[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Genius by the Numbers, Harry/Tom Riddle, R, 3/5 or 6

[lomonaaeren]

Part Two.

Part One.

Title: Genius by the Numbers (3/5 or 6)
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, Tom/OFC, and Sirius/Remus
Content Notes: AU (the Potters live), angst, violence, family drama, infidelity, past minor character death, dubious consent
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 6500
Summary: AU. Harry Potter, as the eldest brother of the Girl-Who-Lived, has always felt like the average person in his family of geniuses. He has a plan that might change that, but meanwhile, he has to contend with his partially estranged family as he attends his sister’s wedding. And contend, too, with his sister’s fiancé, Tom Riddle.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics for this year, and should have three parts, to be posted over the next three days.

Thank you for all the reviews!

Part Three

“Fuck off,” Harry hissed, knocking Riddle’s hand away as the wanker once again tried to rest it on Harry’s shoulder.

He’d yelled the same thing at full volume when they were in front of the crowd, which, thanks to the Sonorus Charm, had traveled all the way around the gardens. At that point, his mum had canceled the Sonorus and hustled Harry and Riddle and Diana towards the house. Sirius and Remus had followed them, while Dad stayed behind to placate the crowd and presumably collect Violet. At least, Violet had been with him when they’d come into the formal dining room where the rest of them had gathered in tense silence.

Violet was the only person in the room who was smiling, besides Riddle, and Harry didn’t think insane smirks should count as smiles. Violet walked over to hug Harry. “Now I know why my Arithmantic magic was wrong. I should have been asking a question about your marriage.”

“You knew about this?” Diana asked, surging up from her seat, where Sirius and Mum had been keeping her seated. “And you conspired with Harry to betray me, Violet?”

Violet stared at her, eyes wide. “Riddle did that of his own free will, Diana. How are you this stupid? I knew that you were lazy because you didn’t try to contain your magic, but I thought you were lazy, not stupid.”

“Violet, that’s enough!” Dad thundered. He had walked over to stand with his own hands on Diana’s shoulders, and Harry didn’t think it was to push her back into her chair and keep her from attacking someone. “Your sister has just been jilted and betrayed and humiliated in front of thousands of people. Have some sympathy for her.”

“She didn’t have to invite the thousands of people, though. It was her own fault.”

“Violet, enough,” said Mum, and turned to stare at Harry. “Is that why you didn’t want your sister to marry Tom? Because you were in love with him yourself?”

Riddle opened his mouth as if he wanted to be the one to answer, but Harry beat him to it. “No, I’m not. He’s a worthless berk who was going to try and score political points using Diana. That’s the reason I warned him away. And then he made a fucking stupid decision, and bound himself to me.”

“Yes, one-way only,” Riddle said, in the same eerily calm voice he’d used to say that he’d bound himself to Harry. “I wanted to emphasize that. I am bound to be faithful to Harry and act as his sword and shield, but he is not bound the same way.”

“Wait, though.” Violet sounded interested. “Does that mean that Diana is also tied to you, but you aren’t tied to her?”

“No,” Riddle said, while trying to move his chair closer to Harry. Harry thought, Four minus one, and watched in satisfaction as Riddle’s chair wobbled due to the disappearance of one of its legs. Riddle, the prat, only took advantage of it by standing up and moving behind Harry’s chair, resting both hands on Harry’s shoulders to mirror the way Dad was standing with Diana.

Or trying, anyway. Harry shrugged angrily, and then used the same concentration on five that he’d used this morning to bend Riddle’s fingers away from him. Riddle clasped his hands behind his back in return and smiled down at Harry.

There was the hunger in his eyes, anyway.

Harry tried to stand up and storm off, but Riddle moved just a little to block him without seeming to, and said, “To complete the ancient form of the wedding rite, all the vows need to be recited in reverse order at the end, as I did with Harry. I am bound to Harry, but Diana is not bound to me. She can find someone else.”

