t know about it until it was too late.”

“I see. And you feel that was dishonest of him?”

“Yes. He had to know I would object.”

Dorea studied him with a shrewd gaze, never taking her hand away from him. It was a strange look. Harry had thought she’d either comfort him or try and tell him that Tom wasn’t worth it anyway, but she seemed to be peering into the depths of his mind instead.

“Did he do it to protect you?” she asked abruptly.

Harry started back. Dorea only reached out for his hand and placed it on the arm of her own chair, covering it with her palm. Harry stared down at it as he answered. “Yes. How did you guess that?”

“I may not have known you very long,” Dorea murmured, “but one doesn’t have to to realize that you don’t think highly of your own claims. You knew years ago that you could have made your life much more comfortable by approaching us, but you were worried about how it might affect us. I wonder if your companion realized that he would never gain your approval no matter what happened, but decided living with your anger was preferable to leaving you undefended.”

Harry swallowed. “I know he thinks of it that way. But he went too far. I could have understood a small action, but this—this was just malicious.”

“Ah. I see.” Dorea gave him a smile that was still strange. “Is it possible that you would have seen it as malicious no matter what happened?”

Harry shook his head. “I really don’t think so. This was too far. We’re finished.”

“I would give him another chance,” Dorea advised him, her hand squeezing once before she let his go and picked up her glass of wine again. “I know that’s a hard thing to hear when you’ve made a decision that you believe is rooted in righteousness, but I tend to sympathize more with your young man’s perspective.”

Harry blinked at her. “What? I mean, why? You don’t know what he did or what the person he was trying to ‘protect’ me from did.”

Dorea took a long moment to answer. “You are so purely Potter that it’s as though your Muggle mother made no contribution to your heritage at all,” she murmured, and Harry flushed and glanced away. “But I was born a Black. That’s exactly the sort of thing I would do to protect Charlus or Tristan. They’d argue with me, but they’d come around in the end, because they love me too much to never forgive me. And now, Harry, I would do the same sort of thing for you. I wonder if your friend thought the same way. That he loves you, and you love him, too much for your morals to withstand.”

Harry closed his eyes. Dorea reached over and petted his hair.

“But that only makes it worse, if that’s true,” Harry whispered at last. “Because it would encourage him to go further and further, and what would happen if he killed someone?” He managed to cut off the question before he added “again.”

“I would not care that much, if it kept those I loved safe. I would face the consequences, if you were safe.”

Harry had no answer to that, and Dorea broke the silence a little while later, talking lightly of other things. Harry answered mechanically, his mind conjuring up an image of the illusion he would have Albus cast, so that his family would think he had died in a car accident.

It was horrible. But he had been sure, before he heard this conversation and Dorea’s empathy for Tom, that it was less horrible than what Tom had done.

Now—now he imagined it smashing into his family’s peace, and he was no longer sure.

*

“Right. Sure you’re sick, Potter. Get out here!”

Harry jumped out of bed when he heard the knocks on his door. They transformed into pounding fists, and he smiled, a little grimly, drawing his wand. It sounded as though some members of the Knights of Walpurgis had finally decided to come and get revenge on him. He’d known Malfoy and Rosier’s attitude couldn’t be common.

But when he cast a charm that turned the door of his flat transparent, it was Alyssum Parkinson who was standing out there, using both hands in succession.

“You’re a bloody coward is what you are!”

Harry leaned his forehead against the wall near the door a second, then sighed and used another charm to unlock it. Parkinson stumbled in as it opened, but caught her balance handily and studied him for a second before snorting. “Knew you weren’t sick.”

“All you need to know is that I’m not coming back to Auror training.” That had been an unpleasant conversation with Auror Greengrass, especially since she had adopted the position of not believing Harry and telling him that he probably had a fever and didn’t know what he was saying. She’d sent him home to “rest.” Harry had given up in disgust. In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter much what Greengrass believed or didn’t believe when he “died.”

“Why? You’re the best. I already chose you as my future partner when we’re assigned.”

“What the fuck, Parkinson.”