“What about Harry?” Violet asked, propping her chin in her hand. She sounded fascinated.

“Oh, he could find someone else. But I cannot.”

“That is the fucking maddest thing about this,” Harry cut in. “Listen, Diana, this is all Riddle’s fault. I never wanted him. I don’t want him. I’m sorry about your wedding. I never would have attended if I’d had any idea that he would do this.”

Of course, the more Harry thought about it, the more he thought he should have known. After all, Riddle had cut off the officiant before he could ask Riddle about claiming a woman, and he had sat right there in Remus and Sirius’s house this morning and talked about a “spouse” who would be a half-blood.

“You betrayed me,” Diana whispered. The tears were creeping down her cheeks—she wept as beautifully as she did everything else—and ribbons of blue and gold spiraled up and began to tug at the walls, the chandelier above them, the table, and everyone’s robes.

“You are perfectly capable of controlling your magic,” Riddle said, sounding as bored as Violet. “Do it, Diana.”

“You betrayed me.”

Still Diana was only focused on Harry, and Harry felt a moment’s savage despair. Yes, he had known that would happen. Diana was still too much in love with Riddle to accept that he had chosen Harry over her.

Because he’s an idiot.

And from the looks of it, Mum and Dad were tending the same way. Mum shook her head, her expression weary. “Is that why you were so against apologizing, Harry? Because you knew that this greater betrayal was waiting in the wings, and you thought you were in the right enough to steal Diana’s fiancé from her?”

“I don’t want him!”

“I want him, however,” Riddle said, his voice absurdly polished and polite. “I am sorry that Diana is unhappy right now. I do hope she finds someone else.”

And he can sound that cold, that detached, Harry thought in numb wonder, when he spent the last five years pretending to love her and courting her and becoming engaged to her…

“That only shows how stupid you are, Harry,” Diana said, her hands trembling as she laced them together in front of her. “Anyone would want Tom.”

“Oh, fuck off with calling me stupid when you were so dumb that you thought he was actually in love with you,” Harry snarled.

Mum and Dad both gasped, and more tears poured down Diana’s cheeks. Remus cleared his throat and jumped in. “Listen, if this is—this isn’t permanent, because they aren’t really married. Just halfway. We should be able to undo the bindings, even, since they don’t tie both Harry and Riddle to each other.”

Harry wasn’t looking at Riddle, but he still knew the fucker had widened his eyes just from the tone in his voice. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I not mention that? Or perhaps you didn’t know as much about the ancient vows as you think. My magic is bound for the rest of my life. Committed by a vow I took of my own free choice.”

That stung Harry hard enough to make him whirl around. “But not mine!”

Riddle bent towards him, smirking, his eyes taking on the slight red glow that Harry had seen a few times already. “But that does not matter.”

All the pain, all the anger, all the frustration and anguish and the sense of losing his family that Harry had feared would happen just because he wouldn’t be able to reconcile with them, crested in him, and he clenched his hand and jerked it sharply at Riddle. In his mind, he thought fiercely of an eleven, and it coalesced as firmly as planks. Then he thought of a four, and twisted the two numbers viciously together.

Riddle had a moment to look surprised before his face began to bulge outwards. His head did the same thing at the top, and his arms extended down in front of him, and grey fur sprouted to sheathe his limbs, and a few seconds later, a large and still surprised-looking donkey stood behind Harry’s chair.

There, Harry thought, even as he fell back exhausted in his chair from the effort of doing Arithmantic magic without his wand and, for the first time, altering another human being’s body. Chew on that. You berk.

The silence that settled over the room lasted a longer time than the moment or so of silence that had followed Riddle’s ridiculous binding of himself to Harry. Then it was broken as Riddle shifted a hoof and his long ears, and turned as if he wanted to stare along his spine at his new tail.

Two sounds followed that, intermingled. Violet laughing harder than Harry had ever heard her laugh, and Diana wailing.

“He hurt Tom! Turn him back, Harry!”