“Oh, good, you don’t mind swearing in front of a lady.” Parkinson took a few steps into his flat, staring around and then shaking her head so that her braid whipped against the back of her neck. “Why are you staying in a place this shitty? I know the Potters would put you up in some kind of sleek manor.”

“I prefer to have my independence, and they shouldn’t have to pay for me. Leave.”

“No.” Parkinson cast a cleaning charm on the nearest chair and still eyed it dubiously before she sat down. “Anyway. My family doesn’t have enough wealth to never have to work, but we have pull in the Ministry. And you’re far and away the best of the Auror trainees. So that means we’re going to be partners when we finish training. That’s the way it is. I see the best and I take it.”

Harry stared at her. Then he said, “I’m not coming back to Auror training.”

“So you said. But that’s just words. I know you’ll change your mind.”

“No, you don’t.” Harry felt as tired as though he’d spent all night staying up to study the runic pattern, when in fact he’d actually had three hours of sleep. “I’ve chosen to move on, Parkinson. I won’t be around in a little while.”

Parkinson narrowed her eyes and sat up. “So you’re going to be an Auror somewhere else? Or a private assassin? Honestly, that’s where the money is. I’d take it up myself if I didn’t have some scraps of morality.”

“No. I made my decision.”

“But you have skills that no one else in our classes does. And it’s obvious you thrive there. You’ll change your mind.”

“No, I won’t.”

Parkinson didn’t argue with him again. Instead, she put her chin in her palm and stared at him as if he was a great mystery. Then she put her elbow on the table and went on staring at him, but cast a glance downwards and another cleaning charm on the wood after a moment.

“You really are stupid,” she said finally. “A genius with magic, but an idiot nonetheless. You’re going to walk away from your family and your friends to go somewhere else for no apparent reason?”

“My family is my business. And I don’t know what friends you’re talking about.”

Parkinson sighed in a way that made it clear how very put upon she was by the universe. “Me. I’m your friend, Potter. Although I’m seriously reconsidering that at the moment. I can’t have an idiot tarnishing my reputation.”

Harry glared at her, but said nothing. Parkinson wanted to use him. She’d proclaimed it unabashedly a few minutes ago.

That got him another sigh, and Parkinson said, “Listen. I might want to benefit from being near you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. You’re also the only one in our class who sees me as a worthy opponent instead of either a weak girl or someone whose family they don’t want to offend. I’ve become a better fighter because you don’t hold back when you’re working with me. You’re funny and honest and someone who makes me want to be better in all kinds of ways. You think I’d be here if you were just someone whose company I sometimes enjoyed?”

Harry hesitated. Then he said, “That almost sounds like a romantic declaration, Parkinson.” Maybe that would be enough to upset her and make her go away.

Parkinson snorted. “No. I know you don’t look at me that way. And no offense, Potter, but I’d want to fuck a man who could pull his head out of his arse once in a while. Fighting beside one who can’t is okay, though.”

Harry closed his eyes. Everything just made him more exhausted. He wondered for a second why Albus was the only one who supported his decision, but he put the speculation aside. He knew why. Albus was the only one who knew the full context, who understood how important this was.

“I’m not going to change my mind.”

“I can be as annoying as possible until you do,” Parkinson said. “You are so lucky to have me as a friend.”

Harry snapped his wand out and pointed it at her. “Get out of my flat.”

“Oh, I will. But you can’t stop me from coming back tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, too. Eventually, coming back to Auror training will be less annoying than dealing with me.”

“I’ll set up wards that you can’t get through.”

“Any wards strong enough to stop me would mean that they’d interfere with regular people coming and going from your building, too.” Parkinson grinned at him and cast another cleaning charm on her elbow as she stood up. “I think I’ll write a letter to your grandmother. My mother knows her, a little. She deserves to know that you’re living in squalor because you’re all noble and stupid about it.”

Harry stared at her back as she let herself out. Parkinson did pause on the top stair to look over her shoulder, and the laughter had died from her eyes.

“Let people help you, Harry. That’s all I want to do, and I’d reckon it’s all your family wants to do, too.”

She walked away, and Harry shut the door. For a moment, doubt quivered and trembled in him. When Parkinson and Dorea and even Malfoy and Rosier thought his decision was wrong…

But he still had millions of people who might not exist if he didn’t go forwards in time again. Perhaps hundreds who would die if he strengthened Tom by remaining at his side.

What else could he do?

*

“I wish that you would reconsider inviting young Mr. Riddle, Harry.”

Harry shook his head as he walked around the outside of the runic design one more time. The objects other than the runes were under Preservation Charms, which would be released at the appropriate time: the flames were halted mid-flicker, the water lay perfectly fresh in flat silver bowls, and the star-shaped objects, which they had adapted as Pensieves containing memories of Harry’s future with star-shaped rings of steel fastened onto them, were motionless even when Harry stepped heavily nearby.

“He deserves to hear the truth.” Harry turned to face Albus. “If you don’t want to be in the same room as him, however, I understand.”

“I will be here under a Disillusionment Charm. I have no wish to distress either of you more than is necessary.”

But you still intend to be here. Harry nodded without speaking and glanced at the golden clock on the wall. Three minutes to seven. He uncapped the first of the vials of blood he’d gathered, also under Preservation Charms, and began pouring it carefully along the lines of the runes.

“You need not fear that you have done it less than perfectly, my dear boy. It is most impressive.”

Harry gave him a faint smile and continued pouring. “Thank you, sir.” One minute to seven, and the next vial was necessary. Harry sighed. This was taking longer than he’d thought. It meant that he might not complete the pattern before Tom showed up.

And he needed it to be complete. He had to have the pattern whole and shining behind him, humming with magic, ready to take him home. There was too much chance that Tom would prevent him from going, otherwise.

“Is there any rule that says I can’t pour the blood with my magic?” he asked Albus abruptly.

Albus shook his head, ginger-grey beard swaying for a moment. “None, Harry. But I would do it soon.” The fire in the Floo connection had flared, and Albus waved his wand and Disillusioned himself at the same moment.

Harry laid the vials of blood on the floor in front of him and used his wand to uncap them. Then he concentrated on what he wanted, forcing his magic into being through will alone, because he didn’t know a spell that would have the exact effect.

“Harry.”

He would have started, but he clamped his will down, and didn’t. He watched as the vials soared out over the pattern and drizzled the blood down across the dreamy maze of lines, stretching across both ordinary floor and the plates of gold and jade set flat into the stone. The pattern began to hum softly.

Only then did Harry turn and face Tom.

He had come alone through the Floo connection, as he had promised. His sleeves were short and he wore trousers without pockets, probably to convince Harry that he didn’t have his wand. He spread his bare hands wide at the same moment.

But his eyes were so dark and blazing that it was as if fire had leaped from them to Harry’s chest. Harry drew in his breath sharply and managed to say, “Thank you for coming, Tom.” Behind him, he heard the quiet hum of the pattern pick up, and the runes began to shimmer. So did the Pensieves.

Tom stared at the pattern, then at him. “It doesn’t look as though you’re actually planning to talk to me, Harry,” he said. “What is this? A ritual to chain me and force me to behave the way you want me to?” But he didn’t move back to the fireplace as Harry thought he would have done if he really suspected a trap. He didn’t move at all, in fact. He remained still and kept studying every single inch of Harry with those fiery eyes.

Harry managed a strained smile. “I know you know more about runes than that. Do they look like runes of imprisonment?”

“No,” Tom said, a breath softer than water.

Harry nodded as he watched the steel stars around the Pensieves begin to dance with soft, shimmering green light, exactly as they were supposed to be. “You deserve to know the truth, Tom. I hope it’ll comfort you. Even if you had been the gentlest person in the world, I couldn’t have been with you.”

“Why?”

The word flew out like the slash of a blade, but Harry didn’t flinch. He did deserve that, after all. “Because I’m from a different time. The future.”

True astonishment was a foreign look on Tom’s features. His eyes darted back to the pattern, then to Harry. “You’re not lying. I’m a strong enough Legilimens to sense if you were.”