Her ribbons of wild magic were shaking the walls again. They had calmed down for a few minutes after her initial accusation of betrayal, Harry noted quietly to himself. So she could control it when she wanted to. Or be distracted from it.

That made a new thought come to him, for the first time, while his parents and Remus and Sirius seemed to be trying to find words. Harry stared at his sister and called up the number zero as a shining hollow ring in his mind, although he didn’t know if he would be able to do much with it, after the effort it had taken him to transform Riddle.

But he squeezed the invisible ring tight around Diana, and her magic spiraled back in towards her body. Diana’s face went slack with surprise. The ribbons that had been pulling at the table and walls vanished.

I can do it if I have to, Harry thought, and swallowed a lump of grief. If he had discovered the potential of Heller’s Theorem when he was younger, then he might have been able to calm Diana and spend years at home with his family. She might never have been so attracted to Tom Riddle if she hadn’t relied on him to calm her magic.

So many years lost. So many mistakes that I can never undo.

“This is ridiculous,” Remus said faintly, over the muffled chokes of Violet’s laughter.

Riddle probably meant to agree, or make some smooth speech, but instead, he brayed. Harry glanced sideways at him and found those dark eyes—donkey’s eyes—staring at him accusingly, and had to look away hastily.

The problem was, then he just caught Violet’s gaze, and both of them started laughing at the same moment.

“Enough!” Dad thundered, probably the one person who could have shut them both up at the moment, rapping his fist down hard on the table. “Harry, this is an untenable situation. You must turn Tom back at once and release him from the binding. Then you will properly apologize to your sister and leave until we can figure out an appropriate punishment.”

“He said he didn’t want Tom, Dad,” Violet pointed out. “Why do you want to punish Harry?”

“I think that’s a little extreme, James,” Remus murmured at the same moment. “We can figure something else out.”

“Well, we have to do something to dissolve this pseudo-marriage,” Mum said. She hadn’t looked directly at Harry since they came into the house, Harry realized abruptly. She was looking at Diana instead, her hand smoothing down Diana’s hair almost compulsively. “It is a ridiculous situation, and untenable, as James said. Regardless of whether Harry wanted to be married to Tom, he is married to him, and he should be the one to dissolve the marriage.”

“So it doesn’t matter that I didn’t want to marry him?” Harry snapped. “That I didn’t want to see Diana humiliated in front of that huge crowd of guests?” His mother had hustled him out of sight so quickly that he didn’t even know what had been done with the guests, but he was going to ignore the question right now, when he had more important things on his mind. “You think that it’s all my fault?”

“I said that you’re the one in the situation, so you’re the one who should fix the situation.”

“What about bloody Riddle? Why doesn’t he have to fix it?”

Mum looked at him over Diana’s head, her eyes full of weariness and fear, and mouthed, Don’t upset your sister.

Disappointment and regret cascaded over Harry. So that was it. Mum, and probably Dad, were still so afraid of what Diana’s accidental magic might do that they wanted Riddle to bind himself to her. Harry had overheard a conversation between his parents a year or so ago when they had mentioned how nice it would be to free themselves from the constant burden of tiptoeing around Diana, never knowing what would upset her and make her lash out, and then having to ride the storm of magic until they could calm her down again.

Once again, he was a sacrifice to his sister’s well-being.

“Let me fix this, then,” Harry said, given strength by rage when he wouldn’t have been by anything else, and turned in his chair to face Riddle.

Riddle’s eyes fixed on him immediately. He hadn’t ceased to look surprised, as far as Harry could read emotions on a donkey face. He tilted his ears at Harry, but didn’t move.

Arithmantic magic had been good for everything else, Harry thought. It should be more than good enough for this.

Harry closed his eyes, envisioning the figure of a seven in his mind. The most powerful magical number, and probably the only one that could help him now. He piled the belief into the figure, and then followed it with his magic. The seven spun and danced in his mind, and Harry hurled it edge-over-edge, like a boomerang, in Riddle’s direction.