“I know.” Harry stepped back as he heard the hum of the pattern behind him become a song. It would last until all the blood dried. He released the Preservation Charms on the fires, the bowls of water, the Pensieves, and they sparked to life. Behind him, he knew, a shimmering golden portal would be forming.

“In the future,” Harry told Tom, “you were a sadistic monster called Lord Voldemort. You’d made five Horcruxes, and then you heard a prophecy that a child could supposedly defeat you. I fit the conditions of the prophecy.” He took a deep breath, and the song behind him became more complex and musical, and the lights shimmered like a corona around the sun. “You attacked me with the Killing Curse. Thanks to my mother’s love, I survived, and the curse bounced back at you and disintegrated your body. But your soul was unstable enough that a piece also became lodged in my body, making me your sixth, unintentional Horcrux.”

He swept his fringe back to show his scar. Tom’s eyes were huge, and he was motionless.

“I grew up with my Muggle aunt and uncle and didn’t know anything about people calling me the Boy-Who-Lived or about you until I entered Hogwarts. I Sorted Gryffindor—” Tom’s lips twitched in something that might have been satisfaction “—and ended up facing you down multiple times. I defeated you and the professor you possessed when you went after the Philosopher’s Stone in my first year, and in my second year I killed one of your Horcruxes. Oh, and your basilisk.”

“Harry,” Tom said, without sound. This time, Harry only knew that he’d said it because he was watching Tom’s lips.

“You were resurrected with my blood and the bone of your father and the flesh of one your servants in my fourth year. I faced you several more times, and you made a seventh Horcrux and possessed me once.” Harry was vaguely aware that he was telling the events out of order, but he was also listening to the song behind him, making sure it didn’t fall silent, and drinking in the expressions on Tom’s face.

For the last time. The very last time.

“Then Dumbledore told me about your Horcruxes—”

“Of course he did.” Tom’s voice dipped below the song of the portal behind him, and it was easy to ignore it.

“I hunted them down, and figured out how to destroy them. But I didn’t know I was one until one of your servants, who was really a spy for Dumbledore’s side, showed me his memories. I faced you one last time in the Forbidden Forest, and you used the Killing Curse on me, but killed the soul piece instead. I faced you and defeated you then, after you were mortal. I had also gained possession of the Deathly Hallows, which included the Elder Wand. That sent me here.” Harry sighed and closed his eyes.

He hadn’t known how he would feel, after telling Tom all of that. He was surprised to realize that it felt as if stones had fallen off his shoulders.

Huh. I suppose that I wanted someone other than Albus to know after all.

“And you’re leaving because…?” Tom asked delicately a moment later.

“Isn’t it obvious? I might already have changed things irrevocably. But if I haven’t, then my best chance is to leave now. And if I stay—I could cause you to become stronger. Or I could cause more innocent people to die.”

“I never made a Horcrux,” Tom said instantly. “I don’t intend to start. I believe this is another world, Harry. You have no need to leave.”

The song behind Harry now sounded like bells and flutes intermixed. He smiled, a little sadly. He should have known Tom would leap immediately to that possible theory, one that might be true but which Harry couldn’t be sure of, and which of course was the most advantageous one for Tom.

“That could be true, but it might not. I can’t risk it.” Harry took a step backwards, towards the runic pattern and the gate that he knew was there. “Good-bye, Tom. I wish you all the best.”

“Are you happy here?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “No, I haven’t been. Given that I’ve had to lie to everyone all along—”

“That is a lie. You didn’t lie to everyone. Who have you told?”

Shit. Harry winced. Then he said, “You, of course.”

“Oh, Harry.” Tom’s voice was as soft and dark as soot. But he still didn’t move away from the fireplace. That part was puzzling Harry, since he’d have thought Tom was as eager as possible to cut him off from the design that would take him home. “Don’t I deserve the truth? You brought me this far. You confessed all sorts of aspects that you could have kept silent. You could have pretended that I was a monster but you never fought me, and you didn’t have to tell me you were my prophesied enemy. Come. Tell me now.”

“If it only affected my safety, I would. But it affects others. I told you, Tom. I won’t stand by while you kill people.”