It should cut through the tangling of their magic and undo it. Then the binding would be undone, and Riddle would be free to marry Diana if she was still moronic enough to want that, and Harry would be free to dance off on his merry way.

Instead, the hurled figure meant no resistance, and the only visible result, when Harry opened his eyes, was that Riddle had staggered back several steps. He huffed out his nostrils at Harry, and then let out a deafening bray.

“What did you do?” Diana demanded.

“How are you doing this?” Remus asked.

Harry not-answered both questions, staring at Riddle the while. How could that have failed? Was it just because he was so weak right now, that he hadn’t been able to give the figure the proper charge, or was Riddle being a donkey instead of a human somehow making the difference? “I thought I could disentangle my magic from his. It should have been simple. The binding was entirely unwilling on my side, and—”

“I know the answer to that.” Sirius sounded grim. “It was willing on Riddle’s side, Harry. Your magic has nothing to do with it. You can cast any spells you like and not affect him, you can go off and marry someone else, you can travel to the other side of the world and it wouldn’t hurt you. But he can’t marry someone else. He swore his magic to the defense of you. He’s bound, but you’re not.”

“So the only way is to make him violate the vow?”

“The ancient vows can’t be undone.” Remus’s voice was low. “You know that, Harry. You know that was one reason that people discontinued the use of them in their weddings.”

Despair replaced the rage entirely. Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. So that meant he was bound, because Riddle had made sure that he was going to a be constant presence in Harry’s life no matter what.

“You bastard,” he whispered.

Riddle moved towards him and lowered his head as if he would nuzzle Harry. Harry stood up from his chair and moved away. His emotions were too strong to let him stay sitting down, or accept a touch from the git.

“Mum, Dad, make him let Tom go.” Diana was shaking her head. “It must be a mistake. We know that Tom didn’t mean to marry him. He was going to marry me. This is a trick.”

“Oh, shut up, you arse,” muttered Harry.

“Don’t call your sister names.” Dad’s voice was stern.

Harry shook his head and walked out of the room. A clatter of hooves behind him announced that Riddle was following. Harry gritted his teeth and didn’t look over his shoulder. He didn’t know when he would have the power to change Riddle back to human form, and he didn’t know when he would have the moral strength to go back and face his family.

His belly burned and coiled with so many emotions that he didn’t know if he could separate them. The Arithmantic equations that would change his personality into one that wouldn’t give a shit what his family thought were looking more and more inviting.

“Harry! Harry, wait, damn it!”

That was Sirius. Harry turned around and leaned against the wall with his arms folded, resolved to walk away if his godfather spoke one word of blame.

But instead, Sirius wrapped his arms around Harry and held him tight for a single moment. Riddle snorted. Sirius ignored him as easily as he would have ignored any real animal, drawing back to stare into Harry’s eyes.

“I know you had nothing to do with this. It was so easy to tell, watching the way you interacted with Riddle at breakfast this morning.”

Harry exhaled and closed his eyes. All right. So at least Sirius wasn’t blaming him. He didn’t know what to do about Mum and Dad and Diana, though. Any chance of reconciling with them was probably gone forever.

“We’ll do—something—to help you out of this.” Sirius glanced at the donkey then, his eyes narrow. “And Riddle, too. We can’t end the binding, but we can try to make sure that he doesn’t hurt you.”

Riddle tried to bite Sirius. Sirius gained a nasty smile, waved his wand, and conjured something smooth and black that Harry didn’t understand at first, at least not until Sirius looped it around Riddle’s nose and drew it tight.

A halter.

Riddle tried obviously to spin in place and kick Sirius with a hind hoof, but Sirius dodged it, chortling. Then he tugged on the halter and said mockingly, “Come on, be a good boy, let’s go home and you can have a nice meal in the stables.”

Riddle tried another kick, but this time, Remus, who had come up behind him unnoticed by either Harry or Riddle, cast some kind of spell that tied what looked like muffling bags secured with string around Riddle’s hooves. Riddle staggered and barely got his fourth leg back to the floor in time to keep from falling over. He laid his ears back and snapped his teeth threateningly behind the muzzle.

He was looking at Sirius, though, and not at Harry, even though it was Harry who had done this to him. Harry swallowed. He was beginning to fear that it wouldn’t be as easy to discard Riddle’s obsession as he had thought it might be.

*

Sirius actually did have a stable, even though he’d got rid of the last of his Granians years ago. He freed Riddle of the halter and hoof-muffling bags, and then winked at Harry. “Keep him company for just a little while and make sure that he doesn’t destroy the stable. I’m going to go buy some hay. There’s a bucket of water if you want to ease his thirst.” Sirius walked down the aisle of the stables and away, whistling.

Remus stayed behind, maybe to make sure that Harry didn’t destroy Riddle. He was studying Harry with a complex expression on his face, but said nothing. Harry snatched up the bucket and went to fill it with water.

Remus followed him outside and stood there watching, saying nothing. He only spoke when Harry had filled the bucket full from the ancient pump and was trying to find the most comfortable way to carry something full and dripping over his arm. “How did you turn Riddle into a donkey and try to disentangle your magic from his?”

At least he doesn’t seem to have caught me soothing down Diana’s magic. Harry sighed and nodded at the bucket. “Can you Levitate this for me? I’m too magically exhausted to do it.”

Remus nodded and drew his wand to perform the charm without taking his eyes from Harry. “And you’ll explain to me what you did?”

“Yes, but let’s wait for Sirius to get back first. I only want to explain it once.”

They made their way back into the stable, and Harry dumped the water into the trough. He was braced to move out of the way if Riddle tried to bite him with those big teeth—maybe he should have transformed him into a tiny dog instead or something—but Riddle rested his chin on Harry’s shoulder instead, his eyes wide and considering.

Then he plunged his nose into the trough and drank.

Harry sighed and leaned on the wall. Remus continued to watch him, but after a few minutes, his eyes softened and he murmured, “What a mess.”

Harry nodded harshly. He wished things could change. He wished Diana had never met Tom Riddle. He wished Riddle had never learned about his Arithmantic magic, since that was apparently the reason he had decided to fuck up his life, and Harry’s, and Diana’s, and their parents’.

What is it about me? I seem to drive my parents and Diana mad simply by existing, and I drove Riddle mad the minute he learned something I was keeping secret. Maybe that exile would be a good idea after all, just as an exile from everyone.

Sirius returned with the hay about twenty minutes later, and some other things that one of the pet shops in Diagon Alley had apparently recommended for donkeys. He dumped it all into the manger, and some straw on the floor, and he then wrapped his arm around Harry’s shoulders.

“You’re not going to have enough power to turn him back until at least tomorrow, right?”

“That’s right,” Harry said, which was both true and because he wanted an evening free of Riddle’s annoying presence, and glanced over his shoulder to see how Riddle was taking that.

Somewhat to his disappointment, Riddle simply chewed and swallowed the plants in front of him without taking his eyes off Harry. Harry’s ability to read his emotions on a donkey face had faded. If he was feeling surprised or put out, Harry could no longer tell.

Just that Riddle was staring at him with the same kind of fixation as always.

Harry turned away with a shudder, and Remus added, “Harry said he would explain how he managed to wandlessly and wordlessly turn Tom into a donkey in the first place.”

“Yes, I am curious about that,” Sirius said, and they went towards the house while Riddle’s stare burned silently into the middle of Harry’s back.

*

“I figured out Heller’s Theorem.”

They had finished dinner, but Sirius was still drinking tea, and he sprayed it all over the table at Harry’s pronouncement.

The reaction actually reassured Harry a little. At least that meant Sirius was familiar enough with Arithmancy to know what Heller’s Theorem was, and Harry wouldn’t have to start from the very beginning in explaining it.

“You what?” Sirius was wiping tea off his face and staring at him.