“Stay with me, and I shall kill only in self-defense and your defense.”

Harry sighed. “That’s not something you can promise. And I don’t want you to kill in my defense.” He glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t think that it was his imagination that the green and golden arch behind him had lowered a bit, giving him less room to walk under it. He had to go.

“I can promise anything, be anything, for you.”

Harry turned back to Tom. And stopped.

Tom was on his knees.

He stared up at Harry, his eyes full of dark fire again. But this time, Harry thought, his mind clicking along in shock, it was the fire of immolating sacrifice. He would burn himself up for Harry. He would—

He spread his hands again, displaying that he had no weapon, and bowed his head a little, but not enough to break his eye contact with Harry. His voice sighed and whispered and hissed.

“I have done this for no one else, Harry. Why would I do it for anyone but you? I have made myself weak and defenseless for no one else. You are the only chance I have, the only hope that I might have some level of feeling that everyone else I have met does. I decided when I was a child that I was a freak who would never be loved like the other children were, and I would make that difference a source of strength. But then I found you, and I found that you could make me the same as others without diminishing my strength. There is no one like you.” Tom swallowed.

Harry knew he should move his foot backwards. Knew it. The song behind him was softer than Tom’s voice, and that was a bad sign.

But he couldn’t.

In Parseltongue, Tom spoke.

“I love you.”

And he lifted his head again, and his eyes had gone so deep and dark that Harry could fall into them like tunnels.

Or roads. He knew where those roads would lead Tom if he left now. He could see it more clearly than he could some of the memories of his future he had put in Pensieves. Tom would gutter out. Maybe he would become the hateful, broken-souled monster Lord Voldemort, maybe he wouldn’t, but either way, his fire would be gone.

It was a sacrifice as profound, that giving-up of himself, as Harry walking to his death in the Forbidden Forest.

And Harry broke.

He stepped forwards and reached out. Tom stared up at him, silent, still, as though a statue had replaced him for a moment. A statue with his living eyes.

Harry’s hands touched his.

Tom swept to his feet in an instant, and swept Harry close to him, his arms locked around Harry’s waist, his lips fastened on his. Harry opened his mouth and welcomed him in, his hands steady on Tom’s arms. The thrusting tongue touching his warmed him less than the flames spring back to life in Tom’s eyes.

Tom drew back and whispered, “You truly choose me? You don’t pity me?”

Harry tried to speak, found his throat and heart too full, and had to swallow. He shook his head. “I could make that sacrifice myself,” he said. “I can’t ask you to do it.” He slid his hand down Tom’s cheek, feeling that clutch tighten on his waist, and he added softly, in Parseltongue, “I love you, and I can’t do it.”

Tom reached up with trembling fingers and traced the corners of his eyelids. Harry shut his eyes and leaned towards him. His wand was somewhere up his sleeve, but he didn’t touch it. He was shaking himself, but he trusted Tom not to injure him. Not to touch him in any way that hurt.

The song was a whisper now. Harry looked up at last and found the door only a small bump on the runic pattern, too small to go through.

Harry took a long, deep breath. He’d chosen love, and maybe, too, he’d chosen selfishness. But that feeling of rocks having fallen from his shoulders remained.

He had striven so hard in the last few years to make peace with the fact that he would never go back home, and that he would never be of more than incidental importance to anyone here, because that was the way he had to be to preserve the timeline. And then it had all shattered with Abraxas’s attack on Ophelia’s shop, and probably after that he never had a chance to preserve the timeline anyway.

But the main effect was that, while he would always love Ron and Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys and some other friends in his future, he had also given up on seeing them again. When the chance finally came, it didn’t feel real to him. He couldn’t even remember their faces that well.

Not compared to the faces of the people here, who stood in front of him and could touch him and love him.

Ron, Hermione, I hope you’d forgive me. But that was something he would never know, and would have to live with.

It was much, much easier to think of living with that than it was to think of making his family think he had died in a car accident, or even disappointing Parkinson.

And compared to the prospect of disappointing Tom, whether he would have hurt Ron and Hermione’s feelings was of no consequence at all.