Harry had to grin a little. This hadn’t been the exact audience he’d envisioned sharing his Arithmancy with; he’d hoped that would be his family, and that their reactions would be just as shocked and impressed. But he nodded, and added, for Remus’s sake, “That means that I figured out how to cast magic by focusing on the symbolic significance of numbers in my head.”

“Heller’s Theorem dealt with equations, I thought.” Remus was frowning. “Or at least that’s what I remember. Arithmancy was a long time ago.”

Harry shook his head. “He theorized both equations and single numbers, but not many people paid attention to the numbers part. They all concentrated on equations, because, after all, that’s what you use to predict the future and such in Arithmancy. But that’s not the only function numbers can have. And apparently people also believed that it wouldn’t be much use even if you did crack the theorem, because they thought numbers could only have one symbolic function each, limiting the kind of spells you could cast. But that’s not true. You can assign them different symbolic functions if you just keep your mind open enough.”

“Can you show us a demonstration?”

“As much as I can with my magic weakened.”

“Of course.” Remus held up his hand. “I don’t want you to think that we don’t believe you, Harry. I always knew that you could do anything you set your mind to. This is just—incredible, and I want to see it in action.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you have a quill and parchment?” he asked, and Sirius, who was apparently still stupefied by his revelation, waved his wand and Summoned them. “And that’s a new tune. I thought you joined in the general chorus about how I wasn’t as smart as my sisters because I didn’t excel in a single subject like them.”

“Is that what you think Lily and James think?” Sirius interrupted, as the quill and parchment settled on the table next to Harry.

“You know it is.” Harry glanced as him as he took up the quill. “They’re always saying that I’m not a genius like Diana and Violet are and that I need to stop being jealous of them and attributing my actions to wanting to cause pain to them. Well, Diana mostly.” He had the feeling that Violet baffled their parents as much as she did most other people.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, sounding wounded. “I never—I never knew they said that to that extent. I thought it was jokes.”

“I knew it wasn’t,” Remus murmured, his eyes locked on Harry. “But I never realized that you were bothered by it.”

“What good would it do to bring it up when you wanted to heave peace in the Potter family?” Harry asked, and let his bitterness color his voice. After the blow-up this afternoon, probably nothing would ever bring him back into the bosom of his family again. He might as well air his frustrations to Sirius and Remus. “You kept telling me they were stressed and I had to understand.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sirius and Remus said that at the same time. Harry shook his head, already regretting having said it. What could they do? Nothing. The only thing telling them would get him was pity. “Never mind.”

He stared down at the parchment, thinking of the simplest demonstration he could make. It couldn’t be an equation. He was too tired for that. But…

Yes. The spell he had cast when he first discovered that he had cracked Heller’s Theorem and could use his Arithmancy to do (almost) anything he wanted.

He drew a 2 on the parchment, which was easier than holding the symbol all by itself in his mind, and sat back as he watched the air above it turn soft and bright green. He smiled as he watched two stems sprout from the curve and the bottom of the number and grow upwards, entwining as they sped into full growth.

Purple flowers sprang from them, and bloomed, and died. The stems crumbled back into dirt.

“Holy fuck.”

Harry glanced over at Sirius with a grin. He knew more about Arithmancy than Remus, and from his wide eyes, he knew exactly why he should be impressed. Harry basked a little in the look of respect aimed at him. It was only a shadow of what he had hoped for and would never have, but it was something.

“No one I ever met could do that,” Sirius breathed. “Not even my brother, and I thought he was an Arithmancy genius to rival Violet.” He blinked and then grinned back. “Hey, Harry. Your sister can’t do that.”

“She probably wouldn’t want to, she’s so focused on equations,” Harry said, but he did admit to taking a bit of comfort in the statement. So he wouldn’t be the only Potter genius even if he ever achieved the title. At least he would be one of them.

“Can you explain what happened?” Remus was craning his neck as if he could see what remained of the flowers after they had crumbled to ash.

“Sure. I thought of the number two as representing coexistence, codependency. It can represent other things to me, but that’s the one that I first got to work. So I imagined two plants growing, and then flourishing and dying together. Side-by-side, entwined, two of them. That draws on the symbolic significance of the number two as it is in that moment for me and forces it into reality.”

Remus’s eyes were very wide. “And when you changed Riddle into a donkey this afternoon?”

“Eleven, and four.” Harry shrugged when Remus frowned at him. “I could have used two, sure, but eleven is something I’ve focused on as meaning a human most of the time, since it doesn’t carry a lot of other symbolic values and the two lines that you use to draw it look like two legs. But the four was for the four legs that he was going to have as a donkey, yeah.”

“And why a donkey?”

“Because I wanted an animal that would humiliate him the way he humiliated me. And Diana,” Harry added, as an afterthought. It wasn’t exactly true that he’d been thinking of her at the time, but it would make him sound better to Remus and Sirius.

There was a reason that the Hat had hesitated between Gryffindor and Slytherin for him.

“I wonder,” Remus said, “is this…” He let the words trail off, but he had already come to the conclusion, as Harry knew before he continued speaking. “This is the reason that Riddle wanted to marry you.”

“Yeah. He found out and got all hot and bothered.”

Harry kept his tone light, inviting them to laugh, but Sirius frowned at him and shook his head a little. “Harry, don’t put yourself down like that. I think he really did want to marry you.”

“Yes, but I don’t want him!” All the rage that had been missing for the past few hours flashed through Harry like white fire, and he almost screamed the last words. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I don’t like him. I don’t trust him. He was trying to kiss me last night and feel me up this morning. He’s an impulsive idiot who follows the least hint of power. If he was capable of cultivating Diana for the last five years, humiliating her like that in public, and making an ancient vow, why do you think he’ll stay interested in me?”

“With the ancient vow, he won’t have a choice,” Remus said. “Sirius told me. We all heard him speak. He’s sworn to your happiness now.”

“Yeah?” Harry said blankly. “So?”

“The vow will make sure that he keeps it. His magic will make sure that he keeps it.” Remus shook his head. “And he’s pretty damn powerful. His magic is going to maneuver him into the position of making you happy.”

Harry sighed. “But that’s the point. It’ll only be what he thinks makes me happy, and he has some pretty bloody strange ideas.”

“No,” Sirius said, and he looked as though hope was dawning somewhere inside him, although he still couldn’t think this was a good idea, not when Riddle had been going to marry Diana just this morning. “Remus is right. It has to be what will really make you happy, you yourself, personally, or the ancient vow would punish him. That’s why they were used so often to bind couples who were unwilling. In time, they’d become willing. The vows made them act for each other’s good.”

Harry stared at Sirius. “But that can’t be true.”

“Why not? I grew up in a family that had used them in the past. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”

“No, just—if that’s the case, and Riddle knows it, then him swearing them to me makes even less sense! He’s an evil bastard who wants to get ahead in politics! Why would my happiness be worth anything to him?”

“I think that he made an impulsive decision, and then made sure that he couldn’t back out of it.” Remus tilted his head. “And that he was clever enough to leave the binding open so that he could have the chance to prove to you that your happiness matters to him.”

“Prove it, and then what? So what? What does he think is going to happen after that?”

Remus spread his hands. “That you’ll go along with him because you know you can trust him? That you’ll teach him your Arithmantic magic? Even the speculations I’ve offered so far are only my guesses, Harry. The only person who can answer you for sure is a donkey in the stables right now.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Then I suppose I’ll transform him back and ask him.”

“But not until tomorrow, right?” Sirius asked hopefully.

Harry had to grin. “No. Not until then.”

*

The next morning, Harry stepped into the stables and found Riddle awake and waiting for him. He wondered if donkeys slept the way humans did, and then dismissed the thought. For all he knew, Riddle had been awake all night thinking evil thoughts instead of sleeping. Who knew why he did anything?

But now, I have to ask him.