He opened his eyes. Tom was leaning towards him, so close that his eyes were nearly all Harry could see.

“We’re going home,” Tom told him.

“I highly doubt that, Tom.”

Harry whirled around, shielding Tom with his body. The last whispers of the glow died out of the runic pattern, and Albus emerged from behind his Disillusionment Charm, shaking his head.

“I thought you would make the right choice, Harry. But I knew there was a slight chance you might not. That is the main reason I wanted to be here.” His eyes were weary as he looked between Harry and Tom. “I barely turned away from Gellert in time, and he damaged enough of the world as it was. I cannot let you make the same mistake.”

“I’m not going to,” Harry said steadily. “I believed Tom when he knelt to me.” He wasn’t about to reveal that Tom had confessed his love in Parseltongue. “He can change, and he will. He won’t become the creature he was in my future.”

“Of course I won’t,” Tom said, and his arms tightened with the same kind of speed that he’d shown when he thought Harry was looking too long at Evan Rosier. “I have Harry at my side. He never did.”

“There is still too much chance that this is the same world as the one you came from, and you will alter things too much.” Albus pointed his wand at Harry. “Please step out of the way, Harry. I am only going to Obliviate Mr. Riddle, not hurt him. Then I will help you construct the pattern again, and you can be on your way.”

“No,” Harry said. “I made my choice. I choose Tom. I choose my family. I choose to stay here, and become the kind of person that I’ve already started becoming.”

“That is a selfish decision, Harry.”

Harry considered Albus, and the air of tiredness that hung about him, as if he didn’t want to cast the Memory Charm on Tom at all, but knew he had to. “Maybe it is,” Harry said at last. “But I’ll be happier that way than if I made the decision you did. And I’ve bloody earned the right to be selfish.”

Tom drew a long, long breath of delight behind him.

Albus shut his eyes. “Then I must—”

“Expelliarmus!” Harry yelled, slashing his wand down as it slid into his hand, and Albus’s wand soared across the pattern to land in his free palm.

It might have been the Elder Wand. Harry didn’t know; he didn’t look at it. He concentrated on the feeling of Tom’s arms wrapped around him and the way that Albus’s eyes were widening, but he hadn’t moved, as Harry aimed the captured wand at him.

“Obliviate,” Harry said, tenderly.

*

“Abraxas. Leave us.”

Abraxas had met them when they came back to Malfoy Manor, nearly babbling in relief about seeing Harry back at his lord’s side, and how wonderful it was that they’d come to terms with whatever had separated them, and how he was glad that Harry had decided to accept his place in the ranks of the Knights of Walpurgis, and—

But he stopped speaking immediately the minute Tom said those words. Harry doubted he could see the expression on Tom’s face; they were standing so that Harry was the one who faced the door, while Tom faced him. But Abraxas could understand tones perfectly well.

“Yes, my lord,” Abraxas said, and bowed low, and shot Harry one more smile, while mouthing, “Welcome home.” Then he shut the door and left them alone.

Tom was staring at him, a slight tremble easing up his arms. He hadn’t touched Harry since they’d come back through the fireplace, although he stood now with his fingers only a centimeter or two from his skin. His gaze wouldn’t leave Harry’s. He didn’t blink.

“I’m here,” Harry said.

The words snapped Tom’s control.

In a moment, Harry was on his back in the bed, and he knew from the way that Tom was ripping at his clothes with hands that barely functioned that this was it, this was the last moment. Tom hadn’t even gone for his wand. For the first time, Harry genuinely wasn’t sure where it was.

It didn’t matter. Harry waved his own wand—he’d left Dumbledore’s behind for him—lazily over them and thought the necessary spell. The clothes were gone in instants, and Tom stared down and his hands slid smoothly over Harry’s skin, his mouth lowering so that his lips parted and he placed his tongue gently over an old scar.

“I’m here,” Harry said. “And I’m yours.” He touched the shell of Tom’s ear, and traced gently around it, the way Tom had around his eyes.

Tom nodded, shut his eyes, and moved slowly down Harry’s body. Harry propped himself up on the pillows at his back, arms folded behind his head, and Tom glanced at him as he reached into a drawer and came up with his wand at last. “You haven’t done this before.”

“No.”

“I’ll go slowly.”

“You can go as fast as you need to, Tom, or did you forget that you’re a wizard?”

Tom’s smile slipped back into dangerous territory, and he didn’t take his eyes off Harry as he cast his own necessary spells, in turn. Harry had to admit they felt pretty damn weird, but he didn’t look away from Tom, either, not when Tom first touched him and not when he had two fingers in there and not when Harry said, “That’s enough,” and wriggled a little further down the bed and spread his legs.

“I’ve read this is more comfortable when you are on your stomach,” Tom murmured, seizing Harry’s hips. Once again, he was holding himself back with that steel will, and his first thrust into Harry was shallow. “But I cannot give up looking at you.”

“You’ve done research on how to make this comfortable, Tom? How sweet.”

Tom uttered a low sound of irritation, and this time his thrust was deeper. Harry laughed and reached up to grip Tom’s shoulders, wriggling himself backwards and giving a few experimental thrusts of his own. He thought that maybe if he angled to the side, or got Tom to do it, then—

There. Harry gave a loud gasp as pleasure fractured his world for a second, and then said, “Keep going. Right there.”

Tom did, silent and obedient in a way Harry had never thought he could be. Harry didn’t think he’d blinked, either, and wouldn’t be surprised if he had cast a charm that meant he didn’t need to. Harry smiled at him and flicked a curl of black hair from his face when Tom bent low enough to let him do it.

“Still here,” he said, and Tom picked up the pace.

Harry retained mostly blurred impressions, which he supposed wasn’t much of a surprise when he’d prepared an extensive magical time-traveling ritual and had an intense confrontation all in the same evening. The full feeling that kept changing as Tom moved in and out, so he never really got used to it. The pleasure that curled in his belly and made him achingly hard and joined up with the happiness burning under his heart. The hands that slipped off his shoulders and sometimes grabbed his legs and sometimes his hips and sometimes his arms.

Tom’s face above him, sleek and pale and stunned.

Harry arched and came unexpectedly, clamping down as hard as he could to make Tom join in. He twisted through a hard spiral, his muscles tightening and his breath catching as his orgasm gripped him and made things stutter all through his body. Then he felt the warmth in his arse and grinned to himself, turning a little so he wasn’t directly under Tom when he crashed.

Tom gathered him in at once, as tired as he must be himself, his arms wrapped so possessively around Harry they hurt his stomach. Harry caught him in the ribs with an elbow, and Tom still paused before his grip eased. Harry rested his head beneath Tom’s chin and sighed a little as he picked up his wand and cast the cleaning charm.

It didn’t matter that he remembered so little of this particular time, not when they would have so many more.

“Harry,” Tom breathed into the back of his neck.

“I stayed for you,” Harry said, arching his neck back so that he was looking into Tom’s eyes. “And for Dorea and Tristan and the rest of the Potters, and someone in my Auror training classes, and even Malfoy and Rosier, pricks that they are.”

“Should I be jealous?”

Harry snorted. “At least you’re asking this time. No. They’re content to see me where I am.” He twisted harder into Tom, rolling around and around until he got more comfortable. “But it was mostly for you.”

Tom said nothing, but his hand raised and traced around the corners of Harry’s eyelids again.

“I’m yours,” he hissed in Parseltongue.

Harry smiled. Then he waited, because it seemed as if there should be more, but only soft breathing stroked his ear. Harry managed to cock his head to the side and saw why.

Tom was asleep.

Harry smiled and curled up again, closing his own eyes. He imagined Dorea’s face, which he would see again, and Parkinson’s smug smile when he showed up again, and even the way Malfoy and Rosier would nod at him when he and Tom walked into the next meeting of the Knights of Walpurgis, side by side.

I will have to do some work. I have to change some things.

But mostly, he imagined Tom, and the time that would now flow on with both of them in it, and the image wrapped around him and drew him down into dreams of the future.

The End.