Harry stared at Riddle and focused on the figures of eleven and four in his mind, making sure they “felt” like the same figures that he had used to turn Riddle into a donkey in the first place. Then he carefully parted and disentangled them, pulling them apart until Riddle’s body began to shimmer.

Harry had to admit he was relieved when Riddle turned back into himself, with all his limbs intact. Not that he really wanted to see the bastard, but he didn’t want to maim someone for life in a fit of temper, either.

When I maim him, he’s going to know I mean it.

Riddle spent a long moment patting down his arms and his chest, which kept his head conveniently bowed so that he wasn’t meeting Harry’s eyes. Then he looked up, and Harry hissed out sharply.

The longing, the desire, was still the same.

“Didn’t me turning you into a donkey affect you at all?” Harry snapped.

“Yes,” Riddle said without shame. “It confirms for me that I made the right decision.”

Harry folded his arms. “Explain it to me, now.”

Riddle gave him one of those smiles that probably used to devastate the ranks of teenage girls at Hogwarts and moved out of the stall. “Because my first love, before politics and immortality, was magic.”

“It got you trapped in a diary for fifty years when you mishandled it. I’d think you wouldn’t risk misusing any more powerful magic.”

Riddle laughed. “I trust your compassion and good heart, Harry. You would transform me in a fit of rage, but you wouldn’t hate or hurt me. Not really.”

“Look,” Harry said. “I tried to teach some of the Arithmantic magic to Sirius and Remus last night. Neither of them could grasp it. And they really tried. It might be that it just takes longer to work your mind into that symbolic way of thinking, but it’s also possible that someone else just can’t learn it the way I can. That means that you might not gain access to it by marrying me.”

“I rather hope that is true.”

Harry pulled himself up on the edge of saying something else. “What the fuck, Riddle?” he finally managed to get out. “Isn’t the whole reason you married me so that you could keep my magic close and wield it for yourself?”

“No.” Riddle was smiling at him like he was a promising pupil who had done his homework correctly. “I married you because I have met no one else who has expanded the boundaries of magic and realized the pure power of it the way you have done. I told you, magic is what I care for most. I was doing a ritual that very few people in history have performed when I became trapped in the diary. I had no one else who shared my interest in pure magic when I was alive fifty years ago. I have met no one who could redefine the laws of magic the way you did.”

“So…”

“So my first and most important task is to keep you close, and to keep you happy. I do not know what you will do next, Harry Potter. I believe it will be remarkable. I want to share that journey with you.”

Harry managed to close his mouth, and whisper, “And humiliating Diana the way you did? Estranging me from my family?”

“Diana is a scared little girl who clung to me as the prince of her fairy tale.” Riddle sounded utterly indifferent. “She would have made a useful prop, but I would have dropped her sooner or later. I would never have suggested using the ancient vows if not for the chance of gaining you.”

“My family?” Harry was fighting back the urge to shout at Riddle. “And has it occurred to you that I might not ever redefine the laws of magic again?”

“I think you will.” Riddle tipped his head, and his eyes flashed crimson. “And your family will learn to appreciate you the way they should by the time I’m done.”

Harry drew breath to shout for real this time, but an owl came flying into the stable, and landed on the side of the stall Riddle had occupied, hooting urgently at Harry. Harry resisted the urge to cover his eyes. It was Glacier, his mother’s snowy owl, and the message attached wasn’t a Howler, but he still didn’t want to open it.

He tore it open anyway, ignoring the hungry way Riddle stared at him. It was a summons home, as he had expected.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment. He felt Riddle taking the letter from him, probably reading it, but he didn’t care. Riddle wouldn’t get that much from it.

Time to face the music.

He walked out of the stable, not surprised but disappointed when Riddle followed him. “Fuck off,” he said, voice numb.

“Did I not promise to be your sword and shield?” Riddle smiled. “Of course I am coming with you.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“I’m afraid that that matters little next to the strength of my vow. I am here to protect you, darling.”

God, do I hate Tom Riddle.